Swan Songs?

Businesses go away when consumers find other more attractive paradigms and products. Then other companies or paradigms form to fill the void. It's called creative destruction.

In this case the destruction comes because the music industry took gross advantage of consumers, retailers and the artists themselves. I think no group of people are happier than artists at the demise of record companies. No one needs them anymore and everyone is happy about it.

Why should we not be happy about the demise of companies that instead of creatively finding ways to satisfy consumers sued them?


Multifarious
USA
August 1st, 2009
9:17 am

May 11th, 2009 8:50 am

"It looks as if America may finally get what every other advanced country already has: a system that guarantees essential health care to all its citizens."

Not to me.

I have had continuous health insurance for over 30 years.

My partner and I were paying $2004 a month for coverage. She is a breast cancer survivor (over 10 years) and I had bypass surgery 11 years ago.

When the policy came due in February they raised us 29% shoving us right out of the system.

Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.
— Multifarious, USA

Op-Ed Columnist: Harry, Louise and Barack

May 10th, 2009 9:36 pm

"It looks as if America may finally get what every other advanced country already has: a system that guarantees essential health care to all its citizens."

Not to me.

I have had continuous health insurance for over 30 years.

My partner and I were paying $2004 a month for coverage. She is a breast cancer survivor and I had bypass surgery 11 years ago. When the policy came due in February they raised us 29% shoving us right out of the system.
— Multifarious, USA

Drawings of Some of The Slaves From The Slave Ship Amistad

In 1839, the Spanish slave ship Amistad set sail from Havana to Puerto Principe, Cuba. The ship was carrying 53 Africans who, a few months earlier, had been abducted from their homeland in present-day Sierra Leone to be sold in Cuba. The captives revolted against the ship’s crew, killing the captain and others, but sparing the life of the ship’s navigator so that he could set them on a course back to Africa. Instead, the navigator directed the ship north and west. After several weeks, a U.S. Navy vessel seized the Amistad off the coast of Long Island. The Africans were transported to New Haven, Connecticut, to be tried for mutiny, murder, and piracy. These charges later were dismissed, but the Africans were kept in prison as the case turned to salvage claims and property rights. In a trial in Federal District Court, a group of Cuban planters, the government of Spain, and the captain of the Amistad all claimed ownership of the Africans. After two years of legal battles, the case went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately ordered that the captives be set free. Thirty-five of the former captives returned to their homeland; the others had died at sea or while awaiting trial. New Haven resident William H. Townsend made drawings (and in most cases recorded the names) of the Amistad captives at the time of their trial. These drawings have been preserved in the library of Yale University.

The drawings are here: http://www.wdl.org/en/search/gallery?ql=en&a=-8000&b=2009&c=SL&c=CU&r=NorthAmerica From The World Digital Library a wonderful resouce.

Google, Microsoft finance UN Library of World's Knowledge site

The U.N. rolled out a new website on Tuesday that offers free access to rare manuscripts, books, films and map ranging from 8,000 old paintings to recent books.

The site cost $10 million and was financed by private donors, including Google, Microsoft, the Qatar Foundation, King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The World Digital Library, an online project by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), aims to display and explain just how broad and diverse human cultures are by displaying the content for free in seven languages.

Among the artifacts is a 1,000-year-old Japanese novel that is believed to be the first novel in history and the earliest known map to mention America by name.

About a tenth of the 1,200 exhibits are from Africa - the oldest an 8,000-year-old painting of bleeding antelopes

The project was launched by James Billington, a librarian at the US Library of Congress, the world's biggest library.

The website currently in early stages and only has about 1,200 documents but is expected to grow substantially.

The material is drawn from about 30 libraries and archives across the world, and will be made available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

On the Net:

www.wdl.org

Yanks in Crisis

"The Great Depression altered the national consciousness. So far, the Great Recession has not."

But being manhandled by banks and credit card issuers might.

We do not use banks out of choice, we need them. We carry credit cards because we cannot function without them.

We American's want to be left alone by our government and be free to live our own lives as best we can but there are limits and those limits have been crossed.

As individuals there is nothing that we can do to combat abusers of our system of free enterprise. Only government can.

April 23rd, 2009 10:18 pm

Reclaiming America’s Soul

April 23rd, 2009 9:52 pm

Justice is always after the fact. Looking back is the only way to see where justice is required and no price is too dear to pay for it.