Mad Men Stories - Roger Sterling: a Tragedy in the Making

If there is a tragedy which is being overlooked by Mad Men commentators, that is the tragedy of Roger Sterling. If I were asked to bet on which key character would be committing suicide by the end of this season, my money would be Roger. Everyone is discussing how Don Draper's life is heading for disaster, but an epiphany of sorts (and some assistance by A.A. member Freddy Rumsen) could very easily be a plot device to bring him back to where he was. Draper still seems to have the talent and the goodwill and name recognition to work and sell his work to clients.

Sterling, on the other hand, not only lacks talent or drive, but is realizing it, too (but not able to come to terms with it). The first slap on his face came on the season 3 episode, in which the British owners of Sterling-Cooper presented a new chart for the company; his name wasn't even mentioned. He explained that he makes his job look so easy, that people don't realize how important it is. Then, on the third season's final episode, he admitted to Draper that he was acting as if though he had created his business when, in actuality, he had inherited it (and, it was noted, that the only reason he was included in the new firm was the Lucky Strike account). And then in this season - apart from the Ponds Cold Cream account, which he has to handle himself; even there he manages to get the client, a recovering alcoholic, drunk - he only brings trouble to the company, most pointedly with the Honda account. His childishness is alluded to many times over the series (he himself also considers his young wife to be childish), one can see that Bert Cooper is behaving to him like a father trying to persuade his young son not to be naughty, and Lane Pryce in the latest episode ("Waldorf Stories") even referred to him as a child while talking to Campbell. 

For his part, Sterling himself is trying very hard to justify - to himself, that is - his importance. He is writing his memoirs (for want of any meaningful activity) and he understands that there are only a few important things he would be able to say about his work. He wants to get the credit for what he considers his own ultimate coup for his previous company, discovering and hiring Don Draper (and he wants so badly recognition by Draper himself on that), but it seems that even his role in that is controversial at best. It seems that he thinks that he is running out of excuses for living - his look after Draper leaves his office with the Clio award at hand is that of a man understanding that the recognition he received by Draper was probably not genuinely felt, but only a matter of good manners or of old-times-sake camaraderie. John Slattery does an amazing job in portraying that look of a sense of uselessness trying to be concealed by reference to imaginary (perhaps) moments of true executive genius. Roger Sterling's jumping out of the window within the next few episodes seems very plausible - especially if something to the effect of Lucky Strike leaving the company comes to happen.

Social Security - It's More Than a Matter of Political Correctness

Gail Collins, in a New York Times Op-ed, lambasted Alan Simpson, a Republican and co-chairman of the President's deficit reduction commission, for referring to Social Security as "a milk cow with 310 million tits". This, says Collins, confirmed that Simpson is indeed sexist and bashes seniors constantly, as was claimed in an article on Huffington Post. She goes on to make some tongue-in-cheek proposals on what should be done to prevent Social Security from collapsing.

If the op-ed was only a matter of political correctness and the use of the word "tit", that wouldn't matter too much (if you want to hear the word in a hilarious context, check this out until its end!); but the issue is that, once again, opinion makers pamper to senior citizens' wishes and defend their entitlements without so much as recognizing that an actual problem for the financing of Social Security exists. Such shortsightedness is appalling, especially for those of us who will bear that burden. An overhaul of Social Security is necessary and, surprisingly enough, several European countries are setting the example. They have introduced a two- or three- pillar pension system differentiating between the kinds of entitlements for people after their retirement. Typically the first pillar is a set amount handed out to every person above a certain age, independent of any contribution, enough to provide for subsistence. The second pillar is based on the accrued contributions of the retired person and is either somewhat proportional to them or is actually taken from the pooled contributions (defined contribution system - as is the case in Chile). The first two pillars are either state-administered or very heavily regulated. A third pillar, optional and complementary to the first and second, is operated by the market and private insurance companies and, in most cases, the insurance premiums are tax-deductible. Moreover, 

This trifurcation leads to a diversification of the dangers for the pensioners and clarifies the state's role - it provides a guaranteed minimum wage after a certain age, guarantees that the contributions of the individual pay off and provides a motive for individuals to complement their public pension with a private one. Failing to reform the monolithic Social Security system by pandering to the seniors (who allegedly have greater voting power) will surely lead to its collapse.

Blogging Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities": the Need for Diversity in Usage and How to Achieve it

A city or a part of a city works well, according to Jacobs, when there is presence of people - inhabitants, workers, visitors, tourists - during the whole day and evening. She maintains that, in order to obtain such an effect, cities and parts of cities (districts, neighborhoods, etc.) must be diverse - diverse in usages, that is. It is very easy to contemplate that in an area, where people both live and work (not necessarily the same people, of course), people are present, in the streets, the whole time: people going to and from work, parents taking their children out for a stroll, people living there, enjoying their walk after work, people going out to dine or enjoy themselves in some other fashion.

This means that the city and its streets in particular are monitored by the city's dwellers at all hours - and also that people get many more chances to meet each other, to bump into each other, to discover people with similar interests or desires. Jacobs claims that there are four generators of such diversity: mixed primary uses, small blocks, old buildings, and concentration. Let me just write a few words for the first three generators of diversity - I will deal with the need for concentration on my next post on the book.

Mixed primary uses means that a part of a city cannot be solely a business district or an art center or residential. It needs to mix up at least two primary usages, in order for people to be frequenting it all day. This, in turn, means that many secondary uses can be developed, since there are many businesses that can thrive on a clientele present not only for a couple of hours a day (as is the case in business districts, for example), but can count on customers coming in any time of the day. Restaurants and cafes are a typical example of businesses that cannot be sustainable if they work for only two to three hours a day - their overhead, then, is too much for them to handle, they have to raise prices, which means they lose clients and, inevitably, they are forced to close. Conversely, if they can be sustained and be open all through the day, they can support new businesses or new residences, since the workers or the dwellers can count on these businesses for much of the coverage of their needs. They can also attract outsiders, which is of course very good for the local economy, leading to the opportunity for new businesses, and so on.

Small blocks are another generator for diversity, in that they allow many small streets to form and the people living in them get more opportunities to mingle and to follow different paths everyday to their work or to their bus stop. These small streets are also places for small businesses to appear and to assist in mixed primary or secondary uses, leading to the results just mentioned. If, on the other hand, blocks are large, people are reduced to taking one particular route for their everyday walks or strolls or to go to their work. Moreover, it is much more difficult for small businesses to develop, since the distances between a point on the opposite site of the block and the small business is so big, as to discourage potential customers from making the trip (as it often is) from their houses to that business, be it a restaurant, a barber shop, a small gallery, or whatever. Small neighborhood businesses in residential areas bring, of course, the mixed use Jacobs considers important to generate diversity. Jacobs attributes the development of Greenwich Village to the East (to what today is known as the East Village - remember, this book was published in 1961) and not to Chelsea, which was up to some point comparable to Greenwich Village in terms of its population's incomes, to the difference between the large blocks of Chelsea and the small ones in Eastern Village.

Old buildings or, rather, a mix of old and new buildings, seems at first glance an unlikely generator of positive diversity. However, one can understand that cheap buildings, cheap land in general, is required for many an upstart company, which cannot afford to pay expensive rents or buy a studio, an apartment or a store at a high price. Newer and more expensive buildings can be used by established businesses and the osmosis between small and big, upstart and established, proves mutually beneficial in almost all cases.

The New York Times on David and Charles Koch and the Tea Party Movement - Oh, the Condescension!

Perhaps the most fundamental question defining the political divide between the left and the right today is as straightforward as can be: who ought to decide how money is to be spent - the people who earn it or someone else, in the name of the community, society, the common good, the common interest, etc.?

Since states were organized and money was invented, people had always forfeited a part of their earnings to their governments, in the form of taxes, in the understanding that such taxes would be used for financing a state machine, which would provide goods mostly related to its monopoly of legal force: an army for external defense, a police force for internal security, a system of courts for the enforcement of contracts. In modern states this contract was slightly modified, to include certain cases, in which collective or state action was deemed to be preferable to individual action in order to bring about a result desirable to society as a whole, like universal literacy (and later education), some works of infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc., which were initially outside the confinements of private property), etc. But this arrangement, reasonable at first, gave birth to an ever-increasing bureaucracy and the temptations, in a democratic system of government, for opposing political fractions to use the state mechanism for political favors to the electorate - this called for a larger realm of state action which, in turn, needed its own bureaucracy and needed money to work. And this, of course, meant more taxes. 

Moreover, after FDR took over during the Depression, a new role for the government emerged: give money away, create public projects, if only to stimulate demand. And this, of course, meant even more taxes. And today an ever increasing large part of the public sector purportedly serves needs, which would be much better served by the market - which means that people's incomes (and transactions and hereditary transfers and so on) are taxed for some other people, either elected or, in most cases, unelected, to decide where they should be spent, such decisions no longer limited to the basic functions of the state or even to providing goods and services which would be better (or almost as well) provided by the state than the market.

This would inevitably lead to reaction by people who think that the government, in taxing and spending, decreases the value of their work or their entrepreneurship in order to feed the special interests which have inevitably sprung out of this process. This reaction has taken the forms of grassroots organizations, most prominent of which today is the (collectively so named) Tea Party. And these organizations may be financed by wealthy people, who lose a lot more money to taxation than ordinary Americans.

According to an Op-ed by Frank Rich in the New York Times, these Tea Partiers are stupid. How can they not understand that their actions only help to serve the super-rich? How can they connect themselves with what, I guess, are supposed to be their class adversaries? And how can they accept contributions from such evil people, such as the Koch brothers?

Because the Koch brothers are evil, as so thoroughly established by a New Yorker article. Yes, very much so. They want to pay less taxes, instead they want to spend their money on hypocritical donations to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts or, even worse, to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Not to mention that their father was afraid of Communist infiltration back in 1963 (when such an event was so unfeasible! - see the Guillaume Affair in 1973-1974), that David Koch was the Vice-Presidential Nominee of the extremist Libertarian Party and they both helped with the founding of the reactionary Cato Institute (where the person who is most responsible for turning me into a reactionary, Professor Bradley A. Smith, has outrageously defended actual free speech in campaigns). And, what's more, they give money to candidates or political causes they support!

After mentioning all these evil deeds and tendencies, Rich goes on with some ramblings about Murdoch (guilt by association for the Koch brothers?), but not before he has pointed out the great contradiction in these simple-minded Tea Partiers' positions: they want to have a government that does not run a deficit, and at the same time they "have no objection to running up trillions in red ink tax cuts to corporations and the superrich" (Tea Partiers, apparently because of the mind control exercised over them by the Kochs, do not realize that part of a rich person's earnings, if in excess of a certain amount, becomes ipso jure property of the government). So, it once again comes down to the question asked in the beginning of this post: should the corporations and the superrich (sic - although last time I checked the non-superrich were not exempt from taxation) decide where to spend their money, or should this decision be left to the benevolent governmental bureaucracy? In other words, not giving the government money leaves it with (oh, the horror!) less money to spend in pursuit of its noble causes, of which the stimulation of the economy is once again the premier.

So the Koch brothers want less taxes - but, at the same time, they donate unheard-of sums of money to causes they believe in. Not only think-tanks and candidates, but to foundations for culture or for battling cancer. Why, if they purport to be so generous, do they not give the money to the government? My reactionary response (or rather hypothesis) is this: they want their money to go where they feel that it will have a positive impact on society, on others. They do not want the money to go to a grant for a search of the mating habits of snails in Utah, so that the government can both do political favors with other people's money and claim, at the same time, that it is energetic in bringing the economy back to its feet. I will also dare to guess that the Tea Partiers are privy to such intentions and do not in any way feel manipulated by the evil, seductive, and so patently hypocritical David and Charles Koch.

Enough With the Stimulus Already!

Yet another op-ed piece (by a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, no less!) at the New York Times calls for more money to be poured from the government to the economy to stimulate it. The same false analogies are drawn with the Great Depression and the need to boost demand and create new jobs is invoked. But how cannot all these people, trained in the '70s, when demand-side economics was the undisputed orthodoxy, see that any sort of artificial boost to demand cannot go on for long? Or that an ever-increasing deficit cannot be sustainable?

Paul Volcker, who is also an advisor to the current President, kept interest rates very high in the first couple of years of President Reagan's administration, in order to keep the money flow low and combat inflation. For some time unemployment was skyrocketing - and the economy actually contracted. 1982 and 1983 were dark years for many people. And the change which came about in mid-to late 1983 and was sustained until 2000, essentially, was such, that in the 1984 presidential campaign Reagan could plausibly claim that it was morning again in America.

What was the effect of Volcker's policies? That with money supply and demand kept low, the market indicated what the real needs of the consumers were. It drove, essentially, businesses to sound investments. Moreover, the businesses that survived the contraction proved that they had sound financial footing. They could be trusted to extend credit to by banks and other businesses, they were trustworthy. It became much easier to expand one's business, hence to create more jobs; since these jobs were in companies that were creditworthy, any temporarily adverse financial climate would not jeopardize most of them. Employees knew that they could count on their employer continuing to do business - and that provided them essentially much more job security than any regulation or state intervention. Workers could plan for the future, buy a house on a mortgage (which could be repaid) and actually increase demand, which is in essence what the prevailing economists of the '70s wanted to accomplish through shortcuts.

What happens if there is another stimulus package? Money will be spent on things (I can't even call them goods or services) that nobody needs - which only the government, in its "wisdom", considers not important, but somehow defensible as having some sort of usage. Ms. Tyson, in the op-ed mentioned above, proposes that the money be spent on infrastructure (railroads, highways, etc.). There is something the government could actually do to improve infrastructure, without spending its own (= i.e. the taxpayers', lest we forget that) money: seek private financing in these projects - issue bonds, to be repaid by the people using the infrastructure, by tolls or by a percentage of the tickets in the new railways, which might be constructed (when talking about the federal government, this applies only to interstate highways or railroads - otherwise, it is for the States themselves). The global market will assess the feasibility of these projects on its own and if the (state or federal) government can attract capital and the bond issue is covered, so much the better. If the federal government insists on another stimulus package, then once again a match for pork between Senators and Representatives will ensue, businesses or academics or other individuals with political connections will usurp the taxpayers' money and the artificial increase in demand will only be sustainable, after an initial hike, by another stimulus package.

Cheering Up II: Mozart!

Music can be very uplifting. Mozart has, of course, composed a lot of masterpieces. Here are some particularly cheerful works or parts of his works:

Common choices:

4th part of Eine kleine Nachtmusik

3rd part of Oboe Concerto

Divertimento in D Major

Personal choices:

Third choice - 1st part from Piano Concerto No. 23

Second choice - 1st part from Symphony No. 29

First choice (of course!) - 4th part from Symphony No. 41 ("Jupiter")

These are by no means all of my favorite Mozart compositions (there are too many of these!), but the ones I turn to when I need to cheer up. Maybe they will cheer you up too!

It Can Happen in Democracies Too, or How a Political Caste Can Insulate Itself from the Electorate

The defining feature of a representative/ parliamentary democracy is the regular change of government as mandated by an informed electorate. Flow of information, then, is crucial in maintaining a democracy, since it is crucial for the government to actually be answerable to the electorate. Conversely, a political caste which is self-serving and self-perpetuating will inevitably attempt to curb that flow of information, in order to prevent any new players in the political scene to appeal directly to the people. Should that  endeavor succeed, a closed ruling - political class is formed, open only to those select few who pose no real danger to the establishment and who, in fact, submit to it and can only aspire to rise through its ranks. The good of the country or voter intent is not even an afterthought. For anyone wishing to serve their country through politics, the dilemma becomes: join us, against your better judgment or even your conscience, or stay in the political wilderness, your opinions or proposals or positions forever remaining in the sidelines, where nobody will ever hear of them or you, much less consider voting for you.

Well, that is exactly what has happened in Greece. Under the pretext (typical!) of preventing undue influence of money in political campaigns, Greek election law puts caps on how much money a candidate or a political party can spend; and on how much a candidate or a political party can receive as campaign contribution from an individual. But the legislation does not stop there: it even places limits on how many times, during election season, a candidate may appear on the TV or in the radio - and even (in the case of municipal elections) goes on to regulate that a candidate for mayor may only make one appearance in a website within the four months preceding the election (election dates for local elections are fixed). And, even more than that, the limitations during election season for national or European elections vary, in accordance with the votes each party received in the previous elections - the law provides that political parties are not allowed to buy airtime during election season; that airtime is provided free of charge by the TV and radio channels; and that the Minister of Interior shall allot the time between the political parties on TV according to the standard of relative equality and that no political party can have more airtime than that, which is provided for by the ministerial decision. "Relative equality" means that the Minister should allot more time to established parties and much less to newly-formed parties, as has been the case in all elections conducted under this legislation (since 2002). And, remember, smaller parties are not even allowed to buy, on their own, time to match the airtime alloted to the first party by the ministerial decision. That means, of course, that the electorate does not even get to know the existence of smaller or newly-formed parties. This is not just curbing the flow of information, it's practically killing it.

Did you say anything about how that would be a blatant violation of the First Amendment, had the elections been held in the United States? Well, the Greek Constitution, as amended by the Parliament in 2001 (the same parliament that voted the 2002 legislation) provides, in art. 29 § 2, that the law may prohibit certain types of pre-electoral promotion. It seems that the political caste has managed to take such prohibitions even outside the scope of judicial review (checks and balances in Greece? Ha, ha!). That results in a political class, completely insulated from the electorate, controlling the country and giving away jobs to its cronies; a political caste completely cut off from society and lacking in elementary decency, since joining it requires throwing one's decency completely away. Of course, meritocracy in a system like this would only sound as a joke.*

This political caste is currently collapsing under its own ineptitude and corruption. Greek economy has been driven into chaos, mainly because of the political caste's handling out various entitlements to an inefficient bureaucracy and a cabal of well-connected public procurers. Its natural conclusion seems to be its eradication, when Greece defaults on its debts, since they will no longer have a public purse to control and will no longer be able to pay pensions and civil servants' salaries, or anyone else for that matter. Such failure, in a country, where 60% of the economy is either directly controlled by the State sector or directly related to it, will undoubtedly provide the sort of information, that no legislative means would be able to block: that the ruling political class has made us all broke.


* A case is pending before the Council of State in Greece, challenging the constitutionality of the aforementioned provisions; a decision is expected any day.

Cheering Up I: British Comedy

Someone, whose twitter account I am following, asked her followers what song would cheer her up. Several responses came, love songs, cheerful songs, but there was a very conspicuous absence: the song which concluded the Monty Python movie "The Life of Brian". Of course, I am referring to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". Then I thought how almost each separate scene of that movie is so incredibly hilarious, that just watching one scene makes my day. Oh, the scenes! The stoning scene, the balcony scene, what have the Romans done for us?, the grammar teaching scene, Stan wanting to have a baby, the calling for action, the crack suicide squad, the persecution of the hermit - and so many others. And after that I came to realize how much I enjoyed the Monty Pythons (like their Ministry of Silly Walks and Philosophy Football sketches from their Flying Circus) and British humor in general. 

Who can hold back a laugh at most of the Yes, Minister or Yes, Prime Minister scenes (here's just one of my favorites - just wait for the final retort)? Or Blackadder? I even enjoy watching such old series, as Jeeves and Wooster; I particularly like their jazzy intro or Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry singing Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher". Of course, there are so many other classics: Faulty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, etc.

So, because in every life we have some trouble, but when you worry you make it double, you can always cheer up-up-up with some British comedy!

Blogging Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities": The Uses of City Neighborhoods

Jacobs continues where she left off: having discussed the role of the streets and of neighborhood parks, she goes on about the role of the neighborhood itself as a self-governing (albeit not necessarily in a formal sense) body; this, of course, entails defining what constitutes a neighborhood. Surprisingly enough, Jacobs proposes that we think of city neighborhoods in three levels: a small neighborhood, centered around a street, a larger district, distinct within a city, and a whole city by itself.

This seeming contradiction is explained very well if one understands how cities function as a whole, as opposed to just being the sum of self-contained smaller units (neighborhoods or districts): one of the main properties of an urban center is that people can find, within the whole city, a sizable number of other people sharing their own interests or offering the specialized services (or even goods) they might desire. The potential for such specialization requires a significant concentration of people-potential customers, that only a city can offer. Moreover, there are governmental functions (such as policing, for example), that, most of the time, belong to the authority of the city government - which, however, cannot work properly if it is cut off from the actual neighborhoods. An important entity, then, to which all city dwellers look up, is the city itself.

On the other hand, street neighborhoods, i.e. neighborhoods on the smallest scale, cannot be defined solely through geographical borders and isolated (and insulated) from one another; if so, the whole sense of a city is lost for their inhabitants. They come about naturally, usually around a center which might either be a park or a church or a store, which many of the neighborhood's people frequent, and through the neighbors' interaction many parallel webs of relationships evolve, which result in the existence of a neighborhood. But small neighborhoods like that have little or no political clout; in the rare instances they seem to have more of an impact, that is due to some important person or institution (such as a college campus) living or situated in the neighborhood and, in that case, the neighborhood can only be dependent on the particular person's or institution's whims.

That is why Jacobs argues for another neighborhood level, the district, which can be understood as a number of street neighborhoods, in geographical proximity, which share more or less common problems - and usually has some political representation, in the form of electing a representative to the City Council. The chapter on the uses of city neighborhoods is filled with examples of organizations and mobilizations, mostly at the district level, which were effective in challenging decisions made at a central level. Moreover, organizations at the district level can be very helpful in informing central municipal authorities on the issues of the respective districts, serving as an intermediary between the Mayor or the Police Commissioner and the street neighborhood.

Again, in all three levels of neighborhoods, Jacobs stresses the various relationships that emerge from the daily interaction of the neighbors or of people of common interests or goals within a district or a city. She notes that it does take time for these relationships to be built and to become strong. She also observes that in ethnically homogenous neighborhoods such ties might be developed faster, but at the expense (crucially) of interaction with the bordering neighborhoods, which would form a strong network within a district. Apart from that, ethnical homogeneity would also mean the exclusion of newcomers not belonging to the dominant ethnic group and its breach would result in massive changes, having an indirect effect of making the neighborhood undesirable to those who had settled in because of its ethnic composition. Such changes, then, have an adverse effect on the process of building overlapping relationships and networks (which require time to begin anew) and, consequently, on the effectiveness of the neighborhood as such.

This chapter ends the first part of the book, titled "The Peculiar Nature of Cities". In sum, Jacobs argues that cities have their own properties which are markedly different than those of suburbs and should be treated as whole, diverse entities, rather than the accumulation of small, autonomous communities, particularly since the diversity and specialization in services or jobs afforded to city dwellers is their main motive for living in a city in the first place.

Blogging Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities": Neighborhood Parks

General introduction - disclaimer: I am involved with an independent run for the municipal elections in Athens, due next November. The group I support is called "Orange" and is led by Mr. Tasos Avrantinis, a very dear and able friend. Jane Jacobs' seminal book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", published as far back as 1961, contains observations which would be relevant even in today's Athens, since many of the problems facing the American cities of that period have causes and explanations common to most large metropolitan areas. Although Jacobs was not an architect or a city planner by trade (she was a journalist and actively opposed many of "master planner" Robert Moses' plans in New York City), her observations are very astute and her arguments are very convincing. I am beginning a series of posts, in which I intend to write down the basic points of her book's chapters, as I am reading them.

Neighborhood parks - introduction: Although the first specialized chapters in the book deal with the functions of sidewalks, my first post will be on the chapter addressing neighborhood parks. There is a very specific reason for this: a whole airport in Hellenicon, to the South of Athens, has closed. Its whole area (belonging to the Greek government) is double to that of Central Park in New York City. There are many voices calling for the establishment, in this area, of the largest municipal park in Europe. This concept reeks megalomania, of course, and is in no way sustainable (all the more so, given Greece's precarious current financial situation). 

Jacobs spends a very large part of her book contradicting the accepted wisdom of most city planners on many issues, the role of neighborhood parks among them. She uses a lot of empirical evidence to back her claims (much of which we can relate to with our own experiences half a century later), which are also supported by compelling arguments of reason. Her central thesis is that parks do not operate independently of their surroundings and do not add value to them by themselves. In fact, it is rather the other way round. And a prominent observation she makes is that with parks, most of the time, it's either very good or very bad, no middle ground. Parks can either be an extension of the neighborhood, in which case the flourish, or they can be cut off from it, in which case they become decrepit.

She gives many examples of parks which are filled with people all the time and contrasts them to many dilapidated parks, including many which had been planned and were expected to bring great value to their neighborhood. On general, it seems that parks, which are situated next to mixed-usage areas fare much better than parks situated in exclusively residential areas; parks situated near business areas fare even worse. The main reason for this is that, in mixed-usage areas, there are people at all times of day walk or wonder on the park. People going to work, people coming to work, mothers and children in the morning, mothers and children in the afternoon, people taking a lunch break from work, etc. 

Another very important aspect of parks, often overlooked in Greece (where we go to great pains to show how much green and trees we can plant in as little space as possible) is that the inside of the parks should be visible from the surrounding streets. That way there will be no dark parts, with the informal supervision afforded by the passers-by and the neighbors (which is the focus of one of the chapters on the role of sidewalks) available at all times. That is one of the reasons that most successful parks are rather small ones. Moreover, Jacobs proposes that general-themed parks should have variety in their settings and a center, which would be the area carrying the most activity in the parks. Their relationship to the sun is also important: the sun must, ideally, not be cut off from the park by very tall surrounding buildings.

Experience has proved that parks, which are not suitable for general, everyday use, can function as specialized parks with very good effect (swimming pools and skating rinks were hits in New York City, theaters and concert venues also). Jacobs also mentions parks, whose only function is to provide a visual relief for passers-by. Her examples are taken from the very small parks in San Francisco which have been set on corners created by the convergence of the streets.

I must also not fail to mention that Jacobs dispels the myth, that parks reduce pollution. She notes that it takes almost a small park to offset the carbon-dioxide emissions of four persons. If parks are designed to be too big, resulting in the metropolitan area widening up and the use of the automobile being required (as is the situation in Los Angeles), the effect on the environment is rather adverse.

Learning from the "tube"?

Well, television was always regarded in "educated circles" here in Greece as a "silly box", making its own viewers sillier. This might explain in part an article by Ms. Marianna Tziantzi in the Greek edition of the Athens daily "Kathimerini", presenting the whole Mad Men phaenomenon to her readers, particularly the interest displayed by viewers in the show's historical accuracy and the many fora and on-line conversations (giving this example from the Wall Street Journal), in which viewers try to point out any inaccuracies in the way people speak and behave in the series (embarrassing the show's creator Matthew Weiner into admitting that he was regretting having a character utter the phrase "the medium is the message" four years before Marshall McLuhan famously coined it). Ms. Tziantzi goes on to state that research like that would be seen as a complete waste of time in Greece. Of course, this is due to the fact that TV is in no way seen as an art form and, even more than that, it is inconceivable in Greece that anything other than serious documentaries might have more than light entertainment value, much less any educational scope.

Luckily, that is not the case in the States. Mad Men has propelled a discussion on the '60s - a period where norms of behavior changed, race relations reached a crucial point, gender relations took a new dynamic, and the prevalent conformity of the '50s (symbolizing authority as far as the youths in the U.S.A. and Europe, as well, were concerned) was challenged. The painstaking period research by the show's creators allows for the series to provide viewers with a solid background for the discussion which, eventually, leads to their own soul-searching.

Even in the past, TV series would foreshadow or even provoke significant developments in society as a whole. Star Trek, in its seeming naiveté, was almost an allegory, a conversation on the relationship between different cultures, different civilizations, and the extent to which third parties should not intervene, even in cases, in which their (i.e. the potential interveners) core values are breached - a conversation that is definitely relevant today. Plus, Star Trek had the audacity to display the first interracial kiss on television.


Other series took head-on prevailing issues of their days. That "All in the Family" or "The Cosby Show" were the most popular TV series in their time is telling (I was very fortunate in that these shows were aired on Greek television). They were shows, which a whole family could watch together, and which could very well spur a conversation between parents and their children. They took on their head issues like bigotry, personal, family and racial relations, responsibility (by kids, teens, and adults alike), etc.


This is not to underestimate the sheer artistic value of some TV series, particularly those produced in the new millennium's first decade (the "aught's") - "The Sopranos" have been rightly praised, but for me another HBO show stands out even more prominently: I am referring, of course, to "The Wire". In this excellent series, set in Baltimore, MD., one can really find the elements of a Greek tragedy (or, rather, many Greek tragedies at the same time). Realistic characters, with traits a viewer would recognize in herself/ himself or her/ his friends, neighbors, acquaintances; functional and dysfunctional interpersonal and group relationships corresponding to actual relationships in real life; stories of personal triumph or demise; characters the viewer can sympathize with, can adore, be loyal to, indifferent to, or loathe; a mother not hesitating to send her son to deal drugs, so she can keep up her lifestyle; a gang leader wannabe, not hesitating to sleep with an incarcerated comrade's girlfriend, later to order his execution in jail; hubris and sometimes vindication; an acute description of politics, or the press, or schools in parts of America; and a world where there are good guys who are not 100% perfect, bad guys who are not 100% despicable (although moral relativism is absent: there are good guys and bad guys), with people trying to do their best under adverse circumstances and displaying a strong sense of honor (in both cases this includes gang members), where the "good guys" do not always win, where there cannot be a final resolution.


So, yes, there are many things we can learn from TV and, notwithstanding the pronouncements of our self-appointed cultural elite here in Greece (which have remained unchanged since the early '70s, when TV started to become popular), I will try to seek them.

What I learned from Tony Judt's "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945"

Recently, I finished reading Tony Judt's "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945", and I would like to share some of my impressions of this terrific book, which I think anyone even remotely interested in history would enjoy very much.

Let me begin by saying that it is a very informative book. While it's not written to be read only by history buffs, some elementary knowledge of European history is required to follow it; nevertheless, even well informed readers will learn many new things by reading the book. Moreover, the book does an excellent job of putting every single fact it describes into context, so the reader understands its significance to the way things turned out the way they did, both the hows and the whys. I, for one, was surprised to find out how much, immediately after the end of World War II and for some years on, the fear of a rearmed Germany, which would display the same territorial ambitions as the Third Reich, exceeded even the fear of the mighty Soviet military machine in Europe - and how it lead to coal, one of Germany's most important assets, being put under an international authority, the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, the harbinger of the European Economic Community that would evolve to be the European Union; that, in fact, fear lay among the seeds of European integration even more so than ideals of co-operation among peoples or the desire for an enlarged common market.

The descriptions in the book, particularly those of a devastated Europe in the aftermath of the war, are very realistic, they bring to mind scenes from movies of the Italian neo-realist cinema in their detail and realism. Another of the author's talents is his ability to switch from a broad approach to very detailed views of periods, countries, etc., in a way consistent with his whole narrative. The author might take us, for example, from a general view of the influence of the Catholic Church in politics throughout Europe (including Poland) to the specific role the Catholic Church played in Franco's Spain, and the reader will enjoy the transition. The book, then, is broad in its scope, but detailed enough, without becoming tiresome, for the reader to have gained a complete picture of the forces that led Europe to where it is today.

For my part, I learned a lot from Judt's description of the communist States of Eastern Europe. Judt narrates, in fascinating detail, how the Soviet Union managed to install puppet regimes in the lands it had conquered during the War, although communist sympathies among the local population were minimal; and how the leaderships of these regimes were always men (never women) of no more than average intelligence, with a bureaucratic set of mind and their ability to convey orders from Moscow being their most valuable asset. Each time someone more intelligent would rise to the top in a communist party, signs of independence would invariably lead to either an intra-party putsch or, worse, to the intervention of the Red Army (the role show trials played in the solidification of such regimes and the riddance of party leaders of Jewish descent is also accounted for - a notable exception was Poland in 1956, where the local party chiefs, primarily Władysław Gomułka, were able to convince the Soviets that a number of reforms they undertook would pose no threat to the stability of the Warsaw pact - and Moscow's relative tolerance in the matter made many people in Hungary believe that they could undertake similar reforms, leading to the intervention of the Red Army later that year). The fall of these regimes, precipitated by their inefficiency, which no propaganda machine could hide from their citizens, the restlessness such inefficiency caused and some small liberties granted to the population, in order to appease them, is another outstanding part in the book.


Finally, I should mention that one of the underlying themes of the book is the search for (or even the existence of) a common European identity, especially after the enlargement of the European Union in 2005 (the year the book was published) and the rejection of the european Constitutional Treaty by electorates in France and the Netherlands. Although English has become the lingua franca of today's Europe (to the extent that it is acceptable for a Flemish and a Walloon in Belgium to converse in English, rather than offend one another by not using their respective languages), a European identity seems to be being carved more in juxtaposition to the United States of America, rather than anything else. The welfare state (although Judt does recognize its limitations and the need for its overhaul) is a distinctly European, as opposed to American, feature. Even more important is the role of the State in matters of culture. European States pride themselves in the many state-run orchestras, theaters, cinema foundations, etc. they have, whereas in America art is left to the private sector (as it should, at least in this blogger's opinion); and, ironically enough, one of the central functions of the various European countries in their own cultural affairs is to prevent their cultural landscape from being americanized. And, last but not least, the Iraq war is mentioned as an example of the traditional powers of European integration (mainly France and Germany) chiding the countries that participated in the so-called "coalition of the willing" (Great Britain, France, the Czech Republic, etc.) as taking an un-European stance.


P.S. Tony Judt passed away a couple of weeks ago. He had suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease); he was active until the very end. He wrote down experiences of his illness, and essays on his life, among others, for the New York Review of Books. Many of these essays are still available online. 

The Great What-If's

Bernard Knox, a redoubted classics scholar, passed away on July 22. His obituary in the New York Times ends with a hypothetical he presented, when speaking against the attempted refudiation (sorry, repudiation), on the part of some radicals, of Western tradition in general: "God knows what the world would be like if we were all brought up on the stuff they'd like us to read".

Well, this reminds me of so many "what if" scenarios that have been brought up in conversations, in a political or historical or scientific or much lighter context. One of the most common political hypotheticals in Greece is what would have happened, if the Communist forces had won the Civil War of 1946-1949 here. A very interesting alternative history novel, titled "Lenin Square, formerly Constitution Square" (Constitution Square is one of the central locations in Athens, right in front of the Parliament building) by Dimitris Fyssas, is based on this supposition.

So, let's have a poll among ourselves: what is the hypothetical you have encountered most in your discussions? Here is a sample list (feel free to add more):

1. Wars - Battles

The Persians winning in Marathon

Mark Antony winning in Actium

Arabs winning in Poitiers

The Saxons winning in Hastings

The Turks conquering Vienna or winning in Lepanto

The British winning in Lexington

Napoleon winning in Waterloo

The Confederates winning in Gettysburg

2. Science - Technology

Archimedes not spending enough time in his bath-tub

Newton not sitting under the apple tree

Darwin not making the journey on the Beagle

Fleming not discovering penicillin

The Germans/ Soviets getting the A-bomb first

Steve Jobs graduating College

Al Gore not inventing the Internet

3. Politics

Alexander the Great not dying of disease in 323 BC

Columbus not being granted the ships to go westwards to find India

Alexander Hamilton defeating Aaron Burr in their duel

J.W. Booth failing to assassinate Abraham Lincoln

L.H. Oswald failing to assassinate JFK

Lenin's train not making it to St. Petersburg

The burglars entering a different room in Watergate hotel

Margaret Thatcher not defeating Edward Heath for the leadership of the Conservatives

The Soviet Union invading Poland in 1980

Ross Perot winning the 1992 elections

Al Gore winning the 2000 elections (alternatively, as appeared in conversations: Ralph Nader not entering the election)

Dred Scott, Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade (and, of course, Bush v. Gore) being decided differently

4. Culture - sports

Beethoven not losing his hearing

Babe Ruth not being traded to the NY Yankees

Miranda v. Arizona being decided differently

This is a list of all the what if's that I have encountered in conversations or read someplace or other and can recall now. I would appreciate more what-if's added by you (and maybe a small alternative storyline!).

And, as a postscript, watch how Lord Black Adder made many what if's actually happen, while discussing with Baldrick the role of the individual vs. broader forces and trends in the making of history.

5. Addenda (recommended by friends with good and not-so-good intentions)
Paris (of Troy) being gay
Pontius Pilate acquitting Jesus

(P.S. For Greek readers, wondering why a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Miranda v. Arizona, is listed on the culture category: there would be no "You have the right to remain silent" without it)

The Haikus and Other Poems by Bertram Cooper

Mad Men's fictional character Bert Cooper, played by Robert Morse, is supposed to be a big fan of (Ayn Rand and) everything Japanese. (spoilers follow) Matthew Weiner is planning to share with Mad Men's viewers in a later season a collection of haiku and other poems taken from Cooper's notebooks (seems he had the time to fill a few). Here is a sampling (in random order):

1.

Speak not readily

Of Spring and cherry blossoms

In full August

2.

A red sun rising

My soul lies unperturbed

In blackness - grief

3.

Beginning anew

With the son of my brother

And three others

4.

I knew Don Draper.

Don Draper worked for me - Pete,

You're no Don Draper

5.

A Samurai's sword

Should be treated with respect

Even by movers

And here's a couple of limericks in Bert Cooper's collection:

1.

I once took Lee Garner to chatter

He kept asking what is the matter

I knew smoking kills

But it does pay the bills

So I stayed confined to the latter.

2.

I once met an adman named Guy

They said he could make donkeys fly

But he lost a foot

And he took the boot

So poor Lane was spared of Bombay

Are We Allowed to Criticize Religions?

This article by Reason magazine puts the matter into perspective. It is deplorable that "political correctness" (from both sides of the political spectrum) so easily leads to a discussion being more self-referential than it should have. I cannot see why anyone can quote the Bible and indicate that many passages are repugnant or self-contradictory or hate-inciting or whatever, the same with the Qur'an, the Torah or other holy texts of various religions. The Reason article is correct in pointing out that all the rage today is to not offend Muslims. The Mohammed cartoon stories, and the way in which the United States reacted, almost admonishing the artist who drew them, instead of taking a stance consistent with the First Amendment to their own Constitution, is a (sad) case in point. Respect, courtesy, they are indeed necessary for a society to function and to set rules of behavior between its members; but such rules can only rise to be social norms or conventions and not lead to their violation being a punishable offense. If a mere claim by persons or groups that some form of behavior or other offends them could lead to a criminalization of other people's behavior (and, mostly, of their speech or expression), then the whole premise behind freedom of expression would become moot. And, of course, Muslims (this is in reference to a Sam Harris article linked to in a comment to the previous post) can claim no special right of non-offense relative to all others.

Religious Toleration Stories

August the 15th is an important religious holiday for Greeks - it marks the Dormition of the Theotokos, i.e. the Virgin Mary, who is held in high esteem as Mother of Jesus and as a symbol of motherhood by Orthodox Christians. Many religious symbols and relics are associated with Mary, many convents and places of worship too, and Maria is the most common name among Greek women. Panagiotis and Despina, two other very common names, are also derived from Mary (Panagiotis being the masculine form of "Panagia", i.e. all-holy, and Despina meaning "Lady"). One of the most important places for Virgin Mary's worship was the Monastery of Panagia Soumela, situated in the Pontos region in today's Turkey, which was a center of worship for the Christians of Greek origin living at the perimeter of the Black Sea ("Pontiacs"); almost all of them were part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey that took place in 1923, following the Treaty of Lausanne. Since that exchange took effect, the Monastery would no longer function as a place of worship, but rather as a tourist attraction and the Pontiacs who came to Greece built a new Panagia Soumela Monastery on Vermion Mountain. It is apparent that references to the original Monastery very often carried nationalistic undertones and last year a crowd of nationalistic politicians gathered at the original Monastery and sought to perform Mass there; the Turkish authorities, who had not granted such permission (and no such permission, to my knowledge, was ever requested), intervened and the matter ended after some mild protestations, which failed to gain any traction.

This year, however, the Turkish government (of mildly Islamist leanings, no less) decided to allow worshippers to hold Mass at the Monastery; and, indeed, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, led the Mass on August the 15th. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's decision and declaration that no harm was caused by the religious worshippers (quoted in an excellent editorial in the Hurriyet Daily News newspaper) was a statement of an authority at ease with itself (and made by a Prime Minister who brandishes his Muslim piety, as opposed to his declaredly secular predecessors), making reference to the religious tolerance of the Ottoman Empire, and of religious and national confidence.

Contrast Turkey's stance with the debate over whether a Muslim Community Center should be built near the site of the September 11, 2001 attacks - and notice the phobic reactions by the so-called conservatives. The essence of their arguments is ably refuted in William Saletan's article on Slate magazine, but I would like to put my two cents in: the most sensational (and appealing to the sentiment) claim is that, by putting a place of Muslim worship so near Ground Zero, terrorists will have consolidated their 9/11 "triumph" and be able to rub it in everyone's (the victims', their relatives', New Yorkers', Americans') face; as if allowing Muslims to worship at the place of their choosing is something American Democracy should view as a defeat (not to mention that any such notion would equate the people worshipping in the Center with the 9/11 terrorists only by virtue of their appeal to a common religion). Quite the contrary: by allowing Muslims to freely worship even on Ground Zero America would be able to rub in Al Qaeda's face that 9/11 achieved nothing its masterminds hoped for - that America is the place, where, better than anywhere else, people of any nationality or creed can publicly and (why not?) proudly display their religious affiliation, their national heritage, any part of their identity they consider important, so long as they do not cause harm to others. On the contrary, Al Qaeda (as Saletan correctly indicates) is the real enemy of Muslims everywhere, threatening and executing those, who do not share is perverse interpretation of the Qur'an.

To those, who doubt that the Qur'an would lead to a civilization that could be considered enlightened by today's standards let me only point out that, at the 8th and 9th centuries AD (that is only a couple of centuries after Islam was founded) the best physicians and mathematicians (algebra is an Arab word, after all) would be found in the Arab world (from Baghdad to Alhambra) - and that it is Muslim scholars who preserved ancient Greek texts (most profoundly Aristotle) from the fanaticism of the Christians of the time.

The United States of America is a country much more powerful than Turkey and its tradition of tolerance and separation between religion and State is rooted much deeper into the American traditions and way of life. One can only hope that America follows Turkey's example, displays the confidence of Prime Minister Erdogan, and upholds these traditions, so central to its very character, even in the face of phobic demagogues.

Update: This Washington Post article raises some very interesting points.