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The Technological Revolution So Great We Forget It
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What are the achievements of Western civilization?The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the spread of democracy and a free press tower on the intellectual side of the ledger. But they didn't happen in a vacuum; they needed coincidental technological advances.The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450, made the Enlightenment possible. Shaft horsepower, invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 and developed by James Watt into a practical steam engine, enabled the Industrial Revolution to get off the ground and make the first great change in how people lived by substituting mechanical energy for human and animal energy.For all the downsides of the Industrial Revolution, it was the dawn of the possibility of an improvement in the lives of most people. It hinted, even with the horrors of the exploitation of workers and miners by their employers, that life could be lived without relentless drudgery.Recently Brian Wolff, senior vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, told security analysts in New York that the trade association is launching a campaign to celebrate the value of electricity.Bravo and about time; for it is electricity that has done more to improve the livability of human life than any other product or service.Electricity has many fathers, going back to 600 B.C., when Thales of Miletus wrote about static electricity. In 1600, the English scientist William Gilbert gave us the name “electricity,” derived from the Greek word for amber: Early experiments consisted of rubbing amber to produce static electricity.Investigator after investigator added to the knowledge of electricity. In 1745, it was discovered that electricity was controllable and the first electrical capacitor, the Leyden jar, was invented.Then came Benjamin Franklin, who popularized concepts of electricity with his key on the kite and his invention of the lightening rod. The first battery was invented by Alessandro Volta, who also proved that electricity can travel over wires, in 1800.Technology moved way ahead in 1821, when the great English scientist Michael Faraday outlined the concept of the electric motor. Six years later another Englishman, Joseph Henry, built one of the first motors.All of this paved the way for Thomas Edison, who founded the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. A year later, the first commercial power station opened in San Francisco and the first commercial arc lighting system was installed in Cleveland.But it was Edison's demonstration of the incandescent light bulb in 1879 that raised the possibility that human life could get easier. From then on, electricity was deployed at an astounding rate; despite excursions and disputes, like those between Edison and George Westinghouse and Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla.And what a boon electricity has been. It has made the home life safer, eliminating open flames for heat and light, and more convenient. At various times, as a boy in Africa, I lived in homes without electricity. It's not an experience that I'd voluntarily repeat – no light after dark to read by, little heating, no cooling and immense drudgery to heat water and build a cooking fire.Electricity has effectively liberated women from the slavery of the home and given then an equal role in society, and has made life in inhospitable climates, including the U.S. South, agreeable. And it's enabled whole technological revolutions to take place: broadcasting, recorded music multistory building, computing, health, refrigeration, transportation and just about anything one can name.Electricity is ubiquitous and the single-greatest contributor to our quality of life. In our fascinating with computer technology and the Internet, it is forgotten that it rests on an earlier harnessing of electrons by a plethora of scientists down the centuries.Of all the things invented by the peoples on both sides of the Atlantic, nothing has been such a gift to humanity as electricity. It's appropriate that it should be celebrated and find a prominent place in the pantheon of human achievement.Flip that switch and marvel. – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
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PBS Hasn’t Kept Up
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Things are tough in the world of public television.
State budgets for local stations are being slashed or eliminated, as in Rhode Island where Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee has proposed to fund Channel 36 through Dec. 31 and then eliminate state funding.
Five states have eliminated funding and others have cut contributions.
In Washington the federal contribution, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is under constant attack from Republicans who believe that PBS is biased and that it shouldn't receive any public money whatsoever.
Mitt Romney says no to federal money.
But a larger problem for PBS and its stations is one of mission.
When the service was created in 1970, the mission was apparent: Create quality programming that couldn't be found elsewhere. As PBS was cobbled together from a collection of educational stations, children's programming was always an important element and remains so; also books, cooking, political talk, business, interviews, documentaries, music and drama.
Over time, the television landscape has changed out of recognition.
Competing broadcasters, to say nothing of the Internet, have eroded the once solid franchises that were the backbone of PBS broadcasting.
Books have been largely ceded to C-SPAN and the ever-creative Brian Lamb. Cooking, far from the glory days when the only place you could find out how to make a roux was from Julia Child, is now the theme of two cable cooking channels that are creating new stars.
Political talk, which in its modern incarnation was born on PBS with "The McLaughlin Group" and "Firing Line," is now a staple of commercial television. Likewise, cable has pushed ahead of PBS in developing business (Remember "Wall Street Week"?), interview, history and arts channels. Other PBS innovations like "Motor Week" and "This Old House" are also under attack on cable.
Running down the list of what PBS does that no one else is doing brings one to the last franchise that PBS still dominates, and that might be called the "British bonanza." PBS has been mining effectively the output of both the BBC and the commercial British television channels with great effect since the days of "Upstairs Downstairs" (commercial in Britain).
Today, in its struggle for audience, another British import, "Downton Abbey," is the brightest star in PBS's dimming firmament.
If PBS is to again command the community loyalty it once enjoyed, if it is to answer its political foes, if it is to be a decisive force in television and perhaps on the Web, it needs to stop whining about money – now part of its demeanor – and to ask itself, "Is it new?" Is it bringing in and developing young talent? Is it doing something, anything, that will be imitated around the world? Is it creating programs that will bring in dollars in syndication and entice sponsors to be associated with the excitement?
In the 1960s the BBC, which had become a national treasure during World War II, had lost its way. Commercial television was eroding its audience and pirate broadcasters were attacking its radio franchise. The BBC got off the couch and joined the creative fray, especially the satirical revolution. Bam! It was back.
Of course, the BBC with its private tax, called a licensing fee, had a lot of money to spend. But it wasn't money that saved the BBC from ignoble decline – it was unleashing creative forces in post-Empire Britain.
Particularly, the BBC encouraged young writers and producers. It worked.
PBS should think of itself as an incubator, not as a roost for the old, the tired and the timid. Had PBS, or rather one of its bigger stations, been offered "The Daily Show" or its stable mate "The Colbert Report," it's hard to imagine that they would've been welcomed.
Yes, PBS, those retread English comedies and Lawrence Welk won't cut it going forward. –For the Hearst-New York Times syndicate
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What Makes a President: Fallacies about Business, Markets
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Come walk in the garden where the fallacies grow. Today, we’ll examine two varieties that are enjoying strong growth: the businessus presidentus and the marketus perfectus.
The first fallacy (businessus presidentus) is that a business person, presumably Mitt Romney, is better equipped to run the government than a professional politician. This is an idea as old as anything in the garden. The supposition is that business people are organized, understand the economy and are less prone make decisions based on politics. It also suggests that as a species they are innovative, strategic thinkers and have an acquired understanding people.
Well let's see: The purpose of business is business; in short, to make money. Romantics of the right like to credit it with virtues it doesn't have and doesn't want.
Business is about the numbers, and making the numbers. It’s not intrinsically wise, nor is it necessarily more inventive than government.
It’s true that business innovates; but only when it’s forced to by competition and disruptive technologies. Coca-Cola was supposed to be the smartest company on the planet until it introduced New Coke and had to beat an ignominious retreat. Many old and new businesses simply can't change fast enough. We’ve seen the demise of Kodak, Polaroid and Borders and the emasculation of Western Union. The American car companies had to be rescued — especially General Motors which was a model of management structure, celebrated by Peter Drucker, until its management choked the life out of it.
If Romney has the skills to be a good president, he didn't learn them in the wheeler-dealer world of investment banking – Remember Lehman? – but rather in the statehouse in Boston. By and large, business success prepares a man or a woman for retirement and maybe volunteer work, not political office.
The Washington trade associations periodically decide what they need is “kick-ass” business person. In time, they find someone who knows the ways of Congress to be a lot more effective than someone who can read a balance sheet.
Then there’s the workforce difference. Management controls the workforce in private industry, but the workforce often controls the management in government. Only the military is exempt from this rule. Presidents down to junior political operatives chafe under this reality.
The second fallacy (marketus perfectus) is about markets being next to godliness. Markets are an efficient way to distribute goods and services at affordable prices. But they are as cruel as they are efficient. They exterminate and reward.
It’s a heresy in conservative circles to point out that national interest and market interest do not always coincide. But among treasured companies that have been saved by government intervention in the market are Harley-Davidson (price barriers), Lockheed (loans), Chrysler (twice with loans, and later part of the great Detroit bailout).
It can be argued that some of our current economic woes are the market doing what it does best: seeking the lowest-cost, competent production. It was that which lead to the export of our manufacturing. Companies flooded China because they got the three things they sought and which they sought to satisfy the marketplace: low wages, talent and reliability. They didn’t flood to other cheap-labor places like sub-Saharan Africa, but to China which knew how to please.
People who have really changed the political landscape in Washington have been professional politicians, or those who have embraced politics as a second career, like Ronald Reagan. Richard Nixon changed it not by his misdeeds, but by creating the Office of Management and Budget from its predecessor the Bureau of the Budget. In so doing, he increased the power of the presidency and downgraded the Cabinet. And the consummate Washington insider, Lyndon Johnson, enhanced the president's war-making prerogatives — even though it would’ve been better for him and the nation if he hadn't.
If Romney makes it to the Oval Office, he'll have Massachusetts on his mind not Bain & Co. You won't get the garden to bloom with the wrong seed. –For the Hearst-New York Times syndicate.
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Democracy Has a Tentative Start in Kazakhstan
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Is it the felt revolution or the fur revolution? Or is it a revolution at all? (In Kazakhstan, nomads still use felt to build their tents, called yurts, and to wear a fur coat in Astana, the modern capital, is not a luxury because temperatures can plummet to -40 C in winter.) But political change – slow, to be sure – is taking place in Kazakhstan: a vast oil-rich and landlocked country in Central Asia, which gained its independence in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Russians had both tried to colonize (22.8 percent of the population is Russian) and use Kazakhstan as a dumping place for prisoners, for nuclear facilities and for some of the worst environmental experiments, particularly dooming the Aral Sea by reversing the rivers that once fed it. In mid-January, Kazakhs went to the polls for an election that could be the beginning – just the glimmering of a beginning — of a new era of democracy in Central Asia. In itself, this election was a small affair and was criticized as such by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Myself and a colleague were invited as journalistic observers. We stayed in Astana and observed voting in just two locales, which were orderly and had a movie-set feel to them. We even got to watch President Nursultan Nazarbayev enter the voting booth, exit it and drop his ballot into a transparent box. 
Fur-wearing voters drop their ballots into a box at the National Academic Library polling station in Astana. Photo: Linda Gasparello
The OSCE observers were critical of the way the government determined which parties could participate. They were also critical of the high polling numbers provided by the government, which claimed 80.7 percent support for Nur Otan, the party of the president, a former Soviet official who moved quickly from communism to capitalism but hesitatingly to democracy. Yet in his 20 years of near absolute power, Nazarbayev has been popular. He has had the unique good fortune of being able to deliver above the expectations of his people. Nazarbayev has been skillful in positioning Kazakhstan as a friend to everyone. By doing so, he has cultivated comity with his some of his irascible neighbors, including Russia, China, Iran, as well as the less-friendly other “stans” that border his sprawling, underpopulated country (about 16.5 million people). He also has fostered good relations with ethnic minorities, including Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Uighurs, and many more. Likewise, with 40 religious groups: Kazakhstan is a predominantly Muslim country (70 percent, 26 percent Christian) with a secular tradition. Muslim women do not cover their heads; men are clean-shaven; the call to prayer does not ring out over Astana; and minority religions are permitted, including Buddhism and Judaism. Cleverly, Nazarbayev has also given his people a shiny bauble to be dazzled by: Astana. In a little more than eight years, this architectural extravaganza has risen on the Central Asian steppe. Astana is spectacular and incorporates a kind of World's Fair-meets-The Emerald City architecture: There is a building that looks like giant golden egg in a white-branched nest, one that opens like a flower's petals, and one that looks like a yurt. The best architects in the world, like Britain's Norman Foster, have been invited to play – and they have let loose. 
Palace of Peace and Harmony in Astana Photo: Linda Gasparello
But Nazarbayev's days as the Wizard of Oz may be drawing to a close, and the tentative nod to democracy may be an acknowledgment of that. He is 71. A new generation of ambitious, gifted and well-educated men and women now walks the streets of the capital; young people who wonder about the paternalism, want to play on a world stage, and do not remember the bad old days of Soviet domination. They worry about the pipelines that take Kazakh oil in many directions – at present, mostly into Russia and China. Especially, they worry what will happen when their president passes from the scene. After the disappointment of the Arab Spring, dare the world hope for a democratic birth on the Central Asian steppe? I think so. – For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate - no responses
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Not Since Baghdad
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First in a series.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan – Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was this fantasy
city, which lies in the flat, semi-arid and steppe north-central region –
but it seems like it.After Kazakhstan gained its independence in 1991, the city and the region
were renamed Akmola, meaning “white shrine” in Kazakh.In 1995, the city was designated as the country's future capital. On Dec.
10, 1997, the capital was officially transferred from Almaty, a Silk Route
city in the mountainous southeast, to Akmola. The new name, Astana,
meaning “capital,” was bestowed in 1998.
A stately presidential palace Photo: Linda Gasparello
The word “astana” in Kazakh, by one account, comes from the Persian verb
to stand, “istandan,” particularly in respect or awe. The city of Mashhad
in northeast Iran, which is the burial place of the 8th Shi'ite Imam Reza,
is an “astana.”Visitors can't help but stand in awe of the modern capital and the man
responsible for building it, President Nursultan Nazarbayev. He's built
Astana in much the same way as al-Mansur, the Abbasid caliph, transformed the small Persian hamlet of Baghdad into a powerful and prestigious city in 762 A.D.Astana's futuristic skyline has been formed in 12 years, with brio,
bulldozers and billions in expenditure. The Baiterek monument and
observation tower, the capital's symbol, is one of many architectural
wonders. The 105-meter structure is named after the mythical tree. Its
base and consists of white steel girders bundled like branches. An
observation deck, 97 meters up the base (symbolizing the year of the
capital transfer) supports a 22-meter-diameter gold-mirrored globe,
representing the golden egg laid by the mythical bird Samruk.
Bird's-eye view: Baiterek monument Photo: Linda Gasparello
“According to a Kazakh legend, the Samruk laid an egg bright as the sun at
the top of the Baiterek, but at night an evil dragon gobbled it up. When
the patience of the local Kazakhs ran out, they killed the dragon,
allowing the sun-like egg to brighten up the world,” Dilip Hiro wrote in
his latest book on Central Asia.The tower's observation room – from which visitors can see much of the
city – features a malachite pedestal topped with a 4.4-pound block of
solid gold, in the center of which is an imprint of the president's right
hand. A plaque suggests that visitors place a palm on the imprint and make
a wish, which on special occasions triggers the playing of the national
anthem. (Recently, I was told, the lyrics were changed because Nazarbayev thought they were too downbeat for a dynamically developing country.)
Golden touch Photo: Linda Gasparello
Also installed in the chamber is a wooden globe, with 17 rays signed by
representatives of the world's religions. The globe commemorates the First
Congress of the Leaders of the World and Traditional Religions, which
Astana hosted in September 2003. The Palace of Peace and Harmony, a stone
and glass pyramid, 62 meters high, was built for the 2006 summit of
traditional religions in Astana.
Palace of Peace and Harmony Photo: Linda Gasparello
Kazakhstan is home to over 130 ethnicities, practicing over 40 religions.
“Kazakhs are aware of the need for peaceful coexistence on our planet,” a
tower guide said.British architect Norman Foster, who designed the tower and the pyramid,
has put an enormous imprint on the city. He also designed the Khan Shatyr,
or the “king's tent” – a regal 150 meters high with a 200-meter elliptical
base). It's a stately pleasure yurt, housing shops and restaurants, indoor
beaches and waterfalls, as well as a mini golf course and botanic gardens.
Khan Shatyr recreation center Photo: Linda Gasparello
Foster's latest design, the Abu Dhabi Plaza, is a matrix of staggered
high-rises, the highest of which will be 88 stories – and the highest building in Central Asia. The mixed-use complex, which will include hotels, offices, residences, a reinvented traditional marketplace, light rail and year-round gardens, was inspired by “a sister” project in Abu Dhabi, the Central Market Redevelopment.“We're a little competitive with Dubai – just like siblings,” a young
Kazakh told me with a laugh. - one response
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The European Dilemma: Austerity or Growth
May 14th, 2012
Guests: Darren Gersh, PBS's "Nightly Business Report"; Laure Mandeville, Le Figaro; Michael Fauntroy, George Mason University
Radio’s impact in Washington and the nation
May 7th, 2012
Guests: Tim Farley, Host and Program Director, Sirius XM Radio’s POTUS Channel 124
Elections here and abroad; crises in Syria and Sudan
April 30th, 2012
Guests: Arnaud de Borchgrave, CSIS; Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post; and Christopher Chambers, Georgetown University
Word and phrase origins in the U.S. presidency
April 23rd, 2012
Guests: Paul Dickson, author; Carl Cannon, RealClearPolitics.com
Political “wars” in the 2012 election, and real wars elsewhere
April 16th, 2012
Guests: Michael Fauntroy, George Mason University; Ed Kelley, The Washington Times; Chuck Lewis, Hearst Newspapers