Came across this wonderful link tying together much of the Star Wars backstory

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Consider: at the end of RotS, Bail Organan orders 3PO's memory wiped but not R2's. He wouldn't make the distinction casually. Both droids know that Yoda and Obi-Wan are alive and are plotting sedition with the Senator from Alderaan. They know that Amidala survived long enough to have twins and could easily deduce where they went. However, R2 must make an impassioned speech to the effect that he is far more use to them with his mind intact: he has observed Palpatine and Anakin at close quarters for many years, knows much that is useful and is one of the galaxy's top experts at hacking into other people's systems. Also he can lie through his teeth with a straight face. Organa, in immediate need of espionage resources, agrees.

For the next 20 years, as far as 3PO knows, he is the property of Captain Antilles, doing protocol duties on a diplomatic transport. He is vaguely aware of the existence of the princess but doesn't know much about her. Wherever 3PO goes, being as loud and obvious as he always is, his unobtrusive little counterpart goes with him. 3PO is R2's front man. Wherever they land, R2 is passing messages between rebel sympathisers and sizing up governments as potential rebel recruits - both by personal contact and by hacking into their networks. He passes his recommendations on to Organa.

Yoda is out of the picture by this stage, using the Force-infused swamps of Dagobah to hide himself from Vader and the Emperor. Or something. He is meditating on the future and keeping in touch with Obi-Wan via the ghost of Qui-Gon Jin, which as comm systems go has the virtue of being untappable. Obi-Wan, on Tattoine, keeps in touch with Bail Organa and the other Rebel leaders by courier, of which more later.

As Star Wars opens, R2 is rushing the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. R2, not Leia. The plans are always in R2. What Leia puts into him in the early scene is only her own holographic message to Kenobi. Leia's own mission, as she says in the holographic message, is to pick up Obi-Wan and take him to Alderaan - or so she thinks. Actually, her father just wants her to meet Kenobi, which up to this point she never has. There's a reason for that.

Obi-Wan has spent the last 20 years in the Tattoine desert, keeping watch over Luke Skywalker and trying to decide on one of the three available options:
A) If Luke shows no significant access to the Force, then leave him alone in obscurity
B) If Luke shows real Force ability, then consider recruiting him as a Jedi. The rebellion needs Jedi. Now.
But, if Luke shows any signs of turning out like his father, then C) sneak into his house one fine night and chop his head off. With great regret but it'll save a lot of trouble later on.
Knowing this to be the case, Bail Organa (perhaps at the insistence of his wife) has found excuses not to send Leia to Ben for assessment of Jedi potential, largely for fear of option C.

To be fair to all concerned, Leia has shown no overt signs of a link to the Force. Luke on the other hand has. In his home-built hotrod aircraft, with no formal fighter pilot training and no decent instrumentation, Luke can regularly score centre-hits on 2-metre targets in complicated zero-altitude maneouvres. Until he attends the briefing on Yavin, Luke has no way of knowing that hardened combat pilots would consider that nearly impossible. To him it's easy. Obi-Wan, who saw Anakin's performance in the Pod Race, is nervous.

Much of Obi-Wan's behaviour in this film, and Yoda's in the next, can best be understood if they are frankly scared to death of what Luke might become. (Ben is also scared that he himself will make all the same mistakes he made with Anakin.)

Now, with the existence of the rebellion at stake, Bail Organa has finally told Leia to go see Obi-Wan and has sent her along with R2. The original plan would then be for Obi-Wan (with optional Luke and/or Leia in tow) to leave his exile and take the Death Star plans to Yavin, where they can be put to use. R2 (with Leia if Ben doesn't want to take her) would then carry on to Alderaan to maintain the cover story. The original plan does not survive contact with a large Imperial Star Destroyer.

R2 and 3PO bail out in an escape pod, landing in vaguely the right area of Tattoine, where R2's first priority is transport. He arranges to be captured by a group of Jawas and, once on board their transport, he makes a deal with them (possibly using emergency funds stored about his person) to take him where he wants to go. The Jawas refuse to go directly to Kenobi for fear of marauding Sandpeople but they agree to R2's second request : transport to the Skywalker farm. They even get to keep the purchase price if they can sell R2 and 3PO there. The Jawas shake on it and go through with the plan.

Seeing 3PO fail to recognise the farm where he worked for 10 years gives r2 a moment's amusement but, as soon as possible, he gets away and heads for Kenobi. Luke and 3PO follow, which may or may not have been part of the plan.

On first seeing R2, Obi-Wan has a twinkle in his eye and calls him "my little friend". Well, he is. However, when Luke wakes up and says that R2 claimed to be owned by an Obi-Wan Kenobi, he blandly says "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Ben has in fact owned several but the remark is aimed at R2 and translates as "You keep quiet. I'm not about to tell him everything just yet." Obi-Wan thinks fast and tells Luke a version of his past that does not involve a father who became a dark lord of the Sith. He wants to examine Luke a lot more closely before he risks telling him the real truth.

Although the Death Star plans need to get to Yavin as soon as possible, Obi-Wan needs to make one more diversion first. If the Empire knows that Leia is a Rebel leader, then they also know about her father and the whole Organa family may need immediate evacuation. Fortunately, before coming to Tattoine, R2 had already arranged transport, which is waiting at Mos Eisley, under the command of the Rebellion's other chief field agent and espionage asset. Chewbacca.

20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet. He's there in the tactical conferences and there on the front lines and is a personal friend of Yoda's. When he needed reliable people to join the embryonic Alliance, who else would Yoda turn to but his old friend from Kashykk? Given his background, there is no way that Chewie would spend the crucial years of the rebellion as the second-in-command to (sorry Han) a low-level smuggler. Unless it's his cover. In fact, Chewie is a top-line spy and flies what is in many ways the Rebellion's best ship.

The Millenium Falcon may look like a beat-up old freighter but it can outrun any Imperial ship in normal space or hyperspace, hang in a firefight with a Star Destroyer or outmaneouvre a dozen top-of-the-line TIE fighters. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and must have cost a colossal fortune to build. How does Han come to own a ship like that? He only thinks he does, actually it's Chewie's. Half-way through RotS, we see the Falcon landing at the Senate building on Coruscant. If it's the same ship (which of course it is) then it was the personal transport of one of the senatorial delegations - a much more likely source to commission its design. That delegatino must have later joined the Rebellion and given it the use of the Falcon. In fact, if the delegation is the one from Kashykk, then the ship may have belonged to Chewbacca as early as RotS.

Han is Chewie's front man. It's much better, and safer for him, if he doesn't know what's really going on. Chewie used to work with Lando Calrissian in a similar way but Lando wanted to settle down, so Chewie arranged for him to lose the Falcon in a card game to Han Solo, an even better choice as partner. Han and Chewie's working method is pretty much what we see in the cantina scene: Chewie make the contacts and sets up the deals, then turns them over to Han who haggles over the price and gives the final yea or nay. This lets Chewie wander the seamy underside of the galaxy pretty much at will, making contacts, gathering and passing information with no-one was the wiser, especially not Han.

Chewie persuaded Han to do business with Jabba the Hutt so he could make regular runs to Tattoine, where Chewie could pass messages between Kenobi and Organa. When R2's urgent message came through only days before, the only way for Chewie to get back to Tattoine in time was to make the "mistake" that forced Han to dump his cargo to avoid capture. As a down side, this led to Solo's getting a death mark out on him from Jabba the Hutt. Chewie was a bit upset about the need for that but figured they weren't going to be dealing with Tattoine for much longer.

En route to Alderaan, R2 and Chewie play stop-motion chess. This is the latest in a series of games they've played over the year in the back rooms of space stations and cantinas across the galaxy, but this is the first time they've done it in front of their respective straight men, so they put on a big show.

Then it all goes wrong again. Alderaan is gone and the Falcon is caught and brought aboard the Death Star. Only Han, Luke and 3PO don't know just how much trouble they're in but Obi-Wan has a plan and seems confident (but Jedi always do). Soon afterwards, R2 finds Leia in the detention cells and shouts that they have to rescue her, to which Chewie can only agree. If Vader learns he has a daughter, then they're all in deep trouble, so Chewie does his bit to persuade Han to go along with Luke's plan.

Then, on the verge of escape, Vader himself turns up only yards from both of his children, one of whom is leaking Force all over the place. Obi-Wan stages a distraction by letting himself die and go into the Force while the others escape. At this point, Chewie suddenly realises that he's been left in charge, not only of the Death Star Plans and the survival of the Rebellion but of the secret son and daughter of Darth Vader. With the Organas and Kenobi all dead, only Chewie, R2 and Yoda know who Luke and Leia are. And only Ob-Wan knew where Yoda has been hiding. Chewie is stressed out by the responsibility and R2 (who keeps making crude jokes about the whole affair) is being no help at all.

Chewie's first problem is what is happening between Luke and Leia. With a psychic link they can feel but don't understand, thrown together in a life-or-death escape, they are looking at each other with a sparky intensity that Chewie gradually recognises as Romantic Tension. He's no expert on human relationships but Chewie is fairly sure that that's Wrong, so he does the only thing he can under the circumstances - he throws Han at her. Han is at first not interested but after a while starts to warm to the idea with an intensity that gives Chewie new worries.

When they reach Yavin, Han decides to take the money and run and Chewie decides to go with him. Looked at in cold light, it's for the good of the Rebellion. Even if Yavin is destroyed, there'll be one agent who knows what's going on who can try and put something back together, but he doesn't feel good about it. When Han decides to turn around and join the attack, Chewie is all for it.

Han and Luke get medals but Chewie doesn't. Actually, Leia offers him one but Chewie turns it down. He got one of those things from Yoda about 20 years ago, but there's no way he can tell her that.

As the film ends, the three founders of the Rebellion are all gone. Bail Organa is dead, Yoda is out of contact and Obi-Wan's ghost can only talk to other Jedi. (So that would be Yoda then.) Thus, the field leadership of the rebellion has just been turned over to the daughter of Darth Vader. Chewie is really hoping that someone with an official rank greater than hers will get here real soon before he has to think really seriously about option C.

© Keith Martin 2005

100th Post!

I just noticed at random this will be my 100th post!

At any rate, check out this -- show choir! Which I never really heard of before (yes, I watched the pilot to Glee tonite) and just find really cool.









(The choir in the last two videos -- same performance in two parts -- a couple months later were 2009 National Grand Champions)

Yes, to my continued befuddlement, I am a fuh-laming heterosexual. Thankfully I don't expend even a modicum of effort normally, thereby keeping my self safely out of the metrosexual category. I have a former co-worker and friend who I meet for lunch occassionaly, and to her great amusement and my consternation she has realized I have a good eye for fashion which she makes me use at Dress Barn. Yesterday I managed to give meaningful advise on patterns, cuts, and how the weight of fabric hangs in a woman's clothing store, channeling some sort of cross between Clinton Kelley and Standford Blatch -- to the chagrin of the staff and most of the patrons. That I even know proper terminology to describe my opinions about clothes, someone just shoot me now, please?

Coal Black

Well, no garden pics as I had what I presume to be the swine flu over the weekend :(

Not the sickest I've been, but definitely no slouch and no simple 24 hour flu. Feeling mostly better now...but we're now in a rainy weather pattern again. Grrrr.

Did find one of the eleven banned Looney Tunes that is a hoot to watch -- I get some of the contemporary cultural references (like Rosebud), but there are other's I'm sure I don't even have a clue what I'm missing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIP4WY8FhUk

More TV

We'll return to garden photographs this weekend :)

But catching up on a week of today:

1) Watched the Office. According to another blogger, (on the rare occassion I do) I dance like a 12 year old boy.

2) Alan Alda as Jack Donaghey's flaming liberal father. Biting my hand I was laughing so hard.

3) Perhaps the best Bones ever. Brennan blurts out she'd like a baby, and want's Booth's sperm (in a very clinical manner, of course). And Booth's hallucinations seeing Stewie! Albeit predictably mushy at the end, tough contract negotiations folks?

I <3 Chuck

Guys, I know kung-fu

Chuck is my favorite TV show, not that I watch much since I don't have cable or even an antenna! Just what I can stream over the 'net.

Please, please, please NBC and Sheinhardt Wigs...renew Chuck. Pretty please with sugar on it?

It's just wonderful, mindless fun to watch :)

Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate... we can not consecrate... we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government : of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

More seed starting

Went to Agway to get some Beefsteak Tomato seeds...they were low in general on tomato seeds, and I bought the last packet of Beefmaster (thought it was Beefsteak till I got home and looked...du'oh.)

Tomato, Beefmaster, 20 seeds, $1.99
Broccoli, Calabrese, 1g, $1.39
Cabbage, Mammoth Red Rock, 1g, $1.39

Time to set them in four packs :)

Plenty of cabbage, may plant some direct later this year.

Ok, cabbage transplanting 2' apart I understand...but wow, broccoli takes 1-1/2'. I guess they're bigger then expected!

Hey! That's a surprise...the 4 packs & trays I bought years ago at Ocean State...had Beefsteak seeds with them! Gave them a try.

Started tonite:

2 four packs, Beefmaster
2 four packs, Beefsteak (old seed, poorly stored)
2 four packs, Cabbage
2 four packs, Brocolli

Maybe late on planting the brocolli for starting it this year. Have plenty of seeds for a fall crop. Cabbage, too.

Chart of fall planting dates: http://www.heirloomseeds.com/schedule-2.htm

Seed starting

Guess I'm gonna try doing my own seedlings again, at least for some stuff :)


Putnam Farmer's Co-op:
Tomato, Big Boy, 20 seeds, $2.19
Tomato, Large Red Cherry, 180mg, $1.39

Southern Seed Exchange:
Long Keeper Tomatoes (bought last year)

I already had some flats I bought years ago in the garage to use, so no cash expense this year for them. Soil is down below, $4.95 + .30, hope it's enough.

Variation from Organic Gardening #1 this year: The potting soil is Miracle Gro. Didn't really even pay attention when I grabbed it. If starting seed works out for me this year, I'll consider finding the raw materials myself next year. Like seed, if I buy in bulk I should get years worth of mix for a fraction of the "retail" price.

Notes:
1) Looks like 8 quarts of potting mix will be enough for 12 4-pack flats.

2) Planted 2 4-packs of Long Keepers, Big Boy, and Cherry tomatoes, with 2 seeds per cell. Will need to thin them later.

Plenty of seed kept for Long Keepers & Cherry for next year. Used all the Big Boys (ok, had 3 seeds left over, I'm not keeping them).

3) Squash isn't recommended for four packs, doesn't like roots disturbed. So they're not candidates. No sense in starting beans early.

4) Cucumbers only need to be started 2-3 weeks before planting, so too early to start right now. I'm about 6 weeks from transplant season.

Rough Costs:
Big Boy seeds: $1.10
Four Pack: $0.25
Potting Mix: $0.44
Total: $1.79 per four pack

Cherry Tomatoes are a lot cheaper, around $1.04 per four pack

Now to remember to check prices on four packs later this year for comparison!

We're walking, we're walking

Walk #1 @ Audobon:
1.3 Miles, 1 hour overall. Moving avg = 2.5mph, did basically last 1/3rd mile @ just under 4mph. Little slower going here between one steep grade, plus a lot of un-even walking.

Walk #2 @ Pachaug: 0.27miles @ 4mph moving, all moving.

Cellulosic Ethanol and Wood...

I was reading this article about the "Q" bacteria discovered by UMass at the Quabbin with the potential to be an efficient convert of cellulose to ethanol.

Let's do some quick math.

-- Estimates are we can get 94 gallons (eventually) of ethanol from each ton of cellulose.
-- Cord of hardwood is roughly 1 ton per cord.
-- Connecticut forests generally have a sustainable yield of 1/2 cord per year
-- There's 1.8 Million acres in Connecticut
-- About 60% of Connecticut State Forests are loggable. The rest are environmentally sensitive, culturally sensitive, or being purposely managed "naturally." I think we can apply that percentage to the state as a whole.
-- So that's 1.08 Million acres yielding 1/2 cord per year which would make 25 Million gallons of Ethanol in a year.
-- In 2007 Connecticut used 37,906 thousand barrels of gasoline, that's 1,592,052,000 gallons of gasoline (that's 530 gallons per person, about 10 per week, so I believe it).
-- Ignoring ethanol's lower energy content (long term that could be compensated for by more efficient, higher compression engines), Connecticut grows enough wood to offset 1.5% of it's gasoline usage.

I have no doubt cellulosic ethanol can be part of the solution, but obviously it ain't the end of the world. If we assume similiar figures for Maine (in reality, they'd probably harvest a higher percentage, but growing a little bit fewer tons per acre) they'd be around 240 Million gallons of ethanol a year, or roughly enough to displace 1/3rd of their state's use of a gasoline.

And we haven't talked about diesel.

Switchgrass can produce about 5 tons per acre, but at what cost in annual fertilizers and pesticides I don't know. It shouldn't need fertilizer and pesticide like corn, but I doubt it can go without any perpetually.

We're walking, we're walking

Went up to the pitch pine knoll in the Audobon property. Meant to take some photos...forgot to put a memory card in my camera. Pace a bit slow & stopping, mainly looking at the fire results from last year's controlled burn, plus playing with the GPS.

At any rate, 1 mile @ 2.5mph moving average.

Oh, think I figured out, to calculate an area, I need to "save a track" around it.

More GPS play

Ok, starting to figure this GPS thingy out.

Streeter Trail, Douglas State Forest
2527' 0:08:15 -- so that's 4mph.

Seed Notes

Stocking up on my seeds for the year. And in some cases, the next few years!

Agway:
Beans, bush, green, Long Tendergreen, 4 oz, $2.79
Beans, bush, yellow, Golden Butterwax, 4oz, $2.79
Zucchini, Black Beauty, 4oz, $4.69
Cucumber, Straight 8, 4oz $4.85
Cucumber, Marketmore 76, 4oz $5.75

Putnam Farmer's Co-op:
Squash, Butternut, Waltham 2.5g $1.89
Squash, Summer, Goldbar Hybrid 3g $2.69 x 2 = $5.38
Potting Soil $4.95 + $0.30 tax

Today's purchases: $33.82
YTD Garden: $46.09


Price Comparisons:

Agway carries some of their seeds in larger packages -- 1/4# and 1#. Putnam Farmer's Co-op has a smaller selection of seeds but sells them in bulk (weigh your own), and looking at the prices that's an even better deal then the Agway packages. But Putnam didn't have the varieties of Zukes & Cukes I was looking for.

The price differential is such it only takes being able to use the seeds for 2 or 3 seasons to save money by buying in bulk over little packets.

Green or Yellow bush beans:
$1.49 for 3/4oz packet = $31.78/pound
$2.79 for 4oz (what I bought) = $11.16/pound
$2.50 for 1/2# bulk = $5.00/pound ...guess I should've price checked first, 1/2# probably would last me a decade :)
$4.25 for 1# bulk = $4.25/pound

Zukes, Black Beauty:
$1.29 for 5g (1/6th oz) = $123.84/pound
$4.69 for 1/4# = $18.76/pound

Cukes, Straight 8:
$1.29 for 3g = $185.76/pound,
$4.85 for 1/4# = $19.40/pound

Cukes, Marketmore 76:
$2.99 for 1/4 oz = $191.36/pound
$5.75 for 1/4# = $23/pound

Playing with the GPS

GPS I just got from Pat for Christmas :)

Railroad tracks from Route 169 to Needle's Eye Road. 1.2 miles. 11:50 going out (walking time); 9:30? coming back. Overall 3.0mph in motion, 1.6mph including breaks.

Have to play with how to "save" a trip log. Or just use a pen to write it down.

Something to remember if I ever sell firewood

Toy with the idea sometimes of selling 1/4 cord loads, what my pickup can comfortably handle, for a premium for people looking for social fires for fireplaces and such sometimes. I reckon I could get $100-125 a load stacked at the customer's residence which is a nice premium.

Saw this post on arboristsite.com today:

Your 3 biggest days where your really gonna move wood (at least my experience is the day before thanksgiving, christmas and newyears. I dont know how these holidays sneak up on people but no joke last year for each day I got probably literally 50 calls for firewood, the day before, because people wanted 1 face cord, cause the family was coming over, and they needed a fire for the holiday.

Good to remember for when to post the Craigslist ads :)

Garden 2009 has begun

Peas, onions, garlic went in yesterday!

Have more peas, debating what I should do to plant the rest. Maybe some fence posts to hold up trellising?

I also put some Mountain Laurel into a nursery bed. We'll see how that works out...if the roots take, I can transplant them to their permanent location next year with minimal trauma to the roots.

Also bought some potatoes.

From Putnam Farmer's Co-op:
1/2# Yellow Onions $1.50
1/2# Red Onions $1.65
1/2# White Onions $1.65
3 Garlic bulbs $2.97 (goodness, must've been 18 cloves to a bulb!)

From Plainfield Agway:
2# Yukon Gold Potatoes $1.50
2# Red Pontiac Potatoes $1.50 (I think they were Pontiacs...)
2# Kennebec Potatoes $1.50 (I think they were Kennebecs...)

Peas I bought last year.

Expenses YTD: $12.27

How...

Can't figure out how I want to start organizing my information on brush fires.

A blog? Was playing with www.d90.us/wooden_nutmeg as a WordPress blog.

That seems to be going well.

Cover them Over

Traditionally read at Memorial Day ceremonies in New England:

Cover the thousands who sleep far away--
Sleep where their friends can not find them to-day;
They who in mountain, and hillside and dell
Rest where they wearied, and lie where they fell.
Softly the grass-blade creeps round their repose;
Sweetly above them the wild flow'ret blows;
Zephyrs of freedom fly gently o'erhead,
Whispering names for the patriot dead.
Cover the faces that motionless lie,
Shut from the blue of the glorious sky;
Faces once lighted with smiles of the gay--
Faces now marred with the frown of decay.
Eyes that beamed friendship and love to your own;
Lips that sweet thoughts of affection made known;
Brows you have soothed in the day of distress;
Cheeks you have flushed by the tender caress.
Faces that brightened at War's stirring cry;
Faces that streamed when they bade you good-by. Faces that glowed in the battle's red flame, Paling for naught, till the Death Angel came. Cover them over--yes, cover them over-- Parent, and husband, and brother, and lover:
Kiss in your hearts these dead heroes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful flowers!
-- Will Carlton

How hopped up on cough syrup am I?

I've been miserable, on and off, for the last 10 days.

First a 24 hour plus a little bit flu on Wednesday, then a mild fever Saturday night even though I deliberately took that day easy. Cut a very little amount of firewood on Sunday just desperate for fresh air...and I've had a cold all this week...which has now turned into full blown laryngitis.

I have a habit of re-using the 32oz juice bottles when I buy them a water jug for a week or so (rinsing / washing of course). So today I grab the empty from my desk, fill it half with water, go to the fridge, top it off with orange juice.

At which point I find myself thinking, "Huh, they mislabeled this. It's clearly orange juice, but the container says it's Ruby Red Grapefruit." It honestly took me a minute to figure it out.

To think I went for a long drive today and bought a copy of Audobon's Field Guide to Trees. And I'm not even on the good stuff for cough syrup, just plain old non-drowsy formula.

Nightsoil in China

I'm not even sure how or why I stumbled upon this book in Google:

The use of 'nightsoil' or human manure immediately springs to Western minds when Chinese agriculture is mentioned, and although it may occasion considerable repugnance to us, to the Chinese it was an obvious and simple way to return fertility to the soil, the validity of which emerges clearly in modern chemical analyses.

(It goes on to note that this practice has probably aided greatly in maintaining fertility in China; compare this particularly to long-term declines in other bread bowls like the fertile crescent and the Mediterranean)

Newspapers circling the drain Part II

Soon after I started working at the T&G I knew enough about the revenue side to seriously question what was being paid for newspapers.

Assuming you're looking for a 10% return on investment on capital, and need to achieve that from ongoing operations, then most I could see a newspaper being worth was around $1,000 per unit of circulation. Unless you're running a Ponzi scheme, that's the only way you truly make money in the long term -- from the underlying business earnings.

Hearst bought the Chronicle after the Times bought the T&G from the Chronicle.
Hearst paid $1,375 per unit circulation for the Chronicle.Times paid $2,757 per unit circulation for the T&G.In 1993 the Times paid $1,666 per unit circulation for the Globe (averaging daily and Sunday circulation).

If you took the difference between $1,000/circulation I figure was a fair value and what was paid for these papers and bought investment grade securities earning 4% instead, today Hearst would have $250 Million extra in the bank and Times would have $1 Billion extra.

With the Chronicle losing $50-70M in 2009, that $250M combined with reasonable business cost cutting would by them 4, 5, 6 years to weather this economic storm.

The Times currently has $1.1 Billion in debt -- including $250 Million in a loan from a Mexican businessman at an unbelievable 14% interest rate! Had they not overpaid for the Globe and T&G, they could be nearly debt free today. Had they not built an new headquarters building...they too would have several hundred million in cash and investments on hand.

These bad decisions have now hamstrung the old media companies.

Given changes in the business since then (collapse in advertising) and substantial risk, off the top of my head I wouldn't value a newspaper at more then $400/unit circulation today. That price gives you some ability to see your investment appreciate -- if things turn around with the economy and the industry, you might see $500-600 values be reasonable in the next 5 years or so.

As a sanity check, I just googled this which has Barclay's valuing the Globe at $192M and the T&G at $18M. That gives the Globe a value of $458 per unit circulation and the T&G a value of $180 per unit circulation.

For the T&G, I suspect the analyst didn't credit the T&G's modern printing plant in Millbury to the T&G -- figuring it's worth at least $12M and shifting that value from the Globe to T&G...both papers end up right around $400 per unit circulation. So I think I still have a good handle of newspaper values, MBA or no MBA. :)

Can you make money in newspapers today?

ABSOLUTELY.

First step though is to run them through bankruptcy. They're carrying debts that are not supportable by their underlying value, and those have to go. Even in cases where just enough cash can be squeezed to make loan payments, a realistic valuation of assets is likely to trigger convenents to call the loans. Executives made bad decisions, investors made bad decisions...bankruptcy is the way those mistakes are corrected.