Crisis... always a crisis...

Well, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets opened this past weekend and took in $87.7 million at the box office.

Not shabby? The media don't think so.

The WSJ notes that this sequel is "a bit less magical" and some boob (or boobette, I forget) on the lobotomy box tried to make this sound as if this first weekend's results somehow spelled doom for the franchise. Ye gods.

(For the terminally bored, the flick took in 3% less during its first weekend than the first installment.)

Cheers...

An interesting take on "poverty" and "prosperity"...

Excerpt from the Q&A session following remarks by SecDef Rumsfeld, on November 11, 2002, at the Fortune Global Forum in Washington, DC:

Q: My name is Vendi Bangor and my question is: In order to defend prosperity in some parts of the world is there not a need to attack poverty in addition to all the other steps that you've taken?

Rumsfeld: Certainly there's a need to do that and I guess the question is how does one do that?

I was involved in the so-called war on poverty here in the United States and I've traveled the globe and seen just terrible poverty. I had a friend once and he was asked to chair a commission, an international committee, and the title of it was What Causes Poverty. He declined. He said I will do it but on one condition. The condition is that we change the title and I'll chair a committee on What Causes Prosperity. The reason he said that was, the title What Causes Poverty leaves the impression that the natural state of the world is for people to be prosperous and that for whatever reason there are prosperous people running around making people poor when you say what causes poverty. He looked at the world the other way. He said the natural state of people is to be relatively poor and that there are certain ways and things that can be done that can cause prosperity. They can create an environment that's hospitable to people gaining education and people gaining investments and people finding ways to contribute in a constructive way.

There are big portions of our globe that are so far behind the rest of the world that it is a dangerous thing. It is an unfortunate thing for those people. It's a heartbreaking thing.

The task for the developed world is to see that we do not just salve our consciences by finding ways like Lady Bountiful, we can give some country this or some country that which then is gone and disappears. But to the contrary, that we find ways to encourage countries to take the kinds of steps that create an environment that's hospitable to enterprise and to education so that the nation itself can do those things that will begin to ameliorate the kinds of terrible poverty that we see around the globe.

Certainly the United States has a responsibility as do the people from every nation in this room have the responsibility to contribute to that.

Interesting take on the issue from someone in government. And it would be someone from DoD, too.

Cheers...

A wonderful discovery...

I'm probably ten thousand Internet years behind the times, but I stumbled across the live365.com Internet radio site recently, and am wallowing in some pretty neat tunes, of every possible variety. My DSL connection is getting a real workout.

My favorite so far is something called BaroquePlus (with a bunch of "baroque" characters before and after the name). It plays mostly music from the 17th and 18th centuries, and I like it! I've also added a number of other "stations" to my list of presets, ranging from the weird to the contemporary.

There also appears to be a capability offered to broadcast one's own material, which is something I may check out someday, if I can figure out how to take advantage of it. (Language lessons?)

The only down side to the site is that, in free mode, you're subjected to a series of short ads in the sound stream (bearable, and much less of an intrusion than, say, a real radio station), and miserable popup ads (yech! blyeh!). I can live with them for now, though.

Cheers...

Synchronize watches...

In about 7-1/2 hours, the Leonid meteor shower is scheduled to peak. If I read the techie sites correctly, the Earth will be passing through a distinguishable "second" debris field from the comet Tempel-Tuttle at that time.

The weatherwogs indicate there will be a band of thin clouds wandering through the Denver area at about that time. No word on whether the clouds will interfere with viewing down here in the Four Corners. I've got the wide-angle lens on the 35-mm camera, and there's two rolls of 1600 speed color film upstairs, waiting to be loaded. There's also a cable release somewhere (two, in fact), which I need to track down before hitting the hay.

The moon will, definitely, interfere, so I plan to be on the side of the house away from the nearly full moon (it will be completely full tomorrow... in fact, there will be a penumbral lunar eclipse, which is where the Moon slips into an area between Earth's full shadow and clear sunlight).

(If we consider the lunar cycle to be 28 days long, then it takes 14 days to go from new to full moon. Since tonight the moon is one day short of full, that means the moon will be about 93% full tonight.)

More paper chase today. No calls.

Cheers...

В полях Фландрии маки рдеют

I've written about John McCrae before. His poem In Flanders Fields is one of my favorites. Thanks to LJ friend svenska, I've an opportunity to enjoy a translation of it, too.

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
   --John McCrae (1872-1918)

В полях Фландрии маки рдеют
Там, где белых крестов аллеи
На могилах; летают поныне
Жаворонки в небесной сини,
Но стрельба заглушает их трели.

Мы мертвы. Но недавно мы жили,
Мы любили, любимыми были,
Мы встречали рассветы, смеялись,
А теперь навсегда остались
В полях Фландрии.

Бросьте вызов врагу смелее,
И примите из рук, что слабеют.
Факел ваш поднимите выше,
Если ж вы посрамите погибших,
Не уснем мы, где маки рдеют
В полях Фландрии.
  Пер. - У. Сапцина

Cheers...