What my followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ saw yesterday and today:
• Pretty please… Can Someone Fix the Academy Awards? Please? Anyone?
• This: “Now they want to have longer copyright periods because they say the young artists are relying on this money. The young artists never see any money because they sign away that money to big media corporations, like Universal and Viacom. We, the artists, lose all of our rights to these massive corporations, who then come down heavy on these kids for downloading films and music that we never see a penny from. It’s complete bullshit. I want to encourage your audience to go and pirate a bunch of my stuff right away.” Repo Man Rides Again: Alex Cox Interviewed
• You have not seen product placement until you have seen this… What is the Brand and What is Not? Stephen Colbert Discusses Wheat Thins
• Totally fascinating read about the intersection of feminism and science fiction, and implications for American political battles of the moment… What does science fiction tell us about the future of reproductive rights?
• Take with a gas giant-sized grain of salt… Master Sherlock: Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Who?Master Sherlock: Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Who?
• A more deserving honoree I cannot imagine. Sandler sets Razzie record: 11 worst-movie noms
• PayPal wants to be able to tell you what you can and cannot buy via its service. And it’s going to get away with it. PayPal As Moral Police? Forces E-Book Sellers To Remove Certain Erotica Content
• Everyone should have a friend like this… Scifi author spoils his entire book series for terminally ill fan
• It should be a core value of journalism in the Web age… Is linking just polite, or is it a core value of journalism?
• Antifeminists often say that of course history is all about men, because men are the only ones who’ve done anything worth noting in the history books. But feminists know that that’s not true, that women have indeed done plenty of things historically noteworthy: they’ve just been mostly written out of the history books, and so out of the mass consciousness.
In this Alternet piece, Adam Hochschild introduces us to some of the women (as well as a few men) whose public presence in antiwar efforts during WWI would make exciting and dramatic movies or TV miniseries, and yet they’ve been ignored (at least so far) by Hollywood, the BBC, and everyone else who’s gotten on the WWI pop-culture bandwagon.
Charlotte Despard. Sylvia Pankhurst. Violet Tillard. Emily Hobhouse. Can we get some movies about their exciting lives and adventures, please? The Story the Oscar-Nominated “War Horse” Doesn’t Tell
• Ah, glamorous Hollywood: “‘People have no idea what’s going on in Hollywood now,’ a prominent industry blogger told me recently when we met at what had been a favorite industry watering hole, empty that night. ‘There’s so little work, everyone is living off the money they made in the ’90s,’ she added. ‘But they’re acting like nothing’s changed.'” Foreclosure Story Untold in Hollywood
• Why hire a famous face if you’re going to Photoshop her out of all recognition? Photoshop Disasters: Rimmel London: Doctored Deschanel
