The Gray Lady with a Gray Saturday Sunrise

I woke up well before sunrise this morning, which isn't as remarkable an accomplishment as it may sound, since the sun rose at 7:55 am today. Nonetheless, it's a bit unusual for a renowned late-nightnik like me. But after a long, busy week, I was flat-out bushed last night, went up to bed at 10:30, and fell to sleep almost immediately.

I woke up at seven, refreshed and ready to meet the day, only to find that the day had not shown up at all. In fact, it showed every sign of being tardy, since it was dark and wet outside, with only a far-off streetlight to light my way as a shuffled out to the curb to pick up our Saturday New York Times. I fired up the coffepot, sat at the table with a cup of coffee and the paper, and kept an eye out for the approaching dawn as I enjoyed the unusual luxury of a free morning with some time for a nice quiet read of the news.

There were a few genuinely interesting and unusual stories in there, and I'd like to recommend a couple:

From the obituaries: Ignacio Ponseti, Hero to Many With Clubfoot, Dies at 95.

Ponsetti was a surgeon for the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War who made his way to America, specialized in orthopedics, and developed a non-surgical intervention for children with clubfeet that is both less invasive and more successful than surgical correction. The treatment was generally scorned by surgeons for decades, but eventually became the preferred treatment, has helped thousands of children worldwide, and has been especially valuable in underdeveloped countries where it can help children at a much lower cost. He died Tuesday of a stroke while working in his office at the age of 95.

An extraordinary life.

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While we're visiting the obituaries, I should also at least mention the obituary for Soupy Sales: Soupy Sales, Flinger of Pies and Punch Lines, Dies at 83.

I mention it, however, not because Soupy's obituary is as surprisingly gripping as Ponsetti's -- which seems to call for a Hollywood biopic -- but because while I was speaking at last night's Village Appreciation dinner Linda Champagne called out for a moment of silence for Soupy Sales, and I failed to think of the appropriate response in time. To make amends, I present it now: "I believe the situation calls instead for a memorial pie in the face."

Sorry, Soupy. You deserved better quick-wittedness of me. You surely would have delivered it.

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Another very interesting story came in the sports section: N.F.L. Data Reinforces Dementia Links.

The available data shows that former NFL players suffer dementia at a rate four or five times the average, probably as a result of repeated blows to the head. Since I just had a particularly absent-minded week and suffered more than my own share of concussions in my own football career, I've been following the developing news on this point with great interest. This is particularly noteworthy because the NFL is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of football and head injuries. Only about a thousand players at a time play in the NFL, and as a group those players surely suffer the most concentrated series of blows to the brain. But tens of thousands of players play college football every year, and hundreds of thousands of boys play high school football. And concussions, often repeated concussions, happen at all of those levels.

I seem to recall (but then again, is my recollection trustworthy, given my concussion history?) that back in the 1980s the NCAA had an imposed limit of five reported and diagnosed concussions. And I do remember at least a couple of players on our team at Cornell who hit that limit and were forcibly retired while I was there. But that total of five only included reported and diagnosed concussions, and I am sure that many more went undiagnosed than were diagnosed, including my own. A concussion is a traumatic brain injury and the evidence continues that mount that acute traumatic brain injuries have serious long-term effects.

While the current debate seems to center on NFL players, it won't be long until somebody decides to start studying former college and high school players. I'll be very interested to see what they discover.

If football is indeed making large numbers of American males dumber it would at least explain the longstanding success of Jackass on MTV.

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Also worth your read in this morning's paper: The Saturday Profile: From U.S. to Africa, With a Fortune and a Tractor.

Howard G. Buffett, a corn farmer and the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffet, is shifting his philanthropical efforts in Africa from wildlife to people. Warren Buffett's efforts to teach his children philanthropy as they grew up is one of the interesting features of this article. I was also struck at the end of the article by Howard Buffett's description of the plight of some Africans in conflict zones.

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In the more "newsy" news there were a couple of items that I think support by own take on what's happening in Washington these days, so I reckon I'll mention them, too, with a useful quote or two below in italics.

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More support for my theory that the Congressional end-game in health-insurance reform will involve putting the "public option" into the House/Senate reconciliation bill, which will only need 50 votes to pass the Senate: Pelosi Intensifies Pressure for Public Health Plan.

Ms. Pelosi said that in shaping the House bill, she was already thinking about “the endgame.” If the two chambers pass disparate bills, as Democrats expect, negotiators from the House and the Senate would try to reconcile the differences.

When it appeared that the Senate bill might not have any government insurance plan, Ms. Pelosi said, it was essential for the House to pass a strong public option, as a counterweight to the Senate. Now, she said, she will consider an alternative favored by some centrist Democrats, who contend that the government plan should not set prices but negotiate payment rates with doctors and hospitals, as private insurers do.

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If anybody's wondering about the benefits of multilateral negotiations, treating the international community with respect, or even Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, here's an article to cite: NATO Ministers Endorse Wider Afghan Effort.

Defense ministers from NATO on Friday endorsed the ambitious counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan proposed by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, giving new impetus to his recommendation to pour more troops into the eight-year-old war.

...

The United Nations special representative for Afghanistan, Kai Eide, who also flew to the Slovakian capital to meet the ministers, stressed that “additional international troops are required.” He also told the allies, “This cannot be a U.S.-only enterprise.”


It's a mistake to distill a complicated mess like Afghanistan into a single sentence. Nonetheless, I shall do so: international cooperation is more effective than unilateral aggression.

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And finally, I would steer you all to this column from the Business section (Talking Business: Short Memories at Goldman) lest you think that Wall Street learned some humility from the 2008 economic crisis. But frankly, I don't think anybody believes that Wall Street learned any humility from the 2008 economic crisis.

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The sun did eventually rise this morning, or so I suppose, since the darkness outside has now gained a lighter shade of grey. No delicate pinks and salmon clouds with tweeting birdsong, this sunrise: it has instead been an affair better suited to damp possums and sullen mallards. Nonetheless, I shall move on with my Saturday. Enjoy your weekend, everybody, and I hope that you find your next visit with your newspaper as interesting as I found my own this morning.