What I’m Blogging

It was on this day in 1790 that Congress enacted the United States copyright law. The law gave authors exclusive rights to publish and sell maps, charts and books for a period of fourteen years, with a chance to renew the copyright for another fourteen years. There have been many changes to the U.S. copyright law since 1790. In the nineteenth century, copyrights became available for photographs, paintings, drawings and models. In 1909, musical rolls for player pianos became covered by the law. In the last thirty years, copyright law has expanded to include cable TV, computer software, tapes, CDs, DVDs, and, most recently, MP3s.

…Disney’s famous characters were scheduled to enter the public domain between 2000 and 2004…

Copyright terms have also gradually gotten longer. Up until 1998, copyrights lasted for the life of the author plus an additional fifty years before they went into the public domain. But in that year, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the duration of copyrights by twenty years. The act was supported by a group of large corporations, led by Disney. Most of Disney’s famous characters were scheduled to enter the public domain between 2000 and 2004, but now other artists and companies won’t be able to use them in their books and movies and songs until at least 2019—which means that Disney has another thirteen years of making money off Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and all the rest.

My yard has been overrun by some swingers of the canard set. At first it was cute, “Oh look! there are ducks in the pool!” Now, not so much. The original ducks, a male and female pair, were fine, however, in the hormone driven season of duck lust, things are getting out of hand.

…only the noise of horny ducks and hungry dogs…

Apparently, female ducks are a rather rare commodity. It’s either that or this particular webfooted avian is of low morale character and invites strange males home. The mornings are routinely started with five or six of the mallards jockeying for the most advantageous position [nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Say no more]. Of course the original male is duty bound to defend her honour, so the resulting din of quacks, honks and the flapping of wings is enough to wake the dead. Well if not the dead, then at least the three sleeping canines, who want nothing more than to test their culinary skills on the wayward waterfowl. The dogs charge outside and mayhem ensues. Ducks in the pool, ducks in the air, dogs on the ground barking, their compatriots from several houses away joining in the hue and cry.

So there is no morning peace, no leisurely blissful repose in the wee hours of the dawn. There is only the noise of horny ducks and hungry dogs.

It was on this day in 1431 that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy in Rouen, France. She was an ordinary French peasant girl, living during the Hundred Years War between France and England. When she was still a teenager, she heard the voice of God telling her to join the battle and help defeat the English army. She performed a series of apparent miracles and persuaded the French army to let her command a group of soldiers. At the battle of Orleans, she led the French army, bearing a flag with Jesus’ name written across it, and the English were defeated. She continued fighting battles until May 23, 1430, when she was captured by enemy soldiers. They turned her over to the church to be tried as a heretic, idolater and sorcerer.

…she was the only woman among judges, priests, soldiers, and guards…

Her trial lasted for months. Every day she was brought into the interrogation room, where she was the only woman among judges, priests, soldiers, and guards. The judges hoped to trick her into saying something that would incriminate her as a witch, so they asked endless questions about all aspects of her life, in no particular order. They were especially interested in her childhood, and because the transcripts of the trial were recorded, we now know more about her early life than any other common person of her time.

She testified that she had learned from her mother how to pray and how to clean the house, and that she was an excellent sewer and spinner. She talked about the games she played as a child, the songs she sang and the way she and other children danced around a particular tree in their town. She pointed out that she preferred singing to dancing. She said that she’d always loved the sound of bells ringing in her town, and she was greatly upset whenever the bell wasn’t rung on schedule. She said that many of the people in her village believed in fairies, and that her godmother claimed to have seen a fairy once, but she doubted it. She said that she first started hearing divine voices when she as thirteen, while working in her father’s garden.

After months of questioning, she was told that if she didn’t sign a confession, she would be put to death. She finally signed it, but a few days later she renounced the confession, and on this day in 1431, she was burned at the stake. She was nineteen years old.

She was mostly forgotten for about 400 years, and then she was revived as a patriotic figure during the French revolution. In 1920 she was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict the Fifteenth. She is the only person ever burned at the stake for heresy who later became a saint.

Just when you thought that the crazy weather was over, that the bitter chill that had enveloped central Ontario was dispelled, a heat wave rears it’s ugly head. Seven days ago it was unseasonably cold with temperatures well below the 10 degree celcius mark. Today with associated humidex the apparent temperature is well near 40 degrees celcius! Can you say swelter?

…all part of the balance…

Of course, if I had kept my stressful infuriating job in the city, in the nice, temperature controlled, air conditioned, office of the damned, the outside temperature would still be bearable. But NO! I had to opt for working at home, free as a bird, and thus, by some oddly connected way, force the temperature into the Sub-Saharan zone. No air conditioning, pool not ready yet (except for the ducks). Mind you I could sweat off four or five pounds if this keeps up.

It’s all part of the balance of life.

It’s the birthday of the man who created James Bond, novelist Ian Fleming, born in London, England (1908). He wanted to be a diplomat, but he failed the Foreign Office examination and decided to go into journalism. He worked for the Reuters News Service in London, Moscow, and Berlin, and then during World War II, he served as the assistant to the British director of naval intelligence.

…It’s what you would expect of an adolescent mind - which I happen to possess…

After the war, he bought a house in Jamaica, where he spent his time fishing and gambling and bird watching. He started to get bored, so he decided to try writing a novel about a secret agent. He named the agent James Bond after the author of a bird-watching book.

Fleming said, “James Bond is … the feverish dreams of the author of what he might have been - bang, bang, bang, kiss, kiss, that sort of stuff. It’s what you would expect of an adolescent mind - which I happen to possess.”

The first Bond novel, Casino Royale, sold about 7,000 copies, and Fleming followed it with four more that sold less and less well. Critics said he was good at writing about places, but that was about it. Fleming had a newborn son at home, and he was disappointed that these books weren’t making more money to help support the family, so for his next Bond story he wrote the book specifically for the movies. He filled it with more psychopaths and beautiful women than usual. No one in the movie industry was interested at the time, but the novel From Russia, with Love (1957) became a huge international best-seller.

Well it only took about two business days since my last day with Gigantic Concrete, but I’m back in the saddle again. I am working with a new company, let’s call them Silver Lining, and it’s my job to develop their professional services/contracting arm.

…right now it’s fun…

The possibility of this job has been just over the horizon for the last year or so. Nothing ever came of it though because I felt I needed a full time paid gig etc. etc. Well now that I’ve taken the leap of faith and cut the corporate ties, possibilities presented themselves, and I decided to dive in.

Unlike my previous positions, this one is based solely on the work I do. There is no salary, there is just “revenue”. Best of all, I have been given pretty much free reign to make or break it on my own. I work from home or a client site, I pretty much dictate my own hours, and the major decisions are mine to make.

On the flip side, if things screw up, it’s completely my fault, and lack of revenue will mean things might get very tight. There now that I’ve gotten that pessimism out of my system, it’s on to brighter things.

This may be good, this may be bad, but right now it’s fun.

It’s the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Massachusetts (1803). He started out as a Unitarian minister, but when his wife died in 1831 he questioned his faith and eventually he left his position. He had liked giving sermons, and he was a great public speaker, so he started giving lectures in the Boston area.

…meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given…

Public lectures were becoming more and more common in New England in the middle of the nineteenth century, and Emerson was one of the first people to make his living off of them. Many of his first lectures were on natural history. In November of 1833, he gave a lecture for the Natural History Society. The lecture, “The Uses of Natural History,” was so successful that Emerson was invited to give more lectures on science by many other organizations in the winter of 1834.

In 1836, his first great essay, “Nature”, was published in Boston, and it got a lot of attention in America and England. That winter, Emerson was invited to give a series of twelve lectures in the Masonic Temple in Boston. The subjects ranged from “Philosophy of History” to “Trades and Professions.”

By this time, lecturing had become his main source of income, and Emerson needed the money to take care of his family. In order to make as much money as he could from the lectures, he wrote his own advertising and oversaw ticket sales himself. Tickets cost two dollars for twelve lectures, and they could be bought at Boston bookstores. Emerson considered the lectures a success: each lecture drew about 350 people, which was pretty good considering he was competing against many other lecturers in Boston at the time.

He often scheduled three or four lectures a week, each in a different city. His reputation grew quickly, and by the winter of 1840, more people went to his lectures in New York than those of all the other speakers combined.

Emerson began giving lectures outside of New England, as far west as St. Louis, and also in England and France. By the end of his life he was making about a hundred dollars per lecture, and he had become a celebrity in America and Europe.

Emerson said, “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote those books.”

It’s not what you think. I’ve been at home for two glorious days of under employment and I have discovered my new job. I’m a dog chauffeur. If they need to go somewhere, I put on my little cap and escort them to their appointments.

…descend like a pack of whirling dervishes…

Normally if we had to take the three amigos to the Vet, we would pile them all into the van at once, and descend like a pack of whirling dervishes on the unsuspecting office. The last time we did this, our dogs decided to engage in a traditional family activity when out among the public - a donnybrook.

Dogs barked, fur flew, and little old ladies with lapdogs in hand nearly had apoplectic fits. So now taking the dogs to the Vet is a more singular and personal affair. One appointment. One Dog. Many, many, rides in the car.