The reasons why John Kerry shouldn’t be president are very strong ... if you already feel Kerry shouldn’t be president. Otherwise, they sound like the assertions of the calm, presentable person who engages you on the T and informs you he communicates with aliens through the fillings in his teeth.
He’s missed a ton of Senate votes? Yes, because he’s running for president, thank god. He’s bad for business? Give me a break. If billionaire politicians for some reason manage to sell the public on a reform that hurts them or the economy, can they also get it past the millionaire politicians in Congress? He’s going to hand U.S. foreign policy over to the United Nations? Oddly, the phrase “Give me a break” comes to mind again. He’s selfish? Damn, there’s that “Give me a break” phrase again, if only because such judgments are subjective and largely the product of attack-dog media and right-wing nuts.
And fears about Teresa Heinz Kerry’s experimentation with reforming health care, and about those experiments being “wildly overbudget”?
It occurs to me that many billions of dollars have been spent on our missile shield technology -- if you can call it that -- since President Reagan proposed it in 1983 after an overstimulating night at the cinema. The budget for National Missile Defense in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2005 budget alone is $10 billion.
This is a system that, 20 years after scientists started work, still has to be shown which are the decoys and which are the real missiles. This is okay, we’re told, because all science has to start somewhere, and it starts with miserable failures. The funding looks almost justified by the refusal of the Bush administration to take serious steps to prevent nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran -- which ensures we’ll have enemies to use a missile shield against -- but also sort of silly considering serious threats can now be packed into suitcases and driven across the border.
So why not let Teresa Heinz Kerry experiment with health care a bit, even if the numbers aren’t working out the first couple of years? Instead of perpetuating an arms race, perhaps she can save a few lives, or make some lives a little easier.
And raising the specter of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care efforts in the early 1990s is perhaps digging in the wrong spot. Look instead to the millions spent by “special interests” in defeating the efforts, and to the delightful situation in which we find ourselves -- double-digit increases in health premiums, rising abandonment of employee benefits and demands for drug imports because our prescriptions aren’t affordable. Yes, it’s a good thing health care reform didn’t take place a decade ago; we’d all be screwed!
It’s also good to remember what James Fallows noted in The Atlantic in 1994, describing Wall Street Journal comparisons of health plans with a focus group. The members liked the Clinton plan upon hearing from Journal staffers how it worked, but “when they explained that the preferred group of provisions was in fact ‘the Clinton plan,’ most members of the panel changed their minds and opposed it.”
Monday, July 26, 2004
Friday, July 23, 2004
PACING IN MY CELL PHONE
Cracks are beginning to appear in my relationship with cellular telephone service T-Mobile. When my bill shot up from the usual $45 or so to a panic-inducing $125.75, I contacted customer service and noted a bunch of calls that I couldn’t have made (and yet, inevitably, had). The young schmuck at the T-Mobile call center -- the kind of young schmuck that makes one actually yearn for such work to be offshored to India -- told me: Someone else had been probably been using my service; that I should set up a security code; and I should increase my minutes for only $19.99 a month.
That was the extent of the solicitude. After the conversation went on a bit and it became obvious T-Mobile help was limited to, “Too bad, pay up, would you like to increase your minutes for only $19.99 a month?” I said goodbye and hung up abruptly.
The schmuck actually called me back. He noted that our conversation had ended somewhat abruptly and wondered if I would like to increase my minutes for only $19.99 a month.
I told him I’d hung up on him and that hounding me with a service I’d told him I didn’t want didn’t endear the company to me -- in fact, it was the kind of thing that made me want to switch services. He reminded me that there was a fee involved in that sort of thing. I told him I would obviously wait until the end of my contract.
Then he asked me, in that case, “Would you like to increase your minutes for only $19.99 a month?”
For the love of god.
Also, there was the strange case of lack of signal in the hinterlands known as Southie. Not very reassuring, especially since everyone else seemed to have signal there.
And the absurd interface on my Motorola cellular phone that sends me a little text message every time I get a voice mail, and each little text message must be deleted, which can take between five and eight steps. Or how about calling someone to leave an urgent message? Urgency means nothing to the people at T-Mobile and Motorola. Because this, too, can take several steps.
Except that when I tried it just now, it took only one step (push 4).
Bastards.
On the plus side, by the way, T-Mobile makes it very easy to take your cell phone overseas with consistent service, a benefit of being the offspring of Deutsche Telekom. But that doesn’t make up for employing a customer service schmuck with the patter of a salesman and the persistence of the Terminator.
That was the extent of the solicitude. After the conversation went on a bit and it became obvious T-Mobile help was limited to, “Too bad, pay up, would you like to increase your minutes for only $19.99 a month?” I said goodbye and hung up abruptly.
The schmuck actually called me back. He noted that our conversation had ended somewhat abruptly and wondered if I would like to increase my minutes for only $19.99 a month.
I told him I’d hung up on him and that hounding me with a service I’d told him I didn’t want didn’t endear the company to me -- in fact, it was the kind of thing that made me want to switch services. He reminded me that there was a fee involved in that sort of thing. I told him I would obviously wait until the end of my contract.
Then he asked me, in that case, “Would you like to increase your minutes for only $19.99 a month?”
For the love of god.
Also, there was the strange case of lack of signal in the hinterlands known as Southie. Not very reassuring, especially since everyone else seemed to have signal there.
And the absurd interface on my Motorola cellular phone that sends me a little text message every time I get a voice mail, and each little text message must be deleted, which can take between five and eight steps. Or how about calling someone to leave an urgent message? Urgency means nothing to the people at T-Mobile and Motorola. Because this, too, can take several steps.
Except that when I tried it just now, it took only one step (push 4).
Bastards.
On the plus side, by the way, T-Mobile makes it very easy to take your cell phone overseas with consistent service, a benefit of being the offspring of Deutsche Telekom. But that doesn’t make up for employing a customer service schmuck with the patter of a salesman and the persistence of the Terminator.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
IS BUSH STUPID?
I remain confused on the How-dumb-is-Bush? question. I think he’s stupid as a Fox -- capitalized, in case anyone missed it, as an allusion to Fox News. What I mean is that he’s obviously a half-bright individual, but he’s evil, and that makes up for a lot. What I mean by evil is that he believes he has a mandate (but it’s from God and a synonymous sense of entitlement and elitism, rather than from voters) and that allows him to think the ends justify the means.
This is how Bush can do the stupidest things and come out shining: It’s never over until it’s over, meaning Iraq may look like a mess, but just look at it in 100 years! And it may seem as though the U.S. government raped democracy, but look back on it from the perspective of what might happen over the next several decades! Sure our troops are being slaughtered in Iraq -- that's because we intended Iraq to serve as a terrorism magnet that draws attacks away from the United States. So we’re safer today than before we attacked Iraq. And, yes, we’re having more and more terrorism alerts, which is why we can’t fail in Iraq and must re-elect the idiot who got us there because now there’s so much at stake ...
This is all incredibly stupid, but it looks exactly like the work of an evil genius. Since you can’t pin down results or intentions, and the history keeps changing, you can never gain any traction against the guy in control.
This applied madness is exactly the kind of muddled thinking polluting all Christianity. If good things happen, it’s a blessing from God. If bad things happen, it’s a test from God. Both are true because God moves in mysterious ways, and he always does things for the best, even if it doesn't seem best for us. But sometimes the devil steps in and causes evil. And sometimes that evil can seem like a good thing, but really be bad. And sometimes that evil is indistinguishable from a test from God.
So what is truth? The truth is that this stuff is impossible for rational people to deal with.
Bush is an idiot-savant, good at pursuing an absolutely stupid agenda.
It’s like something my brother once told me: Politics is the only job there is in which the only qualification is being good at getting the job.
This is how Bush can do the stupidest things and come out shining: It’s never over until it’s over, meaning Iraq may look like a mess, but just look at it in 100 years! And it may seem as though the U.S. government raped democracy, but look back on it from the perspective of what might happen over the next several decades! Sure our troops are being slaughtered in Iraq -- that's because we intended Iraq to serve as a terrorism magnet that draws attacks away from the United States. So we’re safer today than before we attacked Iraq. And, yes, we’re having more and more terrorism alerts, which is why we can’t fail in Iraq and must re-elect the idiot who got us there because now there’s so much at stake ...
This is all incredibly stupid, but it looks exactly like the work of an evil genius. Since you can’t pin down results or intentions, and the history keeps changing, you can never gain any traction against the guy in control.
This applied madness is exactly the kind of muddled thinking polluting all Christianity. If good things happen, it’s a blessing from God. If bad things happen, it’s a test from God. Both are true because God moves in mysterious ways, and he always does things for the best, even if it doesn't seem best for us. But sometimes the devil steps in and causes evil. And sometimes that evil can seem like a good thing, but really be bad. And sometimes that evil is indistinguishable from a test from God.
So what is truth? The truth is that this stuff is impossible for rational people to deal with.
Bush is an idiot-savant, good at pursuing an absolutely stupid agenda.
It’s like something my brother once told me: Politics is the only job there is in which the only qualification is being good at getting the job.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
MISUNDERSTER PRESIDENT
How does Bush get away with this stuff?
Plenty of people gleefully and glibly note when the president mangles his native language (“They misunderestimated me”), but so long as he speaks clearly, his most outrageous assertions seem to slide by unquestioned. In a speech Tuesday in Iowa, as quoted by The New York Times, he told a cheering crowd that:
“In the campaign, you’ll hear, we’re only going to tax the rich ... And only taxing the rich, first of all, creates a huge tax gap, which means buyer beware. You see, if you can’t raise enough by taxing the rich, guess who gets to pay next? Yes, the not-rich. That’s all of us.”
Hmm. My answer would have been phrased somewhat differently: “The people who are paying all the taxes now?”
There are so many things wrong with the president’s blast at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry -- including the basis for the whole statement, that Kerry plans to tax only the rich -- that it becomes overwhelming to point them all out and easier to tune it out completely.
Sadly, Bush can count on that and still come out ahead in November, and we will have misunderestimated him again, whatever that means.
Plenty of people gleefully and glibly note when the president mangles his native language (“They misunderestimated me”), but so long as he speaks clearly, his most outrageous assertions seem to slide by unquestioned. In a speech Tuesday in Iowa, as quoted by The New York Times, he told a cheering crowd that:
“In the campaign, you’ll hear, we’re only going to tax the rich ... And only taxing the rich, first of all, creates a huge tax gap, which means buyer beware. You see, if you can’t raise enough by taxing the rich, guess who gets to pay next? Yes, the not-rich. That’s all of us.”
Hmm. My answer would have been phrased somewhat differently: “The people who are paying all the taxes now?”
There are so many things wrong with the president’s blast at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry -- including the basis for the whole statement, that Kerry plans to tax only the rich -- that it becomes overwhelming to point them all out and easier to tune it out completely.
Sadly, Bush can count on that and still come out ahead in November, and we will have misunderestimated him again, whatever that means.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ALGERNON
One of the perverse delights of “Seinfeld,” especially for an erratic watcher such as myself, was that tuning in late in the show would produce bewilderment -- short cuts between various characters, all behaving in inexplicable ways and employing language that frequently made no sense. Unlike almost every other sitcom, whose scripts are so predictable and obvious that it’s possible to tune in for the last five minutes and grasp all the plot points of the previous 17, “Seinfeld” obligated watchers to tune in from the start.
It passed on an appreciation for the absurdity of life. It was almost dada.
But that kind of thing only goes so far.
I stumbled across a comic strip called “Algernon’s Dilemma” today that gives a hint of exactly how far that kind of thing does go. It stops back with “Seinfeld,” apparently.
“Algernon’s Dilemma” is an Internet-only serial mixing science fiction and soap opera, starring primitively drawn characters that include, ubiquitously, ridiculously large-breasted women -- so large-breasted that the trait suggests either parody, mental imbalance or poor depth perception. The argument for mild mental imbalance is strengthened by the strip’s hyperbolic punctuation, the fact that it’s been on the Web apparently without funding, posting more or less daily, since October 1999, and that the artist links to Fox News as “the only news I watch.” (Bless the social conservatives who draw comix where every chick is hot and has really big breasts. That’s good wholesome fun those filthy liberals would never understand.)
According to the site’s FAQ, there is no character named Algernon, nor any dilemma, so it’s possible the artist, Jim Alexander (“Jim has no formal education beyond High School. He is a Christian and conservative Republican who has never been married, and has driven a schoolbus for the past six years,” his bio says) intends for his narrative to be as stupefying as it is.
The obliqueness of “Seinfeld” offered intrigue and a sprinkling of context-free laughs. “Algernon’s Dilemma” conks visitors over their heads with a whirlwind of leaden nonsequiturs, all screamed with implied asterisks demanding that attention be paid to the clenched-teeth screams and alarmed bursts of sweat for the entire past five years. It seems to be a comic strip about everything, all at once, and that’s exhausting without being interesting.
But don’t take my word for it. Check out today’s strip.
It passed on an appreciation for the absurdity of life. It was almost dada.
But that kind of thing only goes so far.
I stumbled across a comic strip called “Algernon’s Dilemma” today that gives a hint of exactly how far that kind of thing does go. It stops back with “Seinfeld,” apparently.
“Algernon’s Dilemma” is an Internet-only serial mixing science fiction and soap opera, starring primitively drawn characters that include, ubiquitously, ridiculously large-breasted women -- so large-breasted that the trait suggests either parody, mental imbalance or poor depth perception. The argument for mild mental imbalance is strengthened by the strip’s hyperbolic punctuation, the fact that it’s been on the Web apparently without funding, posting more or less daily, since October 1999, and that the artist links to Fox News as “the only news I watch.” (Bless the social conservatives who draw comix where every chick is hot and has really big breasts. That’s good wholesome fun those filthy liberals would never understand.)
According to the site’s FAQ, there is no character named Algernon, nor any dilemma, so it’s possible the artist, Jim Alexander (“Jim has no formal education beyond High School. He is a Christian and conservative Republican who has never been married, and has driven a schoolbus for the past six years,” his bio says) intends for his narrative to be as stupefying as it is.
The obliqueness of “Seinfeld” offered intrigue and a sprinkling of context-free laughs. “Algernon’s Dilemma” conks visitors over their heads with a whirlwind of leaden nonsequiturs, all screamed with implied asterisks demanding that attention be paid to the clenched-teeth screams and alarmed bursts of sweat for the entire past five years. It seems to be a comic strip about everything, all at once, and that’s exhausting without being interesting.
But don’t take my word for it. Check out today’s strip.
Monday, July 19, 2004
OLD DATA, WRONG CONCLUSIONS
Here’s another half-assed post on the increasingly tedious overlapping topics of politics, the economy and the offshoring of jobs -- a quickie, really just a comparison of some material coming from various sources in the past few days.
First, while it’s free, check out The New York Times’ take on how “India sees backlash fading over boom in outsourcing.” (Actually, I’ve put it all online at the bottom of this posting.)
Then read Reason Online’s gloss on how offshoring is a terrific thing for the country, including this:
Challenging, High-Paying Jobs Are Becoming More Plentiful, Not Less
The ongoing growth in total employment is frequently dismissed on the ground that most of the new positions being created are low-paying, dead-end “McJobs.” The facts show otherwise.
Managerial and specialized professional jobs have grown rapidly, nearly doubling between 1983 and 2002, from 23.6 million to 42.5 million. These challenging, high-paying positions have jumped from 23.4 percent of total employment to 31.1 percent.
And these high-quality jobs will continue growing in the years to come. According to projections for 2002-12 prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, management, business, financial, and professional positions will grow from 43.2 million to 52 million, increasing from 30 percent of total employment to 31.5 percent.
Finally, when you’re half-convinced that the Libertarians over at Reason and the Cato Institute are correct, check out this Bloomberg item, in which “Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s assertion that the U.S. has been creating mainly low-paying, ‘second-rate’ jobs during the past year’s expansion is starting to resonate on Wall Street.”
So Indian companies are seeing the benefits of an improved U.S. economy, but American consumers aren’t.
The problem with the Reason piece, as indicated by the agreement between Wall Street economists and Kerry, is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is operating off old information. It does no good to cite bureau information if the bureau isn’t up-to-date, and it cannot be it includes “projections” for 2002. The Wall Streeters are looking at recent data (including information in a Sunday Times piece, which I will not run below, saying “Hourly pay in U.S. not keeping pace with price rises”). There’s also been a dramatic short-term increase in offshoring, predicted here and validated in the Times’ India article.
Reason’s assurances, which sounds reasonable, begins to look a little unreasoned.
Anyway, here’s that first Times article:
India sees backlash fading over boom in outsourcing
By SARITHA RAI
July 14, 2004, in The New York Times
BANGALORE, India, July 13 -- The backlash against the outsourcing of software and back-office services to India appears to have died down, executives here said Tuesday as a bellwether company posted better-than-expected earnings, mostly on improved business from the United States.
The company, India’s second largest for software and services outsourcing, Infosys Technologies, said on Tuesday that its quarterly profit had increased 39.2 percent, helped by the economic recovery in United States, its prime market. Net profit rose to 3.88 billion rupees ($84.3 million) in the April to June period, its first fiscal quarter, while revenue was 15.2 billion rupees ($33.04 million), a rise of almost 39 percent.
The results at Infosys, the first of a series of Indian outsourcing companies to post earnings, underscored that pressure against Indian software and back-office companies was easing, though the emotional protests against it in the United States and Europe never seemed to actually cut into business.
“The backlash against outsourcing has abated, customer spending is on the rise and we have redesigned ourselves internally to take advantage of the vast opportunities,” said Nandan M. Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys.
Nearly two-thirds of Infosys’s earnings come from customers in the United States. The outsourcing company hired 2,305 employees in the quarter, bringing its work force to nearly 28,000, and added 29 clients, taking that total to more than 400. That roster includes Reebok, Amazon, Cisco, Apple and Boeing.
Infosys shares closed almost 2 percent higher on the Mumbai stock exchange.
India’s outsourcing sector has boomed as global companies have shifted work offshore to take advantage of the country's skilled, cheap, English-speaking labor force. The loss of jobs to India from the United States and Europe became a political cause, however, which sent ripples of anxiety through the industry.
India’s $15 billion software and back-office services sector has grown at around 30 percent in the last few years, with the industry looking for $50 billion in business by 2008. Most of the business, about $12.5 billion, is with companies outside India, and more than two-thirds of that from the United States. The industry employs just short of a million people in India.
Some executives said the Infosys results could be the turning point for the industry’s preoccupation with the backlash issue.
“The debate about outsourcing appears to have moved from an emotional, anecdotal, job-losses plane to a more sober, balanced one about the advantages of globalization of services,” said Sunil Mehta, vice president of Nasscom, India’s leading software industry trade body.
Infosys, known for its conservative earnings outlook, especially during the backlash period, said it expected sales to rise nearly 40 percent in the current year. “Infosys continues to benefit from the positive demand environment for offshore services,” said S. D. Shibulal, head of worldwide customer delivery.
Though the furor in the United States has died down some, the National Foundation for American Policy, a research group, says more than 100 bills are pending in 38 states to curb the use of offshore contractors by state and local governments, and legislation has been passed in 5 states and vetoed in 2.
Earlier this year, Congress enacted an amendment to the federal omnibus appropriations act, sponsored by Senators Craig Thomas of Wyoming and George V. Voinovich of Ohio, both Republicans, that prohibits the use of offshore workers on some government jobs. And Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, earlier this year referred to the outsourcers as “Benedict Arnold companies and C.E.O.’s,” but lately has been relatively quiet on the issue.
Earlier this year, executives from American companies that outsourced to India came on clandestine visits, rarely spoke about what deals were being negotiated and forbade Indian companies from publicizing the contracts.
As Indian outsourcing companies grew fearful that negative publicity would harm business, Nasscom tried to protect themselves by campaigning for outsourcing with lawmakers, government officials and industry lobbies in the United States and Europe.
But in the last two months, analysts say the backlash issue seems to be fading in importance to the American public and to United States businesses.
“No longer are customers prefacing outsourcing questions with what they should do to deflect the backlash issue,” said Partha Iyengar, research director for Gartner in Mumbai. Gartner nonetheless still recommends that its United States clients continue with employee-impact assessments and community audits before embarking on outsourcing.
Some experts said they expected the concerns to be replaced by more pressing matters, like the shortage of skilled labor.
“Most companies are expanding so rapidly,” Mr. Mehta of Nasscom said, “that we fear the new threat for outsourcing is not the backlash but the imbalance in supply of skilled professionals.”
The hostility against outsourcing may have inadvertently helped the industry, some experts suggested.
“The backlash proved a gold mine of free publicity for Indian outsourcing companies,” Mr. Iyengar of Gartner said. “For many U.S. companies, the backlash made offshoring a compelling proposition.”
Even smaller outsourcing companies, like iGate Global Solutions, based in Bangalore, reached some deals after the controversy. The company, with $125 million in annual revenues and 4,000 employees, has customers like General Electric, GreenPoint Financial and Kraft Foods.
“The backlash issue made outsourcing so mainstream that even my barber was speaking knowledgeably about outsourcing,” said iGate's chief executive, Phaneesh Murthy, who is based in Fremont, Calif.
First, while it’s free, check out The New York Times’ take on how “India sees backlash fading over boom in outsourcing.” (Actually, I’ve put it all online at the bottom of this posting.)
Then read Reason Online’s gloss on how offshoring is a terrific thing for the country, including this:
Challenging, High-Paying Jobs Are Becoming More Plentiful, Not Less
The ongoing growth in total employment is frequently dismissed on the ground that most of the new positions being created are low-paying, dead-end “McJobs.” The facts show otherwise.
Managerial and specialized professional jobs have grown rapidly, nearly doubling between 1983 and 2002, from 23.6 million to 42.5 million. These challenging, high-paying positions have jumped from 23.4 percent of total employment to 31.1 percent.
And these high-quality jobs will continue growing in the years to come. According to projections for 2002-12 prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, management, business, financial, and professional positions will grow from 43.2 million to 52 million, increasing from 30 percent of total employment to 31.5 percent.
Finally, when you’re half-convinced that the Libertarians over at Reason and the Cato Institute are correct, check out this Bloomberg item, in which “Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s assertion that the U.S. has been creating mainly low-paying, ‘second-rate’ jobs during the past year’s expansion is starting to resonate on Wall Street.”
So Indian companies are seeing the benefits of an improved U.S. economy, but American consumers aren’t.
The problem with the Reason piece, as indicated by the agreement between Wall Street economists and Kerry, is that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is operating off old information. It does no good to cite bureau information if the bureau isn’t up-to-date, and it cannot be it includes “projections” for 2002. The Wall Streeters are looking at recent data (including information in a Sunday Times piece, which I will not run below, saying “Hourly pay in U.S. not keeping pace with price rises”). There’s also been a dramatic short-term increase in offshoring, predicted here and validated in the Times’ India article.
Reason’s assurances, which sounds reasonable, begins to look a little unreasoned.
Anyway, here’s that first Times article:
India sees backlash fading over boom in outsourcing
By SARITHA RAI
July 14, 2004, in The New York Times
BANGALORE, India, July 13 -- The backlash against the outsourcing of software and back-office services to India appears to have died down, executives here said Tuesday as a bellwether company posted better-than-expected earnings, mostly on improved business from the United States.
The company, India’s second largest for software and services outsourcing, Infosys Technologies, said on Tuesday that its quarterly profit had increased 39.2 percent, helped by the economic recovery in United States, its prime market. Net profit rose to 3.88 billion rupees ($84.3 million) in the April to June period, its first fiscal quarter, while revenue was 15.2 billion rupees ($33.04 million), a rise of almost 39 percent.
The results at Infosys, the first of a series of Indian outsourcing companies to post earnings, underscored that pressure against Indian software and back-office companies was easing, though the emotional protests against it in the United States and Europe never seemed to actually cut into business.
“The backlash against outsourcing has abated, customer spending is on the rise and we have redesigned ourselves internally to take advantage of the vast opportunities,” said Nandan M. Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys.
Nearly two-thirds of Infosys’s earnings come from customers in the United States. The outsourcing company hired 2,305 employees in the quarter, bringing its work force to nearly 28,000, and added 29 clients, taking that total to more than 400. That roster includes Reebok, Amazon, Cisco, Apple and Boeing.
Infosys shares closed almost 2 percent higher on the Mumbai stock exchange.
India’s outsourcing sector has boomed as global companies have shifted work offshore to take advantage of the country's skilled, cheap, English-speaking labor force. The loss of jobs to India from the United States and Europe became a political cause, however, which sent ripples of anxiety through the industry.
India’s $15 billion software and back-office services sector has grown at around 30 percent in the last few years, with the industry looking for $50 billion in business by 2008. Most of the business, about $12.5 billion, is with companies outside India, and more than two-thirds of that from the United States. The industry employs just short of a million people in India.
Some executives said the Infosys results could be the turning point for the industry’s preoccupation with the backlash issue.
“The debate about outsourcing appears to have moved from an emotional, anecdotal, job-losses plane to a more sober, balanced one about the advantages of globalization of services,” said Sunil Mehta, vice president of Nasscom, India’s leading software industry trade body.
Infosys, known for its conservative earnings outlook, especially during the backlash period, said it expected sales to rise nearly 40 percent in the current year. “Infosys continues to benefit from the positive demand environment for offshore services,” said S. D. Shibulal, head of worldwide customer delivery.
Though the furor in the United States has died down some, the National Foundation for American Policy, a research group, says more than 100 bills are pending in 38 states to curb the use of offshore contractors by state and local governments, and legislation has been passed in 5 states and vetoed in 2.
Earlier this year, Congress enacted an amendment to the federal omnibus appropriations act, sponsored by Senators Craig Thomas of Wyoming and George V. Voinovich of Ohio, both Republicans, that prohibits the use of offshore workers on some government jobs. And Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, earlier this year referred to the outsourcers as “Benedict Arnold companies and C.E.O.’s,” but lately has been relatively quiet on the issue.
Earlier this year, executives from American companies that outsourced to India came on clandestine visits, rarely spoke about what deals were being negotiated and forbade Indian companies from publicizing the contracts.
As Indian outsourcing companies grew fearful that negative publicity would harm business, Nasscom tried to protect themselves by campaigning for outsourcing with lawmakers, government officials and industry lobbies in the United States and Europe.
But in the last two months, analysts say the backlash issue seems to be fading in importance to the American public and to United States businesses.
“No longer are customers prefacing outsourcing questions with what they should do to deflect the backlash issue,” said Partha Iyengar, research director for Gartner in Mumbai. Gartner nonetheless still recommends that its United States clients continue with employee-impact assessments and community audits before embarking on outsourcing.
Some experts said they expected the concerns to be replaced by more pressing matters, like the shortage of skilled labor.
“Most companies are expanding so rapidly,” Mr. Mehta of Nasscom said, “that we fear the new threat for outsourcing is not the backlash but the imbalance in supply of skilled professionals.”
The hostility against outsourcing may have inadvertently helped the industry, some experts suggested.
“The backlash proved a gold mine of free publicity for Indian outsourcing companies,” Mr. Iyengar of Gartner said. “For many U.S. companies, the backlash made offshoring a compelling proposition.”
Even smaller outsourcing companies, like iGate Global Solutions, based in Bangalore, reached some deals after the controversy. The company, with $125 million in annual revenues and 4,000 employees, has customers like General Electric, GreenPoint Financial and Kraft Foods.
“The backlash issue made outsourcing so mainstream that even my barber was speaking knowledgeably about outsourcing,” said iGate's chief executive, Phaneesh Murthy, who is based in Fremont, Calif.
Friday, July 16, 2004
OHMAN, THAT’S GOOD
The look of Jack Ohman’s editorial cartooning is usually far more impressive than the points he makes, but this recent panel reminds me of why I check in with him daily. I’d been about to give that up, but he’s been on a roll lately.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
LIMEY BASTARD
After 30 years contemplating the nature of black holes, Stephen Hawking has changed his mind about whether they allow information to escape. I am relieved to learn, as is everyone, surely, that the answer is: Information does escape from black holes.
Still, in the spirit of the Republican party and the Boston Herald’s front page, I find myself angered and disillusioned that this horrible man, after preying on our sympathies for so long with the whole wheelchair thing, after leading us to believe he was a good and intelligent person with some degree of honor, would dare to manipulate us so arrogantly and whimsically. Or can he really be this stupid? How could be not have known? Why didn’t he think it through before speaking in the first place?
Sorry. In my rage, I am ranting.
My entry for Boston Herald lead headline tomorrow, in the most gigantic type our aging computers can manage, in the font a friend has inspired me to call Sneer Bold Italic:
PROF. FLIP-FLOP SUCKED US IN!!!
HAWKING CHANGES MIND ON BLACK HOLES!!!
CHILDREN WEEP -- PARENTS CURSE -- ‘NEVER TRUST HIM AGAIN’ -- CALLS FOR REVENGE -- TWEEDY, MILDLY EFFEMINATE, UNDOUBTEDLY LIBERAL FOREIGNER IN SECLUSION WITH BLONDE BOMBSHELL WIFE IN IVORY TOWER NEAR FRANCE
(Because he’s British, you see.)
Still, in the spirit of the Republican party and the Boston Herald’s front page, I find myself angered and disillusioned that this horrible man, after preying on our sympathies for so long with the whole wheelchair thing, after leading us to believe he was a good and intelligent person with some degree of honor, would dare to manipulate us so arrogantly and whimsically. Or can he really be this stupid? How could be not have known? Why didn’t he think it through before speaking in the first place?
Sorry. In my rage, I am ranting.
My entry for Boston Herald lead headline tomorrow, in the most gigantic type our aging computers can manage, in the font a friend has inspired me to call Sneer Bold Italic:
PROF. FLIP-FLOP SUCKED US IN!!!
HAWKING CHANGES MIND ON BLACK HOLES!!!
CHILDREN WEEP -- PARENTS CURSE -- ‘NEVER TRUST HIM AGAIN’ -- CALLS FOR REVENGE -- TWEEDY, MILDLY EFFEMINATE, UNDOUBTEDLY LIBERAL FOREIGNER IN SECLUSION WITH BLONDE BOMBSHELL WIFE IN IVORY TOWER NEAR FRANCE
(Because he’s British, you see.)
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
CHURNING
The Porter Square churn continues. The arrival of Radio Shack several weeks ago (rolling of eyes) seemed to signal the end of Photo Star Developing and Passport Photos and the Cambridge Savings Bank processing facility (shrugging of shoulders).
Although there was an automated teller at the bank office, neither site drew customers with the regularity of, oh, your average broken telephone booth. The bank because no customer business was transacted there and Photo Star, no doubt, because digital cameras made it obsolete. It’s particularly tragic that I had never been there, nor ever had a reason to, and cannot say with the slightest certainty when it shut down. It is the vacancy left by the quiet man two floors below whom you saw in the elevator every week or so and never spoke to. When did he disappear? No one knows. He is survived by a 37-year-old nephew who cannot attend the services.
But who gets his office, right? Photo Star is advertised as “store for rent” and the bank as “retail space for lease,” and both are a little bit of a puzzle.
While the Photo Star site is good for pretty much anything, in this case “anything” includes “disaster.” It is behind a tree that has more claim to being 2032 Massachusetts Ave. than does the store, which is -- not to be repetitive -- subtle to the point of anonymity. I have the creeping, awful feeling that Porter Square’s trend of attracting the most disappointing services will continue, and soon it will be host to a Hummel figurine shop, a Thomas Kinkade knockoff gallery or, ye gods, a vacuum repair shop. Although first it’ll be empty for a year.
The bank is just as much a riddle, but one more pleasant to think about. It’s a handsome building -- a true edifice, built for the eons, with “North Avenue Savings Bank” etched into it (a name lost in a merger with Cambridge Savings Bank in 1971) and its own respectable wraparound parking lot. Nice. But retail? What kind of retail fits best in a bank building? Hello Kitty? Or (please, God, no) a cell phone store?
More office space would be the best fit, really, as much as Porter Square needs something wonderful, but failing offices a restaurant, believe it or not, would be a nice addition. Not that the North Avenue Savings Bank people should have had the foresight to install a grill, but Arlington’s Flora (it has been pointed out to me) is in the old Greek revival Arlington Five Cents Savings Bank building. Another such evolution is featured in today’s New York Times business section, about a Home Savings Bank in White Plains, N.Y., that is becoming Zanaro’s Italian Restaurant. The name screams quality, I know. And it’s owned by the same company that franchises Applebee’s. But $3 million has been spent on it, so ... hope springs eternal.
Does hope spring eternal in Porter Square?
Maybe the guys down at Radio Shack know.
Although there was an automated teller at the bank office, neither site drew customers with the regularity of, oh, your average broken telephone booth. The bank because no customer business was transacted there and Photo Star, no doubt, because digital cameras made it obsolete. It’s particularly tragic that I had never been there, nor ever had a reason to, and cannot say with the slightest certainty when it shut down. It is the vacancy left by the quiet man two floors below whom you saw in the elevator every week or so and never spoke to. When did he disappear? No one knows. He is survived by a 37-year-old nephew who cannot attend the services.
But who gets his office, right? Photo Star is advertised as “store for rent” and the bank as “retail space for lease,” and both are a little bit of a puzzle.
While the Photo Star site is good for pretty much anything, in this case “anything” includes “disaster.” It is behind a tree that has more claim to being 2032 Massachusetts Ave. than does the store, which is -- not to be repetitive -- subtle to the point of anonymity. I have the creeping, awful feeling that Porter Square’s trend of attracting the most disappointing services will continue, and soon it will be host to a Hummel figurine shop, a Thomas Kinkade knockoff gallery or, ye gods, a vacuum repair shop. Although first it’ll be empty for a year.
The bank is just as much a riddle, but one more pleasant to think about. It’s a handsome building -- a true edifice, built for the eons, with “North Avenue Savings Bank” etched into it (a name lost in a merger with Cambridge Savings Bank in 1971) and its own respectable wraparound parking lot. Nice. But retail? What kind of retail fits best in a bank building? Hello Kitty? Or (please, God, no) a cell phone store?
More office space would be the best fit, really, as much as Porter Square needs something wonderful, but failing offices a restaurant, believe it or not, would be a nice addition. Not that the North Avenue Savings Bank people should have had the foresight to install a grill, but Arlington’s Flora (it has been pointed out to me) is in the old Greek revival Arlington Five Cents Savings Bank building. Another such evolution is featured in today’s New York Times business section, about a Home Savings Bank in White Plains, N.Y., that is becoming Zanaro’s Italian Restaurant. The name screams quality, I know. And it’s owned by the same company that franchises Applebee’s. But $3 million has been spent on it, so ... hope springs eternal.
Does hope spring eternal in Porter Square?
Maybe the guys down at Radio Shack know.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
REBOOT
Macintosh computers boast of being easy to use, but Boston’s Macworld trade show, and its home at the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, can’t make the same claim.
Well, they can. But with the same credibility of Windows-based PCs.
Take the shuttle bus from South Station: Out those doors. Take a left. Go to the lights. Cross the street. Go to the left again. Take the bus.
Strangely, no bus. No signs. But you find yourself at another entrance to South Station, which brings you right back to the person holding the Macworld sign who gave the confusing, incorrect directions in the first place. This time the directions are a little different: Out these doors. Take a right ...
But that 180 degree difference isn’t even the real problem, which is the distance to the shuttle buses and lack of signs, making it easy for people to wander off in the wrong direction. When the shuttle buses are found, boarded and have arrived at the convention center, though, there’s more clunkiness. The buses bring you to the second level of the convention center, but registration and the exhibit hall -- so, basically, everything -- is downstairs. Go forward. Take a left. Take another left. Go down the escalator ...
Downstairs, there are several desks scattered around, none with large signs explaining their purpose, none for registration, and there are no signs pointing visitors in the right direction. Wander around. Take a right. Keep going. Keep going. Take another right. Approach one desk. Wrong desk. Turn to the left. Keep going. Keep going. Turn to the right. Approach another desk. Give name. Now go back to where you came from. No. Not that desk. The one next to it ...
Macworld Boston -- taking place without Apple’s support, downgraded to 10,000 expected visitors from 40,000 -- needs some work. So does the convention center -- a $700 million project upgraded to $834 million with marketing costs, expected to have 38 shows in its first year, lucky to get 16.
Unlike Macintoshes, though, at least there isn’t a better version available the instant you’ve spent your money on the current one. These improvements are likely to take a great deal of time.
Well, they can. But with the same credibility of Windows-based PCs.
Take the shuttle bus from South Station: Out those doors. Take a left. Go to the lights. Cross the street. Go to the left again. Take the bus.
Strangely, no bus. No signs. But you find yourself at another entrance to South Station, which brings you right back to the person holding the Macworld sign who gave the confusing, incorrect directions in the first place. This time the directions are a little different: Out these doors. Take a right ...
But that 180 degree difference isn’t even the real problem, which is the distance to the shuttle buses and lack of signs, making it easy for people to wander off in the wrong direction. When the shuttle buses are found, boarded and have arrived at the convention center, though, there’s more clunkiness. The buses bring you to the second level of the convention center, but registration and the exhibit hall -- so, basically, everything -- is downstairs. Go forward. Take a left. Take another left. Go down the escalator ...
Downstairs, there are several desks scattered around, none with large signs explaining their purpose, none for registration, and there are no signs pointing visitors in the right direction. Wander around. Take a right. Keep going. Keep going. Take another right. Approach one desk. Wrong desk. Turn to the left. Keep going. Keep going. Turn to the right. Approach another desk. Give name. Now go back to where you came from. No. Not that desk. The one next to it ...
Macworld Boston -- taking place without Apple’s support, downgraded to 10,000 expected visitors from 40,000 -- needs some work. So does the convention center -- a $700 million project upgraded to $834 million with marketing costs, expected to have 38 shows in its first year, lucky to get 16.
Unlike Macintoshes, though, at least there isn’t a better version available the instant you’ve spent your money on the current one. These improvements are likely to take a great deal of time.
Monday, July 12, 2004
FEELING A LITTLE UNSTUDY
High-tech hysteria is upon us, enabled by ignorance. From news reports this past weekend:
“Nearly a quarter of Internet users worldwide have illegally downloaded a movie,” according to a report trumpeted by the Motion Picture Association of America.
And information-technology analysis firm Gartner Inc. suggests that iPod music players be banned from the workplace because it is a storage device that can carry out secrets or bring in viruses and other destructive software.
Now, Jupiter’s NUA estimated two years ago that there were 606 million Internet users worldwide, a number that can only have grown, suggesting that more than 152 million people have illegally downloaded a movie. Who are these 152 million? Well, the research firm that provided the study, OTX, says the biggest problem (“much bigger than in the other [seven] countries” surveyed, according to the Hollywood Reporter) is in South Korea, where 58 percent of Internet users have robbed Hollywood, Bollywood and what have you of hard-earned popcorn money.
These numbers seem, to put it delicately, weird. My workplace has a pretty fast connection, but even downloading and watching a movie preview, all two minutes or so, is a little clunky. Using the slightly slower DSL at home can make downloading the same trailers downright problematic, and that’s about as good as connections get for most of the world’s Internet users. What, do 58 percent of South Korea’s Internet users have T3 connections as well as the will to use them to watch movies for which they haven’t paid? And they’d rather spend the time on what are likely to be tinny, jerky images, rather than spend a few dollars to rent or buy a DVD?
Even if the numbers are trustworthy, the MPAA conclusions -- that illegal downloads are eating into movie profits -- are suspect. Here’s what other analysts say:
[Yankee Group] research reported a similar number (16 percent) of downloaders, but had indicated that 43 percent of downloaders attended movies as frequently as they had prior to downloading and 41 percent reported increased movie attendance.
The other high-tech alert is even more obviously ridiculous. The Associated Press notes that the Gartner report “did not compare the risk from portable storage with those from floppy disks, compact disc burners, e-mail and printers” -- meaning Gartner is targeting the iPod for banishment rather than, say, any of the hundreds of flash drives out there, including the $17.21 device that can hold 32 megabytes of data.
Hell, why not ban compact discs from the workplace? That innocent-looking copy of The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” could be sneaking in the next killer worm, or carrying out valuable, proprietary information.
None of this is going anywhere good, I suspect.
Just like the money spent on these studies.
“Nearly a quarter of Internet users worldwide have illegally downloaded a movie,” according to a report trumpeted by the Motion Picture Association of America.
And information-technology analysis firm Gartner Inc. suggests that iPod music players be banned from the workplace because it is a storage device that can carry out secrets or bring in viruses and other destructive software.
Now, Jupiter’s NUA estimated two years ago that there were 606 million Internet users worldwide, a number that can only have grown, suggesting that more than 152 million people have illegally downloaded a movie. Who are these 152 million? Well, the research firm that provided the study, OTX, says the biggest problem (“much bigger than in the other [seven] countries” surveyed, according to the Hollywood Reporter) is in South Korea, where 58 percent of Internet users have robbed Hollywood, Bollywood and what have you of hard-earned popcorn money.
These numbers seem, to put it delicately, weird. My workplace has a pretty fast connection, but even downloading and watching a movie preview, all two minutes or so, is a little clunky. Using the slightly slower DSL at home can make downloading the same trailers downright problematic, and that’s about as good as connections get for most of the world’s Internet users. What, do 58 percent of South Korea’s Internet users have T3 connections as well as the will to use them to watch movies for which they haven’t paid? And they’d rather spend the time on what are likely to be tinny, jerky images, rather than spend a few dollars to rent or buy a DVD?
Even if the numbers are trustworthy, the MPAA conclusions -- that illegal downloads are eating into movie profits -- are suspect. Here’s what other analysts say:
[Yankee Group] research reported a similar number (16 percent) of downloaders, but had indicated that 43 percent of downloaders attended movies as frequently as they had prior to downloading and 41 percent reported increased movie attendance.
The other high-tech alert is even more obviously ridiculous. The Associated Press notes that the Gartner report “did not compare the risk from portable storage with those from floppy disks, compact disc burners, e-mail and printers” -- meaning Gartner is targeting the iPod for banishment rather than, say, any of the hundreds of flash drives out there, including the $17.21 device that can hold 32 megabytes of data.
Hell, why not ban compact discs from the workplace? That innocent-looking copy of The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” could be sneaking in the next killer worm, or carrying out valuable, proprietary information.
None of this is going anywhere good, I suspect.
Just like the money spent on these studies.
Friday, July 09, 2004
PENNSYLVANIA
So the Texas Air National Guard microfilm of President Bush’s records has accidentally been destroyed, and on the same day Homeland Security feels the need to warn us -- without raising the official threat level -- of a “catastrophic” terrorist attack that will take place somewhere, sometime within the next four months. Maybe.
The destruction of the microfilm alone is a huge coincidence, as it would have proved whether Bush legitimately served out his time in the Guard and if not, why not. Certainly the timing of the typically vague terrorist alert, which distracts from the other news, boosts the quality of coincidence into the stratospheric.
But, hey. It could be.
Please remember Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia.” a similar situation in which complex, interweaving plots, all featuring brooding, damaged people, were interrupted by an unlikely rain of frogs. Moviegoers were outraged. They saw it as a lame, forced application of contemptible magic realism by a guy who, three hours into a movie, couldn’t figure out an ending.
But, as the kid in the movie says, “This happens. This is something that happens.”
Our current situation isn’t a movie, of course. It’s not “Magnolia.” This is real life. It’s “Pennsylvania,” since that’s the avenue on which the White House sits. But anyone outraged by this literally incredible turn of events would do well to calm themselves by replacing that other outrageous moment in the movie, when all the characters start singing Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up” and the movie turns briefly into a wistful musical, with characters from the White House singing the same, moving song. Here’s President Bush in an Oval Office mired in gloom, then Vice President Cheney in a dank bunker, Donald Rumsfeld in a helicopter pelted by rain, Colin Powell in a cluttered, claustrophobic office, all singing to you:
Now you can hardly stand it though,
By now you know
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up.
The destruction of the microfilm alone is a huge coincidence, as it would have proved whether Bush legitimately served out his time in the Guard and if not, why not. Certainly the timing of the typically vague terrorist alert, which distracts from the other news, boosts the quality of coincidence into the stratospheric.
But, hey. It could be.
Please remember Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia.” a similar situation in which complex, interweaving plots, all featuring brooding, damaged people, were interrupted by an unlikely rain of frogs. Moviegoers were outraged. They saw it as a lame, forced application of contemptible magic realism by a guy who, three hours into a movie, couldn’t figure out an ending.
But, as the kid in the movie says, “This happens. This is something that happens.”
Our current situation isn’t a movie, of course. It’s not “Magnolia.” This is real life. It’s “Pennsylvania,” since that’s the avenue on which the White House sits. But anyone outraged by this literally incredible turn of events would do well to calm themselves by replacing that other outrageous moment in the movie, when all the characters start singing Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up” and the movie turns briefly into a wistful musical, with characters from the White House singing the same, moving song. Here’s President Bush in an Oval Office mired in gloom, then Vice President Cheney in a dank bunker, Donald Rumsfeld in a helicopter pelted by rain, Colin Powell in a cluttered, claustrophobic office, all singing to you:
Now you can hardly stand it though,
By now you know
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
THE NO. 2 MAN
The people over at Radio Free Mike said much of what I was thinking about John Kerry’s selection of John Edwards as a vice presidential candidate -- and about President Bush’s response, a cutting remark that the difference between Edwards and Vice President Cheney is that “Dick Cheney can be president.”
In essence, the response to the response is that Bush himself became president with little experience, especially in foreign relations. I would go further and point out that even having Cheney pulling the strings didn’t save the administration from massive blunders and subsequent massive reversals on, for instance, nation-building, an Israeli-Palestinian road map and the value of the United Nations. On several other topics, centering around Iraq, not only did Cheney’s experience not save the administration, but has actually sent it pell-mell into disaster. The latest sign of Bush foreign policy tanking is that the United States is even losing the votes necessary to stay out of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
That Bush is gambling on Americans’ short attention spans is even more obvious when one remembers the popular joke from his father’s presidency: That if the elder President Bush were to die, the Secret Service was under orders to shoot Dan Quayle.
The final response to “Dick Cheney can be president” is that not only should he not be, but he certainly couldn’t be on his own. Starting in 1993 he spent two years figuring out whether he should run for president and decided, realistically, he should not. The electorate would never go for a truculent, withdrawn business-beholden attack dog with a permanent twisted smirk, a man who seems to be going to undisclosed, secure locations largely to get away from people whom he thinks to be, as friends describe his feelings for ex-colleagues in Congress, “a bunch of annoying gnats.”
Every recent poll but that of Fox News (surely it’s a coincidence) shows Cheney’s unfavorable ratings growing and favorable ratings shrinking. Meanwhile, 57 percent of respondents to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken Tuesday said they felt Edwards was prepared to be president.
So it’s looking more likely that pretty soon, putting aside the quips of an increasingly nervous president, Dick Cheney can’t even be vice president.
In essence, the response to the response is that Bush himself became president with little experience, especially in foreign relations. I would go further and point out that even having Cheney pulling the strings didn’t save the administration from massive blunders and subsequent massive reversals on, for instance, nation-building, an Israeli-Palestinian road map and the value of the United Nations. On several other topics, centering around Iraq, not only did Cheney’s experience not save the administration, but has actually sent it pell-mell into disaster. The latest sign of Bush foreign policy tanking is that the United States is even losing the votes necessary to stay out of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
That Bush is gambling on Americans’ short attention spans is even more obvious when one remembers the popular joke from his father’s presidency: That if the elder President Bush were to die, the Secret Service was under orders to shoot Dan Quayle.
The final response to “Dick Cheney can be president” is that not only should he not be, but he certainly couldn’t be on his own. Starting in 1993 he spent two years figuring out whether he should run for president and decided, realistically, he should not. The electorate would never go for a truculent, withdrawn business-beholden attack dog with a permanent twisted smirk, a man who seems to be going to undisclosed, secure locations largely to get away from people whom he thinks to be, as friends describe his feelings for ex-colleagues in Congress, “a bunch of annoying gnats.”
Every recent poll but that of Fox News (surely it’s a coincidence) shows Cheney’s unfavorable ratings growing and favorable ratings shrinking. Meanwhile, 57 percent of respondents to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken Tuesday said they felt Edwards was prepared to be president.
So it’s looking more likely that pretty soon, putting aside the quips of an increasingly nervous president, Dick Cheney can’t even be vice president.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
COMMENCEMENT
Eagle-eyed readers may notice that I have finally added a “comments” field to each posting, even the ones I find excruciatingly embarrassing and want to delete as soon as I push the “publish” button. This is your opportunity to sound off on what I’ve written or offer other readers opportunities to work at home or even enlarge their penis. (If any.)
Brian Wanamaker, of my.bicycle fame -- without whose help there would still be no comments, as I can barely handle the bewildering high tech of Blogger or your basic light switch -- has already taken advantage of the feature. You can read what’s he’s said under the June 29 posting on amateurism. His comment is probably better thought out than the posting itself.
Keep that up, Brian, and I’ll turn the comments off again.
Brian Wanamaker, of my.bicycle fame -- without whose help there would still be no comments, as I can barely handle the bewildering high tech of Blogger or your basic light switch -- has already taken advantage of the feature. You can read what’s he’s said under the June 29 posting on amateurism. His comment is probably better thought out than the posting itself.
Keep that up, Brian, and I’ll turn the comments off again.
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
BELIEF WITHOUT TRUST, TRUST WITHOUT BELIEF
A committee of the U.S. Senate has discovered yet another instance in which the truth about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -- there were none -- was made clear before the invasion of Iraq, only to be ignored.
The latest revelation: Before the war, the Central Intelligence Agency talked to relatives of Iraqi scientists about the weapons programs and were told the programs were defunct.
The interviews began in 2000, according to today’s New York Times, five years after Hussein Kamel -- head of Iraq’s weapons programs for 10 years and Saddam Hussein’s brother-in-law -- defected and told U.S. and British intelligence the same thing. The interviews were surely going on at the same time Scott Ritter, the former United Nations weapons inspector, was gathering the information that formed the basis for his movie “In Shifting Sands: The Truth About Unscom and the Disarming of Iraq,” which had the same message and was released in the United States in July 2001. The interviews may even have been going on in October 2001, when “60 Minutes” anchor Leslie Stahl traveled to Iraq and also was told there were no active weapons programs there.
They were almost certainly over by March 18, 2003, when Saddam Hussein himself, trying to head off the war that started the next day, said Iraq had once had the weapons, as protection against Iran and Israel, but no longer did. “We are not weapons collectors. When Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction, he means what he says,” the national news agency quoted him as saying.
March 18 was also the day U.N. weapons inspectors left, after more than three months of, not surprisingly, finding no evidence of active Iraqi weapons programs or the weapons themselves.
U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell in his infamous U.N. speech, used information provided by Hussein Kamel but ignored him saying there were no weapons. What the Times shows is even worse: The CIA disseminated information about Iraqi weapons but not assertions that the programs were dead even though they confirmed Kamel’s statements, the corroborative statements of others and the on-the-ground experience of U.N. weapons inspectors.
Again and again U.S. intelligence and media were presented with a consistent reason for the failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; but again and again they accepted and used data from sources that somehow couldn’t be trusted on the single most important point those sources were making.
How does anyone, in good conscience, build a case based on evidence from people who, it must have been argued, were either lying or didn’t know what they were talking about?
The latest revelation: Before the war, the Central Intelligence Agency talked to relatives of Iraqi scientists about the weapons programs and were told the programs were defunct.
The interviews began in 2000, according to today’s New York Times, five years after Hussein Kamel -- head of Iraq’s weapons programs for 10 years and Saddam Hussein’s brother-in-law -- defected and told U.S. and British intelligence the same thing. The interviews were surely going on at the same time Scott Ritter, the former United Nations weapons inspector, was gathering the information that formed the basis for his movie “In Shifting Sands: The Truth About Unscom and the Disarming of Iraq,” which had the same message and was released in the United States in July 2001. The interviews may even have been going on in October 2001, when “60 Minutes” anchor Leslie Stahl traveled to Iraq and also was told there were no active weapons programs there.
They were almost certainly over by March 18, 2003, when Saddam Hussein himself, trying to head off the war that started the next day, said Iraq had once had the weapons, as protection against Iran and Israel, but no longer did. “We are not weapons collectors. When Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction, he means what he says,” the national news agency quoted him as saying.
March 18 was also the day U.N. weapons inspectors left, after more than three months of, not surprisingly, finding no evidence of active Iraqi weapons programs or the weapons themselves.
U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell in his infamous U.N. speech, used information provided by Hussein Kamel but ignored him saying there were no weapons. What the Times shows is even worse: The CIA disseminated information about Iraqi weapons but not assertions that the programs were dead even though they confirmed Kamel’s statements, the corroborative statements of others and the on-the-ground experience of U.N. weapons inspectors.
Again and again U.S. intelligence and media were presented with a consistent reason for the failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; but again and again they accepted and used data from sources that somehow couldn’t be trusted on the single most important point those sources were making.
How does anyone, in good conscience, build a case based on evidence from people who, it must have been argued, were either lying or didn’t know what they were talking about?
Friday, July 02, 2004
ANIMAL HOUSE
Search via Google for “Cambridge events” and you’ll find a slightly confusing “Cambridge in America” headline and a much more reassuring “cantab.org” link. Reassuring because it’s obviously the Web site of the Cantab Lounge, that delightfully wheezy Central Square gin-and-jazz joint, home to the legendary Little Joe Cook.
But it’s obvious where this is going: It’s not obvious at all, because “Cambridge in America” has to do with Britain’s Cambridge University. “Cantab.org” is a Web site for Cambridge University.
But I get a weird kick out of seeing this dive sharing an identity, sort of, with hallowed Cambridge University -- like Ronald Albemarle Blodgett Islington Dimwitty Fletcher IV (representing the university) learning that there’s another Ronald Albemarle Blodgett Islington Dimwitty Fletcher IV (standing in for the lounge) who’s a Nascar-loving construction worker with a wife named Tammi Faye.
Not that I’m anything like that, but it’s odd how the reverse snobbery of the Colonies still runs irrationally in a third-generation Jewish emigrant from Russia, Poland and thereabouts. Take that, Britain!
But it’s obvious where this is going: It’s not obvious at all, because “Cambridge in America” has to do with Britain’s Cambridge University. “Cantab.org” is a Web site for Cambridge University.
But I get a weird kick out of seeing this dive sharing an identity, sort of, with hallowed Cambridge University -- like Ronald Albemarle Blodgett Islington Dimwitty Fletcher IV (representing the university) learning that there’s another Ronald Albemarle Blodgett Islington Dimwitty Fletcher IV (standing in for the lounge) who’s a Nascar-loving construction worker with a wife named Tammi Faye.
Not that I’m anything like that, but it’s odd how the reverse snobbery of the Colonies still runs irrationally in a third-generation Jewish emigrant from Russia, Poland and thereabouts. Take that, Britain!
Thursday, July 01, 2004
DISSENT DESCENT
It’s easy to tune out when a president travels to some faraway country to give a rote speech on democracy. This is a wonderful country. You should be more like us. I won’t be seeing you again, because this country isn’t very important, but maybe the next president will visit. Or the vice president.
And so it was with President Bush in Turkey on Tuesday, except that things this president says about democracy have come to be freighted with a certain irony. Suddenly it’s as easy to pay rapt attention and respond with outrage as it used to be to tune out.
No need to go through the whole speech. It’s worth it just to cite one sentence Bush and his speechwriters saw fit to pass pontifically down to those grubby, primitive, feckless Turks:
“Suppressing dissent only increases radicalism.”
Did Bush learn that here, with protesters forced far from political events? Did he learn it from the members of his Cabinet who say opponents of their policies are unpatriotic -- or even terrorists? Or did he learn it in Iraq, when his forces shut down Moktada al-Sadr’s newspaper, lighting the fuse of an explosive insurgency?
Perhaps he learned it in Turkey, reading it off typed crib notes.
Like many C students, he probably hasn’t learned it at all -- just memorized it long enough to get past his latest oral presentation, and now he’s tuning out again.
If only we could.
And so it was with President Bush in Turkey on Tuesday, except that things this president says about democracy have come to be freighted with a certain irony. Suddenly it’s as easy to pay rapt attention and respond with outrage as it used to be to tune out.
No need to go through the whole speech. It’s worth it just to cite one sentence Bush and his speechwriters saw fit to pass pontifically down to those grubby, primitive, feckless Turks:
“Suppressing dissent only increases radicalism.”
Did Bush learn that here, with protesters forced far from political events? Did he learn it from the members of his Cabinet who say opponents of their policies are unpatriotic -- or even terrorists? Or did he learn it in Iraq, when his forces shut down Moktada al-Sadr’s newspaper, lighting the fuse of an explosive insurgency?
Perhaps he learned it in Turkey, reading it off typed crib notes.
Like many C students, he probably hasn’t learned it at all -- just memorized it long enough to get past his latest oral presentation, and now he’s tuning out again.
If only we could.
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
LET THE PUNISHMENT BENEFIT THE CRIME
It’s pointless to get too deeply into the U.S. Court of Appeals decision today against Massachusetts and in favor of Microsoft. The battle is lost and the war may be over, and I’m a little late to add anything unique anyway.
The problem with Microsoft, of course, is that it controls more than 90 percent of the computers on the planet, and probably some of the computers elsewhere. That sounds suspiciously close to monopoly, the existence of which runs contrary to common sense and U.S. policy. For anyone who’s heard the cliche about not putting all your eggs in one basket, our reliance on Microsoft is kind of like putting more than 90 percent of eggs worldwide in the same basket -- except that the basket is made of crepe paper and already has many, many rips and tears.
Massachusetts’ allies against Microsoft have dropped away, some of them bought off. I see now that West Virginia has joined the sellouts, trading its anti-monopoly efforts for $20 million in vouchers for Microsoft computers and software.
So the penalty for being a monopoly is giving away $20 million more of your own products? Flooding the market further with the stuff that has already made competition difficult in the extreme?
As punishments go, it’s like getting punched by someone disgusted that you’re a masochist.
The problem with Microsoft, of course, is that it controls more than 90 percent of the computers on the planet, and probably some of the computers elsewhere. That sounds suspiciously close to monopoly, the existence of which runs contrary to common sense and U.S. policy. For anyone who’s heard the cliche about not putting all your eggs in one basket, our reliance on Microsoft is kind of like putting more than 90 percent of eggs worldwide in the same basket -- except that the basket is made of crepe paper and already has many, many rips and tears.
Massachusetts’ allies against Microsoft have dropped away, some of them bought off. I see now that West Virginia has joined the sellouts, trading its anti-monopoly efforts for $20 million in vouchers for Microsoft computers and software.
So the penalty for being a monopoly is giving away $20 million more of your own products? Flooding the market further with the stuff that has already made competition difficult in the extreme?
As punishments go, it’s like getting punched by someone disgusted that you’re a masochist.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
THE SALIERI LESSON
Seeing “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” this past weekend was a strong delineation of the difference between competence and artistry -- a valuable lesson for those convinced that “I can do that.”
People have always said “I can do that” or “my kid could do that,” often when looking at modern art. Technological advances, alas, have allowed them to follow through on these threats. Desktop publishing let everyone be graphic designers or news magnates. Now computer graphics programs, digital video editing and DVD burners are turning everyone’s children into auteurs. Recent print-on-demand progress gives the same everyones, especially those in New Jersey, the ability to walk into a store with a disk and walk out with an ISBN, 10 copies of a book and a $150 hole in their pocket. Soon those books will be stored on the Internet for downloading and printing, one at a time, from anywhere in the world. Then, truly, will everyone be a published author, just like everyone I know, among them this guy, that chick or the other person.
But should everyone be able to create whatever they want? In the United States, the first instinct is to say, “Yes, of course, with certain exceptions in the medical and munitions fields.” That’s what freedom means, we think. But some wild-card strain of Mencken elitism should assert itself from our collective DNA to rescue us from the hell of endless amateurism, although it is not difficult now to find examples of even top-paid professionals in various fields who’d do well to retire and spare us their mediocrity. Let the Salieris stay home, leaving the public its Mozarts.
Among the Mozarts is director Alfonso Cuaron, whose work on the third Harry Potter film revealed Chris Columbus’ work on the first two to be agonizing hack work -- so bad that “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” watched in preparation for “Azkaban,” remains the only DVD I’ve ever rented for which I could not bring myself to watch the deleted scenes. The movie was so dull and artificial that merely ejecting it from my player was a relief. Watching it made me feel dirty. Like the first film, it suck-diddily-ucked. Cuaron’s Harry Potter was something of a revelation, though, dark and wonderful.
In short, Cuaron is a director. Columbus has been allowed to direct through a combination of low expectations and good connections. (Although I enjoyed “Adventures in Babysitting” in a cheesy way.)
I first learned the Salieri lesson years ago trying to eat at Tacos Lupita in Somerville. It was closed that day, so our group traveled on to Union Square to try a new Mexican eatery we’d spotted. The atmosphere there was very basic, like Tacos Lupita, and the food was uninspired -- unlike Tacos Lupita, whose solid, savory dishes work the kind of transformative magic native to all good cooking, with every ingredient soloing in harmony. Like Columbus and Cuaron, it is possible to take the same basic ingredients, whether it’s a novel or beans, rice and guacamole, and reveal that some people can synthesize it into something incredible while others will just make a bland mush.
As a further example, the pictures I take with my digital camera range from mediocre to awful, and I acknowledge sadly that an actual photographer, as in someone with the skill to do it for a living, could use it, or a box with a hole in it, or possibly a fish and a paper clip, to make photos ranging from fantastic to brilliant.
There are artists out there. For the rest of us, it may be the most noble thing to recognize that we are not artists -- and let the others take the lead on such things as directing films, cooking or photography.
Applying this philosophy raises significant questions about this blog, of course, but at least I’m not taking food off the table of professional bloggers, or even inflicting it on the unsuspecting for money.
People have always said “I can do that” or “my kid could do that,” often when looking at modern art. Technological advances, alas, have allowed them to follow through on these threats. Desktop publishing let everyone be graphic designers or news magnates. Now computer graphics programs, digital video editing and DVD burners are turning everyone’s children into auteurs. Recent print-on-demand progress gives the same everyones, especially those in New Jersey, the ability to walk into a store with a disk and walk out with an ISBN, 10 copies of a book and a $150 hole in their pocket. Soon those books will be stored on the Internet for downloading and printing, one at a time, from anywhere in the world. Then, truly, will everyone be a published author, just like everyone I know, among them this guy, that chick or the other person.
But should everyone be able to create whatever they want? In the United States, the first instinct is to say, “Yes, of course, with certain exceptions in the medical and munitions fields.” That’s what freedom means, we think. But some wild-card strain of Mencken elitism should assert itself from our collective DNA to rescue us from the hell of endless amateurism, although it is not difficult now to find examples of even top-paid professionals in various fields who’d do well to retire and spare us their mediocrity. Let the Salieris stay home, leaving the public its Mozarts.
Among the Mozarts is director Alfonso Cuaron, whose work on the third Harry Potter film revealed Chris Columbus’ work on the first two to be agonizing hack work -- so bad that “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” watched in preparation for “Azkaban,” remains the only DVD I’ve ever rented for which I could not bring myself to watch the deleted scenes. The movie was so dull and artificial that merely ejecting it from my player was a relief. Watching it made me feel dirty. Like the first film, it suck-diddily-ucked. Cuaron’s Harry Potter was something of a revelation, though, dark and wonderful.
In short, Cuaron is a director. Columbus has been allowed to direct through a combination of low expectations and good connections. (Although I enjoyed “Adventures in Babysitting” in a cheesy way.)
I first learned the Salieri lesson years ago trying to eat at Tacos Lupita in Somerville. It was closed that day, so our group traveled on to Union Square to try a new Mexican eatery we’d spotted. The atmosphere there was very basic, like Tacos Lupita, and the food was uninspired -- unlike Tacos Lupita, whose solid, savory dishes work the kind of transformative magic native to all good cooking, with every ingredient soloing in harmony. Like Columbus and Cuaron, it is possible to take the same basic ingredients, whether it’s a novel or beans, rice and guacamole, and reveal that some people can synthesize it into something incredible while others will just make a bland mush.
As a further example, the pictures I take with my digital camera range from mediocre to awful, and I acknowledge sadly that an actual photographer, as in someone with the skill to do it for a living, could use it, or a box with a hole in it, or possibly a fish and a paper clip, to make photos ranging from fantastic to brilliant.
There are artists out there. For the rest of us, it may be the most noble thing to recognize that we are not artists -- and let the others take the lead on such things as directing films, cooking or photography.
Applying this philosophy raises significant questions about this blog, of course, but at least I’m not taking food off the table of professional bloggers, or even inflicting it on the unsuspecting for money.
Monday, June 28, 2004
THINKING, HMO STYLE
Health maintenance organizations, never at the top of the warm-and-cuddly list, dropped a few notches with a comment in today’s Boston Herald:
HMO leaders say, however, they only make decisions about whether to pay for care, they don’t deny it.
The context is the recent Supreme Court decision against patients suing the organizations for denying care, which prompted the Boston Herald to write about Massachusetts’ appeals process, which takes place when treatment is requested, rather than when it’s too late and denied care has resulted in damage of some kind.
The comment by HMO leaders hints that they can’t be responsible for damage resulting from denied care, because the patient is always free to get care on their own. This is ridiculous, since direct-payer health care is generally possible only for the very wealthy -- or for the kind of care unlikely to bring on a lawsuit or even an appeal.
This is similar to the story over at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to someone trying desperately to get out of the country for a funeral and ensure the right to return. What was needed was “emergency advance parole,” but this was complicated by a document missing because of an agency mistake.
Two workers there gave the same asinine answer to the distraught immigrant: Go ahead and leave! Then just ask to get back in. That way you don’t have to worry about the document, see. No problem.
Of course, it’s no more reassuring to hear that from an agency that’s retired an active file than it is to be told by HMO officials that patients should go ahead and pay for a procedure expensive enough that insurers don’t want to pay for it.
Even the appeals process has a built-in contradiction, also not noted in the Herald piece: The burden of paperwork and effort falls on the patient, who are by necessity sick and vulnerable, and HMO doctors, who are already pressed for time, forced into “seeing thousands of patients a year to survive, and the result is hamster care, or treadmill medicine,” according to Jack Lewin, head of the California Medical Association, in a recent Knight-Ridder chain article. An internist in the same article broke that down as being more than 30 patients a day.
HMO leaders, of course, don’t insist they see that many patients. They can choose not to and see their practices fail. Although, come to think of it, health maintenance organizations don’t have to deny care to patients or pay doctors so little. They can do the opposite and see revenue plummet.
A very freeing philosophy, even if it is very expensive.
HMO leaders say, however, they only make decisions about whether to pay for care, they don’t deny it.
The context is the recent Supreme Court decision against patients suing the organizations for denying care, which prompted the Boston Herald to write about Massachusetts’ appeals process, which takes place when treatment is requested, rather than when it’s too late and denied care has resulted in damage of some kind.
The comment by HMO leaders hints that they can’t be responsible for damage resulting from denied care, because the patient is always free to get care on their own. This is ridiculous, since direct-payer health care is generally possible only for the very wealthy -- or for the kind of care unlikely to bring on a lawsuit or even an appeal.
This is similar to the story over at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to someone trying desperately to get out of the country for a funeral and ensure the right to return. What was needed was “emergency advance parole,” but this was complicated by a document missing because of an agency mistake.
Two workers there gave the same asinine answer to the distraught immigrant: Go ahead and leave! Then just ask to get back in. That way you don’t have to worry about the document, see. No problem.
Of course, it’s no more reassuring to hear that from an agency that’s retired an active file than it is to be told by HMO officials that patients should go ahead and pay for a procedure expensive enough that insurers don’t want to pay for it.
Even the appeals process has a built-in contradiction, also not noted in the Herald piece: The burden of paperwork and effort falls on the patient, who are by necessity sick and vulnerable, and HMO doctors, who are already pressed for time, forced into “seeing thousands of patients a year to survive, and the result is hamster care, or treadmill medicine,” according to Jack Lewin, head of the California Medical Association, in a recent Knight-Ridder chain article. An internist in the same article broke that down as being more than 30 patients a day.
HMO leaders, of course, don’t insist they see that many patients. They can choose not to and see their practices fail. Although, come to think of it, health maintenance organizations don’t have to deny care to patients or pay doctors so little. They can do the opposite and see revenue plummet.
A very freeing philosophy, even if it is very expensive.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Friday, June 25, 2004
IPSWICH OFF
The First National Bank of Ipswich is expanding rapidly. It has 12 branches, having opened one in Beverly this month, less than two months after opening its sole Cambridge branch here in Galvin Square. Next up is Portsmouth, N.H.
How is this possible, if the people running the bank -- and handling calls at its flagship in Ipswich -- are irredeemable idiots?
The Cambridge site replaced a branch of the Atlantic Bank of New York, which obviously failed to get much traction here. While Ipswich at least is in the same state, it is hard to see how it will gain any more traction by creating outposts 25.13 miles from the nearest related bank without being part of a larger automated teller network. Surely anyone seeking a new bank will be put off by the notion that all their transactions must take place at one site without incurring surcharges of up to $2.50 anywhere else. Giants such as Bank of America attract customers by scattering around thousands of their own automated tellers -- in some areas, one every couple of blocks -- that can be used for free. Smaller banks have grouped together in the SUM Program, agreeing to forgo surcharges for each other to compete with giant closed networks such as Bank of America’s.
Ipswich, though, is going it alone, which is fine for anyone living and banking on the North Shore, since Ipswich, Beverly, Essex, Gloucester, Newburyport, Rowley and Topsfield are fairly close together, and anyone running out of money at 2 a.m. is likely to be within easy driving distance of a free recharge. But a Bank of Ipswich customer in the Cambridge area is going to be within easy walking or driving distance only of a $1 surcharge from Cambridge Savings Bank or $1.50 or more elsewhere; SUM doesn’t cut any breaks for nonmembers.
One wonders what Ipswich offers to make up for this lack and stand out from the other small banks in the area, including Cambridge Savings Bank, Cambridge Trust Co., East Savings Bank and Wainwright Bank & Trust, even Citizen’s -- in fact, 14 financial institutions speckling this 6.4-square mile land mass with 36 SUM Program automated tellers.
I called Ipswich’s home office to have someone explain it. To establish a groundwork for the question, I first asked the woman who answered the phone whether Ipswich was a SUM Program member (as is even its competitor, the Ipswich Cooperative Bank).
She didn’t know what the program was, so I explained it. She cut me off to tell me she wasn’t authorized to deal with salesmen. I told her I wasn’t a salesman. She told me to wait while she asked another worker how to answer my question.
I heard her speak to someone briefly, then come back on the line.
“I don’t have that information, and I can’t put your call through,” she said.
And she hung up.
How is this possible, if the people running the bank -- and handling calls at its flagship in Ipswich -- are irredeemable idiots?
The Cambridge site replaced a branch of the Atlantic Bank of New York, which obviously failed to get much traction here. While Ipswich at least is in the same state, it is hard to see how it will gain any more traction by creating outposts 25.13 miles from the nearest related bank without being part of a larger automated teller network. Surely anyone seeking a new bank will be put off by the notion that all their transactions must take place at one site without incurring surcharges of up to $2.50 anywhere else. Giants such as Bank of America attract customers by scattering around thousands of their own automated tellers -- in some areas, one every couple of blocks -- that can be used for free. Smaller banks have grouped together in the SUM Program, agreeing to forgo surcharges for each other to compete with giant closed networks such as Bank of America’s.
Ipswich, though, is going it alone, which is fine for anyone living and banking on the North Shore, since Ipswich, Beverly, Essex, Gloucester, Newburyport, Rowley and Topsfield are fairly close together, and anyone running out of money at 2 a.m. is likely to be within easy driving distance of a free recharge. But a Bank of Ipswich customer in the Cambridge area is going to be within easy walking or driving distance only of a $1 surcharge from Cambridge Savings Bank or $1.50 or more elsewhere; SUM doesn’t cut any breaks for nonmembers.
One wonders what Ipswich offers to make up for this lack and stand out from the other small banks in the area, including Cambridge Savings Bank, Cambridge Trust Co., East Savings Bank and Wainwright Bank & Trust, even Citizen’s -- in fact, 14 financial institutions speckling this 6.4-square mile land mass with 36 SUM Program automated tellers.
I called Ipswich’s home office to have someone explain it. To establish a groundwork for the question, I first asked the woman who answered the phone whether Ipswich was a SUM Program member (as is even its competitor, the Ipswich Cooperative Bank).
She didn’t know what the program was, so I explained it. She cut me off to tell me she wasn’t authorized to deal with salesmen. I told her I wasn’t a salesman. She told me to wait while she asked another worker how to answer my question.
I heard her speak to someone briefly, then come back on the line.
“I don’t have that information, and I can’t put your call through,” she said.
And she hung up.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
EVERYTHING’S IN ORDER
I have never spoken about this before.
I was silent out of fear of being thought insane, because it’s so obvious an observation that, well, if no one else was saying it, it must be because my perceptions are completely out of whack. It goes beyond asserting something such as “Proust sucks,” which may reveal one as simple but sane, I thought, all the way to the San Andreas Fault-shaky grounds of saying such things as “The writing on ‘Full House’ was genius, especially compared with that Proust crap.”
But I can be silent no more.
Here goes:
The phrase “in order to” is useless. I have never seen an instance in which it could not be simply “to.” For instance, “The first lady lies in order to make the president look ... stupid?” could be, instead, “The first lady lies to make the president look ... stupid?” or, even more economically, “The first lady is the undead.”
There. I’ve said it. I feel better. Perhaps soon I will discuss some of my favorite transitions: “Still,” “however” and, ugh, “For his part ...”
I was silent out of fear of being thought insane, because it’s so obvious an observation that, well, if no one else was saying it, it must be because my perceptions are completely out of whack. It goes beyond asserting something such as “Proust sucks,” which may reveal one as simple but sane, I thought, all the way to the San Andreas Fault-shaky grounds of saying such things as “The writing on ‘Full House’ was genius, especially compared with that Proust crap.”
But I can be silent no more.
Here goes:
The phrase “in order to” is useless. I have never seen an instance in which it could not be simply “to.” For instance, “The first lady lies in order to make the president look ... stupid?” could be, instead, “The first lady lies to make the president look ... stupid?” or, even more economically, “The first lady is the undead.”
There. I’ve said it. I feel better. Perhaps soon I will discuss some of my favorite transitions: “Still,” “however” and, ugh, “For his part ...”
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
COMPREHENSIVELY INCOMPREHENSIBLE
Anyone who reads this site regularly knows how much it relies on The New York Times as source material and as inspiration to write. It’s because the Times is comprehensive, yes, but not necessarily because it’s brilliant; it’s just that reading the Times every day leaves little time for reading much else.
Well, the Times has inspired another posting. It’s even providing the source material. Unfortunately, it’s a speculative piece that could have been called (if I didn’t want to spoil the surprise) “Is The New York Times put together by idiots?”
Thanks to the miracle of packaging, and synchronicity, the Times today gives us partners in appalling on page A12 -- “State Department Report Shows Increase in Terrorism” and “Book by C.I.A. Officer Says U.S. Is Losing Fight Against Terrorism” -- and, for dark comic relief, dual dryly witty headlines on page A11 -- “Wolfowitz Testifies Pentagon Misjudged Iraqi Insurgency” and “Seoul Says Killing Won’t Alter Plans for Iraq.” (Actually, that last one is only funny out of context, but it’s sure fun to play with: “Seoul Says Plans Won’t Alter Killing For Iraq”; “Seoul Says Won’t Alter Killing For Iraq Plans”; “Seoul Says Won’t Alter Plans For Iraq Killing”; et cetera.)
There is also page A15, with “Toxic Release Increase In 2002, Study Says” and “Kerry’s Long Flight To Say ‘Aye’ Runs Into a Storm of GOP Delays.”
What’s the match, you ask? Fumbled stories. Missed opportunities. The worst tendency in journalism -- to raise questions by dutifully getting each side’s version of reality then end the article without analysis, leaving the reader to wallow in uncertainty.
In the “Toxic Release” story, officials say an increase in emissions is mostly due to “one large copper-smelting operation in Arizona” and mining operations that “should not be, according to a 2003 Federal District Court decision,” included in the figures. Environmentalists say that, in fact, emissions of dangerous materials are underreported, so the problem is actually far worse than the report says, copper-smelting in Arizona or federal court decisions be damned. In response, a U.S. environmental official says her agency “had seen no evidence of systematic underreporting.” A refinery official also criticizes the environmentalists. Five paragraphs later, the story ends.
There is no examination of what the environmentalists say, no explanation of their methodology, no suggestion of the validity of their statements.
Frustrating.
The John Kerry story is about the presidential candidate flying in for a U.S. Senate vote on veterans health care, only to find the vote put off by, as the headline says, “G.O.P. Delays.” In the last paragraph of this 16-paragraph story, Sen. Tom Daschle states his belief that Republicans delayed the vote just to frustrate Kerry. Then Sen. John Warner, a Republican, disagrees and says the vote was delayed by “procedural glitches.” Then the story ends.
At 24 inches of copy, one could reasonably wonder: If this issue is raised and ignored in the very last paragraph of the story, what the hell is the rest of the article about? Good question. It’s about whether Kerry bothers to show up for votes or not and how people feel about it across the the political spectrum (which includes the colors black and white).
The Times can spend a combined 41 inches on these stories and say a hell of a lot without actually saying anything -- sort of the journalistic equivalent of getting painstaking, turn-by-turn directions to an address and finding, when you finally get there, that whatever you were looking for has been removed. If you’re lucky, you can return and say you’ve found nothing, but chances are you’re just going to be told to try again tomorrow, with another painstaking, turn-by-turn set of directions.
Well, the Times has inspired another posting. It’s even providing the source material. Unfortunately, it’s a speculative piece that could have been called (if I didn’t want to spoil the surprise) “Is The New York Times put together by idiots?”
Thanks to the miracle of packaging, and synchronicity, the Times today gives us partners in appalling on page A12 -- “State Department Report Shows Increase in Terrorism” and “Book by C.I.A. Officer Says U.S. Is Losing Fight Against Terrorism” -- and, for dark comic relief, dual dryly witty headlines on page A11 -- “Wolfowitz Testifies Pentagon Misjudged Iraqi Insurgency” and “Seoul Says Killing Won’t Alter Plans for Iraq.” (Actually, that last one is only funny out of context, but it’s sure fun to play with: “Seoul Says Plans Won’t Alter Killing For Iraq”; “Seoul Says Won’t Alter Killing For Iraq Plans”; “Seoul Says Won’t Alter Plans For Iraq Killing”; et cetera.)
There is also page A15, with “Toxic Release Increase In 2002, Study Says” and “Kerry’s Long Flight To Say ‘Aye’ Runs Into a Storm of GOP Delays.”
What’s the match, you ask? Fumbled stories. Missed opportunities. The worst tendency in journalism -- to raise questions by dutifully getting each side’s version of reality then end the article without analysis, leaving the reader to wallow in uncertainty.
In the “Toxic Release” story, officials say an increase in emissions is mostly due to “one large copper-smelting operation in Arizona” and mining operations that “should not be, according to a 2003 Federal District Court decision,” included in the figures. Environmentalists say that, in fact, emissions of dangerous materials are underreported, so the problem is actually far worse than the report says, copper-smelting in Arizona or federal court decisions be damned. In response, a U.S. environmental official says her agency “had seen no evidence of systematic underreporting.” A refinery official also criticizes the environmentalists. Five paragraphs later, the story ends.
There is no examination of what the environmentalists say, no explanation of their methodology, no suggestion of the validity of their statements.
Frustrating.
The John Kerry story is about the presidential candidate flying in for a U.S. Senate vote on veterans health care, only to find the vote put off by, as the headline says, “G.O.P. Delays.” In the last paragraph of this 16-paragraph story, Sen. Tom Daschle states his belief that Republicans delayed the vote just to frustrate Kerry. Then Sen. John Warner, a Republican, disagrees and says the vote was delayed by “procedural glitches.” Then the story ends.
At 24 inches of copy, one could reasonably wonder: If this issue is raised and ignored in the very last paragraph of the story, what the hell is the rest of the article about? Good question. It’s about whether Kerry bothers to show up for votes or not and how people feel about it across the the political spectrum (which includes the colors black and white).
The Times can spend a combined 41 inches on these stories and say a hell of a lot without actually saying anything -- sort of the journalistic equivalent of getting painstaking, turn-by-turn directions to an address and finding, when you finally get there, that whatever you were looking for has been removed. If you’re lucky, you can return and say you’ve found nothing, but chances are you’re just going to be told to try again tomorrow, with another painstaking, turn-by-turn set of directions.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
WRITER’S TESSERACT
Guilt. Massive guilt and shame. Yesterday’s posting was so pointless, such an exemplification of the worst of bloggerdom, that I am still shellshocked at my poor judgment. Tomorrow I will go to the hospital to get my palm removed from my forehead. The posting was the voice of a no one sniping at a Washington insider who will never hear the voice or be affected by it in any way over a glib comment reflecting a knee-jerk right-wing position no one actually cares about. Further, any of the four people reading the posting will probably agree with it, meaning I’m preaching to the choir. So what was the point of doing it?
You can probably guess: I needed to post, so I found something easy to write about. I’ve been erratic lately, not the paragon of consistency I was before the April hiatus, and yet sensitive to and resistant to the research showing that some huge number of blogs are quickly abandoned by their creators.
The spirit is gone, but the flesh is still here, typing. Going through the motions.
Where did the spirit go? Personal crises were a factor in its fleeing, but personal crises are almost always a copout, and certainly are in this case. Another factor is the process of deciding what to write about -- so as not to bore anyone -- producing self-consciousness, leading to fatal indecisiveness. Another: A warning was passed to me that my employers were aware of my blog and displeased with what I was writing about them and all our employer, the Boston Herald. Revealing just how low I’ve sunk into whoredom, I decided to, in exchange for a decent paycheck, abandon my First Amendment rights to moan, whine and complain. This led directly to the final factor in my lack of motivation, which can best be summed up as, well, lack of motivation.
Having more or less turned my life over to nonfiction, I suffer from being unable to write when there’s nothing to write about. Having paid too much attention to cybercynics, I all too often find myself asking “Who cares what I think?” and, fatally, “So why am I doing this?” My reasons, I’m afraid, don’t result in motivation, spirit or scintillating material. It’s not quite writer’s block, which people can’t get around. It’s more like writer’s tesseract, and I’m lost in it.
So I find myself compounding the horror. Not only am I writing about my inability to write, which is inevitably masturbatory and pathetic, but -- driven by a compulsion to post that is not quite obsessive enough to ensure high standards -- actually putting it online for all to cluck over as their hands creep, apologetically and awkwardly, to the touchpad in search of another, more entertaining, more meaningful link.
You can probably guess: I needed to post, so I found something easy to write about. I’ve been erratic lately, not the paragon of consistency I was before the April hiatus, and yet sensitive to and resistant to the research showing that some huge number of blogs are quickly abandoned by their creators.
The spirit is gone, but the flesh is still here, typing. Going through the motions.
Where did the spirit go? Personal crises were a factor in its fleeing, but personal crises are almost always a copout, and certainly are in this case. Another factor is the process of deciding what to write about -- so as not to bore anyone -- producing self-consciousness, leading to fatal indecisiveness. Another: A warning was passed to me that my employers were aware of my blog and displeased with what I was writing about them and all our employer, the Boston Herald. Revealing just how low I’ve sunk into whoredom, I decided to, in exchange for a decent paycheck, abandon my First Amendment rights to moan, whine and complain. This led directly to the final factor in my lack of motivation, which can best be summed up as, well, lack of motivation.
Having more or less turned my life over to nonfiction, I suffer from being unable to write when there’s nothing to write about. Having paid too much attention to cybercynics, I all too often find myself asking “Who cares what I think?” and, fatally, “So why am I doing this?” My reasons, I’m afraid, don’t result in motivation, spirit or scintillating material. It’s not quite writer’s block, which people can’t get around. It’s more like writer’s tesseract, and I’m lost in it.
So I find myself compounding the horror. Not only am I writing about my inability to write, which is inevitably masturbatory and pathetic, but -- driven by a compulsion to post that is not quite obsessive enough to ensure high standards -- actually putting it online for all to cluck over as their hands creep, apologetically and awkwardly, to the touchpad in search of another, more entertaining, more meaningful link.
Monday, June 21, 2004
HONOR ROLE
"Whatever disagreements you may have with President Bush on one issue or another," said Gary Bauer, head of the American Values group, in today's New York Times, "nobody can argue that he hasn't restored honor to the White House."
Another way to say that is that everybody can't argue that Bush has restored honor to the White House, and I would have to count myself among those who can't argue it. Bauer's comment is almost too silly to respond to -- and it would certainly be too tedious and pointless to try to dismantle it completely -- but he surely must be talking only about that particular and peculiar brand of honor practiced by today's conservatives.
For there is a great contingent that feels Bush has dishonored the White House in any number of ways, especially those who feel the president should be honest with his constituents about matters that affect them and do his best for them -- all of them. But this, too, is subjective and unprovable, like Bauer's comment, the point of which was to compare Bush's sober morality with Bill Clinton's easygoing adultery. (Was there something else? Or does the dishonor all come down to dallying with an intern?)
It's better to sidestep the argument entirely, which is made easy by recalling that Clinton was actually more popular than Ronald Reagan by one percentage point, on average, over the course of the two presidents' respective terms (another reference owed to the Times). What this shows is that, while Bush may have "restored honor to the White House," that isn't necessarily the most popular thing, or even the best thing, for America.
Another way to say that is that everybody can't argue that Bush has restored honor to the White House, and I would have to count myself among those who can't argue it. Bauer's comment is almost too silly to respond to -- and it would certainly be too tedious and pointless to try to dismantle it completely -- but he surely must be talking only about that particular and peculiar brand of honor practiced by today's conservatives.
For there is a great contingent that feels Bush has dishonored the White House in any number of ways, especially those who feel the president should be honest with his constituents about matters that affect them and do his best for them -- all of them. But this, too, is subjective and unprovable, like Bauer's comment, the point of which was to compare Bush's sober morality with Bill Clinton's easygoing adultery. (Was there something else? Or does the dishonor all come down to dallying with an intern?)
It's better to sidestep the argument entirely, which is made easy by recalling that Clinton was actually more popular than Ronald Reagan by one percentage point, on average, over the course of the two presidents' respective terms (another reference owed to the Times). What this shows is that, while Bush may have "restored honor to the White House," that isn't necessarily the most popular thing, or even the best thing, for America.
Saturday, June 19, 2004
HOLLYWOOD SUICIDE
In Hollywood, it’s not the lunatics running the asylum, but the janitors.
In other words, the mechanics of putting together and marketing movies -- editing and the “notes” given by studio execs to keep a story racing along, no matter what -- seem to be overwhelming the artistry of storytelling, if the use of the word “artistry” isn’t a little much for an industry best known for such things as Julia Roberts as a hooker, Freddie Prinze Jr. as anything and Sylvester Stallone’s entire output from 1984 to 1992.
Still, watching “Eight Legged Freaks” and “Hollywood Homicide” on DVD and “The Stepford Wives” in the theater in quick succession has made it clear that consistency, clarity and exposition are endangered in A-list Hollywood stuff, just as they always have been in the B-list, Ed Wood school of filmmaking. Count on the audience to fill in the gaps, or at least not to notice that there are gaps, and maybe -- if in a generous mood -- put the missing stuff in the “deleted scenes” when the DVD comes out.
That’s where you’ll find the pesky details in “Eight Legged Freaks,” the scary spider movie in which David Arquette meets the young son of the woman he loves but doesn’t know who he is -- and then somehow does. See the deleted scenes for how. And for plenty of other boring fill-in-the-details stuff that clearly got in the way of the movie’s frantic, slightly slap-happy pace. It’s not so much a DVD as it is an ADHD.
Don’t bother looking for any answers on the “Hollywood Homicide” DVD, though, as there are no deleted scenes. So the conspiracy haunting the hero police detectives throughout the movie, the connection between bad guys Lt. Bennie Macko and Leroy Wasley, who are in essentially different story lines, is never explained. The hero detective played by Harrison Ford is plagued by an internal affairs investigation, and there is clearly cause for the investigation, but the resolution to that question is forgotten in the rush to wrap up the story. Which is odd, since the 116-minute movie sure as hell wasn’t in a rush for its first 110 or so minutes.
As to “Stepford Wives,” what are the wives, other than peroxide? They’re referred to as robots, but when the bad guy explains how a Stepford wife is created, it involves implanting microchips into a woman’s brain. At one point Nicole Kidman looks down at a bald, eyeless body that, it’s implied, will replace her, but since she’s not replaced -- oops, just gave it away -- what is it she’s looking at? Especially since all the women become de-Stepford-ized -- oops, gave it away -- at the end of the movie and revert to their old selves? Apparently, the moment is worth the confusion, or the audience is intended to be so dazzled by the mastery of the filmmakers, which is generally not a safe bet to make on a Frank Oz film, that this won’t be noticed. The filmmakers almost get their wish, in that their work induces enough cringing that this one question, important though it may seem, never seems worth getting angry (or even confused) about.
Surely no one’s crying out “Author! Author!” for these films. It makes more sense to cry out “Editor! Editor!” and much, much more sense just to cry out.
In other words, the mechanics of putting together and marketing movies -- editing and the “notes” given by studio execs to keep a story racing along, no matter what -- seem to be overwhelming the artistry of storytelling, if the use of the word “artistry” isn’t a little much for an industry best known for such things as Julia Roberts as a hooker, Freddie Prinze Jr. as anything and Sylvester Stallone’s entire output from 1984 to 1992.
Still, watching “Eight Legged Freaks” and “Hollywood Homicide” on DVD and “The Stepford Wives” in the theater in quick succession has made it clear that consistency, clarity and exposition are endangered in A-list Hollywood stuff, just as they always have been in the B-list, Ed Wood school of filmmaking. Count on the audience to fill in the gaps, or at least not to notice that there are gaps, and maybe -- if in a generous mood -- put the missing stuff in the “deleted scenes” when the DVD comes out.
That’s where you’ll find the pesky details in “Eight Legged Freaks,” the scary spider movie in which David Arquette meets the young son of the woman he loves but doesn’t know who he is -- and then somehow does. See the deleted scenes for how. And for plenty of other boring fill-in-the-details stuff that clearly got in the way of the movie’s frantic, slightly slap-happy pace. It’s not so much a DVD as it is an ADHD.
Don’t bother looking for any answers on the “Hollywood Homicide” DVD, though, as there are no deleted scenes. So the conspiracy haunting the hero police detectives throughout the movie, the connection between bad guys Lt. Bennie Macko and Leroy Wasley, who are in essentially different story lines, is never explained. The hero detective played by Harrison Ford is plagued by an internal affairs investigation, and there is clearly cause for the investigation, but the resolution to that question is forgotten in the rush to wrap up the story. Which is odd, since the 116-minute movie sure as hell wasn’t in a rush for its first 110 or so minutes.
As to “Stepford Wives,” what are the wives, other than peroxide? They’re referred to as robots, but when the bad guy explains how a Stepford wife is created, it involves implanting microchips into a woman’s brain. At one point Nicole Kidman looks down at a bald, eyeless body that, it’s implied, will replace her, but since she’s not replaced -- oops, just gave it away -- what is it she’s looking at? Especially since all the women become de-Stepford-ized -- oops, gave it away -- at the end of the movie and revert to their old selves? Apparently, the moment is worth the confusion, or the audience is intended to be so dazzled by the mastery of the filmmakers, which is generally not a safe bet to make on a Frank Oz film, that this won’t be noticed. The filmmakers almost get their wish, in that their work induces enough cringing that this one question, important though it may seem, never seems worth getting angry (or even confused) about.
Surely no one’s crying out “Author! Author!” for these films. It makes more sense to cry out “Editor! Editor!” and much, much more sense just to cry out.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
OUR SIEGE
Did you notice? The terrorists have won.
Anyone making their way through queues lately -- to board an airplane, enter a government building or a professional sporting event -- has felt the slow, irritating, even somewhat humiliating effects of the war on terrorism. Innocent people are kept from flying because they’ve wound up on a secret list for unknown reasons. And for others, the reasons aren’t quite unknown enough: It’s clear they’ve been marked for legitimate, patriotic dissent, including, for instance, “some two dozen members of a group called Peace Action of Wisconsin, including a priest, a nun and high-school students [who] were detained in Milwaukee on their way to a ‘teach-in’ and missed their flight,” according to Wednesday’s New York Times.
Locally, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority has gone from its vaguely Orwellian efforts to inspire watchfulness -- strange free verse signs and recorded announcements from the MBTA police chief urging riders, “If you see something, say something” -- to random bag searches of people waiting on T platforms.
All this has happened since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the name of keeping another attack from happening, which makes it somewhat ugly to imagine what the country would be like if the attacks had gone on. The movie “The Siege,” released in 1998, imagines it for us, with a series of explosions in Manhattan bringing down martial law on Brooklyn, where the terrorists are hiding.
Critics thought the movie was slow-moving, sodden with speeches, like most Ed Zwick movies. Muslims hated the movie, saying it demonized them and misrepresented Islam, despite the fact that the filmmakers bent over backward to defuse the charge. The message of the film was explicitly anti-discriminatory, and one of the heroes was a Beirut-born FBI agent played by Tony Shalhoub. Such complaints may be muted now, post-9/11, as the movie comes to seem less unlikely and more prescient. There is even a scene with an Arab man, tied naked to a chair, being interrogated by a woman, tortured and ultimately killed at the hands of the U.S. military.
“You can’t do this,” says the good guy, an FBI agent played by Denzel Washington. “What if what [the terrorists] really want... what if they don’t even want the Sheik? Have you considered that, huh? What if what they really want is for us to herd children into stadiums like we’re doing? And put soldiers on the street and have Americans looking over their shoulders? Bend the law, shred the Constitution just a little bit. Because if we torture him, general, we do that and everything we have bled and fought and died for is over. And they’ve won. They’ve already won!”
Back to reality, an equally ghostwritten speech was given Sept. 20, 2001, by President Bush to a joint session of Congress.
“Americans are asking, why do they hate us?” Bush said, referring to our real-life terrorists. “They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other ...
“These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends.”
Reading over this list given only nine days after 9/11, it is difficult to identify any item that has not since been threatened or already sacrificed in the name of our safety. In fact, by the president’s own prescription, with our way of life disrupted and very likely ended, America fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking its friends, it is becoming very clear:
The terrorists have won.
Anyone making their way through queues lately -- to board an airplane, enter a government building or a professional sporting event -- has felt the slow, irritating, even somewhat humiliating effects of the war on terrorism. Innocent people are kept from flying because they’ve wound up on a secret list for unknown reasons. And for others, the reasons aren’t quite unknown enough: It’s clear they’ve been marked for legitimate, patriotic dissent, including, for instance, “some two dozen members of a group called Peace Action of Wisconsin, including a priest, a nun and high-school students [who] were detained in Milwaukee on their way to a ‘teach-in’ and missed their flight,” according to Wednesday’s New York Times.
Locally, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority has gone from its vaguely Orwellian efforts to inspire watchfulness -- strange free verse signs and recorded announcements from the MBTA police chief urging riders, “If you see something, say something” -- to random bag searches of people waiting on T platforms.
All this has happened since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the name of keeping another attack from happening, which makes it somewhat ugly to imagine what the country would be like if the attacks had gone on. The movie “The Siege,” released in 1998, imagines it for us, with a series of explosions in Manhattan bringing down martial law on Brooklyn, where the terrorists are hiding.
Critics thought the movie was slow-moving, sodden with speeches, like most Ed Zwick movies. Muslims hated the movie, saying it demonized them and misrepresented Islam, despite the fact that the filmmakers bent over backward to defuse the charge. The message of the film was explicitly anti-discriminatory, and one of the heroes was a Beirut-born FBI agent played by Tony Shalhoub. Such complaints may be muted now, post-9/11, as the movie comes to seem less unlikely and more prescient. There is even a scene with an Arab man, tied naked to a chair, being interrogated by a woman, tortured and ultimately killed at the hands of the U.S. military.
“You can’t do this,” says the good guy, an FBI agent played by Denzel Washington. “What if what [the terrorists] really want... what if they don’t even want the Sheik? Have you considered that, huh? What if what they really want is for us to herd children into stadiums like we’re doing? And put soldiers on the street and have Americans looking over their shoulders? Bend the law, shred the Constitution just a little bit. Because if we torture him, general, we do that and everything we have bled and fought and died for is over. And they’ve won. They’ve already won!”
Back to reality, an equally ghostwritten speech was given Sept. 20, 2001, by President Bush to a joint session of Congress.
“Americans are asking, why do they hate us?” Bush said, referring to our real-life terrorists. “They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other ...
“These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends.”
Reading over this list given only nine days after 9/11, it is difficult to identify any item that has not since been threatened or already sacrificed in the name of our safety. In fact, by the president’s own prescription, with our way of life disrupted and very likely ended, America fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking its friends, it is becoming very clear:
The terrorists have won.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
‘NO POSSIBILITY OF INCREASING PRODUCTION’
At the risk someone is missing this vital Associated Press article, here are the key paragraphs:
OPEC signaled it would boost oil production and said it would ask other major oil producers outside the group such as Mexico to do so as well to make up for lost crude exports from sabotaged pipelines in Iraq.
But analysts said pumping the extra oil would strain the world’s limited spare production capacity and leave a wafer-thin cushion with which to absorb any future supply disruptions. [And] Russia and Norway -- the world’s second and third largest exporters after Saudi Arabia -- said they could do little to help.
“We are producing as much as we can,” the director of Russia’s Federal Energy Agency, Sergei Oganesyan, told the Interfax news agency. In Norway, Deputy Oil Minister Oeyvind Haabrekke told the state radio network NRK that his country had “no excess capacity and no possibility of increasing production.”
There was no immediate response from Mexico’s energy department.
The most worrisome aspect of this clip is the disagreement between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, independent oil-producing nations and industry analysts. There’s no collusion that fits these facts, no conspiracy to keep prices high or produce an urgency to find more oil instead of energy alternatives. Keeping prices high would have had OPEC claiming inability to produce more oil, not the independents and analysts. And the statements from Russia and Norway are too blunt and alarming to inspire long-term exploration, since it’s widely believed that there’s not much oil left in the Earth.
On that topic, read what Washington, D.C.-based business writer James Srodes had to say on the topic in the Oct. 19, 1998, issue of Barron’s:
It was only last November that two top oil geologists presented papers on the impending oil depletion to a conference of the International Energy Agency of the United Nations in Paris. Colin J. Campbell, an Oxford-trained geologist, and his French counterpart, Jean H. Laherrere, have been senior geologists for firms such as Total, Texaco and Amoco for more than 40 years. Currently they work at the industry think tank Petroconsultants in Geneva.
The two geologists were so convincing that the IEA dropped a generation-old view that held oil discoveries to be merely a function of price -- that is, the higher the price the more oil will be found. Last March, at the Moscow summit of the Group of Eight major industrial nations, the IEA presented its own paper to the national leaders accepting the Campbell-Laherrere view that sometime between 2010 and 2020 the crisis will be upon us full blast. The Campbell-Laherrere analysis also cut the reserve of oil currently known to be in the ground to about 850 billion barrels.
Since then, others have joined in the public debate. Recently, Franco Bernabe, chief executive of the Italian oil company ENI SpA, has given a series of interviews in which he moved the doomsday clock forward to between 2000 and 2005. He forecast that today’s world price for a barrel of oil would soon begin to rise from its $15 base and quickly pass the $30 mark. He forecast that both the British and Norwegian sides of the North Sea will begin to see production declines within three years. The United States passed its peak (even with Alaska) long ago. Left open for argument is the amount of new oil left to be discovered in the Third World.
It’s not too far-fetched to suggest that the planet is hitting that full-blast crisis, especially since oil-producing nations are showing pumping capacity to be barely adequate and inadequate if there are “future supply disruptions” -- a phrase that can be read to mean terrorist attacks like those made yesterday on Iraqi oil facilities.
More attacks are certain. Things are looking grim.
And only now are sales of sport utility vehicles, not just the Hummer, beginning to slow.
OPEC signaled it would boost oil production and said it would ask other major oil producers outside the group such as Mexico to do so as well to make up for lost crude exports from sabotaged pipelines in Iraq.
But analysts said pumping the extra oil would strain the world’s limited spare production capacity and leave a wafer-thin cushion with which to absorb any future supply disruptions. [And] Russia and Norway -- the world’s second and third largest exporters after Saudi Arabia -- said they could do little to help.
“We are producing as much as we can,” the director of Russia’s Federal Energy Agency, Sergei Oganesyan, told the Interfax news agency. In Norway, Deputy Oil Minister Oeyvind Haabrekke told the state radio network NRK that his country had “no excess capacity and no possibility of increasing production.”
There was no immediate response from Mexico’s energy department.
The most worrisome aspect of this clip is the disagreement between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, independent oil-producing nations and industry analysts. There’s no collusion that fits these facts, no conspiracy to keep prices high or produce an urgency to find more oil instead of energy alternatives. Keeping prices high would have had OPEC claiming inability to produce more oil, not the independents and analysts. And the statements from Russia and Norway are too blunt and alarming to inspire long-term exploration, since it’s widely believed that there’s not much oil left in the Earth.
On that topic, read what Washington, D.C.-based business writer James Srodes had to say on the topic in the Oct. 19, 1998, issue of Barron’s:
It was only last November that two top oil geologists presented papers on the impending oil depletion to a conference of the International Energy Agency of the United Nations in Paris. Colin J. Campbell, an Oxford-trained geologist, and his French counterpart, Jean H. Laherrere, have been senior geologists for firms such as Total, Texaco and Amoco for more than 40 years. Currently they work at the industry think tank Petroconsultants in Geneva.
The two geologists were so convincing that the IEA dropped a generation-old view that held oil discoveries to be merely a function of price -- that is, the higher the price the more oil will be found. Last March, at the Moscow summit of the Group of Eight major industrial nations, the IEA presented its own paper to the national leaders accepting the Campbell-Laherrere view that sometime between 2010 and 2020 the crisis will be upon us full blast. The Campbell-Laherrere analysis also cut the reserve of oil currently known to be in the ground to about 850 billion barrels.
Since then, others have joined in the public debate. Recently, Franco Bernabe, chief executive of the Italian oil company ENI SpA, has given a series of interviews in which he moved the doomsday clock forward to between 2000 and 2005. He forecast that today’s world price for a barrel of oil would soon begin to rise from its $15 base and quickly pass the $30 mark. He forecast that both the British and Norwegian sides of the North Sea will begin to see production declines within three years. The United States passed its peak (even with Alaska) long ago. Left open for argument is the amount of new oil left to be discovered in the Third World.
It’s not too far-fetched to suggest that the planet is hitting that full-blast crisis, especially since oil-producing nations are showing pumping capacity to be barely adequate and inadequate if there are “future supply disruptions” -- a phrase that can be read to mean terrorist attacks like those made yesterday on Iraqi oil facilities.
More attacks are certain. Things are looking grim.
And only now are sales of sport utility vehicles, not just the Hummer, beginning to slow.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
T DOESN’T PASS
I should have made it clear that yesterday’s posting, while clearly labeled as a “guest blog,” did not say who the guest was. It was Eric LeMay. Eric LeMay, who seems to think I’ve been a little thin on material lately.
Oh, how wrong he is. And to prove it, I’ve a posting right here that uses material provided me by Boston Herald editorial assistant Andrew Manuse. He has some good things to say about a Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority plan to randomly stop and search mass transit passengers. Well, he doesn’t have good things to say about it. Rather, he says well what we’re all thinking: Hey, MBTA, fuck off.
This is the letter he sent me:
Hello Boston,
I’m not sure if you’ve heard yet, but the MBTA plans to conduct random bag searches of passengers riding the T starting in July. During the Democratic National Convention, the authority plans to search every person's bag. See the Boston Herald’s piece about this.
I have already written a letter of complaint to the MBTA, which you can also do here. I told the MBTA that I would refuse to allow the search of any of my personal property without a written warrant with my name on it that spells out the probable cause used for the search. I also told the MBTA that I would attempt to recruit as many people as possible to do the same.
This is an egregious affront on civil liberties that can not stand. The Fourth Amendment clearly states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” I don't think we should allow this inalienable right to be trampled for any reason.
If you agree, it would help if you sent this to everyone you know that will be in Boston during July. If you don't, then, well, have a good day.
Take care,
Andrew
Oh, how wrong he is. And to prove it, I’ve a posting right here that uses material provided me by Boston Herald editorial assistant Andrew Manuse. He has some good things to say about a Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority plan to randomly stop and search mass transit passengers. Well, he doesn’t have good things to say about it. Rather, he says well what we’re all thinking: Hey, MBTA, fuck off.
This is the letter he sent me:
Hello Boston,
I’m not sure if you’ve heard yet, but the MBTA plans to conduct random bag searches of passengers riding the T starting in July. During the Democratic National Convention, the authority plans to search every person's bag. See the Boston Herald’s piece about this.
I have already written a letter of complaint to the MBTA, which you can also do here. I told the MBTA that I would refuse to allow the search of any of my personal property without a written warrant with my name on it that spells out the probable cause used for the search. I also told the MBTA that I would attempt to recruit as many people as possible to do the same.
This is an egregious affront on civil liberties that can not stand. The Fourth Amendment clearly states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” I don't think we should allow this inalienable right to be trampled for any reason.
If you agree, it would help if you sent this to everyone you know that will be in Boston during July. If you don't, then, well, have a good day.
Take care,
Andrew
Monday, June 14, 2004
GUEST BLOG: NEWS BLURT
My dad once told me I had “cart-before-the-horse mouth.” After a certain press conference about 12 years ago, he now jokes that I have “orgy of the senses” mouth, but that’s a whole ’nother story ...
Have you ever had one of those childhood times you said something and realized that what sounded “exciting” to you had a much more dramatic effect than you could have imagined? I had two gigantic times I’ve blurted something out like that. The first was when I was coming to school from a dentist appointment as a 10-year-old and heard that the President had been shot.
(Now, in my defense, just a few months earlier I’d watched my grandpa stand at a microphone in front of 600 employees at a company Christmas party and announce something I had already heard on the radio an hour earlier: John Lennon had been shot and killed. The prism of a 10-year-old reporter. ’Nuff said. Even though he wasn't a John Lennon fan, grandpa stood up and handled it with grace and dignity.)
As I signed into Shining Mountain Elementary School that morning in 1981, I kind of shouted to the office staff, basically, “Hey, by the way, did you hear the President was shot?” Well, they hadn’t.
I didn’t really know about JFK ... hell, I wasn’t even that aware of what being President meant in general -- I just thought it was cool that, really for the first time, I comprehended that there was this huge event going on outside of school, and I, me, knew it before all the grownups in school.
The secretary of the school burst into tears.
Ooops.
My filters didn’t get any more refined, though.
The second time was in 1985, when I was 15 and we were going to a friend’s New Year’s Eve party. As we drove to the party, the first news flashes came over the radio that Ricky Nelson had died in an airplane crash. I asked my dad who he was, because it was obvious by the way we sat in the driveway outside the party that he was important; dad and mom were just stopped for a moment. Reflecting. Dad kind of gathered himself and said, “Well, when Elvis went into the army, Ricky Nelson was bigger than Elvis.”
Hmm ... here were all these grownups sitting inside at a New Year’s party, my parents were sitting in the car, and I simply asked if I could go inside because I had to pee. I went inside, and all the usual party stuff was going on and I was pretty much unnoticed while I went into the bathroom. When I came out, my parents still weren’t out of the car. Bob, the party’s host, asked where my mom and dad were, and I said, “They’re sitting out in the car because they just heard Ricky Nelson is dead in an airplane crash.”
(Cue the sound of a vinyl LP ripping to a halt.)
And then I kept firmly entrenching myself in the bastion of all things insensitive.
“Yeah ... he got his big break when Elvis went in the Army.”
Silence. It was like Benjamin Braddock at the bottom of the pool.
I was standing there in front of a roomful of Baby Boomers who grew up in the Ricky Nelson era. They heard him on the radio, they watched him on television, and they went to his Garden Party in the 1970s. I mean, this guy was everyplace as they all grew up together.
(Side note: Never let your young teenagers think they can ever, EVER be the life of the party.)
I was thinking about all of this the Saturday before. I was doing a museum tour, and the son of somebody on the tour -- couldn’t have been more than 12 -- said to my little tour group, “Did you hear that Ronald Reagan just died?” There was a long, long silence (we hadn’t), and the kid finally said, “Yeah, he was president before Bill Clinton.”
Elvis left the building in both instances, I guess. (Does that make George W. Bush into Fabian?)
Even though there is nothing truly tragic about 93-year-old humans dying, I admit I was sad. Reagan wasn’t there for the last 10 years, publicly, or by some accounts, most of that time, mentally; this kid just told me we lost someone that had been a part of my culture -- if not physically, but by legacy -- for almost two-thirds of my life.
I awoke at 6 Friday morning and watched the services. I also came home that night just as the plane was landing at Point Mugu and watched those services. I cried both times. I might be a Reagan Democrat, or, by old accounts a Rockefeller Republican, but, even at such a young age, I didn’t agree with some of the things he did domestically. So I’m a Reaganfeller Somethingerrather. Doesn’t matter. But wasn't that the way it was in the 1980s?
Anyway ... all the pomp was done and I sat down to look at a box of stuff that my wife had taken out of storage before she left for New Jersey. On the top was a letter, handwritten, dated May 4, 1981, from the White House:
Dear Eric,
I was very happy to hear from you. You were a very nice young man to think of me, and I want to send you all of my thanks and good wishes always. Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan
Agree? Disagree? Like him? Hate him? Liberal or conservative? I sent the guy a get-well card as a 10-year-old. He sent a handwritten note back.
Damn he was good.
And now that he’s gone and buried ... maybe, no matter what, it’s time to say to him:
“My thanks and good wishes always, too, Mr. President.”
It took me a week to blurt that out.
Have you ever had one of those childhood times you said something and realized that what sounded “exciting” to you had a much more dramatic effect than you could have imagined? I had two gigantic times I’ve blurted something out like that. The first was when I was coming to school from a dentist appointment as a 10-year-old and heard that the President had been shot.
(Now, in my defense, just a few months earlier I’d watched my grandpa stand at a microphone in front of 600 employees at a company Christmas party and announce something I had already heard on the radio an hour earlier: John Lennon had been shot and killed. The prism of a 10-year-old reporter. ’Nuff said. Even though he wasn't a John Lennon fan, grandpa stood up and handled it with grace and dignity.)
As I signed into Shining Mountain Elementary School that morning in 1981, I kind of shouted to the office staff, basically, “Hey, by the way, did you hear the President was shot?” Well, they hadn’t.
I didn’t really know about JFK ... hell, I wasn’t even that aware of what being President meant in general -- I just thought it was cool that, really for the first time, I comprehended that there was this huge event going on outside of school, and I, me, knew it before all the grownups in school.
The secretary of the school burst into tears.
Ooops.
My filters didn’t get any more refined, though.
The second time was in 1985, when I was 15 and we were going to a friend’s New Year’s Eve party. As we drove to the party, the first news flashes came over the radio that Ricky Nelson had died in an airplane crash. I asked my dad who he was, because it was obvious by the way we sat in the driveway outside the party that he was important; dad and mom were just stopped for a moment. Reflecting. Dad kind of gathered himself and said, “Well, when Elvis went into the army, Ricky Nelson was bigger than Elvis.”
Hmm ... here were all these grownups sitting inside at a New Year’s party, my parents were sitting in the car, and I simply asked if I could go inside because I had to pee. I went inside, and all the usual party stuff was going on and I was pretty much unnoticed while I went into the bathroom. When I came out, my parents still weren’t out of the car. Bob, the party’s host, asked where my mom and dad were, and I said, “They’re sitting out in the car because they just heard Ricky Nelson is dead in an airplane crash.”
(Cue the sound of a vinyl LP ripping to a halt.)
And then I kept firmly entrenching myself in the bastion of all things insensitive.
“Yeah ... he got his big break when Elvis went in the Army.”
Silence. It was like Benjamin Braddock at the bottom of the pool.
I was standing there in front of a roomful of Baby Boomers who grew up in the Ricky Nelson era. They heard him on the radio, they watched him on television, and they went to his Garden Party in the 1970s. I mean, this guy was everyplace as they all grew up together.
(Side note: Never let your young teenagers think they can ever, EVER be the life of the party.)
I was thinking about all of this the Saturday before. I was doing a museum tour, and the son of somebody on the tour -- couldn’t have been more than 12 -- said to my little tour group, “Did you hear that Ronald Reagan just died?” There was a long, long silence (we hadn’t), and the kid finally said, “Yeah, he was president before Bill Clinton.”
Elvis left the building in both instances, I guess. (Does that make George W. Bush into Fabian?)
Even though there is nothing truly tragic about 93-year-old humans dying, I admit I was sad. Reagan wasn’t there for the last 10 years, publicly, or by some accounts, most of that time, mentally; this kid just told me we lost someone that had been a part of my culture -- if not physically, but by legacy -- for almost two-thirds of my life.
I awoke at 6 Friday morning and watched the services. I also came home that night just as the plane was landing at Point Mugu and watched those services. I cried both times. I might be a Reagan Democrat, or, by old accounts a Rockefeller Republican, but, even at such a young age, I didn’t agree with some of the things he did domestically. So I’m a Reaganfeller Somethingerrather. Doesn’t matter. But wasn't that the way it was in the 1980s?
Anyway ... all the pomp was done and I sat down to look at a box of stuff that my wife had taken out of storage before she left for New Jersey. On the top was a letter, handwritten, dated May 4, 1981, from the White House:
Dear Eric,
I was very happy to hear from you. You were a very nice young man to think of me, and I want to send you all of my thanks and good wishes always. Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan
Agree? Disagree? Like him? Hate him? Liberal or conservative? I sent the guy a get-well card as a 10-year-old. He sent a handwritten note back.
Damn he was good.
And now that he’s gone and buried ... maybe, no matter what, it’s time to say to him:
“My thanks and good wishes always, too, Mr. President.”
It took me a week to blurt that out.
Sunday, June 13, 2004
SQUARES SQUARED
Galvin Square, where I live, isn’t as great as I thought. Now that I’m paying more attention to the tiny honorary areas along Massachusetts Avenue, I notice that they’re almost as common as street signs -- some disguised by the simple fact that they’re not important enough to be noticeable even from across the street. Dodge four lanes of traffic and you’ll find yourself somewhere completely new, just because it’s called something different.
Head up the street from Porter Square toward Arlington and within four short blocks you’re in Galvin Square, which is probably, sadly, known as “The Gas With a Smile square.” But only a block away is Walden Street and James F. Dottin Square (which actually claims Buzkashi and the combined Taco Bell and KFC; any more combining and it’ll be Taco Buzkashi, the Mexican-Afghan fusion cuisine craze).
Go another block and you’ll find Russell Street, which holds the sign identifying that area as Joseph M. Curran Square, the, oh, I don’t know, American Friends Service Committee square.
A fun one.
In another block, at Rindge, you’ll find Charles D. Keefe Sr. Square, undoubtedly named for the patriarch of the funeral home across the street, but probably better known as “the liquor store square.” Virtually across the street, at Chester, is Judge Jeremiah Sullivan Square, home of ... not much. Perhaps Kate’s Mystery Bookstore lands in Sullivan Square, but Raymond & Theresa Proulx Square could claim it as well, along with Pemberton Farms and the White Hen Pantry. But Chief Leo Davenport Square is just across the street, meaning it would be able to claim Kate’s if squares here were actual squares, not intersections or junctions.
Davenport Square needs Kate’s, actually, as it is otherwise “The City Lights lamp shop square.”
Sad. Oh, if only the T stopped there.
Head up the street from Porter Square toward Arlington and within four short blocks you’re in Galvin Square, which is probably, sadly, known as “The Gas With a Smile square.” But only a block away is Walden Street and James F. Dottin Square (which actually claims Buzkashi and the combined Taco Bell and KFC; any more combining and it’ll be Taco Buzkashi, the Mexican-Afghan fusion cuisine craze).
Go another block and you’ll find Russell Street, which holds the sign identifying that area as Joseph M. Curran Square, the, oh, I don’t know, American Friends Service Committee square.
A fun one.
In another block, at Rindge, you’ll find Charles D. Keefe Sr. Square, undoubtedly named for the patriarch of the funeral home across the street, but probably better known as “the liquor store square.” Virtually across the street, at Chester, is Judge Jeremiah Sullivan Square, home of ... not much. Perhaps Kate’s Mystery Bookstore lands in Sullivan Square, but Raymond & Theresa Proulx Square could claim it as well, along with Pemberton Farms and the White Hen Pantry. But Chief Leo Davenport Square is just across the street, meaning it would be able to claim Kate’s if squares here were actual squares, not intersections or junctions.
Davenport Square needs Kate’s, actually, as it is otherwise “The City Lights lamp shop square.”
Sad. Oh, if only the T stopped there.
Friday, June 11, 2004
OFFSHORE ASSURANCE
Most outsourced jobs stay in the United States, a report says, implying we have little to fear of “offshoring” to countries with a cheaper work force.
The U.S. Labor Department report, relatively big news today, says that “In more than seven out of 10 cases, the work activities were reassigned to places elsewhere in the U.S.,” making it about 9 percent of nonseasonal layoffs that can be blamed on offshoring in the first three months of this year.
But the report -- even rejecting fears that the numbers are manipulated like other Bush administration reports -- can be accurate without being all that meaningful.
First, the numbers only record layoffs: at companies employing at least 50 workers; where at least 50 made claims for unemployment benefits; and the layoffs lasted more than 30 days. Also missing from the numbers are jobs created overseas by U.S. companies without directly resulting in a layoff here. So the 4,633 offshored jobs, out of 239,361 total jobs lost in the first quarter, seem small and hint that analysts are wrong to project 3.3 million jobs offshored by 2015.
But there’s a second factor to consider: A watched pot never sends its boiling to be done by cheap labor in other countries -- but an unwatched pot may. Remember the Jan. 7 business roundtable held by chief executives such as Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina (“There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs.”) at which there was little dispute that the jobs were going, just a recommendation that if it wanted to avoid the situation, the United States had better get busy educating, serving up tax breaks and such. Then the backlash began, and no chief executive is going to alarm an entire nation by offshoring energetically while attention, and presidential candidate John Kerry, is focused on the issue. After a couple of these reports, though, showing that people’s fears are overblown ... well, watch the jobs fly.
That brings up a third point why the Labor Department report is worth more than a shrug and a glare: Work tends to cluster, especially in high-tech and biotech, which is why communities from Malaysia to Kendall Square try to build infrastructure supporting an industry and tout it loudly. It’s a circular element mentioned time after time in industry-hungry Massachusetts, where colleges and universities churn out techies who can work in nearby industries which rely on colleges and universities churning out techies. There are also plenty of nearby support industries that exist here to serve the tech industry that relies on nearby support industries. And so on.
When jobs get offshored, it begins to create elsewhere that symbiotic, vital infrastructure. And the more infrastructure elsewhere, the less here. The less here, well, the less reason there is for tech companies to be here. And so on, again.
So how wonderful it is that not many jobs are being sent overseas, but that conclusion merely brings up another troublesome detail: If the Bush administration, and some more independent voices, truly believes offshoring is great for our economy, isn’t this report something of a disappointment?
Mysteriously, it’s almost as though our economy is doing fine without jobs being taken from Americans and sent elsewhere.
Yes, mysterious.
The U.S. Labor Department report, relatively big news today, says that “In more than seven out of 10 cases, the work activities were reassigned to places elsewhere in the U.S.,” making it about 9 percent of nonseasonal layoffs that can be blamed on offshoring in the first three months of this year.
But the report -- even rejecting fears that the numbers are manipulated like other Bush administration reports -- can be accurate without being all that meaningful.
First, the numbers only record layoffs: at companies employing at least 50 workers; where at least 50 made claims for unemployment benefits; and the layoffs lasted more than 30 days. Also missing from the numbers are jobs created overseas by U.S. companies without directly resulting in a layoff here. So the 4,633 offshored jobs, out of 239,361 total jobs lost in the first quarter, seem small and hint that analysts are wrong to project 3.3 million jobs offshored by 2015.
But there’s a second factor to consider: A watched pot never sends its boiling to be done by cheap labor in other countries -- but an unwatched pot may. Remember the Jan. 7 business roundtable held by chief executives such as Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina (“There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs.”) at which there was little dispute that the jobs were going, just a recommendation that if it wanted to avoid the situation, the United States had better get busy educating, serving up tax breaks and such. Then the backlash began, and no chief executive is going to alarm an entire nation by offshoring energetically while attention, and presidential candidate John Kerry, is focused on the issue. After a couple of these reports, though, showing that people’s fears are overblown ... well, watch the jobs fly.
That brings up a third point why the Labor Department report is worth more than a shrug and a glare: Work tends to cluster, especially in high-tech and biotech, which is why communities from Malaysia to Kendall Square try to build infrastructure supporting an industry and tout it loudly. It’s a circular element mentioned time after time in industry-hungry Massachusetts, where colleges and universities churn out techies who can work in nearby industries which rely on colleges and universities churning out techies. There are also plenty of nearby support industries that exist here to serve the tech industry that relies on nearby support industries. And so on.
When jobs get offshored, it begins to create elsewhere that symbiotic, vital infrastructure. And the more infrastructure elsewhere, the less here. The less here, well, the less reason there is for tech companies to be here. And so on, again.
So how wonderful it is that not many jobs are being sent overseas, but that conclusion merely brings up another troublesome detail: If the Bush administration, and some more independent voices, truly believes offshoring is great for our economy, isn’t this report something of a disappointment?
Mysteriously, it’s almost as though our economy is doing fine without jobs being taken from Americans and sent elsewhere.
Yes, mysterious.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
GROVER
At the risk of just becoming a sardonic clipping service for The New York Times, I must quote a couple of paragraphs from today’s piece by Jennifer 8. Lee (what’s the 8 short for? Eighty? Eight hundred?) on efforts by acolytes of Ronald Reagan to put his image on the $10 bill -- or anything and everything else.
Grover G. Norquist, founder of the legacy project, said the group had also considered bumping Benjamin Franklin, another nonpresident, off the $100 bill, which is widely used overseas if not in the United States. “There was a discussion that it would be appropriate because it is the international currency and Ronald Reagan was the president of the whole world,” Mr. Norquist said.
But that notion was nixed, he said, “because it is also associated with the pharmaceutical industry of Colombia.”
It’s reassuring, in a “Catch-22” kind of a way, that such a scary man can also be funny and ridiculous, which is exactly what this nonsense is. Unfortunately, it won’t be funny at all when such efforts inevitably succeed.
Grover G. Norquist, founder of the legacy project, said the group had also considered bumping Benjamin Franklin, another nonpresident, off the $100 bill, which is widely used overseas if not in the United States. “There was a discussion that it would be appropriate because it is the international currency and Ronald Reagan was the president of the whole world,” Mr. Norquist said.
But that notion was nixed, he said, “because it is also associated with the pharmaceutical industry of Colombia.”
It’s reassuring, in a “Catch-22” kind of a way, that such a scary man can also be funny and ridiculous, which is exactly what this nonsense is. Unfortunately, it won’t be funny at all when such efforts inevitably succeed.
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
ON A ROLL
Faced with government tests showing its sport utility vehicles to be bad rollover risks, General Motors did the right thing: It blamed drivers.
By “right thing,” of course, I mean “irresponsible and deceptive,” but it’s all relative.
Here’s the GM statement quoted in today’s New York Times:
The dominant causes of rollover crashes and injuries are: excessive vehicle speed; impaired driving due to alcohol, drugs, fatigue and distraction; and failure to wear seat belts.
So although there are sport utility vehicles -- the Dodge Durango and Honda Pilot among them -- that will not roll over, according to the government tests, GM prefers rhetorical tricks to engineering skill. Throwing in “injuries” when the issue is rollovers is brilliant: The company actually succeeds at seeming reasonable when it blames drivers for “failure to wear seat belts” when their multiton hunk of steel tips over at 40 miles per hour and rolls down a hill onto train tracks.
By “right thing,” of course, I mean “irresponsible and deceptive,” but it’s all relative.
Here’s the GM statement quoted in today’s New York Times:
The dominant causes of rollover crashes and injuries are: excessive vehicle speed; impaired driving due to alcohol, drugs, fatigue and distraction; and failure to wear seat belts.
So although there are sport utility vehicles -- the Dodge Durango and Honda Pilot among them -- that will not roll over, according to the government tests, GM prefers rhetorical tricks to engineering skill. Throwing in “injuries” when the issue is rollovers is brilliant: The company actually succeeds at seeming reasonable when it blames drivers for “failure to wear seat belts” when their multiton hunk of steel tips over at 40 miles per hour and rolls down a hill onto train tracks.
Monday, June 07, 2004
REAGAN RAGE
Praise of Ronald Reagan was excessive during his life and -- to paraphrase “The Thin Man Goes Home” -- his death hasn’t imbued him with better qualities. Predictably, though, his death raises the level of praise from excessive to overwhelming. My gorge is rising with it.
Yes, President Reagan made us feel good about ourselves -- at least those of us whose skin didn’t crawl and blood boil upon hearing his fatuous, hypocritical moralizing. But it’s easy to make people feel good about themselves by lying and appealing to their baser instincts.
Now, in addition to the deluded millions who truly thought he was a statesman and a wonderful guy, others lie to make themselves feel better about electing him. Twice. Or to sell papers.
It’s reasonable to remember that Reagan was a half-bright actor who confused reality with movies, citing events in speeches that had only happened in scripts. (People credit him with being eternally optimistic and very focused, neither of which is all that difficult or remarkable for a moron.) He was a wealthy white man who seemed to care solely about other wealthy white people, when his charge as president was to do the best for his country, not his class. He was an armchair warrior who vowed never to negotiate with terrorists, then sent weapons to Iranians who’d held U.S. citizens hostage for months. He was a self-proclaimed patriot who subverted the Constitution to back nun-killing, terrorizing thugs simply because they opposed a popular communist government.
Since we survived the Reagan years, recovering fiscally, de-emphasizing nuclear arms for awhile and playing good catch-up in the fight against AIDS, the worst legacy of his presidential terms seems to be the worship of him enabling his other legacy: an arrogance that rationalizes lies because the ends justify the means. And, anyway, God is on our side.
Our current president is a Reagan fan, and it is easy to see in him the fruit of Iran-Contra, which itself germinated in the musty shadow of Watergate. (Talking Points Memo has a terrifying post that pinpoints the administration’s justification of sacrificing the law for expediency.) When Nixon died, Watergate was played down, stunningly, and we’re seeing a similar blindness in the media’s eulogizing of Reagan.
The Sacramento Bee says Reagan “took full responsibility” for Iran-Contra, an absurd misrepresentation caught by Editor & Publisher’s Joe Strupp. The Wall Street Journal, in discussing Reagan’s “enduring economic legacy,” notes that “Corners of the globe where Communism and state control of the economy once were seen as the salvation of the poor now celebrate stock markets and entrepreneurs” -- as though the failures of an unsustainable economic model were somehow the work of a U.S. president. The coverage everywhere glows, because we mustn’t speak ill of the dead.
President Bush, although saddened by the loss of his idol, must be happy.
Because if Reagan can get away with it, maybe he can too.
Yes, President Reagan made us feel good about ourselves -- at least those of us whose skin didn’t crawl and blood boil upon hearing his fatuous, hypocritical moralizing. But it’s easy to make people feel good about themselves by lying and appealing to their baser instincts.
Now, in addition to the deluded millions who truly thought he was a statesman and a wonderful guy, others lie to make themselves feel better about electing him. Twice. Or to sell papers.
It’s reasonable to remember that Reagan was a half-bright actor who confused reality with movies, citing events in speeches that had only happened in scripts. (People credit him with being eternally optimistic and very focused, neither of which is all that difficult or remarkable for a moron.) He was a wealthy white man who seemed to care solely about other wealthy white people, when his charge as president was to do the best for his country, not his class. He was an armchair warrior who vowed never to negotiate with terrorists, then sent weapons to Iranians who’d held U.S. citizens hostage for months. He was a self-proclaimed patriot who subverted the Constitution to back nun-killing, terrorizing thugs simply because they opposed a popular communist government.
Since we survived the Reagan years, recovering fiscally, de-emphasizing nuclear arms for awhile and playing good catch-up in the fight against AIDS, the worst legacy of his presidential terms seems to be the worship of him enabling his other legacy: an arrogance that rationalizes lies because the ends justify the means. And, anyway, God is on our side.
Our current president is a Reagan fan, and it is easy to see in him the fruit of Iran-Contra, which itself germinated in the musty shadow of Watergate. (Talking Points Memo has a terrifying post that pinpoints the administration’s justification of sacrificing the law for expediency.) When Nixon died, Watergate was played down, stunningly, and we’re seeing a similar blindness in the media’s eulogizing of Reagan.
The Sacramento Bee says Reagan “took full responsibility” for Iran-Contra, an absurd misrepresentation caught by Editor & Publisher’s Joe Strupp. The Wall Street Journal, in discussing Reagan’s “enduring economic legacy,” notes that “Corners of the globe where Communism and state control of the economy once were seen as the salvation of the poor now celebrate stock markets and entrepreneurs” -- as though the failures of an unsustainable economic model were somehow the work of a U.S. president. The coverage everywhere glows, because we mustn’t speak ill of the dead.
President Bush, although saddened by the loss of his idol, must be happy.
Because if Reagan can get away with it, maybe he can too.
Friday, June 04, 2004
GALVIN SQUARE
Instead of complaining about Porter Square, perhaps it makes more sense to secede.
Thanks to the city’s endless gratitude for soldiers and firefighters, there is no shortage of subsquares clustering about and overlapping the larger ones, along the lines of Harvard Square including Brattle Square, but obscure to the point of uselessness (as honors go, it’s sort of like getting an award named after you that’s never given out), and I live in one.
I can be visited in Galvin Square, or, fully, Vincent P. Galvin Square, where Blake Street meets Massachusetts Avenue a couple of blocks down from Porter. It’s where the fire station is, which is reasonable: Galvin was fire chief from May 17, 1960, to Feb. 16, 1965.
In addition to a fire station, Galvin Square is loaded with amenities (car wash, gas station, an automated teller or two and a bank, optometrist, hair stylist, nail salon, dry cleaner and cellular phone shop), and, in the same way I found out upon graduating that I’d minored in history, specializes in limited foods. What does that mean? Well, it has Andy’s, which is open for breakfast and lunch but not dinner, and Buzkashi and Elephant Walk, which are open for dinner and nothing else. It has a combination KFC and Taco Bell, which has limited menus for each crowded cuisine because doing twice as much means having half as much. We have a culinary school that doesn’t serve food and a language institute that, well, doesn’t either. We have a senior center that serves as a polling place during elections and churches for every denomination that happens to be episcopalian.
It’s a good-looking church. And it has places to sit.
It’s a grand place, Galvin Square.
Somewhere out there must be squares for Cambridge’s other fire chiefs, especially for those who served more than five years. I will look around; I suspect I live in those squares, too, and just haven’t seen the signs yet.
Thanks to the city’s endless gratitude for soldiers and firefighters, there is no shortage of subsquares clustering about and overlapping the larger ones, along the lines of Harvard Square including Brattle Square, but obscure to the point of uselessness (as honors go, it’s sort of like getting an award named after you that’s never given out), and I live in one.
I can be visited in Galvin Square, or, fully, Vincent P. Galvin Square, where Blake Street meets Massachusetts Avenue a couple of blocks down from Porter. It’s where the fire station is, which is reasonable: Galvin was fire chief from May 17, 1960, to Feb. 16, 1965.
In addition to a fire station, Galvin Square is loaded with amenities (car wash, gas station, an automated teller or two and a bank, optometrist, hair stylist, nail salon, dry cleaner and cellular phone shop), and, in the same way I found out upon graduating that I’d minored in history, specializes in limited foods. What does that mean? Well, it has Andy’s, which is open for breakfast and lunch but not dinner, and Buzkashi and Elephant Walk, which are open for dinner and nothing else. It has a combination KFC and Taco Bell, which has limited menus for each crowded cuisine because doing twice as much means having half as much. We have a culinary school that doesn’t serve food and a language institute that, well, doesn’t either. We have a senior center that serves as a polling place during elections and churches for every denomination that happens to be episcopalian.
It’s a good-looking church. And it has places to sit.
It’s a grand place, Galvin Square.
Somewhere out there must be squares for Cambridge’s other fire chiefs, especially for those who served more than five years. I will look around; I suspect I live in those squares, too, and just haven’t seen the signs yet.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
COOKING SOME FEUD
My lazy conjecture about Felipe’s Taqueria, the newest tenant in Harvard Square’s Garage mall, was that it was an Anna’s Taqueria in disguise -- to keep its higher prices from smearing the Anna’s name.
I hypothesized this without asking the people behind the counter or even consulting the menu. (The line was too long to even consider eating there.) I just recognized the employees from the Porter and Davis square Anna’s and guessed that rents are higher in Harvard Square, ergo higher prices, ergo different name.
I’m wrong, gauging from this Chowhound posting, and this looks to be a new entry in the book of angry cooking families, which includes the Tomboy’s variants in southern California and the Olé folks here in the Cambridge area.
Visit Los Angeles and its suburbs and you’ll find chili burger joints called Greek Tommy’s, Tomboy’s, Big Tomy’s and so on, apparently the results of an endlessly dividing family of cooking entrepreneurs. They stick together for as long as they can stand it, learning the family recipes and the ins and outs of running a burger joint. Eventually they can stand it no longer, and one splits to open their own stand -- one with a name just different enough to be on the right side of trademark law.
The local Mexican food epic started in Somerville with a place called Andalé, but a feud caused some of the staff to flee to Arlington for a clone called Olé. Success allowed them to go upscale with an Olé in Cambridge’s Inman Square, but the relatives running the two soon found each cared for one Olé and not the other. Now Arlington’s Olé has a cart in the financial district called ... see if you can guess ... Andalé.
Felipe’s, the story goes, is a spinoff of Anna’s, which is itself a spinoff from Boca Grande on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. A falling out among chef types is, again, blamed.
The good news: This only happens at successful restaurants, and it means successful restaurants, with good food, proliferate. It also gets angry people away from each other and all those giant, gleaming kitchen knives.
I hypothesized this without asking the people behind the counter or even consulting the menu. (The line was too long to even consider eating there.) I just recognized the employees from the Porter and Davis square Anna’s and guessed that rents are higher in Harvard Square, ergo higher prices, ergo different name.
I’m wrong, gauging from this Chowhound posting, and this looks to be a new entry in the book of angry cooking families, which includes the Tomboy’s variants in southern California and the Olé folks here in the Cambridge area.
Visit Los Angeles and its suburbs and you’ll find chili burger joints called Greek Tommy’s, Tomboy’s, Big Tomy’s and so on, apparently the results of an endlessly dividing family of cooking entrepreneurs. They stick together for as long as they can stand it, learning the family recipes and the ins and outs of running a burger joint. Eventually they can stand it no longer, and one splits to open their own stand -- one with a name just different enough to be on the right side of trademark law.
The local Mexican food epic started in Somerville with a place called Andalé, but a feud caused some of the staff to flee to Arlington for a clone called Olé. Success allowed them to go upscale with an Olé in Cambridge’s Inman Square, but the relatives running the two soon found each cared for one Olé and not the other. Now Arlington’s Olé has a cart in the financial district called ... see if you can guess ... Andalé.
Felipe’s, the story goes, is a spinoff of Anna’s, which is itself a spinoff from Boca Grande on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. A falling out among chef types is, again, blamed.
The good news: This only happens at successful restaurants, and it means successful restaurants, with good food, proliferate. It also gets angry people away from each other and all those giant, gleaming kitchen knives.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
LONELY AT THE TOP
There’s no need to wonder why the White House Web site doesn’t include the speech President Bush gave tonight at the U.S. Air Force Academy. It’s gibberish. And it includes assertions that are, by now, ludicrous in the telling.
In it, Bush directly compares the war in Iraq with World War II, talks again of weapons of mass destruction -- in carefully chosen weasel words -- and, incredibly, continues to connect Iraq with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless surprise attack on the United States. We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy,” he told the graduating Air Force cadets.
Perhaps it’s a flaw in New York Times reportage, but the speech even seemed to include sentences that literally, as well as reasonably, made no sense. What are we to make of Bush’s warning that “We can only imagine the scale of terrorist crimes were they to gain control of states of weapons of mass murder or vast oil revenues”? The Times doesn’t give context on who “they” is, but what are “states of weapons of mass murder”? If Bush is implying an oil- or weapon-rich Iraq could invade a terrorist state as it did Kuwait, taking over its munitions, why didn’t we take on those actual terrorist states that could have been invaded? The comment also ignores the reality that Iraq had no active program for weapons of mass destruction, mainly because containment and United Nations inspections were working.
More so than many Bush speeches, which are merely full of rhetoric, this one comes off as a true embarrassment, yet another White House product that fails to stand up to even the most casual analysis. Its distance from reality isn’t new, though -- just its loneliness. Even the White House Web site won’t claim it.
In it, Bush directly compares the war in Iraq with World War II, talks again of weapons of mass destruction -- in carefully chosen weasel words -- and, incredibly, continues to connect Iraq with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless surprise attack on the United States. We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy,” he told the graduating Air Force cadets.
Perhaps it’s a flaw in New York Times reportage, but the speech even seemed to include sentences that literally, as well as reasonably, made no sense. What are we to make of Bush’s warning that “We can only imagine the scale of terrorist crimes were they to gain control of states of weapons of mass murder or vast oil revenues”? The Times doesn’t give context on who “they” is, but what are “states of weapons of mass murder”? If Bush is implying an oil- or weapon-rich Iraq could invade a terrorist state as it did Kuwait, taking over its munitions, why didn’t we take on those actual terrorist states that could have been invaded? The comment also ignores the reality that Iraq had no active program for weapons of mass destruction, mainly because containment and United Nations inspections were working.
More so than many Bush speeches, which are merely full of rhetoric, this one comes off as a true embarrassment, yet another White House product that fails to stand up to even the most casual analysis. Its distance from reality isn’t new, though -- just its loneliness. Even the White House Web site won’t claim it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)