Being sick, CopyNight, Maury Povich, the war on Christmas, the Troika, the Digital Summit, the White House News Bureau
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I SPENT 14 hours on planes and at airports, especially gates E & F at O'Hare, last Sunday (4/16) and it lead to me getting sick. I don't do sick well but I've been convinced that making other people sick is inexcusable so I've been staying home and "enjoying" being sick. I'm taking three drugs and experimenting with cough drops, cough syrups, saline nose sprays (do they ever really go bad? I'm comparing my 1998 exp version to my 2008 exp version) and pillow formations and angles. If there weren't a lot of news on cable, I might have to read law or watch reality TV or soap operas. This could be worse.
We in Nashville will be having our April CopyNight meeting on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 at 7:30 PM (normally it is at 7 PM) at Tabouli's, 2015 Belmont Blvd. (between Bongo Java and PM).
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Last week many of us who were in Nashville attended Leadership Music's Digital Summit (http://digitalsummit.org/schedule.html) held across the street from Tabouli's at the Curb Events Center. Except for the dour, regressive, one-sided "consumer-is-the-problem," 9:30 AM panel, this was a very good and surprisingly enlightened event.
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But with any progress, comes many more obstacles and those willing to bend in any direction to serve the master lobbyists of the Music And Film Industry Association of America (MAFIAA).
The worst of all is the new digital copyright bill that the Troika - Mitch Bainwol (RIAA), Dan Glickman (MPAA) and Mary Beth Peters (U. S. Copyright Office) - are pushing upon their workers (AKA, members of the House and Senate). The Troika are taking a very bad DMCA and making it much worse.
http://news.com.com/Congress+readies+new+digital+copyright+bill/2100-1028_3-6064016.html?tag=newsmap
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And as if the new North Korean-style digital copyright bill that Congress is trying to pass is not enough, this same Troika and Congress are also trying to please many of the telcoms and large corporations by radically altering the landscape of the Internet:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1539607&auid=1606312
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But since our last CopyNight meeting, a lot has happened and fortunately, there is a new lobbying group that can help. It is not the EFF or Public Knowledge, the two most enlightened non-academic groups, but unlike EFF and PK, this group CAN lobby. The group is:
IPAC
I proudly made my first donation to IPAC this afternoon. Their logo: "Defending the public interest where culture and technology meet."
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MAURY POVICH
Maury Povich (www.wchstv.com/ synd_prog/maury/) said that Jon Gibson, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mediamatters.org/static/images/tv_clips/john-gibson.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mediamatters.org/items/200512010018&h=172&w=320&sz=17&tbnid=yGx60oNFn1StrM:&tbnh=60&tbnw=113&hl=en&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3DJon%2BGibson%2BFox%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG of the Official White House News Bureau, FOX, was a decorated veteran of the War on Christmas.
I am so glad the War on Christmas is over or at least seems to be in suspended animation. I was amazed at how little Christmas there was this past December. I hardly saw any red or green, there were almost no Christmas carols, the stores were quiet, the malls were abandoned, there were no SUV's filled with packages or children.... it was so quiet. It's a good thing that Jon Gibson and others are trying to keep Christmas alive and surviving despite that major war by those insurgents.
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