Downloading files from the Internet has become a usual action for every of us. The problem appears when those files are songs, movies or programs. Millions of these ones are downloaded every day in the entire world, but for today I will only talk about the music issue. Each country has its own associations that claim compensations for this activities and punishment for the ones that execute them. In the other hand, people like me think that downloading free music is not only legal but positive for the music.
First of all I´d like to clarify which are the effects of downloading music for free and who does it affect. The most affected ones are those, so called, artist and authors associations as RIIA or SGAE. They demand the payment of royalties to every individual, association or venue that plays any kind of music to distribute it between the artists in function of their selling numbers. Following this line we can see that the best selling artist are the next victims. And in the last but not least position we can find de discographies. Obviously, if no CD is sold, they won´t see any money.
Now that these points are clarified, let´s start to point the injustices and contradictions of the actual music industry. I think it isn´t fair for the less known or not so commercial bands the way the money of the royalties is distributed. Think about this, if a bar tenders plays in his bar the last song of a local Swedish band, most of the money he has to pay for doing that will go to ABBA, as they are the best selling artists in the country. Even if they hadn´t gave a show or make any new song in the past 10 years. Want to change that? Wait! The number of votes in those associations comes to with the economic results of the artist. Looks line a dead-end.
The discographies also have been making money of this injustice system for years. He artist sees less than a 5% of the profit for each sold album. Where does all the rest of the money go? Publicity campaigns, production, distribution, etc. Good artist have realized that the best way to take their part in this game is giving shows from which they receive a bigger slice of the cake.
To conclude I´d like to make some reflections. The downloading of free music is dangerous for the big fishes mentioned before. But, in the other, it´s a whole new world of possibilities for emerging bands. Free music makes people know more bands and therefore pay to see them life, the true source of money for active musicians. One hit artist complain as they aren´t able or don´t want to make a continuous effort of creativity and time consuming work. Discographies try to defend their self saying that downloading music will destroy lots of jobs. Well, that may be true, but times change. I´m sure that all the blacksmiths complain when they work style disappeared but we all know that it had to be done. All these entities, enterprises and musicians will have to change their model of business or disappear.
miércoles, 20 de mayo de 2009
domingo, 17 de mayo de 2009
Room 101
Trading freedom for security has been a usual issue during the last decades, but since 9/11 it seems that the balance between both ideas has been broken and all the weight is starting to go just to one side. What governments claim to be just an initiative to make the life of the citizens more secure is starting to become a repression of the individual by a more powerful state. We, as citizen, can´t permit the birth of a development of society based on fear, as fear is the freedom killer.
As the newest way of communication, Internet has been the subject of the most advanced ways of control. Servers all around the world save the web pages we visit, companies are able to check all our received and sent emails, what we download and so on. In one hand, it makes easier to track and hunt dangerous delinquents as child pornographers or terrorists. In the other hand, the price to pays is too high. With these methods governments are suggesting that all society is suspect of some kind of crime. Not only that, thanks to this massive spying all our information is used by companies to make a market survey never seen before.
But the Net is not the only place where this abuse takes place. Our phone calls and SMS messages are being watched. With the help of street cameras all our live is being constantly monitored. Authorities will say that this kind of security prevents the crime and makes our cities safer. These laws destroy the presumption of innocence, making us all potential criminals. Our movements, our most personal thoughts and feelings are being made public.
Is the injustice better than the potential danger? My answer is no. We can´t sell our privacy so cheap and just for a temporary security that will lead to uncertain consequences. As I said before, we can´t let the fear dominate our lives, because if it does, we will lose the match and there will be no return. There will be always threatens and dangers waiting for us out there, no matter the security. And if we give up our freedom for that theoretical security, maybe we will be save from those terrorists and criminals, just to realize the arrival of the new bigger threaten: the omnipotent state that has all the privileges but none of the obligations associated to them.
As the newest way of communication, Internet has been the subject of the most advanced ways of control. Servers all around the world save the web pages we visit, companies are able to check all our received and sent emails, what we download and so on. In one hand, it makes easier to track and hunt dangerous delinquents as child pornographers or terrorists. In the other hand, the price to pays is too high. With these methods governments are suggesting that all society is suspect of some kind of crime. Not only that, thanks to this massive spying all our information is used by companies to make a market survey never seen before.
But the Net is not the only place where this abuse takes place. Our phone calls and SMS messages are being watched. With the help of street cameras all our live is being constantly monitored. Authorities will say that this kind of security prevents the crime and makes our cities safer. These laws destroy the presumption of innocence, making us all potential criminals. Our movements, our most personal thoughts and feelings are being made public.
Is the injustice better than the potential danger? My answer is no. We can´t sell our privacy so cheap and just for a temporary security that will lead to uncertain consequences. As I said before, we can´t let the fear dominate our lives, because if it does, we will lose the match and there will be no return. There will be always threatens and dangers waiting for us out there, no matter the security. And if we give up our freedom for that theoretical security, maybe we will be save from those terrorists and criminals, just to realize the arrival of the new bigger threaten: the omnipotent state that has all the privileges but none of the obligations associated to them.
viernes, 8 de mayo de 2009
Grades
The education is one of the most important pillars of the society. If we want to have better generations this has to be the golden rule. Knowing that it´s easy to understand the controversy that follows every discussion of this issue. Being so important, we have to be cautious and meticulous with every step we make in the path of improvement. Inside education, the grades are one of the basic ways to follow the development of the students’ intellectual capacity. As important as it may sound, I think that we are using that helpful tool in a wrong way, and the picture gets worst if we talk about the primary school. Grades are not the only way, not even the best way, to classify the value of a child.
First of all I´d like to highlight the unfair and arbitrary way in which the grades are obtained. Tests and quizzes don´t reflect the true capability of someone, as they are done in a certain moment and about certain parts of the general knowledge. I perfectly know that there isn´t a true fair way to measure someone’s´ abilities. But I think that during primary school, teachers should watch the general attitude, knowledge and abilities of children and, after that, try to channel him depending on the observation made.
Secondly, it seems that the predisposition of children towards learning and education in general is not perfectly defined in the primary school. The kids learn some general knowledge and basic ideas that can´t be really measured in a static way. Therefore, trying to put some numbers to rate them is an effort in vain. Nevertheless, parents have the right to know where do their kids fail and succeed in order to help and encourage them. But, again, at that age children aren´t going to take advantage of those grades.
As a conclusion, there isn´t a perfect way to rate or keep track of a student in the primary school. Grades can be a useful tool but they can´t go alone. We have to have a more open mind and try to see the big picture. A number can´t be the correct way to rate a child and define his capabilities. In order to achieve a substantial improvement in these areas teachers have to be more in touch with their students and see them as a complex human being with different shapes and aptitudes.
First of all I´d like to highlight the unfair and arbitrary way in which the grades are obtained. Tests and quizzes don´t reflect the true capability of someone, as they are done in a certain moment and about certain parts of the general knowledge. I perfectly know that there isn´t a true fair way to measure someone’s´ abilities. But I think that during primary school, teachers should watch the general attitude, knowledge and abilities of children and, after that, try to channel him depending on the observation made.
Secondly, it seems that the predisposition of children towards learning and education in general is not perfectly defined in the primary school. The kids learn some general knowledge and basic ideas that can´t be really measured in a static way. Therefore, trying to put some numbers to rate them is an effort in vain. Nevertheless, parents have the right to know where do their kids fail and succeed in order to help and encourage them. But, again, at that age children aren´t going to take advantage of those grades.
As a conclusion, there isn´t a perfect way to rate or keep track of a student in the primary school. Grades can be a useful tool but they can´t go alone. We have to have a more open mind and try to see the big picture. A number can´t be the correct way to rate a child and define his capabilities. In order to achieve a substantial improvement in these areas teachers have to be more in touch with their students and see them as a complex human being with different shapes and aptitudes.
domingo, 3 de mayo de 2009
Climate Change
Climate Change, also called the Global Warming, has been one of the most popular in the recent years. From first world governments to famous characters as Al Gore, everyone speaks about this phenomenon. Any day taking a look to the TV, radio or written press, it´s easy to find something about it. Why, then, is so difficult to find someone with a proper opinion about this issue or with the will to do something about it?
First of all we should point the contradictory ideas that the society has to digest. In one hand we have the scientists close to the industrial agents or paid by governments, that are reluctant to changes, saying that the climate change is not a big issue and that there aren´t objectives facts to prove it. In the other hand we have the ecologists that exaggerate to unknown levels the truth threatens and tend to distort the scientific investigations. The malleable mass oscillates between extreme and irreconcilable positions. And not only this, listen to that sort of opinions, people just doesn´t like to get involved in the debate and the solution.
People then has to realize that dealing with the global warming isn´t an easy path to take. Forgetting the home recycling and the saving of energy that each one can do, bigger decisions have to be made in order to solve the problem. Decisions that can change all our life style. How is the world going to leave apart the oil and the other fossil combustibles? The clean energies aren´t as efficient as they should be, so what can we do? Potentiating nuclear energy isn´t a popular idea. Stop using cars neither. Big sacrifices have to be made to respond, but people isn´t ready to accept in. Denial comes as the easiest choice to take, thinking that other ones will come with a better deal. And after denial goes self imposed ignorance.
The climate change is a new challenge for the human being. Right now we aren´t sure about the causes and, most of all, the effects that it will have. The defenders and the reluctant fight a war of manipulation that covers all the important facts with fog and mist. The common citizen feels like he is not going to be able to make any difference, or they just don´t care anymore focusing in the closer problems they have every day. All these facts are the main reason to explain the late awakening of our society.
First of all we should point the contradictory ideas that the society has to digest. In one hand we have the scientists close to the industrial agents or paid by governments, that are reluctant to changes, saying that the climate change is not a big issue and that there aren´t objectives facts to prove it. In the other hand we have the ecologists that exaggerate to unknown levels the truth threatens and tend to distort the scientific investigations. The malleable mass oscillates between extreme and irreconcilable positions. And not only this, listen to that sort of opinions, people just doesn´t like to get involved in the debate and the solution.
People then has to realize that dealing with the global warming isn´t an easy path to take. Forgetting the home recycling and the saving of energy that each one can do, bigger decisions have to be made in order to solve the problem. Decisions that can change all our life style. How is the world going to leave apart the oil and the other fossil combustibles? The clean energies aren´t as efficient as they should be, so what can we do? Potentiating nuclear energy isn´t a popular idea. Stop using cars neither. Big sacrifices have to be made to respond, but people isn´t ready to accept in. Denial comes as the easiest choice to take, thinking that other ones will come with a better deal. And after denial goes self imposed ignorance.
The climate change is a new challenge for the human being. Right now we aren´t sure about the causes and, most of all, the effects that it will have. The defenders and the reluctant fight a war of manipulation that covers all the important facts with fog and mist. The common citizen feels like he is not going to be able to make any difference, or they just don´t care anymore focusing in the closer problems they have every day. All these facts are the main reason to explain the late awakening of our society.
domingo, 26 de abril de 2009
The Wire
To be honest I don´t usually watch TV but, thanks to the Internet, that is not a problem when it comes to talk about series. One of the things I hate most is waiting one week to see the next chapter. In order to avoid that, I just download series that are already finished and, if I really like them, devour them like an animal. Which one is my favorite TV series? If you had asked me that question some years ago I would had said Twin Peaks without any doubt. I must say that I can´t be impartial with it as I just love David Lynch´s work. But, 2 years ago, I discovered the new top of my list, and it´s going to be really difficult to snatch his crown. I´m talking about The Wire, the TV series that shows us a deepest view of the city of Baltimore focused mainly in the crime. I´m going to tell you the reasons why I fell in love with it.
First of all, I should start saying that The Wire tells us the story of the city of Baltimore from the point of view of a police department. But the crime is just the vehicle in which the series draws the big picture of an American city layer by layer. In each season, The Wire introduces a new layer and manages to fit it perfectly like a puzzle piece. These pieces are, for example, the drugs organization and the life style they generate around them (from the lowest drug addict to the highest kingpin), the failures of the school system, the problems of the urban working class, the masquerade played by the government and the politicians, the media and so on. This is maybe one of the most important reasons to love this series, the raw realism that avoids any kind of dulcification. I think that is important to say that the writers of The Wire are a former homicide detective and a news reporter, both from Baltimore, for what I think they have been able to give this project a heart that makes it feel like a living story.
Watching The Wire is like a full time job. It is slow, big and with complicated plots. You just can´t stare to the screen and turn off the brain. Of course, we all like to have some innocent fun with a repetitive-fast-food-style series like Lost, House or Grey´s Anatomy. I´m the first one to admit that when I return home tired the only thing I want is a quick and direct entertainment. But I think that The Wire can´t be seen that way, it demands something from the viewer. That is the second reason why I like it. Written between lines, The Wire whispers (never shouts) the big truths and problems of the society today. It also has the most human characters I have ever seen in a TV series, where there are no good or evil, where the line is so thin that you can´t even realize when someone cross it.
The humor is the third ace of this winning hand. With its cynical point of view of reality The Wire can make you laugh in the darkest moments. There is no space for cheap jokes here, it also demands a huge knowledge of the American culture that is impossible to achieve for an European guy like me.
Finally I have to say that even if you don´t care about everything said before, The Wire is a great police drama and I have always liked a good cop story. While in the CSI TV series the characters are capable of solving 53 cases in a single day, The Wire shows us how a real police department works, where a single case lasts years and several seasons to get solved. You can see how cops have to deal with the frustration caused by the institutional power, the lack of money and resources, how they drink to death and cheat their wife.
To finish this brief overview of one of the greatest series in the last years, I would like to quote one of the writers, David Simon:
“We are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show. The Wire is making an argument about what institutions—bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even—do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show.”
First of all, I should start saying that The Wire tells us the story of the city of Baltimore from the point of view of a police department. But the crime is just the vehicle in which the series draws the big picture of an American city layer by layer. In each season, The Wire introduces a new layer and manages to fit it perfectly like a puzzle piece. These pieces are, for example, the drugs organization and the life style they generate around them (from the lowest drug addict to the highest kingpin), the failures of the school system, the problems of the urban working class, the masquerade played by the government and the politicians, the media and so on. This is maybe one of the most important reasons to love this series, the raw realism that avoids any kind of dulcification. I think that is important to say that the writers of The Wire are a former homicide detective and a news reporter, both from Baltimore, for what I think they have been able to give this project a heart that makes it feel like a living story.
Watching The Wire is like a full time job. It is slow, big and with complicated plots. You just can´t stare to the screen and turn off the brain. Of course, we all like to have some innocent fun with a repetitive-fast-food-style series like Lost, House or Grey´s Anatomy. I´m the first one to admit that when I return home tired the only thing I want is a quick and direct entertainment. But I think that The Wire can´t be seen that way, it demands something from the viewer. That is the second reason why I like it. Written between lines, The Wire whispers (never shouts) the big truths and problems of the society today. It also has the most human characters I have ever seen in a TV series, where there are no good or evil, where the line is so thin that you can´t even realize when someone cross it.
The humor is the third ace of this winning hand. With its cynical point of view of reality The Wire can make you laugh in the darkest moments. There is no space for cheap jokes here, it also demands a huge knowledge of the American culture that is impossible to achieve for an European guy like me.
Finally I have to say that even if you don´t care about everything said before, The Wire is a great police drama and I have always liked a good cop story. While in the CSI TV series the characters are capable of solving 53 cases in a single day, The Wire shows us how a real police department works, where a single case lasts years and several seasons to get solved. You can see how cops have to deal with the frustration caused by the institutional power, the lack of money and resources, how they drink to death and cheat their wife.
To finish this brief overview of one of the greatest series in the last years, I would like to quote one of the writers, David Simon:
“We are not selling hope, or audience gratification, or cheap victories with this show. The Wire is making an argument about what institutions—bureaucracies, criminal enterprises, the cultures of addiction, raw capitalism even—do to individuals. It is not designed purely as an entertainment. It is, I'm afraid, a somewhat angry show.”
domingo, 12 de abril de 2009
The balance
I can´t imagine a bigger burden and a more difficult task than the one of being a father that tries to educate a child in the world which we live. I have put myself in the place of those parents several times and, believe me, the fear of not doing the correct thing is overwhelming. How do we know we aren´t taking the wrong decisions? The answer, of course, is elusive and never absolute, but I think that we can identify and highlight the most basic and important ideas.
Through the human history the family has been the custodian of the culture and the values of the society, trespassing all this knowledge from parents to sons. But the family is also responsible for maintaining and perpetuating all sorts of errors, fanaticisms and social defects. In order to avoid this problem parents should encourage their children to find their own path, their own ideas and their own perspective of the society in which they live. We, as fathers and mothers, have the obligation to help our children in this task giving them all the tools we have in our hands that will let them question everything and everyone.
But, where are the limits of that freedom? Should we draw a line on the floor with a white chalk and just tell them that they can´t cross it? The answer is yes. One big yes. As hypocritical as it may sound, children are exposed to all kind of harm and manipulation, and if we are talking about the ones raised in the circumstances previously described, the danger is even bigger. Parents have the obligation to protect their children from these external agents.
At this point we face another big problem: the protective wing of the parents will interfere strongly in the freedom of choice that we described before. How can we fix this? There isn´t a correct answer for this question. Parents have the difficult task of finding a good balance and equilibrium between both factors.
It is hard, or nearly impossible, to do a list of good examples, but in my personal opinion I think that children should be encouraged to learn from the beginning to respect life, the importance of feelings above material things, the way to find pleasure in the different ways of human expression (i.e. literature, music, etc) and more. But, first of all, the child has to be taught to trust himself in order to help him finding his own way. That implies letting him see by himself that all his actions have a consequence and he might burn if he plays with fire.
Through the human history the family has been the custodian of the culture and the values of the society, trespassing all this knowledge from parents to sons. But the family is also responsible for maintaining and perpetuating all sorts of errors, fanaticisms and social defects. In order to avoid this problem parents should encourage their children to find their own path, their own ideas and their own perspective of the society in which they live. We, as fathers and mothers, have the obligation to help our children in this task giving them all the tools we have in our hands that will let them question everything and everyone.
But, where are the limits of that freedom? Should we draw a line on the floor with a white chalk and just tell them that they can´t cross it? The answer is yes. One big yes. As hypocritical as it may sound, children are exposed to all kind of harm and manipulation, and if we are talking about the ones raised in the circumstances previously described, the danger is even bigger. Parents have the obligation to protect their children from these external agents.
At this point we face another big problem: the protective wing of the parents will interfere strongly in the freedom of choice that we described before. How can we fix this? There isn´t a correct answer for this question. Parents have the difficult task of finding a good balance and equilibrium between both factors.
It is hard, or nearly impossible, to do a list of good examples, but in my personal opinion I think that children should be encouraged to learn from the beginning to respect life, the importance of feelings above material things, the way to find pleasure in the different ways of human expression (i.e. literature, music, etc) and more. But, first of all, the child has to be taught to trust himself in order to help him finding his own way. That implies letting him see by himself that all his actions have a consequence and he might burn if he plays with fire.
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