Guru Is Annoyed April 30, 2010March 17, 2017 Well, you win some and you lose some. As expected (by the market – not by my guru), the FDA approved Dendreon’s application. Provenge – which is projected to cost $100,000 a year and said to add 4 months to a late-stage prostate cancer patient’s life – can now, at last be marketed. Dendreon stock, which had climbed from $2.50 to $40 in anticipation of this, ended the day at $51, up around 11. All my precious little contrarian puts – and yours, if you took this bet – went effectively to zero. Guru writes: “Politics trumped science and has now saddled the healthcare system with an annual $10 billion bill for a placebo. It’s the first time in my career that the FDA caved to popular demand.” I hope he’s wrong. (He does, too.) If the drug really works, and really extends life, then the only question is how much of it we can afford. But guru believes further studies will eventually show Provenge to have no effect. Meanwhile, I’m not going to fling myself from a parapet – not least because the DCTH he recommended a few months ago has now nearly tripled. But I am going to take the rest of the day off. I just wanted to be sure to tell you the coin-flip turned up heads, and commiserate with any of you joined me in betting against it.
Wow. Whoa! April 29, 2010March 17, 2017 I KNEW I SHOULD NEVER HAVE BOUGHT THAT iPOD Brian Deterling: ‘Your footnote yesterday reminded me of this which has been making the rounds. It shows how much money you would have today if, instead of buying an Apple product when it first came out, you used the cash to buy Apple stock instead.’ ICELAND PHOTOS Thanks, Alan, for pointing me to these. Wow. KATLA And, reports the Christian Science Monitor, ‘Every time in recorded history that Eyjafjallajökull has erupted, the much larger Katla volcano has also erupted.” Whoa.
3500 Borealis 1700 (Stand Up! Calm Down!) April 28, 2010March 17, 2017 Internally, I ‘number’ these columns. This is Column 3500. Talk about meaningless milestones. But it is an excuse to mention Peter, Paul Mary’s iconic Album 1700 (free association being worth what you pay for it), which even now, 43 years later, goes straight to the soul. (Don’t worry: not a single puffing dragon anywhere near this album.) STAND UP FOR YOUR HEALTH Doug Lindal: ‘Is this where you got your ideas on the stand up work desk? A good story on a good company.’ ☞ No, but you’re right – great story! These adjustable desks are not cheap; but if they lengthen your life (or help with back pain), they’re a bargain. Not that I’ve gotten off my duff to buy one. CALM DOWN FOR YOUR HEALTH Zac: ‘You write: ‘To forgive – or at least to rise above it all and ‘let it go’ – is not just divine, it’s good for your health. MSNBC: ‘A new study found that heart disease patients who suppressed their anger had nearly triple the risk of having a heart attack or dying over the next 5 to 10 years. . .’ Actually, that means you have two options: either rise above it (which isn’t always possible when you’re as petty as I am) or erupt in anger and scream and yell at people regularly. I opt for the latter, but the point is that it is suppressed anger that hurts your heart. . . you gotta let it out all out.’ ☞ Ah. Good point. But maybe deflect, rather than suppress, it? BOREF I know. I know! And yet: ICE Corporation to Develop Controller for WheelTug® Aircraft Electric Drive System GIBRALTAR–(Marketwire – April 27, 2010) – ICE Corporation, a leading designer and supplier of electronic controls for aviation, will design, develop and build the controllers for the aircraft on-ground electric drive system being developed by WheelTug plc, the companies announced today. WheelTug® is a unique concept in aircraft ground operations. This patented hybrid-electric drive system incorporates high performance electric motors installed in the nosewheels of the aircraft, providing full mobility on the ground without the use of the aircraft engines or tugs for pushback and taxi operations. WheelTug enables aircraft to be driven without using their engines from the terminal gate to the runway, and from runway exit to the gate, upon landing. The resulting improvements in efficiency, flexibility, fuel savings, reduced engine FOD damage and CO2 emissions yield projected savings of more than $500,000 per aircraft per year. Under the agreement, ICE will design, certify, and build the controller that drives the electric motors and control the system for the first model being developed, which is for the Boeing 737NG aircraft. ICE Corporation has designed and manufactured products ranging from ice protection systems, electro-thermal anti-icing and de-icing, to avionic systems and systems monitoring equipment to a new line of robust sensorless motor controllers for both military and civilian aircraft. ICE’s products are known for durability and reliability within the extreme environments known to the aircraft industry. The controller is the WheelTug system’s most complex component. It forms the nerve center of the WheelTug system, interfacing and interacting with both personnel and aircraft systems. While WheelTug has had prototype controllers operating in the lab for several years, this agreement will provide for a complete and certificatable system that is optimized for aerospace requirements. Randy O’Boyle, ICE President and CEO, said, “The ICE Corporation has a 30+ year history of entrepreneurship in aviation. Our innovations in power electronics and high power control for aviation make us the perfect partner for this tremendous new aviation product. We’re excited to join the WheelTug team in leveraging this new technology to reduce aviation fuel costs and improve operating efficiencies while economically making the planet a safer place. Years from now, people in the industry will be saying, ‘Why didn’t we think of that?'” Isaiah Cox, WheelTug President and CEO, said, “ICE is the perfect partner; as an organization they are a pleasure to work with, and their engineering skills are unparalleled. We have no doubt that WheelTug customers will benefit from such a reliable, robust, and lightweight controller.” WheelTug is moving rapidly, with its partners including ICE, in development of the system. Final specifications for the initial 737NG model are expected to be available to potential airline customers within the coming months. Systems for other aircraft types will then be developed as rapidly as possible. In addition to ICE, WheelTug is working with Luxell Technology and Co-Operative Industries as partners for the cockpit interface and wire harness, respectively. In terms of aircraft availability and services, WheelTug is now working with several different airlines, and expects to formalize one or more of those relationships shortly. As of April 29, Delta Air Lines, an early partner, will no longer be a development partner, so 737NG installation and maintenance rights previously reserved for Delta’s TOC will be available to other MRO organizations. . . . ☞ To recap: WheelTug is owned by Chorus Motors which is owned by Borealis which is owned by mentally unbalanced individual shareholders like me (and – go ahead, so long as you have taken this flier only with money you can truly afford to lose, raise your hand – you). Collectively, the market values the whole enterprise at $14.25 million ($2.85 a share), which will be exactly $14.25 million too high if, as usual, the goal posts just keep being pushed eternally into the future. (The throw-away line at the end of this press release – that Delta has lost interest – certainly can’t be a plus!) Or, conceivably, that $14.25 million will prove a small fraction of its true value if the ICE man’s prediction comes true (and/or if any of Borealis’s other potential bonanzas ever materialize). I have to say, I still have high hopes. So, as in Casablanca, we wait. And wait. And wait. PS – In the spirit of full disclosure and self-flagellation, I have to grant we might have skipped 11 years of this wait. Instead of jumping in late in the last Century at $3.50 a share, we could have just jumped in today. Imagine what that $3.50 would be worth today had we allowed it to compound in blue chips – GM, Citibank, Enron, Cisco, Microsoft – and only now switched a little of it into BOREF (he says, impishly*). *On November 16, 1999, when BOREF first hit this screen, Citibank closed at $30, adjusted for dividends and splits (it is $4-ish today), Microsoft was $35 ($31 today), Cisco was $42 ($27 today), and I can’t readily find where GM and Enron were – but higher.
Forgive Me – It’s Good For Your Health April 27, 2010March 17, 2017 THAT $50 BILL Don Stromquist: “The bill [you wrote about yesterday] has been trying to get your attention for weeks and in desperation hopped into your sock. Listen closely and you’ll hear its tiny cry: ‘Don’t put Reagan on me!’ ” DEEP BREATHS . . . AND LET IT GO To forgive – or at least to rise above it all and “let it go” – is not just divine, it’s good for your health. MSNBC: “A new study found that heart disease patients who suppressed their anger had nearly triple the risk of having a heart attack or dying over the next 5 to 10 years. . .” LEARN YIDDISH Why? Why not. This is RoseEtta Cohen. Oy va voy! DNDN ON THE CBS EVENING NEWS At first my heart sank when I saw last night’s highlighted segment on Provenge, which (before this clip begins) Katie Couric said the FDA was expected to approve later this week. Oh, no! True, if the drug really does extend life four months, I’m all for its approval, my avarice notwithstanding. (And true, I have only bet money on these DNDN puts that I can truly afford to lose.) But my guru doesn’t buy it, and thinks the FDA won’t either. When I thought it through, I realized Katie was right – the FDA is widely expected to approve Provenge, witness the steady rise in the stock from $5 to $41. That’s the whole point. Katie wasn’t reporting what the FDA would do (how would she know?), just what it was widely expected to do. Nothing new in that. So, as before, if the expected happens, we lose 100% of our bet. If it doesn’t, we make maybe 500%. The drama builds.
Vigorous Sudsing Action April 26, 2010March 17, 2017 GOLDMAN WILL LOSE OR SETTLE That case is made by Barry Ritzholtz, here. It is a quick, crisp read – and one more reason to thank you for electing Barack Obama.* *Ritzholtz tells us that the guy bringing the case against Goldman Sachs, Robert Khuzami, “is a bad ass, no-nonsense, thorough, award winning Prosecutor: This guy is the real deal — he busted terrorist rings, broke up the mob, took down security frauds. He is now the director of SEC enforcement.” Contrast that with his Bush-era predecessor, Linda Thomsen, whose team missed all the Madoff warnings and who – on another matter – was personally teed up for investigation by the SEC’s own inspector general. There is a pattern here. Believing in government, Democrats tend to appoint top-notch people to do the job – whether it’s professionalizing FEMA, as Clinton did, only to see it sink back into Republican complacency (to run FEMA, Bush tapped the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association) . . . or appointing a Nobel-prize winning physicist to head the Department of Energy (Bush’s first appointee had, as a senator, voted to abolish the Department of Energy) . . . or, in this case, installing “the real deal” to head S.E.C. enforcement. MONEY LAUNDERING Not sure how a $50 bill got into my sock – it seems implausible I would have put it there myself, or that it would have somehow sudsed its way out of a pants pocket and into that sock – but there it was, clean and dry, and a testament to the near indestructibility of our currency. Still, I’m not sorry to have had some of my cash in Canadian dollars, via FXC. REPEALING DON’T ASK DON’T TELL It hasn’t happened as fast as many of us would like, but according to the politics editor of the Atlantic, Marc Ambinder, there are reasons for that. And it will get done: . . . Obama has said that he wants gays integrated into the military in the right way – in a way that builds on a foundation of legitimacy that only the Pentagon brass can create. And the time frame for repealing the ban was determined on the basis of what Sec. Gates and Adm. Mullen need in order to build that legitimacy. That’s not an answer that soldiers dismissed under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell like to hear, and they’ve got every right to be angry. But it’s a strategy that will repeal DADT in a way such that no subsequent president could reverse the ban by executive order.* It will be permanent. The Pentagon is expected to present the findings of its internal study in December, and the Senate will vote on a repeal either in the rump session of Congress late in 2010 or early in 2011. That’s the track. It’s getting done. . . . *Compare that with, say, the “global gag rule” regarding reproductive health. The first day of Clinton’s presidency he lifts it; the first day of Bush’s, he re-imposes it; the first day of Obama’s, he lifts it again; and guess what will almost surely happen to it the next time a Republican wins. Obama wants repeal of DA/DT to stick, long after he’s gone. — A.T. HACKED A robotic program appears to have hacked into this site late last week, for reasons, and in ways, that remind me how little I know about cybertech. Webmaster Jason has excised the offending code, changed passwords, and, with any luck, we’re good again. Sincere apologies to any who have been inconvenienced by this.
Financial Reform And a Great Quote From Time Magazine April 23, 2010March 17, 2017 CAUTION Gluskin Sheff‘s Dave Rosenberg notes that . . . Investor sentiment is wildly bullish. The just-released Investors Intelligence survey is now up to 53.3% for the bulls (versus 51.1% last week) while the bear camp has dwindled further, to 17.4% (versus 18.9% a week ago). Bullish sentiment rose for the third consecutive week and bearish sentiment has not been this low since January 12. As Bob Farrell’s Rule number 9 stipulates, when all the forecasts and experts agree, something else is bound to happen. DCTH But that doesn’t mean I’d sell my DCTH, which broke $14 yesterday before closing at $12.93 – better than a double in just a few months, whether you paid $4.61 or $5.37. Thanks for this go to our guru, who’s proved right yet again (remember Nitromed puts? remember INCY?), and who sees a bright future for Delcath. If he turns out to be right about DNDN, and our puts quintuple, he will go from ‘guru’ to ‘god.’ (With a small g, of course.) Meanwhile, another super-smart friend who listened in on Delcath’s investment call yesterday shorthanded me his impression: ‘Management said that, at $20k/unit, addressable mkt for oculocutaneous melanoma was $750mil. Very impressed by huge statistical significance of data, and also by management. Really seemed smart, capable, and honest. Canaccord took price target today from $8 to $17.50. Great ideas and great product. Still a long road to go, but $30-50 in a few years is very plausible.’ THE PRESIDENT ADDRESSES WALL STREET REFORM Read or, better still, watch. (‘So instead of competing to offer confusing products, companies will compete by offering better products.’ And I love the part where he quotes from Time Magazine.) This is worth your time. Health reform, education reform, environmental reform, energy reform, stem cell reform, credit card reform, nuclear warhead reduction – and now financial reform. Thank you again for electing this guy.
Earth Day April 22, 2010March 17, 2017 THE TREADMILL DESK Dan Critchett: “How’s this for one-upsmanship?” ☞ I love it! Not exactly clear to me how well I’d type while walking (and aren’t you supposed to swing your arms when you walk?), but not a problem: At $1,999, I’m not likely to find out. GOOD NEWS Things are getting better. We’re gradually getting our confidence back; GM has paid off its loan 5 years early (thank you, Toyota); the health care reform freight train is finally rolling; financial reform will pass next; energy grants are being issued to encourage weatherization (once people see how much their neighbors are saving, they’ll want to save, too); New York City’s teacher “rubber rooms” are finally closing (just one indication of the new energy in education reform); we’ve cut the maintenance of 700 nuclear warheads from our budget; the Dow is up 70% from its low (and many stocks are up three- and five- and ten-fold) – and lots more. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see some stock market declines ahead. It’s great for the long-term that the S.E.C. and Congress are finally restoring some oversight and regulation and safeguards to the financial sector – but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a short-term downdraft in stock prices. It’s great for the long-term that we’ll soon be restoring the Clinton/Gore tax rates for the top 2% – but the stock market usually declines ahead of tax hikes. It’s great that the Dow is up 70% from its low – but you can never rule out a down-draft after such a run, especially when so many really tough problems remain (not to mention the occasional earthquake, volcano, and hurricane). TRANSPARENCY I’m a couple of weeks late bringing this to your attention, but I think it’s another reason to thank you for voting for Obama: THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 7, 2010 Obama Administration Marks Major Open Government Milestone All Cabinet agencies release open government plans and highlight flagship initiatives on transparency, participation, collaboration WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, President Obama hailed the release of open government plans by all Cabinet agencies – the latest milestone in his Administration’s unprecedented efforts to erase the long-standing barriers between the American people and the government. These plans are the agencies’ strategic roadmap for making transparency, citizen participation, and collaboration part of the way they work. “For too long, Washington has closed itself off from the oversight of the American public, resulting in information that’s difficult to find, taxpayer dollars that disappear without a trace, and lobbyists that wield undue influence,” said President Obama. “That’s why my Administration is taking concrete steps to build a government that’s more transparent, open and accountable. And now that these plans are published online, we hope the American people will play their part and collaborate with us to provide oversight and improve upon this information. Together, we won’t just build a more efficient and effective government, but a stronger democracy as well.” The plans released Wednesday make agency operations and data more transparent, while creating new ways for citizens to have an active voice in their government. In addition, each agency has identified at least one “flagship initiative” – a signature open government innovation in the agency. Examples include: Department of Health and Human Services’ Community Health Data Initiative: This initiative will publish online a large-scale Community Health Data Set – a wealth of easily accessible, downloadable information data on community health care costs, quality, access, and public health. HHS will work with outside experts and citizens to take advantage of the new data to raise awareness of community health performance and spark improvements. Department of Energy’s Open Energy Information Initiative: DOE has launched Open Energy Information (OpenEI.org), a new open-source web platform that opens DOE resources and data to the public. The free, editable, and evolving wiki-platform will help to deploy clean energy technologies across the country and the world. OpenEI.org also will provide technical resources, including U.S. lab tools, which can be used by developing countries as they move toward clean energy deployment. Department of Veterans Affairs Innovation Initiative: The VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) will invite VA employees, private sector entrepreneurs, and academic leaders to contribute the best ideas for innovations to increase Veteran access to VA services, reduce or control costs of delivering those services, enhance the performance of VA operations, and improve the quality of service Veterans and their families receive. The VA Innovation Initiative will identify, prioritize, fund, test, and deploy the most promising solutions to the VA’s most important challenges. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Homelessness Prevention Resources Initiative: Many agencies and organizations struggle with the task of capturing information about the homeless. Even more difficult is the task of predicting when and where homelessness will strike. HUD believes that homelessness can be averted by combining information from multiple agencies and using the data to identify communities that may be at a tipping point towards increased homelessness. HUD will work to develop a set of tools and processes to help predict at-risk communities, allowing the Department to take proactive steps to combat it. The White House website tracks the progress of those agencies required to meet the open government milestones. Independent agencies are not mandated to participate, though many, like the Peace Corps and the Corporation for National and Community Service, have taken on the challenge to open their practices to greater transparency and public participation. In addition to the Open Government Plans, the Administration is releasing new policy guidance involving the use of social media and the Paperwork Reduction Act, improving transparency in the rulemaking process, and setting the process by which the government will collect and publish, for the first time ever, subaward data for all federal grants and contracts. This last piece is in line with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which then-Senator Obama coauthored in 2006 with Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Background on the White House Open Government Initiative The Administration’s open-government efforts began on the President’s first full day in office, when he signed a presidential memorandum that established transparency, participation, and collaboration as the hallmarks of a more efficient, accountable government. That same memorandum directed the Federal Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to issue recommendations for creating a more transparent, participatory, and collaborative government. To that end, the White House Open Government Initiative and the CTO partnered with the American people to solicit expertise from outside of Washington. The three-phase public consultation involved thousands of Americans commenting on and shaping policy approaches that were incorporated in the December 2009 Open Government Directive. The Administration released an Open Government Progress Report to coincide with the Directive, outlining the steps that the federal government has implemented to break down those barriers to public participation and agency transparency. ☞ Things are getting better. APRIL 22 It’s Earth Day. Try not to muck it up.
All The Important Food Groups for $2.99 April 21, 2010March 17, 2017 STAND-UP GUYS John Seiffer: “I use a desk that can raise and lower so I can sit or stand at it. It’s ugly but gets the job done. I usually sit about half the time, but will probably do it less thanks to yesterday’s post.” ☞ Live long and prosper. (Here’s a nice piece by an author who writes standing up and sitting down.) HOSPITAL VISITATION RIGHTS Imagine your child or spouse or parent were suffering in the hospital, calling out for you hour after hour, and the hospital would not allow you to visit. It doesn’t happen – but something virtually identical does. My friend Joanna Grover-Watson last year wrote this account of the Miami teaching hospital that denied visitation between a dying woman and her life partner. President Obama last week ordered an end to this insane, inhumane practice, nationwide. Thank you for voting for him. THE GREATEST PINBALL MACHINE EVER The “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” So how is it that when I was 30 and poor-ish, I had room for something like this (“The Black Knight”), and now that I’m 90 and boorish I don’t? This is the problem with grown-up furniture. It crowds out all the good stuff. Which is why God invented Gameworks. (Not to mention their $2.99 fried onion rings. Drowned in what must be nearly $2.99 in free ketchup, they are the best value in town.) I just felt you needed to know.
Up and Down You Can Never Be Too Rich -- Or Too Thin April 20, 2010March 17, 2017 DOWN DOWN Tim Hammers: ‘After gaining 100% on my DCTH investment, I sold half and am letting the rest ride. Do you or your guru have a target in mind? Also, DNDN puts keep going down (DowN DowN!!!). When does your guru expect the announcement from the FDA?’ ☞ Guru hopes DCTH might be $30-$50 in a couple of years. DNDN news may come from the FDA as early as May 1 – and even no news would be news of a sort. Here is how he laid it out. Remember: it’s possible to take a very good bet – 5 to 1 odds on the flip of a coin, say – and still lose everything if the coin comes up wrong. UP! UP! Thanks to Tom Anthony for this recent article in USA Today: For decades, scientists have studied exercise. But until recently, they paid little attention to the opposite end of the activity spectrum: the many hours modern humans spend sitting, barely moving at all. But now the early results are in, and the science of sitting is producing sobering headlines. The bottom line, if you will: Sitting kills. . . . Every hour spent watching TV (an activity that usually involves sitting) was associated with an 18% increase in heart disease deaths and an 11% increase in deaths overall among 8,800 Australians who were followed for six years, according to a recent report published online in Circulation. People who watched TV at least four hours a day were 80% more likely to die of heart disease than those who watched less than two hours a day. (Americans watch an average of five hours of TV a day.) A Canadian study of 17,000 adults also found a consistent link between chair time and deaths from heart disease: The more people sat, for any reason, the more likely they were to die of heart disease within 12 years – even if they were slim and exercised regularly. ☞ So one way to spin this: ‘Watching Fox News will kill you.’ But of course it’s not about Fox News or even about TV – watch it on the treadmill and even Glen Beck won’t kill you – it’s about sitting. Tom Anthony: ‘I converted to a standing desk for my computer sometime ago, after my daughter started using a standing desk at her job. It took me about two weeks to get used to standing all day long (at age 69 at least). I do some Yoga exercises – e.g. Tree Pose – while reading documents on the computer whenever my legs feel like they need it.’ ☞ Tom further points to this recent piece in the New York Times: . . . In a completed but unpublished study conducted in his energy-metabolism lab, Braun and his colleagues had a group of volunteers spend an entire day sitting. If they needed to visit the bathroom or any other location, they spun over in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, in a second session, the same volunteers stood all day, ‘not doing anything in particular,’ Braun says, ‘just standing.’ The difference in energy expenditure was remarkable, representing ‘hundreds of calories,’ Braun says, but with no increase among the upright in their blood levels of ghrelin or other appetite hormones. Standing, for both men and women, burned multiple calories but did not ignite hunger. One thing is going to become clear in the coming years, Braun says: if you want to lose weight, you don’t necessarily have to go for a long run. ‘Just get rid of your chair.’ . . . ☞ It should be noted that Hemingway wrote standing up and died at 62. Gogol wrote standing up and died at 42. Both died of depression, it’s true; not heart failure. (Well heart failure, too.) But I’m not taking any chances.
11 Minutes April 19, 2010March 17, 2017 TKF Last April, I suggested the Turkish Fund at $5.47. Three months later, in an homage to Bonomo’s Turkish taffy, I suggested selling half at $9.11. Now, with TKF having closed at $14.92 Friday, I’m out. It’s likely still a relatively good value, but I am on to other nutty speculations, as you know. THE SUNDAY SHOWS Yesterday, I got to watch Jake Tapper’s ABC This Morning interview with President Clinton and Bob Schieffer’s Face the Nation interview with Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. I come to these biased, of course. But I wonder. Of the relatively small number of people who even watch the Sunday shows, which voice do they find more compelling? The former President was – as to me he always is (and as our current President is, too) – so thoughtful, so incredibly well-informed, so ready to consider other points of view, so responsible, so committed to a lifetime of making the world better. (He had spent the weekend inspiring 950 student leaders attending the Clinton Global Initiative University.) By contrast, the new Senator was likeable and handsome and all that; but he said pretty much nothing. On the topic of financial reform, he took the same line the Republicans just had on health insurance reform: Of course he’s for a bill, just not this bad bill. We need to roll up our sleeves, get everyone in a room, solve the problems the American people sent us to Washington to solve. The bill under consideration would hurt small business. In short, for reasons he never specified, the legislation on the table was the wrong approach. And the right approach? What we should do is to get everyone in a room and solve the problems the American people sent us to Washington to solve. That’s the right approach. This isn’t in any way to try to wrest the microphone from Scott Brown. Good for him for running for office and making his views known. If and when he has ideas for financial reform he wants to share, we should listen. Even now, when his “idea” is that this is a bad bill and we sit down in a room to work things out, we should be respectful. My question is simply this: At a time of true national and global challenge, bedeviled with complexity, which 11-minute national TV interview should have us nodding our heads: President Clinton’s on “ABC This Week” or Senator Brown’s on “Face the Nation”? If you have 11 minutes, this is the one worth your time.