Sufi Sect of Islam Draws ‘Spiritual Vagabonds’ in New York

Abstract: On a leafy block of West 72nd Street, a Muslim Sufi order meets each Thursday evening, squeezing into Abdul Latif’s three-bedroom apartment. You don’t have to know Mr. Latif, born John Healy, to attend. Raised in the Yorkville neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, he greeted his guests in Arabic with a thick New York accent, inviting them to sit on the floor. A group of about 10 beloveds, as they call one another, then stood and locked hands, forming a circle. Mr. Latif, 57, weaved around the ring, leading the chants in unison, including the 99 sacred names of God and prayers of adoration. The participants — mostly American-born converts to Islam — squeezed their eyes shut; some gently swayed, letting themselves be carried away by the rhythmic mantras. The pace of the chants quickened, one man stamped his feet, another wept silently, and after 30 minutes the beloveds were captivated and perspiring. Sufis call this practice zikr and see it as a way of connecting with God and elevating themselves through communal meditation. Worshipers frequently lose themselves in a spinning frenzy, as with the well-known whirling dervishes. Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam , has been cloaked in secrecy for most of its existence, having been forced underground by Ottoman rulers in the 13th century. Nowadays, however, many of these spiritual communities, like the beloveds in Mr. Latif’s apartment, are in plain view around the city if you know where to look. Some can even be found through a simple Google search. The Murid order, for instance, meets in West Harlem and follows the teachings of its Senegalese founder, Ahmadu Bamba. The Tijaniyya group congregates on Fridays in a brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The Naqshbandis meet on Saturday nights in a 19th-century church on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. Ahmad Khan Rahami, the New Jersey man whom the authorities blame for the Sept. 17 bombing in Manhattan, which prosecutors have said injured 31 people, is believed to have been inspired by radical Islam . American Muslims’ condemnations of the attack were immediate, but some were accompanied by concern that it could provoke anti-Muslim hysteria. Image Abdul Latif leading chanting by the Sufi group that meets in his apartment on the Upper West Side. Credit Nicole Craine for The New York Times The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a civil liberties organization, issued a statement that said, “Our nation is most secure when we remain united and reject the fear-mongering and guilt by association often utilized following such attacks.” Annmarie Agosta, who grew up in an Italian-American family in Brooklyn and became a Sufi in 2009 after exploring Paganism, Wicca and Buddhism, seemed to agree with this statement. “I feel a deep responsibility to stand for the true message of Islam, which is peace, tolerance, and compassion,” Ms. Agosta said. “This is the message of Sufism.” As a lesbian advocate for gay rights and a member of a congregation in TriBeCa, she led a service to honor those killed in the Orlando, Fla., massacre this summer. Many Americans anxious about domestic terrorism, however, are not interested in the nuances of various branches of Islam. And paradoxically, Sufis are often shunned by conservative Islam — the sect is dismissed as a diluted version of the faith, prioritizing the esoteric over the orthodox. “Sufism has never been embraced by mainstream Islam,” said Daisy Khan, founder of the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality and one-half of the couple who in 2010 sought to open a community center in Lower Manhattan, mislabeled the “ground zero mosque.” For Ms. Khan, the ethereal buzz of Sufism is its great appeal, a faith that is “beyond the realm of this world,” dealing with the “supernatural, the magical and love.” “Despite bad press,” she said, “people are still becoming Muslim and Sufi.” It is an interesting time to choose to become a Sufi. Before he became a beloved among Mr. Latif’s group on the Upper West Side, Bjorn Bolinder had come to New York from Minnesota with dreams of performing on Broadway. His father was a Baptist minister, and his childhood consisted of regular church services and Sunday school. “I didn’t feel connected to the divine there,” he said. “I had no experience of joy or aliveness.” He began seeking religion for himself in his mid-20s and came across Sufism through self-help spirituality books and a healing therapist. Mr. Bolinder, now 39, described an early spiritual moment as a downpour of light so bright that he had to open his eyes to double-check that the room lighting had not changed. “I suddenly realized that maybe this is God, not whatever I learned in church,” he said. “I felt like a completely different person. It was just so beautiful.” Image Chanting at the weekly gathering of a Sufi group led by Abdul Latif. Credit Nicole Craine for The New York Times Over the next few years, between auditions for acting roles, Mr. Bolinder continued his spiritual exploration, fasting, learning prayers and attending conventions. Most of Mr. Latif’s Upper West Side group regularly attended a Sufi retreat in Pope Valley, Calif., where the beloveds would meet with their grand sheikh, Sidi Muhammad Al-Jamal, a Palestinian cleric who died in November at 80. This is where Mr. Bolinder and other members took their “Sufi promise,” a pledge of allegiance to their teacher and God in a formal ceremony, in return receiving their Sufi names. Mr. Bolinder’s is Abdullah. Tall and blond, Mr. Bolinder doesn’t dress in a way that identifies him as a Sufi or a Muslim, although he occasionally thumbs his prayer beads on the subway. But having a Sufi name makes him part of a spiritual community. Five years after his “coming out as a Sufi,” he said, his parents are supportive, and his father has even taken a Sufi course on Jesus, who appears as a prophet in the Quran. “I feel sad for Muslims who don’t acknowledge Sufism as part of the breadth of the divine,” Mr. Bolinder said. “We are all one. They’re missing out.” Sufism cuts across all sects of the faith. “You can be a Shia or a Sunni or any type of Muslim and still be a Sufi,” said James W. Morris, professor of Islamic thought and history at Boston College. Often caricatured as kumbaya hippies, Sufis seek divine love and connection, but their practices encompass strict worldly rules and commitments: long services, dawn and night prayers, rigorous meditation and frequent fasting — in addition to the common Islamic practices of five daily prayers, the hajj pilgrimage and abstention from alcohol. Sufis cluster into tarikas, or spiritual orders, that are headed by a grand sheikh who may live in Cairo, but are led day to day by a local sheikh who could live in Queens. While few reliable estimates exist of the number of Sufis in America, Islam over all is rapidly growing. The Pew Research Center estimates that by 2050, Muslims will become the second-largest religious group in the United States , after Christians, totaling over eight million people. Discussing that growth, Khalid Latif, chaplain of the Islamic Center at New York University, said that in the city, “there’s an absence of spirituality and stillness,” and that even in times of heightened anxiety in the West about Muslims, the center saw a steady stream of the curious. He said that for many Americans, Sufism was an appealing first step. Image Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrah, center in 2005, who became a Sufi in the 1970s and now leads the Nur Jerrahi order. Credit James Estrin/The New York Times Tourists and shoppers in TriBeCa could easily miss the discreet blue plaque on a three-story building on West Broadway between a tavern and a brasserie. It reads, “Dergah Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order.” Inside is where New Yorkers are most likely to encounter whirling dervishes. Visitors, once they have removed their shoes, enter a prayer hall with a high ceiling and ornate green and gold Arabic calligraphy spelling out the Prophet Muhammad’s name decorating the walls. Books and prayer rugs are strewed about, and a table is laden with sweet Turkish tea and dates. A woman’s voice drifts across the hall, performing the public call to prayer — a role traditionally reserved for men. What makes the order most unusual is that its local sheikh is a woman: the former Philippa de Menil, 69, part of Texas oil aristocracy . She became a Sufi in the 1970s, and, now known as Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi, has led the Nur Jerrahi order since its founder’s death in 1995. Wearing a flowing white gown, her hair half-wrapped in a blue turban, Sheikha Fariha completes the call to prayer and summons the group’s members to stand side by side, avoiding the more orthodox Islamic practice of positioning men up front. Sheikha Fariha gives few interviews, and she declined to speak to a reporter, but her longtime secretary, Abdul Rahim, answered questions about the congregation. A female sheikh shouldn’t be viewed as unusual, said Mr. Rahim, who was born Thomas Rippe and grew up in Brooklyn. “We don’t put an emphasis on women; we emphasize equality,” he said. “We think of it as a certain kind of maturity.” The order has no dress code and no rules on sexual orientation. Indeed, the order is so liberal that some members don’t even label themselves as Muslims. This kind of unorthodox approach, said Marcia Hermansen, director of the Islamic world studies program at Loyola University Chicago, is both the root of Sufism’s appeal and its weakness. Charismatic leaders like Sheikha Fariha have spurred Sufism’s growth in America, she said, with New York in particular attracting “loosey-goosey liberal Sufism.” And yet for all its liberal trappings, Sufism cannot be detached from Islam. “Sufism isn’t just a label you wear; it’s a state of being,” said John Andrew Morrow, an Islam scholar and author. “You can’t pick and choose parts of Islam, and you can’t mislead sincere people, drawing them into Sufism without telling them this is fundamentally linked to Islam.” Image Mr. Latif holding prayer beads, called Misbahah. Credit Nicole Craine for The New York Times Part of this problem, he said, is the American tradition of “spiritual vagabonds.” “They bounce around from one spiritual tradition to another,” he said, “like going to a buffet.” Like the Shadhili group on the Upper West Side, Jerrahi members participate in long zikr services; theirs last until the wee hours. During a recent session, members formed a sitting circle, perched on low wooden stools and placed their hands on their hearts, swaying as they sang a communal tune. One man lightly tapped out a beat on a Persian drum; another young woman passed around a hymnbook, in English, so that newcomers could sing along. A few late worshipers trickled in and joined the circle, hastily removing their shoes and respectfully bowing in the direction of Sheikha Fariha, who had the bearing of a slightly bossy school principal. During the service, one man discreetly made to leave the room. Her eyes tightly closed, legs crossed and back straight, Sheikha Fariha snapped, “Where are you going?” The man jumped at being noticed and sheepishly replied, “To the restroom.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand without ever opening her eyes. Sitting on the floor of the main prayer hall was Juliet Rabia Gentile, 36, who has belonged to this order for more than a decade. “I was always interested in Sufi culture: music, dance, art and the works of the Persian poets Rumi and Hafez,” Ms. Gentile said. “It was definitely more of a cultural rather than spiritual interest at first.” Her upbringing in New York City was Christian. “Initially, my family thought I was experimenting and it would probably go away after a couple of years,” she said. “Certain friends were surprised I’d become a Muslim, especially post-9/11.” The group’s female leadership was a lure for Ms. Gentile, who is proud that American Sufism has cultivated an atmosphere of acceptance. “Our sheikha is an unusual product of American religious freedoms,” she said. But she is also aware that Sufis are in a difficult position, both within Islam and within American culture. “Sufis nowadays are under attack and called heretics,” she said. “It’s ironic given all the Islamophobia, there’s been a surge of growth of interest. People just want to understand.” Ms. Gentile doesn’t wear the headscarf outside the Dergah. “I can sense that the vibe here is changing,” she said. “Americans have reached heightened paranoia in the two years since ISIS emerged. People are becoming irrational.” She said her fellow New Yorkers were less likely to be swayed by panic. But she is nonetheless wary. “Fear is a strong drug,” she said.

Islam
Sufism
NYC
Muslim Americans
Fariha al- Jerrahi


Turkey to Alter Speech Law

Abstract: IZMIR, Turkey — When Atilla Yayla, a maverick political science professor, offered a mild criticism of Turkey’s first years as a country, his remarks unleashed a torrent of abuse. “Traitor!” a newspaper headline shouted. His college dismissed him. State prosecutors in this western city, where he spoke, opened a criminal case against him. His crime? Violating an obscure law against insulting the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk , Turkey’s founder. “I need thoughts to counter my ideas,” Mr. Yayla said. “Instead they attacked me.” Turkey’s government has taken on the issue of free speech and is expected as early as Friday to announce a weakening of a law against insulting Turkishness, an amendment that is considered a key measure of the democratic maturity of this Muslim country as it tries to gain acceptance to the European Union . But while that law, called Article 301, is known to many in the West — Orhan Pamuk , the Nobel Prize -winning Turkish novelist, was prosecuted under 301 — it is just one of many laws that limit freedom of expression for intellectuals in Turkey. The law under which Mr. Yayla was prosecuted, for example, dates from 1951 and is not even part of the penal code. While the change in Article 301 is likely to stop the wanton application of that law, the single most common statute used against critics of Turkey’s official line, the government was unable to remove it from the books completely, as liberals here had wanted. The reason goes to the heart of the state of Turkey today: Despite its booming economy, gay pride parades and ambitious European aspirations, a large part of Turkish society is deeply conservative. When it comes to free speech, many Turks support the limitations. As nationalism has been rising in Turkey in response to the broad changes sweeping society, so have the number of court cases against writers, publishers and academics. The European Union, in a report in November, said the number of such people prosecuted almost doubled in 2006 over the year before, and rose further in 2007. In all, about 39 articles limit free expression in Turkey, though only 13 are commonly used, said Zafer Gokdemir, a rights lawyer who has represented defendants in these cases since 1995. The laws are deeply damaging, liberals argue, because they block society’s thinkers from asking the difficult questions needed to overcome a painful past. Turkey was born fighting for its life against European powers that were carving it up at the end of World War I. It was left defensive, with low self-esteem and weak institutions, and a deep-seated insecurity lingers. But unlike Russians who were cynical about the Soviet state, most Turks strongly believe in their system. Nationalist taboos on questioning official history are held in place as much by society as by Turkey’s controlling state. The legal complaints, for that reason, emerge from the most insecure part of society: a nationalist, sometimes violent fringe, whose political backers are the staunchly secular old guard. With vast power, but limited public accountability, that old guard is not unlike senior Soviet apparatchiks. The heart of this class works in the military, an elite institution in Turkey, and in the judiciary. In Turkey’s court system, any private citizen can file a complaint, requiring prosecutors to investigate, and a vast majority of the freedom of expression cases begin that way. An ultranationalist lawyer who started the case against Mr. Pamuk, Kemal Kerincsiz, said in an interview that he had gotten about 50 cases opened since 2005. Mr. Yayla’s speech, in 2006 at a youth conference in Izmir, drew eight complaints, including one from the Izmir Bar Association, according to his lawyer, Nalan Erkem. Mr. Yayla’s argument — that the early years of the republic were less democratic than the period after Turkey became a multiparty system, and that Ataturk’s monopoly on public images would be perplexing to Europeans — “had no basis in science,” said Huseyin Durdu, a Turkish patriot lawyer and a complainant. Asked what would happen if the law were rescinded, Mr. Durdu looked stricken. “People would be insulting each other,” he said, in an immaculate office in downtown Izmir, a small bust of Ataturk on the wall behind him. “It would be conflict and chaos.” Mr. Yayla, for his part, said he was simply trying to provoke a thoughtful discussion on the monopoly of political symbols. “Of course we need to have Ataturk statues, but there are other people in Turkish history, and they deserve statues, too,” he said by telephone. In a surprising twist, Turkey’s class of religious Muslims — deeply despised by the secular old guard primarily because it is considered a serious threat to the old guard’s power — has pushed to weaken the laws. President Abdullah Gul has said that Article 301 has been as damaging to Turkey’s reputation as “Midnight Express,” a 1978 film about an American drug smuggler brutalized in a Turkish prison. The old guard, which professes to stand for Western values but in fact is deeply suspicious of the freedoms they would bring, deftly places obstacles in the path of the religious class by invoking the specter of extremism. Mr. Yayla, who cites John Stuart Mill and John Locke, is harder for the old guard to trip up. Indeed, Mr. Yayla’s speech was so scholarly that the only thing his critics found to charge him with formally was referring to Ataturk as “this man.” (For reference, in the Turkish Constitution, he is described as the “immortal leader and unrivaled hero.”) The prosecutions result in suspended sentences, fines, closings of publishing houses, but rarely jail time. Even so, they have chilled free speech. Public trials go for months and draw leering ultranationalists. Last year one turned lethal when a nationalist teenage gunman killed Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist. Mr. Yayla is now in self-imposed exile in Britain, even though his job in Turkey was reinstated. Before leaving, he moved around with a bodyguard. The convictions that sometimes do carry jail time are often against Kurds. An arsenal of laws relating to the charge of terrorism is aimed at Kurdish writers, publishers and artists. “When you use the word Kurd or Kurdistan, you are conducting terrorist propaganda, no matter what you are saying,” said Ahmet Onal, a Kurdish publisher of 270 books, for which he has stood trial 27 times and served prison terms twice. The issue of Kurds is delicate because Turkey has been warring with a militant fringe of its Kurdish population since the 1980s, and the lines between expression and revolt are blurry. For years the old guard refused to acknowledge its Kurds as a distinct population. Many Turks say European countries should be more understanding of Turkey, a far younger state than many, with bigger problems. European democracy is a “thornless garden,” said Umit Kocasakal, a lawyer. Besides, he says, Europeans have similar laws restricting speech. Articles 90A and 90B in Germany prohibit disparaging the state, its symbols and constitutional institutions, and Article 290 of the Italian penal code prohibits vilifying the republic and its military. But application in Europe is extremely rare. In Italy the only punishment is a fine. The laws in Turkey may be frustratingly tenacious but besides the amendment, the government is fighting back in its own way. It detained more than 30 ultranationalists with shady ties to the old guard on Tuesday in an operation that thrilled liberals. Among those detained was Mr. Kerincsiz, who had opened the cases against Mr. Pamuk and Mr. Dink. Mr. Yayla spends his days reading in Britain. He says it feels good to pore over pages about the possibility of free societies in Muslim countries. Despite Turkish liberals’ fight with the rigid, dying old guard, it is the new religious class that seems certain to determine the future of democracy in Turkey, and Mr. Yayla says he wants to be prepared. “I am an individualist,” he said. “I believe in the value of human beings. I don’t like insulting people. I can usually make my point without it.”

Turkey
European Union
Ataturk Kemal
Pamuk Orhan


Nautical Sprint Into Danger

Abstract: It has been 30 years since the Fastnet sailing race turned deadly, just two years since it turned very dangerous. And on Sunday off Cowes on the Isle of Wight, Mike Slade plans to take the helm of ICAP Leopard, his 100-foot maxi with the canting keel, and steer with the peace of mind that comes with being aboard one of the biggest, most weatherproof yachts in the regatta. “I’ve nothing but admiration for those who do this race in small boats in bad conditions,” Slade said. “You wouldn’t catch me doing that for all the tea in China. What can I tell you? I’m not proud.” But Slade, an ebullient 62-year-old property developer with a booming laugh that could cut through the fog of his home city of London, is very proud of what his imposing yacht managed to do in nasty weather during the last Fastnet, in 2007. With other yachts, including maxis, withdrawing from the race in droves because of high winds and big waves in the English Channel and beyond, Slade and his largely professional crew did much more than ride out the storm. Leopard shattered the race’s speed record by nearly nine hours to take line honors in a time of one day, 20 hours and 18 minutes. “I’d be very surprised if we ever beat that,” Slade said. “We were just lucky with the breeze and the angle and strength of the breeze at the time.” The Fastnet, one of the world’s traditional offshore challenges, once guaranteed its victors multiple nights at sea and an endurance test, but Slade’s new-generation yacht transformed the 608-mile, or 980-kilometer, test into a nautical sprint. “We’re getting even small boats now that are able to go very fast,” said Eddie Warden-Owen, veteran sailor and chief executive of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, which organizes the event. “The race has changed and evolved over the years, but for me, it’s still one of the classics. It has a toughness very different from Sydney-Hobart, because you have to go there and back. And you’ve got headlands and strong tidal currents to deal with.” The Fastnet is not quite there and back. It leaves from Cowes, rounds the Fastnet Rock off the southern coast of Ireland and then returns to the port of Plymouth, England. The race was the brainchild of a British sailor with the unsettling name of Weston Martyr. It was first staged in 1925 with seven starters, only four of whom finished the race. Over the decades, it has become the biennial, offshore exclamation point to the inshore festivities of Cowes Week. The Fastnet’s overall winners — meaning winners on corrected time — have included the Frenchman Éric Tabarly in 1967, the Australian Syd Fischer in 1971 and the driven American entrepreneur Ted Turner in 1979. But for all Turner’s celebrity, 1979 will always evoke much darker images, because of the disaster that left 15 competitors dead after an unexpected storm struck the fleet when many of the smaller yachts had already advanced well into the Celtic Sea. The repercussions would rumble through the sport for years, creating new standards for safety and boat design. Such moves surely saved lives but did not avert another disaster at the Sydney-Hobart race in 1998, when six more sailors died in the 80-knot winds and 18-meter, or 60-foot, waves generated by a storm off Australia. The irony is that both races grew in prominence because of the global attention focused on the tragedies. But the Fastnet, where light winds are more the rule, has happily not experienced anything nearly so devastating in 30 years, and its sensitivity to the possibility was underscored in 2007, when, for the first time, the start was postponed a day because of weather concerns. Slade considered it an unwelcome precedent. “Once they’ve said to the outside world that they consider it’s too dangerous to start one day, they are therefore implying it’s not dangerous to start on the next day, and they’ve got to be careful on those kinds of decisions,” he said. “I much prefer race committees to be clearly not obligated to do anything other than start a race and finish a race and leave it to the individual skippers and boats to make the decisions whether it’s safe.” Warden-Owen said the delay was warranted, even if only 60 of the 271 who did start were able to finish. “By delaying it 25 hours it meant they would hit the strong winds and have an opportunity to run for cover,” he said. “If they started 25 hours earlier, they would have met the storm in the Irish Sea. It wouldn’t have been that easy for them to suddenly turn around and run home.” On Wednesday, a memorial service was held for those lost in 1979 at the Holy Trinity Church in Cowes. “All these safety measures are quite right, and the ’79 issues shouldn’t actually happen ever again, but you do get these storms at sea,” Slade said. “The Irish Sea can be a very inhospitable place, and you are talking about Atlantic conditions as you go out to the left rather than going up under Ireland and bouncing down the coasts. So all these things are big in these guys’ minds. The Fastnet race is probably the biggest race and the most dangerous race that the majority of the fleet will ever entertain.” It is a varied fleet indeed, ranging from Slade’s 100-footer to Wieslaw Krupski’s 30-foot Polish entry, Four Winds. Neither the 2007 troubles nor the economic downturn has cut into the size of the entry list this year. Though Cowes Week had to go without a title sponsor, the Fastnet still has Rolex as its title sponsor and has not, according to Warden-Owen, been impacted significantly. Since 2007, the fleet has been limited to 300 yachts, and the Fastnet filled that quota by March of this year, although numerous yachts have since come off the waiting list as entrants failed to meet qualifying standards or withdrew. The crew mix throughout the fleet remains about 90 percent amateur and 10 percent professional, but the professionals include some of yachting’s true elite. Torben Grael, the Brazilian Olympic champion and America’s Cup regular with Luna Rossa, recently skippered Ericsson 4 to victory in the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race but will be on board Luna Rossa’s STP 65 during the Fastnet. “I think it’s one of those things where it shows you the obvious great respect he has for the Luna Rossa team,” Warden-Owen said. “He’s come away from one of the toughest ocean races he might ever have done, and suddenly they say, ‘Can you come and join us for 600 miles?’ He probably thought it was a nice day race.” Two other America’s Cup veterans from New Zealand, Gavin Brady and Ray Davies, will also take part, with Brady skippering Beau Geste, a new 80-footer from Hong Kong. Davies will call tactics for Slade, whose acquisitive eye is on another Fastnet victory but, above all, on winning Sydney-Hobart for the first time later this year. Big is not only safer but historically fast, and Slade makes no apologies. “Always you get the accusation that we’re any good because we paid for a very expensive boat and because we paid for the technology,” he said. “And I’d be the first to put my hand up. When I get into a small Laser against a bunch of kids down in Cornwall, I’m completely hopeless. I’ve never pretended that I’m a great sailor, but I do enjoy doing what I do, and I do take great pleasure out of doing it well.”

Fastnet
Isle of Wight
Sailboats and Sailing


Putin’s Party Wins Regional Elections

Abstract: MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin ’s governing party has won handily in regional elections, Russia ’s Central Election Commission said Monday, in his first electoral test since the economy began to turn dire. Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia, won the majority of seats in all nine regions where local parliamentary elections were held Sunday, and nearly swept smaller municipal elections. The Communist Party, which complained of widespread violations, came in a distant second. United Russia officials called the resounding victory evidence that Mr. Putin’s response to the economic crisis, including supporting the ruble and selected bailouts, had spared many Russians the ill effects of a rapidly tumbling economy. “These elections show that the steps taken by the government and the legislature are correct and directed at preventing serious impacts of the global crisis on the economic situation in Russia,” said Boris Gryzlov, the party chairman. But many independent analysts say that elections have become little more than technical exercises since Mr. Putin came to power as president in 2000 and offer only a haphazard indication of voter preference. Television and many other media outlets are largely tilted in favor of United Russia, and, out of four parties in the federal Parliament, only one, the Communist Party, offers real, if pliable, opposition to Mr. Putin’s party. “This was just a small, uninteresting show,” said Anton Orekh, a political commentator on Echo Moskvy radio. Public interest in elections, he said, has become “slightly less than low.” Still, Mr. Putin remains the country’s most popular politician. But some analysts pointed to a slight slip of several percentage points by United Russia in some regions, compared with previous elections, as an indication that increasing unemployment and rising prices have begun to take a toll on the party. The Communist Party made small gains, despite what Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist leader, called major violations of election laws.

Elections
Russia
United Russia
Putin Vladimir V
Economic Conditions and Trends


Slight Fall in New Jobless Claims

Abstract: WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The number of workers submitting new claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, implying only a gradual labor market improvement even as the economic recovery expands. While the data released Thursday did not change views, analysts were disappointed with how slowly claims were declining. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 448,000, the Labor Department said. That was slightly below market expectations that claims would drop to 445,000. “Some companies are still struggling and believe they can meet any increase in demand with a smaller work force,” said Paul Dales, who studies the American market for Capital Economics in Toronto. “The recovery in the labor market is probably going to be more modest than a lot of people are expecting.” The Federal Reserve this week said the labor market was improving, but noted that employers remained reluctant to add to payrolls. As expected, the central bank left overnight benchmark lending rates near zero. Economists are concerned that claims remain above 400,000, a level they say is historically associated with steady job growth. Analysts expect data next week will show the unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in April, unchanged for the fourth consecutive month. The four-week moving average of new claims, seen as a more-reliable barometer of labor market trends, rose by 1,500 last week to 462,500, the department said. It was the fourth weekly increase in a row. The number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell to 4.65 million in the week ended April 17, a touch above market expectations of 4.62 million.

Unemployment
United States Economy
Labor and Jobs


Egyptian Court Sentences Ousted President Morsi to Death

Abstract: CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced to death the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with more than 100 others, for fleeing prison during the 2011 revolt against President Hosni Mubarak. Mr. Morsi’s conviction is the latest sign of the undoing of the uprising that overthrew Mr. Mubarak. Mr. Morsi, who was Egypt’s first freely elected leader, now faces the death penalty for escaping extralegal detention — a form of detention that many Egyptians hoped would be eliminated by the revolution. If carried out, the sentence could make Mr. Morsi a martyr to millions of Islamists in Egypt and around the world. In a statement about the sentencing, Amr Darrag, a Muslim Brotherhood leader who was a cabinet minister under Mr. Morsi, said it was “one of the darkest days of Egyptian history” and a symbol “of the dark shadow of authoritarianism that is now cast back over Egypt.” Judge Shaaban el-Shami issued the ruling in a courtroom in a converted auditorium on the grounds of a police academy on the outskirts of Cairo. Mr. Morsi, wearing a blue prison uniform, stood inside a metal and glass cage built in the courtroom. Some of his co-defendants, including other senior Brotherhood leaders, also appeared in the cage. In a sonorous tone, the judge read a list, spanning three pages, of those sentenced to death. His pronouncement set off cries of “Allahu akbar!” (God is great) from the prisoners. As the session ended, the prisoners waved and chanted “Down with military rule!” Before they can be carried out, the death sentences must be approved by Egypt’s top Sunni Muslim religious authority, the grand mufti, who is scheduled to make a ruling by June 2. The convictions are also subject to appeal through the court system. Hours after the verdict was issued, three Egyptian judges were killed by gunmen on a bus in the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt has been shaken by an upsurge in attacks by insurgents in Sinai since Mr. Morsi was deposed by the military in 2013. It was not immediately clear whether Saturday’s attack was connected to the verdict against Mr. Morsi. The case against Mr. Morsi centers on a prison break that took place at the peak of the revolt against Mr. Mubarak. Mr. Morsi and other Brotherhood officials had been detained, taken from their homes or from street protests, along with many other Egyptians swept up in the turmoil. Mr. Morsi had been held for two days at Wadi Natroun prison, on the highway between Cairo and Alexandria. The escape came on the night of Jan. 28, 2011, after a day of street battles between the police and protesters. In the chaos of the uprising, some of the guards at Wadi Natroun had abandoned their posts. Armed men overcame the prison’s remaining guards, freeing thousands of inmates, including Mr. Morsi and other Islamist leaders. Mr. Morsi announced his escape in a call from a satellite phone to the news channel Al Jazeera. Neither before nor during his tenure as president did he face charges over the episode. Among those sentenced to death on Saturday were about 70 Palestinians, including many tried in absentia. Prosecutors in the case alleged that armed Palestinians had freed inmates from Egyptian prisons after entering the country via tunnels from the neighboring Gaza Strip. Also on Saturday, the judge sentenced 16 people to death in an espionage case in which Mr. Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders were accused of conspiring with foreign armed groups, including Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, to destabilize Egypt. Mr. Morsi was not among those condemned to death in that case. Among those referred to the mufti in the espionage case was Emad Shahin, an Egyptian political scientist now living in the United States. In the jailbreak case, the Brotherhood’s top spiritual guide, Mohamed Badie, and a former Parliament speaker, Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, were also sentenced to death. Under Egyptian law, Mr. Shahin and the others convicted in absentia are entitled to a retrial if they enter Egypt. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who had cultivated strong ties with Mr. Morsi, denounced the sentence, calling it a return to “ancient Egypt,” and he criticized Western nations for not doing enough to oppose the overthrow of Mr. Morsi. Mr. Morsi was removed from power by the military in July 2013 after protests that concluded a divisive year in office. He was held incommunicado at a secret location before reappearing during the opening of a trial months later. After Mr. Morsi’s removal from power, the state began a vast crackdown on Islamists and other dissenting voices, killing more than a thousand and arresting tens of thousands. Mona el-Ghobashy, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University, said Mr. Morsi’s trial was part of the Egyptian authorities’ offensive against the forces of the uprising that toppled Mr. Mubarak. “The self-appointed permanent guardians of the state, judiciary and military are messaging that the revolution’s political results (free elections, civilian president, right to protest) were unnatural, unreal and unsustainable,” Ms. Ghobashy wrote in an email. “They’re saying to Egyptians: This whole business of democracy and choosing your rulers is a fantasy. That’s not the way power works here.” Sahar Aziz, an associate professor at Texas A & M School of Law, said, “In light of the politically charged environment within which the Morsi prosecutions are taking place, the perception by some may be that these trials are more about political retaliation than bona fide criminal activity.” Saturday’s ruling was the second against Mr. Morsi in less than a month. In April, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges of inciting violence and overseeing the illegal detention and torture of protesters while he was in office. That case centered on a deadly street brawl between Brotherhood supporters and opponents in Cairo in 2012. He faces separate trials over charges of leaking documents, fraud and insulting the judiciary.

Egypt
Mohamed Morsi
Hosni Mubarak
Capital punishment
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt
Criminal Sentence


C.I.A. Leaves Pakistan Base Used for Drone Strikes

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Central Intelligence Agency has vacated an air base in western Pakistan that it had been using for drone strikes against militants in the country’s tribal areas, the Pakistani military said on Sunday. Pakistan had ordered the C.I.A. to leave the Shamsi air base in protest over NATO airstrikes that killed at least 25 Pakistani soldiers near the border with Afghanistan on Nov. 26. Pakistan has also blocked all NATO logistical supplies from crossing the border into Afghanistan since the clash. Pentagon and Obama administration officials declined to comment publicly on the departure from the Shamsi air base. But a senior American counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the drone operations at Shamsi were classified, said that vacating the base would not end American counterterrorism operations in Pakistan. “The United States retains robust capabilities to fight Al Qaeda and its militant allies,” the official said. “Our operations will continue.” Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused NATO forces of deliberately attacking the Pakistani soldiers at two military check posts; American officials have said the airstrikes were an unfortunate accident. In response to the attacks, Pakistan gave the C.I.A. 15 days to vacate the Shamsi base, which is about 200 miles southwest of the city of Quetta in Baluchistan Province. Inter Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistani military, said the last flight carrying American personnel and equipment left the base on Sunday. “The base has been taken over by the army,” the agency’s statement said. While United States officials do not comment publicly on drone operations against militants who plan attacks on Afghanistan from havens in the Pakistani tribal areas, operations had been reduced at the Shamsi air base since May, when a Navy Seal commando raid killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad. The United States also carries out drone strikes from bases in Afghanistan. After the Bin Laden raid, Pakistan insisted that the C.I.A. shut down its operations at the Shamsi base, but it later relented, permitting scaled-down operations. The attacks on the Pakistani check points two weeks ago have stoked nationalist passions in the country, where anti-American sentiment was already running high. Angry demonstrations erupted after the airstrikes, and in an additional sign of protest, the Pakistani government decided not to attend an international conference on the future of Afghanistan held last week in Bonn, Germany. Although American officials have expressed hope that their working relationship with the Pakistanis will not break down, Pakistani officials have insisted on rewriting the rules of bilateral cooperation. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said Sunday in an interview with the BBC that Pakistan might continue to block NATO supply convoys from entering Afghanistan for several more weeks. “There is a credibility gap,” Mr. Gilani told the BBC. “We are working together, and still we don’t trust each other.” To build confidence, Mr. Gilani said, Pakistan is creating what he called “new rules of engagement with the United States.” “Then I think we should trust each other better,” he said.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Iran Grants Bail to Woman From Britain Held 5 Months

Abstract: TEHRAN — A British-Iranian woman detained in Iran since June, whose case attracted international attention after her family said she had been arrested after trying to attend an all-male volleyball match, was released on bail on Sunday. The British Foreign Office confirmed the release of the woman, Ghoncheh Ghavami, but said the Iranian authorities would not allow her to return to Britain. Ms. Ghavami, 25, was released after paying bail of about $30,000, her mother, Susan Moshtaghian, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency on Sunday. “Based on the verdict handed down by the court, she was sentenced to one year imprisonment and banned for two years to leave the country,” she said. The family is awaiting a decision by the Court of Appeal. Ms. Ghavami, a London law school graduate, had been in Iran only four months, after spending most of her life in Britain, when she was drawn into the world of Tehran’s small and heavily monitored circle of activists. Two arrests, including one in front of a volleyball stadium, preceded her detention on June 30. Image Ghoncheh Ghavami Credit Press Association, via Associated Press Ms. Moshtaghian insisted that her daughter was innocent. “She has been defending herself and is innocent,” she told the news agency. The charges against Ms. Ghavami have been unclear. Some websites say she has been accused of having contacts with opposition groups, but her former lawyer said she had been found guilty of spreading propaganda against Iran’s political system. The British government and human rights groups like Amnesty International had called for her release. Prosecutors said she had been charged for taking part in opposition protests abroad, not for trying to watch the volleyball match. Ms. Ghavami was arrested a week after she attended a protest against the limits imposed on Iranian women, who are, among other things, barred from attending all-male volleyball matches. Iranian law does not recognize dual citizenship, so all those holding an Iranian passport are regarded as Iranian subjects. There is no British Embassy in Tehran. Another person with dual citizenship, the Iranian-American Jason Rezaian, who is a correspondent for The Washington Post, has been detained since July 22.

Iran
Ghoncheh Ghavami
Great Britain
Women and Girls
Islam


Pick Up the Phone, Your Search Term Is Calling

Abstract: GOOGLE is going 20th century. The company, whose empire is based on its ability to connect people and businesses through computers, is now connecting them the old-fashioned way -- over the phone. Starting late last year, the site began showing green phone icons next to selected advertisements that appear with search results. When the icon is clicked, the user is prompted to enter his or her phone number. The phone will then ring, with the business on the other end of the line (dial-up users would have to disconnect from the Internet first). Google is not charging marketers for the service yet, but analysts say it is a sure bet the company will, thereby ushering in the era of "pay-per-call" advertising in earnest. "Google's entry into this market will popularize this whole space," said Greg Sterling, an analyst with Kelsey Group, a marketing consultancy. "And given the sheer volume of advertisers, this could generate considerable revenue for them." The pay-per-call advertising market looks as if it may well evolve just as the pay-per-click market did. Google watched and waited while another company, Overture, demonstrated the viability of the business before releasing its own version of the service. Yahoo then bought Overture in 2003 for $1.6 billion, while Google built its own technology. Likewise, the pay-per-call market has largely been developed by a company called Ingenio, which is based in San Francisco, and has been offering advertisers the service since 2004. Google appears to be building its system (with the help of VoIP Inc., a Florida-based company), while Yahoo is testing a version of the service with Ingenio. Just as in pay-per-click advertising, pay-per-call marketers bid for the right to have their ads appear near the top results of search queries, and pay only when someone actually uses them. Consumers either choose the click-to-call option or simply dial the number in the ad. In either case, the number is a dedicated line that middleman companies like Ingenio or eStara, a company based in Reston, Va., have procured for each advertiser. Those companies connect and log the call, charge the advertisers and share the money with the site on which the ad appeared. Mr. Sterling predicted that there would be an eager market for pay-per-call services among small service-oriented businesses. About 70 percent of those businesses do not have Web sites, so pay-per-click advertising makes no sense for them. But even those who do have sites often lack the sophistication or the time to manage a pay-per-click campaign, which can require considerable tweaking to outbid competitors without spending too much. Pay-per-call advertisers must still manage campaigns, but the approach appears so effective that for many it is worth the effort. Judson Brady, the owner of Broad Street Flowers, an Atlanta-based floral service, said he paid Yahoo about $1.25 for each prospect who clicked on his search page advertisement, and 5 percent of those prospects ordered. By contrast, Mr. Brady said he paid Ingenio around $4.15 for each call from a prospect -- most of whom see the ads on AOL, which introduced its pay-per-call service last year. More than a third of the callers place an order. "We're lucky to break even on the pay-per-clicks, but with pay-per-call we'll make $25 profit per order," he said. "My only complaint is there's not more of it." Google would not comment on its pay-per-call test, much less confirm that it is considering a pay-per-call service. Yahoo likewise would not comment on its pay-per-call test. Marc Barach, Ingenio's chief marketing officer, said the company had signed up fewer than 10,000 advertisers in about 750 of the 1,300 business categories it had carved out in a Yellow Pages-type taxonomy. Advertisers have bid up the average price for a call by 50 cents a month since the company started, he said, with the average now at about $10. Advertisers and prospects typically talk for five minutes, Mr. Barach said, "so we know lengthy conversations are taking place." In addition to AOL and, to a much more limited degree, Yahoo, Ingenio's pay-per-call advertisers appear on search results from Infospace's search sites, including DogPile, and on the pages of Web publishers like Depot.com, which uses search technology from Miva, based in Fort Myers, Fla. Verizon's Superpages.com, a Yellow Pages site, also features a pay-per-call system that it built in conjunction with eStara. Robyn Rose, vice president of Internet marketing for Superpages, would not say how many advertisers had signed up for the service. "But we're one of the largest, if not the largest," she said. Superpages.com markets the service through its 3,000 advertising representatives, who call on the company's 1.1 million customers. Those representatives help clients create the ads and aim them toward a particular geographical area in exchange for a $20 monthly fee. Then the advertisers bid for the right to have the ads appear highest when Superpages.com visitors conduct a search. MSN visitors will also see those ads, because the company relies on Verizon to place ads on its local search service. While the big search sites and pay-per-call technology companies are eager to see this market build, some advertisers are sad to see the secret start to get out, said William Leake, chief executive of Leads, Customers, Growth, a marketing consultancy based in Austin, Tex. Mr. Leake said one of his clients, a health care company that spends $70 million annually in direct marketing, had been buying pay-per-call ads since last year, but asked him not to disclose their name. "They've been Hoovering up leads and they don't want competitors to start piling in and bidding up the prices," Mr. Leake said. Advertisers who entered the pay-per-click fray early on were able to glean fairly inexpensive leads. Now that many businesses have begun buying clicks, though, there are fewer bargains to be found. "The pay-per-call medium opens a new front that allows some small businesses to jump in there and make hay before the crazy elephants jump in and open their checkbooks," Mr. Leake said. "So at least for a limited period of time, they can play the game."

GOOGLE INC
ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
TELEPHONES AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET


Investors, Hungry for Hope, Send Dow Up 410

Abstract: A seesaw day on Wall Street ended with a rush of euphoria Thursday as investors raced back into beaten-down banking shares, heartened by signs that the government is taking more drastic steps to tamp down problems plaguing the financial markets. In a rally that came in the final hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrials surged to a 410-point gain, nearly erasing the 449-point loss sustained on Wednesday. But it was by no means a sign that the crisis on Wall Street had turned a corner. Fear and stress still abounded in the credit markets, where investors flocked to the safety of Treasury bills and banks charged each other higher loan rates, a reflection of lingering anxiety about the health of the financial industry. As investors grapple with the once-unthinkable developments that have rocked the world of finance in the last week, lending to consumers and some businesses has tightened, drying up an important lubricant of the economy even as growth continues to contract. “We are still in a flight-to-quality mode,” said Jane Caron, chief economic strategist at Dwight Asset Management, a bond investment firm in Burlington , Vt. “When I assess the mood on my trading desk, people are still very concerned that we have not seen the end of this crisis.” The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closed up 4.33 percent, to 1,206.51, and the Dow Jones industrial average rose 3.86 percent, to 11,019.69 The Nasdaq composite jumped 4.78 percent. Analysts attributed the stock market rally not to a fundamental improvement in the financial environment, but rather to reports that the government might be planning to quarantine some of the worst assets held by major banks. Sentiment was also buoyed when regulators announced actions intended to blunt the impact of short sellers, investors who bet that a stock’s price will drop. Some banks and government officials have blamed short sellers for the precipitous drops in shares of big banks over the last few months, including the decline that played a role in the downfall of Lehman Brothers this week. Shares of the last two independent investment banks standing, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs , seesawed a day after suffering steep losses. Investors worried that the banks could face fates similar to those of Lehman and Merrill Lynch , which sold itself Sunday to Bank of America to avert a deepening financial crisis. Morgan Stanley stock ended up 3.7 percent, but Goldman Sachs closed down, one of the few major financial companies to end the day in the red. Goldman shares lost 5.7 percent; earlier they were down as much as 25 percent, reflecting the uncertainty over the bank’s future. Wachovia , the banking giant that is considering a possible merger with Morgan Stanley, jumped nearly 60 percent; Washington Mutual , the troubled savings and loan that has also been working on efforts to save itself, gained 49 percent. For the first time since Lehman collapsed and the American International Group was rescued, President Bush made a brief statement in Washington , saying the government would “act to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor confidence.” Earlier, the Federal Reserve said it would extend an effort that allows central banks around the world to lend dollars in foreign economies. The Fed will provide an extra $180 billion under the program to grease the wheels of finance. Despite the surge in stocks, investors remained wary about lending to businesses and to one another. The cost to insure companies’ debt, a measure of investors’ confidence in the firms, remained at historically high levels, analysts said, although the cost declined slightly from Wednesday. Investors displayed a strong preference for safer and more tradable government securities than other short-term, private debt. The cost of several types of corporate and bank borrowing remained high and, in some cases, increased further. A gauge of fear — the Libor rate, which measures how much banks charge one another for overnight loans — remained elevated on Thursday. Treasury notes and bonds sold off in the afternoon but the price of short-term government debt remained elevated. The yield on the three-month Treasury bill, which falls when the price rises, was 0.076 percent, little changed from 0.061 percent on Wednesday. A week ago, the yield was 1.644 percent. The sharp move in the last few days suggests that some investors are willing to receive virtually no return to hold a Treasury bill, thought to be among the safest of all investments. By contrast, interest rates on three-month commercial paper, a competing form of private borrowing used by banks and corporations, jumped to 3.32 percent, from 3.17 percent on Wednesday and 2.86 percent a week earlier, according to Bloomberg data. If the tight conditions in the money market persist, economists and analysts say it could severely limit the availability of credit to businesses and consumers. Federal Reserve data released on Thursday showed that consumer and business borrowing slowed significantly, though it continued to grow, in the second quarter. Commercial paper outstanding fell by 2.87 percent for the seven days that ended Wednesday, according to the Federal Reserve, its biggest one-week decline since the summer of 2007. Back then, investors became concerned about certain kinds of commercial paper that was used to buy securities backed by mortgages and other consumer debts. “This is a breakdown in the system of trading bonds and a breakdown of extending credit,” said James T. Swanson, chief investment officer at MFS Investments, a mutual fund company based in Boston . Mr. Swanson said that so far, the stress had not affected most nonfinancial corporations, many of which have large holdings of cash and do not have a pressing need to borrow money. But he said companies that his analysts talk to have said the credit squeeze could start to hurt if the commercial paper market remains shut down and bank lending remains as tight as it is now. Sectors like energy, pharmaceuticals and technology are more flush with cash and less vulnerable to troubles in the credit markets. But others, like retail stores, restaurants and airlines, could be hurt if tight conditions persist. Kurt von Emster, portfolio manager of the MPM BioEquities Fund, said he had advised companies to draw down on their bridge loans from banks, because of the turmoil in the credit market. “Those will be not only hard to come by, but impossible to come by,” he said about bridge loans. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note was down 1 3/32, at 103 25/32, and the yield, which moves in the opposite direction from the price, was at 3.54 percent, up from 3.41 percent late Wednesday. Following are the results of Thursday’s Treasury auction of 20-day and 76-day cash management bills:

Dow Jones Industrial Average
Federal Reserve
Stocks and Bonds
European Central Bank
US Economy


Texas and Washington Clash Over Air Pollution Permits

Abstract: HOUSTON — For 16 years, a showdown has been brewing between Texas and federal environmental officials over the state’s unique way of regulating industrial air pollution, which many critics complain is lax and has led to some of the dirtiest air in the country. Now, President Obama’s new regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency in Dallas has forced the issue. The new environmental sheriff is Al Armendariz, a 40-year-old chemical engineer from El Paso, and two weeks ago, he took the unprecedented step of barring Texas from issuing an operating permit to a refinery in Corpus Christi. The state’s rules for granting permits have long violated the Clean Air Act , Mr. Armendariz said, and he made it clear that the agency would do the same thing in about 39 other cases, among them several major refineries, unless Texas changed its system. “The State of Texas has to let me know if they can issue permits that are consistent with federal requirements, and if they can’t, then we will,” he said. Since Mr. Armendariz’s announcement, a political donnybrook as broken out. Gov. Rick Perry , who has been in attack mode against all things Washington, warned that jobs would be lost. At a warehouse in Deer Park, just a few blocks from the string of refineries along the Houston shipping canal, a line of blue-collar workers recently stood stiffly behind Mr. Perry, a Republican seeking his third full term, as he accused federal environmental regulators of persecuting Texas. The governor suggested that the Obama administration must have political motives for cracking down on the state. “Washington just isn’t happy unless they have total control of everything,” he said, playing a note that pleases his conservative constituents. “This administration seems to think it’s their way or the highway.” But, the Democratic nominee for governor, the former mayor of Houston, Bill White, has accused Mr. Perry of mismanaging the state environmental agency and of losing control of a vital authority. Environmentalists have also fired at the governor, charging that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has become a toothless lapdog of the industry it regulates. But beyond the finger-pointing and partisan posturing is a dispute between Texas and Washington over air quality that stretches back through the Bush and Clinton administrations. At issue is the state’s practice of “flexible permitting.” The Clean Air Act requires polluters to limit emissions for several key pollutants from each smokestack, or other source inside a plant or refinery. But since 1994, Texas has instead given about 140 plants — among them the largest refineries in the state — a general ceiling for pollution from all sources inside a plant. Mr. Armendariz, in an interview, said the scheme made it extremely difficult for federal regulators to figure out if a plant was polluting or not. If they find one source of pollution at a refinery, for instance, they must balance it against hundreds of others. “It’s an impossible situation,” he said. “These permits are unenforceable.” The system has other advantages for industrial polluters, he said. Many have managed to expand their plants without including the controls required on new sources of pollution by getting the state to raise the cap for the whole complex. There is also hard evidence that these plants produce more toxins for each barrel of oil or chemicals they process than similar refineries and factories in other states, he said. Other critics say a flexible permit means a single stack can be spewing a toxic chemical at illegal levels as long as the overall pollution cap is met. And if that source is close to the edge of a refinery, for instance, it can have devastating effects on people living nearby. Some environmentalists also argue that the overall pollutions limits in the permits are too high, making it easy for the industry to meet them and giving polluters room to exceed limits for certain pollutants on certain days without facing the consequences. “They never exceed the limits,” said Jen Powis, a lawyer with the Lonestar chapter of The Sierra Club. “The T.C.E.Q. really gave them this inflated bubble for the entire site.” No other state uses this system, which is beloved by many business leaders here, and the E.P.A. under three presidents has refused to sanction it. Even President George W. Bush’s regional administrator, who was not known for being tough on the oil industry, challenged the permitting program in 2002, on similar grounds as Mr. Armendariz. State officials, however, point out that under their regimen, Texas has seen steep drops in air pollution, larger than the national average. Ozone levels have dropped 22 percent since 2000, and nitrogen oxide levels are down 46 percent, they say. “The proof is in the pudding,” said Mark R. Vickery, the executive director of the environmental quality commission. “The air has gotten tremendously cleaner.” No one disputes that the situation has improved in recent years, but environmentalists say the gains have come in spite of the state’s loose regulation of industry, not as a result of state pressure. They say lawsuits brought by the federal government and environmental groups account for most of the gains, along with the national trend toward cleaner fuels and more energy-efficient cars. Besides, these critics argue, Texas started out with such high levels of pollution in the 1990s that it was not difficult to cut emissions significantly. “Better does not equal good,” said Matthew Tejada, the executive director of Air Alliance Houston, an environmental group. “We still do not have clean air in Texas.” Elena M. Marks, a former director of health and environmental policy for the City of Houston, said the national emissions figures showed that the amount of carcinogens released into the air for each barrel of oil processed in Houston’s refineries was higher than the average at refineries in other states, even within the same company. Ms. Marks, who now works for Mr. White’s campaign, said Houston became so disenchanted with the state’s monitoring that it bought its own mobile laboratory to test for pollutants. Simply by publicizing the illegal levels of emissions it found, the city shamed oil and chemical companies into halving benzene and butadiene emissions over the last six years, she said. Houston was not the only entity upset with the current system. Saying they needed more regulatory certainty, the Texas Oil and Gas Association sued the E.P.A. in 2008 in an effort to force the Bush administration to make a final decision on the flexible permits. Now, however, Mr. Armendariz has made it clear he intends to force the state’s hand this summer. “The time for delay and for partnership and for compromise is very quickly coming to an end,” he said, “and we have to get the Clean Air Act implemented in the State of Texas.”

Texas
Air Pollution
Environmental Protection Agency
Refineries
Clean Air Act
Environment
Perry Rick
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Armendariz Al


U.S. Sergeant Kills 16 Afghan Civilians, 9 of Them Children

Abstract: PANJWAI, Afghanistan — Stalking from home to home, a United States Army sergeant methodically killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Afghanistan early on Sunday, igniting fears of a new wave of anti-American hostility, Afghan and American officials said. Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate houses. The man gathered 11 bodies, including those of 4 girls younger than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said. Coming after a period of deepening public outrage, spurred by the Koran burning by American personnel last month and an earlier video showing American Marines urinating on dead militants, the possibility of a violent reaction to the killings added to a feeling of siege here among Western personnel. Officials described growing concern over a cascade of missteps and offenses that has cast doubt on the ability of NATO personnel to carry out their mission and has left troops and trainers increasingly vulnerable to violence by Afghans seeking revenge. President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, calling them in a statement an “inhuman and intentional act” and demanding justice. Both President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called Mr. Karzai, expressing condolences and promising thorough investigations. “This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. American officials in Kabul were scrambling to understand what had happened, and appealed for calm, at a moment when the United States and Afghanistan are in tense negotiations on the terms of the long-term American presence in the country. The officials said the suspect was an Army staff sergeant who acted alone and then surrendered. “The initial reporting that we have at this time indicates there was one shooter, and we have one man in custody,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a NATO spokesman. A senior American military official said Sunday evening that the sergeant was attached to a unit based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a major Army and Air Force installation near Tacoma , Wash., and that he had been part of what is called a village stabilization operation in Afghanistan. In those operations, teams of Green Berets, supported by other soldiers, try to develop close ties with village elders, organize local police units and track down Taliban leaders. The official said the sergeant was not a Green Beret himself. Another senior military official said the sergeant was 38 and married with two children. He had served three tours of duty in Iraq , this official said, and had been deployed to Afghanistan for the first time in December. Yet another military official said he has served in the Army for 11 years. In Panjwai, a reporter for The New York Times who inspected bodies that had been taken to the nearby American military base counted 16 dead, including five children with single gunshot wounds to the head, and saw burns on some of the children’s legs and heads. “All the family members were killed, the dead put in a room, and blankets were put over the corpses and they were burned,” said Anar Gula, an elderly neighbor who rushed to the house after the soldier had left. “We put out the fire.” The villagers also brought some of the burned blankets on motorbikes to display at the base, Camp Belambay, in Kandahar, and show that the bodies had been set alight. Soon, more than 300 people had gathered outside to protest. At least five Afghans were wounded in the attacks, officials said, some of them seriously, indicating the death toll could rise. NATO said several casualties were being treated at a military hospital. One of the survivors from the attacks, Abdul Hadi, 40, said he was at home when a soldier broke down the door. “My father went out to find out what was happening, and he was killed,” he said. “I was trying to go out and find out about the shooting, but someone told me not to move, and I was covered by the women in my family in my room, so that is why I survived.” Mr. Hadi said there was more than one soldier involved in the attacks, and at least five other villagers described seeing a number of soldiers, and also a helicopter and flares at the scene. But that claim was unconfirmed — other Afghan residents described seeing only one gunman — and it was unclear whether extra troops had been sent out to the village after the attack to catch the gunman. In a measure of the mounting mistrust between Afghans and the coalition, however, many Afghans, including lawmakers and other officials, said they believed the attacks had been planned, and were incredulous that one American soldier could have carried out such attacks without help. In his statement, Mr. Karzai said “American forces” had entered the houses in Panjwai, but at another point he said the killings were the act of an individual soldier. Others called for calm. Abdul Hadi Arghandihwal, the minister of economy and the leader of Hezb-e-Islami, a major Afghan political party with Islamist leanings, said there would probably be new protests. But he said the killings should be seen as the act of an individual and not of the United States. “It is not the decision of the Army officer to order somebody to do something like this,” he said. “Probably there are going to be many demonstrations, but it will not change the decisions of our government about our relationship with the United States.” Elsewhere, news of the killings was spreading only slowly. Other than the protest at the base in Kandahar, there were no immediate signs of the fury that fueled rioting across the country after the burning of Korans by American military personnel in February. Both the United States Embassy in Kabul, which immediately urged caution among Americans traveling or living in Afghanistan, and the military coalition rushed to head off any further outrage, deploring the attacks, offering condolences for the families and promising the soldier would be brought to justice. Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, the NATO spokesman, expressed his “deep sadness” and said that while the motive was not yet clear, it looked like an isolated episode. “I am not linking this to the recent incidents over the recent days and weeks,” he said. “It looks very much like an individual act. We have to look into the background behind it.” Adding to the sense of concern, the killings occurred two days after an episode in Kapisa Province, in eastern Afghanistan, in which NATO helicopters apparently hunting Taliban insurgents instead fired on civilians, killing four and wounding three others, Afghan officials said. About 1,200 demonstrators marched in protest in Kapisa on Saturday. The rapid arrest on Sunday could help prevent a repeat of last month’s unrest. The reaction to the Koran-burning case revealed a huge cultural gap between the Americans, who saw it as an unfortunate mistake, and the Afghans, who viewed it as a crime and wanted to see those responsible tried as criminals. The Afghans and Americans agreed on the severity of the killings on Sunday, though, and General Jacobson said the case would be aggressively pursued by American legal authorities. It was less clear how the attacks would affect the talks between Kabul and Washington , known as strategic partnership talks, which will define the American presence and role in the country after the withdrawal of combat troops. The upheaval prompted by the Koran burnings led to a near-breakdown in those talks, but they appeared tentatively back on track after a deal struck Friday for the Afghans to assume control of the main coalition prison in six months. The strategic partnership talks must still address differences over the American campaign of night raids on Afghan houses. The attack on Sunday may complicate that issue, because it bore some similarities to the night raids carried out by coalition forces in Afghanistan. The shootings also carried some echoes of an attack in March 2007 in eastern Afghanistan, when several Marines opened fire with automatic weapons, killing as many as 19 civilians after a suicide car bomb struck the Marines’ convoy, wounding one Marine. Panjwai, a rural district near the city of Kandahar, was traditionally a Taliban stronghold. It was a focus of the United States military offensive in 2010 and was the scene of heavy fighting. Two American soldiers were killed by small-arms fire in Panjwai on March 1, and three died in a roadside bomb attack in February.

Afghanistan
Kandahar
Afghanistan War
US Military
Murders
Robert Bales


Obama Univision Interview Shows Power of Spanish Media

Abstract: As part of the Democratic get-out-the-vote campaign, President Obama gave an interview to a Spanish-language radio show that was broadcast last Monday — and just for good measure, his wife, Michelle, followed up a few days later. The Obamas’ twin appearances on “Piolín por la Mañana,” heard across the country on Univision Radio, are a testament to the ballooning political power of the Spanish language news media, and in particular to the power of Univision, which owns the biggest Spanish-language television and radio outlets in the United States. Univision says it does not favor any political party. Regardless, analysts say that the company is exerting significant influence both on local elections and on the national debate about immigration — in part by encouraging Hispanics to cast a ballot. In commercials and on its Web site, Univision tells its audience, “Vota, es tu derecho,” or “Vote, it is your right.” Some of the commercials also promote a voter information phone line. Conversely, last month the network rejected an advertisement that urged Hispanics not to vote in the midterm elections. César Conde, president of Univision Networks, said Spanish-language outlets had been focusing on the importance of voting because they had a responsibility to “make sure that our community in the U.S. maximizes its potential.” Federico Subervi, a communications professor at Texas State University and the author of “The Mass Media and Latino Politics,” said that Univision bulked up its election coverage in 2008 — that year, it sponsored two presidential primary debates — and again in 2010. Univision’s chief (but much smaller) competitor, Telemundo, has done the same, with a get-out-the-vote campaign this year called “Tu Voto, Tu Futuro,” or “Your Vote, Your Future.” Underscoring just how seriously it is taking the elections, Univision’s coverage is titled “Destino 2010,” or “Destiny 2010.” On Tuesday, it will run news updates every half-hour starting at 1 p.m. Eastern time, when polls are still open across the country. English-language networks generally do not start election news updates until 8 p.m. Because there are relatively few Spanish-language outlets in the United States, Univision wields a more influential megaphone than its English-language counterparts. Merely by spending more time on its newscasts on campaign issues like immigration that are especially meaningful to its audience, Univision affects the debate on those issues, Mr. Subervi said. Univision has heavily promoted itself as being, as it once said in a news release, on the “forefront of the national debate” about reform, particularly after Arizona passed a stringent new law to police immigrants. In May, the network devoted half a day to live protest coverage, held a prime time debate about the law and brought its Sunday public affairs program “Al Punto” to Phoenix. On Univision, reporters never refer to “illegal aliens,” opting instead for “undocumented immigrants.” It is a matter of sensitivity, news executives say. “We pride ourselves on presenting all points of view on immigration,” said Alina Falcon, the president of Univision News. “That said, we do look out for the interests of our community. We do provide a platform for the exposition of unique problems for our community.” When Mr. Obama came on Univision Radio, the host Eddie Sotelo pretended to let him pick the first topic. The options he said, were “A, immigration reform; B, immigration reform; C, immigration reform; or D, all of the above.” The president chose D, and proceeded to say that Republicans were unwilling to “step up” and help pass a comprehensive reform bill. Mr. Obama called on the Univision listeners to vote, and in the process, gave some fodder to critics. “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re going to reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder” to pass immigration reform, he said. Conservatives like Representative John A. Boehner, the House Republican leader who hopes to be the next speaker, pounced on the “punish our enemies” line, and on Monday Mr. Obama said in an English-language radio interview that “I probably should have used the word ‘opponents’ instead of ‘enemies.’ ” Immigration is just one part of Univision’s news diet, and lately the network has been noticed for its campaign coverage. It has hosted the chairmen of both political parties on its Sunday morning public affairs program and sponsored news-making debates in the governors’ races in Florida and California. Mr. Conde said a growing number of candidates had come to recognize that the Hispanic electorate “is becoming a swing vote.” Democrats of all stripes have granted Univision’s interview requests, but so too have many Republicans, including Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona and Carly Fiorina, the California Senate candidate. Mr. Subervi noted that Univision had given extensive coverage to a wave of campaign ads casting immigrants in a negative light. One ad, by the Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, Sharron Angle, showed men who appear to be Hispanic carrying guns, huddling against a wall and posing for mug shots. He said ads like Ms. Angle’s are “gaining the attention of Univision, Telemundo and other media, and infuriating Latinos enough to vote against that person.”

Univision
Spanish Language
Elections
United States Politics and Government
Hispanic-Americans
News and News Media


Records Seized in Illinois Town Accused of Water Irregularity

Abstract: CRESTWOOD, Ill. —Federal agents and the Illinois state police raided Village Hall here Wednesday morning, seizing Crestwood’s drinking water records in a search for evidence of environmental crimes, officials said. The raid was prompted by recent accusations that for 21 years Crestwood officials supplemented the village’s water supply, which comes from Lake Michigan, with water from a local well despite a warning in 1986 from state environmental officials that doing so was dangerous and illegal. “The village cooperated with the search, and they are going ahead with city business as usual,” a spokeswoman for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Anne Rowan, said. The raid was the latest jolt to this working-class village of 11,000 residents since the accusations were first reported by The Chicago Tribune last week. A spokeswoman for the State Environmental Protection Agency said last week that agency officials had cited the village for violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act and knowingly providing false information about the source of the village’s water. The spokeswoman, Maggie Carson, also said that the village’s drinking water was safe, and that despite the elevated levels of some potentially harmful chemicals the public’s health had never been at risk. Ms. Carson said that in 1986 “we did a spot check and had some concerns about the samples” of water from the well. “We asked them to stop using it as a drinking water source,” she said. Over the years, Crestwood officials reported that only water from Lake Michigan was feeding the local supply, Ms. Carson said. But in 2007, she said, another inspection found that 10 percent to 20 percent of the local water still came from the well. In a letter to residents and business owners, Mayor Robert Stranczek said that the well had not been used since it was shut off in September 2007 and that the safety of Crestwood’s drinking water was never compromised. “I can tell you the leaders of this community, including my father who served for four decades as mayor, have always put the safety and security of our residents first,” Mr. Stranczek said in the letter. Not everyone was reassured. A lawsuit against the village has been filed on behalf of residents who contend their health was jeopardized by the well water. On Saturday night, a public meeting attracted an emotional crowd of 200, many of whom questioned whether illnesses like cancer could be linked to the village’s drinking water. Still, some residents say that the uproar is misguided and that there is no scientific evidence linking the well water to health problems. “We’ve lived in Crestwood for 38 years, and we trust that our mayor would not have us drinking water if it was harmful,” said Val Canavan, 67, a retired teacher. “Our family — my husband and I, three children, and 10 grandchildren — are very healthy,” Ms. Canavan added. But another longtime resident, Yolanda Szymusiak, 54, said she now boiled tap water before adding it to the coffee maker, has stocked up on bottled water and shopped for filters for her faucets. “I can’t believe they would try to save some money by slowly poisoning us,” Ms. Szymusiak said. “In Crestwood,” she said, “we get a rebate back every year after we pay the second installment of our property taxes. But I’d rather not get any money back and drink good water.” State environmental agency officials say they planned to review current public notification and information laws to see whether any provisions needed tightening, but some residents said that if Crestwood’s water supply was contaminated, the heightened vigilance had arrived too late. “You always hear that water is the best thing for you,” said Mike Toscas, 22, a college student. “But for people living in Crestwood, it has turned out to be the worst thing. I would have been better off drinking pop all these years.”

Illinois
Water
Search and Seizure
Environment


Text of North Korean Statement on Detained American

Abstract: Following is the text of a statement published by the Korean Central News Agency about the case of Merrill Newman, an American currently detained in North Korea: The Korean Central News Agency released the following report on Saturday: A relevant institution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea recently put in custody U.S. citizen Merrill Edward Newman who committed hostile acts against the DPRK after entering the country under the guise of a tourist. After entering the DPRK as a member of tourists’ group in October he perpetrated acts of infringing upon the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK and slandering its socialist system, quite contrary to the purpose of tour. He also committed such crime as trying to look for spies and terrorists who conducted espionage and subversive activities against the DPRK in the area of Mt. Kuwol during the last Fatherland Liberation War as well as their families and descendants and connect them with the “Kuwol Partisan Comrades-in-Arms Association,” an anti-DPRK plot-breeding organization of south Korea. According to the results of the investigation, he was active as adviser of “Kuwol Unit” of the UN Korea 6th Partisan Regiment part of the Intelligence Bureau of the Command of the U.S. Forces in the Far East since early in 1953. He is a criminal as he masterminded espionage and subversive activities against the DPRK and in this course he was involved in killings of service personnel of the Korean People’s Army and innocent civilians. The investigation clearly proved Newman’s hostile acts against the DPRK and they were backed by evidence. He admitted all his crimes and made an apology for them.

North Korea
Korean Central News Agency
Merrill E Newman
Korean War


California Sues Countrywide Over Lending

Abstract: California joined Illinois on Wednesday in suing Countrywide Financial , claiming the company had practiced deceptive mortgage lending. The embattled company’s shareholders, meanwhile, approved its takeover by Bank of America . The civil lawsuits, which also name Countrywide’s chief executive, Angelo R. Mozilo, as a defendant, accuse the lender of engaging in unfair trade practices that encouraged homeowners to take out risky loans, regardless of whether they could repay them. The lender, based in Calabasas, Calif., became the company most closely associated with the American housing boom, in which mortgages with low teaser rates were seemingly handed out to anyone who asked, as well as the real estate market’s subsequent collapse when mortgage rates rose and shaky borrowers lost their homes to foreclosure. “Countrywide exploited the American dream of homeownership and then sold its mortgages for huge profits on the secondary market,” California’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, said in a statement. The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. It also names the company president, David Sambol, as a defendant. A Countrywide representative was not available to comment. Countrywide shareholders voted in a meeting Wednesday to approve the lender’s takeover by Bank of America, a deal spurred by the company’s mortgage market woes. The stock deal, first announced in January and now valued at about $2.8 billion, is expected to close by July 1. Holders of more than 69 percent of eligible Countrywide shares voted in favor of the deal, Countrywide said.

California
Illinois
Mortgages
Foreclosures
Countrywide Financial Corp
Suits and Litigation
Bank of America Corp


N.H.L. Moves to Lessen Shootouts’ Importance

Abstract: The N.H.L. has taken a step away from the importance of shootouts by changing a rule that governs tie breakers in the standings. The Board of Governors approved a revision that would use a team’s total number of victories in regulation and overtime — but exclude shootout wins — to break ties among teams with the same number of points at the conclusion of a season, the league announced Tuesday evening. Teams will continue to get two points in the standings for shootout victories. The N.H.L. had accorded shootout wins equal status with regulation and overtime victories since the league instituted shootouts in the 2005-6 season. But the shootout has been derided as a gimmick by commentators and some coaches, including the Rangers ’ John Tortorella. There is evidence that teams are playing for a regulation tie to get that guaranteed point, leading to more shootouts. The number of shootouts has risen consistently, from 145 in 2005-6 to 184 last season. “When we put the shootout in, we never envisioned the unreasonable, disproportionate percentage of games that would be decided in a shootout,” said Brian Burke, the Maple Leafs’ general manager, who has called the shootout a wart in the rules. If the new tie-breaking rule had been in place in 2008-9, the Florida Panthers would have made the playoffs instead of the Montreal Canadiens. Both teams finished eighth in the Eastern Conference, with 93 points and 41 victories. Montreal received the final berth by having the better head-to-head record. But seven of the Canadiens’ wins came in shootouts, as opposed to only three for the Panthers. RANGERS RE-SIGN STAAL The Rangers have re-signed Marc Staal, their top defenseman, to a five-year, $19.875 million contract. Staal, 23, played 82 games last season, registering a career-high eight goals and 19 assists, a plus-11 mark, and only 44 penalty minutes. Staal was due to become a restricted free agent at the end of the 2010-11 season.

National Hockey League
Hockey Ice
Stanley Cup
New York Rangers
Staal Marc


Candidate Jerry Patterson Kicks a Spur Into Texas Politics

Abstract: AUSTIN, Tex. — Jerry Patterson is an authentic Texas politician, at a time when Texas politicians rarely act like Texas politicians. State elected officials and those trying to unseat them sue and countersue, carefully watch what they say, and are quick to apologize when they fail to do so. And then there is Mr. Patterson, the state land commissioner and a former Marine fighter pilot who is quick-witted, loose-lipped and an opponent of anything resembling political correctness. He has tackled issues and made comments over the years that have riled his political opponents — he upset environmentalists by referring to the plan to add the dunes sagebrush lizard to the endangered species list as “reptile dysfunction” — as well as his fellow Republicans, including those in Gov. Rick Perry’s office. In 2009, Mr. Patterson got into a dispute with a Republican state lawmaker, Representative Wayne Christian , after Hurricane Ike destroyed Mr. Christian’s beachfront home on the Bolivar Peninsula near Galveston a year earlier. So that he and his neighbors could rebuild their houses, Mr. Christian pushed to have the properties exempted from a state law that prohibits building at the water’s edge on a public beach. Mr. Patterson told The Houston Chronicle that the Legislature would have to impeach him if it wanted such an exemption enforced, and he had no qualms about being quoted in one of the biggest newspapers in Texas using a PG-rated expletive in reference to Mr. Christian. After nine years as land commissioner, Mr. Patterson, 65, is running in the 2014 election for lieutenant governor, a job many consider the most influential in Austin because of its control over the Senate’s agenda. He is regarded as the underdog — prominent Republicans have expressed interest or declared themselves candidates, including Susan Combs, the state comptroller, and Todd Staples, the agriculture commissioner — but in many ways, Mr. Patterson has become the underdog of the Texas political culture as a whole. He once broke a hand doing a cartwheel at the office. He issued a joke news release as land commissioner challenging his counterpart in New Mexico to a duel to settle a century-old land dispute between the states. (“I think I’ll just wing him,” Mr. Patterson said in the announcement.) He hates being driven around by staff members. (“We tried to stick a travel aide on him at first, just to keep up with him, and he would constantly ditch the guy,” said Jim Suydam, a spokesman.) And he advises newly elected legislators to stroll the Capitol. “You need to go over to the Capitol and look at all those pictures on the wall,” he said. “All those people were elected and thought they were somebody, and you can walk through here and nobody knows who the hell they are. We’re all just passing through.” At a campaign fund-raiser at an Austin bar, Mr. Patterson could have pressed the crowd for more cash, but instead he spent a good part of the evening showing off the engine of his 1951 Ford pickup truck and sharing the microphone with the country singer Gary P. Nunn on “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” a beer in his hand and a .22-caliber, five-shot revolver in his boot. Flipping through the campaign finance reports of high-profile Texas Republicans, one finds $2,871 catering expenses, $15,000 consulting fees and $126 floral bills. Mr. Patterson’s reports include a $5.57 meal at a Texaco station. “I think in an era of kind of polished politicians, Jerry just comes across as completely unplugged,” said Ted Delisi, a Republican strategist who was the national field director for Mr. Perry’s presidential campaign. “He’s really not like anybody else. In a state of blunt talk, Jerry stands out as the bluntest of the blunt.” Though his office a few blocks from the Capitol in Austin is something of a man cave — antique firearms, a mounted mule deer he shot in Hudspeth County — Mr. Patterson is not the macho type. He resembles not the 6-foot-4 Lyndon B. Johnson, but maybe his 5-foot-10 bespectacled lawyer. For years, Mr. Patterson has carried the loaded revolver in a holster in his boot and a loaded .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol at the small of his back. Because he leads an agency with few security concerns — the General Land Office, which manages billions of dollars in state land, investments and mineral rights and is home to historic maps and documents — his reasons for arming himself daily are largely symbolic. As a state senator from the Houston area, Mr. Patterson wrote the law that gave Texans the right to carry concealed handguns. “Am I afraid of a staff uprising?” he asked. “No, not exactly. It’s a liberty that if you don’t exercise it, it becomes quaint. I don’t care if it’s the Second Amendment or the First or the Fifth or whatever, you have to test it. Like the Occupy movement. There’s some folks with a screw loose. But I want them doing that, because they’re testing the limits.” Because few Texas political leaders are as frank as Mr. Patterson, he has earned the respect of politicians from both parties, including Hector Uribe, the former Democratic state senator who ran against him in 2010 and whom Mr. Patterson once joked about shooting. When Mr. Perry was preparing to debate the musician and humorist Kinky Friedman, who ran for governor in 2006 (one of his slogans was “How hard could it be?”), Mr. Patterson went to the governor’s aid, relying on his own quick wit to play the role of Mr. Friedman. Mr. Perry, Mr. Uribe and other Democrats and Republicans have split with Mr. Patterson on at least one issue, however. Last year, he sponsored a push by the Sons of Confederate Veterans for a Texas specialty license plate displaying the group’s name and logo, which features the Confederate battle flag. Mr. Perry, while running for president, said he opposed the proposed plate. The state Department of Motor Vehicles’ governing board voted against the plates. “I think it’s a pretty clear sign he doesn’t either care what Texans think or that he is so ideologically and racially insensitive that he doesn’t have the ability to really govern a diverse state like ours,” said Matt Glazer, executive director of Progress Texas, a group that promotes liberal causes and fought against the license plate. Mr. Patterson, whose great-grandfather served in the Confederate Army, said that the motor vehicle board had run from controversy in the name of political correctness, and that he had sponsored the plate to honor his great-grandfather and Texas history, even though others might find that history offensive. “Our history needs representation sometimes from those who want to make it fit into nice little cubes,” he said. The day the board voted on the Confederate plate, it approved one honoring the Buffalo Soldiers, the black United States Army regiments from the late 1800s. Mr. Patterson sponsored that plate, too.

Texas
Elections
Republican Party
Patterson Jerry E