Accidental Blogger

India - Israel: "Armsdog Millionaire" or A Lethal Love Affair?

Ever since the Indian government established full diplomatic relations with the state of Israel in 1992, a couple of ideas, one historic and the other rooted in the present, have drawn the two countries into developing close, friendly ties. The first, the peaceful and harmonious history of Indian Jews is indeed a cause of pride and celebration for both countries. But the second reason that has strengthened Indian-Israeli relations is not so benign. Targets of radical Islamist terrorism, the two nations find common cause in increased militarization to counter that threat. However in my opinion, if India is not careful, it may feed off Israel's acute existential paranoia. Rather than solve its own problems of religious strife and human rights violations within and around its own borders with diplomacy, fairness and a cool head, India may be tempted into flexing its military muscles unnecessarily, with disastrous results.

Israeli arms manufacturers see a huge market for cashing in on India's security fears. But instead of making an old fashioned sales pitch at arms fairs or in covert meetings, the Israeli armaments company, Rafael is promoting its lethal wares through a Bollywood style song & dance video. The kitschy lyrics evoke historic ties and current anxieties. Examples of the horrendously hilarious and gratingly juvenile dialog between what appears to be the Indian military establishment (the female) and Rafael (the male):  

Rafael: We have been together for so long, trusting friends and partners. What more can I pledge?

Indian Military: I need to feel safe and sheltered. Security and protection. Commitment and perfection. Defense and dedication.

Rafael: I promise to defend you. Fulfill your expectations. Shield and support you [and] meet my obligations.

The song continues with more such mindless and crappy exchanges punctuated by a very annoying  refrain of "Dinga Dinga Dee!"  I am not sure if the actors are a mix of Israelis of varied ethnic origins  who took a crash course in Indian film style dancing and felt confident enough to come up with this amazingly tacky video - some in the cast don't look very Indian. But I suspect that the sales video was probably inspired by the huge success of the movie Slumdog Millionaire.  Don't miss the heavy handed shot of the missile (a phallic symbol?) that floats in the foreground and other weapons in the background around which the dancers cavort.

My co-blogger Sujatha said when she sent me the link, "Don't know whether to be appalled at this attempt to woo the Indian military establishment or double over with laughter." Appalling it definitely is. It could also have been funny if it weren't for the implied deadly message.

Update: The New York Times reports:

Wired’s Noah Shachtman notes via Twitter that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz got in touch with the company that made this video and reports that “The actors are Israelis of Georgian and Indian origin.” Haaretz adds that “A Rafael spokesperson said that the video had been received with much acclaim in India.”

More than the cup you crave

A small news item in today's local paper caught my eye. In these hard economic times, a coffee shop in Maine has won the battle with the local city council to employ topless wait persons to boost sales. (The G-rated video here)

VASSALBORO, Maine  — Cup size has more than one meaning at a new central Maine coffeehouse.

Servers are topless at the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, which opened its doors Monday on a busy road in Vassalboro. A sign outside says, “Over 18 only.” Another says, “No cameras, no touching, cash only.”

On Tuesday, two men sipped coffee at a booth while three topless waitresses and a bare-chested waiter stood nearby. Topless waitress Susie Wiley said men, women and couples have stopped by.

The coffee shop raised the ire of dozens of residents when it went before the town planning board last month. Town officials said the coffee shop met the letter of the law.

Capitalizing on the female anatomy to sell consumer items from cars to cruises is not remarkable. Topless women serving food and beverages to attract hungry men are not uncommon either. What drew my attention to this little story is the presence of the bare chested male waiter. Is that a selling point too?  Does the sight of well sculpted manly pectorals act as an appetite enhancer - for women and gay men, for example? Or is the man shirtless only to prove gender equality so that the cafe is not accused of exploiting female sexuality?  It looks like the latter to me. If the man were also a sexual selling point on an equal footing with the women, why does the sanitized video show the female employee covered up for the cameras while the young man at the coffee machine is blithely bare?  

A skunk by any other name...

... would stink just as foul.  Blackwater, the private US security outfit of ill repute has now changed its name to "Xe" in the hope that the new title will help bury its murderous history.

Blackwater Worldwide, a private security company whose work in Iraq was plagued by trouble, said yesterday that it is changing its name to Xe as it shifts its business focus.

The company, based in Moyock, N.C., has more than a dozen business units that are owned by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and heir to an industrial fortune. Prince grew the company over the past decade from a small firm that offered training for law enforcement and small military units to landing part of a lucrative State Department contract to provide security in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Its work in those countries was plagued with problems. In 2004, four of Blackwater's guards were ambushed by insurgents in Fallujah. The company made headlines again on Sept. 16, 2007, during a chaotic confrontation in downtown Baghdad, when Blackwater contractors allegedly shot and killed 17 Iraqis in a crowded square. That incident led to congressional inquiries and protests that it be removed from the country. Last month, the Iraqi government refused to issue a new operating license to Blackwater, and the firm is winding down its work there.

In a memo to employees, the company said its main focus will be on operating training facilities.

Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for the company, said it was changing its name because "the idea is to define the company as what it is today and not what it used to be."

"We've taken the company to a place where it is no longer accurately described as Blackwater," she said.

Tyrrell said there is no meaning to the new name, which is pronounced "zee." "It was just a choice of a name," she said. "We thought of it internally." Xe is also the chemical symbol for the element xenon...

RJ Hillhouse, a national security expert and author of the blog called The Spy Who Billed Me, said the company is "obviously trying to distance itself from their image as reckless cowboys that's etched into the world's mind from the September shooting. With a new name, "there are a lot of people who probably won't connect the dots," she said. "In a year or two, people won't remember that's Blackwater."

Purloined Image of Hope and Change

The famous Obamaicon with which we recently had some fun on A.B. (here and here) has now become a subject of controversy.  The Associated Press is alleging that artist Shepard Fairey used an AP photo to create the image without permission. The AP wants a share of the credit and compensation.

NEW YORK (AP) — On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere during last year's presidential campaign: a pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.

Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, and has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.

The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.

"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," the AP's director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement. "AP safeguards its assets and looks at these events on a case-by-case basis. We have reached out to Mr. Fairey's attorney and are in discussions. We hope for an amicable solution."

"We believe fair use protects Shepard's right to do what he did here," says Fairey's lawyer, Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University and a lecturer at the Stanford Law School. "It wouldn't be appropriate to comment beyond that at this time because we are in discussions about this with the AP."

Fair use is a legal concept that allows exceptions to copyright law, based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.

"These people are idiots"

And they are evil.  Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said angrily on the senate floor what most Americans are thinking. 

We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. They owe us some common sense.

But common sense is what the "idiots" don't have - it has been so long since they had to call upon that quality. Following one disaster after another that have rocked the foundations of the American financial sector,the fat cat bankers and financiers came hat in hand, begging for bailouts with public funds. Despite the government pulling their chestnuts out of the fire that the sleaze balls had themselves started, no lesson in shame and humility has been learnt. The financial institutions were bailed out, we were told, so that they can start lending money again to consumers and businesses. But the vultures and jackals of Wall Street still don't understand. Instead of injecting money into the faltering economy, they have been again caught lining their own already bursting pockets. What's the difference between merit pay and scavenging? Don't ask the greedy bastards who paid themselves fat bonuses, took expensive hunting trips and spa vacations, renovated  offices (and bathrooms) in lavish styles befitting a Saudi monarch, shopped around for a $50 million luxury jet  and who knows what else. And they have the chutzpah to continue being stingy when it comes to issuing loans because they want to "invest" their (ours, really) money for maximum growth.

When asked about the unseemly bonuses, Merril Lynch's clueless ex-CEO John Thain said, “You have to believe there’s value in the franchise. If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise." Really? Where will those "best people" go if one takes away their ill begotten goodies?  Can they teach school? Can they make anything from scratch? Can they flip hamburgers according to simple specifications barked through the drive-through window? Can they dig ditches? What exactly are they good for except to filch other people's money and make bad decisions based on greed?  Let loose these wonder boys (yes, they are mostly men) of the cloistered and incestuous world of finance into the real world and let's find out how they survive without the crutch of easy money.

Another glib explanation for where the bonuses came from when bankruptcy was looming large, is that they came not from the government bailout funds, but from a "separate pool." What? Do they really think we are buying that  ludicrous baloney -  as ludicrous as claiming that they only peed in a "separate section" of the swimming pool?

  (cartoon by David Horsey)

Update: Maureen Dowd too is fuming about the same idiots.

Why I Fear For My Child's Ability to Buy a Pontiac Vibe (Andrew)

There's been a lot of talk about the roughly $10 more an hour that G.M. workers get paid than non-unionized American employees of Japanese car companies.  Add another $15/hour for legacy pension and healthcare costs, and there's one of the reasons that G.M. has a hard time competing.

But there's been a right-wing tendency to think that if we just "break the unions," all will be well in America.  But if all that was ailing G.M. was relatively high labor costs, the cars would just be more expensive than Japanese cars.  But they're not particularly costly -- the problem is that they're poorly made, and don't sell well when competing against the Japanese competition, particularly since the bottom has fallen out of the SUV and truck market with high fuel costs and then the recession.

The biggest problem has been appallingly bad management.  But don't take my word for it.  Check out this chart from U.C. Davis transportation expert Daniel Sperling (inset), who lists  serious errors made by G.M. since the 1990s.  Some of my favorites: They spent  $4 billion buying Fiat, realizing that was a mistake, and then selling it back including penalties.  They vigorously, and for the most part successfully, lobbied against mileage standards and tougher clean-air rules.  They spent $1 billion developing electric vehicles, and then crushed them all.  They spent $9 billion buying back stock in the 90s, and then said they didn't have the money to develop fuel-efficient vehicles.

I'm a pro-labor, progressive Dem, but even so I'm pretty unhappy having to bail out G.M. now, and presumably again once the big O takes office. 

And no, Sperling doesn't think the much ballyhooed Volt will save GM either -- due to relatively primitive state of the battery technology, it'll be too expensive with too short a range to become a hit like the Prius.  You can see his lecture, which touches on G.M. briefly amdist a general discussion of the policy and ecological challenges of transportation, here...

The New Snake Charmers

The ubiquitous Indian call centers, the source of numerous Indian jobs and American outsourcing have permeated the Indian popular culture.

As India's $64 billion outsourcing industry grows, the curious world of call centers has become the stuff of Indian pop culture. Their all-night working hours, made-up names, adopted accents and geeky global troubleshooting are becoming rich fodder for novels, movies, TV commercials, text jokes and stand-up comedy.

More in the Washington Post.

Bubble Buster

See our own Andrew's review of economist Robert J. Shiller's new book The Subprime Solution, in The New York Observer.

Houston Recycles (Or Not)

I am a conscientious recycler. Every Tuesday evening I set an assortment of paper, aluminum, cardboard and plastic (but no glass) items out on the curb side, neatly bundled and arranged in the blue recycling bin for pick up the next day. The recycleables are duly collected by the waste management company of my county. What happens to that trash afterwards is not known to me. But at least I feel I have done my part as an earth friendly consumer. Judging by the number of recycling bins I see throughout our neighborhood on Wednesday mornings, it appears that most of my neighbors also sort and recycle their household trash.  But "real" Houstonians (I live in the suburbs) apparently are resistant to the idea of recycling - the reluctance  has been attributed to their "independent streak." However, some of those who may wish to conform with the rest of the country in this regard, can't do so because the city of Houston hasn't equipped all its residents with recycling bins. ( link: Dean)

HOUSTON — While most large American cities have started ambitious recycling programs that have sharply reduced the amount of trash bound for landfills, Houston has not.

The city’s shimmering skyline may wear the label of the world’s energy capital, but deep in Houston’s Dumpsters lies a less glamorous superlative: It is the worst recycler among the United States’ 30 largest cities.

Houston recycles just 2.6 percent of its total waste, according to a study this year by Waste News, a trade magazine. By comparison, San Francisco and New York recycle 69 percent and 34 percent of their waste respectively. Moreover, 25,000 Houston residents have been waiting as long as 10 years to get recycling bins from the city.

Environmental advocates are pleading for municipal intervention. And some small improvements — an organic waste program, for one — are expected soon.

But city officials say real progress will be hard to come by. Landfill costs here are cheap. The city’s sprawling, no-zoning layout makes collection expensive, and there is little public support for the kind of effort it takes to sort glass, paper and plastics. And there appears to be even less for placing fees on excess trash.

“We have an independent streak that rebels against mandates or anything that seems trendy or hyped up,” said Mayor Bill White, who favors expanding the city’s recycling efforts. “Houstonians are skeptical of anything that appears to be oversold or exaggerated. But Houstonians can change, and change fast.”

Americans: Overweight and now overpriced?

American life has been devalued.  I didn't know that the government routinely puts a price tag on us.

WASHINGTON - It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be.

The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May — a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years. Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.

When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.

Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted.

Some environmentalists accuse the Bush administration of changing the value to avoid tougher rules — a charge the EPA denies.

"It appears that they're cooking the books in regards to the value of life," said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents state and local air pollution regulators. "Those decisions are literally a matter of life and death."

Dan Esty, a senior EPA policy official in the first Bush administration and now director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, said that "it's hard to imagine that it has other than a political motivation."

Agency officials say they were just following what the science told them.

Birthday Message for Striking Worker

This is a follow up of my earlier post on the plight of the striking "guest workers" from India involved in the rebuilding of the US Gulf coast after Katrina. I received the following messages from Mr. Stephen Boykewich, Media Director  of the NEW ORLEANS WORKERS' CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE.  You can send a birthday wish to Paul Konar and words of encouragement to the striking workers at the address provided below.

We have set up a Gmail account called [email protected]om to collect birthday messages for Paul Konar, a hunger striker who has kept his fast unbroken for 14 days now and celebrates his 54th birthday tomorrow. Please take a moment to write Paul a message if you can, and feel free to circulate the below message or any variant you like.

We are going to collect all the messages we can by noon EST Wednesday and read them out to Paul and all the workers at the party.

Thanks,
Stephen
504-655-0876

-----

NEW ORLEANS WORKERS' CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
www.neworleansworkerjustice.org

May 26, 2008

Dear friends,

Of all the extraordinary strength and bravery shown by the Indian labor trafficking survivors now on Day 13 of a hunger strike for justice in Washington, DC, no one has been more inspiring than Mr. Paul Konar. Paul is a 53 year-old father of three daughters who supported a large extended family in his home state of Kerala before he -- like more than 550 of his countrymen -- was cheated out of $20,000 with false promises of an American Dream and received a temporary 10-month guest worker visa instead.

He is also our "hunger strike strongman," the only worker who started the fast on May 14 and has not been forced to stop by hospitalization. He is stronger on Day 13 than he was on Day 2.

On Wednesday, May 28, Paul turns 54. "I want a bottle of water with a birthday candle on top," Paul said. "Everyone else should have a great party, and I will stay on the hunger strike with God's help." Please take a moment to write Paul a birthday greeting and message of support at [email protected]. All the messages will be printed out and read at a reception for him on Wednesday evening.

You can also make a donation in honor of Paul to the hunger strike fund by visiting our contribution page.

Thank you for all of your support!

In solidarity,

Indian Workers Congress and Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity
affiliates of the
New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice

In God We (Blindly) Trust

During my first few months in the US, it used to take me a little extra time to sort out the dollar bills in my purse. Being used to currency notes in India and Europe that provide a different look (size, color) for different denominations, the uniform look of the US dollar took a while to get used to.  I realized with some discomfort that I could not pull out a one, five, ten or twenty with only a cursory glance into my billfold. I had to "read" the money before I handed it over to the cashier and the same care was needed when receiving change. The need to scrutinize currency during transactions continues after many years of handling US money - only I do it much faster now, having become familiar with several distinct visual markers on each denomination. But for those who are blind or severely visually impaired, the uniform size and shape (color being irrelevant in this case) of US dollars is a daily predicament. So much so that a court ruling has proclaimed the design of the American currency discriminatory.   

WASHINGTON - Close your eyes, reach into your wallet and try to distinguish between a $1 bill and a $5 bill. Impossible? It's also discriminatory, a federal appeals court says.

Since all paper money feels pretty much the same, the government is denying blind people meaningful access to the currency, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday. The decision could force the Treasury Department to make bills of different sizes or print them with raised markings or other distinguishing features.

The American Council of the Blind sued for such changes, but the government has been fighting the case for about six years.

The U.S. acknowledges the current design hinders blind people, but it argues that they have adapted. Some rely on store clerks to help, some use credit cards and others fold certain corners to help distinguish between bills.

"I don't think we should have to rely on people to tell us what our money is," said Mitch Pomerantz, the Council of the Blind president. ...

The court ruled 2-1 that such adaptations were insufficient under the Rehabilitation Act. The government might as well argue that there's no need to make buildings accessible to wheelchairs because handicapped people can crawl on all fours or ask passers-by for help, the court said.

"Even the most searching tactile examination will reveal no difference between a $100 bill and a $1 bill. The secretary has identified no reason that requires paper currency to be uniform to the touch," Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote for the majority.

Courts don't decide how to design currency. That's up to the Treasury Department, and the ruling forces the department to address what the court called a discriminatory problem.

That could still take years. But since blindness becomes more common with age, people in their 30s and 40s should know that, when they get older, "they will be able to identify their $1 bills from their fives, tens and twenties," said Pomerantz, of the Council of the Blind.

Redesigned bills could also mean more job opportunities, since employers often hesitate to hire blind workers for jobs handling money, said Charlson, of the Perkins School for the Blind.

"When there are so few things in your life that you've got total control over, being able to even take care of your own money is such a big step, without requiring someone to tell you whether you've got enough money to go out and get a beer or have a hamburger," she said.

The government could ask for a rehearing by the full appeals court or challenge the decision to the Supreme Court.

Australian and Indian currency bills pictured below:

Post Katrina Labor Exploitation

During our vacation a week ago, my daughter and I stopped by at the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. The organization is an advocacy group for workers involved in the reconstruction of New Orleans after the devastation of Katrina. The vast rebuilding effort led the US government to permit recruitment of foreign laborers who were accorded "guest worker" status for the duration of their employment but apparently not the same rights and protection that domestic workers are guaranteed under US labor laws. Lacking safeguards, the foreign workers are ripe targets for exploitation and abuse by contractors. 

The Louisiana guest workers group includes citizens of several countries. Among them are a few hundred welders and pipe-fitters from India who were recruited by Signal International, a Marine & Fabrication Company, apparently with the lure of lucrative jobs and immigrant visas. The promise proved to be false and the Indian workers have done the unthinkable - they have launched a strike on foreign soil, demanding justice from the host nation and advocacy from their own embassy spokespersons.

Hundreds of Indian workers will return to DC next week to launch an indefinite hunger strike to demand the federal government investigate the guest worker program and abuse of post-Katrina Gulf Coast workers. Next week’s launch follows a nationwide tour by the workers – sponsored by the New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice (NOWCRJ) with support from Jobs with Justice – in March and April that included stops in DC. In late 2006, the workers mortgaged their futures – and $20,000 – on false promises of fortune and green cards by recruiters from marine construction company Signal International. But when the workers arrived in the US to work on post-Katrina reconstruction, they only received guestworker visas and were forced to pay Signal $1,050 a month to live in a trailer with 23 other workers. “At a time when 30 percent of NewOrleans workers were looking for work, the government suspended a law that made it illegal to hire undocumented workers,” says NOWCRJ Organizer Saket Soni. “The guestworker program is designed to control labor. It sanctions forced labor by migrants and further disenfranchises the most vulnerable American workers.” The hunger strike will specifically call on the Department of Justice to prosecute Signal International and for Congress to hold hearings on the guest worker program in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast.

When first approached, the Indian Embassy to its shame, turned away the workers and has so far refused to intervene on their behalf. So the striking workers returned to Washington D.C. last week to press their case further - this time to begin a hunger strike in Lafayette Park, close to the White House and the Indian Embassy. The effort is being supported by many US labor unions including the AFL - CIO.  For more on the time line and details of the strike and accompanying photos, see the NOLA Workers Center blog here.

"Will You Marry Me? I Am Worth It!"

No, not a L'oreal commercial but a personal ad in Craig's List supposedly posted by a young woman looking for a mate who can provide her with what she thinks she deserves. The ad elicited a response from a man who claims to fit the bill for the kind of spouse the woman is looking for but his reply may not be what she expected ... but then, perhaps she did. Don't go looking for candle light, soft music, conviviality, whispery sweet-nothings or sparkling conversation. The exchange is pure brass-knuckles business negotiation.

The woman's plea begins:

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25-year-old girl. I’m articulate and classy. I’m not from New York. I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least [a] half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a businessman who makes average around 200 - 250K. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000K won’t get me to Central Park West. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

And ends: (don't forget to read the candid details in between)

Please hold your insults — I’m putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t able to match them — in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

Here is part of the salvo from an eligible man who read the ad: (Do check out his sharp market analysis in full)

Dear Pers-431649184:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament. Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said, here’s how I see it:

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party, and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub — your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity … in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms, you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain: you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35, stick a fork in you!

I have no clue if the ads (one or both) are jokes or a deadly serious matrimonial search. If a prank, then are they funny, cruel or spot on caricatures of what fuels at least some "romantic" alliances? If serious, are the applicants honest, scary or just earnest candidates for a feasible match made in heaven (or hell) for two people who deserve each other? (link via 3QD)

DO NOT LINK HERE OR ELSE (Joe)

Is this a joke?  I can't tell.

The user agreement/privacy policy page at Dozier Internet Law, P.C.'s website contains, inter alia, the following language (emphasis mine):

Dozier Internet Law, P.C. has a lot of intellectual property on our site. For instance, we are the creators of all of the text on this website, and own the “look and feel” of this website. We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so. In addition, you should not make any copies of any part of this website in any way since we do not want anyone copying us. We also do not allow any links to our site without our express permission, except that you must maintain the link in our Copyright Infringement Warning Button as it is designed. The name “Dozier Internet Law, P.C.", and similar derivatives of it, constitute our trademark and servicemark, and should not be used in any manner without our permission.

Oops.  I guess I should have referred to them as "cybertriallawyer.com" rather than as "Dozier Internet Law, P.C.," since the name is their trademark and I'm not authorized to use it in any manner.  I also probably shouldn't have linked to them, since they don't allow links to their site without permission, which I obviously don't have.  I also love the part about not being allowed to view their source code, which they acknowledge that I can do with any standard web browser (which I just did, thank you Firefox!).

Granted, I'm not an IP expert, I'm not even a lawyer yet, but wow, how bizarrely idiotic.  And according to their website, a lot their "internet lawyers" went to good law schools: Boston University, William & Mary, Tulane, George Mason.  Damn, did I just accidentally link to them again?

Incidentally, I really like this blog post in response, which quotes some of their source code before issuing this "agreement":

By reading this blog post in whole or in part, you agree that you shall waive any and all legal recourse against its author, maintainer, publisher, and web-host, in perpetuity, in all issues regarding the website of Dozier Internet Law, P.C. This agreement nullifies any previous user agreements engaged in between yourself and the author, maintainer, publisher and/or web-host of this website. You agree to waive any and all legal liability regarding website user agreements on the part of the author, maintainer, publisher and/or web-host in all countries, forever. Plus, you like, totally owe me ten bucks.

Dozier Internet Law, if you're reading this, consider that agreement adopted here.

When Knopf Said No

An essay in the New York Times Books section counts some famous books which may not have seen the light of day, had the judgement of publishers like Alfred A. Knopf Inc. and others been the last word on their literary value.

In the summer of 1950, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. turned down the English-language rights to a Dutch manuscript after receiving a particularly harsh reader’s report. The work was “very dull,” the reader insisted, “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.” Sales would be small because the main characters were neither familiar to Americans nor especially appealing. “Even if the work had come to light five years ago, when the subject was timely,” the reader wrote, “I don’t see that there would have been a chance for it.”

Knopf wasn’t alone. “The Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank, would be rejected by 15 others before Doubleday published it in 1952. More than 30 million copies are currently in print, making it one of the best-selling books in history.

For almost a century, Knopf has been the gold standard in the book trade, publishing the works of 17 Nobel Prize-winning authors as well as 47 Pulitzer Prize-winning volumes of fiction, nonfiction, biography and history. Recently, however, scholars trolling through the Knopf archive have been struck by the number of reader’s reports that badly missed the mark, especially where new talent was concerned.The rejection files, which run from the 1940s through the 1970s, include dismissive verdicts on the likes of Jorge Luis Borges (“utterly untranslatable”), Isaac Bashevis Singer (“It’s Poland and the rich Jews again”), Anaïs Nin (“There is no commercial advantage in acquiring her, and, in my opinion, no artistic”), Sylvia Plath (“There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice”) and Jack Kerouac (“His frenetic and scrambling prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don’t think so”). In a two-year stretch beginning in 1955, Knopf turned down manuscripts by Jean-Paul Sartre, Mordecai Richler, and the historians A. J. P. Taylor and Barbara Tuchman, not to mention Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” (too racy) and James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” (“hopelessly bad”).

Alright, so many a great piece of prose and poetry didn't catch the eye or capture the heart of Knopf publishers. So what? Is that such an outrage?  Does that make the rejectionists unsophisticated literary novices?  Literature is art, not a science. There is no set formula to distinguish good art from bad.  It is a judgement call. I know I would have agreed with at least one of Knopf's rejections :-) And I could also have done without the turgid and self absorbed prose of Anaïs Nin.  Also, please ponder the fact that if any one or more of these books had never been published, would our lives have been any the poorer for it?  I am a huge book lover and have read and enjoyed most of the books and authors that Knopf passed over.  I can say with certainty that had I missed reading one or all of them, my life would not have been very different from what it is now. Sorry if I sound like a brute. But that is a fact. Literature and art enrich our lives enormously.  But they are not oxygen, water or electricity. I just don't see what the big deal is about publishers making the wrong(?) call on a putative masterpiece.

Here is an excerpt from a recent interview with V.S. Naipaul, the literary curmudgeon with a huge ego: (via Leiter Reports)

Sir Vidia Naipaul, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature, called this week for university English literature departments to close....

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Sir Vidia said the closure of literature departments "would be a great fillip, a great boost to the intellectual life of the country... it would release a lot of manpower".

He accused academics of spreading "ideas about things that they are determined to get one to accept". ... The novelist believes universities should deal in "measurable truth" and teach only science.

In 2000, the novelist was reported to have told the audience at an award ceremony in Bangkok that jargon used in English departments in the UK and the US concealed vacuous thinking. He described academic jargon as "a way for one clown to tell the other that he is in the club".

Sir Vidia, famous for throwing tantrums and cutting words directed at anyone who dares to cross him, is probably in a snit over English professors, some of whom may have had the temerity to criticize him. So he wants them buried ... or at least unemployed. This illustrates my point beautifully - the futility of arguing over literary merits or the lack thereof.  As Naipaul himself put it succinctly, it is not a "measurable science." So who is the final arbiter of beauty and worth in the arts? The author, the publisher, the professors? Or should the reader have the last say without the officious filter of the experts? Of course, Sir Vidia doesn't exactly mean what I am saying. He probably firmly believes that his own literary pearls are beyond reproach. I can only imagine the vituperative and volcanic hissy fit that would have erupted if Sir Vidia had received the following rejection letter (sent to a Columbia University historian) from Knopf:   

“This time there’s no point in trying to be kind,” it said. “Your manuscript is utterly hopeless as a candidate for our list. I never thought the subject worth a damn to begin with and I don’t think it’s worth a damn now. Lay off, MacDuff.”