"Unhappy China"

Book Stokes Nationalism in China

by Jason Dean

http://www.wsj.com/

BEIJING -- A hot-selling new book that excoriates the U.S. and calls for China to be more assertive is fueling debate among Chinese about nationalism and their country's role in the world.

"Unhappy China" is a collection of essays by five authors who argue that China has been too deferential to a Western world that is hostile toward it. They argue that China needs to use its growing power and economic resources to carve out its own position of pre-eminence. "From looking at the history of human civilization, we are most qualified to lead this world; Westerners should be second," the book says.

The authors, a group of scholars, single out the U.S. for special scorn, and say their book's message -- aimed largely at younger Chinese -- has been helped by the economic crisis. "This economic problem has shown the Chinese people that America does have problems, that what we've been saying is right," said Wang Xiaodong, in an interview Friday in Beijing with three of his co-authors: Liu Yang, Song Qiang and Huang Jisu. The fifth author is Song Xiaojun.
Since being released March 13, the book has sold out its initial shipments in many Chinese bookstores and landed on the best-seller list at leading online retailer Dangdang.com. The publisher has printed 270,000 copies, and says sales are far outpacing expectations.

Yet much of the response has been negative, reflecting the complex place that nationalism holds in today's China. Several reviews in the Chinese media have ridiculed "Unhappy China" as an attempt to cash in on nationalistic sentiment. The book is a way to "fish money from the pockets of the angry youth and angry elderly," wrote one critic in the China Youth Daily, a leading state-run newspaper.

An English-language article by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said the book had failed to hit a chord with average Chinese, and quoted blistering critiques from bloggers and academics calling its nationalism embarrassing and unconstructive.

"Unhappy China" comes as the economic crisis has damaged the West and, in the minds of some Chinese, left China relatively strong.

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Premier Wen Jiabao blamed the U.S. for creating the economic crisis. Earlier this month, he expressed concern about China's holdings of U.S. government debt given questions over Washington's economic policies. Last week, Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central-bank governor, proposed adopting a global currency to replace the dollar as a world standard. But Chinese officials, like their Western counterparts, also have called for more international cooperation to help pull the global economy out of its slump.

The authors of "Unhappy China" reject such talk, reciting a litany of grievances against the U.S., from a monetary policy that threatens to devalue China's holdings of U.S. Treasurys to Washington's support for Taiwan.
Many of the prescriptions in "Unhappy China" echo positions China's government espouses -- strengthening the country's reliance on domestic technology and innovation, and bolstering its military, for example.
The authors, however, reserve some of their greatest resentment for China's current political and economic leadership.

"I've already lost all hope in China's elite," says Mr. Wang. The authors see last year's angry protests by mainly young Chinese against foreign criticism of China's Tibet policies and its hosting of the Olympics as a "milestone" for relations with the West.

"America will face a less friendly China in the future," says Mr. Wang.

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Book Stokes Nationalism in China

Book Stokes Nationalism in China
by Jason Dean
www.wsj.com

BEIJING -- A hot-selling new book that excoriates the U.S. and calls for China to be more assertive is fueling debate among Chinese about nationalism and their country's role in the world.

"Unhappy China" is a collection of essays by five authors who argue that China has been too deferential to a Western world that is hostile toward it. They argue that China needs to use its growing power and economic resources to carve out its own position of pre-eminence. "From looking at the history of human civilization, we are most qualified to lead this world; Westerners should be second," the book says.

The authors, a group of scholars, single out the U.S. for special scorn, and say their book's message -- aimed largely at younger Chinese -- has been helped by the economic crisis. "This economic problem has shown the Chinese people that America does have problems, that what we've been saying is right," said Wang Xiaodong, in an interview Friday in Beijing with three of his co-authors: Liu Yang, Song Qiang and Huang Jisu. The fifth author is Song Xiaojun.
Since being released March 13, the book has sold out its initial shipments in many Chinese bookstores and landed on the best-seller list at leading online retailer Dangdang.com. The publisher has printed 270,000 copies, and says sales are far outpacing expectations.

Yet much of the response has been negative, reflecting the complex place that nationalism holds in today's China. Several reviews in the Chinese media have ridiculed "Unhappy China" as an attempt to cash in on nationalistic sentiment. The book is a way to "fish money from the pockets of the angry youth and angry elderly," wrote one critic in the China Youth Daily, a leading state-run newspaper.
An English-language article by Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said the book had failed to hit a chord with average Chinese, and quoted blistering critiques from bloggers and academics calling its nationalism embarrassing and unconstructive.

"Unhappy China" comes as the economic crisis has damaged the West and, in the minds of some Chinese, left China relatively strong.

In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Premier Wen Jiabao blamed the U.S. for creating the economic crisis. Earlier this month, he expressed concern about China's holdings of U.S. government debt given questions over Washington's economic policies. Last week, Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central-bank governor, proposed adopting a global currency to replace the dollar as a world standard. But Chinese officials, like their Western counterparts, also have called for more international cooperation to help pull the global economy out of its slump.

The authors of "Unhappy China" reject such talk, reciting a litany of grievances against the U.S., from a monetary policy that threatens to devalue China's holdings of U.S. Treasurys to Washington's support for Taiwan.
Many of the prescriptions in "Unhappy China" echo positions China's government espouses -- strengthening the country's reliance on domestic technology and innovation, and bolstering its military, for example.
The authors, however, reserve some of their greatest resentment for China's current political and economic leadership.

"I've already lost all hope in China's elite," says Mr. Wang. The authors see last year's angry protests by mainly young Chinese against foreign criticism of China's Tibet policies and its hosting of the Olympics as a "milestone" for relations with the West.

"America will face a less friendly China in the future," says Mr. Wang.

Captain Planet

The Return of Captain Planet
Mother Nature Network hopes nostalgia will help revive the eco-friendly superhero cartoon

by John Jurgesen, 27 February 2009

http://www.wsj.com/

In 1990, Ted Turner added an unlikely asset to his media empire: a superhero with blue skin, green hair and a vendetta against pollution. The cartoon series "Captain Planet and the Planeteers" delivered environmental messages and featured a diverse roster of heroes, including Gi, a dolphin lover from Asia, and Kwame, an African with earth-moving powers.

Voiced by stars including Martin Sheen, Meg Ryan and Sting, the cartoon, which ran to 1996, tackled issues such as AIDS and global warming, which were considered somewhat taboo topics at the time. It drew plenty of detractors, including a People magazine critic who called it "politically correct claptrap," but fans hailed it as a bold step in educational programming.

Now, with such issues considered mainstream conversation, Captain Planet's next mission is to harness nostalgia. Mother Nature Network, a new environmental news and commentary Web site whose founders include a rock musician and a former marketing executive, has licensed more than 20 original installments of the defunct series in hopes of luring viewers -- especially children of the early '90s who might fondly recall the eco-hero's catchphrase, "The Power Is Yours!" Full 22-minute episodes began streaming online today at MNN.com.
The nostalgia factor has been a powerful driver of online video. Fans of classic TV have populated YouTube with pirated clips from the past, while studios have tried to capitalize on their dusty holdings. Sony Pictures Television repackaged episodes of "Diff'rent Strokes" and "T.J. Hooker" for its online Minisode Network. But the Web resurrection of "Captain Planet" also has a social component: The mullet-haired superhero played a role in the environmental movement's transition into the mainstream.

"He's a forgotten hero and it's time to bring him back out," says Chuck Leavell, co-founder of Mother Nature Network, who also has served as a keyboardist for the Rolling Stones since 1979. Though dated looking and sometimes heavy handed with its message, the retro cartoon fits into MNN's mission of making environmental news relevant, even to the uninitiated, Mr. Leavell says. He believes the cartoon could tap the "Captain Planet" following that already exists, including the more than 180,000 Facebook members who have signed up as "fans" of the show.

Mother Nature Network, which launched in January, is based in Atlanta, as are many of Mr. Turner's current operations, including Ted's Montana Grill and the Captain Planet Foundation. The foundation helped MNN president and chief executive Joel Babbit broker the licensing deal for "Captain Planet" with Turner Broadcasting System, which owns the rights to the cartoon. Independent investors supplied $10 million in initial funding for the site, which also runs on sponsorship from Dell, AT&T and other companies. The site hosts blogs, news bulletins and video interviews with entertainers such as rapper Ludacris talking about their conservation views.

While it's possible to book an entertainer in a Captain Planet costume for parties and special events, the series itself was never released on DVD. "I've been trying to get 'Captain Planet' off the shelf since it went off the air," says Barbara Pyle, the cartoon's executive producer.

At its peak, the show was syndicated to more than 200 stations around the country and there was a script in development for a feature film, Ms. Pyle says. But the show was cancelled in 1996 as a victim of corporate shuffles. Ms. Pyle and her colleagues mourned the loss with a New Orleans style jazz funeral. "We were grief-stricken," she says.

Ms. Pyle has tracked the show's cult following over the years, trolling through the thousands of unauthorized excerpts and satire videos on YouTube. Now a member of MNN's advisory board, she helped select which episodes to stream online, including her favourite, "12 Angry Animals," in which the Planeteers are tried for crimes against the animal kingdom before a jury of extinct species.

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Food for Thought:

1. Do comic books serve any purpose at all? What about fantasy stories/film (refer to diagnostic test essay question)

2. Which other superheroes can you think of that purported 'good moral values'?

Women in Science and Tech

In Science and Technology, Efforts to Lure Women Back
By Sue Shellenbarger
www.wsj.com, 26 Feb 2009


It will come as no surprise that many career re-entry programs, designed to help at-home mothers return to the work force, are disappearing, victims of hard times among the Wall Street firms and banks that led the so-called on-ramping trend.

But a new bright spot is emerging. Small, innovative return-to-work programs are springing up in other sectors -- specifically in science, engineering and technology. Prospects for long-term job growth in these fields are relatively good, and many employers expect a talent shortage, partly because of high quit rates among experienced women.

Honeywell, General Electric, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and even the British government have all launched programmes to provide women scientists, engineers and technicians the tools they need to jump-start stalled careers. Some of the new programmes provide only training, coaching, networking and referrals, while others offer actual jobs with lower return-to-work barriers through special training or mentoring.

"Even in this troubled labour market, their prospects are good," says Carol Fishman Cohen, a career re-entry consultant, of women in these fields. Government contractors, engineering-related businesses and other employers that stand to benefit from the government's economic-stimulus plan, in particular, are faring relatively well, adds Ms. Cohen, co-founder of iRelaunch.com, a Web site for professionals, employers and universities.

Rachelle Berk, Northborough, Mass., a nuclear engineer and a student in a "Career Reengineering" retraining program offered by MIT, is among those who stand to gain. The MIT program, now in its third year, is instilling the confidence she needs to return to work after four years at home with her children, now 3 and 6, says Ms. Berk, who hopes to find work developing sustainable-energy sources. "It was exactly what I needed," she says of the MIT program. Dawna Levenson, director of the 10-month programme, sees enrollment expanding to 24 as early as next fall, up from 10 currently.

The new efforts aim to counteract a "brain drain" caused by the exodus of large numbers of women from these fields in the prime of their careers. While 41% of highly qualified scientists, engineers and technicians in lower-tier jobs are female, more than half eventually quit midcareer, based on research by the Center for Work-Life Policy's Sylvia Hewlett and others, published last year in the Harvard Business Review. Women in these fields face isolation, extreme job pressures and long hours; they often become most discouraged about 10 years into their careers -- just as family pressures also tend to intensify.

Still, after years at home, many women scientists and engineers yearn to return to research and development. Last November, Honeywell launched a hiring program with an extensive training and mentoring component for engineers who have been out of the work force, in partnership with the Society of Women Engineers. The company has received hundreds of resumes and plans to begin hiring soon, says Lee Woodward, a vice president. Among the applicants: Karen English, an Alpharetta, Ga., product-development scientist. After six years at home with her daughter, now 12, Ms. English is excited about her prospects; "everything looks possible," she says.

BBN Technologies, a 700-employee research concern in Cambridge, Mass., is stepping up recruiting efforts to lure at-home professionals back to work, with plans to start holding luncheons for ex-employees this year, says Susan Wuellner, vice president, human resources. The networking seems to be working: Barbara MacKay, an engineer who rejoined BBN in 2007 after five years at home, now is recruiting another at-home mom to the company, Ms. MacKay says.

On a larger scale, IBM offers an extended-leave programme that enabled Tami Garneau, a software product manager in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to return to work there amid the economic gloom of last October, after an extended leave with her two children.

Despite the sagging economy, "IBM was fully receptive," allowing her to work from home, she says. "That transition back in was great."

Internationally, General Electric has launched a programme called Restart in its Bangalore, India, research center, offering flexible work and other incentives to lure female technologists back to work after having children, a spokesman says. And the British government is funding a 12-week on-ramping programme in Bradford, England, and recently began handing out re-training grants, says Annette Williams, director.

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Hopes of quick rebound in China fade

Hopes of Quick Rebound in China Start to Fade
Despite an Increase in Bank Lending, Steel Prices Fall, Demand for Exports Shrinks and Consumers Buy Fewer Foreign Goods

By Andrew Batson, 26 February 2009

http://www.wsj.com/

BEIJING -- Hopes for an early recovery in China's economy are starting to unravel, undercutting the optimism that has helped to make the country's stock market the world's best performer this year.

In recent weeks, some companies and investors had seized on a surge in bank lending and an upturn in steel prices -- a key indicator in China's industry-heavy economy -- as signs that a massive government stimulus program was already taking hold.

But now steel prices are falling again, and closer examination of the recent bank data suggests that many of the loans won't immediately fuel economic growth. Meanwhile, trade has continued to contract, as demand for Chinese exports from the U.S. and Europe wanes, and Chinese companies and consumers, in turn, buy fewer foreign goods.

The upshot is that a real pickup in China's economy could still be several months away, or longer. That's bad news for a global economy in which China is the only major power still growing.

"It would be a mistake to think that China could decouple from the rest of the world, or carry the rest of the world on its shoulders," said Bruce Kasman, chief economist for J.P. Morgan. "A sustained recovery in China is dependent on better news globally."

China's government has put about 230 billion yuan ($34 billion) into stimulus projects so far, with more to come. Many economists think it will take time for that jolt to work its way through the economy, and don't expect major effects to show up until around the second half of this year.

Local companies, more optimistic about the stimulus package, began bidding up steel prices and freight rates in December. Investors did the same with Chinese stocks: The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index at one point this month was up 30% for the year, though it has come down a bit since.

By the beginning of February, steel prices had gained about 15% from November lows. China is the world's largest consumer of the metal, and the run-up in prices got a lot of attention.

But much of that steel was stockpiled, rather than immediately used in factories or construction sites.
Inventories of some steel products rose more than 30% in January from December, the China Iron & Steel Association said in a report last week.

"Recent additions to inventories by dealers and users have led to a rebound in steel market prices ... [but] the steady increase in inventories will affect the stable operation of the steel market later on," it said.The anticipated demand hasn't yet materialized, and those inventories are weighing on the market.

Average steel prices dropped 6.3% last week, after falling 3.2% the week before, according to Mysteel, a Shanghai-based research firm.

Getting a solid read on the Chinese economy has been particularly difficult in recent weeks because the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday fell earlier this year than in 2007, distorting annual comparisons of key indicators in January.
Other data reinforce the sense that economic activity has yet to revive.

Industrial output in the business hub of Shanghai fell 12.7% from a year earlier in January -- even after adjusting for the holiday. Nationwide, industrial statistics haven't yet been published for January.

Also, imports nationwide fell 43.1% in January from a year earlier -- a drop that, allowing for the holiday impact, suggests slowing demand in China.

"Domestic demand for imports is still very weak, as the housing-construction slump continues, and the fiscal stimulus-induced investment demand has yet to come through," said UBS economist Wang Tao.

The huge expansion in lending in January -- banks made 1.62 trillion yuan in new loans, twice as much as last year -- was widely seen as a positive sign.

But other data on deposits suggest companies are hoarding their cash rather than spending it, so those loans may not be immediately fueling economic growth.

Further doubts have been raised by the unusual nature of recent loans. Short-term bills accounted for 42% of new corporate lending in January, or 623.9 billion yuan, three times the already elevated level of November and December, and 10 times October's figure.

Because companies can borrow those bills for a lower interest rate than they earn on deposits, some economists think the surge comes more from financial engineering than actual borrowing.

"Recent monetary and credit data do not reflect real economic demand," said Ha Jiming, chief economist of China International Capital Corp.

Meanwhile, major Chinese port operators are reporting even lower volumes of containers coming through in February than in January, Citigroup analysts Ally Ma and Brian Lam wrote in a report this week.

Based on those data and other indicators, an annual decline of 20% or more in Chinese exports in coming months "seems inevitable," the analysts wrote.

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Slumdog Millionaire

'Slumdog' Success Gets Mixed Reviews in India

by Niraj Sheth (New Delhi) and Eric Bellman (Mumbai)

www.wsj.com

As "Slumdog Millionaire" took home eight Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, many Indians rejoiced in its success amid hopes that movie talent they have long taken pride in may now be more appreciated world-wide.

While few in Dharavi, the sprawling Mumbai slum where much of the film was shot, had seen the Oscar awards show or the film, most were happy their neighborhood -- and Indian talent -- were at last getting some international attention. "Our Dharavi is now famous in the whole of the world," said S.G. James, a contractor who lives in a two-story home next to a railroad in Dharavi. "Of this, we are proud."

Middle-class Indians from more-posh neighborhoods also welcomed the awards. "I'm thrilled, and I think it shows how much the rest of the world is interested in India," said Sonam Sethi, a 21-year-old marketing student in New Delhi, while shopping in the upscale Greater Kailash market.

On the red carpet in Hollywood, Indian actress Freida Pinto, who stars in the movie as the main character's love interest, smiled when asked in an interview with Indian television channel NDTV how she felt about the movie's overwhelming success. "I never, never, never imagined something like this could happen," she said.

(In the U.S., the Oscar's TV audience rose from 2008's record low.)

Indians have long considered Indian music composer A.R. Rahman on par with any in Hollywood. So his award for best original score had particular resonance among film buffs in India.

Certainly, many Indians have been reluctant to claim the film, which stars a British-born Indian actor and was directed by a British director, as their own. Some have protested the use of "Slumdog" in the title as derogatory.

In late January, a Mumbai-based welfare group for slum dwellers organized protests outside the home of Anil Kapoor, an actor in the film. The protesters held signs reading "I am not a dog" and "Poverty for Sale."

"We have a dog's life but we are not dogs," said Mr. James from Dharavi, who was opposed to the film until he learned it was about overcoming the stigma of being from the slums. "Maybe now something will be done for the slum people."
Mr. James has overcome many of the hurdles depicted in the film: poverty, homelessness and riots. His sons are educated and live in the suburbs, but he plans never to leave, he says. After more than 30 years in Dharavi, he says he doesn't even hear the trains every 15 minutes.

On the streets of the slum, one politician, Sanjay Nirupam, a former member of Parliament, staged an impromptu celebration on news of the film's awards, lighting firecrackers and handing out sweets.

He told a crowd of almost 100 that "Slumdog Millionaire" could bring more money to the neighborhood, as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would want to invest in the vibrant area.

"The slum dwellers should not be called slumdogs; they should be called slumlions," he told the crowd.

Not everyone was so optimistic. Kiran Jaiswal, 21, said she could never afford to go to a movie and wouldn't understand one in English, anyway. Sitting on the ground with her mother and grandmother next to the fetid pool used for one of the scenes in the movie, she said her neighborhood needs schools and jobs, not rags-to-riches dreams.

"If they can spend all this money on a movie, why can't they take care of the children?" she asked. "No one taught us how to speak English like those guys in the movie."

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Animal Behaviour: decisions, decisions

Animal behaviour
Decisions, decisions
Feb 13th 2009 by Mary Evans

What people can learn from how social animals make collective decisions

DICTATORS and authoritarians will disagree, but democracies work better. It has long been held that decisions made collectively by large groups of people are more likely to turn out to be accurate than decisions made by individuals. The idea goes back to the “jury theorem” of Nicolas de Condorcet, an 18th-century French philosopher who was one of the first to apply mathematics to the social sciences. Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as ants, bees, birds and dolphins. And those animals may have a thing or two to teach people about collective decision-making.

Animals that live in groups make two sorts of choices: consensus decisions in which the group makes a single collective choice, as when house-hunting rock ants decide where to settle; and combined decisions, such as the allocation of jobs among worker bees.

Condorcet’s theory (The Condorcet candidate or Condorcet winner of an election is the candidate who, when compared with every other candidate, is preferred by more voters. This was named after the 18th century mathematician and philosopher Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, the Marquis de Condorcet) describes consensus decisions, outlining how democratic decisions tend to outperform dictatorial ones. If each member of a jury has only partial information, the majority decision is more likely to be correct than a decision arrived at by an individual juror. Moreover, the probability of a correct decision increases with the size of the jury. But things become more complicated when information is shared before a vote is taken. People then have to evaluate the information before making a collective decision. This is what bees do, and they do it rather well, according to Christian List of the London School of Economics, who has studied group decision-making in humans and animals along with Larissa Conradt of the University of Sussex, in England.

The runaway queen
In a study reported in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, researchers led by Dr List looked at colonies of honeybees (Apis mellifera), which in late spring or early summer divide once they reach a certain size. The queen goes off with about two-thirds of the worker bees to live in a new home leaving a daughter queen in the nest with the remaining worker bees. Among the bees that depart are scouts that search for the new nest site and report back using a waggle dance to advertise suitable locations. The longer the dance, the better the site. After a while, other scouts start to visit the sites advertised by their compatriots and, on their return, also perform more waggle dances. The process eventually leads to a consensus on the best site and the swarm migrates. The decision is remarkably reliable, with the bees choosing the best site even when there are only small differences between two alternatives.

But exactly how do bees reach such a robust consensus? To find out, Dr List and his colleagues made a computer model of the decision-making process. By tinkering around with it they found that computerised bees that were very good at finding nesting sites but did not share their information dramatically slowed down the migration, leaving the swarm homeless and vulnerable. Conversely, computerised bees that blindly followed the waggle dances of others without first checking whether the site was, in fact, as advertised, led to a swift but mistaken decision. The researchers concluded that the ability of bees to identify quickly the best site depends on the interplay of bees’ interdependence in communicating the whereabouts of the best site and their independence in confirming this information.

This is something members of the European Parliament should think about. In the same journal, Simon Hix, also of the London School of Economics, and his colleagues examined their voting and concluded that, as might be expected, it was along party-political lines even though the incentives to do so were far less than at national parliaments. Dr Hix and his colleagues reckon that European parliamentarians share the collection of information but, unlike the honeybees, they do not necessarily progress to investigating the issues for themselves before taking a vote.
There is danger in blindly following the party line, a danger that the honeybees seem to avoid. Condorcet’s theory fails to consider whether there is an inbuilt bias among a group that comes together to consider a problem. This “groupthink” occurs when people copy one another.

According to Dr List: “The swarm manages to block and prevent the kind of groupthink that can bedevil good decision making.” Dr List adds that people demonstrate this kind of bad decision-making when investors pile into a stock and others follow, creating a bubble for which there is no good reason.

Another form of groupthink occurs when people are either isolated from crucial sources of information or dominated by other members of the group, some of whom may have malevolent intent. This too has now been demonstrated in animals. José Halloy of the Free University of Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines. Could this form the basis of a new way of catching them?

The way animals make collective decisions can be complex. Nigel Franks of the University of Bristol, in England, and his colleagues studied how a species of ants called Temnothorax albipennis establish a new nest. In the Royal Society journal they report how the insects mitigate the disadvantages of making a swift choice. If the ants’ existing nest becomes threatened, the insects send out scouts to seek a new one. How quickly they accomplish this transfer depends not only on how soon the ants agree on the best available site but also on how quickly they can migrate there. When a suitable place is identified, the scouts begin to lead other scouts, which had remained behind to guard the old nest, to the new site. The problem is that if the decision is reached rapidly, as it might have to be in an emergency, then relatively few scouts know the route. It would then take much longer to train all the scouts needed to achieve the transfer, which involves carrying the queen, the workers and the brood to the new nest.

Dr Franks and his colleagues identified a type of behaviour called “reverse tandem runs” that makes the process more efficient. During the carrying phase of migration, the scouts lead other scouts back along the quickest route to the old nest so that more scouts become familiar with the route. Thus the dynamics of collective decision-making are closely entwined with the implementation of these decisions. How this might pertain to choices that people might make is, as yet, unclear. But it does indicate the importance of recruiting active leaders to a cause because, as the ants and bees have discovered, the most important thing about collective decision-making is to get others to follow.

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Starbucks: just add water

Personal note: can you believe this?! (as a coffee lover, I'm appalled by this)

Starbucks: Just add water
Feb 19th 2009
http://www.economist.com/

The ailing giant turns to instant coffee for a pick-me-up

NO ONE can accuse Howard Schultz of inaction since he returned as chief executive of Starbucks, the firm he built into a multinational only to watch it stumble under his successor. Barely a month has gone by over the past year without the firm announcing some new initiative or other. The latest came on February 17th in New York, when Mr Schultz unveiled Via, an instant coffee which, he claims, tastes just as good as Java brewed in the shop by one of the firm’s baristas.

Mr Schultz hopes to win a share of the $17 billion or so the world spends on instant coffee—a product which, he sniffs, has not improved in decades. Starbucks itself has spent 20 years pursuing the holy grail of an instant coffee that tastes as good as the fresh stuff. Don Valencia, the firm’s first head of research and development, who created the blended and frozen frappuccino drinks that earn Starbucks $2 billion a year, could never find a way to scale up an instant formula he had developed at home. When Mr Schultz returned as chief executive, he noticed that there had been some technological advances, allowing finer grinding, for example. So he asked the R&D team to repeat the recently deceased Valencia’s experiments, and found that “we had broken the code”. The name Via is a hat-tip to Valencia—though during development it was known as Jaws (just add water, stir).

Starbucks says it has patents that should prevent competitors from quickly replicating Via, which will go on sale in some American stores next month. The opportunity may, however, be biggest in other countries: in Britain over 80% of coffee sold is instant, compared with just 10% in America.

Assuming Starbucks drinkers decide that Via tastes good, the company will have to get the price right. At first, it will come in packets of 12 or 3 individual servings, for 83 and 98 cents a cup respectively. That is much more than other instants, but much less than a cup of coffee at one of Starbucks’ stores. The risk is that the firm’s existing customers may abandon counter service and start making their own cup of instant.

That would encourage them to visit Starbucks less often, a trend that is already gathering pace with the recession. The nickname “Fourbucks” has not helped at a time when consumers have become cost-conscious. For the first time in Starbucks’ history, same-store sales have fallen.
Mr Schultz has had to accelerate the store-closure programme that he had started in order to correct the over-expansion which prompted his return to the helm. To keep customers coming to remaining outlets, he might experiment with discounts such as cheap “combination meals” of a drink and food. He also wants a visit to a Starbucks shop to be a “uniquely uplifting experience”. Improving the smell in stores by changing the cheese used in breakfast sandwiches was a start. But ensuring that staff are enthusiastic will be especially difficult when jobs are disappearing. Mr Schultz remains hostile to unions, but has decided to maintain the firm’s popular health benefits, while cutting his own pay.

Will all this be enough? So far, investors seem sceptical: Starbucks’ share price remains barely a quarter of its all-time high in 2006.

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Obama's Chance for Real Global Leadership

Opportunity from Crisis: Obama’s Chance for Real Global Leadership
By Yilmaz Argüden Friday, February 20, 2009

http://www.theglobalist.com/

In a perspective from Turkey, top business strategist and civic leader Yilmaz Argüden argues that Barack Obama may be losing his opportunity to become a global leader. The real challenge for the United States will be creating global solutions for the all-encompassing economic crisis, he argues.

Leadership is not an inherited position. Leadership is earned by winning the hearts and minds of people to facilitate behavior change.

And while whole elections are won by rhetoric, leadership is earned by actions. Actions speak louder than words, as they are more credible indicators of what an individual could achieve.

To his credit, President Obama mobilized more people when he visited Europe than a major sports event such as a world soccer cup or a Madonna concert would. His “Yes We Can” slogan hit more chords throughout the globe than any other United States presidential candidate’s message.

No wonder then that the world has been eagerly awaiting change coming from the United States, which regardless of its present woes is still the biggest economy and military force in the world.
This is partially because many underprivileged people around the world identified with him as a beacon of hope to achieve their own dreams.

The hope projected onto Obama is also due to the disappointment the same people had during the Bush presidency with the country that has long been hailed as the country of opportunities. As a result, the United States’ popularity ratings in numerous countries hit major lows during the end of 2008.

People throughout the world were disappointed because they felt that the values that had made the United States successful and exemplary to the rest of the world were being eroded by its own actions.

This included core notions such as: respect for others and human rights, democracy where everyone has equal voting rights, freedom of thought (and freedom of press), freedom of trade and liberal economy, rule of law, liberal immigration policy and a welcoming attitude, and freedom of religious belief.

Guantanamo was a clear example of perilous double standards spanning the vast gap between what was preached and implemented.

The world is also ready for a global leader. As the number and the severity of issues that influence peoples’ lives gain a global dimension, so should the solutions. Issues such as global warming, water scarcity, global terrorism, global epidemics and most recently, the global economic crisis, all need global solutions.

While global issues require global solutions, global solutions need global leaders to mobilize global resources. For example, when trade and financial flows became globalized, the main actors — the companies — went through a major reorganization.

Strategic decisions and standard-setting were centralized, regional employees who are in closer to the customer were empowered to make decisions related to their markets, and middle management levels were eliminated.

If a parallel were to be drawn for the overall political system, the global governance mechanisms would have to be restructured to enable a democratically chosen global government to address global issues, while city governments would be empowered to address local issues.

A new global system
Yet, it would be naïve to suggest that the power of national governments be reduced when they hold the rights for organizing elections, tax collection and spending, as well as military power. The legitimacy of any political leader who is in a position to take such decisions is based on their approval in national jurisdictions.

By the same token, it should be clear that focusing on national remedies is not going to bring solutions to our global problems. When France tries to save its automotive industry by putting on a condition to keep jobs home, Czechs who host more productive car manufacturing facilities understandably protest.

When Ireland gives a state guarantee for deposits, inevitably many other nations end up following suit. When one country’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, it is extremely difficult to overcome terrorism.

When countries cannot agree on greenhouse emission limits and there is no enforcement, it is very difficult to implement appropriate measures throughout the world.

Under these circumstances, what is needed is global coordination, global standards, global oversight and fair treatment of people and companies regardless of their nationality. The sooner we realize this, the more effective we will be in overcoming these global challenges.

What we need is global institutions with teeth, power and resources to address global issues. This can only be achieved by consensual delegation of partial sovereignty and resources, a la European Union, to global institutions on selected areas, by the nations.

Yet, the odds are thin for such a major overhaul of the global system to be implemented by democratically-elected national leaders whose average time horizon is about two years. Another structural problem for overhauling global governance is that national leaders are elected by their own citizens, raise their resources internally, and focus on their own electorate — rather than global issues.

In the words of former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill, “All politics is local.” Therefore, a national focus takes precedence over global visions. However, such a short-term time horizon and the predominant internal focus makes it difficult to agree on any consensual delegation of sovereignty and resources to global institutions.

Leadership for the world
Overcoming this myopia requires real global leadership. Given his global popularity, Obama could become a real global leader — if his actions support such a global perspective and if he could use his political chips to “change the world,” instead of focusing on national issues and falling prey to short-term thinking.

It should be clear that focusing on national remedies is not going to bring solutions to our global problems.

Obama started his presidency by phasing out Guantanamo, a clear message to the world about sincerity of American values. His changed policy approach to Iran was also a positive message for peaceful coexistence.

However, his silence on the Israel-Palestine conflict is a missed opportunity. His silence on the matter is not winning him any points in the Middle East or elsewhere.

Another missed opportunity was Davos. Had Mr. Obama came to Davos to acknowledge that the global economic crisis needs global solutions and the United States was willing to restructure the governance of global institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and the United Nations in order to raise global resources for these institutions to have teeth, he would have possibly done more to solve the current financial crisis than passing the huge spending package from the U.S. Congress.

Any hint of a more democratic and equitable sharing of power at global institutions would have helped the relevant players to focus on global solutions, rather than national ones.

It is not very clear to the rest of the world as to how the problem of toxic assets that originated from overspending by U.S. consumers could be solved by another spending binge, this time by the United States government. They are worried that the exportation of toxic assets that resulted in the contagion of the financing mechanisms underpinning the U.S. economy could infect the rest of the world yet again — this time by exporting dollar inflation.

In conclusion, it is not just Americans who are looking at President Obama as a beacon of hope. The entire world community feels it needs a serious dose of that elixir. Of course, Mr. Obama is acutely aware of the inherent conservatism many Americans have towards the pursuit of global solutions.

At the same time, as a hyper-talented politician and leader, Mr. Obama shows that these are not the times for politics as usual — and that success requires taking calculated risks.

That’s why launching a meaningful global initiative could make Mr. Obama a real global leader — not only for current times, but also for the history books.

In short, global problems require global solutions. Global solutions need global institutions with adequate resources to address these issues. Raising adequate resources for global institutions need appropriate power sharing arrangements. The United States can lead the effort to strengthen global institutions so that they can address the issues that require global solutions.

Such a vision would create solutions for global problems not by wars, but by cooperating and coordinating national governments on a democratic and equitable basis. The upcoming G-20 meetings in April may be just the turning point to initiate such a move.

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In Tibet, a Clash of Approaches

In Tibet, a Clash of Approaches

by Peter Wonacott, wsj.com

Associated Press

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, head of state and spiritual leader of the people of Tibet, third from right, is shown with his family in Delhi, India, in 1956. From left to right are, Dalai Lama's mother; his elder sister; eldest brother Thubten J. Norbu; elder brother; Gyalo Thondup, brother; Dalai Lama; his younger sister; and his youngest brother.

KALIMPONG, India -- Nearly 50 years after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet with his followers to India, his older brother lives on a quiet hilltop here just beyond his Himalayan homeland, like an exile among exiles.

At 80 years old with a stooped back and bad knees, Gyalo Thondup remains one of Tibet's strongest supporters of better ties with Beijing. That is an increasingly unpopular stance among younger exiles, as their bitterness toward China grows over years of fruitless dialogue and a violent security clampdown.

Relations have become sufficiently tense that the Dalai Lama's envoys have suspended talks with China. Still, Mr. Thondup has maintained his largely improvised role in trying to bring the two sides closer together, courting Chinese officials to try to defuse tensions. His wristwatch is set to Beijing time.

Eighty-year-old Gyalo Thondup remains one of Tibet's strongest supporters of better ties with Beijing.

"Even if we don't agree, I will go and talk to them," says Mr. Thondup during an interview at his home in the Indian trading town of Kalimpong. "It's in the interest of China and Tibet, we must live peacefully. We must deal with each other."

The message is being put to the test as the anniversary of the Dalai Lama's flight approaches. Last year, protests in Tibetan areas of China to mark the March 10, 1959, popular uprising in Tibet turned violent and were crushed. Now there have been reports of fresh protests and arrests.

On Thursday, a Communist Party official in Tibet warned Buddhist clergy against political activity. Lobsang Gyaincain, a member of the standing committee of the regional Communist Party, demanded that monks and nuns recognize what he called the "reactionary nature" of the Dalai Lama clique, as well as plots to use temples and clergy to carry out "infiltration and disturbances," the official Tibet Daily reported.

For its part, China has declared March 28 "Serf Emancipation Day" to celebrate the toppling of Tibet's feudal leadership five decades ago.

A Tibetan exile task force postponed dialogue with China until the anniversary passes. "At the moment we are much more concerned with the situation on the ground," said Lodi Gyari, special envoy of the Dalai Lama. "His Holiness has advised caution and restraint."

Some Tibetan exile groups want to see the Dalai Lama take a tougher stand toward China -- an approach Mr. Thondup opposes. The Tibetan Youth Congress is planning a series of pro-independence rallies in the weeks ahead. One protest in Dharmsala, the north Indian town that serves as headquarters for Tibet's government in exile, will burn effigies of Mao Zedong and Chinese President Hu Jintao, as part of the traditional "sweeping away of evil spirits" ahead of the Tibetan New Year, according to the group's president, Tsewang Rigzin.

Mr. Thondup himself isn't likely to muster much of an effort to counter these forces, and says he is ready to step aside for a younger generation. "I'm coming to the end of what I have to contribute," he says. "I've talked too much."

He is blunt about why he hasn't achieved more in three decades of talks with Chinese officials. "How can a person discuss morality, reason and compassion with gangsters?" he says. "Of course," Mr. Thondup chortles, "they think I'm a gangster, too."

Mr. Thondup's relationship with China began shortly after his brother was tapped as Tibet's spiritual leader in 1937. In the early 1940s, a regent dispatched Mr. Thondup, then 14 years old, to Nanjing to learn Mandarin. In the wartime capital, he befriended China's leader, Chiang Kai-shek, and eventually married the daughter of a Nationalist general. After the Communists came to power, he fled China and wound up in India.

In an attempt to defend Tibet in the 1950s, Mr. Thondup entered the world of clandestine resistance, eliciting aid from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for the training and arming of Tibetan fighters who were parachuted back into Tibet. Most of the agents were caught or killed
With his brother's consent, Mr. Thondup met in 1979 with the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, and embarked on 14 years of talks. The talks failed to reach a settlement and Mr. Thondup bowed out of his role as envoy. Still, he continues to engage his old contacts.

Following the protests a year ago, he called and met with Chinese officials to complain that their demonizing the Dalai Lama would inflame Tibetan anger; he claims top leaders later toned down their rhetoric.

After the Dalai Lama's envoys walked away from talks with China in November, Mr. Thondup met in New Delhi with Chinese embassy officials. In those meetings, he argued that they had misconstrued as calls for independence the Dalai Lama's demands for meaningful autonomy in Tibet. Days later, he lobbied fellow Tibetans to avoid provoking Beijingand stick to a middle way. He also has urged more people to travel to China and to study Mandarin.

"Tibetans have to deal with China carefully," he says. "In order to solve our problems, we have to know each other."

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Video: Globalization and the Media

The video that was shown to you today after my (quite) harried lecture about an introduction to the mass media was taken from youtube.

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6HRt1bH_dw . In any case, the video is called Globalization and the Media, if that aids your search for the video and should you need to re-view/review it on your own.

Do think once again about how the mass media shape opinions, think about the issue of credibility, truth value, objectivity, as well as the potential drawback of yellow journalism.

Will post more articles when I find them. Alternatively, please upload any if you find useful ones.

Stacking Paper

The article below is a link to your JC1 topic on The Mass Media. Do read it and think about the questions which follow:

* * *

Stacking Paper (Feb 6 2009)

A revisionist biography of America's most notorious press Baron, William Randolph Hearst, reviewed by Matthew Price.

Reading the newspaper, the German philosopher GWF Hegel wrote, is the “realist’s morning prayer”. As Hegel saw it, the daily paper – like God – provided an orientation to the world. The modern newspaper rose with the growth and expansion of cities: as the bounds of neighbourhoods stretched beyond the immediately knowable, and markets for goods reached overseas, demand for information stoked an appetite for a novel commodity: the news.

Early newspapers were primitive in design, with a mix of foreign and domestic items, many borrowed from other papers. Newsprint was expensive, and circulations tended to be small. All of this would change by the late 19th century, with the rise of a mass press. Telegraphs relayed news in a flash to editors, new printing presses allowed publishers to respond rapidly to breaking news, and bulging Sunday editions were born. Illustrations and bold headlines were deployed to grab readers, as were sections devoted to sport, women and the comics.

Few in the history of newspapering did more to exploit these developments than William Randolph Hearst. This buccaneering Californian, whose caricature was immortalised in Citizen Kane, was arguably the most powerful newspaper publisher in history. By the 1920s – the height of his fame and influence – he owned papers in nearly every major American city, and his interests extended to magazines, radio, motion pictures and real estate. His art collection was immense, as was his extravagant mansion in San Simeon, California.

He was also detested. In the annals of vilification, even Rupert Murdoch is no match for Hearst. A catalogue of his sins – actual and alleged – would fill a book. From his early days as a publisher in Gilded Age San Francisco and New York into his mature years as a titan, Hearst inspired an intense hatred. He was accused of cheap sensationalism and trafficking in falsehoods. He was blamed for causing the Spanish-American War of 1898 and pandering to the reader’s worst instincts with his craven brand of “yellow journalism”. His critics were legion—AJ Liebling, one of Hearst’s most eloquent foes, said he used money “like a club”. Others called him a megalomaniac and an unhinged madman.

The image of Hearst as a ruthless mogul is a part of journalism lore. Certainly, there is a good deal that was unsavoury about the man: in the 1930s, Hearst papers ran columns by Hitler and Mussolini and savaged Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. (He ordered that all his papers call it the Raw Deal.) But lately his reputation has been getting a second look. David Nasaw’s prize-winning biography, The Chief, published in 2000, presented a more complex flesh and blood Hearst, not some cartoon villain. Nasaw is tough when he needs to be, but also fair-minded. Now the Canadian journalist Kenneth Whyte has delivered a more radical revision to the Hearst reputation, with a biography focused narrowly on Hearst’s early career and his entry into the frenzied New York newspaper market in the 1890s. The Uncrowned King is very nearly an all-out hagiography, but it is a book of its moment. At a time when English-language newspapers are losing readers by the millions and laying off staff by the hundreds, Whyte’s biography is a lament for the glory days of print – for an era in which powerful men like Hearst owned newspapers and transformed the news business into a mighty force of its own.

For Whyte, the founding editor of Canada’s National Post, Hearst was nothing less than a genius. Whyte wants to recast the terms of the debate: the job of a newspaper publisher is to sell newspapers; Hearst did that spectacularly well. Hearst, Whyte writes, mastered the now “almost forgotten arts of attracting readers and building circulation against established competition” – yet many of Hearst’s critics act as if increasing readership was “a reprehensible activity”. Certainly, he pushed an agenda, but he also won an audience, and the proof is in the circulation figures.

The Uncrowned King is a journalist’s book, about the day-to-day business of gathering the news and putting out the paper in a hyper-competitive market. Whyte says nothing about the present moment, but his book is a stark reminder of how timid and dreary so many newspapers have become, and of how the newspaper industry has, of late, squandered the preeminent place it once held in the lives of its readers.

Journalism Hearst-style could be extreme and over the top, but it was also supremely entertaining and bold. Hearst came at the reader with a relentless style; he made reading the news an event unto itself. There may be nothing that can save the newspaper industry from the crisis it faces today, but the drab entities that own most American newspapers, corporations with bland names like MediaNews Group, have been their own worst enemies, producing colourless papers lacking in style and spirit – the very things the dynamic Hearst delivered daily.

Born in 1856 to a wealthy father who made a fortune in mining, William Randolph Hearst was a Harvard dropout and a natural newspaperman. At 31, he was given control of his father’s failing San Francisco paper, the Examiner, and quickly transformed it into a leading daily. Though Hearst was well-to-do, he fancied himself a crusader for the downtrodden; one of his employees noted that he had “a real sympathy for the submerged man and woman, a real feeling of his own mission to plead their cause.” Hearst’s sense of mission could curdle into a deranged messianism, but, from top to bottom, he had an unfailing knack for making a good paper. He considered the newspaper in its totality as a printed object, and few details escaped his notice: he obsessed over tone, design, illustration, advertising, circulation, and marketing in equal measure. (Whyte writes nicely that Hearst “was a nuisance about headlines, treating each one as though it would alone tease another hundred readers from the competition to his own sheet.”)

For Hearst, newspapering was a kind of democratic art, and this instinct propelled him into the greatest newspaper market in America – New York City. In the 1890s, the city hummed with a highly literate population of 3.8 million that supported no less than 17 major dailies. Casting around for an attractive property, Hearst settled on the ailing Morning Journal, which had been haemorrhaging circulation. Hearst’s acquisition of the Journal in 1895 set the stage for one of the greatest showdowns in newspaper history, pitting the arriviste from the American west against the king of the New York market, Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the mighty World, whose slogan – “2 cents, circulation nearly one-half million per day” – neatly summarised its dominance.

A relentless self-promoter, Pulitzer created his own publishing revolution in Gotham, locking up New York’s working class readers, whose interests had been largely ignored by staid upmarket papers like the Herald and the Tribune, which were aimed at commercial elites. “Pulitzer’s World locked arms with working men and women, taking their enthusiasms, aspirations, and emotions as their own,” Whyte writes. For Hearst, Pulitzer served as both a model to be emulated and a competitor to be smashed. Hearst learned a great deal from his rival as he retooled the Journal – and lured away Pulitzer’s top talent. He mixed lurid crime stories with trustbusting campaigns, lengthy items about politics and exposes about municipal corruption, adding breezy columns like “Caught in the Metropolitan Whirl”. He cleaned up the paper’s design, and tweaked the visual side, adding realistic illustrations that broke up the columns of type. New pages were devoted to sport and business coverage. He launched a thick Sunday edition to compete with the Sunday World. He was not an aloof proprietor. The workaholic Hearst fussed over headlines and captions, often working late into the night. He priced the Journal at one cent, directly undercutting the more expensive World. The formula succeeded brilliantly: within three months, circulation doubled.

Whyte’s account of the Pulitzer-Hearst battle runs sharply counter to the conventional wisdom, which dismissed the populist tactics of the World and the Journal alike as “yellow journalism.” For Whyte, the term – like “sensationalism” – is meaningless and subjective. As Hearst’s Journal used to say, taunting the competition, sensationalism “is always the cry of the newspaper to the rival which passes it”.

Whyte argues that Hearst merely had a feel for the spirit of the time: “It was an age of sensation. The public space was awash in febrile emotions…. Hearst did not set the mood, but he revelled in it and amply exposed its less savoury dimensions to his readers.”The Journal sported headlines like “Beheaded, cast into the river,” and dispatched the novelist Stephen Crane to Manhattan’s seamy Tenderloin district, where he caused a scandal of his own after testifying on behalf of a prostitute. But the paper also ran serious articles about politics and civic affairs. Hearst devoted hundreds of pages to events in Cuba in the months prior to the Spanish-American. His coverage there has a notorious reputation in the history of journalism, one that is largely undeserved, Whyte contends. The old canard that Hearst provoked the conflict does not withstand scrutiny; as for the legendary telegram he allegedly sent the illustrator Frederic Remington – “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war” – it does not exist. Nor was Hearst the only publisher concerned with Spain – all of his major rivals gave prominent coverage to the conflict.

Whyte also takes Hearst’s populism seriously: “Hearst hammered away frenetically, day after day, week after week, at privately held trusts in ice, water, gas, sugar, rubber, coal and railways. As an activist and community servant, Hearst was operating with a vigour, scope and conviction unprecedented in American newspapers.” Whyte disputes the notion that Hearst was a careless businessman – he used family money to finance his purchase of the Journal, but he eventually made money. Even so, Hearst was “far more interested in making a great paper than in turning a profit.”

He also wanted to exert influence, no matter the cost. Almost alone among New York publishers, Hearst supported the populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the election of 1896. If the Journal’s pro-Bryan stance offended commercial interests, so be it: “Advertisers called on me and said they would take out every advertisement if I continued to support Bryan,” Hearst recalled, “and I told them to take out their advertisements, as I needed more space in which to support Bryan.”

Whyte has read deeply in the newspapers of the day, and his account challenges us to think afresh about the kind of journalism Hearst perfected, even if it is occasionally overzealous in his defence. Though Hearst may now be acquitted on the charge of “causing” the Spanish-American War, it is indisputable that the Journal was frequently reckless with the facts. Even Whyte meekly concedes the point, but he cannot do so without providing an alibi: “Hearst probably did publish more sloppy and inaccurate news than other papers, not to foment war but because he published more news than his rivals, good and bad.”

But this laboured defence still doesn’t dent Whyte’s case: if reading the paper is a kind of morning prayer, then Hearst created grand cathedrals. By focusing on Hearst’s early years, Whyte brings the man and his papers back into focus, out from behind the shadow of the larger-than-life Hearst of legend – the movie mogul and fixture of society pages; the populist-turned-red-baiting demagogue, who used his media empire to promote a dark, almost fascist agenda. The later Hearst is easy to vilify, but the young newsman is a complex, even sympathetic figure.

Lovers of newsprint have aired innumerable ideas to save the papers, from non-profit endowments to government bailouts; what most of them share is the sanctimonious presumption that newspapers, as guardians of the public trust, must be preserved at all costs. It is ironic that many who would have heaped scorn on Hearst are now yearning for a modern-day William Randolph to ride to the rescue. Even Hearst probably couldn’t solve the papers’ current predicament, but his example is still relevant: newspapers, he understood, are businesses that deliver a valuable commodity, the news. When they do it well, with style and energy, readers will follow. Newspapers, in other words, must earn the public’s attention before they can guard its trust.

Matthew Price, a regular contributor to The Review, has written for Bookforum, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and the Financial Times.

* * *

Guiding Questions:

1. What is "yellow journalism"?

2. Is fake news journalism?

3. How do you think citizen journalism changes the dynamics of the traditional newspaper in today's context?

4. What characterises a good newspaper? (1993 Promos)

Side Note: do not overlook the importance of the protagonist in this article - William Randolph Hearst - you may one day need to quote him or mention him in your essay.

Harrison Bergeron

Please take a look at this article by Kurt Vonnegut who wrote it in 1961. This is titled 'Harrison Bergeron', a dystopian science fiction short story where Vonnegut aimed to warn his readers about a similar kind of 'equality', equality which could be fatal for the human race. Yet, do you think that in contemporary society, there are some who are striving for some form of equality (e.g. the attempt to eliminate racism, sexism etc)?
There are guiding questions at the end of the story.

* * *
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.

It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.

On the television screen were ballerinas.

A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.

“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.

“Huh?” said George.

“That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.

“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.

George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.

Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.

“Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball pen hammer,” said George.

“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.”

“Um,” said George.

“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel.
Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”

“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.

“Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”

“Good as anybody else,” said George.

“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.

“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.

“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”

It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.

“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”

George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.

“You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”
“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”

“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.”

“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.

“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”

If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.

“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.

“What would?” said George blankly.

“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”

“Who knows?” said George.

The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ”

He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.

“That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”

“Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.

And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – ” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.

“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”

A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.

The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.

And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.

“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”

There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.

Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.

George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune.

“My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!”

The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.

When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.

Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.

“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.

“Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”

Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.

Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor.

Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.

He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.

“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”

A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.

Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask.

She was blindingly beautiful.

“Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.

The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”

The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played.

He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.

Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.

They shifted their weights to their toes. Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers. And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!

Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.

They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun. They leaped like deer on the moon.

The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.

They kissed it.

And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.

It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.

Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.

It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.

Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George. But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer. George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel.

“Yup,” she said,

“What about?” he said.

“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”

“What was it?” he said.

“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.

“Forget sad things,” said George.

“I always do,” said Hazel.

“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.

“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.

“You can say that again,” said George.

“Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”

* * *

Guiding Questions:

1. What event do you think inspired Vonnegut to write this article in 1961? (Clue: What is the implication of the first sentence "The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal"?)

2. What actual developments, policies, trends involving government-enforced equalizing, "handicapping" in America might Vonnegut be parodying in Harrison Bergeron?

3. Why is Harrison Bergeron such a threat to society?

4. What does it mean to be equal? Does "sameness" equate with "equality"?

5. What do you think is Vonnegut's view on equality?

6. Is competition good, bad or a little of both? Why? Any specific examples?

7. What are the functions of the agents of "the United States Handicapper General"? What threats to society do such agents combat?

8. What do you think the role of the government ought to be?

Answer the questions by adding your comments!