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SurveyU co-founder Dan Coates kicked things off last week with a research presentation on how and why Obama's effort to galvanize college students was such a phenomenal success [SurveyU was our research sponsor]. Breaking down the campus crowd by... Read the rest of this post

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I cast my ballot then headed over to Starbucks for my free cup of coffee (if you showed your "I Voted" sticker they gave you a free cup). That was a pretty cool thing to do. They didn't even ask who you voted for. Now that's Democratic.

Driving home there was this amazingly wonderful sky. Its been raining, but today it cleared up and there are these picture-perfect huge fluffy clouds just hanging there against a gorgeous cerulean blue background.

And on the radio was James Earl Jones doing an Abraham Lincoln recitation with Aaron Copeland music in the background. It was all just too moving and stirring and wonderful and I actually felt a little leap in my heart, like it was a sign of new better things ahead.

I also had some new illustration work come in today, which felt good.
Blue skies ahead? Let's hope so.

Google's banner for today. Fun.

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Today, on election day, I bring you a guest post from my son, known online as Magicyop. Magicyop makes some really good points, and I think that this is an issue that we should seriously consider:

Today, all through America, people will be lining up to vote. Lining up to choose who they think will be the better president, who they want to represent them in congress, and more questions that will determine their future. With voter turnout estimated at its largest in quite some time, everyone wants to get their say in. It’s been a long while since an election was quite this big.

    But not all Americans can vote. There is a certain constituency, that, interestingly enough is not legally allowed to vote. They follow the campaign, they watch the debates and listen to the interviews, they do research, they form opinions on who they would like to support. But they’re not allowed to vote. There simply are those who can’t vote. And those people are the youth of America.

    Those under eighteen are not allowed to vote because, according to many officials, they lack the proper judgement and intelligence to make a good decision. Now, as many parents, teachers, and almost anyone who has ever met someone below eighteen will tell you, this is not true in many cases. Especially in this election, if you talk to teens who aren’t yet eighteen about the election, almost all of them will say that they wish they could vote. They’ve been watching, they’ve been listening to the issues, but they can’t do anything about it.

    The concerns of a sixteen year old are different then those of an eighteen year old, but as those aged sixteen can’t vote, their concerns will never be represented. Politicians represent those who can vote for them, so they will never represent the youth of this country. Whenever they talk about children, they talk about them in a way appealing to parents, not appealing to the children themselves. They only represent those whom the current law believes are able to make an informed decision.

    For starters, even those with serious mental limitations are allowed to vote. Even those developmentally delayed to the point they are like children are allowed to vote. Should we then base voting age on IQ? Even those who don’t know more about the candidates than their names are allowed to vote- I just watched, on CNN, someone flipping a coin to determine her vote. Should we then base voting age on time spent researching for the election? No. Everyone should get a say. Everyone needs to be able to be represented.

    And youth are not at the bottom of the knowledge ladder either! It is foolish to think that youth will vote for the candidate who displays the most shiny toys, any more than adults would. The fact of the matter is, there are no ‘wrong’ votes. Everybody has their opinion and you cannot vote incorrectly. Youth have to live in this country, and they have no effect on it at all.

    And speaking of this country, most of us will know from whatever brief history study we once did, that this country began with a Revolutionary War. What was the main cause of this? What did we want to abolish? Taxation without representation. And unfortunately, that’s what’s happening now. Many youth pay taxes- sales taxes, income taxes if they have jobs, any tax- often in exorbitant amounts. Why do youth have to pay taxes if they aren’t represented in our nation’s government? It’s an unfair system, and it discriminates against youth just as much as it would be discrimination to say that women couldn’t vote, or the poor couldn’t vote, or the elderly couldn’t vote.

    Youth live in this country, and they do a lot for it. Perhaps, with everyone’s help, they’ll one day have a voice.

More information about lowering the voting age can me found on the National Youth Rights Association web site.

Read many thought-provoking (and non-partisan) posts about voting on the Blog the Vote event, hosted on Chasing Ray.

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For the third year in a row, Lucia was set to be a fairy princess for Halloween. However, yesterday we went to have her bobbed hair trimmed, and then to a consignment shop, where I found a fringed top that was perfect for a little girl's dress-up wardrobe. I told Lucia, "With your bobbed hair and the fringed dress, you could be a flapper!" I told her only a little bit about the flapper

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Actual downloaded print proudly displaying itself in its native Berkeley habitat

Tomorrow partners put together these posters for the upcoming election. The posters are each limited editions, printed in three colors, 18″ x 24″ and are priced at $20. Also available are 8 1/2″ x 11″ and 11″x 17″ versions that can be downloaded for free. Print up a bunch to post around town!

Both posters can be purchased or downloaded for free here.

Get ready to vote!

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New giveaways coming soon at Grain Edit

©2008 Grain Edit

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If all goes well, I head to Minnesota in a few hours. I promise lots of pictures and tour details for the next month.

Before we get to the schedule, I'd like to puff out my chest and proudly point out that my daughter Bookavore (aka Stephanie) has some great quotes about economic sustainability and getting folks to shop locally.

And.... Brilliance Audio just released a wonderful audio version of CHAINS!! The reader, Madisun Leigh, does a wonderful job - so wonderful that I was in tears by the end of the first chapter. I can't wait until I have time to listen to the whole thing!

And... not only did I buy The Dress for the fancy-pants National Book Award gala, but I took it to Mary Jean's Alterations in Oswego and it will be ready when I get off the plane in a few weeks. BH ordered his tux there, too.

And... my absentee ballot arrived on time and I voted!!!!

And..... the book tour appearances below are my public gigs. On most days, I'll be visiting schools during the day and then doing an evening appearance at most stores. I am really sorry I won't be headed to the West Coast on this tour, but you can't have everything, and my cup is totally overflowing right now, so I'm not going to make a fuss. (FYI - I'll be going back out on tour in March. Keep your fingers crossed.)

CHAINS BOOK TOUR SCHEDULE: FREE YOUR MIND!!

MINNEAPOLIS
Tues, October 21 at 7:00 pm : Barnes & Noble, Roseville, MN 651-639-9256

Wed., October 22 at 6:00 pm: Wild Rumpus, Minneapolis, MN 612-920-5005


DENVER
Thursday, October 23 (AKA MY BIRTHDAY) at 5:00 pm: Bookies, Denver, CO 303-759-1117

Friday, October 24 at 7:00 pm: Tattered Cover, Denver, East Colfax store 303-436-9219


CHICAGO area
Saturday, October 25 at 1:00 pm: The Bookstall of Chestnut Court, Winnetka 847-446-0882

Sunday, October 26 at 2:00 pm: Center for Teaching through Children’s Books, National-Louis University, Skokie. This is at 5202 Old Orchard Road - 3rd Floor Public Forum Room. Sorry, I don't have a contact phone number, but I do know that lots of teachers and grad students are expected to attend. At least, I hope they do.

Monday, October 27: Barnes & Noble, Skokie (no public event, but will have signed books available) 847-676-2230


OMAHA
Tuesday, October 28 at 7:00 pm: Omaha Public Library, An all-city event in Centennial Hall at the Alumni House on the UNO Campus, 6705 Dodge St. 402-444-4800


BACK TO CHICAGO area
Wednesday, October 29 at 7:00 pm: Anderson’s, Naperville 630-355-2665


MILWAUKEE
Thursday, October 30 at 7:00 pm: Harry Schwartz Bookshop (Mequon store) 262-241-6220


DOVER, DE
Saturday, November 1: several appearances during the day: Delaware Book Festival


BALTIMORE
Monday, November 3: The Children’s Bookstore (no public event, but will have signed books available)


WASHINGTON, DC area
Monday, November 3 at 7:00 pm: Barnes & Noble, McLean, VA 703-506-2937


Tuesday, November 4: Politics & Prose, Wash. DC (drop-in booksigning at 12:30) 202-364-1919


NEW JERSEY
Wednesday, November 5: BookEnds, Ridgewood (no public event, but will have signed books available) 201-445-0726


NEW YORK
Thursday, November 6 at 6:45 pm: Merritt Bookstore, Millbrook, NY 845-677-5857


WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Friday, November 7: Odyssey Bookstore, South Hadley, MA (no public event, but will have signed books available) 413-534-7307


ATLANTA area
Monday, November 10 at 7:00 pm: Little Shop of Stories, Decatur 404-373-6300

Tuesday, November 11: The Reading Tree, Alpharetta (no public event, but will have signed books available) 770-740-7171


MIAMI
Wednesday, November 12 and Thursday, November 13: Miami Book Fair (school events only)


NEW ORLEANS
Friday, November 14 at 4:30 pm: Octavia Books 504-899-7323

Saturday, November 14 -- Special school event only, sponsored by Octavia Books


NEW YORK CITY - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FESTIVITIES
Tuesday, November 18 - Teen Press Conference

Tuesday, November 18, 7pm - All twenty of this year's National Book Award Finalists will read from their books at New York City’ s New School

Wednesday, November 19, National Book Foundation Awards Dinner and Ceremony


SAN ANTONIO, TX
Friday, November 21 – Tuesday, November 25: National Council of Teachers of English annual conference and ALAN Workshop


CENTRAL NEW YORK
Thursday, December 4 at 6:00 pm: The River’s End Bookstore, Oswego 315-342-0077 (followed by a fundraising dinner for the Oswego Public Library!)

SE PENNSYLVANIA
Saturday, December 6 at 6pm: Moravian Bookshop, Bethlehem, PA 610-866-5481


And now I should probably try to sleep.
Yeah, right.

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When I was in third grade, my teacher gave us two questions to prepare for debate: The first one was, “Should children have homework?” The second one was, “Should children be able to vote?” I thought that children shouldn’t have homework but that they should be allowed to vote. Since I brought the questions home to prepare for debate the following day, my mother saw them, and offered her

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Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of the Ownership Society: How The Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America.  In this article, Zelinsky argues that Senators Obama and McCain have confirmed the malfunction of campaign finance reform, that this is a healthy development for American democracy, and that the current system of campaign finance reform should be replaced by a simplified disclosure regime.

The most important event of the 2008 presidential campaign may already have occurred: The major party nominees have publicly confirmed the malfunction of campaign finance reform. Such reform has imposed increasingly complex and stringent limitations on the contributions of political donors and on the expenditures of political campaigns.

Senator Obama had been an outspoken apostle of campaign finance reform. At the outset of his presidential effort, Senator Obama had proclaimed his commitment to accept public financing and its accompanying expenditure restrictions for his general election campaign. He has now turned 180 degrees. Senator Obama will now eschew public financing and its attendant limits and will instead fund his general election effort with private donations to escape those limits.

Senator McCain’s change of heart is more complex but even more dramatic. Senator McCain was the prime Republican sponsor of the most recent tightening of federal restrictions on campaigns and donors, the eponymous McCain-Feingold Act. While he will accept public financing in the fall, Senator McCain’s supporters are actively and openly exploiting every legal loophole they can find to permit private contributors to assist his candidacy beyond the restrictions imposed by that Act. The irony is palpable. Senator McCain’s supporters are now assiduously seeking to erode the very constraints on donors and campaigns which Senator McCain had championed.

It is easy to criticize Senators Obama and McCain for their inconsistency. I suggest, however, that there is a broader significance to these events. Senators Obama and McCain have confirmed the malfunction of campaign finance reform. We should now kill this complex and unfair regulatory scheme. American democracy will be healthier without the myriad restrictions which limit Americans’ ability to contribute to the candidates of their choice.

The fundamental premises upon which campaign finance reform rests are false: Money in politics is a bad thing which can and ought to be limited legislatively. On the contrary, for many Americans, a financial contribution is today the only meaningful way, besides voting, they can assist the candidates they support. In any event, campaign contributions cannot be controlled fairly and effectively. Another form of Prohibition has failed.

Consider the simpler era in which I grew up. Working on political campaigns along with other volunteers, my friends and I would meet at local party headquarters and fan out to distribute bumper stickers and campaign buttons to our neighbors. It seems quaint because, in retrospect, it was.

Contrast this low budget, Ozzie-and-Harriet world with the consultant-driven, TV-saturated campaigns which constituted primary season 2008. In these campaigns, the citizen-volunteers have largely been subordinated to the full-time, paid, professional operatives who ran these campaigns. In this environment, a financial contribution is, besides voting, the most meaningful form of support many, probably most, Americans can make to the candidate they support.

Moreover, the attempt to limit the influence of money by law, propounded as a means of leveling the political playing field, has instead reinforced the political power of the celebrities in our celebrity-based culture. During the 2008 primary campaign, both Oprah Winfrey and Chuck Norris provided enormously valuable assistance to the Obama and Huckabee campaigns, generating publicity worth hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars for the candidates they supported. None of this celebrity assistance is capped by McCain-Feingold, despite the obvious value of that assistance.

In contrast, if a non-celebrity citizen favoring a competing candidate sought to counteract celebrity-generated publicity by donating equivalent funds to purchase offsetting advertising, that citizen would have violated the law. If, for example, a supporter of Governor Romney sought to counteract Mr. Norris’s efforts via a campaign donation of $2,500 (a tiny fraction of Mr. Norris’s effective but unregulated contribution to Governor Huckabee), that Romney supporter broke the law which limited him to a $2,300 contribution. Campaign finance reform, it turns out, is just for the little people.

It is unsurprising that this system is now in disarray. The current system, with its complex contribution limits, is overly-complicated and unfair. These complex and inequitable rules should be replaced by a simplified regime which permits all campaign contributions without limit but which requires contributions to be immediately and accurately disclosed.

Whether one believes that campaign finance reform like McCain-Feingold was a noble idea which failed or was an unwise approach from the beginning, Senators Obama and McCain have confirmed the malfunction of that approach. We should now move from the currently dysfunctional system to a simplified regime which permits contributions without limit, which requires complete and accurate disclosure of those contributions, and which no longer puts our political life in the hands of Oprah and Chuck.

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So...

http://www.neilgaiman.com/feedback/vote.php?issue=freebook&show=results

tells us that 26,500 of you voted. (Or at least, 26,551 votes from 26,551 individual computers came in.)

And, with 28% of the vote -- as it had from the first hour the voting went up (well, it had 29% of the vote on the first day, a lead that was whittled away as the next 26,400 votes came in) is American Gods.

So that's what we'll put up. Details and links to follow....

It was really interesting. I don't think I would have put up American Gods as a first choice for free book myself -- mostly because a) it's really long and b) it divides people. As far as I can tell, for every five people who read it, one loves it utterly, two or three like it to varying degrees, and one hates it, cannot see the point to it and needs convincing that it's a novel at all. (Quite often the last person really likes some of the other books I've written, if they ever pick up anything else by me ever again.) But that's the fun of democracy, and American Gods has won more awards than any other single thing I've written.

Thank you to everyone who voted. It was fun. (And a special thank you to the web-goblin, who did all the heavy lifting.)

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Lots and lots of you are sending me messages saying things like

I'm sure loads of people are sending you this link:

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp02132008.shtml

about Alan Moore.

It made me smile!


Béatrice

And it made me smile too.

We'll close the polls on the Which Free Book Vote tomorrow, but the final results of the vote are, I think, at this stage, predictable, considering they took on this pattern by the time the first hundred people had voted, and have only wavered by a percentage point here and there since. As you can see here, we're now pushing 26,000 votes, and the pattern hasn't changed. American Gods sits in the lead with 28% of the vote, Neverwhere has 21% of the vote, the three short story collections have about 28% of the vote between them, trailed by Stardust at 9% and Anansi Boys and Coraline at 7% each.

(Interesting, as Harper Collins would have gone for Stardust, and I really didn't know which to put up but would have expected Smoke and Mirrors to be very high on the list.)

I am enjoying the author's preferred text version of Neverwhere on my iPod. Here it is surrounded by British words and British accents from various BBC podcasts (including the Archers) so any Americanisms stand out, such as Richard Mayhew's use of the word "hooker". You are too good with words for this to be a mistake so what was the thinking in using Americanisms in a book that is otherwise very English, and proud of it?

You're too kind, but, honestly, after 16 years out here, as Sherlock Holmes said when chided by Watson for an Americanism, "my well of English seems to be permanently defiled".

On Neverwhere (which I'd started writing before ever I came to America) I suspect the words that are a problem are either:

a) used mostly because they're words used in London too. Take "hooker". A quick google of the Guardian website threw up the following passage from The Guardian,

Thus encouraged, the media have followed suit. Everywhere in the past week, reporters referred to "working girls" - that is, when they were not describing the women as simply "girls" or "vice girls" or "hookers", as in the Mirror's "Hooker No 2 Found Dead", or "tarts", courtesy of the Telegraph's Simon Heffer.

along with about 3000 other uses of the word "hooker" or "hookers" by Guardian writers, many of which were talking about Rugby players, some of which were talking about people named Hooker, and the rest of which were all using the word to describe sex workers (often foreign or at least exotic). It may be an Americanism, but it's one that successfully crossed the Atlantic.

or sometimes it may be that,

b) the Neverwhere audio edition was recorded by Harper Collins from the edition of their text, which contains "sidewalks" rather than "pavements" (a pavement in the US means something else, not the thing on the side of the road you walk along) and a few things like that. If you read the Hodder Headline UK edition of Neverwhere while listening to the audio recording you may well find a word here or there that's different, and they may, in some cases, be the words that trouble you.

(Oddly enough, I wrote Chapter One of The Graveyard Book using American idioms -- "cribs" and "diapers" rather than "cots" and "nappies" -- as it was going to be read by my US publisher first, and then felt weird, so in the following chapters I went back to writing it all in UK English as it's set in the UK, and we'll fix things in the copyedit.)

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I've uploaded much of the DreamHaven audio CDs to Last.FM, at http://www.last.fm/music/Neil+Gaiman. Some of the tracks are downloadable, others are playable but not downloadable, and of course you can buy the actual CDs from DreamHaven's online shop at www.neilgaiman.net . (Currently trying to figure out why Telling Tales keeps coming up as Unknown Album, but I'm sure it'll get fixed, sooner or later.)

Chapter 8 of The Graveyard Book is nearly written. He's got about 20 feet left to walk.

Normally when I finish a book, it's over. Maybe there are more stories, but it's done. I get letters from kids asking why I don't do another Coraline book, and maybe she's at school and the Other Mother could be pretending to be her teacher and... but I can't really imagine writing another Coraline book. It's done.

The Graveyard Book on the other hand, seems to be generating other stories in my head. I guess I'm really interested in what happens to Bod next. Interesting. I suppose it's understandable -- my model was The Jungle Book, and there was The Second Jungle Book. (Although The Graveyard Book also reminds me in odd ways of Kim. And I always wanted to know what happened to Kim next.)

...

This made me smile:

Dear Neil,

I am just wondering if the Birthday Thing voting will include superdelegates? Perhaps other famous authors, some bigwigs at Harper Collins, etc. I mean, you wouldn't want to leave voting to the people, would you?

Thanks!

I'm happy to watch democracy in action here. It's one person-who-clicks, one vote.

...

Paul

I don't have much -- off the top of my head (and I'm sure to leave something important out) a couple of Dave McKean covers, a page from Colleen Doran's lovely Facade, a Shawn MacManus page from Three Septembers and a January, a Jill Thompson Brief Lives page, the double page of the amazing Michael Zulli sea serpent, the final Death and Dream spread from the Kindly Ones, and the first page of the last issue. I have a lovely Mike Dringenberg Sandman painting he did as an advert for a signing at Night Flight in Utah. A Jay Muth Dream pin-up. A Moebius Death I bought from a gallery. And, apart from an amazing page by Michael Zulli that was a test for the pencils effect of The Wake (which I should talk to DC about reproducing in the last of the Absolute Sandman volumes) I think that's about it.

And I treasure them all.

...

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow. If you're stuck for a present, you could always get this for the object of your affection...



...

What kind of book is The Graveyard Book? What type of audience is it for? Older? Younger? I know you're not finished with it yet, but will it be a novella a la Stardust or a novel a la American Gods?

It will be about twice the length of Coraline -- a novel, not a novella.

It's eight stories, each more or less complete in itself, each different in tone, each story set about two years after the one that precedes it, that placed side by side make one big story. Or I hope they do.

I think it's "all ages", whatever that means. It's a book I wish I'd had as a kid, and had always imagined as a children's book, but the reaction from the adults who've read it so far is scarily enthusiastic, and I'm not making any compromises in it. (Having said that, nobody has read any further than chapter six, except me, and Lorraine when she was typing it.)

Here's a youTube video of me reading Chapter Four in San Jose last year. You can make up your own mind.

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I went to my polling place this morning to cast my vote for the presidential candidate, and I was a little depressed at the turnout. I live in a highly populated area, and when one person is standing in line in front of me, it makes me wonder why people choose not to vote. I always make an effort to vote, partly because I know it's my civic duty and I want to make my voice hear and partly because I want to honor all of the hard work of so many people who fought so hard to get women the right to vote.

I also wondered what children's books were out there on the topic of voting, elections, suffrage, etc.

Here's what I found:

Vote! by Eileen Christelow
From Booklist: "The words are straightforward, the art whimsical and creative, and two darling dogs provide color commentary on the action. The frame story is a mayoral election in which the mother of a young, African American named Angela Johnson is one of the candidates. The book follows the action from political rallies, fund-raisers, and debates through the election, ending with a successful recount. Along the way, all the pertinent questions are asked and answered: What is voting? Why doesn't everyone vote? Who decided who can vote?"

Presidential Elections: And Other Cool Facts by Sly Sobel

From Amazon.com: "Which three pairs of relatives have been U.S. presidents? What is the electoral college? What's a caucus? How often has the vice president become president? The answers to these and many other questions about the presidential elections are revealed in this quick, friendly read..."



The Ballot Box Battle (Dragonfly Books) by Emily Arnold Mccully
From School Library Journal: "History, the subtle and not-so-subtle oppression of women, and the redoubtable character of Elizabeth Cady Stanton are made real and alive in this colorfully illustrated story set in the summer of 1880."






A Long Way to Go: A Story of Women's Right to Vote by Zibby O'Neal

From School Library Journal: "A wealthy New York City household is disrupted when 10-year-old Lila's very proper grandmother is arrested for picketing the White House for women's suffrage. The year is 1917, the U. S. is at war, and the general feeling is that President Wilson has enough on his mind without the rantings of these outspoken society women."



Fannie Lou Hamer: Fighting for the Right to Vote (African-American Biographies) by Laura Baskes Litwin

From Amazon: "A biography of the civil rights activist who devoted her life to helping blacks register to vote and gain a national political voice."






The Fifteenth Amendment: African-American Men's Right to Vote by Susan Banfield

From Amazon: Examines the Amendment which gave African-American men the right to vote and discusses the struggle that took place to regain this right when it was denied.





So, tell me...why do you vote? Do you do anything to teach your children about the importance of voting? Are there other books out there you love?

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As you may have deduced, it's the blog's 7th birthday today. On February the 9th 2001, I started writing this thing. And now, 1,071,213 words later, it is still going. (Until the wind changes, as Mary Poppins said.)

One thing we've decided to do, as a small celebratory birthday thing is, initially for a month, make a book of mine available online, free, gratis and for nothing.

Which book, though...? Ah, that's up to you.

What I want you to do is think -- not about which of the books below is your favourite, but if you were giving one away to a friend who had never read anything of mine, what would it be? Where would you want them to start?

Click below on the cover of the book you'd like to see out there, online, for free. We'll keep the voting up for a week, and then announce (and Harper Collins will post, to be read) the winning book.

American Gods	Anansi Boys	Coraline	Fragile Things
M is for Magic	Neverwhere	Smoke & Mirrors	Stardust
[Display current results]

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Former Republican Congressman, founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, and national chairman of the American Conservative Union, Mickey Edwards is the author of Reclaiming Conservatism: How A Great American Political Movement Got Lost- and How It Can Find It Way Back. He attended the State of the Union address Monday night and shared his reaction with us yesterday. Today Edwards wonders why the Republican members of Congress were so enthusiastic at the SOTU Monday. Read Edwards other OUPblog posts here.

For Republican members of Congress, the man who delivered a State of the Union speech Monday night was not merely a President of the United States – the head of one of the other branches of the federal government – but, more importantly, he was their team captain. (more…)

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I'll skip the arguments against casinos in general--the invitation to organized crime, the effect on morality and the family, the cost in social and safety terms, etc. Even if you think casinos are the quick fix that Saipan needs for its economy, you should vote NO on this Saipan Casino Act.

The Act's design does not contribute to its goal.

1. The goal is to attract tourists and boost the economy. The act creates a monopoly for casino operation. There will be no competition, no other investment companies raising the bar for better, cleaner, prettier casinos. One investment company will get the one and only license available to operate casinos in Saipan. In the states, Indian casinos get a monopoly on their reservations, but ONLY IF the state allows investment by anyone in casinos that operate in the state. There's no state-wide monopoly. (Indian Regulatory Gaming Act.) Competition fosters better services. If the purpose is to attract tourists, we would need the best services, the ones created by competition.

The act gives more in CNMI-funded benefits than it gets.

2. The money to be generated by fees and permits ($550,000 per annum) will be needed for the cost of the new regulatory commission created. (per annum--$336,000 for 7 commissioners; approx. $100,000 for the executive director and treasurer; approx. $100,000 for support staff, legal and computer/technical services; approx. $14,000 for power, water, telephone, internet, supplies like paper, pens, printer ink cartridges; and nothing for furniture and capital assets, space rental & maintenance, insurance, alarm systems, etc.).

3. The money to be generated by the gross revenue tax is less than the value of the public land lease given. The act says that MPLA has to lease public land to the casino for $1.00 per year. In the past, MPLA and its predecessors set rents for public lands at a percentage of gross revenue, and set those rents at a much higher rate than 1%. So the gross revenue tax is really just a cheap rent for the public land.

4. There's really nothing more for the public that the act generates, except fines and penalties.

5. The salaries/money for the commissioners, executive director, treasurer, and staff comes from the casino that they regulate. And under the act, these officials are allowed to have shares in the casino. How independent will such a regulatory commission be? How many fines and penalties are likely to generated?


The Saipan Casino Act violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the CNMI's equal protection clause, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.

6. The Investment Corporation must be owned solely by persons of Northern Marianas Descent (NMDs), meaning only NMDs can hold shares in the company, and act as its officers and directors. The Commissioners must be NMDs--with a guaranteed majority of Chamorros on the Commission. This discriminates against U.S. citizens and foreign investors who are not NMDs. It even discriminates against Carolinians among the NMDs. This is unconstitutional.

7. The executive director and treasurer must be NMDs. The Casino must give a hiring preference to NMDs (not resident workers, just resident NMDs). The Casino must give a management/training preference to NMDs. All of this discriminates in employment based on ethnicity and violates both U.S. and CNMI constitutions and the EEO act.

8. The money generated by the act, if there is any in excess of the costs, shall be subject to appropriation by the CNMI Saipan Delegation of the legislature, but there are restrictions on the appropriation: if the money is put toward social programs, the programs can only benefit NMDs. Scholarship money--only for NMDs. Elderly benefits--only for NMDs. Utility assistance--only for NMDs. This discriminates based on ethnicity and violates both the U.S. and CNMI Constitutions.

Why do we want a law that excludes lawful citizens and discriminates against them? When our Chamorro and Carolinian citizens go to the states, we don't want them to be discriminated against--we'll count on that equal protection guarantee for fair treatment. Why should it be different here? Why do we think a big, fat special interest law is the ticket to our improvement?

We don't.


Even if you think casinos are the wave of the future for Saipan, the initiative on the November 2007 ballot will only cause problems. Vote No on the Saipan Casino Act.

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Adrian Vermeule, author of Mechanisms of Democracy and co-author with Eric Posner of Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts, is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. (The article below draws upon material in Chapters 3 and 4 of Adrian Vermeule, Mechanisms of Democracy: Institutional Design Writ Small, and upon Adrian Vermeule, “Absolute Majority Rules,” forthcoming in the British Journal of Political Science ( Cambridge University Press, October 2007)).

Many institutions, public and private, use non-majoritarian voting rules for many issues. Supermajority rules, which require more than 50%+1 of the votes in order to change the status quo, are familiar; an example is the filibuster rule in the United States Senate, where 60 votes are necessary to force “cloture,” that is, to close debate on an issue. (more…)

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You've probably heard it already: the public library in Saugus, Mass. is closing. Close on the heels of the Jackson County public libraries closing... Media coverage includes:

• Library Journal
• Saugus Advertiser (local paper)
• LibVib (a library-focused podcast)

An April tax-override vote failed, and now apparently the city council must approve a trash fee in order to keep the library open and funded.

I wonder what the larger story is, behind the April vote. Did citizens not understand what was at stake? Or were they using the only poker chip they had--the vote--to send a clear message to city council that they did not approve of the way the city's funds were being handled?

In hearing from citizens who live in Medford and surrounding towns, the library's closing didn't seem quite *real* to people. Even as the doors were already closed, many people expressed an optimism along the lines of "some how, some way, truth, justice and rightness will prevail (and the library will re-open)."

I hope this is true in both of these communities. Situations like these are exactly what we're working on, with the Gates Foundation marketing grant.

Speaking of library marketing, have you read the Worth Their Weight report from ALC yet? I've sent away for it--still need to read it. It's all about demonstrating library ROI. Some comments from Brian about it.

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Fascinating NY Times article on pop culture's dependency on user involvement. It's not just about voting for a singer on American Idol, though. It's about voting to continue the fascinating, potentially soap-operatic storyline of your favorite character/singer on American Idol:

“Voting is actually incredibly easy and therefore not that meaningful,” said Michael Hirschorn, executive vice president for original programming and production at VH-1, which plans a voting-based show of its own, “Acceptable.tv,” this spring. “I don’t think there’s a desperate hunger in the public to grab the reins of artist development.” He added: “But I do think there’s a desire for a deeper emotional connection to artists.” [emphasis mine.]

I'd go even farther than that -- there's a desire for deeper emotional connections, period. I think that's a major part of what drives the success of sites like MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr -- people are trying to connect with other people. The internet is a much warmer place than it was even 2 years ago. What are libraries doing to participate in that trend? How are we using these tools to help our users fulfill their desire for deeper connections with the world around them?

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