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Men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau

You need to get up in the morning and say, "Boy, I'm going to - in my own stupid way - save the world today.
Sally Berger

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King, Jr. No Political Statements; BONDI'S famous Icebergs will endure a meltdown so guests of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit can do lunch. Tadross - Lunch leaves Bondi cold


Vista V Iceberg The term stirs the imagination to conceive of beautiful possibilities just around the corner. Raw Vista – Do Not Mention Quinten Demspter (sic)

Can we change the heart of Facebook or Myspace? Why Citizens Are Eating Media's Lunch On Broadband
Looked through the paper. Makes you want to cry. Nobody cares if the people live or die.
Leonard Cohen, In My Secret Life
Politico's Ben Smith brought up the issue of journalists "friending" their sources on Facebook.

"When a campaign or a government agency is trying to pin down a reporter's inside source, Facebook might be a good place to start," Ben wrote. "And when a campaign type is considering leaking to a reporter, couldn't the fact that you're "friends" on Facebook make the source queasy?" We were really shocked to read this coming from Ben, and not because the issue isn't important — it's a valid point, if not a new one. Pat Walters mentioned the same point in a Poynter.org post from July, and the CBC even instituted an official "Facebook policy" earlier this month, instructing its journalists not to add their sources as friends on Facebook (Canada is one of Facebook's fastest-growing markets, and Toronto was the home of the site's largest local network until it was eclipsed by London last month).

• Mother Teresa died ten years ago this week … Maybe journalists have to be extra-careful and engineer their privacy settings more judiciously than the typical Facebook user; [ Media Treated Mother Teresa As Inferior to Princess Diana, the 'Secular Saint'; ]
• · Why does a small-budget movie like Jozef Imrich’s Cold River matter? Because of the ripple effects. Mark Cuban Backed De Palma's 'Redacted' to Promote New Movie Distribution Business; Upon self-examination, I, too, also, uncategorically suck. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Whirl
• · How pathetic are the posters on a large blog when its own founder berates them for being gullible fools for being easily scammed by an obviously phony story? Daily Kos Posters Berated by Founder for being Gullible Fools; Vlado Putin, the man who put a price on my head in 1980, is in Sydney and under torture, Kos has admitted that his pet of choice is the ferret. He once owned two of them. Vlado is irrationally and understandably jealous of life going on without him, incensed that his season in hell hasn’t stopped the world from turning.
Kos The Ferret Fan -- A Fitting Choice
• · · Monday brought the shocking revelation that Sen. Larry Craig was arrested after an incident in a Minneapolis airport bathroom back in June Taking your calls and e-mails, tonight! Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living! Mother Jones ; If Jozef Imrich were alive, he might writes scenes like this, though I kind of doubt it.
• · · · That's the accusation leveled by Republican strategist Mike Murphy yesterday on "Meet The Press" in reaction to the resignation of Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, because of a scandal involving alleged solicitation of another man in a public restroom. 'McCarthyism' By Liberal Gay Bloggers?; Edmund Tadros, not related to John Tadros - Almost half of Australians cannot afford basic preventative dentistry despite 90 per cent believing that regular visits are important to maintaining healthy teeth and gums. Australians lacking dental care
• · · · · Who's mucking up or who's getting it off with who always seems to be a conversation starter. Whether it's right or not, office gossip is a fact of life. Iceberg has many stories to tell as APEC Women pick up a swimmer or two ;-) Heard it on the grapevine ; In the meantime, don't be shy. Backstabbed in the background check?
• · · · · · Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King, Jr. No Political Statements; BONDI'S famous Icebergs will endure a meltdown so guests of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit can do lunch. Tadross - Lunch leaves Bondi cold

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I did not drown this morning at the Iceberg where water is cold like COLD RIVER whereas the coffee is as hot as exotic Indian honeymoon ;-) At Iceberg there are no ordinary moments ;-) There are moments in life and even our every day, that unbeknown to us, Warm droplets of wisdom fall upon us

What does Bondi Iceberg stand for. The Russians and the French have revolutions. Australia has passion for swimming and running. Today, Paul and Jennifer informed me that it only rained once in the last 37 years on the Sunday when the notorious CITY to SURF run takes place. There were waves of human bodies rolling down the Ben Buckley's cliff this morning as depleted Iceberg swimmers lapped the pool on the Notts Avenue ...

Definition of Iceberg:
A unique representation of a fast disappearing Australian culture; one that doesn’t take itself too seriously, one where competition is important but where a fair-go, generosity and mateship are even more so.
– Larry Mounser, Media Dragon from the Sunday Life Magazine

For the first time in the 37-year history of the event, The Sun-Herald is helping you to change the lives of others by raising money for your favourite charity as your run. Considered to be one of most famous fun-runs in the world, the 14km event attracts up to 60000 people each August. LISA TAYLOR: top fundraiser

Icegergs of Bondi: Lord Ted and Terry People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within
The spaces between your fingers were created for swimming and so that another's could fill them in ;-) Characters like Lord Ted will tell you that when you want to test the depths of a stream, don’t use both feet...
Science obsessed Terry likes to share this snippet from Roger who said: Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.
Roger Bannister (After becoming the first person to break the four-minute mile, 1952)

The sermon on the mount has long been rightly understood as both a starting-point and a summation of Jesus ’s teaching. It begins with the Beatitudes (Mt. 5:3-12), in which Jesus delineates the categories of people he says enjoy special favor. The Beatitudes are all familiar to us as sayings, the best known being blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. But what, really, are they? Is Jesus merely pronouncing a blessing, offering good wishes to those whom he chooses to single out? In fact, there ’s more to the story than that.

The Beatitudes provide a dizzying commentary designed to turn upside down the political and social world of the Roman Empire of Caesar Augustus and of the Jewish religious elite of Judea and Jerusalem. This is the opening move of a more drastic and fundamental reassessment of political and social affairs, applying not only to its own time but to all future times, down to our day. More still: It points to the increasing fulfillment in this world of the promise of the human condition as such — and of the struggle against vast and daunting but not insurmountable obstacles that such fulfillment will require.

Jesus describes those who are truly fortunate, the lucky ones of their day. But it is not emperors, conquerors, priests, and the wealthy who enjoy this favor. Rather, it is the common people, those whom earthly success has largely passed by: the poor, the meek, the persecuted, the peacemakers. How can this be? Because though they may have been denied worldly success, what cannot be taken away from them is their potential to live rightly by one another. It is all too easy for those who enjoy the pleasures of this world to try to float above such obligations. Jesus goes on to say that so long as ordinary people stand for the right things and do not retreat in their rightness before those who seem to have more power, what ’s right will prevail. It’s their kingdom — a kingdom organized not from the top down, but from the bottom up. In the Beatitudes, Jesus offers a description of the community of goodwill his teaching will build in this world...

• Havelites shall inherit the earth not shallow characters we tend to come across in who accumulate the riches ; We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be; [Sometimes bluetongue winner who swim in 14 degree freezing water are not grinners ;-( Lap 15 First over the line without blowing it ;-) Media Dragons - Joe aka Jozef Imrich ... ; Life lessons ]
•• On Thursday Bob Carr invaded another Sydney Iceberg, the Glebe Bookshop, just before the parliamentary staff farewelled Ian Wotton Glebe and Parliamentary Stories filled with intrigues and myths ; Anthony Loewenstein was busy for the last four months travelling around Cuba and the Middle East Dubai, Egypt, Iran etc; amazingly he enjoyed Iran the most Anthony ; Jack and others including Mr and Mrs Loewenstein were part of the great debate My Israel Question Launched at Gelebe Books by Peter Manning

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Elton John's war on the Media Dragons Elton John hates this blog

Unlike years past, efforts to overhaul the much beleaguered Freedom of Information Act are gaining real traction on Capitol Hill. Momentum More

Open Government Groups Push FOIA Overhaul
A lawyer and an expert in whistleblower law, Gualtieri founded Federal Accountability for Initiative Reform (FAIR) in 1998

. Many public service scandals have come to light in Canada over the past several years. A few notable examples are:
o The Tainted Blood Scandal, in which 60,000 Canadians were infected with hepatitis C, many of them fatally.
o The Gun Registry Scandal, in which a program with a budget of $2 million spent $1 billion without authorization or reporting of the cost overrun to Parliament.
o The Sponsorship Scandal, in which millions of dollars of public money were diverted illegally to government-favoured advertising agencies.

• Why This Subject Is Important to You; [ Gadgets ... ; More Gadgets; New Official Blog on Google Earth and Google Maps ]
• · After 7 uninterrupted years of writing this blog each day, I will be taking a brief vacation - no web, no email, no phone. Returning May 23. Feel free to send me updates so I can catch-up quickly upon my return. All your consideration is appreciated. With my thanks and best wishes Sabrina; A Site to See. In order to ensure that your PC is protected from malware, it helps to run a few tests. Auditmypc.com offers just that: a handful of free, relatively quick self-assessments. Options include testing the strength of your firewall and your protection against pop-ups. Auditmypc.com
• · Mark A. Phillips doesn't at all mince words when taking to task his fellow journalists, not sparing their feelings a bit. He even identifies by name one of the journalistic comrades of whom he is scolding. That being one Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle. My suggestion for Saunders and others who believe they know who "real journalists" are: Get over it....The reality is that defining a journalist by the very narrow scope Saunders chooses to use is a symptom of the greater illness that plagues many, what I call "traditional" journalists.. It's called Big Ego ; Pundit Payola
• · · Who's a Journalist These Days? "Journalists with the "Big Ego disease" often point at bloggers and other people without press passes and accuse them of not being "real journalists." But bloggers who provide analysis about newsworthy events are journalists." Repeat By Mark A. Phillips ; There's a lot of talk about blogs being wonderful marketing tools lately. In fact, many big businesses are quickly working on plans to launch their own corporate blogs to serve as communication channels for their customers. When it comes to corporate blogging, some companies have stumbled, some have soared and others are facing serious start-up challenges. Case in point? GlaxoSmithKline's new blog for over-the-counter diet drug, Alli. Corporate Blogging - Alli "Oops
• · · · Blog: Friends in high places: As you'd expect, Myspace is still the king of social networking with 114 million unique visitors in June. That equated to growth of 72 per cent in the space of a year. But the Comscore figures also show how quickly Myspace rival Facebook, is catching up. It had 52 million unique visitors in June, up 270 per cent in the last year. Blog: Beautiful potential; ugly getting there ; Web alert: They know nothing about you
̶ ; · · · · Still some value in the old media ; IWR takes you back to basics again, and explains the not-so-dark art of finding out who’s reading your blog and what they’re saying about it. So you have set up and are running a blog, but how do you know if anyone is reading it and who those readers are? Just as importantly, how do you keep track of what others in the blogosphere are saying about your postings? Simple. You get to grips with the small matter of monitoring your blog. And that means understanding three simple principles: site analysis, trackbacks and specialist search engines. Master all three and you will have achieved blog management nirvana. Although Google does not release figures of blog coverage, Technorati is not so shy and currently claims to track in excess of 86 million blog Technorati
• · · · · · I shall assume that it is not the business of an author to respond in detail to the threads that commentators develop, since they clearly have a life of their own. The US intervened in two world wars to save Europe from itself' Blog of all blogs; A new website has taken office stories online, inviting users to provide juicy details of romance be it Russell and Rebecca or other tidbits O'heir's lispy stories or Tadros larry and hardy episodes or even Roussos's ex Stories about losers with plenty of money ;-)

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Many people reach their conclusions about life like lazy school children. They copy the answers from the back of the book without troubling to work out the sum for themselves.
-Soren Kierkegaard

From Niches to Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail An Amazon employee described the Long Tail as follows: "We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday." A niche of one: Cold River

Media Dragons: worst of times, best of times Fooled by Randomness of Exile Life
This columnist has more guts than his wussy liberal colleagues at the Daily Telegraph and I'm not saying this because I happen to be Bohemian.

The book says that you can't predict anything—that when things happen, you try to construct a narrative around what happened, and that narrative is almost always wrong. Why is the market up today? Because home sales did such and such. It's almost never why, but we need to have an explanation. If managers can check themselves from making those all-too-tempting efforts to construct narratives, fundamentally they will have an advantage over the rest of us.

• Matthew Prior telss us - Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual ; [The "Airport Effect in blogging The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference; The Long Tail is safe from Google. On Google, the link-rich don't necessarily get richer. ]
• · The number of libraries participating in the Google Book Search Library Project just got a whole lot bigger with today's addition of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. The July 2007 Book Sense Picks & Notables Preview ; Oprah Picks Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex Next Cold River ;-) The Age of Turbulence ; Author Adichie wins Orange Prize
• · few simple keystrokes may soon turn blather into books. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered a way to enlist people across the globe to help digitize books every time they solve the simple distorted word puzzles commonly used to register at Web sites or buy things online Researchers turn Web blather to books ; Dogged by questions from the EU over Google’s data retention and privacy policies, Google say they’re following the rules Google takes care of its privates
• · · Australian companies are starting to twig that Web 2.0 isn't just the latest trend for designing web pages - it can be a vital business tool. It's web take 2.0
• · · · Once upon a time NIDA actors, or any actors, were in a position where they could turn down work they regarded as too commercial, The Sydney-based National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is adjusting its practices to a changing world.

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An empty canvas, apparently really empty, that says nothing and is without significance. Almost dull, in fact. In reality, however, [it's] crammed with thousands of undertone tensions and [is] full of expectancy. Slightly apprehensive lest it should be outraged ... It can contain anything but cannot sustain everything ... An empty canvas is a living wonder -- far lovelier than certain pictures."
- My Polish mate, Wassily Kandinsky

Artists like Richard McSweeney are put on this planet to live an extraordinary life. These artists are born with innate knowledge of their own abilities. I'm sure you know someone who decided to be an actor or a painter at a young age, and stuck with it until reaching their goal.

Most of us, however, spend our lives searching for that purpose feeling fearful and unhappy, yet afraid to take the risks involved with change. Richard's creations are the most impressive debuts at Julian Ashton of an emergent painter in recent years. Richard tries to distill more than a mustard seed or the grain of truth in his masterpieces.

The painter makes real to others his innermost feelings about all that he cares for. A secret becomes known to everyone who views the picture through the intensity with which it is felt.
-Lucien Freud


*Painted by Richard McSweeney during 2005


Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the [enlightened] place where it leads.
- Erica Jong

Above all keep Richard keeps his imagination and colours fresh. An abstract of warmness in the rainbow forest of love.
*Richard is well aware that art is really people asking the eternal question, What is it all about?

*Sacred Trees by Richard McSweeney - drawn and imagined in his studio at 3/25 Mona Road - DARLING POINT 2027


The essential of painting is that something, that 'ethereal glue,' that intermediary product which the artist secrets with all his creative being and which he has the power to place, to encrust, to impregnate into the pictorial stuff of the painting.
-Yves Klein

)Painted by Richard McSweeney in 2006

When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.
-Pierre Auguste Renoir

The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things -- but above all we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad -- to be willing to risk everything to really express it all.
- John Cassavetes