Right Of Way

Dragon boat vs. duck in Baltimore inner harbor, Friday evening

Smooth Operators

John F. Harris makes the case that we could be in for a contest between cool-rocking pragmatists in era of angry extremism:

Any comparison between Obama and Romney shouldn’t be pushed too far. They are men of different generations, different formative experiences, different cultural tastes, and — no matter their shared instinct for pragmatism — different ideas of what the country needs.

But at the moment they do have a common bond. They both will run this year — and one of them will govern after 2012 — in a political system that demands balancing their own coolness and instinct for compromise against the hot and unyielding temper of the times.

Hat tip to Jim Lusby

The Flag Is Still There

Atop Federal Hill in Baltimore

Bush Needed Bucking Up

Since I buy almost all my text digitally, visiting the Barnes & Noble along Baltimore's inner harbor this evening was a nostalgia trip, like going to a museum. Whoa. A newsstand. Out of sheer guilt I bought a commemorative issue about my favorite band, R.E.M., published by the British music magazine "Uncut," in which I was astonished to read this quote in a May 1988 interview with guitarist and band co-founder Peter Buck:

I recommend anyone reading this who's a psycho and can buy a gun to shoot George Bush. I'm serious. I would consider it myself. I live in a country that I hate! I live in a country where I wanna shoot politicians, where the only way you can make a real dent is not voting, it's murder.

As you might imagine, Buck and vocalist Michael Stipe supported Michael Dukakis that year. A Google search reveals nothing about Buck being questioned by the Secret Service or denounced by talk show hosts. Nor does Dukakis appear to have been forced to return any campaign contributions because of these repugnant comments. Imagine if someone of Buck's stature said this today about the president. Maybe nobody was reading "Uncut."

Good thing I'm learning it after R.E.M.'s breakup. As for the 20 CDs I already own, I don't care what they about it, I'm gonna keep 'em.

A Busy Night In Key Biscayne

How 31, 34, 35, and 37 figured out how not to make a mess out of '60.

Apple Loses. Amazon And Consumers Win.

A couple of years ago, we learned that Steve Jobs' Apple had colluded with publishers to undercut Amazon's bid for galactic domination of the e-book market, which it was quickly gaining by charging $10 for bestsellers and most every other title. Apple hoped to get a quick and dirty piece of the action for the iPad and its own bookstore. Instead it got the attention of the Justice Department, which sued Apple and five big publishers for blatant price-fixing.

Rather than celebrating this victory for the consumer, David Streitfeld of the New York Times is worried about Amazon's clout:

[P]ublishers and booksellers argue that any victory for consumers will be short-lived, and that the ultimate effect of the antitrust suit will be to exchange a perceived monopoly for a real one. Amazon, already the dominant force in the industry, will hold all the cards.

“Amazon must be unbelievably happy today,” said Michael Norris, a book publishing analyst with Simba Information. “Had they been puppeteering this whole play, it could not have worked out better for them.”

If Amazon's 60% of all e-book sales can really be called a monopoly, Amazon earned it by brilliantly parlaying its dominance of mail-order books sales into a launching pad for the Kindle. If it was willing to take a loss on a $10 e-book sale (based on what it was paying publishers for resale rights) to encourage readers to buy Kindles, that was literally its own business. But the media appear to be buying the publishers' complaints that they couldn't make money on $10 e-books and that the price undercut the perceived value of text. The oil companies need to find reporters this credulous. We need higher prices to spur our exploration efforts! Only by paying more for gas will people appreciate the preciousness of this scarce resource!

Besides, I agree with Matthew Yglesias, who wonders how you don't make money on a $10 file download. If publishers can't, they need to streamline their business, which began to happen with recorded music after Apple figured out how to sell $10 downloads to people who'd been paying $18 for CDs. Apple used its wits to help the consumer get more affordable music and to spur restructuring of an arteriosclerotic industry. Apple then turned around and tried to stop Amazon from making text more affordable in precisely the same way. This week both companies got what they deserved.

Deep Throat, Shallow Footprint?

Defending his former reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, from charges that they were stenographers for an ambitious secret source, Barry Sussman, editor in charge of the Washington Post's Watergate investigation, says that Max Holland, author of Leak, overstates Mark Felt's importance to the story:

Deep Throat wasn’t an important source at all. He was nice to have around, helpful on occasion, especially in October, 1972, when he confirmed and added to a story in which the Post introduced Donald Segretti as a political saboteur against the Democrats. But that’s about it. Woodward and Bernstein have blown up Felt’s importance for almost four decades or nodded in assent when others did, and instead of pricking this big balloon, Holland pumps more air into it.

Holland states that for decades “the parlor game that would not die” – the search to uncover Deep Throat – had the effect of “elevating Deep Throat’s role as a source and cementing the myth about the Post reporters’ own role in uncovering Watergate.” Except Holland very much accepts the first part of that formulation.

Easter Wednesday Sky

5:31 p.m., St. John's Church

Moonstruck

Perhaps because we're deeply conscious of our worst tendencies, our fascination with perpetrators can muffle compassion for victims. God staged the perfect death so we'd learn to love life as much as God does. My Good Friday sermon, "All About Jesus," is here.

You might not realize it (St. John's School seventh graders do), but it's the movement of the heavens that brings us modern people to church each Easter Sunday. My sermon for the Sunday of the Resurrection, "Moonstruck," is here.

The St. John's Choir's magnificent "Hallelujah," from Messiah, which sent us out into the world rejoicing in the power of the Spirit and God's love, is here.

Easter Wednesday Sky

7:27 a.m., Yorba Linda