For those keeping score at home, common sense is losing, and badly. I ran across a couple articles today that should make you wonder "how out of touch are people with reality?". The first target is organized religion in the United States and their apparent lack of cluefulness when it comes to keeping out of politics. The second pertains to Disney -- the owner of the non-expiring, lobby-dominated copyright for that quirky mouse -- making a deal with a cable provider to disable fast forwarding through embedded commercials in on-demand shows!
So, first up, Lou Dobbs made a post to CNN.com today titled "A call to the faithful" wherein he lays out a serious, troubling problem with pseudo-politico-religious leaders in the US today. He cites a trend that I've noticed in the last 10-20 years, too. Namely, that these big-shot "religious" leaders are pouring tremendous amounts of money into political campaigns in order to have strong influence over those elected officials. This represents a case of undue influence, especially when you consider that these religious bigots are promoting their biased, discriminatory agenda over the actual desires of the populace. People need to sit up and take notice: separate of church and state is a 2-way street, and not one we want to violate in any way. My favorite example for this is: when I hear someone gloating over how their religious-backed politician has won an election and is expanding their power, I ask them "would you want those powers to be in the hands of someone with exactly opposite religious beliefs (or values) from your own?". Inevitably, the answer is "no, not really." But, unfortunately, to understand this, people would need to have intelligent thought.
Completely changing subjects, but maintaining the stupidity theme... Disney and Cox Communications (my cable provider - grrrr) have announced a deal where Disney's ABC and ESPN on-demand content will disable the fast-forward button so that viewers cannot skip through commercials. This is idiotic! One of the primary motivators for on-demand content is having this level of control, including getting around commercials. The good news is that the on-demand content will be "free" -- but this is more than off-set by the annoyance of losing the ability to skip commercials.
I find Disney's response to be reactionary and demonstrating that they're having trouble making the transition to modern times. The on-demand world is going to have to be financed by alternatives to commercial breaks. Whether that be through product placement, advertisement bars/frames, or whatever - something needs to change. This situation is reminiscent of the failure of RIAA and MPAA to understand how to handle their media in a digital world with streaming all over the place. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
