Metacentricities

With all the brou-ha-ha happening in Washington about the Foley scandal, you might have missed this little gem:

You can buy an Uzi in Texas, but the Supreme Court just said you can’t buy a sex toy shaped in a certain way there. Puleeze, can we get our priorities straight?

As you know, I don’t comment a whole lot on the gay marriage issue, for a variety of reasons. However, there is an op-ed in todays New York Times by Dan Savage, about the recent court decisions in Washington State and New York, that is just amazing. Salient quotes:

In New York, the court ruled in effect that irresponsible
heterosexuals often have children by accident — we gay couples, in
contrast, cannot get drunk and adopt in one night — so the state can
reserve marriage rights for heterosexuals in order to coerce them into
taking care of their offspring. Without the promise of gift registries
and rehearsal dinners, it seems, many more newborns in New York would
be found in trash cans.

and …

These defeats have demoralized supporters of gay marriage, but I see
a silver lining. If heterosexual instability and the link between
heterosexual sex and human reproduction are the best arguments
opponents of same-sex marriage can muster, I can’t help but feel that
our side must be winning. Insulting heterosexuals and discriminating
against children with same-sex parents may score the other side a few
runs, but these strategies won’t win the game.

Anyway, it has Dan Savage’s signature humor, and a lot of good points.

technorati tags:gaymarriage

I am someone who tends to think that conspiracy theories are sometimes just silly, and generally, gross oversimplifications of a very complex reality. A couple of stories from EFF that came across my e-desk that have made me think up my own conspiracy theory, and it’s not pretty. Here’s the basic information. Clear Channel (yes, those people) was granted a patent by the USPTO for "System and method of creating digital recordings of live performances." EFF says:

OK, so stick with me for a bit. For a while now, a lot of people have been flabbergasted by the patents that the USPTO has granted, particularly that they have granted patents that allow companies to own business processes that often have clear prior art, and that allow them to have control over the creative innovations of others, in ways that are pretty nonsensical. This one is a great example. This patent means that any musician and venue that records then burns a concert CD for sale after the concert has to use their technologies, or be sued for infringement of their patent. Right, this is completely nonsensical, and clearly violates the right of musicians to control their own creative product. I (and many others) had ascribed the actions of the patent office over the last few years as a combination of caving to corporate interests, and ineptitude. I’m starting to let go of the ineptitude - I think they are doing this on purpose.

Corporations of all stripes are in an incessant battle to expand their control of content and its delivery. Also from EFF is the story that the RIAA now says that it doesn’t think that copying a CD that you bought onto your iPod is fair use. That’s right. Further, it turns out that there is an increasing effort to change the rules of internet traffic, and set priorities, and charge more for certain kinds of traffic (limiting, for instance, Skype traffic) or from certain origins (e.g. corporate traffic gets higher priority than, say, this blog.) I’ve always considered these sorts of things to be basically issues of corporations, as is their mission, to continually increase their profits.

But the recent events and wholehearted cooperation of companies like Google, MSN, Yahoo and others to happily censor content in China (which I had also ascribed to the profit motive), as well as the emerging picture of increased controls and limits on the creation and dissemination of creative content, is making me think a lot about what this is all about. I hate to wonder whether or not there is a connection between all of this stuff and the fact that we have one of the most power-hungry and controlling governments in history.

The whole RIAA/MPAA thing had, for a while, made me think that alternatives to the dissemination of music and movies would have to happen - creators would realize that these organizations don’t work in their interest, and start their own companies and distribution methods. This has begun to happen, but the problem is that if the technology is locked down using things like Microsoft’s Trusted Computing which could ultimately control what you can see and hear from your computer and other technology (there are all sorts of controls being built into the new generation of DVD players, that use blue lasers), then it is possible that alternative avenues will be squeezed or locked out. It seems that technology companies have been jumping overthemselves lately to cater to controlling interests, whether it be our government in spying, China in censorship, or hardware and software manufacturers with imbedded DRM.

So, it all adds up to, at best a nasty mess, at worst, complete control of not only how we can use content we own, but complete control of content creation, delivery, and viewing. That’s the conspiracy theory. It’s probably either silly, or a gross oversimplification of a complex reality. It does strengthen my already growing luddite tendencies, though. If they want to control me through technology, I’ll let go of the technology. We can’t get too attached.

technorati tags: patents, eff, clearchannel, recording, music, concerts, technology, government, control, corporations

A press release by the organization called Americans United for Separation of Church and State made me ponder. The background is the recent news that a church in Pasadena, CA (All Saints Episcopal Church) is being investigated by the IRS because of an anti-war sermon. Here is their concluding paragraph:

“In conclusion, let me say this: Religious leaders have every right to speak out on the issues of the day. However, Americans do not need and do not want their houses of worship to become partisan. Electioneering in our pulpits violates federal tax law and threatens our nation with the kind of bitter religious and political divisiveness that has harmed societies around the world.”

I have always been, as long as I’ve understood the concept, completely committed to the ideal of the separation of church and state. I do believe that all people in this country have a right not only to worship in any way they wish, but to be free from religion if they wish. I think that religion has no place in public schools, I don’t agree with Bush’s faith-based initiatives, and I don’t think that the government should be spending a penny that goes towards any faith-based group.

Further, tax-exempt status is a privileged position, and allows churches to have buildings free of property taxes, have parishioners give to their churches with a tax deduction, and allows a church to buy things it needs without paying sales tax. And, thus, I think it is completely appropriate that organizations with tax exempt status be limited in the kinds of things they can say about politicians and issues facing voters in an election, and the kinds of lobbying they can do.

But as someone who, perhaps, will someday become a religious leader, it makes me uneasy that the kind of speech in a church, and the kinds of actions a church can take, is controlled by tax-exempt status. First, it means that when there is a candidate or ballot issue, for whatever reason, that has values that are diametrically opposed to our faith community, that we may, in some ways, be unable to talk about that directly. Second, it makes it possible for communities of faith to be harassed, depending upon who is in power. Right now, it means more progressive faith communities might be challenged more than conservative ones.

No, we don’t want our communities of faith to become partisan - that’s one of the big issues we’re dealing with now, with the "unholy" alliance between conservative Christians and the Republicans. But given the divisions in this country, and what is at stake, I have to wonder about what it is that is so important about tax-exempt status. Could communities of faith survive without it? I believe, in the next 10-50 years, the actions (or lack of actions) we in this country take, in all of our everyday lives, as well as larger political decisions, are going to decide basically whether or not the human race continues with a semblance of civilization into the next century. It’s that important. Is tax-exempt status worth it?

I know, hairbrained. I welcome any thoughts. Thanks, as usual to Jesus Politics for the heads up on the press release.

I came across this website pretty much by accident. As I mentioned a while ago, in one of my old blog posts on intellectual property, there is a nascent movement of musicians and the like, trying to create an alternative to the recording industry. I found another website that is part of this, but unlike the other sites, this site has a broad range of genres.

It’s called Magnatune, and if you care about the future of music, and your ability to listen to music however, and wherever you like buy something there. Here’s why:

• You can listen to the full songs or albums on the site for free
• You can download an album, in a variety of formats (MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, etc.) completely free of DRM (Digital Rights Management) - that means, you can put it on your iPod, or Zen Micro, or whatever, you can make as many copies as you like, burn as many CDs as you like, without restriction or control.
• The artists get 50% of the price of the album
• You can choose how much to pay for the album (really, no kidding!)
• You can send a link for the download of the album to 3 friends, for free.

I love their motto "we’re not evil." It’s true, they are not, they are exactly the kind of record company that we (and the musicians) need. If we let the present record companies continue, we’ll be spending $20 per album, and will have very limited ability to listen to it however, wherever, and whenever we want - they will have the control.

There is some very nice music on this site. I haven’t explored the range of genres, and it’s true, there isn’t anyone famous on it yet - but there is no risk - you can listen to the whole album for free, and decide for yourself whether you want to buy it. So go, listen, and buy (if you can.)

Clarence Thomas intrigues me. There are a variety of reasons he intrigues me, and I’m sure that there are all sorts of reasons I should just dislike him intensely (which, actually, I do.)

He (along with his buddy Scalia, as per usual) dissented from the majority opinion in Miller-El vs Dretke, which was the appeal of Thomas Miller-El, who was sentenced to death for murder. I actually read the dissent, because I was so curious about how he could dissent from an opinion that seems pretty darned clear to me.

And I found something really interesting. He was unwilling to make the (to many, obvious) assumption that the fact that the state used so many peremptory challenges to eliminate black jurors meant that the state was systematically trying to eliminate blacks from the jury: "The majority simply assumes that all Dallas County prosecutors were racist and remained that way through the mid-1980’s." In addition, he says that much of the evidence that the majority used to come to their conclusion was not dealt with by the state courts (and, I guess, thus shouldn’t come into play? I’m a bit fuzzy on that.)

But anyway, the upshot is that for Thomas, there just isn’t enough evidence of discrimination for him. And I found this amazingly fascinating, in terms of the guy’s psychology. Here is someone who, one expects, has experienced active discrimination in his life because he is black, yet he needs more evidence for discrimination in this case than 7 white justices!

But then I had to ultimately admit that he and I have something in common besides being African-American. I don’t have much trouble seeing racism and discrimination that happens to other people, in the broader community or country (especially the south.) I have no problem assuming that "Dallas County prosecutors were racist and remained that way through the mid-1980s." But in my personal life, and my interactions with people and organizations, I  tend to assume that something that happens is not due to discrimination, but some other reason. I need more evidence. I have had conversations with (white) friends of mine who’ll say stuff like "didn’t you see the clerk following you?" and I’ll say something like "nah, they just were checking on what was stocked."

I’m glad Miller-El is getting a new trial, and I hope, at some point, we will realize as a culture that putting someone to death, no matter what the crime, is cruel and unusual punishment. I hope we continue to realize that it will take a long, long time for racism to be eliminated as a factor in our criminal justice system. And I’ll still be intrigued by Clarence Thomas, even as I revile just about every opinion or dissent he writes. And I’ll still assume, however wrongly, that the clerk who is following me likes my earrings.