Going Plutonic

I love SF, which is a good thing, since I work in high tech (the science part) and my salary is fiction.

But for us SF fans, nothing is as weird as the downgrading of Pluto.

Poor Pluto was discovered in 1930 by 24-year-old American astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, Clyde Tombaugh.

The Naming Game soon started. It was 11-year-old Venetia Burney, from Oxford, England, who suggested the name.

It was chosen from a long list that included Atlas, Apollo, Zeus, Minerva and even Bacchus.

Needless to say, reporters of the New York Times pitched Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and intoxication.

I blame the International Astronomical Union, which had nothing better to do than to shake up our solar system.

They redefined “planet” as:

"a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit".

It seems that poor Pluto wobbles a bit and was therefore stripped of its planet status and demoted to a wannebee or “dwarf” planet. I haven’t got a clue what that means – can Pluto grow up and become a proper planet?

I am also not sure what will happen to Pluto’s moon Charon. Will it become Ice Cube?

So our Pluto is out of the cosmic planet club, and globetrotting Luciano Pavarotti is in.

Good thing his family name starts with a P as well – makes us all less p-d off.

After 76 years, Pluto stepped down as a planet. Let’s hope that British Bess gets the hint and does the same for her son Charles.

Needless to say, people (I am referring to Terrans, no clue how the Martians are taking it. If the movie “Mars Attacks!” is anything to go by, not kindly, methinks) are not happy.

The stripping of Pluto of its planet status also launched a merchandise wave that would do credit to any presidential campaign.

Scores of Web-savvy entrepreneurs went on the Internet, selling Pluto memorabilia from T-shirts and mugs to bumper stickers and mouse pads.

Within 24 hours of the “bad” news, a wave of Pluto items appeared on Cafepress.com, (a San Francisco-area Internet company that prints T-shirts and other merchandise), including 200 designs on more than 1,500 products.

Many items and slogans related to Pluto's demotion and advocated its return to planetdom, with T-shirts proclaiming "Save Pluto" and "Stop Planetary Discrimination."

 

What the eggheads of the IAU didn’t understand, is that we ordinary people were quite happy with the nine planets we knew. Let’s face it – does the downgrade bring us any benefits? Tax cuts, world peace, cure for AIDS? I don’t think so!

Au contraire, we now have to memorize one planet less and a few candidate planets more (including one called Xena, that unfortunately doesn’t have anything to do with the Warrior Princess)

 

To quote Dr. Hiroshi Kyosuke of the University of Tokyo:

"It seems counterintuitive to me that we should say Pluto is no longer a planet, yet Donald Rumsfeld is still Secretary of Defense. After all, Pluto has done no harm."

Hear, hear!

Pluto the dog, who made his debut in 1930, couldn’t agree more. According to Disney insiders, he worries about the fate of this namesake and all the textbooks that must be rewritten.

 

Personally, I think that we can do a better job of classifying and naming planets than those spaced-out cosmos cowboys.

 

Mercury – Mini-me, since it’s small and fairly close to Earth.

Venus – Viagra, and let the pharmaceutical industry sponsor this hard rock.

Earth – Ego, since that’s what we have, mucho.

Mars – Mars, too many Mars movies have been made and we don’t want to upset our green neighbors.

Jupiter - Juniper, since this berry gave us far more pleasure in the form of gin than this huge planet ever did.
Saturnus – Ringtone, if you wonder why, just have a look at its shape – Nokia can be a sponsor (“connecting aliens”).

Uranus – U2, for the mispronunciation by English speaking pubertal adolescents alone. Great sponsoring opportunity for Bono as well.

Neptune – Loonytune, since only a loony could have named a gasball after the god of oceans and seas.

Pluto – Exepluto, since it’s exit for the poor thing and it sounds like a really cool computer program (that is, as long as it’s not a Microsoft product).

 

For know, Pluto did one thing, that many of its fellow planets were not able to do – to get as more coverage than the Klingon planets!

 

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©2006 Debra Daumier

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The Anti-Semitic Passion of Gibson

 

August 2006, Mel Gibson was arrested in the early hours for speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the famous beach town North of Los Angeles.

Well, happens to best of us, you might think.

(Although most of us don’t drive around in a Lexus).

The arresting officer told the drunken actor that he was supposed to cuff him but would not, as long as Gibson cooperated. Fair enough, I would think.

But what does our thespian do?

 

He informed the deputy: “I'm not going to get in your car," and promptly bolted.

Our law enforcement officer quickly subdued Gibson, cuffed him and put him inside the patrol car.

Up till now, nothing special.

 

Instead of keeping his mouth shut, Australia’s import starting acting out once he was inside the police car.

"You mother f****r. I'm going to f*** you," he informed the astounded policeman.

After these crude words, Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements:

"F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"

(The police officer wisely didn’t respond)

 

When this Gibson Monologue escalated, the arresting officer called ahead for a sergeant to meet them as soon as they would arrive at the station.

Upon arrival,  a sergeant began videotaping Gibson, who noticed the camera and then said,

 "What the f*** do you think you're doing?"

Gibson then noticed a female sergeant and yelled, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

(If you are interested, you can download the report from the entertainment website www.tmz.com)

 

The next day, after spending the night in a detox cell and posting a $5,000 bail, Mel G. apologized o for driving while drunk and for his "belligerent behavior" towards the deputy sheriffs who arrested him.

Mmmm, doesn’t sound like a sincere apology to me.

I also miss the reference to his anti-Semitic remarks.

Not that I am surprised, mind you.

 

For one, Gibson is a staunch Catholic (nothing wrong there), who shares many beliefs of the Traditionalist Catholic movement.

This sect rejects some or all reforms started by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

It’s quite funny that he became so successful in hedonist Hollywood.

That must explain the private chapel Mel built.

 

The Holy Family Catholic Church is run out of Gibson's Icon Production company offices, with an Icon employee responsible for keeping the church's books and Gibson and his wife Robyn as director.

The Gibsons donate money (tax free, of course!) of via the AP Reilly Foundation, a charity they established for the sole purpose of creating the church. Pennywise, but definitely not Pound-foolish!

 

Mel’s father, Hutton Gibson, has repeated claimed that the Holocaust was exaggerated.

According to Gibson Père, Jews are out to create "one world religion and one world government" and outlined a conspiracy theory involving Jewish bankers, the US Federal Reserve and the Vatican, among others.

Oy vey!

 

To come back to the current peccadilloes of M.G., the media (including the New York Times and Fox) jumped on the story, not in the least due to the current wars raging in the Middle East.

Thanks to the worldwide web, the story spread like wildfire.

As the New York Times correctly pointed out, in a little over 24 hours, Mr. Gibson’s arrest and subsequent behavior in Malibu had already prompted talk of a claimed cover-up, an exposé, worldwide news coverage, an apology and then a full-blown push for alcohol rehabilitation, even as his representatives and executives at the Walt Disney Company rushed to catch up with the event’s effect on the filmmaker’s movie and television projects with the company.

 

The fallout was instantly: On Monday, Hope Hartman, a spokeswoman for Disney’s ABC television network, said the company was dropping its plans to produce a Holocaust-themed miniseries in collaboration with Mr. Gibson.

The reason given: “it’s been nearly two years and we have yet to see the first draft of a script, we have decided to no longer pursue this project with Icon,” according to Ms. Hartman, referring to Mr. Gibson’s production company.

Gibson’s production company Icon started developing this four-hour miniseries for ABC, in what was widely seen as an effort to patch up his relations with parts of the Jewish community after his “Passion of Christ” movie.

 

Needless to say, this is a huge relief.

To quote Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center: 

 “I don’t think he should be doing a film on the Holocaust. It would be like asking someone associated with the K.K.K. to do a movie on the African-American experience.”

 

There is a famous Latin expression: "in vino veritas" – therefore, one remark our Mel (who promptly checked into rehab) made, hits home: "My life is f****d."

And if you look at his photo, you see an uncanny resemblance to another notorious anti-Semite…

 

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©2006 Debra Daumier

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The Case of the Cursing Parrot

 

We all read stories or watched pirate movies with cursing parrots perched on the shoulder of a mean, one-legged sailor.

Well, such a bird is currently making headlines.

The Bird (name unknown) has the habit of screaming phrases such as “maniac”, “homo” and “son of a bitch” at regular intervals.

The bird belonged to an orthodox Jew, who bought it as a pet for his kids. Needless to say, he was not too happy by the verbal outbursts of the creature.

I am still puzzled that he didn’t find that characteristic out before he purchased the bird, but who am I? Anyway, the pater familias went to the rabbi to find out how to handle the feathery culprit.

The rabbi informed him that the parrot should be slaughtered since he “sins and causes others to sin.”

Personally, I thought that you only sinned if you purposely commit an act that is sinful, but obviously, I am wrong (being a woman and not orthodox probably accounts for that).

The family father is a patient of a holistic doctor who decided to come to the bird’s rescue. No good deed goes unpunished, so the good doctor had to fork over $ 3,000 to save it from death row. The doctor was now stuck with a bird that has quite a mouth on it.

So how did our medical professional handle the situation? Yep, you guessed it – he consulted a rabbi!

The second rabbi recommended that the poor parrot either be put to death or have his tongue severed, which brings back images of mediaeval witch trials, doesn’t it?.

 

The story hid the headlines and all kinds of organizations and individuals came to the bird’s defense; some of them even protested in front of the doctor’s house.

The “Let Animals Live Foundation” took it a step further and applied to the court to prevent the pending execution (or tongue mutilation). In its petition, the Foundation stated that there is a reasonable basis to assume the parrot will be subjected to suffering and cruelty. Therefore, the court must interfere with a restraining order. The ruling judge agreed and issued an injunction protecting the parrot from being harmed in any way. For now, our feathered friend is safe.

The order will apply until a further decision is made. In the next few days, a deliberation will be held and the court will seal the parrot’s fate. Our good doctor is planning to attend the court session accompanied by the parrot in question.

Let’s hope the bird will not engage in foul language in court – that’s the prerogative of lawyers!

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©2006 Debra Daumier

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Vive the Eurovision Song Contest!

 

If you want to know what makes Europe tick, watch the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

Way before reality shows, Europe already enjoyed its own version.

Since 1956, it’s one of the major European events –aimed at bringing different European cultures together.

Participants use it as their jumping board to international fame and fortune.

Apart from Abba, no one has been successful.

To represent a country, you can be a non-citizen (not unlike major league soccer) or even (gasp!) American, but the country must be a member of the European Broadcasting Union.

 

In short, all European countries (and Israel) join in the festivities.

In Cold War days, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Western European singers would sing in their native tongue.

Needless to say, Anglos won a lot more times than singers belting out ballads in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, or Hebrew.

A few years ago, they changed the rules and everybody can sing in English. Hurray!

 

The fun part is not the singing, but the voting.

You see, if you want a crash course in European history, politics, and sensibilities – The Eurovision is the show to watch!

Germany, for obvious reasons, would end up with nil points, Portugal would give 12 points to Spain, and vice versa, the Benelux countries would vote for one another as would the Scandinavian countries.

Once the Central and Eastern European countries joined, there was an additional problem.

Too many countries (37 in all!) – the live show would take forever!

Since the whole shindig has to be over in 3 hours, they limited the number of participating countries to 24.

 

On Saturday May 20, the 51^st Festival took place.

And what a party it was, broadcasted on television, radio and Internet.

Greece was the host this year. You see, once you win the contest, the country you represent is punished by having to host the next one. The Greeks were happy though; they could reuse the Olympic facilities they built for the 2004 games.

 

The best channel to watch the event on is the BBC – the presenter Terry Wogan (who is an old hand at it) is wickedly funny and very non-PC.

One of his best remarks was “don’t mention the marbles”.

(European History Lesson #1: The Brits took/stole/moved the Elgin Marbles out of Greece during an archeological dig at the beginning of the 19^th century and have been refusing to give them back ever since.

Even movie star and Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri unsuccessfully tried to convince the lime users that they should be a good sport and return them pronto).

 

I will give you my impressions – feel free to send me your reactions via the contact form.

(do not send hate mail; the cat will eat it and throw up).

 

The concept is simple: song, commercial about Greece, another song etc. (24x in total).

The residents of each country can “televote” for their favorite.

Points are awarded from 1 to 6 (nobody pays attention to those) and then 8, 10 and 12 points.

Votes are announced by a local celebrity, who takes the opportunity to promote him/herself or his/her country, showing off their language skills.

The winner performs the winning song again and gets stink drunk.

(European History Lesson #2).

 

The Greek presenters were a young, goodlooking couple bearing an uncanny resemblance to the main characters of Will & Grace.

 

The female half had the annoying habit of calling everything and everyone “amazing” so I guess her name is Amazing Maria.

Overall, it seems that the Greeks told people to wear white or get lost.

More than half of the outfits were in different shades of white.

Considering that the settings and lightning were gorgeous, not such a bad concept.

Between the songs were small commercials of the Greek Tourist Board.

You know what I mean – blue sea, happy people, food, drink, you name it.

Each commercial started with a gorgeous girl with long wavy hair and some blue fabric in the background floating in the wind. It looked so much like a fabric softener commercial that I promptly remembered to turn on my washing machine.

 

One of the first songs was performed by a Britney Spears clone from Moldova.

Sparsely clad, she chanted “moca, rocka, choca” several times. Oh what a blessing that she could perform in English!

 

Spain tried to cash in on “the Ketchup Song” success of 2002.

The four Ketchup sisters were dressed in red (what else?) and sitting in office chairs. Their song (for reasons unclear to me) was called Bloody Mary. I don’t know if it related to a) the drink or b) Queen Mary.

(European History Lesson #3: King Henry VIII’s daughter was a staunch Catholic who eliminated subjects with a different faith. Hence her nickname “Bloody Mary”)

 

Germany shocked the world with its version of a country & western song.

The lead songstress was dressed in a Barbie pink dress with feathers.

She acted like a five-year old, despite pushing 30.

 

Well, if the Germans have country & western, we can bring back the twist.

At least, that is what the Danes must have thought.

Five Paris Hilton look-alikes were singing about the twist while a handsome guy twirled around break dancing. Go figure.

(no European History Lesson here!)

 

Favorite Russia sent a Ricky Martin/Robbie Williams look-alike.

Dressed as Marlon Brando in “A street car named desire”, he performed a song called "never let her go" that sounded uncannily like a Ricky Martin song. Lawsuit, anyone?

For reasons unclear to me (State sponsoring may be?), he was surrounded by several graceful Swan lake ballerinas.

Half a ballerina was sticking out of a piano, which is a shameful waste of one gorgeous ballet dancer and one perfectly nice piano.

 

Macedonia decided to send a Fran Fine look-alike surrounded by your average MTV video dancers. Boooooooring!

 

Lithuania obviously had some management training or other.

Six business suits kept repeating: “we are the winners of Eurovision”.

It sounded like a soccer chant – including megaphone.

 

The United Kingdom was represented by what sounded like the cast of “Annie”.

The girls were dressed in skimpy schoolgirl uniforms –very passé as Tatu and Britney Spears can tell you.

The only redeeming feature was the excellent violin player in the background.

 

Host country Greece featured an Anastacia-look alike, nicely dressed in black pants and a designer variation of the famous peasant blouse.

She was one of the few that didn’t come with lots of gimmicks, background dancers and the like.

For that alone she should ve come in  2^nd. She could also sing!

 

The most surprising entry was victorious Finland.

In a contest were the majority of the songs are copycats of MTV/VH1 successes (last year, it was one Latino song after the other), the Finns decided to go heavy metal.

The five member band "Lordi" consisted of one lead singer, two guitarists, one keyboard player (the only chick in the band) and one drummer, all of them in full costumes and monster masks.

Think KISS going Klingon and you get the idea. What can I say?

It worked for me (being a hard rock and SF fan) and many voters.

The best part was when the lead singer unfolded his huge bat wings.

Wow, Worf would have been so jealous!

One of the guitarists also imitated the tongue movements of Gene Simmons, with limited success.

The Greeks provided a fitting rock concert background, including fireworks.

 

Following the popular trend, the Ukraine also sent a Britney/Madonna copy in a tacky outfit.

She was surrounded by dancing Cossacks (in red this time, and not white).

 

Ah, La Belle France….

Being it’s arrogant self, France stubbornly stuck to its mother tongue thus neatly ruining its chances.

Keeping in line with the Dress Code, the chanteuse was dressed in a white Grecian style frock, belting out a chanson (of course) accompanied by an excellent cellist. He should hook up with the violinist of the Brits.

 

The Irish representative also went for a ballad as well.

The best feature was the singer's  resemblance to Colin Farrell, which was a nice change from all the Britney/Madonna/Anastacia clones.

 

Sweden tried to copy its Abba success of decades ago by sending a clone of the dark-haired female singer. Even her outfit looked like it came out of the Abba wardrobe – gold overalls with a blue train that put the one on Princess Diana’s wedding dress to shame. The poor dear looked like she was performing in a Fellini movie.

 

Turkey obliviously ran out of the most popular clone models and settled for a Donatella Versace look-alike.

As least, she had the guts to sing in Turkish, which earned her 12 points from several countries (more about that later).

 

No contest without an icon, so during the voting break, Amazing Maria and poster boy schlepped Nana Mouskouri on stage. After telling everyone that there “are no losers, only winners” she left without singing.

This is only fair, considering the quality of the performances.

After the 24 songs were performed, it was time to vote for the 37 voting countries.

During this intermission, the Greeks put up a bewildering show that somehow should represent Greek history throughout the ages, but consisted mainly of a colorful chicken dance against opera music.

Once the votes were in, the real fun started.

You see, it went like this:

• The Russian Block, the Baltic Block and the Balkan States mainly voted for each other with the top votes (10 and 12) for Russia (you never know what will happen in the future!) and Finland (you never know if the Nokians will invade the Baltic).
• The Nordic Countries voted for each other (Norway gave 12 points to Denmark; Iceland the same amount to Finland).
• Portugal and Spain must having a tiff – they didn’t award any points to each other. Mmmm, something rotten in the Iberian Peninsula?
• Ireland gave 12 point to the UK and vice versa. Surprise, surprise!
• Malta and Cyprus gave top honors (and points) to host Greece.
• Andorra didn’t want to rock the boat with its powerful neighbor and duly awarded 12 points to Spain.
  (European History Lesson # 4: don’t mess with your neighbors if you are a tax haven)

• The Netherlands and Germany gave 12 points to Turkey thanks to the millions of Turkish immigrants in these countries.

• Russia received 12 points from Israel, where there are 1M. Russian immigrants in a country with a total population of 6M.

The 37 jury representatives of the voting countries were a nice sideshow on its own.

Why not use your five minutes of fame?

The Dutch guy, who gave “dressing down” a whole new meaning, was heavily hitting on the male Greek host.

He even gave his mobile phone number on air, so I sincerely hope that the idiot was spammed with obnoxious sms messages.

Belarus had a Victoria Beckham look-alike (with glasses) announcing its results.

One of the countries that didn’t survive the semi-finals happily announced that it will be the winner next year. That will speed the 2007 voting up!

But Macedonia stole the show: The jury guy started serenading Amazing Maria.

(European History Lesson # 5: Not since since Alexander the Great has a Macedonian expressed so much goodwill towards Greece).

 

So you see - European history is fun. It also repeats itself every year, so I will see you in 2007!

 

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©2006 Debra Daumier

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How Kaavya Viswanathan got clever, got caught and lost her reputation

Kaavya Viswanathan, in case you missed it, is a 19-year old Harvard University sophomore with an interesting notoriety.

You see, she penned a chick lit novel "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life".

At the tender age of 17, she signed a 6-figure deal with her publisher Little, Brown and Co.

So far, so good. Sales were moderate and our enterprising authoress was happily studying away at her Ivy League school.

But then an observant reader (must be one that is an expert in chit lit) noticed some remarkable similarities with other novels, especially "Sloppy Firsts" and  "Second Helpings" by Megan McCafferty, a Columbia alum.

After being informed by email of the striking similarities, McCafferty informed her publisher Random House.

They promptly sent a letter to the legal eagles at Little, Brown and Co.

McCafferty gracefully stated: "After reading the book in question, and finding passages, characters, and plot points in common, I do hope this can be resolved in a manner that is fair to all of the parties involved. I am so grateful for the diligence and support of Random House's legal counsel."

Wow, that lady has a damn good PR firm!

It could have ended there, were it not for the enterprising David Zhou of the Harvard Crimson student newspaper.

He followed up, did some serious research, and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that whole passages of the Opal Mehta story were copied ad verbatim from other novels that were definitely not protected by Ms.Viswanathan’s copyright.

The enterprising Mr. Zhou published on the Crimson website that  "Opal Mehta" also contained passages similar to Meg Cabot's popular novel, "The Princess Diaries", published by HarperCollins in 2000.

To give you an idea, read the following description in Cabot’s novel:

"There isn't a single inch of me that hasn't been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. ... Because I don't look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights."

Just compare this with the description from "Opal Mehta" on page 59:

"Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized. I didn't look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn't own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat."

The New York Times took up the story as well and reported that parts of Viswanathan's novel had an uncanny resemblance to Sophie Kinsella's "Can You Keep a Secret?"

Viswanathan is her defense claimed that the main character of McCafferty’s books, a smart NJ teen named Jessica Darling, "inspired" her to "internalize" prose.

Mmmm, isn’t that an elegant way of saying "ripping off"?

She appeared on NBC's Today Show informed a skeptical Katie Couric that the similarities were "unintentional."

"As I was writing, I genuinely believed that every single word I was writing was my own,” she claimed. “All I can say is that, while reading Megan McCafferty's books, I just internalized her words. I never intended to take any of her words."

Yeah, sure, that will hold up in court!

Ms. V’s publisher first contemplated to publish a revised edition of the novel, but later on decided to scrap it all together.

The lucrative book deal (half a Million for two books) was cancelled.

I bet the legal/PR team had a lot to do with that. (Crisis management, anyone?)

Ms. Viswanathan is smart cookie, so why did she go through all this trouble to rip off others?

My guess is that the answer is in the way she marketed her novel.

She hooked up with a "book packaging company" called Alloy Entertainment (formally known as 17th Street Productions). They share copyright with the enterprising Viswanathan.

Book packagers or book producers act as liaisons between publishing houses and everyone who works to put together a book--authors, artists, editors, photographers, researchers, indexers, and sometimes even printers.

Alloy helped Viswanathan to make her work more commercially viable (read: commercial) and helped her to “flesh out the concept.” How far did the co-writing go?

Alloy specializes in “teen glam” fiction – may be some overeager staffers did a bit of cut and paste?

Viswanathan’s past writings are also under scrutiny. The Record of Bergen County (180,000-circulation daily paper in northern New Jersey) announced that it will review the news articles written by Viswanathan during her stint as an intern in 2003 and 2004.

The big winner in this amazing story is Ms. Megan McCafferty - our main victim.

If copying is the highest form of flattery, she is on top of the world.

The latest count totaled more than 40 passages that were lifted from her novels by Kaavya Viswanathan.

At this moment, McCafferty has more than 400,000 copies in print (compared to Viswanathan’s 100,000) and recently launched her third novel "Charmed Thirds".

Megan declined all interviews and let publishers and lawyers speak on her behalf.

According to her publisher: "This has been an enormous distraction for Megan. It's been a very, very difficult and devastating couple of weeks for her."

Cheer up dear, it’s time to laugh all the way to the bank.

Are you curious to know what Ms. Viswanathan wants to be after graduation from Harvard?

No, not a lawyer, but close – an investment banker on Wall Street!

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Legislation is a powerful tool – just check the history of the American Constitution or the British Magna Carta.

But using it to outsmart your brother is unique – but effective if we look at what happened in Brunei.

The Sultan of Brunei (the monarch of a small but rich country) is fighting his younger brother Prince Jefri Bolkiah, in court.

The Sultan accuses his brother of embezzling around $ 12 billion during his 13 years as finance minister.