Ramblings to distract myself before making dinner

[shadowkat]

Since job thing-a-mig is currently driving me batty, am distracting myself flitting about on my lj and looking at emails, and pressing the back button alot. Currently feel as if the universe is biting its thumb at me, and saying n'yah, n'yah, n'yah.

Things that I've distracted myself with today:

1. Copyright battle between Universal and CafePRess. Which has the Firefly fandom up in arms. I wandered over and put in my two cents at Whedonesque. Okay it was more like my five cents, but whatever. It is an interesting case - not the part about the infringement, the Serenity artwork in question was clearly in violation of Universal's copyright - or at least what I saw of it was, no what is interesting about it is the possible defense. Or rather in non-legalese, the thing that has the browncoats so pissed off. Universal as everyone knows used the existing Firefly fanbase to sell Serenity. Instead of spending millions of dollars on a promotional marketing campaign for the film, they went the guerilla marketing route and had the fans sell it to fellow fans. This saved them quite a bit of money, it also cost them a bit - because fans tend to only pass the word to freinds, family and well fellow fans - and those people would have seen the movie without a marketing campaign. The tv shows fanbase can't sell the film to the mainstream - non-cult, non-fan audience, which is off-net. And like it or not, for a movie or tv show to do *really* well or at least well enough to justify a sequel - it has to appeal to that broader audience. (Cases in point: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter). So in a way, Universal's gamble didn't quite work out the way they wanted it to. My question is when Universal asked the shows fans to market the film did they give them permission to produce t-shirts, cups, fan-art on posters, etc - and did they do it in writing? If the fans can prove they did, and prove that it was not permission just for "promotional" reasons - then Universal may have a problem.


2. President Bush has expressed his dissatisfaction with what is happening in Iraq. He doesn't think things are going well over there - Or so I was told by ABC News. LOL! Say what you will about the current US Prez, but he certainly has a gift for stating the obvious. Now if only he'd admit that he's dissatisfied with the current economy, health insurance, and unemployment situation in the US and thinks that yes, perhaps the anti-trust law needs to be strengthened again to discourage all these stupid mergers and acquisitions that are causing people to get laid-off right and left.

3. Good news Studio 60 fans, while the show is not doing great ratings wise (no surprise there, after this week's episode, I've decided that I'm not the only one who is thinking it is too bright for tv - I think the writer of the show has also decided it is too bright for tv and has decided to tell us so. That said, die-hard fans, all 1000 of them, still adore it.), the income level of the fans watching is in the networks happy radar range - 69,000 and above. In short they are rich folks. No, wait, they aren't counting me. The currently unemployed folks. Goes to show you, market research is hardly an exact science. Also the network is behind it. Even though the network is currently trying to avoid bankruptcy and about to layoff a thousand employees, but hey, we'll ignore that, because Prez Bush says the economy is doing just peachy (if you say so, Mr. President) and guess what NBC Nightly News is beating ABC and CBS? Hee. Again no surprise. Considering it's the only one of the big three that is not touting the corporate line and actually presenting the news. ABC's Gibson's conservatism has begun to annoy me. I didn't like Katie Kouric when she was doing the Today Show.

4. Am tempted to swipe buffyannatator unpopular fandom opinions meme - it provides multiple opportunities for me to make sarcastic remarks, which will undoubtedly piss off my flist. So am resisting. We'll see how long that lasts. Been pressing the back button all day long.

5. Oh and a bit of good news, the New Jersey Supreme Court has figured out why not permitting same-sex marriage is a bad thing and granted certain legal rights to homosexual partners that used to only be granted to heterosexual ones. Okay for people who know zip about Property and Family Law - I'll clarify - basically, when two people get married this grants the person's spouse certain legal rights in case say their partner gets ill or dies or has a kid or they buy a house together. The reason people get married (ignoring the whole religious aspect of it for a moment) is so the state recognizes them as a couple and grants them certain legal rights as a couple. They can file taxes jointly (which in some instances gives you a tax break), if they buy a house - it is in both of their names and if something should happen to one of the two, the other one automatically has right of ownership. If someone is hospitalized, their spouse or partner has the right to oversee their care, sign off on surgery, ensure their bills are paid, etc. If they die, the surviving partner gets the shared property - it does not go "intestate" or to surviving family members. If one is working and has insurance and the other doesn't - the insurance can cover both as a "married" couple. That's why it is important. The religious/morality bit should not come into play here at all - if it does come into play - then you fall into a dilemma because - hello, last time I checked there was another nifty constitutional clause stating "freedom of religion" and "separation of church and state". Us agnostics and athesists would really like that clause to stay in there.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

There's a couple of problems Bush and the current Admin are facing - the biggest is Iraq and the number of body bags coming back. They aren't coming back to wealthy areas, either, but to the poor rural towns in middle America, where the people voted for Bush. Believed in Bush's War.
A War that appears to be endless and is requiring more and more people to go back for second tours. These are mostly reservists - folks who don't make a lot anyhow. Look what Vietnam did to Lyndon Johnson and to a degree Nixon and Ford? Iraq may be worse than Vietnam. Because unlike Vietnam, we can't just pull out of there. And by the time this thing is over? I won't be surprised if the death toll is higher than Vietnam.

Plus, people in Bush's own administration are already pointing fingers and stating how the whole thing is a huge mistake.

Agree - ABC is becoming like Fox. Thought I was imagining things. Look I don't necessarily want a liberal news cast either. I just want the news - bare bones. Uneditorialized. I'm missing Peter Jennings, big time. NBC right now is the only one that appears to be doing it, outside of maybe NY1 and PBS on occassion. Was looking at the Atlantic Monthly the other day and they had some interesting stats on how strongly people relied on or believed in the news they were watching. Republicans predictably believed Fox the most, but of those polled, only 30% trusted them. Democrats predictably trusted NPR the most, but also just 30%. CNN used to have the most of both parties , as did the Wall Street Journal, but both dropped way off. The Bush era has changed the way we look at the news media, we no longer trust them - we see them as clowns, which ironically is exactly what the great Edward R. Murrow once warned them about. With YouTube, John Stewart and The Colbert Report poking fun at them and taking the place of SNL, David Letterman and Leno as the latenight entertainment of choice - this only becoming more apparent. People trust the net more for information than their tv sets or newspapers.

Agree on the marriage thing. I honestly think the government needs to disassociate some of these joint-property laws from marriage. It's causing problems across the board. There are, ironically, people I know in South Carolina who have been living together for a while, who are older, in their 60's, who wouldn't mind getting married, but won't for fear of having to change how their property is set up. In Pennsylvania, my Uncle was told that to get more medicare coverage, he'd either have to divorce his wife or quit his job, because even though she had no money and no insurance, he was considered covered by his company and since they were married the state viewed them as both covered. That's a problem. While on the other side of the fence, you are have people who are life-long companions who can't approve surgery for a loved one or have power of attorney or even get death benefits, because they aren't considered legally a couple by the government. It's silly. I understand the history behind it and why they originally set things up that way, but come on, the world has changed.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Yes, with the news I want the facts, the reasons, and the implications. But I'd be pretty happy just to get the facts instead of spin. The Bush administration preemptively attacked the media the same way they attack everything--undermine it. That worked out well for a while, but now maybe it's working too well, with nobody believing anybody anymore. Except the "true believers," of course, on both sides.

I think maybe the only reason Iraq is killing Bush is because he's lied about it so much, and even true believers watch tv and can put two and two together. Otherwise, with no draft and no hippie marches, it doesn't really affect enough people to change the national mood. I have two nephews who signed up for the military and their families were happy about it; they figure it'll give the boys guidance and a good start on life. They just ignore the war and the probability that the boys will be shipped there. (Fortunately one's been rejected on medical grounds. I was very worried, because he's not stable.) I saw people on the news angrier about gas prices than the deaths in Iraq. People find meaning in war, it gives their lives a greater sense of purpose and depth. They think it'll make a man of their boys, hence the Army commercials made to convince parents to send their kids off to war. And it gives form and function to their vague feelings of anger and dissatisfaction. Of course, the farther off the war the more they like it!