| This week:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
TOP |
Tuesday, August
22, 2000
I usually like to do fiction in the mornings, but I have
to wait for the exterminators. We have rats in the attic. These are
the California variety who are about half a squirrel, but they are still
rodents in the house. When we had a cat she kept them under control, but
alas, Roberta's allergies don't let us keep a cat any longer. We had a
beautiful cat, and I washed her every couple of days -- she got to the
point where she didn't exactly mind being dunked in warm soapy water since
she got a lot of attention out of it -- but it was still hard on Roberta,
and when Samantha died we didn't replace her. I must say I miss having a
cat around the house. So does the dog, who came here as a 4 week old puppy
to find this grown cat ruling the house. He became her little and later
her big brother, and as she got older, instead of fighting other cats who
would come into the yard, she'd use the dog/cat door to go inside, get
Sasha, and take him out to chase the intruder away. First time I saw that
I thought it was an accident, but it wasn't. Anyway we have
rats, and they have to go... 
The
Artist once again known as Prince (he changed his name to spite the record
companies and changed it back when some of their contracts expired) is out
there campaigning for fair play, and deserves support. The record industry
-- well, I can't say they did it. Let's say that a Congressional staffer
inserted some stuff into the copyright law, and the Congress passed it
without reading it, and now all works done are works for hire, meaning
that the record industry, as greedy a bunch of Scrooges as ever I heard
of, has copyrights that NEVER expire. This isn't what copyright was
supposed to do. And of course the staffer then went to work for the
record industry at a bit salary. Surprise! The staffer's
story is that all he did was put into law something long practiced by the
industry and brought the law into line with custom. From
WIRED: The RIAA hired
Mitch Glazier, the chief counsel to the Senate subcommittee that
passed the legislation, just three months after the controversial clause
was added -- sparking outrage from the music community including artists
Sheryl Crow and Don Henley. Now this man was either
incompetent: because it was NOT the standing practice of the industry as
anyone could have found out with a day's work -- or he is something other
than incompetent. Never ascribe to malice that which
is fully explainable by incompetence, said Napoleon Bonapart, but people
at his level are seldom that incompetent. Everyone
now says they are going to change the law to fix all that Real Soon Now,
and make it retroactive, and they are all sorry, and you can believe as
much of that as you want to. The real problem is that
Imperial Washington has undertaken to run so much of our lives that the
Congress can't even read the laws it passes. Copyright is important, and
legitimate federal, and if the Congresscritters minded the business they
are supposed to pay attention to this wouldn't have happened. But they
didn't, and don't, and the only remedy is to devolve back to the states
most of the authority over our day to day lives so that Congress has the
blooming time to pay attention to genuine Federal matters. We
could also double the size of the House with some profit. More
Congresscritters and fewer staffers. More responsible officials and fewer
anonymous types who make one big legislative move and then go on to be
hired by industry. Of course it ain't going to
happen. But so it goes in the land of the free.
TOP |
CLICK HERE for
a Special Request. 
