Corporate Synergy?

This morning, I read a neat article about co-op advertising in bookstores (better known as "pay for play", which helps insure that deep-pocketed publishers get the most exposure for their books).

Then, on a whim, I hit Amazon's "most-preordered books in Literature and Fiction," when I came across this. Evidently, The Testing of Luther Albright "heralds the beginning of what bodes to be a substantial writing career" for MacKenzie Bezos.

I wonder if the publisher (Fourth Estate) has to pay co-op advertising for the book on Amazon, SINCE THE AUTHOR'S HUSBAND IS AMAZON CEO JEFF BEZOS. I also wonder if the Amazon.com reviewer felt any pressure to, um, say the book is any good.

Anyway, there are a bunch of reasons that I closed down Voyant Publishing, my "literary" imprint. This sorta stuff was a contributing factor, to say the least.

|
posted by Gil at 7:53 AM

Deterrence

Last night, I discovered that an acquaintance of mine (friend of a friend) is serving nearly 2 years in the penitentiary at Fort Dix. I've been researching both the pen and prison life in general.

Here's the website of a prisoner named Michael Santos, who's serving 26 years (he's supposed to finish his sentence in 2013). He educated himself in prison and writes pretty well (prosaically, actually) about the day-to-day ugliness of prison life. Santos was a prisoner at Fort Dix, and wrote about it pretty extensively.

During my researches, I also discovered that the Bureau of Prisons has a federal inmate locator, and that some of the forums at Prisontalk.com are monstrously depressing.

I've also discovered that I will, for the rest of my life, do my utmost NEVER to get sent to prison.

As a guy who allegedly writes for a living, and one who tends to go for humor, I'm finding it awfully difficult to write to a friend-of-a-friend who's in prison. But he oughtta know that people on the outside are thinking of him. I mean, life on the outside can be pretty lonely.

|
posted by Gil at 10:12 PM

More Sudan

Nicholas Kristof of the NYTimes is insanely pissed off at the media for ignoring the genocide in Darfur:

When I've asked television correspondents about this lapse, they've noted that visas to Sudan are difficult to get and that reporting in Darfur is expensive and dangerous. True, but TV crews could at least interview Darfur refugees in nearby Chad. After all, Diane Sawyer traveled to Africa this year - to interview Brad Pitt, underscoring the point that the networks are willing to devote resources to cover the African stories that they consider more important than genocide.

If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.

Read on.

|
posted by Gil at 8:49 PM

Be Creative!!!

I read BusinessWeek, the Economist, and some other bizmags and econobloggers a lot (can't say enough about the New York Post's John Crudele). Outside of my own industry (as a Pharma observer), I like to see read interpretations of how industries function, how business works, and why money does what it does. I haven't come to any grand conclusions about this stuff, but I am gratified that elegant design of consumer goods is on the upswing. Virginia Postrel writes about this a lot, and I plan to read her recent book on the subject, The Substance of Style, later this year.

All of that is a preface to saying that BusinessWeek has just launched an Innovation & Design site, covering all those subjects that I adore. So check it out sometime.

|
posted by Gil at 10:25 PM

Slampoco

Looks like my music-laden alter ego has struck again! It's a new Mad Mix!

|
posted by Gil at 10:24 PM

American Job Destruction Act

When I write my annual Top 20 Pharma Companies & Top 10 Biopharma Companies report (this year's edition is soon to post at the website of my day job), I read a lot of annual reports, along with industry analysis, news coverage, and other neat sources.

The annual reports have two parts: the glossy front half, hyping the company to the general public, and the fine-print back half, breaking down a lot of the numbers and providing SEC-mandated information (litigation issues, executive compensation, accounting policies, etc.). It took a couple of years before I started to understand a little of the subtext in the reports.

I'm still no expert with this stuff (or I'd be making a lot more money), but I do find it pretty fascinating. For example, virtually every company I profiled this year included a variation on the following:

On October 22, 2004, President Bush signed into law the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (AJCA), which creates a temporary incentive for U.S. corporations to repatriate undistributed income earned abroad by providing an 85% dividends received deduction for certain dividends from controlled foreign corporations. Although the deduction is subject to a number of limitations and uncertainty remains as to how to interpret certain provisions of the AJCA, we believe we have the information necessary to make an informed decision on the impact of the AJCA on our repatriation plans. Based on that decision, we plan to repatriate [bazillions of dollars] . . .

The upshot of the AJCA was that foreign revenues, which were previously taxed at 38%, were now to be taxed at 5.25% for a single year, if repatriated for the purpose of "creating jobs". Turns out that a lot of companies have been stowing away a lot of money in foreign revenues, rather than bringing it back to the U.S., where it would have been taxed to bejeesus. Pfizer has decided to bring nearly $37 billion in foreign money into the U.S. under the AJCA. I thought the numbers were pretty astounding, but I had no idea (and no time to research) how much money other major companies were repatriating.

According to this article from BusinessWeek, it turns out my industry is way out in front. In comparison with Pfizer's enormous stash, Dell's bringing back just $4.1 billion. Problem is, there's no way to show that the money's being used to create jobs. After all, if Pfizer's R&D budget is $8 billion for 2005, according to the AJCA, they could use the repatriated money for that same R&D budget, and spend the originally budgeted money on buying solid gold rocket cars for all the top executives.

It's a pretty ineptly named bill since, erversely enough, a bunch of companies benefiting from the American Jobs Creation Act (like Pfizer and Merck) are in the process of dismantling some of their operations and laying off a bunch of employees. Read more about it.

|
posted by Gil at 10:19 AM

Now's my big chance!

Congrats to Lance Armstrong for winning his 7th Tour De France! This morning, I realized that we're the same age, which makes me feel pretty bad about my own accomplishments, or lack thereof.

I've never been much of a Sheryl Crow fan, so that helps balance us out a little.

|
posted by Gil at 12:06 PM

Book News

Official VM pal Paul Di Filippo has a new collection of short stories out: The Emperor of Gondwanaland and Other Stories! You oughtta pick it up ASAP, because it's got a character who is just passingly based on me (ok, just barely, but it's SOME sorta immortality, right?)!

Paul Di F.'s also got a new comic-book miniseries coming out soon! It's a sequel to Alan Moore's Top 10, which I enjoyed a bunch.

You should probably just head over to Paul's site and check out some of his other projects. He's a heck of a writer and a good guy, besides.

|
posted by Gil at 10:11 AM

Or there's this

If you're not interested in reading about the genocide in Darfur, perhaps I can bore you with sports.

In the past week, Fox Sports' NBA writer Charley Rosen has been ranking the all-time best players at each position. Charley may have a giant axe to grind against some players, coaches and officials, but he's a smart and observant hoops writer. Here are his rankings, by position:

Point Guards

Shooting Guards

Small Forwards

Power Forwards

Centers

I think he's going to follow this up with ranks of best coaches and sixth men, but I've bored you enough. Get some sleep.

|
posted by Gil at 10:56 PM

MORE intervention?

Looks like the U.S. hegemon is forcing its way into ANOTHER Muslim country! No blood for oil! Regime change begins at home! Visualize whirled peas!

Oh, wait. It's a story about how the Air Force is helping bring Rwandan AU troops into Darfur to help stop the genocide being conducted there by the Arab population from the northern region of Sudan. My bad. Well, the root cause of the genocide must be western civilization or something.

Meanwhile, go to the Passion of the Present if you're interested in learning about the ongoing genocide. Instapundit today pointed out that there's a Genocide Intervention Fund that provides support for the African Union peacekeepers. Unfortunately, he pointed out, it doesn't create a fund to hire mercenaries to wreak havoc against the genocidaires.



(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Bradley C. Church)

|
posted by Gil at 10:34 PM

Will that be Visa, MasterCard or Naglfar?

The Japanese have figured out how to laser-etch encrypted data onto fingernail clippings. I can only make a viking-joke.

|
posted by Gil at 12:41 PM

Pic-shas!

Here they are: The promised pix of Saturday and a little of Sunday in San Diego! Our buddies Ian & Jess took us around to the west side of the San Diego bay on Saturday. The weather was lovely as usual, but it was a hazy day, so my panoramic shots kinda suck. Enjoy!

The official VM fiancee introduces us to the In-N-Out Burger that she's about to chomp!

The sub base.

The airstrip at Naval Base Coronado.

The military cemetery where we were taking pix. I was afraid they'd come back as zombies and, since they were military, they'd be pretty regimented and not as ragged as zombie-irregulars.

Just a nice tree in the cemetery.

Jess & Ian, my buddies in SD, who were doubling as tour-guides for the afternoon.

Here's a tide pool on the other side of the peninsula.

Same thing. I just like the organicness of the terrain.

On our walk over to the tidal pool.

TIDEPOOLTIDEPOOLTIDEPOOL!

Bonus surfing picture for longtime VM reader Elayne!

The view of the bay from that Cabrillo National Monument park I mentioned a few days ago.

Same thing. Sue me.

A statue of Cabrillo himself!

Strong jaw on that dude. He's no Communist Superman or anything, but he still seems pretty bold.

On Sunday morning, we headed back to the Con. This guy was waiting for us, as was Ray Harryhausen.

The pic you were waiting for: It's Enigma! He's tattooed like a jigsaw puzzle! He has horns implanted under his skin! Embarrassingly, my hip friends have no idea who this guy is, which means I am a freak.

You can decide:

|
posted by Gil at 10:31 PM

Nerd Vegas

You can't have a Comic-Con without an awards show! Occasional VM contributor Tom Spurgeon just posted his diary of the Eisner Awards night at last week's Con.

A lot of the jokes are really industry-specific, so you might not laugh as much as I did.

9:32 -- Sean McKeever wins Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition, which is a neat award because it helps to solve the problem it presents in its title.

9:33 -- I dream of an entire awards show designed along the same, utilitarian lines as the previous award, like "Artist Most in Need of Something Small to Place on a Desk."

I'm still fixing up the pix from Saturday and Sunday; they'll be up soon. You get back to work.

|
posted by Gil at 9:35 PM

News Blackout

I meant to get a bunch of material posted today, but my town's electricity is down (and it's around 90 degrees). I'm crashing over at my dad's, but I can't figure out how to get my laptop onto his network. So you'll have to wait to see how the last day of the Con stacked up. Trust me; there's a pic that makes it all worth it.

|
posted by Gil at 10:51 PM

Day off

Didn't hit the Con on Saturday. Instead, the official VM fiancee & I went out with our San Diego-based friends Ian & Jess, went up to Cabrillo National Monument, and had some In-N-Out burgers. We met up with my buddy Tom at the Turf Supper Club for dinner.

I took a bunch of pix from the afternoon, but it was kinda hazy and they didn't come out great. I'll try to fix them up in Photoshop and post 'em later. We'll head over to the Con in a few minutes, to check out the last day's stragglers, pick up some funnybooks, and say goodbyes to people, before our afternoon flight back to Newark.

|
posted by Gil at 12:44 PM

Oops!

Amazingly, I forgot to mention the best part of Friday's sojourn through the Con: We stopped at the Andrews McNeel booth and discovered that they had brought along a copy of The Complete Calvin & Hobbes! The three-volume set was flat-out gorgeous! The reproductions of the strips looked great, the cream finish on the pages is a million times better-looking than the complete Far Side run they published a year or two ago! When we brought Tom to the booth to show him, he saw the set at a distance and said, "Oh, dear God..."

Pre-order this nownowNOW!

|
posted by Gil at 2:04 PM

Rise of the Imperfects

Had a fun day at the Con yesterday: spent WAY too much money on books and art, including a great sketch of Penny Century by Xaime Hernandez. This photo from the EA booth says it all:



Anyway, not much time/motivation to write this morning, so I'm just posting links to my pix, with captions:

Zander Cannon will probably not be happy to be captured for posterity thus, but he's a good guy and a real pussycat, so I'm not afraid of him coming out from Minneapolis to whup my ass.

I laughed like a retard when I saw these guys.

Gary Panter is a heck of a good guy, and a legendary cartoonist. I'll tellya my story of meeting the guy sometime.

Mario Hernandez is "the third Hernandez Brother" and, by all accounts, the hippest. I never met him before this year, and he was awfully friendly and personable. I felt bad that I didn't have any comics for him to sign. I probably should have asked him to sign something really incongruous, like an old issue of Captain America that he had nothing to do with. I sure could use some coffee.

Dr. Doom, contemplating that fine pimp cup. I wonder if he equips his robot army with spinners, too.

Eddie Campbell, who never looks happy at these things.

Recreating the Spider-Man/Mary Jane scene from the first movie, except he's not hanging upside-down.

I don't have a picture of it, but the official VM fiancee spoke to Pete Bagge during his autograph session and asked him to sign his recent comic strip in Reason magazine, about the absurdity of medical marijuana persecution. Since everyone else was there with copies of Bagge's old Hate comic, I think he was kinda gratified to see someone show up with a piece of his libertarian cartooning.

So far, out of 85,000 projected attendees & exhibitors, we've only met one other person who hasn't seen the new Star Wars flick. So that's three of us...

|
posted by Gil at 10:55 AM

One more thing

My buddy Tom posted his version of yesterday's events at the Con. I forgot to mention, while we were at the CBLDF booth yesterday, we looked over at the XBox booth next door, which had a number of comics-related games that people could play.

Charles Brownstein, the CBLDF director, was looking over our shoulders at the booth, agog. He said, "The Hulk is beating a cow to death."

We turned around. A youngish kid was playing a Hulk video game and was, in fact, beating a cow to death, smacking it against a cliff, picking up a boulder to throw at it, etc.

Tom & I were both thankful that we're not kids nowadays, as we'd never get out of the house.

|
posted by Gil at 1:41 PM

Walking, Talking, Gawking

Got in late-ish last night and didn't feel up to writin'. Another three G&Ts may have contributed to that vibe, but what's it to you?

Anyway, the official VM fiancee and I had fun at the Comic-Con yesterday. It was chilly in the exhibit hall, so she got a little goose-bumped, but at least that prepared her for the thrills and chills of seeing so many comic-book, science fiction and gaming stereotypes brought to life.

For some reason, I was incredibly slow on the draw with the camera, so the only shot I took was this one. I hope to take a bunch more photos today, even though we'll only be spending a couple of hours down at the show.

A lot of people dress in costumes for the Con, which is really one of its main attractions. I mean, sure, it's nice to meet some cartoonists whose work you've adored, or make new friends or connections discussing your favorite topics, but it's a blast to gawk at a fat chick dressed in her Princess-Leia-as-a-slave-girl costume.

So we checked in yesterday, and I picked up my press pass. I walked into a bathroom and saw a pile of clothes on the floor. Around the corner of the bathroom, a man was putting the finishing touches on his Jedi Knight costume, checking himself out in the mirror as he worked on his "press-on ponytail". Evidently, he would've felt self-conscious walking through San Diego in this get-up, so he brought it all in his backpack.

Once inside the show, the OVMF & I walked through the first 37 aisles of displays till we got to home base: the Fantagraphics booth. Fantagaphics is the best "alternative" comics publisher in the field, home to cartoonists such as Dan Clowes, Pete Bagge and Los Bros. Hernandez. After introductions, we dropped my bag of show materials at the booth, met up with my buddy Tom, and began walking the show.

And it's here that I made a mistake I'll rue for all of blog-time. Just as we were getting ready to start out, the OVMF said to me, "Isn't that the guy from The State?"

I looked over at the Top Shelf Comix booth and said, "Yeah, that's Ben Garant. Oh, and that's Tom Lennon with him. MAN, are they small."

Now, I was a huge fan of the MTV comedy show The State, back in 1993-1995 or thereabouts. Tom & Ben, both members of The State, went on to do several other shows, including Viva Variety and Reno 911! (but not, fortunately, Stella). They marked the third and fourth members of the troupe whom I've bumped into (my Michael Showalter and Joe Lo Truglio stories aren't any better than this one. Actually, the Joe story is; I'll tell that one sometime).

Anyway, it was early in the show, and I was still a bit hungover from Wednesday night, and I managed to convince myself that I shouldn't go over and take their picture. I kicked myself for that decision immediately after they were out of range, as they would've been a great addition to this chronicle. Especially if the picture consisted of Tom, who's 6'2" and about 335 lbs., picking both of them up and holding them under his arms.

We crossed their paths later in the afternoon, but I didn't notice. So life is filled with regrets. I suck. If I see them today, I'll try to get them to stop for a photo. I promise.

We walked the show after that, and Tom made conversation with a number of exhibitors and artists, to get a feel for this year's edition. We hung close by and listened in, even while the OVMF shivered from the cold. I told her I'd buy her a Green Lantern hoodie over by the apparel booths, but she declined the offer. I don't know why.

I knew a few of the artists, but not many, and it made me realize how much I've drifted out of this scene. My comics-knowledge really sorta peters out around 1998 or 1999, and I've convinced myself that if these younger guys were really good, I'd have found out about them already. I just don't have the time/energy to devote to the new comics scene, to find out if anyone's making good stuff on a par with the aforementioned Clowes/Bagge/Hernandez axis.

It's not as if I don't like the artform anymore; just as I don't spend a lot of time watching art flicks anymore, my priorities seem to have shifted a bunch in recent years. It's probably the same reason I stopped being a book publisher.

When I stopped by the Drawn & Quarterly booth later, I saw a new hardcover collection of Frank King's comic-strips from 1921-22. Back at the Fanta booth, there was a massive hardcover collection of George Herriman's Krazy Kat strips. I said to the gentleman running the booth, "I'm glad that my professional development has followed the same progression as your companies' ambitious projects."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Just that when you guys started coming out with high-end, expensive, but fantastic collections, I reached a stage in my career where I can comfortably afford to buy them."

"Gotcha. That Frank King collection is not to be missed."

I'm holding out on that one, though. It's not like King's around to autograph the thing, so I'll likely pick it up on Amazon (and get a third off).

During our promenade, we stopped by the booth of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which helps defend comic-store owners and publlishers in first-amendment-related cases. The director of the fund chatted with us a while, and told embarrassing stories about cartoonists and other industry figures. The CBLDF was having a fund-raising party that night in our hotel, so we promised to stop in. There are a lot of messed-up legal cases that the fund gets involved in, and which don't get much coverage in the mainstream press. But if they involved prose books instead of comics, you can be sure you'd hear a lot more about them. What I'm saying is, go to the fund's site and contribute a little cash, if you wanna help defend some freedom of speech in this country.

Eventually, the OVMF was too cold to keep moving, so we headed out for lunch (Thai, as is my wont), returned to the show briefly, where I spent too much money buying a page of original art from one of my favorite cartoonists, Eddie Campbell. We took a break from the show, returning to the hotel, rearranging wardrobes, and otherwise reducing the sensory stimuli that the Con can inflict on a person.

Late in the afternoon, we went back, saw Tom on a panel on "blogging about comics," and walked out in the middle of it when we couldn't take anymore of the fanboy atmosphere and comics writer Peter David's idiocy. Later, Tom told us that he wanted to join us when we got up and left.

We decided to hit the Padres game after the show ended, since we were in a baseball town with a new stadium and this was the only night we'd be free. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I do enjoy going to games. That said, this game was boring as shit, and we left after the sixth so we could hit some parties. The only fun part was the girl sitting in the row in front of us, who pulled the double faux-pas of showing off extreme butt-cleavage AND a tanline-of-demarcation. The OVMF says that the girl's pink underwear makes this a triple faux-pas, but I think that it falls within the "crack kills" aspect of her low-risers.

Anyway, the new stadium was nice, but not fantastic. Tom concluded that it didn’t mess anything up, but wasn't as inspired as, say, Camden Yards. We concurred.

From the game, we walked up to the Horton Plaza for a party hosted by Scholastic, which is publishing several cartoonists. The guest of honor was Jeff Smith, who wrote and drew Bone, a 1400-page comic book that I'm currently making my way through. We drank several rounds and Tom said, "Remember: Harry Potter is paying for our drinks."

I said, "Yeah, I hear at the stroke of midnight tomorrow, the Scholastic execs will actually start shooting $100 bills straight outta their asses."

We drank, and bantered, and a young man who was in the audience at Tom's blog-panel came over to talk with us. Evidently, after we left the session, he asked a question that Tom just jumped down his throat over. But he didn't have any hard feelings about it.

We split for the CBLDF party, where we had some nice conversation with cartoonists Zander Cannon and Shad Petosky. We'll stop by their booth today to see their stuff.

The day ended there. We did plenty of walking, a lot of talking, and tons of gawking. I'm really sorry I didn't bust out the camera more yesterday, but I'll try to make up for it when we stop in today to see Los Bros. Hernandez (and maybe buy some of Xaime's sketches) and a few other cartoonists. I'm also sorry to offer more prosaic chronicling than wacky commentary, but I'm a little tired and the sheer volume of material is pretty overwhelming (but also esoteric, requiring lots of background commentary).

|
posted by Gil at 12:51 PM

R&R

Bad weather kept us from leaving Newark Airport for quite a while yesterday, so our first day of vacation was spent largely doing crossword puzzles, reading (thought I'd read Huck Finn again), listening to our iPods, and doing more crossword puzzles. We got in around 9pm local time (midnight by my standards, after getting to Newark 12 hours earlier).

Our suitcase was the last one to show up in baggage claim, prompting a 25-minute wait by the carousel. Then my buddy Ian (whose One True keeps a nice blog) picked us up and got us to our fantastic-ish hotel. The three of us met up with my buddy Tom, who's in town for the Comic-Con. I knocked down 3 G&Ts in pretty short order, and then got back to the hotel and thought, "All told, it's not a bad start to a vacation."

On to the Con!

|
posted by Gil at 10:40 AM

What Goes On

So I didn't go on Oprah's show and jump up and down on a sofa to profess my love for the official VM fiancee.

I did, however, buy her a ring (made by Little King Jewelry):



We're heading off to San Diego this afternoon, to visit friends, drop in on the geek-fest known as Comic-Con, meet up with a few vacationing members of the OVMF's family and, of course, go running with the bulls in Tijuana.

Okay, we'll probably skip TJ, but we're definitely getting the ol' In-N-Out, if you know what I mean.

I'll try to get some good pix from the Con, especially of wheelchair-bound attendees dressed up as Klingons.

|
posted by Gil at 7:38 AM

Left Behind

In the UK Observer, Nick Cohen wrote a good piece about the left's response to the London bombing:

I feel the appeal, believe me. You are exasperated with the manifold faults of Tony Blair and George W Bush. Fighting your government is what you know how to do and what you want to do, and when you are confronted with totalitarian forces which are far worse than your government, the easy solution is to blame your government for them.

But it's a parochial line of reasoning to suppose that all bad, or all good, comes from the West - and a racist one to boot. The unavoidable consequence is that you must refuse to support democrats, liberals, feminists and socialists in the Arab world and Iran who are the victims of Islamism in its Sunni and Shia guises because you are too compromised to condemn their persecutors.

Of course, the fact that the writer is named Cohen means that someone will contend that he's a traitor to the left and "an agent of Israel" or somesuch.

You oughtta read the whole shebang.

|
posted by Gil at 9:39 AM

Exhale

I just finished reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time (or Remembrance of Things Past, depending on your translation) tonight, after starting the 4,300-page shebang on February 1.

I thought it'd take me a year to read the whole shebang. At least, that's what I put in front of myself at the start of this project. Back in college, I thought Proust was meant for one's middle age, but I really didn't understand anything about it. I told myself then that someday I'd give myself a year to read it.

Proust and life have both taught me a lot in the past 5+ months. I'm a little too mentally exhausted right now to share it, but it's been informing everydamnthing I've been writing for a while now.

Right now, the official VM fiance and I are going to settle back, have dinner, and watch Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

|
posted by Gil at 9:05 PM

Clutch Shooter

I always figured NBA players were packing, but this is ridiculous.

|
posted by Gil at 5:05 PM

Mind the Gap



The U.S. State Department flew the Union Jack at half staff.

I'm wearing the Arsenal FC jersey I picked up in Heathrow last year.

|
posted by Gil at 9:08 AM

England Our England

I don't really know what I can write about the London bombings. I'll need to reread Orwell's England Your England essay to see if it says anything that sheds light on how I feel right now. I'll probably stop by the UK consulate tomorrow, like I did with the Spanish one after the Madrid bombing.

I know Christopher Hitchens wrote pretty well about it.

I know that Ken Livingstone spoke pretty well about it, even if he did sound like he was excusing such violence if it targets are " presidents or prime ministers."

I know that George Galloway remains an idiot.

I know a lot of people in my life don't agree about how to deal with what's happening to the world and to us. Let's keep talking.

|
posted by Gil at 3:01 PM

Patent Theft Pending

[Here's the From the Editor page for the latest issue of my magazine]

In America, the July 4th holiday involves an entertaining combination of patriotic fervor and minor explosives. As a nation, we celebrate the declaration of our independence from the one country that we now call our closest ally (supposedly, the British also celebrate July 4th, but they call it "thanksgiving").

In Brazil, the July 4th weekend evidently involves a game of brinksmanship (not surprising, in a country legendary for knife-fighting). The country's health ministry gave Abbott Laboratories a July 6th deadline to drop the cost of its HIV/AIDS drug Kaletra, threatening to declare a "public health crisis" and employ a World Trade Organization process to break Abbott's patent on the drug.

This would lead, at a minimum, to a generic version of the drug in Brazil, in which 600,000 people are infected with HIV/AIDS. That's a pretty significant impact, but the Associated Press report on this subject actually goes a step further:

Poor countries without drug industries could take steps to authorize imports from Brazil, experts said. And developing countries with robust generic drug production capacity like India and China could be tempted to follow Brazil's example, creating a bigger threat to the global reach of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Now, maybe I'm being paranoid (could have something to do with all those explosives that went off this weekend), but "global reach of multinationals" sounds to me like the Pharma biz is being characterized as the Evil Empire (again), and that voiding patents is a viable way to "stick it to the Man" (note that "the Man" in this case is providing Brazil with the lowest price on Kaletra outside of Africa).
India and China have spent years trying to get up to snuff on intellectual property rights, so we wouldn't possibly imagine that a news organ like AP would champion their reversion to IP theft. On the other hand, maybe I'm just overreacting:

"The impact of breaking the patent would be enormous," said Michael Bailey, a senior policy adviser for Oxfam International. "If a major country such as Brazil goes through with this, not only will it help ensure sustainability of their excellent treatment program, it will set a hugely important precedent for other countries."

Nope! It's pretty clear that this rep from Oxfam believes (along with an HIV-infected Sao Paolo university professor, and a spokesman for Doctors Without Brains Borders, both quoted in the article) that Brazil's best path is to void the patent for Kaletra, and then sell the generic form to other countries!

The "hugely important precedent" it would set? That would be "don't bother researching drugs in this field; we're just going to get your patents voided." Then we can see how well Brazil "ensures sustainability" of its treatment program when no new treatments are developed. Last I checked, viruses don't stand still.

(I want to be fair here, and point out that the article quotes Brazil's health minister as saying that the country has no plans to export the drug. I also point out that the article fails to quote a single Pharma company spokesman, and the only industry statement is a threat from the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations to withdraw investment and jobs from Brazil.)

--Gil Roth

|
posted by Gil at 8:25 AM

Unreal city, under the brown fog of a winter dawn

Okay, I've goofed on Frank Gehry before, with his "Ooh! Look at me! I'm using curved metal surfaces AGAIN!"

But nothing really prepared me for his inane new design for Brooklyn, centering on Bruce Ratner's new NBA arena for the Nets (guess what? It uses curved metal surfaces!)

Yes, as you can see below, by 2011, Brooklyn will look like the set of Tim Burton movie. Congratulations. Glad the NYTimes likes it.

(Probably doesn't have anything to do with the fact that real estate developer Ratner is the Times' partner on their new building.)



Gehry's also a bullshit furniture designer.

|
posted by Gil at 9:03 PM

Much better

Dad's doing better now. Here's the update.

|
posted by Gil at 9:03 AM

Complications

Dad's back in the hospital. He's been (dry) coughing pretty badly ever we got him home after his heart surgery at the end of April. He's also had some alternating fevers in the last month-to-six weeks. We took him for CAT scan on Thursday, which revealed an abscess in his lung. He also has this weird tennis-ball-sized lump of hard tissue at the top of his thigh, right where the scar begins from where they took one of the veins for his bypasses.

His surgeon took one look at it Friday and admitted him back into the hospital. Looks like he's been fighting an infection ever since surgery. Being a tough guy, he kept ignoring his worsening condition, but his girlfriend noticed that he was burning up last week, and got the ball rolling for this current round of treatment. Saving his life for the nth time.

So he's going into surgery later today, where they'll drain the lump in his thigh. They'll get him on a serious load of antibiotics so that the abscess in the lung will get zapped before it spreads to his heart. Everyone (except Dad) sounds pretty optimistic about this. Dad'll be in the hospital until Tuesday (7/5) at a minimum. I'll write more on the dadblog as the situation warrants.

|
posted by Gil at 10:58 AM