Truth exists only in the moment

Once that moment is in the past, vitiating influences take over, writes Deepak Mankar.

It's befuddling. I'm not entirely sure what the fuss and frothing are all about. Why did Oprah Winfrey who had unabashedly promoted James Frey's best-selling memoir of "alcohol and drug-induced mayhem", A Million Little Pieces, fume and fret and go all teary on camera when The Smoking Gun exposed it as mostly fraudulent? thesmokinggun.com. Did the self-anointed best-seller anointer feel duped and debased - after having praised to the skies earlier the graphically coarse and (fake?) "vomit-caked" account in hyperbolic words such as "like nothing you've ever read before"? And, why did readers sue the memoirist for wasting their time? Tell me, just because you're buying a book billed 'memoir', does it mean that you've got yourself guaranteed unvarnished gospel truth? In her piece on the Frey 'fraud', Melissa King cites "an old joke": "An honest country man was serving as a witness in court. He is asked, 'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?' The man sits a minute before looking at the judge and saying, 'Well, tell me then, man, which one you want?'" He's right. The oath is totally unrealistic. nwanews.com. To my simple way of thinking, truth exists only in the moment. Once that moment is in the past, vitiating influences take over. The raconteur's memory is not always accurate nor his intention invariably honest. Embellishment is the end of the literal 'truth' as we expect it. Capiche? P.S.: By the way, for what it's worth, A Million Little Pieces sold 1.77 million copies in 2005 after Oprah anointed it. Only Harry Potter pipped it at the post in the Bestseller Stakes, as the Brits would say. cnn.com. Who says real fiction isn't more appealing than fake fact?

HT Image

SCRATCH AN A-ONE BLOGGER. Out pops a book.

Andrew Sullivan who writes 'Daily Dish' time.blogs.com under the George Orwell motto "To see what is in front of one's nose needs constant struggle" and who has already authored 'Virtually Normal' and 'Same-Sex Marriage' made this earth-shatteringly profound statement to the Washington Post: "The blog is a short form. A book is a longer project. It requires sustained concentration on one line of argument or one central topic." Really? Now why didn't I think of it? His work-in-progress, 'The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How to Get It Back', will be published by Harper Collins later in the year. Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit instapundit.com is authoring 'An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths' portraying bloggers' influence vis-à-vis mainstream media. Ed Driscoll eddriscoll.com posted this comment on January 14, 2006: "In the mail on Friday was a galley edition of Glenn Reynolds' upcoming An Army of Davids book. It's a great read and a terrific topic, and I'll have lots more to say about it in the not too distant future. (And chances are, if you have a blog, so will you...)" The third forthcoming magnum opus comes from Markos Moulitsas dailykos.com. Called 'Crashing the Gate', it is said to be an indictment of a progressive movement that's failing to keep up with the times.

SEARCH ENGINES DEVALUED? Used as a mere address bar.

Nielsen//NetRatings spotted something unusual in its MegaView Search for November 2005. The top ten search terms were top-level dot-com domain names. Ebay and Google occupied the top two spots each with over 13 million requests. Yahoo and eBay appear twice in the list, by themselves and with '.com' tail added. Why this aberration? "There are two types of online searchers that type a Web site's URL into a search engine rather than into the browser's address bar: Those inexperienced enough not to appreciate the difference between the two, and those that are so experienced they have become habituated to using the search engine as their portal to the Internet," said Ken Cassar, chief analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Whether this behavior is driven by ignorance or savvy, the end result is the same: The search engine is the focal point of the online experience for Internet users across the spectrum." P.S.: Some do it, I guess, to prevent their destination showing up in the search history. netratings.com.

LION'S SHARE FOR GOOGLE. 46% of search in November 2005.

Google hogged 46% of searches in November 2005 followed by Yahoo! Search (23%), MSN (11.4%); AOL (6.9%); My Way (2.5%); Ask Jeeves (2.3%); EarthLink, Dogpile.com and Netscape (0.6% each); and iWon (0.5%). "The top five players have held their respective positions for the past six months, demonstrating the benefits of incumbency in the search arena," observes Ken Cassar, chief analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. netratings.com. Also, take a look at Danny Sullivan's article at searchenginewatch.com.

E-MAIL REVISITED. Theory and practice.

Want to hone their business-to-business e-mail writing skills and insights? Check out 'Dynamic E-Mail Messaging Demystified, Part 1' clickz.com. Also at clickz.com, there's 'What It Takes to Be a Good E-Mail Copywriter'. At clickz.com, you'll find 'Instant Branding: Viral E-Mail, Part 1'. 'Instant Branding: Viral E-Mail, Part 2', also by Martin Lindstrom, is here: clickz.com. (By the way, the articles of the first two articles are Derek Harding and Karen Gedney respectively.) A quick crash course by ClickZ Experts, I reckon.

GOOBUNTU COMETH. MS threatened?

The rumours about Google OS are back in circulation. This time, no less than The Register has this to say: "Google is preparing its own distribution of Linux for the desktop, in a possible bid to take on Microsoft in its core business - desktop software." The Google version is known as 'Goobuntu'. The Google Pack announced this month at Las Vegas (CES) is a collection of desktop software bundled together for easy downloading and competing directly with the Windows bundle (Google Talk, Google Desktop, Mozilla Firefox, the Trillian instant messenger client, RealPlayer and Picasa photo management). Mind this note of caution, though: "It's possible that it's just one of the toys Googleplex engineers play with on Fridays, when they get time off from buffing the search engine code or filtering out entries about Tiananmen Square."
theregister.co.uk.

OH, GOD! What original thinking.

I'm proud to make the acquaintance of Danny Dutton, 8, of Chula Vista, CA, via his third-grade homework assignment to explain God. forwardedfunnies.com. I think he's an original thinker with impeccable logic. I could never have argued the case for God so fluidly and convincingly. Bravo! P.S.: Bob Ranking, one of the Tourbus driver duo, offers this list of 'fun-filled' urls: NetFunny netfunny.com; Satirewire satirewire.com; ForwardedFunnies forwardedfunnies.com; Yahoo! Humour Directory dir.yahoo.com. Worth a look-see!

That's all for now though there's plenty more out there. Join me again next week, same place.

Copyright (c) 2001- 2006 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved. Deepak Mankar, an advertising practitioner on the creative side since 1965, is also intensely passionate about the web and web content creation. Read his online articles at asiaondemand.com. Website: http://www.addgandhi.com/original/. You may e-mail him at dmankar@bom8.vsnl.net.in.