I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is What Storytellers Can Teach You About How to Learn Faster.
Simon’s opinion — and it’s widely shared in newsrooms — is that mainstream newspapering is being destroyed by corporate owners who care only about the bottom line. That seems to be where it begins and ends with him. He does have a good point: for a long time now, newspaper owners have had to meet Wall Street’s bottom line on profitability.
Wall Street has demanded not just profits, but profits at a certain level. It’s been hard to reach that without doing serious cutting. The argument from the journalists’ side is that this cutting is short-sighted — that it solves the short-term problem of getting the profit margin up from five percent to 10 percent, but only at the expense of long-term investing in the product. And there really is something to that.
But it’s not the whole story. A second argument, one typically made by political conservatives, is that the MSM has alienated much of its readership through liberal bias. Obviously, I think there’s something to this as well. It is beyond rational dispute that newsrooms are overwhelmingly liberal (more culturally so than economically).
If you don’t believe this, go to the MRC’s website and check out the raft of independent studies and surveys documenting this fact. The way this bias plays out is less within individual stories, and more in the kinds of stories deemed worthy of coverage. In my experience, reporters and editors don’t even recognize their own cultural and political biases, and resent the accusation. But there’s no question that this bias makes their product less and less relevant to a significant number of their consumers.
But this too isn’t the whole story. I wish it were, but I’m afraid the truth is, fewer people want what we have to offer. Part of it is simple decadence, by which I mean the failure of people, whatever their cultural and political orientation, to believe that staying informed of public affairs and current events is necessary to fulfilling one’s obligations as a citizen.
But technology is part of it too. Nothing more needs to be said about online news destroying the economic base of traditional newspapering, though it is noteworthy, at least to me, that I have lots of smart, educated friends who keep up with the news, but only online. Few subscribe to the newspapers. Rod Dreher
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.
TWEETY AND SYLVESTER
Watch this until Sylvester catches Tweety. (Wait for it. It’s worth it.)
After Tweety is caught, click here.
As the largest democracy in the world India is best suited to lead by example in South Asia and to bring moral, economic and political pressures to bear on the military dictators of Myanmar on its eastern border. And England, as the colonial power responsible for much of the mucking about in the region has the most to atone for.
So it is disappointing to hear that when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited India this week, his concerns were not for freedom and democracy.
From Mizzima News:
Less than four months after the Burmese junta violently suppressed protests on the streets of Burma, the question of Burma appears only in the background of talks between British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and leaders of India.
While stating that he intends to raise the subject of Burma with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in private talks, Brown’s message on his inaugural visit to the sub-continent as Prime Minister makes clear that his administration’s chief concern in bilateral relations is the furthering of economic integration and interests.
Don’t want to upset the bankers. Specially now that the American/British adventurism in Iraq has poured so much capital down the drain.
Earmarking the positive role that a more entrenched India can play on both the regional and worldwide stages, the British Prime Minister yesterday expressed his support for India’s joining both a reconfigured permanent United Nations Security Council and the European-based Financial Action Task Force.
Giving India a sixth seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council makes good sense. It represents roughly one-sixth of the world’s population, it is a democracy and it is a nuclear power. Pakistan, of course, would not be pleased.
But having a strong counter-balance to both Russian and Chinese expansion in South Asia would be beneficial. And such a status might encourage the nation to take a more statesman-like attitude towards the other nations in the region.
What do you think?
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations From Sufi Wisdom by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut.
Whoever draws near will never fall asleep
And the rays of sublime heartbreak will engulf him.
– Hayyunah p. 147
Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: Andrew Carnegie defined the mastermind principle as: an alliance with two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a definitive objective. p. 57
Brutality, oppression, torture and murder should not be allowed to slow the engines of commerce. That’s the message from nine of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Supercaptialism is taking hold in Southeast Asia. Only the Philippines, led by the only woman in the association, dissents.
From The Economic Times:
A Southeast Asian bloc will not let the actions of its troubled member, military-ruled Myanmar, hamper the group’s regional integration efforts, a senior Singaporean official said Monday.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, “should not, and will not let the Myanmar issue slow down the integration of our region,” Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond told Parliament.
Can’t you just hear Raymond’s subtext? Damn it, I’ve got house payments to make on my new villa!
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is How to Use a Todo List to Make 2008 Your Best Year Ever.
There’s just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.
I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning. Craig Franklin
CAPT Mike Dunn: 8:00 AM – Tuesday, September 11th, 2001: Having just completed my civic duty by casting my ballot in the NYC primary elections, I’m sitting on the X28 express bus working its way up Church Street towards my job in midtown Manhattan. As I had done countless times before, I gazed at the usual street scene of the throngs coming and…
Elmore Leonard is famous, among writers anyway, for saying that his secret is that he doesn’t write the parts readers skip over. He makes that rule No. 10 in his 10 Rules Of Writing. It’s a good rule, but here’s something odd about Leonard and me: I can listen to his books but I can’t read them. I don’t know why.
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
And Leonard writes that his most important rule sums up all ten:
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
That’s why we have to murder our darlings.
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.
IDIOT SIGHTING NO. 6
When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the drivers side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. “Hey,” I announced to the technician, “its open!”
His reply, “I know. I already got that side.”
Whenever I begin to think I understand a tiny fraction of the world I receive a lesson to not be so full of myself. This is especially true whenever culture other than my own are involved. Case in point: I would never have thought that the Chinese (and others) were so sensitive to the current international version of Color Wars.
From The Irrawaddy:
A few weeks after the September protests last year in Burma, a Chinese diplomat approached an influential Burmese advocate in New York and asked why the Burmese dubbed their protest the “Saffron Revolution.”
“The diplomat was quite uncomfortable with this particular saffron name while he whispered to me,” said the Burmese advocate, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Chinese are very sensitive to the ‘color revolutions’,” she said.
In the wake of successful “color revolutions,” meaning the victories of nonviolent democracy struggles in post-communist countries, such as Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution and Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, Beijing is anxious to prevent similar movements at home or among its neighbors.
Do the colors come from within or without? In revolutionary France the tricolor was everything. In the United States red, white and blue have become just another marketing tool.
But marketing is just what China is most worried about.
“China was very annoyed to see the wave of protests taking place outside its embassies in major cities of the world in the wake of the September protests,” said Aung Kyaw Zaw. “More importantly, they were really worried when demonstrators linked Burma’s cause with a 2008 Olympic boycott.”
The vice mayor of Beijing warned in October 2007 that any move to link China’s role in Burma to a boycott of the 2008 Olympics would be “inappropriate and unpopular.” China is very much anxious to prevent any negative effect on the Olympic Games. They might even accommodate their Burma policy and give more support to the UN’s Burma mediation role if they sensed a real damage to the much-hyped gala this summer, even though it might be a tactical and temporal accommodation.
What color would a revolution in our country be?
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.
This is a passage I copied from Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations From Sufi Wisdom by Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut.
Fana is the loss of self in God; Baqa is remaining in communion with God in the midst of worldly activity and Sufi (perhaps from sûf, wool) is? p. 143
Today, as I go about my tasks, I’ll think about: I recommend that you take hold of the gauge of your life and push that thing, not to 70 – 70 is like sitting back and watching television – but up to 120. Don”t go to 150. You”ll cook. But put that gauge up to 120 at least. In other words, set goals that are significant, that are going to make you stretch. p. 51
Nearly two-thirds of the 1,600 lots of jade and gems up for sale at a government-sponsored auction went unsold. While the government loudly touts the sales it did make, the raw numbers and its refusal to release dollar amounts from the auction indicate that the international boycott is taking its toll.
Myanmar’s military government sold 600 lots of gems and jade at a recent auction, state media said Sunday, earning much-needed foreign income for the isolated junta as it faces stiff economic sanctions.
Despite calls from the United States and human-rights groups for a boycott of the sale after a bloody crackdown on protests last year, about 280 foreigners attended the sale, the [government-controlled, JH] New Light of Myanmar paper said.
The government newspaper did not reveal how much the five-day auction earned… About 1,600 lots of gems and jade were up for sale at the auction which ended Saturday.
Don’t you want to know how much the 1,000 unsold lots were worth?
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