HOME/ARCHIVES http://www.kazooweb.com/textes/
Merci de choisir un ou plusieurs textes plutôt que d'imprimer la totalité... Les arbres vous sont reconnaissants...
********************************
J'attire votre attention vers quelques articles sur vos métiers. (G) La rédaction de presse spécialisée, (2) La politique monétaire et l'activité bancaire, (8) La politique de création d'éoliennes.

********************************
Week 13, 2004
THE REGULARS: Summary
A) Song of the week: "Downtown" sung by Petula Clark
B) Penguin Readers: Tourist help save the world [Reportage sur l'écotourisme, qui allie tourisme et une activité de protection de l'environnement]
C) New York Times/Vows: Walter Weil and Lola Enderes [Histoires de mariages : A l'âge de 93 et de 82 ans, après un divorce et un veuvage, après une liaison torride sur des décennies, ils peuvent enfin se marier.]
D) The New York Times/The Ethicist: Testing [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie : Puis-je outrepasse les voeux de mon ex-femme qui a la garde de notre fille de 16 ans et qui ne veut pas que celle-ci utilise la pillule ? / Puis-je contester un PV léger pour défaut de port de ceinture illégitime que le flic m'a évité un PV plus lourd et mérité ? Puis-je apporter mes propres balles de golf au practice ?]
E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Out of the pictures? [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Ca fait mal de voir les photos de mon mariage où figure le nouvel ancien mari de ma belle soeur. / Je préfère que ma belle-mère ne soit présente lors de l'accouchement de ma femme. / Mon mari entretient une relation douteuse avec une autre femme. / J'ai un beguin pour un collègue de travail.]
F) Washington Post/Miss Manners: Gimme all your data [Conseils sur les bonnes manières : Quid de la vie privée ? / Que dire à un ami avocat qui défendait un voyou et qui a perdu le procès ?
G) WNYC/On the Media: Speciality Magazines [Entretien sur les difficultés de programmer une revue spécialisée.]
H) The Economist/Global taxation series: The mystery of the vanishing taxpayer [Une série d'articles sur l'imposition à l'ère de la mondialisation : Qui reste-t-il à faire casquer ?]
I) Demotivator® of the week: ARROGANCE [Les messages trop, trop vrais qui vont vous démotiver dans votre vie personnelle et professionnelle. Cette semaine, "L'arrogance"]

********************************
A) Song of the week: "Downtown" sung by Petula Clark

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - no finer place, for sure
Downtown - everything's waiting for you

Don't hang around and let your problems surround you
There are movie shows - downtown
Maybe you know some little places to go to
Where they never close - downtown
Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova
You'll be dancing with him too before the night is over
Happy again

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, where all the lights are bright
Downtown - waiting for you tonight
Downtown - you're gonna be all right now

------ instrumental break ------

And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along

So maybe I'll see you there
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - don't wait a minute for
Downtown - everything's waiting for you

Downtown, downtown, downtown, downtown ...

^RETURN TO TOP^

Ecotourism is tourists travelling to natural areas and enjoying themselves without spoiling the places they visit. In fact, ecotourists help look after areas of great beauty. It sounds a very good thing.

The United Nations says that ecotourism is important for three things: to conserve animals and plants, to help conserve the environment by bringing in money, jobs and business and to share these out to local people.

Ecotourism is popular with students. They want to travel cheaply, they want to help the environment, they want to visit exciting places and they are able to spend some months away from home. They also bring their own knowledge. Some of the work volunteers do, is to find information about the area. Scientists and governments use the information to make plans. Other work is looking after animals, building bridges and clearing lakes.

This may not sound like a holiday, but the volunteers have a great time. They live in exciting places. The work is part of the holiday. 'I liked hard work and getting dirty,' said one student, who stayed free in Hungary for a year and worked on a farm.

A group called Earthwatch have worked in 118 countries in 30 years. It has trained teachers, scientists and volunteers and helped, for example, turtles (see the photo) in the Virgin Islands. The money that Earthwatch receives, goes to local people in different ways. Of the money from a volunteer, 58% goes towards a scientist's work.

Botswana's second largest park, Chobe, collects $1.5 million a year from tourists. Ecuador gets £100 million a year from visitors to the Galapagos. Governments welcome tourists because they bring money and employment to their country. But some governments are more interested in tourists than the local people. Homes were destroyed by the Taal volcano in the Philippines so that ecotourists could stay there. In Bangladash, in Moulvibaza, 1,000 families are losing their land to make way for an ecopark.

Other problems are in the news this summer. Monkeys in east Africa are catching illnesses from humans. At Chobe, the animals are thought to have become ill from rubbish outside the building where tourists were staying.

Ecotourism is very important and will become more important after 2002, as more people travel. Ecotourism helps us to find the balance between man and nature and between business and looking after the environment.

^RETURN TO TOP^

He always knew that one day Lola Enders would become his bride, however Walter Weil never imagined he would need to wait until he was 93. But what's a mere 70 years in the grand scheme of things? They were introduced by mutual friends in 1934, when Lola Vigo (later Lola Enders) was 13 and a freshman at Julia Richman High School in Manhattan and Walter Weil, 23, was a refugee from Nazi Germany.

The two had been friendly for several years when Lola, angling for a date to her senior prom, approached Ruth Bartfeld, a classmate and Mr. Weil's cousin, for help. When Ms. Bartfeld suggested to Mr. Weil that he offer to take Lola, he did. "They danced all night — they didn't even want to change partners," Ms. Bartfeld said. Ms. Enders, a sprightly 82, said, "I liked him, and I kept giggling all the time — that's all I could do."

By 1942, Mr. Weil had joined the Army and was serving in the l0th Mountain Division, which skied into Axis territory. "I'm very grateful to this country, and I swore I was going to get even with the Germans," Mr. Weil said. "Even though war was hell, he loved the Army," said his son, Alex Weil, the chief executive of Charlex, an animation and special-effects studio in Manhattan, where his father comes in to work twice weekly in the accounting office.

Ms. Enders was heartbroken when he shipped out: "I just thought, well, I don't know if he's coming back. There were a lot of doubts. And he didn't write too often." Mr. Weil explained (as if such technicalities mattered when women were waiting for word from their beloved), "I didn't have much time to write many letters in my outfit." She did not know he carried her picture throughout the war (he still has the photo). And he did not know that in 1945, panicked that she would be alone for the rest of her life, she married and moved to Queens. She worked in a Manhattan jewelry shop and had a daughter, Wendy, and a son, Walter — named for Mr. Weil.

When Mr. Weil returned home and heard the news, he was devastated. He took a job at a printing company in Manhattan, married and had his son Alex. Ms. Enders said she "felt terrible" about his marriage, adding, "I knew it was my own fault." She and Mr. Weil continued to see each other, almost daily. Mr. Weil's wife became aware of the liaisons, as did their children. (As a child, Alex Weil found his father's shoe box full of letters from Ms. Enders.) After Walter Weil and his wife were divorced in 1963, he devoted himself to Ms. Enders. For religious and other reasons, she would not seek a divorce from her husband, who Ms. Enders and Mr. Weil say remained unaware of their relationship.

When Ms. Enders's husband died last August, Mr. Weil, who retired from the printing business in 1985, was finally free to make his move. He proposed and she accepted, naturally, and registered for linens and dishes at Bloomingdale's. "Lola adores him," Alex Weil said with a laugh. "My father tells these same stories over and over, and every time she looks at him like the most incredible thing is coming out of the mouth of a poetic genius."

On March 6, the couple married, blissfully, at the Mark hotel in Manhattan, before 150 friends and family members, Army buddies and a few doormen from the Dakota, where Alex Weil lives with his father and new stepmother. (Yoko Ono, a neighbor, sent flowers.) The crowd applauded when the slightly stooped Mr. Weil, wearing a jacket with 10th Mountain insignia on it, walked out unassisted with his son and grandson, Joe, by his side. And when Ms. Enders appeared in a frothy pink full-length gown, there were gasps and cheers. During their vows, which were given by Maj. Jack Dixon, a chaplain from the l0th Mountain Division, Mr. Weil, who is hard of hearing, omitted "till death do us part."

At the reception, where an ice sculpture of the year 1934 was placed on a table in front of an American flag, the couple danced to Frank Sinatra's recording of "Young at Heart." "I just can't believe it really happened — we had so many snags," said the jubilant bridegroom, who partied until midnight and then retired to the bridal suite. "It's a story about courage and cowardice," said Alex Weil. "It takes courage to love. I think they were cowardly to not realize their love but courageous to keep it alive."

^RETURN TO TOP^

********************************
E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Out of the pictures? [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Ca fait mal de voir les photos de mon mariage où figure le nouvel ancien mari de ma belle soeur. / Je préfère que ma belle-mère ne soit présente lors de l'accouchement de ma femme. / Mon mari entretient une relation douteuse avec une autre femme. / J'ai un beguin pour un collègue de travail.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096111/

Out of the Picture?
What to do when an ex shows up in unexpected places.
Posted Thursday, March 11, 2004, at 6:40 AM PT

Dear Prudence,

I read your column every week and always learn from the advice you give others. This time I need it for myself. My husband's sister is going through a difficult divorce after having been married for just over a year. She is very sad and depressed about it, but she's doing it for the right reasons, and we're all supporting her decision. On the other hand, my husband and I got married about seven months ago, we are very happy together, and we just now got our wedding album from our photographers. Both my husband's sister and her husband were part of the wedding, and they appear together in many of the pictures. I cannot afford to pay for the album to be modified. (I don't even know if that's possible.) So my question is: Should we go ahead and show our wedding album to my husband's family, as if one thing (my sister-in-law's divorce) has nothing to do with the other (my wedding)? My husband's family has been asking to see it for many months. Am I making too big a deal out of this?

—Newlywed

Dear New,

Prudie herself has, um, occasionally cropped a photograph to remove someone from the festivities, but to "cleanse" an entire album of your sister-in-law's ex is taking things to extremes. Everyone looking at the album well knows that how things were then is not how they are now, especially your in-laws ... the ones dying to see the pictures. A wedding album is a record of how things were at the wedding—no revisions required. Your "as if" was perfectly correct, by the way; the in-law divorce has nothing to do with your wedding. So invite your husband's family over, take some wedding cake out of the freezer, and enjoy the pictures.

—Prudie, nostalgically

-*-*-*-*-

Dear Prudence,

I need perspective. My wife is almost five months pregnant. Knowing how close my wife and her mother are (they talk at least once a day, if not more), I asked my wife if she wanted to have her mother in the delivery room. She said she didn't know and asked what I wanted. I said I felt that the delivery of our baby would be something we would share as a couple. She wasn't too happy with me. She said because she was going through the labor that she should have whoever makes her the most comfortable. We both backed off at that point. I love her mother, but am I way off-base wanting the delivery of our baby to be an event just for my wife and me?

—Confused in Boston!

Dear Con,

Prudie gathers that you asked your wife if she wanted her mother in the delivery room, she said she didn't know, at which point you announced your preference for only the two of you. It would have been wiser to open that discussion by saying what a wonderful event for two people to share and not bringing up the mother option. Given the physical and emotional stresses of the situation, your best bet now is to invite your wife to have things just as she would like them. Prudie, by the way, has watched customs change drastically regarding delivery room "support." She knows of whole families who have been present, and then, of course, there are those who take videos. (If anyone knows for whom these "movies" are shown, do drop a line.) In Prudie's day, should there be any social historians among you, the preferred delivery room contingent consisted of doctors, nurses, and a hairdresser.

—Prudie, contemporarily

-*-*-*-*-

Dear Prudence,

Do you think it's appropriate for a married man to have a friendship with a young, single, sexy woman when the wife is not at all comfortable with their relationship? My husband is doing just that. He speaks to this woman with whom he's supposed to be having a "professional" relationship every day on the phone. (Yet he's lied to me about how often they talk; he forgets I get the phone bill so I see the long-distance calls to her every day.) They don't need to talk every day, believe me. Sometimes she just calls to tell him inane things that most girls wouldn't even bother their girlfriends with. When she calls our house and leaves messages, they are flirty and sexy in nature. Up until recently, she would seem very angry when I answered the phone and be very rude to me. To top it off, I found a picture of her with his stash of old Playboys. Think I have a right to be upset and suspicious? He will not sever ties with her and thinks I am jealous and overreacting.

—Confused Mom and Wife

Dear Con,

Prudie is a peace-loving person, but you are within your rights to lower the boom at the top of your lungs. You have played the good schnook long enough. Tell him you may be jealous and overreacting, but you are also considering calling a lawyer unless he tells "his associate" the jig is up, insists she stop phoning, and ditches the photograph. Clearly, something is unhinged in your relationship, making your husband think he can try to camouflage what is, at the very least, a flirt but more probably an affair. And for him to tolerate this woman insulting you on the phone is just this side of despicable. If he doesn't see things your way, let what's-her-name have him.

—Prudie, exasperatedly

-*-*-*-*-

Dear Prudie,

Many of the questions posed to you concern the inappropriate behavior of other people and how to deal with it. I'm writing to ask your advice about my own inappropriate behavior. For the past year, I've been working with an extraordinary gentleman. We were close friends from the beginning, as I helped train him for his position. He is handsome and fun with a great personality. A couple months ago, I realized I was falling in love with this man. This married man. I would never consider intimating anything to him, but I have caught myself going overboard to be nice to him. For example, he oftentimes doesn't bring a lunch to work, so I sneak off on my lunch break and bring him back a feast, for which he is always appreciative. Or I prepare his work for him. Or I defend him to upper management even if he's wrong. What do I do about this? Do I confess? Do I sever any kind of personal relationship and lose a friend?

—Hopelessly in Love in Utah

Dear Hope,
What you do is get a grip and learn to be a chess player. That is, try to look ahead and tell yourself that if you do X, Y will happen. Prudie will give you a preview. If you "confess," he will either a) brush you off, nicely, saying he thinks you're swell, but he is happily married or b) he will leap at the invitation, and then you will be entangled with a married man who is also camped out in your workplace. Down the line, something will happen to break it up, and you will be in a most unfortunate position. If you totally deep-six the friendship, he will figure everything out—if he hasn't already. It is indeed possible to have a "personal relationship" without providing catering, work prep, and defender services. To salvage your dignity and protect your own job, stop with the fancy slave-girl lunches and carrying his water with upper management. Make an effort to rein it in and spare yourself some heartbreak.

—Prudie, professionally

^RETURN TO TOP^

Defending privacy has become a lonely task, Miss Manners finds. In a society where shame is marketable and public interest in one's underwear is the sign of professional success, there is not a lot of support for the concept.

True, one hears righteous outcries from people whose private lives have been violated. A government agency may be asking for personal information that people customarily only reveal on their Web sites, in blogs and by filling out the warranty cards for everything they buy. Or, in the case of the famous, personal information that they have contracted to sell has prematurely surfaced and spoiled the deal.

But the outcries of ordinary people who dislike being routinely quizzed by everyone they casually meet about their race, religion, ethnic background, family composition, physical characteristics, love lives and finances do not meet with the same sympathy. Instead, they run smack into counterattacks.

These are not a matter of mumbled apologies for having accidentally intruded. The impassioned defenders of social nosiness invoke panaceas for the human condition that have become popular over the last few decades:

• Mental health. Probing people to get them to reveal information about themselves, especially if they find this embarrassing, is cited as a therapeutic release for the inhibited.
• Peace through friendship. The notion that all strife is based on misunderstandings among strangers leads to the conclusion that if everyone were thoroughly familiar with everyone else, universal love would prevail.
• Pride. Following the idea that reticence can arise only from shame, people who are not ready to tell all to anyone who asks must be showing a deplorable lack of pride in their bloodlines, living conditions or personal habits.
• Romance. The argument that inquiries might be prompted by consideration of the person under question as a romantic partner is thought to make it respectable, as if it were a job interview, even if the interviewee has shown no interest in applying.
• Compassion. Support groups for every condition from addiction to parenting have become so well-established as the repositories of wisdom that information-gathering by targeting individuals has the double aura of being research and first aid.

Miss Manners's latest encounter with these positions was the consequence of her concurrence with a Gentle Reader who resents being asked whether particular friends, work colleagues and acquaintances are gay. It has also come up in connection with others' annoyance at constantly being queried about such things as their mixed racial backgrounds, their disabilities or where they got their adopted children.

The arguments dissenting Gentle Readers made this time were: The people in question should have no problem with these inquiries being made about them; sexual orientation is a basic defining characteristic and therefore a prerequisite to understanding someone; nobody should be ashamed of being gay; the questioners might have a romantic interest; or they might be offering and seeking other bonding.

Fine, but they still fail to acknowledge the essential difference between volunteering information about oneself to whomever one chooses, and feeling obligated to satisfy anyone else's curiosity.

Nearly all pointed out that the Gentle Reader who had protested had mentioned that she was married, which was a clear indication of her own sexual orientation. The lady volunteered this, however. Miss Manners did not ask her. She still doesn't like busybodies.

-*-*-*-*-
Q:
Dear Miss Manners:

Is there a proper condolence for a friend who is a criminal defense attorney who loses a case? Let's just say that his client is probably guilty and you would not otherwise doubt that justice was done.

A:
"You gave him the best possible defense. I hope he appreciates that."

In turn, Miss Manners hopes that you appreciate this tactful solution, which your friend will find flattering, and that you will not be disappointed that it omits showing satisfaction at the conviction. You are not supposed to make lawyers feel guilty about defending the guilty.

********************************
G) WNYC/On the Media: Speciality Magazines [Entretien sur les difficultés de programmer une revue spécialisée. Vous pouvez écouter cet entretien à l'adresse indiquée.]
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts/transcripts_031204_mags.html

Specialty Magazines
March 12, 2004

BOB GARFIELD: Generally speaking, the editors at, say, Newsweek, don't have a problem coming up with story ideas. They look back a week and rehash the news. If that doesn't suggest a cover story, they can always explain all world religion or terrorism or Britney Spears. But some editors haven't the luxury afforded by random events -- golfing, hunting, karate, beauty, fitness -- specialty publications, not news-driven, have to generate stories relying solely on their own editorial imaginations while basically covering the same material again and again and again. [CLIP OF STORY MEETING AT FITNESS MAGAZINE]

WOMAN: I was thinking obviously our average reader doesn't have a trainer all the time--

WOMAN: Right.

WOMAN: -- but if we could do some kind of comparison where we have three women or four women start a six week regimen--

WOMAN: Like how am I doing.

WOMAN: Yeah.

WOMAN: -- where everyone -- are we doing that?

WOMAN: We're trying to do it. It's hard...

BOB GARFIELD: This is the story meeting at Fitness, the women's magazine of body, mind and spirit, and things are a little tense. Every story suggested seems so-- been-done-already.

EMILY LISTFIELD: ...there's something there, but I don't think we nailed it.

WOMAN: What if we even throw diet into the mix and say, you know, maybe they all want to lose--

WOMAN: Like different tactics but--

WOMAN: -- and one person tries diet alone; one person tries exercise alone; and then another person has both.

EMILY LISTFIELD: But we tell people all the time that you need both.

BOB GARFIELD: One by one, the staffers pitch ideas, and one by one, gently, editor in chief Emily Listfield shoots them down, but in time the magazine will be filled because, Listfield explains, it's just a question of tuning in to the readers.

EMILY LISTFIELD: It's just listening to women talk, and when you listen to women talk, you get a million ideas. There's something new every day that they're curious about.

BOB GARFIELD: The problem is that curiosity is limited to very few spheres of human existence. For instance, in the June issue, the cover boasted a 30 minute thigh sculpting workout, whereas in May it was a better butt in 10 minutes, and in July it was the breakthrough workout to burn fat all day long. Fitness, of course, is for women, and Men's Health magazine has concerns far different from feminine body obsession. Steve Perrine is the editorial creative director of Men's Health.

STEVE PERRINE: Women tend to be self-conscious about their thighs and their butts, and men tend to be self-conscious about their stomachs.

BOB GARFIELD: So hence, in July the fastest ab plan ever; in June you had a story - 10 greatest ab exercises ever; May - All-Star Abs - October -Find Your Abs - September - Machine-Built Abs. Lot of Abs stories.

STEVE PERRINE: Well, some of the stories are part of the plans that we put together which guys can follow month to month; others are very particular interesting takes. For example, the All Star Abs, what we did is we picked a bunch of athletes and celebrities who are in particularly great shape, and we had them give us their workouts.

BOB GARFIELD: Celebrity Abs - nice touch. Both editors insist their magazines offer fresh takes on the kinds of issues most important to their readers. In fact, according to John Fine, my Advertising Age colleague on the magazine beat, readers may want nothing more from their glossies than a game effort to wrap familiar material in new packages, because whether the category is beauty or fitness or golf, these magazines tend to be feeding fantasies in the first place.

STEVE PERRINE: There's always the hope that in six months, you know, you're going to, you know, golf a 72. I mean there's always the hope that in six months, you know, you're going to drop 20 pounds and, you know, put on 15 pounds of lean body weight. But I mean if you're looking at it really obsessively, there's an infinite amount of variation, there's an infinite amount of ways you can talk about it. It becomes, I don't know, like a song that you listen to over and over again.

BOB GARFIELD: Or maybe, in its endless superficial variation on theme, like pornography. Or maybe another vice all together.

JOHN ATWOOD: To me instruction editorial is the heroin of golf magazines. It may make you feel good for a moment, but it really kills the creativity in the publication, I think.

BOB GARFIELD: John Atwood is editor in chief of Travel & Leisure Golf, a magazine that prides itself on transcending the 5 Tips for Mastering the Sand Wedge sort of material that fills its competition month after month. We visited his editorial meeting too and found a magazine with content bounded only by the limitations of its travel budget.

JOHN ATWOOD: Oh, Ireland -- on our, one of our trips last year, we used the services of a helicopter company, and that seems to be becoming the preferred mode of transportation around Ireland, so you know, given who our audience is, I think we need to do something on that topic.

BOB GARFIELD: The Irish helicopter tour was such a fetching subject, in fact, that Travel & Leisure Golf had done it already -- in the current issue. No problem for coming issues though. There are many other countries and several other modes of transportation. Editors such as Atwood have one sort of challenge - interesting essentially the same audience month after month. Diane Forden of Bridal Guide magazine has the opposite problem -- interesting an ever-changing pool of readers without boring herself right out of her skull. Her readership turns over every six to fourteen months.

WOMAN: So that's the creative challenge, when, especially when you work for a bridal magazine, is how do we keep this material fresh, how do we keep it relevant, how do we, you know, get the reader excited, keep ourselves excited?

BOB GARFIELD: But every month she has to do a wedding gown story, and every month she has to do a wedding planning story, and every month she has to do a cake story.

WOMAN: We don't want to photograph the same type of cake story. I think once we did a cake for all seasons, so it was different cakes for your seasons. We didn't want to repeat that, but we still wanted to present an idea of showing wonderful wedding cakes, but what was our theme, what was our idea? You know, we repeat ourself, yes, but we always give it a new twist, a new angle.

BOB GARFIELD: It's all about angles. The editorial process at these magazines is about 10 percent journalism, and 90 percent geometry.

WOMAN: Everybody's always doing look great naked. I really like the idea of feel great naked. Fifty Reasons to Love Your Body.

BOB GARFIELD: Fifty reasons to love your body. Splendid idea! Next month -- Fifty One Reasons to Love Your Body. [THEME MUSIC UP & UNDER]

IT WAS not a pretty sight. In 1839, the roads of Wales were crowded with men wearing women’s clothes, in an obscure reference to a story from the Bible. By the time they were back in their usual attire, several turnpikes (tax collection points) had been demolished. During the following five years, these “Rebecca rioters”, as they became known, donned their frocks and smashed turnpikes many times, doing what most taxpayers before and since could only dream about. But now some governments are starting to worry that globalisation, spurred by the Internet, will do to their tax systems what those transvestite Taffies did to the turnpikes.

Like the boy who cried “wolf”, governments have raised the alarm about globalisation so often that their credibility is in doubt. For all the talk of footloose capital heading for low-tax countries, starting a “race to the bottom” in which governments slash taxes and services to lure global business, the taxman’s cut of world income is larger today than it has ever been. Yet in the story the wolf eventually did attack the sheep, and the boy’s shouts for help went unheeded. Is the same thing about to happen to the world’s governments?

It does not help that globalisation can mean many things to many people, but a minimum definition would probably include a diminishing role for national borders and the gradual fusing of separate national markets into a single global marketplace. The term “globalisation” was probably first coined in the 1980s, but the idea has been around for a long time. Indeed, by some measures the world was more globalised a century ago than it is now: certainly people were far likelier to emigrate to find work. After an anti-trade backlash in the 1920s and 30s, globalisation has been accelerating during the past three decades. And thanks to innovations in communications and transport that let people and capital travel at great speed, it is now moving into a different gear altogether.

As globalisation ebbed and flowed, the taxman’s share of economic output went relentlessly up, despite warnings from politicians that globalisation would make it harder for governments to collect taxes and thus to provide public services. But now a new factor has entered the equation: the Internet. It epitomises borderlessness, and the irrelevance of being in a particular physical location. By being everywhere and nowhere at once, it seems certain to speed up globalisation. And in doing so, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, it might damage tax systems so badly that it could “lead to governments being unable to meet the legitimate demands of their citizens for public services”.

Shopping around

The Internet age has dawned just as tax collectors are getting worried about another aspect of globalisation: tax competition. Both the European Union and the OECD have declared war on “harmful” low-tax policies used by some countries to attract international businesses and capital. The OECD says that tax competition is often a “beggar-thy-neighbour policy” which is already reducing government tax revenues, and will start to be reflected in the data during the next couple of years. The Internet has the potential to increase tax competition, not least by making it much easier for multinationals to shift their activities to low-tax regimes, such as Caribbean tax havens, that are physically a long way from their customers, but virtually are only a mouse-click away. Many more companies may be able to emulate Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which has earned profits of £1.4 billion ($2.3 billion) in Britain since 1987 but paid no corporation tax there.

This survey will seek to discover whether all this poses a real threat to tax revenues. Inevitably, this will involve a good deal of speculation. The Internet is still young, and nobody can know how big it will grow. For the taxman, its increasing use raises two main challenges. The first is unique to the Internet. The World Wide Web is an entirely new channel for moving goods and services from producers to customers, and taxing virtual goods and retailers is much more difficult than taxing physical ones. Music can now be downloaded via the Internet, from a retailer located who knows where, without a need for discs or tapes. Other products may similarly dematerialise, making it hard for the taxman to pinpoint them. New Internet taxes, such as the proposed “bit tax”, levied on the volume of electronic transmissions, make little sense, and would face huge political opposition from those who want to keep the taxman out of cyberspace—including some American presidential hopefuls.

Taxpayers, too, may dematerialise. In a famous New Yorker magazine cartoon showing two dogs sitting in front of a computer screen, one tells the other: “On the Internet, nobody knows that you are a dog.” The ability to collect tax is contingent on knowing who is liable to pay it, but taxpayers may become increasingly hard to identify as anonymous electronic money and uncrackable encryption technology are developed.

As almost everybody knows, there are two ways of cutting your tax bill. Tax avoidance is doing what you can within the law. As a great American judge, Learned Hand, put it, “There is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich and poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.” Tax evasion is what happens outside the law. There may be a thin line between the two, but in one sense it is a solid one: as Denis Healey, a former British chancellor, once put it, “The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.” The Internet is likely to make it easier to break the law.

The second challenge the Internet raises for the taxman is its potential for intensifying tax competition between governments. Tax collection around the world is built on the belief that every nation-state has the right to decide for itself how much tax to collect from the people and businesses within its borders. Governments may be willing to pool their sovereignty by joining international bodies such as the UN, the IMF or the EU, but they cling to their right to set their own taxes. Even in what some see as the nascent EU superstate, member countries refuse to give up their control of direct taxation.

Competing visions

Many countries have bilateral tax treaties with other countries, mainly to avoid double taxation. But again the rules of such treaties assume that the nation-state is what counts: they merely determine which nation-state has priority where more than one country has a claim. Multinational companies complain that nationally based taxation inhibits them from operating as truly global businesses. But for governments, it makes sense to design tax systems that attract footloose wealth.

Tax competition raises three big questions which this survey will try to answer. First, is there really such a thing? Some pundits doubt that tax-cutting governments are indeed motivated by hopes of poaching economic activity from other countries. Yet, as we shall see, there is enough evidence to suggest that tax competition should be taken seriously, and that without intervention it will only get fiercer.

Second, can it be stopped? It will not be easy. Not many people will defend tax havens. But although they make fine whipping boys, tax havens simply do in a more extreme form what many “respectable” governments themselves increasingly indulge in. Ireland opposes harmonising corporate tax rates in the EU because its low rates give it a competitive edge. Britain blocks an EU savings-tax directive because it might hurt the City of London. Luxembourg and Switzerland will not agree to share information with foreign tax authorities because people who want to cut their tax bills come to them looking for discretion. And America may well ask for a worldwide ban on new Internet taxes because as a net exporter of e-commerce it would be the biggest beneficiary.

Some policymakers think that a World Tax Organisation should take its place alongside institutions such as the UN, NATO, IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organisation (WTO). But tax nationalism is likely to ensure that this will not happen. The OECD lacks sufficient clout, especially over non-members. The EU has a better chance of curbing tax competition among its own members, both through its directives and through the European Court of Justice, which is steadily, if slowly, enforcing tax harmony in the name of the single European market. But any success the EU achieves internally may simply make it more vulnerable to tax competition from non-EU countries.

Third, is tax competition really so bad? The OECD thinks it could undermine democracy by stopping countries from pursuing the tax policies their voters want. Footloose capital is free-riding on less mobile taxpayers, getting the benefit of services provided by governments in higher-taxing countries while paying taxes in low-tax jurisdictions, if at all. The EU objects mainly to special tax treatment offered to some taxpayers but not others, on the ground that it interferes with the single market. Some EU governments also argue that tax competition makes it ever harder to tax mobile factors of production such as capital. Instead, they complain, they have to increase taxes on less mobile factors, notably labour, which may drive jobs away.

Charles Tiebout, an American economist, argued back in the 1950s that competition between governments can be as good for everybody concerned as competition in any other marketplace. Like companies, governments can compete by offering different combinations of public services and taxes; if people want bigger government and are happy to pay for it, they are free to choose it, just as some people choose a snazzier car, or fly business class. Tax competition will put pressure on governments to provide their services efficiently, but that need not mean they have to be minimal. There are limitations to this theory, notably Tiebout’s assumption that every taxpayer is mobile, and can vote with his feet. In reality, richer taxpayers tend to be more mobile than poorer ones. If tax competition becomes stronger, using the tax system to redistribute money from rich, mobile taxpayers to poor, less mobile ones may become worryingly hard. The Internet will make more people mobile, rendering the rest even more wretched.

^RETURN TO TOP^

********************************
I) Demotivator® of the week: ARROGANCE [Les messages trop, trop vrais qui vont vous démotiver dans votre vie personnelle et professionnelle. Cette semaine, "L'arrogance"]
http://www.despair.com

"The best leaders inspire by example. When that's not an option, brute intimidation works pretty well, too."

^RETURN TO TOP^

Meet Iona Senator. This fur- and diamond-clad 40-year-old sees her recent $50 million contribution to President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign not as a donation, but rather as an investment that will help her live out the rest of her days sipping raspberry lemonade on the porch of her mansion in Martha’s Vineyard.
Senator, though not, in fact, a real person, is a typical member of Billionaires for Bush (B4B), an “exclusive” club that, as its website claims, helps to “counterbalance the overwrought concerns that are spoon-fed to voters about tax fairness, clean elections, global justice and environmental problems.” A strong supporter of George W., Senator, much like the other members of the club, will tell you that she joined to help those politicians who will keep her comfortable lifestyle unchanged for years to come. B4B chapters are springing up all around the country, the newest one dropping anchor here at Harvard.

B4B is a growing, nonprofit, “nonpartisan” network of activists and artists whose goal is to challenge President Bush’s administration and expose its failed policies through witty and strategic media and theater campaigns. Launched during the 2000 presidential campaign as “Billionaires for Bush or Gore,” it uses a wily combination of satire and facts to communicate through grass-roots organizations and the Internet. The campaign aims to alert the public to the fact that Bush is, in fact, not the ordinary, down-to-earth guy he purports to be. Instead, they claim, he is a power-hungry, lobbyist-pleasing politician. Their intriguing tactics are reminiscent of Jonathan Swift. By pushing for the deregulation of elections, defending big business and encouraging wealthy individuals to manipulate government policy through generous campaign contributions, Billionaires for Bush makes a strong, potently ironic case against Bush as he attempts reelection.

“[B4B] is a grassroots political action committee advocating for the rights and interests of people of phenomenal wealth. We go to Republican fundraisers and cheer on Bush’s wealthy donors as they pour millions into his campaign chest,” says Matthew R. Skomarovsky ’03. Skomarovsky or “Seymour Benjamins,” as he is known to his brethren, is the co-chair of the national organization. He continues, “We go to town hall events with Republican officials and make sure our interests are given priority over the unwashed masses that also voted for Bush.”

B4B, despite its exclusivity, only requires a few things from its members. First, it requires that they choose names for themselves that reflect the true spirit of the club (e.g. Dee Regulation, Ivana Censorhugh, Lou Pole), dress the part (cummerbunds for gentlemen, tiaras for women) and, of course, adopt a “billionaire persona.” Entourages are encouraged. Finally, perhaps the most important caveat of B4B is that its members be nonpartisan—they are not allowed to support a candidate or advocate or dissuade a voter from voting for a candidate. Ingrid Schorr (a.k.a. “Maura B. Formi,” the ‘B’ standing for ‘Bucks’), a non-resident tutor in Adams House, joined because “it combines dress-up and political theatre.”

Dressed up and in character, B4Bs attend Republican fundraisers and applaud Bush’s wealthy donors. At town hall events, they stand beside Republican officials to make sure their interests are given priority over other Republicans. At leftist protests they can be heard loudly advocating, “Four more wars! Tax work, not wealth!” Harvard’s own chapter, which currently enjoys a membership of 40 and continues to grow, has plans for elaborate dinners in campus dining halls and lavish downtown soirees. Regardless of the pursuit, Billionaires for Bush relishes making a scene.

When B4Bs traveled to New York two weeks ago to “welcome” Karl Rove to a high-priced, $2000-per-plate Bush fundraiser, they came face-to-face with the people who raised $100,000 or more for the president’s reelection campaign, known as “mavericks.” “Most [mavericks] were visibly uncomfortable having their heavy financing of the Bush campaign draw so much attention,” Skomarovsky says. However, he adds that a few “ordinary” Bush supporters smiled, amused, as B4B members chanted “Write big checks!” from across the street.

Such reactions are fairly commonplace. “You dumb block of unworthy chimp vomit,” Skomarovsky reads from a letter received by B4B. “I haven’t a clue how one human nor a collective group of humans could be so outlandishly fucking filthy.”

Ultimately, Skomarovsky says that he joined because “four more years of Bush is damn good for [his] bottom line.” On a more serious note, though, he views the organization as a stern critique of American democracy in its current form. “Our brand of democracy serves primarily the wealth and corporate interests that wield outrageous influence through campaign contributions and lobbying,” Skomarovsky says. “[B4B is] a creative and immensely fun way to challenge the Bush administration without having to knock on doors pretending the prevailing democrat is the best thing since sliced bread.”

^RETURN TO TOP^

********************************
4) Slate/Culturebox: The maiden name debate [Le débat sur le port du nom de jeunes filles.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2097231/
culturebox: The Maiden Name Debate
What's changed since the 1970s?
By Katie Roiphe
Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2004, at 9:32 AM PT

It was an interesting moment in the history of nomenclature when Hillary's "Rodham" slipped into the position of a middle name after her husband lost his bid for re-election as governor in 1980. In the decades that followed, political wives have been pressured to tack their husband's names onto their own (n.b. Judith Steinberg Dean and Teresa Heinz Kerry). In a way, it is an ingenious political solution: By shunting their old names into a prominent middle-name status, aspiring first ladies can signal to red states that they defer to their husbands while winking at the blue states that they still have their own names. (Or in Teresa Heinz Kerry's case, their other husband's name.) Of course, the entire debate over keeping one's name is only an issue for a small portion of the country, since roughly 90 percent of American women automatically assume their husband's names upon getting married. But for this educated, vocal segment of the population, the thorny question of what to do with one's maiden name persists.

The movement to keep maiden names began in the 1850s in Massachusetts, when a suffragette named Lucy Stone decided to keep her name when she married an abolitionist named Henry Blackwell at the age of 37. In 1921 the Lucy Stone League was founded in New York, and a circle of forward-thinking women devoted themselves to the preservation of women's names. In 1925, a journalist wrote snidely "some of its resulting confusions are indelicate and therefore may merely be hinted at. Many moral hotel clerks are troubled at the assignment of rooms to the traveling Lucy Stoners and their husbands." But until the feminism of the 1970s brought a resurgence of interest to the issue, almost all women, including highly educated career women, changed their names to their husband's when they married. Of course, the majority of these women were married before they were 23. Now that women marry later, and live more of their adult life with their maiden names, it can feel unnatural to assume another name, even for women who do not consider themselves feminists. Once you have "made a name for yourself" in the world it becomes more complicated, and even professionally damaging, to change it.

Having children, however, presents a conundrum: If you change your name to your husband's, how are you connected to your ancestors in the shtetl, or the potato famine, or the decks of the Mayflower? If you don't change your name, how are you connected to the future, to your children and grandchildren, who will use your name as a secret password for bank accounts until eventually it is forgotten? (There is a nice blue-blood tradition in this country of the mother's maiden name becoming a recurring motif through the generations, as in the case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But this is not entirely satisfying for the contemporary mother, as most people today do not use their middle names in any meaningful way.)

In the late '70s and '80s people began to make what seems to be an enlightened compromise: hyphenating their names. By using both last names, they appear to have created an equitable and serviceable solution for their families. But hyphenating is socially irresponsible as well as aesthetically disastrous: What happens when Julian Hesser-Friend marries Tessa Rosenfeld-Cassidy? Their grandchildren could end up with great, long, loopy strings of names, their signatures spilling off the blanks of any form. If they sensibly lop off part and end up as "Hesser-Cassidys" then they find themselves in the same quandary as we are.

Even more impractical is the recent rise of fiercely egalitarian couples inventing a third name out of the components of their last names. In most cases the new, fake-sounding name obliterates all ethnic resonance: When O'Connor and Rosenblatt turn into Rosecons, the verbal cadences of two cultures are lost. Mr. O'Connor and Ms. Rosenblatt somehow manage to simultaneously defeat the main functions of the surname: They are severing all ties with the past and the future, leaving the immediate family an island of Roscons, with no nomenclatural relation to any of their cousins, grandparents, or future grandchildren. Not to mention that from a purely logistical standpoint it has become much more difficult to change one's name since 9/11, due to security concerns. For anything other than the assumption of a husband's name upon walking down the aisle, one faces added bureaucratic hurdles like court orders, fees, and long waiting periods, as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2003.

To this day, there is a group of "Lucy Stoners" who fervently believe that we will not be free until naming practices are "equal." But how can they be? In a way the confusion and unwieldiness of the issue is a perfect metaphor for feminism's limitations: We might prefer equal naming practices, but how in a practical sense could they be implemented? How can both people preserve the longevity and tradition of their surnames? The truth is there is something unsatisfying about either the bride or groom giving up their name. There is in the creation of a family a kind of uncomfortable and thrilling blending of identity, a difficult obliteration of the distinct self; in short, it's one of those nuanced, emotional moments that rarely fit into the categories rigidly set out by the purest forms of feminist ideology.

Interestingly, over the past 10 years fewer and fewer women have kept their maiden names. According to a recent study by Harvard economics professor Claudia Goldin, the number of college-educated women in their 30s keeping their name has dropped from 27 percent in 1990 to 19 percent in 2004. Goldin suggests that this may be because we are moving toward a more conservative view of marriage. Perhaps. But it may also be that the maiden name is no longer a fraught political issue. These days, no one is shocked when an independent-minded woman takes her husband's name, any more than one is shocked when she announces that she is staying at home with her kids. Today, the decision is one of convenience, of a kind of luxury—which name do you like the sound of? What do you feel like doing? The politics are almost incidental. Our fundamental independence is not so imperiled that we need to keep our names. The statement has, thanks to a more dogmatic generation, been made. Now we dabble in the traditional. We cobble together names. At this point—apologies to Lucy Stone, and her pioneering work in name keeping—our attitude is: Whatever works.

In the end, many mothers I've encountered since becoming one myself have decided to change their names in line at the passport office, or in the post office, or in a doctor's waiting room. They are not inspired to do it out of a nostalgic affection for tradition, or some cozy idea of family, or anything so charged or esoteric; they do it because giving in to bureaucratic pressures is easier than clinging to their old identity. In a mundane way, having the same name as your children is easier.

And then, of course, the beauty of the contemporary name change is that you don't have to formally decide. You can keep your name professionally and socially, change your name for the purposes of school lists, or airline tickets, or your husband's presidential run—in short, you can maintain an extremely confusing relation to your own name (or names). There is, at least for me, an element of play to the whole thing. There's something romantic and pleasantly old-fashioned about giving up your name, a kind of frisson in seeing yourself represented as Mrs. John Doe in the calligraphy of a wedding invitation on occasion. At the same time it's reassuring to see your own name in a byline or a contract. Like much of today's shallow, satisfying, lipstick feminism: One can, in the end, have it both ways.

Katie Roiphe is the author of Still She Haunts Me.

^RETURN TO TOP^

Paul Robinson got a few strange looks at first, but now people are used to him strolling through campus sporting his bedtime best. The Coastal Carolina University freshman, who admits he puts comfort before fashion, wears pajamas to class at least four days a week. Sometimes he'll change into a fresh pair before heading out the door in the morning, and other times he skips the hassle. "It just depends on how much time I have," he said. "It seems a lot more people are going for comfort than a look. Everyone is just trying to be relaxed."

The casual clothing movement is reaching new heights as comfort seekers have begun bringing jammies out of the bedroom. The trend is popping up on college campuses and can even be spotted at gas stations, grocery stores and video stores.

Before starting classes at CCU in the fall, Robinson, 19, attended Catholic school in Long Island, N.Y., where uniforms complete with blazers and ties were a must. So when he got a chance at fashion freedom, Robinson chose comfy.

Americans crave comfort, seeking out something to spark relaxation daily, according to the survey "The State of Comfort in America 2003," released in November by Karen Neuburger, Ltd. "For most Americans, comfort is one of the most critical elements of everyday life," the survey said.

Pj's made the report's top 10 list of things that give women comfort. But style is also a factor in the recent pj's craze. These days you can create just about any look with soft, flowing flannel jammies. Women can now choose the once daytime capri and cargo pants in cozy flannel, velour or brushed cotton. Prints range from hearts and flowers to more personality revealing items like purses, frogs, pink flamingos, coffee cups and martini glasses. Men can go for ordinary or bright and wacky patterns. Places such as Old Navy and Target offer plentiful selections of red lips, penguins, cartoon characters or the more sedate pinstripes and plaid.

Robinson often opts for the loud. Sure, he's got the plaid pants, but he also sports dancing Twinkies, sleeping Scooby-Doos and bears playing violins. "One kid around school calls me Scooby-Doo," he said with a laugh. The 19-year-old art major said comfortable pajama bottoms, t-shirts and flip flops make the perfect outfit for his drawing classes, which meet for two hours three days a week. "I've had girls say to me, 'I wish I had the courage to go class in pajamas and be comfortable,' and I say 'why don't you? It's this early, and no one's looking at anyone else'.

^RETURN TO TOP^

A full rundown of tribal membership arcana would fill several volumes, as each of the nation's 562 federally recognized tribes has its own rules, typically outlined in their respective constitutions. In general, however, tribes use either the blood quantum system or the descent system. The former approach uses an ancestry threshold to determine an applicant's fitness for membership. Many tribes require that aspirants possess a certain degree, or percentage, of the relevant "Indian blood," in addition to satisfying a few other ancestry requirements. The Nez Perce, for example, will grant membership only to those "who are at least one fourth degree Nez Perce Indian ancestry born to a member of the Nez Perce Tribe." So, an applicant with one biological parent who was half Nez Perce by blood, as well as a tribal member, would have a good shot at making the rolls, too.

To determine blood quantum, many tribes ask applicants to obtain a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood, issued by the BIA. Those seeking a CDIB must provide the government with primary sources, such as birth certificates and marriage records, to prove their level of Native American ancestry. The CDIB, or "white card," then lists the precise percentage of the bearer's blood that is Indian. If the required threshold is met, the hopeful can then apply directly to a tribe using the blood quantum system.

The descent system, by contrast, doesn't set a minimum blood requirement. Instead, anyone who can prove that they have even a drop of Indian blood can gain membership, provided they can also demonstrate that they are directly descended from a member from a particular time period. A good example is the Cherokee Nation, which requires that prospective members trace their lineage to a person on the Dawes Roll. The Dawes Roll was essentially a census tied to the Dawes Act of 1887, which sought to replace communal tribal holdings with private property (as well as open up more Western territory to white settlers).

Some tribes mix the two systems, requiring a relatively low blood threshold—say, one-sixteenth—in combination with proof that an ancestor was mentioned in an old population survey. Others require that prospective members actually have been born on a reservation or live there for an extended period of time.

Conflicts over tribal membership have become more heated in recent years as new applicants seek to claim shares of gaming revenues or tribal elders look to expel newcomers in order fatten their monthly payments. The apparent meddling of BIA officials in the Ione Band situation strikes many observers as particularly shady since the agency's own policy guidelines note, "Rarely is the BIA involved in enrollment and membership. Each tribe determines whether an individual is eligible for membership." Elsewhere in California, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians is attempting to expel 130 members, arguing that they're all related to a woman who voluntarily severed ties to the tribe in the 1920s. Last week, a court issued a temporary injunction to prevent the expulsions, but tribal leaders insist that American courts have no jurisdiction over their membership decisions. Members of the Pechanga Band receive monthly stipends of $10,000, plus benefits.

Brendan I. Koerner is a fellow at the New America Foundation.

^RETURN TO TOP^

DAYTON, Tenn. - The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature. The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday. Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning homosexuals from living in the county. "We need to keep them out of here," Fugate said.

The vote was denounced by Matt Nevels, president of the Chattanooga chapter of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. "That is the most farfetched idea put forth by any kind of public official," Nevels said. "I'm outraged."

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas' sodomy laws as a violation of adults' privacy.

Rhea County is one of the most conservative counties in Tennessee. It holds an annual festival commemorating the 1925 trial at which John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution. The verdict was thrown out on a technicality. The trial became the subject of the play and movie "Inherit the Wind." In 2002, a federal judge ruled unconstitutional the teaching of a Bible class in the public schools.

********************************
8) The Economist: Wind power [Le dispositif d'aides à l'énergie éolienne en GB fait que les turbines sont installées à terre plutôt en mer comme on croyait initialement.]
http://www.economist.com/World/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2521177
Wind power: Tilting at windmills
Mar 18th 2004 | GREAT GLEMHAM, SUFFOLK

Wind power was expected to flourish offshore. So why is it mostly onshore?

THE hedgerows of Great Glemham, a small village in Suffolk, make an unusual billboard for political posters. Currently they feature eye-catching protests against plans for a wind farm on a disused airfield in next-door Parham. When the project was announced in December, residents mostly welcomed the idea. Many have now changed their mind and relations with the farmer who owns the site, an upstanding member of the Parish Council, have become strained. In the middle of one Saturday night, someone snuck around taking all the posters down.

When subsidies for wind energy were first mooted, most wind farms were expected to be built offshore, since there is a lot of wind there and seagulls don't sit on planning committees. But the subsidy system, under which wind farms sell renewable obligation certificates (ROCs) to conventional generators, rewards onshore and offshore farms equally, and building on land is less risky or costly than building at sea, where special barges costing £30m each are needed to manoeuvre the turbines into position. Developers therefore favour onshore projects, and farmers, driven by falling agricultural incomes to look for new sources of income, are happy to oblige. Of 22 wind farms due to be built this year, 21 are onshore.

Wind farms get around three times as much in subsidy—a mixture of selling ROCs and a share of fines paid by non-renewable plants—as they do from selling electricity. Powergen reckons that putting up just two or three turbines becomes viable on this model. Other investors are picking up on this too: Saxon Windpower, the company that wants to put up six turbines on Parham airfield, is backed by a venture capital fund based in the Bahamas. Small wind farms are therefore proliferating.

The hostility aroused by the Parham project is not unusual either. Some locals complain that wind farms are noisy, ugly and (citing estate agents) that they reduce property prices. Others, like John Constable, who lives 700 metres away from the airfield, say they are just inappropriate. “I happen to like the Chrysler building,” he says, “but I don't want it near my house.”

The British Wind Energy Association says around half of all planning applications in England get scuppered (mostly by angry local residents), though the success rate is higher in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Locals have some control, but not as much as they would like: district councils decide on applications for wind farms with a capacity of under 50MW (around 25 turbines), while bigger proposals go to central government.

Wind farms' opponents argue that a carbon tax would be a better way of discouraging pollution than subsidising particular forms of renewable energy—and that, among green energy sources, wind is one of the least efficient. Hugh Sharman, author of several studies of wind power in west Denmark, which has the highest concentration of turbines anywhere in the world, points out that in February last year the wind stopped blowing and almost no power was generated. When this happens electricity has to be imported from elsewhere or generated by conventional plants kept as back-up. This isn't very green: keeping thermal power stations ticking over consumes energy without producing any useful power, and cranking them up and down is inefficient and dirty.

^RETURN TO TOP^