The Volt Bolts

Photo by TJ Sullivan

KNBC journalist Patrick Healy reports at NBC Los Angeles that the LA Auto Show bid a hasty (and early) goodbye to GM's Volt, the electric vehicle that my Detroit auto-industry-employed friends and family say is sure to save the company:

Had it been purloined in the middle of the night by a rival carmaker? Or worse yet, by a foreign agent? Nope. Turns out GM itself moved the Volt in response to a higher calling.

"They need it back in Washington," was the explanation offered on the show floor by a Chevrolet "Product Specialist." Under further questioning by show visitor Bob Hackl, the product specialist explained that GM top brass plan to make use of the Volt in a presentation to Congress.

GM says car buyers will be able to buy the Volt in the 2010 model year, which begs the question ... why does General Motors appear to have only ONE built-and-running prototype Volt in the world right now?

Kinda, sorta related: A Sea of Unwanted Imports in LA.

— TJ Sullivan in LA

'The Book is Like a Hammer'

James Gleick, who was involved on the Authors Guild's side of a 2005 lawsuit the Guild filed against Google for scanning millions of out-of-print books and making the text searchable on the Internet, opines in the NY Times on the future of the book:

"As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer. Likewise, the bicycle is alive and well. It was invented in a world without automobiles, and for speed and range it was quickly surpassed by motorcycles and all kinds of powered scooters. But there is nothing quaint about bicycles. They outsell cars."

— TJ Sullivan in LA

'Growing The Pie'

After the extreme highs of election night, and the extreme lows of Wall Street … after watching housing values soar far beyond the wildest dreams of homeowners, then seeing many of them foreclosed upon ... after bracing ourselves for the approach of $5-per-gallon gasoline, only to witness its sudden retreat to less than $2 a gallon ... after drinking more water to be healthy, then learning that the plastic bottles from which we drink it might contain hazardous chemicals ... after all of that, and more, it's likely I'm not the only one who believes what this nation needs now is pie.

Apple pie. Pumpkin pie. Pecan pie.

President-elect Barack Obama appeared to tap a similar sentiment during today's pre-holiday press conference, at which he said: "... I've tried to bring together the best economic minds, people who don't always agree with each other but who all share a commitment to make sure we're growing the pie …"

Yes! By all means! Grow the pie!

For too long our nation has been trying to "make the pie higher." But now the time has come to grow the pie, to fetch it down from the lofty windowsill of the wealthy, and put it within the reach of all on the kitchen table of democracy.

This year we can be thankful for whatever size slice we have, but especially for the hope of a bigger pie to come.

Happy Thanksgiving!

— TJ Sullivan

Cross posted at LA Observed

The 2008 LA Auto Show

Photos by TJ Sullivan - Click to view photo index

I grew up in Detroit. I have the disease.

My first bout with it involved a 1977 Chevy Camaro that I purchased for a mere $100, an investment that was soon dwarfed by the cost of the Bondo required to patch the rust holes in the fenders, not to mention the spray paint that, for the first time in years, made the car one solid color — primer red. There were additional expenses — the carburetor that had to be rebuilt, and the valve cover gasket I had to replace. Then there was the exhaust manifold and muffler, and the alternator, and the radiator, and the hole in the floor on the passenger side, and the horn, and the plugs, and the battery ... My brother and I split entire summers between the restaurant where we waited tables, and the cars under which we slaved and slept.

Determined as I was to distance myself from the car-killer curse suffered by my father, my first car still became my first money pit. However, unlike my father, who took new cars and drove them until the wheels fell off (OK, the wheels actually fell off only one of the cars he owned), I was investing in an education. Every dollar I put into that beat-up old Camaro was more than matched in blood and sweat. And in return I received invaluable knowledge, as well as the ability to recognize any crooked auto repairman seconds after he suggests an unnecessary repair. But with this knowledge also came an affliction that is difficult to describe. And so, each year, I pay a visit to the Auto Show alone.

Despite the anticipation going in, most times I leave feeling drained and depressed. (The Big Three lost my attention about the time Ford transformed the Mustang into a hatchback.) This year was mostly more of the same in that regard, except for the Chevrolet Camaro concept car, a version of which is set to hit assembly lines in 2009, and showrooms in the 2010 model year — provided there's still a GM assembly line up and running next year. Not that I'll be in the market for one, but I might pretend long enough to take a test drive.

I took the camera along to the show on Saturday and put the photos together in the video slide show above. [The stills are online at this link].

* And if you go ... be sure to check out the Caraoke that VW set up inside a 2009 Beetle. It's posting videos directly to YouTube throughout the show and some of them are pretty damn funny.

— TJ Sullivan

* Crossposted at LA Observed.

Line For Free Groceries A Quarter-Mile Long

The blog LA NOW reports that thousands lined up today in Los Angeles for free groceries and Thanksgiving meals.

This from LA NOW:

In a sign of how strained families are just to put food on the table, more than 1,000 people are lined up today for bags of groceries at Montebello Park. The single-file line is about a quarter-mile long, and some families have been waiting since 7 a.m.

The post was published at 12:31 PM.

— TJ Sullivan in LA

Prop 8 Was Not Just Another Issue

A couple weeks ago I posted photos of a Prop 8 protest without comment.

The photos spoke for themselves. They did one of the things journalists are supposed to do. They gave voice to the voiceless.

Of course, some will disagree with the characterization of the losing side as voiceless. Some will say what they've been saying to me in anonymous blog comments and in e-mails, that the time for voices to be heard has passed, that the voters have spoken and more than half of them said "yes" on Prop 8. Some will view this as just another ballot issue, and declare anyone who dares to express dissent little more than a sore loser.

But, this was not just another ballot issue. This wasn't about fixing an injustice, nor was it about closing some legal loophole that was costing taxpayers money.

This was and continues to be about taking away rights, civil rights, and for those whose rights were taken away to remain silent now would equal acceptance for generations to come, not just here in California, but in the states that will surely seek to mimic us.

Voters aren't always right. Courts aren't always right. Who now, for example, would dispute that the US Supreme Court was flat wrong in 1896 when it upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson? Yet, as obvious an abomination as that ruling is today, it took our nation 58 years to undo it, then another 10 years to get the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act passed in the mid '60s.

Without question, it's a mistake to think of Prop 8 as just another ballot item. This is about procedural fairness in law, and protection from discrimination. (Note the recent eHarmony settlement).

Both sides praised Wednesday's announcement that the Supreme Court in San Francisco has decided to hear arguments on the validity of Prop 8. But, considering how that court has ruled before, and the legal question to be considered, it's hard to imagine anything but an invalidation of the proposition.

Although Keith Olbermann [see inset] expressed a similar point of view before the court made its decision to hear the matter, it's hard to imagine his mind has changed. We can only hope more people in Olbermann's position speak loudly and often about this issue.

As Olbermann points out, supporting Prop 8 is impossible to reconcile with the credo "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."


— TJ Sullivan

To Burn, Or Not To Burn ... NOT!

Photo from BBC

Hat tip to Publishers Lunch for pointing out today's story on THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished novel, which the author asked be burned following his death, which occurred in 1977.

Nabokov's son, Dmitri, who is publishing the work (set for release in 2009), speaks out for the first time about the book's contents.

Via The Independent:

He described it as "an extraordinarily original work" which was "captivating" but also "not necessarily always pleasant – shocking in some ways".

The hero of the book is Philip Wild, an overweight and physically unattractive academic with a brilliant mind who has a "wildly promiscuous" and unfaithful wife named Flora, whom he married because of her resemblance to a young woman he once loved. In the novel, which is both playful and dark, Wild toys with the idea of committing suicide.

There's also a BBC program online about the work.


— TJ Sullivan

Any Suggestions On How To Freelance?

Ever since I departed full-time newsroom life four years ago, I get this question with increasing frequency from my friends and former colleagues.

"Any suggestions on how to freelance?" they ask.

I'm always happy to share what I've learned, but they always seem to want me to skip past the sermon about paying extra special attention to those contracts, and jump right to the part where they get paid. What so many of my full-time brethren seem to misunderstand is that they might not get paid if they don't pay attention to their contracts.

Even with a contract, there will be times you have to fight for your money.

Witness this rare public disclosure by Edward Champion at Reluctant Habits.

In the piece, Champion writes of what he went through after learning recently of the fateful folding of a publication that still owed him money for a story, 02138. Of course, just like any of us, upon hearing the news, Champion immediately set about getting paid. He looked at his contract, which stipulated that he was to be compensated upon acceptance, but acceptance had already occurred and still no dough. He phoned the publication to inquire about his pay check and was told, of course, that this wasn't a matter that could be handled by the people he knew. No newsroom types could solve this. No sir. This was a matter for the business side, the COO, and that's when things appear to have gotten nasty. He says he was told the check was in the mail, and to not to come down to the office in search of his check. The company attorney even got involved.

Guess what happened when Champion went ahead and made that visit to the publication's office anyway:

"I left this morning, entered the building, handed my ID over to the security guard, and told him I was going up to the Manhattan Media office. My name had been placed on the building’s “Watch List #1.” I told this friendly guard, who laughed over the cautionary subwindow on his screen, that I had not been placed on any watch list before, but that he could watch me as long as he liked, particularly if he remained suspicious of my intentions. Perhaps in watching, he might see something that I hadn’t observed in the mirror. Or perhaps, I also argued, I could watch him and put him on my own private “Watch List #2.” Perhaps we could generate thousands of Watch Lists and share the results of all this watching with interested parties. I stood around for a while, and he then let me go up."

It's a good read, and an important one for any full-time journalists who remain of the opinion that freelancing is for lightweights. Brothers and sisters, you have no idea.

— TJ Sullivan

Goodbye Jerry Yang

It looks like this is goodbye to Yahoo Inc CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that "Yang will step down after the company finds a replacement, closing a tumultuous and short tenure ..."

Shi Tao, however, continues to do time in a Chinese prison for reporting the news.

Under Yang's stewardship of Yahoo, the company played a major hand in the arrest of mainland Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was eventually convicted by the communist government of China for “divulging state secrets abroad,” all because Tao used his Yahoo email address in 1989 to communicate with a pro-democracy Web site, informing its readers of an order by the Chinese government banning Chinese media from covering the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests.

As Reporters Without Borders said in 2005, the cooperation of Yahoo with the Chinese government's effort to track down Tao, lowered Yang's company to the level of “a Chinese police informant.” To make it worse, Yang defended his company's actions as simply complying with local law in a country in which Yahoo did business, never mind international and US laws regarding the prohibition of selling "crime control and detection" equipment to the Chinese. It was, to put it more simply, just business.

As Reporters Without Borders said so well:

"It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government’s abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate.”

Perhaps the saddest part of Yang's departure is that the Chinese government probably won't deliver news of it to Shi Tao's cell.

— TJ Sullivan

Going Through 'The Changes'

Without referencing any of the near four dozen jobs eliminated a couple weeks ago — 17 from the newsroom, including three photographers and three reporters — Ventura County Star Editor Joe Howry wrote a column published in Sunday's edition that highlights how much better the suburban LA paper's local coverage is about to get.

Howry says "the changes we are making center on preserving the quality and quantity of local news." He says "the changes we've made are substantial, but they don't include fewer news reporters covering local news or a decline in our overall news coverage." He says he's "confident our local news coverage will increase as a result of the changes." (All the bold was added for emphasis by yours truly.)

Here's the gist:

"We understand how unsettling changes to the newspaper can be. To help readers navigate the changes, Monday's paper will provide a visual, comprehensive guide to how The Star has been reorganized.

The Star is evolving. We have become more streamlined and, in many ways, much more efficient. The one thing that has not changed through the evolutionary process is our DNA. We will continue to be the most complete and comprehensive source of local news in Ventura County."

There's even a John Lennon lyric quoted in the piece, though perhaps those who lost their jobs might consider a David Bowie lyric more apropos, something from "Changes," because "... They're quite aware of what they're going through."

Anyone who has ever worked in a newsroom knows how heavily corporate budget cuts and staff reductions weigh on the editors who must impose them. No one in this business wants to see anyone lose their job, particularly in an industry where people put so much effort into their work. I don't doubt for a second that Howry, for whom I used to write, hates like hell that it's come to this. Those who remain in any newspaper's employ after such a devastating layoff must soldier on, not just because their own futures depend upon it, but out of an obligation to the readers they serve. At the same time, however, those who've been let go as part of "changes" intended to strengthen the company's financial position deserve to at least be acknowledged, don't they? After all, everyone leaves eventually, and who wouldn't want to be well-remembered?

See related post here.

— TJ Sullivan

* Cross-posted at LA Observed.

** UPDATE: Romenesko has a post about Ventura County Star cartoonist Steve Greenberg, who was among those laid off.

LA's Fire-Orange Sun

Photo by TJ Sullivan © 2008

We can't see the smoke plumes or smell the smoke on the Westside, but the sun is that same fire-orange color it always gets when there are big fires burning anywhere in Southern California.


— TJ Sullivan

Why $700 Billion Might Not Be Enough

When US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced this week that he was ditching the plan to buy up complex mortgage-related assets, many people were surprisingly surprised. What? Wait! We gave him $700 Billion to fix this mess. How can $700 Billion not be enough?

There's no easy answer, of course, but The New York Times series The Debt Trap, published back in July 2008, is a good place to get a sense of the magnitude of this crisis.

Here's a snippet:

... As Americans have dug themselves deeper into debt, the value of their assets has started to fall. Mortgage debt stood at $10.5 trillion at the end of last year, more than double the $4.8 trillion just seven years earlier, but home prices that were rising to support increasing levels of debt, like home equity lines of credit, are now dropping.

I had to read that line over a couple times before I believed my eyes. Even as incomes were stagnating, mortgage debt in the US more than doubled in a mere seven years. Where'd we come up with that additional $5.7 trillion?

We didn't.

We aren't even saving money anymore. Our nation's savings rate, which measures the money that mom and pop sock away for a rainy day, accounted for more than 8 percent of disposable income in 1968. But, as reported by the NY Times, that same rate at the start of 2008 stood at 0.4 percent!

POINT FOUR PERCENT!

Yet another way of looking at the problem is this digital animation of a roller coaster [see inset above], which was created a couple years ago using the same data as Robert J. Shiller's index of housing prices in the US from 1890 to 2006. Be sure to watch for the year indicator to pop up in the lower right corner of the screen.


— TJ Sullivan