Rockstar vs. Google: How the patent trolling we hate taints the companies we love
I like to riff on Arthur C. Clarke by saying any company, sufficiently large, is indistinguishable from evil. I've used it before when Google failed to respect copyrights, trademarks, flip-flopped on net neutrality, disregarded privacy, and, through their Motorola subsidiary engaged in a horrendous violation of the very spirit of standards-essential patents. And I'm using it again now to describe the actions of the Rockstar consortium - the entity that purchased Nortel and Novell patents, bankrolled by Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, and others. They've now sued Google over search-related patents, which is an attack against the heart of Google's business, and it smacks of patent trolling, which is a fairly revolting practice.
Motorola's actions don't excuse Rockstar's, nor vice versa. Nor is either, sadly, illegal. They are, simply, one front among many in a vast, international war. And, sadly, it's nothing new. It's a reminder of how venomously these companies take their current competition, and how much they value winning. At any cost.
It's also an important reminder that we, as consumers, should never be loyal to the companies we purchase from. They should be loyal to us. Every decision we make should be a decision anew, based on the conditions of the moment, and only on who is best serving our needs, and the needs of our society at the time.
Here's some further reading on Rockstar vs. Google. I recommend all of it:
iPad Air day is drawing towards its conclusion, and hopefully by now everyone who was planning to pick one up on launch day – wherever you might be in the world – has had chance to. But now, we want to hear from you and find out which model you picked up in the end? We've been talking about how to decide which is the best model for you since the iPad Air first launched, but for many today was the time to put the talking to an end.
The iPad Air launch for pretty much everyone has been much smoother and less stressful than last months iPhone 5s launch. Stock seems to have been plentiful pretty much everywhere, and with in-store pickups and availability stretching to a number of third-party retailers as well, perhaps more of you actually found yourselves grabbing one today instead of waiting a while? Planned, off the cuff, whichever it may have been, which iPad Air did you get today?
Myself, I picked up a 16GB wifi in black, going against all my own advice. There is a story behind it, which I talked about with Rene Ritchie and Derek Kessler on the special iPad Air launch day edition of the iMore Show – so check it out for the full skinny – and aside from having second thoughts now about which iPad is for me and potentially swapping up to a larger size, I'm pretty happy with the choice I made. The Space Gray color on the rear of the black iPad Air is really nice, and I don't have any regrets over not going for the white one.
So if you grabbed an iPad Air today, pick out your selection from the list up top and let us know why you went with it in the comments below!
iPad Air Apple's full-sized iPad gets slimmed down. Features include:
Carl Pelini's surprising departure from Florida Atlantic took another turn Friday, when school officials released sworn affidavits from two people — including a member of Pelini's staff — alleging that the football coach was seen using marijuana and cocaine.
FAU assistant coach Matt Edwards told officials that he witnessed Pelini smoking marijuana in Key West, Fla. on Oct. 19, the Saturday of an off week for the Owls. That was echoed by another person, Allison Stewart, who also said she got a text message from the now-former Owls coach one day later in which he was "admitting that he uses drugs on occasion."
Edwards remains on the staff, and is expected to be coaching Saturday when Florida Atlantic plays host to Tulane in Boca Raton, Fla. Brian Wright has replaced Pelini as head coach, on an interim basis.
The affidavits, both of which were notarized, state that they were provided at the request of Florida Atlantic athletic director Patrick Chun "to assist him with an investigation." They were released by FAU officials on Friday after a public-records request.
Pelini's contract specified that if he used "any narcotics, drugs, or other controlled substances" he could be subject to firing. Pelini resigned Wednesday after being confronted with the allegations, and since he wasn't fired the school may be able to recoup $500,000 because the coach terminated the contract himself.
Earlier this week, Chun said Pelini acknowledged use of "illegal drugs" before he resigned.
Pelini's resignation was effective immediately. The resignation of defensive coordinator Pete Rekstis, who Chun said also acknowledged drug use when confronted with the allegations, is not effective until Dec. 31. It's not clear what role Rekstis has with the university now, if any. He is no longer listed as a member of the Owls' coaching staff.
Edwards' affidavit also said he witnessed Rekstis using marijuana and cocaine in the past year.
"I wanted to provide as much advance notice as possible to avoid disruption at the University," Rekstis wrote in his resignation.
An email sent Friday to Brian Kopp, an attorney who sent FAU officials a statement from Pelini shortly before the head coach's resignation was announced, was not immediately returned.
Pelini had a base annual salary of $472,500, according to FAU's most recently released payroll data. Rekstis was making $145,000 and Edwards is making $90,272 annually.
Pelini was 5-15 in parts of two seasons at Florida Atlantic, including a 2-6 start this season.
Edwards is in his first season with FAU. He previously worked with Rekstis at Miami of Ohio, and Pelini raved about him when he brought him to Florida Atlantic, saying he was "blessed" to have him on staff and describing him as "a good person who genuinely cares about his players."
Contact: Caroline Perry cperry@seas.harvard.edu 617-496-1351 Harvard University
First-of-its-kind, brain-inspired device looks toward highly efficient and fast parallel computing networks
Cambridge, Mass. November 1, 2013 It doesn't take a Watson to realize that even the world's best supercomputers are staggeringly inefficient and energy-intensive machines.
Our brains have upwards of 86 billion neurons, connected by synapses that not only complete myriad logic circuits; they continuously adapt to stimuli, strengthening some connections while weakening others. We call that process learning, and it enables the kind of rapid, highly efficient computational processes that put Siri and Blue Gene to shame.
Materials scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have now created a new type of transistor that mimics the behavior of a synapse. The novel device simultaneously modulates the flow of information in a circuit and physically adapts to changing signals.
Exploiting unusual properties in modern materials, the synaptic transistor could mark the beginning of a new kind of artificial intelligence: one embedded not in smart algorithms but in the very architecture of a computer. The findings appear in Nature Communications.
"There's extraordinary interest in building energy-efficient electronics these days," says principal investigator Shriram Ramanathan, associate professor of materials science at Harvard SEAS. "Historically, people have been focused on speed, but with speed comes the penalty of power dissipation. With electronics becoming more and more powerful and ubiquitous, you could have a huge impact by cutting down the amount of energy they consume."
The human mind, for all its phenomenal computing power, runs on roughly 20 Watts of energy (less than a household light bulb), so it offers a natural model for engineers.
"The transistor we've demonstrated is really an analog to the synapse in our brains," says co-lead author Jian Shi, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS. "Each time a neuron initiates an action and another neuron reacts, the synapse between them increases the strength of its connection. And the faster the neurons spike each time, the stronger the synaptic connection. Essentially, it memorizes the action between the neurons."
In principle, a system integrating millions of tiny synaptic transistors and neuron terminals could take parallel computing into a new era of ultra-efficient high performance.
While calcium ions and receptors effect a change in a biological synapse, the artificial version achieves the same plasticity with oxygen ions. When a voltage is applied, these ions slip in and out of the crystal lattice of a very thin (80-nanometer) film of samarium nickelate, which acts as the synapse channel between two platinum "axon" and "dendrite" terminals. The varying concentration of ions in the nickelate raises or lowers its conductancethat is, its ability to carry information on an electrical currentand, just as in a natural synapse, the strength of the connection depends on the time delay in the electrical signal.
Structurally, the device consists of the nickelate semiconductor sandwiched between two platinum electrodes and adjacent to a small pocket of ionic liquid. An external circuit multiplexer converts the time delay into a magnitude of voltage which it applies to the ionic liquid, creating an electric field that either drives ions into the nickelate or removes them. The entire device, just a few hundred microns long, is embedded in a silicon chip.
The synaptic transistor offers several immediate advantages over traditional silicon transistors. For a start, it is not restricted to the binary system of ones and zeros.
"This system changes its conductance in an analog way, continuously, as the composition of the material changes," explains Shi. "It would be rather challenging to use CMOS, the traditional circuit technology, to imitate a synapse, because real biological synapses have a practically unlimited number of possible statesnot just 'on' or 'off.'"
The synaptic transistor offers another advantage: non-volatile memory, which means even when power is interrupted, the device remembers its state.
Additionally, the new transistor is inherently energy efficient. The nickelate belongs to an unusual class of materials, called correlated electron systems, that can undergo an insulator-metal transition. At a certain temperatureor, in this case, when exposed to an external fieldthe conductance of the material suddenly changes.
"We exploit the extreme sensitivity of this material," says Ramanathan. "A very small excitation allows you to get a large signal, so the input energy required to drive this switching is potentially very small. That could translate into a large boost for energy efficiency."
The nickelate system is also well positioned for seamless integration into existing silicon-based systems.
"In this paper, we demonstrate high-temperature operation, but the beauty of this type of a device is that the 'learning' behavior is more or less temperature insensitive, and that's a big advantage," says Ramanathan. "We can operate this anywhere from about room temperature up to at least 160 degrees Celsius."
For now, the limitations relate to the challenges of synthesizing a relatively unexplored material system, and to the size of the device, which affects its speed.
"In our proof-of-concept device, the time constant is really set by our experimental geometry," says Ramanathan. "In other words, to really make a super-fast device, all you'd have to do is confine the liquid and position the gate electrode closer to it."
In fact, Ramanathan and his research team are already planning, with microfluidics experts at SEAS, to investigate the possibilities and limits for this "ultimate fluidic transistor."
He also has a seed grant from the National Academy of Sciences to explore the integration of synaptic transistors into bioinspired circuits, with L. Mahadevan, Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, and professor of physics.
"In the SEAS setting it's very exciting; we're able to collaborate easily with people from very diverse interests," Ramanathan says.
For the materials scientist, as much curiosity derives from exploring the capabilities of correlated oxides (like the nickelate used in this study) as from the possible applications.
"You have to build new instrumentation to be able to synthesize these new materials, but once you're able to do that, you really have a completely new material system whose properties are virtually unexplored," Ramanathan says. "It's very exciting to have such materials to work with, where very little is known about them and you have an opportunity to build knowledge from scratch."
"This kind of proof-of-concept demonstration carries that work into the 'applied' world," he adds, "where you can really translate these exotic electronic properties into compelling, state-of-the-art devices."
###
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The team also benefited from the facilities at the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems, a member of the NSF-supported National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network. Sieu D. Ha, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS, was the co-lead author; additional coauthors included graduate student You Zhou and Frank Schoofs, a former postdoctoral fellow.
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Synaptic transistor learns while it computes
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
1-Nov-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Caroline Perry cperry@seas.harvard.edu 617-496-1351 Harvard University
First-of-its-kind, brain-inspired device looks toward highly efficient and fast parallel computing networks
Cambridge, Mass. November 1, 2013 It doesn't take a Watson to realize that even the world's best supercomputers are staggeringly inefficient and energy-intensive machines.
Our brains have upwards of 86 billion neurons, connected by synapses that not only complete myriad logic circuits; they continuously adapt to stimuli, strengthening some connections while weakening others. We call that process learning, and it enables the kind of rapid, highly efficient computational processes that put Siri and Blue Gene to shame.
Materials scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have now created a new type of transistor that mimics the behavior of a synapse. The novel device simultaneously modulates the flow of information in a circuit and physically adapts to changing signals.
Exploiting unusual properties in modern materials, the synaptic transistor could mark the beginning of a new kind of artificial intelligence: one embedded not in smart algorithms but in the very architecture of a computer. The findings appear in Nature Communications.
"There's extraordinary interest in building energy-efficient electronics these days," says principal investigator Shriram Ramanathan, associate professor of materials science at Harvard SEAS. "Historically, people have been focused on speed, but with speed comes the penalty of power dissipation. With electronics becoming more and more powerful and ubiquitous, you could have a huge impact by cutting down the amount of energy they consume."
The human mind, for all its phenomenal computing power, runs on roughly 20 Watts of energy (less than a household light bulb), so it offers a natural model for engineers.
"The transistor we've demonstrated is really an analog to the synapse in our brains," says co-lead author Jian Shi, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS. "Each time a neuron initiates an action and another neuron reacts, the synapse between them increases the strength of its connection. And the faster the neurons spike each time, the stronger the synaptic connection. Essentially, it memorizes the action between the neurons."
In principle, a system integrating millions of tiny synaptic transistors and neuron terminals could take parallel computing into a new era of ultra-efficient high performance.
While calcium ions and receptors effect a change in a biological synapse, the artificial version achieves the same plasticity with oxygen ions. When a voltage is applied, these ions slip in and out of the crystal lattice of a very thin (80-nanometer) film of samarium nickelate, which acts as the synapse channel between two platinum "axon" and "dendrite" terminals. The varying concentration of ions in the nickelate raises or lowers its conductancethat is, its ability to carry information on an electrical currentand, just as in a natural synapse, the strength of the connection depends on the time delay in the electrical signal.
Structurally, the device consists of the nickelate semiconductor sandwiched between two platinum electrodes and adjacent to a small pocket of ionic liquid. An external circuit multiplexer converts the time delay into a magnitude of voltage which it applies to the ionic liquid, creating an electric field that either drives ions into the nickelate or removes them. The entire device, just a few hundred microns long, is embedded in a silicon chip.
The synaptic transistor offers several immediate advantages over traditional silicon transistors. For a start, it is not restricted to the binary system of ones and zeros.
"This system changes its conductance in an analog way, continuously, as the composition of the material changes," explains Shi. "It would be rather challenging to use CMOS, the traditional circuit technology, to imitate a synapse, because real biological synapses have a practically unlimited number of possible statesnot just 'on' or 'off.'"
The synaptic transistor offers another advantage: non-volatile memory, which means even when power is interrupted, the device remembers its state.
Additionally, the new transistor is inherently energy efficient. The nickelate belongs to an unusual class of materials, called correlated electron systems, that can undergo an insulator-metal transition. At a certain temperatureor, in this case, when exposed to an external fieldthe conductance of the material suddenly changes.
"We exploit the extreme sensitivity of this material," says Ramanathan. "A very small excitation allows you to get a large signal, so the input energy required to drive this switching is potentially very small. That could translate into a large boost for energy efficiency."
The nickelate system is also well positioned for seamless integration into existing silicon-based systems.
"In this paper, we demonstrate high-temperature operation, but the beauty of this type of a device is that the 'learning' behavior is more or less temperature insensitive, and that's a big advantage," says Ramanathan. "We can operate this anywhere from about room temperature up to at least 160 degrees Celsius."
For now, the limitations relate to the challenges of synthesizing a relatively unexplored material system, and to the size of the device, which affects its speed.
"In our proof-of-concept device, the time constant is really set by our experimental geometry," says Ramanathan. "In other words, to really make a super-fast device, all you'd have to do is confine the liquid and position the gate electrode closer to it."
In fact, Ramanathan and his research team are already planning, with microfluidics experts at SEAS, to investigate the possibilities and limits for this "ultimate fluidic transistor."
He also has a seed grant from the National Academy of Sciences to explore the integration of synaptic transistors into bioinspired circuits, with L. Mahadevan, Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, and professor of physics.
"In the SEAS setting it's very exciting; we're able to collaborate easily with people from very diverse interests," Ramanathan says.
For the materials scientist, as much curiosity derives from exploring the capabilities of correlated oxides (like the nickelate used in this study) as from the possible applications.
"You have to build new instrumentation to be able to synthesize these new materials, but once you're able to do that, you really have a completely new material system whose properties are virtually unexplored," Ramanathan says. "It's very exciting to have such materials to work with, where very little is known about them and you have an opportunity to build knowledge from scratch."
"This kind of proof-of-concept demonstration carries that work into the 'applied' world," he adds, "where you can really translate these exotic electronic properties into compelling, state-of-the-art devices."
###
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army Research Office's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The team also benefited from the facilities at the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems, a member of the NSF-supported National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network. Sieu D. Ha, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS, was the co-lead author; additional coauthors included graduate student You Zhou and Frank Schoofs, a former postdoctoral fellow.
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
UFC Hall of Fame inductee Tito Ortiz was supposed to headline the first ever Bellator pay per view on Nov. 2 opposite fellow former UFC champion Quinton Jackson until a broken neck took him out of the bout. The card was then turned into a free one on Spike and both Ortiz and Jackson's futures seemed up in the air.
However, Ortiz tweeted followers this week and appeared in good spirits.
"Ppl I will have 100% recovery & will be back n the gym in 6 weeks.I'm a fighter & I love competition. I was doing great n training but accident do happen. Just time to reshuffle the deck & deal another hand. #positiveminded"
Ortiz battled through serious injuries throughout his career before retiring in 2012. The former UFC champ came out of retirement to fight for Bellator.
It appears as if Ortiz' recent set back, serious as it may be, has not dampened his enthusiasm for a come back. As for Jackson, Bellator announced this week that he will face Joey Beltran, who recently lost in the UFC and was released by the organization.
October 31, 2013 Watch a special Halloween Tiny Desk Concert in which a gorilla-suit-clad Neko Case performs alongside Kelly Hogan, as well as Eric Bachmann of Crooked Fingers and Archers of Loaf.
Set List
"Night Still Comes"
"Calling Cards"
"Local Girl"
Credits
Producers: Bob Boilen, Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Becky Harlan, Abbey Oldham, Christopher Parks; photo by Meredith Rizzo/NPR
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel poses for photos, in Los Angeles. Spiegel dropped out of Stanford University in 2012, three classes shy of graduation, to move back to his father's house and work on Snapchat. Spiegel’s fast-growing mobile app lets users send photos, videos and messages that disappear a few seconds after they are received (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel poses for photos, in Los Angeles. Spiegel dropped out of Stanford University in 2012, three classes shy of graduation, to move back to his father's house and work on Snapchat. Spiegel’s fast-growing mobile app lets users send photos, videos and messages that disappear a few seconds after they are received (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel poses for photos, in Los Angeles. Spiegel dropped out of Stanford University in 2012, three classes shy of graduation, to move back to his father's house and work on Snapchat. Spiegel’s fast-growing mobile app lets users send photos, videos and messages that disappear a few seconds after they are received (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Evan Spiegel dropped out of Stanford University in 2012, three classes shy of graduation, to move back to his father's house and work on Snapchat. Spiegel's fast-growing mobile app lets users send photos, videos and messages that disappear a few seconds after they are received. Founded in 2011, Snapchat is especially popular with teenagers and young adults, but many parents fear the app is the ideal tool for sharing lewd photos, or "sexting."
In spite of the unfavorable baggage and no revenue, Snapchat is growing. The company has raised about $70 million in venture funding from investors such as Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital. The Pew Research Center found in a recent poll that 9 percent of American cell phone owners use Snapchat.
Spiegel's ideas about the permanence of digital data run counter to those of just about everyone else in the industry. "It would be better for everyone if we deleted everything by default and saved the things that are important to us," he says. "Right now most businesses are built on saving everything and then writing a ton of software to organize it and hopefully find the things that are important later."
The company recently added a feature called "Stories," which lets snaps live for 24 hours.
Speigel, 23, talked with The Associated Press about his app, and his plans for the company's future. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Q: The first thing many people think about Snapchat is its use for sexting. How do you address that?
A: The fun thing about Snapchat is really the surprise and the joy that comes from learning how to use it. But it was tough in the beginning. I can even remember when we were first trying to get people to get on the service, I stood on the (Santa Monica) promenade and I would go up to people and be like: "Hey, you should try this application. You can send disappearing photos." And they would say: "Oh for sexting," which kind of meant that we had to do a better job teaching people. And we're fine in how we described the service over time. Now, the growth of the service shows that it's about a lot more.
Q: What's the point of Snapchat?
A: It's fun. Period. And that's the most important part. Somewhere along the way when we were building social media products we forgot the reason we like to communicate with our friends is because it's fun. People started conceiving of their friends as networking tools, like 'friend me so you can be friends with someone else' or 'the more people you know, the more networked you are.' But we see real value in having a fun conversation with your friends.
Q: How did you come up with the idea?
A: A buddy of mine was bummed about a photo he (regretted sending). And so we started looking at some of the other applications in the space that were doing disappearing texts, photo, video. And they really had a hard time because there was a lot of stigma around deleting things. But when Bobby (Bobby Murphy, Snapchat chief technology officer and co-founder) and I built the prototype and started using it, we realized how much fun we were having sending the photos back and forth. And based on our experience with the application we were able to do a good job describing how ephemeral content can make an experience that is really fun, exciting and way more engaging.
Q: Would the service be as popular without the disappearing aspect?
A: This is something we like to ponder as well. One of the greatest benefits of the service, especially in the early days, was that it was 10 times faster than an MMS (multimedia messaging service) message. So a lot of people just liked it because the interface was so simple. It sent the photos so quickly. It was a lot faster than opening up a text message, going and taking a picture or choosing it from the gallery, uploading it —which took a really really long time— and then sending it to your friend. There are lots of different benefits to the Snapchat application. Obviously we haven't yet run the experiment of making the messages permanent but we have seen that people save messages they receive. Two percent of snaps that are received are screenshot (and saved). So there's obviously a lot of value to sending images quickly and if an image grabs you, or you think it's interesting or fun, it's always fine to save it.
Q: How'd you go about getting your first round of funding?
A: This guy named Jeremy Liew, who works at Lightspeed Ventures, one of his partners, Barry Eggers had a daughter who was using Snapchat. She said her three favorite apps of the world that everyone was using at her high school were Angry Birds, Instagram and Snapchat. And (Liew and Eggers) had never heard of Snapchat, so they were like we've got to find those guys. So Jeremy sent me a Facebook message. I ended up meeting with him and showed him some of the early data we had. That was the month we were not going to be able to pay our server bills any more. Bobby had a job that was paying for the server bills at the time. And it just got too expensive, so the timing was awesome. My dad didn't want to pay for disappearing photos any more.
Q: So what's the pressure on you now, now that you've had these investments? What are the paths for revenue?
A: Going forward there are lots of different revenue models. One we talk about is in-app transactions (selling extra content or features within the Snapchat app) because we don't have to build a sales team to make cool things that people want to pay for.
CONCORD, Mass. (AP) — History for Doris Kearns Goodwin begins at home, in this timeless New England town where Emerson and Thoreau once lived and wrote and in the century-old house that she shares with her husband, former presidential speech writer Richard Goodwin.
The Goodwin house is a virtual museum of the personal and scholarly past, from the photographs of various Kennedys and of a grinning Barack Obama to the many rooms named for the books they contain. A large space in the back is dedicated to fiction, while a smaller area by the kitchen belongs to sports. Alphabetical shelvings of presidential works lead to an especially well stocked library, its dark, paneled walls and leather chairs giving it the look of a private club in which men would smoke cigars and debate the issues of the day.
Goodwin, 70, ranks with David McCullough and Robert Caro as among the most famous living historians. She is a million-selling author, popular speaker and familiar television commentator, known to millions for her reddish hair and wide smile. A former aide to Lyndon Johnson and an acknowledged influence on the staffing of the Obama administration, she has witnessed, written about and helped make presidential history.
Her "Team of Rivals," published eight years ago, was such an ongoing phenomenon that a countdown clock on Goodwin's Web site has ticked off the seconds until her new book's publication. "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism" is more than 900 pages and fulfills her longtime dream of writing about the Progressive era, the years in the early 20th century when "muckraking" journalists routinely exposed injustice and landmark legislation was signed on everything from food safety to tariffs to railroad regulation.
"It's always been my favorite era," says Goodwin, interviewed in her library on a warm fall afternoon. "There was something about reform being in the air, the excitement of it."
Goodwin began with the idea of writing about Roosevelt — "someone I want to live with" — a challenge when the president was so well captured in Edmund Morris' prize-winning trilogy. Roosevelt's close relationship to Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens and other investigative reporters convinced her to add their stories. Taft, Roosevelt's designated and unfortunate choice to follow him in the White House, was the final piece.
"All I know is he chooses Taft as his successor and it ruptures in 1912. Why did he choose Taft?" she says. "I always think when you do comparative biographies, they shed light on each other."
Roosevelt and Taft are pictured on the book's cover. But writing about the past for Goodwin also means exploring the lives of women, like Tarbell or Taft's wife, Nellie, who liked to smoke and play cards and host literary salons. "I do identify more with Ida and Nellie, both women ahead of their times in yearning to exercise their talents in a world of men," says Goodwin, adding that she feels lucky to live in a time when she could have both a family and career.
History, especially presidential history, has long been a male profession. "When the press is looking for someone to turn to about politics, they might turn to Doris, but otherwise they usually turn to the boys," says Sean Wilentz, whose books include "The Rise of American Democracy" and who serves as general editor for Times Books' series of short biographies of American presidents, almost all written by men despite what Wilentz says has been a conscious effort by himself and predecessor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. to bring in women (Gail Collins, Joyce Appleby and Annette Gordon-Wood are among the handful of women who have worked on Times biographies).
Goodwin notes that when she was studying for a Ph.D. in government at Harvard, a professor there told her that women were more likely to drop out before they completed their work and should "realize that we were taking the place of a man who would go on in the profession." But she was encouraged by other academics and by the example of "Guns of August" author Barbara Tuchman, who wrote political and military history. Goodwin also was influenced by Tuchman's belief that "you have to tell a story from beginning to middle to end and pretend you don't know how it turns out, because you can only know what people at the time know."
Stacy Schiff, whose books include a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Vladimir Nabokov's wife, Vera, and a biography of Benjamin Franklin during his years in Paris, says Goodwin continues a tradition that begins with Catherine Drinker Bowen and Tuchman.
"Both in her existence and her example, she partly paved the way, at least for me," Schiff wrote in a recent email. She said Goodwin's book "No Ordinary Time," an expansive narrative about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II, "was on my shelf — talisman and high bar more than guide — when I wrote 'Vera.' I'm not sure I was thinking of DKG when I went to France with Ben Franklin, but I don't know that I ever would have got to that point without her."
Born Doris Kearns in Brooklyn in 1943, she first practiced her narrative skills through another traditionally male subject, baseball. As she wrote in her memoir "Wait Till Next Year," she relayed the results of Brooklyn Dodgers games to her father, learning the valuable lesson not to give away the result until the end. Goodwin would later become the first female reporter allowed in the Boston Red Sox' locker room.
She had considered being a journalist, or a political activist, but through a fellowship ended up in the White House during the administration of Lyndon Johnson, whose removal from office she had advocated because of the Vietnam War.
His displeasure with the young Ivy Leaguer was only temporary. Goodwin became a presidential aide, helped with his memoirs and wrote a book about him, "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream," published in 1977.
"No Ordinary Time," a critical breakthrough, won the Pulitzer in 1995.
"What Doris does is to take figures who readers thought they knew and find an interesting new angle," Wilentz says, citing "No Ordinary Time" as the first major joint biography of the Roosevelts.
"Team of Rivals, one of the most talked about books of the past decade, raised and rescued her stature. The book was her first since she acknowledged lifting extensive material from other sources for "The Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds," a 1987 best seller that ended up being withdrawn (Goodwin said in 2002 that she would write a new edition, but still has no plans to do so. Her web site, www.doriskearnsgoodwin.com, provides links to used copies).
But "Team of Rivals" was untouched by scandal, praised by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian, James McPherson, and awarded the Lincoln Prize.
"She really is superb at getting inside the minds and moods of the principal individuals she's writing about," McPherson told the AP.
"Doris set a new bar on history writing with 'Team of Rivals,'" says Lincoln historian Harold Holzer. "It's not only original, brilliantly researched and distilled, but so elegantly written, a genuine page-turner, which is important when you write as many pages as Doris does. She's given new life — a second wind, really — to Lincoln studies."
Goodwin's fans range from everyday history lovers — "the kind who watch public television," she jokes — to some of the top names in publishing, filmmaking and politics. Stephen King consulted with her for his novel about John F. Kennedy's assassination, "11/22/63." J.K. Rowling raved about "Team of Rivals" and said she was in awe when she met Goodwin. Steven Spielberg acquired film rights before Goodwin had even completed the book and used "Team of Rivals" as a source — among other sources — for his acclaimed DreamWorks movie about the president. DreamWorks also acquired rights to "The Bully Pulpit."
Another "Team of Rivals" fan was a first-term senator from Illinois given to comparing himself to Lincoln.
"When I was writing the book, Obama was not somebody I even thought about," she says. "In '07, I got a call from him one day on my cell phone, and he's running against Hillary, of course, and she's way ahead. And he just said, 'Hello, this is Barack Obama. I just read "Team of Rivals," and we have to talk.' So he invited me to the Senate (office) building a couple of weeks later and we were talking about 'Team of Rivals.' He was asking about emotional intelligence and how could leaders put past hurts behind them."
By the spring of 2008, Obama was openly referring to Goodwin's "wonderful book" and endorsing the idea of recruiting former Democratic primary opponents for his cabinet. Hillary Clinton became his secretary of state, Joe Biden his vice president. And "the next thing you knew," Goodwin says, "'Team of Rivals' became a catchphrase."
Goodwin began her current book in 2006, and by completion found she was again pointing to the present.
The "Occupy Wall Street" protests in 2011 were reminders of the debates in the early 20th century over the gaps between rich and poor. The divisions between Tea Party and less conservative Republicans recalled a more drastic split in 1912: Roosevelt, moving sharply to the left, formed a third party, dividing GOP votes between himself and the more moderate Taft and enabling Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the election.
"The other thing I thought was so interesting in comparison to today was the technological revolution — new forms of transportation. Somebody wrote about the nervous disease people were getting at the turn of the century because the pace of life had accelerated so much," she says.
If "Team of Rivals" became a guidebook on how to assemble a presidential cabinet, "The Bully Pulpit" can be read, in part, as a guidebook on the uses of presidential power.
Goodwin is sympathetic to Taft, a one-term president given little attention from scholars and remembered by the general public, if at all, for the apocryphal story that he was so fat he got stuck in a bathtub. She portrays the native Ohioan as a loving husband and a respected administrator and advisor whom Roosevelt trusted entirely and understandably promoted as his successor in 1908.
But among Taft's weakness as president was an aversion to politics, to self-promotion and salesmanship. Unlike Roosevelt, he didn't use memorable expressions, such as "Speak softly, and carry a big stick," or energetically promote his ideas. Taft had a legal background and believed simply presenting his argument was enough.
"When the judgment of the court was announced, it was supposed that all parties of interest would inform themselves as to the reasons for the action taken," Taft once explained.
The same criticism has been made about Obama, who acknowledged in Ron Suskind's 2011 best seller "Confidence Men" that he had been too "comfortable with a technocratic approach to government."
"If you look at the number of people who didn't understand what was in the healthcare bill, something happened. That's a fact you have to figure out. Why did that happen? Was it that he didn't explain it enough, in shorthand language?" Goodwin says.
"Was it also, however, that the bully pulpit isn't as powerful as it once was?
"When he gave — finally — his healthcare speech, it was a good speech. But that's when (Republican Congressman) Joe Wilson called out in the middle, 'You lie,' and that became a story. He gives a good speech on gun control, which was very emotional. And he followed it up. And then something else came in. The attention span — of the media and of the people, they can't sustain it."
In this July 3, 2012 photo, Honduras Police Chief, Gen. Juan Carlos Bonilla, center, speaks to the press during a news conference in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The five-star general was accused a decade ago of running deaths squads and today oversees a department suspected of beating, killing and “disappearing” its detainees. He also is the top cop in the country that serves as a way station for most South American cocaine bound for the United States and beyond. Bonilla is also the U.S. government’s go-to man in Honduras for the war on drug trafficking. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)
In this July 3, 2012 photo, Honduras Police Chief, Gen. Juan Carlos Bonilla, center, speaks to the press during a news conference in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The five-star general was accused a decade ago of running deaths squads and today oversees a department suspected of beating, killing and “disappearing” its detainees. He also is the top cop in the country that serves as a way station for most South American cocaine bound for the United States and beyond. Bonilla is also the U.S. government’s go-to man in Honduras for the war on drug trafficking. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)
In this Dec. 21, 2012 photo, Honduras Police Chief, Gen. Juan Carlos Bonilla, salutes during an event in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The five-star general was accused a decade ago of running deaths squads and today oversees a department suspected of beating, killing and “disappearing” its detainees. He also is the top cop in the country that serves as a way station for most South American cocaine bound for the United States and beyond. Bonilla is also the U.S. government’s go-to man in Honduras for the war on drug trafficking. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)
In this July 24, 2013 photo, Honduras Police Chief, Gen. Juan Carlos Bonilla, speaks to the press in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The five-star general was accused a decade ago of running deaths squads and today oversees a department suspected of beating, killing and “disappearing” its detainees. He also is the top cop in the country that serves as a way station for most South American cocaine bound for the United States and beyond. Bonilla is also the U.S. government’s go-to man in Honduras for the war on drug trafficking. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — In a capital accustomed to daily bloodshed, the man in charge of law enforcement is as feared as the criminals. Few dare speak his name above a whisper.
Five-star General Juan Carlos Bonilla was accused a decade ago of running deaths squads and today oversees a department suspected of beating, killing and "disappearing" its detainees. He also is the top cop in the country that serves as a way station for most South American cocaine bound for the United States and beyond.
Bonilla is also the U.S. government's go-to man in Honduras for the war on drug trafficking.
Though the State Department officially keeps the 49-year-old chief at arm's length over his dubious past, Bonilla embraces the U.S. government as his "best ally and support." If the U.S. wants to fight drug trafficking in Honduras, they have to work with Bonilla.
"I am the director general, and I don't delegate that responsibility to anyone," Bonilla said during his first interview with a reporter since 2011.
In a wide-ranging conversation with The Associated Press that started over lunch at his favorite Tegucigalpa restaurant and ended after a late dinner at his well-appointed home, Bonilla denied he once led a social cleansing campaign, that his police force is as criminal as those it arrests, or that he is in any way responsible for a rash of gang members who disappeared after being arrested. Two of them later turned up dead on the edge of town.
"I can't be on top of everything. Sometimes things will escape me. I'm human," Bonilla said.
Honduras is a country under siege with one of the world's highest murder rates, where corruption is rampant and the rule of law weak. Its citizens scurry home before dusk in the capital. The sound of automatic gunfire peppers the night, and cities awaken to discarded bodies, the handiwork of street gangs, extortion rackets, drug mafias and, apparently, the police.
By law, Bonilla runs all policing in Honduras, everything from planning operations and directing investigations, to approving travel abroad for training and vehicle repairs. He oversees a troubled force where there is no consistent account of how many officers are on the payroll or how many show up for work, only estimates ranging from 8,000 to 15,000.
The police routinely are accused of civil rights violations. Between March and May, the AP reported at least five cases of alleged gang members missing or killed after being taken into police custody in what critics and human rights advocates call death squads engaged in a wave of social cleansing of criminals. In July, a man died of a burst liver after he was arrested for disorderly conduct and beaten by police, according to a prosecutor's file. In August, a gang member was beaten to death after being arrested for shooting an officer, a crime captured on surveillance tape that went viral on the Internet.
Bonilla said he is aware of the charges and insisted that every complaint is being investigated. Excesses "happen, yes. We investigate them and act," he said. "You cannot use a word like 'death squads,' because there is no chain of command or an order by me, never, under any circumstances, to act illegally."
He defended the institution where "I've spent my whole life. I am loyal to it."
Bonilla is a formidable figure, solidly built at 6 feet, with a shaved head and large nose set in a ruddy face. His voice is like a windstorm rising from the depths of a cavern, his words come slowly at first and then accelerate to a dizzying onslaught.
Throughout the afternoon and evening, Bonilla returned frequently to the support he receives from the U.S. Embassy for police operations. In one case, he ordered a subordinate to track a police commander with possible ties to drug traffickers. "I want to know where he is now. Find their phones and tap them. I will ask the Embassy for help," he said.
The close relationship runs counter to an August 2012 memo issued by the State Department to Congress shortly after Bonilla was named police chief, saying it was "aware of allegations of human rights violations related to Police Chief Juan Carlos Bonilla's service a decade ago."
A 2002 report by the Honduran police department's internal affairs section accused Bonilla of three killings or forced disappearances starting in 1998, when he was a regional police chief. It also linked him to at least 11 other cases. He was tried on one of the charges and acquitted. The others were never fully investigated.
The State Department decided to conduct its own review, meanwhile, and said in the memo that it was "carefully limiting assistance to special Honduran law enforcement units ... not under Bonilla's supervision." In March, Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield reiterated, "We have no relations with him; we don't give him so much as a dollar or even a cent."
Bonilla said there are no police units beyond his supervision. Fourteen months later, the U.S. investigation has not been completed. U.S. officials say there is no law against talking to Bonilla, and that it is necessary in a country where an estimated 87 percent of all cocaine smuggling flights departing from South America land. Of $30 million in U.S. aid that was held up by the Senate Appropriations Committee because of concerns about human rights, impunity and Bonilla, two-thirds has since been released.
"Our diplomats talk to lots of people because they are in positions of authority, not because they like them," said an aide to Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, who wrote the provisions requiring human rights vetting for U.S. aid. The aide was not authorized to speak on the record. "What matters is not that they talk to him, but what the Honduran police are doing. Are they protecting the people, or are they protecting the drug traffickers? As far as his saying the U.S. is his biggest ally in counterdrug operations, our ally is Honduras, not the chief of police."
The jury is still out on Bonilla's success in fighting drug trafficking. In September, a joint Honduran-U.S operation targeted "Los Cachiros," the cartel that controls an estimated 90 percent of the clandestine runways in the country. U.S. and Honduran officials first touted that Operation Neptune yielded some $500 million in assets, including real estate, a mining company and a zoo. But then the director of Honduras' Office of Seized Property said that 71 bank accounts seized were empty. Corrupt authorities had alerted the traffickers ahead of time, said Director Humberto Palacios Moya, though he did implicate anyone specifically.
Bonilla says he hails from humble indigenous origins and was forcibly recruited into military service at age 12, where he gained the nickname "El Tigre," or the Tiger. He transferred to the National Police when it was created 1998. Much to the dismay of international human rights groups, he was tapped as police chief in May 2012 after his predecessor was fired, presumably for two high-profile criminal cases involving police. In one, a prominent journalist close to President Porfirio Lobo was assassinated. In the other, civilians were shot dead during a joint Honduran- U.S. anti-drug operation in the remote Moskitia region, where most clandestine cocaine flights from South America land.
Bonilla "was the only top police commander without known links to organized crime," said Arabeska Sanchez, researcher and founder of Honduras' University Institute for Peace and Security who, as a professor at the National Police Academy, taught Bonilla in many classes. "But he still comes under suspicion because it's impossible to know if he was involved in state-sponsored human rights violations that evidently happened very close to him."
The police chief wears a crisp, dark-blue uniform and beret, rather than a traditional visor cap. In a city where gunmen travel by motorcycle for a quick kill and getaway, Bonilla moves about in an armored car with a loaded M-16 by his seat that he says he would not hesitate to use if attacked.
In private, many Hondurans say they are terrified of Bonilla. In the interview, however, he was unwaveringly gracious, smiling even when answering the most pointed questions. He showed off his library of hundreds of books on drug-trafficking, history and philosophy, underlined or marked with colored Post-it notes. The feared general liberally quotes French social theorist Michel Foucault and Austrian writer Stefan Zweig.
Among his books, Bonilla keeps a leather-bound copy of the indictment against him and says the death squad charges are not only false, but the stigma still haunts him.
"It's very painful as a human being for your family, your children, your children's schoolmates, your father, your friends or a woman you just met to ask you if you are a murderer," he said.
At the end of the day, Bonilla asked his bodyguard to bring him a book from the glove compartment of his car. It was an annotated edition of "The Art of War," by Sun Tzu, a Chinese general who lived 2600 years ago.
He read an underlined paragraph in the introduction: "We live in a culture of simulation, in which nothing is what seems and the image that reigns has no reference to the real world."
CONCORD, Mass. (AP) — History for Doris Kearns Goodwin begins at home, in this timeless New England town where Emerson and Thoreau once lived and wrote and in the century-old house that she shares with her husband, former presidential speech writer Richard Goodwin.
The Goodwin house is a virtual museum of the personal and scholarly past, from the photographs of various Kennedys and of a grinning Barack Obama to the many rooms named for the books they contain. A large space in the back is dedicated to fiction, while a smaller area by the kitchen belongs to sports. Alphabetical shelvings of presidential works lead to an especially well stocked library, its dark, paneled walls and leather chairs giving it the look of a private club in which men would smoke cigars and debate the issues of the day.
Goodwin, 70, ranks with David McCullough and Robert Caro as among the most famous living historians. She is a million-selling author, popular speaker and familiar television commentator, known to millions for her reddish hair and wide smile. A former aide to Lyndon Johnson and an acknowledged influence on the staffing of the Obama administration, she has witnessed, written about and helped make presidential history.
Her "Team of Rivals," published eight years ago, was such an ongoing phenomenon that a countdown clock on Goodwin's Web site has ticked off the seconds until her new book's publication. "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism" is more than 900 pages and fulfills her longtime dream of writing about the Progressive era, the years in the early 20th century when "muckraking" journalists routinely exposed injustice and landmark legislation was signed on everything from food safety to tariffs to railroad regulation.
"It's always been my favorite era," says Goodwin, interviewed in her library on a warm fall afternoon. "There was something about reform being in the air, the excitement of it."
Goodwin began with the idea of writing about Roosevelt — "someone I want to live with" — a challenge when the president was so well captured in Edmund Morris' prize-winning trilogy. Roosevelt's close relationship to Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens and other investigative reporters convinced her to add their stories. Taft, Roosevelt's designated and unfortunate choice to follow him in the White House, was the final piece.
"All I know is he chooses Taft as his successor and it ruptures in 1912. Why did he choose Taft?" she says. "I always think when you do comparative biographies, they shed light on each other."
Roosevelt and Taft are pictured on the book's cover. But writing about the past for Goodwin also means exploring the lives of women, like Tarbell or Taft's wife, Nellie, who liked to smoke and play cards and host literary salons. "I do identify more with Ida and Nellie, both women ahead of their times in yearning to exercise their talents in a world of men," says Goodwin, adding that she feels lucky to live in a time when she could have both a family and career.
History, especially presidential history, has long been a male profession. "When the press is looking for someone to turn to about politics, they might turn to Doris, but otherwise they usually turn to the boys," says Sean Wilentz, whose books include "The Rise of American Democracy" and who serves as general editor for Times Books' series of short biographies of American presidents, almost all written by men despite what Wilentz says has been a conscious effort by himself and predecessor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. to bring in women (Gail Collins, Joyce Appleby and Annette Gordon-Wood are among the handful of women who have worked on Times biographies).
Goodwin notes that when she was studying for a Ph.D. in government at Harvard, a professor there told her that women were more likely to drop out before they completed their work and should "realize that we were taking the place of a man who would go on in the profession." But she was encouraged by other academics and by the example of "Guns of August" author Barbara Tuchman, who wrote political and military history. Goodwin also was influenced by Tuchman's belief that "you have to tell a story from beginning to middle to end and pretend you don't know how it turns out, because you can only know what people at the time know."
Stacy Schiff, whose books include a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Vladimir Nabokov's wife, Vera, and a biography of Benjamin Franklin during his years in Paris, says Goodwin continues a tradition that begins with Catherine Drinker Bowen and Tuchman.
"Both in her existence and her example, she partly paved the way, at least for me," Schiff wrote in a recent email. She said Goodwin's book "No Ordinary Time," an expansive narrative about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II, "was on my shelf — talisman and high bar more than guide — when I wrote 'Vera.' I'm not sure I was thinking of DKG when I went to France with Ben Franklin, but I don't know that I ever would have got to that point without her."
Born Doris Kearns in Brooklyn in 1943, she first practiced her narrative skills through another traditionally male subject, baseball. As she wrote in her memoir "Wait Till Next Year," she relayed the results of Brooklyn Dodgers games to her father, learning the valuable lesson not to give away the result until the end. Goodwin would later become the first female reporter allowed in the Boston Red Sox' locker room.
She had considered being a journalist, or a political activist, but through a fellowship ended up in the White House during the administration of Lyndon Johnson, whose removal from office she had advocated because of the Vietnam War.
His displeasure with the young Ivy Leaguer was only temporary. Goodwin became a presidential aide, helped with his memoirs and wrote a book about him, "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream," published in 1977.
"No Ordinary Time," a critical breakthrough, won the Pulitzer in 1995.
"What Doris does is to take figures who readers thought they knew and find an interesting new angle," Wilentz says, citing "No Ordinary Time" as the first major joint biography of the Roosevelts.
"Team of Rivals, one of the most talked about books of the past decade, raised and rescued her stature. The book was her first since she acknowledged lifting extensive material from other sources for "The Kennedys and the Fitzgeralds," a 1987 best seller that ended up being withdrawn (Goodwin said in 2002 that she would write a new edition, but still has no plans to do so. Her web site, www.doriskearnsgoodwin.com, provides links to used copies).
But "Team of Rivals" was untouched by scandal, praised by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian, James McPherson, and awarded the Lincoln Prize.
"She really is superb at getting inside the minds and moods of the principal individuals she's writing about," McPherson told the AP.
"Doris set a new bar on history writing with 'Team of Rivals,'" says Lincoln historian Harold Holzer. "It's not only original, brilliantly researched and distilled, but so elegantly written, a genuine page-turner, which is important when you write as many pages as Doris does. She's given new life — a second wind, really — to Lincoln studies."
Goodwin's fans range from everyday history lovers — "the kind who watch public television," she jokes — to some of the top names in publishing, filmmaking and politics. Stephen King consulted with her for his novel about John F. Kennedy's assassination, "11/22/63." J.K. Rowling raved about "Team of Rivals" and said she was in awe when she met Goodwin. Steven Spielberg acquired film rights before Goodwin had even completed the book and used "Team of Rivals" as a source — among other sources — for his acclaimed DreamWorks movie about the president. DreamWorks also acquired rights to "The Bully Pulpit."
Another "Team of Rivals" fan was a first-term senator from Illinois given to comparing himself to Lincoln.
"When I was writing the book, Obama was not somebody I even thought about," she says. "In '07, I got a call from him one day on my cell phone, and he's running against Hillary, of course, and she's way ahead. And he just said, 'Hello, this is Barack Obama. I just read "Team of Rivals," and we have to talk.' So he invited me to the Senate (office) building a couple of weeks later and we were talking about 'Team of Rivals.' He was asking about emotional intelligence and how could leaders put past hurts behind them."
By the spring of 2008, Obama was openly referring to Goodwin's "wonderful book" and endorsing the idea of recruiting former Democratic primary opponents for his cabinet. Hillary Clinton became his secretary of state, Joe Biden his vice president. And "the next thing you knew," Goodwin says, "'Team of Rivals' became a catchphrase."
Goodwin began her current book in 2006, and by completion found she was again pointing to the present.
The "Occupy Wall Street" protests in 2011 were reminders of the debates in the early 20th century over the gaps between rich and poor. The divisions between Tea Party and less conservative Republicans recalled a more drastic split in 1912: Roosevelt, moving sharply to the left, formed a third party, dividing GOP votes between himself and the more moderate Taft and enabling Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the election.
"The other thing I thought was so interesting in comparison to today was the technological revolution — new forms of transportation. Somebody wrote about the nervous disease people were getting at the turn of the century because the pace of life had accelerated so much," she says.
If "Team of Rivals" became a guidebook on how to assemble a presidential cabinet, "The Bully Pulpit" can be read, in part, as a guidebook on the uses of presidential power.
Goodwin is sympathetic to Taft, a one-term president given little attention from scholars and remembered by the general public, if at all, for the apocryphal story that he was so fat he got stuck in a bathtub. She portrays the native Ohioan as a loving husband and a respected administrator and advisor whom Roosevelt trusted entirely and understandably promoted as his successor in 1908.
But among Taft's weakness as president was an aversion to politics, to self-promotion and salesmanship. Unlike Roosevelt, he didn't use memorable expressions, such as "Speak softly, and carry a big stick," or energetically promote his ideas. Taft had a legal background and believed simply presenting his argument was enough.
"When the judgment of the court was announced, it was supposed that all parties of interest would inform themselves as to the reasons for the action taken," Taft once explained.
The same criticism has been made about Obama, who acknowledged in Ron Suskind's 2011 best seller "Confidence Men" that he had been too "comfortable with a technocratic approach to government."
"If you look at the number of people who didn't understand what was in the healthcare bill, something happened. That's a fact you have to figure out. Why did that happen? Was it that he didn't explain it enough, in shorthand language?" Goodwin says.
"Was it also, however, that the bully pulpit isn't as powerful as it once was?
"When he gave — finally — his healthcare speech, it was a good speech. But that's when (Republican Congressman) Joe Wilson called out in the middle, 'You lie,' and that became a story. He gives a good speech on gun control, which was very emotional. And he followed it up. And then something else came in. The attention span — of the media and of the people, they can't sustain it."
A Transportation Security Administration agent was reportedly killed and several more people wounded when a gunman opened fire Friday morning at Los Angeles International Airport.
“They tracked the individual through the airport and engaged him in gunfire in Terminal 3 and were able to successfully take him into custody,” LAX Airport Police Chief Patrick Gannon said at a press conference. “We believe, at this point, that there was a lone shooter. That he was the only person armed in this incident.”
Jim Featherstone, acting Los Angeles Fire Chief, added that officials have treated seven patients and transported six to area hospitals.
FBI Agent David Bowdich said that authorities do not believe there are any other potential suspects on the scene. "As we stand right now, there is only one individual we know of as the active shooter," Gannon added.
NBC News and ABC News are reporting that one TSA agent was killed in the incident and that a second agent was wounded in the leg. A third individual, possibly the gunman, also was reportedly injured. The suspect is in custody, according to reports; however, authorities declined to provide any information on the identities or conditions of those wounded, and they provided no information on the condition of the shooter.
The UCLA Medical Center released a statement that it is currently treating three injured individuals from the incident. One individual is currently listed as being in "critical" condition while the other two are listed as "fair."
A male suspect opened fire in Terminal 3 around 9:20 a.m. PT, according to earlier reports, and one TSA agent was reportedly shot in the leg at a security checkpoint area. TSA spokesman Nico Melendez confirmed that at least one TSA officer was shot during the incident.
During the press conference, Gannon added that authorities had run through the "exact" scenario that played out at LAX on Friday, and that allowed them to react effectively to the situation when it unfolded for real.
Officials announced that authorities now have full control of security at LAX and that the incident is believed to be over. However, full details are still emerging from the incident.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced a full ground stop until the incident has been officially resolved.
Eyewitness Nick Pugh told local affiliate KNBC-TV, “I heard a total of maybe 8 to 10 shots fired in maybe two bursts,” Pugh said. “Everyone dropped to the floor and started crawling along the crowd.”
Another witness, Tory Belecci, said the suspect appeared to be carrying a rifle, possibly an assault rifle.
A White House official said that, "The President has been briefed about the shooting at LAX. We will continue stay in touch with our federal and local partners. The LAPD is leading the response and investigation. We urge citizens to listen to the authorities and follow directions from the first responders on site. The President will continue to receive briefings throughout the day.”
Access to the airport has been temporarily shutdown on Century Boulevard, the main road leading into LAX. In addition, all flights are reportedly delayed.
Another eyewitness, Brian Adamick, 43, told the Los Angeles Times that one TSA officer who was shot did not appear to be seriously injured. “I got shot, I’m fine," the unnamed TSA agent reportedly told Adamick and other witnesses on the scene. Remarkably, the agent reportedly reassured witnesses by saying he had been shot before and that the wound was not life-threatening.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Share