Walk into the Petaluma UPS Store, actually, probably almost any UPS Store, anywhere. Look down onto the recessed counter, the portion near the cash register where you slide your packages across to the stranger who will take your prized possessions and shepherd them to someone else, somewhere else.
What do you see?
I'll tell you what I saw and which necessitated my calling across the room to "Gabrielle" earlier this week. "Um, excuse me, can you explain this? Do you really get customers who ship $50,000 hamsters?"
What do you do with that? she must have been thinking. I would have been thinking as much. Not exactly your standard customer request, such as: "Do you do Next Day?" (Yes.) "Is there a packing charge if I buy the box?" (Yes, but you don't pay by the styrofoam peanuts.) "Can I ship nuclear warheads, if they're disarmed?" (No.)
So she comes out from the end of the packing area, comes up to me from the other side of the counter, and looks down toward where I'm pointing. There, glued down to the surface, is a mosaic of all manner of inanimate objects (fireworks, petrochemicals, aerosols) and animalia (Scottish Terriers, Tarantulas, and yes, hamsters; actually, the hamster was standing on the Terrier's head) that you cannot ship. And below the clip art assemblage? A line of text reading: "No unusual pets or objects over $50,001."
The UPS worker assured me she hadn't noticed the warning before. A case of hiding in plain sight, no doubt. I mean, considering how many parcels, stuffed envelopes, and large cartons she accepts over that surface.
On the way out, I turned to her and said, "By the way, if anyone reports finding a $50,000 hamster, call me. It's mine."
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Pardon me, I've gotta take an I.P....
In her recent blog posting in which she weighs the pros and cons of willful disregard of copyright laws as presented in Fox's Glee ('Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club'), author and guest blogger Christina Mulligan concludes:
"Defenders of modern copyright law will argue Congress has struck “the right balance” between copyright holders’ interests and the public good. They’ll suggest the current law is an appropriate compromise among interest groups. But by claiming the law strikes “the right balance,” what they’re really saying is that the Glee kids deserve to be on the losing side of a lawsuit. Does that sound like the right balance to you?"
I'm sorry. Ed is not convinced. While it seems harsh to hold high school students, whose intent may only be to honor the creative genius of their cultural icons by adapting it, up to a lesser standard than the adult sector of the species, it strikes me as tantamount to suggesting that some laws apply to some more than others. Isn't that why we have Driver's Ed and a lengthy Permit Process?
As Ed noted in a recent rebuttal posted first at Brazen Careerist when one poster asked, "I tend to think that intellectual property and copyright laws have gone too far in this country, and are doomed to die in an internet age, eventually. But does that mean we should flaunt them until they are changed?":
Ed: Well, if we flaunt intellectual property laws, then we are unconsciously or consciously suggesting that they are not on par with any other body of law. And I see this as a dangerous precedent. If tomorrow, simply because we're running late to the office, we decide to ignore STOP signs and red lights, the argument that in an age when motorists are willfully ignoring the ban on cell phone use while driving anyway seems hardly a defense for not bringing our vehicles to a full stop. The day we tap into the equivalent of 'moral relevance' as applied to law, is the day we might as well hang out the Anarchy flag and just do whatever the hell we all please. I.P. laws are at the foundation of protections for the core of our creative commerce. To ignore them is to cheapen the creative process itself. It's tantamount to saying: "Well, that's a great idea, but I would have come up with it anyway." Wrong. I, and presumably anyone in this forum, probably wouldn't have come up with Monet's 'Water Lillies,' Bach's 'Preludium in E,' or Dr. Robert Jarvik's artificial heart. If we could, then society wouldn't hold these achievements up to such high esteem. In short, every idea would become relatively equivalent. Might as well dump the Tonys, Oscars, Peabody's and the Olympics. Imagine that. Sound extreme? Not in a world where creative idea generation goes unprotected. The result: creativity is stripped of financial incentive. It becomes creativity for creativity's sake. Try buying a quart of milk or paying your rent by walking into your local grocery store or your landlord's office with a new song you wrote or poem. Without I.P. protection, creativity dies on the vine. My two cents. Oh, and I hereby wave my rights. Feel free to distribute at will.
I invite comment. Ed It.
"Defenders of modern copyright law will argue Congress has struck “the right balance” between copyright holders’ interests and the public good. They’ll suggest the current law is an appropriate compromise among interest groups. But by claiming the law strikes “the right balance,” what they’re really saying is that the Glee kids deserve to be on the losing side of a lawsuit. Does that sound like the right balance to you?"
I'm sorry. Ed is not convinced. While it seems harsh to hold high school students, whose intent may only be to honor the creative genius of their cultural icons by adapting it, up to a lesser standard than the adult sector of the species, it strikes me as tantamount to suggesting that some laws apply to some more than others. Isn't that why we have Driver's Ed and a lengthy Permit Process?
As Ed noted in a recent rebuttal posted first at Brazen Careerist when one poster asked, "I tend to think that intellectual property and copyright laws have gone too far in this country, and are doomed to die in an internet age, eventually. But does that mean we should flaunt them until they are changed?":
Ed: Well, if we flaunt intellectual property laws, then we are unconsciously or consciously suggesting that they are not on par with any other body of law. And I see this as a dangerous precedent. If tomorrow, simply because we're running late to the office, we decide to ignore STOP signs and red lights, the argument that in an age when motorists are willfully ignoring the ban on cell phone use while driving anyway seems hardly a defense for not bringing our vehicles to a full stop. The day we tap into the equivalent of 'moral relevance' as applied to law, is the day we might as well hang out the Anarchy flag and just do whatever the hell we all please. I.P. laws are at the foundation of protections for the core of our creative commerce. To ignore them is to cheapen the creative process itself. It's tantamount to saying: "Well, that's a great idea, but I would have come up with it anyway." Wrong. I, and presumably anyone in this forum, probably wouldn't have come up with Monet's 'Water Lillies,' Bach's 'Preludium in E,' or Dr. Robert Jarvik's artificial heart. If we could, then society wouldn't hold these achievements up to such high esteem. In short, every idea would become relatively equivalent. Might as well dump the Tonys, Oscars, Peabody's and the Olympics. Imagine that. Sound extreme? Not in a world where creative idea generation goes unprotected. The result: creativity is stripped of financial incentive. It becomes creativity for creativity's sake. Try buying a quart of milk or paying your rent by walking into your local grocery store or your landlord's office with a new song you wrote or poem. Without I.P. protection, creativity dies on the vine. My two cents. Oh, and I hereby wave my rights. Feel free to distribute at will.
I invite comment. Ed It.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Well, at least he never told a lie...
The Associated Press reports today that the Father of Our Country, G. Washington himself, is more than a bit past due on his library fines. To excerpt:
George Washington racks up late fees at NY library
NEW YORK – If George Washington were alive today, he might face a hefty overdue library fine.
New York City's oldest library says one of its ledgers shows that the president has racked up 220 years' worth of late fees on two books he borrowed, but never returned.
One of the books was the "Law of Nations," which deals with international relations. The other was a volume of debates from Britain's House of Commons.
Both books were due on Nov. 2, 1789.
New York Society Library head librarian Mark Bartlett says the institution isn't seeking payment of the fines, but would love to get the books back.
The ledger also lists books being taken out by other founding fathers, including Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and John Jay.
The entry on Washington simply lists the borrower as "president."
-----------------
So I invite you, Ed's readers, and anyone else who cares to comment on the largest fine you have ever wracked up at a public library, or with the IRS, or the DMV or with that loan shark you once approached to finance your latest self-published book. Charge away....
George Washington racks up late fees at NY library
NEW YORK – If George Washington were alive today, he might face a hefty overdue library fine.
New York City's oldest library says one of its ledgers shows that the president has racked up 220 years' worth of late fees on two books he borrowed, but never returned.
One of the books was the "Law of Nations," which deals with international relations. The other was a volume of debates from Britain's House of Commons.
Both books were due on Nov. 2, 1789.
New York Society Library head librarian Mark Bartlett says the institution isn't seeking payment of the fines, but would love to get the books back.
The ledger also lists books being taken out by other founding fathers, including Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and John Jay.
The entry on Washington simply lists the borrower as "president."
-----------------
So I invite you, Ed's readers, and anyone else who cares to comment on the largest fine you have ever wracked up at a public library, or with the IRS, or the DMV or with that loan shark you once approached to finance your latest self-published book. Charge away....
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Out of the Mouth of Raves...
On Wednesday, Chloe, my 6-year-old stepdaughter-in-training, embraced the anthology of Dick and Jane stories her mother bought for her on my recommendation. "Worked for me when I was her age," I suggested. (Up until reading Dick and Jane, little Chloe would struggle, word by word, with other children's books intended for her age.)
After returning home from the book store, I couldn't believe at how voraciously Chloe read each page and how proud she was at her newly discovered reading abilities. All was well, until, about halfway through the 145 page collection, she turns to me and says:
"There are too many Dicks in this book."
After returning home from the book store, I couldn't believe at how voraciously Chloe read each page and how proud she was at her newly discovered reading abilities. All was well, until, about halfway through the 145 page collection, she turns to me and says:
"There are too many Dicks in this book."
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
DROPPING THE BOMB ON FACTS RADIATES GREAT SALES
BOOM! That's the sound of the cash registers at Amazon.com crashing to the floor as sales ring up for Charles Pellegrino's "Last Train from Hiroshima," a historical look at the dropping of the atomic bomb based largely on the interview of one source, Joseph Fuoco, who claimed to have flown on the mission as a last-minute replacement for flight engineer James R. Corliss and further claimed that a few soldiers loading the bomb onto the Enola Gay died from radiation leaks. (Both claims have since been debunked.)
If you've been following the torrent of "bad press" which has dogged the book's release since the Associated Press first put the publisher to the firestorm last month and led Henry Holt and Company to halt production (and soon after led Barnes and Noble to pull the book from their shelves), then you know that not checking your facts, especially when writing about such a, if you'll pardon the pun, stratospherically profiled event can have apocalyptic repercussions. Or can it?
Today we learn that the debunking of the book has apparently made its sales increase.
This strikes me as a curious phenomenon and seems to fly in the face of common sense like so much fallout your dog might swallow while sticking his head out of a car driving through the boulevards of a post-nuked city.
I will withhold my opinions here pending reading and considering your own. But I imagine that you, too, might conclude that this outcome could only happen in an era of instant, unedited, point-and-click journalism and general apathy where pillars of sports, finance, and politics, and celebrities in general fall from grace as quickly as Little Boy and Fat Man sped to their pre-assigned targets only to be placated by our ubiquitous forgiveness for anyone who or any institution that (publishing now joining the ranks) makes a major intentional or unintentional faux pas.
Write away folks. But do it quick. You never know when the next bomb might drop.
e.i.
If you've been following the torrent of "bad press" which has dogged the book's release since the Associated Press first put the publisher to the firestorm last month and led Henry Holt and Company to halt production (and soon after led Barnes and Noble to pull the book from their shelves), then you know that not checking your facts, especially when writing about such a, if you'll pardon the pun, stratospherically profiled event can have apocalyptic repercussions. Or can it?
Today we learn that the debunking of the book has apparently made its sales increase.
This strikes me as a curious phenomenon and seems to fly in the face of common sense like so much fallout your dog might swallow while sticking his head out of a car driving through the boulevards of a post-nuked city.
I will withhold my opinions here pending reading and considering your own. But I imagine that you, too, might conclude that this outcome could only happen in an era of instant, unedited, point-and-click journalism and general apathy where pillars of sports, finance, and politics, and celebrities in general fall from grace as quickly as Little Boy and Fat Man sped to their pre-assigned targets only to be placated by our ubiquitous forgiveness for anyone who or any institution that (publishing now joining the ranks) makes a major intentional or unintentional faux pas.
Write away folks. But do it quick. You never know when the next bomb might drop.
e.i.
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