Notice how the new iPhone lets you copy and paste New York Times articles into emails? Doesn’t that send up some HUGE RED FLAGS on anyone’s copyright-infringement-meter? (Admittedly, I may be the only one who has this extremely nerdy meter). New York Times articles are copyrighted. Plus, they are embedded with some weird techie thing that I don’t fully understand which tracks the number of hits the article/website gets and reports it to their advertisers so they can make some money in order to, yknow, survive. Questions of the day: (1) does copy and paste in an email infringe their copyright? (2) Will this iPhone feature hurt the New York Times’ biggest source of revenue? (3) If so, why would Apple use the New York Times as the example in their ad (just to throw the failing economy and disintegrating IP rights in their face)?

Check out my mom (and the amazing Kristin Thomson) talking about net neutrality and music in the digital age here.

Panel starts around 1:22:00

This guy knows how to draw the line. Except, I probably would have thrown in some punches for the guitars, too.

Here’s the video:

And here’s a picture of my favorite piece of art. I love this sculpture mostly because of its poignantly perfect name: The Cathedral.

America has elected their first black president, and it is truly a new day. I feel privileged to witness this moment in history.

But, for all of us, this election brings an extra reward. Electing a black man to the highest office is a powerful, beautiful, wonderful reminder that the spirit of this country is still alive: anyone can achieve their dreams. We all are one people and one country. This is clear. I don’t need to write about this. I am secure in this joy.

For the past few days, however, a set of lyrics have been bouncing around in my head:

“One hundred years from now when our grandkids have all had sex,
will they look back to the past and know what they’ve missed?
Will they think we had it better than the way they have it then?
Will they gaze at a strip mall where a field had once been?
Will they think they’re born late like the way we now do it?
Or will they curse at the present and lend credence to it?
Will they hear all the old songs and think they’re all true
and hate all their own songs and everything new?
Well I’m here to tell you something that’s known,
from someone who’s lived it from someone who’s grown,
the somebody who somebody once loaned a home to.
The grass is always greener, the past is always cleaner,
the present is crap and everyone’s meaner.
They say we’re moving towards something
but I think we’re moving from something.” *

 I used to listen to these words and really feel them. I’d listen to this song and see my world: strip malls instead of fields. I hated the present and I feared for the future. I was ashamed to be an American, the only identity I’ve ever owned. I was in middle school when the Lewinsky scandal broke. I was a freshman in high school when Bush began his first term. Terror, pain, lies and anger are the only kinds of ideals I’ve seen embraced by American politics. This song, its yearning for the past, its condemnation of the present, rang so true in my experience. We were moving away from something, and all I wanted to do was stop, put on the brakes, bury my head and fade into history.

On Tuesday, this song died. 

We are no longer moving from something. A new force has returned history to its natural trajectory: forward! The future is no longer bleak. Our relationship with human events is no longer this anhedonic acceptance of the inevitability of torture, war, fire, death, lies, selfishness, racism, apathy, illiteracy, pain. Instead; we move towards something. We move towards something better, we move towards something stronger, we move towards new songs, greener fields, cleaner times, and a security that even when things are bad, even when we are oppressed, even when the world is terrible, there is a future. We can see the horizon. Hope does not have to be tied to the dead weight of the past; we can create something new and fresh.

We are not doomed to nostaliga. 

And I am finally, for the first time in my life, proud that I am an American. This is the added joy of Obama’s election. We made history by electing a black man as President; but race, as we all know, is not a determination of personality. You can be white and mean. You can be white and good. You can be black and mean. You can be black and good. We elected a black man, but Obama is also a good man. The combination of these two qualities is what makes this moment breathtaking. Tuesday was an ending and a beginning.

I cannot wait for the rest of our lives.

*Livin’ A Dream by Dr. Dog

The Law and Economics of the Bluebook Market Failure

Read it here.