By ANDREW TRENCH

The other day we were sitting watching a world cup game and wondering if the nationality of a team’s coach had any impact on the team’s performance.
It’s hard to say that without appearing xenophobic but we had just witnessed a flurry of exists by teams who had non-nationals as the coach. South Africa had gone out with World Cup-winning coach Brazilian Carlos Parreira at the helm and England with Italian Fabio Capello as coach have also bitten the dust.

Out of curiosity, I went and did a little checking on the statistics and, what would you know, it turns out that no team has ever won the world cup with a foreign coach. This is an amazing fact and is consistent through every world cup final.

See this table for the full list of world cup coaches and their nationality and the winning teams.

On this statistic we can immediately discount three teams who are still in the running from winning this world cup.
They are:

• Chile – whose coach is Argentine Marcelo Bielsa;
• Ghana – whose coach is Serbian Milovan Rajevac, and;
• Paraguay – whose coach is Argentine Gerardo Martino

I’m sure statisticians can say if this trend carries weight or whether it is simply a co-incidence. Is the date set big enough to draw a conclusion? We’ll see if this holds true for the rest of the 2010 tournament. I hope not as I am holding thumbs for Ghana like everyone else in South Africa.

I haven’t had time to go and see how many times a team with a foreign coach has actually made it to the finals. It would be interesting to check that out.

* Andrew Trench is editor of the Daily Dispatch and this post appeared first on his personal blog.

Popularity: 4% [?]

By ROUX VAN ZYL

“A relaxed and happy feeling comes from the harmonious coexistence between human and nature” is engraved on a granite slab on Yellow Mountain at a special viewing point. Exactly, well almost…

We were told to confirm our attendance a week before the bus was scheduled to leave at 7.30am from our Xiaoshan office for a four-hour trip to Yellow Mountain in China’s Anhui Province. Like all things in China the instructions were simple, to the point, coming out of nowhere and quite close to the actual event. Not that it bothered me, we were offered a free two day holiday to one of China’s 10 must-see spots.

Yellow Mountain

On the bus, that early April morning, were 27 travellers, all staff from the EF Xiaoshan office. Most were Chinese, female, with a grouping of about 10 foreigners predominantly from South Africa, along with representations from the USA, Canada, England and New Zealand. The trip was part of a tour package and we had our own bus and two tour guides. As the bus pulled out of the parking lot the first tour guide, whose task it was to count us all to check if no one has been left behind, embarked on a 30-minute monologue with a microphone singing the praises of the mountain in Chinese until our boss asked her to stop. We didn’t understand most of what was said, except for some titbits: the mountain is very beautiful… be careful…

Yellow Mountain is a granite ridge, reaching to over 1800 meters above sea level at its highest peak, formed over 100 million years ago when a crust uplift pushed away an ancient sea to expose craggy grey rock which was gradually shaped and smoothed by glaciers. Today it’s a Unesco World Heritage Site, attracting tourists from all over China, and the globe, which flock to see the spikey mountain tops, looking like decayed fangs biting into the clean mountain air.

Pilgrims across the Chinese ages found there way to the mountain on foot or by horse, having to traverse countless hills and semi-mountains, spiralling up to the Yellow Mountain fangs. Our bus just rode through the montains via numerous tunnels (I counted at least 5) on to a base camp town of sorts where we ate lunch, stocked up on beers and water and snacks as we were told that once on top, everything was double the price. We soon learned just why everything is so expensive, for despite our modern age there are only two ways to get to the top of the mountain – by cable car or on foot.

The cable cars are not used to ferry food to the mountain top. That is the job of men. Middle-aged men carry loads of food and water and other supplies hanging heavily from both sides of a bamboo stick that rests on their shoulders. They work like oxen climbing the endless stairs up the mountain, resting the loads on vertical sticks to catch their breath before climbing futher. They seem to look but can almost not see the streams of tourists flitting past them.

All over

Our way up the mountain was less strenuous – we took the cable car. I was ill prepared for the green boxes that hold eight passengers at a time and, swinging and creaking and leaning to one side because all the heaviest members of our tour group thought it wise to climbs into one with me, we flew off to somewhere between the blue heavens and abysmal crevaces below.

The gondola, as North Americans call it, followed thick cables strung over the various ridges that progressively grow higher towards the mountain range top. With sweaty palms and not enjoying the enclosed space and the creaks I trained my eyes on the cable leading to the next peak where I hoped our destination would be. Three times I was foiled, for the cable just kept on stretching towards new ridges and it took us 10 minutes to finally reach the end. But that wasn’t the real destination.

With two cases of beer shared between us, taking turns to be carried on our shoulders and drawing stares and comments from the other mountain visitors, and our clothes in our backpacks we commenced on an hour long trek to the hotel. Not understanding what the Chinese tour guides were saying, we had to guess at the the significance behind every sight. There are a handful of hotels spread out over the mountain. I’m not sure exactly where our hotel was but the path there took us past various look-out points revealing the hazy skyline and the same craggy outcrops that were by the early afternoon becoming monotonously breathtaking.

At the Shi Lin Hotel, meaning “Lion Forest” Hotel, all the men (there were seven of us) were piled into a single hotel room placed at the back of the hotel looking out onto a brick wall and filled with wooden bunk beds that wobbled and protested as you climbed to the top and creaked when you rolled over. It was somewhat surreal, but it was home for only one night. That night was spent playing drinking games in the room after dinner, trying hard to consume the two cases, or 48 beers, between the seven men and a handful of ladies. Loaded with beer, I and two friends explored the hotel surrounds under the full moon that lit up the granite and we tried to recognise the few constellations that were visible. Later, the other joined us for a midnight snack in front of the only tuck shop on the mountain top.

After party table

Everyone was complaining when we got up at 4am the next morning. The room was a mess, stinking of fart and beer. We didn’t have a choice. We had to get up and adhere to the strict itinerary. Our next stop was: the sunrise on Bright Summit Peak. Now I had assumed that Chinese sunrises aren’t that great because of the constant haze but this was a natural spot, tucked deep in one of the country’s least developed provinces. So I refused to complain and just pushed on up a flight of mountain stairs in the dark for an hour-long trek to the summit.

The day was eerily quiet until, near the top, we passed a forest where birds were gathered, singing a strange tune, as if calling or praising the sun that was by that time starting to turn the sky indigo. As if all the birds were assembled in only that section of the forest we gradually left them behind as we neared Bright Summit Peak, where a massive meteorological building stands right next to a hotel and camping site.

This, I assumed was the best spot from where to see the sun rise. It probably is, being 1840 meters above sea level. That’s why there were already hundreds of people assembled on the various viewing platforms. Bright Summit Peak is also exposed to wind. An ice cold gale pulled at our clothes, digging into our ears while scrambling over the rocks to find a better view of the sun. But it became clear why everyone was drawn to only two spots; all the other platforms’ views were obscured by rocks.

Highly irritated, I found a bunch of fellow travellers and moped with them while the day became brighter and the grey clouds turned yellowish. No one saw the sun, except for one colleague who got a photo of the sun with a swallow flying past. Jealous as I was, I knew that if I had not been such a moper and persisted to push through the crowds I would also have had my swallow chasing the sun too.

After the worst breakfast I’ve ever had – a dry piece of cake, boiled egg, steamed bun, mini bowl of rice soup and pickled vegetables – we commenced our descent past uncountable stone formations resembling animals and one looking just like a cellphone. That side of the mountain was pretty interesting-looking. Almost luminous, the silver rocks had been shaped and smoothed by eons of water and glacier movement. It had an unnaturally smooth look. It seemed to be soft and yielding.

And looking down the stairs, cut into the stone about 1500 years ago, we winded down to the bottom where we caught a bus and hurtled off down the mountain to a tea museum, lunch and then a knife museum. None of the museums were really museums. They are shops where travellers are expected to buy products with a historical connection. The tea museum was pretty awesome though because we had a chance to taste all the top teas from that mountain area, including the Mao Feng (pronounced Mao Foong) or “white hair tea” which is the best of the area.

At the knife museum, which had a vague connection to the Qing Dynasty, China’s last empire, we were treated to a live infomercial on how well the knives performed various kitchen tasks, including cutting through double-bent leather and the blade surviving a hard blow against a steel pipe. To my surprise, a few sets of the knives were bought that day before we got into the bus and rode back home again.

Soccerball Building

Having had to cram the whole mountain experience into two days left me a bit dazed – if not grumpy. Once I got over myself, I gradually realised what I had beheld at Yellow Mountain. It wasn’t only a lump of stone, it may have been more; it could even have been a test of character. Everyone I spoke to afterwards who had visited the mountain either loved it or hated it but no one has ever walked away from Yellow Mountain untouched.

* Roux van Zyl worked at The Herald and the Daily Dispatch, where he was the business editor, before going back to university to do an honours degree in business and then moving to China this year. He is living in Xiaoshan, a satellite city of the bigger city Hangzhou, where he is teaching and learning to speak Chinese. Roux is also a published poet in Afrikaans.

Popularity: 3% [?]

By JANET HEARD

Clocks dictate the rhythm of modern life. For journalists, it’s deadlines that rule. So when a group of overworked mid-career hacks were plucked from shrinking newsrooms and conflict zones, relocated to the cerebral US city of Cambridge to indulge in personal growth and academic exploration – and ordered off deadline for 10 months – there was more than a degree of post-traumatic stress.

Home for a year.

Going through my crammed sabbatical diary this week as my Nieman fellowship at Harvard University draws to a close, I see how my class contained the jitters. We set our own chaotic rhythm. Talks, media workshops, interviews, Harvard classes, conferences and media award-ceremonies competed with social events, music gigs and squash round robins, family-friendly soccer and sight-seeing across the Charles River in Boston -  plus an obligatory Red Sox baseball game.

We dipped into the events calendar of the 34 other institutions of higher learning in  Boston, but diary fatigue inevitably kicked in.

“The fellowship is like a hose,” former Nieman fellow, Gail Smith, told me before my departure from South Africa last August.  “It just does not stop flowing.”

I left South Africa with my husband Steve Pike and children, Tyler, then 13 and Ella, 7. During “course shopping” in Orientation Week, I sampled classes at the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and Kennedy School of Government. In a Leadership class, a self-assured student dominated discourse with an intimidating professor, Ronald Heifitz. I discovered afterwards that the student was used to seizing centre stage – she was actress Ashley Judd.

Last a student (and not a very studious one) more than 20 years ago at Rhodes University, it was intimidating to walk into an undergraduate class.  Here, ambitious, super-privileged young brains gather before world-renowned professors. Instead of pen and paper, students are armed with Apple Macs. They toggle effortlessly between note-taking and social-networking. When they raise their hand to ask a question, they don’t get stage fright or verbal dyslexia. The words flow melodically from their lips.

This is, after all, Harvard with a big H. More than 70 years ago, Nieman founder and benefactor Agnes Wahl Nieman battled to convince the Ivy League university bosses to let a Motley Crew of journalists loose on campus for a year of intellectual enrichment. Considered a “very dubious experiment” at the time, the first class of experienced journalists – some with basic education – were put to the test. The programme flourished. So far, more than 1,300 journalists – including about 80 South Africans starting with Aubrey Sussens and Lewis Nkosi in 1960 – have made the pilgrimage to Harvard for “a year of learning, exploration and fellowship”.

I have had the privilege of observing famous professors in action.  Like an extra on a TV show, I saw African-American studies Professor Henry “Skip” Gates impress students with his provocative social oratory. In my modern African History class, Professor Caroline Elkins, who won a Pulitzer for her book on British atrocities in Kenya, Imperial Reckoning, shattered preconceived ideas about my misunderstood continent.

Lippmann House, the headquarters of the Nieman Foundation, became my second home. There, I succeeded where Palestinians in Gaza were thwarted when linguist and US rebel, Noam Chomsky, shared his views with fellows at one of our weekly seminars. At Lippmann, I also experimented with fiction writing under the razor-sharp eye of author Rose Moss – a former South African.

In our weekly New Media class, the crisis in journalism dominated discussion. We quickly grew tired of writing our own epitaph. We looked for solutions. Slow learners like myself embraced new challenges. Switching from seeing the digital era as the Grim Reaper, I latched on to the label “tra-digital journalist” – one who adapts to new mediums, but retains traditional principles and values.

Surrounded by many journalists who have adopted social networking and self-promotion to survive in the revolutionary news business in the United States, I opened a twitter account and a Linked-In account. I started a blog.  I downloaded tweetdeck, audacity, realplayer, dropbox and Skype.

Janet and husband Steve at her "sounding" at which Nieman fellows talk about their lives as journalists back home (and do the cooking -- Janet and Steve served up a South African feast.)

Our class of more than 30 fellows and affiliates (spouses) swapped notes about experiences in different corners of the globe – such as Gaza, Venezuela, Chile, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Britain, Portugal, China, Cuba and Peru. Fellows who covered the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and others who have been hounded by the state shocked us with stories about death and destruction, cover-ups and self-censorship.

We became a family. We bonded over shared passions and principles – non-fiction storytelling, press freedom, justice and truth-telling. We agreed that the craft of journalism needs to be cherished, no matter the medium.

End-of-year panic set in a few weeks ago. Over-stimulated and exhausted, I reached out for more. I toured the Boston Globe – the daily metropolitan newspaper. I sneaked a visit to the Lampoon – Harvard’s satirical magazine. I ventured into one of eight all-male final clubs, The Spee – which stands chauvinistically today 50 years after feminism.  I also popped in to the court house in Boston to say howzit to the Chief Justice of Massachusetts, Margaret Marshall, a former South African anti-apartheid activist.

The Nieman tap is still flowing, but I have reached my word count and missed my deadline. I wonder, do you think my editor-in-chief will be sympathetic if I ask for a sabbatical from my sabbatical when I get back to Cape Town?

*    Janet Heard is a 2010 Nieman fellow of journalism at Harvard University and executive editor of the Weekend Argus. Click here to go to Janet’s blog.

Popularity: 14% [?]

South African journalist ROUX VAN ZYL moved to China this year, to Xiaoshan, a satellite city of the bigger city Hangzhou, where he is teaching and learning to speak Chinese. An old mate and colleague of  Grubstreet’s, Roux writes here about his struggles in learning to speak Chinese, regarded by many as one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn:

Roux van Zyl

My Chinese is coming along  slowly. I’m doing writing lessons now. And also soaking up vocab. I have learned basic grammar structures like: I want/I like/I have/I don’t have — as well as the question versions of these forms. I got most numbers down, which is crucial for shopping and dealing with money. I addition I have learned some kids’ rhymes and am starting to learn songs that I can practice in the Kareoke bar (called KTV here).

The most difficult part of the language is the tones and pronunciation and I spent about a month only on that, so once I got that down my listening improved as well as communication with others — at least they can now understand what I’m saying!

I’m learning Mandarin, or Putong Hua as it’s called here, which is the Northern Dialect (Beijing and north/east towards Mongolia, Russia, North Korea) and also the official language — and is spoken all around China with various regional accents. I can understand no word of the local dialect in Xiaoshan, which does not resemble Putong Hua except for the numbers.

Funny enough they use the same characters for writing the same words across the country’s 50-odd dialects although the pronunciation differs immensely. The sound of the Xiaoshan local dialect often reminds me of Russian or some East European language… it does not have the open-mouthed stereotypical Chinese sound like Mandarin or Cantonese. For example, the only word of the local dialect that I know is: Nashdelaar (I spell it as it’s pronounced) — which means “idiot”. Of course, the kids call each other by that name quite often.

Another funny thing is that the Chinese like using numbers to insult other people: like 3-8 (San Ba), which is the same as “bitch” and is derived from Women’s Day which is on March 8 (3/8) or “250″ (er bai wu) which means stupid/idiot — and is derived from the amount of financial support each mentally handicapped person gets from the Chinese government each month (Y250).

* Roux worked at The Herald and the Daily Dispatch, where he was the business editor, before going back to university to do an honours degree in business and then moving to China.  He is also a published poet in Afrikaans.

Popularity: 7% [?]

By ANDREW TRENCH

There’s nothing like an election to get hacks happy and there’s nothing like election coverage to showcase the full power of the web as a journalism tool. As the results of the fascinating election in the UK this morning unfold, so does a great case study of how media can use the web to cover such an event.
Back home in SA we have local government elections to look forward to next year and the British election coverage gives us some good ideas on how we might shape some of our online coverage. Read the full story

Popularity: 3% [?]

Here’s a great piece of in-depth journalism into Jeffry Picower, a June profile of Jeffry Picower, the 67-year-old businessman and philanthropist who reaped billions from Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and who was found dead in his pool in Palm Beach, Florida, recently. The piece is from ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom in the US that produces investigative online journalism in the public interest. Click here to go to there.

By Jake Bernstein, ProPublica – June 23, 2009 12:28 pm EDT

Jeffry Picower is alleged to have taken in $5.1 billion as a result of fraudulent returns from Madoff accounts. (Courtroom rendering of Madoff trial/Christine Cornell/AFP/Getty Images; Photo of Picowers portrait/Ryan Mark)

It is rare these days to see Bernard Madoff’s name in print unaccompanied by the word “Ponzi.” Yet recent allegations raise the possibility of one key difference between Madoff’s crimes and those of legendary con artist Charles Ponzi. While Ponzi’s scam was under way, Ponzi himself was its biggest beneficiary. It now appears that the biggest winner in Madoff’s scheme may not have been Madoff at all, but a secretive businessman named Jeffry Picower.

Between December 1995 and December 2008, Picower and his family withdrew from their various Madoff accounts $5.1 billion more than they invested with the self-confessed swindler, according to a lawsuit  filed by the trustee who is trying to recover money for those Madoff defrauded.

In contrast, shortly after he confessed, Madoff declared his household net worth to be between $823 and $826 million, according to court documents. While the Madoffs clearly lived opulently, no evidence has emerged that their combined assets and expenditures approached the amount the Picower family is alleged to have withdrawn from the scheme.

In an era when billions of dollars are being tossed about in financial collapses and government bailouts, remarkably little attention has been paid to Jeffry Picower’s extraordinary success with Bernie Madoff. If Picower has penetrated the popular consciousness at all, it is as a Madoff victim. The victim narrative is buoyed by testimonials from the nonprofits who received funding from his charitable foundation – which quickly closed on the heels of the swindler’s confession. For this reason, ProPublica decided to take a closer look at both Jeffry Picower and the complaint filed against him by Madoff trustee Irving Picard.

Fortunately for the trustee and the federal investigators presently swarming over the case, Madoff apparently kept detailed notes of communications between his office and his clients. But despite this documentary evidence, which is cited but not provided in court documents, Picard’s complaint raises more questions than it answers. Above all, what was the exact relationship between the two men? The complaint is larded with the legal catch-all phrase, “knew or should have known,” to describe Picower’s cognizance of Madoff’s fraud, but the intricacies of the relationship are left to the imagination.

The complaint states that the Picowers were beneficiaries of the Ponzi scheme for more than 20 years. The withdrawals listed between 1995 and 2008 reveal a pattern of large quarterly disbursements, transferred to Picower-controlled accounts by check or sometimes wire, that peak in 2003. Three years later something happens that causes the amount to drop precipitously. It recovers slightly the following year, but the highest-flying days are over for good.

One question is the role that Picower’s charitable giving played in all of this. The amount Picower withdrew for his foundation is separate from the quarterly withdrawals for his personal accounts. During the 1995-2008 time span, Picower took out about $291 million from Madoff for the foundation account. During the same period, the foundation doled out more than $235 million in donations, according to tax forms.

Perhaps the most pertinent question: If Picower withdrew $5.1 billion in “profit” from Madoff, where did all the money go? The Picowers own a home in Palm Beach that is appraised at a little over $28 million. They also have a 28.4-acre compound in Connecticut valued at $4.5 million. A search of numerous online sources, both aggregate databases and county property records for the couple, their daughter, and the companies named in the complaint, reveals few other major assets. If someone needed the skills to hide billions of dollars, few would be better equipped than Picower, an attorney and accountant who has been described as a “tax shelter expert.” Even so, it’s curious our search did not even uncover a boat or plane under the Picower name.

Messages left for Picower and his wife Barbara requesting comment for this story were not returned. Their lawyer, William Zabel, declined to comment to ProPublica on the Madoff matter. Earlier, Zabel told The Wall Street Journal that the couple “were in no way complicit in” Madoff’s scheme.

Emailed questions to David Sheehan, an attorney at Baker & Hostetler who is working alongside Picard on the case, went unanswered.

Picower, 67, began his career as an accountant and lawyer in New York but seems to have made much of his fortune as an investor in the medical industry. He has avoided media interviews and, with a few notable exceptions, succeeded in keeping a low profile. If the Picowers were recognized at all, prior to their Madoff notoriety, it was through praise for their philanthropy. Yet even here, their ties to Madoff loomed large. The growth of their largest foundation was attributed to their Madoff investments. Madoff himself served as a trustee on another Picower foundation.

The court-appointed trustee makes a powerful, albeit still largely circumstantial, case in court filings that Picower knew Madoff’s fund was illegitimate. Although Madoff ostensibly produced eerily consistent 10-12 percent annual returns for his clients, the returns he provided Picower were other worldly:

* In 14 instances between 1996 and 2007, a group of Picower trading accounts experienced annual returns of more than 100 percent. On 25 occasions, the annual return exceeded 50 percent. During this same period, the biggest annual gain in either the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the S&P 500 was 31 percent, for the S&P in 1997. The S&P 500′s annual average for that period was slightly under 9 percent.
* The annual rate of return for two of Picower’s regular trading accounts in the four years between 1996 and 1999 ranged from about 120 percent to more than 550 percent annually.
* In 1999, one account earned 950 percent.

Picower belonged to a select group of Madoff investors who received souped-up returns. A Wall Street Journal story published in May cited unnamed sources saying that prosecutors were looking into eight investors who appear to have received special treatment from Madoff. Among the eight named, Picower seems to have withdrawn the most money, with the bulk of it coming from an account called “Decisions, Inc.” According to the Madoff trustee’s court filings, “the account reflected little trading activity and relatively few holdings,” yet Picower took hundreds of millions out of it. At the time of Madoff’s arrest, the account had a reported negative net cash balance of more than $6 billion.

At the beginning of each quarter, the Picowers received sums that grew from an annual total of $330 million in 1996 to $1 billion in 2003. These withdrawals were divided into odd numbers spread over various accounts. Added together, they usually equaled large even sums. For example, on January 2, 2003, Picower withdrew $1,378,852 from his account Jln Partnership. Yet when withdrawals across all accounts were totaled for that day, they amounted to precisely $250 million.

Picower’s quarterly withdrawals reached their zenith in 2003 and then decreased by half the next year, eventually dropping to their lowest point in 2006. For some reason, the quarterly withdrawals totaled an uneven $16,975,422 in 2006, only to rebound to exactly $40 million in 2007.

Picower’s extraordinary gains do not appear to have been achieved at random. The trustee’s complaint details how Picower, often acting through a subordinate, ordered up “returns” which Madoff’s office then delivered. In some cases, Picower is alleged to have requested backdated returns for trades or sales of securities.

* On April 18, 2006, Picower wired $125 million to Madoff to open a new account. Madoff’s office began “purchasing” securities in the account, but “it backdated the vast majority of these purported transactions to January 2006″ when the stock market was at its lowest for the period, according to the complaint. Twelve days later, the net equity value of the account was $164 million, a gain of $39 million – or more than 30 percent – in less than two weeks.
* The complaint details conversations between Picower associate April Freilich and Madoff’s office beginning around May 14, 2007, when Freilich stated that the Picower Foundation needed gains during January and February of 2006, a year earlier.
* On May 18, Freilich specified that the foundation needed “$20 mil in gains” and “want[ed] 18% for year[] 08 appreciation” for January and February of that year. Five days later, Freilich changed the amount to $12.3 million. Subsequent statements reflected gains of $12.6 million.
* On December 22, 2005, Picower or Freilich allegedly faxed a letter to Madoff dated December 1, directing him to sell specific holdings. The statement for that month reflects that the sales were finalized on December 2, a process that typically takes three days. The clues that the letter was back-dated: A fax with the tell-tale December 22 date and an attached portfolio appraisal dated December 16 that included the positions that were supposedly “sold.”
* On or around December 29, 2005, Freilich allegedly faxed a letter to Madoff asking for $50 million in gains across certain accounts. Subsequent statements generated by Madoff for the accounts show stock sales, presumably to satisfy the request, that were supposedly recorded around December 8 and 9, 2005, approximately three weeks prior to Freilich’s letter.

Who is Jeffry Picower?

The Picowers’ generosity to deserving charities, particularly in New York, Florida, and Massachusetts, has earned them admiration and respect. However, the image belies a more complex reality.

The Picowers gave to a host of worthy causes from the Children’s Aid Society to the New York City Ballet, but Jeffry Picower’s passion centered on health issues, particularly funding for medical research. On December 1, 2005, the couple made a rare public appearance at a ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to dedicate a new center to study the brain, the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. The Picowers’ gift of $50 million, spread over five years, was the single largest from a private foundation in the school’s history. In a video of the ceremony, Nobel Prize winning Japanese scientist Susumu Tonegawa told the crowd that without the Picowers there would be no institute. The Picowers stood by silently as Tonegawa unveiled a portrait of the couple to conclude the ceremony.

The gift to MIT was the largest single donation to an outside entity the Picower Foundation had ever made, according to tax forms the foundation filed. Prior to late 1995, when Madoff trustee Picard’s records start tracking Picower’s Madoff activity, the Picower Foundation was relatively small in size and scope. At year’s end in 1994, it had assets of just under $75 million and had donated $375,754. By 2007, it was reporting about $958 million in assets and about $23.4 million in donations for the year.

Picower’s attention to cutting-edge medicine was the sole focus of a second foundation, The Picower Institute for Medical Research, created to find cures for human diseases. He launched the Institute in 1991 with a $10 million donation from the Picower Foundation. Madoff served as a trustee of the Institute.

In 2001, the St. Petersburg Times revealed that Picower used both his foundations and a private corporation called PharmaSciences, of which he was the majority shareholder, to gain control of a potentially lucrative medical discovery. In 1999, Picower merged PharmaSciences with a for-profit spinoff of his institute called Cytokine Networks, essentially negotiating with himself. The merged company called Cytokine PharmaSciences had the rights to develop a new drug that could help minimize such illnesses as arthritis and multiple sclerosis. The newspaper raised the question of whether Picower had shortchanged his nonprofit in the deal.

An IRS audit concluded that the Picower Foundation had not jeopardized its tax status or incurred extra liability during the period in question. The Foundation’s lawyer William Zabel provided ProPublica with a letter from the IRS dated September 2006 that he said “cleared the Foundation.” Addressed to Barbara Picower, the letter is from the IRS’ Office of Exempt Organizations and formally accepts the Foundation’s tax returns. Zabel also said that shares Picower received from the merger were given to other charitable organizations.

The publicity-shy Picower is no stranger to lawsuits or regulators, a trip through several decades of legal and regulatory filings reveals. In 1984, the SEC cited him for a late disclosure over how much he owned in a company called Bradford National Corporation. The SEC filing alleged that Picower was part of a scheme to take over the company.

A year later Picower had to pay out a $21-million settlement when shareholders sued over the collapse of Physicians Computer Network. Picower controlled 45 percent of the stock and chaired the company before it went belly up. In 1989, Picower paid an undisclosed settlement over a questionable tax shelter he helped set up years earlier for a client. In 1990, it was Picower’s turn to recover money – from a settlement involving infamous insider trader Ivan Boesky. Picower had been one of his investors.

Perhaps the most revealing case against Picower was a lawsuit filed for failure to pay for renovations on his New York office. Picower alleged that general contractor McHugh, DiVincent Alessi had done such a bad job on his office that the toilets didn’t even flush properly, according to Jeremy Morley, the firm’s lawyer at the time. Rather than take Picower at his word, the judge decided the jury members should see for themselves. Arriving by city bus from the courtroom, the judge, with jury in tow, made a surprise visit to Picower’s office.

“The jury wandered around, looking at the office, testing the toilet,” Morley said. “They quickly realized that the case was full of crap in more ways than one.”

The judge awarded Morley’s client what Picower owed them and some of their attorney fees, according to the lawyer.

Picower’s legal and regulatory history was outlined in an article by Forbes Magazine. The 2002 article, which didn’t mention Picower’s activities with Madoff, said Picower was “worth at least $300 million.” That same year, the trustee reports, Picower’s quarterly withdrawals from Madoff totaled $895 million.

* ProPublica Research Director Lisa Schwartz and Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

Popularity: 6% [?]

By FAATIMAH HENDRICKS

Although I am just over two decades old I can now say to teenagers and little kids “When I was a girl” or “when I was a little child” or even “In MY day”.

Times have changed and is still in the process of changing. With a teenage brother and a sister who hasn’t reached the double digits yet, I can see this.

When I was at primary school I played Hopscotch. Who remembers jumping around from block to block? I played marbles with the boys during interval (and I beat them most times, might I add). I played Red Rover with them (and I am proud to say I out ran them).

I played with a spinning top, perhaps the action is better known as “kapping tol”. I loved my Coca Cola yoyo! I played Buck Raages. I played Kennetjie (that’s the one where you throw the sticks, right?).

And while I was an only child I played “school school” with my imaginary students. I even gave them a hiding when they didn’t listen to me!

I’m from the era where I got a hiding at primary school. And my parents encouraged my teachers! And I had to take it like a woman. Now the kids are attacking the teachers. And what comes out of these kiddies’ mouths are “you have no right to hit me”, “it’s abuse”, “I will take you to the police”. Oh, how times have changed.

My brother came along and he played with marbles and spinning tops for some years in primary school. Soon after it fizzled out. And then I never saw or heard of kids playing with them. I don’t recall him ever having a real yoyo, or being able to swing one properly.

Now, I’m not sure if this is because my bro and sis go to “white” schools and I went to a “coloured” school… or what? I will tackle race and “white areas” and “coloured areas” on another day. That’s a heavy topic.

My sister arrived on the planet and she has never owned a yoyo or a tol. She doesn’t know how to play all the hopscotch games and she has never played “school school” or “housie housie” on her own.

Now they come home from school and occupy their time with the internet and online games. Lil sis even has her own email address! And she so wishes she had a Facebook account. But I insisted that FB is not for little girls. Can’t have my angel be exposed to stalkers!

On another note. Are there still pen-pal columns in magazines? I used to look for the ideal pen-pal in People magazine when I was about 11. I never actually got round to finding that person because I sooooo wasn’t going to give my address! Yes, I am paranoid. I know.

Do people actually still look for pen-pals? And post letters? All you need to do now is have Twitter and Facebook accounts and randomly follow/add people. And voila! You instantly have friends from all across the globe. No need to go hunting for them anymore.

I can proudly say that I have had the experience of licking a stamp and sticking it on a letter a few times before. And then putting the letter in that red box. I wonder how often people still do that and how often Postman Pat empties that red box. And I wonder how many children “of today” have licked stamps.

I’m really not even on the planet for very long, yet I can talk about Chappies bubblegum being 10c and Wilson blocks being 20c. Now they are 30c and 60c, if I remember correctly. Or is 711 being skelm? Do you still get 50c chips?

Ok, I know the price differences aren’t, like, major. But at least I can say “When I was a girl…”

* Faatimah Hendricks is a Cape Town journalist, blogger and honours student. Click here to go to her blog.

Popularity: 9% [?]

By Christopher Flavelle, ProPublica – October 12, 2009 9:59 am EDT

When US President Barack Obama took office and ordered the detention center at Guantanamo closed by next January, the biggest challenge was supposed to be the hard cases. Those were the ones in which the detainees were too dangerous to be let go but in which the evidence was insufficient for an American court, or had been obtained through torture, or would endanger national security if it became public. But a case decided last month in a Washington, D.C., federal court shows that for the Obama administration, the far easier cases—in which a judge has ordered a detainee released because there’s no evidence he poses a danger—can also be hard.

On Sept. 17, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the release of Fouad Al Rabiah, a Kuwaiti detained at Guantanamo since 2002. She cited the complete lack of evidence justifying his detention. Kuwait is willing to take Al Rabiah back. Yet nearly a month later, he is still languishing at Guantanamo, along with at least 16 other detainees who have likewise been ordered released by a judge. By contrast, no more than 13 of the detainees ordered released have actually left Guantanamo. As the Obama administration telegraphs that it will probably miss its January deadline for closing Guantanamo, these cases raise the question of how much the government is even trying to place detainees.

Kollar-Kotelly found that the government had no grounds to keep holding Al Rabiah, a 50-year-old aviation engineer. The government alleged that Al Rabiah “provided material support to the Taliban and Al Qaida,” but the judge ruled that the evidence against him was “surprisingly bare,” consisting almost exclusively of confessions that even Al Rabiah’s own interrogators didn’t believe. The judge also found that Al Rabiah was subjected to “abusive techniques that violated both the Army Field Manual and the 1949 Geneva Convention[s].” She ordered the government to facilitate his release “forthwith,” writing, “If there exists a basis for Al Rabiah’s indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court.”

But David Cynamon, one of Al Rabiah’s lawyers, says that the DoJ has refused to tell even him whether his client has been cleared for release. (I called, and they wouldn’t tell me, either.) “I’ve learned that DoJ has to be hit with a two-by-four before they will do anything voluntarily re[garding] Gitmo,” Cynamon wrote in an e-mail.

The government has 60 days to decide whether to appeal; Dean Boyd, a DoJ spokesman, told me no decision has been made about that. (Of the 30 cases in which a federal judge has ruled that a detainee be released, the government has filed an appeal for two of them.)

Even without an appeal, the government could continue to hold Al Rabiah. In February, the Obama administration created  the Guantanamo Detainee Review Task Force to determine which detainees may be safely released or transferred to another country, a process independent of the federal court cases. Because the government doesn’t release the task force’s rulings, it’s impossible to know whether it has decided that some detainees who have won their court cases should be kept in detention. Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg wrote  recently that the task force has cleared two Kuwaitis at Guantanamo to be released, but the Department of Justice won’t say whether Al Rabiah is one of them. The secrecy makes it that much harder to hold the administration accountable.

Other detainees in Al Rabiah’s situation have waited months for their release. On May 4, a federal judge ordered the release of Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a Yemeni detainee whom the government charged was part of the Taliban or al-Qaida. The judge in his case found that the government had “utterly failed to present evidence” to support its claim. But despite the court’s order on May 4 that Ahmed be released “forthwith,” he was not returned to Yemen until Sept. 26—four months and 22 days later. Yasin Muhammed Basardh, another Yemeni, was ordered released in April but remains at Guantanamo pending the government’s appeal. Meanwhile, 13 Chinese Uighur detainees are still in Guantanamo, a full year after they were ordered released, as our government looks for a third country—probably Palau —that will take them and where they will agree to go. (For more on the status of detainees who have had their cases decided in U.S. courts, check out this ProPublica interactive chart.) The Department of Justice announced Friday that two more detainees had been released. One of them had won his court case; the DoJ will not reveal the identity of the second man.

According to the New York Times, Obama administration officials worried that even if Ahmed was not dangerous when he was first detained, Guantanamo itself might have made him so, turning him against the United States. If genuine, that concern must apply to every one of the 221 prisoners who remain in Guantanamo—whatever the strength of the evidence against them.

* This article is courtesy of ProPublica,  an independent, non-profit newsroom in the US that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Click here to visit their excellent website.

Popularity: 5% [?]

BY MIKE LOEWE

The sun was out and the attitude was right. She needed the beach and Saturday was blue.

Grahamstown can be interminable on weekends. Dunno why because I love this place. It has a wonderful way of handling time – all those seasons and moods and switches. Just sometimes, you get to Sunday night and think: “Is that it?”

But this Saturday just said: “Beach!”

Simple sun worshipping. Unselfconscious. Real. Pic: Mike Loewe

You get people who are launching their rubber ducks into the dawn ready for a day of splendour. And you get those who launch their cars onto the freeway at noon, having visited the community market, dropped a child, spoken to moms, resolved little niggling, banal issues that just won’t let you go to the beach…

But the attitude was good, so armed with FooDude’s R20-a-slice baklava, plus shortbread and beetroot relish, and one teen, we happily puttered towards Kenton. I was resolved and at peace. No surfing today. Just swimming.

Tant Hettie’s farm stall on the vlakte above Salem is famous for two cyclists bonking (remember, it means getting tired, vulnerable and unable to continue) and only one of them calling home for a pick-up! (But they both took it, and we move on…)

Now it was my time to explore the store. Rushed into her darkened garage with its ancient shelves and single fridge. What would she look like? My late aunty Esme!

Her ginger beer is awesome, and with arms jammed with jars, we left this single-looking senior in her little house under giant gums and stopped only to look at rhinos a few kays outside Kenton.

A bit of faffing around (Mermaid beach is not the same as Aviator Girl’s cove) and we arrive.

The tide is in, such a wide shallow expanse of water. Easterly churn has turned it cold, but the sand is warm (not burny) and we make our way to the corner.

Daughter is delighted, but screeches as we wobble our way into the olive-coloured deep channel and we do that heart-pumping rush across (just in case a raggy decides to cruise the bay) and we are out in the ocean, on the flats. Exposed.

She goes in to the waist (familiar?) and stretches out on the sand, hat over head, in her styling, sporty black one-piece into that combo of intense light without the roasting.

Another family joins us. The beach is otherwise empty. And did I say vast?

We let the sun onto our pale skin. Not too long, because the next door Yorky runs up and snaffles into She’s hat-covered face!

Just an hour or so hanging out on this shoreline where earth and sea create endless energy and we’re peckish. (Later we’ll eat at Ocean Basket in Port Alfred on the banks of the Kowie. A treat.)

As we mosey along towards car, there is this remarkable sight.

A woman in full beachy outfit, slacks, blouse, hat, shoes. She should be upright, but has chosen to lie flat on the sand, stretched in full repose with that vista of hills and water in the background.

Simple sun worshipping. Unselfconscious. Real.

Great attitude.

* Mike Loewe is the editor of   Makana Moon, a quirky community paper in Grahamstown. Click here to check it out on the web.

Popularity: 12% [?]

by Dave Macgregor

The smoking life. This is not Dave Macgregor...he has a goat

I met god – with a little “g” – three months ago when I decided to finally kick a butt burning addiction that has cost me thousands of Rands over the past 25 years.
An average of 20 ciggies a day, 365 and a quarter days a year for 25 years, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize how much I have wasted since I sucked my first “cancer stick” – long before I even started shaving.
What the hell…I would have could have should have been a tycoon if I did not spend hundreds of thousands of hard earned clams on puffing.

Nobody held a gun to my head and – yes – I did know every smoke was “another nail in your coffin.”

But still I puffed.

I convinced myself I was so hooked, I would literally walk miles to buy some twak – no matter how poor I was – always fearing that if I did not get my nicotine fix I would climb walls.

Or so I thought.

It was so bad, I would be reaching for my smokes and lighting up – even before I realized what I was doing.

Before going to bed every night, I would make sure I had at least two “skyfs” left for the morning, one with a cup of mocca java – cos everybody knows it “tastes better” like that.

What a joke.

I found that all out during a five hour quit smoking session with god with a little “g” – taking a puff break every 30 minutes, nogal.

If a friend of mine could kick her 80 a day habit with god with a little “g” I could nail down my much smaller addiction.

Five hours later I realized how much smoking really sucked and stopped.

After huffing and puffing my way through 25 years of my life, the past three months have been the best.

Hooked as a teenager, 90 days after I had my last smoke I am slowly starting to feel like a teenager again as my lungs get to grips with some fresh air for a change.

Pity about the prune faced wrinkles I got from sucking on a million smokes or more though…

The hacking morning cough has gone; the wheezing before falling asleep is not as audible as before and I can hike up hills without huffing and puffing.

The body is slowly adjusting to being given a second chance at life.

For years Malcolm Robinson was just another surfing buddy – who also smoked 30 plus a day.

Now he is “Little g”.

After several failed attempts to quit, Malcolm stumbled on Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop smoking last year and is fast becoming a give-it-up guru.

Endorsed by major medical aid companies – with a money back guarantee if it does not work after three tries – I kicked it on the first attempt.

Not using any “nicotine substitutes” – like patches or sprays – or hypnotherapy, it is the sheer simplicity of the message that breaks down all the myths associated with smoking.

No shock tactics no horror pictures of tarred up lungs – just common sense.

I always thought I was hopelessly addicted until it was pointed out to me if it was so bad – how could I get eight solid hours of sleep a night?

Bingo.

A few more chirps like that and I did not want to smoke.

Eureka.

I now know coffee tastes much better without a smoke. A few puffs after a meal do not bring out the flavour.

“Little g” got hold of me and I really woke up and smelt the coffee…and really tasted my food

Forget the Iluminati and other conspiracy theories – the biggest hoax are the myths associated with smoking.

The joke is on us.

Sex may seem better after a smoke, but try kissing a mouth after 25 of those suckers and you will know what I mean.

I believed it all – until Malcom started his shpeel.

Every myth was met with a logical explanation and the smoke breaks started seeming a little pointless.

And, as promised I am not a miserable sod – even during the first week.

Nowdays my friends say that I am glowing. I can stand in a smoky room and not feel like a puff. I also do not feel like public enemy number 1.

Billed the “number one smoking cessation method in the world” – I have little reason to disagree.

When my son came home from school in tears after being shown the lungs of smokers – I knew I had to quit.

Thanks “Little g”

* Dave Macgregor is the wayward, surfing and butt-kicking correspondent for the Daily Dispatch in Port Alfred. He is also famous for adopting a goat while on a newspaper travel trip

Popularity: 13% [?]