Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"From the beginning, government and government agencies have been subject to capture. They are more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a legal or technical change. That powerful interest too often exerts its influence within the government to get the government to protect it. The rhetoric of this protection is of course always public spirited; the reality is something different. Ideas that were as solid as rock in one age, but that, left to themselves, would crumble in another, are sustained through this subtle corruption of our political process. RCA had what the Causbys did not: the power to stifle the effect of technological change." -- Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology And The Law To Lock Down Culture And Control Creativity. (Thanks to fidhle who told me about this book and kept reminding me about it until I got around to downloading it. This probably won't be the only passage I quote by the time I finish reading it.)

This afternoon's Three Left Feet / Thrir Venstri Foetr performance for a bunch of schoolchildren went pretty well, but I should've brought more instruments for what turned into the show&tell portion. (Overall good sign: lots of questions from the kids. But I'd known I wasn't going to play very many different instruments today and had packed accordingly, not thinking there'd be time to talk about the histories of various instruments.)

I got my first two cicada-splatters on my windshield today. I haven't seen as many cicadas airborn as I'd expected, so far. The windshield -- and hood ornament -- of the car I was driving seventeen years ago got pretty disgusting. But I can hear 'em. Not at home, which feels kind of odd ... my part of Baltimore doesn't seem to have any cicadas at all, so I read what muy friends are writing and remember what it sounded like in Bowie thirty four years ago and Greenbelt seventeen years ago, but hear only traffic and helicopters and too-loud stereos until I drive someplace else.

And then I pass a major conglomeration of the ungainly bugs, invisible in the trees beside the Gladys Noon Spellman Memorial Parkway (aka the B-W Parkway) and it sounds like the Pan-American Tambourine Orchestra and all the affiliated regional student tambourine bands have added a tutti accompaniment to whatever song I'm listening to on the radio.

Or I cruise up I-95 at 30 meters per second, past a many-miles-long stretch of cicada-populated trees farther from the road than they are on 295, and I hear that curious whistlerustlehisshum that certain transmission problems or a bad wheel bearing can sound like, or maybe a window open just the wrong amount, and because a ten-mile stretch of landscape is making the sound, it's not like I'm just driving past a loudthing and hearing the sound recede in the distance ... and I mutter, "You red-eyed, clumsy-winged bastards fooled me with that trick seventeen years ago, but this time I know it's y'all and not my car that I'm hearing, so this time I'm not pulling over to check. No, really, I'm not. No."

Or walking to my car to drive home from someplace, I hear, from every direction and thus no direction, that sound which cannot be concisely described as other than "that science-fiction movie sound", as referred to by some of my friends.

I copied that Roosevelt quote -- "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public" -- onto a postcard and mailed it to Tom DeLay. (I sent one to Nancy Pelosi as well, just to let her know what I thought of DeLay's criticism of her criticism of Bush.) I'd love to know how many copies of it he's received by now. (I'm assuming mine won't make much of an impression beyond incrementing the statistic by one, but trying to convey the message by thinking it very loudly in his direction was getting tiring, so I spent 23 cents to snail-mail it.)

Assorted randomishness ... I guess I'm not allowed to complain about the slowpokes in front of me if they're already exceeding the speed limit, huh? ... Last night's thunderstorm swept in before I'd gotten windows closed, so I spent some time wiping the rain off the floor, but even though that made me late to rehearsal, at least I wasn't on the road when the upside-down SUV I passed became upside-down. (It was on the northbound side of I95 and the sight of it made the other southbound drivers around me act very strangely (and annoyingly and, ironically, dangerously) for the next dozen miles. Fortunately northbound traffic was moving again when I headed home.) ... Odd shortages: the last three stores I've been to have been out of Prilosec, which means I'm going to be quite uncomfortable tomorrow if I don't find some tonight; and TV Guide, which recently switched from "our week starts on Saturday and next week's issue is in stores on Wednesday," to "our week starts on Sunday and next week's should be in stores onm Thursday," has had distribution problems ever since the change. I've seen the week-just-ended still in stores on a Monday, and I don't think I've seen the week-about-to-start on sale on a Saturday night yet -- Thursday or Friday? Forget about it ... today my house is merely hot, not "would it be kinder to shave the cat?" hot like it's been for the past few days. (There are rooms Perrine has not wanted to follow me into because they were too hot. She's been practicing maximizing her exposed surface area.)

Thirty dollars to fuel a Honda Accord is painful and (yes, I'm going to whine like a fucking spoiled American here) just wrong somehow. Isn't it supposed to be an economy car? (It's got "sport" and "economy" settings on the transmission; I have not yet even tried the "sport" setting.) Admittedly it gets worse mileage than I'd like (24 mpg instead of the 30 mpg I'd hoped for), but it's not a land-yacht, pimpmobile, muscle car, SUV, van, or truck.)

Well I know I'm not alone in feeling the pinch and the ensuing fryustration. Last night one of my cousins emailed (forwarded, I presume, based on the overall writing style, the all-caps screaming, and the phrasing of one paragraph in particular) a message recruiting people to participate in a gasoline-price protest. Not the "nobody buy gas in this date" thing (which the email did refer to) -- this one asked everyone to pay for their gas in pennies. Setting aside the not-sure-I've-remembered-correctly bit about pennies only being legal tender for amounts less than $20, what's the point of punishing the cashiers (and everyone behind you in line!) for what is happening at least two stages upstream? (The cashier's employer, the station owner, is at the mercy of the oil company. I've not compared the delta in the price of crude to the delta in the price at the pump to see whether the oil companies are ripping us off or merely passing on the increased costs they have to pay.) No, this amounts to pitching a temper tantrum at the nearest convenient target and then trying to call it a "protest" by recruiting others to join you in your tantrum. "I feel helpless because I'm frustrated by something I can't control, so I'm going to go ruin somebody else's day whether or not that person has any control of the situation either." How useful.

Wow, I guess I'm feeling sortakinda awake today. Maybe I can start catching up on my unanswered email from the past week. I wonder whether I'll still feel alert when rehearsal time rolls around three hours hence.