And, I was having such a good day...
Sep. 11th, 2008 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesWell, aside from the fact the department cannot keep a color printer full of ink. I had gone to a nice colloquium and had a successful group meeting. More on that later, though.
Then I come home, and after a game of Katamari Damancy, I log on and start reading Livejournal.
First I see another fan confused by copyright law. (I have a whole rant about fansubs and copyright law saved somewhere, but I'm afraid posting it will get me lynched.) Suffice to say, if something airs on Japanese TV, it is copyrighted under US copyright law, thanks to treaties. Which is a good thing for artists, since I mean that I can't drive across the border with a carful of novels of successful authors* to republish in Canada. The system isn't that good now that the Internet exists, but doesn't change what the law actually is.
* But no one I like. They need money to eat, so they will write more books for me to read.
Then, I see
matociquala 's post on this article, in which the Republicans in Michigan plan on not allowing people who have lost their home to vote, since they don't technically don't have an address in-precint. Which, thanks to politics, means a lot of poor voters are going to get disenfranchised, even more so since the housing problems meant a lot of people got loans they couldn't afford.
I'm going to quote the comment I left:
I'm not normally one to indulge in profanity, but...
Fuck this shit. Fuck people who target people who are all but silenced, just because they are less likely to vote Republican, in a state where it is a close race. Fuck the system which lets my father the professor choose to register to vote in Florida because he has a summer home there, and have him vote in a close race, while not letting my mother the secretary do the same, because she isn't well-off enough to live in two states.
... I want to go back to being the teenaged Star Trek fan who would swear that everyone had a voice and even an ant could move a mountain if it found the right lever and maybe got the other ants to help. Growing up sucks.
Then I come home, and after a game of Katamari Damancy, I log on and start reading Livejournal.
First I see another fan confused by copyright law. (I have a whole rant about fansubs and copyright law saved somewhere, but I'm afraid posting it will get me lynched.) Suffice to say, if something airs on Japanese TV, it is copyrighted under US copyright law, thanks to treaties. Which is a good thing for artists, since I mean that I can't drive across the border with a carful of novels of successful authors* to republish in Canada. The system isn't that good now that the Internet exists, but doesn't change what the law actually is.
* But no one I like. They need money to eat, so they will write more books for me to read.
Then, I see
matociquala 's post on this article, in which the Republicans in Michigan plan on not allowing people who have lost their home to vote, since they don't technically don't have an address in-precint. Which, thanks to politics, means a lot of poor voters are going to get disenfranchised, even more so since the housing problems meant a lot of people got loans they couldn't afford. I'm going to quote the comment I left:
"When I was a kid, I learned about civil rights and women's rights, partially through historical fiction. One of the things I learned was that, even though it was legal for blacks to vote in the early 20th century, there were plenty of ways state governments could block them, even without mob 'justice'. Things like poll taxes and literacy tests that would disproportionately affect the poor, the minorities, and the people who, in general, didn't have the resources to fight back or influence the system in other ways. Some people could break out, but this was hard.
"I thought to myself, that it was a wonderful thing that people not only broke out, but they helped pull their fellow men and women out after, and made laws so that would never happen again.
"Ha, I say. "
I'm not normally one to indulge in profanity, but...
Fuck this shit. Fuck people who target people who are all but silenced, just because they are less likely to vote Republican, in a state where it is a close race. Fuck the system which lets my father the professor choose to register to vote in Florida because he has a summer home there, and have him vote in a close race, while not letting my mother the secretary do the same, because she isn't well-off enough to live in two states.
... I want to go back to being the teenaged Star Trek fan who would swear that everyone had a voice and even an ant could move a mountain if it found the right lever and maybe got the other ants to help. Growing up sucks.
