Tag: current affairs

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Blockbuster and Weinsteins in cahoots

USA Today reports that Blockbuster signs deal to be exclusive renter for Weinsteins. The agreement gives Blockbuster a four-year exclusive on rentals of films by the Weinsteins. (Thereby giving Blockbuster a leg up on Netflix.)

“Their concentration of stores and online footprint is too appealing not to be part of,” said Harvey Weinstein.

Like Blockbuster wouldn’t carry their films without an exclusive contract. I’m a happy Netflix customer, and now I’m even less inclined to consider using Blockbuster. From the consumer point of view, this is a very negative business model, and I hope it blows up in their faces.

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You are what you eat

I recently finished Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (which I’ve reviewed for UU World. Many of the concerns Pollan takes up regarding food production have also been addressed by the Guardian. Today, for instance there’s this article: Will the organic dream turn sour?

We now have millions of people buying organic in a committed way. But there’s a tightrope to be walked: we must promote organic farming, but not industrialised organic production.

I subscribe to a box delivery scheme (as the Brits would say) of organic fruits and vegetables. The quality is for the most part quite high, and there’s a nice variety, but much of the produce comes from a distance. During the summer I stopped the service because there are so many farmers markets available to me.

My friend Pam in Philadelphia has started a company to do home delivery of locally produced food (including meats). I don’t know if everything is organic, but I think it is. As both Pollan and the Guardian point out, the carbon load of organic products shipped from around the world may easily outweigh any environmental benefits of organic produce.

Eating with an eye toward ecological responsibility is filled with confusion and compromise. Here’s to the tightrope!

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What price global fellowship?

Here’s the NYT’s coverage of the big religious news of the weekend: Woman Is Named Episcopal Leader Amongst the reporting is this nugget from one of those who is unhappy:

“In many ways the election speaks for itself,” Bishop Robert W. Duncan Jr. of Pittsburgh said in a statement. Bishop Duncan is the moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, a theologically conservative group of Episcopal dioceses. “For the Anglican Communion worldwide, this election reveals the continuing insensitivity and disregard of the Episcopal Church for the present dynamics of our global fellowship.”

So the Episcopal Church should deny the truth it knows (that women can be priests and bishops) for the sake of fellowship with those who still haven’t got it? Let them turn to Rome.

And this from the other side of the pond: The Guardian.

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Cosmopolitanism and globalisation

A very nice article about cosmopolitanism and globalisation written by a man from Ghana (via Arts & Letters Daily).

People who can afford it mostly like to put on traditional garb — at least from time to time. I was best man once at a Scottish wedding, at which the bridegroom wore a kilt and I wore kente cloth. Andrew Oransay, the islander who piped us up the aisle, whispered in my ear at one point, “Here we all are then, in our tribal gear.” In Kumasi, people who can afford them love to put on their kente cloths, especially the most ‘traditional’ ones, woven in colourful silk strips in the town of Bonwire, as they have been for a couple of centuries. (The prices are high in part because demand outside Asante has risen. A fine kente for a man now costs more than the average Ghanaian earns in a year. Is that bad? Not for the people of Bonwire.) Besides, trying to find some primordially authentic culture can be like peeling an onion.

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The TIME 100

Librarianna has an interesting little exercise on her blog. How many of the The TIME 100 | The People Who Shape Our World can you identify?

  • J.J. Abrams
  • George Clooney
  • Dixie Chicks
  • Ellen DeGeneres
  • Nicolas Ghesquiere
  • Wayne Gould
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman
  • Arianna Huffington
  • Ang Lee
  • Renzo Piano
  • Rain
  • Rachael Ray
  • Jeff Skoll
  • Kiki Smith
  • Will Smith
  • Zadie Smith
  • Howard Stern
  • Meryl Streep
  • Reese Witherspoon
  • Rob Pardo
  • Daddy Yankee
  • Tyra Banks
  • Dane Cook
  • Matt Drudge
  • Stephen Colbert
  • Mike Brown
  • Kelly Brownell
  • Nancy Cox
  • Richard Davidson
  • Kerry Emanuel
  • Jim Hansen
  • Zahi Hawass
  • Bill James
  • John Jones
  • Ma Jun
  • Jim Yong Kim
  • Steven Levitt
  • Jacques Rossouw
  • Andrew von Eschenbach
  • Jimmy Wales
  • Geoffrey West
  • Muqtada al-Sadr
  • Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
  • Hugo Chavez
  • George W. Bush
  • John McCain
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
  • Ayman al-Zawahiri
  • Hillary Rodham Clinton
  • Pope Benedict
  • Condoleezza Rice
  • Wen Jiabao
  • Ehud Olmert
  • Pervez Musharraf
  • John Roberts
  • Ismail Haniya
  • Angela Merkel
  • Jigme Singye Wangchuk
  • Archbishop Peter Akinola
  • Junichiro Koizumi
  • Oprah Winfrey
  • Bill & Melinda Gates
  • Bono
  • Michelle Wie
  • Wynton Marsalis
  • Angelina Jolie
  • Bill Clinton & George H.W. Bush
  • Steve Nash
  • Orhan Pamuk
  • Elie Wiesel
  • Jan Egeland
  • Joey Cheek
  • Chen Guangcheng
  • Ian Fishback
  • Wafa Sultan
  • Pernessa Seele
  • Ralph Lauren
  • Mukhtaran Bibi
  • Paul Simon
  • Al Gore
  • Katie Couric
  • Vikram Akula
  • Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe
  • Franz Beckenbauer
  • The Flickr Founders
  • Sean Combs
  • Jamie Dimon
  • Brian France
  • Tom Freston
  • Huang Guangyu
  • Omid Kordestani
  • Eddie Lampert
  • Patricia Russo
  • Sheikh Mohammed
  • Anne Mulcahy
  • Nandan Nilekani
  • Jim Sinegal
  • Steve Wynn
  • The Skype Guys
  • Dieter Zetsche

I knew forty-five, and I misidentified one. (I was a little vague on some: “politician” for instance.)