books like catcher in the rye and 1984 are required reading for most school children. catcher in the rye isn't really that enlightening as far as sitting around a campfire later in life saying things like, "but it really makes you think, man" 1984, however, is a glimpse into the idea of the man and big brother and concepts that generally embrace a concept of the world being an entity that is out to get you. and it's approved by the school board. teachers cringe when they are forced to teach a boring curriculum, but they seem to really revel in the idea of sending children out into the world with some feeling of enlightenment. especially when that is established through required reading. if those books were really the framework for free-thinking, wouldn't they be illegal? required reading doesn't really go hand in hand with anarchy, but teachers - to some degree - are escaping the norm. they have agreed to take a job that doesn't make them a spoke in the wheel. summers free. they can travel. follow the dead. relax. it's great. but when they are required to show up and fulfill their civic duties, they do so diligently ..except when it comes to assigning reading to the students. it's a prisoner's final wish they pass on to a younger inmate heading toward the prison's walls. "i didn't make it, but it's not too late for you! read the count of monte cristo ...and give me a 2 page report on what it means to you ...and rebel, damnit!"

i had dinner with a rich old white woman recently who said she would never help anyone. she sees victims of earthquakes and tsunamis on tv "work harder. not getting my money" then off to bed. "why should they get it?! we bled and sweat for this money!" thought i heard a we in there. i was confused by that. he probably bled and sweat, sure. but what exactly were you allowed to do in those days? you weren't allowed to sit at the stockholders table, and you probably couldn't work at the factories themselves (where there might actually be a chance to bleed or sweat) ...aside from that brief time when the boys went off to kill the germans. even still, i have a hard time believing you ever bled or sweat over anything more than the meals you had to cook for your husband, who probably never appreciated you and made your heart turn so cold and bitter and unhelpful. and wouldn't it have been nice back then if there were people who cared for you, and for your rights? people who refused to give up their seats on buses, who burned their bras, who marched and protested so you could get out of the kitchen into the work force, and then vote ...to never help anyone ever. you're a real ace of a gal.

there are more shows on television these days about scouring through other people's junk than there ever have been in the history of entertainment. and they all seem to be doing well. it could be for several reasons - maybe people just like seeing people know the value of everything they touch, they like seeing people haggle, or it's the best version of treasure hunting we have to offer these days. deep sea diving and fighting off pirates to some jerk wandering into a yard sale and leaving with a teapot from the 16th century worth 100 times what they paid for it. "oh man, this is such a rush! i just saw it, and i knew immediately what it was! great day!" didn't have to fight off any pirates. didn't even have to sprint away from the aggressive swipe attempts of bargain savvy old ladies. pirates used to attack other treasure hunters because they knew that what they had was valuable. but now you just have to know that absolutely worthless looking stuff is actually of some value to some weirdo somewhere. "i know it only looks like an ordinary velvet cat cape, but see this little turtle shell design? well, that means that this was worn by a siamese cat, and there's a whole subculture out there of lonely men and women who are happy to shell out big bucks for a cape like this in such mint condition." so essentially everything is valuable to the right person, and we just forage through mounds of each other's trash like racoons with smiles on our faces pretending that we're not just trading junk for junk, in the hopes that we find that magic cat cape that will get us a little bit ahead? i guess tv has matched the economic feel of the united states pretty closely. everyone might be in much worse moods if every cable channel was filled with "monocle boys" and "modern yachtsmen"
- there should be a monocle boys

this is a great article written as a response to a girl who had said that she doesn't pay for music. she has thousands of songs, and she'd ripped them to her computer without ever paying. she justified it by saying she pays for tickets to see the bands live when they tour. i agree with the article. he very articulately details how the music industry is structured these days, how piracy and free downloading effects artists, and what the right thing is to do: you should pay for every song you download. that sounds great, but it seems a little ridiculous. when music was first made portable, it was fairly difficult to pass it from one person to the next. you went to watch a symphony or opera, or whatever, and then you left. you could only take the sound away in your head. then through various technological advancements, all made in an effort to spread art more easily (not sure how many artists protested this), music could now be listened to whenever you wanted. you could put on a record, and you had a copy of the art you had recently enjoyed. passing that along to your friends was difficult. they mostly had to come to your house or buy their own copy. then CDs - and sharing was easier than ever. "don't burn CDs. it's stealing!" so at that time, the right thing to do would have been to burn a copy, get a reasonable price from your friend, seal it in an envelope, and mail it to the record company. "no stealing here. just paying for everything we hear. thanks for making it available" obviously that's absurd, but now passing music has been made easier than ever before. you can just send a file - something that only exists in digital form, and no one ever sees the actual commodity moved from one hand to another. when you hear about bank robberies in the old west, it's always surprising it didn't happen more often. "no cameras? no bullet proof glass? how were they not robbed constantly?!" because there was probably a similar set of ethics compared to the ones we have today. if you could type "free money" into a search engine and then get directed to a site that actually let you grab money and put it into your bank account - people would constantly be doing that. there would be an ethical question of "whose money is this?" and then "who cares?" that's not exactly what people are doing with music because to stream music feels like you're taking something they wanted to share in the first place.