Archive for 2/4/2008 - 28 Shevat, 5768

The mayor of New Paltz is following the lead of the mayor of San Francisco. Gay marriages have begun on the court house steps of this small, New York town. The governor of the State of New York is examining his options.

So…what mayor of what small town will next decide he wants a little bit of limelight? This could be fun to watch, as town by town decides to join in.

Quick! Call the mayor of Belleville!

[Note: While the above is a joke, in reference to my prior post on Belleville and trends, this would be a huge coup…and would guarantee some interesting press. In that while Belleville is pretty much a fairly insignificant town on the national scene, there is a fairly important individual who happens to live there. Bishop Gregory, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. I have no idea what the Mayor’s thoughts are on the issue, but I highly suspect while the he is a Democrat (had to looks this up actually), he has no intent of starting what would likely start if he made such an announcement.]

Might Belleville, IL actually become known as a trendsetter?

Perhaps.

A restaurant there, Eckert’s Country Restaurant, “recently started offering children’s DVDs and portable players for use while families dine.” In only one week demand has forced them to increase supply. Any parent with kids knows how hard it is to get a restless youngster to behave while at a restaurant. The restaurant is calling it a “Sports bar for kids.”

National Industry experts can’t come up with another restaurant that’s tried this yet. But it’s such a natural idea (at least it seems so to me) that I can’t imagine others won’t hear about this and say “let’s do it too!”.

As the article notes - Eckert’s realizes this is a risky proposition — kids are known to break stuff. They’re probably hoping that the profits from the increased business will outweigh the costs. I suspect there are already, or soon will be, sturdy ‘kid proof’ dvd players on the market.

Missouri Supreme Court has declared the Concealed Gun law constitutional.

(In part…they do say that in four counties it violates the Hancock Ammendment, since it doesn’t fund the gun permits, and all legislation must provide for funding.

So in those four counties gun permits won’t be allowed to be distributed until such funding is provided. They continue to argue since the statistics of how much it would cost were only provided for those counties, it doesn’t violate the Hancock Ammendment in those counties statistics weren’t provided for. As if somehow permits will be free of charge, there.)

But even in those four counties, people can conceal their guns purchased with non-concealed gun permits in their glove compartment.

It doesn’t really say when it goes into effect, but since the injunction against the law was removed, I suspect the law goes into effect immediately, unless a new injunction is somehow placed against it.

***

Interestingly, with the Hancock Ammendment not being applied state-wide, they have opened up the possibility that this will become, and remain localized.

Those counties where the people are against the idea…these counties will open a new case against the law, and argue the Hancock Ammendment. It will be a fairly straight forward process. Since the State Supreme Court granted the arguments of the four counties that already have done so, there’s no reason to suspect other counties won’t get a parallel response. But those counties where the people like the law, don’t have to pursue the course.

Naturally, if the legislature updates the law to actually provide enough funding, then this way out is closed.

fellow local blogger, Angelweave writes about falling behind in the books she intended to review in her blog. (Not in the books she has read.)

I haven’t read as much as she has, however, I mentioned in January there were several I had read recently I was going to review. And of course, you haven’t seen any of those reviews yet.

She also speaks about authors emailing you when they discover your reviews. My only similar story is in high school I wrote my favorite author, and he wrote back. In high school, my favorite author wasn’t Victor Hugo, it was Joseph Heller. And at the time, Heller was alive. So receiving a letter from him wasn’t spooky. [Read the postcard he sent me.]

I will write those reviews. At the top of the list:

Three books of poetry: 2 of Victor Hugo, 1 of Yehuda Amichai
Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons
and maybe Judith O’Brien’s Mary Jane (Yes, I’ve read it. Research. I’m writing a young adult novel.)

I still haven’t read Jimmy Carter’s novel. But once I’ve finished it, I will review it.

(My apologies if my rusty Latin is incorrect. I’m sure someone will correct me if it is.)

A pastor put a sign in front of his church in Denver

“Jews killed the Lord Jesus” The pastor claimed it wasn’t hateful, to quote him, “It would be hateful if it pointed at anybody alive today.”

Reminded me of reading Longfellow’s poem in High School: The Jewish Cemetery at Newport

1. How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
25. Gone are the living, but the dead remain,

and the poem ends:
57. But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
58. The groaning earth in travail and in pain
59. Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
60. And the dead nations never rise again.

To quote Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain: The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!

The case brought agaisnt Apple awhile ago by the Beatles Entered London’s High Court today.

Apple Computers was named partially as a nod to the Beatles “Apple Corps”. In 1989, when Apple computers added ‘music capabilities’ to their computers, the Beatles and Apple Corps sued. (Music capabilities included items such as ‘alert sounds’). A deal was worked out in 1991 that granted Apple Computers the right to their logo for “computers, data processing and telecommunications”, but not music.

With the introduction of ITunes, Apple Corps sued again.

Apple probably believed ITunes fell enough under computers and telecommunications. That’s now being settled by the courts.

Eminem has sued Apple for apparently using some of the lyrics to his song Lose Yourself in an ad.

My pipe dream is that this wasn’t a communication problem, and that Apple’s lawyers made a conscious decision to ignore Eminem’s refusal — deciding if he sued, they’d fight under the Fair Use clause.

This of course would be a horrible business decision since it would infuriate the music industry, and ITunes would probably suffer. (No, it definitely would.) So it is likely just a pipe dream.

But the music industry insists that quoting lines from songs, regardless of the amount of quoting, isn’t fair use. They insist on being paid for even the slightest use. Actions that would clearly be covered under the “Fair Use” clause when dealing with written works, BMI, ASCAP, and musicians will sue over when it comes to their properties. And people pay rather than fighting it in courts.

What we need is someone big enough and strong enough to say, no, sorry, you don’t have the legal right to do this. The Fair Use clasue of the Copyright Law applies to you too.

(Note: We are not dealing here with the use of Eminem’s voice, or even the sampling of his music. We have a boy in an ad singing lyrics.)

Update

Here’s section 107 of the copryight law, aka the Fair Use clause It does imply it is not meant for commercial endeavors. So Apple would not be a good candidate for bringing this case. We need another musician using someone’s music/lyrics in their own song (as comment or criticism). We need to go a little further than the parody battles that have already been fought — such as 2 Live Crew’s (I think it was them) parody of Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman.

As suggested in the comments section, Apple’s best defense would be they got permission from someone other than Eminem who they believe had the authority to grant permission. Or proof of some communication from Eminem that could have been misinterpreted dated after the communication they’re presenting.

Apple’s other defense might be somewhat circuitous. The evidence Eminem is presenting is a letter from Apple lawyers asking a question, paraphrase: “To confirm, you aren’t granting permission.” The article doesn’t mention any evidence being presented by Eminem of a response to that letter.

Maybe Apple’s lawyers are going to try to claim that a lack of response implied consent. But absent any evidence that Apple did or tried to pay Eminem the $300,000 (the agreed upon compensation for the song Slim Shady, which Apple wanted Eminem to grant Losing Yourself for instead)…I don’t know.

Evidence Mel Gibson’s intent with his latest movie has nothing to do with money:

Official Movie Merchandise

Yes, that’s right, you can buy yourself a pendantthe shape of a nail, it will only cost you 30 pieces of silver. (Yes, that was way too easy, and I should have refrained.)

I found out about this latest development at Xoverboard

Most interesting, I find the Aramaic lapel pin, Aramaic Pocket Reminder, and the Aramaic Passion Mugs. Each contains the “Aramaic word for Passion”.

It looks Hebrew to me, not Aramaic. (I don’t know if it’s the Hebrew word for Passion, or the Aramaic word written with Hebrew letters.)

But since I’m no expert, I will let you make the decision yourself:

Here’s the graphic for the mug from the site:

Here’s the Aramaic alphabet

Here’s the Hebrew alphabet

[look at the Hebrew letters labeled: Samek, Bet, Lamed, Het, Alep]

Perhaps someone should tell Mel his merchandisers have made a small mistake.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: I have been informed that both Aramaic and Hebrew lettering have evolved over time, and the Ancient Aramaic I am more familiar with and linked to above actually pre-dates Jesus. By the time of Jesus the two languages were both using the same letters. Therefore, the merchandise, while tacky, is actually linguistically correct, and it is I who made the mistake.

Nader has announced he is running…this time as an independent, and not as the Green Party candidate.

I’ve heard enough people who I know voted for Nader in 2000 say they wouldn’t vote for him this time around, that I am not too concerned about his affect on the election.

Third-party candidacies are often about protest votes. Bush was enough of an unknown that enough people who were upset with the moderate-conservative policies of the Clinton presidency were willing to make a protest vote for Nader. Bush is no longer an unknown. There will be no need to look for a protest vote from the Left. (Nader might get some 2000-Bushies to vote for him though.)

At least, that’s what I hope.

(Oh, sure, there are other newspapers I could have linked to, but I thought that was a fun one. Nader claims that both parties look the same…it might be an “Ivy League” mentality thing. Since Nader graduated from Princeton, he might think everyone from Yale is the same. And now that it looks like Kerry might get the nomination, he decided to step into the race. Come to think of it, that might be why he entered the race in 2000. Gore graduated from Harvard. It might be an Ivy League rivalry thing)

First, it was Prince William who paid for ice cream at a theater with a five pound note, and had to be told it wasn’t enough. One has to assume the theater had signs posted explaining how much the food cost.

Now, it’s the Earl of Wessex, on a visit to Nashville, being told it’s illegal to walk where he’s walking. Once again, I am sure since Nashville has many tourists, there are lots of signs.

Of course, it’s possible both are quite able to read, but:
1) it is beneath them to read signs like the common people
2) they are literate in some other language besides English

Richard Roeper, of the Chicago Sun-Times, shares his views on the Mel Gibson/Passion controversy.

I’ve seen the version of “The Passion of the Christ” that will play in theaters starting on Ash Wednesday - and I’ll soon share my views on the film. In the meantime, I’ve been pondering some other religious-themed movies I’ve seen in my four years on “Ebert & Roeper.”

Catholicism has been represented far more frequently than any other faith. I’ve probably seen more films about the Catholic Church - and movies with nuns or priests as supporting characters - than all other religions put together. From the last four years alone, I could easily put together a Catholic Film Festival - but I don’t think too many Catholics would be pleased with the entries.

Roeper’s main point is there are very few movies made with Jewish villains. There are a lot of movies made with Catholic villains. “No other religious group gets bashed with such frequency. Can you imagine a similar number of films with Jewish leaders playing villains and moral weaklings?”

I can only think of two off-hand. Bugsy - about real-life Jewish gangsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, and X-Men. (Yes, I know that Magneto isn’t completely evil. But Magneto is a comic book villain, is Jewish - a Holocaust survivor - and has no moral qualms about using violence to achieve his ends.) I don’t believe there was any outcry about either movie. I know I wasn’t upset about either of them.

So what makes The Passion different?

Well, one could be cynical, and say it’s because Gibson isn’t Jewish. (Chris Claremont, the creator of Magneto’s origin story, and Barry Levinson, the director of Bugsy, both are.) But I feel there is more to it than that. I wasn’t offended by either movie’s content. I see nothing wrong with Jewish villains in general. But I can’t think of a single movie where Catholics in general, or even one individual Catholic, is/are held responsible for the death of a god. (Actually, the only movie I can think of, where one religion’s God is killed, and it is blamed on another religion, and both religions are real, is The Passion.)

That’s a crime on a whole different level of any crime depicted in any movie Roeper mentions. The Passion is not a new story. Plays were produced in the middle ages with it as the theme. And these Passion plays helped spread the anti-semitism at the root of much persecution.

We live in a different era. Humanity has progressed. We’re more sophisticated. Audiences are not likely to react the same way now as they did 1000 years ago. But still, since The Pope “dropped the murder charges” against the Jewish people 40 years ago in Vatican 2, we had reason to believe, reason to hope the “Passion Play” wouldn’t be re-introduced.

A recent Poll shows if the election were held today, 55% of likely voters would vote for Kerry over Bush, and 54% would vote for Edwards over Bush. (Statistically identical results)

When they measured registered voters (instead of likely voters) there was a dead-heat between Bush and both Democratic candidates. One way to interpret this, might be when people were asked “are you planing on voting,” a greater number of people leaning towards Bush said no, or were unsure, than those leaning towards the Democratic candidates. Suggesting that even among those leaning towards Bush, there is enough dissatisfaction to keep them away from the polls.

In this country that seems to be split more and more 50-50, the Democrats don’t really need to increase the numbers that support them…they just need to strengthen the resolve of those who do suppport them, and increase the dissatisfaction with Bush in those who support Republicans. It’s not a matter of changing opinions…but getting more of your folx to the voting booth.

Jackson-Timberlake as seen by our neighbors across the pond.

Wear what you wish to wear, and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.

Or, as Hall would have put it.

I may disagree with what you wear, but I will defend to the death your right to wear it.

IMHO, This is not an omelette

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

Voltaire, right? Wrong.

Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional or unintentional. ‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire (1906)

Hall herself claimed later that she had been paraphrasing Voltaire’s words in his Essay on Tolerance: “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”

Hall’s words are definitely more catchy than Voltaire’s, though it’s not as if she were putting thoughts into his mind, just words into his mouth.

I bet neither of them saw this coming…nor did the rest of the world.

But Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton won a Grammy:

Best Spoken Word Album for Children — Peter and the Wolf. They shared the Grammy with actress, Sophia Loren.

I may just have to go out and buy that album. (Hopefully I won’t have to buy an album, since I no longer own a phonograph. Hopefully they have it on CD)

I thought of Victor Hugo as I read this news story:

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Thou shalt not steal, say the Ten Commandments, but it might eventually no longer apply if you are starving in Venezuela.

The poor, oil-rich nation is considering decriminalizing the theft of food and medicine in cases where a thief is motivated by extreme hunger or need.

Supreme Court Judge Alejandro Angulo Fontiveros told Reuters on Wednesday that the so-called “famine theft” clause should be part of a broad penal code reform measure for humanitarian reasons.

“This is a guide for judges to avoid injustice,” said Fontiveros, who is in charge of drafting the reforms. “They lock up for years a poor person who lives in atrocious misery and what they need is medicine.”

Under Fontiveros’ proposal to the Supreme Court, those who take food, medicine or inexpensive goods without using violence to ease hunger caused by prolonged, extreme poverty would not be punished.

There’s probably some form of punishment for stealing a loaf of bread somewhere between “19 years of hard labor” and “no punishment at all” that is appropriate.

WorldNetDaily has an article discussing George Bush’s military service

So what’s the answer? Was he AWOL or not? The truth is, we don’t know for sure. But there’s lots of evidence he was. And the White House can’t produce any evidence he wasn’t.

The article goes into great detail on what we do know. It also raises a very interesting possibility on why Bush would have not reported for duty for an entire year. 1972 was the year the military instituted random drug testing.

I have a fun idea. Let’s have a post on the fascinating topic of translations.

I can hear the yawns as I write this–but wait–don’t leave yet. Trust me, this could prove interesting.

Let’s take a quote from my favorite poet, Victor Hugo. Now, I don’t have the original French, which some people might argue defeats the entire purpose of the post. But you know something, I don’t care.

Here’s the way the quote was translated back in the 19th century:

Reason is intelligence at exercise.
Imagination is intelligence with an erection.

(I’ve just heard a few of you stop yawning. Told ya so.)

Now, the first half of the quote is boring. Everybody probably agrees with me. I know this is a fact as if you do a web search on the quote, about 1 in 50 results will turn up with the full quote, the other 99 will only contain the second line.

However, the first line is not as boring as how some idiots translate the second line: “imagination is intelligence having fun.” That’s almost as offensive as putting a loin cloth on Michelangelo’s David.

To continue with this post…The first line is also somewhat archaic in grammar. So let’s update the translation.

Can we do that? Sure, of course. There’s no such thing as a literal translation anyway. There are no two languages with direct 1-1 relationships between all their words. (Excepting artificial languages such as Pig Latin)

So how about:

Reason is intelligence…on a treadmill
or
Reason is intelligence…doing pushups

Both are slightly less boring, and the meaning hasn’t been changed.

But of all the possible ways I’ve come up with to modernize the translation, my personal favorite is:

Reason is intelligence on steroids
Imagination is intelligence on viagra

(Perfect parallel structure, meaning of the original maintained for the most part, and it almost guarantees everyone will repeat the entire quote)

Most news reports this morning were proclaiming Kerry the winner of the Missouri Primary yesterday, and are mentinoing that Missouri had the biggest prize of 74 delegates. Both statements are accurate. But stopping there they imply Kerry gained 74 delegates. Not true. First, lets look at the news reports:

Take for example, CNN:

The margins of victory were wide for Kerry in Arizona, Delaware, New Mexico and Missouri — the night’s biggest prize with 74 delegates.

Fox News doesn’t mention the 74 delegate prize, but merely states Kerry won Missouri.

Even this St. Louis Post Dispatch article fails to mention Edwards victory in Missouri.

What am I talking about? Missouri isn’t a winner-take-all state. Any candidate with over 15% of the vote, gets a proportional share of the delegates. Edwards got 27% of the vote. 27% of 74 is 19.98. If you dig beyond the headlines at CNN, you do find their list of Total Delegates

If I am reading the chart correctly, Kerry apparently won 36 last night from Missouri, Edwards won 20. Three of Missouri’s SuperDelegates (or Unpledged Delegates) have already announced for Edwards giving Edwards a total of 23. (I know another, Lacy Clay, US Rep from the first district announced this morning for Kerry, so CNN isn’t completely up-to-date, and if he’s the only SuperDelegate missing from their chart, Kerry has a total of 37) 14 SuperDelegates are still undeclared.

In short: Kerry won big in Missouri yesterday. So did Edwards though…even though most news reports aren’t mentioning it. And if by some weird turn of events the rest of the super delegates in Missouri ultimately went for Edwards, it would be split evenly 37-37.

If you live in St. Louis, Here are your ballot issues.

You might want to read them before heading for the polls…

If you live in a state that has a primary today:

Vote

(Even if you’re not a Democrat, the Republican Party has a primary too. Sure, Bush is going to win it, but that’s not the point. Besides us crafty liberals know conservatives aren’t going to turn out in droves so we’ve snuck lots of propositions on the ballot our people support, and you people don’t. You’re going to let us get away with that? Oh, right, you voted for Bush. You’re dumb. Go ahead, stay home.)

I guess there are some people who will claim I shouldn’t have woken the 1 or 2 conservatives (out of the 4 or 5 total people) who read my blog up to this fact. You’re right, I probably shouldn’t have.

Actually, it’s Timberlake saying his exposing Jackson’s breast during the Superbowl Halftime was a “wardrobe malfunction”. The streaker who ran onto the field in the second half isn’t making that excuse.

President Bush wasn’t a witness to either…because he fell asleep and missed the half-time and second half completely. (I believe the White House Drug Council ad, as well as the flatulent horse were in the second half, so I guess he missed those too…)

The Super Bowl’s risque halftime show didn’t cause a stir at the White House, because President Bush fell asleep and missed it. “I don’t want to admit it, but because this White House starts early, I missed it - again,” he told reporters Monday after a Cabinet meeting.

Again? He missed it the first time Janet exposed herself on network tv? I must have missed that one too…

I’m wondering if there will be any wardrobe malfunctions at the Grammys or the Academy Awards…here’s hopin’!