RelationShaping

If I set up a factory and started producing cars that looked just like Volkswagen Beetles from the early 1960's and called them Molkswagen Teetles, would that be legally okay? I would certainly hope not. Why then do people like Nick Simmons regularly copy the work of real artists, put their own name on it, and try to make a profit?

A couple of days ago, in our Memeingful blog, I wrote an article called -- "Stealing Janna Sweenie" -- that dealt with an un-named seller on an un-named commercial website that was using Janna's good name and American Sign Language products to sell really ugly postcards and other knickknacks and trinkets.  Today, I am ready to reveal the rest of the story and to publicly identify CafePress.com as the commercial website involved.

Today, I propose we enact a new rule when it comes to the Art of Human Living:  Outlawing Crafting.  I realize this idea may be less popular than Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" -- commoditizing children by eating babies in the time of economic hardship -- and I'm sure there are some among us who will also accuse me of treachery against the American Spirit.  We live to pretend to recreate Art from the junk of others.

Intellectual theft has come far in the last century. I can imagine that the idea of taking an article from a newspaper and passing it off as ones own must have been daunting in the late nineteenth century -- and surely something that people would not have been so eager to do given the lack of incentive. Now, however, it is too easy to select an entire article with your mouse, copy it, and paste it into your blog -- and throw your name on top of it. Tynt helps you control the copy thieves.

I was with a friend at Trader Joe's in the Union Square area of Manhattan, looking for a certain sort of vegetarian cheese. The first thing you should know about this supermarket location is that it is so popular that the line to the checkout counter is frequently long enough to wrap all around the store and come near the entrance of the store, with employees holding signs to indicate where to enter for various numbers of items per shopper. That made it sufficiently difficult to find anything without bumping into several people.

University of Florida football quarterback, and Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow is the worst kind of Christian:  Self-promoting, crass, entitled, fragile, haughty, and invoking the sacred right of Crybabyism when God doesn't answer his prayers.  During every football game, Tebow advertises his public love of God in quaint Bible verses printed on homemade eyeblack patches.  Each week his his mommy sends him a list of quotes to use.

We have seen medical quackery over and over again in the last few years, ranging from the horrid Fibromyalgia to pre-glaucoma. In the last few years, people who most likely once wore tin helmets to prevent the government from reading their minds started making an appearance in the forms of complaints made about cities that have freely available wi-fi.