By Dave Gahary
In a disturbing development for free speech lovers across the globe, Amazon.com, Inc., the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States, has taken a series of unusual steps to ban the publication of various books for sale worldwide.
Although no information is in the public domain detailing how many titles the world’s largest online bookseller has blocked for sale, evidence suggests that these unusual moves may be the beginning of a larger purge of written material Amazon feels should be, for whatever reason or reasons, kept out of the public purview.
Even more disturbing is the reach and influence of the mammoth retailer. This year Amazon leapfrogged past Walmart’s market capitalization, or the total market value of its publicly traded stock. Despite the fact that the company can barely squeak out a profit, Amazon’s stock trades at close to $700 per share, although as early as August 31, 2009 it traded at under $100.
In a blockbuster 1997 film
Wag the Dog, Robert De Niro plays a fixer extraordinaire who’s summoned to the White House after a potential front-page scandal threatens to sink the president’s reelection. To deflect attention away from this controversy, De Niro and Hollywood producer Dustin Hoffman plan a fake war, or pageant, as they call it.
As De Niro famously quipped, “We’re not going to have a war. We’re going to have the
appearance of a war.” Playing on this sentiment, director Barry Levinson stressed, “We’re reaching a point where it’s no longer easy to differentiate between what’s fabricated and what’s real.”
Mr. Halbig, I’m from South Africa, and in the week post 14 December and even on that day, my family and friends (and me) said together: Americans are very strange; they don’t have any emotion. When my son had open heart surgery last Christmas I screamed and cried for a week and he was given back to me healthy. He is 34. But we thought the parents were very quickly calm and collected (the few we saw like Mr. Heslin). We had a double decker school bus accident a number of years back. It drove into a river and around 36 children drowned, 13 to 18 year olds. And this whole country wept in the shops, in the churches, and we saw on TV the bodies laid out on the grass. Even today people cry when they talk about the Westdene disaster. Anyway, thank you sir. People are terrified of the truth.
Reply
Newtown, CT – NewArts, a nonprofit organization based in Newtown, CT that was created in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy is proud to present A (Virtual) Christmas Carol, streaming online from December 23-27. This production is dedicated to the memory of Mary Socci, a 14-year-old frequent NewArts member who lost a valiant battle to brain cancer on November 14th. Proceeds from this benefit performance will go towards future NewArts productions.
The virtual performances are offered at no cost, but there is a suggested donation to help support the non-profit organization.
Because of the pandemic, A Christmas Carol, which was fully-produced by NewArts in December of 2016 and 2017, will be entirely virtual this year – with all performers (30 local youth and nine Broadway professionals) being recorded in their separate homes.
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