is a blog by Brendan
Unfortunately, I missed Grey Tuesday by a week, and I feel bad about that. I have more than enough space here to have participated in it, and I haven’t been keeping up with fair use or downhill news in general.
I did check in at EFF today, though, and read their “A Better Way Forward” white paper. You might want to too. It’s excellent, and I haven’t found a decent argument against it.
“Before the bodies are wrapped and bound, however, the blankets are opened twice: first so that a cleric can rub a bit of dirt on the face and hands of the dead. In extreme circumstances, the ritual is considered an acceptable substitute for washing the body.
Then a man with a video camera bends over the face, panning down to a number written on a scrap of newsprint folded into the funeral shroud. The footage will be made available to families looking for loved ones, along with a record of where they were buried.”
In the Post, a description of people trying to impart spiritual significance to the mass-grave burial of tens of thousands. It’s pretty affecting.
Apparently they’re getting plenty of aid in Bam, which is good–even American planes landed there, and were welcomed, for the first time in ten years (edit: twenty-two). But it doesn’t seem likely that any amount of aid is going to make much of a difference now.
In Iran, a mother held her baby girl to shield her from falling rubble, and it worked–rescuers found the mother dead, but six-month-old Nassil lived.
I wonder if I’d have had the presence of mind to do that myself.
It’s November 7 and I just joined the CBLDF too. Child, you’re the revolution.
The FCC got around to adopting the broadcast flag, and I (finally) got around to joining the EFF.
“Coleman said he remained worried about the ‘heavy-handedness’ of the lawsuits, which carried fines of up to $150,000 for each song shared from their hard drives. When asked whether the fines were excessive, Bainwol said they got consumers’ attention and established a deterrent. ‘Public floggings would get attention, too, but we don’t do that,’ Coleman responded.”
Well played, Senator Coleman. Well played.
Meanwhile, over at Music That Is Free And Also Fricking Rocks, Amanda informs me that Jon has put new songs up on his IUMA page. (I have to find this out from Amanda because someone else never updates his blog. But I digress.) And! They fricking rock! “Later” and particularly “Gun” remind me of the reformed-ELO-fan sound of 56 Kilobit Sentinel, and the lo-fi / high harmony contrast in “Letting Go” might be my favorite moment in a Jon song yet. Plus the outro rocks like Silverchair.
Louisville: Hands cuffed behind his back, fifty years old, two white cops, one black man, twelve bullets, and you know, I can’t stand it when people get uppity over every little thing, honestly, but what? What?
I’m so tired it should be visible: there should be waves of it rising off me, distorting the air like our old wood-burning stove.
Last night was the second and last public performance of The Laramie Project. The Fellowship of One, the group of (mostly, and oddly, black) local pastors who have been trying to stop us from doing the play at the high school, were in attendance. They’ve never been uncivil, but their arguments at such venues as the DHS parents’ meeting have consisted mostly of things like
| Pastor: | The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle. |
| Teacher: | The play doesn’t promote any such thing. It shows viewpoints from all sides, including Christian values like mercy and forgiveness, and it shows what happens to people when a crime forces them to confront the issue of prejudice in their community. This is why we’re teaching it as part of our curriculum during Black History Month. |
| Pastor: | The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle! |
“This is a play about not hating people. You’ve made your point.”
We did it. We did it right.
Exhaustion, and triumph, and a ring around the moon.