Author Archive
When the rules change, everyone goes back to the start
Quite a nice followup to my earlier post about e-books changing the publishing/bookselling industry, and notes from Mark Coker. Booksellers: Why Publishers Will Go Direct by Martin Taylor. Quite simply, no one believes that Random House has any more influence over the digital supply chain than a brand new start-up with minimal staff or track […]
Character, not rhetoric or ‘celebrity’: what we SHOULD demand of our politicians
Here are the last few paragraphs of a very good column in the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) from former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan. She’s writing about the US midterms elections, and does it with insight and verve, and her point goes wider … Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have […]
Big whoop
This made me chuckle. In my travels I’ve seen advisory signs alerting passersby to notable sights and landmarks. Eiffel Tower, Lincoln Memorial, Place des Arts, Buckingham Palace, Empire State Building, Raffles Hotel, Petronas Towers, Taipei 101, Golden Gate Bridge, etc…. Here’s one I saw today: Gee, I wouldn’t want to have just driven by.
A fork in the road
Written with different events in mind (i.e. Rick Sanchez’s anti-semitic rant – since apologised for – and Juan Williams being axed from NPR following his revealing ‘When I see muslims on airplanes I get nervous’ gaff) this e-postcard made me chuckle about a local situation. It’s true: no one likes being labelled a racist — […]
Is anything on the web ‘public domain’ — as this editor asserts?
Tell that to Rupert Murdoch! Here’s the story, and it’s brazen, baby, really brazen…
Your tax dollars at work
This is how democracy should work. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Good on the Labour and Green MPS for pushing the issue. [NZ Parliament’s] Speaker Lockwood Smith has caved in to pressure to release MPs spending on their travel perks after political parties rebelled against his initial stance by releasing their own expenses. Today Dr […]
Let’s be reasonable…
Here’s a sign from the San Francisco satellite rally of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity, inspired, I think, by a line he delivered on The Daily Show. I think it’s just brilliant. In my dealings with those with whom I strongly disagree about things that are important to me, I make a real effort […]
Jon Stewart’s closing remarks at the ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’
I was impressed with this (I’ve left it out of blockquote to help readability. It’s all Jon Stewart, including his description of the media as a “24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator”): “And now I thought we might have a moment, however brief, for some sincerity. If that’s okay — I know that there are […]
The superlatives still run hot for Leonard Cohen
Another night, another happy and satisfied bunch of Leonard Cohen fans. My pal Graeme went and sent me a text at the intermission, saying ‘Now I know what you were talking about!‘ Cool.
Nice to be clear – Mark Coker on e-Books
I enjoyed a fascinating and informative day at the NZ Society of Authors seminar, Publishing for Authors — the whole picture yesterday. One of the keynote speakers was Mark Coker of Smashwords who talked about the past and preset of e-books, trends in the market, and the mistakes he sees US publishers making that perhaps […]
Why do you think we call it a struggle?
I referred earlier this week in ‘Words that may not be spoken‘ to what I see as a subversive, long-running and concerted political campaign which aims to suppress Maori culture in Howick, Auckland, where I live. That’s how I see it. I’ll explain why. Along with the rest of New Zealand, we’ve just had local […]
Words fail me
Not a good look for the Serious Fraud Office. Disappointing is an understatement.
