[news week] october 25 2010

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Daniel Lyons's article states that Android

contains 11million lines of source code

and was written by a "small team of engi-

neers." Either this was the most produc-

tive group of engineers in the world or the

team was not small. I found two different

studies suggesting that no more than 200.

lines of code per month is reasonable.

Even if the Google engineers were five

times as productive, it would still take

11,000 engineer-months (roughly 900

engine~r-y~ars) to generate that code. If

the project took five years, and the team

grew linearly over time, the team would

have grown to $60 software engineers

(not counting supporting workers) at the

time of the first release. I don't know too

many people who would consider that a

small project team.

ERIC ROSENFELD, GLOUCESTER POINT"

VIRGINIA

' I F Y O U B U IL D I T . . . '

Ezra Klein's column noted that the stimu-

Ius may be good for the economy as

well as being a bargain. What he omit-

ted was the best rebutta(to those who

claim that FDR's stimulus during the

Great Depression didn't end the down-

turn: if we didn't have the Tennessee

Valley Authority for power produc-tion and other infrastructure projects,

4 ~mOCTOBER 25, 2010

for the younger Kim. With Jang pulling

the strings, don't expect the new Kim to

bring any change for the better.

MARIANA ESCARZAGA HERRASTI,

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

O C T O B E R 1 1 , 2 0 1 0

' A N D R O I D I N V A S I O N '

we would all be speaking German now.

DAVID J. MELVIN, CHESTER, NEW JERSEY

'S O R R Y , S U D A N '

In this article (Oct. 4), Kevin Peraino

overplays America's impulse for re-

form. He should have mentioned that

America's story is more one of cold-eyed

pragmatism than crusading moralism.

During the past few decades, presidents

have said sorry not only to the Sudanese,

but also to the Kurds in Iraq and the Tut-

sis in Rwanda, among others.

LEE P. RUDDIN, CHESHIRE, ENGLAND

'A N E W S H E N ZH E N '

At the core of the Kashgar project (Oct.

4) lies China's unswerving ambition to

expand its sphere of influence. Trans-

forming this little-known town into a

Imajor business hub is an example of

how China is trying to broaden its global

infl~ence as never before. The question

is how the country will deal with politi-

cal volatility in the areas surrounding it.

RENJU RAVEENDRAN, KERALA, INDIA

' T H E R E G E N T B E H IN D T H E S O N '

As Jerry Guo explains (Oct. 4), Jang

Song-tack, the brother-in-law of Kim

jong-il, has become the North Koreanleader's right-hand man and the regent

t@

Letterstl) t"eE •W I en am e a nd a dd re ss , s ho uld b e e -m a ile d

to le t [email protected] o r fa xe d to

1-212-445-4120. L ette rs m a y b e e d ite d fo r

r ea so ns o f s pa ce a nd c la rit y.

Subscription inquiries for readers inall countries except Japan and thePhilippines should be sent to:

As a computer geek, Irecognize that Android is great because it

allows people to customize their operating systems. That leads to a

competition in which computer lovers vie to create the best machine.CARLOS ALMERAZ, MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

Pub li sh e rs ' Se rv ic e s Inc .O ~:

, Ph i l ipp ines'8.44-9217 Fax: 02-8.43-8.8.46

ail:Gustomersvc.ph iUppines@neWswee k.co

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I WORLD VIEW I

H O W R U S S I A L O S T

I T S M O J OB Y R U C H IR S H A R M A

WHILE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN MOST EMERGING MARKETS

has returned to levels that prevailed during the boom years of

2.003 to 2.007, Russia is struggling to shrug off the "new nor-

mal" ball and chain. Two years after the global financial crisis,

it is one of the few developing countries where growth fore-

casts are still being downgraded.

The country suffered one of the worst declines, with the

economy contracting more than 10percent on a peak-to-troughbasis. Of all the major 'emerging markets, Russia will likely be

the last to recoup itslost output; the economy is set to return to

its pre-crisis peak only by the end of 2.011.

So why has Russia lost its mojo? After all, in the last decade

it grew at the same pace as the average emerging market, off the

back of the global liquidity glut and soaring commodity prices.

Those factors are once again propelling peers like Brazil, but

Russia has yet to partake in the current boom.

It seems Russia's economic model is in need of a major recast

"forthe country to move to the next stage of economic develop-

after their per capita income crossed $10,000 because these

nations created an environment in which small and midsize

businesses could prosper. Russia.iby contrast, has a"smaller

percentage of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as a share

of overall business than any of the world's major economies.

World Bank surveys rank Russia izoth out of 183 countries

for the ease of doing business. Budding entrepreneurs cite

the maze of bureaucracy, poor contract enforcement, and thelack of access to easy credit as major impediments to growth.

Thanks to an underdeveloped banking system, Russian SMEs

pay interest rates of 15to 2.0percent, and the mortgage market is

virtually nonexistent. Russia's loan-penetration ratios are simi-

lar tothose of countries such as Egypt that have a far lower per

capita income. ,

Indeed, the Russians ran into serious trouble during the

2.008 global financial crisis because many corporates bor-

rowed heavily from overseas between 2.003 and 2.007, result-

ing in a panic in the domestic marketplace when that source

of funding dried up.' Steps to improve the

banking system will go a long way toward

increasing Russia's domestic savings and

investment ratios. With the share of invest-

ment in the economy at a low 2.0percent, the

cracks in infrastructure are only too visible-

witness the jammed roads of Moscow and an

archaic rail network that connects the capital"

city to the hinterland.

It's incredible that even with oil at $80 a barrel, Russia's

government requires help from the private sector and foreign

investors to build out its infrastructure. Nearly two thirds of

government expenditure goes toward social spending, andthe country's budget deficit is currently 4 percent of GDP.

Fortunately, the penny is beginning to drop among some

policymakers that Russia needs a sea change in its economic

direction. One marquee project designed to move the country

up the high-tech ladder is the new science center Skolkovo,

under construction near Moscow, and billed. as the country's

answer to Silicon Valley. Russia certainly has the human capi-

tal to succeed in scientific and medical areas.

However, it is imperative for the authorities to understand

that a richer Russia requires less top-down management and

more individual enterprise. When Russia was a poor country,

abundant in natural resources, it required a strong government.A decade later, a more developed Russia needs a new model.

A heavy-handed, centralized form of

government (the state is 50 percent of the

economy) is thwarting Russia's success.

ment. At the end ofthe 1990S Russia's economy was in complete

chaos, and its per capita income was a poor $1,500. It needed

strong political leadership to stabilize the system, and it got that

from Vladimir Putin, who took over as president in 2.000. Rus-

sia was subsequently able to participate in the wider emerging-market renaissance that followed.

But a decade later,with aper capita income ofmore than $10,000,

the rules of the game have changed. Success carried too far can

become a country's weakness. A heavy-handed, centralized forin

of government (the state's share in the economy is now a massive

50 percent) is thwarting Russia's further economic progress.

An old rule of development economics is that a rich nation

produces rich goods. For Russia to become a fully industrial-

ized country, it needs to move beyond natural.resources and.

into more innovative and tech-savvy industries. To do that, it

must dramatically improve the investment climate by clipping

the government's tentacles at every level.South Korea and Taiwan were able to grow at 6 percent even

6 r n OCTOBER 25, 2010



I SCOPE II INTERNATIONALIST

R A I TT E N S I O N S S T I L L H O TBY ISAAC STONE FISH

CHINAS RECENT BELLIG-

erence toward Japan has

worried its neighbors, including Taiwan,

which the mainland regards as a prodi-

gal son. China has been drawing Taiwan

closer with improved trade links, and the

June signing of a breakthrough free-trade

agreement between the two entities will

bind Taiwan's economy even tighter to the

mainland's. Yet while both sides speak ofimproved relations, economic ties haven't

led to substantial political improvements.

Infact, military tensions between the two

are increasing. Despite Chinese Premier

Wen jiabao's vague reassurances that his

and 9 percent wanted reunification.)

The Chinese government's aggressive

territoriality, coupled with its refusal to

undertake meaningful political reform,

fosters the deep-seated hesitance .thatcharacterizes Taiwanese views of unifica-

tion: the same poll found that 54 percent

ofTaiwanese residents had negative views

of the Chinese government, Viewing it as

tyrannical and autocratic. Despite decades

of economic reform in Beijing,the differ-

ence between the two government's politi-

cal systems is sharp.

China has long claimed Taiwan as one

of its "core interests"; it has also recently

included the South China Sea on that list,

which also cites Tibet and Xinjiang, andrefers to issues for which it allows no com-

promise. But until China can convince the

Taiwanese that it has their best interest

in mind, it might just have too many core

interests to juggle.

government will withdraw i.eoo-plus

missiles pointing at the island, Taiwan's

deputy defense minister has said that

the mainland military threat is growing.

Taiwanese president Ma Ymg-jeou justannounced that the country will keep

buying arms internationally, and China's

defense minister, in a recent meeting with

his U.S. counterpart, said that Taiwan

remains the main point of contention

between the two superpowers.

Although tensions are much lower than

they were under Ma's pro-independence

predecessor, peaceful reunification-the

holy grail ofChina's Taiwan policy-seems

less and less likely: a study published

in September by the Taiwanese UnitedD a ily N ew s revealed that 16percent ofpar-

ticipants support full independence while

only 5 percent want reunification with

China. (The same study in 2000 showed

that 12 percent supported independence

A F U T U R ER E S T S O N E L E C T I O N SBYJACOB KUSHNER

8 m OCTOBER 25. 2010

FAIR AND INCLUSIVE

elections in Haiti may

prove impossible. When the country

goes to the polls on Nov. 28 to choose a

new president, the post-quake logistics

present huge challenges: some 230;000

dead have to be purged from voter rolls

and 1.3 million more displaced have to

be reregistered .:

But an even greater threat is actu-

ally Haiti's electoral commission itself,

which is under fire for sidelining 15

candidates without explanation and

excluding the Lavalas party, which

stands in opposition to the current pres-

ident, Rene Preval. In this case, shoddy

democracy bears a danger that could

. have long-reaching consequences. If

Haitians don't trust their government,

they could hinder the reconstruction

process b resisting the government's

attempts to evict them through eminent

domain, or relocating to a new displace-.

ment camp. In Haiti's history, lesser

things than mass evictions have sparked

riots and brought the country h) a stand-

still. Furthermore, international inves-

tors and donors are likely to be skittish

about a government tainted by illegiti-

macy. "Flawed elections now will come

back to haunt the international com-

munity later," 45 U.S. representatives

recently wrote to Secretary of State Hill-

ary Clinton. Port-au-Prince may end

up with a strong leader. It also needs a

legitimate one.



L O N D O N M E D I AT U R N S O N I T S B A R O NBY WILLIAM UNDERHILL

MEDIA BARON RUPERT

Murdoch is once again

setting his sights on London. His

$54 billion News Corp., which already

owns The Times ofLondon and tabloid

TheSun, now plans to shell out $12bil-

lion for a full takeover of broadcaster .

Sky TV. If the deal happens, media

analyst Claire Enders has predicted

that Murdoch will control half of the

UK.'s _newspaper and TV markets

within a decade.

In a rare show of unity, Murdoch's

rivals in the British media are clam-

oring for the government to block

the sale. His papers may have backed

David Cameron's Conservatives

in the election, but Murdoch is not

likely to get the government's bless-

ing now. For one thing, Cameron's

party failed to win an outright vic-

tory despite Murdoch's support. For

another, the decision on whether to

allow the takeover belongs to. busi-

ness secretary Vince Cable, a fiercely

pro-regulation Liberal Democrat

. who recently raised a storm by pub-

licly warning that "capitalism takes

no prisoners, and it kills competition

when it can."

W H I C H C O U N T R Y\ W I ' l l S E E T H E N E X T M IN I N G D I S A S T E R ?

--.,.---w AFTER THE LAST CHIL-

................... ean miner was rescued

from the San Jose mine, rescue worker

Manuel Gonzalez ascended from the

700-meter-deep drill hole, and Presi-

dent Sebastian Piiiera asked what he

was thinking on the way up. Gonzalezreplied: "That hopefully things in Chil-

ean mining will now be different." This

near-tragedy will surely bring about

changes in Chilean mining. But several

other countries are in line for the next

big accident ifthey don't also take a cue.

Topping the list is China, with 2,631

accidental miner deaths last year, fol-

lowed by some former Soviet states

(Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia), as well

as Colombia and Turkey. Statistics

vary, as many accidents are not evenreported, but the International Federa-

BYJIMMY LANGMAN

tion ofMine Workers' Unions estimates

that overall, 12,000workers die in acci-

dents each year. Mining has always

been a risky activity,but experts blame

lax laws and enforcement, inadequate

worker training, and low investment.

in technologies for the unusually highaccident rates in some countries.

Workplace accidents are not the only

worry. InJuly, the Chinese mining com-

pany Zijin caused a massive acid-waste

spill in the Ting River that poisoned

drinking water for some 60,000 people.

Zijin has been moving to expand into

other nations, such as Peru, which is

a worrisome trend, says Keith Slack, a

senior policy adviser at OxfamAmerica.

These. countries must push for reform.

The next mining disaster is unlikely tohave such amiraculous ending.

NEWSWEEK.COM m e



I SCOPE I BUSINESS MATTERS

N O T E N O U G H C H I E F SBY MCKAY COPPINS

A GOOD BOSS IS HARD

to find. Make that very

hard, according to the

annual Manpower labor

survey, which listed

"executive/management"

slots among the five

hardest positions to fill in

2009, even as unemployment topped10percent. Now, with an estimated 10

million baby boomers eligible to retire

by the end of the year, economists

seem more worried than ever about

an impending "corporate-leadership

crisis." Theories abound to explain the

workplace phenomenon, but Stan-

ford business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer

may have cracked the case by observ-

ing his students. "The problem," says

Pfeffer, 'author of the new book Power:

Why Some People Have It-and OthersDon't, "is that ambition has become

unfashionable in the younger seg-

ment of the workforce." Whereas

motivated young professionals used

to slug it out for coveted

promotions, many of

today's B-school gradu-

ates find such interoffice

competition uncouth. Fa-

mously team-oriented,

millennials would rather

collaborate with their co-

workers than compete.Pfeffer blames this attitude on a cul-

ture of coddling, one that allows high

schools to appoint multiple valedicto-

rians and gives trophies to both T-ball

teams, regardless of who wins. Still,

the current climate, where even a little

gumption stands out, could be good

news for go-getters. InPower, Pfeffer

writes about a young Deloitte recruit

who not only insisted on meeting with

the CEO before taking the job, but also

requested a yearly dinner with him(which he got). That kind of audacity

may not make you a lot of friends in

the modern workplace-but it can get

you a corner office.

SOURCE: THESTREET.COM, EMPLOYEE BENEFIT RESEARCH INSTITUTE

10 [3 OCTOBER 25, 2010

C O N V E N T I O N A L W I S D O M

T H IN K A G A I NFinally, world leaders made

headlines that had little to do with

the global fmancial crisis:

P I N E R AAll 33 miners safe,

and the president was

there to greet them

all. A triumph for

Chile-and for Pifiera.

O B A M AIn '08, Dems rode into

Congress on Obama's

coattails. Now he's

hurting their chances

more than helping.

A H M A D l N E J A DFiery Iran leader visits

Lebanon, call~ Israel t V

"mortal." But back

home, his problems

continue to pile up.

Calls on China to

end censorship and

is backed by high-

profile party elders.

Is reform nigh?

S A R K O Z YFrance erupts in

strikes over pension'

reform, but Sarko's

gambling they'll

fizzle out soon.

C H A V E ZWith alleyes on Chile,

signs nuclear deal

with Russia. Trying

to steal the LatAmspotlight?



I SCOPE I TECHTONIC SHIFTS

G O O G l EI N P R IM E T I M E

BY DANIEL LYONS

FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS, TECH

companies have been trying to, find away to bring the Internet and televi:

sion together, without much success.

Sure, there are lots of little boxes you

can attach to your TV that let you

download content from the Internet, .

but each one gives you a little some-

thing different, and none delivers the

entire Web. Now Google is out to

replace all those crazy little boxes with

Coogle TV. It's software, built right

into some TV sets, and it will basically

turn your TV into a computer.

"We've seen how the Web has

transformed the mobile industry. The,

next device is the TV," says Google's

Rishi Chandra. With the new, prod-

uct, you'll be able to turn on your set

and get a home page from Google TV.

You'll surf the Web and load apps like

Twitter and Pandora the way you do

on a smart phone. You'll view photo

albums stored on your home network

and stream movies from Amazon.And you'll be able to use your smart

phone as a remote control. '

Just as with Android for mobile

phones, Google makes the underly-

ing code available to anyone who

wants to build apps for it. With any

luck, this will start a wave of in-

novation like the one that has hit the

mobile-phone space, where hun-

dreds of thousands of apps have been

created in just the past few years. As

Google says, "The coolest thing aboutGoogle TV is that we don't even know

12 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

also a $299 box from Logitech,. called

Revue, that runs 'Google TV softwareand includes a fancy keyboard.

The problem is that people really

don't want to buy a separate box, as '

Apple CEO Steve Jobs pointed out

a few months ago. Apple has since

updated' its own box, the $99 Apple

TV, but it gives you access only to

Apple's iTunes store and a few part-

net sites. Apple could follow Google's

lead and try to get its software embed-

ded into TVs made by others. But

that isn't the Apple way-Jobs would

sooner develop his own TV. ,

The bottom line is that weare'enter-

ing a new era where the stuff we think

of as "TV" becoines just one channel

alongside all this other stuff from the

Internet Instead 'of a few hundred

channels, we'll now have hundreds '

of thousands. Geeks will love it. But

ifyou're the type who can't program a

DVR, it'll probably be a nightmare.

what the coolest thing about itwill be."

Google gives the software away toany tv maker. Why? To get more peo-

ple using Gmail, YouTube, Google

Maps, and its other' online services,

where they will be exposed to Google's

ads. "People spend five hours a day

watching TV, and we have no way to

distribute our services to those users,"

Chandra says., "We want to have

access to people wherever they are."

The downside to Google TV is that

it comes from Google, a company that

has never been very good with user-

interface design and has little experi-

ence dealing with consumers. My fear

is that the product will have lots of

great features but will be too complex

for the average person.

Over time, though, I believe software

like, this will be standard on all new

sets. Google TV will come preloaded

on some Sony units this fall, and in

more sets over the next year. There's



'We must prepare

for-them ...theyare

coming back fromthe dead.'LILLIAN RAMIREZ,

the girlfriend of one of the

Chilean miners rescued after 69 days

underground.

'Weboth love our

country. That has tobe the mindset here.'

HILLARY CLINTOl'i!, ,

speaking to students in Sarajevo

and offering her contentious history

, with President Obama-and their

reconciliation-as a model for Bosnia .

.'Freedom of speech

is indispensable for

anycouhtry.'Chinese Premier WEN JIABAO,

,in the latest in a string of increasinqly

bold statements calling for reform

ahead of the Chinese Community

party's annual conference.

'We can havea man like Mr.

Ahmadinejad here

right under their

noses, and they can

do nothing about it.'MOHAMMAD NASR,

a Lebanese carpenter, praising the

president of Iran's visit to his country

as a sign of strength against Israel.

PERSPECTTVEslSCOPEI

'1 think it was my

father who made

the decision ...1 don'tcare at all.'KIM JONG-NAM,

Kim Jong-il's eldest son, who

came out against dynastic succession

in North Korea as his little brother

prepares to take power in the country.

'Awarding the

.'..Nobel Prize to him

is equivalent to

encouraqinq crime.'MAZHAOXU,

a Chinese Foreign Ministry

spokesman, denouncing

international calls to release jaileddissident Liu Xiaobo.

© 20'10 PA, ,-KER-FLORIDA TODA:Y

NEWSWEEK,COM m 13



Breaking theLaw

Why Russia fetes its criminals.

a defeated country,'

says Gorbachev.

'We try to provethan i'I'unes. Both have we are not.'now been closed down at

the insistence ofthe World Trade Organi-

zation, which Russia hankers to join. But

Russia's proud copyright infringers are

so devoted to the principle of not paying

for music and movies that some have even

formed. a political movement called the

Pirates' Party. The new "party" -which

has little hope of ever being allowed to

stand for office-advocates formalizingRussia's status as a n offshore haven for

copyright violators.

B

IN SOME· COUN-

tries' it's cool to be

an outlaw. In Monte-

negro, for instance,

members of a local

diamond-heist gang

known as the Pink

Panthers are localheroesforrippingoff

posh Western jewelers. Likewise, many

Iranians cheer their bumptious presi-

dent because, as one Iranian friend put

it, "Idon't agree with him, butI like how

he stands up to America." North Korea

bas elevated this kind of rebellion into a

tate philosophy. "If you can't join 'em,

beat 'em" seems to be the guiding prin-

ciple there.

It's sad to see Russia following suit. Mos-

cow may not be building secret nuclear

bunkers. But it does have a disturbing pat-

tern of sheltering law-

breakers from interna-

tional justice. Take

copyright infringement,

for instance. Russia has

been host to two of the

last decade's most notori-

ous pirate sites, torrents

.ru and ' allofmpg.com.

The latter at its heighthad more subscribers

'America

treated us like

18 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

More serious examples of Russian

outlaw worship have included accused

killers, spies, and crooks who have not

only found safe haven in their home-

land but often been treated as heroes.

For instance, Andrei Lugovoi, the ex-

KGB officer who has been accused by

British prosecutors of murdering Alex-ander Litvinenko, a Russian defector,

in London in 2006, became a national

hero and was elected to the State

Duma, thereby giving him immunity

from prosecution. Anna Chapman,

the beautiful Russian agent recently

arrested by the FBI and returned to her

homeland in a spy swap, was feted by

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and

also offered a political career in the

same party that adopted Lugovoi.

The latest' in this litany of no-good-

niks 'who enjoy official protection

are 60 officials and

policemen associated

with the false impris-

onment and death in

prison of Hermitage

Fund tax. lawyer Ser-

gei Magnitsky in 2009.

Magnitsky had discov-

ered that companies be-

longing to Hermitagehad been stolen by

crooked cops and used

to defraud the Russian

government of $230 million. Instead

of investigating his accusations, police

threw Magnitsky into jail, where he died

after being denied medical care. Last

week the U.S. Congress, after months

of lobbying from Hermitage, passed the

Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act, which

forbids entry to the U.S. to individuals

named in court and police documentsrelated . to the Magnitsky case. The

new law, says its cosponsor Sen. John

McCain, is intended to "identify those

responsible for the death ofthis Russian

patriot, to make their names famous for

the whole world to know, and then to

hold them accountable for their crimes."

The Russian response was essentially

that these guys may be sons of bitches-

but they're our sons of bitches. The Rtis-sian Foreign Ministry condemned the

law as being "beyond the standards of

decency," while the Interior Ministry

promoted one of the investigators most

active in imprisoning Magnitsky.

What's behind Russia's rallying

around its outlaws in the face offoreign

attack or criticism? Mikhail Gorbachev

put his finger on one key reason in an

interview with NEWSWEJilK last year:

''America treated us as though we were a

defeated country," he told me. "Now we

try to prove that no, we are not defeated,

we have our own policies, we will not

obey ... even though that sometimes

prevents us from seeing how much we

have in common." Russia stands by its

badasses, to follow Gorbachev's logic,

because it's more important to prove

that Russia is independent than to prove

that it is a member in good standing of

the international community.

There's another, more depressingcause fo~ Russia's behavior: bureau-

crats covering their own backsides

from international scrutiny. Russia as a

country has nothing to gain from pro-

tecting its outlaws,' its killers, and its

corrupt officials. But as the Magnitsky

case and others like it show, Russia's

bureaucrats have a lot to lose if their

own practices come under the scrutiny

of international law enforcement. Then

they would have to face justice=not the

corrupt, back-scratching, politicallymotivated parody, that exists in Russia,

but the real thing.



The Prepaid NationNew businesses target the 'unbanked.'BY DANIEL GROSS

These business

models have

. THE LIST OF COM-

panies lining up to

sell shares to the

public can tell you a

lot about what trends

are hot in the global

economy. Some re-

cent filings include

First Wind Holdings

(wind farms!), SinoTech Energy (China!

Oil!), and Campus Crest Communities

(fancy housing for rich college students!).

Then there's NetSpend, which is seeking

to raise $200 million.

NetSpend, based in Austin, Texas, is

what you might call an inverted credit-

card company. Its products are pre-

paid debit cards that can be loaded

with cash by employers, or govern-

ment agencies, or retailers-kind of likegift cards for everyday use. Its customers

are the legions of the

"unbanked," people who

don't have bank accounts

or credit card's, but

who earn, receive, and

spend money. Between

2005 and 2009, Net-

types of arrangements are typical of

developing-world countries that lack

financial infrastructure and a culture of

credit. And while the hysterical claims

that the U.S. is losing its First World sta-

tus as a result of the recession are over-

blown, Americans have become more

receptive to business models that might

not have made sense in the credit-fueled

haze of 2005 and 2006.

The debit-card industry isn't the only

large sector that has glornmed on to

business models previously seen only in

places like sub-Saharan Africa, Tracl'one

Wireless-a unit of Mexico's America

M6vil, the largest cell-phone company

in this hemisphere-boasts 15 million

prepaid subscribers in the u.s. In its

most recent quarter, Sprint reported that

profits from its U.S. prepaid wirelessbusiness doubled to $928 million from

469 million a year,

while profits from its

(traditional) postpaid

business fell 7 percent.

Inthe past year, Sprint

has seen its prepaid cus-

tomer rolls more than

double, from 4.7million

to 11million. "Last year

was the year of pre-

paid voice," said CarrieMacGillivray, program

manager at consulting

firm IDC. "And this year we're seeing

more interest in prepaid data services."

A few factors account for the. surge

in prepaid businesses. Lots of people

who need and want phones in the U.S.

don't have the desire to get locked into

a multiyear contract, .or the means to

pass a credit check. In 2010 a bigger

slice of the population falls into that

category than did in 2007. The FederalDep~sit Insurance Corporation says

spend's revenues rose 'their origins infivefold and net income

surged from $700,000 countries with

to $18.2million. Lastjune lowwages, and poorNetSpendreported 2mil- living standards.lion active cards and " "

$8.8 billion in transactions conducted

in the previous 12 months. NetSpend is

following a larger rival, Green Dot, into

the public markets. Green Dot has a

relationship with Walmart-the giant

retailer pays some of its employees by

giving them loaded debit cards. In the

second, quarter; Green Dot says its

business soared 77 percent from the

year before.Welcome to Prepaid Nation. These

that about 60 million adult Americans

are "underbanked" -i.e., lack full access

to financial services. Only 16 percent of

them use prepaid cards.

Some analysts may view the rise of

prepaid as a sign of regress. After all,

these are business models that have

their origins in countries with low

wages, unsophisticated financial mar-

kets, and poor living standards. Life is

a lot easier when you don't have to pay

cash-in advance-for the stuff you

need to get through the day.

But I'd prefer to see the glass as half

full. The swift rise of prepaid shows the

capacity of U.S. businesses to adapt.

Prepaid arrangements are generally

, geared toward bringing new people

into systems. With prepaid mobile serv-

ice, a college student may occasionallytun out of minutes. But she'll never

pay 19 percent interest on the monthly

charge for a plan because she put it on

a credit card. Meanwhile, Sprint doesn't

have to worry about bad debt and

unpaid bills.

Infact, it would be a good thing ifmore

of us prepaid. Prepaid consumers are

more likely to adopt an eat-what-you-

need strategy rather than an all-you-

can-eat one. (At Sprintin the most recent

quarter, the average prepaid customerspent $28, about half what the postpaid

customer spent.)

Prepaid is likely to grow for macro-

economic reasons, as well. In a world .of

high inflation, buying now and consum-

ing later is a very bad idea. In a world of

stable prices, the purchasing power of

today's dollar might rise. Over the last 12

months, the consumer price index-the

main gauge of inflation-s-has risen just

1.1percent. Pay now, buy later.

GROSS is ec ono mic s edito r fo r Y ah oo F inanc e.

NEWSWEEK,COM m 19



Circle of TrustObama needs some new blood.BY EZRA KLEIN

FIRST PETER ORSZAG

turned in his ID

card. Then Chris-

tina Romer went. In

short order, Larry

SUmmers and Rahm

Emanuel announced

their exits. Jim Jones

is gone, too. Thereare a lot of empty desks in the White

House these days.

But that leaves room for new people

to fill them. So far, President Obama has

hired mostly from within. Thafs a sign

he's happy with the advice he's received.

And in many ways, he's right to be. This

administration entered office with the

economy teetering on the edge of the

abyss. His team has successfully pulled

us onto firmer ground.

The next two years, however, will

see resurgent Republicans and new

problems-not to 'mention continued

slow growth. For that, the administration

needs a new agenda, and new ideas. To get

them, here are four candidates the White

House should hire. (Disclaimer: I didn't

tell these people I'd be mentioning them.

and I'm not close with any of them. This is

about their ideas, not their personalities.)

Karen Kornbluh In. a previous life,

Kornbluh was Senator Obama's policy

director. Now she's serving as ambas-

sador to the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development. It's not

exactly hard time; she. gets a house in

Paris. But Obama needs to call her back.

The administration has done impor-

tant work expanding and strengthening

the safety net. Now they need to turn to

the focus of Kornbluh's work: modern-

izing it. Our safety net was developed in

an age when men were the breadwinners,

women stayed home to raise children,single-parent families were rare, and work-

20 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

ers tended to stick with a single employer

for decades. Now it needs to be updated

for a world where families are dependent

on two incomes, have lessjob stability, and

need time off from work to care for sick

parents and young children. Kornbluh is

the right pick to lead that effort.

Mark McClellan McClellan led the

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Ser-vices for George W.

Bush. He was instru-

mental in implementing

the Medicare prescrip-

tion-drug benefit. That

gives him two things the

administration needs:

credibility with Repub-

licans on health care

and experience making

a major health-care ini-

tiative work

Mcolellan has been

those in power. It's hard to imagine him

playing well with others in the White

House, but then that's the point: he'll say

things they don't want to hear.

Christina Romer Yes,Romer. Shewon't

bring a new perspective, but she brings the

right perspective. In her final speech as

chairwoman of the Council of Economic

Advisers, she offered the full-throated callfor more fiscal stimulus

that the administration

has largely abandoned." " -"Concern about the.defi-

cit cannot be an excuse

for leaving unemployed

workers to suffer;" she

said. "We have tools that

would bring unemploy-

ment down without

worsening our long-run

fiscal outlook, ifwe can

only find the will and

the wisdom to use them."

She's right. The stimulus may not

poll well, but it worked. Unemploy-

ment would\;'e been much higher in

its absence. Was it too small? Yes, and

Romer knew that at the time. She calcu-

lated that we needed $1.2 trillion. We got

a bit more than half that, and then the

economic crisis proved worse than we'd

thought it was when Romer was run-

ning the numbers.

Unemployment is now near 10 per-

cent, and though the stimulus probably

kept it from brushing 12 percent, the

economic misery has discredited the

intervention. The administration can't

hide from this fight, however. The job

situation is too grim for the government

to just leave the 'unemployed to their

fate. Romerrspeaking freely in her final

days in office, had it right. They should

have her and the others say what's ontheir minds more often.

It's hard to imagine

Baker playing well

with others in the

White House, but

then that's the point:

he'll say things they

don't want to hear.

a cautious friend and frequent critic

of Obama's health-care initiatives. He's

complimented the legislation for mak-

ing progress on coverage and payment

changes while criticizing it for falling

short on medical-malpractice reform and

consumer-driven policies. IfRepublicans

fail in their efforts to repeal the legislation

(as they likely will), some might be com-

forted by having a voice on the inside.

Dean Baker Think Obama's eco-

nomic team is too insular? Baker, a

contrarian economist who was among

the first to spot the housing bubble and

who's.been a critic of the administration

(and most everyone else), will fix that.

Baker can be counted on for innova-

tive thinking-How about doing away

with pharmaceutical patents? Or letting

foreclosed owners rent their homes? Or

slapping a transaction tax on Wall Street

to slow it down and reduce our deficit?-and a disinterest in currying favor with



The Fed's Identity CrisisIts power has given way to doubt.BY ROBERT J. SAMUELSON

Its efforts haven't

stimulated much

borrowing by

anxious households

IT IS WIDELY, AL-

though not univer-

sally, assumed that

the Federal Reserve

will move in early

November to bol-

ster the economy

by trying to nudge

down long-term in-

terest rates on Treasury bonds, home

mortgages, and corporate bonds. Just

how much rates would decline and

how much production and employ-

ment would increase are uncertain.

What's clearer is that the move would

be something of an act of desperation,

reflecting a poverty of good ideas to

resuscitate the economy.

The Fed is suffering an identity cri-

sis. Celebrated under chairman Alan

Greenspan as a guarantor of prosper-

ity, it is now struggling

to regain its exalted

reputation. In the acute

phases of the financial

panic, in late 2008 and

the first half of 2009,

it devised ingenious

ways to provide credit

to parts of the financial

markets (commercial

paper, money-market and cautiousfunds) that were being businesses.abandoned by private

lenders. For almost two years, it's held'

its short-term interest rate near zero.

All this arguably averted a second Great

Depression, but it obviously did not

trigger a vigorous economic recovery.

Chairman Ben Bernanke makes peri-

odic speeches arguing that, despite lower-

ing its short-term interest rate to virtually

zero, the Fed' still has ample policy tools

to revive the economy and reduce theappalling levels of unemployment. The

reality is otherwise; the Fed's remaining

tools are arcane, weak, or both.

What the Fed is expected to authorize

in November is a large purchase of u.s.Treasury bonds with the intent of driv-

ing down their interest rates, and rates

on other long-term debt securities. Ithas

already done this once. In late 2008' the

Fed approved massive bond purchases;

these ultimately totaled $1.725trillion of

mortgage-backed securities, u.s. Treas-ury bonds, and Fannie Mae and Freddie

Mac bonds. Bernanke has said the pro-

gram "made an important contribution"

to the economic recovery.

But the measurable effects were

small. A Fed study estimated that

rates on all lO-year bonds might have

dropped by 0.6 percentage points. The

decline this time might be less, because

starting interest rates are already low

(about 4.g percent for a

go-year mortgage) and

the purchases might be

smaller. Guesses gener-

ally range from $500 bil-

lion to $1trillion.

Economists at Bank

of America think new

purchases would have

"only a modest impact

on the economy" butare "better than doing

nothing." A plausible

program might cut the unemployment

rate by 0.2 percentage points (say, from

9.6 percent to 9-4 percent), says Moody's

Analytics. The stock market would

be slightly stronger, leading people to

spend more, and a depreciated dol-

lar would aid exports. Indeed, because

Bernanke and other Fed officials have

signaled a new round of bond buying,

financial markets may already reflectsome of these effects.

Still, there are dangers. When the

Fed buys Treasury bonds, it pumps dol-

lars into the economy. So far, this hasn't

stimulated much borrowing by anxious

households and cautious businesses.

Outstanding consumer credit has been

dropping since the summer of 2008. In

part, the Fed is "pushing on a string."

Banks have excess reserves of roughly

$1 trillion. But if all the cheap money

eventually spurred much higher eco-

nomic growth, many of these reserves

would turn into loans and raise the

specter of higher inflation-vtoo much

money chasing too few 'goods."

The Fed would then have to with-

draw or neutralize the added money

through higher interest rates. Adding

hundreds of billions more to banks'

excess reserves won't make' the job

easier. As important, there would be

enormous pressure on the Fed not

to raise rates while unemployment

remains high. Economist Allan Melt-

zer of Carnegie Mellon University,

author of a three-volume history of

the Fed, fears that the Fed will-as in

the 1960s and 1970s-wait too long.

"Sooner or later, we'll have a big infla-

tion," he says, "but not right away,

because there's ne demand now."

Economists seem split into twocamps. Some, like Paul Krugman, the

New York Times columnist, believe the

economy is so weak that the government

should do almost anything (bigger deft-

cits, more cheap credit) that might help

slightly; and others, like Meltzer, fear

that expedient measures now will lead

to bigger problems later. Between them,

there's an unstated common assump-

tion that there are no instant cures for

the economy's lethargy. The real Fed, it

turns out, is much less powerful thanthe mythologized Fed.

NEWSWEEK.COM m 21



High-Tech HogwashWhat's wrong with Silicon Valley libertarianism?BY JACOB WEISBERG

that giving women the vote wrecked the.

country and still be taken seriously, I sup-

pose it helps to hand out $100 bills.

.What differentiates Silicon Valley's

style oflibertarianism from Glenn Beck's

raving-weeping variety is its laissez-faire

attitude toward personal behavior and

the' lack of demagogic instinct. Thiel,

. who is openly gay, wants to flee the mob,

not rally it through

gold-hoarding or flag-

waving. Having given

up hope for the United

States, he writes that

he has decided to focus

"my efforts on new

technologies that may

create a new space for

freedom." Both Theil's

entrepreneurship and

his philanthropy are

animated by techno-

utopianism. With PayPal, he sought

to create a global currency beyond the

reach of taxation or central-bank policy.

He sees Facebook as a way to form vol-

untary supra-national communities.

Offline, Thiel is the lead backer of

Seasteading, a movement to create law-

free floating communes and explore

space, with the avowed aim of creating

new political structures even fartheroffshore. That could take some time,

but Thiel has a plan for that too. He

has given millions to the Methuselah

Foundation, which does research into

life-extension based. on the premise that

humans can live to be 1,000 years old. At

PayPal, he proposed making cryogenic

storage an employee perk.

It should be noted that Thiel has also

supported some good causes, like the

Comm.ittee to Protect Journalists. But

his latest crusade is his worst yet, andmore troubling than the possibility of~ -

an unfrozen-caveman venture capital-

ist awakening in the sznd century and

denianding his space capsule. The Thiel

Fellowship will give entrepreneurs

under age 20 a cash award of sioo.ooo todrop out of school and pursue their busi-

ness ideas. In announcing the program,

Thiel made clear his' contempt for U.S.

universities, which, like governments, he

believes, cost more than

they're worth and get in

the w~)1 of what really

matters in life, namely

tech startups.

Where to start with

this nasty idea? A basic

feature of Thiel's world

view is its' narcissism.

Thiel fellows will have

the opportunity to emu-

late their sponsor by

halting their-intellectual

development around the onset of adult-

hood, maintaining a narrow-minded

focus on getting rich as young as possible

and thereby avoid the siren lure of help-

ing others or pursuing knowledge for its

own sake. Thiel's premise is that' Amer-

ica suffers from a deficiency of entre-

preneurship. In fact, we may be on the

verge of the opposite: a startup bubble in

which too many weak ideas find fundingand every kid dreams of being the next

Mark Zuckerberg. 'I

There is, of course,' another model

of. Silicon Valley politics, which finds

its exemplars in the clean-tech race, in

Google's ~elf.driving cars, wind farms,

and Bill Gates's philanthropy. Zuckerberg

himself shows signs of actually caring

about other people, having just donated

$100 million to support change in New-

ark; N.J.'s blighted public-school system.

Tech prodigies. sometimes grow up late!Here's hoping Thiel will one day as well.

IF YOU'VE SEEN THE

Social Network, you

may have caught

a glimpse of Peter

Thiel. He was the

first outside inves-

tor in Facebook,

putting up $500,000

to finance the site's

original expansion in 2004. Inthe film's

version of events, he connives with

Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, to

deprive Mark Zuckerberg's friend Edu-

ardo Saverin ofhis 30percent stake in the

company. Aaron Sorkin's screenplay dev-

astates the German-born venture capital-

ist in a line: "We're in the offices of a guy

whose hero is Gordon Gekko."

While he clearly enjoys playing Richie

Rich-profilers have commented onhis McLaren supercar, his apartment

in the San Francisco Four Seasons, his

white-jacketed butler='I'hiel fancies

himself more than another self-indul-

gent tech billionaire. He has a vision,

and has lately been spending some of

the millions he has made on Facebook

and PayPal-which he founded-trying

to advance it.

Thiel's belief system is a mixture of

unapologetic selfishness and economic

Darwinism. In a personal statementproduced last year for the Cato Institute,

he announced: "I no longer believe that

freedom and democracy are' compati-

ble." The public, he says, doesn't support

unregulated, winner-take-all capital-

ism, and so he won't support the public

any longer. "Since 1920, the vast increase

in welfare beneficiaries and the exten-

sion of the franchise to women+two con-

stituencies that are notoriously tough fon

libertarians-have rendered the notion of

'capitalist democracy' into an oxymonon,."he writes. Ifyou want to go around saying

Thiel wants to

flee the mob, not

rally it through

gold-hoarding orflag-waving.

22 m OCTOBER 25. 20.10


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/news-week-october-25-2010 18/5224 m OCTOBER 25,2010.

~- 2010

10 Big Green

)

AT THE FIRST EARTH DAY PROTEST IN 1970, MARGARET MEAD, THE AMERICAN

anthropologist and proto-environmentalist, issued a call to action: "We have

to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something that's fragile, that's

. only one, it's all we have. We have to use our scientific knowledge to correct

the dangers thathave come from sc'ience and technology." Back in those early

days-long before we began driving hybrid cars and politicians started using

words.like "sustainability' and "carbon footprint" to win elections __V1eadand

her Earth Day comrades were on the fringe. Would she be surprisedto see how

mainstream the green movement is today? Probably not.Afterall, she oncesaid,

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can 'change

the world." ANit takes is a great idea. Here we've gathered 10 of those, alongwith the stories of thq thoughtful citizens who are trying to make them a reality.

ILLUSTRATIONS By'GRAFILU



•AKE A GREENER BURGER

WHO KNEW HAMBURGERS COULD WRECI<' THE PLANET?

That's what environmentalists say is happening, as ranch-

ers raze the Brazilian rainforest and their methane-emitting

cows foul the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. No one has

been more a target ofenvironmentalists' ire than Blairo Maggi.

Though known as a soybean tycoon, Maggi became BigBeef's

best friend as a two-time governor of Mato Grosso, the frontier

state that boasts Brazil's largest herds and has helped make that

nation the world's No.r.beef exporter. But this "developmental-

ista," who in 2005 won Greenpeace's Golden Chainsaw award'

for the havoc he had wreaked on the Amazon, has become Bra-

zil's latest tree-hugger. The talk in Maggi's corral is all about

"sustainable development," "carbon credits," "avoided defores-

tation" -and green beef. After signing on to a 2006 moratorium

on selling soybeans harvested.fromrecently deforested lands,

Maggi last year extended the ban to Amazon beef cattle. He has

urged ranchers and Brazil's giant meatpackers to clean up their

act, and: is even using satellites to monitor illegal clear-cutting

and burning of forests. Why Maggi's change of heart? It's smart

business. "The entire world has come to the conclusion that for-

ests should be worth more standing than cut down;" he often

says. "Farmers should get paid for that." -MAC MARGOLIS .

I NEWSWE:EK,COM [325



•NVEST

IN THEIMPROBABLE

THEY SAY GREAT RISK BRINGS GREAT REWARD. JUST ASK

Vinod Khosla, the Sun Microsystems cofounder who

became Silicon Valley's most vaunted venture capitalist.

These days, Khosla-is betting on green-tech startups, with

a $1 billion venture-capital fund called Khosla Ventures. "I

'like technologies that have a 90 percent chance of failure,"

he says. "Because a 10 percent chance of making 100 times

your money is better than an 80 percent chance of doubling

your money." He belie es huge breakthroughs begin with

highly improbable ideas-v=blaek swan technologies," he

calls them (a reference to assim Nicholas Taleb's theory

about the randomness and unpredictability of big events).

Khosla's flock includes in estments in battery-technology

startups like Recapping and Pellion, which he describes as

"some really long-shot things on electricity storage, some of

which are really not even batteries." He has also invested in a

company called Solum that's de eloping a measuring tool toenable farmers to use less fertilizer, thus reducing harmful

nitrogen runoff. "These are wa out there, flaky ideas" that

could take 10 to 15years to bear fruit. Luckily, he can afford

to be patient. -DANIEL LYONS

•ET OUTOF THE GULF

BEFORE THIS YEAR'S MASSIvE QIL SPILL, THE U.S. WAS GET-

ting 8 percent ofits oil from the Gulf of Mexico- a number that

translates to 1.6 million barrels each day. That statistic alone

helped oil executives persuade President Obama last week to

reopen the area. Demand, theysaid, is simply too high to keep

the rigs dry. But is it really? Jackie Savitz; a political-policy

26 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

analyst with the ocean-advocacy group Oceana, sees a fairly

simple way to get out of the gulf completely. For starters,

electrify 10 percent of America's cars by 2020 (we're already

at about 1percent). Switch oil-based power plants to clean

electric ones (there are only 105 of them). Update one quarter

of oil-heated homes to electric power (also doable; the num-

ber hasbeen decreasing). And phase in all available non-

feedstock biofuels (much of which are going unused). Total

barrels saved? Yep, 1.6million. The Alliance for Clean Energy

gave Oceana a grant this summer to implement the agenda,

which could be passed in pieces. And during a debate last

month, a senior Interior Department official admitted the

idea wasn't so farfetched. "The oil companies depend on all

of this stuff sounding really difficult," says Savitz. "But really,

it's not that hard." - DANIEL STONE

•CATCH

A WAVE

MORE THAN 70 PERCENT OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE IS COV-

ered by water, most of it in oceans that seethe and crash

around with pent-up energy. What if you could harness that

power? As many green venturers have discovered over the

years, catching a wave is no easy feat because the oceans are

so harsh on equipment and the energy produced is expensive. ,

Now, thanks (ironically) to Big 'Petroleum, the harvest of the

seas is at hand. The quest for oil and gas buried deep beneaththe ocean and the polar icecaps has yielded a new generation

ofmaterials and equipment that can withstand salt, gale-force

winds, giant waves, crushing water pressure, and thermal

shock. In March, 10 energy firms got the green light to set up

wave and tidal farms off the coast of Scotland, with plans to

generate enough electricity to power 750,000 homes by 201$.

Pilot plants have also been set up in Portugal, Indonesia,

Taiwan, and the Northeastern Seaboard of the United States

(insiders speak of the "Gulf of Maine"). The Marine Board of

the European Science Foundation recently concluded that

Europe could draw half its power from the seas by 2050. All

that's needed is for enough public and private investors to

take the plunge. -M.M.



HUG

A NUKE

ONE OF 'l1HE BIG PROBLEMS WITH NUCLEAR- ENERGY IS

that" to generate power, you first need to enrich uranium.

Enrichment is inefficient-some 92 percent of the original

uranium gets cast aside as "depleted uranium." Worse, once

you.start enriching uranium to make fuel, you can enrich itfurther to make material for bombs. But what if you could

make nuclear power that didn't need enriched uranium?

What about a reactor that runs on depleted uranium? That's

the idea behind TerraPower. "We've shown it can work,

through theoretical calculations and detailed computer sim-

ulations," says Nathan Myhrvold, CEO of Intellectual Ven-

tures, the Bellevue, Wash., "invention lab" where the ideas

behind TerraPower were hatched. Myhrvold was once chief

technology officer at Microsoft, and his longtime friend,

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, is among the investors in

TerraPower. The company consults with a network of 12.0

nuclear-power experts, and the plan is to get a test reactorrunning by 2020. Likely countries include China, India, Rus-

sia, Japan, and France. "We've had talks with all of them in

thelast few months," Myhrvold says. -D.L.

TURN SMOKE

7 IN TO ROCK S• 1 . : \

WE TALK A LOT ABOUT REDUCING CARBON DIOXIDE, TAXING

it, eliminating it. But there's a case to be made for keeping

CO2 around. Los Gatos, Calif.- based Calera has developed a

pro-cess that takes CO2

from a power-plant smokestack and

turns it into cement. The technology would reduce CO2 intwo ways-first by slashing power-plant emissions and then

by displacing the existing cement-making industry, which is

one of the biggest generators' of carbon dioxide. "That's the

cool part of this," says Randy Seeker, Calera's chief technol-

ogy officer. "We're getting a twofer." Calera's approach was

dreamed up by Brent Constantz, a Stanford science profes-

sor who studied how coral reefs are formed in nature (car-

bon dioxide mixes with calcium to form calcium carbonate)

and then found a way to mimic the process. Calera has a

pilot plant running in California, and another set to start

up in Wyoming next year; the goal, is 'to have commercial

plants running by 2013 or 2014. There are some big obsta-

cles, though: if the United States doesn't impose legislation

that pushes power plants to reduce carbon emissions, those

plants probably won't pay someone like Calera to keep theirsmokestacks clean. -D.L.

~

•RINK YOUR

GARBAGE

TO SOME, THE SMELL OF A LANDFILL IS SWEET. THAT'S

because the stuff we throwaway could help us save the

planet and turn a profit. Plastic is made of petroleum, so

finding ways to reuse it could make us less dependent on

oil. And the household electronics we discard are loaded

with elements like nickel, copper, and lithium, which one

day could be in short supply. Why not mine our own trash?

That's the plan in Belgium, where a British company,

Advanced Plasma Power, plans to start digging up land-

fill, in part to get at buried metals as well as methane gas

that could generate electricity. Axion international of New

Providence, N.J., has found a way fo craft pilings, beams,

and other building components out of recycled plastic.

How strong is it? At Fort Bragg, the UiS, Army has erected a

bridge for tanks out of railroad ties fashioned from Axion's

beams. Singapore last year-installed a system that turns

sewage into drinking water. But what if this process could

also make money? Mark Shannon .at the University of Illi-

nois is working on a device that can take human sewage and

turn it into fresh water, methane, and minerals that could be

sold on the open market. -MICHAEL KANELLOS

NEWSWEEK,COM m 27 '



[fCRO'BES LIVE IN FERMENTATION VATS, FEED ON FILTH,

and at the end of the week you can kill them off. In short, they

are the perfect employees. A raft of startups and established

multinationals have woken up to the power of metabolism-

the interaction that occurs when a living organism ingests

food and chemically converts it into something else. It's not

a new idea. For centuries, humanity has exploited yeast to

produce beer and cheese. But now companies are looking to

microbes to power your car. BioCee of Minneapolis is work-

ing on microbes that can soak up sunlight and carbon dioxide

and convert it into asubstitute forpetroleum. Stanford Uni-

versity has discovered a bug that uses sunlight to split water

into hydrogen and oxygen (which could make the hydrogen

economy touted in the 1990S a reality). Amyris of Emeryville,

Calif., has devised genetically modified yeast that produces

something close to gasoline. "We can engineer microbes to

do our bidding," says Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist atDraper, Fisher, jurvetson, which has invested in superbug

startups Genomatica and Synthetic Genomics. The down-

side? Superbugs are hard to create and hard to produce in

large volume, and don't survive well. - M.K.

SHOUT ITOUT LOUD

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF PROTEST. MA JUN,

a former investigative journalist for the South China Morning

Post, heads the Institute of Pub lie ami Environmental Affairs,

a tinyNGO run out ofa Beijing apartment that has taken on

some of the world's leading corporations. His NGO collects

government data about local suppliers that are violating envi-

28 r n OCTOBER 25, 2010

ronmental standards, and examines which Western multina-

tionals they're connected with. He then works with foreignnonprofits to pressure the likes of Nike, Levi Strauss, Apple,

and GE to clean up their act. In China, speaking up about

sensitive issues can sometimes be more hazardous to your

health than pollution. But Ma has succeeded. His group was

a catalyst behind Wal-Mart's well-publicized demand that its

top 1,000 Chinese suppliers improve their green footprint.

As he points out, the Chinese version oftheEPA has just 230

full-time staff looking after a country of 1.3billion, which is

whyjt's important to continue engaging the West around Chi-

nese environmental issues. "Americans should remember

that we are your backyard-our pol1uted waterways are your

mercury-laced toys. It's all c~9Pected." - RANA iFOROOHAR

LIGHTEN UP

THE BEST GREEN IDEAS ARE ONES THAT SAVE YOU MONEY,

right away, without any kind of government subsidy or legisla-

tion. And there's no better example of that than LED lighting.

Sure, LED bulbs cost more than traditional ones. But they also

save tons of money on electricity by sipping less juice to make

the same amount of light. "If you spend $100,000 to retrofit

a parking garage with LED lights, I, can save you $100,000 a

year ori electricity," says Charles Szoradi, CEO gfLED SavingsSolutions, in Devon, Pa. What's more, those LED bulbs will

last up to 10 years, so that $100,000 initial investment could

deliver $1million in gross savings. No wonder big companies

are jumping on the LED bandwagon, among them Wal-Mart,

which announced plans to put LED lights in 650 stores. That

deal and others like it are fueling a boom for Durham, N.C.-

based Cree Inc., which makes ,the- semiconductors used in

LED lights, as well as some LED bulbs of its own. After sev-

eral years of modest growth, Cree's, revenues have exploded.

Sales in the 2010 fiscal year, which ended in june; grew 53 per-

,cent to $867 million, and analysts expect sales to hit $1.2 billion

in the current year. With numbers like that, no one can deny

that environmentalism is a bright idea. - D.L.



G R ~ ~ N

R A N K I N G S I F O R A N I N T E R A C T I V E V E R S I O N O F T H E

N E W S W E E K G R E E N R A N K I N G S ,

I N C L U D I N G D A T A O N A L L 5 0 0 U .S . C O M P A N IE S

A N D 1 0 0 G L O B A L C O M P A N I E S , A S W E L L

A S A ~ ~ ~ : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~ ~ 0 ~ ~ E O E L K ~ g ~ , ~ 0 T O

T H E 1 0 0 G R E E N E S TC O M P A N E S N A M E R C ABY KATHLEEN DEVENY

WHEN JEFF SWARTZ, CEO OF TI {BER-

land, was buying computers for his

footwear-and-apparel company a few

years ago, he had questions for a sales-

man from Dell. "I told him that part of

how we decide is based on environmen-

tal stewardship," recalls Swartz. "The

salesman said, 'Our founder is very

serious about running our business

that way. I'll ask him to call you.' Right,

thought Swartz. M ic hael D ell is go ing to

c all m e ..But that's exactly what happened.

Dell called Swartz. and explained his

theories of environmentalism and fru-

gality: that minimizing waste is good

for the bottom line. "I was impressed,"

Swartz says. So much so that .Timber-

land gave its business to Dell,

It's an example of the kind ofcommit-

ment that helped Dell earn the NO.1spot

in NEWSWEEK'S 2010 Green Rankings.

Dell got high marks for its strong envi-

ronmental policies, including free recy-

cling of products worldwide and a ban

on the' export of e-waste to developing ,

countries. But while feel-good policies

may win the trust of potential custom-

. ers, offering more efficient products

~closes the sale. And Dell has figured out

how to do both, designing desktops and

laptops that consume 25 percent less

energy than systems produced in 2008.

Dell figures these efforts, along with

MSCIESG Research

A L EA D I N G S O U R C E O F E N V IR O NM E N T A L ,

S O C IA L, A N D G O VE R N A N C E R A T IN G S .

others, have saved its customers more

than $5 billion in energy costs over the

past few years.

Tech 'companies dominated this

year's Green Rankings-in part because

they make low-impact products, like

software, that inevitably have a smaller

environmental footprint than, say, a util-

ity (though PG&E did hit No. 20 on the

list, thanks to a commitment to renew-

able energy). But bottom-line consider-

ations are a big part of what's drivingtech companies in the green direction.

Intheir quest to create products that are

cheaper to manufacture and operate,

tech firms are devising solutions that

have the added benefit of saving energy

or reducing waste. Hewlett-Packard,

No.2, says its current IT systems use 66

percent less energy than those designed

in 2005. "A lot of the innovation in this

space is coming out of business pres-

. sure," says Michael Mendenhall, HP's

chief marketing officer.

For many tech companies, cooling

their data centers requires enormous

amounts of energy. Yahoo, NO.9, has

been a leader in designing environmen-

tally sustainable data centers, including

,a new facility in New York that consumes

40 percent less electricity and 94 percent

less water-enough to provide drinking

water for 200,000 people for a year-

than conventional data centers.

NEWSWEEK'S goal in these rank-

ings is to quantify companies' actual

environmental footprint, policies, and

reputation. To accomplish this; we

joined forces with top environmen-

tal researchers: MSCI ESG Research,

which tracks environmental, social, and

governance data; Trucost, which spe-

cializes in quantitative measurements of

environmental performance; and Cor-

porateRegister.com, the world's largest

directory of sustainability and environ-mental reports. Our editorial partner,

ASAP Media, founded by Peter Bern-

stein and Annalyn Swan, coordinated

the project.

We started with the 500 largest pub-

licly traded U.S. companies, as meas-

ured by revenue, market capitalization,

and number of employees. Then we

gave each one of them a Green Score,

.which is calculated using the following

three component scores. The Environ-

mental Impact Score, compiled by Tru-

cost, is based on more than 700 metrics,

including greenhouse-gas emissions,

water use, and solid-waste disposal.

The Green Policies Score is based on

data collected by MSCI ESG Research,

and reflects an, analytical assessment

of a company's environmental policies

and initiatives. The Reputation Score

is based on' a survey of academics,

environmental officers, and CEOs. To

'CorporateRegister.comT H E W O R L D 'S L AR G E S T O N L IN E D IR E C TO R Y O F

C O M P A N Y - I S S U E D E N V IR O N M EN T A L R E P O R T S .S P E C IA L I S T S I N C R EA T I N G M A G A Z I N E ,

B O O K , A N D O N LI N E C O N T E N T ,

M E A S U RE S Q U A N TI T A T IV E E N V I R O N M E N T A L

P E R FO R M A N CE ( TR U C O ST .C O M ) .

ASAP

- ,NEWSWEEK.COM m 29



calculate a company's overall ranking,

the three component score were stan-

dardized, combined u ing a weighted

average (45 percent for the Environ-

mental Impact core. 45 percent for the

Green Policie core, and 10percent for

the Reputation urvey), and mapped to

a roo-point cale.

e made two important changes to

the methodology this year: we included

a measure of how much data each com-

pany eli closes in its Environmental

Impact core, and for financial-services

firms ~'e considered the environmental

footprint of companies in their invest-

ment and lending portfolios. Because of

the e changes, the scores are not com-

parable to the 2009 rankings.

The methodology was created in

consultation with an advisory panel,whose members served independently of

their respective organizations. Panelists

30 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

include John Elkington, executive

chairman of Volans and cofounder of

Sustain.Ability; Daniel Esty; Hillhouse

professor of, environmental law and

'policy at"Yale University'; Majorie Kelly,

senior associate at the Tellus Institute

and cofounder of Business Ethics; Tom

Murray, a managing' director in the

Environmental Defense Fund's Cor-

porate Partnerships Program; Wood

Turner, executive director of Climate

Counts; David Vidal, research director

of Global Corporate Citizenship at the

Conference Board; and Deborah Wince-

Smith, president anti CEO of the Coun-

cil on Competitiveness.

The companies listed here represent

the 100best performers ranked on their

overall Green Score. For the complete

U.S. 500 ranking and a comprehen-sive explanation of methodology, go to

greenrankings.newsweek.com. 0

Wor ldwide

fo otp rin t, b as ed

on m ore than

700 rnetrics,

I N D U S T R Y C O L O R C O D E

C on su m er P ro du cts , C ars

• • • • 1 1 F inanc ia l Se rv ic e s

lllilllllll Fo od a nd Bev er age

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1General lndustrials

•••• H ealth Care

1 1 1 . 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I nd us tr ia l Go od s

•••• O ilandGas

. 1 1 1 1 1 1 Pharmaceut ica ls

•••• R eta il

• • 1 1 1 1 1 Technology

14••1 1 1 1 Transport.Aerospace

A comp r ehens iv e

a sse ssm en t o f

env i ronmenta l

init iat ives.

O v er al l g re e n

p erfo rm a nc e, b as ed

on t he p re v io u s

t hr ee s co re s .

Based on a po ll o f

sustainabil i tyof f icers,

a c a d e m i c s , a n ,e jC E O s .



98.86

;ogl:es~;iveclimate-change poli-

surpassed itsgoal withfor reducing waste,

Titusville, N . J . , facility.

NEWSWEEK,COM m 31



T H E L S Tu . s . RANKINGS 11-100

R A N K ' C O M P A N YG R E E N

S C O R E R A N K C O M P A N Y

G R E E N 'S C O R E

FOR THE COMPLETE RANKINGS OF ALL 500 U.S. COMPANIES, GOTO GREENRANKINGS.NEWSWEEK.COM.

FOR MORE ANALYSIS OF EACH COMPANY AND INDUSTRY, BUY A 2010-2011 GREEN RAN KINGS BUSINESS REPORT AT WW

32 m OCTOBER 25, .2010



R A N K C O M P A N YG R E E N

S C O R E R A N K C O M P A N Y

, ; - : ":.'

_ _ , ~ ;r.~,J, '

G R E E N

. S C O R E

EWSWEEK.COM/GREENREPORT. USE COUPON CODE GR2010NW TO RECEIVE A 10 PERCENT DISCOUNT.



G L O B A LTHE 25 GREENESTCOMPANIES IN THE WORLDTHI YEAR;EW EK_~;nIT RESEARCH PARTNERS HAVE

expanded the Gre n Rankings to analyze the 100 biggest

companie w. rI "ide. IB~[, with its commitment to reduc-

ina greenhouse-ga emissions, earned the No.1 spot. This

rankine 0 p blic companies in developed and emerging mar-

ket u es the same rigorous methodology as the u.s. rank-ina. But beca e companies are scored relative to each other,

and becaus the composition of this list is different from the

.companies that appear on both lists score differently.

G R E E N

S C O R E

34 m OCT-OBER 25, 2010

FOR THE COMPLETE RAN KINGS OF ALL 100 GLOBAL COMPANIES, GOTO GREENRANKINGS.NEWSWEEK.COM



T R U E G R E E NG O O D G U I D E 'S M IS S I O N I S T O H E L P S H O P P E R S P I C K T H E G R E E N E S T

S H A M P O O O R T O O T H P A S T E , B U T I S T H A T A B U S I N E S S ?

BY IAN YARETT

ONE SUNNY MORNING IN 2004, DARA O'ROURKE WAS PUTTING

sunscreen on his z-year-old daughter's face when he had a dis-

turbing thought. As a professor of environmental policy at the

University of California, Berkeley, he'd spent years studying the

global supply chains for products like electronics and shoes. But

he had no idea exactly what he was smearing on his daughter.

The thought spurred O'Rourke=who'd made headlines in

1997 for exposing problems with Nike's labor practices-to

action. Back in his lab at Berkeley, he found that the sunscreen-

a top-selling brand-included a hormone-disrupting chemical,

a suspected carcinogen activated by sunlight, and several skin

irritants. "I'm a total nerd+I not only read ingredient lists but

study factories in China, Vietnam, EI Salvador," he says. "Yet I

still didn't know what I was bringing into my house every day."

O'Rourke enlisted the help of some of his students and

launched Good Guide, a Web-based system that rates con-sumer products-personal care, food, household cleaners,

and toys, so far-son their health, environmental, and social

impacts. O'Rourke's idea is to take academic-quality research

and make it accessible to average people, empowering them to

find healthier, greener products. Today the company provides

ratings for more than 75,000 items. Last month 300,000 people

visited its site, and its free iPhone app-which lets consumers

scan bar codes to pull up product ratings-has been down-

loaded half a million times.

TOOTHPASTEBEST BRANDS, ACCORDING TO GOODGUIDE; A PERFECT SCORE IS 10

LA UN DR Y D ETE RG EN TBEST BRANDS, ACCORDING TO GOODGUJDE; A PERFECT SCORE IS 10

Most U.S.consumers say they want environmentally respon-

sible products-soc percent by one recent study. Yet far feweractually buy them, and higher cost isn't the only obstacle. As

the number of "green" products on store shelves explodes-up

72 percent over the last year at a representative group of big-box

retailers, according to the environmental marketing firm

TerraChoice-consumers are increasingly wary of greenwash-

ing. "There's massive confusion about what it means to be

green," says Chuck Maniscalco, the CEO ofSeventh Generation.

GoodGuide's initial challenge was a scientific one: to develop

a useful ratings system based on credible science. The com-

pany's product information-and the software it built to

process it-is highly respected by industry experts. The Good-

Guide system draws data from 300 sources-including firms

that do socially responsible investing research, scientific.insti-

tutions like the EPA, academic studies" company Web sites,

and others-to score produets on up to 1,500 individual crite-

ria. GoodGuide's scientists determine the relative importance

of each of these metrics for evaluating each product category,

and those weightings are used to boil down the raw data into

simple ratings on a lO-point scale. "It's the current state of the

art," says Daniel Goleman, author of E co logi cal In te ll ige nce , a

book about the hidden impacts ofwhat we buy. .

Now GoodGuide's challenge is to turn its science into a

business. O'Rourke is committed to keeping the service free

to consumers, but that means the company, which is sup-

ported by $9.2 million invested by venture capitalists, must

NEWSWEEK.COM m 35



SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

find other ways of generating revenue,

GoodGuide has discovered that retailers

and manufacturers are interested in its

data for market and product-develop-

ment research-and about a dozen of

them are already paying to use it.

Experts say that GoodGuide'sratings

are the best available=for now. Wal-

Mart announced in July 2009, that it

plans to assess the ecological footprintof its supply chain and produce a prod-

uct-rating system aimed at consumers.

Green products and transparency are

"not only good for the environment and

society buf a. good business strategy,"

says Matt Kistler, a senior vice president

at Wal-Mart. "The customer of tomor-

row will, seek more information about

.the products they buy, and providing

more information will make manufac-

turers more competitive in the future."

Yet Kistler says Wal-Mart's consumer

ratings are at least two years off.

Meanwhile, GoodGuide has made



SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

a splash disproportionate to its small

size. Major manufacturers, including ,

Clorox, have .reaehed out-to G(i)odGuide

to either providedataor t o get a better"

idea of what information consumers

want to know about their company and

products. "We were shocked by how

quickly big companies have realized

the relevance of GoodGuide,'" saysWil-

Ham Rosenzweig, managing director of

Physic Ventures, a GoodOuide investor ..

GoodGuide recently brought In a new

CEO with experience growing Web busi- '

nesses to help guide the company through

its next phase of development. It is add-

ing asocial-networking component that

,will allow users to consider both the hard

, data and opinions oftrusted friends when

making a purchasing decision. And the

company claims thousands of people

have switched.brands as a result of the-~ite and app, Itseems that the company.is

doing goed-sbut.it.remains to be seen if

it can do well. ,D,



SINCE WINNING THE REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN,

Delaware last month, Christine O'Donnell has noLh~dl ! I ; $ + " . . ' " . " . . · ·• . ; , ' 1 , . . . . . . . ' I I ' . '

trouble gett~ng'hnticed.Wnen tn~Y,rreaarty;iGoi1:.almit-

ted to "dabbl[ing]' into witchcraft" as a youngster, the

press went wild. When she revealed that she was "not a

witch" after all, the response was rabid. O'Donnell has

fudged her academic credentials, defaulted on her mort-

gage, sued a former employer, . a . l 1 d campaigned .a'; '··st, . .

masturbation, and her eff6rts h~~¢been rewarde 'th

round-the-clock coverage. Yet few observers seem.to

have given her views on the United States Constitu-

tion the same level of consideration, Which is too bad,

Donnell's Tea party take on our fo,p,nd,-

BY ANDREW ROMANO



the candidate further back than Beck. The last time

poke to 2,000

a the annual Values

Voter ummi in ashington, D.C. She

wore a b . and pearls, and swept

on stage 10 e sound ofJourney's "Don'tStop Bell . .•• fost of the speech was

unremarkable: a laundry list of conser-

vative pta· des. But near the end she

zeered into tranger-and more reveal-

ing=territory O'Donnell once told voters

that er 0.1" qualification for the Sen-

ate' an eight-day course, she took at a

conservative think tank in 2002.,Now she

asrevisiting its subject: the Constitution.

he Founders' masterpiece, O'Don-

nell said, isn't just a legal document; it's a

"covenant" based on "divine principles."For decades, she continued, the agents of'

"anti-Americanism" who dominate "the

D.C. cocktail crowd" have disrespected

the hallowed document. But now, finally,

in the "darker days" of the Obama admin-

istration, "the Constitution is making a

comeback." Like the "chosen people of

Israel," who "cycle[d] through periods

of blessing and suffering," the Tea Party

has rediscovered America's version of

"the Hebrew Scriptures" and led the

country into "a season of constitutional

repentance." Going forward, O'Donnell

P O L IT I C A L O P P O N E N T S ,

B E C K S A Y S , A I M ' T O

S E P A R A T E U S F R O M

O U R C O N S T I T U T I O N

A N D G O D . '

declared, Republicans must champion

the ''American values" enshrined in our

sacred text. "There are more of us than

there are of them," she concluded.

By now, O'Donnell's rhetoric should

sound familiar. In part that's because her

fellow Tea Party patriots-Glenn Beck, '

Sarah Palin, the guy at the rally in the tri-

, corn hat-also refer to the Constitution

as-if it were a holy instruction manual

that was lost, but now, thanks to them,is found. And yet the reverberations go

40 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

America elected a new Democratic presi-

dent, in 1992,the Republican Party's then-

dominant insurgent group used identical

language to describe the altogether dif-

ferent document that defined their causeand divided them from the heretics in

charge: the Bible. The echoes of the reli-

gious right in O'Donnell's speech-the

Christian framework, the resurrection

narrative, the "us vs. them" motif, the

fixation on "values" -aren't coincidental.

From a legal perspective, there's a case

to be made that O'Donnell's argument is

inaccurate. The Constitution is a relent-

lessly secular document that never once

mentions God or Jesus. And nothing in

recent jurisprudence suggests that the pastfew decades of governing have been any

less constitutional than the decades that

preceded them. But the Tea Party's lan-

guage isn't legal, and neither is its logic.It's

moral: right vs. wrong. What O'Donnell &

Co.are really talking about is culture war.

When Barack Obama took office,

experts rushed to declare an end to

the old battles over race, religion, and

reproductive rights-whether because

of Obama's alleged healing powers, or

the Great Recession, or both. But these

analyses ignored an important reality: at

heart, the culture wars were really never

about anything as specific as abortion or

gay marriage. Instead, as James Davison

Hunter wrote in C u lt ur e W a r s, the book

that popularized the term, the conflicts

of the 1990S represented something big-

ger: "a struggle over ... who we have

been ... who we are now, and ... who we,

as a nation, will aspire" to be. Such con:

flicts, Hunter explained, pit "orthodox"

Americans, who like the way things

were, against their more "progressive"

peers, who are comfortable with the way

things are becoming. '

For the forces of orthodoxy, the elec-

tion of a black, urban, liberal Democrat

with a Muslim name wasn't a panacea

-a t all; it was a provocation. So when

the recession hit, and new economic

anxieties displaced the lingering social

concerns of the Clinton era, politi-

cal fundamentalists sought refuge in amore relevant scripture-one that could

still be made to accommodate the sim-

pler, surer past they longed for but hap-

pened to dwell on taxes and government

instead of sinning and being saved.

The Constitution was waiting. Today,

Tea Party activists gather to recite the

entire document to each other. They

demand that a wayward America return ,

to its Constitutional roots. They even travel

to Colonial Williamsburg and ask the

actor playing George Washington how to

topple a tyrannical government. In short,

they take their Constitution worship

very, very seriously. The question now is

whether the rest ofus should as well.

Contemporary Constitution wor-

shipers claim that they've distilled their

entire political platform-lower taxes,

less regulation, minimal federal govern-

ment-directly from the original text of

the founding document. Any overlap

with mainstream conservatism is inci-

dental, they say; they're simply following

the Framers' precise instructions. If this

were true, it would be quite the politi-cal coup: oppose us, the Tea Party could



claim, and you're opposing James Madi-son. But the reality is that Tea Partiers

engage with the Constitution in such a

selective manner, and for such nakedly

political purposes, that they're clearly

relying on it more as an instrument of

self-affirmation and political division

than a source of policy inspiration.

I N I I E G A L circles,co~sti~tional~-, L damentalism IS nothing

new. For decades, scholars and judges

have debated how the founding docu-ment should factor into contemporary

legal proceedings. Some experts believe

in a so-called living Constitution-a set

of principles that, while admirable and

enduring, must be interpreted in light

of present-day social developments in

order to be properly upheld. Others

adhere to originalism, which is the idea

that the ratifiers' original meaning is

fixed, knowable, and clearly articulated

in the text of the Constitution itself.

While conservatives generally preferthe second approach, many disagree

o er how it should be implemented-including the Supreme Court's most

committed originalists, Antonin Scalia

and Clarence Thomas. Thomas sym-

pathizes with a radical version of origi-

nalism known as the Constitution in

Exile. Inhis view, the Supreme Court of

the 1930S unwisely discarded the 19th-

century's strict judicial limits on Federal

power, and the only way to resurrect the

"original" Constitution-and regain our

unalienable rights-is by rolling back the

welfare state, repealing regulations, andperhaps even putting an end to progres-

sive taxation. In contrast, Scalia is will-

ing to respect precedent-even though it

sometimes departs from his understand-

ing of the Constitution's original mean-

ing. His caution reflects a simple reality:

that upending post-1937 case law and

reversing settled principles would prove

extremely disruptive, both in the courts

and society at large. As Cass Sunstein, a

centrist legal scholar at the University of

Chicago who now serves inthe Obamaadministration, has explained, "many

decisions ofthe Federal Communications

Commission, the EnvironmentafProtec-

tion Agency, the Occupational Safety and

Health Administration, and possibly the

National Labor Relations Board would

be [ruled] unconstitutional" if Thomasgot his way. Social Security could be

eliminated. Same goes for the Securi-

ties and Exchange Commission and the

Federal Reserve. Individual states might

be allowed to establish official religions.

Even minimum-wage and maximum-

hour laws would be jeopardized.

Tea Partiers tend to sound more like

Thomas than Scalia. Every weekday on

Fox News, Glenn Beck-"the most highly

regarded individual among Tea Party

supporters," according to a recent poll-

takes to his schoolroom chalkboard to

rail against progressives like Wood-

rowWilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"They knew they had to separate us from

our history," he says, "to be able to sepa-

rate us from our Constitution and God."

In Beck's view, progressives forsook the

faithful Christian Founders and forced

the country to adopt a slew of unconsti-

tutional measures that triggered our long

decline into Obama-era totalitarianism:the Federal Reserve System, Social Secu-

T H E C O U N T R Y H A S

E N T E R E D I N T O

' A S E A S O N O F

C O N S T I T U T I O N A L

R E P E N T A N C E /S A Y S O ' D O N N E L L .

rity, the graduated federal income tax.

True patriots, according to Beck, favor

a pre-progressive vision of the United

States. When Nevada Senate nominee

Sharron Angle says we need to "phase

out" Social Security and Medicare; when

Alaska Senate nominee Joe Miller asserts

that unemployment benefits are "uncon-

stitutional"; when West Virginia Senatenominee John Raese declares that the

NEWSWEEK,COM m 4: 1



minimum wage should "absolutely" be

abolished; when Kentucky Senate nomi-

nee Rand Paul questions the legality ofthe

Civil Rights Act of 1964; when Minne-

sota Rep. Michele Bachmann claims that

Obama's new health-insurance law vio-lates the Constitution; and when various

Tea party candidates say they want to

repeal the amendments that triggered the

federal income tax and the direct election

of senators-this is the vision they're pro-

moting. At times, the Tea Party can seem

like a popularized, politicized offshoot of

the Constitution in Exile movement.

Over the years critics have lodged

dozens of objections to originalism-the

disagreements among the Founders; the

preservation ofslavery in the final product;

the inclusion ofan amendment process-

and they apply to the Tea party's inter-

pretation of the Constitution, too. But at

least originalism is a rational, consistent

philosophy. The real problem with the Tea

party's brand ofConstitution worship isn't

that it's too dogmatic. It's that it isn't dog·

matic enough. In recent months, TeaParty

candidates have behaved inways that belie

their public commitment to combating

progressivism. They've backed measures

that blatantly contradict their originalist

mission. And they've frequently misun-

derstood or misrepresented the Constitu-

tion itself. In May, for example, Paul told

a Russian television station that America

"should stop" automatically granting citi-

zenship to the native-born children ofille-

gal immigrants. Turns out his suggestion

would be unconstitutional, at least accord-

ing to the iath Amendment (1868) and a

pair of subsequent Supreme Court deci-

sions. A few weeks later, Paul said he'd like

T H E C O N S T I T U T IO N

' A C K N O W L E O G [ E S I

T H A T O U R U N A L I E N A B L E

R IG H T S . . . C O M E F R O M

G O O , " P A t i N S A Y S .

42 m OCTOBER 25: 2010

to prevent federal contractors from lobby-

ing Congress-a likely violation of their

First Amendment right to redress. InJuly,

Alaska's Miller told ABC News that unem-

ployment benefits are not "constitutionally

authorized." Reports later revealed thathis wife claimed unemployment in 2002.

The list goes on. In last week's Dela-

ware Senate debate, O'Donnell was asked

to name a recent Supreme Court case she

disagreed with. "Oh, gosh," she stam-

mered, unable to cite a single piece of evi-

dence to support her Constitution in

Exile talking points. "I know that there

are a lot, but, uh, I'll put it up on my Web

site, I promise you." Angle has said that

"government isn't what our Founding

Fathers put into the Constitution" -even

though establishing a federal government

with the "Power To lay and collect Taxes"

to "provide for the common Defence and

general Welfare" is one of the main rea-

sons the Founders created a Constitution

to replace the weak, decentralized Arti-

cles of Confederation. In 2008 Palin-

favorite Founder: "all of them" =told

Katie Couric that the Constitution does,

in fact, guarantee "an inherent right to

privacy," a la Ro e v. W ade, but added that

"individual states ... can handle an issue

like that." Unfortunately, Palin's theory

would only be possible in a world without

the Fourteenth Amendment (again, 1868),

which gaveWashington sole responsibil-

ity for safeguarding all constitutional

rights. And most Tea Partiers claim that

the ioth Amendment, which says "the

powers not delegated" to the federal gov-

ernment are "reserved to the states," is

proof that the Framers would've balked

at today's bureaucracy. What they don'tmention is that James Madison refused a

motion to add the word "expressly" before

"delegated" because "there must neces-

sarily be admitted powers by implication."

Then there are the proposed amendments.

In the current Congress, conservatives like

Michele Bachmann have suggested more

than 40 additions to the Constitution: a

flag-desecration amendment; a balanced-

budget amendment; a "parental rights"

amendment; a supermajority-to-raise-

taxes amendment; anti-abortion amend-ment; an anti-gay-marriage amendment;

and so on. None of these revisions has

anything to do with the document's orig-

inal meaning.

The truth is that for all their talk of

purity, politicians like Palin, Angle, and

Miller don't seem to be particularly con-

cerned with matching their actual posi-J!tions to the Constitution they proress to

worship. For them, the sacred text serves

a higher purpose-and in the end; that

purpose isn't hard to pinpoint.

S I N C E T H E ;:~~~~~c,di~e~ic~~:

have, like the Tea Partiers, spoken of

the Constitution in religious terms. In

1792, Madison wrote that "common

reverence ... should . guarantee, with

a holy zeal, these political scriptures I

from every attempt to add to or dimin-

ish from them." George Washington's

Farewell Address included a plea that

the Constitution "be, sacredly main-

tained." In his Lyceum speech of 1838,

Abraham Lincoln cited the documents the source of "the political religion



of the nation" and demanded that its

laws be "religiously observed." In 1968,

Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black

called the Constitution his "legal bible,"

and a few years later, during Richard

Nixon's impeachment hearings, Texas

Rep. Barbara Jordan testified that her

"faith in the Constitution is whole." But

the similarity between these figures and

the Tea Partiers ends at the level of Ian-

guage. For leaders like Lincoln and Jor-

dan, the Constitution is a symbol "that.suppl[ies] an overarching sense ofunity

even in a society otherwise riddled with

conflict," as sociologist Robin Williams

once wrote. It is an integrative force-

the cornerstone ofour civil religion.

The Tea Partiers belong to a different

tradition - a tradition of divisive funda-

mentalism. Like other fundamental-

ists, they seek refuge from the

complexity and confusion of modern

life in the comforting embrace of an

authoritarian scripture and the imag-ined past it supposedly represents.

Like other fundamentalists, they see in

their good book only what they want to

see: confirmation of their preexisting

beliefs. Like other fundamentalists,

they don't sweat the details, and they

ignore all ambiguities. And like other

fundamentalists, they make enemies or

evildoers of those who disagree with

their doctrine. In the 1930S,the Ameri-

can Liberty League opposed FDR's

New Deal by flogging its version of

the Constitution with what historian

Frederick Rudolph once described as"a worshipful intensity." In the 1960s,

the John Birch Society imagined a vast

communist conspiracy in similar terms.

In 1992 conservative activists formed

what came to be known as the Constitu-

tion Party-Sharron Angle was once a

member-in order to "restore American

jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations

and to limit the federal government to its

Constitutional boundaries." Today,

Angle asserts that "separation of church

and state is an unconstitutional doc-trine," and Palin claims that "the Con-

stitution ... essentially acknowledg[es]

that our unalienable rights ... come

from God." The point is always the

same: to suggest that the Constitution,

like the Bible, decrees. what's right and

wrong (rather than what's legal andillegal), and to insist that only they and

their ilk can access its truths. We are

moral, you are not; we represent Amer-

ica, you do' not. Theirs is the rallying

cry of culture war.

The Tea Partiers are right to revere

the Constitution. It's a remarkable, even

' G O V E R N M E N T I S N 'T

W H A T O U R F O U N D I N G

F A T H E R S P U T I N T O

T H E C O N S T I T U T I O N , '

A N G L E I N S I S T S .

.mir~cplous document. But there are'

many Constitutions: the Constitution of

1789,of 1864, of 1925,of 1936,of 1970,of

today. Where O'Donnell &Co.gowrong

is in insisting that their imagined, ideal-

ized document is the country's one true

Constitution, and that dissenters are

somehow un-American. By putting the

Constitution front and center, the Tea

Party has reignited a long-simmering

argument over who we are and who

wewant to be. That's great. But to truly

honor the Founders' spirit, they have to

make room for actual debate. As usual,

Thomas Jefferson put it best. In a let-

ter to a friend in 1816,he mocked "men[who] look at constitutions with sancti-

monious reverence, and-deem them like

the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be

touched"; "who ascribe to the men of

the preceding age a wisdom more than

human, and suppose what they did to

be beyond amendment." "Let us-follow

no such examples, nor weakly believe

that one generation is not as capable as

another of taking -care of itself, and of

ordering its own affairs," he concluded.

"Each generation is as independentas the one preceding, as that was of all

which had gone before." Amen. 0

NEWSWEEK.COM m ' 43



The neuroscientist and ra tiona lis t bas made h isna f!le attackin

AM HARRIS, A MEMBER

of the tribe known as "the

new atheists," wishes the

headline to this story

said something else.

How about "Sam Harris

Believes in Spirituality,"

he suggests over lunch. Or "Sam HarrisBelieves in ~God,'I'with scare quotes?

In any case" Sam Harris-sa.hero to the

growing numbers of Americans who

check the atheist box on opinion polls-

concedes he believes I in semeshing

certain people would call "God." In a

related thought, he raises the topic of his

next project: a spirituality guide tenta-

tively titled T h e Jll us io n o / th e S el f. Based

on Harris's own "spiritual journey,"Jt

will "[celebrate] the spiritual.aspect of

human existence [and explain] how wecan live moral and spirituah lives with-

out religion," according toa .statement

44'(3 OCTOBER 25, 2010

from his -publisher; Free Press. It's sur-

prising. One hardly expects Harris, a

hyperrational polemicist, to veer into

the realm of spiritual self-help.

Spirituality is not a new interest of

Harris's, however. A careful reader will

have noticed fhat though he's often been

lumped together with the rabble-rousersDaniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and

Christopher Hitchens (all ar~ advisers to

his nonprofit grump Project Reason), and

though he continues to insist that reli-

gious faith is possibly the most destruc-

tive force in the' world, he shuns the label

"atheist," Harris placesireasen at the

apex of human abilities and achievement,

but he concedes that there's much that

humans may never: empirically know-

like what happens after death. "Mys- '

tery," he wrote in the concluding chapterof Th e' E nd o f F aith , published in 2004,

"is ineradicable from our circumstance,

BY .LISA MILLER "7-,:-

because however much we know, it

seems like there will always be brute facts

that we cannotaccount for but which

we must rely on to explain everything

else." For Mispraise of the contemplative

experience in T be E nd o f F a ith , Harris has

received criticism from atheists.

!Harris is in town promoting T he Mor a !Landscape, his new book. Bven here, he

briefly explores the connections between

spiritual experience-especially an expe=

rience of selflessness-and human hap-

piness. "I see nothing irrational about

seeking the states of mind that lie at the

core of many rellgionsvCompassion,

awe, devotion and feelings of oneness are

surely among the most-valuable expe-

riences a person can .have," he writes.

Over Iuneh; he says 'with a smile how

much. he 100ks forward to working em

the next :project, which will allow him

te pull.back.rafte« six long years, 'and



relig iou s faith . W h o knew he w as so sp iritu al?

focus on things that support human

flourishing. "Ecstasy,rapture, bliss, con-

centration, a sense of the sacred-I'm

comfortable with allofthat," says Harris

later. "I think all of that is indispensable

and I think it's frankly lost on much of

the atheist community."

The answer to the question "Do you

believe in God?" comes down to this: It

depends on what you mean by "God."

The God Harris doesn't believe in is, as

he puts it, a "supernatural power" and

"a personal deity who hears prayers and

takes an interest in how people live."

This God and its subscribers he finds

unreasonable. But he understands that

M many people-especially in progres-

~ sive corners of organized religion and

§ 5 among the "spiritual but not religious" -1z often mean something else. They equate~iD God with "love" or "justice" or "singing in

~ chu rch" or "that feeling I get on a w a l k in

the woods," or even "the awesome aspects

of existence I'll never understand."

According to a 2008 study by the Pew

Forum on Religion and Public Life, a

quarter of Americans believe that God

is "an impersonal force." Among Cath-

olics, the Eastern Orthodox, and the

unaffiliated, the number rises to a third.

Among Jews, it's half. In a Gallup study

done' in May, 9 percent of respondents

said they believe.in a God who doesn't

answer prayers.

When polled about God, "people sub-

stitute in their own ideas," says John

Green, senior research adviser at Pew.

"People have a vague, fuzzy notion oftran-

scendence, and they substitute God for

it... When you try to make the defini-

tion more specific, fewer people answer

in the affirmative." Or put another way,

"If you let the concept of God float a

little bit, almost everybody is a theist,"

says Stephen Prothero, author of God

Is Not One. What Sam Harris believes

in-rationality, morality, transcendence,

humility, awe, community, selflessness,

and love-meets a fairly common def-

inition of God.

Harris says he became interested in

spiritual and philosophical questions

while an undergraduate at Stanford

University. At 18,he experimented with

the drug ecstasy and was struck by the

possibility that the human mind-his

own mind-might be able to achieve a

state ofloving unselfishness without the

help of drugs. So he left college and trav-

eled to India and Nepal, where he stud-

ied with Hindu and Buddhist teachers

who could help him attain a kind of

peace and selflessness through medi-

tation. Over the next 10 years, he readreligion and philosophy on his own and

spent weeks and months-adding up to

two years-in silent retreat.

He finally returned to Stanford to

complete a philosophy degree. Though

he prefers the Eastern mystics, he sees

some wisdom in the Western mystical

tradition as well. "If I open a page of [the

13th-century Christian mystic] Meister

Eckhart, I often know what he's talking

about." Harris pursued a doctorate in

neuroscience because he hoped sciencewould give him the tools to rationally

explore human experience.

Harris's true obsession, then, is not

God but consciousness, the idea that the

human mind can be taught-trained,

rationally-to bemore loving, more gener-

ous, less egocentric than it is in its natural

state. And though he knows that he can

sound like a person who believes in God,

he thinks that God is the wrong word to

describe his beliefs. "There's a real prob-

lem with the word," he says, "because it

shields the genuinely divisive doctrines

and believers from criticism. If the God

of the 25 percent is incredibly valuable,

which it is; and it's actually worth real-

izing, which it is; and it's something we

can talk about rationally, which it is; then

calling it 'God' prevents you from criticiz-

ing all the divisive nonsense that comes

with religion." Believing in transcen-

-dence is not the same thing as believ-

ing that you'll get virgins in paradise if

you blow yourself up-and Sam Harris

wants to be clear about that 0

NEWSWE:EK.CQM m ~5



I RELIGION I RUSSIA

THE WAR LORD

THE K R E M L IN 'S P O S T E R B O Y F O R M O D E R A T E

IS L A M M A Y B E R A D IC A L IZ IN G T H E R E G IO N .

B¥ .f\NNA NEMTSOVA AND OWEN MATTHEWS

PHOTOGRAPHS BYDAVIDE MONTELEONEI

HE VIDEO SHOWS A GUN

barrel jutting from the

rear window of a shiny

black Lada sedan as it

cruises slowly down

, Putin Prospect, a new

boulevard of designer shops in the

Chechen capital, Grozny, Spotting a pair

of young women in long skirts but with-

out headscarves, the vehicle's occupants

open fire. The two pedestrians scream,

but they don't fall. A blot of red paint-ball ink is spreading across one young

woman's blouse. As the vehicle pulls

away, the camera shows the two women

dashing for safety into the nearest shop.

Chechnya's enforcers of supposed

Islamic propriety have struck again. In

the name of combating terrorism, Presi- ,

dent Ramzan Kadyrov has declared war

on what he regards as public indecency.

"My dream is for all our women to wear

scarves, in accordance with Islamic law,"

he told NEWSWEEK recently. To assist

in that fight and correct supposedly un-

Islamic conduct, he established his own

Taliban-style morality police, the Center

for Spiritual and Moral Development

and Education, last year. For backup,

Chechen militias prowl the streets in

black cars' and black uniforms, on the

alert riot onlyfer uncovered hair but for

short-sleeve IF shirts, short skirts, and

public displays of affection. Although

many Chechen women have accused

them of paintball attacks -in the pastfew months, Kadyrov brushes off the

charges, blaming "somebody who wants

to blacken my politics."

Kadyrov, 34, has become the standard-

bearer for the Kremlin's efforts to pacify

the rebellious North Caucasus once

and for all: His bare-knuckle style has

brought at least some degree oflaw and

order to Chechnya, and that crude suc-

cess is why the Kremlin trusts him. The

region has resisted Moscow's control for

centuries, but in the past decade or so,

MEMBER S OF TW O CHECHEN CLANS MEET TO MAKE PEACE -AFTER A 53-YEAR VENDETTA.

46 m OCTOBER '25 ,' 2Q .10


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/news-week-october-25-2010 41/52NEWSWEEK,COM m 47



A CEMETER Y ON THE W AY TO SH ATOI. CHECHNYA H AS BEEN FILLED W ITH CONFLICT FOR CENTUR IES .

the violence has spread and intensified

as Islarnist extremism has flourished

elsewhere in the world. "Our Afghani-stan is inside Russia,"says Masha

Lipman of the Moscow Carnegie Cen-

ter. Hundreds of civilians died after

Chechen rebels seized a Moscow theater

in 2002 and a school in Beslan in 2004.

This year, suicide bombers killed more

than 40 people in the Moscow subway

and more than 150 in a series of attacks

in the North Caucasus. The brutal tac-:

tics of the Russian military and its local

proxies have only boosted support for

the rebels.Now the country's leaders are trying

48 m OCTOBER 25, 201,0

a new approach. The idea is to culti-

vate a different, more docile strain of

Islam among Russia's estimated 20 mil-lion professed Muslims. To that end,

the Kremlin Is spending $300 million

to open seven new Islamic universities

in Russia and sponsoring hundreds of

students to pursue advanced degrees in

approved universities in Syria and Saudi

Arabia. Russian President Dmitry Med-

vedev has moved to boost the author-

ity of accredited imams, affirming that

they have "a special place" in Caucasian

society and calling on them to help the

Kremlin "confront terror through spiri-tuality and high ethical standards." At

the same time, the military is continuing

its efforts to hunt down and kill rebels

and radicals in the Caucasus.At first glance, Kadyrov might seem

to be the perfect tool for the Kremlin's

needs. Russian leader Vladimir Putin

(Kadyrov calls him "my idol") appointed

him president of Chechnya in 2007, as

soon as he became old enough to take the

post legally. His brand ofIslamis far from

the Saudi-derived Wahhabism espoused

by many of the Chechen rebels-sand by

Osama bin Laden. Instead it's an eclec-

tic blend of Sufism (a traditionally paci-

fist, mystical branch of the Sunni sect)and ancient Chechen traditions like the .



,CHECHEN PRES IDENT KADYR OV HAS SA ID HE W OULD LIKE TO SEE ALL W OMEN IN HEADSCAR VES .

zikr, an all-male hybrid of circle dance

and prayer. His father, Ahmed Kadyrov,

had been Chechnya's chief mufti (spiri-tual leader) when the tiny mountain

republic tried to break Russia's grip in

the 1990S, but he eventually reconciled

with Moscow-and was assassinated in

2004. The younger Kadyrov now casts

himself as his father's spiritual and

political heir, delivering long sermons

to gatherings of religious students and

scholars, wearing the traditional robes

of a Sufi teacher, and proposing recently

that he renounce his title of president

in favor of mekkh-da, a Chechen term

meaning "father of the nation," usually

associated with the legendary imams

who led the resistance to Russian occu-

pation in the ioth century. In person,

he prefers to be addressed as Padisbab,

Farsi for emperor.

True to the Kremlin's wishes, Kady-

rov has set out to promulgate his own

idiosyncratic version of Islamic law in

place of the Wahhabi dictates of Mos-

cow's adversaries. Trouble is, it's not

always easy to see much difference.

"Sisters, we would like to remind you

that every Muslim woman is obliged to

wear a veil!" says a widely distributed

pamphlet issued by the Chechen state

publishing house Put ("The Path" in

Russian, and a pun on "Putin"). "Today

we mark you with paint-do not pro-

voke us to use harsher methods!" He's

poured millions into building mosques

all over Chechnya, tightly restricted the

sale of alcohol, and made the wearing

of Islamic attire compulsory in all Che-

chen schools and universities. The mo-

rality police are under his personal

direction; according to the human-

rights group Memorial, they punish

suspected prostitutes by shaving their

heads and eyebrows and painting their

scalps green, the color of Islam. Kady-

rov has also gone on record defend-

ing honor killings of "loose" women:

NEWSWEEK .COM m 49



K ADYROV M IGH T S EEM TO BE T H E P ER F ECT TOOL FOR T HE R U SS IA N GOVE R NMENT'S NEE DS ,

"If a woman runs around, and if a man

runs around with her, both of them are

killed," he said last year. And his educa-

tion policies strongly discourage access

to the outside world's "corrupting"

influences, such as the Internet.

Kadyrov's home life is a peculiar mix

of Sufi piety and the extravagant luxu-

ries of an old-fashioned warlord. He

often invites as many as a thousand loy-

alists at a time to his private compound

(it boasts its own mosque, a zoo, and a

park full of llamas) to dance the zikfforas much as five hours at a stretch. And

tears roll down his cheeks as he tells of

the pilgrimage he made to Mecca this

past july, He says Saudi King Abdullah

gave Kadyrov and 27 companions spe-

cial dispensation to enter Islam's holyof

holies, the Kaaba+the sacred black cube

at the heart of the city. Kadyrov says he

was so overcome with "euphoria" and

"absolute happiness" that on his return

he ordered 11 7 Chechen families to aban-

don their decades-old blood feuds andformally reconcile in the name of Allah.

50 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

Kadyrov vigorously promotes his

brand of Islam as an antidote to what

he calls "the evil so-calleddenomina-

tion Wahhabism." He's been lobbying

the Kremlin to place all Russian muftis

under the supervision of'Chechen imams,

who would draft a monthly sermon

covering religious and political issues

to be taught at all Russian mosques. "If

people in Russia do not take the path of

traditional, pure Sufi Islam, Russia will

lose out," says Kadyrov. "All the other

denominations, like Wahhabism, arenew inventions for our country-we have

never had it, and we will never accept

it." But the architect of the Kremlin's

new approach to Islam,' a non-Muslim'

academic named Yuri Mikhailov, warns

that endorsing Kadyrov's Sufism or

any other form ofIslamabove the others

would be a horrendous mistake, sure

to provoke a holy war between the sects.

,Meanwhile, Moscow pursues its

same old brutal policies in the region,

sabotaging its own efforts to encour-age peace and harmony. Well-meaning

Kremlin-funded scholars like Oleg Khi-

makov, deputy director of the Foun-

dation to Support Islamic Culture and

Education, may recruit Sharia legal

specialists from Islamic universities in

Qatar, Egypt, Oman, an~ Malaysia inthe name of weaning Russian Muslims

away from extremism. But in Chechnya

and its neighboring republics there's a

vast reservoir of bad blood from so many

years of relentless oppression. Villagers'

homes continue to be burned, although

now it's done by Chechen militias rather

than by Russian soldiers. And mistreat-

ment in custody is practically univer-

sal.: "Every arrest, every criminal case

opened in North Caucasus, involves tor-

ture, severe beatings in detention," saysOleg Orlov, Moscow director ofthe rights

group Memorial. '

Up in the mountains, no more than a

few miles from the fancy boutiques of

Putin Prospect, the rebellion contin-

ues. Several dozen insurgents attacked

Kadyrov's family village of Tsentroi in

late' August, torching cars and houses

and killing seven police officers who

were serving as his personal security

guards. Kadyrov personally led a retal-

iatory raid .a few days later, but the

rebels got away; he has promised a $3

million reward for information lead-

ing to the commanders of the assault.

Just outside Chechnya's borders, entire

villages in neighboring Dagestan have

been emptied of young men who have

fled to join the rebels in the moun-

tains rather than risk being killed by

Kremlin -backed death squads.

Russian authorities do their best to

suppress the almost daily reports ofclashes and bombings in the region. It's

possible that Kadyrov's version ofIslam,

combined with a continued heavy reli-

ance on extrajudicial disappearances

and torture, may provide the Kremlin

with a temporary means to curb the eth-

nic nationalism of the Caucasus rebels., '

But the cause oflong-term peace may be

ill served if those efforts only radicalize,

Russia's Muslims. Kadyrov, for his part,

seems unfazed. ''As long as Putin backs

me up, I can do everything," he says.''Allahu akbar!" 0



As Singapore's first H:t1imeminister, Lee Kuan Yew,reflects on, '~'~':,i' t\ ~\

mortality, artists are experimenting with his image in their

BY'SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESS0P4 '

\



I CULTURE I ART

The vibrant water-

color shows a gaming table with three

playing cards, each depicting a different

portrait of the same man. Small figures

kneel at the corners pleading, "Papa,

can you help me not be frightened?"

and "Papa; don't YOl!- know I have no

choice?" They are lyrics .from the gay

anthem "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" from

the Barbra Streisand film Yentl; the man

featured on the cards is Lee Kuan Yew,

Singapore's first prime minister, who isoften described as a father figure-albeit

an authoritarian one-to the young

nation. New York-based Singaporean

artist Jimmy Ong incorporated the lyr-

ics to reflect the anxieties of a generation

of gay men in a city-state where homo-

sexual activity remains a criminal act

punishable by up to two years in prison,

while the card motif is a nod to the

much-debated opening of two casinos

earlier this year.

Ong's work is a relatively rare exampleof a contemporary artist incorporating

52 m OCTOBER 25, 2010

Lee's image, even though Lee has domi-

nated Singapore's political landscape

since the young nation's independence

in 1965.Lee stepped down as prime min-

ister in 1990 but has remained involved

in government and holds a cabinet posi-

tion with the title "minister mentor."

His image has the power to evoke strong

reactions, yet unlike Mao Zedong, whose

image has been embraced by legions of

Chinese artists, Lee has remained a dis-

tant, often taboo subject for many Singa-porean artists. "I can only speculate that

it is self-censorship at work," says Ong.

"Even in my artwork I am self-censoring,

like using Yentl's lyrics in: place of my

own voice."

But just as the 87-year-old Lee has

started in recent interviews to contem-

plate openly his own mortality, some

artists are also beginning to reflect on

Lee's life and legacy. Several recent

art exhibitions have used his image

to explore the notion of nationhood,though never too critically. "Reevalu-

ations are part of anyone's legacy, but

to do so while someone is still in office

colors the effort with all the anxiety of

politics," says Jason Wee, a Singaporean

artist also based in New York. "Mao is

no longer in office, and Lee still is."

Wee has been working on a series of

portraits of Lee, using shampoo bottle

caps arranged to create a pixelated effect.

Titled No More Tears, the portraits are

a nod to Lee's rare emotional moment

in 1965, when he cried on televisionannouncing the separation of Singapore

from Malaysia and Singapore's future

looked uncertain. Wee has also gone

beyond mere iconographic representa-

tion, examining how deeply the aging

statesman's influence runs over the city-

state's citizens. In the recent exhibition

Beyond LKY at Singapore's Valentine

Willie Fine Art Gallery, artists were

asked to reflect on a Singapore without

Lee. Wee installed a tall, dark, granite

sculpture in the shape of the numberone, inscribed with the words IN MEM-



ORY OF MY FATHER, m. _S elf -P o r tr a it ( Y el lo w , G

Lee) , an ink portrai 1

ist looks like Lee.

ongwith

,. Red Mr.

Lee's influence OD

tive and negative, .

use his iconograp .

The British had

promoting Sir

other colonial figurSingapore, and to

statue of the "founder

gapore still stands pro ong the Sin-

gapore River. Surpri inz _, ever since

the city-state gained independence in

1965, it has continued 0 celebrate the

names of colonial pioneers on monu-

ments, streets, and bridges, rather than

embrace new modern-cia: heroes .. Asthe first generation of political pioneers

has begun to pass on, there have been

occasional calls to celebrate them and

their achievements, but the Singapor-

ean government, and in particular Lee,

has always shied away from anything

that could be construed as creating a

cult of personalities.

Few of Asia's other longtime leaders

have hesitated using public art to pro-

mote themselves; Philippine President

Ferdinand Marcos had his own bust

carved into .a hillside in central Luzon,

and Mao's image was so pervasive that

it was not only on official buildings,

but also in every single household. Lee

has preferred the nation building to

be carried out in other media, such as

newspapers and textbooks. "The cult of

personality makes him uncomfortable,"

says Tom Plate, author of Conversat ions

W ith Lee Kuan Y ew . "He thinks it's tacky.

Until very recently, he didn't even want

to talk much about aspects of personal-

ity and his personal life."Gallery owner Valentine Willie points

out that artists have probably been reti-

cent to use Lee's image in their works,

because officially, the use of any cabinet

minister's image requires approval from

the Media Development Authority. Yethe

also acknowledged that at his recent exhi-

bition he did not seek any permission nor

did he encounter any problems. Indeed,

some of the works were reproduced sev-

eral times in the state-controlled media,

which could be considered a subtle

endorsement. "The greatest censorship is

self-censorship," says Willie. "We've lived

for so long under a regime where we can't

do this or that, it's almost ingrained in our

psyche that we don't go there."

That's definitely changing. A finalist

for the 2010 Sovereign Asian Art prize,

whose. winner will be announced early

next year, is an oil painting in the pop-

art style of a young Lee relaxing with his

family. Itis by Ong Hui Har, who tackled

the private side of the political leader in

a one-woman show earlier this year. Thetrue test will be ifand when she and her

colleagues tackle the other side. 0

NEWSWEEK. COM m 53



I CULTURE I MOVIES

C inaonMyMindIn is latest film, Under the Hawthorn

Tree, Chinese director Zhang Yimou ex-

plores a story of young love in 1970s ruralChina. The movie, which opened the pres-

tigious Pusan International Film Festival

last week, features fresh-faced actors

with no box-office track record. It repre-

sents a departure from Zhang's previous

works, including the 2002 martial-arts hit

Hero, which went on to become one of the

highest-grossing foreign-language films

in America, and last year's A Woman, a .

Gun, and a Noodle Shop, a remake of the

Coen brothers' 1984 film Blood Simple.

With Hawthorn Tree, based on a popu-

lar novel made famous on the Internet,

Zhang, 58, breaks with the norms of

Chinese high eulture,creating a simple

romance that is expected to have mass

appeal. He spoke with NEWSWEEK'sAlex-

andra A. Seno. Excerpts:

What about the novel Under the

Hawthorn Tree compelled you

make this film?

A friend happened to. r ecommend it to.

me. After reading the novel, I was very

moved in a way I had not felt fora long

time. Itspeaks to.my generation, evoking

many memories of those years. Maybe

everyone has their own feelings of an

innocent love,

You set it against the Cultural Revo-

lution. What does that period mean?

The Cultural Revolution is a special

moment, In the modern history of

China, it is .veryImportant. It is, the

memory of my youth, the time when I

was 16to.26 years old.

54 m OCTOBER 25,2010

'Ichoose

projects

based on

the story.

The scope

doesn't

matter

Since your first film, 1987'SRed

Sorghum, how has the audience for

movies in China changed?In China, moviegoers are getting younger,

mainly people born in the 198QS and

199QS. They are definitely different from

the audiences of the past. They have a

variety of tastes, but mainly they like

entertaining films and, of course, they

like Hollywood films.

How does pop culture influence you?

In films, most of us come from tradi-

tional culture and are all facing this

dilemma: how to.deal with pop culture.Moviegoers are mostly from a younger

generation, We want to. guide them

and please them, but we don't want to.

be like old people talking to. ourselves,

There is a Taoist-inspired Chi-

nese saying: "Find art's essen-

tial nature." .

In your lifetime, do you

believe you will see broad

acceptance of Chinese films

in America? I

I don't know when that day

will arrive. Ang Lee's Crouch-

ing Tiger had kind of done

SQ. I hope we will see more

of this. The difficulty with

Chinese films is that we need

subtitles and, so. far, American audi-

ences prefer action movies, So. it may

take some time before our films get

to me.'

wide acceptance in America.

You directed the opening and

closing ceremonies of the 2008

Olympics, designing lavish operas

and light and sound shows. Then

you made two small- budget films,A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop

and Hawthorn Tree. Next you are

making a big-budget film about a

sensitive issue, the Sino-Japanese

War of the 1930S. Why?

I bought the rights to. this novel in 20.0.7,

before the Olympics. I have been plan-

ning to.make The Thirteen Women oflin,

ling for many years, I like it very much

because it gives a different perspective

on the China-Japan issue. It is about

13 Nanjing prostitutes who. protect agroup of schoolgirls. The prostitutes

dress up as the girls and go. to. the Japa-

nese Army camps in their place. It is a

brilliant story, looking at the war from

a woman's perspective. I don't

decide to.make a film depending

on how big or small it is. I choose

projects based on the story, The

scope doesn't matter to.me. This

film will be pretty big, though,

We are hoping to. find a leading

m~n from Hollywood-It will be a

story about.human nature.

In your work, how do you

balance art and government

policy in China?

All filmmakers must deal with

[the censorship regulations], It is a fact

that we cannot change. As, a director, I

do. not pursue politics in my films. I'm

mo.re interested in human nature. I

hope one day censorship will become

more relaxed as China o.pens up, and

artists will have more freedom. D


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/news-week-october-25-2010 49/52NEWSWEEK,COM m 55



I THE GOOD LIFE I

even winds usually create ideal condi-

tion . Kelemen has been kayaking this

teal-blue coastline since the 1970S and

now m\'TIS an adventure-travel company

called Huck Finn, which offers five- and

eight-day kayaking, biking, and hikingitineraries that mix nature and local cul-

ture. "There's much to explore inland as

well, with fortresses, small churches,

and monasteries rich in medieval art

tucked among the green hills," he says .

. Three years ago Kelemen bought a

French-designed ia-meter catamaran

to be used as the mother ship on these

journeys. Itfollowed our group of six in

double and single kayaks along the Cro-

atian coast until we were exhausted and

hungry. We had the option of sleeping

either on the four-bedroom, four-bath

yacht or in private homes with families

along the way. No cares. No clocks. No

meals to prepare. Just the luxury of lei-

surely island hopping. Or so I thought. I

On day one I flipped the kayak as Iwas

pulling away from, shore on a solo test

run in water that barely came up to my ,

knees. Then I got seasick during an open-

water, crossing from Kolocep island toLopud, two of the Elafiti Islands seen

56 t t l OCTOBER 25, 2010



The goal most days

was to kayak around

one island, and swim

in the sea, bike, or

hike among olive

groves and fig trees.

Almost always,we

were alone as a

group, snorkeling in

hidden bays, then

docking for dinner in

villages unspoiled by

Ii'v;

~:I:

Iz

<i

~w>

ff i:I:

:i

" ':"> -u,

o> -ff i>:

Ii :

~c

ur

z[ from Dubrovnik. A storm was brewing;: : : ;

~ the wind roared, and the waves roiled.

~ "Pick a spot on the island infront of u s and~Ii : keep y0UJ7 eyes on that spot," advised the:J

8 woman behind me in our two-person

g kayak, whom I had just met over lunch that"Ifternoon. "Don't look away. Itwill trick

1 ii your mind into thinking you're on land."

~ I found the strength to look up, but

~ not the energy to thank her. A little

~ while later I stopped paddling and gave

~ her a thumbs-up. "Feeling better'?" she!asked, still concerned. I nodded. ever

~ before had I been so terrified and~i;;

mass tourism.

enchanted by the force of nature.

~ When we reached the sandy beach of

: Lopud, an island 'without cars, it was

~ dinnertime but light enough to see hill·

~ tops of terra-cotta cla roofs and master: : : ;

~' gardens in shades of lavender, pink, and

~ yellow. Grapevines bung over the front

~ gates of the houses. We learned that the

g ; history of gardening in the region dates

~ back centuries. "The leading families~ were spared from war for much of the

CLOSE TO SHORE

Scenic _Sculling

medieval period and, with trade, were

getting rich," says Kelemen, whose

parents .were born in Croatia. ''As the

noble women started competing over

who would have more gold and jew-elry, the wise Senate made a rule: only

prostitutes were allowed to wear gold in

public. So the noble women began com-

peting over who would have the biggest

house and most beautiful garden."

Our route covered 66 stunning,

arduous kilometers. The greatest hits

included the stone-walled city of Ston,

with its limestone cliffs and cobbled

streets, art exhibits and wine tastings,

and an island in the middle of Mljet

National Park, which houses a azth-

century Benedictine monastery. The

'monastery sits near the center of the

Iwine-growing area of the Peljesac pen-

insula, which, recent DNA analysis has

proved, is the source of the grapes that

make California zinfandels.

The goal on most days was to kayak.

to, and around, one island and, if you

were feeling ambitious, swim in the sea,

bike, or hike through hilltops of olive

groves and fig trees. Almost, always,we were alone as a group, snorkeling in

hidden shallow bays Kelemen located,

and then 'docking for dinner in villages

unspoiled by mass tourism,

By the last day, I had mastered the

patience needed to produce an even,

smooth stroke, and to respect the

rhythm of the tide without flipping. The

sea had introduced me to a world that,

in many places, hadn't changed in a

thousand years. Next time, I will have to

learn better balance so I can look up and"take pictures. 0

NEWSWEEK,COM m



ITHE LAST WORD I

KHAL D ESHAAL

' R , E I S S T A N C E IS T H E R E A L O P T IO N '

Few fiqures in the Mid,dle East incite

controversy like Khaled Meshaal, the

54-year-old leader of Hamas. To many

Palestinians, Meshaal embodies justified,

radical nationalism. Israelis, meanwhile,

consider him the architect of bloody sui-

cide bombings and rocket attacks. In a

1997 assassination attempt, Israeli intel-

ligence squirted nerve toxin in his ear.

He survived, rose through the ranks, and

today he caUs the shots from his perch in

Damascus. NEWSWEEK'sBabak Dehghan-

pisheh and Ranya Kadri sat down with him

there last week. Excerpts:

Would you accept a two-state solution

based on the 1967 borders?

I can answer your theoretical ques-

tion, but this is not expected to happen.

There is a position and program that

all Palestinians share: to accept a Pales-

tinian state on the 1967 borders with

Jerusalem as the capital with the right of

return. This state would have real

sovereignty on the land and on the bor-

ders. And no settlements.

What is Hamas's role in the peace

process?

The lesson of negotiation is that without

real pressure on the Israelis, they will

not withdraw to the 1967 borders. Yes,

we are with diplomacy and politics, but

resistance is the real option.

Under what conditions would you

stop using violence? J

I'm a physicist, and I believe in the equa-

tions of physics and mathematics. So,

60 III OCTOBER 25,2010

it's not a vicious cycle with no beginning

and no end. Itbegan with the occupation

and will end with the end of occupation.

The resistance definitely has its victims,

and it's a painful, steep price. But why is

resistance different in Palestine? When

the French fought Hitler and the Nazi

occupation, it was called resistance.

When the Americans fought the Brit-

ish, it was called the independence war.

Hamas has no military activities outside

of Palestine.

How much of this conflict ispersonal?

The conflict with [Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin] Netanyahu is not personal.

Our calculation is a national issue.

It happened because the American ad-

ministration, the international com-

munity, and, unfortunately, regional

countries refused to recognize the result

[of the 2006 elections]. This is the oppo-

site ofthe principles of America and the

West. We realize this internal dispute

hurts Hamas and the whole Palestin-

ian cause. But we were not the ones who

chose this. Itwas forced on us.

Do you receive money, weapons, and

military training from Iran?

With regard to weapons, this is a ques-tion for the military wing. With regard

to the money, Hamas welcomes finan-

cial support from any party in the world

as long as it's unconditional.

'H AMAS WELCOMES F INANCIAL SUPPORT

FROM ANY PAR TY IN THE WOR LD , AS LONG

AS IT 'S UNCONDIT IONAl.'

Would you sit across a table from

Netanyahu in negotiations?

[Laughs] I'm interested in results: for

the Palestinian people to reach freedom,

to get their rights, to get rid of the Israeli

occupation and the settlements, a_ndto

live freely in a sovereign land with self-

determination.

Do you see improved relations

between Hamas and Fatah anytime in

the near future?

Why did this internal struggle happen?

Does money come from the Iranian

government without conditions?

Of course. There's also money from

other parties around the world, without

conditions.

If there is a two-state solution;

what position do you see for

yourself?

[Laughs] I don't seek positions. And

I can't guarantee that I'll be alive

then. What's important is for my people

to be free.

[news week] october 25 2010

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