Category: Serious Stuff

If you run, enjoy or just hang out at any kind of fansite, you might ought to pay attention to this legal case. I’ve got some plans to do a book later this year with material from theLogBook, and you better believe I’m watching this one very, very closely.

While I respect Ms. Rowling as the creator of all things Potter (and feel that the author of the other book perhaps could’ve done more to acknowledge her as such), this case is waltzing right into very dangerous territory. Intellectual property owners seem to spend an awful lot of time catering to superfans (or readers of superfans’ sites – let’s use Gateworld.net as an example), and cutting that particular cultural phenomenon off at the knees would have a worse effect than Paramount setting its internet phasers on Cease & Desist 12 or so years ago – mainly becuase back then, the ‘net was still more or less a curiosity, and now it’s practically another substratus of the world community. Fans will organize and rally against it.

Now, the flipside, to be fair: I’ve been in a copyright lawsuit (as the plantiff, no less), and my understanding of the law is that you’re on pretty stable ground so long as you bring your own scholarship and your own critical analysis to the table in a “derivative work”. A dictionary that probably leans very heavily on someone else’s written work is very likely not on that same stable ground. A book analyzing and critiquing the Harry Potter series would stand a better chance.

But when even the judge is urging everyone to settle? I don’t think anyone’s in any doubt that this case is wading into a minefield.… Read more

HAL’s eye glows in your honor in my home tonight.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke
1917-2008… Read more

So, today being Super Duper Tuesday, I wobbled uphill to the fire station around the corner from my place, and, as a voter not registered to either party, cast a vote in the Democratic primary for Barack Obama. I’ll admit that I’ve spent much of the past year growing more and more disillusioned with the American political process and its attendant dialogue. When a national dialogue on something as vitally important as who will lead us descends to – and remains at – the level of professional wrestling smack talk, something somewhere is broken, and you can’t lay all the blame at the doorstep of something as nebulous as “the electoral college” or “campaign funding”. Something in the very basic fundamental language of how we, as a nation, approach politics, approach the idea of running for and serving in a public office, has gotten very, very broken. Sometimes I think the media plays more of a role in that dumbing-down of the informed electorate than I’m giving it credit for. I’ve been watching the media on a casual level over the past few months, from my relatively new standpoint of an observer rather than a participant, and I’ve noticed a tendency to go more for Jerry Springer-esque “oh no you di’n’t!” feuds – either creating them out of whole cloth or egging them on – than on substantive reporting on the candidates, their platforms, and so on.

With the volley of crap that’s gone on between Clinton and Obama, I will admit to having come within a hair’s breadth of voting in the Republican primary for McCain. But that would’ve been a gut reaction, more of a knee jerk than anything. I’ve been following Obama closely, and yeah, he’s thrown a few head-shakingly, “I wouldn’t have said that” stuff out into the ether here and there (though nothing quite as staggering as Mike “fry all of the state government’s computer systems before handing Arkansas over to a new governor and then deny all knowledge” Huckabee’s assertion that he’s going to, oh, eliminate the only source of income that the federal government has, namely the IRS), but when Obama can get his feet planted on the Earth again, I find that his ideas of where the country should go are more firmly in line with what I think should be done. And in that end, that, more than any label that any given candidate has, should really be the determining factor. However, behavior on the campaign trail can’t be discounted, and shouldn’t be: while a candidate’s platform, and their ability to defend attacks on it, should be the mind’s criteria for picking the right candidate, how they conduct themselves forms the emotional, gut-feeling side of that equation as well. It speaks to their character more than a list of promises of things they’ll try to push through Congress possibly can.

I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me to, at the primary level or further down the line. She simply doesn’t impress me. Keep in mind that she actually has, in my mind, a very close connection with Huckabee: she used to be in Arkansas. We know Hillary – and Mike – of old. No way. (And before anyone asks “But what if Obama runs as Hillary’s VP?”, I think I have a much better shot of becoming fabulously rich opening a series of franchised ice skating rinks in Hell than of actually seeing that ticket, or vice-versa, on a ballot.) I simply don’t trust her.

I’m sad that Wesley Clark didn’t even pitch his hat into the ring for this one, but I can see where his age might erode any chances of being taken seriously for a Presidency lasting into 2012. As for why McCain has caught my eye: I like McCain’s forthrightness, level-headedness, and ability to answer questions put to him with something bearing a much more close resemblance to straight talk than what anyone normally hears from Washington. I don’t line up with McCain on the issues as much as I do with Obama, but I trust McCain more than I trust Mrs. Clinton.

And if the Huckster actually lands the nomination and wins in November? I’ve always thought living in New Zealand would be lovely.

Anyway, thus ends a rare serious rambling from me. I don’t expect everyone – hell, I don’t expect anyone – to agree with me in an election year. (Remind me to tell you about the time I voted for Hagelin!) But I do hope you at least got out and voted today. I got out and voted today during a tornado watch, with the kiddo. What’s your excuse?… Read more

…and then grew quite a bit more somber. Wired Magazine has started a “watchdog” page that shows who’s been editing Wikipedia entries to suit their own agendas. Before you go there, though, I strongly recommend getting a stiff drink, sitting down, and calming the beef min. I was laughing long and hard at a few of them, and then the smile faded from my face as I faced yet another sobering reminder that political discourse in this country is dead. Okay, if it’s not dead, it’s barely twitching and rasping Pee-Wee Herman’s “I know you are, but what am I?” line over and over again in a ghastly, barely-audible back-of-the-throat rattle. The Wired page reveals no angels: Democrats are just as guilty of cowardly, pin-“kick me”-signs-on-someone’s-back tactics as Republicans. And then you get into corporate smear jobs and whitewashes that are just as disturbing. By the time I see yet another instance of the Church of Scientology editing its own entries, it’s not even startling anymore. Just coldly numbing.

Now, I’m aware that one edit coming from a place that may have hundreds of people in the building doesn’t mean the whole building participated. But that doesn’t change the “disturbing” factor significantly for me. Those whose interests are threatened by the public being able to distribute information are trying to find the closest things that the internet has to a “hub” for that information, and they’re trying to bend it to their own will. This points out a great weakness in the whole “social media” movement. I hope there will always be at least some people who have enough time to take on the thankless task of fighting for the integrity of the user-content-driven side of the web.

In the meantime, marvel at what government officials are doing with their on-the-clock time, and what those who would have that power are doing with theirs in the meantime. This kind of stuff makes me lean a little more libertarian every day.… Read more