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Here's all you need to know about the entertainment industry's understanding of its audience's needs. From a story about the copy-protection schemes for DVDs and the industry's attempts to nip this in the bud:

"It's against consumers' interests to permit devices that make backup copies because there is no way that a device can distinguish between a backup copy for personal use and making a copy for friends, family acquaintances or even selling on the street corner." -Fritz Attaway, executive vice president of the MPAA.

And why would this be against the consumers' interests? Let's see- you couldn't let someone back up a DVD that they PAID for because you couldn't tell that copy from a copy made for other purposes. This would be bad for the consumer... how? Where does the consumer lose in this equation?

Right, the consumer doesn't lose. The INDUSTRY stands to lose. If Ol' Fritz was to be honest rather than doing his spin job, he'd say this: "Look, you know and I know that people have been copying and trading movies on tape for ages, and DVDs are really no different. And we all know that copying didn't hurt video sales and rentals and won't hurt DVD sales or rentals. But if there's a chance at all that we can make people pay and pay and pay again for the same thing, especially if we can make them pay for something they can currently do for free, we're going to go for it."

But they're not being honest. The truth is that they're pushing things like copy protection and the "broadcast flag" not because they're fighting the moral fight against illegal activity but because they want to use the new technology to revoke some of the rights their consumers currently have in order to make those consumers pay more. The broadcast flag has a dollar sign on it.

The MPAA insists that this is all for your own good:

...(T)he MPAA argues that it's in consumers' best interest that the digital locks not be bypassed.

"These products like 321 allow people to be free riders," Attaway said. "It's the concept of buy-one-get-one-free, only it's not just get-one-free but it's get-as-many-as-you-want-to-make-free … it raises the prices for legitimate copies and it also reduces the availability of the copies."

But a) you can already make copies of movies from videotapes or off the TV, b) that's not illegal, and c) it didn't raise the price of legitimate VHS copies. In fact, as time went on and copying became commonplace, VHS tape prices went DOWN and sales went UP. The same thing is happening with DVDs. It's a phony argument, and there's a bill being offered on Capitol Hill to amend the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to allow copying of DVDs for personal use. The MPAA and RIAA are dead set against this amendment.

You tell ME whether this bill has a snowball's chance in hell to pass.

If the industry could demonstrate actual harm from illegal copying, I might be more inclined to see their point. But they can't- DVD sales are fine. The studios just want to find more ways to bleed the audience. They might want to ask their brethren at the major record labels what happens when you put all of your resources into fighting against consumer rights instead of into making a better product.

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You asked for it.

No, really, this is what you wanted. I know it is. You know how when you're watching "24" and Jack Bauer cuts off the head of some bad guy or on "The Shield" when Vic Mackey holds some guy's face on a hot stove coil and you're thinking well, that's wrong, but the bad guys deserve it because you gotta do what you gotta do? Yeah, that's what you think.

So the American guards pulled a Jack Bauer on the Iraqi captives. They did a bad thing, several bad things. And there's no excuse, except for this: it's what everyone fantasizes about doing to the bad guys. And it was what everyone was calling for after 9/11. Oh, to be sure, nobody was calling for rape, but scaring the bejesus out of them with a snarling dog? Putting hoods on 'em and doing the step-down-and-you're-dead routine? Torture? Yep- remember liberal Newsweek pundit Jonathan Alter a couple of months after 9/11?:

In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to ... torture. OK, not cattle prods or rubber hoses, at least not here in the United States, but something to jump-start the stalled investigation of the greatest crime in American history. Right now, four key hijacking suspects aren’t talking at all.

Couldn't we at least subject them to psychological torture, like tapes of dying rabbits or high-decibel rap? (The military has done that in Panama and elsewhere.) How about truth serum, administered with a mandatory IV? Or deportation to Saudi Arabia, land of beheadings? (As the frustrated FBI has been threatening.)

And here he is today:

In fact, at that time [after 9/11], too many people (including me) were complacent about the use of psychological interrogation techniques that end up loosening the bonds of civilized behavior and making Americans look like hypocrites.

Because we ARE hypocrites. We want someone to do "whatever it takes" to "take care" of the matter, want to put the screws to suspects to make them talk. We want that, but we don't want to see how that's done, unless it's fiction. Now, it's fact, it's right there in pictures, and we're appalled. But that, unfortunately, is often how it's done. This time, someone took a picture.

That's not to say that using torture is right. In fact, you have to be someone like Vic Mackey to do stuff like that- part of you wants to do the right thing, but part of you has to be beyond evil to do what you decide you have to do. If it's me, and someone orders me to threaten a suspect with a dog, or clip electrodes to him, or force him to have sex with another captive, I say no, I walk out, I let them court-martial me. That's why I didn't enlist.

But spare this shock and horror. What happened at that prison is what you love to see when it's a Hollywood production. If only, you think, if only real life agents could be like Jack Bauer, doing whatever it takes to save the world, damn the laws and the ethics and the Geneva Convention. Well, I guess they ARE like that. It's just not as pretty when it's not Kiefer Sutherland doing it.

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Now you know the definition of "atrocity." Now you know the difference between one side and the other. Now you can differentiate between deplorable, disgusting, unacceptable behavior and "evil."

It's here, if you can stand to watch it. Imagine whatever dire warnings about disturbing content you can conjure, and double them.

It doesn't excuse what happened at Abu Ghraib. But it does explain a lot.

And it's a good example of why you can't, whether you're a pundit or a reporter or a political consultant or an average Joe, make any assumptions about public sentiment. This morning, Abu Ghraib and the Taguba testimony led the news. Then Taguba didn't blame Bush or Rumsfeld, and it started to fade. And then the video showed up. Something else could happen tomorrow.

I don't know that I can take much more.

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Today's a sick day in every sense of the term.

Sick over the beheading. Sick over the pictures. Sick over the "circle of violence" argument that some are using to blame for the beheading. Sick that the Lakers are back in it.

And sick from being sick. Feels like a buffalo has taken residence in my sinuses, and my throat is sore and scratchy. Did I mention phlegm? Phlegm.

I'm gonna go lay down now.

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How... HOW... can the Spurs not contest the inbounds? How can they let ANYONE catch the inbounds cleanly and fall off him defensively to let him get a clear shot with 0.4 seconds? 0.4 seconds?!?

Unbefreakinlievable.

I thought I was feeling sick and down before. At least I'm not a Spurs fan.

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The last "Frasier" aired tonight. I suppose I could call this a spoiler for the West Coast (it hasn't aired yet here), but the episode's... fair. They tried to throw virtually every stock comedy situation into the last hour, wacky farce, comedy of errors, emergency childbirth, a wedding, lots of farewells, and appearances by most of the supporting characters and several guest stars (nice to see Richard E. Grant and Robbie Coltrane, even if they were wasted in a "this is my brother Darryl and this is my other brother Darryl" role). A heart-tugging false ending, a surprise twist at the very end, and that's it.

And I still think they should have wrapped things up at least four years ago. Besides, the Lakers-Spurs game was way more dramatic, even if the ending was painful.

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Day 3: chest-rattling cough, runny nose. Buffalo has left sinuses, but several smaller animals- sheep and goats, I believe- have taken up residence there.

Operative word: urgh.

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I was actually about to write something about this Atlanta restaurant that closed after 6 months of an "adventurous" trendoid menu that sounded inedible, but time and my illness got in the way. Then Larry Wachs of ex-Regular Guys fame beat me to it and said it way better than I would have. So go read it. (It's the 5/12 entry, not the one about using "toilet wipes" in a most unfortunate way. Read the label, Larry, read the label)

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The Los Angeles Lakers withdrew from the NBA Playoffs last night with 2:12 left in their game against the San Antonio Spurs. Citing fans' dissatifaction with their trailing the Spurs 71-68, the cost of continual travel and the possibility of further losses, coach Phil Jackson unilaterally withdrew his team from the court and the rest of the playoffs.

"The mistake was not to enlist the support of other teams in our quest for the championship," Jackson told reporters in a press briefing at San Antonio's SBC Center. "The score was against us, and our previous road losses were atrocities. We decided that we just didn't have the stomach for this."

Once upon a time, America fought to win. Now, if there's not instant victory, the disillusionment spreads. Our enemies think we don't have the intestinal fortitude to fight for very long; unfortunately, they may be right, and it's not just the moonbat left, either. War is ugly, and we don't like ugly.

It's legitimate to ask questions- what will they do with $50 billion, for one thing, and what's the plan for taking care of the insurrection in the south- but people appear to think that if you can't win a war within a few months with no casualties, it's a loss. The prevailing attitude is that the only war from which to take lessons is Vietnam, as if that war is incontrovertible proof that we should never fight, we can never win. But there are lessons to be learned from another war a few decades earlier. There were isolationists back then who were against the war, and there were times when the Allies were quite decisively losing, backpedaling, chased across the Channel, evacuating at Dunkirk, humiliated. And if today's defeatism was as prevalent then, you don't want to imagine what would have become of us.

Some people play to win. Some people give up. The other side hopes we're the latter. It would be more than a shame if they turned out to be right.

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I still don't understand why NBA players have so much trouble hitting free throws. They should be automatic. They never are.

Tonight, a few seconds ago, Jason Kidd missed one of two, then after a spectacular block by Richard Jefferson and a foul that put Kerry Kittles on the line, Kittles missed the first and hit the second with 2.9 seconds left, allowing Chauncey Billups to race upcourt and throw up an uncontested long-range three-pointer to tie the game. Had either Kidd or Kittles hit both, the Nets would be in the locker room celebrating right now.

There's no excuse.

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The horse is out of the barn. That train's loooong gone. You're a day late and a dollar short. Missed it by that much. Sorry, but you do get some lovely party gifts and the home version of our game. You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

They held a rally to protest the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the desegregation case. They were fifty years late.

About two dozen of the counterprotesters had moved into the area designated for the supremacists, and for several minutes the two sides shouted insults and taunts at each other.

Billy Roper, chairman of the White Revolution group of Russellville, Arkansas, said the protesters' approach wasn't the reason his side left the site 45 minutes earlier than planned.

"We did what we came to do. Our work is over," Roper said.

Yes, Billy, it is over, in every sense of the word.

I don't know what's more amazing, that this guy found 24 other people to show up with him, or that the media treated it as if it was a real, significant event. There were probably more cameras than white supremacists; there were at least 4 times as many counterprotestors, who needn't have wasted their time and energy. It's like counterprotesting against the Flat Earth Society, or the people demanding that the WB not cancel "Angel." You can't indulge these people. It only encourages them.

The guy in the AP picture attached to the story is holding a sign that says "Brown is a racial attack by Jews on Whites using Blacks." And he's not afraid to tell you his name or to show up in public holding that sign. You think you can reach someone that stupid? I wouldn't bother.

But then again, they were smart enough to get the news media to show up. All it took was an e-mail. From another story before the rally:

Billy Roper, chairman of White Revolution, said in an e-mail to news media that the event was "intended to peacefully express the viewpoint that the forced racial integration of American public schools has had a devastating impact on the nation's educational system, and beyond.".

Did they even bother to check this guy out? Did they use any editorial judgement at all? If I were on the assignment desk that day, I'd have thought that someone was pulling a Captain Janks on the news media, that you'd get there and there'd be nothing but a handful of people in Baba Booey masks. And if that's what had been there, it'd been at least as legitimate a news story as what really happened.

But it was a slow news day, and they needed to fill the time with SOMEthing. And the lesson to be learned from this is simple: wanna be on TV? Send editors an e-mail on a Saturday, tell them you'll be protesting something, doesn't matter what. Tell 'em you're protesting lettuce prices. Get some friends to show up as pro-lettuce counterprotestors. Then say cheese, 'cause you WILL make the 6:00 news and every local paper.

Unless you really DO have a legitimate news story, in which case they'll probably pass.

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