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The much awaited Simpsons movie was released few days back. After years of airing, and numerous episodes, as mentioned in their site, the stupidity of Homer Simpson would only fit the wide screen.

Well, like most story, the movie had a beginning, middle and an end. The protagonist (Homer) had challenge, went on a journey, overcame the hurdles, and met an ending.

It was a wonderful experience, and it entertained me. It has entertained several of the fans. But does that leave the hook of the movie story, the thing that cause Homer go to Alaska and come back, seems to have been forgotten. Many story tellers and movie directors usually have allegory in the story, and no one does it more in-your-face than Matt Groening. The hook of the movie was about pollution.

It was about the pollution destroying the rivers, and it was about the pollution wreaking havoc on the ecosystems. It was about how we call global warming a myth and try to shut our eyes to it all. We shut our eyes as the movie character Mr.Cargill shuts the whole of Springfield.

But when has shutting something down ever made a problem go away? It is when we face the problems, that we can find solution to them.

What do you think? What can we do for protecting the nature? Did you think about this when you watched the movie?

I am not sure what are the factors - chat, email, forums, text messages, or just the fact that people do not have time. There does not seem to be an effort to write properly, leave alone beautifully. There seems to be not much of an effort put into spelling and grammar.

As I write this, I know I feel more like my father than myself. But even then, when I grumbled and went on to correct my mistakes he found in something I wrote, I used to learn. I am sure, many of us would have done the same. There was a genuine effort put into learning the correct way of using the language, and learning new words.

Few would also have dictionaries next to them when they were reading some book they got from the library. Language, and the way we communicate, was something that was given the same importance as the ideas we wanted to communicate.

Going through the forums, the mailing lists, and even the forwards that I get in the mail box, are filled with language which has been abused to the extent that when you use correct language, it is seen archaic. It is seen as something that came out of a time machine.

The effect of all this is a general language degeneration, and also degeneration of writing skills.

It would all seem like there is no hope, but a recent fad seems to have contributing to turning the tide around. We may not be able to point to any particular product of Internet to blame for the degeneration of the writing skills, but I feel we can blame another product of Internet for contributing to improve the writing skills of the people. That would be blogs.

Blogs, in its struggle to take the online role of journalism, has attempted to emulate the writing skills of the journalists. We all have to agree, that no matter how obnoxious they might turn out to be, they have good skills in terms of writing, either by practice or by education.  We were all told to read the newspapers (not the tabloids) to improve our language skills. Blogs, in their struggle to be recognized have driven the bloggers to write better.

It all is now left on time, to see how these bloggers effect the rest of the Internet savvy crowd towards improving writing skills.

Well, it seems natural to me that I came across ISSN as I looked around to know more about ISBN and UPC.

There is nothing much, to state about ISSN, other than the fact that it is International Standard Serial Number.

ISSN is given to a periodical, or a magazine. It does not matter if it is print media or online media.  It just has to be a periodical publication.

ISSN is a nine digit number, written as two four digit number separated by a hyphen, and the last digit being a checksum digit like with the other international numbers.  Each periodical will be having a unique nine digit ISSN number that can be registered using the national based ISSN centers.

Note that ISSN is given to the entire periodical, and specific issue or volume cannot be specified using ISSN.

Considering that ISSN is for periodicals, be it print or online, are blogs (weblogs) entitled to get a ISSN.  There seems to be quite a bit of argument going on for the case and also, there seems to be no consistency in the way, ISSN registrars of different countries act towards blogs. (See link).

I had visited to the Denver Public Library last weekend as I wanted to do some research on Ravi Varma for a write up at KalaaLog. That was when I happened to take interest in the way the books are numbered and sorted. The librarian there was helpful and gave me few pointers that got me searching on Dewey Decimal System and ISBN.

As there are a lot of books on various subjects, there needs to be a systematic approach to sorting these books so that they can be easily accessed. There are quite a few systems for doing this established by different organizations or institutions.

Also, all the books published need to be referred - from a commercial perspective. Each book that is published gets assigned a number that uniquely identifies it.

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April 23, is the day that UNESCO has chosen to be the World Book And Copyright Day.

By celebrating this Day throughout the world, UNESCO seeks to promote reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

The initiative has been started by UNESCO since 2003. A excerpt from the UNESCO portal for the even, sheds some light on the history behind the event:

The idea for this celebration originated in Catalonia where on 23 April, Saint George’s Day, a rose is traditionally given as a gift for each book sold. The success of the World Book and Copyright Day will depend primarily on the support received from all parties concerned (authors, publishers, teachers, librarians, public and private institutions, humanitarian NGOs and the mass media), who have been mobilized in each country by UNESCO National Commissions, UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations, Associated Schools and Libraries, and by all those who feel motivated to work together in this world celebration of books and authors.

I read books and read them voraciously.  In the present day, when we are not bothered enough to spend effort on reading book - and we just scan through headlines on our feeds - I would urge each and everyone to pick up a book and read it.

How often do you read books?  What book will you read on April 23?

Since the very beginning of human civilization, Story Telling has been an integral part of it. And by Story Telling, I mean here Narration or in a broader sense Literature. Be it Ancient Sloka’s of Vedas, Keats Poetry, Shakespeare’s Plays, or be it the epics, legends, myths, ballads, folktales or today’s fiction/non fictions or even journalism, they are all narration on some form or other. Narration or Story Telling is the heart of human society, and here we are going to deal with the types of Narration, from a writer’s or a narrator’s perspective: first, second and third person narration. Which type of narration is most used and best suits in which type of literature.

I am no critic, and will not give judgments over different forms of narration. Following is a comparative analysis of various forms of narrations.

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