Acting Locally

There’s a beautiful piece in The Age today, which doesn’t seem to be online, about a school where almost all the children came from refugee families. A teacher asked children to bring in their favourite book from home. Most didn’t, and those that did produced very damaged copies – in one case only two pages were left.

The teacher put out a call for help, and was absolutely deluged in offers. Not only did people line up to hand over books they were no longer using, many dipped into their pockets (in one case to the tune of $2000) to buy new ones. The target has already been exceeded ten times over, and presumably this publicity will send it higher. Moreover, all sorts of other support is being offered – people with no connection to the school are offering to come in and read to the children, or construct containers for storing the books etc.

It’s all very inspiring in the way many films try to be, while being true and real and not-faked up at all.

I think it also provides an indication of how some of the problems we often see as intractable are anything but, if we can only find the right triggers for action.

This might seem a big claim. The responses have solved the immediate problem of a shortage of books in the children’s homes. We’ll have to wait quite a while to discover if they will solve the real issue of limited reading, let alone social disadvantage. And all this is just one school – there are hundreds across Australia with similar problems, along with thousands of individual students at schools where the problem is less universal.

It’s a big leap from this to saying we can beat Global Warming or war. However, I think the case that these problems are soluble with enough commitment has been made adequately elsewhere. The question has always been “is that commitment achievable?” Examples like this indicate the answer is yes if we can find the right triggers.

Something about this case caused people to take the steps required to fix the problem. The efforts they made are not all that much smaller (and in the case of the $2000 donor not smaller at all) than that required to solve the world’s macro problems. Of course only a minority of those who received the plea for help acted. Maybe there’s a finite number of people who will ever step up to the plate, but I’d like to think not. Some of those who gave to this cause were probably the usual suspects – the same people on Oxfam’s regular donor list and volunteers for all sorts of causes.

But I doubt it. I’ll bet some were people who don’t give a lot the rest of the time. This appeal touched them, they saw the problem as being manageable, and they did something.

It’s the reason for the slogan “think global, act local”. Most people find it difficult to relate to global problems, or those too big to be solved through individual action. The solution, at least sometimes, is to break the problem down into manageable parts – often based on geography – and get people to deal with these. An appeal for books to solve the problem of children growing up without them in the home, without the specific manageable case of a single rather small school, would probably have produced much less of a response.

This is one of the less acknowledged reasons why those who argue Australia shouldn’t “take the lead” on fighting Climate Change because we only produce 2% of the problem are talking utter horseshit. It’s not just that this approach would have seen us stay out of both World Wars (desirable as that may have been in the first case) or individuals refuse to pay taxes if even some others are evading.

It’s that its only by breaking the problem down to more manageable scale we can get it addressed at all. My suburb only produces 0.0001% of the worlds Greenhouse Gasses. However, making it carbon neutral is a goal that might inspire people in a way that zero national emissions might not – it’s possible to imagine it happening and one person making a difference to it.

If we can make examples like this attractive we might be on the path to putting together the pieces to get the whole jig saw fixed.

Why e-books Scare The Hell Out Of Me

There’s an article in The Age today about the anticipated rise of the e-book. Although they admit there have been problems with products such as the kindle, those quoted generally think that electronic books will largely replace paper versions for new sales within three years.

There are some obvious benefits for society in this. All those saved trees for a start. What is more, by eliminating the cost of printing, e-books will slash costs. Falling costs are obviously good for society in general, but they’re even better for books, which provide a public good by raising education and promoting ideas. Lower costs, more reading, more reading, smarter society. Sounds great.

Except of course for the problems of royalty-free distribution. I use this term to avoid the emotion concerning the term “piracy”, which many argue is an inappropriate way to describe copyright violations.

The danger is that e-books will make it so easy for people to distribute copies of books without paying royalties to the author that it will become impossible for almost anyone to make a living from writing them. Or editing them for that matter. Of course, at the moment most writers don’t make enough to live on from writing, but they do make enough to provide some recompense for their time – to make it affordable to go part time, for example, or to take a year off work and living on a mix of ones savings and anticipated royalties.

If royalties drop close to zero, that won’t happen. New books will either be written in a tearing hurry, without proper editing, or they’ll be the preserve of the independently wealthy. A few academics may convince their universities to let them take the time to write, although the trend at the moment is in the opposite direction. Some people may be able to cobble something together out of work they have done for another purpose, such as a set of lectures prepared for university. However, quality novels, and books presenting genuinely new ideas may become an endangered species.

Optimists can point to the music industry against this theory. Peer-to-peer filesharing has slashed musicians’ income, and may have harmed the production of new music, but it hasn’t killed the field. However, musicians have two advantages over writers.

Firstly they have another major source in income in the form of live gigs. Spending months writing and recording music you’ll never get paid for can to some extent be seen as a loss-leader, or advertising, for gigs. This argument gets oversold a lot by those who don’t realise how expensive touring is, but it still has some merit. Despite the rise of spoken word performances and author lectures it doesn’t really apply to writers.

Moreover, it’s possible to sell individual songs for 99c each, at which price some people will choose them over a free version which is harder to find and carries a (small) risk of prosecution.

Most books can’t be broken up the way CDs can into individual saleable units. It’s true that most authors don’t get paid more than $2 a copy or so as it is, unless their product is a large textbook or glossy coffeetable material. However, if one allows for the cost of editing, marketing etc its unlikely to be practical to sell e-books for less than $5 at an absolute minimum, more likely $10. At that price it is all too tempting for people to buy one book every few years, and otherwise depend on filesharing.

Even if more books are read this way (and even more acquired because people obtain free copies they start and then abandon quickly) the royalties will quickly drop to a point where writing books is a totally unfinancial prospect.

The Buggy-Whip Factor

Now clearly I have a financial interest here. My standard of living is supplemented by income from a parent’s books. The royalties of that will dry up pretty soon anyway, but obviously it makes me identify with the producers rather than the consumers. What is more, I hope to have a book published soon. I’ve never expected it would make me rich, or even a living wage, but I do hope it will be a noticeable part of my annual budget for a while.

It’ll be out before e-books are really having an impact, but a future career looks pretty dicey.

Now when people connected to an industry in decline whinge or seek to see it protected they get compared to buggy-whip manufacturers. Lots of people lost their jobs when horses and carts were replaced by motorcars, but there were new jobs in the new industries and (other than the unforeseen climate change consequences) we were all better off. The government should provide support and retraining for those affected, but subsiding buggy-whips or banning cars to protect them, is a bad idea.

The difference here is that people didn’t want buggy-whips once cars came in. Books are different. People will still want to read them, will want people to write them. They just won’t want to be the ones who pay.

The writers and editors may be the first to suffer, but if the quantity and quality of books produced falls dramatically everyone else will lose as well.

I don’t have any suggestions on how to stop the tide. Legal restraints on kindle production aren’t realistic. But that doesn’t stop me worrying.

Cap and Trade: Good, BAD, BAD, Good

The Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Bill has passed the US has passed the US House. There's two bits of good news here and two bits of bad. Unfortunately the bad news is a whole lot bigger than the good, but I think one of the good pieces is maybe the most interesting.

First the first good news - something passed. That's a big step forward for America, and sends a signal to the rest of the world that everyone has to get on board about doing something about global warming.

Bad 1. It's a watered down bill, that will end up doing as much for the profit lines as some big polluters as it will about actually slowing climate change.

Bad 2. It barely passed, 219 to 212. That's not a good sign for getting through the Senate. Although it should have 50 votes, getting the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster will be much harder. The margin is slightly deceptive - at least three people voted against it because it wasn't tough enough, but they (and maybe some others) probably would have come on board if their votes were needed. Equivalent people in the Senate would probably help bring it to a vote. Nate Silver discusses the prospects.

Good 2. It does suggest that Obama knew what he was doing. His failure to press for a better bill was to me perhaps the greatest failure of his administration so far. Was he doing this because he knew he couldn't pass a stronger bill, even if he used his authority? Or because he just didn't care that much about climate change compared to other priorities? This outcome suggests the former is more likely. Why does this matter? Well for one thing I think there is a high chance that Obama's power is going to grow. If his healthcare bill passes, the economy picks up, and there are no terrorist disasters he is going to develop an authority that may be very hard Congress to resist, particularly if the Republican's keep losing their leadership.

There's another reason though. Billions of people around the world have invested a log of hope in Obama. If he fails because he is blocked by Congress or other forces some will be disillusioned, but others will just redouble their efforts. But if he fails because of a lack of personal commitment, that will be a very hard blow to take, and may do a lot of damage to the idea that change can be achieved through democratic means. The possibility he's doing all he can may just be symbolic, but its a very important symbol.

Pop Stops War

As I type this the Eurovision Song Contest is playing in the background. It was easy to stop watching - Norway is so far ahead in the voting its hard to imagine anything will change.

A lot of Europeans cringe at the mention of the contest. The music is often so bad, the lyrics so unoriginal, the emotion so fake that's all pretty understandable. But in Australia its treated as high camp - hugely popular in the Gay and Lesbian community and ironic inner city inhabitants who wouldn't be seen dead at this sort of music the rest of the year. If I'd slept more last night I might be at a fundraiser where you could watch it on the big screen.

But whether you love or hate the clothes, music and presenters, its worth spending just a minute to consider the real benefit of the event. It was created in the 1950s, when Europe was desperately searching for a way to prevent another war. The European Union was the most important product of this search, along with the court of human rights and other bodies that managed to pull in even more of the continent's nations. Besides these Eurovision might seem pretty trivial. But it is all a part of the process of building a common European identity. The hope was that the more one saw of another nation's culture, the less likely you were to invade.

Modern technology and the fall of the Wall has given the whole project a renewed lease of life. Western Europe doesn't need it any more, and aside from the Scandinavians they don't much care either. But for Eastern Europe, so recently at war and with unresolved conflicts still to be address, anything that instills fondness for the neighbours has value. The fact that everyone gets to vote these days is important too - when you've just voted for Bosnia to win the contest you probably don't feel so much like bombing them back to the Stone Age. It's even better if they've just given you 12 points - but even 5 or 6 will do.

It's hard to prove that Eurovision works. It's a pretty flimsy basis for continental peace after all. But these things build up. Once Europe was in a continuous state of war. Peace for any nation was a temporary aberration, and for the whole place to be free of war at once was almost unimaginable. Last year, when Russia and Georgia went to war, the first conflict anywhere west of the Urals for 9 years, it was like an event from another era. Which in fact it was.

You may, like me, think that the Norwegian entry was so boring it ranks as three minutes of your life you'll never get back. But spend some time in the cemeteries of Flanders if you need to be reminded there are worse things than boredom.

They Couldn't Get It Right, Even When It Benefited Them

The outbreak of swine flu is frightening. It may peter out (although that will still mean hundreds of deaths. Or it could kill millions.

One reassuring thought is that it seems to be fairly susceptible to Tamiflu and Relenza, the drugs based on the work of Graeme Laver. This will mean a lot of people who would have died otherwise will be saved, and even those who would have lived will have a much less hellish experience.

So the citizens of all those countries that stocked up heavily against the Avian flu threat should be feeling very grateful. That doesn't really include the US. While they probably hold the largest stocks in the world, on a per capita basis they're way behind. The funny thing about his is that apparently Dick Cheney held many shares in Hoffman La Roche, the company marketing Tamiflu. I remember reading (and responding angrily to) emails claiming the stockpiles were a conspiracy to enrich him.

So even when Chaney stood to benefit, the Bush administration couldn't do the right thing and create appropriate defenses against dangerous threats.

BTW, at one point Australia was lagging well behind the rest of the developed world in building a stockpile. Bob Brown became alarmed and asked a lot of questions in the Senate. He was told the situation had changed, and our stockpiles were being rapidly added to, and we would soon have the 2nd or 3rd largest per capita stocks in the world. It's not clear if Bob's pushing contributed to this, but naturally I like to think so.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

In 1993 The Herald-Sun published a front page headline indicating that John Hewson had been elected Prime Minister at the federal election. It was a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment. Hewson had lost to Paul Keating, despite the campaigning of most of Australia's daily papers, including the Herald-Sun.

Celebrating Labor supporters printed the page on t-shirts, with "You can't always get what you want" underneath.

I rather doubt the headline "Conservatives Win Power in Iceland" will achieve the same prominence, but in some ways it is actually more embarrassing. The Hun had to race to the presses and arguably went with the best information available at the time. Not only is the pressure to report on an election in a tiny country across the other side of the world rather less intense, but the facts never supported the headline here - as can be seen from reading the text. (I'm not linking because presumably they'll change it eventually. I tried for a screen shot, but for some reason it wouldn't load properly).

However, as we have seen on global warming, it is clear that The Australian believes truth is whatever they want it to be.

UPDATE: It seems I overestimated The Australian's commitment to truth, or at least their desire to not be embarrassed. Despite the fact that the headline is being mocked on blogs much more read than mine, 24 hours later its still there. We'll see if it lasts.

Unbelievable!

This is truly disgusting.

For anyone unfamiliar with The First Stone controversy you can read about it here. But that's only the part that became public. There is a much nastier side to it, which (luckily for Garner) never came out.

A friend of mine was a student at Ormond, and friends with the women harassed by the women who made the complaint, and close to some of their main supporters. At one point she her boss told her "I've dobbed you in to talk to a friend of mine, Helen Garner". He, and Garner, were expecting her to present the women's side of the story so she could use it in her book. My friend turned him down flat, saying (approximately) "Those women have made their choice not to talk to Garner. I'm certainly not going to rat on them."

When the book came out my friend appeared as a minor character, identified in such a way that virtually anyone who had met her would know who she was. She didn't have a big part, but the description of her was completely untrue and vicious in a society where promiscuity in women is not regarded favourably. There's no doubt Garner can write, but the stylishness of her words didn't make the content any different from if she had written that my friend was a slut nine times. Garner never met my friend, but felt completely comfortable trashing her reputation for the crime of refusing to betray her friends.

My friend's contract was not renewed, surprise surprise, she dropped out of her course, broke up with her boyfriend and spent two years depressed. The break-up may not have been caused by Garner, but having colleagues sidle up to him and ask "so what do you think of X's cameo smirk, smirk" probably didn't help. Certainly the other factors were directly attributable to the book.

It's a legitimate matter for debate whether Garner's moral failings should prevent her winning literary awards. But an award for "work that advances the position of women and girls in society"? That is a disgrace of epic proportions.

Yes its true that those who gave this award would not have known about what happened to my friend - at least the aspects of having her boss try to force her. They may even have thought that character in The First Stone was fictitious. However, the fact that Garner is out to ruin the lives of any woman younger than herself who dares to cross her path is hardly a secret.

The credibility of the prize is utterly destroyed.