On the Maine (and Icelandic) links of the "grandfather" of American neo-Nazis

In September 1955, Maine's Portland Press Herald ran a soft feature on a local guy making good. "Publisher Who Loves Children Brings Out A New First Issue" profiled area resident George Lincoln Rockwell, who had just launched U.S. Lady, a glossy magazine to support the wives of servicemen as they and their families relocated with them. Understandably, his wife Thora and her children featured in the piece and in the photograph illustrating it (above.)

It's a chilling photo because after the magazine failed, Rockwell turned to radical politics, founded the American Nazi Party, and travelled the country calling for the gassing of Jews and other "traitors" and the mass deportation of African Americans before being killed with a sniper rifle by one of his followers.

Thora Halgrimsson, a member of one of Iceland's most powerful families, had left him years before, returning to her native country with their children and her son by a previous marriage. Her second husband, Bjorgolfur Gudmundson, adopted the children and rose to become Iceland's richest man, the chairman of the recklessly aggressive Landsbanki investment bank, and owner of the British football club West Ham United. He has been under a variety of fraud investigations ever since Landsbank's collapse helped bring down Iceland's economy in 2008.

When he learned in 2005 that a biographer had written a chapter in a forthcoming book with details of Thora's marriage to Rockwell, Gundmundson -- who owned the publishing house -- had the copies pulped and compelled the author to expunge most of the material. ("It was irrelevant to the whole story," he told The Observer.) When the Reykjavik tabloid DV broke the Icelandic media's silence on the revelation and published an article on the missing chapter, Gudmundson tried to buy the paper and shut it down.

I came across the clipping (and Icelandic backstory) while researching this week's feature on Rockwell's deep ties to Maine in the Maine Sunday Telegram, which include summers in the Boothbay region, graduating from Hebron Academy, starting businesses in Portland and Boothbay Harbor, living in Falmouth, Lewiston, and Bailey's Island, and serving at Brunswick Naval Air Station. I hope you'll read it.

In Downeast Maine, an innovative attempt to save U.S. Atlantic salmon

Buffeted by dams, loss of habitat, commercial fishing off Greenland, and climate change, U.S. runs of Atlantic salmon are threatened with extinction and their numbers have been trending in the wrong direction.

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I write about an innovative, Icelandic-funded project in eastern Maine that hopes to turn the tide. Here's a taste:

The approach, which turned a blighted river on the Scotland-England border into one of the greatest salmon angling locations in the British Isles, focuses on growing fitter fish. Pioneered over four decades by the late Peter Gray, the Scottish manager of a hatchery on the River Tyne, it hatches and raises baby fish in on-river hatcheries using local, unfiltered water and a variety of techniques that more closely mimic the natural environment of early life-stage salmon.

For more background on the problems facing Atlantic salmon in the U.S. and the Canadian Maritimes, please read this article from "Mayday", my recent six-part Press Herald series on climate change in the Gulf of Maine.

A Times-Record profile

Thanks to the Times Record, my nearly hometown paper in Brunswick, Maine, for this kind profile of what has, admittedly, been a pretty good couple of years.

Which reminds me: this blog kicked off five years ago tomorrow, with this brief posting from Iceland, where I was covering the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse for the Christian Science Monitor and Chronicle of Higher Education. I'm not surprised that the country has bounced back so well.

Things to Watch, Hear, and Read, New Year's Editon

Welcome to 2011, and to the second anniversary of World Wide Woodard. To kick off the New Year, a few items of interest from the wider world.

Wikileaks - The Documentary: My blog got its start in Reykjavik, where Wikileaks made its first big pitch for sanctuary. I'm wondering if they'll be increasing their presence in Iceland if things get too hot and heavy in Sweden for founder Julian Assange. The most comprehensive documentary on the group's "history" -- if one can use that word for something so young -- aired on Swedish television last month. Friends and foes alike will learn something from setting aside an hour to watch. (The "Collateral Damage" helicopter tapes are still chilling.)

Ruins of Detroit: The Guardian has this arresting slide show of images from a dying American city. It provoked a lengthy capital vs labor blame game discussion when I posted it on my Facebook page. See what happens when you post it on yours. [Update, 1/5/2011: a friend-of-a-friend created this engaging video documentary, Detroit Lives, offering a second, more optimistic take on the Motor City,.]

Borders on the Brink: Speaking of Detroit, Ann Arbor-based Borders Books & Music is also in trouble. Publishers Weekly reported on Dec. 31 that the retailer has been cut off by one of the big six New York publishers after it stopped paying its bills. The Detroit News has this sobering follow-up, suggesting the firm may not survive.

Books on the Brink?: Will the Kindle and Amazon destroy the book industry or revive it? The Boston Review has an excellent and wide ranging article on the state of publishing, and what industry consolidation, big boxes, Amazon, and e-books have done to it. One of many depressing factoids: "It has become common practice for representatives of large retailers to weigh in on everything from book covers to sample chapters of manuscripts. In some cases, retailers even demand changes...Without their buy-in, the publisher is unlikely to go forward with a book." Perhaps Borders will be surrendering their seat to Amazon or Wal-Mart shortly.

Hungary on the Brink? Hungary's government is showing its true colors, and they aren't pretty. My friend Dumneazu has a comprehensive round-up of the situation from there. Good news is, I understand support for the farther-right Jobbik party -- subject of some of my not-so- recent reporting from the region -- has been on the wane.

A Year in Review

World Wide Woodard turns one year old tomorrow, so I thought I'd offer a round-up of updates to some of the stories I've covered.

In Iceland -- from which I made my first post -- the financial collapse hasn't stopped the country's ongoing effort to stop using fossil fuels altogether. The country just added ten hydrogen fuel cell cars to their test fleet.

The central figure in the corruption scandal I reported on in the Turks & Caicos apparently hasn't lost his penchant for the high life. According to BET, disgraced Prime Minister Michael Misick tried to crash Beyonce's birthday party in the Dominican Republic but, as he is no longer married to celebrity Lisa Raye, he was turned away as being a nobody.

I reported on the rise of a far right party in Hungary, Jobbik, with an animus against alleged Gypsy criminals. As the party's popularity grew, someone was busy assassinating gypsies in a series of death squad style executions. Some suspected Jobbik, Jobbik suspected the government. This summer I thought we'd get some answers after several men were arrested and charged with the murders, but my former colleagues in Budapest tell me there's been little new information released about them. Does anyone else think that's strange?

Here in Maine, the major media have continued not to ask troubling questions about the Maine State Pier debacle, in which city officials appear to have engineered a sweetheart deal for a politically-connected real estate firm so as to "fix" a public asset that actually didn't need fixing. Meanwhile, the Portland Press-Herald's toughest reporting to date on the ill-conceived Ocean Gateway Terminal was written in verse. (I'm not making this up.)

Looking forward, I'm headed back to the Czech Republic and Austria this month, so expect fresh material from there soon. And there's this book I'm working on......

Obituary: San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Service

My editors at The San Francisco Chronicle tell me that my piece in today's paper will be the last to be produced by the Chronicle Foreign Service, the latest casualty in the battle to keep the venerable daily afloat.

The Chronicle Foreign Service -- or CFS -- was a network of freelancers which provided Bay Area readers original, on-the-ground reporting from around the world. In continuous operation since 1985, CFS gave many young journalists a start in the business, teaching them the ropes of foreign news reporting.

Many CFS-ers have gone on to do great things, including Colombia correspondent Karl Penhaul (now at CNN), London correspondent Kimberly Dozier (CBS News, injured in Iraq in 2006), Middle East writer Borzou Daragahi (a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Peter S. Goodman (now national economics writer at the New York Times) and Andrew E Kramer (now the Times' Moscow bureau chief.) Jill Carroll filed two CFS pieces from Iraq before her famous kidnapping, and Billy Nessen was held for 40 days by the Indonesian government while reporting from Aceh.

My own CFS career took me to Antarctica, Georgia, Belize, and the Marshall Islands, (while researching Ocean's End, a book on the global marine crisis), Iceland (on Keiko the whale, glaciers, genetics), Greenland (climate change), Canada (tidal power, fisheries, gas drilling) Micronesia (WW2 ships, kava crisis) Croatia (killer seaweed), Denmark (wind power, sustainability), the Netherlands (sea rise defenses), Bosnia (post-conflict), Romania (ethnic conflict, state secrets, interview with the president), Mexico (post-9/11 effects), and Panama (canal zone handover).

Nine years ago, things appeared to be look up for the Chronicle. It had a new owner -- the Hearst Corporation -- which promised to make it a "world class newspaper." But while the paper won several prizes, it has continued to operate in the red. This winter, Hearst threatened to close it entirely if it could not win major concessions from the unions. Since then 150 jobs have been cut, and on Friday management announced there would be more to come.

CFS stopped taking new stories late this winter, just after I filed my piece from Iceland which, fortunately, had the shelf life to survive a long wait for a spot in an ever-shrinking news hole.

I know I'll miss working with CFS editor Jack Epstein, and I suspect many readers will miss the coverage he and his predecessors oversaw.

Iceland: exporting geothermal know-how

My feature on Iceland's geothermal power industry -- and its efforts to export know-how to the U.S. and other nations -- is in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

I visited Iceland's newest geothermal plant -- it's a tourist attraction with a swank, high-tech visitors' center -- where steam from the Earth is used not only to generate power, but to heat Reykjavik's homes, water, and even the streets and sidewalks (keeping them ice-free in winter.) Other geothermal plants heat the greenhouses that keep Icelanders in tropical fruits, despite living on the Arctic Circle. The story discusses how Icelanders hope to build similar plants in California (which still has enormous geothermal potential) and Africa (where they could provide freshwater supplies for drought plagued regions.)

Personally, the publication of this piece is bittersweet, as my editors say it is likely to be the last Chronicle Foreign Service story ever, owing to the Chronicle's financial woes.

[Update, 9/1/09: Several eagle-eyed readers noticed a typo -- put in by a copy editor -- which has been corrected in the online edition. The phrase "fifty-mile-deep wells" should have read "fifty mile-deep wells." (emphasis mine). Thanks to those who pointed it out.]

Image (c) 2009, Colin Woodard. All rights reserved.

Iceland: the financial collapse and Maine lobstermen

When Iceland's banking system failed last fall, Maine lobster prices collapsed, allegedly because the banks were the primary sources of credit to the Canadian processors who buy much of the catch that time of year. It makes for a fascinating parable about the unintended effects of globalization -- a bank fails in Reykjavik and a fisherman in Jonesport pays the price -- but is it true?

While in Iceland this winter I researched the issue, meeting with bankers from Glitnir and Landsbanki, banks that specialized in the global seafood industry and, later, interviewing Canadian processors and Maine harvesters. The results are laid out in a feature article in the new issue of National Fisherman magazine.

For those without a subscription: the consensus of sources is that the banking collapse did have an effect on lobster prices, but was by no means the only factor. The loss of the Icelandic banks will have a lasting effect on the seafood business, however, as they were among the only ones in the world unafraid of lending to the sector.

Iceland looks to its universities to weather crisis

My article on how Iceland's universities are weathering that country's financial meltdown is in the week's Chronicle of Higher Education.

Iceland sees its higher education system -- which is essentially free for its citizens -- as an essential part of its response to the crisis. "We want the higher-education sector to be able to provide alternatives to people who have lost their jobs and to use it to increase their skills while they are looking for a job," one top official says. (The piece is available online, but non-subscribers may be prompted to purchase a $10 web pass.)

To read other dispatches from my recent trip to Iceland, click the "iceland" tag at the bottom of this post.

Iceland's Hydrogen experiment

My feature on the current state of Iceland's plan to completely eliminate fossil fuel use by converting its vehicle fleet to hydrogen ran in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor.

Icelanders already generate almost all their electricity from (renewable) geothermal and hydroelectric plants. The plan is to use their "green" electricity to fuel their cars, buses, boats and airplanes by 2050. The article looks into how the global recession (and the Icelandic economic crisis) is expected to affect those plans.

Lesser known fact: the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island is also interested in using renewable energy to power a hydrogen vehicle fleet, as I reported in the Monitor in late 2006.

Iceland: will EU membership damage its fisheries?

Iceland's government resigned this week and an interim government -- to be headed by the world's first openly gay prime minister -- is expected to take over by Friday. As I report my article in today's Christian Science Monitor, the new ruling party has called for a referendum on European Union membership for Iceland - a move long resisted because of the negative effect it is expected to have on that country's fisheries.

Most sources agreed that EU membership was probably inevitable, as the country needs to replace its tarnished currency, but unless Iceland can win unprecedented concessions, its all-important fishing industry may be undermined.

Despite political and economic crisis, Iceland's safety net expected to hold

The political crisis in Iceland has gotten far graver this week: protesters clashed with police, seriously injuring two with flagstones; the police used tear gas for the first time since anti-NATO protests in 1949. Yesterday, a small mob surrounded Prime Minister Geir Haarde's vehicle and pelted it with eggs. Today, Mr. Haarde announced he was stepping down, that doctors had just discovered he had a malignant tumor in his throat, and that elections would be held in May (instead of 2011.)

Given the severity of the political and economic crisis, you might expect that Reykjavik is becoming a Dickensian dystopia, its streets piled with the newly homeless and bankers jumping from the windows. Nothing could be further from the case, as you'll read in my dispatch in today's Christian Science Monitor. Iceland's robust social safety net is catching people well before they reach rock bottom, and sources don't expect that to change anytime soon.

Iceland's financial collapse....and Bjork

The first of my Iceland dispatches is on the front page of tomorrow's Christian Science Monitor: an article, sidebar, audio clip, and "Reporters on the Job" piece focused on the causes of that country's financial meltdown -- the most profound in world banking history on a per capita basis, according to the International Monetary Fund.

As you'll read, hear, and see, Iceland privatized its banks and then allowed them to rapidly outgrow the economy and society that, ultimately, was expected to back them up if the worst happened. The worst did happen, leaving ordinary Icelanders to pick up the tab for the bankers' hubris.

The audio clip highlights the peculiarities of the diurnal cycle at 64N this time of year; the reporters on the job feature touches on Icelandic cuisine; and the sidebar talks about Bjork's attempts to save Iceland. (For reasons of space, I couldn't add her parallel campaign to oppose further expansion of her country's aluminum sector.)

In Iceland, sun and camera both short on energy

At my home in Maine - down at 44 degrees North -- we confront short early winter days, but Reykjavik is something else. Yes, I knew that here at 64 North, the sun would come up at 11 am and be gone by 4, but in actual experience it takes a lot of getting used to. Wandering around a city at ten in the morning and having it be positively pitch black just feels wrong. So too does being plunged into darkness at 4:30 (when the above photo was taken -- that's the moon.) It's also been raining and 45 degrees much of the time I've been here, so you never actually see the sun. The black sky just slowly turns to gray gloom and then, a few hours later, fades back to black. It feels a little like Blade Runner, but with better public services.

The week's other unexpected challenge was photographic, and not just on account of the shortage of daylight. For the first time in my foreign correspondent-ing career, I accidently left my camera bag at home on my desk, an oversight I didn't detect until going through security at Boston-Logan. With few options, I turned to the best camera retail outlet in Terminal E: an automated vending machine placed there by Best Buy. It runs on the same principle as the ones you buy potato chips and candy bars from: put in your money, pick a selection, and watch it be delivered to the collection slot. Swipe your credit card and - presto! - one Fuji J10 digital camera is yours.

Unfortunately, once in Iceland I discovered that the good people at Best Buy and Fuji didn't think through the needs of outbound international travellers. The camera came with a rechargable lithium battery (nearly dead) and a charger that only works on 110-volts. The battery is almost impossible to replace -- its a proprietary model only available at a Fuji dealer -- meaning anyone who buys one at Terminal E and then arrives in Iceland or any other 220-volt country is going to be very disappointed. (Most camera, cell phone, and laptop chargers are dual-voltage these days.)

Thankfully, the proprietor of this Icelandic photo shop kindly charged my battery in his charger. (If you ever need to buy a camera in Iceland, buy it here, and thank the owner again on my behalf.) This allowed me to get back to the work at hand -- more on that coming soon -- and actually have some images to adorn this posting.

In Iceland

I'm in Iceland this week reporting on the causes and consequences of that country's financial collapse for The Christian Science Monitor and on energy issues for The San Francisco Chronicle. I've reported from there in the past, but this is my first visit in some seven years; in the intervening period Iceland got much richer and, very suddenly, far poorer.

I expect Iceland's plight may provide the rest of us with a preview of what a 21st century depression in a rich western nation looks like. I'll be linking my dispatches to this blog.