In the Wired Magazine Article "The Long Tail" the author explores the shifting nature of the entertainment industry that is coming about due to on-line businesses that are able to provide a much larger selection of media including books, movies, music. I'm a big fan of this shift although I have to admit that I'm just really beginning to explore the depths of these new services. I still haven't downloaded my first song or signed up for Netflix but it's just a matter of time before I do. This is the same reason that I'm entertaining the idea of digital radio and look forward to getting my DVR setup. I want to explore and consume what I want when I want it. Now the tools are there to do just that.
Take a look at the whole article or read the highlighted quotes I pulled out below. I'd be interested to hear what others think about the Long Tail and if any of you have done a deep dive and discovered some treasures.
"Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream."
"Ultimately selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what's available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wader further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lock of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture)."
"Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution."
"In the tyranny of physical space, an audience too thinly spread is the same as no audience at all."
"But most of us want more than just hits. Everyone's taste departs from the mainstream somewhere, and the more we explore alternatives, the more we're drawn to them."
"This is the power of the Long Tail. The companies at the vanguard of it are showing the way with three big lessons. Call them the new rules for the new entertainment economy. Rule 1 - Make Everything Available. Rule 2 - Cut the Price in Half. Now Lower It. Rule 3 - Help Me Find It."
2/26/05 Update: I thought I'd update this post with a couple of additional references that I've seen to the Long Tail concept. First is the Wikipedia entry about The long Tail. This entry provides a nice summary of the concept and some good refernces.
The second site I wanted to point out is Tim Bray's comments on Organizing the Long Tail. He provides a different, and I think unique perspective on this idea.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Sad Statistics
Angry Bear is a blog that focuses on "Slightly left of center comments on news, politics, and economics from an economist." It's a good blog and this post, Who is to Blame?, highlights some sad statistics about what the American public believes about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. Take a look.
Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
There is a hugh debate and scrap going on (somewhat quietly) in the world of science education that has potential to dramatically shape the view of future generations. This article gives a nice introduction to this topic and for anyone that cares about the issue of science education I'd suggest taking the time to read it. It's a long article so I'm not going to include all of the text here but the link below should take you to the NYTimes archive to see it. Please let me know if the link doesn't work.
February 1, 2005
Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
By CORNELIA DEANHow Wikipedia Works
For any of you that have heard of the Wikipedia but had a hard time understanding what people were talking about this little article might be helpful for you.
How Wiki Works
Published: February 8, 2005
I'd heard of the Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/), but I'd never quite understood it. It's supposed to be a free online encyclopedia, written and edited by EVERYBODY. A collaborative worldwide effort, in other words, with 469,700 articles so far.
It sounds like a cool idea, but I just never understood how it could work. In this age of viruses, spyware and other rampant software vandalism, how could such a thing survive? What would stop antisocial jerks from sabotaging the good work of everyone else?
I finally got a clue when I saw this (http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html). It's a movie, narrated by Infoworld blogger Jon Udell, that tracks the life cycle of one particular Wikipedia entry. It's fairy long, but it gives a dazzling time-lapse view of how the whole Wiki thing works.
(It turns out that there are, in fact, administrators who alone wield ultimate editing power. Too bad; for one fleeting minute there, I actually thought I'd found an example of an online community building something worthwhile simply by working toward the greater good.)Important infor about the history of slavery
When I started reading this short article in the NYTimes I had no idea what to expect. By the time I'd finished reading it I throught it deserved to be read by more people. That's why I'm posting it here. I have to say that I didn't learn any of this stuff in my history classes in high school or college.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/opinion/31mon3.html?ex=1264914000&en=26a17020da562d75&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
January 31, 2005
EDITORIAL
An Update on Corporate Slavery
| |
Investors who visit the J. P. Morgan Chase Web site these days are finding more than the usual corporate news. The bank has posted a letter of apology and the results of an eye-opening research project, which found that two of its predecessor banks had participated in the slave trade, accepting about 13,000 enslaved people as collateral for loans issued in Louisiana in the mid-19th century. When the borrowers defaulted on their loans, the banks took ownership of some slaves and presumably sold them.
J. P. Morgan, which in addition to apologizing set up a scholarship fund for African-Americans in Louisiana, carried out this research to comply with a Chicago ordinance that requires companies doing business with the city government to divulge any links to slavery. A similar statute covers insurance companies operating in California, where several of the country's largest insurers have divulged links to slavery. These disclosures are exposing 18th- and 19th-century Northern businesses that sought to profit from the slave trade even after slavery had been outlawed in the North.
The disclosure laws grew out of an early attempt to seek damages from present-day companies for the misdeeds of their historical predecessors. The courts never took the reparations argument seriously, but the revelations of Northern corporate involvement were timely in the civic sense. They coincided with a revival of interest in slavery in the North, where many Americans had grown up believing that slavery had been confined to the cotton fields of the South.
When the new business disclosures are discussed publicly and integrated into the historical record, Americans will have been made aware that the tendrils of slavery spanned the length of the country and extended into the Northern financial elite. The inclusion of records of long-buried slave transactions on corporate Web sites shows that the process of reappraisal is well under way.
2004 Koufax Award Winners
This is the first year that I've heard of the Koufax Awards and I like what I've found. Here is the description of what the Koufax Awards are all about. "The Koufax Awards are intended to help forge a sense of community among lefty bloggers and their readership. We hope make introductions of bloggers to each other and to readers. We also hope to create a sense that we all live in the same virtual neighborhood and that it is a very nice neighborhood indeed."
I would suggest taking a look through the 2004 winners. The format of the site isn't great but it's worth digging through.
I didn't read all of the winner's blogs and posts but here are two that really stood out.
Poker with Dick Cheney
If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?
I would suggest taking a look through the 2004 winners. The format of the site isn't great but it's worth digging through.
I didn't read all of the winner's blogs and posts but here are two that really stood out.
Poker with Dick Cheney
If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Surprises of Travel: The Farting Evangelist
A friend of mine is spending some time (I think 6 months) traveling in New Zealand. She has created a blog to document her travels and I'm a regular reader. This post about her experience with a Farting Kiwi Evangelist is really worth reading. If you're interested in traveling to New Zealand I'd suggest becoming a regular reader of this blog as she packs in a lot of info and fun stories.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Senators in Logoed jump suits - One of the best ideas in years!
Just like race car drivers! Take a look at the Foaming Rant from 2/18/2005.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Quote: Patience and Cowardice
George Jackson
"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice."
I don't know who George Jackson is but I think this quote rings a lot of truth - at least for me.
"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice."
I don't know who George Jackson is but I think this quote rings a lot of truth - at least for me.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
A Leader Born of Budget Decadence
I don't usually agree with David Brooks but in this case I think he is on to something. I don't agree with everything he says but I think his general premise about a moral aproach to spending control coming out of the current situation is accurate. I disagree with him about the types of events that will bring about that moral outrage.
Still worth a read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/opinion/19brooks.html?ex=1266555600&en=34d5805c651692fd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
2/22/2005 update: See these comments from Mark Schmitt on the same article.
Still worth a read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/19/opinion/19brooks.html?ex=1266555600&en=34d5805c651692fd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
2/22/2005 update: See these comments from Mark Schmitt on the same article.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
"Google" for Statistics
http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/02/the_state_of_wo.html
I wanted to point out the suggestion that Mark Schmitt makes about something like a "Google" for statistics. I think that would be very handy! See this blog entry listed above for more info.
I wanted to point out the suggestion that Mark Schmitt makes about something like a "Google" for statistics. I think that would be very handy! See this blog entry listed above for more info.
For the love of Bicycle
I wanted to call out this Valentine's day note that was written by a cyclist revealing the depth of feelings he has for his ride. It's something that I can relate to - and I'm guessing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to a lot of other people. Some of you may have heard me make comments about the emotional connection that I feel to my bikes. Here is the best description of those feelings I've seen.
==========
http://velonews.com/news/fea/7561.0.html
So, without further ado, I'd like to pay homage to the lady I've given my blood, sweat and tears over the past 10 years. Maybe I should have titled this "My Bloody Valentine." Maybe some of you can relate.
"Breathless"
She is waiting. She always is.
It's not hard to find her. She's in the wind and among the trees. She's on busy two-lane roads and vacant hillsides. She's wherever you last saw her and wherever you'd like to take her next.
She's all you could ask for. She's reliable. Her beauty is timeless. She mingles well in mixed company. And efficient; man, is she efficient.
And she's there for you, waiting patiently, whether it's for a cold, coffee-fueled morning or a late-evening sunset. Through scorching gusts of hair-dryer heat and torrential showers, she doesn't complain.
She occupies your thoughts, yet sometimes in passing you catch yourself looking away, pretending not to see her. Guilt, shame, call it what you will. As always, you've got your reasons. Work's been busy. The weather has been unkind. There were these guests, from out of town. And to this, she smiles. She's heard it all before, and she knows she'll hear it again.
She doesn't press you about time spent apart, but just the same, she could do without the excuses. She knows you care. For her you clean, you shave, you make sacrifices, and this she sees. From time to time you bring her shiny new jewelry, and she appreciates it. Let's just go, she says. We could talk about it later, she says, but talk is cheap.
Together at last, sharing the dance floor you create, it's as if you haven't missed a beat. And after a few short minutes, you don't.
You begin slowly, and before long you're moving in unison. Beads of sweat drip down your back, but she remains as calm and cool as ever, responding effortlessly to your every move. She's got rhythm. She can spin. She can dip. She's not afraid. She moves better than you. She leaves you breathless.
She fits to your body with perfection. If ever there was such as thing as "poetry in motion," this is it. The longer you go, the better she gets. At times, you teeter on the edge, but she holds you steady - except for when she doesn't.
She's dependable, she says, but you're an adult. Don't blame me, she'll say, when your blood is spilled. You make your own decisions.
As a companion she's been with you at your finest moments and stood by you during your most difficult. She allows you to believe you have what it takes to be a champion. She doesn't beleaguer your shortcomings. She's fiercely loyal and brutally honest; she's never lied to you, no matter how many times you've tried, in vain, to fool her. If it feels as though she can read your mind, it's because she can. She can see right through you.
But you're enchanted with her. She brings you to life, and life to you. She's more addictive than a drug, more dangerous than a train wreck. Through her you will hurt and heal and hurt again, but when you're with her, your problems disappear, and so the cycle continues. You cherish your times together; they seem to be the only instances in your life you don't feel as though you should be doing something else, and because of this, seconds fly by and stand still in tandem.
If you look forward to your outings as though they're some kind of a vacation, it's because they are.
With the release she brings, she may be the closest thing you've ever had to a therapist, but she doesn't come easy. She'll lead you into temptation, without apology. If you're looking to have your ego stroked, you best look elsewhere. As do all meaningful relationships, yours requires regular maintenance, but this you knew going into it. The better you treat me, she tells you, the better I am to you. This is how it works.
And from you she requires a different kind of commitment - not absolute devotion, but a promise, to uphold your end of the arrangement. It's an arrangement you asked for, she'll remind you. You asked for this.
But with the certainty of every setting sun, your time together invariably must come to a close. When the music finally stops, the band must eventually put its instruments away. She's aware of the situation. Only under the most rare of situations do you invite her in, and still, she doesn't complain.
It's been fun, you tell her, and as always, it has. With a gleam, she smiles. I'll see you again, soon, you say. Maybe tomorrow?
Sure, she says. I'll be here. I'll be waiting.
==========
http://velonews.com/news/fea/7561.0.html
So, without further ado, I'd like to pay homage to the lady I've given my blood, sweat and tears over the past 10 years. Maybe I should have titled this "My Bloody Valentine." Maybe some of you can relate.
"Breathless"
She is waiting. She always is.
It's not hard to find her. She's in the wind and among the trees. She's on busy two-lane roads and vacant hillsides. She's wherever you last saw her and wherever you'd like to take her next.
She's all you could ask for. She's reliable. Her beauty is timeless. She mingles well in mixed company. And efficient; man, is she efficient.
And she's there for you, waiting patiently, whether it's for a cold, coffee-fueled morning or a late-evening sunset. Through scorching gusts of hair-dryer heat and torrential showers, she doesn't complain.
She occupies your thoughts, yet sometimes in passing you catch yourself looking away, pretending not to see her. Guilt, shame, call it what you will. As always, you've got your reasons. Work's been busy. The weather has been unkind. There were these guests, from out of town. And to this, she smiles. She's heard it all before, and she knows she'll hear it again.
She doesn't press you about time spent apart, but just the same, she could do without the excuses. She knows you care. For her you clean, you shave, you make sacrifices, and this she sees. From time to time you bring her shiny new jewelry, and she appreciates it. Let's just go, she says. We could talk about it later, she says, but talk is cheap.
Together at last, sharing the dance floor you create, it's as if you haven't missed a beat. And after a few short minutes, you don't.
You begin slowly, and before long you're moving in unison. Beads of sweat drip down your back, but she remains as calm and cool as ever, responding effortlessly to your every move. She's got rhythm. She can spin. She can dip. She's not afraid. She moves better than you. She leaves you breathless.
She fits to your body with perfection. If ever there was such as thing as "poetry in motion," this is it. The longer you go, the better she gets. At times, you teeter on the edge, but she holds you steady - except for when she doesn't.
She's dependable, she says, but you're an adult. Don't blame me, she'll say, when your blood is spilled. You make your own decisions.
As a companion she's been with you at your finest moments and stood by you during your most difficult. She allows you to believe you have what it takes to be a champion. She doesn't beleaguer your shortcomings. She's fiercely loyal and brutally honest; she's never lied to you, no matter how many times you've tried, in vain, to fool her. If it feels as though she can read your mind, it's because she can. She can see right through you.
But you're enchanted with her. She brings you to life, and life to you. She's more addictive than a drug, more dangerous than a train wreck. Through her you will hurt and heal and hurt again, but when you're with her, your problems disappear, and so the cycle continues. You cherish your times together; they seem to be the only instances in your life you don't feel as though you should be doing something else, and because of this, seconds fly by and stand still in tandem.
If you look forward to your outings as though they're some kind of a vacation, it's because they are.
With the release she brings, she may be the closest thing you've ever had to a therapist, but she doesn't come easy. She'll lead you into temptation, without apology. If you're looking to have your ego stroked, you best look elsewhere. As do all meaningful relationships, yours requires regular maintenance, but this you knew going into it. The better you treat me, she tells you, the better I am to you. This is how it works.
And from you she requires a different kind of commitment - not absolute devotion, but a promise, to uphold your end of the arrangement. It's an arrangement you asked for, she'll remind you. You asked for this.
But with the certainty of every setting sun, your time together invariably must come to a close. When the music finally stops, the band must eventually put its instruments away. She's aware of the situation. Only under the most rare of situations do you invite her in, and still, she doesn't complain.
It's been fun, you tell her, and as always, it has. With a gleam, she smiles. I'll see you again, soon, you say. Maybe tomorrow?
Sure, she says. I'll be here. I'll be waiting.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Quote
Soren Kierkegaard
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
I like this one. It reminds me of another quote that I've seen that is something like - You only get experience shortly after you needed it.
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
I like this one. It reminds me of another quote that I've seen that is something like - You only get experience shortly after you needed it.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
State of the (Heterosexual) Union
In his State of the Union Address Bush mentioned the environment only one time and this was in relation to the economy (and stressed the environmental regulations that needed changing for the sake of the economy) but stated his support for a constitutional ammendment for a ban on gay marriage. This is a day after Minneapolis just experienced the worst ever air polution levels in recorded history.
Priorities!
Priorities!
Sunday, January 30, 2005
RSS Aggregators - The better way to read blogs
I've had several conversations with different people recently about RSS and RSS aggregators like bloglines. I thought I'd post a summary of info about these things in case any of you reading this are interested in making your blog reading easier and more enjoyable.
First, what is RSS?
Second, what is an RSS aggregator?
A program known as an RSS aggregator or feed reader can check RSS-enabled webpages on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds.
Why should you care? RSS saves users from having to repeatedly visit favorite websites to check for new content or be notified of updates via email.
See the RSS entry in the wikipedia for more info if you'd like to dig deeper.
RSS aggregators come in two basic flavors. The first is is an application that sits on your desktop (tied to a specific computer) and aggregates your RSS feeds and presents them to you. The second type is web sites that act as your aggregator and when you sign in to them (doesn't matter what computer you're using) the web site will present your RSS feeds to you. I'm a big fan of the second type of RSS aggregator because the web version is available anywhere. You can check your feeds from work, home and other computers if you're traveling.
For the most comprehensive list of RSS aggregators I've seen see this wikipedia page. The RSS aggregator I use is bloglines.com. It's very easy to register and subscribe to your feeds.
How do I subscribe to a feed? Most sites that provide an RSS feed will have an image link on the page that looks like this
. If you find this link simply copy the link location or address and enter that in your RSS tool for the link feed location. If you don't find a link like this try just putting the URL of the blog in as the location or address of the feed.
In the case of my blog you can use either
http://swirlingplanettimes.blogspot.com/
or
http://swirlingplanettimes.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Have fun. Let me know if you have any problems setting this up.
First, what is RSS?
RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a family of XML-based communications standards with the following members:
- Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.9x and RSS 2.0)
- RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0) (RDF: Resource Description Framework)
Second, what is an RSS aggregator?
A program known as an RSS aggregator or feed reader can check RSS-enabled webpages on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds.
Why should you care? RSS saves users from having to repeatedly visit favorite websites to check for new content or be notified of updates via email.
See the RSS entry in the wikipedia for more info if you'd like to dig deeper.
RSS aggregators come in two basic flavors. The first is is an application that sits on your desktop (tied to a specific computer) and aggregates your RSS feeds and presents them to you. The second type is web sites that act as your aggregator and when you sign in to them (doesn't matter what computer you're using) the web site will present your RSS feeds to you. I'm a big fan of the second type of RSS aggregator because the web version is available anywhere. You can check your feeds from work, home and other computers if you're traveling.
For the most comprehensive list of RSS aggregators I've seen see this wikipedia page. The RSS aggregator I use is bloglines.com. It's very easy to register and subscribe to your feeds.
How do I subscribe to a feed? Most sites that provide an RSS feed will have an image link on the page that looks like this
. If you find this link simply copy the link location or address and enter that in your RSS tool for the link feed location. If you don't find a link like this try just putting the URL of the blog in as the location or address of the feed.
In the case of my blog you can use either
http://swirlingplanettimes.blogspot.com/
or
http://swirlingplanettimes.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Have fun. Let me know if you have any problems setting this up.
Winter Kiting
Taking a break on Lake Calhoun
I decided to post this picture as a reminder to myslef sometime next summer of how nice it is to live in MN in the winter :)
This picture is from January 23, 2005 while I was trying to kite surf on frozen Lake Calhoun. I say "trying to kite surf" because I'm still learning and spend most of my time sitting on my butt trying to figure out how to balance all of the different forces involved. This learning process can be a bit painful but fun at the same time.
Are you a Geo-Green?
I have to say this argument makes a lot of sense but I really can't imagine the Bush administration going anywhere close to this direction. Moving beyond the Bush administration, how would you ever get Americans (who as a group are into short term satisfaction) to take such an approach to long term change? It seems like a tough sell but maybe we'll end up in such a horrible situation someday that this option will start to look much better to many many more people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/opinion/30friedman.html
January 30, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Geo-Green Alternative
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Davos, Switzerland
One of the most striking things I've found in Europe these past two weeks is the absolute conviction that the Bush team is just itching to invade Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Psssssssst. Come over here. A little closer. Now listen: Don't tell the Iranians this, but the Bush team isn't going to be invading anybody. We don't have enough troops to finish the job in Iraq. Our military budget is completely maxed out. We couldn't invade Grenada today. If Iran is to forgo developing nuclear weapons, it will only be because the Europeans' diplomatic approach manages to persuade Tehran to do so.
For two years the Europeans have been telling the Bush administration that its use of force to prevent states from developing nuclear weapons has been a failure in Iraq and that the Europeans have a better way - multilateral diplomacy using carrots and sticks. Well, Europe, as we say in American baseball, "You're up."
"I think this is an absolute test case for Europe's ability to lay out its own idea for a joint agenda with the United States to deal with a problem like Iran," said the Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash, author of "Free World: America, Europe and the Surprising Future of the West." "O.K., we think bombing Iran is a bad idea. What is a good idea?" For the Europeans to be successful, though, Mr. Ash said, they can't just be offering carrots. They have to credibly convey to Iran that they will wield their own stick. They have to credibly convey that they will refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for real sanctions, if it is unwilling to strike a deal involving nuclear inspections in return for normalized economic relations with the West.
"Very often there is the notion that Europe is the soft cop and the U.S. is the hard cop," Mr. Ash said. "Here it must be the other way around. Europe has to talk as credibly about using economic sanctions as some in Washington have talked about using military force."
The U.S. has to help. The carrot the Iranians want for abandoning their nuclear program is not just unfettered trade with the West, but some kind of assurances that if they give up their nuclear research programs, the U.S. will agree to some kind of nonaggression accord. The Bush team has been reluctant to do this, because it wants regime change in Iran. (This is a mistake; we need to concentrate for now on changing the behavior of the Iranian regime and strengthening the reformers, and letting them handle the regime change.)
If multilateral diplomacy is to work to defuse the brewing Iran nuclear crisis, "the Europeans have to offer a more credible stick and the Americans need to offer a more credible carrot," Mr. Ash said. But the Europeans are not good at credibly threatening force.
That's why this is a serious moment. If Britain, France and Germany, which are spearheading Europe's negotiations with Iran, fail, and if the U.S. use of force in Iraq (even if it succeeds) proves way too messy, expensive and dangerous to be repeated anytime soon, where are we? Is there any other way the West can promote real reform in the Arab-Muslim world?
Yes, there is an alternative to the Euro-wimps and the neocons, and it is the "geo-greens." I am a geo-green. The geo-greens believe that, going forward, if we put all our focus on reducing the price of oil - by conservation, by developing renewable and alternative energies and by expanding nuclear power - we will force more reform than by any other strategy. You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.
By refusing to rein in U.S. energy consumption, the Bush team is not only depriving itself of the most effective lever for promoting internally driven reform in the Middle East, it is also depriving itself of any military option. As Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, points out, given today's tight oil market and current U.S. consumption patterns, any kind of U.S. strike on Iran, one of the world's major oil producers, would send the price of oil through the roof, causing real problems for our economy. "Our own energy policy has tied our hands," Mr. Haass said.
The Bush team's laudable desire to promote sustained reform in the Middle East will never succeed unless it moves from neocon to geo-green.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/opinion/30friedman.html
January 30, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Geo-Green Alternative
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Davos, Switzerland
One of the most striking things I've found in Europe these past two weeks is the absolute conviction that the Bush team is just itching to invade Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Psssssssst. Come over here. A little closer. Now listen: Don't tell the Iranians this, but the Bush team isn't going to be invading anybody. We don't have enough troops to finish the job in Iraq. Our military budget is completely maxed out. We couldn't invade Grenada today. If Iran is to forgo developing nuclear weapons, it will only be because the Europeans' diplomatic approach manages to persuade Tehran to do so.
For two years the Europeans have been telling the Bush administration that its use of force to prevent states from developing nuclear weapons has been a failure in Iraq and that the Europeans have a better way - multilateral diplomacy using carrots and sticks. Well, Europe, as we say in American baseball, "You're up."
"I think this is an absolute test case for Europe's ability to lay out its own idea for a joint agenda with the United States to deal with a problem like Iran," said the Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash, author of "Free World: America, Europe and the Surprising Future of the West." "O.K., we think bombing Iran is a bad idea. What is a good idea?" For the Europeans to be successful, though, Mr. Ash said, they can't just be offering carrots. They have to credibly convey to Iran that they will wield their own stick. They have to credibly convey that they will refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for real sanctions, if it is unwilling to strike a deal involving nuclear inspections in return for normalized economic relations with the West.
"Very often there is the notion that Europe is the soft cop and the U.S. is the hard cop," Mr. Ash said. "Here it must be the other way around. Europe has to talk as credibly about using economic sanctions as some in Washington have talked about using military force."
The U.S. has to help. The carrot the Iranians want for abandoning their nuclear program is not just unfettered trade with the West, but some kind of assurances that if they give up their nuclear research programs, the U.S. will agree to some kind of nonaggression accord. The Bush team has been reluctant to do this, because it wants regime change in Iran. (This is a mistake; we need to concentrate for now on changing the behavior of the Iranian regime and strengthening the reformers, and letting them handle the regime change.)
If multilateral diplomacy is to work to defuse the brewing Iran nuclear crisis, "the Europeans have to offer a more credible stick and the Americans need to offer a more credible carrot," Mr. Ash said. But the Europeans are not good at credibly threatening force.
That's why this is a serious moment. If Britain, France and Germany, which are spearheading Europe's negotiations with Iran, fail, and if the U.S. use of force in Iraq (even if it succeeds) proves way too messy, expensive and dangerous to be repeated anytime soon, where are we? Is there any other way the West can promote real reform in the Arab-Muslim world?
Yes, there is an alternative to the Euro-wimps and the neocons, and it is the "geo-greens." I am a geo-green. The geo-greens believe that, going forward, if we put all our focus on reducing the price of oil - by conservation, by developing renewable and alternative energies and by expanding nuclear power - we will force more reform than by any other strategy. You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.
By refusing to rein in U.S. energy consumption, the Bush team is not only depriving itself of the most effective lever for promoting internally driven reform in the Middle East, it is also depriving itself of any military option. As Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, points out, given today's tight oil market and current U.S. consumption patterns, any kind of U.S. strike on Iran, one of the world's major oil producers, would send the price of oil through the roof, causing real problems for our economy. "Our own energy policy has tied our hands," Mr. Haass said.
The Bush team's laudable desire to promote sustained reform in the Middle East will never succeed unless it moves from neocon to geo-green.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Physicists Getting Excited
I have to say I'm one of them. I'm not really well educated in the world of physics and math but I love studying, learning about and contemplating things such as cosmology (no, not cosmetology) and the origins of the universe. For anyone else that is interested in this be sure to take a look at the PBS Nova series called The Elegant Universe. This 3 part show provides an introduction to Einstein's relativity, quantum mechanics, the problems that are presented by these two theories and String theory's attempt to unify the two.
Watching this show raises more questions for me than it answers - but that's why it's fun. The questions are big ones such as: What is the universe? What is God? If there is something beyond our universe what does the universe exist within? What is bigger than the universe? These questions are ones that really make my brain start to hurt after a little while. I can only take it for so long but I enjoy it.
Watching this show raises more questions for me than it answers - but that's why it's fun. The questions are big ones such as: What is the universe? What is God? If there is something beyond our universe what does the universe exist within? What is bigger than the universe? These questions are ones that really make my brain start to hurt after a little while. I can only take it for so long but I enjoy it.
Economics, Markets and Politics
As I started reading this article I really had no idea what the author's point and political perspective was. I was pretty confused. He seemed to be spinning something that was new, at least to me, so I kept reading.
I really don't have the same level of trust in free markets and capitalism as the author. I'm a bit more skeptical. However, I have to admit that I've never really studied economics and/or it's effect on politics. I do find that authors general premise that free markets lead to free thinking and hence democracy. Sure, sometimes it takes a little while (or a long while) but there is a flow in that direction when economics are leading the way. China is no small test bed of this theory now and in the years to come.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/28wright.html
January 28, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Market Shall Set You Free
By ROBERT WRIGHT
Princeton, N.J.
LAST week President Bush again laid out a faith-based view of the world and again took heat for it. Human history, the president said in his inaugural address, "has a visible direction, set by liberty and the author of liberty." Accordingly, America will pursue "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" - and Mr. Bush has "complete confidence" of success. Critics on the left and right warned against grounding foreign policy in such naïve optimism (a world without tyrants?) and such unbounded faith.
But the problem with the speech is actually the opposite. Mr. Bush has too little hope, and too little faith. He underestimates the impetus behind freedom and so doesn't see how powerfully it imparts a "visible direction" to history. This lack of faith helps explain some of his biggest foreign policy failures and suggests that there are more to come.
Oddly, the underlying problem is that this Republican president doesn't appreciate free markets. Mr. Bush doesn't see how capitalism helps drive history toward freedom via an algorithm that for all we know is divinely designed and is in any event awesomely elegant. Namely: Capitalism's pre-eminence as a wealth generator means that every tyrant has to either embrace free markets or fall slowly into economic oblivion; but for markets to work, citizens need access to information technology and the freedom to use it - and that means having political power.
This link between economic and political liberty has been extolled by conservative thinkers for centuries, but the microelectronic age has strengthened it. Even China's deftly capitalist-yet-authoritarian government - which embraces technology while blocking Web sites and censoring chat groups - is doomed to fail in the long run. China is increasingly porous to news and ideas, and its high-tech political ferment goes beyond online debates. Last year a government official treated a blue-collar worker high-handedly in a sidewalk encounter and set off a riot - after news of the incident spread by cell phones and text messaging.
You won't hear much about such progress from neoconservatives, who prefer to stress how desperately the global fight for freedom needs American power behind it (and who last week raved about an inaugural speech that vowed to furnish this power). And, to be sure, neoconservatives can rightly point to lots of oppression and brutality in China and elsewhere - as can liberal human-rights activists. But anyone who talks as if Chinese freedom hasn't grown since China went capitalist is evincing a hazy historical memory and, however obliquely, is abetting war. Right-wing hawks thrive on depicting tyranny as a force of nature, when in fact nature is working toward its demise.
The president said last week that military force isn't the principal lever he would use to punish tyrants. But that mainly leaves economic levers, like sanctions and exclusion from the World Trade Organization. Given that involvement in the larger capitalist world is time-release poison for tyranny, impeding this involvement is an odd way to aid history's march toward freedom. Four decades of economic isolation have transformed Fidel Castro from a young, fiery dictator into an old, fiery dictator.
Economic exclusion is especially perverse in cases where inclusion could work as a carrot. Suppose, for example, that a malignant authoritarian regime was developing nuclear weapons and you might stop it by offering membership in the W.T.O. It's a twofer - you draw tyrants into a web of commerce that will ultimately spell their doom, and they pay for the privilege by disarming. What president could resist that?
Correct! President Bush is sitting on the sidelines scowling as the European Union tries to strike that very bargain with Iran.
It's possible that skepticism about the European initiative is justified - that Iran, in the end, would rather have the bomb than a seat in the W.T.O. But there's one way for the Bush administration to find out: Outline a highly intrusive arms inspection regime and say that the United States will support W.T.O. membership if the inspectors find no weapons program (or if Iran fesses up) and are allowed to set up long-term monitoring.
There are various explanations for Mr. Bush's position. Maybe some in the administration fear losing a rationale for invading Iran. Maybe the administration is ideologically opposed to arms control agreements (a strange position, post-9/11). But part of the problem seems to be that Mr. Bush doesn't grasp the liberating power of capitalism, the lethal effect of luring authoritarian regimes into the modern world of free markets and free minds.
That would help explain the amazing four-year paralysis of America's North Korea policy. Reluctant to invade, yet allergic to "rewarding" tyrants with economic incentives and international engagement, the president sat by while North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, apparently built up a nuclear arsenal. Now, with Iran no more than a few years from having the bomb, we're watching this movie again. And it may be a double feature: the inertia we saw in North Korea followed by the war we've seen in Iraq. With Iraq and Iran in flames (live, on Al Jazeera!) and Mr. Kim coolly stockpiling nukes, President Bush will have hit the axis-of-evil trifecta.
Pundits have mined Mr. Bush's inaugural address for literary antecedents - Kennedy here, Lincoln there, a trace of Truman. But some of it was pure Bill Clinton. Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton said that history was on freedom's side and stressed that freedom abroad serves America's interests. But he also saw - and explicitly articulated - something absent from Mr. Bush's inaugural vision: the tight link between economic and political liberty in the information age, the essentially redeeming effect of globalization. That's one reason Mr. Clinton defied intraparty opposition to keep commerce with China and other nations strong.
In the wake of John Kerry's defeat, Democrats have been searching for a new foreign policy vision. But Mr. Clinton laid down as solid a template for post-9/11 policy as you could expect from a pre-9/11 president.
First, fight the spread of weapons of mass destruction, which means, among other things, making arms inspections innovatively intrusive, as in the landmark Chemical Weapons Convention that President Clinton signed (and that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al., opposed). Second, pursue terrorist networks overtly and covertly (something Mr. Clinton did more aggressively than the pre-9/11 Bush administration). Third, make America liked and respected abroad (as opposed to, say, loathed and reviled). Fourth, seek lasting peace in the Middle East (something Mr. Bush keeps putting off until after the next war).
And finally, help the world mature into a comprehensive community of nations - bound by economic interdependence and a commitment to liberty, and cooperating in the global struggle against terrorism and in law enforcement generally.
But in pursuing that last goal, respect and harness the forces in your favor. Give history some guidance, but resist the flattering delusion that you're its pilot. Don't take military and economic weapons off the table, but appreciate how sparingly you can use them when the architect of history is on your side. Have a little faith.
Robert Wright, a fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values and at the New America Foundation, is the author of "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny."
I really don't have the same level of trust in free markets and capitalism as the author. I'm a bit more skeptical. However, I have to admit that I've never really studied economics and/or it's effect on politics. I do find that authors general premise that free markets lead to free thinking and hence democracy. Sure, sometimes it takes a little while (or a long while) but there is a flow in that direction when economics are leading the way. China is no small test bed of this theory now and in the years to come.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/28wright.html
January 28, 2005
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Market Shall Set You Free
By ROBERT WRIGHT
Princeton, N.J.
LAST week President Bush again laid out a faith-based view of the world and again took heat for it. Human history, the president said in his inaugural address, "has a visible direction, set by liberty and the author of liberty." Accordingly, America will pursue "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" - and Mr. Bush has "complete confidence" of success. Critics on the left and right warned against grounding foreign policy in such naïve optimism (a world without tyrants?) and such unbounded faith.
But the problem with the speech is actually the opposite. Mr. Bush has too little hope, and too little faith. He underestimates the impetus behind freedom and so doesn't see how powerfully it imparts a "visible direction" to history. This lack of faith helps explain some of his biggest foreign policy failures and suggests that there are more to come.
Oddly, the underlying problem is that this Republican president doesn't appreciate free markets. Mr. Bush doesn't see how capitalism helps drive history toward freedom via an algorithm that for all we know is divinely designed and is in any event awesomely elegant. Namely: Capitalism's pre-eminence as a wealth generator means that every tyrant has to either embrace free markets or fall slowly into economic oblivion; but for markets to work, citizens need access to information technology and the freedom to use it - and that means having political power.
This link between economic and political liberty has been extolled by conservative thinkers for centuries, but the microelectronic age has strengthened it. Even China's deftly capitalist-yet-authoritarian government - which embraces technology while blocking Web sites and censoring chat groups - is doomed to fail in the long run. China is increasingly porous to news and ideas, and its high-tech political ferment goes beyond online debates. Last year a government official treated a blue-collar worker high-handedly in a sidewalk encounter and set off a riot - after news of the incident spread by cell phones and text messaging.
You won't hear much about such progress from neoconservatives, who prefer to stress how desperately the global fight for freedom needs American power behind it (and who last week raved about an inaugural speech that vowed to furnish this power). And, to be sure, neoconservatives can rightly point to lots of oppression and brutality in China and elsewhere - as can liberal human-rights activists. But anyone who talks as if Chinese freedom hasn't grown since China went capitalist is evincing a hazy historical memory and, however obliquely, is abetting war. Right-wing hawks thrive on depicting tyranny as a force of nature, when in fact nature is working toward its demise.
The president said last week that military force isn't the principal lever he would use to punish tyrants. But that mainly leaves economic levers, like sanctions and exclusion from the World Trade Organization. Given that involvement in the larger capitalist world is time-release poison for tyranny, impeding this involvement is an odd way to aid history's march toward freedom. Four decades of economic isolation have transformed Fidel Castro from a young, fiery dictator into an old, fiery dictator.
Economic exclusion is especially perverse in cases where inclusion could work as a carrot. Suppose, for example, that a malignant authoritarian regime was developing nuclear weapons and you might stop it by offering membership in the W.T.O. It's a twofer - you draw tyrants into a web of commerce that will ultimately spell their doom, and they pay for the privilege by disarming. What president could resist that?
Correct! President Bush is sitting on the sidelines scowling as the European Union tries to strike that very bargain with Iran.
It's possible that skepticism about the European initiative is justified - that Iran, in the end, would rather have the bomb than a seat in the W.T.O. But there's one way for the Bush administration to find out: Outline a highly intrusive arms inspection regime and say that the United States will support W.T.O. membership if the inspectors find no weapons program (or if Iran fesses up) and are allowed to set up long-term monitoring.
There are various explanations for Mr. Bush's position. Maybe some in the administration fear losing a rationale for invading Iran. Maybe the administration is ideologically opposed to arms control agreements (a strange position, post-9/11). But part of the problem seems to be that Mr. Bush doesn't grasp the liberating power of capitalism, the lethal effect of luring authoritarian regimes into the modern world of free markets and free minds.
That would help explain the amazing four-year paralysis of America's North Korea policy. Reluctant to invade, yet allergic to "rewarding" tyrants with economic incentives and international engagement, the president sat by while North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, apparently built up a nuclear arsenal. Now, with Iran no more than a few years from having the bomb, we're watching this movie again. And it may be a double feature: the inertia we saw in North Korea followed by the war we've seen in Iraq. With Iraq and Iran in flames (live, on Al Jazeera!) and Mr. Kim coolly stockpiling nukes, President Bush will have hit the axis-of-evil trifecta.
Pundits have mined Mr. Bush's inaugural address for literary antecedents - Kennedy here, Lincoln there, a trace of Truman. But some of it was pure Bill Clinton. Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton said that history was on freedom's side and stressed that freedom abroad serves America's interests. But he also saw - and explicitly articulated - something absent from Mr. Bush's inaugural vision: the tight link between economic and political liberty in the information age, the essentially redeeming effect of globalization. That's one reason Mr. Clinton defied intraparty opposition to keep commerce with China and other nations strong.
In the wake of John Kerry's defeat, Democrats have been searching for a new foreign policy vision. But Mr. Clinton laid down as solid a template for post-9/11 policy as you could expect from a pre-9/11 president.
First, fight the spread of weapons of mass destruction, which means, among other things, making arms inspections innovatively intrusive, as in the landmark Chemical Weapons Convention that President Clinton signed (and that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al., opposed). Second, pursue terrorist networks overtly and covertly (something Mr. Clinton did more aggressively than the pre-9/11 Bush administration). Third, make America liked and respected abroad (as opposed to, say, loathed and reviled). Fourth, seek lasting peace in the Middle East (something Mr. Bush keeps putting off until after the next war).
And finally, help the world mature into a comprehensive community of nations - bound by economic interdependence and a commitment to liberty, and cooperating in the global struggle against terrorism and in law enforcement generally.
But in pursuing that last goal, respect and harness the forces in your favor. Give history some guidance, but resist the flattering delusion that you're its pilot. Don't take military and economic weapons off the table, but appreciate how sparingly you can use them when the architect of history is on your side. Have a little faith.
Robert Wright, a fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values and at the New America Foundation, is the author of "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny."
The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody
The article "The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody" was originally published in the NYTimes on January 11, 2005. You can see the entire article for free here.
One of the things that occurred to me while on my trip to Cancun a couple of weeks ago is how Cancun seems to cater to the tourist that wants to go on vacation and create a "secret life". This is the way I thought of it while I was in Mexico. I used terms like "other identity" and "secret self" but it's pretty much all the same thing. The same thing seems to be what Las Vegas is building it's image around - "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas." It seems that going on vacation and creating a secret life is pretty harmless and I'd agree that for the most part it is. However, problems can arise when those secret lives go against a persons core values or promises made in their other realities (usually that the traveler will return to after the vacation). I think these are the types of secret lives that the author is referring to when they say "When exposure of a secret life will destroy or forever poison the public one, people must either come clean and choose, or risk mental breakdown, many therapists say." This is the type of article that I think can make anyone reading it take a serious look at themselves and ask "what secrets am I keeping inside that are taking a little out of me each day?" It can be scary. Sometimes the secrets are kept from oneself and sometimes they are kept from a dear loved one. Being honest with yourself seems like the first step.
One of the things that occurred to me while on my trip to Cancun a couple of weeks ago is how Cancun seems to cater to the tourist that wants to go on vacation and create a "secret life". This is the way I thought of it while I was in Mexico. I used terms like "other identity" and "secret self" but it's pretty much all the same thing. The same thing seems to be what Las Vegas is building it's image around - "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas." It seems that going on vacation and creating a secret life is pretty harmless and I'd agree that for the most part it is. However, problems can arise when those secret lives go against a persons core values or promises made in their other realities (usually that the traveler will return to after the vacation). I think these are the types of secret lives that the author is referring to when they say "When exposure of a secret life will destroy or forever poison the public one, people must either come clean and choose, or risk mental breakdown, many therapists say." This is the type of article that I think can make anyone reading it take a serious look at themselves and ask "what secrets am I keeping inside that are taking a little out of me each day?" It can be scary. Sometimes the secrets are kept from oneself and sometimes they are kept from a dear loved one. Being honest with yourself seems like the first step.
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