Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The $2,000 an-Hour Woman
This was how Jason, who has always considered himself nothing if not “ultraromantic,” saw it. However, as he slid from his grade-school-style red plastic seat in preparation to kneel, the harsh voice of a female Corrections officer broke the mood, ringing throughout the dank visitor’s room.“Sit back down,” said the large uniformed woman. “You know the rules.”
Such are the obstacles to true love when one is incarcerated at Rikers Island, where Jason Itzler, 38 and still boyishly handsome in his gray Department of Corrections jumpsuit, has resided since the cops shut down his megaposh NY Confidential agency in January.
There was also the matter of the ring. During the glorious summer and fall of 2004, when NY Confidential was grossing an average of $25,000 a night at its 5,000-square-foot loft at 79 Worth Street, spitting distance from the municipal courts and Bloomberg’s priggish City Hall, Jason would have purchased a diamond with enough carats to blow the eye loupe off a 47th Street Hasid.
That was when Itzler filled his days with errands like stopping by Soho Gem on West Broadway to drop $6,500 on little trinkets for Natalia and his other top escorts. This might be followed by a visit to Manolo Blahnik to buy a dozen pairs of $500 footwear. By evening, Itzler could be found at Cipriani, washing down plates of crushed lobster with yet another bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue label and making sure everyone got one of his signature titanium business cards engraved with NY Confidential’s singular motto: ROCKET FUEL FOR WINNERS.
But now Jason was charged with various counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance, money laundering, and promoting prostitution. His arrest was part of a large effort by the NYPD and the D.A.’s office against New York’s burgeoning Internet-based escort agencies. In three months, police had shut down American Beauties, Julie’s, and the far-flung New York Elites, a concern the cops said was flying porn stars all over the country for dates. Reeling, pros were declaring the business “holocausted” as girls took down their Websites and worried johns stayed home.
Many blamed Itzler for the heat. In a business where discretion is supposed to be key, Jason was more than a loose cannon. Loose A-bomb was more like it. He took out giant NY Confidential ads in mainstream magazines (the one you’re holding included). In restaurants, he’d get loud and identify himself, Howard Stern style, as “the King of All Pimps.” Probably most fatally, Itzler was quoted in the Post as bragging that he didn’t worry about the police because “I have cops on my side.” After that, one vice guy said, “it was like he was daring us.”
Only days before, Itzler, attired in a $5,700 full-length fox coat from Jeffrey, bought himself a Mercedes S600. Now the car, along with much of the furniture at Jason’s lair, including the $50,000 sound system on which he blared, 24/7, the music of his Rat Pack idol, Frank Sinatra, had been confiscated by the cops. His assets frozen, unable to make his $250,000 bail, Jason couldn’t even buy a phone card, much less get Natalia a ring.
“Where am I going to get a ring in here?” Jason said to Natalia on the phone the other night. He suggested perhaps Natalia might get the ring herself and then slip it to him when she came to visit.
“That’s good, Jason,” returned Natalia. “I buy the ring, give it to you, you kiss it, give it back to me, and I pretend to be surprised.”
“Something like that,” Jason replied, sheepishly. “You know I love you.”
by Mark Jacobson, NY Magazine | Read more:
Image: Alex Majoli
Wireless Companies Fight for Their Futures
Mobile Future is just one thread in the massive influence web being deployed by AT&T and Verizon as they fight proposals advocated by their smaller competitors and the Justice Department to limit how much of the new wireless frequencies they’ll be allowed to bid on at the auction that’s scheduled for next year.
The spectrum that’s up for sale is highly coveted because it allows transmissions to travel long distances and penetrate buildings. Good spectrum is crucial for wireless companies to attract customers by delivering an ever-increasing amount of information to smartphones and computer tablets.
The competition for control of the airwaves has set off an intense lobbying fight that rivals some of the largest battles over telecommunications policies of the past. The four biggest carriers together spent $37.3 million in 2013 trying to influence lawmakers and the FCC on a host of policy issues ranging from taxes to cyber security as well as spectrum — and the auction is still more than a year away.
But the carriers led by AT&T and Verizon likely have spent at least twice as much more on behind-the-scenes influence campaigns — hiring Ivy-league academics, giving cash to think tanks, associations and universities, and employing public relations firms — all part of a synchronized effort to sway the FCC to establish rules that favor them, said James Thurber, a professor at American University who has been studying lobbying for 30 years.
“This includes all the advertising, white papers, surveys, grass-roots and top-roots activities going on,” Thurber said. “Lobbying isn’t just what the federal registered lobbyists do. It’s an orchestration of a variety of techniques and influence.”
Battling AT&T and Verizon are Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile, the third- and fourth-largest carriers whose networks and customer bases are dwarfed by their larger rivals. The two have put together their own influence campaigns, hiring teams of paid academics and building connections with consumer groups and associations. But Sprint and T-Mobile are at a disadvantage against the deeper pockets and vast network of political ties of AT&T and Verizon, according to those who track Washington lobbying efforts.
At stake is no less than who may ultimately control the public’s wireless access to the Internet, on which all kinds of data — from medical records and bank transactions to Amazon purchases and movie downloads — travel from providers to smartphones and tablets.
The sale of the newly available airwaves also will determine if the wireless market becomes one ruled by two companies or if a recent burst of competition initiated by T-Mobile will continue, said Harold Feld, a senior vice president at Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group in Washington that wants to limit how much spectrum each carrier can purchase in the upcoming auction.
“For wireless carriers, the stakes are enormously high,” Feld said. If the smaller companies are shut out of the auction, “it’s hard to imagine they can overcome that and compete with AT&T and Verizon over time.”
The spectrum that’s up for sale is highly coveted because it allows transmissions to travel long distances and penetrate buildings. Good spectrum is crucial for wireless companies to attract customers by delivering an ever-increasing amount of information to smartphones and computer tablets.The competition for control of the airwaves has set off an intense lobbying fight that rivals some of the largest battles over telecommunications policies of the past. The four biggest carriers together spent $37.3 million in 2013 trying to influence lawmakers and the FCC on a host of policy issues ranging from taxes to cyber security as well as spectrum — and the auction is still more than a year away.
But the carriers led by AT&T and Verizon likely have spent at least twice as much more on behind-the-scenes influence campaigns — hiring Ivy-league academics, giving cash to think tanks, associations and universities, and employing public relations firms — all part of a synchronized effort to sway the FCC to establish rules that favor them, said James Thurber, a professor at American University who has been studying lobbying for 30 years.
“This includes all the advertising, white papers, surveys, grass-roots and top-roots activities going on,” Thurber said. “Lobbying isn’t just what the federal registered lobbyists do. It’s an orchestration of a variety of techniques and influence.”
Battling AT&T and Verizon are Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile, the third- and fourth-largest carriers whose networks and customer bases are dwarfed by their larger rivals. The two have put together their own influence campaigns, hiring teams of paid academics and building connections with consumer groups and associations. But Sprint and T-Mobile are at a disadvantage against the deeper pockets and vast network of political ties of AT&T and Verizon, according to those who track Washington lobbying efforts.
At stake is no less than who may ultimately control the public’s wireless access to the Internet, on which all kinds of data — from medical records and bank transactions to Amazon purchases and movie downloads — travel from providers to smartphones and tablets.
The sale of the newly available airwaves also will determine if the wireless market becomes one ruled by two companies or if a recent burst of competition initiated by T-Mobile will continue, said Harold Feld, a senior vice president at Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group in Washington that wants to limit how much spectrum each carrier can purchase in the upcoming auction.
“For wireless carriers, the stakes are enormously high,” Feld said. If the smaller companies are shut out of the auction, “it’s hard to imagine they can overcome that and compete with AT&T and Verizon over time.”
by Allan Holmes, Center for Public Integrity | Read more:
Image: Shutterstock
The Future of Brain Implants
Science fiction? Perhaps not for very much longer. Brain implants today are where laser eye surgery was several decades ago. They are not risk-free and make sense only for a narrowly defined set of patients—but they are a sign of things to come.
Unlike pacemakers, dental crowns or implantable insulin pumps, neuroprosthetics—devices that restore or supplement the mind's capacities with electronics inserted directly into the nervous system—change how we perceive the world and move through it. For better or worse, these devices become part of who we are. (...)
Today, effective brain-machine interfaces have to be wired directly into the brain to pick up the signals emanating from small groups of nerve cells. But nobody yet knows how to make devices that listen to the same nerve cells that long. Part of the problem is mechanical: The brain sloshes around inside the skull every time you move, and an implant that slips by a millimeter may become ineffective.
Another part of the problem is biological: The implant must be nontoxic and biocompatible so as not to provoke an immune reaction. It also must be small enough to be totally enclosed within the skull and energy-efficient enough that it can be recharged through induction coils placed on the scalp at night (as with the recharging stands now used for some electric toothbrushes).
These obstacles may seem daunting, but many of them look suspiciously like the ones that cellphone manufacturers faced two decades ago, when cellphones were still the size of shoeboxes. Neural implants will require even greater advances since there is no easy way to upgrade them once they are implanted and the skull is sealed back up.
But plenty of clever young neuro-engineers are trying to surmount these problems, like Michel Maharbiz and Jose Carmena and their colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. They are developing a wireless brain interface that they call "neural dust." Thousands of biologically neutral microsensors, on the order of one-tenth of a millimeter (approximately the thickness of a human hair), would convert electrical signals into ultrasound that could be read outside the brain.
The real question isn't so much whether something like this can be done but how and when. How many advances in material science, battery chemistry, molecular biology, tissue engineering and neuroscience will we need? Will those advances take one decade, two decades, three or more? As Dr. Maharbiz said in an email, once implants "can be made 'lifetime stable' for healthy adults, many severe disabilities…will likely be chronically treatable." For millions of patients, neural implants could be absolutely transformative.
by Gary Marcus and Christof Koch, WSJ | Read more:
Image: Getty
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Brutal Ageism of Tech
[ed. See also: What Zuckerberg Hath Wrought.]
Silicon Valley has become one of the most ageist places in America. Tech luminaries who otherwise pride themselves on their dedication to meritocracy don’t think twice about deriding the not-actually-old. “Young people are just smarter,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told an audience at Stanford back in 2007. As I write, the website of ServiceNow, a large Santa Clara–based I.T. services company, features the following advisory in large letters atop its “careers” page: “We Want People Who Have Their Best Work Ahead of Them, Not Behind Them.”
And that’s just what gets said in public. An engineer in his forties recently told me about meeting a tech CEO who was trying to acquire his company. “You must be the token graybeard,” said the CEO, who was in his late twenties or early thirties. “I looked at him and said, ‘No, I’m the token grown-up.’ ” (...)
The economics of the V.C. industry help explain why. Investing in new companies is fantastically risky, and even the best V.C.s fail a large majority of the time. That makes it essential for the returns on successes to be enormous. Whereas a 500 percent return on a $2 million investment (or “5x,” as it’s known) would be considered remarkable in any other line of work, the investments that sustain a large V.C. fund are the “unicorns” and “super-unicorns” that return 100x or 1,000x—the Googles and the Facebooks.
And this is where finance meets what might charitably be called sociology but is really just Silicon Valley mysticism. Finding themselves in the position of chasing 100x or 1,000x returns, V.C.s invariably tell themselves a story about youngsters. “One of the reasons they collectively prefer youth is because youth has the potential for the black swan,” one V.C. told me of his competitors. “It hasn’t been marked down to reality yet. If I was at Google for five years, what’s the chance I would be a black swan? A lot lower than if you never heard of me. That’s the collective mentality.” (...)
Fast-forward to the present and it’s hard not to detect the PCC/Homebrew influence on the local patois. In 2011, famed V.C. Vinod Khosla told a conference that “people over forty-five basically die in terms of new ideas.” Michael Moritz, of Sequoia Capital, one of the most pedigreed firms in the tech world, once touted himself as “an incredibly enthusiastic fan of very talented twentysomethings starting companies.” His logic was simple: “They have great passion. They don’t have distractions like families and children and other things that get in the way.” But, of course, whereas the Homebrewers mostly wanted to unleash the power of computers from IBM and share it with the common man, the V.C.s want to harness youthful energy in the service of a trillion-dollar industry.
Whatever the case, the veneration of youth in Silicon Valley now seems way out of proportion to its usefulness. Take Dropbox, which an MIT alumnus named Drew Houston co-founded in 2007, after he got tired of losing access to his files whenever he forgot a thumb drive. Dropbox quickly caught on among users and began to vacuum up piles of venture capital. But the company has never quite outgrown its dorm-room vibe, even now that it houses hundreds of employees in an 85,000-square-foot space. Dropbox has a full-service jamming studio and observes a weekly ritual known as whiskey Fridays. Job candidates have complained about being interviewed in conference rooms with names like “The Break-up Room” and the “Bromance Chamber.” (A spokesman says the names were recently changed.)
Once a year, Houston, who still wears his chunky MIT class ring, presides over “Hack Week,” during which Dropbox headquarters turns into the world’s best-capitalized rumpus room. Employees ride around on skateboards and scooters, play with Legos at all hours, and generally tool around with whatever happens to interest them, other than work, which they are encouraged to set aside. “I’ve been up for about forty hours working on Dropbox Jeopardy,” one engineer told a documentarian who filmed a recent Hack Week. “It’s close to nearing insanity, but it feels worth it.”
And that’s just what gets said in public. An engineer in his forties recently told me about meeting a tech CEO who was trying to acquire his company. “You must be the token graybeard,” said the CEO, who was in his late twenties or early thirties. “I looked at him and said, ‘No, I’m the token grown-up.’ ” (...)
The economics of the V.C. industry help explain why. Investing in new companies is fantastically risky, and even the best V.C.s fail a large majority of the time. That makes it essential for the returns on successes to be enormous. Whereas a 500 percent return on a $2 million investment (or “5x,” as it’s known) would be considered remarkable in any other line of work, the investments that sustain a large V.C. fund are the “unicorns” and “super-unicorns” that return 100x or 1,000x—the Googles and the Facebooks.
And this is where finance meets what might charitably be called sociology but is really just Silicon Valley mysticism. Finding themselves in the position of chasing 100x or 1,000x returns, V.C.s invariably tell themselves a story about youngsters. “One of the reasons they collectively prefer youth is because youth has the potential for the black swan,” one V.C. told me of his competitors. “It hasn’t been marked down to reality yet. If I was at Google for five years, what’s the chance I would be a black swan? A lot lower than if you never heard of me. That’s the collective mentality.” (...)
Fast-forward to the present and it’s hard not to detect the PCC/Homebrew influence on the local patois. In 2011, famed V.C. Vinod Khosla told a conference that “people over forty-five basically die in terms of new ideas.” Michael Moritz, of Sequoia Capital, one of the most pedigreed firms in the tech world, once touted himself as “an incredibly enthusiastic fan of very talented twentysomethings starting companies.” His logic was simple: “They have great passion. They don’t have distractions like families and children and other things that get in the way.” But, of course, whereas the Homebrewers mostly wanted to unleash the power of computers from IBM and share it with the common man, the V.C.s want to harness youthful energy in the service of a trillion-dollar industry.
Whatever the case, the veneration of youth in Silicon Valley now seems way out of proportion to its usefulness. Take Dropbox, which an MIT alumnus named Drew Houston co-founded in 2007, after he got tired of losing access to his files whenever he forgot a thumb drive. Dropbox quickly caught on among users and began to vacuum up piles of venture capital. But the company has never quite outgrown its dorm-room vibe, even now that it houses hundreds of employees in an 85,000-square-foot space. Dropbox has a full-service jamming studio and observes a weekly ritual known as whiskey Fridays. Job candidates have complained about being interviewed in conference rooms with names like “The Break-up Room” and the “Bromance Chamber.” (A spokesman says the names were recently changed.)
Once a year, Houston, who still wears his chunky MIT class ring, presides over “Hack Week,” during which Dropbox headquarters turns into the world’s best-capitalized rumpus room. Employees ride around on skateboards and scooters, play with Legos at all hours, and generally tool around with whatever happens to interest them, other than work, which they are encouraged to set aside. “I’ve been up for about forty hours working on Dropbox Jeopardy,” one engineer told a documentarian who filmed a recent Hack Week. “It’s close to nearing insanity, but it feels worth it.”
by Noam Scheiber, TNR | Read more:
Image: Fredrik Brodén
Some Facts About How NSA Stories Are Reported
Several members of the august “US Journalists Against Transparency” club are outraged by revelations in yesterday’s New York Times (jointly published by der Spiegel) that the NSA has been hacking the products of the Chinese tech company Huawei as well as Huawei itself at exactly the same time (and in exactly the same way) as the US Government has been claiming the Chinese government hacks. Echoing the script of national security state officials, these journalists argue that these revelations are unjustified, even treasonous, because this is the type of spying the NSA should be doing, and disclosure serves no public interest while harming American national security, etc. etc.
True to form, however, these beacons of courage refuse to malign the parties that actually made the choice to publish these revelations – namely, the reporters and editors of the New York Times – and instead use it to advance their relentless attack on Edward Snowden. To these journalists, there are few worse sins than “stealing” the secrets of the US government and leaking them to the press (just as was true in the WikiLeaks case, one must congratulate the US Government on its outstanding propaganda feat of getting its journalists to lead the war on those who bring transparency to the nation’s most powerful factions). But beyond the abject spectacle of anti-transparency journalists, these claims are often based on factually false assumptions about how these stories are reported, making it worthwhile once again to underscore some of the key facts governing this process:
(1) Edward Snowden has not leaked a single document to any journalist since he left Hong Kong in June: 9 months ago. Back then, he provided a set of documents to several journalists and asked that we make careful judgments about what should and should not be published based on several criteria. He has played no role since then in deciding which documents are or are not reported. Those decisions are made entirely by media outlets that are in possession of those documents. Thus, calling a new NSA story “Snowden’s latest leak” or asking “why would Snowden decide to publish this now?” – as though he’s doling out documents one by one or deciding which documents should be published – is misleading in the extreme: those decisions are made exclusively by the journalists and editors of those news outlets.
(2) Publication of an NSA story constitutes an editorial judgment by the media outlet that the information should be public. By publishing yesterday’s Huawei story, the NYT obviously made the editorial judgment that these revelations are both newsworthy and in the public interest, should be disclosed, and will not unduly harm “American national security.” For reasons I explain below, I agree with that choice. But if you disagree – if you want to argue that this (or any other) NSA story is reckless, dangerous, treasonous or whatever – then have the courage to take it up with the people who reached the opposite conclusion: in this case, the editors and reporters of the NYT (indeed, as former DOJ official Jack Goldsmith observed, the NYT‘s Huawei story was “based on leaks other than the Snowden documents”). In most other cases where critics claim reckless disclosures, the decision to publish was made by the Washington Post. The judgment to which you’re objecting – that this information should be made public – was one made by those newspapers, not by Edward Snowden.
(3) Snowden has made repeatedly clear that he did not want all of the documents he provided to be published. When Snowden furnished documents to the journalists with whom he chose to work (which, just by the way, expressly did not include the NYT), he made clear that he did not believe all of those materials should be published. Obviously, if he wanted all of those documents published, he could have and would have just uploaded them to the internet himself; he wouldn’t have needed to work with journalists.
As he has said repeatedly, he wanted journalists – not himself – to make these decisions based on what is in the public interest and what can be disclosed without subjecting innocent people to harm. He was adamant that not all of the documents he provided were appropriate for publication, and was especially clear (at least to me) that certain categories of documents not be published (which is why those who demand that all documents be released are arguing, even though they won’t acknowledge it, that we should violate our agreement with our source, disregard Snowden’s conditions for furnishing the documents, and subject him to a wide range of risks he did not want to take).
True to form, however, these beacons of courage refuse to malign the parties that actually made the choice to publish these revelations – namely, the reporters and editors of the New York Times – and instead use it to advance their relentless attack on Edward Snowden. To these journalists, there are few worse sins than “stealing” the secrets of the US government and leaking them to the press (just as was true in the WikiLeaks case, one must congratulate the US Government on its outstanding propaganda feat of getting its journalists to lead the war on those who bring transparency to the nation’s most powerful factions). But beyond the abject spectacle of anti-transparency journalists, these claims are often based on factually false assumptions about how these stories are reported, making it worthwhile once again to underscore some of the key facts governing this process:
(1) Edward Snowden has not leaked a single document to any journalist since he left Hong Kong in June: 9 months ago. Back then, he provided a set of documents to several journalists and asked that we make careful judgments about what should and should not be published based on several criteria. He has played no role since then in deciding which documents are or are not reported. Those decisions are made entirely by media outlets that are in possession of those documents. Thus, calling a new NSA story “Snowden’s latest leak” or asking “why would Snowden decide to publish this now?” – as though he’s doling out documents one by one or deciding which documents should be published – is misleading in the extreme: those decisions are made exclusively by the journalists and editors of those news outlets.
(2) Publication of an NSA story constitutes an editorial judgment by the media outlet that the information should be public. By publishing yesterday’s Huawei story, the NYT obviously made the editorial judgment that these revelations are both newsworthy and in the public interest, should be disclosed, and will not unduly harm “American national security.” For reasons I explain below, I agree with that choice. But if you disagree – if you want to argue that this (or any other) NSA story is reckless, dangerous, treasonous or whatever – then have the courage to take it up with the people who reached the opposite conclusion: in this case, the editors and reporters of the NYT (indeed, as former DOJ official Jack Goldsmith observed, the NYT‘s Huawei story was “based on leaks other than the Snowden documents”). In most other cases where critics claim reckless disclosures, the decision to publish was made by the Washington Post. The judgment to which you’re objecting – that this information should be made public – was one made by those newspapers, not by Edward Snowden.
(3) Snowden has made repeatedly clear that he did not want all of the documents he provided to be published. When Snowden furnished documents to the journalists with whom he chose to work (which, just by the way, expressly did not include the NYT), he made clear that he did not believe all of those materials should be published. Obviously, if he wanted all of those documents published, he could have and would have just uploaded them to the internet himself; he wouldn’t have needed to work with journalists.
As he has said repeatedly, he wanted journalists – not himself – to make these decisions based on what is in the public interest and what can be disclosed without subjecting innocent people to harm. He was adamant that not all of the documents he provided were appropriate for publication, and was especially clear (at least to me) that certain categories of documents not be published (which is why those who demand that all documents be released are arguing, even though they won’t acknowledge it, that we should violate our agreement with our source, disregard Snowden’s conditions for furnishing the documents, and subject him to a wide range of risks he did not want to take).
by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept | Read more:
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Why Apple Can’t Match Google’s All-Seeing New Smartwatches
Apple’s genius is in creating personal computing devices that invite us to linger over them and inspire developers to create the best possible apps. But that beautiful hardware may not be enough to compete with the simplicity and the ability to harness huge amounts of data that are built into Google’s smartwatch operating system, Android Wear. Google’s OS, which it released on demos this week, will run on a variety of watches from manufacturers including Asus, HTC, LG, Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm, Motorola and Fossil Group.
Smartwatches are, in some ways, a much tougher design problem than smartphones or PCs. (Witness the failures of Samsung’s and Sony’s smartwatches.) Their tiny screens make it hard to direct their actions—to tap out an email, go to a web page, find a favorite song. So Google has reasoned that it should work the other way around. A smartwatch should have almost no interface at all. It should know where you are and what you want before you do. And that makes it the perfect fit for one of Google’s most innovative and rapidly improving bits of software, Google Now, which is part of Android.
Knowing your needs better than you do is something Google has been working on for a long time. The umbrella term for it is predictive search. Here’s a simple example: Most of us probably pop open a weather app at some point in our morning routine. Given how predictable this is, why should our devices wait for us to signal to them that we want to know the weather? Why not just tell us?
That’s what Google Now is all about. Instead of giving you information through apps or a web browser, Google Now shows you a bunch of virtual cards that already have the information you (probably) need at that moment. Just swipe a card away to get to the next one.
by Christopher Mims, Quartz | Read more:
Image: Motorola
Saturday, March 22, 2014
EPA Chief Doesn't Like Moose Meat (or Trinkets)
As a young child, raised in a small Interior village by my grandmother, I would participate with members of my large extended family in potlatches, birthdays, parties, celebrations, funerals, and gatherings of friends and family in my village of about 600. Many times, the food was placed in the center of our gathering and our elders would pray to God to thank Him for life, for the bounty and blessings He placed before us, and for keeping us safe.
During the meal, adults would talk of years gone by, share hunting stories, days spent on the river, time out on the trapline and the migration of animals. The importance of sharing and community was always at the forefront; it was about unity, the necessity of community, there were no secrets and we were all reminded of the importance of looking out for one other. You see, that is how we survived for millennia in this harsh and beautiful landscape, working together, providing for each other -- these are the values we live by, responsibility to each other to ensure everyone is taken care of and no one is left behind. One could truly answer, "Yes! I am my brother’s keeper."
The other day I read an article from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: "Environmental Protection Agency Chief Gina McCarthy is being criticized by Alaska officials for two disparaging comments she made about Interior Alaska in a recent Wall Street Journal article." The Journal article, "Rare Detente: New EPA Chief and Industry," focused mostly on McCarthy's ability to find relative harmony between the regulatory agency and energy companies, citing specifically her unrelentingly forthright nature. In the story, McCarthy told a Wall Street Journal reporter that she had been surprised by the government's strict ethics regulation regarding the acceptance of gifts, going on to ridicule two gifts in particular she received while visiting Alaska in August.
The story said she remarked how officials chased her down for accepting a small pin from North Pole that was presented to her her at an event -- ('I threw the f...ing thing away,' she told them) -- and that she received a jar of moose meat that 'could gag a maggot.' The moose meat was given by a little girl during a hearing," the story said.
I was utterly disgusted by McCarthy’s comments.
First of all, in my Gwich’in tradition, one of our most important values is to share, not only with each other but with others who come to visit us. This is a critical component throughout Alaska because without sharing most of us could not survive. It is also about respecting those who visit and ensuring that they are taken care of and knowing that they are welcome in our community. The person who shared the moose meat with McCarthy was carrying on the tradition of ensuring that she did not go home empty-handed, and giving it as part of the hunting tradition that says you must share your first harvest. The gestures were handed down from many generations past.
by Craig Fleener, Alaska Dispatch | Read more:
Image: Eric Engman/News-Miner
During the meal, adults would talk of years gone by, share hunting stories, days spent on the river, time out on the trapline and the migration of animals. The importance of sharing and community was always at the forefront; it was about unity, the necessity of community, there were no secrets and we were all reminded of the importance of looking out for one other. You see, that is how we survived for millennia in this harsh and beautiful landscape, working together, providing for each other -- these are the values we live by, responsibility to each other to ensure everyone is taken care of and no one is left behind. One could truly answer, "Yes! I am my brother’s keeper."The other day I read an article from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: "Environmental Protection Agency Chief Gina McCarthy is being criticized by Alaska officials for two disparaging comments she made about Interior Alaska in a recent Wall Street Journal article." The Journal article, "Rare Detente: New EPA Chief and Industry," focused mostly on McCarthy's ability to find relative harmony between the regulatory agency and energy companies, citing specifically her unrelentingly forthright nature. In the story, McCarthy told a Wall Street Journal reporter that she had been surprised by the government's strict ethics regulation regarding the acceptance of gifts, going on to ridicule two gifts in particular she received while visiting Alaska in August.
The story said she remarked how officials chased her down for accepting a small pin from North Pole that was presented to her her at an event -- ('I threw the f...ing thing away,' she told them) -- and that she received a jar of moose meat that 'could gag a maggot.' The moose meat was given by a little girl during a hearing," the story said.
I was utterly disgusted by McCarthy’s comments.
First of all, in my Gwich’in tradition, one of our most important values is to share, not only with each other but with others who come to visit us. This is a critical component throughout Alaska because without sharing most of us could not survive. It is also about respecting those who visit and ensuring that they are taken care of and knowing that they are welcome in our community. The person who shared the moose meat with McCarthy was carrying on the tradition of ensuring that she did not go home empty-handed, and giving it as part of the hunting tradition that says you must share your first harvest. The gestures were handed down from many generations past.
by Craig Fleener, Alaska Dispatch | Read more:
Image: Eric Engman/News-Miner
The Future of Europe: An Interview with George Soros
Schmitz: What do you think of Vladimir Putin’s recent policies with respect to Ukraine, Crimea, and Europe?
Soros: Now you are coming to the crux of the matter. Russia is emerging as a big geopolitical player, and the European Union needs to realize that it has a resurgent rival on its east. Russia badly needs Europe as a partner, but Putin is positioning it as a rival. There are significant political forces within the Russian regime that are critical of Putin’s policy on that score.
Schmitz: Can you be more specific?
Soros: The important thing to remember is that Putin is leading from a position of weakness. He was quite popular in Russia because he restored some order out of the chaos. The new order is not all that different from the old one, but the fact that it is open to the outside world is a definite improvement, an important element in its stability. But then the prearranged switch with Dmitry Medvedev from prime minister to president deeply upset the people. Putin felt existentially threatened by the protest movement. He became repressive at home and aggressive abroad.
That is when Russia started shipping armaments to the Assad regime in Syria on a massive scale and helped turn the tide against the rebels. The gamble paid off because of the preoccupation of the Western powers—the United States and the EU—with their internal problems. Barack Obama wanted to retaliate against Syria’s use of chemical weapons. He asked for congressional approval and was about to be rebuffed when Putin came to the rescue and persuaded Assad to voluntarily surrender his chemical weapons.
That was a resounding diplomatic victory for him. Yet the spontaneous uprising of the Ukrainian people must have taught Putin that his dream of reconstituting what is left of the Russian Empire is unattainable. He is now facing a choice between persevering or changing course and becoming more cooperative abroad and less repressive at home. His current course has already proved to be self-defeating, but he appears to be persevering.
Schmitz: Is Russia a credible threat to Europe if its economy is as weak as you say?
Soros: The oligarchs who control much of the Russian economy don’t have any confidence in the regime. They send their children and money abroad. That is what makes the economy so weak. Even with oil over $100 a barrel, which is the minimum Russia needs to balance its budget, it is not growing. Putin turned aggressive out of weakness. He is acting in self-defense. He has no scruples, he can be ruthless, but he is a judo expert, not a sadist—so the economic weakness and the aggressive behavior are entirely self-consistent.
Schmitz: How should Europe respond to it?
Soros: It needs to be more united, especially in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Putin prides himself on being a geopolitical realist. He respects strength and is emboldened by weakness. Yet there is no need to be permanently adversarial. Notwithstanding the current situation in Ukraine, the European Union and Russia are in many ways complementary; they both need each other. There is plenty of room for Russia to play a constructive role in the world, exactly because both Europe and the United States are so preoccupied with their internal problems.
Schmitz: How does that translate into practice, particularly in the Middle East?
Soros: It has totally transformed the geopolitical situation. I have some specific ideas on this subject, but it is very complicated. I can’t possibly explain it in full because there are too many countries involved and they are all interconnected.
Schmitz: Give it a try.
Soros: I should start with a general observation. There are a growing number of unresolved political crises in the world. That is a symptom of a breakdown in global governance. We have a very rudimentary system in place. Basically, there is only one international institution of hard power: the UN Security Council. If the five permanent members agree, they can impose their will on any part of the world. But there are many sovereign states with armies; and there are failed states that are unable to protect their monopoly over the use of lethal force or hard power.
The cold war was a stable system. The two superpowers were stalemated by the threat of mutually assured destruction, and they had to restrain their satellites. So wars were fought mainly at the edges. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a brief moment when the United States emerged as the undisputed leader of the world. But it abused its power. Under the influence of the neocons, who argued that the United States should use its power to impose its will on the world, President George W. Bush declared “war on terror” and invaded Iraq under false pretenses.
That was a tragic misinterpretation of the proper role of hegemonic or imperial power. It is the power of attraction—soft power—that ensures the stability of empires. Hard power may be needed for conquest and self-protection, but the hegemon must look after the interests of those who depend on it in order to secure their allegiance instead of promoting only its own interests. The United States did that very well after World War II, when it established the United Nations and embarked on the Marshall Plan. But President Bush forgot that lesson and destroyed American supremacy in no time. The neocons’ dream of a “new American century” lasted less than ten years. President Obama then brought American policy back to reality. His record in foreign policy is better than generally recognized. He accepted the tremendous loss of power and influence and tried to “lead from behind.” In any case, he is more preoccupied with domestic than foreign policy. In that respect America is in the same position as Europe, although for different reasons. People are inward-looking and tired of war. This has created a power vacuum, which has allowed conflicts to fester unresolved all over the world.
Recently, Russia has moved into this power vacuum, trying to reassert itself as a geopolitical player. That was a bold maneuver, inspired by Putin’s internal weakness, and it has paid off in Syria because of the weakness of the West. Russia could do what the Western powers couldn’t: persuade Assad to “voluntarily” surrender his chemical weapons. That has radically changed the geopolitical landscape. Suddenly, the prospect of a solution has emerged for the three major unresolved conflicts in the Middle East—Palestine, Iran, and Syria—when one would have least expected it.
by George Soros and Gregor Peter Schmitz, NY Review of Books | Read more:
Image: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Soros: Now you are coming to the crux of the matter. Russia is emerging as a big geopolitical player, and the European Union needs to realize that it has a resurgent rival on its east. Russia badly needs Europe as a partner, but Putin is positioning it as a rival. There are significant political forces within the Russian regime that are critical of Putin’s policy on that score.
Schmitz: Can you be more specific?
Soros: The important thing to remember is that Putin is leading from a position of weakness. He was quite popular in Russia because he restored some order out of the chaos. The new order is not all that different from the old one, but the fact that it is open to the outside world is a definite improvement, an important element in its stability. But then the prearranged switch with Dmitry Medvedev from prime minister to president deeply upset the people. Putin felt existentially threatened by the protest movement. He became repressive at home and aggressive abroad.
That is when Russia started shipping armaments to the Assad regime in Syria on a massive scale and helped turn the tide against the rebels. The gamble paid off because of the preoccupation of the Western powers—the United States and the EU—with their internal problems. Barack Obama wanted to retaliate against Syria’s use of chemical weapons. He asked for congressional approval and was about to be rebuffed when Putin came to the rescue and persuaded Assad to voluntarily surrender his chemical weapons.
That was a resounding diplomatic victory for him. Yet the spontaneous uprising of the Ukrainian people must have taught Putin that his dream of reconstituting what is left of the Russian Empire is unattainable. He is now facing a choice between persevering or changing course and becoming more cooperative abroad and less repressive at home. His current course has already proved to be self-defeating, but he appears to be persevering.
Schmitz: Is Russia a credible threat to Europe if its economy is as weak as you say?
Soros: The oligarchs who control much of the Russian economy don’t have any confidence in the regime. They send their children and money abroad. That is what makes the economy so weak. Even with oil over $100 a barrel, which is the minimum Russia needs to balance its budget, it is not growing. Putin turned aggressive out of weakness. He is acting in self-defense. He has no scruples, he can be ruthless, but he is a judo expert, not a sadist—so the economic weakness and the aggressive behavior are entirely self-consistent.
Schmitz: How should Europe respond to it?
Soros: It needs to be more united, especially in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Putin prides himself on being a geopolitical realist. He respects strength and is emboldened by weakness. Yet there is no need to be permanently adversarial. Notwithstanding the current situation in Ukraine, the European Union and Russia are in many ways complementary; they both need each other. There is plenty of room for Russia to play a constructive role in the world, exactly because both Europe and the United States are so preoccupied with their internal problems.
Schmitz: How does that translate into practice, particularly in the Middle East?
Soros: It has totally transformed the geopolitical situation. I have some specific ideas on this subject, but it is very complicated. I can’t possibly explain it in full because there are too many countries involved and they are all interconnected.
Schmitz: Give it a try.
Soros: I should start with a general observation. There are a growing number of unresolved political crises in the world. That is a symptom of a breakdown in global governance. We have a very rudimentary system in place. Basically, there is only one international institution of hard power: the UN Security Council. If the five permanent members agree, they can impose their will on any part of the world. But there are many sovereign states with armies; and there are failed states that are unable to protect their monopoly over the use of lethal force or hard power.
The cold war was a stable system. The two superpowers were stalemated by the threat of mutually assured destruction, and they had to restrain their satellites. So wars were fought mainly at the edges. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a brief moment when the United States emerged as the undisputed leader of the world. But it abused its power. Under the influence of the neocons, who argued that the United States should use its power to impose its will on the world, President George W. Bush declared “war on terror” and invaded Iraq under false pretenses.
That was a tragic misinterpretation of the proper role of hegemonic or imperial power. It is the power of attraction—soft power—that ensures the stability of empires. Hard power may be needed for conquest and self-protection, but the hegemon must look after the interests of those who depend on it in order to secure their allegiance instead of promoting only its own interests. The United States did that very well after World War II, when it established the United Nations and embarked on the Marshall Plan. But President Bush forgot that lesson and destroyed American supremacy in no time. The neocons’ dream of a “new American century” lasted less than ten years. President Obama then brought American policy back to reality. His record in foreign policy is better than generally recognized. He accepted the tremendous loss of power and influence and tried to “lead from behind.” In any case, he is more preoccupied with domestic than foreign policy. In that respect America is in the same position as Europe, although for different reasons. People are inward-looking and tired of war. This has created a power vacuum, which has allowed conflicts to fester unresolved all over the world.
Recently, Russia has moved into this power vacuum, trying to reassert itself as a geopolitical player. That was a bold maneuver, inspired by Putin’s internal weakness, and it has paid off in Syria because of the weakness of the West. Russia could do what the Western powers couldn’t: persuade Assad to “voluntarily” surrender his chemical weapons. That has radically changed the geopolitical landscape. Suddenly, the prospect of a solution has emerged for the three major unresolved conflicts in the Middle East—Palestine, Iran, and Syria—when one would have least expected it.
by George Soros and Gregor Peter Schmitz, NY Review of Books | Read more:
Image: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
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