$100 Laptops

I have always thought that this US $100 laptop project was at best well-intended silliness and at worst a criminal waste of resources. The laptops will now cost roughly $200 each and the purpose has changed. Originally, they were intended for children in remote areas with no electricty. The prototype had a cord that could be pulled to generate power, although it took roughly an hour to generate enough power to use it for an extended period of time. I guess someone finally realized that if there was no electricity the kids would probably be either too busy or too ill with dysentery to pull a cord for an hour and then play video games. Now the computers can only be used in areas with electricity.
However, no one connected to OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) has been able to explain why it is more efficient to waste a considerable amount of money designing cheap laptops and then pay to have them produced when people in the West are constantly upgrading their laptops and desktop computers. Instead of an ever growing pile of discarded laptops being tossed into the recylcing bins, they could be repaired if necessary and distributed to needy children in poor countries. I wonder if this entire misguided project is motivated by the desire to avoid the impression of asking less developed nations to basically accept hand-me-downs. While concern for the dignity of the less fortunate is laudable, it is also misplaced. The world is facing an increasingly severe environmental crisis and the modern emphasis on replacing things like cell phones, cars, computers, and clothes as soon as they are a bit worn out or when something slightly shinier comes out six months later is producing very, very, very large piles of garbage. Distributing the already used computers to less developed nations would significantly reduce those piles.
Most important, it would cost a fraction of the current approach and the leftover money could be used to improve drinking water, build roads, build schools, build houses, well you get the point. The interesting thing about less developed countries is that US$ 200 goes a long way. I have met people who were quite happy if they made a dollar a day and they were not at the bottom of their respective social ladders. One of the spokespeople for OLPC tried to justify the mindboggling lack of common sense by saying that once millions of children in the developing world have computers they will be able to express their needs. I suspect that they will say something like: "Dear Mr. Negroponte (initiator of the project), thank you for the computer but what I really wanted was a school with a roof and a bathroom with a door and water that looks like water, not all brownish and yucky. Maybe next Christmas. Hugs and kisses."

Steven Spielberg

I am happy that Steven Spielberg has been able to use his influence with the Chinese dictatorship to spur it into prodding the Sudanese government into pretending to consider a more robust peacekeeping force. That should show Mia Farrow that he is no Leni Riefenstahl.
Now he can get back to the important task of producing the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics for the Chinese dictatorship. While I was quite impressed by Mia Farrow's approach it seems odd to criticize Mr. Spielberg for China's support of a repressive regime when China itself is a repressive regime. It routinely jails people for religious beliefs, or rather non-government sanctioned religious beliefs, so technically there is religious freedom, just for the right religions, although the Vatican and a number of fundamentalist Protestant churches in America disagree with this interpretation. To be fair, the Chinese dictatorship is open-minded in its repression. Whether you belong to a brand new religion like the Falun Gong or an old standard like the Catholic Church, if caught by the police you can look forward to an invigorating vacation in a work camp where you will undoubtedly lose unwanted pounds and quite likely organs.
Speaking of health, perhaps Mr. Spielberg was too busy giving his two Oscars their daily rub to notice that the Chinese dictatorship refused to inform WHO of the outbreak of SARS in 2003, thus allowing the epidemic to spread to other countries, killing hundreds of people across the world, but mainly in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Now that we are on the subject of Taiwan, is Mr. Spielberg aware that China currently has a thousand missiles pointed at Taiwan, a small island of 23 million people? That's one missile for every 2,300 people but I like to think there is one pointed right at my house. I'm special. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that will one day see the error of its ways and return to the motherland. Oddly enough, the internationally recognized fair and democratic elections of 1996, 2000 and 2004 have done little to change this view. Maybe, the Chinese leaders are waiting for a party they like to win.
Perhaps Mr. Spielberg has been too busy considering camera angles for lighting the torch (I am sure it is more complicated than it looks) to have heard that China tested an anti-satellite missile that is obviously directed against the American military's communication network. Or that a Chinese submarine ambushed an American carrier group a couple of months ago as a warning. Anyway, who cares that China is training hard for its championship bout with America? Oh, wait. He is American and yet he is happily volunteering his time to help the one country that is likely to go to war with America.
No, there is clearly no reason why anybody would ever compare Steven Spielberg to Leni Riefenstahl. She was German and she aided the German government. A more apt comparison would be with Benedict Arnold.

Warren Beatty

This blog will be a bit rough because it is three in the morning but I have been meaning to get off my large ass and start making some posts. I just finished reading Mike Medavoy's memoir You're Only As Good As Your Next One and he made an interesting observation about Warren Beatty. Actually, he danced around it because he still has a career and is not powerful enough to say that he would never work with Beatty again if you put a gun to his head but that is essentially the message. Between the years 1981 and 1991, Beatty made four films. Reds (1981), Ishtar (1987), Dick Tracy (1990) and Bugsy (1991). Istar has become infamous as one of the great disasters of modern movie history, while the other three movies were disappointments for their respective studios. In fact, they were such disappointments that both Michael Eisner, head of Paramount when it made Reds, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Disney when it made Dick Tracy, produiced lengthy memos lamenting the huge marketing resources devoted to satisfy Beatty and their pledges to avoid such a situation in the future. Actually, their problem was not as much the expense as the effort and anxiety involved in dealing with Beatty.
Medavoy's experience with Bugsy was similar to Eisner and Katzenberg. Bugsy's final budget was $43 million and the studio spent an additional $50 million on marketing, and not only did the movie lose money but Beatty felt that inadequate marketing was the real reason why a movie glorifying a psychotic gangster bombed at the box office. The point to this rambling is that even after that experience Medavoy refuses to say he would never work with Beatty again. Now that is power.
For those who wondering about the six year gap between Reds and Istar, Beatty was helping to run Gary Hart's campaign to win the Democratic nomination for president. Yes, that Gary Hart. In fact, since Beatty became involved in politics the only Democratic candidate who actually became president is also the only one who did not listen to Beatty-Bill Clinton.