Buy a Newspaper

There was a letter, earlier this month, from the leadership of the Dutch GDP news syndicate, the organization I have served since 2001 as a regular op-ed contributor. The relationship will have to come to an end due to a reorganization of the group's work. In plain language this means that money problems have made me and other outside contributors unaffordable for the syndicate and its member papers. Not only that, at the main office jobs will have to be shed also, for example by having certain staff members over 60 take early retirement. It's unfortunate for me, because I really enjoy doing these op-eds and I think they're good for me as a contemporary historian, but the news is worse for what it says about the state of the news business. I haven't looked at numbers recently, but the problem is that fewer and fewer people choose to pay for the news they consume. While the internet makes it easy (overwhelming may be a better term) to gather news for free, I think declining subscriber figures show that not enough people think hard enough about how serious, reliable reporting emerges. Not enough people seem to realize that a professional news organization, employing knowledgeable and experienced reporters, costs more money than advertising provides. What's needed, therefore, is for more people to find a way to pay for at least part of the news they consume on a daily basis. There's nothing wrong with getting most of your information on-line, as long as you also take out a subscription from a news organization (or maybe two) or donate something from time to time. Without solid, professional reporting lots of information and, especially, opinions will continue to clutter the internet. That is not the same as having a reliable, independent press, even though it may look like it. Traditional news organizations, such as newspapers, will, of course, have to adapt to a changing media landscape. No matter how you look at it, however, we're going to need professional journalists (people doing this full-time, as a career) to get us the facts, to ask the tough questions, to put specific information in its proper context and in its proper relationship to other developments. Those people, and their organizations, will need to get paid, and they will need to get paid in part directly by us, the consumers of their work. If you believe in open societies, in a free press, ask yourself what it takes really to have all this; then ask yourself if you're doing enough to make it happen. Buy a newspaper.

On Stage

Twice this week. First on a panel entitled "Russia and its Neighbors," the next night on Obama's foreign policy after the mid-terms. It was fun, and it all prepared me for a phone call this afternoon from a newspaper on the START treaty and where it's headed in the U.S. Senate, why, and why it matters. On the Russia panel I talked about how things had progressively deteriorated between the U.S. and Russia since the end of the Cold War but how the "reset" actually has been getting off the ground a little in the past year. I did not forget to warn of the strategic and ideological limits to the further development of the relationship characterized right now by a fair amount of pragmatism on both sides. On the U.S. panel the next night, having been asked to focus on the "war" part of current U.S. foreign policy, I argued that continuity dominates in Obama's campaign against Al Qaida and similar groups, including the legal issues surrounding the prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere. It's easier to promise change as a candidate than to deliver it as commander-in-chief with the buck stopping on your desk. Anything that works in Obama's foreign policy, one questioner wanted to know? Well, there's the "reset." Then, the same day, the junior Senator from Arizona indicated the Republicans may want to deny the president this success also. Voting to ratify the new START treaty, one of the tangible positive results of the "reset" so far, might not be opportune for the lame-duck Congress, he said. Of course, with more Republicans in the new Senate next year, it's going to be even tougher. Most Republicans seem to be fighting tooth and nail against the notion--it looms pretty large these days--that today's U.S. is not your 1990s hyperpower anymore. Cutting the Pentagon's budget? Well, that would just be confirmation of a U.S. in decline, and so we can't have that; instead we need to increase the defense budget beyond what the Pentagon itself asks for. But don't ask us how to pay for it! START would be sensible policy even for a hegemonic U.S.. It does, of course, involve cutting the nuclear arsenal. This is unacceptable for a Republican right terribly anxious about possibly no longer being the undisputed number one in the world. But the president is not giving up yet. In an op-ed after the mid-terms (in Dutch) I said that given the difficult situation of the country, there are ample reasons for everyone in Washington to look for ways to collaborate. There's lots of human and material potential being wasted (not to mention time). START ratification would be a good place to, eh, start, but I would not put a lot of money on it.

Multiple Layers of Self-Reliance

Apologies, this is another cycling-related post. Cycling, of course, would be one way in which one could enhance one's self-reliance once energy supplies start to run low and driving, or public transportation, becomes either prohibitively expensive, unreliable, or both. Cycling is already a good strategy to get to work for me now, because I don't have to worry about traffic jams or train delays, of which there are plenty in the Amsterdam region. But this is a post about a small thing that happened to me today, not about the long- or medium term sustainability of Western ways of living. I had a flat, riding by myself this morning. That's not supposed to happen, because I make sure always to run the excellent Continental Gatorskin tires. In Holland, you can't get these (only the sew-up version, which incidentally I also use when I ride the nice wheels on the nice bike), but from the U.K. you can, and after confirming he really could not get them for me, my local bike shop gave me permission to order them there. But certain sharp, pointy things can penetrate even the toughest tires, and this morning I picked up, on a section covered with fallen leaves, a thin, sharp piece of metal in the very low reaches of the sidewall. So my first layer of self-reliance (use reliable stuff and keep it in working order) failed. My second did too: when I pulled out my spare tube, it turned out to have not one, but two holes in it. When I put it in my saddle bag months ago, I must have confused it with a good one. Fortunately, I also always bring patches and glue, and they bailed me out and got me home. Another way to get out of these situations (and I was running out of options this morning) should be with the help of fellow cyclists. However, as I stood there messing with my stuff--the bike on the ground, the wheel in my hands--I was passed at least twice by other road cyclists, each time without as much as a sound. In case they're reading along: the proper etiquette, gentlemen, is to ask if your unfortunate fellow cyclist needs any help: a pump, a tube, anything. You don't even have to stop to ask. But at least ask the question as you ride by. I've noticed that Dutch cyclists do this less than American ones. It may be for the same reason people over here are less friendly to strangers than Americans. (What those reasons might be we'll save for another post). Somebody eventually did stop to help, however. Just as I was trying to get the rear wheel back in the unhandy vertical drop-outs on my Klein, a Wegenwacht van pulled up (of the ANWB, the Dutch AAA), and the driver immediately started to get his hands as filthy as mine, trying to finish the job. Not only that, he gave me a rag to clean my hands, then took me to the back of his van where he keeps a soap dispenser, and when it was time to rise our hands, there also was a little faucet in the lower right-hand corner of the rear bumper dispensing not just water, but warm water. Needless to say perhaps, he also had a clean towel to top it all off. All this, fellow cyclists could not have provided. But it would have been nice if one of those guys riding by had shown a little interest. As Red Green says, after all: we're all in this together. And in case this concept is entirely new to you, gentlemen, also consider the words of Red's man's prayer.

Use Those Flashers

The Wall Street Journal writes about how difficult it is to get Dutch cyclists to wear helmets, but I'm writing about the cavalier way many of them go out without lights after dark. We went off daylight savings time last weekend, so this week I've started to ride home after dark. You really need your lights by 5:15 now, certainly on a cloudy day. And you're going to need them a lot: six months until spring! I use one headlight (or the other one), and two flashers attached to my seat stays. Most of the riding here is on bikepaths, but even there, and certainly on the little country roads (dikes) drivers often use as short-cuts, you are going to want to stand out like a Christmas tree. Recently, I've added a mount underneath my seat for an additional flasher. In spite of the fact that attaching it (and taking it off when parking the bike at work) adds yet another action to the long string of actions required to get ready for a cold season ride, I'm going to start using this third flasher too. There really is no such thing as overkill when it comes to this, especially if you also realize that if a flasher is positioned incorrectly, the effect can be reduced to almost zero. Also (this is what drivers surely know), one little flasher often barely makes a difference. You could be riding around feeling quite responsible, while in reality you're still a dark ghost that haunts the road. But that's people who care. It is the people who take this too lightly who need to start thinking (the way helmet-less folks need to turn on their brains): forget, for a moment, about the drivers you would be burdening with having hurt or killed a cyclist, forget also about general credibility of cyclists as participants in traffic; if there are people who care about you, people you care about, would you really want them to have to deal with the consequences of a possible tragedy? Bike-related tragedies happen every day, and many in hindsight turn out to have been preventable. The chances of something going wrong are relatively small, but when it does go wrong it can truly be tragic. And what's so hard about getting this right: spending a little bit of money for a few lights, spending a little bit of time to keep them charged, spending just a tiny bit of extra time to attach them to the bike? With these stakes? Gimme a break.