Obama reassuring liberal allies, prepping for 'fiscal cliff' talks

WASHINGTON -- President Obama is assuring liberal allies that he will fight for the middle class during upcoming fiscal negotiations with Republicans, and he is urging those supporters not to lay down their weapons just because the election is over.

But the White House is also talking about the inevitability of compromise as the administration and congressional Democrats and Republicans prepare to negotiate an end-of-year fiscal deal that will center on the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts and a spate of automatic spending cuts.

The preparations are bringing progressive allies and business leaders alike to the White House this week, leading up to the president’s summit on Friday with congressional leaders of both parties -- their first session since his reelection.

PHOTOS: Reactions to Obama's victory

In an hourlong meeting with labor and other progressive leaders on Tuesday, the president promised to stand firm on the tax principles he outlined in the campaign, according to several people who were present.

They departed the West Wing under a bright sky, the victory they helped Obama win fresh in their minds. They were heartened that Obama emphasized the need for "balance" between spending cuts and revenue increases, and for the wealthy to bear a fairer share of the tax burden, said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress.

"He said that this election was about the middle class and fairness," Tanden said. "He’s standing firm on taxes on the wealthiest Americans."

Labor leaders were adamant that the deal protect the middle-class tax cuts, said AFL-CIO chief Rich Trumka. "Do we believe the president is committed to that same thing?" he said after emerging from the West Wing. "Yes, we do."

White House officials are talking about a schedule in which the president would stay on the campaign trail, with the aim of keeping the pressure on House Republicans to renew the expiring tax cuts for the middle class while letting those for the wealthy expire.

PHOTOS: America goes to the polls

As the Tuesday meeting was breaking up, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was just steps away in the briefing room, talking about the realities of negotiation.

The "whole point of compromise," he said, "is that nobody gets to achieve their maximalist position."

The president in the past has demonstrated a willingness, he said, to "give" in an effort to "meet your negotiating partner somewhere in the middle and reach a deal."

As they stake out their stand, business leaders are signaling resistance to the idea of letting the tax cuts expire for any Americans, including the wealthy.

In a letter to the president, several corporate chief executives warned of the economic perils of cutting spending dramatically while simultaneously raising taxes. If the president and Congress can’t agree on how to head off those automatic changes, they’ll both begin to take effect at the end of the year.

"Experts agree such immediate changes will most likely reduce economic growth and hinder employment in the United States and globally," said the letter by the CEOs, including some who are invited to the White House on Wednesday. "This would be particularly damaging as economies throughout the world struggle and look to us for leadership."

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

The meeting is expected to be a little tense as the two sides stake out territory. That’s what the progressive leaders hope for.

Quietly, some of them worry about the inevitable "give" that Carney talked about. As they left the White House grounds on Tuesday, they spoke of nothing but optimism -- even as they spoke in terms of supporting particular principles, not particular leaders.

Asked if he would help the president lobby Congress, Trumka said he was “prepared to stand up to make sure that there is shared sacrifice here, so the rich actually start paying their fair share.”

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Man who accused Elmo puppeteer of teen sex recants

NEW YORK (AP) — The man who accused Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash of having sex with him when he was a teen now says it isn't so.

The man is now saying his sexual relationship with Clash was adult and consensual.

In response to the statement Tuesday afternoon, Clash issued a statement of his own, saying he is "relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest."

The man, who has not identified himself, released his statement through the Harrisburg, Pa., law firm of Andreozzi & Associates.

On Monday, Sesame Workshop said Clash had taken a leave of absence from "Sesame Street" after allegations came to light that he had had a relationship with a 16-year-old. Clash denied the charges from the man, who is now in his early 20s.

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‘Dream Team’ of Behavioral Scientists Advised Obama Campaign

Chris Keane/Reuters

DOOR TO DOOR Ricky Hall, an Obama volunteer, in Charlotte, N.C., last week.

Late last year Matthew Barzun, an official with the Obama campaign, called Craig Fox, a psychologist in Los Angeles, and invited him to a political planning meeting in Chicago, according to two people who attended the session.

“He said, ‘Bring the whole group; let’s hear what you have to say,’ ” recalled Dr. Fox, a behavioral economist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

So began an effort by a team of social scientists to help their favored candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Some members of the team had consulted with the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle, but the meeting in January signaled a different direction.

“The culture of the campaign had changed,” Dr. Fox said. “Before then I felt like we had to sell ourselves; this time there was a real hunger for our ideas.”

This election season the Obama campaign won a reputation for drawing on the tools of social science. The book “The Victory Lab,” by Sasha Issenberg, and news reports have portrayed an operation that ran its own experiment and, among other efforts, consulted with the Analyst Institute, a Washington voter research group established in 2007 by union officials and their allies to help Democratic candidates.

Less well known is that the Obama campaign also had a panel of unpaid academic advisers. The group — which calls itself the “consortium of behavioral scientists,” or COBS — provided ideas on how to counter false rumors, like one that President Obama is a Muslim. It suggested how to characterize the Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in advertisements. It also delivered research-based advice on how to mobilize voters.

“In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other,” said Todd Rogers, a psychologist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former director of the Analyst Institute. “It’s a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition.”

When asked about the outside psychologists, the Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with them. “This campaign was built on the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity of thousands of grass-roots supporters and our staff in the states and in Chicago,” said Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman. “Throughout the campaign we saw an outpouring of individuals across the country who lent a wide variety of ideas and input to our efforts to get the president re-elected.”

For their part, consortium members said they did nothing more than pass on research-based ideas, in e-mails and conference calls. They said they could talk only in general terms about the research, because they had signed nondisclosure agreements with the campaign.

In addition to Dr. Fox, the consortium included Susan T. Fiske of Princeton University; Samuel L. Popkin of the University of California, San Diego; Robert Cialdini, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University; Richard H. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics at the University of Chicago’s business school; and Michael Morris, a psychologist at Columbia.

“A kind of dream team, in my opinion,” Dr. Fox said.

He said that the ideas the team proposed were “little things that can make a difference” in people’s behavior.

For example, Dr. Fiske’s research has shown that when deciding on a candidate, people generally focus on two elements: competence and warmth. “A candidate wants to make sure to score high on both dimensions,” Dr. Fiske said in an interview. “You can’t just run on the idea that everyone wants to have a beer with you; some people care a whole lot about competence.”

Mr. Romney was recognized as a competent businessman, polling found. But he was often portrayed in opposition ads as distant, unable to relate to the problems of ordinary people.

When it comes to countering rumors, psychologists have found that the best strategy is not to deny the charge (“I am not a flip-flopper”) but to affirm a competing notion. “The denial works in the short term; but in the long term people remember only the association, like ‘Obama and Muslim,’ ” said Dr. Fox, of the persistent false rumor.

The president’s team affirmed that he is a Christian.

At least some of the consortium’s proposals seemed to have found their way into daily operations. Campaign volunteers who knocked on doors last week in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada did not merely remind people to vote and arrange for rides to the polls. Rather, they worked from a script, using subtle motivational techniques that research has shown can prompt people to take action.

“We used the scripts more as a guide,” said Sarah Weinstein, 18, a Columbia freshman who traveled with a group to Cleveland the weekend before the election. “The actual language we used was invested in the individual person.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 13, 2012

An earlier version of this article omitted a word from the title of the book by Sasha Issenberg that examines data-driven strategies in political campaigns. It is “The Victory Lab,”  not “Victory Lab.”

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US stocks fall in uneven trading; Home Depot soars

U.S. stocks closed lower after uneven trading Tuesday as fears about the “fiscal cliff” and Greece tipped major indexes between gains and losses. A surge in Home Depot's stock prevented a steeper drop for the Dow Jones industrial average.

The Dow closed down closed down 58.90 points, or 0.5 percent, at 12,756.18. It would have been lower without support from Home Depot, whose stock jumped 3.6 percent after the big-box retailer beat expectations for its fiscal third-quarter earnings. Home Depot is benefiting from the gradual housing recovery and rebuilding efforts after Superstorm Sandy. Home Depot rose $2.22 to $63.38.

Stocks had opened lower after European leaders postponed the latest aid package for Greece. The Dow turned positive in the first hour of trading and rose solidly through the morning, gaining as much as 83 points. Starting around 2 p.m., the average slid steadily into the red.

Other indexes also closed lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 5.50 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,374.53. The Nasdaq composite index fell 20.37 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,883.89.

Investors are trading against the backdrop of the “fiscal cliff,” a set of U.S. government spending cuts and tax increases that will take effect automatically at the beginning of next year unless U.S. leaders reach a compromise before then.

Worries about the fiscal cliff pushed U.S. stocks to one of their worst weekly losses of the year last week after voters re-elected President Barack Obama and a deeply divided Congress. Obama met Tuesday with labor leaders and others who advocate higher taxes on the wealthy and want to protect health benefits for seniors and other government programs. Obama will meet with business leaders Wednesday.

“The longer we sit and do nothing” about the nation's fiscal issues, “the more this market is going to oscillate between positive 40 and negative 60, until we know what's going to happen next with all this uncertainty,” said Craig Johnson, senior technical research strategist with Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis.

Johnson expects the S&P 500 will reach 1,550 in the next six months as investors get over their lingering wooziness from the Great Recession and companies understand better how government policy on taxes, health care and spending will affect them.

European stocks had been lower but rose after trading opened in New York. Benchmark indexes in France, Britain and Germany closed modestly higher.

Traders in Europe are concerned because finance ministers postponed $40 billion in desperately needed aid for Greece. The news surprised investors. A day earlier, there was word that leaders had prepared a “positive” report on Greece, making it appear likely that the aid would be released.

“It's a little bit like Groundhog Day,” said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, referring to the classic Bill Murray movie whose protagonist must relive the same day over and over. Until there is decisive news from Washington or Brussels, neither of which appears imminent, markets will remain vulnerable to short-term swings caused by headlines, Colas said.

The next major catalysts for a market move, Colas said, will be gauges of spending by consumers on Black Friday, the traditional shopping rush on the day after Thanksgiving.

Greece's neighbors decided to give the country two more years to meet its economic targets. They still disagree with the International Monetary Fund, another key lender, over how to manage the country's debt over the long term. Until lenders reach an accord, they can't release the billions that Greece needs to make upcoming payments.

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said Greece should reduce its debt burden down to 120 percent of its economic output by 2020, the original target of 2020. But Jean-Claude Juncker, leader of the euro zone's finance ministers, said that the deadline would likely be changed to 2022. The lenders will meet again on Nov. 20.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slid to 1.59 percent from 1.64 percent late Friday as demand increased for ultra-safe investments. The U.S. bond market was closed on Monday in observance of the Veterans Day holiday.

Among stocks making big moves:

Microsoft plunged 3 percent after it announced the departure of Steven Sinofsky, who ran its Windows division. The unexpected move comes just weeks after Microsoft launched Windows 8, its first major overhaul in years of the operating system used on most of the world's computers. Microsoft fell 90 cents to $27.09.

Weatherford International dropped 15.9 percent after the oilfield services company reported revenue that was lower than analysts had been expecting. The company did not report full results because of accounting problems that have led it to revise its results from numerous periods. The stock fell $1.73 to $9.15.

Apparel chain operator TJX Cos., the parent of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, rose 2.7 percent after raising its full-year earnings forecast and reporting third-quarter revenue that exceeded analysts' expectations. The stock added $1.09 to $42.06.

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Newton: Jan Perry's path to power

An essential element of a successful political campaign, whether for U.S. president or mayor of Los Angeles, is that it identifies a path to victory. Candidates have to differentiate themselves from competitors and appeal to constituencies sympathetic to their message.

At this point in the Los Angeles mayor's race, Councilwoman Jan Perry lags behind front-runners Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti in terms of money and name recognition, but in recent weeks she has found a potentially viable path.

Perry's approach reflects an important feature of the field for this campaign: Controller Greuel and Councilman Garcetti, the leading candidates at this early stage, bring to the campaign virtually identical politics and similar temperaments. Both are personable, smart liberals with strong ties to organized labor. Greuel draws support from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union that represents employees of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, while Garcetti is close to the Service Employees International Union, which represents some city and county workers and others in service industries.

Those relationships are likely to supply Garcetti and Greuel with volunteers and financial support, both vital to winning. But they also present Perry with an opportunity to set herself apart. Now that County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and businessmen Austin Beutner and Rick Caruso have opted out of the campaign, Perry finds herself with a surprisingly open shot at becoming the favored candidate of business. As one longtime observer of this region's politics remarked to me last week, "It's the only way for her to go."

Last week, Perry demonstrated that she's gotten that message. Speaking to a small but welcoming audience at the Japanese American National Museum, Perry staked out her territory. She said she would oppose increases in sales and documentary transfer taxes — proposals that may appear on the same ballot as the mayoral contest's first round in March. She argued for offloading some city assets, such as the Convention Center and zoo. And she insisted that the city's budget problems — it faces a shortfall of more than $200 million this year, and the prognosis gets worse looking ahead — need to be addressed by asking city employees to contribute more to their medical coverage and pensions. That's just what business wants to hear.

"I am a lifelong Democrat who is a business-friendly Democrat," she said. By contrast, she said, her chief opponents will find it difficult to challenge City Hall's status quo in areas such as rate increases and pension reform. "I think they both will have obligations that they will have to meet, one to IBEW, the other to SEIU."

There is a fourth candidate who could plant his flag in this same area. Lawyer and radio personality Kevin James is campaigning at the race's only true outsider. The same calculations that have raised Perry's possibilities have increased his as well, but she has experience and credentials that will make it hard for him to head her off.

Perry is likable, with a refreshing candor. Last week, she slipped off her shoes as she delivered her speech and took questions from reporters until they had no more. And she didn't exaggerate what is achievable: Asked whether she thought the city could rebound over the next four years, she said, basically, no.

But she has liabilities too. In 2007, she joined council colleagues — including Greuel and Garcetti — in voting for a salary increase that gave city workers more than 25% over five years. The deal was rendered insupportable when the economy tanked the next year, but it doesn't take a Nobel laureate to see that not many workers in 2007 were getting deals that promised them annual salary increases of 5%. When I asked her if she regretted that vote, Perry laughed. "Yes," she said. "Of course."

Perry does have her share of enemies. She is famously stubborn — one joke kicking around the campaign is that she might have dropped out of this race and instead run for controller if only so many people hadn't asked her to. And the demographic dynamics of her base are complicated. She's African American and enjoys strong support from that important but relatively small community. She's also, unbeknownst to many voters, Jewish, which supplies her either with a way to extend her base or to confuse it.

The business elites that supported Richard Riordan in the 1990s had hoped Beutner would run, and they have yet to fall in behind Perry. But they're without a standard-bearer at the moment, and that could leave Perry with a powerful constituency, a coherent message — and a path.

Jim Newton’s column appears Mondays. His latest book is "Eisenhower: The White House Years." Reach him at jim.newton@latimes.com or follow him on Twitter: @newton_jim.

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Windows Server Developers Can Now Use HP Cloud to Build, Deploy and Scale Their Applications

I am happy to share that HP Cloud Compute now supports Microsoft Windows Server 2008 instances in addition to the variety of Linux distributions that are already available. Windows Server instances can now be launched in our US-West region. Since HP Cloud Compute is in public beta, all customers receive a 50% discount (see pricing below).

It is a priority for us to provide the tools that enable developers to quickly build, test, deploy and scale their applications in the cloud. That is why we created our CLI for Windows so that developers working in a Windows Server environment can quickly launch and manage their instances using the command line.

The three Windows Server images available are the Enterprise Editions of Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32 bit), Windows Server 2008 SP2 (64 bit) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit).  All Windows Server instances are created with a randomly generated password, which is then encrypted.  You can create and manage your Windows Server instances from our console, UNIX CLI and Windows CLI. For information about how to access your Windows Server instances using Remote Desktop (RDP), please review our documentation here.

The licenses for a Windows Server instance are included in the hourly rate for your instance, so you can spin up a server and get started without needing to worry about any additional licensing concerns.  Please see the table below for details about the hourly fees for both standard HP Cloud Compute Linux Instances and HP Cloud Compute Windows Server Instances.  While HP Cloud Compute continues in public beta, all customers receive a 50% discount off the prices listed below.

HP Cloud Compute Instance Types	Linux (per hour)	Windows (per hour)
Extra Small (1GB RAM, 1 core, 30GB disk)	$ 0.04	$ 0.06
Small (2GB RAM, 2 cores, 60GB disk)	$ 0.08	$ 0.12
Medium (4GB RAM, 2 cores, 120GB disk)	$ 0.16	$ 0.24
Large (8GB RAM, 4 cores, 240GB disk)	$ 0.32	$ 0.48
Extra Large (16GB RAM, 4 cores, 480GB disk)	$ 0.64	$ 0.96
Double Extra Large (32GB RAM, 8 cores, 960GB disk)	$ 1.28	$ 1.92

Our team has been working hard to ensure that we are able to support all of your public cloud needs and appreciate all those that participated in our private and public betas.  We are very excited about the launch of Windows Server instances.  Stay tuned as we plan to launch support for additional versions of Windows Server including Windows Server 2012 in the coming months.  As always, feel free to leave a comment, connect with us on chat or email or find us on twitter (@hpcloud) if you have any questions.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Skyfall' brings record Bond debut of $88.4M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Bond is cashing in at the box office.

"Skyfall," the 23rd film featuring the British super-spy, pulled in a franchise-record $88.4 million in its U.S. debut, bringing its worldwide total to more than $500 million since it began rolling out overseas in late October.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Skyfall," Sony, $88,364,714, 3,505 locations, $25,211 average, $90,564,714, one week.

2. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $33,012,796, 3,752 locations, $8,799 average, $93,647,405, two weeks.

3. "Flight," Paramount, $14,785,097, 2,047 locations, $7,223 average, $47,455,396, two weeks.

4. "Argo," Warner Bros., $6,617,229, 2,763 locations, $2,395 average, $85,583,187, five weeks.

5. "Taken 2," Fox, $4,012,829, 2,487 locations, $1,614 average, $131,300,000, six weeks.

6. "Cloud Atlas," Warner Bros., $2,658,250, 2,023 locations, $1,314 average, $22,844,956, three weeks.

7. "The Man With the Iron Fists," Universal, $2,592,705, 1,872 locations, $1,385 average, $12,821,030, two weeks.

8. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $2,573,350, 1,391 locations, $1,850 average, $59,099,993, seven weeks.

9. "Here Comes the Boom," Sony, $2,522,790, 2,044 locations, $1,234 average, $39,033,885, five weeks.

10. "Hotel Transylvania," Sony, $2,400,226, 2,566 locations, $935 average, $140,954,208, seven weeks.

11. "Paranormal Activity 4," Paramount, $1,980,033, 2,348 locations, $843 average, $52,600,612, four weeks.

12. "Sinister," Summit, $1,524,448, 1,554 locations, $981 average, $46,578,686, five weeks.

13. "Silent Hill: Revelation," Open Road Films, $1,300,137, 1,902 locations, $684 average, $16,383,406, three weeks.

14. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," Summit, $1,132,924, 607 locations, $1,866 average, $14,614,770, eight weeks.

15. "Lincoln," Disney, $944,308, 11 locations, $85,846 average, $904,308, one week.

16. "Alex Cross," Summit, $911,973, 1,090 locations, $837 average, $24,603,042, four weeks.

17. "Fun Size," Paramount, $757,223, 1,301 locations, $582 average, $8,800,336, three weeks.

18. "Looper," Sony, $582,150, 491 locations, $1,186 average, $64,669,383, seven weeks.

19. "The Sessions," Fox, $545,550, 128 locations, $4,262 average, $1,655,222, four weeks.

20. "Seven Psychopaths," CBS Films, $404,812, 356 locations, $1,137 average, $14,098,469, five weeks.

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Stocks close little changed as fiscal cliff looms

Stocks are closing little changed on Wall Street as investors focus again on the looming “fiscal cliff” faced by the U.S. government.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended a quarter point lower than it started Monday, at 12,815. It moved between small gains and losses throughout the day.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up a fraction of a point to 1,380. The Nasdaq composite fell less than a point 2,904.

Trading was light. The government and the U.S. bond market were closed for Veterans Day, and there were no economic reports.

The fiscal cliff refers to government spending cuts and tax increases that are scheduled to kick in at the beginning of the new year, unless Congress and the White House work out a compromise.

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Times investigation: Legal drugs, deadly outcomes

Terry Smith collapsed face-down in a pool of his own vomit.

Lynn Blunt snored loudly as her lungs slowly filled with fluid.

Summer Ann Burdette was midway through a pear when she stopped breathing.

Larry Carmichael knocked over a lamp as he fell to the floor.

Jennifer Thurber was curled up in bed, pale and still, when her father found her.

Karl Finnila sat down on a curb to rest and never got up.

These six people died of drug overdoses within a span of 18 months.

But according to coroners' records, that was not all they had in common. Bottles of prescription medications found at the scene of each death bore the name of the same doctor: Van H. Vu.

After Finnila died, coroner's investigators called Vu to learn about his patient's medical history and why he had given him prescriptions for powerful medications, including the painkiller hydrocodone.

Investigators left half a dozen messages. Vu never called back, coroner's records state.

Over the next four years, 10 more of his patients died of overdoses, the records show. In nine of those cases, painkillers Vu had prescribed for them were found at the scene.

Vu, a pain specialist in Huntington Beach, described himself as a conscientious, caring physician. He declined to comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality laws, but he said he treats many "very, very difficult patients" whose chronic pain is sometimes complicated by substance abuse and depression, anxiety or other mental illness.

"Every single day, I try to do the best I can for every single patient," he said in an interview. "I can't control what they do once they leave my office."

Prescription drug overdoses now claim more lives than heroin and cocaine combined, fueling a doubling of drug-related deaths in the United States over the last decade.

Health and law enforcement officials seeking to curb the epidemic have focused on how OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and other potent pain and anxiety medications are obtained illegally, such as through pharmacy robberies or when teenagers raid their parents' medicine cabinets. Authorities have failed to recognize how often people overdose on medications prescribed for them by their doctors.

A Los Angeles Times investigation has found that in nearly half of the accidental deaths from prescription drugs in four Southern California counties, the deceased had a doctor's prescription for at least one drug that caused or contributed to the death.

Reporters identified a total of 3,733 deaths from prescription drugs from 2006 through 2011 in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and San Diego counties.

An examination of coroners' records found that:

In 1,762 of those cases — 47%— drugs for which the deceased had a prescription were the sole cause or a contributing cause of death.

A small cadre of doctors was associated with a disproportionate number of those fatal overdoses. Seventy-one — 0.1% of all practicing doctors in the four counties — wrote prescriptions for drugs that caused or contributed to 298 deaths. That is 17% of the total linked to doctors' prescriptions.

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Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

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