Atlantic Correspondents

Wrong Track

2009-11-23T18:35:05Z

There have always been reasons why some things -- desirable things, important things - don't happen. It is a question, always, of limits. Not limits in desirability but limits in capacity.

Over the past year we have determined that some companies - auto companies, investment companies - are "too big to fail". The depths of their malfeasance have apparently given them protection against the workings of the market. While wise and careful stewards of smaller businesses have been swept away in the backwash, the giants whose blind grab for riches created the swells have been protected -- sometimes to the point of new megamillion bonuses - by the rest of us.

We have continued to invest heavily in two wars: in one, of questionable value, the government we've installed and depend on for success remains sadly inept; in the other, the government we've installed is corrupt and incompetent. Both Iraq and Afghanistan suck up American dollars at a horrendous rate. To say nothing of the 180,000 private contractors we pay in Iraq alone (often without transparency or accountability) to supplement the heavy U.S. military presence.

Argue for or against the health care proposals being pushed by the President and making their way through Congress, accept or reject the contention that eventually (perhaps while we're still alive) those proposals will reduce, rather than increase, government spending, but in the meantime, the tab will be enormous.

All of this matters because, as the New York Times has reported, by 2019 - tomorrow, for all practical purposes - we will have added half a trillion dollars a year or more to what we'll have to pay just in interest on a national debt that is now more than $12 trillion, the price of, as the Times put it, decades of the United States "living beyond its means." And, as the paper pointed out - twisting the knife a bit - those additional interest payments on the debt (on top of the $200 billion in interest we now pay) will add up to more than we now spend every year on education, energy, homeland security, and those two never-ending wars, combined.

There are two things to consider here. The first has to do with the nature of government spending. That is, the belief that it is the government that will be providing us with new benefits and services. That, of course, is nonsense. Government provides nothing because government has nothing. Every dime the government spends is a dime taken from the pockets of taxpayers (its only source of money) either in taxes or inflation.

The second thing is this: we're now at a point in our economy - houses foreclosed, jobs lost, businesses boarded up - where the people who will get the bill are scraping by themselves. That's true for the 20 percent of Americans who need help to pay for health insurance and for most of the 80 percent who already have health insurance. It's true for the people whose lives have been smashed against the rocks of corporate greed emanating from the sewer of Wall Street.

A "wish list" is called that because some of the things on it are things that one cannot, at the moment, afford. If it were otherwise, it wold be called a "shopping list". Regardless of which political party controls the government, we seem to get the two lists confused. To want is to need and to need is to buy. We would not all make the same choices as to which items belong on which list - some would cut back on the military spending (George Will, among others, has suggested it's time to come home from Afghanistan); others would cut back on the shopping list for various social spending programs. But the Times had it right. So did Robert Samuelson, in the Washington Post, when he decried the heavy debt burden being passed on to the younger generation (some gift to give our kids!).

(There are other effects, too, of course; one of them is watching American presidents tiptoe around human rights violations, product ripoffs, subpar exports, etc., to avoid alienating foreign creditors, but that's for another discussion.)

Partisanship - the non-stop war between the two private clubs that dominate American politics - has made it almost impossible for people of divergent views to hold a serious conversation in which all prospects and problems are put on the table, but it's time. Everybody is going to have to give up part of the wish list and revise the shopping list. Americans continue to tell pollsters that their country has gotten off on a wrong track. They're right. It's time we listened to them.

(Photo: Jim Watson/AFP-Getty Images)

Health Care

2009-11-23T18:08:32Z

It now seems clear, thanks to the reliably egregious Senator Lieberman -- when it comes to being disappointing, he never disappoints -- with the pusillanimous complicity of Senators Nelson, Landrieu, and Lincoln, that genuine health care reform, reform that provides universal affordable care, is probably dead this Congressional session. Which is not to say there will be no legislation at all; I'd be surprised if some sort of health care bill doesn't pass before the end of the year, and I'd be downright gobsmacked if, after such a bill passes, the president doesn't sign it.

Perhaps it will have an opt-out or opt-in or triggering mechanism whose operation will come into play some years in the future, or perhaps it will have no provision for a public option at all. But in any case, there will, assuredly, be no immediate public option in the bill that reaches the president's desk, or any alternative provision that guarantees affordable health care to everyone. The votes simply aren't there, and the publicly-expressed intransigence of at least two of the four Democratic hold-outs allows no room for maneuver, no face-saving formula permitting them to backtrack without looking like yutzes.

It's a shame. And an affront, too. Anyone who has bothered to listen to any of the debate, in either the House or Senate, has learned yet again how debased our political discourse has become. Frank Luntz's muddy paw prints were all over the opposition's rhetoric. Despite widespread public support for health care reform, the opposition pressed all the buttons their briefing memos assured them remained hot. "The Pelosi plan," every Republican called it. "Government take-over of the health care system," was a phrase employed so often it ended up sounding like a single word. Any serious discussion of the merits of the various proposals was almost entirely lacking. By and large, shibboleths and focus-group-tested talking points were the best the other side could muster.

This too is a shame; there are serious, responsible arguments, political and economic, to be made in opposition, and a serious debate about the merits of federalized health care could only refine the areas of disagreement and ultimately improve the legislation itself. But has serious argumentation become a quaint concept in contemporary American politics? You betcha.

So, with a watered-down health bill the best one can hope for, should we therefore despair? At the moment, for those of us who believe the United States ought to join the ranks of civilized industrialized nations and make medical care a basic right of every citizen, it's hard to deny that despair is an appropriate reaction. Much of what Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton tried and failed to provide in the past will not be in this bill either. But there's a historical precedent for what's happening now that may, if one is prepared to take the long view, offer some basis for optimism.

I'm just old enough to remember the civil rights bill the U.S. Senate succeeded in passing in 1957. I was a little boy at the time, but it was much-discussed in my household and in the households of many of my friends. By the time Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson got the thing through the Senate, it was a toothless, emasculated vestige of what had originally been envisioned. So many compromises had been necessary to round up the requisite number of votes and overcome the Dixiecrat filibuster, the bill basically failed to actually do anything substantive. Insofar as it was a triumph at all, it was a purely symbolic triumph.

But its passage was still grounds for celebration. It laid down a marker: Civil rights legislation could pass, the heretofore impassable Southern obstructionist bloc could be overcome. And for the first time since Reconstruction, there was, as a result, a new civil rights bill on the books. It didn't do much, but still, a precedent had been established, a corner had been turned, a new set of possibilities could now be glimpsed. Nobody was especially happy with the bill as passed, but anybody who cared about civil rights was heartened by its passage all the same. It laid the groundwork for the great civil rights bills that were to follow several years later.

Every Democratic president since Harry Truman has hoped to achieve something resembling universal health care, and thus far, all have been foiled. And so, while the bill Barack Obama ends up signing is likely to be a piss-poor thing, with compromises galore, with almost every element dear to liberal hearts either etiolated beyond recognition or excised from the bill altogether, it still will represent a considerable achievement. For the first time, a foot will have gotten in the door; once that door has been opened a crack, it's much more likely in the future to be opened further than to be slammed shut.

(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Downtown Rutland: When Empty Means Opportunity

2009-11-23T17:27:31Z

While making my initial wander around Rutland, Vermont asking about the recession's local impact, I receive the same basic response from a man pumping gas at the Hess station, a cashier at Hannaford Supermarket, and the scooper at Ben & Jerry's: "Have you seen downtown?"]]>
Despite the beliefs of ten local residents I asked, however, downtown Rutland doesn't appear to solely represent an example of the recession's destructive powers. Rather, the example of Rutland represents how the specter of recession has morphed into an omnipresent boogeyman blamed for everything bad.

After fifteen years on Merchant's Row, Tattersall's Clothing Emporium is still "holding on," says owner Christine Tattersall, though doing so has required innovation, adaptation and a slow evolution to develop a niche in women's active wear.

According to Christine, downtown commerce began to feel increasingly pinched over the past decade as big chain stores opened up on the outer ring of the community and local shoppers increasingly turned to the Internet. The downtown shops could still count on meandering tourists for business, "but when that stopped, things were more difficult."

Even though the recession caused that decline in tourism, Christine ticks off a host of individual reasons behind a rash of retail closures over the past two years. Two businesses relocated just outside the city limits to save money on taxes. One closed because the owner developed a serious illness. In a few cases, proprietors decided it felt like a good time to retire. Also, heavy rains the past two summers caused serious flooding downtown, which created mold problems in some of the buildings.

Christine won't discount the recession played a role in some of the business district vacancies, but thinks drawing a direct line of causation between the national economy and the local situation would only be half the story. In Rutland, unemployment is running around 8.7%, slightly below the national average, so it hasn't suffered like some areas of the country where joblessness has caused a loss in population. By contrast, in Millen, Georgia, where a number of local residents told me the community seemed on the verge of becoming a "ghost town," a halt in industry at the local industrial park had led to nearly 20% unemployment and an exodus of residents moving away in search of work elsewhere.

In Rutland, the flood of retail vacancies has created opportunity for one group of local artisans. In an initiative designed to revitalize shopping in the historic district, the Downtown Rutland Partnership gave its first entrepreneurial grant this summer. According to Mike Coppinger of the DRP, they had such an overwhelming and positive response to the inaugural grant that they're hoping to budget for another one next year.

Without the subsidization of one year free rent, artisans of the Catamount Crafters Cooperative don't know how they could have afforded to launch their business, particularly with the renovations they did at the outset. Now about four months into the venture, they've established a rhythm and presence that looks likely to carry them through once they start paying rent next summer.

At the age of seven, Rutland native Sophia Noceti began to learn the craft of woodworking from her grandfather. She now creates cooking utensils and various tchotchkes in bright multi-colored wood sanded smooth as plastic.

Kara Soulia and her husband make animal treats and toys, as well as human consumables like jams, pickled veg, and candy. (Believe Kara when she warns you about the "Hard Matter" habanero candy. I had to nurse a cup of ice on my drive to New Hampshire after deciding to chew and swallow one just to get the heat out of my mouth. Ouch.)

Prior to establishment of the new co-op, Catamount artisans had lived a peripatetic existence of craft shows and special events. Sophia, one of the founding members, evinces pride when she tells me: "I haven't had a week yet that I haven't been paid."

The co-operative currently has eleven members displaying goods in the shop, with crafts including handmade jewelry, knitted baby clothes, caned chairs, chainsawed wood sculpture, paintings and photography. The business model projects basic expenses would require membership dues from thirteen crafters, but the retail space looks capable of holding even more.

Since opening in July, Kara says business "has been building every week. When holiday shopping ramps up, we'll do really well."

Almodovar's Worst Film?

2009-11-23T16:57:00Z

Two cult directors whose films I look forward to seeing are Woody Allen and Pedro Almodovar. I have seen every Allen film, and even when a picture is only mediocre, I always find something intriguing and enjoyable about it. Not so with all of Almodovar's films. While I haven't watched every one, I make an effort to see his pictures even when they receive less than passing grades from other reviewers. On several occasions, I felt disappointed when the picture ended and upset that I had wasted time seeing it. This is one such film which, in my opinion, may be his worst.

In his New York Times review, A.O. Scott showed he was very impressed with the film. At the same time, it seemed to me that he found it difficult to describe its linear story, which I agree isn't easy to do. His review reminded me of a song in My Fair Lady which includes the lyrics, "Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of words!"

Harry Caine (Lluis Homar), previously known as Mateo, is a screenwriter and former director who was blinded in a car accident years earlier. He is cared for by a former film assistant, Judit (Blanca Portillo), and her son, Diego (Tamar Novas). When we meet Harry, he is having a romantic interlude with a woman he just met. Judit enters his apartment and is upset to find the young woman with him. We later learn that he was once in love with Judit and that she still cares for him. But the real love of the director is Lena (Penelope Cruz), who bares her buxom bosom in the film. The complication is that Lena is the mistress of Ernesto Martel (Jose Luis Gomez), a very rich man who in exchange for her sexual favors is financing Mateo's movie.

Much more is involved, some of which is totally ridiculous and unbelievable. I was never moved by the plight of any of the characters, nor did I think the film provided the satire normally associated with Almodovar. There were great possibilities with this film that were not fulfilled. Nevertheless, there was applause when it ended, undoubtedly by other Almodovar devotees in the audience who found something in the movie to cheer about.

HS said: "My standards must be somewhat lower; I liked the movie. The plot was ridiculous and contrived, of course, just like operas. Penelope Cruz is stunning and was shown to best advantage. The scenery in Spain was striking; no rain fell. I did not know that Lena was short for Magdalena; that makes sense in the movie. The lesson: if you sell your soul to the Devil, you must give him his due"

On Feeling the Same

2009-11-23T16:11:02Z

"I hope that the rest of the country feels the same way."

(via Footnotes of Mad Men)

Ohio Psychic Predicts Multi-Dip Recession

2009-11-20T16:10:57Z

I'd hoped the psychic would be wearing a colorful flowing gown, headscarf, and jangly gold bangles like the woman pictured on a sign in front of the otherwise nondescript little white house in Sandusky, Ohio. But the psychic who answered the door looked more like a librarian than a gypsy.

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Mrs. Star would rather talk about me than the economy, but after nearly six months on the road alone, I bore myself. She will say that the recession is "so, so, so bad for so many people." Her own business has stayed steady throughout, though her clients these days have lost interest in love, all wanting to know the future of their finances.

I ask if she sees the recession ending. "It may look like its getting better, but it's going to be like this for a long time," she replies, using her finger to illustrate ups and downs. "How long?" I ask. "Long time," she repeats.

By recounting Mrs. Star's predictions, I'm not suggesting that self-professed psychics should guide our thinking on the future. Considering the failure of most economists and experts to predict the economic downturn, however, I'm as likely to believe Mrs. Star as I am CNBC.

As for my personal reading, she does pick up on a couple of things with surprising accuracy. The first thing she says is that I've been moving at too fast a speed and am exhausted. "You don't need to be a psychic to see that," I think to myself.

But my inner chuckle stops when she continues on to say that because of the speed I'm moving and how much I've been working, I've recently started getting headaches. "I see real pain," she says, putting her hand to the right side of her head. "You're working through pain."

She could have just gotten lucky, but that is surprisingly accurate. Since getting rear-ended in Seattle last month, it has been like my whiplash flares up on occasion, giving me pain in the back right side of my head and jaw. Treatment has to wait until I get back to D.C. and the prescribed muscle relaxers make me too fuzzy-headed to write, so, yes, I have been "working through pain" because I can't slow down to address the problem.

She tells me that I'll be getting some kind of financial document in the mail that requires my signature, which reminds me that I do have something like that in my e-mail inbox that I need to print out, sign, and fax by Friday.

Mrs. Star also says that I focus too much on others, and that I inform too many people about everything that's going on in my life. I wait until the end to tell her that's kind of my job.

According to Mrs. Star, I'll be taking a "small trip" in the next few months. By comparison to the Recession Roadtrip, anywhere I go in the months afterward would be a small trip.

In the best news she has to offer, Mrs. Star tells me that she sees money coming to me after the first of the year. Hopefully, that will be in the form of a fat book advance.

To close my reading, Mrs. Star offers this advice: "You need to slow down, rest more, eat right, and exercise." I promise her I'll do all those things, starting the day I get back to D.C.

(Photo: David Sifry/Flickr)

Getting the Gurus We Deserve

2009-11-20T15:09:53Z

In a democracy, it is said, we get the government we deserve. The same can be said of bestselling guru prescriptives.

Malcolm Gladwell's new book What the Dog Saw, a compilation of some of his favorite New Yorker pieces, has drawn both praise and criticism. Personally, I'm not a big Gladwell fan. Shoot me. I'm told he's an interesting person. And he knows how to tell a good anecdote. But, at the risk of oversimplifying my critique of his work ... he oversimplifies.

The general thesis of Blink, for example, was "trust your gut ... except when you shouldn't." Okay ... but why can you trust your gut sometimes, but not others? What does that tell us about what "gut" instinct really is? And what does that mean in terms of how we process information in the world? And what do we do with that knowledge? The really interesting points are left dangling. Why? I don't know, but I suspect it's because they're complex and not easily summarized ... and might muddy the simple and easily-grasped ideas or conclusions that are a trademark of Gladwell's work.

If I'm not a fan of Gladwell, it's because I want to see robust logic behind an argument, depth to its exploration, and acknowledgment of the complexities and contradictions it may entail. Simple, neat answers don't appeal to me, because they don't resonate with what I've experienced in the world. But clearly, I'm an outlier in that regard.

Judging from the sales of not only Gladwell's books, but the plethora of "3 step," "7 habits," "9 insights" and other success-formula books on personal and business improvement, there's an almost ravenous hunger in the world for simple answers on how things work and how to get the game right. And that hunger has only gotten more intense as the world has gotten more complex.

It's an interesting phenomenon. Surely one part of our brain knows that the world, or even the world of business, is more complex than the raft of simple, success-formula books promises. And yet, like a woman who, despite multiple failed affairs, convinces herself that this married man will surely leave his wife, we ... or at least a good number of us ... keep buying the fantasy. We keep being drawn to simple-sounding answers and solutions--to the tune of almost $13 billion a year. Even when, or perhaps because, they don't pan out to be true, as a writer for The Economist pointed out in a recent column.

"The Three Habits ... of Highly Irritating Management Gurus" takes the writers of those "3-step" and "7-habits" books to task on several fronts. First, for repackaging stale ideas as breakthrough insights. Second, for using seemingly "model firm" anecdotes to prove their points without a lot of rigorous research--anecdotes that often prove embarrassingly untrue several years down the road. And third, for ... well, peddling those "three habit" success-formula lists and prescriptives.

But "the most irritating thing of all about management gurus," the author writes, is that "their failures only serve to stoke demand for their services. If management could indeed be reduced to a few simple principles, then we would have no need for management thinkers. But the very fact that it defies easy solutions, leaving managers in a perpetual state of angst, means that there will always be demand for books like Mr. [Stephen] Covey's."

Ironic, but true. If writers come up with list-based solutions, and oversimplified trends or observations, it's because there's a far larger audience for that kind of book than one titled, "Some interesting ideas that might prove useful to think about as you make your way through a very complex world."

But why is that? One would think that we'd rather have a book that offers realistic assessments and thoughts on the tough choices and complexities we face than simple panaceas that sound terrific or comforting but describe a world that bears little resemblance to the mess we generally find ourselves navigating.

If we don't, it's at least in part because humans are just so uncomfortable with ambiguity. There are all kinds of psychological studies on that point. We desperately want there to be a pattern, an orthodoxy, a model, or a formula we can simply implement or follow to find our way back to safe, clear, and happy endings. Even if we're told that real wisdom, strength and growth come from figuring it all out for ourselves, as we go.

What's more, this tendency may be getting stronger in the next generation. I interviewed a business school professor yesterday who told me that she thinks MBA students today have a far lower tolerance for ambiguity than students she taught 20 years ago. She attributed the shift to the fact that many of today's students grew up with tightly scheduled lives and activities, leaving them little experience in exploring the world without structure, expectations, or guidelines. I think another factor may be the pressure they feel to achieve and get the "right" answer.

But whatever the reasons are, if her observation is true, then it's cause for concern. Because there are dangers to oversimplification, as recent events in both our economy and Iraq have painfully reminded us. No matter what we might like to be true, successful leadership in an increasingly complex world is going to depend not on condensing it to simple terms, or finding the right prescriptive formula, but on getting comfortable enough with ambiguity and complexity to see a way through it. One thoughtful, creative and unique step at a time.

Cairo's Soccer War

2009-11-20T15:00:56Z

CAIRO -- After aerial bombing and rent control, I suppose one of the worst things that can happen to a city is acute mania for national sports. This week, Egypt went mad for soccer, as the Egyptian team played Algeria for the Arabs' only place in the 2010 World Cup. They beat Algeria in Cairo Saturday, scoring the decisive goal with seconds to go in stoppage time, then lost to Algeria in the tiebreaker game Wednesday night in Khartoum. I was present for the orgy of celebratory rioting and pyromania after the first match. This morning, after a citywide depressive episode following the loss in the second match, mobs have congregated around the Algerian embassy, and the thrown stones of the morning have the makings of a diplomatic incident by evening.

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After and during the Saturday victory, fans set me on fire twice. They were harmless conflagrations, but they reminded me what a blessing it is, in so many ways, not to be the type who wears polyester and flammable hairspray. A man ignited a sparkler next to me, in an area packed so tight we were pressed together, chest to back. By the time he realized his folly, sparks had sizzled through my shirt and lightly scorched my skin. At Tahrir Square, which is Cairo's Times Square, fans shut the place down to traffic and began lighting aerosol cans ablaze. One burnt off the fringe of my hair. Here are photos:

I picked up one of the spent aerosol cans off the ground. It said "PYRO SOL" on it, which leads me to believe there is a brand specifically marketed to rioters who wish to create enormous fireballs in city streets.

It's enough to make one wonder whether victory is preferable to defeat. The previous worst riot in Cairo was a riot of rage: protesters shut down the city center as the US began its assault on Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I was in Tahrir Square then, too, and saw riot police watch passively for the first couple days, then surround the protesters and close in, sending the most dedicated among them to jail. From then on, the response was more severe. The police severely truncheoned the crone who managed the public urinal opposite my apartment in Bab al Luq, because she was too lazy and old to abandon her smelly post when the riot police cleared the streets. But never during those awful scenes did I sense that someone was going to get set ablaze, or ground into the pavement by manic, dancing adults singing "Copa de la Vida," which may well be the most ignominious method of death yet devised by the dark heart of man.

These present riots combine rage with giddiness with disappointment. In 1989, the last time Algeria and Egypt competed in such a charged atmosphere, Lakhdar Belloumi, the Algerians' star player, allegedly gouged out the eye of the Egyptian team doctor with a broken bottle. (His team defended him, and said the goalkeeper did it.) This time, Egyptian fans stoned the Algerian team's bus when it arrived, and Algerian players wore bandages on the field, with some theatrical sense, to cover their wounds. When Egypt won, Algerians ransacked the EgyptAir office in Algiers, and Egyptian fans (see above) lightly tore apart downtown Cairo. These incidents combined to make Egyptians feel nationally aggrieved, in a way that must be taken out on the Algerian embassy here in Zamalek.

Preemptively, Egypt has lined the leafy streets of Zamalek with military trucks, and it lets only foreigners through. It is a strategy that reminds me of the Iranian response to the counterprotests on Quds Day -- clog the streets with metal and police, so that no rioters can even reach the site of the riot. I am now on a balcony of my friend the philosopher Graham Harman, opposite the Algerian embassy, watching roughly a thousand riot police ringing the embassy and preparing for a potential assault, if their deterrence by presence fails. If it does fail, expect photos here.

Challenging The New York Times: Is FOXP2 really a "speech gene"?

2009-11-19T21:50:34Z

One of the things I hope to do in this space is facilitate communication between scientists and science writers about how to best describe complex scientific research to the public. After hearing some concern from University of Iowa neuroscientist and Behavioral Neuroscience Editor-in-Chief Mark Blumberg about Nicholas Wade's recent New York Times story, "Speech gene shows his bossy nature," I invited Blumberg to submit an open letter to Wade. Here it is, along with Wade's response:

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Dear Nicholas Wade,

I'm very sympathetic to the terrific challenges you face in making new scientific research appealing and digestible to the public. But I have some specific concerns about your latest report on the FOXP2 gene, beginning with the headline, "Speech gene shows his bossy nature."

Can we really still call FOXP2 a "speech gene"? As you know, this FOXP2 mutation was originally identified in a London family, many of whose members exhibited profound language impairments. From that single observation, it became known as the "speech gene." But there was always the distinct possibility that the mutation influenced a myriad of other brain and body functions that, in turn, affected speech. Indeed, given all that we know about how genes work - as well as our sad history with grandiose claims about single-gene effects on behavior - wouldn't it be wise for all of us to be more cautious when communicating these findings to the public? As for people with FOXP2 mutations, a well-informed colleague has told me that they do indeed exhibit a variety of problems beyond those related to speech, just as we would expect. I fear that these other problems have not been adequately studied precisely because they detract from the preferred "speech gene" narrative.

As to its "bossy" nature, you write that FOXP2 "does not do a single thing but rather controls the activity of at least 116 other genes." That's true, but let's put it in context. As you know, such distributed effects are nothing new; genes are always part of complex networks and therefore are hardly ever expected to do a single thing. Thus, FOXP2 is part of a large, complex network of genetic and non-genetic factors that, under the right developmental conditions, appear to contribute to the human faculty for language - and a lot of other things as well. In fact, many studies have now shown conclusively that mice with the FOXP2 mutation exhibit changes in a myriad of organ systems, including the lung and brain. And yet FOXP2 is called a "speech gene" rather than a "lung gene" or a "brain gene."

I suggest that the better alternative is to describe FOXP2 in less dramatic terms - which you do very nicely when you write that "the whole network of [language-related] genes has evolved together in making language and speech a human faculty." It's frustrating, then, to read references in the same article to a simplistic and outmoded view of gene action - for instance, when you write of "genes under FOXP2's thumb" and FOXP2 as "a maestro of the genome." The new Nature findings actually portray a more sober view of FOXP2's powers.

This is not the first time that you have written about FOXP2 in the Times. Last May, you wrote an article entitled "A human language gene changes the sound of mouse squeaks." The subject of your piece was another scientific article, this one published in Cell, that reported on changes to brain and behavior in mice engineered to express the human version of the FOXP2 gene. One of the authors of that paper is quoted by you as promising that "We will speak to the mouse." An extraordinary promise coming from a scientist, don't you think?

It was the link to human language that garnered that mouse study so much acclaim. And what did they find: that the "humanized" infant mice emit vocalizations of a slightly lower pitch than typical infant mice. Having researched similar vocalizations in rats for many years, I knew before reading the Cell paper that the findings almost certainly had nothing to do with human language. In fact, any manipulation that alters the body size or respiratory system or larynx or a host of other factors in these animals could account for the small change in pitch of the mouse vocalizations. Given FOXP2's influence on so many organ systems, it would have been astonishing if their vocalizations had not been affected.

Trumping up FOXP2 as yet another star gene in a series of star genes (the "god" gene, the "depression" gene, the "schizophrenia" gene, etc.) not only sets FOXP2 up for a fall; it also misses an opportunity to educate the public about how complex behavior - including the capacity for language - develops and evolves.

Regards,

Mark S. Blumberg, Ph.D.

F. Wendell Miller Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa

Editor-in-Chief, Behavioral Neuroscience

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REPLY FROM NICHOLAS WADE:

Dear Mark,

I'm a little puzzled by your complaint, which seems to me to ignore the special dietary needs of a newspaper's readers and to assume they can be served indigestible fare similar to that in academic journals.

You question whether FOXP2 can be called a speech gene and you suggest it could equally well be called it a lung gene. But language is more interesting to most people, scientists included, than is lung function. It's because of FOXP2's connection with language that so many labs are working on it. So I cannot see any reasonable objection to calling it "a gene that underlies the faculty of human speech."

The role of this article was to update readers on a new finding, not to review the history of ideas about FOXP2. So there's no space to go into the argument about the gene's precise involvement with speech and language, much of which we have covered in earlier articles.

I won't comment on the headline on the article - reporters don't write headlines and are generally not consulted about them.

I don't see what's wrong in calling FOXP2 a "maestro of the genome," a phrase that would apply to many transcription factors. Yes indeed the gene is expressed in several other tissues besides the brain. But I had 550 words in which to set the story up in non-technical language, explain why it was interesting, and give general readers a flavor of what the researchers had found. There was simply no space for the qualifications you mention and they are not essential to the story.

You cite an earlier article about the mouse which Svante Paabo genetically engineered to carry a human FOXP2 gene. Then you ask if I didn't realize that Paabo was making "an extraordinary promise" in saying "We will speak to the mouse." Well, no, I didn't - I thought it was obvious he was making a joke. He's surely implying the mouse is rather unlikely to speak to him.

Your view is that Paabo's paper on his FOXP2 mouse was of little interest, and it's true that he and Wolfgang Enard only found a large number of rather subtle changes, including slightly different isolation whistles. But I think most people would say the experiment was important and needed to be done, even if we don't really understand yet what all the changes mean. That's why I thought it was worth writing up.

I don't understand your complaint that FOXP2 is being given star treatment. It's in the limelight because it's a really interesting gene that may provide the entryway to a major human faculty. If it fails to do so, we'll write that up too. Are you suggesting we should tell our readers nothing about FOXP2 for the next 10 years until we have a definitive answer? - That's the role for encyclopedias and review articles.

As for missing an opportunity to educate the public, that, with respect, is your job, not mine. Education is the business of schools and universities. The business of newspapers is news.

Nicholas Wade

Reporter, The New York Times

Author, The Faith Instinct

Recession Pressure on Labor Rights

2009-11-19T16:52:46Z

The US 12 Bar and Grill in Wayne, Michigan has an unusually-timed happy hour. Drink specials start at 9 pm, scheduled to attract local auto workers getting off second shift. For $3, the bartender pours me a full rocks glass of Grand Marnier. I appear to be the only female patron in the bar, which perhaps explains why the guys tolerate my incessant questions about how the recession has affected their industry and labor contracts.

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In Jencks's experience, companies are using the current economic environment to justify excessive concessions from organized labor, effectively squeezing the working man to further enrich the executive class. And because a pervasive fear of layoffs looms over any contract negotiation, unions are agreeing to deeper concessions than they otherwise would. As a result, Jencks said, the recession is essentially handicapping the labor movement and erasing decades of hard-fought progress.

The half-drunk auto workers I hung out with at US 12 would agree with part of what Jencks said, but they take a dimmer view of their own labor representatives at the United Auto Workers. "I think the union is in bed with the company," Frank says bluntly. The brawny smooth-scalped Ford worker, incongruously sipping from a bottle of Bud Light, has enough sense to ask I don't use his real name. The UAW would "blackball" him for speaking out about what he and his co-workers think about their union.

A few weeks ago, Ford workers voted down a contract modification that the UAW had negotiated and urged them to support. Though their contract was not due for re-negotiation until 2011, Ford and the UAW said the concessions--involving vacation time, over-time, health benefits and entry level wages, among other things--were necessary to maintain competitiveness with Chrysler and GM, whose workers voted to accept similar changes earlier this year as their employers were verging on bankruptcy.

The contract modification was roundly defeated across the nation, in a few locations those opposing it reached 90%. Outside analysts have suggested the measure failed because Ford workers believe their company's avoidance of bankruptcy makes the concessions excessive and unnecessary--essentially penalizing the auto maker for its success. However, according to Frank, those voting against the contract modifications at his plant in Rawsonville generally turned on one single issue unrelated to wages or benefits: the right to strike.

Throughout the history of the labor movement, strike action has been the trump card of unions, providing the teeth for collective bargaining. Striking represents a basic philosophical essence of organized labor. The concessions UAW negotiated with Ford included a clause that would have required binding arbitration to resolve any disagreements over wages or benefits at the 2011 contract re-negotiation with Ford. "What's a union without the right to strike?," Frank demands to know. "That's like sending your soldiers off to battle after turning your weapons over to the enemy."

That was only the first detail that began to spark Frank's suspicions that the UAW had become company men. What really convinced him was the scheduling of the contract vote, which occurred the week prior to Ford's announcement that its third quarter turned a profit of nearly $1 billion. "They're all in cahoots with the company," Frank concludes. "Why would they schedule the vote the week before the third quarter announcement? What kind of shit is that? It makes me wonder about my union. The vote's a big slap in the face of [UAW president] Ron Gettlefinger. He's supposed to be working for the people, not for the company."

The vote failed anyway, nationally with about 70-75% opposed, but Frank believes the margins would have been even bigger had the UAW held the vote after Ford announced a $1 billion profit. In his own peculiarly creative way, Frank explains: "I understand they have to pay the bills, but why does the worker get a peanut and the company get the elephant? Why can't they both get watermelons?" (It was getting late.)

Frank's plant in Rawsonville voted down the measure by only about 5%, primarily because Ford had guaranteed the creation of 2000 new jobs manufacturing hybrid batteries for the Ford Focus. Since that's now up in the air, I ask Frank if he's concerned Ford would create those jobs down in Mexico instead. He believes it would cost Ford more to build the manufacturing facilities down in Mexico than the company would save on labor costs. Also, he thinks Ford wouldn't risk the negative PR they'd receive for creating jobs in a foreign country during a time when so many Americans are unemployed.

One of the guys decides it's time to order a round of double-shots of Jack, so I shove my notebook in my bag and say goodnight. Leaving US 12, I walk an indirect route to the car, slinking behind an F-150 and making sure no one is watching before I jump into my rented Toyota Prius.

(Photo: Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry, via pigliapost/Flickr)