News from Tualatin
News from Tualatin
Today is Benjamin Kunze's one-monthiversay. He is already 1/12 of a year old! Time flies.
Karen and I went downtown yesterday and made visit to the Oregon Historical Society and had lunch at Huber's, Portland's oldest restaurant. Huber's is interesting also because it is in a beautiful old building with amazing coffered ceilings. In the main dining room, the ceiling is composed of leaded, stained-glass panels in an art deco design, arched in both direction, like a segment of the surface of a sphere! Fantastic! Huber's specialty is turkey, so we ech had a turkey sandwich ... seemed appropriate as Thanksgiving is coming on. Hubers is also noteworthy as one of the most successful Chinese-owned restaurants in the country, owned for several generations by the Louie family.
While we were eating lunch, Karen's cell phone rang. It was Morgan calling to tell us that Benjamin had rolled over! Seems kinda young for that, but I haven't read Spock for a long time. We dropped by after lunch, and Morgan reported that he had done it agian, but he wasn't interested in showing it off for us while we there, or maybe it's too hard to roll over while your grandfather is holding you, I don't know which.
Portland has continued to be nice and drippy, foggy, and dim, just like you'd expect. This afternoon, after lunch with Morgan and Ben, we are planning to go up to the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Washington to take a sunset (I assume by the clock) tour to see the sandhill cranes return from their day of foraging. We have seen the cranes in Monte Vista when they pass through, and it will be fun to see them here on another stop on their southward flyway. I don't know if we'll be able to recognize any of the specific individual cranes we saw in Monte Vista, but we'll try. As in Colorado, I guess a few whooping cranes are mixed into the bunch here.
Thanks to those of you who have e-mailed us back. It's nice to hear from you, and also good to know that I'm not boring you to death with my doting over Benjamin and his folks.
Love you all!
Mike & Karen
(photo e-mailed separately)
The Ropers
Monday Rant - The Ropers
You remember the Ropers: they were that television family who rented space to the Three’s Company cast. But we digress … the ropers I’m here to talk about are something else entirely.
I’m concerned about people (corporations are legally people) who are roping off entire areas of our language and culture for their exclusive use.
Back in the Stone Age, everyone in the world had the same general view of property as American Indians: The land is the canvas on which our lives are painted, and does not belong to anyone. In fact, the idea of land ownership was so foreign of a concept, that “primitive” cultures didn’t even think of it as “not be owned.” They simply couldn’t conceive of land ownership.
The closest they came was the concept of tribal lands: an area of the earth was seen as unavailable to other tribes for reasons of sustainability, safety, and prosperity. In other words, the tribes “owned” their extensive patches of land. But the idea that a single human being could exclusively own a parcel of land, could control the land and its use, could even denude and degrade it if desired, was so simply unthinkable, that generations of American Indians gave up their tribal homelands in exchange for trivial goods, or worse, for a cynical promise of future goods.
The white man saw things far differently. Here was a land available for use and exploitation. No one was using it(!), so why not just “claim” it? A white man and his family could put the land to much better and more intense use than simply leaving it “natural.”
If you think you agree with this idea of land ownership, and cannot see the foolish point of view of un-owned (or communally-owned) tribal land, think about your attitude concerning air. Can you “own” the volume of air associated with the patch of ground you “own?” If so, shouldn’t you expect payment when some of your air blows over onto your neighbor’s property? And shouldn’t you expect to pay if you breathe air that belongs to your neighbor? Shouldn’t you be taxed to clean air that belongs to others, and that you befoul? Oh, yeah … we do that.
Well, how about language? Don’t we have tribal language territories? Free for the use of those who live within them, but distinct and uninviting to foreigners? Isn’t language today the very definition of tribe, as land was a couple of generations ago?
Well, guess what? The white men have arrived, and they’re homesteading your language. Watch out! If you haven’t staked a claim, in fact, if you haven’t even caught on to the idea of language ownership, you’ll be at a loss for words soon.
McDonald’s has trademarked the phrase “America’s Favorite Fries (tm).” Imagine! You can’t say that without their permission. Of course, they have no interest in YOU merely saying that (in fact I imagine they’d be delighted if you did) … unless you should profit from it somehow. For example, should your company produce “fries” that actually ARE America’s favorites, and you had the temerity to say so publicly, you’d be in big troubles with the French Fry Legal Department down at the Kroc’s. Because ownership of the phrase doesn’t mean that McDonald’s fries are America’s favorites, just that McDonald’s has the exclusive right to say that theirs are America’s favorites. That’s right, the law of intellectual property (intellectual property = “America’s Favorite Fries (tm)?” … what’s intellectual about that?) trumps truth, just as real property law trumps the obvious truth that nobody can “own” ground that was here long before, and will be here long after its “owner,” or even its owner’s species?
Schlotzsky’s is “America’s Favorite Deli (tm).” Did you know that? Did you even know Schlotzsky’s existed? You must have missed the day when the Scholtzsky’s polling team canvassed every home in America, door-to-door, in their heroic effort to ensure that their deli was in fact America’s favorite before sending their lawyers down to the copyright office to trademark that phrase.
Now, I don’t know if Schlotzsky’s is or isn’t America’s favorite deli. In fact, I’m pretty sure the concept of a continent even having a favorite deli or french fry is pretty meaningless (did the Schlotzsky’s canvassers really get down into the jungles of the Amazon?), but how in the world can a corporation claim something so bold and have it guaranteed to their exclusive use by the government, with no purpose whatever other than to mislead potential customers into the conclusion that their product must be fantastic, because they say right here in writing that it’s America’s favorite, and no one else says that about their product, and even the government has given them the explicit and exclusive right to make the claim? Huh?
The fact that it’s not true, or even that no one has attempted to show whether it is true or not, is something the patent and copyright procedure simply washes their hands of. If I’m willing to pay the fee, I guess I could trademark the phrases “America’s Sexiest Man (tm),” “America’s Handsomest Man (tm),” and “America’s Most Desirable Man (tm).” Then let Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Viggo Mortensen simply step aside, ‘cause, as anyone can see from the fact that I have it written down right here, and I, exclusively, have the right to say so, as certified by the U.S Government, by damn, I am the most handsome, sexy, and desirable man in the U.S., no matter what you might think.
By the way, did you know that Scholtzsky’s is also the “Home of the Original Sandwich (tm)?” Wow! That’s gotta be some stale sandwich by now!
Foaming-at-the-mouthedly Yours,
Mike
