YouTube hits back at Viacom

For the most part I stay away here from writing much about the evolution of media, for a few reasons. The primary one is that I know a lot less about what's going on in that regard that a whole bunch of much smarter people.

And when I do reflect on the topic, I consider myself primarily a reporter, not an analyst and not, especially, either a champion or a basher of the new digital age. I don't, for instance, line up reflexively on either side of the big divide over how strongly copyright should, or should not, be enforced on the 'Net, although as someone whose livelihood comes from content my sympathies tend to lean toward preserving copyright -- within reasonable limits. But once again, I refer you to the last sentence in the previous paragraph.

But with this revelation, I'm inclined to root for YouTube:

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

via Andrew Sullivan.

Teach kids about Food

Amen.




via Wisdom of the Hands.

A Song for the First Day of Spring

A question to anyone who reads this blog

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The self as illusion? (Updated)

EmpireStateMom and I have for years had an on-and-off again dialogue about religion. She's an Episcopalian with strong Quaker leanings (but, she'll want me to clarify, not a pacifist). Knowing that I have had a passing fancy with (not anything like a disciplined study or practice of) Buddhism, she passes on thoughts relating to her reading about that subject.

In the Christian Century she read a favorable review of a new book, Without Buddha, I Could not be a Christian, by Paul Knitter, and sent the review on to me.

In her letter, she explained her continued perplexity with the Buddhist notion that "the self" is "an illusion" and her conclusion from trying to understand that concept (from having read certain Buddhist books) that it was a religion "for elites."

I wrote back saying that I didn't perceive it that way at all, that from the little bit of reading I have done (primarily some slim volumes by Thich Nhat Hanh), my understanding is that it is the barriers between people that are illusory. I suggested that, to me, it was a concept very much congruent with the idea of the Kingdom of God as explicated by people like John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg (a favorite of hers, and lately, of mine).

Anyway. Checking out Monkey Mind today I came across this post from yesterday by James Ford. It said more clearly and articulately (and with far greater scholarship and spiritual experience behind it) what I was trying to tell ESM, so I printed it out and put it in the mail to her.

Update, Saturday, March 20, 2010

ESM called me this morning and said she was mistaken -- it was Hinduism she meant when she was talking about being "elitist," because of its caste system.

Oh, well...

Happy St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day has never been very high on my list of holidays. Nothing against it, just it was never particularly special.

A couple of random recollections.

I was in China for 3 weeks some 8 years ago, part of a team of mostly teachers (plus a couple of ringers, including me) from Wisconsin and Northern Illinois who were teaching in a summer school program to offer English language and American cultural immersion. Each of us prepared a lesson on a particular state or major city of the U.S. Having gone to graduate school at The World's Greatest Journalism School, it was natural for me to pick New York City. When it came time to pick a holiday associated with the city, I chose St. Patrick's Day, and on one of my presentations I talked a dear friend and fellow teacher into serenading the class with "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."

Red hair, of course, is associated with the Irish. DairyStateKid#1 once won a red-headed-kid contest at Irish Fest in Milwaukee. But years before that, he had the greatest comeback ever to a nosy question about his hair. Neither his mother nor I have red hair (I don't have much hair at all, to be sure), and in a restaurant with his mother for lunch one day when he was about 3, he was approached by a well-meaning older woman. "Where did you get that lovely red hair?" she asked.

"It started growing on my head when I was a baby," was his reply.

Finally, here's a lovely little essay on today through an Interfaith lens.

Top o' th' mornin' to you all.

Stewart skewers ChatRoulette reporters

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What I like most about this is that Couric, Olbermann, Williams and Sawyer all were willing to help Stewart poke fun at their own profession.