I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
Don”t take it too seriously. p. 90
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
Myanmar may only be No. 2 in production of Opium, behind Afghanistan’s commanding lead in the lucrative and illegal market, but the State Peace and Development Council (aka, Myanmar’s military dicatators) is trying harder. A self-respecting dictator has to pay for his expensive boy toys.
From The Washington Post:
Opium cultivation in Myanmar is increasing rapidly in areas under the control of the military government, an ethnic minority organization said Tuesday.
Myanmar is the world’s second-biggest producer of opium, which is the main ingredient in heroin, though it trails Afghanistan by a large margin. The ruling junta has vowed to eliminate the drug.
However, opium cultivation in Shan State – the major production area – has tripled in certain areas over the past three years in Myanmar, also known as Burma, according to a report by the Palaung Women’s Organization. The Palaung are an ethnic minority in the northern state.
Researchers found cultivation in two townships under government control rose from 2,380 acres (964 hectares) in 2007 to 11,230 acres (4,545 hectares) in 2009.
“The number of villages growing opium has tripled from 2006 to 2009,” Lway Aye Nang, an executive committee member for the organization, said at a news conference Tuesday in Bangkok.
At the famer level, a cash crop is a cash crop. The growers in Myanmar and Afghanistan are no different from those in Meigs County, Ohio.
I’ve mused more than a few times about how that if we didn’t already have libraries that it would be impossible to start them today because holder’s of copyright and the corporations that represent them would scream holy murder and take these proposed evil institutions to court to sue for recovery of stolen income.
I’m not the only one who has pondered this absurdity.
Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher’s Weekly that “publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy” comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were “loaned” last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself.
From what we’ve been able to piece together, the book “lending” takes place in “libraries”. On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a “card”. But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there’s no admission charge and it doesn’t cost anything to borrow a book, there’s always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material.
What author, I wonder, hasn’t contemplated all those people sharing the cost of their copy of the latest thriller, and then there all the CDs and DVDs.
Twenty years ago one of my local librarian talked at length about how the growing collection of video tapes was taking away from her budget for books. If people wanted to watch a video, let them rent it, she lamented. This video craze was keeping her from buying all the books she wanted.
Today at the Cleveland Heights main library, you can find hundreds of DVDs, thousands of music CDs and dozens of books on CD and in MP3 format, all paid for with our tax dollars and otherwise free to users, yet we haven’t heard movie, music and book producers screaming about this theft.
Libraries present a much greater threat than any peer-to-peer sharing, but the copyright ninnies are at least smart enough that threatening libraries would alienate the few people who think that they might have a point suing moms and teenagers for millions.
The shirts’ cash cow has dried up and financial groupies need to deal with that.
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
Just get it written. p. 90
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
Sydney Prabhu, writing from Samutsakorn, Thailand to the Wall Street Journal appears stuck in the days of another Sydney, he of the white suits and the slowly revolving ceiling fan, when he suggests, in response to an Op-Ed piece by Kelley Currie, that Myanmar is simply a pawn in China’s game of South Asia chess.
It’s possible, of course, but I don’t buy it.
The Burmese arms buildup is not the dream child of a megalomaniac or errant general. It is a carefully orchestrated move by the Chinese to have an offensive front against India, using Burma as a proxy. There is no other reason for Burma to arm itself with offensive or defensive weapons, as neither its Association of Southeast Asian neighbors, India nor Bangladesh harbor any territorial ambitions there. For authoritarian control of its population or quelling civil revolts, conventional weapons are more than adequate.
I would suggest something simpler. China, like Russia and the United States, have arms industries manufacturing more weapons that can be purchased for domestic consumption. Myanmar has a cadre of tin-pot dictators who see themselves as Masters Of The Universe and wish to replace their pots with real war toys; demand meet need.
A court in military-ruled Myanmar postponed a verdict scheduled Wednesday for a Myanmar-born American facing forgery and currency infraction charges after being accused of planning to incite unrest.
The lawyer for Kyaw Zaw Lwin said the judge delayed the ruling until Feb. 10.
Lawyer Nyan Win told The Associated Press that the judge said the court was still studying the case and was not yet ready to issue a verdict.
Would they actually wait until after tonight’s State of the Union address, or is the timing purely coincidental?
It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.
WALMART AND THE LAST OF DAYS…? Sometimes the associations made with Walmart – through no direct fault of its own – amaze me. I discussed Walmart stealth story last week, but never in my most twisted imaginings would I have though of this link at Last Day Watchers. Keep reading…
WALMART FAILS TO BREECH CHICAGO”S WALL… I would not want to be an aide in Mayor Richard Daley”s office this week. I can imagine more than a little throwing of paperweights and the hurling of non-public language after Chicago City Council”s rebuff of the Mayor Richard Daley”s support for Walmart. Keep reading…
I LOVE READING COMMENTS… The automatic assumption that anyone who disagrees with your world is a waste of snail slime started with Jane Curtin and Dan Akroyd. What began as a Saturday Night Live comedic mainstay has morphed into the norm for American faux discourse. Keep reading…
REAL PEOPLE, REAL ISSUES, REAL THINKING… I don”t agree with Arlene Jones on many points, but I want all our readers to visit her blog and think about what she has written about Walmart in Chicago. Clearly, Jones is a woman who is on the street and thinking about her community. That is far too rare. Keep reading…
DALEY TO WALMART: EXPLETIVE DELETED… The lede in the New York Times story by Dan Mihalopoullos and Katie Fretland does not bode well for Walmart in Chicago specifically or for Walmart in Urban America generally. Is it possbile that Walmart has finally hit the imovable wall? Keep reading…
AT THE WALLY PLEX… There are sound stages on Hollywood”s back lots smaller than Bentonvile”s behemoths, so it”s no surprise that budding video talent has been sneaking cameras in at odd hours. And now for the midnight show at the Wally Plex featuring jamesjewell3. Keep reading…
BEWARE OF CONSORTIUMS… As people in the organic foods industry have learned, large corporations that are not pleased with pre-existing standards are not adverse to creating their own astro-turfing bodies to give them the stamp of approval for doing what they already do. Keep reading…
WHEN LOWEST PRICE ISN”T THE KEY ISSUE… I wrote about the Mihalopoulos and Fretland piece in the New York Times on Friday, but in case you didn”t make it deeper into the story than Mayor Richard Daley”s expletive deleted moment, there is also a clear racial angle that I don”t want to ignore. Keep reading…
THIS IS FUNNY…? Clowns are scary. Really, really scary. So scary that there is even a name for being scared of clowns: Coulrophobia. Who are kids more likely to remember Clarabell and Bozo or Cheezo, Bippo and Dippo? Score one for unicorns.
Keep reading…
DO WE GET THE RETAILER WE DESERVE…? There is a legitimate argument in politics that we get the government we deserve; that if we don”t take an active role in the political decisions of our government, then we have no one to blame but ourselves when politicians go bad (see Democrats in Congress).
Keep reading…
No, Joe was not involved, but James O’Keefe maybe should have stuck to faking videos.
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
Stay in the now. I can only get today”s work done today, so why waste energy? p. 90
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
Compared to the local and regional reactions to the announcement yesterday that opposition party leader Aung San Suu Kyi would be released from house arrest in November, after the dangled October election in Myanmar, my report yesterday was positively effusive. I’d suggest cynicism, but what would be the point?
From the Washington Post:
Nyan Win, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy party, said the comment purportedly made last week by Home Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Oo was “nothing new or extraordinary.”
From the London Times:
The Government may be hoping that by holding out the early release of Me Tin Oo and the later release of Ms Suu Kyi, it will tempt the NLD to take part.
“Since 2003 regime officials have regularly dropped hints that Aung San Suu Kyi will be released – not once have they been true,” said Mark Farmaner of the Burma Campaign UK. “It is all part of the game they play with the international community to avoid pressure. But just in case, we are booking the flying pigs in November for a celebratory fly-past over the Burmese embassy.”
From Radio Netherlands Worldwide:
Myanmar’s military junta says it will release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi at the end of this year. But there’s reason to believe these words are hollow and that the 64 year-old Nobel Laureate will remain in detention.
Clearly the message here is that a promise of release for Suu Kyi and 100 Kyat will get you a cup of coffee.
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