It's all about control

Everyone is commenting on the Forbes Magazine Editorial attacking blogs. It's a mildly hysterical attack characterizing blogs as electronic lynch mobs and warning about the dire effects a hostile blog article could have on a brand name company. I suppose the only rational response is a big "boo".
Recent attacks on the blogging phenomenon have characterized it as everything from elitist, to unprofessional, to thuggish. What it really is, is a phenomenon that large corporations cannot control or spin or silence.
Adapt or die.

Misleading Food Labels

Slashfood has this interesting article on the six most misleading food labels. The trick seems to be to get the names of as many fruits and vegetables in the big letters of the package and trust that nobody reads the small print.

Jane Urquhart reviewed

The Independent has a nice review of Jane Urquhart's latest novel A Map of Glass. I haven't read it myself yet, but I did enjoy her Away
a few years back. Canadian novelists are getting quite a bit of attention abroad; wish I could say the same for our poets.

Rumpole of the death bed

The Washington Post has a very well written review of Rumpole and the Primrose Path, the latest in John Mortimer's series on the cigar-smoking defender of petty thieves. It would appear that the old gaffer is now in a nursing home, awaiting the grim reaper. It's a daring ploy on the part of the author John Mortimer and a bit of a risk. Sure, we'll all cheer for Rumpole as he battles with yet another form of pompous bureaucracy, but won't some people be turned off at the thought of their own impending death? And will it mark Rumpole of the Bailey as old fart reading only? Perhaps it already is.
What next? Spenser and Hawk clocking villains with their canes? Updike has killed rabbit off. Will Mortimer do the same with Rumpole? Should he?

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