Obama’s Remarks in Tucson

To the families of those we've lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants gathered tonight, and the people of Tucson and Arizona: I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today, and will stand by you tomorrow.

There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts. But know this: the hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief. And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy pull through.

As Scripture tells us:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

On Saturday morning, Gabby, her staff, and many of her constituents gathered outside a supermarket to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free speech. They were fulfilling a central tenet of the democracy envisioned by our founders – representatives of the people answering to their constituents, so as to carry their concerns to our nation's capital. Gabby called it "Congress on Your Corner" – just an updated version of government of and by and for the people.

That is the quintessentially American scene that was shattered by a gunman's bullets. And the six people who lost their lives on Saturday – they too represented what is best in America.

Judge John Roll served our legal system for nearly 40 years. A graduate of this university and its law school, Judge Roll was recommended for the federal bench by John McCain twenty years ago, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and rose to become Arizona's chief federal judge. His colleagues described him as the hardest-working judge within the Ninth Circuit. He was on his way back from attending Mass, as he did every day, when he decided to stop by and say hi to his Representative. John is survived by his loving wife, Maureen, his three sons, and his five grandchildren.

George and Dorothy Morris – "Dot" to her friends – were high school sweethearts who got married and had two daughters. They did everything together, traveling the open road in their RV, enjoying what their friends called a 50-year honeymoon. Saturday morning, they went by the Safeway to hear what their Congresswoman had to say. When gunfire rang out, George, a former Marine, instinctively tried to shield his wife. Both were shot. Dot passed away.

A New Jersey native, Phyllis Schneck retired to Tucson to beat the snow. But in the summer, she would return East, where her world revolved around her 3 children, 7 grandchildren, and 2 year-old great-granddaughter. A gifted quilter, she'd often work under her favorite tree, or sometimes sew aprons with the logos of the Jets and the Giants to give out at the church where she volunteered. A Republican, she took a liking to Gabby, and wanted to get to know her better.

Dorwan and Mavy Stoddard grew up in Tucson together – about seventy years ago. They moved apart and started their own respective families, but after both were widowed they found their way back here, to, as one of Mavy's daughters put it, "be boyfriend and girlfriend again." When they weren't out on the road in their motor home, you could find them just up the road, helping folks in need at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ. A retired construction worker, Dorwan spent his spare time fixing up the church along with their dog, Tux. His final act of selflessness was to dive on top of his wife, sacrificing his life for hers.

Everything Gabe Zimmerman did, he did with passion – but his true passion was people. As Gabby's outreach director, he made the cares of thousands of her constituents his own, seeing to it that seniors got the Medicare benefits they had earned, that veterans got the medals and care they deserved, that government was working for ordinary folks. He died doing what he loved – talking with people and seeing how he could help. Gabe is survived by his parents, Ross and Emily, his brother, Ben, and his fiancée, Kelly, who he planned to marry next year.

And then there is nine year-old Christina Taylor Green. Christina was an A student, a dancer, a gymnast, and a swimmer. She often proclaimed that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the major leagues, and as the only girl on her Little League team, no one put it past her. She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age, and would remind her mother, "We are so blessed. We have the best life." And she'd pay those blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children who were less fortunate.

Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken – and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness.

Our hearts are full of hope and thanks for the 13 Americans who survived the shooting, including the congresswoman many of them went to see on Saturday. I have just come from the University Medical Center, just a mile from here, where our friend Gabby courageously fights to recover even as we speak. And I can tell you this – she knows we're here and she knows we love her and she knows that we will be rooting for her throughout what will be a difficult journey.

And our hearts are full of gratitude for those who saved others. We are grateful for Daniel Hernandez, a volunteer in Gabby's office who ran through the chaos to minister to his boss, tending to her wounds to keep her alive. We are grateful for the men who tackled the gunman as he stopped to reload. We are grateful for a petite 61 year-old, Patricia Maisch, who wrestled away the killer's ammunition, undoubtedly saving some lives. And we are grateful for the doctors and nurses and emergency medics who worked wonders to heal those who'd been hurt.

These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle. They remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, all around us, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, just waiting to be summoned – as it was on Saturday morning.

Their actions, their selflessness, also pose a challenge to each of us. It raises the question of what, beyond the prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?

You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations – to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless. Already we've seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health systems. Much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our exercise of self-government.

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "when I looked for light, then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.

For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind.

So yes, we must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.

But what we can't do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.

After all, that's what most of us do when we lose someone in our family – especially if the loss is unexpected. We're shaken from our routines, and forced to look inward. We reflect on the past. Did we spend enough time with an aging parent, we wonder. Did we express our gratitude for all the sacrifices they made for us? Did we tell a spouse just how desperately we loved them, not just once in awhile but every single day?

So sudden loss causes us to look backward – but it also forces us to look forward, to reflect on the present and the future, on the manner in which we live our lives and nurture our relationships with those who are still with us. We may ask ourselves if we've shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives. Perhaps we question whether we are doing right by our children, or our community, and whether our priorities are in order. We recognize our own mortality, and are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in bettering the lives of others.

That process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions – that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires. For those who were harmed, those who were killed – they are part of our family, an American family 300 million strong. We may not have known them personally, but we surely see ourselves in them. In George and Dot, in Dorwan and Mavy, we sense the abiding love we have for our own husbands, our own wives, our own life partners. Phyllis – she's our mom or grandma; Gabe our brother or son. In Judge Roll, we recognize not only a man who prized his family and doing his job well, but also a man who embodied America's fidelity to the law. In Gabby, we see a reflection of our public spiritedness, that desire to participate in that sometimes frustrating, sometimes contentious, but always necessary and never-ending process to form a more perfect union.

And in Christina…in Christina we see all of our children. So curious, so trusting, so energetic and full of magic.

So deserving of our love.

And so deserving of our good example. If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost. Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle.

The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let's remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.

I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.

Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called "Faces of Hope." On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child's life. "I hope you help those in need," read one. "I hope you know all of the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart. I hope you jump in rain puddles."

If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.

May God bless and keep those we've lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.

The Old Man and the Internet
By JAY GOLTZ NY TIMES
I started out as a retailer. As time passed, I realized and struggled with the fact that I was also a manufacturer. Eventually, I expanded into being a distributor, a direct-sales organization and now a Web marketer. The first three evolutions were slow and painful, but I figured them out. This latest twist, becoming a Web marketer, is different. This time, it is not just about people and problems. It’s about understanding the realities of a whole new world.

It crept up on me, this whole Internet thing. It’s probably the most powerful development since the Industrial Revolution, but I was a little slow to see it coming. I was slow to realize, for example, that I needed a better Web presence for my custom picture-framing business. Still, in the last five years, I have started to get up to speed. My home furnishings store has a Web site and is now selling a nice amount of furniture and accessories on the Web — although most of the traffic still comes from the mentions we get in home décor magazines (we have cool stuff).

In addition, I have a site that sells wholesale moulding to framers and two Web sites that sell artwork for offices (one that offers art consulting and one that carries a line of framed images ready to ship), but they are not reaching their potential. And I have a Web site for my personal speaking gigs that gets some traffic but does not generate the business I think it should. I also have one other related site that I am working on.

This is the picture that I recently laid out for my new business group. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the insights gained from comparing notes with other business owners, in different businesses, can be phenomenal. After describing my business structure and explaining that I have come to understand that I have to become more Web-driven, the computer geek in the group — I say that with all due respect, admiration and appreciation — responded, “you need to hire a director of Web.”

In about a nanosecond, I realized he was right. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I knew he was right. You see, after several meetings with our computer geek, I have learned that he speaks a different language. He has different powers and insights and ways of looking at things. He is from another planet, and I am just an earthling. But it goes both ways. While computer guy has been extremely helpful to the members of the group in explaining the intricacies of technology, we old guys have been valuable to him in dealing with organizational issues, real estate and other problems that come with a fast-growing company. This is not a support group; it is a get-smarter group. The driving philosophy: stop trying to figure it all out on your own.

Anyway, back to my revelation. I now understand that I am operating in a vastly different business environment, and I need to make some adjustments. The Internet, social media and whatever else I am missing are all changing fast, and I need to conquer them. Here is the problem: Business people like me do not know what is going on behind the curtain. Sometimes, we think we know, we want to know, we need to know, but how could we know?

No one who works for me has ever worked in a technology company. When I returned to the office and mentioned my business-group revelation that we needed to hire a director of Web, two of my key people said the same thing: we need to rethink our entire organizational structure.

I should have figured this out a year ago, but I was focused on moving my production facility and cutting costs. This illustrates the reality of today’s business environment. We are s-l-o-w-l-y coming out of a terrible recession, and we are all watching every dollar that we spend — but we should be spending more money on technology. Contrast that to one of these venture capital-fueled tech warehouses we’re always reading about, and you can see why established companies like mine are not just scratching their heads but holding them.

I will soon have seven Web sites — three are e-commerce, the others marketing — and we know just enough about building and maintaining them to be dangerous. We believe we are doing enough of the right things, but I have realized that this goes against my general business philosophy. I don’t want to do “enough.” I want to do things as well as possible (within economic reason).

We are not experts, but in this new world, we need to be experts if we want to hit our potential. Given the number of sites we’re playing with, I always believed that it would be more cost-effective to do most of the work in-house. But after talking to people who seem to know what they are doing, I’m coming to accept that we will never be as effective as someone who does this for a living. The technology changes too fast.

We are now interviewing companies to redo our Web sites and take over our pay-per-click campaign. I believe that incremental sales will pay for the new costs. That is the difference between old-school retail and the Internet: immediate results. I am quickly changing my perspectives so that I can operate in this new world. I’m even willing to get a Ping-Pong table and some bean bag chairs if necessary. I’ll see you on the other side.

Jay Goltz owns five small businesses in Chicago.

Six dead in shooting that wounds Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords
The Democrat was shot in the head when a gunman opened fire at a meet-and-greet at a supermarket. She is responsive after surgery. The dead include a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge, and at least 12 others are injured.

By Seema Mehta and Mark Porubcansky, LA TIMES

A man gunned down Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and at least 17 other people, six of whom were killed, during a the congresswoman's meet-and-greet Saturday with constituents outside a supermarket in Tucson.

Among the dead were U.S. District Judge John M. Roll and a 9-year-old girl.

Giffords was out of surgery Saturday night and was responsive to some commands from doctors, said Mark Kimble, who works in Giffords' communication office in Tucson.

"The next three days are going to be very critical as far as swelling of the brain. And that's about all we know right now. They're very optimistic though," Kimble said. Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, her parents, sister and mother-in-law were by her bedside, he said. Several people wheeling luggage and weeping were seen hugging in the hospital lobby.

Giffords, a 40-year-old Democrat, had been with five staff members and two interns while at the event. Gabe Zimmerman, director of outreach, was killed. Two others, Ron Barber and Pam Simon, were wounded.

The suspect, identified by a federal source as Jared Lee Loughner, 22, was in custody Saturday after being tackled by two people at the scene of the shooting. The gunman may not have acted alone, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik said.

"There is some reason to believe he came to this location with another individual. And there's reason to believe the other individual in some way might be involved," he added. "We have an individual that we are actively in pursuit of."

"We have pictures" of the second person, Dupnik said, but he declined to release them.

He said the weapon used in the shooting was a semi-automatic pistol.

The sheriff had harsh words about the rising level of vitriol in public discourse, which he suggested could have influenced the gunman.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry … it is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry," he said.

Dupnik said there was no security at the event and there was no return of gunfire from anyone in the crowd. The gunman still had bullets and "probably would have shot other people had he not been tackled."

Dupnik offered the following narrative of the shootings:

About 10 a.m. on Saturday, the congresswoman was holding an informal town hall meeting called "Congress on Your Corner" outside a Safeway in Tucson. Ten minutes later, a gunman approached and started shooting, and Giffords was struck once in the head.

Judge Roll had come to the meet-and-greet because he was friends with Giffords. "Unfortunately, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time," Dupnik said. He called Roll "one of the finest human beings I've ever met in my life."

Roll was appointed to a federal judgeship by President George H.W. Bush and was recommended for the appointment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Dupnik called Giffords "one of the nicest human beings that has ever been planted on this Earth. She's not only brilliant, she works from dawn until dawn, basically. And she cares for what happens in this country. She's not about Democrats or Republicans. All she cares about is the United States of America."

Retired obstetrician David Beal was sitting with his wife in his car outside his neighborhood Safeway waiting for an opportunity to say hello to his congresswoman when he heard shots.

"It was a lot of shots," he said in a telephone interview. "At first, it was so many shots I thought, that can't be gunfire. Then we saw people diving, and I told my wife to get down on the floor" of the car.

Beal jumped out and ran into the melee, going first to where Giffords went down.

"It was really horrendous," he said. "She was kind of crumpled on the sidewalk."

The physician said he had never experienced anything like it. He said the sidewalk outside the grocery store was a "war zone."

"There were people all over the place," Beal said. "There were five for sure dead when I got there. It was incredibly awful."

A man lying next to Giffords had bullet wounds, he said. "He was bleeding pretty profusely. Someone put pressure on his groin" to staunch it.

That's when Beal turned his attention to a girl who was lying in the fetal position on the sidewalk. "I lifted up her shirt. She had an entrance wound in her right flank, and an exit wound on her left side. She had a low pulse and low respiration, so I started giving her chest compression CPR."

Beal said it was "at least 15 minutes" before paramedics arrived. He assumed they had been delayed by law enforcement trying to make sure the area was safe.

In reliving the ordeal, Beal said he was struggling to figure out how the girl had been shot. The way the bullet traveled through her body, he said it appeared she would have had to have been shot from below.

"She had been kneeling and kind of hiding," he said. "He must have shot her while she was kneeling. She was in a fetal position on her knees."

Dupnik said the suspect in custody has not made any statements to investigators and has invoked his constitutional rights not to provide information that could incriminate himself.

"I have never been so shocked in my life as the events that have happened today. It is not only very sad for Tucson and the family and the friends of all the victims of this horrendous, senseless, unbelievable crime, but it's a sad day for America," Dupnik said.

Giffords had just been reelected to a third term to the U.S. House of Representatives after a particularly vitriolic campaign. In one case, a weapon fell from the pants of a very angry audience member. At another time, windows were shattered at her campaign headquarters.

House officials said all legislation that was scheduled to be heard next week is being postponed, which would put off a vote to repeal healthcare reform legislation.

Loughner had a profile on his MySpace page but it has been taken down. Along with his rants about illegal currency, he listed his top books as Hitler's "Mein Kampf," Marx's "The Communist Manifesto," and Hesse's "Siddhartha." He said he liked a YouTube video of a burning U.S. flag.

Tyler Ramsier, 24, said he attended school with Loughner at Mountain View High School in Tucson and that Loughner graduated in 2007. Ramsier said Loughner hung out with a group of friends who wore trench coats and baggy pants and kept to themselves. Ramsier described them as "contrary."

On a YouTube account believed to belong to Loughner under the username "Classitup10," anti-government statements were made referring to "treasonous laws" that contradicted the Constitution. In sentences that flashed on the screen, Pima Community College was called a "torture facility," referring to teachers as "con artists" and police were castigated for removing students from educational facilities for talking.

"This situation is fraud because the police are unconstitutional!" the text says. "Don't trust the current government, listener!"

"The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar," the video says.

Forensic psychiatrist Mark Kalish, a clinical assistant professor at UC San Diego, said the video had many hallmarks of mental illness.

"It's got these paranoid elements," he said. "He probably suffers from schizophrenia. He's very nihilistic. It's delusional. There's a conspiratorial flavor to it. It is nonsensical, but it's psychotic."

Kalish said it seemed like Loughner had a problem with the government, but not necessarily Giffords.

"My guess is he's probably a loner, and he has this bizarre delusion and that the congressperson was involved — either specifically or in general — because she's part of the government," he said. "It's probable that she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and it had nothing to do with her personally, other than she just happened to be a representative of the government."

Dr. Rafael Quinonez, a trauma neurosurgeon at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, said it is not unusual for people to survive gunshot wounds to the head.

"For us, it's almost a weekend occurrence, and some of them survive," he said.

Quinonez said survival and prognosis depend on many factors, including the path, size and velocity of the bullet. In cases where the bullet is no longer in the patient, surgeons must clean out the wound, including bone fragments, to minimize the chances of infection.

As night fell in Tucson, several dozen people held vigil across the street from Giffords' office, which had been blocked off by police. The mourners, some clad in pajama pants, hospital scrubs, scarves and mittens, crowded onto a sidewalk outside a gas station and gripped candles and signs. "No violence," one sign implored the passing drivers, who honked in assent.

The crowd passed a bag of cheese puffs and rumors about Giffords' condition. They also placed more candles and flowers under a tree, alongside a stuffed bear and dog and a small poster that read, "Sad and heartbroken in Tucson! Pray for Gabby and all others."

Hundreds of people also gathered at a prayer vigil at the University Medical Center, where Giffords and other victims were being treated.

Softly weeping and clutching candles, they gathered on a grassy lawn, circling six pillar candles that represented the six known fatalities.

The House Sergeant at Arms issued an alert to lawmakers Saturday that there is "no indication that this incident is part of any larger threat against Congress or has a nexus to terrorism."

The youngest woman ever elected to the House when she joined Congress in 2006, Giffords recently survived a tough reelection campaign, defeating "tea party" candidate Jesse Kelly by just 4,000 votes.

Sheriff's officials cordoned off the area of North Soledad Avenue where Loughner lives, a neighborhood in northwest Tucson of mostly one-story, brick houses.

Bert Escovar, 71, who has been a resident of the neighborhood for 30 years, said he believed the alleged shooter lives with his mother and father. "Every time I saw him, he was by himself," said Escovar, who added that he had seen Loughner but never spoken with him. "He dressed like a normal teenager."

David Cook, who has lived in the neighborhood for seven years, said the family moved there about four years ago and seemed friendly and often waved when they drove down the street. Cook said Loughner's father rebuilds classic cars and owns a 1967 Chevelle.

President Obama called the shooting an "unspeakable tragedy."

"We're going to get to the bottom of this, and we're going to get through this," he declared. "I know Gabby is as tough as they come, and I am hopeful that she is going to pull through."

"It is not surprising that Gabby today was doing what she always does, listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbors," he added. "That is the essence of what our democracy is all about. That is why this is a tragedy for more than those involved."

Sen. McCain called the shooter a "wicked person who has no sense of justice or compassion" and said he was praying for the recovery of the victims.

"Whoever did this, whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law," McCain said.

Arizona's GOP chairman, Randy Pullen, said party members are "deeply saddened and mortified" by the shooting.

"Senseless acts of violence like these are shocking, disturbing and have no place in our country. The thoughts and prayers of all Arizonans are with the victims and families during this terrible tragedy in our state's history. We sincerely hope that the responsible party is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," he said.

Just an hour before the shooting, Giffords had posted an announcement on her Twitter account: "My 1st Congress on Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me know what is on your mind or tweet me later."

This has been a winning formula in her conservative, border district. Giffords survived a tough challenge from a "tea party" candidate in the November election.

Her district was littered with signs proclaiming, "Giffords Opposes SB1070," referring to her opposition to Arizona's tough anti-immigration measures.

She has been a perennial top target of Arizona Republicans. Her district office was vandalized after she voted for the healthcare reform bill and friends said she had received several unspecified threats.
Mehta and Porubcansky reported from Tucson. Times staff writers Nicole Santa Cruz in Tucson, Kim Murphy in Seattle, Richard Serrano and Lisa Mascaro in Washington, and Maeve Reston, Rong-Gong Lin II and Lisa Girion in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

The Raw Face of Capitalism, Kremlin Style

By CHRYSTIA FREELAND
NEW YORK — For anyone who ever hoped Russia could become a liberal, free-market democracy, the grim trial last month of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon who was once his country’s richest man, offered a slender solace: it was widely and loudly condemned.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, compared the prosecution to that of the poet and Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky. Joe Nocera, writing about the business and economic consequences in The New York Times (whose global edition is the International Herald Tribune), described the Kremlin’s tactics as “boneheaded.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that the case would “have a negative impact on Russia’s reputation,” and particularly on its “investment climate.”

What was notable about this chorus of foreign criticism was the implication that, even judged by the Kremlin’s own standards of realpolitik, the treatment of Mr. Khodorkovsky was a mistake. Moscow’s leaders want to restore Russia’s wealth and greatness: Western assertions that the Khodorkovsky trial had hurt Russia’s reputation and would discourage foreign investment suggested that the Kremlin was harming its own cause.

But some investors, economists and political analysts are drawing a different, and much starker, conclusion: The Khodorkovsky verdict was an inevitable and logical act of self-preservation by a regime that is fully and lucratively in control of Russia.

In this reading, there is nothing accidental about Mr. Khodorkovsky’s continued imprisonment. It is, instead, the clearest possible statement of the rules of Kremlin capitalism, and of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s confidence that, at least as long as Siberia has oil, there is plenty of private capital willing to play.

“Within Russia, everyone who matters understands exactly what the Kremlin is trying to say: that there is no one above the rule of the Kremlin,” said Roland Nash, co-founder of Verno Capital, who is a 16-year veteran of doing business in Moscow.

The message, according to Sergei Guriev, one of Russia’s leading economists and rector of the New Economic School, is this: “It is to show that Putin is fully in control. It is not a question of Khodorkovsky getting out of jail, it is a question of other businessmen not following in Khodorkovsky’s footsteps.”

Ian Bremmer, author of a recent book on state capitalism and president of the Eurasia Group, a global political risk and consulting firm, said the verdict was “rational” and “predictable.”

“If you are in a sector the state cares about in Russia,” he said, “you either play ball with the Kremlin, or you leave.”

Mr. Nash did remark that the Khodorkovsky case had exacted a real, quantifiable economic cost. “The Russian equity market would be worth several hundred billion dollars more if it weren’t for the critical Western perception of Russia, and the Khodorkovsky case is the principal example of that perception,” he said.

Critics of Putinism, especially Western ones, like to point to this lost value as proof that the treatment of Mr. Khodorkovsky and the authoritarian politics that his case represents are a mistake. But that analysis, according to Mr. Guriev, a liberal who laments the path Russia has taken, leaves out the essential political calculus of Putinism.

“Economic growth per se is not important to a ruler, if he is not there to enjoy it,” Mr. Guriev said. “Better to stay in control of a stagnant, but large and rich, country than to be kicked out of a growing one. Everyone wants a bigger cake, but better a small cake than none at all.”

And while the Russia cake is surely not as big as it could be, it’s big enough, and growing steadily: Gross domestic product increased 3.7 percent last year, worse than China’s red hot 10.5 percent, but better than the United States’ 2.6 percent. The Russian stock market rose 22 percent in 2010.

One reason the cake is still big enough for Mr. Putin and his allies is that many foreign investors are still willing to tolerate an economy run according to Kremlin rules.

“I haven’t talked to one corporation that used the Khodorkovsky trial, as opposed to corruption more generally, as a factor in their investment decision,” Mr. Bremmer said. Companies in extractive industries, still the dominant sector in the Russian economy, are accustomed to dealing with all kinds of governments. Playing by the authoritarian logic of state capitalism, in Russia and elsewhere, is familiar, even reassuring, he suggested.

Emerging-market investors have similar experiences. As the flows of capital among emerging markets — rather than between emerging markets and the West — become more important, so does tolerance for Russian, or Chinese, or Middle Eastern state capitalism.

“There is a much better understanding of the nuances and the differences in the rules of the game in the emerging world than there is in the developed countries,” said Mr. Nash, whose biggest investor is from Abu Dhabi. “There are now sources of capital that don’t care so much about issues like the Khodorkovsky trial.”

But while the Kremlin is clearly unmoved by foreign criticism of Russia’s human rights record and even of its investment climate, it is increasingly worried about one thing: innovation. Mr. Putin’s Russia is complacent about its ability to attract capital, but it is panicked about its capacity to come up with cutting-edge technologies.

Daron Acemoglu, a Turkish-born professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in the relationship between political systems and economic growth, believes that in the long run, this will be the big test for today’s swaggering, authoritarian regimes: “Can China and Russia create their own Silicon Valleys? That is the hard constraint these systems face.”

Even as Mr. Khodorkovsky goes back to jail, another oligarch, Alisher B. Usmanov, and his partner Yuri Milner are raising, via Digital Sky Technologies, their stake in Facebook. And another billionaire, Viktor Vekselberg, has been charged with constructing Skolkovo, which the Kremlin dreams will be its version of Silicon Valley. To judge the longevity of Kremlin capitalism, watch his efforts.

Chrystia Freeland is global editor at large at Reuters.

Cheney Is Back, With Heart Pump and New Outlook

By HELENE COOPER, LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN and MICHAEL D. SHEAR

WASHINGTON — A few days before Christmas, former Vice President Dick Cheney ended a self-imposed sabbatical from partisan politics to headline a fund-raiser for Maria Cino, a party operative and Bush administration official who is running to replace Michael Steele as head of the Republican National Committee.

The fund-raiser for Ms. Cino, held at the Alexandria, Va., home of Mr. Cheney’s former aide Mary Matalin, was his first major foray into partisan Washington political theater since receiving a mechanical heart pump in July that has, most doctors say, saved Mr. Cheney’s life by taking on the task of helping to push blood through his arteries.

Mr. Cheney, as he did at several holiday receptions in Washington, chatted about his new pump. At one cocktail party, he even opened his coat jacket to show it off. While Mr. Cheney is noticeably thinner — his trademark stiff, one-sided grin now shows up on a markedly leaner face — he is returning, associates say, to his old life, including hunting and socializing.

But for the most part, Mr. Cheney, 69, has put aside his public role as the fiery, combative political figure of the last two years, who seemed to relish every opportunity to engage in verbal jousting with President Obama.

With George W. Bush having decided to stay largely silent during Mr. Obama’s tenure, Mr. Cheney embraced the role of public critic, accusing the new, young president of rolling back Bush-era policies and undermining the nation’s security. In 2009, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Obama gave dueling speeches on the same day.

Now, however, family members and friends paint a portrait of a man less focused on the day-to-day back-and-forth in Washington and one more interested in documenting his years of service in a memoir and navigating life with his new pump.

Mr. Cheney’s heart will never beat at full strength again, doctors say. His new mechanical pump, a partial artificial heart known as a ventricular assist device, leaves patients without a pulse because it pushes blood continuously instead of mimicking the heart’s own beat. Most pulse-less patients feel nothing unusual, but the devices do pose significant risks of infection. They are implanted as a last resort either for permanent use or as a bridge to transplant until a donor heart can be found. Mr. Cheney, who has participated in some of the nation’s toughest decisions for decades, now faces a crucial one of his own: whether to seek a full heart transplant.

It is a decision he will most likely be forced to make within months. He is old enough that soon he will no longer qualify for a transplant, doctors say. And while it is possible for some patients with Mr. Cheney’s device to live for years, the long-term prospects remain unknown.

His family and friends will not talk publicly with any specificity about the former vice president’s heart condition or the steps he might be taking to confront it.

But in the meantime, Mr. Cheney has begun resuming his old activities. Besides the Cino fund-raiser, he attended a round of holiday parties in Washington — leaving whispers in his trail about his weight loss. “For all of the caricatures of him, he never lets it get under his skin,” said Ms. Matalin, a close friend.

Mr. Cheney, who spent the holidays at his ranch in Wyoming, recently had a class of West Point cadets over to his house in McLean, Va., to talk about his experiences working for four of the last five Republican presidents and what it was like to work at the White House. In Wyoming, he has been spotted in local grocery stores, stocking up to make chili and spaghetti sauce, “as well as walking me through how to cook Christmas dinner,” his daughter Liz Cheney said in an e-mail.

But most of all, Ms. Cheney said, her father has been working on his book, which is scheduled to come out this fall. “He still prefers to write in longhand on yellow legal pads despite my efforts to introduce a laptop into his process,” Ms. Cheney said.

By supplementing the amount of blood pumped through the body, Mr. Cheney’s pump allows him to do many things he would do with a working heart. Such patients can bicycle, golf, play tennis, drive, shop and generally do what they did before they developed severe heart failure. They need to take an anticoagulant, like warfarin (sold under the brand name Coumadin), and have blood tests to monitor the amount.

Mr. Cheney’s pump was placed near his heart. With most patients, a power line emerges about waist level and connects to a controller, a minicomputer that plugs into a pair of one-and-a-half-pound, 12-volt batteries. Patients wear a black mesh vest over their clothing that holds the controller and batteries.

Mr. Cheney’s friends and family say he is making plans to get out in 2011 and give more speeches. On Jan. 20, he is to fly to Texas for the 20th anniversary of the Persian Gulf war with the first President Bush, the emir of Kuwait and a host of alumni of that administration, including Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser, and Colin L. Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, when Mr. Cheney was defense secretary.

On Dec. 28, Mr. Cheney was the host of a fund-raiser at the home of some friends in Jackson, Wyo., for a scholarship program that he and his wife, Lynne, have begun at the University of Wyoming. They donated $4.5 million to help create scholarships for students to study overseas. In his remarks, Mr. Cheney said that after getting kicked out of Yale twice, he owed getting his life back on track to the University of Wyoming.

Mr. Cheney’s heart pump is also allowing him to go to the movies.

“He and my mom went to see ‘True Grit’ at the Teton Theater here in Jackson a few days ago,” Ms. Cheney said. Her parents, she said, gave it “two thumbs up.”

Anonymity and the Dark Side of the Internet
By STANLEY FISH NY Times
In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995) the Supreme Court overturned a statute requiring any person who prints a notice or flyer promoting a candidate or an issue to identify the communication’s author by name. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, grounded his opinion in an account of meaning he takes from an earlier case (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti): “The inherent worth of . . . speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual.” Or, in other words, a writing or utterance says what it says independently of who happens to say it; the information conveyed does not vary with the identification of the speaker.

There are at least two problems with this reasoning. First, it is not true that a text’s meaning is the same whether or not its source is known. Suppose I receive an anonymous note asserting that I have been betrayed by a friend. I will not know what to make of it — is it a cruel joke, a slander, a warning, a test? But if I manage to identify the note’s author — it’s a friend or an enemy or a known gossip — I will be able to reason about its meaning because I will know what kind of person composed it and what motives that person might have had.

In the same way, if I am the recipient of a campaign message supporting a candidate or a policy, my assessment of what I am reading or hearing will depend on my knowledge of the sender. Is he, she or it an industry representative, a lobbyist, the A.C.L.U., the Club for Growth? The identity of the speaker is part of the information and is therefore part — a large part — of the meaning. (“Consider the source” is not only commonplace advice; it is a theory of interpretation.)

The practice of withholding the identity of the speaker is strategic, and one purpose of the strategy (this is the second problem with anonymity) is to avoid responsibility and accountability for what one is saying. Anonymity, Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago observes, allows Internet bloggers “to create for themselves a shame-free zone in which they can inflict shame on others.” The power of the bloggers, she continues, “depends on their ability to insulate their Internet selves from responsibility in the real world, while ensuring real-world consequences” for those they injure.

Nussbaum is writing as a co-editor of, and contributor to, a new set of essays on the dark side of the Internet titled “The Offensive Internet.” The question that drives the volume is “what can be done about irresponsible information” spread by the Internet, a medium that allows slander to “be done with a few keystrokes, with complete anonymity, and . . . with no fear that the Internet provider on whose website the slur is found will somehow be held responsible for incorrect . . . or defamatory statements”? In the course of the volume the Internet is characterized as a cesspool, a porn store, a form of pinkeye, a raunchy fraternity, a graffiti–filled bathroom wall, a haven for sociopaths, and the breeder of online mobs who are no better than “masked Klan members” in their determination to “interfere with victims’ basic rights.”

The authors make these charges against the background of the standard honorific description of the Internet: it is the ultimate realization of “the marketplace of ideas,” that non-physical space dedicated “to the emergence of truth.” Cass Sunstein invokes this hoary metaphor only to call it into question. Rumors cascade, Sunstein explains, when someone relies on what someone else has said and then spreads a falsehood as truth. The Internet multiplies the effect exponentially: an “initial blunder . . . can start a process by which a number of people participate in creating serious mistakes.” Rather then producing truth, the free and open marketplace of the Internet “will lead many people to accept damaging and destructive falsehoods,” and unless there is “some kind of chilling effect on false statements,” the “proper functioning of democracy itself” may be endangered.

An unconstrained marketplace of ideas is often said to facilitate informed decision-making by providing all the information, even erroneous information, that is out there. But how, asks Brian Leiter in a powerful essay, is the process of deliberation helped by the anonymous poster who reports falsely “that Jane Doe has herpes” and announces “that he would like to sodomize her?” The Internet and the real world, Leiter concludes, “would both be better places” if Internet providers were held accountable for the scurrilous and harmful material they disseminate.

How might that be managed? The answer given by the authors in this volume involves the repeal or modification of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that no provider of an Internet service shall be treated as the publisher of information provided by another. That is, the provider is not liable for what others have said, and courts have interpreted that section as immunizing providers even when they “have knowledge that [a statement] is defamatory or invasive of privacy.”

Saul Levmore (Nussbaum’s co-editor) suggests that immunity might be conditioned on the willingness of a provider either to take down a message after notice of its falsity or defamatory character has been given, or “to enforce non-anonymity” and thus open the way for an injured party to seek redress. The law, writes Anupam Chander, “should allow the individual to find information to lead her to the person who committed the privacy invasion.” As it is now, with an expansive reading of Section 230, “the law no longer puts any obstacles in the way of the Sociopath” who, traveling on the Internet, can go anywhere and spray venom that lasts forever. (Leiter)

But, as Geoffrey Stone reminds us in his essay, putting obstacles in the way of anyone’s speech (even the speech of sociopaths or perverts or subversives ) has been frowned on by the Supreme Court ever since New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), which holds that, at least as regards public officials, debate should be uninhibited and wide open even if it is “vehement” and “caustic” and contains both “factual error” and “defamatory content.” In subsequent decisions, the category of “public officials” was widened first to include “public persons” and then to include persons who wander into the ambit of a public event, in short, almost everyone.

The idea (which goes back at least as far as Milton’s Areopagitica is that false and defamatory speech openly published will provoke counter speech and lead to correction; the truth will ultimately prevail. (Justice Louis Brandeis: “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”) But however likely that happy outcome may be in the world of books and newspapers (and I have always thought it extremely unlikely), the special conditions and powers of the Internet conspire against it and the more likely outcome is the one prophesied by Alexander Pope in the final lines of “The Dunciad”: “Light dies before thy uncreating word . . . / And universal darkness buries all.”

What is remarkable about this volume is that the legal academics who make the arguments I have rehearsed are by and large strong free-speech advocates. Yet faced with the problems posed by the Internet, they start talking about “low value” speech (a concept strong first-amendment doctrine rejects) and saying things like “autonomy resides not in free choice per se but in choosing wisely” and “society needs not an absence of ‘chill,’ but an optimal level.”(In short, let’s figure out which forms of speech we should discourage.)

Perhaps the most amazing statement is made by Daniel J. Solove when he declares that “the law is hampered because it overprotects free speech.” The conventional first-amendment wisdom is that free speech cannot be overprotected, but that wisdom is put on trial by these thinkers. Some years ago, I wrote a book titled “There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech and It’s a Good Thing, Too.” This book could be titled “There is Such a Thing as the Free Unregulated Internet and It’s a Bad Thing, Too.”

Copyright 2011 The New York Times

There's a mini ice age coming, says man who beats weather experts
Sydney Morning News

Well, folks, it's tea-time on Sunday and for anyone involved in keeping people moving it has been a hell of a weekend. Thousands have had their journeys wrecked, tens of thousands have been delayed getting away for Christmas; and for those Londoners who feel aggrieved by the performance of any part of our transport services, I can only say that we are doing our level best.

Almost the entire Tube system was running on Sunday and we would have done even better if it had not been for a suicide on the Northern Line, and the temporary stoppage that these tragedies entail. Of London's 700 bus services, only 50 were on diversion, mainly in the hillier areas. On Saturday, we managed to keep the West End plentifully supplied with customers, and retailers reported excellent takings on what is one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

We have kept the Transport for London road network open throughout all this. We have about 90,000 tons of grit in stock, and the gritters were out all night to deal with this morning's rush. And yet we have to face the reality of the position across the country.

It is no use my saying that London Underground and bus networks are performing relatively well - touch wood - when Heathrow, our major international airport, is still effectively closed two days after the last heavy snowfall; when substantial parts of our national rail network are still struggling; when there are abandoned cars to be seen on hard shoulders all over the country; and when yet more snow is expected today, especially in the north.

In a few brief hours, we are told, the snowy superfortresses will be above us again, bomb bays bulging with blizzard. It may be that in the next hours and days we have to step up our de-icing, our gritting and our shovelling. So let me seize this brief gap in the aerial bombardment to pose a question that is bugging me. Why did the Met Office forecast a "mild winter"?

Do you remember? They said it would be mild and damp, and between one degree and one and a half degrees warmer than average. Well, I am now 46 and that means I have seen more winters than most people on this planet, and I can tell you that this one is a corker.

Never mind the record low attained in Northern Ireland this weekend. I can't remember a time when so much snow has lain so thickly on the ground, and we haven't even reached Christmas. And this is the third tough winter in a row. Is it really true that no one saw this coming?

Actually, they did. Allow me to introduce readers to Piers Corbyn, meteorologist and brother of my old chum, bearded leftie MP Jeremy. Piers Corbyn works in an undistinguished office in Borough High Street. He has no telescope or supercomputer. Armed only with a laptop, huge quantities of publicly available data and a first-class degree in astrophysics, he gets it right again and again.

Back in November, when the Met Office was still doing its "mild winter" schtick, Corbyn said it would be the coldest for 100 years. Indeed, it was back in May that he first predicted a snowy December, and he put his own money on a white Christmas about a month before the Met Office made any such forecast. He said that the Met Office would be wrong about last year's mythical "barbecue summer", and he was vindicated. He was closer to the truth about last winter, too.

He seems to get it right about 85 per cent of the time and serious business people - notably in farming - are starting to invest in his forecasts. In the eyes of many punters, he puts the taxpayer-funded Met Office to shame. How on earth does he do it? He studies the Sun.

He looks at the flow of particles from the Sun, and how they interact with the upper atmosphere, especially air currents such as the jet stream, and he looks at how the Moon and other factors influence those streaming particles.

He takes a snapshot of what the Sun is doing at any given moment, and then he looks back at the record to see when it last did something similar. Then he checks what the weather was like on Earth at the time - and he makes a prophecy.

I have not a clue whether his methods are sound or not. But when so many of his forecasts seem to come true, and when he seems to be so consistently ahead of the Met Office, I feel I want to know more. Piers Corbyn believes that the last three winters could be the harbinger of a mini ice age that could be upon us by 2035, and that it could start to be colder than at any time in the last 200 years. He goes on to speculate that a genuine ice age might then settle in, since an ice age is now cyclically overdue.

Is he barmy? Of course he may be just a fluke-artist. It may be just luck that he has apparently predicted recent weather patterns more accurately than government-sponsored scientists. Nothing he says, to my mind, disproves the view of the overwhelming majority of scientists, that our species is putting so much extra CO? into the atmosphere that we must expect global warming.

The question is whether anthropogenic global warming is the exclusive or dominant fact that determines our climate, or whether Corbyn is also right to insist on the role of the Sun. Is it possible that everything we do is dwarfed by the moods of the star that gives life to the world? The Sun is incomparably vaster and more powerful than any work of man. We are forged from a few clods of solar dust. The Sun powers every plant and form of life, and one day the Sun will turn into a red giant and engulf us all. Then it will burn out. Then it will get very nippy indeed.