I grew up in Highland Park, Illinois, just down the street from where the telephone was invented. I now live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just down the street from where it was stolen. Seth Shulman’s recent book The Telephone Gambit lays out the clearest case yet of how it all happened. Here’s the summary: Alexander Graham Bell (or Aleck Bell, as he was then called) was the son of Alexander Melville Bell, the inventor of a system of phonic notation called Visible Speech. The elder Bell would use Aleck as an assistant in his demonstrations: After sending Aleck to wait in another room, Mr. Bell would ask the audience for a word or strange noise then write it in Visible Speech. Aleck would return and reproduce the sound from the writing alone. Voila. As a child growing up like this, he played at inventing machines that could talk and telegraphs that could listen. But he found his career in tutoring the deaf — by teaching them to pronounce the phonemes of Visible Speech, he eventually succeeded in teaching them to talk and read lips. One of his students was Mabel Hubbard, daughter of prominent Boston lawyer Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Son of a Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice, Hubbard established water and gas and trolley utilities for Cambridge, Mass. — some of the first in the nation. He also fervently lobbied Congress to replace Western Union’s monopoly on the telegraph with a new corporation, the US Postal Telegraph Company, that would contract with the government Post Office. At the time, telegraph wires blanketed the skies of Boston, hanging in a dense web above the buildings. Many desperately wished for someone to develop a telegraph that could send multiple messages over the same wire, so that many wires could be replaced with just one. The theory was that if one could transmit the messages using different tones, they would “harmonize” instead of interfere, leading the idea to be called the “harmonic telegraph”. Naturally, Alexander Graham Bell turned his tinkering to this problem and persuaded Hubbard (as well as Thomas Sanders, another father of a Bell student) to finance his research in exchange for a share of any future US profits. Further complicating matters, Bell had fallen in love with his student, Mabel Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard made it clear he did not approve of such a marriage unless Bell made a profitable discovery. But Bell was simply a hobbyist, the real research was being done by a man named Elisha Gray. Gray ran Western Electric, the leading supplier of technical expertise to telegraph monopoly Western Union. From his lab in Highland Park, Illinois, he and his assistants worked feverishly at new discoveries. Bell was well aware of this and considered himself to be in a race with Gray to invent the harmonic telegraph first. In 1875, Bell made a breakthrough in his work on the harmonic telegraph. But he was a crafty fellow — his deal with Gardiner and Sanders was only about splitting US profits; it said nothing about profits overseas. British law at the time granted patents only to inventions not patented elsewhere first, so Bell drew up several copies of his harmonic telegraph patent and sent some to be filed in Britain first. The rest were sent to DC to be filed as soon as word got back from Britain. On February 14, 1876, while the lawyers were waiting in DC to file Bell’s patent, Gray filed a patent of his own. Bell’s lawyers were close to the patent officers and had asked to be tipped off if Gray tried to file something, so they could file Bell’s patent first. When Gray’s patent was placed in the patent office’s inbox, Bell’s lawyers hand-delivered Bell’s patent to the examiner, so they could claim he’d received Bell’s first. The patent examiner, Zenas Fisk Wilber, had fought in the civil war with Bell’s attorney, Marcellus Bailey. Wilber was an alcoholic and owed Bailey money (a serious Patent Office ethics violation). To pay his friend back, he showed him Gray’s application. Bailey was startled to find it wasn’t a patent on a harmonic telegraph at all — it was a patent for a telephone, capable of transmitting all the sounds of human speech and music. He called for Bell to come to DC at once. Bell did, and examiner Wilber showed him Gray’s patent as well, taking time to explain how it worked. Bell thanked him and returned that afternoon with $100 for his trouble. Bell then quickly scribbled an addition to his patent in the margin, adding that it should also cover “transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically” (this addition does not appear in any of the other copies). Contravening much standard practice at the time, Bell’s (modified) patent was quickly granted, while Gray’s was denied. It was issued the same day Bell returned home from DC, March 7, 1876. The following day, Bell drew in his lab notebook a copy of the diagram he had seen in Elisha Gray’s patent: It took Bell several days of tinkering, but soon he was able to replicate Gray’s device. On March 10, he made that now-famous call: “Watson — come here — I want to see you.” Both Bell and his assistant Watson recorded the event that night in their notebooks. But Bell didn’t want to simply duplicate Gray’s work; he wanted to invent a telephone of his own. He spent many months trying to develop a telephone that worked on a different principle, but never succeeded in getting it to clearly transmit audible speech. Bell was always extraordinarily reluctant to demonstrate his telephone, for fear that Gray would learn it was a simple copy. Mabel had to trick him into attending the Centennial Exposition, where he was supposed to demonstrate his work to a group of engineers, including Elisha Gray. On one occasion, Bell’s telephone patent was set to be annulled unless Bell would swear under oath that the invention was truly his. Bell fled the country, testifying only at the last minute after desperate pleading from Mabel. The legal conniving a success, Bell and Mabel were soon married. Feeling guilty, Bell gave all but ten of his shares in the Bell Telephone Company to her and swore to never work in telephony again. The company was operated by Gardiner and others while Bell went back to working with the deaf. He always said he was more proud of his work for the deaf than of the telephone. It took Gray a long time to realize that Bell’s patent was a fraud. For one thing, he was still focused on the harmonic telegraph; his customers at Western Union couldn’t imagine running telephone wires to every house and thus couldn’t see how talking over wires was particularly useful. For another, it took years for the story to leak out, through numerous court battles and Congressional hearings. Zenas Fisk Wilber’s affidavit confessing to what he’d done did not appear until 1886, a decade later. Bell’s notebooks, making clear the blatant copy, were not made public until the 1990s. Bell’s biographers have gone to heroic lengths to explain away all the evidence. Refusing credit for the telephone just showed Bell’s humility; not being involved in the corporation showed his dedication to pure research. The fact that both patents were filed on the same day is a grand historic coincidence — or perhaps Gray stole the idea from Bell. As a result, Gray is forgotten and Bell is remembered as one of history’s great inventors — not as he should be: a hobbyist and a fraud, forced by love into stealing one of the greatest inventions of all time. Now playing: Regina Spector - “On The Radio”

Previously: 2007 Review of Books, Books I recommend Without Reservation: 2006 I read exactly 100 books this year. I mistakenly told someone over the summer that I read a hundred books a year (I only read 70 last year, although 120 the year before that) and as the new year approached I felt duty-bound to make that true. (This led to spending a lot of New Year’s Eve in a corner reading, as this list may suggest.) Here are the books (in chronological order), with occasional short comments. Books I’m happy to have read are linked. Books I recommend are in bold. Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Seemed decent for the format. Gecan, Going Public The Activist’s Handbook. Could be better written, but probably the best of its type. I’ve definitely thought back to this one a lot this year. Poundstone, How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Poundstone, Labyrinths of Reason Lodge, Changing Places. Typical campus novel fun, but with some great People’s Park stories. Elster, Political Psychology. Short Elster essay collection. Probably for Elster fans only. Lords of Poverty (skipped parts) On Being Nonprofit. Completely unmemorable. How to Do Things with Words. Important in its time, but mostly overtaken by Searle’s later work. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Campaign Finance Reform and the Future of the Democratic Party The Visible Hand. Tough sledding, but important points. Read my summary. Thaler, The Winner’s Curse Poundstone, Fortune’s Formula Fantastic fun. Math, mafiosi, movies. Freeman, Rawls (parts) MacKenzie, An Engine Not a Camera. I recommend starting with his LRB stuff. Fitch, Solidarity for Sale. For leftists who really love unions. You need to know the flaws to make them better. Maisel, From Obscurity to Oblivion: Running in the Congressional Primary. Not a lot of books on the inside of campaigns, but this is one of the few. Segaran, Programming Collective Intelligence. Terrible title, but a good book on how to do data mining. Willis, Learning to Labor. Not as great as the excerpts I’d read had led me to think. The Brain: A Very Short Introduction Peck, Hatchet Jobs. Fun stuff. Sloan, My Years with General Motors (skipped second half). I read this to understand how modern management was invented. It did not help. Hoopes, False Prophets A wonderful series of profiles of the most prominent management theorists going back to slavery and Taylor. The book’s editorial line is a bit marred by the inability of the author (a B-School prof and manager) to reconcile his belief that management power is unjust and that it is necessary. But solid history and good takedowns of some important figures. Dani Rodrik, Has Globalization Gone Too Far? (lent by Henry Farrell). A good book, but not for general readers. A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Mixed feelings. Wilson, To The Finland Station. Really, really good. Edmund Wilson was the incredible writer you’d expect and this is his masterpiece. Maurer, The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man Luc Sante’s intro alone is worth the price of the book, but the rest of the book is fantastic as well. Everyone should know about con men. (The BBC’s Hustle is obviously a television adaptation of the book.) A Choice Not an Echo: The Inside Story of How American Presidents Are Chosen. Still crazy after all these years, although the whole anti-backroom thing is interesting. I read it to see what you could airdrop on college kids. Khurana, Searching for a Corporate Savior Really, truly great. Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? (skimmed) Debunking Economics. Quite good, although not perfect. Men and Women of the Corporation. Carlson, Executive Behavior. Worthless Elster, Explaining Social Behavior Magical, magisterial masterpiece. (my review; more on Elster) Piven, Challenging Authority. Kind of thin; I glazed over portions. Rosen, The World Split Open Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think. Terrible. From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences Brook, The Trap Gessen, All the Sad Young Literary Men Khurana, From Higher Aims to Hired Hands Glymour, The Mind’s Arrows Pearl, Causality. I wish everyone understood this. Elster, Strong Feelings Gelman et. al., Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State (sent by Andrew Gelman). Lots of great empirical work, but little theory or story to back it up. Lodge, Nice Work Typical campus novel fun, but with deeper thoughts about business and finance. Armstrong and Moulitsas, Crashing the Gate Menand, American Studies Galbraith, The Predator State My summary. Watchmen Brilliant. Wanted to see it before the movie came out. Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons Mann, Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1 Tough reading, but really fascinating stuff. Frank, The Wrecking Crew. Lots of good dirt, but not exactly the most rigorous theoretical argument. Perry, Spectrum. Perry is great — the autoinvestigatorial last chapter alone is worth it. Bearman et. al., Doormen. I read this because I now have a doorman and am uncomfortable about it. This helped. Teles, Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement. Good stuff, although narrow. DFW, McCain’s Promise. Brilliant, naturally. I’d read Up, Simba! before, of course, but I read this out loud to a friend and it was just a joy to do. Ken Silverstein, Turkmeniscam. Great fun. Not just a great story of investigative journalism, but lots of interesting and important background as well. I’m a huge Silverstein fan. DFW, Everything and More. This book is an interesting, but, I think, ultimately unsuccessful experiment. DFW tries to teach math by channelling his favorite math teacher — writing in the style of an excitable lecturer, completely with verbal tics and backtracking (which, in printed form, becomes kind of a running gag). It’s certainly not a bad book by any means, but I don’t think it’s really a successful model for how books can teach math. Wodehouse, Psmith in the City. Hilarious. Psmith is a delight. I want to hear him acted but the recent BBC version is dreadful. Clark, Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours (skimmed parts) How Wikipedia Works (skimmed parts) Latour and Woolgar, Laboratory Life. Delightful. I apologize humbly and abjectly for ever criticizing the strong programme of science. Sokal and Bricmont led me badly astray on that one. DFW, Consider the Lobster DFW’s suicide hit me very hard. I ended up coping by reading every piece of nonfiction he’d ever published. He was a brilliant, tortured man and I see so much of myself in him. His nonfiction was fantastic and I will consider my life a success if I can do half of what he did. If you want to get started, I recommend (best work first): Federer as Religious Experience [B/W PDF] “David Lynch Keeps His Head”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (there’s a severely abbreviated version printed in Premiere; read the real thing instead) “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (the Harper’s version [PDF] preserves most of the good stuff but is shorter) Krugman, Peddling Prosperity Probably Krugman’s best book, it provides a throughly enjoyable and enlightening intellectual overview of the economics of the 1980s and 1990s. The delicious takedown of supplysiders is worth the book alone, but the rest is great too. Tough, Whatever It Takes. A great read; a bit overly credulous — doesn’t address Keynesian critics of intervention or betray much skepticism about tests. (my review) Wolfe, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Great fun. The Homework Myth. Sometimes it seems like Kohn just gets narrower and narrower (via email, he disputes this). Savage Mules. A good antidote for faith in the Democratic Party. (dsquared’s review) Beam, Great Idea at the Time. A fun historical take down of the Great Books. Probably more fun if you know what the Great Books are. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Borderline unreadable. Why did everyone rave about this book? Love at Goon Park. The first section is a (confessed!) retread of Becoming Attached, one of my very favorite books (a 2006 highlight). But after that it gets much better and the interplay of animal and human stories is a lot of fun. I’ve been reading it to the five-year-old, who loves animal stories of all sorts, and she just laps it up. (I skip the incredibly dark parts, of course.) Newsweek, Secrets of the 2008 Campaign (full text online). For campaign junkies only. Perlstein, Tested. Very good. (my review) Keynes, Economic Consequences of the Peace (full text online). Wow, Keynes knows how to write. The first section is a must-read for any diplomat. Chapters 4 and 5 (which unfortunately are the bulk of the book) are only worth skipping or skimming for modern readers. Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York (scripts). What a movie! There were a lot of script reviews that said things along the lines of “I don’t know if movies can capture a script this complex.” Reading the script now, you see the exact opposite is the case. The script is a pale imitation of the film, missing most of what made the film magical. Which just underscores what a great movie it was. Bowles and Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America. Not the easiest read, but brilliant. One of the very very few books I want to read again (in this case, because I am sure I didn’t get it all the first time). The definitive Marxist take on education. Smile When You’re Lying Tons of fun. I hate traveling and have never cracked a travel book, but this angry and profane insider’s evisceration of the industry was still a complete joy. Read Ezra’s review — with a comment from the author!. DFW, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. Brilliant. Just brilliant. Keynes, Essays in Persuasion. Douthat, Privilege (lent by Rick Perlstein). What is wrong with Ross Douthat? This book is eminently mockable, but I have to say I could see writing most of it myself. Which is weird, since Douthat is a staunch conservative and I’m a crazy-far-leftist. Is Douthat a double-agent? Or is he really this confused about what conservatism is about? I wrote this summary for Rick: Prologue: Harvard is actually an education in the ruling class. [Ross didn’t like Harvard so much.] 1: Diversity policies ensure all sorts of ethnicities get accepted but they all come from the upper class. [Big black homeless guy starts living in Ross’s dorm.] 2: The real ruling class gets tapped for private clubs where they get connected to wealthy alumni and rape attractive coeds. [Ross gets invited to apply at various clubs and rejected.] 3: Students are aggressive social climbers, calibrating who they talk to and what activities they join to maximize their resume. [Ross’s friend’s friend gets arrested for embezzling.] 4: Persuaded that the market is God and academia is a sideshow, professors give students easy grades to help them get good jobs and be rich (thus proving the professors’ worth). Courses are poorly taught and maddeningly specific — its very difficult to get a solid general education. [Ross doesn’t like his classes and gets mediocre grades.] 5: Random drunken hookups are so common that the only way to get any kind of commitment is to fall into a college marriage (of which, I must say, there is a beautiful description pp. 145-147). [Ross falls head-over-heels for a totally agonizing tease, only to have her give it up months later to a preppy sailing kid who gets her drunk.] 6: Most harvard students arrive virgins and have a hards time getting any while they’re there, out of awkwardness and fear of threatening their spot in the overclass. [Ross can’t even get laid at an all-girls school.] 7: The student body is primarily New Democrat, with a smattering of vocal leftist protestors. [Ross supports the living wage movement. [ed. note: wtf?]] 8: Harvard students spend summers at elite internships acclimating to their future careers. [Ross goes sailing with William F. Buckley!] 9: 9/11 sucked. [Ross laps up the patriotic spirit and the Summers presidency.] …and then a tearfelt ending. Sorry, did I end up mocking it a little? Gore, Sammy’s Hill. Yes, I have a weakness for chick lit. What Motivates Bureaucrats? A genuine investigation (as opposed to the typical social science arms-length thinking) into how Reagan affected the civil service. In short, our civil service is the opposite of what you see on Yes, Minister — they were practically falling over themselves to kneecap their own agency in response to the President. Kind of sad, but hopefully this means that Obama will also have wide lattitude. DFW and Mark Costello, Signifying Rappers. A great book, although surprisingly the best parts are written by Costello. A dense intermixed weave of music, history, race, law, fantasia, and brilliant writing. The Telephone Gambit. Decently researched, mixed in with self-indulgent (and just plain bad) autobiography about writing the book. I wrote up a summary of the story which I’ll be publishing soon and you should probably just read that instead. But everybody should agree that Bell stole the telephone from Gray after this book. Krugman, The Age of Diminished Expectations (1st ed). Bleh. Krugman’s first book, back before he knew how to write. Bartels, Unequal Democracy. I’m also going to publish a summary of this. Beam, Gracefully Insane. Like all good residents of Cambridge, being institutionalized in McLean has long been a dream. After enjoying Beam’s other book (Great Idea at the Time) this seemed right up my alley, but it was nowhere near as good. Gore, Sammy’s House. The Gore books were bothering me because I could never figure out who Wye and RG were supposed to be — all the other characters mapped pretty obviously onto current politicians, but the candidates were a mystery. I’d somehow forgotten my first instinct: RG is AG, which means that you have to think back two decades or so. Once you realize that, everything falls into place. Wodehouse, Mike: A Public School Story. The first Psmith story. Cricket, cricket, cricket, cricket. Sigh. Ice Cream Man. Good fun for Tosci’s fans. Kuttner, Obama’s Challenge V for Vendetta. Moore’s whole story about how the movie softened the fascism and anarchism seems completely bogus. That said, the movie did change some fantastic parts, including V’s televised speech and the brilliantly convoluted Hamlet-esque ending. Also, the movie’s whole virus attack subplot was stupid. On the other hand, the movie added some great stuff too. So see both, I guess. Krugman, Pop Internationalism. The essays Krugman wrote before Peddling Prosperity, meaning it discusses the same stuff but much more disjointed and poorly edited. I was hoping it’d explain the mystery of his animus towards Laura D’A, but no such luck. First-Time Manager. A much better book than I expected, but enough tin-ear corporate silliness that I can’t thoroughly recommend it. Searle, The Campus War (full text online). Actually, a really good book on the campus uprisings of the 1960s. First, there’s some terrific first-hand reporting from Searle’s experience at Berkeley (in which he participated in all three sides: the uprising, the faculty response, and the administration counterattack!). Second, there’s some good secondhand summarizing about the experience at other campuses. Third, there’s some good analysis about why campus uprisings happen and what they mean. Fourth, there are some interesting proposals for reforming the university. (I, too, want to get rid of the trustee system.) Makes me wish Searle did more non-philosophy books! Haggis-on-Whey, Animals of the Ocean (In Particular, the Giant Squid). Not as good as the original (now in its third edition!). Happy new year!

part of Bubble City “Hello?” asked the woman at the reception desk. The lobby was filled with colorful baubles — lava lamps and bouncy balls, comfy sofas and computer terminals, and a minifridge stocked with a wide variety of Odwalla beverages. The whole thing was calibrated perfectly to seem somehow relaxed yet ostentatious at the same time. “Hello?” the receptionist asked again, a little less patient this time. She was an attractive woman, Wayne thought — mid-twenties, straight brown hair, thick-rimmed glasses perched atop a prominent nose — he struggled to focus. “Uh, yes, hello there,” he finally said. “What brings you to Google today?” she asked. “Oh, uh, I’m here to see—I mean, I guess—I have a meeting.” She stared a bit, then nodded. “I see. Can I ask with whom?” “Samuel Boxton. He’s expecting me.” “Of course. And your name?” “Wayne Darnus.” “Thanks, Wayne. It’ll just be a moment while I ring him. In the mean time, can you sign in on this computer?” She pointed to a terminal on top of the desk before tapping a few keys, apparently connecting the hands-free headset she was already wearing. The terminal asked for his name, employer, host, and signature (for the mandatory non-disclosure agreement, of course), before printing out a badge he was encouraged to affix to his chest, marking him as an interloper. “Yes, Mr. Darnus here to see you,” the receptionist was saying. “42 Lobby. Of course.” She turned to Wayne. “He’ll just be a minute — please take a seat.” On the coffee table were the various usual industry magazines, which Wayne thumbed through nervously before putting them back down. He scanned the walls, which were covered in various plaques and puff pieces and commendations. He begun to feel very small and felt his heart beat a little more quickly. Why did a place designed to seem so friendly actually seem to make him feel scared? Wayne’s eyes made several more circuits around the room and through the magazines before Samuel suddenly arrived, bright and cheerful as anything. “Wayne! Good to see you!” he exclaimed. Wayne jumped up, extending an arm. But Samuel went in for a full embrace — not something Wayne was used to; usually the situation was reversed. “Look,” Samuel said, “right this way.” Samuel led him out of the lobby and into the courtyard. They went past the endless swimming pool and the volleyball court, the dinosaur skeleton and model rocketship — all glinting in the sun. As they went further, the buildings became more bland and boxy, across parking lots and service ways and sidestreets, parts of the sprawling Google campus normal visitors rarely saw. They entered another building through a backdoor, Samuel swiping his keycard to get in. After that came a maze of twisty little passageways, with little in the way of signage to help distinguish between them. They came to a series of metal doors labeled “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” which this time required a palm-print. Finally, they reached a conference room labeled 10^2 - e^iπ. “Take a seat,” Samuel offered. Wayne did, grabbing a seat and the end of a long conference table. Samuel grabbed one around the corner from him, a large projector filling the wall at his back. “So, Wayne, I understand you have some concerns,” he offered. “Can we talk about them?” “Concerns?” Wayne said nervously. “Oh, no — I’m not sure what you mean.” “Really? Nothing’s been bothering you? Here’s your chance to have it out with the big guys — we here at Google are all ears!” “No, really, I think Google’s been doing a great job.” “Look, Wayne,” Samuel said, sliding a mouse and keyboard in front of him. “With a couple of taps here, I can get you any Google employee you want. Is there really nothing at all you have to say to them?” Samuel was looking Wayne straight in the eye. “Uh, hmm, well, it’s a very generous offer you have there, but, uh — I really just can’t think of anything right now. Uh, heh, if only you’d given me time to prepare! A-heh-heh. I’m sure I could have thought of plenty of things!” “I’m really sorry to hear you say that, Wayne. Because a funny thing happened this morning. I was just doing some regular user analysis on our Google Videocast software — nothing out of the ordinary, of course — and I just happened to come across this little clip.” Samuel tapped a few keys and there, in full-screen video, was Wayne, his head filling the whole back wall, then repeated in miniature on various screens across the room. Wayne recognized the video and his stomach began to sink: I know I’ve been a supporter of Google in the past. But I think they’ve finally crossed the line. I’ve recently received information that they are chasing and persecuting a young kid just beca— Wayne slunk into his seat. “Now, I hope you understand my predicament, Wayne,” Samuel said. “As part of Google Evangelism, it’s my job to ensure that the world thinks only the best of Google. That they see all the good things we’re doing for the world. That they see all the progress we’re inspiring.” “Because of Google products, billions of dollars have been added to the global economy, people are sharing and communicating more than ever before, kids in Africa now get a chance to read every book in the libraries of Harvard.” Samuel looked wistful. “It’s really some amazing stuff. And I’m proud just to be a part of it.” “Which is why I can’t let you jeopardize all that,” he said, turning serious. “Especially not by repeating some crazy story I told you over drinks. No, there’s just too much at stake.” “Look, I’m a good person. Here at Google we’re all good people. Don’t be evil is our motto, for goodness’ sake. But doing what’s good isn’t the same as doing what’s easy. Sometimes making the right decisions requires doing things that are really very hard. An this is one of those situations.” “We all love you here at Google, Wayne. And we’ve always been eager to support you — surely you know that more than anyone. But I think we’ve reached a point in our relationship where it might be best to keep you a little closer.” Samuel smiled. “Closer?” Wayne said, finally. “What do you mean?” Samuel reached underneath the desk for something. “Why don’t you wait right here a minute and we’ll show you. Just a sec!” Then he got up and walked down the hall and thru the large metal doors, leaving Wayne and his visitors’ badge behind him. Trent felt the wind riffling through his hair, the top down on his BMW 328i. He was heading north, past the San Francisco traffic, across he beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, through the gorgeous hills and valleys of Marin, to the spacious beauty of Napa. The life of a technology executive was stressful, which is why these work-related getaways were so important. It seemed like every month there was some kind of executive retreat up here — a place where the Important Men of Business could get away from it all, loosen their ties, and swap stories in the golden California sun. They were roughin’ it. He parked his car on the gravel, before heading to the courtyard where a suited caterer was pouring drinks. “Whiskey sour,” he ordered, before looking for somewhere to mingle. “Hey, Trent! It’s so good to see you.” A man he didn’t quite recognize grabbed him by the shoulder. “Thank you so much for coming — it’s a real treat to have you.” “Of course, of course!” Trent replied. “How could I resist another chance to visit a beautiful place like this?” He gestured around him. “Well, just make yourself at home. We’ve got some time to chat until six and then we’ll all be heading into town for dinner.” “I can’t wait.” The fellow, who was apparently the host, smiled and headed off in search of other people to welcome. “Don, from Google,” someone said, extending a hand. “Trent, from Newsflip,” Trent replied. “Ahh, Newsflip — I’ve heard a lot of good things about you,” Don said. “Oh, well, I’m very glad to hear that. We always look up to our friends down in the Valley.” “Actually,” Don said, “I’m not going to be down there for long. I just got word that I’m going to be one of the lucky few who can transition to our upcoming San Francisco office.” “Really? Well, congratulations!” “Thank you. You know, actually, we have an interesting meeting coming up on NNA-related issues at Google Mountain View. You really should attend.” “Oh, fascinating. I’ll definitely send a programmer or two.” “No, this is a very high-level summit. Just CEOs and above. Obviously the top people from our side will be there as well.” “Interesting,” Trent said. He was always a sucker for networking. “I’d love to come.” “Fantastic — I’ll call your assistant and be sure to get it set up. There’s just one thing I should warn you about, though.” “Oh, really? What’s that?” “After you visit us at Google, you may never want to leave!” They both laughed, although Don rather harder. Trent scanned the courtyard for other people he should speak to, but nobody seemed particularly appealing. He decided to sneak into a group standing by the corner, laughing wildly. “That’s a great idea,” someone was saying. “In fact, maybe we should hold all our meetings at strip clubs from now on.” “Well, you know what I say,” another man added. “If they can’t hold their liquor, how can you expect them to hold a job?” Trent just smiled and nodded.

It’s been a frustrating year for us Sidekick users. It seems like every television show, periodical, and man in the street is raving about the amazing world-changing capabilities of the iPhone (and, to a lesser extent, the Google Phone). How having a device that can conveniently surf the Web, answer email, run third-party applications and fit in your pocket is as big a technological breakthrough as hovercars. Which is infuriating to those of us who have been using a superior device for the past five years. From the very first demo of the iPhone, it was obvious it was a knockoff of the Sidekick. The UI demo Steve Jobs did — calling two people and then merging the calls — is the exact same demo I’d given to all my friends to show off the incredible UI polish and attention to detail by the Sidekick developers. Sure, there were some differences — most notably that Apple’s artists had prettied up the iPhone UI as compared to the 8-bit basement wackos who drew up the Sidekick’s — but it was clear that this was an evolutionary change, not the revolutionary leap everyone made it out to be. And, when I bought an iPhone, it became clear it wasn’t even an improvement. The touch-keyboard made it impossible to type anything at length (I regularly composed whole articles on my Sidekick), the lack of multitasking made it impossible to queue up articles in the Web browser and read them on the subway (I read several books on the Sidekick), instant messages weren’t even supported, and the swipe-to-scroll method quickly grew tiresome. Within a couple weeks, I sold the phone to a friend (although not before getting an outrageous roaming bill from AT&T because the iPhone couldn’t keep its mouth shut). For those two weeks, though, I was repeatedly stopped and gawked at by well-dressed people in airports and trains. They all wanted to know “Is that the iPhone?” and “How is it?” By contrast, those people, when they saw me using the Sidekick, assumed it was a videogame device. But it wasn’t as if the Sidekick was unheard of. As soon as I wandered out of the land of white folks in suits-and-ties, black and latino kids would rush up to me and gab about the Sidekick. During one trip, a latina middle-schooler stopped me on the sidewalk and asked if I’d gotten the latest firmware update yet. “It has JavaScript support!” she enthused. Browsing the Sidekick user forums bore this out — it was all black and latino schoolchildren. But, of course, neither minorities nor schoolchildren rule the world, so the Sidekick has been written out of history. 2007 was the first time anyone had thought to give a smartphone a decent UI, or a web browser, or an over-the-air application store. Well, at least it was the first time anyone thought to tell white people.

(in no particular order) The Wonk Wing: Thoughtful exploration of important policy issues by decent writers who are clearly fascinated by their subject. Not only would you get a first-class education in the relevant issues around health care, global warming, urban sprawl, zoning, traffic, sewage, etc. but you’d have fun while doing it. Think Ezra Klein for more than just health care. Think The Wonk Room but more Sorkin and less Pennebaker. (Sorry, Wonk Room!) Perfect Devices: Coverage of things which are simply the best-in-the-world at what they do, and the stories of how they got there. I want stories from the people who calibrate bathroom-mirror lighting to be the perfect combination of brightness and diffusion “so that it’s diagnostically acute without being brutal” (ASFTINDA, 302). I want stories about the kitchen at French Laundry and Alinea. I want the start-to-finish story of HF&J designing a typeface. (Yes, I’m eagerly awaiting Objectified.) 17th and Pennsylvania: This is the address of the Starbucks outside the White House, where apparently executive branch officials regularly grab coffee, chat, and meet with a wide variety of famous-for-DC types. Why doesn’t an enterprising Gawker Stalker simply sit there and write down what happens? This Academic Life: Stories of new papers and research results — not just a summary of the work itself, but the story of how it fits into the field’s debates, the personal intrigues of the players, the implications for the wider world. Basically, Lingua Fraca returning as a blog. Evisceration Quarterly: A daily selection of the finest in insults, takedowns, and general argumentative evisceration. The motto: teaching you how to think by showing you how not to. And, to not be entirely negative, the occasional model of clarity. With special blogging consultant, Brad DeLong.

A Liberal Shock Doctrine: Our economy is collapsing. There’s a Democratic majority in the House and possibly a supermajority in the Senate. In the last election, both parties campaigned on change and the candidate accused of socialism won, by a solid majority. There will never be another time like now. Obama must take swift action to pass radical change. Fill the cabinet with vocal progressives, push a series of strong progressive bills thru Congress, take full advantage of the first hundred days. Anything else will squander the promise of this election. The Audacity of Patience: If Obama tries to pass his wishlist in the first hundred days, it will blow up in his face. Not because America is a center-right country, but because it’s a left-wing one. The radical conservatives knew it was unlikely they would hold on to power, so they had to do as much as they could in the time they had. Progressives don’t face that deadline; it now seems possible to permanently destroy this incarnation of the Republicans Party. What’s needed is not urgent action, but the slow and careful work of building an enduring majority. That means bringing in Republicans, occupying the rhetorical (if not political) center, and passing incremental steps that lead to lasting change. But most importantly, it means being effective. We don’t need partisans, we need people with experience who can get things done. Even moderate bills passed now can ensure Democratic domination for a generation, allowing plenty of opportunity to improve things in the decades to come. Open the Overton Window: This is how it starts. First it’s the campaign, then the first hundred days, then the midterms, then reelection, then more midterms, and then the next nominee’s campaign (who is unlikely to be as talented or progressive as this one). There’s always an excuse to put off the important changes. If you’re serious about lasting change, hiring moderates is the wrong way to go. It doesn’t attract Republicans; it just sends the message Democrats aren’t serious. The electorate likes success; if success comes from Democrats, then they’ll like Democrats. A progressive cabinet can move the ball forward by having their agencies implement countless small reforms while using their status as public figures to build support for bigger ones. All of which will further cement the Democrats’ reputation as the party of progress. The country isn’t left-wing because it likes people with blue logos and D’s next to their names; it’s left-wing because it wants shared prosperity and security. If Democrats don’t deliver, they’ll turn to someone else. Spin Up the Noise Machine: It’s not the Cabinet’s job to push new policy ideas. They can’t — their job is to push the President’s agenda and promote official doctrine. Building support for new ideas is the job of the ideological infrastructure that Democrats have been building over the past eight years: CAP, CAF, TAP, and the rest. Sure, during the Bush Administration they had to spend all their time fighting bad ideas, but with a Democratic president they can start rallying support for good ones. And a President who leads as a consensus figure will be much more effective at passing them. America is sick of fierce partisanship; it longs for a government it can believe in again. A Cabinet of moderates and conservatives will be much more convincing salespeople for progressive proposals than a group of fire-breathing liberals. An American Renewal: Do you seriously believe that? Sure, we can all agree this administration has been a disaster, but once Bush and his cronies recede into the distance, this coalition of moderates and conservatives will fall apart. The factions will start sniping at each other in the press, use their control over staff to advance their own agendas, and just generally try to sabotage the President’s proposals — and with it, his appearance of effectiveness. This country has been very badly misrun for almost a decade. Shills for industry pervade the regulators, conservative loyalists have burrowed deep into every agency, and public discussion has been pulled so far right that most people don’t even remember what a left-wing idea looks like. (As opposed to the purely factual questions the left has been consistently correct about.) What’s needed is a process of serious American renewal. A bunch of DC think-tanks pushing policy papers isn’t going to do it; the problems are serious enough that leadership has to come from the top. Blow-Up: Which brings me back to where I started. You can’t just spin this country around in an instant; it will take years of hard work. Sure, a coalition of moderates may end up falling apart, but a group of fervent partisans will never get off the ground. Even with the crisis, America just isn’t ready for a complete policy reversal. Our best hope is to take them there gradually — passing increasingly ambitious policy, appointing increasingly progressive officials, electing increasingly progressive candidates. There are no quick fixes; that’s what we’ll have to do if you really want to win.

For the past six months or so, I’ve been working on getting data out of government in various ways. At one point, I was looking thru SEC files online and noticed that some portions were redacted. I filed a Freedom of Information request for the redacted portion and any documents pertaining to why it was redacted. It ended up costing $28 and to make sure I get the most for my money, I thought I’d share the results with you: Confidential Treatment Requested by General Electric Company 1. Please refer to comment 5 of our letter dated August 21, 2007. Please provide a more detailed analysis justifying the omission of disclosure […] that specifically sets fort the manner in which competitors could use the information to obtain the competitive advantage cited in your response. Response [*** Confidential treatment requested for the paragraphs below: General Electric Company’s (“GE” or the “Company”) long-term performance awards program (the “LTPA”) is based on four equally weighted business measurements, which are: (a) average earnings per share growth rate; (b) average revenue growth rate; (c) cumulative return on total capital; and (d) cumulative cash flow from operating activities. As indicated in the Company’s response letter, dated October 10, 2007, these business measurements are used to establish financial goals (the “Goals”) for the Company over a three-year period and are directly derived from the Company’s internal, confidential business plan. Each of the Goals involves confidential information that, if made public, [REDACTED] [REDACTED] For example, upon the announcement of a sizable acquisition, debt investors generally examine the companies ability to fund the acquisition and to service its existing debt and [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] will be affected by the acquisition. This point is illustrated by the Company’s December 26, 2007 announcement that GE Capital would acquire certain assets and businesses from Merill Lynch Capital. Although immaterial to GE Capital, after the announcement of the acquisition [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Based on its experience the Company believes that [REDACTED] in the Goals such as [REDACTED] acquisition [REDACTED] like the Merill Lynch Capital acquisition [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Company believes that disclosing the goals would [REDACTED] [REDACTED] the Goals [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] As a result, the Company’s [REDACTED] [REDACTED] […] We do not believe that the SEC’s executive compensation disclosure rules should cause the disclosure of the Goals simply because the Company’s Management Development and Compensation Committee chose to include them in the LTPA. Such disclosure would have the unintended and harmful effect of [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Company therefore believes that it would suffer substantial competitive harm if ti had to disclose the Goals because it would [REDACTED] [REDACTED] End of request for confidential treatment ***] Hope that helps. At least the SEC uses white-out instead of black marker.

John Comaroff is a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, where Barack Obama used to teach. Obama still lives in the neighborhood, Hyde Park. Recently, on the radio show Open Source, Comaroff told this story: We have a cleaner in our building — 70-something-year-old African American guy; sweet, sweet guy. And every evening he comes into our office about six and takes our garbage and stuff. … He didn’t come in on Tuesday — I was up late, working until I went to see election results. Of course, Hyde Park was abuzz. Hyde Park thinks of this election as its own. And the fact that the Obama kids were at school on Tuesday and Wednesday, and we all had to ride around the TV cameras to get to our parking, was the kind of masochistic pleasure that we’re having in Hyde Park, which after all has always been told it’s the fringe of the nation. We’ve always been told that nothing we do or say counts anywhere else, especially not across the border in Indiana. So to suddenly find ourselves at the center of the political process is interesting. So [on Wednesday] the guy comes into my office and I say “So, where were you yesterday?” “Ah,” he says, “I was in Grant Park [where Obama gave his victory speech].” “Grant Park?” “Yeah, right near the front — I could have touched Barack Obama.” “How did you get there? It’s tough to get tickets.” He said “You don’t understand. A few years back, I worked Law School, I cleaned the Law School. And Obama’s office was on my run. He worked late many nights and he was really interested. I’d come by cleaning and he’d always stop me for a chat. Sometimes he’d share food with me — he always brought food in — and the thing was, he sat down and he talked to me. He said ‘Tell me about your community. Tell me what’s going on out there. I wanna know. I wanna know what’s out there on the streets. I wanna know how America is living.’” And one got the sense that this guy, alienated from the political process, alienated from the work process, found in Obama a real human being.

Just as Bush’s Healthy Forests Initiative cut down more trees and his Clean Skies Initiative increased pollution, his No Child Left Behind Act hurt students, especially poor students. That this is a controversial statement shows just how rare genuine child advocates are (compared to, say, environmentalists) in policy debates. NCLB requires every school administer standardized tests to their students. If the scores are bad, they get punished. (This makes as much sense as beating kids who lose races.) And it only gets worse from there. Making high test scores the ultimate goal of education distorts everything along the way, sending schools spiraling own into a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucratic child torture. The story is told in up-close detail in Linda Perlstein’s Tested, a profile of Tyler Heights elementary in Maryland. It’s a tale of such thoroughgoing rot that it’s hard to even know where to begin. But let’s start with the tests. They’re invasive and traumatic. They take time and teachers away from class and scare students (especially since the kids are led to believe they won’t graduate if they fail). They test narrow, specific knowledge in dumb ways (“What text features made the directions [in this cookie recipe] easy for third graders to follow?”). And they make kids feel like failures in situations where teachers are prohibited from helping. The tests are just plain bad. Their questions are invariably annoying and sometimes just plain bizarre (“Which word is made up of two words?”). Of the handful of examples in the book (which are for 3rd graders), even I get some of them wrong. They assume weird background knowledge (which two presses are the same? “don’t press me”, “full-court press”, “tailor press”, “press agent”, “pressing for an answer”) and strange vocab (crabapples and cattails) and are just terribly written, full of stilted jargon. But that’s just the beginning. Since the tests are so all-important, everything gets pushed around for them. Art and gym are cancelled (although, for contractual reasons, not in the school Perlstein studied) since they’re not tested, as is recess (this despite evidence recess improves test scores!). But even more absurdly, science and social studies are canceled too, since the test questions don’t address them. The remaining time is spent teaching to the test. Test language infiltrates everything. The only writing students ever do is sample short-answer sections (“What text feature could have been added to help a reader better understand the information?”, as opposed to writing your own story). Even the stories kids read are analyzed only in terms of potential test questions. Much of class is filled with pure test-prep: no actual education, just test-taking tricks. Some of it is common stuff — take deep breaths, work until the time is called, eliminate obviously wrong answers — but most of it is specific to the state’s bizarre test (special rules about how to phrase written answers and which words to use for extra points). The walls are filled with the school’s four-point plans for successful responses, e.g. BATS, which stands for “borrow from the question, answer the question, use text supports, stretch formula”. It only gets worse from there. Apparently even non-stop test prep doesn’t raise scores enough, so schools are forced to use “evidence-based curricula” like “Saxon Math” and “Open Court Reading”. These are special packages of textbooks and workbooks and scripts for the teachers which prescribe specifically which stories and “text features” should be taught in which order and in which way. (Teachers can’t deviate from the script, of course, because that’s not “evidence-based”.) The whole system must be purchased for a small fortune from a major textbook company and supervisors occasionally drop in to make sure the books are being used appropriately. It’s clear the books don’t teach any actual understanding; they’re just teaching kids to memorize the answers to various test prep questions. When asked a question, the students just cycle through random combinations of test buzzwords until they hit upon the right answer. Since they never get to read for fun, or even read for anything other than dissecting text features, they presumably learn to hate reading too. But the stilted curricula is just the beginning of the scammers. In their desperation to raise scores up, schools are open to predation by a whole suite of consultants and teams who promise to have the winning secret to raising test scores. (One of the book’s most poignant scenes comes at an educational conference, when one such scam artist takes credit for the profiled school’s test score rise.) And so the teachers are forced to do absurd things like write the state educational guidelines they plan to fulfill that day on the board, assign practice tests weekly, have their teaching evaluated by non-educators who observe them for fifteen minutes, and hold school assemblies on test prep featuring men in furry blue muppet costumes. Together, it’s a frightening picture: no recess, no science, no social studies, no leaving your chair or working in groups, just sitting in your seat, listening to scripts and test-prep advice, before worrying you’re about fail school because you have no idea what they’re saying. This is what they mean when they say “No Child Left Behind”. Every year, a couple months before school ends, a kind of controlled experiment happens in NCLB schools: The principal remains the same, the teachers remain the same, the students remain the same. The only thing that changes is that the test is over, forgotten until next year starts. And suddenly everything changes: test prep boards come off the wall, students start writing poetry, they go on field trips and do science experiments, they work in groups and do real reading. I challenge anyone to watch both schools and insist that the first is better for our kids. I don’t think you could do it. So, of course, nobody watches. Decisions on these laws are made far away, in DC, by folks whose only experience of public school comes from staged photo ops. Everyone loves to critique No Child Left Behind. Democrats say it isn’t fully funded, Republicans say it interferes too much with local control of schools. But this is just tinkering around the edges — nobody disagrees with the fundamental premise. After all, what politician can be against accountability? The only question left is: who will hold them accountable?

It was, you may recall, a truism of the campaign that Barack Obama did not have the experience to “lead”, while Hillary Clinton and John McCain clearly did. This was a difficult point to argue against politically — voters knew that John McCain and Hillary Clinton had been in government and on TV for many years and looked old and respected, while Barack Obama looked young and new. And yet, the exact opposite was true: Barack Obama was the only one of the three who was a competent leader. This was seen, foremost, in the management of their campaigns. Hillary Clinton’s campaign consisted of friends and loyalists, each with poorly-defined job titles, who took every opportunity to attack their coworkers for their own benefit. (“It was a terribly unpleasant place to work,” explained a Clinton staffer. “You had seven people on a morning call, all of whom had tried to get someone else on the call fired, or knew someone on the call tried to get them fired. It was not a recipe for cohesive team building.”) Spending was out of control, the campaign lurched from message to message, and her senior advisors were woefully ill-advised. (Top campaign strategist Mark Penn, who didn’t even quit his day job as CEO of the most notorious corporate public relations and unionbusting firm, didn’t even know that states awarded delegates proportionally.) Bill kept interfering, backchanneling with staffers and giving speeches without clearance, while Hillary got angry and threw fits. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. As far back as 2004, Brad DeLong was trying to talk people out of supporting Hillary for President, based on her total failure at health care reform in 1993/4. His explanation is worth quoting at length: [W]hen senior members of the economic team said that key senators like Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have this-and-that objection, she told them they were disloyal. When junior members of the economic team told her that the Congressional Budget Office would say such-and-such, she told them (wrongly) that her conversations with CBO head Robert Reischauer had already fixed that. When long-time senior hill staffers told her that she was making a dreadful mistake by fighting with rather than reaching out to John Breaux and Jim Cooper, she told them that they did not understand the wave of popular political support the bill would generate. And when substantive objections were raised to the plan by analysts calculating the moral hazard and adverse selection pressures it would put on the nation’s health-care system… Hillary fans later tried to assure him that she had change, but this campaign seems to have borne out his original estimation. John McCain’s campaign consisted of extremists pulled from Bush’s entourage and beyond, who pressured the candidate into compromising his instincts, policies, and principles. Used to running small, personal insurgent campaigns, he let his Bush-backed campaign advisors spend money on huge offices and ad buys meant to convey a sense of inevitability. (It didn’t work — the Bush base never contributed the money needed to pay for it all and it was largely scrapped when the campaign went bankrupt.) His policy advisors came not just from the Bush team, but from the gamma quadrant. When McCain slipped up and said he wouldn’t meet with Latin American dictators like the President of Spain, McCain’s foreign policy advisor insisted this wasn’t a gaffe — that McCain wasn’t planning to meet with the man who pulled his troops out of Iraq. On health care, the centerpiece of their plan was to raise the price of insurance so that people wouldn’t buy so much. On the economy — well, on the economy McCain seemed to announce a new plan every day. He canceled his campaign and flew to Washington to demand a meeting with the President on the bailout bill, but when, in the meeting, he was asked what his position was, he stormed out of the room. When the bill came to the floor, he took credit for putting it together. When it failed, he took credit for making sure it didn’t pass. When a modified version passed, he took credit for that too. And in the debates, he seemed to announce new programs off-the-cuff, like one plan to have the government buy up all bad mortgages directly. His management was similarly erratic. He liked to call staffers directly with ideas, in a subversive attempt to overthrow his own chain of command. He liked running his mouth off to the press and had to be restrained by his own staffers. Indeed, his whole campaign seemed like a struggle between two aspects of his personality. One knew what he had to do to win and put structures in place to do it, the other wasn’t so big on winning and tried to subvert those same structures. When a spokesperson, Jill Hazelbaker, called Obama’s trip overseas a “campaign rally” and “one giant photo opportunity”, McCain told the press he disagreed and would speak to her about it. Upset, Hazelbaker refused to come into work or return McCain’s phone calls. His campaign manager told him he had to apologize to his spokesperson. Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around? Then again, it does kind of explain why McCain addressed a group of supporters as “my fellow prisoners”. Barack Obama was a serious contrast. He picked the most experienced and talented staffers from the past Democratic campaigns. With a deft understanding of how to manage large, volunteer organizations from his days as a community organizer, he gave them clear roles and managed them effectively. With millions of volunteers around the country, he built what was probably one of the largest organizations in the country, and the whole thing went off like clockwork, with everyone having clear, achievable goals and being held accountable for meeting them — despite the vast majority of them being unpaid volunteers! When it came to policy, he put together advisory teams on each topic that contained leading experts from a variety of perspectives and tried to synthesize a coherent and centrist policy from each of them. The results were not perfect, but they were far more detailed and thoughtful than anyone expected from a Presidential candidate and tend to impress policy experts. (Compare this to their usual reaction to campaign material which is to hide their eyes and insist “well, (s)he really doesn’t mean it.”) His team had a strategy and message and, for the most part, stuck with it, despite the usual fluctuations and setbacks. People weren’t capriciously fired (with the exception of foreign policy advisor Samantha Powers, who was axed for calling Hillary “a monster”) or reshuffled. They did their jobs and they did them well. “No drama Obama” was the slogan and they carried it out — no big changes or fights or leaks. His transition has shown a similar preparedness and focus. He immediately assembled a council of varied and respected advisors on the financial crisis and later other topics. (Although at times the teams’ membership criteria can be puzzling.) One member of his team talks to the public (through Sunday show interviews and YouTube videos), while a website keeps everyone up-to-date. His staff does a thorough review of each candidate’s background and each agency’s operations. His team is even reviewing every Bush executive order to see which ones need to be overturned. No doubt he will be a similar president: a competent manager, surrounded by effective and experienced people, all trying to do good things without fuss. The only remaining questions — remaining, clearly, because the answers haven’t been decided yet — are who those people will be and what good things they will carry out.

OCLC is running scared. My comments on their attempt to monopolize library records has been Slashdotted, our petition has received hundreds of signatures, and they’re starting to feel the heat. At a talk I gave this morning to area librarians, an OCLC rep stood up and attempted to assure the crowd that what I was saying “wasn’t entirely true”. “What wasn’t true?” I asked. “I’d love to correct things.” She declined to say, insisting she “didn’t want to get into an argument.” This evening, OCLC’s Vice President for WorldCat and Metadata, provides more details. In a blog comment (which, I understand, was sent to OCLC members), she tries to downplay the issue, continuing the OCLC trend of doublespeak about this serious change. She tries to claim we’re on the same side (“We are likely in solid agreement”) and insists they are just updating “the principles … which have been in place since 1987” and absurdly claiming that the new rules are just a “clarification”. (This is just one of a number of black-is-white falsehoods in her post.) But never once does she defend the actual changes. And they’re right there in black-and-white: the records aren’t allowed to be used in anything that “substantially replicates the function, purpose, and/or size of WorldCat.” I’m not sure how much clearer they can get; these new rules prohibit anyone from building anything that gets anywhere close to WorldCat. My fundamental point stands: As servers have gotten cheaper, it’s become easy to do for free the things OCLC charges such outrageous amounts for. But OCLC can’t have that — they’d have to give up their huge office complex and high salaries (Ms. Calhoun was recently hired away from academia, so her salary isn’t available yet, but her fellow VPs make around $300,000/year). So they’re trying to stamp out the competition. Karen insists that “OCLC welcomes collaboration with Open Library”, which seems a funny way of putting it. As I said last time, they’ve played hardball: trying to cut off our funding, hurt our reputation, and pressured libraries not to cooperate. When we tried to make a deal with them, they dragged their feet for months, pretended to come to terms, and then had their lawyers send us an “agreement” to sign that would require we take all OCLC-related records off our site. Karen, if you really want to “increas[e] information access to users around the globe”, like you say, here’s an easy first step: put the 2 million WorldCat web pages you shared with Google and Yahoo up for download on your website. It’s only a small portion of your catalog and you’ve already shared it with others. Until you take even a baby step like that, it’s hard to take your protestations of good intent seriously.

This is the story of a monster, a sorcerer’s apprentice, a nice little thing that’s grown and grown until it’s gotten out of hand and turned on its creators. It’s the story of a little-known organization called OCLC (the Online Computer Library Center) that is — no joke — trying to steal your library, all of our libraries, for itself. OCLC was founded in 1967 by Fred Kilgour, a pioneering Ohio librarian, with a simple idea: Instead of having every library in the country separately catalog a book — laboriously entering its title, author, and subjects in just the right format — why not have one person enter the cataloging information, upload it to a central computer, and then let everyone else download a copy from there? It was called WorldCat, for World Catalog, and it’s been a resounding success. Today it has around 50 million book records. But OCLC, the group that owns and operates it, has been a different story. It started small — a little office in Ohio, a set of membership dues to share the cost of running the servers. But OCLC’s control passed from librarians and academics to business people (its senior executive comes from consulting firm Deloitte & Touche). They realized they had a monopoly on their hands and as costs for running servers have gone down, their prices have gone up. They charge you once to get your records added to WorldCat and charge you again to get them back out and charge you a third time for a whole series of additional fees and services. And these prices are high. A friend who runs a small public library with around 5000 cardholders was asked to pay $5400 to contribute his records and $700 to get records out, plus a whole series of “User Support” and “New Member Implementation” fees — all far more than he could afford. They’ve used the resulting flow of cash to fund a spree of acquisitions of commercial companies and expand into other fields. Their small Ohio office has grown into a huge executive complex. They’ve used their power and influence to put other library suppliers out of business so they can sell the same products themselves. And, throughout it all, they’ve become increasingly closed, even secretive. Not wanting to disrupt the money flow, OCLC has dragged its feet in getting library records on the Web. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that they finally put up a WorldCat website, and even then they’ve tried to keep a tight lid on it. Only Google and Yahoo are allowed to look at more than a handful of pages, and even they were only given access to 2 out of 110 million, and even those are provided under a strict licensing agreement. In an era where people are increasingly turning to Google instead of to libraries for research, this is insane — it dooms libraries to further obscurity by not even giving their books a chance in world of search engines. All this was bad, but it was tolerable. At least folks could build an alternative to OCLC. So that’s what I and others have been doing — Open Library provides a free collection of over 20 million book records that anyone can browse, download, contribute to, and reuse for absolutely free. Naturally, OCLC hasn’t been a fan. They’ve been trying to kill it from the beginning — threatening its funders with lawsuits, insulting it in the press, and putting pressure on member libraries not to cooperate. (Again, notice the reversal: an organization libraries create to help them has now become so powerful that it is forcing libraries to help it.) But recently, it’s gone one step way too far. Not satisfied with controlling the world’s largest source of book information, it wants to take over all the smaller ones as well. It’s now demanding that every library that uses WorldCat give control over all its catalog records to OCLC. It literally is asking libraries to put an OCLC policy notice on every book record in their catalog. It wants to own every library. It’s not just Open Library that’s at risk here — LibraryThing, Zotero, even some new Wikipedia features being developed are threatened. Basically anything that uses information about books is going to be a victim of this unprecedented powergrab. It’s a scary thought. Fortunately, the new rules haven’t gone into effect yet and it’s not too late to stop them. But we need your help. Please, spread the word about this disaster and share this blog post. Sign our petition demanding that they stop. And, if you’re a librarian or at a library, there’s a lot more you can do. First, you can share your library catalog now, before the new policy takes effect. Second, you put your own license on the records you contribute to OCLC, insisting that the entire catalog they appear in must be available under open terms. And third, you can use your OCLC membership status to pressure the organization to listen to libraries instead of dictating to them. Email me (me@aaronsw.com) if you’re interested in helping. Together, we can stop this thing.