Sunday, September 13, 2009

Y! Alert: The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

Brad Haskel: Restaurant Wine Lists-The People Know a Good Deal When They See It Top
One of the retailing come-ons that drives me out of my mind, is the 80% off sale. Don't tell me the savings, just tell me the cost. I'll figure out if the price is a good price. The restaurant business, with huge competition, and an economy driven loss of customers, is desperately trying to arrive at winning formulas. Half price night, re-theming restaurants to more modest venues, pre-fixe menus, restaurant week, restaurant month, restaurant year....Whatever makes them come in the door. The fact is there is a dwindling population of customers walking in the door, and a supply of more restaurants needing to make a living, than there is a demand of customers. I work with restaurants to develop wine programs. The wine list, which is developed to be in harmony with the menu; is a reflection of pricing strategies, and business outlook. Wine programs take their direction from the menu. All factors; kitchen design, décor, service, and service style, table settings, uniforms, pricing, and the beverage program; are set in motion by the menu. So, in these economic times what is the best outlook for a wine program? The simple and most direct answer is the same answer I would give at better economic times; great selections at fair prices. Great selections and fair pricing is relative, kind of like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous description of pornography, "I'll know it when I see it." The wine magazines and blogs are packed with rightful indignation of customers and reviewers who feel ripped off by restaurants that mark up their wines three and four times the original cost. High end restaurants defend their pricing structure to speak of the cost of better glassware, larger staffs, and in most cases a higher cost of real estate. The question is how much extra profit seems fair without alienating their clientele? While the high end restaurants wrestle with this dilemma, they have incorporated other strategies to continue to mark up wines at a rate that would upset their clientele, if their clientele were aware. Wines by the keg, private labels, exorbinate mark up on wines-by-the-glass, obscure labels that have limited access to retailers, are all part of their effort to continue to maximize profits. A healthy restaurant does not want to advertise a fire sale on their menu or wine list. A consistent, long term approach toward respectful mark ups develops a respectful long term approach from their customers. I am always amazed by restaurateurs that use a formulaic approach to hit a food & beverage cost percentage, rather than make a fair dollar amount, item by item. I believe they either don't believe their customers can tell the difference, or they have made a business plan that is not realistic. Both ways, there is a groundswell of resentment at the industry for gouging on wine lists, and the people know it when they see it.
 
Anamaria Wilson: Game On: Sportswear Dominates Early Fashion Week Trends Top
As Fashion Week gains momentum, the overarching trends begin to emerge. Every season, a fabric or a look that appeared six months previously becomes amplified as designers reinterpret it and take it one step further. Case in point, the sweatshirt. It has been reimagined now by Alexander Wang and others every which way -- from sexy Henley pant versions to saucy dresses; call it sweatsuit couture, if you will. The jaunty romper, too, is back at Jason Wu and Derek Lam . Editors galore were also rocking the look Sunday at the tents. And of course, the new pant which, is actually the short. There were cuffed numbers at Rag & Bone, poppy floral ones at Richard Chai, quilted leather versions at Wang. Granted, this early in the week we've primarily seen young designer shows and these typically skew exactly just that -- young. Spring is a season rife with sportswear looks, and this time out is no exception. Fashion darling Alex Wang took it very literally and headed for the football field with a plethora of varsity ensembles -- the aforementioned sweatshirts playing a large role along with outsize parkas, anoraks and utilitarian khaki. The highlights were the gorgeous leather cognac jacket on Angela Lindvall and super-fresh leopard wedges. Backstage was chock a block with press, photographers, and TV crews hanging on Wang's every word. The boy is in demand -- his after party last night at a sealed off gas station on 14th Street had a line snaking well down the block. Joseph Altuzarra's sophomore effort was a phalanx of looks, leather and suede cobbled with Swiss dot fabric. And while this collection didn't quite live up to the hype, the designer, who worked under Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci is definitely one to watch. Boy by Band of Outsiders once again delivered on their young, preppy aesthetic and showed a host of cute if utterly commercial looks. This morning brought us Derek Lam who referenced "Asbury Park, Rehobeth Beach, P Town and Key West." The clothes reflected this panoply of summer spots with luxe shorts, sequined skirts, tailored denim and amusing hologram print dresses. There were a lot of rich looks, which was refreshing -- Lam wasn't catering to recessionary woes with a subdued show. Off to the next wave of Victoria Beckham, Herve Leger, Diane von Furstenberg, and Rachel Roy. Let's see what this diverse group of designers has in store for us. Look for my colleague Kristina O'Neill's take tomorrow; until then, check out our behind-the-scenes video from New York Fashion Week . More on Fashion Week
 
Brooke Bobb: Lifting the Velvet Rope: Fashion's Night Out Brings Glamor to the Masses Top
Let's face it, "fashion makes people very nervous." Ms. Wintour could not have been more correct (not that anyone would ever tell her otherwise). In the recently released documentary The September Issue Anna Wintour and the other caricatures at Vogue began to blur the lines between the glamour of fashion and the realities of everyday life for their millions of readers. The film was a chance for the Vogue audience, and even for those who dismiss fashion as utterly pretentious and unnecessary, to be part of a world that seemingly has only ever been accessible to the average person through glossy magazine pages. The September Issue turned audiences away from the Devil Wears Prada -esque mockery of high end clothes, over-the-top photo shoots and cold hearted insiders. It sparked the beginning of a deeply personal democratization of fashion, one that is, at its core, unapologetically human, incredibly enlightening, and insanely fun. The fashion industry, it seems, is trying to be born again. And this season, you don't even need a ticket to the Bryant Park tents to see it happen. This is my first fashion week in New York. In my head I dreamed of sitting first or second row at Marc Jacobs, sunglasses on and with a stoic stare to match those of the fashion editors surrounding me. A girl can dream, right? Alas, my intern status did not suffice for full-on "fabulosity" or "It-girl" recognition. However, although I did not receive any V.I.P. invites to the tents, last night I was given the chance to experience seven days of fashion in just five short hours... along with hundreds of thousands of people across the city. Around 6 P.M., I accompanied my boss and a couple of her friends to Fashion's Night Out; a global effort to get people to shop and start spending money again in an attempt to bolster the struggling economy. Although cities like London and Tokyo were participants as well, perhaps the largest effort was made here in New York City. Anna Wintour, along with Mayor Bloomberg and the CFDA, created an evening where stores would stay open until 11 P.M., celebrities and designers would make appearances, and famous DJ's would be spinning the latest hits. The catch? There wasn't one. In fact, there was no velvet rope or any sort of list. I didn't need an invitation to walk past the paparazzi and mingle with some of Vogue's top editors and infamous fashion designers. It was the most glamorous city-wide block party I had ever seen. From uptown to downtown, cross-town and in the other boroughs, the spirit was lively and sort of liberating. And I think in the end, the night's success did not come from the consumer's pockets, but rather from the lifting of their spirits. As we hopped from store to store (thirteen to be exact), I kept thinking about Anna's quote from The September Issue . "Fashion makes people very nervous." The truth is, for many years, it has. Last night, however, Anna Wintour proved herself wrong. Exclusivity is definitely out this season. The fashion industry prides itself on reinvention and innovation; two things that this country desperately needs right now. And although it was hard at times, last night I tried to look past the glitz and glamour and gimmicks that drew most of the crowd, to see what this was really all about. The bottom line is that, no matter how many people I saw actually holding shopping bags, or how many celebrities endorsed a certain label, everyone was having fun. Everyone came together and everyone celebrated a new season. Everyone sipped champagne and everyone admired the clothes. And for once it wasn't just "everyone who is anyone," but it was everyone who, on that particular evening, decided to wander into a store and be a part of the fashion industry's biggest party of the year. More on Fashion Week
 
Abby L. Ferber: Over the Verizon Top
Where does all of my time go? My house is a mess, the laundry needs folding, my work is piling up, and yet I am busy all the time. I have decided to start documenting how I actually spend my time each day, so maybe I won't feel like I never get anything accomplished. For the past few days, my work has been interrupted by cell phone "issues." I finally relented and decided it was time to get my daughter her own cell phone. Not because "everyone else has one," but to make it easier to reach her, now that she has become more independent and is spending more time out on her own. She had the phone only about five months when it stopped operating properly. We took the phone to the Verizon store, and were told to go home and call for tech support. So that evening I called. I sat on hold for about fifteen minutes listening to all of the great reasons to choose verizon. I found myself wishing they had muzak. Finally some one came on the line and took us through a long series of steps to try to diagnose the problem. After about twenty minutes of resetting, reprogramming, and retesting, the technician concluded the problem must be old software. Apparently five months is "old" in cell phone time. We were told we had to take it back to the Verizon store to have the software updated. Next day, we were back at the store. We had to wait twenty minutes before someone could help us. We were told it would take an hour for the new software to be added. I thought my daughter was going to experience an emotional breakdown when he told her she might lose all of her saved messages, and five months worth of photos, in the process. We returned to the store an hour later. The good news: nothing was lost. The bad news: nothing was gained. The phone refused to accept the new software. This meant we needed a new phone. After the salesman entered pages and pages of data into the computer, the replacement phone was ordered. I was instructed that it would arrive "sometime on Tuesday" by Fed Ex and someone would have to be home to sign for it. No, it could not be left at the door. Apparently unaware that anyone still had jobs in this economy, they simply assume people can sit at home waiting for the package. Next, we would have to bring the new phone and old phone back to the store so everything could be transferred from one phone to the other. After that, we would have to return the old phone, via Fed Ex, with the enclosed label, within 10 days or we would be charged for a second phone. No, we could not give it to them at the store when we came in; we had to package it up ourselves and take it to a fed ex location. So I rearranged my schedule of meetings for Tuesday so I could stay home. At least we would get this resolved and my daughter would have an operational phone again. I stayed home Tuesday. No package from Fed Ex. Wednesday: still no package. Thursday: I was lucky to catch the Fed Ex driver in front of my house as I returned from work. The next day, I took my daughter back to the verizon store for our fourth visit. We sat there for 30 minutes as the content of the old phone was transferred to the new phone. Finally, it was done. I felt relieved to have this behind us...for about five minutes. As we drove away, I heard the first shriek. All of the music downloads she had purchased (with her hard earned babysitting money) were gone. No more Weird Al Yankovic crooning with the arrival of each text message. I refused to return to the store again. "Don't worry," I told her, "we can call Verizon when we get home." A few minutes later came the next shriek. One of the buttons wasn't working. The down arrow did not function. She began testing all of the buttons and discovered two more that wouldn't work. I guess I will be returning to the Verizon store again. My guess is they will have to order yet another phone; I will have to await yet another package from Fed ex; we will have to come back to the store for the sixth time and wait another hour while they transfer everything from the new phone to the newer phone. Then if the phone works, we will have to go to the fed ex store and ship back the two broken phones (and within ten days, or we will be charged for two new phones). Silly me...I thought getting her a cell phone would make my life easier.
 
Bob Powers and Ritch Duncan: Healthcare Reform: The Werewolf Option Top
The battle over the healthcare overhaul has got America so hysterical, we're hearing reports that Ashley Todd just scratched a backwards H into her own face. We have congressmen heckling the president, and millions of others are so paranoid they claim to know what the hell Glenn Beck is talking about. Things have gotten so emotional, the only way to get a reasoned, non-hysterical view on the matter is to go ask someone who doesn't even need our healthcare system. No, we're not talking about Canadians. We're talking about werewolves. There is only a small percentage of the population that doesn't really need the healthcare system to improve. You have the extremely wealthy (Glenn Beck, Hannity, Craig T Nelson) who can afford the best care that they desire, and you have werewolves, who have no need for medicine or hospitalization due to their extremely enhanced healing capabilities. In researching " The Werewolf's Guide To Life - A Manual For The Newly Bitten " we interviewed hundreds of lycanthropes to gain some first-hand insight into the American werewolf experience. While they all agreed that there is very little to be desired about the werewolf lifestyle, the one bright side they clung to was their independence from the American healthcare system. The naturally occurring transformation process of the werewolf is like the healing process put on fast-forward. Cells are broken down and regenerated at a rapid rate. So wounds heal quickly, and disease rarely has the opportunity to take hold in a werewolf's tissue before the structure is broken down and rebuilt once again. We spoke to many werewolves who had been turned recently enough that they had vivid memories of trying to obtain medical care. These werewolves shuddered at the memory of having to suffer through the endless bureaucracy, the befuddling billing practices, the string of approvals needed for the simplest procedure. For some werewolves who had been seriously ill before contracting lycanthropy, becoming a werewolf was nothing less than a mixed blessing. Many werewolves even went so far as to say that given the chance to reverse their lycanthropy, they would need to research the current health coverage for which they qualified before going back to their old, pre-werewolf lives. These are people who three times a month turn into massive, flesh-hungry predators who would kill their own families for the chance to feed. They are forced to live in secrecy. They are limited in where they can work, where they can live. They are in constant danger of being killed by werewolf hunters or abducted by the government for military experimentation. And yet, if they had the chance to shed their werewolf biology, knowing the present state of our healthcare system, they'd need to think about it. You'll be hard-pressed to find a more persuasive argument for the Public Option. Werewolves know that the Public Option is already coursing through their veins, and they don't want to go back to worrying over which doctor is covered by the Blue Cross EPO. Until the Public Option is made available, these Americans are electing for The Werewolf Option. Here's hoping Congress can push through something a little better than that.
 
Robert Eisenman: Redemonizing Judas: Gospel Fiction or Gospel Truth? Top
"Judas Reconsidered -- Betrayal: Should We Hate Judas Iscariot"? These are the shout lines given the most recent article in the New Yorker magazine (8/3/09) on the Gospel of Judas by Joan Acocella (credentials unknown, though her specialty has mostly been dance), which burst upon the scene in 2006 via a National Geographic TV special and companion book. It had apparently been gathering dust since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in the late 40's (alongside the spectacular Dead Sea Scrolls), but that it existed had been known since Irenaeus of Lyons pronounced a ban upon it in the late 2nd c. CE -- the probable reason for its disappearance thereafter only to re-emerge in our own time in the sands of the Upper Egypt where, presumably, it had been cached to save it from the effects of just such an interdiction. While Ms. Acocella's New Yorker piece is tolerable as a quick summary of the twists and turns of the debate for the non-specialist and the books that ensued, it is basically one of the more temporizing, least edifying, and most equivocal of any preceding it, ultimately drifting off into a discussion of Caravaggio (1603), Ludovico Carraci (1590), and Giotto (1305) -- as if these could matter -- and ending with a critical discussion of a recent book by one Susan Gubar ( Judas: A Biography , 2009), perhaps the reason for the whole exercise. Ms. Acocella displays no sense of history or any critical acumen -- and this from a magazine as prestigious as the New Yorker -- being so simplistic as to make even the amateur blush. So naturally she can come to no conclusion about a "Gospel" which early on gave every promise of being interpreted as removing some of the stigma adhering to a character taken as representing the Jewish people. Rather she backtracks to the position, best epitomized a year and a half earlier in a New York Times feature article by Prof. April DeConick of Rice University. For her part, Acocella ends by concluding: "The answer is not to fix the Bible (i. e., don't try to get at the true history concerned, however pernicious its effect), but to fix ourselves." To come to grips with her ahistorical approach, take the very first sentence: "At the Last Supper, Jesus knew that it would be the last, and that he would be dead by the next day." (She sounds as if she were actually there.) She continues in this vein in the next paragraph: "This is the beginning of Jesus' end, and of Judas's. Jesus is arrested within hours. Judas, stricken with remorse, returns to the priests and tries to give them back their money" (she had already pictured him in the previous paragraph "perhaps before the Last Supper -- "Last Supper," no quotes, no "purported," just absolute truth -- meeting with the priests of the Temple to make arrangements for the arrest and collect his reward, the famous thirty pieces of silver"). This is a perfect example of the dictum I have tried to illumine in all my books, "Poetry is truer than History;" that is, it doesn't matter what really happened only what people think or the literary works upon which they depend say happened. No wonder Plato, who lived closer to these times than many, wanted to bar the poets (whom he felt created the "myths" by which people lived and which he considered to be a world of almost total darkness) from his "Republic." She goes on without the slightest hesitation as if there were not an iota of doubt about any of these things: "They haughtily refuse it. Judas throws the coins on the floor (hardly, this is a misstated quotation from Zechariah we shall also elucidate further below). He then goes out and hangs himself. He dies before Jesus does." What immediacy -- she states these things as "facts," yet doesn't even seem to know that Luke in Acts has a very different picture of Judas' end, that he "fell headlong into the Akeldama" or "Field of Blood," "his guts bursting open," though for what reason it is impossible to say. This is literature, after all. Nor does she wonder whether there ever was a "Judas Iscariot" or imagine that he might be the literary representation of some retrospective theological invective which, finding a Gospel of completely opposite literary orientation, might suggest. One should perhaps be grateful, however, to Ms. Acocella because, even in such an exalted forum as the New Yorker , she demonstrates the lack of sophistication and general cloud of unknowing about these things even among those who should know better - scholars, writers, artists, film-makers, Jew or Gentile (in fact, Jews being less knowing, are often more inclined to accept these pretenses than some Gentiles even though they affect them more -- sometimes even mortally). For her part, in the end, giving credit to this Gospel scenario of Judas as the Devil incarnate and ignoring the real significance of a contrary Gospel in his name, Acocella returns to the picture of Judas being the harbinger of both classical and modern anti-Semitism. That being said, the real climax in this interpretative revision and turn-around was first expressed publicly in print on December 1st, 2007, the beginning of Hanukkah season that year and, of course, a prelude to the Christmas, when the New York Times , obviously purposefully, featured a centrally-positioned article on its editorial page, entitled -- perhaps facetiously, perhaps not -- "Gospel Truth" (my counter to this, "Gospel Truth or Gospel Fiction," ignored by the Times , was published in The Huffington Post about three weeks later -- 12/18/07). In it, Prof. DeConick alluded (quite flatteringly, one might say) to the monopoly I and some colleagues broke concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls and compared the situation regarding the editing of "The Gospel of Judas" to it. Directly referring to the difficulty of "overturning" entrenched translations and "interpretations...even after they are proved wrong," she also went on to cite the Society of Biblical Literature's "1991 resolution holding that, if the condition of the written manuscript requires that access be restricted, a facsimile reproduction should be the first order of business." This, persons familiar with the sequence of events relating to the freeing of the Scrolls will know, Prof. James Robinson (a party to the present debate over the Gospel of Judas) and myself did in the same year (A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, B.A.S., Washington D. C.,1991). The problem was that Prof. DeConick did not stop there. What she did (abetted by the appearance of this piece, so prominently positioned at such a time and in such a venue) was was to check the heroicization of Judas that had ensued after the National Geographic Society TV program featuring it, seemingly exonerating him, and return to portraying him in the traditional way as the Demon (Daimon) incarnate (in Gnostic terms, "the Thirteenth Apostle"). My own encounter with this situation actually occurred two weeks earlier in San Diego, California at a National Meeting of The Society of Biblical Literature (the premier organization in this field). My visit coincided with the exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls during the same period there, when Ms. DeConick appeared on a panel on the Gospel with some eight other scholars, including James Robinson above ( The Secrets of Judas ), Elaine Pagels of Princeton ( The Gnostic Gospels ), Karen King of Harvard ( Reading Judas and the Shaping of Christianity ), and Marv Meyer of Chapman University (who was allowed a very short response to Prof. DeConick in New York Times Letters a week later, 12/8/07, but nothing of any real substance regarding the points at issue here). And here is the key point for everyone: the upshot of this necessarily-brief discussion was how few "orthodox Gospels" (meaning, Matthew, Mark, Luke, etc.) had come to light from the Second Century (the single example cited being a possible fragment of the Gospel of John from papyrus trash heaps in Egypt) but, on the other hand, how many heterodox. Did this mean that more people were reading "sectarian Gospels" at that time, not "orthodox" ones? The answer of the more conservative scholars on the Panel (Chair Michael Williams of the University of Washington, DeConick, Robinson, et. al) was, "Not really but that, in any case, the Gospel of Judas was less historical than they" -- a conclusion echoed by Ms. Acocella above. At that point, as there seemed to be no further questions, I gathered my courage, stood up, and asked, "What makes you think any are historical and not just retrospective and polemical literary endeavors of a kind familiar to the Hellenistic/Greco-Roman world at that time? Why consider one gospel superior to the another and not simply expressions of retrospective theological repartee of the Platonic kind expressed in a literary manner as in Greek tragedy? The Gospel of Judas was clearly a polemical, philosophical text but, probably, so too were most of these others. Why not consider all of them a kind of quasi-Neoplatonic, Mystery Religion-oriented literature that was still developing in the Second Century and beyond, as the Gospel of Judas clearly demonstrates?" A sort of hushed silence fell on the three hundred or so persons present in the audience, because there was a lot of interest in this Gospel at that time, as I continued: "Why think any of them historical or even representative of anything that really happened in Palestine in the First Century? Why not consider all Greco-Hellenistic romantic fiction or novelizing with an ax-to-grind, incorporating the Pax Romana of the earlier Great Roman Emperor Augustus, as other literature from this period had and, of course, the anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish legal attachments which were the outcome of the suppression of the Jewish War from 66-73 CE?" "The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were masters of such man/god fiction and the creation of such characters as Osiris, Dionysus, Asclepius, Hercules, Orpheus, and the like as the works of Hesiod, Euripides, Virgil, Ovid, Petronius, Seneca, Apuleius, et. al. demonstrate. Why not consider all of this literature simply part of this man-God/ personification literature, in this instance incorporating the new Jewish concept of "Salvation" -- "Yeshu'a"?" At this point Chair Williams finally cut in, gave an answer on behalf of what he claimed to be (and I believe him) "the whole panel" -- that, "Tradition affirmed they were." This he seems to have considered sufficient for me -- one of the few non-Christians in the room who might have enough knowledge to say something meaningful or precise enough to matter. But the reason I write about these things now is that Jews, in particular, must not just leave them to well-meaning Christians to sort out. In view of the suffering of the last century -- in fact, the last nineteen centuries -- they too should take an interest in and become knowledgeable about these issues. Especially now, in view of the informational turn-around and retreat in the New Yorker , a magazine traditionally aimed at people of sophistication and urbane intellectuality; it is all the more relevant to raise the issue of this "Judas" and not allow it to go by the boards again and, now that we have more tools, incumbent upon one to do so. Regardless of predictable outcries from "the left" or "the right" or the impact on anyone's "Faith" -- as if this could matter in the face of all the unfortunate and cruel effects that have come from taking the picture of the "Judas" in Scripture seriously as "history" -- especially in the post-Holocaust Era, one must go beyond the inanities and superficialities to the core issue raised by the Gospel and not allow it to be just blandly dismissed -- that is, all are works of literature. None are really historical works in the true sense of the word, which the appearance of Gospels such as this and an earlier one, the Gospel of Thomas, drive home with a vengeance. Having grasped this, one must move beyond all this artfulness ("the poetry" as it were) and confront the issue of whether there ever was a "Judas Iscariot" per se (to say nothing of all the insidious materials circulating under his name), except in the imagination of these Gospel artificers. Nor is this to say anything about the historicity of "Jesus" himself (another difficult question, though the "Judas" puzzle likely points the way towards a solution to this one as well) or another, largely literary or fictional character, very much -- in view of women's issues -- in vogue these days, "Jesus"'s alleged consort and the supposed mother of his only child, "Mary Magdalene," in whom Ms. Acocella along with Mss. Pagels and King above are very much interested. But while this latter kind of storytelling did little specifically-identifiable harm, except to confuse literature with history or call into question one's truth sense; the case of "Judas Iscariot" is quite another thing both in kind and effect. It has had a more horrific and, in fact, totally unjustifiable historical effect and, even if it happened the way the Gospels and the Book of Acts describe it, which is doubtful, effects of this kind were and are wholly unjustified and reprehensible. In fact, there are only a few references to "Judas Iscariot" in orthodox Scripture -- all of which probably tendentious. In John 12:5, he is made to complain about Mary's "anointing Jesus' feet with precious spikenard ointment" (another of these ubiquitous "Mary"s in the Gospels -- this time "Mary the sister of Lazarus" and not "Mary Magdalene" or "Mary the mother of Jesus" or even "Mary the mother of James and John" or "of John Mark") in terms of why was not this "sold for 300 dinars and given to the poor" -- a variation on the "30 pieces of silver" he supposedly took for "betraying" Jesus later in Matthew 27:3-7, and which Ms. Acocella makes so much of. For their part, Matthew and Mark have the other "Disciples" or "some" do the "complaining," not specifically "Judas Iscariot" (the episode is ignored in Luke in favor of other mythologizations -- see my New Testament Code); but I say "made" because this is certainly not an historical episode, but rather one which one would encounter in the annals of Greek tragedy with various "gods" demanding the obeisance due them. Moreover, anyone remotely familiar with the vocabulary of this field would immediately recognize the allusion to "the Poor" as but a thinly-veiled attack on "the Ebionites" -- that group of the followers of "Jesus" or his brother "James," according to Eusebius in the Fourth Century, who were probably the aboriginal "Christians" in Palestine who did not follow the doctrine of "the Supernatural Christ," considering "Jesus" as simply a "man"/"a prophet," engendered by natural generation and exceeding other men in the practice of righteousness only. In fact, Luke's version of Judas Iscariot's death in Acts 1:16-19, as noted, and Matthew's version do not agree at all -- a normal state of affairs where Gospel reportage is concerned. In Matthew, Judas goes out and "hangs himself" (thus) after throwing the "30 pieces of silver" -- "the price of blood" as Matthew terms it -- into the Temple (whatever this means -- more imaginatively, Ms. Acocella has him "throwing the coins on the floor" before the "haughty" priests!) This is supposed to fulfill a passage from "the Prophet Jeremiah" but, in fact, the passage being quoted is a broadly-doctored version of "the Prophet Zechariah" (11:12-13) which does not really have the connotation Matthew is trying to give it anyhow. To continue -- in Acts, Judas "falls headlong" into "a Field of Blood" ("Akeldama"), reason unexplained. This is the description used in an "Ebionite" document called the Pseudoclementine Recognitions to picture the "headlong fall" James takes down the Temple steps when the "enemy" Paul physically attacks him leaving him for dead; and, as also noted, "he burst open and his bowels gushed out" (thus). Most conflate these two accounts but, as just suggested, they are really only
 
Leo W. Gerard: Finally, a President with the Guts to Enforce Trade Laws Top
Barack Obama proved Friday he's got grit. He enforced trade laws. These are special trade safeguard rules called "Section 421" that the Chinese had agreed to obey to gain entrance to the World Trade Organization (WTO). They are, however, laws that had gone unenforced by the U.S. in the past. President Obama used these safeguard rules to impose tariffs on tires manufactured in China and imported into the U.S., following a recommendation by the International Trade Commission, an independent, bi-partisan group. The action made Obama the first president to execute sanctions under "Section 421." The International Trade Commission recommended sanctions under "Section 421" four times before Obama took office. Nothing was done. The result was closed American factories, lost American manufacturing jobs, diminished American dreams. Not this time though. Not this president. Obama showed he's made of tougher stuff. By placing tariffs on imported Chinese tires, President Obama put himself in the line of fire for the jobs of U.S. workers, for the preservation of U.S. manufacturing and, ultimately, for the stabilization of the U.S. economy. Don't kid yourself. This is a battle. For the U.S. to maintain a viable economy, it must sustain a strong manufacturing base. It must make products of value that can be sold here and overseas -- not just swap paper, some of it bogus on Wall Street. The U.S. economy is under attack by countries engaging in unfair trade. In the past decade, we've lost 40,000 manufacturing facilities. In just the 21 months since the Great Recession began, more than 2 million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs, making their unemployment rate 11.8 percent , significantly higher than the 9.7 percent rate for the average worker. That's what the Chinese tire case was all about. My union, the United Steelworkers (USW) filed it in April. We demanded penalties against China because it has smothered the U.S. market with tires. In 2004, its share of the U.S market was 4.7 percent. Four years later, it was 16.7 percent. In that time, the number of tires it sold rose from 14.6 million to 46 million. As a result, four U.S. tire manufacturing plants closed and 5,100 workers lost their jobs. Another three plants will close before year's end, throwing 3,000 more U.S. workers on the street. We filed for relief under "Section 421" for two reasons. One is that it provides quicker relief than other trade remedies. The other is that China consented to its provisions. When China wanted to get into the World Trade Organization in 2000, it secured U.S. support by agreeing to abide by Section 421 until 2013. Section 421 was designed to protect the U.S. economy by providing ways to combat unfair and damaging surges of particular Chinese imports. In the past, corporations had asked for Section 421 tariffs. And we had joined them. This time, not one tire company joined us, though, to be clear, Goodyear was openly neutral. By contrast, Ohio-based Cooper fought us. As did a collection of rag-tag import firms, one of which had nearly gone bankrupt after importing defective Chinese tires that had to be recalled after a series of crashes. Cooper, in testimony to the International Trade Commission , reported that all of the tires it makes at its Chinese plant, under its licensing agreement with the Chinese, must be exported until May, 2012. So it has a clear financial interest in preventing tariffs on imported tires to the U.S. The tire import companies have the same interest. For them, it's about the money they make today, no matter how or where it's made. They've got no allegiance to the U.S. and don't care what happens to America's future manufacturing capability or financial stability. President Obama, by contrast, is a patriot who sees the big picture and takes the long view. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio was right when he said after the tire tariffs were announced: "Today the President courageously stood up and enforced fair trade rules that will save jobs and help our communities. Since China joined the World Trade Organization, American workers have not been assured that the government would defend them against unfair trade. With this "Section 421" decision, President Obama has taken the side of American workers and manufacturers. "Rigorous trade enforcement is a major piece of our manufacturing and global competitiveness strategy. If American workers and manufacturers are going to compete in the global market, they need to have a government that uses trade enforcement tools, including the Section 421 safeguard." American workers and American manufacturers can compete -- when trade is fair. It's unfair when countries don't enforce their own labor regulations, including their own minimum wage laws. It's unfair when U.S. companies abide by strict environmental regulations and those in other countries openly pollute air and water. It's unfair when other countries allow their firms to steal trade secrets, when other countries demand that firms export all of their products for a certain number of years and when other countries manipulate the value of their currencies. If trade laws aren't enforced, America will lose virtually all manufacturing and become nothing but a dumping ground -- a place where the rest of the world sells the stuff it makes. Fewer and fewer citizens in that America would be able to buy stuff after the factories close and all the jobs that they support disappear. In announcing the tire trade sanctions -- tariffs of 35 percent for a year beginning Sept. 26, 30 percent for a year after that, and 25 percent in the final year -- U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said, "Enforcing trade laws is key to maintaining an open and free trading system." Unfair trade isn't free. President Obama is bold enough to draw that line of distinction for America. More on Financial Crisis
 
Robert Creamer: Why the Public Option Is Not "Fading" -- Just the Contrary Top
The Sunday New York Times ran a front page story headlined "The Fading Public Option." Since the beginning of the health care debate in April, the main stream media and purveyors of Conventional Wisdom have regularly pronounced the public option dead and gone. But in fact they continue to be dead wrong. In fact, the prospects that there will be some form of public option in the final health insurance reform measure this fall have actually increased over the last month . Here is why: 1). The odds have dropped that some sort of "bipartisan" consensus will become the final template for a bill . That has reduced the ability of Republicans to tube a public option as a condition of their support. From day one, the Republicans were never going to support a public health insurance option for everyday Americans. The Republican party staunchly opposed Medicare forty years ago. Despite former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's hope that it would "wither on the vine," Medicare is now an unassailably popular public health insurance option for seniors. The Republicans and private insurance industry will do everything they can to prevent the American people from having access to another -- undeniably superior -- public health insurance plan. The insurance industry desperately wants to protect its "right" to raise prices and take home huge profits -- to skim off as large a portion as they can of every dollar spent on health care. So the insurance industry and Republicans were never going to agree to a public option. What has changed is that the Republican decision to try to block health insurance reform has completely eliminated their leverage over what will be in the final bill. In the end, Democrats are increasingly clear that they will have to pass health insurance reform with Democratic votes -- which we can -- either by using reconciliation rules or by securing 60 votes for cloture from Democrats and 50 votes for final passage. 2). The pundits ignore the legislative facts on the ground. Four of the five committees with jurisdiction in this debate have reported out bills with a strong public option. The bill that passes the House at the end of this month will include a strong public option. Whether or not the bill that passes out of the Senate has such a provision, the House-Senate conference committee will likely send a final bill with some form of public option to both chambers for final passage. That's because a bill without a public option will have a hard time passing the House and a bill with a public option can, in fact, get more than 50 votes in the Senate. 3). The president has made it very clear that he not only supports a public option, but he will demand some mechanism to assure a competitive market place and drive down costs . The Republicans played right into his hands with their new talking points on this week's Sunday news shows. Virtually every Republican argued that the Massachusetts plan -- that requires everyone to purchase health insurance -- has the highest health care costs in the country. Precisely. You can't force everyone to purchase insurance from private health insurers unless you create competitive pressure to control costs by giving consumers the right to choose a public health insurance plan. The private insurers would love the government to require every citizen and most businesses to buy their product -- who wouldn't? What they don't want is regulation, or worse yet, competition, that prevents them from doing whatever they can to make as much as they can. And remember that the insurance companies are exempt from the anti-trust laws that seek to assure competition in other markets. They can collude, divide up territories and drive up prices until they're blue in the face. An AMA survey, released in late January, gives a score gauging the concentration of the commercial market for 314 metropolitan statistical areas. The report showed 94% had commercial markets that were "highly concentrated" by standards set by the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department. In Maine, for instance, one company -- Wellpoint -- had 71% of the market. The second competitor was Aetna with only 12%. There is another way to control the behavior of the private insurance companies when we mandate coverage -- serious rate regulation -- treat them like regulated public utilities. Rate regulation is an even more serious political lift than a public option -- which is also a much more efficient means of assuring competitive prices than rate regulation. The pundits, insurance companies and Republicans need to get used to one idea. Many Democrats -- including the president -- will ensure that the final bill have some robust means of ensuring competition and controlling prices, and a robust public health insurance plan is the best option on the table. 4). Giving Americans a choice of a public health insurance option remains incredibly popular . A poll conducted for Americans United for Change by the respected firm of Anzelone and Liszt -- completed last Friday -- shows that, by a 62% to 28% margin, likely 2010 voters would be more inclined to support President Obama's healthcare reform plan if it included a public option that gave people a choice between private insurance plans and a public health insurance plan. Voters like the idea of making a choice themselves -- and not having the choice made for them by Republicans who are trying to defend the profits of private health insurers. The voters have been unaffected by the insurance industry-generated talk that giving them that choice would prove the demise of the private health insurance industry. There are three major forces that keep pushing the notion that "public option is dead." First are the Republicans and insurance industry that want to weave a "public option is impossible" narrative in order to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. They hope that if public option proponents think it is impossible, they will give up. That motivation is completely understandable, but Progressives shouldn't fall for it -- or contribute to it. The second is a desire in the media to create a story that President Obama has "mishandled" the health care debate. That is simply wrong. President Obama has moved us closer to giving America universal health care than any other president in 60 years, and the odds are very good he will succeed where all others have failed. But the third is the most insidious. It is the cynicism in the media -- and Washington Conventional Wisdom -- that anything fundamental cannot pass out of Congress. That there isn't any hope that everyday Americans can defeat the special interests. It is the same cynicism that convinced most of the "sophisticated" in-the-know Capitol Hill insiders that Barack Obama could never be elected president. And to that cynicism I give the same answer that we gave then, and that thousands gave at the president's Minneapolis health care rally on Saturday: "yes, we can." Robert Creamer is a longtime political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com .
 
Zandile Blay: Fashion Week Weekend Round Up: Karaoke, Courtney Love and Oil Rich Africans Top
Maybe it's because of the legendary Paper magazine 25th anniversary party which kicked things off with a bang on Tuesday (full disclosoure: I'm a fashion editor there.) Maybe it's because Fashions Night Out put everyone in a great mood. Or maybe, it's because my brand-spanking new American Apparel wardrobe ( I live and die for their high-waist jeans and harem pants) has me feeling extra spicy. Whatever it is, it's making this season of NYC Fashion Week extremely fun, and I'm clearly not the only one feeling this way. Starting Friday night I"ve seen a steady stream of celebrities, editors and stylists excitedly flitting in and out of shows, parties and dinners. Fortunately, I decided to be your eyes and ears in the trenches and curate a top ten list of weekend highlights for your reading pleasure. (No need to thank me, just send an unlimited gift card to Barney's my way!) 1. Courtney Love performing "Betty Davis Eyes" at Alexander Wang Wrap party. 2. R&B beauties, Amerie, Kelly Rowland and Estelle being whisked in and out of the tents for multiple shows including Christian Siriano's which was ... fierce ... by the way. 3. Amber Rose, who is dating an artist by the name of Kanye West , sitting front row at the Nicole Miller show. 4. Hollywood stylist Robert Verdi hustling hard to get his posh "Survival of the Chicest" Fashion Week lounge pulled together. 5. Thirteen year-old fashion blogger Tavi being whisked in and out of the front row at several shows. (Which prompted 26 year-old fashion blogger shuffling awkwardly to her fifth row seat at several shows.) 6. Oil rich Africans and sartorially rich fashionistas taking in four breathtaking collections at the ARISE show then moving on to the Plaza Hotel for an after party where everyone from celebrity stylist, Alexander Allen to artist Kehinde Wiley showed up. 7. Vivienne Tam holding court backstage at her show, where bloggers and fashionistas alike snapped photos of the brand new Hewlett Packard Digital clutch she debuted on her runway. 8. Erin Wasson debuting an amazing freshman collection which featured fellow mannequin's Lily Donaldson and Chanel Iman on the catwalk. 9. Model Devon Aoiki, editor Lauren Santo Domingo and a bevy of other beauties sitting front row at the Alexander Wang show. 10. Steve Harvey -- yeah, Steve Harvey -- comedian and television host sitting front row at Ralph Rucci. Please file that under the "Things That Make You Go Hmmmm..." Follow Zandile's Daily Fashion Week Coverage on Her Blog, The Blay Report . More on Fashion Week
 
Christopher Kelly, Key Blagojevich Confidante, OD'd Before Death: Mayor Top
CHICAGO — A former chief fundraiser for ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich told a police officer before he died that he overdosed on a prescription drug, the mayor of the south Chicago suburb of Country Club Hills said Sunday. Mayor Dwight Welch did not say what drug Christopher Kelly told police he ingested, but he said authorities found a variety of drugs in Kelly's vehicle. Kelly, 51, died Saturday at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital in Chicago, and Welch said police are investigating the death as suicide. The Cook County medical examiner's office performed an autopsy but did not immediately disclose the results. Welch also said police want to interview Clarissa Flores-Buhelos, 30, who identified herself as Kelly's girlfriend and told police she drove him to Oak Forest Hospital Friday night after finding him slumped over the steering wheel of his Cadillac Escalade at a Country Club Hills lumber yard. Flores-Buhelos, of Chicago, told investigators Kelly called or text-messaged her to come to the lumber yard, Welch said. Police also want to talk to a man who came to Oak Forest Hospital looking for Kelly's Escalade. Kelly arrived at the hospital at 11:15 p.m. Friday and was transferred by ambulance six hours later to Stroger hospital for further treatment. He was pronounced dead Saturday at 10:46 a.m. Kelly, who raised millions of dollars for Blagojevich's campaigns, was days away from having to report to federal prison to begin serving a three-year sentence for tax fraud. He also was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to another fraud charge. Kelly had pleaded not guilty to charges included in a federal indictment alleging Blagojevich sought to sell or trade President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat. Blagojevich has denied wrongdoing. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
New York Times Malware: Bad Ad On NYTimes.com Top
Here's a front page story the New York Times (NYT) would rather not be running: The paper is warning readers to be aware of bogus ads running on its Web site. The paper says "some readers" have seen unauthorized pop-up ads promoting antivirus software on NYTimes.com, and warns visitors who see the ad not to click on it but to restart their browsers instead.
 
2010 Election: Trouble Brewing For House Democrats Top
NEW YORK — Despite sweeping Democratic successes in the past two national elections, continuing job losses and President Barack Obama's slipping support could lead to double-digit losses for the party in next year's congressional races and may even threaten their House control. Fifty-four new Democrats were swept into the House in 2006 and 2008, helping the party claim a decisive majority as voters soured on a Republican president and embraced Obama's message of hope and change. Many of the new Democrats are in districts carried by Republican John McCain in last year's presidential contest; others are in traditional swing districts that have proved tough for either party to hold. From New Hampshire to Nevada, House Democrats also will be forced to defend votes on Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package and on energy legislation viewed by many as a job killer in an already weak economy. Add to that the absence of Obama from the top of the ticket, which could reduce turnout among blacks, liberals and young people, and the likelihood of a highly motivated GOP base confused by the president's proposed health care plan and angry at what they consider reckless spending and high debt. Taken together, it could be the most toxic environment for Democrats since 1994, when the party lost 34 House incumbents and 54 seats altogether. Democrats currently have a 256-178 edge in the House, with one vacancy. Republicans would have to pick up 40 seats to regain control. "When you have big sweeps as Democrats did in 2006 and 2008, inevitably some weak candidates get elected. And when the environment gets even moderately challenging, a number of them are going to lose," said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. Since the mid-19th century, the party that controls the White House has lost seats in virtually every midterm election. The exceptions were in 1934, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt navigated the Great Depression, and in 2002, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, strengthened George W. Bush's image as a leader. With history as a guide, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who heads the party's House campaign committee, said he has warned colleagues to be prepared for an exceptionally challenging environment going into 2010. But Van Hollen said voters will make their choices on the strength of the national economy and will reward Democrats for working aggressively to improve it. "We passed an economic recovery bill with zero help from Republican colleagues," he said. "I think voters will see that and will ask themselves, 'Who was there to get the economy moving again, and who was standing in the way?'" Democrats have gotten off to a much faster start than Republicans in fundraising for 2010. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had $10.2 million in the bank at the end of July, with debts of $5.3 million. The National Republican Congressional Committee had just $4 million in cash and owed $2.75 million. The economy poses the biggest problem for Democrats, with job losses of 2.4 million nationwide since Obama took office. Despite recent signs the country is pulling out of the recession, the unemployment rate in 15 states still was in double digits in July, led by Michigan at 15 percent. Democrats must defend as many as 60 marginal seats next year, as opposed to about 40 for Republicans. Among those, about 27 Democratic and just 13 Republican seats are seen as especially ripe for a party switch. Some involve incumbents stepping down to run for higher office. For example, Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Penn., is mounting a primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter. Sestack's seat, until then safely Democratic, now becomes a top GOP target. The same goes for Louisiana Rep. Charlie Melancon, a Democrat in a GOP-leaning district who also is seeking a Senate seat. But Republicans are on the losing side of that equation as well. Two Republicans in heavily Democratic districts – Reps. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Joe Gerlach of Pennsylvania – are vacating their seats to run for Senate and governor, respectively. At least one Republican is considered extremely vulnerable: Joseph Cao of Louisiana, who defeated Democrat William Jefferson after the nine-term incumbent was indicted on corruption charges. The district, which includes most of New Orleans, is considered one of the most Democratic in the country. Beyond that, most of the closest races involve Democrats who rode the Obama tide in 2008. They include at least four in Ohio, a perennial presidential swing state that has been battered for years by a persistently weak economy. Two represent bellwether areas: Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, whose district covers most of Columbus and its suburbs, and Rep. Steve Driehaus, whose district includes much of Cincinnati and its suburbs. Each won with the help of a strong showing among Obama supporters, and each faces face a rematch with the candidate who narrowly lost last year. "I don't know if Kilroy or Driehaus have any particular problems, but we have a bad economy, the president's popularity has gone down, and conservatives are aroused and angry about government spending, cap and trade and the health care plan," said John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron. Indeed, the "cap and trade" bill that narrowly passed the House last spring is creating headaches for several Democrats. The legislation, which would cap carbon emissions and tax industries that exceed the cap as a way to reduce global warming, is largely unpopular in areas of the country where jobs rely on oil, gas or coal production. One Democrat most affected is New Mexico Democrat Harry Teague. His district, which McCain carried last year, is one of the largest oil and gas producing areas in the country, and Teague has faced angry crowds back home ever since voting yes. Teague will face Republican Steve Pearce, who held the seat for three terms before giving it up to run unsuccessfully for the Senate last year. Without Obama on the ticket, a lower predicted black turnout in 2010 could also affect Democrats in several tight races in the South. These include Reps. Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith of Alabama, Travis Childers of Mississippi, and Tom Perriello of Virginia, who won by just 745 votes last year in a district that is 24 percent black. Concerns about Obama's health care plan and the mounting federal debt could ensnare two first-term Florida Democrats, Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas. Both represent districts along the state's competitive I-4 corridor, which is heavily populated by independent voters and retirees. Polls show Obama has lost ground among both of those demographic groups nationwide. (This version CORRECTS stimulus amount from $757 billion to $787 billion.) More on GOP
 
Del Potro Beats Nadal In US Open Upset Top
NEW YORK — Rafael Nadal looked lost, swallowed up by the huge serves and crushing forehands coming at him from his 6-foot-6 opponent across the net. That was Juan Martin del Potro, who made his first Grand Slam final, handing Nadal a 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 loss Sunday at the U.S. Open – the worst loss Rafa has suffered in a major tournament. "I think this is the best moment of my life," del Potro said. Nadal was dealing with a strained abdominal muscle, and after the match he finally admitted the obvious – that it was bothering him. The six-time Grand Slam tournament champion also gave plenty of credit to del Potro, who deserved every bit of it after sapping all the life, and hope, out of a player whose relentlessness is one of his biggest attributes. "I'm going to repeat: He played much better than me, and for that reason he beat me," Nadal said. The sixth-seeded Argentine – the first from that country to make a U.S. Open final since Guillermo Vilas in 1977 – kept No. 3 Nadal pinned behind the baseline with a deep, flat forehand and a first serve he mixed at between speeds from the 90s to the 130s. In the first set, Nadal put on his usual show, battling for every point, never giving in, even though it was clear he was being overpowered and playing at less than 100 percent. The first four games crept along, at 27 minutes. But he couldn't convert any of the five break points he had against del Potro's huge serve over the first 12 games, couldn't do much to neutralize an opponent who hit 33 winners, often running around the ball to pound forehands down the line. And there was no waiting out this storm, no hoping del Potro might weaken, the way he did earlier this year at the French, when he was in his first Grand Slam semifinal, leading Roger Federer 2 sets to 1. Federer came back in that one and might await again. In the final, pushed to Monday because of rain over the weekend, del Potro will play either the five-time defending champion or Novak Djokovic. Del Potro's record against the two: a combined 0-9. But, he says, he's been seeing the ball great this week. "Maybe my green eyes. I don't know," he said. "It's very tough playing against Rafa or Roger. But today I play unbelievable, and that was the key." The result prevented the eighth Federer-Nadal final in a Grand Slam and first at the U.S. Open, and left Rafa still in need of a win at Flushing Meadows for the career Grand Slam. "I'm sorry," del Potro told the crowd in his on-court interview. "But tomorrow, I'll fight until the final point for you, for everyone, to show good tennis." Del Potro's first major final extends a stretch of improving tennis that began last year when he became the first player to win his first four titles in four straight tournaments. He saw his ranking jump from 65 to 13 and likely up to No. 5 after this tournament. He had two days off since his quarterfinal win over Marin Cilic and could be seen often, walking the halls at Arthur Ashe Stadium, waiting out two days of rain delays that pushed the men's final back for the second straight year. Nadal, meanwhile, had to finish his postponed quarterfinal Saturday afternoon, and though that was a stress-free dispatching of Fernando Gonzalez that took 34 minutes to complete, there was no doubting who was in better physical condition for this match. Eliminated from the tournament, Nadal finally documented the problems he's had with his abdominal muscles, dating to a tournament in Montreal in August. The pain took a toll in many ways, most notably on Sunday when Nadal was serving from the deuce court, against the wind. "I only can serve in the middle, because if I serve it outside, the abdominal kill me, no?" he said. Nadal, who missed Wimbledon while resting his hurting knees, said he did not consider this latest injury to be major. Still, he will take some time off, including skipping Spain's Davis Cup match this month. Del Potro, meanwhile, has a date Monday to try to bring the title back to Argentina for the first time since Vilas did it in 1977. The best win of his career? "I think so," del Potro said. "It was so focused every moment because Rafa's a great player. He can run for 5, 6 hours. I'm not very strong but I do my best, and I'm in the final."
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)