Right now, in Geneva, at the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, history is being made. For the first time in WIPO history, the body that creates the world's copyright treaties is attempting to write a copyright treaty dedicated to protecting the interests of copyright users, not just copyright owners.
At issue is a treaty to protect the rights of blind people and people with other disabilities that affect reading (people with dyslexia, people who are paralyzed or lack arms or hands for turning pages), introduced by Brazil, Ecuador and Paraguay. This should be a slam dunk: who wouldn't want a harmonized system of copyright exceptions that ensure that it's possible for disabled people to get access to the written word?
The USA, that's who. The Obama administration's negotiators have joined with a rogue's gallery of rich country trade representatives to oppose protection for blind people. Other nations and regions opposing the rights of blind people include Canada and the EU [as well as Australia, New Zealand, the Vatican, and Norway].
This footage was from another recent open jam session at the same location as the last one. The big difference was that one more cymbal was added to the drum kit, so I was really cooking with gas at that point.
This particular tune was nicked from a practice from a few months ago. It's basically something the guitarist came up with and we just improvise a bit off of it.
…RNC Chair Michael Steele says that Republicans need to stop "slammin' and rammin'" on Sotomayor, acknowledge the "historic aspect" of her nomination, and make a "cogent, articulate argument" against her.
Good luck with all that.
Lest you think that Steele was actually motivated by principle, he justified his admonishment by noting that the "liberal media" isn't on Republicans' side, so they'll "get painted as a party that's against the first Hispanic woman" nominated to the Supreme Court. See, it's not problematic that they are against her on the basis that she's a Latina woman, but it is problematic when the media actually frames it that way.
Lauredhel: "If you're in Australia, we need your help! ... The government is proposing a national harmonisation of disabled parking schemes. Sounds great on the surface, doesn't it? But they're going to throw independent people with disabilities (PWD) who aren't wheelchair or scooter users to the wolves. People who can walk without physical assistance from another person, with or without a cane, no matter how restricted their walking distance, will no longer have access to accessible parking. Unless you intervene. Please, give your feedback to the government about this scheme, right now, and spread the word."
"I love being crazy, you know? Crazy with a passion, crazy with a dream."—Suzan Lakhan Baptiste, the "Crazy Turtle Woman," who turned a six-mile stretch of beach near her home in Matura, Trinidad from a deadly poaching ground into one of the largest leatherback sea turtle nesting colonies in the world.
Serious blub warnings when you click through to read this amazing story, which Iain sent to me with the sweet note: "This article is an inspiring story about the power of teaspoons. I thought you might need it after yesterday."
Openly gay teen Sergio Garcia has been elected prom queen at L.A.'s Fairfax High. What started out as a "stunt" by Garcia blossomed into a campus-wide "discussion about gender roles and popularity."
Days before the dance, Garcia told fellow students that he was "not your typical prom queen candidate. There's more to me than meets the eye."
He also promised that he would be wearing a suit on prom night, but "don't be fooled: Deep down, I am a queen."
And he made good of that promise Saturday, wearing a gray tuxedo topped off with the prized tiara.
Garcia, 18, said he saw fliers advertising the prom and the election but they didn't specify that the queen must be female. He thought the role would suit him better than prom king.
"I don't wish to be a girl," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I just wish to be myself."
Just for a moment, try to imagine that headline being written about a man. Flatly, it wouldn't be. "Sharp-tongued" is an adjective almost exclusively reserved for use to describe women, who have the impudence to communicate assertively or let naughty words come out of their delicate ladymouths.
"Sharp-tongued" women are also frequently referred to as "difficult," "nasty," "temperamental," "strident," and "caustic," all of which are used to describe Sotomayor in this article—along with reports that she is a "terror on the bench" who "behaves in an out-of-control manner," and, my personal favorite, that she can be "very judgmental." Shocking quality for a judge, no?
What I find most bitterly amusing about the Important Questions Being Raised regarding Sotomayor's temperament is that all it took for a big article in the Times were a few reports that she's feisty and headstrong. Meanwhile, John McCain—who was a presidential candidate, not a Supreme Court nominee—spent an entire career being a belligerent, reactionary, ill-tempered punk, and the media made only a half-hearted attempt to question if he had the temperament to run the country, and did so under casual headlines like McCain in battle to keep his cool (post with excerpt here) and Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator.
The double-standard is so blatant, I'm honestly amazed by anyone who has the brass audacity to try to deny it.
The fact is that there was no violent distrust between blacks and whites in the 20th century. Rather there was a one-sided war waged against black people by white terrorists, which government, in the best cases, failed to prevent, in many cases, stood idly by, and in the worst cases actually aided and abetted. I'm sorry but comparing that to whatever's happening between blacks and Latinos, is a slander against both those groups, and an amazingly naive take on the history of white America in regards to race.
Go read this whole post by Ta-Nehisi, in which he takes down an article in Time that he quite politely calls "an unfortunate and deeply problematic article on Sotamayor's effect on the relationship between blacks and Latinos."
(In light of yesterday's total clusterfucktastrophe of a news day, I thought I'd post something a little more light-hearted. Runaway Car aired once, on Fox, the evening of January 21, 1997. It has not hit the airwaves since. This is my second favourite made-for-TV movie, right after Dead Ahead starring Stephanie Zimbalist.)
I'm not going to bother explaining the chain of events that led to three total strangers and an infant being trapped in a car together, because it really doesn't matter. All that matters is this car is on the highway, hurtling to its doom. The title sums up the plot quite succinctly. There isn't a whole lot more to the film than that.
The car is stuck in gear, pedal to the proverbial metal, zooming down the freeway at 80 miles per. At first the Highway Patrol assumes Jenny (Nina Siemaszko) is just a reckless scofflaw and quickly engages in a pursuit. But Ed (Judge Reinhold) suddenly remembers he has a mobile phone and dials 911, letting the cops in on their predicament.
So now the cops have to figure out a safe way to resolve the situation. That is, if the bureaucrats don't muck things up. Like the mayor of Springfield ("The City That Never Stops"). He's assembled a water barrier to keep the dangerous vehicle out of his town. It doesn't do much, except splash everywhere, but it does send a message to the passengers: the authorities are not interested in helping them.
And things aren't any better at the state line. The Governor has ordered the drawbridge raised, there is no way he's letting this two-ton speeding bullet into Seaport, not on his watch. I'm not sure that was his actual dialogue, but it's close enough. The passengers decide to take matters into their own hands, and send Dexter (Brian Hooks) out to disable the car's wiring under the hood. Not a great plan at 80 MPH, but better than drowning. I guess. That doesn't work. Like hitting the brakes didn't work, and how monkeying with the ignition didn't work either.
It's clear nothing is going to stop this car. Nothing except splashing into the bay or running out of gas, whichever comes first. The decision is made that the infant must be saved and an attempt is made to pass her out the window to a nearby cop car. Ed doesn't have the nerve to let go of the kid dangling inches above the asphalt and the plan is quickly scrapped.
Watching Judge Reinhold attempt to act distraught is almost as ridiculous as the fake baby he drapes out the window. (See left.)
However, they don't have a problem attaching the kid to a flimsy looking rope dangling from a news copter and chucking her out the sunroof. Of course, they probably should have checked to see if there were any overpasses on the horizon. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. Luckily, the baby doesn't go splat. That's one down, three to go, and all our passengers have to worry about is that drawbridge. Given, it's a pretty major obstacle and the Governor has no intention of backing down.
But when the officer escorting the runaway car disregards orders to break away, and reveals his intentions to stick with the pursuit to the end, the Governor has no choice. He's got to lower the bridge or risk killing a cop. The thing is, it'll take seven minutes to lower the bridge, but the cars will be there in six! Authorities will need to slam the bridge shut, but Willie Mae, the Sassy Black Woman™ who operates the bridge does not like this idea at all, and makes it perfectly clear. No one messes with her baby, not even the Governor!
(As an aside, I want to point out that the cantankerous draw-bridge operator is played by Ketty Lester, who sang the enormously popular hit song "Love Letters" in 1965.)
The bridge is lowered, just in the nick of time, and the runaway car sails quietly into the next state. Quietly? Yes! The car has finally run out of fuel and is coasting to safety. Oh, wait, no… What's that up ahead? A school bus! The marching band will be killed, unless Jenny does something drastic…
Oh, how I love this movie! It is unrepentantly silly. I was lucky enough to catch it on its premier airing on Fox back in 1997. So enamored of it I was that I emailed Fox and asked if they planned to air it again, so I could maybe videotape it. They were very kind in their response, but ignored my pleas to rebroadcast this gem. It took me nearly a decade to track down a DVD, and I had to import my copy from the UK. This film never fails to make me laugh whether it's Judge Reinhold's performance, or Ketty Lester's cameo, or the obviously fake baby or Springfield's tongue-in-cheek city motto. It's comedy gold, whether the filmmakers intended it or not. Though, I suspect they did.
"This baby Bornean orangutan was born late in 2008 and was one of only two born in the United States that year." This and many more pictures of the adorable pair are up at Zooborns. Photo by D. Rogers at the Brookfield Zoo.
Melissa and I were just chatting on the phone about what a shitty day it's been, and she said (which would totally be the quote of the day, if it wasn't up already, fuck you, Gibbs), "I know. I can't believe I had to quote Tootsie to someone."
After I finished laughing my ass off, I was reminded of a fun QOTD from the past that we haven't done in a while: What movie (or tv show, play, etc) do you find yourself quoting all the time?
I sometimes embarrass myself with the sheer amount of quotes from "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" that pepper my daily conversation. I try to stop, but I can't!
Like Diane Keaton, pictured here looking criminally adorable on the set of Morning Glory, a new J.J. Abrams-produced film with Harrison Ford (yay!), Rachel McAdams (yay!), Patrick Wilson (yay!), and Jeff Goldblum (yay!).
"Let's just say if I wanted to read—if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared in the Champion's League cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I am not entirely sure [British papers] would be the first stack of clips I picked up."—White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs earlier today, denying the veracity of the report in the Telegraph that there exist pictures of US soldiers, translators, and/or interrogators raping detainees.
You know what? Fuck you, Gibbs. And fuck you, Obama, for letting your spokesman get away with pulling the same "ooh, Europe, grody!" shit that the Bushies used to pull. It's disrespectful, it's insipid, it's evasive, and it's colossally hypocritical, given the state of the American media, who, last I checked, were key players in reporting bullshit to get us into the very war whence the detainee abuse comes.
And I see like all of your other "principled stances," restoring America's reputation in the world is also negotiable the moment it's useful to trash-talk another country to cover your own ass.
Well, if there was any doubt (there wasn't) that Whataboutthemenz?!, Inc.—aka Men in Power—was little more than a misogyny club for angsty hipsters to lament being born in an age when men's birthright of undeserved privilege is questioned by uppity bitchez, the appearance of its founder, Steve Saltarelli, on MSNBC earlier today (recorded and uploaded for us by dear Mr. Petulant) pretty much stomps the fuck out of any lingering possibility something good might emerge from its existence.
[Transcript below.]
1. If he had been writing a genuinely satirical piece, that means he would have been supporting the formation of a "Men in Power" ironically and hence would have, in reality, never supported its actual formation, no less personally orchestrated it. More evidence that "hipster irony" is actually "mega bullshit."
2. No one's overlooking men's issues. And using prostate cancer underlines what a foolish claim that really is, given that prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the US. Meanwhile, breast cancer researchers and clinicians are still struggling how to best detect and diagnose breast cancer, though it claims as many lives (1 out of 35) as prostate cancer.
3. Really? Father's rights groups? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Really? Wow. Aligning yourselves with father's rights groups is an awesome idea. Way to convince people you're not just the College MRA Brigade.
4. If women are still not making as much as men even after attaining, as a group, a greater number of higher degrees than men, why the fuck are you worried about the numbers of women getting degrees versus the number of men? Clearly, not having a degree isn't an impediment to men's success, so the assertion that women are going to RULE THE WORLD OH NOES! in the "coming future" is total horseshit.
5. How is "a discernible change in the workplace gender dynamics" a bad thing if you believe in gender parity, given that the workplace still currently strongly favors men? (See: pay disparity, maternity leave affecting tenure, lack of diversity in middle and upper management, etc.)
6. "Um, our group is absolutely not [laughs] against women at all. Um, we're merely advocating for men."—This is literally the exact same thing said by white supremacist groups and the jokers who put on "straight pride" parades. It's patent codswallop when they say it, and it's patent codswallop when you say it.
7. Grow up.
Female Anchor Whose Name I Don't Know: —men, including our own Barack Obama. You don't think we've noticed that?
Saltarelli: Um, the article, it was an article for our school paper, the Chicago Maroon, and it was satirical in tone. Um, the group itself only formed afterwards, when I started receiving emails from around campus that there was an actual interest in, in male advocacy in, and some of the issues that uniquely affect men on campus.
Anchor: So here you are, you write this satirical letter—and it's pretty entertaining, I have to say—and then you get response from guys saying, "Yeah, that's right; we need some representation." Do you really feel that there's something missing from your life, and maybe other guys like you, that need advocacy?
Saltarelli: Well, I think it's really easy to overlook a lot of issues that, um, that affect men, especially our age. Um, we have to deal with things like prostate cancer, testicular cancer, um, men age twenty to twenty-four have an instance of suicide seven times higher than, um, females of the same age. Um, in addition, there are a number of issues with, um, fathers' rights groups, uh, that we will also, uh, be looking into talking about.
Anchor: Let me ask you, see, those are obviously very serious issues, but do you think men are being underserved in that respect?
Saltarelli: I'm not sure we're being underserved, but I think, I think it's easy to overlook us, and I think it's easy to—
Anchor: How so?
Saltarelli: —to brush us—
Anchor: How is it easy to overlook?
Saltarelli: Um, well, I mean, if you look in the media, uh, prostate cancer, for instance, isn't covered nearly as, as aggressively as breast cancer is. Whereas, they affect people, um, in about equal numbers—
Anchor: But heart disease, for example, in men— But heart disease, for example, was once seen as a disease of men, when, in fact, it was affecting women in great numbers.
Saltarelli: Yeah, I mean, that may be the case, but, um, these issues are still pertinent.
Anchor: What about workforce issues and pay? You have women still making seventy cents to the dollar that men make.
Saltarelli: Right, I mean, if you look at the Fortune 500, 97% of the CEOs in the Fortune 500 are men. But we think that this represents, um, the structure that was in place in universities and in the types of degrees women were getting 30 years ago. And now if you look at it, you have 58% of graduating, uh, college seniors as female. And another 60% of graduate students are female.
Anchor: Let me ask you—
Saltarelli: So this is going to represent a discernible—
Anchor: What kind of—
Saltarelli: —a discernible change in the workplace gender dynamics in the coming future.
Anchor: What kind of response have you gotten? I read a couple of women on your campus believe this is misogynistic, and that, obviously, women needed advocacy groups because you have—and you still do—have a glass ceiling above the heads of so many women.
Saltarelli: Yeah. I mean, overwhelmingly our response has been positive. Um, our group is absolutely not [laughs] against women at all. Um, we're merely advocating for men. It's not a zero-sum thing. Um, if, if we cultivate men in leadership, it doesn't mean that there can't, that there has to be less women in leadership. Um.
Anchor: And how many members do you have?
Saltarelli: But overwhelmingly when I talk to people— How many numbers?
Anchor: How many members?
Saltarelli: Uh, about— How many members? We have, um, about 125 members right now.
Anchor: And has the school approved your application to form this group yet?
Saltarelli: They have not approved it yet. Um, it is pending; it was approved by the student advisory board, and the university has never gone against the ruling of the student advisory board.
Anchor: All right, well, we'll see what happens, uh, once it's—you're approved or not. Hopefully, we'll follow up with you, Steve. Thank you.
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(In light of yesterday's total clusterfucktastrophe of a news day, I thought I'd post something a little more light-hearted. Runaway Car aired once, on Fox, the evening of January 21, 1997. It has not hit the airwaves since. This is my second favourite made-for-TV movie, right after Dead Ahead starring Stephanie Zimbalist.)
Watching Judge Reinhold attempt to act distraught is almost as ridiculous as the fake baby he drapes out the window. (See left.) 
