Eighteen (18) Cents

As my 22 years old insomia takes over, I begin to feel like the character from the Sleepless in Seattle. I understand that a collection agency went after Wendy Ehringer of Seattle with a lawsuit demanding the grand total of 18 cents -- plus $311.26 in attorney's fees and other charges. 18 cents redefines 'small-claims' court. The court recognized litigation abuse when it saw it and applied the equivalent of sanctions -- but now Ehringer's lawyer is claiming to have put $7,600 worth of time into fighting the case, which is itself rather curious.

If I were an editor, I'd commission a piece on the theme of: 'The E-book Revolution Is Over, and E-books Have Won.' E-books Have Won.'

Political Lovers & Scallywags: Norma and I... in bed.

I do feel sorry for any woman named Edwina right now. It is official: John Major & Edwina Currie were lovers. In an interview with The Times' Ginny Dougary, Currie says, "What you need to remember, Ginny, is that politicians admire the element of the devious in each other. It is essential in order for someone to rise that they have some streak of ruthlessness in their character. And he had it. He had it."

Major won a libel suit against two magazines that had reported he was having an affair, forcing one out of business. The magazines that Major sued are likely to now sue him back. Lawyers for the publisher and the estate of the editor of Scallywag magazine, which went out of business after having to pay the financial damages awarded in the suit, say that although the magazine named the wrong woman in the affair, Mr Major's claim not to be 'an adulterer is wholly hollow.' The publishers of the New Statesman, 'crippled' by the suit, are also thinking of taking legal action against Major.

And the woman mistakenly named in those reports, Clare Latimer, now says she believes Major used her as a decoy. She expressed her bitterness to Times reporter Richard Ford, saying Major 'allowed my life to be crashed because he knew this allegation (of a relationship with her) was not true and to hide the real scandal that he was so terrified might come out.'

Once upon a major time faced with his career-breaking secret being stacked up on tables at WH Smith, Major responded with what can now be acknowledged as one of the most lethal ex-lover's put-downs in history, saying of Currie's novel: "Norma and I are reading it in bed and fighting over it", a phrase in which the invisibly italicised words are Norma and I... in bed.

In 30 years time Dr Watsons of political biographies are likely to dare to elaborate on whether any naughty characters had bothered to sleep with our belovered Paul Keating when he was in POWER.

Is there a way out of this mess? A few Mark Twain quotes on parliament and congress might help:

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption

Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man.
- Notebook #14, 11/1877 - 7/1878

Want to get a leg up in the blogging game? Just pretend to be Sexy ..

My Slavic Konnekcion, Heather Havrilesky, has been nominated as the 'sexiest' female blogger. Visit her site entitled Rabbit Blog, the Shotgun Shack in Cyberspace.

ALL RIGHT, I'M GOING TO BED, but I'll leave you with - Dear Diary: I owe Ken Parish a drink. Today , out of all days, I'm beyond flattered that Ken has added my blog to his linked pages run by other insomiacs and library night watchmen. I find his work to be very insightful and well crafted. Now that he has linked me, I'm suddenly feeling the pressure to give this blog a more legitimate reason for existence ... I am the maiden Slavic Commoner taking part in the rich ozplogosphere: 'a veteran of Margo Kingston's Web Diary, and a discussion forum of which we are both members. Jozef keeps a close eye on the wonderful world of European op-ed pundits, and has kindly offered to make occasional selections for the Parish Pump Picks.'

Media Dragon is my one and only principal website. If you don't like it, I have others some even filled with slavish smiles & underground!

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
- T.S. Elliot

How many Chicago School economists does it take to change a lightbulb? None: if the bulb needed changing, the market would have done it already.

FRATERNAL AMNESIA: Spin Doctors Prepare to turn Government Failure Into Success

From "Education Premier" to "Prisons Premier" busily expanding jails and the number of inmates.

The PRESIDENT (LC 26 September 2002: During the Adjournment - Hon. Peter Breen, MLC) Bear Pit Order! 'Order! I will rule on the point of order on the point of order. The point of order of the Hon. Ian Macdonald is upheld. Members cannot introduce material into the debate that has anything to do with the substantive issue. The point of order must, indeed, be a point of order.'
All this due to what some refer to as Bulldog's Disorder.

A mixed mirage of letters from the Australian PRESIDENTE a.k.a. TOMATO SAUCE who feels very strongly about the issue of ripe age. ‘With all good wishes, yours fraternally. Gough Whitlam.' Will the Presidente Reap What He Has Sown?

Czech out Snakes & Ladders. The ancient admonition that 'pride goes before a fall' can be as true of political parties as it is of individuals who tend to create a whole smaller than the sum of their parts.

Vaclav Klaus, the key architect of post-1989 Czech politics, asks: have we slayed one dragon only to create another - double dragon?

Vaclav also brings to mind a perhaps apocryphal remark of the late Chinese statesman Zhou Enlai; when asked a few years after the Chinese Liberation of 1949 what he thought of the French Revolution, he replied “too early to tell”!

Bravura entrepreneurial spirit

In a very dicey economic time for magazines, when many find it difficult to sustain themselves, two new ones have just started up, about books of all subjects. Which speaks not only to a particularly bravura entrepreneurial spirit but also to speculation that there are enough people out there who are willing to spend money for their love of commentary about books and the writers who produce them.

Is the English language Golden prison?

Margo’s diary is for many readers daily bread online. At the speed of light, the virtual world tells us more about GORE'S SURPRISING ACT OF LEADERSHIP.

Michael Kinsley once noted 'what's shocking is not what's done that's illegal; it's what's done that's perfectly legal. The subject of his concerns - political fundraising

Good news at the Box Office

The numbers are in for the weekend, and the news is good! At the top of the list is Barbershop, a $12 million-budgeted film which took in $20.6 million over the three days. Next is the unstoppable My Big Fat Greek Wedding, crusing over the $110 million mark in total gross despite a budget of only $5 million. Then there's One Hour Photo, which cost $12 million to make and grossed $8 million in one weekend despite difficult subject matter and the fact that the intelligentsia in New York and LA have already had three weeks of limited release in which to see it.

What's more, each of the top three films was shown in fewer theatres than any of the films in the rest of the top ten. One Hour Photo, for instance, in 1,212 theatres, grossed more than Swimfan, in 2,860; Barbershop, in 1,605 theatres, almost quadrupled the gross of Signs, in 3,061.

Just blame for this dangerous trend all those Maverick Headmasters & Head Mistresses such as Marta Chamillova (smile) ...

Culture War with B-2's

Make note of Sept. 20, 2002. The day the empire struck back ...

M A R G O K I N G S T O N touches on the manifesto for world dictatorship. DOWD in her article on Imperial War suggests that Bush is like the guy who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom.

A Collection of Quotes From Sen. William Fulbright's The Arrogance of Power still Ringing True.

Publish Independently or Perish

In a move that seems calculated to upset the large publishing concerns that helped his first book rocket to the top of the bestseller lists, Eggers is by-passing the party animals and self-publishing the highly anticipated Velocity.

Small independent publishers like the Double Dragon are not surprised to hear Eggers has eschewed the normal publishing route taken by writers of his stature. Only a chosen 100 independent bookstores are allowed to carry his new novel. So Velocity is not coming to a bookstore near your city.

Czech out what is coming to booksalons & bloggs near you in September.

Finally, just another travelling author elaborating on his odyssey through a poetic nation & dysfunctional relationship

The Great Bubble Show

Unless rents are set to rise fast, and there is little indication that this will happen while vacancy rates keep rising, something has to give. It's only a question of when.

As rich get richer and the young get poorer

Property Wars

Culture Wars

Proffesors hunger for status, and so must exclude the unanointed. It used to be Jews (they’d never grasp Milton). Now it’s people with the wrong political pieties ...

Bedlam By Mark, Oh well, No, Not Latham

Big Brother & Snobbery of 2004

George Orwell detested both imperialists and parlor leftists. He recognized that oppression can turn the oppressed into rotten people too ...

Orwell is famous for his intellectual honesty and his willingness occasionally to anger his allies on the left. Stories about honest people always inspire, whether they are set in second-century Rome or sixteenth-century China.

Unlike many writers, Orwell didn't commit the reverse snobbery of overpraising the downtrodden. He understood that one product of domination is that it can turn the dominated into rotten people too. Orwell also still matters to the extent that the ability to see through bogus rhetoric still matters.

When Winston Smith finished reading the occult "inner-party" book in Nineteen Eighty-Four, he noted: "The best books ... are those that tell you what you know already."

What Do We Really Know Already?