A Quick Note

Since I am a writer and humanist, the issues of free speech and human rights are very important to me, which is why you will notice a new addition to my sidebar.  February 11th is Victory of the Revolution Day in Iran, which celebrates "liberty, independence, and freedom," according to Amnesty International.  Ironically, the days leading up to that celebration may be marked with an increased crackdown on those felt responsible for the protests over last year's presidential election.  In addition, other dissidents may be executed.

For anyone who wishes to post this badge on their website, Facebook page, or Twitter account on that day (or earlier, as I have done), or wants to see other ways in which he or she can help, you can go to this website: http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/iran/unite-for-human-rights-in-iran-on-february-11th/page.do?id=1011702

My next post will be launching a new feature on my blog, which I'm quite excited about, though it will involve much research on my part, and also involve a thorough searching of my memory banks.

Until then!

Land of the Fear

Note: I originally wrote most of this entry on November 30, 2009.  Not that it makes much difference. Most of the issues I describe in this post have not gone away.

Since September 11, 2001, Americans policy seems to be dictated out of fear.  The election of Barack Obama created a (too brief) respite to this situation, but now we are back to scaring the hell out of each other.  If we aren't tough with Iran, they'll attack us with nukes.  If we pass universal health care, our costs will all go up (never mind that the other option--to do nothing--would bankrupt us much more efficiently).  Climate change seems the only fear that's worth worrying about--and it's one of the few that most governments seemed unconcerned about, maybe because it's "far down the road."  Yeah, but if, while driving, you don't swerve to avoid an object far in advance, you're going to crash your car.

The biggest fear now seems to be jobs and retirement benefits.  Well, I'm more worried about what we're willing to sacrifice long-term for short-term gain in those categories.  Short-term benefits is what got us into this financial mess in the first place, probably because Congressmen and Senators aren't re-elected for future benefits of their legislation, but only on what it brings in the short-term.  And, of course, that is a result of looking at an elected position as a career move instead of as service to one's country.  Serve your country well, and whether you are reelected or not shouldn't matter.  What should matter is doing what's in the best interest of your constituents, and hoping that they are smart enough to recognize it.

And, of course, there is fear over health care.  And President Obama.  And socialism.  This fear has died down with the emergence of facts (thank you, newspapers, for remembering what your job is), or maybe the shrill voices in the room are taking a hiatus to get Sarah Palin's new book signed.  I would be interested to see what it says, provided that it wasn't written by a ghost writer, as writing style and word choice can reveal a lot about a person, if you know how to critically analyze it.  Ulysses S. Grant showed himself to be a decent and intelligent human being with his memoirs; Clinton showed himself to be long-winded with his.

But, I am getting off topic.

Most people know that Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is...fear itself," in his first inaugural address, but how many know what he said after that?  He continued on that topic of fear as follows: "Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."  

Amazing how current that sentiment seems when listened to now, as are other parts of the speech.  Oh, and enough with trying to get things done in a bipartisan manner: most of the great advances in our society have come from one side of the political spectrum or the other.  Think the Radical Republicans and The New Deal Democrats.  The Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act.

Since writing the above, I have seen reports that Obama has gone on the offensive against Republicans, particularly in the Senate.  In his State of the Union Speech, he also sounded more fired up than he has been in past speeches.  Maybe someone told him to start taking after FDR.  Still, the one thing that can defeat him, and this nation, is fear.  Fear that the recovery is not happening fast enough.  Fear that this President can't deliver to us the jobs we need.  Fear that nothing will get better.

In the fable about the tortoise and the hare, the tortoise wins the race because it is "slow and steady."  As a whole, America seems to suffer from ADD.  Problems as large as the ones facing our nation today cannot be solved quickly.  Anything that looks like a quick fix is bound to fail in the long run.  What we should look at are the slow and steady steps being taken to get us out of this mess of an economy.  To get us out of two wars.  To make us competitive in the future.

We the people are this government, not our representatives in Congress.  Not our President.  Not our Supreme Court.  Ultimately, we are the ones given the awesome responsibility of running this nation through our representatives, not our representatives running this nation through us.  So, as citizens, how can we best serve this nation in these troubling times?  I mentioned FDR before.  Once he quantifies fear in his first inaugural address, he says the following:

"In every dark hour of our national light, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory.  And I am convinced that you will, again, give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours, we face our common difficulties."

Notice Roosevelt didn't tell people to support the President, or Congress, or the courts.  He told them to "give...support to leadership."  And so they did in 1933.  And so we must now.

Full text of Roosevelt First Inaugural Address: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres49.html

Copyright Laws in America

A scene from Sita Sings the Blues, by Nina Paley (www.sitasingstheblues.com)

I was originally going to write about video games, but there will always be time for that.  Plus, after watching Sita Sings the Blues, I got to thinking about copyright issues, and how little I know about them (this link helped).

For those of you who haven't seen this movie, there's a reason for that: some of the copyrights to the songs used in the movie are held by music studios and (in one case) by the Songwriters Guild of America, even though the recordings of these songs, by Annette Hanshaw, are in the public domain.  For this reason, the creator of this movie, Nina Paley, decided to distribute the movie online (here's an interview in which she explains her decision).  To drive home the point even more about how dumb copyright law has become in this country, Annette Hanshaw, and several (if not all) of the songwriters, are dead.  So, who is really benefiting from this law?

Depends on whom you ask.  The Copyright Term Extension Act entry in Wikipedia includes arguments for and against this extension of copyright.  Personally, I find the extension of corporate copyrights to be excessive.  In fact, I don't know if corporate copyrights should exist at all.  Corporations can make money off of publishing or distribution rights independent of copyright, and to recognize them as "creators" is dishonest, at best.  They may have employed the creators, but they did not create the work itself.

Contrast this line of thinking with guidelines regarding most magazine submissions.  If a magazine publishes one of my poems, they have first-time publishing rights, which means that they can publish my poem in an issue of the magazine and make money off of that issue irrespective of how much money they pay me, but they must ask for my permission if they wish to publish my poem in a different publication, or in more than one issue.  In the meantime, I am free to sell the poem to other magazines.  In other words, I remain the owner of the poem, and any subsequent publication in magazines of my work must be okayed by me.  Of course, if this action were followed when it came to publishing books, a person could have his or her book published by multiple publishers, or go with a different company for the paperback release (instead of a separate division within the same company).  But, the only person to lose out would be the publisher, not the artist.

The same goes for movies.  Artists could release their films with multiple studios, or decide to release it under a different studio for each new medium (theater, DVD, TV).  But would this be practical for the artist?  I doubt it.  I imagine that if copyrights disappeared tomorrow, most artists would still choose to distribute their work through only one company, and they could still sign contracts concerning distribution.

Besides the length of copyrights, another problem with copyright law in America concerns derivative works.  Supposedly, artists can create derivative works from each other , even under current copyright law (otherwise, shows like "SNL" couldn't exist), but by the time they find out what kinds of derivative works they can't release, it's too late, as Sita Sings the Blues proves (after all, you'd think that songs sung in the late 1920s would be in the public domain by now, wouldn't you?).  And since that movie shows great respect for the songs in question, why the hell are studios being so greedy for artists who are no longer in a place where money matters?  Answer: it costs more to renegotiate the terms of using these songs in a movie than the money that would result from a renegotiation (see Nina's interview).  Even in the case of living artists, I can't remember any of them going after illegal music downloaders (in court, that is), but I do know that several companies have, due to the conditions imposed on them by copyright law.  Interesting to note that some of those same companies were accused of price gouging.

If we were a society that relied on oral tradition, copyright law wouldn't exist at all, since the works are owned by everyone, equally.  In addition, there is no "definitive" version of each story and song.  Each person who tells the story or sings the song brings something new to it, improving upon the original.  Plagiarism is not a problem because the storyteller or musician never claims that the work is his or her own, and only profits from the differences that he or she adds to it, since the basic story or song would be well known to that society.  In that way, artists get credit for their creations, though less blatantly than having their names attached to the work.

Even so, having a "definitive" version in art is a fairly recent concept, even in our writing-based society.  Shakespeare wrote for his actors, resulting in different versions of several of his plays (for example, one version of Othello does not include the "Willow Song").  Mozart often reworked older compositions of his when asked, on short notice, to present music at concerts.  Sometimes the orchestrations would reflect the different forces he was given to work with (orchestras were not uniform in their instrumental makeup at that time).  That is why one version of his Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, is scored for clarinets, while the other version isn't.

As for creating derivative works, Beethoven wasn't the first person to use a chorus in a symphony, just the first person to be remembered for it.  One of the chords in a Liszt composition is close to the fabled "Tristan chord" in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.  And how many times has Shakespeare been quoted or parodied in movies, TV shows, and cartoons?  In fact, if Romeo and Juliet hadn't been in the public domain (not that it would ever have been a problem, since copyrights didn't exist back then), Leonard Bernstein couldn't have written West Side Story.

I propose two things.  One, instead of increasing the shelf life for copyrights, shorten it.  Sixty years, no matter how long the lifespan, should be plenty of time for an artist to reap the benefits of whatever he or she wrote, composed, or painted, as well as satisfy the money-hungry distributors.  Plus, that should increase the amount of art around us.  Artists would feel the need to keep creating as they got older, since royalties for earlier works may not last till the end of their lives.

Two, define the public domain better.  If a recording of a song is in the public domain, the compositions should be in the public domain.  In fact, in addition to copyright info, books, music, and movies should include the date when they will enter the public domain (and no new copyright laws retroactively changing the date to a later time).  That way, there's no question about what can and cannot be used by other artists.  After all, no ideas are original.  What is original is the presentation of those ideas.

In conclusion, it's the law that needs to change, but the creators can force the issue, as well, by refusing to go along with current copyright law concerning their works (such as Nina Paley did--her work is under a Creative Commons License), or lobbying to give up some of their control on ideas that didn't originate with them and should not end with them.  I know that, as a writer, all I want is to get recognized for my work, and to get paid a fair amount of money for it.  And if I weren't paid for my work?  I would still write.  This blog is proof of that.  But I wouldn't write as much.

On Healthcare

When I created this blog, it was never with the intention to write anything political, impossible though that might be, since the original Latin word that "politics" comes from means "people" (you Latin majors out there can correct me if I'm wrong). But with all the vitriol I've heard about health care reform in this country--all the lies, the shouting, the pettiness, the fear--I've decided to write a blog mid-week to address this issue, not so much as to trumpet my opinion to you, but to share with you my observations about this debate, and what it reveals about Americans today.

First of all, every poll I've seen shows that Americans support health care reform. As this Time article points out, it's the details that people worry about. Those details are what the health care debate should be focused on, not these shouting matches at Town Hall meetings. And the details that people worry about should be ones in the actual bills, or ones that they think should be in the bills. Not "death boards." Actually, don't insurers already use them, when they decide not to cover a life saving procedure because it's too expensive?

Another problem I have is with people who label the public option in health care reform "socialism," and therefore, of course, automatically disqualify it as something that the U.S. should do. First of all, the word "society" is in "socialism," which implies people working together, much like "commune" or "community" is buried in the word "communism." Plus, socialism is an economic system, like capitalism. Like capitalism, it has its excesses, but it doesn't equal totalitarianism, which is a political system, and which would be anathema to the United States.

Of course, that's not their point. Their point is that public health care, health care for all, is somehow something the U.S. government should not be involved in (even though they already are--Medicare and Medicaid, anyone?). It should be left to private businesses. And that's the problem. The mindset among some people is that health care is not a right. Or rather, health insurance is not a right, because, hey, you can make money off of it, so leave it to the free market. Who cares if millions are uninsured? Who cares if we spend much more money on health care than other countries, and yet rank lower than thirty-six of them for quality of care? On the other hand, if you consider health care to be a right of every citizen (after all, healthy citizens are productive citizens, so it benefits the government to make sure they can remain healthy), then why shouldn't the government make sure that everyone is covered? I think there should be a public option to go with private insurers. Private insurers claim a national health insurance system will drive them out of business. That's interesting, because in Japan, national health insurance and private insurance plans exist side-by-side. So basically, if private insurers can't survive with a public option, they must be pretty incompetent.

One other thing that bothers me about this health care debate is people who are in it for themselves. They don't want to have to pay slightly more for health care costs, even if it's for the good of all. I can understand this from people who are squeezed for cash, or who live on a fixed income, but if you can afford to pay a little more, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to help others have what you have? Is it because they may not be able to pay, so it looks like they're getting a free ride? We wouldn't be having this argument if it was about children...oh wait. Every year in my town we have a group of people who complain about tax increases, and in years when the budget doesn't pass the first time, the school budgets get cut, as well as other services. Seems children aren't important, either.

I guess my big problem doesn't have to do with the yelling that's going on in Town Hall meetings, or citizens basing their opinions on lies concocted by people who should know better. My big problem is with a culture that believes that everyone should fend for themselves, instead of doing everything possible to lift all Americans together. We may have individual freedoms, but we are connected as a society, and as a society, we have obligations to each other. We say we are one nation when pledging allegiance to the flag, but do we actually believe it? We should be doing what is best for all, for in the end, it benefits us individually, as well. In the Declaration of Independence, it declares we have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," among others. Is it so much of a stretch, then, to believe that the quality of life is just as important as the length, than we not only have the right to live, but to live well?

Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers, invented such useful items such as bifocals and the Franklin stove, yet he never patented his creations. His reason? He wrote, "That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously" (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin). So should we help each other, freely and generously.

Note: The Preamble to the Constitution mentions "promoting the common welfare" as a reason for "We the People" establishing our Constitution. Makes it sound like health care is a right, doesn't it?