Mac-a-ro-nies

Mac-a-ro-nies is an intelligent, interesting blog that is unafraid of taking the other, less-espoused side. A recent example:

Two third-party candidates are performing a public service. Ralph Nader and David Cobb have sought recounts of ballots in the race for president. The recounts will test the accuracy of Diebold Election Systems, Inc. voting machines. By taking the initiative, the candidates for president bypass the issue of standing to challenge election results most citizens would face. They also get good publicity for themselves. But, nothing is perfect. I commend them for assuming the cloak of 'statesman'.

Do not confuse this person with the European word from the 18th century for people who adoped high fashion once they went on the Grand Tour

The word came to denote the people who dressed in high fashion with stripes and tall, powdered wigs with a little hat on top - so high that it could only be removed on the point of a sword.
The word 'macaroni' came to refer to a person who exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion and it eventually became a pejorative term. Exceeding the 'ordinary bounds of fashion' was what the macaronies did best - in terms of clothes, eating and gambling. It was certainly not at all the image of a man that was expected by British society at the time. The term macaroni, then, may have been used as a form of insult.

Macaronies were considered liberal to the extreme, in a pejorative sense. Ref Christopher Anstey's poem "Liberality, or the Decayed Macaroni"

Alas! what Misfortunes attend
The Man of a liberal Mind!
How poor are his Thanks at the End,
From base and ungrateful Mankind!
....
My free and humane Disposition
(Thank Heaven) I ever have shewn
To all in a helpless Condition,
Whose Fortunes I'd first made my own:

liberal. Free, bountiful, generous; also gentlemenlike. (Dictionarium Britannicum, 1730)

Those aren't such bad attributes to espouse, methinks.

I'll Have Wings With That

Unusual controversy sparked between Hooters and Ker's Winghouse over whose idea it was to serve babes with beer.Crawford Ker played college football for the University of Florida Gators.Crawford was a 3rd round draft choice of the Dallas Cowboys in 1985. He spent six years with the Cowboys where he was team captain for 4 of those years and was named to the Cowboys "Team of the 80's". Crawford left the Cowboys and played for the Denver Broncos for 2 seasons.

Crawford retired after the 1993 season and opened the original WingHouse in Largo, Florida in 1994. There are now 13 Winghouses in Florida.


That's a great offer - worth considering if you like your beer and babes in the privacy of your own home.

My money's on Ker's Winghouse - hopefully opening soon near me.

Kyoto or Bust!

The Kyoto Protocol, the UN's longtroubled pact for combating global warming, finally got the green light on Thursday, with February 16 announced as the date when it will become a binding treaty.

Russia ratified the Kyoto accord in a ceremony in Nairobi enabling the Protocol to enter into force 90 days from the 19th of November, 2004 - thus the Protocol will come into effect on February 16, 2005. This is nearly seven years after the framework was agreed upon by the UN Framework Convention On Climatic Change at the 1992 Rio Summit.

Soon after taking office, President George W Bush branded the Kyoto Protocol unfair and refused to ratify the accord, even though the United States had signed the agreement in 1997. The concerns expressed by the United States are because the primary onus to make cuts is on the largest developed nations, and not on growing nations like China and India.

Only four industrialised countries - Liechtenstein and Monaco, plus Australia and the United States - now remain outside the Kyoto Protocol.For the protocol to come into force it needed the support of countries that accounted for more than 55% of the industrialised nations' 1990 greenhouse gas emissions. When the US said it would not sign up, this crucial threshold looked out of reach but Russia's approval has finally swung it, taking the percentage of emissions covered from 44.2% to 61.6%.

Concerns about the Greenhouse Effect are not new, first voiced by Jean Baptiste Fourier in 1827. The post-World War II boom saw a rise in CO₂ emissions worldwide. A red flag was raised in 1979 by the US National Academy Of Sciences, warning that a 'wait-and-see attitude may mean waiting until it is too late'. While that might seem like a line from The Day After Tomorrow, recent readings are troubling. The year 1998 was the warmest since formal readings began being collected, and nine of the ten warmest years in the record are all post-1990. Various scientists have termed the major storms experienced worldwide signs of growing Global Warming. Reinsurer Munich Re estimated the cost of climate-related disasters in 2003 at $60 billion.

The implications of the ratification of the Accord are yet to be determined. It is to be hoped that the retreat of the largest producer of greenhouses gases from the treaty will not have left this tiger without any teeth. At this point, despite ratification by the industrialized nations, most do not have controls and processes in place that can effectively track the usage of GHGs.

The market that will doubtless develop in 'emission credits' will bring interesting side effects. Countries could form new trading blocs that carry significant economic clout as well. By not being a part of the Accord, the United States could be excluded from these trading blocs.

By Jingo!

The current Patrician of Ankh-Morpork is Lord Havelock Vetinari, who has proved to be quite different from his predecessors.. Most members of the office were content merely to guide and serve. Lord Vetinari, instead believes in calm sense and rule over less intelligent, benighted peoples is best done through guiding them.

Under his rule, crime has dropped (well, illegal crime, anyway), Ankh-Morpork has prospered, and provided one doesn't commit suicide it's a decent place to live. His Lordship is against unnecessary violence (while being bang on the side of necessary violence, of course), and is remarkably tolerant - he will allow anything which does not threaten the wellfare of the city. Well, he does have anyone caught practicing mime inside the city walls hung upside down over a scorpion pit, but that's really his only failing, if you can even call it that.

The Vetinari family motto is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". He is a master at seeding the right person in the camp of his rivals, and in fact, if his rivals do not realize it themselves, making them into better rivals. In doing so, he often solves a problem before it is a problem, by making it into a problem that can be solved.

'And these are your reasons, my lord?'
'Do you think I have others?' said Lord Vetinari. 'My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent.'
Hughnon reflected that 'entirely transparent' meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn't see them at all.

It reminds one of the current political adviser of the President, Karl Rove. Early in his career, he stole letterheads from a rival's office and printed fliers romising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing". He then distributed the fliers in Chicago' s red-light district, rock concerts and homeless shelters. It takes a special kind of intelligence for a prank of this sort. Other whisper campaigns are rumored to have been his handiwork, including the one against John McCain.

"Karl is enormously powerful, maybe the single most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political adviser post near the Oval Office," John DiIulio, a former presidential adviser, wrote in a notoriously frank email to a journalist from Esquire magazine, after resigning in 2001. "Little happens on any issue without Karl's OK, and often he supplies such policy substance as the administration puts out."

Lord Vetinari says in The Truth,

[The news] reached the cold but incredibly accurate ears of the Patrician, and it did that fairly quickly, because you did not stay ruler of Ankh-Morpork for long if you were second with the news. He sighed and made a note of it, and added it to a lot of other notes.

As Wikipedia has it,

Strangely enough, Vetinari has no lust for power. The sole reason for him ruling the city is that he is fiercely loyal to it.

Karl Rove has similar aspirations

Rove, the President's most trusted political strategist and arguably one of the shrewdest man in Washington, won't publicly acknowledge the outcome of the midterms as any kind of personal affirmation. He'll attribute the Republican gains in the House and Senate to the intelligence of the voters or the general mood of the country. Or, more likely, he'll point to the President's appeal - Rove has no time for basking in past successes. This self-described "very competitive guy" is already moving on to the next big thing

His vision is focused on larger things than a re-election. Much like Lord Vetinari, who is duly relected yearly by a committee of Ankh-Morpork's leading families, Karl Rove is looking beyond everyday politics. The Guardian believes he would like to establish a Republican hegemony similar to that effected by William Mckinley with his defeat of William Jennings Bryan in 1896

Of course, the one difference with Lord Vetinari and Karl Rove is that Vetinari rules in absentia of Ankh-Morpork's King, sitting on a chair below the empty Throne of the city. It would be hard to deny the genius of this masterful politican and king-maker, although his detractors have considered Karl Rovian a synonym for Machiavellian. People tend to credit him with much, even when he isn't involved. I'm sure he wouldn't mind that at all. I mean, Lord Vetinari, of course.

Review: Agent Orange

Amazon Theater gets more and more interesting. After last week's short film - Portrait by relative unknown <>, this week's offering is 'Agent Orange' by well-known director Tony Scott, who did films like Top Gun, Man On Fire and Enemy Of The State. He comments on Amazon Theater over at Amazon.

This film is a rapid video montage done using a hand-cranked camera and set in the confines of a subway station, possibly in LA. The visuals are rapid, imbued with green, yellow and orange hues, and set to music from Mozart's Marriage Of Figaro,Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and what sounds like Kid Rock's Baby, Come Home

You know I checked in New York City

On the streets and on the subways

And I looked around that tired town to find the one who loved me


I looked out in the Hamptons thought she'd be hangin' with them rich folks

But no she wasn't anywhere hangin' on the east coast

As usual, Orange Boy and Orange Girl are decked out in accoutrements drawn from Amazon's product list, such as the Fossil Orange Metal watch and Chuck Converse Taylor Hi-Tops in Tangerine. The innovative pi/2 discount by Amazon if you query and then buy via a9.com is an added bonus

In short, Orange Boy notices Orange Girl in the hubbub of a subway station, digicams her, see her again, misses her, posts wanted ads for her that do not last, and finalement, they meet, exchanging IM greetings to live Happily Ever After.

Trite and commercial, yet this short film encapsulates post-modern disconnectedness, the splintered transient urban life and impermenance of it all in a powerful manner. Notably, the only spoken dialogue, apart from station announcements, is a voice over soundbite intoning "The Best strategy is to move quickly"

Burning The Self

Self-immolation is a terrible, yet somehow non-violent mode of protest. The recent attempt by an alleged FBI Information in front of the White House may be an isolated incident, but the form of protest is not new. Thoughts on self-immolation as a mode of protest are at blogcritics.org

Self-immolation is a nihilistic action at best, it achieves no results for the individual, apart from bringing to society's attention the alleged wrongs.

Playing Anda's Game

Cory Doctorow has posted a spanking new and good story called 'Anda's Game' at Salon.com under a Creative Commons License(day pass or subscription reqd. - a kind of DRM, methinks). To make it easier for you to read - I'm providing Anda's Game text and html versions - also under a Creative Commons License.

As is par for Cory's work, the topics are cutting edge - dealing with ebay-driven in-game economics, dietary restrictions on kids,anti-globalization criticism, puns on the Bradbury/Moore controversy and female rights a la SuicideGirls(?). In another time, a little girl might play with a golliwog, a Barbie or a teaset. In this post-modern age, she is a skilled character in a game that borrows from Everquest, Ray Bradbury, Quake and Tolkien - more a killer than a wayfarer. Her participation in, and then disavowal of, an in-game conspiracy to terminate characters who produce in-game gold to be sold for real money on ebay, is bracketed with the onset of youthful diabetes, induced perhaps by the sweetshops just outside the 500 m sugar-free zone at her school.

"Anda, I don't think it's healthy for you to spend so much time with your game," her da said, prodding her bulging podge with a finger. "It's not healthy."

"Daaaa!" she said, pushing his finger aside. "I go to PE every stinking day. It's good enough for the Ministry of Education."

"I don't like it," he said. He was no movie star himself, with a little pot belly that he wore his belted trousers high upon, a wobbly extra chin and two bat wings of flab hanging off his upper arms. She pinched his chin and wiggled it.

"I get loads more exercise than you, Mr Kettle."

"But I pay the bills around here, little Miss Pot."

"You're not seriously complaining about the cost of the game?" she said, infusing her voice with as much incredulity and disgust as she could muster. "Ten quid a week and I get unlimited calls, texts and messages! Plus play of course, and the in-game encyclopedia and spellchecker and translator bots!" (this was all from rote -- every member of the Fahrenheits memorised this or something very like it for dealing with recalcitrant, ignorant parental units) "Fine then. If the game is too dear for you, Da, let's set it aside and I'll just start using a normal phone, is that what you want?"

Anda is an individualistic spirit, well defined and smart, though the ma and da characters are a bit thinly drawn and stereotypical.The language is very British, as is the spelling. The story joins Cory's significant and growing corpus of work, including my favorite, Eastern Standard Tribe. Quite some food for thought here, as well as a gameworld that begs to be explored, written about and played.

The concept of in-game dynamics and offline resonances was experienced recently in the MMORPG "A Tale In The Desert" with some in-game racist comments. Virtual economics is a dynamic field, with the Everquest economy larger than that of Bulgaria, and virtual economic disputes being settled in human courts.

Update: Excellent reviews of the story are provided by Derryl Murphy and the Mumpsimus

Searching For Stupidity

While most organizations are in search of Excellence, it is perhaps more instructive to learn from Stupidity. After all, it's the flameouts, snafus and 'Himalayan blunders' that make the difference between being on top and not.

Merrill Chapman's In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters anecdotally tells of high-tech marketing disasters, and in the telling, covers the fabulous history of information technology, from SoftRAM to WebVan.

Talking about "In Search Of Excellence", he notes that

Most of In Search of Excellence ... functions as the corporate equivalent of the Kama Sutra...America's affair with excellence seems endless...Yet, despite all the talking, walking, and communicating, high-tech firms kept doing stupid things. Again and again and again.

He also points out that the book was intended as a balm for the wounded American corporate ego after the Japanese successes of the 1980s, and featured only American companies, many of which later flamed out, although the obsession with excellence never did.

This book is intended as a riposte to Excellence, besides a personalized history of technology. Several ancedotes stand out, including why CP/M never made it as the operating system for the IBM PC (think pricing: $240 vs $40), the demise of the video gaming industry in the 1980s (E.T.) and

He goes looking for idiocy in high places, and finds it. He remembers the TI99/4A, a home computing system that

• Was shipped with no way to write software for it
• Threatened publishers who did figure out how to write software for it
• Hid the existence of a built-in language to write software
• Provided no storage system
• Lost $50 per unit shipped

The misadventures of MicroPro and the demise of WordStar are lovingly detailed, the author having been product manager at MicroPro, including the signal idiocy to provide two versions of the same software with the same name, yet different markets and probably the first use of 2000 in a product name with WordStar 2000 in 1984.

Comparing the lists of the top ten software publishers from 1984 and 2001, he notes the only commonality is Microsoft. He postulates the point, possibly considered establishmentarian by some, that they were the only ones not to make a fatal mistake. A chapter is dedicated to debunking various myths about Microsoft, including poor quality and market monopolies, assigning the success of Microsoft to Zen-like marketing.

The centerpiece of the book is a collection of dated advertisements for equally dated computer products. My favorite is the one for OS/2 warp, intoning "The Borg is here", perhaps ungrammatically.

Other books have studied the success of some companies and the failure of others, notably Good To Great by Jim Collins and The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen. All dwell on the disprutive nature of success and the inability to stay successful. Rarely, though does a book use stupidity as a measure of success. It is surprising how now-ancient events have a strangely familiar ring, but then people don't really learn from their mistakes and stupidity, do they?

Neo soul - John Legend

I've posted a review of John Legend's song Used To Love You at blogcritics.org. I find this a pleasant listen, as well as a good video.

On closer watching, the backstory is quite deep - apparently, John has had past troubles with the lady over her dissatisfaction with his mode of loving. Another member of the church is more expansive, in a bling-bling way. Another lady perhaps fancies John. And I think the pastor has a thing for a certain other member.

Scram, a journal of unpopular culture

Scram, a journal of unpopular culture has some eclectic material, put together by the editrix, and others. As the caption has it,

SCRAM is a magazine dedicated to rooting out the cashews in the bridge mix of unpopular culture. Since 1992 we have chronicled the neglected, the odd, the nifty and the nuts.

Rod Mckuen's 68th Birthday - notes from the Hollywood Walk of Fame by diehard fans of the singer/songwriter - is a good example of the content.

Well, doll, you really had to be there, but I'll try to convey something of the magic with mere words... we met up at 2pm on Rod's star, directly opposite the Scientology personality test center and in front of a T-shirt and souvenir shop. The first order of business was to deck the star with wild roses, because our birthday boy has made it known that he's strong, but he likes roses. Folks then took turns sharing their favorite pieces of Rod's amd their own poetry, while the sax, guitar, bongo (singular) and Maggot's weird gourd/xylophone combo offered mostly tasteful accompaniment

Some cool links on their site, including, The Catalog of Cool and Hi-Horse Comics

Music is a Strange Hobby

Excellent first thoughts on U2's new album,How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, detailing much of the musical excellence that one's come to expect from U2.

There's also a challenge facing music fans and critics alike when listening to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb: Is it good enough for U2 to be U2 and create good songs in their signature style or must they continue the Achtung Baby-Zooropa-Pop trajectory of constant reinvention and pushing the limits of their sound? Your answer to these questions will probably have a lot to do with your reaction to the new album. I'll break it down, song by song.

A more detailed review is at blogcritics, but still early thoughts.

The album title is provocative, and warrants further deconstruction. It reminds one of college textbooks, or hobbyist manuals, but who would be in such a college, and what kind of hobby? Apparently, the answer to the eponymous question is 'Love', which is somehow not quite satisfying.

Amazon Theater's Portrait - Ugly Duckling And The American Dream

Amazon.com has launched Amazon Theater, a venue for short films online. The first offering, Portrait, can be reviewed at two levels - firstly as a vehicle for product placement - the film is choc-a-bloc with featured Amazon products, ranging from the Jabra wireless headset, the Nokia 6600 Phone and the Nordstrom tote. In fact, the credits at the end of the nine-minute film cover more products than people. Amazon is after all, a vehicle to sell products, and at least this is more an aboveboard vehicle than the hidden placement a la films like The Cat In The Hat.

The second way of looking at Portrait is as a film qua film. It is a film encapsulating in its short length corporate cat-fights, compulsive eating, spam filters, the myth of the beauty inside, and above all, the American fascination with the Ugly Duckling tale.

In brief, the story is about 4 corporate divas, one of whom is not as svelte, glamorous or sharp as the rest. She answers an email that got through multiple spam filters - one sent by Bud's Glamour Shots and has her portrait taken by them. She shows the portrait to her 'friends', only to meet ridicule and scorn. She goes home, and cries herself to sleep. The next morning she wakes to find herself, and the portrait, transformed to something out of the glamour magazines.

A longer film, and perhaps a more satirical director might have turned this story into Dorian Gray meets the Ugly Duckling. Instead, the remaining frames deal with Esther's showing herself off in front of the corporate honchos, and to drive the point of the 'moral' in, the head honcho has her portrait done, only to find her true nature coming out.

Cinematically, the film is structured as a play, retaining the three unities, and features good acting by the cast, which includes Minnie Driver. It is directed by Jordan Scott, better known for music videos

The combination of consumerism and the American dream is not new, but the introduction of Amazon Theater is an interesting step in an unusual direction, and subsequent entries shall be awaited with interest.

Halo 2 - Reviewed

The deed's done - I picked up Halo 2 pursuant my previous post. I was unable to resist. The store was close, the display more tempting than one could imagine. First impressions are at blogcritics.org.

XBox Live experiences & review will be posted once I've spent enough time online with other Master Chiefs. I hear one can even play as a Covenant member.

I'm off to save the world!

The Slacker's Guide To Winning Elections

After Michael Moore's smart but wasted effort to get out the slacker vote, we now learn that the reason they didn't bother voting in the end was because they were hacking the vote. The knock-yer-socks-funny expose is at IMAO.

Frank: So was it hard hacking the vote?
Hacker1: Sorta, but Diebold gave us easy to follow instructions.
Hacker2: We totally owned all the votes.
Hacker1: Totally.
Hacker2: It was funny to see the Democrats try and cheat the old-fashioned way. They can bring in all the dead people they want
to vote, but we'll just change their votes to Republican in the end.
Hacker1: (laughs) I bet you didn't know this, but Michael Moore voted for Bush.
Hacker2: (laughs) He doesn't know it either.

I guess that would be a good plot for a Kevin Smith movie



SlackersGuild had a 'Get out the vote' message - unfortunately the slacker editor posted it on the 4th of November.

Carpe Diem et Jugulum

Note: An abbreviated version of this post is at blogcritics.org - I welcome your comments.

A tide has turned once again in the affairs of men, a chance to break the oil curse that haunts our most ancient lands. The old man of the desert has passed on to another oasis - ironically on Armistice Day.

Yasser Arafat's much-rumored demise became truth early Thursday in Paris, city of lights. His last days were murky, as was much of his life.Yet he was given in the end, that rarest of gifts, a death serene and not by the sword. The challenge of the leadership of the Palestinian peoples is second only to the gravity of seeing a leading actor on the stage pass, his hour done, his role ended - the lion in winter is now no more.

The fact that his biography on wikipedia is disputed is apposite, given that much of his life was spent in dispute and Muhammad Abd al-Rahman ar-Rauf al-Qudwah al-Husayni had a colorful, variegated, violent, hated yet loved time. He was part of another era almost, one where dark deeds were done dirt cheap, one where absolute friends were constant enemies, and one where to love one's country might have been deemed a crime.

Known for memorable quotes like

"I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

he had made more enemies than friends, yet many will be called on now to say a fair word, not in defence but in respect. He was close to Indira Gandhi, the assasinated Prime Minster of India.

Indira Gandhi had immense liking for Arafat and the PLO leader would not get tired of calling her "my sister, my sister". Arafat was overwhelmed when Mrs. Gandhi visited his high security headquarters in Tunis in April 1984 and, this correspondent accompanying her, saw the genuine concern the Indian Prime Minister had for the PLO leader. She went to Tunisia while on her way back to Delhi after paying a state visit to Libya at the insistence of Col. Muammar Gaddafi. That, unfortunately, turned out to be last of her foreign visit; she was assassinated on October 31, 1984. Arafat was the one who cried bitterly.

His people are hard-headed, wronged, and hurt. Yet they have often harmed their cause. And the man who could have made a difference, perhaps indeed did, is now as silent as the dunes of the desert. He was after all, not the Mahdi, nor a Leto Atreides.

The words from Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum come to mind,

It wasn't that they didn't take an interest in the world around them. On the contrary, they had a deep, personal and passionate involvement in it, but instead of asking "why are we here?" they asked "is it going to rain before the harvest?"

A philosopher might have deplored this lack of mental ambition, but only if he was really certain about where his next meal was coming from.

In fact Lancre's position and climate bred a hard-headed and straightforward people who often excelled in the world down below. It had supplied the plains with many of their greatest wizards and witches and, once again, the philosopher might have marveled that such a four-square people could give the world so many successful magical practitioners, being quite unaware that only those with their feet on rock can build castles in the air.

It is to be hoped that the people of Palestine can indeed build their castles, and move on past this moment in history once the mourning is over, and that the hot-headedness of his people is not a cause for further pain and suffering - there has been too much of that already.

Willing To Swap

Look no further to satisfy your wildest dreams - a moment you've been waiting for. The fulfilment of a fantasy so unreal it will make your grandmother blush.

I can't believe I'm willing to make this offer. After waiting, and waiting, having my hopes dashed time and again, promises made and not kept, the day finally dawned on Tuesday, the 9th of November. By all rights I should be home with the fulfilment of my dreams - the one I've waited two years for.

Somehow, though, I'm not. Call it sacrilegious, but I wish it was about a year hence and I had with me what I'm really waiting for.

So here goes - I'll give you Halo 2 on the PlayStation 2 - if you'll give me GTA - San Andreas on the XBox now.

I mean, think about it. Consider Master Chief pounding across your television screen on your PS2. The fragfest, the Covenant Elite, the protection of Earth. Double-handed weapons and maneuvering the Ghost - nothing could be better, right?

Well, I'd rather be pounding the streets of Los Santos, while I rake up respect. I wish I was playing in the casinos of Las Venturas, jacking a Triad vehicle or just flexing my muscles in the gym.

Unfortunately for me, though, those mysterious exclusivity clauses in the Rockstar contract preclude my satisfaction. Therefore I must either satisfy myself with the older members of the Rockstar family, or forfeit my passion for the doubtless satisfying but inadequate pleasures of the new chief on the block.



Note: I couldn't really resist and bought Halo 2 yesterday. My first impressions are at blogcritics.org

Reshuffling The Deck

The first rearrangements in the house of cards that is a political structure, happen soon after an election. The reinvigorated Bush adminstration has announced the resignation of the head of the Justice Department, John Ashcroft, and the Commerce Secretary, Donald Evans. Link to handwritten letter of resignation here. Also, Drudge 'reported' this a couple of days ago - hmmm

According to the BBC,

Correspondents say Secretary of State Colin Powell, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta may also be considering their future.

On Friday, the State Department official in charge of counter-terrorism, Cofer Black, who reports to Mr Powell, announced he would be stepping down

In other countries, an appeasement of the multi-facted parliamentary parties is done by bloating the cabinet - India's cabinet has had 30+ ministers. The power of the cabinet, however, is often muzzled by checks and balances. A reshuffle can be done to return favors or to silence critics. This serves to keep a healthy tension between the head of state/prime minister and the cabinet. Oftentimes, though, the cabinet is only a rubberstamp for the policy dictates of the boss. In reality, all cabinets serve as mouthpieces for the bureaucrats & civil service.

As Humphrey might say, Yes, Prime Minister!

Bollywood Bound, Netflix First

Netflix has been promoting innovative independent film-makers via it's Netflix First program. It has tie-ups with documentary and independent film labels such as Docudrama to bring some pretty interesting pictures to us.

A few of the films in the Netflix First collection include

• No Maps For These Territories - Profile of the influential writer William Gibson who coined the term “cyberspace” and wrote seven science fiction novels including Neuromancer and the short story and screenplay for Johnny Mnemonic. The film features original music by Bono and The Edge from U2.
• Croupier - Director Mike Hodges sticks a knife into London's gambling underbelly and lets it rip in this smart, sexy crime thriller. Would-be writer Jack Manfred (Clive Owen) lands a job as a croupier so he can stand behind the dealer's table and watch the passing parade of human desperation.
• Such A Long Journey - Set against the backdrop of the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict, Such a Long Journey is a funny, heartfelt drama that underscores both political and personal crisis. Roshan Seth is a bank clerk and family man whose life begins to slowly fall apart despite his best efforts. Mixing family drama and political intrigue, this adaptation of Rohinton Mistry's acclaimed novel is a masterpiece of modern Indian cinema.

Most of the films are documentaries, and therefore may carry the bias of the documentarian. Some film-makers acknowledge this openly. Others, leave the message in the medium for the discerning viewer. For example, one of the films in the collection is Voices Of Iraq.

The producers of this groundbreaking documentary distributed 150 digital video cameras across Iraq to enable everyday people -- mothers, children, teachers, sheiks, even insurgents -- to voice their perspectives on issues such as war, terror and the democratic reform. The result is a unique tableau documenting Iraqis' lives and their hopes as they struggle with years of turmoil and striveto build a civil society.

This is indeed an interesting documentary, but one must take into account the producers, Voices Of Freedom have a right-wing slant, per the reviews on Netflix, and therefore might lack some objectivity.

VOICES OF IRAQ begins as though it really will give you a host of different voices (and maybe even different views) of the Iraqi people today. Initially you do hear conflicting reports (It was better under Saddam; it was worse. We are living in fear and destruction; we are making real progress). Then, slowly, the footage and verbiage turns amazingly positive and glowing, while anything negative is relegated to the period prior to the US attack. We are treated to so much footage of Saddam's horrors (including a mention of how he favored Al Qaeda people over any other Iraqis--a first, as far as I know, since Osama bin Laden has spoken out directly against Saddam) that the movie forgets it's supposed to feature Iraqis talking about today. "Now" does not exist in this film. Nowhere do we see the U.S. attacks, bombs going off, anything that might be construed as bad for this "Iraq," which is a wonderland where electricity works, water flows, people laugh and pursue their dreams of a better life--and (almost) everyone loves America. Who, exactly, passed out these 150 video-cams, and how did they choose such a select group of happy campers? Who chose the locations in which to film, avoiding any and all bloodshed and violence (except of course in the former Saddam footage)? Why does nothing shown here jibe with what we are reading or seeing in our American or international news? According to the British journal Lancet, approximately 100,000 Iraqi civilians are now dead in the wake of America's attack. This despicable documentary gives them no hearing, no justice, not even an f-ing nod of the head. Shame on the sleazy group that is foisting this pernicious propaganda on the American public just prior to election day.

Netflix First thus fulfils one of the elements of good film criticism, serving as a medium for discourse about film.

I recently saw a documentary titled Bollywood Bound through this program. It is a study of four post-colonial Canadian-born and raised Indians, coming back to India in an attempt to rediscover their identity, as well as strike it big in Bollywood, India's version of Hollywood. Bollywood produces many more films than Hollywood, about 800 a year. Most are generic song-and-dance routines, although, some filmmakers have been stretching the envelope, both in Bollywood terms, as well as of film itself.

The film ably captures the emotions of the colonial diaspora, bringing together East and West, amalgamating tony Canadian accents with Bombay slang. Bombay, itself, comes across as a city to rival all cities, a city filled with gusto, a Maximum City
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Highly recommended as a tonic to wean one away from reality shows, Bollywood Bound is a movie to watch.

Finalist - Silver Clitorides October

A story of mine(warning: adult) has been nominated and is a finalist in the October Silver Clitorides awards.

It's a fanfic on Joey, the spin-off from Friends. I do find the show rather funny, and it's a treat to watch Drea de Matteo.

I've been thinking of continuing it in some other directions. Will do so, soon.

Chillingeffects has some FAQs on Fanfic, although I like the Literotica fanfic disclaimer:

The stories in the "Celebrity" section of Literotica are all fictional parodies - none are true, nor are they approved of by the celebrities named in the stories. Authors write these fictitious stories about famous people for the same reason that Larry Flynt made fun of Jerry Falwell, because they can. The Supreme Court of the United States, the country where this site is located, has ruled that parodies involving famous people are perfectly and totally legal under the United States Constitution. The specific case law on this was decided in the case of "Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al. v. Jerry Falwell" in 1988. No harm is intended toward the celebrities featured in these stories, but they are public figures and in being so, they must accept that they are fair target for parodies by the public. We believe in the first amendment, and more broadly, in the basic principle of free speech and this section may push the boundaries of that principle, but the United States Supreme Court has approved of this type of material. We believe that the Supreme Court was correct in their decision.

Here is a random story selector for the literotica celeb/fanfic section

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