if legitimate news only gives you the blues
and to cogitate causes distress
if crazed peroration fills you with elation
and bile never fails to impress

if your pupils dilate during civil debate
as you long for a rushian screed
and the times and the post and the bleeding heart host
are far too much trouble to read

no need to be glum, simply wriggle your thumb
as you point at the idiot box
let the clicking device transport you in a trice
to the magical land of the fox

where a mad hatter shrewd comes adroitly unglued
(though he’s trapped in falafel fixation)
while a sweaty white rabbit of opioid habit
weeps loud at the fate of the nation

where a grin and good hair keep a cat on the air
long after his claws have worn thin
where evangelic glee plus a jesus degree
will soothe your election chagrin

ah, that land of ideals where the women wear heels
and no one that you know is gay
and the problems you face disappear without trace
if to the right godhead you pray

so be of good cheer, have a (domestic) beer
as polemic lulls worry away
for the evil and lazy and thriftless and crazy
must be kept well in hand and at bay

your job may be shaky, your pulse a bit quaky
your child to the left might still stray
but if you take care to sound like papa bear
you are not one of them.

for today.

Those 267,574 people who voted “no” — which would approve the same-sex marriage law — were not dissuaded by an anti-gay coalition of conservatives and churches wielding more than $3 million, including more than $2 million from out-of-state donors, according to a report by the National Institute On Money In State Politics.

Much of the sparring over the referendum was funded on both sides by groups outside the state of Maine. Given that gay marriage has been a wedge issue for years, that’s hardly surprising. But in Maine?

Those who backed the gay marriage law ponied up 12 to 1 over donors to the anti-gay donors and had more money — $5 million. But they lost. The institute’s report, written by Tyler Evilsizer, says:

The measure pitted conservative groups and churches against gay-rights groups, a few wealthy donors, and more than 10,000 smaller donors from Maine and around the country. Question 1 attracted over $9 million, or 72 cents of every dollar raised around Maine’s seven ballot measures. [emphasis added]

But press attention, money, and political capital focused on a wedge issue to divide people of good conscience and faith and divert their attention from far more pressing matters. Maine needs more attention to the condition of its roads, bridges and airports than it does in the bedrooms of loving, consenting adults who wish to make a lifelong commitment.

The blunt end of the money hammer used in Maine against gays was primarily wielded by a group called Stand For Marriage Maine. Like all political communicators and niche interest groups these days, it has a website. But its site is notably deficient. It does not have links such as “About Us” or “Who We Are.” Such links usually provide a list of financial supporters, coalition partners, and the names and contact data for organization officers and staff. Stand For Marriage Maine does not provide such information on its website.

Wading through the organization’s press releases and media stories is needed to learn that Marc Mutty is chairman of Stand for Marriage Maine, that Scott K. Fish is communications director (releases provide a phone number) and that Bob Emrich is a member of the group’s executive committee.

That lack of clear, easy-to-find disclosure makes it difficult for those interested in the issue to find out more about the bona fides of donors and supporters who worked to repeal Maine’s gay-marriage law.

Why not explain “Who We Are”? Only conjecture is possible. It is, perhaps, easier to operate in ideological shadows. According to Mr. Evilsizer’s report, here are the principal sources of money that drove the effort to repeal gays’ right to marry in Maine. A few groups are well known outside Maine.

StandForMarriageMaine.com | $2,650,052
Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland | $553,608
Focus On The Family Maine Marriage Committee | $114,500
Family Research Council Action | $25,000
Maine Marriage PAC | $11,539
Maine Grassroots Coalition | $9,410
Marriage Matters in Maine | $2,678
Maine4Marriage | $230
Proponents’ total $3,367,018

Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, asked Maine ethics officials to investigate the organization. He said it was laundering money. His August letter

contained allegations religious organizations are hiding contributions to the Stand for Marriage Maine campaign. The letter reports how the National Organization for Marriage, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, the national office of the Knights of Columbus and Focus on the Family had contributors give the money to their organizations, and in turn gave the money to the Stand for Marriage Maine to hide the donors’ identity.

But a federal judge ruled on Oct. 29 that the “state can compel the National Organization for Marriage to disclose the identities of donors who contributed to its effort to repeal Maine’s gay-marriage law.” In that story, the Portland Press Herald said NOM — based in Washington, D.C. — had funneled $1.6 million to Stand For Marriage Maine. A resolution of the lawsuit was “months away,” the story said — well after the Nov. 3 referendum. Mr. Evilsizer’s report contains a breakdown of donors to Stand For Marriage Maine showing NOM’s $1,622,152 donation.

But his report notes that financial supporters of gay marriage in Maine “from Away” were also plentiful. Those who supported the gay-marriage law raised $5,678,579.

The Human Rights Campaign, which bills itself as “the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization,” donated $267,589 to the principal umbrella organization, No On 1 Protect Maine Equality. The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force gave $139,056. Esmond Harmsworth, a founding partner of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency in Boston and New York, gave $100,000. Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders of Boston gave $91,258.

The website of No On 1 Protect Maine Equality also has a “Who We Are” page that lists its coalition partners. Its “Contact Us” page list its physical address, mailing address, phone number and e-mail address. Its campaign manager is clearly identified as Jesse Connolly.

The gay marriage caravan now moves on, it seems, to New York state. Gov. David Patterson wants a same-sex marriage bill, passed twice in the state Assembly, on the floor of the Senate for debate on Tuesday.

And the money, both for and against, will likely move on as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

However, there’s another route to follow, although successive British governments appear unwilling to consider it. And that is to take the Commonwealth seriously. If Britain—or more specifically England (since Scotland will likely go its own way at some point), does not want a closer alliance with the European Union, and has learned (finally, we hope) that an alliance with the US is not all it’s cracked up to be, there’s a third option. And that is to become a leading presence in the Commonwealth, and, more importantly, make the Commonwealth mean something economically and geopolitically.

Just look at who’s in the Commonwealth—there are 53 countries (and you can find them all here). And they all have some relation to Britain. Yes, they were all colonies of Britain at some point (except for Mozambique, which was a Portuguese colony, actually—we’re not quite sure how it fell into Commonwealth membership). They’re all over the world. There are Commonwealth members on every single continent expect Antarctica (where the British Antarctic Territory has yet to apply for commonwealth membership—but of course it’s not a country, so it can’t). The list includes some very large countries, both geographically (Australia and Canada) and by population (India and Pakistan), and some very small ones—Samoa, Vanuatu. There are economies in various stages of development—from the very rich (Britain and Canada) to the rapidly developing (India again, Pakistan) to the very poor (Jamaica, Nauru). There are some of the most stable countries in the world, and some of the most troubled. There are some of the whitest countries in the world to some of the darkest. Some are very Christian, some are very Muslim, and are very Hindu, and some are all over the place. And the list includes some of the most complicated and interesting countries trying to work through a myriad of problems—South Africa and Pakistan, for example. And then there are the countries not there, but either who might be again (Zimbabwe, that poor country, or Fiji, suspended in September 2009), or won’t be but where the British influence is still having important ramifications (Hong Kong, which was a British colony until 1997 when its sovereignty was transferred to China).

What binds this extraordinarily diverse range of countries together? Well, obviously, they were all part of the British Empire at some time. And whatever one thinks of the Empire, you can’t deny that it was (1) big, and (2) global. The sun really didn’t set on it. In Roland Huntford’s wonderful Scott and Amundsen, about the race to the South Pole, Huntford recounts how Scott could travel from England to Antarctica without leaving the Empire at any time. And, for all the savagery with which the Empire was sustained at times, there was also a positive legacy of (often) a functioning legal infrastructure, an educational system, a civil service. These weren’t always sustained, of course, but in many places they were. And then there’s English, which everyone in the world speaks, and which usually has been ingrained in these countries as the basic language of, well, most things, including their legal and business systems. And speaking of the legal system, it’s pretty well established in most of these countries. And there’s more. If the Commonwealth were an economic bloc, it would be about the size of the US economy. And it clearly has the potential to be a formidable trading bloc—it already is, in fact, but it’s just not organized as one.

The mission statement itself is pretty vacuous, and you can tell that it’s deliberately mild:

The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 53 countries that support each other and work together towards shared goals in democracy and development.

Well, that’s certainly broad enough to pretty much include any country in the world, with some obvious exceptions. And it has a familiar ring to it—it sounds like America exporting democracy to Latin America, for example, and we know what a double-edged sword that has been over the past century and a half. But the follow-up is actually pretty direct an unambiguous:

Beyond the ties of history, language and institutions, it is the association’s values which unite its members: democracy, freedom, peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all. These values were agreed and set down by all Commonwealth Heads of Government at two of their biennial meetings (known as CHOGMs) in Singapore in 1971 and reaffirmed twenty years later in Harare.

But these are pretty strong goals if taken seriously. By and large, they are. It’s been the violations of these relatively abstract goals that have resulted in the suspension of both Zimbabwe and Fiji, and which kept South Africa excluded for decades.

I like to think of the Commonwealth as this constant flow of people, in movement constantly from one country to another, in a constant stream from one end of the globe to the other. But it clearly has London as its unofficial capital. Everyone comes here from Commonwealth countries—and the British, mainly the English, go everywhere. They’re always wandering around somewhere, either in the jungle, or some mountain in Asia somewhere, or landing in Morocco or someplace in North Africa somewhere and walking south. But it’s the in-migration that’s interesting. Anywhere you go in Britain there are a range of ethnic nationalities. I learned this from my citizenship test—while immigrants make up about 10% of the population of Britain now, they make up one third of London (although the recent spurt of growth in immigration has come from non-Commonwealth countries in Eastern Europe). So the mosaic of London is constantly enhanced by the variety of cultures and languages that meld here. And the same is true for Britain as a whole. Yes, there are parts of the country that are still classically English, and there are certainly people who resent what they perceive as the cultural intrusion—there are times when you’re painfully aware that this is indeed an island. And there are people coming to this little green island from all over, and they stay for a while—perhaps a lifetime. But many move on, or move back. And this keeps the flow going, constantly.

So this creates perhaps one of the most international cultural milieus to be found anywhere in the world. I don’t really know what’s comparable. New York is international as well, I suppose, but in a different way—people go there with the intent of staying there, or as a gateway to somewhere else in America. But there’s not that sense of permanence to the flows that characterize this intra-Commonwealth movement of people through London. Some stay, but most don’t. But this just keeps expanding a certain element of Britishness to the rest of the globe in a manner that, I think is probably unique among cultures. Yes, there’s a French sphere, but it’s largely confined to Africa. Russian influence has certainly faded the past twenty years, and that was always weird anyway. American influence is considerably more complicated—American consumerism and media appear wildly popular worldwide (or at least until the externalities catch up with us), but American notions of democracy transfer very unevenly, as we’ve seen.

Anyway, here’s my question. Is there some reason why Britain isn’t trying to make this something more of a political organization? It doesn’t appear that way. But why not? Given the apparent schizophrenia in Britain about whether or not to be more American, or whether or not to be more European—questions that won’t ever really be satisfactorily answered, at least within my lifetime—why not consider another alternative? Here’s this organization that, to varying degrees, does represent what Britain has brought to the world. Why not try to make something more of it? Why not try to establish the Commonwealth as something of a player? Here is this organization that embodies perhaps the most interesting, diverse, and yet coupled group of nations in the world, an organization that encompasses governments of countries spanning six continents, with a population of over 2.1 billion people. That’s nearly one-third of the global population. The Commonwealth is not a political organization. It’s actually something a bit weirder. But it’s also an organization which has as its specific goal the spread of democracy and human rights. Why not take this seriously?

There are lots of objections to Britain trying to make this organization “stronger”, of course. It’s not obvious that Commonwealth countries actually want something stronger, for one thing. Countries don’t get much more Republican than Australia, for example, in terms of their loathing for royalty. The notion of India and Pakistan drawing closer together seems absurd at present. Canada may, with some justification, regard their Commonwealth legacy as a cute anachronism, given its proximity to and inter-connectedness with the US. And smaller countries may resent, to varying degrees, the notion of former Colonial masters once again trying to impose economic or political measures—or even suggesting them. That Zimbabwe thing hasn’t exactly worked out. And given the range of ethnic, religious and political backgrounds of the countries, it may be patent foolishness to suggest closer integration. And while there has been some abstract discussion of a Commonwealth Free Trade Agreement, it hasn’t progressed very far. Pursuing a more commonwealth-friendly economic set of policies may find resistance from both Europe and the US, of course—but that doesn’t necessarily mean walking away from either—although it may mean some readjustment of relations with both. This may be no bad thing.

And yet, and yet…the Commonwealth does include one-third of the world’s population, who all speak the same language, and who undeniably share (for better or worse) a cultural and political legacy. Why not try to make something more of it? At the very least, it would provide an interesting diversion from the tedious arguments about whether or not Britain is part of Europe. So Happy Birthday, Commonwealth. Here’s to 60 more years.

The above stamp was issued by The Royal Mail to commemorate the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in 1977.

And now, the final Great 48 pod in our search for the greatest band of all time. Let’s head out to the Red Rocks region for a throwdown hosted by one of the most important game-changers in rock history.

• #3 Nirvana: Listen
• #8 John Mellencamp: Listen
• Los Lobos: Listen

Polls close tomorrow.

Image link: AudioHallucinations

In the introduction to Last Chance – Preserving Life on Earth, author Larry J. Schweiger, the CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, comes right out and says that he’s not trying to change minds with this book. Instead, it’s his hope that the book will motivate millions of people to transform their concerns over global warming into activism.

There are three sections to the book that can be summarized as follows. First, the latest science says that disruptions due to climate change will be worse and happen faster than the best estimates of even a couple of years ago. Second, there are a few global ecosystems that are more sensitive than even average, and there are people who don’t want you to know that and who actively work to keep you ignorant of the facts. And third, there are a few things we can do to help ourselves and the Earth.

People who are familiar with the state of climate science will not read much new in the first section of Last Chance. It briefly recounts key moments in the history of climate science – the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and it’s four Assessment Reports, the discovery of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) by Scripps Scientist Charles Keeling, the concern over climate “tipping points.” As a result of global warming, Schweiger points out that we are likely facing an irrecoverable loss in Arctic sea ice, the potential for massive methane hydrate releases, and the loss of millions of acres of forests to insects like the pine beetle and to massive drought-induced forest fires. Furthermore, Schweiger points out that the increasing global temperatures are causing massive losses in Greenland ice and, as a result, raising the global sea level.

And Schweiger supports all his claims with references to peer-reviewed papers, sections of the NASA, NOAA, and EPA websites, and media reports.

In recounting the devastation that has already happened, and thus is representative of what will likely happen in the future, Schweiger focuses on invasive species in Lake Erie and the political machinations that polar bear supporters have endured in the process of trying to get the bears listed as an Endangered Species. And he calls out to the outdoorsmen in all of us with his descriptions of changes in the life cycles of horseshoe crab, sea turtles, and pronghorn antelope, all of which are seriously threatened by global warming.

But he doesn’t stop there. Schweiger fingers journalists and the mainstream news media as being complicit in the world’s unwillingness to address global warming. He believes that advertising dollars and short-term-profit hungry media companies are making editorial decisions about what stories to run based on perceptions of whether the ensuing controversy is worth the loss of advertising revenue. In addition, Schweiger suggests that newsroom cuts to experienced journalists and expensive investigative reporters are coupling with a loss of “public interest” reporting to essentially dumb down media just as global warming is heating up to a level that calls out for experienced communicators.

Schweiger wraps up his book with a detailed call to action. Support electric cars powered over a smart grid from renewable sources of electricity. Make your homes and workplaces as energy efficient as possible. And support those politicians who act on these issues with money and your vote. Schweiger also condemns industrial farming as being destructive to the topsoil and recommends that people support local, small and mid-size farms that farm using sustainable agricultural practices that keep soil nutritious and alive. And finally, he calls for the reader to educate themselves and those around them – family, friends, coworkers, media sources, even political representatives – about the real dangers of global warming.

Last Chance isn’t a catastrophe tale, even though Schweiger makes it clear that catastrophe will very likely be in our future if we don’t address global warming. Instead, it’s a call to action for those readers who recognize how much global warming will change their lives and the lives of their descendants for many generations to come. And Schweiger provides recommended action plans to ease implementing the various recommendations that he makes throughout Last Chance.

All in all, Last Chance is a good book for those readers who are already convinced of the seriousness of global warming, want to have their understanding reinforced, and who want to take more action but don’t know how. But it’s not a book to convince anyone to do something they weren’t already inclined to do.

Like missile defense, Dead Hand, as the Russians call their Doomsday Device, exists to this day. Except theirs actually works.

If Russia clings to a Cold War mentality in other ways as well, who can blame it? The era combined the best of both worlds:
1. Stability, for those who believed in the illusion of deterrence, and. . .
2. Life on the edge, for those who knew the true extent to which the United States and the Soviet Union were actually at each other’s throats during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan administrations.

Recently discussions were held in Moscow between Russian foreign ministry officials and representatives of Global Zero, the disarmament group that comprises former heads of state, foreign ministers, defense ministers, national security advisors, and military commanders. But it turns out Russia’s not ready for a new round of disarmament talks (at least not with those out of power).

The AP reports:

[Ground Zero member Richard] Burt said Russian officials appear to be concerned that steep cuts in their nuclear arsenal will leave them vulnerable to military threats.

“There is I think a feeling in certain circles in the Russian defense establishment that their conventional forces are rundown and as a result they’re going to have to rely more on their nuclear forces,” Burt said.

Hasn’t that rationale informed many of Russia’s defense policies — as well as those of the United States at times — since the dawn of the nuclear age? According to a 2003 Nonproliferation Review article by Harold Feiveson and Ernst Jan Hogendoorn:

For Russia, the end of the Cold War did impact the country’s no-first-use policy — but in an unexpected direction. In 1993 — facing a precipitous drop in conventional military strength — Russia renounced the 1982 policy of no first use, and changed its declaratory policy to maintaining the option to use nuclear weapons against any nuclear armed aggressor, including non-nuclear states allied with a nuclear weapons state.

Today, not only is Russia dragging its feet on disarmament, but, as Simon Saradzhyan reports for Zurich’s International Relations and Security Network: [Russia's] 2000 Military Doctrine asserts that Russia “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons first “in response to large-scale aggression using conventional weapons in situations [such as] regional war.”

Not only is Russia dragging its feet on disarmament by continuing to retain the right to first use — in a regional war, no less — but, “Changes in the [follow-up] to the 2000 document include [allowing] use of nuclear weapons when repelling an aggression [in] even a local war.” Bear in mind that Russia’s “pledge to use nuclear weapons to defend itself and its allies failed to deter Russia’s foes” in the regional conflicts that it’s faced thus far in Chechnya and South Ossetia (not to mention Georgia). [Emphasis added.]

In fact, Saradzhyan quotes a retired Russian general who “argued that the new doctrine looks ‘detached from reality’.” Worst of all, he writes, “The planned expansion of the use of nuclear weapons will raise a lot of questions on how it conforms with” President Medvedev’s May 2009 commitment to Global Zero, which, five months later, looks like a passing fancy on his part.

First Strike Culpability

If you believe that nuclear weapons provide a sound deterrent, it’s likely you assume that first-strike capability is the backbone of deterrence. A policy of no-first-use would remove a weight from your pan of the scale that monitors nuclear balance and deposit it in that of your designated enemy’s. In other words, if the United States declared no-first-use, its foe might jump to the conclusion that, should push come to shove, a red carpet has been laid out for it to strike first. Since U.S. nuclear installations are prime targets, the ability of the United States to retaliate would be severely compromised.

As Feiveson and Hogendoorn explain in their Nonproliferation Review article, it was the Eisenhower administration that first adopted first-use as national security policy. One of its directives read: “In the event of hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weapons to be available for use as other munitions.” [Emphasis added.]

Here we have as clear a depiction as one could want of how the military views nuclear weapons: There’s no qualitative difference between them and conventional weapons. To the military, nuclear weapons don’t constitute a fundamental break in the weapons continuum nor do they invoke visions of the apocalypse and evoke elemental ethical questions. They’re just an inevitable development in the history of bombs. Of course, in recent years, because of the constraints on their use, the Pentagon has grown less enamored of nuclear weapons.

Forty years later, not much had changed. Of the Bush administration, the authors write: “. . . the United States was diplomatically disavowing the use of nuclear weapons except in certain extreme circumstances, and yet at the same time, hedging the disavowal to allow the greatest possible latitude for the use of nuclear weapons.”

Despite what many think, hedging doesn’t imply straddling two domains. Just the opposite in fact, it’s defined as planting a barrier to protect your own. Either way, it’s effect is to muddy the waters.

For example, does a state’s first-use policy apply only to other nuclear states, or to non-nuclear states as well? What could possibly drive a nuclear state to attack a non-nuclear state with nuclear weapons?

The nuclear state might feel that the non-nuclear state is acting with impunity because it’s protected by another nuclear state. More likely the nuclear state is operating under the assumption that the non-nuclear state is about to launch an attack with either the B or the C team of weapons of mass destruction — Biological and Chemical weapons. Never mind that, a policy of first use against WMD runs the risk of watering down the concept of deterrence by diverting it into streams other than the nuclear.

Meanwhile, above the fray — though not exactly occupying the moral high ground because it’s got nuclear weapons, too — stands China. Feiveson and Hogendoorn write:

China. . . remains the only declared nuclear weapons state that has maintained a largely unhedged no-first-use policy, and in 1995 reiterated its commitment that “China undertakes not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances.”

During the U.N. Security Council meeting on disarmament that President Obama convened in September, as the Guardian reported. . .

China pushed to have a clause included in today’s resolution calling on weapons states to emulate its own “no first use” policy, but the US has long resisted such an undertaking, reserving the right to carry out a pre-emptive strike. But Obama is pressing the Pentagon to consider radical changes to US doctrine to downgrade the role of nuclear weapons.

One would hope that our next nuclear posture review disavows first use of nuclear weapons. Unless nuclear states can shed the Cold War mentality once and for all, it’s hard to be optimistic about the long-terms prospects for disarmament.

First posted at the Faster Times.

by John Harvin

Or I did. Now I am not so sure.

I voted for Obama, defended him from the snarks of my Hillary-supporting friends, and maxed out my contribution. In Indianapolis, I walked down dim halls that smelled of vomit and urine begging sick old people to vote.

But his acceptance of the Nobel Prize has turned me off worse than a garlic-breath kiss.  I don’t care that he doesn’t deserve it. He didn’t “deserve” to be President either. (Who does?) I mind that he’s letting himself be used to bad purpose. As Meatloaf sang, “I will do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”

Scandinavia looks big on the world map, but that is an optical illusion.  It’s less than half the physical size of the largest U.S. state and Jakarta and its suburbs have a bigger population. Sweden, Denmark and Norway have armies, but only in the sense that Ivy League schools have football teams. Occasionally, they produce an Abba or an a-ha!, but most of the time they lie forgotten on the fringe of the world’s consciousness. The Prizes are poor Scandinavia’s annual chance to remind the world they’re still here. Yoo hoo. Over here! It’s me, Scandinavia. Yoo hoo!

Three of the six Prizes (counting Economics) are reasonably apolitical, or as apolitical as prizes can be. Three are not. The most radioactive is the Peace Prize, with which Norwegian bureaucrats reward sinners who have finally found salvation, like Henry Kissinger, or more commonly, indirectly scold the unrepentant.  Two foes of Iran’s Ahmadinejad have won in the last decade, and three of George W. Bush’s.  (Note: the Peace Prize is the only one of the Nobels not administered by Sweden. Why this bone got tossed to Norway has never been clear.)

I enjoyed watching the Norskis give our arrogant former president a couple of swift kicks in the shin by giving the prize to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore. But W is now a pathetic old man. While Clinton lives in Manhattan and gives speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos, W is exiled to the Dallas suburbs and his big gig since leaving office was at a church conference in Sevierville, Tennessee.  The tables at Borders are piled with books by former subordinates criticizing him. And unless the historical dictionary ends up being written by the same people who claim creationism is science, his name will likely end up as a synonym for incompetence.

For Barack Obama to hold W’s arms behind his back while Norway gets in one last kick is cheap and unnecessary.

Barry, dude. We won. If Obama was who he said he was, he’d get this. He would understand that when he steps onto that podium, he is being used.

If only someone could stop him. Where’s Kanye West when you need him?

Image: TechCrunch.com

__________________________

John Harvin is the pseudonym of a prominent business executive and writer. He has traveled and worked in forty countries.

John has written for numerous national and international magazines and journals, and written and had published five books, including one non-fiction bestseller and two novels. (He’s actually written nine books, but that’s a different story.) He writes because it is the only way he can sort through the maelstrom of crap careening around inside his skull and figure out what he really thinks about anything.

When not working or writing, you can find him having dinner with his long-suffering wife, walking the dog, training for triathlons, skiing, ultra-cycling, scuba diving, motorcycle riding, hiking, working on his farm, worrying about his two grown children or yelling at the Cubs on TV. (Open your eyes, Alfonso. It’s a baseball, not a piñata!)

Crystal as “Heaven”

Tilt-shifted Raver Yeti

Eddie Van Gogh

El Noro

Mar as Jesus on a Dinosaur (reference link)

Matt of the Dead

Results: Boomer legend nard-stomps Xer legend. In other news, sun rises in East. The numbers: #5 Jimi Hendrix 67%; #4 REM 24%; Joan Jett/Blackhearts 10%. Jimi advances to the Sweet 16.

Up next, our quest to find the greatest band of all time slides over to the Budokan region, where one of the stronger candidates to unhorse The Beatles looks to start it up.

• #2 The Rolling Stones: Listen
• #7 Bob Marley/Wailers: Listen
• #10 The Sex Pistols: Listen

It’s Election Day in America – please, no voter fraud. Polls close tomorrow.

The money fairy came to me in 1986. I was at a yard sale in Tennessee, and stumbled upon a plastic egg that was marked at $5. That seemed a little stiff, but when I shook it, something rattled inside (an original Constitution maybe?) so I gave the seller five dollars, and she gladly handed over the egg, then took off at a flat sprint. Later that day, when I finally got the egg open, the money fairy came out.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You gave five dollars for a plastic egg?” she screamed. “You can buy twenty of them for a quarter. I’m a money fairy and I can see my work is going to be cut out for me this time. Hey, loser. What else did you buy today?”

“Well, since you asked, I got this like-new BETA tape player. $100 I paid for it, but I think the future is BETA.”

That was the very first time she hit me. Even though the money fairy is just two inches tall, she has good bat speed, and then, as now, I was an easy target.

“Please don’t hit me with your little stick again,” I begged.

“It’s not a stick, it’s a wand. A magic wand! What part of fairy did you not understand?”

“If you’re a real fairy, do I get any wishes?” I asked.

“Just one,” she said. “You’ll wish you’d never bought that plastic egg.”

That was 23 years ago, and the money fairy is still with me. Her name is Belinda. I’ve moved eight times since 1986, but I can’t shake her. She always turns up, right around pay day, and insists I put some of my check into savings, then hits me with her wand when I don’t. My back and shoulders look like the Nazca Plains. But worse than the cuts are the shrill screams she makes when she thinks I’ve done something financially stupid.

“You’re buying stock in a company called Enron?”

“Only ten shares,” I replied.

“What do they make?” she demanded. “I’ll tell you what they make. They don’t make anything! They trade energy. I’m a fairy, but even I don’t know how that’s done.”

Two years later:

“You’re going to rent a house?” she screamed. “You don’t build up any equity when you rent. All you’re doing is paying off your landlord’s loan.”

Two years later:

“You’re going to buy this house? But then you’ll have to pay for all the repairs yourself. Then you’ll have to stay in it for seven years before you can sell it at a profit, and you hate this town!”

Two years later:

“You’re going to sell this house? It’s only been two years! We’re moving? To Connecticut? What the hell is in Connecticut? Ah, yes, expensive houses. The Gross National Product of Honduras won’t pay for a three bedroom/two bath home in Connecticut.”

Two months later:

“You’re not getting a teaching certificate so you can be a reporter? For a small town newspaper? Aren’t you the guy who said journalism majors are the only college graduates who earn less than public school teachers?”

Two months later:

“You’re going to radio school? For $10,000? Isn’t radio a dinosaur in this new age of information? Aren’t radio stations staffed with syndicated talk show hosts, leaving little, if any, room for newcomers? Didn’t we read that it takes fifteen years to break into radio? Let’s do the math here. How old will you be in 15 years?”

“66.”

“Wow! And won’t you be a force on the cutting edge. I can see it now. Take your boom box to the bathroom because it’s time for Grandpa Rock! And you’re the guy who thinks big hair bands are going to stage a grand comeback any day now.”

Several times a week:

“You’re buying bottled water? That stuff is no better than tap water!” she scoffed.

“No, no,” I countered. “Look, there’s a picture of mountains on the bottle. This is pure, mountain spring water.”

“Do you see the words ‘mountain’ or ‘spring water’ anywhere on the bottle? Of course you don’t. Idiot!”

See what I put up with? As an English teacher, it’s hard to talk to somebody who uses exclamation points so liberally. Eventually, I surrendered to most of the advice of the money fairy. Boy, did she ever gloat when the news about Aquafina came out. But, sadly, I overruled her on the radio school thing. I graduated in March, 2006. I’m still not on the radio. Every month, when I pay the student loan, Belinda laughs and laughs.

The only other person who can see the money fairy is my son, Joey. I gave him a dollar yesterday and asked it he wanted some ice cream with it.

“I have to put my dollar in my bank,” he said. “Or the bee lady will hit me with her stick.”

“I’m a fairy!“ Belinda screamed. “And it’s not a stick. It’s a magic wand!”

“But I still want ice cream,” added Joey.

And so it was that yesterday, as we walked around the Old Saybrook Green, my wife and I peered into windows with capitalistic lust at all the stuff we’d like to own. The money fairy was in my shirt pocket screaming that nobody in his right mind eats ice cream on the day after Halloween, or pays $4.50 for a single scoop in a sugar cone.

At the Feather Lust Farm Bird Store on Main Street, a young gray parrot eyed me carefully. He never took his eyes off me, and it looked like he was smiling. I called him Buddy, and asked the store owner how much he cost.

And now, I’m wondering if my lease will allow a parrot. A tiny stick is thrashing my back and neck, even as I scout a place big enough to put a large cage. I’m being forced to add that it isn’t a stick. It’s a wand, and a magic wand at that. As if that makes it feel any better.

One of the challenges that the authors had was the fact that few available previous studies didn’t show correlation between the amount of CO₂ in the air and the global climate prior to the start of ice core data. The authors hypothesized that this was a problem with the other datasets and developed a set of tests to check their hypothesis.

First they found two sites in the Pacific where they concluded – based on prior published studies – that the effects on marine sediments would be relatively unchanged over the last 20 million years due to specific geologic and oceanographic factors (limited upwelling, geologic stability, low biological productivity, et al). And they measured three different proxies from marine fossils that enabled them to estimate pH, sea surface temperature, and the amount of CO₂ in the water.

Then they compared their results to the ice core data in order to estimate the accuracy of their measurements. What they found was that their reconstruction of the amount of CO₂ in the air independently reproduced the ice core measurements to within the known error in the ice core measurements themselves. The importance of this fact was mentioned specifically in the paper:

[F]ew pCO₂ proxies have replicated the ice core data of the past 0.8 Ma. (NOTE: “pCO₂” is defined as the partial pressure of CO₂ and is thus a measurement of the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. “Ma” is a shorthand unit for “millions of years ago.”)

As a result of this new reconstruction, the authors claim that “[r]esults for the Miocene and Late Pliocene support a close coupling between pCO₂ and climate.”

In addition, the paper finds that a climatic optimum from 14-16 million years ago have the highest estimated CO₂ concentrations in the paper’s data, and that during the optimum is the only period in the entire 20 million year dataset that has higher CO₂ concentrations than the present.

The authors don’t claim to have answered everything, and like all good scientists, they point out that they haven’t proven causation, only shown very high correlation. Attribution studies to determine whether CO₂ was a cause, an effect, or both will require more research.

Even so, the paper has a number of important conclusions. First, the data supports “the hypothesis that greenhouse gas forcing was an important modulator of climate over [the past 20 million years] via direct and indirect effects.” Second, the new reconstruction has sufficient resolution to define rough thresholds of CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere for different degrees of ice sheet size and stability, and thus sea level. Specifically, the last time that there was this much CO₂ in the air, there was little to no sea ice in the Arctic, Greenland had little to no ice, there was essentially no ice on West Antarctica, and even East Antarctica was mostly ice-free. And finally, the reconstruction may indicate that the global climate is highly sensitive to the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

At the climate optimum described in the study, “global surface temperatures were on average 3 to 6°C warmer than present.” If this study’s results are corroborated, then this paleoclimate reconstruction will be yet another study supporting the widespread understanding that climate is very sensitive to CO₂ concentrations. In addition, the study will stand out as another example of “climate disruption is worse than we figured” as it points to the near complete melting of both Greenland and both sides of Antarctica. That would raise sea level by nearly 70 meters (~230 feet).

Other studies have shown that it takes hundreds to thousands of years for that much ice to melt, but if it starts this century, there may not be much humanity can do about it but move inland.

Thanks to lead author Dr. Tripati for a review copy of her paper. For the supplemental online information, click here.

Image Credits:
Powerline
W Berner/University of Bern, via NewScientist.com

That’s because paid circulation of daily newspapers nationally fell more than 10 percent from a year ago. Some papers suffered truly horrendous daily circulation losses: the San Francisco Chronicle (down 25.8 percent), The Boston Globe (down 18.5 percent) and The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger (down 22.2 percent), reports Rick Edmonds on his Poynter Biz Blog. USA Today, hit by a slump in travel, fell nearly 18 percent. The circulation of 400 daily newspapers has fallen to only 30 million readers.

This hemorrhaging of circulation — the worst ever — will have serious consequences. Expect newspaper staffs, already slashed below the minimum necessary to adequately cover their turf, to be cut further. Expect more shallow, one-source stories. Expect more stories laden with anonymous sources because the poorly paid, younger, inexperienced reporters left on staff won’t have the skill to persuade sources to speak on the record. Expect more wire-service content because local stories won’t get done. Expect corporate newspaper management to continue to stall on finding a business model that enhances the public-service mission of journalism. Expect more style than substance.

Just expect less of what good newspapers used to be. The nation’s newspapers, the constitutionally anointed watchdogs and adversaries of government, can no longer be considered as successful in those roles as they used to be.

Mr. Edmonds lists several reasons for this continuing, massive loss of paid circulation. From his Biz Blog:

• Readers continue to migrate from print to the Internet — sometimes to newspapers’ own sites, sometimes to aggregators.
• Papers, metros especially, are voluntarily trimming circulation to remote areas because they are more expensive to serve and less valuable to advertisers.
• So-called “start pressure,” the selling of new subscriptions to replace lost ones, has taken a hit from cost-cutting.
• Decisions at many papers to aggressively increase subscription and single copy prices has resulted in fewer copies being sold, though circulation revenue has increased.
• This period is the first to include the full impact of the recession, in which some consumers are dropping subscriptions and others buying the paper less frequently.
• Smaller news staffs and news space make the product weaker and less appealing.

In 2008, newspapers shed more than 9,000 jobs. This year, so far, newspapers have cut more than 14,100 jobs. How can such cuts in reporting and other capabilities not have serious social, cultural, and political consequences? Yes, various foundation-funded, non-profit, experimental approaches to independent newsgathering have emerged. Consider the well-intended efforts of ProPublica and MinnPost. (Read Alan Mutter’s excellent two-part take on non-profit news startups.)

Too little, perhaps too late. American journalism sprouted from local printers who became family owners of newspapers — local newspapers. The Founders intended the First Amendment to protect those who owned presses and printed newspapers from interference by the government. But the utility of the First Amendment has been eroded by overt corporate mismanagement and malpractice far more than covert government malfeasance.

At the local level, newspaper staffs have been reduced far below necessary levels for competent, comprehensive coverage of local government. Government didn’t cause this — but it now benefits from the ability to operate with far less inspection by journalists.

No non-profit efforts on the horizon would make up for the quantitative loss of experienced reporters nationally. Fewer reporters means fewer watchdogs.

How is that not costly to a democracy?

The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson
by Chris Mackowski* and Kristopher D. White
Thomas Publications

*S&R’s very own Chris Mackowski

Reading The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson is like poring over a treasure chest of family relics as a wise uncle explains the contents. The wise uncles are the authors Chris and Kristopher. These two historians and writers have taken an amazing number of primary and secondary sources and woven a fascinating tale of the last week in the life of Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, accidentally shot by his own men at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. They report documented events with insights and an obvious love and respect for the topic.

This accessible volume can be read in a single sitting, but don’t, you’ll be rewarded by savoring the details. The story is told in words, selected art, maps, quotes and historic and modern photos. Each is selected to enhance important points in the storyline. The authors excel at filling in the small details that bring the story to life. The reader knows the weather, feels the confusion of battle, senses the fear when Stonewall is shot, and importantly the authors give us closure in knowing the calm certainty Stonewall Jackson felt in his final moments.

“Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.” – The last words of Stonewell Jackson.

The story has moments as diverse as learning Stonewall Jackson’s arm was buried separately from his body (it was amputated in the aftermath of his shooting, but some days before Jackson succumbed to complications of pneumonia) to a touching passage retelling the moment Jackson met his daughter Julia. There are handy timelines included and an appendix listing the fate of all the characters in this drama. When you finish the final chapter you will be very glad you opened that treasure chest.

It’s also clear from an article in The Colorado Independent that this is only half of what the amendment’s authors intended.

“It’s intended to account for human beings who may be created through asexual reproduction in laboratories and used as raw material for research, organs, or stem cells. Fertilization would not have properly applied to asexually reproduced humans, but even asexually reproduced human beings have a definite biological beginning,” [Gualberto Garcia] Jones explained. (Jones heads the organization that initiated this year’s amendment)

That this law could be interpreted to include sperm is an ironic example of the law of unintended consequences.

The amendment’s final language, on which Colorado will vote in November 2010, is as follows:

SECTION 1. Article II of the constitution of the state of Colorado is amended BY THE ADDITION OF A NEW SECTION to read:
SECTION 2. Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the term “person” shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.

So what does “biological development” mean? Last year’s amendment defined a person as starting with a fertilized egg (and it lost by a 3:1 margin), and the new amendment could be interpreted to mean the same – a zygote is a person.

But this time, the amendment’s language is even broader. The Independent article makes it clear that this was intentional on the part of the amendment’s authors. The language was written specifically to “to be more comprehensive in our definition of a person,” and the result is that, if passed, the amendment will outlaw abortion, many types of birth control, stem cell research, and could potentially outlaw fertility clinics.

“Beginning of the biological development.” That phrase may be perfectly clear to a conservative Christian abortion activist like Jones, lawyers and judges will have a more difficult time interpreting what it does to Colorado’s laws.

Last year, our own Dr. Slammy and commenters pointed out a number of the absurdities that went along with last year’s failed amendment, such as allowing a pregnant woman to drive in the HOV lane, the legal drinking age becomes 20 years, 3 months, sex with a pregnant woman becomes menage-a-trois, a woman who is not aware that she is pregnant while engaging in a harmful activity of any kind could be charged with neglect, and so on.

The new proposed amendment is even broader in its possible interpretation because a single cell – an egg – would be defined as a “person” this time. And as a result, the possible ramifications are even more farcical.

The problem is that it’s really hard to define when a “person’s” biological development starts. You could say that it starts when an egg is fertilized and be relatively safe (if it passes in 2010 and survives the inevitable legal challenges, that’s probably how this amendment would ultimately be interpreted). But it’s possible that the amendment would be interpreted more broadly. After all, that egg started its development years or decades before it was fertilized. If the egg is damaged, then the “person’s” development will be adversely affected. And damaged eggs happen all the time – they’re one of reasons for miscarriages and failures to conceive. Does that mean that we need to protect a woman’s children when they’re eggs in a girl toddler’s immature ovaries? And how, exactly, are we going to do that?

Are we willing to charge prepubescent girls with child neglect for daring to play soccer and risking ovary damage? What’s next, forcing women to wear petticoats and ride horses sidesaddle? Actually, I suspect that many of Jones’ supporters would find cultural regression to Victorian or Puritan values to be pleasantly refreshing.

And since a human can’t develop without the aid of sperm (cloning aside), does development start when intercourse and ejaculation provide the sperm? Or does it start in the man’s testicles? Or even before then? Damaged sperm are a lot more common than damage eggs – that’s the biological reason that men produce billions of them. Is each damaged sperm an example of child neglect? Should we charge a little league coach with manslaughter if he accidentally throws a baseball into a boy’s crotch with an errant pitch? And should urologists be prosecuted for accessory to murder for performing a vasectomy?

The zygote personhood amendment last year crashed and burned because Coloradans understood that it was a legal minefield of epic scale. This proposed personhood amendment is even worse. Any legislation that makes a minimum of 20,000 separate changes to Colorado law is going to have a huge number of unpredictable unintended consequences.

One of those unintended consequences will be that Colorado will become more of a laughingstock than it was during the Amendment 2 debacle decades ago, or than Kansas was after its school board voted to permit the teaching of “intelligent design.”

It will be in the voters’ hands in 2010. Hopefully they’ll make the right decision next year just as they did last year.

We have this great little library around the corner, which is very convenient. In London, there are lots of libraries, but it’s such big city geographically that it’s not always the case that there’s a library just around the corner. It’s a nice library—it’s right next to The Keats House, where John Keats lived next door to Fanny Brawne before heading off to Italy and an untimely death. The trees at the edge of the Keats House grounds hang over the path that leads to the library doors, and in Spring there are lovely blossoms dropping petals on the path. The building itself is that curious medley that one often encounters in England, a combination of a bit of old grandeur with some 1960s crap thrown in to make the interior more “functional.” But it’s comfortable, it has a good collection of books and newspapers, an attractive children’s room, and a bunch of PCs that people use for internet access, and it used to have a neighbor’s cat, Moggy, who would wander in and sleep all day before she died last Spring, much to the dismay of the regulars.

Recently there’s been a change in tone. There have been some new people showing up behind the desk, and they’re all chirpy. They ask questions, like “Did you find everything you need?”, stuff like that. They chat up the fact that, oh look, you have this book out, and that one too. Personally, I find this a bit irritating. I like my librarians on the reserved side, and not to be salesmen. Fortunately, this has not been a regular occurrence, but it makes me nervous. And it turns out that it may be part of a general plot to change the character of libraries in the area entirely. Well, maybe not a plot–it may not be nearly as well thought out as a plot would be.

The Heath Library, as it’s called, is part of the Borough of Camden library system. And the Borough of Camden has been trying to figure out how to cut its budget. Just like everyplace else in Britain, and the US, and any number of other places around the world these days. So Camden has decided to make some adjustments to how library services are provided in the borough. As the Camden New Journal reports this week:

CONTROVERSIAL plans to make a £2million cut to the library budget by reducing staff and introducing self-service machines were finally signed off at the Town Hall last night (Wednesday).

I can’t wait to see what self-service machines are all about. Self-service for what? Ah, checking out books. What could possibly go wrong here?

Liberal Democrat culture chief Councillor Flick Rea resisted pressure for a rethink and agreed to proposals mapped out in the council’s library reform programme, known as Growing Your Library and developed by council officials and consultants over several months.

Rea said the only way libraries would survive for future generations in its current £8.2million budget. “Otherwise the service will not survive in the tooth and claw climate of modern local government finance,” she said.

The cuts will be made over four years.

The plan here seems to be Growing Your Library by Cutting Its Funds.

Before making her decision, Councillor Rea heard deputations from library users who criticised the programme, including one from John Richardson of the Camden History Society who accused her of allowing it to be “pushed through without democratic process”.

She said the time saved by putting in self-issuing machines – and thus “freeing up” librarians to help readers – would be cancelled out by the staffing cuts.

“There is no evidence that the library service will improve as a result of the changes,” she added.

In addition to the 15 posts that have already been axed, more cuts, including some compulsory redundancies, are expected.

I hope someone eventually will explain to me why there never actually seems to be any money for saving the things that are worth saving. And why we can’t just hire more librarians “to help readers,” whatever that means. Finding books? Learning how to use the catalog? Finding stuff on the internet? People need help with these things?

How did the Borough of Camden come up with these plans? Well, for all its concern about saving money, the Borough doesn’t appear to mind spending a bit of money itself. As the Camden New Journal reports in a separate article:

CONSULTANTS hired to help redesign Camden’s library service were paid more than £2,000 a day over the summer.

American firm IDEO was paid £47,000 for 23 days work on the Growing Your Library (GYL) project, according to information released following a request by the New Journal under the Freedom of Information Act.

The work was part of a major overhaul of the library service in Camden, which will see some staff jobs cut and machines introduced.

Look, those machines again.

Reports suggested consultants visited a series of businesses, including the glamorous Apple Store in Regent Street, to see what ideas could be transferred to council-run libraries.

Well, I can certainly see how hitting the Apple Store would be useful in trying to redesign library services.

On its website IDEO describes itself as an “innovation and design” company. It lists some of its better known clients, a roll call of American multi-billion-pound organisations, including the Bank of America, food giant Nestlé and the charity set up by billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft owner Bill Gates, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Actually, the Ideo website is a hoot. Where do these people come from? Oh, Palo Alto, as it turns out. It’s like a William Gibson novel, one of the recent ones—everything is symbolic, and of the moment, or something. Someone named Ted Brown seems to be the design guru of the company, and you can hear him drone on in a video the site helpfully provides. And there are lots of references to design—Climate Change and design, how design got small and then big again, that sort of thing. Now, I don’t doubt that design is important, Climate Change being a pretty good example of how better design can help us out quite a lot, but it’s still not obvious to me how this is the group to talk to in order to determine how your library services can be “improved.”

So what did they actually do for Camden for two grand a day? It’s not actually clear, because Camden won’t release the report that they spent £47,000 on.

Freedom of Information officers at the Town Hall refused to reveal what the council got out of the deal and a request to see a draft of the ideas supplied to the leisure department was refused on the grounds that they have not been introduced yet.

Although officers accepted it was in the public interest to reveal what the money was spent on for “accountability and transparency” reasons, they ruled that to “prematurely” disclose the findings would result in “partial or inaccurate information being released” and would not allow Camden time to discuss with staff how the plans might affect them.

Officials insisted it was in the “public interest” not to release any more information.

We certainly wouldn’t want to release anything prematurely, to give the wrong impression. Just as well, because I imagine the discussion of the following probably needs some sharpening up:

Discussions held during a five-day workshop involving IDEO and library staff – described as a “deep-dive” brainstorming event – have been posted on the internal Camden intranet.

Details of some of the suggestions put forward by IDEO consultants have been criticised by staff, who contacted the New Journal to say the public would be “horrified” and “amused” at the “absurdity” of the week-long session and “the way their council tax money has been spent”.

The firm visited six businesses in London, including City Farm in Islington, the Apple Store in Regent Street and Jamie Oliver’s cook shop Recipease in Clapham.

City Farm? Where the cows and chickens are? That should help.

Consultants spent time at three Camden libraries – Regent’s Park, Kentish Town and Swiss Cottage – where they held meetings with library users and observed staff “to find out how they actually provided and used services”, but staff have queried their decision not to visit any celebrated libraries outside the borough.

Or any of the uncelebrated ones within the borough other than those three, for that matter.

The firm’s main specification was to come up with innovative ideas about what libraries and librarians could offer in the future, when Camden launches the second phase of its library reform programme next year.

This must be where the “self-service machines” thing comes from. Funnily enough, try as I might, I can’t find a single reference to anything about libraries on the Ideo website other than a link to an article in American Libraries magazine about “Design Thinking” in Libraries, by Stephen Bell, who may or may not be connected to Ideo. The article and comments are great—about “human-centered” somethingorother, and–here’s the kicker–providing a “memorable library experience.” There’s the Apple connection, all right. So it’s obvious why Camden chose Ideo to come up with some visionary thinking on how libraries can be improved at the same time their budgets are being hacked to death.

A council spokeswoman said: “The council approached a number of specialists to bid for work on the Growing Your Library project. IDEO, an international company whose UK headquarters are in Camden, was chosen in competition with a number of other agencies, as they offered the best combination of experience, capacity and proven track record in the field.”

Well, if this was the best of the lot, what did the other bidders look like? I’m reminded of that D.J. Taylor novel with a running subtext of the increasing rip-off of UK governments by management consultants running around a couple of decades ago in the country’s haste to privatize everything that moved. This sort of thing is the logical result—let’s have a firm of design consultants decide what libraries are for and how they should be used. After all, librarians wouldn’t necessarily have any idea of how to improve services, obviously, or anything above and beyond what you could extract in a day-long brainstorming session

Actually, given the apparently marginal state of libraries, we may as well have a design firm given an assessment of how to improve library usage. Libraries in the UK (and apparently in the US as well) are under pressure—over the past ten years over 100 libraries have been closed in England, visits per capita have been declining (marginally, but still), and expenditures per capita have been rising sharply. I can think of lots to fault the Labour government for, but increasing funds to libraries (until very recently) is not one of them. But, ultimately, libraries in the UK really depend on local council funding—and councils are currently hurting, so it’s not surprising that libraries make an easy target. It’s not as if anyone actually makes money from them. This is a familiar story, with a number of explanations—increasing access to the internet and other electronically-delivered information elsewhere, the increasing uneducatability of a number of children, and, perhaps, the possibility that people just read less—although I would need more convincing on this last point, in this country where not only is the major book award televised, but the bookmakers give odds on the potential winners.

So there are good reasons to get a broad range of inputs here. But it’s not clear to me that having librarians and library staff become the functional equivalents of the sales force at the Apple store is the right approach. Or brainstorming sessions, for that matter. What is needed, first of all, is a commitment to culture, and its preservation, and broad public access to it. In many respects, there is an admirable commitment to this notion here, or at least there was when times were good. But for a country with the literary heritage that this one has, even the closure of one library is a measure of our failure to meet this commitment

Anyone who’s seen Guillermo del Toro’s recent movies—Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies (and a two-part The Hobbit on the way)—probably expect anything spawned by that mind to be boldly imaginative. Del Toro takes risks and he paints large while paying attention to the most meticulous details.

So when del Toro teamed up with Chuck Hogan to write a vampire trilogy, fans understandably expected something crazy, crazy, crazy good.

With the first part of that trilogy, The Strain, fans do indeed get something good—but it lacks the crazy, crazy, crazy.

The book starts with the arrival a transcontinental jet at JFK. The plane stops dead on the tarmac. Air traffic controls and emergency responders can’t figure out what’s going on, so everyone goes into terrorist-response mode.

Enter Dr. Eph Goodweather and his assistant Nora Martinez of the CDC. They arrive as part of the response team in case of any biological threats. Goodweather is the first to realize, after a series of inexplicable events (of course), that what they face is an infection far worse than any mere virus.

Think “Vampire Apocalypse.”

Yeah, instead of a plague of zombies taking over the world, the premise del Toro and Hogan set up is that a vampire plague will take over the world.

Vampire plague aside, kudos go out to the authors for taking a radically different approach to vampirism. It’s so radically different, though, that die-hard vampire fans may have a tough time reconciling the authors’ take with their own thoughts about what a good, old-fashioned vampire is supposed to be.

Love their vision or hate it, del Toro and Hogan have at least one thing going for them: These are no mamby-pamby cute, sexy vampires who live tortured, tragic lives. The vampire lord of The Strain, Sardu, is nasty, calculating, and cruel. Whereas even Dracula had a little charm, Sardu comes across more like Max Shreck’s walking cadaver, Nosferatu—but bigger and meaner. And no sexiness.

Sardu has a backstory that might lay the seeds for sympathy in one of the subsequent volumes, but for now, he’s The Big Evil.

And therein lies one of the problems with The Strain. The book tries—not especially hard—to rise above genre fiction and be more of a mainstream thriller, but it just can’t quite break free of the trappings of horror. Sardu, for instance, remains a one-dimensional horror. The book’s central mystery bedevils everyone until a wise old man, Abraham Van Helsing–er, actually, Abraham Setrakian–shows up deus ex machinas-like with the answers. No one believes the hero until it’s too late.

Fortunately, the book avoids gratuitous depictions of graphic violence and focuses instead on mood and tone, which are big plusses (and del Toro trademarks), and the book is paced exceptionally well. But the imaginative firepower that one might expect from del Toro never really explodes with full force, and that keeps the book from becoming crazy, crazy, crazy good.

Is it fair to judge the book that way? I’d say, “No,” except splashed right across the top of the book is the phrase “From the creator of the Oscar-winning Pan’s Labyrinth.” If the publisher wants to pimp that out, then del Toro has to live and die by the plug.

But judged on its own merits and not by the del Toro baggage a reader might bring to the book, The Strain certainly provides lots of chills, some believable characters, and an interesting premise. Those things alone make it a worthwhile read. The Strain doesn’t have to be crazy, crazy, crazy good to still be good.

Will del Toro and Hogan’s vision of vampirism catch on? I still don’t know if I’m sold (although, I admit, I’m looking forward to the next installment of the trilogy, slated for 2010). But one thing’s for sure: it sure beats teen heartthrob vampirism. These guys make the undead terrifying, just they way they should be.