The Auction of Dawn Powell's Diaries

Dawn Powell
(photo from Library of America)

Dawn Powell was an American writer whose work few people have read. I am among the many who have never started or finished a Powell novel. However, her name would occasionally occur in essays on American writers that got my attention. One of them was by Gore Vidal. My trust in his literary taste and admiration for his prose led me to read his essay about Powell's life and work. I admit I kept reading Vidal and never got around to exploring Powell's oeuvre. Others have, including current keeper of the Powell flame, author and critic Tim Page.

Today's online editions of The New York Times includes a piece about Page's attempted Internet auction of Powell's diaries. The piece notes the melancholy and praiseworthy aspects of this episode. Page became aware of Powell's output from an Edmund Wilson review, which inspired him resuscitate interest in her work. Page admirably succeeded in this enterprise, to the extent that he edited and annotated the two-volume Library of America reprint of Powell's writing.

However, according to the Times story, the Internet auction has not yet met Page's expectations. His financial valuation of the Powell manuscript has apparently not been shared by the institutions and private collectors who would be likely bidders. Viral marketing, on which Page assumed this small, specialist world would learn of the auction, did not generate sufficient interest on its own merits. Powell's name, while known within the literary world, just didn't have the clout.

Powell's work, if one is to believe Page, Vidal, and Wilson, is worthy of a permanent place in America's literary heritage. Yet, despite those efforts, destiny may consign Powell a fate more merciless than her final interment in a potter's field (yes, that really did happen) would suggest. Powell's original diaries may very well end up buried in some academic library, while her prose slowly disappears from our collective cultural memory. The erratic, remorseless force known as "the judgement of history" offers little consolation for that unjust vanishing.

KC Gets Ready for Google Fiber

KC, KS mayor Joe Reardon (left) and KC, MO mayor  Sly James
at Google Fiber launch (photo from Google)

Google Fiber is a broadband network which, according to a story in siliconvalley.com, offers speeds of one gigabit. That translates to "100 times faster than the average broadband connection." Google chose Kansas City (both Missouri and Kansas) as its metro experimental animal for Fiber's initial launch. The presumed gold in this product is the relationship between broadband speed and productive endeavor. Most interested parties have touted the broadband upgrade as a launching point for new enterprise, innovative work, and overall civic ben essere. Those assertions, however, don't parallel the service's proposed focus, which is "primarily...residential homes, along with some community organizations like schools and libraries."

In fact, Google has been far from revealing about its intentions with its eponymous Fiber service. (A dedicated Google webpage and related blog provide some thin details.) Google has, according to the siliconvalley.com story, local officials "in the dark" concerning issues such as pricing plans and launch date. "Google officials have only said," according to the article, "there will be a 'major announcement' this summer."

(Image from deadline.com)

Speculation about Google Fiber includes its connection to the launch of Google TV. A June 5th post in engadget com noted a GFHD100 IP set-top box has been registered with the FCC. According to a cable industry analyst quoted in a Kansas City Star story on the registration, the box is a fundamental step for an enterprise to sell television packages. The Star's article also pointed out that Google applied "for an FCC license for an 'antenna farm' in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Such a collection of satellite dishes could be critical for capturing commercial television programming. The company has also gained licenses in Kansas and Missouri to sell television service."

I'll be visiting Kansas City this summer, and I'll try to learn more about Google Fiber and its impact on the metro area and its people.

PS. The July 27th online edition of The Washington Post includes an article outlining Google Fiber's service options to residential customers. Curiously, Google chose not to include business-oriented services at this time.

New York Times Lowers Great Paywall to Reach Chinese Readers

The New York Times announced in today's online edition that it will "introduce a beta version of a new Chinese-language edition" of the newspaper. The site launched in China today, according to the brief note. Some reports, though not the Times, noted the site would not have a paywall, as the Times' English-language site does. (Here's the link for the curious.)

The Times asserted its goal in presenting the Chinese-language web version of its newspaper was to bring "world-class journalism" to Chinese consumers. (The Times has never lacked for hubris.) Did the launch mean All The News That's Fit To Print had a moment of philosophical awakening that provided a sort of zeal for the media's mission? Well, no. Instead, one is informed of the Times' goal in its definition of the target demographic: "China's growing number of educated, affluent, global citizens..." This phrase is raw, red meat for advertisers. World-class brands can simply e-mail, text, or (heaven help us) call their Times ad rep and sign up for digital advertising packages.


Meanwhile, unstated was the role of censorship in the People's Republic of China, and how the Times intends to navigate that controversial area. "World-class journalism" and censorship just don't mix. If the Times needs a reminder of recent history, it can simply call its nemesis -- Google -- for a few pointers on the search engine firm's unpleasant experience with the Beijing government.

ICANN Calls Time Out In Dot-Brandname Sale Fiasco

ICANN, the group responsible for approving which hopefuls get the Internet suffix of their commercial dreams, suspended its Web-based request system this weekend. ICANN acknowledged it experienced "'unexpected results'" from its operations, according to a report from the Associated Press and picked up in today's siliconvalley.com.

The tech organization's request management scheme is something akin to "digital archery." As the Associated Press noted, people "proposing a new suffix had to specify a target date and time and then return to the website at that time to hit a 'Generate' button as close to the target as possible. Those with the closest matches would get their proposals considered first."

Now there's an idea that's way off target! Why something so complicated became the preferred path to choosing winners in the Internet suffix game is completely beyond me. Time to go back to the drawing board, or whatever is used in Silicon Valley to bring ideas into practical reality.

New Wi-Fi Protocol to Triple Data Speeds

Broadcom has produced 5G capabilityin its wireless chips

If you watch streaming video, move data from a smartphone to a tablet, or simply want to get fast Internet downloads to your laptop, then 802.11ac will interest you.

That's the new Wi-Fi protocol intended to upgrade wireless coverage inside one's home, according to a story in today's siliconvalley.com, a website affiliated with the San Jose Mercury News.

The major push for this Wi-Fi boost comes from the insatiable demand for video. What's fascinating is the article's note that "one million minutes of video content will race across networks every second by 2015, and the number of gadgets connected to the Internet will be twice the world's population. Between 2010 and 2015, mobile data traffic is expected to soar 26 times."

The implication is that the tech industry believes its infrastructure for the sexy data flows will keep pace with the public's service expectations. Better hope the industry's optimism is justified.

Andrew Sarris and Film Critics' Legacies

The insightful film critic Andrew Sarris recently passed away in New York City. His death was duly noted in a New York Times obituary credited to Michael Powell. He seemed an odd choice for the assignment, given that Times obit editor Margalit Fox is married to a working New York film critic. While Powell touched the bases that defined Sarris' career, he did not display any insight into the critic's contribution about the movies and the moviegoing experience.

Admittedly, space constraints may have impacted Powell's approach to the story. What the article brought home, however, was how contemporary critics largely aren't in Sarris' league. (I happen to appreciate feisty Armond White's opinions.) The level and impact of insight Sarris and his critic peers produced is notably absent today. Why that has happened is a fascinating question.

Around the time Sarris found his journalistic home at The Village Voice, he couldn't help but try to live up to the critical standards set by French New Wave critics such as Francois Truffaut writing in Cahiers du Cinema. Ironically, the nouvelle vague crowd also worked as hands-on directors, something that went against the grain of Gallic intellectual traditions. In contrast to Paris' cinematic community, Sarris and his New York critical peers did not get behind a camera. Peter Bogdanovich, who did splendid film history studies for MOMA, was a notable exception. It's understandable in retrospect why Pauline Kael tried her hand in Hollywood. Alas, the only result was very visible egg on The New Yorker critic's face and precious little production experience. As for the The New York Times -- the most influential publication of them all -- it seemed Hollywood and Cannes humor their film journalists rather than respect them. For better or worse, the Times' critics are read by the majority of its readers principally due to the writers' association with the brand rather than through their audience's appreciation of a developed point of view. (Hopefully, Manohla Dargis can change that distasteful trend.)

The American (mostly New York-centric) critics came of professional age when the director became a key player in movie making. We take that situation for granted today, but that was not always the case. Sarris and his fellow auteurists made their mark by providing a middlebrow moviegoing audience deepened understandings of what they were seeing. The critics also wanted and really pleaded for questions, debate, argument. Whatever their flaws -- and there were plenty of them -- the Sarristes and the Paulettes cared about the movies. (For more about the Sarris-Kael feud, read Brian Kellow's recent biography on the late New Yorker staffer.) They would have regarded with disdain the mindless Monday morning news program recitation of weekend box office receipts. Red carpet reporting would have appalled them, although Kael might have gotten a good laugh out of it. Sarris, John Simon, Kael, and other critical lions would have spared no quarter toward intellectually famished "two thumbs up" lines of reasoning. Sarris and his peers unreservedly disliked one another, yet they would have unanimously believed that films were meant to be seen uninterrupted on a big screen with an audience.

Unfortunately, movie theatres are now an endangered species. If you're lucky and live in New York or LA and have access to insider screenings or film temples, you can see a movie in its most complete and satisfying form. Otherwise, the experience of movie going, for which Andrew Sarris advocated throughout his professional career, has become as recondite as watching a silent film at home.

Lesley Brown, first test tube baby mom -- RIP

2008 photo showing Lesley Brown
between Robert Edwards and her daughter and grandson
(photo from nobelprize.org)

Until 1978, the creation and successful birth of a test tube baby was something straight from the comic books. While there had been many attempts at artificially induced birth, none had succeeded in reaching anything close to full term. Lesley Brown changed history, and impacted science's increasingly successful intervention in human biological processes, by carrying and delivering a test tube baby.

As the BBC noted in its obit of the 64-year-old Brown, she found herself mercilessly hounded by the media. She managed to escape its clutches long enough to experience her pregnancy without intrusion from money-mad paparazzi and heartless tabloid journalists. As with many social pioneers in the mid to late 20th Century, her journey was a psychologically demanding one. She had guts.

The most touching aspect of the BBC piece was its accompanying photograph. It showed Brown, her daughter, her grandson, and Cambridge professor Robert Edwards, one of the scientists responsible for the test tube baby herself. Edwards won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his development of in-vitro fertilization.

Federal Judges Justify Their Maui Convention to Skeptical Senators

Hyatt Regency Maui
(photo from orbitz.com)

The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit takes in a lot of territory west of the Rockies. One of the states in its purview is Hawaii. There are approximately 150 judges in the 9th Circuit; five of them call our 50th State their home.

This year, the 9th Circuit will hold a judicial conference for its judges at the Hyatt Regency Maui. A similar event in 2010, according to two US senators inquiring about the gathering, cost over one million dollars for travel and lodging. The solons asked the circuit's chief judge to defend why this year's conference required a Hawaiian venue.

His arrogant reply is noted in the Washington Post article on the dispute. While the judge noted the quality of the event's professional programs, the senators pointed out the golf, surfing lessons, and catamaran experiences available to the wise men and women of the 9th Circuit.

Did anyone say "binding arbitration"?

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels Chooses Purdue over Politics

Mitch Daniels at a 2009
motorcycle event
(photo from Indiana governor's office)

In a quietly reported story, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels has accepted an offer to become president. However, the presidency Daniels agreed to belongs to a university rather than the highest office in the land. Daniels' deal with Purdue University was reported in today's online editions of the Chicago Tribune, although an Indiana newspapers and a Hoosier television station noted the news earlier.

This is a pretty big deal. Not so long ago, Daniels was getting serious consideration for the office currently held by Barack Obama. The Indiana governor seemed to have political gravitas, a sense of articulate policy vision, and brains. He offered a rebuttal to one of Obama's State of the Union addresses. However, Daniels' steps toward a presidential run seemed tentative. Perhaps something inside him just said "no."

Sometimes, it's a good idea to listen to one's inner voice. Daniels, along with other smart money Republicans, got out of the presidential race very early in the process. We will probably never know the real reasons for Daniels' separation from his ambitions for high office. However, it is fair to say the Indiana governor's decision was an unfortunate development for the GOP, as Daniels would have been an interesting VP choice.

For those voters trying to get their arms around the notion of a Romney presidency, take a moment to wonder why a conservative governor, from a conservative state, would not participate in a presidential election in which a conservative ticket has a puncher's chance of winning.

Henry Alford's Exploration of Traditional and New Media Paths to Informed Travel Information

My wife and I visited Philadelphia this weekend without a guide. We managed to enjoy ourselves. However, it took a strenuous amount of planning to make the ten hours in the City of Brotherly Love a time to remember. That effort was necessary, even though I have visited Philadelphia repeatedly over the years. There was too much I didn't know about Philly, especially its local nuances and more adventurous restaurants and bars. I have some local contacts there, but I didn't refer to them for this trip.

The episode led me to consider how I would have planned a visit to another destination. Coincidentally,  the online edition of today's New York Times included a piece by the writer Henry Alford that demonstrated one approach to this issue. It is a well structured and intriguingly conceived article, in which Alford discusses a recent visit to Stockholm.

Henry Alford
(photograph from Vanity Fair)

At first, I was skeptical about the piece. Photographs of the musical Piroth sisters, links to too-cool-for-school bloggers from Nectar and Pulse and Spotted by Locals, and two references to "hipsters" led me to suspect this was yet another of the Times' demographically driven travel articles. Yet, Alford's ploy was a simple one. "What would happen," he wrote, "if you traveled to a country you’d never been to and relied on suggestions from blogs and online locals instead of those from friends and guidebooks?"


Alford does hedge his bets by going to friendly, safe, English-speaking Sweden. The mitigation of the language barrier makes his contact with locals a relatively painless maneuver not easily duplicated in, say, Bulgaria. However, Alford's proposition is a very interesting one, in that gets to the heart of the social media value proposition. By identifying his travel and other preferences, Alford could obtain travel information presumably consistent with his personality and desires. By the way, the writer, who is in his fifties, was completely comfortable considering experiences and sights bloggers half his age enjoyed.

In essence, Alford challenged both the strong case for "traditional," branded travel books and magazines as well as the "new media" approach to obtaining useful travel information. While his social media pathway may seem obvious, it is in practice a challenging proposition to successfully manage. One needs time, patience, a willingness to sift through bloggers' opinions, and destinations where Alford's type of travel research would pay dividends. It's one thing to check out hipster bastions such as Stockholm or Amsterdam; it's quite another to learn more insightful, reliable information about the hipster world's version of terra incognita.

We'll see if Alford's method works for me on my next trip to Philadelphia.

Scalped NBA Finals Tix Cheaper in Miami than OKC

For all the talk about the excitement in South Florida about the Miami Heat, the pro basketball team still has a bit of work cut out for itself. Today's online edition of the Miami Herald ran an entertaining, interesting article comparing the supply and demand for scalped tickets to the NBA Finals between Miami and Oklahoma City. Surprisingly, ticket scalpers are getting more money in Oklahoma's state capital than in South Beach. Oklahomans who can't buy their way into home games are flying to Florida, taking advantage of off-season hotel rates, and scooping up Finals tickets.

Don't get me wrong: the tickets are mighty expensive. However, NBA fever has seized Oklahomans and transformed a notorious football state into one where the round ball most fervently matters. Miamians also know that Oklahomans know the way to South Florida. The OU football team was a frequent participant in Orange Bowl games on New Year's Day. The Oklahoma Sooners were characterized as a team that "traveled." In college football parlance, that means the team's fans will attend a bowl game, and spend a lot of money.

It appears that Oklahomans have found a new reason to "travel," support the South Florida economy, and get their money into circulation.

New NBA Franchise Owner Has Tech Roots

Robert Pera
(photo from Forbes, which received it
courtesy of Mr. Pera)

Why do tech zillionaires want to own NBA franchises? Recently, Ubiquiti Networks' boss Robert Pera purchased the Memphis Grizzlies for what ESPN reported was $350 million. That's a lot of money, even for a newly minted billionaire such as Pera. Well, at least he was a billionaire on paper. That status changed earlier this year when the stock value of his firm, Ubiquiti Networks, was cut approximately in half.

Nonetheless, David Stern let Pera join the club, so to speak. The other three tech wizards who can claim ownership of an NBA team are Paul Allen (Portland Trail Blazers), Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks), and Joe Lacob (Golden State Warriors).

The San Jose Mercury News ran an interesting profile on Pera, noting his self-made man status and his business acumen.

While Pera is making his introductions in the NBA, so is the pro basketball franchise in Oklahoma City. What Commissioner David Stern probably won't like to discuss is how OKC moved from Seattle.  It's a tawdry story, complete with back room dealings and saddened fans. Les Carpenter wrote in Yahoo!Sports today about the sale of the Seattle franchise and its move to Oklahoma. Included in the meandering, yet interesting article are comments by Shawn Kemp, who was once a star for the Seattle team and now owns a bar in the Emerald City.

Dot-Brandname Sale Moving Ahead

ICANN, a/k/a the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, will release its list of applications this week, according to a story in the Washington Post's online edition.

In the meantime, a Financial Times story notes that many firms, notably Google and Amazon, are trying to secure their own brand names as web address suffixes. In other words, dot-google, dot-kindle, and dot-youtube are coming to you soon.

This activity is for the cash flush, as the application fee is $185,000 per suffix. Some suffixes are just too long: I passed on dot-innerharbor. I didn't have the one-eight-five, either.

Silicon Valley Bank To Open London Branch

In the world of technology startups, Silicon Valley Bank is a big deal. The institution claims to work with more than half of all venture-backed technology and life-science firms in the United States. The bank is a player in emerging nations, such as China, and tech-savvy oases such as Israel. SVB is now moving into new ground, with the announcement of its intention to open a London branch. Not only will this give Silicon Valley Bank entree to UK startups, but it's also viewed as a bridgehead into Continental Europe.

The story was reported in today's siliconvalley.com.

"Twilight's" Robert Pattinson Promotes New Cronenberg Film "Cosmopolis"

Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis
(Photo from Irish Central.
Link includes movie trailer.)

The actor Robert Pattinson made his name as the male star of the Twilight films. At some point, teen movie heartthrobs have to shift into more mature roles. Pattinson's made his move, and it has the potential to be a solid one. He's the star of David Cronenberg's new film Cosmopolis. It's opening in the UK this week, and the BBC dutifully ran a short feature about Pattinson and the film. Cronenberg is not for the faint of heart, and he's something of an art house favorite. Neither category seem to be natural fits for Pattinson, although the Variety reviewer praised his work in Cronenberg's film. We'll see. Other initial reviews of the film have been mixed. (For a glimpse into Cronenberg's thinking about the film and the publicity around it, check this recent Q&A from The New York Times.)

What's very curious about the movie is that it's based on a Don DeLillo novel. His work has always struck me as eminently difficult to film, principally because of the author's highly demanding style and sensitivity to the nuances of contemporary American English. The really fun DeLillo movie sequel would be Libra. Just don't Oliver Stone get his hands on the movie rights to it.

Two Nixon Anniversaries: Watergate and the Opera "Nixon in China"

Richard Nixon
(photo from CBS News)

Anyone with a sense of history and dread should not miss reading Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's account of Watergate in today's online editions of the Washington Post. The article is a searing indictment of Richard Nixon and his cabal. For those who did not live during the Watergate era, the piece offers a blunt reminder of how a president masterminded a criminal conspiracy designed to consolidate power by undermining the nation's principal governmental and communications institutions.

Tricky Dick's exploits led to his forced resignation. However, it's a bit easier to be "holier than thou" when Nixon is the subject. Where was a very compliant American media when George W. Bush and his collection of ideologically motivated cohorts treated the law as an inconvenience rather than something to cherish? The actions of right-wing intellectual gangsters such as John Yoo brought far deeper disgrace to the United States than anything Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman did during the Watergate era. To this day, the American people have not been able to face the collective domestic political silence that characterized the Bush-Cheney era. A contrast of that inaction with the ferment of the Watergate era is not flattering to the current generation.

Hillary Clinton and Chinese President Hu JinTao in 2009
(photo from Xin Hua/Yao Dawei)

While the mainstream media is busy recalling Watergate, the San Francisco Opera is staging John Adams' Nixon in China. This year, coincidentally, is the 25th anniversary of the opera's premiere in Houston. The opera's story line involves the historic meeting between Mao and Nixon. At that time, the People's Republic of China was a largely backward, agrarian, and communist nation immersed in the Cultural Revolution; the United States was a stable, economically flush superpower. Now, America relies on Chinese purchases of US Treasury bonds to remain solvent; China is busy creating a new economic nexus that includes Brazil and a non-communist Russia. Unfortunately, there is currently an absence of effective American foreign policy leadership. It is more than a little ironic that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a staff member on the House committee that investigated the Nixon Administration's involvement with Watergate and other criminal activities. I wonder if she reflects on those days and asks herself what Tricky Dick would do with China now.

"Divorce Apps" Now Available Via Online App Stores

The largely unpleasant process of divorce typically requires some personal navigation through emotional, legal, and financial waters trickier than Mark Twain's Mississippi River. Well, now some bright developers have created apps to help those contemplating marital dissolution work out some of the details.

According to a story in today's online edition of the Chicago Tribune, the apps don't replace an attorney's legal skills. Some apps provide crude calculations of financial value. Others target child support payments. None of the apps noted in the article determine the psychological pain or the emotional loss often associated with divorce. It's still hard to quantify heartbreak.

Who Profits From Denial of US Economic Situation?

For months, the drumbeat of "things are better now" has thumped through spokespeople who seem like a collection of "the usual suspects." If their shared perspective, so relentlessly driven in public statements and interview opportunities, were limited to the status of the very wealthy and record corporate profits, their case for the "better" could be plausibly presented. For most others, the Great Recession lingers like a form of chronic pain. That situation is ignored, unless political points are at issue.

Watching the Wisconsin election results on Fox News last night, I got the impression the only things holding our country back from a return to general prosperity were labor unions and Barack Obama. Fox's Neil Cavuto trotted out a number of CEOs who parroted this message, while not bothering to address why those interviewed were personally better off than ever.

David Rosenberg
(photo from Gluskin Sheff)

An outlook less chained to ideological imperatives, political expediency, and reality denial would provide far different information. One such individual is economist and financial strategist David Rosenberg. Once Merrill Lynch's respected voice on the economy, Rosie flew the US coop for Toronto. From this relatively sane perch at the Canadian financial firm Gluskin Sheff, he offers his opinions, which notably do not correspond to the propagandistic fiction available on your favorite American media outlet.

Zerohedge.com, an acerbic financial blog, has become something of a platform from which Rosenberg's perspective reaches money managers and amateurs with a strong interest in financial markets. Today's post featuring Rosenberg's point of view provides some deeply troubling information about the state of the US west of the Hudson River and north of 96th Street.

Here are a few salient points from the blog post:

• "The share of long-term unemployment is at its highest level since the Great Depression (42%)"
• "47% of Americans are on some form of government assistance"
• "A mere 16% of the 2009-2011 graduating class has found full-time work, while 22% are working part-time. Even those hired from 2006-2008, only 23% are working full-time."

Do you think "things are better now"? What leads you to that conclusion?

Solar Plane Completes Spain-Morocco Flight

Solar Impulse
(photo from Wikipedia)

On a day when Venus began its transit of the Sun, an earthling boarded a solar plane in Madrid. His destination was the Moroccan capital, Rabat. The aircraft, known as the Solar Impulse and entirely powered by the Sun's energy, took nineteen lumbering hours to complete the flight.

It takes guts and imagination to attempt something daringly new. Pilot Bertrand Piccard had the courage and the vision to attempt the solar-powered flight. In that way, he can now stand with proud aviators, such as the Wright brothers and Charles Lindbergh. Like those early fliers, Piccard achieved a feat that seems straight from old-fashioned comic books.

The BBC report on Piccard's endeavor provides useful background on some key challenges the pilot faced. It's a wonderful story that offers hope for our collective future.

Transit of Venus Excites New York Area's Star Gazers

Transit of Venus (black dot) across the Sun
(2004 photo from Scientific American)

The transit of Venus, in which the Sun, Earth, and herself are in alignment along the same plane, will take place starting tomorrow evening. The rare event will be theoretically visible from New York area vantage points. I say "theoretically," because the weather forecast features rain and clouds. That's not exactly an ideal formula for astronomical action.

Still, the event is an exciting one, and as The New York Times reported, many people are preparing their varieties of visually safe telescopes to view the transit. You want to get in on the event now; the next transit will occur in the 22nd Century.

According to NASA, there have been 53 transits since 2000 B.C. Yet, despite the rarity of the event, it remains very important for astronomers. In the 18th Century, scientists used the transit to rather accurately measure the distance between the Earth and the Sun, also known as the Astronomical Unit. In an age of computers and handheld calculators, it's refreshing to note that some sharp estimates about profound distances were managed without machine assistance.

ATT Chief: Expect Sharply Higher Data Usage, Wireless Firm Mergers

Cecilia Kang, who writes the Washington Post's technology blog, contributed an interesting post in this morning's online edition. The item featured comments from AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson on the state of the wireless business.

One assertion Stephenson made caught my eye: "data usage will increase 75 percent every year for the next five years." That's an incredible statistic. That claim suggests the demands on bandwidth will be profound, and even hints at a looming bandwidth availability crisis. One way corporations settle these supply and demand issues is to raise prices, with tiered pricing being a rather obvious approach.

The financial price of bandwidth usage continues to unfold, generally into increasingly higher ranges. While the "haves" won't care about higher rates, the "have-nots" certainly will. Institutions are likely to "pass along" increased costs to their end users. If you're attending a school, working in a hospital, or rely on mobile devices for business, that's not good news at all.

Think of this situation as a storm slowly moving toward your region. It doesn't come today, and it might not come tomorrow, but it will come. While one can hope the storm will not be a strong one, I'm not optimistic about that notion, especially if Mitt "let the markets operate freely" Romney becomes the 45th president of the United States.

Tweeting for the Lord

Amy O'Leary
(photo from Salt Institute for Documentary Studies
and Public Radio Exchange)

I have a theory that the Saturday news contains the juiciest stories. Often, the articles involve dirt or unpleasant PR someone either wants public or desperately wants buried. Occasionally, a feature pops up in which a trend begins to surface. Such is the case with a story in today's online edition of The New York Times. Reporter Amy O'Leary wrote an excellent, imaginative piece on how Christian organizations use Twitter to spread prayers and other messages to its user community.

One delicious observation in O'Leary's piece is how Biblical verses fit the 140-character limit for tweets. Not only do the verses come in under the Twitter bar, there's room for hash tags. This fortunate combination is made to order for the successful creation of tweets. Also, knowing the message gets to a defined community of like-minded users makes Twitter a powerful, compelling tool to spread one's religious messages.

The Christian communities have traditionally possessed their own means of communication. They have bypassed mainstream media and do their best to ignore it. The fact is the Christians don't need and don't want big-time media around, unless it's their own outlets. In a way, the Internet revolution played right into the Christian movement's hands. O'Leary's article brought that point home, ironically using the very tip of the secular media spear -- the front page of The New York Times -- the Christian world has long avoided and regarded with suspicion.

Promoters of Seasteading Meet in San Francisco

They're called "Seasteaders," a 21st Century twist on the 19th Century Homestead concept. Their ambition is to build freestanding political entities in the Pacific Ocean off the San Francisco coastline. Among the enthusiasts are ex-Pay Pay zillionaire Peter Thiel, and Patri Friedman, nephew of free-market theorist Milton Friedman.

"Seasteaders" are currently meeting in San Francisco to discuss and celebrate their ideas for creating these artificial island oases. The San Jose Mercury News has covered the story, noting some of the Silicon Valley wizards and financiers involved in the event.

What's so striking about the participants' goals and ambitions is their reasoning for embarking on such a project. Their stated (pardon the pun) common denominator is a concept of freedom hatched in libertarian philosophy. The world, in their view, has become a hopelessly restrictive arena. Their proposed, man-made islands would presumably create the libertarian paradise these partisans to the cause so devoutly desire.

There's something profoundly sad about this phenomemon. These disaffected libertarians often possess considerable wealth. They're largely free to do whatever they want. Yet, the messy, demanding world continues, in their view, to be inconvenient, even obstreperous. The inability of these libertarians to reconcile themselves to those that do not share their political and philosophical perspective creates a sense of melancholy, combined with a craving for release from the coarse, gross everyday world. The subsequent desire to a more "pure" environment leads to schemes for the realization of utopian ideals.

The Swimming City
an example of a seastead

History shows this drive for a utopian state tends to breed intolerant regimes. The development of philosophically "pure," isolationist-style political entities is also entirely in the American vein (the Puritans and the Mormons come to mind). Ironically, the desire to live on artificially created Pacific islands hugging the California coastline continues the westward movement of restless American expansion partly generated by this lust for political freedom.

The Seasiders, over time, might make a different, unwanted contribution to the American story. It's entirely possible the "Big One" Californians have dreaded may shake San Francisco right into the Pacific. Then the island Seasteaders can reinvent the Atlantis myth for their island-born grandchildren.