I stumbled onto this random article concerning the estate of Jack Kirby suing for rights to the characters he created for Marvel Comics.  And it starts out with a characteristically misguided attitude:

In a move the (sic) reeks of opportunism and greed…

(Why I bother with idiot writers who can’t be bothered to edit their work is quite beyond me.)

Opportunism and greed, you say?  Well, what do we have a few paragraphs later?

When a programmer working for Microsoft writes a new program and it turns into the major code behind a new piece of Microsoft software, that programmer doesn’t own the rights to his code. He was paid by Microsoft to write it and has already been fairly compensated for his time and effort. He doesn’t have the right to sue once that program starts making millions of dollars, just because he is jealous.

What difference is there, ideologically, between the Kirby estate’s bid for copyright control and Microsoft parlaying some poor, likely underpaid schmuck’s hard work into a million-dollar seller?  NONE.  That’s CAPITALISM.  Opportunism and greed are the cornerstones of this economic system.  Already this article’s logic has cancelled itself out.  Lesson to wannabe journalists and self-righteous bloggers: check your moral compasses at the door.

A word about the notion of “fair compensation”: Why shouldn't these companies be obliged to pay some small stipend or maintain a profit sharing arrangement with the employees that are directly responsible for their success?  If the employee fails to perform and deliver successful work, they are FIRED.  No longer paid.  If that's fair, then why isn't the reverse – a perennial bonus based on individual contribution – also?  Both the film and recording industries maintain this sort of practice.  Residuals, royalties, why doesn’t a similarly creative field – i.e. COMIC BOOKS – follow suit?  Why is it acceptable for cartoonists to be shat on?  Why is it so reprehensible for a family to recoup some fraction of the income they should have received in the first place?  The blatant hypocrisy exposed in the general punter is alarming.

“Work-for-hire” is an archaic concept that was always ill defined in relation to intellectual properties.  I don’t think either side – either employer or employee – fully grasped the repercussions of such vague contractual agreements.  How quick people are to defend the "rights" of corporations over those of individuals is baffling.  I assume it relates to the American Dream, the inherent money lust built into any citizen of this Great Country of Ours.  But the sides taken are conspicuously ironic.  Why should anyone take the side of a huge conglomerate over that of an individual?  What’s the motivation there?  Jealousy?  Resentment?  Those are the only two that spring immediately to mind.

A sense of fair play is a matter of reason and logic.  Unfortunately we live in a society that is heavily informed by emotional reaction.  That element – our “feelings” as they are called – undermine any accurate meting of justice.  We are fucked in the head by our own traitorous heart.

Full article here.

Creative Loafing - Generation Jerk

The cover of Creative Loafing features some thug by the name of Nik Richie (not his real name).  Richie rode the coattails of Tucker Max (I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell) and started a website devoted to ridiculing trendy bar-goers, particularly girls.  In principle I am not against this.  Were it done with even an ounce of wit or style, I’d likely be on the fucking site every day.  But evident from the article, it’s the same inarticulate, boorish frat boy humor so popular in this era of mediocrity.

Admittedly, I didn’t read the whole article.  Once I started seeing all those (sic)’s peppered throughout the paragraphs, I stopped short.  This is cover-worthy news?  This is entertainment?  A bunch of spoiled, overpaid, underdressed semiliterate drunks behaving like high schoolers? 

I don’t hate Nik Richie personally; rather I resent him as symptomatic of a society that is Roman in its decadent proportions.  In the photo on the cover of CL, the vacuity is immediately evident in his eyes.  Carlton Hargo attempts to defend Richie’s virtue as a humorist, a social gadfly.  I do not agree.  This mouth-breather is about as funny as leukemia.

Q-Notes - The Sanford Effect

Mark Rogers is a blogger who specializes in exposing gayness in anti-gay politicians.  He has Larry Craig and Mark Foley notched on his belt, and that’s all right with me.  I applaud a guy exposing hypocrisy and calling these vicious cunts out on their indiscretions.  Walk it like you talk it, gentlemen.

But now Rogers is going after South Carolina’s Lt. Governor Andre Bauer.  Bauer is not quoted as having any militant anti-gay stances or passing moral judgements.  The article seems to presuppose that in order to be an elected official in the South, one must hold these types of views.  This is the same sort of narrow-minded mentality that spawns homophobia, racism, et al. 

No, Rogers is desperate for attention, seeking to substantiate rumors in an attempt to “out” someone who may very simply value his privacy.  Where’s the harm in that?  Gays that insist visibility is the only way to live are in fact ashamed of themselves.  Their overt pride is a clear indication of some lingering, deep-seated, subliminal shame.

This article is completely illogical and full of conjecture.  It’s filler.  It’s tabloid journalism.  Q-Notes is far from a refutable news source (a few months ago they ran a cover story on four college boys engaged in a 4-way relationship.  I imagine were it four, overweight, hairy 40somethings doing the same it wouldn’t have warranted the same coverage).  The rub therein is that so many people take this crap at face value.  It’s a paper; it’s to be believed.  But these people, they are not to be trusted.  Everybody has an agenda, whether they own up to it or not.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Keseyian notions of institutionalized oppression, systems of control with no real master or figurehead.  It seems too convenient to blame the government or the rich or the educational system or our families for these problems.  Problems are what make us human, after all, but everyone is after this state of permanence, where everything is expected, every situation handled expertly, with a minimum of fuss.  Entire industries have sprung up to service this impulse, which has been greatly exasperated by the acceleration of our media charged society.  Power struggles have become fetishized; birthing various sexual subcultures, all defended under the pretenses of personal liberty.  But at their core, when we engage in acts of bondage or domination, for example, we are in fact validating our own self-made prisons, upgrading the psychic facility like we would their physical counterpart.  The dom just as subjugated as the sub, all bent on some release that forever lingers out of reach.

It’s very difficult to pinpoint the origin of our fucked up, postmodern condition.  We purport to these ideals of enlightenment, peace, progress, but we’re not so far removed from the slavering beasts that perpetrated witch trials, holocausts, inquisitions, et al.  Politics package the sides in grab-n-go bundles, philosophy on the run, no thinking involved.  Why bother?  It’s all at our fingertips for one low monthly fee.

We are in serious jeopardy.  And not just the usual suspects, the obvious villains, like recession and climate change.  We are overrunning the Earth, and we raise our kids to be the same dumb, multiple choice consumer droids that we are.  We keep the rich rich and the poor poor.  We cut monies allotted to public education to beautify opulent, privileged neighborhoods where kids go to private schools.  But even they are victims of their own aberrant drives and vapid ambitions.  What is there to have that is of any true value?  Everything has a price, and if the spirit exists, surely it too can be bought and sold.

Individuality is a marketing tool, the prow on a black ship navigating the cosmos, waiting to puncture other planets on its unwieldy tip.  Such a sexual metaphor.  But once we’ve fucked the world we will do our very best to fuck the cosmos, and it will shrug and we shall fall away like so much dust from a derelict mantle.  And the corpse of our ship will drift and wither and erode under duress of the void-winds, never sure of whom its captain ever was.

Captain, if you are there, hear the mutiny at your cabin door. 
 

I couldn’t watch this, because my computer’s a piece, but I did read the transcript.  And I’m glad.  I’m sure a lot of the neo-conservative set would just write this off as more liberal media shenanigans, but whatever.  Guys like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck are the worst kind of parasites.  I can’t believe it never occurs to their ardent listeners just how rich and pampered these blowhards are, and what it takes to provide them job security.  I’m not going to believe any pundit wholesale, straight from the mouth: they don’t know what my life is like.  They paint themselves as these everyday everymen, but they’re just as simpering and posturing as the politically outspoken celebrities they denounce ad hoc.

Of course it’s easy to go after a figurehead, but it’s the citizenry that’s truly to blame.  People are lazy, gullible – they want to be lead around by the chin, they need it.  People search in every corner of life, scour every aspect, for traces of that familial comfort, the warmth of mother’s bosom, the sate of a full belly.  I think the best point made in the whole report is this:

REVEREND CHRIS BUICE: When you blame all your problems on some minority group then everyone else is exonerated. We exonerate ourselves. We don't have to look at ourselves to see what sort of ways we contribute to the problems of the world. We don't have to examine ourselves, to see what we are doing that is helping to create the problems that we're so concerned about.

Also the folk tale about the wolf, but this bit really is pitch perfect.  Nobody wants blame; everybody wants credit.  To that I ask, countrymen: How’s your market now?
 

In related news: Chessa brought her newborn son Noah over for a visit.  He’s two weeks old.  It’s been a while since I held a baby that small, but the little bugger is pretty fucking charming.  He makes great faces in his sleep.  I really loathe the general ignorance where overpopulation is concerned, but when I hold a tiny person in my arms that bitter concern is farthest from my mind.  It probably shouldn’t be, this poor kid has to deal with the mess we’re leaving behind.

So Chessa asked who I was voting for, and I said Obama.  She said, “Really? I’m McCainin’ it.”  Then we had a very civil and friendly discussion about the pros and cons of each candidate, which is quite refreshing after some of the recent vitriolic political exchanges I’ve witnessed and/or participated in on the Internets.  It’s hard to gauge things like tone and inflection in-print, so I guess “bloggers” and that ilk can come off as shrill or callous with much greater ease.  But I believe that it is an earmark of good character when someone can make his or her case with calm and intelligence in person.  Naturally it helps that I already respect Chessa.  I think we both schooled each other a little bit on our respective choices.  I sang the praises of Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, but we agreed (with degree of reserved frustration) that a vote cast outside of the Big Two is an exercise in futility.  Which sucks.  Some democracy.

I hate thinking about politics all the time.  The Presidential cycle makes it so prevalent.  I’d rather remain apathetic, or have this awareness carry on beyond the Race to End All Races.  I suppose that’s all up to me, innit?