Death has a strange way of reshuffling one’s priorities. . .

I feel the need to say something one last time prior to the election, late though it may be.  The way I’ve heard it, the race is pretty much neck and neck despite what the statistics say.  Either party could win.  Now, I wanted to write this first part to make a point.  I want to be able to say “I told you so” if the Democrats win and if B.H. Obama makes good on his promises when we end up with the worst economy since President Carter was in office.  I want to be able to say “I told you so” when the employment rate drops like a stone when taxes are raised.  I want to be able to say “I told you so” when we get attacked because people from outside this country who hate us, attack us (Biden guaranteed that this would happen within sixth months, though admittedly it might be something less violent than a direct attack as he didn’t give specifics.)  And I want to be able to say “I told you so” when the government tries to take away free speech from the radio and the internet and who know how many other rights.

It only partially matters though.  Republicans, Democrats, or in this case, Capitalists and Socialists (Marxists), countries, economics, institutions of men.  All of this is fleeting.

What if I told you that you had one year left to live?  You’d play things a little differently from day to day from what you do now.  This is a pretty common question.  One year, one month, one week, one day left to live.  But what if I told you that you were going to live forever?  That the very mountains would turn to dust and the sun itself would fade into entropy and you would still continue on.  Would you live differently?

I have tried in recent months to shift my gaze higher.  With politics on everyone’s lips, causing stress, threatening and even causing violence, has reminded me that everything in this world is temporary.  I love the United States of America.  Greatest country in the contemporary world no ifs, ands, or buts.  However, the fact remains that it will not last.  One day, it will pass, either by foreign powers, it’s own people, or the will of God.  I’d much rather have this nation last as long and healthily as possible, but it’s debatable if I can exercise enough power to keep it going that long.

So I have to remind myself of the key fact (and yes, I’m going to get a touch preachy; deal with it or move along) that the world is passing, but there’s a good chance I’ll exist forever and the scant century that I exist on Earth for will at some point only be a half remembered, bitter-sweet dream.  See how that can shift importance?  Of what importance are the fleeting materials of this life when one has eternity to deal with?  Not that the well being of this nation, being a productive person and doing something with your life aren’t all well and good, but most people seem to treat them as the end-all, be-all of their existence.

Over the past year, I have had a spiritual inspiration of sorts.  Not so much a revelation as a growth spurt.  I am unabashedly Christian.  ”I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile,” Romans 1:16.  I am quite serious when I say you, I, and everyone else who has ever been and ever will be will exist forever.  But it’s a little more complex.  Every person must choose between two paths; the light or the dark, the truth or the lie.  A person can seek to live with God and become what they were meant to be, or they can choose to eternally separate themselves from him and fall forever.

The increased spiritual fire that burns inside me combined with an increased awareness (still limited awareness I grant you, but increased nonetheless) has caused me to reflect on the world, my existence, and my place in the universe.  I’m not the best Follower of God; I have a great many personality flaws not least of all has been focusing on the physical that is immediately around me.  I think it’s time to set my sights higher, difficult though that is.  I find that the eternally consistent, though much harder to predict, Kingdom of Heaven is a better lifetime focus than angry, petty politics of passing nations of men.   Not that politics and nations aren’t fun or without a point, just not all important, ya dig?

So, you’re going to exist forever.

What are you going to do about it?

Free Culture Discussion

Here is work done for a reading for my net art class regarding a reading of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig.

1) A) How important is the differentiation between creative concepts and practical concepts in copyright?  For example a specific novel versus a computer programming format, or a film versus methods of film production.

 

B) If Law can influence or control the other three regulators, is it possible for the law to gain too much control over that which is being regulated?  When does protection become restriction?  When does restriction become suppression?

 

C) Does a good chunk of this discussion burn down to how much control a producer has over their product?

 

2) A) Argument and debate over copyrights have been nearly continuous for nearly three hundred years of western society.

B) In the United States, dealing with copyright laws can be a tangled, messy and very expensive affair depending on who is involved.

C) As technology advances, new issues crop up and new laws are written to deal with them, which can make the entire concept or process even more convoluted and nonsensical than it was to begin with.

D) Control, protection, regulation are delegated to four different powers with the power of law having a certain amount of potential to overarch all of it.

E) The issue will always be a complex one, but it may be beneficial to look through our copyright system as it stands and give it a gutting, remolding and a polishing.

 

3) What does parody law cover?  I know Weird Al doesn’t have to get permission to make his parodies even though he always asks permission. Doesn’t it just require changing a minimum of 50% of the original material?

 

4) Historical Legalese or Legal-Speak is pretty much tough going no matter how good the rest of the book is.  This is very thick stuff, admittedly, it could be worse by being “drier”.  I found it slow going particularly during the history lesson and found it all fairly hard to digest and probably need to pour over it again.  From what I am able to absorb, most of it makes good sense and it seems that in an overall perspective, copyright law has as much good meat to it as near absurdities.

The reading does however make me worry for our continued freedom on the Internet and even other areas.  To an extent, it frequently seems we are given choices between government control and big business control.  Personally, I lean towards businesses because so long as there are enforced anti-monopoly laws in place, you can always give your patronage to another company even if your choices are limited where as government control is by definition a monopoly and the only other option one has is emigration.

In addition, my priorities with copyright law and how it affects me is essentially limited to 1) do I have control over my intellectual creations, 2) do I get credit for it and 3) if money is being made explicitly off of my creations, do I get my share?

We’re Not Gonna Take It

One

Gettin’ frustrated.

Two

Gonna loose it.

Three

That’s it.

I’m getting fed up with this election.  Particularly sick of the holy and media anointed B. H. Obama.  I’ll be blunt, he’s deceptive and inept.  His campaign revolves around one particular number: $25,000.  He says that he won’t raise taxes on small businesses or individuals who make that amount or less.  This is probably a truth.  But he has gone on to say that most small businesses make $25,000 or less.  This is either an out and out lie on Barry’s part or he’s more ignorant that I feared.  Most small businesses make more than $25,000, as an example, a small time lumber operation is still qualifies as small if it makes somewhere around $75 million or less.  I work for a small business that employs less than a hundred people and has seven actual stores and I’m pretty sure that as a chain, we make more than $25,000 a month in sales.

B.H.O. wants to raise the taxes on all businesses period.  He’s either lying or not much of a thinker if he says otherwise.  And although the “messiah” most likely won’t raise my taxes as I make minimum wage, if he raises taxes, there’s the distinct possibility that I’ll loose my job because his socialist taxes will kill jobs, businesses and the economy.  I am disgusted and frustrated that so many people accept his ideas.

But then, maybe they don’t.  It’s hard to tell since people, most people, don’t particularly like thinking about politics, they’ll listen and accept whatever the mainstream media spoon-feeds them.  Way I see it there is three types of Liberals.

1)  Your Typical Democrat. Average Joe type person.  These people are not stupid, but not very thoughtful or reflective.  They are people who don’t think some things through or seek out information, or if they do, it’s by the easiest means possible from the people who have the most and the loudest megaphones.  They accept what they are told is popular opinion without question and follow along with it because it makes them feel good about themselves without having to do much of anything or think about it for more than two minutes.  This is not stupidity; it’s avoidance of a painful topics that require effort to deal with.  Self imposed ignorance from laziness more than anything else.

2) Power Players.These are the manipulators, the rich, the power mongers, the heartless, the users.  The Clintons, the established politicians, the media moguls, the dictators of the activist organizations.  These are people that preach and push the leftist agenda to their own ends to increase in wealth and power and more firmly establish themselves so they cannot be removed from their positions of power and privilege, usually at the cost of the rest of society; “You have to become poor socialists and give up all your disposable income for the good of the nation, but we’ll just keep our money to ourselves and if you disagree with us, then you’re a bad, racist, oppressive and greedy person.”

3) Activists. The foot soldiers, the whiners the people who scream, cry and whine the loudest.  Made up of your college students, and hippies and so on.  These people are loud, noisy sheep who follow anything that makes them feel like they’re the main character in their own personal movie.  They are people who feel empty inside and have a lack of meaning to their lives.  They are easily manipulated and are prone to dislike thinking critically, especially if it contradicts the dogma of their group.  These are crusaders with a religous zeal for their cause with bucketfuls of blind faith in it.  These people are elitists; mostly made up of middle and upper middle class people who have only benefited and owe everything to the free, capitalist society of the United States of America and yet they hate this country.  They can’t stand it because rebelling against it is the only thing that gives their pathetic, and spoiled existence meaning.  These are people who espouse the values of communism and socialism when they haven’t had to truly work for anything and you’d have to break their arm to give a cent of their allowance from mommy and daddy to charity.  They also think everyone else in this country, the people who disagree with them in particular, are complete and utter idiots who need everything done for them whether they want it or not.

You want to see an elite activist, look at Michael Moore; an overweight, rabblerouser (and quite possible liar) who gets fatter and fatter from capitalism by selling his trashy movies and books that insult and denounce the very system that makes him fat and happy. Wait wait wait.  What am I saying?  There’s no such thing as a happy liberal.

Now, contrary to popular impressions, most of society is not made up of any of these three groups, not even Typical Democrats make up the majority of the nation.  Last I heard, 59% or so of the nation’s population classifies itself as “somewhat conservative”.  But the problem is, most people share the Typical Democrats’ lazieness and apathy when it comes to politics and the like.  They have their views, but they don’t want to think much or sift through facts and what not.

Now back to Barack Hussain Obama.  How can anyone vote for this guy unless they’re a hard left socialist or communist who hates what made this country a super power in less than two hundred years?  He’s going to send this country from an economic downturn into a full blown depression by his excessive spending, tax increases and killing the economy.  He’s also associated with a couple racist anti-Semites.  Also with an unrepentant killer and terrorist who wants nothing more than to gut this country’s institutions and replace it with tyrannical socialism and praises oppressive dictators, is praised by dictators and is currently trying to turn the educational system into even more of a leftist brainwashing and propagandizing institution.

I mention these associations because there are two options.  Since Obama has disassociated with these people and denounced their veiws, he either became freinds with them and was so blunt and unobservant, he didn’t realize what their veiws were in which case he wouldn’t know dung was in front of him until he stepped in it, which seems even lower on the intelligence scale than people like to say Bush is, or he associates with people for the sake of politics and dumps them without a second thought so he can gain more power in which case he is a very typical politician.

And as far as socialism goes, the anointed one has said himself:

“It’s not that I want to punish your success.  I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too.  I think when you spred the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Right, and I’m not supposed to think this is socialism or outright Marxism?  Okay, I have to give up half my income to someone else just because they make less than I do.  Where’s the fairness in that?  I work hard for my money.  I think I should have the right to keep it for myself and dispence it as I see fit and I see no reason why anyone has to give anyone else money just because they make more than someone else whether it’s five times or five thousand times more.  A person ought to have a right to their income.  If someone who’s “poor” wants more money; fine.  Work hard, be diligent, try try and try again.  This country is the land of opportunity.  If a person applies his or her self, they can accomplish anything here on their own.  I still believe that.   I am so sick of people complaining, begging, like the government and the rest of the society owes them something.  If anyone hasn’t had some measure of personal success in this country, then there’s a decent chance they’re not trying or thinking hard enough.

Oh, I don’t deny there are problems and corruption (corruption that won’t be removed if Obama gets into office by the way) but it’s a darn good system if it’s put us as a nation on the top of the world.

I am a Conservitive.I am a conservative because I beleive people are smart and capable.  I beleive in rights for the individual, and I beleive in rights to free speech and property.  I beleive that people have a right to be free from government and I beleive that government should meddle in people’s affairs as little as possible, not that regulation doesn’t have it’s place.  I think that government is a creation of man, and all creations of man are imperfect and so governments are best when they have the bare minimum as possible.  I beleive that the Constitution of the United States should be treated as the Pirate Code from the third Caribbean movie; “The Code is the law.”

All of you leftists out there, bite me.

Economic Logic

I’ve tried reflecting on how the economy works, in a simple sense anyway. Lets walk through my reasoning and see if it makes sense.

There are two basic types of products provided in our society; essentials and nonessentials; needs and wants. Both providers of needs and wants form large parts of our economy. My job depends on fulfilling a want, not a need. Thousands of people in this nation depend in one way or another on people buying things they don’t necessarily need to continue living, surviving, etc. The people who are the biggest supporters of nonessentials are the people with disposable income. And the people who have the most disposable income are in the upper tax brackets, they make the most money.

Now, what happens when you take money away from people? Obviously, they have less to spend. If they have less to spend, they can’t buy as many products, and as such, they’ll cut back on their consumption of nonessentials before they cut back on essentials.

If you take money away the upper and middle classes, they’ll stop spending as much. If they stop spending, businesses make less money. When that happens, the businesses don’t expand; they’re less likely to take risks, like a game store buying one newly released game instead of the three they planned on. Then, the suppliers and manufactures make less money. If spending keeps decreasing, then businesses may have to make cut backs, no raises for well performing employees, shortening hours, letting employees go, even closing stores in a chain or shutting down completely.

When that happens, more people outside of the higher classes have less and less to spend. As they have less to spend, they’ll buy less and when they buy less, businesses suffer more, more people make less money until the economy can level out and everyone is miserable, with unemployment high and new jobs a scarce commodity.

I feel the need to spell this out since some people feel the need to vote for a certain candidate who has stated he intends to raise taxes on the upper classes to a combined total of over 50% when the current state and federal taxes are added in, not to mention the upper tax bracket is already paying something like 70%+ of the total national taxes. Throw in the inane idea to raise the minimum wage to $10, and I don’t see how the national economy could keep going. I make minimum wage, I fear for my job and future financial security if these things come to pass. The cut in profits that a tax hike would cause and a required raising of the minimum wage might get me fired or my store shut down if it does particularly badly. And if the state starts making less from sales tax due to people not spending as much, they’ll raise the other taxes. And if the federal government looses funds from income taxes due to people loosing jobs, they’ll raise the taxes on the middle class and that breaks the economy even more. And I for one would like to be able to have the funds to graduate.

I’m an artist, or I would like to be one. And I accept the best way to make money off of art is to make sure that the rich have plenty of money to spend on whatever they want.

Please, vote wisely.

Art Theory

Family plans have called me away from class this coming Wednesday but so I can participate in the discussion, this is an entry about my immediate reaction to the reading (which is probably better since I tend to write easier than I speak.

The first reading is A Hacker Manifesto by Wark.  Dry, painfully so.  For the most part, I have nothing but dislike for having to read this thick, high and mighty sort of art theory because it’s so painfully boring and terribly hard to focus on.  But here’s my question; What’s new?  More complaints about classes, about the social order about semi-imagined power struggles.  Seriously, half the time in papers like this, it’s written by a pompous, spoiled middle class youngun with too much time on their hands and a meaningless life and a love affair with the concept of the world-saving rebel to the point where revolution is the only possible worthwhile thing to do.  If there’s nothing unjust to rebel against, then just rebel against whatever you can find!  Perhaps it doesn’t apply to this work, but the typical affliction of using “intellectual” terms just display narcissism and a vain attempt to show off to one’s peers instead of explaining one’s self in the clearest. simplest terms.  I apologize for most likely missing the point, but it was so frustrating to read while staring at the screen that I got a headache.

The second reading was the ABC’s of Tactical Media by David Garcia and Geert Lovink.  Another hard read, but slightly less painful as it wasn’t nearly as long.  Getting the point out of these types of works is like pulling teeth.  The bottom line of this was . . .what?  People taking the power to produce from the producers of media and taking it upon themselves?  One of the first thoughts I has was if it is thought the main stream media isn’t biased, then people haven’t been paying attention.  Everyone claims to hate the media, but so many people just listen to it anyway.

Yeah, looking it over it again, I need it explained to me.  After reading these things, struggling to understand it, I don’t get it.  I am a craftsman.  I have a certain amount of indulgence in philosophy and other deep thinking topics.  I like examining such things to a slightly blunt extent.  But with art; I don’t care about a cultural revolution.  Capitalism is funding my college education and hopefully eventual graduation and capitalists with disposable income may pay me for art some day.  I have no wish to overthrow them.  All I want is the freedom to draw well, from realistic to being an American who can draw manga and anime style en par with Japanese artists, write my stories well, and be able to lay claim to what’s mine for as long as I live.

Signing off, have a good break and don’t lynch me when I get back.

Humble Greetings

Welcome my friends, come inside!  Come inside!

I’d offer a seat and a drink, but I suppose introductions are in order.  I’m a young, inexperienced artist attending college seeking to learn the blending of art and technology, that is, Digital art.  I am, among other things, a dreamer, a wanna-be-writer, an anime fanatic, a cynic, a romantic, a thinker, as rabid sci-fi and fantasy lover, a martial artist, a visual artist, a Christian, and very opinionated.  I’m an Oxymoron.  Here, you may call me Oxym.

I normally try to keep my opinions low key.  Being overtly opinionated can make for conflict and ill feelings.  Needless to say, I dislike such unneeded strife.  So, here is my invitation; my topics will, hopefully, be varied though leaning on the side of geekdom.  Every reader that should deem my words worth the reading does honor to me and I will assume that anyone who does so is willing to sit, share a cup of tea and share intellectual discourse as reasonable adults.  As reasonable adults, I will present my musings, my thoughts, my puzzlings, and yes, even my opinions here.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to hold to this invitation myself and it shall be just about my only rule.

I’ll make a more substantial post soon.  Until then. . .