It is no accident that a growing number of senators and congressmen are supporting an end to insider trading among Washington lawmakers. Given the dismal approval ratings of the nation’s politicians, anything that can raise ratings is at least being considered. But don’t count on the passage of this bill called STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge), which is scheduled for a vote in the next few weeks.In a column that ran in The Lakeville Journal last month (“Gordon Gekko should run,” Nov. 17), I pointed out that our nation’s elected officials were not subject to the insider trading law that regulated everyone else. As a result, individual politicians and their cronies have profited substantially year after year from the knowledge they picked up in closed door hearings, subcommittees and the like.This access to insider information has become even more important over the last few years as more and more market-moving events are triggered by governmental actions. Just consider how government pronouncements in the United States and Europe over the last six months have caused huge market swings. Efforts to change this law have been going on for years with scant success. News stories such as the Wall Street Journal articles on the subject last year and last month’s “60 Minutes” report on the scandal have increased public awareness. I suspect that if their approval ratings were not so low (Congress has a historically low 9 percent approval rating) the politicians would simply ignore the heat, as they have done in the past, and continue to profit at taxpayers’ expense.A month ago, only nine congressmen supported the bill that would require elected officials to report all trades over $1,000 within 90 days. After the “60 Minutes” show, that number increased to 180, and more than 20 senators have since jumped on the band wagon.Today, a cozy relationship exists between politicians, political intelligence firms and big players on Wall Street. There is nothing illegal in a congressman or senator divulging sensitive information to a political intelligence firm which in turn sells that information to Wall Street. The more market-sensitive information that is passed on through the pipeline, the more a particular politician can demand in future campaign contributions from the beneficiaries of that information.This bill would make it illegal for individuals and political intelligence firms to continue that practice. It would also require firms and individuals involved in political intelligence to register just like any other federal lobbyist.Call me a cynic, but I doubt this bill will pass. Not only is lawmakers’ potential for using their office for personal gain at stake, but this bill will also jeopardize the pipeline to campaign funds from those special interests we hear so much about.In a different world, all my readers and everyone in America who cares (the 99 percent), will call or email their representatives in Washington and demand he or she vote for this bill when and if it comes up for a vote. It is your chance to change a lot of what is wrong with Wall Street right now. It’s your move, America. Bill Schmick lives in Hillsdale, N.Y. He is registered as an investment advisor representative with Berkshire Money Management. Bill’s forecasts and opinions are purely his own. None of the information presented here should be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. Direct inquires to Bill at 1-888-232-6072 (toll free) or email him at Bill@afewdollarsmore.com.
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
Erika DaSilva at Ten Mile Table.
Of course, sharing information is the other big reason to hold a cookbook swap. More than most forms of literature, cookbooks have one overriding purpose: to share knowledge. Over time, cookbooks have undergone a whirlwind of changes. Scholars have noted that cookbooks of the past two or three centuries often contained language that reinforced the subordinate roles of women and people of color. On the other hand, many cookbooks were written for and by women who wanted to share hard-won wisdom from their experiences in those very roles, offering guidance to others in similar circumstances.
Problematic or progressive, cookbooks are, at their essence, are a way to help others become better cooks, bakers, mixologists, gardeners or providers of sustenance. Unless there’s an amazing chef in your life, chances are many of your best home-cooked meals come from recipes that have been shared. The cookbook swap offers a chance to keep that tradition alive.
For the past two weeks, DaSilva has been busy gathering donations from bookstores, restaurants and enthusiastic members of the culinary community. Those books will fill a long swap table (though probably not 10 miles long) in the garden of the Lantern Inn, next door to Ten Mile Table and run by DaSilva’s husband, Minh Le.
That table will be the heart of the cookbook swap. No money is involved. Bring books, take books, trade with friends. DaSilva believes people who participate in a cookbook swap are there to share, not hoard, so she isn’t placing rules or restrictions on what or how many anyone can take.
Beyond the swap table, DaSilva has partnered with Merritt Bookstore in Millbrook to offer a selection of cookbooks and books about food, many chosen by chefs and friends in the culinary world.
Some of the donated cookbooks that will be at the swap in Wassaic.D.H. Callahan
Some of those friends will be on hand to share their favorite recipes for visitors to sample. Wassaic favorite Vitsky bakery and former White Hart Inn pastry chef Gaby Rios will provide baked goods. Daniel Meissner, executive chef at Willa in Millerton, will serve soups, while his longtime cooking collaborator, Wilfrido Landaira, will grill yakitori.
The Lantern Inn will offer its grandma pizza slices bánh mì sandwiches. Meatballs and other delights will come from Fat Apple Farm, a sustainable livestock farm, while oysters will come from Millbrook’s Canoe Hill. Maitri Farm in Amenia will bring certified organic produce, jams and cut flowers.
Ten Mile Table will also sell its curated selection of wines, spirits, sundries and publications, with beverages for adults and all ages available to try and to buy.
As part of the fest, DaSilva is encouraging visitors to bring recipes that are meaningful to them so she can begin another community collection. While the recipes in “The Corner Table” come from food professionals, she knows that everyday home cooks sometimes have the most hidden gems.
Whether that collection becomes another cookbook will be determined by the recipes people bring. Nothing’s set in stone, but she has faith that the community will provide.
For more information about Cookbook Fest and Swap, visit tenmiletable.com.
The novel has been praised as a critique of the social and physiological costs of war. It asks whether a person can return to a familiar place when their understanding of the world has fundamentally changed. It is also a powerful study of the unequal treatment of women in the armed forces and the expectations placed on women both in the military and at home.
Two leading contemporary women artists, playwright Darrah Cloud and composer and lyricist Stephanie Salzman, are collaborating on the piece, which balances intimate family drama with the emotional intensity of a returning soldier’s experience.
Playwright Darrah CloudProvided
Cloud is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose work explores family, history, social conflict and people confronting difficult moral choices. She has also served as the elected town supervisor of Pine Plains, effectively combining her creative career with local government service.
Salzman is a songwriter, composer and lyricist whose career spans musical theater, commercial pop songwriting and artist development. She teaches at NYU’s Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program and runs Power Pitch Music Studio, where she coaches, co-writes, produces recordings and helps develop the careers of emerging recording artists.
“Be Safe, I Love You” has received support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. It has been developed through Ancram Center for the Arts’ weeklong Play Lab residency program, leading to the upcoming presentation.
Play Lab is an important part of the Ancram Center’s seasonal programming and builds on its longstanding role as a cultural gathering place in rural Columbia County. The center is committed to the idea that theater can serve not only as a place where finished productions are presented but also as a safe home where the community participates in the questions, experiments and collaborations that shape new work.
While the work-in-progress presentation of “Be Safe, I Love You” at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8 at the Ancram Center is sold out, a free invited dress rehearsal will be held at 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7 at 5 p.m. To attend, email info@ancramcenter.org.
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