I know it’s bad timing that I made this on Veteran’s Day – I assure you it has nothing to do with veterans. It does have something to do with “the Law”. Click for full size.
My Tax Dollars At Work
Category: sucktastic suckage
Grand Fucking Jury
Pardon my French – or is that legalese?
As of today, I’m required to serve as a grand juror for the next two weeks. Meaning I had to cancel my only paid work for the month, speaking at Alma College in Michigan. The court said essentially, “tough shit.” Ironically, if I’d been mugged on the street for the same $ amount, I could initiate a trial in the very same criminal court I’m “serving” in!
Unlike trial juries, Grand Jury allows no excuses; they don’t interview you. If you’re breathing, you serve. The fact that I’m morally opposed to the drug laws that half the cases are based on is irrelevant; I’m simply advised not to vote on those.
I’m also sick – still coughing even after a month with this virus, whatever it is – but don’t have insurance or a regular doctor to write the official written excuse on official doctor letterhead. Besides, that would only postpone this; once you’re called, they keep calling you until you’re seated. They mentioned that sometimes jurors get sick while serving; one collapsed on duty recently. If I actually collapse, they’ll send a doctor. Otherwise, tough shit.
On the brighter side, I get to see up to six cases a day. Lots of fascinating stories, especially the ones that aren’t about drugs. And however much it sucks to be a juror, it sucks worse to be anyone else in that room.
Oh, and if you’re wondering why I have such a bad attitude about the law, maybe it’s because I broke federal law to make my film, and could have faced jail time myself? Or that most people I know are technically criminals also?
Don’t expect much from me until after November 23rd. I do get weekends off. And tomorrow, which is Veteran’s Day.
“Intellectual Property” is Slavery
“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.”
— John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government
“Most thinkers…hold that you own your own life, and it follows that you must own the products of that life, and that those products can be traded in free exchange with others,” claims Wikipedia’s latest entry on property. “Every man has a property in his own person,” says John Locke. Ayn Rand (who I generally can’t stand, but who I’m happy to quote as a passionate defender of the sanctity of property) wrote, “Just as man can’t exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one’s rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.”
You also have a property in your own MIND. That which lives in your mind, is your property. And everyone deserves Rand’s “right to translate one’s rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results” – in other words to freely think, express, and own the contents of their own mind. That is what “intellectual property” should (but doesn’t) mean: everyone’s right to their own mind.
Instead, legally defined “Intellectual Property” means exactly the opposite: it transfers ownership of the contents of your mind to others. It alienates the ideas in your mind, from you. Is there a song running through your mind right now? It doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to Warner-Chappell. You are forbidden to express it; “performance” requires permission. “To think, to work” – interpret – “and keep the results” – record and sell copies of – the song in your mind, are illegal.
Thus Intellectual Property gives alien, private owners title to our minds. We may think culture (songs, text, images) only in secret; any expressions of cultural thought belong not to the thinker, but to the IP owner. Your thoughts are “derivative works”; someone else has title to them. You may have “Porgy and Bess” in your mind, but interpreting or singing it out loud is forbidden. That part of your mind belongs to Gershwin’s heirs and their lackeys.
Wikipedia’s entry on Chattel Slavery states: “The living human body is, in most modern societies, considered something which cannot be the property of anyone but the person whose body it is.” The living human mind should be the same. Legally defined “Intellectual Property” is, quite simply, someone else’s ownership of your mind. If they own the right to express what lives in your mind, the right “to think, to work and keep the results,” then they own your mind; they own you. What can we call that, except slavery?
My Wikimedia Rant
Note: Please, please continue uploading my comics to WikiMedia Commons, beloved uploaders! Nina’s Adventures is next. I completely endorse and support this work! Thank you! I love you! I post the rant below because, well, it’s on my mind now, and life isn’t perfect.
Continue reading “My Wikimedia Rant”
Why I hate T-Mobile
The following report has nothing to do with art, film, or copyright, or anything else I care about. I’m just publishing it on my blog because there’s not much else I can do about it.
*****
Last month T-Mobile charged me about $280 over my rate plan. When I called, the Customer Service Representative (CSR) said I should have used the web site to check my minutes. There was nothing they could do now, she said.
So paid the $369.11 bill, then went to the web site and changed my plan. Last week I got a bill with $105 in extra fees. I called today, explained I’d changed my plan after talking to the CSR, and could they resolve the excess charges. No, they said, because I should have changed it by phone. I shouldn’t have used the web site. Didn’t I see the little notice on the web site saying changes wouldn’t go into effect for another month? I told them the CSR didn’t tell me I’d be penalized for using the web site. There was nothing they could do now, they said.
I asked to speak to my CSR’s supervisor. “Guy” confirmed the records showed I had indeed changed my plan online shortly after speaking with a CSR. After much pleading on my part, told me he’d split the $105 with me. I asked to speak to his boss. “If you do, I can’t guarantee my offer.”
His boss informed me there was nothing he could do, there was no way to resolve the charges, I was responsible for them because I’d changed my plan online, and I should be responsible. He said the online service was for my convenience. I said a $105 charge wasn’t convenient. He reminded me that I could have gotten $52.50 in credit had I only accepted Guy’s offer, but now there was nothing he could do.
A CSR the previous month told me to use the web site, that my huge bill was the result of my failure to use the web site. The CSRs this month told me my huge bill was the result of my using the same web site.
T-Mobile seems to find any reason to overcharge, and no recourse for resolving problems, even when a customer genuinely wants to, and clearly makes efforts to do so. They really seem to want customers to be unable to change their plans, so they can keep charging for extra minutes. I did what they said, and they still overcharged me, blaming me for using the same web service they blamed me for not using the previous month.
There’s nothing they can do, their hands are tied, they’re helpless to help me (except Guy was briefly given miraculous powers to offer me $52.50 for a few minutes, but these powers were just as mysteriously lost when I spoke with his superior). I sure know what helpless feels like – I’ve been overbilled $375 now, after doing what the CSRs told me to do.
All I can do now is write about it.
The store, she is taking forever
Now the problem is the payment authorization service is delaying…and we can’t take orders until that’s set up…so we wait and wait. And then right when we think we’re done, some new technical glitch presents itself. It’s driving me crazy. I’m really hoping it can go live by Monday…
But we are getting closer. Click on the eentsy image below for a sneak peek screenshot of the store-in-progress.
