What Writers Need to Know About Literary Agents & Blogs

Every January there is "Blue Monday", the "most depressing day of the year", a perfect storm of mid-winter drudgery, post-Christmas comedown and credit card overload Black Dog in or outside the book

The question and answer community Quora has launched a blog network. According to the site, most active writers on Quora get more than one million estimated annual views and now they have a new set of tools. Czech (sic) it out

The celebrated literary agent who launched Jack Kerouac tells his own tales. The Legendary Literary Dragon
The release of the film version of Jean-Louis "Jack" Kerouac’s iconic novel from 1957, On the Road, reminds us that, without a literary agent and gentleman of the old school named Sterling Lord, chances are we would never have heard of the mythic Kerouac. Along with the work of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, On the Road pioneered the Beat Generation.

Filmmakers have long dreamt about adapting Jack Kerouac's beloved 1957 book "On the Road" for the big screen, but when it came time for director Walter Salles to finally get a crack at it, he decided the project needed to wait even longer longer

Literary Experience

Inaugural poet Richard Blanco read “One Today” for President Barack Obama‘s inauguration in Washington D.C. What did you think of the poem? Here is an excerpt:

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper — bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives — to teach geometry, or ring up groceries, as my mother did
for 20 years, so I could write this poem.

A philosopher’s life: When the Prague police planted drugs on Jacques Derrida, his lawyer told him to think of it as a “literary experience"Someone Like Media Dragon Some speculation on who might be the worst writer in history of Cold War Other Than Jozef Imrich

Kathryn Hughes on Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England: “Purists and puritans may balk at the book, both its tone and its way of proceeding. But everyone else will have a Ball"

“The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.” Pauline Phillips, Flinty Adviser to Millions as Dear Abby, Dies at 94

On the surface, it would seem that nothing could be more different from comedy than romance. Comedy deflates, romance inflates. Comedy is realistic, romance fantastical. Comedy reduces, romance elevates. Comedy is democratic, romance heroic. Yet there are underlying similarities. Both involve a conflict between destructive and restorative impulses. In both, appearances are typically mistaken for reality, and both end happily. Above all, both are governed by a structure of illogical logic that generates laughter in one and fantasy in the other. Comic Romance

According to Jan Harold Brunvand, a folklorist at the University of Utah who has been cataloguing urban legends for more than 30 years, tales of contaminated food compose a major storytelling theme. In the 1970s, the most prominent of these accused McDonald's of spiking hamburgers with mealworms and Bubble Yum of being made from spider parts. (As it happens, the worms might not be such a bad idea.)
That's why so many of them accrue to fast-food restaurants—not just in the case of McWormburgers, but also with old-time legends like the Kentucky Fried Rat or the Mouse-in-a-Coke. (The latter dates back to the early 20th century Scottish Ingrediences

Celebrating True Blue Australia and It's Melting Pot

Sydney is 225 years old in the bohemian eyes, but several thousands of years old according to Malchkeon ... There were many tribes around the Tarra or Dara or Tar-ra rock all those ancient silver moons ago. Aboriginal Australians are custodians of the oldest living culture stretching over 60,000 years .. S(e)xty K of Aboriginal Tar-ra and Tullagalla

AUSTRALIANS will celebrate with family and friends in true blue style today, as Australia Day events get underway around the country. Rose Bay barbecue with Mark and Michelle who lnows how to position her freshly made Pavalova overlooking the Harbour cannot get more bluer (sic) ...Australia Day

Dame Mary Gilmore is the person featured on the back of our ten dollar note. (MD acquired the greenest mango kofi as well as three huge lemingtons for it at the Hungarian Wellington cake shop on Bondi Road for this blue currencies this very morning) Dame Maria aka Mary was a passionate social reformer in the 1890’s and a poet. She wrote ‘Europe has its peaks piercing the sky but we have the horizon’. Geoffrey Blainey wrote that ‘This land is endless horizon’. Dorothea Mackellar wrote...

I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

We love the horizon in Australia just Czech out Nielsen Park at dusk or dawn it's shark bay is priceless feast for the eyes and the soul. The sun rises and sets on it. It promises the opportunity of something new and exciting...just over the horizon. It offers the prospect of a growth and advancement. Our ancient land has profoundly shaped us as Australians. Perhaps the endless horizon has made us a nation of optimists like Media Dragon :-)

Australia Day is a point in time, when we can reflect and learn from the failed yesteryear policies of assimilation and celebrate rather than condemn cultural difference. A my-way-or-the-highway approach that seeks to clone a national culture fails to embrace difference and undermines the principles of mutual humanity that are based on respect and equality for all Google Captures Australia Day 2013: Lucky 13

“On this day in 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip brought the first British convict ships to anchor in Botany Bay, Australia. Over the next eighty years 825 such ships would bring 160,000 men and women to serve their “transportation” sentence — seven years for most, fourteen or life for some, no time at all for the significant number unable to survive the eight-month voyage. Captain Phillip went on to become the first Governor of Australia, and today became Australia Day — the nation so proud of being bad-to-the-bone that web sites such as convictcentral.com offer a full listing of all those transported and an adopt-a-service for those disappointed to find no founding criminals in the family tree….”Convicted Antipodeans

Young people looking to escape the cold of the Prague winter might soon be able to move to the warmer climes of Australia for an extended break. Taking a working holiday to the country could become easier with Australia announcing it has begun talks with several countries, including the Czech Republic, on establishing reciprocal work and holiday visa arrangements. If implemented, the work and holiday visas would allow young Czechs and citizens of the partner countries aged between 18 and 30 to enjoy an extended visit to the country. Bohemian Movement Down Under

Speedy Times

---

There are 2 ways to lead a life, 1. Do nothing and suffer the consequences, or 2. Take the responsibility to change it.

"When you're coming to an end, you don't take any comfort in your achievements. What matters is how it went with women and how it went with children. That's what becomes important. The terrible symmetry is that men don't tend to blame themselves--it's always someone else's fault. And women tend to blame themselves. But, then, at the very end, it's the men who start blaming themselves and the women stop blaming themselves. And that's why they're happier."
-Martin Amis (quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 28, 2012)

This timeline presents significant events and developments in the innovation and management of information and documents from cave paintings (ca 30,000 BC) to the present. To keep recent electronic developments from dominating the listing, only the most significant digital innovations are included. If not us 0- who? If not now – when?

Risk of Failure: A Timeline of Information History Everything That’s Wrong with Political Journalism

So what is the job of a political journalist today? Is it to describe the reality of American politics, as a “straight” reporter would? Or is it to defend reality and its “base” in American politics… more like a fact checker would?

I was alerted to the find by Alec MacGillis of the New Republic. He was exasperated by this brief report in the Washington Post, which appeared at The Fix, the Post’s top political blog. If you don’t know it, The Fix is a reporting and analysis franchise built around the many talents of Chris Cillizza, a star reporter and key presence on its most important beat: national politics. The Fix is a group blog now; the item in question carried the byline of political reporter Aaron Blake. It’s a 700-word analysis of a Mitt Romney ad that twisted some words of Obama’s into a claim that could be more easily attacked:

• Covering Wicked Problems; Vienna my boss in July 1980 Karel Schwarzenberg [THE crisis-ridden Immigration Department is poorly managed, its workers mistrust each other and its executives' financial illiteracy poses serious risks, an independent review has warned. Risk of Failure; Over the past two years, Aaron was forced to devote much of his energy and resources to fighting a relentless and unjust felony prosecution brought by Justice Department attorneys in Massachusett Aaron's tragedy also shines a spotlight on a couple profound flaws of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ]

• · Both ancient philosophy and modern psychology suggest that darker thoughts can make us happier The Power of Negative Thinking ; [L]et’s all be clear that there is in fact loads of misery in the post-law-school world. There are literally tens of thousands of recent law-school graduates who made six-figure investments in their legal educations, many of them incurring huge nondischargeable loans to do so, who cannot find full-time, long-term employment making any substantial use of what they paid so dearly in time and treasure to acquire. Still More on What Matters Most (Or, A Guided Tour of Pandaemonium) ; Churches and pews

• · · Cornell University Announces world’s largest natural sound archive goes digital Amazing Wildlife Sounds For All Ears ; The cardiologists who think you don't drink enough Doctors Alljoy: The Old Beer Club

• · · · Navigating the Internet requires using addresses and corresponding names that identify the location of individual computers. Internet Domain Names; Some see it as amazing progress, others total madness, but there's no stopping the march of modern day living into the moment. Speedy Times; Super in US and Oz

• · · · · Commentary - the Brett Caine writing in Forbes: "We have become a society that communicates and shares just about everything we do, with one notable exception – work. Work is the place where social firewalls go up when they really should come down. After all, our teams are about teamwork. Evolving workplace extends to home and beyond ; For the most part, criminality comes to no good. The revenge story has become his favourite kind of narrative, though it isn’t only his characters who are righting wrong. Kill Bill is about a woman taking bloody revenge on her abusive ex; Inglourious Basterds is about Jews taking bloody revenge on Nazis; his latest, Django Unchained, an Oscar nominee for best picture, is about a former slave taking bloody revenge on slaveowners. Tarantino unchained - So postmodern it’s criminal ; She plays the wife of bounty hunter and former slave Django (Jamie Foxx) Scandal Sheets

• · · · · · I think that I may be the voice of my iron curtain generation. In the hottest year of the Chinese zodiac Enter the Dragons; Taxation in the Bible

Empowerment Behind Open Societies: Havel, Hatton

"When we're young we think our cause is a sprint, and when we're middle-aged we thing is it's a marathon. But when we're old we think it's a relay race. And Aaron was the one you wanted to hand it off to." Tributes flow like freezing river for hero activist google on Aaron: references to generational bookends

Two American professors, Daron Acemoglu of MIT and James Robinson of Harvard, have tackled the question of what makes societies empowered head-on in their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, which has won praises from a line of Nobel laureates. In their landmark study of development paths around the world, using examples ranging from the Spanish colonisation of South America to the Arab Spring, they argue that an open and pluralistic political culture, which allows the development of inclusive economic institutions, is the key to sustained prosperity.
The authors say inclusive economic institutions are important because they ''give people freedom to pursue the vocations in life that best suit their talents'' and also ''provide a level playing field that gives them the opportunity to do so''. Open society a pathway to prosperity

Speak Your Piece: Why Regions Fail: State capitalism will persist so long as existing elites are able to maintain it. To understand the logic of state capitalism, it is useful to recall some early examples—not the socialist command economies or modern societies seeking to combat market failures, but ancient civilizations. Indeed, it seems that, like farming or democracy, state capitalism has been independently invented many times in world history. Study of Elite: exchanging brutalism without open society

Judging the Fact Czecher

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
- Albert Einstein

Internet Freedom Day

The Art Of Telling The Truth: These days fact-checking can seem like a lost art. Today I just want to link to stories about the various levels of the media's ability to undertake Fact checking

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

We are all overwhelmed with information that claims to be factual, but even the most punctilious researcher, writer, and journalist can sometimes get it wrong, so checking facts has become a more pressing task...
New York Times’ public editor caused an online storm overnight when he asked readers whether the paper should become a "truth vigilante".

Political fact checkers seem to perform a vital public service for American democracy. Websites such as FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog have grown famous in the last four years for scanning statements by politicians and evaluating their factual accuracy. After every speech at the recent Republican and Democratic party conventions, the media turned to the fact checkers for their judgement. Had the speakers been truthful, or had they earned the scornful ratings of “4 Pinnocchios” or “Pants on Fire”? Lost Cause of Fact Checking?

Some Fact Checkers Are Better Than Others ability to Czech (sic) facts PolitiFact's 'Lie of the Year' Turns Out to Be True.

Glenn Kessler [“Welcome to the biggest campaign fibs of 2012,” Dec. 23] highlighted a recent study of fact-checkers, which found that his “column split its ratings almost equally between the two parties.” That apparently confirms his view, stated earlier in the piece, that “there is little difference between Democrats and Republicans in terms of twisting the facts and being misleading when it suits their political purposes.” political purposes

The bad and the beautiful

“The purpose of evolution,” wrote Polish Media Dragon Joseph Brodsky, “is beauty.” And, if the zenith of civilisation is the city, then surely it follows that beauty is also the ideal of urbanity. In the imagination, or the memory, it often is. Think of the approach to Istanbul, Venice or New York from the water, each shimmering above its own reflection. Or, perhaps, of the mountains rearing up behind Rio or the cherry blossoms in Kyoto.

Some cities have had beauty imposed on them. Paris was planned as the City of Light, a place of tree-lined avenues and urbane squares in which height, mass and ornament were meticulously controlled to create harmony. Other cities achieve beauty through their setting, San Francisco or Sydney with their bays and sweeping views. Others still become beautiful through the skill of their architects: Siena, Vienna, St Petersburg or Barcelona. And some become beautiful merely because of the intensity of their urbanity, Hong Kong or Manhattan with their bristling clusters of towers and sparkling city lights. Tale of Many Cities

When the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer died last month aged 104, the man who created the symbols of the city of Brasília was criticised for creating buildings that, while elegant, often didn’t work, sacrificing function for beauty. The critics are right. Brasília has failed to reconcile the informal and the formal, its traffic and its walkability. But whereas most modern architects and planners have been castigated for creating buildings that are both ugly and that don’t work, at least Niemeyer got it half right. The criticisms do, however, reflect the difficulty, or even the impossibility, of building beautiful new cities. Sydneyrella the beauty or the beast

NEVILLE Fredericks has a dream. On a cow paddock south of Wollongong, more often trod by hooves than shoes, he wants to build a world. A small one, but a world nonetheless, a home for 5000 people, planned from the bottom up and designed as an antidote to the arid, sprawling suburbs that ring the city. It's called Tullimbah. The tidiest town of all

Billionaire builder Harry Triguboff has done more than anyone to shape the face of Sydney. So it's a shame that his buildings are often so ugly.
"It's pretty awful stuff," one former NSW premier told The Power Index, "with wind tunnels, dark corners and pocket-sized open space,
Harry Triguboff: my buildings aren't ugly building tomorrow's slums today in Sydney

Media Dragons Profit From The Post-Scarcity Society

"Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself."
~Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

"As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish (Like Pushkin or Media Dragon)"
-François de La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales

The act of writing may serve as confession or as a narrative of one's internal struggle with inner or outer oppressive forces, and may function as part of the author's process of healing or survival. As Pam Brown writes in the anthology The Stories We Hold: Tales of Women's Spiritual Development (1986), “I am writing to save my life.” Confessional Nonfiction

Forget what you’ve heard: Print is not dead, e-books are not the future, or at least not the only future. Old-fashioned books are back Books are back. St. Francis of Assisi was humble, disciplined, genial, and wary of book learning Imrich and Broke

So you think the brain is a well-ordered machine? It’s not. In fact, it’s anarchy. The Well-tempered mind, says Daniel Dennett, is an achievement Not the Norm

Friendship is protean – and vital. It’s the nectar of life. Who else is going to listen to you prattle on about your interminable work issues ... Nectar of Life Steve and Christopher ...

The post-scarcity society. Keynes predicted that it would be here by now, that leisure would replace work. Suppose such a utopia were feasible; would we want it? John Quiggin an Aussie with a kind heart

Men Of Substance at the Opera: Bohemian Rhapsody

Malchkeon loved these guys with raps in their voices... And I am concerned citizen - it is a real worry. Barry Humphries is with me in this one ;-)

It's hard to know whether to think of Tripod as comedians who do music or musicians who do comedy. The term musical comedy doesn't do them justice on either count. Perhaps they are best described as incredibly gifted musicians cursed with a keen intellect and a wicked sense of humour - and are therefore unable, or more accurately, unwilling, to take themselves seriously. It's the sort of combination only Australia could produce.

Tripod greet the audience and quickly fall into their established roles – the one who thinks he’s cool (Gatesy), the nerd (Scod) and the freaky nerd (Yon)
“…one of the funniest things happening in antipodean Sydney right now. Or possibly the world… there’s hardly time to catch your breath in between bouts of uncontrollable laughter… these guys are unbelievable musicians too.
Sometimes five stars just aren’t enough.”
“Tripod could be a comedy trio or just a very strange, very talented rock band”

Musical comedy trio Tripod would like us to believe they have mellowed and matured... then set about proving exactly the opposite, with uproarious results ... Sure, Tripod have made mistakes. They got regrets. Like that time they tried to steal a police station. But you earn your scars. Wisdom. She’s a nagging character and she moves in without asking. Years, they pass like night buses in the rain. Comes a time when you need to face the awful ding of the truth bell. Ding! You got old, troubadour. A minute ago you were the scorching charismageddon of the new generation. Now you’re a luck-addled boozehound on the lam from a tax bill and a pregnant Nigerian princess. Men of Substance and BAS: Amen; Media Dragon v taxing tripods; Google grabs moist Tripod ;-)

CODA: The Magic Tour was the final tour by the English rock band Queen with their lead singer Freddie Mercury, which took place in 1986 ... Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen-Live In Berlin: 26 June 1986 - three years before fall of the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall).They played a part of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, so that is very rare and unique Queen - Magic of Immigrant Song ~

Reflections on Charity

Leon Goltsman and his bike.

COUNCILLOR Leon Goltsman owes his life to cycling.
Eight years ago, the Waverley Council representative was crippled by chronic arthritis. It led to significant weight gain, a lack of confidence and depression. Then Cr Goltsman discovered he could ride. "Cycling was one of the few things that I could do because it allowed me to keep moving without put- ting pressure on my joints," he said. "Cycling ended up being a blessing for me. "It turned my whole life upside down."

On January 2, the councillor embarked on a solo ride from Sydney to Melbourne to raise money for Arthritis NSW and spread the word about the World Kindness initiative. From being invited to dinner with bikies to riding in 40 degree heat, Cr Goltsman said it had been a rewarding experience. "When I step out of my comfort zone or challenge myself in a particular kind of way such as this, what it allows me to do is look at things from a different perspective," he said. "A cycle like this is a disruption from my usual routine and I end up coming back with a really clear, focused mind." The Arthritis NSW ambassador hopes to raise $2000 for the charity but said the ride wasn't just about fundraising.
"A lot of people underestimate their own abilities or those abilities of other people who could potentially be very good employees, colleagues or friends," he said. "It's about inspiring people and demonstrating to them that it doesn't matter what you have, it's about discipline and determination and that is in the mind, not the body.

"It's important people realise that as human beings we're all fragile to some degree and sometimes it's going to be us that are going to need a hand up." Cr Goltsman reached Melbourne yesterday Leon Goltsman

To donate to Cr Goltsman's cause visit arthritisnsw.gofundraise.com.au/page/leongoltsman

Reflections on Borderline & Humour

According to Gina and James Thurder "Humour is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility ;-) "

While in Europe, political and economic agreements have brought borders down, elsewhere religious and territorial conflicts are driving walls, barriers and security fences up
I grew up with the Iron Curtain. The other side seemed as mysterious and exotic as Bondi ...

There is a poignant piece of footage from that day: Berliners are standing around beside the rising fence, when suddenly a man and a small dog come running into the picture from the east. The man hurdles the waist-height wire and lands in west Berlin. But his dog, leaping after him, hits the wire. A border guard grabs the animal. The man and bystanders implore him to give it back. He refuses.
Then, on November 9 1989, the East German politburo member Günter Schabowski announced, possibly unintentionally, during a televised press conference, that the border would be opened immediately. That night people danced on the Wall. Not everyone came out. One East German later told me that when he saw the TV news, he hadn’t reacted at all. He could not believe the Wall had fallen, and so he assumed it hadn’t. Borderlines

Chris Jordan - "Tax Master with a Head for Politics"

</>

Before playing key roles in some of the biggest tax battles of recent decades, Chris Jordan dealt with conflicts of a different kind. Jordan chairs the Board of Taxation and yesterday stepped down as KPMG's chairman in NSW. He's been a top adviser to successive governments of both stripes. But decades ago, he was a policeman stationed on the north shore, in Chatswood.
"I used to go to these big mansions in Castlecrag, and I'd never been to a place that was so nice," says Jordan, who grew up in Maroubra, then a working-class area.Chris Jordan: "Tax Master with a Head for Politics"; Ministerial appointment

In January 2013, Mr Chris Jordan AO starts as Federal Commissioner of Taxation in charge of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). He follows Mr Michael D’Ascenzo AO, who was not reappointed after his seven-year term. Challenges Ahead

There never was a time when this country was more keenly dependent on an effective ATO. I haven’t mentioned the ageing of the Australian population, the attendant blow-out in health and social security costs, the attendant hit on tax receipts, and all the other trials awaiting our government and its next Commissioner of Taxation A perfect storm indeed

Even though Shakespeare has little to do with taxes, his almost prophetic understanding of human nature has much to teach us.

Media dragon scoop: Bell Shakespeare Company is likely to stage a play on a certain taxing times topics in Sydney this year ;-)
Writers commenting on tax policy sometimes have invoked the words of William Shakespeare to support their views. For example, earlier this year IRS attorneys mentioned Shakespeare in a field advice memorandum regarding the application of section 845 to offshore reinsurance transactions.1 The use of Shakespeare has become so frequent that in 2006 Tax Notes editor Robert Manning wrote an article explaining some of the Shakes- peare lines most commonly misused in writings about tax policy.Shakespeare context; A Tax Lawyer’s Interpretation of Shakespeare ; To Be (Core) or Not To Be (Core) - That is The question

Digital Rivers: A Bit Too Far

---

TIME's annual tribute to the best in blogging covers everything from the economics of gadgets to the Civil War River to Cold War River Pundits keep predicting that blogging will die off, a victim of Facebook, Twitter and other simpler methods of self-expression. But the blog is still thriving; it’s just evolving. Today’s blogs offer everything from serious investigative journalism to silly photos, and they’re created by everyone from talented amateurs to staffers at some of the world’s largest media companies. We picked 25 gems, focusing on ones that aren’t yet household names. Once you’ve checked out our favorites, let us know about yours in the comments 25 Best Blogs 2012; Top 100 Blogs - 1 to 25 - Technorati ; Vale: Newsweek publishes its final print edition

The Battle of the Blogs Dreaming of the Cold War

I’m thoroughly enjoying the playground spat between the USA and Russia The Americans have remains banned Russians with dodgy human rights records ; from visiting the country, but have no such objection to travellers from Iran, Pakistan or Somalia dropping by, no matter how psychopathic they might be. In retaliation, the Russkies have voted to halt their most valuable export to the USA – that of small Russian children, who are used by middle class Americans as mantelpiece ornaments and garden furniture. I assume that adopting a little black child from, say, Malawi, is now considered a little de trop.

Whatever, there seems to be a yearning, on both sides, for this row to be ratcheted up as far as it can possibly go, with tit for tat acts of spite flung hither and thither. I think they both miss the comforting certainties of the Cold War, an agreeably simpler time. It does seem to me that the Russians are more sinned against than sinning in this particular dispute. I fear they were also more right than wrong in their stance over Syria.

• Pussy Riot Wet Dreams; Crikey [ Best Practices for Virtualizing SQL; This is a food blog for everyone, not just men. Mens Blogs - Best Style, Politics, and Food Blogs for Men – Eat Like a Man Women, Men AMEN ]

• · 20 best travel blogs; Selecting the winners for the Best Australian Blogs Competition 2012 was a very difficult task for the judging panel and the team at the Sydney Writers' Centre in Milsons Point. Australia's leading blog competitions; Winners in the Best Australian Blogs 2012 Competition.

• · · Catholic and Enjoying It 2012 About.com Catholicism Readers' Choice Awards Finalists; The Top 100 UK Blogs ranking was compiled by listing over 1400 UK blogs and calculating their popularity using the well known metrics of Alexa Ranking and Technorati Ranking for each site. Top 100 UK Blogs The roar of the presses that ruled these rooms has been replaced, just as we all suspected, with the calculated silence of the conduit that carries our data. [N]ever has the building's transformation been so lyrically conveyed

• · · · The Battle of the Blogs .com ; Brissie

• · · · · In the latest in our series of interviews with newsmakers of 2012, Miriam Elder meets Yekaterina Samutsevich, one of the women whose punk protests as Pussy Riot electrified Russia Things have changed, but our desire to protest remains ; Sales of tablets (the digital kind) are 1,000% up, but a quiet rebellion is growing as people rediscover the joy of vinyl records The antidote to rampant capitalism? ; Warren Buffett’s extraordinary success is partly explained by an all-American rootedness Keep it simple

• · · · · · Jerry Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up ; We have become a society that communicates and shares just about everything we do, with one notable exception – work. Work is the place where social firewalls go up when they really should come down. After all, our teams are about teamwork. Social is the perfect tool to get our teams to work more collaboratively ; Newsweek publishes its final print edition transition to a digital future;Vale: Newsweek publishes its final print edition

Daily Beast: Andrew Michael Sullivan - Godfather of Blogging Born in 1963

Affluence seperates people. Poverty knits them together.

If you pay the $19.99 for a subscription to AndrewSullivan.com, consider adding a small tip. @sullydish is not a fan of removing the tip.
Veteran political blogger Andrew Sullivan leaves Daily Beast to relaunch blog as subscription-based and ad free

The Daily Beast peppered the virtual world with quotes like this:

It seems almost pedantic to point out that slavery was nothing like this. The slaveholding class existed in a state of constant paranoia about slave rebellions, escapes, and a litany of more subtle attempts to undermine the institution. Nearly two hundred thousand black men, most of them former slaves, enlisted in the Union Army in order to accomplish en masse precisely what Django attempts to do alone: risk death in order to free those whom they loved. Tarantino’s attempt to craft a hero who stands apart from the other men—black and white—of his time is not a riff on history, it’s a riff on the mythology we’ve mistaken for history. Were the film aware of that distinction, “Django” would be far less troubling—but it would also be far less resonant. The alternate history is found not in the story of vengeful ex-slave but in the idea that he could be the only one.

He even writes with a bohemian slavic accent: with flowing aspects of cold river in all of them... Life can never be other than tragic

[P]hysical technique, Robbins pointed out, is merely a tool. "It's all about the choreography of people's attention," he said. "Attention is like water. It flows. It's liquid. You create channels to divert it, and you hope that it flows the right way." Robbins uses various metaphors to describe how he works with attention, talking about "surfing attention," "carving up the attentional pie," and "framing." "I use framing the way a movie director or a cinematographer would," he said. "If I lean my face close in to someone's, like this" -- he demonstrated -- "it's like a closeup. All their attention is on my face, and their pockets, especially the ones on their lower body, are out of the frame. Or if I want to move their attention off their jacket pocket, I can say, 'You had a wallet in your back pocket -- is it still there?' Now their focus is on their back pocket, or their brain just short-circuits for a second, and I'm free to steal from their jacket."

CODA: Trends tailored just for you as We are all counterrevolutionaries now
One of the good things about having a blog that has published almost daily for almost a decade is that one's own evolution and zig-zags through a period of history are exposed to the glare of day. It isn't pretty at times - especially when one is not fixed to a set ideology which allows you to plug the events of any given day into a pre-existing template. And especially when you're as passionate as I can be on any given day after a strong cup of coffee.

The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation. There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands... Lycerius has plotted out the twin nightmares of the Cold War, both Orwellian and Apocalyptic.

I'd never want to know how a masterpiece ends prior to experiencing it for the first time. To be told what happens is to be cheated of the opportunity to sprint breathlessly from beginning to end, propelled by the overwhelming desire to know--and what happens in the last two pages, or the last thirty seconds, can make all the difference in the world

Gday Pub 1: Paddo aka Paddington Inn (2013 AD)

This 1850s pub hasn’t changed much outside and I gather that is why Malchkeon wanted to explore it from inside ;-) it’s a place where our tour of Sydney pubs began in MMXIII AD

The Aussie pub is a cultural icon. Paddington in Sydney’s east is a precinct pub-rich with some of Sydney’s most well-known and loved watering holes. The Paddington Pub Precinct is to celebrate the humble pub with the inaugural launch of the Paddington Pub Fest over four days from 14 to 17 February 2013.

Pubs are an integral part of Australia's history, providing a stopping point for many thirsty travellers seeking a cold beer, a meal or a bed for the nigh. In Australia, just about every pub likes to play up its heritage. . Of course, half of the pubs peddling this tired old 'historic pub' schtick are doing so purely because they've been standing for 40 or 50 years and that makes them stand out from the new, modern and popular bar across the road. The Australian pub is a direct descendant of the British and Irish public house Before you order you should know what you are asking for common terms you might need to use in an Aussie Pub

Cultural observers, pub patrons and hospital industry insiders say a changing market is forcing old school schnitzel-and-schooner front bars to be replaced by speakeasy dens and themed small bars. Dart boards and beer signs are being rapidly replaced by vintage kitsch posters and smartphone apps are turning underground establishments into mainstream drinking holes

In Sydney the old pub atmosphere is thriving again... The Paddington Inn is one of Sydney's best known pubs. Located at the top end of Oxford Street, the 'Paddo' is in the heartland of Sydney's best shopping strips. At Paddington Inn you may name your poison… Whether it’s fashion, food, fine wines, beers or cocktails in a freshly revamped space, the Paddington Inn has it all. Except for pokies. And that’s just the way regulars and newcomers to Sydney’s best boutique pub like it

An icon, the Paddington Inn is one of Sydney's original gastro pubs. The place buzzes on week nights and is particularly happening on Saturday afternoons when a hip crowd shoots pool or pulls up stumps by the large windows to watch the fashion parade walk by. Set in a beautiful old building, the Paddington Inn features snug booths, plush couches, window seats and an upstairs terrace, the look is sleek and modern without sacrificing the warmth of a historic pub. The courtyard blends seamlessly with the back bar to create a breezy outdoor feel. One of Australia's original gastro-pubs, the Paddington Inn serves up high quality food for lunch and dinner in a relaxed sophisticated setting. The hotel also has a busy bottleshop, serving a boutique range with weekly specials
Address details: 338 Oxford Street, Paddington, NSW, 2021 Phone: (02) 9380 5913
Paddo's MEN U

Deep Web Research and Discovery Resources 2013

“ Little things are great to little men. ”
— Oliver Goldsmith

Deep Web Research and Discovery Resources 2013 Via LLRX.com - Marcus P. Zillman's new research focuses on Deep Web Research and Discovery Resources 2013, comprising in the vicinity of 1 trillion pages of information located in various files and formats that the current search engines cannot find, or have difficulty accessing. Some of the more comprehensive search engines have written algorithms to search the deeper portions of the world wide web by attempting to find files such as .pdf, .docx, .xls, ppt, .ps. and others. These files are predominately used by businesses to communicate within their organization or to disseminate topical information and work product to customers and potential clients. Searching for this information using deeper search techniques and the latest algorithms allows researchers access to a vast amount of actionable corporate information and intelligence. Research has also shown that even deeper information can be obtained from these files by searching and accessing the "properties" information on these files. Marcus Zillman

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
— J.B. in his Booker Prize winning novel, The Sea, 2005

The girl at the Grand Palais The adolescent obsession that inspired an influential yet neglected French classic. SAL PARADISE, hero of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”, carries only one book on his three-year travels across America. On a Greyhound bus to St Louis he produces a second-hand copy of “Le Grand Meaulnes”, stolen from a Hollywood stall. Entranced by the Arizona landscape, he decides not to read it after all. great gatsby etc

On this day in 1923 Jaroslav Hasek died, aged thirty-nine. Like Franz Kafka, his contemporary – both were born in 1883, and Kafka died at forty – Hasek lived in Prague and wrote of an absurdist nightmare, but the parallel doesn’t go much further. Hasek was poorly educated, nomadic, unemployable, a practical joker happiest in a crowd or spotlight, and his father was the farthest thing from omnipresent. Nor did they write similarly: The Good Soldier Svejk, the satiric WWI novel that made Hasek famous, is rollicking and episodic… Hasek's Good Soldier Svejk

We Need Friendship to Fill up the Imperfections

---

The great British writer G. K. Chesterton said, “because our expression is imperfect, we need friendship to fill up the imperfections.” And not just as Mollymook at Christmas but most of the year ...

Books are made of words, and sometimes the words themselves are a curiosity. Here’s why there’s a ‘b’ in the word ‘doubt’ Dou(b)t ; Scott Esposito on Jacqueline Raoul-Duval’s Kafka in Love: “…blends historical fact with novelistic whimsy. Kafka in Love

BEHIND THE SCENERY THE BEST MONTH IS MAY

For the many of us who work sitting for prolonged periods , the health impacts of workplace inactivity are looking none too good. We gotta stand and move more. The whole office work set up is ripe for a reframe, and the upright work movement is just one more reason to mix things up... From my Malchkin

Twelve months stretch ahead of us, each with a character of its own. In our latest Big Question, six writers choose their favourite. For Charles Nevin, opening the series, it has to be a month that offers compelling contrasts...

• THE BEST MONTH IS MAY; [Positive visualization helps us "see" ourselves in winning situations. It can motivate the actions and feelings we need to get to where we want to be, and psych us up for what's ahead. Visualizing can help us run further, push harder and perform better. This is especially helpful if you're feeling tired or deflated. The Mind’s Eye: But what is wrong with Misery and Failure? The stuff that Cold rivers are made of… ; One thing that has really stood out for me this year is how much people are getting "lost in the unnecessary". People are sharing more online but not in proportion to the amount of new ideas we should be creating. Focusing on the important, not the urgent, will ensure that you do things right. And if you fail, you'll be able to fix it faster too Win More With Less]

• · A teacher with only months to live has embarked on a journey across the US to find out whether he really made a difference in his former students' lives. Dying teacher asks if he made a difference ; Hurricane Sandy. Kate Middleton’s topless pics came in at No. 2 What we watched, read and said in 2012

• · · In a spirit of Christmas I link to a founder and a chief mocker of politics and all things ironic in the land of the Queen: This is our 13th Christmas of publishing On Line Opinion. Since 1999 we've published over 14,435 separate articles from 4,322 people every working day of the week. Our work ethic will be no different this week, so while you're hopefully taking a break the presents from us should keep appearing all week. Thanks for your support during the year. Look forward to travelling through 2013 together. Between us we've created something unique and durable in Australian online publishing. Graham Young; Lyonette Louis-Jacques: "The Chicago Association of Law Libraries (CALL) Government Relations Committee recently published the following free guide to researching Illinois law - Finding Law: A Librarian's Guide for Non-Lawyers (December 2012)."

• · · · Keywords and search queries "One of the best ways to ensure that your site appears for particular user queries is to make sure that your article naturally contains the words, names, and figures that are central to a particular news story. Google FAQ ; AVG - How to Choose How You’re Tracked AVG Official Blog: "All the latest versions of the major browsers today include do-not-track user preference controls, but these merely express your wishes. Many third-party sites will honor your request, but many don’t. And they only let you decide whether you want to block online tracking or not. AVG offers a do-not-track feature in its AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. AVG takes it a step further by allowing you to customize your blocking preferences at a granular level. Permanent Identifiers - One company to be aware of is BlueCava. Unlike cookies, which can be blocked or removed, BlueCava provides tracking technology that allows sites to permanently identify whatever device you’re using to connect to the web. The good news is, you can opt-out by going to http://www.bluecava.com/preferences , but you have to connect using each device you want to remove from their system." AVG Official Blog:

• · · · · The question becomes, is it possible to set up a system for learning from history that's not simply programmed to avoid the most recent mistake in a very simple, mechanistic fashion? Is it possible to set up a system for learning from history that actually learns in our sophisticated way that manages to bring down both false positive and false negatives to some degree? That's a big question mark. How To Win At Forecasting; Art Kleiner, editor-in-chief of Strategy+Business magazine, joined me as we presented research casting new light on conventional thinking many of us have about buzz. Significantly, we're finding out that what makes ideas contagious has more to do with how we think about ideas than what we want to achieve with them. The "virality" of ideas is driven by people liking and passing on information specifically because we think others will enjoy or appreciate it. Be an Information DJ

• · · · · · Professionals and knowledge workers are working harder than ever, and are likely putting in 50 or more hours a week into their jobs. But this is occurring on their terms, their schedules, and at locations of their choosing 6 reasons why a ‘four-hour workweek’ is on the horizon; Why We Blab Our Intimate Secrets on Facebook Knowledge

Power Struggle: Front Page Story in Sydney today

Time is a river, a violent current of events,
glimpsed once and already carried past us,
and another follows and is gone.
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

When Peter Jones declared "I am Sicilian" all hell broke out at a meeting of controversial Sydney club Sicilian in Sydney

Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure.
-Federico Felinni

2013: Luck of the Theory Behind Humanity € Kapitalism

Come, children, gather round my knee; Something is about to be.

Tonight's December Thirty-First,
Something is about to burst.
The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.
Hark! It's midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.

Sydney Sings and sings Happy New Year ... it was lovely to show magnificent jewel of Sydney to John and Vera as well as Phil and Kristen

Capitalism and the good life. There is a limit beyond which material goods don’t make us happier. We believe that. We also believe we are under that limit... How Much Is Enough

Shakespeare endured syphilis, Jack London ulcers, the Brontës and Orwell tuberculosis. Only the cures were worse than the diseases... 'Herman Melville is not well," one of the famously gloomy author's friends wrote in the 1850s. "Do not call him moody, he is ill." Melville's eyes, "tender as young sparrows," were so sensitive that he had a shaded porch built onto his house to spare them the full light of day Imrich's nightmares, Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough

In our culture of proliferation, every taste is given a niche and every niche is catered to. Is this the end of big works of literary synthesis? Sven Birkerts has some thoughts... For art to exist

To all media dragons who, like me, suspect that chance is in the saddle and rides mankind, I hope that 2013 treats you not unkindly, and that your lives, like mine, will be warmed by hope and filled with love.