FromGarrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac:
It’s the birthday of Jane Austen, born in Steventon, Hampshire, England (1775). She is the only novelist who published before Charles Dickens whose books still sell thousands of copies every year. All of her novels have been made into movies at least once in the last ten years.
She is best known for her novels about women yearning to get married, including Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813). But she never got married herself. She didn’t seem to mind the single life. In her letters, she often wrote about the many women she knew suffering from and often dying from childbirth. Of her niece, who had just gotten pregnant for the second time, she wrote, “Poor animal, she will be worn out before she’s thirty.” In another letter, she wrote, “Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright—I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband.”
She spent most of her life relatively poor and dependent on her older brothers. She decided to try publishing fiction in order to get herself some money. She wrote on a table in the family drawing room.
Austen’s first published novel was Sense and Sensibility (1811), the story of the Dashwood sisters, the sensible and proper Elinor Dashwood and her more romantic younger sister Marianne, who are kicked out of their house with their mother when their father dies, and have to struggle to find marriageable husbands.
Austen’s first two books, Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813) were great successes in her lifetime, but after that her readers grew less enthusiastic. Neither Mansfield Park (1814) nor Emma (1816), were as popular.
It was only after her death that she became one of the most popular novelists from the 19th century. After the First World War, Jane Austin novels were prescribed to shell-shocked English soldiers for therapy, because the psychologists found that Austen helped them recover their sense of the world they’d known before the war.
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Watchdog Criticizes Kazakhstan Over Ali G
Kazakhstan needs to chill out and leave Borat alone, an international media watchdog group says.
Reporters Without Borders is criticizing Kazakhstan for going too far in its war over the words of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, best known in the U.S. as the title character of the satirical “Da Ali G Show.”
The leaders of the Central Asian ex-Soviet nation, fuming over Cohen’s brutally satirical portrayal of an ignorant Kazakh journalist, pulled the plug this week on his Web-site use of a Kazakh Internet domain name.
That move led the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders to issue a statement Wednesday saying that the government’s decision to block Cohen from a “.kz” domain name is censorship. The group also expressed concern about “the politicization of the administration of domain names.”
Cohen’s Borat Sagdiyev has upset the Kazakhstan government with comedic statements suggesting that Kazakhs make wine out of fermented horse urine, shoot dogs for fun and consider incest and rape popular hobbies.
Cohen’s show, which is broadcast only in English on American and British television, is virtually unknown to most Kazakhs.
Kazakhstan’s embassies in Washington and elsewhere have lodged protests through media interviews and letters. But Cohen’s appearance as Sagdiyev last month on the MTV Europe Music Awards — during which he made fun of President Nursultan Nazarbayev — prompted the Foreign Ministry to threaten legal action.
“We do not rule out that Mr. Cohen is serving someone’s political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way,” Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev said.
In a statement posted on the now-blocked Borat Web site, Cohen, who is Jewish, said: “I like to state, I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my government’s position to sue this Jew.”
“Since the 2003 … reforms Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world,” he said in his video address using the blue Kazakh national flag as a backdrop. “Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hat and age of consent has been raised to eight years old.”
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Things look good for mine and Lala’s boyfriend. So happy that Good Night and Good Luck is getting so much attention and that it is doing well. Way back in August I I called that it looked good.
I am putting money now on David Strathairn for the Oscar. If you don’t know his work get thee to the video store. Some of my favorites:
Eight Men Out
Sneakers
Passion Fish
Limbo
Blue Car
I could go on, especially since he is one of Sayles favorite actors but I am boring you already aren’t I?
Syriana hasn’t opened here yet and I am going nuts. Saw the preview in LA and everyone cheered at the end of it.
I know this is a major film area and I know living in Los Angeles I was spoiled, but dammit. I want to see a film and I can’t unless I get on a plane.
Blah.
I know it will get here eventually.
My respect for Clooney went beyond the “You cute” phase when I read his Playboy interview (yes women do like the articles) after Three Kings came out. The director, David O Russell created shall we say, a rather acrimonious working environment. One day he was screaming at an extra and Clooney went up to him and said “You can’t talk to people like that.” They started arguing and had to be pulled away from each other by people on the set or they would have hit each other. When asked if he would ever work with Russell again, Clooney said, “Life is too short.”
He also never renegotiated his contract on ER to make more money when he became a star.
And the man has a pet pig. You got to love a man that has a pet pig.
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What kind of world. . .
Hell of a thing. . .
Bill Munny: Hell of a thing, killin’ a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess he had it comin’.
Bill Munny: We all got it comin’.
-From the film Unforgiven
I don’t know if Stanley Williams was guilty of the crimes that he was convicted of. I don’t know if his redemption was genuine. I don’t know enough facts about the case or his life to discuss that intelligently.
I have been very lucky that those I love and myself have never been the victim of a violent crime. I know that I would want to kill someone who hurt someone that I care about. I would want to kill, but I would not.
I also would not support their being put to death.
I do not support the death penalty for a number of reasons.
Most of the people on death row are poor and could not afford adequate council.
It is fundamentally racist. According to the ACLU, “Over 80% of capital cases involve white victims, even though nationally, only 50% of murder victims are white.”
Death penalty cases vary wildly from state to state. If you are brown, poor and live in Texas, odds are high that you will fry.
The main reason, the ace that cannot be argued with is the possibility that the convicted is in fact innocent. In the wake of scientific advances there have been a number of wrongly convicted people released from prison after years, half of their life gone for a crime they did not commit.
Since the founding of The Innocence Project in 1992, 164 innocent people, including 14 who were at one time sentenced to death, have won their freedom through their assistance.
In 2002 U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff declared that the federal death penalty is unconstitutional because it creates “an undue risk of executing innocent people. . .it is fully foreseeable that in enforcing the death penalty a meaningful number of people will be executed who otherwise would eventually be able to prove their innocence.”
His decision was of course overturned.
For those of you who support the death penalty, for those that say, I would want to kill, I would want them to pay, I would want retribution. I ask you to consider for a moment that you or someone you love are mistakenly arrested, wrongly convicted, live for years in a cell, are perhaps put to death.
It could happen. If you don’t think it could, you are naive.
I leave you with the countries that use capital punishment and those who do not. This data was gleaned from Amnesty International. Consider please the company the United States of America is keeping.
1. Abolitionist for all crimes- Countries whose laws do not provide for the death penalty for any crime.
ANDORRA, ANGOLA, ARMENIA, AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, AZERBAIJAN, BELGIUM, BHUTAN, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA, BULGARIA, CAMBODIA, CANADA, CAPE VERDE, COLOMBIA, COSTA RICA, COTE D’IVOIRE, CROATIA, CYPRUS, CZECH REPUBLIC, DENMARK, DJIBOUTI, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC,ECUADOR, ESTONIA, FINLAND, FRANCE, GEORGIA, GERMANY,GREECE, GUINEA-BISSAU, HAITI, HONDURAS, HUNGARY, ICELAND, IRELAND, ITALY, KIRIBATI, LIBERIA, LIECHTENSTEIN, LITHUANIA, LUXEMBOURG, MACEDONIA (former Yugoslav Republic), MALTA, MARSHALL ISLANDS, MAURITIUS, MEXICO, MICRONESIA (Federated States), MOLDOVA, MONACO, MOZAMBIQUE, NAMIBIA, NEPAL, NETHERLANDS, NEW ZEALAND, NICARAGUA, NIUE, NORWAY, PALAU, PANAMA, PARAGUAY, POLAND, PORTUGAL, ROMANIA, SAMOA, SAN MARINO, SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE, SENEGAL, SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO, SEYCHELLES, SLOVAK REPUBLIC, SLOVENIA, SOLOMON ISLANDS, SOUTH AFRICA, SPAIN, SWEDEN, SWITZERLAND, TIMOR-LESTE, TURKEY, TURKMENISTAN, TUVALU, UKRAINE, UNITED KINGDOM, URUGUAY, VANUATU, VATICAN CITY STATE, VENEZUELA
2. Abolitionist for ordinary crimes only - Countries whose laws provide for the death penalty only for exceptional crimes such as crimes under military law or crimes committed in exceptional circumstances.
ALBANIA, ARGENTINA, BOLIVIA, BRAZIL, CHILE, COOK ISLANDS, EL SALVADOR, FIJI, ISRAEL, LATVIA, PERU
3. Abolitionist in practice - Countries which retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes such as murder but can be considered abolitionist in practice in that they have not executed anyone during the past 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions. The list also includes countries which have made an international commitment not to use the death penalty.
ALGERIA, BAHRAIN, BENIN, BRUNEI DARUSSALAM, BURKINA FASO, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, CONGO (Republic), GAMBIA, GRENADA, KENYA, MADAGASCAR, MALDIVES, MALI, MAURITANIA, MOROCCO, MYANMAR, NAURU, NIGER, PAPUA NEW GUINEA, RUSSIAN FEDERATION, SRI LANKA, SURINAME, TOGO, TONGA, TUNISIA
4. Retentionist- Countries and territories which retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
AFGHANISTAN, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA, BAHAMAS, BANGLADESH, BARBADOS, BELARUS, BELIZE, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CAMEROON, CHAD, CHINA, COMOROS, CONGO (Democratic Republic), CUBA, DOMINICA, EGYPT, EQUATORIAL GUINEA, ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, GABON, GHANA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA, GUYANA, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, IRAQ, JAMAICA, JAPAN, JORDAN, KAZAKSTAN, KOREA (North), KOREA (South), KUWAIT, KYRGYZSTAN, LAOS, LEBANON, LESOTHO, LIBYA, MALAWI, MALAYSIA, MONGOLIA, NIGERIA, OMAN, PAKISTAN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, PHILIPPINES, QATAR, RWANDA, SAINT CHRISTOPHER & NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT & GRENADINES, SAUDI ARABIA, SIERRA LEONE, SINGAPORE, SOMALIA, SUDAN, SWAZILAND, SYRIA, TAIWAN, TAJIKISTAN, TANZANIA, THAILAND, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, UGANDA, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, UZBEKISTAN, VIET NAM, YEMEN, ZAMBIA, ZIMBABWE
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Hello! My Name Is Nicole And I Will Be Your Server Today.
For some reason some English folks simply can’t say my name. They turn Nicole into Nicola, which, while a very nice name, is not my name.
I noticed it when I was working here in the spring and now one of my recruiters insists on calling me Nicola.
My boss in America was from London and he would do a French singsong with my name, “Neee-cole” as a sort of jokie thing.
I’ve been called Cole, Colie, Nick, Nici, Nici T and Nickel-Dime by my Great-Great Uncle when I was a wee lass but never Nicola until here.
Given that Nicole is a rather popular name now and the close proximity to France, I don’t quite understand how it gets mixed up in people’s heads. Oh well.
This may be an apocryphal but according to my mother when I was little I was called Nici (with a k sound) until we moved and one day my mother was calling me to come in.
“Nici.”
I don’t show.
“Nici?”
No kid.
“NICI!!!!”
Definitely no kid.
“NICOLE DIANE THOMAS GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!”
I show up.
When asked why I hadn’t deemed to grace my mother with my presence earlier I said, “Nici lived in the old house. Nicole lives here.”
I’ve been Nicole ever since.
Like I said, I don’t know if that is a true story or not but I’m happy I wasn’t a Nici. *Nici in my head is the girl who sleeps with the football team. It’s like the name Chastity. Naming your brat **Chastity is guarantying her to be a slut.
* Nici or Nikki or Nicki is a lovely name and if this is your name, I am certain you are not a big slut. Please don’t take offense.
** Chastity is a lovely name and if this is your name, I am certain you are not a big slut. Please don’t take offense.
Oh, what are you kidding? You’re both big whores.
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