Uncategorized – Page 19 – Pathetic Fallacy

If it don't happen here, it don't happen anywhere

In the hours leading up to Irene’s collision with New York City, there were cries of derision around the twitterverse and blogosphere (and not simply that “twitterverse” and “blogosphere” are godawful non-words). Whatsamatter, hipsters? Snarked the rest of the county. Can’t handle a tiny li’l category one? Try living in Florida, we get three category fives before most breakfasts.

Now I don’t live in New York, but I did once long ago, and my little brother does now, and so do about nineteen million other people, hipsters or not, and I couldn’t help but feel a little defensive on their behalf (especially since the minute a single snowflake falls in Texas they break out the sackcloth and ashes). The fact is, no one really knew what was going to happen with regards to the costal surge, and what effect hurricane winds would have on 19th century brownstones, and because it’s nineteen million people on a handful of fucking islands. I thought people could cut them a little slack for being a tiny bit jumpy.

So we all know now that, thank LaGuardia’s ghost, Irene had minimal-to-no impact on New York. The key words being: on New York. Pennsylvania got creamed. Vermont has sunk under water. Here in Boston, just a block from my home a half a tree fell on a neighbor’s home. Over twenty people died. And so of course, this morning all you see from the twitterverse and blogosphere (my apologies) is New Yorkers firing up their old swagger and complaining how everyone got excited about nothing.

So I take it back: you guys are all jerks.

Guilty of immorality

In the 19th century it was common for employers to insist that their workforce attend church services regularly. In Lowell, Massachusetts a 1848 handbook for women working in the mills stated “The company will not employ anyone who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath, or known to be guilty of immorality.” Servants in Victorian and Edwardian households were expected to use a portion of what little time off they were given to attend Church of England services, lest they give into their baser instincts. The upper classes felt justified in taking a paternal interest in directing the spiritual lives of the laboring class: they were, after all, looking out for their employee’s immortal souls. And if morality could also be a club to keep the rabble malleable, all the better.

I was thinking about this history when I read this Atlantic collection of interviews from employers about the “mistakes” job seekers make. “Sanitize [your] net presence,” chides one interviewer. “Those drunken spring break pictures have got to go.” We’ve all heard stories of people getting into trouble because of what they wrote in their blogs or because of what they do in their spare time, but the unapologetic nature of this interviewer still took me aback. It’s not simply the absurdity of an employer thinking that what a candidate did on spring break has any bearing on their fitness. It’s the fact that they were even looking at that candidate’s Facebook page in the first place. I mean, I find the idea of my mom reading my status creepy, let alone my boss. (Hi, Mom!)

But, the argument goes, if you choose to make your life public on the Net, don’t employers get to use that against you? The problem is in most cases, the offending revelations have nothing to do with the employee’s fitness. It’s that they had the audacity to post a photo of themselves in a bikini, or they used the word fuck in their blog, or they felt they had to support one candidate or another. In other words, the employer is seeking to get their unruly workforce to adhere to a moral code which goes far beyond the concerns of the workplace.

These days it’s illegal to make religious decisions for your employees, either by requiring that they practice a certain faith or by prohibiting them from adhering to another. We recognize such efforts as wrong-headed, patronizing, unfair. What we need now is to extend this understanding to the secular choices as well. And HR Dude? Quit being such a creeper.

The same old played out scenes

This week in copyright comes the news that the rights to many songs from 1978 could transfer from record companies to the original artists. It’s a provision in the 1976 Copyright Act called “termination rights” which allows artists to acquire copyrights held by their publishers after 35 years.

I’ll admit that the main attraction to this story is watching the publishers hem and haw over the finer points of the law while maneuvering to hold onto these properties. These are the same people who pose as protectors of artists’ rights when they sue file sharers (and pocket the settlements); now that their interests are in conflict with the creators they allegedly champion they are making no attempt to hide their hypocrisy.

But while I’ll happily grab a bag of popcorn to watch the recording industry’s shameful display, I think there’s a deeper lesson here. The fact that the RIAA is spending lawyers on 35-year-old rights demonstrates once again that Copyright in its current form is failing at its basic goal of promoting the production of new work. Why should Columbia be looking for new talent when it’s more profitable to fight over Darkness on the Edge of Town? For that matter, why should Bruce Springsteen write anything new if he can snag those rights?