Mark Polizzotti on Alice Goldfarb Marquis' The Pop Revolution

Alice Goldfarb Marquis' last book has been published posthumously by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Her editor wrote about it on Artbook:

In my ten years at the MFA, I’ve been fortunate to enjoy an administrative climate that supports broadening our program beyond traditional notions of “museum publications.” One way we’ve tried to do this is to feature works on our list that can appeal to curious but non-specialized audiences, the same audiences courted by such quality-minded publishers as Knopf, Norton, or Farrar, Straus & Giroux. And I can think of few better examples of such works than Alice Goldfarb Marquis’ The Pop Revolution.

To my mind, Alice’s books epitomize what the “trade” side of our list (for lack of a better term) is seeking to accomplish. An independent historian and onetime journalist, she brings to the table a profound interest in artistic creation, a real-world appreciation of the marketplace in which these creations circulate, a reporter’s keen nose for The Story, and a seemingly inborn ability to convey it all with unflagging panache. Her first two books with MFA, Marcel Duchamp: The Bachelor Stripped Bare (2002) and Art Czar: The Rise and Fall of Clement Greenberg (2005), both earned extensive kudos for precisely those reasons. Similarly, The Pop Revolution, even in advance of its April 2010 publication, has garnered enthusiastic comments from the likes of philosopher of art Arthur C. Danto (who called it “the best account I have yet read of the New York art world in the sixties”), art dealer Ivan Karp (“engrossing and exuberant”), critic Peter Plagens and artist Charles Hinman.

But beyond my absolute agreement with these authoritative supporters, I have personal reasons for spotlighting this book. In the ten years of our collaboration, Alice and I established one of those gratifying author-editor rapports that make this business worthwhile. In a sense, we grew up together at the MFA, for she was my author virtually from the moment I started here—indeed, I arrived with the Duchamp manuscript in my briefcase. Our phone chats (since she lived in California, face-to-face meetings were rare) ranged from manuscript conferences to Surrealist trivia to real estate woes to her ever-expanding and unapologetic collection of outlandish sneakers. Though I probably shouldn’t admit it, I always had the sense that, of all her books, The Pop Revolution was closest to her heart, the one she’d been prepping for since she first began writing and on which she lavished the most care and anxiety. It was many years in the making and it went through its share of false starts, revisions, and back-to-the-drawing-board redrafts before settling into its beautifully realized voice. Little wonder that the final chapter, when she delivered it, was accompanied by a note that read simply, “Breathing, at last, in La Jolla."

Sadly, that was the last note I received from Alice. A few weeks later, even as I was getting ready to send back my editorial comments, she was hospitalized for what I later learned was inoperable cancer. She passed away soon afterward at the age of 79, the editorial remarks unsent and the book’s completion uncelebrated.

You can buy a copy at Amazon.com: More on Alice Marquis in this email from Blair Tindall:

Dear Dr. Jarvik: I just read, on your blog, that Alice had died. I knew she was ill, and I wish I'd checked in sooner.

She was an inspiration to me, and she was integral -- to say the least -- in research for my first book. I met her first in NYC while finishing it, and later in San Diego when I had moved to the area. I was impressed not only by her scholarship and writing, but by her friendship and business sense.

Thanks for writing such a beautiful post in her memory. I am sure her son is grateful. Ever since I first encountered her research on arts policy, I have been dumbfounded that she was not recognized as the maverick she was. I guess it's a testament to how "buried in the sand" arts administrators have become in the name of their salaries. But I could go on and on...

..In any case, your remembrance made my heart sing. Thanks for taking the time and thought to do it.

Warmly,
Blair Tindall
--author, "Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music" (Grove/Atlantic Press, 2006; US, UK, Korea, Turkey, Japan, Portugal)
www.blairtindall.com

Michael J. Lewis of The Wall Street Journal reviewed Alice's book favorably in May (I must have been on my walking tour of Dartmoor and Exmoor). Here's an excerpt:

For Ms. Marquis the key figure is Leo Castelli, the upstart New York dealer who specialized in Pop artists, in contrast to Sidney Janis, who showed the leading Abstract Expressionists. Castelli (1907-99) was born as Leo Krausz in Trieste, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His youth was peripatetic to the extreme: study in Milan, work in the family insurance business in Bucharest and, eventually, art dealing in Paris, where he opened a gallery at the worst moment (May 1939). It was Castelli's last false step. Fleeing the Nazis, he made his way to New York, where his diminutive stature, linguistic gifts and preposterous Hapsburg courtliness made him an effective purveyor of art—especially novel contemporary work, which seemed to demand the imprimatur of an older culture, a tacit endorsement of lasting value.

Ms. Marquis, who was herself born in Germany and fled the Nazis in her childhood, brings a sensitivity to the international dimension of Pop. She shows how the term originated in England and was at first resisted by Americans (an influential exhibition in 1962 came close to permanently branding the artists "the New Realists") but how Pop gradually won acceptance, losing the angry social content of its English counterpart along the way. Ms. Marquis also shows how Castelli's ex-wife, Ilena (they divorced in 1959), worked cordially with him to establish her Sonnabend Gallery in Paris in 1962, which gave his stable of artists an overseas outlet. Without this European presence—and without Castelli's cosmopolitan roots—it is possible that one of his artists, Robert Rauschenberg, would not have won the first prize in painting at the V enice Biennale (in 1964), the first American painter to do so.

Washington Times: Peace Corps Volunteers Killed, Raped, and Robbed

After reading this account of Peace Corps horror stories, maybe they should re-brand The Peace Corps as The Crime Corps--to comply with Truth in Advertising regulations...

Investigative memos obtained by The Washington Times through an open records request detail some of the crimes that were the subject of the audit, showing a string of violence, theft and other illegal activities around the world in recent years involving Peace Corps volunteers as both perpetrators and victims.

The memos detailed 29 of the more than 40 cases that were closed last year by the inspector general's investigators. Of those 29 cases, 16 involved allegations of rape or sexual assault, two involved accidental death, one involved drug smuggling, two involved aggravated assaults, seven involved either robbery, theft or embezzlement, and one involved the misuse of government funds.

Perhaps the most alarming threat described in the audit and the memos is the one posed to women working in countries where cultural attitudes differ from Western values. More than a third of the inspector general's office investigations closed last year dealt with rape or sexual assault in countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Mongolia.

In a 2007 case in Mongolia, a female volunteer opened her apartment door for a group of boys who forced alcohol on her and gang-raped her.

The investigative memo said the case also involved a robbery at knife point, but was complicated by the victim's acknowledgment that she once supplied her attackers with money to buy alcohol - a misdemeanor offense because the attackers were younger than 18.

Information released by the agency shows that even when a complaint triggers an investigation of a violent incident involving a Peace Corps employee or volunteer, referrals to the Justice Department for prosecution are extremely rare, with overseas court actions only slightly more frequent.

Another Israeli Anti-Jihad Video

Teshome Gabriel, 70

A friend just emailed the sad news that UCLA film and television professor Teshome Gabriel died suddenly of a heart attack on June 15th. He was one of my teachers at film school, and in addition to being an intellectual and a scholar, he was a very nice man--who always managed to be available and helpful to students. I remember talking to him over coffee, sitting outside, where he would hold court at a table for hours. His stories were always interesting, and he had a wonderful sense of humor and proportion. He will be missed.

The Los Angeles Times ran his obituary, and here is an excerpt:

Gabriel, who began as a lecturer at UCLA in 1974 and received his doctorate in film and television studies there before becoming an assistant professor in 1981, was the author of the 1982 book "Third Cinema in the Third World: The Aesthetics of Liberation."

Vinay Lal, an associate professor of history and Asian American studies at UCLA, said Gabriel was "one of the first scholars to theorize in a critical fashion about Third World cinema."

"He is a principal exponent of the idea of Third Cinema," Lal, who is on leave, said via e-mail from India. "He saw such a third cinema as a guardian of popular memory and as a source of emancipation for formerly subjugated peoples.

"While Third Cinema would develop its own conventions of narrative and style, its aesthetic had to be tied to a politics of social action. Teshome was very attentive, as a film scholar must be, to cinematic styles and conventions; but he kept very close to his heart the idea that Third World cinemas had to be true to the cultures, traditions and forms of storytelling found in those societies."

Gabriel co-edited the 1993 book "Otherness and the Media: The Ethnography of the Imagined and the Imaged" and most recently wrote the book "Third Cinema: Exploration of Nomadic Aesthetics & Narrative Communities."

His many other accomplishments included serving as editor in chief of "Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures." He also was founder and an editorial board member of Tuwaf (Light), an Ethiopian Fine Arts Journal in Amharic, from 1987 to 1991.

In his later years, Lal said, Gabriel "wrote on such things as the relationship of the Web to weaving, the idea of the nomadic (and the transgressive), and the relationship between the built form and ruins.

"He was a rare thinker, interested in allowing ideas a free play, and he never ceased to explore new forms of media as well as developments in cinema."

Gabriel was born Sept. 24, 1939, in the small town of Ticho, Ethiopia, and came to the United States in 1962.

He received a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Utah in 1967, followed by amaster's of education in educational media two years later. At UCLA, he earned a master's degree in theater arts (film/television) in 1976 and his doctorate in film and television studies in 1979.

He is survived by his wife, Maaza Woldemusie; daughter, Mediget; and son, Tsegaye.

A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Saturday at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles.

More on Teshome Gabriel at FilmStudiesforFree.

Issandr El Amran on Ian Johnson's Mosque in Munich

In the United Arab Emirate's The National:

One argument that runs through much of the book is a warning against Western engagement of Islamists, an idea popularised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks as a way to recruit “moderate” Islamists against the nihilism of salafist jihadist groups like al Qa’eda. The Brothers have actually needed no such encouragement to have a public tiff with al Qa’eda’s Ayman Zawahri, who hates the Brothers as much he does the “Crusaders”. But if Johnson makes a good point in cautioning against paying undue attention to the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe – where it is after all a vanguard group that is not necessarily representative of the European Muslim experience – he often does so for the wrong reason. A more compelling reason for governments and spies to steer clear of the manipulation of religious groups is that, as the West has learned at a great cost, it can so often backfire.

Ian Johnson: "We continue to make the same mistake..."

The author of A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West  was recently interviewed about US support for Islamists on NPR's KPCC-FM:

RAZ: How was the Munich mosque tied to the attacks of September 11, 2001?

Mr. JOHNSON: There's no direct ties. However, a couple of people who were closely linked to several attacks were active at the mosque. For example, in 1998, one of the Al-Qaida financiers was arrested while visiting people who frequented the mosque and he was extradited to the United States.

RAZ: You write that both the Bush administration and the Obama administration supported some efforts to work with and cultivate Islamist groups. How so?

Mr. JOHNSON: Shortly after 9/11, there was this desire to cut all ties with Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and even to prosecute them. The fundamental problem with that effort was that it tried to link them directly to terrorism, which is really not so much what the Muslim Brotherhood does. The Muslim Brotherhood creates the worldview that can lead to terrorism, the milieu where that can flourish.

So after these prosecutions failed, the Muslim Brotherhood reestablished itself, and by the second term of the Bush administration, there were already very clear efforts where brotherhood groups in Europe are being clearly cultivated for U.S. foreign policy aims.

So much of the rhetoric that you hear today is similar to what we were saying in the 1950s: that Islam is essentially a tool that we can use for foreign policy purposes. I think this is kind of - this is a fundamental problem in how we look at this religion. It's come back to haunt us again and again, but we continue to make the same mistake.

Worth a Detour: Norlfolk's Chrysler Museum

During a recent trip to Norfolk to visit the birthplace of the father of someone I know, we stopped by the Chrysler Museum of Art. It's terrific, and worth a visit. It's a hidden gem, with wonderful paintings, facilities, free admission, and free parking.

Walter Chrysler had a good eye (he built the Chrysler building), and the collection is magnificent. I especially liked the statues, the pre-Columbian art, and the paintings. But there's something for everyone--even Egyptian mummies!

No lines, no waiting, no tickets required. Plus the Sheraton  Hotel in Norfolk offers a weekend special--only $99 a night. We enjoyed the Victory Rover boat tour of the US Navy Base from the dock next door, it was also a lot of fun to see all the big ships and drydocks. There were plenty of restaurants downtown, too. Plus, the Ghent neighborhood is trendy and attractive.

A visiting show featuring antique furniture alongside Vermeers was also very good.

Arianna's Art World

Arianna has set up a new Huffington Post website covering the arts, so here's a link.

As a lifelong lover of the arts, and having written books on two of the greatest artists of the 20th century -- Pablo Picasso and Maria Callas -- I have from the beginning looked forward to having a HuffPost section devoted to covering music, painting, sculpture, film, photography, drama, dance, etc. So I am delighted to announce the launch of HuffPost Arts. Like all of our sections, HuffPost Arts will bring you the latest news -- in this case on all things artistic and cultural. It will also be home to a freewheeling group blog in which artists, critics, curators, and those who love the arts will sound off. And we look forward to having your active involvement with the section, sending tips, posting comments, voting on slideshows, and contributing your own stories and images. So check out HuffPost Arts. And let us know what you think.

What Does Geert Wilders Want?

Radio Netherlands published his manifesto on their website:

Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) is now a serious partner in exploratory coalition talks with the pro-business liberal VVD. As the populist party's policies are often radical, very few people would have believed until recently that this could happen.

However, the PVV went from 9 to 24 seats in the recent parliamentary elections, making it the big winner of the poll. The other big winner was the VVD, which with 31 MPs became the biggest party in parliament - giving it the initiative to form a government.

The most controversial points from the PVV election programme are listed below:

1. Law and order
Law and order is one of the main points in the party’s programme. According to the PVV, Dutch streets are being terrorised by scum, whole neighbourhoods are being taken over by criminals and ‘street terrorists’ are calling the shots. Most of these criminal elements are identified by the PVV as either Moroccans or Antilleans.
The ‘answer’:
* Ten thousand extra police officers.
* The ethnic registration of all Dutch citizens, which would include the label ‘Antillean’. Antilleans come from Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, which both form part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and their citizens are therefore issued Dutch passports).
* The deportation of Antillean criminals.
* Stripping criminals holding dual nationality of their Dutch nationality.
* High minimum sentences and severe maximum sentences; scrapping community service as a sentence.

2. Fighting Islam and mass migration
This is arguably the main point in the PVV programme, it claims the most pages in the election programme. The party argues that Islam is a totalitarian creed, geared towards dominance, violence and oppression. There is no such thing as moderate Islam, according to Geert Wilders. His party has come up with the following solutions to fight the ‘ Islamisation’ of the Netherlands:
* A full immigration ban for people from Islamic countries.
* No new mosques and the closure of all Islamic schools; a ban on burqas and the Qur’an.
* A ban on headscarves in health care, education, government institutions and subsidised organisations; and a tax on wearing headscarves (described by Mr Wilders as a 'head rag tax')
* European Union: the Netherlands should leave the EU if Turkey joins.
* Foreigners: either find a job or get out.

3. Dutch interests paramount in foreign policy
The Freedom Party writes that Dutch interests and the fight against Islam should be the key principle in Dutch foreign policy. Israel plays an important role in this fight. According to the party programme: “Israel is fighting for us. If Jerusalem falls, Athens and Rome are next. This is why Israel is the central front in the defence of the West. It is not a territorial conflict, but an ideological one; a conflict between the reason of the West and the barbarism of Islamic ideology.” the PVV has come up with the following ideas to improve Dutch foreign policy:
* Limiting development aid to emergency aid.
* Scrapping the passage on 'maintaining the international rule of law’ from the Dutch constitution.
* Reviewing Dutch participation in international treaties.
* The Dutch government referring to Jordan as 'Palestine' in future, because it has existed as an independent Palestinian state since 1946.
* Relocating the Dutch embassy from Ramat Gan to the Israeli capital: Jerusalem.

10 more main points
The Freedom Party programme has ten more main points, such as democratisation, which – mysteriously – includes a measure barring people holding dual nationally from holding government office or being elected to parliament or local councils. The PVV wants 10,000 additional workers in health care, and calls for an end to the Islamisation of care. In education, students will once again be expected to learn the national anthem, and all schools are to fly the national flag. The chapter headed “choices for a better environment” tells us that global warming is simply the latest hype which we can safely ignore, and nuclear power plants are to end our dependency on ‘fossil fuels and foreign energy’.

Non-negotiable point
Dutch politics has a tradition of coalition governments and the new cabinet will be no exception to this rule. At least three parties will be necessary to form a new government, and should the Freedom Party be one of them, the majority of the above points will not survive the coalition talks. However, this does not seem to bother Geert Wilders much. His party programme tells us, “To the PVV, safeguarding old-age pensioners’ benefits is a non-negotiable point in coalition talks. The retirement age will stay at 65, not a day older”.

After the elections however, it took Wilders just one day to drop this non-negotiable point in order to allow for a possible coalition with the conservative VVD and the Christian Democrats, both of which want to raise the legal retirement age to 67.

Scott Hodes: How to Fix FOIA

At llrx.com:

In the current Congress, there are bills pending that would create a commission to come up with ideas for faster FOIA processing. Readers of my blog know that I have been critical of this bill as yet another way to delay any FOIA reform. I've argued that there are plenty of ideas already currently floating out there. I believe taking those ideas, along with a few days of congressional oversight hearings to solicit other opinions, could give Congress plenty of fodder to create an actual bill that would implement faster FOIA processing now rather than wait for a "commission" to come up with these same ideas.

So putting my money where my mouth is, I have presented ideas to create faster FOIA processing in FOIA agencies. I've presented these in a series of four posts on my blog, but I'm condensing and updating them here in one article...

BP Oil Spill Timeline

You can view the Deepwater Horizon disaster news day-by-day, by clicking on this link to ibleedcrimsonred.com.

Mohammed Taqi on CIA Support for Islamism

Writing in Pakistan's Daily Times, he cites Ian Johnson's new book on the CIA-Nazi-Islamist nexus described in A Mosque in Munich, to support his call for a purge of the Muslim Brotherhood from Pakistani Mosques:

In his most recent interview on June 5, 2010 aired on the National Public Radio (NPR), Ian Johnson made a shocking revelation, saying: “Shortly after 9/11, there was this desire to cut all ties with Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and even to prosecute them. The fundamental problem with that effort was that it tried to link them directly to terrorism, which is really not so much what the Muslim Brotherhood does.

“The Muslim Brotherhood creates the worldview that can lead to terrorism, the milieu where that can flourish. So, after these prosecutions failed, the Muslim Brotherhood re-established itself, and by the second term of the Bush administration, there were already very clear efforts where brotherhood groups in Europe are being clearly cultivated for US foreign policy aims.

“So, much of the rhetoric that you hear today is similar to what we were saying in the 1950s: that Islam is essentially a tool that we can use for foreign policy purposes. I think this is kind of — this is a fundamental problem in how we look at this religion. It has come back to haunt us again and again, but we continue to make the same mistake.”

Considering the admixture of an aggressive political Islam, analysts unable or unwilling to propose foreign policy alternatives to reliance on Riyadh and a series of governments relying on such analysts, the perpetual US confusion about the Islamic world and its dynamics, especially the militancy, is not surprising.

Ian Johnson records that on the eve of his meeting with the Muslim Brothers, the gist of Eisenhower’s message, as reported by his aides, was: “The president thought we should do everything to emphasise the ‘holy war’ aspect.” If this is still the attitude that the US administration is going to take towards the Muslim Brotherhood, its various incarnations and its Saudi patrons, this might be the third and probably an insurmountable hurdle for everyday Muslim-Americans, before they can take back the mosque pulpit.

For more on the story, David Shribman's laudatory review in The Boston Globe can be found here.

New Israeli "Free Gaza" Video

Wall Street Journal: US-Connected Bank Implicated in Kyrgyzstan Crisis

By the Kyrgyz government, according to today's article by Alan Cullison and Kadyr Toktogulov:

Kyrgyz prosecutors want to try Maksim Bakiyev for abuse of office, misuse of government funds and money laundering, a prosecutor's spokesman said Tuesday.

While details of the charges are sketchy, one involves the younger Mr. Bakiyev's relationship with Asia Universal Bank, a Kyrgyz bank that was advised by U.S. consultants APCO Worldwide and Kroll Associates and whose board members included three former U.S. senators. Prosecutors allege that the younger Mr. Bakiyev steered to AUB part of a $300 million Russian state loan to Kyrgyzstan, and personally benefitted from it, the spokesman said.

Critics of the Kyrgyz government were suspicious of Maksim Bakiyev's relationship with AUB, which under his father's rule grew from a little-known bank to the country's most influential financial institution. AUB shuffled a large amount of money out of the country when the government collapsed. On the night of the coup, April 7, officials at AUB approved international wire transfers that they say were requested by AUB clients totalling about $170 million, or more than 10% of the country's banking assets, according to central bank officials.

Kyrgyzstan's new leaders say they suspect a chunk of that money was the plundered wealth of President Bakiyev and his inner circle. They have asked for the U.S. to help recover those funds. The U.S. Embassy in Bishkek said the U.S. is "looking into" the request. The Kyrgyz government has now nationalized AUB and is dividing it into two banks because of what the government calls an illegal acquisition.

The new government has also accused the U.S. of enriching Maksim Bakiyev through fuel supply deals. It says a fuel-supply contractor, Mina Corp., a privately-owned company based in Gibraltar, had lucrative U.S. government contracts to supply fuel to the U.S. base. The government says Mina, which is operated by a former U.S. military attaché, used smaller delivery companies, that were allegedly controlled by Maksim Bakiyev, and funneled as much as $70 million a year to them.

According to the article, the former US senators associated with the bank are Bob Dole (R., Kan.) (resigned), J. Bennett Johnston (D., La.), and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D.,Mich.).

Moscow Times: Kyrgyzstan Russian Zone of Responsibility

Writing in The Moscow Times, Fyodor Lukyanov says Russia must act in Kyrgyzstan:

The post-Soviet world is entering a dangerous new phase. The former Soviet republics have been left to cope with their problems by themselves. The regional efforts that various world powers tried to launch for various reasons in the 2000s did not work. Now it even sounds odd to speak of Russia having a zone of “privileged interests.” If anything, Russia has a “zone of responsibility.” The former Soviet republics have been left to cope with their problems by themselves. If Moscow does not find a way to respond to challenges such as Kyrgyzstan, any later claims it might make to a special role in the region will be unconvincing. It is also unlikely that any other world powers will express a desire to assume the heavy burden of responsibility for the region.

Russian TV Coverage of Kyrgyz Violence

Peace Corps Hires Kyrgyz Gunmen

According to Registan.net, the US Government's "Peace Corps" has hired Kyrgyz gunmen to protect volunteers during the current violence in Kyrgyzstan.

It seems that the Peace Corps made an excellent decision in hiring local Kyrgyz gunmen to rescue the volunteer from their besieged building, especially considering that the car was checked for Uzbeks at a roadblock. A Blackhawk full of US Marines or Rangers probably could have rescued them, but not as quietly as the locals did. That’s scary stuff, but of course almost nothing compared to what’s happening to some locals.

As I argued in my Orbis articles, NGOs and groups like the Peace Corps must inevitably wind up supporting warlords, mafia dons, and terrorists. This case is obviously neither the first, nor the last. Of course, the Kyrgyz gunmen are the ones terrorizing and killing the Uzbek minority fleeing for their lives. Your US tax dollars at work...

As I mentioned in my post about Linda Polman's new book War Games, she explains the reasons for this horrible phenomenon (even argues "humanitarian" NGOs would have paid Nazis during WWII if they operated under the same system as today) lie in the underlying immorality of NGOs and Western governments.

Meanwhile, NPR posted this account:

Over two days, ten aid workers gathered in safe houses on both sides of the conflict. When our food ran low, neighbors smuggled us bread and tea and refused to be compensated. But others sent rocks through our windows and demanded bribes. And all the while, bands of young, ethnic Kyrgyz, enraged by rumors of students having been raped, terrorized the streets around us. They ransacked Uzbek apartments. They torched markets and restaurants. They burned vehicles, piled them into barricades, and shot at those trying to escape the city. By night, gunfire and screaming mixed with thunderclaps.

Hired drivers, wearing bandanas, brandishing a hatchet and a rifle, were hired to ferry Moreno and his colleagues to an airfield. For 20 minutes – “20 long minutes,” he writes –- they idled, awaiting directions.

UPDATE: Judging from to R.B. Moreno's blog post, the Peace Corps appears to be in full cover-up mode:

Update (5:30 PM, June 15, 2010) -- The U.S. Peace Corps has requested that this post be removed until further notice.

Memo to Peace Corps HQ: That's sure making a case for transparency, open government, and the public's right to know! I wish someone in Congress would ask the Peace Corps how much they paid the Kyrgyz gunmen, and from which funding allocation the money has been taken...plus, of course, why were volunteers not pulled out before the violence erupted? Also, since R.B. Moreno was sent by the US Government to teach "journalism"...doesn't it set a bad example to make him publicly show that his dispatches are censored by the US Government? Kind of looks like the Soviet system, which we were supposedly trying to change, IMHO.

Twitter Hashtag for Journalism "Reinvention" Pow-Wow is #FTC

BTW, I'm not there, following it on Twitter, instead. After reading the list of participants, I'm glad I stayed home. IMHO, the FTC is appears unashamed to 'stack the deck' with newspaper industry and public broadcasting corporate spokesmodels...

FTC Journalism "Reinvention" Agenda for Today's National Press Club Meeting

They call it ROUNDTABLES ON THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM: How will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?(ht Adam Thierer's twitter): You can read it--and weep--here.

Russia Readying Kyrgyzstan Action

 Acccording to the London Times:

The Kremlin edged closer last night to military intervention in Kyrgyzstan as the number of people killed in ethnic violence spiralled and as many as 100,000 refugees flooded neighbouring Uzbekistan.  

An emergency meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) — the Russian-dominated group of former Soviet states — said that it was sending helicopters and lorries to help the Kyrgyz Government to quell fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that has raged for four days in southern Kyrgyzstan. At least 124 people have died and 1,500 have been wounded, although some witnesses believe the number of deaths is far higher.  

“This is extremely dangerous for this region and for this reason it is necessary to do everything possible to put an end to such acts,” President Medvedev of Russia said, after the meeting in Moscow.

Is BP British Petroleum?

Yes.

It was created by the British government specifically to serve British interests.

From the official history posted on the BP website:

Churchill was a believer. He thought Britain needed a dedicated oil supply, and he argued the case in Parliament, urging his colleagues to “look out upon the wide expanse of the oil regions of the world!” Only the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company, he said, could protect British interests.

The resolution passed resoundingly, and the UK government became a major shareholder in the company. Churchill had ended Anglo-Persian’s cash crisis, and no one had long to quietly ponder the long-term implications of a company entwining its financial interests with a political entity.

Two weeks later, an assassin killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Six weeks after that, Germany attacked France. The Great War had begun. By its end, war without oil would be unimaginable.

Despite its name, the British Petroleum brand was originally created by a German firm as a way of marketing its products in Britain. During the war, the British government seized the company’s assets, and the Public Trustee sold them to Anglo-Persian in 1917.
With that, Anglo-Persian had an instant distribution network in the UK, including 520 depots, 535 railway tank wagons, 1,102 road vehicles, four barges and 650 horses.

BTW, according to press accounts, the British government released the Pan Am 103 bomber in exchange for a BP oil deal with Libya--breaking a promise to the US government that he would never be let go. I suggest the US now ask the British to get him back and turn him over to US authorities for trial...

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal notes BP's Persian connection in today's web post.

Robert Picard: FTC Staff Wrongly Claim Newspaper Losses in Journalism "Reinvention" Document

The media economist and blogger says most newspapers still make money. So why "save" a profitable business with average margins of 12%? (ht Matt Creamer, BreakingMedia)

The FTC’s staff ignores the fact that most newspapers are profitable (the average operating profit in 2009 was 12%), but that their corporate parents are unprofitable because of high overhead costs and ill-advised debt loads taken on when advertising revenues were peaked at all time highs. It also fails to make adequate distinction between longer term trends affecting newspapers and the effects of the current recession. The staff thus blends the two together to give a skewed picture of the mid- to long-term health of the industry.

Registan.net on Kyrgyzstan Violence

Latest updates from Central Asia Watchers on Registan.net.

Meet Israel's Only Friend: Geert Wilders

From the Jerusalem Post, this interview with the Dutch MP:

Geert Wilders, who is demanding a halt to immigration from Muslim countries as the centerpiece of his campaign for the Dutch prime ministership, has hailed Israel for “fighting the jihad” and warned that “the West is next” if Israel is unsuccessful.

“Israel is the canary in the coal mine,” Wilders said in a recent telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post, ahead of Wednesday’s elections in the Netherlands. “The jihad against Israel isn’t against Israel only. It’s against the whole West.”

A year ago, Wilders’s PVV (Party for Freedom) was scoring 28 percent in opinion polls and appeared to have a realistic prospect of winning the elections. It has declined since then, however, he said, as economic issues have become increasingly dominant.

“There’s not a big chance that I’ll become prime minister,” he said.

Nonetheless, the PVV is expected to double its current nine seats in the 150-member parliament, and front-runner Mark Rutte, of the People’s Party for Freedom of Democracy (VVD), said this week that he was not ruling out Wilders’s party as a coalition partner.

Huffington Post: FTC Journalism Scheme "Preposterous"

Glad Arianna didn't drink the FTC Kool-Aid. Here's what Gary Shapiro, writing on behalf of the consumer electronics industry, had to say in the Huffington Post:

Every now and then, Washington advances a policy idea that is so preposterous one would think that medical marijuana has seeped into the corridors of our government buildings and altered our lawmaker's perceptions. A recent Federal Trade Commission proposal to save newspapers and local news providers by implementing a five percent tax on consumer electronics products, cell phones and Internet service is classic absurdity.

Would you donate nine bucks to your local newspaper when you purchase an iPod? Or, could you spare 15 dollars the next time you buy an Xbox to give to your local broadcast news station? The FTC proposal suggests the only way to save these media dinosaurs, many of which have failed to innovate for years, is to add a tax to the consumer that would flow to these media outlets.

Why are local news outlets in such dire straits? Because they let the innovation movement pass them by. Any newspaper could have gotten on board earlier and used new technologies, but they were comfortable and complacent. Most news outlets sat back and let Google, Craigslist, and other online entrepreneurs create innovations instead of innovating themselves.

So now, these news businesses want to tax America's most innovative industry in order to support its least. Put another way, they want to tax the owners and customers of the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, iPads, Androids and other digital innovators to subsidize an industry whose 2010 business plan involves cutting down trees, slathering them with ink, and hauling them around the city on trucks.

Imagine if this had occurred with other historic technology shifts. If this were the 1600s, Guttenberg would be taxed to give money to the monks. In the 1800s, Edison would be taxed to pay whale oil processors. A century ago car producers would be taxed to support horse and buggy makers...

MORE from Rob Port...bloglawonline...and econsultancy.

Arianna Huffington on Government 2.0

When it comes to information and technology, Arianna is very un-FTC, at least according to her latest post:

Watching the news, it's easy to conclude that "Yes We Can" has been replaced with, "Actually, On Second Thought... We Probably Can't." We can't plug the damn hole, we can't get rid of too-big-to-fail banks, we can't pass an adequate foreclosures bill, we can't pass an adequate jobs bill. The list goes on and on.

Nevertheless, there are reasons for optimism -- even when it comes to the way our government is being run. One of these reasons is Tim O'Reilly, the tech guru CEO of O'Reilly Media. Among other things, five years ago O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0. And now he's at the forefront of a movement to apply the concept to the way our democracy is run: Government 2.0.

I talked with O'Reilly at last week's Personal Democracy Forum in New York, a don't-miss annual gathering focused on the intersection between government and technology.

We talked about the need to create a new relationship between We the People and those we elect to represent us -- and the crucial role technology can play in it. For O'Reilly, Government 2.0 isn't about every office in D.C. having its own website and posting reams of data. It's about, as he put it in a blog post-cum-manifesto, "a new compact between government and the public, in which government puts in place mechanisms for services that are delivered not by government, but by private citizens."

It's about government as a facilitator, laying the foundation for innovation in self-governance. It's "government as a platform."

Is Bin Laden in Iran?

Al Sharq Al-Awsat says Al Qaeda might be planning its next attack with Teheran's support:

Who knows whether or not Bin Laden is actually in Iran? What’s certain – and this was previously revealed by Asharq Al-Awsat – is that some of Bin Laden’s children are in Iran and the story that is most fresh in people’s memories is that of Iman Bin Laden who left Tehran for Syria after great effort [was exerted]. Today, reports indicate that some Al Qaeda leaders have gone back to moving freely to and from Iran.

The reports indicate that Iran has begun to review its [political] calculations in anticipation of an outbreak of military confrontation with the US or Israel, or even in the case that sanctions are imposed upon it. The danger lies in the fact that this view is supported by many Arab and Western sources to whom I have spoken over the past few months; they all believe that the Iranian military threats are for media consumption whilst the real danger lies in the possibility of Iran using terrorist operations and sleeper cells here and there. This might explain some of the news reports that come out every now and then in our region about the existence of cells, or Iranian spy networks; however many Arab countries, Gulf states in particular, seek to downplay the news in order to avoid escalation with Iran.

What confirms the danger and seriousness of the situation is what an informed Iranian source told the newspaper on Thursday. The source stated that Iran actually used Al Qaeda in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as the informed source said that Tehran’s use of Al Qaeda elements “comes within the framework of Iran playing all the cards it can that could lead to harming America in the region and making it leave.” The source added, “The Iranians used Al Qaeda skillfully in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because of the current situation, it is likely that Iran will change its movements towards Al Qaeda in order to further benefit from it, perhaps in other regions.”

This matter is certainly understandable if we remember that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. However the burning question is to what extent are we prepared for all that?

Let's see, Obama's national security strategy declares that the US is at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates...so if Iran is an affiliate, what does that mean for US policy towards Teheran? Or, to put it another way, what does it mean about the credibility of announced US policies?

A Miracle in Israel: New Offshore Gas Field Holds Estimated 16 Trillion Cubic Feet

According to this AP report:

A U.S. energy company predicted last week that Israel will have enough natural gas to export to Europe and Asia from the offshore field it is developing. The Houston, Texas-based Noble Energy said the Leviathan natural gas field may hold up to 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Noble raised estimates for the neighboring Tamar field to 8.4 trillion, a 33 percent increase. The production is expected to start in 2012.

Hope it is true. IMHO, The world treats countries with oil and gas better than those without...

Daniel Pipes on Turkey

Daniel Pipes says Turkey may have overreached by sponsoring the recent Islamist flotilla attack on Israel:

If Ankara's irresponsible behavior has worrisome implications for the Middle East and Islam, it also has a mitigating aspect. Turks have been at the forefront of developing what I call Islamism 2.0, the popular, legitimate, and non-violent version of what Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden tried to achieve forcefully via Islamism 1.0. I have predicted that Erdogan's insidious form of Islamism "may threaten civilized life even more than does 1.0's brutality."

But his abandonment of earlier modesty and caution suggests that Islamists cannot help themselves, that the thuggishness inherent to Islamism must eventually emerge, that the 2.0 variant must revert to its 1.0 origins. As Martin Kramer posits, "the further Islamists are from power, the more restrained they are, as well as the reverse." This means it might be the case that Islamism presents a less formidable opponent, and for two reasons.

First, Turkey hosts the most sophisticated Islamist movement in the world, one that includes not just the AKP but the Fethullah Gülen mass movement, the Adnan Oktar propaganda machine, and more. AKP's new bellicosity has caused dissension; Gülen, for example, publicly condemned the "Free Gaza" farce, suggesting a debilitating internal battle over tactics could take place.

Second, if once only a small band of analysts recognized Erdogan's Islamist outlook, this fact has now become self-evidently obvious for the whole world to see. Erdogan has gratuitously discarded his carefully crafted image of a pro-Western "Muslim democrat," making it far easier to treat him as theTehran-Damascus ally that he is.

As Davutoglu seeks, Turkey has returned to the center of the Middle East and the umma. But it no longer deserves full NATO membership and its opposition parties deserve support.

Fox News on FTC Journalism Scheme

(ht Washington Rebel)

Charles Crawford on How WWIII Might Start

After taking a survey of current international crises, Charles Crawford explains how the current approach could lead to war:

It is not so much that any one of these problems is uncontainable. It is the fact that they come along simultaneously, creating a sense that the shared understandings and responsibilities which have kept some sense of global order since WW2 are giving way to a new 'grab what you can' attitude.

Western policy-makers in particular are paralysed, bogged down in their economic problems and unwilling to use military force since it is no longer clear (a) that Western military force can achieve victory in the sort of conflicts now breaking out in different places, and (b) what a stable outcome in any one place might look like.

Western hesitation is matched by Chinese, Russian and Indian hesitation. Those powers themselves are struggling as world markets seize up, but they see an historic opportunity for themselves to move into the philosophical space created by Western retreat.

World Wars One and Two were conflicts with global reach arising from European power-struggles. But there was at least a clear context, involving thematic rivalries in an understandable form.

World War Three is different. For the first time in centuries the USA and Europe are unable to set or even define the global agenda, and so face philosophical and psychological defeat. Other powers come to the fore, fighting and redrawing the map - and therefore the rules - as they see fit.

The turmoil is all the more dramatic and vicious for being in a sense anarchic and incoherent, even if civilisational principles are implicitly at stake.

ArsTechnica: FTC Journalism Proposals "Imbecility"

From ArsTechnica:

We get it. These aren't FTC ideas. They're only being circulated to aid discussion. But many are still bad—truly execrable stuff. Let's take a look.

Are you kidding me?

Rein in fair use. Hey, how about passing legislation "clarifying that the routine copying of original content done by a search engine in order to conduct a search (caching) is copyright infringement not protected by fair use"? This, a truly brain-dead idea, would raise "difficult questions about unintended consequences," as the FTC staff put it.

If companies don't want to be spidered by search engines, they can use robots.txt to opt out. Even the FTC staffers know this; why doesn't everyone else?

(If you want to read the original proposal, you can (PDF); it was drafted by a DC lawyer.)

Charge ISPs a monthly fee. Yes, the ideas can get worse, as evidenced by this beauty. One participant suggested:

amending the copyright laws to create a content license fee (perhaps $5.00 to $7.00) to be paid by every Internet Service Provider on each account it provides. He suggests creating a new division of the Copyright Office, which would operate under streamlined procedures and would collect and distribute these fees. Copyright owners who elect to participate would agree to periodically submit records of their digitized download records to the Copyright Office. The Copyright Office could verify these records by commissioning market-by-market sampling by organizations like Nielsen, ARB, and Comscore. He suggests these fees could provide a financial floor that allows publishers to leverage additional income, and would encourage, not discourage, the operation of market forces, and stimulate experimentation and innovation.

Did you follow that? You would pay an extra $5 a month for Internet, and that money would be divvied up to news organizations based on how frequently you visited them during the month. As a voluntary model, this is unobjectionable, especially if such media would then come free of ads; as a mandatory tax on every customer of every ISP in the country, in an era where information overload is a pressing problem, it smacks of lunacy.

According to an FTC footnote, the idea came from Stephen Nevas of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. Why does Nevas think ISPs should foot this new tax? Prepare to bang your head on the table in frustration, because this is his answer:

"Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) sell access to free content but pay nothing for the privilege. Only in rare cases do Web users pay for what they download. Just three percent pay for what they use, according to Forrester Research data."

Of course, nothing the ISPs do has any effect on whether a journalistic enterprise charges for its services, or on how those charges are implemented.

Someone stop this man from speaking about the Internet. Please.

Federalize "hot news" law. Copyright does not give news organizations any right over facts about the world, only over the specific words used to describe those facts. But because it is so easy to “free ride” on the expensive work of real journalism by sitting in a cubicle somewhere and rewriting other people's work, some states have passed "hot news" laws that give journalists a quasi-property right over their stories for a short amount of time.

One proposal would recreate this at the national level. In the current media landscape, however, this would create huge problems. Though the big players who are most likely to complain about hot news misappropriation like to play the victim (and some truly are victims), we live in a world in which major stories are routinely unearthed by bloggers and citizens and small newspapers and big players. Everyone shares, everyone copies.

As the FTC noted, "News organizations and writers, including print, broadcast, op-ed writers, and other commentators, routinely borrow from each other. One panelist suggested that '[m]uch of what is done by newspapers with each other is actually problematic under existing hot news doctrine.'"

Antitrust exemption for paywalls. It's tough to mount a paywall today; one news site can do it, but there are so many other options that it's suicide for all but the most valuable and/or niche sites. This alone would seem to show that "journalism" is not in crisis, though it's certainly changing as geographic barriers crumble and every news outlet suddenly competes with every other news outlet.

But one proposal would remove anti-collusion rules from news organizations so that they could all get together and jointly work out some kind of paywall agreement. As one backer of this idea put it, "Publishers are rightly fearful that erecting pay walls will only be effective if it can be accomplished industry-wide, and they need an exemption to accomplish these reasonable policies."

As the FTC notes, though, "more recently, it appears that industry requests for an antitrust exemption have abated."

Tax your gadgets. One suggested way to pay for news: slap a 5 percent tax on all consumer electronics and somehow pass it out to news organizations. "A 5 percent tax on consumer electronics would generate approximately $4 billion annually," says the report.

Tax your cell phone and Internet. Others suggest that "consumers could pay a small tax on their monthly ISP-cell phone bills to fund content they access on their digital services. A tax of 3 percent on the monthly fees would generate $6 billion annually. They note, however, this is the least desirable approach because demand for these services is 'elastic' and even a slight rise in price could result in people dropping the service."

UPDATE: Tim Graham's critique here. Gadgetsteria calls the FTC's proposed tax on electronic gadgets "the worst idea I've ever heard." Adam Thierer's Progress and Freedom Foundation analysis here.

Israeli "Gaza Flotilla" Video: "We Con the World..."

Jeff Jarvis on FTC "Reinvention of Journalism"

One of the first to criticize the FTC proposals has been blogger Jeff Jarvis. He posted this on his blog, BuzzMachine:

Still, it’s the document’s perspective that I find essentially corrupt: one old power structure circling its wagons around another. Change? That’s something to be resisted or thwarted, not embraced and enabled. The FTC’s mission in this administration of change — its justification for holding these hearings and doing this work — is to foster competition. Well, the internet is creating new competition in news for the first time since 1950 and the introduction of TV. But the commission focuses solely on newspapers, apologizing that it ignores broadcast — but not even apologizing for ignoring the new ecosystem of news that blogs and technology represent.

“This document will use the perspective of newspapers to exemplify the issues facing journalism as a whole,” the FTC says. And later: “[N]ewspapers have not yet found a new, sustainable business model, and there is reason for concern that such a business model may not emerge. Therefore, it is not too soon to start considering policiies that might encourage innovations to help support journalism into the future.” That is, to support newspapers’ survival. There’s the problem.

Coach John Wooden, Remembered

I received this email from UCLA:

To the Bruin Family:

With the passing of John Wooden, we have lost a true giant and a gentleman, an individual who was perhaps more closely identified with UCLA than any other person in our university’s history. Coach Wooden was an unparalleled motivator and an inspiration to people throughout the world. Those of us who were fortunate enough to meet him will forever be touched by his unfailing wisdom and generous spirit.

Coach Wooden’s record of hundreds of victories and 10 national titles established a gold standard of achievement in college athletics. Both on the court and off, he was a teacher, role model and mentor who guided his players and generations of UCLA coaches and student-athletes to become champions in life. His lasting influence has extended far beyond the campus to include leaders in academia, business and government.

The renowned Wooden Pyramid of Success–a copy of which hangs in my office–encourages us all to value cooperation, loyalty and team spirit. The Pyramid remains one of the most recognized blueprints for competitive excellence, in any pursuit.

Coach Wooden and his beloved wife, Nell, were treasured members of the UCLA family, and the Nell and John Wooden Court at Pauley Pavilion is a lasting testament to their place in our hearts.

John Wooden’s remarkable legacy will stand forever at UCLA. Today, as we mourn his loss, we also extend our deepest sympathy to his daughter, Nan, his son, James, and his entire family.

The university flag in front of Pauley Pavilion will be lowered to half-staff, and a public memorial is being planned. Please visit the UCLA homepage for further information, as well as links to news articles and remembrances of Coach Wooden.

Sincerely,

Gene D. Block
Chancellor

Comments on FTC Staff Discussion Document for "The Reinvention of Journalism"

Although the Federal Trade Commission has announced that its staff proposals to "reinvent journalism" are not proposals--in a June 4th press release--the discussion draft for "the reinvention of journalism" circulated by FTC staff certainly reads like a blueprint for legislation to subsidize the newspaper industry at the expense of bloggers, and new technology in general.

Which may be why The Washington Times (and Matt Drudge) called it "the Drudge tax."

Below are comments I submitted on Friday to the FTC website. The FTC has announced a June 15th all-day discussion session at the National Press Club that is free and open to the public.

I hope some bloggers show up...

Comments submitted to the Federal Trade Commission regarding “Federal Trade Commission Staff Discussion Draft: Potential Policy Recommendations to Support the Reinvention of Journalism.”

The FTC Staff Discussion Draft poses a danger to journalism that stems from fundamental misconceptions rooted in mistaken definitions, as well as in a misunderstanding of freedom of the press. “Freedom of the press” does not mean the establishment of special privileges and subsidies for a subset of particularly favored corporations (whether for-profit or not-for-profit) that happen to own newspapers. It means, rather, liberty for any American citizen to print anything he or she chooses.

During the 18th century, the printing press provided the only means of publication available. To share news, one took a letter from a correspondent received by post, transferred it into movable type, and printed it for distribution to the public in multiple copies. Hence, the origin of The Washington Post. Surely, no one would propose a reinvention so that only news received by mail would be considered “journalism.” Of course, newspapers have also printed dispatches from correspondents conveyed by private couriers on horseback. Although the Louisville Courier-Journal is a venerable publication, FTC staff would not argue that only dispatches delivered by Pony Express qualify as “journalism.” With the Marconi’s invention of telegraphy, correspondents could send their dispatches by wire. Since not everyone could afford a telegraph office at home, newspapers could print wire stories and distribute them economically—evidenced in The Macon Telegraph and The Nashua Telegraph. Clearly, FTC staff would not insist that stories must be distributed by Western Union to be news today. Since then, the press has evolved to include broadcast, Internet, and text messages. But the underlying principle is the same. The rights of the press are rights of the People of the United States, not a privilege of sub-group of “journalists.” As evidence, note that the term “journalism” does not appear in the First Amendment, although the word “press” does—Americans can print anything they like.

What is the etymology of “journalism?” The word “journalist” means “one who keeps a journal.” What is a journal? Historically the word means a “daily record of transactions,” or a “personal diary.” From the French root, “jour,” that is, “day.” A journalist, then, would in its most basic meaning be a diarist who lets the public read what he or she has to say, in other words—a blogger, before computers and the internet.

So then, what is the press? A means of printing those personal diaries. And who has a press? Once upon a time, only millionaires and large corporations. Today, anyone with a laser printer, an inkjet printer, a computer, a monitor, an iPhone, a mobile telephone, a Xerox machine, offset printer, or any one of a myriad of advanced technologies that have come to complement the industrial printing press—in other words, anyone who can upload content to a website.

However, these FTC proposals for revisions in copyright, antitrust, and tax law appear designed to favor printed newspapers over new media. They are backward looking, regressive, unimaginative (the FTC’s proposed tax on electronics recycles a fifty-year old proposal the Johnson administration attempted to implement for public broadcasting finance) and would serve to undermine innovation, creativity, and the public’s right to know. Indeed, they would serve to stifle the progress of science and the useful arts.

Today, in the age of the Internet, anyone and everyone can be a journalist. Anyone can print anything on the web. That is progress for freedom of the press and a boon to journalism, not reason to despair.

In privileging established or failing media corporations, many of which are in trouble not due to problems with “journalism,” but because of bad investments, speculation in real estate, or general fecklessness, the FTC staff’s draft proposal calls to mind George Amberson Minafer’s cry to passing motorists in Booth Tarkington’s classic tale of American progress, The Magnificent Ambersons:

“Get a horse!”

Like Tarkington’s protagonist, the FTC appears to consider upstart competitors such as bloggers, websites, search engines, app developers, and new media companies as “riff-raff.”

Unless they wish to meet the fate of George Amberson Minafer, old-line media companies and their FTC supporters need to embrace change, rather than erect walls of government protection, subsidy or special privilege.

For, had the FTC staff’s proposed approach been adopted at the turn of the century, the US Government would have subsidized buggy manufacturers, horsewhip vendors, blacksmiths, and ostlers—paid for by taxes on automobiles and railways; protected by antitrust exemptions; and structured as “hybrid corporations” that would never die.

“Journalism” will survive the death of newspapers and the spread of the Apple iPad, just as it did the death of the mail packet boat, the Pony Express, the Western Union telegram and spread of radio broadcasting—indeed, lower costs of production and distribution, leading to economies of scale, promise a bright future for journalism in the internet age, so long as the FTC does not crush innovation in a misguided attempt at “reinvention” that is sure to discourage imagination and talent from future development of new media.

Therefore, it is my opinion that with the exception of its well thought out proposal to maximize the accessibility of government information through improvements to the Freedom of Information Act, policy recommendations in the FTC Staff Discussion Draft would promote dangerous and negative consequences for journalism in the United States.
---
LAURENCE JARVIK is author of MASTERPIECE THEATRE AND THE POLITICS OF QUALITY (Scarecrow Press) and PBS: BEHIND THE SCREEN (Prima Publishing). He teaches at the Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School, and the University of Maryland, University College. He blogs at LaurenceJarvikOnline (http://laurencejarvikonline.blogspot.com).

George Gilder's Israel Test

A reader of this blog told me to read George Gilder's new book, The Israel Test, in order to understand what is happening with the "Gaza Flotilla." He even sent me this link to the first chapter, which one can read on Google Books. It makes for interesting reading...

Charles Crawford on How the Internet Fries Our Brains

From CharlesCrawford.biz:

The general Carr argument is that the immediacy of unlimited communication actually changes the way we think, to the extent of affecting the way our very neural circuits tick:

... fewer and fewer people are likely to be engaged in such contemplative, deep reading activities due to the highly distractive nature of the Internet and digital technologies.

“With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use,” Carr claims. “At the very least, it’s the most powerful that has come along since the book.”

The Net and multimedia “strains our cognitive abilities, diminishing our learning and weakening our understanding” ...

This piece took me to Nicholas Carr's blog Rough Type.

See eg his ideas on delinkification - cutting hyperlinks from work (such as this sentence!) to help the flow of thought and general self-discipline, or at least listing the links only at the end of the piece.

And this magnificent, elegant effort about why LP records emerged. Was it to help 'bundle' more songs on to a single disk? No:

The long-player was not, in other words, a commercial contrivance aimed at bundling together popular songs to the advantage of record companies and the disadvantage of consumers; it was a format specifically designed to provide people with a much better way to listen to recordings of classical works.

Anyway, does the Internet in fact change our brains?

Probably.

We read more, but surely we also read less systematically. We get jumpy if we have not checked our emails/texts.

I am struck by the way even serious grown-ups now think there is nothing wrong in abruptly tuning out of a conversation with the person next to them while checking some or other e-device. Go to a park or restaurant and look at people who are ostensibly together in fact ignoring each other, as they tap away on little gadgets or simply talk to people on their mobiles. The remote starts to get more 'real' or at least immediate/important than reality.

Uzbek Spiritual Leader Dies in Jerusalem, Age 61

From the Jerusalem Post:

In a small and ancient family plot attached to his ancestral home in Jerusalem’s Old City, regional Sufi leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari was laid to rest on Tuesday at age 61, after a long struggle with heart disease. He was head of the mystical Naqshabandi Holy Land Sufi Order.

A longtime proponent of nonviolence and interfaith unity, Bukhari found his inspiration in Islamic law and tradition, as well as in the writings of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

“The stronger one is the one who can absorb the violence and anger from the other and change it to love and understanding. It is not easy; it is a lot of work. But this is the real jihad,” he once told the Globaloneness Project in an interview.

His teachings and practices put him in danger and under great stress that over the years harmed his health, said Sheikh Ghassan Manasra of Nazareth, whose father heads the regional Holy Land Qadari Sufi Order.

“Sheikh Bukhari influenced lots of people, worked hard to bridge the religions and cultures; and his teaching is keeping part of the youth on the right path. We worked together for many years and succeeded many times and failed many times and decided to stay on the [path] of God to bring peace, tolerance, harmony and moderation,” he said.

“But on both sides, Jewish and Muslim, there are moderates but also extreme people, and our work was very dangerous, with a lot of pressure and stress until now, and I think this explains, in part, his heart problems.”

Netanyahu's Gaza Flotilla Statement

From the Israeli Prime Minister's Office website:

“No Love Boat”

Once again, Israel faces hypocrisy and a biased rush to judgment. I’m afraid this isn’t the first time.

Last year, Israel acted to stop Hamas from firing thousands of rockets into Israel’s towns and cities. Hamas was firing on our civilians while hiding behind civilians. And Israel went to unprecedented lengths to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties. Yet it was Israel, and not Hamas, that was accused by the UN of war crimes.

Now regrettably, the same thing appears to be happening now.

But here are the facts. Hamas is smuggling thousands of Iranian rockets, missiles and other weaponry – smuggling it into Gaza in order to fire on Israel’s cities. These missiles can reach Ashdod and Beer Sheva – these are major Israeli cities. And I regret to say that some of them can reach now Tel Aviv, and very soon, the outskirts of Jerusalem. From the information we have, the planned shipments include weapons that can reach farther, even farther and deeper into Israel.

Under international law, and under common sense and common decency, Israel has every right to interdict this weaponry and to inspect the ships that might be transporting them.

This is not a theoretical challenge or a theoretical threat. We have already interdicted vessels bound for Hezbollah, and for Hamas from Iran, containing hundreds of tons of weapons. In one ship, the Francop, we found hundreds of tons of war materiel and weapons destined for Hezbollah. In another celebrated case, the Karine A, dozens of tons of weapons were destined for Hamas by Iran via a shipment to Gaza. Israel simply cannot permit the free flow of weapons and war materials to Hamas from the sea.

I will go further than that. Israel cannot permit Iran to establish a Mediterranean port a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv and from Jerusalem. And I would go beyond that too. I say to the responsible leaders of all the nations: The international community cannot afford an Iranian port in the Mediterranean. Fifteen years ago I cautioned about an Iranian development that has come to pass – people now recognize that danger. Today I warn of this impending willingness to enable Iran to establish a naval port right next to Israel, right next to Europe. The same countries that are criticizing us today should know that they will be targeted tomorrow.

For this and for many other reasons, we have a right to inspect cargo heading into Gaza.

And here’s our policy. It's very simple: Humanitarian and other goods can go in and weapons and war materiel cannot.

And we do let civilian goods into Gaza. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Each week, an average of ten thousand tons of goods enter Gaza. There's no shortage of food. There's no shortage of medicine. There's no shortage of other goods.

On this occasion too, we made several offers – offers to deliver the goods on board the flotilla to Gaza after a security inspection. Egypt made similar offers. And these offers were rejected time and again.

So our naval personnel had no choice but to board these vessels. Now, on five of the vessels, our seamen were not met by any serious violence and as a result, there were no serious injuries aboard those ships. But on the largest ship, something very different happened.

Our naval personnel, just as they landed on the ship – you can see this in the videos – the first soldier – they were met with a vicious mob. They were stabbed, they were clubbed, they were fired upon. I talked to some of these soldiers. One was shot in the stomach, one was shot in the knee. They were going to be killed and they had to act in self-defense.

It is very clear to us that the attackers had prepared their violent action in advance. They were members of an extremist group that has supported international terrorist organizations and today support the terrorist organization called Hamas. They brought with them in advance knives, steel rods, other weapons. They chanted battle cries against the Jews. You can hear this on the tapes that have been released.

This was not a love boat. This was a hate boat. These weren't pacifists. These weren't peace activists. These were violent supporters of terrorism.

I think that the evidence that the lives of the Israeli seamen were in danger is crystal clear. If you're a fair-minded observer and you look at those videos, you know this simple truth. But I regret to say that for many in the international community, no evidence is needed. Israel is guilty until proven guilty.

Once again, Israel is told that it has a right to defend itself but is condemned every time it exercises that right. Now you know that a right that you cannot exercise is meaningless. And you know that the way we exercise it – under these conditions of duress, under the rocketing of our cities, under the impending killing of our soldiers – you know that we exercise it in a way that is commensurate with any international standard. I have spoken to leading leaders of the world, and I say the same thing today to the international community: What would you do? How would you stop thousands of rockets that are destined to attack your cities, your civilians, your children? How would your soldiers behave under similar circumstances? I think in your hearts, you all know the truth.

Israel regrets the loss of life. But we will never apologize for defending ourselves. Israel has every right to prevent deadly weapons from entering into hostile territory. And Israeli soldiers have every right to defend their lives and their country.

This may sound like an impossible plea, or an impossible request, or an impossible demand, but I make it anyway: Israel should not be held to a double standard. The Jewish state has a right to defend itself just like any other state.

Thank you.

Self-Publishing Challenges Book Industry Establishment

According to today's Wall Street Journal, authors are now able to bypass the publishing industry by selling their self-published books on Amazon.com--and the iPad looks to make electronic publishing the wave of the future:

Much as blogs have bitten into the news business and YouTube has challenged television, digital self-publishing is creating a powerful new niche in books that's threatening the traditional industry. Once derided as "vanity" titles by the publishing establishment, self-published books suddenly are able to thrive by circumventing the establishment.

"If you are an author and you want to reach a lot of readers, up until recently you were smart to sell your book to a traditional publisher, because they controlled the printing press and distribution. That is starting to change now," says Mark Coker, founder of Silicon Valley start-up Smashwords Inc., which offers an e-book publishing and distribution service.

Fueling the shift is the growing popularity of electronic books, which few people were willing to read even three years ago. Apple Inc.' s iPad and e-reading devices such as Amazon's Kindle have made buying and reading digital books easy. U.S. book sales fell 1.8% last year to $23.9 billion, but e-book sales tripled to $313 million, according to the Association of American Publishers. E-book sales could reach as high as 20% to 25% of the total book market by 2012, according to Mike Shatzkin, a publishing consultant, up from an estimated 5% to 10% today.

But some publishers say that online self-publishing and the entry of newcomers such as Amazon into the market could mark a sea change in publishing.

"It's a threat to publishers' control over authors," said Richard Nash, former publisher of Soft Skull Press who recently launched Cursor Inc., a new publishing company. "It shows best-selling authors that there are alternatives—they can hire their own publicist, their own online marketing specialist, a freelance editor, and a distribution service."

Amazon has taken an early lead, providing service tools for authors to self publish and creating an imprint last year to publish promising authors in print and online.

This month, Amazon is upping the ante, increasing the amount it pays authors to 70% of revenue, from 35%, for e-books priced from $2.99 to $9.99. A self-published author whose e-book lists for $9.99 on Amazon's Kindle e-bookstore will receive about $6.99 for each book sold. The author would net $1.75 on a similar new e-book sale by most major publishers.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I own stock in Amazon and Apple.

Federal Contracts to Go Online

(ht FOIABlog) According to a story in the Federal Times, the US Government is moving towards putting its contracts online for public inspection. Hope it leads to greater competition rather than more "off the books" shenanigans. It might also lead to less contracting and more full-time employees, not a bad way to go...

Israel Links Turkish Ship to Al Qaeda

From the Israeli Defense Force website:

In a special meeting of the Security Cabinet it was disclosed that a group of 40 people on board the Mavi Marmara with no identification papers belong to Al Qaeda. The terrorists were equipped with bullet proof vests, night-vision goggles, and weapons.

On board the Mavi Marmara ship that arrived as part of the flotilla to Gaza was a group of approximately 40 people with no identification papers, who are mercenaries belonging to the Al Qaeda terror organization. This was disclosed by the Israeli Security Cabinet, which gathered on Tuesday evening (June 1) for a special meeting.

Do I believe this? Yes.

Curiously, the recently released Obama National Security strategy declared that the US is at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates. But in this case, the US pressured Israel to release the captured Al Qaeda affiliated fighters! What kind of war is that? BTW, Hamas is also affiliated with Al Qaeda, through the Muslim Brotherhood.

So, if Obama's National Security Strategy is nothing more than lip-service, does that mean America actually has no national security strategy at all?

That would explain a lot...

More on the story at Sad Red Earth.

NGOs--The New "Merchants of Death"

Recent stories about NGO involvement in the "Gaza Flotilla" call to mind Linda Polman's new book War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times. Polman argues that so-called "humanitarians" are the new "merchants of death"--supplying warring armies with everything from tents, food and medicine to guns, grenades, and rockets in pursuit of money and power. I saw a copy of the book on sale in Daunt's bookshop on the Fulham Road in London on the day we returned to the USA. I bought it, and read it, fascinated, in a single sitting, just before news from Gaza confirmed every word Polman wrote. Her case studies are mainly in Africa, Asia, and Iraq. But the tragedy facing the Palestinians is touched upon...and the blame placed squarely where it belongs: with UNRWA and the NGOs that have turned a blind eye to murder and mayhem since 1948.

Here's what The Independent (UK) had to say:

Aid, she argues, can prolong conflicts and endanger the lives of the very people it is supposed to save. Wars attract aid, and as a rebel in the Sierra Leone countryside points out, the more violence there is, the more aid will arrive. "WAR means 'Waste All Resources'," he says. "Destroy everything. Then you people will come and fix it."

The aid industry – and it is an industry – deserves a large part of the blame for this. For decades we have been sold simple messages as if there are simple solutions. The complexities of aid have been deliberately ignored. Earlier this year, the BBC alleged that some of the money raised from Bob Geldof's Band Aid had been siphoned off by Ethiopian rebels and spent on arms. The allegation was vigorously denied, but to those who work in aid, this was not surprising. To deliver humanitarian assistance in warzones often requires making arrangements and cutting deals with armed groups. If a Congolese rebel group tells an aid agency they can deliver food in their areas only if they hand over 10 per cent to them, what should that agency do? Accept the compromise or pack up and go home? Neither option is straightforward.

This is a short book, 164 pages plus notes, and it would have benefited from a greater analysis of how aid agencies and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) have developed over the past decade. Many NGOs are no longer merely humanitarian actors. They are also advocates and campaigners. But working to save lives in a warzone while simultaneously trying to raise awareness of the causes of the conflict can lead to problems. Can the NGO working in Darfur criticise the Sudanese government which allows it to operate? Will NGO workers in Afghanistan be in danger if head office puts out a press release criticising the Taliban?

All of which has made the job of the humanitarian worker increasingly hazardous. According to Polman it has now become the fifth most-dangerous profession in the world, after lumberjack, pilot, fisherman and steelworker.

Polman has written a modern-day version of Mother Courage; a searing account of how aid can fuel the conflicts it tries to stop. But it is soured somewhat by what seems like a distaste for aid workers. With one exception, the aid workers she meets are portrayed as heartless men and women who tell disparaging jokes about the people they claim to help, while spending their evenings drinking bottles of expensive French wine and their days off playing rounds of golf.

I'm glad I bought a copy in London. For some reason, the book is not available under its British title in the USA. The American edition is titled "The Crisis Caravan," and won't be available until its September 10th release date. You can pre-order it here on Amazon.com:

Charles Crawford on the Delegitimization of Israel

From CharlesCrawford.Biz:

The main point for me is that the intellectual and political onslaught against Israel is so stunningly dishonest as to reveal that a much deeper Negotiation is going on.

Basically, almost all parts of the planet and indeed much of the chattering classes' space in the democratic West are directly or by implication supporting policies of a new Strident Irrationalism, aimed at delegitimizing not only Israel but Truth itself.

Facts in this drama count for nothing. Not the fact that if we are looking for brutal violence at sea and horrible oppression at home, North Korea leaves Israel and everywhere else on Earth far behind.

Not the fact that when Muslims are massacred almost every day they are massacred not by Israelis but by crazed Muslims.

Nor the fact that if we want to rail against crimes against humanity in the Middle East, the biggest and worst have been committed by Arab leaders against their own people.

And certainly not the fact that whereas Israel obviously operates some sort of pluralist political system, much of the Arab world is still rotten with the legacy of oppressive lumpen national socialist extremism dating back to WW2. Had the Arab world opted for pluralism and progress after the Cold War ended, the whole context for dealing with the Palestine problem would have been far easier.

Behind these malodorous hypocrisies lurks a darker force, hoping to deligitimise not only Israel but also the Holocaust and Nazi/Soviet crimes and the whole moral force of 'the West' and the Enlightenment.

This is the Negotiation of our age. Between Hope and Nihilism. Israel and the Palestinians are merely collateral damage.

Israeli Gaza Ship Commando Raid Recalls Altalena Attack

You wouldn't know it from press coverage, but Turkish, Arab and European Gaza blockade-runners got off a lot easier the other day than Jewish supporters did in 1948 trying to smuggle arms to the Irgun. Then, Ben Gurion had ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to sink the Altalena--and they did.

House to Raise BP Liability Cap to 10 Billion Dollars

From 75 million dollars.

My question to Nancy Pelosi: Why any cap at all?

Celebrating Memorial Day...

PC Magazine Grades Facebook's New Privacy Settings

Not such good grades, here:

1.) A Simplified Privacy Button On The Home Page: So-So

2.) "Just Friends" Default Setting: Fail

3.) Tighten Up Facebook Chat: Fail

4.) Offer Opt-In Incentives: Fail

5.) Streamline Account Deletion: Pass.

America's New National Security Strategy...

As released today by the White House, in this PDF file.

Ian Johnson on Barack Obama's Misguided Support for Islamists

From Foreign Policy:

In power, the Obama administration has continued its predecessor's endorsement of Islamists. In January 2009, for example, the State Department sponsored a visit of German Muslim leaders to one of the bastions of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). The German visitors were key government officials in charge of integration or recruitment of minorities into the police. One of the briefers was Jamal Barzinji, one of the triumvirate who set up a number of key Brotherhood-inspired structures in the United States.

Like many Brotherhood-related groups, IIIT faded from public view after the 9/11 attacks but has experienced a renaissance recently. IIIT had been closely associated with a raft of Islamist organizations in northern Virginia that were raided by federal agents because of their suspected ties to extremist Islam. As elsewhere, this action followed a familiar pattern. The groups in question, including IIIT, were primarily problematic for ideological reasons -- for trying to push the Brotherhood's vision of an Islamicized society, which clearly cannot work in a pluralistic culture.

But instead of being challenged on the field of ideas, where they could easily be shown to hold beliefs antithetical to democratic ideals, they were accused of supporting criminal activities and were raided. This had a double effect: It created the strange spectacle of the legal arm of the government trying desperately to prosecute these groups while, at the same time, the diplomatic arm held them up as models of integration. The failure to convict the Muslims was seen as an exoneration, almost a seal of approval.