Feiler Faster 2.0 Relaunches on Monday, July 23
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I'm taking a few days off to take a few beachcombers to Tybee Island. Please come back Monday when Feiler Faster relaunches in a big way, with new features, a redesign, and a new home. Also, a major headline: I've been invited to the Oval Office next Friday to meet the president, who recently read and praised ABRAHAM. All next week I'll be taking suggestions for what steps I should ask him to take for interfaith relations.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:52 AM 0 comments

How Much Would You Pay to Name Your Baby
Friday, June 22, 2007

Imagine if these people had twins, and had to come up with two names, that go together, and compliment each other, and don't rhyme!

Some parents are checking Social Security data to make sure their choices aren't too trendy, while others are fussing over every consonant like corporate branding experts. They're also pulling ideas from books, Web sites and software programs, and in some cases, hiring professional baby-name consultants who use mathematical formulas.

Denise McCombie, 37, a California mother of two who's expecting a daughter this fall, spent $475 to have a numerologist test her favorite name, Leah Marie, to see if it had positive associations. (It did.) This March, one nervous mom-to-be from Illinois listed her 16 favorite names on a tournament bracket and asked friends, family and people she met at baby showers to fill it out. The winner: Anna Irene.

Sean and Dawn Mistretta from Charlotte, N.C., tossed around possibilities for five months before they hired a pair of consultants -- baby-name book authors who draw up lists of suggestions for $50. During a 30-minute conference call with Mrs. Mistretta, 34, a lawyer, and Mr. Mistretta, 35, a securities trader, the consultants discussed names based on their phonetic elements, popularity, and ethnic and linguistic origins -- then sent a 15-page list of possibilities. When their daughter was born in April, the Mistrettas settled on one of the consultants' suggestions -- Ava -- but only after taking one final straw poll of doctors and nurses at the hospital. While her family complimented the choice, Mrs. Mistretta says, "they think we're a little neurotic."

Karen Markovics, 36, who works for the planning department in Orange County, N.C., spent months reading baby books and scouring Web sites before settling on Nicole Josephine. But now, four years later, Mrs. Markovics says she wishes she'd chosen something less trendy -- and has even considered legally changing her daughter's name to Josephine Marie. "I'm having namer's remorse," she says.

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Posted by B Feiler at 10:38 AM 0 comments

The NICU Saved My Son's Life
Thursday, June 7, 2007

A reader writes in response to my post on the New New NICU:

In 1962,(five years before I was born), my mother gave birth to a premie boy. That brother of mine died several days after birth.
In 1982, my nephew was born 4 weeks early. He had a 2 to 3 week stay in the NICU at St. Jo's in Savannah and completed the ordeal with a nerve-wracking ambulance ride to the better equipped NICU unit at Memorial Hospital also in Savannah. It was a trying time, but an amazing one. He left happy and healthy and just a few years ago graduated from Georgia Tech (after doing very well at SCDS, I might add!).
In 1993, I gave birth to a boy that was several weeks early. He stayed 5 days in the NICU and also left happy and healthy. He is now a very healthy and tall (six feet!) 13 year old.
Our family has witnessed the progression of NICU care. Truly, the people that are called to that work are a gift from God. They do amazing things.
What a wonderful addition to have more intimate time with a newborn. That was my only negative experience - rocking and feeding my newborn in a room full of people. However, I am grateful for the technology that has saved so many precious lives.

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Posted by B Feiler at 4:30 PM 0 comments

Hurry Up and Pass Go
Tuesday, May 22, 2007

This article about gamemakers speeding up board games because busy parents don't have time to play an entire game of, say, Chutes & Ladders, is very interesting. But it's TOO LONG! If you don't have time to read the whole thing, here's the essence:

Board game makers are heeding pleas of parents like Hastings [who complains a game takes days to complete] and introducing games tailored to busy lives and shorter attention spans that take only about 20 minutes to play.

Hasbro Inc., the largest U.S. game company, is releasing a streamlined version of The Game of Life that uses a Visa card rather than cash and a "LifePod" that electronically keeps track of points — which can keep the game moving. The Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based company is also introducing three "Express" versions of classic board games this year: Monopoly Express, Scrabble Express and Sorry Express.

"A lot of people like playing games, but they want resolution," said Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of Toy Wishes magazine. "And that's why you see some of these quicker games coming out."

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:59 AM 0 comments

Makes Fat Kids Seem Appealing
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

.... if this is the alternative. Few things have got me going in recent days more than this: A squib in the NYT about a stationary, exercise bike for kids so that when they're sitting around watching TV they can avoid getting fat. (Note the cables to connect it to the TV.) Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?!?! Turn off the TV!!

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:00 AM 0 comments

Pointless
Saturday, April 14, 2007

We've been keeping score all year here in my annual Predictions Game with my brother. A few weeks ago it looked as if I was in line to get TWO POINTS for predicting in the "outrageous" category that Prince William would announce an engagement. Today comes word that he's broken up with his girlfriend.

Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton have ended their four-year relationship, dashing hopes of a royal wedding to rival that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

The Sun newspaper reported Saturday that the couple had reached an ''amicable agreement'' to separate. Sources confirmed the split to the Press Association news agency.

William's Clarence House office refused to comment, saying it did not discuss the prince's private life, but royal sources did not deny the report, tacitly acknowledging it was true.

The newspaper said the split was caused by the huge pressures on the young couple and by William's career in the army. The second in line to the throne graduated from Sandhurst military academy in December and is undergoing further training at an army base in rural England.

News of the break-up took many royal-watchers by surprise. It was widely thought the couple would soon announce their engagement; one bookmaker was so certain of a royal wedding it had stopped taking bets on it.

Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said the couple's relationship had reached an impasse.

''They can't go forward because William is in the army and he's dedicated the next few years of his life to that, so he's not in a position to get married,'' Seward said.

''They had lived together when they were at university, so in a way their relationship has become more difficult. They have seen a lot less of each other and are under a huge amount of pressure.''

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Posted by B Feiler at 9:30 AM 0 comments

"Have I Screwed Up My Daughters Forever?"
Tuesday, March 6, 2007

I'm a little late in posting this, but: The best piece I've read in ages. Enjoy.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:01 AM 0 comments

Is My Daughter a Pharaoh?
Thursday, March 1, 2007

I'm in Dallas this morning, and one of the reasons I like going on the road every now and then is that, as the father of 22-month-old identical twins, I can get a good night sleep. But here I am at 6:15 AM local time, waiting to do a Sirius Radio interview, and reading an article in the NYT about sleep problems and children.

Indeed, this is Topic # 1 among parents I know. Our pediatrician persuaded us very early on that we are raising a generation of sleep-deprived kids -- from baby until teenager -- and that we should be tough from day one. Oh, boy, did our friends and even our parents sometimes disagree. But we have tried, and now we're doing okay.

Yet now I read that the real battles have yet to begin?! The NYT chimes in this morning with a huge piece about toddlers sharing their parents beds, and the parents being shipped off to the kids beds. Aaarggh! This section rung true to me:

Ms. Lange spoke of a generational swing. “When I was growing up,” she said, “my parents’ bed was verboten. It wasn’t even on the table. I remember one night when I was scared as a child, I slept in the hallway, on the floor in front of their closed door. I had a lot of very serious boundaries when I was growing up. Now I think there is a backlash.”

Neil Newman, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in Manhattan, treats parents and children over 5 years old, many of whom are struggling with sleep battles. “If I had to generalize,” he said, “I’d say it usually has something to do with separation or boundaries. It might be a problem of anxiety, but mostly the origin of the problem is the difficulty parents have in setting appropriate limits. It’s commonly believed in the mental health field that it’s important the children learn to sleep on their own. Not doing it often generalizes to other problems, because it’s about a fairly important way that parents say no to their child.”

Sleep specialists deploy a medley of behavioral and cognitive therapies: saying good night and then sitting in a chair that moves farther and farther away from the room each evening; proxy items (stuffed animals to “stand in” for the parent); handmade books that tell the story of the child going to sleep in her own bed. Amy Powers, a Houston mother, painted a “whole nighttime chronology,” she said, in a mural on her 4-year-old daughter Sarah’s wall. Sarah’s bed is a white four-poster, with a pink canopy and zebra-striped netting over the whole affair.

“It’s wonderful and it’s wasted,” Ms. Powers said. “By the time she’s ready to sleep in her own room, she’s going to be over the whole princess thing.”
And I have to say, when I read that section about the "nighttime chronology," it reminded me precisely of the paintings in the tombs of the pharaohs with depictions of what happened to the pharaoh overnight as he waited to be touched by the God of the Sun in the morning. My princess has become a pharaoh!

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:04 AM 0 comments

Eden and Savannah, the Faux Feilerettes?
Monday, February 26, 2007

Both of the names were my wife's idea. She first proposed Eden as a name for one of our girls just a few weeks after we learned we were having twins. I was in Turkey, actually, filming the Garden of Eden sequence in WALKING THE BIBLE on PBS, when she announced the idea. We both liked it instantly: it was biblical, it was a place, it was paradise, and it had an echo of my father's name, Ed. Matching Eden proved to be a problem; it overshadowed most of the possibilities we considered. Months went by and we had a short list but no finalist. Then one day my wife proposed Tybee. Tybee is a beach off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, where I spent summers with my family (back then we called it "seedy Savannah beach") and where we celebrated our wedding. I didn't like the idea at first: Tybee can be hard to pronounce (it rhymes with "why be?"), it's a Creek Indian word meaning "salt," which is problematic," and she would spend the rest of her life explaining what it means. And Feiler itself has some of these problems, as the president of the United States just proved.

But she insisted our daughters could pull off the names and it was done: Eden and Tybee, aka The Feilerettes.

So imagine our reaction this weekend when we learned that Marcia Cross, who plays the redhead Bree on "Desperate Housewives," gave birth last week to the twin girls that had kept her on bedrest for much of the last few months and her character in bed for the last few episodes. Their names: EDEN AND SAVANNAH.

What?! Eh? You've got to be kidding. How can this happen?!

Coincidence, copycats, or kindred spirits? None of us quite knows... But just for the record: one percent of humans are twins. Half of those are girls. That means one half percent of all humans are twin girls. What are the chances that two would have these two sets of names within 22 months?!

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:03 AM 0 comments

He Doesn't Look a Day Older Than Five
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Feiler Faster gives you tomorrow's news today -- in this case, news picked up from GalleyCat. The Cat in the Hat is turning 50. Long-winded writers (like me) out there take note: 236 words!

When Abebooks' Richard Davies sent word that the site's top-selling book of last week was Dr. Seuss's THE CAT IN THE HAT, a little investigating turned up the probable reason: the book will be 50 years old on March 2, and to mark the occasion, the National Education Association is conducting a 'National Read Aloud' of the book, known as Project 236 (in honor of the number of words used in the book) across schools, libraries, and book clubs. The event will take place on the 2nd at 2:36 PM Eastern Standard Time. Random House Children's has also set up a spiffy site to commemorate the book's birthday and for more information on the event (although there are only so many ways to hear "Happy Birthday" before it sticks in your brain for an indefinite period of time...)
For more information on how to get involved in a literacy campaign surrounding the book, click here.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:03 AM 0 comments

My Mother-in-Law Is Reading!
Tuesday, February 20, 2007

This note arrived in response to my post over the weekend, "I Heard You On C-SPAN."

Hi Bruce,

I'm very flattered to find myself in print in your lastest Feiler Faster. I just want to say that I didn't react quite as strongly as you have described. But, for the sake of literary enhancement, I grant you full license to use your imagination. As I recall the incident, it was your future bride who phoned me. Not at all surprised that it was my daughter on the phone, I immediately shouted, "Why didn't he at least say he had someone special in his life!!!!!" But,I promise, in no way did I want you to disappear from our lives. We had come this close to "reeling you in" and I wasn't going to let my daughter give up the fight!!! Aren't you happy we all stayed the course?? We certainly are!

Your beloved, Feiler Faster Mother-in-Law

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:06 AM 0 comments

Happy Birthday, Nanny
Thursday, February 15, 2007

My daughters turn 22 months today. They received an unexpected gift this morning from their grandfather, my Dad, who sent the following email to them and to their seven- and four-year old cousins.

------------
Dear Max, Hallie, Tybee and Eden --------- Your great-grandmother -- Aleen Helen Wolf (Feiler) was born exactly 100 years ago today on February 15, 1907 at 212 West Harris Street in Savannah, Georgia. You will never be able to meet her, but I believe you all reflect her heritage. You share her vitality in body, mind and spirit. Your obvious love of learning reflect her strong commitment to education thru study and teaching. I hope that you will also grow to appreciate some of her beliefs which she would have wanted you to value - such as: keep the family strong, always find a place for religion in your life and be prepared to sacrifice for the future. She would have counseled you to carefully evaluate risks, but never avoid the well-considered new venture. Many of the extraordinary strengths and significant lessons of her life have been passed to you through her children and grandchildren. You can honor her memory by the decisions you make in your lives. Love, Papa

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Posted by B Feiler at 9:22 AM 0 comments

Dr. Ruth Disses Me

Mrs. Feiler Faster is in a social/business group that had a members-plus-spouses dinner tonight at Per Se in New York. (By the way, Per Se may have been the least romantic place in New York tonight. It seemed like mostly business dinners, very few couples, unless you count Nicholas Cage clinging to a woman in a too-red dress.) Anyway, don't ask me how, but the guest of honor was Dr. Ruth. She pointed out proudly that she had been on CNN and Fox News earlier today and gave us all signed copies of Dr. Ruth's Sex for Dummies.

At one point, she came over to my table, I shook her hand, someone brought up WALKING THE BIBLE, and she announced, "I have that book." A few minutes later I called over to Mrs. Feiler Faster. "You're missing an interesting moment here," I said. "Dr. Ruth turns out to be a WALKING THE BIBLE fan."

"I didn't say I'm a WALKING THE BIBLE fan," she quickly corrected. "I said I owned WALKING THE BIBLE."

Praised by President Bush and dissed by Dr. Ruth in the same week.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:11 AM 0 comments

My Brother Gloats

First he runs away with the family Super Bowl bet (meaning he now gets to be insufferable on another topic. Yikes!). Now this:

I'll wait until the Time Warner of the Braves is approved by the owners before I gloat, but it's hard to miss the fact that I'm having a good week...

Al Franken to run for U.S. senate.
For those keeping score at home, that would be two more points for him in our annual Predictions Game.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:03 AM 0 comments

The Prince and the Painter
Monday, January 29, 2007

I know it hasn't exactly gotten a lot of press, but Prince Charles and Camilla have been touring the U.S. the last few days. On Saturday, he paid a visit to a fascinating (and highly duplicable) program in Philadelphia called Mural Arts in which over 2,500 (!) murals have been painted across the city, often in run-down neighborhoods. The murals become beacons for community excitement and redevelopment. Egged on by Camilla, Charles couldn't resist adding a few strokes to an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. The following image was sent to me by the P.R. rep for Mural Arts, who happens to be my sister.


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Posted by B Feiler at 5:01 PM 0 comments

Does TV Cause Autism?
Thursday, January 25, 2007

One of the more explosive nuggets in the Bush-Baby Einstein fracas is the nugget that watching television and, by extension, videos might actually cause autism. This topic came up at lunch today with a group of parents of young children. Most were skeptical. The notion sounds preposterous on the surface, unless it's one of those things were drinking 800 gallons of Johnson's baby shampoo causes colon cancer.

But not so fast. It turns out there may be some science behind the claim. A report in Slate last October cites a new study from Cornell:

Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders.

The Cornell study represents a potential bombshell in the autism debate. "We are not saying we have found the cause of autism, we're saying we have found a critical piece of evidence," Cornell researcher Michael Waldman told me. Because autism rates are increasing broadly across the country and across income and ethnic groups, it seems logical that the trigger is something to which children are broadly exposed. Vaccines were a leading suspect, but numerous studies have failed to show any definitive link between autism and vaccines, while the autism rise has continued since worrisome compounds in vaccines were banned. What if the malefactor is not a chemical? Studies suggest that American children now watch about four hours of television daily. Before 1980—the first kids-oriented channel, Nickelodeon, dates to 1979—the figure is
believed to have been much lower.

Gregg Easterbrook, the author of the article and a well-known counter-intuitive science writer, concludes:

Everyone complains about television in a general way. But if it turns out television has specific harmful medical effects—in addition to these new findings about autism, some studies have linked television viewing by children younger than 3 to the onset of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—parents may urgently need to know to keep toddlers away from the TV. Television networks and manufacturers of televisions may need to reassess how their products are marketed to the young. Legal liability may come into play. And we live in a society in which bright images on screens are becoming ever more ubiquitous: television, video games, DVD video players, computers, cell phones. If screen images cause harm to brain development in the young, the proliferation of these TV-like devices may bode ill for the future.

The aggressive marketing of Teletubbies, Baby Einstein videos, and similar products intended to encourage television watching by toddlers may turn out to have been a nightmarish mistake. If television viewing by toddlers is a factor in autism, the parents of afflicted children should not reproach themselves, as there was no warning of this risk. Now there is: The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends against any TV for children under the age of 2. Waldman thinks that until more is known about what triggers autism, families with children under the age of 3 should get them away from the television and keep them away.


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Posted by B Feiler at 6:20 PM 1 comments

"Surge" in Baby Einstein Wars

Beware the State of the Union kiss! The web is abuzz today, with lefty bloggers dredging up charges against Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby, and the other baby bamboozling products. Turns out, the charges were filed by the Bush Administration! More, more, I say. (More, more dredging, that is. Here's why.). This is one White House surge that seems to be working.

CCFC Files FTC Complaint Against Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby, & BabyFirstTV

On May 1, 2006, CCFC filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby, two of the leading producers of videos for infants and toddlers, for false and deceptive advertising. On June 13, CCFC added BabyFirstTV, the first television channel for infants and toddlers, to their complaint. Links to CCFC's complaint and supporting documentation are below.

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Posted by B Feiler at 11:23 AM 0 comments

It Takes a Wiki to Cure a Child's Cold

Of course, as soon as Mrs. Feiler Faster decamped for Davos, the girls came down with colds. And as any parent knows, it takes a village to cure a cold -- largely because everyone has a different theory. Dahlia Lithwick explores this phenomenon and likens it to the Wiki-method of trying to arrive at conensus. Reading her funny piece, I was reminded of what my wife's aunt said about treating colds: Swamp it with medication, herbal wraps, and home remedies, and it will disappear in a week; do nothing and it will disappear in seven days:

Now, my husband and I had more or less finalized our wiki entry on caring for babies with colds. We had agreed, for instance, about the germ theory over the outside-with-wet-heads theory. We were, in the main, for hot liquids, baby Tylenol, hand-washing, and humidifiers. But as our boys are increasingly exposed to a growing number of end users, the markups of their illness wiki began to proliferate. One of the great-aunts quickly submitted the milk markup.

"No milk, no cheese, no yogurt," she wrote definitively. I went back that afternoon and edited this out. "The pediatrician has assured us that there is absolutely no connection between dairy and mucous," I wrote. My mom was spurred on to correct my error. "Absolutely no milk," she marked up my markup. "Also, no baths!"

When the baby started to smell funny that night, I checked his wiki for any Recent Changes. I noted the no-baths entry with some surprise and responded with a hasty edit: "Baths are okay," I wrote. "He finds them very soothing, and they are better than a sandblaster for the welded-on green mucous."

By the morning, "definitely no baths" had been reinstated, and "warmer slippers and indoor hats" had been added in by the lady at the supermarket who heard him coughing in the checkout line. Beginning to doubt myself and the gurus from What to Expect the First Year, I found myself mulling over these modifications. "Should we really be overheating him if it isn't cold out?" I typed into the comments section.

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:34 AM 0 comments

Baby Einstein Isn't Smart
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

One of the odd things about the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night was seeing the woman who invented Baby Einstein sitting in the First Lady's Box. Like any new parent, I can easily find a stack of Baby Einstein videos around my house. For those of you who haven't seen them, they are smartly packaged, brilliantly named, inane videos that involve close-up, colorful shots of toys mixed with classical music. I hate them, along with most of the other videos. Mrs. Feiler Faster, it must be said, loves these videos. Let's just say it's a disagreement between us. I get that sometimes dinner simply cannot be cooked and the cab cannot be loaded for a trip to the airport without popping in a video. I'm not a total dope here. But for daily use, I don't like them at all, notwithstanding all the experts who recommend no television for those under two.


But still, the First Lady's Box at the SOTU?? The folks over at TPM Cafe have provided a helpful update about how the science is junk.

Sitting in the First Lady's box will be Julie Aigner-Clark, the founder of the Baby Einstein juggernaut. Aigner-Clark's great innovation was to take random "baby-friendly" images pair them with classical music and convince a generation of parents that this was good for your child. Oh, if it were only so!

The "Mozart effect" underlying these products has been proven to be a sham (not to mention that the original experiments never tested the effect of classical music on children). Exposing small children to television may be the cause for all those children running around with ADD. And some have gone so far as to blame TV watching among small kids for the uptick in autism rates.

In the reality-based world, Baby Einstein actually isn't that good for your kids. Yet, Aigner-Clark is given the seat of honor.It makes you wonder if someone in the White House watched too much TV growing up.

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Posted by B Feiler at 5:11 PM 1 comments

Wherever You Are Johnny U ...
Sunday, January 21, 2007

The legend in my family is that my mother delayed my birth on a Sunday afternoon many decades ago to watch Johnny Unitas lead the Baltimore Colts in an important game. I've never wanted to verify the story. It's been too rich. Then I went and married into a Patriots' family. The Colts and the Pats wasn't a rivalry; it was completely one-sided. The Patriots won all the games that counted. Still I picked the Colts, year after year, in recent years. I had lost some faith in recent months, but today I believe again. Who couldn't have believed?! What a game. Tom Jackson said in ESPN tonight that it's not a rivalry until both sides win. It's a rivalry now. And, with New Orleans out, a clear someone to root for in the Super Bowl: Peyton Manning. Go Colts!

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Posted by B Feiler at 11:22 PM 0 comments

Point!
Friday, January 12, 2007

Nifong reportedly (ABC News) wants out as Duke rape D.A. A last ditch effort to save his job, no doubt, and step down before the case is thrown out, but a point nonetheless in my high-stakes Prediction Game with my brother.

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Posted by B Feiler at 6:03 PM 0 comments

You Can't Get to Heaven Without Changing Planes in Atlanta
Wednesday, January 10, 2007

That's what we used to say growing up in Savannah, and the reason was Delta, one of the backbones of Atlanta's boosteristic-biz mentality. Cut to today. I don't particularly have a horse in the Delta-U.S. Air merger talks that are all over the media today, from the NYT to the WSJ, even though half my life's savings are caught up in Delta Frequent Flyer points. But I do have a horse in my predictions game with my brother, and one of the big differences we have is on this issue: I have that the merger will happen; he has that it won't. Here's the analysis from the NYT Dealbook blog:

After crunching the numbers on US Airways‘ latest bid for Delta Air Lines, several equity analysts said Wednesday that it seemed to present a better payout for creditors than Delta’s standalone reorganization plan. Their estimates were slightly different, but three of them calculated that US Airways was offering at least $2 billion more than Delta would be worth if it emerged from bankruptcy on its own. Their analysis suggests that US Airways’ new offer, consisting of $10.2 billion in cash and stock, may get serious consideration from Delta’s creditors.

“US Airways believes a merger with Delta can produce $1.65 billion of annual synergies, which, we think is doable,” Merrill Lynch’s Michael Linnenberg wrote in a research note Wednesday. He said a combination would produce a value of $12.7 billion to $15.4 billion, with a midpoint of $14.1 billion. That compares to a value of $10.7 billion, at the midpoint, under the Delta plan.

“While it is likely that a US Airways/Delta merger could take longer to close than Delta emerging from bankruptcy, one cannot ignore the magnitude of the cash component of the US Airways offer,” Mr. Linnenberg wrote.

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Posted by B Feiler at 7:15 PM 0 comments

Wrong Number
Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Every day, at roughly the same time of day, I get a call on my BlackBerry from the following number: 425/562-3215. I know this because I don't use my BlackBerry for its phone service. I don't know my own number. My wife doesn't know the number. No one knows the number. I've never used it, even once. I just have to have it as part of my Cingular data service. Sometimes the number will leave a message, but it's always blank, and I have to incur huge expenses to delete it from my voice mail box, which leaves an annoying icon on the face of my BlackBerry.

Today I typed that number into Google and learned that it's a scam. It calls you, says it's from your cell phone provider or some such, and asks for your credit card, Social Security #, etc. There are numerous references to this number on the Internet. But Cingular won't block it. I did learn how to delete the messages from my voice mail box without using the BlackBerry phone service, and I do feel better about the whole situation. But now I know there's a phantom number out there waging war, and I want it stopped.

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Posted by B Feiler at 11:33 PM 0 comments

William Wants a Doll

As I've been discussing over the last week, every year my brother and I have a very complicated (I won't even go into the scoring system) predictions game. This year, I won handily. Below are my predictions for 2007. Part of the fun is keeping score throughout the year. I already regret not having picked McGuire out of the Hall of Fame.

Super Bowl -- Chargers
World Series -- Mets
Best Pic -- The Departed
World Leaders No Longer in Power -- Maliki, Siniora, Abbas, Reid, Mubarak
Dow Jones -- 3,000
Arts/Entertainment -- Scorsese wins first Oscar
Politics -- Nifong forced out from Duke "rape" case
Media -- NYT ends TimesSelect
Sports -- Bonds surpasses Aaron
Geo/Science -- Both Houses overturn Bush stem cell veto
Random -- Harry Potter killed in final book
Economics -- Delta/USAir merge
Cabinet -- All in power
Outrageous -- William announces engagement

Declared presidential candidates on 12/31/07
D – Clinton, Biden, Richardson, Edwards, Obama, Kucinich, Vilsack, Clark
R – McCain, Guiliani, Romney, Gingrich, Brownback, Hunter

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:03 PM 0 comments

Point!
Monday, January 1, 2007

My brother and I have had an annual predictions for well over a decade now; it's kind of the like the game in Anne Tyler's Accidental Tourist, where it's so complicated and ever-changing that only the practioners know the rules, and even they often forget. Today we tallied up 06' and tonight I'm making my predix for the new year. Here's what I predicted a year ago, with my point total in parens.

Super Bowl Champion -- Indy (0)
World Series Champ -- Cardinals (2)
Best Picture -- Brokeback (0)
Three World Leaders No Longer in Power -- Sharon, Frist, Mandela, Rove, Delay (3)
Dow -- 11,000 (0)

Then we make predictions by category:

Arts/Entertainment -- Ang Lee wins Oscar for Brokeback (1)
Politics -- Santorum defeated in PA Senate race (1)
Sports -- Braves lose division for first time in 15 years (1)
Geography -- Supreme Court overturns TX redistricting (1/2)
Random -- Arnold out as CA gov (o)
Economics -- Ken Lay convicted (1)

Cabinet Officer not in power -- Rumsfeld (1)

Outrageous -- At least one ex-U.S. president dies (2)

In the final tally, this was one of my best outings in years, and I defeated my brother 12 1/2 to 7 1/2. Tune in on Tuesday for my '07 predictions and help me keep score all year.

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Posted by B Feiler at 8:33 PM 0 comments

BlackBerry Babies
Thursday, December 28, 2006

I have been at parties were couples fought over whether one was permissable at the table (No!). I have been in arguments with my own wife over whether she's allowed to check hers while I'm driving and she's supposed to be navigating (No!). And I've stooped to using mine to steal five extra minutes of squirm-free time on a long plane ride (Yes!).

But I'm pleased to report, that despite exploding chattering among our 20-month-olds ("Dadddy read book 'We All Sing Same Voice'"), that unlike the trend reported in this WSJ piece, BlackBerry is not in the vocabularies of our girls.

Yet.

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Posted by B Feiler at 10:28 PM 0 comments

Postcard from Morocco


I received the following email today from my brother, who had spoken to my parents during their holiday trip to Morocco:

Dad turned down an offer today. He said "no" when offered 3,000 camels ... for Mom!

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Posted by B Feiler at 1:48 PM 0 comments

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