A Collaborative Effort Between Two Firms: Web Analytics Demystified and Altimeter Group
It’s just been over a month since we published the Social CRM Research paper (over 36k views on slideshare) and we’re continuing our cadence here at Altimeter Group of publishing widely available reports under the spirit of Open Research. This time, it’s different, we’ve aligned with who I feel are the smartest team of web analytics minds in the space, John Lovett (ex-Forrester analyst) and Eric Peterson (ex-Jupiter analyst) both of the Web Analytics Demystified firm. Stemming from Altimeter founder Charlene Li’s (ex-Forrester Analyst) framework, we co-developed this framework, and put our collective minds to work on measuring the rapidly changing social media marketing space. This self-funded research effort resulted in a thorough methodology as we interviewed over 40 ecosystem influencers.
Industry Challenge: ”I can’t measure social media ROI”
Marketers around the globe are ranging from toe dipping to jumping all the way into the social marketing space –yet most lack a measurement yardstick. While experiments can fly under the radar for a short term, without having a measurement strategy, you run the risk of not improving what you’re doing, justifying investments, and the appearance of being aloof to upper management. To be successful, all programs (even new media) must have a measurement strategy, and we’ve done just that.
Finally, A Measurement Framework Based on Business Objectives
If you’re familiar with the Altimeter frameworks of developing a social strategy based on business objectives, then you’re in good shape, as this research report is the natural extension of the business objectives we put forth:
Dialog: involves starting a conversation and offering your audience something to talk about while allowing that conversation to take on a life of its own
Advocacy: activation of evangelism, word of mouth, and the spread of information through social technologies
Supporting: customers may self support each other, or companies may directly assist them using social technologies.
Innovation: The business objective of innovation is an extraordinary byproduct of engaging in social marketing activity.
Our framework is a common denominator, yet if you’re already measuring converted leads, or actual sales from social media, great! Yet In this meaty report, which we hope you share with your marketing and analytics team, has actual KPI formulas which you should start to use as the start of your own cookbook.
A Nod To the Community Spirit
We’re putting a big stake out there, in order to further the industry to come together around a common set of KPIs and metrics, but we realize we don’t know all the answers. In the spirit of Open Research, we want this to be an open framework (we’ve even licensed this under Creative Commons) to customize it and make your own for non-commercial reasons with attribution. If you’ve ideas on how to improve it such as new KPIs, vendors, or approaches, we’re listening, and will incorporate and improve this community body of knowledge for all to benefit.
Related Links
I’ll link to others that extend the conversation, feel free to embed the slideshare on your own site.
Meet the 2011 Volkswagen Phaeton – but wait, it doesn’t look so much like a redesign – well, that’s because it’s not. For 2011, Volkswagen focused its attention on giving the Phaeton a much needed facelift and with that in mind, the German automaker won’t bring this model to the United States.
Volkswagen probably won’t attempt to re-introduce the Phaeton to the U.S., which it had a lot of trouble selling here, until after it gets a full redesign in 2013 or 2014.
Overall, the 2011 Volkswagen Phaeton gets some minor exterior restyling touches to the front that give it a more luxurious feel. There are also a lot of new technical features including Dynamic Light Assist (camera-based dynamic main beam regulation) and a navigation system that can integrate online data from Google into the map display. There is also an optional front camera can ‘read’ road signs, with speed limit signs displayed on the instrument panel and center console’s touchscreen. The system can recognize ‘no overtaking’ signs – the first in the world to do so.
The 2011 Volkswagen Phaeton comes standard with a 3.0L FSI V6 making 276-hp and offers all the way up to a 6.0L W12 making 444-hp.
Hit the jump for the press release and high-res image gallery.
2011 Volkswagen Phaeton:
Press Release:
Initial Facts: World Premiere at Auto China 2010:
– Phaeton debuts with new design and new technologies
– Flagship of the Volkswagen brand with fundamentally new front design
– Online services and dynamic main beam control arrive in the Phaeton
Wolfsburg / Beijing, 22 April 2010 – At the Transparent Factory in Dresden Volkswagen produces one of the finest automobiles in the world: the Phaeton. The limousine’s quality and comfort (four-wheel drive and air suspension as standard) set a unique benchmark. Volkswagen, the most successful carmaker in Europe and China, has now made the Phaeton even more perfect. The company’s new flagship is being unveiled for the first time at Auto China 2010 (27th April to 2nd May) in Beijing.
Its contours are defined by the Volkswagen design DNA developed by Walter de Silva, the group’s Italian chief designer. Around the completely new front section in particular the design team has further refined the model’s very own stylistic aplomb. In the process the timelessly elegant Phaeton has gained a broader and more powerful appearance. The new model is also characterised by modifications to its rear section and silhouette.
At the same time, new technical features have been added. These include Dynamic Light Assist (camera-based dynamic main beam regulation) and a navigation system that, if desired, can integrate online data from Google into the map display. In addition to this, the Phaeton’s optional front camera enables it to ‘see’ road signs, with speed limit signs visualised on the instrument panel and centre console’s touchscreen. The system will also be able to recognise and depict ‘no overtaking’ signs – the first in the world to do so!
The Phaeton will be available with a choice of two wheelbase options, two back seat versions (three seats / two individual seats) and four engines (a turbo diesel and three petrol engines). The six, eight and twelve-cylinder engines range in capacity from 176 kW / 240 PS to 331 kW / 450 PS. The standard drive unit used in the Phaeton is a V6 petrol engine producing 206 kW / 280 PS. At the capacities above the V6 FSI the choices available are a V8 and a W12 petrol engine, delivering 246 kW / 335 PS and 331 kW / 450 PS respectively. On the diesel front Volkswagen is offering an extremely frugal and smooth-running V6 TDI. In Europe it is the most frequently selected engine for this car. The turbocharged common rail direct injection engine delivers 176 kW / 240 PS and accelerates the Phaeton V6 (top speed in this case 237 km/h) from 0 to 100 km/h in just 8.6 seconds. This is accompanied by average fuel consumption that has now been reduced still further to just 8.5 litres per 100 km (equating to 224 g/km CO2).
Phaeton exterior
Depending on wheelbase, the 2011 model Phaeton is between 5.06 and 5.18 metres long. As mentioned above, a completely new front section has been developed for this flagship of the Volkswagen brand. In keeping with the current Volkswagen design DNA, its form is dominated by horizontal lines. Unlike all other Volkswagens created to date on the basis of this new DNA, the Phaeton does not have a shiny black radiator grille cover, but instead a completely new chrome element. Along with the likewise restyled headlights, this radiator trim is a major influence in the new Phaeton’s design and underlines its uncompromisingly independent character. In detail the new grille is more upright, while its stricter lines and impressive alternation of materials between polished and matt chrome make it even more striking. The horizontal linking of grille and headlights follows the Volkswagen design criteria and impressively emphasises the vehicle’s width. As a sign of its class specific to this model the Phaeton also features three-dimensional moulding of the grille and bonnet, with precise edges that carry the grille’s heightened expression of quality on into the sculptured contours of the vehicle body. Once again in the centre of the grille is the classic VW badge, which now – despite integrating the ACC (automatic distance control) system’s radar sensors – has a new-look surface design.
To the left and right of the grille are new Bi-Xenon headlamps, which are standard across the range. Integrated within them are cornering and adaptive lights. Not just in visual terms, but from a technical perspective too, this is a whole new generation of headlamps. Firstly, the indicator and adaptive cornering lights are highly visible and stylistically striking LEDs. Secondly, as with the new Touareg, the Phaeton will also be available with optional Dynamic Light Assist. Using a camera integrated into the rear-view mirror, this complex technology ‘detects’ other road users and regulates illumination of the carriageway accordingly (see separate section on Dynamic Light Assist).
The bumper has also been redesigned in keeping with the radiator grille and headlamps. Here too horizontal lines form the guiding principles of the new design. Even the fog lamps have been designed as narrow, horizontal LED strips. Last but not least, the bottom final section of the bumper is now also colour-coordinated with the car body. Compared to the previous model the new generation Phaeton thus looks even sportier and more imposing on the road.
Also modified, the back of the car underlines this impression. The design team decided here not to change the classic, clear and powerful basic style that this area has always had, but instead to develop new LED rear light clusters. Each cluster features dotted lights and an M-shaped LED strip. The result is an unmistakable, elegant look both in daylight and at night. Also new is the VW badge – now likewise in 3D format – on the boot lid.
As at the front, the rear bumper has also been redesigned. It now has a new, three-piece chrome bar and the section of the bumper trim near the road is now also colour-coordinated with the car body. The same goes for the bottom section of the side skirts. Also noticeable in silhouette view are modified side trim strips, narrower LED indicators in the wing mirrors and new 18-inch (‘Experience’) alloy wheels.
Phaeton interior
The Phaeton’s interior ranks as one of the most elegant, high quality and comfortable in the entire premium class. The 4-zone air-conditioning system, for example, that works totally free of any draughts, and the award-winning ergonomic 18-way seats are unsurpassed. All of the Phaeton interior’s functions are also intuitive to use. In addition to the version with three rear seats (5-seater), the limousine can be optionally ordered with two electrically adjustable individual seats (4-seater). Furthermore a version of the Phaeton is also available that is twelve centimetres longer. Meanwhile, the limousine can be almost infinitely personalised with a wide range of leather, alcantara and wood trim, plus optional equipment such as a fridge or multimedia systems from Volkswagen Exclusive. This also applies to the completely redesigned multifunction steering wheel. It can be ordered either in leather or in a wood/leather combination matching the relevant wood trim features.
Information and entertainment systems
The intuitive nature of the Phaeton’s controls has been fully transferred to the new generation of radio and navigation systems (RCD 810 and RNS 810). Equipped with an 8-inch touchscreen, the systems form a functional unit with the air-conditioning and multimedia controls.
Use of online services: Volkswagen is for the first time offering an Internet-based Google function in the new Phaeton as a map display add-on for the RNS 810 radio navigation system with 30-gigabyte hard drive. The relevant data gets loaded onto the system over the Internet via mobile telephone and a proxy server specially set up for the purpose. The visualisation on the touchscreen’s display is the same as the Google Maps ‘Satellite’ view familiar from the conventional Internet and equivalent to the iPhone’s ‘Hybrid’ view. In the Phaeton the satellite images naturally get supplemented by the navigation system’s appropriately highlighted route recommendation.
Particularly interesting in this feature are the POIs (points of interest) that can be accessed. Addresses, tourist sights, businesses, sports venues, doctors’ surgeries and restaurants integrated within Google can be selected in seconds and transferred directly into the route navigation. In perfect conditions the system loads the data via UMTS connection. The telephone itself gets completely integrated into the system via remote SIM access profiles (rSAP). Alternatively, anyone who wants to use a mobile phone with hands-free profiles (HFPs) can also do this linked up with the new Phaeton (in this case Google is disabled). In HFP mode phones that are ‘Phaeton compatible’ include, for example, Apple’s iPhone.
Road sign recognition: However the latest generation Phaeton’s information and entertainment system can do even more! By virtue of the camera integrated in the rear-view mirror the Phaeton now detects road signs and shows the relevant information on the system’s touchscreen and/or the multifunction display (between speedometer and rev counter). It displays not only the maximum permitted speed but also any important additional information (e.g. ‘10pm – 6am’ or ‘When wet’). The system will also be able to alert drivers to overtaking restrictions – the first vehicle in the world to do so!
For the RNS 810 radio/navigation system further add-on options are also available. These include a rear-seat multimedia entertainment system (the High End) and a 1,000-watt sound system with digital 12-channel amplifier from hi-fi specialists Dynaudio.
Electronic assistance systems
The Phaeton’s electronic assistance systems include Dynamic Light Assist (dynamic main beam control), ACC (automatic distance regulation), Front Assist (surroundings monitoring) and Side Assist (lane change assistance). A tyre pressure control system also provides standards of safety.
Dynamic Light Assist in detail: Volkswagen is introducing for the Phaeton a new optional camera-based main beam control system called Dynamic Light Assist, which represents a major technical innovation in passive safety. Linked in with a camera integrated behind the windscreen the system keeps the main beam modules of the standard Bi-Xenon headlamps permanently on. It merely masks the areas of each beam that it calculates could potentially disturb other road users. For the driver this means appreciably more light, clearly enhanced safety and a more relaxing drive. The function is achieved by an additional aperture between the reflector holding the Xenon bulb and the lens. Combined with an intelligent, lateral tilting of the complete module (via the cornering light function) and individual control of the left and right headlights, this additional aperture arrangement enables the light source to be masked only in those areas that could otherwise cause other motorists to be dazzled.
Thanks to the front camera the cornering light control system detects the exact position of the vehicle in front and at speeds of 60 km/h or more ‘pushes’ the cone of light up to the rear of the vehicle or even to its side and on past it – without dazzling the driver. The increase in safety and driver convenience provided by Dynamic Light Assist is considerable and can be ranked on a par with that achieved at the time by the introduction of Xenon technology.
ACC and Front Assist in detail: Automatic distance regulation (ACC) relieves the driver of the burden of active braking and acceleration. ACC significantly improves driving comfort and passive safety, especially on longer motorway journeys. At the same time the system (when activated) ensures adherence to the legally prescribed minimum distance from the vehicle in front.
An integral component of ACC is Front Assist. This ACC extension is designed to help prevent rear-end collisions. Using a radar sensor, the system monitors the distance to the vehicles in front of the Phaeton. If this is becoming too short, the system alerts the driver in two stages. At the same time the vehicle is prepared for possible emergency braking by the driver. Even before certain situations arise, Front Assist takes preventative action by putting the brakes into a preconditioned status that otherwise only gets activated when the brake pedal is pushed. The system thus acts as a means of reducing the car’s stopping distance.
Automatic distance regulation is operated via relevant buttons on the redesigned multifunction steering wheel. It is operated in many aspects in the same way as the cruise control system. With ACC enabled the car automatically slows down (if necessary to a stop) and speeds up within a speed range set in advance by the driver. ACC can be switched on at speeds of between 30 and 200 km/h. The system then uses radar to detect any traffic within an angle of 12 degrees travelling up to 200 metres in front of the Phaeton. ACC is enabled and disabled via an ON/OFF button on the left of the multifunction steering wheel. All of the driver assistance systems, including ACC, can also be switched on or off simultaneously by pressing a button in the centre of the indicator stalk for more than a second. The ACC also gets disabled as soon as the driver pushes the brake pedal. The system can be switched back on via the ‘Resume’ button on the steering wheel. It then continues to use the desired speed set prior to it being disabled.
The key information about the automatic distance regulation system can be seen quickly and clearly laid out on the multifunction display.
Side Assist in detail: Another assistance system in the Phaeton is the lane change assistant (Side Assist). At speeds of 60 km/h or more this system monitors the area behind and to the side of the Phaeton via radar sensors in the rear bumper (one sensor each for the area to left and right) and indicates via a warning light in the wing mirror frame any risk of potential collision. The area monitored by the sensors covers a distance of around 50 metres to the rear and 3.6 metres to the side of the car.
If Side Assist detects a critical situation to the left or right of the Phaeton and the driver has not switched on the blinker to indicate a change of lane, the warning light in the wing mirror frame comes on to draw attention to the special traffic situation. If, however, the driver turns on the indicator while there is traffic in the adjacent lane, the light flashes four times to warn of the potential danger. The brightness of the warning lights can be adjusted to one of five levels via the multifunction display. In an interesting interlinking of the car’s systems the ambient brightness detected at any given time by the rain and light detection sensor gets automatically taken into account in determining the brightness level.
Tim’s latest piece deals with Obama’s speech to Wall Street earlier today:
This is vintage Obama, combining his “scourge-of-the-special-interests” rhetoric with his “can’t-we-all-get-along” talk. First let me point out a couple of problems with the Reformers-vs-Lobbyists frame.
Goldman is on Obama’s side
Not on the SEC-civil-suit issue, but on the issue of regulation. Obama today will lay out five principles that need to be in the bill for him to sign it: (1) “transparency” on derivatives, (2) the “Volcker rule,” (3) “consumer financial protection,” (4) pay reforms, and (5) some mechanism to prevent future bailouts.
Goldman endorsed (1), calling in its annual report for federally requiring derivate clearinghouses. Goldman signaled confidence it could handle (2) the Volcker Rule, because basically all of its trading could be classified as being related to client service. Politico has reported that the big banks are not longer fighting (3) a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, because “Big banks that have been vocal opponents of the agency have decided they have the legal resources to deal with a consumer agency.” Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein has been calling for (4) pay restrictions since last summer. And number (5), ending too-big-to-fail is a pretty loaded topic, but remember what Paul Volcker said last year: simply labeling certain banks as Tier 1 sends a signal to the market that they are too big to fail….
Everyone is getting some Android 2.1 love these days. The SmartQ V5 and V7 MIDs from SmartDevices will receive an update to Android 2.1. This updated will bring live wallpapers, 3D acceleration, a new UI and improved Bluetooth capabilities. The only thing missing will be multi-touch, their resistive screens is the reason for the omission of this feature.
If you’re not familiar with these devices, they make great media player and is also good for web browsing. They are similar to devices like the Android Archos series. V5 comes with a 4.3 inch screen and V7 has a 7 inch. Both are resistive and also has 600MHz ARM11 processors, hardware acceleration for 3D graphics and video, 256MB RAM, 2GB local storage, support for SD cards, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, support for the major audio and video codec’s, 1080p HD video playback, HDMI/AV outputs, and USB 2.0 OTG. Another great feature of these devices is the fact that they come preloaded with Android, Ubuntu, and Windows CE. This is one of the most versatile products of any kind available.
In a shallow 2008 New York Times style-section article,
Benjamin Shute was portrayed as a hipster farmer. But growing food is no trendy
pastime for him and his business partner, Miriam Latzer, 35. Since 2004,
they’ve run Hearty Roots Community Farm, which is
tackling two big challenges facing sustainable agriculture: 1) the scarcity of
affordable land for new farmers; and 2) the need to broaden access to
sustainably grown local food. They’ve already had to move their operation once
because they couldn’t afford the multi-million-dollar sales price of the land
they’d been renting near New York City, but they got up and running again on a
new rented 23-acre farm. Their crew of nine people produces food for 400 New
York City families through a CSA program, and they work with
city agencies and NGOs to get 1,000 pounds of produce each week to five food
pantries in Flatbush, Brooklyn—bringing fresh, top-quality food to people who
otherwise wouldn’t have access to it. Shute is also working to organize the National Young Farmers’ Coalition, a new
nonprofit that provides support for beginning farm entrepreneurs. Read a Grist
article about Shute and other young farmers.
“We definitely inviting the Comcasts, the AT&T service providers to work with us on our network, and to provide their service offering on top of our pipe – we’re definitely planning on doing that,” said Minnie Ingersoll, Google’s product manager and co-lead for alternative access. “Our general attitude has been that there’s plenty of room for innovation right now in the broadband space, and it’s great what the cable companies are doing, upgrading to DOCSIS 3.0, but no one company has a monopoly on innovation.”
Although I can’t imagine any of the larger ISPs taking Ingersoll up on the offer, it deos represent a chance for them to get away from being dumb pipes by truly proving the value of the services they offer to their users. And in the process, they could try to overload Google’s network with their content, as they accuse Google of doing to their own networks. Except that Google’s small network would be fiber-to-the-home, rather than a a more easily-congested cable or copper pipe.
While Ingersoll didn’t share when Google might announce which of the 1,100 municipalities that applied for the fiber network to be built in their town, she did say she was evaluating them based on “the efficiency with which such networks could be rolled out, and how the targeted communities could benefit from the roll-out of such a network,” according to BroadbandBreakfast.com. As much as I’d like to see that fiber installed in my city, I’m even more excited to see how the whole project plays out in terms of costs and what it can show us about the economics of delivering fiber to the home.
Clarity Consulting seems to be making a business of showing how good applications can look on Windows Phone 7. Their latest concept design is a client for Microsoft’s Hohm web service. The service is Microsoft’s new venture to make it easy to monitor your home energy usage.
The concept app works by monitoring home consumption in real time and with yearly projections users can pinpoint vampire devices, times of high or low consumption, and wasteful patterns of energy use. Energy usage meters indicate total current consumption as well as individual device consumption. Users can then use the information to take action, make adjustments, and change their consumption behaviours. The app can be used to automate certain systems like lighting, temperature, or alarms. Other features can be turned on an off at the touch of a toggle switch on your phone, away from home.
Through settings you can enable and disable features of the phone that apply to your home making it a completely customized and convenient experience.
To commemorate today's 40th anniversary of Earth Day, my friend David Bornstein over at dowser.org asked me two good questions about environmental achievements past and future, and I think they’re worth sharing.
What's been the major achievement in the environmental field since Earth Day 1970?
The decision by Europe to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade system. Europe is today the only major geopolitical region that has plateau'd its greenhouse gas emissions and is now on a downward slope. That is where we all have to go. And they have helped to show us the way.
What do you see as the next major step for the field?
The next, and essential, critical step is for the U.S. to pass similar legislation this spring. Earth Day may well coincide this year with the release by three U.S. senators of a draft bipartisan bill to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As I write this, we do not know what the key provisions of this bill will be, and whether it will represent a reasonable compromise between the urgent need to move forward and some of the countervailing political trends it will be necessary to accommodate to get 60 votes. But passing a serious carbon bill and establishing a large global carbon market is the next major threshold for all of us.
See responses of environmental leaders Gillian Caldwell of 1Sky and Majora Carter of the Majora Carter Group at Dowser’s Earth Day Exclusive.
Through magnetic nanodots. As the article covers, this advancement is in RAM.
From the link:
Using magnetic nanodots in the vortex state, researchers have designed a new kind of non-volatile memory that could offer increased speed and density for next-generation non-volatile random access memories (RAM). The new design takes advantage of magnetic vortices’ ability to store binary information as positive or negative core polarities, which can be controlled by simply changing the frequency of the rotating vortex cores of the nanodots.
The new technique, called frequency-controlled magnetic vortex memory, was developed by a team of researchers, B. Pigeau, et al., from France, Germany, and the US. Their study is published in a recent issue ofApplied Physics Letters.
As the researchers explain, the concept of using magnetic nano-objects to store binary information for magnetic RAM has previously been investigated, but it’s been difficult to find a mechanism to reverse the magnetization inside individual nano-objects. Here, the researchers achieve this reversal by using microwave pulses in combination with a static magnetic field. In this scheme, large and small rotating core frequencies are associated with positive and negative core polarities, respectively. In a positive core polarity, the core is parallel to the applied magnetic field, while in a negative core polarity, the core is antiparallel to the applied magnetic field. An extremely sensitive magnetic resonance force microscope (MRFM) is used to address the resonant frequency of magnetic nanodots’ vortex core rotations, allowing the researchers to control the polarity states of individual nanodots.
Archbishop Romero surrounded by nuns, shortly after being gunned down at Mass, El Salvador, March 24, 1980 (Eulalio Pérez)
I was in Managua, Nicaragua, thirty years ago, recovering from dengue fever, when my editor at The Guardian called from London to say that I should get on the next plane to San Salvador: the Archbishop of El Salvador had been gunned down while saying Mass. I remember laughing at the impossibility of this too literary story—Murder in the Cathedral; of course it wasn’t true!—and then feeling sick. Óscar Arnulfo Romero, a self-effacing, not particularly articulate, stubborn man, who insisted every day on decrying the violence and terror that ruled his country, was, after all, the hierarch of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He had all the weight of the Vatican behind him, and the natural respect of even the most right-wing zealot for such a holy office. And then there was the act itself: murder at the most sacred moment of the Catholic Mass. Who, in such a Catholic country, would dare to violate the transubstantiation of Christ’s body?
But of course the story was true. At around 6:30 PM on Monday, March 24, 1980, a red VW Passat drove up to the small, graceful chapel of the Divina Providencia Hospital, a center run by Carmelite nuns where Romero lived. It was, as it almost always is in San Salvador, a hot day, and the wing-shaped chapel’s doors were open. As Romero, standing at the altar, prepared to raise the host for consecration, a tall, thin bearded man in the passenger seat of the VW raised an assault rifle and fired a single .22 bullet into the archbishop’s heart. Then, in no particular hurry, the car drove away. A grainy black-and-white photograph from that day shows the victim on the floor. As Romero’s heart pumps out the last of its blood, the white-coiffed nuns gather around him like the points of a star, or like the figures at the feet of the Christ in Rennaissance murals, which were intended simultaneously as representations and as prayers.
Historical turning points are so often the result of stupidity. The Sandinista Revolution, which had triumphed in Nicaragua barely eight months before, had set the dream of revolution flaring across Central America. But Romero’s murder, and the mayhem and bloodshed set off by a sharpshooter at his funeral the following Saturday, were perhaps the immediate sparks for the bloody twelve-year civil war that started just months later, with the US providing financial and military backing to the government side. It is hard to overstate how fervently the campesinos of El Salvador believed in Romero. When he was gone, entire villages placed themselves at the disposal of the now united guerrilla factions.
Archbishop Romero made a long journey to arrive at his death. Hardworking and conscientious, he rose through the ranks and eventually became bishop of the rural province of San Miguel, maintaining all the while a strict distance from Liberation Theology and what he called the left’s “mysticism of violence.” By then, however, the insistent defense of human rights by the new generation of radicalized priests and nuns, and the murderous government’s determination to violate those rights, particularly in the case of the landless peasantry, had created a small army of conscripts for the guerrilla organizations, which promised an equal and just world order born of socialist revolution.
During the presidency of General Arturo Molina (1972–1977), the army and security forces were essentially transformed into death squads: Romero watched in horror as campesinos in his parish were displaced, threatened, terrorized, and, increasingly, shot, stabbed, or hacked to death by underfed, underage soldiers wielding machetes against their own kind. He began speaking out against these atrocities and received his first death threat (from General Molina himself, who wagged a finger at him and warned that cassocks were not bullet-proof). And then, in 1977, just weeks after Romero had been ordained archbishop, the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande, a close friend of Romero’s who had been organizing landless peasants, was shot down on a country road along with two of his parishoners.
Romero with seminarians, undated (Photography Center
of El Salvador)
All Romero’s contradictory feelings about Church and duty, repression and human dignity, his native distrust of radicalism and politics, his caution and, no doubt, his fear, appear to have resolved themselves at that moment. With the same methodical determination that seems to have characterized his rise to the archbishopry, he spent the next three years organizing human rights watchdog groups, asking President Jimmy Carter to suspend military aid to the murderous junta, and speaking out—plainly, but never unreasonably—against the government. “It is sad to read that in El Salvador the two main causes of death are: first diarrhea, and second murder,” he would say. “Therefore, right after the result of malnourishment; diarrhea, we have the result of crime; murder. These are the two epidemics that are killing off our people.”
Around this time, I made many trips to the countryside. But it was only two years later, after Romero’s funeral had dissolved into grim chaos, that I had my first real understanding of the feudal ignorance in which Salvadoran campesinos were kept. As red-robed cardinals from abroad milled around the vast unfinished cathedral together with humble worshipers who had lost their shoes, their false-teeth, their satchels or their eyeglasses in the stampede to escape from a sniper’s bullets, everyone trying to understand what had happened, and why, a tiny, trembling man approached my friend, the photographer Pedro Valtierra. “Please, my daughter’s lost.” he said, and then he repeated several times, until we understood: “Please use your loudspeaker to call out her name.” He was pointing to Valtierra’s camera.
Those were the days before the Internet or even faxes, and the lone opposition newspaper, El Independiente, was more or less gagged. The murders and disappearances carried out by death squads, army officers, and a notorious security force called, for inexplicable reasons, the Treasury Police were unreported, but Romero took to reading a detailed account of the week’s brutalities. The sermons were broadcast over the Catholic radio station, and campesinos all over the country gathered around a radio to listen to them. So did the military.
The once conservative archbishop, who had been trained and nurtured not in his homeland but in Rome, became the government’s most visible opponent. Later he would say that when he stood on the dirt road where Father Rutilio Grande had been murdered and contemplated his friend’s corpse, he thought, “If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.”
Thanks to an extraordinary reportage posted last month on the Salvadoran online newspaper El Faro we know that the tall, skinny shooter who killed Romero was contracted by General Arturo Molina’s son, while the weapon and the getaway car were provided by the drinking buddies and death squad associates of a former Army major called Roberto D’Aubuisson. Not that anyone doubted from the moment it happened that the murder was D’Aubuisson’s work. He died of cancer of the esophagus at the age of forty-seven, in 1992, but while he lived, this slender, charismatic psychopath was king. Although he was briefly arrested, he was never tried for murder, and soon rose to become the head of the Constituent Assembly; he was defeated only narrowly when he ran for President in 1984. Until last year, the party he founded, which had its origins in the death squad he also put together, governed El Salvador.
Over a two-year period El Faro’s director, Carlos Dada, hunted down and twice interviewed one of the surviving participants in D’Aubuisson’s conspiracy against the Archbishop, a former Air Force pilot by the name of Álvaro Saravia. Four other alleged co-conspirators named by Saravia have been killed, another committed suicide. Some, like, Mario Molina, son of former President Arturo Molina, are enjoying the good life, but Saravia, pursued by his own demons, is living in abject poverty in another Latin American country not disclosed in the newspaper’s report. Perhaps out of sheer loneliness, he told his story to El Faro.
Saravia recounts the details about the hit man and Mario Molina’s role in hiring him. He also reveals that an announcement placed in La Prensa Grafica by Jorge Pinto, the owner of the independent newspaper El Independiente, inadvertently sealed Romero’s fate. Published on the morning of March 24, it informed readers that the archbishop would celebrate a Mass in memory of Pinto’s mother at 6 PM that afternoon, in the Divina Providencia chapel. Hung over after a party with other members of D’Aubuisson’s group, Saravia woke to the news that the boss had ordered Romero’s murder at this conveniently secluded location.
Karol Wojtyla had just been annointed pope at the time of Romero’s murder, and with the assistance of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was busy dismantling the progressive church of Latin America. Pope John Paul II’s response to the crime—he called it “a tragedy”—was hardly as emphatic as his attacks on the pro-Sandinista clergy when he visited Nicaragua four years later. A spontaneous movement in favor of Romero’s canonization has been stalled for years now in Rome.
But for the Church rank-and-file Romero has become an extraordinarily meaningful figure, as a quick Internet search of his name can attest. We can find evidence of this in yet another work intended to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of his death: a documentary film, Monseñor: The Last Journey of Óscar Romero, directed by Ana Carrigan and Juliet Weber, and produced by the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame, a Jesuit university. The film is, unintentionally perhaps, or at least effortlessly, a hagiography, a record of a saintly life. It is an astonishing compilation of footage from the last three years of Romero’s life, not only of the archbishop himself but of army patrols and mothers of the disappeared and guerrillas on the move—and above all of those unforgettable Masses in which the small, unprepossessing archbishop read out loud the record of the government’s atrocities while hundreds of ragged, persecuted campesinos listened in gratitude, their existence and suffering recognized at last.
I interviewed Romero two or three times before he died, and although I cannot locate any of my notebooks from those dreadful years, I have the distinct recollection that he did not say anything particularly scintillating or inspirational or visionary: he was deeply distrustful of rhetoric and purposefully self-effacing. Instead of words I have the memory of a peculiar ducking gesture he used to make with his head when, after Sunday Mass, he stood outside the Cathedral doors shaking hands with every single one of the knobby-jointed, malnourished campesinos who came from miles away to hear him, a few coins knotted into their handkerchiefs for the journey back. They would clasp his hand and stare into his face and try to say something about what he meant to them, and he would duck his head and look away: not me, not me.
Nuns leaving the cathedral after the funeral of Romero, El Salvador, March 30, 1980 (Harry Mattison)
The day before his murder, on Sunday March 23, after the long dreadful months in which four American churchwomen had been killed, and a cropduster had sprayed insecticide on a protest demonstration, and we reporters had gone nearly mad from the obligation to hunt every morning for the mutilated corpses that D’Aubuisson’s people had left at street corners the night before, and distraught mothers lined up every day outside the archbishopry’s legal aid office asking for help in finding their disappeared children, and the waking nightmare of El Salvador clamored to the very heavens for justice, Óscar Arnulfo Romero for the first time spoke in exclamation points during his Sunday homily.
I want to make a special request to the men in the armed forces: brothers, we are from the same country, yet you continually kill your peasant brothers. Before any order given by a man, the law of God must prevail: “You shall not kill!”… In the name of God I pray you, I beseech you, I order you! Let this repression cease!
The next day he was shot.
Monseñor: The Last Journey of Óscar Romero, a film directed by Ana Carrigan and Juliet Weber.
Europe is at the center of a debt storm, and the PIIGS on the periphery are more than just those made famous by the acronym. It seems the UK and France are also eating at the trough, with a few tiny specs of fiscal stability scattered round the continent.
Hollywood insiders tell E! News gossips that The Twilight Saga’s Kristen Stewart is in talks to replace Oscar winner Angelina Jolie in the upcoming sequel to the 2008 action flick Wanted. If producers with Universal get their way, the 19-year-old brunette could land a role as the female lead alongside actor James McAvoy.
BMW has used the Beijing Motor Show to announce that it will have its much-talked-about Megacity electric car on the market by 2013. Previously, the German automaker had only hinted that it would produce the urban runabout in the first half of the decade.
Also of note is that the Megacity EV will be launched under a new sub-brand, much in the same way that the automaker has used its Mini branch to enter into lower market segments without taking the chance of tarnishing the well-earned reputation of its corporate roundel.
According to BMW, its upcoming electric vehicle will be the first mass-produced vehicle that relies heavily on the use of carbon fiber for its structure, which should help keep the vehicle lightweight, thereby improving its performance and range. BMW has indicated that it hopes to earn valuable information from its 600-plus vehicle fleet of Mini E electric vehicles, 50 of which will be delivered to Chinese customers before the end of 2010.
In related news, BMW has also said that it will show off an electric 5 Series sedan in Beijing. Called the Echo, the EV was assembled at BMW’s Shanyang plant in China with cooperation from the government-backed Tongji University. There are currently no plans to put the vehicle into production, but the automaker hopes to gauge how advanced China’s homegrown electric vehicle technology is at present.
*UPDATE: Autocar is reporting that the Megacity will have a range of roughly 160 miles per charge, and about 20 percent of that range will be due to an aggressive regenerative braking system. Further, BMW does not plan to lease its battery packs separately, as some automakers have hinted is a possibility. Instead, BMW believes that its packs will still have 85 percent of their stated capacity after the car’s lifespan is complete, making the power sources valuable on the used market to power companies. Interesting, no?
Earth Week is upon us, and NASA has prepared a very special gift for the blue planet: a planetary data-crunching tool that uses a 56,832-core, 128-screen supercomputer for helping scientists work together toward better climate change research. More »
Burning industrial corn in your gas tank: just as dumb as it looks in this silly picture.It’s no mystery where Grist comes down on the food vs. fuel debate, aka the Great Ethanol Boondoggle. But it’s nice to see the science continuing to support our side of the argument (via Science Daily):
Using productive farmland to grow crops for food instead of fuel is more energy efficient, Michigan State University scientists concluded, after analyzing 17 years’ worth of data to help settle the food versus fuel debate.
“It’s 36 percent more efficient to grow grain for food than for fuel,” said Ilya Gelfand, an MSU postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study. “The ideal is to grow corn for food, then leave half the leftover stalks and leaves on the field for soil conservation and produce cellulosic ethanol with the other half.”
Other studies have looked at energy efficiencies for crops over shorter time periods, but this MSU study is the first to consider energy balances of an entire cropping system over many years. The results are published in the April 19 online issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
“It comes down to what’s the most efficient use of the land,” said Phil Robertson, University Distinguished Professor of crop and soil sciences and one of the paper’s authors.
The researchers go on to observe that using some of the crop waste from, say, corn fields to make fuel (while reserving the rest to plow back into the soil) increases the efficiency of the process. But they also point out that that technique won’t provide nearly enough fuel for our gas tanks.
They also hold out hope, as do many in the biofuel industry, for cellulosic biofuels that can be grown on marginal land. But the fact is that a cash crop on marginal land is worth even more on prime farmland—once we go that route it will be very hard to keep biofuel crops from displacing food crops, especially in the developing world.
The conclusion I draw from this study is that it’s a terrible idea to put fuel in competition wtih food for productive farmland. The system is designed to favor fuel production at this point and now we know that’s actually a waste of energy, rather than a source. With any luck, this new data will be included in the EPA’s controversial review of its indirect land-use calculations for the climate impact of biofuels.
Ultimately, I do think biofuels have a role in our economy, but it will be through farmer cooperatives that grow and process biofuel for their own tractors and not for suburban warriors and their SUVs.
Lawyers for former Gov. Rod
Blagojevich today asked a federal judge for permission to subpoena
President Barack Obama to testify at Blagojevich’s upcoming trial.
Blagojevich
is charged with using his office to enrich himself and close
associates, including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat
that Obama vacated in 2008 with his election to the White House.
Blagojevich’s lawyers have
previously suggested they might try to
question the president.
"President Obama has direct knowledge to
allegations made in the indictment," the defense said in its filing. "In
addition, President Obama’s public statements contradict other witness
statements."
Zipper Interactive has set a date for the next MAG DLC pack, so get your calendars and draw a big fat circle on April 29th. That’s when the “Fast Attack” Gear Pack will hit the Store.
After two years of offering free streaming video to its users, a new report says that Hulu is ready to move forward with their plan for charging a subscription fee to access much of the site’s content.
According to the L.A. Times:
Under the proposal, Hulu would continue to provide for free the five most recent episodes of shows like Fox’s “Glee,” “ABC’s “Lost” or NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” But viewers who want to see additional episodes would pay $9.95 a month to access a more comprehensive selection, called Hulu Plus.
The owners of Hulu (a joint effort of NewsCorp, NBC Universal and Disney) haven’t exactly been starving, having made more than $100 million from advertisements that run during the videos. The site has also made an operating profit in the last two quarters.
But obviously Hulu thinks it can generate even more revenue with the subscriptions.
Honda has announced that it will sell a limited run of the 2010 Type R Euro in Japan this fall. The Euro version is built in the U.K. and was, until last fall, only sold to European buyers. Japanese customers had to make do with a four-door sedan until their clamoring convinced Honda to send about 2000 copies of the hatch to Honda’s homeland. Honda says 90 percent of the imported vehicles have been sold since November, which is why they’re sending more for the 2010 model year.
The Type R employs a 2.0-liter inline-four that wails up to 8400 rpm and makes 221 hp at 8000 rpm and 159 lb-ft of torque at 6100 rpm. The car comes only with a six-speed manual transmission and wears stiffer springs and anti-roll bars than more pedestrian Civics. When we drove one back in 2007, we thought the Type R did a pretty good S2000 impression. Y’know, for tin-topped econobox.
Once again, we’re disappointed we get nothing like this in America, where such a car would slot nicely above the Civic Si. You offer the Type R in Europe, Japan, Australia, and South Africa—so how about you create one for us, Honda? After all, with the death of the S2000, there’s a vacancy in the sporty halo department.
