Crafting Copyright Confusion Causes Katian Craziness

(Don't hit. How often do I get to be that alliterative? ^_~)

Mini rants:

Rant 1: The need to slap up an "I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice" disclaimer on stuff like this. Why do we live in such a paranoid society? Frivilous lawsuits are actually very rare. And usually started by corporations, not individuals out to make a buck.

Rant 2:

• Clothing is a useful good.
• Useful goods cannot be copyright.
• Therefore, a clothing pattern with a standard "all rights reserved" copyright notice and nothing supplemental to that covers the pattern itself, but NOT the finished item. It is not "always illegal to make something for sale from a copyrighted pattern."
• Many designers now do include extra licensing terms. How legal these are remains to be seen, but in a society that allows click-through licenses to add additional conditions with no additional return, the odds are good they would be binding. *eye roll*

Rant 3: There is a difference between 'legal', 'ethical', and 'moral'. Going to the almighty dictionary:

• Legal: conforming to or permitted by law.
• Ethical: conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct.
• Moral: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.

Ideally the three coincide, but something can be any one without being the other two. Especially easy to conflate are ethical and moral, but they are different. Indeed, many ethical practices are immoral. For example, a doctor or hospital who refuses to treat a mortally ill patient who can't pay may be ethically in the States (acceptable behavior of the profession), but I will look askance at you if you think that is moral.

The other thing to remember is that morality is changeable and individual. There are certain big things that society as a whole considers immoral (example: murder), but even those are changeable and debatable given the circumstances (example: killing during a war).

If you ever want to see the stages of moral development in action, watch a copyright and licensing thread on a craft board. I would probably help my sanity a lot of I'd remember that many people don't make it past level 4, "legal = right".

(In general, it's sad how many people never get past the second stage - "What's in it for me?".)

Atheist writers

I am about ready to toss in the towel looking for a good, open-minded, inclusively leaning atheist writer. My atheist friends, I really feel for you. It's not enough that you guys face major discrimination, that a majority of American voters wouldn't vote for an atheist candidate, you have to put up with this weird Freudian projection thing from opponents, that... Well, you know the laundry list better than I do. But on top of that, the representatives who get the major air time are... Well, it's about like if I were judged on the basis of Fred Phelps, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson. (Never trust an evangelist named Pat.)

The two I've found who don't significantly trigger the nut-o-meter are both internet celebs. They're not really getting the big book deals and video shots.

Greta Christina's generally OK. Except when she gets angry. Then I'm the enemy and nothing I can say or do will change that unless I change a fundamental part of myself or cease to exist. Can't help you there, ma'am. If you're interested in working together to solve those problems once you calm down, gimme a shout.
PZ Myers is also OK, but I personally wouldn't really call his page an atheist blog, because he generally concentrates on science. No, the two are not the same. Which nicely leads to my biggest complaint about most of the big name, well-known (well, as well-known as possible) atheist names.

Just because I have some religious beliefs does not mean I am a flaming moron who is actively hostile to fact-based reality and has no understanding of science.

I'm an extremely fact based person. I love data. Show me a study, and I want to know your sample size and your margin of error. Show a confidence interval too, and I'll squee. (Literally. I really did the last -- OK, the one -- time I saw a confidence interval included in a mass media write-up of some study or other.) I not only support the theory of evolution in the same way I 'support', say, the theory of gravity, but furthermore, I know the difference between a theory, a hypothesis, and a law.

Yes, I have some beliefs that are not fact based. Um, so does everyone. (Any Cubs fans? Sorry, guys, but the idea that "this is their year!" is not fact-based.) I personally don't expect other people to share my non-fact-based beliefs. They don't even have to like them, but I do expect a certain basic level of respect for the fact that I have them. If someone calls me a flaming moron for the mere act of having such beliefs, he and I are not going to get along. Point blank.

OK, I'll be honest. Anyone calls me a flaming moron, he and I are not going to get along, period. Everyone's got buttons.

Usually at this point someone says "Oh, you'll like Dawkins." No, I will not like Dawkins. According to Dawkins, I'm a wishy-washy fence-sitter who doesn't have the guts to be an atheist. I'm a liberal, you see, and liberal religious apparently doesn't compute so well him for him. So we're obviously in denial.

Actually, this brings up another point. A while back I watched this chunk of a Dawkins video. No more, because after getting slapped with the insanely irrational idea that religion is the only thing that will make 'good' people do 'bad' things (uh huh. Jingoism, fear, greed, lack of survival needs, those have NEVER caused such things. It's 100% religion. *eye roll* Tell me how this is rational.), I decided that an hour of my life was worth more than that. But, at the end of that snippet, he asks how religious people (Christians in particular) decide which parts of their scriptures, traditions, etc to believe and which to toss in a rhetorical tone that supports the "don't have the guts to be an atheist" implication.

Let's say I drop a stack of scientific studies on the desk in front of you. Some of these studies are well-done and insightful. Some are poorly done and biased. Some have a broad body of work ahead of them. Some are brand new areas, wholly unique. Now, how do you decide which of these studies to believe for the time being, which should be filed away for future observation but are not yet strong enough to act on, and which to toss as complete junk?

Same thing, guys. When I decide which portions of scripture might be worth keeping around and which should just be ignored, I look at my own life, I look at the contradictions in the work itself and the relative dates they were produced, I look at what we now know scientifically (yes, data trumps scripture for me), I weigh against some base assumptions (for instance, I refuse to believe in an incompetent asshole god), I use a little judgment, and I do come back and re-evaluate every now and then. It also helps to know a little history behind some of the books in the Bible. [Not all 66 (isn't that a terribly ironic number?), but I can tell you, for instance, that the books of Ruth, Job, and Jonah were all written as fiction, not intended to be taken literally, and Revelations likely was as well. (Apocalypses were a popular literary movement at the time. And Revelations was not necessarily a description of the end of the world anyway. The Greek word used in it is 'eon', an age.) See, more data. I like crunchy bits.]

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. So, Dawkins does not work for me due to his message that anyone who does understand and agree with science is either an atheist or a closet atheist, and conversely all religious people are morons, often violent. And he's about as good as it gets in the mainstream channels. Then there's Hitchens, who's probably about the most well-known atheist writer out there from my perspective. He's also the nuttiest. I'd almost think he was responsible for the "atheism is a religion too" BS some fundies spout, because the man is a zealot. And like many zealots, he has no problem lying to promote his beliefs. (He's also terribly sexist, and an arrogant dick to boot.)

I almost think it's a conspiracy that the atheist writers/speakers who get the air time and wide distribution are the nutty, non-mainstream ones. The media has an agenda to show that there's "something wrong" with atheists, so they only let atheists who are hostile to theists have the camera. Which doesn't help me find books by intelligent, inclusively-minded atheists, and certainly doesn't help my atheist friends get treated with the basic respect and rights all humans deserve.

Zealots ruin everything.

During my last chain store visit, I was frustrated to discover that prayer shawls are going the way of the WWJD bracelet: something that had good meaning and intention when it was limited to a small group who believed in it, moved into yet another brainwashing technique, and is now on its way to becoming meaningless commercial fluff.

I suppose first I should specify that I'm talking about Christian prayer shawls, not to be confused with the Jewish Tallit or any other article of religious clothing. A Christian prayer shawl is given to someone during a time of hardship. The very original seed of the idea was a wonderful one. The idea was to mindfully knit a comforting items for a (preferably specific) person in a difficult time in their lives, keeping them in mind while working. It was to be a very spiritual, meditative practice, basically a physical manifestation of a prayer.

Well, it went wrong almost as soon as it started with The Prayer Shawl Ministry. Yes, I am aware that I'm saying the people who first codified the idea are doing it wrong. You know why? 'Cause they're doing it wrong. As soon as just about anything becomes a 'ministry', it becomes a failure at its original purpose. Why? Because the focus is no longer about helping people in need; it's about 'spreading the word of Jesus'. Only last I checked, the 'word of Jesus' was about loving and helping people. If you stop concentrating on loving and helping people in favor of talking about it, you've failed. It's a terribly tragic spiral. People are the message, and if you've put aside the people in favor of the message, you've put aside the real message.

In the case of the Prayer Shawl Ministry itself, almost immediately the focus was no longer the people in need, but rather the shawls. Prayer Shawls became yet another way for churches to get face time, and giving aid to people in pain was a convenient side effect. Many makers are not mindful, but rather crank them out, just thinking or praying for the recipient "when they come to mind" as one maker put it on Ravelry. Some churches keep a stock of them back to hand out whenever they're 'needed', which can be anything from a tragic accident to a birthday gift. It doesn't matter who gets them; it only matters who from what organization makes them. So, basically the original idea is in the toilet.

Naturally, Lion Brand yarn is very happy to help you with your Prayer Shawl. They recommend Lion Homespun. Interestingly enough, it seems that most prayer shawls are made out of Homespun. So much for grass-roots and non-profit.

Suffice to say, I'm pretty disgusted, both in how this particular idea was corrupted into a propaganda scheme, and how that seems inevitable with anything spiritual in modern American Christianity.

Eternally 15 years away...

I've got a little quote for you, and I want you to guess when it was written:

"You may think that undue stress is being laid upon this driving force in her, upon this business ability. But remember that this was fifteen years or more ago, before women had invaded the world of business by the thousands, to take their place, side by side, salary for salary, with men."

Go ahead, guess when that was written. I'll wait. When was 15 years ago before women had invaded the workforce?

... waiting...

1917! Nineteen hundred and effin' seventeen!

*snarls* I'm sick of being lied to and jerked around about women's history.
Why wasn't I taught about Nellie Bly as a child? Why wasn't I told that women journalists were normal in the late 19th century?
Why wasn't I told about the roll of women war workers in bringing about American women's suffrage? Why wasn't I told there WERE woman workers during WWI. Rosie the Riveter was nothing new; she was part of a very long tradition.
In fact, why wasn't I told that since the 1920s if not before, most women have worked at some point in their life. Yes, even during the 1950s.
What else is being hidden back there? I want to know, dammit! I want every 11-year-old girl in this country to know!

You find some really scary/shocking/annoying stuff when you start reading primary sources. >:P

Somewhat different rant, I am really truly sick of the "romantic stalker" storyline. Stalking is not romantic. Ever. It's creepy and stalkers should be forced to have regular talks with Mr. Police Man about why it is not appropriate behavior. And a shrink would be good too.
And the storyline itself is un-freakin'-believably insulting. "Women don't really know what's best for them or what they want. Here, this terribly creepy man knows what you want better than you do. Give up your free will and self-determination and give in to him. He won't go away until you do." And this is supposed to be romantic? Who do I need to strangle?

And off of that, I'm really sick of certain men trying to tell me what women want and what women think. What the hell makes them think that they are more qualified than me on this topic? Last I checked, I'm the one with boobs!

I need to knit me one of these for moments like this, I think. I wonder what ever happened to the stuffed rat creature I used to keep around for when I needed to smack something around and shout "stupid STUPID rat creature!"