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Kindle has become the most gifted item in Amazon's history. On Christmas Day 2009, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books.

A Good Read!


Click to read a sample


Back To The Garden

Good Deals!



 
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

My take on DVD Piracy - on Danwei

I don’t believe the Western entertainment business’ hard-line stance on piracy is intractable because of greed or protectionism. I think that they just don’t get it.

One of my favorite websites is Danwei, a Beijing blog about media, advertising and urban life in China, hosted and mostly written by the dashing Jeremy Goldkorn, one of our favorite people, the savvy young South African who runs Danwei, a bright star in the Beijing marketing world.

I'm delighted and honored to tell you that Danwei's just published one of my articles about IP and media counterfeiting, Music and Movie Piracy: If you can't lick 'em, which offers some modest and immodest proposals about how to rethink this phenomenon. Have a look and if you like, come back here and comment. (Danwei doesn't feature comments).

It's worth a look if even only to see the hilarious caption of the photo he chose as an illustration.

 
Thursday, September 22, 2005

New Orleans, music and compassion

Missing New Orleans

New Orleans needs help. While the major charities are collecting and dispensing financial, medical and infrastructure support and the federal government is looking at allocating $200 billion for rebuilding, there are more personal ways to help too. The overriding reason to help in a way that is personally meaningful to you as well as contributing to the major charities, is unique in the case of New Orleans, arguably the most unique city in the world: When people go to New Orleans, everyone there is helpful, friendly and hospitable. It's time to repay that extraordinary municipal spirit and repay it the way it extends to every visitor--from the heart. New Orleans is the birthplace, heart and soul of American music.

Community radio is a vital cultural asset, and those stations that have great music can be enormous nourishment in difficult as well as ordinary times. There's been a dearth of ordinary times lately, which is to say that the American psyche is plagued with misfortune and despair, cynicism and divisive politics. I love listening to the streaming broadcast of WERU, a small and very hip station in Maine. If you read this in time, tune into Doc Dufour's Highway 61, a Dylan-focused radio show at 10:00 PM EST (GMT -4 for you expats) --or on any Thursday. Charlie is a curmudgeonly and supremely knowledgeable deejay with a lot of hard-to-find tracks in his library. WERU has a lot of great shows by dedicated volunteer deejays with supreme playlist taste, including bluegrass, folk, country, soul and jazz. Their schedule is here .

Through WERU, I found out about WFMU, another freeform radio station, this one from New Orleans. Freeform Radio is: "An approach to radio programming in which a station's management gives the DJ complete control over program content. Freeform shows are as different as the personalities of DJ's, but they share a feeling of spontaneity, a tendency to play music that is not usually heard." (from WFMU's website)

WFMU has an eclectic banana bunch of intriguing programs, too and an online schedule that lets you click up a sample of a program or explore the online archives. This morning early (China time) I listened to an amazing program of Southern spiritual music. Through WFMU, I found out about WWOZ.

WWOZ, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage station, lost their entire production facility to Katrina and needs help. They're off the air until they can get a temporary transmitter up. Check out WFMU's terrific blog for details and go to the WWOZ membership page to help out.

Arlo Guthrie, who made the song "City of New Orleans" famous, is riding that train's route to help resuscitate the music scene there. He's scheduling a tour to collect equipment and money for the music venues that succumbed to Hurricane Katrina. He says:

When I think of New Orleans, I think of music. I also think of food, but that's another story. The City of New Orleans is America's first music city. New Orleans is the city that truly began America's contribution to the history of music world-wide. Without it, there'd be no popular music as we know it today.

When I wonder what they might need in New Orleans to get back on their feet, the stuff that gets ruined under water, I think of all the sound boards, the cables, the lighting, the microphones, the instruments; I think of the stuff you need in the hundreds of little clubs and bars that bring the music to the street - the street that brings the people to the city. And I think of the many thousands of people who depend on those people for their livelihoods.

(more at Looka , which you should looka go see anyway if you have a special place in your heart for New Orleans music and culture)


"Christmas on The City of New Orleans with Arlo Guthrie and Friends:" Bringing Back The Music Benefiting The Victims of Katrina will depart Chicago on December 7th and arrive in New Orleans on December 17th. Along the way they will stop in depots and performance venues, play concerts to raise money, and collect or purchase equipment.

It costs what it costs

About that 200 million that Bush will ask congress to ante up for Katrina relief. At the press conference in New Orleans on September 15, when asked by a reporter how much rebuilding the south coast will cost, Bush replied: "it's going to cost whatever it costs." That's the right answer. And as for fiscal concerns, an article in USA today reports on the various ideas for consolidating those funds that are being discussed in Washington:
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY
Thu Sep 22, 7:14 AM ET

Postpone the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit for a year to save $30.8 billion. Repeal funding for a $223 million "bridge to nowhere" that would serve 50 people in Alaska. Allow President Bush's tax cuts to expire. Sell bonds similar to World War II's Liberty Bonds.

...

Bush has vowed that the federal government will cover the "great majority" of the costs for roads, schools and water systems. Congress has approved $62.3 billion so far, but talks have just begun on how to pay for recovery other than expanding a $331 billion deficit.

more here
It costs what it costs. That's the right answer. It'll take some sacrifice and tops on my list is to let the tax cuts for the rich expire.

 

Iconic, these Chinese - Clinton condoms

Iconic, Ironic, Laconic... and clever. A bit of Chinese marketing innovation that merits note:

BEIJING (AP)

A rubber company in China has begun marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky.

Spokesman Liu Wenhua, of the Guangzhou Rubber Group, said the company was handing out 100,000 free Clinton and Lewinsky condoms as part of a promotion to raise consumer awareness of its new products.

Liu said the company had chosen to use the Clinton name because consumers viewed the 42nd president as a responsible person, who would want to stress safe sex as an effective way to prevent the spread of the HIV virus.

"The names we chose are symbols of people who are responsible and dedicated to their jobs," he said. "I believe Bill Clinton cannot be unhappy about this because he's a very generous man."

I also have to believe Bill Clinton won't object. But that statement is pretty crafty isn't it? It alludes that the Guangzhou Rubber Group doesn't exactly have permission to use the Clinton (or Lewinsky) name for commercial purposes and publicly acknowledges its gamy hedge.

The re-emergence of William Jefferson Clinton is one of the few bright spots in American and world politics. When a statesman of such great personal power as Clinton steps outside of office, outside of his party and leads, I think that truly portends of more visionary times. He is that rare and most effective of world figures; an independent statesman with authentic Liberal values. And even rarer, he can take criticism, he can take a stand and he can take a joke.

What do you think "responsible and dedicated to her job" Lewinsky will do?

 
Sunday, September 18, 2005

Touchy, these Chinese

Kunming bans foreign development names
from China Daily 2005-09-14 06:03
The southwestern Chinese city of Kunming is forcing developers to change the names of properties deemed too foreign-sounding, saying they debase traditional culture, officials said yesterday.

At least nine developments in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, have changed their names since officials began implementing new guidelines last month. "Paris of the East Plaza," "French Gardens," and "Ginza Office Tower," were among others making the change.

"It's not proper to name these communities with so many weird foreign titles," said an official with the Kunming Urban Planning Bureau, who would only be identified by his surname Xiao.

"We feel obligated to keep our local characteristics," he said.

Foreign sounding names are popular in China, lending a hint of exoticism to cookie-cutter housing developments and office buildings springing up in urban centres. Many are targeted at China's rising middle class, who are better educated and increasingly drawn to foreign travel, culture and ideas.

Kunming first enacted rules against naming developments after foreign places, people, brands or companies in 1997.

Xiao said new guidelines were issued in August to add emphasis following a denunciation of the practice by Kunming Communist Party Secretary Yang Chongyong.

"The fashion for foreign sounding names on buildings is a loss to native culture and reflects poor taste," Yang said in remarks reported by the official Xinhua News Agency. "We must correct this practice immediately."

The August guidelines ordered authorities not to license new developments without name approval. Xiao said officials from a number of government departments would issue recommendations as to whether or not to approve names.

"If developers still continue to use foreign names, their projects won't be allowed to start," Xiao said.

A spokeswoman for Kunming Zhujia Real Estate Co., developer of the "White House Mini District," said the company was following the new rules.

"The old name seemed to suit the project, but I don't think there'll be any effect on sales," said the woman.

She said the development's name had been changed to "Zhujia Shangyu" roughly translated as "Good Living Business Estates."

 
Sunday, September 04, 2005

Guilty Pleasure

I just love that Cuba and Afghanistan have offered disaster aid.

Wake up to the world, America, wake up to yourself.

I've just heard from one of the brightest and best of the younger generation, my husband's neice, Lauren Ristvet, back from 6 years in Europe, now teaching at Georga State in Atlanta. She said, "I can only hope that the outrageous events of the last week, which have laid bare so many ugly facts about race and class in this country, will serve as a loud wake-up call to people in my generation."

See also Anne Rice's editorial in the New York Times on Sunday:
I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.


Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Steve Goodman, City of New Orleans





A picture I took in the French Quarter (St. Ann Street) when we visited just three weeks ago.

St. Ann Street, August 17th, 2005.

 
Friday, September 02, 2005

The South Will Rise Again



We returned to Beijing last Saturday from 3 weeks in the states, one of which was spent with Joseph's family in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The region was in its glory, clean, fresh, alive, bustling, gorgeous, fragrant, its history shining, its future bright.

It's been high stress at our house from the horror of watching Katrina move in, to the short lived moment of relief that it hadn't hit N'awlins head-on, to the moment a doctor from Tulane University Medical School on Canal Boulevard late at night after the storm had passed, called CNN and reported by videophone that the water was rising at the rate of an inch every 5 minutes inside the hospital. She said there were waves coming down Canal Boulevard towards the river and there was a report of a levee breach. Joseph, who lived for 25 years in New Orleans, knew instantly what that meant, bellowed "go back!"

And then all hell broke loose.

More tomorrow.

Ellen says hey
Mainer, New Yawka, Beijinger, Californian, points between. News, views and ballyhoos that piqued my interest and caused me to sigh, cry, chuckle, groan or throw something.


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