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James Fallows

James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

 
Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.

The 'Southern Weekend' Strike in China

International
This is a reading-guide and basic-context note about the fast-developing and potentially important (but also potentially-leading-nowhere) showdown underway in China now, between much of the staff of the 'Southern Weekend' newspaper -- 南方周末, nánfāng zhōumò -- and the Chinese government's censors.

The paper itself: On the spectrum of Chinese publications, Southern Weekend has long been on the more-daring, more-outspoken, more pushing-the-limits frontier. In keeping with the general principle that central-government control is tightest in and around Beijing and falls off with every mile of distance, it's not surprising that Southern Weekend is based in the far southern city of Guangzhou, north of Hong Kong. For some past references to SW in this space see this (about a tainted-food expose), this and this (about the interview SW did with Barack Obama during his China trip in 2009), and this (about the punishment the SW editor received for doing that interview).

SoWeekend.jpg(Photo, from here, is of supporters holding signs saying Nan zhou Jia you, or roughly "Stay strong, Southern Weekend!")

The Chinese media in general: As I never tire of pointing out, China is a giant, diverse, contradictory place in every conceivable way, and that applies to the media as well. Virtually all outlets operate under the threat, and often the imposed reality, of strict government control. But some reporters, editors, and broadcasters make the very most of the opportunities and openings they find; they represent some of the bravest journalists working in the world today. Others are just time-servers and system-supporters who accept their salaries and often the "red envelope" bonus pay-offs. For more on the red-envelope culture, see the wonderful satirical novel The Banquet Bug, by Geling Yan.

Chinese censorship: It's a race, changing every day. China's population is steadily better informed, and steadily more inventive about finding ways around official blackouts, "firewalls," etc. The government's censoring officials are steadily better-equipped and more aggressive about increasing surveillance and plugging up leaks. From the Western tech perspective, it's natural and easy to say, "Information wants to be free. The truth will always get out." And in the long run I believe that too. (This is, in effect, the subject of China Airborne.) But the long run can take a very long time, and the advantage in these struggles can shift back and forth. Just yesterday, Google appeared to back down from one of several stands it had taken against Chinese censorship.

Chinese openness and reform overall: This is the Big Question, which like anyone interested in the country I've gone at repeatedly over the years. Its simplest statement is this paradox:
   - The Chinese system has to change, if the government is to keep up with an increasingly sophisticated population with an increasingly modern economic system. (Otherwise the economy will stagnate, the people will withdraw the legitimacy they have given the government for 30+ years of development, etc). AND
  - The Chinese system cannot change, because of the power and paranoia of the entrenched interests that control the security agencies, the government-industrial complex, and other sources of power. For American readers it may help to think of much of China's senior security officials as being that country's counterparts to Dick Cheney.

Many people have opinions about how this contradiction will be resolved. But of course no one can be sure, and the evidence changes every day.

So those are the stakes. Brave journalists, from one of the country's bravest publications, are objecting to the censorship rules that until now journalists have found a way to live with (or work around). Everyone knows this could be important -- or it could just peter out, as some other apparent tipping-point movements have.

Now, your reading list, which I'll update as I can:
  • Background from China Digital Times of the specifics of the censorship and the dispute. See here, here, here, which will link to other coverage. Also, this item is a translation of orders from the Chinese censorship ministry about how to cover the dispute.
  • An item from Rachel Lu, of the Atlantic's partner Tea Leaf Nation, on the larger stakes.
  • Coverage from NYT, the Independent, Time (among others).
  • Evan Osnos, at the New Yorker, with a story on how support for the journalists' strike is spreading. A report from Australia about solidarity there.
  • A Chinese copyright-report site, on the way some government-controlled publications are striking back at the dissidents. A WSJ report on efforts to blame the whole uproar on "foreigners."

No offense to any analyses left off in this first batch. I'm sacrificing completeness in the interests of getting something posted. Will try to catch up soon.

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And: I meant to mention earlier Ian Johnson's report in the NYT and the book edited by Susan Shirk, Changing Media, Changing China. And Jonathan Mirsky's very interesting essay in the NYRB. 


Richard Ben Cramer

Politics
RichardBenCramer.jpgI am shocked by the news just now that Richard Ben Cramer has died at age 62, of lung cancer.

His book What It Takes is the first book I tell anyone interested in American politics, American culture, and American journalism to read. It is timeless and yet timely, since its cast of characters -- those competing for the presidency in 1988 -- includes our current vice president, Joe Biden. It is also a remarkably empathetic and humane look at politics and politicians. If you want to understand what keeps these people going, how they can stand it, what they have to endure and why they endure it, this is what you should read.

(The second book on my list is Garry Wills's Nixon Agonistes; Wills, now 78, happily is still in action.)

I never met Richard Ben Cramer but felt as if I knew him from his writing. Sympathies to his family. His work will last. 
___

Here is a revealing look at Cramer two years ago, by Ben Smith in Politico. Also, five years ago from Matt Bai.

The Emergency Committee for Israel Goes All In

Politics
Well, a minute ago I was trying to remember exactly what Chuck Hagel's business background had been before he got into politics. Showing my sophisticated search skills, I typed "chuck hagel wikipedia" into the Google search box. And what should I see?

HagelWiki3.png

The very first item in the search-results list, which is an ad and has a fine-print disclosure line (and very faint background tinting) to that effect, is from something called chuckhagel.com. And if you click on that link, you get the full anti-Hagel blast. It has a slideshow of shifting critiques of Hagel, mainly emphasizing the themes that he is Bad on Defense, Bad on Israel, and Overall Too Extreme. Here is a relatively polite sample:

Hagel2.png

And what's the source of this direct "Contact Your Senator" lobbying attempt to reject a Cabinet-level nominee? Is it the Republican party, from which Hagel became estranged when he criticized the Iraq war? Democratic activists, who would like a Democratic president to choose someone from his own party? GLBT groups, who have not forgiven Hagel for his anti-gay comments about ambassador James Hormel 15 years ago? 

No. It is none of these. 

In fact, the site is sponsored by the Emergency Committee for Israel, William Kristol, Chairman. 

Hagel3.png 

It was bad for US-Israel relations as a whole, not just relations between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations, that the sitting leader of one country appeared to so clearly desire so obviously plumped for the defeat of the other. [I'm talking about Netanyahu's apparent strong and open pro-Mitt Romney stance last year. But some people closer to the scene have argued that he was more careful than I think; thus this edit.] It is hard to see anything but further strain coming from a personalized campaign against a former Republican senator -- and current co-chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, who has been vouched-for by five former U.S. ambassadors to Israel and four former national security advisers plus a wide assortment of military and political figures, is a wounded combat veteran, etc. -- when that campaign is being led by a group called "the Emergency Committee for Israel." Suppose a campaign against a Treasury or Commerce nominee were being led by a group of Americans calling themselves "The Emergency Committee for China," or "The Emergency Committee for Germany" or the Emergency Committee for any place else. Or a campaign against John Kerry being led by "The Emergency Committee for Cuba," or maybe Russia. That would be madness, and so is this.

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg -- who has previously argued that Hagel-style bluntness might be a plus for U.S.-Israel relations -- predicted today that AIPAC would wisely try its best to stay out of the middle of a partisan confirmation battle. This wisdom seems to have escaped the Emergency Committee. Let's hope they back off. Among other reasons: most of the time, even controversial nominees finally get confirmed. Let's suppose that Chuck Hagel is the most forgiving and thickest-skinned person imaginable. Even so, how would he be expected to feel about a group that had done its best to pronounce him unacceptable -- and had done so in the name of another country?
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UPDATE Several people have written in to say that the "Emergency Committee for Israel" really doesn't represent anyone except its donors and its small staff. Therefore they say that its anti-Hagel campaign, though very prominent -- on Google and in a number of news outlets -- should not be given too much weight or taken as representing anything more than itself. Noted, and I will try to leave it there.

On the other hand, just now we have Elliott Abrams, whose wife is one of the three people listed as being on the Emergency Committee's board (along with Kristol and Gary Bauer), telling Melissa Block on NPR that Hagel is an outright anti-Semite. Listen for yourself, but this is how it sounded to me:
[Block asked, are you saying the Senate should reject Hagel?] Abrams: He has a chance at his confirmation hearing to show that he is not what he appears to be, which is frankly an anti-Semite. It's not just being anti-Israel. He's got a problem with what he calls "the Jews," the Jewish lobby. I think if  If he can't satisfy people that he is not in fact bigoted against Jews, he certainly should not be confirmed....  

[Block again: You are saying he is not just "anti-Israel," but in fact anti-Semitic?] Abrams: I think if you look at the statements by Hagel, and then you look at the statements by the Nebraska Jewish community, about his unresponsiveness to them ... I don't see how you can reach any other conclusion, that he seems to have some kind of problem with Jews. 
 Oh boy. 

The Hagel Choice: An 'Amish Give Up' Moment for Obama?

Politics
Thumbnail image for AmishGiveUp.pngI've mentioned several times the greatest and most instructive Onion headline of all time:

AMISH GIVE UP
'This is bullshit,' Elders Say

Back during the debt-ceiling follies of 2011, I hoped, wished, and urged that President Obama would lay down a "this is bullshit" marker. He didn't do it then; as everyone now understands, mainly for better but occasionally for worse such ultimatums go against his nature. 

But to his credit, the president now seems ready to say "this is bullshit" about the de-legitimization campaign being waged against former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as his choice for secretary of defense. It was waged odiously, in a way that deserves to be remembered, by Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal:

WSJHagel.png

And by William Kristol and his writers at The Weekly Standard:

HagelStandard.png

And weirdly by the Washington Post's editorialists, who warned Obama that Hagel considered the Pentagon budget "bloated" (!) and was generally too much of a leftie for the job. 

HagelWaPo.png

So as not to be wholly negative, Hagel's critics have helpfully informed us that Paul Wolfowitz considers someone else a better choice. Were Dick Cheney and Paul Bremer not available for advice?

As Steve Clemons and Robert Wright, among others, have reported, much of the foreign policy establishment reacted in support of Hagel, and in revulsion against these attacks. The "establishment," in this case, took the form of: five former U.S. ambassadors to Israel; four former national security advisers to presidents of both parties; many of Hagel's fellow combat veterans from Vietnam; and assorted Democratic and Republican Senators and Representatives. This evening Fred Kaplan, of Slate, has an excellent round-up of the arguments against Hagel and why they are craven or wrong. (Also this strong piece, late last month, from Bernard Avishai.)

But the real question all along has been the president. Is this a fight he would engage, or one he would look for a way to avoid? If, as seems all but certain, he is about to nominate Hagel, that is a heartening sign. "'This is bullshit,' president says."
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Update: Of many analyses out today, I suggest you start with this one by Peter Beinart. Also see: Scott McConnell in The American Conservative.

Kant, Augustine, and the 'Skins

National
Over our front door today:

HTTR1.png

Yes, I know that the flag is upside down, traditional signal of distress. That's how it came, which could have been the manufacturers' sign of solidarity with Washingtonians for what we've thought of as the Long National Nightmare of the Snyder Years.  But we'll have it up and flying during today's Washington-vs.-Washington showdown in the NFC.

To link this to other discussions, I am betting that both St. Augustine and Immanuel Kant would have been Seahawks guys. St. Augustine would probably object to the current DC franchise team name; Kant would shrink from the "categorical imperative" implications of a world in which everyone rooted for the Redskins and therefore directed even more profits to the team's current owner. 

I actually agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates's recent argument that something basic may be changing in football's hold on the American (mainly male) id. I haven't thought about college football in a very long time -- roughly since the time Bowl Games happened on or around New Year's day and conference lineups were remotely plausible. (San Diego State and Boise State as part of the "Big East"??? The "TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl" ?????) But that's probably just fogeyism. The injury question is the one that won't go away -- and seems, in early-inkling fashion, to have the potential to do to football what in-ring deaths did to boxing and doping has done to pro cycling. 

But I'll be watching this afternoon, with extra beers on hand in case I. Kant or S. Augustine shows up. Go Washington.
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Finale Good game by the Seahawks; good first half of the game by the Redskins; and great second half of the season. As for the last 2+ quarters of this game, Hey: I blame Synder! Because, why not.

I will never forget watching, in real time, The Joe Theismann Hit. I assume, and certainly-to-God hope, that we won't think have to about The RGIII Knee in similar terms. Everyone get well.

Why I Get More Than One Newspaper

National
This morning's selection on our kitchen table. Note the headlines.

JobHeadlines.png

This does reduce concerns about mainstream media group-think.

Also, if you're reading today's WaPo, don't miss Steve Hendrix's very nice story on the two Washingtons that will meet in tomorrow's playoff game: the real one, and the pretender.

Today's Sobering Reading on the Afghanistan Disaster

International
Thumbnail image for SpinneyTime.jpgOver the decades I've often quoted the analyses and judgments of Franklin "Chuck" Spinney. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was part of an influential group of defense analysts (along with John Boyd, Pierre Sprey, Tom Amlie, Tom Christie, and others) whose work I described in National Defense. That is him, on the cover of Time magazine 30 years ago, at the right.

Then during the 2008 campaign he made a number of calls and projections that seem obviously true in retrospect but were at odds with "savvy" political wisdom at the time. You can see samples here, here, and here.

Spinney is back on the geo-strategic beat, with a dispatch arguing that the situation in Afghanistan is turning into an all-fronts disaster for the United States, and that the only positive outcome would involve (a) recognizing that fact, and (b) looking honestly at the sources of failure so as to reduce chances of their repetition. He is experienced enough to know that it often is impossible to draw honest lessons from failure, or even to admit or recognize it. But just after an election, at a time when the Afghan issue is less politicized than it has been (and perhaps should be), and when a new secretary of defense is about to take charge, is a good time to try.

Please read Spinney's entire dispatch. But here is a central part of his argument, which involves the logic of the Afghan "surge" that Gen. Stanley McChrystal and others persuaded a new President Obama to support in 2009:
The problem is not just a strategic one of extracting our forces with dignity; nor is it a political one of fingering who is to blame, although there is plenty of blame to go around. It stems from deep institutional roots that reveal a need for reform in our military bureaucracies and particularly our leadership selection policies.

That is because the next Secretary of Defense must deal with the consequences of a strategic oversight that was made by and approved at the highest professional levels of the American military establishment -- a plan which it then imposed on its weak and insecure political leaders.  This suggests a question: Will the new defense secretary succumb to business as usual by sweeping the dysfunctional institutional causes of the Afghan debacle under the rug or have the courage and wisdom to use this sorry affair as a reason to clean out the Pentagon's Augean Stables?

Back to Guns: Kant vs. Saint Augustine

National
If you haven't seen it yet, you certainly should look through the exchange that the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg and Ta-Nehisi Coates are having about Jeff Goldberg's story on guns and gun control, which appeared just before the Newtown massacre. Their main discussion is here. TNC has follow-ups here and here, and Jeff Goldberg here and here.

An important part of their discussion turns on what Jeff Goldberg calls the "Saint Augustine question," about when and whether those who forswear violence may justly use violent means to prevent a greater evil from taking place. As he puts it in one part of the exchange:
Let me ask the Augustinian question: Let's say you're in the mall with me, or another friend, and a psychopathic shooter is approaching us, AR-15 in hand. In this situation, my life is at stake, as well as yours. I'll ask the question again: Would you want a gun in hand to help keep us alive, and to keep the strangers around you -- each one a human being created in the image of God (I know you lean atheist, but you get my point) -- alive as well?
Kant2.jpeg
TNC has his own comeback to the Saint Augustine issue, here. Since we're rolling out the big-time thinkers, I'll say that the reason I prefer the Coates side of the argument (more guns are not the answer), over the Goldberg side (in the right circumstances they can be), is well expressed not by Augustine but by Immanuel Kant. 

The whole concept of Kant's "categorical imperative" -- testing an idea by what its consequences would be if everyone acted that way -- seems an ideal match for the "more guns" question. In Jeff Goldberg's hypothetical, I personally would feel better if I, uniquely, had a gun in hand to use against the perpetrator. But I would not prefer a situation in which everyone was carrying guns, all the time, and ready to open fire on anyone who looked threatening. Or even if a lot more people were doing so. Thus for me, a "more guns" policy fails the categorical imperative test. It's better for me if I do it, worse for us all if everyone does it. But read the exchange and see what you think. (That's I. Kant, at right, portrait source here.)

Now let's hear from two readers. First, from a father on the west coast:
Following on your physician wiki-contributor's experience re. promoting a broader understanding of "gun safety," my personal experience as a father of a 10 year-old boy may be somewhat relevant. 

Neither I nor anyone in my family is a gun owner or has any interest in guns. Until the events of this past year, however, I had been considering learning more about guns, taking some shooting lessons, and perhaps acquiring a gun for safety reasons based on our unhappy experience with neighborhood crime. 

A few years ago, shortly after moving into our middle-class neighborhood in [a large city], we had a break-in while we were out of the house. In the aftermath have learned that our local police do not patrol our area, have greatly reduced patrols citywide generally, and will be all but useless should we suffer another break-in. 

As I say, I'm fairly agnostic on the gun issue; as with any contested social issue, I try to put aside emotionalism and take a rigorously analytical, objective, and empirical approach to the subject. 

In this case, the brinksmanship displayed by the local police union, combined with the city's depleted financial resources and our region's extremely high number of transient criminals and gang members due to our broken immigration policy have all led me to conclude that there is a not insignificant risk that my wife and two children may be victims of violent crime at some point. Hence my tentative exploration of the prospect of owning a gun.

Here's where it gets complicated. Our older child (I'll call him "Danny") is strong-willed, emotionally volatile, highly intelligent, and crazy about Nerf guns and E-rated (child-friendly) video games. There is a history of depression in my family, and Danny shows some early signs of this. Adolescence seems to come early these days, and it appears that Danny has entered that turbulent stage already.

After Newtown, and after enduring our own child's latest adolescent eruption, complete with mutterings about "getting back at" his parents for the latest intolerable imposition (such as withholding video game privileges until homework's completed), I thank my lucky stars that I put away any and all thoughts of owning a gun. The chances of our being violently attacked are minuscule - maybe one in 100,000, despite our city's incompetent police and civic authorities - but the chances of a gun in our house being used by our volatile son against someone, especially himself, would be orders of magnitude higher. 

Even if we somehow came to feel compelled to own a gun by future events - our neighborhood going to hell due to  more gang members moving into our part of town, with no increase in police presence, say - there is no way on earth that we could get this risk of self-injury, at the hand of our volatile son, down to anything approaching a comfortable level.

To be clear, our son isn't remotely close to being mentally ill. He's actually quite normal, is at the top of his class, gets along well with other kids, wins praise from teachers, neighbors, other parents. He's become known for his kindness and compassion for weaker kids and kids with disabilities. He's a good kid. 

But the fact remains that our family's chances of self-inflicted gun injury are orders of magnitude higher than our chances of being shot by an intruder. Perhaps this calculus is different for rural families and others living in remote areas who have to deal with predatory animals. Perhaps in such an environment, even a high-strung or moody adolescent can be raised to make intelligent distinctions regarding "gun safety." Maybe the rural paterfamilias can more easily separate the gun from the ammo. I don't know. 

But I do know that this nation's easy assumptions about "gun safety" are at the very heart of the problem, and that this is exactly what needs to be debated. We are not, as a nation, safer due to our extraordinary proliferation of guns. I doubt we'll be able to restrict ownership significantly. But it seems obvious to me that these are like dangerous toxins that deserved to be registered, regulated, presented and made visible to regulatory authorities with maximum transparency. 

Keep up the good fight. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," as the Irishman said.
Next, from a mother in the midwest:
When I worked at [a major news organization], we tracked every single gun death in the nation over the course of a week - almost 500, as I recall.

The thing that really hit me was the number of suicides -- something like half, if memory serves. 

I know that people try to take their lives for a number of complex reasons. But if you don't have a gun, you're less likely to "succeed." 

This really came home to me a few years ago. [A business associate] was a "gun nut," and used to rant about what would happen to anyone who tried to break into his house. He seemed tremendously fearful of home invasion.

Of course, no one ever broke into his suburban home. But one night after he had been drinking, he took his own life, using his handgun. 

I really don't think he would have been likely to hang himself. And if he had taken an overdose, I think he would have probably called for rescue. The gun made it impossible for him to change his mind.

I am tired of people blaming "mental illness" for gun deaths. The issue is what happens when anyone, of whatever mental state at the time, has easy access to ruthlessly lethal weapons. 
The NRA's greatest ally in these policy fights, greater even than its PAC contributions and single-issue campaign interventions, is that outrage fades with time. A massacre occurs; everyone says Never again; times goes on; and the news spotlight moves elsewhere. That's why it's worth keeping up attention this time.

Greetings of 'the Festive Season'

International
So many things to catch up on. I'll start with an easy one, a linguistic point.

I mentioned earlier that I dislike expressing generalized greetings for "the holidays" and prefer to mention each specific festival as it arises. Happy Hanukkah! Merry Christmas! Happy Hari Raya! Happy Buddha's Birthday! And on through the busy calendar. Based on my time in Malaysia, where members of the varied ethnic groups would all recognize the others' holidays, I don't worry about ethnic-profiling the people I'm greeting. It's Happy Chinese New Year to one and all at the appropriate time; Happy Fourth of July to all comers on that day, including (especially!) to Brits.

But now I learn that on this point, as on so many others, the superficially-American-seeming society of Australia has a different approach that has prompted me to re-examine my assumptions. To review a few I've mentioned before: Australia's mandatory-voting laws put America's widespread voter-suppression policies in a sharper and even less favorable light; its term limits for its counterpart to the Supreme Court avoid many of the distortions of our judicial gerontocracy; its combination of very high minimum wage, and a no-tipping culture, is part of an egalitarian, "thick middle class" feel to society that seems a quaint memory in America. And so on through a long list, notably including what they call "Medicare." It's what our Medicare would be, if it had no age limits.

And now the linguistic point. I wrote to some associates in Melbourne yesterday and got this robo-reply:
Thank you for your email.  I am currently away on annual leave for the festive season and will be returning on Monday 7 January 2013.

I shall respond to your email upon my return.
I shall consider adopting this practice myself. Retrospective wishes on the Festive Season just past, and early greetings on the one to come at the end of this year. 

christmas-in-australia.jpg

(Apparently I'm not the first one to notice this locution. Image from here.)

Did Gasoline Cause a Crime Wave? Journalism 101, Cont.

National
A few minutes ago I mentioned a dicey example of journalism gone bad, or at least gone mushy, from one of our most respected mainstream-news publications.

Here's an example of journalism from a less-mainstream source grappling seriously and impressively with a very challenging topic. It's Kevin Drum, in Mother Jones, writing about an under-appreciated reason for America's violent-crime epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. 

At first impression, Drum's argument seems far-fetched enough to produce an "Oh, sure!" reaction. He asserts that the main variable in the rise and fall of violent-crime rates over the past generation was not the crack cocaine phenomenon, or changes in police procedures or sentencing standards, or poverty or family structure, or any other "normal" factor. Instead, he argues, it was the level of lead pollution in the environment, mainly from leaded gasoline and also from lead-based house paint.

"Oh, sure," I thought, and you will think. But Drum approaches the evidence with his own "Oh, sure" sensibility and goes systematically through the reasons to take this correlation seriously. I don't know all the potential counter-arguments, but at face value he has made a strong case for thinking of lead as a central causal factor -- and for the sometimes-surprising policy steps that would follow. Very much worth checking out.

'Framing' a Story: Journalism 101

National
Here's the headline on a Wall Street Journal story today about changes in American patterns of electricity demand:
ElectricUse.png


See if you can guess how the lead paragraph of the story ends. It begins this way:
"Americans are using more gadgets, televisions and air conditioners than ever before. But, oddly, their electricity use is barely growing, ..."
Possible choices for the rest of the paragraph are:
(a) "... reflecting hard-won efficiencies in electric-power use by industries and utilities."
(b) "... raising hopes that economic growth can coexist with reduced resource-use and greenhouse-gas emissions."
(c) "... which together with increased shale-gas production may hasten the era of 'energy independence' for the United States."
(d)"... posing a daunting challenge for the nation's utilities."
OK, you peeked, and know that the real answer is (d). No heavy-weather point here, and for the record I admire most of what is on the WSJ's news pages, even as I marvel at most of what is on its editorial pages. (And to be fair to the author of this story, several paragraphs down she works in a "to be sure" passage: "The slower pace of growth in electricity use may be helping the environment, since most of the nation's electricity still comes from burning fossil fuels. But it has power companies scrambling to trim spending or redirect capital investment...") 

I mention this story because it's as stark an example as you'll find of the impossibility of presenting "objective" news, and of the power of the "frame" the writer and editor choose to place around the daily increment of information. In the corporate-news section of the Wall Street Journal, we have a trend presented as a worrisome new problem for America's utility companies. In other publications, or even in another section of the WSJ, exactly the same information could have been a "good news for the environment" story. It's not only in China that contradictory phenomena are all true at the same time.

Google's Michael Jones on How Maps Became Personal

Technology

In the past few years, the map has transformed from a static, stylized portrait of the Earth to a dynamic, interactive conversation. (An extended version of an interview from the January/February 2013 issue.)

maps2-top.jpgGoogle Maps

The entire concept of a "map" seems radically different from even a decade ago. It used to be something in a book or on a wall; now it's something you carry around on your smartphone. Which changes have mattered most? And what further changes should we be ready for?

The major change in mapping in the past decade, as opposed to in the previous 6,000 to 10,000 years, is that mapping has become personal.

It's not the map itself that has changed. You would recognize a 1940 map and the latest, modern Google map as having almost the same look. But the old map was a fixed piece of paper, the same for everybody who looked at it. The new map is different for everyone who uses it. You can drag it where you want to go, you can zoom in as you wish, you can switch modes--traffic, satellite---you can fly across your town, even ask questions about restaurants and directions. So a map has gone from a static, stylized portrait of the Earth to a dynamic, inter-active conversation about your use of the Earth.

I think that's officially the Big Change, and it's already happened, rather than being ahead.

More »

Happy New Year 2013, Starting With 'Future of Mapping'

Technology
For reasons planned and unplanned, I really did end up being out of electronic touch for a very long period, on a whole-family adventure. These past few days, rather than looking at a computer screen on a typical evening, I would look at something like what's shown below. And I read lots of books! You remember, actual "books" -- those big, made-of-paper objects whose contents, I find, lodge more firmly in your mind when you see them on a physical page than on an electronic screen.
 Thumbnail image for View.jpg

But now back to electronic existence, and contemplating messages that have arrived in the past week. Let's get started with a quick checklist:
  • Our new issue is out. You know how to start the New Year right. (Subscribe!). My part in it is a tech-section Q-and-A with Michael Jones of Google, one of the creators of the technology that gives us Google Earth. He describes what is likely to come next in the realm of computerized mapping, the field that over the past decade-plus has entirely transformed the way people understand spatial reality on every level from their neighborhood to their planet.

  • The next item you'll see in this space will be some bonus, web-only questions-and-answers from my session with Jones. For similar bonus home-study purposes, I encourage you to check out Google's recent Android app, Field Trip, in light of what Jones says about next steps in mapping. UPDATE: In this Q-and-A, Michael Jones talks about the effect of showing his father Google Earth's underwater "Street View." The collection of these beautiful scenes is here.

  • In my list of "developments to comment on real soon now" is the increasing, unfortunate crackdown by Chinese authorities on the Internet in the past few weeks. More on the "VPN" aspect of this problem shortly. For now, check out Nicholas Kristof's very sensible column today on the topic. Notably it includes this "paragraph that should be included in every story about China by anyone™" passage: "From afar, Westerners sometimes perceive China as rigidly controlled, but up close it sometimes seems the opposite. There are rules, but often they are loosely enforced, or negotiable." And if you want more on that theme and related contradictions, you also know where to turn!

  • I see that many people have written in to ask whether I agree or disagree with another recent NYT item. It's the one arguing that the only danger posed by use of the dreaded "devices with an on-off switch" aboard airplanes is the fistfights that will inevitably erupt over insistence that they be turned off. Ie that the devices themselves -- versions of which the pilots are using in the cockpit during the entire flight -- pose no discernible danger to navigation systems etc.

    Short answer: I agree.

  • Housekeeping and Contests dept: If I were Andrew Sullivan, my friend and former Atlantic colleague who has just announced a new publishing model for The Dish, well ... in that case a lot of things would be different. But among them is that I would use the photo above as the grist for a "View from your window" contest, even though it was from a sandbar rather than a window. But I think this one would be too hard even for crowdsourcing via The Dish. I'll give one other daytime view, made after I'd turned 90 degrees to the left from the perspective above. And I'll say that if I'd taken the photos a few hours later, you would have been able to see the Southern Cross. And if you were looking in the water, you would see a lot of large stingrays. That may be saying too much.

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    Seasonal greetings to all, and thanks for your attention and messages. About to start quoting from them again.
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Bonus. Here is a screenshot from one of Google Earth's "Panorama" 360-degree perspectives of the same locale. Not by me but from some previous visitor. This would be a further turn to the left from the preceding shot, showing more of the neighboring land, plus different lighting and a change of a few feet in camera location.

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Issue January/February 2013

The Places You’ll Go

Magazine January/February 2013

Google’s Michael Jones talks with James Fallows about the future of mapping, and why you’ll never be lost again.

The Surprisingly Tangled Politics of 'Gun Safety,' Starring Wikipedia

National
Last week I argued that people who want to reduce gun carnage should start talking about "gun safety," rather than "gun control." The newly reinforced no-compromise position of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA may make the distinction moot. But for those gun-owners who recognize that there is a problem to be solved -- and that the solution might involve something more than all school teachers carrying guns to work -- and emphasis on safety rather than control might conceivably do some good.

A reader who was trained as a physician and works as an epidemiologist tried to put this policy into effect. He started editing the Wikipedia page on "gun safety" to reflect this broader view. Here's what happened:

1) The reader's initial message:
I appreciate ... talking about 'gun safety' as a goal for America...

This approach makes complete sense to me. America's outlier rates of firearms homicides and suicide are almost certainly the direct result of the overwhelming number of guns carelessly owned.  Hence, the long-term goal must be either a radical change in safety practices (as in Switzerland and Israel) or a radical reduction in gun ownership by persons not prepared to keep them safe.
 
In the short-term, a much more modest change is required:  a transition in the common meaning of the term "gun safety".  Until now, "gun safety" has been a topic dominated by proponents of gun ownership.  Take for example the definition of gun safety provided by the wiki page (until I added a sentence - which may be deleted as too "political"):  "Gun safety is a collection of rules and recommendations that can be applied when handling firearms. The purpose of gun safety is to eliminate or minimize the risks of unintentional death, injury or damage caused by improper handling of firearms."  This overly narrow definition excludes efforts to persuade people to forego firearms purchases or to dispose of weapons if they can no longer prevent the firearms from being misused.  This, I am convinced, is what will be required for effective gun safety - fewer households like the Lanza's.
2) Wikipedia pushback. The reader then reported:
Here are the 3 sentences I added this morning to the Wikipedia "Gun safety" article:
'The phrase "gun safety" is now frequently used to refer to measures that go beyond the prevention of unintentional injury. This includes efforts to reduce gun ownership by persons not prepared to assure safe use of guns and policies aimed to reduce firearms homicides and suicides. Please refer to the wikipedia article on Gun Politics for further discussion of this broader concept of gun safety.' ...
My additional 3 sentences lasted about 1 hour.  To see the justification for the deletion of these sentences you can look at the "Talk" page, then  "The scope of gun safety".  The justifications for deleting my comments appear below the 20 references (which may be of interest to anyone studying current usage of the phrase "gun safety". I have since compiled another 20).
 
After one editor complained that all of the references were from the US, I added the following:
Please review the following document from 2007: "A Review of Literature on 'Gun Safety' Education Programmes" by the South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons. 14 March 2007. This review begins by stating that "The USA is the only country where there are programmes related to gun safety for pre-school children (four to five) and for primary and secondary children. There is no evidence of the effectiveness of these programmes; this is hardly surprising, as they are not based on a solid foundation of knowledge about child development. Unfortunately there is also little evidence from the USA that attempts to educate parents are very successful. This seems to be due to the strength of the belief that guns protect individuals and families, and misperceptions about the ability of children to engage in safe behaviours." http://www.seesac.org/uploads/documents/Gun%20safety1.pdf
I have elevated the debate to another level by posting a notice on Wikipedia's dispute resolution notice board.  I am a Wikipedia newbie (believe it or not) so I don't know what comes next.  My immediate objective is to get a notice posted on the article itself saying that it is being reviewed for neutrality....

Also of great relevance is this piece suggesting that "gun safety" education is being used by proponents of gun ownership to convince children to become future gun owners:
"Joe Camel with Feathers --  How the NRA with Gun and Tobacco Industry Dollars Uses its Eddie Eagle Program to Market Guns to Kids.  Section Three: "The Safest Thing is to Not Keep a Gun at Home""  by the Viloence Policy Center, undated.
3) Finis. The reader learns a lesson, which he shares with us:
Since I filled your inbox with several previous emails on my experience with updating the Wikipedia article on "Gun safety", I feel I should let you know how the issue has been addressed.
 
Basically, the authors of the article have agreed to be explicit from the outset that their discussion is restricted to safe handling of firearms.  My (hopefully) final comments on the article are given on the accompanying Talk page.
 
From this experience I have learned that a restricted understanding of "Gun safety" is likely to be very vigorously defended.  In the process, I have compiled URLs for about 50 web sites with titles that include "Gun safety" or "Firearms safety" and content that includes a discussion of broader measures that might reduce firearms homicides and suicides.  If anyone is interested in this collection, I am happy to share it.
 
I conclude my comments on the Wikipedia Talk page as follows:
Since the above Talk discussion has raised the issue of my personal intentions, I would like to close by elaborating on said intentions.  As a health professional, and as someone frustrated with "gun politics", I am interested in peoples' personal decisions to own a gun.  I believe that the peer reviewed research on the topic (which is dealt with in a very incomplete and non-neutral way in the Gun Politics article) provides overwhelming evidence that the risk of homicide and suicide is substantially higher for households owning a gun.  I won't rehash here the complexity of this issue. As we all agree, this is best dealt with in the Gun Politics article.  But the personal decision to own a gun and the personal decision to take all necessary precautions to keep safe the firearms in your possession fall within the purview of this article on safe handling of firearms.  This decision has been politicized but it is not a political decision.  It is a personal decision.  And, as difficult as that is, Wikipedia should endeavor to provide readers with neutral and complete information to help them to make that personal decision.  It is my intention to help Wikipedia with that effort.
What a complex, long effort this will be -- in keeping with most other large-scale social changes that have mattered.

A Buddhist's Wishes on Christmas Day

National
For two years in the late 1980s, when our children were little, our family lived in Malaysia. We enjoyed many things about that experience, including the fact that there were sizable numbers of at least four major religious groups in the local population: Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians, plus an assortment of others. The Malaysian calendar was thus dotted with religious-based holidays -- and an admirable practice was for people from any religion to note all religions' holidays. Thus we would wish our Muslim (and also non-Muslim) friends "Happy Hari Raya" on the appropriate day. And Happy Deepavali, Happy Buddha's Birthday, etc. Across religions, everyone celebrated Christmas as a major commercial event.

I've carried that practice back to America, giving specific-seasonal greetings on each relevant day - Happy Hanukkah, Happy Easter - rather than the anodyne "Best Wishes for 'the holidays.' " I mention this background both to wish Merry Christmas to all observing the occasion today, and to introduce this note below, from a reader in California who is Japanese-American and Buddhist. She is responding to my saying that, despite complaints from some quarters, I admired Barack Obama's eulogy for Sen Daniel Inouye, including the part that described what Inouye's example had meant to the 11-year-old schoolboy Barack Obama of Honolulu:
As a church organist and having buried both my parents, I'm seen many, many funerals and heard many, many eulogies.  The ones that seem to affect and comfort the mourning families the most are the ones that speak directly to how the departed one had a specific influence on the life of the speaker.  When the eulogist is the President of the United States .... that's powerful to the nth degree. I like the contrast between the story of Sen. Inouye's influence on him before he knew him personally and after when he did.  Like you, I was completely impressed that the President was able to produce this wonderful eulogy the same week as the Newtown eulogy...

The Watergate hearings were the first time I saw Sen. Inouye "in action" at the Senate.  I was so proud and impressed with this fellow Japanese-American.  There weren't that many JA role models in the 60s, Sen. Inouye and Pat Morita were the first two I remember making me feel more American than Japanese and making me proud to be both.

I was very touched seeing the honor of the Rotunda viewing and National Cathedral funeral coming to Sen. Inouye.  Somehow, even as I knew he was an icon in my life, I wasn't sure that others saw him in the same way.  Thank you for noting his service and place in the history of this country. It means a lot.

It's Dec. 22 and my grown children made their way home from NY and MI.  It tickles my children that I put so much effort into Christmas decorations and gifts when I'm a life-long Buddhist, as were my parents, who taught me that we celebrate other people's birthdays, why not Jesus Christ's when it brings a message of joy, peace and goodwill towards all? So to you and yours, as our Family New Year's Card always proclaims, sending you wishes for a year of Health, Peace, Music and Nothin' But Net.
Likewise.

For Christmas Eve: 'The Shepherd'

National
Covert_The_shepherd_novel.jpgMerry Christmas Eve! Greetings wherever you are; I am away this week with several generations of my extended family.

As an improbable but somehow fitting tribute to the occasion, I give you Alan Maitland's reading of the Frederick Forsyth short story, "The Shepherd." Background on the story (with spoilers) is here; I'll say only that Forsyth wrote the story as a Christmas present for his wife. 

Maitland, well known in Canada and much of the US from the news show As It Happens, recorded the story in the late 1970s. Every year since 1979 the CBC has broadcast it on Christmas Eve. You can keep the tradition going by playing it in your household.

Background on the broadcast from the CBC, plus a link to listen to Maitland's reading, is here; and from the technologist, pilot, and instructor Bruce Williams, who first told me about it. It's about a RAF pilot, on a Christmas Eve flight 55 years ago tonight, in 1957, who gets into trouble, and ...  Enjoy.

Farewell to Guy Raz at WATC

National
GuyRaz.jpgIn a few minutes, Guy Raz will begin his last program as host of NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. He took over as regular host three and a half years ago, and with a team of Matt Martinez, Phil Harrell, more recently Steve Lickteig, and others he has given it an edge and a spirit that I've tremendously enjoyed as a listener. One of their innovations has been the "Cover Story" -- an extended segment at the beginning of the show comparable in ambition and range to a magazine cover story. Plus, predictably strong music segments -- and Three-Minute Fiction, and more. (NPR photo.)

Since near the beginning of his time on the show, I've talked with Guy Raz most Saturdays in a week's-news segment of the show, which I have enjoyed too.

Next year Raz will be the host of a new TED Radio Hour, as explained here. I will look forward to hearing him there; and to hearing and talking with whoever ends up as his successor. But I will miss having him on the other end on the line.

Seasonal Gratitude, Book Dept.

International
DreamingUSCover.pngClive Crook has written a wonderful appreciation of Dreaming in Chinese, by Deborah Fallows, who for this and many other reasons I am delighted to say is my wife. The book has received a lot of positive reviews, but I think Clive comes closer than anyone else to capturing its spirit and value. Check it out -- Clive's item, and the book.

I am also grateful to Ian Johnson and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, themselves the authors of a number of very valuable books about China (and, in Johnson's case, on Europe-and-Islam as well), for a year-end wrapup of books about China, at the Asia Society's site. Their discussion of the books they're considering, whose covers are shown in the collage below, makes me want to get and read the two I haven't already seen. And of course I am grateful that they include China Airborne in their list (and for Johnson's previous article about it in the NY Review of Books).

 Thanks to all. 
2012_17_12_Book Collage.jpg

A Powerful Article on the Gun Problem We Don't Talk About

National
The sheer horror of massacres like the one in Newtown -- and before that those in Oak Creek and Aurora and Tucson and Blacksburg and Columbine and... -- gets our attention, and should. But as every gun-safety expert has pointed out, the much greater overall toll is from the hourly, nonstop, one-on-one murders across the country. President Obama was careful to note this in including "a street corner in Chicago" in his list, at the Newtown commemorations, of the recent sites of gun-borne tragedy. 

Dina Rasor has written about this daily toll in an extraordinary article in Truthout. The headline could make it sound as if it's a policy piece:

Rasor.png
And it does contain data, for instance this from the Children's Defense Fund:
Between 1979 and 2009, gun deaths among white children and teens have decreased by 44 percent, compared to an overall 30 percent increase among black children and teens over the same period.
But overall it is a very powerful personal narrative, as compelling its way as anything we have heard form Newtown. I knew Rasor years ago when we were both living in Washington and working the defense-policy beat. Whether or not you had ever heard of her before, you will find this a remarkable portrait of our times and of the problems we confront.

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The Places You’ll Go

Google’s Michael Jones talks with James Fallows about the future of mapping, and why…

Mr. China Comes to America

For decades, every trend in manufacturing favored the developing world and worked against the…

Chen Guangcheng

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