A Hairy Mess

This week in news, tragedy strikes; Mo’nique, the actress primarily known for being fat and doing a really good film being fat, pregnant, and sixteen (coming soon; the death of Mo’nique’s career as an actress! Unless, of course, she’s happy with being ‘the fat best friend’ or that fat person who always falls off of something/gets covered in pie from now on), has defied good taste and THREATENED TO END ALL HUMAN LIFE with her woolly mammoth legs. While noble news reporters concerned with the fate of humanity are begging Mo’nique to excise her thicket of leg-hairs before they grow out of control and smother out life as we know it, Mo’nique has been defiant, claiming that she ‘doesn’t like shaving’. Doesn’t she understand that an unshaven female leg is a serious problem, on par with global warming and the holocaust?!? First of all, ew! And second of all, double ew! And third, Mo’nique should shave for her own good. As a fat girl, her hopes of being taken seriously by the American media are already slim. Does she really want to compromise her position now by refusing to shave her legs?

Yes, Mo’nique has certainly shown a selfish streak. What if we normal Americans want to look at her legs without vomiting, huh? As an American, it is my God-given right to look at the legs of others, especially celebrities, without having my personal standards of beauty violated. Now what am I supposed to do? Just imagine that Mo’nique is skinny with smooth appendages? I don’t have, like, infinite creativity here!

In other news, Haiti earthquake and shit. But I just can’t concentrate on it. I’m too upset. DAMN YOU, MO’NIQUE!

Female Orgasms; Too Scary for Film

Call me an ignorant American, but I always envisioned Australia as a quiet, peaceful place, full of kind people with adorable accents barbecuing and frolicking among the kangaroos. Now, I have no reason for envisioning Australia this way. I know as much about Australia as Pat Robertson knows about tact. But Australia, to my mind, is in some ways the antithesis of America. It’s an unobtrusive country that doesn’t get much attention. The fact that Australia never gets any attention caused me to think, “Wow, Australians really have their shit together. Good on them!”

But two recent stories changed all that. Australia has finally done something that made bloggers bombard it with attention – and not in a good way.

First, the Telecommunications Minister of Australia, Stephen Conroy, recently announced that the government will work with internet service providers to filter ‘offensive’ content. And what is offensive content? Pretty much whatever the government decides it is. This includes things like certain types of pornography and directions on how to make explosives.

The justification for the ban is, of course, the usual ‘OH LAWDY THINK OF THE CHILDREN’. Because, as we all know, if a sweet, innocent child should accidentally catch sight of a big thick cock online, it is RUINED FOREVER AAAAH. So, you see, it’s not about censorship. It’s about defending children from pictures of penises!

Ok, I can see how seeing porn might be traumatic for a child. Porn can be rough stuff! And I don’t want kids to look at it anymore then people like Stephen Conroy do. But protection can go too far. In fact, I am willing to bet all the money in my pockets and all the money in your pockets that a reaction of discomfort and fear from a parent upon walking in to find their child has accidentally gleaned some questionable links from a google search does more damage to the child then the slip-up does in the first place. It’s time we stop teaching our children to fear sexuality, and to start using accidents such as these as a chance to teach them about good values.

Does this mean we should celebrate internet accidents as an opportunity? Certainly not. Kids don’t need to see porn! But if they do, it isn’t the apocalypse.

But now that I’ve finished my spiel on that, there’s a story that I think is even more troublesome then this, because you can’t really chalk it up to defending the children. Not only is it an example of modern sexism, but it’s pretty damn ignorant too. Australia has effectively banned films that depict women having squirting orgasms. Why, you may ask? Well, Australia also has a ban in place on pornography depicting golden showers. And apparently, according to the old, white men that generally make laws, women ejaculate urine.

Ok, first of all, it’s pretty damn troubling that a consenting adult is not allowed to watch two other consenting adults piss on each other in Australia. Is this really necessary? The only reason I can think of for this ban is that some people got grossed out by the idea of people pissing on each other and started whining. They kept it up so long that they formed a thick cloud of whine that hovered over Australia for months. The sound of their collective whining was so shrill that no one in Australia could function, so they just went ahead and banned golden showers.

If this is how the world works, than I want to ban something that I dislike too. From now on, justifying your Orwellian censorship with the used-up platitude, ‘For the children!’ is banned. Banned, I say! But I digress.

The second disturbing part of this is that if you know anything about women, or orgasms, basically if you aren’t so squeamish about vaginas that you just kind of ignore the existence of female sexuality altogether, you know that female ejaculate is NOT URINE. It’s not even yellow.

To me, this ban reveals the level of ignorance the perseveres in many societies that are considered civilized and advanced. The people who put this ban into effect can’t have done any real research, or if they did they fudged it on purpose – there is NO research done by competent scientists to suggest that female ejaculate is urine, or equivalent to urine.

So what is this really about? I’m inclined to think it’s about women and orgasms. Ten years into the twenty-first century, men in power still hold an attitude that seems more at home among stone-aged which doctors; the female orgasm is scary, perhaps even imbued with evil power, and should be hidden and ignored if at all possible.

This led me to thinking about something I think about rather a lot. Historically, people – and by people I mean men in power – have been afraid of female sexuality. This led to the denial of its existence for years. We live in happier times now, where women can wear their vaginas with pride. We’re even shedding unfortunate taboos such as the unspoken ban on female masturbation. But some people still want to sweep the existence of female sexuality under the rug. And that sucks.

But it also sucks that on the flip side of the coin, male sexuality is so trivialized. I can’t go two feet without hearing someone talk about men like they’re these horny apes that, without the reins of society and propriety, would just go marauding for pussy all day. It’s also said that men have an orgasm at the drop of a hat, and are disconnected emotionally from their sexual experiences.

What do the readers who have made it this far think? Is it worse to have your sexuality denied, or is it worse to have your sexuality simply trivialized?

Rights

“A Right Unexcercised is a Right Lost”

So says text gracing the top of a website devoted to promoting open-carry rights for guns. And you know what? I agree with them.

I, for one, am ashamed to admit that I have not been exercising all of my rights. But this laziness ends now. Starting today, I am going to exercise ALL of my rights.

What have I been neglecting? Well, for one thing, I don’t own a gun. This is mostly because I don’t really want a gun, and I have no use for a gun, but this is a matter of principle, goddammit. So, the first thing I’ll do is get me a gun. Maybe I’ll learn to hunt, because I also have the right to do that. I’m a vegetarian, though, so I’ll have to figure out what to do with the meat. Perhaps I could hand it out to friends. They would appreciate. Of course, they might get sick of having their freezers crowded by frozen moose burgers; in order to ensure that my rights are still solid, I’ll probably be hunting pretty often.

I’ve also been neglecting my right to vote. Oh, state and national elections I definitely intend to turn out; but I’ve never really cared about local politics that much. Since I’m kind impartial about local issues, I guess I’ll just fill in my ballot at random. It is my right, after all.

And come to think of it, given this bold new attitude I’m taking towards my rights, I have to admit I’m kind of glad that prop 8, which I had previously very much opposed, has passed. Otherwise I would have to marry a woman. I suppose traditional, heterosexual marriage is also considered a right, which means I’ve got to start working on my boyfriend and trying to convince him that it actually IS a good idea to get married young! This will probably lead to life-long animosity between us, and perhaps a messy divorce. But at least neither of us has to learn to like gay sex! And, more importantly, we won’t be foolishly sacrificing our rights in the name of making intelligent life decisions.

Freedom of speech is something that I have always exercised with great vigor, but I now see that I have not exercised it with nearly enough vigor. You see, I have only ever used free speech to espouse opinions which I personally hold. From now on I will exercise my free speech rights to their fullest extent, expressing all manner of controversial opinions that in other, not-so-free countries would illicit censorship or worse. All Negroes must hang!

So there you have it; my plan of action for protecting my rights. I encourage you to do the same.

Time for a Palin-Bash

Sarah Palin has done it again. Every time the woman gets in front of a microphone and vocalizes her thoughts, I scratch my head. Aren’t crazy soccer moms supposed to be at home indoctrinating children, nor in public office or the spotlight?

Before we begin with our Palin-Bash, I’d like you to skim the following article, found here. Now, a few lines should have specific notice:

“If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?”

Seriously Palin? First off, you have aspirations for public office. Alienating a large portion of America (1 in 200 teens as of 2004, who are now the voting young adults that owned the last election) doesn’t seem to be the smartest move to me. Secondly, your argument leaves a fairly large hole: Humans. Humans are made of the same muscle tissue that animals are, and are reported to have a texture similar to pork. I’d like to see Mrs. Palin partake in a nice feast of human, as long as she’s making that argument.

“I always remind people from outside our state that there’s plenty of room for all Alaska’s animals — right next to the mashed potatoes.”

Honestly, your small minded humor isn’t original. The first time I heard this joke was on a billboard photo shown to me by my grandfather, in the mid nineties. If you’re going to be a blithering idiot, wouldn’t you at least have the idea to be an original blithering idiot?

The cliché portrait of a vegetarian meal predominately includes a huge bowl of salad flanked only by a glass of water and carrot wedges.

This is only too true. The average American sees Vegetarians as eating lettuce, carrots, and maybe some other uncooked garden veggies. The reality is something entirely different. Dating a vegetarian, and having one for a sister has opened my eyes to the multitude of incredibly tasty and nutritious vegetarian meals and dishes. Vegetarianism is not only a healthy, but also an incredibly diverse dietary choice. Mrs. Palin’s ignorance of the true face of this diet choice seems to be just another example of her general ignorance. I mean hell, she describes herself as a carnivore. The next person to see her eat anything that isn’t meat needs to call her out on her intolerance and ignorance.

Remind me again why we pay attention to this idiotic woman?

Rupert Effin’ Murdoch

Tonight we rant about Closed Content, and the dangers of DRM. Again. I think I’ve done this before. Hell, I think all bloggers have done this before. It just seems that no matter how loud we yell, the content providers don’t seem to get the picture. What picture, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you…

Closed Content refers to something that is controlled by the creator, down to every detail, including how the end user is allowed to use it. This can be explained perfectly with our large corporate fruit. This company runs a web store for music that does slightly more than 25% of the entire music sales in the United States. Our large fruity friend uses DRM (Closed Content with a law stuck on it) to attempt to curb piracy. What this means is they “lock” the music file, so only the buyer (and three of his chums) can play it.

Now, say we have a buyer that owns six computers (you call it rare, I call it my father). He wants to download his favorite Miles Davis song, and be able to play it on all of his computers. This seems fair, correct? After all, he just bought the song. Shouldn’t it be up to him to control the usage? Afraid not, my dear fellows. Our large fruity friend dictates that controlled music is better only at the prodding of the content providers, and this doesn’t seem to be planning on changing any time soon.

In our happy little clusterfuck we call America, there’s a very rich man. His name is Rupert Murdoch, and he has a lot more toys than you or I could ever hope to afford. He owns the content sources for the majority of news sites, and has a lock on the majority of printed news. This rich little bastard also has no idea at all how the modern generation would like their content, as shown by his plans for online media distribution.

Murdoch has announced that a pay-wall will be erected around all of his content: That’s FOX, The Washington Post, and so on. A lot of fairly big names in news and content distribution, all accessible only if you pay for it. Now, I can understand his idea in doing this. He’d like to increase his profit margins, and that means finding a new way of extracting money from the readers. However, our generation has shown time and time again that they will not pay for inferior content in a manner that they can’t control it.

Take movies as an example. You can buy a large selection of movies from our fruity friend, and they’ll all be fairly low quality. You won’t be able to play it on any machine in your house. Or, you could pay nothing at all, and have it in perfect High Resolution, all while getting it faster than our fruity friend can deliver. See the problem? Murdoch is still stuck on what’s been killing the music industry in America: Control. As long as they try to control their product, the customers turn away. This won’t change with news.

If he seriously expects us to pay for something we’ve gotten used to having free, he better start writing an anti-piracy speech for when his system is broken (5 minutes after the pay-wall).

Because I am a Shameless Whore

I sometimes submit work to a collaborative creative fiction site. This is fun, because there are many creative, talented people on the site to collaborate with. But then, there’s also the usual web fiction crowd; twelve-year-olds, fangirls, horny, socially awkward japanophiles, and other people who seem barely to be able to speak English, let alone write a compelling story.

So it was not to my surprise when someone posted an idea for a ‘plot’ involving a boy who falls in love with a girl and then, in a shocking twist… gets the girl. The end!

Of course there are differences between my version and his version. My version has better grammar. See?;

“The Element of Love is a Romance Story About a High School Kid who  has a Crush on a Girl.But he is afaird to tell her everytime she comes around.He Just can not get his words. Together With the Help of His Friends they will help him get the Girl that he been Dreaming about Asking out”

Aah, internets… you have brought us 4chan, tentacle porn, and the Rick Roll. But perhaps your most important overlooked contribution is your enabling of an increasingly stupid population to share their bad ideas with hundreds of random strangers. But I digress.

In an act of supreme snark, I actually submitted a chapter for this story. And it got FEATURED. YAY. For your entertainment, or perhaps, for your dismay, or, perhaps, for your sudden uncontrollable bowel movement (how do I know how random strangers will react to my story?), here is what I wrote.

Follow this link or just read on below.

Once upon a time there was a magical toaster named Steven. Steven was loved by all, because every piece of toast he made came pre-jammed or pre-buttered. Steven was especially proud when he produced a piece of toast that came up already smeared with pesto.

So Steven was happy, mostly. He enjoyed his work and his friends, a mop named Dustin and a refrigerator named Otto.

There was one thing that he was not sure whether he enjoyed or not, and that was staring at a beautiful coffee maker named Denise who lived on the counter across from him. He was not sure whether he enjoyed this, because beautiful though she was, Denise didn’t seem to realize that Steven existed.

Steven felt completely helpless around her. More and more, his mind would wander from his toasting duties as he watched her, and before he knew it, he would end up with an ashy mess. This troubled him, as he had always prided himself in his work, but perhaps not as much as it should have. His mind always wandered back to Denise. Lovely Denise. Everything about her so suggested sleekness and easy elegance, that Steven couldn’t help but feel that she must be a goddess from another world. She had a tall, graceful body with gleaming curves. She filled ceramic mugs from her state-of-the-art double nozzle drip system with care and finesse. And yet she also seemed so earthly. Her softness and apparent compassion – expressed in the small ways that only true compassion is, such as in the loving way she heated water, or the devotion and attention she put into brewing the perfect mug of coffee – made her seem accessible, but Steven was paralyzed.

“Just go talk to her, man,” Otto muttered one day when he caught Steven staring. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“What would a dame like that want to do with a guy like me?” Said Steven. Then he sighed, exhaling ribbons of black smoke, for he had burned the third slice of toast in a row.

“Stop that,” protested Otto. “I don’t have any fingers to hold my nose with. Yuch!”

“Quit playing,” said Dustin. “You don’t have a nose.”

“Do so,” said Otto. “It’s near my… air compressor. Yeah.”

“Man, you’re lying,” said Dustin. “You don’t know your condenser from your heating coils.”

“Oh, go suck up some dust,” said Otto.

“You guys are lame,” grumbled Steven. “I’m going to bed.” And with that, he pulled out his cord with a practiced twitch of his rear and fell asleep.

As he slept, he dreamed that he and Denise were floating in an ocean of bread. Steven was desperately trying to toast every last slice, but when he felt that he could almost reach out and grab Denise’s pretty cord, the sky opened and a torrential downpour of bread spilled forth. Steven screamed to the high heavens as Denise was swept away from him.

Steven woke up to the sound of his own springs giving a mighty twang as he catapulted an imaginary piece of toast into the air.

“Christ on a scooter!” said Dustin. “Cool it with that thing, wouldja?”

“Sorry,” said Steven sheepishly. “I had a nightmare.”

“Alright, bucko,” said Dustin. “We know you’re under stress. We know you can’t get any toast right because of your failure to make eyes with pretty Denise over there. Last night, me and this big oaf here –“

“Hey!”

“-Had a conversation. We’re going to help you.”

“You guys would do that for me?” Said Steven.

“Bah,” said Dustin. “What are friends for?”

“But,” Steven said, bewildered, “How will you do it?”

“Well,” said Dustin, “With my gruff good looks and Otto’s, erm, not gruff good looks, I don’t see how we could fail.”

“Huh?” Said Steven.

“Here’s the plan,” said Dustin. “Me and Otto go and talk to her. I charm the lady, and before she knows it she’s just one of the million ladies who want a piece of Dustin. But then I let her in on the fact that Dustin’s not up for grabs. Being a broad, of course she’ll immediately start to do her neurotic broad insecurity thing and feel lonely. She’ll want to seek out and easy catch to stroke her ego a bit. She’ll see Otto standing there, but seeing as he’s such a big oaf who even a lady whose just been rejected by Dustin couldn’t love –“

“HEY!”

“She’ll start to feel a little desperate. And that’s where you come along.”

“This is horribly unethical,” said Steven.

“Do I look like a priest?” said Dustin.

Ten minutes later, Dustin was laying the butter on Denise.

“Yeah baby,” said Dustin. “I like my lady types to have two nozzles, like those two pretty ones you got there. Multiple pouring capabilities. Multi-tasking. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” said Denise. “It’s pretty useful. I can pour two cups of coffee at once and all that.”

“Not just useful, babe. Stylish. Stylish and classy. Dustin always recognizes a lady with class. And, sugar, you look real familiar right now.”

Denise giggled.

“Let me tell you something,” said Dustin. “I know there are lots of sleazy guys out there who would tell you what a pretty, sophisticated lady they think you are just to manipulate you. But Dustin’s not like that. Dustin just wants you to know what a lovely girl you are.”

“Thanks,” said Denise. “I was aware. Hey, I bet with that attitude, you have like, ten girlfriends.”

“Yeah,” said Dustin. “Dustin has plenty of ladies already. All of Dustin’s available lady slots have been filled. Dustin can handle a lot of women, but even Dustin gets overwhelmed. Sorry baby.”

“Too bad,” said Denise without even a hint of remorse in her voice. “What about your friend? He hasn’t said a word since you guys came over here.”

“Oh, him?” Said Dustin. “He’s as single as they come.”

“Hrrm,” said Denise. “Well, I have to get back to making coffee. Thanks for stopping by, fellows.”

“Buh,” said Dustin.

“Are you alright?” Said Denise. “You look kind of phased.”

“You mean you’re not going to at least consider falling for my big, stupid-looking friend? And then change your mind and get even more insecure and desperate?” Said Dustin.

“Oh,” said Denise. “Am I supposed to?”

“Am I supposed to?” Dustin mimicked in a mock-high voice. “Yes! Yes you are supposed to.”

“I don’t see why,” said Denise.

“Because, you dumb broad,” Dustin snapped. “My friend, a totally cool and nice guy, by the way, has been over there on the other side of the kitchen for a month now staring at your pretty little ass and burning entire loaves of bread because he can’t keep his head on straight. He’s gaga in love with you and you don’t even know he exists.”

“And what has me deciding not to fall in love with your friend got to do with all that?” Said Denise.

“Because if you can’t have me, and even a lady who’s just been turned down by Dustin wouldn’t spring for Otto, then Steven would seem like a heaven-send. A knight in shining armor. An attractive man. Etcetera, etcetera. What kind of woman are you anyway?”

Denise appeared to be thinking for a moment. Finally she said, “Is your friend less of an asshole then you?”

“Huh?” Said Dustin. “Yeah, probably.”

“Send him over,” said Denise.

So Steven found himself talking to the woman of his dreams.

“I’m really sorry about my friends,” said Steven. “They’re idiots, but they’re not bad people. I did try to stop them.”

“I understand,” said Denise. “So you really like me, huh?”

“More then I like popping up a crisp piece of perfectly golden toast covered in marmalade,” said Steven. “And I like doing that a lot.”

“Hmm,” said Denise. “You don’t seem half bad. How does one date sound?”

Steven’s soul sang, a soaring melody that arched right from the center of his crumb-encrusted metal heart. “Incredible,” he said.

“Good,” said Denise. “I’ll meet you here at eight tomorrow?”

“Eight,” confirmed Steven.

And they all lived happily ever after.

How Not to Teach English

My English teacher feels that his Honors English students are not capable of keeping up with their reading assignments unless he provides them with some extra encouragement. This encouragement come in the form of quizzes, two a week, that ask such questions as, “Who is ___?” “What does Craven say about logical fallacies?” Answers are to be short, concise, and factual rather then interpretive. This would be fine, since there is not even an inch of wiggle room for interpretation anyway in such questions, but I can’t remember that small paragraph about logical fallacies twenty pages back. I thought I was taking an English, not a Chemistry class and therefore I didn’t bother to commit the mundane details, such as the name of the main character’s brother who is mentioned once, to memory.

Today, I received an email from my English teacher. It reads;

The following new rules for quizzes will go into effect beginning Tuesday Oct 27:

1.  All quizzes must be subitted on "cut-sheet" 8 1/2 x 11" white lined standard American notebook paper.  You can buy a packet of this paper in any Walgreens, Longs, 7-Eleven, or the campus bookstore.  If you insist on using tear-sheet spiral notebook paper, it is up to you, not me, to tear off the tatters before submitting the quiz.  I will provide one package of paper for those who forget to bring their own....at least until the package runs out.

2.  All quizzes must include your name and the quiz number in the heading.   The quiz number is always clearly visible on screen.   Quizzes not properly identified in this way will earn a zero.

3.  All quiz questions must be numbered and presented in their correct numberical order (no more illegible and unlabeled jumbles of disorderly answers please).

4.  Copy down (or include) the quiz question with your answer every single time, or your answer will not count.

Example:

Who is the King of Pop?
Michael Jackson

or

The King of Pop is Michael Jackson

MY GOALS:
1)  Improve consistency and efficiency in grading quizzes
2)  Avoid time wasted vacuuming up little scraps of paper confetti in my office, car, clothing, and condo
3)  Stop being mistaken for an elementary school teacher when I grade quizzes in public

I have an idea! If you don’t want to be mistaken for an elementary school teacher, then stop making me do boring, pointless quizzes like a third grader. If I wanted to do busywork, I’d drop out of college and go back to high school. As it is, you’re insulting your students and making yourself look bad.

Our Generation

“We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… Our Great Depression is our lives.” -Fight Club

Such an iconic line, so powerful when it came about. Fight Club, a movie that shaped so many young angry lives was tragically pre-terrorism scare. However sick and tired of people touting 9/11 around, 9/11 changed everything for our generation. Before the towers came down, our generation had no Great War. We had no Great Depression.

Now we’ve had both. We’ve had our Great War, and then some. We’ve sent our children across oceans to destroy something that scared us, and our war machine became overeager. It’s simply what happens with a war machine as powerful as the one we’ve built. We’ve had our Great Depression, where jobs are becoming scarce, and simply staying fed is what most of the paycheck goes.

It turns out collapsed buildings aren’t as romantic as we’d hoped. Instead of a crushed economy birthing a new honed system, all we were left with was a lot of dust and some dead friends. Our Great War hasn’t united us, or brought forth a new system. Instead, our Great War is our brothers and sisters in some hot desert where everyone hates us, and the only thing we can do is stay up at night waiting for the phone to ring. Our Great Depression didn’t leave us with a shiny new economy; rather it left our wallets lighter, our rib cages thinner, and our debt a little higher.

Our generation doesn’t need people who tear buildings down, or rip apart the old system. We’ve got enough of those scattered around the world doing damage to our lives. Our generation needs builders, those who can look to the future and see where change can truly be built. Because our generation isn’t angry like Tyler. Our generation is angry at the injustices that have been done, that people go without water and food, and that good men and women starve every day. Tyler’s reason to be angry was some indignant rage at Ikea.

So what part of our generation are you? Are you a builder, or will you tear things down?

Announcement and First Review

Dear valued readers: We’re starting to notice some dedicated traffic here. We’re sort of bewildered as to why you care about our opinions, but hey, who are we to complain about site traffic? So here’s the deal: We’re looking at ways to diversify our topics. One proposed idea has been the inclusion of some creative writing. In addition, I’m (Ironspork) going to be reviewing one CD a week for this blag. The reviews will be something that I hope is an accessible genre, and something that my user base may be able to enjoy. An example review would be the following.

Album art for the Plushgun album Pins & Panzers

Plushgun seems to be a new emergence to a wonderful genre; that of Electro-Pop. It’s a fairly soft genre, with sometimes powerful emotions countered by fluffy and enjoyable songs. A comparable band for them would be Postal Service, or Owl City (sans auto-tuning). Their first studio album, Pins & Panzers is a powerful first album, enough that I can see this band going fairly far.

Their sound can be described as a deeply thought out and well constructed melody, backed by synthesizer and wonderfully executed rhythm. Their powerful vocals seem to be ones that can be related to by the masses, and this aids their music greatly.

The album opener, “Dancing in a Minefield” brings a powerful melody into union with a beautifully executed piano line. The two blend incredibly well, and the song is a definite must hear. The band’s songs are fairly catchy, with enough diversity to keep the album interesting the entire play through. I’ve had this album in a playlist that’s been shuffling for at least half of the last two weeks, and I haven’t gotten sick of their songs yet. The vocals are performed excellently, with enough genuine emotion to capture the listener’s attention.

Overall, Pins & Panzer’s rates an 8 out of 10 on the Spork Scale, and is definitely recommended as a must-listen.

Copyright Law

In the modern era, technology has created a flow of information unlike anything humans have seen before. With the ever rising adoption of the Internet and related services, information and file sharing have reached new levels. Where one used to need hours in a library to research a report, it is now possible to spend a single hour online, and gather the same or more relevant research for the same report. With this rise in information sharing comes the ability to share files as well. This flow of information, now in whatever form desired, is only held back by one thing: Archaic Copyright Law.

Laws developed in the early 1700’s are now shaping the legislation and actions of modern corporations and lobby groups. What began with the Statute of Anne1 has now escalated to a legislative behemoth, one capable of leveling any individual to bankruptcy should one violate the laws that have been put forth. Current copyright law, for example, makes the sharing of a video no longer produced by a film company illegal. Even though the company is no longer profiting from this video, the law enforcement arm they employ has managed to convince the court system this steals profit. This “loss of profit” is what drives most cases pursued by the MPAA, RIAA, and other such organizations.

For a group so concerned about profit, these watchdog groups transfer little money from court settlements or damages to the artists whose intellectual “property” has been infringed upon.2 This concept of intellectual property is one that does little to secure the “rights” of the musicians. The concept of intellectual property was originally legislated to ensure the rights of the musicians to control distribution of their own material, but has been seriously twisted over time. With the advent of the recording label lobbying power, copyright law shifted to enable the recording industry to control the music (and money as a result) after it is produced. This idea of a company owning the rights to something, rather than a person, is one that seriously threatens the open flow of information in our world today. In the modern society, the ability to freely access information and media is one that is crucial to development of a solid education. As long as large lobby groups and media watchdogs attempt to control the flow of media to the archaic form of a Compact Disc, this flow is effectively stymied.

The companies that own the rights to music and videos have chosen a legally dubious tactic to defend their intellectual “property,” by suing the very users that used to give them money. Rather than invest the money used on court fees in pushing new music distribution technology, these groups would rather sue their own user base. However, not all fronts of new distribution are as dismal as it seems. Apple and Amazon are both pioneering a new online music store, and the progress there is astounding. The user base now has the ability to purchase a wide selection of music at a rapid rate. However, the recording industry still has their claws sunk deep into this trade, this time in the form of DRM. DRM (Digital Rights Management)3 refers to the locking of a media file to a single user. This seems like a good idea from a surface level, as it allows these media files to be treated much the same as a CD would have been.

DRM runs into problems once one takes a deeper look. A user with multiple computers is not allowed to use the music that they legally purchased on more than five computers, a problem that many families that wish to share their legal music will encounter. Under the DMCA4 (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), attempting to circumvent this DRM is a violation of the copyright. Copyright infringement, under the terms of the DMCA, is as simple as burning one’s own music to a CD in order to re-import it, effectively shedding the DRM. The problems with DMCA laws arises when technology changes. If a new music technology arises in the next several years, and a user wishes to attempt to salvage the DRM locked music they legally purchased in an effort to convert it to the new technology, they are a criminal under the DMCA. However, if they illegally pirate the music, thus circumventing the DRM, they are also a criminal. This gap in logic is one that lawmakers who know little about technology have created.

Only recently have music companies began to allow online music sales to sell music without DRM, but with one caveat: the price is usually higher. A user must pay more money in order to be able to use the music as they please. It is this type of lawyering that holds the music industry back from true open sharing, and from even larger profits. Rather than adopt a new protocol of music transmission, and attempt to gather profits from it, these companies seem to be stuck on suing their way out of the problem. The Peer to Peer technology (mainly pioneered by Bit Torrent5) allows users to share nearly any file at previously unheard of speeds. The more users that have the file, the faster it is to share. This technology hinges on having a single source of who has the file, called a Tracker. If the recording industry opened their own Tracker with a membership fee, as well as ad-supported content, they would be able to reach a much larger user base than they are currently. The majority of users are using Torrent sharing because it’s free, with a very close second unable to get the material anywhere else.6 Would the Recording Industry attempt to gain some profit by pushing this technology forward instead of attempting to sue it into the ground, they would be opening an entirely new revenue stream.

In conclusion, it can be seen that those pushing the laws regarding intellectual property and copyright have little to no clue what the actual population wants.7 These archaic copyright and intellectual property laws are only holding back the flow of media and information. However, all is not hopeless, as several companies are pushing forward more progressive ways to acquire legal media. One can only hope that these companies will keep an open ear to the user base, and attempt to deliver a service worthy of use by the masses.

Please note: This was a paper I was required to write about a year ago. The footnotes did not copy over correctly. If you see a number next to a source, and would like to see the source I used, drop a comment and I’ll get back to you.