Peeves... I have a few. Censorship over overzealous "enforcement" of copyright-laws. Granted, as a musician, songwriter and photographer I see both sides of this particular issue, but nonetheless any song, image or text can be reproduced under the Berne Convention of 1971 and the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 concerning the "fair use" of 'protected' material as long as it is for non-profit usage (for example, as a blog-comment with an embedded photo provided such an item is used to illustrate or enforce a point of view, or the posting of a video for purely educational &/or entertainment purposes). I feel that certain websites and blogs are a little overzealous in their "moderation" on the free speech of their end-users, but the site-admins can run & manage their sites any way they please, I certainly won't hold that against them; nonetheless I will no longer support & contribute to sites such as those that have exhibited a willingness to practice unfair censorship. No site's patronage (whether "news" blog, cycling blog, political blog, or video-sharing site) is worth that... not ever in my book. Never! Discrimination based on race, creed, social status, gender, sexual-orientation, religion (or a lack thereof, me I personally don't have an issue with one or the other, people are free to choose to believe, or not believe, in whatever they want to. That being said, though, I do have a serious problem with those - on either side of the coin, this includes über-atheists as well as über-fundamentalists - who want to criticize, persecute and attack others because they do not follow their "chosen" affiliation)... This is the 21st century, people! The kind of shit that occurs in the U.S. regarding the above is soooo 17th-century that it's time for those people who feel that have to persecute and discriminate based on any of the above factors need to get a clue and join the rest of 21st-Century Planet Earth and cease and desist... or at least give others their right to be heard. And let them speak without fear of said persecution. How hard can that be?? This also extends to sporting events as well... cycling in particular! A pet peeve of mine is how male-centric professional road cycling remains to be even after almost every other sport (individual, team, whatever) has lifted the blinders on gender-discrimination, yet cycling remains the one big hold-out with women cyclists being grossly underpaid & under-supported compared to the men. Positive changes are indeed occurring in recent months, but still a long way to go... Apathy towards what's wrong in this world (and in particular the vitriolic political climate here in the United States), and indifference toward poverty, hunger, greed and the wanton abuse of our Earth's natural ecosystems (including climate-change). Politics in particular has been a major peeve of mine in recent years... People, we need to get up off our collective fat-asses and start working to ease our political divisions (some may say this is impossible given the nature of the hatred now being exhibited - I feel that extremists on both sides are equally to blame for this mess, and, for example, toting firearms in public isn't going to solve any of this, that just makes you look like an even bigger idiot than you already might be). Be smart, sensible and present your debate by more peaceful, civilized means. People will listen, trust me on that... We also live in an age with so many rapid technological advances that better humankind and the world in which we all share, that it is completely ridiculous that such evils as poverty & hunger still even exist!! No use asking why, but we should instead ask ourselves what can we do to alleviate this? And then find the resources that provide the answers, and then act upon them! War - no need to elaborate much here, I'll let this video do the talking for me... Comments are closed.
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