It has been coming for a while, and today it came: Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Eclipse Aviation, pioneering maker of the Eclipse 500 Very Light Jet. For more background than you'd want to know, check the posts assembled here.
Gives an additional bittersweet twist to the splash page on the company's site, here, which (as of this instant) still has this message from another era. ________
You might say we're dreamers.
Eclipse
Aviation was formed with the humble intention of transforming the
aviation industry into something better than it was before. You can't
do something like that by half measures. That's why we embrace and
incorporate innovation, imagination, and boldness in everything we do.
There is an intensity and a passion here you just don't find anywhere
else. We love what we're doing, and it shows in all we do.
________
Possible grounds for residual thankfulness? That it's not "abandon all hope" Chapter 7 bankruptcy, as with its poor former client DayJet.
November 25, 2008
A little Thanksgiving holiday reading
When you're in a tryptophan - induced daze and looking for stimulants of the most wholesome and enjoyable sort, the place to start is of course with the latest great issue of The Atlantic.
After that, two suggestions:
1) The Global Trends 2025 report from the National Intelligence Council. (Intro page here; 8MB pdf file of whole report for free download here.) Projections of how the world will look 17 years into the future are by their nature preposterous. One conducted in 1991, looking toward the present day, would have found it hard to imagine the defeat of George H. W. Bush (then on the top of the world politically) and the subsequent Clinton and Bush II and possible Clinton II eras that made possible; the tech induced stock boom, and tech bust, and second boom, and second bust; the current situation of both China and Russia, then mere glimmers of what they are today; the resonance of the names bin Laden and Guantanamo. And... a whole lot more.
Still, for what it is, this forecast is sensible and provocative. It has gotten a lot of ink as a forecast of US "decline," but it is more interesting and less blatant than that. I disagree with a lot of it but am glad to have had the occasion to think through its arguments. And 17 years from now, we can see how it stands up.
2) I can't say this oftenenough: seriously, anybody who presumes to hold an opinion on America's defense needs, defense spending, and long term military strategy really has to read "America's Defense Meltdown," available in free 2MB pdf download here. (More words than the NCI report above; fewer graphics.)
This report has facts; it has figures; it has history; it has to-do lists for the next administration; it has things you might expect and things you don't.
From what you might expect, an introductory passage about what's happened to our military establishment:
Our equipment is the most sophisticated and effective in the world. We easily whipped one of the largest armies in the Middle East, not once but twice, and we have now clearly mastered a once difficult and ugly situation in Iraq. Success in Afghanistan will not be far away, once we devote the proper resources there. Those who take comfort in the last three sentences are the people who need to read and consider the contents of this book the most. Reflect on the following:
• America's defense budget is now larger in inflation adjusted dollars than at any point since the end of World War II, and yet our Army has fewer combat brigades than at any point in that period, our Navy has fewer combat ships and the Air Force has fewer combat aircraft. Our major equipment inventories for these major forces are older on average than at any point since 1946; in some cases they are at all-time historical highs in average age. [etc etc]
For a sample of something you might not expect, the following, from probably the most right-wing of all the authors in the book -- a man whose cubicle wall, in the Senate office building where he worked, was adorned with a poster of Mussolini when I met him in the early 1980s. He is discussing the overall balance between the US Navy and the Russian and Chinese fleets -- especially the looming Chinese "menace" that drives the need for new US ships:
Overwhelming any comparison of fleets is the fact that war with either Russia or China would represent a catastrophic failure of American strategy. Such wars would be disastrous for all parties, regardless of their outcomes. In a world where the most important strategic reality is a non-Marxist "withering away of the state," the United States needs both Russia and China to be strong, successful states. They need the United States to be the same. Defeat of any of the three global powers by another would likely yield a new, vast, stateless region, which is to say a great victory for the forces of the Fourth Generation. No American armed service should be designed for wars our most vital interest dictates we not fight.
Read these between football games over the weekend. You won't be sorry. And consider sending copies of #2, especially, to the Obama household for Christmas.
It's been a year-plus since I last saw a bottle of Sam Adams beer in an import-grocery store in Beijing. So when I found some in a store recently, at a reasonable-for-a-luxury-good-that-has-traveled-a-long-way 11.6 RMB/bottle ($1.70), naturally I ... bought every bottle they had:
It's hard to avoid such behavior when you confront erratic supply situations: buy now, because you have no idea when the chance will come again. Of course the next forlorn Westerner into the store will think: Jeez, I remember years ago when I saw some good, flavorful beer in this place. Guess they can't get it any more.
This behavior is made all the more painful on the heels of reading the great New Yorker story on extreme beer, which featured my former staple brew, Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, and realizing that in some parts of the world people can walk into a store and buy any kind of beer they want! Ah, but they don't have the adventure I'm enjoying here on the frontier. Plus those 20 bottles to work through. Slowly.
Update: Via the Brezhnev.net blog from Shanghai, evidence that I'm not the only one to think and act this way. On the other hand, my wife and I have avoided the specific heartbreak described in that post by hauling Skippy and real mayo back with us on provisioning runs from the US. (Mayo visible in this linked picture, PB not because we'd brought a lot the previous time.)
DayJet may have struggled in America....
... but its goal, operating plan, and marketing language live on in India!
Check out the site for MyJet, based in Mumbai, and its upcoming "Per Seat, On-Demand" air taxi service in the subcontinent. "Values" rendering from the site:
For background on this whole concept, see this article and this book. For the sad story of DayJet, which has just now filed for Chapter 7 ("no light at the end of the tunnel") bankruptcy, see the long skein of postings here. As for MyJet, I say: Godspeed! Attentation of success! And all other appropriate good wishes.
November 23, 2008
Hero of Journalism Award
I will present this coveted prize to the next reporter / pundit / columnist who gets through a discussion of the pros and cons of Hillary Clinton as Sec of State withoutusing the now-unbearably hackneyed term "team of rivals."
Nothing against Doris Kearns Goodwin, who in prehistoric times was my professor in a college course on the American presidency. And nothing against her application of the concept to the composition of Lincoln's wartime cabinet and the political challenge of holding Union factions together before and during war. (For somebody who does challenge that application, go here.)
But this is not the Civil War, Obama is not Lincoln -- and even if he were and all circumstances were identical in every way, out of simple self-respect you'd think people would get embarrassed about using the catch phrase they'd heard a million times for the million-and-first. To me, listening to this unvaried refrain is like hearing "bitchin' !" among my fellow teenagers in the late 1960s or "groovy! " after that. And I'm in China!
We do already have words for the underlying concept, and many other examples in history than Lincoln's bringing Seward et al into his administration. You could call it an "inclusive" approach. Or "big tent" politics. Or "bipartisanship," if the rivals in question are from the other party. Or "coalition-building." Or "compromise." Or a "unity cabinet." If you really want a hoary adage, you have two familiar ones to chose from: something about bygones being bygones, or about keeping your friends close, and your enemies... America needs a lot of things, but not additional cliches to stunt political thought before it has a chance of taking place. (This reminds me of the tech cliche "mashup," to describe what really is an "overlay" or a "combination" or "fusion.")
As I write, the Sunday talk shows have not yet begun in America. My guess is that no one who appears on them will still be eligible for my award at the end of the day. But I am an optimist and hope to be proven wrong!
November 22, 2008
November street scenes, Beijing
What a strong northwest wind can do (two days ago):
Some of the people who have loaned the US more than a trillion dollars:
The Asian angle on the Geithner nomination
In an email from Bill Bikales, the senior economist for China/Mongolia with the UN Development program, based in Beijing:
Two nice things about this pick - I should say first that I do not know him personally.
First, his Asia background. Geithner's father, Peter Geithner, was a development specialist who opened the Ford Foundation's China office - the first foreign NGO here, under a special agreement that continues to this day. That was just before Tiananmen Square, and the father was part of the Foundation's difficult but, ultimately, undoubtedly correct decision to remain engaged. Tim apparently also studied Chinese, was posted in Tokyo for Treasury, and focused on Asia studies as undergraduate and graduate student. This is all great background for Treasury's international dealings in the coming years.
Second, he was head of the IMF's Policy and Development Review Department (PDR) for two years. PDR are the people there who provide the intellectual framework for, and monitor and sign off on the work that the country missions do. Some of the best people I ever dealt with at the Fund. I like this because I've thought more than once in recent years that what the US needs to do is take a step back and look at itself just as the IMF looked at, say, Argentina, during those years, and develop a tough IMF program; get your fiscal act in order, get serious about risks in the financial sector, establish external sustainability. Basic flow of funds accounting techniques, the core IMF methodology, would be extremely helpful. Obviously nobody will impose anything on the Congress a la IMF conditionality - but US macroeconomic policy has been seriously off track for 8 years, and a strong IMF style program is precisely what is needed. I will take pleasure these coming months in speculating about what must be going through Geithner's mind. It won't only be bail-outs and stimulus packages - the short-term fixes -- I am quite sure.
November 21, 2008
Somewhat encouraging environmental report
A real if inglorious fact about environmental and climate-change issues is that people can stand to read only so much depressing news. Especially when the rest of their life is depressing enough. The economy's falling apart, half the people I know are losing houses or jobs, so what do I feel like doing at 10pm: pick up a thriller / turn on a comedy, or read further details about how the polar bears are drowning and the forests are dying and we're all doomed anyway?
And imagine if the election results had gone the other way.
So it's worth highlighting every bit of information that gives a believable (not flat-earthish or denialist) reason to think that sensible actions, taken in time, can make a significant difference. This was one of the virtues of my friend Gregg Easterbrook's 1995 book A Moment on the Earth, feather-ruffling as it was at the time. This has also been a consistent strategy of Amory Lovins' work at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
In a similar vein, I highly recommend this new report from the American Physical Society, the professional organization for physicists in the United States, about the very specific hows, whats, wheres, and how-much's of practical ways to increase energy efficiency. A cover letter says (emphasis added by me):
Can lower energy consumption come about in the United States? It
already has. Per-capita energy use in California, about half the
national average, has stayed flat for the past 30 years, largely
through an ambitious program of appliance standards and other
innovations in building design....
The report points out that the enhanced funding need only match federal
energy research levels in place in 1980. Research around that time led
to a major improvement in efficiency standards. For instance, compact
fluorescent lights and refrigerators now use about one-fourth the
energy needed for comparable models of 30 years ago. Air conditioners
are twice as efficient as those in 1980. Such dramatic improvements in
energy use could be sustained, many experts argue, but only if a
concerted energy research program is put in place.
I assume the Relevant Government Officials are well aware of such data -- at least ones from the incoming administration -- but it doesn't hurt to have the general public know too. (Thanks to UCSB physicist / Cirrus pilot Roger Freedman.)
Why didn't I know this before? (Math dept: Benford's law)
One reason math is so satisfying is that it allows you to see order in what is otherwise the randomness of life. For instance, the famous Fibonacci sequence, which shows up in countless natural patterns like this:
Math is also satisfying when it helps you understand what parts of life truly are random or "chaotic," rather than adhering to patterns you haven't yet figured out. The most obvious example is the minute-by-minute movement of weather systems. The world's vast weather-forecasting computers can assess the layers and eddies of heat and moisture in the air and tell you where "convective activity" -- thunderstorms -- is more and less likely to occur. (An example from NOAA here. I spent hours looking at such stuff in my pre-China piloting days.) But a day before landfall, they can't really be sure whether a hurricane will hit New Orleans or someplace in the next state.
So I was grateful to discover, via Michael Ham's Later On blog, another mathematical tool with surprising usefulness in daily life -- and one that, to my chagrin, I had never heard of before. It is called Benford's law, and it has to do with the distribution of numbers we use to count many naturally-occurring phenomena.
Academic's request for Internet/politics poll participants
I've received a request from Barbara Kaye at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville for participants in an online survey of how the Internet affects political activities and views. Like any online survey, this one is by definition non-random. But I believe it is legit, and is a continuation of surveys done after the past three presidential elections. Here is an abstract of a paper based on a previous survey.
She says she is "specifically looking for liberal/progressive respondents." If you're interested, the survey site is here. Survey is open until November 26.
November 20, 2008
Personal: a note to readers
Every day is different from every other -- and every month, and every year. But the past 12 months have been more unusual than most for my wife and me. Family events both happy (weddings and engagements) and sad (the loss of both of our fathers, and other issues) have meant that we've repeatedly left China at short notice, for open-ended stays in America, after having barely set foot in the US the previous year. I have been on United Flight 888, Beijing-San Francisco-LA, more often than I would have thought possible.
This is as it should be; these are the most important life obligations. But while trying -- as I also should -- to keep up my day-job duties with the Atlantic, I've made up the difference by basically neglecting everything else. Specifically: I watch email pile up, unviewed and unanswered, in the inbox. I have a big pile of phone calls to return. There are manuscripts to read, invitations to respond to, people I'm supposed to keep up with and organizations for which I'm supposed to play a role -- and especially in the past eight months none of that have I done.
I actually feel most alive and engaged when juggling challenges on all fronts, a trait clearly inherited from my father. I believe in the David Allen gospel of feeling freest and calmest when not burdened by long lists of overdue chores. So while having no doubt about the rightness of setting these tasks aside in recent months , I look forward to "catching up," and re-engaging. I am not ready to give in to the temptation to declare email bankruptcy, just pushing "archive" or "delete" for the thousands of unanswered messages and "to-do"s to start afresh. But I wanted to say two things "in public," this way.
First, if you sent me a suggestion, a manuscript, a comment, an invitation, a question in the past eight months and never heard back, it was nothing personal, nor was it haughtiness. I was otherwise occupied.
Second, if you sent in the last two weeks a note about my father, please know how much I appreciate that, and that I will try to respond. It is truly heartening to me to think that people who never knew him could have some sense of the kind of life that he lived. I am grateful for these kind thoughts.
And I will close this note, and wind up public remembrances of my dad, after the jump with an anecdote from my close childhood friend Steve Jensen, who conveys what it is like to grow up in a doctor's family -- or at least this doctor's family. Then, back to work. _______
Reading the NYT on line just now, I see a review of a "historical documentary" movie of something I can remember vividly but that apparently happened forty years ago this week: the Harvard-Yale football game in which Harvard scored 16 points in the last 42 seconds to "win," 29-29. (Touchdown with 2-point conversion; onside kick with recovery; another touchdown as the clock ran out and 2-point conversion.) Tick-tock footage of the game, from a Harvard athletic department perspective, here:
I mention this dawn-of-time occurrence for two reasons: I was excited during the game itself because one of the big stars for Harvard was tight end Bruce Freeman, who caught two crucial touchdown passes. We had grown up and gone to school together in the Western hinterland, where our fathers were doctors in the same small clinic. Also, I was about to take over as the editor of the Crimson and so was part of the squadron responsible for our post-game special edition.
I have never been 100% sure of exactly who in the small group was first to say that the special-edition headline needed to be: HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29. It wasn't me; and I think it was my classmate Bill Kutik. But everyone instantly recognized a stroke of genius, and so it was set in hot lead, on Linotype machines, and was on the streets in a matter of minutes:
Maybe if the movie makes its way to Beijing's pirate video stores I'll find out what really happened.
(I have seen the image above on several sites. Somewhere in the attic of my real house in the US, I have the special edition itself, which I suppose I should scan or preserve in amber someday, given its status as a treasured antiquity.)
UPDATE: I have heard from Bill Kutik, who was indeed centrally involved, and even more so was the person I thought to name, but didn't: Tim Carlson. Further background (complete with Rashomon-like conflicting memories and accounts) here.
November 19, 2008
Who says there are no good jobs left in journalism?
Here is exciting news. The (state-run) China Daily may be opening a US edition!! Clues here, with thanks to Michele Travierso. If you're an experienced but job-threatened native speaker of English who can see the wry possibilities in writing headlines like the front-pager below, your time may have come. I might look into it myself.
A few other keeper headlines shown here, here, here, and here; and an exploration of the thinking behind this form of journalism here. (Update: via Charlie McElwee of Shanghai, more info from the China Daily-USA web site.)
Realms converge: DayJet, VMware. Weird!
Time and again I've praised (or eulogized) DayJet, the radically innovative but now out-of-business air taxi company based in Florida. And I've praisedVMware, the still-in-business California company that lets you run Windows and Mac software seamlessly side-by-side on a Mac.
Now it turns out that one of VMware's main backers is... preparing to invest in the software from DayJet!
In my Atlantic article on DayJet earlier this year, I emphasized that it was, in its founders' view, a software company that happened to operate airplanes. That is, its real strength lay in the sophisticated algorithms for matching airplanes, passengers, pilots, and destinations. The weakness was the real-world big-ticket cost of the airplanes, which brought the firm down when the credit crisis began.
Paul Maritz, a Microsoft veteran who is now CEO of VMware, is according to this TechFlash report, interested in DayJet Technologies, a spin-off company designed to apply the DayJet systems elsewhere As the TechFlash story said:
There are some interesting clues as to why Maritz and others in the technology industry are excited about DayJet.
Georgia Tech professor George Nemhauser, who helped develop DayJet's
technology, said via phone that the system could help airlines,
trucking firms and other transportation companies plan more-efficient
routes between locations. Or, he said, it could be used by government
agencies to plan evacuation routes during public emergencies. The
original promise of the DayJet airline, he said, was to allow travelers
to book flights when they wanted them rather than relying on an
airline's set schedule.
"The whole idea is disruption
technology," said Nemhauser. "You get a plan for something, and then a
disruption occurs -- weather or something else -- and you have to make
a new plan very quickly."
What's left for me to dream of, in the convergence department? Maybe news that a craft-beer company is investing in software that will make it easier for me to speak Chinese.
How it should be done: Terry Gross with Bill Ayers
It's conventional chattering-class wisdom to say that Terry Gross of Fresh Air is a "great interviewer." In the early days I think that wisdom originated to some significant extent in male-listener fascination with the sound of her voice. But a broadcast I just heard was not only a reminder that she is, in fact, truly a great interviewer but also a demonstration of what that means in practice.
The broadcast in question was her 43-minute session yesterday with Ayers, the person presented by GOP campaigners as Barack Obama's closest and most influential friend. Ayers himself came across, inevitably, as a more complex character than the campaign caricature: more sympathetic in some ways, not necessarily in others. But much of what Ayers "reveals" comes out precisely because of the way Gross posed and sequenced the questions. If he had just been parked in front of the microphone by someone who said, "Well, how can you hold your head up?" or "So, tell us about Barack Obama," the results would have been much duller.
At the most obvious level, Terry Gross succeeds in this interview simply by avoiding the two most common, and laziest, styles of today's broadcast interviewers: surplus aggressiveness, long ago made familiar by Mike Wallace and now lampooned by Stephen Colbert; and lapdogism, most recently on display in Greta Van Susteren's sessions with Sarah Palin and the default mode of Larry King Live. Both of these extremes reflect the confusion of toughness of manner -- do you interrupt, are you scowling, are you borderline impolite -- with toughness of inquiry, which is something altogether different and can happen under the most polite and civil auspices.
She also avoids the common pitfall of highbrow public broadcasting-style interviewers: giving in to the temptation to show off how much she knows and how smart she is in the set-up to the questions.
What she does instead, and what she shows brilliantly in this interview, is: she listens, and she thinks. In my experience, 99% of the difference between a good interviewer (or a good panel moderator) and a bad one lies in what that person is doing while the interviewee talks. If the interviewer is mainly using that time to move down to the next item on the question list, the result will be terrible. But if the interviewer is listening, then he or she is in position to pick up leads ("Now, that's an intriguing idea, tell us more about..."), to look for interesting tensions ("You used to say X, but now it sounds like..."), to sum up and give shape to what the subject has said ("It sounds as if you're suggesting..."). And, having paid the interviewee the respect of actually listening to the comments, the interviewer is also positioned to ask truly tough questions without having to bluster or insult.
If you have this standard in mind -- is the interviewer really listening? and thinking? -- you will be shocked to see how rarely broadcast and on-stage figures do very much of either. But listen to this session by Gross to see how the thing should be done.
Something on my desk that might not be on yours
A Chinese fighter plane! At least, a 1:48 scale model of one, the domestically-produced 歼-10, or J-10, courtesy of a friend at AVIC, China's giant aerospace company. Click for larger, including a glimpse of the teeny blue-suited model pilot inside:
And just down the street, at the main AVIC building, the full-sized J-10 itself, in a static display that I watched workers prepare shortly before the Olympics:
No larger theme for the moment; I just like having the model, which is made of metal rather than plastic and feels surprisingly sturdy.
November 18, 2008
Advance review from Publisher's Weekly
I won't do this systematically, because that would mean I'd have to include bad reviews too!, but for the record here is an early, nice PW note on my forthcoming collection of China writings, Postcards from Tomorrow Square. It's a "starred" review about halfway down the page that this link brings up. Actual text of the review after the jump. The book is a Vintage paperback original (bargain!) and has a pub date of January. (Links through Amazon, B&N, Powell's.)
A fascinating document about the internet and "public opinion" in China
Outsiders who follow Chinese events have known for years about Roland Soong's EastSouthWestNorth site*, which draws from Chinese-language and English-language sources for reports and analysis.
I've just seen this post, from a few days ago, which strikes me as something that people who don't normally follow Chinese events should know about. It's the text of a speech Soong prepared for last weekend's annual Chinese Bloggers conference (but did not deliver, for family-emergency reasons). In it, he discusses the differences the Internet has, and has not, made in the Chinese government's ability to control information and maintain power within China.
This is a subject easily misunderstood in the United States, where people tend to assume either that the cleansing power of the Internet will ultimately make government efforts at info-control pointless, or, on the contrary, that the bottling-up effectiveness of the Great Firewall will protect the government from the power of an informed citizenry. (My own Atlantic article on the subject here.)
Soong elegantly illustrates why such categorical assumptions miss the complexity of what's going on. The whole speech is worth reading, but the passage below is especially important for Americans. First he describes the way info would flow when bloggers and net connections first became significant in China, around 2003:
1. A bad thing happens somewhere in China (such as police brutality, government malfeasance, a forced eviction, a coal mine disaster, etc).
2. The local government suppresses all information.
3. All media reports are censored. (But if it wasn't reported in traditional media, there are other alternatives now on the Internet.)
4. The victims begin a petitioning process up the hierarchy in order to seek justice. The road is long and hard, and nothing ever comes out of it.
5. The Internet forums/blogs rushed to report on the case. But within approximately 48 hours, all traces of information are erased by order of the authorities. (Thus, one of the excitements of my blogging activity was to find and translate that information within this time window.)
6. Western media catch wind of the incident, and follow through. This creates an international scandal.
7. Senior Chinese officials take notice, and corrective actions are taken.
Then he describes what has changed in the past five years, in this 2008 update:
Back to business, and back to China: Why we love the English-language Chinese press (cont.)
A mere 22 hours after we started driving toward LAX at 4:15am through what seemed to be snowfall but in fact was ashfall from Yorba Linda version of the recent SoCal fires*, my wife and I are back in our apartment in Beijing. And reassuringly, we have the joys of the English-language Chinese press to welcome us home. Front page of today's (state controlled) China Daily:
Apart from the picture of the baby-holding Premier Wen Jiabao in his now-iconic role as Beloved Grandpa of the Nation, I invite attention to the headline in the top right corner of the front page:
On line and in print, I have oftenmarveled at why Chinese organizations make so many careless and unintended errors when rendering material into English for foreigners to read. (Locus classicus, discussed here: the huge signs outside an art museum in Shanghai last year. They announced a big exhibit of photos from the Three Gorges dam area and read: THE THREE GEORGES.)
With the China Daily and sister publications, it's a different matter. Judging from the result, it's obvious that native English speakers have a final pass at the stories, headlines, and captions there. They have very few unintended, "Three Georges"-type errors. But it also seems obvious that the British, Canadian, American, Australian, Indian, South African, Singaporean, etc subeditors hired for this role can have a slyly subversive bent. Often little touches show up in the publication that will seem Onion-like to any native speaker but that even very capable English-speaking Chinese supervisors would likely miss. At least that's what I hope is going on here -- intentional wry precision rather than unaware imprecision. I'm applying an Intelligent Design model in my newspaper reading. ______ * For those who know the LA Freeway system: this was along Highway 91 west of I-605, which we were detoured onto because signs said that I-105 was closed, apparently for fire reasons. The fires were of course aggravated by the hot, dry Santa Ana winds. On the weather report we heard while passing through the ashfall, the reported atmospheric humidity was six percent.
November 15, 2008
Three more ways of looking at Eclipse
... the innovative, Albuquerque-based small-jet company that appears to be in deep economic distress. Background here.
- An irate perspective from a New Mexico political commentator, here. (Sample: "Eclipse has been on the ropes for years, yet our political and economic establishment kept pumping it up.")
- An apologia pro mananagement sua from Eclipse's now-ousted founder, Vern Raburn, here. (Sample: "The reason I got fired was simple: I pissed off the investors.") Note: the link above, to the original AINOnline story, is sometimes slow to load. If it doesn't work, a text-only cached version from Google is available here.
- And after the jump, official word from the Eclipse PR department about the whole dicey payroll situation. (Summary: No one got paid on payday, yesterday. They "will receive their pay" by next Tuesday.)
Here endeth the Eclipse watch for now. Thanks to Mary Grady, Jim Terr, David Strip. _______
Background: the "air taxi" model, discussed in these posts, this article, this book, and this website, is showing viability around the world -- especially with companies using relatively inexpensive SR22 propeller planes from Cirrus, rather than faster-but-costlier small jets. Transportation of every kind is under pressure because of worldwide economic collapse and environmental concerns, but in the circumstances air taxis are doing OK.
And the "Very Light Jet" movement, discussed at all the places above and also here and here, has led to the development of several smaller, cheaper jets that are thought to have a commercial future, of which the best known is the Eclipse 500.
But oh, my, the poor Eclipse company that actually came up with these new planes. As chronicled here frequently in the past, it has had management struggles and financial crises and legal disputes that have called its existence into question. The latest discouraging news is here and here and concerns such ominous subjects as not meeting the payroll and employees emptying their desks. (Update: more end-of-days news here.)
The general economic and credit chaos that is felling older, stronger companies in more established industries is obviously doing no favors to these startups. And anyone who has seen the life cycle of, say, the computer business knows that Wang, KayPro, Eagle, Altos, Victor, Osborne, and other once-promising firms went down but that the computer industry itself surged forward. So it may be with the Eclipse company and the transportation systems it helped make possible. But this is another sad chapter in the era's economic contraction.
More about "America's Defense Meltdown" (Updated)
This is the book I mentioned yesterday, a very useful overview of the issues, challenges, constraints, and possibilities for America's defense policy. Two tech-related positive developments concerning this book.
- Hardcovers of the book will be available sometime soon. But if you would like to start reading it today, you can get an electronic copy, free, by requesting one from Winslow Wheeler, the book's editor. He has placed his email address on the Center for Defense Information web site, and (with his permission) I also give it here: WinslowWheeler@msn.com . UPDATE: free PDF download now available directly via this link.
- If, in addition to being interested in a sustainable defense policy for America, you use a Kindle, you will find that the emailed PDF version formats itself well for Kindle reading. (Thanks to Dave Finton on this point. For info and links about how to view .DOC and .PDF files on a Kindle, check here.)
November 12, 2008
Back to business: must-read new book on defense
At its site here, the Center for Defense Information announces the imminent release of its new book "America's Defense Meltdown." Really this is a guide on how to think about, pay for, reconfigure, equip, deploy, withdraw, modernize, simplify, support, strengthen, lead, motivate, inspire, and in all other ways improve America's military establishment.
I hardly need to mention why such a book is useful, at a time when the United States and its new Administration must figure out how to manage whatever comes next in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ongoing challenge of possible terrorism, America's new financial realities, and on down a very long list.
What is most remarkable about the book is the array of authors who have joined to produce this anthologized volume. If I started listing a few, I would have to name them all (PDF of full list here.) They include the closest colleagues and collaborators of the late Air Force colonel John Boyd plus leading defense analysts and practitioners of the next generation. They have amply earned the right to be listened to. What I said in a blurb on the book's jacket* is, if anything, not enthusiastic enough:
The talent, judgment, and insight collected in this book are phenomenal. Over the last generation, the authors have been more right, more often, about more issues of crucial importance to American security than any other group I can think of. It is a tremendous benefit to have their views collected in one place and concentrated on the next big choices facing a new Administration. This really is a book that every serious-minded citizen should read.
For more about the book, from one of its organizers, Chet Richards, see this. Check it out.
____
* On blurbs: I have a bias in favor of giving blurbs for books, because in my experience most books deserve a better chance and a broader audience than they're likely to receive. Obviously there are exceptions. But I try to be very precise about the aspects of a book I compliment and the kinds of readers I recommend it to. Thus this comment really does reflect my respect for the authors and their collective contribution.
Last in this commemorative theme
My dad's former medical office, the Beaver Medical Clinic in Redlands, California. Flag at half-staff this week.
November 8, 2008
James A. Fallows, 1925-2008
This has been a good week for America but a rough week for certain Americans. Barack Obama's grandmother. Michael Crichton, and the book critic John Leonard. Many others, but of importance to me: my father, James A. Fallows, yesterday, November 7.
After the jump, an obituary prepared for his hometown newspaper (and my first journalistic outlet), the Redlands Daily Facts. His son-in-law, Jack Tierney, paid him an eloquent tribute here, and I previously posted a letter from one of his former patients, here. Below, images of the active, enthusiastic, joyful man I will remember, engaging in two of his favorite activities: camping out while trail-riding in the California canyons, and winning a tennis point.
I am sorry to be in a commemorative mode, but I can't let the day pass without saying something about Michael Crichton.
In the car this afternoon I turned on the radio and heard a news report ending ".... Crichton was 66." Was? That Michael Crichton has died in his 60s shocked me not simply because I'm now concentrating on the mortality of my father, in his 80s, but also because he always looked at least 20 years younger than his chronological age. I'd corresponded with him recently and didn't know he was sick.
Crichton had his enemies, especially after his recent anti-global-warming book (which I chose not to read). That he was married five times suggests that his personal life was not entirely tranquil. And he was hyper, hyper aware that in America he was regarded as a "genre" writer whereas in Italy, for example, he would be listed among the big names of Quality Lit.
But I was honored to have met him 20 years age, when I was living in Japan, and to have been a friend since then. He seemed unassuming, funny, charming in every way -- the unusual famous person who was genuinely considerate of one's spouse and kids. Very earnest about his political causes, including a very prescient argument fifteen years ago about the impending decline of the "Mediasaurus," now known as MSM. And, there is no way around it, incredibly talented. At one point in the 1990s, he was responsible for the #1-rated TV show (ER), the #1 box office movie (Jurassic Park), and the #1 best selling-novel -- and I'm not even sure now which of his novels it was. He must have been the only person in history to have paid his way through medical school by writing successful novels.
I loved hearing from him about oddball "practical" matters. For instance, height: he appeared to be nearly 7 feet tall, and explained to me (6'2") that up until 6'6" height was an advantage, but after that it was a big inconvenience -- door frames, beds, airplane seats. Or, getting ready for book writing bursts: He said he removed complications from his life while writing by having exactly the same food at every meal, so he never had to waste time deciding what to eat. He was a tech enthusiast, and the most passionate Mac advocate I have encountered.
He will be missed.
November 5, 2008
And a classier speech by Obama
The whole Grant Park pageant recalled Little Rock in 1992, when the crowd was swaying to "Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow" and the young-looking Clintons were in their full glory.
This was far more sober, as Obama has been throughout; and paradoxically both calming and inspiring. It's easier to sound inclusive when you have won than when you have lost, but Obama -- that is, President-Elect Obama -- did far more than the minimum with the "I will be your president, too" passage.
Performance expectations have been higher and higher for Barack Obama's set-piece high-stakes speeches, and so far he has not fallen short even once. This one was delivered with unusual poetic skill. This can't go on forever, but the string continued in a heartening way this evening.
November 4, 2008
An extremely classy speech by John McCain
Would things have been different if we had seen more of this man during the campaign? We will never know. But all congratulations and honor to him for comporting himself this way at this time.
A wonderful moment for America, which McCain did absolutely nothing to diminish. (The booing yahoos in his crowd are a different matter.) Going out on a high note.
Non-political, highly personal: my dad
On Election Day, I am at the bedside of my father, James A. Fallows MD, who is nearing the end of his extraordinary life. Six months ago, when he first seemed mortal, I was grateful for the opportunity to talk about him at the college he attended for two years -- before being rushed straight to medical school for service as a Navy doctor -- and from which he received his honorary bachelor's degree 60 years later.
Just now I have received a note that expresses more vividly than I could what a life well, fully, and joyously lived can mean. I share it now, with the writer's permission, at a time when my dad himself can no longer appreciate it but while it is not yet purely retrospective.
The note begins:
My name is Erin Cox-Holmes, and I'm a fan of the Atlantic ...As I was trolling sites today, waiting
through the nail-biter until the results came in, I happened upon your site.
And, as I always do when I see your name, I thought of your dad.
Three negative reasons, one positive, to believe that Barack Obama's victory will advance America's interests, and that John McCain's would be severely damaging: _____
Negative 1: Accountability. There have been minor positive aspects to the eight-year Bush-Cheney era now coming to an end. But when the diplomatic, fiscal, Constitutional, economic, and other civic consequences are viewed as a whole, this era has, in my view, been a disaster for the United States.
And evidently this assessment of our recent history is not just my view. That is what the record-low approval ratings for President Bush, and the record-high "wrong track" poll readings indicate. For America to return the incumbent party to power after this record would make a mockery of the idea of ballot-box accountability and two-party competition. If an incumbent party retains power after this record, what is the meaning of party competition at all?
I have spent a lot of time as an American overseas, starting in the
bitter Nixon years of the early 1970s. Never has the "brand identity"
of being an American suffered as much as it has under George W. Bush.
Any American business person operating overseas will confirm this fact.
John McCain pretends that he is not from the incumbent party. But in economic policy and international diplomatic/military vision there is no significant difference, none at all, between his policies and what the Bush Administration has offered. The "maverick" distinctions boil down to McCain's acknowledgment of climate change, his wildly disproportionate emphasis on the "earmark" menace, and -- to his credit -- his early opposition to the Bush-Cheney torture policies. Those matter but are not enough. _____ Negative 2: Leadership style. John McCain is not willfully ignorant and incurious, which is a welcome contrast to George W. Bush. But he has shown during the campaign that he shares Bush's weakness for impulsive, gut-instinct decisions. For Bush: the Iraq war; for McCain, the choice of Sarah Palin and the short-lived "emergency suspension" of his campaign.
Some presidential decisions do require quick, "3 am" instinctual responses. Most do not -- and instead require a willingness to think broadly and dispassionately about the consequences of each alternative, since big decisions have effects that ripple for years. (See: "Iraq war," above.) Like Barack Obama, McCain does not have a record of executive decision-making. Unlike Obama, McCain has provided powerful reasons to doubt his judgment under the kind of pressure that matters most: the pressure to make decisions that are not quick but wise. _____
Negative 3: Sarah Palin. _____ Positive: The tone, the policies, the cast of mind, the talent, and, yes, the hope consistently represented by Obama during these past two years on the trail. If he is elected, disappointment will certainly follow. The expectations now projected upon him far exceed what any mortal can achieve. But to give the country a new chance, a leader must inspire, and he can.
November 3, 2008
Another brilliant GOP campaign move? (Updated)
I am away from a computer most of the time now*. But there's a TV droning in the background, which for the last two hours has been on MSNBC.
During that period, I have seen at least three, maybe four, times a voice-of-doom style TV spot about Barack Obama and Rev. Wright. It opens with a dark-visaged grainy picture of Obama, cuts to Wright's famous "not God bless America, but God damn America!" speech (with the "damn" bleeped out), and ends with bold words on the screen saying something like: Barack Obama. RADICAL. RISKY. General aura of the ad Willie Horton-ish. A group called GOPTrust.org takes the responsibility.
Brilliant move! On the last day of the campaign, using money for a saturation ad campaign (a) in California, no one's idea of a swing state; (b) on MSNBC, with no one's idea of an "undecided" audience; and (c) on a theme that the candidate himself has theoretically forsworn, therefore probably building up as much extra resentment among the California/MSNBC viewers as it does enthusiasm among the GOP base.
Not for the first time during this campaign, I've wondered whether some of McCain's "brains trust" actually are moles trying to make sure he goes down hard. (Previous occasions for wonder: the "suspend the campaign" gambit, the "angry old man" debate-prep strategy, the Steve Schmidt radio interview, the McCain SNL cameo, and, we've got to say it, the Palin choice.)
As skillful as the Obama team has been in its two-year campaign, McCain and his team have been that incompetent and ineffective. Any Republican candidate this year would have been dealt a bad hand. It is remarkable that McCain has misplayed every single card.
UPDATE: I hear from a reader that the ad is also playing in Austin. This is crazy on two fronts: Texas will go for McCain with or without this ad, and Austin will go for Obama with or without. I guess the money is burning a hole in GOPTrust's pocket. Update 2: Apparently this is playing all over the place: Connecticut, South Carolina, and even Gotham itself. Shrewd, as part of discount bulk-buy strategy? Deliberate, as a way of limiting down-ticket losses for House races? Or just "maverick"? Maybe some day we'll know. ___ * At a health-care facility where I am on family business. Now, signing off again.
November 2, 2008
The black sheep of August 2 (updated)
I am usually proud to have been born on August 2. Two of my writer friends were also born on that day: Lawrence Wright and Erik Tarloff. Same with Caleb Carr. And let's not forget James Baldwin, or Peter O'Toole plus Carroll O'Connor. Or for that matter, Judge Lance Ito.
But now I find: our fellow August 2 person Victoria Jackson is doing a very convincing imitation of a nut job. I always thought she was deliberately playing a ditzy airhead on Saturday Night Live. Is she still putting on a front? I hope? As O'Connor did, in character as Archie Bunker?
Oh well. We'll always have Judge Lance. Update: And my hometown high school friend, the musician and composer Greg Tornquist. The lingering aftereffects of the time I spent with him drifting around Northern California in the late Sixties are even now working their magic on my memory cells.
Proof that John McCain has reached the "acceptance" stage
His appearance in the opening skit of SNL last night. (Clip from official NBC site here, with intro ad.)
The premise and execution of the skit were very funny. Much funnier, except for the physical-humor thrill of seeing Tina Fey and "the real" Sarah Palin on screen on the same show, than Palin's appearance a few weeks ago. This time, McCain and Fey, in the roles of McCain and Palin, were QVC hosts shilling for fine election-related collectibles, like Joe the Plumber action figures. The setup, which poor McCain himself had to lay out, was that airtime just before Election Day was essential -- but while Obama could pay for a wall-to-wall half-hour special, McCain and Palin couldn't afford anything more than a spot on QVC.
I just watched it again right now, and it's even better than I remember. The only thing we'll miss when this campaign is finished is seeing Fey in her Palin role. "OK, now I'm goin' rogue..." McCain himself was also a charming performer. Not a bit of the crabbed, offended, uncontrollably angry man we saw during the debates. Instead, a little reprise of the "I know this is all bullshit, and I can laugh at myself" McCain as he consistently presented himself in the 1980s and 1990s.
But no candidate who thought he had a prayer of winning would have appeared on this show.
For a candidate coming from behind, every second of the final week of the campaign is like a second in cardiac-surgery operating theater, with absolutely no room for fooling around or wasting time, money, or effort that could be used to sway that last crucial vote. (Think: the last days of Gore-Bush in 2000.)
For a candidate who thinks he's ahead, and might actually become president, inevitably there's a tone of new seriousness right at the end: What we've been working for years is within our grasp, let's not screw this up, and let's be sobered by how different the world is going to look in a few days.
So if McCain really thought he had a chance of catching up, he wouldn't have wasted time on an audience that might repair his reputation among liberals and journalists but does him no good with the crucial swing votes. And if he thought he were secretly ahead, he wouldn't comport himself this way. He would be more like the stiff character we saw in the debates.
Great TV! But also an unmistakable message.
My anecdote about the political ground game
Three days before the election, walking down State Street, the old-fashioned shopping area in my home town of Redlands*, California. This is a city that went for Barry Goldwater when I was a kid and that has been part of a solidly Republican Congressional district for most of the time since then. For the last 30 years it has supported Rep. Jerry Lewis, once the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and more recently under Federal investigation for doing favors for lobbyists. (His opponent this year is Tim Prince.)
In a State Street storefront that was some kind of variety discounter the last time I saw it, I now see... Obama headquarters! And it is packed. Old people. College students. Everybody on the phones. People walking in and out with material supporting Obama, Biden, and the rest of the Democrats. I cannot emphasize enough how unusual this is. California may be a blue state, but this part of it has not been.
Most of the yard signs around town seem to be McCain-Palin. But in other times, nearly all of the yard signs would have been Republican. A bustling, unembarrassed Democratic headquarters here takes me by surprise. ____
* Personal note: I spent practically no time in the United States during 2007 but have traveled repeatedly from Beijing to Redlands this year. This reason, as mentioned earlier, is the declining health of my father, which will keep me from from dealing with email or doing much more on this site for a while.
November 1, 2008
Three updates about voting from overseas
This follows my plaint account yesterday about the uncertainties involved in voting from overseas.
1) Although it's now moot, FedEx deserves recognition for a plan it operated between September 15 and October 29. During that time, it offered to send ballots from overseas US voters back to their home voting offices -- and to do so free, I am pretty sure. FedEx's CEO, Fred Smith, is a big Republican supporter and donor (see here, with some interesting exceptions for local Tennessee Democrats and fellow Vietnam vets like John Kerry). But this was a very broad-minded and bipartisan offer. I didn't take advantage of it because by the time I learned about it we'd already shipped our write-in ballots another way.
2) I hear that my own DC elections board will accept faxed versions of the write-in absentee ballots that my wife and I already tried to mail. Then the faxed version is counted only if it matches a mailed-in ballot that eventually arrives. I have limited faith in the mail-in part of the process -- given that the problem started when the DC board failed to answer a mailed-in request for a regular absentee ballot. But still, this is one more way to satisfy my ritualistic desire to feel as if I'm participating.
3) I mentioned that the only time I missed voting in a presidential election was eight years ago, when "an early blizzard and ice storm" kept the small airplane I was flying grounded for four days in Duluth, Minnesota.
Someone who was actually in Duluth that day reminded me that there was no blizzard on November 7. Fair point! The historical weather records for election day show frigid rain. But even without the (imagined in retrospect) snow on the ground, the clouds were low and full of the perfect ingredients for a small-airplane crash: sub-freezing temperatures and "supercooled droplets," which together make for "airframe icing" and bring airplanes to the ground.
Better safe than sorry, is my motto. So I went to the bar!
