Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Indiana Jones 4
Harrison Ford makes his triumphant return in Steven Spieldbergs Indiana Jones 4. I for one was very excited for this film. I grew up watching the first three films over and over. This film however went off on a different tangent then the others still had the funny jokes and great action sequences. On purpose I tried to stay away from any reviews or trailers to go in without any foreknowledge of what was going to happen. I was shocked when the film took such a science fiction turn but then again we watching a the film with the guy who made E.T. so it did not surprise me. I loved it and Harrison Ford showed that Indiana Jones can still kick ass... What did yal think?
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Movie Feedback
I am a big movie buff if my readers have not noticed. I want to start a forum or an open discussion of what your favorite films and/or TV shows so please leave a comment and discuss.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Nicholas Stoller's new film is a must see in my opinion. On my favorite movie list it is ranked one of one. It beats out Superbad and 40 year old virgin which were my top favorites. This film reminds me of the awkward funny moments you laugh at in American Pie. You can not help but feel sad for the main character Peter who has everything go wrong for him. It is full of sad and funny moments and I highly recommend anyone to go see it. There is a lot of adult content and humor for those who are wondering. I for one love it and love to hear any feedback. What did you guys think?
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Corporate Social Responsibility by Merck Pharmaceuticals
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a significant topic in the business world today. Lord Holme and Richard Watts, writers of Making Good Business Sense, say: "Corporate Social Responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large." Many corporations that exist today do not practice this ideology. Corporations like NIKE and Wal-Mart have been known to exploit laborers. I personally believe any corporation should be looking to make a profit which benefits its corporation while bettering its world at the same time.
Merck Pharmaceuticals is, in my opinion, one of the best in practicing CSR since its foundation 100 years ago. Ethicsworld.org even recognizes it as one of the best companies that practices CSR in the world. Mercks mission statement is:Merck & Co., Inc. is a global research-driven pharmaceutical company dedicated to putting patients first. Established in 1891, Merck discovers, develops, manufactures and markets vaccines and medicines to address unmet medical needs. The company also devotes extensive efforts to increase access to medicines through far-reaching programs that not only donate Merck medicines but help deliver them to the people who need them. Merck also publishes unbiased health information as a not-for-profit service.
Merck’s best example of CSR began in 1987 when it created the drug MECTIZAN (ivermectin). This drug treats onchocerciasis aka “River Blindness” which mainly occurs in Africa and Yemen. Over 122 million were affected by this epidemic. Merck created the MECTIZAN Donation Program which distributes this drug for free to anyone infected. According to merck.com, “An estimated 300 million Africans are at risk, and another 40 million are infected by this disease. Currently, more than 50 million treatments of MECTIZAN are approved each year for lymphatic filariasis through Merck's work.” The program has existed for over 20 years. See the video below for more information.
Merck has made a long-term commitment to donate as much of this medicine as necessary to prevent and treat river blindness in affected geographic areas. The company wishes to eliminate diseases as public health problems. The company's success has brought it good press and relations to the world and is even praised by many public figures such as former President Jimmy Carter:
"I think Merck has set a standard of the highest possible quality. [The MECTIZAN Donation Program has] been one of the most remarkable and exciting and inspiring partnerships that I have ever witnessed."
Merck is also very diverse in the area of CSR and not only has helped out with medicine, but also with construction and education. Ethicsworld.org highlights Merck’s investment in the development of an ethics center in Dubai. It helped pave the way to the Dubai Ethics Resource Centre (DERC) and it has been affiliated, since 2005, with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce. According to Ken Stier of policyinnovations.org, “Thanks to Merck, Companies are becoming more familiar with the term 'corporate responsibility' and it recognizes the need to be doing the right things in this rapidly developing, highly competitive international marketplace [and] yet its actions, if not the words, prove that it remains unconvinced or unclear of the business case for corporate responsibility and the benefits of successful CR management could bring to it in terms of mitigating risk and identifying opportunities".
I believe every organization should practice CSR because we are living in a world of limited resources and we need to do whatever we can to help our world society. What do you guys think?
More references on CSR
Monday, April 7, 2008
Should the NBA raise the age limit?
According to realgm, hoopshype and foxsports the NBA commissioner Davis Stern and NCAA President Myles Brand are trying to raise the age limit for eligibility for the NBA draft. They are requesting that players will not be eligible to enter the draft till two years after high school. The reason for this is to limit the amount people who try to make the jump to the pro prematurely. We all know that the success has worked well for some athletes such as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnet, & Lebron James but does anyone know about the ones who didnt do as well. Some names like Johnathan Bender & Kwame Brown. Even though players can have great success in high school or college does not mean they are mature or even ready enough to play at the professional level. A lot of students think they can make it or are pressured by the fame/money to join the NBA. I personally hope this change happens because I really hate to see an athlete to loose their college eligibility/scholarship if they do not successfully make the NBA. The proposal is still awaiting the NBA players association. What do you guys think?
Monday, March 31, 2008
Microsoft and Yahoo Revisited
For those who have been following my blog I have been talking about the possible acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft. For those who did not know Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s $44.6 Billion dollar offer. Wired Magazine posted an article investigating the reasons for Microsoft’s movement. In my opinion Microsoft is trying to stay ahead of apple and make a staple and cornerstone the technology industry. It turns out they main reason is they want to focus on advertisements. Google is known for their ad-sense video adds and is the best web browser for marketing. However, Yahoo is the most used site with an average of 140 million users a day. Last year it was estimated that $6.6 Billion was invested in advertisements on web video displays, they estimate that it will be $21.1 Billion by 2012. If Microsoft could purchase this they could have the majority of the Internet users locked in for advertisements with the use of a browser, MSN messenger, and windows live. Do you think Microsoft is making the right decision? IF so should it be legal for one company to have that much control of the Internet?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Gatekeepers are Taking Over…
What should be accepted and what should be rejected? This is the ongoing debate in our society right now regarding the Internet. The reason is that some information is considered culturally acceptable while for others it is not. Below I have placed a video clip which gives a good description of what “Net Neutrality” is from John Stewart:
The citizens of the United States should be concerned about their freedoms. Service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, & Comcast are trying to make a monopoly on the Internet community. They want to pay Internet engines a premium for exclusive use.
Freedom of speech is the first amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It was written over a century ago, but no one has the right to change the values upon which we were founded. We all know that within the last decade a lot of laws have been altered or overturned.
We as a nation have the right to free speech and net neutrality has become a hot topic. The idea of Internet censorship has come to the United States due to alarming issues that are occurring across the world. For those who do not know, there are numerous countries that govern and restrict their Internet usage. Some countries are China, Australia, and Iran. Net neutrality on the other side of the world is very different due to their ideas and regulations.
CNN published a story explaining the restrictions about China. China is labeled as the biggest prison for cyber users. China has blocked numerous websites and filtered almost all the servers. Accessing a server in China is completely different than any free access server. According to CNN: “Chinese people trying to access information related to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama, Tienanmen Square, SARS, opposition political parties, and anti-Communist movements will find themselves out of luck.” They restrict information such as the man standing in front the tanks in Tienanmen Square. It almost makes you think of the movies in which they can control the information and therefore control the history and knowledge being pumped into the population. China’s history is essentially being erased or banned. According to Al-Jazeera the Chinese government has over 37,00 Internet police who govern the Internet access and have the ability to make arrests. They even place pictures on restricted sites. (As seen below)
America is not the first place to be attacked with the idea of Internet censorship. Organizations like savetheinternet.com are fighting for our freedoms. I am not going to lie, there needs to be some form of restriction on the Internet, but what I find difficult is appointing someone or a group of people to decide what should be considered appropriate. I feel that placing a chair or committees in charge of the Internet will make our nation no different than China.
Global Integrity did a case study about Internet censorship. They explained that censoring the Internet will not do anything because if you shut one site down another hundred will turn up to replace it. We need to put more emphasis on parental control. Similar to the efforts being made in Australia, we should enable parents to give certain access to their children. We should monitor the information out there and filter out the false information before we start worrying about censoring the entire Internet. That, in my opinion, is what the gatekeepers should be worried about. What do you guys think?
(Picture from globalintegrity.org)
The citizens of the United States should be concerned about their freedoms. Service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, & Comcast are trying to make a monopoly on the Internet community. They want to pay Internet engines a premium for exclusive use.
Freedom of speech is the first amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It was written over a century ago, but no one has the right to change the values upon which we were founded. We all know that within the last decade a lot of laws have been altered or overturned.
We as a nation have the right to free speech and net neutrality has become a hot topic. The idea of Internet censorship has come to the United States due to alarming issues that are occurring across the world. For those who do not know, there are numerous countries that govern and restrict their Internet usage. Some countries are China, Australia, and Iran. Net neutrality on the other side of the world is very different due to their ideas and regulations.
CNN published a story explaining the restrictions about China. China is labeled as the biggest prison for cyber users. China has blocked numerous websites and filtered almost all the servers. Accessing a server in China is completely different than any free access server. According to CNN: “Chinese people trying to access information related to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama, Tienanmen Square, SARS, opposition political parties, and anti-Communist movements will find themselves out of luck.” They restrict information such as the man standing in front the tanks in Tienanmen Square. It almost makes you think of the movies in which they can control the information and therefore control the history and knowledge being pumped into the population. China’s history is essentially being erased or banned. According to Al-Jazeera the Chinese government has over 37,00 Internet police who govern the Internet access and have the ability to make arrests. They even place pictures on restricted sites. (As seen below)
America is not the first place to be attacked with the idea of Internet censorship. Organizations like savetheinternet.com are fighting for our freedoms. I am not going to lie, there needs to be some form of restriction on the Internet, but what I find difficult is appointing someone or a group of people to decide what should be considered appropriate. I feel that placing a chair or committees in charge of the Internet will make our nation no different than China.
Global Integrity did a case study about Internet censorship. They explained that censoring the Internet will not do anything because if you shut one site down another hundred will turn up to replace it. We need to put more emphasis on parental control. Similar to the efforts being made in Australia, we should enable parents to give certain access to their children. We should monitor the information out there and filter out the false information before we start worrying about censoring the entire Internet. That, in my opinion, is what the gatekeepers should be worried about. What do you guys think?
(Picture from globalintegrity.org)
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