F R O M T H E Pa G E

F R O M T H E PA G E S O F

Monday October 12, 2009 Midnight in New York Nine pages © 2009 The New York Times

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Afghanistan Proving Hard to Rebuild U.S. Can’t Trace Foreign visitors on expired visas WASHINGTON—Even as President Obama leads an intense debate over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, administration officials said that the United States is falling far short of his goals to fight the country’s endemic corruption, create a functioning government and legal system and train a police force riddled with incompetence. Interviews with senior administration and military officials and recent reports assessing Afghanistan’s progress show that nearly seven months after Obama announced a steppedup civilian effort to bolster his deployment of 17,000 additional American troops, many civil institutions are deteriorating as much as the country’s security. The officials said that the daunting problem of civilian assistance is a major part of the Afghanistan debate at the White House. Administration officials describe Obama, who set forth a series of far-reaching goals for good governance and economic development when he announced a new strategy for Afghanistan

in March, as impatient with the civilian progress so far. “The president is not satisfied on any of this,” said a senior administration official, who asked for anonymity so that he could more freely discuss internal deliberations at the White House. Administration officials said that Afghanistan is now so dangerous that many aid workers cannot travel outside Kabul to advise farmers on crops, a key part of Obama’s announcement in March that he was deploying hundreds of additional civilians to work in the country. The judiciary is so weak that Afghans increasingly turn to a shadow Taliban court system because, a senior military official said, “a lot of the rural people see the Taliban justice as at least something.” The disputed Aug. 20 Afghan presidential election has laid bare the ineffectiveness of the government of President Hamid Karzai, administration officials said, and frozen any steps toward reform. Even before the election, a January 2009 Defense Depart-

ment report assessing progress in Afghanistan concluded that “building a fully competent and independent Afghan government will be a lengthy process that will last, at a minimum, decades.” Administration officials blamed the election for many of the setbacks and said a a resolution to the vote — which some fear will not happen until next spring — would put them in a better position to move forward on civil reforms. Administration officials said there has been progress on education and access to health care. But Henry Crumpton, a former top central intelligence and State Department official, called those stepped-up efforts inadequate. “Right now, the overwhelming majority of civilians are in Kabul, and the overwhelming majority never leave their compounds,” said Crumpton, who recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan. “Our entire system of delivering aid is broken, and very little of the aid is getting to the Afghan people.”  ELISABETH BUMILLER

Gubernatorial Races May Offer Gauge of Obama LEESBURG, Va.— When President Obama captured the White House nearly a year ago, his victory in Virginia was, for many Democrats, one of the most heartening moments of the night. He was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win this state since 1964, assembling a coalition — independent voters, economically distressed rural Democrats and blacks — that his party saw as evidence that it could take and hold Republican-leaning areas across the nation. But things are different today. At a time when Obama’s national approval ratings have declined, a Democratic candidate for governor, R. Creigh Deeds, is struggling to keep Virginia in the Democratic column. The strong sentiment against George W. Bush that reverberated throughout this state one year ago has dissipated;

Obama’s policies have become a flash point for Deeds’s Republican opponent, Robert McDonnell, who has used it to draw independents to his camp. There are two big elections in 2009 — the contest for governor here and one in New Jersey were Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, is struggling to survive in a spirited three-way race. Off-year elections are prone to over-interpretation, and governor’s races tend to be determined by the quality of the candidates and local issues rather than national politics. For all that, Virginia is looming as an early if imprecise test of this president and his policies. A White House that has shown no hesitation to delve into state race across the country — he is planning to make at least one more trip to New Jersey on behalf of Corzine, aides said — has been

struggling to figure out how to deal with Virginia. Deeds’ aides have pleaded with the White House to send Obama into the state; they have yet to agree. Nick Ayres, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, which has spent over $5 million here to try to bring Virginia back into the Republican column, said that Obama and his party would certainly suffer damage should Deeds lose. “This is a state that Obama won by seven points,” he said, adding: “They don’t want this to be their Olympics Part II.’ In New Jersey, Corzine is struggling in his bid for re-election against Christopher J. Christie. However, because of Corzine’s deep unpopularity in that state, it is not as clear that a Democratic defeat there would offer lessons that go beyond New Jersey.  ADAM NAGOURNEY

DALLAS — Eight years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and despite repeated mandates from Congress, the United States still has no reliable system for determining whether millions of foreign visitors leave the country after their visas expire. New concern was focused on that security loophole last week, when Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian who had overstayed his tourist visa, was accused in court of plotting to blow up a Dallas skyscraper. Last year alone, 2.9 million foreign visitors on temporary visas like Smadi’s checked in to the country but never officially checked out, immigration officials said. While officials say they have no way to confirm it, they suspect that several hundred thousand of them overstayed their visas. Over all, the officials said, about 40 percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States came on legal visas and overstay. Smadi’s case has brought renewed calls from both parties in Congress for Department of Homeland Security officials to complete a universal electronic exit monitoring system. Immigration analysts said that given the difficulties of enforcing the country’s vast borders, it remains primarily up to law enforcement officials to thwart suspected terrorists who do not have records that would draw scrutiny before they enter the United States. “You can’t ask the immigration system to do everything,” said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a research center in Washington, and a former commissioner of the immigration service. “This is an example of how changes in law enforcement priorities and techniques since Sept. 11 actually got to where they should be.”  JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.



International

Monday, October 12, 2009

Business of Kidnapping Grows in Nairobi NAIROBI, Kenya — Little Emmanuel Aguer was one of the most recent victims. A month ago, he was snatched on the way to his grandmother’s house. Four days later, after his middle-class family received calls asking for $70 or else. his uncle found his corpse stuffed in a sugar sack. His head had been bludgeoned and his eyes were gouged out. Emmanuel was six years old. “These people knew what they were doing,” said his uncle, Mariak Aguek. “What they did was so traumatizing, I can’t even express it.” Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, is a teeming city of have-nots and have-lots, so notorious for violent crime that it is often called “Nairobbery.” But there is a new problem, or at least one that is causing new fear — kidnapping, and several recent attacks have been on children and Western women. Parents in the slums that ring

downtown Nairobi are now walking hand and hand with their children, even short distances. In the enclaves where the diplomats live, security is being beefed up at schools and e-mail kidnapping alerts are spreading faster than a computer virus. More than 100 Nairobi residents have been abducted for ransom this year, security consultants say, a huge increase over years past. Big chunks of money are changing hands. And as the security experts say, the minute you start paying ransom, kidnapping goes from a crime to a business. Just ask those in Mexico City, Baghdad or Bogotá, Colombia. The kidnappings are highly organized and often ruthless. One Belgian woman who was held for more than a week was stripped naked, according to security consultants who worked on her case. Many people here are beginning to wonder if the Kenyan thugs may have been inspired by their Soma-

li brethren next door, who have made millions snatching foreigners on land and sea. “Their appetite is growing,” said Charles Owino, a Kenyan police spokesman. “And if we don’t manage it, it can grow to be big.” But it is not just the haves who are getting hit. Take Emmanuel’s family. They have enough money for a stereo and a fridge and cold sodas for the occasional guest. But they are hardly rich. They are refugees from southern Sudan who have been through hell and back — civil war, squalid camps, persecution. Now they have to worry about their children getting chopped up when they step outside. “My son was really intelligent, he was really honest, when I sent him to the store to fetch something, he always came back with the right change,” said Emmanuel’s father, Ater Aguek. “Sometimes, I still have dreams I’m playing with him.”  JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Pakistani Police Had Warned Army About Raid ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The mastermind of the militant assault on Saturday that shook the heart of the Pakistani military was behind two other major attacks in the last two years, and the police had specifically warned the military in July that such an audacious raid was being planned, police and intelligence officials said Sunday. The revelation of prior warning was sure to intensify scrutiny of Pakistan’s ability to fight militants, after nine men wearing army uniforms breached the military headquarters complex in Rawalpindi and held dozens hostage for 20 hours until a com-

mando raid ended the siege. The surviving militant, who was captured early Sunday morning, was identified as Muhammad Aqeel, who officials said was a former soldier and the planner of this attack and others. Aqeel, who is also known as Dr. Usman because he had once worked with the Army Medical Corps before dropping out about four years ago, is believed to be a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. The attack on the headquarters was a signal that the Taliban insurgency had penetrated deeply into Punjab Province, where the

military headquarters are located, and was no longer confined to the wild tribal areas that serve as the operational center for the Pakistani Taliban. In a warning to authorities in July, the criminal investigation department of the police in Punjab said the militants who attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in March would make a similar kind of assault on military headquarters. The warning, contained in a letter to the leading intelligence agencies, was published in the Oct. 5 editions of a leading newspaper, and were conirmed Sunday by a senior official of the criminal investigation department.  (NYT)

U.N. Official in Afghanistan Acknowledges Fraud KABUL, Afghanistan — The United Nations acknowledged publicly for the first time on Sunday that the country’s presidential election had been marred by “widespread fraud.” Flanked by the ambassadors to Afghanistan from the United States, Britain, France and Germany at a news conference, Kai Eide, the top United Nations official here, affirmed that the election was tainted.

“There was widespread fraud, but any specific figure would be pure speculation,” he said. While extensive fraud in the Aug. 20 presidential election has been widely documented, including by the United Nationsbacked agency that is overseeing the vote, the comment by Eide seemed intended to rebut allegations by his former deputy that he was covering up fraud to benefit President Hamid Karzai.

The deputy, the American diplomat Peter W. Galbraith, was fired two weeks ago after deciding to make his accusation public. Eide, who is Norwegian, insisted Sunday that he had pursued all claims of fraud that he was able to verify and that some reports from polling stations “often could not be verified.”  SABRINA TAVERNISE and  ABDUL WAHEED WAFA

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in brief Death Sentences SHANGHAI — China sentenced one man to death and another to life in prison on Saturday for their roles in a deadly toy factory brawl that was blamed for setting off riots in western China’s Xinjiang region last summer, according to the official Xinhua news agency.  (NYT)

Turkey Targets Israel ISTANBUL — A multinational air force drill that was supposed to take place in Turkey has been postponed indefinitely after the Turks asked Israel not to participate, officials said Sunday, in a sign of the strained relations between the two allies. The 11-day exercise in international aerial cooperation, which takes place every few years, was supposed to start on Monday.  (NYT)

Power Plant Closed MEXICO CITY — The government, in the midst of a fierce labor dispute with electrical workers, said Sunday that it was disbanding a state-run company that supplies power to Mexico City and the surrounding region after ordering hundreds of police officers to occupy the company’s installations. The government said it was closing down the company, Luz y Fuerza del Centro, because it wastes large amounts of electricity through inefficient operations.  (NYT)

Bomb Attacks in Iraq BAGHDAD — A series of apparently coordinated bombings aimed at a meeting for national reconciliation killed 23 people and wounded 65 others in western Iraq on Sunday, but they did not injure the officials who were at the gathering, the authorities said. The bombings, which occurred in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, were the latest in a string of deadly attacks in the province during the past few months that have focused on tribal leaders and members of Iraqi security forces and Awakening Councils.  (NYT)

national

Monday, October 12, 2009

Grievous Choice on Risky Path to Parenthood The birth of octuplets in California in January placed the onus for large multiple births on in vitro fertilization, a treatment in which eggs are joined with sperm in a petri dish and returned to the womb. But the the major cause of quadruplets, quintuplets and sextuplets — the most dangerous pregnancies — is intrauterine insemination. While less effective than IVF, IUI is used at least twice as frequently because it is less invasive, cheaper and more likely to be covered by insurance, interviews and data show. Multiples can occur when the high-potency hormones frequently used with the procedure overstimulate the ovaries and produce large numbers of eggs. Parents are then left with tough choices: whether to eliminate some of the fetuses or keep them and face extraordinary risks. “I think and so many of my colleagues think it’s a primitive approach,” said Dr. Sherman Silber,

a fertility doctor in St. Louis. “The pregnancy rate is lower than IVF, and you don’t have control over multiples.” In treating women who are having trouble getting pregnant, most doctors try low-potency fertility pills first, then IUI and IVF as a last resort. Some insurance plans require women to have several rounds of IUI before they will pay for IVF. Because of the cost, other plans cover IUI but not IVF. But a recent study led by Dartmouth Medical School suggested that because IUI often requires repeated tries, it would ultimately lower both costs and the risk of large multiple births if many patients avoided the procedure and moved straight to IVF. There are no official statistics on how many pregnancies result from IUI. But other studies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that IUI and similar treatments cause more large multiple births than

IVF. Experts agree that at least 20 percent of the pregnancies are multiples. Most are twins, but one 1999 study found that 8 percent of the pregnancies with injectable hormones and insemination were triplets and quadruplets. Dr. Richard P. Dickey, a specialist in the New Orleans area who has conducted research on hormone use in reproductive medicine, said that IUI is normally safe. But, he said, some doctors prescribed excessive doses of the hormone injections. Or they use the injections before trying a cheaper oral drug that produces fewer multiples, he said. The drug is less successful than the injections. “There’s a money factor, unfortunately, in this,” Dickey said. “There is a factor of not paying enough attention, and doctors aren’t sufficiently aware of the dangers of multiple pregnancy.”  STEPHANIE SAUL

Boy, 6, Sees a Utensil; His School Sees a Weapon NEWARK, Del. — Finding character witnesses when you are 6 years old is not easy. But there was Zachary Christie last week at a school disciplinary committee hearing with his karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé by his side to vouch for him. His offense? Taking a Cub Scout utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. School officials said he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary faces 45 days in the district’s reform school. “It just seems unfair,” Zachary said.

Spurred in part by the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings, many school districts adopted zero-tolerance policies on possession of weapons on school grounds. More recently, there has been growing debate over whether the policies have gone too far. But, based on the code of conduct for the Christina School District, where Zachary is a first grader, school officials had no choice. They had to suspend him because, “regardless of possessor’s intent,” knives are banned. But the question on the minds of residents here is: Why do school officials not have

more discretion in such cases? Some school administrators argue that it is difficult to distinguish innocent pranks and mistakes from more serious threats. “There is no parent who wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because there was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife,” said George Evans, the president of the Christina district’s school board. He defended the board’s decision, but added that the board might adjust the rules when it comes to younger children.  IAN URBINA

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in brief Gay Rights March Discouraged by what they see as detachment by President Obama on their issues, gay rights supporters took to the streets of the capital on Sunday in the largest demonstration for gay rights here in nearly a decade. The organizers rated the march a success, saying that at least 150,000 people had attended, though authorities gave no official estimate of the crowd size. Most of the demonstrators were in their 20s and 30s.  (NYT)

Democrats Drop Ad At Dole’s Request At the request of former Sen. Bob Dole, Democrats are scrapping plans to broadcast a television commercial with Republicans like Dole speaking in support of a health care overhaul. “The ad makes it appear Sen. Dole is supporting the Democratic version of health care reform,” Michael Marshall, a spokesman for Dole, said Sunday morning. “That is patently false. He is not supporting any bill out there.” (NYT)

Landslide in Wash. A massive and growing landslide Sunday morning blocked State Route 420, diverted the Naches River in Washington and heavily damaged one home. No injuries were reported, but the authorities said residents near the sparsely populated community of Nile were being evacuated.  (AP)

Sweat Lodge Deaths Bring Soul-Searching to an Area Deep in Seekers SEDONA, Ariz. — The deaths of two people in a sweat lodge last week at Angel Valley, a New Age spiritual retreat about six miles south of West Sedona, is causing soul-searching among New Age practitioners and concern among town leaders. “We need to get to the bottom of what happened,” said Sedona’s mayor, Rob Adams. Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee, died on Thursday after collapsing inside the Angel Valley sweat lodge. Three other people

were airlifted in critical condition to Flagstaff Medical Center. At least seven other people have died in ceremonial sweat lodges since 1993 in the United States, England and Australia, according to news accounts compiled by Alton Carroll, an adjunct professor of history at San Antonio College who also moderates a Web site called Newagefraud.org. James Arthur Ray, a self-help expert from Carlsbad, Calif., led what was billed as five-day “spiritual warrior” experience at Angel Valley, which concluded with a

sweat lodge ceremony. Participants paid about $9,000 each for the weeklong retreat, which included seminars, a 36-hour fast and solo experiences in the forest. The authorities say that at any one time 55 to 65 people were packed for a two-hour period into a 415 square-foot structure that was 53 inches high at the center and 30 inches high on the perimeter. Ray’s employees built the woodframe lodge, which was wrapped in blankets and plastic tarps. Hot rocks were brought into the lodge and doused with water. Ray, who

conducted the ceremony, left the area on Thursday after declining to give a statement to the police. Sheriff Steve Waugh of Yavapai County said an investigation would continue for several weeks. Carroll, who has a doctorate in history from Arizona State University and is partly of Mescalero Apache descent, said the Angel Valley sweat lodge was the “best example I have seen, sadly, in a long time of why it is extremely dangerous to conduct sweat lodge ceremonies without proper training.”  JOHN DOUGHERTY

business

Monday, October 12, 2009

Fox’s Volley With Obama Is Intensifying Attacking the news media is a time-honored White House tactic. But to an unusual degree, the Obama administration has narrowed its sights on one specific organization, the Fox News Channel. “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” said Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, in a telephone interview on Sunday. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” Her comments are only the latest in the volatile exchange between the administration and the network, which is owned by the News Corp., controlled by Rupert Murdoch. Last month, Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, and David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, met for coffee in New York.

While neither party has said what was discussed, some have speculated that a truce, or at least an adjustment in tone, was at issue. But shots are still being fired, which propels the idea that both sides see benefits in the feud. Fox’s senior vice president for programming, Bill Shine, says of the criticism from the White House, “Every time they do it, our ratings go up.” Obama’s first year is on track to be the Fox News Channel’s highest rated. But controversial comments by the host Glenn Beck have also prompted an ad boycott. And the perception of Fox News as part of the opposition has affected its news correspondents, including Major Garrett, its chief White House correspondent, who Dunn says is a fair reporter. Without citing Fox by name, Obama has commented repeatedly about his critics on cable news. “I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attack-

ing my administration,” he said in June, adding, “you’d be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.” Dunn stressed that administration officials would still talk to Fox, and that Obama was likely to be interviewed on the network in the future. But, she added, “we’re not going to legitimize them as a news organization.” Fox argues that its news hours — 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays — are objective. The administration’s aggressive stance suggests that it does not view Fox’s audience as one that can be persuaded. During the presidential campaign, Dunn said, it booked campaign representatives on Fox to try to reach undecided voters, but by mid-October, the campaign had mostly pulled them. “It was beyond diminishing returns,” she said. “It was no returns.”  BRIAN STELTER

Debating Whether Leno’s Show Is Good for NBC Two weeks into a new season, the talk of television is the Leno effect — and whether it is hazardous to NBC’s health. It is not just a question of how the new “Jay Leno Show” itself is faring in the ratings, but also what the show’s occupation of the 10 p.m. hour on NBC means to the network as a whole. Shows seem to have suffered because they have been displaced to new time periods, like “Law & Order SVU,” which was the leading drama when it played at 10 p.m. on Tuesdays, but now is finishing last after moving to 9 on

Wednesdays. Late newscasts on local stations affiliated with NBC are reporting significant ratings declines, at least partly because of a ratings drop-off in the 10:30 half-hour that precedes them. And the late-night programs, led by “The Tonight Show,” that have been a perennial source of strength for NBC are no longer the automatic winners against their CBS competition. NBC rightly points out that both its late-night stars Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon, remain more popular with younger viewers who are more valuable in sell-

ing to advertisers, but in the past NBC’s late-night hours were dominant across the board. The rationale for the move of Leno was simple: the network could not endure his likely move to ABC. But NBC is justifying the move by citing both the savings Leno’s show represents over expensive 10 p.m. scripted dramas and the apparent disintegration of the 10 p.m. hour across the board. “Jay is doing fine,” said Jeff Gaspin, the chairman of NBC Universal Entertainment. “We’re going to look at our average over the full year.”  BILL CARTER

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in brief Sidekick Glitch The cellphone provider T-Mobile and Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft and one of its partners, said over the weekend that a technical glitch in their computer systems would likely result in some customers losing data. T-Mobile and Danger operate what has become known as a cloud computing service to store information for users. Last week, T-Mobile and Danger, which manages the data services, began grappling with a host of technical issues affecting the Sidekick smartphone. Most notably, customers who had removed the batteries from their phones or had let them run out could permanently lose their contact, calendar, photo and to-do list information. “Our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information,” T-Mobile said in a statement on its Web site. “However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low.”  (NYT)

Pincus, 78, Dies Lionel Irwin Pincus, who built Warburg Pincus into a leading Wall Street firm and played a role in changing federal regulations on investing, died at his home in Manhattan on Saturday. He was 78. Pincus’s death was confirmed by his son Matthew, who said his father had been suffering from cancer and its aftereffects for the last three years.  (NYT)

Google and I.B.M. Teach Students to Sift Through Mountains of Data MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies and the federal government. The next generation of computer scientists has to think in terms of what could be described as Internet scale. Facebook, for example, uses more than 1 petabyte of space to manage its users’ 40 billion photos. (A petabyte is about 1,000 times as large as a terabyte.) In short order, DNA sequencing

systems will generate many petabytes of information a year. “It sounds like science fiction, but soon enough, you’ll hand a machine a strand of hair, and a DNA sequence will come out the other side,” said Jimmy Lin, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, during a technology conference held here last week. The big question is whether the person running that machine will have the wherewithal to do something interesting with an almost limitless supply of information. Two years ago, I.B.M. and

Google gave students broad access to some of the largest computers on the planet, outfitted with software that Internet companies use to tackle their toughest data analysis jobs. This year, the National Science Foundation issued a vote of confidence for the project by splitting $5 million among 14 universities. Of course, it’s not all good will backing these gestures. I.B.M. is looking for experts that can complement its consulting in areas like health care and financial services. Meanwhile, Google promotes just

about anything that creates more information to index and search. Nonetheless, the universities and the government benefit from I.B.M. and Google providing access to big data sets. “Historically, it has been tough to get the type of data these researchers need out of industry,” said James C. French, a research director at the National Science Foundation. “But we’re at this point where a biologist needs to see these types of volumes of information to begin to think about what is possible.”  (NYT)

business

Monday, October 12, 2009

The Big Tests for Letterman Are Still Ahead David Letterman walked onto the stage to a swell of welcome Friday night, just as he has for more than 27 years. He sheepishly basked in the adoration, but then asked: “Are you sure you want to be seen with me?” They do. Since he acknowledged more than a week ago that he had had sexual relationships with women who worked for him and had been the target of an extortion attempt, his ratings are up, his advertisers have remained stalwart, and the court of public opinion has been kind. So it would appear that Letterman and his network, CBS, have built a ledge above a pit of roiling accusations and embarrassing revelations that could have threatened “The Late Show.” Or have they? Letterman’s hero Johnny Carson thrived at the same time that he worked his way through three divorces. But Carson lived in a very different media epoch, when

there was no Gawker, the tabloids were tamer and TMZ were just three letters of the alphabet. None of Carson’s foibles led to criminal courts, or more germane, to a lawyer named Gerald Shargel. Shargel is representing Robert Joel Halderman, the man accused of trying to extort $2 million from Letterman. Shargel said last week, “to think that David Letterman gave the entire story and there’s nothing more to be said is simply wrong.” And the media are on call. Already, there have been stories about Letterman’s in-studio “bunker” where he allegedly had sexual encounters. Even if the news remains manageable, the ultimate effects of the revelations on his abilities as an entertainer are tough to know. Letterman’s self-loathing is part of the act: hisregular-guy, Midwestern affect has always been a kind of weapon.

Then again, there is nothing more show biz than sleeping with underlings. Hypocrisy and infidelity, primary colors in the comedic palette, will now require a different skill from Letterman’s. Even seemingly innocuous jokes must be filtered through what the audience now knows about Letterman and what he knows they know about him. Peter W. Kaplan, who wrote a profile of Letterman for New York magazine in September, says Letterman will prevail, but not before some nervous nights in the CBS corporate suites. “A gelded Dave isn’t going to work. He knows that,” said Kaplan, adding, “The one thing Letterman didn’t do here is compromise that — which is consistent with everything good he’s done. “I thought Steve Martin’s line was good: ‘It shows you are human. We weren’t sure before.’ ”  DAVID CARR

Closing the Deal at the Virtual Checkout Counter Shoppers rarely drive to the mall, load up their carts and then abandon them in the store. On the Web, it happens all the time. Many shoppers fill their carts just to keep track of things they like or to check shipping rates and taxes, with little intention to buy. Zappos.com and Overstock. com inject urgency by alerting customers when an item they have put it in their shopping cart is almost sold out. Other sites have developed a new version of limited-time sales.

Neiman Marcus runs two-hour, online-only sales. Customer reviews can also nudge would-be shoppers. A company called Bazaarvoice helps e-commerce customers publish user reviews on their sites. Sites have lost billions in sales because customers run into problems while checking out, according to Tealeaf, a company that makes software for e-commerce sites. A month ago, the clothing retailer Bluefly realized that some

international shoppers were unable to check out. Using Tealeaf’s software, Bluefly discovered that the glitch had been there for a year. Matt Raines, Bluefly’s vice president for technology, estimated that the fix would result in $1.1 million in additional revenue this year. “When customers are trying to purchase something, we need to do everything in our power to make sure they can do it,” Raines said.  CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

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Music of ‘Glee’ Is a Hit With Fans When Fox Broadcasting announced this spring that it was adding to its prime-time television schedule a musical comedy about a high school glee club, there was plenty of reason to doubt it would succeed. One can go back to “The Monkees” and “The Partridge Family” before finding a hit show in that format. “Glee” might be changing that, drawing an average audience of about 7.8 million viewers, according to the Nielsen Co. What is more, the show’s musical performances are as much — if not more — of a hit as the television episodes. Last week, “Glee” cast recordings accounted for 10 spots on the iTunes list of top 200 downloaded songs and four places on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week. The music on “Glee” this season has included almost all genres, including country (Carrie Underwood’s “Last Name”), hip-hop (Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”), contemporary pop (Rihanna’s “Take a Bow”), show tunes (“Maybe This Time” from “Cabaret”) and rock oldies (Queen’s “Somebody to Love”). Ryan Murphy, the creator of the series, said in May that the search for music has been an integral part of the script development. Clearing the rights to the music for the series has not been a problem, he added. “I can’t think of one artist we’ve gone after or a song I wanted that has been denied.” On Nov. 3, Columbia Records and 20th Century Fox Television will release “Glee: The Music, Volume 1.”  EDWARD WYATT

A Reporter With a ‘Tom Sawyer Business Plan’ Buys a Newspaper SANTA ROSA, N.M. — Between pleading with an advertiser, fending off a complaining reader and taking a break to watch a scorpion scuttle down the sidewalk, M. E. Sprengelmeyer gives a visitor to his office this advice: “Watch out for the hole in the floor.” He isn’t joking. Eight months ago, Sprengelmeyer, 42, worked as the sole Washington correspondent for the Rocky Mountain News, the Denver newspaper that went out of business in February, but his job these days is a far cry from the Senate press gallery. In August, he embarked on a

new life in this isolated little town as owner, publisher, editor, primary writer and sometime ad salesman, photographer and deliverer of the weekly Guadalupe County Communicator, circulation about 2,000. “I covered the war in Iraq and the presidential campaign, and I knew I was never going to top that, even if I found another reporting job,” he said. “I just wanted a completely new direction.” While bringing some big-city professionalism to a distinctly small-time operation, Sprengelmeyer says he is making

enough money to support himself, and he has been able to assign some freelance work to a few former colleagues. “It’s the Tom Sawyer business plan: I’m trying to convince all my friends how much fun it would be to help me,” Sprengelmeyer said. Sprengelmeyer gave up Washington for a town of 2,600 people, with a per capita income about half the national average, where the biggest political dispute is what to do with a giant water slide the local council bought from an amusement park.

The experience has made him an evangelist for small-town papers, which he says offer a hidden opportunity for unemployed journalists, but he acknowledges it isn’t for everybody. He works to the brink of exhaustion, fueling late-night production sessions with nicotine and caffeine. After a few hours’ sleep, he makes a three-hour, round-trip drive to pick up his press run in Clovis, where the paper is printed. “I couldn’t do this if I had a family,” he said. “But it feels like it matters, and I’m having fun.”  RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

journal

Monday, October 12, 2009

6

A Neighborhood in Tokyo Fights to Maintain Its View of Mount Fuji TOKYO — Growing up in prewar Tokyo, Makoto Kaneko recalls that the perfectly shaped, snow-capped cone of Mt. Fuji was like a constant companion, visible on the horizon from the narrow streets of his hilly working-class neighborhood. The most majestic view was from a steep hillside affectionately named Fujimizaka, “the slope for seeing Mt. Fuji.” Today, Kaneko’s cramped 80-year-old shop selling foods cooked in soy sauce is one of several old wooden stores and Buddhist temples that still stand here, making Nippori neighborhood a rare oasis of medieval charm in Tokyo’s concrete sprawl. But the distant volcano, Japan’s tallest peak

crossword ACROSS 1 Bit of sunlight 4 Effrontery 8 Make equal, as the score 14 Ram’s mate 15 Sting, in baby talk 16 Piece of luggage 17 ___-o’-shanter 18 Likely result of pollution along a beach 20 “You ___ wrong!” 22 Peach ___ (dessert) 23 Title bear of 1960s TV 26 Says “Come on, try harder!,” say 30 Classic theater name 31 “Le Coq ___” 33 Height: Abbr. 34 “___ Marlene” (W.W. II song) 37 Half of dos 39 Charles Nelson ___, longtime “Match Game” panelist 41 Receptacle for some donations 44 1910s-’20s flivver 45 Make equal, as the score 46 Simplicity

Edited By Will Shortz PUZZLE BY RICHARD CHISHOLM

Postpone, with “off” 48 Center of a simile 50 Peeved state 52 Crush, with “on” 54 “It’s so good,” in Paris 59 Bewildered 61 Milan’s home 62 Lenten treat 67 Edge 68 Mount where Noah landed 69 President before Wilson 70 Adam’s madam 71 Sags 72 “Scat!” 73 Filming locale 47

DOWN 1 Change the price on at the store 2 In the know 3 The “heel” of the Arabian Peninsula 4 Leave the band and strike out on one’s own 5 Exclamation before “How cute!” 6 52, in old Rome 7 “___ at ’em!” 8 Good’s opposite

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and preeminent national symbol, has been increasingly blocked by skyscrapers and smog. Kaneko said he and other residents did not mind because they still had the vista from Fujimizaka, which has become a minor tourist attraction. Then, one day a decade ago, they learned of plans for a 14-story apartment building a mile away that would partly obstruct that view. “That is when we realized what we were losing,” said Kaneko, 83. With the help of a university professor, the neighborhood’s mostly graying residents formed the Society to Protect Nippori’s Fu-

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9 Abigail

of “Dear

___ Island Abby” (onetime immigrants’ 10 Sir Edward arrival point) who composed 29 Broadway “Pomp and songwriter Jule Circumstance” 32 China and 11 Point on a environs, once, 13-Down with “the” 12 “Made in the ___” 34 Swellings 13 Writing 35 Has left the office implement 36 Caused 19 Darn, as socks 38 Mel who was 21 Walk purposefully #4 at the Polo Grounds 24 Rejoices 40 “Aha!” 25 ___ means (not at all) 42 Nonsense 27 Emperor after 43 Sound of crowd Nero disapproval 28

King beaters 51 Really digs 53 Prefix with economics 55 Certain bridge positions 56 Reveals 57 Martini go-with 58 Citi Field player, for short 60 Bar habitués 62 Owned 63 Bobby who was #4 at Boston Garden 64 Chinese “way” 65 “Humbug!” 66 Sci-fi saucer 49

For answers, call 1-900-289-CLUE (289-2583), $1.49 a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5550. Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 5,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year). Mobile crosswords: nytimes.com/mxword. Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS. Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

jimizaka, which Kaneko chairs. The group has approached developers, landowners and local governments, but their efforts have collided with a preservation problem: Protecting a building or a park may be one thing, but how do you protect a view? Saving the view from Nippori’s Fujimizaka would require capping building heights within an elongated fan-shaped corridor stretching three miles long and up to 1,000 feet wide across densely populated neighborhoods. So far, the society has met stiff resistance from city officials and developers in Tokyo, which rose rapidly from the postwar ashes in part by allowing unrestrained development. “Tokyo’s approach has been to build first, worry about beauty and preservation later,” said Kazuteru Chiba, the professor of urban planning at Tokyo’s Waseda University who helped form the Fujimizaka society. “This is true even when it involves a national emblem like Mt. Fuji.” Still, the neighborhood’s cause has slowly gained support in Tokyo, as part of a small but growing clamor to preserve the city’s remaining historical places. The neighborhood has benefited from Utagawa Hiroshige, one of Japan’s most celebrated medieval artists, who depicted the view of Mt. Fuji from Nippori in a woodblock print. Local media coverage has also focused on Nippori’s distinction as the last of 16 slopes in central Tokyo named Fujimizaka from which Mt. Fuji is still visible. The naming of hillsides dates back to medieval times, as a form of street address before Tokyo’s more recent neighborhood-based numbering system. Fujimizaka was the most frequently used name, reflecting the mountain’s sacred place in Japan’s indigenous Shinto religion, according to Noriko Ide, a leader of the Slope Society of Japan, a private group that chronicles the history of hillside names. “It is a miracle that one of these slopes has survived,” Ide said, “so it is a precious cultural asset.” MARTIN FACKLER

620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018 • Tom Brady, Editor e-mail: [email protected] • TimesDigest Sales Office phone: (212) 556-1200 fax: (646) 461-2364 e-mail: [email protected] • For advertising information and to request a media kit contact InMotion Media: phone: (212) 706-2700 e-mail: [email protected]

opinion

Monday, October 12, 2009

7

editorials of the timeS

Paul krugman

Just Say No

Bad Economic Ideas

Indian nuclear scientists are trying to bully their government into testing a nuclear weapon. That would be a huge setback — for India’s relations with Washington, for the battle against terrorists, and for global efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is resisting. He must continue to resist. If India tests, the United States is bound by a 2008 agreement to cut off all sales of nuclear fuel and technology. That would be a huge setback to India’s plans to expand its nuclear power generation and its economy. We fear that if India tests, Pakistan will decide that it has to test. That would raise tensions between the two long-time rivals, and it would further distract Islamabad and its generals from the far more important battle against the Taliban and other extremists inside their country and along their border with Afghanistan. Congress recently approved a five-year $7.5 billion aid package to strengthen civilian rule in Pakistan and encourage the fight against extremists. There would be strong pressure to cut that funding if Pakistan tests. And if India and Pakistan test (China also may be unable to resist), it could make it even harder for President Obama to persuade the Senate to ratify the Test Ban Treaty. India (followed by Pakistan) last conducted nuclear tests in 1998. Since then, there have been hints it might test again. In recent weeks, the debate took on a new urgency when some former top nuclear scientists made the case

publicly. S. Santhanam, a director for the 1998 test-site preparations, claimed those tests did not yield the desired results and were a “fizzle.” One has to wonder why he waited 11 years to raise the alarm. We suspect that Santhanam and his colleagues are worried that if Washington finally ratifies the treaty India may feel compelled to sign on. The treaty’s appeal is undeniable. Some 181 nations have signed it and 150 have ratified it. It limits the ability of nuclear states to field fancier warheads and makes it harder for nuclear wannabes to develop weapons. But it cannot enter into force until nine key states — including the United States, China and India — also ratify. Obama has pledged to work for Senate ratification and urged all other holdouts to do so. So far, New Delhi does not seem to be taking Santhanam’s bait. “India does not need to carry any more nuclear tests,” Atomic Energy Commission chief Anil Kakodkar said in The Hindu newspaper. He insisted that his agency has confidence in its ability to get the weapons data it needs by conducting simulated tests. He should keep insisting. The United States should make clear that India has more to gain by focusing on economic growth and expanding global cooperation than on developing more nuclear weapons. And it should leave no doubt about how much India and the rest of the world have to lose if New Delhi makes the wrong choice.

Wrong Paths to Immigration Reform All last week the people of Phoenix witnessed public outbursts by their sheriff, Joe Arpaio, as he railed against the Department of Homeland Security for supposedly trying to limit his ability to enforce federal immigration laws. He vowed to keep scouring Maricopa County for people whose clothing, accents and behavior betrayed them as likely illegal immigrants. He said he had already nabbed more than 32,000 people that way, and announced his next immigrant sweep for Oct. 16. The spectacle raises two critical questions that the Obama administration is in danger of getting wrong. One is the specific question of whether the federal government should keep Arpaio in its 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to act as immigration agents in street patrols and in jails. The answer is absolutely not. Arpaio has a long, ugly record of abusing and humiliating inmates. To the broader question of whether federal immigration enforcement should be outsourced en masse in the first place, the answer again is no. It was only days ago that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano unveiled a

plan to repair the rotting immigration detention system. The Bush administration had outsourced the job to state, local and private jailers, with terrible results. Napolitano wants to centralize federal control over the system that handles detainees. But she insists on continuing to outsource and expand the flawed machinery that catches them, including 287(g) and a system of jailhouse fingerprint checks called Secure Communities, which increase the likelihood that local enforcers will abuse their authority and undermine the law. Rather than broadening the reach of law enforcement, using local police can cause immigrant crime victims to fear the police and divert the police from fighting crime. Programs like 287(g) rest on the dishonest premise that illegal immigrants are a vast criminal threat. But only a small percentage are dangerous felons. The vast majority are those whom Obama has vowed to help get right with the law, by paying fines and earning citizenship. Treating the majority of illegal immigrants as potential Americans, not a criminal horde, is the right response to the problem.

The economic historian Peter Temin has argued that a key cause of the Depression was what he calls the “gold-standard mentality.” By this he means not just belief in the sacred importance of maintaining the gold value of one’s currency, but a set of associated attitudes: obsessive fear of inflation even in the face of deflation; opposition to easy credit, even when the economy desperately needs it, on the grounds that it would be somehow corrupting; assertions that even if the government can create jobs it shouldn’t, because this would only be an “artificial” recovery. In the early 1930s this mentality led governments to raise interest rates and slash spending, despite mass unemployment, in an attempt to defend their gold reserves. And even when countries went off gold, the prevailing mentality made them reluctant to cut rates and create jobs. But we’re past all that now. Or are we? Consider first the current uproar over the declining international value of the dollar. The truth is that the falling dollar is good news. For one thing, it’s mainly the result of rising confidence. And a lower dollar is good for U.S. exporters. But if you get your opinions from, say, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, you’re told that the falling dollar is a terrible thing. And in practice the dollar’s decline has become a stick with which conservative members of Congress beat the Federal Reserve, pressuring the Fed to scale back its efforts to support the economy. We can only hope that the Fed stands up to this pressure. But there are worrying signs of a misguided monetary mentality within the Federal Reserve system itself. In recent weeks there have been a number of statements from Fed officials, mainly but not only presidents of regional Federal Reserve banks, calling for an early return to tighter money, including higher interest rates. The unemployment rate is a horrifying 9.8 percent and still rising, while inflation is running well below the Fed’s long-term target. This suggests that the Fed should be in no hurry to tighten interest rates until the unemployment rate has fallen to around 7 percent. Yet some Fed officials want to pull the trigger on rates much sooner. I don’t know what analysis lies behind these itchy trigger fingers. But it probably isn’t about analysis, anyway — it’s about mentality, the sense that central banks are supposed to act tough, not provide easy credit. And it’s crucial that we don’t let this mentality guide policy. We do seem to have avoided a second Great Depression. But giving in to a modern version of our grandfather’s prejudices would be a very good way to ensure the next worst thing: a prolonged era of sluggish growth and very high unemployment.

sports

Monday, October 12, 2009

Yankees Sweep Twins; Red Sox Eliminated MINNEAPOLIS — It took five years of wandering, five years of wild spending and first-round heartbreak and changes both awkward and grand. But the Yankees are back in the American League Championship Series, back where it all went off course in 2004, back with the World Series within reach. They got there by sweeping the Minnesota Twins in the division series with a 4-1 victory in Game 3 on Sunday, closing the Metrodome for baseball. Alex Rodriguez, as dangerous now as he was lost in past Octobers, slammed a tying home run for the second game in a row, driving in six runs while batting .455 in the sweep. The homer came with one out in the seventh inning off the former Yankee Carl Pavano, just after the Twins had taken a lead for the third game in a row. Two batters

later, Jorge Posada drove another homer off Pavano to put the Yankees ahead. The Yankees will host the Los Angeles Angels in Game 1 of the A.L.C.S. on Friday at Yankee Stadium. The Angels came back Sunday and defeated the Boston Red Sox, 7-6. They were clearly the better team and they advanced to the A.L.C.S. for the first time since 2005. To get there, they swept a Red Sox team that had emphatically knocked them out of the playoffs three times in the previous five years. They beat Boston’s three best pitchers — Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and Papelbon, who had not given up a run in 26 previous postseason innings. The Angels were trailing, 6-4, with two outs and nobody on base in the ninth inning, but Vladimir Guerrero, who went into his at-

bat against Jonathan Papelbon with only 2 hits in 12 career at-bats against him, lined a bases-loaded single into center that drove in the tying and winning runs. “There’s no excuses,” a dejected Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis said. “They beat us in this series because they played better baseball.” On the Yankees’ last trip to Los Angeles, they blew a three-gamesto-none lead against Boston, the low point of the Joe Torre era. Now the Yankees have a new manager, Joe Girardi, a new ballpark and new stars like C. C. Sabathia. He can start Game 1 against the Angels on normal rest. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Dodgers will play either Colorado or Philadelphia who were tied at one game apiece going into last night’s game, which started late in Colorado in freezing cold . (NYT)

Manning Stars in Limited Action in Giants’ Romp EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Giants’ 44-7 victory over the Oakland Raiders on Sunday felt like it was decided in the first eight minutes, when the Giants took the ball on the opening kickoff and drove 77 yards for a touchdown. After a while, with Eli Manning healthy and playing well, the greatest competition in sunny Giants Stadium seemed to be among the Giants players as they raised their record to 5-0 and dropped the Raiders to 1-4. Who could be the next defender to hit JaMarcus Russell, the hapless Raiders’ quarterback? Who

would recover the ball if and when he fumbled? And who on offense would score again on the ensuing drive? Such questions sharpen conversational skills. “When we start swarming, it’s a great feeling,” defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka said, “coming off the field, laughing and jawing about who got the sack.” The defense managed six of them, three causing fumbles that the Giants recovered to set up more scoring. The offense produced five touchdowns, and Lawrence Tynes made all three of his field-goal attempts.

WEATHER

High/low temperatures for the 20 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches) for the 18 hours ended at 2 p.m. yesterday. Expected conditions for today and tomorrow. Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PCpartly cloudy,R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SSsnow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.

U.S. CITIES Yesterday Today Tomorrow Atlanta 75/ 55 0 67/ 62 R 78/ 57 PC Albuquerque 69/ 43 0 73/ 48 S 74/ 51 PC Boise 48/ 30 0 59/ 33 PC 65/ 46 PC Boston 61/ 41 0 56/ 41 PC 54/ 44 Sh Buffalo 50/ 37 0 50/ 33 C 46/ 39 C Charlotte 68/ 60 0 59/ 53 R 74/ 50 PC Chicago 43/ 28 0 51/ 34 C 49/ 37 PC Cleveland 49/ 39 0 54/ 35 C 53/ 44 PC Dallas-Ft. Worth 59/ 52 0.01 66/ 52 C 75/ 64 T Denver 39/ 24 0 45/ 29 C 52/ 28 C Detroit 49/ 33 0 53/ 33 C 57/ 41 PC

Houston Kansas City Los Angeles Miami Mpls.-St. Paul New York City Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Salt Lake City San Francisco Seattle St. Louis Washington

64/ 61 41/ 35 70/ 62 91/ 79 39/ 30 64/ 46 91/ 73 65/ 45 88/ 63 61/ 42 61/ 52 57/ 44 54/ 37 67/ 49

0.04 0 0 0 0 0 2.68 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

One of the touchdowns came on an ad-lib run of 12 yards by David Carr, the backup quarterback, who vacated the pocket under pressure and pranced into the end zone holding the ball in front of him and then spiking it. That Carr played so much, so early and so well was a relief to Manning and everyone who was worried about the plantar fasciitis injury to Manning’s right foot that caused him to miss most of last week’s practices. Manning left the game late in the second quarter after completing 8 of 10 passes for 173 yards and 2 touchdowns.  JOE LAPOINTE 74/ 61 Sh 53/ 41 C 69/ 58 C 90/ 81 S 38/ 29 Sn 58/ 46 PC 92/ 73 PC 59/ 44 PC 86/ 68 PC 68/ 41 PC 63/ 53 C 53/ 40 C 59/ 40 C 61/ 48 PC

85/ 69 Sh 53/ 38 C 69/ 58 Sh 91/ 80 PC 43/ 27 PC 64/ 49 PC 93/ 72 PC 68/ 50 PC 85/ 67 PC 68/ 46 C 63/ 57 R 56/ 43 R 56/ 45 C 71/ 52 PC

FOREIGN CITIES Yesterday Today Tomorrow Acapulco 93/ 75 0 88/ 77 R 90/ 77 PC Athens 79/ 59 0 84/ 63 S 81/ 55 PC Beijing 66/ 55 0 68/ 52 PC 66/ 55 S Berlin 50/ 46 0.24 50/ 43 R 46/ 41 C Buenos Aires 66/ 54 2.68 66/ 46 S 75/ 54 PC Cairo 89/ 70 0 91/ 73 S 93/ 75 S

Cape Town Dublin Geneva Hong Kong Kingston Lima London Madrid Mexico City Montreal Moscow Nassau Paris Prague Rio de Janeiro Rome Santiago Stockholm Sydney Tokyo Toronto Vancouver Warsaw

8

in brief U.S. Team Retains President’s Cup About two hours before the final putt fell, the United States clinched the Presidents Cup by sweeping the first five singles points. They finished with a 19.5 to 14.5 victory at the Harding Park Golf Club to retain the Cup. The victory ran the U.S. record to 6-1-1 in the competition, and Tiger Woods provided the coup de grâce with a 9-foot putt on the 13th green. With six matches still out on the course, Woods hit the clincher that fpushed the United States past the 17.5 points required for victory.  (NYT)

Johnson Pulls Ahead Jimmie Johnson, the threetime Sprint Cup champion, easily pulled away from Jeff Gordon after a restart with three laps remaining Sunday to win the Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway.  (NYT)

nfL Scores Sunday Pittsburgh 28, Detroit 20 Giants 44, Oakland 7 Cleveland 6, Buffalo 3 Dallas 26, Kansas City 20, OT Minnesota 38, St. Louis 10 Cincinnati 17, Baltimore 14 Carolina 20, Washington 17 Philadelphia 33, Tampa Bay 14 Atlanta 45, San Francisco 10 Seattle 41, Jacksonville 0 Arizona 28, Houston 21 Denver 20, New England 17, OT Indianapolis at Tennessee, late Open: San Diego, Chicago, Green Bay, New Orleans 74/ 59 0 58/ 52 0.02 66/ 50 0.24 87/ 81 0 91/ 79 0 69/ 60 0 60/ 52 0.01 82/ 57 0 78/ 57 0 50/ 39 Tr 44/ 27 0 92/ 81 0 62/ 48 0.02 56/ 50 0.13 80/ 64 0.24 75/ 59 2.80 63/ 46 0.03 47/ 25 – 68/ 54 0.08 75/ 57 Tr 50/ 32 0 51/ 37 0 50/ 45 0.08

63/ 57 PC 57/ 46 PC 55/ 46 Sh 86/ 77 R 88/ 79 T 66/ 59 C 63/ 46 PC 73/ 57 S 77/ 54 Sh 50/ 30 PC 48/ 37 R 93/ 79 S 61/ 48 C 50/ 45 R 95/ 68 PC 70/ 55 Sh 68/ 41 S 46/ 37 R 79/ 54 PC 72/ 57 PC 51/ 32 C 52/ 39 PC 52/ 37 Sh

82/ 59 PC 61/ 46 C 52/ 41 PC 86/ 79 T 90/ 79 S 66/ 59 C 63/ 45 PC 70/ 54 S 77/ 55 Sh 45/ 30 R 54/ 41 Sh 93/ 79 S 63/ 46 PC 43/ 37 C 82/ 70 C 63/ 50 S 66/ 41 C 43/ 36 C 75/ 57 PC 73/ 59 PC 46/ 32 PC 48/ 39 R 39/ 34 R

sports journal

Monday, October 12, 2009

Florida Gators Fall Back on Their Defense Florida Coach Urban Meyer is often credited for the proliferation of the spread offense in college football. He is perhaps the most influential offensive coach of the past decade, as his innovations have helped level the playing field across the sport. But as Meyer’s top-ranked Gators approach the halfway point of their 2009 season, the identity of this Florida team is radically different from the one on which Meyer and the Gators built their recent reputations. As the Gators showed in their 13-3 victory over No. 4 Louisiana State on Saturday night, the offensive flash and fireworks typically entwined in Florida football have given way to a new reality. If Florida is to win back-to-back Bowl Championship Series titles, the backbone of the team will be its stingy defense, which has given up only two touchdowns through five games. “I think that’s what we are right now,” Meyer said in a conference call Sunday. “I’m an offensive coach, and this is not my first rodeo, this is not the first year that the defense keeps you in games.” The star quarterback Tim Tebow just returned from a concussion, and the Gators are thin at wide receiver and still searching for a playmaker to replace Percy Harvin. At least by reputation, the Gators have undergone an extreme makeover in how they win. Florida is No. 1 in the country, in large part because of a defense that ranks No. 1 in the Football

Bowl Subdivision in total defense, scoring defense and pass efficiency defense. Florida’s offense has sputtered in spots, but the defensive coordinator Charlie Strong’s unit has lived up to every iota of its preseason hype. Florida returned its entire two-deep defensive roster from last season’s title team, which considerably slowed down Oklahoma’s pinball offense in the B.C.S. title game. But heading into this season, the focus on the Gators naturally zeroed in on Tebow and his place in college football history. “We’ve got a Heisman winner on the team and all those great athletes on offense, so it’s easy to overlook the defense,” Florida safety Will Hill said. That should change after Florida suffocated L.S.U.’s already languid offense, which entered the game ranked No. 99 in the country. The Tigers seemingly never had a chance moving the ball. They finished 1 for 9 on third-down conversions and gained 162 total yards. Their only points came on a drive in which Florida gave away 25 yards on penalties. Florida’s most dynamic defensive player was the senior linebacker Brandon Spikes, who has been hobbled by an Achilles’ injury and been inconsistent at times. He put up the night’s most dominant defensive line, finishing with 11 tackles, 2 of Florida’s 5 sacks and a forced fumble. Spikes anchors a solid linebacker corps, but Florida’s most dominant units are its secondary

and its defensive line. Joe Haden intercepted a pass against L.S.U. and is half of what could be considered the most intimidating cover tandem in college football. Meyer said Haden and the sophomore Janoris Jenkins are among the more dominant cover cornerbacks he has been around. L.S.U. Coach Les Miles said of the secondary, “They came out of the sky.” Miles also marveled at how Florida’s defensive front pressured the Tigers, as Carlos Dunlap and Jermaine Cunningham could be considered the country’s top tandem at end. Dunlap and Cunningham are the prototype ends to defend modern offenses, as they are fast, versatile and can pressure the quarterback as easily as they drop into coverage. All that adds up to a defense that has given up only 6.4 points a game, well below the 11.4 points the Gators’ solid defense gave up last season. “We could go down as one of the greatest defenses and greatest teams in college football,” Hill said. All of this bodes well for Strong, whose inability to get a head coaching job remains one of college football’s great mysteries. Strong is often a candidate for top jobs, but he has never been able to break through. This may be the season that changes. “That’s one that will be asked over and over,” Meyer said of why Strong has not been able to land a head coaching job.  PETE THAMEL

With Elway-Like Drive, Broncos Defeat Patriots Kyle Orton moved Denver from its 2 to the end zone to tie the score Sunday, and Matt Prater kicked a 41-yard field goal in overtime to give the Broncos a 20-17 victory over the New England Patriots and make the rookie coach Josh McDaniels a winner over his former boss Bill Belichick. Narrow Escapes on Road Carson Palmer threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Andre Caldwell with 22 seconds left to cap an 80-yard drive fueled by three Baltimore penalties, and the Bengals escaped with a 17-14 victory over the Ravens. ¶ With thousands of black-andgold-clad fans chanting “Defense!” and twirling Terrible

Towels, Pittsburgh had four of its seven sacks on Detroit’s final drive and the Steelers held off the Lions, 28-20. ¶ Miles Austin’s tackle-breaking 59-yard catch-and-run from Tony Romo gave Dallas a shortlived lead in the fourth quarter, and he later got free on a 60-yard scoring play in overtime to give the Cowboys a 26-20 win over the Chiefs. Kansas City, which had tied the score on Dwayne Bowe’s 16-yard catch with 24 second left, dropped to 0-5. Dallas is 3-2. McNabb Sharp in Return It did not take long for Donovan McNabb to show he was recovered from a rib injury in the Eagles’ 33-14 victory over the

visiting Buccaneers. ¶ Matt Hasselbeck returned from broken ribs to throw four touchdown passes, and the Seahawks routed the visiting Jaguars, 41-0. He completed 18 of 30 passes for 241 yards before resting in the fourth quarter. Falcons and Vikings Coast Roddy White caught two touchdown passes — including a 90-yard catch-and-run — and Michael Turner ran for three scores as the Falcons flattened the 49ers, 45-10. ¶ A day after turning 40, Brett Favre improved to 5-0 for the first time in his career as the Vikings beat the winless Rams, 38-10.  (AP)

9

nfl STANDINGS AMERICAN CONFERENCE

East W Jets 3 N. England 3 Miami 1 Buffalo 1 South W Indianapolis 4 Jacksonville 2 Houston 2 Tennessee 0 North W Cincinnati 4 Baltimore 3 Pittsburgh 3 Cleveland 1 West W Denver 5 San Diego 2 Oakland 1 Kansas City 0

L 1 2 3 4 L 0 3 3 4 L 1 2 2 4 L 0 2 4 5

T 0 0 0 0 T 0 0 0 0 T 0 0 0 0 T 0 0 0 0

Pct PF PA .750 74 57 .600 104 91 .250 81 79 .200 77 116 Pct PF PA 1.000 106 62 .400 97 127 .400 115 120 .000 75 108 Pct PF PA .800 101 90 .600 138 97 .600 113 98 .200 55 121 Pct PF PA 1.000 99 43 .500 101 102 .200 49 130 .000 84 138

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

East W Giants 5 Phila. 3 Dallas 3 Washington 2 South W New Orleans 4 Atlanta 3 Carolina 1 Tampa Bay 0 North W Minnesota 5 Chicago 3 Green Bay 2 Detroit 1 West W San Fran. 3 Arizona 2 Seattle 2 St. Louis 0

L 0 1 2 3 L 0 1 3 5 L 0 1 2 4 L 2 2 3 5

T 0 0 0 0 T 0 0 0 0 T 0 0 0 0 T 0 0 0 0

Pct PF PA 1.000 151 71 .750 127 86 .600 122 98 .400 73 82 Pct PF PA 1.000 144 66 .750 102 63 .250 57 104 .000 68 140 Pct PF PA 1.000 156 90 .750 105 78 .500 104 93 .200 103 162 Pct PF PA .600 112 98 .500 85 89 .400 115 82 .000 34 146

Chicago Marathon CHICAGO — Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya, the 2008 Olympic champion, won the Chicago Marathon on Sunday. He set another course record. With one second to spare, Wanjiru ran the fastest marathon on American soil — 2 hours 5 minutes 41 seconds, breaking Khalid Khannouchi’s 1999 Chicago record. Wanjiru, who turns 23 next month, has won four of the five marathons he has run since moving from the half-marathon in 2007. And he has set course records in all of them: his debut in Fukuoka, Japan; the Beijing Olympics, a record by almost three minutes; the London race in April, a personal-best 2:05:10; and Chicago. All that is left is the world record, 2:03:59, set by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia.  (NYT)