07 August 2002

I am totally knocked-out by Janis Ian's two articles on the recording industry and their attitude to downloading music (second article here, contains a link to the first).  What a finely argued case.  What lucid writing!  What unimpeachable logic!  Clearly a woman of substance.   I know her only through hearing her distant hit records on the radio (the only ones I remember are "At Seventeen", "Caravan", and "Fly Too High", and every time they get played, they give me pleasure), and I've never had her in my record or CD collection.  Obviously she never toured South Africa in the Bad Old Days, and probably not since, which is our loss. So, I'm inspired to spend a lot of time on her web site (I've had a quick look, and it seems she has done a lot of writing), download her free MP3's, very likely order any available CD's from Amazon, and catch up on what I've been missing.  She notes that, apart from all the other support, she has had one marriage proposal as a result of the first article.  I would probably join in, but I'm married already, and she'd probably turn me down anyway, I have a feeling that Ms Ian's intervention is going to be very influential and persuasive, and could get quite a groundswell going.  The recording industry does need a wake-up call. 8:23:09 PM    comment []

Humiliation as global strategy There's an interesting debate going on among Glenn Reynolds, Nick Denton and Dave Winer about the following proposition: "the US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime mainly because the West needs to humiliate the Arab world, and dispel the Islamic millenial fantasy." Doc Searls has the full recap, and a perspective that I find persuasive. ...And as Farhad points out in the comments, taking Saddam out doesn't achieve the goal of humiliating Islamism because Saddam isn't an Islamist: "If we wanted to crush Islamism, we'd crush Saudi Arabia, not Iraq." [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment] Further on the topic I pointed to yesterday.  And yes, Doc Searls does a great summary, and adds to the debate very authoritatively. And isn't Scott Rosenberg a huge new force in blogging? I enjoy his very well thought and complete posts.  As a Salon Premium subscriber, I have always appreciated his writing, and was delighted to see Salon come to the blogging party as it has done.  If I hadn't already started with Radio some weeks earlier, I am sure that Salon's entry would have tipped me into joining up.  If I had done, I would likely have more readers than I do now.  (None, as best as I can see) (Inset wry smile here). 2:41:29 PM    comment []