Bucks Blog: The Question You Should Be Asking About the Stock Market

Carl Richards is a financial planner in Park City, Utah, and is the director of investor education at the BAM Alliance. His book, “The Behavior Gap,” was published last year. His sketches are archived on the Bucks blog.

With the stock market up more than 100 percent from those scary days in early 2009 and up 16 percent in 2012 alone, we’re now hearing plenty about how small investors are getting back into the market. Andrew Wilkinson, the chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak Associates, referred to it as a “a real sea change in investor outlook.”

It seems we’re in danger of repeating the same old cycle of swearing off stocks forever during scary markets, missing a huge rally and then deciding it’s time to buy when stocks are high again. On the flip side, I’ve had a number of conversations with Main Street investors who are asking if now is the time to sell because the Dow Jones Industrial Average is hovering near 14,000 and the S&P 500 stock index is around 1,500 again.

So which one is it? Should everyday investors be buying or selling?

Do you see the problem here?

If we’re investing based on what the market has done, it’s a recipe for disaster. Recent market performance tells us almost nothing useful about what the market will do in the near future. Logically it seems like it should, but a quick review of the market’s performance during the last six years should be evidence enough to convince us that it doesn’t.

Remember how you felt in March, 2009? I bet you didn’t feel like investing, and you weren’t alone. Almost no one did. It was a scary time. But it turns out that it would have been a brilliant time to invest. Again, not because of what the market had done, but what it was about to do.

But there was no way to know that in March 2009.

Did anyone expect (or feel) like 2012 was going to turn into a 16 percent year? In fact, almost all the unfortunate souls that make their living predicting the markets got 2012 wrong.

Here’s the thing we need to remember: we have no idea if now is the time to be buying or selling. But the good news is that it’s not even the question we should be asking. Instead we should be asking, “How can we avoid making the big behavioral mistake of selling low and buying high (again!) in the future?”

Instead of worrying about getting in or out of the market at the right time, take that time to focus on crafting a portfolio based on your goals. Start by taking out a piece of paper and writing a personal investment policy statement that addresses the following:

1. Why are you investing this money in the first place? What are your goals?
2. How much do you need in cash, bonds and stocks to give you the best chance of meeting those goals while taking the least amount of risk?
3. What actual investments will you buy to populate that plan and why? Make sure you address issues like diversification and expenses.
4. How often will you revisit this plan to make sure you’re doing what you said you would do and to make changes to your investments to get them back in line with what you said in number 2?

A personal investment policy statement can be one of the most important guardrails against the emotional investment decisions that we all regret in hindsight. So, when you get worried about the markets and are tempted to sell everything you own that has anything to do with stocks, go back to that piece of paper. If your goals haven’t changed, forget about it.

And when you get excited about that initial public offering that your brother-in-law says he can “get you in on,” pull out that piece of paper. If your goals haven’t changed, forget about it.

When your neighbors are all wrapped up in how the latest apocalypse du jour is going to ruin everyone’s retirement, pull out that piece of paper. If your goals haven’t changed, forget about it.

I know this might not work all the time. In fact, it might not work at all when we’re scared and dead set on getting out. But my hope is that having something we wrote when we weren’t scared will give us a little time to pause and ask a few questions before we do something that might end up being a mistake.

As a result, maybe, just maybe, we can shift the focus away from whether now is the right time to buy or sell and place it squarely on whether that decision fits into our own, personal investment plans.

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IHT Rendezvous: Doctors to Prescribe Self-Help Books, Poetry for Mental Health Ills

LONDON — Doctors in England will soon be prescribing books as well as pills to patients suffering from anxiety and depression.

In a government-endorsed initiative supported by medical associations and librarians, physicians will be sending patients to their local libraries for a range of approved self-help titles targeted at those suffering from mild to moderate mental health problems.

Patients are also being encouraged to turn to what The Bookseller magazine described as “uplifting novels and poetry.”

Extolling the potentially curative powers of literature, the Reading Agency charity quoted research that showed reading reduced stress levels by 67 percent.

The charity, which is a partner in the new Books on Prescription program announced this week, quoted the New England Journal of Medicine as saying reading also cut the risk of dementia by more than a third.

The list of 30 approved self-help titles available on prescription from May includes page-turners like “The Feeling Good Handbook,” “How to Stop Worrying” and “Overcoming Anger and Irritability.”

“There’s growing evidence that shows that self-help reading can help people with certain mental health issues get better,” Miranda McKearney, the Reading Agency’s director said.

The sick often rely on the Internet to search for advice on symptoms and cures that can turn out to be unreliable. Doctors will now be able to write a prescription that gives patients immediate membership to their local library and access to recommended titles.

It is the first so-called bibliotherapy initiative to have received such high-level official backing from health authorities and librarians.

Campaigners for public libraries have applauded the program but worry that not enough is being done to protect the libraries themselves. Last year, 200 libraries were closed and another 300 are reportedly facing closure or being handed over to volunteers this year.

The Reading Agency meanwhile has come up with a core list of Mood-boosting Books designed to promote feeling good.

It includes proven classics such as “The Secret Garden,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but also upbeat titles from the likes of Bill Bryson, the best-selling U.S. humorist.

Development of the book prescription idea was paid for by the Arts Council England, which distributes public money to arts projects.

The Reading Agency has applied for funding from the government, which it says spends £14 billion, or $22 billion, a year treating mental health.

So, should sufferers of depression or panic attacks be advised to curl up with a good book? Or is this just a new health fad to find an alternative to costly medication and therapy.

The Reading Project is soliciting suggestions for stress-relieving books at the Twitter hashtag #moodboosting.

If you think there might be something in it, send us your own suggestions for therapeutic reading. And, while you’re at it, let us know any titles that are best avoided when we’re feeling low.

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Goodell: 'Absolutely' would let son play football

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would "absolutely" want his own child to play football.

After President Barack Obama recently said he'd "have to think long and hard" about allowing a son to take part in the sport, Goodell was asked the same question hours before Sunday's Super Bowl during an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Like the president, Goodell has two daughters. The commissioner deflected the question about allowing a son to play football by noting the high incidence of concussions in girls soccer.

In an interview with The New Republic, Obama had said he loved football but worried about the long-term effects on players of the game's hard hits. Thousands of former players have sued the NFL, alleging that not enough was done to inform them about the dangers of concussions and not enough is being done today to take care of them.

Asked by Bob Schieffer on Sunday whether the league hid the risks of head injuries, Goodell said, "No."

Goodell declined to confirm that there is a proven connection between the sport and medical problems in retired players. He emphasized that the NFL is funding research to learn more about the risks and changing rules to make the game safer.

Goodell said he had no concerns that football could go the way of boxing, a sport now far less popular than in its heyday.

"I couldn't be more optimistic about it because the game of football has always evolved," the commissioner said. "Through the years, through the decades, we've made changes to our game, to make it safer, to make it more exciting, to make it a better game for the players, for the fans, and we have done that in a very calculated fashion."

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Matt Eich for The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 3, 2013

An earlier version of a quote appearing with the home page presentation of this article misspelled the name of a medication. It is Adderall, not Aderall.

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Iceland, Prosecutor of Bankers, Sees Meager Returns

Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

"Greed is not a crime. But the question is: where does greed lead?" said Olafur Hauksson, a special prosecutor in Reykjavik.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — As chief of police in a tiny fishing town for 11 years, Olafur Hauksson developed what he thought was a basic understanding of the criminal mind. The typical lawbreaker, he said, recalling his many encounters with small-time criminals, “clearly knows that he crossed the line” and generally sees “the difference between right and wrong.”

Today, the burly, 48-year-old former policeman is struggling with a very different sort of suspect. Reassigned to Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, to lead what has become one of the world’s most sweeping investigation into the bankers whose actions contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008, Mr. Hauksson now faces suspects who “are not aware of when they crossed the line” and “defend their actions every step of the way.”

With the global economy still struggling to recover from the financial maelstrom five years ago, governments around the world have been criticized for largely failing to punish the bankers who were responsible for the calamity. But even here in Iceland, a country of just 320,000 that has gone after financiers with far more vigor than the United States and other countries hit by the crisis, obtaining criminal convictions has proved devilishly difficult.

Public hostility toward bankers is so strong in Iceland that “it is easier to say you are dealing drugs than to say you’re a banker,” said Thorvaldur Sigurjonsson, the former head of trading for Kaupthing, a once high-flying bank that crumbled. He has been called in for questioning by Mr. Hauksson’s office but has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Yet, in the four years since the Icelandic Parliament passed a law ordering the appointment of an unnamed special prosecutor to investigate those blamed for the country’s spectacular meltdown in 2008, only a handful of bankers have been convicted.

Ministers in a left-leaning coalition government elected after the crash agree that the wheels of justice have ground slowly, but they call for patience, explaining that the process must follow the law, not vengeful passions.

“We are not going after people just to satisfy public anger,” said Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, Iceland’s minister of industry, a former finance minister and leader of the Left-Green Movement that is part of the governing coalition.

Hordur Torfa, a popular singer-songwriter who helped organize protests that forced the previous conservative government to resign, acknowledged that “people are getting impatient” but said they needed to accept that “this is not the French Revolution. I don’t believe in taking bankers out and hanging them or shooting them.”

Others are less patient. “The whole process is far too slow,” said Thorarinn Einarsson, a left-wing activist. “It only shows that ‘banksters’ can get away with doing whatever they want.”

Mr. Hauksson, the special prosecutor, said he was frustrated by the slow pace but thought it vital that his office scrupulously follow legal procedure. “Revenge is not something we want as our main driver in this process. Our work must be proper today and be seen as proper in the future,” he said.

Part of the difficulty in prosecuting bankers, he said, is that the law is often unclear on what constitutes a criminal offense in high finance. “Greed is not a crime,” he noted. “But the question is: where does greed lead?”

Mr. Hauksson said it was often easy to show that bankers violated their own internal rules for lending and other activities, but “as in all cases involving theft or fraud, the most difficult thing is proving intent.”

And there are the bankers themselves. Those who have been brought in for questioning often bristle at being asked to account for their actions. “They are not used to being questioned. These people are not used to finding themselves in this situation,” Mr. Hauksson said. They also hire expensive lawyers.

The special prosecutor’s office initially had only five staff members but now has more than 100 investigators, lawyers and financial experts, and it has relocated to a big new office. It has opened about 100 cases, with more than 120 people now under investigation for possible crimes relating to an Icelandic financial sector that grew so big it dwarfed the rest of the economy.

To help ease Mr. Hauksson’s task, legislators amended the law to allow investigators easy access to confidential bank information, something that previously required a court order.

Parliament also voted to put the country’s prime minister at the time of the banking debacle on trial for negligence before a special tribunal. (A proposal to try his cabinet failed.) Mr. Hauksson was not involved in the case against the former leader, Geir H. Haarde, who last year was found guilty of failing to keep ministers properly informed about the 2008 crisis but was acquitted on more serious charges that could have resulted in a prison sentence.

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As Self-Immolations Near 100, Some Tibetans Ask, Is It Worth It?

NEW DELHI — A crowd of Tibetans came here to India’s capital last week, bearing flags and political banners and a bittersweet admixture of hope and despair. A grim countdown was under way: The number of Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibet had reached 99, one short of an anguished milestone.

Yet as that milestone hung over the estimated 5,000 Tibetans who gathered in a small stadium, so did an uncertainty about whether the rest of the world was paying attention at all. In speeches, Tibetan leaders described the self-immolations as the desperate acts of a people left with no other way to draw global attention to Chinese policies in Tibet.

“What is forcing these self-immolations?” Lobsang Sangay, prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, asked in an interview. “There is no freedom of speech. There is no form of political protest allowed in Tibet.”

Billed as the Tibetan People’s Solidarity Campaign, the four-day gathering featured protests, marches, Buddhist prayer sessions and political speeches in an attempt to push Tibet back onto a crowded international agenda. If the Arab Spring has inspired hope among some Tibetans that political change is always possible, it has also offered a sobering reminder that no two situations are the same, nor will the international community respond in the same fashion.

“The world is paying attention, but not enough,” Mr. Sangay added. “There was a self-immolation in Tunisia which was labeled the catalyst for the Arab Spring. We’ve been committed to nonviolence for many decades. And how come we have been given less support than what we witnessed in the Arab world?”

Yet even as the self-immolations have become central to the Tibetan protest movement, a quiet debate has been under way among Tibetans who are anguished over the deaths of their young men and who question how the acts reconcile with Buddhist teachings. Again and again, speakers emphasized that the Tibetan movement remains nonviolent and that the people who have self-immolated harmed only themselves.

“None of them have tried to harm anybody else,” said Penpa Tsering, the speaker of the Tibetan Parliament, which is based in Dharamsala, the Indian city that is host to the exiled Tibetan government. “None of the 99 people have tried to harm any Chinese.”

The Tibetan self-immolations began in 2009 as protests against China’s rule in Tibetan regions of the country. At least 81 Tibetans have died after their acts, and nearly all the self-immolations have occurred inside Tibet, with news smuggled out via e-mail or through networks of advocacy groups.

The Chinese authorities have responded by taking a harder line. Last week, a Chinese court handed down stiff sentences to a Tibetan monk and his nephew on charges that they had urged eight people to set themselves on fire, according to Chinese state news media. The monk was given a suspended death sentence, usually equivalent to life in prison, and the authorities have made it clear that committing or encouraging the act will be treated as intentional homicide. (Mr. Sangay said that six others in a different area of Tibet were also given harsh sentences.)

The Chinese government has blamed the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, for inciting ordinary Tibetans to carry out self-immolations. Tibetans rebut the claim, saying the cause is Chinese repression.

“What are you left with?” Mr. Penpa asked. “The only thing you can do is sacrifice your life.”

With the Dalai Lama having ceded political control of the Tibetan government — and having encouraged the elections that elevated Mr. Sangay, a former lecturer at Harvard, to prime minister — the Tibetan movement is in flux. To some degree, last week’s events were part of continued efforts to establish Mr. Sangay and other democratically elected Tibetan members of Parliament as figures capable of rallying political support for a movement long dependent on the charisma and stature of the Dalai Lama. (He did not attend the gathering.)

For more than a half century, India has been the primary host of exiled Tibetans, and many of the people who flocked to New Delhi came from special Tibetan villages elsewhere in the country. Lobsang Thai, 28, who came from Mundgod, a Tibetan village in the Indian state of Karnataka, said the self-immolations reflected the desperate situation in Tibet. “I don’t think it is about right or wrong,” he said. “That is the only thing we can do without hurting other people. That’s the best way to get the world’s attention.”

Tenzin Losec, 42, who is from Mainpat, a Tibetan village in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, agreed. “This is very sad for us,” he said. “But people inside Tibet, they have no other way. They have no rights. Outside Tibet, we are trying to raise awareness around the world.”

Tibetan leaders were determined to portray the week’s events as evidence that the global community, especially India, supported their aspirations. Lawmakers and other political figures from India’s leading political parties appeared at different events, though the government’s top leaders stayed away.

Mr. Sangay and others want the United Nations to push China to improve conditions in Tibet and also to allow inspectors to tour the region. “The Chinese government should feel pressure to do something,” he said. “This is leading to a vicious cycle: hard-line policies, protests, repression, more hard-line policies, more protests, more repression.”

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NFL's Goodell aims to share blame on player safety

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wants to share the blame.

"Safety," he said at his annual Super Bowl news conference, "is all of our responsibilities."

Not surprisingly, given that thousands of former players are suing the league about its handling of concussions, the topics of player health and improved safety dominated Goodell's 45-minute session Friday. And he often sounded like someone seeking to point out that players or others are at fault for some of the sport's problems — and need to help fix them.

"I'll stand up. I'll be accountable. It's part of my responsibility. I'll do everything," Goodell said. "But the players have to do it. The coaches have to do it. Our officials have to do it. Our medical professionals have to do it."

Injuries from hits to the head or to the knees, Goodell noted, can result from improper tackling techniques used by players and taught by coaches. The NFL Players Association needs to allow testing for human growth hormone to go forward so it can finally start next season, which Goodell hopes will happen. He said prices for Super Bowl tickets have soared in part because fans re-sell them above face value.

And asked what he most rues about the New Orleans Saints bounty investigation — a particularly sensitive issue around these parts, of course — Goodell replied: "My biggest regret is that we aren't all recognizing that this is a collective responsibility to get (bounties) out of the game, to make the game safer. Clearly the team, the NFL, the coaching staffs, executives and players, we all share that responsibility. That's what I regret, that I wasn't able to make that point clearly enough with the union."

He addressed other subjects, such as a "new generation of the Rooney Rule" after none of 15 recently open coach or general manager jobs went to a minority candidate, meaning "we didn't have the outcomes we wanted"; using next year's Super Bowl in New Jersey as a test for future cold-weather, outdoor championship games; and saying he welcomed President Barack Obama's recent comments expressing concern about football's violence because "we want to make sure that people understand what we're doing to make our game safer."

Also:

— New Orleans will not get back the second-round draft pick Goodell stripped in his bounty ruling;

— Goodell would not give a time frame for when the NFL could hold a game in Mexico;

— next season's games in London — 49ers-Jaguars and Steelers-Vikings — are sellouts.

Goodell mentioned some upcoming changes, including the plan to add independent neurologists to sidelines to help with concussion care during games — something players have asked for and the league opposed until now.

"The No. 1 issue is: Take the head out of the game," Goodell said. "I think we've seen in the last several decades that players are using their head more than they had when you go back several decades."

He said one tool the league can use to cut down on helmet-to-helmet hits is suspending players who keep doing it.

"We're going to have to continue to see discipline escalate, particularly on repeat offenders," Goodell said. "We're going to have to take them off the field. Suspension gets through to them."

The league will add "expanded physicals at the end of each season ... to review players from a physical, mental and life skills standpoint so that we can support them in a more comprehensive fashion," Goodell said.

With question after question about less-than-light matters, one reporter drew a chuckle from Goodell by asking how he's been treated this week in a city filled with supporters of the Saints who are angry about the way the club was punished for the bounty system the NFL said existed from 2009-11.

"My picture, as you point out, is in every restaurant. I had a float in the Mardi Gras parade. We got a voodoo doll," Goodell said.

But he added that he can "appreciate the passion" of the fans and, actually, "couldn't feel more welcome here."

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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Media Decoder Blog: In Wake of Restructuring, NBC News President Quits

8:30 p.m. | Updated

The longest-serving president of any of the three network news divisions, Steve Capus of NBC News, stepped down from his position on Friday, six months after Comcast restructured its news units in a way that diminished his authority.

Pat Fili-Krushel, chairwoman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a brief telephone interview on Friday that she would “cast a wide net” while searching for a successor to Mr. Capus. In the interim, the leaders of the news division will report directly to her.

Ms. Fili-Krushel became Mr. Capus’s boss last July when Steve Burke, the chief executive of NBCUniversal, consolidated all of NBC’s news units — NBC News, the cable news channels MSNBC and CNBC, and its stake in the Weather Channel — under a new umbrella, the NBCUniversal News Group. Mr. Burke asked Ms. Fili-Krushel, one of his most trusted lieutenants, to run it, while keeping Mr. Capus and the heads of the other units in place.

Ms. Fili-Krushel worked early in her career at HBO and Lifetime. A veteran of the Walt Disney Company, where she helped program ABC, and  Time Warner, where she was an administrator, she is by her own admission not a journalist.  But now she is, by default, the highest-ranking woman in the American television news industry — not just at the moment, but in the history of the medium. The heads of the news divisions at ABC and CBS are men, as are the heads of the Fox News Channel, CNN, and Bloomberg.

Ms. Fili-Krushel has kept a low public profile, but has been a forceful presence behind the scenes, recently moving from her office on the 51st floor of 30 Rockefeller Center, near Mr. Burke’s, to a new one on the third floor, where NBC News is based. On Friday, she said she had spent her first six months “learning, listening and getting to know the players here.” She called the News Group an “unbelievably strong organization.”

Though Mr. Capus’s exit saddened many at NBC News on Friday, it came as little surprise. He had previously reported directly to Mr. Burke, but after the restructuring he reported to Ms. Fili-Krushel, and he made no secret of his unhappiness with the change. His contract had a clause that allowed him to leave in the event that he no longer reported to Mr. Burke, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement at NBC, and he decided to exercise that right after months of contemplation. The people insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized by the network to speak publicly.

Mr. Capus told Ms. Fili-Krushel of his intent to leave last Friday. It is likely that he would have left sooner, but a series of major news stories kept him busy late last year — including Hurricane Sandy, the presidential election and the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Mr. Capus also oversaw the network’s response to the kidnapping of Richard Engel and an NBC News crew in Syria last month.

“It has been a privilege to have spent two decades here, but it is now time to head in a new direction,” he wrote in an e-mail to staff members on Friday afternoon.

Mr. Capus guided NBC through a revolutionary time in news-gathering and distribution. He maintained the news division’s profitability, managed tensions between NBC News and its increasingly liberal cable channel MSNBC, and fostered new business ventures like an in-house production company and an annual education summit. Last year, he unwound an old deal with Microsoft to give the news division complete control over its Web site, now named NBCNews.com, for the first time.

Ms. Fili-Krushel wrote in a separate e-mail to staff members that “NBC News is America’s leading source of television news and Steve has been a big part of that success.”

NBC News is the producer of the most popular evening newscast in the country. But its single biggest source of profits, the morning show “Today,” fell to second place last year, behind ABC’s “Good Morning America,” for the first time since the 1990s. The decline caused widespread anxiety inside the news division and speculation that Mr. Capus would be relieved of his duties.

Inside NBC, both Mr. Capus and the executive producer of “Today,” Jim Bell, received much of the blame for the botched removal of Ann Curry from “Today” last June, which worsened the show’s already tenuous position in the ratings. Ms. Fili-Krushel was put in charge just a few weeks later.

Mr. Bell was replaced at “Today” last fall and is now the executive producer for NBC Olympics. Savannah Guthrie is now the co-host of “Today,” and Ms. Curry is a national and international correspondent for the network, but is rarely seen. Mr. Capus’s exit was seen by some at the network as the last shoe that had to drop.

In his e-mail to staff members, Mr. Capus called it an “extremely difficult decision to walk away,” noting that he started at NBC as a producer 20 years ago this month. He did not make any mention of what he would do next. “Journalism is, indeed, a noble calling, and I have much I hope to accomplish in the next phase of my career,” he wrote.

“Today” continues to lose to ABC’s “Good Morning America” among total viewers, but lately it has won a few weeks in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic that advertisers covet.

“NBC Nightly News” has more successfully fended off ABC’s “World News,” despite an aggressive push by ABC. Mr. Capus said, “NBC News has grown in all key metrics — from ratings and reputation to profitability.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 02/02/2013, on page B2 of the NewYork edition with the headline: In Wake of Restructuring, NBC News President Quits.

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The Lede Blog: Vacation on Syria's Front Lines Goes Wrong for Russian Judge

Last Updated, Friday, 11:43 a.m. A Russian judge who decided to spend his vacation moonlighting as a war correspondent in Syria survived being shot in the face and arm this week in the Damascus suburb of Darayya, according to the Web news agency he writes for as a volunteer.

The shooting of the judge, Sergey Aleksandrovich Berezhnoy, was caught on video by the crew from the Abkhazian Network News Agency he was accompanying as it reported on a unit of the Syrian Army fighting rebel forces outside the capital. The ANNA video report shows him snapping photographs on a ruined street before the incident and includes graphic scenes from the emergency surgery in a Syrian military hospital that saved his life.

A video report from an Abkhazian news agency embedded with the Syrian Army outside Damascus showed a Russian judge.

In an interview with Voice of Russia on Thursday, Mr. Berezhnoy told the state broadcaster: “Now I feel fine. They are making a dressing. Of course I am coming back to Russia. But I want to keep working here until I finished everything I planned. What is going on in Syria hurts me. They are destroying a culture, destroying a civilization, destroying the flower of a nation. And it is very frightening. The whole world needs to fight for Syria.”

What exactly Mr. Berezhnoy, a 57-year-old deputy chairman of a provincial arbitration court in the Russian city of Belgorod, was doing on a Syrian front line on Monday remains unclear. His wife told reporters that her husband had traveled to Syria “on a charity mission,” Russia’s state news agency reported. His boss told a Russian news site that he knew Mr. Berezhnoy was on vacation but had no idea where he had gone until reports of his misadventure in Syria surfaced.

His boss tells Life News: “Sergei Alexandrovich was on holiday.”

— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) 31 Jan 13

An account of the shooting published on Monday by the blogger and Abkhaz news agency correspondent Marat Musin described the judge as a prize-winning prose stylist. Almost in passing, Mr. Musin also mentioned that Mr. Berezhnoy had fought, as a military intelligence officer, in the separatist wars that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. One of those conflicts was in Abkhazia, the breakaway Georgian republic now governed by Russia, Mr. Musin wrote.

Sergey Aleksandrovich who fought for five years as an intelligence officer in Abkhazia and in other hot spots of our vast Motherland did not utter a single groan. Surgery was made by a general, the head of the military hospital. The bullet will be extracted tonight or tomorrow morning.

Before the volunteer member of our agency and well-known writer was wounded, we drove to the front line in the vicinity of Sukaine mosque in Darayya. Sergey Berezhnoy is the winner of many literary prizes, namely for his military prose.

Mr. Musin went on to describe how the Russians embedded with the Syrian Army were forced to cross one “fire-swept street” after another as they attempted to make their way to safety. After a rebel sniper nearly shot the crew’s translator, Viktor Kuznetsov, in the head, Mr. Musin wrote:

The next to cross this street was Sergey. The first bullet did not stop him; neither did the second which hit his arm. He managed to run to the safety of a wall and stood up there.

I couldn’t understand why he was standing there instead of stealing into a hole. When we saw a stream of blood, we realized what had happened. The wounded Sergey Berezhnoy had to run across another fire-swept street. Then we were in a car to the hospital for tomography, x-ray and surgery.

To stifle his groans he tried to joke.

Please, light a candle for the miraculous survival of my friend.

Although most of the reports on the incident framed it as an example of the perils of “extreme tourism,” the reference to Mr. Berezhnoy’s past service in military intelligence got the attention of some reporters in Moscow, who were trying to puzzle out what he was doing in Syria.

Russian “volunteer” injured by sniper in Syria was intelligence officer who fought 5yrs in Abkhazia, Rosbalt reports. http://t.co/Wm8hs5zQ

— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) 31 Jan 13

But after even state television mentioned his intelligence career, the judge himself denied that he was a spy in a blog post published on the ANNA Web site early Thursday, apparently written after he was discharged from a hospital in Damascus.

Russian shot in Syria blogs fm hospital: I took time off work as judge, “not military intel, not saboteur, not spy.” http://t.co/QPv9nA2H

— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) 31 Jan 13

As The Moscow Times reported, Mr. Berezhnoy invoked a version of the domino theory to explain his motivation to bear witness to the Syrian struggle against rebels he characterized as sectarian, Islamist terrorists. If President Bashar al-Assad were to fall, he speculated, the instability would quickly ripple to the Russian Caucuses, then to the Volga region and the Urals, until all of “Mother Russia” would be “dismembered.”

Asked about Mr. Berezhnoy’s case at a briefing on Thursday, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, described him as a volunteer the government knew nothing about.

For min says berezhnoy was a volunteer but they are checking, he should receive necessary help.

— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) 31 Jan 13

The dramatic video of the Russian judge being wounded and operated on drew attention to the work of the previously obscure news agency and raised questions about who its reporting is aimed at. Chief among those questions was why a tiny Georgian enclave attached to Russia’s Black Sea coast would set up a news agency that appears to be devoted almost entirely to coverage of Syria. Of more than 300 video reports posted on the ANNA YouTube channel in the past two years, all but a handful on Libya appear to be about the Syrian civil war, as seen from the government’s perspective.

What relationship, exactly, ANNA bears to Abkhazia is also unclear. According to the agency’s Web site, it was registered in July of 2011 in the Republic of Abkhazia. An online biography for Mr. Musin describes him as the news agency’s manager, a professor at Moscow University and the “deputy head of the Russian Committee for Solidarity with the Peoples of Syria and Libya.”

One theory, supported by the fact that several of the ANNA video reports are subtitled in English, is that the producers of the clips might be working in support of a Russian foreign policy aim, to cast the Syrian government’s battle with “terrorism” in a more positive light for viewers outside Russia. The news agency’s reports, which appear online under the motto “Truth Explaining Facts | Facts Supporting Truth,” could be part of an effort to make a better case for Mr. Assad’s government, and partly redress the imbalance in global public opinion that formed early in 2011, when images of peaceful protesters being shot at by the Syrian security forces flooded social networks.

A typical example is a video report from earlier this month on the fighting in Darayya that features an interview with a Syrian general explaining the struggle. The report begins with images of government soldiers mocking the rebel battle cry of “Allahu Akbar,” or “God Is Great.”

A recent video report, with English subtitles, on the Syrian military’s effort to regain control of a Damascus suburb.

Another video report, from last week, featured interviews with Syrian government soldiers who claimed that the rebels had placed mines in a mosque in the Damascus suburb, “trying to flame a sectarian war; but they will not manage to do so, because the Syrian people are one, while they are foreigners.”

A video report shot last week by a Russian news agency crew embedded with Syrian troops.

While the efforts of the Abkhaz news agency are in line with the Russian government’s support for the Assad government, the battle for Russian hearts and minds is not at all one-sided.

There are many Russian citizens in Syria — 30,000 was the estimate from the Russian embassy there last year, but it could be considerably more than that — in large part as a result of decades of intermarriage between Syrian men and Russian women.

Though Russia’s government has provided Mr. Assad with crucial political support, it is not clear that the Russians in Syria universally support that view — in fact, a deputy foreign minister said in December in an unscripted moment that he believed half the Russians in Syria hold opposition views. In many cases, this may be because they are women married to Syrian men who support the opposition. Moreover, in Syria there are a significant number of ethnic Circassians, a non-Slavic ethnic group that was driven out of the south of Russia by the czar’s armies, and many of them are critical of the Kremlin’s pro-Assad position.

Just last week, the Saudi satellite news channel Al Arabiya discovered (and translated into English) a propaganda video posted online by a rebel brigade in which a Russian-speaking woman declared her allegiance to the Free Syrian Army.

Video posted online by Syrian rebels featured a Russian-speaking woman declaring her support for the uprising.

Wearing a military uniform and holding a camera, the woman said: “I am a Russian citizen and am standing amongst members of the Free Syrian Army. Every person here has the right to fight back and defend himself and his family. Waiting for aid from the Russian government is pointless, and it’s completely idiotic to wait for the Syrian regime’s help as well.”

Her declaration concluded:

Both the Russian and Syrian people are peaceful and of good hearts, but the governments in both countries are aiming to destroy Syria. And a government like this will topple sooner or later.

On a personal level, I used to be a supporter of Bashar al-Assad, until I witnessed with my own eyes how his forces destroyed my neighborhood and killed my relatives. And the shabiha kidnapped girls from the streets and have done many unrighteous acts towards them. As such, we should not forgive them and I will continues to protect whatever is left for me here.

Nikolay Khalip contributed reporting.

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