A love affair with some serious chemistry!

Today's blog will be a little break from normal routine, and for a change we will focus on the subject of the upcoming release of our second book, THE MOLECULES! If you click on the stunning new cover that was artfully sculpted by local artist P3D, you will enter the Author's Annex wherein some background on this story is detailed. 


Things have moved very fast for us in the last five months or so: even by late January, 2012, we didn't have a website, we were not on Facebook at all and this blog did not even exist. On top of that, no books had been published, yet here we are today on the verge of publishing book #2 from Irish writer Kevin Mc! It has been a hectic but hugely enjoyable ride thus far, and we hope to be able to build on it more and more moving forward. The general idea is not to be one of those outfits or authors that publish five or six books per year, rather we intend to put out one solid piece of work that represents the author and the brand well. But Kevin did have two or three ideas already being worked on prior to the actual formation of EU, so in this first year of existence we will take advantage of that and publish one or two more as they become available. 


It's a funny quirk of life that certain young people seem to realize very early on in that life more or less precisely what they want to do; this can often occur even in the absence of any parental or family history in that chosen area. Quite what it was that predetermined that young (pre-teen) Max Carrington was a "fledgling scientist" and would pursue it both as a dream and career remains unknown or unexplainable. All that can be said for sure is that there was some sort of magical connection between him and his beloved molecules, and the atoms that are their building blocks. It was a real example of love-at-first-sight and as if by divine intervention, he was spellbound, and that was that. This story follows that passion and how it was the glue that made sense of everything during a boy's slow growing up and coming-of-age in a small Irish town. It is charming, funny, nostalgic, intellectual and just sufficiently scientific to appeal to both science types and others alike. It is a story of childhood that will surely appeal to kids, but we think (and hope) that it is very much something that adults will connect with and enjoy reading as well. If it can turn even one more similarly blessed kid out there into another "fledgling scientist", then Kevin Mc says that his job was done and it was all worth it.  


For more information on Kevin Mc, his books, and Evergreen Umbrella, please check us out on our new website [www.evergreenumbrella.com] and also on our Facebook page [www.facebook.com/evergreenumbrella], and this blog also serves as a link to those sites. In the meantime, until THE MOLECULES comes out, go grab a copy of A QUIET RESIGNATION on Kindle at the Amazon store! - EU

A very lonely sofa, even with millions listening....

In the interest of full disclosure and follow through on stories, today we include this footnote to the recent post that discussed in great detail the departure of Ann Curry from the "Today" show on NBC. Now, while I have always felt that her departure was an inevitability, I think that her actual departure as it played out was close to a disgrace. NBC not only underlined once again that they not only seem to have trouble handling the talent, but further, that they don't seem to care about exhibiting even a fraction of the class that the talent in this case has way more of, quite clearly. The anchor she replaced, Meredith Vieira, was with the "Today" show for five years, and her last day was effectively a two hour tribute to her presence on the show. One should not focus on the fact that Ann has been with the show for only a year, because she was promoted from within it, and has been with NBC for fifteen years. Less than five minutes with nothing specially prepared for her, and she had to sing her own swansong with barely evident support. 

Her departure was addressed only in the closing few minutes of Wednesday's broadcast, and I felt that the apologetic tone it had was outrageous, while NBC indeed showed that they had learnt little from the Conan debacle. The ratings going down is not a crime against TV humanity, nor can it be totally attributable to her either. I might vouchsafe that the relative silence at the couch could reflect the fact that her colleagues had their hands tied and could not appear to be too supportive of her, or they might be next. Alternatively, what they should be thinking is that with Ann gone, if the ratings plummet further, their scapegoat has been sacrificed and the big spotlight will have to shine elsewhere. Onto them. But no matter the reason, to have a journalist of Ann's experience, stature and tenure with the network, to apologize for "not being able to carry the ball over the finish line" is stunning, and does not make anyone look good. The pain she feels over being made the scapegoat is palpable on that sofa, and the emphasis evident in the words "but man, I did try" was heartbreaking and must have touched everyone. I don't think anyone can argue with that claim. 


It truly appears that NBC is just another giant corporation: all that matters is money. There must be so much pressure on a show like "Today" to bring in that hefty advertising revenue that a drop in the ratings must instill a black cloud behind the cameras. The blame game begins, trickling down from the big offices above, to the middle offices below them, on down, to the executive producer's office, and then sideswiped onto the talent. The Conan debacle did end the reign of network head honcho Jeff Zucker though, so the shit can travel back upwards also! In this case, insiders say that his replacement, NBC CEO Steve Burke, had to step in to mediate the ongoing "debate" between NBC news president Steve Capus and "Today" show executive producer Jim Bell. Business as usual at NBC, they say. 


Of course the only one who really got hurt here was the fallen anchor; the network is stinking rich and these executives are all on great salaries and packages. Anne herself did alright in the end, with a reported check for ten million in her purse for her troubles. So the network took a dent this year in its expected one billion in advertising revenue for the show? Big deal! No one will cry any tears for them over that. It does not excuse dehumanizing the process of hiring and firing, and in any case they were clearly unable to dehumanize Ann Curry, which is underscored by the video above. You know, Ann? Even those who love to play the macho big shots can often be scared little boys inside, and in this case, these boys just can't hold their curry. Wimps!  ;) - Kevin Mc

An historic handshake that transcends decades, or even centuries!

In a move that seems almost totally unthinkable to a leaf green Irish legend such as myself, and probably equally unimaginable to the true (royal) blue English, there was an extremely historic handshake today between two centuries-old nemeses. Inside the venerable Lyric Theatre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, there was a brief but monumental handshake between none other than HRH Queen Elizabeth II and a certain Martin McGuinness, formerly a commander of the IRA (Irish Republican Army). To anyone who lived in Northern Ireland during the troubles there, this event almost defies belief, given that Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams were effectively leaders of an illegal paramilitary "terrorist" group that was hellbent on violently removing any trace of the monarchy from Ireland. I can remember seeing Martin McGuinness interviewed at some point and being asked if, as some kind of peace process had been attempted at that time, would he speak out and refute the use of the rifle to achieve political gain, whereupon he stoutly refused to do so. In fact he underlined the fact that the rifle (i.e. violence) was always going to be the "weapon" that would expedite such matters, especially when dealing with a colonialist power such as England. It was typically hard line from an uncompromising "terrorist", and the future remained unclear. 

But you know, even angry young men grow up, get married, have children, and grow old. McGuinness and Adams are now in their sixties. Life presumably looked a bit different after they had their own children, who by sheer proximity could have become accidental or even "legitimate" targets in response to heinous acts that they had sanctioned against others. Happily ordering killings in one's twenties becomes a much more serious business in one's forties, fifties or even sixties, when one (hopefully) has realized the true value and meaning of life; something which they fearlessly terminated when they were hotheaded twenty/thirty-somethings. It had to stop, and even though there was enormous mistrust between all concerned, in general terms the two decades old peace process in Northern Ireland has been a success. When the winds of time blow the sands of retrospect into their final settling place, it might not just have been appropriate but necessary that it was under the reign of Adams and McGuinness that the IRA itself was laid to rest. The political aspirations remain, of course, in Sinn Fein, but the total disarmament of the organization in 2005 was a sign that McGuinness (and Adams) was now finally willing to put down that rifle. 

The Queen herself, who is on a very active run for her diamond anniversary on the throne, has to be seen as being heavily involved in this new phase of Anglo-Irish relations. It's worth remembering that at a time (1979) when McGuinness was widely acknowledged as the chief of staff of the IRA, they killed the Queen's cousin, Lord Mountbatten, and celebrated their association with it. Mountbatten was on his boat in Ireland at the time, and one of his grandsons (fourteen years old) was killed with him, alongside another local teenager. This event was further underscored as a show of strength only hours later by the massacre of eighteen British soldiers in Warrenpoint, near the border with the south of Ireland. I can remember that hot summer day very well. For the Queen to be able to put that aside and shake the hand of the man who almost certainly (along with Adams) sanctioned that operation is a massive gesture, and one that should not be lost on anyone. Additionally, she visited the Irish Republic last year, in an earlier attempt to help restore Anglo-Irish relations; it was the first visit by the monarchy since partition occurred in 1922, amazingly, but Sinn Fein refused to participate in the event. So we have come quite a bit further in just the last year, apparently, if the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland wants to shake her hand on behalf of Sinn Fein.

If one is blessed with any degree of optimism in life, this, in combination with the relative harmony that has resulted from a provincial power-sharing government that took over in Northern Ireland in 1998, just has to be seen as enormous progress. Hopefully it represents one of the last brushstrokes on a previously bloodied canvas that portrays the violent history between Ireland and England. That the last brushstroke (or two) is laid down in a a peaceful manner is nothing but heroic for all concerned, and for those of us who lived in Belfast, or Derry,, or anywhere in Northern Ireland during the troubles, it seems almost too good to be true. There are already people not happy with this "progress", who don't see it so much as compromise but as a total abandonment of what the whole bloody thing was for; they also claim that by so doing, McGuinness publicly acknowledges her sovereignty, and that's more or less fighting talk, historically, in Northern Ireland. One can only hope that if two other similarly volatile twenty-somethings appear on the scene with a desire to stir it all up again, that the old guard retains the authority, respect and resources to put an end to it, immediately. But apart from a few skirmishes, there is no sign of this for now.


In the meantime, let's be positive. One can argue over the details, but no one is starving, repression is a thing of the past, and on my most recent trip to Belfast last Christmas, I barely recognized the city where I went to university. Instead of barricades surrounding the city centre, massive British Army presence, bomb shelter command posts for the RUC, and general signs of being "ruled", I saw a vibrant, bustling, rebuilt commercial city centre full of the kinds of shopping centres, restaruants and facilities never seen before in Belfast. It was genuinely uplifting to see, and strangely emotional. On that note, to steady my nerves, anyone fancy a pint of Guinness?! - Kevin Mc

A shot of SEO sour, or some FB with T?

There can't be many industries that have been decimated as much by the sociodigital age that we are living in than the publishing industry. Conversely, there can't be many industries that have benefited as much from it, as, wait for it, yes, the self-publishing industry! A great deal of power was taken out of the hands of the previously esteemed literary agents and their big-time fat cat publisher pals, and handed over into the hands of the people. Quite right too! The agents in particular had become a dangerous mix of too much arrogance sloshed in with an increasing laziness to hunt for new talent, and the big publishers foolishly allowed them to install themselves as the gatekeepers to the private club. What resulted was an industry only interested in what agents told them was good for them, even when rejected blockbusters like Harry Potter were staring them in the face. There are many, many other examples, but we won't go into them here. What is more important is that it is now by and large you and I, the public, who decide on the fate of a certain author and their book. We, the people, decide, not some literary snob with their head stuck up in some ivory tower of so-called "knowledge", who rejects 99% of all manuscripts they receive with no comment whatsoever. 
We are Evergreen Umbrella, so no points for realizing which side of the fence we are on: we think that what has happened in publishing was an inevitable kicking down of the walls, by sheer force, and we all emerged on the other side to a new dawn and a new day. It's called progress, people, and even if there are now millions more unedited, uncensored,  and unapproved books out there, it's not a problem. Why? Again, because the people decide, and if some very average author cranks out a book that the people simply adore then that alone justifies the need for such authors to have a legitimate outlet. Even better that it is one that tramples over the old gatekeepers on their way off the premises and out to retirement. They, like the big fat cats, had their day when the cream was thick and sweet, but power was being transferred, they didn't see it coming or were in denial, and they got theirs. The very way it should be!      

Of course, progress rarely comes without new challenges. Perhaps the biggest one is now that authors have been given an outlet to publish their work, how the hell are they supposed to market it? It's one thing for an amateur to believe in themselves sufficiently to work on a book, but even successful authors were not the marketing force behind that success; so what to do? For the perspicacious, it was not hard to predict the arrival of a new breed: so-called self-publishing marketing "gurus" who were more than willing to offer help with preparing you a cover for your book, and a shopping list of items that must be ticked to have a chance of making it. Just like marketing of anything else, a lot of the items remain the same, and the usual acronyms and must-haves are wheeled out. Pay me to do the things that a marketing department used to take care of, and you will be a success! But like anything else, the first thing one should do is examine that person, who they are, what they have done, and how much of a marketing "guru" they truly are, in their own professional area. 
The thing that always sort of surprises me is the fact that marketers and communications types are often sheep: they follow, they don't lead. It's not marketers who introduce rabid new trends and exciting tools to communicate: it's others! Marketers then slowly react, and under pressure or due to lack of oxygen even, reluctantly concede and start lecturing their clients on the power of say, social media, even when they are useless at it, or worse, have not used it at all for their own marketing. My golden rule for taking anyone seriously as a social media insider or wannabe "guru"? It's a little ageist, but nevertheless accurate. "If the hair is grey or white, it ain't trained for the fight!" Like it or not, social media is a creation of the young. The hip. The real outside-of-the-box thinkers. 
The aging marketing executives who push it to your company today are doing so only because they know they have to, and many don't have the first idea of how it is supposed to be effectively and correctly utilized, and feel and look awkward using it. In fact, most resort to doing what I suppose many do when facing the need to produce but with no insight or talent to do so: they copy! It is social media after all, it's in the public domain already, so I can just steal ideas of one or two people who do it very well, and I am home free! Right? For today's needs, maybe, but beyond that, wrong! It can be spotted really easily, and by so doing, all they really are doing is advertising how good the other people are,  while splashing in the water, struggling, in copycat mode, making the others look even hotter. 

But just as Amazon and other self-publishing portals have saved us from the ineptness of the literary agent and their rich pals, I really feel that we are often saved at the marketing end by those lovely folks at Google.  I am today referencing a currently hot topic, which is: "to SEO or use Social Media"? So many folks got fooled by marketing people yelling S-E-O at them, and demanding a price for installing it onto their websites, when it was way less complicated than the person selling it to them even knew it was! We at EU did our own "SEO-light", for free, and did see the impact of having a keen eye on it, tweaking our metadata and keywords and page indexing etc. At the same time, and this is harder to fake, we focused way more heavily on that dreaded lovely word: CONTENT. It was and is our belief that the Google spiders reward great content more than good SEO! Of course they should! SEO only came into vogue anyway, due to the fact that Google started detecting people injecting unnatural keyword-laden content onto sites to improve indexing and referencing, so then SEO became the new way to load your site for better results on search. But Google is always a step ahead, and Panda/Penguin have made content more vital than ever, and unquestionably, stellar social media content makes a huge contribution to your overall ratings and impact. Evergreen Umbrella has made huge progress by combining SEO-light, for free, instigating a strong social media presence, for free, and by caring for and taking the time to produce solid, intellectually-stimulating  yet fun and lively content, which also came for free. It's a dream come true for those starting out!

To all of our self-publishing colleagues, and also to those working in different business areas, think long and hard before believing any nonsense from the "gurus" about SEO, today. All they are doing is trying to squeeze some last juice out of the can, and exploiting your apparent "ignorance". In many ways, in my opinion, social media activity IS the new SEO, especially in a B2C environment. I am not saying that SEO might not still have a place for B2B, but even then, social media can still be more effective if used well. Using just social media, Evergreen Umbrella went from being barely detectable on Google search to being listed as the top eight results on the first page of a Google search today. For free. You just gotta love those Penguins, and their hardworking content-devouring little spiders! Rave on, Google, rave on!

Do it yourself, people, and reap the rewards. The tools are all out there! You can produce your own website for next-to-nothing, tweak it, maintain it, inject new content and do a little "SEO-light" on it. Get onto Facebook and Twitter and your blog. Communicate! The spiders will do the rest, honest! Stay one step ahead of the marketers, who are marketing to you, when they try to persuade you with this acronym or that one. They had little choice, because most of them knew precious little about how to use social media, so they had to market SEO as their "insight". After being told that they had to use it by others, I might add! If their marketing or communications degrees did not come in the last ten years or so, you can be certain that you are looking at an old school "outbound marketer" who has little-to-no experience using social media. Just remember that staying one step ahead of marketers is not as hard as it may seem, because they are often two steps behind. They copy, they don't lead. They are a huge bunch of sheep who follow each other around, needing some outsider to tell them that this is going to be huge, or the new way, and rarely show any innovation whatsoever. But in general, they are so far behind in social media, that I wouldn't trust any of them (at a significant cost to boot!) to handle it for me, especially when we can do it better than they do, free. Additionally, we can honestly say that we don't copy anyone, either. Why pay for some sheep to lead us around in a merry dance, when we are original enough and creative enough to do it for (free) ourselves, and live large as the sheepdog instead?! 

Remember, dear friends: if the hair is grey or white, it ain't ready for no social media fight! Famous last words from Kevin Mc, perhaps , though he can honestly claim to have only two grey hairs and those are on his chest, so they aren't visible in the office, thus for today, he passes the test! - Kevin Mc

Curry exiting the kitchen, with a little egg on it's face....

In what is a sad turn of events, but also sadly, a totally predictable state of affairs, it appears that the love affair between Ann Curry and NBC is coming to a head, if not a close. Rumors swirling inside the biz, coming to me via my "men on the street", are awash with the "news" that she is about to be unceremoniously exited from the co-anchor chair she shares with Matt Lauer. Hers was the seat which arose due to the tragic loss of the inestimable services of Meredith Vieira, who had revitalized the entire show.


What surprises me most, is who is it at NBC that is making seriously erroneous decisions on the talent, as previously underlined by the entire Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien fiasco? The outcome of that one was entirely predictable, and it played out as if I had scripted it myself. Just as I had when they first announced that Conan would take over, I informed NBC that putting our gal Ann into the hot seat beside Matt would come back to haunt them. But like most big corporations, it is the bottom line that drives change, and only when the "Today" show began to slip in the ratings, and actually fell below it's competitor (ABC's "Good Morning America") for the first time in almost twenty years (!!), did the execs start to get restless. Remember, we are talking about a serious bottom line here, because in advertising alone, "Today" brings in almost a billion dollars per year! That is a staggering amount for an early morning show and makes it one of the most profitable in television, but that also brings pressure to deliver on the ratings so that those numbers are maintained or grow further. The sad thing for all concerned being that it did not take a brain surgeon to have figured out that this imminent divorce would be coming right on the heels of the honeymoon. She was put into the hot seat barely a year ago, and already the ratings took a serious hit, one not seen during the tenures of either Meredith Vieira or Katie Couric, her predecessors. Given that Matt has been a constant, it's not hard to imagine in which direction the fingers would be pointing. I even heard that Ann took the losses quite personally, and questioned herself, and one cannot help but feel for her, especially as such inner turmoil usually has a negative effect on performance in front of the camera. 


Now let me get one thing straight here: Ann seems like a great gal. I liked her more in her old role as news anchor, but thought she was great on Dateline NBC, and she appears to be a very enthusiastic journalist and broadcaster. The loss is one felt by all concerned, I imagine. But, and it is a big but, hell, a huge but, it was evident from Ann's performance in her old role as news anchor on the same show that she was not co-anchor material. Even while reading scripted news on a teleprompter, her performances could range from more or less acceptable on some days, to an endless series of mistakes, either in grammar or phrasing or flubbed words, on others. If she got off to a good start, things usually went well, but if an early mistake occurred it could lead to a badly delivered newsbreak. It often felt like one was seeing a newbie being tried out, and that's just not acceptable at this level for a veteran of a decade or more. I think it's probably safe to say that she might be a much better journalist than she is a broadcaster. You know, even after a year of saying it, she still has trouble saying "Welcome to Today, on NBC": the very first three words are often problematic. That "to" followed by "To" causes her real problems and it often sounds slurred or garbled. This astounds me because surely a producer has noticed it, and surely she could have been coached to say it properly? If not, make damn sure it's our Matt who does the honors each day! Her relative success as host of Dateline NBC simply emphasizes that she is not made for live TV, but can be very good when given a script and the chance to re-record a section over and over. However, in live interviews for Today, there could be some real blunders, and she could occasionally come across as a total beginner. She has even invented words; I can remember her praising two young boys for their "heroicism", and you could almost sense the kids, in a spelling bee type of mindframe, wanting to tell her that the word doesn't exist! Another example was one day where she said that they were going to be talking with someone; the only problem being that the person in question was dead. She began to be known as "La Gaffe", and that's not good in live TV.


But irrespective of all of the technical issues, there's also just the visual impact and authority of someone who was born to anchor and who fits into the chair as if it had been molded just for them. If you can add in some real chemistry with the other anchor, you are on a winner. But Matt and Anne ain't no Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley: a class act that has been hard to reproduce. Anne also has a very irritating habit of looking directly at Matt, in a sort of fawning fashion, when he is speaking to camera, and she seems to forget that she is supposed to be looking at her audience. It's a bit like wanting to watch the quarterback throw the ball, when you are supposed to be looking ahead so you can catch it! Matt and Anne just don't fit together at that desk, she never truly sank into that seat, and frankly, on days when the super smooth Natalie Morales sat in, in relative terms, our Nat knocked it out of the park. She could be a great co-anchor, and it would almost be reminiscent of a younger Meredith. I've got a feeling that the big guns may prefer the more intellectual gifts of Savannah Guthrie, who unquestionably will outperform Anne. However, there is a warmth and connectivity that our Nat has with ease, that Sav is less capable of, and I think that the chemistry is better with Nat and Matt also. To be honest, I would almost be tempted to go for the long shot, and consider giving the charming Tamron Hall a go at it. She has a fire and charm that just jumps out of the screen at you, Matt seems to work well with her, and she exudes the kind of confidence in front of camera that Anne will never have. She's a smart, sassy firecracker and is totally telegenic. Hoda Kotb has been touted by some as the new frontrunner, but I don't feel as strongly about her contributions, though she might be the closest of all them to feeling like the new Meredith. Of course, these are all fallback positions from the in-house stable; the ideal solution would be an outsider chosen on merit, in a fashion similar to the brilliant move that was Meredith Vieira, who sadly has refused an offer to return. I can only imagine the salary offer on that one! 


So, almost inevitably Anne will now be farmed off to a Dateline NBC or some other news program. If I was to be truly cynical, as I suggested to a friend a year ago, this was all part of a move to push Anne off the Today show. She was not performing well on the news, we had Nat, Sav and Tamron in the wings, and with Meredith leaving, we got the chance to slip Anne in, knowing full well it wouldn't last for long, and there's no way to stay on and go back to hosting the news, once it's over. She will have to go and we will have to pay her to do so. On that note, don't shed too many tears for Anne who is rumored to be about to collect in excess of ten million dollars as her golden handshake, given that she has two years left on her contract. Everyone must have winced at reading her words in a magazine article that just came out, wherein she stated that she intended to be on the Today show for another five years. Ouch! But it's the best outcome for everyone. There is even some speculation that the "will he-won't he" regarding Matt leaving the show, which would be a real disaster, was resolved not only with an amazing salary offer but also some guarantees relating to him getting the co-chair his brand deserves. Promoting the wrong people up the ladder is always a painful process, for employer and employee alike, and it's not fun to watch someone being asked to do something that they are just not equipped for, especially when the pressure and wounds begin to show. I would love to have Al's job for example, but I sure ain't equipped to wheel out "That's what's going on around the country, here's what's happening in your neck of the woods", a hundred times a day! 
Then again, for several million a year, I might suffer in silence! ;) - Kevin Mc 

Seeking asylum to escape the asylum?!

In a move that takes his peripatetic life to yet another level, WikiLeaks head honcho Julian Assange has now stated that he is "ready for life in Ecuador". If you haven't been keeping up with his antics this might seem a truly surprising move, but of course it is all do with his potential extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges. So his most recent move was to stroll into the Ecuadorian embassy in London and ask for asylum: the crux of the argument being that if he is extradited to Sweden, he could then be extradited to the US on WikiLeaks-related charges that could carry the death penalty. Hence he appears to have found some support from the Ecuadorian authorities, presumably due to the fact that in the US the situation has got more to do with politics, than truly criminal behavior. Of course, I don't expect that anyone thinks he would ever be sentenced to face the death penalty, but it's all part and parcel of the usual spin that Assange seems to place on almost everything. Thus, the reason he does not want to go to Sweden to face those charges is not that he fears any incarceration resulting from them, it's that he's afraid the big, bad US can try to get at him. 

I don't think that the US itself knows whether it can legitimately issue criminal charges against him, for the huge leak of diplomatic cables that Assange spearheaded in 2010, via the WikiLeaks website. For sure, some people would love to do so, but it's a very delicate matter not least given the public and media attention that any pursuit of Assange will surely stir up. Freedom of "speech" (even if it's typeset on a website) itself will be on trial. Assange is such an enigmatic and polarizing persona that you can't help feeling that he's secretly quite happy with all of the legal problems that shadow him, because it keeps the subject of WikiLeaks eternally uppermost in people's minds. Ditto the name Julian Assange! As elusive as he has been, he seems to be content that his name pops up on people's computer screens on an almost weekly basis, in some kind of new twist on viral marketing of one's brand and product. It seems that he probably fits into the "talk about me, good or bad it doesn't matter, as lomg as y'all are talking about me!" category of self-promoter.

The irony in this whole story, to me, is that Julian Assange stands up and stands out as someone insisting on freedom across the board, with access to any and all information being legitimate, and breaking down the barriers between what we know, and what governments and authorities don't want us to know. An open society where we are more equal, and where information is disseminated at lightning speed around the globe, with almost nothing being off limits. However, in contrast to what it is that he fights for, he actually seems to live a very isolated and lonely life, with no place called home. Additionally, more than ever, he is holed up in this hideout or that one, always on the run, even when no one might be chasing him. The price for his desire to open the world up has led to that same world closing in on him, with fewer and fewer places to feel that precious freedom he cares about so much. As much as many of us might admire what he stands for and what he has done, not so many of us are envious of his life, I imagine. But as always with Assange, there is no sign of an epilogue just yet; he has more to come and you can be sure we will continue to see and hear him for many years to come. I have a feeling that he wouldn't have it any other way! - Kevin Mc

SIII vs iPhone5: It's gonna be war, but fun!

When it comes to sport, the US Justice teams just can't win against those "cheaters"!!

Only a few days ago, we talked about the never-ending pursuit of Lance Armstrong by US authorities, vis-a-vis his alleged doping during key Tour de France years that contributed to his record-breaking seven wins. In yet another blow to the US Justice Department's desire to make an example of some high profile athletes who supposedly have used performance-enhancing drugs, baseball giant Roger Clemens today walked out of court a free man. This affair has had legs for five years of Clemens' life, and this recent trial took eight weeks and as much as $3M USD of taxpayer money to prosecute him: all for nought.

Clemens was cleared of all six counts against him, on charges relating to supposed perjury in front of Congress, wherein he stated that he had never used steroids or human growth hormone. It is almost a mirror image of the Lance Armstrong situation, with one or two ex-colleagues with a potential grudge or something to lose themselves previously testifying that he did it, but on the stand, they either appear to not remember all of the details, or admit that they may have been mistaken. In Clemens' case, he was up against a personal strength trainer who claimed to have personally injected him with growth hormone, and had even kept some needles and material in an old crumpled up Miller Lite can, as proof. But even then, the defense was able to raise serious doubts about the integrity of his trainer Brian McNamee, which was not that brilliant given that he was accused of having lied in another case. You just know that certain members of a typical jury are going to think that some trainer that stored evidence of doping involving his employer, a sports superstar, is unlikely to be a decent human being, operating on any kind of ethical level. It's reminiscent of Monica Lewinsky storing the semen-stained dress that she got as a gift from that old rogue, Bill Clinton. As long as everything is going fine, it's in my closet and I will never use it, but if a day comes when I can see that I might make millions out of it, or get my fifteen minutes of fame, then all bets are off. The only word that comes to mind is "sleazy", and it's not because it's needed as evidence later on that makes the surreptitious collection and storage of it in the first place, a decent thing to do. It stinks, from all angles.

The current score of the sporting world against US authorities is remarkably high: even Barry Bonds, considered a shoe-in for a doping charge, got away with one charge of obstruction in his own perjury case, and was given no jail time. Both athletes will now hit the Hall of Fame hurdle this winter, but I think that all agree that the more staid ballot system is unlikely to fall so nicely in their favor, and the shadow of considerable doubt over truthfulness is likely to darken their names more than in the jury system. But you know, if you made vast amounts of money during a sporting career filled with success and the adoration that came with it, but where you did also resort to questionable activities (i.e. cheating!) to get there? My feeling is that you should zip it, and stop moaning about the Hall of Fame, and slink off out of the public eye, quietly and gratefully. Greed is a terrible thing, especially among those who already have it all.

I think the USADA (and others) ought to digest all of this in great detail, and think about things for a good long while, before continuing to pursue Lance Armstrong. They already are on a losing streak, and it is clear that the evidence gathered has never been good enough to guarantee conviction, so why waste even more money to go through this another time, with a sporting hero-loving jury who only need to see any doubts raised to fall on the side of the athlete? While we might all still have some private doubts, the system runs on "innocent until proven guilty", and if Armstrong (or other) was such a catch, he would have been in jail already. As frustrating as all of these cases seem to be to the US authorities, I think that they should get their act together and drop cases like the Clemens and Armstrong affairs when what they are holding is wafer-thin, and they end up with egg (and not steroid-laced omelette) on their faces as well as a lot of wasted (taxpayer's) money in legal bills. Find hard, solid, incontrovertible evidence, and prosecute, or if not, don't embarrass the athlete(s), and worse, themselves under high level media scrutiny. All that one can conclude is that if many sporting heroes are out there cheating, on a continual basis, then the cheaters and the technology that facilitates it are still way ahead of the authorities supposedly put in place to catch it. The latest score seems to be: Sport 4 USA 0. Please note that I use the number "four" in a rare moment of conservativism! ;) - Kevin Mc

Just another day in the office!

It is estimated that over a billion people will have heard by Monday morning of the incredible achievement of Nik Wallenda, who became the first person in history to walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls, from the USA over to Canada. Wallenda crossed over the daunting Horseshoe Falls, and was often surrounded by heavy mist and the drafts from waters pounding down into the Niagara river some 200 feet below. It took him only 25 minutes to get from Goat Island in the USA over to Table Rock in Canada, and it was something to see him actually trot over the last section with complete confidence. It was not a little hilarious that he was met by Canadian customs officers requesting his passport, and who presumably meant the question "what is the purpose of your visit, sir?" to be entirely rhetorical and humorous. His answer was equally on point when he stated that the purpose of the trip was "to inspire people all around the world", and once you think about it, that is of course what he did.

No, I am not suggesting that any of us mere mortals consider doing something so outrageously adventurous or dangerous; that's not the point. But what I am saying is that compared to the type of training, dedication, talent and focus that such an accomplishment represents, almost everything else seems relatively easy and achievable by comparison. So our own everyday little dreams should become less of a challenge, and we should just get our heads down and start to build the dream, from foundations and upwards to brick-by-brick. Nik Wallenda did not cross Niagara Falls by simply deciding that he wanted to do it, but rather, you can bet he put some extremely serious effort and focus into it. Like all such dreams, we achieve them by focusing on the day by day, not by being intimidated by how far we are from the other side. Build a little, every single day, and pile up a few hundred days of building, and we begin to get somewhere. 

Learning a new language, or getting that dream job, picking up a musical instrument, owning a place in the country, etc., are not crossing Niagara Falls. But they might very well be the kind of things we have running around our heads, but continue to have trouble making real, and they remain our little dreams. I say that Nik Wallenda (among others) has shown us that almost everything is possible if we want it badly enough, and are prepared to go after it. If he can cross Niagara Falls then surely we can hurdle some of our own more realistic challenges. So, instead of crossing over from my armchair to the sofa and flat screen on the other side, I am going to climb up to my mezzanine office and get back to work on Evergreen Umbrella. Thanks Nik! ;) - Kevin Mc 

Once more with feeling?!

It was not with just a little incredulity that I heard this morning of a resurfacing, once again, of the whole "did-he/didn't he?" about Lance Armstrong and doping. I have discussed before how critical an issue the whole question was, and whether the sport itself, and its ruling body, would find it in their interests to dig deeper into it, and face the potential stripping of a staggering seven Tour de France titles away from an international athletic superstar. The issue being how much the sport would be damaged by such an outcome, and how painful it would be to have to rewrite the history books and redefining Armstrong's reign as having been a total fraud. "Defrauding the American people" is how I think some federal prosecutor put it. Such crises truly do impact the widespread image of a sport, and another great example would be the collective global wincing of what another dominating king-of-the-world did to another sport: golf. If it's golf then we have to be talking about Tiger Woods, right?! We are not going to get back into that one, but experts did say in terms of sponsorship losses and the tarnished image the former ruler of the sport gave to it, that it was a very black and bleak period in golf history. So one should not underestimate the impact and reach of a sporting hero, who defies the odds and competition to rule the world, repeatedly. It is the stuff that kid's dreams are made of. 

My question and trouble over this type of situation is what is the best thing to do, and is that the right thing to do? I think we all might sort of agree that we wish it would just go away; the guy or gal gets to keep their crown even if it's not quite as shiny as before, and time heals the wounds. But, if someone has dominated a sport in untouchable fashion, but does so by "cheating" (in this case that means using illicit performance-enhancing means), then should they not face the full consequences? It's not just because they are our hero, that they are above such scrutiny, yet we don't mind seeing some wannabe getting caught for such fraudulence. I think in the end, if evidence is uncovered, that we have no choice but to bring it out and let the athlete answer for their actions. This is sport, and it is supposed to be fair competition, even when it has today become big business. What is frustrating about the whole thing is that many insiders claim that if he is stripped of his titles, and they are given to whomever was second in those seven tournaments, that all we are doing is taking medals off one doper and handing them over to another doper. But one who has never been similarly so polarizing or as scrutinized as Armstrong. In other words, it is often claimed that doping is rampant, and everyone's at it, so it is an equal playing field! Therein lies the rub, my friends. 

Personally, after I saw the "60 Minutes" interview with Tyler Hamilton, an ex-teammate of Armstrong's on the US Postal Service team, I was sure Lance's goose was cooked. His former friend and colleague made no bones about having doped with Armstrong during the 1999 tour, as well as in preparation for the 2000 and 2001 tours. The federal prosecutors turned cycling into the new mafia, whereby they offered sweetheart deals to lesser stars to dish the dirt on the big star, so they could go after him. The Godfather is always a sexier target than some soldier, right? Sure enough, a few former cyclists (now the equivalent of mafia rats) stepped up to the plate and claimed they were all doing it, Armstrong included. I cannot help but feel that most of us sort of know, deep down, that they were all doing it, Armstrong included. But, and it is a very big but, one must remember that the US Federal Prosecutors closed their investigation into Armstrong in February this year, after two long and harrowing years for probably all concerned. I concluded that there had been a lot of hype but not enough real evidence to prove anything, so in that case it was considered the right thing to do to walk away; let the champion remain the champion. It should have been the end of the matter.

But no, now, with his cycling days behind him, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has decided to go after him again, and tarnish his dominance of another sport, triathlon. I have to say that I remain extremely impressed by a cancer survivor having done what he did, and now, when rich and famous, and retired, he decides to compete in "Iron Man" competitions for a little downtime! This guy is simply an incredible athlete and competitor who has a dedication that most people can only dream of, not least as it requires enormous physical effort as part and parcel of that dedication. But the USADA has now prevented him from competing even in triathlons, and have charged him with using EPO, blood transfusions, testosterone, human growth hormone and anti-inflammatory steroids during key Tour de France years. 

It's the gift that keeps on giving, and frankly it's a mess. Now that it has popped up once again, can we please do a rapid, efficient investigation and come to a verdict and put this to bed once and for all? I don't think it's fair to put the guy through this again, especially, if as he claims with his lawyer, "I have had over 500 drug tests, passed them all, and never failed a single one". The aspect that I find most tragic of all is the feeling that Lance Armstrong would still have been the best and would have won all those races without any enhancements, but if he did use them, he is about to lose it all, and have a legacy pulled off him like fresh wet wallpaper off a wall: leaving behind only a sticky mess. For sure, the entire sport will suffer along with him. - Kevin Mc

Do you want fries with that?!

In a move that seems to be totally against the grain (and we ain't talking wholegrain here!) of current thinking in the food and restaurant industry, Burger King have announced the release of a new salacious-sounding summer treat that will be released this week, and will run until September. This does not only go against general current trends in healthier eating and portion control, but is also in direct contrast to Burger King's own recent marketing moves in selling healthier, lower calorie items such as fruit smoothies and better salads and wraps. They even use David Beckham, a world-renowned athlete, Olympic competitor and 2012 opening ceremony ambassador, to promote the new healthier choices and lifestyle, no doubt at great expense to the brand. So right on the heels of what can only be seen as forward thinking and positive moves comes the imminent release of, wait for it, the new bacon sundae!

It's a delicious new treat consisting of vanilla ice cream, topped with caramel, fudge, bacon pieces (yes, bacon pieces), and to top it all off, a lovely rasher of bacon! Quite how this was conceived or how it is designed to fit into current marketing tactics by the brand is not clear to me, unless they are saying that when it's summer we can all afford to let the hair down (i.e. loosen the belts!) and live a little. Or a lot. This junk food item comes in at over 500 calories, and consists of almost 20 grams of pure fat, and a whopping (pun intended!) 60 grams plus of white sugar. In and of itself, it's probably not a bad treat once per month, but we all know that it is most likely to be served as an afterthought to a Texas Whopper and large pack of french fries. More than an entire day's calories wolfed down in twenty minutes at lunchtime, with two meals (at least) to factor in on top, and don't worry about how much salt, sugar and fat is being consumed in total in the process. For sure, it's way, way over what is currently recommended as "daily healthy eating". 

We discussed in a recent blog the move by the Mayor of New York to try to ban "large-size sugary drinks", and one cannot help but smile at what he must think of this new dessert! It is true that it seems kind of pointless to be banning large-size sodas if we continue to have things like bacon sundaes, krispy kreme bacon cheeseburgers and supersized fries staring down at us from the banners. Burger King presumably have done their market research and know full well that the bacon sundae is going to be a full blown summer hit (and run). So the healthier eating marketing is just a question of covering all the bases, and making sure that there is something for everyone, thus ensuring increased profits from a wider-ranging selection of products to a more varied clientele. 

It always comes down to the same thing: while such companies continue to push sugary+fatty+salty cocktails over the counter, it remains up to us to choose and to try to do the better thing, at least some of the time. There are those that argue that if you remove the choice, people will do better, and those that argue that the choice should be ours, and no one has the right to remove temptation from us. It is still somewhat of a grey area, and until an entire generation (and more) have their taste buds reprogrammed, we will still be subject to the devils who tempt us with such delicacies as bacon-laced ice cream. Hmm, I wonder if you can request your bacon extra crispy, or still soft, juicy and dripping in fat from the pan?!! - Kevin Mc   

Things are warming up for an EU summer!

We've been blogging for about two months now, and we can see that quite a few of you from various countries in the world are already keeping an eye on Evergreen Umbrella (EU), and we thank one and all for that interest. It's very refreshing indeed to see that we are being read in Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, Russia, Italy, Germany and South Africa, among others! We have added a very cool Google translator at the top of the blog for that very reason: we want everybody to have access and to be able to read the often provocative thoughts of our very own Kevin Mc on a wide variety of contemporary topics.

Additionally, for those who are only just discovering EU, we are a self-branded self-publishing outfit which handles the work of new Irish writer, Kevin Mc. His first novel, "A Quiet Resignation" was published in February, 2012 and is available on our website [www.evergreenumbrella.com] via the online store [www.shop.evergreenumbrella.com]. Kevin has been working away very diligently, and his new book, entitled "The Molecules", is almost ready to publish and you will be able to see the new cover posted here and on our other sites later this week.  The book should be available for sale sometime in late June on our website. This new book has huge potential and we will be publishing some general comments/reviews of it on both our Facebook page and on the blog. Additionally, Kevin's first book, "A Quiet Resignation", should be available on Kindle (Amazon) by the start of July. 

As you can see, things are rolling nicely in 2012, so keep your eyes open and read about Kevin and EU on our website, our fun Facebook page for business [www.facebook.com/evergreenumbrella], and of course here on the EU blog. He is rarely silent for long, and no doubt about it, one of the best places to read him is of course, in his books! Join the gang and get in on the excitement buzzing around this new talent, before everyone else is talking about him! - EU

My nine beats your thirty thousand, for now....

To a society that managed to eradicate smallpox (thanks to Edward Jenner) and develop vaccines for various other infectious diseases, it seems quite unthinkable after 20 years of intense research and surely many billions of dollars spent that we do not yet have a cure for HIV/AIDS. Yes, I know that the disease is much more manageable today, and combinatorial therapy with antiretroviral drugs has been very effective in prolonging the life of patients. While diagnosis was a death sentence in say, 1990,  today a young HIV-positive person detected early on can expect to live for 50 years more, if treated. This is of course wonderful news, but it remains extremely frustrating that the best and brightest scientific minds of the twentieth century could not defeat this little packet of single-stranded RNA that encodes a mere nine genes, in comparison with hundreds of genes in bacteria or tens of thousands of genes in humans. Nine genes, with the potential to wipe out the human race if allowed to spread? It truly is a shocking thought, and an eternally fascinating challenge to a scientist. With the huge amounts of money that were being poured in, it seemed certain that we would have had a vaccine by the year 2000, if not before. Sadly, that didn't happen, and no true cure has yet been found. 

It is with this on my mind that I read with incredulity that we now have the first person in the world who has been cured of AIDS, and I don't mean "cured": I mean cured! Timothy Brown, 46, is the first and only human who has been quite literally cured of the disease, and that news stunned me. I just had to read on to find out what made him so unique, and made such a cure even remotely possible. It turns out that as part and parcel of treating Brown for leukemia, he was given a transplant of blood stem cells that came from a donor that unbelievably had a genetic mutation that made them resistant to HIV infection. I don't know whether this was known at the time, but if not, it's not just an incredible stroke of luck: it was divine intervention! Less than one percent of Caucasians have that genetic mutation, so finding a donor who is both transplant-compatible and who also carries the resistance is not going to be a simple affair. The process is complicated by adult donors, because in this case the match between donor and recipient needs to be extremely good, whereas with umbilical cord blood, one has more room to move. So it seems that umbilical cord blood transplants may well be the way forward, even if in the testing done thus far, out of some 17,000 cord blood samples, only 102 carried the gene for resistance. That comes about to be just over half a percent, but we cannot get bogged down by percentages here, and should rather focus on the the number 102. If that means another 102 people can be similarly cured, for good, then that sounds like an amazing place to start. Timothy Brown had his transplant in 2007, and today is considered to be totally free of the virus and officially cured of HIV/AIDS. A staggeging outcome!

But the struggle goes on to get inside the "head" of this rapidly evolving retrovirus, and to come up with the magic bullet that wipes it out, for everyone's sake. One cannot help but feel that the situation is a perfect example of "big is not always better", given that its nine genes can outwit, outlast and outplay our thirty thousand or so. If life is only about getting enough to eat and propagation of that life, well, until today at least, this tiny little RNA package has us by the short and curlies. It represents a very complex simplicity, or a frustratingly simple complexity, or both. But in either case it remains an enormous intellectual, scientific, economic and global challenge, and one that just has to be hurdled hopefully sooner rather than later. - Kevin Mc

An F-16 protects the cash while shining a spotlight right down into Hollywood

I smiled wryly at a new story about an F-16 fighter jet intercepting a small single-engine Cessna that entered airspace reserved for POTUS, almost certainly by total accident. It was forced to land, and no doubt the poor pilot got subjected to the laser beam hypnosis and the truth serum, to reveal what he/she was up to on that plane. Of course, the thing that caused no shock whatsoever was the airspace that was reserved for his POTUSness: Los Angeles. Again. Or more specifically, Hollywood. Again. The guy spends more time there than George Clooney! I wouldn't be surprised that Air Force One hovers more or less permanently over Hollywood in future years, with the new Star Trek transporter beam whisking celebrities right up into the aerial penthouse for an audience in private with POTUS. All for a million dollars a pop, no doubt. The name Star Trek actually seems hilariously appropriate for that particular aircraft and campaign! 

"We goin' to Hollywood, woo-hoo! We gonna hang out with George, and Ellen, and Steven, and Beyonce'n'Jay, we gonna par-tay, and we gonna fill this lil ol' plane with hundreds of millions, y'all! Yowza!"

The aspect that put the "wry" in wryly the most was the occasion for this visit: yet another big fundraising affair at the Regent Beverly Wiltshire, sponsored by gay and lesbian supporters. Wait, hang on a second, wasn't this guy de facto against gay rights (i.e. marriage), for the first four years of his presidency?! Didn't he only "come out" of his closet mere weeks ago, and claim the light bulb went on in the night, suddenly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel that leads to equality for one and all? Mere weeks, and already he has set up gay and lesbian-sponsored fundraisers? This underlines magnificently what I referred to in a  recent blog about this campaigner-in-chief - it's all about the votes (and the cash that assures them), and he will say or do almost anything to get them. From denying gay people the right to marriage, to suddenly being "hip" with an election looming, to using them immediately for the other thing he cares passionately about, raising money - for his re-election. He does it with a passion that is not so obvious in certain aspects of keeping his promises to those he grabbed money from last time, or even in his day-to-day job. Political pundits say that Presidents ought to be very transparent, and in this guy's case he has taken transparency to a whole new level. He's the Linda Evangelista of political fundraising: "I don't get out of bed for less than a mill, tell 'em sittin' at my table for dinner is two mill, and if they want a photo op with me, it's three mill, a head!" It's only about money, votes and staying in power. He didn't even show up to the fight in Wisconsin, where the Republican incumbent beat the Democratic challenger, again. Why? Well, because POTUS doesn't care. He has a presidency to run for, so he doesn't want to be tarnished by a potential loss of that guy in Wisconsin. He was asleep at the wheel in horrific fashion when he treated Coakley somewhat similarly and Dems lost the Kennedy family seat and legacy in Massachusetts, after almost 50 years. Unthinkable, not least that it also caused the loss of a supermajority in Congress. He didn't even appear to give a damn.

I suppose the most surprising thing is how quickly the LGBT community, and those with access to big money, jumped on his bandwagon. No one seems to question the timing of his surprising revelation, mere months before a general election? Does he have such star power himself that if he came out tomorrow and said that he had had some gay experiences in high school, the entire global LGBT movement would gush over him, and pour forth hundreds of millions of dollars in response? Even if there was no proof of it? I guess that the answer might be that the LGBT community sees him as their best chance to get some laws passed, and move on, whether they truly buy his new stance or not. They know he is totally buyable, and he knows they need something, and bad. While he does take every chance to hit the media with big ticket "achievements", you will notice that he is a lot quieter about all of these Hollywood fundraisers. Why? Well, I mean, do we want to bring people's attention to the fact that we are off raising staggering amounts of money based on promises I (or the other candidate) make, which I will then ignore when elected? As I did last time? It's quite a contrast that experts predict he will raise and spend an almost immoral billion dollars to get re-elected, and yet the country is in decline and so many normal working people have sadly become normal unemployed (and maybe homeless) people, under his watch. Given that we all know most politicians lie about what "I believe" or "I will do", why do we hand over a billion dollars to help them? Why do we not feel similarly emotive to raise a billion dollars to help people who lost homes during the recession, or to help feed kids who are going to school hungry, or to try and create even a few new jobs?!

Quite typically in today's world, it's about star power, people! We would much rather spend a hundred dollars of our hard-earned money to be able to sit in the same room that POTUS is at the front of, than feed a starving child. I don't get it all, especially when that guy walked away from many of his forceful promises during his first two years in the big white house. He's so transparent, he's see-through. A pure politician through and through, who has staying in power as his #1 priority at all times, and who will turn this light bulb conveniently on, or that one off, for votes, near to an election. If you gave this guy the truth serum, and asked which was better: him getting four more years in the big old white house, but little progress for the country, or the other guy winning, and the country doing slightly better; he would say that he prefers the former option. I am sure of it. 

I personally think that he has hurt his own brand, by his flip-flopping, his lack of real leadership in Congress, his desire to please everyone, or whoever he is preaching to at any one time, for cash, but then stepping away from promises later, his constant money-sniffing, and his clear enjoyment of "hangin'" with super rich celebrities, even when people's lives and homes are in flames. He doesn't seem to care that people might find it distasteful, espeically those who helped him get elected the first time around. For sure, "hope and change" today sounds like more or less precisely what it really was, and only was - political rhetoric. I do not see any more "hope", and only very negative "change", after four years under him, and that my friends, is simply not good enough and should be sufficient to give someone else a chance. The tragic thing being that the Republican brand itself was so tarnished by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice that people will keep Obama in as the lesser of two evils;, and you can be rock-solid certain that ol' POTUS knows that very, very well. - Kevin Mc

Apple chasing Samsung chasing Apple!

The ongoing legal dispute between Apple and Samsung caught my eye, not least as this particular war is being waged between allies: those who have a lot more to gain by their ongoing collaboration, rather than divorcing. A fact that's well known in technical circles but is much less publicized to a general audience is that Apple gets a lot of the key components for its game-changing iPhone from, you guessed it, Samsung. The retina display on the iPhone and iPad are regarded as the best on the market, and in fact Samsung beat out giants like Sharp and LG in making them. The Apple-Samsung marriage was/is a B2B relationship that has been enormously profitable for all concerned, but that's only fine until the guys supplying you with the cool parts decide to start using those parts, or the skills and tech know-how that made them, to develop their own cool toys. From ally to direct competitor, while still being an ally. I am sort of amazed that Apple were either shocked by this, or are so greedy that they will not tolerate other companies eating off their crumbs. It's reminiscent of another legal dispute ongoing over Apple's purported attempts to fix the price of e-books, and force everyone in publishing, and even Amazon in self-publishing, to fall into line, or else. Is money all this company cares about? It might not be, but they sure come across as greedy and money-grabbing in recent times. 

Of course, I think the point is slightly subtler than that. There were plenty of other companies who jumped on the "let's go as far as we can in copying the iPhone without facing legal issues" bandwagon, before Samsung might have. Notwithstanding what might be in the contracts between the two companies regarding Samsung marketing its own devices using identical or similar components, I feel that there is a bigger issue at stake than that. The fundamental problem is that under Steve Jobs, Apple was as much (or more) a design company, as an engineering one, and the brand's iconic image and chic, cool-looking devices was unquestionably a major factor in their explosive success. Samsung on the other hand, were more of a technical-manufacturing giant, and were not known for red hot design, at least not in terms of their smartphones or tablets. All this changed in recent times, especially with the release of the Samsung Galaxy SII and SIII, and their new tablets. These are items which in my opinion raise the bar to the level of an Apple, in terms of sheer design, but jump over Apple in terms of quality and performance. So Apple feels threatened in terms of Samsung going all fashionable and 2012 design style, with devices that are at least as good, and many tech gurus say are better, than their own. Apple protects its intellectual property and brand intensely, and they clearly feel that their brand territory, which is as much design as tech wizardry, is being incorrectly threatened or used. They have even gone as far to try to get the Samsung 10.1 tablet banned from the US marketplace, pending legal outcomes. Irrespective of what could or should be negotiated here, this just seems like an incredible state of affairs. Does Apple want Samsung to refuse to provide them with iPhone parts, in return, and make components jsut for themselves? Does Samsung want to lose the hefty manufacturing contracts that come their way via Apple? Are they both not making enough money to solve this out of court, and quietly? 

The problem is that Apple and Samsung are projected to "own" around 50% of the total worldwide smartphone market by as soon as 2013. So they are the two big guns. But people are never happy at hearing such news; they are happy hearing that they own 43% of that 50%, not 13% of that 50%. I have heard that Tim Cook, the new Apple CEO, wants this fight to fade away, and he has even sat down with Samsung CEO Choi-Gee sung at the negotiating table, as the two parties hammer it out. To date, I have not heard any positive news. While Apple is in dispute with other Android device manufacturers, the one with Samsung seems more personal, as Apple has accused them of outright copying of their designs. 

It seems that Samsung suddenly developed some degree of device-design envy, and wanted the type of adoration and obsession over it's smartphones that was exclusively reserved for Apple before. To that end, they recently celebrated line-ups on the street outside stores for the Galaxy SIII release, in scenes reminiscent of iPhone fever, in Europe. I say good luck to them. Why? Well, I will let you into a little secret: I was an iPhone lover, true blue, until my 3 year contract was up, I was not overly excited about iPhone4S, and I got offered an amazing deal on the Samsung Galaxy SII. I can honestly say that after one hour, I did not want to go back to my iPhone and it even felt sort of small and old-fashioned. My SII turned heads in public, and turned many Apples green, with envious stares and questions about it from their owners, and its performance and user experience surpassed all of my expectations. The people who like to think they are the cool ones, but who bought their iPhones at iPhone 4 or beyond? You were late, and not that cool. Now stuck on a contract for the next two years, while all the cool, hip people own Galaxy SII or SIII or a Samsung tablet. 

Yes, Samsung, you have made a convert, among the many others in the fifty million Galaxy SII owners out there! It is a great device, and as an individual, I do not have to worry about legal issues between two giants; I am a free person, so I get to buy the product that I think is best, from both the design and performance standpoints. Today, Samsung Galaxy SII and SIII rule, no question. Well, at least until the new iPhone5 surfaces in October, right?!! ;) - Kevin Mc

"Napalm Girl": as iconic an image today, as it was 40 years ago

This iconic photo taken by Huynh Cong Ut during the Vietnam war and often referred to as "Napalm Girl" became 40 years old, just as that naked little girl who was 9 back then has recently turned 49 years old.  The scene took place near Trang Bang village after a napalm attack on suspected Vietcong hiding out in the area. The little girl, Kim Phuc, was traumatized not only by the serious burns she incurred on over 30 percent of her body (not evident in the photo), but also by her eventual "fame", and her being used by the new communist leaders as a propaganda weapon of their very own. She has said that she was both a victim of war, who then was forced to become another kind of victim. To cut a long story short, Kim Phuc is now a happily married mother of two, who lives in Toronto, Canada, having defected there during her honeymoon.

The Vietnam war was probably the most shocking and divisive war in America's history, and we certainly don't have the time and space here to get into it. My purpose in choosing this photo for today's blog is simply as a reminder of the real horrors of war. Too often we see movies that somehow romanticize the whole thing, and even make the indiscriminate killing of civilians, women and children perfectly understandable, if not actually legitimate. It's one thing to hear a George Bush spouting polemic about the need for this war or that one, and quite another to actually see evidence of what war truly means, in practice. Seemingly, some of those memories have faded, as indicated by recent and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Weapons may have become more sophisticated, hitting of specific targets more possible, war apparently has become more "civilized", but nothing much has changed. You can be sure scenes like the one above have played out often in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the latter affair has now surpassed the Vietnam  war in duration. It seems incongruous that we didn't have Facebook and iPhones when that war was initiated, and social media were not even in diapers. 

As much as one may well prefer to forget the horrors of Vietnam, or the reality of Afghanistan and Iraq (the rocky and sandy versions of Vietnam, respectively), this photo is extremely sobering and serves to remind us civilians of what war really involves and consists of - maiming and killing of people. If a picture of a little girl called Kim Phuc can potentially do something positive, even 40 years later, then we need to show it and talk about it. - Kevin Mc