we won't be pwn'd again

Via the ever splendiferous watchers at Boing Boing, Electronic Frontier Foundation reports on what struck me as a new tact on the part of the entertainment industry and intellectual property chieftains but is just I suppose the latest assault in the bullying-desperate attempts to alienate ownership, entrepreneurship and fair-use. Essentially, an international textbook publishing house has placed an injunction against a student from selling his used learning materials, because, they argue, the content was manufactured, compiled overseas and therefore not subject to the legal principle of first sale, a doctrine that makes venues like eBay and flea-markets and charitable giving possible because one is selling one’s ownership of the thing and not the copyrighted content of it. The US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments, for what seems like a sophisticated and possibly pervasive loophole, since there’s little that is created without non-domestic contributions, and is expected to strike the publisher’s case down as clawing.

For companies to be able to dictate what can be resold or given away after they’ve made their initial profit seems absurd and specious, if not blatant overstepping.  Industry, however, has been codifying and campaigning against the idea of right to property or some time, through various avenues and with unbalanced successes, attempting to extend the lifetime of copyrights and franchises and introducing a little estranging thing called an end-users’ licensing agreement (EULA), which is not a bill-of-sale but rather a permit to use and enjoy their goods and services within strictly defined parameters. While I do not think that the American high-court would open up a legal framework to criminalize garage sales and that there’s no way to argue stealing and counterfeiting out of piracy, there is a creeping and seemingly relentless offensive in favour of large-holders that is in the interest of everyone watching carefully.

in season: butternut-salmon lasagna

There was a bit of confusion, mincing terms, when it came to identifying a Butternut squash (Birnenkürbis, “pear-squash”) distinct from a pumpkin (Kürbis) and the gourds (Winterkürbis) and the weirder varieties of bumpy and pie-faced squashes used to decorate stoops and storefronts for Autumn. Kürbisse are more generic (and diverse) than I thought, referring to any member of the Cucurbita family, native to Central America and separate from their European analogues of beets and turnips, including zucchinis and cucumbers, but once that was cleared up, we were ready to try something new.
For this dish to serve 3 to 4, one will need:

• A medium casserole dish
• A large Butternut squash, enough to get 1½ pounds from (600 – 750 grams), minus the skin and seeds (a slender squash, as compared to a dumpy one with wider squash hips tends to have less seeds) 
• A bit of butter, flour (about 4 tablespoons each) and salt and pepper and fresh dill (chopped) and nutmeg (Muskat) for seasoning
• 1 cup (250 ml) of cream
• 2 cups (500 ml) of vegetable stock or bullion 
• A 9 oz (250 g) package of smoked salmon (fresh or from the refrigerated section)
• About 7 oz (200 g) of grated cheese (gouda or mozzarella) 
• A 4 oz (about 100 g) package of lasagna pasta 
• A large onion

Begin by shelling the squash and removing the seeds, and then slice the squash into small cubes and set aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 400° F (200°C). Peel and dice up the onion, frying it in a large pan until glassy in some butter over medium heat. Add a few pinches of flour to the pan (about a tablespoon in all) then pour in the broth and the cream, reducing the heat, and add the graded cheese, seasonings and garnish with the bundle of dill. Mix and leave on low heat for around five minutes. Take the uncooked lasagna noodles and arrange in layers in a casserole dish (grease with a bit of butter) apportioning slices of the salmon, squash and a dousing of the sauce, three layers deep. Pour the remaining sauce over the top, spinkling a bit more cheese over it, and allow to bake for about 45 minutes. Enjoy with a fine Moscato white wine.

trick or treat, money or eats

in sextus novembris

Reflecting on the upcoming and rather secularized celebrations of Guy Fawkes Night, commemorating the foiled Gunpowder Plot of the Fifth of November where the triggerman Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy, it is curious how in some four centuries of historical memory documenting revelry, sentiment and celebration, we witness perhaps the process of transposition and myth-making. The many hypotheses regarding Christianity supplanting pagan feasts with their own holidays in order to ease the tradition, like All Saints’ Day and Halloween for Nordic and Celtic Samhain or Christmas for Roman Saturnalia, cannot be tested and accounts are only implicit and worked backwards.

From the evolution of children making and parading straw men (guys—the word entered the English language because of Guy Fawkes) to burn, the excuses for partying, the waxing and waning of traditions to the modern day trappings and personae of anonymity and disestablish- mentarianism. A roundly reviled character has been elevated and romanced as a folk-hero, but as a charitable abstract of their original motives, to return the monarchy to a Catholic throne and stop the persecution and punitive taxation of recalcitrant Catholics. Such movements, I think, would not like to swap one dominating authority for another, nor order for chaos neither. The celebratory mood may have been co-opted or evolved convergent with the close lying customs of Halloween and poses a strange puzzle to unravel, despite being faithfully recorded. This year there is quite a bit of healthy competition, with the election, as to what day might be the scariest. The choice of symbols is often a bit ironic, I think, like the Alamo where the Texan freedom fighters lost and their ranks decimated or the sign of the Cross. This year, on the eve of the presidential elections of the United States, there are some vague and unclaimed threats to kidnap and ransom the executive and legislative branches until the government is returned to the people. I only fear that the plotters’ ambitions will be forgot and the aftermath celebrated as another reason to brag and to continue girding ourselves against all threats--real, imagined and opportunely rebuffed.