The Eldred Act
Or whatever it may be called. A great idea. Now I've complained, maybe this is something that can be done about it. The basic notion is that a copyright holder is responsible for paying a small fee, approximately one dollar to "maintain" the extension of copyright. If this fee is not paid, copyright lapses into public domain. I suppose it would be a bit of a nightmare for authors with zillions of works to keep track of, but most such authors are not likely to have to worry about it.
Anyway, I've bellyached over a couple of days, now I encourage all to write, e-mail, and otherwise bombard or blitz your senators and congressional reps. I'd do mine, but he's too busy talking about how much better than Bush he is. Good ole Bob Graham. Boy do I pick the states--from Howard Metzenbaum the would-be Dynasty Maker, to Bob Graham--next step Huey Long. No, Huey would be a significant improvement over this nonsense. Nevertheless, I shall write, phone, and e-mail.
St. Maria de Mattias
[I posted this earlier today, but it has vanished entirely from the page. Don't know what happened. Please visit Fr. Keyes's page for more.]
From this Saint (to be Canonized 18 May 2003) a most wonderful, thrilling prayer.
With Jesus let us think, with Jesus let us speak; let us labor with Jesus, let us rest with Jesus; with Jesus let us weep, with Jesus let us keep silence; let us pray with Jesus; with Jesus let us live, with Jesus let us die. May Jesus live in our minds. May Jesus live on our tongues. May Jesus live in our hearts. May Jesus live in our souls. May Jesus live at all times. May Jesus live in all places. May Jesus live in all hearts. Yes, let us always say: May Jesus live!"
May it be true for me and for all who visit this place! Praise God for such words and lives lived in accord with them. Praise God for all of His Saints. Praise God!
A Brief Continuance
(Pardon the legal jargon :-))
The comment below inspired me all over again:
With respect, you are not being entirely fair to the Court. It is not their job to decide whether a law is good or bad, just or unjust, wise or foolish; it is their job to decide (perhaps discern would be a better word) whether it is Constitutional or not. Copyright law is, as far as I know, properly the responsibility of Congress. The current situation is then due to the "dubious wisdom" of Congress, and the correct remedy, as Therese pointed out in her post, is to get Congress to change the law.
While I concur wholeheartedly with the sentiment (not wishing to have a legislative court), I have several disagreements with this--
(1) It hasn't stopped them up 'til now, why stop here? (I have some suggestions as to why.)
(2) The interpretation of the Constitution is, in fact, one of the main responsibilities of the Supreme Court. As copyright law is directly addressed within the constitution and both its purpose and intent expressly stated, and there is a huge "tradition" of precedent in how the law ran up until about 1930, it would seem sufficient ground to interpret the Constitution.
Now, the purpose of copyright law is twofold--to encourage creative endeavor and to protect the rights of the producers of creative work. Therefore copyright is granted for a limited duration to ensure these rights. Up until very recently, it was quite possible for a work to slip out of copyright during an author's lifetime. In recent years, copyright laws with retroactive extension have basically placed everything after 1923 out of reach of the public domain until something like 2020 (I'm not looking this stuff up, just noting.)
The entry of work into public domain allows it to become the framework of other creative works. When that entry is denied for more than one-hundred years (as present law makes possible), the "limited time" argument becomes moot. If a work is protected for one-hundred years, then the time is not in any reasonable way limited, it cannot be touched during a human life-time. Furthermore, because the tendency has been toward a progressive increase of this time, it is not in any way substantially limited because the idiotic wording of the Supreme Court decision basically notes that protection of a work for, say 110 years, is, in fact a limit. Thus, the protection of a work for five-hundred years, would, in fact, be a limit under the present reading of the constitution. In fact, if you passed a law that allowed copyright for 10,000 years, it would still meet the definition of a limit.
However, if one looks at the wording of the Constitution and the history of copyright throughout the early history of the nation, one sees that this is a gross misrepresentation of what was intended in the wording. I tend to like to sail nearer the original intent so far as it can be discerned, and in this particular case, since the original copyright law is right in the Constitution, it is very clear to see what the writers intended.
Thus, I argue that it IS the fault of the court in not carrying out their duty in the interpretation and understanding of the Constitution.
Moreover, I further argue that it is simply not possible to get Congress to change the law. Steven Riddle v. Sony--who do you think wins when it comes to influence. The vast creative voice of America v. Disney and Polygram and . . . The point is, the copyright law sits in the hands of the corporations that fund election campaigns. I could lobby for the rest of my life, as could we all, and we would get back the letter that I have received, "Thank you for expressing your interest in this matter. The concerns of X's constituents are always welcomed and carefully investigated. " You, however are a crank and your concern does not spell reelection.
Justice is justice, and the Supreme Court supremely (as is their wont in so many cases) failed in supplying justice or equity. The Supreme Court is not about interpreting law, it is largely about concentrating power. As it stands, it tends to activism and legislation from the bench. It is nice to see a change; however, this was a case in which they would justly and reasonably have determined that the present law was indeed unconstitutional and they could have sent it back to congress with instructions to bring it into line--for example, removing the retroactive clause (no copyrights up until the twentieth century had any such provision, and it obviously flies in the face of intent.)
Anyway, as a creative artist, it disturbs me greatly, and when and if my own work is published, I have no intent of allowing it to remain in private hands forever. That will basically guarantee extinction--for example, do you suppose the novels of Mrs. Gaskell, were they still under copyright protection would ever see the light of day? How many people in the world read them? What publisher would want to produce them? I think of the richness of the literature of Spirituality from 1925 to the present and realize that we get the sampling of it that TAN Books or Sophia Instituted Press is capable of bringing to light, or that fits in with the given agenda of the publishing house.
No, I must disagree, the Supreme Court failed in a legitimate exercise of its authority. The law as written is in direct violation of precedent and of obvious intent. However, because it doesn't further the cause of executing the unborn, it is not of sufficient gravity to be considered as anything other than a trifle to be played with by those who have the money.
(Can you tell that I really get worked up about this? I think it's the fact that it will cost me something on the order of seven-hundred dollars a volume to get things like the Autobiography of H. Rider Haggard.)
Okay, Okay, I'm beating a dead horse, but sometimes it is important enough to be said, and all of my Green impulses are concentrated in this one admittedly minor issue. (But if the Supremes can invent a right to privacy, and then continually invoke the precedent of the right in insuring the protection of the right to slaughter the innocents, surely they can read what is actually written IN the document, can't they?)
For Those Annoyed by the Sonny Bono Copyright in Perpetuo Act
You might wish to see a little post title "An Apology" over at Catholic Bookshelf. I would greatly appreciate a proper outpouring of vitriol over the obnoxious and odious act that, for the sake of a mouse, restricts access to thousands or tens of thousands of books that now rightfully belong to everyone. As the Supreme Court in its dubious wisdom has ordained that the Congress has the right to extend copyright indefinitely, public domain may well be a thing of the past, and the possible rescue of texts from obscurity and proper placement of them in the digital domain may be frozen at 1923--at least for much of my life. A terrible and tremendous injustice.
Ode to the Confederate Dead
Allen TateRow after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality.Autumn is desolation in the plot
Of a thousand acres where these memories grow
From the inexhaustible bodies that are not
Dead, but feed the grass row after rich row.
Think of the autumns that have come and gone!--
Ambitious November with the humors of the year,
With a particular zeal for every slab,
Staining the uncomfortable angels that rot
On the slabs, a wing chipped here, an arm there:
The brute curiosity of an angel's stare
Turns you, like them, to stone,
Transforms the heaving air
Till plunged to a heavier world below
You shift your sea-space blindly
Heaving, turning like the blind crab.Dazed by the wind, only the wind
The leaves flying, plungeYou know who have waited by the wall
The twilight certainty of an animal,
Those midnight restitutions of the blood
You know--the immitigable pines, the smoky frieze
Of the sky, the sudden call: you know the rage,
The cold pool left by the mounting flood,
Of muted Zeno and Parmenides.
You who have waited for the angry resolution
Of those desires that should be yours tomorrow,
You know the unimportant shrift of death
And praise the vision
And praise the arrogant circumstance
Of those who fall
Rank upon rank, hurried beyond decision--
Here by the sagging gate, stopped by the wall.Seeing, seeing only the leaves
Flying, plunge and expireTurn your eyes to the immoderate past,
Turn to the inscrutable infantry rising
Demons out of the earth they will not last.
Stonewall, Stonewall, and the sunken fields of hemp,
Shiloh, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Bull Run.
Lost in that orient of the thick and fast
You will curse the setting sun.Cursing only the leaves crying
Like an old man in a stormYou hear the shout, the crazy hemlocks point
With troubled fingers to the silence which
Smothers you, a mummy, in time.The hound bitch
Toothless and dying, in a musty cellar
Hears the wind only.
Now that the salt of their blood
Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea,
Seals the malignant purity of the flood,
What shall we who count our days and bow
Our heads with a commemorial woe
In the ribboned coats of grim felicity,
What shall we say of the bones, unclean,
Whose verdurous anonymity will grow?
The ragged arms, the ragged heads and eyes
Lost in these acres of the insane green?
The gray lean spiders come, they come and go;
In a tangle of willows without light
The singular screech-owl's tight
Invisible lyric seeds the mind
With the furious murmur of their chivalry.We shall say only the leaves
Flying, plunge and expireWe shall say only the leaves whispering
In the improbable mist of nightfall
That flies on multiple wing:
Night is the beginning and the end
And in between the ends of distraction
Waits mute speculation, the patient curse
That stones the eyes, or like the jaguar leaps
For his own image in a jungle pool, his victim.What shall we say who have knowledge
Carried to the heart? Shall we take the act
To the grave? Shall we, more hopeful, set up the grave
In the house? The ravenous grave?Leave now
The shut gate and the decomposing wall:
The gentle serpent, green in the mulberry bush,
Riots with his tongue through the hush--
Sentinel of the grave who counts us all!
Brought to the fore in a roundabout way by a post at Video Meliora (Look for the entry titled "Russell Kirk on Donald Davidson." From there goggled Davidson to see if there might be some poetry online and found at the American Academy of poets a magnificent tribute to this somber poem. Thus it winds up here.
An Aside: There is a very fine Russell Kirk Essay--"The Attack on Leviathan: Donald Davidson and the South's Conservatism"--available here.
Go and find a print version to savor the spacing and identation that adds to the stateliness and meaning of this magnificent work.
Today's Prayer
from Drink of the Stream A Prayer of Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi O Goodness, O Goodness, O Goodness. You do not want to be surpassed by the creature!. . . Such is the heart of God! It hides our heart within itself as a sponge hides water in itself; and if a person does not press the sponge, he does not see what is there.
O Jesus, more than anything, I want to hide my heart in Your own. I want Your heart to be mine and my will to follow the new heart You have given me. More than anything I want a heart to love the Father, a sacred heart to be a throne for the Holy Spirit, a heart that is a a place of rest, repose, and joy for You--and I may only have these if You give them to me. "Far off, most secret, and inviolate rose/enfold me in Your hour of hours." Let me be united to You and serving Your purpose now and in all eternity. Amen.
Drink of the Stream--A Review
A book compiled by Penny Hickey O.C.D.S.
I've spoken of it frequently, and now it is a constant companion--a companion I would recommend for all Carmelites and indeed for all seriously interested in the interior life. The subtitle, "Prayers of Carmelites" gives the general thrust of the spirituality--it is strongly Carmelite with the via negativa (St. John of the Cross's famous "Nada, nada, nada, nada. . .) and references to the dark night.
The book presents prayers derived from the work of some 25 Carmelite Saints, Blesseds, and Servants of God, from Elijah and Elisha to the relatively unknown St. Teresa of Jesus of the Andes. (Another 20th century Saint who, like Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity and St. Thérèse of Lisieux died at a very young age). These prayers are derived from the writings of St. Mary Magdalene da Pazzi, St Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and others. As such, they have the character of mediations and meditation starters. They encourage one to peer deeply into the heart of God and one's own connection with God. They demand that one face certain truths in one's own life. In short, they are preparation for the Ascent, or companions on the climb who continually urge us to the difficult path, noting that when we stop thinking of it as difficult, it becomes God's own work and path and the climb is mysteriously easier.
Each set of prayers and mediations is prefaced by a very brief biography that "sets the stage." The prayers themselves are usually quite brief, a matter of a minute or so reading, but they are incredibly powerful, sticking with you throughout the day.
As I have said, this book is now my nearly constant companion, from it I derive tremendous strength and hope in what has been and continues to be a very trying time.
For additional information about the book visit Ignatius Press.
My Thanks to All Who Helped Yesterday
And most especially to a commenter named Mary who said things so clearly that what everyone else was saying finally dawned on me. Thank you.
Another Beautiful Prayer/Meditation
Drink of the Stream has been recommended before and each subsequent passage and reading urges me to recommend it more highly. For those looking for "a balm in Gilead," for those seeking a way in the night, for those uncertain about their vocations and where to turn, these short readings help to focus, calm, and direct.
from Drink of the Stream A Prayer of St. Henry de OssoI found my vocation. You guided me without remembering how, Star of the Sea, Morning Star, Star of Barcelona, you shone in my eyes; I followed your light; and when you showed me Jesus, the blessed fruit of your womb, I said, "I will always belong to Jesus, I will be His minister, His apostle, His missionary of peace and love."
A Query for Those More Knowledgable
I came across a commentary on an Evangelical website and found the same query repeated at a Progressive Catholic website and thought I would get some helpful feedback from everyone here. Both sites contended, with slightly different emphases, that NFP was not licit. Their arguments went something like: IF the purpose of sexual congress is twofold procreative and unitive and IF one deliberately, with malice aforethought impedes one or the other of these purposes, one cannot be said to be upholding the two-fold purpose and therefore one is committing a sin.
The notion is the contraceptive mentality, I suppose. I'd like to hear from those out there who better understand this issue. I tend to concur with the evangelical who concluded that the proper Christian could not use NFP--but that is more out of ignorance and my usual seat-of-the-pants reasoning. So, please help clarify this mystifying issue. If your response is too long for my blog, please leave me a note directing me to the response on your own. Thanks!
An Interesting Description of the Movements of Love
In Spiritual Combat Revisited Jonathan Robinson treats us to this rather interesting description of the movements of love. As background, first one must know that the object one seeks does indeed exist and then :
from Spiritual Combat Revisited Jonathan RobinsonIn the tradition with which Scupoli is working, the slaking of the man's thirst has three aspects. The thirsty man, let us call him Tom Jones, is struck, in the first place, by an experience that is partly intellectual and partly emotional, in that he badly wants a glass of beer; for the time being anyway, there exists a natural affinity between Tom Jones, who is thirsty, and the glass of beer. He is apt to say: "I would love a glass of beer." So St. Thomas says that the first effect produced in Tom Jones is love, "which is simply a feeling of an object's attractiveness." This experience gives rise to a movement toward the object that we call desire. The desire is not for an idea of the beer, but for a real drink, and so Tom has actually to get hold of the beer. Perhaps he only has to go to the refrigerator; perhaps he has to go to a nearby town; but in any case he has to go out toward the beer in the real world. As St. Thomas puts it: The desire moves toward the object "with the purpose of actually possessing it." Finally he slakes his thirst by drinking the beer, by actually uniting himself with what he desired, and so the desire finally "comes to rest in joy."
We have then three aspects or stages: Tom is struck, sometimes very sharply and in an overwhelming way, with the fact that a drink of beer is what he wants; this deep awareness, or the "experiencing of a natural affinity," as Gilson puts it, leads him to say he would love a glass of beer, and he shows he is serious about this love by actually taking steps to obtain the beer; finally he is united to the object of his love, in this case, the beer, by actually drinking it.
The love of God, even when all the proper qualifications and distinctions are made, follows this model. (p. 38-39)
A strange and wonderful thing--likening the individual's love of God to his pursuit of beer. And more wonderful and strange yet what comes next. If you've the opportunity, this might be a good book to pick up.
Another Thought About Census
It occurs to me that another reason for a relatively declined census at any one place is that there are now so many places of interest in St. Blogs one hardly has time to visit those most loved, much less to dally anyplace that isn't very near the tops in affection. There are a great many complicating factors in all of this, and it is extremely interesting because I find fascinating all that moves people in their various directions.