Greg Oden just went in for ankle surgery -- isn't that the second surgery this year?
Meanwhile, the Thunder are tied for the best record in the NBA, led by the awesomely talented Keven Durant.
You know, the guy the Blazers could've taken instead of Oden.
Nearly as bad as taking Bowie, instead of some smaller guy named -- what was that name again? Micheal something?
Oh, yeah. The best player of all time. Micheal Jordan.
So Blazers, next time you have a chance between a big guy and an awesomely talented small guy -- pick the small guy, O.K.? (Unless, you know, its James or Shaq heh.)
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I still say that Dunc is more likely to be picked by the blazers as a team member than he is to be discovered as a book-star.
Just write for love, and find some passion, and if the money and fame were meant to come they will come.
For all my life I have followed the Buddhist philosophy, that if you do what you love the money will come, if it doesn't, it wasn't mean to be.
Book Publishing ( Very Interesting Reality about the New Fascist Government )
But perhaps the best way to understand the true structure of America’s political economy in the twenty-first century is to talk to some of the people who publish, edit, and write books in America. These days, most articles on the book industry focus on technology. The recent death of the retailer Borders is depicted as a victory of Internet sales over brick-and-mortar stores, the e-book market as a battle between the Kindle e-reader and the iPad. But if we look behind the glib narrative of digitization, we find that a parallel revolution has taken place, one that has resulted in a dramatic concentration of power over individuals who work in this essential, surprisingly fragile industry.
A generation ago, America’s book market was entirely open and very vibrant. According to some estimates, the five largest publishers in the mid-1970s controlled only about 30 percent of trade book sales, and the biggest fifty publishers controlled only 75 percent. The retail business was even more dispersed, with the top four chains accounting for little more than 10 percent of sales. Today, a single company—Amazon—accounts for more than 20 percent of the domestic book market. And even this statistic fails to convey the company’s enormous reach. In many key categories, it sells more than half the books purchased in the United States. And according to the company’s estimates, its share of the e-book market, the fastest-growing segment of the industry, was between 70 and 80 percent in 2010. (Its share of the online sale of physical books is roughly the same.)
Not surprisingly, then, we find the same sort of fear among our book publishers as we do among the chicken farmers of the Sweedlin Valley. I recently sat down with the CEO of one of the biggest publishing houses in America. In his corner office overlooking a busy Manhattan street, he explained that Amazon was once a “wonderful customer with whom to do business.” As Jeff Bezos’s company became more powerful, however, it changed. “The question is, do you wear your power lightly?” My host paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “Mr. Bezos has not. He is reckless. He is dangerous.”
Later that same day, I spoke with the head of one of the few remaining small publishers in America, in a tattered conference room in a squat Midtown office building. “Amazon is a bully. Jeff Bezos is a bully,” he said, his voice rising, his cheeks flushing. “Anyone who gets that powerful can push people around, and Amazon pushes people around. They do not exercise their power responsibly.” Neither man allowed me to use his name. Amazon, they made clear, had long since accumulated sufficient influence over their business to ensure that even these most dedicated defenders of the book—and of the First Amendment—dare not speak openly of the company’s predations.
[ book publishing part - 2 ]
If a single event best illustrates our confusion as to what makes an open market—and the role such markets play in protecting our liberties—it was our failure to respond to Amazon’s decision in early 2010 to cut off one of our biggest publishers from its readers. At the time, Amazon and Macmillan were scrapping over which firm would set the price for Macmillan’s ebooks. Amazon wanted to price every Macmillan e-book, and indeed every e-book of every publisher, at $9.99 or less. This scorched-earth tactic, which guaranteed that Amazon lost money on many of the e-books it sold, was designed to cement the online retailer’s dominance in the nascent market. It also had the effect of persuading customers that this deeply discounted price, which publishers considered ruinously low, was the “natural” one for an e-book.
In January 2010, Macmillan at last claimed the right to set the price for each of its own products as it alone saw fit. Amazon resisted this arrangement, known in publishing as the “agency model.” When the two companies deadlocked, Amazon simply turned off the buttons that allowed customers to order Macmillan titles, in both their print and their e-book versions….
The thing of that pick was that they knew Greg had health issues in college ball. So they gambled and lost, but I doubt that Paul Allen lost any money on the deal : )
I don't follow basketball but my coworkers were all aflutter about Greg - even I, ignorant on most sports knew they picked the wrong guy. Shoulda gone for number two 'cause the number one turned out to be a number two.
"Wearing power lightly..."
????
That's just it. You can't count on a benevolent ruler. Power corrupts.
I've said before, the publishers should have seen it coming. The situation you describe from a generation ago seems stable.
Going for growth at the expense of everything else seems crazy to me.
The comic industry has one major player -- Diamond, that is totally essential. If they start to abuse that power, we're screwed.
Depending on their kindness is very dangerous. So far, so good.
Same with having 80% of the market in Marvel and DC.
Dangerous.
So what does our culture celebrate? Mass market dominance.
Whatever happened to celebrating the little guy?
RFK’s son Douglas Kennedy charged for endangering 3-day-old son after tussle at Westchester Hospital
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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/rfk-son-douglas-kennedy-charged-child-endangerment-3-day-old-son-westchester-hospital-article-1.1028365
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Dunc,
I give this story "legs" about what's wrong with AMERIKKKA. Here JFK's son, try's to take his new born for a walk and is attacked by the nurses and has the 3 day old infant ripped from his arm's, had this been a 'nobody' at would have been just another day at "St Charles", ... but like the medical insurance, the entire medical business is just like the book business, ... somewhere along the way these assholes forgot about parent-child bonding.
Power Corrupts everyone in the USA is some kind of 'control asshole'.
Long ago in Tualatin they had the 'Cook Clinic', at the Meridian Hospital, and DR. Cook was considered the Best Sport's doctor in the business, his primary job was keeping the Blazer's playing no matter the damage or the pain.
I wonder what happened to Dr. Cook, or if the Blazers personal Orthopedic Surgeon, somehow along the way got warehoused for 'Generic Care'.
Don't worry about Paul Allen, his ROI on Portland-Blazer's is ASTRONOMIC, I don't know if you people are aware of this, but when he bought the Blazer's he got the City to sign a 'First Right of Refusal' for all public entertainment, ... meaning that virtually every gig from the Stones to the Beatles that goes down in PDX, Allen gets his pound of flesh. The 'Blazers' is just a figure head for Allens total grip of PDX.
Allen, Jobs, or Bezo's these are the new ASSHOLES. Who control all with their vast army of lawyers feared by all.
That's just it. You can't count on a benevolent ruler. Power corrupts.
***
Assholes always win. Nice guy's finish last.
Perhaps you all have spent too much time around HBM and his ilk of mythology.
I for one have had first-hand contact with the likes of Ellison, Job's, Gate's, ... Bezo's seen them how they operate. Hell its the only way to run a high-tech biz and get rich. It's called take-no-prisoners, and eat your own dog-food.
It's GOOD THING that to date, non of these Billionaire have gotten too close to the political process, for my God, ...it will be a mess. But for now they have been too busy building the super-empire by take-over growth.
So what do you do once you have it all? I knew long ago that Apple would take over Music, and Amazon would take over Books, and that Oracle/Microsoft would take over business, e.g. essentially collect a sales-tax/VAT annually on all commerce in the world, that's the Micro-Oracle model.
So what do you do once you can control what music the world listens too? What you do once you control what they read? What do you do next?
Absolute power. Make kings, and take more more, ... make war's if you can't get your way IP ( intellectual-property ) think the likes of HBM on their payroll's.
Well, you sure do liven up things, Buster.
I blame Paul Allen. He was the only one there for both picks, and he should have overruled his minions.
"Draft the best athlete."
Has anyone ever come up with a good argument against that?
The rest is tinkering, thinking you can fix the chemistry.
But chemistry has a way of creating itself with the best players.
Put in a Lin and suddenly the team starts playing better.
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