A decadelong effort to refurbish thousands of aging nuclear warheads has run into serious technical problems that have forced delays and exacerbated concerns about the Energy Department's ability to maintain the nation's strategic deterrent.
The program involves a type of warhead known as the W76, which is used on the Navy's Trident missile system and makes up more than half of the deployed warheads in the U.S. stockpile.
The refurbishment program is aimed at replacing thousands of parts that have aged since the bombs left the factory 20 and 30 years ago.
The $200-million-a-year program is a cornerstone of America's nuclear deterrent strategy, and the Energy Department has been under growing pressure from the military and Congress to meet tough deadlines to get the weapons ready.
In February, the department's National Nuclear Security Administration announced that the "first refurbished W76 nuclear warhead had been accepted into the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile by the Navy."
But no delivery was ever made. The warhead is in pieces inside a production cell at the Energy Department's Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, according to an engineer at the facility.
The delay in retrofitting the warheads appears to validate long-standing concerns about an erosion of technical expertise at the Energy Department, as Cold War-era scientists and engineers retire and take with them detailed knowledge about the bombs.
Although the nation's nuclear weapons are functional and reliable, the W76 issue represents one of the most serious setbacks in the nuclear weapons program at least since the end of the Cold War and raises questions about the future, several experts told The Times.
"I wouldn't say the deterrent has been affected at all," said Philip Coyle, a former deputy director at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and former assistant secretary of Defense. "It is, however, a reminder that expertise about nuclear weapons is a precious thing and needs to be maintained."
He said the W76 problem underscored concerns experts have long raised about maintaining nuclear weapons decades after they were designed, manufactured and tested.
As the nation reduces the size of its stockpile under treaty agreements with Russia, he said, the reliability of the remaining weapons becomes more important.
Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said the department had not lost its crucial skills, but he acknowledged that retaining experienced weapons scientists and training a new generation of scientists were "an ongoing concern."
At issue with the W76, at least in part, is a classified component that was used in the original weapon but that engineers and scientists at the Energy Department's plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., could not duplicate in a series of efforts over the last several years.
The component, known by the code word "fogbank," is thought to be made of an exotic material and is crucial to a hydrogen bomb reaching its designed energy level in the microseconds before it blows apart.
The W76 is designed to release energy equal to about 100 kilotons of TNT, through both fission and fusion of atoms.
When it came time to make new batches of fogbank for the refurbishment program, the current workforce was unable to duplicate the characteristics of the batches made in the 1970s and 1980s, according to a March report by the Government Accountability Office.
"I don't know how this happened that we forgot how to make fogbank," Coyle said. "It should not have happened, but it did."
Given the problems, the technical staff at the Pantex plant was stunned by the Energy Department announcement in February that the warhead had been delivered to the Navy, according to an engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity.
B&W Pantex, the private company that operates the plant, was still awaiting delivery of a classified part from another facility and cannot assemble the warhead, the engineer said.
Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss told The Times on Thursday: "We have not received delivery of any refurbished W76 warheads. The answer is none."
LaVera defended the accuracy of the February announcement, saying a federal council had decided to accept the final design of the weapon and therefore it was technically a part of the stockpile.
The failure of the Energy Department to actually deliver a W76 was brought to the attention of The Times by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based watchdog group that has long expressed concern about poor performance at the nation's weapon sites.
NNSA gets away with producing shoddy work . . . and even lying to the public," said Danielle Brian, the group's executive director. "Our confidence in the stockpile cannot depend on lies."
The technical problems with the W76 were also partially disclosed in the report from the GAO, which said the Energy Department had failed to "effectively manage cost, schedule and technical risks" not only on the W76 program but on another refurbishment effort for a warhead known as the B61.
In the case of the B61, the Energy Department boasted that it had completed the job ahead of schedule and under cost, even though it sharply reduced the number of bombs that it rebuilt and curtailed the scope of the work on each bomb, the GAO said. The cost of refurbishing each bomb doubled, the office said.
LaVera said all issues with fogbank had been resolved. The only remaining W76 issue involves potential minor defects in its arming, fusing and firing system, the safety controls that prepare a nuclear weapon for detonation.
He said the existing design of the arming system had been certified, though the department was continuing to examine the issue.
"It is inaccurate to say that we are unable to ship the weapons because there is an issue or problem," LaVera said.
Not everybody agrees that the fogbank problem raises broad concerns about a loss of expertise.
Since the late 1990s, the nation has embarked on a program to invest billions of dollars in scientific research to keep the old weapons viable.
The issue is highly sensitive because many arms control advocates worry that such a loss could become a rationale for a resumption of nuclear testing.
The Energy Department's scientific program to support the stockpile "has done very well so far. Most people would say it has been a terrific success," said Sydney Drell, a nuclear weapons expert at Stanford University.
The department plans to deliver the first batch of W76s in late fall, LaVera said.
That would put it about two years behind schedule, a delay that has caused logistical problems for the Navy, the GAO said.
It is not yet clear how long it will take for the department to refurbish all 2,000 warheads in its current plan, but the process of gradually taking warheads out of service, refurbishing them and returning them to service could take an additional 10 years.
Monday, June 1, 2009
'Clean-tech' start-ups are pushing the green button
Amit Chatterjee worked for three Silicon Valley start-ups and software company SAP, but he was growing increasingly intrigued by global warming and climate change. The more he delved into the issue, the more he became convinced that there was a way to use software to help tackle the problem.
His idea -- to help companies track and manage their use of energy, water and other resources -- drew the backing of the valley's most prominent venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Today, thanks to Kleiner's $6-million investment, Chatterjee unveils his latest start-up, Hara, which monitors and manages companies' water and energy consumption, and helps them plan ways to mitigate their environmental effects.
Hara's arrival, after operating quietly for the last year and a half, shows how the tech wizards behind many Internet companies are now hard at work building digital solutions to save water, money, energy and maybe even the planet. Kleiner Perkins managing partner Ted Schlein, a Hara board member, calls it "the greening of IT," saying that large corporations are ready to use information technology to make their businesses more eco-friendly because it's the right thing to do and it can save them money.
Venture capitalists, big companies including Cisco Systems Inc. and General Electric Co. and private equity firms have been pumping money into a variety of green IT initiatives, said Ron Pernick, co-founder and principal of Clean Edge Inc., an environmental research and consulting firm. A major push includes an effort to make the nation's power grid "smarter" by using sensors and networking technology so companies can track their electricity use.
These initiatives look at the demand side -- figuring out how people are using energy -- rather than the supply side, such as solar power, to replace the type of energy being generated.
Hara's innovation, CEO Chatterjee said, is giving companies an "organizational metabolism index," much like a fitness trainer gives someone a body mass index. It measures the fossil fuels, water and waste at a company and calculates how to save money.
In the absence of a good software program, companies have been trying to get on top of this by manually entering data into Excel spreadsheets or other systems, said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst for Enderle Group. Or they pay large fees to consulting companies to analyze their carbon footprints.
For the last few years, venture capitalists have poured money into so-called clean-tech companies, which use technology to solve environmental problems, at a much faster rate than traditional technology. The field appears particularly poised for growth as the Obama administration begins to pump stimulus dollars into green energy initiatives, and as governments around the world consider making companies pay for the amount of carbon they generate.
"Clean-tech investment almost doubled every year for the past several years," said Jessica Canning, research director for Dow Jones VentureSource. Venture funding of clean-tech companies rose to $5 billion last year from $687 million in 2005.
That money has dropped in the last two quarters as the turmoil in the financial markets has made investors reluctant to sink large sums into projects that could take years to pay off. Pricewaterhousecoopers reports that funding of clean-tech companies dropped 84% in the first quarter of 2009 to $154 million, down from $971 million the fourth quarter of 2008. Investing in solar shrank 97% and alternative fuels 69%.
"The capital-intensive companies like solar and biofuels, which were the key drivers of the past few years, really fell in the first quarter," said Tim Carey, head of PricewaterhouseCoopers' U.S. clean-tech division. "That was partly due to overall uncertainties in the economy. Those companies require large amounts of capital."
But software firms can be started for far less. "If you have less money, you have to be smart and invest in energy-efficiency technologies, and IT and management systems start becoming more effective," said Jacqueline Crespo, who leads the venture capital and technology practice at New Energy Finance Ltd. in Palo Alto, a research provider for the clean-energy industry. "You're going after the same market, but it's not as capital-intensive."
That strategy has the added bonus of appealing more directly to the folks who will ultimately buy the new technology. Solar panels could be a hard sell if the return on investment is still years away, but a software system that helps a company become more energy efficient may pay for itself a lot sooner.
That's what Coca-Cola Co. found when it tried Hara's software in a pilot test at 12 sites around the world.
"Most of the stuff that is energy-efficiency-related has real good economics," said Bryan Jacob, director of energy management and climate protection for Coca Cola. "When you get into some things like fuel switching, or renewable fuels like solar or wind, you've crossed into a realm where the cost associated with it is more than the straight economic payback on it."
Coke used Hara in one of its subsidiaries that's building 15 power plants in Eastern Europe and Africa, and has found it an effective way to measure how much energy the plants are using, what the future economics of that energy will be, and what the company could do to save energy and money in the future.
In a way, said Schlein of Kleiner Perkins, it's the same concept from other software fields. Much the way PeopleSoft Inc. provided companies a new way to manage human resources, or Siebel Systems built a big business in managing sales forces, clean-tech companies can help businesses stay on top of energy uses.
His idea -- to help companies track and manage their use of energy, water and other resources -- drew the backing of the valley's most prominent venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Today, thanks to Kleiner's $6-million investment, Chatterjee unveils his latest start-up, Hara, which monitors and manages companies' water and energy consumption, and helps them plan ways to mitigate their environmental effects.
Hara's arrival, after operating quietly for the last year and a half, shows how the tech wizards behind many Internet companies are now hard at work building digital solutions to save water, money, energy and maybe even the planet. Kleiner Perkins managing partner Ted Schlein, a Hara board member, calls it "the greening of IT," saying that large corporations are ready to use information technology to make their businesses more eco-friendly because it's the right thing to do and it can save them money.
Venture capitalists, big companies including Cisco Systems Inc. and General Electric Co. and private equity firms have been pumping money into a variety of green IT initiatives, said Ron Pernick, co-founder and principal of Clean Edge Inc., an environmental research and consulting firm. A major push includes an effort to make the nation's power grid "smarter" by using sensors and networking technology so companies can track their electricity use.
These initiatives look at the demand side -- figuring out how people are using energy -- rather than the supply side, such as solar power, to replace the type of energy being generated.
Hara's innovation, CEO Chatterjee said, is giving companies an "organizational metabolism index," much like a fitness trainer gives someone a body mass index. It measures the fossil fuels, water and waste at a company and calculates how to save money.
In the absence of a good software program, companies have been trying to get on top of this by manually entering data into Excel spreadsheets or other systems, said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst for Enderle Group. Or they pay large fees to consulting companies to analyze their carbon footprints.
For the last few years, venture capitalists have poured money into so-called clean-tech companies, which use technology to solve environmental problems, at a much faster rate than traditional technology. The field appears particularly poised for growth as the Obama administration begins to pump stimulus dollars into green energy initiatives, and as governments around the world consider making companies pay for the amount of carbon they generate.
"Clean-tech investment almost doubled every year for the past several years," said Jessica Canning, research director for Dow Jones VentureSource. Venture funding of clean-tech companies rose to $5 billion last year from $687 million in 2005.
That money has dropped in the last two quarters as the turmoil in the financial markets has made investors reluctant to sink large sums into projects that could take years to pay off. Pricewaterhousecoopers reports that funding of clean-tech companies dropped 84% in the first quarter of 2009 to $154 million, down from $971 million the fourth quarter of 2008. Investing in solar shrank 97% and alternative fuels 69%.
"The capital-intensive companies like solar and biofuels, which were the key drivers of the past few years, really fell in the first quarter," said Tim Carey, head of PricewaterhouseCoopers' U.S. clean-tech division. "That was partly due to overall uncertainties in the economy. Those companies require large amounts of capital."
But software firms can be started for far less. "If you have less money, you have to be smart and invest in energy-efficiency technologies, and IT and management systems start becoming more effective," said Jacqueline Crespo, who leads the venture capital and technology practice at New Energy Finance Ltd. in Palo Alto, a research provider for the clean-energy industry. "You're going after the same market, but it's not as capital-intensive."
That strategy has the added bonus of appealing more directly to the folks who will ultimately buy the new technology. Solar panels could be a hard sell if the return on investment is still years away, but a software system that helps a company become more energy efficient may pay for itself a lot sooner.
That's what Coca-Cola Co. found when it tried Hara's software in a pilot test at 12 sites around the world.
"Most of the stuff that is energy-efficiency-related has real good economics," said Bryan Jacob, director of energy management and climate protection for Coca Cola. "When you get into some things like fuel switching, or renewable fuels like solar or wind, you've crossed into a realm where the cost associated with it is more than the straight economic payback on it."
Coke used Hara in one of its subsidiaries that's building 15 power plants in Eastern Europe and Africa, and has found it an effective way to measure how much energy the plants are using, what the future economics of that energy will be, and what the company could do to save energy and money in the future.
In a way, said Schlein of Kleiner Perkins, it's the same concept from other software fields. Much the way PeopleSoft Inc. provided companies a new way to manage human resources, or Siebel Systems built a big business in managing sales forces, clean-tech companies can help businesses stay on top of energy uses.
Suspected Pasadena bank robber jumps from atop 5-story parking structure
A suspected bank robber in Pasadena was critically injured this morning when he jumped from the top of a five-story parking structure after he was cornered by police.
Pasadena police responded to a call about 9:15 a.m. about a robbery in the 100 block of South Lake Avenue, according to police spokeswoman Janet Pope-Givens.
Someone inside the bank followed the suspect outside and gave police information on the man’s whereabouts, she said. Police surrounded a nearby parking structure, where they believed the suspect was hiding, and combed through each floor looking for the man.
About an hour into the search, the suspect emerged from behind a parked vehicle on one of the mid-level stories. He then ran to the roof of the structure, which was about five stories tall, Pope-Givens said.
Before officers were able to get to the man, he jumped off the side of the structure, landing on a concrete driveway, police said. The suspected robber suffered multiple fractures and was taken to a hospital. His identity was not immediately released. He had allegedly told a bank teller that he was armed, but no weapon was seen during the robbery, police said.
courtsey.latimes
Pasadena police responded to a call about 9:15 a.m. about a robbery in the 100 block of South Lake Avenue, according to police spokeswoman Janet Pope-Givens.
Someone inside the bank followed the suspect outside and gave police information on the man’s whereabouts, she said. Police surrounded a nearby parking structure, where they believed the suspect was hiding, and combed through each floor looking for the man.
About an hour into the search, the suspect emerged from behind a parked vehicle on one of the mid-level stories. He then ran to the roof of the structure, which was about five stories tall, Pope-Givens said.
Before officers were able to get to the man, he jumped off the side of the structure, landing on a concrete driveway, police said. The suspected robber suffered multiple fractures and was taken to a hospital. His identity was not immediately released. He had allegedly told a bank teller that he was armed, but no weapon was seen during the robbery, police said.
courtsey.latimes
Aging: Menopause Slows the Brain, Temporarily
Many women entering menopause say their brains do not seem to work as well as they used to.
A new study suggests that they may be right, but it also appears the lapses are temporary.
Researchers studied more than 2,300 women, ages 42 to 52, over four years.
Some women in the study, which appears in Neurology, were still menstruating regularly. Others had completed menopause, and the remainder were in so-called perimenopause — that is, they were still having some periods but their bodies were experiencing changes as they neared menopause.
The researchers, led by Dr. Gail Greendale of the University of California, Los Angeles, gave the women a series of tests to determine cognitive skills. The tests measured memory and how quickly they processed information.
When it came to processing speed, the study found, all the women except those in the late perimenopausal stage improved their scores when they took the test repeatedly. The researchers made similar findings with the tests for verbal memory.
The differences between the women were less a matter of some scoring worse than others, but more of some failing to improve as much as others over time. And women with lower scores as they entered menopause did better after it.
A new study suggests that they may be right, but it also appears the lapses are temporary.
Researchers studied more than 2,300 women, ages 42 to 52, over four years.
Some women in the study, which appears in Neurology, were still menstruating regularly. Others had completed menopause, and the remainder were in so-called perimenopause — that is, they were still having some periods but their bodies were experiencing changes as they neared menopause.
The researchers, led by Dr. Gail Greendale of the University of California, Los Angeles, gave the women a series of tests to determine cognitive skills. The tests measured memory and how quickly they processed information.
When it came to processing speed, the study found, all the women except those in the late perimenopausal stage improved their scores when they took the test repeatedly. The researchers made similar findings with the tests for verbal memory.
The differences between the women were less a matter of some scoring worse than others, but more of some failing to improve as much as others over time. And women with lower scores as they entered menopause did better after it.
In China, Geithner Backs Cooperation
Timothy F. Geithner, the U.S. Treasury secretary, said Monday that the global financial crisis seemed to be easing, but that the United States and China would have to work together to stabilize In a speech at Peking University, Mr. Geithner encouraged China to diversify its economy away from a heavy reliance on exports while offering Beijing assurances that Washington intended to tackle its deficit and protect the value of China’s huge investment in United States government debt.
“We will cut our deficit, and we will eliminate the extraordinary government support that we have put in place to overcome the crisis,” Mr. Geithner told a gathering of students and faculty at the university.
A rebalanced global economy would likely mean that the United States would save more and consume less, he said, and that China would encourage its own consumers to spend more and save less.
This is Mr. Geithner’s first visit to Beijing since becoming Treasury secretary, and on Tuesday he is scheduled to meet with President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, as well as other high-ranking officials.
Under the pressures of the global economic downturn, relations between the United States and China are undergoing some fundamental changes. China is growing more assertive on the international stage, and Washington is seeking to find ways to cooperate with Beijing on everything from economic reforms to climate change.
China is the largest holder of U.S. government debt, and a growing number of Chinese officials and economists have expressed concern in recent months that the value of those debt holdings will plunge if inflation takes off or the dollar weakens further because of mounting U.S. deficits.
In fact, interest rates on U.S. Treasury notes have been rising lately, cutting their value by just over 5 percent.
Some Chinese economists are pressing Beijing to slow its accumulation of Treasury bills and others are even pushing for the creation of an alternative reserve currency as a hedge against the U.S. dollar.
Following Mr. Geithner’s speech Monday, a student asked the Treasury secretary whether China’s investments in the United States were safe.
He responded without hesitation. “Chinese financial assets are very safe,” Mr. Geithner said, eliciting some laughter. He then quickly said that the United States still had deep and liquid financial markets, and that the administration of President Barack Obama was committed to tackling the deficit and maintaining a strong dollar.
In his speech, Mr. Geithner encouraged Beijing to work with Washington to create more balanced, sustainable growth for the two countries’ economies.
“China and the United States individually and together are so important in the global economy and financial system that what we do has a direct impact on the stability and strength of the international economic system,” he said.
Mr. Geithner touched on currency issues just briefly. Some economists have long argued that China keeps its currency intentionally weak in order to make exports to the United States affordable, and the U.S. Treasury secretary did urge China to move toward a more flexible exchange rate. But he did not emphasize that point.
Currency debates and trade frictions had flared between the United States and China during the administration of President George W. Bush, even though relations were solid overall. For now, the Obama administration seems determined to avoid tensions and to search for ways to cooperate with China.
Under Mr. Bush, Henry M. Paulson Jr., the U.S. Treasury secretary, held regular meetings with officials in Beijing as part of the so-called the strategic economic dialogue.
The Obama administration has decided to broaden those discussions, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton taking part, in what is now being called the strategic and economic dialogue.
Mr. Geithner said that he would begin to discuss some of the pressing economic issues this week in Beijing, where he has been given a warm welcome. At Peking University, the school recognized his family’s contributions to China, calling the Geithners “friends of China.”
Mr. Geithner’s father, Peter F. Geithner, was the director of the Asia program of the Ford Foundation in the 1980s and opened its Beijing office. Under his leadership, in the 1980s and 1990s, the foundation offered support for many Chinese scholars to travel to the United States to study.
and rebalance the world economy.
“We will cut our deficit, and we will eliminate the extraordinary government support that we have put in place to overcome the crisis,” Mr. Geithner told a gathering of students and faculty at the university.
A rebalanced global economy would likely mean that the United States would save more and consume less, he said, and that China would encourage its own consumers to spend more and save less.
This is Mr. Geithner’s first visit to Beijing since becoming Treasury secretary, and on Tuesday he is scheduled to meet with President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, as well as other high-ranking officials.
Under the pressures of the global economic downturn, relations between the United States and China are undergoing some fundamental changes. China is growing more assertive on the international stage, and Washington is seeking to find ways to cooperate with Beijing on everything from economic reforms to climate change.
China is the largest holder of U.S. government debt, and a growing number of Chinese officials and economists have expressed concern in recent months that the value of those debt holdings will plunge if inflation takes off or the dollar weakens further because of mounting U.S. deficits.
In fact, interest rates on U.S. Treasury notes have been rising lately, cutting their value by just over 5 percent.
Some Chinese economists are pressing Beijing to slow its accumulation of Treasury bills and others are even pushing for the creation of an alternative reserve currency as a hedge against the U.S. dollar.
Following Mr. Geithner’s speech Monday, a student asked the Treasury secretary whether China’s investments in the United States were safe.
He responded without hesitation. “Chinese financial assets are very safe,” Mr. Geithner said, eliciting some laughter. He then quickly said that the United States still had deep and liquid financial markets, and that the administration of President Barack Obama was committed to tackling the deficit and maintaining a strong dollar.
In his speech, Mr. Geithner encouraged Beijing to work with Washington to create more balanced, sustainable growth for the two countries’ economies.
“China and the United States individually and together are so important in the global economy and financial system that what we do has a direct impact on the stability and strength of the international economic system,” he said.
Mr. Geithner touched on currency issues just briefly. Some economists have long argued that China keeps its currency intentionally weak in order to make exports to the United States affordable, and the U.S. Treasury secretary did urge China to move toward a more flexible exchange rate. But he did not emphasize that point.
Currency debates and trade frictions had flared between the United States and China during the administration of President George W. Bush, even though relations were solid overall. For now, the Obama administration seems determined to avoid tensions and to search for ways to cooperate with China.
Under Mr. Bush, Henry M. Paulson Jr., the U.S. Treasury secretary, held regular meetings with officials in Beijing as part of the so-called the strategic economic dialogue.
The Obama administration has decided to broaden those discussions, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton taking part, in what is now being called the strategic and economic dialogue.
Mr. Geithner said that he would begin to discuss some of the pressing economic issues this week in Beijing, where he has been given a warm welcome. At Peking University, the school recognized his family’s contributions to China, calling the Geithners “friends of China.”
Mr. Geithner’s father, Peter F. Geithner, was the director of the Asia program of the Ford Foundation in the 1980s and opened its Beijing office. Under his leadership, in the 1980s and 1990s, the foundation offered support for many Chinese scholars to travel to the United States to study.
and rebalance the world economy.
The Ad Campaign for a ‘New’ G.M.
Can General Motors make up for decades of mistakes and misfires in a minute?
That is the ambitious goal of a 60-second commercial to begin running on television on Wednesday. The spot is already available on a Web site (gmreinvention.com) and on YouTube.
The commercial is part mea culpa, part gauzy paean to the concept of a “new” General Motors. Although portions seem self-serving, there are moments when a viewer may think, “Hey, maybe G.M. deserves another chance.”
Such moments come when the commercial speaks plainly. “Let’s be completely honest,” an announcer says. “No company wants to go through this.”
“General Motors needs to start over, in order to get stronger,” he adds.
Other effective moments come when the announcer says things G.M. ought to have said years ago.
“There was a time when eight different brands made sense,” the announcer says. “Not any more.” Critics have contended that General Motors was spreading its marketing resources too thin across too many nameplates.
“There was a time when our cost structure could compete worldwide,” the announcer says. “Not any more.” That is a reference to the gap in production costs between G.M. and its overseas rivals.
Other elements are overly slick for an apologetic commercial. There is too much use of the echo effect that writers hope will elevate prose to poetry. For instance, the announcer intones: “This is not about going out of business. This is about getting down to business.”
And the imagery on screen veers from powerful to bland. There is a wonderful zoom-in on the fist of the boxer Joe Louis that stands on Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit, as if to say, “Pow! Bam! We’re coming back!”
But there are also generic photographs — a moon landing, sports teams, a butterfly, a horse race, an American flag — that could have come from any feel-good corporate image campaign.
The commercial was created by Deutsch, an advertising agency owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies that handles assignments for G.M. like producing campaigns for the (soon to be divested) Saturn division.
That is the ambitious goal of a 60-second commercial to begin running on television on Wednesday. The spot is already available on a Web site (gmreinvention.com) and on YouTube.
The commercial is part mea culpa, part gauzy paean to the concept of a “new” General Motors. Although portions seem self-serving, there are moments when a viewer may think, “Hey, maybe G.M. deserves another chance.”
Such moments come when the commercial speaks plainly. “Let’s be completely honest,” an announcer says. “No company wants to go through this.”
“General Motors needs to start over, in order to get stronger,” he adds.
Other effective moments come when the announcer says things G.M. ought to have said years ago.
“There was a time when eight different brands made sense,” the announcer says. “Not any more.” Critics have contended that General Motors was spreading its marketing resources too thin across too many nameplates.
“There was a time when our cost structure could compete worldwide,” the announcer says. “Not any more.” That is a reference to the gap in production costs between G.M. and its overseas rivals.
Other elements are overly slick for an apologetic commercial. There is too much use of the echo effect that writers hope will elevate prose to poetry. For instance, the announcer intones: “This is not about going out of business. This is about getting down to business.”
And the imagery on screen veers from powerful to bland. There is a wonderful zoom-in on the fist of the boxer Joe Louis that stands on Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit, as if to say, “Pow! Bam! We’re coming back!”
But there are also generic photographs — a moon landing, sports teams, a butterfly, a horse race, an American flag — that could have come from any feel-good corporate image campaign.
The commercial was created by Deutsch, an advertising agency owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies that handles assignments for G.M. like producing campaigns for the (soon to be divested) Saturn division.
Boy chosen by Dalai Lama turns back on Buddhist order
As a toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped as by monks who treated him like a god. But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.
Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha.
Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. "I never felt like that boy," he said.
He is now studying film in Madrid and has denounced the Buddhist order that elevated him to guru status. "They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal," said Torres, 24, describing how he was whisked from obscurity in Granada to a monastery in southern India. "It was like living a lie," he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. Despite his rebelliousness, he is still known as Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche and revered by the Buddhist community. A prayer for his "long life" still adorns the website of the Foundation to Preserve the Mahayana Tradition, which has 130 centres around the world. The website features a biography of the renegade guru that gushes about his peaceful, meditative countenance as a baby. In Tibetan Buddhism, a lama is one of a lineage of reincarnated spiritual leaders, the most famous of which is the Dalai Lama.
According to the foundation biography, another leader suspected Torres was the reincarnation of the recently deceased Lama Yeshe when he was only five months old. In 1986, at 14 months, his parents took him to see the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The toddler was chosen out of nine other candidates and eventually "enthroned".
At six, he was allowed to socialise only with other reincarnated souls – though for a time he said he lived next to the actor Richard Gere's cabin.
By 18, he had never seen couples kiss. His first disco experience was a shock. "I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?"
Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha.
Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. "I never felt like that boy," he said.
He is now studying film in Madrid and has denounced the Buddhist order that elevated him to guru status. "They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal," said Torres, 24, describing how he was whisked from obscurity in Granada to a monastery in southern India. "It was like living a lie," he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. Despite his rebelliousness, he is still known as Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche and revered by the Buddhist community. A prayer for his "long life" still adorns the website of the Foundation to Preserve the Mahayana Tradition, which has 130 centres around the world. The website features a biography of the renegade guru that gushes about his peaceful, meditative countenance as a baby. In Tibetan Buddhism, a lama is one of a lineage of reincarnated spiritual leaders, the most famous of which is the Dalai Lama.
According to the foundation biography, another leader suspected Torres was the reincarnation of the recently deceased Lama Yeshe when he was only five months old. In 1986, at 14 months, his parents took him to see the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The toddler was chosen out of nine other candidates and eventually "enthroned".
At six, he was allowed to socialise only with other reincarnated souls – though for a time he said he lived next to the actor Richard Gere's cabin.
By 18, he had never seen couples kiss. His first disco experience was a shock. "I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?"
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