A Given Definition of Exceptional: Choose Your Own

Among neoconservatives, there is a movement to characterize the United States as “exceptional.” We are different. We are special. With an emphasis on its divine origin (Christian gods only need apply). In a series ofirregular posts, WC is examining the credibility of this claim.

WC has taken flack in comments and emails for disputing that America is “exceptional,” at least in a number of ways that matter a lot to WC. Secret concentration camps, an extremely expensive and dangerously ineffectual health care system, the largest prison population in the free world – larger than all of Western Europe’s combined; at least for these issues, America isn’t exactly “exceptional” in the accepted sense.

But perhaps, as some of you have suggested, WC is using the wrong metrics, or applying metric weights incorrectly. WC was pleased to discover a web site that allows you to assign weights to each of eleven metrics. The OECD Better Life Initiative uses flowers and petals in an interactive tool to show you how different countries rank, depending on the weights you assign to the eleven metrics.

There may be some combination of weighted metrics that will put the United States on top, but WC wasn’t able to find it. Perhaps that’s okay for a given definition of  ”exceptional.” Like, “Better than Turkey!”

Enjoy.

Busting Medicare Myths: Privatization Will Save Money

WC is undertaking an intermittent series on Medicare, and specifically on claims about Medicare that are simply untrue. WC earlier examined the claim that increasing the co-payment obligation – making seniors pay more – will save money. Now WC will examine the claim that the privatization fairy will save Medicare money.

WC has borrowed the phrase “privatization fairy” from Paul Krugman, who often references the “confidence fairy.” It’s an easy way of referring to the claim that there is a magic force that will solve a problem, in the complete absence of evidence that the magic force exists or will solve the problem. Krugman uses it to scoff at the idea that investor confidence will save a country’s economy. WC uses it to scoff at the idea that privatization of a government program is always the solution.

Rep. Paul Ryan thinks that privatization will “save” Medicare by saving buckets of money. The neutral Congressional Budget Office has already written him a detailed analysis telling him it isn’t so. But that’s simply an inconvenient truth, and no obstacle to belief in the privatization fairy.

The reasons privatization won’t save the government money are easy to understand: economies of purchsing power and the need for a private operator to make a healthy profit. Consider the following chart:

Medicare Spending

Not only would Ryan’s proposal double the cost to the average senior; it would also increase the total cost of health care in comparison to what the current Medicare program is spending.

The first cause of the increase is the loss of the mass purchasing power of the federal government. The Medicate system is the country’s largest single purchaser of health care. When it purchases something, there is intense competition for the business, and real savings from economies of scale. Privatization would significantly reduce those savings.

The second cause of the increase in total cost is that for profit health care operators want, well, a profit. As the CBO Study makes clear, profit and increased administrative costs crease a much higher administrative marginal cost than does Medicare.

In the words of Bloomberg’s Peter Orszag,

Health-care costs would not be reduced on the backs of seniors; they would be raised on the backs of seniors.

As the CBO study makes clear, Ryan’s plans for Medicare have exactly the opposite effect of what is needed. At a time when we need to find a way to contain health costs, Ryan’s plan will actually increase health costs. Bad enough the costs would be shifted to folks with no means of paying. But to knowingly increase those costs, too? Madness and folly.

There may be places where the privatization fairy can magically save money; this isn’t one of them.

What Have We Done: All of the rest

WC has had some private email deploring the What Have We Done postings. The series, you will recall, have been honoring birds species in the U.S. that have gone extinct since the country was created. The emails argue that agonizing over the losses serves no purpose.

WC disagrees, but admits the pieces are depressing to write. At the same time, letting species pass from the world without comment seems wrong. So, in one final bummer of a post, WC will set out the appallingly long list of additional extinct U.S. species, their former habitats and their status.

Presumed or Possibly Extinct U.S. Birds
Name	Conservation Status	Former Distribution
Camptorhynchus labradorius Labrador Duck	GX	CAN: LB, NB, NF, NS, PE, QC USA : CT, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI
Porzana palmeri Laysan Rail	GX	USA : HI
Porzana sandwichensis Hawaiian Rail	GX	USA : HI
Numenius borealis Eskimo Curlew	GH	CAN: AB, LB, NB, NF, NS, NT, ON, PE, QC, SK USA : AK, AR, CO, CT, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MA, MD, ME, MN, MO, ND, NE, NJ, NY, OH, OK, RI, SC, SD, TX, WY
Pinguinus impennis Great Auk	GX	CAN: LB, NB, NF, NS, QC USA : MA, ME, NH
Ectopistes migratorius Passenger Pigeon	GX	CAN: AB, BC, MB, NB, NS, ON, PE, QC, SK USA : AL , AR , CT , DC , DE , FL , GA , IA , ID , IL , IN , KS , KY , LA , MA , MD , ME , MI , MN , MO , MS , NC , ND , NE , NH , NJ , NV , NY , OH , OK , PA , RI , SC , SD , TN , TX , VA , VT , WI , WV , WY
Conuropsis carolinensis Carolina Parakeet	GX	USA: AL  , AR  , CO  , FL  , GA  , IA  , IL  , IN  , KS  , KY  , LA  , MD  , MO  , MS  , NC , NE  , NJ  , NY  , OH  , OK  , PA  , SC  , SD  , TN  , TX  , VA  , WI  , WV
Campephilus principalis Ivory-billed Woodpecker	formerly GH; status changed to G1 as of 4/28/05	USA: AL  , AR  , FL, GA  , IL  , IN  , KY  , LA  , MD  , MO , MS, NC, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX
Chaetoptila angustipluma Kioea	GX	USA : HI
Moho apicalis Oahu Oo	GX	USA : HI
Moho bishopi Bishop’s Oo	GH	USA : HI
Moho braccatus Kauai Oo	GH	USA : HI
Moho nobilis Hawaii Oo	GX	USA : HI
Moho sp. 1 ‘o ‘o (Maui)	GH	USA : HI
Myadestes lanaiensis Olomao	GH	USA : HI
Myadestes myadestinus Kamao	GH	USA : HI
Myadestes woahensis Amaui	GXQ	USA : HI
Vermivora bachmanii Bachman’s Warbler	GH	USA : AL  , AR, DC  , FL, GA, IL  , KY  , LA, MO  , MS  , OK  , SC  , TN  , VA
Chloridops kona Kona Grosbeak	GX	USA : HI
Ciridops anna Ula-ai-hawane	GX	USA : HI
Dysmorodrepanis munroi Lanai Hookbill	GX	USA : HI
Hemignathus ellisianus Greater Akialoa	GX	USA : HI
Hemignathus obscurus Lesser Akialoa	GX	USA : HI
Hemignathus sagittirostris Greater ‘Amakihi	GX	USA : HI
Paroreomyza flammea Kakawahie	GH	USA : HI
Paroreomyza maculata Oahu Alauahio	GH	USA : HI
Rhodacanthis flaviceps Lesser Koa-finch	GX	USA : HI
Rhodacanthis palmeri Greater Koa-finch	GX	USA : HI

Twenty-eight species. Gone. Forever. Hawai’i, in particular, is ground zero for species extinction, as invasive mosquitoes transmit Avian Malaria from invasive escaped cage birds to the remaining wild species. WC went to a nice party a few nights ago for a career biologist who is leaving Alaska to run a National Wildlife Refuge in Hawai’i. He’d better hurry or there won’t be any bird species left…

Busting Medicare Myths: Increasing Co-Pay Will Save Money

As a public service – and not because WC is approaching Medicare eligibility – WC is beginning an intermittent series on the mythology surrounding Medicare. One such myth lies at the heart of the Paul Ryan plan to dramatically increase the co-payment seniors would have to make. Yes, WC recognizes that Ryan has called it “Medicare privatization,” but it’s really about increasing the portion of a senior’s medical bill that the senior has to pay. WC will show in a future post that privatization will increase costs, not decrease them. But back to co-payment.

Consider the following chart, prepared by the strictly neutral Congressional Budget Office:

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Concentration of Total Annual Medicare Expenditures Among Beneficiaries, 2001

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(Percent)

Concentration of Medicare Expenses

Source: Congressional Budget Office, 2005.

If you study the graphic for a moment, you’ll see that at that date, anyway, 5% – just five percent – of Medicare beneficiaries consumed 43% – nearly half – of total Medicare expenses. 25% – just one quarter – of all beneficiaries consumed an amazing 85% of total Medicare expenses.

Is there anyone among WC’s readers who seriously believes that a significant portion of that 25% has the financial wherewithal to pay an increased share of their health care expenses? While living on social security or a minimum wage job?

Three things contribute to the problem: the incredibly bad health habits of many Americans (smoking, obesity, substance abuse, deferred health care); the increased health complications of old age and the expenses of final illnesses. Those problems aren’t going away any time soon.

Senior citizens will still need disproportionately more medical treatment. Those treatment costs are still going to be incurred. How are fixed income seniors supposed to make an increased co-payment?

What happens when those seniors can’t pay? Will doctors and hospitals turn them away? Is that what we want? Medical treatment only for those who can afford it? Palin’s “Death Panels” based on credit scores?

So if demand is still present, and if treatment will still be given, exactly how is the cost going to go away? Or be significantly reduced? It isn’t, of course. So the net result will be to further impoverish the poor, and once they are insolvent, shift the cost to those with health insurance. That will drive up the health insurance premiums. Probably a little higher than an economically equivalent tax increase would.

So the bottom line is that the net effect of the reduction in Medicare coverage under Ryan’s plan would be too further impoverish the 25% of seniors who consume the 85% of Medicare expenses. And to create a disguised tax increase to those who are paying for health insurance in the form of increased premiums.

Ryan’s increased co-pay plan won’t accomplish its avowed goal. The next post in this series will examine whether privatization will reduce seniors’ health care costs.

Faith and Science: A Lesson for Harold Camping

WC wants to use the latest failed call of the Apocalypse to draw a distinction between science and faith.

It goes back to Thales of Miletus. Thales, in the Sixth Century BC, used astronomy and mathematics – science – to make a prediction. He predicted there would be an eclipse of the sun on May 28, 585 BC. Eclipses, Thales argued, were a natural phenomenon, not the product of the whims of supernatural entities, gods, a God or otherwise. They were explicable. And Thales was right. His prediction came true. Using Thales’ methods, solar and lunar eclipses have been accurately predicted since. The exact minute of an eclipse can be predicted years into the future.

Christianity has been attempting just one specific prediction – the Apocalypse – for about 2,000 years. There have been hundreds, maybe thousands of such predictions, all of which have had one thing in common: They were each and all completely wrong. Harold Camping, the 89-year-old retired civil engineer who built a multi-million-dollar Christian media empire to publicize his apocalyptic predictions, is just the most recent spectacular failure.

Where faith makes falsifiable – testable – claims, faith fails. The world was still here on May 22, 2011. (Technically, Rev. Camping is 0-3, having previously predicted  judgment days on May 21, 1988, and September 7, 1994.)  Faith makes other kinds of claims – “You will burn in Hell” – but they are not testable. If it isn’t falsifiable, it isn’t useful.

Science also makes predictions, based upon a theory, following in the footsteps of Thales. Results vary. If the predictions come true, the theory is deemed a little more likely. If the predictions don’t come true, the theory is re-worked or abandoned. Faith makes predictions based upon the theory that the Book of Revelations is literally true. When the predictions fail to come true, the theory is not abandoned, or re-thought. Because The Bible is deemed infallible, by definition it cannot be wrong.

Evolution, as a theory, makes a vast number of predictions, and they have mostly proven true. Creationism makes just one, that the world was created about six millenia ago exactly as it is today, a supernatural prediction, just like a prediction that gods caused eclipses for their own purposes. As Thales demonstrated 25 centuries ago, we don’t need supernatural explanations of natural events. It’s more than a little disheartening that 25 centuries along, folks will still seize on the utterly failed predictions of Christianity in preference to the 25 century long record of success by science.

It would be nearly as discouraging if Rev. Camping set a new date of the Apocalypse. Oh, wait … He has.

Patent Trolls, Redux

Patent Troll (Not to Scale)

WC has railed about Patent Trolls before, specifically Paul Allen’s silly claims. WC has even written a modest field guide to trolls to assist his readers. But the Paul Allen silly claims benchmark has been surpassed by the recent claims of Lodsys, LLC: that every app developer for the iPhone has violated Lodsys’s patents, and is therefore liable to Lodsys. Lodsys has even written demand letters to the more successful app developers extorting or demanding payment.

Lodsys’s demands were heavily criticized and inspired a firestorm of accusations and commentary in the blogosphere.

Now, it turns out, the app developers use of Lodsys’s alleged patents is completely lawful and Lodsys is either an extortionist patent troll or stunningly ignorant about the intellectual property rights it claims to hold.

Apple has weighed in, pointing out that it holds a license to the patents Lodsys asserts, that the patents are a part of the Application Programming Interface (“API”)  provided by Apple to app developers, and that the app developers are protected by Apple’s license.  And while WC is not an intellectual property lawyer, the law in this area is reasonably settled. Where a programmer can only use a piece of software through an interface the only license required is for the person providing the interface.

An API is like a vending machine in some ways: you as a developer have a limited menu of choices when you use it and the vending machine has a limited number of responses it can make. You have no control over what is in the vending machine. If there’s a patent on how the vending machine operates, you don’t need a license for the software patent to buy a candy bar from the vending machine.

Now it may be that Lodsys is unaware of Apple’s license of the patent, although that seems unlikely. Lodsys didn’t develop the underlying software, didn’t apply for the patents, and isn’t the first owner of the patents. Apple acquired its license from an earlier owner, Intellectual Ventures. That’s Nathan Myhrvold’s company. He’s a former high-powered Microsoft manager. Perhaps, just perhaps, Lodsys was unaware of the earlier license to Apple? Although its website seems to suggest otherwise.

More likely, it is simple extortion. By threatening small software developers, Lodsys jeopardizes the smart phone environment. Not just Apple’s iPhone, but all smart phones. By creating jeopardy, perhaps Lodsys hopes to shake some money out of the Apple and Android trees. Not a business strategy in which WC would choose to invest.

But WC has never been a fan of software patents, and was unenthusiastic about the U.S. Supreme Court cases which permit this folly. And while it’s hard to discern any positive benefits from the patentability of software, it has certainly spawned a nightmare twin, the patent troll.

What Have We Done: Numenius borealis

Eskimo Curlew Lithograph by Henry Eeles Dresser

At one time, the Eskimo Curlew may have been one of the most numerous shorebirds in North America with a population in the millions. As many as 2 million birds per year were killed near the end of the 19th century. The last confirmed sightings were in 1962 on Galveston Island, Texas (photographed) and on Barbados in 1963 (specimen). There was a reliable report of 23 birds in Texas in 1981, and more recent additional unconfirmed reports from Texas, Canada (1987), Argentina (1990), and Nova Scotia (2006). No confirmed record of this species has been reported in South America since 1939.

Since 1981 there are a scattered handful of uncorroborated reported sightings, but it’s more likely than not that the species has joined the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parrot.

More information is at the U.S. Geological Survey website.

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

WC has concluded that, like the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, a successful Republican candidate for national office must be prepared to believe six impossible things before breakfast. As an aid to aspiring presidential wannabes, WC offers the following checklist:

1. Most Republican politicians are intelligent enough to understand that with federal revenues at 14.4 percent of GDP and expenditures at 25.3 percent, it is, in fact, impossible to close the fiscal gap with spending cuts alone. But GOP candidates acknowledge this reality at their peril. There are enforcers. So a successful candidate must believe cutting spending alone will turn the trick. Good luck with the voters on Medicare and Social Security.
2. You must deny – or at least waffle effectively – on the theory of evolution, and insist on equal time for the bogus science of creationism. Never mind the scientific evidence.
3. You must deny – or at least waffle effectively – on climate change, either insisting that “the jury is still out” or pronouncing yourself a skeptic. Never mind the scientific evidence. The rising ocean levels. The climbing carbon dioxide levels.
4. You have to support playing “chicken” with the the federal debt ceiling. It is not a matter of conjecture, but something closer to a universal understanding among economists, that failing to raise the debt ceiling could cause another global economic crash. The Donald “The Hair” Trump recently answered this objection on behalf of the party. “What do economists know? Most of them aren’t very smart.”
5. You must believe that Sarah Palin – Alaska’s Shame – is a credible candidate for President. This involves pretending something other than utter despair if she were by mischance elected to that office.
6. You have to believe that further cutting taxes will magically help the economy. As a corollary, you have to believe that slightly higher taxes on the richest 1% of Americans would magically destroy the American economy.

Jacob Weisberg, writing in Slate Magazine, said:

The GOP rank and file is in desperate need of a cold shower, a slap in the face, a wake-up call. But instead of telling the base to get a grip on reality, the party’s leaders are chasing after the delusional mob. To get to the front of the line in 2012, Republican candidates must pretend to believe a lot of nonsense than isn’t so. Or do they actually believe it?

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The majority of voters are sane, by definition. This kind of delusional thinking won’t work any better for Republicans than it did for the White Queen. WC’s readers will recall she turned into a bespectacled sheep, which is certainly a metaphor for something here.

The Cubs Are Really Bad Awful

As many readers know, W is a long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan. The Cubs have already slid to next-to-last place in the National League Central, with a record of 20-25. They are actually worse than the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The statistics-loving Sabermetricists, who analyze (and over-analyze) every aspect of baseball stats, have concluded the Cubs now, a quarter of the way through the Major League Baseball season, have a 3.3% chance of making the World Series. WC didn’t realize the odds were that good.

The new manager, Mike Quade, seems to have a gift for bad decisions, and an unhealthy tendency to champion mediocre pitchers. The starting centerfielder is out indefinitely after taking a fastball to his face. Three of the starting pitchers are out with injuries (not that they were very good, anyway). The starting catcher is injured. The starting rotation allows more runs than any other team in the National League. And the only statistic in which the Cubs lead the majors is Runners in Scoring Position (RISP), which are opportunities lost.  That’s appropriate.

“You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can.”
That’s what it says.
“But the year the Cubs last won a national league pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan”

- Steve Goodman, “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request”

Maybe next year.

Palin: Ursus arctos horriblis

In a recent interview, Alaska’s Shame avoided confirming she was running for the Republican nomination for President, saying:

It’s a matter for me of some kind of practical, pragmatic decisions that have to be made. One is, with a large family, understanding the huge amount of scrutiny and the sacrifices that have to be made on my children’s part in order to see their mama run for president. But yeah, the fire in the belly — it’s there.

Excuse me? “Huge amount of scrutiny”? And how would that be different than hauling your kids around as props? How is that different than having your daughter waddle through “Dancing with the Stars”? What’s the distinction from putting your children through their sulky paces on your pseudo-reality show?

Try  a different window, TTWF. WC may feel pity for your children, but it’s pity for the child abuse you’ve put them through, not for you and your utterly hypocritical claims that more exposure will hurt them somehow.

You’ve eaten your own young already, Ms. Ursus arctos horriblis. Don’t complain about the taste.

Israel: An Excellent Metaphor

The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart‘s has a perfect metaphor for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s rejection of President Obama’s proposals:

A sailor throws a drowning man a life preserver. How dare you, screams the man. Because of you, people are going to think I can’t swim.

The rest of the article is pretty darn good, too.

Too Wonky for WC

The explanation is too wonky for even WC to attempt, but the next time you are at a party and someone blames the Great Recession on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, tell them they are simply wrong. And make them read this article if they disagree.

If they don’t read it, you win the argument by default. If they do read it, they’ll likely fall asleep and you’ll still win by default. If they manage to stay awake and understand it, they’ll be as angry about two years of lies as WC is.

The simple truth is that the default rates for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loans are about a third of private sub-prime loans.

WC tries to keep up with the neocon lies, but it’s just not possible.

Private Prisons and the Illusion of Savings

WC admits from the start he has always had a problem with private prisons. First, WC believes that the state should have a monopoly of force. When the state can contract away that monopoly, you enter a dangerous area in which private citizens, not subject to classic government constraints, can hold other private citizens against their will.

Second, the interests of the public and of private prison operators are sharply divergent. The cost of housing inmates is a constraint on the whims of government to criminalize conduct. In contrast, for a private prison, the more prisoners the more profit. The U.S. already has the highest rate of incarceration; we don’t need more incentives.

And third, there are always serious trade-offs. Alaska, for example, uses private prisons to warehouse prisoners Outside, far from family and friends. That can’t help with the chronic problem of recidivism. In effect, Alaska trades short term savings by housing prisoners Outside (Arizona and Colorado, presently) for longer term costs associated with higher recidivism rates.

But private prisons have always claimed they can do it less expensively, well, cheaper anyway, than can the public sector. They do so chiefly by paying a far lower wage to prison guards, with the usual, foreseeable consequences. Now it turns out a significant part of those savings are in fact illusory.

A study out of Arizona – the state with the most private prisons – shows that private prisons achieve their “savings” by cherry-picking the prisoners they house. By refusing to accept prisoners with serious – read, expensive – health problems, the private prisons leave the prisoners that are more expensive to house with the public sector. When you adjust for that selective process, private prisons are actually more expensive. Utah reached a similar conclusion:

Results suggest privately managed prisons provide no clear benefit or detriment. Cost savings from privatizing prisons are not guaranteed and appear minimal. Quality of confinement is similar across privately and publicly managed systems, with publicly managed prisons delivering slightly better skills training and having slightly fewer inmate grievances.

The private prison effort in Alaska has been a disaster. Among other things, it brought down Bill Weimar and could still get Jerry Ward. WC isn’t suggesting that the fall of Weimar was a bad thing. Quite the contrary. But the idea of a private prison failed in Delta Junction, Wasilla, Kenai and even Whittier.

Private prison remain a horrible idea. Can Alaska please just recognize the real costs, and house prisoners in Alaska, in state facilities?

Peeps and Pipes

Among the last arrivals in spring migration are the shorebirds. Peeps and Pipes in birder slang. Small, mostly inconspicuous and difficult to identify, they are nonetheless among WC’s favorites. Here are some recent shots, in no particular order:

Pectoral Sandpiper

One of the smallest of the Sandpipers:

Semipalmated Sandpiper

And one more, one of the more commonly seen plovers in Interior Alaska:

Semipalmated Plover

The arrival of shorebirds means it really is spring, that water really is a liquid. WC advises you to get out there and enjoy it.

(For those who may be curious, these photos were all taken in one area near Fairbanks on May 20. The low perspectives come from laying on the ground, a technique WC learned from his friends at NPN. All were taken with a hand-held Olympus E-5, using a 300mm lens and a 2.o teleconverter.)

Palin’s Numbers

Palin's Poll Numbers - Through May 11, 2011

Source. Can you see a trend here?

What Have We Done? Conuropsis carolinensis

Most Americans are unaware that there even was a kind of parrot that was native to the U.S. But there was. From John James Audubon’s Birds of North America:

Carolina Parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis

Our Parakeets are very rapidly diminishing in number; and in some districts, where twenty-five years ago they were plentiful, scarcely any are now to be seen. At that period, they could be procured as far up the tributary waters of the Ohio as the Great Kenhawa, the Scioto, the heads of Miami, the mouth of the Manimee at its junction with Lake Erie, on the Illinois river, and sometimes as far north-east as Lake Ontario, and along the eastern districts as far as the boundary line between Virginia and Maryland. At the present day, very few are to be found higher than Cincinnati, nor is it until you reach the mouth of the Ohio that Parakeets are met with in considerable numbers. I should think that along the Mississippi there is not now half the number that existed fifteen years ago.

The last wild specimen was killed in Okeechobee County, Florida, in 1904, and the last captive bird died at the Cincinnati Zoo on February 21, 1918. This was the male specimen “Incas,” who died within a year of his mate “Lady Jane.” Coincidentally, Incas died in the same aviary cage in which the last Passenger Pigeon, “Martha,” had died nearly four years prior. It was not until 1939, however, that it was determined that the Carolina Parakeet had become extinct.

Doomed from the Start

Dooming your children from the start

WC is shocked that parents are so irresponsible as to doom their children before their first birthday. An entire life as a Cubs fan? This kind of child abuse should be reported.

The Best Single Work of Reporting in the 20th Century (Repost)

Book Review: Hiroshima, by John Hersey

Hiroshima was published in 1946 – just a year after the bomb was dropped – in New Yorker magazine. Uniquely in its history, the magazine devoted its entire issue to the late John Hersey’s 30,000 word essay. Only later was it turned into a book; the final chapter on the subsequent lives of the six subjects wasn’t written until 1985.

Hersey set out to put a human face on the consquences of the atomic bomb. All earlier news accounts, articles and stories had been focused on the statistics, the science, and the effort that led to the nuclear weapon. Understood in that context, understanding what Hersey was trying to do and say, the book is even more remarkable.

It is not a novel; a novel is a work of fiction. It is an essay, a work of reportage. This story is true. The book is all the more remarkable because Hersey was born and raised in China, the son of missionaries, and had no reason to be sympathetic to or about the Japanese. A war correspondent for Time Magazine, he earned a commendation from the U.S. Army at Guadacanal. He cannot fairly be accused of anything but supreme objectivity. By telling the true stories of six survivors in an absolutely straightforward way, without judging the decision to use the bomb, he put an intensely human face on the consequences.

And the story is spell-binding. As Hersey follows the lives of six persons in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb detonated, you will find yourself utterly riveted and appalled. Hersey combined straightforward reporting with narrative techniques from fiction to create a masterpiece.

He was criticized at the time and is criticized today for taking the events that day out of context. The bomb is supposed to have saved a million American casualties (a highly suspect figure today). It was supposed to have shortened the war by a year or more. Those critics are themselves missing the true context. At the time, the historical events leading to Truman’s decision were well known (although recast in February 1947 by Stinson). Hersey’s goal was to make the story real in a new way. Those facts are well and good, Hersey is saying, but there were bad consequences as well. In the process, he created a remarkable book.

WC was glad to see New York University in 1997 named Hersey’s Hiroshima as the best single work of reporting in the 20th century. As events unfold in the escalating nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent, as Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons, everyone needs to understand the human consequences of the use of these weapons. By helping keep Hersey’s work before us, perhaps we can avoid another Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

A Quiet Snack

American Beaver

Like humans, Bison and a few other species, American Beaver, Castor candensis, have the ability to alter the landscape. Parts of the floor of Yosemite Valley are layer upon layer of former beaver ponds. Some beaver lodges are larger than an Alaska dry cabin.  But this fellow was simply gnawing bark off a tree root, the beaver equivalent of a late night snack.

What Have We Done? Ectopistes migratorius

From John Muir’s autobiography:

I have seen flocks streaming south in the fall so large that they were flowing over from horizon to horizon in an almost continuous stream all day long, at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, like a mighty river in the sky, widening, contracting, descending like falls and cataracts, and rising suddenly here and there in huge ragged masses like high-plashing spray. How wonderful the distances they flew in a day–in a year–in a lifetime! They arrived in Wisconsin in the spring just after the sun had cleared away the snow, and alighted in the woods to feed on the fallen acorns that they had missed the previous autumn. A comparatively small flock swept thousands of acres perfectly clean of acorns in a few minutes, by moving straight ahead with a broad front. All got their share, for the rear constantly became the van by flying over the flock and alighting in front, the entire flock constantly changing from rear to front, revolving something like a wheel with a low buzzing wing roar that could be heard a long way off. In summer they feasted on wheat and oats and were easily approached as they rested on the trees along the sides of the field after a good full meal, displaying beautiful iridescent colors as they moved their necks backward and forward when we went very near them. Every shotgun was aimed at them and everybody feasted on pigeon pies, and not a few of the settlers feasted also on the beauty of the wonderful birds. The breast of the male is a fine rosy red, the lower part of the neck behind and along the sides changing from the red of the breast to gold, emerald green and rich crimson. The general color of the upper parts is grayish blue, the under parts white. The extreme length of the bird is about seventeen inches; the finely modeled slender tail about eight inches, and extent of wings twentyfour inches. The females are scarcely less beautiful.

“Oh, what bonnie, bonnie birds!” we exclaimed over the first that fell into our hands. “Oh, what colors! Look at their breasts, bonnie as roses, and at their necks aglow wi’ every color juist like the wonderfu’ wood ducks. Oh, the bonnie, bonnie creatures, they beat a’! Where did they a’ come fra, and where are they a’ gan? It’s awfu’ like a sin to kill them!” To this some smug, practical old sinner would remark: “Aye, it’s a peety, as ye say, to kill the bonnie things, but they were made to be killed, and sent for us to eat as the quails were sent to God’s chosen people, the Israelites, when they were starving in the desert ayont the Red Sea. And I must confess that meat was never put up in neater, handsomer-painted packages.”

The last captive Passenger Pigeon, “Martha,” died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.