SOPA Repeat? I think NOT

So today has been a pretty bad day. Got humbled by an exam, postponed merriment, got spat on, realized that I'm nowhere near as 'together' as I thought I was. Such revelations raise their head every so often.

EU anti-TPP/ACTA Protesters  - Source 

To top it of, the politicians' [when are they going to realize that they're elected representatives and not clowns?]  antics have really taken an interesting turn. From porn watching ministers of woman and child welfare in sessions of the Karnataka state assembly (they claim that they were trying to explain to each other, through a very graphic video, the meaning of gang rape - as a case of rave party turned gang rape had occurred) to the US lobbyists allegedly supporting 'trade agreements' that curtail internet freedoms just like SOPA, it's been a bad day for my faith in the political process.

Disclaimer: I support the protection of intellectual property, despite the fact that I secretly find stories of hackers and the things they can do, pretty enthralling [Julian Assange was a hacker] and the fact that I've been saved a lot of money and wasted a lot of time from things that are products of these online pirates. These should [officially] be curtailed. That being said, if any of the laws trying to curtail the above also impinge upon internet freedoms, I will do everything I can to make sure that they don't come into being.

From Fight for the Future, here is an excerpt of what is happening.  

Together, we beat SOPA in a huge victory for internet freedom.  But this Saturday, internet freedom protests are breaking out in over 200 cities across Europe.  Why? 

 Because the companies behind SOPA are using international trade agreements as a backdoor to pass SOPA-style laws

SOPA's supporters are pushing two agreements: ACTA and TPP¹.  ACTA would criminalize users, encourage internet providers to spy on you, and make it easier for media companies to sue sites out of existence and jail their founders.  Sound familiar?  That's right, ACTA is from the same playbook as SOPA, but global.  Plus it didn't even have to pass through Congress².
TPP goes even farther than ACTA, and the process has been even more secretive and corrupt.

 Last weekend (we wish this was a joke) trade negotiators partied with MPAA (pro-SOPA) lobbyists before secret negotiations in a Hollywood hotel, while public interest groups were barred from meeting in the same building.³

Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a secretive backdoor track that--even though it creates new laws--is miles removed from democracy.  Trade negotiators are unelected and unaccountable, so these agreements have been very hard for internet rights groups to stop.
But now the tide is turning.  Fueled by the movement to stop SOPA, anti-ACTA protests are breaking out across the EU, which hasn't ratified ACTA.  The protests are having an impact: leaders in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have backtracked on ACTA.⁴  Now a massive round of street protests in over 200 cities is planned for this Saturday February 11th.

We're planning an online protest this Saturday to support the protests in the streets.  Why?  Because together we can drive millions of emails to key decision makers--and start tipping the scales like we did on SOPA.

Can you take part?  Click here to get the code to run on your site!

We just built an ACTA & TPP contact tool, and it's not just a petition.   It's code for your site that figures out the visitor's country and lets them email all their Members of European Parliament--the politicians who will be voting on ACTA in June--or the trade negotiators behind TPP.  This direct contact between voters and their officials, driven by websites of all sizes, was instrumental in the fight against SOPA. 

We can use the same tactics to defeat ACTA & TPP, but we need your help!

Support the street protests with a flood of emails to the officials responsible for ACTA & TPP.  Get the code for your website!

Don't have a website?  Tell officials in your country to scrap ACTA & TPP!   And spread the word about Saturday's protests! 

This is going to be tough fight.  But we need to make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law.  If we don't, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.  
This is just the beginning,

--Holmes Wilson, Tiffiniy Cheng, Joshua Blount & the whole Fight for the Future team. 

Stop ACTA & TPP: Tell your country's officials: NEVER use secretive trade agreements to meddle with the Internet. Our freedoms depend on it!
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For European users, this form will email every MEP with a known email address.
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Most Inspirational Photo of 2011

The above is a photo credited to Patrick Baz/AFP/? taken during the Egyptian Arab Spring protests. These men, on the floor of a dimly lit, grimy room with their laptops and phones connected to overburdened power strips were responsible for the organization of the masses of people who came out to oust the unfair regime that had ruled them for years.

As a blogger, I stand in absolute support against efforts by any government for measures to control the freedom of expression on the internet. If the Arab Spring, Anna Hazare and Occupy protests have proved anything, they have proved the power - once again - that a united people can represent against a dynastic and fractious government. No government or and most importantly, a government that declares that they are democratic and free, should undertake measures that stifle their people's freedom of expression.

All of the above being said, I also realize the raw power of the internet and the very expression of freedom that a government must protect, to make it easier for the facilitation of messages of violence, injustice, hatred and bigotry. [Look at user comments on YouTube videos of any Justin Bieber song to see what I mean.] In all seriousness, I guess what I am trying to say is that it's important not to muzzle the power Information Technology provides us to connect with each other in new ways [My Telemedicine job - will blog about it later - has had a significant impact on my views on IT]. But at the same time, we still live in an unremorseful world and just because it has become easier to connect with one another, humans have not changed. We're still as capable of committing unspeakably horrible crimes on one another and the ideal of world of peace remains utopian in it's reach. The internet and IT only increases the ease with which we have the ability to access information that helps us make our decisions. It still isn't the arbiter of right and wrong. That's down to us, and that's part of the beauty of a thinking human mind.

I think that the aim of IT is education, awareness and openness - three ideals that really do have the power to change the world. And if when considering how to 'regulate' the internet and other new technologies, governments and vindictive Indian journalists keeps the above in mind, it will provide a much clearer and easier path for its' people to the future.

IT gives us innumerable chances to make decisions every day with respect to what we choose to know and see about the world around us and how we want to participate in global dialogue. Narrow mindedness is no longer an option that can sustain itself without coming against a wall of changed mindset. Which is why it is important, more so than ever, for the equitable distribution of IT and the education of people in it's ways.

I hope, that in the future - everyone can get reliable, responsible and accurate information at the click of a button. And I hope that it empowers them to think for themselves. Leading to whatever it may.

Perhaps even for lawyer in saucepan battlegear - if he's fighting for the right things.

Adulthood

Oh the Wonder.

http://www.regretsy.com/2012/01/28/weekend-flashback-das-poop/

I'm sort of a DIY disaster in the making. Check back to this earlier post for proof. Or even this one.

Inspired by these little monsters I found online, I decided to try my hand at sewing a little stuffed ugly yet incredibly endearing creature.

Several hours, strained eyes, lots of lost seed beads and a significant blow to my hopes of a future Etsy store and fortune later, I came up with Maximillian Robespierre! The thing I created in the post, 'Horrible Little Guy.' No, the irony that the little stuffed creature of horror named after one of the most vicious lieutenants of the French Revolution is wearing a bow tie, isn't lost on me.

Today, I use him (or his backside, which is an ugly brown-turqoise print) as an eraser for my dry erase board.

This is why some people should just stick to careers.

Thank God I didn't get that sewing machine.

Though it's only a matter of time. Muahahaha.

Oh yes - and if you know what etsy.com is, please go to the above, brilliant link :)

******

Edit: People who may or may not read my blog. Pleaaase comment! I sort of feel like my blog is like my attempts at arts & crafts. A lot of enthusiasm from my side when I'm sort of blind to the disaster that it truly is. Even if it's just to say, I am here. You don't even have to identify yourself. I think the 1,091 hits are just from bots, my sister and the friends I force to read my blog. 

Change of Pace

I kind of wish I could go back to the pace of life that involved the beach, friends and no constant thoughts about what my next step is and how to get to where I need to be.

I want barbecues, long summer nights and no sense of urgency.

Everything else feels like a race to get back to that place when really, it's taking me far far away.

Focus. Come what may.

Elliot's Beach, Chennai

2010

Stream of Neo-Pseudo-Hippie Capitalistesque Theoroid Consciousness

I'm beginning to think, more and more, that the ability to keep driving steadily or towards your goal on shifting sands is the true mark of strength and ability.

The reality of today is that there are over seven billion of us on this small planet. It's getting more crowded as we speak, world's are intersecting and finding your own little hermetically sealed biosphere is becoming, frankly, unrealistic.

Of course, I am talking from the background of my own privileged and rather chaotic upbringing, so perhaps take what I say with a pinch of salt.

In the future, I really think that we are going to have to learn the art of symbiosis. Of syzygy. Because without that, without some complexity in our understanding of ourselves in relation to the world that surrounds us, we are ultimately, unsuccessful human beings.

If that sounds too esoteric for you, take the oil crisis. If nothing else is evidence of the growing interdependence of nations, I don't know what is. Oh well also, the Eurozone crisis and worldwide economic slowdown that was triggered by a subprime mortgage loan crisis in the United states. The Arab spring protests that have spread across the Middle East. Kolaveri Di. When a butterfly flaps it's wings in Mexico, there's a hurricane in NY. Chaos theory anyone?

It fascinates me, the way that so many world's intersect. And how, in a happy human being, they find harmony. "But what is happiness but the simple harmony between a man and his life?" said Camus. I spent this morning arguing politics with friends in LA and Chennai. I came out of my room to find my grandmother. I can't explain it, but switching gears like that sometimes comes like a splash of cold water on your face until you accept that all of it, is part of one. Who you are, your life experience and the world that you live in.

We're so taught to believe in the pre-packaged life and labeled ideals that very few of us ever strive to embrace the unique person we truly are. I never have. We [or perhaps I should say I was] are told that to be a good person, is the ultimate goal. But then, we're told that certain choices will devalue the "culture and traditions" we come from and the implication - we will no longer be good. We are told that other choices are "unpatriotic" and if we make them - we will no longer be good. That in order to be good, there is only one way. Doesn't that send the message that if you live any other way, you are either a shade of gray, or worse, total evil? That type of morality - the you vs. us type. The type that relies on static definitions to tailor actions to be part of a society, is not the type that I can live with anymore.

I'm sure most people come to this realization much earlier than twenty four, or much later. It seems like odd timing to be thinking of the above.

I live amongst many social structures, many societies and many values and a world that is constantly changing. What morality do I choose that allows me to respect people around me, in all their plurality, as human beings? What morality allows for the breadth of differences that make us who we are? I haven't found it in the the traditions of my childhood. I haven't found it in the strict practice of culture or religion. Which has led me to believe that perhaps my morality should stem from the fact that we are all humans and therefore, deserving of respect. Maybe I need to reverse things and make the intended effect, the source of the rules. It's not a new idea, at all, but one in which I am finally beginning to see power and dynamism. I'm tired of an ethos ruled by fear of what happens if I don't follow it. I want the moral imperative to question the world around me and explore the what ifs and if nots, not be told what will happen, what should happen and how I should live my life.

Again, I'm pretty sure most people discover some form of the above in their rebellious teenage years.

The truth is, that it's incredibly difficult to live by the above morality. It's incredibly difficult not to sink into a way of thought and nest about - because in times of fear and doubt, well we're all human and in our differences there is unity, doesn't really serve too well for comfort.

I don't have the answer yet for what I do when I feel scared or uncomfortable. I know you are supposed to show strength and deal with it, but it is so difficult, and I am so used to cushions from the truth of what I want this world to be and the place that I want in it that I fall back into old ways.

Consistency isn't something human, I suppose? Errare humanum est?

Anyway, just writing random things, hopefully someday this evolves into a real post. Right now, they're just fleeting, stray thoughts about the nature of things.

From Lisa Graham Art

Snapshots of Istanbul

My favorite part of Istanbul was taking a late afternoon ferry to Buyukada, one of the Prince's Islands. The ride back, we sat on the floor of the top deck of the ferry and looked out onto a beautiful sunset, the Bosphorous and listened to Bon Iver.

You can't have an Istanbul album without a mention of the Grand Bazaar. It's far from off the beaten trail, but the Grand Bazaar has it's own charm. Besides the fact that there are beautiful photo opportunities.