My friend Audrey in Toronto is going through a bit of a crisis. Gizelle, her 8 month old cat needs a very expensive operation to save her life and Audrey can't afford it all on her own. She's created a Facebook group to garner support and started up a donations page in the hopes that someone will help her out. I've donated a little, and now I'm posting this here in the hopes that you will too. I know I'd be a mess if my kitty needed an operation and I couldn't afford it.

Here's her letter in full:

After consultation with a few vets, it is confirmed that Gizelle has a level 5 out of 6 heart murmur. At such a young age and with such a severe condition, she will need an ultrasound and examination done to determine which drugs to use during her operation because most drugs are designed to slow the heart rate, but if the incorrect drug is used, it could stop her heart altogether and kill her. Yes, I was heart broken at the news and cried...

The 'estimate' for her ultrasound, operation, and IV is going to cost $864.15. It's the same person that does ultrasounds and examinations for many vet clinics in Toronto so it's going to cost about the same thing everywhere apparently.

In the next little while, I'm going to be selling some of my possessions, hopefully run a few bake sales if I can get permission to use an appropriate space, and pool together donations. Please feel free to contact me if you're interested in helping in any way.

Thank you very much for your support... without you guys, we wouldn't have the strength and courage to get through this.

Sincerely,
Gizelle + Audrey

Donations page:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=8457424

I was walking to work one day when the headline from the cover of the Asian Pacific Post caught my eye: What do Hedy Fry and the Taliban have in common?. Mildly amused, I picked up the free rag and read it on the way to work.

If you're not interested in reading it, I'll save you the time. The editorial is outrageous. Even as a bigtime non-fan of the Liberal party as well as Hedy Fry, I found the article to be offencive in the extreme and said as much on their site:

I don't usually read your paper, but with a headline like that, I couldn't resist. Now after reading it, I'm reminded why I usually pass it by on the street.

Granted, this is an editorial, but could you possibly have conjured up more biased, inflammatory, and unsubstantiated propaganda? I don't even like the Liberals and I found this to be surprisingly offencive.

Of course the Liberals haven't done much better in recent years, but to compare Ms. Fry to a group of terrorists? Have you no shame? No integrity? You quote these people out of context and then proceed to put words in their mouths finishing it all off with claims that Ignatieff is "unpatriotic". Are you aspiring to the journalistic integrity of Fox "News", or just pursuing a new career as a Conservative Party speech writer?

The fact is that Harper *has* embarrassed this country on the international stage, most notoriously by abandoning our legal obligations to Kyoto, and continuously subverting the democratic process. Our reputation around the world has been diminished as a direct result of his actions and there's nothing wrong with the Official Opposition pointing that out.

Your actions on this issue however cross the line between editorial opinion and propaganda. They serve only to solidify your place as a fringe paper that no one with a modicum of intelligence would take seriously.

Anyway, I'm feeling vengeful. Mostly because I really don't think that this kind of thing should pass as "journalism" in any shape or form. I'm considering contacting all of their advertisers and including a copy of the editorial along with some comments regarding how this paper might reflect poorly on their brand in an effort to get them to pressure the paper to clean up its act.

The question I post to you though, is that immoral? legal? Right?

I really don't know what to write here, but I feel as though something must be written tonight about the passing of a wonderful woman who I wish I had taken the time to get to know better.

Leah Kubik (Cunningham) was an astounding young woman with a dedication to living life the way she felt would be the most interesting. She showed this dedication in every way from her clothing to her demeanor, to mad skillz with regard to balancing things on her head. She lived with such an enviable passion -- I was made a better person in knowing her, if only for a little while. I truly regret not taking the time to get to know her better.

Leah died, as she lived, doing that which brought her joy and excitement. Not your conventional fun, mind you, but ghost hunting on the rooftops of old buildings isn't for the weak of heart, and hers was tenacious.

She will be missed. My heart goes out to her husband. The world is diminished in her passing.

I've been meaning to write this for some time, and given that the deadline is fast approaching (the 13th!), I found an hour or two during the week when I was home recovering from my longboarding accident to get it done. Cat then went over it with her giganimous brain to help me weed out the run-on sentences and then Melanie gave it a second run and found the remainder of would-be improvements so I'm reasonably confident that it's post-worthy. I'll be sending it to my MP, the consultaiton itelf, and Speak Out On Copyright sometime tonight. For now though, I'm posting it here:

To whom it may concern--it has been brought to my attention that copyright law in Canada is finally being re-examined and that part of this re-examination includes a Canada-wide consultation in which respondents submit their positions on copyright law. As copyright is an issue of considerable importance to me, I offer the following responses to your 5 key questions:

1. How do Canada’s copyright laws affect you? How should existing laws be modernised?

   • Copyright law affects me in the same way it does everyone: copyright is about culture as a whole. All creative work is, in essence, derivative of the commons, and copyright is by nature a form of theft of these commons; it is a way to privatise a portion of our culture for personal profit.

     While I understand the need to compensate artists for their work, I feel that the current state of copyright is far too restrictive. In most cases, it favours those who own the copyright rather than those who created the content copyrighted. What's worse, these laws (and the ones initially proposed under C-61) further restrict the rights of the public to use and enjoy that content in our shared culture, as well as restricting our ability to contribute to the content, and by extension, to our culture.

2. Based on Canadian values and interests, how should copyright changes be made in order to withstand the test of time?

   • The issue at hand is not about making a law that will withstand the test of time so much as it is about the unavoidable truth that the nature of copyright, and therefore how it applies to the public, is changing. File sharing is becoming rampant both in the business world and the Internet underground, and the picking of electronic locks is fast becoming mandatory to ensure the public's access to cultural content. The real question is, how will Canada adapt legislatively to a problem that by its nature is not static?

     No business has a "right" to profit: this is the foundation of a capitalist system. Now that the powers of the public have changed to allow us to make and distribute copies of media, the laws have to change to preserve the best interests of that public. Business will adapt--it always has--but only if we refuse to prop up failed business models. By this time next year the average storage capacity on a cellphone will be 8gb. That's the average size of a computer's hard drive when Napster first premiered. These phones will be able to swap files on a subway car or across international borders anonymously and nearly indetectably. This is the reality of where the technology is heading. No law or mandate can stem that tide. The law must adapt.

3. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster innovation and creativity in Canada?

   • We need to adopt rational rules that work with the realities of media production and distribution in the new economy. First, laws against encryption breaking must be repealed, if only to allow people to play whatever media they want on whatever device they want. Allowing a media company to dictate the type of device a legally purchased instantiation of their product can be played on is a gross abuse of power. Clear lines must be drawn between content producers and consumers. Second, a five-year limit on non-transferable copyright is a key move for a viable 21st-century copyright plan. Copyright should only ever belong to the creator, and the rights distribution should never be exclusive. This would ensure that a creator's work would be personally profitable for a reasonable amount of time without restricting the liberties of the public to create and share derivative works. This may sound drastic given our existing copyright laws, but I would encourage you to have a conversation with an actual content creator about how their rights to their own content are routinely removed and hoarded by the copyright holder and sequestered from the public and the creator, often for decades.

4. What sorts of copyright changes do you believe would best foster competition and investment in Canada?

   • Culture is improved by derivative works. In fact, it could be argued that all creative work is derivative. If we adopt the principles I outlined in #3, the result would be mountains of derivative works, all distributed around the globe -- content created by Canadians for the world. This is the single greatest benefit to copyright reform: the freedom to create, using elements from the culture in which we were raised.

5. What kinds of changes would best position Canada as a leader in the global, digital economy?

   • All of the above. If you want to increase Canada's cultural profile abroad, you need only give the public the right to create and distribute that culture. It's as simple as that. Enshrine the rights of creators in our laws and in so doing, prevent foreign interests from apppropriating and perpetually controlling those rights. Then after a reasonable time has passed, allow the public to use and share all creative works in imaginative ways, and save the trillions of dollars currently spent tracking and prosecuting people committing this inevitable "crime". Embrace public freedom; your grandchildren will thank you.