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I'll be the featured guest on Stirring the Cauldron with Marla Brooks (the acclaimed Hollywood personality) to talk about ghosts, my favorite investigations, animal communications, my books, publishing in general or anything else you'd like to chat about. Just go to the link: and follow it thru Listen Live option - the chat room at 9 pm EST tomorrow night-Thursday, June 26th to hear me make a fool of myself! DINAH ROSEBERRY Editor at Large and her Radio show

Hungry Media Dragon Zell Aide on Book Pages Reminding the world to get a little CREATIVE
A memo from Tribune chief innovation officer Lee Abrams is being widely quoted. This snippet speaks to his view on book pages in newspapers: This is seriously the craziest Lee Abrams post ever.

Heard a conversation about how Book reporting doesn't generate revenue and may have to go away. WAIT! Maybe Book reviews and coverage are one of those things that don't generate revenue right now, BUT--are trademarks for newspapers and elicit high passion from readers. At XM, we had Opera channels. Low listenership...HIGH passion...AND--it was one of those things that even if people didn't listen or even like Opera, it was one of those things you had to have for completeness. Maybe Book sections in newspapers are just dated. Not the idea...but the look and feel. Maybe they're modeled after a book store in 1967 whereas we're in the Borders, Amazon, B&N era. Maybe they are too scholarly. Maybe they avoid genres like Christian books, Celebrity books and Popular novels, opting instead for reviews of the Philippine Socialist Movement in the 1800's. The point here is maybe Book sections need to be as dramatically re-thought as Borders re-thought retail. Not dumbing down--but getting in sync with the 21st Century mainstream book reader."

• Zell Aide on Book Pages ; [; ]
• · Not surprisingly, yesterday's news that former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil has agreed to buy PFD from CSS Stellar generates more attention in the UK news media. Neil, the current chief executive of the Spectator, explained his decision to buy the troubled literary agency, which is only just recovering from last year's mass defection that created United Agents, stemmed from its back catalog: "If you were an asset-stripper you would be prepared to pay this price to close the company down and live off its back book, though that is absolutely not what we want to do." Michel attempts to draw line at PFD; The PFD Saga Continues
• · · · · Tragic Novel Hopes For Happy Ending Today's advance spotlight is on Andrew Davidson, a Manitoba native whose debut novel THE GARGOYLE has attracted considerable attention since Doubleday signed North American rights for $1.25 million last year. (The book publishes here in August, and also in 22 countries, including Davidson's native Canada.) Despite planned "title star treatment" from Borders and B&N (is the newspaper not allowed to use the term "co-op" in an article?) some doubt readers will want to turn past the first 75 pages of apparently explicit content. "It's too graphic, too sexual," said Rainy Day Books' Vivien Jennings, speaking of readers in the vicinity of the bookstore's Fairway, KS home. "It's not going to float here." But Davidson brushes off such concerns: "I am no more concerned about readers in the Midwest embracing the book than I am about readers at either coast, or abroad." Another Potential Debut Fiction Bestseller Preview from the WSJ ; Poets & Writers prints an extended version of Jofie Ferrari-Adler's interview with former Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver, now at Nan Talese/Doubleday as an Editor-at large. Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Editor Janet Silver
• · · · · · The Wall Street Journal looks at how David Wroblewski's debut novel THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE (Ecco) benefited from being championed by Amazon.com. The 566-page literary novel has already gone into its seventh printing -- a reported total of 90,000 copies -- a week after its publication. Driving that unexpectedly heavy demand has been strong reviews and promotional support from Amazon.com, which chose the book as one of the best books of June, kept it on its home page for two weeks at a 40% discount before the book hit stores, and posted an essay written by the author at Amazon's request. "We also had a preorder banner in May, which is something we do for books that we think will have significant interest for our customers," says Tammy Hovey, an Amazon spokeswoman. Amazon's Clout Helps Debut Novel ; Amazon's enthusiasm, combined with strong reviews in national newspapers, has helped other retailers take notice. "It's doing fabulously well and we've already reordered," B&N fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley told the WSJ, and Costco increased its initial order to 18,000 copies from 3,000 Amazon Shows Its Clout: Written exclusively for Beautiful Minds and Hearts

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Twelve publisher Jonathan Karp has an essay in the Sunday Washington Post on the state of publishing. He remarks on "the relentless, indiscriminate proliferation" of commercial "ephemera" on the bookshelves" and freely admits "I too have sinned. In weaker moments, I've been seduced by tales of celebrity, money, gossip and scandal." He notes: "Most authors want their work to be accessible to a typical educated reader, so the question really isn't whether the work is highbrow or lowbrow or appeals to the masses or the elites; the question is whether the book is expedient or built to last. Are we going for the quick score or enduring value? Too often, we (publishers and authors) are driven by the same concerns as any commercial enterprise: We are manufacturing products for the moment. Karp On Publishing

Cold War Games Turning the Page on The Disposable Olympic Games
Perhaps the most revealing example of the role international politics has played in the Olympics was illustrated by the Games rivalry between the great ideologies of the twentieth century, capitalism and communism.

The Olympic Games, it is said, represent ‘ideals of humanity's highest callings—a universal quest for peace, moral integrity, and an exalted mix of mind, body, and spirit that transcends culture’. Tension still exists between the PRC and Taiwan and this resurfaced in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 in relation to the Olympic torch relay. After various attempts at compromise by both nations to allow the torch to travel through the city of Taipei, the Taiwanese withdrew permission for the Olympic torch to pass through their territory. There is speculation, however, that tensions between the PRC and Taiwan will ease following the election of Guomindang leader, Ma Ying-jeou, in March 2008.

• The Olympic Games ; [We should also not forget the role of China in the debacle that is Zimbabwe Zimbabwe and China: a toxic legacy; The right to free speech does not come cheap. For too many journalists it is costing them their life. Journalists under threat]
• · A TECHNOLOGICAL breakthrough by University of Sydney scientists could lead to people downloading the latest movie in a few seconds or chatting with small, cheap, video systems. Chip may speed up internet 100 times; The social webs of friends, like the strings of a child’s hand game, are slackening. We are becoming more isolated, more alone and more lonely. How many patterns of life were based on kindred misconceptions, how many wolves do we feel on our heels, while our real enemies go in sheepskin by? Why we ostracise - the failing Cat’s Cradle

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It didn't get any bigger for techies than the opening of computer giant Apple's first southern hemisphere retail store in Sydney Die-hard Apple fans Reminding the world to get a little creative

Imagine all the people Thinking Differently The Cult Of Mac: Die-hard Apple fans
The fanaticism of Apple fans is renowned. Outside the Sydney store yesterday, a handful of people had already started to queue for the official opening at 5pm tonight: Thousands queue for Apple Store Sydney

They had jackets to help them survive the winter chill and some had Apple laptops to keep themselves occupied with iTunes as Apple: iTunes sells more than 5 billion songs
A few held grey-market iPhones that had been imported from the US and unlocked to work in Australia – a process that voids the warranty, but has so far been necessary to use the phones on local networks.

• New Apple Store is a glass act Drive change so it doesn't drive you ; [The Apple store “experience”; Smile I'LL SCREAM LATER ]
• · At Stanford University's commencement address on Sunday, Oprah Winfrey advised the nearly 4,700 graduates to trust their gut. "When you are doing the work you are meant to do, it feels right," she said. "Feelings are really your GPS system for life. Check your ego at the door and check your gut instead. Every wrong decision was the result of me not listening to my voice. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it." Afterwards, each graduate received a copy of Book Club selection A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle and another Winfrey favorite, A WHOLE NEW MIND by Daniel Pink. Oprah Speaks, Gives Away Books at Graduation Ceremony; Oprah tells Stanford grads to do what 'feels right'
• · As with other book clubs, authors will receive royalties of 4 percent of the cover price for books sold for $1 apiece, and 8 percent of the cover price for books sold at regular club prices. Daily Kos blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, one of the book club's "alliance partners," said he did not expect the club to generate much revenue for his company. "I'm not doing this for financial reasons," he said. "I'm doing it for movement-building reasons. Book Clubs, the Progressive Way; If the move had happened earlier, it would have affected the book club. But this is a new channel on UKTV, and it will be on the first page of the electronic programme guide. After 10 years, I think the club has a life of its own. What we need is the support of the retailers. If they keep faith and the books are still in the shops, then people will still buy them because they have Richard & Judy stickers. Richard & Judy's Instant Summer Bestsellers
• · · The Wall Street Journal tracks the growing number of books written by consultants, real-estate moguls, retailers and other entrepreneurs The Entreprenurial Book Boom ; Agents are supporting Hachette Livre UK's confrontation with Amazon. Curtis Brown managing director Jonathan Lloyd says: I think the entire industry of publishers, authors and agents are 100% behind [Hachette]. Someone has to draw a line in the sand. Publishers have given 1% a year away to retailers, so where does it stop? Using authors as a financial football is disgraceful Community Supports Hachette v. Amazon UK
• · · · The AP reports that Pershing Square Capital's Bill Ackman is encouraging the unloading of his money-losing big stake in Borders to Amazon. Ackman Hopes for Amazon Bid for Borders; The memoir by Lynne Spears--mother of Britney and Jamie Lynn--"delayed indefinitely" last December, is now likely for September publication by Thomas Nelson Brand Leaves Hodder; Spears' Book Back On
• · · · · Savannah Knoop, who played the role of JT Leroy in public, is writing a book about the charade for Seven Stories, GIRL BOY GIRL: How I Became JT LeRoy. JT Leroy Body-Double Has Book; Southern novelist George Garrett, "who never received the wide literary renown that his decades of glowing reviews would suggest," died olast week of cancer at age 78. On Garrett
• · · · · · It was also the event at which Amazon ceo Jeff Bezos showed himself as bold enough and strong enough to show up in front of the industry that launched his enterprise and stick a big fat thumb directly in their eyes. And perhaps so lost in his own world that maybe he didn't realize how insulting it was to offer book professionals (and booksellers who compete with him) a warmed-over version of the Kindle pitch he's been making since last fall as if no one had heard of the device. Booksellers talk big, act quietly at convention;
It's not quite The Shack, but Leinad Zeraus (aka database consultant Daniel Suarez) has had help moving his self-published debut technothriller DAEMON from bloggers and influential techies like Joi Ito, Stewart Brand, and Craig Newmark. As Wired reports, the book "tells the story of a terminally ill game designer who unleashes a diabolical, self-replicating Web entity that enlists disaffected Netizens in its mission to destroy civilization." After numerous rejections from agents, the author and his wife "approached bloggers whose writings on gaming, warfare, AI, and social media Suarez had mined for the book. Self-Published Novelist Gets Geek Cred

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All humans are dead except those who have knowledge...and all those who have knowledge are asleep except for those who do good deeds … and those who do good deeds are deceived except those who are sincere...and those who are sincere are always in a state of worry …

AbeBooks.com reports that fans of the Sex and the City movie are looking for a book featured in one scene--Love Letters of Great Men--that does not exist. The site says they have received hundreds of requests. The AP reports that "the closest text in the real world apparently is Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, first released in the 1920s and reissued last year by Kessinger Publishing." That thirty-two dollar paperback has risen to No. 114 at Amazon.
If No One Hears About Your Book, No One Can Buy It; Crikey and their defamation lawyer: Separated at birth?

Can we change the heart of politics? Labor pair's surreal plunge into scandal
JOHN DELLA BOSCA appears to have run foul of the Premier a second time over the Iguanas Waterfront affair, it emerged last night, after Morris Iemma denied he or his office had ever been told of three statutory declarations that Mr Della Bosca's wife, Belinda Neal, withheld from the public.

THERE'S a reason courtroom witnesses swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That's because an omission can be just as damaging

• Iemma and minister fail to do the numbers ; [Like fiddling while Rome burns ; Iguana affair ]
• · WHEN Belinda Neal started dating a young NSW Labor Party official, John Della Bosca, she opened the door to more than just a new relationship Power families; Bullies get away with anger unleashed in private ;
• · The Rich List: Where are they now? ; Executive rich BRW list
• · · You stab my back and I'll stab yours: management perceptions and experience of organisation political behaviour Bending the rules to fit the situation and self promotion.; High speed
• · · · Opes Prime director, Deloitte clash in court Guide to track a broking firm that went broke; Battered Babcock & bankers
• · · · · THE litigation-fest surrounding Opes Prime has intensified, with the collapsed stockbroker's first Singapore client, Asia Pacific Links, taking Federal Court action late on Friday against financier Merrill Lynch. Opes client sues bank; Conspicuous consumption is reflected in a Russian joke making the rounds It describes how one wealthy businessman tells a friend of buying a tie for $100. “You fool,” the other responds. “You can get the same tie for $200 just across the street.” Additional Costs Allowances ; GOVERNMENTS often get more than they bargained for when they hand control of major infrastructure to private equity companies. High price to pay for private equity
• · · · · · Tracking plastic's breakdown products ; Man-made chemicals in food chain cause deepconcern, say researchers. Sheree Bega reports absorption in the human body, or their use reduced Cancer and households link probed

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I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.
- Rita Rudner

Gillian Sneddon has not limited her criticism to the NSW Labor Party. She has also criticised the clerk of the Parliament, Russell Grove, and another parliamentary officer over the Orkopoulos investigation Carelessness, Recklessness or Intentional Grovelling?

Can we change the heart of politics? Role of the Blogger The truth has blown up in our faces so many times
Like artists, bloggers have a role in a culture to alarm us, and perhaps to frighten us

There are soap opera producers who would not buy the believability of the script written in the corridors of powers of the NSW Parliament. Some journeys cannot be put into words … it is even easier to write about the Cold River crossing than it is to capture the goings inside the parliamentary culture. You would never know it from listening to the media dialogue, but the most pressing issue of our age is most certainly the fact that we need more direct sunlight when it comes to managerial powers. Ever since the rise of Marxism, crowds have been trying to take the power out of the hands of the powerful. And good on 'em (us!). Over the last hundred years or so these ideals have certainly had their ups and downs, but recently the trend has emerged again, this time in the form of Crowd Clout...

• It seems that telling the truth is dirty politics OurBrew: Power in Numbers; [Making the world a better place one person at a time feels like simple commonsense to me. People Power = In fact, nothing could be further from the truth? ; A Mediocre Piece of Journalism ]
• · Tim like Cold River is happiest in water, and the sea has delivered him his first big BOOK. REVIEWS, Tim Winton says a little grumpily on Schwartz Media's SlowTV website, are like the weather. There is nothing much you can do about them: they arrive, they pass. And teaching is detritus, a way of "policing the text. Breath is, as the reviews have been saying, Winton's best yet ; Tim Winton is probably Australia’s greatest living writer; Streetfighter critic pulls no punches
• · My own mortality was as real as night and day and as certain as their cold, motionless bodies in those coffins. The river of tears was for my friend I fantasised about my funeral ; I view life as a journey of initiation for death. A person lives, suffers, dies. All the rest is grace. And love is grace. Writing is grace. Ships from and sold by MediaCrazy ; Another ray of hope Sometimes we must look deeper to see the goodness
• · · The Burchett revival is founded upon a distinctive form of post-Cold War intellectual inertia Agent of Influence ; Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest is determined to redeem his reputation - and vast paper riches - on a promise many said he'd never keep The accidental billionaire
• · · · Lessons from Private Equity Any Company Can Use (Memo to the CEO) So what exactly is private equity?; You cannot kill truth by murdering journalists

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Today, we're announcing the beta release of SearchScan, a new feature from Yahoo! Search that helps protect users from viruses, spyware and spam. We've heard from users that security and privacy continue to be major concerns when they are online. We've also learned that solutions that require downloads and constant updating are less than ideal. To tackle the problem, we partnered with McAfee to build a feature that provides a safer and hassle-free search experience to all users...How does it work? SearchScan leverages McAfee's SiteAdvisor technology to alert users if risky websites appear in Yahoo! Search results. Starting today, SearchScan will be turned on by default for all users in the U.S., Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Spain... Yahoo Search Blog: - Hungry Media Dragon Searchers

Hungry Media Dragon Policing the Media
The Australian media largely ignored a major conference looking at its own future

YOU could be forgiven for not noticing, but at the beginning of this month Sydney hosted one of the most significant conferences on the impact of new media yet to take place in Australia.
Why didn’t you notice? Well, if you are an academic it was probably because it was pitched at journalists, and we all know how suspicious the academy is of hacks and, in turn, how anti-intellectual journalists can be. If you are an ordinary member of the public you may well have missed it because the mainstream media organisations barely reported it at all. This is very strange, given that many of them sponsored the gig, and the title of the conference was The Future of Journalism. You’d think they’d be interested. The leading British media commentator Roy Greenslade attended the conference and wrote about it on his blog at the Guardian. But the Australia media almost ignored it.

• Meyer: I was 'verballed' by Murdoch ; [Eric Beecher, who runs four websites including the iconoclastic crikey.com.au, said: Crickey I can't see a funding model for serious journalism in future, not one that will pay for large staffs with specialists, and foreign correspondents and stringers, everywhere. I can't see ads paying for big operations that costs tens of millions of dollars. Websites can attract millions but not the necessary tens of millions ]
• · Keeping Up with Class Actions: Reports, Legal Sites and Media Dragons of Note ; Harvard Law faculty votes for 'open access' to scholarly articles - In a move that will disseminate faculty research and scholarship as broadly as possible ; Blogging has become a mainstream method of communication...
• · Customers in shopping centres are having their every move tracked by a new type of surveillance that listens in on the whisperings of their mobile phones. The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around Every move tracked ; Related, also from Slashdot: Path Intelligence has developed a proprietary, patent-pending, new technlogy that is able to accurately locate mobile phones whilst indoors Path to Intelligence
• · · Canadian Lawrence Hill's THE BOOK OF NEGROES, about a West African girl sold into slavery in 18th-century South Carolina who eventually returns home, won the overall Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Tahmima Anam of Bangladesh won the Best First Book prize for A GOLDEN AGE. Someone Knows My Name ; Let me begin with a caveat to any and all who find these pages. Do not trust large bodies of water, and do not cross them. If you, Dear Reader, have an African hue and find yourself led toward water with vanishing shores, seize your freedom by any means necessary. And cultivate distrust of the colour pink. Pink is taken as the colour of innocence, the colour of childhood, but as it spills across the water in the light of the dying sun, do not fall into its pretty path. There, right underneath, lies a bottomless graveyard of children, mothers and men. I shudder to imagine all the Africans rocking in the deep. Every time I have sailed the seas, I have had the sense of gliding over the unburied. Some people call the sunset a creation of extraordinary beauty, and proof of God's existence. But what benevolent force would bewitch the human spirit by choosing pink to light the path of a slave vessel? Slavs
• · · · Literature can transmit what is best in us but with equal zeal and power can transmit what's worst in us. You'll find as much racism, sexism, cruelty and intolerance in literature as you'll find in the real world. Literature is beautiful and it is wise and it is foolish and it is cruel. Literature is a lot like us. Which is probably why I love it so. I'd like to thank also literature. ;
• · · · · ABCD: embracing a digital future
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has launched four new internet services, designed to explore the interactive possibilities offered by digital media, and to ‘connect with its audiences with distinctive, innovative, Australian content’. ABC Playback is an internet television service which offers, for the first time in Australia, full-screen definition and quality over an internet connection. The ABC’s website allows users to register for the beta-testing phase, which commenced on 26 March. ABC Playback initially comprises three channels:
• ABC Catch Up — showing recently aired programs from ABC TV;
• ABC Real — showing natural history programs and documentaries; and
• ABC Shop — showing ABC programs which can be purchased from the ABC’s website. ABC Managing Director Mark Scott on Digital Media Dragons; THE ABC plans to launch a breakfast television program on ABC2 as part of another push into digital media ABC woos internet viewers

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The public's right to know is being eroded by the proliferation of spin. IT'S not fashionable to say favourable things about the media. We are the people who sensationalise, quote out of context, live off negativity, criticise everyone but ourselves, beat-up stories, write piffle, lie, cheat, distort, and betray. Or as one writer put it: journalists are people who take in one another's washing and then sell it The dark craft of politics

Blog Rules Troubled waters: Thank god it's Friday?!
You may love it, you may hate it, but it has undoubtedly become an virtual icon, something you can't avoid. Blog and Matt … Will …

Those who possess power will surrender it only when they see that the costs - physical and psychological - of retaining it are higher than the costs of losing it.

• Deadspin founder takes job at New York magazine Going, Going, GONE! Deadspin Editor Quits ; [ON February 28, Matt Drudge, called the most powerful man in journalism, broke the story on his website that since before Christmas, Prince Harry, a junior officer in the Blues and Royal regiment, had been on a secret tour of duty in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Prince Harry and the chamber of secrets; Max Markson Why outsiders get such a hard time in Australia]
• · SOME ACCOUNTANTS MAY BE REQUIRED TO REGISTER AS LOBBYISTS The Federal Government has established a Register of Lobbyists It is a public document that contains information about lobbyists who make representations to Government on behalf of their clients. The Register will be fully operational from 1 July 2008. From that date, any lobbyist who wishes to contact a Government representative for the purpose of lobbying activities must be registered and must agree to comply with the requirements of the Lobbying Code of Conduct ; Facing the future of journalism
• · Is HRT good or bad? Who do we trust? ; Microscopic, high-tech "nanotubes" that are being made for use in a wide variety of consumer products cause the same kind of damage in the body as asbestos does, according to a study in mice that is raising alarms among workplace safety experts and others. Effects of Nanotubes May Lead to Cancer
• · · Housing affordability packages have been promised by both sides of politics for some time. All sorts of ideas have been canvassed: increasing the first home-owners grant, mortgage tax deductions, stamp duty holidays, more land releases. To the extent that most of these plans tend to increase demand for homes, they won't solve the problem. Unleased; I live in Vancouver, B.C. and have just read Wayne Errington's article regarding the effect of immigration on Australian housing prices Homing in on immigration
• · · · Strategic communications consultant Blogger - Trevor Cook writes: 70% of readers believe the garbage in surveys. Really.; SPIN. It's my favourite new word since I started going to the gym and engaging in this world of virtual cycling With the right spin-meister the most rotten of us can smell like a rose
• · · · · IT is every marketer's dream: an ad that makes the TV news, spreading its message to millions without an extra cent spent. Investigative journalist Bob Burton, author of 2007 book Inside Spin: The Dark Underbelly of the PR Industry, believes the use of VNRs by TV networks blurs the line between the two so much they can become indistinguishable. He estimates up to 200 VNRs, costing up to $20,000 each, are pumped out a year. Nevertheless, they remain one of the dirty little secrets of the industry PR handouts make the news; CONCERN over the print media's growing reliance on PR content has spiked again with this year's publication of Nick Davies' Flat Earth News, an examination of the British newspaper industry. Fearing the rise of 'churnalism'
• · · · · · You will remember last week we were talking about the £2,000 Dore "miracle cure" for dyslexia, invented by paint entrepreneur Wynford Dore Determined bloggers who blew whistle ; Uncommon, Commonsense: Twitter, social media, and unmashing the mashable Media Reform Is Finally Getting Some Attention

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In ITS obsession with property prices and housing affordability, Sydney has overlooked a startling fact: the city is awash with empty buildings. Empty dwellings in a city desperate for places to live

Can we change the heart of politics? Sydney – Last Person Switch on the light
The number of unoccupied residential dwellings in Sydney counted by census workers in 2006 was 122,211, with the highest number found in the inner city. That does not include the thousands of empty warehouses, pubs, churches and shops.

A Wikipedia-style site that allows users to map the number of empty buildings in Australia has crashed after an overwhelming response from the public. Daniel Cox, the creator of http://bubblepedia.net.au said he was racing to fix the site in spare moments between his professional duties as a specialist anaesthetist.

• Empty Spaces; [; Some of today's hottest gadgets are already infected when they leave the factory; DANIEL COX thinks the housing shortage is a myth and he has a map to prove it;]
• · UK - Councillors launch bid to put people into vacant homes ; US - The National Vacant Properties Campaign exists to provide everyone – individuals, advocates, agencies, developers, non-profits, and others – with information resources, tools, and assistance to support their vacant property revitalization efforts US - The National Vacant Properties
• · The real crisis in the UK isn’t about the sub-prime collapse, it’s about consumer demand. Is the same thing happening here? The financial malaise is spreading ; A bleaker, poorer world results when languages are allowed to wither. It says that other world-views are expendable Squandered worlds
• · · With its latest Cyber Storm II exercise now completed, the US Department of Homeland Security says it expects to release an after-action report analysing the event in August, and is beginning to plan for Cyber Storm III in 2010 DHS offers first take on Cyber Storm exercise ; New Zealand Inland Revenue Department (IRD) introduces new asset control measures to prevent further losses Taxman finds all but 36 lost PCs
• · · · With Thomas Friedman's morning keynote appearance at BEA it would be poetic to characterize BEA as HOT, FLAT AND CROWDED, but between recent statistics and the opening day mood we'll have to stand with just flat: Exxon is green... GM is green... Yeah. That's not a revolution friends, That's a party. We're having a green party. But it has nothing to do with a revolution. You'll know it's a revolution when somebody gets hurt. When companies have to change or die BEA; Publishing convention not quite green
• · · · · Premier Morris Iemma says he does not feel disloyal to the NSW Labor party over his plans to privatise the state's electricity sector Privatisation ; If Australia is going to take information security seriously, we need more people like the ATO's CIO, Bill Gibson. Gibson
• · · · · · There is a tendency to only look at what we're doing today, instead of stepping back and asking: "what do we need to focus on for the future? Why You Need To Plan for Innovation Today; Lindsay Tanner, Minister for Finance and Deregulation, CeBIT Australia, 21 May 2008. Good morning and welcome to the e-Government Forum at CeBIT Australia 2008, the largest information and communications technology event focused on government issues in this country. How to use information technology to govern more effectively and efficiently is a particular concern of mine in my role as Minister for Finance and Deregulation. My portfolio includes the Australian Government Information Management Office - AGIMO - the agency responsible for managing the federal government's information technology requirements." Keynote address to the e-Government forum ; Speech discusses various e-government and related topics such as procurement, web 2.0, IT / ICT and service delivery, citizens' engagement … Paper

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A group of Bohemians invaded the Ritz at Randwick, Mal and Gabbie, June and Richard, Dial, Bawa, Chris and Lidka – Kuba, Olek, John and Liz, Beck, Marion, Gerd was there in spirit, Jen-Jen, Kevin, Steve and Wendy and Jules, George as well as Vicki, Ana and Rudy, Catarina and Jack, Begonia and Lisa and so many others in the underground spirit such as Gina and Kevin INDY at 64 – when I am sixty four ; Movie Review: 'Indiana Jones' deserves a warm welcome The archaeology of Indiana Jones

RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL Bouncing Czech (oslovakian) on PURPOSE
Like Media Dragon Tom Stoppard share the same nicknames Bouncing Czechs – Tom was bounced from Czech Republic just before the Nazis came to get the Jews and then he escaped from Sinapore before the Japanese came in WWII (source Rock and Roll booklet)

• Dangerous path; [That's what I lovingly whispered Let's never be a part again" ; You don't have to be a committed thespian or theatre aficionado to understand how the Bard's 400 year old works give inspiration Shakespeare ]
• · 2008 AD - Come to the new King of all Apple Stores in Sydneyrella – It took me twenty odd years to make the Mac CEO to see the antipodean light Reminding the world to get a little CRAZY - Can I claim my iPhone on tax? New Store in Sydney Captain Matilda; Lowest earners should pay the lowest percentage of tax
• · The Crazy Ones; Think Different
• · · When Your Nonfiction Book Idea is Stuck in the Mud; We are conditioned from birth to acquire social competence in a single culture: our own Writing Multicultural Fiction
• · · · When is that 'big bang moment', that life-changing experience, that 'peak experience' - was it that moment, is it this moment or will it be the moment around the corner? Love will tear us apart … again (… and repeat);
• · · · · Reinvigorating Literary Scholarship? Literary criticism could be one of our best tools for understanding the human condition. But first, it needs a radical change: embracing science Measure for Measure; No tax returns and now apparently no book from Cindy McCain - Cindy McCain, wife of Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has decided not to write her memoir after signing a book deal with Viking last month Cindy McCain Backs Out On Book Deal
• · · · · · Chasers were great on Friday night at the Enmore Theatre – if a bit too risqué for some -- From Parliament to Paris Hilton, Chaser writer Dominic Knight casts a critical eye over whatever's in the news. Rock and Roll and Chasers ; Business use of social networking is fuelling a revolution in collaboration. Social networking within the enterprise ; The first guideline regarding an employee blogging policy is simple - have one Two approaches to employee blogs

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Gabriella is sweet sixteen today and at breakfast I could not take my eyes of her … I I am four things – I am a Slavic Bohemian, I am a lover of freedom, I am an exile living with a soulful antipoedian homemaker Mal, and I am a father. It is so lovely for a father to see a daughter filled with laughter and health and creative ideas. Not many teenagers love to go to school these days yet Gabbie loves her talent school, the Brent Street, is just great … The reason Gabbie is so much into arts and photography is because the water broke while we were in the cinema all those sixteen years ago ... and Paddington still had a birth center under the flag of Benevolent Society of Royal Women!

If I put my and Gabbie's birthday together we are much, much, younger than the Czechoslovak Radio Happy Birthday - Lidka a ... Gitka are celebrating in Praue this weekend

Tonight I laughed with Mal at a movie that no critic can ever give it any justice in words ... impossible just like As it is in Heaven - Who says it is easy is just once in a lifetime story a light story with so many characters from my days in the Czech army and even I recognise a few librarians and journos from Macquarie Street Bear Pit as both places were like laboratories of human nature ... An amiable but uninventive romantic comedy about a square whose life turns heart-shaped, Juan Taratutos - Who Says Its Easy? — like the helmers debut - Its Not You, Its Me, — is basically a vehicle for the talents of hangdog thesp Diego Peretti. Main characters spiritual journey could have shed 10 minutes, but is made worthwhile by an emotionally rewarding final reel and the always-watchable Peretti. Aldo is in complete control of his life and surroundings, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Andrea has long since thrown caution to the wind, having traveled the world for fifteen years. Now Andrea is pregnant, and she's not even sure she can identify the father of her unborn son. On the surface it would seem almost impossible to love a man as rigid as Aldo or a woman as unpredictable as Andrea, but as fate would have it their eccentricities might just fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Who Says Its Easy? - Quien dice que es facil?
I'm shattered into million pieces with laughter . Still I know how broken hearts are much harder to heal than broken bodies

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Labor has delivered a moderate budget that it hopes will "build the nation" by dedicating spending on health care, welfare and infrastructure while winding back the direct benefits to the nation's well-paid. The first Labor budget in 13 years has maintained the tax cuts promised during the election and will now means-test welfare and the controversial baby-bonus which rises to $5000 from June Swan on song ; WAYNE Swan's razor gang has identified $7 billion in savings next year alone; Treasurer Wayne Swan's first budget has been well received by economists but government forecasts for slower economic growth could be too low. Economists praise budget The numbers: What you'll get in the Budget's tax cuts (Google hunter and gatherer $38B investment plan to boost Aussie economy

Yes, Prime Minister: What's in store for Budget 2008? The PM sees public service in brighter light
Address to heads of agencies and members of senior executive service Rudd, a former bureaucrat himself, is — was — one of them. As the PM noted in his address, he has played all the main roles in Yes Minister: I have acted both as a Humphrey, as Bernard and now I'm the minister … So when Ken Henry, the secretary of the Treasury, looks at me through … highly intelligent glasses and says 'courageous, minister', I know the text and the sub-text …

the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, Prime Minister, speech, Canberra, 30 April 2008. "Members of the Senior Executive Service, I begin this morning by honouring the traditional owners of this land on which the Parliament now sits. Thank you for the efforts that each of you have made to attend this morning. I know that your workload has been unusually heavy in recent months. Alongside an exhaustive spending review process for the Budget, the transition to a new government means managing new priorities and new policies, and adjusting to new ministers and their offices. The leadership roles that each of you exercise require you to balance the day to day needs of government with longer term policy and planning; in short, the reactive versus the strategic. In the early days of a new government you face both enormous day to day demands while also needing to start implementing new policy platforms."

• Only half joking, senior public servants have been commenting on how much better the country has been running during the caretaker period, without an elected government running the show Running Show; [ All about to change; Yes, Prime Minister. All change for the public service]
• · The whole point of politicians and political parties declaring campaign donations is to show the public what's going on. They are meant to reveal who is giving what to whom, and to sound the alarm at the appearance of improper influence on individual MPs and governments Political donations: disclosure is all show and no tell ; Michael Booth's career began crashing in great, ghastly pieces around his ears. But, surprisingly, it was not on the day in 2006 when he was accused of academic misconduct, but on the day he claims he annoyed a minister. A Sydney researcher claims he paid a high price for offending a government minister
• · The 800 include many of Australia's biggest companies, which have given between $1525 and $543,000 each - and they face fines of $11,000 for each offence 800 face charges for donations ; Money went to party, not me, says Sartor
• · · Brotherhood of St Laurence - This report highlights key federal taxation areas requiring reform, with brief case studies illustrating the inequities, and presents a number of recommendations for a fairer system. The Brotherhood is urging the new federal government to examine options to create a fairer, simpler and a more efficient tax system that maximises economic and social participation. PDF version link ahead The case for change: a snapshot analysis of the Australian tax system ; As far as Budgets go, the bar was set pretty high on this one Swan plays Robin Hood in Budget that takes from the rich ; A COMPREHENSIVE review of the nation's tax system will be unveiled in Tuesday night's federal budget, Treasurer Wayne Swan says. Tax review to be unveiled budget night
• · · · How Boris triumphed in London by not being Boris Mayor ; You know, I have always had a soft spot for Cherie Blair. You may think I am mad, but I have resented the attacks on her, and suspected that it is to do with the jealousy that surrounds a successful, high-earning woman who possesses a mind of her own. Boris on his website on crime and London ; The curse or joy of the Spectator Melisa and Johnson
• · · · ·A revamped data warehouse is helping Victoria Police to reduce crime rates and has delivered AU$2 million in productivity benefits, despite a lack of initial budget planning which threatened to derail the project early on Victoria Police cut crime with data warehousing ; When Philip Hind joined the Australian Taxation Office as chief knowledge officer, the task of managing the organisation's data warehouse was widely viewed as a poison chalice. How did the ATO evolve to make its warehouse-dependent BI applications a critical enterprise tool?... How ATO found an antidote to the BI poison chalice
• · · · · · This Oscar-winning WWII drama puts devils, as well as angels, on the head of the pin The Counterfeiters ; After seven days, she announced the blog was an art project and she wasn't planning to kill herself. I wanted this blog to be about personal discovery … When a 24-year-old woman who called herself "90DayJane" launched a blog in February announcing she would write about her life and feelings for three months and then commit suicide, 150,000 readers flocked to the site. Some came to offer help, some to delight in the drama. Others speculated it was all a hoax. Your blog can be group therapy

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It is Mothers Day and June and Dial had made my weekend ... after a icy swim at the Iceberg

The purge of Liberals involved in undermining Victorian leader Ted Baillieu could reach into the offices of state or federal MPs, with several more staffers under threat of explusion over the blogging scandal that claimed a third scalp yesterday Blog crisis 'tip of iceberg' [Google that cheeky collector and gather New scalp claimed in Liberal blog scandal

Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary Memoirs: whose truth – and does it matter?
If You're Looking for a Level-Headed Piece on Memoirs
The Christian Science Monitor has one. There's not a lot new here, but with the Seltzer furor having settled down, a little more perspective prevails. At Powell's Books, marketing manager Michal Drannen says, There was a certain amount of interest in Margaret Jones [Ms. Seltzer's pseudonym] regionally and locally. But we haven't seen a decline in sales of the genre. From my perspective, I don't think there's a general concern about the veracity of nonfiction memoirs or biographies.

It's made us cynical. He and his colleagues have developed a running joke. Whenever they come across an especially sensational life story, somebody will ask, What's the pool? How many weeks before it's exposed as fraudulent? That said, Mr. Donaghy admits, The averages are not too bad. Not that it mitigates it at all, but it's not anything I'd call a pandemic. He cites "Beautiful Boy" as one recent example of a memoir that read as especially genuine.

• It made the booksellers' employees cynical ; [Two years after telling the world he was finished with writing, Gabriel Garcia Márquez has rediscovered his muse. The Nobel prizewinner is giving the final touches to "a novel of love", according to a friend. Marquez Writes Another Novel After All; Let's hear it for freedom of speech! Tibet, Zimbabwe and now Myanmar are all refusing access to journalists who want to report on the hardships of their people. NBC News World Media Dragon aims to provide a dynamic look at world events and trends -- both big and small NO JOURNALISTS ALLOWED TO TELL THE STORY ]
• · Everyone networks everyday; they just may not think they do. Everyone talks daily to a family member, a work colleague or a friend and this is a form of networking. Additionally, almost everyone meets someone new everyday. The trick is to find a way to build and maintain your network that is comfortable for you Networking: what is your NQ? ; The more information we place online and the less discriminating we are, the greater the risk of exposure to ID theft and more. Privacy and social networking; How easy is it for thieves to steal your identity? Are we making it easier for them by putting our lives online? Stolen ID ; Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster is famous for his hunger Me want cookie!

• · News Creed – The internet is littered with people who don't know what they're talking about. Common sense is usually enough to separate the junk from legitimate articles, but even the most highly-regarded publications have been infiltrated by reporters who like to make things up NewsCred: Just How Trustworthy is Your Favorite Blog?; NewsCred gives you credible and quality news from your favourite news sources. News Media Dragons
• · · THE writer and social commentator Anne Manne sees this as an historic moment. We are poised at a fork in the cold river How do we want to live? ; Almost all creative ventures fail, but the successes can be spectacular Winner creates all?
• · · · The Sydney Writers' Festival director Wendy Were was excited about bringing five virtual guests to town, including Iain Banks and Alan Bennett, via LongPen technology. Virtually impossible ; Sydney Writers Festival is on next week and it is peppered with lunches – one with Czech Jana Wendt not to be missed … 200 flesh-and-blood authors
• · · · · Australia's richest literary prize won by Jozef Imrich Riches for writers ; A couple of great movies are out right now in the States and should be with the rest of the world soon. Danis checked out I’m Not There, with its great soundtrack and standout album track by Los Lobos. Here’s Danis’ review... Imrich - I’m Not There
• · · · · · After seeing Rock and Roll of Stoppards with Jeff Avril and David in the audience this is another czech artistic invasion … A documentary shot over a period of 13 years that traces the fascinating life of dissident poet turned politician Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president, has become the biggest ever theatrical release for a non-fiction film in the former Warsaw Pact Central European country … We are very excited by the success of 'Citizen Havel' at the cinemas. It has by far exceeded everyone's expectations. Directed by Pavel Koutecky (who died in 2006) and Miroslav Janek, "Citizen Havel" was 13 years in the making, with shooting beginning in 1992. 'Citizen Havel' rakes in Czech coin ; Documentary shot over a period of 13 years

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This year has been a year of Film Festivals from French to German and now the Spannish. But the best plays are still with Czech accent as Tom Stoppard rocks the rocks of the Sydney Warf Theatre of Cate Blanchet fame on Thursday in the row F In 2008 Tom gave Australia one of his finest plays Rock 'n' Roll. Jan, the Czech student, lives for rock music; Max, the English professor, lives for Communism; and Esme, the flower child, is high. By 1990, the tanks are rolling out, the Stones are rolling in and idealism has hit the wall. Stoppard's sweeping and passionate play spans two countries, three generations and 22 turbulent years, at the end of which, love remains-and so does rock 'n' roll. Utopia of Indian and Czech connections: Mal and Joe

CODA: Australia – My New Home - new book about the life stories of Australian Czech and Slovak community members has been published. This book is the product of two years of research by the Kratochvíls’ amongst the Czech and Slovak communities in Australia. It depicts life stories and experiences of Czechs and Slovaks who were accepted by Australia as exiles and lived in the capital city of Canberra, and in the states of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania. It focuses on life in refugee camps in the US zone in Germany, which a large number of refugees passed through in the 1950s, the inception and existence of Czech communities and their clubs operating in Australia (for example, Sokol, Orel, scout and outdoor clubs and associations, sporting clubs, and Jewish organizations), Czech community periodicals and magazines published in Australia, theatre, and Czech and Slovak radio broadcasting. For further information or purchase of Austrálie – můj nový domov / Australia – My New Home please contact Mr Jan Kratochvíl by email – krat3@volny.cz or the Czech Embassy in Canberra.

Ach, An Antipodean Letter of the year: With planning and thought, our films can be adopted by the caring and shown to the intelligent - Australian films deserve better than doing battle with blockbusters

From little things big things grow Building a Big SHACK
USA Today looks at the success of William Young's self-published THE SHACK, a wrenching parable about God's grace.

Co-published with Brad Cummings under the banner of Windblown Media, with assistance from author and former pastor Wayne Jacobsen, they say they have 880,000 copies in print, 750,000 in distribution, and we're talking to New York publishers. USAT reports: Published a year ago and promoted by snowballing attention on Christian radio, websites and blogs, The Shack ($14.99) is now in mainstream bookstores and Wal-Marts nationwide, and the trio behind it are talking to Hollywood about a possible film deal

• Aim at 'spiritually interested' sparks 'The Shack' sales ; [As expected, Amazon filed suit with the Supreme Court of New York to "challenge the constitutionality of a newly enacted New York State statute that requires out-of-state internet retailers, with no physical presence in New York, to collect sales and use taxes." Amazon Sues Over Proposed NY Tax; So far former Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver has moved Monique Truong, Peter Ho Davies and John Pipkin to Nan Talese, and Silver doesn't officially start as editor-at-large until May 1 - I called Janet and she sent us a list of the authors she had worked with and the ones who'd said they wanted to come with her, if not immediately then eventually. We ran down the financials and ... we made an agreement with her that she would stay up there in Massachusetts. It was all done in a rather good fashion. Which Authors Will Follow Janet Silver to Nan Talese? ]
• · the blog of the national book critics circle board of directors Commentary on literary criticism; Guest Blogger: James Frey James Frey is "guest blogging" at Amazon's Omnivoracious this month--and maybe he's doing other media, too. "Two big things for me this month. One is that I am guest-blogging on Amazon all month. The other is that my new novel, Bright Shiny Morning, comes out on May 13th. Will check in now and then with updates, stories, impressions. I'll be doing some press, and will be on tour for a couple weeks." Press-Shy Frey Will Blog for Amazon
• · Seattle's Jackson Street Books will close at the end of the month as the owners retire I Been Healed and so can you!; This year's PEN World Voices Festival in New York City, themed Public Lives/Private Lives, features over 170 authors coming from all around the world. World Voices Invigorates NYC: Everyone has a story
• · · Memoirs should explore some sort of new ground, challenge and explore notions of truth and telling the truth, how we remember and how these memories relate to universals. At the very least, they should tell a good story Newest memoir from Augusten Burroughs has too much bite ; My father himself used to read the published correspondence of authors he was interested in, as well as their diaries and memoirs The letters of men of letters; Burn After Reading
• · · · Memoirs rose in popularity during the '90s on the backs of such books as Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes." Now they're in such demand that, in 2007, more memoirs were accepted by publishers than debut novels Everybody has a story -- but is it worth telling?; The author of the much-touted memoir, Love and Consequences, about a foster child who escaped gang life in South Central Los Angeles, Margaret Seltzer (who wrote under the pseudonym Margaret Jones), turned out to be a white woman who grew up in wealthy Sherman Oaks (the part where “Desperate Housewives” is filmed) Fake Memoirs and the New Racial "Passing"
• · · · · Your crazy life story could translate into mega publishing bucks. But is it true? Here's a foolproof way to tell Put Your Memoir to the Test!; THERE he could be when Parliament resumes next week busily tap, tap, tapping away on his laptop, composing his memoirs as question time drones on. Tap dance to immortality: A Million Little Pieces of Deception
• · · · · · These memoirs dig deep into the heartbreak, humor of divorce "How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed" | Memoirs of a divorcée Mamas, don't let your daughters grow up to marry narcissists; As a literary genre, a memoir from the French: mémoire from the Latin memoria, meaning "memory", or a reminiscence, forms a subclass of autobiography: Everyone has a story, but not everyone puts it in writing. Now, my story is out there … floating Cold River When fiction is not enough

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Back in my childhood days in Czechoslovakia on 1 day of May we marched to the music of Soviet composers ... It’s not every day that one has the opportunity to put school memories into a political and media blog. As the half way point of the year creeps up on us, we tend to reflect on the achievements of first few months of the year and look towards the exciting possibilities the rest of the year may hold.

Among the many things my soviet communist teachers taught me:
Scientists say the higher your I.Q. The more you dream.
Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.
The largest cell in the human body is the female egg.
Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.
A pair of human feet contain 250,000 sweat glands.
Your thumb is the same length as your nose.
When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate … (

Among the many new links created in the cyber space: Even with the bar set pretty high, Amazon and Morava (Cold River) met or exceeded analysts' consensus expectations with first quarter sales of $4.13 billion, up 37 percent, and net income of $143 million, up 30 percent from a year ago. Another Jump for Amazon

Historic nobodies like MEdia Dragon The Memory Thief: Landscape of feeling
The painter Franz Kline once said, To be right is the most terrific personal state that no one is interested in. The other is that they need to educate and edify their readers.

The best criticism, as Adam Gopnik wrote inan appreciation of the poet and critic RandallJarrell, should be "not a slot machine of judgment but a tone of voice, a style, the promise of a whole view of life in a few pregnant sentences". Contrary to those who believe journalistic criticism will struggle to survive in the internet age, however, I think people are actually going to want more and more of it. If you step back and survey the situation, it seems simple. In affluent societies, of which there are more in the world than ever before, the arts rise in stature, and as they do, people naturally want to discuss them.

• I am not a writer I am a storyteller. In Cold River the words that flood the pages - they are not always perfect Bloggers are saved from the lynch mob... for now ; [I have always loved a good conspiracy thriller, easily sucked in by the conflict of secrecy and spies, the darkness in the shadows Internal affairs ; AUSTRALIANS have begun searching an online archive for news of their ancestors' nefarious dealings in Victorian London.
Old Bailey puts criminal past on web]
• · The great historical issues of our day are being decided not by historical argument, but by parliamentary vote, with judges enforcing these decisions - Dutch historian Pieter Geyl famously wrote that history is “an argument without an end”. In Switzerland today, arguing about history can mean you might end up having to explain your historical views before a judge of law. History: an argument with an end; For historians, Anzac Day, is 'a martial affair with military music and ritual', while for churches and their army chaplains, it’s a 'faith event'. Anzac day: a faith event?
• · courtesy of Mal - Catherine Austin Fitts is president of Solari, Inc.Solaris ajaja jaj Where is the Money? Let’s Get it Back!; To Blog or Not to Blog: An Employer's Dilemma
• · · The underlying metaphor of Cold River really is that it does not matter where you are stuck in life or what you think you have to do you can always choose something else – there is always a different path Sydney Writer Festival coming soon and Post-Festival of Books: Science fiction notes; Torture, terrorism, eco-disaster... a wave of new films is tackling some of the world's most pressing issues head-on, winning critical praise and box-office rewards. Can films change the world?
• · · · Went to Chauvel and saw the WAVE – Akin to life and death - Go and see it too! One of the most powerful films in the İstanbul Film Festival's international feature competition, German Dennis Gansel's "Die Welle" (The Wave), is inspired by the infamous Stanford prison experiment that took place in Palo Alto, California in 1969. The Wave' by German director Dennis Gansel; Sometimes dubbed Germany's answer to Gerard Depardieu, the gap-toothed Vogel has featured in the German Film Festival here over the past few years Jurgen Vogel at Chauvel
• · · · · A hard-fighting author has never forgotten his impoverished upbringing. Imagine you fall on hard times and (it's hard, but try) imagine further that there is no government welfare to fall back on. In with the underdogs ; One cannot go wrong in Sydney at Dan Murphy but the Bohemians know also about Dan Brown located at 9 Brisbane Street, Surry Hills A drop in the ocean - Independent Discount Liquor of Underdogs
• · · · · · A 25-year-old media dragon magnate has been revealed as the buyer of one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Australia Virtual estate; If you haven’t started a blog yet, it’s time. Blogging comes with benefits. I went to the Web 2.o Expo this week in San Francisco, a “gathering of geeks,” if you will. So as such, of course, it had a fabulous blogger lounge that was anything but geeky. Free massages, Wii on a big screen, music by Pandora, free drinks and–best of all–networking with other bloggers Another Reason to Start Your Own Blog