• An Open Book: TMSW’s Library
  • Copyright
  • Food for Thought Recipes
  • My Right Eye: A Medical Memoir by Marci Rich
  • Praise and Awards
    • Writing Badges
  • The Midlife Second Wives’ Hall of Fame
  • Who is The Midlife Second Wife?
    • Contact
    • FAQ
  • Read Me On The Huffington Post

The Midlife Second Wife ™

~ The Real and True Adventures of Remarriage at Life's Midpoint

The Midlife Second Wife ™

Tag Archives: SOPA

Why the Blog Wore Black to the SOPA Opera

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Writing Life, What's the Buzz?

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

blogs, Censorship, PIPA, SOPA

SOPA Resistance Day!

If you stopped by the blog on January 18, you were probably surprised to find it cloaked in black. (If you tried to look anything up on Wikipedia that day, you’d have encountered a similar blackout.) And take a look at the black ribbon in the upper-right corner of TMSW that says “Stop Censorship.” That ribbon will remain there until January 24. Here’s why: The Midlife Second Wife, along with about 13 million others, took a stand this week to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens Internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

Let me be clear: Copyright infringement is wrong. Online piracy is wrong. Rogue websites are wrong. But so is censorship, and from what I’ve read on the subject, the two bills that Congress proposed, although well-meaning, would have done far more harm than good. One commentator likened it to taking a sledgehammer to the Internet when what’s needed is a scalpel. There’s got to be a solution, but SOPA and PIPA ain’t it.

David Carr, one of the smartest critics around, covers technology, media, and popular culture for the New York Times. He and his colleague, Jenna Wortham, explain the issues quite well in several articles; I’ve included them for those who want to know more. In “The Danger of an Attack on Piracy Online,” he quoted First Amendment lawyer Lawrence H. Tribe:

Laurence H. Tribe, the noted First Amendment lawyer, said in an open letter on the Web that SOPA would “undermine the openness and free exchange of information at the heart of the Internet. And it would violate the First Amendment.”

This afternoon I received an email from fightforthefuture.org announcing that Wednesday’s Web moratorium had the desired effect: Congress kicked the can on both bills today.

One more word about all of this before we return you to your regularly scheduled digest of marital musings, recipes, and midlife meanderings. I have pretty strong political beliefs, and heretofore I’ve tried to keep them out of the blog. That might have been an idealistic, even silly goal. I don’t live in a vacuum and I certainly oughtn’t blog in one. But I also don’t want my views to overwhelm this site; if I wanted to write a political blog I’d have started one. So you can be certain that when I take a stand on something in this venue, as I did this week, it’s for a powerful reason. As a writer living in a free society, I’m painfully aware that there are writers in areas of the world who are not able to express their beliefs for fear of reprisal, prison, or worse.

My blog’s cloak of black on Wednesday is as much a stand in solidarity with them as it is in opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

And now friends, it’s time to cook something.

RELATED ARTICLES:
“The Danger of an Attack on Piracy Online
,” David Carr, The New York Times

“How I’m Surviving (Or Trying to) Without Wikipedia at my Fingertips,” David Carr, The New York Times

“A Political Coming of Age for the Tech Industry” Jenna Wortham, The New York Times

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Twitter Updates

Tweets by midlife2wife

Company

  • 168,423 Guests since 8/24/11

Receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,938 other subscribers

Topics

  • Current Events
  • Food for Thought
  • Giveaways
  • House and Garden
  • Humor Me
  • Indulgences
  • Inspiring Women
  • LifeStyles
  • Love
  • Midpoints
  • Monday Morning Q & A
  • Money Matters
  • Nostalgia
  • Portraits of the Artist
  • Product Reviews
  • Relationships and Family Life
  • Remarriage
  • Second Weddings
  • Second Wife Hall of Fame
  • Secrets to a Happy Relationship
  • Special Events
  • Technology
  • The Beautiful Life
  • The Cultured Life
  • The Healthy Life
  • The Life Poetic
  • The Musical Life
  • The Reading Life
  • The Well-Dressed Life
  • The Writing Life
  • Transitions
  • Travel
  • Well-Dressed
  • What's the Buzz?

RSS Feeds

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Archives

  • July 2019 (1)
  • December 2014 (1)
  • November 2014 (1)
  • October 2014 (2)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • June 2014 (2)
  • May 2014 (2)
  • April 2014 (3)
  • March 2014 (3)
  • February 2014 (3)
  • January 2014 (4)
  • December 2013 (9)
  • November 2013 (2)
  • October 2013 (3)
  • September 2013 (6)
  • August 2013 (5)
  • July 2013 (6)
  • June 2013 (2)
  • May 2013 (3)
  • April 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (1)
  • January 2013 (3)
  • December 2012 (7)
  • November 2012 (7)
  • October 2012 (12)
  • September 2012 (9)
  • August 2012 (6)
  • July 2012 (4)
  • June 2012 (5)
  • May 2012 (4)
  • April 2012 (1)
  • March 2012 (10)
  • February 2012 (8)
  • January 2012 (9)
  • December 2011 (10)
  • November 2011 (30)
  • October 2011 (18)
  • September 2011 (12)
  • August 2011 (2)

Networks

NetworkedBlogs
Blog:
The Midlife Second Wife ™
Topics:
Relationships, Life, After 50
 
Follow my blog

bloglovin

The Blogs of Others

  • A Baby Boomer Woman's Life After 50
  • A.B. Westrick
  • An Empowered Spirit
  • Apart from my Art
  • Author Meg Medina
  • Better After 50
  • Books is Wonderful
  • Darryle Pollack: I Never Signed Up For This
  • Diana Patient: Photography
  • Empty House, Full Mind
  • GenerationBSquared
  • Grandma's Briefs
  • Grown and Flown
  • Midlife at the Oasis
  • Midlife Boulevard
  • Midlife Mixtape
  • Reason Creek
  • Relocation: The Blog
  • Romancing Reality
  • Second Lives Club
  • The Boomer Rants
  • WHOA Network
  • WordCount

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Midlife Second Wife ™
    • Join 448 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Midlife Second Wife ™
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: