My god, it has been a fucking day! I am not going into the details of the last twelve hours or so, the things that made the resident Happy Hippie Witch feel more like the Wicked Witch of the Midwest....it has just been one of those days. But because I am me, my delightfully twisted brain managed to make something out of it that may, eventually, be productive. I promised you guys some new poems a few posts back? Well, I just wrote this about twenty minutes ago so it doesn't get any fresher than that.
Beauty and the Beast (Or, The Denial):
Does he ever weigh you down?
The Beast the lives within?
I know that you could let him go
but you'd have to let love in.
Beauty was at your door tonight,
she asked to come and play.
Why were you so cruel to her
when you wanted her to stay?
Is it because you know she'll come again,
as faithful as the sun?
Or is that when you look at her
you know that she's the one?
She loves you both, you foolish boy,
the beast inside the man.
You are one, she knows of course
she'll always understand.
And when you see her magick smile,
your only hope to change;
When you know that she is mad for you
why should it be so strange?
Behind her eyes you love so much
live secrets quite like yours
That she's had to hide for years alone
behind the bolted doors.
It is only when she touches you,
when she sees your crazy smile
that she feels like she can be herself
and rest for just a while.
So tomorrow when Beauty comes to call
will her Dark Prince treat her kind?
Because one day she'll go to town instead
if you keep leaving her behind.
Did you like it? I hope so. In many ways, tonight it says it all. Those last two lines may be a bit full of shit but writing them eased the anger (and that dash of hurt...alright, perhaps a little more than a dash but who is really counting, right?) that has been flowing through me the last few hours. So maybe now I can get back to what I sat down to do and write Rapunzel. Shall I? I think I shall....hahaha Oh, and because music is my therapy, why not leave you with my song of the night as well? As always, thank you, Aaron Lewis, for giving me an outlet besides my own simple words.... 'Please' happens to be my go-to song when I feel as if those who say they love me suddenly dislike me for who I am....feel free to claim it as your own when such occasions come up. It is always there on youtube and it has never let me down. I'm sure Aaron wouldn't mind. ;)
For today would have been his birthday as well....He would have been a very young 203 years old. For many many years he has had an admirer, someone who leaves roses at his grave for his birthday but this year the great people of Baltimore, Maryland may be holding a vigil of their own for this strange visitor as, for the second year in a row, he/she/it has not shown up. With that in mind, of course I had to do a post. My great Poe has already lost one who kept this date. We could not let him pass this birthday, wherever he may be now (probably hanging with Janis instead of reincarnating as they both should) without giving him love on this, the date of his birth. His was a complicated life, sometimes filled with pain, and that pain along with his brilliance later combined on the page to make him a writer with talent that so many of us since have all but worshiped, his ability to suck one in to his world whether it be one of grief over love lost too soon or one of sinister disease lurking among its intended prey unrivaled by none. At least, not in my opinion. I wear a necklace of his likeness around my neck to remind me to write even when I don't want to and to give it all I have because if I don't, there is no point. I have a beautiful print of The Raven sitting at my side to remind me that even in darkness, there is light and beauty and it is that which belongs on the page. He is one of those writers that I will never get too much of and I am proud to say that I've loved him almost as long as I could read. My friend Cassie and I were both obsessed with him rather early on. And so, being innovative by nature, we devised a plan. Neither of us could afford little pocket editions of BOTH The Raven and the Black Cat yet we had heard that each was great. So she bought one, I bought the other, and we switched off constantly reading them over and over. (I wonder if she remembers that. I'll have to ask her....) That was my first real taste of Poe's work and I couldn't get enough. I remember, I was in fourth grade then and I was in Mr. Topping's Poetry Club. The next Friday when we met I had in my hand a poem I wrote called The Kiss of Death which was, of course, inspired by my week spent with The Raven. A bit morbid for ten? Perhaps. Thankfully nothing I wrote, even then, seemed to surprise Mr. T. After that it was to the library I went, first the public and then, when we got a cool grown up library at the Middle School, the school library at Everts. The only nice thing I can say about my time there is that their library kicked ass to a bookwormish 6th grader, I loved the time I spent in it, and it was stocked with the best of Poe. Now, around this time I had my first real fight with depression. Life wasn't going too great and, being between the ages of 10 and 12, I had not developed any techniques for really dealing with that. So I sank into these worlds, these tales that Edgar wove and I let them bring me comfort or, at least, take me away for a little while. Because he could always be counted on for that. He turned even the deepest sorrow into beauty and maybe somehow I internalized that concept without realizing it...or maybe all of us who create use the greatest pains in our lives to fuel it. At least then you haven't suffered in vain. And Poe certainly did not because here we are, two centuries later, with millions still reading his work, millions who know his name and have stories just as I have a story of that first time they read what he had to say. So, wherever his admirer has gone (and if it is possible, I hope next year there is a return made) we still love him. Right? Right. Happy birthday, E.A.P. ! May you know all the joy in death that you rarely got from life and may you be in a place where you can see that so many of us still need what you gave even if you are long past having use for it.
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, to traveling actors David Poe and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins.
Separated from his older brother, William Henry, and younger sister, Rosalie, following their parents’ deaths, Edgar went to live with wealthy tobacco merchant, John Allan, and his wife, Frances Valentine Allan, inRichmond,Virginia. Although John planned for Edgar to pursue a career in business, Poe desired to follow in the footsteps of his childhood hero, British poet Lord Byron. Prolific as his literary efforts were, Poe was dissuaded from publishing by his boarding school headmaster, even with enough poetry to fill a book by the age of thirteen.
Poe led a complicated life as a young man, experiencing one hardship after another. Attending the University of Virginia in 1826, he was forced to leave due to gambling debts acquired while trying to sustain himself, since John Allan had given Poe only a fraction of the stipend necessary to live. Returning home, Poe’s fiancé, Elmira Royster, had become engaged to another during Poe’s time away at school. The combined stress from Allan and Royster compelled Poe to seek out a new life, resulting in enlistment in the U.S. Army, and later at West PointAcademyafter making amends with Allan. During this time, Poe published his first book, Tamerlane, as well as a collection of poetry.
As many classic works were published (“The Raven” in 1845) and Poe gained notoriety, he sought more payment as lecture crowds increased. An advocate of author’s wages and international copyright law, Poe attempted to establish his own literary journal, but was unable to acquire the financing.
His health deteriorated in the late 1840s, and Poe was hospitalized after being found in a bar room. He died on October 7, 1849, at forty from an undetermined cause of death.
Seeking revenge for a scathing review by Poe, author Rufus Griswold wrote a defamatory obituary of him, followed by an unflattering biography filled with exaggerations of drinking and womanizing. Griswold’s attempts misfired, prompting the public to seek out Poe’s work in droves.
The dark and melancholic aura associated with Poe was more the mystique created by his rivals. Poe may have been a man presumed to have lived a licentious lifestyle, but any darkness attributed to him was committed to his work. The man himself appears nobler than credited, and sought refuge in his talents, becoming the literary giant he is known as today.
Man, I really thought I was done with this damn blog thing until next week but then...I remembered...Today is the 19th and that means that today Janis Lynn Joplin would have been seventy years old. Yes, our beloved whiskey drinking, hell raising, blues mama would have likely been a blues grand-mama or even great-grand-mama today. And I will bet if she had lived she would still be every bit as wild and Janis-like as she was back in '67. Right? I am going to get to my usual stream of videos, pictures, and all that bullshit momentarily but first I think it would be appropriate for me to tell you, good blogger people, why this one woman, many years after her death, continues to mean so much to me that should I ever a have a daughter I intend to name her Janis Pearl after both sides of the one and only....(Don't touch the name, people. I do have it copyrighted...lmao)
I can always remember knowing who Janis was. I remember when I was very little I watched The Rose for the first time and my mom and my grandmother were talking about how similar The Rose was to Janis and her life...I remember when Faith Hill (slaughtered) remade Piece of My Heart (I was about six at the time) I knew it was Janis's and though I had never heard it I somehow knew it didn't sound right...so I always knew that there was this woman and once she had been a rock star and she had been great until drugs got her. But I never heard one of her songs until I was about thirteen years old and I was scanning channels when I came to the True Chanel (not the same as the Tru TV we have now...this one showed documentaries and they were heavy on the music) and I heard this sound...this...voice that made me stop. In fact, I always had a blank tape in my VCR and I hit record immediately because somehow I knew that if I listened long enough, it would change my life... was what I heard and in many ways that moment and the rest of the documentary that followed (The UNCUT Woodstock movie) did change my life and my mind along with it. It opened it up to the amazing talents of Janis and the blues singers who inspired her, to The Doors and the blues singers Morrison dug, to Jimi and The Beatles and all the rest...and to the world of the hippie. Well, hop over to my other blog if you are curious to see part of where that led me and oh yeah...I AM the Happy HIPPIE Witch, aren't I? hehehehe This is one of those perfect moments people talk about of being in the right place at the right time? And probably the only one I will ever have because of a television set but I am eternally grateful to it. After that chance encounter I wanted MORE! I bought her greatest hits CD, I swiped another from a friend, and when Christmas came the following yet I went to FYI and pointed out to my aunt the beautiful box set I wanted for my very own. You see, I was a young girl madly in love with someone I could not have and that hurt like hell. I had had rough times already and that sucked too. I also had a drinking problem. And when days were long and I felt like crying there was nothing better for it than my 40 of King Cobra and Janis's beautiful songs, her hard edge, her bluesy voice to give me my escape from unrequited love and all the rest. Songs like Ball N' Chain for when I was pissed at this poor guy who was doing nothing but the right thing, Maybe and To Love Somebody for when it hurt, and Trouble in Mind and Kozmic Blues for when life in general was pretty shitty...they got me through. They also taught me how to be hard even as my heart was aching. They let me sing at the top of my lungs whatever it was that was ailing me. And I got to do it with a legend.
Janis had many sides to her as most of us crazy bitches tend to. There was the hard side she showed the world, the side that could drink and laugh and make the boys blush...but there was so much more underneath all of that. I have come to see Janis as a close friend over the years and I know basically all that is out there about her, the truth and the bullshit. She was treated like shit, even by those who were supposed to be her friends. She was cast out, left behind, and kicked around. And all she wanted was to be loved but I also think that the idea of love scared the hell out of her. So in the end, one of the greatest female rock singers this world will ever know, beloved by her fans, her true friends, and her family, died alone on the floor of her motel room with a needle in her arm before she ever saw her 28th birthday. But it doesn't end there, does it? Because Janis.... Well... She's a fucking legend, now isn't she? So, happy birthday, Janis Lynn! We love you still...
As many of you may already know, today there are protests in the form of blackouts on the internet over the proposed SOPA bill. There are also street protests going on in some major cities across the U.S. People in the U.K. are not thrilled with the bill either. So, what the fuck is it? Well, all I knew at first was what my facebook friends were saying and I have some very passionate people on there...besides, I would rather find out things for myself before raging. But finding facts on the internet about it isn't easy because, like many hot button issues, much of what is on there either rages against it or glorifies it without giving you shit to go on with facts. Here is what I found that I think sums it up without too much bias one way or the other. Take from http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/ :
When Rep. Lamar Smith announced the Stop Online Piracy Act in late October, he knew it was going to be controversial.
But the Texas Republican probably never anticipated the broad and fierce outcry from Internet users that SOPA provoked over the last few months. It was a show of public opposition to Internet-related legislation not seen since the 2003 political wrangling over implanting copy-protection technology in PCs, or perhaps even the blue ribbons appearing on Web sites in the mid-1990s in response to the Communications Decency Act.
Consider the concerted protest on January 18 by high-profile Web companies and organizations. Wikipedia's English-language pages, for instance, went completely black, while Google put a big black box over the prominent logo on its home page, with a link to a page from which users could sign a petition entitled "Tell Congress: Don't censor the Web." Street protests have also been scheduled for that date in cities including New York, San Francisco, and Seattle.
As CNET reported in December, Smith, a self-described former ranch manager whose congressional district encompasses the cropland and grazing land stretching between Austin and San Antonio, Texas, has become Hollywood's favorite Republican. The TV, movie, and music industries are the top donors to his 2012 campaign committee, and he's been feted by music and movie industry lobbyists at dinners and concerts.
To learn how SOPA, and its Senate cousin known as the Protect IP Act, would affect you, keep reading. CNET has compiled a list of frequently asked questions on the topic:
Q: What's the justification for SOPA and Protect IP?
Two words: rogue sites.
That's Hollywood's term for Web sites that happen to be located in a nation more hospitable to copyright infringement than the United States is (in fact, the U.S. is probably the least hospitable jurisdiction in the world for such an endeavor). Because the target is offshore, a lawsuit against the owners in a U.S. court would be futile.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a letter to the editor of The New York Times, put it this way: "Rogue Web sites that steal America's innovative and creative products attract more than 53 billion visits a year and threaten more than 19 million American jobs." The MPAA has a section of its Web site devoted to rogue Web sites. Jim Hood, the Democratic attorney general of Mississippi, and co-chair of a National Association of Attorneys General committee on the topic, recently likened rogue Web sites to child porn.
Who's opposed to SOPA?
Much of the Internet industry and a large percentage of Internet users. Here's the most current list (PDF) of opponents.
On November 15, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedInwrote a letter to key members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, saying SOPA poses "a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cybersecurity." Yahoo has reportedly quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the organization's enthusiastic support for SOPA.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution last week stressing "the need to protect the integrity of the global Internet and freedom of communication by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names." Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, said in a message on Twitter last week that we "need to find a better solution than #SOPA."
A letter signed by Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo, both California Democrats, and
Rep. Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate from Texas, predicts that SOPA will invite "an explosion of innovation-killing lawsuits and litigation." Law professors have also raised concerns. And yes, there is a protest song.
How would SOPA work?
It allows the U.S. attorney general to seek a court order against the targeted offshore Web site that would, in turn, be served on Internet providers in an effort to make the target virtually disappear. It's kind of an Internet death penalty.
How is SOPA different from the earlier Senate bill called the Protect IP Act? Protect IP targeted only domain name system providers, financial companies, and ad networks--not companies that provide Internet connectivity.
Because SOPA is broader, even some companies who liked, or at least weren't vocally opposed to, the Senate bill aren't exactly delighted with the House version.
"Verizon continues to look at SOPA, and while it's fair to say that we have concerns about the legislation, we are working with congressional staff to address those concerns," a representative told us.
Tim McKone, AT&T's executive vice president of federal relations, said that "we have been supportive of the general framework" of the Senate bill. But when it comes to SOPA, all AT&T would say is that it is "working constructively with Chairman Smith and others toward a similar end in the House."
What are the security-related implications of SOPA?
One big one is how it interacts with the domain name system and a set of security improvements to it known as DNSSEC.
The idea of DNSSEC is to promote end-to-end encryption of domain names, meaning there's no break in the chain between, say, Wellsfargo.com and its customer. Requiring Internet providers to redirect allegedly piratical domain names to, say, the FBI's servers isn't compatible with DNSSEC.
Rep. Dan Lungren, who heads the Homeland Security subcommittee on cybersecurity, has saidthat an "unintended consequence" of SOPA would be to "undercut" the effort his panel has been making to promote DNSSEC.
The Sandia National Laboratories, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, has also raised concerns about SOPA, saying it is "unlikely to be effective" and will "negatively impact U.S. and global cybersecurity and Internet functionality." And Stewart Baker, the former policy chief at the Department of Homeland Security who's now in private practice, warned in an op-ed that SOPA "runs directly counter" to the House's own cybersecurity efforts.
An analysis (PDF) of Protect IP prepared by five Internet researchers this spring lists potential security problems. Among them: it's "incompatible" with DNSSEC, innocent Web sites will be swept in as "collateral damage," and the blacklist can be bypassed by using the numeric Internet address of a Web site. The address for CNET.com, for instance, is currently 64.30.224.118.
What will SOPA require Internet providers to do?
A little-noticed portion of the proposed law, which CNET highlighted in an article, goes further than Protect IP and could require Internet providers to monitor customers' traffic and block Web sites suspected of copyright infringement.
"It would cover IP blocking," says Markham Erickson, head of NetCoalition, whose members include Amazon.com, Google, eBay, and Yahoo. "I think it contemplates deep packet inspection" as well, he said.
The exact requirements will depend on what the removal order says. The Recording Industry Association of America says that SOPA could be used to force Internet providers to block by "Internet Protocol address" and deny "access to only the illegal part of the site." It would come as no surprise if copyright holders suggested wording to the Justice Department, which would in turn seek a judge's signature on the removal order.
Deep packet inspection, meaning forcing an Internet provider to intercept and analyze customers' Web traffic, is the only way to block access to specific URLs.
Smith's revised version (PDF) may limit the blocking requirement to DNS blocking. Its "safe harbor" language indicates that not resolving "the domain name of the foreign infringing site" may be sufficient, but some ambiguity remains.
Are there free speech implications to SOPA?
SOPA's opponents say so--a New York Times op-ed called it the "Great Firewall of America--and the language of the bill itself is quite broad. Section 103 says that, to be blacklisted, a Web site must be "directed" at the U.S. and also that the owner "has promoted" acts that can infringe copyright.
Some critics have charged that such language could blacklist the next YouTube, Wikipedia, or WikiLeaks. Especially in the case of WikiLeaks, which has posted internal documents not only from governments but also copyrighted documents from U.S. companies and has threatened to post more, it's hard to see how it would not qualify for blacklisting.
Laurence Tribe, a high-profile Harvard law professor and author of a treatise titled American Constitutional Law, has argued that SOPA is unconstitutional because, if enacted, "an entire Web site containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement."
What has the response to this language been?
Mozilla, which makes the Firefox Web browser, responded by creating a page saying: "Protect the Internet: Help us stop the Internet Blacklist Legislation." It warns that "your favorite Web sites both inside and outside the US could be blocked based on an infringement claim."
Web sites including Wikimedia (as in, Wikipedia) charged that SOPA is an "Internet blacklist bill" that "would allow corporations, organizations, or the government to order an Internet service provider to block an entire Web site simply due to an allegation that the site posted infringing content." Tumblr "censored" its users' content streams, and reported that its users averaged 3.6 calls per second to Congress through the company's Web site--nearly 90,000 total.
With a bit of HTML from AmericanCensorship.org, a Web site supported by the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge, hundreds of Web sites "censored" themselves to protest SOPA. Even Lofgren, from Silicon Valley, has joined the fight-censorship protest.
For their part, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been highlighting an analysis it commissioned from First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, a former MPAA attorney, who concluded SOPA is perfectly constitutional. Here's another pro-SOPA rebuttal.
Who supports SOPA?
The three organizations that have probably been the most vocal are the MPAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A Politico chart shows that Hollywood has outspent Silicon Valley by about tenfold on lobbyists in the last two years. Here's a CNET article on why the Chamber is so pro-SOPA.
Supporters publicized letters from the National Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Fire Fighters lending their weight to the Web-blocking idea. Here are more statements from supporters at the time of SOPA's introduction. And the AFL-CIO sent a representative to testify in support of SOPA at last week's House hearing.
Over 400 businesses and organizations have sent a letter supporting SOPA.
And in the U.S. Congress?
Support for Protect IP is remarkably broad, and for SOPA a little less so. An analysis by the RIAA says that of some 1,900 bills that have been introduced in the Senate, only 18 other bills enjoy the same number of bipartisan cosponsors as Protect IP does.
That puts it in the top 1 percent of most-popular bills, at least for this measurement of congressional enthusiasm. Of Protect IP's sponsors in the Senate, over 60 percent are Democrats.
Here's the list of Senate sponsors of Protect IP--the total is 40 senators. SOPA has only 24 cosponsors, but it hasn't been around as long. Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, hasintroduced the so-called OPEN Act that would cut off the flow of funds to alleged pirate Web sites without requiring them to be blocked.
Would SOPA block Tor?
Perhaps. In an echo of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anticircumvention section, SOPA targets anyone who "knowingly and willfully provides or offers to provide a product or service designed or marketed by such entity...for the circumvention or bypassing" of a Justice Department-erected blockade.
Legal scholars contacted by CNET said Tor could qualify as a "circumvention" tool, which would allow it to be targeted.
What happens next?
In terms of Protect IP, the Senate Judiciary committee has approved it and it's waiting for a floor vote that has been scheduled for January 24. One hurdle: Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has placed a hold on the bill.
During a two-day debate in the House Judiciary committee in mid-December, it became clear that SOPA supporters have a commanding majority on the committee. They're expected to approve it when Congress returns in 2012.
Where it goes from there is an open question that depends on where the House Republican leadership stands. Because the House's floor schedule is under the control of the majority party, the decision will largely lie in the hands of House Speaker John Boehner and his lieutenants.
Another possibility is that there could be further House hearings on the security-related implications of SOPA, a move that would delay a final vote. An aide to House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith previously told CNET that there's no indication yet as to any further hearings, but after the committee debate in December, don't be surprised if it happens.
Editors' note: This FAQ was originally published on November 21. It has been updated regularly since then to reflect the latest developments with SOPA.
So, my personal problems with the bill? I think that the people who first proposed it may have had the best of intentions with it. I know that places like Japan have links you can reach through America to watch or download things that you simply can't download here because it is against copyright laws to do so. I get that. Here is the problem with our nation as it stands right now...I do not trust a single fucker sitting in any office in politics today. Democrat, Republican...to me it doesn't matter because if it benefited them, any one of them would find a way to take away our rights in a fucking heartbeat! Period. And by letting this go through you are giving them something that later, if they want to take away facebook where people would communicate to set up protests they don't agree with, if they want to take away youtube so people could not post videos that make them look bad....if they want to have complete control over the internet, they can fucking do it with a few revisions to this bill. And I think that is the problem that many see with it. It isn't the bill itself, from what I have read about it, that bothers me. It is what it all could become. I do not trust politicians. I do not for one moment trust their motives 99% of the time. And I could see many ways that this could be a very bad thing for the American people (and those in the U.K. should it pass there). So....write your Representatives, bitch on your facebook, annoy everyone if you must but if you have a problem with this bill...DO NOT STAY QUIET! Many freedoms were taken from people because they shut up and let it happen.
This has been a post from the hippie side of the Happy Hippie Witch....lol
