Last month, my old Piscataway neighbor passed away. Jane Raven Orttung was the daughter of Henry Raven, a well known explorer. Their lives were in part depicted in the fictional account, Jennie, by Robert Preston, which was reviewed New York Times some years ago. Dr. Orttung herself was a researcher at the Alexander Library of Rutgers University, and was one of the few people who could legally travel to Cuba for research purposes. She was a lovely neighbor, and her extraordinary children were good friends during my childhood. For over twenty years she had a wonderful partner, who is a great man. I wish them all peace in this difficult time.
In Memory: Malvina Douglas
My great aunt died yesterday at 1:00am localtime. Born Malvina Simon, my aunt Mal was a force to be reckoned with. A brilliant woman, she met her husband Kenneth at the University of Chicago, and it was love at first sight. He was a well regarded translator of books and poetry critic.
They married relatively late in life, and did not have chidren. This turned out to be somewhat fortunate, as he was killed in a freak accident, when a curtain rod fell from an apartment in New York City, where they lived. Even more freakish, the curtain rod belonged to former governor Averell Hariman. (On that same day, my younger sister was running a high temperature, and my next door neighbor had just broken my brother’s arm. It was a truly freakish day.)
My aunt settled into a 5th avenue apartment on Museum Mile, after having convalesced at the home of friends in England. In a way, tragedy followed her life. In the early 1980s, her younger brother had a stroke, and it fell to her to manage his care. Even in this a story can be told. Malvina found a caregiver who was remarkable, and dealt with my great uncle’s every need. This woman, Priscilla, passed away from a long illness on the same day her charge died.
She too suffered from ailments. Her life was probably shortened by contaminated drug packaging. But even then she took the time to write about her brother and Priscilla.
Malvina is survived by a three nephews, a niece, two great nephews, two great nieces, and her older brother, my grandfather.
We will all miss her.
Obama’s team, thus far
President-elect Obama has selected key members of his cabinet to be nominated. Here is the list of which I am aware, in order of succession.
- Secretary of State: Hilary Clinton
- Secretary of the Treasury: Timothy Geithner
- Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
- Attorney General: Eric Holder
- Secretary of Commerce: Bill Richardson
- Secretary of Homeland Security: Janet Nepalitano
Here are some key members of his staff he has named:
- Director of OMB: Lawrence Summers
- National Security Advisor: James Jones
- Press Secretary: Robert Gibbs
- Ellen Moran
These choices do not reflect a radical shift from the Clinton era but rather a subtle change. This is probably a good thing, since Clinton seemed to have gotten it mostly right. The most provocative choices, of course, are Senator Clinton and Ellen Moran.
Ellen Moran, coming from Emily’s List sends a strong message that the issues that group holds dear will be front and center in an Obama administration. The right will certainly not be pleased with such a choice.
And it’s not clear who should be pleased with Mrs Clinton as a choice for Secretary of State, aside from perhaps President Clinton, as she has very limited foreign policy experience, and clearly does not see eye to eye with the President-elect regarding Iraq. Worse, she has her hands dirty with her vote to go to war, having perhaps lost a primary over that very issue.
In the meantime, the President-elect is very busily cleaning out southwester governors’ mansions with the choices of Janet Nepolitano and Bill Richardson. Perhaps he will name Arnold Schwarzenegger back to his old job as head of the President’s Council on Health and Fitness.
What the heck is a target price?
You often hear analysts say that they have a particular target price for a stock or a commodity. That means that in their heads they expect the value of that thing to hit that price over a certain period of time. But now we have OPEC saying that they have a target price of $75 per barrel of oil.
YEAH RIGHT.
One of two things is the case here. Either OPEC has no price control, or they are simply lying, and they really just want the price as high as it will go, as it did go in the summer. I tend to think both. For one thing, the statement may be a sap to Iran and Venezuela, who have been publicly pushing for a cut in order to get prices back up to stabilize their own oil-based economies.
What seems to have happened with oil is that the speculators had their day both ways. First they drove the price up, and then they drove it down. They were helped a little bit by demand having first climbed, and then fallen. Once prices were clearly dropping, they piled on and just drove them down further.
So where is OPEC’s role in setting the price? How many millions of barrels will they have to cut in order to have a significant impact on prices? The general economic answer would be that they would have to stop supplying the world with enough oil to meet current demand, a shrinking target, as we speak.
So why have prices stablized at $50 or so? Who can say? Perhaps traders believe that demand has leveled off and is now stable. Perhaps there is simply a consensus view as to what production and the econony will be 90 days from now, and it is reflected in that price.
Two things have happened this weekend that should make Monday trading very interesting. First, Black Friday has come and gone. This will give some indication as to the state of U.S. retail, and hence a good portion of the economy. Second, OPEC has said that they will not cut current production levels.
If Black Friday turns out to have run red, then we may well see yet a larger drop in demand, based on lower production. Butt his depends on whether or not producers have already anticipated a miserable Christmas season. Even so, Monday will be very interesting. When you see reports about this weekend’s retail sales, think of oil.
Vetting Bill Clinton?
Here is the most bizarre story I’ve heard in a while. Apparently President-elect Obama is considering Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. While I wonder whether this is a good choice alone on its merits, what really gets me is how people in the press seem to believe that Bill Clinton, a former president who received millions of votes twice, somehow needs to be vetted. It’s not as if the media has cut him a break.
The reason behind all of this might be best put as the calm before the storm. Right now there is no news, and so a vacuum must be filled. With names being bantered about like Clinton and Richardson, who knows who the real nominee will be?