Updates to previous posts

On my Eat, Pray, Love post, Lindy West over at The Stranger wrote a review of the movie adaptation that more or less echoes my sentiments (like I imagine for Ms. West, the sentiments get vicious primarily for entertainment value). If you haven't seen her Sex and the City 2 review, its similar in style, tone, entertainment, and parallels with how I feel.

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On my Jason Robert Brown/living as an artist post, I hadn't read his post recently enough to see his updates, which are marvelous, and demonstrate that I've been a little unfair to him. I think my points still stand, but I'll just quickly comment on one point in the updates: he links a great rundown of why most arguments for downloading are bunk, and mentions something similar to mine. He states the "it's a broken business model anyways" fails because some artists (like JRB) do succeed in it, and the presence of a counterexample is enough to refudiate that.

I'm afraid I'm not buying. It "works" for so unbelievably few artists its essentially broken. Lynn Nottage, a playwright produced more in the last decade than Shaw, Brecht, and Wilde, still doesn't feel comfortable giving up her day job.

In any system there's going to be someone who wins. During my sister's medical crisis, she received excellent care; this doesn't change the fact that we have the worst healthcare system in the modern world. I'm glad it works for JRB, the most famous living musical theatre composer. But for virtually everyone else, even if you do make it to the recordings/royalties stage, agents and middlemen (and ha! illegal downloaders) will kill your earnings.

Remember, I'm not saying it's okay to download illegally, just stating that people absolutely will, and to hope they don't is like lying on the beach hoping the tide doesn't rise.

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Finally, probably the most significant, on the post about that redneck who wanted to burn Korans. I've changed my mind a little to broaden my disdain; the original post was mostly angry at him and Americans. Now I'm just mad at pretty much everyone.

Again, let there be no confusions: we're being a bunch of idiots here. We have guys screaming "Kill All Muslims", and Fox once again shows they would rather stir up dangerous hate for obscene profit rather than make slightly minimized obscene profit through safer methods. I hate to be that kid who links the Daily Show, but they really nailed it:

(also... that Imam is awesome).

But we go back full circle to the reason for Everyone Draw: Ayatollahs issued fatwas on the book burners. So we're back to muslim terrorism over free speech. So I'm back to hating on idiot Muslims (and urging moderate Muslims to to fight them before they throw stones (err, bad choice of words) anywhere else).

Finally, I'm angry at the world. President Obama? The Pope? Really? I'm with Yglesias, "guy burns books" can't be a global event anymore.

Okay. Time go get Glad, there's been lots of bile on this blog recently. I'll close with my favorite headline, stolen from reddit:

"Is anyone else OUTRAGED that atheists plan on building ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at Ground Zero!?!?!?