The Wild Winds of Fortune

I generally read SCOTUSblog.com on at least an occasional basis, concentrating on death penalty, juvenile justice and sometimes environmental cases from the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits. (I have at least three death penalty cases — even aside from the Troy Davis and Charles Willingham cases — which I really need to write posts on, stretching back through last term.) I rarely read intellectual property cases, or at least not in any detail.  Today, though, while scrolling through the LiveJournal SCOTUSblog feed, I happened upon their coverage of oral argument in Golan v. Holder, a case over whether Congress can extend copyright protections to works previously in the public domain.

The post included the following:

The Chief Justice, famously fond of invoking (once-)popular music citations in his questions and opinions, proffered a hypothetical designed to acutely dramatize his First Amendment concerns:

What about Jimi Hendrix . . . ?  He has a distinctive rendition of the national anthem [NOTE: I assume the Chief was referring to this iconic version], and . . . assuming the national anthem is suddenly entitled to copyright protection that it wasn’t before, he can’t do that, right?

SOLICITOR GENERAL VERRILLI: What copyright does, by definition, is provide exclusive rights in expression; and so if the First Amendment is triggered whenever copyright provides exclusive rights in expression that it didn’t used to provide, then heightened scrutiny will apply any time Congress exercises its copyright power, and what the Court said in Eldred.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: So [Hendrix] is just out of luck?

One response to this is, of course, to lament that Jimi Hendrix has, alas, been out of luck — and unable to perform the Star Spangled Banner — for quite some time.

I read this sitting in Starbucks and began laughing, loudly.  At the startled looks from the other patrons, I managed to stifle my giggles, albeit with tears leaking from my eyes with the effort.

I guess you just had to be there.

[Edited to add:  yes, I agree I need to add the citation, especially given that an author was listed:  Marty Lederman, Francis Scott Key* v. James Marshall Hendrix?, SCOTUSblog (Oct. 5, 2011, 8:51 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/10/francis-scott-key-v-james-marshall-hendrix/.%5D

I had requests to put the post I wrote about FMS back up.  I thought about taking down the post announcing I was taking the post down, then decided not to bother.

In a totally foreseeable move, the Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing Steve Jobs’s funeral.

They announced this over Twitter … using an iPhone.

I took down yesterday’s post because it was, well, whiny.  Yes, I can whine with the best of them, but I prefer not to do it in public where it can annoy others.

Of course, the Internet is forever, so it can still be seen on Google Reader, and the LiveJournal feed and…

Please feel free to ignore this post: I am merely venting, and what good is venting unless you vent to someone?

I have “invisible” disabilities.  One of them is fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Fibromyalgia was believed by many doctors to not even exist until 2008, when a French researcher discovered differences in blood flows to parts of the brain in FMS patients. As I understand it, FMS sufferers have neurons which feel pain more acutely.

Many days, indeed most days,  I appear as able-bodied as the next person.  Other days, like today, are difficult.  Because I do not carry a cane, or use a wheelchair or a scooter, I sometimes get glares from people who see me pull into the blue handicapped spaces.  I wish they could understand…

There are days, like today, when it hurts to walk.
There are days, like today, when it hurts to sit.
There are days, like today, when it hurts to move.
There are days, like today, when it hurts to freaking breathe.

I wish they could understand that this can hit anytime: I can feel all right in the morning (as I did today), get in the car, and by the time that I have reached my destination, every muscle in my body has seized up. I have had times when I walk into a grocery store and by the time I leave I can barely lift my feet.

I get really tired of having to ask people to slow down when they walk with me.  I get really tired of avoiding places — such as the Starbucks I was planning on going to, rather than the one I ended up at — because I cannot find parking close enough to be manageable.  I get really tired of being treated as though it was my weight which causes my pain (how can weight cause excruciating pain in my elbows?).

I can work.  Working helps keep my occupied.  I had a flare this bad last summer, when I was employed by the Census, and I kept on working.  When I do not work, the temptation to go to bed can be overwhelming.  I am sitting in a Starbucks, not at home, because it is a distraction:  far better to write or otherwise get computer work done than to give into the pain.

Being unemployed is a problem: I have to think through the pain enough to give myself tasks.  It is much easier to concentrate on tasks someone else sets.  I am a very good employee, even when flaring: I do work, and do good work, no matter my level of pain.  I take pride in that.

Vicodin only works some of the time, and because it contains acetaminophen, I am limited in the amount I can take.  I am supposed to limit my intake of NSAIDS to prevent ulcers. I suppose I could ask my doctor for Oxycontin, but I am not going to try another opiate when the one I’ve been using has ceased to work.  Yes, I am scared of addiction.  I cannot take Lyrica, or other fibromyalgia drugs, for medical reasons.

I do not want pity.  I do not want to be treated as I were somehow heroic for dealing with this crap.  I’m no hero, just a woman putting one foot in front of another. There are a lot of people who deal with occasionally severe chronic pain of one sort or another: I’m just one more.  Not to mention other disabilities which have a far greater impact on quality of life.

I just hate this disease, that’s all.

Thanks for listening.

Against a perfect moment, the centuries beat in vain.
Terry Pratchett, from Thief of Time

This morning, as I was driving the Red-Headed Menace and Railfan to school, we were all singing along to Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right.”  The clouds were beginning to clear, and there was a rainbow stretching in a full arc across the sky, with the hint of a twin underneath.

A perfect moment.

I was looking at this post again.  Steven C. Holtzman powerfully said in four five words that which took me twenty later on in the post. It strikes me how much harder I find it to write a strong four word sentence, as opposed to an eight, twelve, or twenty word sentence. I definitely need to tighten up my style and make it more concise.

Time to reread Strunk & White, methinks.

Edited to add: not only can I not write a concise sentence, I can’t count: the quote I used was five words long, not four.

Just an update on my continuing quest for world domination trivia greatness:  I have a three week winning streak going at The Loft, and won two weeks before I started my streak.*  That’s four wins in six weeks. Admittedly, The Gringos, who can beat me on any day of the week and twice on Sundays, were only there for one of those weeks.  On the other hand, there are four of them, and for three of those four wins, only one of me.

I have signed up for the Brainstormer Fall Trivia League.  I’ll let you guys know how I do.

Edited to add: and tonight, one day after I wrote that, I will try and extend my win streak to four! If anyone cares, I’ll be at The Loft, 90 S. Second Street, San Jose, after about 7.

Edited once more to add: No, the streak ended.  The Gringos were there, and they beat me by four points.  I made up ground in the last round, but it was not enough to overcome the formidable lead they amassed earlier in the game.  Rats.  But again, there are four of them, each with their own specialty.  I bet I could take any one of them individually — actually, they have almost admitted that.  I seem to get a lot of respect for being (usually) a one-person team facing teams or three, four, or five people.  But respect isn’t winning.  As somebody (probably Vince Lombardi) noted, in this sport there are no “moral victories.”


*I am appalled to note that in the last game, I knew nine out of ten in the “Madonna Moments” round.  I am less appalled to state that I ran the “match the nickname to the baseball player” round.

The Red-Headed Menace disclosed his real motivation the other day for learning chemistry: he wants to synthesize human pheromones.

We really should have just sent him to a monastery when we had the chance.

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there – good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea – God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” 
 Elizabeth Warren.

Amen.  And this is why gas taxes are a good idea, because all of us need the roads, even the rich.  And all of us need educated workers, unless companies can outsource American jobs to third world nations with lax labor and environmental regulation, and very cheap workers.* God knows the very wealthy don’t have to rely on public schools to educate their children. Police forces and fire departments are vital to well-being: except when funds are gutted and those wealthy enough can pay for private security and when whether your house is saved depends upon whether you paid the local tax for fire coverage.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Warren is right on the money, for now, at least. However, there are segments of this society who either insist that Warren is dead wrong or who would like to make her so. You just have to look at the dissection of the quote on some right-wing blogs to see that.

Social contract? What social contract?

That’s only for the rest of us suckers.

*Educated workers are a good idea for another reason: it costs a lot less to educate someone that imprison them.

I was reading a book about blogging recently.  (I gave it back to the library and I don’t remember the title, which shows how much of an impression it made on me.)  One of the points it made was that in order to develop a readership one needs to have a subject matter and consistent point of view to one’s blog.

I can sort of manage the point of view, but single subject matter? Ha.

I write this blog to write about things I would want to talk about with my friends.  I use it to express my feelings on a whole host of subjects, from all the various streams than run through my particular consciousness. I use it to exercise my brain, and to remind myself that I am more than the very small narrow boxes I tend to put myself into.  As I struggle with self-definition in the wake of my primary role in the world — caregiver for three growing boys — becoming rapidly obsolete, this blog becomes a place of exploration.

I also think, like many people, that I am just as susceptible as others to the illusion that somehow what I say or think is interesting to people who know nothing about me. I keep wondering if this is my own special variant of the national psychosis known as the cult of celebrity; not only that everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes, but that everyone can and should want to be famous for fifteen minutes.

Mostly, though, it is a place for me to write because I have to write.  I become another person when I write.  My harmless and anxious personality becomes more emphatic. I feel stronger, and freer, and more dangerous on these pages.  I feel more… me.

So, as solipsistic as it might be, this is about me.  This means you may be subject to a mad variety of subjects with no warning, from politics and law to what my kids or family say to rather boring navel-gazing like this.  Please pick what you like, and leave the rest.

And if there is something that speaks to you?  Please comment.  It is nice to talk to people.

Just a note to say I’m still here.  Those of you who know me well may be surprised a the lack of a post concerning the Troy Davis execution, but I’m working on it.  It’s taking a while because I have been waiting a few days to get distance from the event itself.  I am trying to be very careful in what I say on this one, because the temptation to engage in hyperbole is almost overwhelming.  Not to mention I want to double check my links to make sure that they are still good law.

It will come at some point.