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While Holly was watching the Oscars tonight, I managed to sit down and finish the first draft of my Mr. Voice article for The Perl Journal. It’s clocking in at around 2600 words right now.
I’ve emailed it off to the editor for review and guidance (since I’ve never written a technical article for publication before), so hopefully he’ll get back to me with some suggestions. Then I can polish it up, submit it, and hopefully see it in print PDF in April.
Found out something I didn’t know today. According to a post on The Importance of…, there was, in 1911, a Constitutional amendment was proposed to ban interracial marriage. I thought I was joking when I said that even at the height of the civil rights movement that nobody had tried to enact an amendment to outlaw blacks. Apparently I wasn’t far from the truth. The quote from the guy who introduced the amendment in Congress sounds strikingly similar to what we’re hearing now:
“Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant. It is subversive to social peace. It is destructive of moral supremacy, and ultimately this slavery to black beasts will bring this nation to a fatal conflict” (Gilmore, 1975, p.108).
The amendment was in response to Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, who married a few white women and messed around with many more. So to prevent the Fall Of The Republic, Congress felt the need to try to ban his actions at the Constitutional level.
Nearly 100 years later, we can look back on that movement and wonder what the hell they were thinking, and see that the world hasn’t ended now that blacks and whites can marry each other.
What will we be saying in 2104?
I saw this story at WTOP. A woman in Virginia is pushing for a law requiring Virginia localities to post signs near busy yard sales.
Apparently, the story is that the woman’s two-year-old son was killed while she was at a cheerleading fundraiser. I guess something related to the traffic was to blame.
Now, I feel bad that she lost her child. As a new father myself, I can’t imagine a worse fate than something happening to Hayley. However, I understand that bad things happen sometimes that don’t require state action. This woman has made it her mission from now on to get a law passed that would require anyone holding a yard sale to notify the local authorities, who would then place special signs around the yard sale area warning drivers “Hey – there’s a yard sale going on.” I’m going to assume there would be penalties for people who have a yard sale without getting the proper signs put up.
The telling quote is:
“I didn’t hear her testimony and I thought, ‘Here’s another piece of unneeded bureaucracy,”’ said Del. Thomas Gear, R-Hampton, who brought the bill back for consideration after his meeting with Salmons.
“The more I thought about it, if it can prevent one child from being killed, it’s worth it,” he said.
That line gets trotted out far too often. Anytime someone needs to justify passing a law that can’t stand on its own, they trot out “But it’s for the chillin’s.” And who could vote against a law that’s for the children? What’s one more law on the books, right? That’s why there are more laws on the books now than any person could possibly understand, and more get added every year.
Look, it’s very sad when something bad happens. But not every bad thing that happens needs a law designed for it. Having a County Bureau Of Yard Sale Sign Enforcement is just another waste of tax money to provide little to no benefit. The push for this law is asinine and if the lawmakers had any backbone they’d say “I’m very sorry about your loss, but we’re not going to bloat the bureaucracy even more just so you can turn the legislature into a memorial for your child.”
Then, someone else will see this movement and, when they lose a child who trips on an in-ground sprinkler system, hits their head on a rock, and dies, you’ll see a law introduced to regulate in-ground sprinkler systems, with the justification that “If it saves just one child’s life, it’s worth it.”
And, showing that you can’t leave a bad idea alone, the woman is promising to visit the districts of every lawmaker who votes against it and talk to his or her constituents.
“And then I’m taking it national,” she promised. Gee, thanks.
So you can look forward to the National Yard Sale Sign movement in your state soon. And you can wonder why you have to get the government’s permission for everything you do.
According to this thread, it appears that someone was able to break the weather closings system on News 14 Carolina, so people have been posting fake closings all morning.
Some of the screencaps on that page, about halfway down, are really funny. Like “Bring ‘Em Young daycare/preschool – contact R. Kelly for more details.”
Update Thanks to Emilie, you can see a complete archive of all fake closing notices.
The final version of the Project Greenlight movie that I participated in is online. I was surprised how much was cut out to fit in the time constraints of the project (I personally probably had about 10-15 minutes of total footage, but it’s edited down to probably like one minute in the final cut), but I think Chris did a good job editing together his concept. Don’t expect polished Hollywood fare, and you should be amused.
So if you want to see my on-film acting debut, you can watch The Controller (Windows Media player only – sorry, I didn’t encode it). And swing by Project Greenlight, register as a reviewer, and you may get a chance to help Chris Moore live his dream.
I got my $13.whatever check from the music cartel CD price fixing settlement today. Not that $13 makes up for the price fixing the big music companies have done in the past, or are still doing to this day, but I guess it’s better than nothing.
The best thing I could think of doing with the money was to buy some independent music. It makes me feel better to know that some of corporate music’s filthy lucre is going to help independent artists. The only question is whether or not I want the new Robbie Schaefer CD, or one from the Jennifer Nettles Band.
I got official word yesterday that I’m writing an article on Mr. Voice for The Perl Journal. It’s scheduled to be published in the April issue. Woo hoo!
Of course, this is all dependent on me being able to turn in an interesting article that doesn’t suck. And I’ve got less than a month to do it. So it’ll be challenging.
TPJ is a technical journal, so the article will concentrate on some of the technical choices and implementation details that I did with Mr. Voice. That’s the tricky part for me, since I don’t really thing that Mr. Voice has a lot of revolutionary stuff on the backend. The interesting stuff with Mr. Voice is how I was able to put the pieces together to solve my particular problem.
But, I think I’ll be able to pull enough stuff together to make an interesting article. Now, it’s time to get writing!
A couple of things that really make you wonder about the folks in power.
First, today brings an announcement that shocks absolutely no one – Pres. Bush supports amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage. That’s right – our President supports changing the very basis of our government in order to turn a group of people into second-class citizens, based solely on their sexual orientation. Jim Crow must be dancing in his grave – even at the height of civil rights turmoil, you didn’t have a President giving his support for a Constitutional amendment specifically removing rights from blacks. Only one time in its history has the Constitution been amended to specifically remove rights from the people (Prohibition), and that has the distinction of being the only amendment ever to get overturned.
Not that I think this crack-addled movement will succeed in passing, but in case any of you had any doubts as to what kind of leader George W. Bush is, there’s your answer. He’s telling a sizable portion of the citizenry “I do not consider you my equal.” Pathetic.
Yesterday, you had the news that US Secretary of Education Rod Paige considers the National Education Association as “terrorists” because they are opposed to the “No Child Left Behind” Act (which is as much of a misnomer as the “USA PATRIOT” act is). Again, this move surprises absolutely no one, as the Bush administration strategy has been to either directly or indirectly label people who oppose the President’s policies as “terrorists” or “helping America’s enimies” or other inflamatory language.
As the son of a public school teacher, I can tell you that the NCLBA is worthless. It’s a bloated bueraucratic nightmare that assumes that every child and every school works the same. It bases its notion of success completely upon achieving an arbitrary score on a standardized test. Don’t make the score, you fail. My mom spends a significant portion of her time now preparing kids to take these standardized tests, instead of, oh here’s a thought, “teaching.” And what’s more amazing is that this huge, invasive, bloated Federal program is the pride and joy of the Republicans. Y’know, the party that used to stand for “We need to shrink the size of the Federal government” and “State’s rights!” and “Keep Washington out of local issues.” Anyone who considers themselves a supporter of the classic Republican principles should be fighting against the NCLBA. You know that if this plan was proposed by Democrats that the Republicans would be raising a shitstorm (as rightly they should). Ah, principles. How quickly you vanish.
Just another couple of things to throw onto your pile of “Why you should vote against Bush in November, and encourage your friends to do the same.”
I’ve looked at the FOAF stuff a couple of times, and it seems to get a lot of press. But I’m at a bit of a loss as to why I should have a FOAF profile, and what I’d use it for.
Anyone want to explain to me why it’s so cool?
No, the “cones” in your eyes haven’t gone on the fritz, leaving only the “rods” to work. Lunenburg.org has gone grey to support Grey Tuesday.
The Grey Tuesday story in summary: A DJ going by the name of “Danger Mouse” was inspired by the similarity of the titles between Jay-Z’s The Black Album and the legendary Beatles work The White Album. So, being a DJ, he took the raps from the Jay-Z work and the music from the Beatles, and created a work he called “The Grey Album.” I’ve listened to it – it’s actually really good. Judge for yourself – you can download The Grey Album at Illegal Art or on fine P2P networks everywhere.
Of course, once the lawyers sniffed possible litigation, they pounced on The Grey Album, ordering distribution stopped for copyright violations. Anyone who knows me will agree that I’m completely opposed to the abuse of the copyright system that has only grown worse in the past 20+ years. We’re entering an age of perpetual copyright – one where copyright is not used as a temporary reward to people wo offer up creative works into the public domain, but rather as a profit-making tool and a cudgel to stop any use of your work that you don’t like. And I think that problem is well-represented by The Grey Album.
True, even in the most generous of situations the copyright on The Black Album would still be in force, but under a reasonable system, the copyright on The White Album would have expired and be available for use in new creative works. And that’s what The Grey Album is – a new creative work. And for anyone who disagrees and says “Bah, he just put two other people’s work together and called it his own,” I’d challenge them to come up with an idea like The Grey Album, have the skill to mix the two parts together, and the ability to have it come out listenable. That’s creativity. Just because Danger Mouse didn’t record either of the two albums doesn’t mean he didn’t create something new. And that’s exactly what a reasonable copyright was supposed to allow – new creative works to be built upon older ones.
So while this may not be the ideal test case for copyright abuse (owing to the newness of the Jay-Z part), I think it’s still representative of the problem and will be showing my support today. Yeah, I know, the “turn your website black” thing is cheesy, on par with threatening to start an “internet petition,” but I do agree with the substance of the complaint, so I’ll be cheesy with the rest of them and turn my site grey.
I encourage you to read the information at Grey Tuesday, download the album from Illegal Art, and make up your own mind.