Listen all of y'all...

...it's a SABOTAGE!

Phone and internet in a large area of the South Bay have been completely down since 2 AM this morning. Fosco is completely without phone service (both landline and cell). His internet is down; he is only getting internet from an unprotected wireless network (which runs on a cable connection) in his apartment complex. The UCSC network is down, so no email. Supposedly, most of San Jose and its suburbs are down as well. If that's true, that could mean something like one million people are currently without phone service.

If you think this sounds absolutely crazy, you're right--especially since the 911 network is also down and has now been down for more than 24 hours. What makes things even worse is that we are now learning that, as the Beastie Boys lyric that titles this post suggests, the cause of the outage is SABOTAGE.

According to this article,

Four AT&T fiber-optic cables in an underground vault were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said. Four more underground cables, at least two of which belong to AT&T, were cut about two hours later along Old County Road near Bing Street in San Carlos, authorities said.

And lest you think that this was an easy task, consider how this had to be done:

In both instances, saboteurs had to use a piece of equipment to lift heavy manhole covers and climb down several feet to get to the cables. They would have to have been equipped with heavy-duty cutting equipment to slice through the thick cable coating.

Translation: this was an organized and professional act. We're not quite talking Ocean's Eleven-type professionals, but maybe something close. No media outlet I have seen has been willing to speculate about the reason for the sabotage yet, but I think you have to wonder about whether this served as cover for some sort of criminal act (robbery, murder, etc.)

Even scarier, as I write this, I can hear a major confluence of emergency sirens nearby--police, I think. This is not comforting. I think I'm going to draw my blinds and hide in my bed until cell service returns. It's amazing how only a few simple technologies stand between us and complete anarchy. Maybe I should buy a gun.

But hey, you know what might be fun? Watching the video for "Sabotage." It was directed by Spike Jonze, remember? It never fails to put a smile on my face.

America's Most Backward State: Oklahoma!

Last week, Fosco was outraged by the head of the Texas State Board of Education and his love for a book that claims to disprove evolution. Because what kind of state allows that kind of moron to be in charge of education? Well, then Oklahoma had to go one better (thereby winning the appellation "America's Most Backward State").

As Fosco's favorite cyber-crusader, Jonathan Turley, notes:

It appears that Oklahoma legislators are continuing their attempted crackdown on University of Oklahoma for the outrage of allowing evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University speak to its students. After proposing two resolutions denouncing the scheduled appearance, legislators are now demanding answers about the funding and communications with Dawkins.

For those of you who don't know, Richard Dawkins is one of the foremost evolutionary biologists. His writings on evolution for a popular audience are well-written and impeccably reasoned. He is one of the most persuasive theorists of evolution (and a frequent critic of creationism and religious fundamentalism). He is also, by any conceivable measurement, smarter and better educated that every single member of the Oklahoma State Legislature (or does that go without saying?). Oh, and if the above photo is to be believed, he is Buffy's Watcher.

But because some morons aren't happy unless they're fucking things up for everyone else, Oklahoma State Representative Rebecca Hamilton (apparently, in some sort of bizarro Oklahoma universe, a Democrat) tried to force the University to cancel Dawkins's speech. Dawkins was invited to speak to celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday. Hamilton (who is most certainly not a LILF and, as far as Fosco can tell, probably did descend from monkeys) first tried to squelch Dawkins's speech with two resolutions, one of which contained this paragraph:

WHEREAS, not only has the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma been engaged in one-sided indoctrination of an unproven and unpopular theory but has made an effort to brand all thinking in dissent of this theory as anti-intellectual and backward rather than nurturing such free thinking and allowing a free discussion of all ideas which is the primary purpose of a university;

The "unproven and unpopular" part is certainly a hoot. Even if that were true (outside of Ms. Hamilton's church, that is), should we really be making decisions about scientific veracity based on popularity? As for making dissent seem "anti-intellectual and backward," I don't really think the Department of Zoology needs to do much work--Ms. Hamilton has done a good job of making her own dissent seem both anti-intellectual and backward (not to mention petty).

But because the University decided NOT to cave in to Ms. Hamilton's demands that they cancel Professor Dawkins's talk, she's moved on to Plan B: hound the OU administration to the extent that future "controversial" speakers don't seem worth the hassle. As Jonathan Turley notes:

Hamilton has reportedly demanded information relating to the speech from Vice President for Governmental Relations Danny Hilliard, including a list of all money paid to Dawkins and the entities, public or private, the total cost to the university, and an account of any “faculty time spent promoting this event.”

One can only imagine how she intends to use this information. However, I don't think you need to be a strict fundamentalist about academic freedom to recognize that a legislator has absolutely no business inquiring into the scholarly pursuits of any member of the university faculty (including any time they spend "promoting" an academic event). This is a blatantly transparent attempt to produce a chilling effect on scholarship at the University of Oklahoma (a place that, frankly, can use all the scholarship it can get).

I'm starting to think that, sometime in the last twenty years, large swaths of the American public (mostly, but not exclusively, in the "Bible belt") not only became complete idiots about science, but also lost track of what universities are supposed to do. Granted, beating Texas in football every year is an important goal for any institution of higher education; however, Oklahomans need to realize that there is actually a bit more involved in running a university. Nitwits.

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Harvard Now Just Like Other Universities: Poor.

Fosco has been following the story of Harvard's financial dissolution for several months now. You may recall that, when we last checked, Harvard had lost 8 billion dollars from its endowment in 2008. But this week, new details have emerged. In this NY Times article, you can read a profile of Harvard's embattled Endowment Director, Jane Mendillo.

You have to feel for Mendillo, who took the job on July 1, 2008. How can you not admire timing like that? It's a little like being promoted to US Director of National Intelligence on September 10, 2001. If I were a Wall Street bank, I would have a standing job offer out to Mendillo. The day after she accepts it, you would know that it's time to sell.

But whether or not Mendillo got hosed by taking her new job, she still has to try to account for the largest endowment loss in forty years--a loss that has left Harvard short of the ready cash it needs to meet its immediate obligations. As the article notes:

Harvard has frozen salaries for faculty and nonunion staff members, and offered early retirement to 1,600 employees. The divinity school has warned it may not be able to cover tuition for all its students with need, the school of arts and sciences is cutting its billion-dollar budget roughly 10 percent, and the university president said this week than the unprecedented drop in the endowment was causing it to delay its planned expansion, starting with a $1 billion science center, into the Allston neighborhood of Boston.

The delay on the Allston Science Center (pictured above) is actually the saddest part here, because it will mean an additional four to five years until Harvard students will have access to Laser Floyd.

If you're interested, there is much complicated financial jargon to help explain Harvard's situation:

The endowment was squeezed partly because it had invested more than its assets, a leveraging strategy that can magnify results, both good and bad. It also had invested heavily in private equity and related deals, which not only lock up existing cash but require investors to put up more capital over time.
[...]
She has raised the equivalent of 3 percent of assets for a cash reserve. “For a long time, Harvard had a negative 5 position,” she said. “That means that 105 percent of the assets are invested at most times.”

I don't really understand any of that, of course. But I'm pretty sure it means that Harvard is broke. All I know is that I keep getting emails every week or so from Harvard President Peri Gilpin Drew Gilpin Faust soliciting items for a "Harvard Yard Rummage Sale." I'm thinking of sending along a nice tea set that I've never used.

Senate Republicans: We Like America Dumb.

From the CNN.com list of items cut from the Senate version of the stimulus bill:

• $1 billion for Head Start/Early Start
  
• $600 million for Title I (No Child Left Behind)
  
• $16 billion for school construction
  
• $3.5 billion for higher education construction
  
• $100 million for distance learning
  
• $200 million for National Science Foundation
  

Apparently, at some point, some morons decided that education funding="pork." And besides, it's not like education has any tangible economic stimulus benefits. (Nor will I mention that undereducation has the added benefit of making most of the American public docile and easily governed... Well, I guess I just did mention it.)

Here's hoping some of that education funding makes it back into the bill in conference.

Foie Gras Sale: Everything Must Go

"Foodie Friday" continues...

Welcome to the upside of the recession: good tables at good restaurants at good times at good prices.

According to this piece by Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, NYC's fine restaurants are begging for your business (and yes, that is acclaimed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten wearing a sandwich board printed with "You Won't Believe Our Deals!" How humbling...).

As Bruni notes,

Battered hard already by the recession and petrified of what’s to come, restaurants are talking sweet and reaching out in ways they didn’t six or even three months ago. They’re cutting special deals, adding little perks, relaxing demands and making an extra effort to be accessible.

They’ve seldom wanted you so bad, so they’ve rarely treated you so good. If you can still afford to dine out, you’re likely finding yourself enfolded in what the restaurateur Stephen Hanson— who recently closed two Manhattan restaurants, including Fiamma — describes as a big, tight embrace.

This embrace takes many forms: lower prix fixe prices, a more solicitous staff, cheap wine, prime reservation times. It's like Christmas for foodies (assuming you still have a job that will let you dine out). Well, and except for the part where lots of great restaurants are closing...

Fosco and Oz, intrepid boy reporters, plan to do some research on this phenomenon in San Francisco over the next month. We'll let you know what we discover.

Gay Books Just As Unwanted As Straight Books

As bookstores not named Barnes & Noble or Borders go out of business across our post-literate nation, gay bookstores are not immune. As reported in the Times (by homosexual Harvard alum Sewell Chan), the first gay bookstore in this country, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in Greenwich Village, will close.

I guess it's no surprise that gay literature isn't popular enough to keep a store afloat, even in Manhattan (I mean, have you talked to a gay man lately? Most of them can't read a greeting card, much less an Edmund White novel). But apparently, gay men don't even buy porn on paper anymore (thanks for nothing, internet!). Even so, I thought lesbians read books; but maybe they prefer to buy from the aptly-named Amazon.

An Apology for Our Way of Life

Fosco was generally a fan of Obama's Inaugural Address, especially his inclusion of "non-believers" in the list of people who make up this country (Fosco's friend Todd was pleased with this as well). And as for the Bushies who were offended by Obama's obvious repudiation of the previous administration? They can suck it.

But now, two days later, Fosco remains a bit troubled by one line from the address in particular:

We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.

There are (at least) two ways to read the defiance in this sentence, depending on what you think Obama means about "our way of life."

If this phrase means things like sexual and racial equality, free speech, something like democratic representation, and some level of tolerance for difference, then sign me up. Those are good things and there is no need to apologize for the social benefits of a liberal democratic society. However, who is actually asking us to apologize for these things? Other than maybe a few mullahs? If this is what the line means, I like it; but it's not really a line with very broad application.

However, there are plenty of things about our "way of life" that we really ought to be apologizing for. Our CO2 emissions. Our addicted consumerism. Our economic exploitation of the Third World. Our consumption of an obscene amount of the world's resources (per capita). Our narcissism and exceptionalism. Cultural imperialism. SUVs, hedge funds, high fructose corn syrup, and celebrities. Now Fosco is not speaking to you as someone who is above these things; he is as much caught up in this "way of life" as the rest of us (well, except for the SUV part). But there is a lot about our way of life that is indefensible. And even though it can be hard (very hard) for us to change how we live (to live more simply, more sustainably), that still doesn't make our current way of life right.

So yeah, maybe when it comes to some things about our way of life, we do owe the world an apology. And we also owe a commitment to make things right. And I wish Obama had been more clear about this.

Decline and Fall

Let me begin by saying clearly and without exaggeration that The New York Times is the record of civilization.

Some of you may find that to be an odd statement; Fosco stands by it. He's not saying the NYT is perfect, nor is he an apologist for its many failures. He generally finds their coverage of things they don't understand to be snide or dismissive. And yes, he recognizes that their sports coverage is really myopic. But despite all of those flaws, there is no other publication in the world that attempts as ambitiously (and mostly succeeds) to tell the story of life in our world. Like I said, the Times is the record of civilization. I just don't see how anyone, even a hermaphroditic skeletal lizard, could maintain otherwise.

And yet, according to an article by Michael Hirschorn in The Atlantic, the NYT is already dead and will be decomposing more quickly than any of us could have expected:

[W]hat if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?

Don't laugh. It's actually a serious possibility. More likely, however, is that The Times won't shutter entirely. Rather, Hirschorn lists a number of potential alternatives that will save the paper from complete insolvency. However, none of them will save the paper as we know it. As Hirschorn argues:

Regardless of what happens over the next few months, The Times is destined for significant and traumatic change. At some point soon—sooner than most of us think—the print edition, and with it The Times as we know it, will no longer exist.

Fosco is very upset about this. Really. And not just because the fiance of one of Fosco's favorite people writes for The Times. No, this is something that will have serious consequences for our society. As Hirschorn notes:

The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things. For those of us old enough to still care about going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times, it will mean the end of a certain kind of civilized ritual that has defined most of our adult lives. It will also mean the end of a certain kind of quasi-bohemian urban existence for the thousands of smart middle-class writers, journalists, and public intellectuals who have, until now, lived semi-charmed kinds of lives of the mind. And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy. Internet purists may maintain that the Web will throw up a new pro-am class of citizen journalists to fill the void, but for now, at least, there’s no online substitute for institutions that can marshal years of well-developed sourcing and reporting experience—not to mention the resources to, say, send journalists leapfrogging between Mumbai and Islamabad to decode the complexities of the India-Pakistan conflict.

And suppose that The Times does become an online-only concern. It still won't be The Times as any of us know it:

Common estimates suggest that a Web-driven product could support only 20 percent of the current staff; such a drop in personnel would (in the short run) devastate The Times’ news-gathering capacity.

[...]

In this scenario, nytimes.com would begin to resemble a bigger, better, and less partisan version of the Huffington Post, which, until someone smarter or more deep-pocketed comes along, is the prototype for the future of journalism: a healthy dose of aggregation, a wide range of contributors, and a growing offering of original reporting.

Now don't get Fosco wrong: he loves The Huffington Post immoderately. But there is no question that a HuffPo-style tabloid/blog hybrid (tablog? blogloid?) is not a substitute for a real newspaper of record. A world without The New York Times will be a world that is a bit less worth living in.