David Harsanyi

…I’ve been doing plenty of blogging at the Denver Post’s editorial page blog.

One of my favorite performers, Penn Jillette (and if you haven’t watched the duo of Penn and Teller debunk a broad spectrum of nonsense on their show “Bulls***!“, you should) says a few words about my column — or, more specifically, the headline of my column– “Is Dissent Still Patriotic?” Bush? Obama? Jillette finds that dissent can provoke very distinct reactions from his friends.

Warning for the faint of heart, Penn uses some salty language — which, incidentally, I also completely support.

An interesting kerfuffle recently erupted when the Associated Press accused Shepard Fairey, the artist who designed the famous Barack Obama Hope graphic, of copyright infringement and threatened to sue him.

Glen E. Friedman — the super-talented chronicler of my cultural youth – comes up with, sorry to say, an argument in defense of friend Fairey that makes little sense. According to Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing, Friedman’s point can be boiled down like this: The Obama picture sucked originally and was improved. And because Fairey donated every penny he made from the graphic to the Obama campaign, he saw no profit on the graphic and should not be liable.

I’m not a lawyer, so I am certain there are complex legal implications regarding the fair use of this type of picture. Nor do not I understand why the AP would waste its time trying to punish Fairey. The artist has now hired Anthony Falzone, the executive director of the Fair Use Project, a group, that according to Danielle Sacks at Fast Company, “encourages creators to modify copyright terms in order to “increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.”

But how can anyone argue that Fairey did not profit? To begin with, through this iconographical work, his professional reputation, and thus his future financial rewards, have unquestionably skyrocketed. Without the Associated Press shot there is no icon. Yes, it wasn’t happenstance that he used this picture, but it worked. And unless Fairey took his own shot of Obama, someone was going to lose their work.

In addition, Fairey chose to help Obama get elected — which is a profit of political self-interest.

To put it another way, imagine if a George Bush supporter had taken Friedman’s work without permission and created a graphic for Republican political gain and then donated his earnings to the campaign? Would Friedman then contend that the person made no profit from the picture and it was OK to utilize it without permission?

Now, I will admit that — to me at least — Friedman’s work has far more artistic merit than a run-of-the-mill shot of the president. But, I’m also certain, that his work might seem ordinary to a Republican housewife in Atlanta. Friedman, I will guess, believes that the worth of art can be subjective, as well.

And here I thought the era of Obama had made small-minded and selfish ideas like profit a thing of the past.

(C/P with BigHollywood.com)

My first post for BigHollywood.com.

This picture comes from a pro-Hamas demonstration in Manhattan last Sunday. (h/t Hot Air)

According to the New York Times: MARY HALVORSON TRIO “Dragon’s Head” (Firehouse 12). Tense, noisy, a little arch, the first album from this jazz guitarist (with the bassist John Hebert and the drummer Ches Smith) has the power of a manifesto and the self-assurance that comes with smart composition and arrangement. Best of all: this is a group, with its own compound personality.

A few other things I’ve been listening to:
Calexico - Carried to Dust
Bottomless Pit - Congress
Monotonix
Evangelista - Hello, Voyager
Bill Dixon and the Exploding Star Orchestra
Marc Ribot - Asmodeus: The Book of Angels
Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter from the Ash
Nisennenmondai.

My exasperated post on the White House auto bailout at Post-Ed Notes blog.

It’s one thing to name your kid Hitler, it’s quite another to own a cat that looks like Hitler.

From CatsThatLookLikeHitler.com:

Does your cat look like Adolf Hitler? Do you wake up in a cold sweat every night wondering if he’s going to up and invade Poland? Does he keep putting his right paw in the air while making a noise that sounds suspiciously like “Sieg Miaow”? If so, this is the website for you.

My favorite part of this ridiculous story about the nitwit parents of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell — who are actually upset that they were denied a birthday cake with their child’s full name on it — is this line from the dad:

Heath Campbell and his wife, Deborah, are upset not only with the decision made by the Greenwich ShopRite but with the outpouring of angry Internet postings in response to a local newspaper article over the weekend on their flare-up over frosting.

“I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they’ve been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past,” Heath Campbell said Tuesday in an interview conducted in Easton, on the other side of the Delaware River from where the family lives in Hunterdon County, N.J.

Oh yes, unlike those crazy Internet posters, the Campbells have a firm grip on reality. They are so seriously focused on the future, in fact, that they named their kid after Adolph Hitler.