11 September 2007
9/11: Moving from grief to remembrance
No one who was in New York City on that awful day six years ago will forget the terrorist attacks.
We will remember. We should remember.
But, with all due respect to those who lost friends and loved ones in the Twin Towers, or in the Pentagon, or aboard one of the hijacked aircraft, it is time that we as a country focus on remembrance, and not grief.
I am not Michael Bloomberg's biggest fan, although I think he's been a very competent mayor in a city that's notoriously difficult to govern. But I think he's right on the money here:
We will remember. We should remember.
But, with all due respect to those who lost friends and loved ones in the Twin Towers, or in the Pentagon, or aboard one of the hijacked aircraft, it is time that we as a country focus on remembrance, and not grief.
I am not Michael Bloomberg's biggest fan, although I think he's been a very competent mayor in a city that's notoriously difficult to govern. But I think he's right on the money here:
The planning in New York City for today’s commemoration of the 2001 terror attack had become a seemingly familiar standoff.Bloomberg Tries to Move the City Beyond 9/11 Grief (New York Times, 11 September 2007)
On one side was a vocal core of victims’ relatives threatening to hold their own event because the ceremony would, for the first time, take place not at ground zero but across the street, at Zuccotti Park. On the other, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, accused by the relatives of insensitivity, was holding firm that it was unsafe to allow mourners at what was now an active construction site.
The mayor and the families agreed to a compromise: the ceremony would be held at the park but relatives would still be allowed to descend to the pit where their loved ones perished.
When he took over as mayor in 2002, Mr. Bloomberg threw himself into fixing the many pressing problems wrought by the terror attack: shoring up the security of a city suddenly at the center of a bull’s-eye; closing the gaping hole in the midst of Lower Manhattan; bolstering a sinking economy suffering the loss of thousands of jobs.
But the mayor has also played an essential if more subtle role in nudging the city to gradually let go of its grief. It is a challenge the mayor has handled sometimes clumsily and sometimes with great sensitivity and eloquence, as he charted the path away from the concrete events of 2001. Now, as he works to imbue the city with optimism for the future, he even hints at a day when remembering may not mean reading the names of all the dead.
“You’re going to have to change to keep it relevant,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference yesterday when asked about the fact that one television network had originally planned not to broadcast the entire ceremony, which exceeds four hours. “I’ve never been a believer that doing the same thing every time is the best way to accomplish anything.”
Like a squid spraying ink, and for the same reason
Frightened companies disperse FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) when threatened. Here's what Microsoft said yesterday, on the occasion of Google's announcement that major consulting and outsourcing firm Capgemini would start selling Google Apps to their customer base:
The marketplace already understands "Software as a Service," where the provider maintains all infrastructure and rents you the applications, even if Microsoft pretends not to.
These are early days yet, but this model is going to succeed in a big way.
Microsoft also suggested a list of “top questions that enterprises should ask when considering the switch to [Google Apps Premier Edition]...And now you've had your irony supplement for the day. :-)
[...]
2. Google has a history of releasing incomplete products, calling them beta software, and issuing updates on a “known only to Google” schedule – this flies in the face of what enterprises want and need in their technology partners – what is Google doing that indicates they are in lock step with customer needs?
3. Google touts the low cost of their apps –not only price but the absence of need for hardware, storage or maintenance for Google Apps. BUT if GAPE is indeed a complement to MSFT Office, the costs actually become greater for a company as they now have two IT systems to run and manage and maintain. Doesn’t this result in increased complexity and increased costs?
The marketplace already understands "Software as a Service," where the provider maintains all infrastructure and rents you the applications, even if Microsoft pretends not to.
These are early days yet, but this model is going to succeed in a big way.
09 September 2007
Memories of The Frog and Nightgown
Over at The News and Observer's web site, there are some very nice reminiscences of the time that North Carolina-born Thelonious Monk did a ten-day stand at The Frog and Nightgown, a jazz club in Raleigh, NC. (See also critic Bill Morrison's thoughtful contemporaneous review; he might not have liked the performance much, but it wasn't because he didn't get it or wasn't thinking about it.)
Raleigh, and the metro area surrounding it, feels more and more like a "real city" to this adopted New Yorker these days. I spend one week a month in Raleigh and the rest of the time in Manhattan for the most part, so I get to make the side-by-side comparison on a frequent basis.
But when I was growing up there in the 60s and 70s, Raleigh was a sleepy, small Southern city of no particular distinction, certainly not in the area of restaurants and nightclubs... or anything else, really.
It was Mayberry, with more stoplights.
But there were, you know, pockets of interest.
The universities in the area, the seat of state government, and the nascent industries and research centers coming into nearby Research Triangle Park brought a lot of intellectual types into the region, and so you got interesting little epiphenomena like "The Frog."
"The Frog" was the Frog and Nightgown jazz club and restaurant, which, for the length of its run (it was, if memory serves, open for about a decade... from the late 60s to the late 70s) was the only club regularly booking major jazz acts in the latitudes between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta.
I was more interested in Captain Kangaroo and Sesame Street than jazz during the Frog's glory years, and it was long closed by the early 80s, when I started tuning in Gary Shivers' jazz radio broadcasts on WUNC-FM and began what would be a lifelong love affair with this music... or by the late 80s, when I was old enough to go drinking in jazz clubs.
But I still have my own personal memory of The Frog, and it's a pretty cool one.
My buddy Eric--we were elementary school classmates--had a birthday coming up. Even in elementary school you could tell Eric was going to be--was already--a gifted musician; he was a piano prodigy. And his parents, who were scientists working in nearby RTP, saw a rare opportunity to give him a really special birthday party.
Believe it or not, they bravely took a bunch of eight year-old kids to an all-ages matinee show at The Frog and Nightgown, and introduced us all to Dizzy Gillespie.
If John Birks Gillespie was surprised to see a table full of children in party hats at a jazz club, he certainly didn't let on. During a break between sets Mr. Gillespie came over to meet and greet us, and even put his finger to his lips and puffed out his massive cheeks for comic effect; later, I recall the band gamely attacking "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with a bop accent, to demonstrate some rudimentary concepts around jazz improvisation to the table with the cake and ice cream.
Despite being gravely informed of the importance of the man we were going to hear, I didn't really get it at the time, of course. I was *eight*.
But you know something? I remember shaking the man's hand.
If you shook hands with Mozart, you'd remember that too.
Raleigh, and the metro area surrounding it, feels more and more like a "real city" to this adopted New Yorker these days. I spend one week a month in Raleigh and the rest of the time in Manhattan for the most part, so I get to make the side-by-side comparison on a frequent basis.
But when I was growing up there in the 60s and 70s, Raleigh was a sleepy, small Southern city of no particular distinction, certainly not in the area of restaurants and nightclubs... or anything else, really.
It was Mayberry, with more stoplights.
But there were, you know, pockets of interest.
The universities in the area, the seat of state government, and the nascent industries and research centers coming into nearby Research Triangle Park brought a lot of intellectual types into the region, and so you got interesting little epiphenomena like "The Frog."
"The Frog" was the Frog and Nightgown jazz club and restaurant, which, for the length of its run (it was, if memory serves, open for about a decade... from the late 60s to the late 70s) was the only club regularly booking major jazz acts in the latitudes between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta.
I was more interested in Captain Kangaroo and Sesame Street than jazz during the Frog's glory years, and it was long closed by the early 80s, when I started tuning in Gary Shivers' jazz radio broadcasts on WUNC-FM and began what would be a lifelong love affair with this music... or by the late 80s, when I was old enough to go drinking in jazz clubs.
But I still have my own personal memory of The Frog, and it's a pretty cool one.
My buddy Eric--we were elementary school classmates--had a birthday coming up. Even in elementary school you could tell Eric was going to be--was already--a gifted musician; he was a piano prodigy. And his parents, who were scientists working in nearby RTP, saw a rare opportunity to give him a really special birthday party.
Believe it or not, they bravely took a bunch of eight year-old kids to an all-ages matinee show at The Frog and Nightgown, and introduced us all to Dizzy Gillespie.
If John Birks Gillespie was surprised to see a table full of children in party hats at a jazz club, he certainly didn't let on. During a break between sets Mr. Gillespie came over to meet and greet us, and even put his finger to his lips and puffed out his massive cheeks for comic effect; later, I recall the band gamely attacking "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with a bop accent, to demonstrate some rudimentary concepts around jazz improvisation to the table with the cake and ice cream.
Despite being gravely informed of the importance of the man we were going to hear, I didn't really get it at the time, of course. I was *eight*.
But you know something? I remember shaking the man's hand.
If you shook hands with Mozart, you'd remember that too.
08 September 2007
In memory of Madeleine L'Engle
It's been a hell of a week, and I'm just catching up on the news and my blog-reading.
Saw over at Chap's place that Madeleine L'Engle had died, and this morning there's an obituary in the New York Times.
The obituary is good and complete, but I like the personal remembrance that Chap pointed to much better.
Aside from the good experiences I had as a child reading her intelligent, speculative fiction, Ms. L'Engle wrote me a short, kind note when I sent her a fan letter, giving me some really good advice.
It didn't come with cookies or an autographed copy of her book... but then, I wasn't a neighbor like JPod.
Saw over at Chap's place that Madeleine L'Engle had died, and this morning there's an obituary in the New York Times.
The obituary is good and complete, but I like the personal remembrance that Chap pointed to much better.
Aside from the good experiences I had as a child reading her intelligent, speculative fiction, Ms. L'Engle wrote me a short, kind note when I sent her a fan letter, giving me some really good advice.
It didn't come with cookies or an autographed copy of her book... but then, I wasn't a neighbor like JPod.
Who can fight will fight, who must leave will leave
Ahmed, who has a Shiite father and a Sunni mother, considers himself a secular Shiite, and, in his view, the religious militias want to force people like him out of Baghdad. “Americans are the safe house for the whole situation in Iraq,” he said. “Once they say they are going to withdraw, the whole country will become a hell.” He went on, “I imagine that no Sunnis will be in Baghdad at all. Baghdad will be only for the Shiite man with the long beard and black imama—the turban. The Americans are representing the taboos, just like ‘Lord of the Flies.’ I imagine the Shiites will be just like that if the Americans have to withdraw. Who can fight will fight, who must leave will leave.” He added, “Those who are weak, who are trying to avoid the savagery, those who are at the edge of being eaten by the Shiite specifically—that will be the end point, that will be their doomsday. The plan, as we hear it, is to make Baghdad empty of Sunnis.”Planning for Defeat: How should we withdraw from Iraq? (The New Yorker, September 17, 2007)
This week, Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador in Baghdad, and General David Petraeus, the commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, will give their assessment of the surge to Congress—an event that, in Washington, has taken on the aura of a make-or-break moment for the Administration’s policy. But their testimony is likely to be unremarkable. Administration officials, military officers, and members of Congress described their expectations of it in strikingly similar terms, and a few said that they could write it in advance: military progress, a political stalemate among Iraqis, more time needed.
The Petraeus-Crocker testimony is the kind of short-lived event on which the Administration has relied to shore up support for the war: the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s capture, the transfer of sovereignty, the three rounds of voting, the Plan for Victory, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Every new milestone, however illusory, allows the Administration to avoid thinking ahead, to the years when the mistakes of Iraq will continue to haunt the U.S.
07 September 2007
Politics has jacked itself up to my level of weirdness
The future is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can imagine.
Professional author and amateur futurist William Gibson ruminates a bit, on the occasion of the publication of his new novel (set in the recent past) called Spook Country:
Professional author and amateur futurist William Gibson ruminates a bit, on the occasion of the publication of his new novel (set in the recent past) called Spook Country:
"Politics has, like, jacked itself up to my level of weirdness," Gibson acknowledges. "I can work with this," he says, thinking of recent turns of events. "I like the sheer sort of neo-Stalinist denial of reality. That's what makes it work. It's interesting. I'd like to see it get less interesting. But I don't know that it necessarily will."[...]
"If I had gone to Ace Books in 1981 and pitched a novel set in a world with a sexually contagious disease that destroys the human immune system and that is raging across most of the world -- particularly badly in Africa -- they might have said, 'Not bad. A little toasty. That's kind of interesting.'
"But I'd say -- ' But wait! Also, the internal combustion engine and everything else we've been doing that forces carbon into the atmosphere has thrown the climate out of whack with possibly terminal and catastrophic results.' And they'd say, 'You've already got this thing you call AIDS. Let's not --'
"And I'd say, ' But wait! Islamic terrorists from the Middle East have hijacked airplanes and flown them into the World Trade Center.' Not only would they not go for it, they probably would have called security."
"Through the Looking Glass": William Gibson, interviewed in The Washington Post (September 6, 2007)
Sybarite, voluptuary, hedonist
Main Entry: vo·lup·tu·ary 
Pronunciation: v&-'l&p(t)-sh&-"wer-E
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ar·ies
a person whose chief interests are luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites
- voluptuary adjective
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
How a cat welcomes you home after you've been gone for a while: he naps on your pillows, even though, strictly speaking, they're not in the direct path of the incoming sunbeam.
Closeup view.
See more bloggers' pets at The Modulator's Friday Ark; this Sunday, the Carnival of the Cats is hosted by Mind of Mog.
Pronunciation: v&-'l&p(t)-sh&-"wer-E
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ar·ies
a person whose chief interests are luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites
- voluptuary adjective
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
How a cat welcomes you home after you've been gone for a while: he naps on your pillows, even though, strictly speaking, they're not in the direct path of the incoming sunbeam.
Closeup view.
See more bloggers' pets at The Modulator's Friday Ark; this Sunday, the Carnival of the Cats is hosted by Mind of Mog.
06 September 2007
Thanks, Steve
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs this afternoon responded to a flood of complaints from existing iPhone owners over yesterday's $200 price cut by promising the company would issue a $100 credit to anyone who bought an iPhone before the change.Jobs apologizes for iPhone price cut; Apple to issue $100 credit (Computerworld)"I have received hundreds of e-mails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale," Jobs said in a statement posted to the Apple Web site.
Michael Lewis explains it all for you
The subprime mortgage / credit market mess, broken down for you by Michael Lewis at Bloomberg.com:
This is what happens when you lend money to poor people.
This is way too good to excerpt. Go read the whole thing.
Oh, okay... *one* little excerpt:
This is what happens when you lend money to poor people.
This is way too good to excerpt. Go read the whole thing.
Oh, okay... *one* little excerpt:
Call me a romantic: I want everyone to have a shot at the American dream. Even people who haven't earned it. I did everything I could so that these schlubs could at least own their own place. The media is now making my generosity out to be some kind of scandal. Teaser rates weren't a scandal. Teaser rates were a sign of misplaced trust: I trusted these people to get their teams of lawyers to vet anything before they signed it. Turns out, if you're poor, you don't need to pay lawyers. You don't like the deal you just wave your hands in the air and moan about how poor you are. Then you default.A Wall Street Trader Draws Some Subprime Lessons: Michael Lewis (Bloomberg.com)
05 September 2007
Meet the Geek Marketers
In my Advertising Age column this week I wrote about a new career path I see emerging. It exists both in PR/advertising agencies and on the client side as well - The Geek Marketer.(Micro Persuasion: The Geek Marketer, September 4, 2007)My thesis is this: it's very difficult for anyone in marketing to keep up with all the twists the digital space because technology changes so darn fast. It's like chasing a cheetah. Most marketers - be they clients or agency side - are heads-down running their business. Therefore, companies are creating a new role. They're hiring people who act as translators between the ultra geeks and the marketers, if you will, and shepherd the development of pilot programs...
...These cross-trained specialists are fluent in both worlds and bridge them. They are marketers by trade, yet they also have a hard-core interest in technology and social anthropology. As curious individuals, they are constantly studying how digital advances are changing our culture and media. Armed with these insights, they regularly apply them in a marketing context by working closely with brand teams to codify new best practices.
I think blogger Steve Rubel is on to something here, and not solely because he's just neatly summarized important aspects of my job description. :-)
There has always been money in being the resident geek-to-suit translator, especially in the IT business. I concur that it's the *pace* of change that is now driving this to the fore.
01 September 2007
Singapore's Lion, in winter
The "benevolent despot" - an autocratic ruler who governs with an iron hand, ruthlessly suppresses opposition, but primarily makes decisions on the basis of what's good for the polity he governs and the citizens who inhabit it - is mostly a theoretical construct of political science textbooks and dorm room bull sessions.
Historical examples of benevolent despots, in other words, are mighty hard to come by. Human nature makes them rare birds indeed.
Here, arguably, is one.
Related: Excerpts from an interview with Lee Kuan Yew (International Herald Tribune, 29 August 2007)
Historical examples of benevolent despots, in other words, are mighty hard to come by. Human nature makes them rare birds indeed.
Here, arguably, is one.
Lee Kuan Yew, who turned a malarial island into a modern financial center with a first-world skyline, is peering ahead again into this city-state’s future, this time with an idea to seal it off with dikes against the rising tides of global warming.Modern Singapore’s Creator Is Alert to Perils (New York Times, 1 September 2007)
“Let’s start thinking about it now,” he said during an interview in late August, in what could be the motto for a lifetime of nation building. Ever since Singapore’s difficult birth in 1965, when it was expelled from Malaysia, he said, the country has struggled to stay alive in a sea of economic and political forces beyond its control.
“If the water goes up by three, four, five meters, what will happen to us?” he said, laughing. “Half of Singapore will disappear.”
Related: Excerpts from an interview with Lee Kuan Yew (International Herald Tribune, 29 August 2007)
RootDownFM.com - Great, independent Net.Radio
The powers that be are doing the best they can to shut down independent programming on the Internet.
I'm pleased to report that there's a new option for lovers of the kind of music you don't hear on the FCC-regulated radio airwaves: RootDownFM.com, a subscription-only service that plays "jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul, latin, reggae, afrobeat, leftfield, downtempo and beats."
For the record, this blog has no affiliation with RootDownFM, aside from the fact that your correspondent is a delighted, early subscriber... and we get nothing out of our suggestion that you sign up, other than the satisfaction of potentially steering some readers to an ever-changing collection of excellent music, curated by music lovers for music lovers.
RootDownFM.com
I'm pleased to report that there's a new option for lovers of the kind of music you don't hear on the FCC-regulated radio airwaves: RootDownFM.com, a subscription-only service that plays "jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul, latin, reggae, afrobeat, leftfield, downtempo and beats."
Let's put that $7.50 a month in perspective: for less than the cost of a CD, or eight downloads from iTunes, or a movie ticket, or a couple of fancy crappucinos at a franchised coffee bar, you can have 24/7 high-quality streaming audio coming into your office or home for a full month, and discover artists new and old that you probably haven't heard before.RootDown FM is a subscriber-only, internet radio station, streaming live 24/7. Subscription is the only way we can cover costs and keep our playlist as freeform and funky as our listeners like it (check our Music Policy) and ad-free.
Subscriptions cost just US$7.50 per month and we are offering a 3 day Free Trial for a limited period only!
For the record, this blog has no affiliation with RootDownFM, aside from the fact that your correspondent is a delighted, early subscriber... and we get nothing out of our suggestion that you sign up, other than the satisfaction of potentially steering some readers to an ever-changing collection of excellent music, curated by music lovers for music lovers.
RootDownFM.com
Tierney: Dispatches from the War on Drugs
I recommend a couple of articles chronicling the unintended consequences of the war on drugs. One, by Ethan Nadelmann, is a global look at the damage done by prohibitionist policies. The other, by Radley Balko, is a look at a doctor convicted for prescribing opioids — and this case is in some ways more troubling than the Hurwitz case that I’ve been writing about.John Tierney: Dispatches from the War on Drugs (TierneyLab Blog, New York Times, 31 Aug 2007)
References:
Unsafe at any valuation
Bloomberg.com: Unsafe at Any Rating, CDO Speeds to CCC From AAA: Mark GilbertWatching the rating cuts trickle out of the derivatives forest is akin to searching for elephant dung on a path to try and work out how many pachyderms are in the jungle. There's clearly a herd in there. And it's probably much bigger than the ordure you have seen so far would suggest.
[...]
Here's what is most worrying about the coming flood of downgrades and defaults. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how the biggest brokerage firms priced securities caught up in the subprime meltdown as their values collapsed. My colleague Jonathan Weil last week detailed some of the accounting shenanigans that accompany how banks measure the "fair value'' of their assets.
What happens if the SEC discovers that different units of a single bank assign different values to identical securities? That seems like a viable scenario for what might happen when a complex market of infrequently traded securities whose prices are dependent on a series of assumptions hits trouble.
And what happens if the SEC finds that banks marked the securities they owned at high prices, while attributing much lower values to identical securities offered by their hedge-fund clients as collateral? Again, that seems like a plausible strategy for a bank concerned about the longevity and liquidity of its customers.
Suppose regulators decide to play hardball on how the financial community marks to market, imposing rules that outlaw the existing freewheeling approach to how over-the-counter derivatives are assayed.Moreover, suppose those new decrees come just as much of the underlying collateral is so tarnished as to be almost worthless compared with its initial valuation.
The ensuing carnage in the balance sheets of every financial-services company in the world would dwarf the damage wrought in the securities industry by the subprime crisis so far.
via pmarca
Zombie customer service surveys
You'll never guess what was in my inbox this morning...
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear...
A customer service survey from my old Internet telephony provider, Sunrocket, which suddenly (and without warning) shut down in mid-July of this year.
Clearly, this survey was paid for, and programmed, well in advance... and just as clearly, the shutdown of Sunrocket as a going concern has been about as orderly as you'd expect, based on the standards of public behavior they've already demonstrated.
I had fun filling out the survey.
Why I'm no longer using Sunrocket, in my own words
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear...
A customer service survey from my old Internet telephony provider, Sunrocket, which suddenly (and without warning) shut down in mid-July of this year.
Clearly, this survey was paid for, and programmed, well in advance... and just as clearly, the shutdown of Sunrocket as a going concern has been about as orderly as you'd expect, based on the standards of public behavior they've already demonstrated.
I had fun filling out the survey.
Why I'm no longer using Sunrocket, in my own words
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