Ted, Transfigured

He needs no colorization ... -- Picture courtesy of Grand Central Publishing

by blogSpotter
70 year-old Ted Turner is a well-known media entrepreneur -- actually something of a living media legend. In earlier, feisty career phases, he was called “Mouth of the South”. As you will see, he saw the light and started speaking words of wisdom on the road to World Media Domination. Mr. Turner had a vantage point that only a multibillionaire could have, and he used it to everyone’s advantage. His book “Call Me Ted” illuminates this amazing butterfly transformation.

Ted was born to a successful Georgia car salesman & billboard magnate -- he wasn’t entirely “self-made”. His father Ed probably had a net worth of @ 1 million at the time of his death. Ted’s mother Florence was a quiet matron and barely receives mention in his book. Reading between the lines, Ted’s family wasn’t close. His parents dispatched him to boarding schools (McCallie) and military academies throughout his childhood. His one younger sister died from complications of Lupus when she was only 17. Ted’s personal tragedies were compounded when his parents divorced and then his chronically depressed father killed himself with a shotgun, later in mid-life. 24 year-old Ted was left holding the reigns of Turner Billboards. Ted had just been expelled from Brown (for having a girl in his room) and never finished a college degree. Many associates thought that the young “punk” was too small for the task of running his Dad‘s company but the manic Ted proved them very, very wrong.

It would take 70 pages to enumerate all of Ted’s business and life successes so I’ll just touch on the highlights:

o He expanded Turner Billboards into Turner radio advertising and then into Turner broadcasting
o He decided to expand the reach of his Atlanta Turner station beyond the South (considered a technical impossibility at that time) -- he defied the naysayers and created a satellite uplink company for Atlanta and harnessed the power of then-new cable signaling.
o Moved mountains as necessary -- sued RCA when they wouldn’t offer alternative satellite coverage (after a new satellite designated for CNN crashed). Sued the U.S. government when CNN was barred from being part of the White House Press Corp (won both lawsuits).
o Turner’s new Super Station concept rewrote the industry rules and forced changes in national TV ad rates as well as cable fee structure
Turner innovated 24-Hour news, all-movie channels and a cartoon network along with other new concepts
o In addition to his many business successes Turner was an avid sailor and won the America’s Cup for sailboat racing in 1977.
o Turner purchased the Atlanta Braves in 1976, initially as a ploy to attract viewers to his channels. In the process he became involved in the coaching and helped them to become Series winners (albeit many years later)

Turner ran into rough waters in the early 90’s and what some might call his undoing was really his “doing”. He wanted to vertically integrate Turner Broadcasting, which possibly entailed acquisitions of a movie studio, a broadcast network and/or other big venues. Turner didn’t have the resources and allowed a merger with Time-Warner to provide the needed capital. Turner quickly lost influence in the merged company -- CEO Jerry Levine gradually moved Turner out of all network decisions and basically into a non-acting role “down the hall“. Turner feels that he was vilified for predicting a dot-com meltdown and for seeing problems in the merger with a hugely over-valued AOL. Turner was right, and Levine was eventually given the boot (in essence) but Ted, Time Warner’s largest share holder at the time, was tired of the whole affair and sold his shares soon after. It’s estimated that Turner lost 7 billion dollars in the entire sequence of events -- leaving him a relative pauper with only a billion or so left.

Unlike many other wealthy moguls, Turner’s success gave him pause -- how much megalomania do I really need to demonstrate? Can I make a qualitative as well as a quantitative difference? Starting in 1986, Ted embarked on a series of philanthropic actions that have truly transformed the world:

o CNN hosted the Good Will games of 1986 (and later years) so that athletes who were shut out because of the 1980/1984 Olympic boycotts could compete. These games are thought to have advanced détente with the USSR.
o In the early 1990’s, Turner donated $1 billion to the United Nations, founding the United Nations Foundation. In addition to fighting disease, hunger and overpopulation, Ted’s donation shamed other mega wealthy people into giving more money.
o Ted purchased over 2 million acres of ranch land with the express purpose of restoring habitat and endangered species.

Ted married the beautiful and oft-controversial Jane Fonda in 1991. She was his third wife. In his book, he makes little mention of his mother or first two wives. Again, reading between the lines I can tell that Fonda was the late-September love of his life. Though they divorced in 2000, he discusses her at length, and still professes his love for her. She still lives near him in Atlanta and serves on a couple of his non-profit boards. The divorce was probably more due to incompatible lifestyles than any disrespect -- they both appear to still enjoy quite a bit of each other’s company. Turner said that he was raised in a conservative Republican household and never questioned those ideals growing up. As he became ensnared in the hustle-bustle of business he started to realize that supposed "conservative values" did not really suit him. He states that Jane Fonda was both brave and right in her anti-war stance. He admired her fortitude then and admires it now.

Turner’s most recent enterprise has been a chain of Steak Restaurants (let’s ignore the fact that they serve bison). His other efforts are largely philanthropic -- fighting pollution, global warming, overpopulation and disease. Turner has become solid friends with the progressive community (Al Gore, Tom Hanks et al). In the near completion of his political/intellectual metamorphosis, he embraces Democratic politicians and their causes. Ted has been to the mountain and back -- it is good to know that with all his capacities and experience, he’s settled into a lifestyle of giving, caring and loving our troubled world back to health.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Linux and Other Strangers

Penguin still gives me the chills -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I’ve sacrificed about the last 3 weeks of evenings and weekends playing with the Linux operating system. I last tried Red Hat 7.0 in 2002, and thought it was kludgy and difficult. No less than 5 of my office coworkers swear by current versions of Linux and convinced me to try again in 2009 -- this time with Ubuntu or Fedora. Low-end netbooks are coming with Ubuntu preinstalled, so what the hey, it’s almost mainstream now.

I won’t bore you with my installation problems (See “The Geek Shall Inherit ..”). Suffice it to say that I had to become highly knowledgeable about disk sectors and boot managers to get the damn thing installed on my USB hard drive. I’m not really a computer genius and don’t undertake to do extreme things; here is what 99% of my computing experience is made of: blogging, emailing, budgeting, shopping, iTunes and simple Excel spreadsheets.

Here are some of my Linux frustrations so far …(and probably no further)…
1) Rhythm Box (poor Linux excuse for iTunes) cannot play mp3’s -- must get special decoder
2) Rhythm Box corrupted my iPod Nano and the Nano had to be restored on Windows
3) A couple of packages installed without needed dependencies or and/or they created selLinux (security) violations -- programs wouldn’t execute
4) Xfce interface was hell to get installed and displayed; Gnome interface slows down a low-end PC.
5) Linux software tends toward two extremes: (1) Cheesy low-budget imitations of mainstream Windows/Mac programs or (2) genius-level maestro programs with PHD-level jargon and confusing menus

No need to extend this list much further ... Linux appeals to the same people who in previous years would’ve enjoyed Heathkit TV sets and older model Jaguars -- people who like to tinker. I’m thinking of someone like a harried Mother who puts her key in the ignition of her Nissan Maxima. She doesn’t care if it’s a straight 6, a V6 or fuel-injected engine. She certainly doesn’t want to open the hood and jiggle any wires. She wants the damn thing to start and take her where she needs to go. Linux is a 1969 Jaguar with a Heathkit TV dangling off the side. Jiggling, lots of jiggling is required.

Bill Gates "Derangement Syndrome"

A lot of people hate Bill Gates and all that Microsoft represents. They see him as a machinating uber-capitalist who has sought to take over computing everywhere. What baffles me about this is that Bill Gates is absolutely no worse than Jack Welch, Ted Turner, Steve Jobs or any other entrepreneur. In our Wild West capitalist system, they all charge what the market will bear and do whatever they can to capture markets and make you come back to their products. Why don’t you also hate GM, GE or Kellogg’s with the same level of vitriol? You might as well move to Hanoi and join the Revolution if you can’t abide corporate Titans who manipulate their markets -- computers are the least of where it all happens.

I’m not in favor of anti-competitive practices either (where they occur, not conceding that MS has done anything terribly wrong), but why all the focus on one man?

CONCLUSION

When I install software, I want the computer to automagically unpack everything and put it in the right place. Don’t want to have to be overly concerned about packages, dependencies, tar files, permissions or any of (excuse my French) that crap. So will I be blogging on Linux anytime soon? I will not -- maybe I'll check back in another couple of years. I’m doing this on a new HP Mini, using Windows XP (for Ultra low-cost PC’s) but that’s another blog.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Violent Femmes and More

Hook-up gone wrong? -- Picture courtesy of Lion's Gate

by blogSpotter
Forward

On this historic eve, I feel like I should be blogging about the upcoming, historic inauguration of Barack Obama. The subject has been covered at some length, and by people who have it much closer to their hearts. One national magazine has depicted Obama as FDR; another has depicted him as Linclon. I also have great hopes for him, and maybe President Obama won't be so intimidated by all the hype; best wishes to the new President and may he help us out of the economic quagmire.

Hard Candy (2005)

I watched a movie today, 2005’s Hard Candy, which could only be described as a feminist revenge flick. Warning – spoilers follow. Patrick Wilson plays a pedophile photographer, Jeff, who arranges a hook-up with a precocious 14-year old, Haley, played by Ellen Page. It turns out that Haley is a psycho semi-genius girl who has deliberately entrapped Jeff – she wants to avenge the death of a girl friend. She has information that Jeff abetted the friend’s death.

What unfolds is a hideous torture scene in which Haley drugs Jeff, straps him to a table and threatens to castrate him. As the movie painfully inches along, Haley makes it clear that she’s “on” to Jeff and produces what she feels is conclusive evidence about his prior guilt. I guess the movie viewer is to assume that Haley has her ducks all in a row – she even convinces Jeff to hang himself at the movie’s end.

This movie implies that two wrongs make a right, and that every person wise to a crime is justified in committing acts of vigilantism and torture. Our popular culture has a misandrist streak, wide and deep. When Lorena Bobbit cut off her husband’s penis, she was lauded as a folk hero. When Andrea Yates drowned her seven children, she was simply a distraught housewife with post-partum depression.

I have news for “Violent Femmes” everywhere. You cannot avenge what was done to you by perpetrating similar acts of violence and even sadism. Shame on the producers of Hard Candy for (a) subjecting us to an uncomfortable torture scene (b) and daring to suggest that in any parallel universe Haley’s horrific behavior would be somehow justified.

The Wicker Man (1973)

This was my weekend for nail-biter movies. Where Hard Candy was a Trojan horse with a bizarre pro-female vigilante message, Wicker Man was merely terrifying. A Scottish police detective investigates the disappearance of a 12-year old girl in the Summer Isles. He stumbles upon a bizarre cult that practices paganism and human sacrifices. The movie has beautiful music and cinematography (and quite a bit of eroticism). It also has an ending that will shock you out of your seat – I won’t spoil this one for you. I’ve given it only a paragraph here, but it is much better for you than Hard Candy.

Such has been my movie-viewing weekend… stay tuned for more reviews (movies old and new) as well as coverage of our new President.

© 2009 blogSpotter

The Geek Shall Inherit ...

the 1999 iBook? -- Picture by blogSpotter

by blogSpotter
Every once in a while, I have to reestablish contact with my inner geek. The last two weeks have been incredible geek weeks for me. For Christmas, my brother Steve gave me a 1999 Apple iBook (Bondi blue & white). At the time it came out, it was called “iMac to go” and was a continuation of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign. Their newer MacBook seems to be a little more in the corporate (go and and say it – Dell) mold with its metallic squareness. I have fond memories of iBook, back when things were boldly different.

Problem is, the iBook hadn’t been used since 2002, and still had OS 9 which was obsolete circa 2001. Other deficiencies were a missing airport card and no wireless mouse. I thought I could tolerate OS 9, but was amazed at how kludgy and ugly the interface was. It still had iTunes 2.0 (no music store) and Internet Explorer 5.0 for Mac.

With a couple of trips to Frye’s, I was able to outfit it with a Macsense wireless Ethernet adaptor, a Belkin USB hub and an aqua blue G-cubed laser mouse. These changes alone brought it forward half a decade. Next, I scrounged across the Internet to find install discs for Mac OS X 10.3.9 (the last X release for Power PCs). OS X is a giant mutation for operating systems – maybe one of the best OS’s ever created. Installing OS X turned the iBook from a slow frog into a prince, albeit a slow prince. I was asked by a friend, “How many computers do you need?” considering this runs me up to about seven. Well, how many cars does Jay Leno have? About that many.

Not content to enjoy my iBook refurb, I set about trying to install Ubuntu Linux on my old Dell Latitude 386 laptop. Some friends have told me that Linux is friendlier than the last time I tried it 5 years ago. I’ll give my experience in condensed form – do not wish to bore or depress you...

• New Ubuntu wouldn’t load on the Dell, although Red Hat loaded OK 5 years ago. Seems Linux has gotten hefty right along with Mac and Windows in the last few years.

• Ended up installing Fedora on my Western Digital USB hard drive instead. This was an arduous process that called for multiple tries, web research and manual partition-editing to create a boot and a swap section.

• More web research to find out that the partition must be unmounted for the install to proceed.

• Had to update my HP Pavilion so that the BIOS would recognize a USB drive as a boot disk. This called for web research, downloading a BIOS update and reflashing the rom.

• When I tried to boot from USB at this point, I got “BOOTMGR is missing”. (Booting from hard drive is OK, thank goodness). This is my last status on it – have made it no further.

What compels me to burn endless hours on these pointless pursuits? Every bump along the road has sent me to lengthy Google searches, Mac forums and Frye’s trips. There will be no public awareness (beyond this feeble blog) nor will I even make extreme use of these toys after I configure them all. My answer is as lame and witless as the mountain climber – “I do it because it is there”. And so it goes, on this third, continuous week of the geek.

FOLLOW-UP -- 1/19/2009

I finally was able to install Linux. I reran the install program and checked a box that said 'force as primary partition'. After getting it installed, have had trouble getting various things to work (eg, MP3 player). May dink with it some more later, but I'm Linux'ed out for now.

© 2009 blogSpotter

It's All a Ponzi Scheme

What Madoff Made Off with? -- Picture courtesy of Yahoo

by blogSpotter
America was shocked, simply shocked when 70 year old investment strategist Bernard Madoff was recently arrested. The genial, well-liked and well-connected businessman was charged by the FBI with the largest investment fraud ever perpetrated by a single individual -- 50 billion dollars. How could this pillar of society who formerly chaired the NASDAQ stock exchange do something so heinous? The grandfatherly Madoff headed his own well-regarded investment security firm from 1960 until his arrest this year; who would've dreamed it?

Madoff made off with money from some of the most prestigious (and usually financially savvy) people and groups; among those sucked in: HSBC Bank, Lappin Foundation (its 401K) and even several celebrities including Kevin Bacon. People who normally know better, knew worse. Consider the following "mommilies":

"If it seems too good to be true it probably is".
"Water doesn't flow up hill".
"There's no such thing as a free lunch".

Why do the platitudes of the wise seem to lose their influence when needed the most? I have more news for everyone so shocked; it's all a Ponzi scheme. Wall Street itself is a Ponzi scheme. I've often wondered why people of the early-21st century have been so eager to privatize Social Security -- thus using their retirement for a Day at the Races. Let's look at the definition of Ponzi Scheme from dictionary.com:

“Ponzi scheme - a pyramid investment swindle in which supposed profits are paid to early investors from money actually invested by later participants”

If you replace “swindle” with “arrangement”, that’s basically how all stocks and mutual funds behave. The investment houses can make no promises about what the returns will be, but they’re certainly glad to take your money, the money of a new investor, up front. Greater pyramids were never built in Egypt, and all of this is legal. It is the very definition of how it works.

In his defense, Madoff did nothing but add more blur to an already blurry line – he only did ‘what was in his nature’ and what is in the nature of unbridled capitalists everywhere.

In my quasi-socialistic, deterministic mind-set I like gains that are measured, modest and within reason. Fixed rates are preferable to variable rates. Low, guaranteed returns are preferable to speculative big returns. The tortoise predictably beats the hare, according to Aesop’s fable -- there's no disagreement there. And in the bullshit world of high finance, pyramids come tumbling down.

© 2009 blogSpotter

American Song

Opening of a new Apple Store -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Today is Friday, January 2, 2009. Being a Friday after New Years, many people are taking the day off and thronging to the stores. I’m one of the throng – I just came back from the North Park Apple Store, where there was standing room only. A crowd of about 30 watched a young man demo features of the Leopard OS. I remember when Apple was an acquired taste and only eclectic dweebs like me had any interest in Apple – the times have certainly changed.

I like that Apple has made such a great comeback from near extinction in 1997. One of the things that makes America great is that it’s a place that engenders experimentation and second chances. Steve Jobs may seem the embodiment of Apple but he’s actually not. He certainly finessed the turn-around and much of the product strategy but he isn’t Apple, per se. Apple is a mixture of corporate vision, design strategy, and diligent employees who deliver amazing products within the structure of corporate laws and aesthetic/engineering challenges. If and when Steve Jobs passes from the scene, there should be a chain of successors to assume the reigns (chief of design, Jonathan Ive, possibly).

Another of the things that make America great is that in general we have no entrenched leaders or philosopher kings. Though we have many dynamic, engaging people, they do not prevail forever, nor do they have any implied ownership of our collective world. I’m reminded of the “12th Tradition” embraced by AA and Al-Anon:

“Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.”

These groups seek to keep a focus on the organizations’ primary purpose, diminishing the role of any one person no matter how exciting or instrumental he or she might be. 12-Step groups have done well by this strategy and so for that matter have other institutions like American democracy itself (to some extent). One only has to look at Red Square in Moscow, where the 80-year old corpse of Vladimir Lenin lies in a vacuum-sealed glass case. How morbidly connected do we have to be to any former leader, however great? Look at Cuba, which grapples with its future identity simply because Fidel Castro is fading in his old age.

One clue in all this is that a tenure or term should end with an election, not a coup d’etat. For that matter, tenures and terms (less than a decade) should be the order of the day for any healthy group – nobody should presume to rule the roost indefinitely. As Obama comes to office in 3 weeks, I’m a bit perturbed by people who have imbued him with spiritual or otherworldly qualities. He is a fallible person with a limited term of office – let’s please leave it at that.

Our American “song” is a song of democracy (albeit flawed), safe passages and comparatively easy transitions. Whether it’s AA, Apple or the United States we humans should be ever reminded to place principles before personalities. We don’t have to be anonymous like AA, but we do have to make a careful distinction between a man and his office. To do otherwise is to open the dark doorway to cults and idol-worship the likes of which we haven’t seen since the pharaohs of bygone eras.

© 2008 blogSpotter