Tony Scott, Lensery

Most of my lenses are information lenses that give very basic historical, political and/or geographical information about a country. Most of this information is derived from Wikipedia articles (some of which I've edited), CIA World Book, Library of Congress and similar sources. Almost none of it is from personal, direct experience.

The function of these lenses is to support commentary (in blogs and elsewhere) of current political crises. So lenses on, say Gaza or Georgia are "grown" during the particular crisis. We never really know where the next crisis is coming from, so a wide-ranging resource is needed. Squidoo has no edges, so I'm trying (and failing) to live within a self-imposed boundary of "Eurasia"

I've also created several lenses as exploratory lenses towards some larger projects, perhaps an e-book, a commercial site or a Blurb-published book. Projects currently "under costruction" include "The Empires and Enclaves of Europe", "Energy and Equity in the Philippines" and "A Partial History of the Philippines."

In this "first round" of information lenses I've largely ignored some aspects that are popular with other Squidoo'ers - culture- cuisine, travel - these will come later as complementary lenses. But I'm also pursuing some "themes" - 'antiquity" covers the cross-hatching of empires and states over which the preset world is built; contemporary,non-crisis politics (elections, legal lens, party politics), and others.

All my lenses concerned with contemporary indigenous peoples - Native Americans, the Sami - are 100$ assigned to charity as are all the lenses concerned with Slavery

I am implementing one common link from all my information lenses to my "blogs and businesses" lenes and websites. The information lenses generally only sell books and have limited CafePress, Ebay or Orbitz modules. Upcoming art, culture and travel modules will have a little more emphasis on selling products and services related to the lens topic.

There will also be a series along the lines of "Doing Business with Bangladesh" which, though entirely focussed on commerce, will be primarily information lenses

I always start a lens with the intention of having no more modules in the lens than will fit in the module editor screen display without scrolling. I always fail. i know no lens can be complete, but can I really leave out this or that topic from this lens? If I do I would have to spawn a whole series of sub-topic lenses for every topic I attempt.

For me, the real joy of Squidoo is the potential tp pursue connections wherever they may lead. So maybe I'm creating a lens about Kazakhstan (Did you know, it is larger than Western Europe!?), I have to include a module about the president-for-life. He arranged for a university named after a Russian to be built right across the road from his palace. The Russian guy turned out to have some out-of-the-mainstream theories about how nations are formed. (Quick Squidwho lens necessary). Got to go back and add him to my "Cultural Geography" lens. Hey, his ideas might actually apply to the Philippines history lens...this could get as bad as that Bhuddist Russian republic that is now the center of world chess...I never finished my Fantasy Chess lens! And so on.. and on. Serendipity Rules!

None of the lenses in this section contain much in the way of analysis. Primarily they pull together lenses connected geographically or historically, with perhaps a few definitional modules and photographs. They should be distinguished from "second order" lenses that take two or more informational topics and explore the relationship between them.

There will always be some orange Squids here, I think. As i am creating my informational lenses I run across significant figures that never made it into my European school textbooks, and I'll register a Squidwho lens. Sometimes finishing these lenses takes quite a bit of research or I run into copyright difficulties or lack of English sources. i'll get there, but it takes time.

Anyone got copyright free images of Tony Scott, film-maker?
Anyone got copyright free images by Chesley Bonestel?
Didn't think so...