Movies: Oscars: Elbowing out Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, the Oscar cult celebrates its week

Roger Friedman reports in his Fox 411 email newsletter (Feb19,27):

Oscar Week Begins:
All Hail Helen and ForestAt last, we are at the start of Oscar week. It’s a good thing, too. Dreamgirls needs about a day and a half to reach $100 million. The snubbed musical came “this close” over the weekend to the magic number, but fell short about $750,000.

But Oscar week 2007, if there is any justice (and usually there isn’t) in Hollywood, should belong to Martin Scorsese. After near misses with The Aviator and Gangs of New York, America’s finest director looks certain to pick up Best Director this Sunday night and maybe even Best Picture. I can only say maybe. Scorsese fans have been disappointed too many times.

What is certain about Sunday night? This much: Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson.

Queen Helen is so certain that Dame Judi Dench, whose performance in Notes on a Scandal is incendiary, is skipping the show to have knee surgery. She’s not being a sore loser, but simply practical in a Dame Judi way. She’s got to get back on the London stage. And she already has an Oscar (1999, Shakespeare in Love).

What’s uncertain: Is Peter O'Toole going to come back to Hollywood just to watch Whitaker win? O’Toole had a grand time at the nominees’ luncheon and then went home to England. Making the long trip back does seem pointless if he doesn't think he'll win, but O’Toole’s presence should enliven things.

And what about the spoilers? Little Miss Sunshine, a dark-horse film that was birthed at Sundance, could upset everything with a Best Picture win. Based on its Screen Actors Guild award for Best Cast — as well as producers and writers’ guild nods — Sunshine could throw a dark shadow across Scorsese’s The Departed. Stranger things have happened.

Meanwhile, the real drama of the weekend may wind up with the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday. After a few seasons of paralleling the Oscar nominations, this year the Spirits have chosen more of an independent path.

Best Feature should be a dog fight between Little Miss Sunshine and Half Nelson. Best Male Lead, I hope, will go to Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson.

As for Best Female Lead? The real fun would be if Catherine O'Hara gets it for For Your Consideration. Talk about making a catty statement to the Academy Awards!

Mr Friedman's judgment is always at the top for me, but I dare say the darkhorse has its own merits. So I'm divided on what to look forward to on that one matter.

Read/WriteWeb on iReader link previewer

R:WW on iReader link previewer
Originally uploaded by Anaximaximumphotographics.

See previous post on iReader. Blog entry on Technics, by Technowlb.

Technics: Previewing links: iReader is a flawed but invigorating approach to live-links previews

With this edition of refWrite Backpage's column on technical topics, our columnist wishes to announce the change of his name from Owlie Scowlie to Technowlb.

I found very interesting info on iReader, a new Firefox extension that allows you to hover your pointer/mouse over a live link on a blog-entry on your browser, for which pause before clicking, you are rewarded with an imperfect preview of the content of the page you are considering clicking to read via the live link. In other words, you won't have to waste your time if the new page doesn't really interest you upon previewing it momentarily.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie / Technowlb

iReader is something like Snap and a small number of similar previewers. However, iReader is based on a different technical approach. It scans and summarizes the linked page, and gives a summary of the concepts of that page's content. And there's the problem, a very cretive problem indeed. Sometimes in its present stage of develpment the new Firefox extension can't do justice to the semantic task is has undertaken. ireader is semantics based! As a bonus, the new extension works (but not yet perfectly) on all webpages and both for Windows and Macs (sorry, I don't know yet if it can handle Linux at all).

The full name is iReader Web Previewer. I'm not sure whether refWrite will adopt this previewer (or any other for that matter); but the technical considerations are certainly intereting for pointing the way to a possible future for one or more or all of our rW present 5 pages.

this is only a test, says Ianne

this is only a test
Originally uploaded by lanne.

Quite beauteous!

Technics: Internet: Thawtprovocation from Read/Write Web

Read/Write Web is an email newsletter we get daily. Today it's got an stimulating article, "Read/WriteWeb on del.icio.us" (Feb15) from which a quote seems a propos to this column. I hardly ever click-up the companion site of the newsletter, but as background to the quote here's an important point that contextualizes what follows.

The pattern on del.icio.us is less obvious, but things become more clear once we realize that del.icio.us and comments on a blog reflect different kinds of actions. Comments reflect passions, bookmarks serve as references - so there is little overlap between them. More importantly, comments (like posts) are short lived. Unfortunately in our day and age, news and even analysis has a life span of a few hours. Once a post is off the front page of a blog, it is less discoverable and typically is not commented on anymore.

The bookmarks of del.icio.us, however, have a longer lifespan. After the first person bookmarks a post, it starts traveling through the del.icio.us network, acquiring more and more links, and growing stronger. What popular bookmarks indicate is a combination of time and usefulness. All of these posts are roughly 6 months old. It is likely that in another 6 months a new batch of R/WW posts will cross the 500 threshold on del.icio.us. This is just how references and networks evolve.

My uncle Owlb (editor of refWrite) insists I record each of my posts on delicious, so I do so. What the deuce? What's good for the gander is as good for the goose!

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

While I'm at it, did you notice on today's refWrite frontpage we updated the Valentine's piece by Unc with a YouTube 41-second videoclip (I'm the guy who got Hizz Nubbs to place it on the page, but I've got to give credit to columnist Audiovisiotor for finding it. Teamwork's a scream.

TV: Movie: SciFi has been meagre on my cable supplier (low budget) but a Mars flick with Kilmer cawt me

I stumbled on an astronaut movie about a team that heads to Mars and enters into a nitemare where most of the team dies, with guilt heavy on one of the characters. The Val Kilmer character tho, is a good guy. His role affords the movie a bittersweet redemptive ending of sorts.Is there water on Mars? In this tale, it turns out there is. Is there plant-life on Mars? In this story, there is--algae. Is there animal life on Mars? Here it turns out there are swarms of a voracious insect-species which eats not only algae but, as it turns out, human blood and flesh to boot. Besides the Mars-based ontology just outlined, we meet from Earth not just humans but super-intelligent robots, one AI cybercritter is integral to the team's space ship who comes with the team from Earth to orbit Mars at the command of the captain. Also from Earth is a a free-travelling servant-warrior machine (a cyborg with no flesh or body parts other than metals, electricity, and software), an AI machine who/which turns on its human bosses. So, the movie can serve as a pop-education piece on the ontological kingdoms--plant, animal, human, posthuman ArtificialIntelligence creatures--to teach a philosophical point, in a reformational Christian framework if a teacher chooses to do so.

Movies, by Audiovisiotor

I'll have to find the title and the list of dramatis personae. (Found it: Red Planet, released 2000.) But the main point I want to make as a viewer and reviewer is simply that this SciFi adventure flick held my attention and was entertaining, with an edge about the theme of good and evil in the human heart. The tragic death of one of the team, while guilt-producing for another team member, was an accident. At that latter team member's demise, we experience a kind of karma because the guilt-ridden person also was simply not pure of heart, proved by his later act of betrayal of his colleagues and then his own death at the "hands" of the AI metalborg.

And yet we are allowed at the end to identify with the sole survivor from the ground team, and to be delited when he makes it back to the ship in its orbit above all the ground activity on Mars itself, where he is rescued by the space ship's captain, a woman. A Valentine's movie?

Aesthetics: Arts: Chinese New Year celebrant in parade, Sydney, Australia

chinese new year parade sydney 2007
Originally uploaded by mädchenkrawall.

Madchen's set of fotos for her series "Chinese New Year parade, Sydney, Feb 11, 2007," presents this eyes-to-eyes evocation that bring the lady and the viewer into close, even intimate, contact--yet retaining considerable mystery. The effect has to do with the fotographer's framing / cropping of the image. Go to the source on Flicker and view the parade thru the photo-artist's lens.

Selecting fotographers' work to view,
by Owlie Scowlie

Aesthetics: Technics: DVD movies come in a special technical medium that enhances means of enjoying film arts, says Davion Wong

Download Full DVD Movies
Or Other Alternatives?

by Davion Wong via E-zine@rticles.

refWrite thanks the author and makes a swooping Hat Tip to E-zine Articles services. Here's Davion on DVDs, etc.

Downloading full DVD movies has never been easier than before. Viewers are a lot more tech savvy and quality-conscious never ever. Almost every American home has a computer and internet connection, and with computer literacy at such high levels, it is effortless for anyone to download movie files online. What’s so good about DVD movies and why are people choosing to download full DVD movies over other options?

We all know there are a few ways to watch movies, other than to download full DVD movies online. The most conventional way is of course to head to the theaters to catch a movie. However, people nowadays prefer to save on the movie tickets and stay at home to catch a show over the weekends. Life is a lot busier for folks to afford the time and energy to leave their homes for the cinemas. Naturally, there are still cinema goers such as couples or a group of friends. Going to the cinemas is more of a social outing than anything else.

For those who would rather stay indoors to watch their favorite movies can purchase them at local movie shops or at the shopping malls. There is always the option of renting from the video rental shops. I am sure you still remember the video tapes we grew up watching. People now find it difficult to settle for poor quality movies in video tapes. Even the quality of movie VCDs are unacceptable to some of us. In contrast, Digital Versatile/Video Disc or DVDs have set the standards for quality movies. Each DVD can easily store 2 hours of sharp resolution DVD video with crystal-clear audio effects.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

Video rental shops have recently undergone a face-lift with the emergence of a band of online DVD rental services offering monthly rental plans for full DVD movies. While this is a big step, there are still areas of improvements. Normally, when you place an order for a DVD movie, it can take anything from one to a few working days for the DVD to arrive at your doorstep depending on your geographical location. Another limitation is the cap on the number of DVDs you can rent. In most cases, you are allowed to rent 4 movies at max. Folks also complain that the selection of DVD movies is not wide and newer movies often take ages, mostly several months to arrive.

The final option for you is to download full DVD movies from membership sites and burn them to DVDs or watch them in ready format on your PC. There are quite a handful of DVD movie download sites that allow you to download full DVD movies for a flat life-time membership fee. The prices may vary but are generally in the range of $40 - $50 for unlimited access to their DVD movie collection. The amazing thing is you can download full DVD movies with footages and commentaries that are often missing in DVDs you buy off the shelf. The movie collection is also constantly updated so that you would be able to download and watch the latest movies.

Find out about the most popular movie download sites from my blog and how you can download full DVD movies and watch them in a few clicks away.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

Davion is a successful webmaster, author and a movie lover. Read a review of the best unlimited movie downloads sites that offer the latest TV shows, newly-released movies and more at unlimited--moviedownloads.blogspot.com.

Article Source:
David's Wong Expert Page at E-zine@Articles

Davion seems to leave aside one flower in the full bouquet of movie-viewing: On a computer, especially a large-memory computer hooked up to a wide-screen digital-video monitor, now you can sometimes view movies by streamcast. You need the large memory only temporarily to accomodate heavy bandwith use, but you don't keep what you process, as I understand it. If I'm correct on this detail, then you don't get a copy of the streamed-thru movie, unless you copy it. More memspace required.

1149

1149
Originally uploaded by lionel_garth.

Lionel Garth presents this gem on his public photostream on Flickr.

Sports: New/s: Eursoc blog adds new sports feature, will be irreverent, witty

In the UK and Europe more generally, Wayne Rooney is famous as a goal-getter with the celebrated United Manchester team. Under the title "He Shoots, He Scores" (Feb1,2k7), readers are welcomed to the blog's "new sports section" and at the same time treated to t w o YouTube clips of Rooney in action. On the North American side of the pond, we should familiarize ourselves with some of the UK and other European players, because our surging soccer (they call it football) is headed for renewal and expansion. Hey, Eursoc, how about some clips of Beckham?, but do withhold venom from what you serve us up!

Welcome to EURSOC's new sports section. Here we'll cover sport with an emphasis on, well, "Great Sport." In keeping with EURSOC custom, sport will be covered with the same irreverence and disdain for the lop-sided, unimaginative and boring drivel that is the main staple of the traditional channels.

Sports, by Sportikos

Please keep us informed with your feedback [via email]: eursoc "at" noos "dot" fr

Footballer Wayne Rooney is controversial, sometimes disappointing. He has been in the news again, thanks to a run-in with an ageing hooker. However, let's not forget what the Manchester United striker does best. Here's his goal-of-the-month contender against Portsmouth:

Update:
I just recalled that my first view of the above-mentioned Wayne Rooney clip also cited by Eursoc below was actually on Paul Robinson's Novice Philosopher blog. So, a Hat Tip to Paul.

[in the Eursoc citation, the clip comes here, so, for great sport moments, click 'em up].

Me? I'm rooting for two teams faraway from the Rooney scene: first, the amateur Toronto Lynx club, at least recently a member of the Ontario Soccer League. I also support the pro team of Toronto Football Club which is a full member of the NorthAmerican-continental Major Soccer League and its Eastern Conference (7 teams, while the MSL Western Conference is comprised of 6 teams). My Western Conference fave is, of course, Los Angeles Galaxy that Beckham (previously United Manchester, presently Real Madrid) has recently signed to play for. " The two teams will face each other in Toronto on Aug8,2k7 in the new BMO Field, home of Toronto Football Club at Exhibition Place near the Toronto Waterfront.

The $62.8-million stadium is being built specifically for the staging of the FIFA World Youth Championship - Canada 2007 that will kickoff in July 2007 in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria and will be the largest single-sport event ever held in Canada.

The biennial event is second only to the FIFA World Cup™ in size and scope and will showcase the most talented under-20 soccer players in the world. The tournament has been the coming-out party for some of the game’s top players - Maradona, Saviola, Raúl, Marco Van Basten, Luis Figo, Rui Costa, Thierry Henry, Adriano, Roberto Carlos, Bebeto and Dunga as well as Canada’s Craig Forrest and many members of the current Men’s World Cup Team including Julian de Guzman, Paul Stalteri, Atiba Hutchinson and Iain Hume.

The facility will also be a regular home for both the Men’s and Women’s National Teams as well as a home for thousands of players in the Greater Toronto Area. The City of Toronto-owned stadium will have an air-filled bubble erected over the playing surface during the winter months, guaranteeing a minimum of 100 days of community usage throughout the year.

The city council vote now paves the way for the stadium be the home of Toronto’s newest professional sports franchise.

Major League Soccer (MLS) Commissioner Don Garber announced on October 11, 2005 that Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment had been granted the exclusive rights through October 31, 2005 to negotiate an agreement to acquire the rights to a Major League Soccer expansion team that will commence play in Toronto in 2007.

And that new franchise of Major League Soccer, in its Eastern Conference, is none other than Toronto FC, which will host Beckham as he tours all 12 additonalMLS franchises, a kind of poster boy as well as player.

And, Wayne Rooney, should we have him tour too? or, Luis Figa? (he's leaving Inter Milan for the Saudi team Al-Ittihad), or Christiano Ronaldo? Or, is that Ronaldinho Gaucho ("There is no doubt about it. He is simply the best player in the world.")? Both of the latter are featured on a YouTube clip here.

Oh, about the Lynx:

The Toronto Lynx Soccer Club announced today that they [held] an open tryout camp from December 18-22 [2k6] at the Oakville Sports Centre. The club will be evaluating high-level amateur talent in preparation for the 2007 season, which will be the Lynx' first in the Premier Development League of the amateur/college United Soccer League in Ontario, following Lynx's ten seasons in the USL First Division.

Head coach Duncan Wilde will return to guide the Lynx in 2007 and will be looking to identify elite Ontario talent to form the backbone of the team's first PDL squad.

So, I'm wondering if this new Professional Development Leauge in the Ontario amateur/college umbrella organization, is designed to create a greater flow of young players up to the point where their ready for the pro Toronto FC and the whole MLs?

Said Wilde, "I am in the process of inviting our Junior Lynx alumni into the training camp, many of whom are now playing with NCAA Div 1 Schools in the US. I would also like to invite any and all other players from throughout the region who have the credentials to play at this level".

NCAA = National Collegiate Athletics Assocation the member schools of which across North America are experiencing greater interest among college-entry student athletes in soccer.

The PDL is the highest level of amateur soccer in North America and provides a professional environment for elite amateur and college players and is a proven testing ground for players that aspire to reach the highest levels of the game. Further information about the PDL can be found at www.unitedsoccerleagues.com

2k7 may turn out to be a great soccer year in North America!

Technics: Internet: Google Reader is a Web2.0 feature that aggregates ...

...your chosen RSS feeds that you view on your browser. Google and RSS have advanced this far, and I use the results all the time.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

Technics: Music: Apple's Steve Jobs calls on music recording industry to drop antiprivacy campaigns

MarketWatch sent an email bulletin, "Apple challenges music firms on anti-piracy stance; Jobs offers to sell only songs that are free of digital-rights software locks (Ben Charny. Here's my take on the news.

Yes, Apple's head honcho Steve Jobs has called on the music-recording and music-distributing industries to drop the court trials of scapegoats selected from the file-sharing Person-to-Person (P2P) millions of music lovers/listeners. Steve Jobs' outsp0oken move is also a call to end Digital R+ts Management DRM devices in digitally-downloaded copies of music. The DRMs occur in downloads from iTunes Music Store and infect the songs and operas people consumers want in their iPods.

'Apoppin with Pop Music,
by Owlie Scowlie

This courageous move by Apple's Jobs could be the tilt phenom that could shift music from the Old Capitalism archaic business plans, plans that have actually dragged down the music-recording industry (RIAA, etc), at last, into the New Capitalism of the digital age which has different business plans that are proving increasingly that free non-commercial P2P file-sharing with no commerical transactions is actually selling what the Recording Industry Association of America offers as products. File-sharing listeners often buy a selection of the music they've obtained already by sharing.

Why? Because they want a purer sound from an original digital recording, having been already turned on by the new music they had previously obtained free thru file-sharing. The new way of listening and picking songs for purchase by a consumers' preceding file-sharing is a proces that also gives feedback to the industry regarding what free listening does to produce free-listening choice of the new artists that are worth getting allout professional support. Often these new artists, sorted out for advancement by listeners themselves initially by file-sharing P2P listening, are those who are presently shunned or locked up in the contracts that Big Music parlays; Big Music often refrigerates forever many of the music artists it has "scouted and signed." The musicians get paid a little something precisely to be kept out of the real market, and they're thereby rendered unable to compete with the artists placed on the approved list.

What's happening is that the various industries -- from recording music, to distributing it, to radio music stations, to MTV -- determine taste according to their limited aesthetic judgments based purely on the dollar sign and habits of poor listening according to their own arbitrary values, musical values that are not similiarly valued by people who want to try newbie musicians, not be channeled into hearling only the industries' elites' darlings.

Other musicians are coming from Nowhere as indies by setting up their own free outlets on MySpace and other "social networking" websites, giving their music away, sometimes welcoming paltry donations thru PayPal for instance (these small-fry donors to the independent artists, at least keep the wolf from the door of the musicians in poverty who put out a sound that sparks attention of a listening set of usually freebie-minded fans). Big Music doesn't understand all this, but apparently Steve Jobs does! Thanks, Steve.

Sports: Football: USA pro-fb climaxes today in the SuperBowl championship game between Colts and Bears

UPDATE: 10:14 pm ...
Indianapolis Colts beat Chicago Bears 29-17 to win Super Bowl

Since I may not get a chance to blog on American pro-football's premier game today, tho I will be watching it on TV, I thawt some prep piece was more than appropriate. And I think I found a gem in Philadelphia Inquirer's Bob Ford column a couple days back--"A big name fit for Super Bowl" (Jan29,2k7).

Sometimes a sporting event, particularly one as publicized and fervently followed as the National Football League's Super Bowl, can become more than just another game on the schedule, another contest to be watched, dissected and then catalogued in the endless agate world of the record book.

This Sunday's championship game is just that kind of event, because along with the importance that sports fans will naturally give it, the game also carries a deep social significance, a meaningful milestone being passed on a long road toward equality in this country.

When the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears take the field and stand at attention on their sidelines for the national anthem, that song might mean a little more this time around for the coaches who brought their teams this far.

As the cameras focus in, particularly on the Chicago sideline, it will be hard to ignore the fact that, after all these years, there is finally a coach in the Super Bowl named "Lovie."

In the days leading up to the big game, Lovie Smith, the Bears' head coach for three seasons, has tried to downplay this story line, just as throughout his coaching career he has been loath to play the name card.

Smith said he looks forward to the day when a coach is judged only on his coaching ability and not what name he happens to have. That will be a good day for all of us, Smith indicated, and who can deny that?

But although Smith, and, to a lesser extent, Tony Dungy [Colts head coach], would like to focus solely on the football game, that is hardly possible this year. (There has never been a head coach named "Tony" to reach the Super Bowl, either. And in the history of the four major professional sports, only Tony La Russa has preceded Dungy to the championship round as either a head coach or manager.)

The walls are much higher out there for little boys named "Lovie," however, and Smith's ability to scale them puts a large dent in the insidious nameism that haunts our country even after all these years. With his success, little Lovies everywhere can dare to imagine big things for themselves, and know that there is no goal too outlandish, no dream too big and no impediment too daunting for those willing to work hard and believe in themselves.

While there is rejoicing in all parts of the country over Smith's breakthrough, there is particular pride in Dallas at the Love Field headquarters of L.O.V.I.E. (Lovie Overcomes Vicious Inequality Everywhere), about 100 miles west of Smith's hometown of Big Sandy, Texas.

Sports, by Sportikos

According to Jeremy "Lovie" McFarlin, the organization's president, the success of Smith is just the shot in the arm needed by the movement.

"It's been a long time to wait for some attention since Lovey Howell was on TV," McFarlin said. "And what people fail to realize is that not only does Smith's success break down the barriers for those named Lovie, but also for others. He is out there as well representing the possibilities for those named Lovey, Lovee, Luvie and Luvee, and we have also heard from people named Huggie, Squeezie and Smoochie who feel similarly empowered."

Lovey Howell, a character played by actress Natalie Schafer on the Gilligan's Island situation comedy more than 40 years ago, has long been the standard bearer for the name and its various permutations. Even while marooned on a barren island, she was able to maintain her dignity and wardrobe, undaunted by the circumstance, unbowed by the indignity of her surroundings, and unfazed by the knowledge that for all eternity men would never sit together in bars and ask one another, "Ginger, Mary Ann or Lovey?"

With Sunday's Super Bowl, however, the rescue ship will finally reach the island and few can doubt that one of the last major hurdles in name equality will have been surmounted.

The NFL deserves some credit in all this. Advances in the fight against nameism don't just happen. The league, which for too long saw its teams choose head coaches from what seemed to be an old-name network, encouraged the franchises to expand their thinking.

Certainly, there is still a revolving door for the Toms, Chucks, Bills and Daves, but NFL teams must demonstrate an openness in their hiring policies now. Teams must be willing to break preconceived notions and develop an interview process that is inclusive for those whose mere names might have disqualified them in the past.

The jobs obtained recently by Marvin Lewis, Brad Childress and Lane Kiffin are testament to the change, but nothing has had the impact of the success enjoyed by Lovie Smith, particularly as he climbs atop the largest stage in all of American sports.

While Sunday will be a day to enjoy the ultimate football game of the 2006 season, it will also provide an opportunity to reflect on just far we have come as a society.

Because there is nothing quite like an easy story line to convince us that some significant progress has been made, even if the facts out in the wider world don't agree. We eat it up like a halftime snack and it goes down very easily.
Contact columnist Bob Ford at 215-854-5842 or bford@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/bobford.

Okay, enuff of the ethical reflection on America's lead sport, and now to the batle-prep stuff for today's game.



First, check out Bears and Colts Get Ready to Battle (Feb4,2k7): "The Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears are the combatants in Super Bowl XLI, and both teams have suffered through considerable enough periods without success that a win on Sunday night will rank as an especially celebratory moment. Sunday, February 4, 2007" It's got tbe win/lose/stats history of the two teams in the context of Amrican football history. It also gives some of the h+l+ts of the current season, including that fabulous seesaw game between the Colts and the New England Patriots, a game I watched but never found time to blog about. Maybe blog-thinking about a game undermines the pleasures of viewing the game itself. I'm just wondering. But to head off the post-game fatigue, this blog-entry. And a good time to all!

Sports: Soccer: Italy's shame has players leadership calling for a No Soccer Year!

The Brit soccer site, Football365.com, carries an article "Italy Can't Just Play Happy Mondays" by Adam Fraser (Feb3,2k7). An episode of violence at a game between between Catania and Palermo, where the "the death of a policeman during riots at the Sicilian derby" has finally induced the desire for deep ethical reflection on where soccer is going.

...[T]he Italian players have called for a year without football. "I want my proposal taken seriously that soccer should stop for a year in order to reflect on the evils that exist," insisted Sergio Campana, president of the Italian players' association.

Sports, by Sportikos:

It might be necessary. Sometimes such measures are. The five-year ban on English clubs participating in Europe might have set our players back a decade or more in terms of technical ability, but what does that matter when you can go to a game safe in the knowledge that you won't be going home in a f**king ambulance?

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Italian football finds itself in that position now. The world is watching.

The full article is recommended strongly for those of us who love sports, and soccer (football nonNorthAmerican).

Arts: Architecture: Libeskind's new museum structure., the Hamilton Building, joins the Art Museum of Denver

Christian Science Monitor reports and reviews the new Hamilton Building of the Art Museum of Denver, Colorado. Marilynne Scott Mason, "Art is off to new heights in the Mile-High City" (Feb1,2k7). The photos cry out to you to clickup the article and see for yourself.

Flinging open the windows of perception, Denver's new Frederic C. Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum, designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, defeats almost every kind of expectation.

The new building -- constructed next door to the original castlelike
structure designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti -- has a striking
bolt-from-the-blue presumption that brings with it an elation few new
buildings can generate.

Spiked, cantilevered, and crystalline in form, the Hamilton reflects
the mountain environs Mr. Libeskind says inspired its contours. Most
of the inside walls are bent inward or outward, with few right
angles. There is far more to these strange contours than at first
meets the eye: This museum stands for more than its obvious purpose
of housing art objects.

"Of course, this museum is about the human endeavor -- it is about
art," Libeskind said in a phone interview, "and it is about the world
beyond the obvious. This building is rooted in the ground, and it is
open to the sky ... and it is about light -- and not just the physics
of light (which, of course, is part of architecture), but it is also
about the light that shines in your soul, to be in communication with
the world, with time, and with history."

On the first floor, the broad granite stairway leads the eye in an
awe-inspiring upward spiral to galleries on the next three floors, on
to a slanted skylight in the distant ceiling, suggesting the reverent
grace of a great cathedral, the natural wonder of a chambered
nautilus, and the exacting upward striving necessary in climbing
mountain paths. The metaphor is unmistakable -- this is the light that
draws us, a guide and the prize of all human striving toward meaning.

The circular movement upward toward the light was a decision made to
express the ineffable around us, Libeskind said. "The world is not
just here by itself. I am not exceptional in [believing] this -- I
think every person who thinks and who experiences the world knows
there is more to reality than the physical, visible space. [The
spiritual] is in the experience of life.... I think [spiritual
meaning] is a global and universal aspiration."

Architecture, by Archibald

For Libeskind, the Hamilton Building "speaks of the indestructibility
of the human spirit and the inventiveness of art...." Constructing a
building to house and help people better understand the art in it is
an act of hope, he said.

"Architecture is about life, the affirmation of life, and it is about
home, and it is about the perspective of a horizon that goes beyond
the obvious," he explained. "It can be universally experienced.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, you can share through architecture
that greater sense of purpose of the human home in the world."

Libeskind's aesthetic includes capturing something profound in a
place, its indestructible quality -- the quality that endures through
centuries, he said. The architecture of the 21st century is "not just
being satisfied with technique and glittering facades. It is about
human beings. It is about intimacy, it's about conversation, the new
architecture. It's not about anonymity, either, but it is about
intimate spaces. Architecture can provide that, can provide something
that really is unprecedented, giving you a new freedom. I know that
word is often used in a rhetorical way. But I mean [the new
architecture is about] giving you the freedom to see in a new way, to
look from a different angle, or to look up -- at a skylight."

The crystalline form of the new building provides many intimate
spaces. Turn a corner and an inverted-roof angle drops down over a
sculpture by Kiki Smith called "Genevieve and the May Wolf," almost
insisting that you stop and study this life-size piece of a woman and
a wolf.

Many other works also find a new vigor in the Hamilton's evocative
nooks and crannies -- like birds that hang their nests in impossible
mountain crevices. The Hamilton fosters works of modern and
contemporary art, requiring visitors to rediscover the mystery and
marvel of the creative spirit behind the works.

The Hamilton does have its critics who believe it does not serve the
art collection well. Indeed, there are exhibits that don't work. Some
of the 19th-century art appears out of sync with its futuristic
surroundings. Then, too, some viewers prefer traditional spaces,
believing that the building in which art is shown should not compete
with the works within its walls.

But the controversy surrounding the Hamilton seems misplaced. So much
of modern and contemporary art defies the eye and preconceived
notions about beauty and truth, and demands that the viewer learn to
question, think, and see anew. And so does this new building.

(c) Copyright 2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

Obviously, in the Hamilton, Art Museum of Denver, we have
a stunning new contribution to this genre of museum architecture and to
the artistic discipline of architecture as a whole.

Technics: Business: MTV, a Viacom corporation, has effectively wrung a promise from Google to censor all signs of MTV on YouTube

MarketWatch again today carries important tech/biz news, this time about Viacom/MTV's attempt to shut out individual consumers who publish "found art" TV clips from the major entertainment company and its TV subsidiary. The article is about Google-owned YouTube (which latter we haven't covered yet here on refWrite Backpage. MarketWatch's Ben Charny & Russ Britt, "YouTube says it will remove Viacom clips" (Feb2,2k7--click up the article to check for updates).

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc.'s YouTube unit, the free video-sharing Web site, bowed Friday to Viacom Inc.'s sweeping demand that it remove more than 100,000 of its videos from the site.

"It's unfortunate that Viacom will no longer be able to benefit from YouTube's passionate audience, which has helped to promote many of Viacom's shows," a YouTube representative wrote in an email statement.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

Viacom said it issued the demand after months of failed negotiations to strike a content-licensing deal with Google (GOOG: GOOG481.30, -0.45, -0.1% ), which acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion last year.

It remains to be seen just what impact this might have on YouTube's popularity. Clips from MTV and other Viacom properties have been among the most popular on the site; some have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

As of Friday morning, however, clips from shows produced by the MTV network, which Viacom owns, could be easily found on YouTube, which is an indication that YouTube has yet to fully act on Viacom's request. Some of the videos have been viewed more than 500,000 times.

Those interested in techbiz and the whole complex of issues regarding copyr+t, will want to read the whole Charny & Britt piece, as will readers who watch the techbiz stockmarket (as Viacom's and Google's latest standings are quoted). As to the substance of the snippet quoted from MW, we can see vividly deomonstrated just how paleolithic Viacom's business plan is, how unable or unwilling MTV is to cope with the new phenom of popular use of small bits and pieces of the surfeit, the detritus if you will, of advanced technical capitslism in its popular mode. Remember, YouTube references to the engorgement of moving-pictures-as-junk are part of the public's creativity, just as unpredetermined by MTV as is P2P file-sharing where no commercial gain is involved. MTV is sham and disrespectful of its audience who want to make their own uses of the images Viacom's engineering of what images with what sounds by what media may have privileged access to a wholly receptive/captive audience.

The point is that in the advanced tech-image and tech-sound industries, the unfettered short short short quotations and artistic usages by amateur video-clip makers actuall sells MTV products, as well as those of the major sound-recording corporations.

Technics: Business: Amazon won't see a half of its predicted yearly profits, tho sales up 34%

According to MarketWatch's Ben Cheney writes-up the modern business economics of Amazon, the miracle bookdealer by internet. "Amazon profit drops by half; sales rise 34%--Shares rise late on bullish forecast" (Feb1,2k7)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Amazon.com Inc. late Thursday reported its profit dropped by half, even while sales rose 34%, as the company lost the benefit of a large tax gain it had a year ago and saw its operating margin narrow.

Still, Amazon also issued a forecast for its next quarter and all of 2007 that were slightly ahead of expectations, sending its shares up nearly 5% in late trading.

Click up the article for the full details and a stock market report on the company.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

That's the biz ec (microeconomics, but Amazon doesn't seem to qualify for the qualifer "micro-") of it. How does Amazon do it? A very large part of the answer to that question comes from Read/Write Web email newsletter [readwriteweb "at" gmail "dot" com ].

First, Amazon continues to innovate to live up to its Web 2.0 potential. Read/Write (Jan26,2k7) points out two Amazon services I had not met before:

Amazon S3

Amazon S3 is all about distributed storage. S3 saves you from the hassles and big costs of buying and maintaining storage hardware for your site's needs. YouOS is one example that secures its data on scalable Amazon S3 servers. You can see if a web site is using S3 or not by keeping track of your status bar while a page loads; S3 powered sites will frequently fetch data from http://aws.amazon.com address. R/WW's MyBlogLog for example uses S3.

Even though the advantages are so obvious and the company that offers it is the well trusted Amazon, my personal experience tells me that S3 usage is not very large either yet.

Amazon EC2

Similarly to S3, EC2 (Electronic Cloud 2) is Amazon's distributed computing power system. Considering the fact that it's still a beta service and its implementation is not that easy, the low usage is understandable. But when it gets ready, Amazon EC2 will become a compelling service that ends all the hassles of maintaining clusters and scalable services.

Second, now there's Amapedia (Read/Write, Jan26,2k7):

Amazon Quietly Launches Amapedia, a Wikipedia For Products

Amazon has just released a new Wikipedia clone, called Amapedia. It's described as "a community for sharing information about the products you like the most." So far Amapedia has had no promotion from Amazon, but it was discovered today by Rogers Cadenhead. Anyone with an Amazon.Com account can edit the site. Regarding the name, Amapedia appears to be a combo of the words Amazon and Wikipedia: ama[zon][wiki]pedia.

Note that this is a different wiki product than what Alex Iskold was referring to in yesterday's post, on Amazon's use of tags, ajax, blogs and wikis. In that post we were discussing the ProductWiki feature, but it states on Amapedia's homepage that "Amapedia is the next generation of Amazon.com’s ProductWiki feature; all of your previous ProductWiki contributions were preserved and now live here."

The site looks pretty raw currently and has little info in it - it is after all brand new. But a wikipedia for products makes perfect sense for Amazon. Who better to spotlight products and gather product information from the community, than Amazon? Another way to look at this: Amapedia could become the next generation of user reviews. User reviews on websites today are relatively rigid and old fashioned, so Amazon may be thinking that Amapedia will be a new platform for user reviews - it may help remove redundancy in reviews, while offering more completeness.

We'd like to see a bit more structure in the Amapedia pages, so that it is less chaotic when people edit it. For example add sections to pages. But the fact that tags are there already is fantastic - Amazon is calling this "collaborative structured tagging". Check it out and let us know what you think.

Third and foremost, the review-notice on Amapedia (Read/Write, Jan25) hints at the key to Amazon's steady-on bbut slow success" "a community for sharing information about the products you like the most." Amazon's features of reviews by the experts, but most of all by readers of the books involved, multiple reciews of a single book often are the backbone of why readers searching for a book they haven't read, go to fellow-consumers and derive an over-all impression from the aggregate of the fellow readers and fellow consumers, especially. The stats that point to other books that purchasers of your given title have also purchased in addition to the one that interests you, apparently also has a large influence on new buys. This info is detailed in Read/Write (Jan24,2k7) by "The New Face of Amazon - Tags, Ajax, Plogs & Wikis." The stats are the result of what are called "reccomendation engines."