text:
Weekend Open Forum: Do you pay your bills online?

By Shawn Knight
Oct 26, 2012
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  1. It dawned on me a few days ago as I was making out a check for my water bill that I pay almost all of my bills online. With the exception of one lame utility that sees it fit to...

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  2. Macgyver56

    Macgyver56 TS Member Posts: 35

    I pay everything possible online or with a bank draft. I was a little bit of a holdout for a lot of years, sticking to that check-writing rallying cry of, "I want control over when it gets paid, and the opportunity to review my bill for mistakes!!!!"

    Then one day I was looking at a natural gas bill, and thought, "I've been paying this company for almost 20 years. In that time, how many mistakes have I found? Erm ... that would be zero." That was the day I began to change over to automatic and/or online payments. I love it. I never have to worry about missing a payment or how to deal with a bill that's due when I'm on vacation. In the years since I've switched over (about 5-6 years ago), I've never had a problem (other than one of my own making) or an error.

    Handling accounts online is especially nice. No waiting on hold, no cranky service reps, I can tweak what I want without listening to a sales pitch ... the list goes on. I take two precautions, however. I never go into those accounts using unsecured or public networks, and I use complex passwords.
  3. Sean Mann

    Sean Mann TS Rookie

    Haven't been in a bank in a good year or so except for a notary. I use all online banking and even deposit my checks wight my phone. Bye bye tellers
  4. BlueDrake

    BlueDrake TS Enthusiast Posts: 269   +67

    I pay mine online but I only have a few. Just even then I keep the physical mail coming, because you never know when the net won't work. Or simply you don't have enough in your bank account, and rather pay from your wallet instead. I prefer paying my ISP via online banking, problem is for me? It takes an extra day to go through, add weekends and holidays.. then I have a serious problem.

    It tends to lead me into issues, but the general issue is my bill come up mid-month. So there's a lot of problems, with balance leftover adding up. Still meh on that really, there's always bound to be some issues. Sure I can always do automatic withdrawls, but I prefer doing it manually. Even if it does take a few extra days, so if they call I simply tell them it's been sent. So if they keep persisting, I'm not going to take their calls.

    There's been no real issues, since I had automatic withdrawls before. ISP would pull out what's left, get an NSF and hit with like $45 fees so I'm not bothered. Stick with what I need really, otherwise I get stuck with more problems. I don't feel the need really, to deal with someone on the phone. I do banking in person for general things, but not for paying bills since that's taken care of at home.

    Also if there's an issue I have come up, I can check my payments and prove it's there. Since I was the one who paid it, and not some automated system which isn't always reliable.
  5. Win7Dev

    Win7Dev TS Booster Posts: 399   +49

    I pay all bills online that I can except for my phone bill because they also want a fee for paying it online. Obviously I'm not going to pay more when I can just as easily mail a check.
  6. TomSEA

    TomSEA TechSpot Chancellor Posts: 2,439   +459

    Except for rent, every bill I pay is online.
  7. Yep, all done online for many years with no problems at all. I also hardly use cash so everything is a click or a beep, with everything automated to pay on time, top up accounts etc.

    One downside - I'm not so careful about how much I'm spending.
  8. Dawn1113

    Dawn1113 TS Booster Posts: 375   +64

    As a general rule, I do not pay my bills at all. :D Kidding, of course.

    Yes, I pay my bills and handle just about all my financial transactions online. I hate standing in queues.
  9. madboyv1

    madboyv1 TechSpot Paladin Posts: 1,136   +125

    I too pay most of my bills electronically, though some bills are to individual people so I write a check or transfer money to them via services like paypal.
  10. Except for rent, every bill I pay is online.
  11. spydercanopus

    spydercanopus TS Guru Posts: 802   +87

    I don't do business with those who commit the sin of usury by charging interest for the use of money. My bank is paypal.
  12. hahahanoobs

    hahahanoobs TS Maniac Posts: 1,242   +165

    I pay my rent and bills online.
  13. Tekkaraiden

    Tekkaraiden TS Maniac Posts: 955   +69

    I've been paying all my bills online for almost 10 years. My paycheck is the only reason I have to visit the bank.
  14. mevans336

    mevans336 TS Enthusiast Posts: 163   +11

    Huh? I pay my bank nothing, they pay ME interest. Paypal, on the other hand, takes a fairly large percentage of any incoming money.
    Wendig0 likes this.
  15. hahahanoobs

    hahahanoobs TS Maniac Posts: 1,242   +165

    You don't have direct deposit options? Where do you live?

    PayPal took money from me when I transferred money to my bank account.
  16. TJGeezer

    TJGeezer TS Enthusiast Posts: 385   +10

    Pay all U.S. bills online, have done so for years. Our credit union does not suck money from us for making online bill payments. However, here in Mexico our accounts with utilities and local merchants need to be paid in cash.
  17. killeriii

    killeriii TS Enthusiast Posts: 213   +14

  18. Tekkaraiden

    Tekkaraiden TS Maniac Posts: 955   +69

    My boss pays me by manual check, she's too thrifty to pay to have it direct deposited.
  19. avoidz

    avoidz TS Maniac Posts: 455   +54

    Rent and medical, yes. Power, phone, no. I don't mind dropping in to the post office to pay a couple of bills while I'm out.
  20. veLa

    veLa TS Addict Posts: 569   +101

    Usually they try to charge me some sort of service fee for paying them online, as if being paid at all isn't good enough! So no, I always write a check.
  21. I auto-charge all bills to credit cards to maximize credit card rewards. I auto-debit my mortgage payment and full credit card balance each month from my checking. So everything is automatic. I keep a little extra "padding" in my checking account so I don't have to worry about an overdraft. Zero hassle and I've never paid a fee of any kind.
  22. Trusya

    Trusya TS Rookie

    I've started paying my bills online when I realised that the banks were taking enourmous fees for the operations. I understand that they also need to earn some money but it was a way too much in the end of the month.
    Meanwhile, I do all the payments online. I even shop online and I play online games, for which I also have vouchers like paysafecard, so everything happens online for me.
    Some of the companies in my city only accept online payments. Like the gas company - there's no other choice, you have to do everything online.
    I don't complain, it's quite convenient.
  23. QuaZulu

    QuaZulu TS Member Posts: 44

    Here in Malawi, Africa there's no "plastic" and no one takes checks. Cash everywhere, baby!
  24. I guess I'm the only one who doesn't pay bills online. I hope all of you who are doing financial transactions online are using a Live Boot Linux CD for them.
  25. LNCPapa

    LNCPapa TS Special Forces Posts: 4,525   +353

    Every one of my bills is automatically debited from my account except my water bill (they won't do it automatically), but I do pay that bill online manually.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced two key features for the social network at the annual f8 developer conference in San Francisco, California. Timeline and an updated version of Open Graphs are expected to revolutionize Facebook moving forward and change the way we share things with friends.

The first is Timeline which was created to address a need to share older status updates and other important events in your life. Current status updates get “pushed off a cliff” and are lost forever once they leave your profile.

Zuckerberg said the original Facebook profile represented the first five minutes of your life if you were to introduce yourself to someone new and your stream consisted of the next 15 minutes in your story. Timeline is described as the next step in telling your personal life story.

With Timeline, your entire life story can be told on a single page, dating back as far as you would like. The page layout resembles a personal blog with a large cover photo at the top followed by important updates listed in reverse chronological order as you scroll down through the page. Facebook automatically selects the most important updates and highlights them with a blue dot. Grey dots represent hidden updates that might not be as important.

Users can arrange their Timeline however they see fit by removing certain updates or highlighting others that might be important to them. Various filters can be applied to Timeline such as photos or maps of where you have been. Timeline will be rolling out progressively over the next couple of months.

The next major feature is an update to Open Graphs which brings a new class of apps that encompass multiple features in an effort to better link friends. Open Graphs allow you to share things like music, movies and news using the new ticker on the right side of Facebook in real time in what the company calls real time serendipity.

timeline open graphs facebook music service

As was speculated last month and leaked yesterday, one of these new Open Graph features involves music.

Facebook has teamed with more than a dozen streaming music providers such as Spotify, Rdio and Vevo to bring music listening and sharing to Facebook. You will be able to see what your friends are listening to in the ticker and furthermore, you can tune in live to listen to exactly what they are hearing.

But music isn’t the only service that is getting the Open Graph treatment. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took the stage to announce that his company was just one of nearly two dozen video providers that were launching Facebook apps designed to share what users were watching with their friends. News outlets, game developers and lifestyle app creators are also joining the Open Graph network. Zuckerberg believes this will be the next big way to spread the word about varying types of media socially.

Media apps for Open Graph are launching right now while other apps such as lifestyle and games will slowly be released alongside Timeline.

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text:
Blaise Jabo

This conversation is closed.

one's thinking

One’s thinking
What you are thinking, I am thinking of it, or I have already thought of it and I might be about to think of it. Thinking is regarded as something from a personal perspective, argued to be unique, and of intelligent background. But I think as one might as well think too, that (thinking) is just as common as anything else, created around an environment that will give that thought a meaning, same way we cry at funerals instead of smiling/laughing, the environment will play a big role in whatever we are thinking, it stimulates us to think. So if two individuals are exposed in same environment there is a big chance for them to think about things in an almost same fashion, however it’s the application and presentation of the thought by individuals that makes the thought look different when it comes to the outside. Thinking comes from within us, the environment triggers us to communicate with it in thought; we create thought, shape it, weight it and give it a time-scale. The thought might be of the same to two individuals, but the shaping of the thought, the weight and its timing might be very different which in result appear as if the two individuals had different thought in the first place

  • thumb
    Nov 12 2013: During the period of time leading up to our evolution to the species, homo sapiens, we may not have had complex thoughts beyond our basic urges to survive and procreate. No doubt we had developed an inclination toward community, but likely communicated through gestures; language itself was probably of a low order and limited to grunts and gesticulations.

    The banding together of the earliest 'people' would require the development of a rudimentary 'vocabulary', a common language. Members of even the earliest surviving groups would develop means to communicate with each other, and would work for the common good of the band; specifically, for it's well-being and survival. An awareness individual well-being based on the common purpose of the group would, through time, become inherent.

    As individuals within groups displayed specific abilities which increased the safety or the well-being of the group, they would undoubtedly assume positions of increased responsibility, and their ideas, their thoughts, would likely be adopted by the group. Their thinking would set them apart from the general mass, as long as it benefited the whole. The basic credo, however, would remain the betterment, or the status quo, of the group.

    A code of behaviour would develop, directed toward sustaining and improving the group's well-being. Individual thinking would be welcomed if it supported the group, and the willingness to accept new ideas would increase as new ideas proved successful. Eventually, the continued success of new ideas would tip the scales to the point where creative thinking was encouraged and rewarded, and old ideas would slowly be replaced.

    Although there are "...more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."*, the maintenance of the status quo seems to be our guiding principle, and while new insights are widely offered and considered, our individual and group thoughts, much like those early bands of nomads, remain unchanged. *Hamlet
    • thumb
      Nov 12 2013: this is a really good point of view about this topic. Thanks a lot for your insights.
  • Nov 12 2013: Hi dear Blaise Jabo,thinking keeps me peaceful to deal things around.Thinking reminds me my brain working,and as much as I keep doing so,my brain wouldn't be atrophied as fast as time goes by...and I would like to be full of wits when I am an old granny:)LOL.By the way,would you like come to share your opinions about Rene Descartes' words:I think ,therefore I am.Thank you.
    • thumb
      Nov 12 2013: yeah thanks, i would love to share my opinions on that.. let me know when and how.
      • Nov 13 2013: Hi Dear Blaise Jabo,could you share your opinions about'I think,therefore I am' here?you can offer 2000 characters for every comments.And the topic will last one month.Please just come to share in free?Because since a few years ago,I read Rene Descartes' words:'I think,therefore I am' in English.I suddenly thought of my learning about it in Chinese.I was supposed it was totally wrong understanding of Descartes these words.I think it caused by wrong translation or wrong explanation in Chinese about it.So I would like to hear as many as I can meet those friends who like to come to talk about it in English.It can help me to boost my conciousness of thinking.Thank you!
  • Nov 12 2013: I have thought like this. The thought is identical to yours. Maybe thoughts don't come from our-self but from everyone collectively. How would you prove that scientifically?
  • Nov 11 2013: Our minds speak the same language, even for those who believe their idea had been stolen, not really, sometimes we think the same thing in different perspective. Sorry for my English guys.
  • Nov 11 2013: I have over 300 links directly related to this very topic. Filtered lists can be provided upon request pertaining to specific fields or aspects of relevance.

    Synchronized Brains: Feeling Strong Emotions Makes People's Brains 'Tick Together'
    Tense Film Scenes Trigger Brain Activity
    Many Maps of the Brain
    New Genes Linked to Brain Size, Intelligence
    Dopamine Impacts Your Willingness to Work
    Brains Wired for 'Avalanches' -- And Learning
    How Social Interaction and Teamwork Led to Human Intelligence
    How Stress and Depression Can Shrink the Brain
    Hippocampus: Mapping or memory?
    Spatial Memory and Hippocampal Function: Where are we now?
    Human Brain, Internet, and Cosmology: Similar Laws at Work?
    Music semiology
    Toward a Universal Law of Generalization for Psychological Science
    Semiotics of Thinking
    Do animals feel empathy?
    Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms

    I know... lol.
    • thumb
      Nov 11 2013: hahaaa quite a list isn't it . but give me some thoughts from what u think of it...thanks for the list


text:
x = independently organized TED event

Theme: ReDNA

This event occurred on
November 27, 2011
9:00am - 5:00pm CST
(UTC +8hrs)

reorganize （重构）：把看似不相干事物进行组合，产生跨学科跨领域的新事物
reborn （新生）：另一种完全不同的选择或觉悟，达到个人或组织的重生

Nanjing University
Nanjing, 210005
See more TEDxNanjing events

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check event website for more information.

Yu-yi Kang

康育义教授 简介：字山岩，号戴云山人。中国山水画家、地质学家，山水地质学（Artgeology）及康画学派创始人，南京大学唯一的双学科教授（地质学教授 美术学教授），曾任南京大学东方书画艺术研究中心副主任、主任，主持研究中心工作长达17年（1987一2004）。兼任中国岩画研究中心研究员、印度英?甘地国立艺术中心顾问。 Professor Kang Yu-yi, alias Shanyan, also alias Daiyunshanren, whose surname is Kang, is a master artist of Traditional Chinese Landscape Painting(TCLP). He is the founder of Artgeology --- a branch derived from art and geology --- and the founder of Kang Painting School. He is a creative geologist, the only scholar at NanJing University, China who owns two professor titles.

SiChao Wang

王思潮：1963年北京大学地球物理系天体物理专业毕业，之后在紫金山天文台工作。 中国科学院南京紫 金山天文台研究员、UFO专家、行星天文学家。 王思潮先生从1970年开始在我国天文界开展陨石研究，开展了7次陨石的科学考察，收集到我国首次的珍贵的宁强碳质球粒陨石。1971年9月16日 因为一次特殊的经历，开始了我国不明飞行物(UFO)和地外文明的研究, 对我国螺旋状、扇状、光团状UFO等八类不同类型 UFO进行了深入研究。是UFO进行定量的科学分析的提出者。 Wang Sichao, a researcher with the Zijin Mountain Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, UFO expert, planetary astronomer, has held a position in Zijin Mountain Observatory since he graduated from Beijing University in 1963, with a degree in Astrophysics professional of Department of Geophysics.He has been doing the research of Meteorite in China since 1970. In the meantime, he organized 7 scientific expeditions and collected the first valuable Ningqiang Carbonaceous chondrite in China. Then because of his special experience on September 16th 1971, he began to study the UFOs in China and extraterrestrial civilization, and fully researched on 8 different types of UFOs, including spiral-like, fan-like and blob-like ones. He also brought up a new idea on UFO quantitative scientific analysis.

Lin Zhang

博士，南京大学生命科学学院。主要研究方向：一种最近十分流行的小分子miRNA。张琳所在的研究组发现植物的微小核糖核酸（miRNA）可以通过日常食物摄取的方式进入人体血液和组织器官。并且一旦进入体内，它们将通过调控人体内靶基因表达的方式影响人体的生理功能，进而发挥生物学作用。这项研究不仅有助于深入了解microRNA作用机理，而且对于未来的临床治疗也具有巨大潜在作用。这一成果公布在Cell research杂志上。Zhang Lin Doctor of NJU School of Life Sciences major in a kind of popular little molecule 'miRNA' Nowadays DNA is known by most of us, however it still need RNA to help to play its part. The research group of Zhang found the small miRNA of plants is able to get into human's blood and organs by foods. And while in the body it affects human's physiological function by adjusting the expression mode of target genes in the human body. This research will help to deeply understand the mechanism of microRNA and its potential application in future clinical treatment. The result of research is published on Cell Research.

Juan Du

杜涓，CNature基金会秘书长。 主修新闻学学士和大众传媒硕士。 擅长公益创新思维，先后提出“创意公益”和“跨界公益”两大非主流公益新概念。 带领团队先后组织策划了“乐色起义”、 “希冀创生”、 “公益达人汇”、“沙棘树之恋”、 “沙漠潮人团”、 “跨界拍卖”等以“公益 × ”系列公益项目和活动。主张公益机构要突破同行的思维壁垒和限制，撬动社会其他行业的资源与影响力。 Du Juan, secretary-general of CNature Foundation, earned a journalism degree and a master’s degree in mass media. Specializing in putting forward innovative ideas of public welfare, he created two new concepts outside the mainstream called “Creative public welfare” and “Cross-border public welfare”. And he organized some projects such as “Lese Revolution” “Hope(希冀创生)” “公益达人汇” “Hippophae rhamnoides Love(沙棘树之恋)” “Desert Trendy Way(沙漠潮人团)” “Cross-border auction(跨界拍卖)”. He thought that in order to combine with the resources and influences of other groups, NGOs should make breakthrough in releasing the imprisoned thoughts.

XiMin Bai

白錫旼，東海大學建築系畢業，大地再造公司董事長，曾任台鼎建設董事長，曾任台灣東海大學中區校友會會長 以創建理想國而聞名，一直在建築革新的道路上實踐著烏托邦家園的理想，即使艱辛，但始終依循著－『在理想與現實之間，訂定一個利他的目標，從利他的過程走出自己。』這樣的人生觀逐步實踐 白錫旼先生所創建的理想國曾在台灣轟動一時，烏托邦式的理想家園真的可以實現嗎？一幫富有理想和激情的建築師們通過不斷的實踐，給我們的家園，生活環境帶來了很大的影響。（民國七十六年以前，這片位於大肚山麓的社區稱為遠東城，住的多屬中低收入戶，住屋率僅三成，成為藏污納垢的荒廢社區。七十六年底，台鼎建設將這個老舊社區全面更新為有藝術街坊、社會大學的同級住宅「理想國」。） Bai Ximin, graduated from Tunghai University Department of Architecture. He is the chairman of Land Recycling Corporation, the former chairman of Tai-Ding Development Corporation and the former chairman of Tunghai University Alumni Association. He is known for his idea of building architectural Utopias. Although it is hard to keep a balance between idealism and realism, he persists in being altruistic. He believes that doing good to others is the best way to realize his self-value. The “Utopia” designed by Bai Xiwen caused a sensation in Taiwan. It has raised a question in people’s mind: Is it really possible to build a home like Utopia? A bunch of idealistic, enthusiastic architects have brought great change to our living environment through their continuing practice. (Before 1987, the area at the foot of Mountain Datu was called Far Eastern District of which most residents were low wage earners. Only 30% of the housing had been used, so gradually the area was deserted. At the end of 1987, Tai-Ding Development Corporation reconstructed this area into a “Utopia” with artstreets and community colleges.)

Cheng Shen

小提琴家，中国音乐家协会会员。现为南京艺术学院音乐学院教授，硕士生导师。江苏室内乐团首席兼副团长，新古典室内乐队创建人及艺术指导。曾任南京艺术学院实验乐团首席，中日联合交响乐团首席，江苏联合交响乐队首席。 2010年 何占豪（《梁祝》作者）作曲、小提琴演奏家沈琤改编的小提琴与乐队《莫愁女幻想曲》首度亮相，沈琤亲任小提琴独奏，并由旅美指挥家徐志廉教授指挥，南京艺术学院青年交响乐团倾情演绎，莫愁湖畔的动人传说在小提琴和交响乐团的悠扬旋律中，将中西方文化实现了完美对接，反响空前。Shen Cheng, a well-known modern violinist, a member of Chinese Musicians Association. She is now an professor in Nanjing University of the Arts and a research supervisor. She is the chairman of Jiangsu Chamber Orchestra and the founder as well as the advisor of the contemporary classical chamber orchestra. She was the former chairman of the experimental orchestra of Nanjing University of the Arts, the former chairman of China-Japan joint Symphony Orchestra, and the former chairman of Jiangsu Symphony Orchestra. In 2010, the violin version of “Lady Mochou”, which was composed by He Zhanhao who is famous for his “Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai” gave its first performance. It was adapted and played by Shen Cheng and conducted by Professor Xu Zhilian. It received high praise for the fine performance, beautiful story, impressive melody and the perfect combination of Western and Eastern art.

Ye Huang

黄烨 教育界、主持界跨界达人。在教育方面，被学生奉为“麻辣教师”，曾获江苏省赛课第一名。在主持方面，十四年来主持婚礼及庆典活动两千余场，被称作江苏及华东地区创意型策划主持的领军人物。 Huang Ye:Intelligent person both in education and hosting area. He is called 'Great Teacher' by students and won the first prize of competition of teaching in Jiangsu Province. He also is the leader in hosting especially in Jiangsu and east of China area who hosted Wedding and celebration over 2000 times in past 14 years.

David Lee

李大维，中国首个hacker空间新车间创始人。 李大维已经在网络和软件行业从业15年，并一直致力于软件开源运动。他曾参与史蒂芬斯皮尔伯格的互动式多媒体项目、迪士尼虚拟世界、日本IT企业项目和facebook的社交应用设计。David Lee，founder of XinChejian, the first hackerspace in China） Li has been in Internet and software industries for 15 years and has actively participated in open source movement for 20 years. He worked on interactive multimedia projects led by Steven Spielberg, virtual world project of Disney, enterprise IT project in Japan and social applications in Facebook.

ShuXian Zhao

赵树宪：南京绒花工作室创办人 省级非物质物化遗产传承人南京绒花历史悠久，武则天时，南京绒花便作为扬州绒花列为皇室贡品，到了明代已有相当规模。民间一事三节普遍有以绒花装饰只风俗，寓吉祥祝福之意。赵树宪老师为省级非物质文化遗产传承人 南京首届工艺美术大师，绒花技艺的唯一传承者。经历了绒花的繁荣（计划经济时 出口外汇的有利贡献者）到衰落（非遗）的整个历程，他言语犀利幽默，以一个传统文化的守望者角度通过工作室中的形形色色叙述了传统文化在当今社会的地位以及进行文化传承创新的独特思索。 Zhao Shuxian The founder of Nanjing tassel flower studio. Provincial-level materialized intangible heritage inheritor. The Nanjing tassel flower with long history once was the royal tribute in Wuzetian period and popular in Ming Dynasty. The tassel flower means luck and bless among the people. Mr. Zhao, as the provincial-level intangible heritage inheritor, the first master of arts and crafts and the only inheritor of tassel flower art, experienced the blooming to declining of this kind of art. In sharp and humor words he will share you his unique view about traditional culture in today's social status and the cultural heritage of innovation.

Gustav Astrom

古思达，瑞士人 ，SXL星诺咨询CEO .1999年18岁时就在新媒体领域创立了自己的第一家公司。 作为创业家和职业经理人，他在中国有着7年的工作经历。StarGustav Astrom CEO of SXL GroupGustav Astrom is a native of Sweden and has been active in China as entrepreneur and Manager of foreign startups for more than 7 years. An entrepreneur from early age he founded his first venture in 1999 at the age of 18 within the new media sector.

Kejia Li

华海资本（香港）新技术项目投资合伙人，CAPE技术顾问曾在北京和上海供职于传播咨询业的行业TOP，2006年成立了自己的第一家公司，并于2010年正式回到自己的创业公司，从事新媒体传播技术创新，成功操作公司商业模式转型，1年时间内，获得超过之前10倍的市场回报并快速建立起行业口碑。他从事2.0事业，更擅长用2.0的方式来经营和管理公司。至今，已经是3家科技公司的主要股东成员，并投资多家初创企业。长期为青年文化创意项目，年轻独立品牌提供市场和技术方向的专业咨询和支持。同时也是new media cafe杂志的发起人兼总编辑，新媒体传播技术实验室nmc labs联合创办人，专注于新技术驱动的数字媒体传播和enterprise2.0相关产品研究Li Kejia, partner of new technology project investment in Huahai Capital (Hong Kong), technical consultant of CAPE, founded his own company in 2006. He keeps providing professional marketing and technological advices for cultural and creative projects of teenager、new and independent brand. Meanwhile, as founder and editor of chief of new media café,and co-founder of technology of new media communication labs, he focuses his research on digital media communication driven by new technology and products related with enterprise2.0.

Peter Su

苏秋萍 新加坡人，广告设计师。华文广告圈无法忽视的名字，叱咤创意圈数载，囊括几乎所有的全球广告大奖，曾任盛世长城国际广告东北亚及大中华区首席创意总监，多次担任戛纳广告节评审，迈阿密广告学院亚太地区广告及文化常任讲师，ONE SHOW资深创意顾问。苏秋平曾获美国纽约广告节的金奖、台湾时报广告奖、亚太广告奖和新加坡、香港广告创意奖，1990年甚至包括了新加坡CCA和亚太的所有中文奖苏秋平更是第一位曾经担任过台湾、香港、北京三地广告奖的评审。代表作品三菱汽车——《独一无二三菱》、东芝（TOSHIBA）电视机 ，中国银行、仲量行地产、CALTEX、3M、DHL等。只有高校学历的他在一路上留下几许战绩。如在新加坡开拓了中文广告的先河，并一而再，再而三总揽了中文奖项。也多次以中文作品获得国际和亚太区奖项，其中两次是当年亚太区唯一获奖的中文作品。他多次受邀参与东南亚、港台、中国、亚太地区和国际广告大赛的评审，其中也包括了1996年受中国专家局与人才交流协会在北京主办的首届华人平面设计大奖，也是中国全广展首位受邀的海外评委。Su Quiping,Peter Soh,Singaporean, ad designerWhy should welisten to him:Su Qiuping, a personwho cannot be ignored in the field of Chinese advertising , received almost allglobal advertising awards and was the chief creative director of Saatchi &Saatchi in northeast Asia and the greater China. As a permanent lecturerteaching ad & culture in Miami Ad School (the Asian-Pacific region) and seniorcreative consultant in ONE SHOW , he has the been the judge of CannesAdvertising Festival for several times. The awards he received includes:Golden medal in The New York Festivals, Advertising Award (Taiwan), AsiaPacific Advertising AwardsBest Creativity AdAwards in Singapore and Hong Kong. In 1990.he got almost every Chinese rewardin Singapore and CCA and Asia Pacific area, even more ,he was the first judge ofad awards in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Beijing.

Organizing team

Nanjing, China
  • Xin Xing Duan
  • Xiang Bin Li
    Website construction
  • Pan Zhi Guo
    TEDxtalks Salon organization
  • Yao Zhang
    Project Coordinator
  • Zhuang Tian
    Media Design
  • Xiang Lei Meng
    Social Media Cordinator
  • Chen Ji Li
    Partnership Development
  • Ting Wu
    Project Coordinator
  • Ran Zeng
    Translation Lead


text:
8 Ways Jennette McCurdy’s Actually a Good Role Model

by: on | in Celebrities | 10 Comments

Recently, Jennette McCurdy‘s been plagued with scandal ever since pictures of her in lingerie were leaked onto the Internet. NEWSFLASH: She wasn’t naked in the photos; you could see just as much of her in ‘em as you’d see of someone at the beach. Secondly, she’s 21 years old; as in, a legal adult. We get that she’s a Nickelodeon star — for now, anyway. We’ll see what happens with the Sam & Cat drama… — but give the girl a break, will ya?

Okay, now that that’s settled, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to send Sam Puckett our love. After all, it’s Woman Crush Wednesday! Here are eight ways Jennette McCurdy’s actually a good role model:

She's a supportive friend.

After Ariana Grande was accused of cheating on ex-boyfriend Jai Brooks, Jennette texted her Sam & Cat co-star the following message: "Ariana is beautiful. Ariana is often misunderstood, as often happens to those who understand a lot... Ariana is loving, but Ariana is surrounded by those who falsely love. Ariana is beautiful."

Photo: Instagram (@arianagrande)

She stands up for herself.

Post-KCAs: "I was put in an uncomfortable, compromising, unfair situation (many of you have guessed what it is) and I had to look out for me. I chose to not go because sticking up for what is right and what is fair is what my mom taught me is ALWAYS the most important thing... It has to do with how nickelodeon treated me. That's all."

Photo: Instagram (@jennettemccurdy)

She's pro-veggies!

As a spokesperson for Bird's Eye vegetables, she stressed how the nutritious foods could be both fun and yummy. (Something many parents have a hard time convincing their children is true.)

Photo: Birds Eye

She's charitable in more ways than one.

Not only did she serve as StarPower Ambassador for Starlight Children's Foundation, as well as appear in a PSA for Safe Kids USA, but her second single, "Homeless Heart," was released in honor of her friend Cody Waters, who died from brain cancer. 20% of the proceeds from the track were donated to the Cody Waters Foundation.

Photo: Capitol Records

She shows love to other music artists.

Whether it's in interviews or on her YouTube channel, Jennette's constantly showing praise to her fellow musicians, including Hunter Hayes, Adele and Selena Gomez.

Photo: WENN

She's a self-proclaimed geek!

Her addiction to Star Wars should say it all. She celebrates Star Wars Day on May the 4th be with you, named one of her dogs Chewie/Chewbacca and even thanked Han Solo in her Kids' Choice Awards acceptance speech!

Photo: YouTube

She's a kid at heart.

Clue, Monopoly and Life are still some of her favorite board games.

Photo: Instagram (@jennettemccurdy)

She's thankful for her fans.

Remember the beautiful note she wrote after her mother passed away?

Photo: Instagram (@jennettemccurdy)

EXCLUSIVE: Jennette Reveals Her One Direction Crush

Spread the Word

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  • Edyys

    Well I really want to meet you both, you guys thtegoer are funny and I’d never met a famous person And I have Avery hard life if I say down to talk to you about it well you wouldn’t care about my life any ways but I just need to talk to poll to get all the bad thoughts out and think happy thought being with you both Like a day being with famous ppl would be a blast

  • Sammy

    She’s amazing and hilarious!

    she is not an angle, she is a young woman who had to work hard to get where she’s at. Her likes and dislikes are different than ours. most of us earthlings would not be happy with that kind of life. I’d go complete ape shit, not being able to go where I wanted to when I wanted too. Might even date a porch monkey of two.(under cover don’t you know). Anyway, she is much prettier with brown hair, but only if the drapes match the rug. and the why she’s going by Xmas we’ll see her porn film.

    • your mom

      If she was an angle, she’d be an acute angle

  • Sayuri.

    Nobody has the right to judge neither label. We all make mistakes, it does not make you a bad person and YES you can still be a good role model.

    If I make a list of positive and negative, in Jennette’s case, positive is always long term and define who she really is.

    Here are a few more reasons why I consider she IS a good role model:

    After all these years Jennette McCurdy has bring joy to our lives, she loves her job and is clear about what she wants to do in the future.

    Even if you don’t know her, you can tell by the interviews and some videos that she’s HUMBLE, actions talk.

    Her confidence and strength of spirit are admirable. She has gone thru many things lately, and after all, she keeps her head up, smiling and willing to continue her path way.

    • m

      How can you say she loves her job when she cuts her boss down on Twitter instead of growing a pair and talking to him. And every interview I seen she’s a smart ass specially the one were she would bring the rope to a suicide.

  • m

    A girl who has played nothing but a bully on both shows, stabbed a man who adored her in the back on the internet, told someone who wanted to commit suicide she would bring the rope, half naked selfies for awhile just about every day, has a problem with her boss so goes on twitter and gripes about it so all her followers feel sorry for her is not a role model That’s a bully and there’s enough of them out there. No wonder this country is messed up so bad.

  • Misty

    Very nice article. I wish that sorry worthless idiot James Knight at Classicalite could write a great article like this. He is still claiming that Jennette took “NUDE” selfies of herself. I don’t know why he keeps writing that lie headline. No one ever writes about all the good that Jennette does, like with her almost nonstop charity work that she and Miranda Cosgrove do for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. There is so much more to Jennette that we do not see or hear about. Good things. Things that she needs to be praised for. Oh, please boycott the Classicalite site. They print nothing but false stories and lies.

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  • Alex

    A few more reasons why in the endless answer to the question of why Jennette is the best rolemodel:

    She’s also an avid reader and encourages others to read too.
    She recognizes fans instantly and making them feel like the best of friends.
    She is incredibly witty, honest, and provides sound advice. (She has her own advice column!)
    She is very mature for her age. When any drama unfolded, she only addressed it once and moved on.
    She is very passionate about her work since she was 6 and every year she loves it more.
    She is incredibly confident in herself, despite surprising insecurities she mentioned in her latest Q&A.
    She is bold and daring, trying out new adventures all the time. She went up on stage for a comedy show when she mentioned that she was terrified at the thought during her podcast.


text:
Magazine, website & books written by teens since 1989

Counting Snowflakes This work has been published in the Teen Ink monthly print magazine.

More by this author
When they were six, he was her Co-Captain. He would lie with her in the winter, counting snowflakes until they ran out of numbers, and then they would just watch. It was like falling up, he said once, like we’re falling into the sky. And they would close their eyes and pretend that they were floating into outer space, together. They were going to stay up there among the stars forever, and be the king and queen of the moon.

When they were ten, he was her Fearless Protector. He wielded a stick as a weapon and no armor, and when he fell, it was her turn. Together they fought off the evils and nasties, running around screaming as if the world was about to come crashing down on them. And as far as they were concerned, it just might.

When they were 13, he was her Mirror. He groused and shoved when they teased her about anything and everything. He told her she couldn’t help who she was; she was perfect in every single way, and what they said didn’t matter. He said, “Whenever you feel insecure, just look at me. I don’t think of you as anything less than perfect.” She knew he wasn’t lying.

When they were 16, he was her Savior. He held her hand as she waited for the date who never came, hour after hour. Afterward, he bought her waffles and they watched enough re-runs of “Grey’s Anatomy” for anybody’s lifetime.

When they were 19, he was her Pen Pal. They were oceans apart, connected by letters written in a foreign dialect that only they understood. He was studying in Prague, she was stuck in New York. His letters smelled of adventure, hers of home, and when they lingered in that place between sleep and waking, they could imagine that the missive was really the other. He could pretend he was home, she could think of all the adventures, but wherever they went, they were together.

When she was 22, he was Hers again. She ran to the airport gate on the verge of tears. It had been four years, but he was here. He was home. And when she saw him with his luggage and his smile and his eyes, he looked no different from the last time they had been here.

When she was 25, he was her Best Man. It may have been unorthodox, and he may have opposed the marriage, but he was there. He watched her walk down the aisle, and made a toast at the reception. He even stayed to clean up after everything was done.

When she was 28, he was her Repairman. He picked up the pieces left from a marriage that had never worked and put them back together. He sat with her in the divorce attorney’s office and helped pay when she couldn’t. And all the while, he never said a word about anything – just hugged her and told her it was going to be all right.

When she was 29, he was Father to a child that wasn’t his. He let her squeeze his hand until it should have broken, let her scream and curse her ex-husband for doing this to her. And when it was over and they handed her a small squirming bundle of blue, he cried with her.

When she was 32, he was her Wonderwall. Cold winter nights, he sat with her in her mother’s hospital room. Christmas lights and Santa Claus posters decorated the walls, the haunting beep of a heart monitor disrupting the silence. “Look out the window … it’s snowing, see? Count the snowflakes with me, would you? Would you please?” And so they tilted their heads back and counted until they ran out of numbers, and then they closed their eyes, and they were in space again.

When she was 35, and 40, and 60, and 90, he was her co-captain, her fearless protector, and her savior. Her pen pal, and hers again, and her best man, and her repairman. He was father to a child that wasn’t his, and he was her wonderwall.

But most of all – the only thing that really ended up mattering – he was her friend.

This work has been published in the Teen Ink monthly print magazine. This piece has been published in Teen Ink’s monthly print magazine.

Join the Discussion

This article has 27 comments. Post your own now!

Steph0804 said...
Jul. 20, 2011 at 11:20 am
What I love about this is that it isn't a typical love story; it's simply about two friends who, even though they didn't consider each other lovers, were so close to each other. LOve it!
Moonlight_Love13 said...
Jan. 4, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Awe this is a beautiful piece. I read it and by the end of the piece I was crying. It is absolutely beautiful! It really is like a true love story.
jmartins This work has been published in the Teen Ink monthly print magazine. said...
May 31, 2010 at 6:39 pm

The only thing that would make it better? This turning into nonfiction. lol

splenda. said...
May 27, 2010 at 11:46 am
this was so great! if only guys like that really existed :(
ZadaRox101 This work has been published in the Teen Ink monthly print magazine. said...
Mar. 12, 2010 at 1:49 pm
This is my absolute favorite fiction story I've read in TeenInk so far! It's AMAZING!!!!
Waterlogged said...
Feb. 20, 2010 at 7:58 pm
this was extremely good! keep writing
maki:p said...
Jan. 28, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Amazing. I absolutely loved it. Beutifully
lily1411 said...
Jan. 28, 2010 at 5:25 pm
This really is one of the best pieces I've read so far! Honestly, I think you could be the next *insert favorite author here*:)
Peanut:) said...
Jan. 2, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Simply beautiful in everyway. Keep it up, you'll go far
Soccergoalie7 said...
Dec. 9, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Amazingly beautiful story. It was a wonderful idea and extremely well written.
dreamer_believer said...
Nov. 8, 2009 at 1:02 pm
i have read this many times before, but this for sure is one of my very favorite pieces :) a lot of people can have a friendship like this, and you captured it in such a beautiful way....i can't get over how amazing this piece is :) LOVE IT!!
Jasmine G. said...
Sept. 21, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I read this to my mom, I explained it to her, but I couldn't make it sound as beautiful as you wrote it. So I read it to her. :D
This was a beautiful piece of work, you are truly talented. =)
dreamer_believer said...
Jun. 20, 2009 at 9:41 pm
wow! this is such an amazing piece of work. it made me want to cry! you are an amazing writer.
Chrissy L. said...
Jun. 9, 2009 at 12:25 am
This is absolutely gorgous. I'd give it six stars, but I can't.
BriarRose This work has been published in the Teen Ink monthly print magazine. said...
May 29, 2009 at 1:29 am
This is sooooooooooo amazing; all of us need a co-captain sometimes
megan39 said...
May 1, 2009 at 2:57 pm
this was absolutley beautiful
Jessica T. said...
May 1, 2009 at 1:13 am
That is so awesome! And it's like a mirror reflecting real life - except with hope.
meghhannnxx said...
Apr. 23, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Wowww, that was really good.
Liz said...
Mar. 20, 2009 at 1:00 am
Beautiful... just lovely. I have to say this is my favorite story I've read so far
Poetrywritter said...
Mar. 18, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Wow that was great. You are making me cry your writing is sooo beautiful
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Life's Long Journey: Cindy's Choice

Author's note: I was inspired to write this piece when I read an article about the 9/11 attack. I was fascinated...  Show full author's note »
Author's note: I was inspired to write this piece when I read an article about the 9/11 attack. I was fascinated and completely scared after reading it. I decided to write about a girl's journey after she was being affected by the attack, as well.
I hope people will understand that real people are going through or have gone through something similar, sometimes resulting in something far worse then becoming Gothic. I hope people will be able to put themselves in Cindy's shoes and figure out how they would deal with a loved one dying. I hope people will learn and love my story!  « Hide author's note
Chapters:   1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 9 Next »

September 9th, 2001-10 Years later

Chapter One
September 9th, 2001- 10 years later

“Mom?! Where are my denim jeans? I need them for school tomorrow!” Cindy yelled to her mom.
Cynthia Jillian Tarry was medium height and has soft, silky blonde hair. She also has
muscular legs and arms. But, the only thing on her that made her unique was her deep, soft, purplish eyes. She received her purplish eyes from her father who also had blond hair and was muscular. She was teased for her blonde hair and purplish eyes. She didn’t exactly know why her and her father had purplish eyes, and neither did the doctor. It could have been a combination of colors from her grandparents. Her mom poked her head in her daughter’s room and answered her inquiry.
“They’re in the laundry room, Bubbles.”
Her mom also called her Bubbles like her father did. Cindy’s mom was medium height and had brown hair which was daily put up in a bun. She has brown eyes. Her mother’s name is Geraldine. Her mother had a soft light voice which was a big benefit in Cindy’s part. Cindy often was caught in an argument with her mom.
“Mom, when’s dinner?” I am starving!” Cindy called.
Her mom didn’t answer at first and then called back to her nagging daughter.
“Honey, stay patient, it’ll be done in one hour,” she said calmly.
Cindy couldn’t wait an hour so she called her best friend Chelsea.
“Hey Chels!” she chimed on the opposite end to her friend.
“Hey Cindy! How’s it goin’?” Chelsea asked gaily.
“Fine. But my mom is starving me! I am so hungry!” she complained.
Cindy and Chelsea had a moment of silence until Chelsea broke it like popping a balloon.
“Hey, do you want to go shopping?” Chelsea asked her friend.
Cindy paused to think the question over.
“When are we gonna do this?” Cindy asked.
Her friend immediately answered with excitement.
“Right now!”
“What?! Are you CRAZY?!”
“Of course not!” Chelsea said. “You can sneak out your window, and I’ll meet you in my car behind your house at the back road.”
“I don’t know-”
“Cindy! What is there to think about?”
“Alright, alright!” Cindy reluctantly agreed.
She got ready quickly and stood at her window and looked for Chelsea. Her friend soon arrived ten minutes later. She signaled Cindy to come out. Cindy opened her window and carefully climbed out. Luckily, her house was only one story, and it was easy for her to get out. Once she was through, she closed the window silently so her mom wouldn’t hear. She ran to Chelsea’s car and climbed in.
“Hey!” Chelsea exclaimed.
“I can’t believe I am doing this,” Cindy said shakily.
Chelsea sighed loudly. She started her engine and drove down the back road and onto the highway. Chelsea turned on the radio and opened the top of the convertible. Cindy and her friend put on their sunglasses and sang along to the hip hop song on the radio.
“I love this song!” Cindy said excitedly.
Chelsea laughed and nodded, agreeing with her friend.
“Hey, has anyone asked you to the dance yet?” Chelsea asked turning the volume down.
Cindy frowned and shook her head.
“What?! Well, I was asked. By Logan Jameson!”
Cindy shrieked and hugged her friend.
“No way!”
“Yes way!”
“Logan is the hottest guy in school! He’s also the captain of the football team!” Cindy exclaimed.
Chelsea drove into the mall’s parking lot and immediately began looking around for a parking spot.
“C’mon!” Chelsea said angrily.
She soon found one and, once she got parked, another car parked beside them. A pink bug. They knew who it belonged to. Chelsea’s other friends. The girls got out and walked up to Chelsea’s car.
“Hey girl!” one of them said.
Her name was Christy. She was Logan’s ex-girlfriend.
“Hi!” Chelsea and Cindy said, together.
They were all popular in school, especially Christy. She was known as the ‘ring leader.’ Her two other companions were Eve and Lili-Anne.
“Are you two going shopping?” Eve asked Cindy.
“Yeah, we are.”
“Well, we are going to look for dance dresses at Deb’s,” Lili-Anne said happily.
They had entered the mall. The clique walked in a groups towards Deb’s. Lili-Anne and Eve walked together, and Cindy, Chelsea and Christy walked together. They first stopped at the food court and bought latte’s. Then they headed on toward Deb’s. They soon arrived but were soon told to exit from the store when the manager scolded them.
“Hey! You know you aren’t suppose to drink in here!” he said.
Christy Frowned.
“Fine! Whatever!” she balked back.
They walked out and threw away the drinks, even though they weren’t finished. They walked back in and began to look for dresses.
“Hey, Cindy, check this out! It’s a purple dress. It matches your eyes really well,” Eve said. “Might even make them prettier.”
Christy giggled softly.
“I’m joking!” she said.
“I know!” Cindy assured her.
They continued to shop when Cindy looked at her watch.
“It’s 5:45! I have to get homes” she told Chelsea.
Chelsea sighed and nodded.
“Gotta go!” she paid for her dress and walked out.
“I am so sorry!” Cindy apologized as they were headed down the corridor of the mall.
“It’s fine, I was actually getting bored in there,” Chelsea said.
They exited the mall and walked to her car. They got in and put on their sunglasses and Chelsea turned on her car radio.
Cindy glanced at her watch.
“You are fine. I’ll get you home.”
They sang along to the radio again. There was a soft wind. It blew Cindy’s hair around. The second song came on again. Chelsea pulled up to Cindy’s backyard and said goodbye. She drove away. Cindy looked at her watch to see what time it was.
“5:57,” she muttered.
The stocky teenage girl ran to the window and opened it up and crawled through, trying not to make any noise. Cindy changed back into the clothes she had on before she left for the mall. Her mom knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Cindy said, giving permission.
“Honey, time for dinner.”
Cindy walked out with her and into the kitchen. She helped her mom put the supper on the dinner table. While Cindy brought out their salads, her mom made a conversation.
“Are you hungry enough for dessert?”
“Sure! Like what?” Cindy asked.
“Nothing much, just devil’s food cake.”
Cindy gasped with excitement. Her mom came out with two plates each with a slice of devil’s food cake. It had thick, creamy chocolate icing. Whipped cream swirls on the top and the they curved perfectly. She sat them down at each spot on the table then sat down in her chair. Cindy then sat down and positioned herself comfortably. Her mom held her hand, and they bowed their heads. Cindy’s mom closed her eyes, but Cindy didn’t. Her mom began the prayer.
“Dear Heavenly Father. We pray for the unfortunate people in this country. The sick, and troubled. Please extend Your hand to them. We also pray for good health for us. And keep our dear Paul safe in your arms. In Jesus name we pray, amen.”
They began eating their salads.
“Honey, how was school today?” her mom asked and then put a forkful of lettuce into her mouth.
Cindy paused before she answered this one.
“OK?” her mom repeated.
“Yes, OK.”
Cindy stopped eating and set down her fork.
“Mom, why did you, during the prayer, mention dad?”
“Why not,” Her mom answered.
“He’s dead?” she said, in a reminding tone.
Just then, the phone rang. Cindy’s mom scurried to answer it.
“Hello?” she solicited the caller. “Excuse me? When can we see her?” she questioned tensely.
Cindy’s mom soon said goodbye and put the phone down frantically. She quickly grabbed her shoes, jacket and purse.
“Wha- what’s wrong?!” Cindy quickly asked.
Her mom pulled her out of her seat and they both rushed out the door. Luckily, Cindy had shoes on. They dashed to the car. Cindy sat in the passenger seat and her mom sat in the driver’s seat. She started the car and in 30 seconds was out of their driveway.
“Mom! What’s going on?” Cindy repeated.
Her mom hesitated before she started to answer. She spoke in a somewhat peaceful voice.
“Dear, your grandma just had a heart attack. They don’t think she’ll make it so we are going to visit her.”
“Grandma?” Cindy mumbled.
That was her last living grandparent. Her other grandparents died on her mom and her dad’s side. They soon arrived in the hospital’s parking lot. They parked and ran across the blacktop, through the automatic hospital doors. Cindy stopped and looked around to see an older woman on a bed being rolled hastily down a hallway. Cindy ran after her. Her mom got a glance in the same direction and followed. The doctors and nurses rushed into a room and shut the doors. Cindy and her mom were too late to get any information, so they sat down on a bench set up in the hallway. Cindy kept having flashbacks of being in the same hospital when her dad died. I keep seeing him in his bed. My mom’s face when she heard the news, and the words “I love you, she thought.
“Is grandma okay?” Cindy asked feebly.
She felt like she had no power. Like she couldn’t do anything to help keep her grandma from slipping away.
Her mom shook her head, her eyes beaming with concern, and shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
Chapters:   1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 9 Next »

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Magazine, website & books written by teens since 1989

The Perfect Window

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You look out your window
And you see perfect things.
The perfect wind gently blowing,
The perfect flowers swaying.

Across the street you see
The perfect little bird,
Tweeting its sweet tune.
You wish you could sing out the hurt.

Rain splashes on your window
And reminds you of your tears.
A little perfect raindrop
Reminds you that you're not alone.

Your thoughts revert to your father
Yelling in the back of the room
About how your mother is stupid.
Why do they have to yell like that?

Your eyes trail back to that window.
You see a perfect family walking happily
No worries, just care-free.
If only they were the ones in your place

One the outside looking in.

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Magazine, website & books written by teens since 1989

my wonderful life

look around
what do you see
is it safe
safe for me
i may be daring
i may be dangerous
but one thing I'm not
is curious
what ever goes on
i don't really care
i just sit at home
brushing my hair
i laugh my head off
while watching t.v.
the news channel sucks
its so boring
i watch sponge bob
like a boss
and eat noodle soup
and take my top off
the phone rings
while I'm taking a poop
my life is carefree
i have all i want
so who needs mystery
i definitely don't
so as i go to bed
and turn out the light
i smile to myself
and say
oh, my wonderful life:)

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This article has 3 comments. Post your own now!

Moniz said...
Nov. 6, 2012 at 10:20 pm
That was amazing! (:
ElmoCarlon said...
Oct. 23, 2012 at 12:27 pm
I love this (:
Nguyenkhanhtran said...
Aug. 15, 2012 at 7:48 am
This poem...although simple, has a definite young soul, singing her hearts out for all to hear and dance along. This poem, has the soul of a child, when i read it...i return to who i was years ago, once a dreamer, now a doubter. Why is this? Read my own writings my friend and you'll see why, my language is...very different from these poems you have. This poem, i the simplest expression of youth I've come across now. Although, expand your vocabs will help, as it will color your... (more »)
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Thursday Throw Down: Royal Rivalry

So, last week, we decided that no matter what, RIVER would take everyone down if she was in battle mode.  No one thought Buffy could take her, and poor Echo didn’t have any votes.

So this week, since we’re talking Fairy Tales, which of these fairy tales would you rather your story be?  (I did try to pick the most non-depressing ones…  Did you know that the Little Mermaid actually dies in the end from a broken heart?)

Snow White, who was so hated by her step-mother that she was almost killed by her not once but four times (the huntsman, tightly laced stays, poisoned hair combs, and then the famous poisoned apple)?

Sleeping Beauty, who was cursed by a wicked fairy to die on her 16th birthday, but instead must sleep until wakened by a king’s son’s kiss?

Cinderella, given over to nasty stepmother and stepsisters, and only if you’re pious and good will your reward of marriage to the prince come?

Share your thoughts in the comments below, or share your own fairy tale!

Top 10 Cinderella retellings
Top 10 Twisted Fairytales

  1. This is coming from a guy but I think I'd rather be Cinderella. Sleeping beauty, how boring. Falling asleep and waiting to be saved? Snow White is similar. Huntsman lets her go, dwarfs untie the laces, etc. At least with Cinderella her 'help' came from the fact that she prayed and was a good person.

  2. All these fairy tales are all kinds of messed up. If I *had* to choose I think I agree with Justin's reasoning for choosing Cinderella. Also, in the original fairy tale, I believe Sleeping Beauty was actually sexually assaulted, and when she awoke she had a kid that she didn't even know about. How freaky/messed up/terrifying is that?!

  3. All of the original fairy tales are messed up (and even the current crop aren't that great, and this is coming from a Disney fan). I went with the *nicest* that I could find… Snow White, in this version, I'd have to say is the dumbest- really, FOUR TIMES you're dead?!?!? FOUR?!?!?!?

  4. The original Sleeping Beauty that I remember (having been a long time since I've read it *disclaimer* ), she didn't have the kids until afterwards. If I remember correctly, they married in secret from his family because his mother was part Ogre. They had two kids, and then went to live with his side of the family, where good ol' mother-in-law wanted to eat the kids and then SB when the hubbie went away to protect the kingdom….

    None of the original fairy tales actually work out well… Belle (from the Beast) ends up separated from her family forever; the Little Mermaid actually ends up an air spirit forced to at least 300 years of penance.

    Rapunzel falls in love with the Prince who's secretly visiting her in the tower, gets pregnant, the Prince is blinded by the evil Mother Gothel and Rapunzel is trapped in the tower.

    None were ever happy. *sigh*

    A ton of money has been made cleaning up some of the vicious stories in our history.

    Yet, I get in trouble for humming the song to that melting doll scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when I'm forced to ride It's a Small World.

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TEFL classes

Discussion about courses, qualifications and teacher training. Please do not advertise TEFL courses here.

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TEFL classes

Unread postby aprilhenderson » 08 Sep 2009, 05:45

Could someone please tell me the best TEFL course to take? There are so many and I'm nervous to spend money that I've saved to take the classes and then it turn out to be a scam. Is this really the best way? Who would be the best person to talk to about it to be sure I'm doing precisely what i need to do to be fully accredited to teach English in foreign countries? Does anyone have any horror stories or success stories about their experience with the process? Please respond! Thankyou!

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Re: TEFL classes

Unread postby Lucas » 08 Sep 2009, 21:17

If you are willing to spend approximately $2,000, take an on-site Trinity or CELTA course. In Canada, TESL Canada is the norm and it's also highly recognized throughout the world. You can take this one on-site or online and if you take the course online you also need to complete a 20-hour practicum. Also, if you are taking distance learning or online, an ACTDEC UK Level 2 (or more) plus the practicum is recognized by the British Council (So is TESL Canada). Take a course that is recognized by any of the above organizations and you won't need to take any other course.

Online, you can get good courses for US$250-$400. Make sure that the course you choose covers lesson planning, grammar, and phonology. These are good for entry level jobs (many schools require a minimum of 100-hour certification).

We offer the Trinity CertTESOL and TESL Canada on-site courses in Toronto, Canada
www.study-at-coventry.com and online TESL Canada and ACTDEC UK courses www.ontesol.com
Ontesol - Online TESOL/TEFL courses. http://www.ontesol.com

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Re: TEFL classes

Unread postby ICAL_Pete » 09 Sep 2009, 07:34

I'd suggest taking a look at http://teflcoursereview.com which has reviews of courses made by former students and is completely independent. (Our online TEFL certificate is very highly rated there.)

The CELTA course is perhaps the best, but my advice would be not to take it unless you have a couple of years experience at least. It's very intense! Instead, you could take an entry level course like the ICAL TEFL Cert and start work immediately to get some experience teaching.

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• Romney tries to look presidential by criticizing Obama on foreign policy

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  • Amid violent flare ups in the Middle East, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is trying to prove his own readiness to be commander in chief and force President Barack Obama to answer for turmoil in places like Libya, where terrorists killed the U.S. ambassador on the anniversary of 9/11.
    Romney advisers argue that the stepped-up foreign policy criticism dovetails with a key piece of his central argument: Obama is in over his head, and the country will be worse off if he gets a second term.
    Yet, there's a disconnect between what Romney and his team are talking about nationally and what he is running on in the states, where his TV advertising is largely focused on the economy and jobs — voters' No. 1 issue — ahead of Wednesday's presidential debate. All that's leaving Romney open to criticism that his campaign is searching for a winning pitch just one month before the election and with voting under way in many states.
    “Our country seems to be at the mercy of events rather than shaping them. We're not moving them in a direction that protects our people or our allies. And that's dangerous,” Romney wrote in a column published Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
    Romney running mate Paul Ryan piled on, telling radio host Laura Ingraham that Obama's administration hasn't given the public the full story on the circumstances that led to the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi.
    “It's really indicative of a broader failure of this administration's foreign policy and the crisis that is taking place across the Middle East,” Ryan said. “It is clear the administration's policy unraveled.”
    The Obama campaign reacted dismissively, noting that Osama bin Laden is dead and arguing that the Obama administration has taken a hard line on Iran to dissuade it from creating a nuclear weapon.
    “I don't think the American people are looking for chest thumping and empty rhetoric and that's really what we're hearing from the Romney-Ryan team,” campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on MSNBC. She said Romney's opinion piece lacks “a real vision for leading the country as commander in chief.”
    Romney's intense focus on foreign policy is intended to undercut what the Obama campaign has seen as the president's ironclad international affairs credentials — and send a message to voters that they can trust the Republican on foreign policy despite limited experience. To that end, Romney's advisers said he's planning a major foreign policy speech, to be delivered some time after Wednesday's debate.
    Foreign policy is the latest in a series of political openings that Romney has tried to exploit in recent weeks, as he has fallen behind the president in polls both in key battleground state. National surveys show the president ahead in a tight contest. In recent weeks, Romney also has castigated Obama on the coal industry, defense cuts, wealth redistribution and the president's comment that it's not possible to change Washington from the inside.
    But unlike some of those issues, Romney's campaign hasn't put serious money behind the foreign policy line of criticism.
    Paid TV ads in key states don't largely mention international affairs. The third-party group American Crossroads has a produced a Web video assailing Obama's foreign policy, but it's not on the air. Polls show foreign policy far down on the list of voters' concerns and Obama leads Romney on the issue.
    Romney's campaign had spent much of the year focusing its argument against Obama's handling of the economy.
    Then came Sept. 11, and as unrest flared in the Middle East, Romney issued a late-night statement assailing Obama before it was clear that Stevens and three other Americans had been killed in the terrorist attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The timing of Romney's initial response prompted heartburn within the GOP.
    Yet, Romney pressed ahead with his criticism that Obama was a weak leader whose posture abroad was hurting U.S. interests, and congressional Republicans have piled on about the administration's changing statements on the Libya attack.
    Romney campaign aides said internal polls showed the criticism of Obama's foreign policy resonating with voters in the days after Stevens' death. But any traction Romney was getting on that front was stunted when a video surfaced of Romney telling donors that 47 percent of Americans believe they are victims entitled to government assistance. Obama has highlighted that comment repeatedly in TV ads and at campaign rallies, building on his post-convention momentum.
    Since then, the administration's statements on Libya have evolved, with officials struggling to explain just what happened in Benghazi.
    White House adviser David Plouffe seemed to struggle Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press” when pressed on the matter.
    “This was an event obviously, a complex event. We're only talking about a matter of weeks here,” Plouffe said. “So as information was arrived at, as determinations were made, that was shared with the American people. And I think again the focus needs to be how do we make sure that our facilities and our ambassadors and our personnel are secure going forward.”
    Republicans have looked to capitalize, raising questions about why the consulate in Benghazi wasn't better protected and why the ambassador wasn't traveling with more security.
    “It was either willful ignorance or abysmal intelligence to think that people come to spontaneous demonstrations with heavy weapons, mortars, and the attack goes on for hours,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CNN on Sunday.


text:
• Animals amok are the cat's meow

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  • It was not surprising to hear from Athol Police Sgt. Chris Casella the other day that he had a snake story.
    It wasn't his snake story, but one from a co-worker. It was a good one. It is one of the things I like about Athol. There is always some sort of animal story.
    In Athol, police or the town's animal control officer have been called on to rescue a moose from a pool, chase a moose and a bear around downtown, investigate owls in distress and a runaway chicken driving a neighborhood crazy, and lots of other things from weird bugs found to rare birds. I was even called once when a dead python was found in a brook in town.
    If you haven't guessed it yet, I love odd animal stories. I once saw a couple of women on the side of the road in Sterling with a squirrel in a cage. I drove past but couldn't stand not knowing. I slammed on my brakes, turned around and went back to ask them what was going on. They seemed like nice people, but it is amazing they have not filed restraining orders against me.
    "Why do you have a squirrel? Huh? Huh?"
    I get a little excited. I love people with weird animal stories as much as the stories, because they are people who keep their eye to the wider world and appreciate when they see something out of place. At times they may be over the top, but I know the feeling. One time I was driving down Route 140 near the Gardner-Winchendon town line when two moose appeared in the road. My brain was like a dog seeing a squirrel.
    "Moose!" I thought, grabbing for my then-film camera, trying to load it while driving 50-plus miles per hour, thinking, "Moose! I need a picture!"
    I didn't get the picture.
    The weird animal endorphins are powerful, especially in journalists whose mantra is, "If it growls, moos, caws or bugles, it leads."
    One time I received a call from a local resident who said a cow was loose on Templeton Common. Being the grandson of a farmer and having grown up in the town when it was still a farming community, I yawned, said OK and went off to check it out, thinking I would be lucky to get the story on the bottom of the comics page. As it turned out, it was about as fun as it could be. Police and a local farmer were chasing it all over the common.
    There are no end to animal stories. As I was writing this, my daughter called and said she just paid $700 to repair her car after rats ate its wires. Her roommate had the same problem. Apparently Colorado has giant car-killing rats.
    The biggest get for a journalist, other than catching politicians tweeting things they shouldn't be tweeting, is the bull-moose-downtown-picture. I never successfully photographed a moose in a populated area, but my mother, Shirley, a longtime correspondent for the T&G, got a shot of one in downtown Baldwinville.
    Moose stories are pretty common these days, as are bear stories. Even spotting an eagle has become a regular thing. The endorphins don't really kick in unless you see a cougar.
    But there are still plenty of weird animal stories. One of our reporters once wrote about an Athol moose in a swimming pool. Over the years, the best I have been able to muster have been moose-crushing-car stories.
    Some of my favorite strange animal stories were occasional runaway sheep and goats and an escaped long-horned cow, fugitives from Adams Farm. The Highland cow was reported several times over a couple of weeks before it had to be killed by a local hunter. Even in Athol, feral cows are not a good idea, especially grumpy Scottish cows.
    I got a lot of calls about the cow, but it was pretty elusive. It is gone now, but I wonder if there are others out there. When I am out hiking in the Athol area, I always carry a camera. The thought of a feral cow floods my head with endorphins.
    Contact George Barnes at gbarnes@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgebarnesTG.


text:
Thursday 28 May 2015

Advantage Farage in the immigration debate

Nigel Farage

Yet again, Nigel Farage has wrong-footed the Prime Minister. For some time the Government has rejected calls to admit refugees from the conflict in Syria, in spite of the humanitarian crisis raging in and around the country. In an interview on Sunday, Mr Farage – not someone known for encouraging more people to come to Britain – finally called upon David Cameron to offer a safe haven. He said: “I think, actually, there is a responsibility on all of us in the free West to try and help some of those people in Syria fleeing, literally in fear of their lives.”

Thus Mr Farage has possibly pulled off a quite remarkable coup. Ukip, a party that some Tories have bashed for being anti-foreigner, now looks more compassionate than Mr Cameron’s self-described “compassionate Conservatives”.

Putting the politics of his comments aside, Mr Farage is correct when he asserts that the West has done too little. Almost a third of Syria’s population has been displaced by the war and two million refugees have resettled in neighbouring states. It is true that Britain has become the second-largest aid donor, but anecdotal evidence of appalling living conditions and lack of access to basics such as food and water suggests that even this is not enough. And there has been a notable reluctance to provide refuge in safe countries. Germany has pledged to take 10,000, France 500 and Spain just 30. The UK has offered nothing; Labour has come up with a pledge to take a random figure of around 500.

Mr Farage will doubtless face criticism from the extreme Right within his party for speaking out for the Syrian refugees. But many voters will probably appreciate his sentiments. Very few people want to see a border that is heartlessly closed to everyone who wants to come in.

Nevertheless, they do desire far better management of that border, which is why Mr Farage has also caught the mood more astutely than Mr Cameron on the subject of Bulgarian and Romanian immigration. Polls show that the majority of Britons favour stronger measures to control EU migration, which threatens to place huge strains on jobs and services at a time when both are stretched thinly. Mr Cameron has offered the belated and rather mealy-mouthed pledge to make it tougher for migrants to claim benefits. But the public will likely judge that this is too little, too late – especially when such a poor job has been done in the past of keeping track of who is entering the country and of deporting those who should not be here.

Immigration is likely to be a major subject of debate as May’s European elections approach, and for the moment, Mr Farage has the advantage.

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Thursday 28 May 2015

Sharknado film creates Twitter storm

A made-for-TV horror film about a host of lesser known stars battling a giant tornado filled with sharks has become a spontaneous online phenomenon.

Sharknado, a new made-for-TV film in which Ian Ziering and Tara Reid battle sharks falling from the sky, debuted in the US last night – and promptly became a major talking point on Twitter.

Airing on Syfy, the channel responsible for such TV movies as Arachnoquake, Sharktopus and Aladdin & The Death Lamp, Sharknado was the top trending topic on Twitter, with viewers transfixed by its preposterous premise – a freak hurricane sucks sharks up from the ocean, hurling them at Los Angeles, causing the waterlogged populace to be terrorised by the flying predators.

In the film, which is directed by Anthony Ferrante and written by Thunder Levin, Ziering (Beverly Hills 90210) plays a bar owner, the appropriately monikered Fin, who sets out to save his ex-wife, April (American Pie's Tara Reid), and their daughter.

Corny lines such as “we can't just stand here and wait for sharks to fall out of the sky” and “we're going to need a bigger chopper” pervade the film, which clearly has its tongue firmly in its cheek.

Unsurprisingly, the film's concept made it a target for Twitter commentary, with writers, producers, actors gleefully taking aim at it.

Here are some of the reactions:

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Thursday 28 May 2015

Hay Festival 2013: Thomas Keneally discusses his new novel, The Daughters of Mars

Ahead of his appearance at the Hay Festival, Thomas Keneally explains to James Walton why battlefields feature so prominently in his novels.

Thomas Keneally: courteous and self-deprecating
Thomas Keneally: courteous and self-deprecating Photo: Rii Schroer

Thomas Keneally is a famously genial interviewee – courteous, self-deprecating and with a chuckle Sid James might have envied for its earthiness. Even so, this meeting must be something of a tester. It’s breakfast time in London, and yesterday Keneally flew in from Sydney for the Hay festival. If he’d have preferred, say, a leisurely morning with the papers to a long conversation about his 50-year writing career, then he gives no sign of it. “I’m very grateful,” he says with apparently genuine enthusiasm, “that at 77, when most men are retired, I can come to London, and still be in the game.”

And from there, his affability never falters, whether he’s lamenting the state of Australian cricket (“One of the great crises of Australian identity is that you’re going to win the Ashes yet again”) or even admitting that some of his books are better than others: “Old books are like old love letters. You wrote them when you were under a different set of infatuations. But they seemed a good idea at the time.” At one point, he becomes the only writer I’ve ever interviewed who shows me pictures of his grandchildren.

And yet, you have to keep reminding yourself, this is one of the world’s most distinguished authors – a man whose 31 novels include three shortlisted for the Booker Prize (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Confederates and Gossip from the Forest) and one (Schindler’s Ark) that won it. He’s also written two children’s books, several plays and more than a dozen works of non-fiction.

In the circumstances, he could be forgiven for turning out the odd finely wrought novella. Instead, the last six years have seen seven new Keneally books – his most recent novel weighed in at 520 pages and has a serious claim to be the best he’s ever written. The Daughters of Mars, about Australian nurses in the First World War, once again pulls off the miraculous Keneally trick of being both epic and intimate. It’s also packed with great phrase-making – an aspect of his work too often overlooked.

For someone who’s written so much about war and Australian history, it’s perhaps surprising that this is the first time he’s tackled Gallipoli, his country’s great founding myth. Now that he has, though, he gives the myth a thorough examination. “Gallipoli has an almost mystic place in our minds,” he says with increasing amusement. “In 1901 we managed to federate a country the size of London to Moscow. But it’s almost as if creating a nation peacefully wasn’t good enough for us. So we transferred this identity from federation, which was quite a triumph, to the Dardanelles. But if Gallipoli was the birth of the nation, then it was an ectopic birth – because it happened in Turkey.” By this time he’s chuckling loudly.

Some writers may have considered Gallipoli enough for one novel. The Daughters of Mars, however, later moves to France where the British reader might be embarrassingly surprised to discover that by 1918 the Australian Corps was the biggest on the Western Front. As Keneally explains, it’s another Australian myth that the diggers won the decisive war-ending victory – so he explores that too. (The conclusion seems to be “well, yes and no”.) He also became “fascinated” – a tellingly common Keneally word – by how women appeared to deal with trauma better than men: very few nurses suffered from shell-shock.

And still that’s not all. “I was interested by the fact that these women wanted to see the Old World. We’ve always been fascinated by how much malice Europe is able to pack into such a small space, and how much glory – and during the First World War it was only a bus ride from Paris to the body-impregnated trenches of the Western Front.”

As for why war in general has been so important in his work, he has a characteristically wide range of theories. One is that war is a test of people’s essential mettle – and, as such, a gift to novelists: “Our hypocrisy is that if all this horror stopped, we’d be deprived of our livelihoods. The genetic flaws that ensure we’re not nice to each other are the stuff of literature.” Another is more autobiographical. Born in 1935, Keneally spent his early life in New South Wales bush towns. Then in 1942, the family moved to the Sydney suburb of Homebush and his father joined the Air Force, leaving the family for nearly three years. “I was a child of World War Two. My father was stationed in the Middle East and used to send me these Australian cake tins full of German memorabilia. So there I was, touching the Third Reich in Homebush. And of course there was also the intense fear of a Japanese invasion.”

None the less, according to his memoir Homebush Boy, the biggest turning point in Keneally’s life came at 17 when, filled with “a hunger for grandeur”, he decided to become a Catholic priest. After six years in the seminary, he left just before ordination, largely because the sheer unkindness displayed by church leaders caused him to lose his faith. (“That’s always a great loss, no matter how naïve the faith is.”) Yet the hunger for grandeur – which he still attributes to his Catholic background – remained, and clearly informs his books. “The world as a battlefield is a peculiar view to take in a place as safe and almost torpid as Australia then was, but there is a particular temperament that’s self-dramatising and I suppose I’ve got that.”

Leaving the seminary caused something close to a nervous breakdown, and Keneally entered the Sixties feeling “pretty lost”. Back living in his parents’ house, he did some teaching and a part-time law course. (“I have a lawyer’s loquacity,” he accurately points out.) But then came two lucky breaks.

First, having long dreamed of being a writer, he sent off a novel based on his seminary experiences to a London publisher, who accepted it. But why London? “We were raised with the idea that everyone in England was reading Thomas Hardy and George Eliot all the time – and we also felt amputated from that tradition. There was a tendency to think literature’s supposed to happen in another hemisphere. So, I wanted to be recognised by the Poms.” Another big laugh follows. “I would have preferred to hit 150 before tea at Lord’s – but we must do what we can.”

The Place at Whitton was published to good reviews in 1964, and he became a full-time writer – a status confirmed when his third novel Bring Larks and Heroes, about Australia’s early settlers, won the 1967 Miles Franklin Award, the country’s leading literature prize.

The second break, meanwhile, completed his move away from the celibate life. In hospital for an operation, his mother proudly gave her night nurse Judith (a former nun as it happens) a copy of The Place at Whitton. She loved it, asked to meet the author and married him a year later. “Which is precisely,” laughs Keneally, “the impact I hoped my book would have on women.” They’ve been together ever since.

Unlike many of his literary compatriots, Keneally never joined the exodus to Britain. Even so, he did plenty of the travelling that comes with literary success – which is why in 1979 he became one of the few novelists in history whose career was transformed by a broken briefcase. After a book-signing in Los Angeles, Keneally went to a leather-goods store to buy a new one, and got talking to the owner, Leopold Pfefferberg. On finding out his customer was a writer, Pfefferberg told Keneally: “I have a book for you,” before going on to explain how he’d been saved from Auschwitz by a hard-drinking German industrialist called Oskar Schindler. Not only that, but he had a full archive of documents that might help, including Schindler’s original list…

The result, needless to say, was Keneally’s best-known book – and one of only two Booker winners that have also inspired winners of the Best Picture Oscar. (The other, for any quiz fans, is The English Patient.) And so to the inevitable question of whether its success has rather overshadowed his other work. Does he ever wonder what his life would have been if that original briefcase had been sturdier? “Comme ci, comme ça,” he replies with good-natured weariness. “I’d certainly rather have the book than not. It’s my least characteristic and best-plotted novel – and the humiliating thing is that the plot already existed. I’ve never been able to plot as successfully again.”

Not, of course, that he’s going to stop trying. When asked what they’re working on at the moment, most authors plead the fifth amendment. Keneally tells me about no fewer than three novels that seem well under way. “I hope to be writing to the end,” he says, “as bad as the stuff might be.”

And with that, the least grand of grand writers thanks me warmly for my time, and goes off to be just as unfailingly charming to the photographer.

Thomas Keneally will be speaking at the Telegraph Hay Festival on Monday, May 27 at 2.30pm

For the full programme see

You can download a free digital version of The Hayly Telegraph, the daily paper of the Hay Festival, each day of the festival from the iBookstore. Visit or search 'Hayly Telegraph' on the iBookstore.

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Thursday 28 May 2015

Dave Brubeck didn’t invent cool, but he certainly made it his own

Dave Brubeck, the jazz pianist who performed 'Take Five’, epitomised the right to be laid-back

Dave Brubeck was cool. Even people who cared nothing for jazz recognised this and admired him for it. Even my own father, an engineer magnificently unashamed by that profession’s acquired reputation for trenchant philistinism, knew Take Five and would tap his fingers on the steering wheel if we caught it on the Jaguar’s radio. Of course, it was “Dave”, never David.

Although he died this week, Brubeck’s moment was in a much earlier and more innocent age. He had his big 15 minutes in 1959 when the signature album Time Out was issued by Columbia Records. Brubeck, not aware of it at the time, was one of the high priests of what we now see as “Mid-Century Modern”, as Cara Greenberg called it in her 1983 book.

The album art of Time Out was bold abstraction, then a reliable signifier of avant-garde intentions. The design was by S Neil Fujita, head of Columbia’s art department (and later designer of the jackets of In Cold Blood and The Godfather). Fujita’s brief was to radicalise the conservative Columbia so as to compete with the bold geometry of Reid Miles’s designs for the rival record label Blue Note. This he did.

Indeed, cool jazz and abstract art are cultural companions. After all, Arnold Schoenberg – with Darius Milhaud one of Brubeck’s mentors – was himself a non-figurative painter. In Brubeck’s historical moment, abstract art was the ultimate expression of visual sophistication, just as his subtly structured music took its medium where it had not been before. And if this sounds elegiac it is because abstract art and cool jazz suggest a lost world of clear values. Once radical and provocative, they have become safe and polite.

The title of Brubeck’s ineffable Take Five is itself revealing of a mood. The expression means “Please be prepared to enjoy a five-minute rest”. The US demotic is contracted, relaxed and so dramatically at odds with European sesquipedalian formalism. Similarly, Time Out itself means a disengaged pause from frenetic activity. Feet, up, loosen your Slim Jim tie, have a smoke. Such powers of relaxation suggest an impressively empowered superiority: the right to be laid-back. Miles Davis might have been the first proprietor of cool in his 1957 Kind of Blue, but Dave Brubeck made it all his own. He even made it my father’s.

It was a matter of style. Miles Davis looked shockingly transgressive even when still wearing a suit and tie. Dave Brubeck dressed like a Princeton music professor. Heavy-rimmed, thoughtful glasses, sack suits in natural fabric, or tailored dark numbers, button-down shirts and penny loafers. It was the style memorialised in Teruyoshi Hayashida’s 1965 Take Ivy, an ethnographer’s photo appraisal of youthful Wasp fashion.

Davis looked like an advertisement for voodoo. Brubeck, of Swiss extraction, looked like an advertisement for J Press or Brooks Brothers. Davis looked as though he wanted to eat you. Brubeck looked as though he wanted to give you a seminar on Schoenberg’s 12-tone technique. Maybe we love this because it was the last moment when advanced art was unthreatening.

Brubeck’s Mid-Century Modernism was, at least from our bruised perspective, a Golden Age. Between Hemingway’s Nobel Prize or the creation of the interstate highway network in the mid-Fifties and the Kennedy murder in Dallas, the United States seemed to offer an earthly paradise. It was post-war and its tribulations, but pre-Pop and its avaricious cynicism. When Take Five was recorded, a gallon of petrol cost 25 cents. Kodak still made home movie cameras and its Colorama tableaux at Grand Central Terminal offered travellers vivid polychrome propaganda about the unmixed joys of American life.

Although Time Out was recorded at the famous 30th Street studios in New York, Brubeck’s sensibilities were founded in his Californian upbringing. The exact contemporary was the jazz-inflected Seventy-Seven Sunset Strip, a television series that began in 1958, whose glorious iconography popularised (some might say “debased”) the European modernist architecture brought to the West Coast by émigrés such as Richard Neutra and Albert Frey.

Brubeck, whose music had roots in austere European theory, bridged a gulf between modernism and popularity. In the Europe of 1959 no such bridges could have been built.

But Dave Brubeck’s achievement is all the more remarkable when considered in context: 1959 was also the year of Cadillac’s Sedan de Ville, the most outrageous car ever to emerge from Detroit, at the time world HQ of design outrages. It was also the year of Barbie, whose inflamed and inflammatory proportions were only possible in a dark culture not yet illuminated by the liberating insights of feminism. And let’s not forget, Take Five was four years before the Beatles’ first LP.

It is poetic that Dave Brubeck died in the same week as architect Oscar Niemeyer, another hero of Mid-Century Modernism whose own genius turned harsh concrete into lyrical form (see Obituaries, page 37). Brubeck’s genius turned complicated time signatures into cerebral pop.

Listen now to Take Five with that shuffling drum introduction and Paul Desmond’s elegant alto sax and an image comes to mind. The session over at the Blackhawk Nightclub or Stanford campus, the quartet kicks back in the dressing room. There are Harry Bertoia diamond wire chairs and they light menthol cigarettes. Cool? Absolutely! Beautiful? That too.

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Thursday 28 May 2015

X Factor ratings highest for two years

Simon Cowell's return attracted 10.6 million viewers

X Factor 2014: judges Simon Cowell, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, Mel B and Louis Walsh
X Factor 2014: judges Simon Cowell, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, Mel B and Louis Walsh

The X Factor has turned around its sliding ratings thanks to a revitalised judging panel that has seen the return of Simon Cowell and Cheryl Fernandez-Versini.

A peak audience of 10.6 million viewers tuned in to see the debut of The X Factor's 11th series on Saturday, with an average of 9.5 million viewers, according to overnight ratings reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

According to ITV, the talent contest was the most-watched show on television by more than 4 million viewers.

The renewed audience interest marks a two year improvement on X Factor ratings. The first episode of last year's series attracted 10.3 million viewers at its peak, while 2012's X Factor was watched by a peak of 9.9 million for its first episode. The average audience for 2012's opening show was just 8.7 million, the show's smallest audience for a premiere since 2006.

The show's best opening figures to date were achieved in 2011, when 11.3 million people watched Gary Barlow take Cowell's place in the judging panel. Cowell has been in America during the last three seasons to launch and work on X Factor USA, but when American network Fox cancelled the show he returned, along with former judge Fernandez-Versini.

Although the improved ratings suggest a stronger season for X Factor after two years struggling against the success of BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing, the two shows' broadcasting times will collide on Sunday with Strictly's new series debut.

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Thursday 28 May 2015 | UK News feed

Briton held over Barcelona death

Spanish police have arrested a former Royal Naval officer wanted in connection with the alleged murder of a Scottish business associate in Barcelona last month.

Derek Cowan, 46, from Larkhall, Lanarkshire, was discovered bludgeoned to death in his apartment in the Catalan capital on October 8.

Police launched a man-hunt for William Madley, 46, from Huddersfield, West Yorks, a former business partner of Mr Cowan, after it emerged the pair were due to meet on the day of Mr Cowan's death.

The ex-submarine officer was detained on Saturday outside Barcleona Sants, the city's main railway station, where it is thought he may have been living since Mr Cowan's death.

"It was a routine stop on a man who was loitering in the streets," said a spokesman for the Mossos d'Esquadra, Catalan's regional police force.

Officers only realised he was wanted for questioning over the killing after checking his ID.

"It's possible he has been sleeping on the streets and that's why he hadn't been found earlier. Barcelona Sants is a magnet for the homeless and it may have been his home for the past five and half weeks since Mr Cowan was discovered dead."

It is thought the pair had gone into business together after meeting two years ago but had drifted apart after a disagreement.

Mr Cowan had allegedly agreed to meet Mr Madley to discuss future opportunities after bumping into him in the street, according to a statement made by Andreas Langweider, who knew Mr Cowan and found his body.

Mr Cowan, who had lived in Spain for seven years and had a Spanish girlfriend, told friends in the UK that he made his living as a currency trader.

He was reportedly one of dozens of Spain-based share dealers whose operations were being monitored by British and Spanish police probing so called 'boiler room' scams, where high-pressure sales techniques are often used to sell worthless shares to Britons.

Mr Madley appeared before a judge on Tuesday who ordered him to prison pending a full investigation into Mr Cowan's alleged murder.

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Thursday 28 May 2015

Typhoon Morakot: 300 buried alive in landslide

More than 300 people are now presumed to have died in a remote Taiwanese village that was buried in a landslide after a devastating typhoon struck last weekend, precipitating the worst floods on the island for 50 years.

Taiwanese rescuers hold babies before crossing the river to evacuate the flooded village of Liugui following Typhoon Morakot in southern Taiwan
Taiwanese rescuers hold babies before crossing the river to evacuate the flooded village of Liugui following Typhoon Morakot in southern Taiwan Photo: AP

Releasing the first official estimate of the death-toll in Hsiao Lin in southern Taiwan, authorities said they had now given up hope of finding any further survivors from the single worst incident caused by typhoon Morakot.

"The county magistrate gave the premier [of Taiwan] a report that in his judgment about 300 were dead," said a Taiwanese government Information Office section chief. A second official put the number as high as 400.

The official number of dead from Morakot was raised to 115 on Friday with 59 still listed as missing, not including the 300-400 believed lost in Hsiao Lin.

A total of 15,400 people have been rescued since Morakot dumped more than 80 inches (2 meters) of rain, the disaster relief centre said.

More than 170 houses were destroyed in Hsiao Lin which is inhabited by the Pingpu tribe of aborigines and has an official population of 1,300, although a number of residents were thought to have been away seeking work in the city.

Officials said that precise numbers were still impossible to give since road access Hsiao Lin and several other mountain villages remained cut by landslips. "Specific numbers will depend on the army opening the road and sending people in," an official explained.

Yang Chiu-hsing, the chief of Kaohsiung county where the village is located said there were no plans to try and excavate the buried portion of Hsiao Lin to retrieve bodies. Instead the village will be designated as a memorial park to victims, he said.

Until roads are restored relief efforts are relying largely on a fleet of 320 helicopters, a factor which is severely limiting the speed of rescue operations.

In one valley military engineers rigged up a 100ft zip-wire to rescue some residents from the village of Sinkai who were cut off when the bridge over the Ba Si Lan river was destroyed in a flash-flood.

Villagers were brought one-by-one over the still-roaring torrent strapped into a harness, looking dazed and frightened as they landed on the other side.

"It rained for days," said Li Wen-chuan, a grizzled-looking villager of 68 with sparse salt-and-pepper hair.

"But the flood came so suddenly and with a tremendous roar. It destroyed everything in the village.

"This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me," he said, adding that many of the 32 who died in his village were friends and family. "My life will never be the same."

Taiwan's government, which has come under growing political pressure to speed-up the rescue operations, has appealed for foreign assistance, particularly heavy-lift helicopters capable of delivering earth-moving equipment onto inaccessible mountain roads.

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