Reinvention

I’m having a bad tech week. First, there was a cable outage and no internet for over a day. Deciding to live without a T.V., the net is primary entertainment for me. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss it until it was gone for a while. Then, I had a problem with my digital recorder and C.D. burner. This gear is late nineties stuff and by today’s digital recording standards, very out of date. But, it is gear that has always served me well, suits my purpose, and has a lot of life left in it (hopefully). The problem is that now I need to find somebody else that uses the same out-of-date gear that knows more about it than I do. Today I had a very simple soldering job to do on a speaker and screwed that up. Being an electric guitarist for 30 years and a former production welder, you would think I could solder but, the hands shake, the vision decreases and some things just elude me.

It seems that my old pal Rupert Murdoch is trying to soften his image. This is from the Financial Times regarding Rupe’s regret that his offer to purchase Dow Jones became a public affair.

Rupert Murdoch said on Wednesday he had hoped to negotiate a deal to acquire Dow Jones â€œin a private settingâ€ but had been forced to discuss the offer publicly after it was â€œleakedâ€ last week.

He said he was a â€œgreat admirerâ€ of the Bancroft family which controls Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, and Dow Jonesâ€™s new management. He declined to say any more about the offer â€œout of deference to the family and their right to deliberate in privateâ€.

“Leaked”, huh? I bet that torqued old Rupe off. I wonder who leaked the info. I bet heads will roll.

I know this, when the story was leaked, News Corp’s stock surged. The newspaper business is the weak link in Murdoch’s empire and seems to be the part that benefitted from the leak.

Also, from The Herald Sun (Murdoch owned) there was a story about Murdoch being concerned with his empire’s carbon footprint…

Saying the global media empire produced 641,150 tonnes of greenhouse gas last year, the News chairman and CEO last night pledged to go green.
“We could make a difference just by holding our emissions steady as our businesses continue to grow, but that doesn’t seem to be enough,” Mr Murdoch said.
“We want to go all the way to zero,” he told News Corp’s worldwide employees.
“This is about changing the DNA of our business to re-imagine how we look at energy.”
Under the plan, all News Corp businesses, including News Limited, publisher of the Herald Sun, will be carbon neutral by 2010.
Mr Murdoch said this goal would be met by slashing energy use, switching to renewable power sources and, as a last resort, offsetting unavoidable emissions.

And, my very favorite part…

“We must avoid preaching — and there has to be substance behind the glitz.”

Can you picture Murdoch in his office somewhere commanding a lackey to buy carbon offsets? The only way that’s happening is if Rupe is in the carbon offset racket himself.

Maybe, I’m being too hard on the guy. Yeah, I think so. I think what we are seeing is a regretful, kinder, gentler and, best of all, carbon neutral Rupert Murdoch and we can all learn from his example.