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Physicist Jim Al-Khalili travels through Syria, Iran, Tunisia and Spain to tell the story of the great leap in scientific knowledge that took place in the Islamic world between the 8th and 14th centuries.

Its legacy is tangible, with terms like algebra, algorithm and alkali all being Arabic in origin and at the very heart of modern science – there would be no modern mathematics or physics without algebra, no computers without algorithms and no chemistry without alkalis.

For Baghdad-born Al-Khalili this is also a personal journey and on his travels he uncovers a diverse and outward-looking culture, fascinated by learning and obsessed with science.

From the great mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, who did much to establish the mathematical tradition we now know as algebra, to Ibn Sina, a pioneer of early medicine whose Canon of Medicine was still in use as recently as the 19th century, he pieces together a remarkable story of the often-overlooked achievements of the early medieval Islamic scientists.

RunTime: 56 min

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The Language of Science

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I have searched. And searched and searched and searched. For at least the past month to find arguments against the current system of U.S. public broadcasting. We had learned about it a little bit in our Independent Media class, but not enough to convince me that it doesn’t work. Well, since then I’ve learned that it does work, but not in the United States. And like most media companies in the United States, it does not work because of corporate pressure.

For weeks I’ve tried to look up articles about the flawed system of public broadcasting, and finally 10 minutes ago I found a solid article with relevant facts and truthful opinions. Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting executive director Jerry Starr proposed an alternative to the current model of public broadcasting in the United States. Compared to most developed countries in the world, the United States lacks a firm public broadcasting channel; “Looked at in world perspective, U.S. public service broadcasting is the new kid on the block and still the small fry in the gang.” The idea of a publicly-owned TV channel was not developed by the U.S.–in other countries it was required to have a channel serving the public before commercial channels were permitted. We are light ye ars behind in our journey towards a solid publicly-owned TV station.

“The universal mission of public broadcasting is to serve viewers and listeners as citizens and voters, rather than consumers.” This is something we definitely do not have in the United States. Large media conglomerates such as Time Warner, Comcast and News Corp play a heavy hand in the content that is aired on our television sets. And most of the time the content serves to advertisers and rarely steps on the toes of those in charge. Our media have become satisfied in playing to those who fund airtime. The equation is very simple. MONEY > TRUTH.

Starr speaks of the media monopolies that dominant US air and radio waves. “Behind this illusion of choice, however, lies a collusion of interest that serves the giant media corporations at the expense of American democracy and cultural diversity.” Though we think we have variety in what we watch and what we read, it’s not entirely true. “Between 1975 and 2000, the number of TV stations increased by 75 percent, but the number of TV station owners actually declined by 33 percent.” What we consume is actually owned by a small number of powerful media elites.

So if funding does not come from the government or advertisers, where will it come from? The answer: household TV licensing fees. Instead of relying on Congress (who, compared to other countries, does nothing for public advertising) for funding, the United States could pass a tax that people would have to pay in order to receive television in their homes. This would allow public broadcast stations to “run their own show,” so to speak, and they would not have to rely on the government or advertising to fuel their funds. The BBC uses this method and it works.

If we can pay for Satellite television, HD programming and add-ons such as “pay-for” movie channels and sports networks, we as a nation can definitely afford to throw a few bucks to public broadcasting.

kayBEE.

Eye opener.
Story:
This story was co-published by ProPublica the Chicago Tribune.

Executives inside pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca faced a high-stakes dilemma.

On one hand, Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Michael Reinstein was bringing the company a small fortune in sales and was conducting research that made one of its most promising drugs look spectacular.

On the other, some worried that his research findings might be too good to be true.

As Reinstein grew irritated with what he perceived as the company’s slights, a top executive outlined the scenario in an e-mail to colleagues.

“If he is in fact worth half a billion dollars to (AstraZeneca),” the company’s U.S. sales chief wrote in 2001, “we need to put him in a different category.” To avoid scaring Reinstein away, he said, the firm should answer “his every query and satisfy any of his quirky behaviors.”

Putting aside its concerns, AstraZeneca would continue its relationship with Reinstein, paying him $490,000 over a decade to travel the nation promoting its best-selling antipsychotic drug, Seroquel. In return, Reinstein provided the company a vast customer base: thousands of indigent, mentally ill residents in Chicago-area nursing homes.

During this period, Reinstein also faced accusations that he overmedicated and neglected patients who took a variety of drugs. But his research and promotional work went on, including studies and presentations examining many of the antipsychotics he prescribed on his daily rounds.

The AstraZeneca payments, filed as exhibits in a federal lawsuit, highlight the extent to which a leading drug company helped sustain one of the busiest psychiatrists working in local nursing facilities.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/144011/pharmaceutical_giant_paid_$500,000_to_psychiatrist_who_used_chicago’s_poor_as_guinea_pigs/

These indicators relate to Economy.
But the real danger to American Society lies in loss of Family Values,Loss of Faith,too much Materialism,Spending beyond means, break up of Families,Gun culture,Drug addiction,Unwed mothers and living life to the full for the day as if there is no tomorrow.
If these fundamental misconceptions are corrected, Economy will take of itself.Time to wake up.Don’t go the Roman Way.

Story:

The following is an edited excerpt from the Amped Status report, “The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society.”

The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.

1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.

2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.

3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth.”

As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse.

4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.

5) Home foreclosure filings “hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2009)… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter” in this three-month period; “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.”

President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.

6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed.

This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come.”
http://www.alternet.org/story/144109/15_signs_american_society_is_coming_apart_at_the_seams?page=1

*Photography: Empty L.A. – where the humans have all been removed from the city – is another illustration of absence. [highindustrial]

*Online: Tumblr is wine, Twitter is crack – what are some other popular internet vices? defined. [coudal]

*Food: Beaver recipes. For preparing beaver. [neatorama]

*Videos: This post linking to all 6 parts about a BBC documentary called “Krautrock” is worth clicking through to for the title alone – “stretchmarks on a rock cabbage.”

Also, Pitchfork has posted the documentary “Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen” for a week. The documentary depicts Mr. Cohen in his days as a poet; before he’s taken up pop music. [mefi]

*Phones: And the next blook deal goes to…”People Talking on Bananas.” (This site should auto-play Raffi singing “Bananaphone” when you open it.) Well, the next one to get a deal AFTER Regretsy. [presurfer]

*Music: Listen to these Singing Science recordings. Clear, earnest, strangely compelling. [coudal]

*Fashion: Whoa. If I were a woman I would totally get a book handbag! I think. (I don’t have any tendencies in that direction.) [craft]

*Today’s links: F

I always say, why did my grandfather cross the road?  To occupy France…  I’m off to the border.

-German comedian Henning Wehn from BBC Radio’s Fighting Talk about France’s punishment for cheating their way to the World Cup.

¿Me entiendes?, es una muletilla utilizada por muchos de nosotros al momento de tener una conversación con otras personas. Sin embargo, a las personas les molesta ser cuestionadas sobre su capacidad de entendimiento durante una conversación. Es por eso que esta muletilla es la que mas irrita a un interlocutor, según un sondeo realizado por el sitio BBC Mundo.

Preguntar al interlocutor si le comprenden es equivalente a dudar sobre la capacidad de entendimiento de este e, incluso, sobre la inteligencia propia. Muchos internautas de México, USA, Argentina y otros países comparten este punto de vista ya que consideran que al hacer esta pregunta implica que el oyente tiene poco intelecto para interpretar lo que se esta diciendo.

“Es como llamarte bruta en tu cara”, dice Sonia Janet de Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. “Cachai” es la versión chilena de esta frase y el chileno Mario Castro dice que para el es insoportable cuando se dirigen hacia el con Otras frases que también se encontraba entre las más odiadas son “o sea”, “te lo juro”, “te lo dije” y “con todo respeto”, esta ultima por que por lo general siempre antecede a un juicio doloroso. esta frase. ¿Me explico? Es otra versión de esta frase y aunque en esta alude a la falta de elocuencia de quien habla, es lo suficientemente molesta para algunas personas como Alejandra, de Tijuana, México. “¡Caray! Es que no soy tonta, ni sorda, ni hablo dialecto marciano”.

El sondeo también se llevo a cabo para el idioma ingles y las frases mas molestas fueron las siguientes: “You know”, que se traduce como “tú sabes”, “It is what it is” (es lo que es), “anyway” (de todos modos) y “at the end of the day” (al final del día).

Algo que es muy común en los migrantes hispanos que llegan a los estados unidos es conjugar los verbos en ingles como si fueran en español. Algunos ejemplos son “parkear” (de “park”, que significa “estacionar”), “guachar” (de “watch”, que significa “observar”) o “likear” (de “leak”, que significa “gotear”).

Muy probablemente concuerdas con que el uso de estas muletillas suelen ser un poco molesto, pero ¿ hay alguna frase que a ti en lo personal te moleste o incomode?, porque yo suelo decir ésta frase xD…

Fuente: Planeta Curioso

Marc Faber comment on US economy – TOO GOOD

Investment analyst and entrepreneur Dr. Marc Faber concluded his monthly bulletin (June 2008) with the Following:

”The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I’ve been doing my part.’

May be useful.But conversation calls for concentration and this is what makes driving dangerous while using cell phone.
Still the best way is to switch off the cell as the world is not going to end with out your being on the loop as we have been living without these gadgets till yesterday.Story:
Dede Haskins’s cellphone has been her constant companion for more than a decade. And she has always considered herself a careful driver — even using a hands-free set so she could keep both hands on the wheel.

But after missing one too many exits because she was distracted by a phone call, Ms. Haskins decided it was time to get tough with herself. So she signed up for ZoomSafer, a free service that uses her phone’s GPS sensors to determine whether she’s at driving speeds, and then disables her cellphone until she stops the car.

“I really love my cellphone,” said Ms. Haskins, the chief executive of a software company in Washington. “But I know I’m not driving safely if I’m using it while behind the wheel.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/technology/22distracted.html?hp

Sounds encouraging.But national feelings being what they are,if US continues to meddle in Afghanisthan’s affairs,the same militia that is taking up arms against Taliban,shall take it up against US as well and that would be far more dangerous as this group will be fighting for National Soveignity.Better US leaves the place and provide military hard ware and advice if the people requested for it.
Story:
ACHIN, Afghanistan — American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan, prompting hopes of a large-scale tribal rebellion against the Taliban.

Leaders of anti-Taliban militias in Kunduz Province met with the Afghan government’s intelligence chief in Kunduz this month.

Members of the Afghan National Police, above, passed an abandoned Russian Army vehicle on a patrol near a village in Kunduz Province.
The emergence of the militias, which took some leaders in Kabul by surprise, has so encouraged the American and Afghan officials that they are planning to spur the growth of similar armed groups across the Taliban heartland in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

The American and Afghan officials say they are hoping the plan, called the Community Defense Initiative, will bring together thousands of gunmen to protect their neighborhoods from Taliban insurgents. Already there are hundreds of Afghans who are acting on their own against the Taliban, officials say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/world/asia/22militias.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a1

The endeavor represents one of the most ambitious — and one of the riskiest — plans for regaining the initiative against the Taliban, who are fighting more vigorously than at any time since 2001.

The beginning of the technocracy (or Googleocracy) or just lifting speed limits from the information superhighway?

When Allison Jones, the publisher of Quill and Quire, came to talk to my class this week, she mentioned something I’d only heard of tangentially: search engine optimization. She told us that titles for articles being published online were being simplified; in other words, replacing witticisms, puns and double entendres with keyword-heavy, searchable titles. This is a trend that is likely to continue. As more people access their news online, it becomes even more important for newspapers and magazines to make their articles available and easy to find.

While it’s simple to find an article in the print copy of a magazine or newspaper by simply flipping to the correct section or checking the table of contents, searching for news online requires an entirely different approach. Some will simply Google a few keywords, such as “H1N1 Toronto” to find relevant articles. (One article this search turns up is titled “H1N1 confirmed in Toronto teen’s death” from CBC news.) Others will use Google News or Google’s new service, Fast Flip. All of these methods will find articles with very matter-of-fact titles that tell you exactly what a story is about.

The BBC has recently made a change to become more search engine friendly:

The BBC will therefore allow its journalists to create two headlines for a story. While the shorter one between 31 and 33 characters appears on the front page and the website indexes as well as on mobile phones, the longer one – up to 55 characters will appear on the story itself – and in search engine results,

reports The Guardian. Some may, like Allison Jones, feel unhappy with trading creativity in titles for search engine optimization. In my opinion, making titles search engine friendly is an inevitable and positive step towards making online journalism more successful. It is no good having a fantastic title, filled with humour and wit, if no potential readers can find the piece.

Search engine optimization will affect magazines more so than newspapers

Newspapers, as The Guardian suggests, already conform to a search engine friendly model, using titles that are more informative than creative. Take this example from The Globe and Mail: “Canada’s H1N1 decision: policy or politics?” Compared to titles from magazines, even news-focused magazines, there is a noticeable difference.

Here are a few from The Economist: “The other D-word” (about Japan’s economy), “Stemming the tide” (about America’s debt) and “Ungreasing the Wheels” (about government corruption). I would be hard pressed to find The Economist’s articles via a quick Google search, but The Globe and Mail’s H1N1 article is right on the first page of searches when I Googled Canada H1N1.

The future of creativity

Unfortunately for writers and the puns they (and I) love, I think search engine optimization will eventually win out. With web journalism depending so heavily on Google and other search engines/news aggregators, it’s more important to put your material out there to be found than to amuse regular readers (those who, for example, have a site favourited rather than constantly googling for news).

It’s not all doom and gloom for the jokesters among us, though. Ian Brown, a writer for The Globe and Mail, manages to include the common search terms Amazon, e-reader and Kindle in a title with enough word play to compete with the best double entendre or pun: “Amazon’s e-reader doesn’t exactly kindle my passion.” So maybe search engine optimization isn’t the death of creativity, but a transformation.

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The case against news editor, Chansa Kabwela, from Zambia’s newspaper The Post has  been thrown out after the court failed to prove their case against the journalist.  Kabwela faced pornography charges and jail time after sending graphic photos of woman giving birth on a pavement to the country’s president.

The photos were taken during the country’s doctor strike in June, which left many in the country without proper medical help.  The infant, unfortunately suffocated and later died.

Ms Kabwela told reporters, including those from The Telegraph,

“This victory to me is a victory for those that suffered during the strike. I was confident that I would be acquitted.”

The Post is Zambia’s only private newspaper and there is speculation that the charges may have been a politically move to halt the reporting of corruption in the government.

In article in The Post, Professor Muna Ndulowritten, an Ivy League law professor, writes,

“The average person in Zambia, while no doubt being shocked and disgusted by the picture, would not regard the publication of pictures of a woman giving birth in order to expose the plight of ordinary people during a national strike by medical personnel as being prurient and having the effect or as intended to deprave and corrupt morals.

Instead, the pictures should lead to outrage and anger at those who were not making maximum efforts to end the strike.”

Click here to hear more about the strike earlier this summer in an interview from the BBC.

An interesting read at Telegraph.co.uk.  The article has to do with the love affair between wind and the BBC, but here’s the quote that caught my attention – the total amount of power produced by all the 2,300 turbines so far built in Britain amounts on average to a mere 900 megawatts, barely the output of a single medium-size conventional power station.

Assuming that number is anywhere near correct you need to see it in relation to the amount of air and land US WindForce wants to consume here in Allegheny Mountains, directly in the migratory path of endangered species.  All for the sake of 23 turbines?

Now, I don’t know if there’s a direct parallel, but certainly enough to get a vision of 100 Pinnacle Knobs stretched along the Allegheny Mountains to replace 1 medium sized coal fueled power plant.  Maybe the wind industry will say design is improved and it only takes 75 windplants of 23 turbines each, or 50 windplants.  Still, that’s a little much for me, and I suspect the Bald and Golden Eagles getting smacked along the way.

The real issue is, the coal fired plant won’t be shut down anyway, even if you put up 200 windplants or perhaps cover that Appalachians completely.  If only our political leaders would take the time to understand that concept!

BEGIN TELEGRAPH.CO.UK ARTICLE

“BBC sells the wind farm scam to farmers” -The BBC loves to talk about wind farms, but not about the glaring matter of their costly inefficiency, says Christopher Booker.

By Christopher Booker
Published: 4:42PM GMT 21 Nov 2009

Wat is het toch fijn als de mensen om je heen met je meedenken. Sinds ik deze post schreef word ik met enige regelmaat bestookt met berichten over Them Crooked Vultures. Zo stuurde hij me al een link naar een downloadsite waar ik de langverwachte plaat kon vinden nog voor ie uitgebracht was. Mijn vader vertelde me over de set die gisteren op de BBC werd uitgezonden en die door hem voor mij op een dvdtje wordt gezet. En van mijn ex-collegaatje kreeg ik een smsje: de plaat is uit!! Maar zoals zij ook al verwachtte, wist ik dat natuurlijk al. Dus aan alle lieve vrienden die me zo goed op de hoogte hebben gehouden: hij is binnen hoor, ik heb hem!! Deze heren gaan mij de winter doorhelpen. Rock ‘n Roll!!

Just thought I’d post a few clips that I really enjoyed seeing on Children In Need 2009.

This year’s amazing official CiN single, masterminded by the ever fantastic Peter Kay:

Great to see Mrs Goggins and some of the old Watch With Mother characters back on the telly!

Paddington as a Rock Diva was amazing heh.

It’s released on hard copy DVD single on Monday (though you can download it now) – either way, if you like it too, make sure you buy a copy!

Walk On The Wild Side

“George… George Alagiah!!!” (I love this bit, made me roar with laughter!).

Eastenders

Was fun, but why no special appearance by Babs and June Brown?! Boo!

Merlin

And of course, the absolute highlight was the Doctor Who preview!!

Oh, and going back to the single, I absolutely love the artwork that comes with it (taking inspiration from The Beatles’ album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band):

This week, my mobile phone realised that it had been operational for far too long. It had reached the ripe old age of 14 months and something had got to give…I now lose power unexpectedly every couple of hours. 

However, T-Mobile have possibly kept my account itself upwardly mobile as the provider found themselves in the middle of a data theft scandal involving ‘thousands of mobile phone customers’ this week. 

The same journalist that bought this to my attention also – I’m happy to say – added further weight to my argument that corporations often employ unwelcome one-way New Media strategies.

Noelle McElhatton of Direct Marketing magazine confirmed that certain organisations bombard their followers with ‘irrelevant, mistimed and inappropriate’ email campaigns thus destroying the relationship. My temper at Topman is vindicated. 

However, to balance my viewpoint, I have been reading a lot this week about symmetrical communications amongst company stakeholders that have come about, with success. Blogs offer, after all, an ‘opportunity [for a company] to receive positive and negative attention’ according to Duhé.   Danny Brown, Media and Branding specialist, blogs about Starbucks’ use of Twitter as more than ‘a broadcasting tool’ to actively engage. There’s even an online forum for employees to suggest improvements to the company (see links.) 

Cohen’s article in Marketing, Social Media: Year of Crisis Converts Small-Bank Skeptics, details a case where Bank Manager Steven Kruskamp was alerted to a customer grievance far more quickly than usual through Twitter. He proceeded to call the customer, put things right and left the banker completely satisfied. However, Cohen’s article goes on to acknowledge two further important points I hadn’t really entertained: 

• Using social media is becoming increasingly essential if a corporation wants to be competitive in terms of customer care.
• The fear of negative attention means organisations are often reluctant to engage in social media. 

In his blog, itsopen.com, Justin Hunt talks about the constant friction within an organisation regarding their online presence. Copywriters are dedicated to ‘humanising organisations’ by engaging stakeholders in a colloquial dialogue whilst the Legal Department referee all discourse, directing it as much as possible. 

As Hunt considers in his other blogs, it’s the company’s customers that own social media and it’s up to the business to ensure it is ‘managed intelligently.’  The BBC, for example, is without the need to drive sales thanks to the licence-fee. Yet, just as their content ‘largely depends on viewer input’, they have recently appointed their first Social Media Editor to ensure viewer contribution is kept as safe. After all, shouldn’t their websites be kept as suitable for mass consumption as their programming? 

Perhaps ‘foxes watching the henhouse’ was a little harsh. Corporate forum invigilators might be more like a responsible adult watching a playground?

If only they knew they would be forgotten and disowned so easily, they probably wouldn’t have done it. I am referring to the terrorists who were killed in the recent Mumbai terror attacks in India. The bodies of the terrorists are still lying at the morgue. Their country has refused to take the remains back, and the local Muslim community refuses to let them be buried at their cemeteries, as they feel the terror attacks were misguided. This was recently reported by the BBC.¹

What this led me to think, would they have done what they did if they knew they would be in this predicament later on? Weren’t these naive young individuals led to believe they were about to become `martyrs’, never to be forgotten in the history of the sub-continent? Usually the actual terrorists are regular people who don’t know better, and have been misrepresented the truth. If only we could get this to them before the soothsaying `holy men’ preaching violence against humanity to serve their convoluted purposes.

I believe the correct information is extremely powerful when it comes to dealing with misunderstanding between people. In this particular case we could have done nothing to prevent this (other than better patrolling of course), but we do have a serious internal security problem. Isn’t increased awareness the way to go ahead? And the first step to awareness is unaltered education. I add that adjective as not too long in the past we had a government who wanted to rewrite the text books, wanted to control what was being taught in the schools. Although we have survived that, we still haven’t made much progress over making education more accessible throughout the country. The free mid-day meal programme has largely been a failure due to rampant corruption at the various ranks of the government. I believe once a self-consistent system of basic education is in place, which is free from any external tampering and is self-sufficient we could be on the right track.

Once the information is out there, the common man/woman can be trusted to make their own `informed’ decisions. After all don’t you recall what Swamiji said?

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in Man.

¹ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8370017.stm

Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC’s technology editor, gave us a lecture on, well, what was it on? Essentially, he made the points that many of the other online lecturers had made before, through no fault of his own, of course. The media is changing, journalists need many skills, the world will soon end, etc. He also, however, cast doubt on the lasting impact of all these technomologies. Is it a revolution? Or is it just a fad? Most signals point somewhere in the middle; these new technofandangos will change the media, but they may also make us realise the value of professional journalism.

A glut of unreliable blogs and breaking news tweets will, hopefully, lead to a realisation of how precious and essential the careerists in journalism are. This has already been touched on before on this blog, and it was not the focus of Rory’s talk, so I present to you the stand out point from the lecture.

Rory, a busy man indeed, did not have the time to make a new powerpoint presentation from the one he made for the same talk last year. Consequently, all the headers were 2008. In most subjects you would not think this would matter. A talk on the Bayeux Tapestry would not change much in a year; “Still a tapestry, folks. Oh no wait, it’s…no, it is still a tapestry.” Surely these exciting revolutionary changes in the media world would render anything more than 11 days old antiquated and useless? Surely. Well, apparently not. Rory found it fairly easy to tell us about the exciting changes in the media from a year old script. Twitter was Twitter then and it is Twitter now.

For next year, if he finds the time to change the titles, the journalism students will be none the wiser, unless of course the interweb implodes and all copy is done by candlelight with quills. I think he would need to start from scratch if that were the case.

Już jutro, po całym tygodniu wyczekiwania, o 20 wieczorem czasu brytyjskiego odbędzie się premiera drugiego odcinka sezonu 14-go. Czternastego sezonu najlepiej rozpoznawalnego programu motoryzacyjnego na świecie. Co jutro przedstawią nam panowie Clarkson, May i Hammond? Po ostatnim odcinku chyba wszyscy fani tego serialu są pod ogromnym wrażeniem. Zapowiada się najlepszy jak dotąd sezon TOPGEAR!! CU

– It was very surprising to him when she said she loved him on SNL. Almost as surprising as the time she drove around his block crying for six hours straight. –
Winding down another long day promoting overseas, Taylor Swift was spotted greeting fans outside her London Hotel on Friday night (November 20).
The country cutie signed autographs and posed for pictures before making her way to the ‘Children in Need’ event at the BBC.
Meanwhile, Miss Swift’s rumored beau, Taylor Lautner, spoke briefly of the “You Belong with Me” singer on the “Today” show this morning.
“How’s that going?” Matt Lauer asked of the relationship, noting that he’d seen Swift’s shoutout to He-Taylor on “SNL.”
“She’s great. She’s a great girl,” Lautner said. “I was definitely blushing when that happened.”
“So you didn’t expect it?” Matt added. “No, it was a surprise,” Taylor answered.

The BBC’s Children in Need raised £20.3m last night in a star-studded show. Sir Terry Wogan and Tess Daly hosted the show, which featured performances from programs such as EastEnders, The Bill and the One Show. The amount raised is just short of the total raised last year £21m and a few months later after further donations the event went on to raise a record £38m.

The last two evenings have found me reclining on the sofa, recovering from the flu.  There’s never a good time to have the flu, but as recovery periods go I couldn’t have timed this one better, since it coincided with two brilliant Children in Need TV spectaculars.  For the non-Brits amongst you, Children in Need is the BBC’s annual charity event that raises money for children throughout the UK who for one reason or another need a helping hand.  Since 1980 the people of Britain have given more than £.5 billion to this cause, all of it benefiting children with disabilities, young carers, children trying to come to terms with the loss of a loved one, or victims of abuse or bullying.  The charity also funds community projects that give children and young people somewhere to go to have fun and try out new things, instead of hanging around on street corners.

The Friday evening event is always good fun.  Lasting seven hours, it includes live performances from top acts alongside one-off mini-adaptations from stage and screen from the casts of all the soaps (Eastenders, etc), mini-productions of favourite popular TV series and always a song and dance routine performed by the BBC’s news presenters. 

This year, in a concert from London’s Royal Albert Hall, we were also treated on Thursday to live music from the likes of Take That, Robbie Williams, Lily Allen, Snow Patrol, Cheryl Cole, Kathleen Jenkins, Annie Lennox, Sir Paul McCartney and – wait for it – Dizzee Rascal rapping along to Dame Shirley Bassey singing Diamonds are Forever!  (It shouldn’t have worked but it did!)

What I love about these events is that they bring out the best in everyone.  Celebrities give their time for free, and as well as donating on the night people get involved in huge fundraising events up and down the country.  But there’s always some who go the extra mile.  This year two people’s personal contributions went way beyond preparing for their own performances.  Peter Kay has spent two years working on this year’s official Children in Need single and DVD: the Animated All Star Band.  And that concert at the Albert Hall?  Well that was dreamed up and organised by Take That’s Gary Barlow.  Sure, it didn’t take him two years to organise it, but then, prior to March he was busy rounding up eight celebrity chums and persuading them to join him in climbing Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Comic Relief, another celebrity-supported charity that links with the BBC for fundraising.

What connects all these people – Peter Kay, Gary Barlow, Richard Curtis (who founded Comic Relief) – is that they have found a way to do what they love, what they do brilliantly, then use that as a springboard to make the world a better place.  And whilst they go about all this on the world stage, raising awareness as well as cash, many thousands of ordinary yet wonderful people work equally hard every day to make their communities better places.

I was honoured a few weeks ago to accompany my husband to a prizegiving evening held by a local community that just a few years ago was considered undesirable.  Every one of the nominations for each of the award categories was worthy of  praise and recognition: people and groups who give their time to youngsters, to raising the profile of healthy living and many other aspects of community life.  Between the various awards (one of which was presented by my husband) local people performed.  To witness such talent, so many big hearts and so much energy and camaraderie in a community that not so long ago was avoided was a humbling experience. 

So over the last two nights, I was reminded of those kind-hearted people and not for the first time, pondering the difference between merely volunteering and giving freely by doing what we love.  And surely the joy of being able to make a real difference by doing what we love is worth aiming for, and keeping searching for until we find it.  We won’t all do it live from the Royal Albert Hall, but the world will only become a better place if we all work together to achieve it.  Yes, indeed there is truth in Gary Barlow’s lyrics: You and me we can light up the sky!  If we really try.

This YouTube clip is from the concert: Children in Need Rocks The Royal Albert Hall.