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Donations are welcome..
As I warned everyone in the last posting, I am switching to a new format, at a different location.
Now that change-over has been completed. As a result updates will only happen at the new site, at my HandsOn Site. If you need, click one the previous link and bookmark it in your browser.
See you there..<./p>
While the streets of Philadelphia are soggy with the slush and mush of the last winter shower (locally billed as a major storm!), I took time out to start a transition. These here blog is moving to a new address!
There's nothing wrong with my current host, but I already have more than enough web sites, and my "main" domain does have a lot of disk space along with plenty of spare bandwidth.So, while I will continue thise here venue for at least another month, a new location is going up a few blocks up the virtual street. The New Writer's Blog is not quite finished; there's still plenty of work to do. It does contain all entires back to January 2005, and will - with the exception of this on - run parallel until it has been proven solid.
Why not have a look..?
Recently there's been a lot of hash in the media about James Frey and his made-up life. Probably all due to an oversized ego and a good dose of greed, I guess. I cannot really judge since I have not read the book - and am unlikely to bother. And, of course, it is a bit hard to swallow the page-loads of injured egos everywhere, seeing how their accusing fingers are coming from modern media ghouls whose own adherence to the facts is tangential at best.
Unfortunately, within the fracas the biggest fake news item of them all, Oprah Winfrey, once again gets away. All the while raking in millions of dollars from that self-same lie she promoted so perniciously before. The fact that Mr. Frey agreed to reappear on the show, certain of gleeful humiliation by an pre-paid and O-primed audience (and the ever swelling, botox-lined tear-ducts of Ms. Winfrey), only proves that no matter how much you bend the truth in today's media circus, the agents (and your bank account) will always come out ahead.
Mr. Frey's story is most likely as "truthful" as the on-screen life of Ms. Winfrey: the only real difference is the rate of profitability.
While it would probably be best for the national psyche if both Ms. Winfrey and Mr. Frey simply disappeared from the public perspective (along with the likes of Howard Stern, Bill O'Reilly and Pat Robertson), this is unfortunately not going to happen any time soon. Even if by some miracle the earth would open and swallow the lot, others, certainly as bad, are already waiting in the wings. The carnival called national media is in town and is here to stay. No matter how ugly things get.
Since I've moved to Philadelphia, I once again have a TV. That is to say there is a black box with a screen in the corner of the room. Nowadays it serves only as an additional surface to hold stuff. The keys, the camera sometimes, the gloves.
In the first week I actually did switch it on and cruised through the available channels. That got old real quick, since outside of the occasional British PBS show there wasn't really anything that interested me. A couple of nights I did indeed watch Jon Stewart's Daily Show, and it did indeed impress me as more informative than any of the so-called "real" news programs. At least Mr. Stewart, while clearly biased, did not pretend to have an inside line to the truth.
That spurious claim was reserved for the most moronic show I have ever seen, called the Colbert Report. A spin-off of the Daily Show, Mr. Colbert is supposedly funny and facetious. I found him boorish with no redeeming value whatsoever. Where his daily predecessor spins actualities into farcical opinions by simply letting politicians and other newsmakers put their own foot in their oversized mouths, Mr. Colbert seems to feel that he and he alone has anything to say. His guests are obviously chosen to make him look good, and his topics are about as riveting as an autopsy report on someone dead from old age.
The rest of the channels I get are by and large worse: sitcoms all seem to follow the same premise of a not-too-bright husband with a good-looking and intellectually superior wife and relatives fresh out of the funny farm. What movies are available on such channels like HBO get repeated over and over again. And the news segments are, of course, mainly about whatever bunch of mannequins currently shuffle the papers they never read. Collective IQ's in these broadcasts tend to be competing with that of the President, meaning there is no contest - Bush wins.
Which says it all.
As I write this, 2006 has begun, at least across the waters in Australia. Sidney - as always - was the first to ring in the new year with a massive display of fireworks and an equally massive show of police force; just in case the boys decided on another "little" race riot.
Everywhere else folks and media are still busy looking back on the abysmal reign of 2005. That at least seems to be the consensus: from cartoons to commentators, everyone appears to be down on the year that was. Hurricanes, Tsunamis, bombings, and the usual slew of celebrity deaths; taken together they do little to inspire anything positive. My own take of course differs slightly: 2005 was no worse than any year before. As far as nature is concerned we are just at the beginning of the kind of fireworks this planet has in store for us. Global warming is here to stay and its very direct results are on the increase. There will be more, stronger hurricanes battering the southern US; there will be bigger and more deadly earthquakes devastating the Pacific Rim countries and central Asia. And there is little the human race can do about it - nature is about to correct the biggest evolutionary error of its existence: mankind. We've messed up good these past hundred years and now we are seeing the bill for the devastation we created.
As for man's own efforts in self-destruction, Iraq and Israel and Palestine are merely the tip of the current iceberg. Given the amazing stupidity and longevity of the governments involved in these man-made disasters, things can only get worse. Which, of course, is also true for the unrest in France, the bombings in London, and whatever new targets these little minds will conjure up next.
Some ten years from now we might even look back at 2005 as one of the last "good" years.
"'T was the nights before Christmas and not train that stirred.." - or so the poem goes, at least in New York City, four days before the biggest shopping season of the year comes to an end. Local 100 of the Transportation Worker's Union closed the gates of the countries busiest subway and bus network on Tuesday morning, following the breakdown of talks with the system's governing body. The primary demand, wanting to share in that body's surplus, apparently wasn't met. Roger Touissant, this years big fat scrooge, wants his "colleagues" to get a 24% raise over three years plus full benefites for everyone but the rail rats, among other things. Typical New York style greed: as wage demands go, this one's way, way, over the top by anyone's standards. Methinks he acquired his flair for half-baked ideas from being a trustee on the board of the NYC Employment Retirement System.
Odd that, this sudden talk of surplus. As far as I can recall the last two fare hikes - in as many years - were brought to us on the basis that the MTA (Mass Transit Authority) had massive shortfalls. Suddenly, though, there is a surplus. Creative accounting? I think not. Rather my conclusions would involve creative perspectives depending, as always, on who is looking at the accounts.
But the funny business does not stop there. The TWU very much likes to perpetuate the myth that its members serve and maintain the world's greatest transportation system. This claim is of course nonsense, simply another costly romantic notion natives of New York like to perpetuate. Sure, compared to Los Angeles or any other metropolitan hub within the USA, the New York subway and bus network could be seen not only as massive but even the best. Unfortunately that is a ridiculous standard which ignores the needs of the locales concerned.
As far as sheer size is concerned, both Paris and London are bigger. When it comes to the number of trains available to the commuting masses, Parisians, Londoners, and the folks in Tokyo and Berlin certainly are better of. And nobody beats the Japanese for quality of service or modernization. New York really only "shines" when it comes to grime, dirt, disrepair, and service disruptions. And, of course, the possibly laziest workforce world-wide. Which just went on strike because it could. And because now is the most disruptive time of the year to do it.
As strange as it is for me to route for the city's billionaire majordomo, I really do hope Master Bloomberg succeeds in breaking up the unions.
This here blog does not have a whole lot of visitors. It is, no doubt, among the millions of "also ran" efforts. Nonetheless, it does get read, often by accident. There are even a few regulars, though I cannot really say who they are. On the other hand, thanks to the folks at StatCounter, I do know where they are. Those two in Australia, for example (although I can make an educated, albeit hopeful guess about one of them!). Or the reader in New Hampshire, and another in Virginia. At first I thought them to be bots - the automated spiders of search engines and the likes. Until I made the effort of tracking IP addresses - always a telltale sign.
Not to worry, I still don't know any identities, and frankly, I am just thankful that they do read and do occasionally return.
Far more mind-boggling, though, are the searches in which this blog surfaces. A single word, buried deep in something I wrote ages ago, will turn up in an arcane search metaphor in Hungary or Hong Kong; the fact that I once used the term "teenager" brings some of the more salacious web hunters to my virtual desk. And while the majority of visitors does come from the US of A via one portal or the other, I suddenly find unearned popularity in the Czech Republic or Greece.
Maybe I should write more? what do you think?
Sequels, in the desperate world of Hollywood, are always problematic. No matter how good the continued story, or how excellent the actors, the director, or even the finances: in comparison flaws will most likely outweigh the positive. The few times where the new movie is a truly inevitable consequence of its predecessors, the harsh light of the critics will shine so much brighter. Among the recent attempts the most noted failure was The Matrix. Expectations ran high after the initial success; too high for even the most dedicated efforts. Matrix Reloaded thus was a mere shadow of the original, and what was supposed to be the ultimate climax, Matrix Revolutions, offered little more than an exaggerated rehash of the first installment. George Lucas' Star Wars Prequels fared little better - despite (or perhaps even because of) the availability of masterful special effects the execution fell flat; bad acting of the central protagonist only exaggerated this.
In the most noted, and perhaps thus far only successful trilogy, The Lord of The Rings, Peter Jackson avoided the natural pitfalls by almost enslaving his crew for the three years it took to film all of the three movies. He thus achieved a level of consistency and continuation unheard of before. Without wanting to diminish his achievement, it has to be said that he had one advantage few had before him: the basis of the trilogy, J. R. R. Tolkien's books, were not only available, but so detailed one might almost imagine the author had written them with Mr. Jackson in mind.
The thus far four different directors taking potshots at Harry Potter have not been so lucky. Although Ms. Rowlands, the author of the immensely popular books, cannot be faulted on continuity, only one of the four efforts can thus far claim critical success: the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, directed by Alfonso Cuaron. By the time the extremely talented Mexican director arrived, three other directors had already fiddled with the material (Chris Columbus, Robert Legato, and David Richard Ellis worked on the first Potter film, Chris Columbus alone directed the second).
The latest installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, manages to stay true to the 700+ page book, but that is about all that can be said about it. Although two hours and thirty minutes in duration, the direction and editing are reminiscent of a made-for-TV movie on Channel Four. Perhaps Warner Bros. initial idea to serve the book up as two movies, a la Kill Bill I and II, might have been a better approach. What I fail to understand is why Mr. Cuaron was not asked back (he is in the running for the fifth installment, The Order of the Phoenix), especially in light of the universal acclaim his version of Harry received. Mike Newell may be well suited for Four Weddings And A Funeral and similar romantic fare, but when it comes to directing Harry and his magical peers and superiors, he fails utterly. Nor did he help matters by bringing Mick Audsley in as the editor, whose last success was Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys.
Of course, the true fans won't mind a bit. Those dedicated to the subject matter, Harry (and to no small amount Daniel Radcliffe) are lining up everywhere, to the tune of over a $ 100 million during the initial weekend release. Only goes to show you: once you get the title right some sequels will succeed, no matter what.
There's a relatively small country in the north of Europe that most Americans would be hard pressed to locate on the map. Even though quite a few folks in the US are using its perhaps best-known export everyday. It 's where Nokia phones come from (and Linux, for the more geeky among us): Finland. And if you were to measure its urban areas only it becomes even smaller: most of its land mass is covered either with dense forests or multitudes of lakes. With only 5.3 million inhabitants its population density is less than even Nevada or Arizona. Yet for four years running the annual Economic World Conference, held in Davos, Switzerland, has ranked it as not only the most competitive country in the world, but as one whose citizens are the best looked after in the industrialized world. More astounding is the fact that it achieved all that in less than fifty years - going from Europe's least livable country to the very top of the world.
According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, however, "Finland is an exceptional case Europe". At least so cautions Riisto Erasaari, a professor of social policy at Helsinki University. "We are a small homogenous country," he continues, "heavily state-based, and our social model as a whole is so typically Finnish that it won't travel. But parts of it," - such as the government-funded focus on innovation and education, "are exportable." Actually, there the good professor errs on the side of Finnish modesty. A small figure quoted later in the same article gives us a clue: someone in his exalt position would be subject to a seemingly hefty 45% in taxation. Sounds a like lot, doesn't it? What about if he where to work, say at Stamford University? He would still pay an unsociable 30-35% to the IRS, but the ten to fifteen percent difference would mean he would lose the kingdom!
His family (or he himself) would have to pay for his seven years of study; the US government - locally and federally - would laugh him out of the room were he to ask that his life's partner (mind you: not wife!) should receive sixty percent of her last salary - from said government - during here eighteen months of maternity leave. Find a local, quarto-lingual daycare center for his child - and only pay for one-fifth of the placement cost at such a miraculous Kindergarden? Local authorities would probably classify him as a communist just for asking and try to resurrect Mr. McCarthy to haunt him.
Imagine for a moment: you'd be paying 10% (seriously: ten percent!) more in income tax in order not to have to worry about medical bills, because there won't be any short of vanity surgery. Nor would you have to start scrounging the day your kid is born because you dream of getting him or her through college - you've already paid for that. Moreover, if you were Finnish, you could also rest assured that at least 3.5% of the government's income goes into research and development. That's right: R&D - and we are not talking about dumb smart bombs either.
There is, of course, a downside to all this: speeding tickets are apparently priced according to your personal wealth: a heir to a sausage empire (think of Johnny Dean) was once fined $ 217.000 for going twice the local speed limit in a residential zone. Can you image the money the LAPD could collect in Beverly Hills alone? You could finance a decent size police force with those fines.
Sounds like a paradise, if you ask me. No wonder Santa Claus has his residence there (true enough: its up on the arctic circle in a town with an unpronounceable name)!
