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Sunday March 10, 2002 |
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of the Day In addition to slate writing, spirit paintings, and other "materializations," "spirit photographs" were also produced by spiritualists. Curiously, the ethereal entities did not appear during the early period of photography (beginning in 1839): there were no spirit daguerreotypes, ambrotypes or early tintypes. Indeed, not until double exposures were made possible by the advent of photographic paper prints from glass-plate negatives, did the spirits choose to make their photographic debut. -- Skeptiseum, CSICOP |
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Daily
Blog Thingie
Grimms Fairy Tales (huge book, probably 450 pages, with many illustrations. Looks like about 1950 published. Great Expectations, by Dickens. Paperback, old, but good condition. $.50 for it. The Complete Pun Book, and a huge book on Wines of the World, both of which will likely be gifts. Bloom County Babylon, which I've read, but for $1.50, why not. A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. Probably never read it, but $2, and it got rave reviews, might be educational to read. The Silence of the Lambs, $1. Hardcover and I've always meant to read it, since the movie is so good. They didn't have Hannibal. Private Parts and Miss America by Howard Stern. Should be funny, and $1.50 each, so again, why not. Rose Madder by Stephen King. Never read it, and $2. All those for less than any one of the hardcovers would cost at Barnes and Noble. Used book stores are a good bet too, but they are far more expensive, their hardcovers are generally $7 or so, and with $3 or 4 for paperbacks. Book sale at the library is a scam. They had a huge shed full of books they hadn't even put out yet, and it goes for 3 more hours today, so I considered swinging back by later on, but didn't get around to it.
Olympic medalist is getting some flack for accidentally letting some reality into what was supposed to be a droning and soporific speech to High School Students. 'Cause god forbid anyone speak honestly to teenagers about life issues. After all, preaching abstinence works so well. I didn't drink, much, in high school, and I knew friends who did, and who sometimes drove quite recklessly after doing so. We of course heard nothing but, "Drinking is bad, mmkay." which was widely ignored and ridiculed. If we'd had some Olympic hero talking to us about how drinking was bad but you were going to do it anyway, so just be sure you didn't drive afterwards and get killed or mangled, it might have made a difference. Complaining about that is the sort of thing like the rest of the "Just say no." mindset, which has no effect whatsoever. It gives the kids who weren't going to drink anyway a slogan that'll be ridiculed, while other kids just make fun of it while they drink more to spite society. Same as abstinence education, which always results in a spike in the birth rate. Adults are so unable to admit their words really won't have a lot of effect on what kids do, and are also unable to deal with the realities, which is that kids are going to do whatever you tell them not to, so you might as well just accept it and try to help them as best you can. They're going to fuck, so encourage them to wait for a special person, rather than saying no no no so they'll just fuck anyone to see what's so fun about it. And give them birth control so they'll at least use it. There's nothing wrong with sex, if it's unpleasant they won't do it that much more, but at least be sure they don't get knocked up or herpes their first time trying.
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Check out this article. It's about copyright laws, and how they are being extended in recent years, far beyond their originally-intended duration, due to the heavy lobbying of entertainment companies, and our extremely pro-business/anti-person/freedom congress. The businesses want to... pause for emphasis... make money! I know, shocking concept. Certainly nothing any of us feel a desire to do. *cough* Anyway, the companies are desperate to keep perpetual control of their patents and copyrights, so they can keep making money from them for ever and ever, rather than allowing them to revert to the public domain after some years of copyright protection. A good list of various works that would be public domain already if not for extensions to the laws made recently can be seen here. As a decent citizen I of course have a natural hatred and distrust of all motives of big business, who see it as their mission to zealously protect their business properties with absolutely zero compassion or common sense, unless a court forces them to show some. Prominent examples of creations that should be public domain now or in the immediate future include Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin, and many more. But at the same time I'm a writer, and I don't like to think of just anyone being able to use my writing or characters or stories for their own purposes, diminishing my inventions with shoddy sequels or rip offs. (Even if they are doing it decades after I'm worm-bait.) The issue with current copyright expiration is that 99.9% of them are stuff artists were probably paid pennies for in the first place, stuff they retained no long term control over, and certainly weren't paid for them way back in the 1920's with the thought that the companies taking the copyrights over would be making money off of them 80 years later. I'd imagine most of the creators would be fine with their work becoming public domain now, rather than the use of it being parceled out by lawyers and accountants. And the original idea of copyrights was for 10 or 20 years at most, so that ideas and inventions wouldn't remain some corporate tool, but would benefit and belong to everyone after a period of time that the artist could regain money they spent creating the work. However "original ideas" for things are often discarded over time. I don't really have an opinion on the issue, but I find it interesting to give it some thought. |
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