'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much. 
| You have to find what you love
Email Sent by Bernard Sainte-Marie Following is text of an email sent by Bernard Sainte-Marie, a former banker at Lazard, to his colleagues as he left the firm last week. Bernard Sainte-Marie@LAZARD 31/08/2005 20:26
Pour : REDACTED
cc :
Objet : Bernard Sainte-Marie I will be leaving Lazard effective tomorrow after more than 32 years with various firms of the Group around the world. I will be pursuing my career in the general unemployment line, as I am neither old enough nor wealthy enough to retire. I wish myself every good fortune in the future. I am leaving on the high note of the IPO of Lazard with the knowledge (i) that I will be contributing to the stated intent of reducing the employment costs at Lazard by a total of more than US$ 180 million per year and (ii) that I will not have to comply with the non-disparagement provisions contained in the agreement between Lazard and the "Historical Partners". I wish to congratulate the Head of Lazard for his success in selling the Lazard IPO to the investment public and to most (!) of Lazard's "Working Members". This will probably be judged in years to come not only as an even bolder act of financial wizardry than the sale of Wasserstein Perella, but also as a gesture of extraordinary altruism, since it was essentially done - from a cash point of view - for the benefit of the Historical Partners. I wish every success to the Lazard Working Members in their task of working down Lazard's mountain of debt and hopefully ultimately returning to a situation where the tangible book value attributable to their own (still indirect) interests in Lazard Ltd. will again be positive. Finally, let me say how gratifying it is, as the only direct descendant of the founding Lazard brothers currently employed in the Group, to sever ties with Lazard around the same time as my distant uncle Michel David-Weill who was the last family member (albeit not a direct descendant of the founding brothers) to run the firm. Bernard Sainte-Marie
LONDON (AFP) - Three quarters of British women over 40 reckon sex is better now than it was in their 20s. A survey found that 77 percent enjoyed sex more in their 40s -- and rather than slowing down, 45 percent had a greater sexual appetite than when younger. The survey of 2,000 women across Britain was for Health Plus magazine, which is targeted at women over 40. The magazine's editor said mature women were having far more fun than "binge-drinking, bed-hopping" younger counterparts. Sixty-nine percent of the women surveyed felt more sexually adventurous than ever before and 66 percent felt more confident about their bodies than in their younger days. The survey brought bad news for would-be toy-boys, with just 33 percent of women over 40 preferring a younger man, compared to 51 percent going for someone their own age. "Older women are tired of people thinking sex is only for 16 to 39-year-olds, with the possible exception of (British model and actress) Liz Hurley or other celebrities who wear Versace and pout a lot," said Colette Harris, editor of Health Plus magazine. "The truth is, 40-plus women know how to enjoy passion with their partner. "They are far more sexually confident than when they were younger, know what gives them pleasure and have far better sex lives than binge-drinking, bed-hopping 20-somethings."
Salman Rushdie Considers Kashmir,
Radical Islam and Modern Fiction By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 8, 2005 Salman Rushdie, 58 years old, has written 15 books, including nine novels. His latest, "Shalimar the Clown," is being published this week by Bertelsmann AG's Random House imprint. In it, Mr. Rushdie tells a story of revenge and heartbreak that extends from Kashmir to Los Angeles. His portrayal of village life, vividly drawn, is reminiscent of the work of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Mr. Rushdie is probably best known in the U.S. for having written "The Satanic Verses," the 1988 book for which he was condemned to death by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Mr. Rushdie subsequently went into hiding but says he no longer has security concerns; today he lives primarily in New York. Mr. Rushdie spoke recently to The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Trachtenberg by telephone from London about his new book, radical Islam and the state of modern fiction. * * * The Wall Street Journal Online: Why is it that love and fidelity don't last in this novel? Salman Rushdie: It's a sad fate, falling in love in one of my books. People get beaten up. But at the end of the book, India, or Kashmira as she's then called, does fall in love in what might be an enduring way. So there could be a happy ending. ![[Salman Rushdie]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/authorqa_RushdieSalman09062005134511.jpg)
Salman Rushdie
| | WSJ.com: Was village life ever as idyllic as you portray here? Mr. Rushdie: It's not really idyllic. It's hard to make a living. The work the villagers do is less and less required by the country. And they have to compete against their neighbors to make ends meet, which leads to violent conflict at one point. What is true is that there was a happy composite culture in Kashmir whose loss is the thing that needs to be mourned. Different communities lived in harmony. Going to Kashmir every year -- as I did growing up -- I saw that what people treasured most, above the natural beauty, was the composite culture. I wanted to show it in a way that made people fond of it, to show that it was worth caring about. Almost all my writing about India and Pakistan has been about the cities, not about villages. I felt it was an absence in my work. WSJ.com: Is Islam on an inevitable collision with the West? Or, as your new book suggests, do the extremists lack popular support? Mr. Rushdie: I think they do lack popular support. But the absence of other politics in the Muslim world is very dangerous. I'm talking about a secular, anti-terrorist group, one that believes in the separation of church and state. Islam is at a crisis point and needs that separation. It's not a radical movement but a personal experience. And that's the thing: The large majority of Muslims don't see faith as a political ideology. Most see it as a private matter. I grew up in a Muslim family and know many who call themselves believing Muslims, and they don't wish it to be a political ideology. But radical Islam has all the momentum. The important thing is for another Islamic voice, one which would represent the majority, to rise up. WSJ.com: At least one of the July 7 London bombers was a cricket enthusiast, a British-born Muslim who came from a middle-class family. What is this about? Mr. Rushdie: One of the strange things is that a number of recent terrorists have come from comfortable homes. The 9/11 bombers weren't the dispossessed. They came from middle-class families with comfortable lives. The same is true of the first wave of British suicide bombers. They weren't the poorest; they were well-off. It's a mistake to see this aberration as arising only out of great personal privation or hardship. It seems that the thrown switch has to do with ideology, not socioeconomics. That's what scary. It seems extraordinary that people who have been comfortably off decided to blow up their own country. My great fear is that there will be a colossal backlash in [the U.K.]. If there is one more attack, all bets are off. There is a residue of good sense of not to punish the innocents for the crimes of the guilty. But the level of nervousness is very high, and the number of hate crimes has spiraled. WSJ.com: Do those bombings suggest that the West is going to be plagued with similar terrorist attacks for years to come? Mr. Rushdie: My record as a prophet isn't good. Having had some trouble with prophets myself, I don't know. I hope not. WSJ.com: What is your situation regarding the bounty put on your life for writing "Satanic Verses?" Mr. Rushdie: It's all fine and has been for years. Except when I'm talking to journalists, it never comes up. My life has been completely free of security concerns for many years now. Let's hope it stays like that. WSJ.com: Have other writers been the subject of such a decree? Mr. Rushdie: The thing that was different was the dimension of international terrorism. I was living in my country and people were sent to kill me. That hasn't happened much. But many writers in the Arab world in the same period were accused in similar terms, and some were killed. In this novel, the assassin is first sent to Algeria, where he is told to 'kill a Godless man, a writer against God, who spoke French and had sold his soul to the West.' I was referencing a great Algerian journalist and novelist, Tahar Djaout, who was killed in Algeria in a manner not unlike the one in the book. He was accused, as I was, and was less fortunate. WSJ.com: Has that experience tempered your choice of material or how you handle potentially sensitive subjects? Mr. Rushdie: I hope not. No punch was pulled in this book. I've always had a clear view of where my subject lay. The experience of those years clarified it. Now, of course, that subject is the world's subject. The thing I was banging on for 20 years is suddenly something people are more interested in today. It's generally true that readers chose what they read on the basis of their concerns. And it's sometimes that a writer can be on a particular line for a long time and then reader attention moves in that direction. WSJ.com: In the Kashmir that you describe, Muslims and Hindus look out for each other when pressured by extremists. What is the situation there today? Mr. Rushdie: Politically, there is a sense that India and Pakistan have a slight détente, but it's a long way from peace. There are still 1.6 million troops in a place where the population is five million, and on top of that you have the terrorist groups. The incredible militarization of the valley makes it difficult to see peace showing up soon. What can be done is to make soldiers from both sides back off. The fact that Kashmir is one of the most beautiful places in the world heightens the ugliness of what is happening. The valley is small and surrounded by the biggest mountains on earth. It's breathtaking and extremely lush and full of orchards and saffron fields and rice. If the people were left to their own devices, they'd be quite well off. WSJ.com: There's a strong mystical element in this book. Is that because realism doesn't provide enough reader nourishment? Mr. Rushdie: My view is that if the book is solidly grounded in reality there can be moments of surrealism that can be metaphorical or heightening devices. But if it's not grounded, they feel easy and whimsical. Although there are fantastic elements in my novels, they arise out of genuine historical situations. They are extensions of the real, which makes them more striking, more poetical, more beautiful. WSJ.com: What is the state of fiction today? Mr. Rushdie: It's all right. Philip Roth's 'The Plot Against America' was a big bestseller. And I'm amazed that 'Kite Runner' did so well. Who would have thought it? It's very encouraging. Same with 'Reading Lolita in Tehran.' What it shows is that the reading public is willing to be non-parochial in its choices. It's always the case that pop fiction dominates the short-term sales but long-term sales are another thing. I remember a trade magazine asked publishers to name not just their bestsellers for that year, but also the bestsellers in their history. And when you saw the second list, the cream rose to the top. It was Joyce, Faulkner, very literary writers. So this is perhaps the trade-off. Literary fiction endures, and because it endures it can outstrip this year's top seller. WSJ.com: What are your thoughts regarding Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code?" Mr. Rushdie: I would give 'The Da Vinci Code' a prize for the worst written novel of all time. It's the worst novel I've ever read. It makes Jeffrey Archer look like Tolstoy. He's found a pot of gold, but it's a shameful piece of work, and I'm not talking about the fact that the Pope doesn't like it. Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com1
TIM RUTTEN A warning sent but left unheededTim Rutten Regarding Media September 2, 2005 As commentators and public officials survey the morass of loss and desolation that once was a great American city called New Orleans, one of the words we hear and read over and over again is "unimaginable." In fact, the tragedy that this week destroyed a vibrant metropolitan area that was home to 1.4 million people and the city proper that was a national cultural treasure was not simply imagined but foreseen with a prescience that now seems eerily precise. These days, media criticism has become a kind of blood sport. One of its practitioners' most frequently repeated complaints is that mainstream news organizations have become increasingly — if not solely — reactive, retailing the sensation of the moment to an audience hooked on titillating irrelevancies. Well, that didn't happen here. Three years ago, New Orleans' leading local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, National Public Radio's signature nightly news program, "All Things Considered," and the New York Times each methodically and compellingly reported that the very existence of south Louisiana's leading city was at risk and hundreds of thousands of lives imperiled by exactly the sequence of events that occurred this week. All three news organizations also made clear that the danger was growing because of a series of public policy decisions and failure to allocate government funds to alleviate the danger. The Times-Picayune, in fact, won numerous awards for John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein's superbly conceived and executed five-part series — that's right, five-part — whose initial installment began with a headline reading: "It's only a matter of time before south Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day." One of the separate stories in that first installment — each part consisted of multiple pieces supported by compelling graphics — began: "The risk is growing greater and no one can say how much greater." The series' second part began: "It's a matter of when, not if. Eventually a major hurricane will hit New Orleans head on, instead of being just a close call. It's happened before and it'll happen again." In that installment, McQuaid and Schleifstein reported that "a major hurricane could decimate the region, but flooding from even a moderate storm could kill thousands. It's just a matter of time.... Evacuation is the most certain route to safety, but it may be a nightmare. And 100,000 without transportation will be left behind.... Hundreds of thousands would be left homeless, and it would take months to dry out the area and begin to make it livable. But there wouldn't be much for residents to come home to. The local economy would be in ruins.... "People left behind in an evacuation will be struggling to survive. Some will be housed at the Superdome, the designated shelter in New Orleans for people too sick or infirm to leave the city. Others will end up in last-minute emergency refuges that will offer minimal safety. But many will simply be on their own.... Thousands will drown while trapped in homes or cars by rising waters. Others will be washed away or crushed by debris. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days." Sound familiar? Later, in August 2002, New York Times reporter Adam Cohen wrote that New Orleans "may be America's most architecturally distinctive and culturally rich city. But it is also a disaster waiting to happen.... If a bad hurricane hit, experts say, the city could fill up like a cereal bowl, killing tens of thousands and laying waste to the city's architectural heritage. If the Big One hit, New Orleans could disappear." Cohen went on to report that, "So far, Washington has done little and New Orleans' response has been less than satisfying." The reporter quoted Terry Tullier, head of the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness, as saying, "When I do presentations, I start by saying that 'when the Big One comes, many of you will die — let's get that out of the way.' " Chilling then; worse now. A little more than a month later, NPR's "All Things Considered" aired an extended two-part broadcast on New Orleans' peril that was, in its own way, every bit as compelling as the Times-Picayune's series. In its opening sequence, reporter Daniel Zwerdling accompanied scientist Joe Suhayda, a researcher from Louisiana State University, as he used an extending measuring rod to determine how high hurricane-driven flood waters might rise in the French Quarter if a levee gave way. Here's an excerpt from the transcript of what followed: Suhayda: It's well above the second floor there and it's just about to the rooftop. Zwerdling: Do you expect this kind of hurricane and this kind of flooding to hit New Orleans in our lifetime? Suhayda: Well, I would say the probability is yes.... Zwerdling: So, basically, the part of New Orleans that most Americans and most people around the world think of as New Orleans would disappear underwater. Suhayda: It would. That's right. The NPR report went on to note that none of Suhayda's views were even remotely controversial in the scientific or engineering communities. This was not global warming — or even second-hand smoke. And, as Zwerdling went on to explain with great clarity, there was similar agreement that the steps taken by the federal and state government in earlier years to protect the city from smaller storms and to ensure that the Mississippi River would remain open to commerce had dramatically increased the danger from the inevitable larger storm. It was, in other words, the same conclusion the Times-Picayune's reporters reached. Both organizations also agreed that a massive — and expensive — overhaul of the levee system was required, if the danger to life and property were to be alleviated. So what happened in the three lost years between then and now? Nothing. And did the mainstream news media simply drop the issue, moving on to the next big thing, another victim of our real epidemic — national deficit disorder? Not really. Since 2002, when all these reports ran, the Times-Picayune has published no fewer than nine stories reporting that the combination of tax cuts, the war in Iraq and the demands of homeland security had led President Bush's administration to repeatedly reject urgent requests from the Army Corps of Engineers and Louisiana's congressional delegation that it allocate the money to save New Orleans. Today, while Bush personally surveys the consequences of his decisions, the staff of the Times-Picayune — driven from their offices by the flood waters — is busy putting out an electronic edition of a newspaper that, in this instance, has done just what a paper is supposed to do: serve the common good. Politics may have failed the people of New Orleans. Politicians certainly failed them. They may have failed themselves by not demanding better. But their newspaper and other important segments of the American press did not fail them. Nowadays, it often seems like every other third person with access to a mike or computer is a press critic, who thinks that their particular beef could be resolved by simply resorting to the good old-fashioned practice of shooting the messenger. As it turns out, one of the truly unforeseen lessons of New Orleans is that whether you rhetorically gun down the media messengers — or simply ignore them — the result is a self-inflicted, sometimes fatal wound.
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Magic Marker Strategy It was the climax of George W. Bush's video introduction at the Republican convention: the moment at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series when he threw a pitch all the way to home plate. The video ended, and the conventioneers cheered as Mr. Bush strode onto a stage shaped like a pitcher's mound. Well, live by the pitch, die by the pitch. When you campaign as the man on the mound, the great leader whose arm rescues Americans in their moment of need, they expect you to deal with a hurricane, too. Mr. Bush made a lot of mistakes last week, but most of his critics are making an even bigger one now by obsessing about what he said and did. We can learn more by listening to men like Jim Judkins, particularly when he explains the Magic Marker method of disaster preparedness. Mr. Judkins is one of the officials in charge of evacuating the Hampton Roads region around Newport News, Va. These coastal communities, unlike New Orleans, are not below sea level, but they're much better prepared for a hurricane. Officials have plans to run school buses and borrow other buses to evacuate those without cars, and they keep registries of the people who need special help. Instead of relying on a "Good Samaritan" policy - the fantasy in New Orleans that everyone would take care of the neighbors - the Virginia rescue workers go door to door. If people resist the plea to leave, Mr. Judkins told The Daily Press in Newport News, rescue workers give them Magic Markers and ask them to write their Social Security numbers on their body parts so they can be identified. "It's cold, but it's effective," Mr. Judkins explained. That simple strategy could have persuaded hundreds of people to save their own lives in New Orleans. What the city needed most was coldly effective local leaders, not a president in Washington who could feel their pain. It's the same lesson we should have learned from Sept. 11 and other disasters, yet both liberals and conservatives keep ignoring it. The liberals bewailing the insensitivity and racism of Republicans in Washington sound like a bad rerun of the 1960's, when urban riots were blamed on everyone but the rioters and the police. Yes, the White House did a terrible job of responding to Katrina, but Democratic leaders in New Orleans and Louisiana didn't even fulfill their basic duties. In coastal Virginia - which, by the way, has a large black population and plenty of Republican politicians - Mr. Judkins and his colleagues assume that it's their job to evacuate people, maintain order and stockpile supplies to last for 72 hours, until federal help arrives. In New Orleans, the mayor seemed to assume all that was beyond his control, just like the mayors in the 1960's who let the riots occur. They said their cities couldn't survive without help from Washington, which proceeded to shower inner cities with money and programs that did more damage than the riots. Cities didn't recover until some mayors, especially Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, tried self-reliance. Mr. Giuliani was called heartless and racist for cutting the welfare rolls and focusing on crime reduction, but black neighborhoods were the greatest beneficiaries of his policies. He was criticized for ignoring social services as he concentrated on reorganizing the Police and Fire Departments, but his cold effectiveness made the city a more livable place and kept it calm after Sept. 11. Yet Mr. Bush, with approval from conservatives who should have known better, reacted to Sept. 11 by centralizing disaster planning in Washington. He created the byzantine Homeland Security Department, with predictable results last week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, often criticized for ineptitude, became even less efficient after it was swallowed by a bureaucracy consumed with terrorism. The department has spent billions on new federal airport screeners - with no discernible public benefit - while giving short shrift to natural disasters. The federal officials who had been laboring on a one-size-fits-all strategy were unprepared for the peculiarities of New Orleans, like the high percentage of people without cars. The local officials who knew about that problem didn't do anything about it - and then were furious when Mr. Bush didn't solve it for them. Why didn't the man on the mound come through for them? It's a fair question as they go door to door looking for bodies. But so is this: Why didn't they go door to door last week with Magic Markers? Email: tierney@nytimes.com For Further Reading: The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life by Fred Siegel. Encounter Books, 386 pp., May 2005. A Delicate Balance Is Undone in a Flash, and a Battered City Waits by Peter Applebome, Christopher Drew, Jere Longman and Andrew Revkin. New York Times, September 4, 2005. Hampton Roads Daily Press, Newport News, VA
September 3, 2005 Muslim Voyagers in a Distant Land (the West) BARCELONA - For well over 1,000 years, from the Moorish conquest of Spain to the postwar addiction to Mideast oil, Europe has been engaged with the Muslim world. Yet remarkably, over much of this period, Europe has paid little heed to how it was viewed in the eyes of Muslims. Now, "West by East," a groundbreaking exhibition in Barcelona, tries to make amends. It records a complex love-hate relationship characterized by cyclical attraction and repulsion, proximity and confrontation. And it reaches a surprising conclusion: "Easterners have paid a lot less attention to Europeans than we have to them." The show, which runs at the Center for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona through Sept. 25 before traveling to Valencia, was born of the perceived "clash of civilizations" that followed 9/11. Yet its premise is that today's crisis over Islamic fundamentalism is just one chapter in a very old story. "Islam and Europe appear to constitute two separate entities that are antagonistic, irreconcilable, radically different," its catalog said. "Now that millions of inhabitants of Muslim origin live in Europe, the story we wish to recount is another." True, so vast a subject can hardly be covered in a single exhibition built around historical texts, objects and images. But as Jordi Balló, the center's director of exhibitions, put it: "We've so often seen shows about the West's fascination with the East. We ourselves did one called 'Fantasies of the Harem.' This is an attempt to see things from the other side." By definition, it had to be organized by a Muslim. So the center ceded full control of the exhibition to Abdelwahab Meddeb, a Paris-based Tunisian poet, writer, university professor and, most recently, author of "The Malady of Islam" (Basic Books), a look at Islamic fundamentalism. He in turn recruited nine artists and five writers from the Muslim world to contribute a contemporary view to "West by East." For the purpose of this show, the West is principally Europe, with the United States a relative newcomer, while the East is the Islamic world. Even here, though, the lines are blurred because Mr. Meddeb and the guest artists straddle this divide. "In everything I do or write, I try to say what I feel, that I am deeply Western and Eastern, that I am the son of a double genealogy," Mr. Meddeb said, referring to his life in Paris. "I was raised in this spirit. And with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, I try to demonstrate the East and West are reconcilable." To explore this premise, the show engages in what he calls "archaeological soundings," starting with maps and writings of a 12th-century Arab geographer, Al-Idrisi. He was in the service of the Sicilian King Roger II, who drove the Muslims from the island but retained Muslim scholars in his court. How far Al-Idrisi traveled is unclear, but he wrote with admiration of Rome's 1,200 churches, 1,000 baths and "the palace of a prince called pope." Even earlier, Sicily was an important crossroads. On display from Palermo is a page from a Greek-Arabic version of the Gospel according to St. Luke, as well as an 11th-century tombstone inscribed in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic. To illustrate the crusades, Mr. Meddeb chose Usama Ibn al-Munqidh, a Syrian noble who fought the Christian invaders but who, in his autobiography, described the Westerner as "an enemy one can be friends with." The physical - and religious - proximity of Christianity and Islam influenced sacred imagery, notably in the way some Muslim artists borrowed from Christian tradition to paint scenes from the life of the prophet (although in some cases the face of Muhammad was later obliterated to conform with prevailing iconophobia). By the 16th century, Ottoman rulers themselves were eager to be painted in the Western style. But only in the 19th century did the Western way of life begin to transform the Muslim Orient, not only through technology, architecture and fashion, but also through philosophy and political meddling. The response was ambivalent: some Muslim leaders adopted the new ways, with photographs in this show recording their "grand tours" of Europe, but so-called Occidentalists also began resisting European domination. Then, in 1928, with the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the stage was set for the continuing struggle between the modern and the traditional in much of the Islamic world. And since then, this show's catalog contends, "the history of the Islamic countries has been marked by a dividing line that separates Occidentophilic and Occidentophobic tendencies." Still, while a war of images is often fought in today's media, art can serve as an interlocutor. Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian author of "Persepolis," an acclaimed comic-book autobiography, painted a cheerful mural titled "The Magnificent Occident" for this show. In the catalog she noted: "Given that whenever you speak of us, it is to evoke 'The Thousand and One Nights' or terrorism, it will be interesting to see if we have ideas as fixed as yours." Khosrow Hassanzadeh, another Iranian artist, gave his answer by looking at himself in a Western mirror: he presented a self-portrait and portraits of members of his family, each identified by name, nationality, age and profession, under the heading "Terrorist," as they might be described on a "Wanted" poster. Shadi Ghadirian, also from Iran, offered a satirical view of how she saw the West by photographing herself in Western dress, then blacking out all evidence of flesh. Thanks to Iranian censors, she explained in the show's texts, that is how she grew up seeing Western women in imported magazines. The Moroccan video artist Bouchra Khalili turned the tables by dressing in traditional costume in Paris, summoning Western men to a casting and removing her costume in public. The Paris-based Algerian photographer Touhami Ennadre, who happened to be in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, has focused his work in the United States on African-Americans, whom he generically calls "The Other." For "September 11," one photograph on display here, Mr. Ennadre said in the show that he had intentionally excised details of the terrorist attack to focus on "the universal essence of the drama." Accompanying the show on television monitors, interviews with five Muslim writers provide a kind of running commentary. All are asked to respond to the same questions about their perceptions of the West, among them, what they like (rationality and efficiency were applauded) and what they dislike (the poverty of human relations was lamented). The most original answer, though, came from Sorour Kasmai, an Iranian writer. To the question of why the West is democratic and the East often despotic, she responded: "I think democracy exists in the West because the West has had the novel. And despotism reigns in the East because the East has had poetry. The novel develops the democratic imagination because it offers various paths, various destinies, while poetry is despotic."
Northern Phoenix By JONATHAN R. LAING WITH JET-FUEL PRICES SOARING and many major North American airlines flirting with or mired in bankruptcy, few industries seem to have prospects so ugly. Yet a few hardy souls, such as Sandy Prater of the hedge fund Ridgecrest Partners, have taken a flier in Ace Aviation Holdings, the reorganized holding company of flag carrier Air Canada. Says Prater: "The push-back I'm getting from Wall Street types for going into Air Canada is unbelievable, but there's an interesting fundamental story there that most people ignore because of their hatred of the industry." Indeed, the company, whose shares have just begun trading in Toronto under the ticker symbol ACE, bears little resemblance to its beleaguered U.S. rivals. In fact, Air Canada completed the Canadian version of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy last fall and has emerged with dramatically lower costs as a result of union givebacks and debt forgiveness as well as renegotiated leases and vendor contracts. It's also prospering from a pickup in travel in North America and the recent demise of a low-cost domestic rival. Finally, it's in the early stages of a financial restructuring aimed at boosting value by selling stakes in non-core operations to the public. Ben Cherniavsky of Raymond James in Vancouver estimates that Ace will earn 3.05 Canadian dollars a share this year and C$3.60 next year (excluding one-time items). The stock recently traded around C$36 a share, up sharply from the C$24 or so it fetched when it emerged from bankruptcy. Yet based on his sum-of-the-parts analysis, Cherniavsky has a six-to-12-month price target of C$48. Genuity Capital Markets, a Toronto investment-banking concern, sees it hitting C$54 in the same span. The bankruptcy reorganization let Air Canada chop nearly C$2 billion in annual costs, a hefty amount for a company expected to generate slightly more than C$9 billion in revenue this year. About half the savings will come from new contracts reached with its sometimes fractious labor unions, according to Merrill Lynch analyst Michael Linenberg. These contracts will buy at least a modicum of peace until their expiration in 2009. True, wages will be subject to some revision next year, but any impasse would be subject to compulsory mediation. but productivity-enhancing work-rule changes are non-negotiable, and strikes and lockouts are forbidden. ![[Air Canada]](http://online.barrons.com/public/resources/images/b-Air_Canada09022005194514.jpg)
The airline completed the Canadian version of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy last fall and has emerged with dramatically lower costs as a result of union givebacks, debt forgiveness and negotiated leases and vendor contracts.
| | Debt reduction and renegotiation of operating leases on equipment have lopped Air Canada's net debt obligations from around C$15 billion to under C$5 billion, according to Linenberg. Air Canada now has a 45% share of international passenger traffic in and out of Canada, as a result of certain restrictions on foreign carriers. This high-margin business chips in about 40% of the company's revenue. The carrier's international business is also getting a boost from foreign travelers transiting through Canada rather than the U.S. to points overseas, thus avoiding the need for an American visa. March saw the demise of the Canadian discount airline Jetsgo, which had mounted fare wars that made life miserable for both Air Canada and its primary, low-cost domestic rival, WestJet. Now the two effectively have a lucrative duopoly. They've boosted fares sharply and even imposed fuel surcharges without losing passengers. | THE BOTTOM LINE
Shares of Air Canada's parent, Ace Aviation, could rise more than 30% in a year. But given the industry's penchant for disaster, they're more suitable for speculation than investment. | | | | | The restructured Air Canada, with 55% of the Canadian domestic market, is holding its own against WestJet, with a 27% share, because it has shifted much of its domestic passenger traffic to Jazz, its wholly owned regional carrier. That helped Air Canada generate a 7.2% operating margin in the second quarter, 1.5 percentage points better than WestJet's. As a result of the bankruptcy reorganization, the U.S. private-equity firm Cerberus Partners has three seats on the ACE board and a 7.7% stake in the company, through convertible preferred stock. It certainly will encourage the company to unlock value. A few months ago, Air Canada sold the public a 14.4% stake in its Aeroplan air-mile loyalty program, which boasts more than six million members and a number of blue-chip credit-card-issuer partners. Based on Aeroplan's current stock price, Air Canada's remaining holding in that company is worth some $2.3 billion. The carrier recently announced plans for a similar spinoff of its Jazz operation and is likely to do an IPO of its highly successful maintenance, repair and overhaul unit, Air Canada Technical Services. ACTS, as it's known, already gets some 30% of its revenue from outsourcing agreements with carriers including JetBlue, Lufthansa and Delta. That total is expected to jump as a result of a C$95 million investment Air Canada plans to make for 7% of the carrier that will be formed by the expected merger of US Airways and American West. In return, ACTS will likely receive C$1.5 billion in maintenance and overhaul work from the new carrier over the next five years -- if its bids are competitive, as is likely. According to Raymond James' Cherniavsky, the enterprise values (actual or implied stock-market value plus net debt) of Aeroplan, ACTS and Jazz account for around half of ACE's current enterprise value of C$10.5 billion. But he thinks the mainline airline's enterprise value should be C$6.7 billion rather than the current implied total of C$5.2 billion. To reach that level, Ace Holdings shares would have to hit C$51. Of course, lots can go wrong -- and has -- in the airline business. Jet-fuel prices could keep rising, or a major terrorist incident could cripple passenger demand. Thus, Ace Holdings shares probably are more suitable for speculation than investment. But betting men -- and women -- should be amply rewarded.
|
