I know too much. Seriously sometimes the knowledge of things that are cool and wonderous in the world living in a place where progress is spelt progressssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss............ is, quiet simply depressing.
Recent setbacks in my creative feild has led me more and more into the belief that maybe advertising is not the right line of work and rice farming is.
Let's break it down.
Advertising pays well, not Richard Branson well, but a decent job with a decent wage. You work long hours sometimes forgetting the difference between night and day, eat badly, sleep badly and spend more time of your life at work in an airconditioned, selaed room. You deal with alot of bull shit that drives you mad, stubborness at the workplace from a hundred people, good work gets pissed on and trumped by horrible below the belt creatives that are'nt worth putting a name too, your clients have no respect for you, especially if your creative, in fact though your paid to be a creative person you will never be more creative than the client, alot of the time client servicing can't understnd why you can't understand them when the reality is, no rational person with a thinking brain can understand them.
Advertising is not looking good.
Rice Farming doesn't pay that well and sometimes you have good harvest and bad harvests, more manual labour but work ends at 4.30pm except on harvest day, plenty of excercise and workout during the day outdoors means a healthy nights sleep, You deal with alot of bullshit but it's highly benificial to your crop, stubborness is dealt with beatings, good harvest means you've done well a bad harvest means blame the Gods your clients love you especially now with rice in short supply, your rice will be welcomed and will save Sri Lanka from famine and client servicing eats your rice so no one would ever say anything against you for fear of an overfertilized batch of rice.
Rice Farming looking promising.
*sigh* slaves to money we have become.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Free to Speak not Free to Use.
It is said imitation is a form of flattery and plagiarism is piracy. Now I may be a little egotistical about feeling a little good about myself when something from my blog is quoted in a national newspaper like The Lakbima, especially when it's in my favour, but in the grand scheme of things and in all fairness to the blogger community which I have grown to respect highly whatever the topic and whoever the person, I must protest.
I have, for the last 7 years written artcles as a freelancer for many locally produced and printed publications and every publication has a set of rules and regulations that need to be followed to keep in line with legalities and content and without fail every set of guidelines is very strict about plagiarism. Which is why I'm suprised that the management of Lakbima themselves engage in the worst crime against word scribes, blatently.
To me blogging is about personal opinons, and in a country where people cannot under any circumstances take criticism in any form, it is dangerous to force the public to read personal opinions. When someone reads a blog and finds it offensive to themselves, they have the ability to close the window and never look it again or they can express their views directly to the writer and clear up any misgivings they may have, with a newspaper, it is one sided to the reader which makes it biased to the writer, it is read with the understanding that the writer is an authority on the subject which more often that not they are not because they write about their feelings and opinoins in a personal manner which makes the article purely subjective, true there are bloggers who research and study the topic before saying anything but not all and not all the time, do public readers know this, no. Which means any newspaper that were to plagiarise a blog would be in effect publishing an unbalanced view and possibly unfactual information for the public thus further propogating the reputation newspapers have "Don't belive everything you read"
The other issue is a political one. In Sri Lanka newspapers are divided into two categories, one is for the government and the other is against no middle ground no grey area. In the world of blogging everything is grey and therefore the opinons and views of bloggers are unabashed in the secure environment of cyberspace where freedom of speech is still free and censorship is left up to an individual and not to a group of individuals who feel the need to laud it over everyone else. Now in a country that thrives on shameless censorship, if someones opinion wasn't politacally correct would it be fair to put that inncoent persons life at risk just to raise readership and sales or have a slight at the government, when all that person was doing was just making an opininated statement to fellow bloggers who understand what blogging is all about not public newspaper readers who still have a long way to go before opening their minds to free speech and constructive criticism.
In the end bloggers can't stop plagiarism in Sri Lanka specially because there is no hard and fast law against it. Or even if there is the lengthy court process makes it seem pointless. Unless you have contacts and family members who are high powered lawyers or unless all the bloggers in Sri Lanka unite (and I mean bloggers from Jaffna to Galle) against plagiarism and as one unit sue tha pants off anyone who uses a persons creativity as their own, we bloggers have to hope and pray that newspapers, journalists and editors find some ethics in the way they find and publish articles, sometimes just asking if the article can be used is more than enough.
Isn't it more fulfilling to see your own words in print as opposed to somebodyelse'.
I have, for the last 7 years written artcles as a freelancer for many locally produced and printed publications and every publication has a set of rules and regulations that need to be followed to keep in line with legalities and content and without fail every set of guidelines is very strict about plagiarism. Which is why I'm suprised that the management of Lakbima themselves engage in the worst crime against word scribes, blatently.
To me blogging is about personal opinons, and in a country where people cannot under any circumstances take criticism in any form, it is dangerous to force the public to read personal opinions. When someone reads a blog and finds it offensive to themselves, they have the ability to close the window and never look it again or they can express their views directly to the writer and clear up any misgivings they may have, with a newspaper, it is one sided to the reader which makes it biased to the writer, it is read with the understanding that the writer is an authority on the subject which more often that not they are not because they write about their feelings and opinoins in a personal manner which makes the article purely subjective, true there are bloggers who research and study the topic before saying anything but not all and not all the time, do public readers know this, no. Which means any newspaper that were to plagiarise a blog would be in effect publishing an unbalanced view and possibly unfactual information for the public thus further propogating the reputation newspapers have "Don't belive everything you read"
The other issue is a political one. In Sri Lanka newspapers are divided into two categories, one is for the government and the other is against no middle ground no grey area. In the world of blogging everything is grey and therefore the opinons and views of bloggers are unabashed in the secure environment of cyberspace where freedom of speech is still free and censorship is left up to an individual and not to a group of individuals who feel the need to laud it over everyone else. Now in a country that thrives on shameless censorship, if someones opinion wasn't politacally correct would it be fair to put that inncoent persons life at risk just to raise readership and sales or have a slight at the government, when all that person was doing was just making an opininated statement to fellow bloggers who understand what blogging is all about not public newspaper readers who still have a long way to go before opening their minds to free speech and constructive criticism.
In the end bloggers can't stop plagiarism in Sri Lanka specially because there is no hard and fast law against it. Or even if there is the lengthy court process makes it seem pointless. Unless you have contacts and family members who are high powered lawyers or unless all the bloggers in Sri Lanka unite (and I mean bloggers from Jaffna to Galle) against plagiarism and as one unit sue tha pants off anyone who uses a persons creativity as their own, we bloggers have to hope and pray that newspapers, journalists and editors find some ethics in the way they find and publish articles, sometimes just asking if the article can be used is more than enough.
Isn't it more fulfilling to see your own words in print as opposed to somebodyelse'.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Last Post 29th June 2007
True, I have'nt been a faithful blogger over the last few months and so much has happened most of which was begging to be dissected and analyzed amd bitched about. The State of the nation hasn't improved, Hikkaduwa is still my fav holiday destination and Facebook has robbed us of our precious time. But at the urging of fellow bloggers including my friend from The Missing Sandwich (name drop) I have decided to display my inability to spell and my impertinent opinions back online whether it's liked or not.
And so to inaugurate the Return to the blog I would like to start off by pissing off the organisers of 'The Galle Literary Festival", which I have dubbed the most pretentious event that Colombo's and Galle's high society have ever trumped up, to date. In fact it has all the symptoms of an event that was concieved over buttery scones and high tea by people who feel the need for self-importance or a nice picture in the (Hi)gh magazine.
Disclaimer: I have never been to the Galle Literary festtival aka GLF and out of the miniscule amount of people who read my blog I'm sure one or two may be huge fans and supporters of the GLF who may feel that I may be a little too uncultured to critisize such an event without even experiencing it, to which I say "Yes, now eff off".
From the first GLF last year I have been outspoken about the fact that GLF is nothing more than a money making machine not interested really in the propagation of literature and art but more in the propagation of ones image. It's a festival for the rich and literature for the well read. I don't claim to be a genius and connoisseur of words as do some of the people that attened the GLF but I do know how to read and write and I'm sure 95% of the people that turn up for the GLF have that ability as well, it's not everyday an illiterate person can dish out 35 thousand ruppees for an all access pass to the GLF, which is my biggest gripe. With all the impressive sponsors that the event attracts and all the rich people that have a stake in GLF why is it that it's only affordable by the rich. Surely don't international schools have a fairly extensive literature curriculum and aren't international school students exposed to a more spoken english way of life. Then why is it only they can afford going to the GLF. Don't the millions of underpriviledged kids with poor if not severe lack of education deserve to experience the wonders of literature or is it because they may never have the chance to study at Nottingham University or Harvard to really be deemed worthy of knowledge.
For example take blogging, the only reason why blogging has taken the world by storm is because it gives everybody and everyone regardless of color, race or creed the ability to voice their opinions, hopes and dreams without having to be a hot shot published journalist or author, for FREE, of course at the GLF its become a reason to have overpriced sessions on blogging for people who have been blogging since it's inception. What about poor young people in tiny pocket villages who blog from tiny sweat house internet cafe's trying hard to be part of the online community on a budget as tight as my ass-hole? Have sessions as much as you want but does there have to be such a steep price on knowledge and understanding FREE speech.
Why does knowledge have to be so expensive? Wasn't some the greatest authors and playwrites of the previous centuries poorer than church mice with nothing to live for? Did they prance around in their Prado's and GTi horse carraiges?
I think the GLF organisers should realize that if they want to show off how wonderfully philanthropic and dedicated they are to literature then maybe they should make it possible for people from all walks of life be it rich or poor to be able to enjoy literature and knowledge equally instead of trying to teach rich people how to suck eggs.
Remember the fall from a high horse is a long one and will freakin hurt at the end.
And so to inaugurate the Return to the blog I would like to start off by pissing off the organisers of 'The Galle Literary Festival", which I have dubbed the most pretentious event that Colombo's and Galle's high society have ever trumped up, to date. In fact it has all the symptoms of an event that was concieved over buttery scones and high tea by people who feel the need for self-importance or a nice picture in the (Hi)gh magazine.
Disclaimer: I have never been to the Galle Literary festtival aka GLF and out of the miniscule amount of people who read my blog I'm sure one or two may be huge fans and supporters of the GLF who may feel that I may be a little too uncultured to critisize such an event without even experiencing it, to which I say "Yes, now eff off".
From the first GLF last year I have been outspoken about the fact that GLF is nothing more than a money making machine not interested really in the propagation of literature and art but more in the propagation of ones image. It's a festival for the rich and literature for the well read. I don't claim to be a genius and connoisseur of words as do some of the people that attened the GLF but I do know how to read and write and I'm sure 95% of the people that turn up for the GLF have that ability as well, it's not everyday an illiterate person can dish out 35 thousand ruppees for an all access pass to the GLF, which is my biggest gripe. With all the impressive sponsors that the event attracts and all the rich people that have a stake in GLF why is it that it's only affordable by the rich. Surely don't international schools have a fairly extensive literature curriculum and aren't international school students exposed to a more spoken english way of life. Then why is it only they can afford going to the GLF. Don't the millions of underpriviledged kids with poor if not severe lack of education deserve to experience the wonders of literature or is it because they may never have the chance to study at Nottingham University or Harvard to really be deemed worthy of knowledge.
For example take blogging, the only reason why blogging has taken the world by storm is because it gives everybody and everyone regardless of color, race or creed the ability to voice their opinions, hopes and dreams without having to be a hot shot published journalist or author, for FREE, of course at the GLF its become a reason to have overpriced sessions on blogging for people who have been blogging since it's inception. What about poor young people in tiny pocket villages who blog from tiny sweat house internet cafe's trying hard to be part of the online community on a budget as tight as my ass-hole? Have sessions as much as you want but does there have to be such a steep price on knowledge and understanding FREE speech.
Why does knowledge have to be so expensive? Wasn't some the greatest authors and playwrites of the previous centuries poorer than church mice with nothing to live for? Did they prance around in their Prado's and GTi horse carraiges?
I think the GLF organisers should realize that if they want to show off how wonderfully philanthropic and dedicated they are to literature then maybe they should make it possible for people from all walks of life be it rich or poor to be able to enjoy literature and knowledge equally instead of trying to teach rich people how to suck eggs.
Remember the fall from a high horse is a long one and will freakin hurt at the end.
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