Court: Blogger isn't journalist - he may be right

Let's see the new media fluffers' take on this:

A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that a Montana woman sued for defamation was not a journalist when she posted online that an Oregon lawyer acted criminally during a bankruptcy case, a decision with implications for bloggers around the country.

Crystal L. Cox, a blogger from Eureka, Mont., was sued for defamation by attorney Kevin Padrick when she posted online that he was a thug and a thief during the handling of bankruptcy proceedings by him and Obsidian Finance Group LLC.

U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez found last week that as a blogger, Cox was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news outlets.

Is this just a matter of Oregon needing a better shield law? That's one claim.

“My advice to bloggers operating in the state of Oregon is lobby to get your shield law improved so bloggers are covered,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. 

Dalgish may or may not be right on that. She is right on this:

“But do not expect the shield law to provide you a defense in a libel case where you want to rely on an anonymous source for that information.”

That's because Hernandez went further:

The judge ruled that Cox was not protected by Oregon’s shield law from having to produce sources, saying even though Cox defines herself as media, she was not affiliated with any mainstream outlet. He added that the shield law does not apply to civil actions for defamation.

But, Dalgish is not guaranteed to be right on this, if Cox is indeed not a journalist.

Now, contra new media fluffers who accuse old media of trying to maintain a guild system, I'm not doing that.

Let's read WHY Hernandez ruled as he did:

Hernandez said Cox was not a journalist because she offered no professional qualifications as a journalist or legitimate news outlet. She had no journalism education, credentials or affiliation with a recognized news outlet, proof of adhering to journalistic standards such as editing or checking her facts, evidence she produced an independent product or evidence she ever tried to get both sides of the story.

Emphasis on the last clauses are mine. Hernandez, although he appears to start from the "guild" point of view himself, goes beyond that to use generally recognized journalistic standards as a large portion of his decision.

And Cox's response, if anything, justifies Hernandez's decision:

Cox said she considered herself a journalist, producing more than 400 blogs over the past five years, with a proprietary technique to get her postings on the top of search engines where they get the most notice.

“What could be more mainstream than the Internet and the top of the search engine?” she said.

Let's try riffs on that:
1. Twenty years ago: What could be more mainstream than junk mail and a filled mailbox?
2. Sixty years ago: What could be more mainstream than Joe McCarthy and a stack of papers waved in one's hand?
3. Seventy-five years ago: What could be more mainstream than Father Coughlin?
I think you get the drift.

I'm sure Dalgish's organization and others will file amicus briefs in any appeal, but, really, they shouldn't. Both for the actual defendant and for the material facts involved.

Here's my response.

First, blogging may be journalism. It isn't automatically journalism. That's reason one professional media organizations should be wary of offering amicus briefs in this case, at least without actually taking a look at Cox's blog first.


Second, I'd potentially partially disagree with the judge that that plaintiff is not a public figure. I'd have to see the details of how big his tax shelter advice was, whether he's a defendant in the fraud case against some of his advisees and other things. He may be a public figure.

This isn't a slam-dunk one way or the other, unlike the Houston-area blogger of a few years ago, who was reporting on a criminal case, a felony, and using anonymous sources.. There's no indication that Cox was even using anonymous sources, or doing anything more than writing opinion pieces. And, even if attorney Patrick IS a public figure, while case law cuts more latitude on opinion pages in conventional newspapers and magazines, even there, there isn't a license to libel.

Given that Cox is using a "proprietary technique," which is probably called paying $99 to some SEO optimizer outfit, and boasts about that, she's not a journalist from where I stand, and probably stands guilty of the failings of effort Hernandez found.

I do agree with media analysts that a case like this shows we need SCOTUS to eventually wade in. BUT, this case ain't the vehicle for it.

Meanwhile, the New York Times op-ed section, with one of its "Room for Debates" set of mini-columns, has weighed in. Of the four contributors, one notes that post-"Sullivan" understandings of libel and public figures apply to the general public, not journalism; one halfway wrestles with the idea of what individual bloggers must be doing to prove themselves journalists, without looking in more detail as to whether Cox met that hurdle; and the other two, including one from the Poynter Institute (which I see as more and more coasting on "reputation") talk in terms of vague platitudes without addressing case specifics at all.

A #MASH RIP for Harry Morgan

I'm a huge fan of the TV show, which was possibly the greatest sitcom ever, and certainly the most popular. In terms of audience share, the two-hour farewell TV movie still tops all Super Bowls as the most-watched broadcast ever.

And, so, with sadness, I see that cast standout Harry Morgan, also famous from Dragnet, "Inherit the Wind," B-movie Westerns and many other roles, has died at 96.

Of course, MASH was really about Vietnam, and he as Col. Potter gave an anchor of Regular Army reality to his role that the Col. Blake/Maclean Stevenson role just didn't do. MASH was a solid show, but it took off when Morgan joined, along with Mike Farrell as BJ Hunnicutt replacing Wayne Rogers as Trapper John and playing more of a straight man role. Speaking of:

He was one of the “foundational pieces of the industry,” said “M-A-S-H” star Mike Farrell, who tried to gain Morgan a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild. Such honors routinely go to stars but also belong to Morgan and other character actors who provide “the grit and the substance and the context” for so many films and TV shows, Farrell said Wednesday.

Indeed. That "grit" made him a good character actor.

And Morgan knew what counted in life, as he proved at a news conference held when “M-A-S-H” ended in 1983. He was asked if working with the show’s cast had made him a better actor, and Farrell recalled Morgan’s reply: “I don’t know about that, but it’s made me a better human being.”

I listed just a few of his roles; the New York Times obit notes many others.

On television, he played Officer Bill Gannon with a phlegmatic but light touch to Jack Webb’s always-by-the-book Sgt. Joe Friday in the updated “Dragnet,” from 1967 to 1970. He starred as Pete Porter, a harried husband, in the situation comedy “Pete and Gladys” (1960-62), reprising a role he had played on “December Bride” (1954-59). He was also a regular on “The Richard Boone Show” (1963-64), “Kentucky Jones” (1964-65), “The D.A.” (1971-72), “Hec Ramsey” (1972-74) and “Blacke’s Magic” (1986).

Col. Potter was, in a way, without a "Leave it to Beaver" saccharine edge, a kind of father figure, or uncle figure, or grandfather figure. His goodbye to Radar scene was one of many that showed that.

And, from other character roles he had played, that were generally no-nonsense types, MASH let Harry Morgan show a new side of himself, too, to us.

In other words, "simple without being simplistic," even as, with all of our technology, many of us would like occasional increases in simplicity and slowness in our lives.

Now, the word "son," nuanced by voice in many, many different ways, will never be quite the same.

And, the L.A. Times has more on that "focal point" angle that I mentioned above.

(In MASH), he was the still point amid the pandemonium, a flinty corrective both to its silliness and its sentimentality. In (Dragnet), he was the subtly comical sidekick to Webb's very straight straight man, a little licking flame of human warmth to animate the overarching deadpan.

I'll have to give a MASH DVD a watch at home tonight. And perhaps shed a tear or two.

As for my fandom? I've been to Hannibal, Mo., Potter's hometown, as well as that of Mark Twain, and also to Mill Valley, Calif., Toledo, Ohio, Fort Ord, Calif. and other characters' hometowns, all real life except for Hawkeye's Crabapple Cove, Maine. And, Alan Alda's Hawkeye and Groucho Marx are far and away the top two bad-pun influences in my life.

Marlins overpay for Reyes; meaning for Pujols?

UPDATE, Dec. 8: It's the Angels! For details of what this means for the Angels, for the Cardinals and for Pujols, go here.

UPDATE, Dec. 7: With the Marlins reportedly signing Mark Buehrle for four years, $58 million, on top of the Reyes (and Bell) signings, it means that Miami "officially":
A. Is out of the Pujols chase and
B. Has a drunken sailor owner.

Actually, the price for Buehrle is probably more reasonable than for either Reyes or Bell. But, the total contracts, for a team that's never had huge fan/market support? They're paying just a shade over $40 million for their three new acquisitions. $20 mil for the rest of their roster puts them at $60 mil. That seems like a "healthy" payroll for this team. A trade or a B-list free agent puts them in good competitive territory with the second wild card for, say $65M.

And, is 10/$220 from Mozeliak enough to get Pujols to sign? Are the Cubs for real? The Angels are reportedly sniffing around. That said, the new deal isn't worth more on a per-year basis than the Cards' old one, but, because that deal would have included his 2011 option year, it IS two years longer.

And, there's still no word on sidebar issues, like a no-trade clause, joint marketing dollars for career milestone memorabilia, etc. That could possibly add another $10-$20 million to the Pujols contract, at least if it's with the Cardinals, where such things would mean more.

ORIGINAL POST: Sorry Miami/Florida Marlins. Sorry, Jeff Loria. Sorry, taxpayers to whom Loria is trying to justify stiffing you for that new stadium. (That would be the stadium whose stinky funding is now under SEC investigation. How bout THEM apples, Bud Selig?) BUT ... Jose Reyes is NOT worth six years and $106 million. This year was a career year for Reyes, I think, and if he bats over .300 again, or has an OPS over .850, and I'll eat my hat. At least, if he does that over 150 games or more, given nagging and non-nagging injuries of the past three years and that he's just replacement value, or below, defensively at shortstop.

Yahoo's blog tries to tout the deal, claiming Reyes could be a person to build around. Right.

This is after signing Heath Bell for three years and $27 million, a clear overpay for a reliever who won't be the same in Miami.

Jeff Brown speculates this means the Marlins are still in the running for Albert Pujols. Rather, I'd say it means Miami has about spent itself out. Prince Albert and Dan Lozano, seeing those two paydays, won't settle for anything close to the Marlins' original 9/$200 offer, and I don't think Loria is going to do, say, 9/$240. But, maybe he will. If the Marlins are spending like drunken sailors, there's always hope for another big payday. ESPN's Jayson Stark even claims the Marlins are prepared to up their offer. And, in terms of years, at least, the team now has, weighing in with a 10-year offer.

However, Jeff Passan agrees with me; the Reyes signing means it's time for Pujols to focus elsewhere. In fact, Passan calls the Pujols market "stagnant."

Another POV than #OWS on UC Davis #pepperspray

I'm still not justifying Lt. Pike's actions, but, there's other video, besides what the Occupy folks showed a couple of weeks ago. Protestors, the whole group, not just the small number sprayed while on the ground, were given several warnings to disperse. AND, other Occupyers were apparently trying to prevent police from removing from the scene.

Click here for a video compilation with on-screen narrative. Or just click the screen: 





Yes, I've been hinted as being a former supporter of Occupy Wall Street, or wavering, or whatever.


Well, as a skeptic, including a skeptical left-liberal, I try to hold to the grounds of realism. That said, whether it's the right on global warming, sections of the left on alt-med, or far-left and right on conspiracy theories, it's hard to get a lot of Americans to attach to that.


Again, I'm not justifying Lt. Pike. I am saying there's a larger context to the UC Davis actions than OWS brief clips have shown. And, I say below, OWS people had options.


So, will you watch this?

OK, to boost part of my comment to Sheldon to the body of the post. I, personally, as an antiwar protester, was of the "kinder, gentler" sort, I'll admit. So, I personally wouldn't have done this. Second, the larger crowd could have passively resisted to the eventual point of going limp and waiting for arrest.

Third, we have plenty to see of police brutality in Oakland, already. A partial meme like this looked "great," but, to the degree this "corrective" catches up with it, it could backfire.

Fourth, I'm not going to argue it's not still excessive force. But, it is arguable that there are degrees of excessiveness, and that this is "less excessive" than it seemed two weeks ago. 


It also could "backfire" on the messaging angle in other ways. Take the Portland pepper spraying picture that was infamous before this. Now I'm wondering just what that picture didn't show, as well as what it showed. Maybe we're not missing anything. But, maybe we are.

Fifth, assuming there's nothing we're "missing" from the Portland photo, we have it, the NYC photos, the Oakland photos and more. This doesn't rise to the level of Photoshopping a fake march crowd at the start of OWS, of course, but, if statistics follow damned lies, photos and videos aren't that far behind at times.

That said, per another blog, here's one way the police could have handled this better, without violence, without bad PR and without other things. Of course, I don't know if the St. Louis encampment was that comparable to the Davis one. In short, even if something is 95 percent "black" on a black-and-white scale, it still isn't 100 percent black and white. And, given Bay Area California's relatively mild year-round weather, and that this was on a university campus, it's quite possible we can't take too much from the St. Louis situation.

Sixth, to the degree police can be thugs, this is nothing new. It's a commonplace of the War on Drugs. Again, not excusing cops, but for Occupiers, poorer whites, and certainly minorities, have faced this, too, for years if not decades. Per Balko's column, yes, the Davis students are lucky they weren't Tased. That probably relates to the amount of publicity involved already.


So, OWS, if you want to cut back this brutality, add reforming the War on Drugs to your list.

And, while it may not make much sense, among other things, to call Wall Street leaders sociopaths, it may well make more sense to call cops that.

===


That all said, I definitely agree with the content of the link in Sheldon's second comment. Guilt-tripping 99ers, even if they are a bit too commercialistic at times, about their Christmas shopping will be counterproductive. Before OWS, most Americans hadn't even heard of Adbusters,

Adderall: At a Brave New Word office near you?

Who uses Adderall off-label? Potheads at Harvard are among highly likely candidates. NOT the A-listers, but the B/B-minus students who think they should be doing better. Especially if in fraternities. In other words, George W. Bush, back to the future.

But, not just the B-list Ivies. The story also cites using low-grade legal speed at the workplace, or even a 52-year-old married man, in night school, looking for that "edge." Or, a 74-year-old, apparently an archaeologist, who admitted to using modafinil as part of a letter to the editor at Nature. So, 5-10 years from now, is the workplace going to be a war zone, with different people looking for the right mix of Adderall, Ritalin and other such drugs?

Now, the article is more than two years old, but with our ongoing economic stagnation it is, if anything, even more relevant now than then.

Speaking of the office place, should we be worried? Are we going to have 55-year-olds having Ritalin-induced panic attacks? Or even mild coronaries? If "he's" taking 25 mg of X, shouldn't I be taking 35 mg? What happens when 35 mg of X "just isn't doing it" any more? (But, I can't be "addicted." Why? Because it's not supposed to be addicting.)

And, yeah, that friendly bit of advice, along with all the other stuff we now see with things like antidepressants, will be coming, too, if some people can make it happen. There's already marketing groups, groups to advise investment in different drug makers and more.

That said, there are stories at the high-school level about A-listers, not B-listers, using them. However, they're probably getting less benefit:

Martha Farah told me, “These drugs will definitely help some technically normal people—that is, people who don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for A.D.H.D. or any kind of cognitive impairment.” But, she emphasized, “they will help people in the lower end of the ability range more than in the higher end.”

As for other possible marketing claims, sorry, but the feds have already started studying the addiction possibiliy of modafinil (Provigil).

Meanwhile, since upper-middle-class and rich people can afford such things better, is this type of use of Adderall, etc., unethical? A form of "cheating"? Or, per another line in the story, especially here in America, could passing out these pills to high schoolers to stimulate focus be another quick fix, just like passing out the same pills to elementary students already is, to some degree?

Friend Leo Lincourt picks up on the "always on" issue for adults at the office, or flaking stone knappers at the archaeology field site. Especially the office, if if's in a field that's heavily globalized.

That's the problem ... the "always on," in the biz world, mixed with globalization, etc. Great. The coworker next to you is first running circles around you, then having a panic attack. The "uppers" side of Brave New World, eh?

And, per the end of the article, putting down some of the damned gadgets and simplifying our lives more might help some, eh?

Iran and our missing CIA drone -- big issues

First, it's clear that the drone that was lost over Iran is a CIA plane.

This leads to many, many other questions.

1. Why don't these drones have GPS limiters that, when humans screw up, get inattentive, etc., can limit their flights, self-destruct the planes, etc.? The absence of anything like that just sounds stupid. This isn't Francis Gary Powers, where you're relying on a human to off himself in his U-2.
2. This particular drone appears more swanky than a "base" model, including having some sort of stealth technology. How easy will it be for Iran to reverse-engineer that and thereby end our easy drone flights? The spook shack says Iran can't learn much, but ... surreee ...
3. Can't anybody in the CIA lie better? This plane was NOT surveilling in Afghanistan. And, if you can't lie better, can't you just shut up? It now is unofficially admitted by one and all that it was spying on Iran.
4. Back to No. 1 ... just how good, or bad, of pilot quality does the CIA have?
5. Can Iran determine what we were learning from this and other drones?
6. Is the CIA lying about a crash rather than a shoot-down?

And, add this thought: What if Iranian and Chinese intelligence, notorious spies on the U.S., are partnered?

"Flippers" an important factor in housing bubble

The NY Fed says "flippers" were an important part of the housing bubble. There maybe some CYA here for the NY Fed, a *private* institution, on its failure to get Wall Street to rein itself in. But, I largely agree with the idea, substantiated by some research. And, I'm guessing a fair amount of these flippers were 2-20 percent, not just 1 percenters.

To put the header on the graphs above in plain English, each bar represents people who had at least one mortgage already on their hands when they took out another one during the year in question. Note that in the four "ground zero" states of the bubble, the percentage of people with multiple mortgages was nearly half!

Now, some of the people with just one mortgage on the books already may well have been movers, not flippers. Fair enough. Knock out two-thirds of the people with two mortgages, and at the height of the boom, in the four ground zero states, you still have 30 percent of buyers who are likely flippers.

Everything else adds up, then. At first, presumably because they had more money, "flippers" were better risks. But ... when the bubble started bursting, as bubbles do, they became worse risks.

And, as a later chart shows, many of these flippers' loans were securitized, as they were rushing to get in on the bubble. Hence, their troubles, as much as subprime first-time buyers' troubles, became Wall Street's troubles. And, their speculative buying hurt others:

We conclude that investors were much more important in the housing boom and bust during the 2000s than previously thought. The availability of low- and no-down-payment mortgages in the nonprime sector enabled investors to make these bets. This may have allowed the bubble to inflate further, which caused millions of owner-occupants to pay more if they wanted to buy a home for their family.

As noted above, I'm guessing a fair amount of these people were in the 2-20 percent. The Fed doesn't do an income breakout, but I can't believe that that many spec buyers were 1 percenters. Certainly not fractional groups within the 1 percent.

Finally, this is why I am against blanket-type amnesties or modifications of loans. Many people, whether using subprime loans of some sort to do so or not, were deliberately buying houses to flip them. They had at least one mortgage before, therefore, in addition to taking responsibility for investments in general, had some idea already of what the loan process was.

These people deserve no mercy. We don't give a do-over on bad stock purchases, either.

Loan modifications MUST BE on an individualized basis. Here, as well as elsewhere, we need realism from folks like Occupy Wall Street.

Why I don't own a smartphone

And likely never will. Julian Assange spells out well all the snooping problems.

That said, I worry more about Big Business, either working on its own, or sucking off the Big Government teat, than I do about Big Government on its own. (I've always said that "Brave New World" will prove to be an even more prescient novel than "1984.")

There's several reasons for this, all related to the almighty dollar. And I say dollar, not yen, euro or even pound, because the U.S. is Ground Zero for hypercapitalism.

First is the "branding issue," most notably with Apple. When iPhone users are confronted with the type of information an Assange presents, cognitive dissonance sets in as many iPhone users await some bulletin from Apple to spin away all of Assange's claims.

Second is Google Ads for mobile phones, coupled with the latest GPS, etc. There's already talk about how, either partnered with straight-up coupon companies, a Groupon, or something even worse, an Android phone will spit out an on-screen coupon for the restaurant you're walking past. In the mall? Well, with Google Maps going inside them now, that's no escape.

Add in the rumored Amazon and Facebook smartphones of next year, and we have this problem in spades.

Reading a magazine at Barnes & Noble, with an Amazon phone in your pocket? Amazon spits out an ad saying you can get that mag for $XX on Kindle for smartphone. Meanwhile, even with its privacy agreement with the FTC, what if Facebook puts auto-updating software in its smartphone? I.e., Facebook creates its own "Yelp" and it's opt-out, not opt-in.

And, all these companies will do the marketing and branding, telling you how their smartphones are better at others on delivering those coupons, at ... "reading your mind," though they won't put it so crassly.

Got a smartphone already? Detox. Get away from the addiction.

In the land of the twice credit-downrated ...

The once-downrated is king?

That's why the threat by credit rating agencie S&P to downgrade most countries of the Eurozone, even Germany, should be taken with a grain of salt. The U.S. downgrade by one of the three ratings agencies has shown little fallout so far. (That said, a day later, the S&P has now said its credit downgrade threat includes the Eurozone bailout fund, not just member nation economies.)

I agree that the Eurozone needs reframing. Whether Sarkozy and Merkel are doing a lot more than window dressing is another question. But, if there's a threat of a two-notch downgrade, they will do more than window dressing.

And, given Germany's notorious inflation fears, just what would a downgrade mean there, internally?

Anyway, for now, at least, the court of general public opinion will surely recognize that Germany, and even France, aren't Italy.

#CO2: 2010 worst year ever

Carbon-dioxide emissions rose 5.9 percent last year, the worst recorded jump on record. And, we're likely not in for great news in future years:

The researchers said the high growth rate reflected a bounce-back from the 1.4 percent drop in emissions in 2009, the year the recession had its biggest impact.

They do not expect the extraordinary growth to persist, but do expect emissions to return to something closer to the 3 percent yearly growth of the last decade, still a worrisome figure that signifies little progress in limiting greenhouse gases. The growth rate in the 1990s was closer to 1 percent yearly.

The combustion of coal represented more than half of the growth in emissions, the report found. 

If we connect the dots on paragraphs two and three, it's clear that China, followed by India, will fuel the surge in CO2 emissions in general and coal-generated CO2 in particular. Frankly, I'd be surprised (assuming the usual blather-and-inaction results at Durban, South Africa) if we hold that to just 3 percent over the next decade.

And, no the West is not simon pure:

On the surface, the figures of recent years suggest that wealthy countries have made headway in stabilizing their emissions. But Dr. Peters pointed out that in a sense, the rich countries have simply exported some of them.

The fast rise in developing countries has been caused to a large extent by the growth of energy-intensive manufacturing industries that make goods that rich countries import. “All that has changed is the location in which the emissions are being produced,” Dr. Peters said. 

And, with that exporting, let's not forget the carbon dioxide emissions costs of shipping, too.

Although Americans cringe at the idea, our one hope may be for oil to get back to or above its 2008 high of $147 a barrel, and stay there, if that doesn't totally wreck the world economy. Folks like Walmart and its various suppliers have indicated that oil prices that high would put enough of a burden on shipping costs that a lot of production would have to be relocated to the U.S. to be profitable.

It's an even "tougher" version of what James Hanson said about how we absolutely need to get away from coal-fired power plants in the future. We're at least moving in that direction. Such oil prices, by lessening Chinese manufacturing, would idle some other coal-fired electricity.

Politically, there's theoretically one other hope. The U.S. imposes carbon taxes internally, which then gives it the legal right to impose carbon tariffs externally. But, don't hold your breath over that.

We need to have something, though. As Nature Geoscience shows, including with plenty of pretty pictures, the evidence continues to mount for both global warming and the anthropogenic cause of it.

Beyond the "feedback loops" in general, of a warming climate putting more water vapor, a greenhouse gas itself, in the atmosphere, and causing permafrost to release methane, yet another greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, there's other feedback loops.

For example, in the U.S., with the shift of more population to the hot, long summer world of the Sunbelt, we're talking more and more air conditioning use. That, in turn creates urban heat islands, which create a microclimate additional feedback loop.

Plus, in the Southwest, we're headed toward drier as well as hotter. That means energy for desalinization plants, deeper wells, and reduced hydroelectric power.

Now, it is true that the atmosphere may not be quite as sensitive to CO2 as previously feared. That said, other than being on the lookout for wingnuts claiming this is more reason to reject "the cult of global warming" (actually, it's just the opposite, as it shows climate scientists at their best), it's important to remember a few other things:
A. The difference between a 5F and 7F warming over, say, 100 years, isn't enough to use this as an excuse for inaction as normal;
B. This study does nothing to look at how current warming is starting to force methane out of permafrost;
C. This study does nothing to look at how modern pollutants like, say, nitrogen oxides, may contribute to the problem.

New media fluffers profit from dissing old media?

Just wow .... Columbia Journalism Review takes Clay Shirky, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis, et al, to the cleaners. And, the article is very good overall, not just in the claim that these and other new media fluffer leaders, through consulting fees, teaching at public universities, etc., profit, and perhaps hypocritically, by being old media dissers.

And, it's one thing to disagree on what the future of media should be. It's another to profit off of saying what the media SHOULD be, while pretending to be disinterested. And, it's yet another to ignore "concentration" in social media, ethics issues at some social media, and other factors.

Item No. 2 in the paragraph above is why I largely not just mistrust but actually dislike new media fluffers, at least the new media fluffing part of their personalities. Hey, I'm not denying the right to make a buck. BUT, be honest that your new media fluffing is anything but disinterested.

Anway, let's take a look at CJR.

I'm going to run a string of a few quotes, then start commenting;

The establishment is gloomy and old; the (Future Of Newspapers) consensus is hopeful and young (or purports to represent youth). The establishment has no plan. The FON consensus says no plan is the plan. The establishment drones on about rules and standards; the FON thinkers talk about freedom and informality. FON says “cheap” and “free”; the establishment asks for your credit card number. FON talks about “networks,” “communities,” and “love”; the establishment mutters about “institutions,” like The New York Times or mental hospitals....

The problem is that journalism’s true value-creating work, the keystone of American journalism, the principle around which it is organized, is public-interest reporting; the kind that is usually expensive, risky, stressful, and time-consuming. ...


Not only does the FON consensus have little to say about public-service journalism, it is in many ways antithetical to it. For one thing, its anti-institutionalism would disempower journalism. Jarvis and Shirky in particular have reveled in the role of intellectual undertakers/grief counselors to the newspaper industry, which, for all its many failings, has traditionally carried the public-service load.

So far, I'm in total agreement. The FON crowd largely ignores costs and overheads, as do many of their fellow travelers. And, by over-touting social media, etc., can trivialize news. (See below.)

And, is there a solution? Solutions?

Many of Shirky’s prescriptions for the economics of journalism are commonsensical and even wise. A point I find inarguable is that while some news models have been found to work in some contexts-—The Wall Street Journal’s pay wall, ProPublica’s fund-raising model (basically, one big donor), Talking Points Memo’s online ad-based system—nothing to date is scalable. There is no news business “model” at all. And who can argue with his call for constant experimentation?

I would tend to agree. And, that's why I'm not always as hard on this aspect of Shirky's thought as on Rosen's or Jarvis'.


Meanwhile, is the FON crowd counter-cultural? The story suggests so:

If some aspects of peer-production theory and its FON offshoot sound familiar—anti-institutionalism; communitarianism laced with libertarianism; a millennial, Age-of-Aquarius vibe; a certain militancy—some scholars have traced its roots to 1960s counterculture.

I'd say look to today, instead; Shirky, et al, sound like the utopian wing of Occupy Wall Street.

Meanwhile, CJR gets to "throwing under the bus" time, saying Jarvis, as example, and most the FON crowd are ... hypocritical leeches:

Like other FON thinkers, he lives the contradiction of extolling peer production and volunteerism from the security of an institution. It is doubly jarring in Jarvis’s case; an opponent of publicly funded journalism, his journalistic entrepreneurialism is, in fact, publicly subsidized. The “C” in CUNY stands for “City.”

CJR then raises a related issue: the claim that news is a commodity. Of course, the FON crowd starts with one half of Steward Brand's famous quote:

Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine - too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better.

And, of course, the FON crowd is coming down emphatically, and simplistically, IMO, on the "free" side. That's why they fight paywalls, diss micropayments and other things.  But, as the CJR story notes, paywalls are working, and getting adopted by more and more dailies.

Meanwhile, here's more of that intellectual dishonesty:

I would note that there’s a point at which predicting institutional decline blurs into rooting for it, and then morphs into hastening it along, as the anti-pay wall debate shows. ... “We need the new news environment to be chaotic” to facilitate experimentation, Shirky writes. In fact, though, only consultants “need” the news environment to be chaotic.

CJN's Starkman goes on to say he expects some "media establishment" to remain in place for quite some time.

I’m going to make a bold leap and predict—eenie meenie chili beanie—that for a long time the Future of News is going to look unnervingly like the Present of News: hobbled news organizations, limping along, supplemented by swarms of new media outlets doing their best. It’s not sexy, but that’s journalism for you. 

And, here's why he's at least halfway comfortable with that statement:

It pays to remember that the most triumphalist FON works were written in 2008 and 2009, during journalism’s time of maximum panic. But now, panic time is over.

It is ... and as he says, "muddling" time continues. And, that is no thanks to the FON crowd:

The cruel truth of the emerging networked news environment is that reporters are as disempowered as they have ever been, writing more often, under more pressure, with less autonomy, about more trivial things than under the previous monopolistic regime. Indeed, if one were looking for ways to undermine reporters in their work, FON ideas would be a good place to start.

Indeed, especially about the trivialization. Working at a newspaper that thinks Facebook and Twitter posting will magically fix things seems to illustrate that. When everything is news, nothing is.

Finally, Starkman says that what he calls "Neo-institutional journalism" can be rebuilt, but that it will take work.

Shirky responds, but, IMO, as a kinder, gentler Jarvis more than anything else.

Beyond that, the new media fluffers fail to address how social media, Internet 2.0, etc. threaten us all, not just journalists, with being crushed beneath the wheel, whether like in Hesse's novel of that name or some other way.

Finally, related to this discussion, check out my  "dark side of the Internet" series of posts. None of the "new media fluffers" will fully and seriously engage with a Evgeny Morozov, Nicholas Carr or Jarod Lanier.

Does 'It's a Wonderful Life' need a remake?

"It's a Wonderful Life" is on TV again (Updated, Dec. 3, 2011). Fortunately, I'm at work tonight, so, while I'm watching it in the background, it may not be such a saccharine tear-jerker as usually has been for me.

And, I know that it is such a tear-jerker because it leaves me longing, more than just wistful, for a life that I never experienced that much growing up. (Since I didn't experience it, I can't be nostalgic about it.)

Anyway, let's think of some alternative ideas for this movie, since it's a tear-jerker precisely because Frank Capra pulls  formulaic strings, while actually making it "Bentham’s Panopticon with picket fences," per a link below the fold.

What if Capra had ended the movie 20 minutes early with George Bailey, aka Jimmy Stewart, jumping from the bridge? Or, had run it out another 30 minutes after the tear-jerker ending? Would we see George take a more skeptical look at Bedford Falls? Would he perhaps wonder if a little bit of Potterville actually did lurk beneath the surface?

If you want to get more thought on that line of thought, go here; is IAWL "the most terrifying movie ever"?

Before I saw the Salon story, when I watched it (and, yes, cried again) this year, I thought that the end of what Rich Cohen calls "The Night Journey of George Bailey" had a major-key riff on the melody of the medieval church hymm of the Apocalypse par excellence, the Dies Irae. Cohan makes me wonder more.

The occurrence is just before Bert pulls up and says, "Where have you been, George"?" It just caught my ear. [That said, that's part of why I love Rachmaninoff, and I will hear the Dies Irae wherever it pops up.] Given that Dmitri Tiomkin, who wrote the score, was born in Old Russia 21 years after Rachmaninoff, and studies there under Alexander Glazunov and later, in Berlin, under Ferruccio Busoni, it adds to the possibility.

Per the link, which talks about George's "resurrection," I think that IS a Dies Irae riff. That said, to riff on some of the ideas in the link ... it would have been interesting if, in the "salvation by friends" scene at the end, the actual Dies Irae had been playing, sotto voce.

Anyway, Cohan says there's a darker meaning underneath the saccharine. I think he overstates his case, but may have something going on here.

So, per Cohan, and my own thoughts, maybe it's time to do a remake? Either cutting it short, or else extending it?

I think you could extend it, by about 15-20 minutes, cut about 4-5 minutes from the original, and do something "interesting." Along Cohan's line, could we make this an "Occupy Main Street" movie for today, taking "Occupy Wall Street" to the local level? Or would we have an "Occupy Shrugs," in which our updated George Bailey is crushed, bribed or otherwise taken out of the picture. Could we "darken" it further? Should we? Or make it more ambiguous in general?

Anyway, more thoughts on a remake, including suggested actors and directors, below the fold:

Herman Cain lies even to the end

C'mon, Herman, you're not "suspending" your campaign, except in some sort of legal sense to try to troll for funds still, or a psychological sense to try to promote your sure-to-flop book.

You're quitting. And, as with much else in your campaign, you're lying to yourself about it.

Ultimately, by proving yourself an Uncle Tom over Rick Perry's hunting lease, you lived up to caricatures of what a black Republican should be like. Hyperconservative even by tea party standards to prove yourself true blue.

And, speaking of ...

You've lied to yourself about the reality of their depth of support.

Just as many of them are probably lying by Bradley effect about the depth of that support.

Saturday Night Live will miss you as a comic foil, and that's about it.

#OWS: Does it help to call Wall Street 'sociopaths'?

This meme seems to be doing nothing but gaining energy the last couple of months. It's the claim that leaders of Goldman Sachs, JPMorganChase, top hedge fund managers, etc., are all sociopaths. But, the claim is usually much more scattershot than that. Rather, it's that about anybody who works on Wall Street is a sociopath.

First, this seems to be a pop psychology, rather than real psychology, use of the word "sociopath." In short, it's not a lot better than name-calling. Let's take a look at the actual personality disorder.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM IV-TR), defines antisocial personality disorder (in Axis II Cluster B) as:^[1]

A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:

1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
2. deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
3. impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead;
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;

B) The individual is at least age 18 years.

C) There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.

D) The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.

Now, it's certainly possible that a fair number of people on Wall Street, or business CEOs in general, meet that definition. But, do all of the "bad ones" qualify as sociopaths?

A. Were they acting this way since high school?
B. Did they meet three of the subcategories under A in definitions? Probably not No. 1. Probably No. 2. Probably not No. 3 or 4. No. 5, maybe or maybe not, depending on exact definitions. No. 6, no, unless breach of fiduciary duty to shareholders. No. 7, yes, in many cases, as in Loyd Blankfein "doing god's work."

So, that leaves us with one semi-definite, on No. 2, one definite, on No. 7, and some maybes. That's not clear-cut. So, unless high school friends of Loyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon and others pop up with tales from their high school days of setting cats on fire or something, they're probably not sociopaths in a clinical sense.

Which is ... GOOD!

No, not good in the sense of justifying their behavior, but exactly opposite.

If they're NOT sociopaths, then, they DON'T have a clinical mental illness as an excuse for their behavior. At least not in any measurable sense. Surely, even the most latitudinarian judge, in terms of responsibility and mental health, would not allow narcissistic personality disorder to be a defense at either criminal or civil trial.

That said, this also shows the limitations of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Other than psychotic disorders being worse than neurotic ones, the DSM doesn't attempt to put disorders on any sort of gradient.

Second, a person can be greedy to the point of hypergreedy, if you'll allow me to invent a term, without being sociopathic. If, you hold along with me, that morality isn't necessarily rooted in gods, theology or metaphysics, and per the Euthyphro Dilemma, can't be, then, you should also accept that a secular equivalent of sin in general, and the "Seven Deadly Sins" in particular, is capable of being postulated.

So, let's just call these folks Greedy with a capital G. Then, let's stop trying to explain them in terms of mental illness and start explaining them in terms of immorality. Period.

Or, per a Wired story that says nice guys often do finish "last" financially, let's call them assholes. Or capital-A Assholes:

(B)eing disagreeable doesn’t mean you behave like Ari Gold. It doesn’t mean you are a sociopath or intentionally inflict pain on others. Instead, those on the disagreeable spectrum are generally pretty decent folks, described by their peers as mostly amiable. However, these disagreeable people do consistently exhibit one special trait: They are willing to “aggressively advocate for their position during conflicts.” While more agreeable people are quick to compromise for the good of the group — conflict is never fun — their disagreeable colleagues insist on holding firm. They don’t mind fighting for what they want.

Again, being an asshole is NOT the same as being a sociopath. But for men at least, it's worth an extra $7,500 a year, on average, the story says.

Anyway, psychopathologizing Wall Street leaders just doesn't fly in my book. It's not that the worst of Wall Streeters are amoral in some mental illness sense. Rather, they usually know they're being exploitative, they don't give a fuck, and they simply don't give a fuck that you're mad they don't give a fuck.

In the land where all morals are reduced to issues of mental health, the merely neurotic instead of psychotic will be kind.

Just.Another.White.Presidential.Politician.™

The Atlantic summarizes well why Barack Obama means nothing new to American Indians.

Congress is no friend of the American Indian. Surely this Supreme Court isn't, either. And there was a need to clarify the rules on eagle feathers. But is this really the best President Obama can do?

Well, it seems like the best he wants to try to do. It's better than Bush, but once again on that count, Obama benefits from the soft bigotry of low post-Bush expectations.

And, I'm curious how many people will click this link thinking this post is about a GOP presidential candidate and not Obama.

Will an Obamacare 'bomb' force us toward single-payer?

Rick Ungar, a health care journalist who writes for places like Washington Monthly, says an emphatic yes.


First, the bomb. It's not secret, or in fine print. It's the requirement that health insurers spend at least 80 percent of their revenues, or 85 percent for the giants, on actual health care.
That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.
This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time.  Indeed, it is this aspect of the law that represents the true ‘death panel’ found in Obamacare—but not one that is going to lead to the death of American consumers. Rather, the medical loss ration will, ultimately, lead to the death of large parts of the private, for-profit health insurance industry.
Ungar notes that today was the day the "bomb" officially exploded, and that, so far, the Department of Health and Human Services has been strict on the rule. (For example, it rejected waiver requests from the states of Indiana and Louisiana earlier this week.) Ungar, in his column, notes that individual insurers have been denied laughable attempts to claim sales commissions as a business expense.

That said, I'm not as sanguine as Ungar about this meaning the end of for-profit private insurers or anything near that. He says:
There is absolutely no way for-profit health insurers are going to be able to learn how to get by and still make a profit while being forced to spend at least 80 percent of their receipts providing their customers with the coverage for which they paid.
He neglects some obvious private-sector possibilities, including:
1. Putting salespeople on straight salary;
2. Using computers to "sell" more policies;
3. Jacking rates yet higher, to have a bigger pool for that "80 percent";
4. Insurance company consolidation/takeovers.

That said, Ungar claims that parent companies of many insurers are trying to get out of the business. If that leads to consolidation, it could hurt or help. It could lead to more fraud. It could lead to health insurers "too big to fail." Or to many other things.

So, Ungar may be right, half right or not at all.

Finally, it's absurd to make a prediction like this before SCOTUS has made its highly-anticipated ruling on the bill. And, as much opposition as Obamacare faced, I seriously doubt that the GOP totally overlooked this provision in the bill's writing, or that Obama (given that he doesn't care about single-payer) had the provision put in there as a backdoor attempt at single-payer.

So, contra a Facebook dialogue and other things, I'd prefer not to read into this provision what may well not be there. I'll be glad to be pleasantly surprised, but won't hold my breath.

Humanism doesn't have to be opposed to science

That's true whether it's an unlabeled humanism, a "secular" humanism, a "Christian" humanism or something else.

I enjoy reading the often-insighful, almost-always-stimulating long-form blogging of R.Joseph Hoffmann.

With his background, per his Wikipedia link, he's well positioned to comment on Gnu Atheism, the academic study of religion and issues of humanism and philosophy in general.

I largely agree with his take on Gnu Atheism, especially concerns over its combativeness, narrowness of focus and evangelistic propensities.

On larger humanistic issues, I agree with concerns about "scientism," especially but not only found in some Gnu Atheists, and beyond that, a move beyond the classical and Renaissance devotion to the arts.

But, at times, he seems to come close to a false dilemma, positing that one must focus more on the arts and less on science -- science, not "scientism."

Let's take one matter where science, philosophy and overarching humanist principles meet: consciousness.

A good neuroscientist, informed by as well as informing of, philosophy, knows that MRIs don't directly measure consciousness or even close to that, and that they're not (yet) that accurate.

BUT ... a good philosopher who is informed by as well as informing of neuroscience knows that those MRIs are measuring some brain activity, brain activity happening at roughly the same time as mental activity and in parts of the brain we have tentatively identified by other research as being associated with certain types of mental activity.

So, a good philosopher of mind will welcome good scientific research that helps him or her posit further questions on the nature of mind, of consciousness and of free will, including scientific research that then helps him or her help neuroscientists.

But Hoffmann seems to fear, to some degree, actual science, not a philosophy of "scientism." He seems to fear methodological naturalism. He seems to fear a "mechanistic" take on life that undercuts its wonder and mystery.

Well, even an ascerbic existentialist phyisicist like Steven Weinberg still seems to have some degree of appreciation for some sort of magic in life, Mr. Hoffmann.

I may be overstating what I perceive his issues to be, but I don't think by too much.

Then, there are people, including some of his regular readers, who wonder why we have to specify "secular" humanism vs. just humanism.

Because, as Hoffmann notes from even a less "materialistic" era, already by the Enlightenment, non-Christian forms of humanism were arising, even if an open split was not being voiced. And, today, getting back to that neuroscience, and what it tells us about consciousness ... and things like a "soul" and its existence or likely nonexistence, Christian humanism and secular humanism will split on some metaphysical issues of major import, that in turn will affect their understanding of what issues, angles and points of view are most important within humanism.

8.6 percent and 2012

First, even allowing for more people dropping out of the work force, the unemployment numbers are good. And, while I know government economists are spinmeisters, nonetheless, the background news about rising sales in many areas is true, I know.

Meanwhile, this has big import for 2012. If unemployment is down to 8.5 percent in mid-summer, especially if some of the teachers and such get hired back, comparing the two mainstream parties, I give Obama more than a 50 percent chance even against Romney and well over that against other GOP candidates.

The lower unemployment rate could have short-term negatives, though. The GOP is likely to push even harder against another extension of long-term unemployment benefits. But, at the same time, more people back to work, paying taxes, etc., will slowly cut the deficit again.

If the projected 2013 deficit gets below $1 trillion by midsummer 2012, then Obama's really in the gravy, if the unemployment scenario I listed above holds true.

David Brooks' rose-colored fiscal morality

Brooks, in comparing the U.S. and Germany (wo bist du, Herr Bobo?) says this nuttery:
Why are nations like Germany and the U.S. rich?...

It’s because many people in these countries, as Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute has noted, believe in a simple moral formula: effort should lead to reward as often as possible.

People who work hard and play by the rules should have a fair shot at prosperity. Money should go to people on the basis of merit and enterprise. Self-control should be rewarded while laziness and self-indulgence should not. Community institutions should nurture responsibility and fairness. 

Well, lemme see, the 1 percenters believe exactly nothing of that, David! And, to be honest, a certain amount of non-1 percenters probably have the same unbelief.

Beyond that, long before the meltdown, America's economy, more than Germany's, was built NOT on "self-control" but self-indulgence.

That said, while Brooks is right about Greece, and somewhat right about Italy, Krugman has a more nuanced picture of the whole Eurozone. And, labor retrenching of the last decade aside, Germany in general still rewards regular old labor better than the U.S. in many ways.

And, neither one of them has totally tackled this issue: Many Germans' lingering fears of 90-year-ago hyperinflation means that Germany is not liable to go too far in working with even non-Greek parts of the eurozone. Booting Greece from the zone might work. But, the rest of the eurozone would be hugely weakened without Germany.

And, all the fractions of blame that lay out there, it's clear both on this side of the pond and inside Europe that the whole eurozone is in trouble. Most economic pundits are saying if Italy caves, that's it; that's too much burden for the eurozone.

That said, I'm not a professional economist, and I don't play one on TV. But, I don't think a eurozone collapse is as bad as the 2008 global financial turmoil. Now, coming on top of a slow recovery from that, it could extend a "lost decade" in fair parts of both Europe and the U.S.

On the other side, China has said it wants to invest sovereign wealth fund money in both areas, in infrastructure improvements. One hundred and fifty years ago, their labor built our railroads; now, their money might rebuild them.

Do preteens actually believe in Santa?

I'm trying to remember when I "lost my faith" in Jolly Old St. Nick, but I'm pretty sure I had by the time I was 9 years old. But, per this AP story, I guess not all kids do. (Or maybe this one in the story thinks he can gift double-dip by pretending to still believe.) The latter is a possibility, I think:
Kyla Kelim of Fairhope, Ala., caught her oldest, a 9-year-old boy, on her iPad playing Santa sleuth a week or so ago. “We’re so close with him this year, not believing,” she said. “He was Googling ‘Santa,’ and I saw him type the word ‘myth’ when I grabbed it and said no electronics. I’m constantly having to follow my phone and iPad and stuff around right now. We’re trying not to debunk Santa for our 7-year-old.”
It's tough when you have kids a couple of years apart. Even more so when there's a gap of several years. I think my three older brothers still got "Santa gifts" until both I and my sister, a year younger, realized the truth. (I think I was 8, but held out another year, for the "double dipping" reason.

That said, even 9 isn't too old, in some cases:

Other parents, though, are finding that in some ways, it was easier to maintain the Santa myth before high-speed Internet.

When Kimberly Porrazzo’s boys, now in their 20s, were little, she and her husband jingled sleigh bells outside their kids’ bedroom windows on Christmas Eve, and Dad took to the roof to make scampering hoof sounds.

When one of the boys was still a believer at 12, she broke the news — gently — before some playground skeptic did it for her. The Lake Forest, Calif., mother turned the experience into a little book she self-published, “The Santa Secret: The Truth About Santa Claus.”

So, comments? Any of you remember how old you were when you stopped believing? Was the issue influenced by younger siblings? And, if you have kids at home now, how do you handle it?

The other "month-to-month bills" help recipient

With multiple days to cogitate on how to respond to Ginger White's claims, THIS is the best Herman Cain can do? It's the dumbest public opinion thing since Larry Sandusky agreed to talk to Bob Costas on TV.

Yeah, how high WERE those "utility bills"? Cain won't say, "on advice of his attorney."

That said, maybe Cain is hiding something deeper:

Cain said White reached out to him this fall, sending him about 70 text messages from Oct. 22 through Nov. 18 asking for financial assistance.

As in ... extortion? It takes two to tango; why is Ginger White coming out now, after 13 years? Extortion can be easier if the stakes are higher. Maybe White had been getting support and felt entitled to more. And, per a new Gail Collins column, it's clear this isn't the first time she's traded sex (not even romance, so much) for money.

Hey, write a tell-all book instead, Ginger.

This one, nobody's going to end up smelling like a rose. Not White, not Cain, and not Cain's wife, who either has pulled a Tammy Wynette for  her own monetary reasons, is self-delusional, or else really is clueless. Cain says she didn't know about the "payments." Guess he's lucky he never left his cell phone unattended. (And, if you were a married man with a roving eye, would you? Would you get a second phone?)

Robofiling gets sued

More than the Nevada attorney general's lawsuit a few weeks ago, which indicted two people for robo-signing, the rubber is now really hitting the road.

Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley has sued not only five lenders, but MERS, the robo-signing agency for all the big lenders. And, on expected grounds: MERS violates state law on paper trails for mortgages and related issues. 


And, there's bigger issues yet behind all of this:

Officials at all of the banks issued statements saying they would fight the suit. Most of them also indicated dismay that Massachusetts had taken action during negotiations to reach a settlement over the types of practices highlighted in the case.

“We are disappointed that Massachusetts would take this action now,” said Tom Kelly, a Chase spokesman, “when negotiations are ongoing with the attorneys general and the federal government on a broader settlement that could bring immediate relief to Massachusetts borrowers rather than years of contested legal proceedings.”

Lawrence Grayson, a Bank of America spokesman, said: “We continue to believe that collaborative resolution rather than continued litigation will most quickly heal the housing market and help drive economic recovery.”

And Vickee Adams of Wells Fargo said, “Regrettably, the action announced in Massachusetts today will do little to help Massachusetts homeowners or the recovery of the housing economy in the Commonwealth.”

But as Ms. Coakley made clear during the news conference, her office had come to view as unacceptable the negotiating stance taken by the banks in the protracted settlement talks.

“When those negotiations began over a year ago, I was hopeful that we would be able to reach a strong and effective solution,” she said. “It is over a year later and I believe the banks have failed to offer meaningful relief to homeowners.” 

So, now, the first AG, more than in Nevada, is breaking ranks from settlement talks. It's clear banks are hoping two things:
1. Campaign cash for Obama (or Romney, or both) and high-dollar-level electoral politics, will get the feds to push harder on a mortgage issues settlement that favors big and predatory lenders.
2. They can run out the clock on some things, on statutes of limitations, and probably "scrub up and clean up" on others.

And, even if Coakley ran a lame Senate campaign in 2010, she now has become, for now, at least, the biggest political player in 2012.

Read and parse carefully words by Obama substitutes on this issue, including which substitutes he chooses before speaking himself.

Meanwhile, we've had the first fallout. GMAC is abandoning any new MERS-based mortgages in the state and other "brokered" mortgages, which Massachusetts (rightly) calls an admission.

The lost decade? Since Enron, we've already been in it

We don't need worries about Japan-type deflation. This excellent AP story, for the 10th anniversary of Enron's collapse, titled "The Decade of Lost Faith," says we're already there, if you read to the bottom:

Stocks have barely moved in the decade of lost faith. On the Friday before the Enron bankruptcy, the S&P 500 closed at 1,139. Last Friday it closed 19 points above that. The incomes of many middle-class Americans haven't kept up with inflation. Home prices are still falling.

Yep, that about sums it up. But the rich who were a bit more sneaky, or had better connections than Kenny Boy Lay (though he had connections enough) Bernie Ebbers and Dennis Koslowski, made out like bandits.

Abetted by St. Alan of Greenspan's bubble-inflating, Wall Street was behind the housing shenanigans (and many others):

Wall Street was gripped by what chronicler Roger Lowenstein called a "mad, Strangelovian" logic. Not content to bundle thousands of subprime mortgages into mortgage securities, banks bundled the bundles into something called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. Next, they created bundles of bundles of bundles, called CDO-squared.

But, we're at the end now. Not just domestically, but from globalization. As Al Jazeera notes (although it somewhat overlook sub-Saharan Africa) globally, the world is becoming more and more urbanized. And, if there's money to be made by manipulation, developing world sovereign wealth funds will likely want to call the shots themselves.

We had a chance to make the WTO and globalization work for real people in both China and the U.S. Instead, so far, it looks like it's working for neither.

At least for right now, we appear to be about halfway through a lost generation, apologies to Hemingway, Fitzgerald and others aside.

"The big picture here is this is an unwinding of a 20-year debt bubble," said Peter Dixon, global financial economist at Commerzbank. "It's going to be painful, and it's going to be nasty. What policymakers are aiming for is a smoothing of the path."

The bigger picture is that neoliberal economics, and world leaders worshiping at its altar, will struggle to control whose past is smoothest (if they care at all).

Stop the dunes sagebrush lizard hysteria

Center for Biological Diversity says that, even on oil-drilling lands, the lizard, a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection, has habitat on only about 5 percent of the land.

In other words, this is just more ardent red-state pushback against regulations in general.

That's even as U.S. Fish and Wildlife is pushing back an ESA decision by six months.

What does #OWS want?

The AP has a long story on the idea of a "platform" for Occupy Wall Street and what it might entail.

It's interesting enough, but this short sidebar, quoted in full, is actually more important:

Some of the leading proposals to solve the country's economic and political problems, offered by members of the Occupy movement who were interviewed by The Associated Press:

— Impose a 1 percent “Robin Hood” tax on large financial transactions, and use the money to support social programs.

— Reinstate portions of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act that were repealed in 1999. The act had prevented bank holding companies from getting into certain other types of financial ventures, effectively separating investment banking and commercial banking.

— Freeze all property foreclosures; cap interest charges at 6 percent or less.

— Reduce military spending; stop wars that drain financial resources.

— Reparations; make government payments to the descendants of African slaves to reset a broken, unbalanced economy.

— Ban big corporate donations to campaigns and set equal spending limits.

— Instill a fair conscience and a sense of morality into the minds of big decision makers.

— Revamp the tax code to take a higher percentage of multimillionaires’ earnings. Ensure that Wall Street and big companies pay higher business taxes.

— Equalize public education by paying fairly and proportionately for the entire U.S. population, regulating spending by student and not by school district.

— Pass congressional legislation that returns bankruptcy protection to student loans.

— End corporate personhood.

— Ensure equal-access health care for all Americans.

It's a mix of stuff, which I'm sure comes from a mix of the "reformer" and "utopian" wings that I blogged about earlier this week.

The first four I agree with.

After that, we get more dicey. And, I'll now pick out the less desirable ones.

Most major black civil rights groups have already moved beyond "reparations." And, there's no guarantee that such reparations would reset the economy anyway.

"Instill a fair conscience"? What is this, OWS is now Clockwork Orange?

Equality in public school education/spending? Now we're at Lake Wobegon. The rich, and not just the rich, the 2-20 percentile, would build private schools so fast it might actually stimulate the economy. And, the 20-plus percent of OWSers who have grad degrees probably benefited from unequal school spending. Besides, that much federal intervention in schooling would provoke other backlashes. Oh, it's a nice idea. (And a "pull the ladder up after me idea" to a degree.) Not close to realistic. And, how do you adjust for areas that have different standards of living?

And, ending corporate personhood? Rather, let's reform the corporate tax code, restore  more shareholder rights, and keep legitimate corporate protections.