Nothing to say

…but I love the guy’s blunt honesty and direct follow-through.

The current French president is a private man and does not discuss personal matters with the press.  He is happy to discuss his opinions on politics, though.  He wants Americans to know “that they can count on us. But at the same time, we want to be free to disagree.”  Seeing as how the United States were founded on the ideal of the freedom of the expression of contrary ideas, that’s simply brilliant.  In fact, it says something about the current state of this nation that it even needs to be said.

That quote is from an interview Sarkozy did for CBS program 60 Minutes a few weeks ago (and two weeks before his divorce.)  During the interview, the interviewer asked about his relationship with his wife.  Sarkozy replied, “If I had to say something about Cecilia, I would certainly not do so here.”  He then removed his mic and left the set.

I’ve got about three thoughts on this subject:

1. Sarkozy is awesome.  This wasn’t an arbitrary insult to CBS, his interviewers, or the USA.  He made it clear that you don’t ask about his personal life, and when asked, he expressed his frustration.  I think that’s far.
2. Shame on the interviewers for being pushy, attempting to invade Sarkozy’s privacy, and for wasting his time.
3. Shame on the consumers of the media who favor the sensational, personal-life details over actual, intelligent, political discourse.  These are the people who create the media, and mold it into what it is.  If you buy it, they will produce it.

It’s back to supply and demand.  If there was no demand for the photos that paparazzi take, there would be no paparazzi.  If there was no demand for cheap puppies, there would be no puppy mills.  If there was no demand for cheap, fattening, carcinogenic, mass-produced fake foods, it would disappear from supermarket shelves.

If there was no demand for the intimate details of Sarkozy’s personal life, we all would have had another 5 minutes in our day to actually enrich our lives with something worthwhile.

Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday from head injuries he sustained in a fall at his home. He is my favorite author and one of my heros.

He wrote for “In These Times” magazine.

You may already know that Rupert Murdoch’s megacorporation, NewsCorp, owns such wonderfully pervasive media outlets as Fox (TV and Film), The New York Times, several UK newspapers, and related ventures. What was news to me is that NewsCorp also owns MySpace.com.

Bear with me, here. I don’t know much about MySpace at all. I’ve only been to the site twice ever. I really don’t have any interest in it. The headline “The MySpace Economy” caught my eye, so I had to check it out. Forbes (via Wired) is reporting about the myriad businesses that have sprung up to cater to (and advertise to) MySpace users.

I wanted to share some of the interesting facts that I learned about the site:

• “Tens of millions” of users
• Bought by Murdoch for $580mil
• Currently raking in an estimated $13mil MONTHLY

If you don’t know much about NewsCorp, CJR has a great page that simply lists what they own.

And if you’re looking for my opinion, MySpace is still garbage, and NewsCorp is dangerously ubiquitous.

Alright, the hard drive running the old site COMPLETELY died, and the guy who ran it didn’t have any good backups. So that’s that.

Now I’m setup for 2 years of hosting with DreamHost, and it’s a happy new day. The site is just barely coming up and running, but I’m planning to do it right this time. The original vision for cabeen.net was a sort of community where my family can come together, meet, and keep in touch in a virtual way between actual visits. Now that I’m at least 1000 miles from any of my family, this goal is more relevant than ever.

In the near future, I will be setting up a shared blog where family members can do exactly what I’m doing right now: say whatever is on their mind for anyone else to read. Then other family members can do what I’m hoping you’ll do now: comment on those entries to share your own feelings and thoughts.

There will be more intresting additions that will also come with time. I want to include a better way of sharing photos, for instance. The blog entries can include a file, but it’s not a very robust solution, and could easily get really ugly if really large photos are attached, or if multiple photos are attached. I’m not sure if that’s even possible. There is much testing to do before I setup the shared blog. If you’re feeling anxious, though, you can let me know in the comments!