Once upon a time in America, copyright law was intended to balance the rights of creators against the public benefit without giving either too much weight. The logic was that creators (of art, literature, music, and so on) needed to be able to earn a living from their creations, or else they would not be [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Culture category.
Are you crazy?
Today I was noticing bumper stickers as I was driving home from work. One guy had the Darwin Fish being swallowed by the Truth Fish. (Actually they’re not completely swallowed; it looks more like the Darwin Fish is caught in the Truth Fish’s throat. Which makes sense, really; the Jesus Fish crowd does kind of [...]
Telstar and the optimism of the space age
For a week or so I’ve been listening to the 1950s radio channel on XM. I don’t listen to this a whole lot, but once in a while I’ll do something like this out of nostalgia. It never lasts very long because no matter how deep your 1950s playlist goes, you’ll eventually come to the [...]
It’s magic
Howdy again, folks. I suppose I ought to change the name of the blog to something not containing the word “daily,” especially now that I have a new gig occupying a lot of my time. It’s been ten days since I posted. Sorry about that; I hope you’re all still out there. Today (well, yesterday, [...]
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day
Today is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, wherein we strike a quixotic blow for free speech by drawing pictures of Mohammed in spite of muslims telling us we’re not allowed to. Here’s mine: I know, I know, an artistic endeavor worthy of Picasso. Or Art Frahm. And it only took three minutes to draw. Defending freedom [...]
The pen is mightier than the S-word
This is the first time I’ve ever changed the title on a piece after publishing. The pun occurred to me several hours later and I couldn’t resist it. Increasingly I see journalists, online and elsewhere, using the “-word” construction to refer to things they’d rather not spell out. It started with “F-word.” Now we also [...]
To soothe the savage breast
No, it’s not supposed to be “beast.” Look it up. When I was a kid, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the world was filled with music. Crappy music. Everywhere you’d go – supermarkets, restaurants, malls, and especially elevators – there’d be this syrupy, contentless musical drivel; pop songs or classical standards [...]
The strange benefit of copyright Nazis
I’m not a big fan of copyright law in its current form, as regular readers know. I side with Lawrence Lessig in the main. He makes a lot of points, and you should read his books to get the full argument, but it sums up to this: Copyright was intended to balance the benefit of [...]
Sears must die
When I was a kid, Sears was a respected retailer. You could get anything at Sears: shoes, clothes, underwear, tires, toys, guns, radio parts, major and minor appliances, furnaces, musical instruments, lawnmowers, tools, anything. They didn’t make this stuff themselves; most of it was made for them and private-branded. But you could count on them [...]
If it’s too loud, I’m too old
The other night I was out driving and wound up behind a ramshackle old Saturn bearing a bumper sticker for a local tattoo shop and another that stated “If it’s too loud, you’re too old.” Eventually I found myself beside this car at an intersection; the driver was a young guy, ragged like his car, [...]