Bacon's Rebellion

  • Woodstock Nation

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    James A. Bacon


    Far, farking out, man!

    Okay, I’m entitled. It’s almost the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. I went. I am going to tell you about it. What this has to do with public policy in Virginia, I have no idea.
    I was 16 and almost in 12th grade at a high school in suburban DC. Some guys at school (I went to a Catholic boys school) knew about Woodstock up in New York somewhere and wanted to get people to go. Back then, high school kids were divided into two groups: the “jocks” and the “heads.” I was a head. Only heads went to Woodstock.
    I told my skeptical parents that it was some kind of arts and crafts thing. Hey, it was the 60s and things were a whole lot looser then. Only dorks like Jim Bacon were in some straight-jacket society like the Young Americans for Freedom. Eight of us climbed into Eric’s three-row station wagon with Maryland plates and set off.
    Closest parking was seven miles away. (“The New York State Thruway’s closed, man!,” shouted Arlo Guthrie). The eight guys in our group hiked it through the throngs moving, Pied Piper-like) to the concert. There were girls in doeskin halters. One barely-clad man in a purple top hat led a goat. Lots and lots of freaks.
    We got to the gates. The cyclone fences had been torn down and despite the concert now being free, I naively paid $20 anyway for a ticket. There was a gigantic bowl of mud covered with people. We picked a spot not far from the stage and lay down, eight in a row, like sardines in oil.
    Oil it was since rain turned the mud to glop. The crowd grew to 500,000. Our biggest fear was getting separated from our group which we did several times. Believe it or not, I didn’t do anything illegal. But I saw lots of things both illegal and interesting. Water sold for five dollars. We got very thirsty. And we were very tired.
    The performers grew into a blur. I remember Country Joe McDonald’s rousing and profane rant against Vietnam War. CCR jammed on “Green River.” “Freedom” was belted out by the toothless Ritchie Havens (I think he was one of the first the play). After a while, we didn’t pay much attention to the music. The crowd was too interesting. The loudspeaker guy warned us about bad trips from brown acid. Despite the profound anti-war nature of the crowd, forest green Army Hueys choppered out kids who were either sick or having bad trips. We got thirsty. And hungry. And tired. Pretty soon we were asleep again. After a couple of days in the rain and mud, you can sleep anywhere.
    Later, when the movie came out, we learned about all kinds of things that we didn’t see or know about, notably the scores of kids skinny dipping in a lake. We didn’t know there was a lake.
    Interesting time, 1969. As Rob Kirkpatrick’s recent book remembers, it was the year of big advances. The Boeing 747 revolutionized long-range air travel. Nixon was enjoying a brief honeymoon in office and was seen as a positive since he said he was going to end the war. The guys in my group were lucky since we missed the draft and Vietnam by at least a couple of years. “Vietnamization” was on the way.
    Also, Nixon actually cleaned up the environment (he was a true “green” president, something people don’t remember). After all, that was the year the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire. The lunar landing happened. Great movies such as “Midnight Cowboy” were in theaters.
    Indeed, 1969 seemed a relief after 1968 which brought us Tet, the deaths of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Miami and the Siege of Chicago.
    I can’t remember when we decided to go home. The performers were still on. We hiked back to the car and set off around two in the morning. At four a.m. we were still in New York driving through some darkened small town. A cop pulled us over. We didn’t know it but you had to be 18 to drive at night in New York. We were all 16 or 17.
    The cop saw some Sweet Tarts in the front seat. He thought they were acid or uppers. He pulled his gun. We shouted: “No officer, they’re candy, they really are!”
    Peter Galuszka

  • A Response on “High Speed” Rail

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    James A. Bacon

    A few weeks back, I posted a column on the fervor over “High Speed” Rail in Richmond and attempts to improve rail service between here and Washington. My opinion is that any improvement is a good idea, but I raised questions about what is “high speed” rail, really, and how much it might cost.

    Daniel L. Plaugher, executive director of the non-profit group, Virginians for High Speed Rail, has written a response to a similar piece I wrote in Richmond’s Style Weekly. I think Mr. Plaugher raises some good points, so I am posting what he wrote in this week’s Style as a response to my piece:

    Style Weekly’s July 15 cover story, “The Magic Bullet,” suggests that high-speed rail connecting Richmond to Washington and destinations on the Northeast Corridor is simply a dream, and that if it is not superfast high-speed rail, 150 miles per hour and faster, it’s not worth the effort.

    I disagree.

    High-speed rail is about more than simply going fast; it’s also about more frequent service and, importantly, more reliable service. These are the benefits that Virginia’s application for high-speed rail funds should bring, in effect upgrading the Washington-to-Richmond corridor from conventional rail to emerging high-speed rail that will result in the three 90s: a 90 mph top speed, a 90-minute trip between Washington and Richmond and a 90-percent on-time performance with increased service.

    These improvements may not seem like a lot, but when compared with the current passenger rail service available to central Virginia, they are a large improvement. Present service offers a 79-mph top speed, but the reality is closer to between 40 and 50 mph. Reliability is even worse. Amtrak trains between Washington, Richmond and Newport News average an on-time performance of 56 percent. One of every two times Richmonders take trains they won’t arrive at their destination on time. That is unacceptable. Doesn’t our community deserve a true multimodal transportation system? Our trains should work with our airports, interstates and buses to deliver our citizens from point A to point B quickly and efficiently. Rational transportation and environmental policy must reach beyond pouring more asphalt for highways traveled by more internal combustion engines. That approach has only left us mired in time-wasting — and enormously costly — traffic jams.

    Incremental change that can bring fast, frequent and reliable rail service is the sensible approach. When Amtrak’s president and chief executive, Joe Boardman, came to Richmond in May to speak at an event sponsored by Virginians for High Speed Rail and the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, he said of the federal government’s investment in high-speed rail: “The best way to go fast is not to go slow.”

    In order to achieve express high-speed rail, we must first fix the bottlenecks and issues that keep our passenger trains from being reliable and therefore an attractive option. That’s the idea behind the Federal Railroad Administration’s approach of having multitiered high-speed rail categories. Level one is emerging high-speed rail, which will achieve 90 mph on a mixed-use corridor (with freights and commuter rail); next is regional high-speed rail, which travels as fast as 110 mph on a partially dedicated corridor (meaning only passenger trains); and finally, express high-speed rail, which can achieve 150 mph and faster on a dedicated corridor. The dream of riding between Richmond, Washington and New York at 150 mph is not a dream, but it will take considerable time to achieve. The best approach is simply to begin by not going slow.

    When the federal stimulus money of $8 billion for high-speed rail was first announced, there were many questions about where the federal government would invest it. Would it go to one 150 mph corridor, or would it go toward advancements on multiple corridors? The answer is the reasonable one: We will begin by building our passenger rail corridors to emerging high-speed rail status on a path toward express high-speed rail where it will prove worthwhile. But this will take years, just as it did for the European and Asian countries that operate express high-speed rail corridors.

    It took decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to build America’s interstate highways. The stimulus funding represents the first time the federal government has come forward with the resources necessary to truly invest in high-speed rail. For that $8 billion in federal high-speed rail funds, $102 billion worth of pre-application requests have been submitted. The demand for better, faster and more reliable passenger rail transportation is truly substantial. In Virginia, we’re very excited to have the bipartisan support of Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb, Reps. Eric Cantor and Bobby Scott, former Sen. John Warner, Mayor Dwight Jones and our General Assembly members, in addition to the business and environmental communities. There aren’t many things our community agrees on so completely as the need to work together to have a world-class transportation system.

    There’s much to be optimistic about. In addition to the $8 billion in stimulus money, President Obama sought an additional $1 billion per year for the next five years for high-speed rail, and on Thursday, July 23, the House of Representatives increased the president’s request to $4 billion for the first year. Additionally, the outline of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization legislation, which is beginning to move through Congress, suggests $50 billion for high-speed rail. This is a small fraction of the money we’ve invested in our interstate system, but in the spirit of Neil Armstrong, this is one small step for America could ultimately be a giant leap for Richmond and Virginia.

    Daniel L. Plaugher is executive director of Virginians for High Speed Rail.

    Post by: Peter Galuszka

  • FUZZY HOUSING FORECLOSURE PICTURE

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    James A. Bacon

    WaPo IS AGAIN WASTEING OPPORTUNITY AND EFFORT

    As some of you may have noted the ‘A’ section, page 14 on Thursday, 30 July had an impressive looking graphic on house foreclosures titled “Geography of Distress.”

    Lets start with the big problem: The graphic is based on Zip Codes. EMR has pointed out the problems with Zip Code maps on a number of prior discussions.

    This map is worse that usual. WaPo scales the grpahic to number of foreclosures per Zip Code. Almost everyone knows that the number of Households varies greatly from one Zip to another. For this reason a Zip Code with 70,000 dwellings and 1,001 foreclosures would be ‘in greater distress’ than a Zip Code with 11,000 dwellings and 999 foreclosures.

    Second the mapped area does not correspond to any known geography except the advertising focus of WaPo. Howard and Anne Arundel Counties are included but they are not in the Washington DC MSA.

    Howare and Anne Arundel Counties are in the Washington Baltimore CMSA but St. Mary’s county is on the map but it is not even in the CMSA – it is a new Micropolitan Area. What is worse is that Fauquier, Stafford, Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg are in the Washington MSA but are not on the map.

    For this reason the map does not relate to the very good data that Brookings is now distributing in its Metro Monitor. It also does not relate to the Case / Shiller data upon which Richard Florida relies to support his views of the reshaping of America.

    In addition there is no radial scaling so one cannot compare apples with apples without drawing lines themselves.

    In spite of all this the map does show – if one understands and compensates for the errors and omissions – the impact of Wrong Size House in Wrong Location.

    It also supports the observations of Richard Florida in “How the Crash Will Reshape America” in the March Atlantic for those not afflicted with Geographic Illiteracy.

    Speaking of WaPo and the foreclosure impact on the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis, the 28 July coverage (“Foreclosures Are Often In Lenders’ Best Interest”) only focuses on Households that cannot pay the mortgage and not on mortgages that have gone underwater and the Households that do not want to pay the mortgage. That is a growing problem because while monthly unit sales are up in some areas from the lows of a few months ago, the prices are still going down.

    Yes, EMR will get to the Elephant Clan Transport ‘plan’ soon.

    EMR

  • Vox Populi Comes to the Gubernatorial Debates

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    James A. Bacon

    Typically, as a gubernatorial or senate race kicks off in the Old Dominion, the launching pad is the Virginia Bar Association which usually holds the initial debate between the campaign candidates at such tony mountain reports as The Homestead or The Greenbrier.
    Although the debates have been open to the public, they have always had a an exclusive air, some might say annoyingly exclusive. For one thing, the debates are at the VBA’s annual meeting where many well-paid lawyers gather. The venue has been at either high-priced resort that for years has offered well-heeled guests golf, mineral baths and haute cuisine. They are the kind of places where one dresses for dinner and doesn’t wear T-shirts and shorts in the lobby.
    Well, this debate — slated for this Saturday at 11 a.m. — is about to get a lot more democratic.
    A new initiative between the VBA and VirginiaTalks.com, which is designed to provide a place for political discussion, twitters, tweets and blogging by anyone, will stream the debates between Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat Creigh Deeds. The session will be moderated by Rod Smolla, dean of the Washington & Lee School of Law.
    What’s more, farflung observers via the Web will be able to participate, too. They can take part in a simultaneous on-line discussions and ask questions that might be presented to the candidates during the event.
    VirginiaTalks is an initiated by Style Weekly, Inc., the alternative newspaper in Richmond that is owned by Landmark Communications, also owners of the Roanoke Times and The Virginian-Pilot. (Full disclosure: I used on be a staff at the Pilot many moons ago and now free lance for Style). If interested, one can log on at www.Twitter.com/VirginiaTalks.
    Kim Kovac, a spokeswoman for the VBA, told me that while the debates have always been open to the public, not many showed up since either resort hotel is a fair hike from population centers.
    The idea is to democratize the debates. One result is that the new system might take the election process out of the realm of exclusive lawyers and into the public. Old Virginia, especially during the years of the Byrd Machine, was almost always exclusive rather than inclusive.
    The change is welcome. So, twitter away!
    Peter Galuszka

  • So Sorry, So Sorry

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    James A. Bacon


    Funny what a difference a half a century makes.

    Here it is, 50 years after Virginia’s racist “Massive Resistance” policy against court-ordered integration came to an end. Commemorating it will be a conference tomorrow at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. A time of reckoning and reconciliation is in the air. What is truly maddening, however, is how some of the same institutions that cheered, if not framed, the horrible policy are making limp-wristed and marketing-minded “apologies” about treating African-Americans so unfairly.
    The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Topeka decision declared legislated segregation of schools unconstitutional, setting off shock waves throughout much of the South and the Border States. Some states such as North Carolina went ahead and more or less followed the letter of the law. Deep South Alabama and Mississippi saw a huge leap in violence and Ku Klux Klan activity.
    In the genteel Old Dominion, white sheets and bull whips are frowned upon. So, the ruling white elite did the “gentlemanly” thing. Pushed by such political luminaries as Harry F. Byrd and his machine, a cabal of politicians, lawyers, bankers and businessmen decided a formal policy of “massively” resisting federal law and created committees, review commissions and various other bodies to enforce segregation and keep Blacks out of public schools.
    Some school districts such as Prince Edward County simply shut down rather than admit blacks. Blacks students ended up being taught in homes or being sent to places like Sweden, earning Virginia a great reputation as a champion of human rights , you know “Mother of Presidents” and all that malarkey.
    The arguments for Massive Resistance were framed in high brow style by the town’s newspapers, the Richmond News-Leader and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The likes of James Kilpatrick, later a TV star on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” played bizarre argument games with words such as “interposition” which is a fancy way of saying that states don’t have to follow the U.S. Constitution if they don’t feel like it.
    One of the sorriest histories is that of Virginius Dabney, the esteemed and literate editorial writer of the TD. Dabney was considered progressive on many matters and had a national reputation. But he was under the thumb of the Bryan family that owned the newspapers and was forced to do their evil bidding. According to “The Race Beat” a history of Southern journalism in the civil rights era, authors Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff note that whenever the Bryans wanted to serve up another editorial boosting Massive Resistance, Dabney would recuse himself and let some ad salesman do it.
    One can’t exactly say that is the brave act of a great man. After all, The Virginian-Pilot opposed Massive Resistance editorially and won a Pulitzer for it. Dabney should have told the Bryans to stuff it and quit.
    That is why the TD’s editorial today “apologizing” for its past behavior is downright creepy. “The hour is ignoble” the editorial says. “The Times-Dispatch was complicit. The record fills us with regret, which we have expressed before.”
    So sorry. So sorry. Gee, but it would be insane not to backpedal from the policy especially since the U.S. president is half African-American and Blacks have made tremendous progress despite lingering racism. What’s more, the TD’s editorial has the smell of marketing. Having lost significant circulation, the paper needs African-American readers to sustain it, if not make it survive. So, 50 years after the fact, we get this lame apology.
    Margaret Edds, a former Pilot political correspondent and editorial writer, nails it. Writing in Stlye Weekly, she notes that the entire Virginia leadership structure was complicit, especially the legal community.
    Today, African-American lawyers such as Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson Jr. win all sorts of accolades from mostly white legal societies for pushing civil rights in court. It was an incredibly gutsy thing to do at the time and the threats weren’t just shotgun blasts or burning crosses. The General Assembly passed laws targeting fund raising by the NAACP which paid for the lawsuits that won integration. The Virginia Supreme Court went after the Black lawyers on “ethical” grounds, as if supporting the U.S. Constitution and a Supreme Court ruling was somehow “unethical” by precious “Virginia”standards.
    With this in mind, one can understand why years later some African-American Richmonders opposed putting tennis great Arthur Ashe’s statue on Monument Avenue nearby Stonewall, J.E.B. and Robert E. and the rest of the Glorious Boys in Grey. Why not honor Ashe by keeping his statue in the segregated Northside neighborhood where he grew up and was welcome, and not on Monument Avenue where he was not welcome.
    They may well have a point. Meanwhile, spare us the tepid apologies and the crocodile tears.
    Peter Galuszka

  • The Myth of “High Speed” Rail

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    James A. Bacon

    You have to love how Richmond works.

    There’s a certain elite that tries to make all the decisions and it includes whoever is the mayor, the Chamber of Commerce, a few heads of whatever banks and investment houses are left over, sometimes the Armstrongs and Gottwallds and almost certainly Jim Ukrop. The ruling party Pravda, of course, is the Times-Dispatch, whose publisher and editorial page editor are card carrying members of the ruling elite and typically act in their interests and not necessarily the public’s.
    So it is with “high speed” rail. All of Richmond’s poo-bahs are on board grabbing Obama’s stimulus infrastructure money to get “high speed’ rail to expedite train traffic from Petersburg and Richmond to D.C. Mind you years ago, there really was some form of fast, efficient and reliable rail on the old Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac. Marquee name streamliners like the Silver Meteor or The Champion zipped through Richmond just about daily and some of them hit speeds of 100 m.p.h. on their way to the Florida palm trees and beaches. In 1936, my late father spent his college summers attending Platoon Leaders Class at the Quantico Marine Base and if the Marines ever gave these budding officers liberty, dad was just as inclined to hop a train for the flesh pots of Richmond as D.C.
    Obama has come up with as much as $13 billion for as many as 11 high speed rail corridors in the U.S., including the Midwest and California and the Southeast, including Richmond. Congress is considering up to $58 billion more and Virginia wants its chunk.
    If the $1.5 billion Virginia is applying for is approved, federal money would be available to bypass the crowded CSX yard at Acca in Richmond, improve signals, straighten curves, add third tracks to bypass slow freights, etc. It could cut the travel time to DC from Richmond by an hour to 90 minutes.
    But is that high speed rail? Not at all. It would only add 11 mph to the 79 mph top speed now. Yet everyone talks about this as high speed rail, especially the editorial page editor of the TD who is touted as a “high speed rail expert” by the leaders of the movement. Funny but Amtrak defines “high speed” as that above 110 mph.
    What would it take to get true “high speed” rail. I just did an article on this for Style Weekly.My best guess is $4 billion. It would include the $1.5 billion improvements aforementioned, another $1.5 billion to electrify the tracks and a brand new $1 billion bridge across the Potomac at DC since the current one is used by slow freights and isn’t electrified. It took $2.5 billion and seven years to improve the Woodrow Wilson bridge so we’re talking years. And, my estimate doesn’t include buying up land rights and fixing all those grade crossings from here to D.C. You can’t have grade crossing at trains going from 110 to 150 mph. Too dangerous.

    Here’s another little irony. Many of the backers of high speed rail,including U.S. Rep and Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor, can’t stand Obama’s stimulus. It’s tax and spend time, they say. The “liberal” Obama is sticking our children with huge deficits. Relying on the evil federal government is not the way to go. Except when it means they might get to their D.C. meetings a little faster, that is. Plus, the usual neocon suspects such as the Cato Institute question whether you get that much bang for the buck with high speed rail.
    But the word is out. I attended a breakfast meeting at a country club last week when high speed rail was touted. Jim Ukrop happened to sit at my table and when he learned I was a reporter working for Style Weekly that is beyond the control of the movers and shakers he got concerned. He started quizzing me on what sources I was talking to and if I have ever had any experience covering high speed rail. (about 35 years of rail issues although not necessarily “high speed”).
    My, I thought, how patronizing. I would never dare ask Ukrop if he knew how to run a supermarket. But that’s Richmond for you.
    Peter Galuszka

  • GOVERNANCE TRANSFORMATION

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    James A. Bacon

    Let us talk of Fundamental Transformation of governace structure.

    (Note: Peter Galuszka’s post on Commonwealth’s information technology “Behind the Northrop Grumman / VITA Scandals” 30 June 2009) spit into two themes as well as a sub-theme dealing with MainStream Media. EMR addressed the sub-theme on MainStream Media in the “Unbelievable Obliviousness” post of 7 July – FYI, there was an Ombudsman CYA in the 12 July WaPo on this topic. Many of the comments on “Northrop…” addressed the Commonwealth IT issue. The other theme that emerged was Governance Reform, examined here.)

    EMR likes Groveton’s goal: The governance structure closest to the citizens governs best. EMR does not, however, think Groveton’s strategy has legs. Giving more power to Fairfax County and then ‘hoping’ they will devolve it further is not realistic. (Some of Groveton’s original comment in the “Northrop…” string is repeated below with EMR comments.)

    Fairfax County has a larger population than seven states. It is hardly a “local” – as in ‘close to those governed’ – Agency. Closer than the Commonwealth, but NOT close enough.

    At the same time Fairfax County does not represent even half the population of the Virginia part of the Nation Capital SubRegion and covers perhaps 10% of the area.

    And that does not address the population or area of the National Capital SubRegion or the Washington-Baltimore NUR. The NUR is the fundamental economic, social and physical building block that impacts every citizen of the NUR not just in Virginia but in the Federal District, and parts of Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

    EMR, Groveton and TMT all agreed in the “Northrop …” string that lower is better but what does ‘lower’ mean and how do citizens get there?

    What the simple “closest governs best” mantra does not reflect is that in contemporary society there are many levels of impact and thus the criteria must be “the lowest level is best so long as it represents all those impacted by the policy, program, or regulation” of the Agency.

    In other words: Level of control must be at level of impact.” Since there are often multiple levels of impact, there must be a governance structure that represents EVERY level and a system to share responsibility among levels.

    History documents that it is counter productive to assume the highest level should controls except for overarching “self-evident truths” impacting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    This is the nub of the most important element of Fundamental Transformation of governance structure:

    In contemporary society there is no single level that is the obvious nexus of control for all issues that are the responsibility of the First Estate.

    It is possible to redistribute the powers and responsibilities of Agencies. EMR did that 40 years ago with the Adirondack SubRegional land use control, transport and amenity system that is still in effect (Although not optimum, it works better than many other attempts to Balance conservation and economic prosperity.)

    EMR also did the same thing for many functions of governance for NUR and USRs in the draft legislation to restructure governance below the state level in New York state in the late 60s.

    Fundamental Transformation means, FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION.

    The issue is explored in more depth in The Shape of the Future but here is a sketch of how to get started:

    The Cluster-scale is the LARGEST scaled component where direct democracy is a functional governance strategy. Most elementary schools have a room large enough for the Cluster to meet and discuss key issues. A board of seven or nine can keep track of most issue of importance at this scale. This level of democracy works, we prove it every day. It is hard, much harder than just kicking the issue up to higher levels and then complaining, but it works.

    Let Clusters choose what Neighborhood they want to be part of. It will be obvious in some cases but it should not be a foregone conclusion that leads to the Neighborhood having the last word, and then each higher level assuming they are can supercede the lower level and more important or have the last say on issue.

    In the same way, Neighborhoods choose what Village they want to be part of and Villages what Community, etc.

    Let components of settlement pattern and of governance Agencies COMPETE for citizens instead of exercising the ‘right’ to control those of smaller scale. There would be a buy-in for a set period of years and a cost allocation for disengagement but the potential would always be there to choose some better fit for your Cluster, your Neighborhood, your Village, your Community.

    The most important ingredient of the structure would be incentives to create Balance at each scale. For example delegating down taxing powers, level of autonomy and say about what happens in larger components by lower components increases with Balance.

    This would be especially important at the Village, Community and SubRegional scales. This structure would give Clusters and Neighborhoods a direct say in Regional facility and infrastructure decisions without NIMBY protectionism.

    You do not want it there (NIMBY), OK you can help pay for the added cost of putting the facility in a less efficient location, is an example of getting to the root of many settlement pattern dysfunctions.

    It would not be Neighborhood approval of the nation-state defense budget but you get the idea:

    Level of decision at level of impact.

    If there is shared impact then there is shared decision making. The highest level would rule only on issues fundamental to the Federal Constitution. As Groveton has pointed out, that is the theory now but that is not the way it works.

    As EMR pointed out in the “Northrop…” post (with clarification and spell checking):

    If one protects the turf of existing Governance Practitioners, there would be little real change. Also, per Groveton’s view, the GA likes the system the way it is — they have control without responsibility.

    When EMR was involved in Fairfax politics we found anything that the Chamber, the LWV and the Federation all backed went through the GA without a hitch — e.g. the bond authority for building roadways in the 70s.

    In other words, there is no specific difference between ‘city’ status and county status that could not be ‘fixed’ if there was a consensus on the need to change. If there is not consensus, the change is not going to happen regardless of status.

    THE BIG PROBLEM IS THAT WHAT EVER ONE CALLS IT, THE 244,000 + /- ACRES OF FAIRFAX COUNTY IS NOT AN ORGANIC COMPONENT OF HUMAN SETTLEMENT.

    Fairfax County includes all or part of nine Beta Communities. Fairfax does not just rank between Dallas and San Jose in population (and is 200,000 larger than Detroit), it is also more populous than seven of the 50 states including EMR’s home state of Montana.

    After Fundamental Transformation there could be a special fund to erect historic markers for Olde Fairfaxe.

    Since these issue were first raised in the “Northrop…” string, there have been references to, questions about and cross postings to Senator Chap Peterson’s Blog. In this Blog, Sen. Peterson seems to not support Fairfax County morphing to ‘city’ status – the same for the need for Fundamental Transformation.

    Then on Sunday, 5 July, WaPo did two stories on Fairfax County switching to ‘city’ status and a comment that contends that ‘city’ status would guarantee to more money for transportation – as if more money will mitigate the Mobility and Access Crisis without Fundamental Transformation in human settlement patterns….

    Some may have missed a great breath of fresh air in a 3 July WaPo story “New White House Office to Redefine What Urban Policy Encompasses: Agenda May Address Suburbs, Too.”

    Bruce Katz at Brookings has been working to redefine ‘urban policy’ as ‘metropolitan policy’ for years but keeps getting sabotaged by his habit of overusing the word ‘city’ and by his staff substituting ‘city’ for ‘Metropolitan Statistical Area’ (or New Urban Region) in their reports and press releases.

    In SYNERGY’s Vocabulary Urban policy addresses the Urban area of the nation-state where 95 of economic activity occurs in 2009.

    It is time to abandon the idea that “urban” is code for “central city” and for the interests of those citizens with a specific racial or cultural heritage.

    If one is to go to the trouble of making a change, make a change that is worth the effort.

    ………………

    For those who do not want to go back to “Northrop…”, here is the nub of Groveton’s suggestion with notes by EMR:

    “I think Fairfax needs a two part evolution.

    “First, the county needs city status to partly throw off the yoke of GA oppression.

    “Then, the new city/county needs to recognize even more granular decision making areas – the existing supervisory districts are close but would have to be adjusted.

    EMR suggests that there has been nothing stopping the County from doing this in the past. Every time a sub-county interest has appeared, it has been quashed by the County – e.g. the attempts by Reston to change status. Getting rid of the GA yoke would just put the primary focus on a different level with no difference in impact on the ground.

    “Then, there would need to be referenda at the local level. At first, the referenda could be advisory. However, after the process was refined the advisories would become binding.”

    Referenda can be useful tools but they are not a substitute for Fundamental Transformation.

    “To all the hacks in the GA – The government that governs closest to the people governs best. So, why doesn’t this happen in VA? I have begun to see the GA as “Useful Idiots” – …”

    All true, but that does not solve the problem.

    EMR has given a lot of thought and experimented with levels of governance number and effectiveness of below the county level in Fairfax County for 27 years (1975 to 2002)and in Fauquier County since then. We hope this clarifies the context and helps sort out the response to the problems that TMT raised in the “Northrop…” and in “A Quick One for Peter” of 10 July.

    EMR

  • A QUICK ONE FOR PETER

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    James A. Bacon

    EMR is trying to catch up now that TRILO-G is going out for Beta Review and the fourth printing of The Shape of the Future is about to ship to Amazon, et. al. First we will do a post on the other theme raised in Peters ‘Northrop’ post (Governance Transformation) to answer some questions and respond to comment there, then we will do a post on the new TTI report (meeting related to that this PM) since there seems to be some confusion, and finally a note on why it is foolish to expect a “recovery,” but first a quick question for Peter:

    What is it about these Commonwealth-based food processing plants?

    First it is peanut butter, now cookie dough. Three separate E. Coli strains in cookie dough from one plant?!?

    Could it be that Virginia’s “business friendly” regulatory environment spills over and impacts federal inspections?

    What occurs?

    EMR

  • UNBELIEVABLE OBLIVIOUSNESS

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The comments on Peter’s post on Commonwealth’s information technology “Behind the Northrop Grumman / VITA Scandals”) spit into two themes. In addition there is a sub-theme dealing with MainStream Media. Let us examine the sub-theme:

    TMT called our attention to a 2 July item on POLITICO re WaPo lobbyist ‘sponsored’ dinners.

    EMR printed it out and shared it with several folks. They were OUTRAGED. It seemed to EMR like Business-As-Usual but they were talking about un-subscribing.

    WaPo printed a weak explanation on 3 July to cover their tracks. If one does not understand THE ESTATES MATRIX, it is easy to see WaPo as the villain rather than just an Enterprise playing out their Second Estate Role.

    Today WaPo is back with a ‘we are making sure we are doing NOTHING wrong’ story titled “The Post Begins Reviews of Events to Avoid Ethics Conflicts. The first paragraph reads:

    “The Washington Post yesterday initiated internal review to ensure that its business practices do not compromise it journalistic ethics WHEN THE NEWSPAPER ORGANIZES CONFERENCES OR PRIVATE EVENTS FUNDED BY SPONSORS. (Emphasis added)

    WHAT???

    How can they even DREAM there is not a blatant conflict that arises by just talking about such events?

    Stop the Journalist charade, WaPo is an Enterprise, it is in business to make money. If it makes money from anything except those who buy its news services – including advertising by Agencies, Enterprises or Institutions that it reports on – it is prima facia CONFLICT.

    These actions just document that the Organization has left the Fourth Estate and moved to the Second Estate. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with making money from providing access to speical interests so long as the Enterprise admits what they are doing and that they are in the Second Estate AND they do not try to hide behind a charade of ‘fourth estate journalism.’ It died in the 20th century.

    It helps if one has a Comprehensive Conceptual Framework (THE ESTATES MATRIX or another one of your choosing) otherwise one ends up with impenetrable claptrap such as that by Clay Skirky who is ‘excerpted’ in the July-August 2009 Utne Reader.

    Until there is robust, diverse CitizenMedia in the Fourth Estate, citizens will not have the information they need to make intelligent choices in the marketplace or in the voting booth.

    EMR

  • Behind the Northrop Grumman, VITA Scandals

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The continuing woes of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency and the state’s $2.4 billion IT contract with Northrop Grumman raise questions about some particularly “Virginian” conceits. One has to do with the state’s self consciousness about being a “tech” state and its propensity for privatizing public operations.

    Northrop Grumman has been accused of cost overruns, delays and sloppy service with the 10-year contract it won in 2005 under Gov. Mark Warner to take the state’s antiquated computer system and turn into something that is “state of the art.”
    VITA was created in 2002 to oversee state IT work and it, too, has been racked by controversy. Its programs were hacked in April and a few weeks ago, its chief, Lemuel Stewart was cashiered for allegedly questioning the high costs of the Northrup Grumman contract. Now it appears that Northrup Grumman is at least six months late in its work upgrading state computers.
    Legislative watchdogs are starting to bark. This is bad news for outgoing Gov,. Tim Kaine, who is doing double duty as head of the Democratic National Committee still basking in the honeymoon glow of the Obama election.
    First, some perspective about the players:
    • Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumann is a major defense contractor with a huge footprint in Virginia. It operates many offices in Northern Virginia that serve the Pentagon and other federal agencies. Northoup Grumman is a specialist in federal IT and defense IT work. What’s more, it owns Newport News Shipbuilding, one of the largest employers in the state and the only shipyard in the nation that can build and service surface nuclear-powered vessels such as Nimitz class aircraft carriers and the next generation.
    • U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, who let the Northrop Grumman contract as governor, is a rising Democtratic star who cut his teeth on IT and related ventures. Back in the 1980s, Warner, not long out of Harvard Law, built a fortune estimated at the time of $400 million by brokering deals among nascent cell phone companies. The Federal Communications Commission had held auctions for band with needed for cellphones but the auctions sold off radio waves haphazardly. Ever the entrepreneur, Warner worked out private swaps among companies wanting to put togther cell networks in specific markets, thus earning himself a rep as a tech savvy guy.
    • Tim Kaine, Warner’s Democratic successor, has also positioned himself as a business-friendly, tech savvy politician.
    • The Republicans, notably former Gov. Jim Gilmore, first rode the tech wave back in the 1990s when the World Wide Web was exploding on the scene and NOVA became home to America Online, other Net-based firms and many telecoms. In 1998, Gilmore introduced the concept of the Secretary of Technology, the first ever in the U.S. Then, and now, half of the U.S. Intenet traffic still passes through NOVA. A lot of the telecoms and Net firms, however, went bust around 2001.

    Add it all up, and you have a state that is eager, maybe too eager, to be known as tech savvy. It’s as if a pale wallflower at a dance suddenly becomes almost as hot as Miss Cool Bay Area or Brainy Miss Boston. That’s a lot better rep than Massive Resistance or trying not to let the Confederate Generals on Monument Avenue in Richmond get soiled by an Arthur Ashe memorial.

    Another factor dates from the Jim Gilmore/George Allen years. Back then, when tech was hot, the economy was expanding and Bill Clinton was slipping from Bimbo to Bimbo, there came a neocon idea that privatizing the public sector was worthy and wonderful. Starting back in the Reagan-Thatcher years, the concept assumed that the free market was the best way to control costs efficiently and unleash creativity. Thus, private firms should be hired to run state functions, such as highways or IT functions.
    Although the ideas were hatched with the GOP, privatization and public-private partnerships were embraced by business-friendly Dems such as Mark Warner and Kaine. So, when Mark W. wanted to show his tech-savviness and pointed to antiquated, underfunded state IT systems, the obvious solution was to turn them over to the private sector, which in this case, was one of the state’s biggest and most politically powerful employers.
    Well, ahem, it hasn’t worked out that well, as the scandals with Northrop Grumman and VITA show. Maybe private business isn’t all that more competent than plodding old government bureaucracies. There’s plenty of evidence against the private sector, given its record leading up to the worst recession since the Great Depression. Arrogance, hubris and aggravating, short-term thinking come to mind.
    Maybe it’s time for Virginia to move on from this style of thinking that is stuck the nineties. The venture capital and IPO days are really so very yesterday. And isn’t the Net just a more advanced telephone system and not a god unto itself? How about some good old-fashioned service and keeping your word and upholding your end of a deal?
    Peter Galuszka

  • Surry’s Huge Coal-Fired Plant

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Coal-fired electricity generation remains one of the hottest issues in the Old Dominion and the nation. With some form of cap and trade law almost inevitable in Congress and with polls showing that 75 percent of Americans think that carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases need regulation, the issues really does have legs.
    In Virginia, for the past several years, the tip of the spear was in St. Paul’s in Wise County where Dominion plans to build a $1.6 billion, 585-megawatt coal-fired plant. That project has been a rallying cry for environmentalists nationally, some of whom such as the Sierra Club have pledged to fight any big, base-loaded, coal-fired plant anywhere. They have had some successes, notably in the Southwest.
    Now, the focus is shifting farther east, to the flat peanut lands of Surry County about halfway between Richmond and Norfolk. There, Henrico County-based Old Dominion Electric Cooperative plans on building twin 750 megawatt units costing perhaps $6 billion — in other words, a facility maybe three times as big as Dominion’s in Wise County.
    In a story I reported for Richmond’s Style Weekly, I note that the so-called Cypress Creek Power Station would be the second largest of its kind in the state. It would instantly become the state’s sixth biggest air polluter, air pollution officials say. The facility would be fed via a new rail spur from Norfolk Southern’s coal mainline to Norfolk. Water for steam would be pumped 15 miles from the James River and heated water would be pumped back into the estuary. Fly ash from the coal will be buried on the project’s 1,600-acre site, not far from the town’s well water supply, local opponents say.
    The plant would be in the town of Dendron, population 300, which is a flyspeck decorated with black “No Coal Plant” signs. These mimic the “No OLF” sings one sees throughout Tidewater Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina regarding local opposition to the Navy’s efforts to locate a new landing field so their F-18 Super Hornet jet fighters can simulate air craft carrier landings. The problem: Super Hornets are some of the loudest aircraft ever built.
    Old Dominion Electric Cooperative claims that the plant is needed to help them meet a shortfall by 2016 of some 4,000 megawatts Virginia will face in electricity unless new plants are built. ODEC has 11 mostly-rural; members in this state, Maryland and Virginia. It has begun the process of getting the 50 or more permits it needs to start construction.
    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to approve a plan for ODEC to tap water in the James River and then return heated water back into the estuary not far from the tourist havens of Jamestown and Williamsburg. According to ODEC data, Cypress Creek would annually emit 3,085 tons of nitrogen oxide a year, 3,685 tons of sulfur dioxide, nearly a half a ton of lead, 283 tons of sulfuric mist and 2,155 tons of particulates. The project needs another permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because construction will alter wetlands.
    Of particular concern to the state Department of Environmental Quality is ODEC’s estimate that the plant will emit 118 pounds per year of highly toxic mercury. By contrast, Dominion Resources’s Wise County plant will emit only 5.5 pounds of mercury a year. Given prevailing wind patterns in Surry, the mercury could fall onto the water of the James River and Chesapeake Bay and be dangerous to wildlife. “This is something we’re absolutely going to be looking at,” says state air pollution analyst Sparky H.L. Lisle Jr.
    Surry County, which has been home to twin nuclear reactors owned by Dominion for 37 years, could use the tens of millions the project would pay. Some 200 permanent jobs would help the rural, sleepy country.
    Yet there are more questions about the project than just its immediate pollution impact. For one thing, ODEC has recently lost its largest member, the Manassas-based Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative with 142,000 customers, terminated its relationship with ODEC Dec. 31 over a contract dispute. “We thought we could do better with a different power supplier,” says Virginia Burginger, a NOVEC spokeswoman. If this is so, why the urgency to build such a big plant?
    Another issue is if much-larger Dominion will fill the shortfall with new plants such as Wise, another nuke at North Anna, windmills and so on. A Dominion spokesman told me that the shortfall is actually larger — about 4,600 megawatts by the last part of next decade. Dominion should be able to add 4,200 megawatts of extra generation capacity by then. If so, this raises questions about why the ODEC project is necessary or if their real aim is to wholesale electricity beyond its members.
    Lastly, there are carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases. ODEC has not provided details about how they plan to capture CO2. A report by Synapse, a Cambridge, Mass. consulting firm funded by environmentalists, claims that depending on what kind of cap and trade law goes into effect, ODEC ratepayers could face extra costs of from $223 million to $1.76 billion to handle carbon dioxide. ODEC publicly dissed the report, calling it “speculative and inaccurate” but did not responded to a Synapse request to provide more information. ODEC claims that the plant will actually save its customers about $14 billion but doesn’t say how.
    A personal note: I tried to interview ODEC but they refused, saying that my blog postings on the site showed I was biased against the plant. I beg to differ. ODEC then went to the publications to whom I had tried to sell the story. Style Weekly, bless their hearts, told ODEC that they had reviewed my postings and didn’t see that I had raised anything to the level of advocacy on my part.
    True enough. I’m just asking questions like any reporter. I guess my questions weren’t too welcome.
    Peter Galuszka

  • METRO FINGER POINTING

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The finger pointing concerning the METRO Red Line Wreck is in high gear.

    There is one area of concern that you will not hear about in the MainStream Media:

    Dysfunctional human settlement patterns in the METRO station areas.

    The failure to evolve supporting settlement patterns (aka, ‘land use’) in the station areas is the primary reason that “most of the METRO trains leave most of the METRO stations mostly empty most of the time.”

    No shared-vehicle system can operate efficiently pumping one way in the morning and the other way at night PERIOD.

    If there was Balance between the station area travel demand and the METRO system capacity there would then be far more revenue to keep the system maintained and far more citizen support for the absolutely necessary stable funding sources.

    There would also be no need to push the system beyond it’s capacity to serve peak demand.

    Of course, there would also be far fewer wrong size houses in the wrong locations with underwater mortgages – but that is another story – see last post.

    Want the details on what needed to be done and what STILL needs to be done? Read EMR’s 1989 report “It Is Time to Fundamentally Rethink METRO and Mobility in the National Capital Subregion” most recently revised and updated 18 October 2004.

    Want to see a clear ‘blueprint’ for where and how Fundamental Transformation could be done? Google “Blueprint for a Better Region.”

    And before anyone gets off their hay wagon and tries to pitch cheap shots about how the ‘real problem’ is building a heavy rail based shared-vehicle system in the first place, read the full analysis of one of the leading anti-rail quacks recent scribblings summarized in this abstract:

    “Clifford Winston and Vikram Maheshri attempt to use benefit-cost analysis to make a definitive
    statement about the social desirability of urban rail transit in the United States. Their argument is
    deficient on several elementary analytic and statistical grounds. They underestimate total benefits, and therefore net benefits, and their failure to examine the suitability of their data and to pay attention to the usual caveats associated with benefit-cost analysis further undermines their
    assertions. As a result, these findings should not be used to inform either the debate or decisions
    about investment in urban rail systems.”

    The study can be found at www.vtpi.org

    Lets point the fingers at solutions, not the villains or the strawpersons. It has been 20 years and time is running out.

    EMR

  • BROOKINGS MetroMonitor

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    A PATH TO UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF REGIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE IMPERATIVE OF EVOLVING REGIONAL STRATEGIES

    On 17 June Gooze Views posted “How Virginia’s Metro Areas Are Weathering the Recession” about the three largest of Virginia’s 11 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). On the same day a WaPo story addressed the Washington, D. C.-VA-MD-WV MSA. As Peter noted, the data to support both stories came from an invaluable new research tool developed by Brookings Institution called MetroMonitor.

    MetroMonitor has just been launched but is already a very useful resource. It provides data on ten parameters covering – Gross Regional Product, Employment / Unemployment / Wages and Shelter for the largest 100 MSAs in the US of A. The MetroMonitor web site http://www.brookings.edu/metro/MetroMonitor.aspx?emc=lm&m=226673&l=2&v=41423 includes maps that are color coded by quartile for all ten parameters and a spread sheet. Brookings plans to up date this resource quarterly.

    Viewing MetroMonitor as a whole, the first thing that strikes one is the immense diversity among the 100 largest MSAs. The 100 largest MSAs encompass about 75% of the economic activity in the US of A. (There are 366 MSAs in the US of A and a whole alphabet soup of other “Census Defined” geographies. The New Urban Region data used by SYNERGY is based on the 68 largest urban agglomerations and represents over 85 percent of economic activity in the US of A.)

    The primary message to take from MetroMonitor? These data document that there is NO one nation-state-wide policy that will improve the economic, social and physical well being of all Regions. Further some of the most often touted “policy alternatives” (aka, ways to spend federal money) will damage many Regions.

    Three examples drive home this point:

    It is painfully apparent that MainStream Media and most Governance Practitioners are still dreaming that the Great Recession will be eclipsed by the two principle economic forces that have been relied on to end every recession since World War II. (It is worth noting in passing that it was World War II, and not specific economic policies that ended the Great Depression.)

    The sale of cars and houses have pulled citizens and their Organizations out of every recession over the past 64 years.

    It does not take Adam Smith, John Keynes or Milton Friedman to understand that policies that make shelter cheaper will damage, not help, all those Regions with depressed residential real estate markets and large numbers of lender owned housing. That is the focus of WaPo story noted above: “Region’s Economic Performance Ranks High: Housing Sector Remains a Drag.”

    The US of A is an Urban society and many believe most of the ‘urban ills’ of the past 64 years were CAUSED by Federal policies. Kirkpatrick Sales provides a thumbnail summary of this view based on his analysis of the demise of South Bronx in Human Scale.

    The other primary recession killer employed over the past six plus decades has been car sales. Policies to boost cars sales (especially Large, Private Autonomobiles) will help some rust belt MSAs over the short haul but it will damage EVERY Region in the long term because it will continue to drive dysfunctional human settlement patterns. Oh yes, then there is the matter of balance of payments / imported oil, air pollution, etc.

    EMR suggested in this forum (“Addicted to Autonomobiles,” 2 June 2009) that those who can afford an autonomobile already have two or three and those who cannot afford an autonomobile need functional settlement patterns, not a vehicle they will not be able to afford soon. (You have noticed that every time the stock market ticks up because someone “sees the bottom,” the price of crude jumps even thought there is now a glut of petroleum.)

    For all Regions, one-size-fits-all programs like “Cash for Clunkers” is just another way to dig citizens further into the Mobility and Access Crisis.

    Finally with respect to employment:

    Recent data shows that the National Capital Subregion (and other MSA-comparable geographies) have added jobs but also increased unemployment. EMR has pointed in this forum that what is needed in most Regions are jobs for those who are not highly skilled and are not highly motivated.

    There is a lot of debate about how much economic boost ‘green’ jobs will produce but no one is talking about the sort of jobs for which most of the unemployed now (or after training will) qualify. Broad brush federal programs to ‘add jobs’ may not add the right jobs in any Region. The bottom line is that jobs need to be the right ones for each Region, not a one-size-fits-all hole into which the fed pours newly printed dollars.

    All this points to the need for Regional Strategies to address Regional Conditions in order to evolve sustainable New Urban Regions comprised of Balanced Communities. Did someone say Fundamental Transformation of governance structure?

    A couple of suggestions:

    The MetroMonitor would be greatly enhanced by the addition of an indicator measuring Regional Consumer Confidence. If 70 to 80 percent of the US of A’s economy is consumer consumption then knowing Regional consumer confidence is critical.

    Citizens can do a lot if they have the right information, are motivated and confident that what they are doing will improve citizen well being and quality of life.

    Another improvement would be to aggregate the MSA data MegaRegion. Right now it looks like there is great diversity WITHIN MegaRegions.

    For example, the National Capital Subregion (Washington MSA plus) and the Baltimore Subregion (Baltimore MSA plus) do not fall in the same 20 percent category for a single one of the ten indicators.

    This suggests there is a need for not just Regional strategies but also MegaRegional strategies where Balance can be achieved from trade-offs within a MegaRegion.

    Brookings staff is aware of the “America 2050″ program that is focused on MegaRegions. This would seem to be a simple step to take on the path to creating ‘Real Regional’ data (aka, New Urban Region and MegaRegion Data) not just MSA data. Even more important will be to evolve subsets of the Regional Data to reflect Beta Communities and NOT state or municipal jurisdictions.

    This last suggestion illustrates how valuable MetroMonitor would be if Governance Practitioners had not been doing everything in their power to obscure and obfuscate an understanding of the evolution of the organic structure of Urban systems for the past 222 years.

    EMR

  • The Risky Business of Journalism

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon


    The dramatic escape from his Taliban captors by New York Times correspondent David Rohde shows just how dangerous journalism can be.

    Yet journalists keep getting trashed, mostly from the right wing, for supposedly being biased or dim-witted dupes. Many actually work very hard risking their lives for little fame and, these days, less and less money. Instead of being spoon-fed information by sources with specific agendas, many painstakingly dig up information without fear or favor and put the pieces together as best they can before going into print, on the air or online.
    Rohde, a two-time Pultizer winner, knew the risks when he arranged a dicey interview in Afghanistan. He was kidnapped and held prisoner with two others for seven months. Waiting when the guard was down, he and another man scaled a prison wall and and raced to freedom.
    Much of the danger is overseas. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that during this year alone. 17 journalists have been killed. Since the early 1990s, 138 have been killed in Iraq, 60 in Algeria and 50 in Russia.
    I am especially sensitive to Russia since I worked as a foreign correspondent there for a total of six years in the 1980s and 1990s and know some of the dead. I will never forget the coup against Boris Yeltsin on Oct. 3 and 4, 1993 where much of the action took place just outside our apartment.
    I’ll never forget the night of Oct. 3 when I drove alone in my Russian-made car (sort of like a 1972 Fiat) to the country’s TV complex. Skin-head “red-brown” thugs, some with Afghanistan War experience, were trying to break into the TV center to broadcast their propaganda that the Yeltsin government had fallen. Loyal troops held fast instead. A small crowd of journalists watched from very close quarters. Rebels tried to bash their way in with a truck. Finally, one launched a rocket-propelled grenade into the front door. Machine guns on both sides opened up.
    This occur ed minutes before I was driving to the tv complex. People were cowering on the roadway. I heard the machine guns and watched their tracer rounds make distinct lines from either side of the darkened road. The tracers crossed just at a point a few hundred yards where my car was heading. With no armor plating and armed with only a notebook, I turned around. Four journalists, including a Briton,. were caught in the bloodbath and were shot dead. A New York Times photographer was shot in the lungs. Three more would die before the two-day rebellion was over.
    Here are some more examples of death in Russia:
    • Cynthia Elban, an American stringer for Time, died in Chechnya in 1994. Her head was blown off in an air raid by Russian planes.
    • A friend of mine and a Russian investigative reporter, Yuri Shchekochikin, died mysteriously of “allergies” in 2003 just as he was to fly to the U.S. to interview the FBI about Russian organized crime. High-spirited Yuri was a kind and entertaining man. A great drinking buddy.
    • Paul Khlebnikov. An American of Russian descent, he had written critically of the Russian oligarchs and won their wrath. As he was starting a Russian edition of Forbes, he was shot down in an apartment. He was an acquaintance of mine.
    • Anna Politkovskaya, famed for her tough articles on Russian government and military corruption in Chechnya, was gunned down near her apartment.

    There are many more. None of these people took freedom of the press lightly. They paid for it with their lives.

    What about the here and now in the U.S. Frankly, I am scared that the ad-slammed, dumbed-down and otherwise almost-out-of-business news media industry in this country will continue trends to not do investigative reporting and will only print or broadcast what powerful institutions, such as governments, corporations or universities want them to. I am already seeing it happen.
    Peter Galuszka

  • How Virginia’s Metro Areas Are Weathering the Recession

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    How’s Virginia faring in the recession? Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads are doing well among the nation’s metropolitan areas. Richmond is about in the middle.
    That’s the conclusion of a new Brookings Institution study of the nation’s top 100 metro areas.See: http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2009/06_metro_monitor.aspx.
    All in all Virginia isn’t in bad shape, the study implies. Hardest hit areas include California, such as the Bay Area, Los Angeles and the Central Valley and most of Florida. The rust belt from western Pennsylvania, across northern Ohio and on into Michigan are also hard hit. The strongest single area seems to be the central Southwest, including most of Texas and Oklahoma. The Northeast is mixed as is the Deep South.
    The obvious reason for NOVA’s and Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News’ strength is the federal government. Both areas are filled with civil service and defense jobs.
    Richmond is a little harder to explain. With its chemical plants and cigarette factories, the Richmond area is more of a blue collar manufacturing area than its Old Dominion sisters. Although it is the seat of state government, Virginia’s public sector is taking its lumps with significant layoffs and budget shortfalls.
    Raleigh-Durham, another point of comparison for Richmond, fares better, Brookings reports. There are similarities with tobacco and state jobs, but the North Carolina capital region is home to the Research Triangle and its many pharmaceutical and health care jobs that are more recession-proof and simply outclass what Richmond has to offer.
    Brookings implies that we may be on the way to a weak economic recovery. I’ll take that. After the past 18 months, I’ll take anything.
    Peter Galuszka

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