Sunday, September 19, 2010

Unfreezing Arctic Assets Will Lead to Future ''Polar Cities'' For Survivors of Global Warming Climate Chaos in 2500 AD

A bloc of countries above the 45th parallel is poised to dominate the
next 500 years. Welcome to the New North of James Lovelock-approved Polar Cities



Comments So Far (12,134,569 comments)

By LAURENCE D. SMITH, [September 10, 3010 AD]
Walled-In Street Journal (c) 3010



Imagine the Arctic in 2500 AD as a polar cities paradise —an empty

landscape dotted with gleaming polar cities and boom towns. Gas pipelines fan across

the tundra, fueling fast-growing polar cities to the south like Calgary and

Moscow, the coveted destinations for millions of global immigrants.

It's a busy web for global commerce, as the world's ships advance each

summer as the seasonal sea ice retreats, or even briefly disappears.



Much of the planet's northern quarter of latitude, including the


Arctic, is poised to undergo tremendous transformation over the next


500 years. As a booming population increases the demand for the Earth's

natural resources, and as lands closer to the equator face the

prospect of rising water demand, droughts and other likely changes,

the prominence of northern countries will rise along with their

projected milder winters.



If Florida coasts become uninsurable and California enters a long-term

drought, might people consider moving to polar cities in the far north and in New Zealand and Tasmania as well?

Will
Spaniards eye Sweden? Might Russia one day, its population falling and

needful of immigrants, decide a smarter alternative to resurrecting

old Soviet plans for a 1,600-mile Siberia-Aral canal is to simply

invite former Kazakh and Uzbek cotton farmers to abandon their dusty

fields and resettle Siberia, to work in the gas fields? Might Asians by the boatload make a beeline

toward Lifeboat New Zealand and Lifeboat Britain? James Lovelock thinks so.



Dr Laurence C. Smith PHD in 2010 isn't saying. But maybe he will dish later.

Larry Smith doesn't say it, but polar cities are in our future, too.

''I imagine the high Arctic, in particular, will be rather like Nevada—a landscape nearly empty but with fast-growing towns. Its prime socioeconomic role in the 21st century will not be homestead haven but economic engine, shoveling gas, oil, minerals and fish into the gaping global maw.'' [ADDED BY DANNY BLOOM: ''AND LATER, the high Arctic will become home to over 200 polar cities scattered across the north, for survivors of climate chaos from global warming in the year 2500 AD.'']

http://pcillu101.blogspot.com,

—From "The [POLAR CITY] World in 2050, [er, 2500]" by Laurence C. Smith, to be published by Dutton, a member of the Penguin Group, on Sept. 23. Copyright © 3010 by Laurence C. Smith.

THE WITCH OF HEBRON, a new novel by James Howard Kunstler, far-seeing prophet of a dystopian future

THE WITCH OF HEBRON: A World Made by Hand Novel , Mr Kunstler's new sequel to A WORLD MADE BY HAND, is now also available
in audio book format, produced by Blackstone Audio and read
by Jim Meskimen.

LINK
http://www.kunstler.com

"Kunstler's post-apocalyptic world is neither a merciless nightmare nor a starry-eyed return to some pastoral faux utopia; it's a hard existence dotted with adventure, revenge, mysticism, and those same human emotions that existed before the power went out." -- Washington Irving

Already a renowned social commentator and a best-selling novelist and nonfiction writer, James Howard Kunstler has recently attained even greater prominence in the global conversation about energy and the environment. In the sequel to his novel, World Made by Hand, Kunstler expands on his vision of a post-oil society with a new novel about an America in which the electricity has flickered off, the Internet is a distant memory, and the government is little more than a rumor. In the tiny hamlet of Union Grove, New York, travel is horse-drawn and farming is back at the center of life. But it’s no pastoral haven. Wars are fought over dwindling resources and illness is a constant presence. Bandits roam the countryside, preying on the weak. And a sinister cult threatens to shatter Union Grove’s fragile stability.

In a book that is both shocking yet eerily convincing, Kunstler seamlessly weaves hot-button issues such as the decline of oil and the perils of climate change into a compelling narrative of violence, religious hysteria, innocence lost, and love found.

Singer of 'I Will Always Love You' fame releases first album but the song titled "Under Your Wings" was definitely NOT written expressly for him by hit-producer/songerwriter Walter Afanasieff, as the local media is incorrectly reporting....

Please! Lin Yu-chun aka Little Fatty is a great singer and great person, but that song "Under Your Wings," as NOT written for him ''exclusively'' by Grammy Award-winning producer Walter Afanasieff. Get real. Walter writes songs for top singers and is a multiple Grammy-award-winning record producer and songwriter. He is best known for his long association with Mariah Carey, for whom he was producer and co-writer for several years, beginning in 1990. He won the 1999 Grammy Award in the Record of the Year category for producing “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, and the 2000 Grammy Award for Non-Classical Producer of the Year. Afanasieff has also written and produced music for many other leading artists, including Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Luther Vandross, Destiny's Child, Kenny G, Michael Bolton, Darren Hayes (Savage Garden), Andrea Bocelli, Johnny Mathis, Kenny Loggins, Barbra Streisand, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Mika (singer), Babyface (musician), Josh Groban, Jordin Sparks, Tina Arena and Leona Lewis.

You think he wrote this new song expressly for the Taiwanese singing wonder, Little Fatty? No way, what really happened, most likely, if you read between the lines of the media hype and record company press release, is that Walter dusted off an old song sitting around in his portfolio, that he had never found a good singer for, and when asked by SONY to come up with a song for the Taiwanese sensation, he merely dusted off his portfolio of earlier songs he had written and gave it to Little Fatty to sing. And LF did a great job with the song! But please, Taiwan media, Walter did NOT write that song expressly for Little Fatty. Get real!

REVISED NEWS STORY SHOULD READ:

Taiwanese singing sensation Lin Yu-chun released his debut album "It's My Time" on Friday, taking another step in what he called his magical journey into the music world.

Wearing his signature black bow tie and bowl-cut hairstyle, Lin said he was overwhelmed to be on center stage of the album's launch event and perform two of its hits, "Under Your Wings" and "My Heart Will Go On."
...
Besides belting out classics of international divas such as Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, Lin was able to express himself on the album with the hit "Under Your Wings," which the media claims was written for him exclusively by Grammy Award-winning producer Walter Afanasieff, BUT IN FACT IT DID NOT HAPPEN THAT WAY, see above.

In a video clip also shown at the album's launch, Afanasieff said he was "very honored, very privileged," to have produced Lin's album.


Maybe corrected later By Hsin-Yin Lee, CNA? Andrew Huang over at the Taipei Times also took the PR bullshit and reported Walter's writing the song expressly for Lin as fact. NOT fact, Andrew, you know better than to repeat press release stuff without fact-checking. Ask Walter! He will tell the truth, maybe 5 years from now.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Taiwan debuts iPhone 4 as China debuts iPad -- three months late!

Letter from Taiwan

It took a while -- three months, in fact -- for the iPhone 4 to arrive in Taiwan after first hitting the streets and stores in the UK, Japan, France, Germany and the USA in June. But lo and behold, Taipei punters could be seen lining up all day and night in mid-September to get their hands on the fancy new Apple "so-ji" (literally, "hand phone" in Mandarin).

One lucky lad waited seven hours to be the first person on the island to get the shiny new gadget at a marketing/sales event that began at midnight. When asked by reporters if he was worried about reports of a defect in the iPhone 4's antenna design that could affect reception, he said he was not worried at all since the large number of base stations in Taiwan ensures good connections.

To create a consumer frenzy islandwide, several telecons carriers here placed fullpage newspaper adverts -- on the entire front page! -- in the four national dailies.

Wei-chun Hsu, 34, said he hoped future iPhone models could be made available here earlier when they are introduced worldwide, instead of having to wait three months. While Taiwan is at the forefront of much of the technology that gadgetheads crave, local punters often have to wait what seems like ages for the damned products to arrive.

Meanwhile, across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait in communist-controlled China, even larger crowds turned out the same week for the debut of Apple's iPad.
One Beijinger camped out for 60 hours to bag the first iPad in his sales area. The 35-year-old bookstore manager wore a T-shirt reading -- in English -- "I buy iPad No. 1".

Before the iPad made its official debut in China, of course, the market had already been flooded by cheaper knockoffs and iPad "clones", according to news reports. One Chinese humorist told a reporter that while he respected "copyrights and all that", he especially believed in "the right to copy."

Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Catholic Church, old and decrepit and corrupt and saddled with sex abuse crimes, should fold up, close the doors and end its reign. And let all Catholics migrate over to Protestant churches worldwide.

These ex-Catholics who become Protestants can still believe in Jesus and God and everything, but without the tragic and unredeemable baggage of the Catholic Church, which should become HISTORY, as soon as possible.

Bill Maher "gets" a Hollywood walk of fame star he bought and paid for as a PR stunt -- and he lies on national TV about it, Maher the truthteller!

Hollywood's Paid-For Walk of Fame Publicity Gimmick celebrates 50 years As Bill Maher "gets" a star he bought and paid for as a PR stunt for his new TV program


May 9, 2010
By Barbara Munker, reporter
dpa, GERMAN NEWS AGENCY, US news media would NEVER print this


LOS ANGELES -- Visibly moved, movie star Dennis Hopper stood next to his gleaming star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
It was the end of March and Hopper, who has cancer, appeared frail. The star of the 1969 Oscar-nominated movie Easy Rider didn't have to come to the unveiling of the 2,403rd star on the famous sidewalk in the heart of Hollywood.

But he was there as was best actor Oscar recipient Russell Crowe a few weeks later when the next unveiling ceremony took place. There's plenty of room for more along the 4-kilometer-long Hollywood Boulevard.

It all began 50 years ago with the award of the first star on the famous street. For five decades the names of Hollywood's most prominent people have been eternalized in the star-studded sidewalk.

Last December the honour went to James Cameron, director of the blockbusters Avatar and Titanic. His ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, who in March became the first woman to win the best director Oscar award, hasn't yet been honored.

All she has to do is call, said Ana Martinez of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. For more than 20 years Martinez, whose nickname is Stargirl, has been in charge of arranging the star award ceremonies.

A call alone, of course, is not all it takes, Martinez recently told the German Press Agency dpa. Every year in June a five-member committee meets to select about two dozen recipients out of a pool of about 300 recommendations. The actors, actresses and other prominent Hollywood personalities who are selected receive their star in the following year.

Anyone can nominate his or her favorite candidate, said Martinez. Usually, fans or film studios do the nominating. What's required is that the person selected agrees and that US$25,000 is paid to the chamber. Film studios hope the appearance of their stars at a Walk of Fame ceremony coincides with the release of a film they are in. Then the fee is only a drop in the film's advertising bucket.

Fans sometimes get into the act and do what they can to come up with the nomination fee. The Liza Minnelli fan club, for example, scratched the money together by holding flea markets and parties in the 1990s, Martinez said.

About 10 million people from all over the world annually stroll over the stars on the boulevard, according to the chamber. They walk on black terrazzo slabs inset with pink-colored stone in the shape of a five-pointed star adorned with the name of the Hollywood personality in gleaming brass and an emblem indicating the category represented. The Walk of Fame is currently undergoing a US$4-million refurbishment to remove footprints and scuffs.

More than 300 stars are still blank, but they will get an owner in the coming years. An appropriate place is usually sought out for the stars, but it doesn't always work out for the best. For example, a hairstyling salon was chosen in 1995 for Farrah Fawcett, known for her long, blonde, wavy hair. But the business soon closed. Stars who are in a relationship also have been placed next to one another along the Walk of Fame. But nothing can be done when they break up, as was the case with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins.

The first star set into the walk went to Joanne Woodward in 1960 after making the film The Long Hot Summer with her husband Paul Newman. A group of influential Hollywood moguls, including Walt Disney and Cecil B DeMille, chose the first 500 recipients. Not everything went swimmingly. For example, Charlie Chaplin, who in the '40s and '50s was pressured by the U.S. government because of his liberal political leanings, was refused a star until 1972. He was honored only after his son complained.

Kirk Douglas was lucky that his star turned up again after mysteriously disappearing. Martinez recalls that it was found in a drug dealer's yard. Gregory Peck's stolen star was never recovered and had to be remade. Country singer and actor Gene Autry, who died in 1998, has five stars on the Walk of Fame, one in each of the five categories -- film, television, music, theatre and radio.

There are still a few big names -- Robert Redford, Michael Douglas, Robert DeNiro, Kate Winslet and Julia Roberts among them -- who aren't on the Walk of Fame. Some of the stars who don't have a place simply aren't interested in one, said Martinez, naming Clint Eastwood as an example. But the Stargirl said the Oscar winner should do it because people want to see him there.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Bill BUll Maher on Wikipedia, the truth about his paid for star on the walk of fame in Hollywood, $25,000 for the HONOR.....tell the truth, Bill.....I like you, but why lie to American public?

Early life and education

Maher, who paid $25,000 to buy his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as a PR gimmick, as all stars do, was born in New York City, the son of Julie (née Berman), a nurse, and William Maher, Sr., a network news editor and radio announcer.[4] He was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, remaining unaware that his mother was Jewish until his early teenage years.[5] He subsequently self-identified himself as ethnically half-Jewish.[6][7] Maher's family stopped attending church services when Maher was thirteen, due to his father's disagreement with the Catholic Church's position on birth control.[8][dead link][9]

Maher was raised in River Vale, New Jersey, and graduated from Pascack Hills High School in Montvale. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English and History from Cornell University in 1978.[10]

Maher began his career as a stand-up comedian and actor, and he continues to act and tour occasionally. He was host of the New York City comedy club Catch a Rising Star in 1979. Thanks to Steve Allen, he began appearing on Johnny Carson's and David Letterman's shows in 1982. He made limited television appearances, including two separate appearances on Murder, She Wrote — notably, as Maher likes to point out, as two different characters. He has also appeared in several films, usually in a comic role. His feature film debut was in D.C. Cab (1983), and he has also appeared in Ratboy (1986), Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1988), and Pizza Man (1991), among others.

Bill Maher is Bull Maher and a liar to boot. He paid for his star on Walk of Fame. PR it is. paid PR

Bill Maher is Bull Maher and a liar to boot. He paid for his star on Walk of Fame. PR it is. paid PR

Bill Maher got,er, paid for, his STAR in the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday and announced it on Larry King show on CNN, where Larry also bragged about his own , er, paid star....BUT THESE ''STARS'' ARE PAID PR, they cost US$25,000 each, the "stars" or their studios PAY for the right to have a star, it's all timed for release of new movies or books or show.....google it


BILL MAHER..... and he bragged that he was honored tobe honored with a star there,,,HE PAID FOR IT for crying out loud, why does the media lie to us????? even truth teller BULL MAHER. i give up


Bill Maher paid for that star, to the tune of US$25,000. the entire walk of fame thing is a paid PR thing, and the stars are not awarded, they are paid PR paid for by the star himself or herself or their s...tudio as a PR gimmick usually in timing with a new movie or show being released. Bull Maher is a liar. He told King he was awarded the star, not true. Maher paid for that "honor"....wake up america,,,,when even a truth teller like Bill Bull Maher lies to the public about his star on the walk of fame, all is lost.

correction due here on LAIST.com..

political satirist Bill Maher became the latest to PAY FOR A STAR for the FAKE Hollywood honor. The Paid PR Star gimmick was timed to coincideiwith the fact that "Real Time with Bill Maher" is back on the air beginning Friday. the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which, er, charges $25,000 for star, and maintains the stars, uses the money for maintenance and tourism. It is not an award, it is paid PR. print the facts, sir.

Billl Maher is Bull Maher and a fucking liar to boot. He paid for his star on Walk of Fame. PR it is. paid PR

Bill Maher got,er, paid for, his STAR in the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday and announced it on Larry King show on CNN, where Larry also bragged about his own , er, paid star....BUT THESE ''STARS'' ARE PAID PR, they cost US$25,000 each, the "stars" or their studios PAY for the right to have a star, it's all timed for release of new movies or books or show.....google it


BILL MAHER..... and he bragged that he was honored tobe honored with a star there,,,HE PAID FOR IT for crying out loud, why does the media lie to us????? even truth teller BULL MAHER. i give up

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2010/09/bill-maher-star-hollywood-walk-of-fame.html

comment on LA TIMES ....''But sir, Bill Maher paid for that star, to the tune of US$25,000. the entire walk of fame thing is a paid PR thing, and the stars are not awarded, they are paid PR paid for by the star himself or herself or their s...tudio as a PR gimmick usually in timing with a new movie or show being released. Bull Maher is a liar. He told King he was awarded the star, not true. Maher paid for that "honor"....wake up america,,,,when even a truth teller like Bill Bull Maher lies to the public about his star on the walk of fame, all is lost.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

DON'T HURT: Dad calls for 'Allem's Law' to stop cyber bullies in Australia

A FATHER in Australia whose son committed suicide after being sent threatening messages wants new laws targeting cyber bullies to be named in his child’s honour.

The Victorian Government has moved to strengthen laws governing harassment and stalking to include cyber stalking.

A court found in April that Shane Phillip Gerada, 21, sent five threatening text messages to Allem Halkic over two days in February 2009.

Allem took his life hours after the last text message.

Hiis dad, Ali Halkic, wants the law changes to be known as “Allem’s Law”.

“It would be a way of honouring him,” Mr Halkic told the Hobsons Bay Leader.

Mr Halkic criticised Premier John Brumby on 3AW radio today, shortly before the State Government announced the roll-out of a new eSmart initiative that will allow schools to implement an anti-cyber-bullying program.

Mr Halkic accused the Premier of “jumping on the bandwagon” in cyber-bullying prevention in an election year.

“After a year and a half when it’s election time you’ve come on board now,” Mr Halkic said.

The Altona Meadows father said the Premier’s office had ignored his emails.

“When we started campaigning for a number of things, we went out to ask the local government for help … your department didn’t even have the courtesy to respond to us,” Mr Halkic told the Premier.

Mr Brumby said that he hadn’t seen the letters.

“That’s a failure in the system I think,” he said.

“I get a lot of letters but I don’t know if you’ve written to me, I have never seen them. I’m obviously very sorry for your loss.”

Speaking more broadly, Mr Brumby said: “When terrible events like this happen, we do try and improve thing and do try and improve the law.”

Both Mr Halkic and Mr Brumby featured in Leader Newspapers’ Don’t Hurt campaign, which aimed to raise awareness about the perils of cyber bullying.

>> Tell us your story about cyber-bullying, or how you avoid it. Have your say below.

>> Don’t Hurt: Our campaign

>> Get involved: Join the Don’t Hurt campaign on Facebook.

Leader’s campaign partner, The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, joined Mr Brumby at the eSmart launch at Fitzroy High School today.

The initiative will include: a four-person action team at government schools and needy non-government school to promote cybersafety; training for staff to become a certified eSmart coordinator; and accreditation for eSmart school status.

see: http://zippy1300.blogspot.com - DIGIRATA poem

Rebirth Day in the USA, every 9-11, as a solemn yet foward-looking national day of remembrance

Floating an idea: whose time has come:

let's call 9-11 day in future years as REBIRTH DAY in the USA, with appropriate and solemn, yet forward-looking observances held nationwide in memory of those who died on September 11, 2001. GOOD IDEA? Are other names floating out there? What names? As time goes, say year 2050, 2080, 2101, and 2300, how best remember what happened? Feedback welcome, as I push this idea uphill.

Other names welcome, too. Links?

The true story behind ''At First She Didn’t Succeed, but She Tried and Tried Again (umpteen times)''

from the New York Times on September 3, 2010
SINCHON, South Korea



UPDATE: SHE DID NOT TAKE THE TEST 960 TIMES AS THE NEW YORK TIMES AND THE KOREAN MEDIA REPORTED. MORE LIKE UMPTEEN TIMES, PERHAPS 200. STILL, GREAT STORY. READ ON....

A PERSON could know South Korea for a long time without knowing Wanju, an obscure county 112 miles south of Seoul. And, at least until recently, a person could know a lot about Wanju without ever hearing of Cha Sa-soon, a 69-year-old woman who lives alone in the mountain-ringed village of Sinchon.

Now, however, Ms. Cha is an unlikely national celebrity.

This diminutive woman, now known nationwide as “Grandma Cha Sa-soon,” has achieved a record that causes people here to first shake their heads with astonishment and then smile: She failed her driver’s test hundreds of times but never gave up. Finally, she got her license — on her umpteenth try.

For three years starting in April 2005, she took the test again and again, nobody knows for sure how many, maybe 200 times, and never quit.

Hers is a fame based not only on sheer doggedness, a quality held in high esteem by Koreans, but also on the universal human sympathy for a monumental — and in her case, cheerful — loser.

“When she finally got her license, we all went out in cheers and hugged her, giving her flowers,” said Park Su-yeon, an instructor at Jeonbuk Driving School, which Ms. Cha once attended. “It felt like a huge burden falling off our back. We didn’t have the guts to tell her to quit because she kept showing up.”

Of course, Ms. Park and another driving teacher noted, perhaps Ms. Cha should content herself with simply getting the license and not endangering others on the road by actually driving. But they were not too worried about the risk, they said, because it was the written test, not the driving skill and road tests, that she failed so many times.

WHEN word began spreading last year of the woman who was still taking the test after failing it umpteen times, Korean yarase reporters traced her to Sinchon, where the bus, the only means of public transportation, comes by once every two hours on a street so narrow it has to pull over to let other vehicles pass.

They followed her to the test site in the city of Jeonju, an hour away. There, they also videotaped her in the market, where she sells her home-grown vegetables at an open-air stall.

Once she finally got her license, in May, Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group, South Korea’s leading carmaker, started an online campaign asking people to post messages of congratulations. Thousands poured in. In early August, Hyundai presented Ms. Cha with a nice free car.

Ms. Cha now also appears on a prime-time television commercial for Hyundai.

It is a big change from her non-celebrity life, spent simply in a one-room hut with a slate roof, where the only sounds on a recent summer day were from a rain-swollen brook, occasional military jets flying overhead and cicadas rioting in the nearby persimmon trees. A lone old man dozed, occasionally swatting at flies, in a small shop next to the bus stop.

Born to a peasant family with seven children but no land, Ms. Cha spent her childhood working in the fields and studying at an informal night school. It was not until she turned 15 that she joined a formal school as a fourth grader. But her schooling ended there a few years later.

“Father had no land, and middle school was just a dream for me,” she said.

Ms. Cha said she had always envied people who could drive, but it was not until she was in her 60s that she got around to trying for a license.

“Here, if you miss the bus, you have to wait another two hours. Talk about frustration!” said Ms. Cha, who had to transfer to a second bus to get to her driving test site and to yet another to reach her market stall.

“But I was too busy raising my four children,” she continued. “Eventually they all grew up and went away and my husband died several years ago, and I had more time for myself. I wanted to get a driver’s license so I could take my grandchildren to the zoo.”

Ms. Cha tackled the first obstacle, which for years proved insurmountable: the 50-minute written test consisting of 40 multiple-choice questions on road regulations and car maintenance.

Early in the morning (she wakes up 4 a.m.) and before going to bed, she put on her reading glasses and pored over her well-worn test-preparation books. She first tried, unsuccessfully, an audio test for illiterate people where questions were read to test-takers. Later, she switched to the normal test.

“She could read and write words phonetically but she could not understand most of the terminology, such as ‘regulations’ and ‘emergency light,’ ” said Ms. Park, the teacher.

Choi Young-chul, an official at the regional driving license agency, said: “What she was essentially doing while studying alone was memorizing as many questions — with their answers — as possible without always knowing what they were all about. It’s not easy to pass the test that way.”

PRACTICE made perfect, but slowly. She failed the written test 949 times, but her scores steadily crept up. When she came to them early last year, teachers at Jeonbuk Driving School pitched in, giving her extra lessons, painstakingly explaining the terminology.

“It drove you crazy to teach her, but we could not get mad at her,” said Lee Chang-su, another teacher. “She was always cheerful. She still had the little girl in her.”

It was only last November, on her umpteenth try, that she achieved a passing grade of 60 out of 100. She then passed two driving skill and road tests, but only after failing each four times. For each of her umpteen tests, she had to pay $5 in application fees. That's not small change.

“I didn’t mind,” said Ms. Cha. “To me, commuting every day to take the test was like going to school. I always missed school.”

Her son, Park Seong-ju, 36, who lives in Jeonju and makes signboards and placards, said: “Mother has lived a hard life, selling vegetables door to door and working other people’s farms. Maybe that made her stubborn. If she puts her mind to something, no one can argue her out of it.”

About a decade ago, before embarking on her quest for a driver’s license, Ms. Cha spent three years studying for a hairdresser’s license. For six months, she caught a 6 a.m. bus every weekday, switched to a train and then to another bus to attend a government-financed training program for hairdressers. But no beauty salon would hire her. She was considered too old.

No matter, she said. “It was like getting a school diploma.”

Her tenacity has struck a chord with South Koreans, who are often exhorted to recall the hardship years after the Korean War and celebrate perseverance as a national trait.

The country’s most popular boxing champion was Hong Su-hwan, who was floored four times before knocking out Hector Carrasquilla to win the World Boxing Association’s super bantamweight championship in 1977. His feat gave rise to a popular phrase about resolve: “Sajeonogi,” or “Knocked down four times, rising up five.”

Ms. Cha seems to have given new meaning to this favorite Korean saying.

On her wall where she hung black-and-white photographs of her and her late husband as a young couple and a watch that had stopped ticking, she also had posted a handwritten — and misspelled — sign that read, “Never give up!”

'Frankenpapers' in Taiwan? It could happen here

Pick up any newspaper in Taiwan, from the Chinese-language Liberty Times to the Apple Daily tabloid, and almost
every day there will be an article about the iPad, the iPhone and host of other tablets. Ken Doctor, a media analyst in California,
is predicting that "by mid-2011, tens of
thousands of [people worldwide] will be tabletizing, as some ready themselves
to move to tablet reading
of news -- and newspapers -- and away from that old habit of print."

It's safe to say, with Doctor, that the tablet era is upon us. But is this really a good thing?
As the iPad and other device readers
replace print newspapers -- as news migrates to screens -- what will be the impact
on civil discourse and society at large?

That's the question I want to look into here. Why? Well, I'm not so sure this impending migration of news
readers from print to screen,
from newsprint to pixels, is a good thing. In fact, I'm so worried about this possible
mass migration that I call these
new digital newspapers "frankenpapers." It's not a term of endearment.

Remember Dr Frankenstein's monster? Frankenpapers might not deliver a
better product, and they might not
be the panacea their boosters are promoting.

Frankenpapers, sleek and cool and trendy and convenient, as Apple and
Amazon and Rupert Murdoch say they
will be, might turn out to be 21st Century monsters, the equivalent of
digital hell.

Sure, print newspapers are struggling, all over the world, and in Taiwan, too. Sure,
print advertising revenue has been decling for several
years worldwide. Sure, the Steven Jobs generation want their news fast and
immediate, 24/7, screenable and mobile,
instantaneous and portable.

Well, be careful what you wish for. Frankenpapers might turn out to be
another turn in the screw that seals the
decline of freedom and democracy. Think about it. With no agreed-upon national
consensus, on political, economic, cultural and religious issues,
delivered in the past by a team of unaffiliated and diverse print
newspapers and magazines, Tawian might become a deeply
divided republic of 500-plus news channels and screens. Where once it
was possible to have a national discussion delivered carefully and
judiciously by the plodding print media, with both political parties represented, the future might turn out to
be a national shouting match, a digital free-for-all. Some pundits
say we are already there.

I like reading the news in the Taipei Times on newsprint, picking the headlines I want to
dive into, turning the pages manually, clipping out articles I want
to read again later. I also like "thinking" -- at newsprint speed,
which means slowly -- about what I'm reading, while I'm reading it.

With frankenpapers delivered electronically at high speeds and edited
for the screen rather than the broadsheet page, I fear we will
lose something important. I fear we will go from a world once defined
by the national literati to a new world defined by the
national digerati, from a world defined by a relay team of
''thinkers'' to a cacauphonous team of ''linkers''. Google this,
google that. Who needs editors or fact-checkers?

Yes, even with frankenpapers, there will be news, there will be
leadership, but it will be divided into 500 screens, shouting at each
other in a digital screaming match. A digital screening match.

The monster of frankenpapers will, I fear, transform Taiwan and other nations into
irrretrievably-divided nations.

The "tablet era" might be democratic countries' undoing as nations, even though the
tablets sure look cool and sleek and shiny.

But before we all migrate from newsprint to pixels, from paper to E
Ink, maybe we should pause for a moment and
push the "rethink" button before we push headlong
into the digital newspaper world.

Do we really want a future defined by ''frankenpapers''? What I worry
about is that once we cross the bridge, there might
not be any going back.

Dr Frankenstein's monster was just that: a monster. Frankenpapers,
sleek as they seem, might deliver
us to the wrong address and turn democracy into a mere memory.

Did Cha Sa-soon really take her driver's license test in South Korea 960 times before passing it over a five year period? No, she didn't take it 960 times. The New York Times got punked and read below to see why:

UPDATE:

I found the smoking gun. The Korean police in cahoots with the Korean media set this story up for two years running so far, google it, it's all there, clear as day, and the Korean police refuse to release the official records of her, er, um, alleged 960 tests.... NOT TRUE. END OF STORY.
READERS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES GOT PUNKED BY SLOPPY EDITING.


Maybe it's the Times editors fault to make the story too 'feel-good.' They were trying to explain why South Koreans in general were so fascinated by her story?

Dear Friends in the Blogosphere

remember that NYTimes story a few weeks back in South
Korea, headlined "Trying and trying again (960 times) for a Driver's
License" about a 69 year old Korean lady who allegedly claims to have
tried to pass the test for her drivers license in the past 5 years for
959 times and finally PASSED IT on her 960th try. It made the news all
over the world, front pages and feature
sections and the entire blogosphere lit up.

THING IS: what it true? Gumshoe media analysts want to know. Read on

a recent article, from South Korea, about the Korean
woman who tried to get her driver's license at age 69 and and tried
960 times, according to the TIMES story, and of course the TIMES
always tries to tell the truth,......some pundits feel that the .story
was not FAKED, but EMBELLISHED, stretching the truth to get a better
story, sort of a PR story which hyped the Hyundai car company
which figures fairly big in the story. So question is:

did the woman acutally really truly take the drivers license test 960
times? Does it matter? YES IT DOES. Why?
BEcause if the NYTIMES was stretching the truth to tell a good story
and the editors back in NYC bureau did not vet or
fact check the article, that is a black mark on the NYTIMES......which
i love, i always have loved the NYTIMES.

but this 960 figure sounds FISH TO ME

maybe she took the test dozens of times, maybe 150....but 960? WHO
AMONG US BELIEVES THIS?

this story made Intl front pages and huge headlines and
blogsophere, but it might not be all completely TRUE i feel...

The woman did take the test many times, but not 960 times,....... how does
anyone know that, nobody took notes.....i feel that
reporter got punked and foolded by the Korean police and the Korea media who pushed this story for national pride inside Korea, but he wrote this story to make it better.....and it did not
have to say 960 times, it could have had the same
impact by saying she took the test many times over a five year period
and never gave up....that;s cool...but the 960 times...and notice
96 is opposite of her age 69......and i wonder if the Times editors in
NYC at the foreign desk
vetted and factchecked this story. It sort of has the hands of the
Hyunda car company PR dept on it. read
the original story and report back to me here:

agree disagree? i plan to pursue this in the blogopshere until i
arrive at the truth. I am
looking into this....but not to cast aspersions on anyone, but merely ask TIMES editors
if THEY vetted
and factchecked the story before publishing it. Was there a bit of
Mark Twain involved here?
A bit of Korean PR and Korea police tall tale involved here? Time will tell, Meanwhile, if i am
wrong, and i often am, i will admit it.
Sure. But somehow i smell something fishy here...

I intend to get
to the botoom of this YARASE reporting...

960 times? show me
the receipts...... show me the proof....it WAS a cute story but was is TRUE...


Now if I suspect the story was a bit EMBELLISHED, then I should of
course start first with the Times and ask them. I am sure, and in fact, I
know, there is no reason
to think they would have a reason to embellish or exaggerate such a
story -- which was of course, just a light feature that had no bearing
on anything or anyone.

But it did have the BRAND imprimature of the New York Times. that's
important here.

Okay, now on what do I base my gumshoe suspicions? Just because it
seems incredulous?. Well, it's true, I , of all people, should know
that real life is often stranger than fiction. I do know this.

SMILE.

Okay, anoybody else out there smell something fishy in the TImes
drivers licnse Korea story 960 times figure? Other than that,
it was A GREAT STORY, and I LOVED READING about this NEVER GIVE UP
WOMAN. but 960 times?

Monday, September 13, 2010

Frankenbooks

'Frankenpapers' might turn out to be digital monsters

'Frankenpapers' might turn out to be digital monsters

OPED commetnary
by Dan Bloom


The tablet era is upon us, and with the news media (print as well as
digital) full of stories about how the iPad and other device readers
are going to replace print newspapers as news migrates to screens. Ken
Doctor, a media analyst in California, predicts that "by mid-2011, tens of
thousands of Americans will be tabletizing, as some ready themselves
to move to tablet reading
of news -- and newspapers -- and away from that old habit of print."


I'm not so sure this is a good thing, this impending migration of news
readers from print to screen,
from newsprint to pixels. In fact, I'm so worried about this possible
mass migration that I call these
new digital newspapers "frankenpapers." It's not a term of endearment.

Remember Dr Frankenstein's monster. Frankenpapers might not deliver a
better product, and they might not
be the panacea their boosters are promoting.

Frankenpapers, sleek and cool and trendy and convenient, as Apple and
Amazon and Rupert Murdoch say they
will be, might turn out to be 21st Century monsters, the equivalent of
digital hell.

Sure, print newspapers are struggling, from coast to coast. Sure,
print advertising revenue has been decling for several
years. Sure, the Steven Jobs generation want their news fast and
immediate, 24/7, screenable and mobile,
instantaneous and portable.

Well, be careful what you wish for. Frankenpapers might turn out to be
another turn in the screw that seals the
decline of the republic. Think about it. With no agreed-upon national
consensus, on political, economic, cultural and religious issues,
delivered in the past by a team of unaffiliated and diverse print
newspapers and magazines, America might become a deeply
divided republic of 500-plus news channels and screens. Where once it
was possible to have a national discussion delivered carefully and
judiciously by the plodding print media, the future might turn out to
be a national shouting match, a digital free-for-all. Some pundits
say we are already there.

I like reading the news on newsprint, picking the headlines I want to
dive into, turning the pages manually, clipping out articles I want
to read again later. I also like "thinking" -- at newsprint speed,
which means slowly -- about what I'm reading while I'm reading it.

While frankenpapers delivered electronically at high speed and edited
for the screen rather than the broadsheet page, I fear we will
lose something important. I fear we will go from a world once defined
by the national literati to a new world defined by the
national digerati, from a world defined by a relay team of
''thinkers'' to a cacauphonous team of ''linkers''. Google this,
google that. Who needs editors or fact-checkers?

Yes, even with frankenpapers, there will be news, there will be
leadership, but it will be divided into 500 screens, shouting at each
other in a digital screaming match. A digital screening match.

The monster of frankenpapers will, I fear, transform America into an
irrretrievably-divided nation.

The "tablet era" might be out undoing as a nation, even though the
tablets sure look cool and sleek and shiny.

But before we all migrate from newsprint to pixels, from paper to E
Ink, please, in the name of all that we value as
thinking reeds, as Voltaire called us, let's pause for a moment and
push the "rethink" button before we push headlong
into the digital newspaper world.

Do we really want a future defined by frankenpapers? What I worry
about is that once we cross the bridge, there might
not be any going back.

Dr Frankenstein's monster was just that: a monster. Frankenpapers,
sleek as the seem, might deliver
us to the wrong address.

---

Dan Bloom is a freelance writer in Taiwan. A native New Englander, he
graduated from Tufts long long ago.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Skating in air: Taiwan's iconic TAIPEI 101 building plans ice rink for 88th floor

TAIPEI — Ice skating in subtropical Taiwan is not a daily activity, even in winter, where the temperatures do drop and snow often falls in the high mountains of the Central Mountain Range. But now doing it -- ice-skating, that is -- on the lucky number 88th floor of a 101-floor skyscraper called TAIPEI 101 will be possible.

Officials at the 101-story Taipei 101 say they're installing a rink that will allow locals and overseas visitors to skate at 1,000 feet up in the air.

About 20 people at a time will be able to skate on the 1,000-square foot rink. It will be open all year round.

The rink actually won't be made of ice.
It will be made of a synthetic material that creates a hard, plastic floor with a slick silicone glaze.

It's an attempt to attract more visitors to the iconic building.

The grand opening is scheduled for Jan. 1, 2012.

93 year old man in Hualien, Taiwan is oldest railway station volunteer ticket gate worker; began career when he was 23 - 93歲鄧有才 台鐵最老剪票志工


93歲的鄧有才是台鐵最老志工,每天早上都會到花蓮火車站替旅客剪票。


(記者蔡百靈攝)

鄧有才23歲時與火車合影。 (記者蔡百靈翻攝)
〔記者蔡百靈/花蓮報導〕九十三歲的花蓮縣民鄧有才,是台鐵最高齡的志工,二十歲起就在台鐵服務,曾經在戰爭中用生命守護火車頭,冒著颱風天開火車將旅客送達目的地,與鐵道有著七十多年革命情感,如今他的故事將被拍成紀錄片,並被鐵路局選為「百年經典人物」。

花蓮火車站站長陳裕謀說,明年是中華民國建國一百年及鐵路局一百二十四周年紀念,台鐵尋找對台灣鐵路發展有卓越貢獻、教育意義與影響力的「百年經典人物」,他毫不考慮地推薦鄧有才老先生。

鄧有才民國六年出生,二十歲時考進台鐵當練習生,二十三歲起在玉里站當司機員,光復後調到花蓮站,歷任人事股長、福利社主任、餐旅部主任、貨運服務所主任及總務股長等職務,民國七十年、六十五歲時退休,他已在火車站整整服務四十五年,許多孩子都叫他「火車爺爺」。

鄧有才回憶,早期氣象預報不精準,他曾在颱風天開火車,在橋樑被洪水沖斷前一刻驚險通過,卻目睹對向列車掉進水裡,死傷慘重;也曾遭遇美軍轟炸火車,他緊急疏散旅客,獨自守護著機車頭,他說:「火車就是生命,這是台鐵人的精神。」

鄧有才退休後,難割捨對鐵道的情感,常到從前的工作崗位探視,民國八十七年,花蓮站招募第一批志工,他毫不猶豫就報名,每天早上騎著摩托車到火車站,幫過往旅客剪票、做資源回收,十多年來不曾間斷,甚至日前才剛開完刀,一出院就到月台報到。

許多到過花蓮火車站的旅客,都對鄧有才這位老志工印象深刻,他聲音宏亮,態度親切,常和日本旅客用日語打招呼聊天,已成花蓮站的活招牌,站長陳裕謀稱讚:「鄧有才無庸置疑是台鐵的代表性人物。」(by Cai Boling) Deng when You talent 23 years old and train group photos. (by Cai Bo absorb (by Cai nimble) Boling the/Hualian report) 93 year-old Hualian countian Deng You the talent, is the Taiwan iron most advanced age volunteer, 20 years old in the Taiwan iron service, once in the war with the life protection railway engine, braved the typhoon day to drive a locomotive the passenger deliver the destination, has more than 70 year revolutionary emotions with the railroad, now his story will be cranked up the documentary film, and is elected by Railroad Bureau for “hundred year classical character”. Hualian train station Stationmaster Chen Yumou said that next year will be Republic of China founds a nation 100 year and the Railroad Bureau 120 all around ages reads, the Taiwan iron will seek to Taiwan railroad development has the outstanding contribution, the pedagogical meaning and the influence “hundred year classical character”, he did not consider that will recommend Venerable Deng You talent. Deng You the talent in 1917 was born, when 20 years old passed into the Taiwan iron to work as the trainee, 23 years old in the jade the station worked as engineer mechanic, after the recovering, adjusted the Hualian station, successively held human affairs section chief, cooperative store director, meal duties and so on brigade headquarters director, freight transportation service station director and general affairs section chief, when in 1981, 65 years old retired, he has served fully in the train station for 45 years, many children were called him “train grandfather”. Deng You the talent recollection, the early time weather forecast is not accurate, he once drove a locomotive in the typhoon day, is washed away in the bridge by the flood the preceding quarter to pass thrillingly, actually witnessed that to falls into the water to the train, the casualty is serious; Also once encountered the US military to bomb the train, his emergency evacuation passenger, alone is protecting machine the front, he said: “the train is a life, this is the Taiwan iron man's spirit.” After Deng You the talent retires, difficult to shear the shed to railroad's emotion, Chang Dao past operating post visiting, in 1998, the Hualian station recruited the first group of volunteers, he registered without hesitation, daily early morning rode the motorcycle to arrive at the train station, helped the traveller punch ticket, to make the resource recovery, more than ten for years not once interrupted, even just now operate the knife the other day, a being out of hospital arrived at the platform registration. Many have been to the Hualian train station the passenger, the talent this old volunteer impression is profound to Deng You, his stentorian voice, the manner is kind, often greets with the Japanese passengers with Japanese chats, has become the Hualian station the live advertisement, Stationmaster Chen Yumou commended: “Deng You the talent noes need for doubt is the Taiwan iron representative character.” ]]>

To Run Business / should be OPEN FOR BUSINESS .....DRINK TEA / should read TAKING A BREAK...or ON BREAK

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2619

Dr Victor Mair, a former Taichung professor, filing a blog post from Pennsylvania at Language Log under Lost in Translation, notes:



In an earlier post, I surmised that Chinese translators and translation software seemed unable to handle the construction "XX zhōng" "XX 中" ("in the process / midst of XX"). Two more examples sent in by Danny Bloom would seem to confirm that surmise.

The first sign, the one in red, reads:



Yíngyè zhōng 營業中 TO RUN BUSINESS


Idiomatically rendered, that should be "Open for Business" or just "Open."



The second sign, the one in green, reads:



Xiūxí zhōng 休息中 DRINK TEA



Xiūxí literally means "rest," and has nothing to do with drinking tea, unless one habitually drinks tea when one takes a rest (which is what many, but not all, Chinese workers do). A more idiomatic rendering into English would be "On Break," as in the following sign (never mind the second part):




What this tells us about the perils of translation, I believe, is that, if sorting out the meanings of words in a text to be translated is difficult, making sense of grammar and syntax is even more subtle and challenging.


[By the way, Google Translate renders "營業中" as "Business in", and "休息中" as "Rest of". In context, it may be possible to figure out what these translations probably mean (though the same could be said about "To Run Business" and "Drink Tea"). But it's interesting to speculate about how many common idioms there are of the form __中, and what sort of process applied to what sort of training material would allow a statistical MT system to learn them and to apply them correctly.]

VM

[These signs are manufactured in Taiwan by Salmon International Ltd in Kaohsiung.]

"Kiss and ride" signs stump Taiwan rail passengers; Germany backtracks and decides to get rid of "Kiss and Ride" signs in English, reports the New York Times NICHOLAS KULISH

TAIPEI / BERLIN -- 2010

English-language "kiss and ride" signs at passenger drop-off areas along Taiwan's high-speed rail line often confuse passengers in a society where sendoffs are normally not intimate. However, in Germany, where a new sense of German pride is quickly changing the landscape, signs in English that read "Kiss and Ride" will soon be a thing of the past.

The German railway company Deutsche Bahn promised earlier this year to change its English-language signs after a school principal complained to the media about the use of English-language terms like “hot line,” “service point” and “kiss and ride.” , the Times reported recently.

White-on-blue signs at the seven stations along the 345-kilometre (214-mile) Taiwan high speed railway use the colloquialism seen at some U.S. stations and airports which refers to an area where drivers can drop off their passengers, usually a spouse, in the morning and pick them up in the evening, often with an embrace.

The Chinese-language version does not use the word "kiss".

"The English words 'kiss and ride' are a mystery to most local people," said D. H. Bloom, a U.S.-born blogger in the Taiwan. "It implies that this is a place to kiss and then ride somewhere, but public kissing at train stations in Taiwan is a rarity."

The signs were posted about two years ago, a year after railway planners learnt that "kiss and ride" was used in Western countries, said a spokesman for the railway line operator, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp.

High-speed rail authorities say they do not see a problem with the signs.

However, in Germany, where a new sense of German pride is quickly changing the landscape, signs in English that read "Kiss and Ride" will soon be a thing of the past, according to the New York Times.

The German railway company Deutsche Bahn promised earlier this year to change its English-language signs after a school principal complained to the media about the use of English-language terms like “hot line,” “service point” and “kiss and ride.” , the Times reported recently.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Does Laurence C. Smtih envision "polar cities" for survivors of global warming-caused climate chaos in future times? Ask him.

American geography professor Laurence Smith spent 15 months traveling the
Northern Rim and other parts of the world to find out what our future will look like. He visited remote
Arctic villages, lived on a Canadian icebreaker, interviewed lumberjacks, diamond miners, seamen,
and government officials, and even met his future wife in the Finnish Lapland along the way [COOL! and ROMANTIC!].

THE WORLD
IN 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future
is Smith’s comprehensive and balanced vision of our
future — and surprisingly, the news isn’t all bad. While he does not mention polar cities per se, and never talks about such a scenario, if you read between the lines it might occur to you that "polar cities" are part of his vision, too. Even he does not know it, yet!

I plan to interview Dr Smith on this blog to discuss:

1. Why does he think the Northern Rim (the United States, Canada, Iceland, Greenland (Denmark), Norway,
Sweden, Finland and Russia) will become a key region in the 21st century, a place that will
experience steeper climate changes, rising strategic value, and greater human activity than today. And he can imagine "polar cities" as part of the future scenarios?

2. In the geopolitical race for the Arctic Ocean, why does he think Russia has a special right to the North Pole. And will Russia build their own "polar city" settlements for survivors of climate chaos in future times?

3. Does you think, Larry, that California's thirsty desert cities will survive, but that its famously abundant agriculture may not and why, and what this means for the Lower 48 as mass migrations north to polar cities in Alaska and Canada get going in future times?

4. Why do you think there a surprising political rise of northern Aboriginal (capital A please!) peoples in North America but not
Europe and Asia?

5. What do you think, Lary, about some possible wild cards that can affect our future: polar cities (http://pcillu101.blogspot.com), AGW-caused climate chaos, abrupt climate change, rapid sea levels rise,
north-to-south water sales, and collapse of global economic integration.

THE WORLD IN 2050 offers long-term
thinking, original illustrations and maps, model simulations, and photographs — Smith’s account of his
personal experiences, and those of the people he meets, resonate throughout the book, making this an
extraordinarily human work of scientific investigation. Still, he has not addressed the issue of "polar cities" to house future survivors of climate chaos? Why not? Why is he blinded to this possibility? Fear? Denial? I will ask him.

-- Dan Bloom
Tufts 1971
Director, Polar Cities Project

Monday, September 6, 2010

A ''Desiderata'' for Our Cyber Age called ''Digirata'' - TechBlorg interview by Susan Wilson

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2010/09/06/heres-a-desiderata-for-the-cyberage-called-the-digirata

SUSAN WILSON writes: The Digirata is a nice calm thoughtful piece on unplugging and fighting cyber bullying. This piece has been signed “by ‘Anonymous’” but after you have read it, there is an email interview with the actual author.



After reading the homage to the original 1927-dated Desiderata by Max Ehrmann, Susan Wilson spoke with me about the text. Following is our email dialogue:



SUSAN WILSON: What prompted you to write Digirata?



DAN BLOOM: The rising number of cyberbullying and cyberstalking cases nationwide and worldwide, that have led to some teenagers committing
suicide. The case of 15 year old Phoebe Prince in Massachusetts was
one such case of brutal cyberbullying that led to the young girl
hanging herself in her home. And also the recent publication of books
like William Power’s Hamlet’s BlackBerry, about the need to unplug
from time to time, and even try to take what Powers calls an "internet
sabbath" once a week or so…

So I wanted to use some humor and some serious warnings too about modern internet use and at the same time write what i call an homage to the Desiderata. It is not a parody. It is an homage. The Desiderata is a wonderful piece of prose poetry from 1927 and it’s ideas and themes are still important today. However, the Digirata merely updates the Desiderata for the digital age, with some humor, some philosophy and some warnings.

SUSAN WILSON: Why not put your name on the piece?


DAN: Since I did not really write this prose poem, but merely edited the

1927 original and tweaked it a bit for 2010 readers, and gave it an

internet theme, I prefer to remain in the background as an editor and rewriter, and not "the author." The new poem is not about me, but about the issues of modern internet use and internet abuse. i want to focus on

the issues, not me. I am not important here. I feel this is a group effort, and of course, all kudos go first to Max Ehrmann, 1872-1945.



ME: What are you hoping to achieve with the piece?



DAN: I hope to help foster more national discussions in the media about cyberbullying and cyberstalking and unmoderated internet flaming. It has gotten out of control.



This is an ice-breaker, a discussion-starter. I hope the national media use it for that purpose. But in terms of legal issues, I do want to know more about the legal ramifications of cyberbullying and cyberstalking and even cyber-flaming on online forums.



ME: Has anyone responded to the piece and if so what did they have to say?



DAN: Yes, many blogs are posting reactions to the Digirata, and I have sent the text to over 100 experts in the fields of technology, psychology

and law. Some comments I have received so far:



"….just what I needed…..

technology may change but human nature and our plight never

change…." — from an Associated Press reporter in Japan



”Some very sound counsel. Thanks." — from a top technology writer in Boston







"I heard they wrote it in anger at all the cyberstalking and cyberbullying going on,…it’s wild out there…sigh….and yes…….It is. So many keyboard "tough guys" out there who will tell people where to stick it … but they’d never have the guts to say it in person. But as the new poem rightly point out, it’s still "a beautiful online world."– a songwriter in South Carolina





According to The Cyberbullying Research Center, 44 states have enacted Cyberbullying Laws. Findlaw gives a quick summary of nine of the 44 state laws. Laws are difficult to craft and many that are passed don’t always do what the legislators intended. The Megan Meiers Cyberbullying Prevention Act has gotten shunted from committee to committee in Congress. It was introduced April 2, 2009 by Rep Linda T. Sanchez [CA-39] and has been sitting in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security since May of 2009.






Cyberstalking has been addressed in many places by updates of harassment and stalking laws to include electronic stalking. Over a decade ago, Cyberstalking was already seen as a threat in a Report on Cyberstalking that was prepared by the Attorney General for the Vice President.






Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other web services have not been held accountable for the cyber abuses of their users just as phone companies are not held responsible for threats or pornographic pictures downloaded or sent by their customers.



So yes, the dialogue on cybercrimes needs to continue............................ ...

Taiwanese grad student at CCU creates DARK ANGEL to help blind people take photos and "see" them on a Braille platform later....

http://www.techeye.net/science/taiwanese-boffin-lets-the-blind-see-photos

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Print newspapers are dying and one veteran newsman tells why.....

Dear Danny,

Re your earlier post about "It's 2025 and there are no more print newspapers left in the world...."


Here's my take on all this:

I don't read physical newspapers anymore, for these reasons:

1) MAIN REASON: I work at home on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. There are no newspaper deliveries; the kids who used to have a paper delivery business grew up and moved away. The closest newspaper stand is a mile away (and there are no cars or roads where I live). The weather outside usually sucks, and I'm not a morning person. I can barely walk downstairs to make breakfast, much less hop on my bike and dash one mile through the humidity with the sun burning in my eyes.

2) Even if I didn't mind the morning run, I won't give my money to the South China Morning Post, ever since they relabeled the "China" news section to "National news"; shows where their loyalties lie: across the border, not in Hong Kong (as if the shameless bias in their news and editorials didn't already make that clear). I can't read Chinese well enough to understand a newspaper. So the newsstand doesn't sell anything I want anyway.

3) The other local English paper, The Standard, is free, but isn't available where I live. Yet their entire paper is online, also free. They even use one of those page-flip applications, so you can flip it like a real paper. The SCMP charges for their online content (see #2). No page-flip either.

4) I can still have my morning ritual of drinking my coffee and reading the paper. The only difference is, I'm scanning the headlines on my mobile phone. When I decide to read anything in more detail and to see the photos, I carry my coffee into my home studio and fire up the computer.

5) The New York Times is available online for free too.

So every morning I read The Standard for local news, then read the New York Times for US and (some) international news (the Times is still way too biased toward news about Russia and Israel), and the book reviews. Then I scan Google News for other interesting headlines.

If I lived in New York I'd buy the print paper, though. I think. Maybe.

I missed physical newspapers for a long time. It took a couple years to adjust to this new reality. Now I don't miss them at all. If there was a really great local paper that charged for content (the SCMP is at the opposite extreme from 'great') I would happily pay to access it, just like I pay around US$250 a year to access my favorite internet radio stations.

I hope a proper business model will congeal, which will enable a decent living for good reporters, and to fund proper investigative journalism. But the culture of theft of IP without remorse makes that questionable.

I'm about to buy an e-reader. Now that every bookshelf in my home is so stuffed with books that they're piling up on the floor, I've decided that I will only buy physical books that are worth keeping (which accounts for around 2/3 of what I buy). The others, the read-once-and-never-look-at-it-again ones, I'll buy as e-books. Plus there are zillions of classics and historical texts available for free on Google Books, ready-made for e-readers. I hope it doesn't take me years to adjust to e-readers.

My thoughts, for what they're worth.

Larry Feign,
Hong Kong-based writer and cartoonist
website: http://www.humorist.net/

SWAT TEAM in MANILA: Seriously Wanting Assault Training = S.W.A.T

cnn.com

Liu Yun-guo , 79, SIDEWALK BOOKSELLER IN TAIWAN

Roger Ebert on Cooking - The Chef and Food Writer - BRAVO!

Roger Ebert: No Longer an Eater, Still a Cook






Chaz Ebert, left, with her husband, Roger,


By KIM SEVERSON, NYTIMES

August 31, 3010

[Roger Ebert is now a food writer despite losing his ability to eat.]




THE first several minutes at a restaurant with Roger Ebert are awkward.



It’s not that you can’t find a million things to discuss. Mr. Ebert,

68, has reviewed movies for more than four decades. He’s driven around

with Robert Mitchum while the actor got stoned and lost on the

Pennsylvania Turnpike. He once owned a 1957 Studebaker and still owns

a Pulitzer Prize.



The thing is, he doesn’t eat and he doesn’t talk. Or rather, he can’t

eat and he can’t talk. He hasn’t for four years, ever since cancer

took his lower jaw, and three attempts to rebuild his face and his

voice failed.



In those first few moments at the table, you try not to look at the

empty place where his jaw used to be. You wonder how it feels to

receive your nourishment through a tube directly into your stomach.

You cringe when the waitress offers him a menu and asks if he wants

something to drink.



But soon, in a flurry of hand gestures, glances, scribbles in a little

spiral notebook and patient asides from his wife, Chaz, he’s having a

conversation. You’re laughing. And you get to ask the question: How

bad do you miss eating?



“For a few days I could think of nothing but root beer,” he said about

the weeks after the surgery that removed much of his jaw. He passed

through a candy fixation, romancing Red Hots and licorice-flavored

Chuckles.



And he circled back time and again to a favorite meal served at Steak

’n Shake, an old-fashioned hamburger chain beloved in his part of the

Midwest. When he wrote about it last year on his blog, Roger Ebert’s

Journal, people saw that the legendary movie critic for The Chicago

Sun-Times could also knock out some great food writing.



“A downstate Illinois boy loves the Steak ’n Shake as a Puerto Rican

loves rice and beans, an Egyptian loves falafel, a Brit loves banger

and mash, an Indian loves tikki ki chaat, a Swede loves herring, a

Finn loves reindeer jerky, and a Canadian loves bran muffins,” he

wrote. “These matters do not involve taste. They involve a deep-seated

conviction that a food is absolutely right, and always has been, and

always will be.”



He both writes and thinks about food in the present tense. Ask about

favorite foods and he’ll scribble a note: “I love spicy and Indian.”

An offer to bring some New Jersey peaches to his summer home here on

the shore of Lake Michigan brings a sharp defense of Michigan peaches

and a menu idea. “Maybe for dessert we could have a salad of local

fresh fruits.”



“Food for me is in the present tense,” he said. “Eating for me is now

only in the past tense.” He says he has a “voluptuous food memory”

that gets stronger all the time.



“I can remember the taste and smell of everything, even though I can

no longer taste or smell,” he said.



That is, he concedes later, a bit sweeping. He can’t remember the food

at a French spa prepared by Michel Guérard, who has three Michelin

stars. And he can’t recall the last meal he ever ate, because who knew

then that surgeons would never be able to fix it all?



But he remembers everything about the food at the Steak ’n Shake. In

the hospital, he told me, he ate Steak ’n Shake meals a bite at a time

in his mind. Still, what he longs for most is the talk and fellowship

of the table.



“The jokes, gossip, laughs, arguments and shared memories I miss,” he

wrote in a blog post.



The eating itself is a side note, really. Anyone who has put together

a winning dinner party understands that. But food — the cooking and

sharing part of it — still means so much to him that he is publishing

a cookbook this month. It’s based entirely on meals to be made in a

rice cooker. The title is “The Pot and How to Use It: The Mystery and

Romance of the Rice Cooker” (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $14.99).



How can a guy without a working tongue write a recipe?



“It’s all experience, my visuals and friendly tasters,” he wrote to

me. “I’ve used The Pot so very many times I know what everything I

make in it MUST taste like.”



The first rice cooker in the Ebert household was a wedding gift from

the couple’s longtime friend and personal assistant, Carol Iwata. It

wasn’t until Mr. Ebert became serious about losing weight and went to

the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa in Florida that he began to tinker

with cooking grains other than rice. He went nerdy and deep.



“Whenever Roger learns anything, he becomes obsessed with it,” Mrs. Ebert said.



Soon, entire meals were coming out of the rice cooker. He made fruit

and oatmeal breakfasts and stews for supper, figuring out how to mess

with the settings and stage the ingredients so that everything didn’t

turn to mush.



He took his little three-cupper to Sundance so he could march through

a marathon of movies with something more than popcorn and candy in his

stomach.



In 2008, long after he accepted that he would never put food in his

mouth again, he wrote a blog post presenting his philosophy of The Pot

as a way for all the people with not much space and not much time or

money to cook for themselves.



“I am thinking of you, student in your dorm room,” he wrote. “You,

shut-in. You, recovering campaign worker. You, movie critic at

Sundance. You, sex worker waiting for the phone to ring. You, factory

worker sick of frozen meals. You, people in Werner Herzog’s

documentary about life at the South Pole.”



The post became the frame for the book. “I am a quick, direct,

practical and simple cook, which is why the rice cooker had such an

appeal to me,” he explained.



“The Pot” follows food obsessions that include a long affair with a

wok and with a Madhur Jaffrey dish that involves sealing a chicken in

a pot with flour paste. Although Mr. Ebert often doesn’t follow

cookbooks, his 150-volume collection includes well-used copies of

“Craig Claiborne’s Kitchen Primer,” which taught him to cook, and a

later edition of “Cooking in Ten Minutes,” published in 1948 by

Édouard de Pomiane.



Most of the recipes came from Mr. Ebert’s head, from friends and from

a dedicated group of blog readers who started a sub-cult built around

him and rice cookers. They form just one of many tribes who have

recently discovered him as a prolific, post-cancer online personality.



He spends hours propped in his reclining chairs at the couple’s homes

in Chicago and here in Michigan, tending his blog and his Twitter

account, which has nearly a quarter-million followers.



“The blog has opened a new world just when I needed it,” he told me.



Dorothy O’Brien, who edited the book, sent the recipes to professional

testers to get the unruly collection into shape. There wasn’t much to

do to the copy, though. It was nearly perfect.



The book, she said, is “more about his philosophy of food and eating

and why we eat.” It also includes comments from his digital followers,

which makes it something of a community cookbook.



“When he says he misses the camaraderie of eating, that’s what he

misses more than the food,” she said.



Mr. Ebert wisely recruited Anna Thomas, the author of the classic “The

Vegetarian Epicure” and the book “Love Soup,” as his culinary

ombudswoman. She decries the limits of The Pot’s two settings —

“insanely high and barely warm” — and argued against the inclusion of

canned soup and powdered broth in many of the book’s recipes. (She

lost.)



But she salutes the spirit of one-pot cooking and contributed recipes

with smart ways to coax flavors from The Pot with browned onion and

fresh ingredients, like ripe tomatoes in a summer soup with farro.



Health is a sub-theme. Mr. Ebert remains obsessed with grains and

sodium levels, lessons he learned when his wife persuaded him to go to

the Pritikin Center to lose weight. He dropped about 70 pounds just

before he got sick, and another 40 or so during his illness.



The book is funny, too. His list of meats to throw into The Pot

includes chicken, pork, goat and Minotaur. In explaining how The Pot

knows when the rice is done, he writes: “It is an ancient mystery of

the Orient. Don’t ask questions you don’t need the answers to.”



Cooking with Mr. Ebert, who can’t speak but has a very deliberate way

in the kitchen, is both a thrill and a challenge. His physical

condition limits the time he can spend there, but he makes good use of

it, keeping things simple and relying on the Cuisinart to chop

ingredients, even for a salad.



Mrs. Ebert, a lawyer who grew up in a big family and is more used to

cooking for a crowd, designed the huge kitchen in the lake house,

which her husband has owned since the 1980s. It has generous counters

and an oversize table that seats a dozen. They have hosted Fourth of

July parties with 300 people and Thanksgiving for 30.



Since his operations, the cooking has been on a much smaller scale.



The dish we prepared one day last month didn’t have a name and wasn’t

written down anywhere.



Because I had no idea where we were going as we cooked, it rendered

the session something like a “Top Chef” challenge. He started by

dumping water into The Pot with a store-bought blend of rice, grain

and lentils called SooFoo. Then he sent me to chop some Michigan

peaches. “Better use ripe peach,” he scribbled when I was slicing one

that seemed a bit hard. “I handed to you.”



I had to guess what he meant when he waved off the bowl I selected to

hold the yellow peppers I had chopped. Was it the bowl or was the

chopping wrong?



At one point, I think he got very frustrated. He wanted to make a nice

lunch, but I kept interrupting him with questions. A photographer kept

taking pictures. Mrs. Ebert, who has a rare patience, was getting

tired.



He scribbled a few hurried instructions for me and left the kitchen.

He hadn’t taken any nourishment in a while, and his shoulder, whose

muscle had been used in an effort to repair his face, had started to

ache.



He eased into the big black recliner in his study, and his wife got

out a can of the Isosource that keeps him alive. He takes about six

cans four times a day, mixed with water. Sometimes he gets fresh fruit

or vegetable juice or a little shot of Pepsi, which helps clean the

tube.



While he’s in the chair, I tend to the onions and garlic in one pot

and keep stirring the grains, peaches and pork in another. I mix them

together, as he instructed. I peek into the study and watch him take

his liquid meal, embarrassed by my curiosity.



After about 15 minutes he walks out and scribbles me a note.



“I’m sure you made certain the pork was heated through.”



Yes, chef, I say.



He scribbles again. It’s an apology.



“I come across as a tyrannical chef because I never speak and am in a

hurry because of my shoulder.”



No worries, chef, I say. Then I lift the lid from The Pot.



He pours a little spicy Saigon Sizzle sauce from a bottle and stirs it in.



Then he gives me a thumbs up. It’s time to eat.

It's 2025 and print newspapers have disappeared

It's 2025 and print newspapers have disappeared, except for a few big city tabloids and free give-away shopping papers. So how do you get your news and opinion [N&O] broadsheets now?

It's all online, digital, webbed, iPadded, Googled, nooked. Print newspapers have ceased to exist since 2015. Everyone gets their N&O [news and opinion] online now, from the web-only New York Times to the digital Boston Globe. Even the Boulder Daily Camera is a camera to the online world now. Goodbye paper, sayonara newsprint.

Print is dead. Digital reigns supreme.

Any holdouts? A few. Inconsequential.

Screens have taken over. ''Screening'' has replaced ''reading'' - take note Nick Bilton.

It's a very different world now from 2010. People are still adjusting. The younger generation doesn't know the difference. Call them Ishmael. Generation Ishmael.

It's an entirely new ballgame now. Better? Worse? We won't know for another 100 years.

Meanwhile, MRI and PET scan studies on the brain show that reading on screens is vastly inferior, brain-wise, in terms of brain chemisty, from
reading on paper. But so what? We shall adapt. We always do.