Signs of the NY Times

So, time for me to add one more interview with me by Palash R. Ghosh for the International Business Times, the fourth in a series that began with interviews I blogged about previously, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of TV New, Cable News Left and Right, and The DC-Hollywood Connection.This new interview was published on December 10th under the title of New York Times: Falling Revenues, Job Cuts In A New Digital Age.  As is our tradition here on Blog Time Passing, you can click on the link to read it over on the IBT site, or read it right here. The choice is in your hands. And away we go:

Widely revered as the ‘gold standard’ of print journalism, not even the august New York Times (NYSE: NYT) can escape harsh economic realities. Falling ad revenues and subscription rates, as well as increased competition from online outlets, have forced the ‘Grey Lady’ to announce another round of buyouts and possible job reductions – the third such similar measure over the past four years.

International Business Times spoke to a media expert to discuss the New York Times’ current problems and how it may cope with a cloudy future.

Dr. Lance Strate is professor of communication and media studies and director of the professional studies in new media program at Fordham University in New York City.

IB TIMES: The New York Times is suffering from the same troubles as other print newspapers – falling ad revenues and dwindling subscribers. But have they not compensated for these shortcomings through paid digital subscriptions? Why are ad revenues falling? Is it due to the still-fragile economy? Or is it because advertisers want to put their money on online news outlets?

STRATE: Newspapers, by and large, were barely getting by, just hanging on, before the economic downturn, so the fragile economy is not the major cause of newspapers going under, but rather simply exposed their precarious financial situation, and sped up the process of their demise.

Newspapers lost a major source of income some time ago when what used to be called ‘classified advertising’ shifted over to the internet, so that people who want to buy and sell goods and services go to sites like Craigslist and eBay, and job openings are listed on sites like Monster.com. Further erosion of revenue came from the shift of local advertising to sites like Facebook, and through offers like Groupon. Online advertising has a major advantage over print and broadcast in that they can tell advertisers exactly how many people click on an ad, and how many clicks result in purchases, whereas mass media ads cannot provide that kind of feedback, nor can they deliver target audiences with the specificity of online media.

For example, a Facebook ad can be directed based on a variety of demographics, including location, age, gender, etc.

IB TIMES : But even digital advertising is falling for the Times. Why is this, when presumably more people are accessing the paper on their mobile units?

STRATE : Newspapers came late to the game online, and are still struggling to figure out how to monetize their offerings, and mobile presents new challenges that even successful online sites like Facebook have had problems with, which was why shares in Facebook immediately dropped in value right after its initial public offering.

And there is so much competition from so many sources now. When in the past did the New York Times have to compete with CNN, the BBC, the Huffington Post, or any number of prominent independent bloggers?

IB TIMES : Have other major newspapers across the U.S. been laying off employees and offering buyouts to managers as the Times has?

STRATE : Absolutely! It's the only alternative to going out of business completely. And of course, the result is a steep decline in the quality of journalism that the newspapers can provide, which, in turn, lowers their value to readers, so it's a self-reinforcing downward spiral.

IB TIMES : From my perspective, the Times seems to cater to well-educated, upper middle class (or wealthy) urban liberals. When I ride the subway, I never see blue-collar people (regardless of race) reading the Times. Am I wrong in this assessment?

STRATE : No, you are correct. In the New York metropolitan area, the New York Daily News and the New York Post have long been the papers with mass appeal, and the Daily News at least has traditionally outsold the Times.

The Times does have a national following, however, and is considered the top newspaper in the United States, followed by the Washington Post, and it has subscribers all around the country, and abroad.

The Times provides a common forum for the political, economic, and social elites of this nation -- what other paper carries news of society weddings, ads for mansions and multimillion dollar luxury apartments, and op-ed pieces by the leading intellectuals and most powerful individuals of the world?

IB TIMES : Do the New York Post and New York Daily News cater to readers that the Times either does not want or whom they alienate?

STRATE : I don't think the Times has sought to reject those readers. If anything, they would like them to move up to the Times, and the newspaper has had a very active, aggressive program to get schools to use the paper in classes, providing low-cost subscription rates for educators and students, from grade school to university level.

I remember having to read the Times in elementary school for a period of time, and the teacher even taught us how to do the straphanger fold used by subway and bus riders to manage the paper, along with understanding how the right-hand column was the top story, followed by the left-hand column, and so on.

So their goal would be to educate and elevate, but unfortunately this runs counter to the trend where people increasingly have been turning to television for their news, and broadcast journalism has largely shed the stigma it once held of being a degraded form that did not go beyond the surface of the headlines.

For readers brought up on television, the tabloid papers like the Post and News, and USA Today for that matter, more closely resemble what they're habituated to, and that carries over into the online environment.

IB TIMES : The Times frequently features very esoteric subjects – reviews of obscure books, travelogues to exotic lands most people cannot afford to go to. Does this add to its image as an “elitist” and “out of touch” paper?

STRATE : Absolutely. It indicates that they are in many ways concerned with readers who are not part of the 47 percent that Mitt Romney wrote off, or to some extent, the 99 percent that the Occupy Movement refer to.

IB TIMES : How does the demography for the Times differ from that of the Wall Street Journal?

STRATE : The Wall Street Journal is more specialized in its focus on business and finance, and most of all much more conservative and Republican, whereas the Times is liberal and Democratic in orientation, and does aim for a wider audience, one that includes intellectuals. To use an old-fashioned term, you might say that the Times is written for the ‘intelligentsia,’ the class of people who form the intellectual elite, a group that tends to be more left-leaning than others, just as the economic elite typically leans to the right.

IB TIMES : Would the Times be better served by getting rid of the print product and becoming purely digital? Or would that entail other risks?

STRATE : Look at it this way, newspapers were printed on cheap paper that was not meant to be at all durable, but rather to be thrown away, or, in the old days, to be used as fish wrap.

And that still has some utility if you're trying to break in a new dog, for example. But ultimately, there is no need for pulp-type print media anymore, because electronic text does the job cheaper and easier, and with less waste. So the only thing keeping the Times on paper right now are older readers who don’t go online or don't want to read the news in a digital format, or are just in the habit of reading the daily paper in paper form.

And there always will be some who are traditionalists, laggards (not that I blame them, mind you), or nostalgic, but in the end the economies of production and distribution will simply make printing of ephemeral media unfeasible.

The Times may actually be one of the last to eliminate their print edition, and may continue to produce a limited supply as a specialty item, but given the high quality of e-readers today, and their continued improvement, there will be no alternative to going purely digital, and in the end it will be their best hope of retaining significant advertising revenue.

IB TIMES : Critics of the Times have long complained that the paper is too “liberal” and “out of touch.” Could they increase readership if their editorials moved more to the center?

STRATE : Traditionally, newspapers have kept a sharp distinction between the editorial page and objective news reports, and the Times does provide a variety of views on their Op-Ed page.

But I do think they have alienated some readers with their reporting, because there are choices that they make about what to report on, what emphasis to give it, where to place it, etc. And at this point, I don't think they can afford to lose any more readers, so responding to criticism and doing all they can to avoid the perception of being overly liberal would probably be in their best interests.

Having said that, the fact that the Times is a liberal paper is a part of its identity, and it could hurt them to abandon that altogether, so what they probably need to do is aim towards a Democratic centrist position.

IB TIMES : In the 1940s and 1950s, New York City had something like seven or eight daily papers. How on earth did they co-exist and survive?

STRATE : Simple, no competition.

Actually, radio was the first medium to challenge newspapers, and cut into their revenues. But even with radio, most people turned to newspapers to be informed, but also to be entertained by reading the sports pages, the comics, etc. Newspapers were inexpensive, making their profits mainly through advertising rather than the purchase price of copies and subscriptions.

And papers also had multiple editions through the day, so, for example, you might read the Times in the morning, and pick up the Post in the afternoon. It is hard to imagine today, but without Smartphones, the internet, and even television, people had a great deal more time on their hands, and newspapers were a way to fill that time, including filling in the blanks on Crossword puzzles, Daily Jumbles, and the like.

As television became the dominant medium by the end of the 1950s, local stations, and networks, claimed increasingly more advertising revenues, which increasingly sent more newspapers out of business.

Indeed, before the emergence of TV, every decent-sized city had multiple, competing papers, and the public was much better for it. You might even say that as newspapers disappear, the reading public that went along with it disappears as well, and as the reading public disappears, so too do newspapers. They are interdependent parts of the media ecosystem, and we are left with a society in which there no longer is any real understanding of what a "public" is or what is meant by the term, and without a public there can be no real sense of what it means to be private either.

And that is about all for the interview. I know it's not an in-depth discourse on the state of print journalism, and the prospects for its future, but I think the interview does provide some food for thought, and further contemplation, or at least I hope so. And with that, I'll just say, see ya in the funny papers!

On Guns and More

I know we have all been deluged with reports, interviews, and other messages regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that claimed the lives of 20 young children and 6 adults. I admit to being deeply affected by this tragedy, as a father, and as a teacher, but I find it hard to imagine anyone not being dismayed by this event.

Earlier this year, I put up a blog post entitled, What to Blame for the Colorado Shooting?, and some of my thoughts on these type of events can be found there. But I think for many of us, this latest round is the last straw when it comes to gun violence. I sure hope it is. So I want to take a little time to share some thoughts that go well beyond that previous post. If I had more time, I'd provide a more comprehensive, if not exhaustive argument, but for now, this will have to do. And I hope you'll forgive me for getting up on my soapbox and getting all political and preachy. I just need to get this off my chest.

There is no one cause for these mass shootings, so anyone arguing that it's not guns, it's mental illness is just plain wrong. It's both, of course, except when the shooter is not mentally ill, say for example when a child is an innocent victim of a drive-by shooting, in which case it's guns and crime that's the cause.  But there is a common denominator between the two main reasons why children are gunned down, and that's guns.

So I'll start with guns, and have the most to say about guns, but then I'll also move to other factors that also play a role, like mental illness, and crime, and licit and illicit drugs, and media content as well.

But it all begins with guns, or firearms, which we can consider as a medium or technology, as McLuhan does in Understanding Media, briefly in the first chapter entitled "The Medium is the Message," and later in a chapter devoted to weapons.  As a medium, what is the message of firearms? Clearly it's violence, destruction, injury, death, or at least the threat of same. As Mark Twain put it, when you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail, and when you have a gun in your hand, everything becomes a target.

Yes, there are other kinds of weapons, like the bow and arrow, the knife, the sword, etc. But the innovation of firearms, as a technology, made it possible to injure and kill more efficiently, faster, with greater force, with greater damage, in greater numbers, from greater distances, with less personal contact, with less sense of responsibility, with less connection to the consequences, and with less effort, hence the gun's appellation, the great equalizer. 

Take away guns, and you won't eliminate acts of violence, but you'll make them more difficult to carry out. It will take longer, which allows for more time to rethink what you're doing and change your mind. It will make the damage done less severe, and give victims a better chance to defend themselves. People will still die from knife wounds, but there is a world of difference between running away from someone with a knife, and someone with a gun. There is a world of difference between defending yourself against someone coming at you with a knife, and someone firing a gun at you. And the damage done by a knife is often less severe than damage done by bullets.

Guns make it easy to kill, easy to do harm to another human being. If it is unethical, immoral, and evil to harm another human being, a point on which more religious and ethical systems agree, then in what sense are firearms ethical, moral, and good, or even neutral?

Let's put hunting aside. This isn't about hunting. Let's assume that's not a problem, holding aside the accidental shootings that occur among hunters, and the fact that hunting rifles and shotguns can be used to harm human beings. Let's say that hunting is acceptable, and allow for the limited class of firearms that have traditionally been associated with the hunting of game, as long as ownership and use involves careful registration and licensing.

So, what other reason is there for gun ownership? Target practice? A sport? Or a hobby? Collecting? Sorry, that is a poor reason for putting others at risk.

So what then? Self-defense? Certainly a legitimate concern, but how about using non-lethal weapons, like tasers, stun guns, and pepper spray? Granted, tasers can be lethal too, especially for anyone with a weak heart, but they certainly are less likely to kill than a bullet through the heart or brain, and cannot be used the way automatic and semiautomatic weapons can, to spray bullets rapidly to mow down a group of people. If more police were equipped with tasers, we'd avoid incidents like the recent police shooting in Leonia, New Jersey. Not to mention the well reported Trayvon Martin shooting by a neighborhood watch coordinator.

Again, there are no absolutes, no guarantees, any object can be used to cause harm or even kill. Framing the problem as either-or/all-or-nothing is wrong (that's what's called two-valued orientation in general semantics). It is painfully apparent that right now there is too much violence, and even if we can't eliminate it, if we can reduce it then that is what we ought to do.

Some point to the fact that in cities, counties, and states where gun control laws have been enacted, shootings still occur, and might even be more frequent than elsewhere (no surprise when we're talking about poverty-stricken urban areas). In some cases, it's because the guns used were legally obtained, as was the case in Newtown, which suggests that regulation and restrictions have not been strong enough. If one person can obtain guns legally, and then they can be used by another person illegally, how do you prevent gun violence? Not by making it easier to obtain guns legally. And if the guns were obtained illegally, then that suggests a need for stronger enforcement. 

Part of the problem with local gun control is that you can just travel across city, county, or state lines and obtain the firearms you want. There are no customs searches or x-ray screenings across these borders, the way there would be if you were crossing national borders. If anything, this argues for the need for homogenous regulation and restriction nationwide. Anything less and the efforts at gun control cannot be more than partially effective.

And if the problem is that the shooters in Newtown and elsewhere are mentally ill, how do you keep guns out of the hands of such individuals? How else than by restricting access in general. How do you keep guns out of the hands of children? Hiding or locking them up may work, assuming the child doesn't know where the hiding place is, doesn't know where the key is, or can't figure out the combination, so the safest bet is to not have any around in the first place.  How do you keep guns out of the hands of criminals? If they can't be obtained legally, even by proxies with perfectly clean records, then at least we're making it harder for criminals to obtain them, and easier to spot when they have them.

Even if we eliminate gun sales today, there already are so very many guns in circulation, and that will remain in circulation for a long time to come. There is no quick fix, and any short term assessment that indicates that gun bans aren't working ought not to be taken seriously, just as early studies that showed that anti-smoking advertising on TV actually increased smoking did not take the big picture into account. This will take cultural change, and especially generational change, just like smoking did. It won't be easy to kick the habit, but it can be done.

At this point, some reference to the second amendment may seem overdue.  Well, okay, consider this. The Bill of Rights is not the Ten Commandments.  It is an historical document that made sense in the late 18th century. It's something to be proud of. But it's not scripture. Consider the fact that the third amendment is largely irrelevant today, and would hardly merit mention in any contemporary document enumerating individual rights:  "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." It's quaint, and that's all.

Now, let's look at what the second amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Now admittedly, this is by the same somewhat grammar-challenged authors who gave us unalienable rights instead of ones that are inalienable. But the tortured syntax here, and the deliberately ambiguous phrasing suggests a conflicted mindset behind this amendment, and a compromise that made sense only in that earlier era. As many have pointed out, we no longer deal in militias, we have a standing army. But the bottom line is that, unlike the first amendment which states firmly and clearly, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," the second amendment is decidedly unclear and confusing. It should be stricken on account of that, if for no other reason.

And yes, I said stricken. It's not written in stone, not handed down from on high. The Constitution itself was designed to be amended as future generations see fit. The amendments themselves can and have been amended, and that includes being repealed. So why not repeal the second amendment? What if the Bill of Rights had included an amendment detailing the right to own slaves? That's certainly not outside of the realm of possibility, and we'd surely have a different attitude about the first ten amendments to the constitution if that were the case. There is no rationale for continuing to include the second amendment as a fundamental human right. Repealing the second amendment wouldn't automatically result in the banning of all firearms, but it would help to remove the irrational opposition to gun control.

What is the point of the second amendment anyway? I mean, the real, underlying rationale? I'd say that the fundamental human right involved is the right to defend yourself if you are threatened or attacked, and to defend others as well. So let's dump the crazy language of the Second Amendment, and add a new one that says something to that effect.

You have a right to defend yourself, yes. But that does not excuse putting other people at risk, let alone causing harm to others. There are reasonable ways to approach self-defense that doesn't require resorting to firearms. And if your concern is defending yourself against the government, or a foreign invading force for that matter, well, forget about it. Governments have missiles, bombs, tanks, etc. The days of the Minutemen rallying to the defense of fellow citizens are over.

And if you're saying that repealing the second amendment is unreasonable, that what we need is reasonable gun control, well, let me point out that the National Rifle Association is unreasonable in its opposition to any limits being imposed on firearms. In that, they are serving the interests of the gun industry, of manufacturers and sellers of firearms, and not of citizens. But the problem is, what happens when you take a reasonable approach and the other side insists of being unreasonable? It's kind of like going in unarmed and trying to talk a gunman into giving up. Good luck with that. And the simple truth is, there is no reasonable argument for the extreme position on the right to bear arms anymore, and little justification for even moderate stances on the issue.

Take away the means and you go a long way towards taking away the act. Take away the medium, and you take away the message.

But invoking a truly ecological, systems view, it's important to note that gun control is only part of the problem. In many ways the main part, but it is true that it's not enough. So let's consider the mental health issue. While mental illness does not account for all, or even a majority of shootings, it does account for some, and some of the worst. So what can we do about it? Make mental healthcare easily available to all, whether they can afford it or not. This amounts to an expansion of "Obamacare" to cover therapy. We can't force mental health services on individuals against their will, not unless they are already acting violently, but we can make it accessible for anyone who is depressed, troubled, etc. And let's not forget that physical health problems can lead to psychological issues. The two are not all that distinct, and all the more reason to make sure we provide full healthcare for all.

Therapy often involves medication these days, and there has to be much stricter oversite of prescription drugs.  All too often, the pills people are given solve one problem only to create another. Any drug that, upon testing, suggests any violent side effects whatsoever should not be approved for use. We do not need cures that are worse than the disease. This means resisting the political pressure brought to bear by the pharmaceutical industry. They are not as guilty as the gun industry in creating an environment in which these shootings occur, but neither are they innocent. Caution has to come first, the Hippocratic creed of do no harm has to be the starting point. And if the trade-offs do seem worth it, anyone taking medication with potential side-effects leading to violent or suicidal behavior need to be closely monitored, a further role for healthcare professionals.

Of course, most shootings occur due to criminal behavior. And one of the main reasons for gang violence of this sort is the illegal drug trade. The solution, then, is to legalize recreational drugs. Eliminating prohibition will deflate organized crime today, just as it did back when we ended the ban on alcohol. It will certainly give our economy a much needed boost. Sure there will be problems resulting from increased drug use, which will require expanded physical and mental healthcare services, but increased revenues from taxation will more than cover such expenditures. And some health issues, such as the spread of AIDS, poisoning and overdoses, will be alleviated. There are trade-offs, sure, but this would reduce the prison population significantly, reduce the crime rate, reduce gun violence. This may seem to contradict my earlier point about medication, but the common ground here is the need to regulate use, and monitor individuals using drugs with side effects that can lead to violent behavior (say amphetamines as opposed to opiates).

Of course, there are other reasons for crime, and we may never eliminate it totally, but fixing the economy and doing all that we can to reduce poverty, making sure that everyone is given a minimum standard of living no matter what, and the opportunity to better themselves through education, and through hard work, would make a great difference. So yeah, there'll be some freeloaders. So what? It is absolutely wrong to refuse to help people in need out of fear that some may abuse it, or out of anger that some do. Let the abusers and cheats be, as long as they maintain a peaceful existence. Let everyone have enough to eat, decent housing, safe neighborhoods, and a measure of freedom and dignity, and fair opportunity to improve themselves and their lives beyond the minimum standard, and we will eliminate any sociological justification for violence, aggression, and theft. We can then legitimately deal will wrongdoing on the basis of moral/ethical conduct, or simple human frailty.

All of this speaks, I hope, to the restoration of some expanded sense of civil society, of personal responsibility and community ties.  It's an understanding that each one of us is a human being deserving of respect, and that we all need to agree on a basic sense of human decency.

And that does lead, finally, to the media of communication. Unlike the second amendment, the first amendment has served us very well, and has done so consistently over the history of the American republic. So, what's needed is not government censorship, or regulation, but public outcry among citizens, a consensus that there are lines that ought not to be crossed, and an expression of disgust when they are. Let's not leave it to the religious right and social conservatives, while we as progressives may privately feel uneasy about some of the media content, but are reluctant to side with our political opponents on these issues. Let's agree that there are limits, and that it is harmful to our collective psyche to have so much violence, so much sexual display, and for that matter, so much cursing, all so easily accessible to children. And let's especially consider the role of active simulations and gaming, because there is a world of difference between watching unethical and immoral behavior on the screen as committed by others, and engaging in it yourself in a virtual world. I understand the arguments about playing a hitman in Grand Theft Auto being simple fantasy in a virtual world, and cathartic in functioning, but would individuals say the same thing if there were a videogame that had people engage in rape? In the abuse and murder of children? I know this will not go over well with some folks who would otherwise agree with me up to this point, but taking an ecological view, we have to try to understand how all of these things work together. And we have to move beyond the tired old political divisions that result only in discord and stalemate.

I'll add here that encouraging limits on electronic media more generally would also be part of the solution. Technology sabbaths, fasts, and the like are needed. Making time to think, to talk, and to read, read books, real books, with print on paper. We need this balance to regain some measure of reason, of rationality, of critical distance

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  Life comes first, it must be protected from harm. Liberty must include freedom from threat and from want.  And the pursuit of happiness cannot come at the expense of the happiness of others. I want to believe that deep down, most of us know what is good and what is not, and with that understanding we can reason together and create a better, saner society for ourselves, and for our children.

Is the i-T Connection It for IT?

Sorry, I just couldn't resist the puns linking the word "it" (as in, "it girl" and "Coke is it!"), the acronym IT (Information Technology), and the new agreement that will allow Apple's iPhone to be made available to customers of the wireless carrier, T-Mobile (hence i-T). Connection is also a pun in this context, but you picked up on that right away, didn't you?

And while this is not exactly an earthshaking event in the big scheme of things, and if anything, I'm a big schemer kind of guy, but, well, if someone asks, I'll tell them what I think. So when the E-Commerce Times reached out to me for a comment on this new development, I gave them my views, which they included in the article they published, written by Erika Morphy, entitled, T-Mobile May Pull Off a Painless iPhone Launch.

The article was posted on December 7th, and begins with the following subheading:

Now that T-Mobile will be getting the iPhone, speculation is centered on how it may help -- or perhaps hurt -- the company. Other carriers have faced difficult challenges in their early iPhone days. T-Mobile CEO John Legere has promised a new way of selling the device, however, that will be both easy on the company and easy on consumers' pocketbooks.

 The article begins by setting the stage with the following basic information:

Buried halfway through a wordy investment statement from Deutsch Telekom: "T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together in 2013."

Those 17 words launched a frenzy of speculation. Was this finally the agreement that T-Mobile had been waiting for? Would it soon provide the iPhone and possibly the iPad to its customers?

T-Mobile CEO John Legere confirmed to investors at a conference in Germany that the company would indeed sell the iPhone in 2013, according to reports, and said that it would be offering it with a dramatically different plan. 

 The next section has a subheading of "Be Prepared" and lays out some of the questions and concerns regarding this new development:

The big question has been answered, but many others remain. Will carrying the iPhone increase customer satisfaction at T-Mobile? Can its network handle the data-hogging devices?

As for customer satisfaction, probably not -- at least, initially -- if the experiences of AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint are any guide.

For all three providers, customer satisfaction declined after the iPhone was introduced, David VanAmburg, director of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, told the E-Commerce Times.

"That was not a black eye to Apple in any way -- its products always do quite well. Rather, it was a matter of bandwidth at the network providers, and the ability of the providers to manage their networks in way that keeps satisfaction at a higher level."

In short, VanAmburg said, there were disgruntled customers at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, and there will likely be some at T-Mobile as well. 

 So, now that the stage has been set, enter yours truly, in a section with the heading "Odd Man Out" (which does not refer to me, I hasten to add):

Still, the news can't be anything but good for the company, said Lance Strate, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University.

"With this agreement, T-Mobile ceases to be the odd man out of the big four U.S. wireless service providers," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"T-Mobile has suffered from the absence of the iPhone option, so if nothing else, this will stop the bleeding, so to speak -- stem the loss of customers and allow them to retain their market share rather than fade away into obscurity," Strate explained.

It probably won't add much to the company's customer base, as the once-volatile market has become fairly stable, he continued, "unless they are willing to offer something significantly different from the competition in regard to data plans and pricing -- and I don't think they'll be able to."

 Now, let me interject with, "what do I know?" before continuing on with what Morphy has to report:

Yet that is exactly what T-Mobile's Legere has suggested the company will do.

Instead of offering the usual subsidy with a contract -- a model that can be a huge financial burden to carriers -- T-Mobile will sell the iPhone at full price. However, customers will be able to pay $99 down and $15 to $20 a month for 20 months to ease their out-of-pocket strain, Legere reportedly told investors.

As for T-Mobile's network, it should be able to handle the iPhone, said Strate, mainly because most of the T-Mobile iPhone users will be existing customers who switch over from Android smartphones.

So, at least I figure Legere won't contradict that last speculation, even if I'm wrong.  In any event, allow me to exit stage left, as we come to the final act, with the heading of "The LTE Issue":

T-Mobile will definitely be able to handle the traffic if the iPhone is an LTE-ready one, said Andreas Scherer, managing partner of Salto Partners.

Such a move would fit nicely with the company's overall strategy, he told the E-Commerce Times.

"As T-Mobile prepares for its merger with MetroPCS, the company is upgrading its LTE infrastructure heavily. The idea is that both companies will upgrade their existing client bases aggressively to the new network. The iPhone 5 fits perfectly in this picture," Scherer explained.

T-Mobile positioned its MetroPCS acquisition as allowing it to become a "bigger, better, bolder" provider when it was announced in October. That meant being able to provide 4G services and deeper LTE coverage in several metro areas as well as a greater choice of products -- including, we now know, the iPhone.

 So, it looks like I'm on safe ground here, even if my comments haven't fit the situation to a T, but you know it's tough to hit a mobile target.  And seriously, I do think we're moving into a period of more stability now when it comes to mobile services and wireless carriers, and that only makes sense. 

We're well past the days when there were major gaps in service areas, and you could walk down the street and step into a dead zone. So we should also be well past the days when a particular mobile device is available only through one or more particular carriers. Freedom of choice in a free marketplace is best for all concerned. It's not a substitute for democratic action, of course, but it is sound economic policy.

There is something about interpersonal media that favors monopolies or near-monopolies, like the postal service and good old Ma Bell, and the way that the internet that we know was the result of the merger of many different computer networks.  Simply put, the more individuals that are a part of a network, the greater its value, and that value increases exponentially as the network grows.  Stability and homogeneity are need to guarantee the best quality and most effective service, and the highest degree of interconnectivity.

So, that's that. If you disagree, well, by all means, say so, or in other words:  Tag! You're i-T!

The DC-Hollywood Connection

So, in my last post, Here Comes the Judd?, I mentioned how I appeared on  HuffPost Live (about 11 1/2 minutes into a segment archived under the title Port Strike) to comment on celebrities and politics, and the possibility of Ashely Judd running for the Senate in Kentucky.  And in my post, I noted how this online streaming video program described how they work: "We don't find our guests using a traditional Rolodex. Instead, we reach out via social platforms, see who is tweeting and Facebook posting something interesting on our chosen topics and contact them, asking if they want to come on HuffPost Live and expand on what they said."

So, in my case, I believe that what they came across online via social platforms, or maybe through good old fashioned googling, and subsequently found interesting was my recent interview published under the title of, Should Politicians And Celebrities Mix?  This is my third interview for the International Business Times, following up on the previous interviews which I blogged about not too long ago, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of TV News and Cable News Left and Right.  And like the other two, this new interview is by Palash R. Ghosh, this one being published on December 1st.  I already gave you the link, so now, without further ado, here it is:

Hollywood stars and Washington politicians have been linked to each other since the beginnings of the celebrity culture that has so defined the 20^th century and beyond. Although being seen with (or more importantly, receiving handsome donations from) movie and music stars can add some dash, glamour and sex appeal to the otherwise dull, drab world of politics, celebrity links can be a double-edged sword.

Much of the public are tired of the celebrity culture that mass media relentlessly promote -- they are particularly cynical about multi-millionaires who act, sing and dance professing knowledge about social issues and foreign policy.

In the recent presidential election, Barack Obama attracted widespread support (and money) from celebrities, making him the toast of Hollywood. That scenario has renewed criticisms that the film industry is “too liberal,” but this wasn’t always the case. Indeed, before the 1960s, Hollywood was actually a bastion of reactionary conservatism.

International Business Times spoke with an expert on mass media to discuss Hollywood’s long links with big-time politics.

Dr. Lance Strate is Director of the Professional Studies in New Media Program at Fordham University in New York.

IB TIMES: In the recent presidential election, much was made about the tremendous support (and campaign donations) Obama received from the well-heeled Hollywood community. Celebrities like Matt Damon, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Spike Lee, Eva Longoria, Michael Moore and many others are outspoken about their political views. Is this a relatively recent phenomenon – or have Hollywood and Washington always been linked?

STRATE: Celebrity culture has its origins in the 20th century, and it has evolved along with innovations in media and communications technology.

It's largely been the influence of television that has blurred the boundaries between entertainment and politics, beginning in the 1960s, and increasing over the past half century.

But it's not just Hollywood; it's also recording artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Meatloaf, and athletes such as Derek Jeter and Lebron James. Historian Daniel Boorstin defined a celebrity as a person "known for his well-knowness," and fame -- which is a function of visibility via media such as television -- is the only objective indicator of authority and legitimacy generally recognized today, so it follows that celebrities gain the power to provide socially relevant and persuasive endorsements.

Of course, appearing on television, even if it is due to some level of talent in acting, singing, or playing ball, has no direct connection to expertise in evaluating a candidate's ability to serve, govern, or even their ideological coherence, so this ought to be viewed as detrimental to the democratic process.

IB TIMES: The popular conception now is that Hollywood is overwhelmingly liberal (excluding conservatives like Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer and a few others). How long has this perception existed? Is it accurate?

STRATE: It's an old, old story, dating back to the silent movie era.

Certainly, Hollywood has been more international; take for example Charlie Chaplin who was English, and liberal enough to have been exiled during the Joseph McCarthy era, not to mention the many performers and filmmakers who fled Europe following the devastation of the First World War and the rise of fascism and Nazism.

And long before the Hollywood film colony and even the invention of the motion picture, actors were viewed as disreputable, morally questionable, libertine, and open to sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, etc., and therefore socially liberal, and Hollywood certainly followed this pattern.

Being more progressive, actors were more open to Communism than the mainstream of the United States, especially before the truth about repression in the Soviet Union became widely known in the mid- 20th century.

So there is certainly some basis to this view, but let's not forget that Ronald Reagan was a product of Hollywood, and the Reagan revolution shifted the United States in a more conservative direction than we had known since before Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Other prominent conservative entertainers-turned-politicians have included Sonny Bono, Shirley Temple, Eastwood, Fred Grandy, Fred Thompson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And then there's former football star Jack Kemp, and professional wrestling icon Jesse Ventura. And while the folks on the screen get all of the attention, let's not forget that there are studio heads, and presidents and CEOs of media corporations, who tend to favor the Republican party.

IB TIMES: When Oprah Winfrey endorsed Obama in 2008, she was widely criticized, particularly by her Republican fans. Oprah is probably too rich and powerful to be hurt by negative publicity, but generally speaking, does the public resent it when celebrities make political proclamations?

STRATE: I would just suggest, first, that Oprah can in fact be hurt by negative publicity, but she can easily withstand it. Generally, fans feel a strong sense of connection to the celebrities they admire, feel a sense of relationship and identification with them, and if a celebrity does something that goes against what the fan believes in, it create dissonance for the fan.

So, when a celebrity endorses a candidate that the fan does not favor, it may reduce the negative feeling the fan has towards that candidate, so in that sense celebrity endorsements can be effective, but it is likely to be balanced out by the fan feeling less positive towards the celebrity. You could call it ‘spending social capital’ if you like. But I don't think the public minds if celebrities endorse candidates they themselves favor.

And I think the public accepts that a celebrity, who has well established political views, a conservative like Eastwood for example, will endorse a candidate who matches those views, and it won't affect their own views of either the candidate or the celebrity. It's when the endorsement is unexpected that resentment is most likely.

As for celebrities doing something other than endorsing, that is, speaking out on the issues, they can be eloquent spokespersons, and when their remarks are properly scripted, I think most people accept them in that role. But when celebrities speak off the cuff, sounding simplistic or patronizing or doctrinaire, or just talk to an empty chair, then they are held up to ridicule, and resentment.

IB TIMES: During the 1930s and 1940s, under the tight control of movie studio bosses like Louie B. Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn, ‘liberals’ in Hollywood were castigated as ‘Communists’ (something that would have grave consequences under McCarthy in the 1950s).

So, in those long-ago days, were Hollywood liberals stifled, while prominent conservatives like John Wayne and Gary Cooper ruled the roost?

STRATE: During the 1930s and 1940s, political views were largely a private affair, which is why informants were needed, to identify which actors, writers, directors, etc., sympathized with the Communist party, or had any leftist connections. Ronald Reagan was an FBI informant, and also became head of the Screen Actors Guild, leading the effort to identify "un-American" members of his profession, and cooperating with the blacklisting effort associated with McCarthyism -- this was really the beginning of his entry into politics. So Reagan definitely was a powerful figure in the post-WWII/early Cold War era of the late 1940s and 1950s.

John Wayne was certainly an icon of the Republican party, but not an activist like Reagan, and neither was Gary Cooper, who would not name names when testifying before Congress.

IB TIMES: Two prominent Republican presidents from California, Richard Nixon and Reagan, both enjoyed the loud support of many Hollywood celebrities. Were they criticized for this the way Democrats Bill Clinton and Obama have been?

STRATE: No, although there was some degree of mocking of John Wayne within the counterculture. But in Nixon's day, celebrity endorsements were minimal and low-key, and they still were for Reagan.  Reagan had an added motivation not to seek out Hollywood endorsements, because circa 1980 it was still seen as questionable to have an actor running for president, so in order to bolster his image as a serious candidate he needed to minimize his connections to the entertainment industry.

IB TIMES: John F. Kennedy appeared to be a unique case – as a handsome, wealthy playboy and due to his father’s connections; he was deeply linked to Hollywood long before he entered the White House. During the 1960 campaign, his glamour and charisma attracted many stars, notably Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe. Did this rankle the public, or did they simply accept that his affluent lifestyle included relations with celebrities?

STRATE: JFK's connections were inherited from his father, and they did represent a departure from the past, but that fit in with his image as a youthful, and telegenic (a new phenomenon) president.

But it's also true that Hollywood reached the peak of its popularity during the mid-20th century, and it was often remarked that movie stars were for American society what royalty was for European nations.

So for Kennedy, hobnobbing with the entertainment elite was not inconsistent with his own status as part of socioeconomic elite now risen to political power.  The stars of the silver screen were larger than life, but television was about to cut them down to size, so that today a president going on a late night talk show to speak to Jay Leno or David Letterman would hardly be seen as glamorous.

IB TIMES: During the McCarthy-Communist witch-hunt period, a lot of anti-Semitism seemed to be directed at Hollywood (the ‘Hollywood Ten,’ for example, were almost all Jewish). Do you think anti-Semitism influences the prevailing view – even today – that Hollywood is “too liberal?”

STRATE: Yes, it most certainly does. Jewish-Americans have tended to support the Democratic party, and otherwise tend to be more liberal than the mainstream, and better represented than the mainstream in leftist circles. Jewish-Americans also had strong involvement with the Hollywood film industry, although the Jewish movie moguls tended to be more conservative and Republican, which is typical of captains of industry and the wealthy in general.

Certainly, anti-Semitism played a role in the McCarthy witch-hunts and other attacks on the film industry, and continued in the form of that longstanding absurd claim that the Jews control the media.

IB TIMES: One of the biggest film stars ever, Marlon Brando, was heavily involved in left-wing political activism during the 1960s and early 1970s. Did this hurt his career or was he just viewed as a crackpot?

STRATE: Brando was such a big star, so well regarded, that it did not affect him to any great extent, and he also was generally excused for being eccentric.

Of course, the famous incident where he refused to accept the Oscar for his role in The Godfather in 1973, and sent [the fake ‘Indian’ actress] Sacheen Littlefeather in his place to make a political speech about the portrayal of Native Americans in film is a much cited turning point in the American movie industry, and much satirized and mocked, I hasten to add.

But it does seem like this is the moment when Hollywood "jumped the shark" to use show business terminology, and liberal politics was shoved into the limelight, creating an association that has only become stronger with time. It didn't really hurt Brando himself, but it did hurt Hollywood.

IB TIMES: Although many black athletes endorsed and campaigned for Obama, athletes generally avoid any kind of political activism. Are they worried that such activities will hurt their outside commercial income?

STRATE: If commercial advertising is the basis of significant income, then yes, you do not want to alienate any portion of your audience, or the advertisers who might hire you to endorse products -- products are mostly presented as apolitical, the idea is to maximize sales.

For the most part, film actors and to a slightly lesser extent TV actors do not want to dilute or cheapen their image with advertising endorsements (except abroad where the domestic audience won't see them), so that sort of commercial income is not significant for entertainers.

But sports stars can lose large sums if they do any harm to their image, which can be on the account of immoral activities off the field (drug use, infidelity), or the perception that their achievements came about through unfair advantage (e.g., steroids). While political endorsements are not in the same category, they do take away from the athlete's image, and therefore will make them less valuable in regard to commercial endorsements.

Interestingly, this political reticence gives professional athletes a statesman-like image, and makes them all the more influential if and when they do engage in political endorsements or other forms of activism.

And there you have it! I know there's so much more to be said on the subject, but that's the nature of the interview, isn't it? And tell me, would it have been in bad taste, in commenting on the liberal image of actors, to note that an actor assassinated the first Republican president of the United States?

Here Comes the Judd?

So, I was recently asked to comment on the announcement that Ashley Judd is considering running for the US Senate seat in her home state of Kansas, where she is very, very popular. A piece was posted on this on Tuesday on the Huffington Post site, entitled Ashley Judd, Kentucky Senate Candidate? Actress 'Seriously' Exploring Democratic Bid. Written by Nick Wing, it begins

Actress Ashley Judd was a huge supporter of President Barack Obama during his reelection campaign. Now she's reportedly exploring options to take down one of his biggest congressional adversaries.

Politico reports that Judd is looking into mounting a Democratic challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), citing discussions with sources with knowledge of the situation. Dan Logsdon, chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, told Politico that he'd heard the considerations were "serious."

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), who optimistically weighed in on the initial round of speculation floated last month, similarly told Politico that he had heard Judd was "serious" about the potential move to politics. Some sources, however, have suggested that she might wait until 2016, when she could challenge freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Okay, so it's a news leak, and that's all, it seems. Here's something more direct:

Judd, a Golden Globe-nominated actress with deep ancestry in Kentucky, addressed the rumors in a statement last month.

"I cherish Kentucky, heart and soul, and while I'm very honored by the consideration, we have just finished an election, so let's focus on coming together to keep moving America's families, and especially our kids, forward," she said.

And while the possibility of bringing in Judd's star power into a tough race against a Republican leader has excited many Democratic operatives, one of Judd's own family members doesn't believe she'll run.

"I don't think there's any possibility of that happening," Polly Judd, the 85-year-old grandmother of Ashley and her singer sister, Wynonna, told the Associated Press in a recent interview, going on to praise McConnell for his 5 terms of service.

So, that's the story, and I was asked to say a few words about this possibility on HuffPost Live, their online, streaming network that provides live programming weekdays for 12 hours a day.  They way they explain themselves is

HuffPost Live doesn't have shows in the traditional sense. Our programming is built around segments spotlighting the biggest, hottest, most engaging stories HuffPost is covering at any given moment and using them as the jumping-off points for conversations, commentary, and comedy. These segments are as long -- or as short -- as they need to be. We aren't limited by the usual time constraints of TV.

Instead, HuffPost Live emulates the online experience. No one looks at their watch and thinks, "It's 10 a.m., time for some celebrity news, I think I'll log on to HuffPost!" Instead, readers come to HuffPost to catch up on what's happening in the world and wind up getting caught up in the wide array of compelling stories we offer. You may start with a story on the upcoming presidential debate, then find yourself drawn to some celebrity news, followed by the latest viral comedy video and a segment on the benefits of napping.

As for how they get their guests, here's what they have to say

HuffPost live takes advantage of new media technologies to bring different voices to the conversation. We don't find our guests using a traditional Rolodex. Instead, we reach out via social platforms, see who is tweeting and Facebook posting something interesting on our chosen topics and contact them, asking if they want to come on HuffPost Live and expand on what they said.

And location doesn't matter. Anyone with a smartphone or tablet can instantly join us live. Picture a conversation about parenting with mothers in Kazakhstan, Kenya, and Kentucky, talking to us and to each other and to our users live via Skype or Google Hangout.

And that's how I was brought in, by way of a Google+ Hangout, which is kind of like Skype and video conferencing. I joined in via my iPhone, which is why the quality isn't great. And I happened to be teaching an MA class on Understanding New Media as an adjunct at Fairleigh Dickinson University at the time, so I made this a break, had the video projected up on the screen, but without the sound because that would create a feedback loop, and there is a significant delay, and I connected via my iPhone, with ear buds (also to prevent a feedback loop). I made the mistake of glancing up at the projected image on the screen every so often, so you'll see my eyes look off to the side. What can I say, I wasn't at my best, but it was a great experience, and the first time I had done anything like this with a Hangout and live program.

The segment is archived as part of a larger group of stories under the heading of Port Strike, the first segment being about the strike going on at the Port of Los Angeles, and the Ashley Judd story is about 5 minutes long, starting at 11:25 in, and going to 17:20.  And as always, you can click on the link and see the sites and the video there, or what it here:

So, there you have it. Just another example of the culture of celebrity, with the electronic media undermining print literacy's bias towards specialization, opening the door to the idea that anyone can do anything, because it's all reduced to a performance, or simply just an appearance, on the electronic media.  And this in turn gives us the image politics that Neil Postman so incisively critiqued back in 1985 in Amusing Ourselves to Death.  Back when a movie and TV star was president of the United States, remember? If we're not careful, it could happen again!

Imperfectly Divine

 As I mention here on occasion, I'm a member, and in fact the president of Congregation Adas Emuno, a small Reform temple in Leonia, which is a town in Bergen County, New Jersey. So this year I started to attend our Saturday morning Torah study sessions, which are led by our rabbi, Barry Schwartz.  One reason I decided to do this rather than sleep in on Saturday morning was Barry's decision to have us study the Mishneh Torah of Moses Maimonides, the 12th century Jewish philosopher and theologian.

You may not have heard of him, but Maimonides is considered by some to be second only to his namesake, the biblical Moses, in his influence on the development of Judaism. As an authority on the Hebrew bible and Talmud, he also influenced Christian theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. In addition to being a theologian and philosopher, Maimonides was also a practicing physician.

Now, to backtrack for a moment, students of media ecology, and the history of writing, know that there are two major origination points for the alphabet. 

The first is circa 1500 BCE, when the Semitic alphabet first appears in the Sinai desert. This is a major breakthrough because previously, logographic and syllabic writing systems required thousands or hundreds of different characters, whereas the Semitic alphabet reduced it all down to 22 consonants.  Following the introduction of the Semitic alphabet, we get the events represented by the story of Moses, and a new kind of culture appearing in that region, which is to say, ancient Israel. 

The Semitic alphabet diffused across the Mediterranean to the Greeks by the way of the Semitic people known as Phoenecians, and the Greeks adapted it to their own language, changing some of the consonants into vowels in the process. Out of this came everything we know and admire about ancient Greece.

So, we have two major alphabetic cultures in antiquity, Greece and Israel, or as some put it metonymically, Athens and Jerusalem. Athens gives us our secular-humanist culture, associated with the Greco-Roman tradition, and Jerusalem gives us our religious and legal-ethical culture, associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition. But advantage goes to Athens, not only because secular humanism has been increasingly more dominant since the Enlightenment, but also because the Christian church embraced Greco-Roman thought, especially once Christianity completely broke with Judaism, and was adopted by the Roman emperor Constantine.

We just recently discussed the book Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia in an MA class I'm teaching at Fordham University, and Paglia argues how pagan culture never truly vanished, but remained very much just under the surface of western Christian culture, in both its Apollonian and Dionysian forms. And it follows that the Apollonian side of pagan culture is the basis of our secular-humanist orientation.

Anyway, among the differences between the two alphabetic cultures is the fact that Jerusalem retained a strong connection to orality to balance out its commitment to literacy, and an aversion to visual imagery on account of the Second Commandment injunction against graven images of any kind, while Athens developed a highly visual and visualist culture, laying the groundwork for the extreme visualism that emerged via print culture in early modern Europe.

Walter Ong's media ecology sensibility was based, in large part, on his gaining an understanding of the strong residual orality of Judaic culture, and the absence of the visualism that shaped ancient Greece. The 20th century Jewish theologian and philosopher, Martin Buber, had significant influence on Ong's thought on the subject, although the Athens vs. Jerusalem dichotomy is typically associated with Leo Strauss.

Hellenism posed a great challenge to Jewish culture and thought in the ancient world, and the minor holiday of Hanukkah, which we'll begin to celebrate this coming Saturday evening, represents the first major battle between Jerusalem and Athens, not in the sense of direct warfare, but as a war waged within ancient Israel to rid itself of Hellenistic influences. Mostly, however, the battles were intellectual ones, as for example Philo of Alexandria provided an early attempt to synthesize Greek and Jewish thought, one that was largely ignored by Talmudic scholars, but held some influence within the early Christian Church.

Now jump ahead to the 12th century, and we have Maimonides being thoroughly schooled in ancient Greek philosophy, as it was preserved in the Islamic empire, embracing Aristotelian rationalism and attempting to apply it to Talmudic scholarship and Judaic thought. Now this may set off warning signals among followers of general semantics, but after all, Aristotle's logic represented a major advance for its time, and we certainly cannot expect a find a Korzybski-like non-Aristotelian approach in the 12th century.

So, just as Aristotle tried to provide organized summaries of the philosophical thinking of his time, Maimonides tried to do the same for Judaism and Talmudic scholarship. And this effort to summarize and organize can be understood as a shift towards Greek visualism.  In doing so, he left out all of the Talmudic references, the differing points of view that are recorded, removing the sense of an ongoing conversation, dialogue, debate and disputation. The result is something more like a textbook, a step towards the Ramist revolution of the early modern era that Ong researched (interestingly enough, Ramism was the basis of Puritan education, and Maimonides was an important source for Puritan theologians, who argued that they were the new Israelites).

It occurred to me that to take on this kind of summary, and more importantly, to want to make it available to others, suggests an increased accessibility of written works, along the lines that Harold Innis discusses in his seminal media ecology work, The Bias of Communication.  So I checked, and found that the manufacturing of paper, which was invented in China in the 2nd century CE, had spread to the Iberian peninsula during the 10th century.  It follows that by the time of Maimonides, paper had become plentiful, opening the door to and creating a demand for efforts such as he was engaged in.

As an Aristotelian, Maimonides sought to establish first principles, in order to provide a logical basis for Jewish thought, and therefore set forth 13 principles of faith, the first time anything like that had been attempted.  He also argued for highly abstract notions of God and the human soul, in ways that seemed to me to draw on Plato's ideal forms. Again, this is a shift away from the oral, dialogic mode into a more abstract, visual, rational approach.

Now, while recognizing the significance of his accomplishments, my preference is for the Kabbalah and Isaac Luria, as mysticism seems to better work with spirituality than rationality does, although logic can be useful in regard to ethics.  But given our modern understanding about the limits of deductive reasoning (only as good as its premises), the proven effectiveness of empiricism (relying on observable facts), and my own preference for that non-Aristotelian approach of general semantics, and media ecology, I find Maimonides difficult to relate to in many respects, although fascinating to study.

So now, while this doesn't relate directly to Maimonides, I was interested to come across a recent post on the New York Times Opinionator Blog, dated November 25th, and entitled An Imperfect God, by Yoram Hazony, president of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and the author of, most recently, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture.  Here is how he begins:

Is God perfect? You often hear philosophers describe "theism" as the belief in a perfect being - a being whose attributes are said to include being all-powerful, all-knowing, immutable, perfectly good, perfectly simple, and necessarily existent (among others). And today, something like this view is common among lay people as well. 

This view, I should point out, would directly correspond to that of Maimonides, and of course most other medieval and modern theologians. Anyway, to continue with the post:

There are two famous problems with this view of God. The first is that it appears to be impossible to make it coherent. For example, it seems unlikely that God can be both perfectly powerful and perfectly good if the world is filled (as it obviously is) with instances of terrible injustice. Similarly, it's hard to see how God can wield his infinite power to instigate alteration and change in all things if he is flat-out immutable. And there are more such contradictions where these came from.

The second problem is that while this "theist" view of God is supposed to be a description of the God of the Bible, it's hard to find any evidence that the prophets and scholars who wrote the Hebrew Bible (or "Old Testament") thought of God in this way at all. The God of Hebrew Scripture is not depicted as immutable, but repeatedly changes his mind about things (for example, he regrets having made man). He is not all-knowing, since he's repeatedly surprised by things (like the Israelites abandoning him for a statue of a cow). He is not perfectly powerful either, in that he famously cannot control Israel and get its people to do what he wants. And so on.

Here, Hazony is raising the famous problem of free will, one that Maimonides among many others have taken up. Maimonides insists that we have free will, and his emphasis is on proving that this is the case based on Biblical sources, but he does not really tackle the problem of how this is inconsistent with the view of God as a perfect being.

Philosophers have spent many centuries trying to get God's supposed perfections to fit together in a coherent conception, and then trying to get that to fit with the Bible. By now it's reasonably clear that this can't be done. In fact, part of the reason God-bashers like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are so influential (apart from the fact they write so well) is their insistence that the doctrine of God's perfections makes no sense, and that the idealized "being" it tells us about doesn't resemble the biblical God at all.
So is that it, then? Have the atheists won? I don't think so. But it does look like the time has come for some rethinking in the theist camp.

I'd start with this: Is it really necessary to say that God is a "perfect being," or perfect at all, for that matter? As far as I can tell, the biblical authors avoid asserting any such thing. And with good reason. Normally, when we say that something is "perfect," we mean it has attained the best possible balance among the principles involved in making it the kind of thing it is. For example, if we say that a bottle is perfect, we mean it can contain a significant quantity of liquid in its body; that its neck is long enough to be grasped comfortably and firmly; that the bore is wide enough to permit a rapid flow of liquid; and so on. Of course, you can always manufacture a bottle that will hold more liquid, but only by making the body too broad (so the bottle doesn't handle well) or the neck too short (so it's hard to hold). There's an inevitable trade-off among the principles, and perfection lies in the balance among them. And this is so whether what's being judged is a bottle or a horse, a wine or a gymnastics routine or natural human beauty.

What would we say if some philosopher told us that a perfect bottle would be one that can contain a perfectly great amount of liquid, while being perfectly easy to pour from at the same time? Or that a perfect horse would bear an infinitely heavy rider, while at the same time being able to run with perfectly great speed? I should think we'd say he's made a fundamental mistake here: You can't perfect something by maximizing all its constituent principles simultaneously. All this will get you is contradictions and absurdities. This is not less true of God than it is of anything else.

I think Hazony's argument here is quite brilliant, not the least because he is using logic to refute logic.

The attempt to think of God as a perfect being is misguided for another reason as well. We can speak of the perfection of a bottle or a horse because these are things that can be encompassed (at least in some sense) by our senses and understanding. Having the whole bottle before us, we feel we can judge how close it is to being a perfect instance of its type. But if asked to judge the perfection of a bottle poking out of a paper bag, or of a horse that's partly hidden in the stable, we'd surely protest: How am I supposed to know? I can only see part of it.

Yet the biblical accounts of our encounters with God emphasize that all human views of God are partial and fragmentary in just this way. Even Moses, the greatest of the prophets, is told that he can't see God's face, but can only catch a glimpse of God's back as he passes by. At another point, God responds to Moses' request to know his name (that is, his nature) by telling him "ehi'eh asher ehi'eh" -"I will be what I will be." In most English-language Bibles this is translated "I am that I am," following the Septuagint, which sought to bring the biblical text into line with the Greek tradition (descended from Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato's "Timaeus") of identifying God with perfect being. But in the Hebrew original, the text says almost exactly the opposite of this: The Hebrew "I will be what I will be" is in the imperfect tense, suggesting to us a God who is incomplete and changing. In their run-ins with God, human beings can glimpse a corner or an edge of something too immense to be encompassed, a "coming-into-being" as God approaches, and no more. The belief that any human mind can grasp enough of God to begin recognizing perfections in him would have struck the biblical authors as a pagan conceit.

I find this extraordinarily important in that it points to the fact that the translation of the Holy Scriptures from Hebrew to Greek was not just a matter of linguistic substitution, but actually a translation of worldviews and philosophies. That this is inherent in the act of translation relates to the concept of linguistic relativism, and what has often been referred to as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that different languages convey different ways of viewing the world, an idea important in both media ecology and general semantics.

So if it's not a bundle of "perfections" that the prophets and scholars who wrote the Hebrew Bible referred to in speaking of God, what was it they were talking about? As Donald Harman Akenson writes, the God of Hebrew Scripture is meant to be an "embodiment of what is, of reality" as we experience it. God's abrupt shifts from action to seeming indifference and back, his changing demands from the human beings standing before him, his at-times devastating responses to mankind's deeds and misdeeds - all these reflect the hardship so often present in the lives of most human beings. To be sure, the biblical God can appear with sudden and stunning generosity as well, as he did to Israel at the Red Sea. And he is portrayed, ultimately, as faithful and just. But these are not the "perfections" of a God known to be a perfect being. They don't exist in his character "necessarily," or anything remotely similar to this. On the contrary, it is the hope that God is faithful and just that is the subject of ancient Israel's faith: We hope that despite the frequently harsh reality of our daily experience, there is nonetheless a faithfulness and justice that rules in our world in the end.

The ancient Israelites, in other words, discovered a more realistic God than that descended from the tradition of Greek thought. But philosophers have tended to steer clear of such a view, no doubt out of fear that an imperfect God would not attract mankind's allegiance. Instead, they have preferred to speak to us of a God consisting of a series of sweeping idealizations - idealizations whose relation to the world in which we actually live is scarcely imaginable. Today, with theism rapidly losing ground across Europe and among Americans as well, we could stand to reconsider this point. Surely a more plausible conception of God couldn't hurt.

I can really appreciate the idea that the God of the Hebrew Bible represents reality, what is, rather than some ideal form being passed off as realism, and that God represents a reality that is dynamic and evolving, not immutable.  And again, I go back to the Kabbalah, as Jewish mysticism incorporates a concept of God that is quite different from the absolute perfection of Hellenized theology, a concept of God and Creation as incomplete, requiring our help to compete the project, to heal and repair the world, aka tikkun olam. If nothing else, it is a worthy sense of mission for humanity. 

And in any event, Hazony helps us to better understand how the worldviews of Athens and Jerusalem are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile, so that we can appreciate that Maimonides made a valiant attempt, but in the end, the two cannot be merged, although they most certainly can co-exist.