According to the BBC, India’s southern Karnataka state has banned the release of non-Kannada language films until seven weeks after their release in the rest of the country. But cinema owners and distributors say Kannada films alone cannot get bring them adequate returns. Unlike Kannada films, those made in other languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and English do extremely well in the state. But here’s a thought: A leading actor and writer, Girish Karnad, says rather than resort to such restrictions, Kannada producers should try and make good films.

Michael Moore in his first opinion piece from the floor of the Republican National Convention:

“You’re in charge because you never back down. Your people are up before dawn figuring out which minority group shouldn’t be allowed to marry today.

Our side is full of wimps who’d rather compromise than fight. Not you guys.”

Meine Tochter konnte am letzten Samstag in ihr neues Domizil, ein Studentenwohnheim an der Third Avenue, einziehen. Nicht gerade intelligent, daß all die Freshmen genau zu dem Zeitpunkt antanzen müssen, wo in Midtown die Republikaner ihre Show abhalten. Irgendwann am Sonntag rief sie mich an, aber ich war gerade nicht zu Hause. In der Nachricht auf meinem AB sagte sie mir unter anderem, ich sollte erst am Abend zurückrufen, da sie jetzt demonstrieren ginge.

Ahh … In ihrem Alter waren es für mich unmittelbar die Fahrpreiserhöhungen der öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel und die Aktion „Roter Punkt“, mittelbar die Notstandsgesetze. Liegt es an der Verklärung durch das Licht der Nostalgie oder waren Demonstrationen damals nicht irgendwie gemütlicher?

The Memory Hole reports about the DOJ using national security as an excuse to censor a quotation about using national security as an excuse to stifle dissent. Makes you wonder what else is hidden under those black lines.

We had some nasty thunderstorms last night with lots of lightning, some very close to our house. This morning, I had an early meeting. When I came home, none of our phone lines worked –which meant that I had no DSL and, again, no Internet access.

I walked to the top of the hill to get a cell phone signal and called the phone company. At first, they did not believe that the lines were dead. Then they suspected that it had to do with the lightning and said they would send someone around.

By early afternoon, a yellow tent went up a little ways down the road and the repair crew started to do their work in the rain. I walked over to see if indeed lightning had caused the problem, but was in for a surprise.

Our chip-and-seal country road is lined by trees and brush, and once a year the county comes around with a huge tractor and some sort of brush hog attachment to clear the sides of the road. Yesterday morning, they had been working near our house and the big blades of the brush hog had cut one of the small greenish towers that house the telephone connector boards to bits and pieces.

It took the CenturyTel crew the better part of seven hours to splice all the wires and to put it all back together again.

“IT is in the examination of the exercise of thought in the United States that we clearly perceive how far the power of the majority surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted in Europe. Thought is an invisible and subtle power that mocks all the efforts of tyranny. At the present time the most absolute monarchs in Europe cannot prevent certain opinions hostile to their authority from circulating in secret through their dominions and even in their courts. It is not so in America; as long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety. The reason for this is perfectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the powers of society in his own hands and to conquer all opposition, as a majority is able to do, which has the right both of making and of executing the laws.”

Thanks to the University of Virginia, the Henry Reeve translation of Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville is available on-line. With all the noise filling the airwaves, newspapers and bookstores, especially this year and especially now, I find it helpful to turn to some older sources.

I just made my way out from under tons of software strings. I don’t like translating strings. Mostly they come before the documentation is finished so it is not possible to observe them in their natural habitat; many times it is unclear if they are noun or verb; and then the adjectives… what do they modify? Is “None” to be translated as “Keine,” “Keines,” or “Keiner”? There ought to be a law that software strings are not to be translated until after all other documentation is finished.

It is always comforting to know that one is not alone with one’s problems. “Learning software internationalization the hard way,” over at Enigmatic Mermaid, is a reflection on the adjective problem: “Please don’t use adjectives without nouns as submenus or values in tables, because when you translate them into a language that is flexed according to number and gender, all hell breaks loose.”

Had a long day in front of your computer screen and need to exercise those tired eyes? Look no further: Epileptika, la machine à rendre fou.

Rückkehr zur „klassischen“ Rechtschreibung nun auch bei Springer und beim Spiegel. Da ist ja noch Hoffnung. Das schlimmste Resultat der neuen Rechtschreibung war ja die totale Unsicherheit darüber, wie nun was wirklich richtig geschrieben wird. Ich habe mich bis heute an die klassischen Regeln gehalten und meine Dateien dann eben mit diverser Software umgewandelt. Das hieß zwar, daß ich von meinen Texten jeweils zwei Versionen anlegen mußte, dafür war ich mir aber zumindest bei der klassischen Rechtschreibung einigermaßen sicher.

Laut Bild online begründen Dr. Mathias Döpfner, Vorstandsvorsitzender der Axel Springer AG, und Stefan Aust, Chefredakteur des Nachrichtenmagazins „Der Spiegel“, ihre Entscheidung unter anderem so: „Sechs Jahre nach Einführung der neuen Rechtschreibung müssen wir alle ein erschreckendes Fazit ziehen. In der täglichen Erprobung ist die Reform gescheitert. Die Situation verschlimmert sich, die Konfusion wird größer … Aus Verantwortung für die nachfolgenden Generationen empfehlen wir auch anderen die Beendigung der staatlich verordneten Legasthenie und die Rückkehr zur klassischen deutschen Rechtschreibung.“