The Amazon publishing boycott: an unexpected effect.

A war has begun. It is a war between unlikely combatants. On one side there are the world’s physical bookshops and on the other, there is the online store, Amazon. It is not a war of weapons, or of blood, but still, in one sense, it is no less deadly, for these organizations are fighting to survive. Already the Borders book chain has closed up shop, in the USA. The remaining bookshops are certainly under strain. Yet, this war has only just begun. The latest move is the decision by Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million and Indigo (the Canadian chain of 247 stores), to refuse to stock any book published by Amazon. They are basically boycotting all Amazon books.

Now, at first sight, this might appear to be a damaging move for Amazon. Any book published by Amazon will not be able to get distribution in these major chains. Thus, any book published by Amazon, would have restricted distribution, reduced sales and much lower likelihood of success than otherwise. Furthermore, any author considering a deal from Amazon Publishing, would have to reflect that their book would not be seen in major bookstores if he or she accepted the deal. This might lead authors to decline Amazon publishing deals. So, yes, at first sight this does appear damaging to Amazon. Yet, is it?

Consider this. If a book is not available in any of the major bookstores, a reader simply cannot buy it in a physical bookstore. Yet, this reader may very well have read of the book, in reviews, or online, or heard about it from friends. They may, therefore, wish to secure a copy of it. Where would they go...but to Amazon, of course. This would mean that the reader, on discovering that no physical bookstore stocks the book, would log on to Amazon and discover it there. They would then order the book from Amazon. What does this do? It is another step towards creating a habit in the reader, to buy their books from Amazon. Furthermore, the observed fact that all the physical bookstores did NOT have the book – but Amazon DOES, would reinforce the impression that Amazon is superior to physical bookstores in having a broader stock. Thus, this move by the major bookstores in boycotting Amazonian books, is actually an extremely self-defeating move. It would only prove to the reader that physical bookstores don’t have a wide range. This would increase the likelihood that, when moved to look for a book, the FIRST place that the reader will go to, would be Amazon. The major bookstores, by refusing to stock Amazon Publishing titles, are actually taking one more step towards their doom.

Remember this: most readers will not know of the war between Amazon and the physical bookstore chains. The only thing they will come to know is that the physical bookstore chains don’t stock the book they seek – but Amazon does. So, the only real effect of this boycott, is to lower the reputation of the physical bookstores. Clearly, the major book chains have not thought this move through. It is not the act of a genius of a general, but the act of a foolishly short-sighted person, who is behaving spitefully, rather than intelligently. Seeing this decision, I can only say that my estimation of the survivability of the major bookstore chains, has been lowered. I really do not think that they are being run by intelligent people. This decision is childish, short-sighted, and somewhat suicidal in flavour.

Also look at the bigger picture effect of this snub, by the major bookstore chains, on Amazon. Since Amazon is no longer allowed access to the bookstores, there is now no need AT ALL, for Amazon to permit the existence of the bookstore chains. Were Amazon’s books stocked in the major book chains, it would have reason enough not to compete too much with them, and to keep them alive, since their distribution abilities would then be useful to it. Now, however, with this boycott, the bookstore chains become superfluous to Amazon – indeed, they have become nothing more than direct competitors. In this situation, the best thing for Amazon to do, is to eliminate the competition altogether. I can therefore see that this boycott by the major bookstore chains, is going to have a contradictory effect. Instead of weakening Amazon, it is going to weaken the bookstores (for it will lower their reputation for being well-stocked and it will encourage online book purchases) – and it will also strengthen Amazon’s resolve to bring them down.

The major bookstore chains are likely to go out of business, in years to come, not because of Amazon, entirely, but because of themselves. They are not being led by wise men (or women) and their business strategies are actually self-defeating or suicidal, if viewed with a deeper understanding of all their ramifications. The major bookstore chains are doomed to die – not from competition, but from stupidity.

At this time, it looks very much like Amazon will win this war and that the major bookstore chains will leave the scene, one by one. This, however, could have been avoided if only both sides had worked out a way to co-exist. This could have been done quite simply: all the major bookstore chains had to do, was to stock Amazon’s books...then Amazon would have reason to keep them alive, or not to push them out too strongly. Now, however, it is very much a Last Man Standing scenario...and that “man” is almost certainly going to be Amazon.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

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If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Whitney Houston's death and a hollow life.

Whitney Houston is dead. Everyone knows this by now. To me, however, her death, from undeclared causes at just 48, is emblematic of a profound problem some people seem to have, even though they have “made it”. They live hollow lives. I shall explain.

Whitney Houston seemingly had everything. She had wealth, fame, success (at least formerly) and the respect that goes with it. She also had a daughter by Bobby Brown. Yet, for her all of this – which to most people would have been plenty – was not enough. She needed the exquisite pleasures of drugs too...and by all accounts lots of them. She became, for many years, consumed by them. This, to me, indicates that her life, for all its seeming fullness, was hollow. She must have felt there was something profound missing, for her to have to seek solace in chemical pleasures. Only a deep dissatisfaction with her life, its totality and meaning could lead someone down the path of a drugged self-destruction. Happy lives don’t end with drugs. They don’t even begin to take drugs. So, hers, in some way, was not a happy, fulfilled, pleasing life – she needed chemical support to feel what she felt she must feel.

Now, I am not going to single Whitney Houston out for this particular foolishness. Amy Winehouse is another recent example of the phenomenon. She too had a life that would seem to have been full and rich in many ways. She too, however, sought drugged oblivion, though her favourite was alcohol. Both died young, probably for much the same reasons...either the drugs themselves or the health consequences of having taken them, too long, too often.

The history of entertainment and culture in general is littered with examples of the same phenomenon – drug induced or associated deaths of famous, successful people. I should note that we do not know if Whitney Houston’s death was caused by drugs, but it does seem likely that they played a role, even if only as inducers of general ill health. Whatever the case, it doesn’t affect my argument. All of these people led what seem to the outside, to be full, interesting, rich, complete lives, filled with opportunities and experiences few have the chance to have. Yet all of these people were somehow hollow. Their lives were empty of real meaning, because they sought to fill them with the temporary pleasures of chemically enhanced delights. Had their lives been truly meaningful to them, they would not have needed such stimulation and would have avoided it, out of respect for the lives they had.

To me, it seems, that there is a profound failure here, a profound artistic and creative failure. If their artistic work had been pursued as intently as it could have been, then, it seems to me, it should have given their lives the meaning and the rewards they, in fact, sought elsewhere. Had they been absorbed enough in their creative work, then they would have had no need for drugs, because the work itself would have given them all the pleasure, meaning and reward they sought. Thus, their flight into drugs is a kind of artistic failure – a failure of absorption in work, a failure of personal intensity, a failure of drive, and a failure to respect their work and the ability to do it, itself.

So however many people come out to say how “great” Whitney Houston was – just as they said how “great” Amy Winehouse was, there is something which really should not be denied or ignored: they failed as artists and as human beings, because they neither respected and valued their work and themselves enough to avoid seeking self-destruction in drugs. Had they been more fully involved in their artistic work, they would not have craved such artificial pleasures. That they did, means that for all the “greatness” they achieved, that whatever they achieved was less than they could have achieved, had they been more fully focussed on their work.

So what we have with Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse and the many others before them, are people who probably never reached their true potential as artists, because they were focussed more on passing pleasures than the more profound (one hopes) rewards of their creative work. They could have been so much more than they were, had they had that self-respect and fuller absorption in their work.

However “great” therefore it is decided Whitney Houston was, I cannot help but feel, that the work we saw from her, was not as great as she could have achieved, had she been undistracted by the need for chemical pleasure. It should also be remembered that almost all such drugs induce brain damage of various kinds. Whitney Houston (and Amy Winehouse etc), became much less than they could have. That is the greater pity here, than Whitney’s passing. She could have made an even greater mark on the world, than she did. How much greater, we will never know...for the version we have of her, is the drug damaged one. We don’t know what a dedicated, drug-free Whitney Houston might have achieved. I am sure of this though...it would have been a whole lot more.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Amy Winehouse's Death: a Preventable Inevitability.

Amy Winehouse, 27, Is dead. No surprise there, I am afraid. Some deaths are more inevitable than others – particularly some early deaths.

Now, Amy Winehouse was famous for two attributes: her music and her addictions to drugs and alcohol. Indeed, it could be argued that she was more famous for her addictions than her music – since the former won her more tabloid newspaper coverage than the latter. She was always in the newspapers for things no-one would want to be in them for.

I can’t comment on her music, or its ultimate worth, since I didn’t really pay much attention to it. However, I can comment on her life and death: it seems overwhelmingly likely that she did not have to die so young. Her death, whilst an inevitable result of the lifestyle she led – was also preventable. There is a lesson here for all relatives of addicts: don’t stand by and watch – do something. Amy Winehouse would most probably be alive today, if others had been firmer with her on the matter of her addictions. Although the cause of death is not presently known, there are relatively few deaths, in the modern world, in 27 year olds, by natural causes. Given her drug addicted lifestyle, it seems most likely that her addictions contributed to her death – either directly, by overdose, or indirectly, through the health damage they caused.

If drug addicts (and that includes alchoholics) are not to die young, like Amy Winehouse, a certain lack of freedom should be imposed on them, until they are able to control themselves, with respect to their addictions. Amy Winehouse should have been monitored very closely, to ensure that she did not have access to any drugs or alchohol. I know it seems like such a regime would have denied her, her “rights”…but, really, who should have a “right”, to destroy themselves, by drugs? In such cases, it would be more humane, and ultimately less painful, to step in and directly prevent the addict from any access to the substances they would otherwise seek out. This may seem at odds with the belief that people should be allowed to live the lives they please – but, in the case of addicts, the lives they please will, most frequently, lead directly to early deaths. Thus, it seems reasonable to intervene, until such time as the addict is no longer an addict and, perhaps, has come to live their lives as if they value them.

It could be said, that drugs alone, didn’t kill Amy Winehouse, but a lack of love, by those closest to her. If they had truly loved her, they would have stepped in and made sure, beyond any doubt, that Amy Winehouse did not have access to any harmful drugs, legal or otherwise. That they did not, or were not effective in doing so, shows that they either did not love her enough, or did not understand the duties that come with that love. Sometimes, those who love another, feel they should indulge them and let them live the life they please. That is fine, only if the life desired, is not a self-destructive one. In all situations in which the loved one desires, consciously or otherwise, to destroy themselves, those who love have a duty to protect the life of the loved one, from harm. It does seem that that this was not done in this case. Amy Winehouse was famous for her inebriated, intoxicated, “shambolic” performances in the latter years of her life. So, clearly, she was not being denied access to drugs, legal or otherwise. Whatever “care” she was under, was not effective – or did not care to deny her what it should have done.

Amy Winehouse was a musician. This makes her loss more acute than a typical early death – for, in dying, whatever music she would have produced had she lived a normal life, will now never be. It is a pity, she was not protected from the most dangerous person in her life – herself.

Rest in peace, Amy.

Posted by Valentine Cawley.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.htmland here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The end of Israel.

One day, it seems likely, there will be no Israel. At least, not in its present form. Ironically, the reason for this will not be hostile Arab nations, but Israel itself.

I was struck, the other day, by the foolishness of Israeli forces killing human rights activists who just wished to deliver aid, through Israel's blockade. Israel, rather comically, and absurdly, one might note, tried to blame the activists, for their own deaths, saying that the activists had attacked their commandos. That is right: commandos. The Israelis had sent commandos to board their ship - and then had the gall to be surprised when the activists objected and tried to defend their ship from the incursion.

Most people would agree that the activists acted in a perfectly natural way, to defend their ship against boarding by hostile forces. If the Israelis had meant no harm...why board, and why use commandos?

What Israel forgets, or doesn't care about it, so much, is that the whole world is watching them - and much of the world was left unimpressed by their actions. It may even be that people who had no prior sympathy for Palestine, might acquire some through watching the actions of Israel.

Israel may not care about world opinion - but it should. It is only through a network of global support, that Israel continues to survive as a nation. I am not sure that, alone and entirely unsupported, as it might one day be, that Israel could survive in the Middle East, for long.

After World War II, almost every nation had sympathy for the Jews and what they went through - but that sympathy is being gradually eroded by the Israel that surviving Jews and their descendants have built. Modern Israel is too heavy handed, too, might I say, brutal, to win new friends or to hold on, indefinitely, to the ones it has.

Should Israel continue to be heavy-handed, the "sympathy capital" of the Holocaust, will be gradually eroded, until, one day, none of it remains. Then, Israel might stand alone, in its hostile quarter of the world...but not, I think, for long.

It was right that the world should have been sympathetic to the Jews after World War II - but now, as Israel wields its power in the world, in an often heavy handed, ill-thought out manner - it is also right that it should begin to lose that sympathy. It is only natural. Indeed, I am struck by the irony that a people once bullied, and terrorized, as they were in World War II should now, in some quarters, be seen, themselves as bullies and terrorizers, of others.

Israel feels that it must be this aggressive to survive. However, their situation is exquisitely ironic - because the more aggressive they are, the more resentful will their neighbours become and the more likely it will be that they will, one day, be extinguished. The very strategy which they feel is necessary for survival, is the very strategy that is hastening the day they will be extinguished.

Only if true peace comes in the Middle East, will Israel be secure from destruction. Yet, I don't see peace being what Israel is actually pursuing. Israel is, instead, seeking a kind of power or dominance over its neighbours. In some ways, they are seeking to use fear, to control their enemies. Again, I see the irony of those who once had much to fear, themselves turning to fear, as a weapon for survival.

I do not know enough about the Middle East, to comment definitively - but I know this: Israel's own actions, lose them more friends, than it wins them power over their enemies. They are eroding their international support base. They are damaging their own image, as historical victims, deserving of support.

In a way, I would not be surprised if some elements of Israel's enemies are rejoicing at Israel's actions: for it is undermining the Israeli state more effectively than most actions those enemies have themselves been able to take.

Israel needs to practice diplomacy, not muted war: they should be striving to master the well-chosen word, over the mailed fist. Sadly, however, I think they feel more secure in military power, than in peace-seeking diplomacy.

One day, I think, Israel will come to understand that its conduct, has led to its undoing. All Israel needs to do, to ensure its own ultimate end, is to just carry on precisely as it is, now. The Israelis will do the work, that their enemies have been unable to do. Given their stubborn-ness and tendency not to listen to international opinion, I think it is almost certain, that the Israelis will be their own undoing.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)