A Modest Proposal: A Real High-Speed Rail Program

Once upon a time in America, we built great things.  We created nation-building canals, giant dams, coast-to-coast railroads, massive bridges, unprecedented war machines, national highways, and awe-inspiring spaceships.  These projects were expensive and they took a long time to complete – years, even decades.  But they served a useful purpose, were popularly accepted, and have had a profound impact on strengthening the infrastructure of our country and enriching our lives.

In 1825, the Erie Canal, financed by New York State, connected Lake Erie to the Hudson River. The 363-mile waterway effected a huge reduction in transportation costs, helped open up the West, and established New York as the leading port in the country.

In 1863, the transcontinental railroad was completed, linking the East and West coasts.

In 1914, the United States finished construction of the Panama Canal, one of the largest engineering projects in history. Under the aegis of Theodore Roosevelt, its impact was enormous, shortening ships’ voyages between Atlantic and Pacific oceans from thousands of miles to 48 miles.

During the Great Depression, a host of new initiatives helped create jobs and restart economic growth. Hoover Dam (right), then the largest in the world, was completed and Grand Coulee Dam started. Among the more successful FDR programs were the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Works Projects Administration. The WPA built thousands of schools, hospitals, bridges, parks, sports stadiums, sewer lines and myriad other public works. At its peak, it employed over three million. Funding reached $2 billion annually ($30 billion today adjusted for inflation).

World War II led to the Manhattan Project, which ultimately spawned nuclear power as a byproduct. Radar was perfected. Aircraft and ship production reached unprecedented levels.

Perhaps the last major infrastructure effort by the United States in the last 50 years was the interstate highway system. President Eisenhower signed into law the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.The program featured a 41,000-mile network of limited-access roads linking 90 percent of all cities with populations of more than 50,000.  The Federal Government contributed $25,000,000,000 [$192 billion in current dollars!] among the states over the following thirteen years.

The Apollo program, initiated by President Kennedy in 1961, was successfully realized in 1969 with the successful landing of men on the moon. Apollo was a reaction to the twin scares from the Soviet Union’s space program. First was the shock of the unmanned Sputnik in October 1957, the world’s first artificial satellite. Second was the flight by Yuri Gagarin in April 1961.  He became the first man in space. Just over a month later, Kennedy announced the Apollo program, thereby initiating a race to the moon (a race, by the way, that the Soviets never bothered to enter).

While the Apollo program was successful in exciting the public and in developing a capability for human spaceflight, it was less successful when undergoing a cost-benefit analysis, particularly compared with robotic spaceflight. The latter has about two orders of magnitude lower cost than human flight, with about two orders of magnitude higher productivity and scientific research. Unmanned satellites have revolutionized communications, navigation, weather forecasting, mapping, and astronomy.  Not as sexy as humans flying around in spaceships, but a much bigger bang for the buck. 

Looking at the list of infrastructure achievements, most were phenomenal. Some were responses to hot or cold war challenges. Others were peacetime improvements to our infrastructure that yielded a stronger and more vibrant nation. They created jobs, strengthened the economy, and helped raise our standard of living.

But as they say, what have you done for me lately? In the 54 years since the interstate highway legislation passed Congress, nothing even close has followed. Five decades, zilch.

It’s not that we don’t spend money.  In the last two years we’ve spent massive taxpayer funds -- hundreds of billions of dollars -- allegedly in the public interest.  But regrettably, not for productive projects, not for infrastructure, not to accentuate the positive, but rather to eliminate the negative.  Unprecedented public funding has been used to rescue dying, mismanaged and inefficient industries. We poured enormous amounts into the financial sector. We saved the legacy automobile industry in order to preserve jobs. A short-term success, but a long-term mistake. 

Let's see what Intel’s former CEO, Andy Grove, said about this in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, likening the technological revolution that hit the computer industry three decades ago to the one now reshaping the auto industry:

The transformation of an entire industry does not happen very often. It only occurs when a number of factors align, such as a change in consumer demand, a shift of parts of the major supply chain from one country to another, and the emergence of key technological changes…

This is what happened in the computer industry in the 1980s and '90s [when all the mainframe companies were hemorrhaging money]…

Imagine if in the middle of the computer transformation the Reagan administration worried about the upheaval and tried to rescue this vital industry by making huge investments in leading mainframe companies. The purpose of such investments would have been to protect the viability of these companies. The effect, however, would have been to put the brakes on transformation and all but ensure that the U.S. would lose its leadership role…

The PC changed [the industry.] In just a few years, the industry was pulled apart and reassembled…

The government's investment in General Motors might be directly helpful if the auto industry only had the recession to contend with. But that is not the case. The industry faces the confluence of a world-wide recession, rising fuel prices, environmental demands, globalization of manufacturing, and, most importantly, technological change involving the very nature of the automobile…

Electric cars have become viable and will likely only become more capable in the future... Electric cars may match the needs of our time better and become more desirable than cars relying on the internal combustion engine…

The U.S. government is investing in the automobile industry with the intention of preventing jobs from being lost. This may improve GM's ability to operate within today's structure. But there is no comparably large investment being made to develop the capabilities that could serve the company in a new era of electric cars.

China appears to be making a different bet… China is putting a great deal of effort into developing and manufacturing batteries. Essentially, it is betting that it can take the lead in creating the foundation technology of what will likely be the new structure of the auto industry.

One Investment Idea -- Battery Technology


I agree with Grove.  A massive federal investment in developing new battery technology would pay great dividends. One by one, the world's automakers are exploring with varying degrees of enthusiasm all-electric vehicles. But to make them truly practical – not just a second-car option -- a new generation of battery technology is required. The energy density and recharge time of today’s lithium-ion batteries are simply not adequate to allow for widespread replacement of internal combustion autos.

As the owner of an all-electric car (a 2008 Tesla Roadster), I can enthusiastically testify as to the excitement of driving the car -- it accelerates from 0 to 60 miles an hour in 3.9 seconds. But the limited range (200-plus miles if you drive it prudently) creates "range anxiety." That is, as approach its maximum range, you start getting really anxious.  You're not sure just how far you can go before you deplete the battery. And you don’t want to get stranded; there's no quick fill-up at a nearby filling station.  The recharge time from dead battery to fully charged ranges from four hours (with a 220V, 70 amp line) to 40 hours (with a standard 110V line).

We need a massive investment in new battery technology.  Batteries unfortunately are not beneficiaries of Moore’s Law, an observation that over the last five decades semiconductors have doubled their performance every year-and-a-half to two years. We need battery breakthroughs, but if someone is making a massive investment in battery technology, it’s not in this hemisphere.


Another Investment Idea -- A Real High-Speed Rail Program

There is one new infrastructure plan that’s getting a lot of attention right now -- high-speed rail. Indeed, last week the US Department of Transportation announced that it was awarding $8 billion to states across the country “to develop America's first nationwide program of high-speed intercity passenger rail service. The President’s bold vision for high-speed rail is a game changer,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Sound good? It sure does. Until you look at the numbers. It turns out that $8 billion, plus an additional $1 billion per year for five years, is still chump change compared to what's needed and what other countries are doing to create nationwide high-speed rail service. In fact, it’s a number well short of. say, the $17 billion we spend annually on candy.  The paltry size of the proposed new rail program is maddening: it’s big enough to get people excited, but not enough to really make a difference.  And it doesn’t begin to compare with what’s happening elsewhere in the world.

We're all familiar with what's happening abroad. Japan has had its bullet trains for decades. France has the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse), and similar programs thrive in Germany, Spain, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan. But the real game changer, as with so many other advanced developments, is happening in – you guessed it -- China.

Recently, China leaped ahead of the world by opening the world’s fastest long-distance passenger train service. The Harmony Express covers the nearly 700 miles from Guangzhou to Wuhan in less than three hours, compared with 11 hours previously. By comparison, the fastest American service, the Acela, takes the same time to travel the 225 miles between New York and Washington, D.C.  One-third the distance in the same time.  That’s embarrassing.

But the Harmony is just a harbinger. As Fortune reported last August, China's high-speed rail program calls for 16,000 miles of new track to be installed by the year 2020. Their spending in 2010 alone will be $50 billion. Total program spending will reach hundred of billions of dollars.

The next major link will be between Beijing and Shanghai. Traveling at a peak speed of 220 miles an hour, the train will traverse the 665 miles, including stops, in less than four hours.

Imagine traveling on the ground from New York to Chicago, a comparable distance to Beijing-Shanghai, in less than four hours. No airport hassle, few weather delays, no ramp waits, more civility. And remember this, if you want to get discouraged: Today’s commercial air experience is worse than it has ever been -- but better than it will ever be. Trains, anyone?

Not everyone is enamored of high-speed rail for the United States. Indeed, in an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, one critic of high-speed rail claims that it is "driven by little more than a romantic notion to confer a European ambience on American cities." He criticizes the DOT plan for being too ambitious.  (Too ambitious?) And I find it interesting to read through an 834-word essay railing (so to speak) against high-speed rail, yet mentioning nothing about the revolutionary (so to speak) program in China. 

Critics claim rail travel will always be inefficient and costly.  But to compare the economics of old passenger-rail technology to the new high-speed revolution is like comparing internal-engine, propeller-driven aircraft to modern day jets.  High-speed rail will offer new economics and new passenger experience.

Unfortunately, you'll just have to imagine a world-class high-speed rail program in America, because it ain't gonna happen.  Not in my lifetime. Simply put, major infrastructure projects take years or even decades to complete, a period far longer than most politicians' terms of office. The costs of big projects are current, the benefits are in the future. 

Spending a billion or two a year on high-speed rail sounds good, but it will just provide ammunition for the critics. Money will be spent, but nothing dramatic will happen. It’s another attempt to do it on the cheap. Too bad.

It's time for inspired vision. For innovative thinking. For big ideas. And in the United States, not just in China.


Your thoughts on a big new idea?  Just comment below:

Banking Thoughts

I’m not sure how banks really function.  I’m watching the Bernanke hearings now on C-SPAN, and I’m beginning to realize that neither the questioners (Senators) nor the witness (Bernanke) seems to know that much more.  Yes, they all profess to be knowledgeable about what happened, and they claim to know what to do in the future, but weren’t these the same people who were around when the seeds of destruction were being planted a few years ago?  It doesn’t give one a lot of comfort.

I never used to give a passing thought to banks, or to bankers.  Then, when the crisis struck, it made me start to worry more about the financial system and the cause of its collapse.  Was it the government’s fault?  Nope.  The government said it was Wall Street’s.  Was it Wall Street’s fault? Nope. You guessed it. Wall Street blamed the regulators. But someone had to be culpable, yet no one wanted to take credit.  Wonder why?

I had been starting to get a little comfortable with our financial leadership a few weeks ago when Time magazine anointed the Fed chairman as its Person of the Year.  But then I recalled an earlier Time cover, Feb. 15, 1999, with photos of an earlier Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, along with Treasury’s Bob Rubin and Larry Summers. 

There were two captions on the cover: “The Committee to Save the World,” and “The inside story of how the Three Marketeers have prevented a global economic meltdown – so far.”  I’m not sure which caption was funnier.  A year later, as you may remember, all hell broke loose as one of our increasingly frequent financial bubbles burst. So much for the Three Marketeers.

Over the decade, the Fed leadership had changed from Greenspan to Bernanke. Yet here was Summers himself, back this time as National Economic adviser.  And Tim Geithner, a protégé of all the aforementioned, took over Treasury.  So our economic leadership has “progressed” from Greenspan, Rubin and Summers to Bernanke, Geithner and Summers.  In effect, the guys who got us here are back in the chicken coop again.  Change you can believe in? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

The conventional wisdom is that Bernanke is irreplaceable and should be reappointed in order to assure stability in the financial markets; there is absolutely no one else who can do the job.  Somehow, I find it hard to believe that in a country of 300 million-plus, there is no other person who can run the Fed, that Bernanke is indispensable.  As Charles de Gaulle said, “The cemetery is full of indispensable men.”

Meanwhile, Geithner has his own issues.  Back in the bad old Soviet days, western Kremlinologists used to study photographs of the Politburo to discern who was gaining in favor -- by standing nearer Stalin -- and who was losing.  Those who moved over time from the center to the outside were likely headed for the Gulag.  This White House photo taken last week during Volcker’s visit suggests – based on Geithner’s distance from the President, not to mention the concerned expression on his face – that Cyrillic lessons might be in order.

Or as Politico.com put it last week:

Many in political Washington immediately suspected that the new ideas reflected a diminution of influence of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic advisor Larry Summers, and the ascendancy of former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who has advocated a tougher approach to the “too big to fail” problem for a year or more. In fact, Obama referred to one part of the proposal as “the Volcker rule.” 

Anyway, I’m going back to TV to watch more of the Senate hearings.  I’m dying to learn whether “somebody knows something” or it’s just more of “nobody knows anything.”

But I have recently learned something about the way that banks run their businesses.  They run them strangely.  Even though they’re lending very little to anyone but those with prime credits, the banks seem to be expanding their retail space at a feverish pitch.  At least in Manhattan.  It seems that whenever a street-level space becomes vacant – a not infrequent occurrence these days – some bank snaps up the location.

I just surveyed the area up and down Broadway within three to four blocks of our apartment building, and discovered 10 bank branches, many opened in the last few years.  They outnumber Starbucks in the same stretch five to one.

The good news?  Lots of ATMs.

Broadway & 63rd

Broadway & 63rd

Broadway & 62nd

Broadway & 61st

Broadway & 60th -- Home

Broadway & 58th

Broadway & 58th

Broadway & 57th

Broadway & 56th

Broadway & 56th

Broadway & 56th

Letter from Broadway

Suppose you’re a Broadway producer.  You're backing a show. Not a tourist-friendly musical, not a sitcom-like comedy, but a really serious drama. Troubled longshoreman. Set in Brooklyn. Doesn’t end happily. Tell me, honestly, what are the of odds that you would expect to wake up after opening night to see these quotes from reviewers:

"Theatrical lightning bolt"
"A singular astonishment"
"Extraordinary"
"Exquisitely played"
"Nothing short of remarkable"

It happened.

We attended the opening of A View from the Bridge, a revival of the 1955 play by Arthur Miller. Directed by Gregory Mosher [disclosure – a friend], it stars Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson [disclosure – not a friend] and Jessica Hecht. The experience reminded me of how exhilarating well-written, well-acted and well-directed live theater can be. It also reminded me of why we live in high-tax, lousy-weather New York.

I won't review the play here; it’s above my pay grade. Rather, I urge you to read the reviews by the professional critics, almost all of whom were positive. The reviews ranged from admiring at worst to raves at best. In particular, I commend to your attention those in the Feb. 1 New Yorker, the Jan, 25 Washington Post, and the Jan. 25 New York Times. [The New Yorker’s online review in their digital edition is available only to registered users.] Just to whet your appetite, here is an excerpt from the opening paragraph of John Lahr’s review in The New Yorker:

"Deftly directed by Greg Mosher, A View from the Bridge is a singular astonishment: a kind of theatrical lightning bolt that sizzles and startles at the same time, illuminating the poetry in the play’s prose and the subtlety in its streamlined construction. A View from the Bridge may not be Miller’s best play, but this is one of the best productions of his work that I’ve ever seen.” And that’s just the start.

On its merits, the play’s 14-week run would probably sell out. The presence of film star Johansson, making her Broadway debut, assures it. Booking a big Hollywood or TV name is almost a de rigueur casting techniques to assure high Broadway attendance. Well, imagine my surprise (I’m rarely impressed by film stars’ performances on the stage) -- she does well. She more than holds her own. Johansson, in her brunette wig, has attention paid to her.

[For you Arthur Miller fans who recognize my sly reference to “attention must be paid” from Death of a Salesman, I’m not the only one trying to show my cleverness. Ben Brantley in the Times slips this into his review: “There’s no question of not paying them the attention that Miller demands.”]

But it’s Schreiber who is in a class by himself. He has to be considered one of the fine theatrical actors of our time. In A View from the Bridge, we may look at Scarlett, but we’re fixated on Liev. “Schreiber is nothing short of remarkable,” says The Washington Post.

Go see it.

10 Things I Think I Think

(I think I'm stealing the title from Peter King, the excellent NFL sportswriter for Sports Illustrated. His weekly column, Monday Morning Quarterback, is a must read for football nuts. One feature of MMQ is “10 Things I Think I Think,” which I think I have appropriated. I hope that my mentioning his column and furnishing the link offsets my brazen theft.)

1.  I think that the next important election after today's in Massachusetts is the mayoral election on February 6 in New Orleans. Many of you already have February 7 marked on your calendar as the date of the Super Bowl. But as much as residents and ex-pats hold dear the Saints, the city’s real Super Bowl will be fought a day earlier. After eight years of Ray Nagin’s administration (he’s termed out), a new mayor will be elected on February 6. (If no one receives a majority, a runoff will be held between the top two finishers 30 days later.)

Even before Katrina, New Orleans was suffering. A major cause of so many of the city's problems has been the incompetent and often crooked leadership at the local and state levels. This unfortunate tradition was initiated in the early 1930s by Huey Long. Many disciples and wannabes in the subsequent 80 years have perfected it.

The good news for New Orleans is that the time is now ripe to change its attitudes of victimization (the storm did it), impotence (we can’t change the political system), and despair (it’ll never get better). Time to change from laissez les bon temps rouler to make the good times happen.

It’s now February 7. A new mayor is elected (maybe a good guy?). A new Super Bowl champion is crowned (maybe the Saints?). Who knows? As Rick said at the end of Casablanca, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

2.  I think I know why go to the opera. In recent months, Donna and I have begun to make up for the time we missed during the first half of the Met Opera season. Three productions of the six we have seen recently stand out: Il Trittico, The Tales of Hoffmann, and Carmen. The latter two are new productions this season; Il Trittico was revamped a couple of years ago.

All three share wonderful singing, engaging stories, and first-rate staging. Much of the staging improvements stem from the Met’s recent policy of engaging theatrical directors to rejuvenate the repertory. Il Trittico was reconceived by Jack O'Brien (Henry IV, Hairspray); The Tales of Hoffmann by Bartlett Sher (The Light in the Piazza, South Pacific); and Carmen by Richard Eyre (former UK National Theatre director, Mary Poppins).

Other indelible memories: The remarkable performances of Patricia Racette and Stephanie Blythe, each performing in all three parts of Il Trittico, and especially Racette’s heartbreakingly moving Suor Angelica. Anna Netrebko’s fabulous portrayal of Antonia in Hoffmann. And Elina Garanca’s very, very sexy Carmen (shown).

3.  I think I’d like to ask the question, What If? A few years ago, I read a fascinating book entitled, What If? Historians were invited to write essays on what-if scenarios: What if Robert E. Lee humbled the Union? What if the Spanish Armada triumphed? What if Napoleon won at Waterloo?

My question is, What if we hadn’t rescued the banks in the 2008-09 bailout?

I'm still skeptical about the rationale for the banking bailouts. We were emphatically warned by our financial leaders that unless these inefficient, incompetently managed, too-big-to-fail banks -- many of which bore responsibility for the economic collapse -- were infused with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, it would absolutely -- no doubt on their parts -- result in a new great depression and the end of the world as we know it.

I'm skeptical of their absolute assuredness.  These people who in late 2008 and early 2009 forecast these visions of total gloom and doom -- the Geithners and Summers and Paulsons of the world -- were the very same people who in mid-2007 were offering these rosy-scenario forecasts:

“…There has been a marked improvement in global economic performance, with strong growth, relatively low inflation, and less volatility in both growth and inflation. This seems to have reduced concern about future fundamental risk, in terms of the potential damage of future shocks and in the ability of governments and central banks to both avoid the policy errors of the past and to competently manage some daunting longer–term policy challenges…

“Changes in financial markets, including those that are the subject of your conference, have improved the efficiency of financial intermediation and improved our confidence in the ability of markets to absorb stress. In financial systems around the world, the capital positions of banks have improved and capital markets are becoming deeper and playing a larger role in financial intermediation. Financial innovation has improved the capacity to measure and manage risk. Risk is spread more broadly across countries and institutions…

“These changes in economic conditions reinforce each other. The long period of relative economic and financial stability has reinforced expectations of future stability, reducing implied volatility and risk premia, increasing comfort with higher leverage, and encouraging flows of capital into riskier assets…

“The dramatic changes we’ve seen in the structure of financial markets over the past decade and more seem likely to have reduced this vulnerability. The larger global financial institutions are generally stronger in terms of capital relative to risk…”

Timothy Geithner, May 15, 2007
[emphasis added]

A year later, all hell broke loose.

So I ask, why should I believe that their 2008-09 forecasts were right any more than I should trust those 100%-wrong forecasts they made in 2007? The one phrase sticking in my mind that best characterizes our financial leaders’ soothsaying ability is that of screenwriter William Goldman (who was referring to those running Hollywood): Nobody knows anything.

4.  I think I know why I feel conflicted about the NFL playoffs. The Saints are my hometown team, the Jets are my local team, the Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and I went to the same high school (in New Orleans), and the Vikings quarterback is almost as old as I am. Actually, I'm not conflicted. I can't imagine anyone not cheering for the Saints -- the hard luck team of a hard luck city. So that's why Mardi Gras, listed on calendars as falling February 16, instead will come nine days early this year – Feb. 7.

5.  I think I know why I continue to be dumbfounded by NFL owners’ disdain for their fans. They ask their fans to pay thousands of dollars for seat licenses in order to pay thousands of dollars more for actual seats. They demand taxpayers to subsidize building construction. And then, in one case, they build a $1.6 billion stadium (Giants/Jets) with no roof – either fixed or retractable! Is it a mystery why more of us choose to avoid traffic jams, cold weather, raucous crowds, and all the other costs and indignities associated with attending a game in person? Instead, we’re lounging comfortably at home, watching HDTV telecasts with drink and remote in hand.

What’s that Aesop fable about the goose that laid the golden eggs?

6.  I think we are not returning to Pyongyang in April. Two years ago, Donna and I traveled there as part of a New York Philharmonic group that was invited by the North Korean government. One of the highlights of the trip from the was my opportunity to get free of the tour and my ever-present minder for a couple of hours and join up with the energetic James Kim, founder and president of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, and to visit the campus that was then under construction. Kim, a South Korean who holds a US passport, has built a technical university, mostly privately funded, that promises to be an island of relative freedom in that most despotic and Stalinist of governments. PUST will conduct classes in English, use English textbooks, have an international faculty, and allow Internet access. There is no other place even remotely like it in North Korea. If it succeeds, could it make a difference?


A big opening ceremony is planned in April and Dr. Kim graciously invited us to attend. But having been in North Korea once, my initial reaction was, been there, done that. Why do it again? Or as expressed (in a different context) in the lyrics of a song by Stephen Sondheim, I Never Do Anything Twice:

Once, yes, once for a lark
Twice, though, loses the spark

Once, yes, once is delicious

But twice would be vicious

Or just repetitious.

Someone's bound to be scarred

Yes, I know that it's hard

But, no matter the price

I never do anything twice.

I subsequently received another invitation from Dr. Kim, this time to participate in a future international conference in Pyongyang at his University.

We’ll see.

7.  I think I’ve now seen it all. Who was Shakespeare? The vast majority of Shakespearean scholars are convinced that the works attributed to Shakespeare really are written by the man from Stratford-on-Avon. But quite a few luminaries, from Sigmund Freud to Charles Dickens to Mark Twain to contemporary Shakespearean actor and director Mark Rylance believe otherwise. The leading rival to the Stratford man is the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. But others have their constituencies: Christopher Marlow, Francis Bacon and William Stanley, the sixth Earl of Derby. These four have been around, and debated, for centuries. Nothing new here.

But now, another contender has entered the fray, courtesy of a recent issue of The Oxfordian. A quite offbeat contender, at that. Not only a woman, but a Jewish woman. Indeed! Amelia Bassano Lanier, born in 1569 into a family of secret Jews, became the mistress of a cousin of the Queen Elizabeth I and...

Well, if you're really interested in Amelia and how she may have authored Hamlet, King Lear, the sonnets, et al., you can read all about her here and here.

8.  I think I that I couldn’t care less about Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien. And I can’t imagine that anyone else would, other than media people who write about media people for other media people. I have to admit, though, that there is one interesting late-night personality, Craig Ferguson (left), who’s on even later (12:35 PM, after Letterman). Scottish born, Ferguson is wacky, irreverent, quick, and amusing (to us, anyway). And if you're like us, the only way you'll ever see him (and the only way we watch anything) is via DVR.

9.  I think I'm confused about what's PC and what's not. I understand and accept that there are no waitresses anymore, just servers. No more stewardesses, just flight attendants. And no actresses, just actors. At least, judging by those female performers in the theater whom we know, they all refer to themselves as actors. Fine. Except now it’s awards season in Hollywood.  And what do we find? The last bastion of acceptable -- indeed, necessary -- use of the word actress.

 “And now, the award for Best Actress goes to…”

10.  I think one of the more fascinating visual websites is this one about snowflakes, posted by Kenneth Libbrecht, a Caltech physics professor. More than you would ever want to know about snowflakes. I mean, everything about snowflakes. And with remarkable snowflake photos.

Rory Stewart Follow-up

On my January 4 post, Rory Stewart -- Remember This Name, I suggested that this 37-year old wunderkind was headed for the highest levels of British government -- maybe even the highest. (No, not king. Just prime minister.)

The yet-to-be called British election is still perhaps four months away, but the assumption in the British press is that this first-time candidate for M.P. in the "safe" constituency of Penrith and the Border will be elected and will become a national force. Just read these excerpts from a remarkably adulatory 2,500-word piece published in today's Guardian:

"...Among the ranks of all the new ­parliamentary candidates on offer, from all parties, Stewart is blessed – or cursed – by standing out as being by a long way the most extraordinary..."

"...Whether Cameron will be able to listen to someone as honest and unusual as Rory Stewart is unclear. How Stewart will deal with the realities of life in Westminster is anyone's guess. That he will be Britain's most fascinating and most watched new MP is not in doubt..." [Emphasis added.]

The Guardian article is a good read.  And soon, in this country, there will be another good read -- The New Yorker is working on a profile of Stewart.

It's reminds me of the drumbeat crescendo that accompanied another politician, a young American, as he rose in a relatively short time from near obscurity to President. 

Letter from the Rialto

No, not the Rialto from The  Merchant of  Venice. [Shylock:  "What's new on the Rialto?"] No, this is a letter from the New York Rialto -- Broadway.  Here are my comments from our recent play-going:

Finian’s Rainbow Music by Burton Lane, lyrics by Yip Harburg, starring Jim Norton, Kate Baldwin and Cheyenne Jackson. Originally performed on Broadway in 1947, this production originated at New York City Center Encores, a treasure of a series that revives four neglected musicals every year.

Finian’s Rainbow offers one of the great Broadway scores of all time: How Are Things in Glocca Morra, Look to the Rainbow, Old Devil Moon, If This Isn’t Love, Necessity, and many others.  Sure, the plot is dated and creaky. Leprechauns, pots of gold at the end of rainbows, bigoted senators who turn from white to black to white.  But tell me the last opera you saw that didn’t have a creaky libretto? 

 The sad news I have to report is that because Finian’s Rainbow is not a rock musical, and because there’s no film star in the cast to bring in the masses, the show closes this Sunday. We’re attending the closing performance, and we’ll be shedding tears of joy and sadness as the curtain drops.

Perhaps my love of the show stems in part from the fact that Finian’s Rainbow offered me the only stage opportunity in my life.  (I exclude the trombone solo I played in our high school band concert.) In 1955, I appeared as third sharecropper in a production of the Ventura County Light Opera Association. We played the entire circuit – Oxnard, Ventura, and Ojai. In mid-run, I was promoted to second sharecropper, and given one speaking line. I decided right then to retire from show business, at the top.

A Little Night Music A revival of the Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler classic from 1973. Directed by Trevor Nunn, it stars Catherine Zeta-Jones, who not only performs admirably as Desirée but also brings in the crowds.  Also starring is octogenarian, but ever young, Angela Lansbury. She once again gives a treasure of a performance. This production originated at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, transferred to the West End, and is now performing to sellout crowds on Broadway. The sole holdover from the Menier production is Alexander Hanson, as Hendrik, and he’s outstanding.

But the real star of the show is, of course, Stephen Sondheim, whose music and lyrics in A Little Night Music are nonpareil.  Consider this snippet. The older Fredrik, unsuccessful thus far in consummating the marriage with his very young wife, considers strategies to get her into bed. One approach he mulls:

 “Which leaves the suggestive,

But how to proceed?

Although she gets restive,

Perhaps I could read…

“In view of her penchant

For something romantic,

De Sade is too trenchant

And Dickens too frantic,

And Stendahl would ruin

The plan of attack,

And there isn’t much blue in

The Red and the Black”

Nightingale  Lynn Redgrave starred in a one-woman show at the Manhattan Theatre Club.  For an hour and a half, she captivated the audience with a story she wrote herself about her relationship, real and imagined, with her maternal grandmother. Now that may not sound on paper like the recipe for a thrilling evening, but in the theater, with Lynn Redgrave performing, it was just that. To see a master actor perform on a bare stage by herself and to entrance the audience – that’s is a rare treat.

Hamlet  A sold-out run that starred Jude Law in the title role. Directed by Michael Grandage (artistic director of London’s  Donmar Warehouse), we thought it was a good Hamlet, but not a great one. In fact, arriving home from the theater, I ordered from Netflix two film versions of Hamlet: Kenneth Branagh’s and Laurence Olivier’s.  Watching those two brilliant, yet very different, versions of the Shakespeare classic were sublime experiences. Watching the Jude Law performance was a good night at the theater.

Next to Normal I’m sure this has happened to you: You wake up in the morning and say to yourself, I’d really love to see a musical tonight about bipolar disease and electroshock therapy. That’s actually what this musical is about. Doesn’t that sound like a hoot?

Well, Next to Normal may not be a hoot, but it’s a very good night at the theater. The show was first presented at the off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre (full disclosure: Donna is a board member), where it was quite good.  It’s improved further since then. Ordinarily, I’m not a fan of rock musicals, but I must say this show did manage to succeed, to evoke emotion, and to entertain.

The Royal Family Written by two theater and literary giants of the last century, George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, imagine my anticipation at attending this revival of a comedy about a theatrical dynasty modeled after the Barrymores.  Unfortunately, the anticipation was not rewarded. The humor of the 1927 show didn’t quite survive the eight decades to the one we saw at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

God of Carnage Yasmina Reza wrote it and Matthew Warchus directed it.    For us, it didn’t succeed. Her earlier big hit, Art, with Alan Alda, was a huge success, and I found it quite entertaining. God of Carnage is also a huge hit, even with its second cast. But the best way I can describe it is that to me it seems to take sitcom-level comedy and put it on stage.  Example: If vomiting onstage gets a big laugh the first time, be sure to vomit a second time. If throwing a vase full of tulips elicits laughs the first time, do it again. Above all, when in doubt, have the actors scream, or even better, screech.  The capacity audience loved it.  We didn’t.

The Understudy Written by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Scott Ellis, and starring Julie White.  Here’s the bottom line:  Anything Julie White is in I will enjoy, even if the script is modest (as this was). But Julie White is one of the great stage presences. Her Tony-winning role in The Little Dog Laughed was an all-time theater treat.

Lapham's Quarterly

Print media blues Given the declining fortunes of the print media – closures, layoffs, and the inexorable competition from electronic media -- who in the world would be crazy enough to start up a new print publication? Lewis Lapham would, that's who.  A couple of years ago, this grizzled and honored veteran of the journalism world eschewed conventional wisdom, created a not-for-profit publishing organization, and decided to fulfill a life's dream.  That dream is now Lapham's Quarterly.

Lapham’s Quarterly devotes each issue to the exploration of a single theme. Since its start in 2008, the nine issues published so far have been devoted to:

Crimes and Punishments

Eros

Learning

Medicine

Money

Nature

Religion

Travel

War

What Lapham’s Quarterly Tries to Accomplish

The best way for me to describe this unusual magazine is to select these excerpts from the LQ mission statement:

Published four times a year [which makes sense for a quarterly], each issue of Lapham’s Quarterly adopts and explores a single theme. Each is created with an aim to help readers find historical threads, say, from Homer to Queen Elizabeth I to George Patton, or from Aesop to Edith Wharton to Joan Didion. New essays from writers such as Stanley Fish, Fritz Stern, and Andrew Delbanco then knotted each theme together.

A typical issue features an introductory Preamble from Editor Lewis H. Lapham; approximately 100 “Voices in Time” — that is, appropriately themed selections drawn from the annals and archives of the past — and newly commissioned commentary and criticism from today’s preeminent scholars and writers. Myriad photographs, paintings, charts, graphs, and maps round out each issue’s 224 pages.

Lapham’s Quarterly’s modus operandi assumes that valuable observations of the human character and predicament don’t become obsolete — that the story, say, of an ancient Syracusan prison camp reverberates millennia later in the gulag of Siberia. None of the texts runs to a length longer than five or seven pages; others to no more than five or seven paragraphs (a telegraph to President Eisenhower from the parents of the Little Rock Nine, a love lyric of Sappho). With text enhanced with full-color selections of art, Lapham’s Quarterly draws not only from traditional sources such as literary narrative and philosophical commentary, but also from history’s underutilized scrapbooks: letters, diaries, speeches, navigational charts, menus, photographs, bills of lading, writs of execution.

Cicero made the point fifty years before the birth of Christ that, “Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.” Lapham’s Quarterly recognizes and promotes Cicero’s notion that to know our history is to know ourselves; that, indeed, we have nothing else with which to build the future except the lumber of the past. By maintaining a keen focus on a single theme in each issue, LQ endeavors to reclaim our oft-forgotten history and to present it to a widespread audience. Issue by issue, Lapham’s Quarterly seeks to forge men and women from Cicero’s children, to spread a love of history to anyone who picks up a copy.

Who is Lewis Lapham? 

For those of you unfamiliar with the phenomenon known as Lewis Lapham, he was editor of Harper's Magazine for three decades. He is the author of numerous books, including Money and Class in America, Theater of War, Gag Rule, and, most recently, Pretensions to Empire. The New York Times has likened him to H. L. Mencken; Vanity Fair has suggested a strong resemblance to Mark Twain; and Tom Wolfe has compared him to Montaigne. A native of San Francisco, Mr. Lapham was educated at Yale and Cambridge.

He has also produced a movie, The American Ruling Class, that asks the question: Is it better to rule the world, or to save it? The cast includes cameo appearances by the late Robert Altman, James A. Baker III, Bill Bradley, Harold Brown, Hodding Carter III, Walter Cronkite, Barbara Ehrenreich, Vartan Gregorian, Samuel Peabody, Pete Seeger, Lawrence H. Summers, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., William Howard Taft IV, and  Kurt Vonnegut.

Finally, to round out his reputation as a maverick in the world of literary arts, Lewis is a leading exponent of the theory that the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward DeVere, is the real author of all those great Elizabethan plays and sonnets, not that imposter from Stratford.

Parting Thought

You could do far worse than turn off the football playoffs and curl up for a few hours with a copy of Lapham’s Quarterly. You won't be disappointed.