Address your e-mail to
the editors to [email protected]. Please include your address and daytime phone
number (for confirmation only).
Advertising by Numbers
David Plotz writes in his
June 6 "Assessment" of Tina Brown, "In 1997, [ The New Yorker 's] six
double issues and three other special issues accounted for 35 percent of the
magazine's advertising pages."
By my count, the six double
issues (at two weeks per issue) and three special issues (one week each) total
15 weeks, or 28 percent of 1997. Is it so impressive that 28 percent of the
year accounted for 35 percent of the ad pages?
I'm
reminded of Dilbert's boss, who was outraged to find that 40 percent of company
sick days were being taken on Mondays or Fridays.
-- Andrew
Solovay Belmont, Calif.
The
New Yorker
Turned Brown
David
Plotz claims ("Assessment") Tina Brown "supplemented the already prodigiously
talented staff with her own snazzy hires." She also lost a prodigious lot of
talent, either by firing people, forcing them out, or forcing them first to
throw up and then to give up. You're right about the magazine's sameness,
however; it's the same damn thing each week, and it's the same as the other
slick, self-referential, celebrity gossip mags around. As for the chattering
classes, they chatter almost exclusively to one another, and they are very dull
people--far duller than the old New Yorker .
-- Susanna
Margolis
Yes,
Sex, Please--We're Scientists!
In
"Today's Papers" for June 5, Scott Shuger writes:
The NYT ,
LAT , and WP fronts herald the discovery that the sub-atomic
particle called a neutrino, which is chargeless and was formerly thought
massless too, in fact has mass. The papers assure us this is earth-shaking.
"The Universe May Never Be the Same" is slugged over NYT Universe
reporter Malcolm Browne's dispatch. The Times says the discovery was
announced by 120 physicists at a "neutrino conference." Hoo-boy, bet the
bartenders and hookers go on vacation during that one.
Science reporting in the
United States is hampered by the deep-seated conviction that the press knows
even better than the people that it's just a bunch of pinheads nattering about
nothing. Well, these little nothings called neutrinos have a lot to say, if
only we could find a press willing to pass on the message. I applaud the New
York Times for trying to convey some of that excitement and say woe to you
for dipping to such cynicism. Uncharacteristic, I might add.
Oh, and
by the way, scientists get lots of sex.
--Rob Pike Bell
Labs
Organ
Music
I have several problems with
Richard Epstein's June 3 comments on organ peddling ("Dialogue"):
1) Epstein writes: "Better
that we have 200 people alive with one kidney each than 100 people alive with
two kidneys." I mention that point to my medical students (150 presumably
healthy young people) every year in an effort to get them to agree to a
utilitarian plan making it mandatory to remove one kidney from each of them to
be made available for donation. Every year they reject this plan. Something
about personal autonomy being more important than utilitarian calculus in
certain situations. It just may be they are right--that utilitarian math may
not be the highest virtue when dealing with organ procurement (one murder could
net two kidneys as we are likely to find out from the Chinese prisoner
situation--should we trade one life for two?).
2) Epstein writes: "Look it
up on the Web. ... If it is possible to do this kind of research with standard
illnesses, it should be possible to do it with organ transplants." The point
being that access to good information fosters legal markets. The Web example
proves just the opposite: Much of the information people get about illness on
the Web is incomplete, imprecise, or just plain wrong. There is absolutely no
guarantee that good information will create legitimate markets for organ sales.
The likelihood is the opposite--that bad (misleading, coercive) information
will be disseminated to entice people to sell their organs and ignore the very
real risks that people incur when they give up their organs. (Donating organs
can bring consequences to the donor far more momentous than buying a fake Rolex
on Fifth Avenue.)
3) How
would such markets ever be regulated? No regulation? Without some screening
(who will the brokers and middlemen be?), not only will donors suffer (see
above) but some recipients will receive unsuitable organs. While Epstein can
argue that this happens currently, consider what wholesale expansion of an
unregulated market would bring in terms of the number of complications. In
fact, there are reports that in some countries where organs may be sold and the
process is not monitored closely, the numbers and types of infections in
recipients are much worse.
-- C.M. Franklin,
M.D.
Microsoft Über Alles ?
In "Monopoly Shopping,"
Steven E. Landsburg sings a paean to the vertically integrated monopoly. He
argues mainly that including the Internet Explorer browser as a free part of
the Windows 95 operating system will ultimately benefit the consumer since a
rival browser would be sold as a separate profit center.
I happen to agree that one
predominant browser architecture would ultimately benefit the consumer, but for
a different reason--it would create a market standard for developers and
consumers to focus their investments. I expect Microsoft to prevail, despite
Netscape's better technology and implementation and despite the government's
well-intentioned efforts to intervene. I would certainly hope, however, that
resources would continue to be dedicated to innovation in this arena until the
technologies had matured to the point where they were clearly superior and
worthy of becoming a standard.
It's odd to read this whole
economic argument in light of Netscape's pledge to distribute Navigator (and
its source code) for free in perpetuity. But even if Navigator were to be sold
at some point, the ultimate cost to the consumer would come not from the cost
of the browser itself, but from the ramifications of Microsoft's control of the
emerging desktop software interface to the internet. The focus in the browser
wars and legal wranglings has already begun to move away from browser choice
and toward the more important issues of gateways and the branded services they
feature.
The
configuration of computers when sold will determine to a large degree which
services a consumer encounters. Note how the cable companies have profited from
control of the channels that they carry, some of which they own fully or in
part. Note also how the Baby Bells have profited from charging for advertising
in their Yellow Pages. Consider then the value of a gateway when it contains
not just a few dozen TV channels or local business listings, but the emerging
broadband multimedia marketplace only a few years away. Do we want to allow
Microsoft to parlay its control of the desktop architecture into control of the
content that appears on the desktop?
-- Mark Safire
How About
Windows $94?
In his article, "Monopoly Shopping,"
Steven Landsburg notes that Windows 95 costs about $90 and suggests what would
happen to Microsoft if it tried to raise the price.
A better topic to examine is
why the price of Windows 95 hasn't come down in three years on the market.
My
understanding of the economies of scale suggests the Windows iterations being
produced today should be costing less to produce than the first ones that
entered the pipeline. Prices of Intel processors, laser printers, fax machines,
etc., all drop as the learning/production curve results in lower costs. Why not
Windows 95? Could the lack of competition have anything to do with it?
-- Marvin Katz
Virtual
Criticism
In
"Peep
Show," David Edelstein writes:
Would I welcome The
Truman Show for what it is--a sharp-witted, visually layered, gorgeously
designed, meticulously directed piece of formula pablum--if I hadn't been
bludgeoned by pre-emptive raves in Esquire , Time ,
Entertainment Weekly , and the New York Times that proclaim it
some sort of subversive postmodern masterwork?
Did
Edelstein read Janet Maslin's review in the Friday, June 5, New York
Times ? In her review, Maslin acknowledges the mania surrounding The
Truman Show (in the first paragraph, no less) and concludes that, while it
is a good film, it has been lauded excessively by critics. Maslin gives no
indication she thinks the film is a masterwork of any kind.
-- Dan Flynn
David Edelstein
reponds: It's too bad that Slate doesn't pass along letters critical of
its contributors before posting them. I share the general disdain for lengthy
tit-for-tat replies, but when facts are at issue, it's only fair to give a guy
a chance to set the record straight. Dan Flynn suggests that I misread Janet
Maslin's review of The Truman Show in the New York Times , which
indeed begins in much the same vein as mine. In fact, her review and mine were
published the same day, so I didn't read hers. The "pre-emptive rave" to which
I referred was by columnist Frank Rich; it came more than a week before the
film opened. I saw no reason to name Rich, whose work I respect, but his
column--along with those of critics in Esquire , Entertainment
Weekly , and Time --sure fit the description in my review.
Don't
Knock the Rock
"In God He ...
," Brent Staples' review of Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.
perpetuates a few misconceptions about Standard Oil's business practices.
For example, he repeats the
myth that Standard pursued a "predatory pricing" strategy (though that was
indeed among the charges brought against Standard by the U.S. government).
Though Standard did indeed buy out many of its early competitors, that was due
chiefly to their tremendously inefficient processes--Standard ended up
mothballing most of the refineries it bought, while expanding output from its
own, efficient facilities. Furthermore, if Standard did pursue a predatory
pricing strategy, it sure didn't work. Standard faced constant competition both
in America and abroad throughout its corporate existence, causing the price of
oil to slope ever downward.
Second, Staples claims that
the trust system "disallowed genuine competition." Far from it. As Chernow
himself puts it: "With additional oil strikes in California, Indian Territory
(later Oklahoma), Kansas, and Illinois in the early 1900s, the industry became
too vast and far-flung for even Standard Oil to control. It might not be too
much of an exaggeration to say that the antitrust cases brought against the
trust in the early 1900s were not just belated but were fast becoming
superfluous." In other words, the marketplace was already bringing Standard to
its knees, and Rockefeller did indeed end up "eclipsed by others"--without
government intervention.
The reason
monopolies are bad is that, in theory, they lead to high prices and less
product. Staples points out, though, that Standard Oil provided a product which
was "consistently good--and cheaper to boot." In other words, it acted exactly
as a theoretical monopoly should not. While Standard's practices may have led
to, in Chernow's words, "misery all around" for producers, the low prices and
improved product they brought to the refining industry meant nothing but good
news for consumers.
-- Ananda
Gupta Research assistant, Competitive Enterprise Institute
Address your e-mail to
the editors to [email protected]. Please include your address and daytime phone
number (for confirmation only).
