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Category Archives: Important Society-Impacting Event

Waldo Canyon Fire Donations

We all appreciate everyone coming together to help the evacuees from the Waldo Canyon Fire here in Colorado Springs. What’s really needed right now is more help for the remaining recovery. What can you do to help, you ask? Donate to the American Red Cross. Thank you.

Literacy Demands Libraries

California has cut state funding to libraries. It’s an incredibly disheartening sign of the times. Libraries and other similar institutions are the unfortunate first victims of an economic downturn, despite the far too wise words of Eleanor Crumblehulme. She was absolutely right when she said that “Cutting libraries during a recession is like cutting hospitals in a plague.”

It’s come to my attention during my time as a library clerk that very few people realize the extent of the services that are offered, for free, by their public libraries. Yes, we have books. We’re so much more, though. Need information on homeschooling? We’v got that. Need help finding a job? We’ve got that. Tax info? Yup. Literacy? Why are you even asking if we offer that? Seriously. And that’s just within the Pikes Peak region. Imagine what the bigger libraries around the country are able to provide. We are the heart of learning, the core of self-improvement. If we can’t afford to spend money to buy new books (or if we’re stopping the heartless corporate machines that create mindless entertainment for the sake of money), where can we go? The library. If we want to see the latest DVD releases, but don’t want to spend the dollar for RedBox, where can we go? The library. Need a computer? Wi-fi? Learn a foreign language! Have someone proofread your résumé (help you spell résumé, or learn how to type é on your computer!). Need a study room? A conference room? We have those. Libraries provide resources to help the economy move again, and when the economy falters, we cut library funding. What the hell?

Do you want future generations to be able to read? Do you want them to understand what’s going on in the world around them? Do you want them to have access to important historical and cultural information so that they don’t make the same mistakes that we’ve made? I sure as hell do. Invest in America’s future. Invest in your local library.

 

Black March

A few days ago, I found something spectacular on one of my favorite sites, and I had to share it with you, particularly after my earlier post on SOPA/PIPA. Here it is.

If this actually works, we can change the world drastically.

There Has to Be a Better Way

Dear readers, as many of you are quite familiar with the internet (and for those of you who aren’t, there’s the wikipedia link for it, go get some education about this tool that you’re somehow, inexplicably using), I’m sure that you’ve heard of piracy. No, not that kind of piracy.  The kind that results in lawsuits because of something you downloaded from a totally legitimate and completely not illegal site. Online piracy is a huge issue, because the nature of the internet allows for people to transfer files via channels that aren’t accessible to your typical user. Most users aren’t even entirely certain of how things work, and don’t care, as long as the internet button brings them the research or the music or the porn. Seriously. They just don’t care. If someone threw an unopened carton of Oreos at your feet, would you question the legality of how those Oreos were obtained? Or would you just grab a glass of milk and chow down? With the internet, most people don’t question where content comes from. When you have what is essentially the combined knowledge of all of humanity at your fingertips, you use it.

That accessibility could change drastically. Some of our lawmakers have determined that the best way to fight piracy and protect the people who produce the content we find is to exert control over what can be viewed. SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that was introduced in October of last year, and is threatening to end the internet as we know it. Yes, that may sound dramatic, but this bill is overkill and then some. Let’s start with the full title of the bill: “To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.” —H.R. 3261. You know what scares me about that title? Those last four words, “and for other purposes.” That’s way too vague, and way too Big Brother-y for my tastes. I’m not going to hand the government the ability to filter what I’m going to look for online.

There’s plenty of information on SOPA out there. Get out and access it while you can, and learn the truth.

Wikipedia will be going dark for 24 hours, in protest of SOPA. If you can’t access the majority of the links in my posts, now you know why. I support internet freedom. If you do too, and you live in an area represented by one of these individuals, please contact them and ask them to reconsider their position. If your representatives are against SOPA, call them up too, and thank them for protecting you.

Yes, internet piracy is bad, but the current wording of SOPA and the associated bill, PIPA, is not conducive to maintaining freedoms that we are promised as Americans. As it stands, SOPA will hurt everyday web users far more than it will hurt the pirates. It’s far more likely to incite a “worldwide arms race of unprecedented ‘censorship’ of the Web,” according to Vint Cerf. This isn’t the way to stop the piracy. This is the way to stop progress. Fuck censorship. Stop SOPA.