Boxing on free, over-the-air network television is going back to the future for the second consecutive weekend. This past Saturday afternoon, CBS floated a 235 -pound test balloon – that would be the combined weights of IBF bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz and challenger Alberto Guevara, who duked it out in the Los Angeles Sports Arena -- with Santa Cruz retaining his title on a wide unanimous decision.
This Saturday afternoon, at the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Pa., heavyweights Tomasz Adamek and Steve Cunningham collectively are a 430-pound balloon attempting to lift off in what might be an even more consequential experiment to see if fights and fighters still have a place in the non-cable and non-satellite sports universe.
If the NBC ratings are reasonably favorable – and they just might be, if Adamek and Cunningham generate anything close to the heat of their scintillating Dec. 11, 2008, slugfest, in which Adamek claimed Cunningham’s IBF cruiserweight title on a split decision -- boxing on Saturday afternoons may again be revived after long years of being almost exclusively consigned to cable, premium cable and pay-per-view.
Not that anyone would care to admit it, but the future of an increasingly marginalized sport could well hinge on whether those potentially larger audiences have their appetites whetted by the sight of gloved boxers pounding away at one another on a roped-off swatch of canvas.
“It’s a great matchup,” co-promoter Kathy Duva, CEO of Main Events, said of Adamek-Cunningham II. “When their first fight (which was staged at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., and televised by Versus) ended, I remember saying, `We just promoted the two best cruiserweight bouts of all time,’ the other, in her opinion, being the first meeting of Evander Holyfield and Dwight Muhammad Qawi, in which Holyfield claimed Qawi’s WBA crown on a rousing split decision on July 12, 1986, in Atlanta.
Any list of all-time great cruiser wars would have to include the April 26, 2003, pairing of Vassiliy Jirov and James Toney in Mashantucket, Conn., in which Toney wrested Jirov’s IBF strap on a unanimous decision – but Duva’s point is basically well taken. It wouldn’t just be a good thing if Adamek and Cunningham recreate some of the magic they made four years earlier; it is almost essential if the seed they, Santa Cruz and Guevara planted is to grow and flourish.
“This fight, we hope, is a bridge from the NBC Sports Network cable series to regular NBC dates,” Duva continued. “It’s a natural progression. Hopefully, it’ll be the first of many such shows. There are 129 million TV homes in the United States that can get NBC. You can’t say that about anything that’s on the cable systems. HBO is in about – and forgive me if I’m a little off on the numbers – 25 to 30 million homes. Showtime is in 22 million homes. Even ESPN, which has the widest distribution of any cable network that does boxing, is only in about 90 million U.S. homes.
“We have an opportunity here to reach almost everyone in the country. There are a lot of people who can’t watch boxing because they don’t have cable or don’t subscribe to HBO or Showtime. For those people, it’s like the sport doesn’t even exist. That’s why we chose (Adamek-Cunningham II) – because it figures to be all-action, like the last one. When people are flipping through the channels on Saturday afternoon, we want them to stop when they come across this fight. We want them to keep watching and to get excited about what they’re seeing. Not to overstate the case or anything, but we can build a new generation of fans if this catches on like I think it can.”
“I think network boxing disappeared because the promoters, and quite honestly, the fighters, were more concerned about a payday than growing their fights and growing their sport,” Miller told Santoliquito. “Boxing just migrated to cable from there, then eventually to pay cable, choking off any kind of development for a good, young fighter to build a fan base.”
Miller had reason to be at least a bit skeptical that his company’s most recent foray into the fight game would be any more successful than the last. Adamek-Cunningham II is the first boxing match on NBC since 2004, and the first hint at anything resembling regular dates since the sport began being phased out in the late 1990s for the reasons Miller has already outlined. Even the first smaller test balloon tossed up by the fledgling NBC Sports Network nearly a year ago was blown a bit off-course by the unfavorable winds of change that can come out of nowhere, and frequently do.
The NBC Sports Group had acquired the ratings-poor Versus and 12 of Comcast’s regional sports networks when the decision was made, with a goal of helping fill all those programming hours, to launch the four-bout “Fight Night” series on the former Versus, now renamed NBC Sports Network. The first main event, on Jan. 21, 2012, was to have been an attractive matchup of heavyweight contender Eddie Chambers and former WBO heavyweight champion Sergei Liakhovich at the Asylum Arena in South Philadelphia.
But Chambers pulled out on short notice with an injury, and Liakhovich also withdrew, leaving Kathy Duva and matchmaker J Russell Peltz scrambling to come up with at least a semi-attractive bout to headline. What they finagled was an all-Philly showdown of undefeated but below-the-radar young heavyweights Bryant Jennings and Maurice Byarm, which, on paper, didn’t appear to be nearly as appealing as Chambers-Liakhovich.
What could have proved a disaster turned out to be an unexpected gem when Jennings outpointed Byarm in a crowd-pleaser. Jennings then stopped Liakhovich, also on the NBC Sports Network, and on the strength of three more victories – the most recent a fifth-round, one-punch knockout of Bowie Tupou on Dec. 8, which, natch, was televised by the NBC Sports Network – he has moved up to No. 5 in the IBF heavyweight ratings. Five-time Boxing Writers Association of America Trainer of the Year Freddie Roach, who has ties to Jennings, went so far as to proclaim the onetime standout high school defensive end as this country’s top heavyweight prospect.
Hey, when presented with lemons, the resourceful person makes lemonade. And Duva is nothing if not resourceful.
Which brings us back to Adamek-Cunningham II, and the differences between where they were then and where they are now. It is a tale of opportunities presented and capitalized upon, which is, after all, the basis for virtually every boxing success story.
“I’m not going to underestimate him this time,” Cunningham said of how he expects this second go-round to transpire. “I didn’t underestimate him a lot in the first fight, but my trainer at the time, Anthony Chase (his chief second is now Naazim Richardson), thought he saw things we could turn to our advantage. We didn’t think he could outbox us, and I do think for the most part we won the boxing end of it. But Adamek was durable – more durable than we thought. We didn’t realize he’s as strong as he is, and that he had such a good chin.
“I made mistakes. I know that now. One was that I wanted to be a star. I wanted to put on a big splash. I wanted to put a big hurt on the dude. When Adamek knocked me down the first time, my strategy went out the window. I just fought harder. A lot of people applauded my heart, but what else was I going to do? Lay down and quit?”
What’s different this time is that Adamek and Cunningham are heavyweights, toiling in the most traditional glamor division, instead of on the cruiserweight back streets. That seemingly is to the disadvantage of Cunningham, who was a taut and trim 207 pounds for his only previous bout as a heavy, and isn’t expected to be much higher when he enters the ring on Saturday. Adamek, on the other hand, has come in as high as 225 pounds, with 10 outings as a heavyweight, including a 10th-round TKO loss to WBC champ Vitali Klitschko on Sept. 10, 2011. He has a size, strength and experience advantage in the division over Cunningham, which helps explain why he’s a 4-1 favorite.
But Duva, who now has a promotional interest in both fighters, believes a lot of that magic from 2008 will carry over. That might be a case of wishful thinking, but who could blame her for feeling that way? So much is on the line this time around, not only for the fighters but maybe for the sport of boxing itself.
“So much in our business rides on what the heavyweights do,” Duva acknowledged. “That’s always been so. Part of our mission on the NBC Sports Network, and now on NBC, is to exhibit the heavyweights.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Taiwan Holds Rate for Sixth Meeting as Economy Starts to Rebound
Taiwan kept interest rates unchanged for the sixth straight meeting amid signs the island’s growth is gathering pace and inflation has stabilized.
The central bank held the discount rate on 10-day loans to banks at 1.875 percent, it said in a statement in Taipei today. The decision was predicted by all 23 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The monetary authority has refrained from adjusting borrowing costs since June 2011.
Taiwan follows Asian nations including South Korea and India in refraining from cutting rates as data from China and the U.S. show the global economy may be rebounding. The island last month raised its growth estimates for 2012 and 2013 as inflation slowed from a four-year peak in August.
“Taiwan’s economy is recovering, it’s past the point of a rate cut,” Sylvia Chiu, an economist at SinoPac Financial Holdings Co. in Taipei, said before the decision. “Although rises in consumer prices had been quite rapid, they have subsided.”
The Taiwan dollar closed little changed at NT$29.102 against its U.S. counterpart before the rate decision. It is among the best performers this year of the 11 most-widely traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg, having gained more than 4 percent. The benchmark Taiex Index advanced 0.4 percent.
Exports, which make up about 60 percent of gross domestic product, have fallen for eight months in 2012, and the statistics bureau estimates shipments will contract 2.16 percent this year. Still, overseas sales climbed 0.9 percent in November from a year earlier as demand from China improved.
The slowdown in the Chinese economy appears to have bottomed out, the World Bank said today. Taiwan’s largest trading partner has set its initial target for economic growth at 7.5 percent for a second year, two bank executives and a regulatory official said this month, asking not to be named as they weren’t authorized to disclose the details.
Closer ties between China and Taiwan through trade and investment relations, as well as a currency clearance agreement, can boost the island’s domestic consumption, according to Wai Ho Leong, a Singapore-based regional economist at Barclays Plc.
“The main catalyst for domestic demand is the evolution of cross-strait ties,” Leong said in a note. These are “awakening the exportable services engines of the economy -- in tourism- related services and real estate -- creating new job and investment opportunities.”
Taiwan’s unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent in October, the highest in more than a year. President Ma Ying-jeou’s approval rating is at a record-low 13 percent, according to a November poll by Taiwan cable news network TVBS.
The island’s monetary authority imposed selective credit controls on luxury housing from June, and has scaled back open- market operations to pump money into the market. The outstanding amount of certificates of deposits have dropped to NT$6.6 trillion ($227 billion) from this year’s peak of NT$7 trillion in March. The central bank auctions 30-, 91-, and 182-day bills every day to control liquidity in the financial system.
The economy may expand 1.13 percent this year and 3.15 percent next year, the government said last month. Inflation is forecast at 1.93 percent in 2012 and 1.27 percent in 2013.
Inflation slowed for a third month in November, with the consumer price index climbing 1.59 percent from a year earlier, the slowest pace in seven months. A planned electricity price increase has been postponed to next year.
“Inflation has eased but at the same time we haven’t seen the economy really improve,” said Tobby Lin, a fixed-income trader at Yuanta Securities Co. in Taipei. “It doesn’t seem like the right time for the central bank to increase or lower rates.”
The results were predictable. The Bells laid off huge numbers of workers. They cut back investment, choosing instead to milk the existing plant as much as possible. Modernization plans largely froze, except as required to continue to provide basic service. When the Internet boom came, demand for second lines for dial-up users forced some new investment. A little bit was also spent rolling out DSL, although, being newer than the price caps, it was always at unregulated rates. When the boom ended in 2001, investment fell off the cliff. Other than wireless, most “investment” was in buying up each other, as Bell Atlantic morphed into Verizon and Southwestern Bell became the faux “AT&T”.
Since then, the Bells have put next to nothing into their regulated wireline networks, which are often over 80% depreciated. Sure, Verizon spent some billions on FiOS, but that was a fraction of the money they were originally going to spend on fiber to the home. Indeed their AFOR plans were actually predicated on promises of wiring their territories for fiber. Not for closed FiOS, either, but regulated common carrier fiber, open to competitive video, voice and data services. That was never built. AT&T’s U-Verse is a late-life kicker for the ancient copper plant, putting DSLAMs closer to subscribers in order to bump the speed up to something capable of carrying switched digital video. But it’s chump change compared to the extra profits, above and beyond what rate of return would have allowed, that they all made from AFOR. The original title of Bruce Kushnick’s book, The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal, is now out of date – it’s now up to $340 billion.
But while AFOR led to higher quarterly profits in the short term, the lack of investment is now catching up with them. The switching systems that deliver telephone service are mostly over 20 years old, ancient for computerized gear. Several racks consuming many kilowatts of power are required for this old gear to do what fits today into a small server enclosure that only needs a few hundred watts.
The copper plant is largely 50+ years old; some is still buried in century-old wooden conduits or hung on rotting poles. Pulling fiber through deteriorated conduit is extremely difficult; that may be why Verizon avoided putting FiOS in some older cities. Given the limited maintenance performed in the past 20 years, the network is deteriorating rapidly. No wonder Verizon is willing to surrender wireline to cable – after two decades of minimal maintenance, it’s just too far gone.
That’s why it may really be the end of the line for the Bells. The lack of investment since price caps replaced rate of return may finally be catching up with them. Technical transitions like VoIP are relatively minor. They’re a distraction, basically business as usual. But when the physical plant is in decay, customers are leaving, and the only answer they can come up with is even more deregulation, they’re facing real trouble.
Not that their public financial disclosures make any of this obvious, or that the end has arrive yet. AT&T and Verizon are still making money on “wireline” overall, while just their regulated state subsidiaries claim to be losing money. Some of this is accounting sleight of hand, as expenses may stay in the state subsidiary while revenues go to unregulated ones. FiOS revenues, for instance, are largely kept off of the state books. This lack of transparency makes rational regulation even more difficult.
This would be a smaller issue if there were more alternatives. But “facilities-based competition” for wireline service was never really possible outside of a few core business districts; the economics are just too dismal. The Bells and the cable companies are really the only ones who have any chance of reaching the vast majority of homes and workplaces with any kind of reasonable broadband service. Wireless is great for rural areas and mobility but it has very limited capacity, and cell sites themselves usually depend on some kind of wireline connection (nowadays usually fiber optic). The Bells were, after all, utilities –businesses vital to the economy. They just don’t want to be any more.
Deregulating them to become profit-maximizers has backfired. Something will need to be done. The last decade’s telecom policy in the United States has failed. Wireline competition has degenerated into a cozy duopoly, and that is now at risk of becoming a true monopoly once again, only this time minus the regulation. The last thing we need is more deregulation, more magic pixie dust, more short-term thinking. Policy needs to set the incentives straight, allow competition where possible, regulate what’s not competitive, and get investment going where it’s needed. It should be the end of the line for antiquated networks and failed policies, not for good service at reasonable rates.
The central bank held the discount rate on 10-day loans to banks at 1.875 percent, it said in a statement in Taipei today. The decision was predicted by all 23 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The monetary authority has refrained from adjusting borrowing costs since June 2011.
Taiwan follows Asian nations including South Korea and India in refraining from cutting rates as data from China and the U.S. show the global economy may be rebounding. The island last month raised its growth estimates for 2012 and 2013 as inflation slowed from a four-year peak in August.
“Taiwan’s economy is recovering, it’s past the point of a rate cut,” Sylvia Chiu, an economist at SinoPac Financial Holdings Co. in Taipei, said before the decision. “Although rises in consumer prices had been quite rapid, they have subsided.”
The Taiwan dollar closed little changed at NT$29.102 against its U.S. counterpart before the rate decision. It is among the best performers this year of the 11 most-widely traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg, having gained more than 4 percent. The benchmark Taiex Index advanced 0.4 percent.
Exports, which make up about 60 percent of gross domestic product, have fallen for eight months in 2012, and the statistics bureau estimates shipments will contract 2.16 percent this year. Still, overseas sales climbed 0.9 percent in November from a year earlier as demand from China improved.
The slowdown in the Chinese economy appears to have bottomed out, the World Bank said today. Taiwan’s largest trading partner has set its initial target for economic growth at 7.5 percent for a second year, two bank executives and a regulatory official said this month, asking not to be named as they weren’t authorized to disclose the details.
Closer ties between China and Taiwan through trade and investment relations, as well as a currency clearance agreement, can boost the island’s domestic consumption, according to Wai Ho Leong, a Singapore-based regional economist at Barclays Plc.
“The main catalyst for domestic demand is the evolution of cross-strait ties,” Leong said in a note. These are “awakening the exportable services engines of the economy -- in tourism- related services and real estate -- creating new job and investment opportunities.”
Taiwan’s unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent in October, the highest in more than a year. President Ma Ying-jeou’s approval rating is at a record-low 13 percent, according to a November poll by Taiwan cable news network TVBS.
The island’s monetary authority imposed selective credit controls on luxury housing from June, and has scaled back open- market operations to pump money into the market. The outstanding amount of certificates of deposits have dropped to NT$6.6 trillion ($227 billion) from this year’s peak of NT$7 trillion in March. The central bank auctions 30-, 91-, and 182-day bills every day to control liquidity in the financial system.
The economy may expand 1.13 percent this year and 3.15 percent next year, the government said last month. Inflation is forecast at 1.93 percent in 2012 and 1.27 percent in 2013.
Inflation slowed for a third month in November, with the consumer price index climbing 1.59 percent from a year earlier, the slowest pace in seven months. A planned electricity price increase has been postponed to next year.
“Inflation has eased but at the same time we haven’t seen the economy really improve,” said Tobby Lin, a fixed-income trader at Yuanta Securities Co. in Taipei. “It doesn’t seem like the right time for the central bank to increase or lower rates.”
The results were predictable. The Bells laid off huge numbers of workers. They cut back investment, choosing instead to milk the existing plant as much as possible. Modernization plans largely froze, except as required to continue to provide basic service. When the Internet boom came, demand for second lines for dial-up users forced some new investment. A little bit was also spent rolling out DSL, although, being newer than the price caps, it was always at unregulated rates. When the boom ended in 2001, investment fell off the cliff. Other than wireless, most “investment” was in buying up each other, as Bell Atlantic morphed into Verizon and Southwestern Bell became the faux “AT&T”.
Since then, the Bells have put next to nothing into their regulated wireline networks, which are often over 80% depreciated. Sure, Verizon spent some billions on FiOS, but that was a fraction of the money they were originally going to spend on fiber to the home. Indeed their AFOR plans were actually predicated on promises of wiring their territories for fiber. Not for closed FiOS, either, but regulated common carrier fiber, open to competitive video, voice and data services. That was never built. AT&T’s U-Verse is a late-life kicker for the ancient copper plant, putting DSLAMs closer to subscribers in order to bump the speed up to something capable of carrying switched digital video. But it’s chump change compared to the extra profits, above and beyond what rate of return would have allowed, that they all made from AFOR. The original title of Bruce Kushnick’s book, The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal, is now out of date – it’s now up to $340 billion.
But while AFOR led to higher quarterly profits in the short term, the lack of investment is now catching up with them. The switching systems that deliver telephone service are mostly over 20 years old, ancient for computerized gear. Several racks consuming many kilowatts of power are required for this old gear to do what fits today into a small server enclosure that only needs a few hundred watts.
The copper plant is largely 50+ years old; some is still buried in century-old wooden conduits or hung on rotting poles. Pulling fiber through deteriorated conduit is extremely difficult; that may be why Verizon avoided putting FiOS in some older cities. Given the limited maintenance performed in the past 20 years, the network is deteriorating rapidly. No wonder Verizon is willing to surrender wireline to cable – after two decades of minimal maintenance, it’s just too far gone.
That’s why it may really be the end of the line for the Bells. The lack of investment since price caps replaced rate of return may finally be catching up with them. Technical transitions like VoIP are relatively minor. They’re a distraction, basically business as usual. But when the physical plant is in decay, customers are leaving, and the only answer they can come up with is even more deregulation, they’re facing real trouble.
Not that their public financial disclosures make any of this obvious, or that the end has arrive yet. AT&T and Verizon are still making money on “wireline” overall, while just their regulated state subsidiaries claim to be losing money. Some of this is accounting sleight of hand, as expenses may stay in the state subsidiary while revenues go to unregulated ones. FiOS revenues, for instance, are largely kept off of the state books. This lack of transparency makes rational regulation even more difficult.
This would be a smaller issue if there were more alternatives. But “facilities-based competition” for wireline service was never really possible outside of a few core business districts; the economics are just too dismal. The Bells and the cable companies are really the only ones who have any chance of reaching the vast majority of homes and workplaces with any kind of reasonable broadband service. Wireless is great for rural areas and mobility but it has very limited capacity, and cell sites themselves usually depend on some kind of wireline connection (nowadays usually fiber optic). The Bells were, after all, utilities –businesses vital to the economy. They just don’t want to be any more.
Deregulating them to become profit-maximizers has backfired. Something will need to be done. The last decade’s telecom policy in the United States has failed. Wireline competition has degenerated into a cozy duopoly, and that is now at risk of becoming a true monopoly once again, only this time minus the regulation. The last thing we need is more deregulation, more magic pixie dust, more short-term thinking. Policy needs to set the incentives straight, allow competition where possible, regulate what’s not competitive, and get investment going where it’s needed. It should be the end of the line for antiquated networks and failed policies, not for good service at reasonable rates.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Guns, Guns, Guns
If you’re the biblically minded sort, then the trouble began when a jealous Cain clubbed Abel to death, but if you’re evolutionary minded, then it’s a ‘chicken and egg’ question. Violence had no beginning, except perhaps in the Big Bang, it was always here, coded into the DNA. If people are just grown-up animals, more articulate versions of the creatures who eat each other’s young, and sometimes their own young, there is as much use in wondering about the nature of evil as there is in trying to understand why a killer whale kills.
But debating how many devils can dance on the head of a pinhead is largely useless. We are not a particularly violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends a great deal of time wondering what kind of man would murder children. They probably live next door to him. For that matter, if your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to any number of war criminals, all the way from Eastern Europe to Asia to Africa.
The issue isn’t really guns. Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on the shores of utopia.
The obsession with guns, rather than machetes, stone clubs, crossbows or that impressive weapon of mass death, the longbow (just ask anyone on the French side of the Battle of Agincourt) is really the obsession with human agency. It’s not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in a crowded place, but about the precariousness of social control that the killing sprees imply.
Mass death isn’t the issue. After September 11, the same righteous folks calling for the immediate necessity of gun control were not talking about banning planes or Saudis, they were quoting statistics about how many more people die of car accidents each year than are killed by terrorists. As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy; three thousand deaths can always be minimized by comparing them to some even larger statistic.
The gun issue is the narrative. It’s not about death or children; it’s about control. It’s about confusing object and subject. It’s about guns that shoot people and people that are irrevocably tugged into pulling the trigger because society failed them, corporations programmed them and not enough kindly souls told them that they loved them.
Mostly it’s about people who are sheltered from the realities of human nature trying to build a shelter big enough for everyone. A Gun Free Zone where everyone is a target and tries to live under the illusion that they aren’t. A society where everyone is drawing unicorns on colored notepaper while waiting under their desks for the bomb to fall.
After every shooting there are more zero tolerance policies in schools that crack down on everything from eight-year olds making POW POW gestures with their fingers to honor students bringing Tylenol and pocket knives to school. And then another shooting happens and then another one and they wouldn’t happen if we just had more zero tolerance policies for everyone and everything.
But evil just can’t be controlled. Not with the sort of zero tolerance policies that confuse object with subject, which ban pocket knives and finger shootings to prevent real shootings. That brand of control isn’t authority, it’s authority in panic mode believing that if it imposes total zero tolerance control then there will be no more school shootings. And every time the dumb paradigm is blown to bits with another shotgun, then the rush is on to reinforce it with more total zero control tolerance.
Zero tolerance for the Second Amendment makes sense. If you ban all guns, except for those in the hands of the 708,000 police officers, the 1.5 million members of the armed forces, the countless numbers of security guards, including those who protect banks and armored cars, the bodyguards of celebrities who call for gun control, not to mention park rangers, ambulance drivers in the ghetto and any of the other people who need a gun to do their job, then you’re sure to stop all shootings.
So long as none of those millions of people, or their tens of millions of kids, spouses, parents, grandchildren, girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates and anyone else who has access to them and their living spaces, carries out one of those shootings.
But this isn’t really about stopping shootings; it’s about controlling when they happen. It’s about making sure that everyone who has a gun is in some kind of chain of command. It’s about the belief that the problem isn’t evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop. Or if it doesn’t stop, then at least there will be someone higher up in the chain of command to blame. Either way authority is sanctified, control or the illusion of it, maintained.
We’ll never know the full number of people who were killed by Fast and Furious. We’ll never know how many were killed by Obama’s regime change operation in Libya, with repercussions in Mali and Syria. But everyone involved in that was following orders. There was no individual agency, just agencies. No lone gunman who just decided to go up to a school and shoot kids. There were orders to run guns to Mexico and the cartel gunmen who killed people with those guns had orders to shoot. There was nothing random or unpredictable about it. Or as the Joker put it, “Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying.”
Gun control is the assertion that the problem is not the guns; it’s the lack of a controlling authority for all those guns. It’s the individual. A few million people with little sleep, taut nerves and PTSD are not a problem so long as there is someone to give them orders. A hundred million people with guns and no orders is a major problem. Historically though it’s millions of people with guns who follow orders who have been more of a problem than millions of people with guns who do not.
Moral agency is individual. You can’t outsource it to a government and you wouldn’t want to. The bundle of impulses, the codes of character, the concepts of right and wrong, take place at the level of the individual. Organizations do not sanctify this process. They do not lift it above its fallacies, nor do they even do a very good job of keeping sociopaths and murderers from rising high enough to give orders. Organizations are the biggest guns of all, and some men and women who make Lanza look like a man of modestly murderous ambitions have had their fingers on their triggers and still do.
Gun control will not really control guns, but it will give the illusion of controlling people, and even when it fails those in authority will be able to say that they did everything that they could short of giving people the ability to defend themselves.
We live under the rule of organizers, community and otherwise, whose great faith is that the power to control men and their environment will allow them to shape their perfect state into being, and the violent acts of lone madmen are a reminder that such control is fleeting, that utopia has its tigers, and that attempting to control a problem often makes it worse by removing the natural human crowdsourced responses that would otherwise come into play.
The clamor for gun control is the cry of sheltered utopians believing that evil is a substance as finite as guns, and that getting rid of one will also get rid of the other. But evil isn’t finite and guns are as finite as drugs or moonshine whiskey, which is to say that they are as finite as the human interest in having them is. And unlike whiskey or heroin, the only way to stop a man with a gun is with a gun.
People do kill people and the only way to stop people from killing people is by killing them first. To a utopian this is a moral paradox that invalidates everything, but to everyone else, it’s just life in a world where evil is a reality, not just a word.
Anyone who really hankers after a world without guns would do well to try the 14th Century, the 1400 years ago or the 3400 years ago variety, which was not a nicer place for lack of guns, and the same firepower that makes it possible for one homicidal maniac to kill a dozen unarmed people, also makes it that much harder to recreate a world where one man in armor can terrify hundreds of peasants in boiled leather armed with sharp sticks.
The longbow was the first weapon to truly begin to level the playing field, putting serious firepower in the hands of a single man. In the Battle of Crecy, a few thousand English and Welsh peasants with longbows slew thousands of French knights and defeated an army of 30,000. Or as the French side described it, “It is a shame that so many French noblemen fell to men of no value.” Crecy, incidentally, also saw one of the first uses of cannon.
Putting miniature cannons in the hands of every peasant made the American Revolution possible. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would have meant very little without an army of ordinary men armed with weapons that made them a match for the superior organization and numbers of a world power.
At the Battle of Bunker Hill, 2,400 American rebels faced down superior numbers and lost the hill, but inflicted over a 1,000 casualties, including 100 British commissioned officers killed or wounded, leading to General Clinton’s observation, “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.”
This was done with muskets, the weapon that gun control advocates assure us was responsible for the Second Amendment because the Founders couldn’t imagine all the “truly dangerous” weapons that we have today.
And yet would Thomas Jefferson, the abiding figurehead of the Democratic Party, who famously wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”, really have shuddered at the idea of peasants with assault rifles, or would he have grinned at the playing field being leveled some more?
The question is the old elemental one about government control and individual agency. And tragedies like the one that just happened take us back to the equally old question of whether individual liberty is a better defense against human evil than the entrenched organizations of government.
Do we want a society run by the flower of chivalry, who commit atrocities according to a plan for a better society, or by peasants with machine guns? The flower of chivalry can promise us a utopian world without evil, but the peasant with a machine gun promises us that we can protect ourselves from evil when it comes calling.
It isn’t really guns that the gun controllers are afraid of, it’s a country where individual agency is still superior to organized control, where things are unpredictable because the trains don’t run on time and orders don’t mean anything. But chivalry is dead. The longbow and the cannon killed it and no charge of the light brigade can bring it back. And we’re better for it.
Evil may find heavy firepower appealing, but the firepower works both ways. A world where the peasants have assault rifles is a world where peasant no longer means a man without any rights. And while it may also mean the occasional brutal shooting spree, those sprees tend to happen in the outposts of utopia, the gun-free zones with zero tolerance for firearms. An occasional peasant may go on a killing spree, but a society where the peasants are all armed is also far more able to stop such a thing without waiting for the men-at-arms to be dispatched from the castle.
But debating how many devils can dance on the head of a pinhead is largely useless. We are not a particularly violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends a great deal of time wondering what kind of man would murder children. They probably live next door to him. For that matter, if your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to any number of war criminals, all the way from Eastern Europe to Asia to Africa.
The issue isn’t really guns. Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on the shores of utopia.
The obsession with guns, rather than machetes, stone clubs, crossbows or that impressive weapon of mass death, the longbow (just ask anyone on the French side of the Battle of Agincourt) is really the obsession with human agency. It’s not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in a crowded place, but about the precariousness of social control that the killing sprees imply.
Mass death isn’t the issue. After September 11, the same righteous folks calling for the immediate necessity of gun control were not talking about banning planes or Saudis, they were quoting statistics about how many more people die of car accidents each year than are killed by terrorists. As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy; three thousand deaths can always be minimized by comparing them to some even larger statistic.
The gun issue is the narrative. It’s not about death or children; it’s about control. It’s about confusing object and subject. It’s about guns that shoot people and people that are irrevocably tugged into pulling the trigger because society failed them, corporations programmed them and not enough kindly souls told them that they loved them.
Mostly it’s about people who are sheltered from the realities of human nature trying to build a shelter big enough for everyone. A Gun Free Zone where everyone is a target and tries to live under the illusion that they aren’t. A society where everyone is drawing unicorns on colored notepaper while waiting under their desks for the bomb to fall.
After every shooting there are more zero tolerance policies in schools that crack down on everything from eight-year olds making POW POW gestures with their fingers to honor students bringing Tylenol and pocket knives to school. And then another shooting happens and then another one and they wouldn’t happen if we just had more zero tolerance policies for everyone and everything.
But evil just can’t be controlled. Not with the sort of zero tolerance policies that confuse object with subject, which ban pocket knives and finger shootings to prevent real shootings. That brand of control isn’t authority, it’s authority in panic mode believing that if it imposes total zero tolerance control then there will be no more school shootings. And every time the dumb paradigm is blown to bits with another shotgun, then the rush is on to reinforce it with more total zero control tolerance.
Zero tolerance for the Second Amendment makes sense. If you ban all guns, except for those in the hands of the 708,000 police officers, the 1.5 million members of the armed forces, the countless numbers of security guards, including those who protect banks and armored cars, the bodyguards of celebrities who call for gun control, not to mention park rangers, ambulance drivers in the ghetto and any of the other people who need a gun to do their job, then you’re sure to stop all shootings.
So long as none of those millions of people, or their tens of millions of kids, spouses, parents, grandchildren, girlfriends, boyfriends, roommates and anyone else who has access to them and their living spaces, carries out one of those shootings.
But this isn’t really about stopping shootings; it’s about controlling when they happen. It’s about making sure that everyone who has a gun is in some kind of chain of command. It’s about the belief that the problem isn’t evil, but agency, that if we make sure that everyone who has guns is following orders, then control will be asserted and the problem will stop. Or if it doesn’t stop, then at least there will be someone higher up in the chain of command to blame. Either way authority is sanctified, control or the illusion of it, maintained.
We’ll never know the full number of people who were killed by Fast and Furious. We’ll never know how many were killed by Obama’s regime change operation in Libya, with repercussions in Mali and Syria. But everyone involved in that was following orders. There was no individual agency, just agencies. No lone gunman who just decided to go up to a school and shoot kids. There were orders to run guns to Mexico and the cartel gunmen who killed people with those guns had orders to shoot. There was nothing random or unpredictable about it. Or as the Joker put it, “Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying.”
Gun control is the assertion that the problem is not the guns; it’s the lack of a controlling authority for all those guns. It’s the individual. A few million people with little sleep, taut nerves and PTSD are not a problem so long as there is someone to give them orders. A hundred million people with guns and no orders is a major problem. Historically though it’s millions of people with guns who follow orders who have been more of a problem than millions of people with guns who do not.
Moral agency is individual. You can’t outsource it to a government and you wouldn’t want to. The bundle of impulses, the codes of character, the concepts of right and wrong, take place at the level of the individual. Organizations do not sanctify this process. They do not lift it above its fallacies, nor do they even do a very good job of keeping sociopaths and murderers from rising high enough to give orders. Organizations are the biggest guns of all, and some men and women who make Lanza look like a man of modestly murderous ambitions have had their fingers on their triggers and still do.
Gun control will not really control guns, but it will give the illusion of controlling people, and even when it fails those in authority will be able to say that they did everything that they could short of giving people the ability to defend themselves.
We live under the rule of organizers, community and otherwise, whose great faith is that the power to control men and their environment will allow them to shape their perfect state into being, and the violent acts of lone madmen are a reminder that such control is fleeting, that utopia has its tigers, and that attempting to control a problem often makes it worse by removing the natural human crowdsourced responses that would otherwise come into play.
The clamor for gun control is the cry of sheltered utopians believing that evil is a substance as finite as guns, and that getting rid of one will also get rid of the other. But evil isn’t finite and guns are as finite as drugs or moonshine whiskey, which is to say that they are as finite as the human interest in having them is. And unlike whiskey or heroin, the only way to stop a man with a gun is with a gun.
People do kill people and the only way to stop people from killing people is by killing them first. To a utopian this is a moral paradox that invalidates everything, but to everyone else, it’s just life in a world where evil is a reality, not just a word.
Anyone who really hankers after a world without guns would do well to try the 14th Century, the 1400 years ago or the 3400 years ago variety, which was not a nicer place for lack of guns, and the same firepower that makes it possible for one homicidal maniac to kill a dozen unarmed people, also makes it that much harder to recreate a world where one man in armor can terrify hundreds of peasants in boiled leather armed with sharp sticks.
The longbow was the first weapon to truly begin to level the playing field, putting serious firepower in the hands of a single man. In the Battle of Crecy, a few thousand English and Welsh peasants with longbows slew thousands of French knights and defeated an army of 30,000. Or as the French side described it, “It is a shame that so many French noblemen fell to men of no value.” Crecy, incidentally, also saw one of the first uses of cannon.
Putting miniature cannons in the hands of every peasant made the American Revolution possible. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would have meant very little without an army of ordinary men armed with weapons that made them a match for the superior organization and numbers of a world power.
At the Battle of Bunker Hill, 2,400 American rebels faced down superior numbers and lost the hill, but inflicted over a 1,000 casualties, including 100 British commissioned officers killed or wounded, leading to General Clinton’s observation, “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.”
This was done with muskets, the weapon that gun control advocates assure us was responsible for the Second Amendment because the Founders couldn’t imagine all the “truly dangerous” weapons that we have today.
And yet would Thomas Jefferson, the abiding figurehead of the Democratic Party, who famously wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”, really have shuddered at the idea of peasants with assault rifles, or would he have grinned at the playing field being leveled some more?
The question is the old elemental one about government control and individual agency. And tragedies like the one that just happened take us back to the equally old question of whether individual liberty is a better defense against human evil than the entrenched organizations of government.
Do we want a society run by the flower of chivalry, who commit atrocities according to a plan for a better society, or by peasants with machine guns? The flower of chivalry can promise us a utopian world without evil, but the peasant with a machine gun promises us that we can protect ourselves from evil when it comes calling.
It isn’t really guns that the gun controllers are afraid of, it’s a country where individual agency is still superior to organized control, where things are unpredictable because the trains don’t run on time and orders don’t mean anything. But chivalry is dead. The longbow and the cannon killed it and no charge of the light brigade can bring it back. And we’re better for it.
Evil may find heavy firepower appealing, but the firepower works both ways. A world where the peasants have assault rifles is a world where peasant no longer means a man without any rights. And while it may also mean the occasional brutal shooting spree, those sprees tend to happen in the outposts of utopia, the gun-free zones with zero tolerance for firearms. An occasional peasant may go on a killing spree, but a society where the peasants are all armed is also far more able to stop such a thing without waiting for the men-at-arms to be dispatched from the castle.
Gohmert Defends Access To Assault Weapons
Louie Gohmert defended the right to purchase assault weapons, saying it is a right enshrined in the Second Amendment, during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." Gohmert said the country needs an "open-minded conversation" about gun violence because people's emotional reaction to tragedies like the shooting in Newtown,is to call for stricter gun laws.
"Well, for the reason George Washington said a free people should be an armed people," Gohmert said, responding to a question on why people need assault weapons. "It ensures against the tyranny of the government. If they know that the biggest army is the American people, then you don’t have the tyranny that came from King George. That is why it was put in there, that’s why once you start drawing the line, where do you stop? And that’s why it is important to not just look emotionally, our reaction, Chris, is to immediately say, 'let’s get rid of all guns.'"
Gohmert argued that more guns would lessen gun violence, saying he wished the principle at Sandy Hook Elementary School that was attacked Friday had been armed. "I wish to god she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," he said.
Gohmert said mass killers choose locations where they know there will not be any armed resistance: "Every mass killing of more than three people in recent history has been in a place where guns were prohibited. These -- except for one, they choose this place, they know no one ill be armed."
The train is near full and I stay in my seat until we reach the Raurimu Spiral, a four-mile engineering marvel that winds up onto a volcanic plateau. Soon after we cross a viaduct with snow-capped Mount Ruapehu in view, the North Island’s highest mountain and one of three active volcanoes we’ll pass (along with Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Tongariro).
Between 2pm and 4pm I find myself shoulder-to-shoulder with passengers in the open-air viewing car as we trundle over a series of viaducts, the tracks criss-crossing the white-water Rangitikei River and its sheer cliffs and gorges. It’s the scenic highlight of the trip, which ends on schedule at 6.25pm at Wellington station. As I’ve been sitting for nearly 11 hours, I skip the five-minute cab ride and walk 30 minutes around the waterfront to the Copthorne Hotel.
My only gripe on this first leg is that the station lavatories were locked for each of four five-minute stops, where passengers could stretch their legs but where it would be very nice to have the option of using a non-swaying bathroom. The viewing car, however, was a fresh-air blessing on the long ride.
There’s plenty to keep me occupied next day at the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa), which is within shouting distance of the hotel and has plenty of compelling hands-on “discovery” exhibits. But I’m also keen to head over to Zealandia – the country’s first mainland sanctuary dedicated to saving New Zealand’s critically endangered wildlife.
The (free) shuttle drops me at the Zealandia entrance, just 15 minutes from the museum. The entry fee of NZ$18.50 (9.50) seems expensive, but the site’s 555 acres are enclosed by a predator-proof fence and you can’t expect saving the planet to come cheap.
Ian, who’s guiding our (free) walking group of international visitors, explains the plight of the country’s bird life, especially flightless ones like the kiwi.
“Native birds have been no match for New Zealand’s millions of introduced rats, possums and stoats. Several nearby islands were cleared of exotic animals then quarantined from human contact in the hope the bird life would recover. Zealandia was the first mainland site to try the same thing.”
Strolling along the asphalt walking track, we spot several tuataras, native reptiles once believed extinct, plus a dozen or more kaka parrots, and several tuis, distinguished by their distinctive white-tufted throats. Ian shows no surprise when a pair of flightless takahes emerges from the brush right beside the path. “Two of the last 250 takahes left in the entire world,” he tells us.
Wellington itself is a wonderful city, thanks in part to its array of houses built on impossibly sheer cliffs and hillsides. The centre’s Courtenay Place is the main nightlife area, and while there’s no shortage of restaurants and bars to choose from, I like The Library best, a stylish bar and live music venue that’s furnished with bookshelves.
On Wednesday morning I check in at the ferry terminal for an 8.15am departure. The ferry has a food court, televisions with lounge seating, arcade games, in-house cinema and Wi-Fi access. There’s even a licensed bar, complete with faux stained-glass windows.
I don’t really need any of it though, because the day is clear and sunny and the giant harbour, which takes the ship a full 30 minutes to navigate, has all my attention. At 10.30am we enter the sheltered and beautiful Marlborough Sounds, and by 11.30am we’ve covered the 87 miles from Wellington to the wharf at Picton.
The Coastal Pacific train departs from the nearby station at 1pm, and after 20 minutes of postcard-perfect sheep-filled farmland, we’re suddenly surrounded by vines. New Zealand’s sauvignon blancs and pinot noirs are world-renowned, and the Marlborough region accounts for much of their international reputation.
Between 2.30pm and 4.30pm, the train lives right up to its name as the tracks parallel the ocean, with the snow-dusted Kaikoura Ranges on our right. I strike up a conversation with Margaret, who turns out to be a Christchurch resident, and who often takes the overland route to Wellington. “I’ve flown it lots of times, but when I can, I always take the train because it’s so much more relaxing.” A personal audio commentary is available, but I don’t plug it in because I’ve got Margaret, who tells me about the rebuilding of Christchurch after the 2011 earthquake; she also suggests I try Kaikoura blue cod for dinner while I’m in the city. We part ways on the outskirts of Christchurch, and 20 minutes later the train pulls into the city’s train station, on time, at 6.20pm.
They’re fully booked at the Chateau on the Park Hotel so I make do with humbler digs nearby, rising early for the 8.15am departure of my TranzAlpine day trip. For the first hour we rattle across the flat Canterbury Plains, before the train begins its climb to the town of Springfield. All TranzAlpine’s carriages are due to be replaced by 2013, but I rather like these creaky, time-worn ones – though there’s no headset commentary and only sporadic information via the PA.
The best scenery begins just after Springfield, as I pack in beside my fellow passengers in the viewing car. It’s a wild and windy ride as we’re jostled through tunnels and across viaducts. The Rakaia then the Waimakariri rivers are in view for much of the trip, their “braided” layers of sediment diverting their watercourses this way and that. Following an hour’s break to stroll about the town of Greymouth, I reboard the train for the journey back to Christchurch, where we arrive at 6.15pm.
You don’t often see a city centre that has been truly razed, but downtown Christchurch is still largely a patchwork of car parks where, up until February of 2011, buildings once stood. It’s fascinating to see a city in transition, and such things as its pop-up shipping container shopping mall, in the heart of downtown, are symbolic of the locals’ can-do spirit. It’s rare for planners to have a clean slate, at least in a peaceable environment. It will look entirely different in years to come, so I’m more than happy my New Zealand train journey has finished here, in a city that has only just begun.
"Well, for the reason George Washington said a free people should be an armed people," Gohmert said, responding to a question on why people need assault weapons. "It ensures against the tyranny of the government. If they know that the biggest army is the American people, then you don’t have the tyranny that came from King George. That is why it was put in there, that’s why once you start drawing the line, where do you stop? And that’s why it is important to not just look emotionally, our reaction, Chris, is to immediately say, 'let’s get rid of all guns.'"
Gohmert argued that more guns would lessen gun violence, saying he wished the principle at Sandy Hook Elementary School that was attacked Friday had been armed. "I wish to god she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," he said.
Gohmert said mass killers choose locations where they know there will not be any armed resistance: "Every mass killing of more than three people in recent history has been in a place where guns were prohibited. These -- except for one, they choose this place, they know no one ill be armed."
The train is near full and I stay in my seat until we reach the Raurimu Spiral, a four-mile engineering marvel that winds up onto a volcanic plateau. Soon after we cross a viaduct with snow-capped Mount Ruapehu in view, the North Island’s highest mountain and one of three active volcanoes we’ll pass (along with Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Tongariro).
Between 2pm and 4pm I find myself shoulder-to-shoulder with passengers in the open-air viewing car as we trundle over a series of viaducts, the tracks criss-crossing the white-water Rangitikei River and its sheer cliffs and gorges. It’s the scenic highlight of the trip, which ends on schedule at 6.25pm at Wellington station. As I’ve been sitting for nearly 11 hours, I skip the five-minute cab ride and walk 30 minutes around the waterfront to the Copthorne Hotel.
My only gripe on this first leg is that the station lavatories were locked for each of four five-minute stops, where passengers could stretch their legs but where it would be very nice to have the option of using a non-swaying bathroom. The viewing car, however, was a fresh-air blessing on the long ride.
There’s plenty to keep me occupied next day at the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa), which is within shouting distance of the hotel and has plenty of compelling hands-on “discovery” exhibits. But I’m also keen to head over to Zealandia – the country’s first mainland sanctuary dedicated to saving New Zealand’s critically endangered wildlife.
The (free) shuttle drops me at the Zealandia entrance, just 15 minutes from the museum. The entry fee of NZ$18.50 (9.50) seems expensive, but the site’s 555 acres are enclosed by a predator-proof fence and you can’t expect saving the planet to come cheap.
Ian, who’s guiding our (free) walking group of international visitors, explains the plight of the country’s bird life, especially flightless ones like the kiwi.
“Native birds have been no match for New Zealand’s millions of introduced rats, possums and stoats. Several nearby islands were cleared of exotic animals then quarantined from human contact in the hope the bird life would recover. Zealandia was the first mainland site to try the same thing.”
Strolling along the asphalt walking track, we spot several tuataras, native reptiles once believed extinct, plus a dozen or more kaka parrots, and several tuis, distinguished by their distinctive white-tufted throats. Ian shows no surprise when a pair of flightless takahes emerges from the brush right beside the path. “Two of the last 250 takahes left in the entire world,” he tells us.
Wellington itself is a wonderful city, thanks in part to its array of houses built on impossibly sheer cliffs and hillsides. The centre’s Courtenay Place is the main nightlife area, and while there’s no shortage of restaurants and bars to choose from, I like The Library best, a stylish bar and live music venue that’s furnished with bookshelves.
On Wednesday morning I check in at the ferry terminal for an 8.15am departure. The ferry has a food court, televisions with lounge seating, arcade games, in-house cinema and Wi-Fi access. There’s even a licensed bar, complete with faux stained-glass windows.
I don’t really need any of it though, because the day is clear and sunny and the giant harbour, which takes the ship a full 30 minutes to navigate, has all my attention. At 10.30am we enter the sheltered and beautiful Marlborough Sounds, and by 11.30am we’ve covered the 87 miles from Wellington to the wharf at Picton.
The Coastal Pacific train departs from the nearby station at 1pm, and after 20 minutes of postcard-perfect sheep-filled farmland, we’re suddenly surrounded by vines. New Zealand’s sauvignon blancs and pinot noirs are world-renowned, and the Marlborough region accounts for much of their international reputation.
Between 2.30pm and 4.30pm, the train lives right up to its name as the tracks parallel the ocean, with the snow-dusted Kaikoura Ranges on our right. I strike up a conversation with Margaret, who turns out to be a Christchurch resident, and who often takes the overland route to Wellington. “I’ve flown it lots of times, but when I can, I always take the train because it’s so much more relaxing.” A personal audio commentary is available, but I don’t plug it in because I’ve got Margaret, who tells me about the rebuilding of Christchurch after the 2011 earthquake; she also suggests I try Kaikoura blue cod for dinner while I’m in the city. We part ways on the outskirts of Christchurch, and 20 minutes later the train pulls into the city’s train station, on time, at 6.20pm.
They’re fully booked at the Chateau on the Park Hotel so I make do with humbler digs nearby, rising early for the 8.15am departure of my TranzAlpine day trip. For the first hour we rattle across the flat Canterbury Plains, before the train begins its climb to the town of Springfield. All TranzAlpine’s carriages are due to be replaced by 2013, but I rather like these creaky, time-worn ones – though there’s no headset commentary and only sporadic information via the PA.
The best scenery begins just after Springfield, as I pack in beside my fellow passengers in the viewing car. It’s a wild and windy ride as we’re jostled through tunnels and across viaducts. The Rakaia then the Waimakariri rivers are in view for much of the trip, their “braided” layers of sediment diverting their watercourses this way and that. Following an hour’s break to stroll about the town of Greymouth, I reboard the train for the journey back to Christchurch, where we arrive at 6.15pm.
You don’t often see a city centre that has been truly razed, but downtown Christchurch is still largely a patchwork of car parks where, up until February of 2011, buildings once stood. It’s fascinating to see a city in transition, and such things as its pop-up shipping container shopping mall, in the heart of downtown, are symbolic of the locals’ can-do spirit. It’s rare for planners to have a clean slate, at least in a peaceable environment. It will look entirely different in years to come, so I’m more than happy my New Zealand train journey has finished here, in a city that has only just begun.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
US-Bangladesh-Factory Fire-Retailers
About a year and a half before a fire at a clothing factory in Bangladesh killed 112 people in November, executives from Wal-Mart, Gap and other big retailers met nearby to discuss ways to prevent the unsafe working conditions that have made such tragedies common.
Representatives from a dozen of the world's largest retailers and fashion labels gathered with labor groups and local officials in April 2011 at the three-day meeting held in the 15-story, glass-walled headquarters of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association in Dhaka, the capital. They were considering a first-of-its-kind contract that would govern fire safety inspections at thousands of Bangladeshi factories making T-shirts, blazers, and other clothes Americans covet.
Under the terms of the agreement, each company would be required to publicly report fire hazards at factories, pay factory owners more to make repairs and provide at least $500,000 over two years for the effort. They would also sign a legally binding agreement that would make them liable when there's a factory fire.
Discussions seemed promising. Then, on the second day, Sridevi Kalavakolanu, director of ethical sourcing for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., spoke up. "In most cases very extensive and costly modifications would need to be undertaken to some factories," Kalavakolanu was quoted as saying in the minutes of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press. "It is not financially feasible ... to make such investments."
The statement from the world's largest retailer, with $447 billion in annual revenue, essentially sucked the air out of the room, witnesses said. It also set the tone for the rest of the meeting, which ended the next day without a single company agreeing to the plan.
"I think that really had quite an impact on ... everybody who was in the room," said Ineke Zeldenrust, who was at the meeting representing the workers' rights group Clean Clothes Campaign. "It was quite clear that we were very far from a solution."
As if to underline how much still needs to be done, even as executives nixed the proposal over tea in an air-conditioned room decorated with flowers, scores of scarred survivors and their relatives gathered outside the same building to await compensation checks from another fatal factory collapse more than six years earlier.
The retailers' meeting and its aftermath highlighted a central issue for the $1-trillion dollar global clothing industry: What role retailers play -- and should play -- in making working conditions safer at the factories that manufacture their apparel.
Retailers often claim they know little or nothing about conditions at factories, because the long and intricate manufacturing chain runs through several contractors and sub-contractors. Wal-Mart and others whose garments were found in the ruins of the fatal Tazreen Fashions Ltd. on Nov. 24 say they had severed ties with the factory or were unaware their clothes were being produced there.
Yet some industry experts and labor activists say it is those major retailers, and the customers who buy their clothes, who ultimately set the price for how much factories get paid, and how much they in turn pay their workers. Safety, they say, can take second place to profits.
The retail industry hasn't released estimates on how much it would cost to upgrade Bangladeshi factories to Western standards. But one advocacy group, The Worker Rights Consortium, puts the cost at about $1.5 billion to $3 billion over the next five years. That's about 3 percent of the $95 billion expected to be spent on clothes manufacturing in the country during that time. It also amounts to about 10 cents added onto the cost of a T-shirt.
Building fires have led to more than 600 garment work deaths in Bangladesh since 2005, according to research by the advocacy group International Labor Rights Forum.
Major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Gap Inc. and Swedish clothing chain H&M have stepped up their own fire safety efforts, but they've stopped short of industry-wide standards that would hold them legally and financially accountable for fire hazards at factories.
Gap, which owns the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, turned down the proposal because it did not want to be vulnerable to lawsuits, according to Bobbi Silten, senior vice president of global responsibility. The retailer also did not want to pay factories more money to help with safety upgrades, she said.
"It seemed very challenging to agree to," she said. "We don't own these factories and we're not the exclusive brands. It would be a different picture if we owned the factories."
Since then, Gap has hired its own chief fire inspector to oversee factories that produce Gap brands in Bangladesh. In addition to about $1 million spent on safety measures in Bangladesh in the last two years, Gap has committed to another $2 million to ensure that people laid off because of fire safety repairs are still paid. The San Francisco-based company has pledged to put factories in touch with financial institutions that can give them up to $20 million in capital for safety improvements. The chain has also said it will share anything it learns about safety issues in factories with the Bangladeshi and U.S. governments.
Silten acknowledged that such measures are not exhaustive.
"But we believe that in order to change (the system)," she said, "we need others to change."
Fashion chain H&M, which places the most apparel orders in Bangladesh, also did not sign on to the legally binding proposal because it believes factories and local government in Bangladesh should be taking on the responsibility, according to Pierre B?rjesson, manager of sustainability and social issues, who attended the Dhaka meeting.
"We have the responsibility in Bangladesh to improve the situation, but this is through educating suppliers," he said.
H&M, which works with more than 200 factories in Bangladesh, is one of about 20 retailers and brands that have banded together to develop training films for suppliers. H&M has also started to do electrical assessments at the factories it does business with, an expense shared by the factories. It is pushing for suppliers to establish workers' committees to negotiate better wages and other issues with factory management, B?rjesson said.
Wal-Mart, which ranks second in the number of apparel orders it places in Bangladesh, has also taken new steps. This year Wal-Mart is requiring regular audits of factories, fire drills and mandated fire safety training for all levels of factory management. Spokesman Kevin Gardner said Wal-Mart's comments during the April 2011 meeting, which were jointly edited by Wal-Mart and Gap in the minutes obtained by the AP, were taken "out of context."
"Wal-Mart has been advocating for improved fire-safety with the Bangladeshi government, with industry groups and with suppliers," Gardner wrote in an email to the AP. "We firmly believe factory owners must meet our (supplier standards), and we recognize the cost of meeting those standards will be part of the cost of the goods we buy."
Auditors hired by Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., inspected the Tazreen factory in 2011, giving it an "orange" or high-risk rating. Months later, the third-party auditor did a second inspection, giving it another "orange" rating. And early this year the factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for the retail giant. The company said a supplier -- who has since been fired -- had moved Wal-Mart production there without its knowledge.
But Prakash Sethi, a professor of management at City University of New York, is skeptical that Wal-Mart has so little power or knowledge when it comes to safety conditions at factories.
"How long will it take Wal-Mart to identify a factory if they were making shirts or shorts that were uneven, or where the sewing was below acceptable quality? Less than two days," he said. "They would immediately figure out which factory, where it's being made and put a stop to it. Why is it that they can't do it about the workers?
Labor activists also doubt that the safety plans designed by retailers themselves will do the job.
"Voluntary codes of conduct are useless," said Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, who is best known for exposing the use of Honduran child labor to produce clothing for celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford's line in the mid-1990s. "The monitoring is completely phony."
In many ways, it is strong demand that has driven the problem in Bangladesh. Companies in developed nations like the U.S. move production from country to country in search of the lowest costs and least worker strife. Bangladesh is now second behind only China among the world's largest exporters of apparel, with a $20 billion-a-year garment industry.
Cheap labor, unlike materials, transportation and taxes, is one of the few costs retailers and brands can control. And factories in Bangladesh know they can get lucrative deals with retailers and designers by shaving pennies off the cost of making a T-shirt, so they often cut corners.
Bangladesh has the cheapest labor by far. The average garment worker in Bangladesh earns the equivalent of 24 cents an hour, compared with $1.26 an hour in China, 53 cents an hour in Vietnam and 34 cents an hour in Cambodia, according to The Worker Rights Consortium.
Yet growing competition to offer up-to-the-minute fashions at low prices in the weak global economy has led retailers and designers to demand even lower costs from factories. A few years ago, companies shipped new merchandise to stores every two to three months; now, the goal is a fresh supply each month. They are also asking factories to make last-minute changes to orders more often -- add a button here or a belt there.
Factory owners can agree, or lose the order, sometimes to new factories that spring up overnight.
"Factory owners, in a certain sense, they're in a bind," says Robert Ross, author of "Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshop" and a sociologist at Clark University. "They're forced to be ruthless and brutal -- and they are."
A year after the retailers' meeting in Dhaka to discuss the safety proposal, only two companies have signed the resulting joint memorandum of understanding.
Phillips Van-Heusen Corp., a New York City-based company that sells the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, in March signed the legally binding agreement after a national TV news report that chronicled the dangerous conditions in one of its Bangladesh factories. The company agreed to underwrite a two-year, $1 million program that allows independent fire-safety inspections and public reports of findings. But PVH, which did not return repeated calls seeking comment for this article, pledged to start the program only if at least three other major retailers sign on.
Representatives from a dozen of the world's largest retailers and fashion labels gathered with labor groups and local officials in April 2011 at the three-day meeting held in the 15-story, glass-walled headquarters of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association in Dhaka, the capital. They were considering a first-of-its-kind contract that would govern fire safety inspections at thousands of Bangladeshi factories making T-shirts, blazers, and other clothes Americans covet.
Under the terms of the agreement, each company would be required to publicly report fire hazards at factories, pay factory owners more to make repairs and provide at least $500,000 over two years for the effort. They would also sign a legally binding agreement that would make them liable when there's a factory fire.
Discussions seemed promising. Then, on the second day, Sridevi Kalavakolanu, director of ethical sourcing for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., spoke up. "In most cases very extensive and costly modifications would need to be undertaken to some factories," Kalavakolanu was quoted as saying in the minutes of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press. "It is not financially feasible ... to make such investments."
The statement from the world's largest retailer, with $447 billion in annual revenue, essentially sucked the air out of the room, witnesses said. It also set the tone for the rest of the meeting, which ended the next day without a single company agreeing to the plan.
"I think that really had quite an impact on ... everybody who was in the room," said Ineke Zeldenrust, who was at the meeting representing the workers' rights group Clean Clothes Campaign. "It was quite clear that we were very far from a solution."
As if to underline how much still needs to be done, even as executives nixed the proposal over tea in an air-conditioned room decorated with flowers, scores of scarred survivors and their relatives gathered outside the same building to await compensation checks from another fatal factory collapse more than six years earlier.
The retailers' meeting and its aftermath highlighted a central issue for the $1-trillion dollar global clothing industry: What role retailers play -- and should play -- in making working conditions safer at the factories that manufacture their apparel.
Retailers often claim they know little or nothing about conditions at factories, because the long and intricate manufacturing chain runs through several contractors and sub-contractors. Wal-Mart and others whose garments were found in the ruins of the fatal Tazreen Fashions Ltd. on Nov. 24 say they had severed ties with the factory or were unaware their clothes were being produced there.
Yet some industry experts and labor activists say it is those major retailers, and the customers who buy their clothes, who ultimately set the price for how much factories get paid, and how much they in turn pay their workers. Safety, they say, can take second place to profits.
The retail industry hasn't released estimates on how much it would cost to upgrade Bangladeshi factories to Western standards. But one advocacy group, The Worker Rights Consortium, puts the cost at about $1.5 billion to $3 billion over the next five years. That's about 3 percent of the $95 billion expected to be spent on clothes manufacturing in the country during that time. It also amounts to about 10 cents added onto the cost of a T-shirt.
Building fires have led to more than 600 garment work deaths in Bangladesh since 2005, according to research by the advocacy group International Labor Rights Forum.
Major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Gap Inc. and Swedish clothing chain H&M have stepped up their own fire safety efforts, but they've stopped short of industry-wide standards that would hold them legally and financially accountable for fire hazards at factories.
Gap, which owns the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, turned down the proposal because it did not want to be vulnerable to lawsuits, according to Bobbi Silten, senior vice president of global responsibility. The retailer also did not want to pay factories more money to help with safety upgrades, she said.
"It seemed very challenging to agree to," she said. "We don't own these factories and we're not the exclusive brands. It would be a different picture if we owned the factories."
Since then, Gap has hired its own chief fire inspector to oversee factories that produce Gap brands in Bangladesh. In addition to about $1 million spent on safety measures in Bangladesh in the last two years, Gap has committed to another $2 million to ensure that people laid off because of fire safety repairs are still paid. The San Francisco-based company has pledged to put factories in touch with financial institutions that can give them up to $20 million in capital for safety improvements. The chain has also said it will share anything it learns about safety issues in factories with the Bangladeshi and U.S. governments.
Silten acknowledged that such measures are not exhaustive.
"But we believe that in order to change (the system)," she said, "we need others to change."
Fashion chain H&M, which places the most apparel orders in Bangladesh, also did not sign on to the legally binding proposal because it believes factories and local government in Bangladesh should be taking on the responsibility, according to Pierre B?rjesson, manager of sustainability and social issues, who attended the Dhaka meeting.
"We have the responsibility in Bangladesh to improve the situation, but this is through educating suppliers," he said.
H&M, which works with more than 200 factories in Bangladesh, is one of about 20 retailers and brands that have banded together to develop training films for suppliers. H&M has also started to do electrical assessments at the factories it does business with, an expense shared by the factories. It is pushing for suppliers to establish workers' committees to negotiate better wages and other issues with factory management, B?rjesson said.
Wal-Mart, which ranks second in the number of apparel orders it places in Bangladesh, has also taken new steps. This year Wal-Mart is requiring regular audits of factories, fire drills and mandated fire safety training for all levels of factory management. Spokesman Kevin Gardner said Wal-Mart's comments during the April 2011 meeting, which were jointly edited by Wal-Mart and Gap in the minutes obtained by the AP, were taken "out of context."
"Wal-Mart has been advocating for improved fire-safety with the Bangladeshi government, with industry groups and with suppliers," Gardner wrote in an email to the AP. "We firmly believe factory owners must meet our (supplier standards), and we recognize the cost of meeting those standards will be part of the cost of the goods we buy."
Auditors hired by Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., inspected the Tazreen factory in 2011, giving it an "orange" or high-risk rating. Months later, the third-party auditor did a second inspection, giving it another "orange" rating. And early this year the factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for the retail giant. The company said a supplier -- who has since been fired -- had moved Wal-Mart production there without its knowledge.
But Prakash Sethi, a professor of management at City University of New York, is skeptical that Wal-Mart has so little power or knowledge when it comes to safety conditions at factories.
"How long will it take Wal-Mart to identify a factory if they were making shirts or shorts that were uneven, or where the sewing was below acceptable quality? Less than two days," he said. "They would immediately figure out which factory, where it's being made and put a stop to it. Why is it that they can't do it about the workers?
Labor activists also doubt that the safety plans designed by retailers themselves will do the job.
"Voluntary codes of conduct are useless," said Charles Kernaghan, executive director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, who is best known for exposing the use of Honduran child labor to produce clothing for celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford's line in the mid-1990s. "The monitoring is completely phony."
In many ways, it is strong demand that has driven the problem in Bangladesh. Companies in developed nations like the U.S. move production from country to country in search of the lowest costs and least worker strife. Bangladesh is now second behind only China among the world's largest exporters of apparel, with a $20 billion-a-year garment industry.
Cheap labor, unlike materials, transportation and taxes, is one of the few costs retailers and brands can control. And factories in Bangladesh know they can get lucrative deals with retailers and designers by shaving pennies off the cost of making a T-shirt, so they often cut corners.
Bangladesh has the cheapest labor by far. The average garment worker in Bangladesh earns the equivalent of 24 cents an hour, compared with $1.26 an hour in China, 53 cents an hour in Vietnam and 34 cents an hour in Cambodia, according to The Worker Rights Consortium.
Yet growing competition to offer up-to-the-minute fashions at low prices in the weak global economy has led retailers and designers to demand even lower costs from factories. A few years ago, companies shipped new merchandise to stores every two to three months; now, the goal is a fresh supply each month. They are also asking factories to make last-minute changes to orders more often -- add a button here or a belt there.
Factory owners can agree, or lose the order, sometimes to new factories that spring up overnight.
"Factory owners, in a certain sense, they're in a bind," says Robert Ross, author of "Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshop" and a sociologist at Clark University. "They're forced to be ruthless and brutal -- and they are."
A year after the retailers' meeting in Dhaka to discuss the safety proposal, only two companies have signed the resulting joint memorandum of understanding.
Phillips Van-Heusen Corp., a New York City-based company that sells the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, in March signed the legally binding agreement after a national TV news report that chronicled the dangerous conditions in one of its Bangladesh factories. The company agreed to underwrite a two-year, $1 million program that allows independent fire-safety inspections and public reports of findings. But PVH, which did not return repeated calls seeking comment for this article, pledged to start the program only if at least three other major retailers sign on.
Mr Big's gangsters ransack homes of slain Ryan's pals
The family homes of two close associates of murdered Real IRA terror boss Alan Ryan have been ransacked by thugs connected to gang boss 'Mr Big'.
Sources have revealed that gangsters broke into the two properties and caused thousands of euro worth of damage.
The development has led to increased fears of a major escalation of the feud between Mr Big's drugs mob and dissident Republicans.
"The fellas broke into the houses and completely wrecked them -- it seems the criminals were trying to make a statement to what's left of Ryan's RIRA faction.
"They are challenging the dissidents -- trying to make the point that they are the top dogs in the feud. It is a very worrying development," a source said.
The Herald revealed yesterday that 'Mr Big' returned to Dublin last week and was arrested by gardai after they found balaclavas and cable ties in a car that he was travelling in at the south inner city.
The attacks on the two homes happened after the crimelord's return from Spain, where he has been based since September's murder of Alan Ryan.
The properties that were attacked are located on Dublin's northside. The occupier of one of the houses is a well-known sportsman.
A source said: "Both of these individuals would have been close to Alan Ryan but not necessarily involved in any form of terrorist activity."
The return of Mr Big -- who is understood to be hiding out in hotels and staying with pals -- has heightened tensions in the criminal underworld after last week's killing of crime godfather Eamon Kelly.
'Mr Big', considered one of Ireland's biggest drug traffickers, is suspected of organising Alan Ryan's murder with a close associate who is on the run from gardai after a warrant was issued for his arrest last week.
This older criminal is a Tiger kidnap mastermind who has been striking fear into the criminal underworld for years.
Gardai have carried out a number of searches in Cavan and Dublin over the past week to try and locate the veteran criminal who is facing serious charges in the courts.
'Mr Big' was stopped by officers from Kevin Street Garda Station in the south inner city during a routine traffic stop on Tuesday night of last week.
The feared crimelord was in the company of a notorious hood when detectives pulled over the car in the Marrowbone Lane area. Cable ties and balaclavas were discovered.
Shipping, seismic surveys for oil exploration and even the installation of offshore wind turbines all produce underwater noise that has been shown to increase stress levels of wildlife. This can affect the long-term health of marine animals, creating a negative impact on the marine food chain and the fishing industry.
The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive aims to protect the marine environment by assessing levels of indicators including noise pollution and defining what constitutes “good environmental status.” Once the baseline levels of underwater noise have been defined, legislation will be used to set standards to reduce the levels by 2020.
The researchers at Bath, in collaboration with Ocean Networks Canada, looked at different statistical methods of measuring underwater noise and assessed which method was most relevant to measuring potential impacts on marine life.
Nathan Merchant, a third year PhD student from the university’s Department of Physics, explains, “It has been shown that whales have increased stress hormones in their blood when they are exposed to high noise levels. This could have a negative impact on the health of whales (as it does in humans), and could ultimately contribute to population decline of endangered species.
“Noise also affects other sea creatures such as crabs and fish, which could have a knock-on effect for the rest of the food chain and the fishing industry. The new EU legislation aims to measure trends in underwater noise levels from year to year. The challenge for us was to identify a robust technique to calculate the average noise levels over the year in a way which reflected levels of potential impact on marine animals.”
The researchers looked at a range of statistical methods used to process noise data collected over four months by an underwater microphone located in the Strait of Georgia, near Vancouver, a major shipping route for western Canada.
The research was made possible by funding from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and labor and equipment from Ocean Networks Canada and Ocean Sonics.
Nathan Merchant says, “Noise is measured in decibels, a logarithmic unit of measurement. This means deciding whether to take an average of your data before or after conversion into decibels can make a big difference to the end result. Our study recommends using the mean average of the data before converting it to decibels because it best reflects the way that marine mammal hearing responds to noise exposure.”
Sources have revealed that gangsters broke into the two properties and caused thousands of euro worth of damage.
The development has led to increased fears of a major escalation of the feud between Mr Big's drugs mob and dissident Republicans.
"The fellas broke into the houses and completely wrecked them -- it seems the criminals were trying to make a statement to what's left of Ryan's RIRA faction.
"They are challenging the dissidents -- trying to make the point that they are the top dogs in the feud. It is a very worrying development," a source said.
The Herald revealed yesterday that 'Mr Big' returned to Dublin last week and was arrested by gardai after they found balaclavas and cable ties in a car that he was travelling in at the south inner city.
The attacks on the two homes happened after the crimelord's return from Spain, where he has been based since September's murder of Alan Ryan.
The properties that were attacked are located on Dublin's northside. The occupier of one of the houses is a well-known sportsman.
A source said: "Both of these individuals would have been close to Alan Ryan but not necessarily involved in any form of terrorist activity."
The return of Mr Big -- who is understood to be hiding out in hotels and staying with pals -- has heightened tensions in the criminal underworld after last week's killing of crime godfather Eamon Kelly.
'Mr Big', considered one of Ireland's biggest drug traffickers, is suspected of organising Alan Ryan's murder with a close associate who is on the run from gardai after a warrant was issued for his arrest last week.
This older criminal is a Tiger kidnap mastermind who has been striking fear into the criminal underworld for years.
Gardai have carried out a number of searches in Cavan and Dublin over the past week to try and locate the veteran criminal who is facing serious charges in the courts.
'Mr Big' was stopped by officers from Kevin Street Garda Station in the south inner city during a routine traffic stop on Tuesday night of last week.
The feared crimelord was in the company of a notorious hood when detectives pulled over the car in the Marrowbone Lane area. Cable ties and balaclavas were discovered.
Shipping, seismic surveys for oil exploration and even the installation of offshore wind turbines all produce underwater noise that has been shown to increase stress levels of wildlife. This can affect the long-term health of marine animals, creating a negative impact on the marine food chain and the fishing industry.
The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive aims to protect the marine environment by assessing levels of indicators including noise pollution and defining what constitutes “good environmental status.” Once the baseline levels of underwater noise have been defined, legislation will be used to set standards to reduce the levels by 2020.
The researchers at Bath, in collaboration with Ocean Networks Canada, looked at different statistical methods of measuring underwater noise and assessed which method was most relevant to measuring potential impacts on marine life.
Nathan Merchant, a third year PhD student from the university’s Department of Physics, explains, “It has been shown that whales have increased stress hormones in their blood when they are exposed to high noise levels. This could have a negative impact on the health of whales (as it does in humans), and could ultimately contribute to population decline of endangered species.
“Noise also affects other sea creatures such as crabs and fish, which could have a knock-on effect for the rest of the food chain and the fishing industry. The new EU legislation aims to measure trends in underwater noise levels from year to year. The challenge for us was to identify a robust technique to calculate the average noise levels over the year in a way which reflected levels of potential impact on marine animals.”
The researchers looked at a range of statistical methods used to process noise data collected over four months by an underwater microphone located in the Strait of Georgia, near Vancouver, a major shipping route for western Canada.
The research was made possible by funding from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and labor and equipment from Ocean Networks Canada and Ocean Sonics.
Nathan Merchant says, “Noise is measured in decibels, a logarithmic unit of measurement. This means deciding whether to take an average of your data before or after conversion into decibels can make a big difference to the end result. Our study recommends using the mean average of the data before converting it to decibels because it best reflects the way that marine mammal hearing responds to noise exposure.”
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Is there major league benefit to minor league baseball?
If the city of Ocala decides to help the Yankees move their Class A-Advanced minor league team here from Tampa, the decision will likely hinge on whether it is a good deal for the community.
But researchers say Ocala will have to look beyond the team's direct economic impact to make that decision because Minor League Baseball, in itself, does not generate a lot of jobs and doesn't attract millions of fans like a Major League team.
That doesn't mean Minor League Baseball can't be an economic driver, however.
A minor league stadium erected in the right location could revitalize an area or open up undeveloped land, both of which could be catalysts for new homes, businesses and jobs, researchers say.
And having a stadium and a baseball team like the Tampa Yankees could bring some cache to a town and engender civic pride that could be attractive to companies looking to relocate. At the very least, it could provide the community with new, affordable family entertainment and a venue for other events.
It is those ancillary benefits, researchers say, that may make a community's investment in Minor League Baseball worthwhile, even if it is not a big job creator or money-maker.
“You're never going to notice it's there economically,” said Roger Knoll, professor emeritus at Stanford University's Department of Economics. “It's too small and too unimportant. A Single A team is lucky if it draws 1,000 (fans) a game. It's not even as big as high school football.”
The Yankees and the city have been tight-lipped about their discussions to bring a farm team here. Ocala officials have said only that the talks are in the early stages. It is not known where a stadium would be built, who would pay for it or what other commitments of public dollars the Yankees would be asking for.
But Steve Densa, Minor League Baseball's executive director of communications, said when all the costs and benefits are calculated, minor league teams have a positive impact on communities.
“A MiLB (Minor League Baseball) club brings money to the area in the form of housing and/or hotel nights for the home club and the visiting one, coaches, scouts, umpires and various Major League personnel who visit each one of their affiliates during the season,” Densa wrote in an email. “There's also business generated for restaurants for these people as well. Other businesses may pop up around the ballpark, which may have not done so if there isn't a stadium. The ballpark is a community asset and can be used to attract other events throughout the year, such as concerts, fairs, holiday events, etc., that add to the quality of life of the community.”
The Tampa Yankees, like other Class-A minor league teams such as the Lakeland Flying Tigers and the Daytona Cubs, belong to the Florida State League. The Flying Tigers won the Florida State League's championship this year. Attendance at the final championship game at Lakeland's Joker Merchant Stadium, which holds 8,500 spectators, was 400 people.
“There were 398 and my wife and I,” said Bill Tinsley, the city of Lakeland's liaison to the Tigers and manager of financial resources. “The intent of minor league operations, typically, is that you don't lose money, that you break even and you provide some additional quality of life for your city.”
Breaking even, he admits, is no guarantee. There are considerable costs to a community, like the $35 million to $40 million price tag to build a minor league stadium.
“We're so different because we have spring training, which kind of covers the bills,” Tinsley said. “Spring training is huge.”
The Yankees are not considering moving their Major League New York Yankees' spring training to Ocala.
Tinsley said Lakeland “pretty much” breaks even on Minor League Baseball. He said the team and the city share expenses. Lakeland estimates that each Flying Tigers game costs the city $145 for utilities and field maintenance.
The city receives 15 percent of ticket sales and 15 percent of concessions, or a minimum of $125 a game from the team.
A minor league ticket costs between $5 and $7, although on nights when a business sponsors a game, a ticket could cost as little as $2. And if Tinsley can rent the stadium when there are no games, he receives $150 or more a night. The Flying Tigers' total 2012 attendance was 59,589. It averaged 1,027 fans a game for the 58 games it played.
The Flying Tigers do not pay to use the stadium, but the big league team pays Lakeland $325,000 a year to use the stadium for spring training, which helps offset the costs of the minor league team.
Knoll, of Stanford, said the Lakeland model works because the city uses the stadium for events beyond baseball.
“There's no real return on that investment to the city itself unless it's going to use that facility for lots of other things,” Knoll said.
Knoll said that in Stockton, Calif., the stadium is used by the local high schools.
But researchers say Ocala will have to look beyond the team's direct economic impact to make that decision because Minor League Baseball, in itself, does not generate a lot of jobs and doesn't attract millions of fans like a Major League team.
That doesn't mean Minor League Baseball can't be an economic driver, however.
A minor league stadium erected in the right location could revitalize an area or open up undeveloped land, both of which could be catalysts for new homes, businesses and jobs, researchers say.
And having a stadium and a baseball team like the Tampa Yankees could bring some cache to a town and engender civic pride that could be attractive to companies looking to relocate. At the very least, it could provide the community with new, affordable family entertainment and a venue for other events.
It is those ancillary benefits, researchers say, that may make a community's investment in Minor League Baseball worthwhile, even if it is not a big job creator or money-maker.
“You're never going to notice it's there economically,” said Roger Knoll, professor emeritus at Stanford University's Department of Economics. “It's too small and too unimportant. A Single A team is lucky if it draws 1,000 (fans) a game. It's not even as big as high school football.”
The Yankees and the city have been tight-lipped about their discussions to bring a farm team here. Ocala officials have said only that the talks are in the early stages. It is not known where a stadium would be built, who would pay for it or what other commitments of public dollars the Yankees would be asking for.
But Steve Densa, Minor League Baseball's executive director of communications, said when all the costs and benefits are calculated, minor league teams have a positive impact on communities.
“A MiLB (Minor League Baseball) club brings money to the area in the form of housing and/or hotel nights for the home club and the visiting one, coaches, scouts, umpires and various Major League personnel who visit each one of their affiliates during the season,” Densa wrote in an email. “There's also business generated for restaurants for these people as well. Other businesses may pop up around the ballpark, which may have not done so if there isn't a stadium. The ballpark is a community asset and can be used to attract other events throughout the year, such as concerts, fairs, holiday events, etc., that add to the quality of life of the community.”
The Tampa Yankees, like other Class-A minor league teams such as the Lakeland Flying Tigers and the Daytona Cubs, belong to the Florida State League. The Flying Tigers won the Florida State League's championship this year. Attendance at the final championship game at Lakeland's Joker Merchant Stadium, which holds 8,500 spectators, was 400 people.
“There were 398 and my wife and I,” said Bill Tinsley, the city of Lakeland's liaison to the Tigers and manager of financial resources. “The intent of minor league operations, typically, is that you don't lose money, that you break even and you provide some additional quality of life for your city.”
Breaking even, he admits, is no guarantee. There are considerable costs to a community, like the $35 million to $40 million price tag to build a minor league stadium.
“We're so different because we have spring training, which kind of covers the bills,” Tinsley said. “Spring training is huge.”
The Yankees are not considering moving their Major League New York Yankees' spring training to Ocala.
Tinsley said Lakeland “pretty much” breaks even on Minor League Baseball. He said the team and the city share expenses. Lakeland estimates that each Flying Tigers game costs the city $145 for utilities and field maintenance.
The city receives 15 percent of ticket sales and 15 percent of concessions, or a minimum of $125 a game from the team.
A minor league ticket costs between $5 and $7, although on nights when a business sponsors a game, a ticket could cost as little as $2. And if Tinsley can rent the stadium when there are no games, he receives $150 or more a night. The Flying Tigers' total 2012 attendance was 59,589. It averaged 1,027 fans a game for the 58 games it played.
The Flying Tigers do not pay to use the stadium, but the big league team pays Lakeland $325,000 a year to use the stadium for spring training, which helps offset the costs of the minor league team.
Knoll, of Stanford, said the Lakeland model works because the city uses the stadium for events beyond baseball.
“There's no real return on that investment to the city itself unless it's going to use that facility for lots of other things,” Knoll said.
Knoll said that in Stockton, Calif., the stadium is used by the local high schools.
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