David Newhoff

So, last week dealt a few blows to supporters of new anti-piracy legislation, and today, websites around the world, including some biggies, have gone dark in protest of anti-piracy legislation.  The guts of SOPA have been eviscerated to the point that Google and others can still profit from piracy; and many legislators and the White House show signs of bowing to public pressure as the contentious election year is upon us and Silicon Valley’s fear campaign has worked its magic — especially on my fellow democrats and artists.  If SOPA and PIPA fail, or fail to pass in substantive form, it will indeed be a shame for American content creators and consumers, but the real shame is what this process reveals about the stagnation of governance in general. (read more)

Since the State of Missouri decided to take up this hogwash this week, I thought I’d re-post an old piece of mine on the subject.

There is nothing intelligent about the so-called Theory of Intelligent Design.  The fact that this country continues to squabble over evolution in the early 21^st century is embarrassing, but given our fascination with running baboons for public office, it shouldn’t be surprising.  While it is tempting (and fun) to simply mock ID proponents, their occasional progress through state legislatures is terrifyingly real, and their strategy is clever.

The Intelligent Design movement veils its religious agenda behind a cloud of scientific and intellectual sounding gibberish in order to play a syllogistic shell-game with America’s students as their suckers.  They gain political ground with claims to asking for fair, open-minded debate; and by avoiding references to God, Genesis, and religion, they sidestep immediate constitutional dismissal and demand to be heard on the grounds of semantics and logic.

In a nutshell, Intelligent Design advocates offer variations on a single theme:  that certain features of the universe and of living systems are so complex that their functioning existence can only be logically explained by an intelligent designer (i.e. a designer who wants these systems and beings to exist, the artist formerly known as God).   The syllogism of Intelligent Design goes like this:

PREM:   Life and the universe are highly complex systems.

PREM:  Highly complex systems in human society are typically created by intelligent purpose.

CONCL:  Therefore, humans and their world must have been purposely created by some higher intelligence.

Any first-year philosophy student can tell you that this logical construct alone does not hold up because the conclusion requires a leap that does not necessarily follow from the premises.  This is not a syllogism but an emotional plea for a magical explanation of the unexplained.  It has exactly the same logical integrity as the following:

PREM:   I found presents under the Christmas tree.

PREM:  I did not see anyone put the presents under the tree.

CONCL:  Therefore, Santa Claus put the presents under the tree.

No matter where you look, you will find an Intelligent Design proponent making essentially this same argument using different examples.  Some will talk about the complexity of the human eye.  It defies logic, they will say, to look at the human eye and question the intelligent purposefulness of its design.  You wouldn’t assume a pocket watch happened by accident, and the eye is far more complex than the watch.  They will repeat this logical circle with examples from other biological, chemical, and physical features of our world until your complex eyes glaze over.

When I.D. advocates proclaim that Darwinian evolution is an unproven theory that deserves no more priority over their alternate theory, they are trading on the fact that both theories are based entirely on observation.  One big difference, though, is that Darwin explains nature by observing nature, while Intelligent Design attempts to explain God by observing mankind.  This is the essential sleight-of-hand at work in the parlor trick currently being played by the I.D. movement.

It is impossible to reproduce evolution in a lab, so it’s tough to prove Darwin by experiment, but we can observe clear evidence of evolution in small systems like viruses, which we know mutate for the purpose of their survival.  All epidemiological strategy is based on this knowledge, and if the I.D. proponents disagree, they should head to church and not the hospital the next time a virus evolves itself into a human pandemic.

Or, do the I.D. folks assert that viruses don’t count, that the creator did not purposely and intelligently design the millions of viruses and is, in fact, not constantly redesigning them into ever more virulent strains?  If the H5N1 virus mutates and kills millions of people of every faith from Christian to atheist, what does the I.D. proponent argue is the creator’s purpose in this action?  Presumably, Pat Robertson will say that the creator meant to wipe out the infidels, but lacks the precision-guided “smart virus” to avoid collateral damage, but what will the so-called rational voices of Intelligent Design offer by way of explanation?

On the subject of small things, what do we do with quantum mechanics?  One of the fundamental, vexing challenges of all physics is the absolute uncertainty of quantum mechanics, which teaches us that predictable outcomes at the subatomic level are nearly impossible and, hence, outcomes on the astronomic scale of the universe are, likewise, a giant crap shoot.  Each of these premises is proven scientific fact and does not in any way depend on Darwin:

PREM:   Our bodies are mostly water.

PREM:  Water cannot exist without oxygen.

PREM:  Oxygen in the universe is produced by supernovae. 

PREM:  A supernova was necessary to produce the life-sustaining earth.

PREM:  Supernovae in space-time are not entirely predictable.

CONCL:  Therefore, either our existence occurred by chance; or the creator has to go through a lot of fuss to get us here.

Based on the scientific evidence of physics, avoiding Darwin altogether, the so-called creator appears to be a deranged idiot – or at least imperfect.  If you hired a contractor to build you a house, and he spent 50 years digging up an entire neighborhood in order to complete a single linen closet, would you consider his methods intelligent and purposeful?  All the biological complexity of life on our planet is contained within a microscopic dot on the map of a volatile, mostly lifeless, universe.  In other words, if there is a creator that actually wants us to be here, it is extremely inefficient – so inefficient, it is hard imagine it has the intelligence to design our complex world.

So, the I.D. argument is confined, in this case, to one of three choices:  1) The creator created us but not the entire universe (meaning the creator is finite and some astrophysics is just plain wrong); 2) The creator is a deranged idiot; 3) The creator is infinite and its methods are incomparable to those of man (i.e. God moves in mysterious ways).

Of these, the strongest argument is the second — that the creator is a deranged idiot.  It actually unifies scientific evidence and Intelligent Design, except for the intelligent part. It asserts that a creator is responsible for our existence, but not that there is no discernible method to the creator’s madness (i.e. that we serve no purpose).

The first argument is viable for the I.D. crowd, too – that the creator is a component of, not master of, the entire universe, but did create the earth and life upon it.  This still begs the question why the creator wants us here, but we’ll get back to that.

The third argument – the creator’s ways are beyond the scope and comprehension of man — is where the case for Intelligent Design circles back on itself and collapses altogether.  This is because the entire case for Intelligent Design is based upon the argument that our human, mortal experience must logically be applied retroactively to a creator.  Technically, it either strips the creator of absolute power, or it simply undermines the following I.D. argument:

PREM:  Humans design complex systems and objects in order to serve a purpose.

PREM:  Life itself is a combination of complex systems and objects.

PREM:  All complex systems and objects must be purposely designed.

CONCL:  Therefore, a creator must have designed life on purpose.

But if the contrast between the scale of our volatile universe and our miniscule existence within it leads one to the “God moves in mysterious ways,” defense, then the foundation of the Intelligent Design argument disintegrates in its assumption that we can understand the creator’s purposes by comparing them to our own mortal aims.  In other words, the Intelligent Design argument cannot exist without the presumption that we serve some purpose for the creator, and this purpose cannot be proven through scientific method.  All human belief in a purpose and the endeavor to understand that purpose is what we call religion. Hence, no matter how the words are parsed, Intelligent Design cannot be rationally divorced from the notion of faith, which makes it an unscientific “theory” of creation.

PREM:  Intelligent Design presumes human life serves the purposes of a creator.

PREM:  We cannot know our purpose through the scientific method.

PREM:  The purpose of human existence is a matter of faith.

PREM:  Intelligent Design is based on faith

PREM:  Faith is the core of religion.

PREM:  Intelligent Design is religion.

PREM:  It is unconstitutional to teach religion in American public schools.

CONCL:  It is unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design in American public schools.

I’m an atheist from a Jewish family and have celebrated Christmas my entire life.  In my childhood home, Hannukkah meant watching my mother search for our menorah for eight days while the Christmas tree gleamed in the living room and I did what any kid would do — eagerly anticipate what loot may appear beneath those sparkling boughs.  I don’t remember taking Santa Claus literally for very long and can say for sure that I was well-grounded in my Godlessness by age eight; so if this self-portrait might offend both Christians and Jews alike, let me use my pariah’s pulpit to suggest that when it comes to wishing good tidings to friends and neighbors, everyone might consider lightening up.  It is, after all, a time to celebrate the light for reasons that transcend any modern religion.

In particular, American Christmas is a hodge-podge of pagan, secular, and religious conventions spanning the history of western civilization from Stonehenge to Macy’s.  So, those who would lecture that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” are as inaccurate as they are militant.  The season is as old as the life-sustaining Earth; and there are many pagan rituals celebrating light amid the descending darkness, rooted in hope for rebirth as the land literally “dies” into each new Winter.  As Europe was Christianized, various pagan traditions were simply absorbed and codified into Christian doctrine; but many pagan trappings also survived and were ultimately exported to America.

In short, there are plenty of traditional reasons to keep Christmas in one’s own way, with or without Christ or even religion. Caroling (wassailing), for example, comes from an early English tradition akin to adult Trick-or-Treating, in which working-class folks would sing out demands to wealthy households to open their doors and provide food and drink — a practice that often lasted throughout the month of December, frequently becoming violent as well as debauched, thus putting much of the gentry off the idea of “keeping Christmas.”  Scrooge is a character based in this period.  In America, these Bacchanalian rites were chastened and quite purposely shifted to focus on children by early 19th century New Yorkers like Clement Clarke Moore with his famous poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas.

America is experiencing its own long Winter, and we have enough real problems without people getting their holiday stockings in a twist over the kind of seasonal greeting they receive.  Personally, I feel it’s polite to wish a stranger “Happy Holidays,” and by the same token this courtesy applies to greetings from public people and entities.  Acknowledging cultural diversity is not an attack on Christianity or political correctness run amok; it’s just good manners.  On that score, though, if my non-Christian friends receive a jolly “Merry Christmas” from a neighbor, would it kill you to just say, “Thanks?”

Let’s all stay lit this holiday season, but not while driving.  Peace and prosperity!

Yesterday, I was listening to a discussion with Tom Brokaw broadcast on NPR from The Commonwealth Club.  Asked his opinion of news and information in the digital age, the veteran journalist said that he believes the variety of available content is generally a benefit to the world but that the consumer must “apply filters” to the information being delivered.  In other words, the onus is now on us to do the fact-checking we used to rely on relatively few news sources to do on our behalf; and Brokaw suggests the basic questions:  “What is the source? Who are the players?  What is the vested interest?”

We liberals are pretty clear about the manipulative puppet show that calls itself FOX News, but we are simultaneously less critical of information sources that at least appear to share our ideological views.  In general, even if the source is the New York Times or Forbes, we should pay attention to the reality that the non-stop, digital news frenzy results in a lot of self-made journalists sourcing one another.  On Salon.com, for example, Glenn Greenwald will use a word like documented that links to another article that itself provides no hard evidence for its position.  This phenomenon is literally viral, and I believe the educated, progressive class needs to be more critical of every story before feeding the disease, no matter what logo appears in the header.

Recently, a  well-educated, liberal friend of mine posted this piece from Reader Supported News, and it may well be one of the worst examples of insidious, hack journalism I’ve seen yet.  If all you read is the article, you will assume that Senator Franken voted against the National Defense Authorization Act, which is not true and can actually be documented.  The article, dated 12/17, is largely copied and pasted from a floor statement made by Franken prior to the vote (dated on the senator’s site 11/29); but Franken ultimately voted Yea for NDAA on 12/1, when the bill passed 93-7.

In addition to literally taking the senator’s words and post-dating them in order to obfuscate, somebody (we’ll never know who) wrote an introduction to the piece that begins “Yesterday, the Senate passed a bill…” thus creating the illusion that whatever date the news aggregator puts on this nonsense is, in fact, the day after a vote that is now almost a month old.

This same article, whatever its source, appears verbatim on Huffington Post and several other sites with less brand recognition.  Huff Post shows over 6,000 “Likes,” and nearly 3,000 shares — all by well-meaning, likely-liberal citizens who have literally been lied to about this story and simply assumed that it was true.

Citizen journalism can be a powerful tool, but only if those of us still clinging to rational thought in this crazy world are willing to double check before sharing.

12/2/11

It isn’t often that the needs of independent artists are aligned with those of men and women in the military; but, as someone who is directly concerned with both, I urge my colleagues in the creative community as well as military personnel and veterans’ organizations to support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation in the House, and the PROTECT IP and Combating Counterfeits Acts currently being debated in the Senate. (Read More)

Let me say in the interest of full disclosure that my film gone Elvis has been blogged about by the organization Copyright Alliance, that I am one of CA’s members, and that I am on good terms with its director, Sandra Aistars.  Immediately, these facts will suggest to some that I am a shill for this lobbying organization that many believe is a “front” for giant media conglomerates and industry trade organizations like the MPAA.  But here’s the thing about fronts and shills:  they don’t disclose who they are or who they work for.

Every day, I confront someone on Facebook or Twitter copying a blog or news story with a sensational headline about the dangers of the Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  It’s the End of the Internet!  Protect Freedom of Speech!  Protect yourselves!  Don’t Let Congress Take Away Your Rights!  Many of these posts originate with organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and if you go to eff.org, the first thing you’ll discover is that it’s got a long list of staff members, many of them lawyers; and the last time I checked, lawyers like to get paid.  So, whose paying these lawyers?  You could click on the link to find its sponsoring members, but . . . they don’t have one.  Why not? Because, rather than transparency, EFF and organizations like them are actually tech-company funded lobbying and marketing organizations posing as civil libertarians.  If you download the annual report, you can see the kinds of companies that support EFF; and it’s important to recognize that tech companies, Google in particular, have a vested interest in turning a blind eye to online piracy.

It’s true that Copyright Alliance is backed by the  big media organizations and more. But why do you think CA is more transparent about its supporters compared to a site like EFF?  It’s worth mentioning, also, that CA’s membership includes about 8,000 independent artists making modest salaries, who also don’t want to get ripped off.  What protections would they, would I, have against piracy without the funding and lobbying muscle of the big content producers to lobby for more effective copyright protections? We operate in a dynamic landscape with billions to be made in piracy, either directly or indirectly; and independent content producers are literally wiped out by foreign-based, enterprise-scale, rogue sites that steal and distribute their content for free.

We’ve become so paranoid about the government and big corporations, that we miss the fact that  other big entities are cramming these anti-legislation messages down our throats.  Google is funding a great deal of the anti-legislation effort made to look like it’s coming from independent sources.  It’s reach is more pervasive and insidious than that of any Hollywood studio.  For all the benefits of YouTube, we shouldn’t forget that it was built from a start-up by getting away with copyright infringement for a few years.  If I ran a hugely successful furniture chain today that started out by robbing houses to sell stolen goods off a truck, would that seem so laudable?

I think people just read and re-post these articles based on the headlines.  We’re so conditioned to think of the government as bad and these so-called freedom-fighting blogs as “on our side,” that we just pass them along to our friends, who pass them along to their friends.   The irony is, of course, that it’s so often artists and entrepreneurs who propagate all this nonsense that could kill a law designed to protect their interests.  I also sense that those who share these headlines are left-leaning and fearful of a right-wing Congress hell-bent on curbing free speech, but these bills are heavily supported by both parties and the Obama administration.  They are good laws that protect content creators like me and my colleagues.

The bottom line is that both Protect IP and SOPA are narrowly written bills designed to go after foreign-based, enterprise-scale websites whose sole business is to profit from stolen, American-made media.  Both bills contain language that rejects any notion of a site being capriciously taken down solely for suspicion of piracy. 

Take a look at the details of these bills, or at least visit www.copyrightalliance.org, and learn about the issue for yourself before hitting the Like or the Share button.  There is nothing in these bills that threaten anything you hold dear.

Headless Horseman July 4, 2011 - Kinderhook, NY

You may rightly ask, what is Wasington Irving’s famous villain doing in a 4th of July parade?  The real answer is that the school master (Jesse Merwin c.1809) of  Kinderhook was supposedly the inspiration for Irving’s character Ichabod Crane.  As such, the horseman makes periodic, incongruous appearances around here other than Halloween.  Upon further reflection, though, I must ruefully admit that there could not be a more appropriate symbol for the worst in us Americans than a homicidal ghost without a head.  I’ve come to think of the horseman in our 4th of July parade as a cautionary specter, a reminder that as a society we tend to bang around headlessly quite often.

I’m certainly not the first to recognize the paradox that the “information age” has rendered citizens less informed than ever.   And there’s nothing politically discriminatory about rampant headlessness.  There seem to be about as many liberals propagating nonsense out there as conservatives.  While I lean toward solidarity with the folks occupying Wall Street right now, I am also fully aware that the majority of that crowd couldn’t tell you any more about how Wall Street works than a Tea Partier could tell you about, well, the “Boston Tea Party,” for example.

Obama’s getting pounced on by FOX News types for saying that “Americans have grown soft and lost their competitive edge…” They claim that he’s trying to shift the blame from himself to the public for the ongoing economic crisis; and FOX will no doubt rally its hard-working viewers into a frenzy by convincing them that the president just called them all “lazy.”  FOX is labeling it Obama’s “malaise” moment, referring to an address to the nation by President Carter on the flailing economy of the 1970s. The opportunity to compare Obama to Carter is too good to pass up because we all know Carter was such a bad president, don’t we?

Of course, one of the reasons people didn’t, and still don’t, like Carter is because he has a head.  In fact, Carter is worse than an intellectual; he’s been downright prophetic about some things; but that also means saying things that people don’t want to hear.  Remember Reagan laughingly tearing down Carter’s (admittedly symbolic) solar panels from the White House?  That was a wonderfully headless moment in American history.  Who knows where we’d be if we’d invested in renewable energy in 1978.  If you think Americans resent cold facts that don’t square with their biases of the moment, then anything tending toward prognostication will send them into an absolute headless tizzy.

Unfortunately, we’ve got nothing but prognostication at the moment.  The here-and-now is a disaster and will probably get worse; and there are no policies that will mitigate the disaster in the span of a single presidency.  As a result, the GOP are burnishing up a slate of some of the most headless individuals ever to grace the political stage; and the democratic base is angry and disappointed without any particular direction — again.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a very American tale, but one without any heroes.  Ichabod Crane is a cad and a freeloader; Abraham “Brom Bones” van Brunt is sort of an obnoxious jock; and Katrina is a scamp, who uses the cad’s affections to stoke the ardor of the jock.  It’s basically a high school horror story in which the horseman becomes a kind of dark angel of judgment, destroying a character more worthy of pity than empathy.   Perhaps it’s no accident that this phantom is a slain Hessian, symbolizing a revolution not yet won.