Bernice Sells an Old Baseball Card for $64,073

Nice going Bernice!

Fresno woman's rare baseball card nets $64,073
Fresno woman gets $64K for rare baseball card she originally tried to sell for $10

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- A Fresno antiques dealer has hit a home run with the sale of a rare baseball card she thought was worth only $10.

Bernice Gallego ended up selling the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings team card on an online auction site for $64,073 on Tuesday. That's more than double the previous record set for an identical card. The Cincinnati Red Stockings are the first professional team in the U.S.

Gallego didn't know what she had when she originally listed the card on eBay for $10. After numerous e-mails asking if it was real, she pulled the card. Only a handful of them exist.

The front of the card features a sepia-toned, gelatin-silver photographic print of the entire team. The reverse has a red-and-white advertisement for Peck & Snyder, a New York sports equipment manufacturer.

Gallego enjoyed national media attention and appeared on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" after finding the card in a box of junk.

The buyer was Jeff Rosenberg, president of a Houston company that promotes sports memorabilia shows.

Reuters: The Vatican of Pope Benedict XVI v. Jewish People

A short timeline issued by Reuters paints a high-level picture of the negative direction that Pope Benedict XVI has led the Catholic church vis a vis the Jews.

• He refused to open the Vatican's WW II archives.
• He proposed to make Pius XII into a saint.
• He restored antisemitic prayers to the Good Friday liturgy.
• His Cardinal accused Israel of making Gaza into a "concentration camp."
• He lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust denying bishop, then appeared to backpedal.

It boggles our imagination that we Jews are still on square one with this Pope. We have no expectation that he will move forward in the right direction. He is firmly stuck in reverse gear in all respects. From Reuters:

2005 - New Pope Benedict XVI visits the Cologne synagogue. The appeal by the head of the Jewish community there to open all Vatican archives concerning World War Two shows that Pius XII remains an obstacle on the road to reconciliation. Pope John Paul had put Pius on the road to sainthood.

December 2007 - Moves to make Pius a saint are delayed as Benedict has said he wants to review older documents from World War Two and study new ones that have come to light.

February 2008 - Pope Benedict orders changes to a Latin prayer used by traditionalist Catholics for Jews at Good Friday services. Jews criticized the new version because it still says they should recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men and it keeps an underlying call to conversion.

November 2008 - Benedict pays tribute to Pius XII. Benedict has so far not approved a decree making him a saint, opting instead for what the Vatican has called a period of reflection.

January 2009 - Israel criticizes Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, after he criticized Israel over its offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip, calling it a "big concentration camp".

-- Elia Enrico Richetti, chief rabbi of Venice, announces a boycott of the Church's annual celebration of Judaism, saying decisions by Benedict are negating years of interfaith progress.

-- The pope lifts the excommunication of four traditionalist bishops, thrown out of the Church in 1988 for being ordained without Vatican permission. The four bishops lead the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X, which has rejected modernization of Roman Catholic worship and doctrine.

-- One of the four bishops, British-born Richard Williamson, has made several statements denying the extent of the Holocaust.

-- In late January Pope Benedict tried to heal the rift by expressing his "full and unquestionable solidarity" with Jews.

February 2009 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls on Bavarian-born Pope Benedict to make clear he did not tolerate any denial of the Holocaust in unusually strong words, which draws a sharp response from the Vatican.

-- The Vatican orders Williamson to publicly recant his views if he wants to serve as a prelate in the Church.

-- World Jewish leaders tell Vatican officials that denying the Holocaust was "not an opinion but a crime" when they meet to discuss Williamson and his views.

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Yes we bought the Kindle 1.0 in 2007 when it came out.

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Reviews are positive. It is time!

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Winona Daily News: Holocaust Denier Richard Williamson Taught in Minnesota for 15 Years

I'm shaking my head. They are much closer than I imagined.

Not in Argentina, but just a few miles from where I lived in Minneapolis, Richard Williamson, the meshuggenah Holocaust denier bishop, lived and taught from 1988 to 2003 at an SSPX seminary in Winona.

Did the Winona seminary fire him? We doubt it - he was their rector for 20 years. The good news is that his Argentina seminary bosses have fired him now.

And now what will the Pope do? Promote him to the Vatican?

Holocaust-denying bishop lived in Minn. 15 years
Associated Press

WINONA, Minn. - A Holocaust-denying bishop lived and taught for 15 years at a Minnesota seminary, where he expressed views similar to those that sparked a diplomatic crisis for the Vatican, the Winona Daily News reported Sunday.

Bishop Richard Williamson was one of four bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X whose excommunication was lifted by the Vatican last month. The decision sparked outrage because he said in a recent Swedish TV interview he did not believe any Jews were gassed during the Holocaust.

Williamson made numerous similar statements in the southeastern Minnesota city of Winona, where he was rector of the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary between 1988 and 2003, the newspaper reported.

"There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies," he said in a speech at Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes church in Sherbrooke, Canada in 1989, shortly after he became rector, the newspaper reported. "The Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new State of Israel ... Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil, and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism," he said in the speech.

The Daily News said Williamson kept a low profile at the seminary from 1988 to 2003, writing letters on his beliefs and occasionally making speeches. It said Williamson became rector of the society's U.S. seminary in Connecticut in 1983, and came to Winona when the seminary moved here in 1988 to occupy the former St. Peter Martyr Priory....more...

Star Tribune: New Proposals Address Religion in Minnesota Charter Schools

People in Minnesota invented the charter school. An article by SARAH LEMAGIE and NORMAN DRAPER, Star Tribune staff writers, discusses what some may call the next chapter in the development of these institutions - some might call this Charter Schools 2.0 - "Minnesota charter schools are in for a change: As interest in the independently run but publicly funded schools explodes, so does legislators' desire to monitor them more closely."

Among many others, Minnesota has a controversial school, the Islamic Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy. Some have said it violates the laws that prohibit public schools from promoting religion. As we said before, it seems from the press coverage that the school practices thinly disguised subterfuges, to cover up the fact that they are indeed a Muslim school with required religious training and rituals.

The article concludes with the news that state legislators are attempting to address such issues:

Two state proposals deal with religion, Anderson said. One would bar a house of worship from sponsoring a charter school (none does now). Another would require charter schools to follow a state law that currently applies to district schools, which allows students to attend limited religious instruction but only if it's off campus.

Objective Stateuniversity.com Ranks Many Yeshivas High

The Star Tribune reports that, "StateUniversity.com calls its rankings '100 percent objective.' It says it has built its results based on a 'comprehensive survey of verified data including student/faculty ratio, student retention and test scores.'"

Here are a few select rankings. Click to find your favorite in the top 2000.

10 Brown
27 College of William and Mary
57 Columbia
79 Macalester College
108 University of California-Berkeley
164 Yeshiva University
188 Bard College
193 University of Minnesota
351 Telshe Yeshiva-Chicago
403 University of North Carolina at Charlotte
407 Yeshiva Gedolah of Greater Detroit
438 Yeshivath Beth Moshe
459 Yeshivath Viznitz
480 Yeshiva Karlin Stolin
535 Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia
558 Yeshiva of the Telshe Alumni
559 Adelphi University
659 Touro College
669 Yeshiva Derech Chaim
845 Rabbinical College Bobover Yeshiva Bnei Zion
1218 Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary
1962 Hebrew College
2000+ Fairleigh Dickinson (not listed)

Are we in the US in a depression?

Yes. According to the IMF, advanced economies, like ours in the US are in a depression which may deepen. Bloomberg reported this weekend:

IMF Says Advanced Economies Already in Depression
By Angus Whitley and Shamim Adam

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Advanced economies are already in a "depression" and the financial crisis may deepen unless the banking system is fixed, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

“The worst cannot be ruled out,” Strauss-Kahn said in Kuala Lumpur, where he was attending a gathering of central bankers from Southeast Asia. “There’s a lot of downside risk.”

Ten days ago, the IMF cut its world-growth estimate for this year to 0.5 percent, the weakest pace since World War II. Stimulus packages alone won’t succeed in dragging the global economy out of recession unless confidence is restored in the banking system, Strauss-Kahn said today...more...

We told you so: Universities lost 50% this year - right out of the pockets of students and faculty

Posted last year on 1/25/08. We warned you. (Lots of other people were squawking too.)

We told you - Spend the endowments. Did you listen? No! You lost 50% of your value. Why? So your endowment managers could collect big bonuses. So your presidents could get enormous salaries. And you threw away money that should have gone to students and faculty.

That was a crime. So here is the repost. Read it and weep.

Times: Politicians to Universities: Greedy Pigs! Spend Your Endowments

Somehow Universities lost their way. They amassed piles of capital in their endowments and began to think they were capitalists. They turned off the spigot for the students, wept to the faculty about the severe budgetary constraints that they faced, and turned on the bonuses for the fund managers and presidents, and now they must answer to congress for their blatant exploitation of the citizenry of our republic.

When I was helping to raise an endowment for our tiny department at the University of Minnesota, I was told that we had to spend 5% a year on programs and we planned accordingly. Apparently that rule has been ignored by the big boys and now the stuff is hitting the fan.

And I remember scratching my head for days after the University of Minnesota announced record fund raising success for its endowments out of one side of its mouth and pleaded poverty to the public out of the other side of its mouth, insisting on zero salary increases for faculty and tuition hikes for students.

Twenty years ago this behavior across the academic industry was unethical, immoral and criminal. It has continued unabated. Millions of dollars tucked away in endowments has now increased to billions of dollars. The real question here is how much has America suffered with inferior education for its students, with faculty research and teaching that never took place, because of the greed of University administrators and endowment managers?

An entire generation of students has been cheated out of tuition. An entire generation of professors have been exploited with sub-par wages, labs and budgets. All this so that dozens of universities can amass piles of capital and make millions of dollars for the administrators and money managers.

This is a corruption of an industry that goes far beyond the Enron or Worldcom scandals. It's a perversion of the entire concept of the non-profit organization.

It's high time that we begin to see some university fund managers and presidents marched off in handcuffs to serve their time in prison for cheating the public - students and teachers - out of the charitable donations that were meant for them.

And while you are locking up those crooks, you might also start sending some hefty bills to the donors who took tax write offs for money that never went to non-profit purposes.

A curse is descending on all the sleazy donors, all the avaricious endowment managers and all the greedy university presidents.

You know who you are and you will all rot in hell for what you have done.

Senate Looking at Endowments as Tuition Rises
By KAREN W. ARENSON

The Senate Finance Committee, increasingly concerned about the rising cost of higher education, demanded detailed information on Thursday from the nation’s 136 wealthiest colleges and universities on how they raised tuition over the last decade, gave out financial aid and managed and spent their endowments.

The committee also asked about endowment-related bonuses paid to college presidents and endowment managers.

The move came as a record 76 colleges and universities achieved endowments of $1 billion or more in the last fiscal year, according to a report released this week. Harvard’s endowment, the largest, grew 20 percent, to $34.6 billion, while Yale’s, the second largest, grew 25 percent, to $22.5 billion.

“Tuition has gone up, college presidents’ salaries have gone up, and endowments continue to go up and up,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the committee. “We need to start seeing tuition relief for families go up just as fast.”

The committee, which has a central role in setting tax policy, has been pressuring universities to use more of their wealth for financial aid and threatening to require them to spend a minimum of 5 percent of their endowments each year, as foundations must. The committee pointed out that donations to universities and their endowment earnings were both tax-exempt.

Seeking to head off Congressional action, wealthy universities have been rushing in recent months to expand financial aid, in some cases using more of their endowments to increase assistance to low-income and upper-income students alike. Harvard recently said it would increase aid for families earning up to $180,000 a year, and Yale said it would help families with annual incomes of as much as $200,000.

The request for information came in a letter, signed by Mr. Grassley and the committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana. It provided a strong indication that the committee was not backing off the idea of requiring colleges to spend more of their endowments.

Mr. Grassley said that the information gathered in the next 30 days “will help Congress make informed decisions about a potential pay-out requirement and allow universities to show what they can accomplish on their own initiative.”

University officials expressed surprise at the broad information request and concern about Congress mandating how they use their endowments.

“I believe that Senator Baucus’s and Grassley’s intentions may be admirable,” said Robert J. Birgeneau, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, “but understanding university finances is an extremely complex matter, especially in public colleges and universities.” Berkeley’s endowment is roughly $3 billion.

Henry S. Bienen, president of Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., said that while he believed that putting more information into the open “will help eliminate many myths and misunderstandings,” he rejected the proposal that universities be required to spend 5 percent of their endowment assets each year.

“Universities are not like foundations,” Dr. Bienen said. “They have operating budgets which they cannot easily adjust with the ups and downs of markets. They cannot easily turn off spigots.” Northwestern, thanks to a recent cash infusion, now has a nearly $7 billion endowment.

University officials noted that an economic downturn would reduce the returns on endowments while creating more demand for financial aid. “People have got used to the last few years of wonderful endowment growth,” Dr. Bienen added. “It does not always happen.”

Lynne Munson, an adjunct research fellow at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and a vocal critic of college spending practices, said the committee’s request was “unprecedented but important, because colleges and universities have kept endowment spending secret for so long.”

“Parents, donors and all taxpayers deserve to know how these tax-free endowment funds are being spent,” Ms. Munson said.

Although the Senate letter is not a subpoena, a spokeswoman for the committee said that it was rare for a nonprofit entity not to cooperate with a request for information.

College tuition has been rising faster than inflation and colleges have adopted complicated aid programs and discounts that have made the pricing of an undergraduate education at an elite college as complicated and varied as the pricing of airline seats.

Most colleges have far lower endowments and charge less than the ones the committee is addressing.

The committee’s letter, asking for detailed financial information from the universities and colleges across a decade, signaled that lawmakers plan to get deeply into pricing policies. It asks for both the sticker price of tuition and the average and median prices paid by students year by year for 10 years.

The committee questioned how the colleges recruit low-income students and how much they spend on these efforts. It also asked who decides when tuition increases are necessary.

In the matter of endowments, lawmakers sought year-by-year growth and investment returns, and fees paid to investment advisers.

The senators moved a day after the National Association of College and University Business Officers released its annual endowment study, which showed that the 76 colleges and universities with endowments of $1 billion or more had seen their value rise 21 percent over the previous year. Despite good returns, however, they spent on average only 4.4 percent of their endowments.

Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley noted the “explosive” growth and said, “That is good news because much good can be done now.”

Politico: Jewish Journalist Robert Feuereisen Busted at White House

He tried to get an autograph from the president and he got busted instead. Another professional hard at work!

SCHIP signing reporter identified
By CAROL E. LEE & JOSH GERSTEIN

A reporter who was escorted out of a White House event by Secret Service agents on Wednesday afternoon after he approached President Obama to seek an autograph has been identified, officials and witnesses said.

At the end of an East Room signing ceremony for legislation funding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a member of the media jumped the rope penning off reporters from invited guests in an apparent attempt to get Obama's autograph, according to a White House aide.

An official familiar with the incident identified the journalist involved as Robert Feuereisen of Jewish World Review, a New York-based Web site which features primarily conservative Jewish writers. A message left at a phone listed in that name in Pikesville, Md. was not immediately returned.

The editor of the Web site, Binyamin Jolkovsky, confirmed to Politico that Feuereisen gathers information for the site and that he was the journalist who asked for Obama’s autograph Wednesday.

Feuereisen's 12-year-old son had bought an inaugural magazine of some sort for $8, and "his kid just drove him crazy," said Jolkovsky. The editor said Feuereisen has been working in the White House for more than 10 years, and did not lose his credential in the incident, but received a warning not to do it again. "He's harmless, to put it mildly," the editor said

Witnesses said Secret Service agents swooped in and stopped him after he approached Obama.

The Obama aide said the man was held by Secret Service—but he was seen in the White House press briefing room later Wednesday under escort of a White House press aide, apparently to retrieve personal belongings and make his way out of the complex.

"We did have contact with him after he obtained the president's autograph," a spokesman for the Secret Service, Ed Donovan, said. "He had a hard pass so we turned the matter over to the White House press office." Donovan referred questions about the journalist's identity to the White House, which had no additional comment Thursday.

Other reporters at Wednesday’s event said they saw the Secret Service examining the journalist's drivers' license. The reporter was also said to be carrying a black, hard-sided briefcase.

Record: Managerial Turmoil in the Town of Teaneck

I don't know why they fired this woman Helene Fall. Seems like she did a competent job. Does someone on the council have a cousin who wants the job? Stay tuned.

Fired township manager doesn't want public hearing
BY JOSEPH AX

TEANECK — Former Township Manager Helene Fall has withdrawn her request for a public hearing Tuesday, calling it “futile” in a letter received by the Township Council on Friday.

Fall’s letter said the hearing would not afford her a “meaningful opportunity” to address her termination, because council members are not obligated to answer her questions.

The letter, which The Record obtained from an anonymous source, also accused the council of acting in a contradictory manner when it fired her three weeks ago. According to Fall’s letter, the council found her performance to be “above satisfactory” in her annual evaluation in November and awarded her a 4 percent raise retroactive to the beginning of the year.

Fall unexpectedly was let go after a late-night, closed-door session on Jan. 13. She would not comment on the contents of the letter Saturday, saying only that it is “self-explanatory.”

Mayor Kevie Feit, an observant Orthodox Jew, was unavailable for comment Saturday because it was the Sabbath.

Deputy Mayor Lizette Parker would not comment specifically on the evaluation issue, saying it was a personnel matter, but did say that she disagreed with Fall’s criticism.

Councilman Adam Gussen, one of the council members who voted against the firing, nevertheless said the termination was not necessarily a contradictory move.

“By definition, the manager serves at the pleasure of council,” he said. “Once that becomes displeasure, it doesn’t matter if that came theday before, the week before or the month before.”

The resolution firing Fall, which was supported by five of the council’s seven members, cited four reasons: that she was “unwilling” to try new ideas, that she would not listen to others, that she did not motivate others to do their best work and that she failed to help the council create long-term plans.

“Only vague generalizations have been cited in Resolution No. 18-09 as the ‘reasons’ assigned for my removal, which I am unable to refute without being able to question council members as to the factual basis for their determination,” the letter reads.

The letter also asserts that the legal notice informing Fall that the council would be discussing her performance on Jan. 13 was “deficient.”

The notice stated that the purpose of the meeting “was to continue the review of my 2008 annual performance evaluation, which commenced on Dec. 16, 2008,” the letter says.

Parker and Gussen said that all similar employment-related notices — known as Rice notices after a well known court case — include a disclaimer stating that the council is considering an action that can affect the individual’s “terms and conditions of employment.”

“The notice was clearly sufficient,” Parker said.

Township Attorney Stanley Turitz was also unavailable for comment Saturday because of religious observance.