Snark Noir

Greek lightning won’t stay in the bottle

2011-06-16T10:00:00.004-04:00

If the economic observers are right, the birthplace of Western civilization is a ticking financial timebomb that will mean the end of the Euro as we know it. This week Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece to "CCC", the lowest credit level possible, on fears of a default. And China’s not very happy about the situation. Two scenarios are likely. The first involves yet another bailout package that would keep Greece afloat. That has stalled. The second is a two-part default with part one by the end of 2013 and part two by the end of the following year. According to currency strategist David Mann, the market has placed the likelihood of a Greek default at 75 percent.

As usual, it’s governments versus bankers. For any second bailout to get the approval of Europe’s largest economy, Germany, public sector support is a must. The European bank is saying it will see any private sector participation in the plan as coercion and call it a selective default. So how the bailout will happen without obliterating the country’s credit score is anyone’s guess. But contagion looks like it’s in the offing.

Moody’s is examining three top level French banks for their exposure to the probable Greek default.

The Greeks themselves are not taking the austerity measures required for a second bailout lying down. A phalanx worthy of their ancient forebears turned out in force armed with ‘petrol bombs’ turned out near the parliament building to vent their anger at lawmakers. This has led the Prime Minister of Greece to start doing the cabinet shuffle in order to maintain a semiworking government.

The reality is that government defaults are pretty common occurrences. It’s the sovereign equivalent of bankruptcy. The current crisis was also a result of creative practices involving cross-currency swaps by … wait for it … Goldman Sachs, which helped the Greek government paper over its debt so it could appear to be in line with its debt level obligations under its EU membership. Much of Greece’s current woes legitimately may be of its own making, but if default worked for Venezuela nine times during a 175 year period, the world is probably protesting too much over a possible Greek debt conflagration.

U.S. military evolving into the green war machine

2011-06-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

It’s nice to know someone has finally realized that the America’s dependence on foreign oil might be a national security problem. The Pentagon is turning its eye to greater energy efficiency on the battlefield. The military spent $15 billion last year on energy. The Pentagon is expected to spend $1.8 billion in 2010 on renewable energy technology and that spending is expected to rise to $26.8 billion by 2030. In 2009, the Department of Defense rang up an energy bill of $13.3 billion. By comparison, the U.S. military uses as much energy as the African nation of Nigeria.

Of course the energy strategy was mandated by law in 2009. U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) also introduced a bill that would create a Joint Contingency Base Resource Security Project that would facilitate the efforts of the military services to pool their research efforts. With the Army developing hybrid vehicles and the DOD pushing renewable energy technologies, it’s quite possible it will have beneficial effects in the civilian market.

In the first six months of 2011, Americans spent more than $50 billion on fuel. With the economy still reeling from the shock of $4 a gallon of gasoline, the military’s campaign to develop renewable energy technologies may succeed in stemming the transfer of wealth to countries that don’t like the U.S. very much and reduce our carbon footprint. Only the Koch Brothers could argue with that.

A jobless prescription that fails to address the illness

2011-06-13T10:00:00.002-04:00

Paul Krugman and Todd G. Buchholz. One of these men is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. The other is not. And the one is not has the temerity to not only cavalierly blow off the Nobel Prize-winner’s explanation of the economy’s present woes but suggests replacing unemployment benefits with vouchers … umm a ‘signing bonus.’

Buchholz’s disconnect comes as no surprise. According to the ID tag line, he was a White House economic adviser to George H.W. Bush and a former managing director of the Tiger hedge fund. It’s not just that elected officials in Congress have put the needs of a few bond-holders over the needs of the many, it’s also the fact that job seekers are experiencing a systemic bias against the unemployed. The problem isn’t that the unemployed want to live on government benefits. The problem is that employers won’t hire them. A point made quite baldly recently by Sony Ericsson when it told job-seekers in a job listing "No unemployed candidates will be considered at all." An ad for Beacon Hill Staffing Group in Boston told prospective paralegals that “to be considered, candidates must be currently employed."

Some lawmakers, such as New York State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, have grasped the enormity of the problem and are considering legislative remedies to the problem. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is also taking a look into the issue to see how extensive the problem is and who, exactly, is being hurt (most likely minorities).

But with the Republican Congress playing chicken with the debt ceiling (and risking default) and engaging in “right wing social engineering” the prospects for any meaningful fix to the economy that benefits Main Street remains dim.

Clearly it doesn't take Nobel Prize-winning economist to see that the economy in general, and American workers in particular, are both in trouble. But the causes of the trouble are beyond Buchholz’s grasp. It’s easy to offer a solution for unemployment when you have a job. In the current environment, having a job is the only way to get a job. One can only hope that if Buchholz’s remedy is adopted, he’ll get a first-hand taste of unemployment and have to swallow is prescription whole.

GOP engineering a bureau's stillbirth

2011-06-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

The Daily Show - Exclusive - Elizabeth Warren Extended Interview Pt. 1
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is set to begin its work on July 21. Despite Democratic support for Elizabeth Warren, Team Obama is considering naming a former banker, Raj Date, to head the bureau. But Congressional Republicans won’t have it. They are preparing to offer amendments designed to trap/spay/neuter the watchdog bureau before it can perform its mission: to protect consumers.

And while it may be a core tenant of conservatism that big government translates into lax morality, the irony seems lost on them that Wall Street bankers (whose morality was questionable at best) who played dice with the economy and got bailed out by the big government they decry will get a reprieve. Security and Exchange Commission rules that were supposed to go into effect June 16 as a result of the economic crisis will not go into effect. The bank lobby continues to fight against the bureau despite the fact that it might even help Wall Street long term interests. Of course this begs two questions: why is the GOP really fighting the bureau’s creation and whose interests are Congressional Republicans really serving?

Gate's farewell to NATO’s arms

2011-06-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

It was U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ farewell tour and his blunt-speaking stop in Brussels garnered a collective “meh” from America’s erstwhile allies. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has seen more action against enemies outside of Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall than it did during the entire Cold War. The irony being that it is probably less battle ready now against the enemies it presently faces (Taliban, Libya and Hezbollah) than it was when it trained against an enemy it never faced in battle (Russia and the Warsaw Pact). It also faces financial pressure with only five of the 28 member nations pulling their mandated weight. Some of the members are underperforming (Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands) while others (Germany and Poland) aren’t performing at all. In the meanwhile NATO member nations are experiencing ammunition shortages and are overly dependent on American capabilities.

The question that begs is whether NATO still has a purpose. When the U.S. drawdown is completed in Afghanistan, will NATO continue to hold together in the face of deficit reduction efforts in the U.S.? Without a unifying mission, will the military alliance give way to the tea and crumpets outing that is the mythical and oft proposed EU Defense Initiative?

Madama President

2011-06-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

The Daily Show - Christine Lagarde
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Madam Hillary Clinton is reportedly setting her sights on a new post, that of President of the World Bank. After several years of being America's top diplomat (a post that once was for the heir despairing to the U.S. Presidency) she's setting her sights on running the world body. Of course, this all comes with the standard denials. It seems quite likely that at this crucial moment in time, the two top finance chairs may give way to women, with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde actively campaigning for the lead role at the International Monetary Fund, the one vacated by Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who is currently cooling his heels in a $50,000 a month townhouse in Tribeca, Manhattan while waiting to go to trial).

In a season of alpha males behaving badly, maybe turning over the world's purse-strings to the ladies is for the best. Now if we just get America's alpha male U.S. President Barack Obama to get behind Elizabeth Warren get that small matter of her running of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau settled.

Is this thing on?

2011-06-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

After several months of neglect, Snarknoir is slowly coming back to life. Expect that the blog will rediscover it's footing. With the spreading gap between rich and poor, the continuing disintegration of the economy, alpha males behaving badly, Election 2012 and the approach of Green Lantern, The Avengers, and The Hunger Games there will be plenty of snark to go around.

Pakistan's crises, the world's problem

2010-08-23T17:00:00.006-04:00

Okay, so first Wikileaks confirmed for us that the Pakistanis are not our friends, having taken our money in one hand, and backing the Afghan insurgency with the other. Now we learn that the Pakistanis have been busy sinking peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government for their own petty national interests. And the Pakistani government is not the most trustworthy ally to begin with. But their pointless rivalry with India, especially in regards to Kashmir threatens to ensure that the region will remain unstable and all because the Pakistan govenrment feels the need to feel good about itself, especially at a time when it can ill-afford the ill will of the rest of the world. However, it's would-be Arab Muslim allies won't come to it's aid in this difficult time. In the wake of the recent floods, the European nations continue to send aid out of the goodness of their hearts and because it is the right thing to do. But with a 'friend' like Pakistan, how long can it expect to continue to count on aid from its Western allies when its effort to thwart peace in Afghanistan continues to get NATO troops killed?

Stay for 'The Other Guys' end credits

2010-08-10T19:24:00.003-04:00

If the movie "The Other Guys" turns out to be in any way memorable, it will be for these end titles. If these graphics don't get your stomach turning you either have scandal fatigue or you're not paying attention (or you're a clueless Wall Street investment banker, if so, you're not reading this blog anyway).

Total props to the gentle folk at Bleeding Cool. Thanks for sharing.

Oily and slick

2010-06-16T11:40:00.002-04:00

President Obama launched round two with the multinational oil giant BP. The CEO of the company based in the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, Sweden, Belize and North Korea walked into the lion's den as the two talked about how BP is going to pick up the tab on this disaster. Maybe the Iranians will end up getting stuck with the bill considering the now pariah firm's connections to the pariah state. With questions still swirling over just how much oil is going into the Gulf and with BP's immediate future unclear, what is clear is that this mess of epic proportions is living down to its old slogan of "No dry holes."

And we are back!

2010-06-13T16:20:00.005-04:00

With so much happening in the world, it's tough to figure out just where to start.

With charges only a mother could love, the U.S. government is calling Mahmood Alessa a defendant after seeking to travel to Somalia to either become a terrorist or a pirate. His mother is calling Mahmood an idiot with anger issues.

Yes the special relationship between the U.S. and the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Belgium and Afghanistan has left us with what is now an estimated 40,000 barrels of oil per day spilling into the into the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of our friends at BP. We (being the New York Times) are expecting that President Obama is going to tell the oil company and the rest of the world on Tuesday before a live studio audience that he is not amused and that if BP fails to sock some money away to cover the costs of this mess, the U.S. government will be sorely put out.

The good news. Futurama returns with all new eps June 24 on Comedy Central.

One iPad to rule them all

2010-04-24T17:44:00.001-04:00

Well, it has come to this. In addition to all the accolades to date, let's add one more. After having played with one for an hour, the iPad has the potential to be the new killer ap. I do not say this lightly. This thing has potential well beyond the laps of homo sapiens couch potatius. I can see a lot of use in hospitals and this thing will almost certainly kill both the kindle and the UPS' tricorder.

It will also revolutionize how we consume media. Why bother with a television network schedule when you can download your favorite show in the comfort of your friendly neighborhood star bucks? It will, of course, have consequences for other media as well, but why belabor that point.

But a few days ago, while sitting in the cafe section of a barnes and noble, I overheard a young woman extol the virtues of dead tree artifacts. The woman in question was in her early 20s! That is when I was reminded of the previous lessons of photography and television. These things did not make earlier media obsolete. Those working in those older forms reinvented them, bringing us abstract expressionism and rock 'n' roll. The iPad will bring on a similar revolution because people will still want physical artifacts in addition to digital tech toys.

So while the new iPad is something to be desired, it won't kill print. Print may be a dinosaur, but it will adapt, survive and like one species of dinosaur, it may even grow feathers and learn to fly.

The Yawn of the Titans

2010-03-30T22:24:00.003-04:00

Every generation, it seems, feels the need to put its stamp on the ancient myths handed down to us. But one wishes that the storytelling tools of today were placed in the hands of our Hellenic forebears. What might Homer had done with the IMAX format in giving us the Iliad? What would Euripides have done with CGI giving us Medea? What would Aristophanes have done with 3D giving us The Clouds?

The easiest answer is that they would not have given us the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake. Indeed, one strains to wonder why Ray Harryhausen's last great stop motion epic, made in 1981, needed to be remade at all. In all probability, it was Sam Worthington's fallback vehicle in case Avatar didn't go so well. All things considered, after Avatar, Titans could only come up short, which it does.

The first problem is that there is barely any coherent narrative. There is a struggle between men and gods. There is a struggle between Zeus, played by Liam Neeson (who has had better roles), and Hades, played by Ralph Fiennes (who has had better roles). There is the obligatory and incoherent long journey through distant lands, the juxaposition of which makes no sense geographically (think 10,000 B.C.). There are the battle sequences. And there is the love interest, Io, played by Gemma Arterton.

Nobody is particulary well served by this story, because, well, there isn't much story. The 1981 version was an amalgamation of the stories of Perseus and Belerophon as the winged horse Pegasus assists Belerophon in his battle with the chimera, after being born of the blood of the Medusa, having been beheaded by Perseus. In the original myth, Perseus gets around wearing the winged shoes of the god Hermes. This version of Titans is a sequence of CGI events periodically rendered in a 3D environment and there seems to be no good reason for the use of 3D as a storytelling device. And the most obvious nod to the original falls flat.

There is a truly subversive idea embedded in this film. The idea is that there truly is a struggle between a creator and his creations and it is a struggle that has happened before. It is an idea that humans can overthrow their divine forebears, a punishment for their bad management of the universe. But the idea requires more than director Louis Leterier can muster. It is something that requires the surer hand of an Aeschylus or an Aristophanies and is at best given a bad venue in this loud and overdone film. Pick up Bulfinch's Mythology or Edith Hamilton's Mythology instead.

Poster's Note

2010-03-29T20:10:00.002-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen. I do apologize for the lack of postings. This has proven to be a much more intense season professionally than I had anticipated. I am also in dire need of Internet access and computer upgrades at home.

I am also in the process of re-examining how best to use this blog in concert with my other sites, and thus tying together the various strands of my sizeable Internet footprint.

Be that as it may, there are postings in the offing and I expect that this site will experience a revival in the near future. In the meantime you can keep up with my postings to Twitter.

That is all. You may now return to your regular program already in progress.

Reality show wannabes gone wild

2009-12-01T14:51:00.001-05:00

A New York Times headline asks the question "What Do You Want to Hear Obama Say?" Ostensibly, the question is about his expected plans for the War in Afghanistan. What we REALLY want to hear though is that President Obama is sending Michaele and Tareq Salahi abroad to star in their brand new reality series "Survivor: Afghanistan." They've made themselves darlings of the talk show circuit after upstaging the Prime Minister of India at an official state dinner, to which they invited themselves. But don't call them party crashers. Instead, call them defendants. It seems a lot of people want a piece of these two. As recognition hunger expands to all points thanks to cable TV's need for content, expect things to get much worse before they get better. One can bet though that this is one couple that's going to get voted on the island -- as long as that island is Cuba.

The Hunger Games

2009-11-22T12:19:00.002-05:00

In the beginning, Katniss Everdeen, is not exactly the most likeable protagonist one could want. But, then again, her world is not exactly the best of all possible worlds either. It is a future in which the world in general, and North America in particular, has been dramatically altered by a series of disasters.

The new world is made up of Twelve Districts. It used to be thirteen, but a revolt led to the cataclysmic world of “The Hunger Games.” Every year, for the past 75 years, the surviving districts are required to offer up two tributes – children: one boy, one girl -- to play in the nationally broadcast to-the-death gladiatorial games, which are held in the Capitol.

This is a world in which reality TV meets the life and death struggle of the Roman coliseum. But it’s also an updated version of the story of the minotaur. Suzanne Collins has done a lot of homework on survival and hunting which makes Katniss’ skills quite convincing. Collins also has a sense for the distinct separation of her protagonist’s experience of the games and that of her audience, which becomes terribly clear at the end of the book. Collins’ use of Roman names for capital residents also lends the book a quality that is distant from our experience, which helps make us relate to Katniss when she arrives at the capital.

The book was originally published in 2008, but was recently released in hardback with its sequel, “Catching Fire.” The book does have its weaknesses. The first of which is the contrivance that brings Katniss and her fellow tribute, Peeta, together during the games, only to be withdrawn at the end. Bringing the characters together naturally, without the MacGuffin would have made their act at the end of the Games stronger and more poignant. The second problem is her use of mutants. Genetic engineering seems to have come a long way in Panem. There are a lot of mutant animals running around, and one sometimes gets the sense that like the Gamemasters, Collins has used the mutants to push the action along when maybe other options might have been considered. And while the book certainly doesn’t eschew violence, the horror at the heart of this exercise seems to be missing.

But these faults are not fatal. The Hunger Games are a strong exercise in speculative fiction that draw together the strands of what currently exists in our popular culture and blends them with a mythological narrative. The ending leads directly to the sequel, Catching Fire. And while Katniss may start out as unlikeable, you can’t help but hope she’ll bring the whole thing down, taking the Capitol and President Snow with her.

Bad Parents - no biscuit

2009-10-18T15:54:00.004-04:00

The boy and his balloon incident has apparently been determined to be a publicity stunt according to Larimer County (Colo.) Sheriff Jim Alderden, a hoax that didn't even stand up to scientific scrutiny if anyone had thought to bother about it while it was happening. Nobody has been arrested yet, but charges may be in the offing. The charges may include three felony charges - conspiracy between the husband and the wife to commit a crime, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and an attempt to influence a public servant - and a misdemeanor charge - filing a false report. Apparently it was the television interviews that did the family in.

Central Asian militant mayhem

2009-10-18T15:25:00.001-04:00

While Pakistan finally gets its offensive underway against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in South Waziristan, the militant factions continue to spread mayhem throughout the region. This time it's Iran. The Jundallah — or Soldiers of God — took responsibility for an attack that killed five ranking members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in the Sistan-Baluchistan region. The Iranian leadership reflexively blamed the U.S. and the UK for this attack. The region is predominately Sunni and has been involved in a struggle with Tehran for years and the officials were there to try to smooth out relations. Both the Pakistanis and the Iranians have vowed to deal a 'crushing blow' to their militant groups. Sadly, recent history has shown that this may not work out as planned.

About a boy

2009-10-15T19:57:00.004-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here is a story tailor-made for "The Daily Show." A silver saucer-shaped experimental balloon took a two-hour tour on national television. Based on the testimony of an older brother, authorities believed Falcon Heene, 6, was in a box attached to the balloon. The Colorado National Guard deployed a OH-58 helicopter -- at $700 an hour -- and prepared to send a Black Hawk -- at $4,600 an hour -- to rescue the boy when he was believed to be on the balloon. Turns out the 6-year-old boy was discovered hiding in a crawl space in the garage. The balloon, powered by an electrical unit that ran on double-C batteries was the property of Mayumi Heene, who's claim to fame was being featured on the reality TV show Wife Swap, and his father, Richard, meteorologist and former television weatherman and apparently a storm chaser. One consequence of this little trip up, up and away may be a prolonged episode of Child Swat.

Pakistan's militant problem

2009-10-11T14:28:00.002-04:00

Five militants held 39 hostages and holed up in Pakistan's army headquarters in Rawalpindi Saturday. The attack began at 11:30 a.m. and started with a group of 8 to 10 militants. Five made it inside the facility. Three of the militants were wearing explosives and two of them successfully blew themselves up. Pakistani forces did capture Dr. Usman who has been implicated in several recent hig-profile bombings.

The fact that the militants got access to the highly guarded facility is worrisome enough. To make matters worse, the army got a warning from the police and apparently blew it off! What may be just as worrisome is the standard response that America is confident in Pakistan's ability to keep it's nukes out of the hands of the militants. Even before the attack on army headquarters, the Pakistani army was gearing up for a new offensive against the militants in the tribal region of South Waziristan. Having embarrassed the army, the militants may have just made the attack imminent. After the latest attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, however, the possibility of militants igniting their own regional armageddon remains a worrisome possibility.

Zombies on the brain

2009-10-02T16:36:00.001-04:00

If we're really going to ask the question why we suddenly love zombies, the prior question would certainly be why do zombies love us? Or to be more precise, why do they love our brains? It seems that the ripe and juicy eight pounds of gray matter is giving up a few more of its secrets just in time for the Halloween holiday. It seems that the brain's regions concerned with social intelligence light up when one is in the midst of a religious experience. This delicious piece of the brain enlarges that area "devoted to empathy, symbolic communication and emotional regulation" in true believers. This might seem a good thing unless you were a brat growing up. Simon Moore's Law suggests that "69% of people who had been convicted of a violent act by age 34 reported eating candy almost every day as youngsters." If your parents were busy buying you off with candy, you may be an ideal recruit as a crew member in Zombieland. Researchers are showing how it may now be possible to electrically induce that notorious shambling motion we've come to expect from the walking dead. Science has one more little wrinkle to add to his horror story: evolution only moves in one direction. If it turns out that zombies are the future, then there'll be no going back.

Both sides claim victory in war report

2009-09-30T17:01:00.000-04:00

Russia was blamed for unnecessary roughness in a war that Georgia started over the South Ossetia region last summer. Both sides said a report commissioned by the European Union backs up their claims about the five day war. While it blames Georgia for starting the conflict, it blasts Russia as having gone "far beyond the reasonable limits of defense." It also said that Russia acted illegally when it passed out Russian passports to residents and recognizing the sovereignty of South Ossetia and Azkaban ... umm Abkhazia. The final tally of the war: 850 dead, 100,000 displaced. The report notes that while the Russian claims of genocide by the Georgians was clearly bunk, it did cite the Russians for ethnic cleansing of Georgians in the conflict area. Cold comfort for the 35,000 who remain displaced in the wake of the conflict.

Blame it on those right-wing Stonecutters

2009-09-28T15:43:00.002-04:00

Does it qualify as a conspiracy if everyone knows about it? Led by everybody's favorite, fun-time mad man, former President Bill Clinton is claiming the vast right-wing conspiracy is back and "virulent as it was" when he was in the oval office. They want President Obama to fail he said. A conspiracy also implies coordination, and while the right wing is indeed focused, that's not exactly the same thing. Clinton also pointed out that three things are different now than they were back in the day: 1) the population is more diverse; 2) the GOP had control of the government, got drunk and then wrapped it around a telephone pole; and 3) the Dems aren't engaging in a shooting war with the NRA. He also pointed out that the conspiracy machine isn't good for either the Republicans or the country. On the other hand, spreading propaganda against the democratic president ranks further down the ladder than killing a Italian banker.

Open season on the U.N.

2009-09-23T17:40:00.001-04:00

Aside from finally paying the bar tab at the U.N., U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama took the podium at the United Nations General Assembly to open the new session with a "Four Pillars" speech that will probably result in more of the same from the international body. Obama continued to beat the dead on arrival horses of communal responsibility and the need to set aside old grievances. Obama's Fourteen Points ... umm Four Pillars are:

1 - A world without nukes;

2 - The pursuit of world peace;

3 - Addressing global climate change; and

4 - Fixing the global economy to make it better, stronger, more equitable.

When it comes to fixing the world's biggest problems, Obama noted that the world's leaders are coming up short. While pointing out that this is not about him, he noted that even though America can't fix the world's problems alone, the world shouldn't use that as an excuse to do nothing. Which of course, it will, especially after the usual suspects have finished offering their rambling rebuttals on opening day.

The Golden City is a mixed success

2009-09-17T18:25:00.005-04:00

There is a scene in the novel "The Golden City" when Gabriel Corrigan reaches the afforementioned locale in the Sixth World, the world of the gods. It is empty. Abandoned. Mostly. Except for the one man Gabriel has been seeking through the course of The Fourth Realm Trilogy: his father. It's a Joseph Campbellian moment of Atonement (at-one-ment) with the Father.

Matthew informs his son that the gods have long since abandoned the city. They are on their own, and this is an opportunity.

"The Golden City" is the final installment in the series by John Twelve Hawks. The series is an exercise in science fantasy. It focuses on the consequences of scientific advances in the contemporary urban world but grounds it in a larger context of the Six Worlds of Buddhism.It tells the story of the Travelers. The Travelers are people who possess the gift to leave their bodies and travel to the other five realms. In doing so they bring back insights which can transform human society.

The central conflict is between the Corrigan brothers: Michael and Gabriel. Gabriel is protected by Maya, a member of the Harlequins. Michael comes to lead the Brethern, the traditional enemy of the Travelers and Harlequins. The root conflict is between the Brethern, working through their public face, The Evergreen Foundation, and their need for power and control, and the resistance and the need for freedom.

Michael's ascension to the leadership of the Bretheran comes to a climax in this novel as he delivers a chilling speech about the economics of control, what may come to be known as 'the cubicle speech.' While "survellance nation" is central to this story, it doesn't necessarily finger technology as the enemy. The resistance uses technology as surely as the Bretheran does.What it comes down to is how we use that technology to shape our lives. Do we allow the "Panoticon" of our survellance technology, motivated by fear and the ideology of dead ideas to shape our lives into a clean, direct line from birth to death? Or do we allow the natural and messy process of the Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics to enrich our lives through the free exercise of choice?

The book ends where the series began, in Los Angeles. Hawks clearly has affection for London and he's done a lot of homework putting this book together. One wishes he had wrapped up the cliffhanger sooner, but this is a minor flaw. The greater flaw is that the book's ending is less than satisfying. That may be in part because despite being an urban scifi/fantasy work he's committed to keeping it grounded in the real world. And in the real world, as Angel put it, "There's no grand plan, no big win." But with the novel's connection to larger mythological themes, one might have preferred something akin to the end of the "Lord of the Rings" where the world is substantially different at the end of the series than at the beginning.

"The Golden City," like its predecessors "The Traveler" and "The Dark River" is a fast-paced read. Like other writers, such as Dan Brown, Hawks wants us to consider that alternative narratives run their courses through the history of the world we think we know and that larger struggles are afoot. But Hawks also wants us to consider that we are active participants and have a choice in this struggle; that we can resist the steamroller of history; that we can fight with the powers of the exercise of free will, storytelling and compassion; that every life has value and meaning. And to that end, the novel succeeds admirably despite its flaws.