Protect Internet Freedom – NOW

Published by John on January 18th, 2012

Just in case you’ve missed it , congress is working on a law called the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” and a partner law, the “Protect IP Act.”   It’s why Google has the big black thing on their logo, and why Wikipedia is blacked out.   I’ll give you the gist based on what I read in the two acts (and not simply a bunch of news articles):

  • The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA – HR 3261) allows the government to take action against a person, making them personally liable, for anything on a web site they own or run that contains anything perceived to violate copyright.  Who decides?  Anyone who thinks that a site violates copyright and puts a phone call into their Attorney General or Department of Justice.  The government is then REQUIRED to put out a court order, take legal action, and then sort out the details.  (Translate: shoot first, ask questions later.)
  • The Protect IP Act (S.968) is even more far reaching, requiring search engines like Google to censor content out of their index.  It also requires the government to shut down a site first, and ask questions later.  In fact, Protect IP will provide the means for the government to shut down a site, the site’s owner may not know for hours, days, or weeks what happened or why.  (Translation: shoot and be sure the guy is dead first, then let God sort it out.)
As a musician and a web guy, I’ve always been in favor of intellectual copyright protection.  I still am.  It’s the right thing to do, and it’s good for business.  Creative people work hard, they create stuff we like to buy, and we should buy it instead of stealing it.
SOPA and Protect IP don’t protect IPs or Stop Online Piracy.  Instead, it gives the government unilateral control of all IPs and becomes the Imperial Wizard of American Internet Content.  It creates a HUGE government censorship complex responsible for monitoring IP addresses, and deciding which sites get to stay and which have to come down.  These two laws empower our government to sue and jail anyone who stands in their way.    It will turn the Internet into a huge police state, run by our benevolent Department of Justice.
Less government is better than more government.  It costs less.  It takes politicians out of our personal lives.  Our government is hosting wars in several countries.  The dollar isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  Washington spends far more than it takes in.  But our government can’t stop doing stuff like that, so instead, it will take money from the big media outlets and go into the internet censorship business.
SOPA and Protect IP aren’t going to help internet favorites like Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter, and Zynga.  These laws will kill internet startups, small creative groups, new bands, independent filmmakers, young artists, and the proverbial internet “little guy,” (or “little gal” if you prefer).  These laws WILL help huge media companies kill competition, control all innovation, and use the profits to support politicians through the infamous Super-PACs that work diligently for both sides of the political aisle.  Those responsible for sustaining the Internet Police State will be given an endless supply of offender intelligence by the media companies, whose new and improved profit margins will support a cadre of individuals responsible for watching their competition and feeding intel to the government.
Yes, the Internet is the Wild West, and bad things have happened to good people.  The Internet is utterly out of control.  That’s how it was designed.  It is OUR responsibility to conduct ourselves honestly and stand for positive change.  This law won’t just kill the NEXT Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter, it will kill the ones we have right now.  It would be just plain stupid for us to enact a gargantuan law, spawning yet another government regulatory institution, to take away the last level playing field on the planet.
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Posted in Economics, Freedom of Speech, Internet, Technology

On New Year’s Resolutions

Published by John on December 28th, 2011

I’m in favor of them, unapologetically.  If I have one criticism, it’s that we tend to make them only once a year.  I kinda think they should be a way of life.

This life is about reinventing ourselves constantly.  Bob Dylan once wrote, “He not busy being born is busy dying.”  If marriage and fatherhood has taught me anything, it’s that we always need to work on the “new and improved” version of ourselves.  It’s how we stay young.  New Year’s resolutions are just one tool in that particular journey, and if we don’t use it, we’re wasting an opportunity.

Young people are growing all the time, and to them it is a way of life.  Sometimes we find ourselves looking at a young person and saying, “when will you ever GROW UP!”  I’ve learned the hard way that the best answer is, “never.”  Does being “grown up” mean I know the answers?  If it does, I’m committing myself to a lifetime of immaturity.

A couple of my co-workers shared a New Year’s resolution to stop cursing.  Knowing both of these guys, I figure it will last about a month, maybe two.  No doubt, something I do will inspire a random expletive or two.  And when they “fall off the wagon,” to coin a cliche, let’s hope they decide to make a “February Resolution.”  Maybe that will take them to April or so, when I hope they resolve yet again.  Not because I care about their language – I really don’t, and I curse like an angry longshoreman myself.  But it’s something they want to work on in their own lives, and I like these guys, so I wish them the best.

I’ve had a few New Year’s resolutions like that.  One of them was losing weight.  After about 20 years of making the resolution, I embarked on a path that helped me lose about 50 pounds.  I still have more to go, so I’ll keep that “resolution” this January 1st (as soon as I finish this candy bar…).  Hey, we’re on the way.  Another is to be more diligent about my practice habits, both martially and musically.  Self discipline has never been a strong suit of mine, so pursuing this resolution will make me a better teacher, martial artist, and musician.

A close relative of mine once pontificated on New Year’s resolutions as being “hypocritical.”  He never makes them, he said, because they’re only going to be broken anyway.

Duh.  That’s not the point.

You’re not going to change your life with a single decision on one day, regardless of how much the champagne flows.  January 1 is as good a day as any to start a new approach toward something you want to change.  Then, in February or March, when you wake up and discover nothing has changed, MAKE THE DECISION AGAIN.  Our lives are a result of the symbiosis between our habits and our decisions.  You’re going to have to change LOTS of decisions, over and over, before you change your habits.  How long did it take for your kids to “grow up?”  Do you think you’re any different?  (Having never really “grown up,” I’m certainly no different.)

We’re just turning the corner out of the holiday season.  No doubt we’re wondering what, if anything, we’ll be able to take from the “spirit of the season” into the coming year.  Perhaps New Year’s is the same thing.  Can we decide to improve or grow in one small area of our lives?  And when (not “if”) we slip up, will we get up and resolve AGAIN?  Yes, the slip-ups will feel discouraging.  That’s the journey we’re on in this life, so get over it.  Laugh at your mistakes, because you’re human, and like it or not, your screwups are as funny as mine.  Then pick up the torch and keep marching.  No guilt, no self-recrimination.  Just, “Oops.  I’d better get on that.”  And then get on it.  It’s really not any more complicated than that.

Just in case you didn’t know it already, you’re exactly who you are supposed to be, where you are supposed to be, and how you are supposed to be.  This isn’t school, and questions like “who, how, or where” you should be don’t have “right” or “wrong” answers.  If you’re not satisfied with who, how, or where you are in life, make a choice to make a change.  Then give yourself a half a chance to actually do it.  When you fall short, decide to do it again.  Don’t give up.  Don’t EVER give up.  It’s in the choosing and the trying that we really live.

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Posted in Personal Growth
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Exhaustive lexicon of everything I know about women…

Published by John on December 5th, 2011

After 20 years of marriage and six years’ raising a daughter, I thought this would be an appropriate time to share with the world all the stuff I’ve learned about the fair gender.  Here goes.

Thanks for listening.

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Posted in Family, Marriage, Parenting, Relationships, Women's Issues
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Surcari – the real deal, and real fun

Published by John on November 19th, 2011

Surcari

Tonight I got to do something I haven’t been able to do in a while – go to a concert, have fun, and hear something genuinely unique.  The ethnic group Surcari brings just that type of performance to the stage.

Surcari is the ethnic/folk trio of Lorena Garay, Eugenio Huanca, and Tany Cruz.  They perform an eclectic mix of Latin- and South American works, Puerto Rican selections, and with neck-snapping artistic agility, manage to mix in a strong European sensibility with some strong Celtic flavor.  Garay is the epicenter of the ensemble, having grown up in Puerto Rico and later trained at Hartt and the Puerto Rico School of Music.   Both Huanca and Cruz bring urban and South American soul, with terrific musicianship and an almost athletic flair for playing just about anything.

Surcari brings a breathtaking array of ethnic acoustic instruments to the stage.  I counted 24 instruments this evening, but there might have been more.  Garay takes the time to introduce each piece and help the audience understand what was about to happen, in a way that even the least musical listener could understand.

If this is starting to sound like a school assembly, believe me, it’s way better.  (Surcari does school assemblies, by the way, but no matter.)  These three are top flight musicians.  There was a moment about half way through the concert when a half-dozen of our kids were in the back of the house dancing.  Before long, several of us adults had joined in.  More than a concert, it had become a little happening for those of us lucky enough to be there.

Surcari manages to capture the passion, beauty, intensity and complexity of a diverse array of cultural music.  At the same time, they make surprising combinations work on stage.  Before tonight I had never envisioned a bass pan pipe duet.  But you could have knocked me over with a stick as I heard Huanca and Cruz bang out a complex counterpoint that was thoroughly engaging, and would have given a marathoner a run for his money.  At another point the group enacted the sounds of the rainforest, and actual rainforest recordings sounded less genuine.  Guitarist Garay can also wield the Ocarina like a dove, and make the November night seem like equatorial bliss.  In the finale, all three musicians let us see their virtuosity and their soul.  It was a real treat.

Surcari comes from the spanish word “Sur,” for south, and “Cari,” the first part of Caribbean, referencing Garay’s Puerto Rican homeland.  They take the best of music from all these cultures, ignore all the rules, and the result is an unlikely and ingenious series of engaging, catchy, and non-traditional arrangements of traditional works.  It’s authentic, but more important, it’s fun.

Surcari is a local group, and can be booked through their web site, lorenagaray.com.  The CD is great, but the live performance is even better.  It is a real treat to see and hear something genuine and unique nowadays.

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Posted in Music, Uncategorized