The Cuckoo's Net

I can go anywhere I want. I can read or watch anything I want. I can listen, I can buy. I can download, cut, paste, burn. I’m talking, of course, about the Internet, also known as “the net,” the giant emporium of multimedia text and images that forms the global playland of young and old alike. But not if the corporate Big Brothers take it over. If that happens, you and I might find ourselves on a slow, three-foot wave surfing kiddy pools while those who are willing to pay more get to shoot the pipeline.

So much for net neutrality, the notion that free speech, capitalism, and democracy are inherently ours to use openly as we wish, without restriction, censorship, or exclusion.

I love the Internet because
But if the corporate conglomerates put their big d___s in the net, animal-rights organizations like PETA could find that web pages containing information about animal cruelty, factory farming, furs, and pharmaceutical and cosmetic testing won’t load, load slowly, or perhaps donors will no longer be able to make online donations. If you want to support an organization, you may have to pay to access their site.

I visited New York City’s Chinatown once, where you could play or watch other people play tic-tac-toe with a chicken. The chicken won every time. She had to. Unless she won, she didn’t eat. Food was her reward for playing. That’s net neutrality folks: you bet, you lose.

YOU, however, can keep the net free, like the good person who freed “Lily” the chicken.

Becoming humane means waking up to personal responsibility. There are no masters, only slaves. Instead of asking, “How can the banks and corporate giants keep getting away with it?” or “How did this war start?” or “Can I trust the media?” become a citizen journalist and free the chicken inside of you. Free other chickens! Peck away at your keyboards, write your elected representatives, refuse to pay higher prices to participate in democracy, refuse to bail out the pigs on Wall Street. Refuse to be caged.

Images from Google images. Cartoon by Peter Steiner, Copyrighted by the New Yorker.

Squirrely

What I’d really like to do is download a bunch of videos about squirrels, remix them, then upload them onto the Internet just to show people how unfounded their fears are. However, digital rights management says that the practice is a “no-no,” because it infringes on copyright and other people’s “intellectual property.” Since when does ignorance get to be called “intellectual,” as in the case of the previously mentioned gardening article in the Chronicle?

Like the great poet Pablo Neruda wrote, “I have a mind to confuse things, unite them, bring them to birth, mix them up, undress them.” That’s what the free culture movement is all about—using creativity and technology to show what is possible. For me, what’s possible is that people might someday dismiss the notion that man, earth’s supreme destroyer, has “dominion” over everything on this tiny planet. Maybe early scribes mistranslated meanings publicized in THE BOOK? According to Dr. Michael W. Fox, the original meaning of the word “dominion” comes from the Hebrew word yorade, which means to “have communion with and compassion for,” not supremacy. We have to set it right.

I’d start with this video, that in actuality shows a squirrel with a concussion, then cut to a shot of running with the squirrels, and end with squirrels dancing to a Michael Jackson song (free culture in action!). Yeah.

I posted a comment on YouTube regarding the mislabeled “drunk squirrel” video, informing people that the poor squirrel was actually suffering from a concussion. I got this rabid response from some a_hole whose username is "icanrideabigbike," “hey a concussion is even funnier! when the show gets old get out the pellet gun and put the little guy out of his erratic misery.”

I think you get the message. People, not squirrels, are nuts!

What if each one of us was to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves? What if we were to stand in front of the trees, as did William Faulkner’s character Boon in The Bear, and shout, “They’re my squirrels!”

This week’s New York Times and other news outlets featured an article “One in 4 Mammals Threatened With Extinction” that every single human on the planet should read, if they can.

As the food chain declines, so will humans, and as THE BOOK promises, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” Think about it.

Squirrel photo downloaded from Google images.