Can Cross Cultural Relationships Work-Of Program Just Have ...

You can?t always choose who you start in adore with and there are many individuals who have just occurred to drop in adore with somebody from an additional culture. It can appear thrilling when relationship someone from an additional culture however it isn?t usually that simple. If you can make it work then you definitely might have a cross cultural connection that?s lifestyle changing and really satisfying however it isn?t always easy falling in adore with somebody that has a completely various culture than you.

If you do intend to possess a cross cultural connection you have to be ready to stage outdoors of one?s regular way of thinking. You might require to make some compromises in the connection that do not adhere to your traditions. You might not believe it might be all that tough however you could be shocked how some scenario can sneak up on you and you discover yourself making a difficult decision. Various cultures have various ideas of what is right and incorrect and some cultures will clash in those beliefs. If you are relationship someone whose culture clashes with each thing that you believe then these variations might be hard to conquer.

Whenever you are inside a cross cultural connection you will need to discover around you are healthy to about your companions tradition after which you will know whether or not you can possibly compromise on certain issues or whether your different beliefs are also great. You need to pay attention for your companion and ask respectful concerns about their culture. If you?re open up minded you are healthy to appreciate an info dialogue about your cultures, but always stay respectful of one?s companion and their beliefs.

If at some time during your connection you discover yourself inside a situation that you?re not comfy with regarding their beliefs or culture then you definitely require to debate it with them. Stay respectful but let them know your beliefs are various and let them know how you?re feeling relating to this. Never ridicule them for their beliefs, you should always respect them, but just let them know that you don?t feel comfy with it. When they adore you and respect your beliefs then they will try to comprehend your place.

Various cultures have various customs and some of them might seem a tiny primitive to you, but you should nonetheless remain respectful. It is quite feasible that some of your customs might appear strange or primitive to them. You need to never decide someone by their customs but instead take an interest in them and learn about them.

When you enter into a new connection it can be an nervous time but much more so in the event you originate from different cultural backgrounds. You need to be affected mortal and comprehending and also have find while you discover about one another and your various cultures. If you?re open up to stepping outdoors of your comfort and assist regularize then you definitely might discover about and experience some astonishing cultures. This doesn?t imply that you need to change your individualized beliefs, it just implies that you are prepared to acknowledge and respect someone else?s beliefs.

Source: http://buildwithidc.com/can-cross-cultural-relationships-work-of-program-just-have-individuals/

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Susan G. Komen charity under microscope for ... - Car Donation

Susan G. Komen charity under microscope for funding, science

Posted by admin on Friday, February 10, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?

Susan G. Komen charity under microscope for funding, science

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity defines its mission as finding a cure for breast cancer. In recent years, however, it has cut by nearly half the proportion of fund-raising dollars it spends on grants to scientists working to understand the causes and develop effective new treatments for the disease.

While the absolute dollar amount of those grants has steadily grown, it has not kept pace with the surge in donations Komen has received, a Reuters analysis of the group?s financial statements shows.

Komen has come under heavy public scrutiny since it moved last week to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, a women?s health network that provides birth control, abortions and other services. Although it reversed that decision on Friday, the outcry has prompted a closer look from activists, media and lawmakers at how the charity powerhouse operates.

Critics within the philanthropic and research communities in particular have raised questions over its scientific approach to some issues and how it spends the money it raises.

[see also: Troubled Cancer Charity Embroiled in Embryonic Stem Cell Debate]

Komen?s financial statements since 2003 reveal how much the group known for its pink ribbon symbol spends on activities from research to education, screenings, treatment and fund-raising.

In 2011, the foundation spent 15 percent, or $63 million, of its donations on research awards that fund studies on everything from hard-core molecular biology to the quality of breast-cancer care for Medicaid patients.

That proportion was down from 17 percent in 2009 and 2010. In 2008, that percentage reached 29 percent of donations. The annual financial statements cover April 1 through March 31.

Komen reports spending a total of $685 million for research in the past 30 years, a considerable sum in private cancer philanthropy, and its money goes to a wide variety of initiatives.

?In 2011, 83 cents of every dollar spent went to mission programs,? spokeswoman Leslie Aun said in an email statement to Reuters. ?We?re the only organization doing breast cancer on all these fronts ? in research, global work, advocacy and community work.?

The organization?s 2011 financial statement reports that 43 percent of donations were spent on education, 18 percent on fund-raising and administration, 15 percent on research awards and grants, 12 percent on screening and 5 percent on treatment. (Various other items accounted for the rest.)

Aun did not immediately address the declining share of revenue that went to research in the past few years. In that period, Komen saw its annual revenue rise by almost $100 million to $420 million and increased its spending on education.

When informed of the figures, Komen supporter and widely-followed breast cancer blogger Lisa Bonchek Adams expressed surprise. The Connecticut mother of three was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, ran her first ?Race for the Cure? in 2008, and raised $15,000 for Komen in 2009.

Although Adams knew that Komen spends a large fraction of its revenue on raising awareness of breast cancer and promoting screening, she said that the much smaller amount that goes to finding a cure ?is definitely a concern; 15 percent is shockingly small.?

PLAUDITS FOR LOW OVERHEAD

Still, in categories like administration and overhead Komen wins plaudits from outside experts. Charity Navigator, an independent nonprofit that scrutinizes such groups? finances, awards it four out of four stars, and 65.55 out of 70 points for financial performance.

That reflects the relatively small amount Komen reports spending on administration and fundraising (18 percent of donations) and its accountability and transparency. Komen issues audited financial statements, for instance, and has policies on conflicts of interest and whistleblowing.

By comparison, the American Cancer Society (ACS) gets three stars and a score of 53.85. The Wishing Well Foundation, which fulfills requests from terminally ill children, gets zero stars and 4.8.

Komen also shines for what it pays founder and CEO Nancy Brinker: $417,712 in 2011. That is almost $300,000 less than the Breast Cancer Research Foundation reported in salary and benefits for its president last year. Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood?s president, received $354,716 in the fiscal year ending in June 2010.

In absolute terms, Komen is a leader in funding breast cancer research among private organizations. The $63 million it granted in 2011 pales beside the estimated $763 million spent by the National Institutes of Health in 2011 and the $150 million budgeted by the Department of Defense in 2012.

But it dwarfs the $17 million awarded by ACS for breast cancer research in 2010. In percentage terms, ACS spent 16 percent of donations on all cancer research, largely because much of its focus is ?patient support,? which includes providing transportation and housing for people undergoing treatment for cancer. It reported much higher fund-raising and administration costs than Komen, accounting for 30 percent of donations.

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation reported spending 92 percent of what it raised on research; the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, 56 percent.

The Avon Foundation, which sponsors both walks and research efforts, does not itemize its breast cancer spending in its financial statements.

Planned Parenthood generates the bulk of its $1 billion in annual revenue from health services it provides and government grants. Donations accounted for $224 million in 2010, and the group?s annual report did not identify how those specific funds were earmarked.

FOCUS ON WOMEN

Even $63 million is too little to support most of the worthy grant requests Komen receives: of the initial applications it receives, the group funds between 10 percent and 15 percent.

Of the full proposals ? those deemed good enough that scientists were invited to submit an extensive description of their proposed research ? it funds less than 20 percent, said a leading cancer researcher with close ties to Komen.

Some experts who applaud Komen for supporting research are critical less of the ?how much? than the ?what.? They say funding choices may place too great an emphasis on treatment and the most basic of basic research, rather than prevention and a true cure.

?It would be good if they spent more on finding the cause of breast cancer and preventing it,? said breast surgeon and author Susan Love, whose eponymous research foundation focuses on raising ?an army of women? to volunteer for breast-cancer studies.

?They fund a lot of research on mice and rats and cell lines,? she said. ?But rats and mice don?t get breast cancer; you have to give it to them.?

That also raises doubts for some researchers about how applicable the results of lab rodent studies are to humans. Experts have begun to argue that an emphasis on this type of research partially explains why so little progress has been made in the war on cancer.

Komen, recognizing that concern, now supports studies ?that have the potential to impact research and treatment in the next decade,? says the cancer biologist.

The foundation?s science advisors say they have also tried to identify areas that have gotten short shrift from other funders ? for instance, the recurrence of a type of breast cancer fueled by the hormone estrogen many years after diagnosis. Many recurrences occur eight to 12 years after the initial diagnosis, when women think they are out of the woods.

THE ?AWARENESS? MESSAGE

By far, the largest single category in Komen?s budget is ?education.? It spent an average of 37 percent of money raised on education from 2003 to 2011, the Reuters analysis showed, and 43 percent in 2011.

Education encompasses a wide variety of activities at Komen. One community grant was used to identify the seven ?best? books on breast cancer and buy copies for local libraries. In general, education means getting out its awareness message, with an emphasis on screening mammography.

Komen?s 2011 financial statement reports $51 million spent on screening services, 12 percent of donor dollars. In explaining its initial decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood?s mammography programs, Komen said it wanted to support groups that provide that screening rather than, as Planned Parenthood does, offer referrals for it.

?Screening is their thing,? said sociologist Gayle Sulik of the University of Albany and author of the 2011 book ?Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women?s Health.?

?What they?re best at is awareness, which you could also call publicity,? she said. ?Getting out the word that breast cancer exists is what they excel at ? that and raising money. But if your mantra is ?end breast cancer,? screening isn?t going to do it.?

Although screening mammography detects breast cancer earlier than waiting for symptoms to appear, it does not decrease mortality from breast cancer as scientists, advocates, and public health experts had hoped.

After a number of recent studies concluded that screening mammography makes a small difference, if any, on mortality, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended screening mammography every two years for women 50 to 74, rather than annually, and having a first mammogram at 50 rather than 40.

That undercut Komen?s mantra that early detection through screening mammography can reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer. An official statement spear-headed by Komen?s scientific advisory board concurred with the task force recommendations.

?But some people at the affiliates and the national board were uncomfortable with that,? says the cancer biologist close to Komen. ?The result was some complex messaging,? with the official Komen statement focusing more on increasing access to mammograms than on the emerging science about their dwindling medical benefits.

Komen?s messages to women sometimes diverge from mainstream science in other ways as well.

The group urged insurers to continue covering the Roche drug Avastin even after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rescinded its approval for breast cancer. The FDA decision was based on two large studies that showed Avastin does not prolong the lives of women taking it for metastatic breast cancer and can in fact cause serious harm. Komen emphasized that some women and their doctors claimed that Avastin was keeping them alive and that they would die without it.

The Komen view on Avastin was not shared by other breast cancer activists. National Breast Cancer Coalition president Fran Visco said that the FDA should never have approved the drug for that purpose in the first place.

Komen?s advocacy of breast self-exams, part of its ?awareness? message, also clashes with the position of the NBCC, a group that is widely respected for rejecting what it sees as false promises in detecting or treating cancer.

Because self-exams have not been shown to detect breast cancer earlier or to reduce mortality, the National Cancer Institute no longer distributes how-to guides. The Preventive Services Task Force recommends that doctors not even teach the practice.

Some Komen contributors say they hope the controversy over the organization?s approach will prompt it to pursue its mission even more effectively. ?This whole flap might be good for Komen in the long run,? says Adams. ?People have been afraid to criticize them, but sometimes being out under the microscope can help.?

(Reuters) ? (Sharon Begley and Janet Roberts)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-usa-healthcare-komen-research-idUSTRE8171KW20120208

Source: http://www.onlinecardonation.org/charitynews/archives/197

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Will Adele be the belle of the Grammy ball? (AP)

Adele is the rare star who doesn't need multiple magazine covers, a cosmetics contract or a clothing line to sell albums. She does it all based on the strength of that sumptuous voice and those stirring songs.

That's a rarity in today's pop world, where artists are overexposed and their music often comes second to what they're promoting in tandem with it.

Adele scored an unlikely critical and commercial triumph with "21," last year's best-selling album, all based off the artistry of songs like "Rolling in the Deep" and "Someone Like You." And she'll be richly rewarded come Sunday, when the Grammys hand out their trophies at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. While Kanye West is the lead nominee with seven, Adele, who's up for six, will be the act who dominates ? well, at least that's what WE think.

Here's how the AP predicts the trophies will shake out Grammy night.

_____

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: "21," Adele; "Wasting Light," Foo Fighters; "Born This Way," Lady Gaga; "Doo-Wops & Hooligans," Bruno Mars; "Loud," Rihanna.

MOODY: The Grammys are famous for ignoring the shoo-in for some underdog in the top category, leading to a big shocker. That's just not gonna happen this year, though. None of these other albums can really even make the critical argument that they're better than "21," Adele's phenomenal and phenomenally successful album. This will be the topper on Adele's coronation on Grammy night.

FEKADU: So let's talk about who definitely won't win: Sorry Gaga, Bruno and Rih Rih. Foo Fighters, who strongly represent rock `n' roll in a pop/dance-dominated music world, has a chance. Well, no they don't. In one year Adele's "21" has sold more than six million copies and changed many lives, and I'm sure some of those people are members of The Recording Academy. She better give her ex a shout-out in her victory speech!

_____

RECORD OF THE YEAR: "Rolling In the Deep," Adele; "Holocene," Bon Iver; "Grenade," Bruno Mars; "The Cave," Mumford & Sons; "Firework," Katy Perry.

FEKADU: The real competition here is between Adele and Mumford & Sons ? whose songs are the best two of the bunch. But Adele not only had the record of the year, she had the best voice of the year, the best live performance of the year and the best everything of the year. She even had (one of the) best styles of the year (all black works, man!) If she doesn't win, I sure hope Kanye West jumps onstage and yells: "Adele had the best record of all-time. OF ALL-TIME!"

MOODY: Technically Adele has competition in this category, but really folks? None. As big as "Grenade" and "Firework" were, they are no match for Adele's smoldering performance, and Mumford & Sons and Bon Iver should split the bearded-hipster-indie cred vote. Adele takes home the trophy.

_____

SONG OF THE YEAR (songwriters): "All of the Lights," Jeff Bhasker, Stacy Ferguson, Malik Jones, Warren Trotter & Kanye West; "The Cave," Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford & Country Winston; "Grenade," Brody Brown, Claude Kelly, Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, Bruno Mars & Andrew Wyatt; "Holocene," Justin Vernon; "Rolling In the Deep," Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth.

MOODY: Vernon is the only one to write a song without any help in this category, but as hauntingly beautiful as "Holocene" is, it's a little too obscure to really win here. "Rolling in the Deep" would be the obvious choice ? a little too obvious, perhaps. It's a risk, but I'm betting that Grammy voters finally give Kanye a little love after wrongly dissing him for album of the year ? just when he's starting not to care anymore.

FEKADU: She's wrong. I'm a Kanye supporter ? well sometimes I am ? but he shouldn't win this for a number of reasons. No.1, "All of the Lights" should NOT be the first rap song to earn this award. No. 2, the song is catchy, but is it great enough to be nominated here? He should have won this honor years ago for "Jesus Walks." But, Halle Berry did win the Oscar for "Monster's Ball" instead of "Losing Isaiah." OK, back to the music. Oh yeah, this will be going to Mumford & Sons.

____

NEW ARTIST: The Band Perry; Bon Iver; J. Cole; Nicki Minaj; Skrillex.

FEKADU: It's nice to see an electronic artist like Skrillex here, but he won't win. J. Cole's votes won't match those for Minaj. If Barbies could vote, Minaj would have a better shot. So it's down to critical indie group Bon Iver and The Band Perry, who have won so many music honors from all 10,000 of those awards shows for country music. I guess that means they'll win here, too.

MOODY: Skrillex is probably the least known act, but like Mesfin says, he won't pull off an Esperanza Spalding-type upset this year. Bon Iver is the indie choice but did anyone really listen to that album outside of the Pitchfork-set? J. Cole is too new, so that leaves us with a battle between Nicki Minaj and The Band Perry. As super-hot as Minaj is, I'm guessing Grammy voters will choose the musicianship of the sibling trio, who also had great commercial success with "If I Die Young," making them the balanced choice.

____

POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE: "Someone Like You," Adele; "You and I," Lady Gaga; "Grenade," Bruno Mars; "Firework," Katy Perry; "(Expletive) Perfect," Pink.

MOODY: This marks the first year that the men and women are duking it out for vocal performance, and judging by the list of nominees, Grammy voters aren't too impressed with male vocals this year. So despite his nomination, Mars won't likely win this battle with the ladies. Out of the girl-power clique, no one really has the power of Adele (though Pink comes close). Combine that with the heartbreaking emotion that she conveys, and you've got your winner. Adele, yet again.

FEKADU: What she said.

____

ROCK SONG: "The Cave," Mumford & Sons (Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford & Country Winston); "Down By the Water," The Decemberists (Colin Meloy); "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall," Coldplay (Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion & Chris Martin); "Lotus Flower," Radiohead (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway & Thom Yorke); "Walk," Foo Fighters (Foo Fighters).

FEKADU: Last year, Mumford & Sons didn't win best new artist or best rock song. Grammy voters didn't know how deserving the band was then, but they won't make that mistake again. Congrats boys on your Grammy win!

MOODY: Don't start building that trophy case just yet, boys. Mumford & Sons are still a little too new and a little too indie for Grammy voters to embrace (besides, they'd split the indie vote with the kings of that genre, Radiohead). The Foo Fighters had one of the top rock albums of the year and Grohl and Co. are veterans who are still rocking ? and the Grammys love survivors. And that's why the Foos will win here.

____

R&B ALBUM: "F.A.M.E.," Chris Brown; "Second Chance," El DeBarge; "Love Letter," R. Kelly; "Pieces of Me," Ledisi; "Kelly," Kelly Price.

MOODY: DeBarge's "Second Chance" has nothing on the second chance that Brown has been enjoying. The fact that he's nominated shows that Grammy voters don't hold a grudge for that Rihanna attack three years ago, and his comeback after being labeled the ogre of the music world has surely won over many former critics. Look for Brown's continued redemption with a win.

FEKADU: I'm not even going to pick any of these albums. I'm still upset Beyonce's "4" isn't nominated here. (OK, I have a bet with Nekesa so for strategy, I'll also go with "F.A.M.E." And if this is one of the awards to make the live telecast, be ready to see Chris Breezy cry, again!)

___

RAP/SUNG COLLABORATION: "Party," Beyonce and Andre 3000; "I'm On One," DJ Khaled, Drake, Rick Ross & Lil Wayne; "I Need a Doctor," Dr. Dre, Eminem & Skylar Grey; "What's My Name?," Rihanna & Drake; "Motivation," Kelly Rowland & Lil Wayne; "All of the Lights," Kanye West, Rihanna, Kid Cudi & Fergie.

FEKADU: I wish Kelly Rowland and Lil Wayne would win for "Motivation," one of last year's best songs. Or "I'm On One," which could give DJ Khaled, Drake and Rick Ross their first Grammy wins. But that isn't likely. Look for Kanye, the rapper with the most Grammys (14 and counting), to get the win for "All of the Lights," which is also up for song of the year.

MOODY: It's hard to compete against a song that even featured Sir Elton John in the mix. For as much as people love to hate on Kanye, Grammy voters love him when it comes to the rap categories. No need for a West hissy-fit here ? he'll take the award, thank you.

_____

COUNTRY ALBUM: "My Kinda Party," Jason Aldean; "Chief," Eric Church; "Own the Night," Lady Antebellum; "Red River Blue," Blake Shelton; "Here for a Good Time," George Strait; "Speak Now," Taylor Swift.

MOODY: Swift was robbed by not getting a nomination in the general album category; she's probably already written a searing acoustic-guitar ditty about the snub for the new album. But maybe she won't publish it if Grammy voters do right by her in the country category. Chances are she won't be singing about Grammy blues after Sunday night.

FEKADU: Lady Antebellum won the coveted album of the year trophy last year and Swift the year before. But their follow-ups clearly weren't as good, according to Grammy voters. Now these country acts know how the rappers feel! Jason Aldean, though, had a tremendous year, and he deserves ? and will ? win this honor. Now cue up that new, angry Swift song!

_____

Online:

http://www.grammys.com

_____

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Mesfin Fekadu covers entertainment for the AP. Follow both on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nekesamumbi and http://twitter.com/musicmesfin

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120210/ap_en_mu/us_music_grammywatch_predictions

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Donating Your Time and Talent in Today's Animation Industry ...

Posted by shannonmuir in Advice, animation, Articles, Mentorship.
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Today, many people in the industry find it tougher to be giving of their time and talent.? Time?s hard to come by because often you?re scrambling to find work on a show (either staff or freelance), and then finding the next show to move on to when that one?s wrapped.? Also, especially for the writers, there seems to be a fear out there that if they listen to people?s ideas, and either already have something planned or later inadvertently do something similar, that they?ll be sued.? These factors can make sharing one?s time very tough.

So, how can you be generous and assist others while overcoming these concerns?

Volunteer your time to be on panels at conventions.? These provide moderated environments where you can answer people?s questions in a public forum.? Perhaps your answers can aid or inspire people you might otherwise not interact with to achieve their goals.? It can also be good public relations and get your name out there ? but, in my opinion, that should really be a happy side effect.? Admittedly there are some who only do it for the exposure though, so don?t be surprised.? I?ve volunteered for panels at both the Gathering of the Gargoyles and for several years at Comic-Con International: San Diego.? It should also be something to try working into your schedule simply on a networking level; yes, it takes time but it could indirectly help you land that next job.? You never know who you might meet at the convention!

If you have a little more time, look for charity organizations that can set you up to be a mentor to a youth whose goals match your area of expertise.? These would be controlled, monitored, and documented arrangements.? However, if you go this route, be certain that the organization is trustworthy and has a longstanding history of helping youth.? Due to personal schedule restrictions, I?ve never had the opportunity to be a mentor (but would love to), but in other ways have had contact with two Los Angeles-area based organizations I feel comfortable to recommend as examples.? One is Create Now! (formerly Write Now!), which deals with institutionalized at-risk kids from ages 5 to 21 and mentoring them in the creative arts.? Another is the Fulfillment Fund, which covers more than the film and television, but has a big amount of support from the entertainment industry; the goal of this organization is to identify promising disadvantaged or disabled youth, and help them pursue advanced education to reach their dreams. Investigate and see if there are similar programs in your local area, and get their history and examples of places they?ve worked with.

So, there are ways that you can give use your background and interest in the animation industry to help others ? and this doesn?t have to be something you just do at one time of the year.

(originally published 2001 at Suite101.com)

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Source: http://shannonmuir.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/donating-your-time-and-talent-in-todays-animation-industry/

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Writing on the Ether | Jane Friedman

ToC?s techs to the rescue! (Greenfield, Albanese, Curtis, Owen, Shatzkin)
eBooks: That call to disarm (Wikert, Stephenson)
eBooks: No joy of bundles (Krozser)
Social media: Doing it rudely unto others (Streitfeld, Owen)
Social media: Senior on a spit (Senior)
Social media: Fl?nerie on the Ether (Morozov, Cain, Davis)
Social media: Speaking of Facebook? (Andrews)
Self-publishing: Charles? aria (Penenberg, Orlando)
Self-publishing: A typo on Page 1 (Orlando)
Self-publishing: Rebecca?s recitatif (Bricker)
Self-publishing: ?The world has moved on? (Jones)
Writing: Poetry over practicality (Friedman, Turner)
Writing: Just tear that ?passion? to tatters, will you? (Anthony, Friedman)
Writing: Before you speak ill of a fellow writer (Bransford)
Publishing: Careerists? new shift (Gonzalez)
Libraries: More on Random House and book loans (Albanese)
Mixed media: Our turn (Nyles)
Mixed media: One big step forward (Lauerman)
Mixed media: One backward policy (Cellan-Jones)
Reality: Not the War of Digital Aggression (Snaije)

Ether Extra: Originating with Michael Kelley?s reporting from the Library Journal?s The Digital Shift, news of Penguin ankling library ebook distributor OverDrive has overtaken other library-related stories. What is behind this? Per Michael Cader, writing at Publishers Lunch: (emphasis mine)

Aside from the issues related to online ebook lending in general, publishers remain particularly concerned by Overdrive?s allowing Amazon to manage the lending of library ebooks directly from their servers.?(Indeed a number of publishers have maintained that the implementation of Kindle lending for libraries violates both their OverDrive contracts?which authorize fulfillment form OverDrive?s servers only?and their Amazon contracts, which cover the ?purchase? of ebooks by consumers only.)

For further coverage, see Cader, plus Laura Hazard Owen at paidContent and Calvin Reid at PublishersWeekly. Penguin is stressing ?It is vital that we forge relationships with libraries and build a future together?. Our ongoing partnership with the ALA (American Library Association) is more important than ever, and our recent talks with ALA leadership helped bring everything into focus.? The change is effective Friday, 10 February.

So if Digital Book World helped prepare our souls for the coming travail ? as Jeremy Greenfield?s ongoing DBW Insights show us on a daily basis ? the battle now is joined by reinforcements, in the form of the annual Tools of Change Conference. In ToC we trust.

Selected keynotes and more from the theater of endeavor will be streamed live on video for you to see, from the safety of your favorite redoubt.

And there we were, holding the DBW vigil with Bishop Shatzkin; chanting BookRepublic numbers about ebook adoption with Brother Marco; beating our breasts with Friar Matteo:

Forgive us, we have DRM-ed everything in sight like music-industry people in wayward sheep?s clothing!

We even had the Sisters of Romantica entertain the troops. But, of course, not enough conferencing yet: our beloved publishing industry is still under siege from within and without.

Now? the 2012 season?s (and every season?s) best hopes ? our technologists ? charge into Manhattan. Weapons are arrayed in the Digital Petting Zoo curated by Nate Hoffelder and Joe Wikert. Ordained by O?Reilly himself, the Tools of Change crusade convenes at the Marriott, where the industry will wrestle with its digital demons. (Yes, even those Small Demons, Rev. Vakili.)

Looking at the programming for TOC next week. Some really good stuff. Gonna be hard to choose breakout sessions in some time slots. #toccon

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One prayer for many, as a reception is staged at the New York Public Library during the conference: May Penguin (and the other Big Six, some day) follow RandomHouse in enabling full public book lending. Andrew Albanese gave us the word this way, in Fair Trade: Random House Will Raise Library E-book Prices, But Commits to E-Book Lending.

Rejoice, fellow Ethernaut, let us go into the (next) temple of publishing confabs, this time to behold Science as she girds us in this baffling War of Digital Aggression. Quoth Richard Curtis, For the First Time In History, Print Is Optional. Now What?

When we talk about the death of printed books we are really talking about the death of printed books distributed in bookstores.? With the death of a Borders and the announced reduction of Barnes & Noble?s? bookstore floor space by 25%, print on demand, a business model that does not depend on store sales or the returnability of books the way traditional bookstores do, increasingly becomes an option. If publishers elect POD for all their books they will not only continue to make money from printed books but could potentially rescue their identities, and maybe their souls as well.

What do you think?

Note to self: "tursday" is not an actual day.

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Here be the crossed bookmarks of titans. And we must turn to Lovely Tech, for she is just about the last goddess left:

The bottom line here is that as Amazon?s power to sign up books away from the major publishers grows, the retailers who depend on publishers for a flow of commercial product suffer along with the publishers?B&N?s decision seems to me like the right move for them?On the other hand, authors and agents who might have considered an Amazon publishing deal will have to think twice if they know very few bookstores will carry it?There are a lot of smart people engaged in a pitched battle here.

• May Knitting Laura Dawson, the Madame Defarge of Firebrand, guide us to know the dangers of the intern-novitiate when you mis-assign your metadata to pizza-stained hands.

• May we see ? somewhere between the River ePub and the Mobi-Dictum ? Prior Wikert bringing us together in the merciful sanctuary of a Unified eBook Market. More on his call to action in a moment.

Here is my and my fellow seminarian Dan Blank?s latest sermon-with-video Preview: O?Reilly?s Tools of Change Conference.

Our saints go marching into conference on Monday and raise the fray through Wednesday. Observe the battle from the safe hilltop of the Twitter hashtag #TOCcon or in the chapel of my site: PorterAnderson.com. Some of our bravest strategists are at work here. And the stakes are high for all of us.

Dear Twitter: can we all resolve to stop saying stupid shit we know nothing about or won't get educated about? I'll do the same. Love, me.

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Imagine buying a car that locks you into one brand of fuel. That new BMW only runs on BMW gas. There are plenty of BMW gas stations around, so convenience isn?t an issue. But if a different brand of gas station offers a discount, a membership program, or some other marketing campaign, you can?t participate. You?re locked in with the BMW gas stations. This could never happen in the real world, right? Consumers are too smart to buy into something like this.

Joe Wikert, always quick with smart, on-the-nose analogies, outdoes himself in this pre-ToC piece, mentioned above, for Publisher?s Weekly. His analogy is a good fit. You?re locked in by the brand you buy. In his smart column for PW, Wikert lays out The ToC Perspective: A Call for a Unified E-book Market. He makes his argument in clean fast strokes, and then gets us out of the water on an upbeat note, too:

At some point in the not-too-distant future, I?m optimistic the book publishing industry will get to the same stage as the music industry and offer a universal, DRM-free format for all e-books. Then customers will be free to use whatever e-reader they prefer without fear of lock-in and incompatibilities. The music industry made the transition; why can?t we?

Blog Sommelier: Pair Joe Wikert?s call for unity with ?E-Book Standards? ? really? at TheFutureBook from Richard Stephenson, CEO of publishing support service provider YUDU Media in the UK. Stephenson nutshells it this way:

eBook standards are the right aspiration to keep publishing costs down, but in practice, standardization does not seem to fit the strategies of the large technology companies like Apple and Amazon who see setting their own standards as a source of competitive advantage especially as the digital content becomes ever more complex.

Just so.

Conference note: Joe Wikert is one busy guy at TOC next week. In addition to hosting with his estimable co-chair Kat Meyer, he?s involved in presentations including Margin Walking: How Annotation Technology Reinvents and Renews the Book , Real World Agile Publishing, Retooling for Faster Digital Revenue Realization, and Scaling Content Development Through Automation.

Wow, could not have done better SEO if I had tried, and I didn't - type in "is not a thing" in GOOG & the fourth result is my #toccon preso. @ good thing you didn't call it "Metadata: Ain't No Big Thing" #toccon @ I could conceivably call it "managing sand" - but, you know....

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Personally, the chances of me getting excited about a print/digital bundles for fiction are pretty slim. There is the rare, rare, rare book I love so much I want to display it on my shelves. When that book enters my universe, the joy cannot be described. Usually, by the time I discover my love for this book, the opportunity to get in on the bundling deal will be lost (hey, make this a retroactive thing?then you?ve got something).

That?s Kassia Krozser at Booksquare in Tools of Change 2012: Today. Tomorrow. She notes that ?it seems like so much of the industry is on round three or four of the same conversation? ? conference season tends to do that, I agree ? and by way of illustration, she looks at the question of bundling print and ebook editions. (In some quarters, the question comes around about as often as the writerly whine, ?Do we really have to have a platform??)

What does this have to do with the Tools of Change conference? Quite a bit. The theme speaks to my soul: change/forward/fast. While publishers work hard to figure out the right now, they need to keep a close eye on possibilities for the future. The basics are still far from being, well, basic, but we can?t deny the world is changing at (publishing) light speed.

Conference note: Kassia Krozser will moderate two sessions at ToC: Leveraging Existing Assets for New Markets and? Why Context is Everything: Monetizing Meaningful Engagement with Content. For more, see this page.

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Ms. Pearl still seems a little shaken by the intensity of the response. ?I knew the minute I signed the contract that there would be people who would not be happy, but the vehemence surprised me,? she said. To protect herself, she did not read Facebook or Twitter or any of the social media sites. (One Twitter post: ?I might have to burn that superhero doll?).

So popular is librarian Nancy Pearl?s ?Book Lust? advocacy of bringing books back into print that the Times? David Streitfeld in Amazon, Up in Flames, writes that she ?has done as much to promote reading as anyone this side of Oprah.? And yet, when 20 publishers had rejected her list of books needing to be ?rediscovered and she took up Amazon on its offer for them, ?that?s when the furor started,? Streitfeld writres.

The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, which just gave Ms. Pearl its lifetime achievement award, described the reaction among its members as ?consternation.? In Seattle, it was front-page news. ?Betrayal? was a word that got used a lot.

Here?s Laura Hazard Owen?s write at paidContent (just bought by GigaOm, congratulations): Beloved Librarian Who Signed With Amazon: ?The Vehemence Surprised Me?

It was only going to be worse for a writer in the UK named Antonia Senior.

I love you Sony Reader folks, but I am confused as to why you just sent me an e-newsletter containing a recipe for a chickpea appetizer.

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Kindle-owning bibliophiles are furtive beasts. Their shelves still boast classics and Booker winners. But inside that plastic case, other things lurk. Sci-fi and self-help. Even paranormal romance, where vampires seduce virgins and elves bonk trolls.

Antonia Senior in her spirited opinion piece at The Guardian Ebook sales are being driven by downmarket genre fiction is only telling us what we know. Albeit in unkind terms. What?s so furtive about those beasts?

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Look, even before the Dawn of Digital, mass taste ran resolutely downhill.?As a 200-year-old Dickens might have said, a penny for your dreadful, m?lady. But who knows to what undisclosed location Senior has had to repair? She certainly can?t go to her usual Sainsbury?s now without a goodly disguise.

Antonia Senior can kiss my Clarke Award RT @ Snob at work: Ebook sales driven by downmarket genre fiction http://t.co/kNJObYs6

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What?s up with this vituperative reaction? No, Senior isn?t nice about the fact that the common denominator is low. But as Coward observed so long ago in the same Sceptered Isle, it?s extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

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Some were miffed that the Guardian used an image of a Mac reader when the story talks Kindle. But, of course, thanks to apt apps, one can read Kindle books on Mac products.? It?s a day crowded with revelations, is it not?

Ah, Antonia Senior's drival came to PaidContent via the Guardian. More flaws in her article than in a skyscraper.

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I?ll tell you the one place I think Senior misses something. She writes:

Ereaders hide (one?s reading) material. Erotica sells well. My own downmarket literary fetish is male-oriented historical fiction (histfic). Swords and sails stuff. I?m happier reading it on an ereader, and keeping shelf space for books that proclaim my cleverness.

Actually, it?s my guess that men are reading more now than they used to, if they have ereading devices. And not just because guys like gadgets (although we do) but because on the whole, we may be less inclined to share what we?re reading with the world than some women are.

Contrary to Senior?s implications, that doesn?t mean that guys are reading smut. If a guy isn?t reading Steve Pressfield (Senior, I recommend him to you for your histfic fun) ? or if that guy is reading Pressfield?s The War of Art instead of The Profession ? maybe it?s easier to tell his buddies on the plane that he?s got PDFs from the office on that Kindle Fire or iPad.

Antonia Senior looks down her nose at ebooks: "Ebook sales are being driven by downmarket genre fiction" http://t.co/qw1PoW5p via @

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Senior, however, took a lot of heat for saying that lots of publishing?s customers aren?t reading the holy icons on their ereaders. Such defensiveness is something for us to think about.

And remind me to work on that Publishing Hysteria Index.

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If today?s Internet has a Baron Haussmann, it is Facebook. Everything that makes cyberfl?nerie possible ? solitude and individuality, anonymity and opacity, mystery and ambivalence, curiosity and risk-taking ? is under assault by that company.

Evegeny Morozov, always up for a little worthwhile controversy, this time goes for it in The Death of the Cyberfl?neur. He correctly marks the passing of that day when getting around the Net could seem like strolling the cobblestoned boulevards of caprice and chance, overtaken by a Web that?s become ?a place for getting things done.?

Our productivity obsession, he laments, has probably done away for good with the idea, ironically, of ?browsing.?

?Isn?t it obvious that consuming great art alone is qualitatively different from consuming it socially? And why this fear of solitude in the first place? It?s hard to imagine packs of fl?neurs roaming the streets of Paris as if auditioning for another sequel to ?The Hangover.? But for Mr. Zuckerberg, as he acknowledged on ?Charlie Rose,? ?it feels better to be more connected to all these people. You have a richer life.?

It?s this idea that the individual experience is somehow inferior to the collective that underpins Facebook?s recent embrace of ?frictionless sharing,? the idea that, from now on, we have to worry only about things we don?t want to share; everything else will be shared automatically.

And he gets at something more important, echoed in Susan Cain?s new book, Quiet, about introversion in writing and where the business has taken us. She writes:

The authors whose books get published ? once accepted as a reclusive breed ? are now vetted by publicists to make sure they?re talk-show ready. (You wouldn?t be reading this book if I hadn?t convinced my publisher that I was enough of a pseudo-extrovert to promote it.)

Pair those comments, if you will, with some of the writings of our colleague George Davis. As you?ll find in Smile! I?m blogging you?, he loves nothing better than to refer to his own cyber-fl?nerie as something he seems to feel is a good bit more alive than Morozov would have us think:

Of course, flanerie still serves the storyteller well, but his boulevards have been extended exponentially. I am an unabashed flaneur, but not just in the Baudelarian sense. I?m an urban flaneur, but I?m also a rural flaneur. I?m a caf? and sidewalk flaneur, but I?m also a digital flaneur.

Just decanted a 2000 Chateau La Commanderie to enjoy with homemade venis @ Rosslyn, Essex on Lake Champlain http://t.co/rkkVKYrU

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Now the map used in redlining is not a geographic map, but the map of your travels across the Web. The term Weblining describes the practice of denying people opportunities based on their digital selves. You might be refused health insurance based on a Google search you did about a medical condition.

Despite it?s ?duh? headline ? Facebook Is Using You ? Lori Andrews? op-ed brings a new chill to that ?frictionless sharing? the ZuckerBorg wants you to embrace and the deepening morass of data aggregation into which some say Facebook, Google, and other operations are luring us.

Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelg?nger ? and you may never know why you?ve been turned down? We need a do-not-track law, similar to the do-not-call one.

Out of coffee. So, scotch.

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If you?re looking to self-publish, the path I took is still clear and safe today but it takes time. Before turning to social media to further sales, you need to think twice. Don?t bother unless you?re serious and willing to put in the time. The overarching reason my efforts have proven successful is because I am personally engaged and dedicated to the process. I put in a lot of time and effort testing, re-testing, taking risks, and engaging with my audience.

In Relationship Guru Charles Orlando Helps E-Book Self-Publishers Help Themselves , author Charles Orlando (The Problem with Women?is Men) tells Adam Penenberg at Fast Company , ?My agent was successful in garnering interest from a division of one of the major publishers. As negotiations started, however, it became clear that my revenue percentage was going to be very low with nearly zero marketing/PR support from the publisher. Moreover, I would be lucky if my book would be released within 18 months, as it needed to be put into the queue.?

He goes on to offer a detailed (including prices) account of his self-publication experience with CreateSpace (which then was BookSurge, as he points out).? And here?s a wonderfully wise cautionary note at the end of the piece from Orlando for other writers:

Be wary of social media gurus who want to ?help you? build your brand. Research shows that if the number of self-proclaimed social media experts keeps growing at its current rate, the number of experts will outnumber the number of actual social media users in very short order. Remember that it?s a marathon, not a sprint, and social media will give you a platform, but it?s up to you to find your voice. Don?t sell using social media. Engage. Sales will come later.

So in this strand I have to remember whether Frankenstein is a whiny li'l bitch or a callous schemer or just an innocent dupe. #gamebook

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Just as a matter of fact, I?ll point out that there is a typo on the first page of the Kindle edition of Charles Orlando?s book, at the end of what is one long paragraph in that version.

Is it a major gaffe? Of course not. Is it Orlando?s fault? I doubt it. Is it the kind of thing that readers notice? It is. Is it the sort of thing we need to discuss openly and address aggressively because it?s affecting how the market thinks of electronic reading? It is.

It?s simply a closing parenthetical mark dropped. Can happen to anyone. I?ve checked it against? the print version via Amazon?s ?Look Inside? feature and can show you the difference here. The first grab is from the print version (my circles are in yellow), the second is from the Kindle version (my circles are in red).

I mean really. A first-page typo, how unfortunate. But no author is immune to these problems in e-editions, and at a time when ebooks are moving so much material into readers? hands, this trend becomes more concerning daily That?s why I bring these moments to the Ether from time to time. Not to slap wrists, not to condemn anyone, but to explain this problem of quality is serious. That?s why it?s now being discussed by responsible self-publishers and ebook conversion folks.

We can go on and on about our technological advances and capabilities. But at Tools for Change, will we see the software that prevents this sort of editorial gaffe when going from paper to electronic versions, or the other direction? Hard to do. You?ll read our colleague Guy Gonzalez later in this column, in fact, discussing the bridging that many publishing people need to do, getting editorial expertise nearer to technical operation.

That?s the startup I want to see in the showcase at ToC eventually. Quality control. The Etherverse is calling out you good tech folks. Show us what you?ve got.

via @ 1/3 RT @ According to my 1099s, nearly 40% of the money I made in royalties came from Barnes & Noble. RT @ It's important to remember that Amazon may be big but it's not the only the book seller in town. via @ 1/3 RT @ According to my 1099s, nearly 40% of the money I made in royalties came from Barnes & Noble.

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The package I purchased from CreateSpace cost about $750, which included cover/interior design and layout, Kindle conversion, and 20 free paperback copies. I filled out a detailed questionnaire about the book?s genre, tone, plot, themes and characters as well as my own design ideas? I laid out the front section of the book and included an illustration of my favorite cafe in Florence?where I had spent many hours journaling.

Rebecca Bricker, my colleague from our work with Dan Blank on author platforming at We Grow Media, has a guest post about Being a Part of the ?Self-Publishing Revolution? at the blog site of Kathy Pooler (another ?Dan clan? member), on her own experience with CreateSpace.The Kindle edition of Bricker?s Tales from Tavanti is coming soon, and she is ?generously answering writer?s questions about her very fresh experience with the program in the comments section of the post, if you?d like to run something past her.

I marvel at the revolution that?s taking place in an industry that hasn?t changed much in the past 500 years. One day, at noon, I placed an order on Amazon for three copies of my book. At midnight, Amazon sent an e-mail saying my books had shipped. In 12 hours, they had been printed, bound, packaged and shipped.

If you want to sell milk to a mass audience, you need to ask people if they?re thirsty, not ask what kind of fridge they have. #DRM #ebooks

The list (of highly successful self-publishing authors) represents a growing worry for traditional publishers, but it is also one often overstated. According to an analysis by Publishers Marketplace of the NYT bestseller lists last year, just 11 self-published authors made the charts, and since they were selling at a fraction of the price of other books they were earning a fraction of the income. However, as Joe Konrath points out, or Lexi Revellion, they do not need to earn grand sums of cash in order to maintain a living at this (and damage the reputation of those publishers who should be publishing them).

Philip Jones at TheFutureBook in The book was great and the typos weren?t very bad ?describes this as a time when ?Amazon has created a huge freemarket for ?published? content where there is little or no differentiator based on quality, or other suitable algorithm.?? Having heard from Molly Barton of Penguin at the IfBookThen conference about the Book Country program, Jones sees a potential model there ? ?building author communities around your publishing business ? as promising.

Of course talent will still slip through the net and some self-published writers will never be wooed back into the fold, but at least by opening the gates a little publishers will come across as a more welcoming option for all writers in search of readers? The clear and present danger with the Kindle?s penny-dreadfuls is that over time they put off readers, not because the books are ?downmarket?, but because they are badly edited and poorly presented.

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• Talk to your dog or cat.
• Take a nap.
• Work up a sweat.
• Write in the bathroom.
• Visit a body of water.
• Bitch loudly.
• Imagine humility of quitting.

Jane Friedman, intrepid host of the Ether, and Matthew Turner decided to crowdsource 100 Tips to Alleviate Self-Doubt from writers. And the first 70 or more answers ? not yet 100 ? run quite a spectrum, from suggestions of reading helpful books on creativity to watching birds, snacking (chocolate is mentioned specifically, of course), and sleeping on it.

What strikes me is that so far no one has suggested:

• Learn to spell better.
• Learn to punctuate better.
• Learn to structure stories better.

In other words, turning to activities that might actually create a cause for more self-confidence seems not to be of interest to the crowdly sorcerers at work on this so far. What does that mean? Hey, what do I know? I?m just looking at such suggested alternatives as:

• Make fun of your inner critic.
• Jump around.
• Sit among trees.
• Play an instrument.
• Use the Force.
• Sing the song you?re given.

Of course you are. You go do that.

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Leaders overseeing innovation efforts inside their companies need to be careful of mistaking passion for competence. The philosopher George Santayana defined a fanatic as someone redoubles their effort when they have forgotten their aim.

Scott Anthony?s Don?t Confuse Passion with Competence takes to the corporate setting the same message that Jane Friedman laid out for writers in her recent piece, Placing Too Much Emphasis on Passion. Friedman wrote:

Passion plus commitment is not too common in my experience. More often you find:

• a person with a passion for something but lacking talent (sometimes due to lack of ability to practice for the time required, lack of a mentor, etc.)
• a person with a talent for something without a passion for pursuing it
• a person with either talent or passion but no ability to commit (whether through life circumstance or otherwise)

Not unlike writers who try to alleviate the symptomatic effects of self-doubt ? but not the causes (such as too little expertise in what they?re trying to accomplish) ? the passion-mongers of the world can tire you out with their insistence on sharing their zeal.Which runs counter to fashionable ideas today about the supposed supremacy of passion. As Anthony puts it:

Entrepreneurs should be able to argue passionately that their idea will change the world, and then, without skipping a beat, honestly assess the risks standing in the way of its success and describe what they are doing to mitigate them.

Reading another ms that should be entitled "Twitter" - seems to have 140 characters & repeats itself endlessly

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How would you like it if someone casually dished your book as a piece of trash not worth the pixels it was printed on and it should be burned in a fiery pit of suck?

Nathan Bransford, recently back to blogging after a break for some book work, picks up from Hannah Moskowitz?s concerns about writers who tear into each other in comments on book reviews. Expanding that to reviews, themselves, Bransford takes the high road and states firmly that peer-to-peer snark really isn?t appropriate. It?s yet another area in which, all too frequently, you can find publishing people behaving badly. Writes Bransford:

?I do believe writers give up the right to write casually bitchy reviews.

You have delighted us long enough. (Best sentence in "Pride and Prejudice"?)

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With each passing year the turning radius to make the shift to digital-first becomes tighter and tighter, and even more so for staff. There?s no value in being the last man standing at a publisher unable (or worse, unwilling)?to make the shift, and there are few job opportunities for those ?good soliders? who can?t clearly demonstrate that they have at least tried to stay ahead of the curve.

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez has 5 Career Tips to Survive Publishing?s Digital Shift ? perfect for the working stiff who needs to be a more flexible stiff. It?s good stuff at a time when, as Gonzalez says, ?impatience is a virtue.?

Stop being a passive consumer and jump in the deep end of the pool. Try everything until you?re savvy and connected enough to figure out what to ignore at a quick glance. Even if a particular medium or platform doesn?t appeal to you personally, try to understand where it fits in the big picture and who the primary and secondary audiences are.

I'm feeling overexposed. That little book of magazine clippings generated a whole raft of interviews. Which I have now stopped doing, whew. Sometimes, the listserv that I'm on reminds me of the discussion forums in @'s PATTERN RECOGNITION. I bet I'm not the only one.

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Never has a price increase been such good news for libraries. At a meeting with ALA leaders this week in New York, Random House officials said the ?terms of sale? for Random House e-books to libraries will change, with a price increase coming. But the publisher reiterated its commitment to library e-book lending, saying they would continue to enable e-book lending of their entire list for both adult and children?s titles, backlist and frontlist, without restriction.

Andrew Albanese at Publishers Weekly writes in Fair Trade: Random House Will Raise Library E-book Prices, But Commits to E-Book Lending ?the end of at least one nerve-wracking bout for libraries with Big-Six-y squirmings-around on the topic of supplying books for loans. As Albanese notes, the really heartening part of this news is that it proves ?there is a path forward.?

Currently, of the ?big six? publishers, only Random House allows for unrestricted lending of library e-books. Even though the net effect of Random House?s announcement is that the price of library e-books will rise?never a good thing in a time of budget stress?the news is nevertheless positive.

Conference note: The Library Alternative is a strong panel in the ToC lineup, moderated by the Internet Archives? Peter Brantley, a key national advocate for libraries.? It?s scheduled for Tuesday at 1:40pET.

WOZERS >> HC: digital 'at 20%' of UK revenues | The Bookseller http://t.co/N4kYKOXD That puts it almost on par with the US a rapid catch up Also kind of wowzers >> A quarter of Hive sales digital, says Gardners | The Bookseller http://t.co/AyEPsUlq

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?If Barnes & Noble?s future is tied to that of the print book publishing houses, then Barnes & Noble is as doomed as Borders, Crown Books and the other brick-and-mortar booksellers that have preceded it into oblivion. The Nook alone will not save Barnes & Noble?s business because the change that is roiling the publishing business today? is not simply a transition from printed media to digital. It?s a transition from a marketplace where information was controlled by a few gatekeepers to one where anyone may offer their content to a mass audience.

Robert Nyles at the Knight Media Center?s Online Journalism Review writes in It?s not the medium ? it?s the market that ?it appears that the book industry?s going to make the same costly mistakes as the newspaper industry did.?:

The book publishers could have a future. Beyond controlling access to the marketplace, book publishers provided one other, very valuable service to authors ? book editing. And the demand for editing, guidance and advice for authors is growing as the number of authors grows. Book publishers could find ways to transition their business models to serve the growing number of eBook publishers, instead of hoping that Barnes & Noble shuts them out. But it?s becoming clear that they won?t?you shouldn?t waste a moment of time rooting for a business that?s not rooting for you.

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We?re actually publishing, on average, roughly one-third fewer posts on Salon than we were a year ago (from 848 to 572 in December; 943 to 602 in January). So: 33 percent fewer posts; 40 percent greater traffic.

Salon editor in chief Kerry Lauerman writes in Hit Record, about the remarkable turnaround in numbers and quality his online magazine has come up with, in bucking the trend.

We?ve ? completely against the trend ? slowed down our process. We?ve tried to work longer on stories for greater impact, and publish fewer quick-takes that we know you can consume elsewhere?It sounds? simple, maybe obvious, but: We?ve gone back to our primary mission and have been focusing on originality. And it?s working.

Dear Sky News: Please don't shackle @ on Twitter. He's one of the best assets you've got. Trust his judgment. Love, Twitter.

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Under the handle @fieldproducer he has become one of the most effective ? and followed ? distributors of breaking news on Twitter. And while much of his tweeting involves promoting Sky News journalists, he will push information out from all kinds of sources, from news agencies, to bloggers, to rival news organisations. He prides himself on beating other news tweeters to the punch on every new line in a developing story.

BBC News? Rory Cellan-Jones is taking about Neal Mann, whom many of us follow for his hustle in hard news. #savefieldproducer became the rallying tweet around Mann, as SkyNews issued what many see as crippling staff regulations against retweeting non-Sky reports. Clearly dismayed at the chilling effect of Sky?s stance on journos working the news, Cellan-Jones goes on to refer to the Beeb?s struggle with social-media policy and concludes:

We are all feeling our way forward through the fog of this new media landscape. The social media revolution is changing power structures in newsrooms, allowing young journalists who understand this new world ? and a few older ones ? to build reputations independent of their own organisations.

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Writer, filmmaker and journalist Michael Bronner co-founded Warscapes in New York last November with Bhakti Shringarpure, a writer and academic who focuses on literature emerging from civil wars following European colonialism.

I can tease about the technologists? cavalry coming over the hill all I like, but Paris-based Olivia Snaije at Ed Nawotka?s Publishing Perspectives? writes up Warscapes: in New International Literary Magazine Covers the Intimate Side of War.

She goes on to quote co-founder Michael Bronner:

The magazine is??specifically dedicated to providing a lens into current conflicts, especially those that are underrepresented (or not represented at all) in mainstream publishing and media. We search for voices that convey the realities of life amid conflict ? perspectives of intimacy and integrity. We hope to enhance understanding of specific conflicts and, less directly, of conflict itself.?

Conference note: Publishing Perspectives? Ed Nawotka is scheduled to moderate two panels at the coming O?Reilly Tools of Change (ToC) Conference in New York City. Can We Have a Rational Discussion About Copyright? is set for 2:30pET / 11:30aPT / 1930 GMT on Tuesday (14 February). And Opening Up the Playing Field: New Content Tools and Platforms for a Growing Global Content Marketplace is at 8:30aET / 5:30aPT / 1330 GMT on Wednesday (15 February).

Wave when you see me at ToC. I?m the one by the power outlet.

"The powerful potentials of ?social? media lie (not lay, damn it) in..." via the ever readable @ http://t.co/uFE6FLwB @ You think @ is readable? Link you posted boring as hell. Sounds like he's in love w/ his own voice. #uncute

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Porter Anderson is a Fellow with the National Critics Institute, and a producer and consultant formerly with the United Nations World Food Programme in Rome and INDEX: Design to Improve Life?in Copenhagen. As a journalist, he has worked with media including three networks of CNN, The Village Voice, and D Magazine. He reviews literary fiction, is a regular contributor to Writer Unboxed, and is based in Tampa.?

Main image: iStockphoto / hairballusa

Source: http://janefriedman.com/2012/02/09/writing-on-the-ether-24/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=writing-on-the-ether-24

obama speech solar storm terrell owens terrell owens aapl mitt romney tax return elizabeth smart

The governance of synthetic biology

Public release date: 8-Feb-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Aaron Lovell
aaron.lovell@wilsoncenter.org
202-691-4320
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars/Science and Technology Innovation Program

Are we making progress?

WASHINGTON The Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center is launching a new web-based Synthetic Biology Scorecard, designed to track federal and non-federal efforts to improve the governance of synthetic biology research and development so risks are minimized and broad social and economic benefits can be realized.

The Scorecard, unveiled today, monitors the progress made toward implementing the recommendations in New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies, a December 2010 report from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The report contains 18 recommendations covering a range of topics from risk assessment to ethics education and public engagement.

More than a year has passed since the release of the Commission's report. What progress has been made? The Scorecard seeks to answer that question: In addition to tracking the progress of various federal and non-federal initiatives, the website encourages broad participation in achieving the goals set forth by the Commission and invites public comment on the recommendations and implementation efforts.

"The Commission's report was a landmark document and lays out a framework with broad applicability to many emerging technologies, but, like many reports of this type, no mechanisms were put in place to track progress," David Rejeski, director of the Synthetic Biology Project, said. "Our goal is ensure that this report -- and others like it can drive change."

Valerie Bonham, executive director of the Commission, said, "Throughout the Commission's deliberations and in the report, the members emphasized the need for transparency, dialogue, and accountability around synthetic biology."

President Obama requested the Commission's report almost two years ago in response to important advancements in the field of synthetic biology. On May 20, 2010, scientists at the J.C. Venter Institute unveiled a bacterial cell controlled by a synthetic genome. That same day, the president asked the Commission to undertake "a study of the implications of this scientific milestone . . . [and] consider the potential medical, environmental, security, and other benefits of this field of research, as well as any potential health, security, or other risks."

Following the launch of the Scorecard, the Synthetic Biology Project will update the website to reflect new initiatives and publish a bi-annual summary of federal and non-federal activities that fulfill the recommendations. Additions to the Scorecard are welcome and encouraged.

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The Synthetic Biology Scorecard can be found here: http://www.synbioproject.org/scorecard/

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the national, living memorial honoring President Woodrow Wilson. The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact. By conducting relevant and timely research and promoting dialogue from all perspectives, it works to address the critical current and emerging challenges confronting the United States and the world. Created by an Act of Congress in 1968, The Wilson Center is a non-partisan institution headquartered in Washington, D.C. and supported by both public and private funds.

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Public release date: 8-Feb-2012
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Contact: Aaron Lovell
aaron.lovell@wilsoncenter.org
202-691-4320
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars/Science and Technology Innovation Program

Are we making progress?

WASHINGTON The Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center is launching a new web-based Synthetic Biology Scorecard, designed to track federal and non-federal efforts to improve the governance of synthetic biology research and development so risks are minimized and broad social and economic benefits can be realized.

The Scorecard, unveiled today, monitors the progress made toward implementing the recommendations in New Directions: The Ethics of Synthetic Biology and Emerging Technologies, a December 2010 report from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The report contains 18 recommendations covering a range of topics from risk assessment to ethics education and public engagement.

More than a year has passed since the release of the Commission's report. What progress has been made? The Scorecard seeks to answer that question: In addition to tracking the progress of various federal and non-federal initiatives, the website encourages broad participation in achieving the goals set forth by the Commission and invites public comment on the recommendations and implementation efforts.

"The Commission's report was a landmark document and lays out a framework with broad applicability to many emerging technologies, but, like many reports of this type, no mechanisms were put in place to track progress," David Rejeski, director of the Synthetic Biology Project, said. "Our goal is ensure that this report -- and others like it can drive change."

Valerie Bonham, executive director of the Commission, said, "Throughout the Commission's deliberations and in the report, the members emphasized the need for transparency, dialogue, and accountability around synthetic biology."

President Obama requested the Commission's report almost two years ago in response to important advancements in the field of synthetic biology. On May 20, 2010, scientists at the J.C. Venter Institute unveiled a bacterial cell controlled by a synthetic genome. That same day, the president asked the Commission to undertake "a study of the implications of this scientific milestone . . . [and] consider the potential medical, environmental, security, and other benefits of this field of research, as well as any potential health, security, or other risks."

Following the launch of the Scorecard, the Synthetic Biology Project will update the website to reflect new initiatives and publish a bi-annual summary of federal and non-federal activities that fulfill the recommendations. Additions to the Scorecard are welcome and encouraged.

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The Synthetic Biology Scorecard can be found here: http://www.synbioproject.org/scorecard/

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the national, living memorial honoring President Woodrow Wilson. The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact. By conducting relevant and timely research and promoting dialogue from all perspectives, it works to address the critical current and emerging challenges confronting the United States and the world. Created by an Act of Congress in 1968, The Wilson Center is a non-partisan institution headquartered in Washington, D.C. and supported by both public and private funds.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/wwic-tgo020712.php

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Redefining Health Part 1: Measuring the Obesity Crisis | BEAUTY ...

Georgia's "Strong4Life" Fat-Shaming Ad. "It's hard to be a little girl when you're not." Note: This young girl does not have any of the health problems the campaign is working to fight.

From unfortunate fat-shaming in Georgia?s ?Strong4Life? campaign put on by Children?s Healthcare of Atlanta to kids being graded on their weight in public schools across the country via their BMI score on their report cards, we see well-meaning people using harmful and ineffective strategies like crazy to try and counteract this country?s weight problem. This overwhelming focus on body size has stolen the spotlight in mass media and scholarly research since the mid-?90s, all citing an imperative to end an obesity crisis that has been championed by the federal health agencies.

Underlying all of these campaigns is this often-unquestioned idea that overweightness and obesity pose drastic threats to public health, including being a direct cause of disease and a major contributor to mortality, which makes preventing and reversing these conditions the country?s No. 1 health concern. But countless critics from both inside and outside academia are questioning the legitimacy of the obesity crisis, citing limited scientific evidence for claims that obesity is a contributor to mortality and that high body fat is a direct cause of disease

With the health and fitness of the nation as the key justification for calling high levels of obesity a ?crisis,? it is important to understand how bodily health is defined in research. How is health measured? What defines a healthy or physically fit body? In a country where both obesity and eating disorders have skyrocketed simultaneously, it is crucial to understand how physical health has been and is being understood, tested and promoted.

Scholars are concerned that very little evidence has been produced regarding the question of exactly how body fat is supposed to cause disease (1). With the exception of osteoarthritis, where increased body mass contributes to wear on joints, and a few cancers where estrogen originating in adipose tissue may contribute, causal links between body fat and disease remain hypothetical. Researchers are asking health professionals and policy makers to consider whether it makes sense to treat body weight as a barometer of public health. Despite this shaky foundation for defining physical health in terms of body fatness, most current health and communication research measures health through simple measures of a person?s body fat, and that may be doing more harm than good for the health status of this country.

Defining Health: Body Fat = Body Health?

Researchers measuring health in terms of body fat generally rely on the American Council on Exercise?s guidelines to determine which percentages are healthy, with anything below 10% and above 31% in women (or below 2% and above 24% in men) considered a health risk. Direct measures of body composition estimate a person?s total body fat mass and fat-free or lean mass through MRI, underwater weighing, CAT scan, and other methods. Power, Lake & Cole (1997)?said, ?an ideal measure of body fat should be accurate in its estimation of body fat; precise, with small measurement error; accessible, in terms of simplicity, cost and ease of use; acceptable to the subject; and well-documented, with published reference values.? They go on to state that ?no existing measure satisfies all these criteria.??Since these methods are expensive and invasive, they are rarely used in research. Because of this, scholars are much more likely to rely on indirect measures of body composition, including the most popular of them all: Body Mass Index (BMI).

Indirect techniques for measuring?fat include all the most common ones: waist and hip measurements, skinfold thickness, and indexes of measured height and weight such as BMI. These measurements are only a surrogate measure of body fatness, yet they are commonly used to represent not only adiposity but also health and fitness in research and media discussion about healthy bodies. The life and health insurance industry, medical practitioners, researchers, health specialists and seemingly everyone else on the planet uses the BMI to measure people?s health. That?s because it is the international standard for judging healthy weight, as upheld and promoted by the CDC, NIH and WHO. This is bad.

Here are 10 quick reasons why the BMI is a shockingly terrible measure of health:

The equation used to calculate BMI (the ratio of an individual?s weight to height squared) was developed in the 19th century by Quetelet, a French scientist who warned the calculation was only meant to be used for large diagnostic studies on general populations and was not accurate for individuals.

The BMI?s height and weight tables used to tell you what your score means came from the life insurance industry. Yep. A standardized table of average weights and heights was developed first in 1908, when life insurance companies began looking for ways to charge higher premiums to applicants based on screening by their own medical examiners. By setting the thresholds for ?ideal weight? and ?overweight? lower than what mortality data showed as the actual healthy weight ranges, they were able to collect more money for those they deemed ?overweight.? In 1985, the NIH began defining obesity according to BMI, which defined the 85th percentile for each sex as the official cutoff for what constitutes ?obese,? based on the standards for underweight, average, overweight and obese that were set by the 1983 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company mortality tables (Williamson, 1993).

The NIH implemented the BMI standard under the theory that it would simply be used by doctors to warn patients who were at especially high risk for obesity-related problems (2). It was never meant for individuals to calculate their BMI and accept it as a diagnosis of whether or not their weight is healthy, yet that is EXACTLY how it is used today. Individuals are encouraged to easily diagnose their own BMI status through the NIH website-hosted BMI calculator.

Those weight tables are based on the unfounded idea that any weight gain after age 25 is unhealthy. Though weight tables before the mid-1900s allowed for increasing weight with age (which naturally occurs), the Metropolitan Life insurance Company became the first to deem an increase in weight after age 25 as undesirable and unhealthy ? again, to collect higher premiums. Also, the BMI is advised to be used only for people older than 20, due to the changes young bodies undergo before that age, yet it is very often used to diagnose adolescents and teens. Researchers admit that it is unclear at what level of body fat health risks begin to rise for children (Denney-Wilson et al., 2003), so trying to define a standard of what constitutes overweight and obese for children is incredibly difficult.

Those weight tables also did not take into account body frame or build, unlike previous tables, which included ?small,? ?medium? or ?large frame? due to demands from physicians who rightfully wanted to avoid serious miscalculations of body fat (Cziernawski, 2007).

Those same 1983 tables (and now our BMI) also failed to take gender into account, despite healthy levels of fat and weight distribution differing greatly between males and females (3).

BMI is based on a Caucasian standard. It is proven to be highly inaccurate for other races and ethnicities. In particular, in some Asian populations, a specific BMI reflects a higher percentage of body fat than in white or European Populations (James, 2002). Some Pacific populations and African Americans in general also have a lower percentage of body fat at a given BMI than do white or European populations (Stevens, 2002). Even the WHO has acknowledged the extensive evidence that ?the associations between BMI, percentage of body fat, and body fat distribution differ across populations? (WHO, 2004).

In 1998, millions of people considered of ?normal? weight were suddenly re-classified as ?overweight? the next day when the NIH lowered the threshold for ?overweight? and ?obese? by 10 lbs. They based this change on the vague claim that studies linking extra weight to health problems warranted the changes (Cohen & McDermott, 1998). On June 16, 1998, the ?average? woman was 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighed 155 pounds. On June 17, a woman of that same height and weight became ?overweight.? The requirement for ?average? dropped 10 pounds to 145, and a person of the same height who weighed 175 pounds was considered ?obese.?

Experts say it?s ?useless.? Dr. David Haslam, the clinical director of Britain?s National Obesity Forum, said, ?It is now widely accepted that the BMI is useless for assessing the healthy weight of individuals? (). Despite extensive evidence proving the BMI lacks accuracy for calculating an individual?s body fat (4), A growing pool of evidence suggests that BMI is a ?crude tool? for judging individual health that ?fans fears of an obesity epidemic even as it fails as a reliable measure of an individual?s health? (Heimpel, 2009). Even the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded there is insufficient evidence to suggest BMI screening can be used to prevent adverse health outcomes (4). Prentice & Jebb (2001) illustrated a wide range of conditions in which ?surrogate anthropometric measures, especially BMI, provide misleading information about body fat content, including infancy and childhood, aging, racial differences, athletes, military and civil forces personnel, weight loss with and without exercise, physical training and special clinical circumstances.?

Despite all the evidence against it, government health agencies defend the BMI as the national standard for judging healthy weight due to the fact that it is ?inexpensive and easy for clinicians and for the general public? (CDC, 2010). That?s exactly why researchers use it so consistently as a stand-in for ?health.?

It is imperative to keep in mind that the much-publicized U.S. obesity crisis has risen to the forefront of national attention only since the late ?90s, after the NIH changed the standard for what constitutes overweight and obesity. Using data gathered from 1976-1980 and comparing it to data from 1999-2002, the CDC reported that obesity doubled from 15 to 31 percent between 1980 and 2002 (CDC, 2007). It is unclear whether the data was compared using the same standard for determining ?obesity,? since the criteria for fitting into this category changed in 1998 to include many more people that were previously considered merely ?overweight.? Though obesity remains at the forefront of national health concerns and media discourse of Americans? health, the rate of obesity hasn?t changed in a decade. It plateaued since the most recent CDC report, with no change between 2003 and 2006, when the most recent national data was gathered (Heimpel, 2009; CDC, 2007).

Unfortunately, heart disease, cancers and diabetes remain serious threats to public health, and obesity is considered a risk factor for these chronic illnesses. So if the BMI is worthless, then what do we use to measure or determine bodily health? One step in the right direction is just as easy to calculate and much more accurate than BMI: waist circumference (WC). It is a more specific marker of upper body fat accumulation than BMI and is correlated with lipid abnormalities (O?Connor et al., 2008). When the researchers were evaluating a weight management program for overweight and obese adolescents, O?Connor et al. (2008) found a significant decrease in waist circumference, but not BMI, in participants. Janssen et al. (2004) evaluated WC in assessing obesity-related health problems and found that waist circumference is more effective than BMI at explaining obesity-related health risk. They found that people who are overweight or obese according to the BMI often have the same level of health risk as normal weight people with the same WC value.

Though WC is a step in the right direction and closer to measuring health, it still isn?t quite there. The next step is to redefine what this crisis is really about. During the time the obesity crisis has been in the forefront of media and federal health agency initiatives, the diet and weight loss industries have thrived unlike ever before. Simultaneously, fat-shaming/thin-ideal-promoting media have also flourished, with female body image hitting an all-time low. With lost self-esteem, lost money and time spent fixing ?flaws? and a well-documented preoccupation with thinness among females of all ages, the effects of profit-driven health information involve serious loss for women, while too many industries see huge economic gains. From the life insurance industry collecting higher premiums from those they deem ?overweight? based on a standard they set themselves, to major financial savings for medical experts and the government using the profit-driven BMI, to the diet and weight loss industry raking in more than $61 billion on Americans? quest for thinness in 2011, those who make money off the discourse surrounding women?s health are thriving unlike ever before.

With so much evidence showing that our obsession with body fat is missing the mark for health and well-being of all sorts, I argue that we need to do away with the title??obesity crisis? all together. This crisis isn?t about too many people meeting an arbitrary standard of body fat, this crisis is about poor health due to unhealthy choices defined most prominently by inactivity. Measuring health according to activity level is the most promising step for getting an accurate gauge of true wellness, and getting rid of barriers like ?feeling too fat to exercise? and not knowing if you can be successful are?real strategies for success! Next Up ??Redefining Health Part 2: Fighting the Inactivity Crisis

Kite, Lindsay. (2011). Redefining Health Part 1: Measuring the Obesity Crisis. Beauty Redefined: www.beautyredefined.net/redefining-health-part-1

References 1) Campos et al., 2006; Rothblum et al., 1999; Saguy & Riley, 2005; Shugart, 2010 2) Devlin, 2009; Singer-Vine, 2009 3) Prentice & Jebb, 2001; Czerniawski, 2007 4) Devlin, 2009; Bailey et al., 2008; Czerniawski, 2007; Gerbensky-Kerber, 2011; Nihiser et al., 2007

Source: http://www.beautyredefined.net/redefining-health-part-1-measuring-the-obesity-crisis/

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