- The publishing industry is filled with inept businesscreatures who don't understand their own business; consider these publishers whingeing about low profits as barrier to innovation. Hmm. Here I thought that innovation was supposed to be encouraged by potential profits, not current profits... or have the businesscreatures confused "profit" and "capital" yet again? They could always try to put more romance in higher lit, but that would involve actually changing the nature — not just the packaging — of their products (that is, actually innovating). Just look at what has happened to the music industry, which is now whingeing about the impending doom of the CD. Here's a hint to the music industry: If you're going to focus primarily on three-to-four-minute units for your awards and your marketing — nope, no payola here, none at all — establishing your primary sales unit as a compilation of those units isn't a very intelligent strategy. Maybe, though, we just get the art we deserve . Does that mean, though, that I "deserve" another Eddie Murphy movie?
- On the one hand, we have questions about how to own "art," or whether it should be "owned" at all, let alone how to talk about owning art, or about other intellectual property, such as the contrast between patents and patent trolls. On the other hand, we could be trying — like the French — to own a whole language. The latter problem reminds me of an old riddle: Which lasts longer — the mountains or the sea? And considering that French linguistic "purity" (see the comment at the end of this entry for another view of linguistic "purity") is closer to molehills than mountains...
- Then there's the 'net. There's always the 'net, whether pondering electronic research beyond google or the anonymity of celebrities.
And now the comment:
If "Dr." James Dobson really wanted to push anyone who has any tolerance for difference, for distinction, and for three-fifths of all other persons into Obama's camp, he sure did a good job by yet again demonstrating the bigotry found in the wingnut-fundamentalist "core". This leads to the real question: If the devil can quote scripture to his own advantage, how does one objectively distinguish between the devil and a preacher? In this instance, the horns appear to be missing from that picture of Dobson on the CNN site.
I suppose I could ask "Dr." Dobson a few questions, based on my understanding of the Bible... but my scholarship is largely limited to English-language translations. For the present, though, I'll just question whether rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's itself answers the initial question: What, exactly, does belong to Caesar... and who gets to make that determination? How one can have a literal view when multiple translations exist... oh, right, the translation one prefers is necessarily divinely inspired and the others are all false. How stupid of me to miss that!
There I go, quoting scripture for my own purposes. I must be the devil. What a shame about that... I live in Central Illinois and I've spent considerable time in even more unpleasant climates, so I must place a premium on company and conversation over climate. "Dr." Dobson should consider the comic snurched above before he opens his mouth again.