text:
One of the things that I would like to have in KDE 3.2 is better and easier file sharing. Right now, KDE's file sharing mechanism is pretty limited. Basically it allows you to export a directory via NFS and SMB, but both protocols (or at least their current implementations) are not ideal for a desktop. Nor is LISA, KDE's current network browsing mechanism.
My requirements for desktop file sharing are:
- sharing a directory must not change any permission rules on the server (unless the user is authorized to make a directory available for everyone)
- in an unmanaged network, sharing a directory must not require any configuration beside marking the directory as shared
- it must be possible to browse shared directories on the network (with all available information)
- it must be possible to attach a description or a descriptive name to a shared directory
- it must be possible to access the shared directory from every computer, even in an unmanaged network, with a username+password account that is valid on the server
- in a managed network it must be possible to access all directories without additional login
- the browsing mechanism must scale in very large networks
- it should be possible to establish a 'trust relationship' between two computers (for example two computers in a home network), so the user does not have to log in every time
- the file transmission should be encrypted, at least optionally
- it should use an existing protocol and server, if possible
I think that I have found a very good and simple solution for this: fish. It fulfills every single requirement except the browsing ones. For browsing, I plan to use a very simple (KDE-independent) daemon that keeps SLP registrations open. It can run with user permissions, but should be running all the time. This, the required slp daemon and the performance are the disadvantages of this solution.
SOAP+web services
My webservices implementation reached a dead point at the weekend. This usually happens when I am stuck in boring and unpleasant work. The WSDL implementation is the culprit, implementing this is much uglier that I expected. I guess I will spend the next few days on the file sharing stuff and syncing the GStreamer bindings with the new release...


text:
Updated: Voters Say No to High-Rise Condos on San Francisco Waterfront
San Francisco voters yesterday rejected two ballot measures that would have allowed a condominium project to be built along the city's waterfront. -more-
San Francisco voters yesterday rejected two ballot measures that would have allowed a condominium project to be built along the city's waterfront. -more-
Berkeley and cities across the nation are fighting to keep their historic postal buildings. In Stamford, CT, the National Post Office Collaborate based in Berkeley won its first legal victory on Sept. 26, when U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant granted a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the sale of the Stamford CT post office. to the Capelli Organization. Capelli is a New York-based real estate developer planning to build apartments on the Post Office site. -more-
Police have identified a man whose body was found along the shoreline adjacent to Interstate Highway 80 in Berkeley Wednesday as a man reported missing a week before. -more-
Play takes many forms. Do you recall as a child the great fun playing games outside with friends? What games can you remember? I recall the fun of playing games like Hopscotch, Jacks, yo yo, jump rope, and watching the skills of other players who tossed marbles or played stickball.
We know that that one of the negative effects of the pervasive encroachment of electronics into the lives of children and adults, is the reduction of fun time spent actively playing with friends and as a family. This deficit takes a serious toll on personal health, socializing, shared group experiences, and better mental health.
We want to share some exciting group game events, and encourage parents to share the fun of games with their children, and to be inspired by exciting activities happening around the world that are happily stimulating more interests, fun, and increased playfulness.
The Berkeley Tenants Union is extremely concerned about proposed changes to the demolition ordinance. As you may recall, you already approved changes to this zoning code in the spring. We think it might be a bit confusing that this law is before you once again, so we have tried to provide a comprehensive summary with links to all relevant documents in this correspondence. -more-
Bravo to the courageous Saudi women who are defying a government ban on driving. This oppressive ban is so unjust; it relegates Saudi women to a suffocating role as subservient members of their own society unable to venture outdoors independently. Predictably, Saudi clerics heaped scorn and called women drivers 'prostitutes'. Only male drivers are issued driving licenses. -more-
Once upon a time, Berkeley was seeing an unprecedented wave of construction, with new -- but perhaps ugly -- apartment buildings popping up right next to our famous brown shingles and lovely craftsman bungalows. At the same time, rents were rising much faster than income. Thus Berkeley in the 1970s began the move toward rent control, and voters passed the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance to prioritize neighborhood character and affordable housing over unbridled growth.
Today, Berkeley is again seeing a huge wave of development, with 1,000 new apartments being constructed in the wake of upzoning and other changes under the Downtown Area Plan. At the same time, market rents in the Bay Area increased 9.2% last year, according to RealFacts.
But the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance is still the law of the land. That voter-approved initiative recognized that "new construction in a city as built-up as Berkeley requires demolition, often of attractive low rent older homes," and so it called for any new construction to contain a decent proportion of low-income housing. Later, parts of the NPO were incorporated in Berkeley's Demolition Ordinance (BMC 23C.08), which prohibits demolition of rent controlled units unless they are in really bad shape and they will be replaced with affordable housing.
However, the City Council majority has decided we need to ease restrictions on development further, so there are new drafts of the Demolition Ordinance. The latest of these drafts would allow developers to tear down rent controlled apartments if they are empty, and not require that they be replaced with units for lower income residents. The Berkeley Tenants Union objects to the changes to this zoning code, because easing restrictions on empty units encourages eviction and harassment. -more-
Editor's Note: The latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times is now available.
You can view it absolutely free of charge by clicking here . You can print it out to give to your friends.
Grace Underpressure has been producing it for many years now, even before the Berkeley Daily Planet started distributing it, most of the time without being paid, and now we'd like you to show your appreciation by using the button below to send her money. -more-
Dear The Berkeley Daily Planet,
We the People are NOT "Keeping Our Doctors, Keeping Our Insurance plans..... The RED Man in The White House is not going to keep your policy down by 2,500.00. America WAKE-UP -more-
Over 100 people came to the last Planning Commission meeting--60 spoke FOR the Zoning Overlay and only 3 spoke for the developers. At this next meeting, the Commission will finalize its recommendation to the City Council. It is possible that more will speak against rezoning, so we must be there! -more-
Donald Edwin Rasmussen, 96, died peacefully, surrounded by his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, on Friday, October 18, 2013, in Berkeley, California. Don remained active and independent to the end, walking daily, attending exercise classes, and enjoying people. -more-
The discussion of the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, coming as it did around Halloween, reminded me that it's time to extend my traditional Halloween offer: $100 to anyone who can prove that a trick-or-treater was harmed in any way by a stranger.
No one has ever, in perhaps 15 years, taken me up on it, for good reason. It just doesn't happen.
When I first started making this offer, the media abounded in reports of razor blades in apples and similar devilish plots perpetrated on unsuspecting children. These were usually retracted—in fine print—some weeks after Halloween, but the damage was done by then.
Parents everywhere cautioned their kids to accept nothing but commercial candy, wrapped by the manufacturer. No homemade cookies, no apples—who knew what could be in them?
An occasional case of Junior sampling dad's marijuana brownies was reported, but nothing having to do with strangers was ever proved. The useful Snopes.com exposed such stories as urban legends. Probably they were started by candy manufacturers. This year, as always, we offered kids apples along with the candy, and every year more and more have enthusiastically chosen the apples (I do live in Berkeley, after all).
How does this connect to the Affordable Care Act? This year's razor-blades-in-apples story is how some percentage of the 5% of Americans who use privately-paid health insurance will be forced to change their coverage, even though President Obama said they wouldn't have to. -more-
Recent polls indicate that Americans do not appear to be concerned about global climate change or national energy policy. Understandably, most of us are worried about jobs, the economy, and gridlock in Washington. America's narrow focus is unfortunate, because the decisions we make about energy today will determine the quality of life for our descendants. -more-
More often than for most people in mainstream society, psychiatrically disabled people do not outlive our parents. -more-
Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore is holding a Benefit Weekend for Berkeley High School!
When: Friday & Saturday, Nov. 22-23, 10am-9pm AND Sunday, November 24, 11am-6pm -more-
"To the barricades!" The epic tale of the Siege of Paris and the Paris Commune of 1870-71 is retold by Central Works in their first musical theater production, 'Red Virgin,' focusing on the figure of Louise Michel (Anna Ishida), one of the more famous of the bands of valiant women, mostly unsung, who took on a major role in the popular uprising and early attempt to govern a modern city from the bottom up. -more-
Victims of Obamacare: A New Urban Legend 11-01-2013
Debts Threaten to Halt Students' Education 10-28-2013
Now Read This: News in Other Media of Interest to Berekeley 11-06-2013
Now Read This: Of Interest to Berkeley, in other media 10-28-2013
Odd Bodkins: The Rapture (Cartoon) By Dan O'Neill 11-04-2013
Bounce: Tenacity Surfing (Cartoon) By Joseph Young 11-04-2013
Bounce: An Optimistic Plunge (Cartoon) By Joseph Young 11-04-2013
Odd Bodkins: Sunday Service in the Holy Land (Cartoon) By Dan O'Neill 10-27-2013
Odd Bodkins: Roger Wingnut (Cartoon) By Dan O'Neill 10-27-2013
New: Letter to the Berkeley Planning Commission Regarding Proposed Changes to the Demolition Ordinance From the Berkeley Tenants Union Steering Committee 11-05-2013
New: Saudi Women's Bravery By Jagjit Singh 11-05-2013
New: Berkeley Planning Commission to Consider Weakening Demolition Rules on Wednesday Berkeley Tenants Union 11-03-2013
November Pepper Spray Times By Grace Underpressure 11-04-2013
The Truth About ObamaCare By Mrs. kathryn pennes, san carlos, CA 11-04-2013
Post Office on Berkeley Planning Commission Agenda on Wednesday Save the Post Office 11-03-2013
Equations of Peace
An Iranian Woman's View on How to Integrate a Divided Globe (Mathematically Speaking) By Zeinab Bandpey 10-28-2013
New: Irony Abounds By Larry Jones 10-28-2013
New: NSA Spying By Tejinder Uberoi 10-27-2013
New: Gun-Related Deaths By Romila Khanna 10-27-2013
Non-profit Developers Scheme to Grab Section 8 Vouchers and Public Housing By Lynda Carson 10-24-2013
Albany Landfill Evictions Affect Berkeley By Daniel J. McMullan III 10-24-2013
It Ain't Rocket Science: It's Housing By Carol Denney 10-24-2013
The Sierra Club and the Albany Bulb By Lydia Gans 10-24-2013
Updated: Voters Say No to High-Rise Condos on San Francisco Waterfront By Dan McMenamin (BCN) 11-06-2013
San Francisco Defeating Pro-Developer Ballot Measures
in 2 to 1 Vote 11-05-2013
Press Release: One Saved Post Office: Stamford, CT From Margot Smith, Save the Post Office 11-04-2013
Body Found on Berkeley Shore Identified By Bay City News 11-01-2013
Dr. Toy Talks About Street Games and Outdoor Play By Stevanne Auerbach, PhD 11-01-2013
Donald Edwin Rasmussen
1916-2013 By David Rasmussen 11-05-2013
Man's Body Washes Up on Berkeley Beach By Bay City News 10-31-2013
Updated: All Clear in Downtown Berkeley after Bomb Panic By Jamey Padojino (BCN) 10-28-2013
Flash: Another Suspicious Package at Bancroft and Telegraph in Berkeley By Jamey Padojino (BCN) 10-28-2013
Flash: Suspicious Package Shuts Down Shattuck in Berkeley By Bay City News 10-28-2013
Berkeley City Council to Decide on Appeal Brought by Former Tenants of Fire-Ravaged Building with History of Landlord Negligence By Marcia Poole 10-27-2013
One Nation, Under Guard: How the Pentagon Trains for Martial Law in America By Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War 10-25-2013
Murdered Berkeley Man's Settlement with BPD a Bad Legacy (News Analysis) By Ted Friedman 10-25-2013
Infected Bat a Reminder to Use Caution By Berkeley Heath Department 10-24-2013
New: Hidden History—1983: Before the Invasion
A Reporter Visits Grenada and Disproves Ronald Reagan's Rabid Rhetoric By Gar Smith 10-28-2013
THE PUBLIC EYE: US Energy Policy: A Bridge to Nowhere By Bob Burnett 11-01-2013
ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Disabled People with Aging Parents By Jack Bragen 11-01-2013
New: DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE: Torpedoing the Iran Nuclear Talks By Conn Hallinan 10-28-2013
THE PUBLIC EYE: The Politics of Hate By Bob Burnett 10-25-2013
ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Atypical Antipsychotic Medications By Jack Bragen 10-24-2013
Press Release: Mrs. Dalloways to Hold Benefit Weekend for Berkeley High 11-05-2013
New: THEATER REVIEW: 'Red Virgin' at Central Works By Ken Bullock 11-05-2013
Theater Review: '444 Days'--Golden Thread Founder Torange Yeghiazarian on Iranian-American Relations-LAST WEEKEND By Ken Bullock 10-30-2013
Around & About Poetry: George Stanley Reads for Mythos Gallery in the Berkeley Hills By Ken Bullock 10-25-2013
Theater Review: 'Metamorphoses'--Inferno Theatre Brings Ovid to Berkeley By Ken Bullock 10-24-2013

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The job in front of Erik Prusch — who was promoted to president and CEO of Clearwire today — may be one of the toughest in wireless. The former CFO and COO at Clearwire will need to manage a complex relationship with majority shareholder Sprint, raise capital to add a LTE network and reassure shareholders (who have seen the stock plummet 72 percent this year) that the company can still live up to its initial promise.
Sounds like fun, huh?
Prusch also has some big shoes to fill, taking over the CEO duties from wireless veteran John Stanton who had filled the role on an interim basis after William Morrow stepped down. Stanton will become executive chairman, noting in a release that "my personal commitment to Clearwire remains strong."
Prusch has more of a financial background, which could serve the company well as it looks to raise capital, sell spectrum or search for other strategic alternatives. He served as CEO of Borland Software and vice president of finance at Identix before joining Clearwire in 2009.
"John and I, as well as the rest of our senior leadership team, are focused on successfully executing the critical tasks needed to grow our business and fully leverage our significant spectrum assets in order to keep Clearwire on course as a leader in mobile broadband and the largest 4G provider in the United States," Prusch said in a statement.
Clearwire's stock has been hammered in the past five days, falling 42 percent. But the stock is up a bit this morning on the news, trading at $1.43.
Can Prusch get the stock price even higher?
As noted above, there are some big challenges in front of the Kirkland provider of broadband wireless. But he will be well compensated to get the job done, earning a base salary of $700,000.
Previously on GeekWire: Clearwire embraces LTE as subscribers top 7.6 million and losses mount


text:
[Page 92]
I have been liberated...I am at home again. Bending under heavy memories I am walking down the streets, passing houses that I know. There are no familiar faces; nobody stretches out a hand to greet me. It seems like a strange place. Is it really my birthplace?
I am looking for our family home where we used to be happy; I want to see it. Here we are, finally I have managed to find it. I am standing broken-hearted in front of 32 Jókai Street, Pápa.
As if in a dream, I can see my father's face. The head of our family, a man in the prime of his life, worked for us tirelessly day and night. Despite working hard, he was able to contribute his time to public affairs as well; he participated in the leadership of the illustrious community as a representative in the 80-member board of representatives.
I can picture my mother, who was a real Yiddische Mame, caring only for the welfare of her children.
The vision has disappeared I am shaking as I open the gate where carts used to leave one after the other when I was a child: the huge carts of the Koritschoner firm, the screeching of the wheels still ring in my ears
Entering the yard, I want to see the rooms of our sweet home. After a few steps I begin to sway. I turn back with tearful eyes, sobbing. Our nest has been occupied by strangers, people I have never seen before. Voices of strangers can be heard from our dear old home. Nobody recognizes me. And then listen! All of a sudden I can hear a familiar voice. Bodri! Bodri! Is that you? You also survived!? My dear dog, can you recognize me?
It is me, Kató-Kató! Do you remember how much we played together?
He is drawn to me, wagging his tail, barking and groaning, licking my hand.
He has recognized me!
What do you want from me? Why are you pulling me? He seems to understand the question and goes on dragging me along. I follow him reluctantly along the huge yard. Where is he taking me?
To the garden at the end of the yard. Stopping under a tree my faithful dog starts digging with all his might. With his paws, he is digging a hole until the hidden treasure is revealed: a small box, containing valuables, the family jewels hidden by my parents
I did not know about it, since I lived in Sopron in the years before the deportation. Dear Bodri! You guarded the family jewels and for years you kept the secret from strangers so that you could reveal it to me only, the daughter of your dear master!
Bodri! In an age when humans turned into beasts, you, the beast, behaved like a person!
May these few lines commemorate your fidelity!
(On the basis of the recollections related by Kató Koritschoner, written by Gyula Láng.)
[Page 93]
By Eliezer Shisha
Tel Aviv in the afternoon of August 3, 1910. The shutters of the small single-storey buildings were closed; there was not a living soul in the street. It would have been so nice to be greeted warmly, to have a friendly handshake on the day of my homecoming.
In Achad Ha'am Street somebody was calling to me choletz, choletz. There was a man leaning against the fence of the gymnasia, he must have been the caller. Turning to him happily, I wanted to say shalom to him, but the irony in his voice held me back from doing so.
Why did you come, choletz? he asked me in Yiddish. Palestine is full of chalutzim. Where can you find work, what will you live on? I have not seen this man since; however, his voice can be heard all the time: the voice of stubborn half-heartedness and defeatism. It is the dark shadow of the great faith.
The employment agency of the Hapoel Hatzair was in Shachar Street. Shengalovsky, the Botany teacher of the gymnasia was in charge of allocating jobs. Newcomers turned to him to find out on which road they should work. (There were hardly any other opportunities for work at that time.) Shengalovsky (later Zohar Even) asked everyone a few questions about his occupation, age, and level of Hebrew. Well, in my case he added a question which seemed to be superfluous: he asked me where I had come from. The question seemed superfluous since all the chalutzim came from Russia at that time. I am from Hungary, I answered. From Hungary? repeated Shengalovsky in surprise. Are there Zionists there also? Yes, there are, I nodded. Wait a minute, he said staring at me for a long time, surprised. When he finished allotting jobs, he said: If you are really a Hungarian Jew, I will introduce you to Yitzhak Epstein, because he has not seen such an oddity. And he took me to Epstein, the great linguist, who was the principal of the teacher training college at the time. There was a large company of people assembled in his office when Shangalovsky introduced me: Here is a Hungarian chalutz! They stared at me as if I were a queer fish. I felt a bit embarrassed, but I got over it with the help of Epstein's encouraging words. So I was able to answer the multitude of questions about Hungarian Jewry and Hungarian Zionism. Then it was my turn to be surprised. Those present knew as much about Hungarian Jewry as about the Jews of China.
I was trying enthusiastically to save the honour of Hungarian Jewry. Whether my attempt was successful I do not know, but at least I managed to make my first acquaintance in Tel Aviv. It was highly important since I was the first Hungarian Jew in Tel Aviv
I will not send you to work on the road, Shengalovsky said. I will assign you to a more important job. In a month or two we are going to open our schools, but we don't have teachers. You should be one! That is how I became a teacher at the Tachkemoni School in 1920, before the High Holidays.
Achad Ha'am Street was closed to traffic. Between the sidewalks, two little wooden posts were set up, holding a wine-red string. Achad Ha'am is sick, he needs rest. The rumble of wheels and the honking of cars should not disturb him. (It was ordered by the municipality of Tel Aviv.)
After 4 p.m. the red string was removed, signalling the end of the great writer's afternoon siesta. So I went to see him in order to disclose my plan. It concerned the bazaar to be organized by Keren Kayemet and getting articles for the lottery. Members of the Vaad were competing with one another as to the value of the articles. I had the idea of visiting Achad Ha'am and asking for a copy of Al Parashat Had'rachim with his autograph. The old man gave me a warm welcome and granted my request with a smile. I left happily with the book, which is connected to the memory of the great intellectual leader. His image is imprinted in my brain with his small feet, huge skull, high brow, and lips with a delicate smile.
I had to visit Vladimir Zev Jabotinsky on behalf of the Vaad of Keren Kayemet Leyisrael, asking him to give a lecture. It was before the foundation of the Revisionist Zionist Alliance. I was sure he would my request. I was disappointed. Jabotinsky refused. He also gave reasons for doing so: he felt that he did not get the respect he deserved from Keren Kayemet Leyisrael. At that point I realized why this East-European, brilliant, highly gifted Jew with European culture running in his blood did not become the ideal of the chalutzim.
The mother of Chaim Weizmann lived in a single-storey building in Yehuda Halevy Street. It was a quiet little house, with not many visitors crossing its threshold. It was like that all year long, with the exception of the time when Chayimka as the old lady used to call her favorite child came home to see his mother. It usually happened before the holidays. This is what happened at Pesach 1923, when Weizmann came to have Seder together with his mother and siblings. We felt that Weizmann came not only to his family, but to all of us. With this in mind the young people of Tel Aviv set out to greet Weizmann at a late hour on the holiday night. The greeting meant dancing hora and singing aloud in front of his house, which drew Weizmann to the balcony to greet us. But we were not satisfied with that. We went in and asked him to come and join in the dancing. At first he showed some reluctance, but then he came and joined us dancing hora tirelessly. Since then we have been bragging about having danced hora with the president of the State.
On Tammuz 14, 1924 I left Tel Aviv to visit my brother in Rome and my parents in Bratislava. In the compartment of the Tel Aviv-Alexandria train I met four men who were also on their way to Europe, to the Congress of Tzeirei Tzion. They were Ben Gurion, Shkolnik (Eshkol), Kaplan and Miriminsky. We checked in together at the Hotel de France in Alexandria and travelled together to Naples on a boat called Europe. Who could have guessed at the time that three out of the four would become ministers in the Jewish state?
I met Kaplan several times after that. He was the leading engineer of Solel-Boneh, who signed my contract for the construction of a two-room apartment (for 260 pounds!) in the future Chovevei Tzion Street, which was a vast expanse of sand in those days. The text of the contract was typed by no other person than GOLDA (Meirsohn) MEIR!
I met Bialik on the boat in the summer of 1924 when I was coming home after a trip to Europe. The first meeting was a disappointment for me. Is it possible that this man looking like a business agent is in fact our great national poet? It cannot be. Actually, the silent Bialik was not the real one! I got acquainted with the real Bialik when I listened to him joking around with the chalutzim, telling anecdotes. Even his looks changed then. Unfortunately, he liked telling his stories in Yiddish, which I did not understand very well, so I had to ask a chalutz to translate it for me into Hebrew. Bialik noticed it, and from that point on, he told us every anecdote twice first in Yiddish, and then he turned to me, saying and now for your sake in Hebrew, repeating the story in our eloquent national language. This method worked beautifully during the voyage, to the satisfaction of all the chalutzim. Why not? Laughing twice at the same joke? So much the better!
As a result, I became a frequent visitor at Bialik's house.
The family of the poet Noach Pines, the principal of the teacher training college in Tel Aviv was one of the families in Tel Aviv with whom we became close friends. Noah's wife Elisheva was the daughter of Shaul Pinchas Rabinovits. In 1888 his father translated into Hebrew The History of the Jewish People by Graetz. This book was so highly esteemed that a street in Tel Aviv was named after it.
Their house was a true literary center, a meeting place for Bialik, Frischmann, Schneur, Sokolov, and almost all the Hebrew poets and writers in the beginning of the 20th century.
This happened at the beginning of the 1920s: I was taking a walk with Elisheva on Rothschild Boulevard. All of a sudden Elisheva stopped and I noticed that there was a third person in our company. Meet Rachel Bluwstein from Degania, said Elisheva. I had a look at the girl whose huge, dreaming black eyes dominated her face. We sat down on a bench. Our conversation with Rachel was about trifling everyday matters. One year later she was recognized as one of the greatest poets of the Hebrew literary renaissance.
At the time I seem to have missed out on something: to take a deeper look into the profound poetic soul of Rachel.
We got the news that Avigdor Feuerstein had left Odessa and was on his way to the Land of Israel. He arrived, was welcomed appropriately, however, there were no Hungarian chalutzim to greet him then. We thought it was not fair. Who can claim Feuerstein but us? We have specific things to tell him: Feuerstein is a Hungarian Jew, he will understand our problems. We can tell him everything; even share our complaints with him.
I decided to visit him, despite the fact that I had never met him personally before. At that time I had no opportunity to go and see him. Later on I had the chance. I heard that he was sick, lying in the Hadassah Hospital. The mitzvah of bikur holim is valid for all. Therefore, I made up my mind to visit him and if his state of health permitted, I would tell him more than wishing him refuah shlemah. I put on my holiday clothes, and on the way to the hospital, I prepared in my mind what to tell him. I arrived at the beginning of visiting hours.
Feuerstein was sitting at his bedside reading. I could recognize the book from its cover, he was holding the One Thousand and One Miracles by Moskovsky in his hand. I went up to him, introduced myself, and was about to start what I had to say when he interrupted me. He said that I should believe that Einstein's space had bent; this was the greatest idea of human culture, and the farthest nebula in the starry sky was, in fact, right here. Then he talked about the microcosmos, the macrocosmos, the world of bacilli, the mammoth, Siamese twins, the Pope in Rome, the Gaon of Vilna and a lot more. About Marx, Jesus, Jeanne D'Arc, Freud, Ady, The Tragedy of Man
(When he got to that point, the nurse politely pushed me out of the ward, saying visiting hours were over.)
I left with mixed feelings. I got acquainted with Feuerstein .He always did the talking and I could hardly get a word in edgeways. We were close friends for decades, but he talked all the time.
Only on a very sad day in the cemetery of Kiryat Shaul did I have the liberty to recount at the bier of Hameiri who this great Messianistic Hebrew poet really was.
Memories Is it possible not to remember the many enthusiastic chalutzim who were building the country, searching for God, searching for truth, who came here from all the corners of the world? People with a great secret in their heart, who came here to forget, just as Christians hide in the seclusion of their monasteries. An infinite number of shining spots in the flood of memories:
Who could forget Darida, the Christian chalutz, who was among the first fighting back Arab attackers during the May Day riots in 1921? Where is the Transylvanian ger, who came here, led by his new belief? However, he broke down when he had to face secular life, and went into exile.
What happened to Wolf from Bratislava/Pozsony, the patron of the Hungarian group of chalutzim, who wanted to see the hill where the Torah had been given, so he went on a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai in the beginning of the 1920s?
Who could forget Moshkovitz, the Tolstoyan artist from Hungary, who used to be the director of the gallery in Florence? Here he first became a simple labourer, then bought a piece of land on Mount Carmel and tilled it with his own hands.
There were so many enthusiasts of Zion, beautiful souls, taken by cruel fate from our ranks. Rabbi Mordechai Asodi came from Debrecen, together with his old parents, wife and five young children, and the next day following his arrival he was killed defending his family from Arab hordes. It happened near the house of Yosef Chaim Brenner, who was also murdered on the same day. [during the Jaffa riots of 1921 the translator]
Lawyer candidate Dr. Alexander Frisch, a pleasant, cheerful man became a victim of rebuilding the country. He was a worker in the Salpeters yeast factory when the boiler exploded in November 1923, killing him together with Simcha Salpeter and his wife, who was like a mother for the chalutzim.
There is a name emerging from the memories of the Jewish aliyah after the First World War: the engineer Ármin Winkler, who settled in Jerusalem in 1919 and became the victim of overwork.
There were many more olim from Hungary, devoted, enthusiastic and brave people who paid with their lives for their contribution to the awakening to a new life and the realization of the great dream!
[Page 98]
Professor Dr. JACOB KATZ, Rector
He was born in 1904 at Magyargencs, near Pápa. He spent his childhood in this village where there were hardly enough Jews for a minyan. They lived on the modest income supplied by their grocery store. The rising star of the village child was marked by the following stations: after elementary and higher elementary studies he went to the yeshiva in Pozsony/Pressburg, and then continued his studies at the yeshiva of Frankfurt where he received his smichah as a rabbi, but he did not want to work as a rabbi.
He received his doctorate at the University of Frankfurt.
In 1936, he worked in England as a teacher at a high school and a teacher training college, both religious institutions.
In 1950 he taught in the Departments of Sociology and Jewish History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 1956-57 he was a visiting professor at the Institute of Jewish Studies in Manchester.
From 1958 on, he was Dean at the Hebrew University for four years. In 1961, he became a full professor at the department in memoriam Bella and Israel Unterberg.
In 1969, he was elected rector of the Hebrew University.
(His books published in Hebrew and English: Tradition and Crisis, Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: studies about Jewish-Christian relations, Out of the Ghetto.
An outstanding figure of Hungarian orthodoxy, he was born in 1870 in Pápa into a distinguished family of the Pápa Jewish community. Even in his youth he gave signs of his ability as an excellent organizer. When he was a student, he organized a torchlight procession of Jewish youth, in honour of the election of Dr. Salamon Breuer, who became a famous chief rabbi. Dr. Breuer later occupied the rabbinical seat of Frankfurt that had become vacant after the death of his father-in-law and the founder of German orthodoxy, Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch. Korein remained life-long friends with chief rabbi Dr. Breuer. After finishing his studies, he set out in business; he married the daughter of the highly respected community president, Adolf Lőwenstein, and opened a textile business in Szombathely where he soon became the president of the Jewish community. He had connections with distinguished figures in the county and on a national scale. He visited the PM Kálmán Széll several times on his estate in Vas County. His wife, who was the daughter of the great national poet Mihály Vörösmarty, also received him with great respect. The PM honoured his guest and had a great regard for the strictly traditional, educated Jew. Subsequently, he moved to the capital and there also participated in Jewish public life. He was a national dignitary. After the lost war, he was sent to Sopron by the right-wing government before the referendum [when the citizens of Sopron had the right to decide whether to stay with Hungary or join Austria the translator], to campaign for the Hungarians. He refused the decoration that he was about to receive for this, saying he would not accept being decorated by Miklós Horthy [Regent and Head of State in Hungary between 1920-1944 the translator].
For three decades he was a member of the National Central Committee, the top leadership of Hungarian Orthodox Jewry. He had an educated mind, a pleasant appearance, and good manners; moreover, he was an excellent orator and a skilled writer; he had a fortunate combination of all these exceptional qualities. He was militantly orthodox, true to his principles. He was the only orthodox member of the City Council of Székesfehérvár. He fought for decades for the observance of Shabbat, which was in danger. He organized the Alliance of Shomrei Shabbat, and edited the almanac Szombat. His articles for the observance of Shabbat would fill a whole library. He managed to change payday to Wednesday instead of Saturday for the tens of thousands of workers in the workshops of the capital.
It was adopted by many factories as well. It also helped retailers and stallholders who kept their business closed on Shabbat. In addition to his political and religious activities, he was an exceptional activist of sheer goodness. He was a tireless fighter for the rights of the man-in-the-street, for the stallholder to get back his stall that had been taken away under the White regime, or for the cancellation of an unfair fine. He talked patiently to the poor in trouble. He knew how to encourage people who turned to him and to give back their hope. He was a father-like figure, a patron for little Jews and for all the poor without discrimination of faith. Even during the White regime he managed to ensure that the aid for Jewish communities and charitable associations was paid by the Municipality of Budapest, which would not have been an easy job even in more peaceful times. In the interwar period without this aid, most Jewish charitable associations would have been forced to close down or to cut their beneficial activities to almost nothing.
At the age of 79, in 1949, his noble heart stopped beating. Hungarian Jewry lost a very worthy citizen with his death.
the pride of Pápa Jews, the son of the highly educated elementary school teacher of Pápa Adolf Shisha, was born in 1900. After getting his teaching diploma, he passed the matriculation exams at a secondary school for modern languages and sciences in Kecskemét. Then he was a student at the technical universities of Budapest and Vienna. He could feel early the storm coming to wipe out European Jewry and had immigrated to Palestine in 1920. Only a month following his arrival, he was appointed a teacher at the Tachkemoni School. The following year, in recognition of his excellent professional knowledge, he started to work at the National Institute of Geodesy: there he received an award for his patent of the planimeter from the British mandate government. The College of Geodesy in Holon was founded in 1949; its management was entrusted to him, in addition to his teaching of mathematics.
In the meantime, he was writing books and translating into Hebrew the great mathematical work of Professor Brodetzky. His popular science books written in Hebrew were published by Am-Oved: Archimedes and Newton (two editions), Abao Ziffer Harofe (two editions), Textbook on the Theory of Errors in Measurement.
the son of Pápa teacher Adolf Shisha, was born on November 15, 1893. The highly educated teacher, who also learnt English and French in his spare time, in addition to studying mathematics at an advanced level, gave his son an excellent education. At his bar-mitzva, Miklós gave his audience a surprise with the drashah that he had written and his festive address in French, which was understood probably only by his father. After finishing elementary school he was an excellent, eminent student at the local Protestant High School. He showed an inclination to write at a young age. He was in the sixth grade of the High School when one of his short stories was published in the daily paper Pápai Hírlap. He was in the seventh grade when he met the world-famous psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi, who was temporarily staying in Pápa as an officer of the seventh hussar regiment. He lived in the same street as Miklós, in Eötvös Street; Ferenczi employed the intelligent student who knew Western languages as his secretary. That is how Miklós got acquainted with the teachings of Freud at quite a young age. Later on, he wrote Freudian articles on a very high level, which were published in the Nyugat, a social and literary periodical. (War and Psycho-Sexuality, The Soul of the Crowd) Subsequently he had personal contact with Freud as well. After the matriculation, he moved to Kecskemét, where he stayed with his married sister Helén and went to the local law school. The young law student attracted attention with his erudition and original thinking. He was 19 when he won a prize with his 75-page excellent essay On the Impact of Darwinism on Philosophy. In addition to scholarly work, he was interested in literature, theatre, and the arts. . He was the editor of a student newspaper called Diáklap. Later on, his play Mr. Wry in Heaven was accepted by the literary advisor of Vígszínház, Jenő Heltai, who also paid him for it, but the war prevented the performance of the play.
After the outbreak of the First World War he did his military service in Pozsony/Pressburg/Bratislava, and received his law degree there. Subsequently he moved to Pest, where in 1916 he became the chairman of the radical Galilei Circle. In 1919 he gave the funeral address for Endre Ady [1877-1919, great Hungarian poet, idolized by contemporary radical youth the translator] on behalf of the Galilei Circle, in front of the bier of the great poet in the assembly hall of the university. The events of the world war plunged him into political life. His socialist views were expressed by the periodical Szabad Gondolat, which he edited. He tried to win over Count Mihály Károlyi to the idea of organizing Békeblokk (a Coalition of Peace). Mihály Károlyi in his reply on September 23, 1917 wrote that he agreed with the idea propagated by Dr. Shisha and invited him to talk it over together with Oszkár Jászi and Zsigmond Kunfi. The meeting took place, but nothing came of it.
In those days, Shisha was in the centre of an anti-war action organized by the Galilei Circle. They wrote pamphlets. Shisha distributed his pamphlet against bloodshed Katona-Testvérekhez (To Soldier-Brothers) in the barracks in Üllői Road. The police suspected the Galilei Circle of the action and banned it from January 1, 1918. Dr. Shisha was arrested also. He was imprisoned in Conti Street, then in the transit prison, and was released before the autumn revolution. During the Commune of 1919 Shisha did not ask for an appointment, and did not get any. Nevertheless, he frequently met state leaders then, many of whom made use of his advice. In those days he had to travel to the parents of his wife in Fiume because his wife was ill. The news about the downfall of the Commune reached him in Fiume. At the time Fiume was under the dictatorship of D'Annunzio, the famous poet, who had occupied the town. Shisha got in contact with D'Annunzio, which was not approved of by the citizens of the town. One day Shisha was kidnapped from his apartment at gun-point by reactionaries; he was forced into a car, and was driven away. D'Annunzio was informed about it, saved Shisha's life, and advised him to leave the town. First, he worked in the organisation of the Italian Socialist Party in Civita Vecchia, and then he moved to Rome where he worked as an official in charge of the press for the Soviet Embassy. In 1927 he was transferred to Milano where he fell mortally ill, and died there at the age of 34 on July 13, 1927.
Dr. Miklós Shisha was an idealist with a pure soul and an amazingly intelligent person. His attitude to being a Jew is demonstrated in his letters written to his brother who settled in Palestine in 1920. He was not religious, but he was a self-respecting Jew who never denied his identity.
He highly valued the building of Eretz Yisrael. In his letters, he drew a parallel between his humanistic socialism and Zionism which was building the country. He yearned to see Eretz Yisrael being rebuilt, but his dream could not be realized. Fate decided otherwise. The fact that the builders of the new world highly appreciated the activities of Dr. Shisha is attested by the following books written about him:
1.Galilei per a XX. században [The Trial of Galilei in the 20th century] by Jolán Kelen, Kossuth, 1957.
2.Új vizeken járok. A Galilei Kör története [I Walk on New Waters. The History of the Galilei Circle] by Márta Tömöry, Gondolat, Budapest, 1960.
3.Sisa Miklós. 'Forrás', Irodalom, Mûvészet, Tudomány by Nándor Heltai, Kecskemét, July 1969.
Albert Seelenfreund, born in Pápa, was a later successor of the Abaújszántó rabbi Shemen Rokeach. He was a student in the days of Herzl when he founded the Tzeirei Tzion Youth Association in Pápa. He received his diploma as a teacher and a chazan at the National Teacher Training College of Pápa with an excellent record. He was a student at the Teacher Training College and only 19 when, in recognition of his talents, he was invited by the Szeged Jewish Community to take the post of secretary. Chief Rabbi Immanuel Lőw loved this musical genius, whose pleasant baritone voice elevated the ritual of the priestly blessing (Albert was a Cohen) to an artistic level. While working as secretary at Szeged, several of his poems were published in the most intellectual Jewish periodical, Múlt és Jövő, under the name Albert Baráth. During the First World War, in which he was injured, he reached the rank of lieutenant. After the war, he returned to Szeged. He left his secretarial job and worked for a wholesale business firm where he was in charge of exporting paprika
Many years before the Second World War, he travelled with his family to Cuba, then to Mexico, and soon won himself a name as the representative of chemical factories. A series of his articles were published in Spanish in the technical literature. He was in charge of the temple frequented by Hungarians in Mexico City, and his holiday sermons were the highlights of the services.
On the occasion of his 70th birthday, he visited Israel and presented the Bnei Herzl Lodge with a beautiful silver goblet in memory of Immanuel Lőw.
With his vast Jewish learning and faithful religious sentiment, he conquered the hearts of Mexican Jews so much that at his funeral, addresses were given in Spanish, Hebrew and Hungarian. The orators from different Jewish communities eulogized his tireless work for the public. It was a great loss for the Jews of Pápa.
He was born in Tab, Somogy County. His father was an engineer who died young. His mother married Lipót Buxbaum, who was a teacher and a school principal at Pápa. The young boy found a real home in Pápa; Lipót Buxbaum gave him an excellent education and he was adored by his new siblings, the Buxbaum children.
He attended the local Protestant High School and passed the matriculation exams there. Then he became a student at the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest, where he attracted great attention by his talent as a young scholar of Eastern studies. In 1939 he made aliya and continued his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He became an orientalist and went to England. First he was a researcher in a college at Oxford, and then he became a professor of eastern languages at Oxford University. He became world-famous in scholarly circles in 1948 on account of a debate he held with the Arab delegates at a Paris conference. He defeated the Arabs by proving on the basis of a verse in the Quran, that the Al-Aqsa mosque cannot have been in Jerusalem. It must have been in the city of Medina, near Mecca. The Arab delegates from the Middle-East created a scandal, but Muslim scholars from more distant countries congratulated him in private.
He is considered among the best orientalists. Unfortunately, the great scholar died young, in 1969.
If you want to get acquainted with real talmidei hachamim from Pápa, you should meet
who was an outstanding Talmudic scholar.
He was the son of the Krakkower rebbe and the grandson of the Chatam Sofer, and dealt with leather. He did not have a shop, his flat was his storehouse. He spoke of it somewhat bitterly, pointing out the rooms in his apartment:
This is the place where I sleep. This is where my family sleeps. And this is where my business sleeps.
It was recorded that he received a dowry that was considered unusually large in those days, 5000 gold pieces. On the day of his wedding, he distributed one tenth of it among the poor. When his father-in-law found out, he became angry and questioned him, saying that it was his fortune that Kive dissipated. The chatan's uncle Ktav Sofer was there; he tried to calm him down, saying Don't worry about our Kive, he will die a rich man. Later on when he became the owner of a cookware factory and had serious problems because of the bad economic situation, his friends could not see any outward signs of his worries.
On one occasion he was asked by his friend Horovitz (the soap manufacturer he used to study Talmud with in the evenings), how come he gave no signs of worries concerning his serious business difficulties. I believe in the words of my uncle who said I would not die poor, replied Kive. Indeed, the encouraging prediction of the great rabbi came true: he left a huge fortune to his son Mordechai Berl, on condition that he would do nothing but study Torah for 10 years.
In fact, Kive himself paid little attention to his business; he lived for the study of the Torah. It was written about him that he knew the 24 books of the Tanach by heart. When he was in business, he used to study in the storeroom all year round. He did not even heat his room in the winter, he was so careful not to spend money on himself. When he had to travel on public business, he did not accept costs from the community treasury. (The budget item accepted in Israel indicated by the acronym eshel food, drink, lodging for the night - did not exist then.) As a measure of economy, however, he took only dry bread for the trip. Since his life was dedicated to learning, he did not accept the post of the chief rabbi in Krakow that was offered to him when his father died.
I know how much my father regretted that public affairs and the private matters of his believers distracted him from learning the Torah, remarked reb Kive.
His folios of the Talmud were filled with marginal notes from his studies.
His letters written to his son, studying at Hunsdorf, were full of witty Biblical commentaries.
It is a credit to his wisdom that he drafted the rules and regulations of the Pápa Jewish community in such a way as to prevent a neolog take-over. According to the rules, the community was to be directed by an 80-member body of representatives and a 23-member religious organization. The first was the result of elections by the community. The 23 members were all learned men in religious studies and they were not chosen by the community. If one of them died or moved to another place, his place was filled by someone invited by the Religious Committee. Candidates for the post of the rabbi, dayan and shochet were nominated by this organ. The body of representatives or the regular community member was authorized to choose only from the functionaries who were recommended by it.
His witticisms were recorded by Albert Neumann, a school principal from Nyíregyháza, in a book entitled Reb Kive Pope.
He was one of the many excellent teachers who came from Pápa.
He was the son of Talmud instructor Arye Paneth, a descendent of the famous rabbinical dynasty from Dés, who moved to Pápa. Yechezkiel was named after the first Chief Rabbi of Transylvania.
He brought with him the finest virtues and merits of his home town. His work and his attitude towards life were exemplary; he was a truly religious instructor. His self-respecting behaviour and pedantic appearance drew attention in the Jewish teacher training college of Budapest. He remained a stickler for detail inside and outside all his life. He was the favorite student of Professor Bánóczi, the great educator and humanist. He himself was a humanist as well; during 27 years that he spent at the renowned Orthodox School of Budapest, he not only taught the students, he also educated them and provided social care for them. Many of his former students living in Israel remembered how he used to give away his own sandwich to poor students.
Shoah survivors from Pest who were deported together with him told stories about his wonderful behaviour in the camp: how he got for himself new t'filin in place of the ones taken from him by sacrificing his bread for it.
After the war and the tribulations he had gone through in the camp on Cyprus, he reached Israel. He settled in Nitzanim where his daughter lived. He lived in the kibbutz during the hard days of the War of Independence, when he was in charge of the weapons. He remained faithful and continued to live a traditional, religious life in the non-religious kibbutz as well, creating for himself the customary religious atmosphere by his conduct.
At the age of 66, this noble instructor left us forever. The memory of this just man is cherished by the circle of Pápa expatriates.
The grandson of our dayan Rav Tzvi Eckstein was educated in the traditional spirit of his parents and grandparents, and studied at various yeshivas. After the World War he joined the movement of the Hashomer Hatzair and made aliya. In Israel he was among the founders of the kibbutz Lehavot Chaviva and was active in Mapam. He was a gifted poet. For his collections of poems The Great Night and the Eyes of Sinful Times, he was posthumously awarded the Charchas prize in Kibbutz Eilon. The poems in these collections recalled the Shoah.
[Page 105]
The first Jewish settlers who moved there in the 18th century spoke German. Most of them came from Moravia, where they spoke the Silesian dialect. Together with the language, they also brought along German culture. They spoke it not only with one another; they could also use it to talk to the landowner or his steward. The artisans in town were Germans and the majority of villagers nearby were ethnic Germans, so they did not have a language problem. Only rabbis, dayanim and some Talmud scholars wrote in Hebrew; they did not actually speak it. The Hebrew correspondence of rabbis can be traced in collections of responsa. The rabbis of Pápa are mentioned by Rabbi Yehuda Asad, the Chatam Sofer and the Ktav Sofer. Hebrew books were written by secular people as well, mostly doctors.
Until the middle of the 19th century, the spoken language for everyday life remained German; it was also used in business and in family correspondence. Yiddish was unknown in Pápa, even in the most religious circles; you could not hear take zai instead of wirklich so, beshüm aifen was also unheard of. The connection to the Hebrew language was preserved by believers through letters: they wrote Hochdeutsch in Hebrew letters.
Rabbis started their sermons by Andächtige Zuhörer, teaching at school was in German until 1860. At the turn of the century, the Bible and the Psalms were taught in their classical German translations. In the upper grades of the higher elementary school, Uncle Marton used to teach psalms in the Hochdeutsh translation of Frankfurt chief rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch.
The following Jews were excellent Hebraists:
Ármin Schor, principal of the higher elementary school and the son of the Alsókubin rabbi. After losing his father at the age of two, he was taken to his maternal uncle rabbi Groszmann, who was the rabbi of Nagybicse and the author of the halachic book Bet Yakov. He learnt Hebrew so well that at the age of 12 he could write and speak Hebrew perfectly.
Mór Pfeiffer, principal, author of a Hebrew grammar.
Henrik Blau, principal.
Lipót Buxbaum, teacher.
Izsó Várhelyi, teacher, who promoted modern Hebrew, teaching youth the living language.
In the beginning of the 20th century, Hungarian took the place of the German language; Jews became magyarized completely. It became their beloved mother tongue, the language spoken at home. You might accidently find some family heads reading the Pester Lloyd or the Pester Journal, but soon they were displaced by Újság and Pesti Hírlap.
In the beginning of the 1900s, the enthusiasm for the Hungarian language triggered a demonstration of Pápa Jewish students against the performance of the Purim Spiel in German by yeshiva students; windows were broken to stop the performance. On another occasion, at a service for youth, inaugurating a new Torah scroll, the demand was raised to change the word Mittelschule embroidered with gold on the parochet for középiskola.
At that time, the sermons of the rabbi in German drew only few listeners. The Zionist youth attended Hebrew courses, but the spirit of the Hungarian language accompanied the Jewish survivors of Pápa to all corners of the world. As the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 took with them the ancient Sephardic language through the Balkans and to South America, and preserved it for centuries, the Jews from Hungary, at least their first generation, became the missionaries of Hungarian language and culture. Even among the believers of Neturei Karta, the most fanatical Jews, the Hungarian language dominates. The ghettoization, the bitterness of the Jewish laws, the horrors of the forced labour camps and death camps, and all the painful memories caused negative feelings against people only, but not against the innocent language of Petőfi, Arany, Jókai and Ady. As a result, this commemorative book was written in Hungarian about the life of Pápa Jews.
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
for verification.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.
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Shouldn't the lower half the breast be covered with armor too? It looks incomplete that way.
Nice work "JugJug." Hey, which Wacom tablet did you get, where from, and how much? If you don't mind me asking.B
The artwork is fantastic and the picture looks great. But I just do not like the idea of a clone trooper with a C sized rack on a battlefield. I just can't come to grips with that.
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Ver-Mac expands into software
Vermac VP of Sales & Marketing Todd Foster
Already an established leader in building portable signage and sensor hardware,
is focusing on building the integration software side of its business. Now a turnkey solution, Ver-Mac offers a complete Smart Workzones solution that includes hardware and the company's JamLogic software.
According to Todd Foster, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Ver-Mac, Jamlogic pushes and pulls traffic data from existing sensors and cameras and shares its with motorists, third-party vendors and DOTs. Traffic data can automatically be routed to dynamic message signs, informing motorists of construction zones, detours and estimated drive times.
Jamlogic integrates with other data services such as Inrix, enriching its data pool.
Jamlogic can also be used to do fleet management, tracking, updating and maintaining portable signs over a geographic area from a central console.
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In 1969, Ted Turner wanted to buy a television station. He was thirty years old. He had inherited a billboard business from his father, which was doing well. But he was bored, and television seemed exciting. "He knew absolutely nothing about it," one of Turner's many biographers, Christian Williams, writes in "Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way" (1981). "It would be fun to risk everything he had built, scare the hell out of everybody, and get back in the front seat of the roller coaster."
The station in question was WJRJ, Channel 17, in Atlanta. It was an independent station on the UHF band, the lonely part of the television spectrum which viewers needed a special antenna to find. It was housed in a run-down cinder-block building near a funeral home, leading to the joke that it was at death's door. The equipment was falling apart. The staff was incompetent. It had no decent programming to speak of, and it was losing more than half a million dollars a year. Turner's lawyer, Tench Coxe, and his accountant, Irwin Mazo, were firmly opposed to the idea. "We tried to make it clear that—yes—this thing might work, but if it doesn't everything will collapse," Mazo said, years later. "Everything you've got will be gone. . . . It wasn't just us, either. Everybody told him not to do it."
Turner didn't listen. He was Captain Courageous, the man with nerves of steel who went on to win the America's Cup, take on the networks, marry a movie star, and become a billionaire. He dressed like a cowboy. He gave the impression of signing contracts without looking at them. He was a drinker, a yeller, a man of unstoppable urges and impulses, the embodiment of the entrepreneur as risk-taker. He bought the station, and so began one of the great broadcasting empires of the twentieth century.
What is sometimes forgotten amid the mythology, however, is that Turner wasn't the proprietor of any old billboard company. He had inherited the largest outdoor-advertising firm in the South, and billboards, in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, were enormously lucrative. They benefitted from favorable tax-depreciation rules, they didn't require much capital investment, and they produced rivers of cash. WJRJ's losses could be used to offset the taxes on the profits of Turner's billboard business. A television station, furthermore, fit very nicely into his existing business. Television was about selling ads, and Turner was very experienced at ad-selling. WJRJ may have been a virtual unknown in the Atlanta market, but Turner had billboards all over the city that were blank about fifteen per cent of the time. He could advertise his new station free. As for programming, Turner had a fix for that, too. In those days, the networks offered their local affiliates a full slate of shows, and whenever an affiliate wanted to broadcast local programming, such as sports or news, the national shows were preëmpted. Turner realized that he could persuade the networks in New York to let him have whatever programming their affiliates weren't running. That's exactly what happened. "When we reached the point of having four preempted NBC shows running in our daytime lineup," Turner writes in his autobiography, "Call Me Ted" (2008), "I had our people put up some billboards saying 'THE NBC NETWORK MOVES TO CHANNEL 17.' "
Williams writes that Turner was "attracted to the risk" of the deal, but it seems just as plausible to say that he was attracted by the deal's lack of risk. "We don't want to put it all on the line, because the result can't possibly be worth the risk," Mazo recalls warning Turner. Put it all on the line? The purchase price for WJRJ was $2.5 million. Similar properties in that era went for many times that, and Turner paid with a stock swap engineered in such a way that he didn't have to put a penny down. Within two years, the station was breaking even. By 1973, it was making a million dollars in profit.
In a recent study, "From Predators to Icons," the French scholars Michel Villette and Catherine Vuillermot set out to discover what successful entrepreneurs have in common. They present case histories of businessmen who built their own empires—ranging from Sam Walton, of Wal-Mart, to Bernard Arnault, of the luxury-goods conglomerate L.V.M.H.—and chart what they consider the typical course of a successful entrepreneur's career. There is almost always, they conclude, a moment of great capital accumulation—a particular transaction that catapults him into prominence. The entrepreneur has access to that deal by virtue of occupying a "structural hole," a niche that gives him a unique perspective on a particular market. Villette and Vuillermot go on, "The businessman looks for partners to a transaction who do not have the same definition as he of the value of the goods exchanged, that is, who undervalue what they sell to him or overvalue what they buy from him in comparison to his own evaluation." He moves decisively. He repeats the good deal over and over again, until the opportunity closes, and—most crucially—his focus throughout that sequence is on hedging his bets and minimizing his chances of failure. The truly successful businessman, in Villette and Vuillermot's telling, is anything but a risk-taker. He is a predator, and predators seek to incur the least risk possible while hunting.
Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of Fiat, financed his young company with the money of investors—who were "subsequently excluded from the company by a maneuver by Agnelli," the authors point out. Bernard Arnault took over the Boussac group at a personal cost of forty million francs, which was a fraction of the "immediate resale value of the assets." The French industrialist Vincent Bolloré "took charge of the failing family company for almost nothing with other people's money." George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, shifted the financial risk of his new enterprise to his family and to his wealthy friend Henry Strong. IKEA's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, arranged to get his furniture made in Communist Poland for half of what it would cost him in Sweden. Marcel Dassault, the French aviation pioneer, did a study for the French Army that pointed out the value of propellers, and then took over a propeller manufacturer. When he started making planes for the military, he made sure he was paid in advance.
People like Dassault and Eastman and Arnault and Turner are all successful entrepreneurs, businessmen whose insights and decisions have transformed the economy, but their entrepreneurial spirit could not have less in common with that of the daring risk-taker of popular imagination. Would we so revere risk-taking if we realized that the people who are supposedly taking bold risks in the cause of entrepreneurship are actually doing no such thing?
The most successful entrepreneur on Wall Street—certainly of the past decade and perhaps even of the postwar era—is a hedge-fund manager named John Paulson. He started a small money-management business in the nineteen-nineties and built it into a juggernaut, and Gregory Zuckerman's recent account of Paulson's triumph, "The Greatest Trade Ever," offers a fascinating perspective on the predator thesis.
Paulson grew up in middle-class Queens, the child of an immigrant father. His career on Wall Street started relatively slowly. He launched his firm in 1994, when he was nearly forty years old, specializing in merger arbitrage. By 2004, Paulson was managing about two billion dollars of other people's money, putting him in the middle ranks of hedge funds. He was, Zuckerman writes, a "solid investor, careful and decidedly unspectacular." The particular kinds of deal he did were "among the safest forms of investing." One of Paulson's mentors was an investor named Marty Gruss, and, Zuckerman writes, "the ideal Gruss investment had limited risk but held the promise of a potential fortune. Marty Gruss drilled a maxim into Paulson: 'Watch the downside; the upside will take care of itself.' At his firm, he asked his analysts repeatedly, 'How much can we lose on this trade?' " Long after he became wealthy, he would take the bus to his offices in midtown, and the train out to his summer house on Long Island. He was known for getting around the Hamptons on his bicycle.
By 2004-05, Paulson was increasingly suspicious of the real-estate boom. He decided to short the mortgage market, using a financial tool known as the credit-default swap, or C.D.S. A credit-default swap is like an insurance policy. Wall Street banks combined hundreds of mortgages together in bundles, and investors could buy insurance on any of the bundles they chose. Suppose I put together a bundle of ten mortgages totalling a million dollars. I could sell you a one-year C.D.S. policy on that bundle for, say, a hundred thousand dollars. If after the year was up the ten homeowners holding those mortgages were all making their monthly payments, I'd pocket your hundred thousand. If, however, those homeowners all defaulted, I'd owe you the full value of the bundle—a million dollars. Throughout the boom, countless banks and investment firms sold C.D.S. policies on securities backed by subprime loans, happily pocketing the annual premiums in the belief that there was little chance of ever having to make good on the contract. Paulson, as often as not, was the one on the other side of the trade. He bought C.D.S. contracts by the truckload, and, when he ran out of money, he found new investors, raising billions of new dollars so he could buy even more. By the time the crash came, he was holding insurance on some twenty-five billion dollars' worth of subprime mortgages.
Was Paulson's trade risky? Conventional wisdom said that it was. This kind of deal is known, in Wall Street parlance, as a "negative-carry" trade, and, as Zuckerman writes, negative-carry trades are a "maneuver that investment pros detest almost as much as high taxes and coach-class seating." Their problem with negative-carry is that if the trade doesn't pay off quickly it can become ruinously expensive. It's one thing if I pay you a hundred thousand dollars for one year's insurance on a million dollars' worth of mortgages, and the mortgages go belly up after six months. But what if I pay premiums for two years, and the bubble still hasn't burst? Then I'm out two hundred thousand dollars, with nothing to show for my efforts. And what if the bubble hasn't burst after three years? Now I have a very nervous group of investors. To win at a negative-carry trade, you have not only to correctly predict the presence of a bubble but also to correctly predict when the bubble is about to burst.
At one point before the crash, Zuckerman writes, a trader at Morgan Stanley "hung up the phone after yet another Paulson order and turned to a colleague in disbelief. 'This guy is nuts,' he said with a chuckle, amazed that Paulson was agreeing to make so many annual insurance payments. 'He's just going to pay it all out?' " Wall Street thought that Paulson was crazy.
But Paulson wasn't crazy at all. In 2006, he had his firm undertake a rigorous analysis of the housing market, led by Paulson's associate Paolo Pellegrini. At that point, it was unclear whether rising housing prices represented a bubble or a legitimate phenomenon. Pellegrini concluded that housing prices had risen on average 1.4 per cent annually between 1975 and 2000, once inflation had been accounted for. In the next five years, though, they had risen seven per cent a year—to the point where they would have to fall by forty per cent to be back in line with historical trends. That fact left Paulson certain that he was looking at a bubble.
Paulson's next concern was with the volatility of the housing market. Was this bubble resilient? Or was everything poised to come crashing down? Zuckerman tells how Pellegrini and another Paulson associate, Sihan Shu, "purchased enormous databases tracking the historic performance of more than six million mortgages in various parts of the country." Thus equipped,
they crunched the numbers, tinkered with logarithms and logistic functions, and ran different scenarios, trying to figure out what would happen if housing prices stopped rising. Their findings seemed surprising: Even if prices just flatlined, homeowners would feel so much financial pressure that it would result in losses of 7 percent of the value of a typical pool of subprime mortgages. And if home prices fell 5 percent, it would lead to losses as high as 17 percent.
This was a crucial finding. Most people at the time believed that widespread defaults on mortgages were a function of some combination of structural economic factors such as unemployment rates, interest rates, and regional economic health. That's why so many on Wall Street were happy to sell Paulson C.D.S. policies: they thought it would take a perfect storm to bring the market to its knees. But Pellegrini's data showed that the bubble was being inflated by a single, rickety factor—rising home prices. It wouldn't take much for the bubble to burst.
Paulson then looked at what buying disaster insurance on mortgages would cost. C.D.S. contracts can sometimes be prohibitively expensive. In the months leading up to General Motors' recent bankruptcy, for example, a year's insurance on a million of the carmaker's bonds sold for eight hundred thousand dollars. If Paulson had to pay anything like that amount, there wouldn't be much room for error. To his amazement, though, he found that to insure a million dollars of mortgages would cost him just ten thousand dollars—and this was for some of the most dubious and high-risk subprime mortgages. Paulson didn't even need a general housing-market collapse to make his money. He needed only the most vulnerable of all homeowners to start defaulting. It was a classic asymmetrical trade. If Paulson raised a billion dollars from investors, he could buy a year's worth of insurance on twelve billion dollars of subprime loans for a hundred and twenty million. That's an outlay of twelve per cent up front. But, Zuckerman explains,
because premiums on CDS contracts, like those on any other insurance product, are paid out over time, the new fund could keep most of its money in the bank until the CDS bills came due, and thereby earn about 5 percent a year. That would cut the annual cost to the fund to a more reasonable 7 percent. Since Paulson would charge 1 percent a year as a management fee, the most an investor could lose would be 8 percent a year. . . . And the upside? If Paulson purchased CDS contracts that fully protected $12 billion of subprime mortgage bonds and the bonds somehow became worthless, Paulson & Co. would make a cool $12 billion.
"There's never been an opportunity like this," Paulson gushed to a colleague, as he made one bet after another. By "never," he meant never ever—not in his lifetime and not in anyone else's, either. In one of the book's many memorable scenes, Zuckerman describes how a five-point decline in what's called the ABX index (a measure of mortgage health) once made Paulson $1.25 billion in one morning. In 2007 alone, Paulson & Co. took in fifteen billion dollars in profits, of which four billion went directly into Paulson's pocket. In 2008, his firm made five billion dollars. Rarely in human history has anyone made so much money in so short a time.
What Paulson's story makes clear is how different the predator is from our conventional notion of the successful businessman. The risk-taking model suggests that the entrepreneur's chief advantage is one of temperament—he's braver than the rest of us are. In the predator model, the entrepreneur's advantage is analytical—he's better at figuring out a sure thing than the rest of us. Paulson looked at the same marketplace as everyone else on Wall Street did. But he saw a different pattern. As an outsider, he had fresh eyes, and his line of investing made him a lot more comfortable with negative-carry trades than his competitors were. He looked for and found partners to the transaction who did not have the same definition as he of the value of the goods exchanged—that is, the banks selling credit-default swaps for a penny on the dollar—and he exploited that advantage ruthlessly. At one point, incredibly, Paulson got together with some investment banks to assemble bundles of the most absurdly toxic mortgages—which the banks then sold to some hapless investors and Paulson then promptly bet against. As Zuckerman points out, this is the equivalent of a game of football in which the defense calls the plays for the offense. It's how a nerd would play football, not a jock.
This is exactly how Turner pulled off another of his legendary early deals—his 1976 acquisition of the Atlanta Braves baseball team. Turner's Channel 17 was the Braves' local broadcaster, having acquired the rights four years before—a brilliant move, as it turned out, because it forced every Braves fan in the region to go out and buy a UHF antenna. (Well before ESPN and Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV, Turner had realized how important live sports programming could be in building a television brand.) The team was losing a million dollars a year, and the owners wanted ten million dollars to sell. That was four times the price of Channel 17. "I had no idea how I could afford it," Turner told one of his biographers, although by this point the reader is wise to his aw-shucks modesty. First, he didn't pay ten million dollars. He talked the Braves into taking a million down, and the rest over eight or so years. Second, he didn't end up paying the million down. Somewhat mysteriously, Turner reports that he found a million dollars on the team's books—money the previous owners somehow didn't realize they had—and so, he says, "I bought it using its own money, which was quite a trick." He now owed nine million dollars. But Turner had already been paying the Braves six hundred thousand dollars a year for the rights to broadcast sixty of the team's games. What the deal consisted of, then, was his paying an additional six hundred thousand dollars or so a year, for eight years: in return, he would get the rights to all a hundred and sixty-two of the team's games, plus the team itself.
You and I might not have made that deal. But that's not because Turner is a risk-taker and we are cowards. It's because Turner is a cold-blooded bargainer who could find a million dollars in someone's back pocket that the person didn't know he had. Once you get past the more flamboyant aspects of Turner's personal and sporting life, in fact, there is little evidence that he had any real appetite for risk at all. In his memoir, Turner tells us that when he was starting out in the family business his father, Ed, bought another billboard firm, called General Outdoor. That was the acquisition that launched the Turner company as a major advertising player in the South, and it involved taking on a sizable amount of debt. Young Ted had no qualms, intellectually, about the decision. He could do the math. There were substantial economies of scale in the advertising business: the bigger you got, the lower your costs were, and paying off the debt from the General Outdoor purchase, Ted Turner realized, probably wasn't going to be a problem. But Turner's father did something that Turner, when he was building his empire, always went to extraordinary lengths to avoid: he put his own capital into the deal. In the highly unlikely event that it didn't work out, Turner Advertising would be crippled. It was a good deal, not a perfect one, and that niggling imperfection, along with the toll that the uncertainty was taking on his father, left Turner worried sick. "During the first six months or so after the General Outdoor acquisition my weight dropped from 180 pounds to 135," he writes. "I developed a pre-ulcerative condition and my doctor made me swear off coffee. I'd get so tired and agitated that one of my eyelids developed a twitch."
Zuckerman profiles John Paulson alongside three others who made the same subprime bet—Greg Lippmann, a trader at Deutsche Bank; Jeffrey Greene, a real-estate mogul in Los Angeles; and Michael Burry, who ran a hedge fund in Silicon Valley—and finds the same pattern. All were supremely confident of their decision. All had done their homework. All had swooped down, like perfect predators, on a marketplace anomaly. But these were not men temperamentally suited to risk-taking. They worked so hard to find the sure thing because anything short of that gave them ulcers. Here is Zuckerman on Burry, as he waited for his trade to pan out:
In a tailspin, Burry withdrew from his friends, family, and employees. Each morning, Burry walked into his firm and made a beeline to his office, head down, locking the door behind him. He didn't emerge all day, not even to eat or use the bathroom. His remaining employees, who were still pulling for Burry, turned worried. Sometimes he got into the office so early, and kept the door closed for so long, that when his staff left at the end of the day, they were unsure if their boss had ever come in. Other times, Burry pounded his fists on his desk, trying to release his tension, as heavy-metal music blasted from nearby speakers.
Paulson's story also casts a harsh light on the prevailing assumptions behind corporate compensation policies. One of the main arguments for the generous stock options that are so often given to C.E.O.s is that they are necessary to encourage risk-taking in the corporate suite. This notion comes from what is known as "agency theory," which Freek Vermeulen, of the London Business School, calls "one of the few academic theories in management academia that has actually influenced the world of management practice." Agency theory, Vermeulen observes, "says that managers are inherently risk-averse; much more risk-averse than shareholders would like them to be. And the theory prescribes that you should give them stock options, rather than stock, to stimulate them to take more risk." Why do shareholders want managers to take more risks? Because they want stodgy companies to be more entrepreneurial, and taking risks is what everyone says that entrepreneurs do.
The result has been to turn executives into risk-takers. Paulson, for his part, was stunned at the reckless behavior of his Wall Street counterparts. Some of the mortgage bundles he was betting against—collections of some of the sketchiest subprime loans—were paying the investors who bought them six-per-cent interest. Treasury bonds, the safest investment in the world, were paying almost five per cent at that point. Nor could he comprehend why so many banks were willing to sell him C.D.S. insurance at such low prices. Why would someone, in the middle of a housing bubble, demand only one cent on the dollar? At the end of 2006, Merrill Lynch paid $1.3 billion for First Franklin Financial, one of the biggest subprime lenders in the country, bringing the total value of subprime mortgages on its books to eleven billion dollars. Paulson was so risk-averse that he didn't so much as put a toe in the water of subprime-mortgage default swaps until Pellegrini had done months of analysis. But Merrill Lynch bought First Franklin even though the firm's own economists were predicting that housing prices were about to drop by as much as five per cent. "It just doesn't make sense," an incredulous Paulson told his friend Howard Gurvitch. "These are supposedly the smart people."
The economist Scott Shane, in his book "The Illusions of Entrepreneurship," makes a similar argument. Yes, he says, many entrepreneurs take plenty of risks—but those are generally the failed entrepreneurs, not the success stories. The failures violate all kinds of established principles of new-business formation. New-business success is clearly correlated with the size of initial capitalization. But failed entrepreneurs tend to be wildly undercapitalized. The data show that organizing as a corporation is best. But failed entrepreneurs tend to organize as sole proprietorships. Writing a business plan is a must; failed entrepreneurs rarely take that step. Taking over an existing business is always the best bet; failed entrepreneurs prefer to start from scratch. Ninety per cent of the fastest-growing companies in the country sell to other businesses; failed entrepreneurs usually try selling to consumers, and, rather than serving customers that other businesses have missed, they chase the same people as their competitors do. The list goes on: they underemphasize marketing; they don't understand the importance of financial controls; they try to compete on price. Shane concedes that some of these risks are unavoidable: would-be entrepreneurs take them because they have no choice. But a good many of these risks reflect a lack of preparation or foresight.
Shane's description of the pattern of entrepreneurial failure brings to mind the Harvard psychologist David McClelland's famous experiment with kindergarten children in the nineteen-fifties. McClelland watched a group of kids play ringtoss—throwing a hoop over a pole. The children who played the game in the riskiest manner, who stood so far from the pole that success was unlikely, also scored lowest on what he called "achievement motive," that is, the desire to succeed. (Another group of low scorers were at the other extreme, standing so close to the pole that the game ceased to be a game at all.) Taking excessive risks was, then, a psychologically protective strategy: if you stood far enough back from the pole, no one could possibly blame you if you failed. These children went out of their way to take a "professional" risk in order to avoid a personal risk. That's what companies are buying with their bloated C.E.O. stock-options packages—gambles so wild that the gambler can lose without jeopardizing his social standing within the corporate world. "As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance," the now departed C.E.O. of Citigroup, Charles Prince, notoriously said, as his company continued to pile one dubious investment on another. He was more afraid of being a wallflower than he was of imperilling his firm.
The successful entrepreneur takes the opposite tack. Villette and Vuillermot point out that the predator is often quite happy to put his reputation on the line in the pursuit of the sure thing. Ingvar Kamprad, of IKEA, went to Poland in the nineteen-sixties to get his furniture manufactured. Since Polish labor was inexpensive, it gave Kamprad a huge price advantage. But doing business with a Communist country at the height of the Cold War was a scandal. Sam Walton financed his first retailing venture, in Newport, Arkansas, with money from his wealthy in-laws. That approach was safer than turning to a bank, especially since Walton was forced out of Newport and had to go back to his wife's family for another round. But you can imagine that it made for some tense moments at family reunions for a while. Deutsche Bank's Lippmann, meanwhile, was called Chicken Little and Bubble Boy to his face for his insistence that the mortgage market was going to burst.
Why are predators willing to endure this kind of personal abuse? Perhaps they are sufficiently secure and confident that they don't need public approval. Or perhaps they are so caught up in their own calculations that they don't notice. The simplest explanation, though, is that it's just another manifestation of their relentlessly rational pursuit of the sure thing. If an awkward family reunion was the price Walton had to pay for a guaranteed line of credit, then so be it. He went out of his way to take a personal risk in order to avoid a professional risk. Reputation, after all, is a commodity that trades in the marketplace at a significant and often excessive premium. The predator shorts the dancers, and goes long on the wallflowers.
When Pellegrini finally finished his research on the mortgage market—proving how profoundly inflated home prices had become—he rushed in to show his findings to his boss. Zuckerman writes:
"This is unbelievable!" Paulson said, unable to take his eyes off the chart. A mischievous smile formed on his face, as if Pellegrini had shared a secret no one else was privy to. Paulson sat back in his chair and turned to Pellegrini. "This is our bubble! This is proof. Now we can prove it!" Paulson said. Pellegrini grinned, unable to mask his pride. The chart was Paulson's Rosetta stone, the key to making sense of the entire housing market. Years later, he would keep it atop a pile of papers on his desk, showing it off to his clients and updating it each month with new data, like a car collector gently waxing and caressing a prized antique auto. . . . "I still look at it. I love that chart," Paulson says.
There are a number of moments like this in "The Greatest Trade Ever," when it becomes clear just how much Paulson enjoyed his work. Yes, he wanted to make money. But he was fabulously wealthy long before he tackled the mortgage business. His real motivation was the challenge of figuring out a particularly knotty problem. He was a kid with a puzzle.
This is consistent with the one undisputed finding in all the research on entrepreneurship: people who work for themselves are far happier than the rest of us. Shane says that the average person would have to earn two and a half times as much to be as happy working for someone else as he would be working for himself. And people who like what they do are profoundly conservative. When the sociologists Hongwei Xu and Martin Ruef asked a large sample of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs to choose among three alternatives—a business with a potential profit of five million dollars with a twenty-per-cent chance of success, or one with a profit of two million with a fifty-per-cent chance of success, or one with a profit of $1.25 million with an eighty-per-cent chance of success—it was the entrepreneurs who were more likely to go with the third, safe choice. They weren't dazzled by the chance of making five million dollars. They were drawn to the eighty-per-cent chance of getting to do what they love doing. The predator is a supremely rational actor. But, deep down, he is also a romantic, motivated by the simple joy he finds in his work.
In "Call Me Ted," Turner tells the story of one of his first great traumas. When Turner was twenty-four, his father committed suicide. He had been depressed and troubled for some months, and one day after breakfast he went upstairs and shot himself. After the funeral, it emerged that the day before his death Turner's father had sold the crown jewels of the family business—the General Outdoor properties—to a man named Bob Naegele. Turner was grief-stricken. But he fought back. He hired away the General Outdoor leasing department. He began "jumping" the company's leases—that is, persuading the people who owned the real estate on which the General Outdoor billboards sat to cancel the leases and sign up with Turner Advertising. Then he flew to Palm Springs and strong-armed Naegele into giving back the business. Turner the rational actor negotiated the deal. But it was Turner the romantic who had the will, at the moment of his greatest grief, to fight back. What Turner understood was that none of his grand ambitions were possible without the billboard cash machine. He had felt the joy that comes with figuring out a particularly knotty problem, and he couldn't give that up. Naegele, by the way, asked for two hundred thousand dollars, which Turner didn't have. But Turner realized that for someone in Naegele's tax bracket a flat payment like that made no sense. He countered with two hundred thousand dollars in Turner Advertising stock. "So far so good," Turner writes in his autobiography. "I had kept the company out of Naegele's hands and it didn't cost me a single dollar of cash." Of course it didn't. He's a predator. Why on earth would he take a risk like that? ♦