Today, however, my blogging inertia has abated for a little while by virtue of coming across this article on BBC, discussing SOPA, One of the uniting traits of the world, for better or for worse, is the trait known as stupidity. Alas, there must be something most politicians and executives consume — their own steaming hot air aside — that inflicts this trait so readily in these poor (metaphorically speaking of course) humans.

The metaphor applies to both "poor" and "humans". In case you were wondering.

I read the article on the way home from work today. My anger (and thus, inertia cure) stems from statements made by the Grand Overlord of the MPAA, a certain US ex-senator Chris Dodd.

Dear audience (or lack thereof), the previous sentence translated to Swahili would be "mgongano wa maslahi" (at least that’s what Google Translate tells me). In Indonesian, we get a clearer indication, "benturan kepentingan" — well okay, clearer if you’re Indonesian. Finally, in Swede: "intressekonflikt".

To have initially worked for the people and then lobby for a broken corporation, that takes balls. Well, no, it takes very little effort for most politicians (ball bearings? Not even that heavy, sigh), you get the idea. Usually, Republicans are known for stunts like this; to my dismay, Monsieur Dodd is/was supposedly a Democrat. Perhaps, this is an instance of "I say to-may-toe, you say to-mah-toe".

Let’s examine some statements made by the MPAA (henceforth all quotes are from the linked article):

But backers of the legislation, led by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), described the action as an "irresponsible" publicity "stunt".

This "stunt" is referring to sites, especially Wikipedia, that went offline, or publicly displayed their anti-SOPA stance. There was nothing irresponsible about it, a huge internet-based protest occurred, no one (except the MPAA and related clowns) got hurt — compare that to almost any other massive protest — the worst thing that happened (for MPAA of course), is enlightenment. People seeing the blackout (notice the irony?) woke up to the mess that is SOPA — which by the way, is irresponsible considering it wastes tax payer money to essentially assist a very, very rich bunch get even richer. This happened according to Wikipedia (in the article):

"More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge," the site said. "You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. "From all around the world your messages dominated social media and the news. Millions of people have spoken in defence of a free and open internet."

I am not a US citizen, however any bill that affects a global network needs to involve custodians and netizens of said network. I consider myself a netizen, so this matters to me.

The MPAA is neither a custodian, nor a netizen of the Internet.

It is a leech.

But pardon me, a leech has blood sucking as a natural instinct. Ergo the MPAA is a lot worse than a leech, incomparable even — please ignore my previous analogy.

The MPAA’s constituents happily use the Internet when it suits, then trash it when it doesn’t. In layperson terms, that’s akin to crapping in your community centre’s hall. That’s just how disgusted I am by this organisation. And if the organisation is not enough, let’s continue with Monsieur Dodd. Oh, boy… this is one broken toy… (woot, a rhyme):

Ex-Senator Chris Dodd, MPAA’s chief executive, described the blackouts as an "abuse of power"

One word: "intressekonflikt" (or is that two?). You’re talking about "abuse of power"? Really?

The above quote doesn’t take the cake though, next I reveal the real impetus behind my post. Check this Oscar-winning material out:

Ahead of the day’s action, Mr Dodd said: "It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."

I wonder if Mr. Dodd was in a room full of mirrors when he said this. Or perhaps he just came out of some form of freaky MPAA-sponsored Cataract-Vipassana 15-day retreat. I mean, really.

Okay, more talk of Mr. Dodd and yours truly will need to go on that retreat. Let’s move on to good ol’ Rupert Murdoch:

News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch, a vocal supporter of Sopa, continued to spar with users on Twitter. He tweeted: "Seems blogsphere has succeeded in terrorising many senators and congressmen who previously committed. Politicians all the same."

"Terrorising"? If ever there was a Hackneyed Word of the Decade competition, this would get my vote. So protesting these days is "terrorising"? Hmm. And the News of the World crackery bullshit was, I suppose, ethical journalism in comparison. The only shred of truth in his tweet, in as far as generalisations go, is the last sentence. And Mr. Murdoch, Wikipedia is not a blog, in case you haven’t been doing rudimentary fact-checking in recent times. The Internet is not just the "blogosphere" (his actual tweet spelt it correctly).

And yes, when I said "good ol’", it was sarcasm. In case you were wondering.

The sheer ease with which executives and politicians spout brobdingnagian volumes of pungent, diarrheic verbiage never ceases to both disgust and amaze me. I mean, that you can manage to stay in human form while expertly incanting turdspells like the above is nothing short of a miracle. The utter blindness to your own actions, the total inability to reflect on things as they are, the overreaching stupidity, the incomprehensible levels of arrogance… wow.

I need to do something about this naïveté of mine… one of these days.

As the Nihonjin say, well at least the Anime Nihonjin: yare yare…

“Dinkle Berry” is.. dinkle berry. A test user so abused in my test
data. Ah Dinkle Berry, where did your name come from?

I should google you, eh²?

Footnotes:

¹yep, still messing with my blog to email thingie.

²ok, so I did google it… whatever you do, please ignore
urbandictionary’s
interpretation… it’s scary how I came up with that word
independently, and had no such mental association, kthnks.

³3 6 edits now… textile support seems a bit.. flaky in Python.

I was standing
All alone against the world outside
You were searching
For a place to hide

Lost and lonely
Now you’ve given me the will to survive
When we’re hungry…love will keep us alive

Don’t you worry
Sometimes you’ve just gotta let it ride
The world is changing
Right before your eyes
Now I’ve found you
There’s no more emptiness inside
When we’re hungry…love will keep us alive

I would die for you
Climb the highest mountain
Baby, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do

I was standing
All alone against the world outside
You were searching
For a place to hide
Lost and lonely
Now you’ve given me the will to survive
When we’re hungry…love will keep us alive
When we’re hungry…love will keep us alive
When we’re hungry…love will keep us alive

¹Of course, these are lyrics to the famous Eagles song. In the
context, I am messing with my
textile formatted
email to blog software.

In other news, we also have scientific proof that “cats know more about fluid mechanics than dogs“!

Wonder what we’ll find out next… stay tuned for the rise of the lolcats.

As before, the album is contemporary instrumental piano. The music is simply beautiful. Both relaxing and deeply contemplative. Ade’s in no rush to finish a song, the timing is just right. The notes feel a lot more harmonious, diverse, confident. My favourites include “Jakarta at Night 3“, “Go on 2“, “I Saw Happiness“, and “Moving Ashburton“. “Jakarta at Night 3” – well if you have spent a night in Jakarta – the faintly cool night breeze in a city named after a prince, you’ll get the connection. Tracks average 6-8 minutes in length. One contrast (in both feel, and length) is “Unity in Diversity“, a short (1:35!), light piece.

Highly recommended, awe-some. 10/10 stars. Still DRM-free (yay!).

With the disclaimer out of the way, I can go crazy with fiction or non-fiction as I please, whee.

I got into a discussion about ancient history today with a senior teacher of mine. It reminded me of how much I used to like stories, myths, legends, and associated symbolism. Anyway one link led to another, and I began reading about Prambanan[1][2] – a temple in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia built around the 9th or 10th century. One of the depicted major gods in Prambanan is Vishnu, one of the 3 major Hindu Gods[3], whose consort/vehicle is the Garuda[4.1][5] – a mythical powerful bird.

In Indonesia, the Garuda is used as a national symbol, a symbol for the Pancasila[6] – the 5 unifying cross-cultural, cross-religious, tenets of Indonesia.

A part of article [2] and article [5] tell of Garuda as being the son of a mighty sage Kasyapa and his wife Vinata. Paraphrasing [5], in short, Garuda had a brother, Aruna, who was born misshapen. Aruna was forced out of an egg (like a real egg, think chickens, not wombs) by Vinata’s (his mother) impatience and overexcitement.

Aruna was angry that he suffered this and cursed his mother. The details of this curse are unclear – [5] says that the mother became a slave to Naga, I’ll let you read up on it. Essentially, the fix to this situation was for Garuda to steal some heavenly ambrosia – a non-trivial feat (we’ll need to trust the myths on this) – guarded by various beings. Garuda was able to do this and save his mother. This virtuous quality of being able to save one from a disaster underlies (among several other things I suspect) the choice of using Garuda as a national symbol.

Article [4.2] depicts various uses of Garuda as symbols in an organisational or governmental setting. Article [5] gives an overview of the use of Garuda in Thailand.

The Greeks (and Romans) revered the Phoenix[7.1] “as a symbol of rebirth, immortality, and renewal”[7.1]. USA uses the Bald Eagle[8.1] as their national symbol. According to [8.1], “The founders of the United States were fond of comparing their new republic with the Roman Republic, in which eagle imagery was prominent”. I suspect that the eagle in turn was inspired by the phoenix in those circles. A phoenix is also most closely associated as being the European mythological counterpart to the Eastern Garuda[7.2].

Furthermore, [8.2] speaks of the role of eagles in Native American culture, an ancient culture with their own series of mythology and belief systems. It is highly likely this also factored into the decision to use the Bald Eagle as a US national symbol.

It’s fascinating (to me anyway) that so many places come to similar symbolism, in spite of the vast diversity, and physical proximities between the lands.

Something to munch on on a Saturday. Speaking of munching, I am starved. Exeunt.


References
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prambanan
[2] http://my.opera.com/akbar_taksisman/blog/2009/03/30/candi-prambanan (in Bahasa Indonesia unfortunately)
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimurti – Vishnu the Preserver, Shiva the Destroyer, Brahma the Creator. Hinduism is considered to be a polytheistic religion, however, I believe this to be a superficial classification. In fact, many of the older Yoga-based philosophies are very monotheistic. The various divinities and deities being almost individual aspects of the One. In that, it is both monotheistic and polytheistic – the many from the One, and eventually back to the One. It is my personal view, that many of the “modern” groups have, perhaps accidentally, muddled the core essence.
[4.1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda
[4.2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda#As_a_cultural_and_national_symbol
[5] http://tudtu.tripod.com/garuda.htm – use of Garuda in Thailand.
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancasila_(politics)
[7.1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)
[7.2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)#Specific_legends
[8.1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Eagle#The_national_bird_of_the_United_States
[8.2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Eagle#Role_in_Native_American_culture