Obama Administration Lobbies Against NYC School Boss Candidate

Joshua Starr
(Image: montgomeryschoolsmd.org)

According to a report in today's Washington Post, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan actively spoke against a candidate being considered for New York City's education chancellor. Duncan's target was Joshua Starr, currently serving as school superintendent in the affluent DC suburbs of Montgomery County, Maryland.

Starr's offense was to dare criticize aspects of the Obama-Duncan education agenda, notably the use of standardized tests to evaluate an instructor's "value." He also called for a three-year break from high-stakes standardized exams. This moratorium strikes at the heart of the data-driven agenda Duncan and Obama have believed essential to so-called "education reform."

As the Post story noted, a Cabinet-level official very rarely intervenes in a local school district matter. However, a characteristic of the Obama and Duncan regimes is their thin skins when facing criticism. Their arrogant belief is that they are the smartest people in the room. As a consequence, they typically ignore contrary opinions and simply do what they want. (Obama's inability to touch voters' hearts is connected to this behavioral outlook.) Duncan's presumed torpedo sank Starr's chances, even though New York City mayor DiBlasio shares some of Starr's profound reservations about the education "reformers'" questionable assertions.

As Anthony Hopkins, playing Richard Nixon in the eponymous film, said: "Presidents don't threaten. They don't have to."

France Contemplates Smartphone Tax to Subsidize Gallic Culture

Image: tech2.in.com

European nations have historically subsidized their arts institutions. In the modern era, those funds typically come from tax revenues. That scenario includes the French film industry, currently under siege from America's stunningly successful export of Hollywood entertainment. The French government believes its homegrown cultural talent needs additional sources of revenue to maintain its artistic independence, Gallic identity, and, presumably, highbrow quality.

To that end, the Hollande administration is considering placing a one-percent tax on smartphones and other electronic gadgets "capable of accessing movies, music, and other content," according to a story in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Tech companies such as Google have opposed the proposed tax scheme. One suspects that warming up in high tech's legal/PR bullpen is the argument frequently appearing in the United States: taxation would "stifle innovation." Of course, high tech's thin, unsubstantiated perspective pivots on the notion that the forces creating the alleged innovation should not be interrupted from doing God's work.

What goes unstated is that France's suggested one-percent skimming of gadget transaction prices means high tech firms won't see that money. Hey, doesn't Paris understand that God's work is expensive?

Wall Street's Entry Into Residential Rental Market "Might Not End Well"

When the Great Recession struck the nation with full fury, the residential housing market suffered some serious blows. The most significant damage was done in the low-end residential segment, where strung out owners found themselves staring at foreclosure. At the time, the reigning thought was that foreclosures would depress housing prices. That event did not happen, with certain exceptions. What stemmed the foreclosure tsunami was Wall Street intervention. No, this was not done for the benefit of the Republic. Rather, sharp-eyed financiers saw an opportunity to buy low and, presumably, sell high at some point down the road. In the meantime, Wall Street firms such as Blackstone became landlords. The irony, as Prashant Gopal points out in a thoughtful Bloomberg opinion piece, is that the foreclosed owners have often become rent paying tenants.

Image: daytondailynews.com

The deal for Wall Street is a sweet one, as firms such as Blackstone have access to Federal Reserve funds at a rate roughly half of what mere mortals pay for a routine home mortgage. The chutzpah does not end there. Another Bloomberg article notes how Magnetar Capital, an Illinois-based alternative asset manager that's a new player in the foreclosed residential rental world, demanded a tax rollback on the foreclosed properties it recently purchased in Huber Heights, Ohio. Magnetar real estate representatives promised the money would be used to spruce up the acquired properties. Of course, unstated was that the "improvements" would benefit Magnetar rather than Huber Heights' neediest citizens.

Placing much faith in the promises of indifferent, Olympian financial firms does not seem a way for a community to survive, never mind thrive. Should one trust Magnetar's promises? The Bloomberg report on Dayton noted that

In 2006 and 2007, Magnetar helped banks create complex securities backed by risky mortgages. At the same time, the hedge fund [Magnetar] made bets that would profit if the homeowners defaulted. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the deals after housing imploded and has fined some of the banks involved. The government hasn't filed a complaint against Magnetar.

The notion that one should trust the lofty sentiments of a hedge fund that created dodgy mortgage-backed securities and bet against them seems downright stupid. The reality is that the Huber Heights tenants' financial assets are essentially being strip mined. Meanwhile, this dark scenario is being played out against a steady drumbeat of  economic "recovery" assertions from East Coast major media players, DC politicians, and Wall Street spokespeople. A glance at Huber Heights' new tenant class strongly argues otherwise.

American Sailors Involved in Fukushima Cleanup May Have Cancer

Fish caught near Fukushima
post-tsunami
(Photo: LA Times)

Remember Fukushima? The nuclear meltdown had a number of disastrous consequences for the Japanese population and the area near the disaster. According to a lawsuit recently filed in San Diego, the radiation may have impacted American midshipmen and sailors involved in humanitarian efforts in the Fukushima area. The financial blog zerohedge.com cobbled together a number of stories related to the litigation.

It's useful to remember that, prior to the Fukushima incident, the nuclear power industry had become something of a darling among "alternative energy" advocates. That perspective suddenly changed after the Japanese nuclear disaster. One doesn't read optimistic pieces about nuclear energy's "potential". However, many nuke plants remain quite active throughout the world, notably in France. Each operating facility is essentially playing poker with random events and unperceived engineering miscalculations. That's not a game, and certainly not a bet, I want to play.

A Look Ahead to 2014's Surveillance Politics

Tech's high priests and their financial enablers continue to squirm under the harsh light the Snowden surveillance revelations cast on their activities. Naturally, Silicon Valley, which has viewed the developed world as its experimental animal, has decided to publicly stand tall against the alleged bad actors at the NSA.

A few caveats should make one pause in that convenient posture. Peter Thiel, Pay Pal principal and leading libertarian light in the Valley, happens to be a major investor in a firm called Palantir. This company was characterized in a recent Financial Times piece as "a secretive data-mining company that made its name working for the CIA..." Jeff Bezos' Amazon, which has been quiet in the entire NSA-Valley imbroglio, has a cloud computing contract with the Central Intelligence Agency. As for other tech firms, do you want to guess how many have federal contracts?

Peter Thiel

Meanwhile, the usual hypocritical "rule of law" arguments high tech trots out to defend its global interests and ruthless invasion of personal privacy have notably not emerged to protest the NSA's own data "extraction" efforts. After all, the NSA is a federal agency with broad mandates to protect and serve the nation. And that's the law, too.

A recent article in Wired suggests that diminished expectations for "business development" is a significant reason the Valley was shocked to discover gambling in its data collection and exploitation casino. Chris Finan's opinion piece -- "What To Expect From Surveillance Politics in 2014 (Hint: It's Not Reform)" -- asserts high tech's public outrage partly stems from anticipated international business losses as a consequence of the Snowden expose. Finan contends

it’s safe to say that American tech executives are angry. And they have good reason to be: U.S. companies’ association — via cooperation, coercion, or simply unwitting victimization — with government surveillance programs have cost them huge shares of the IT services market internationally.Forrester Research has projected that the overall impact to the U.S. cloud computing industry could be as high as $180 billion, or 25% of IT service provider revenues over three years. While many companies will try to convince policymakers of the the significant costs of intrusive surveillance and the need for reform — as a group of tech execs tried to do this week in a meeting with President Obama — expect companies to take matters into their own hands.

What's fascinating is the Valley's relentless determination to transform the world into a global data colony which these firms are free to exploit as they please. An essential piece of that initiative is the evisceration and degradation of personal privacy. Anyone who has received unwanted "targeted" advertising on their phones, tablets, or computers can grasp this concept. Why does the Valley insist it qualifies for an exemption from criticism over its arrogant, anti-privacy activities? The NSA, in this case, is a convenient pinata for actions high tech has developed, exploited, and tried to wink and nod its way through legal action and protest.

One wishes the Valley, in its collective sense, had a conscience that went beyond IPO "success" and an unwavering faith in "progress" (as defined by improved data mining and consumer gadgets). Those sentiments are rarely displayed. At least the NSA has a mission to guard our nation. The Valley's primary mission is to guard its own interests, its own egos, its own financial opportunities. Who do you trust, baby?

Library of Congress Adds 25 Films to National Film Registry

Librarian of Congress
James H. Billington
(Image: loc.gov)

The Library of Congress announced its 2013 additions to the National Film Registry (NFR). According to a Washington Post story on the NFR, the movie selections are made by a committee of one: the Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. His goal is to choose movies that somehow represent the American cultural zeitgeist, at least as depicted on celluloid or digital capture. To that end, the NFR is not a "best of" collection, as those critically anointed films don't always tell an insightful story about the culture that spawned them.

On the other hand, Billington chose some films that very few people have seen. Some are clearly generated by the art world and its chosen few. Some come from the silent era (any effort in that area deserves praise and respect). Some contemporary movies slip into the mix, although choices such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf strike me as an older generation's fascination.

For all its flaws, the NFR serves a useful purpose. Films are notorious for disappearing or surviving in some disfigured way. The latter issue is no joke. A stunning number of post-World War II movies are visually diminished, a consequence of film stock being a poor preservation medium. To save our nation's legacy, the NFR works hard to preserve the powerful, lyrical, or just plain silly films that reflect American myths and the reality underpinning them. The preservation of our heritage is one reason to pay federal taxes -- and smile.

Battle of the Brands: Robinson Cano vs NY Yankees

Robinson Cano in Seattle
(photo: sfgate.com)

The New York area's sports pages were recently roiled over the contract negotiations between the New York Yankees, its star second baseman Robinson Cano, his agent Jay-Z, and the Seattle Mariners. After considerable back-and-forth, Cano signed with Seattle for $240 million. This move led to consternation in New York, as if the Yankees, with an aging, suspect lineup, had stepped off a steep cliff.

From a talent perspective, Cano's move from Yankee pinstripes is unquestionably a loss for the team that calls The Bronx home. However, the negotiations were more than simply about the money. I think what soured the Yanks on Cano was Jay-Z's ploy to make his first MLB client a personal brand. The Yankees, in that scenario, were a splendid platform from which to launch the Robinson Cano product. The baseball team, with its own brand indissolubly linked to its successful, high-profile players, would not have been able to control the Cano brand. The notion that a player would be bigger than the team -- clearly Agent Jay-Z's talent management goal -- was something the Yankees could not tolerate. (Jay-Z's wife, Beyonce, recently demonstrated the clout of a personal brand with her no pre-publicity, iTunes exclusive release album. Yes, I think the Yankees watched that development quite closely.)

Jay-Z
(photo: npr.org)

The Yankees had experienced the emergence of personal branding in the early days of its contract with third baseman Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod had his eyes on branding from the start of his move from Texas to baseball's lucrative Northeast markets. The Yankees were not alone in that situation. Many fans forget that the New York Mets seriously entertained signing Rodriguez at the apogee of his on-field success. At the time, one demand from the Rodriguez camp was a personal marketing representative for A-Rod. In essence, he would develop and exploit his personal brand. This business scheme would have been under A-Rod's control, and quite separate from his team's success and marketing drives. The Mets could not or would not swallow this negotiating demand, and eventually took a pass on A-Rod's services.

Alex Rodriguez
(photo: Wikipedia)

While times have changed since Alex Rodriguez explored ways to create a personal brand, the lust for branded gold has accelerated. This year, common stock is now available in selected NFL players. You can purchase 100 shares of Houston running back Arian Foster, for example. Enterprises such as the Yankees have kept a close eye on these developments; my guess is that personal brands could significantly and irrevocably disrupt the teams' revenue and marketing plans. For star-driven teams such as the Yanks, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Dallas Cowboys, personal brands are red flags. The Yankees just drew a line with Robinson Cano, so definitively that the team would willingly say adios to a tremendous, homegrown infielder at the prime of his career. The feeling was that "the Yanks didn't want to pay Cano." That's true, but misses the point. The Yankees are determined to maintain their brand. No player, not even Robinson Cano, could be permitted to be bigger than one of the world's great franchises, certainly not while on the Yankee roster. As for Jay-Z, the team sent a message: we don't need you and we don't want you. Tell your client to have a ball in baseball's version of marketing Siberia, far away from his natural Hispanic fan base, and even further from appearing in post-season play.

Hey, didn't Alex Rodriguez make his name in Seattle?

My Favorite Ten Fiction Books

Leonardo Sciascia

Someone I know recently posted on Facebook a list of her top ten books. Since nonfiction did not make her cut, I'm assuming she kept the list limited to works that required little or no fact checking. (I'm not counting litigation considerations in this case.)

Well, I'm going to post my ten here, while fully acknowledging I could easily add another ten, ten times over:

• Day of the Owl/Leonardo Sciascia
• Creation/Gore Vidal
• The High Window/Raymond Chandler
• Cotton Comes to Harlem/Chester Himes
• Libra/Don DeLillo
• The Idiot/Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Tropic of Cancer/Henry Miller
• The Plague/Albert Camus
• Scoop/Evelyn Waugh
• Flight to Canada/Ishmael Reed

Report: Saatchi Tried to Game His Book's Best-Seller Status

Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson,
in presumably happier days
(photo: dailymail.co.uk)

Charles Saatchi casts a long shadow in the global advertising game and the big-time contemporary art world. Befitting one of such stature, he published a book and shared his thoughts with a global audience. Saatchi, who understands publishing's inside game, desired best-seller status. According to a report in today's Los Angeles Times, the British ad/art maestro was not leaving his book's sales fate entirely to the vagaries of public taste. The story, noting highly public and nasty Saatchi-Nigella Lawson divorce court proceedings, cited Saatchi aides allegedly being directed to purchase their employer's books. The notion was to game the best-seller list.

There's something naive in the belief that cash purchases of a number of books could generate sufficient sales to achieve best-seller levels. It's more likely that Saatchi wanted to create "buzz" that would create the impression of a fast sales start for his tome.

More dippy than Saatchi's concern about his book's performance is the notion that anyone would care about the work's "best-seller" halo. The idea that readers' choices need to be guided by the supposed popularity of a book denigrates the quality of its prose, the substance of its ideas, the delivery of its entertainment values. You don't need an egotistical ad man's chutzpah, manufactured online "reader comments," or sales popularity charts to help you draw your own conclusions about what book makes sense for you.

Is Bitcoin's Lure the Cure for Currency Uncertainty?

The recently invented currency known as Bitcoin has drawn more than just raised eyebrows. A growing number of enterprises and individuals are accepting Bitcoin for payment transactions. From what one can understand with some degree of reliability, Bitcoin fans tend to have a global business perspective. There's also, at least in the Anglo-Saxon nations, a strain of libertarian perspective animating the Bitcoin crowd. Governmental boundaries and regulation, which Bitcoin is specifically intended to avoid, offend both libertarians and globalists, adding to the currency's attractiveness.

Institutions such as large financial services firms and governmental entities are lukewarm to Bitcoin's flash. They worry about money laundering, whether the source is creepy oligarchs or sinister underworld elements. Another concern is Bitcoin's ability to dodge institutional insider skims such as currency value differentials. That fret is not trivial. A November 2013 Venture Beat story noted an automobile sale involving Bitcoin in Australia. In the article, the manufacturer's CEO, David Brim, pointedly noted the savings the Bitcoin transaction generated:

using Bitcoin reduces costs, since the company uses it to pay overseas suppliers without incurring currency trade and transaction costs. All purchases, however, still do include Australia's goods and services tax.

Brim also touted Bitcoin's promise of "disruption" to the current payment systems. If there were ever a word that is quickly pushed front and center to promote "progress" as an irresistible, inarguable good, "disruption" comes to the head of the line. That "disruption" might just suck rarely enters this sort of dialogue.

The calculation of Bitcoin value, and its secure housing, depends upon a trustworthy electronic network. Bitcoin advocates seem to take a smug view of the digital world and the arrogant assurances of tech's high priests. Anyone who has lost "content," such as book readers did in flaps involving Amazon's removal of George Orwell works, should harbor mistrust of such breezy sentiments. Those who have tasted credit card transaction "issues" have had up-close-and-personal experience with "Sorry, we can't complete your purchase, unless you have cash." I'm not suggesting the solution to Bitcoin's proposition is to stash money in a mattress or hoard gold. And it's fair, in light of the 2008 financial crash, to doubt the staying power and integrity of major financial firms. The question comes down to trust. If your answer is God, more power to you. However, as the late Jean Shepherd said, "In God we trust, all others pay cash" seems spot on. Whose cash? Now there's the conundrum.

Murdered Illinois Lottery Winner's Heirs Settle Estate Squabble

Urooj Khan
(photo: abcnews.go.com)

In May 2012, Urooj Khan won a million dollars in a scratch-off Illinois lottery game. However, his seeming good fortune became Khan's fatal destiny: the Chicago-area small businessman was poisoned shortly after he flashed a million dollar smile. The incident became much more curious when the Cook County coroner's initial ruling of death by heart attack was re-examined at the insistence of a brother of the deceased. The law's second crack at the corpse found cyanide.

The dead man's two heirs had a strong interest in the distribution of the lottery loot. Eventually, the case entered the courts. Today's Chicago Tribune reports that a settlement has been filed in which the heirs each obtain a portion of the deceased's estate. One of them, a daughter from a previous marriage, gets a third of the gambling proceeds and a handful of real estate properties the deceased owned. Heiress #2, the presumably bereaved widow, keeps her husband's dry cleaning business and what remains of the jackpot.

According to the Trib story, no one has been charged in Khan's murder. Maybe the perp is just plain lucky.

AP Report: NSA-Silicon Valley Struggle Centers on Profit That User Data Generates

The Snowden leaks revealed the global reach and evisceration of personal privacy the American military-tech complex routinely conducts. While Silicon Valley's highest profile search and social media firms have cried "foul" over the NSA's stunning data mining and analysis activities, these libertarian entrepreneurs are reticent to come clean about the depth and relentlessness of their collection of personal data. Of course, the money and power firms such as Google (yes, thanks for Blogger), Facebook, and Amazon now command should make one pause. However, few media outlets feel any urge to upset these data titans. (To this day, some major media outlets continue to identity data-driven Amazon's principal business as a retail concern, as if Jeff Bezos' ambition is simply to open an online version of The Home Depot.)

An Associated Press article appearing in today's siliconvalley.com attempts to illuminate certain truths animating the NSA-Silicon Valley struggle. AP reporters Michael Liedtke's and Marcy Gordon's useful piece gets to the heart of the matter: profit. The NSA's "violation of trust," according to the piece, has upset the Valley's expansion plans into emerging nations and their economies. Oops. Now nations such as Brazil are now at least publicly determined to keep close the data its citizens generate. Meanwhile, the Valley's lustful data expropriation and exploitation, along with its trumpeting of the virtues of "sharing," has produced a 21st Century version of colonialism that must certainly rub formerly colonized nations a very wrong way.

Facebook server farm in Sweden

The stakes are high for the Valley. As the AP story noted, countries in addition to Brazil "and international regulators are considering strict rules for data-handling by U.S. tech companies. If that were to happen, it could cripple the companies' crucial drive to grow in overseas markets, and could fracture the Internet's seamless inner-workings."

Yes, you're welcome to share or post this story.

100 Greatest Movies of the 1950s

My good friend Mark Sprecher recently reposted a list of "100 Greatest Movies of the 1950s" that David Ehrenstein originally posted on Facebook. The list includes posters from nearly all of the one hundred domestic and foreign films.

I have not seen the entire body of work, although I was surprised by how many I had viewed at some point in my life. I was not raised in a movie-watching household, except for the odd movie shown on network TV.

There's plenty of room for agreement, puzzlement, and outright disagreement. Have fun with the list.

I can't resist a few comments:

• A few of the 100 are from the world of Japanese cinema. I've never acquired a taste for it, so the choices seem esoteric to me.

• Some of the Disney selections were fun, and demonstrated an open-minded perspective (art house devotees, this is aimed at you).

• The mix of 50s b&w and color films is worth noting.

Michael Jordan's Mansion to Be Auctioned

Basketball court inside
Michael Jordan's Illinois home
(photo: Concierge Auctions and NY Daily News)

When F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed the rich were different from financial mortals, he didn't have Michael Jordan in mind. At his athletic zenith, MJ was a world celebrity who became a global brand. The NBA star made zillions of dollars, some of which paid for a 56-room mansion north of Chicago. The basketball Sun King's version of Versailles is now going to be auctioned, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune.

I can't handicap the winning bid. However, when the house was made available for an old-fashioned sale, the asking price was $29 million. Apparently, there were no takers for the former Bull's luxurious corral.

MOOC Player Coursera Hires Netflix, Facebook Execs

MOOCs, a/k/a Massive Open Online Course, have touted their ability to "disrupt" traditional academic education by changing "delivery models." These Internet-based schemes offer open courses, worldwide participation, and replay capability. Much as in traditional higher education programs, the Q&A sessions are left to poorly paid teaching assistants. What they don't offer is a walk-in classroom and a live human being delivering "knowledge."

Coursera, started by two Stanford University computer science professors, is in the vanguard of the MOOC movement. Their desire to reshape the higher education landscape recently took an interesting turn. Earlier this month, Silicon Valley Business Journal (SVBJ) reported that Coursera hired two Valley executives. One was poached from Netflix; the other was swept away from Facebook. What do these two men (yes, they are men) have in common? Well, neither are educators. The Netflix wiz understands algorithms that use predictive models to suggest "choices" for end-users. In Coursera's case, that would mean students. The Facebook "engineer" has a background in making video and other groovy "necessities" function in a social network environment.

The SBVJ story noted that Coursera was in Series B venture funding. In other words, it had a long way to go before the VC crowd could cash in on the bull rush to MOOC Ed. However, it also noted that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg just invested in an "education analytics" firm called Panorama Education. There was no word on whether Panorama Ed received any interest from the Newark, New Jersey school system, which Zuckerberg so publicly donated stock around the time of the opening of the unflattering movie The Social Network.

Google Settles Over Unauthorized Cookies in Safari Browser

One irony of the Snowden-NSA revelations is how quickly Silicon Valley's data mining titans professed shock over the federal snoopers' lies. It's instructive to recall that the Valley's green giants (as in the color of money) have done their fair share of unauthorized collection of personal data. Today's edition of siliconvalley.com included an Associated Press story noting Google's quiet settlement of litigation alleging that the Mountain Valley firm conducted unwelcome data collection on Apple's Safari browser. This activity was in violation of Apple policy and Google's own statements of innocence in the matter. Google later claimed its actions were "inadvertent."

Uh-huh. This is the same company whose Google Maps crews routinely gathered data without permission. Meanwhile, Google has screamed and yelled about the NSA's volte-face on the feds' data mining. Googlers complained about how the NSA violated understandings and trust.

The question to ask Silicon Valley's repeat violators of personal privacy is the following one: how does it feel to be violated?

Tina Turner Goes Swiss, "Relinquishes" US Citizenship

Anna Mae Bullock -- better known as the singer Tina Turner -- has come a long way in nearly 74 years of life.  She has moved from an obscure background in Nutbush, Tennessee to become a highly recognizable R&B icon. During her long career in show business, Turner discovered she preferred living in Europe to residing in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Eventually, she pitched her tent in Switzerland, which she has called home for around two decades.

Erwin Bach and Tina Turner
(Image: today.com)

Earlier this year, Turner, who speaks German fluently, married her long-term boyfriend, a German music producer named Erwin Bach. (No one knows if Mr. Bach became Mr. Tina Turner.) According to an article in today's Washington Post, Ms. Turner took the oath of Swiss nationality in April of this year. Adding spice to the story, on October 24th, Tina went to the US Embassy in Bern to voluntarily "relinquish" her American citizenship. Under Yankee law, relinquishing is not quite the same as renouncing citizenship. The Post article noted there are certain tax advantages relinquishment provides the relinquishers, which may offer some insight into motivation for the singer's decision.

Tina Turner's high octane songs, sexual energy, and stage acts have been her meal ticket. However, my favorite tune -- What's Love Got to Do With It -- was produced during her "comeback" years. The song has a wistful sweetness and vulnerability that felt more in touch with what I imagined her off-stage personality resembled. The YouTube of the color video version of it, circa 1984, is linked here. (Ignore the ghastly, stylized b&w version.) For connoisseurs of a vanished New York City, the street scenes are fun to see. Meanwhile, Tina's strut is a welcome reminder that when she entered a room, she was the coolest person there. Her citizenship may have changed; her coolness remains constant.

Amazon, USPS Sign Sunday Delivery Deal

The Amazon-friendly Obama Administration has just concluded another Amazon-friendly deal with the secretive tech company. According to a story in today's Seattle Times, the PO and Jeff Bezos' firm will begin Sunday deliveries in time for the Christmas shopping season. The arrangement is currently limited to the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, the two leading retail markets in the United States.

The deal gives Amazon a significant commercial advantage, in that it can use the USPS infrastructure and staff to deliver goods. The extra available delivery day is also another arrow in Amazon's competitive quiver.

How taxpayers benefit from this agreement was not exactly spelled out, although Amazon will pay for the privilege of going postal. It's public knowledge that the USPS is desperate for money. Amazon has the cash, and the clout with the Obama Administration, to make a deal. According to the Seattle Times story, any firm could have negotiated with the Postal Service for a Sunday gig. However, USPS officials acknowledged only Amazon pursued a deal. One wonders why.

Amazon's Chattanooga, TN facility,
cited by President Obama as an example of
"middle-class" job creation

Of course, as with all things Amazon, the contract is under seal. Inquiring minds would like to know why a federal contract not connected to national security should be a closely guarded secret.

This is Amazon's second federal contract coup this year. Earlier in 2013, the Seattle-based enterprise signed a contract to provide the CIA with cloud-based data systems and management.

World's Manliest Hotels

This Australian hotel was not included on Linda Zavoral's list.
(Image: tripadvisor.com.au)

San Jose Mercury News journalist Linda Zavoral cooked up a list of the planet's ten manliest hotels. While she specifies what qualifies each accommodation as manly, she doesn't offer a precise definition of the term. It doesn't matter: the list is fun to read.

ProctorU Offers Online Eyes for Online Testing

MOOC's movers and shakers
(Image: Chronicle of Higher Education)

When the MOOC phenomenon began a couple of years ago, the hype suggested the world would soon receive free courses from the globe's top academic minds. That siren song has slowly evolved into universities paying for MOOCs. The P&L for MOOCs versus live teaching was just too attractive for the institutions and profs to ignore.

One issue that emerged alongside the MOOC stampede was the matter of secure testing. The standardized testing world, especially in Asia, is corrupt and prone to profound bouts of cheating. That situation has created what Americans like to characterize as an "opportunity." In this case, a few enterprises, whose purpose was to provide online monitoring of online testing, were started. One of anti-cheating firms, ProctorU, was the centerpiece of a feature story in today's siliconvalley.com.

Ironically, PU's proctors are typically college-aged students who earn less than nine dollars per hour for their snooping. The U makes proctors available at any time of day, probably to accommodate international students. According to the siliconvalley.com story, students are charged $20 for the service.

That sounds like tip money until you start doing the math. A full-time student typically takes at least five courses per semester. That's $100 for the online testing portion of their semester's academic experience. Meanwhile, over 6.5 million students took online classes in fall 2011. Multiply that figure by $100 and you come close to what Twitter's IPO generated, without any SEC or Wall Street analyst hassles to outfox.

The next time someone suggests there is no money in education, think about ProctorU's cash-strong business. Yes, something stinks at PU.

DC School Agency Pays Consultancy $89,000 For One Day of Work

Think about all the times you've heard "there's no money in education." Well, it's not quite that simple, as District of Columbia residents recently discovered to their regret. According to a Washington Post' story, a politically connected consultancy received nearly $90,000 for one day of work.

Some of the more salient details of this outrageous sham are worth noting:

• The contract (which was technically a grant) was no-bid
• The winning firm -- the publishing arm of SPC Consulting -- is owned by a husband-wife team. The wife is a former US Department of Education official; the husband is the chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education
• The DC bureaucrat responsible for signing the consultancy had done prior business with the firm in Chicago
• The DC fee paid for a half-hour speech, three 45-minute workshops, and (heaven help us) a book signing of the wife's book!
• The books cost $30 per unit
• SPC charged DC $250 per person for its workshops, with 300 participants included in the grant. The same product was offered to Chicago public schools for $70 per person less than what DC was levied. Why the spread for DC? According to consultancy spokespeople, the seventy dollar per head toll covered travel and expenses for three people. In this case, the math isn't complicated: $70 x 300 = $21,000
• An SPC spokesperson defended its fees, characterizing them as "below normal industry rates."

What's wrong with education in the United States? Beats me.

First US Combat "Frogman" John Spence -- RIP

John Spence (right)
with Congressional Medal of Honor winner Jonathan West
(Image: bendbulletin.com)

Prior to World War II, the notion that divers would participate in combat missions seemed as fanciful as a Jules Verne story's plot device. A principal reason for the change during "The Big One" was the work of Navy enlisted man John Spence. After Pearl Harbor, the native Tennessean became part of a secret group trained in what at the time was the new and highly dangerous world of underwater warfare. According to Spence's recent obituary in the Los Angeles Times, he became our nation's first combat "frogman". The word was allegedly coined by someone who saw Spence emerge from the water in his complete diving equipment.

Spence had to keep his story quiet for years, partly to keep the frogmens' breathing device a closely held national secret. Once the government declassified the record of his military activities, Spence received public honors from a Navy SEAL organization that saluted him as a kind of godfather for their service. Part of their admiration was their appreciation for Spence's guts.

As Navy SEAL Museum executive director Rick Kaiser told the Times, Spence "fought for our country with nothing more than a Ka-Bar knife, a pack of explosives and a diving rig....In today's age of drone strikes and worldwide instant communications, it's hard to imagine going to war depending on nothing but your training, your cause and your teammates."

John Spence didn't have to imagine it. He just did it.

Queens Reimagined: A Day at CitiField

Today's New York Times included an article extolling the virtues of living in the borough of Queens. The piece walked a line between "successful" new apartment developments, depressingly defined as a $2,000 per month studio, and "bargain" residences that included working fireplaces and enough elbow room to manageably raise a one-child family. In my lifetime, I have lived in two of the neighborhoods the journalist cited: Astoria and Sunnyside. One advantage each area offered residents was its affordability relative to Manhattan's zillionaires playground and the concept known as "Brooklyn".

Florent Morellet,
in front of his eponynous and long-closed restaurant
(Image: blogs.villagevoice.com)

In the same Times issue, a front-page piece talked about Florent Morellet's move to Brooklyn's freshly spawned "it" enclave, Bushwick. The Frenchman used to own a diner in the Meatpacking District that was fun to visit. He finally closed when the neighborhood denizens were fashionistas instead of transvestites and the rent on his establishment escalated beyond any reasonable sum. What became evident in the piece was how selective the notion of "Brooklyn" had become. The former Bushwick of food stamps, gangs, and bad schools was rapidly transforming into a hipster heaven, with wine bars, tablet-armed graduate students, and art walks. Morellet insightfully called this classist dreamscape New York's "East Bank," and he's right about that. (He's not always on the money: Morellet's reverie about the Cypress Hills neighborhood, one of the city's deepest, dreariest Siberian outposts, as resembling San Francisco has to be read to be believed.) Alas, there remains plenty of the Brooklyn the Times routinely ignores, especially the residents chained to foreclosure anxieties, underreported crime, and substandard services.

CitiField, home of the NY Mets baseball team
(Image: nycgovparks.org)

Queens rarely resembles Brooklyn, as I observed earlier this week during a business event at the CitiField baseball stadium. The conference focused on public school librarians' professional development; I attended as a book company sales representative promoting my firm's products. The gathering took place in a large dining/banquet room that included floor to ceiling windows overlooking my former home borough and, in the distance, midtown Manhattan. While the three-hundred-strong librarians listened to a prolonged James Patterson address, my attention drifted to CitiField itself and to the view beyond the ballpark.

Joan Payson Whitney with Casey Stengel (left)
Opening Day, Shea Stadium 1962
(image: artnet.com
original photo: Louis Requena)

This was my first visit to CitiField, and my first to a baseball stadium of any kind this year. (I usually make it a point to see one major league game in person during the season. This year was an exception.) The event's participants walked through the Seaver VIP entrance, named after a New York Mets' pitcher whose best years were nearly a half-century ago. (I can legitimately brag about how I saw Tom Seaver pitch a nearly perfect game in the searing heat of a pennant race against the Chicago Cubs in 1969.) The area featured other nostalgic reminders of a franchise leveraging its past to burnish its Madoff-tarnished present. One of my relatives was general manager of the Mets during their 1969 World Series championship season. (Yes, I did get free tickets and passes to the luxury dining area.) It was a different era, when a Whitney could own a baseball team because it was a sporting thing to do, like owning a race horse. Joan Whitney Payson took more than a sporting interest on which players stayed, played, or sat. Well, it was her team. She also brought Willie Mays back to New York, something my mother, who was raised in a baseball household, deeply appreciated.


Of course, those days are long gone. Looking out toward Flushing Bay, I could see a hint of the World's Fair Marina. It's not exactly anyone's dream getaway, with its proximity to LaGuardia Airport runways, scuzzy water, and a cheerless parkscape bounded by expressways and service roads. Yet, I knew a billiionaire (when there were precious few in the world at the time) who kept his yacht there. My first wife prepared meals for the money man, his wife, and their guests, onboard during the warm weather months. Sometimes, I got to sail on the vessel. Yes, it was nice. Those days are long gone, too.

Main Street, Flushing
(Image: nytimes.com)

A glance to the south showed the outline of the apartment tower where my teen years were spent; to the east, a Flushing where Caucasians enjoy Chinese food and Asians enjoy living. I considered dining there after the library event with my colleague, who had briefly lived in China. However, the grim reality of Queens' late-afternoon traffic created a sense of urgency to get out while we could.

I drove straight home, and wondered how the world had changed to the extent that public school librarians held a meeting at a baseball stadium during the World Series.

California Driver Ticketed for Wearing Google Glass

A spoof on Google Glass

When Google Glass emerged into the public, casinos were among the first institutions to ban its use inside its domains. The elite gadget has also caught the attention of law enforcement. Delaware and West Virginia are currently considering legislation that will prohibit automobile drivers from wearing the device while driving.

Meanwhile, the California Highway Patrol recently moved ahead of the Golden State's solons. According to an Associated Press story picked up by siliconvalley.com, Cecilia Abadie was cited for being distracted by a video or TV device. She was also given a speeding ticket, which apparently Ms. Abadie does not plan to fight. However, the southern California software designer is considering her legal options for her vision violation.

The Google Glass phenomenon has caused some to question the product's commercial viability. In particular, its daunting entry price ($1,500), invitation-only status, and expensive "value-added" products suggests Google Glass' market may be limited to first adopters and show-offs. I admit I would purchase one if I had $1,500 with nothing else to do. I've tried on a pair and I was intrigued. I just don't know what use it would have in my office environment, where my desk has a quaint PC and even quainter monitor. Well, I would be the coolest guy in the office...for a day. What would I do for my next trick?

Speculation Rises About Google's Hush-Hush Barge Structures

The mystery barge
(Image: news.cnet.com)

What do the coast of Maine and San Francisco Bay have in common? Barges that may or may not belong to Google.

The story has unfolded over many months. As it happens, the boats have a corporate identity more in tune with intelligence operations than freight transportation. The listed owners are an outfit called By and Large, LLC. Who are the LLC's corporate officers? That's confidential.

The barges house four-story structures that have provoked some speculation regarding their purpose. Records suggest, without factually demonstrating, that Google has some involvement with the barges and By and Large, LLC.  A recent edition of siliconvalley.com reported this story, originally noted in CNET, and some of the guesswork about Google's intentions.

One hypothesis contends that the barges support server farms. I have no idea how close this assertion is an accurate one. However, Google would be very interested in establishing server farms in international waters. Those locations would form a considerable push back against NSA pressure to conform with surveillance "requests." I wonder if they could also become, literally speaking, "tax islands" free from any government entity's revenue demands.

Tucson School Board Removes Ban On Latino Studies Books

One could make the argument that Arizona is Ground Zero in the American immigration saga. An ugly episode in this drama is reactionary attempts to muffle the Grand Canyon State's Latinos' political and social voices. To that end, the Tucson Unified School District had banned a number of books offered in "ethnic studies" programs. The resulting uproar principally served to tarnish the district's reputation.

Recently, the district voted to rescind the censorship decision. According to Los Angeles Times article, seven titles were reinstated. Meanwhile, the district has claimed the books were never really banned. They were available in school libraries or "stored in district warehouses." How storage equalled access was not discussed.

Chicago University's $1 Million Investment in Chancellor's House: A Cautionary Tale

A dreadful trend of the new millenium is how few middle-class American families' kids can afford to attend college. University tuition and fees march ever upward, well in defiance of inflation. Academia typically sings the blues over funding, and notes how its charges for services are necessary and even prudent.

Fewer people are accepting the U's well-rehearsed, arrogant financial song-and-dance. Stories such as one the Chicago Tribune reported today are among the reasons why.

University of Illinois-Chicago chancellor Paula Allen-Meares
(Image: University of Illinois-Chicago)

The article notes how the University of Illinois-Chicago spent over one million dollars to refurbish a house for its chancellor. The deal was that the school's boss, Paula Allen-Meares, would hold frequent receptions and other activities at her home. Her scorecard for the past four years shows a grand sum of eleven events.

When the Trib journalists raised pointed questions about this curious arrangement, the university tried its best to deflect the issue, misrepresent activities associated with the house, and wish the whole episode away. Chancellor Allen-Meares did not deign to answer any reporters' inquiries, even though she works for a public institution.

Universities generally don't like this sort of spotlight. They're uncomfortable explaining why their chosen few enjoy privileged lives while students and their families get financially squeezed. Chancellor Allen-Meares earns over $400,000 annually. That's over and above the free housing UIC maintains for her, while the school pays annual maintenance charges of approximately $100,000 on it. Allen-Meares is on the last legs of her five-year contract. If the university's board gives her a clean bill of employment health, she stands to earn a $375,000 bonus. The UIC chancellor does not get a cash housing allowance. However, the chancellors of the other two University of Illinois campuses do. Those yearly stipends range from $24,000 to around $30,000. Considering these are very highly compensated employees, the allowance is akin to throwing money at the chancellors. Why do they need a housing allowance at all?

Ah, but in the corrupt world of senior academic administration, these payoffs are part of the game. The next time someone tells you about the financial struggles of Alma Mater, tell them what the U really needs is financial transparency, responsible executives, and a commitment to end corruption. Then ask them how quickly the U will act on those initiatives. And, yes, "never" is an answer.

SONY Sues United Airlines Over Inflight Music, Video

Image: cntraveler.com

Media giant SONY is making an unfriendly play into the friendly skies of United Airlines. According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the Japanese-owned firm has launched a lawsuit against United for violating copyright of selected content. The litigation specifically alleges that United has failed to compensate SONY for inflight playing of music and video for which the media company is the rights holder.

It's hard to believe SONY could have been unaware of United's activities. Surely SONY employees have booked United flights, during which they listened to or watched their company's products. The lawsuit seems like a legal rendition of Captain Reynaud discovering gambling at Rick's Cafe Americain.

Shocking -- just shocking -- wouldn't you say?

NASA "Misunderstood" Congressional Ban on Visiting Chinese Scientists

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA)
(Image: radio.foxnews.com)

NASA recently found itself in the middle of a mindless congressional diktat involving Chinese scientists. According to a story in the BBC, the issue was not the scholars as much as a regulation initiated by a zealous, right-wing Virginia representative who controls NASA's budget. The GOP lawmaker, Frank Wolf, crafted legislation that forbids Chinese nationals from visiting any NASA facility. Supposedly, NASA "misunderstood" the intent of Rep. Wolf's directive; he asserted it did not include scientific gatherings, such as an upcoming conference on the Kepler Space Telescope at NASA's Ames Research Center.

Bullshit. Wolf provided his "interpretation" only after the Chinese raised official hell over the incident and prestigious American scientists prepared to boycott the high-profile event in protest over its evident discrimination. Meanwhile, Wolf still calls the People's Republic of China a communist country. He's not entirely wrong on that score, in fairness. However, there are other ways to maintain American security besides embarrassing political stunts that principally serve to diminish our legitimate national pride in our political values.

Wall Street Firms Concoct Bond Backed By Home Rental Income

Like a moth to a flame, Wall Street has returned to creating dodgy real estate securities. In this case, Blackstone and Deutsche Bank are about to market a bond backed by home rental income. However, as the Financial Times reported, the two firms are not packaging Manhattan residential building income. Rather, they are using rental income from foreclosed homes Blackstone and others purchased for pennies on the dollar and transformed into "affordable" housing, often marketed to those who lost homes via the rancid, corrupt foreclosure process.

Blackstone has been a major player in the foreclosure/rental market. The general sense was that Blackstone would rent the homes and sell them for enormous profit when real estate "recovered." In the meantime, Blackstone and Deutsche Bank can leverage their property ownership into funky securities. One catch in the process is the need for a credit agency to provide appropriate blessing to the bonds. Apparently, and unsurprisingly, one such firm has been found.

Let's see if federal regulatory agencies, which have essentially played matador to Wall Street's bulls, ask questions about this new scheme.

Report: Sleep Cleans the Brain

An article which will appear in the journal Science cites recent research findings that suggest sleep enables the brain to clear toxins from its neural connections. A synopsis and third-party commentary on the story appeared in today's online editions of the BBC.

I would write more about this, but I'll wait until my brain's plumbing clears up. In other words, I'm going to sleep: tomorrow is another day.

FISA Court's Chief Judge: I'm Not a Rubber Stamp

The United States' FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) institution is an American judicial anomaly. Its principal role is to evaluate and rule on federal government requests to snoop on "suspected" terrorists and other clear and present dangers to this country.  The case, the evidence, and the rulings are secret. Only Department of Justice attorneys may present a case; no other attorney or representative is permitted. Judging from recent revelations about the American surveillance state, it seemed FISA played the matador to the Justice Department's bull.

Not so, claimed FISA's presiding judge Reggie B. Walton, as The Washington Post reported in today's online edition. In a letter Walton sent to Senate Judiciary Committee members Patrick Leahy (D) and Charles Grassley (R), he asserted FISA sent nearly one in four requests back to the Justice Department for "substantive changes." (For more on Walton's judicial background, you should explore his official biography, posted on the US District Court for the District of Columbia's website.)

FISA judge Reggie B. Walton

That left three of four either requiring a lower degree of modification or no change at all. That means the DOJ legal team is batting .750 on its requests to spy on alleged political bad actors. Included in that .750 average is a FISA ruling approving the sweeping collection of Americans' phone records. That was the haystack, as the NSA characterized the massive data grab, security teams needed to create in order to find a terrorist needle. If that notion seemed like a good idea to a FISA judge, one wonders about the content or intent of the rejected DOJ motions.

Meanwhile, a declassified 2009 ruling sheds some light on the surveillance state's assault on privacy. As the Post story noted:

...Walton scolded the government for repeated violations of court orders and falsely assuring the court it was following required steps to protect Americans' privacy.

General Keith Alexander

Privacy procedures "have been so frequently and systematically violated that it can be fairly said that this critical element of the overall [phone records] regime has never fully functioned effectively," Walton wrote. He added that the explanation of the misunderstanding of the court's order by Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA's director, "strains credulity."

Report: It's Raining Diamonds on Saturn

(Image: news.nationalgeographic.com)

The diamond occupies a central place in the diadem of gemological history. The recognition of the stones' value began in India over 3,000 years ago. Today, these precious jewels continue to maintain a sort of hypnotic spell for possessors as well as for those who covet their neighbors' goods.

Part of diamonds' allure is its scarcity. That's not the case elsewhere in the solar system. According to an unpublished paper recently presented by a University of Wisconsin (UW) scientist, it's literally raining diamonds on Saturn and Jupiter. UW scientist Dr. Kevin Baines co-wrote the paper with private sector expert Mona Delitsky; the BBC carried the story of their findings.

A diamond rainstorm sounds implausible, and some scientists are skeptical about the paper's assertions. Baines and Delitsky counter by noting Saturn's and Jupiter's atmospheric conditions and likely chemical composition offers ideal conditions for diamond formation. However, the stones don't survive; they eventually plunge into the planets' unimaginably hot inner layers, possibly forming a pool of liquid carbon.

I suppose that's a fitting end to a diamond rainstorm: attractive to imagine, but impossible to possess.