I’m currently at Stockton, and am having trouble with the hotel wireless. I’ll have WTHX caught up on Monday, worst comes to worst.

So, instead of WTHX today, I’ll summarize why the hell I’ve been making these oddly formatted, politically focused posts.

…oh, what the hell. I’ll do it in the WTHX format while I’m at it. This’ll be a rough draft of our future PR piece, I guess.

Thoughtscream Media was, on one hand, birthed in an instant. An online discussion between Sean McBurney and James Chen meandered to a mutual dissatisfaction with the state of modern media – between the legal bullying of the RIAA and MPAA, the swift decline of the printed media empires, and especially the lack of representation of the so-called Geek Demographic. Thoughtscream Media – the name and web address of which Chen already owned at the time – was thus concocted as a response to all three issues.

On the other hand, Thoughtscream Media was perhaps long in coming. These issues didn’t come out of the woodworks in all of a night. The problems with media and representation has persisted for as long as they’ve known. And Chen, having worked on a journalism degree at the time, was very much invested in the developing ideas of New Media at the time.  The inclusion of Shea Clifford, the technical cofounder of Thoughtscream Media, helped solidify over time all the discontent into an actual course of action.

On the gripping hand, sudden or prolonged, there was no better time to found Thoughtscream – and plenty of worse times, past and future. The news industry will wisen up eventually – the question is whether or not we can beat them to the punch.

Why are you making these oddly formatted posts in the first place?

WTHX, or “What the Hell X?” with X being a placement variable for any subject at hand, was formulated to address a consistent concern amongst our international – and even domestic – peers: newspapers suck at context. The lockstep monomaniacal approach to event and development coverage gives plenty of information specifically about the subject… but routinely fails at enlightening a non-native (and often even local) readers as to the background, the importance, the consequences, et al.

Thus, WTHX, whose entire rationale is to fill that absence of context. Which sounds easy enough, up until you realize that a story’s context is many, many times bigger than itself – no matter how big the story.

WTHX’s format must therefore have a number of key features: it must be laid out in such a way that the information’s easily processed (summary, question 1, question 2), it must be pithy enough to delivery max information value without losing the reader’s interest (and who wants to read a wall of text anyhow on their coffee break?), and it must be easily expandable. Plans are in place to convert it further with a wiki-like backend – followup WTHXs on issues would then have their questions archived in an easy-to-track wiki page, with summaries of ongoing events updated as we go along.

We mean to give context – all of it, as thoroughly as possible. Because the whole reason for journalism is to give the literate individual the information they need to function, whether on a daily basis, as a voter, or as a human being in general.

So, what, is this just Yet Another Link Blog?

…if it wasn’t me writing this, I’d be a touch insulted. But, no. This is not just another link aggregate. Not only is there a strict use of human-written and edited narrative to elicit the context (because, even if pithy is a virtue in a writer, tweetlike sentences don’t do context justice), but while most WTHXs thoroughly cross-link other sites, there is all the intent in the world to generate original material in the form of research, interviews, on-the-ground factfinding, even videoblogs.

This is a journalism venture. First and foremost.

Pre-vote polls and preliminary reports from the Maine gay marriage ballot, “Question 1,” suggested a heavy split between “rural” and “urban” voters.   Specifically, rural voters were far more likely to vote for the ballot measure, which repealed state legislation that officially recognized same-sex marriages.  This makes Maine the 31^st state to have rejected gay marriage at the voting ballots.

Why is there such a voting discrepancy between the two demographics?

According to the California demographic studies done in the aftermath of Proposition 8 (ref. WTHX: Ex 3), there is a strong correlation between the urbanization levels of a population and its age, religious tendencies, political affiliation and education.

Specifically, urban voters, which were most likely to vote in favor of gay marriage, also trend as younger, more likely to hold a college degree, more likely to vote Democrat and were, on the whole, less religiously inclined than their counterparts on the other side of the issue.

The racial trends are also worth noting: from the California studies again, non-Caucasian groups (which also tend to trend as more religious or more socially conservative) were actually slightly less favorably inclined towards same-sex marriage. However, the statistics for this indicates across Latino, Asian and Black communities, and do not further break down along specific communities.

What does this mean for the same-sex marriage movement?

While winning their 31^st battle against same-sex marriage has boosted the confidence of conservative elements, the outlook for the gay rights movement as a whole remains, at most, ambivalent.

To put the loss in context, while Maine has not had a gay marriage challenge before, they did have a healthy 47% turnout in the defense of same-sex marriage. This is almost exactly parallel to general American views on the issue, according to the National Constitution Center Poll of Sept. 2009. According to Gallup’s historical statistics, that is a 12% increase from a decade ago, though the Gallup poll also indicates a lower favorable view of gay marriage, reducing the gain to 5%.

Gallup indicates that the relative lack of change in recent years is due to the increasing number of states that have indicated approval of gay marriage, reducing the prominence of the movement within the states.

If you detect a particularly “liberal” bent in this WTHX, I won’t even try to deny it. I am incensed – pissed – absolutely enraged at the bigotry espoused by 53% of Maine’s voting population. While I strive for professionalism, I won’t degrade myself by pretending objective impartiality. You can look to Hollywood for actors.

The ongoing Maine ballot regarding the legal status of gay marriage is currently looking bleak for proponents of gay marriage. As of this writing, the majority vote remains against the act’s legalization, though last-minute ballot counts may yet swing the vote around.

The vote difference between the two sides currently hovers at roughly 3%. The ballot measure in question, “Question 1,” would repeal Maine’s currently pro-gay marriage statutes, and remove legal recognition and rights between current same-sex marriages.

Why is gay marriage being voted against in Maine?

Maine had voted to legally recognize same-sex marriages during May of 2009. However, the passing of this legislature prompted an immediate challenge from the socially conservative aspects of the state’s political field, prompting the November ballot on “Question 1.”

Gay marriage opponents are rallying under the ideological flag of “protecting traditional marriage and values,”  stressing the traditional interpretation of marriage as between man and woman. They are also highlighting the fear that the passing of the May 6 legislation will mandate the teaching of gay marriage in schools – though same-sex marriage proponents and the state attorney has denied that any part of the bill has such a provision.

While the campaign against gay marriage rests on the grounds of its perceived threat to the traditional institution of heteronormative marriage, legal experts “don’t know” what the threats actually are.

Polls have indicated that the vote on the issue splits along rural-urban lines. Historically, from California’s passing of Proposition 8, the demographics most likely to support a repeal of gay marriage statutes are Evangelical/Born Again Christians, those without a college degree, Republican, and/or over the age of 34.

Why are 47% of Maine voters in favor of same-sex marriage?

In contrast to the arguments made against gay marriage, the arguments in its favor are rooted in its casting as a civil rights issue. Namely, establishing rights regarding separation, divorce, child care, medical visitation and decisions, health insurance and pensions, and economic protection.

Many states have “civil union” statutes that afford most or even all of the rights of marriage – however, these statutes are only applicable within the state hosting such laws, and are not recognized on a federal level. The legal recognition of gay marriage would make such unions legally recognizable and enforceable across all 50 states.

Conversely, 30 states of the United States of America have, instead, voted to ban same-sex marriages.

As of the conclusion of the writing of WTHX, the pro-gay marriage “No on 1” advocates have conceded defeat.

This is the original WTHX, made after promptings by a number of friends regarding the chronically contextually ambiguous nature of mainstream press reports. It dates itself, I think – Cheney’s dramatastic emotional flare-up at the ongoing CIA investigations occupied the news for all of a week, maybe less, and hasn’t been heard of since.

Note to self: do a followup when possible.

The ongoing controversy between Dick Cheney, former vice president of the United States of America, and his criticism of the investigations of alleged misconduct by the Central Intelligence Agency, is centered around two primary claims.

The first is that the CIA have been involved in the use of coercive interrogation techniques banned by the Geneva Convention – or, more succinctly, that they have been torturing prisoners for information. This is most aptly demonstrated in the waterboarding controversy of years just prior, where the documented use of simulated drowning aroused protest regarding the mistreatment of prisoners under the CIA’s control.

The second claim, asserted by Cheney, is that the methods used by the CIA were, in fact, invaluable sources of information for the American intelligence community, and that those involved in the CIA’s practices against captured prisoners should not be punished for following given, and legally backed, orders. Backing his claim is the rumors, some given by Cheney, that an as-yet still classified Department of Justice report recommends the disbarment of a number of lawyers involved in the sanctioning of some forms of the CIA’s interrogation, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Why the hell is the Department of Justice investigating the CIA?

The allegations of prisoner abuse and the use of torture contravenes US law and international treaties. Federal Prosecutor John H. Durham, appointed by US Attorney General Eric Holder, seeks to inquire as to whether CIA officials and supervisors were aware and/or authorized the use of interrogation techniques not approved by the Justice Department, as reported by UPI.com

However, Cheney and Republican officials are claiming that the investigation is an overtly political act, and that prior scrutiny towards CIA activities were already sufficient, and that further investigations would be damaging to the CIA’s abilities. “I worry about the morale and effectiveness of the CIA. I worry about this thing getting out of control,” said Senator John McCain, an outspoken opponent to torture.

Why the hell is Cheney protesting the investigation?

According to Cheney, the investigation will “do great damage, long term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say.”

However, Cheney is not without a personal stake in the outcome of the investigation. As noted by Harper’s Magazine, Cheney is known for his somewhat unusually in-depth involvement with the CIA, during his terms as vice president. Reports have shown Cheney’s direct responsibility and intervention in both the policy-setting of detainee treatment, and in the control of information relating to such activities.

Yes, experiment 2. Experiment 1 was a closed beta trial amongst one of my online communities – preliminary response was positive, and the article was regarding Dick Cheney’s infamously harsh response to the declassification of intelligence memos and possible judicial action. I’ll post it later – first, to get my feet wet again…

Warning: Text copypasted from OpenOffice Writer. I could push the links into the text, but it’s almost 2 AM and I’m tired.

WTHX: Experiment 2 – Why The Hell Is There A Sit-In Protest In UC Santa Cruz?

The ongoing demonstrations at UC Santa Cruz (http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13600941) have involved the occupation of lecture halls, the tagging of graffiti on campus property, and the pepper-spraying of members of the student body by campus police. Loud music shakes the occupied halls, and students are reportedly dancing the night away – all in protest over the continuing increases to University of California’s tuition costs, along with the reduction of scholarships across the nation (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/07/content_11668059.htm).

The protests are not bound only to Santa Cruz, nor do they only involve students. A conference has been held in UC Berkeley regarding protests over the budget cuts and tuition increases (http://www.dailycal.org/article/107222/conference_held_at_uc_berkeley_to_protest_budget_c), of which has garnered significant cross-university faculty support.

Why are they protesting?

Note that the tipping point of the protests seem to originate not from domestic, Californian, education policies. Though the ongoing education cuts are certainly the focus of the protest, much of the actual trigger (as displayed in various student activist Facebooks) seems to have been generated from the ongoing protests in Austria (http://de.indymedia.org/2009/10/264499.shtml). Sympathetic activists (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=163329887062&v=info&ref=search) are using the Austrian protests as a memetic rallying point in which to build solidarity.

Thus, the rationale for the protests differ, depending on groups interviewed. There is a strong socialistic bent amongst major groups that regard the developing policies as a detrimental economization and increasingly authoritarian restructuring of public education. Others are specifically aimed at the possibility of a 30% increase to the cost of UC tuition (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-09-15-university-california_N.htm), as well as the increased cost of education throughout California’s higher-education system, for both CSUs and community colleges.

Why is California cutting its universities’ budget?

Simply put: the recession. As written in La Voz Weekly News (http://media.www.lavozdeanza.com/media/storage/paper911/news/2009/10/26/News/How-Much.More.Can.We.Cut-3813629.shtml), regarding the ongoing budget cuts at Cupertino City’s De Anza College, “…the district expects further cuts in January and May of 2010, making the current decision more of a stopgap effort than a conclusive decision.” The cuts are a reflection of the California state government’s ongoing budgetary issues, of which has not improved over the last year (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/us/01calif.html), despite many cuts across the board.

The outlook for the world economy at large remains mostly negative (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hixr2M_Qx1JQ-RsMvvAlU1RwLPiwD9BK83Q82).

Senjougahara Hitagi has no real moe characteristics. She’s a cool beauty, waspish to the guy she likes, and liable to attack you with staplers and razors, not to mention enough pencils and stationary to warrant references to Fate/Stay Night – kuu, tsun and yan. But no dere. No softness. No vulnerability. The weakest she’s ever been was when she begged a god for the “weight” of her memories back – but what kind of vulnerability is asking to shoulder the worst pain, sorrow and traumas of her teenage life?

And yet I’m head over heels about her, along with half or more of the anime fandom. Despite the fact that her story arc, “Hitagi Crab,” is a downright perfect description of her personality, I find myself so thoroughly charmed by her personality – and certainly, episode’s 2 blatant, in-your-face, and downright meta-satirical fanservice doesn’t hurt matters at all – that I, too, am sharing the rallying cry for Senjougahara fascination.

“Refreshing” would, perhaps, be a fairly adequate way to describe it. When you’re an anime fan – and if you’re reading this entry, you’re likely an anime fan – you’re liable to devour countless hours and gigabytes of audiovisual media weekly. You’re blasted, at point-blank range, by an endless litany of rehashed plots, dialogues, familiar voices and character archetypes. If you’re observant, you’ll notice certain trends – if you’re not, you still get a sense of deja vu at times, or at least familiarity with even shows you’ve never watched before.

She will cut you. And staple you. And don't even ask about the protractor.

Like me, you might be getting a bit tired of the same moe moe characterization that’s been represented in every show from every studio since the mid-nineties, even if we do still get tight-pants’d at the sight of a pair of thigh-highs.

So when SHAFT, a studio that is adverse to not making sly commentary on the state of the otaku media, decides not to portray Senjougahara as a standard, run-of-the-mill archetypical tsundere character (regardless of what the characters in-universe nickname her), you can’t help but be intrigued. When it is clear that even her sly, underhanded comments are direct expressions of her intent, when it is clear that there isn’t the faintest level of deception in this girl, you can’t help but be a little charmed, if only by the novelty.

Whether by wit or by blade, she'll look gorgeous while cutting you down to size.

This is a girl that will strike you down without remorse. This is a girl that’ll drive you crazy with an endless stream of witty retorts. This isn’t an indecisive schoolgirl whose only positive attributes are a large bust and shapely form, nor liable to be a reformed action girl just because the guy she likes reciprocates. She’s hard, cold, and absolutely confident.

And I can’t help but be utterly, completely, fascinated.

August 21^st can’t come fast enough. Not for me, not for anybody else similarly afflicted. Summer 2009 is the season of Senjougahara fascination.

Looking forward to the rest of the cast too. ...is that a horsekiller sword she's got there?

They finally have a DJ Max Technika machine at my local arcade! I am going to be so goddamn broke.

A rather good way to lure in first-time players, this~

If you aren’t yet aware of the DJMAX line of music/rhythm games from Pentavision, you’ll still be very familiar with its gameplay – most of the games share much of its basic style and scoring system from rival game series Beatmania, owned by Konami. A line of notes travel down the screen towards an indicator line, with each note corresponding with a button on the PSP. The pattern’s based off a background track, and scoring is based on how accurately you peg the notes down when they reach the indicator. Simplistic in concept – in execution, devilishly complex and addicting.

BEHOLD! THE SHRINE TO ARCADES REBORN!

Technika takes this formula and tosses the keys right out. Instead, you get a gorgeously high-definition touchscreen, with various icons floating up, and a moving bar to indicate when you’re supposed to touch them. It isn’t, however, enough to simply press the icon when the bar flies over – the best scores are dependent on further lining it up with what is usually a pink line indicator to get the best score.

Meanwhile, everybody behind you, desperately lining up for their own shot at it, are enjoying your performance on the monitor above you, also in high-definition, and rocking out to the assorted techno remixes blasting out of the arcade machine at high volume – higher if the player’s set background music and key sounds on “boost.” The machine itself rumbles in time, keeping beat with the stellar soundtrack, and the entire machine flashes and winks like a distilled, condensed laser rave.

I like it. I like it very, very much, and have been addicted to it since I first heard of it. While calling it “DDR for your hands” would be rather inaccurate, the mix of intuitive yet challenging controls, tight response time, great music and absolutely gorgeous presentation is proof, at last, that it is still possible to make great games for the arcade – and given the inherent expense of a high-quality touchscreen, only for the arcade. This is, in fact, how the hell you’re supposed to do things!

It's just like the home system! Except... ...lamer? Really? C'mon...

Conversely, there is also now a Guitar Hero Arcade machine at the same arcade… and it is less than impressive. Though its screen is also high-definition – it seems to quickly becoming industry standard in even the outdated arcade format – all its visual magic can’t cover up the fact that it is, in fact, a watered down version of the home console games. Its tracklist isn’t even a third of what is offered by the older and time-tested Guitar Freaks series by Konami, or even half of what’s available in the console games. Not to mention the guitar selection – while zany and even impossible guitars are par of course for Guitar Hero, part of its charm was also the respect it showed to the true classics, and the trivia it presented for each of them. Not to mention that while the guitar controller better emulates the weight of a real one, versus the flimsy-feeling home sets, it’s actually got less control options! I know – the whammy bar isn’t exactly a vital part of the game, but its absence is noted. And is perplexing. Especially since at least part of the fun was going Hendrix on the poor stick.

The worst offense, however, was that it was two quarters for a single song. What the hell, Activision? A single, bloody song? Why bother making an arcade version of the game if you aren’t going to make the effort to pry us out of our living rooms? Or is the whole point to worsen the reputation of arcades even further, bilking gullible arcade owners with ten-thousand-dollar machines equipped with crap games, driving the last remnants of the arcade crowd into the eager arms of their home consoles and soft, comfy couches?

Well, screw you – Pentavision’s at least trying. And Pentavision is apparently where all of my spare change’s going to end up with.

Konami: Doing Band Games Right Since 1998

21stcenturydigitalboy’s tossed in his two cents about the Online Fanart Protection manifesto, as has WildArmsHeero of Mistakes of Youth fame. Of the two, it’s actually 21CDB that gets it right – there is no actual legal nor moral controversy towards the use of fanart for blogging purposes, except that both bloggers and fanartists are both in technical copyright violation.

And that’s a very minor technical indeed. So minor, it can be said not to exist, especially in the form utilized by fanartists and bloggers alike.

Legal issue first, since it’s the easiest to knock down: the concept of Fair Use as a means around copyright is damn near universal amongst first-world nations – and given the Japanese doujinshi culture and the decided lack of legislation against Comiket and its numerous clones, it is arguably strongest in Japan. What Fair Use boils down to is simple: if it meets the local culture’s concept of “transformative” work, there is no need to seek the originator’s permission to utilize.

Notably, this doesn’t restrict the use of images to only noncommercial works. The point is, if the usage of the image sufficiently distorts the context in which it is interpreted, it can be reutilized however the second party wishes.

Of course, proving that there has been sufficient contextual transformation can, itself, be a bit of a bitch. It is generally safer to make a blatant parody or satire than to do anything fancy – and in the case of blogs, there is usually a lack of alteration to the picture, making the transformation defense less overtly intuitive.

However, it is only nonintuitive in that blogging is a multimedia platform, and the discussion of fanart is centered upon a singular medium. While there is no alteration to the picture itself, there is, ideally, plenty of obvious recontextualization – namely, in the context of the blog itself, and how it utilizes the fanart to illustrate its points. This naturally differs from blog to blog – though I risk hubris in saying so, I’d like to believe that, excepting the obvious and blatant rips (as with the Saya no Uta review), most of my own uses of visual media are a successful, if occasionally crude, melding of image with narrative. The Deconstruction series, in particular, used images in that specific regard – the idea that one form of media cannot be reinterpreted with the context of another is, frankly, outright absurd, and something all artists should be willing to reject out of hand, given how much of art, regardless whether or not it’s multimedia or single-medium, took inspiration, sometimes blatant and obvious, from something else out amongst the human noosphere.

And to put a final lid on the legal issue, a rip-off of a rip-off is less legally questionable than the originating rip-off itself.

Of course, all the above was just a precautionary analysis, and a way to set a more objective foundation to the debate (though, admittedly, in line with my previous rant on copyright laws, Fair Use is of such nebulous, ad hoc grounds that calling it truly “objective” is asking for a whole can of worms). From what I can see of the Online Fanart Protection manifesto, it doesn’t really threaten legal action against blogs that utilize fanart without prior notification to the artist. Actually, to be frank, I’m not completely sure what they’re asking for, given the cognitive dissonance between what they’re demanding, and what’s actually at stake. But that requires a more philosophical – and even moralistic – analysis of the whole debacle.

A convenient segue, that.

There are two primary components to the rather short Online Fanarts Protection manifesto: that of the accusation of theft on part of the bloggers, and that of a call for more creativity on part of the bloggers – basically, for them to produce their own fanart, so s to avoid the whole “problem” in the first place. Both aspects of the manifesto are intrinsically flawed, the reason of such overlaps with the legal issues I’ve discussed above.

The first part, as mentioned earlier, is that the definition of theft leaves something to be desired. There is nothing actually stolen – normally, bloggers and blog readers fully recognize that the art displayed on the posts in question were not, in fact, drawn or rendered by the writer, but merely discovered through whatever means of image searching. While there have been attempts at actual theft – in this case, defined as the claiming of ownership and origination of the art in question – that is most often done between graphic artists, and not by writers.

In fact, the core of the problem with the idea of fanart theft is that it assumes a classical scarce-resource economic context. That the use of fanart in blog posts somehow demeans the original art, and the effort made to create it. But this is, frankly, bullshit – online media, much to the chagrin of news corporations, music companies and even bookstores, don’t function under scarce resource principals, but under the still mostly theoretical algamic economy – as effectively infinite copies of any one media can be made, barring server and bandwidth restrictions, theft of online media, defined as the unlawful and coerced transaction of finite property ownership, is outright impossible.

In fact, rather than diluting the value of the original art, the use of fanart in blog posts more often than not brings more attention, if initially indirect, to the artist than he or she would’ve gotten under ordinary, classical economy means. Like blog posts, the attention brought necessitates a high enough quality to be worth the attention in the first place, of course, but the fact of the matter is that even the likes of Supercell (whose Love is War art adorns the top of this blog), or Minami (of Chibi Miku-san comics fame), would not be nearly as well known today if it wasn’t, in part, due to the rampant imagesharing culture that now defines the online otaku subculture community. All it takes is one good piece to get people starting to ask for your name, just so they can get more.

So there is no theft going on. Rather, good fanart only increases in value for the artist as more and more attention is cast upon it, and a greater demand for the artist’s style and output grows. But what about the second part of the manifesto – the call for more creativity from the bloggers that use the art?

Fair enough. Thomas Keller, the World’s Greatest Chef, and the only American cook that the French wants to claim for their own, famously said that “there is very little creativity – in anything.” Certainly, even most of what I write are downright rehashes of popular thought – though I’d like to think I write well, I’ll be damned if I get accused for being creative. All of us bloggers are reviewers at best, pundits at worst – we rely on the shoulders of giants and midgets alike for our output. There is some creativity in blogging – the incorporation and synergy of previously overlooked relations, trends and patterns can elicit some truly fascinating insight – but, for the most part, it’s much of the same old same old, in varying levels of detail and articulation.

Of course, the same thing can be claimed of fanartists too, can’t it?

This is my problem with the OFP: every damn thing about it is elitist and wrongheaded in nature. It takes an inherently high-handed stance on the graphics versus text debate on “what is art,” implying strongly that if it isn’t visual, as opposed to conceptual, symbology, it not only isn’t art, it isn’t creative. Even if this wasn’t the intent of the OFP’s writer, this is ultimately the root of the manifesto’s ideology. It is effectively a declaration of superiority of visual artists over bloggers – when, in fact, art is merely a categorization of expression, and the comparison of differentiating media is only as meaningful as declaring that both apples and oranges are seed-bearing fruit.

Quite in contrary to WildArmsHeero’s stance on Twitter that the rejection of the OFP from American otaku bloggers is a sign that we arrogant Americans can’t conceptualize Japanese humility, my analysis of the OFP holds it as nothing but a veiled act of arrogance on their part – not upon nationalistic or racial lines, but amongst the Japanese fanart culture as a whole, or at least of those in support of the OFP. Quite in contrary to WAH’s derogatory call for the “children” of the western fandom to give more respect to the community at large, my interpretation leads me to believe that this manifesto is, in fact, an effort to divide the community – to instate an artificial caste system, where only those that produce visual art are worthy of respect, and have monopoly on the direction and usage of the common icons and symbols of our subculture.

The meta-creation of a well-written blog post can be just as meaningfully “art” as that of anything created by the best fan artist, just as we hold the works of Renault to the same general level of esteem as Bach and Dostoevsky – and the comparisons between them just as meaningless. On the converse, just as most written and visual works today are the easily forgotten and discarded trash of the trendy and shallow, so are most fanarts and blog posts null-value statements.

If the intent of the fanartist is, in fact, to turn null-value into positive-value – as far as I’m concerned, the only intent that makes sense in the online paradigm – then I suggest that they look back to their predecessors. The use of an artistic signature or stamp to greater increase an artist’s exposure and infamy has been a time-honored practice in all major civilizations and cultures, from the artists of the Renaissance and Romantic period to the swordsmiths of Japan. And it has value even today, when all other forms of communication are suffering upheavals at the very core of their purpose. It, and a timestamp, prevents the true theft of their works – that of the origination-claim by another party – and makes it much easier for new fans of their works to track them down.

As a concluding note, two things: my analysis of the legal reality of fanart is vague for a very good reason: I’m no bloody lawyer. Take it all with a grain of salt – though given that my research for the above was with aid of the ever-reliable Electronic Frontier Foundation, I’d be shocked if anything of substance was actually wrong in any significant manner.

Also, this post is image-free in protest. That, and it’s late, and I’m really lazy at 2:30 AM. Enjoyed the TL;DR? Muahahahahaha.

Concerning the case of friend, fellow student, former Speech and Debate member and De Anza student body president Marlo Custodio, I’ve somewhat deliberately avoided the issue of his current troubles with the San Jose police force. Mainly because while social justice in general is of interest to me, and the cause of more than a few temper flareups, my understanding of the local face of the issue is embarrassingly and soberly scarce.

I come from a relatively well-to-do background. Though I went to public school all my life, I’ve always been in the upper-class sort of public school, with performances and reputation in line with the closed-gate snobbery of the private institutions. Though my family has wavered between low- and actual-middle-class, dipping into the former quite heavily in the current economy, we’ve never starved or missed a bill or even gone without internet since the early 90s. All of my dramas and problems’ve been decidedly bourgeoisie and luxurious.

I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be tasered by the cops – and then see them rough up my mother.

Marlo can. So has many others in the poorer neighborhoods of San Jose. For all the acclaim, for all the fame lauded upon this city, the “Capital of Silicon Valley,” and the birth of the information technologies industry as we know it now, we so very easily ignore the sewage, both industrial and social, that we churn out to maintain that image.

The sad thing about Custodio’s ongoing campaign against the charges levied at him and his family by the police isn’t that it happened to him. It’s that it’s not at all unique. Us suburban Silicon Valleyites tend to think that racial strife and tension’s something that happens in the southern, more rural areas of the country – and even with our own problems, mainly in the southern, more rural areas of the state. When news about a shooting in San Carlos and Race pops up in our MercNews feeds, when a rowdy Mardi Gras has a half-dozen people tasered and locked up for the night, we altogether too quickly dismiss it as the deserved punishment for a bunch of riffraffs and gangsta rap blaring assholes.

In our smug progressive liberalism, we forget to check on ourselves to see if we’re not taking the situation a wee bit too lightly.

The San Jose Police Department has not had an unblemished record. Their use of brutal, unnecessary force has been documented time and time again – and for each case, forgotten by us time and time again. It doesn’t matter if we happen to have one of the most diverse policing forces in the nation, much less the world – when they draw a dividing line between Us and Them, between blue uniforms and low-riding jeans, when they shoot a kid with a taser on suspicion of being poor and Hispanic, it doesn’t matter if the one doing the tasering is Hispanic too.

The police force naturally attracts bullies. Just because they get to have guns and batons and drive around in overpriced and underspecced Fords with fancy logos on them doesn’t mean they inherently deserve our respect. They are public servants – not just to the rich and privileged, but to every last one of us, regardless of creed, faith, color, gender, orientation or hairdo. They earn their masters’ respect by serving all of us with the same high level of competence – and they lose their right to their hundred thousand dollar bonuses, mahogany desks and jelly-filled donuts when they start mistaking themselves as the rulers as opposed to enforcers of the rule.

Marlo Custodio has a temper, and a historically explosive one at that. But he didn’t succeed to the student body presidency after a hotly contested election that saw an attempt to bar him four times over by blowing up at any provocation, big or small. These days, his temper’s expressed in verbal jabs, and I don’t find it inconceivable that he might’ve said something inappropriate to an officer. But, I emphasize, that is no fucking crime. And that does not deserve a criminal record, much less a tasering. Much less a tasering for his entire goddamn family.

Every single last officer involved in this case deserves more than a scolding – far more than a slap on the wrist for being bad boys. Far more than getting fired, even. For their disproportionate response to Marlo Custodio, a proportionate punishment is warranted – as a demonstration to all police who think it okay to categorize their fellow human beings in order of likelihood to win a police brutality lawsuit against them.

I say we should give Marlo the taser.