Yes, I know that many of these TED For The Holiday videos are repeats here at Have Coffee Will Write. But I’m including them for two reasons: first, they’re part of TED’s For The Holidays series and well worth watching again, and second, TED has made them all available via audio download to put on your laptop, mp3 player or phone for you — to keep at-the-ready on your laptop or iPhone for those times when the only other options are mass market paperbacks.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Santa Claus came often and generously to MMPI this year. It”s not a one-night trip in this case. Eight times – from May to December – he (played by Tim Hagan) dropped $333,333.33 checks into the Chicago firm bank account.

No need to send receipts. It”s a standing fee negotiated by that sharp negotiator Fred Nance of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. He”s a sweetheart.

The $333,333.33 monthly checks add up to $2,666,666.64 for eight months in 2009.

What do we see that”s changed for our money? Continue Reading »

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.

[Y]ou put it in the mail, and you repeat this process ad infinitum until the damn thing sells. Over and over. Again and again. Relentlessly. p. 59

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

While I’m out of town visiting family, I thought everyone might benefit seeing a bit of what the is appearing on television in Myanmar. Frankly, I’m surprised that the State Peace and Development Council (aka, Myanmar’s military doctors) went for this, but even the most evil of people must have some corner of compassion, right?

From Bernama:

A documentary film of the international Music Television has been introduced in Myanmar, to raise the awareness about human trafficking in Asia and the Pacific, China’s Xinhua news agency reported, citing the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar as saying on Tuesday.

The 30-minute film, made by the MTV End Exploitation and Trafficking campaign and supported by the United States Agency for International Development, will soon be broadcast in such Myanmar television channels as MRTV, MWD and MRTV-4.

Here’s Part II…

The film is narrated in 12 different languages by Lucy Lieu of Hollywood, Rain of South Korea, Ta Ta Yang of Thailand, Karen Mok of China, Lara Dutta of Bollywood and Myanmar vocalist Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein.

The film would raise the awareness of Myanmar women in human trafficking and produce a good outcome for Myanmar youths, said the Myanmar vocalist.

Yes, I know that many of these TED For The Holiday videos are repeats here at Have Coffee Will Write. But I’m including them for two reasons: first, they’re part of TED’s For The Holidays series and well worth watching again, and second, TED has made them all available via audio download to put on your laptop, mp3 player or phone for you — to keep at-the-ready on your laptop or iPhone for those times when the only other options are mass market paperbacks.

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.

[O]ne point I can”t emphasize too strongly is the importance of being absolutely relentless about submissions. Once you”ve got a story to the point where you think it”s worth submitting, you must submit it and submit it until someone somewhere breaks down and buys it. p. 58

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

[Update — From the Washington Post:

Nyi Nyi Aung, a Montgomery Village resident and Burmese democracy advocate who has traveled there often, appears to be politically inconvenient for both the United States and the Burmese military dictatorship at a moment when the two countries have taken tentative steps toward engagement after years of stormy antagonism.

“It is shocking to me that an American citizen has been treated this way and higher U.S. officials are silent on that,” said Wa Wa Kyaw, Nyi Nyi’s fiancee and also a U.S. citizen and Maryland resident. “It will let the generals think, ‘We can do whatever we want, even torture and inhumane treatment of a U.S. citizen,’ because America wants to do the engagement policy.”

Politically inconvenient? Perhaps the Obama administration is not all that silent.

From the Irrawaddy:

The United States on Thursday urged the Burmese military junta to provide immediate consular access to Kyaw Zaw Lwin, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, the US national who was arrested on arrival at the Rangoon airport on Sept. 3 and is currently being subjected to a “military dog confinement” in the infamous Insein Prison.

“We call on the Burmese government to grant the United States immediate consular access as required by obligations under the Vienna Convention,” a State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, told The Irrawaddy.

Sounds kind of vocal to me.]

While I’m out of town visiting family, I thought everyone might benefit seeing a bit of what the is appearing on television in Myanmar. Frankly, I’m surprised that the State Peace and Development Council (aka, Myanmar’s military doctors) went for this, but even the most evil of people must have some corner of compassion, right?

From Bernama:

A documentary film of the international Music Television has been introduced in Myanmar, to raise the awareness about human trafficking in Asia and the Pacific, China’s Xinhua news agency reported, citing the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar as saying on Tuesday.

The 30-minute film, made by the MTV End Exploitation and Trafficking campaign and supported by the United States Agency for International Development, will soon be broadcast in such Myanmar television channels as MRTV, MWD and MRTV-4.

Here’s Part I…

The film is narrated in 12 different languages by Lucy Lieu of Hollywood, Rain of South Korea, Ta Ta Yang of Thailand, Karen Mok of China, Lara Dutta of Bollywood and Myanmar vocalist Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein.

The film would raise the awareness of Myanmar women in human trafficking and produce a good outcome for Myanmar youths, said the Myanmar vocalist.

Yes, I know that many of these TED For The Holiday videos are repeats here at Have Coffee Will Write. But I’m including them for two reasons: first, they’re part of TED’s For The Holidays series and well worth watching again, and second, TED has made them all available via audio download to put on your laptop, mp3 player or phone for you — to keep at-the-ready on your laptop or iPhone for those times when the only other options are mass market paperbacks.

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.

Carols for the Mentally Challenged

Schizophrenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?

Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Kings Disoriented Are

Dementia — I Think I’ll be Home for Christmas

Narcissistic — Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

Manic — Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and….

Paranoid — Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why

Attention Deficit Disorder — Silent Night, Holy oooh look at the froggy – can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…

From Haaretz:

Yitzhak Ike Ahronovitch, the captain of the Exodus ship whose attempt to take Holocaust survivors to Palestine built support for Israel’s founding, has died, at 86.

The Exodus 1947 ship left France in July 1947 carrying more than 4,500 people – most of them Holocaust survivors and other displaced Jews – in a secret effort to reach Palestine. At the time, Britain controlled Palestine and was limiting the immigration of Jews.

The British navy seized the vessel off Palestine’s shores, and after a battle on board that left three people dead, turned the ship and its passengers back to Europe, where the refugees were forced to disembark in Germany.

His daughter Leah said following his death “he never overcame the surrender of Exodus, and believed that they should have fought the British over it.”

The ship’s ordeal was widely reported worldwide, garnering sympathy for the refugees, especially because they were taken to Germany, where the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews during World War II originated.

Yis’ga’dal v’yis’kadash sh’may ra’bbo, b’olmo dee’vro chir’usay v’yamlich malchu’say, b’chayaychon uv’yomay’chon uv’chayay d’chol bais Yisroel, ba’agolo u’viz’man koriv; v’imru Omein…

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.

This delightful circle was taken at Lamington national park, west of the Gold Coast. These are native Australian mountain parrots, the red and blue kind are crimson rosella and the red and green are King Parrots. They are feasting on sunflower seed which Mr. Watt had left for them, but did not expect them to form such a perfect ring. The “johnnie-come-lately” guy on the bottom is about to jump into the centre, much to the discontent of the other birds.

0541: Little word from U.S. on Nyi Nyi Aung, jailed in Burma

Found in my electronic chapbook.

I”m more critical and detached when I read a manuscript than when I read galleys, more so too with galleys than with a bound book. The closer I am to what come out of the writer”s typewriter, the more conscious I am that I”m reading a person”s work rather than something that came down from the mountaintop carved in stone tablets. p. 57

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

Via Sherry Chandler…

Are those of us, and I do include myself, who oppose vacationing in Myanmar hypocrites? Justin Wastnage thinks so. Yes, shopkeepers, guides, and the makers of souvenirs, as well as those who work in the hospitality industry, do suffer. I get that. Are those the kinds of industry that will truly benefit the people of Myanmar? I don’t think so.

There is soiling quality to the argument that lesser-developed, former colonial nations ought to somehow continue to provide opportunities for holiday and relaxation for people who strive to pay off their home and car loans in Western countries.

How many people arguing for tourism would be willing to trade business and industry in their own nation for tourist dollars?

To a small extent I’ve watched a similar process in my home town of Marietta, Ohio. Ohio’s first settlement was once the center of industry and education on the Ohio River. The factories are mostly gone now and all people can talk about is how to attract tourist dollars to the picturesque community.

Does anyone really want to become the equivalent of a museum actor or Disney character for tourists?