Andrew @andrew907@librem.one

It goes without saying that forcing your citizens to bombard a neighboring state is next-level evil even compared to suppression of speech.

But freedom of emotion and culture is not something to take for granted. Oppressive regimes' suppression of speech makes daily headlines.

Our obligation to follow the law does not require or forbid us to feel or make cultural decisions based on internationally recognized political borders, the majority populations within those borders, or the governments that control those landmasses. (Although unfortunately copyright is an exception because it is a culture-stifling law.)

As I go about my chores, I've been spending the day spiritually with the storm battered east coast communities. CBC's coverage of the tragedy has been characteristically high quality.

It is disappointing that Canada is copying the United States' regrettable decision to extend the state-sponsored monopoly called copyright an additional 20 years after the creator's death. I guess some authors' estates, or rather, the corporations that they sold the copyright to, will be happy that they can stifle cultural exchange in Canada for an additional twenty years.

There have been a ton of natural disasters in the news lately: Pakistan, Taiwan, Japan, the Caribbean. One can get used to scrolling past the horrifying suffering. And then I see that Typhoon Merbok battered our west coast over the weekend. Still hundreds of kilometers away, it is much more sobering when our own people are in trouble.

Changing the clocks twice a year has been a silly idea from the start, especially above latitude 60, and we should have already scrapped this ritual like our eastern neighbors the Yukoners.

Do we want to send a representative to the US Congress almost all of whose campaign funding came from individual donors? Or do we want the guy who could casually inject US$650,000 from his own fortune into his campaign?

Texas is not normally a land where I find things to praise, but earlier this week the Dallas Morning News ran a post acknowledging that copyright is an anachronistic failure. Good thing someone else is paying some attention.

They fixed the Ship Creek Trail! Hooray!

You know what makes a lovely autumn day even lovelier? Reading that Death Valley recorded 53 degrees on Thursday. My goodness! No thanks.

So I guess that means we can predict the future? In 2028, Dmitri Shostakovich is on track to publish a brilliant concerto in C for keyboard, trumpet and strings. Even if Disney wishes he would put it off for another 500 years.

Aside, thank goodness, from the existence of cc0 works, copyright has created the worst kind of time machine where any kind of good (or bad) art is delayed 95 years into the future. In this artificial reality, Elisabeth Jacquet published her first book of harpsichord suites in 1782. Bach penned the Art of Fugue in 1845 and Beethoven the Grosse Fuge in 1921. Amy Cheney will be alive for 17 more years and her E minor symphony is relatively hot off the presses having premiered in October 1991.

But it's a lovely autumn day in Anchorage!

I have only angry asterisks for the people who want copyright to last forever.

I am delighted that we are sending Mary Peltola to the US Congress for the rest of the year. Now we need to get her a full two year term.

Throughout the 20th century, from the Adolf Busch Chamber Players in the 1930s to a wave of period instrument performances in the second half of the century, a modernist school of classical music, inspired by history, evolved and flourished. It is time to take the revolution to the next level. Leopold Stokowski, Thomas Beecham, Ferruccio Busoni, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and rubato-indulging eastern European pianists can stay in the libraries and history books where they belong.

I was having a bad day. My beloved Pinephone hit the gravel on a hike and the screen shattered. I got home and carefully pulled off the screen protector. Only a couple cracks made it all the way through, and that's just a minor inconvenience at full brightness rather than a death sentence. I slipped on a new screen protector and I'm back in business. Lesson: never buy a phone without also buying a matching screen protector. Bonus points if you have a backup screen protector just in case.

Our anthem, Alaska's Flag Song, is apparently under US copyright till 2036. I propose the E major subject from the slow movement of Amy Cheney Beach's E minor symphony as a substitute at least during the next fourteen years. Hopefully by the end of the year, in its glorious orchestral colors, I can upload a free performance by my open source software baroque orchestra to the Ellen Brooke Project.

I have a soft spot for Scotland. If they want independence, they should have it. But the bagpiper playing somewhere in our city is making me grateful for noise canceling headphones.