Some people are vehemently complaining about the new healthcare bill, and how it will cause delays in treatment for everyone (I suspect they are right) or bankrupt the country (I suspect they are wrong). These people do not seem to be sensitive to the fact that previously, many people were denied medical treatment altogether, leading to unnecessary suffering and deaths.
In my formative years, I read Ursula Le Guin's (pdf) The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. The story had a giant impact - it was one of those stories that resonated perfectly in me. Anyone who feels like ranting about the healthcare bill should go take a look at this story, and decide where they stand after thinking about it.
I agree that the healthcare bill is far from perfect, and not what I wanted at all. But the status quo was downright evil. I hope this change is for the better, or at least that it leads to something better.
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
1-20-09
obama t-shirt
Originally uploaded by wereldmuis.
I haven't been feeling optimistic about the future lately, but today, I felt like doing cartwheels all day long.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Is flickr evil?
I used to have the warm and fuzzies about flickr, but these days I've begun to wonder if they're evil. Presumably they were turned into zombie brain-eating evil bastards after being consumed by Yahoo!.
I recently found that one of my photos that I had posted on flickr had been posted to a third party website to accompany an article. The website gave me credit and obeyed flickr's rules that they must post a link to the photo on flickr.
There's only one "small" detail that they neglected to consider: all of my flickr photos are copyright me, with all rights reserved. But they did not request my permission to use the photo on their site! It was only by accident that I discovered that they had violated my copyright. Presumably the copyright violation was unintentional, otherwise they wouldn't have posted my name right next to the photo. Ironically, it would have taken them half a minute to ask me for permission to publish, and I would have enthusiastically replied "yes!".
Jim Goldstein has written a detailed article describing what he feels is a malicious neglect of flickr to enforce copyright rules.
It will be an incredible nuisance to either nuke my flickr account or make my photos private. The whole point of uploading my photos to a site like flickr is to make it possible for me to share my stuff with the world (but not for the world to violate my legal rights!). It's not like I'm a professional photographer, with photos that knock your socks off, so the theft of my rights is not hugely damaging to me. But it still hurts, and there are other flickr users who feel much worse about the situation, as is clear from the comments in response to Goldstein's post.
I like the idea of photo-sharing sites, and I don't see why third parties find it such a problem to simply ask for permission to use flickr photos from their owners. I hope flickr does something to rectify this situation soon. I'm going to begin looking for a site that pays more than lip service to protecting the copyright of content owners.
I recently found that one of my photos that I had posted on flickr had been posted to a third party website to accompany an article. The website gave me credit and obeyed flickr's rules that they must post a link to the photo on flickr.
There's only one "small" detail that they neglected to consider: all of my flickr photos are copyright me, with all rights reserved. But they did not request my permission to use the photo on their site! It was only by accident that I discovered that they had violated my copyright. Presumably the copyright violation was unintentional, otherwise they wouldn't have posted my name right next to the photo. Ironically, it would have taken them half a minute to ask me for permission to publish, and I would have enthusiastically replied "yes!".
Jim Goldstein has written a detailed article describing what he feels is a malicious neglect of flickr to enforce copyright rules.
It will be an incredible nuisance to either nuke my flickr account or make my photos private. The whole point of uploading my photos to a site like flickr is to make it possible for me to share my stuff with the world (but not for the world to violate my legal rights!). It's not like I'm a professional photographer, with photos that knock your socks off, so the theft of my rights is not hugely damaging to me. But it still hurts, and there are other flickr users who feel much worse about the situation, as is clear from the comments in response to Goldstein's post.
I like the idea of photo-sharing sites, and I don't see why third parties find it such a problem to simply ask for permission to use flickr photos from their owners. I hope flickr does something to rectify this situation soon. I'm going to begin looking for a site that pays more than lip service to protecting the copyright of content owners.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
work, work, work
A citizenry that spends too much time at work doesn't have the time to be govern itself responsibly... now there's a thought (from Orion Magazine):
The Gospel of Consumption and the better future we left behind, written by Jeffrey Kaplan, is an interesting article which does a good job in summarizing a lot of the current thinking about what ails our society. I take issue with the idea that it is overconsumption of consumer goods that are the source of Americans' need or desire to work more. If everyone stopped buying the latest luxury toys, would all of our problems go away? Hard to believe, although it would be nice if it were that simple.
I'm not a typical case by any means, but here's an example. My last significant luxury purchase was my car, a Toyota Prius. I probably spent about $6K or so extra for my car than I really needed to. Let's say I could have bought a used car, instead, or even just repaired my old car, which would have saved me $10K or $15K more. Would saving this kind of money have decreased my desire to take a higher paying job which forces me to work longer hours? No.
I take jobs which require more hours for two reasons. One of them is a carrot and the other is a stick.
The carrot is a big motivator: I want to become financially independent as soon as possible (yes, "financially independent" is a very slippery term).
The stick is fear: I can see inflation driving up the costs of necessities at an unreasonable rate. Forget about my car, what about necessities like health insurance, food, and a roof over my head (I waffle about the latter being a necessity)? I have been unemployed twice over the last seven years, and each time I saw my savings eaten away quickly while I desperately looked for a new job. Perhaps this is what really keeps Americans with their noses to the grindstone - the constant gnawing fear that they will not have a job tomorrow.
The Gospel of Consumption and the better future we left behind, written by Jeffrey Kaplan, is an interesting article which does a good job in summarizing a lot of the current thinking about what ails our society. I take issue with the idea that it is overconsumption of consumer goods that are the source of Americans' need or desire to work more. If everyone stopped buying the latest luxury toys, would all of our problems go away? Hard to believe, although it would be nice if it were that simple.
I'm not a typical case by any means, but here's an example. My last significant luxury purchase was my car, a Toyota Prius. I probably spent about $6K or so extra for my car than I really needed to. Let's say I could have bought a used car, instead, or even just repaired my old car, which would have saved me $10K or $15K more. Would saving this kind of money have decreased my desire to take a higher paying job which forces me to work longer hours? No.
I take jobs which require more hours for two reasons. One of them is a carrot and the other is a stick.
The carrot is a big motivator: I want to become financially independent as soon as possible (yes, "financially independent" is a very slippery term).
The stick is fear: I can see inflation driving up the costs of necessities at an unreasonable rate. Forget about my car, what about necessities like health insurance, food, and a roof over my head (I waffle about the latter being a necessity)? I have been unemployed twice over the last seven years, and each time I saw my savings eaten away quickly while I desperately looked for a new job. Perhaps this is what really keeps Americans with their noses to the grindstone - the constant gnawing fear that they will not have a job tomorrow.
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