“America is the most advanced model for civilization on the face of the planet, so when America extends its outstretched hand to Iraq in order to help her, that means, in the lexicon of politics and progress, that a miracle of good fortune has descended onto Iraq, a nation that has suffered greatly from bad luck and misery. And this has been chiefly due to the destructive behavior of its own sons. It is they and no others who have been solely responsible of the misery of their own country! … Beyond Allah, Iraq has no hope or savior except America, which is capable of protecting Iraq from itself and the crimes of its politicians, parties and the greed of neighboring countries - particularly Iran and Syria.”
Yesterday, Judge John Sprizzo of Manhattan approved a lawsuit settlement between Google and book authors and publishers. In what can only be seen as a huge win for both Google and publishers, Google will pay out $125 million into a fund for copyright holders and be granted the right to put millions of out-of-print texts online. The settlement provides a glimpse into the financial terms of a deal that may see the search giant become a significant retailer of out-of-print books.
The lawsuit dates to the launch of Google Print back in 2005, when Google entered the scan-and-publish arena. At the time, its digitizing efforts were described as massive copyright infringement, since the results were made freely available online. The suit attracted the Author’s Guild as well as five major publishers: McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin, John Wiley & Sons, and Simon & Schuster. It eventually reached class action status.
The settlement approved today remains preliminary. A June hearing will determine whether the agreement is fair, reasonable, and adequate. Should it pass that hurdle and become a settled class action suit, Google will be able to operate Google Print without fear of future legal action.
Of the emerging pantheon of articles about why other nations lack their own Obamas, this article from Germany is particularly eye-opening. According to Werner A. Perger of Die Zeit, Germany’s political parties discourage charismatic figures who tend to take the initiative. And why is that? It seems that the road Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party took that nation down is the chief cause of this aversion.
“No wonder that in Old Europe, Obama’s electoral win was registered not only with relief but respect. One is downright fascinated at the way this young senator came out of nowhere, saw and conquered; how he transformed mistrust into confidence through a rhetorical laying on of hands, got young people off of their sofas and in no time at all, made them into campaign volunteers. And how week after week on the Internet, he set new fundraising records by collecting small contributions. Obama is a true fisher of men. It all seemed to happen just the way it was supposed to: Everyone seemed to agree that we [Germans] need and want someone like him. But where is he? ”
“At least for those who are sensitive to the past, even if they agree with the correctness of what is being said, the historical reminder of the eternal cipher’s speech at the Sport Palace is hard to shake. [This was a speech delivered by the Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels at the Berlin Sportpalast on February 18, 1943, calling for “total war,” as the tide of World War II was turning against Germany, see photo, left . The author calls Goebbels the ‘eternal cipher’].
Today’s escape from losing his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee caps Joe Lieberman’s career of having it both ways in two decades of sanctimonious posturing and backroom politicking.
With a novelist’s eye for the absurd, Joan Didion nailed him in her reporting of the 2000 election campaign:
“Senator Lieberman, who had come to the nation’s attention as the hedge player who had previously seized center stage by managing both to denounce the president [Bill Clinton] for “disgraceful” and “immoral” behavior and to vote against his conviction (similarly, he had in 1991 both voiced support for and voted against the confirmation of Clarence Thomas) was not, except to the press, an immediately engaging personality…
“His speech patterns, grounded in the burdens he bore for the rest of us and the personal rewards he had received from God for bearing it, tended to self-congratulation.”
Lieberman called today’s verdict “fair and forward-looking” and one of “reconciliation and not retribution” but…
November 18th, 2008 By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor
If’ you’d like a short break from politics, I will be manning the co-pilot’s chair this afternoon for a special holiday edition of Movie Addict Headquarters with author and film critic Betty Jo Tucker. We’ll be talking to film critic Nell Minow about some of the classic holiday films of all time, both new and old.
Nell Minow writes as “The Movie Mom” for Beliefnet. She has been featured in USA Today, Parents, The Chicago Tribune and other publications as well as profiled in The New York Times, Forbes, and Ladies Home Journal. Her book, The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies, helps parents select safe and fun films for their children.
Join us at 4 pm eastern at the link above, and call in with your own favorite holiday movie memories!
November 18th, 2008 By TONY CAMPBELL, TMV Columnist
President-elect Barack Obama is in a peculiar situation as he tries to fill the top slot at “Foggy Bottom.” Obama’s predicament: How to keep Senator Hillary Clinton as a close confidant while keeping former President Bill Clinton from being a distraction? Over the last week, it has been reported that Senator Clinton is being vetted for the position of Secretary of State. One of the hiccups in making this deal is finding out what Bill has been up to over the last eight years that could cause Obama a severe migraine during the confirmation process.
Personally, I am torn on offering Hillary Clinton any role in the new administration. It makes good political sense for Obama as he is able to have her as a part of his team. This decision follows the logic of having your friends close and your enemies closer. On the other hand, in the short term, any misstep by Bill is going to cause undue headaches for Obama. In the long term if Hillary stays at State for a couple of years, and can demonstrate a failure of leadership at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she will be better positioned to run against Obama in 2012. She will be free to say, “I supported President Obama but he was not up to the task of leading our country.”
As for Bill and Hillary, this continuing story reminds me of “Kill Bill, parts 1 and 2″. Uma Thurman spent most of those two movies fighting her way to be free of Bill’s (David Carradine) influence. For most of her adult life, Hillary Clinton has been Bill’s first lady in Little Rock and in Washington, D.C. Now she has the ability to put her stamp on the foreign policy of the United States of America…the only problem is the continued shadow of Bill. Unfortunately, there will not be any samurai swords involved, they would have made the vetting process more interesting.
November 18th, 2008 By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
If you see a parade over the next month, it may not be the Thanksgiving Day parade. It could be likely to be book publishers lining up to put in a bid to publish defeated GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s reported book deal…which could fetch $7 million. A roundup is HERE.
I realize that TMV is normally more politically oriented but today we have to take a little time to mark a very special birthday.
Eighty years ago today, on November 18, 1928 audiences were treated to the first performance of the film Steamboat Willie starring a young mouse named Mickey. In the nine decades since he has grown to be one of the most iconic figures in Americana. Tens of millions of us grew up singing the Mickey Mouse theme song (and some of you have it running through your head right now).
For millions of children and adults worldwide one of the most special memories is our first (or fiftieth) visit to one of the Disney Theme Parks.
While there are certainly many reasons we could be critical of the way the Disney company has behaved over the years, the fact remains that this little mouse and the magic he created has brought smiles to all of us.
So take a moment to share your memories and wish Mickey a happy 80th.
As Walt Disney was fond of saying………….. It all started with a little mouse.
A British couple who married in a lavish Second Life wedding ceremony are to divorce after one of them had an alleged “affair” in the online world.
Amy Taylor, 28, said she had caught husband David Pollard, 40, having sex with an animated woman. The couple, who met in an Internet chatroom in 2003, are now separated. […]
Taylor said she had caught Pollard’s avatar having sex with a virtual prostitute: “I looked at the computer screen and could see his character having sex with a female character. It’s cheating as far as I’m concerned.”
The couple’s real-life wedding in 2005 was eclipsed by a fairy tale ceremony held within Second Life.
But Taylor told the Western Morning News she had subsequently hired an online private detective to track his activities: “He never did anything in real life, but I had my suspicions about what he was doing in Second Life.
Pollard admits an innocent online relationship with an American woman. Taylor is in a new relationship with a man she met in the online roleplaying game World of Warcraft.
Is the first world - or what today is referred to as the developed world - really prepared to share decision-making power with the second and third worlds? If Sunday’s summit meeting in Washington did nothing else substantial, at least it seems to have convinced some people in the world’s up and coming nations that the answer to that question is yes.
“The current financial crisis appears to be the departure point for a more multilateral world, something that had nearly been forgotten. To put it simply: the rich world has given the signal that it will benefit if it begins to listen to the emerging world.”
“Brazil has a rather important role. The country should use energy and environmental issues to raise its voice in global decision-making - the first issue of which should be forceful action to freeze the Amazon [rainforest] at its current size. And the entire world should contribute to the cost of maintaining the largest tropical forest reserve on the planet. ”
President-elect Barack Obama drew the highest ratings in years on Sunday night’s telecast on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He didn’t say much we already haven’t heard. The only real news between now and his inauguration Jan. 20 will be announcements of his cabinet. There isn’t much he could say although the show’s producers afforded him the entire broadcast. He’s sticking to his “one president at a time” mantra.
But, hold on sports fans. He reiterated what he said during a recent Monday Night Football game that he wanted a playoff series to determine the NCAA football championship. Even as President of the United States, that’s a tough call, falling short, perhaps, of solving the nation’s economic meltdown. Speaking for the legions of college football fans clamoring for an 8-team playoff system, Barack’s beacon will fall on deaf ears. The reason: Money.
The BCS, college presidents, television and the groupie bowl game sponsors of which there were a zillion at last count hold the current post-season format. There’s a ton of money spread through all the conferences from the bowl games right down to the worst and oftentimes winless klutz in those leagues.
A playoff system would take three weeks to carry out. One way of accomplishing that is to shorten the college regular season to 11 games, ending no later than Thanksgiving Day. Hold the next two weeks for the lesser bowl games with all the runners-up and wannabes playing one game for glory and the dollars that come with it. The next three weeks set aside for the playoffs with the larger bowls such as the Rose, Fiesta and Orange, et. al., for the championship runoffs. Like March Madness in college basketball, the ratings should go through the roof.
But, no. College presidents resist the idea for a number of reasons, none of which apply to the academic side of the equation. However, corporate sponsorship could be in jeopardy with the downturn in the economy. Television networks may have problems luring the advertising bucks to pay for their broadcasts. Who knows?
Perhaps, Obama’s impeccable timing to win the presidency continues with his support for a college football championship series. The guy’s on a roll. Maybe his influence as prez will be the stimulus this idea conceived in football fan heaven requires.
(It has been a rough-and-tumble political season. Nerves are raw. Perhaps it’s time to dream a little bit.)
It doesn’t happen that often any more, but there are still times when my English-born wife gently—sometimes not so gently—awakens me in the middle of the night to tell me that I have been talking in my sleep again…in Spanish.
Invariably, she will ask me in the morning what I was talking about. Invariably, my answer is that I don’t remember, which most of the time is the truth. Needless to say, at my age of 68 she need not worry—not even about my dreams.
Dreaming in Spanish is sadly one of the last remaining vestiges that Spanish was once my native language, my mother tongue. Just as sad, the last time I was truly fluent in any language was 58 years ago, when I was 10 years. That is not to say that I am not proficient in English or in other languages. It is just that I am shamefully rusty at my native language; that I am no longer fluent in my first acquired language, Dutch; and that if you listen closely and read carefully, you will detect a slight accent in my spoken English or may notice some unusual constructs in my writings.
Some will say that this is a small price to pay for speaking several languages. Perhaps. But, when it comes to languages I feel like an orphan. Let me explain.
When I was 10, living in my native Ecuador, I spoke Spanish with the fluency that any 10-year-old has in his or her mother tongue. Spanish was the only language I spoke, with the exception of a couple of English and Dutch words I picked up from my Dutch father. These were words and phrases the meaning of which I did not necessarily know, such as “Such is life,” which my father pondered when he got into a philosophical mood, or “verdomme!” (damn!) on other less philosophical occasions. It was at that young age that we moved to Curaçao, in the Netherlands Antilles. Living in a Dutch “company town” and attending a Dutch school, my sister and I became fluent in Dutch in less than a year.
After four years of “total immersion” in Dutch, and after picking up some “choice” words in the local Papiamento (a delightful language derived mainly from Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, and West African languages), our family moved to the Netherlands, where I finished high school.
By then, my acquired Dutch was already better than my native Spanish. Since Dutch is hardly a universal language, Dutch high school students receive two to four years of solid education in English, German, French and/or Spanish. Having two languages under my belt and with four years of studying other languages, the reader will ask, what is the problem? Well, I am not finished yet.
He is publishing his book at the moment when the destructive disjunction between effort and reward that has dominated the last decade or so - the criminal nonsense of the city bonus economy - is for the first time showing signs of diminishing. Gladwell has been predicting the downturn for a while…
His book also comes at a time when there is a President-elect who just about embodies all he argues: Obama never misses a chance to tell stories about how he has been blessed with a network of support, how he was given opportunity and was lucky enough to take it.
Gladwell sees Obama as an almost inevitable product of an education system that for an enlightened period has favoured African-Americans who show dedication and ability. ‘I don’t believe in character,’ he says. ‘I believe in the effect of the immediate impact of environment and situation on people’s behaviour.’
The big news in California is that fires continue to burn — and could burn for days. (On a personal note, a show I was supposed to do yesterday was cancelled due to the fires but it would have been iffy getting to the location anyway since some roads near L.A. were closed). Cagle Cartoons owner Daryl Cagle lives in one of the areas impacted by the fires. In this Guest Voice he notes one of the news media’s seeming obsessions.
Celebrity Fires Consume the Media
by Daryl Cagle
A mandatory evacuation remains in effect for my neighborhood in Montecito after the devastating “Tea Fire” this week. My son and I stayed at my house longer than we should have, filling the cars with keepsakes and watering the place down with a garden hose until the howling winds driving the smoke and embers our way become too much for us.
The fire was churning on all the hills behind my house in wide, glowing swaths — not like the usual thin line of flame we’re used to seeing at the leading edge of a fire. Being in the path of the fire, the wind blew the smoke, soot and embers directly at us making it difficult to see more than a few feet at times, and sometimes clearing to reveal a brightening, eerie, orange glow as the fire drew closer. I was sure the fire was only a couple of houses away when we fled. Firemen were directing traffic and calling on people to evacuate; I didn’t see them doing any fire fighting when we left. The fire was moving too fast for fire fighting and all they could do was focus on people.
I found my way past police barricades the next morning to see that my house survived, along with all the houses on my street. I live adjacent to Westmont College, which lost a half dozen buildings, and the next street over from mine, Westmont Road, lost a number of homes. The hills all around are barren and charred. The last report I saw estimated 150 homes lost.
I know how my neighbors feel. I was a college student, living with my mother in the same spot, when the 1977 Sycamore Canyon fire destroyed our home and about 250 others. Both fires started in the exact, same location and burned much the same area.
I also get a sense of deja vu from the media coverage of the fire. Reports from around the world have focused on celebrities who live in town. Read the rest of this entry »
