Fortress Of Freedom Board

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed May 22, 2013 6:07 am Post subject:

I noticed on my seldom used facebook acct that I like a sim card company. This notice was news to me. So nothing is private on-line anymore. Not that this one matters as everyone who knows me and my activities knows that I am shopping around for phone numbers around the world. So just surprising. But what if it is embarrassing like "so and so likes "yeast begone" the number one brand for yeast infections" - really, who wants that on their facebook page? Similarly I got ads where ever I went on my desktop and cellphone for the same companies I already did business with. So there is still work to be done. At one point ads from competing companies would actually have been welcome but my fellow ad guys failed me there too..... Interesting but some limits on privacy should be volunteered by the advertising agencies and associations or they may be enforced by the governments.....

Other than that I am playing a waiting game on stuff as usual.

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu May 23, 2013 4:15 am Post subject:

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu May 23, 2013 11:53 pm Post subject:

Today was playing around with the phone lines. We made two answering machine messages for the international audience.

First is in Russian: http://fortressoffreedom.com/Russian_Phone_Message.mp4

Second is in Japanese: http://fortressoffreedom.com/Japanese_Phone_Message.mp4

I have compressed the files to a small size so they sound a bit hollow, but you get the idea. Yes, that is me speaking Japanese - it has come to this.....

Goodnight.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 7:01 am Post subject:

My Japanese is awful, so we are re-recording that version. I should have Spanish, Punjabi/Hindi and French shortly and Cantonese and Mandarin on the way. In any event, the infrastructure of our telephone connectivity is complete. We deal with seven different vendors for all the lines so there is no one pipe that will disconnect the entire system. Having it that way is a major pain for me but is the best way to go in terms of reliability and security. I will put up a global map of our access points around the world to give one an easy look at the distribution. Finally the thing is set up!

Same map for the IAIJ-FOF Group:

This is actually a big infrastructure move here and had tired me out this week. But the basics are there and we just carry on building this organization.....

In other news it is just catching up on personal business and back to the entertainment part of our organization. It never ends. I was looking at some young couples at this burger joint I was at late last night, premiere of the "Fast and Furious 6" and felt I should be in on that, but there is no time and I am thirty years older, I have to keep reminding myself of that.....

BTW: These are the phones I use to stay connected with our gang around the world:

From the left: iPhone4, Blackberry Torch 9800, Blackberry Curve 9360, Blackberry Bold 9000, Blackberry Curve 8520. Note that the times are different as I keep the current time to the location so that I know what the local time is when I call or receive a call on that particular phone. You can buy phones with dual sims but you still have to switch with most. But if we have a crisis I have to roll with all of these.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun May 26, 2013 3:31 am Post subject:

Things move slowly. They move but always slower than I think. And sometimes karma is not with you. I wonder what I would be doing with myself if not for Fortress.....

Is there a point speculating about your life in another direction. Another rant on another quiet morning during the weekend. You sort of feel time passing by at my age. Not that time was ever any faster or slower at any point in time. Just that when you are in your twenties you sort of have this buffer of say twenty years before you start to change for the worse. This buffer means that you have time - in aging sense - it freezes and you forget that you are running out the clock. I was no different. You could be selfish and do things on your own schedule. For example, I was deep into performance cars at that age, you could just throw yourself into a hobby and live it. If you didn't rationalize you could pretend this could go on forever. You could even kid yourself in your forties for a while. But now you know time is running out. Time is definitely not on your side. And for a guy like me it is not just a question of tying up loose ends and getting ready for retirement. Fortress is still ascending, I mostly live and work alone, just like I did as a young man. You almost think you are a young man, given the circumstances. This is great in a way and bad. You are getting older but.....

I don't think it is a case of being greedy as I have not lived the good life. It is just out of the norm - the way I have done this here - and the comfort of familiarity is not there. That future is open, and an open future to a twenty year old is more inviting than an open future to a fifty year old. Funny that young feeling I love so much about doing things cutting edge is scary to others because of that very open future. Do you really want a comfortable life, safe and just riding out good times with friends as the grim reaper ticks you all off one by one.....

I am being a bit more careful these days. Not going too far so I still have a parachute to take if I have to leave this special realm I now work and operate in. Nothing wrong with that. But that life is not quite as comfortable as it could have been. Stuff is going to happen in my personal life and we are talking years and not decades. I think I can keep things balanced and keep operating during all of that, but you do have to plan and get ready for all the inevitabilities..... And there is the rub of that alternate path that you think about in quiet times like this.....

Anyway, it is back to the usual. You know, I also have to do some humdrum things like washing the dishes and landscaping. I really have to get my act together. And finally walk that dreadful plank of finding what big business thinks about the experiment. The weather is cold these last few days. And I can kid myself that it is still sort of spring and I have time on this. Be we all know better.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Mon May 27, 2013 12:41 am Post subject:

A "so so" weekend. The phones and lines are there and I will upload the international greeting sometime later this week onto most of the lines.

There is still much maintenance to do but the new contact numbers were a pain to change in all those html pages around here. Also, it is a relief to finally start to get on top of things and get fiscally responsible with the orgs as they are now on-going perpetual entities. I now look at cutting down costs while improving service - ever heard that before..... We have arrived by pushing money around and getting hosed here and there - all part of the learning experience - but now we have to learn how to live in this international, professional media environment.

As I was discussing Sunday morning at the office there will be more travel and a decided turn to addressing the philosophic agenda as protocols and policies are formed for the new realm of global on-line convergence of all media. As much as I occasionally lament going in this direction, your life and name should stand for something and people know what I am all about and what I stand for. Forging your own identify is never easy or inexpensive. It is what it is and everything has its price; in money, time, stress and opportunity costs in the more intangible aspects of your life. There are no second chances at this stage of my life and it is as simple as that. We continue to go forward, no backing down now.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 5:46 am Post subject:

I have uploaded one of our answering machine messages onto our Asia line and testing it out. It is the usual murky thing uploaded over the mic on a cell phone. I will play the original file to those involved so they can see the final outcome of all this and here it is:

http://iaij.com/East_Euro_Asia_Phone_Message.mp4

Usually I go with wavs here but the mp4 can play easily over cell phones so there you go..... The only funny thing abut all this was I was splicing together the wav files and at the end of the English version the young woman involved quietly utters "yes!" - really? Was it that big a deal.....hehehehhe..... It was just funny to hear it..... We have a few more. The U.K. one I would not mind having it in English, French, German and Italian. The Canadian ones in French and English, you sort of get the idea. The India one in Hindi and Punjabi and that should be it until we expand again.

In other news we are finally uploading all the music onto the new vendor so a couple of weeks and everyone is back on line. This vendor gives us options that we may take depending on what happens with the TV stuff..... Finally.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed May 29, 2013 1:54 am Post subject:

Another day and more music in the pipeline and more phone messages for the phone lines..... This is for the European line (as of now: Portugese, French, English):

http://iaij.com/Europe_Phone_Message.mp4

Yes, that is all my life is now.....

I wonder how other free speech people are doing. Are they as lonely as I am. I have the sneaking suspicion they probably are. Ours is a mostly isolated world. You can take guys in the most awful state and they still have women trying to connect in all manner. But you would be surprised at just how quiet it is on facebook or even email. Sure the business stuff is there, all that never changes. But the personal stuff is not there as you might expect. The situation you found yourself in before all this happened is the same one you find yourself in after. Nothing changes.

Think you are a lonely pathetic example of a person and then win the lottery, then your end up a pathetic lonely person in a mansion all by yourself. Or maybe you get taken for a ride by some women who takes you for all your money and you end back where you were in the same situation..... You get the drift..... You cannot change the religious and societal conventions you live in. Like I told you about Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali - Olympic Champion of the world and still could not get into a restaurant closed to "coloreds." You can probably go far in non-social things, but your status and perception in society will never change, that is etched in stone. People, for the most part, are simple creatures, don't expect the majority to rise above the obvious and do something inspired. Those folk are few and far between.

So many people hate my guts because of what I do here. Why? And they hate it more when we succeed at things. Why? Is it you don't like to see others succeed. Is it because you don't like to see people you marginalize succeed at difficult things and thus have to re-evaluate your stereotyped perceptions of those people. Yes, a guy with a Moslem name preaching free speech and looking like he means it - not the most popular imagery in North America..... I think a lot of folk would just be happy if I just sort of disappeared and left things to the old standby of the blond white man championing the rights campaign. Funny thing is I actually don't like the way I look and wished my public image was better, especially my face. Things go so much better when you look like Brad Pitt, trust me on this.....

So yes, things in your personal life don't change. I am trying to change perception on the macro level. If you look closely you will see that I almost exclusively deal with people on the macro level. Radio broadcasts, newspapers, television shows. Advocacy on the global stage. Some people put all their energies into one or two individuals. I yearn for billions. And if I achieve success and the lights go off and the microphones get pulled back and I find my way home, I will be back to the same position I find myself in typing this post in the middle of the night. Human nature will never change, only the culture that we create.....

Goodnight.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 6:24 am Post subject:

New phone messages.....

New bilingual Canadian message:

http://iaij.com/Bilingual_Phone_Message_Canada.mp4

And - the new and improved European message with Spanish and Italian added:

http://iaij.com/Europe_Phone_Message_Long.mp4

Got to go now.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 5:46 pm Post subject:

Well we have reached a crossroads of sorts. With the finalizing of our contact numbers we are ready to approach the United Nations and see what happens there. At the same time we will be promoting our television series to the networks around the world now - strange to say that - and I hate doing it that way (concurrently) but it always ends up that way. We will clean up this board a bit, about a half from the good old days is hidden and some more to follow. FOF is now "for real" and we should start looking like it. Perhaps the best way is to look at it from my perspective. A couple of weeks ago I was having breakfast with the head man who ran two of the largest federal bureaucracies in Canada, a man from Quebec. He came over to join me in breakfast and asked about our little organization as he was curious. Also with me was, what can best be described as a CEO of a large organization and his posse - I guess you should call it that..... Some of the organizations there had assets over 100 Billion. But I was there as one of the gang so to speak. Man, just a bit earlier I was hanging out with representatives of a number of countries. Funny now that I think about it, I am regularly rubbing shoulders with people who have some serious credentials.

It is a bit strange because our organization has grown very fast and is upwardly mobile. You still live in that life you had before IAIJ and FOF and yet you seem to almost live more in this other life and that one is taking over..... A real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde life. If I am objective, it sure looks like I achieved my goal of President and CEO (when I was at Ryerson Business School), not only that but CEO of a corporate conglomerate with Boards of Directors, staff and a large membership that is truly international with real influence and has done business - almost exclusively - with billion dollar corporate entities. I don't' regularly use the title but it is mine now. I got what I wanted, just not the way I thought it world be, life will always throw you some curve balls..... I must say that I am probably the most pathetic example of a CEO in the business sense, but we are a member of that club now, even if we are at "water boy" status.....

Part of our funky relationship with corporate Canada, oops that should be (now) the international corporate world, is that we are not solely motivated by monetary gain. No, what we value most is influence. What our organizations and I have always yearned for is influence. Sure money is needed to run the organizations but that is just a side issue, it is the influence that we accumulate that governs the value of our companies! Corporations can be very powerful, yet their actions are all based on financial rules that are predictable. And because we are motivated by influence and not money, they will never have the mobility or the agility that we have. We can grow as an organization and gain influence by doing things in the business world that would just seem bizarre to them. And that my friends, is one massive advantage in the business world that they never foresaw.....

So we are the new kids on the block! Anything can happen and there are no guarantees. But we made it this far and that to all our members, is an achievement in itself! So before I forge ahead in the unknown again, I just wanted to pause and look around at where we are at now.

Tonight is more music uploads and more final work on the messages. Any changes will be posted below in this day's post. I think Sam will post the final recordings and the numbers they are associated with in a day or so.

Goodnight.....

So here is the current rundown of the phone messages so far:

http://iaij.com/India_Phone_Message.mp4

http://iaij.com/Bilingual_Phone_Message_Canada.mp4

http://iaij.com/Europe_Phone_Message_Long.mp4

http://iaij.com/East_Euro_Asia_Phone_Message.mp4

http://iaij.com/English_Phone_Message.mp4

** The old office message will reman the same

I uploaded another album and finally we should print the promotional booklet for the TV series. I slept thinking about that CEO stuff I mentioned. I really cringe when I see that title beside my name in official documents. However, we have new members joining us that now have graduate degrees (Masters - no PhDs yet) and also that some of the events we participate in have everyone pulling out the CEO designation; well you sort of have to go with the flow..... As an aside yesterrday was depressing. I sort of remembered stuff not too long ago and then stuff thrity years ago and then stuff from my childhood. Then more about my childhood. You know you sort of hide that stuff almost to the point you forget about it. For hours this debate about mankind raged in the back of my head about the value of most people. It just sort of went like that. Then I had to carry on with the usual business of this place. You just can't get those years back. You know you have been cheated out of life, and for no reason. Life is not fair but we - like how we are at FOF - as can create this artifical environment where there is fariness and justice and all those values we would like to hold dear. But people really have to embrace those ideals to make it work. Why I am one of those people to do this is beyond me. I really should have a hard on of hate about the whole thing and yes some of it is there. That is just how that day went.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:15 am Post subject:

Well another busy weekend.....

I should finish the uploads of all music by Sunday night.

Presentation materials should at least be in rough form by Sunday if not completely finished.

Contact lines finished and published.

That is the record label, the television series and the journalist org all at the same time. Anyway I want to turn a new leaf on Monday and get onto things. With Fortress it is not just one thing but like three at the same time. All in individual corporations. But they are established and relevant. Just when people thought the record label was a dead issue we gave them FOFSTOCK, a real honest to God concert. When they figured the video stuff had petered out we give them a series of programming, and so on..... Sooner or later you have to admit that things are for real. Regular people don't put on real concerts, they don't put programming on network TV and they don't lobby for rights at international venues. They don't advertise on television and traditional radio or print. The organizations that do all this do it at the highest levels and have the most professional legal designations.

So as we go ahead in another adventure, realize that FOF and IAIJ are real entities and not some fantasy. I should not even have to say this. But maybe I am the one that has to have this drilled into me as the stakes are getting bigger. So much of this is a mental thing and much of last month was just getting us mentally prepared to up the game once again. While we do this things will get thrown at us in our usual lives, it is what it is.

It is a real adventure, you never regret that, but only after the fact.....hehehhehehe.....

BTW: I never figured on the FOFSTOCK Concert/Music Festival..... There are so many pictures but this one below I remember. Me in a harness getting ready to transform that into FOFSTOCK.....

And the finished product.....

All told that concert cost the equivelent of two new econo cars, not for the faint of heart. I am looking at this stuff because FOFSTOCK 2 will be part of the negotiations when I meet broadcasters.....

Never say never.....

I also should contact 2rude. We had more performances than you thought and I will put 2rude in the doco if they sign off on the performance (came over from the East Coast), we shall see.....

I will also have Sam post the possible FOFSTOCK 2 notice. And please remember that FOFSTOCK 2 is a purely commercial venture. I am not bankrolling another. FOFSTOCK 2 has to make it on its own.

We have arrived.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2013 8:24 am Post subject:

Maurice Ali · Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 6:13 am Post subject:

Maurice Ali · Posted: Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:32 pm Post subject:

Most of our music should be back up in a few days. The remaining CDs will be mopped up after that and then I can forget about that - finally..... We are trademarking a few more marks. The FOF Entertainment mark and the record and entertainment logo of the FOF and Globe horizontally with the Records or Entertainment beside it, maybe one for The Fortress Experiment and that should be that. I won't bring up trademarks for a long time.....

From journalism back to music, music, music..... Never a dull moment around there and the series up shortly. Of course this could just be one last nice moment before it all goes bad with zero interest in the shows, some unforseen event that destroyes the organization with everyone going mad or committing suicide - death and destruction everywhere..... Or it coud be better, so we shall see.....

Goodnight.....

Some more.....

Most of the website home pages have the trademarks applied, and the phones are done, and most of the music is sent. This organization - in all its forms - is a more evolved one than a year ago. I have to admit I am a bit more fidgety than normal. All possibilities are still open and they are all big ones. You almost want that moment to suspend itself in time, as it is a great feeling. Well feelings don't last and wanting is a much more filling feeling than attaining. For me attaining is almost an instantaneous shift to some other priority. It is the adventure and the fight to get there - and yes - the uncertainty..... We shall see how that feels if we do a face plant with one of our goals. But remember there is always a plan "B" with a guy like me.....

Always.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 5:49 am Post subject:

Taking care of the music.....

Still waiting on music to return to iTunes and Amazon. Why did we switch vendors? Basically because the big U.S. vendor was taking things for granted, but more importantly we are switching because the new vendor is one of our own located in Cornwall, Ontario. Ever since WSIS I have been more keen on our image as a business entity. From promoting Canada in international venues our image is now a part of how we operate. The next international venue will see me probably in a Canadian made suit with a Canadian made tie so when the wind blows and the lapel and tie flap my guests will see I support Canadian industry and Canada in general as you sort of are an ambassador of sorts at these events. Similar thing in the commercial industries. The Canadian music industry is smaller than most people think. It is not a question of "if" but "when" I run into the gang that operates the vendor we are using now for our music. And when we do come face to face with these people and we talk about our operations, I will be able to tell them that the bulk of our music is with them, that is how that conversation will go down. And don't think others in the Canadian music industry don't take note. The music industry is still on life support and now more than ever is the need to support you local and national businesses wherever it is possible.....

In other news it is back to prep work for the series presentation and contacting the United Nations to formally apply for status at the United Nations. How that procedure will unfold or how long this will take is still uncertain. It took years for the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, so we may have to be patient.....