Law, Science and Technology

My objective is to focus on character development, specifically how an author uses physical features, as for example facial features, to bring a character or event to life and how by doing this she brings me into her world. I have chosen two works each related to Virginia Woolf: Carlyle’s House and Other Sketches (1909) and Night and Day (1919). Carlyle’s House is a monograph in a form critiqued by David Bradshaw and with a forward by Doris Lessing, published by Hesperus in 2003. Lessing, the well known author and Nobel Laureate provides an incisive comment on Woolf’s early writing and describes the work as:

            “These pieces are like five-finger exercises for future excellence. Not that they are negligible, being lively, and with the direct and sometimes brutal observations, the discriminations, the fastidious judgment one expects from her…”

David Bradshaw MA, D.Phil., FEA is well-known, as Reader in English Literature at Oxford University specializing in late nineteenth and early Twentieth Century literature. According to his resume his field of research is Modernism particularly the works of Virginia Woolf. 

The sketches allow us to analyze Woolf’s craft during the year 1909, two years after she began her first novel and half-dozen years before it was published. She was 27 years old and still an apprentice, but one who knew where she was headed and what habits she would maintain on her journey. Bradshaw quotes a passage from her later autobiographical work the Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897-1909:

            “…I wish for the sake of this book that I had anything more brightly coloured & picturesque to write here; it seems to me that all my events have been of the same temperate rather cold hued description; I haven’t had to use many superlatives. I have sketched faint outlines with a pencil. But the only use of the book is that it shall serve for a sketch book; as an artist fills his pages with scraps & fragment, studies in drapery-legs, arms & noses-useful to him no doubt, but no meaning to anyone else-so I…take up my pen & trace here whatever shapes I happen to have in my head…It is an exercise-training for eye & hand…”

            Below I refer to passages from Carlyle’s House, either those authored by Lessing, Bradshaw, or Woolf herself as examples of where this habit plays out in the work. After reading the sketches, I became curious to read how her early “…training for eye & hand…” manifested in a later work and examined Night and Day, (1919) Virginia Woolf's second novel written a decade after Carlyle’s House. I observed that with one small exception Carlyle’s House only treats the features of women. In Night and Day she ventures into the descriptions of men as well. Below, I draw on further examples in this second work, which provided material for the second reading requirement in January.

            In the first of the Carlyle’s House sketches, she records in her journal a visit to the famous poet’s home, a place she had visited on several occasions, once with her father and again with her sister.  She observes a portrait of Jane Carlyle the late wife of Thomas Carlyle, and writes:

                        “There were portraits of Mrs. Carlyle which seemed to look out quizzically upon strangers as though she asked what they really found to look at…”

In this instance, I and I assume other readers of the passage know quite well the look of “…quizzically upon strangers…” that Woolf observes in the visage. In this case it squares with the common experience of one suddenly meeting a stranger in a private part of one’s home, and perhaps where the stranger may not be openly welcome. But, Woolf does not stop there, she continues with a more precise examination of Mrs. Carlyle’s countenance:

                        “Her eyes droop in the pictures, and have a peculiar expression, of humour and melancholy lying dormant, which produces this quizzical look that I speak of; at any moment they might flash with passion, or kindle into tenderness. I think that in her life the expression must have been one of mockery for the most part, with a background of pathos; an unhappy face in spite of the brilliant eyes; the late photographs, which exaggerate the hollow of the cheeks, and the length of the upper lip, are horrid. The eyes are the only parts with warmth or depth in them: the rest is granulated skin tight stretched over a skull.”  

Having attended viewings of many deceased lying still in their coffins, I am struck by the accuracy of her image evoked by her metaphor “granulated skin tight stretched over a skull”. Although the eyes may shine bright, Mrs. Carlyle is dead, indeed, and, in some ways so is the home but a remnant of the poet’s past.

The second essay entitled Miss Reeves, introduces us to Amber Reeves a mid to late 19^th Century advocate of women’s causes and also a close friend of H.G. Wells. Woolf writes in the journal that she met Reeves at dinner the night before the entry:

“She has dark hair, an oval face, with a singular small mouth: a line is penciled on her upper lip. She reminds me of the girl whose mother was a snake. There is something of the snake in her. Her eyes are not large, but very bright, hazel colour. She always leans forward, as though to take flight; her whole figure and pose indicating an ardent spirit. When she is silent, she thinks-her eyes intent on one spot. But she talks almost incessantly launching herself with the greatest ease-but says nothing commonplace.”

Quoting one of Reeves fellow students, Bradshaw writes in his critique of the essay that Reeves was “intellect personified”. Woolf, according to my sensibilities captures a snap shot skillfully weaving in the image of a snake, eye having certain features, leaning forward, all to impose “an ardent figure”. This is not the description of a benign, dull woman, but one aware of her surroundings at every instant in time.

In the third essay, Cambridge, Woolf documents her visit with Sir George Darwin (second son of Charles Darwin) and his family, at the Darwin House which today is part of Darwin College. Woolf tells us that Sir Darwin:

 “…must have known great men, and who is at work always upon great problems, should have nothing distinguishable or remarkable about him.”

Later she describes Darwin, who died three years later, as:

            “…some elderly but wiry grey terrier, with short legs, and choleric eyes, rather watering at the corners.”

In this description, Woolf confirms the image set up earlier about having “nothing distinguishable or remarkable about him”.

The next essay entitled Hampstead has only two references to facial features and they each relate to Miss Margaret Davies a guest at Hampstead, a reference to a home in a small English village with the same name.

Davies is described in comparison to other guests:

“ … from a sterner stock. Her features are sharper, her eyes burn brighter; once she must have had something of the beauty of a delicate Greek head. Now being also past forty years of age, she has the same look of having passed a strenuous life in toil of some kind for others.  

Woolf continues by then drawing the features referred to in speculating about the character:

“Women who have worked but have not married come to have a particular look; refinement, without sex; tending to be austere. Miss Davies, it is clear, has far less tolerance than her friend; and has done what she has done through the force of conviction. She has organized a great co-operative movement in the North, Her eyes have a way of growing dark, as though clouds crossed them, when she is in earnest.”

            Unlike her other descriptions in the sketches, here the specification for the “…the same look of…” and “…particular look…” seems to be missing. I cannot logically or emotionally align the passage “…sharper, her eyes burn brighter; once she must have had something of the beauty of a delicate Greek head…” with what evaluation she wishes us to draw. Nonetheless, we observe Woolf using the technique of equating physical features with a behavioral feature that manifests in an enduring character, habit, passion or simply an idiosyncrasy.

In A Modern Salon, she sets out to describe Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938) who became well known for her Thursday soirees in Bedford Square where authors and artists were invited to her home. She herself was neither author nor artist, and Woolf records in her journal:

“Like other people who are passive rather than active, she is very careful and elaborate in her surroundings. It seems that they too play a part.” …She is curiously passive, even in her expression; and the pallor of her cheeks, the clean cutting of her features, the way she draws her head back and she looks at you blankly give her the appearance of a cast from some marble Medusa.”

            I have a small replica of Cellini’s Perseus holding the decapitated head of Medusa and visualize one possible description—a gruesome one. So, I think that Woolf likely had in mind the Medusa Rondanini, regarded as the best late Roman marble copy of the head and considered more human-like and archetypically  beautiful than Cellini’s no less magnificant work of art, albeit grotesque portrayal of fate.

In Jews, Woolf considers Mrs. Loeb, a woman caught up in the throes of divorce court. This piece is put forth by both Lessing and Bradshaw as evidence of Woolf’s tendency towards semetic prejudice  At page 40, Bradshaw writes: “Apart from the odd passing slur in her earlier journals (citation ommited), Jews’ from now on, will bear the doubtful distinction of being Woolf’s first significant anti-Semitic smear.” Woolf”s (neé Stephen) husband was Jewish, which seems to raise all sorts of questions about the evaluation, however none pertinent here. Bradshaw figures that Mrs. Loeb, in the essay is Annis Loeb, widow of Siegmund Loeb a German Jew from Franfurt to “purse his business interests”.

Contrary to Woolf’s delicate pen-like rendering of her previous female subjects, she leaves nothing to the imagination in decribing Mrs. Leob with a rather heavy chalk lined:

“She is a fat skinned, with drooping eyes, and tumbled hair.”

The balance of Woolf’s characterization of the woman is less than flattering, from the food she served, “…swam in oil and was nasty” to “…a shrewd woman of business…moving in a circle of city people; ‘young people’ tickle her course palate…she wishes to be popular, and is perhaps, kind, in her vulgar way, ostentatiously kind to poor relations…very little disguised, and very unpleasant.”

            Putting aside the personal animosity Woolf may have felt for Loeb, reasons she personally and objectively justified or those of shear bigotry, she does paint a picture of a woman having physical features that square with an unflatering life style. Again, we observe how Woolf skillfully uses one’s physical atributes to draw us into a framework of character and behavior.

            In Divorce Courts, Woolf attends the infamous trial between Alice Mary Fearnley-Wittingstall and the Reverend Herbert Oakes Fearnley-Wittingstall, where the wife petitioned the court for a legal separation. In this essay there is only one noteworthy reference when Woolf writes in reference to the Mrs. Fearnley-Wittingstall,

“She had a bold, course face, strained with the tensions of brazening it out before the world. It was old and joyless; but perhaps she was not forty.”

I note that her association of features in each of the sketches is one of  either a thing, state, such as a place, or human quality, or event. Here, Woolf artfully aligns a human quality one of emotional condition as lining the face, with the very proceedings. Anyone having to attend such an event would  recognize the metaphor. Having attended many divorce proceedings myself, (not my own thankfully), I think that I know well the mold the author’s casts the subject.

Turning now to Night and Day, (1919) a novel Virginia Woolf's authored a decade after the Carlyle’ House sketches, she takes us into the lives of friends, Katharine Hilbery, Ralph Denham and Mary Datchet. The novel uses a mixture of dialogue and description in dealing with not only ordinary lives, but women's suffrage. The book amplifies Woolf’s early use of anatomical description to complement character, scene and action. She expands on the use of Carlyle’ House sketches, both in the draft of longer passages and perhaps yielding richer embroidery with which she threads her characters. Essentially, a stronger linkage also exists between the feature being described and the metaphor for which it stands. For example:

"With the omnibuses and cabs still running in his head, and his body still tingling with his quick walk along the streets and in and out of traffic and foot-passengers, this drawing-room seemed very remote and still; and the faces of the elderly people were mellowed, at some distance from each other, and had a bloom on them owing to the fact that the air in the drawing-room was thickened by blue grains of mist. She could see that he was nervous; one would expect a bony young man with his face slightly reddened by the wind, and his hair not altogether smooth, to be nervous in such a party. Further, he probably disliked this kind of thing, and had come out of curiosity, or because her father had invited him--anyhow, he would not be easily combined with the rest.”

In this passage the author captures the image of a hurried young man attending a soiree in terms of his perception of the faces of the elderly men, “… the faces of the elderly people were mellowed, at some distance from each other, and had a bloom on them…”. This describes the sense I certainly experience after physical exertion, probably caused by blood rushing to my head. It often seems that every thing is at a distance. 

Another example below,…” a habit of moving his head hither and thither very quickly without altering the position of his large and rather corpulent body…” describes an elderly man while creating the image of a grandfather clock, which seems to not only describe the static features of the individual, such as the framework or casing of a clock, but adds a dynamic in the form of pendulum-like motion:

“He was an elderly man, with a pair of oval, hazel eyes which were rather bright for his time of life, and relieved the heaviness of his face. He played constantly with a little green stone attached to his watch-chain, thus displaying long and very sensitive fingers, and had a habit of moving his head hither and thither very quickly without altering the position of his large and rather corpulent body, so that he seemed to be providing himself incessantly with food for amusement and reflection with the least possible expenditure of energy.”

In yet another example, she uses a man’s physical description to keep the reader’s mind moving forward in time. Her earlier Carlyle’s House essays did not seem to enjoy the added dimension of likening the features of an individual to some external physical phenomenon. In one instance with the image of “…deeply running tide of red blood” and in another instance “…slight vibrating or creaking sound in it.” Each of these metaphors draws on natural physical entities.

“He had a singular face a face built for swiftness and decision rather than for massive contemplation; the forehead broad, the nose long and formidable, the lips clean-shaven and at once dogged and sensitive, the cheeks lean, with a deeply running tide of red blood in them. His eyes, expressive now of the usual masculine impersonality and authority, might reveal more subtle emotions under favorable circumstances, for they were large, and of a clear, brown color; they seemed unexpectedly to hesitate and speculate; but Katharine only looked at him to wonder whether his face would not have come nearer the standard of her dead heroes if it had been adorned with side-whiskers. In his spare build and thin, though healthy, cheeks, she saw tokens of an angular and acrid soul. His voice, she noticed, had a slight vibrating or creaking sound in it, as he laid down the manuscript …”

In her passage,”…his spare build and thin, though healthy, cheeks, she saw tokens of an angular and acrid soul…”, delve into not only the observable world, but the man's character in the spiritual world.

What follows are three excerpts that serve as examples of the skill with which Woolf  animates her characters, not through behavioral features, but clear description base on physical features: 

“She was a remarkable-looking woman, well advanced in the sixties, but owing to the lightness of her frame and the brightness of her eyes she seemed to have been wafted over the surface of the years without taking much harm in the passage. Her face was shrunken and aquiline, but any hint of sharpness was dispelled by the large blue eyes, at once sagacious and innocent, which seemed to regard the world with an enormous desire that it should behave itself nobly, and an entire confidence that it could do so, if it would only take the pains.”

"… Denham found himself looked down upon by the eyes of the great poet, Richard Alardyce, and suffered a little shock which would have led him, had he been wearing a hat, to remove it. The eyes looked at him out of the mellow pinks and yellows of the paint with divine friendliness, which embraced him, and passed on to contemplate the entire world. The paint had so faded that very little but the beautiful large eyes were left, dark in the surrounding dimness.”

“Although he was still under thirty, this forecasting habit had marked two semicircular lines above his eyebrows, which threatened, at this moment, to crease into their wonted shapes. But instead of settling down to think, he rose, took a small piece of cardboard marked in large letters with the word OUT, and hung it upon the handle of his door. This done, he sharpened a pencil, lit a reading-lamp and opened his book.”

In Night and Day I observed that the greater attention to physical descriptions in rounding out the characters occurred in the early stages of the 442 page book. Thereafter the author depended less on references to “eyes, nose, or mouth”, but resorted to words such as smile, frown, that suggest behavioral rather than physical attributes. In each case these devises carry forward the story and its characters.

In conclusion, neither story is about a cultural experience I can identify with, but Woolf nonetheless balances her perspective with that of the reader, so in each case she skillfully puts her world at my disposal. I find that Woolf impliedly knows that the real world contains only three entities: physical things having tangible and intangible existance, states of affairs, and events. In her descriptions she seems to draw on one’s physical countance to make connections to the real world, to everyman’s world. Her artful use of physical features imparts the quality of authenticity in emotions, it fills in the structure of the world she creates for the reader, and adds an energy between and among the people, things, time and events that fill her pages.

 A THEORY OF COPYRIGHT PART 1

The objects of our creative efforts extend to as far as we dare to venture. Our imagination serves as the boundary, otherwise no bounds exist in the realm of the mind—except perhaps at those folds where we may be gripped by fear. Seneca says, “Nothing is terrible in things except fear itself”. We should remember that the mediums through which we express our soul are not to be feared, but sanctified. Some ideas may be dangerous, as they might be for those who live in the dangerous corners of the world. However, most forms of expression are politically benign. After all we mostly express ourselves simply to get from one end of the day to the other; sometimes verbally, but also in other ways. 

Someone preparing a meal experiments with new tastes, new aromas or new presentations. They give meaning to the concept expression. We write a letter drawing upon experience and language to console a friend in a time of personal loss. We listen, and advise a child or a parent in a way that gets to the heart of matters, and gets them to see the problem. We involve ourselves in local government or our church and seek out solutions to a problem that touches our neighbors.  Problem solving in general need not follow old recipes, but always has the potential for novelty, where the old solutions do not yield the requisite outcomes. In this practice of expressing ourselves, we acquire spiritual riches and come closer to finding meaning.

Patent and copyright law may protect the manner in which we chose to express our creative efforts and our deepest sentiments. But, protection must always remain subsidiary to the preeminent creative act, without which we would lose all meaningful expression of our humanity. This admonition does not depreciate the importance of legal protections it merely serves to put it into its proper context.

Many of our ideas and feelings are conveyed in the form of language of one kind or another. We may put pen to paper and write a poem or short story. Others of us may use the language of music to play an instrument or sing and explore new and different renditions based on chord selection, syncopation, timing and emphasis. Regardless what our mode of expression copyright laws will protect those that are recorded on tangible medium from being copied. [1] Copyright law protects this book the world over. [2] It cannot be copied without permission. The copyright laws protect our writings, but also protect artwork, sculpture and in some cases software. Each area of copyright covers a wide berth of legal principles and applications. The combination is not easily understood if we focus too closely on the technical requirements and not on the substance of what we are attempting to accomplish.

Protection under the copyright law extends to "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form, what I refer to as the expressive object.[3]  The right comes into existence the moment that the form fixes in the medium of the expression object. "Original" under copyright law means that the author or artist produced the work by his or her own effort and not by copying a preexisting work.

Clearly, one cannot make a copy of a book, work of art or even a software program without permission of the copyright holder.  However, the law has also extended copyright protection to extensions, derivatives, modifications or equivalents of the expressive object. These works although not identical to the original, have sufficient identity with the copyrighted original to fall within the aegis of protection. Essentially, one cannot take a well-known plot and its characters, and create another plot regardless of the originality of the new plot. But, why? Boyle, explains it this way: “It is the originality of the author, the novelty which he or she adds to the raw materials provided by culture and the common pool, which “justifies” the property right and at the same time offers a strategy for resolving the basic conceptual problem …what concept of property would allow the author to retain some property rights in the work but not others?  In the German debates, the best answer was provided by the great idealist Fichte… (who)… disaggregated the concept of property in books. The buyer gets the physical thing and the ideas contained in it. Precisely because the originality of his spirit was converted into an originality for form, the author retains the right to the form in which those ideas were expressed…” [4]

This concept of retaining the expressive form finds application every time an author or artist takes a plagiarist into court. Recently, owners of Margaret Mitchel’s copyrights enjoined publication of a book entitled The Wind Done Gone, by Alice Randall on the basis that it infringed the famous novel Gone With The Wind. [5] The new work chronicles the diary of a woman named Cynara, the illegitimate daughter of Planter, a plantation owner, and Mammy, a slave who cares for his children. The plaintiff's copyright infringement claim rests on the fact that the defendant's book: (1) explicitly refers to Gone With the Wind in its foreword; (2) copies core characters, character traits, and relationships from Gone With the Wind; (3) copies and summarizes famous scenes and other elements of the plot from Gone With the Wind; and (4) copies verbatim dialogues and descriptions from Gone With the Wind.

Randall’s publishers claimed the story was parody--one of many defenses to copyright infringement. It is true that the law protects parody. But if it were not parody then the court would have to determine if the work were a recasting, adaptation or transformation of the original work. The standard for ascertaining infringement is whether the two works are substantially similar in regards to a host of features such as the work’s characters, character traits and relationships. District Court, Pannell, J., held that: (1) the works were substantially similar; (2) that the overriding purpose of "The Wind Done Gone" was to create sequel, not parody, although book was partially transformative; and (3) the book used more of original work than necessary to obtain the effect of parody. In this instance, the court considered the tone, plot, characters, setting, mood, and pace and determined that the two work’s were sufficiently substantially similar as to warrant a preliminary injunction against publication. We learn that intellectual property represents something more than the story. In the case of literary works it represents the expression of ideas through a language, cast in a genre, that makes a story unique--that moves the story from ideas to drafts, to a plots, with characters, to emerge a literary work.

To understand the expressive object we should understand what constitutes a work of authorship or art? Philosophers have argued that a work of art represents both a physical thing and an aesthetic object. Others have argued that it is one but, not the other. Clearly a work of art does not embody simply a picture of something. It embodies a unique combination of facets consisting of materials, mediums, form, content, subject matter, expression and representation of forms and contents. Analogously, musical performances contain these elements. The expressive objects in such performances are extant in the musical score, the instruments and their unique tonal qualities and timbres. We might even include the manipulation of the recording medium or the concert hall that produces aural sensations and visual perceptions. We see these forms of artistic imaginations take for in everything from commercials, to the artifacts of popular and traditional culture, the MTV performances to performances at the Metropolitan Opera House. Copyright protects the entirety of these creative efforts.

However there was a time when protection of certain forms of art had been in doubt. A 1903 case opened the way to the modern era favoring expansion of copyright protection. The shift came in a case involving a circus poster. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for the majority: “We shall do no more than mention the suggestion that painting and engraving unless for a mechanical end are not among the useful arts the progress of which Congress is empowered by the Constitution to promote. The Constitution does not limit the useful to that which satisfies immediately bodily needs….It is obvious also that the plaintiff’s case is not affected by the fact, if it be one, that the pictures represent actual groups-visible things. They seem from the testimony to have been composed from hints or descriptions drawn from life that fact would not deprive them of protection. The opposite proposition would mean that a portrait by Valasquez or Whistler was common property because other might try their hand on the same face. Others are free to copy the original. They are not free to copy the copy. The copy is the personal reaction of an individual upon nature. Personality always contains something unique. It expresses its singularity even in handwriting, and a very modest grade of art has in it something irreducible, which in one man’s alone. That something he may copyright unless there is a restriction in the words of the act.” [6]

Contrary to popular belief any potentially registrable copyright work does not have to be copyrighted to enjoy protection under US law. Registration affords proof of ownership and grants rights and privileges, such as access to federal courts to claim copyright infringement. Damages in copyright theft cases may be difficult to prove, so registration also may permit a claim for statutory damages. If the work were very valuable it would be wise to register the copyright with the U.S. Library of Congress.

A copyright subsists in original works of authorship in literary works, musical works, pictorial, graphic works, motion and still pictures, sound recordings and choreographic works, and derivations and compilations of these. A copyright is not the “thing”. A copyright consists of the underlying right to deal exclusively with the “thing”. Examples of items that can be copyrighted include: advertisements, instruction manuals, art work, photographs, books, sound recordings, teaching materials and computer programs.

The owner of a copyright has the exclusive rights to: (1) to reproduce the work; (2) to prepare derivative works; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, such as by rental, lease, or lending; (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the work anywhere; (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to publicly display the work; and (6) in the case of sound recordings, to publicly perform the work by any means.

The moment we reduce an expression to any medium capable of perception or detection, a property right issues protected by copyright. For example, radio wave broadcasts, electronic representations of e-mails, tangible report, flow charts on a blackboard, phone messages, notes on your desk, a video, a recording, a photo or portrait paintings are all automatically copyrighted. [7] For someone other than the copyright owner to use anything that has been reduced into any medium, requires permission. Keep in mind that copyrights are licensable and assignable so the owner, the creator and the possessor of the article may be different persons.

Statistical information, facts and numbers are not copyrightable because they are information. [8] In a similar vein are mathematical or chemical formulas. Anyone should be able to use such information and more to the point express relationships between the abstract and ideals that scientific and mathematical formulas allow. To protect this kind of information we need to look to trade secret law.

Copyright provides protection for the expression of an idea but not for the idea itself. For example, you might decide to do an advertisement featuring a diner setting. Copyright in that advertisement would prevent others from copying it without your permission. However, copyright in that advertisement would not prevent third parties from creating an advertisement featuring a diner setting, as long as such third parties either expressed the idea in a manner different from your expression or, if in a manner similar to yours, developed it totally independently from seeing your advertisement. Merely having access to a publication containing advertisement might negate the presumption of independent development.

Likewise, I can author a scientific treatise on any of a thousand subjects, but I cannot stop anyone from using the ideas, axioms, postulate, theorems, propositions, formulas, or conclusions found in the manuscript. Keep this in mind: copyright protects only the manner of an author's expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to names, titles, short phrases, ideas, systems or methods. So, a domain name, screen name or password cannot be protected by copyright. It also does not protect the way something functions--only patents can.

The distinction between a copyright and patent can be difficult to grasp. Indeed there have been great debates on where one ends and where the other begins. If we keep in mind that an expressive object has no causal effect upon the world, we will not confuse the two. If I invent a paperweight and place it on a piece of paper sitting on my desk, it imposes a force on the paper through its mass being acted upon by gravity. The paper remains stationary by the action and reaction of physical forces caused by gravity. If the stationery contains a message, it does not directly cause anything, regardless how moving in a literary or political sense the message might be.[9]

A hybrid protection referred to as a design patent protects the ornamentality of a utilitarian device. For example, designs for articles, such as car designs, wearing apparel, tool designs and household appliances and the like are not usually protected by copyright. Some countries have a classification called industrial design protection that protects the utilitarian aspect of a design form. Essentially, copyright does not protect how utilitarian device work, but protects the expressive features of such devices. However, a useful article can be copyrighted to the degree that its pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features exist independently of the utilitarian form in which they are embodied.[10]

To My Close Friends:

I woke up this morning intent on letting you all know where I stand politically (although I thought my book made it fairly clear). God knows this is not a subject to be discussed among friends or relatives, but lately I cannot reconcile what I know of many of you (that you are all honest, hard working, and descent people) with the muck that I have received via email recently. Much of the dirt has been caste against minorities in the spirit of political preferences (we cannot ignore Obama is Black and the motivation of many is to make sure he does not aspire to the presidency, either on racial grounds, qualifications or political philosophy). For those that have not contributed to my motivation this morning, I thought you should at least know where I am on the issues. Let me start this way. In the spirit of the campaign a republican friend of mine (incidentally I estimate that most of my closest friends (you all) are republicans, god bless you) sent me yet another movie of black people, this time groveling over “hand outs”. It was a parody about Obama's supposed give-a-ways according to McCain's charge of redistribution. Aside from being tasteless, (I judge political tastelessness by whether I would expose my 12-year-old grand daughter to it) it fosters the stereotype of the minority in this country. Inasmuch as 1/2 my relatives are considered minority (Hispanic, Native American), this includes my kids and grandkids, I generally find these "parodies" offensive. And, although some of my friends on this list may not agree, most of these attacks on minorities come from the political right.

All that aside, I do not want to give my money to government so it in turn gives it away to those not deserving either because they are lazy, rich or do not have my interests at heart. On the other hand I gladly pay a lot in taxes that go for schools, roads, national security, Medicare, and social security. To ignore what we give, what we expect and what we take from government is being intellectually dishonest. Some of us pay higher taxes and make other sacrifices so that others can live decently or that the country survives (social security, Medicare, VA, public schools, nursing homes, military service and even the Wall Street bail out). If we look around and start counting what the other guy gets we easily get annoyed so it’s best to accept the proposition, each according to his ability contributes and each according to his needs gets (this is not a Marxist proposition, but common experience, common sense and common decency as we live it in the America I know). If we did not feel this way, then we would not make the daily sacrifices we do. Some men and women go into the service (to just serve, some die or some come back wounded souls (we all know them),  while a bunch of us decide to stay home, others volunteer in community while others of us sit on our keisters, you get the idea. Each of us would have been hypocritical in accepting state education, VA benefits, or Medicare and believe that there is something wrong with the notion of the so-called common wealth. We give and we take. To get there our government instituted a progressive income tax. It has been in existence for almost 100 years (I am told Teddy Roosevelt initiated it). When Bush cut taxes for the high-income earners a few years ago we began to veer off in another direction. According to Obama he intends to right the ship (making an approximately 4% adjustment to increase taxes for those making over $250,000). Some of you may disagree, that’s cool, but here is where I am coming from.

The debate between presidential candidates is between tax contributions weighed in favor of the wealthy or the less wealthy (under $250,000). My grandfather was a socialist in the European tradition being from Italy in the 19th century, my father was a New Deal labor leader (progressive) and we were all either raised or lived in Bridgeport, under Jasper McCleavy of the Socialist Party governing the city from 1922 to 1952. Not surprising, under these influences, I tend to lean left (a little like religion, once you are what you are its hard to change). Depending how far from center to the right you are, some would say I was too left. Being left, socialist or progressive, I am for social welfare (i.e., Medicare, social security, right for unions to organize, organizing inner cities to vote, have safe housing, for civil rights against wire tapping, Miranda rights, sentencing fairness, civil rights for racial equality, etc.).

I have worked just about 1/2 of the last 50 years in industry (5 in the service), the other half on my own and most of the years in industry for some very wealthy individuals. Although they were good (reasonably honest) men (all men no women), when it came to making money for the company or lining their pockets they exceeded. The one trait that stands out: they were stingy SOBs in the American tradition of Fords, Rockefellers and Edisons. What this means is they paid themselves well, they may have paid a few top execs, they threw money in the direction of a  small number of social causes and in the direction of Congress.  From the mid 80’s on I did not work for one "man" that made less than $1,000,000 per year, in the 90’s one "man" made $65,000,000 and two others I worked for in the 00’s made upwards of $10,000,000. Here is my economic theory. Not one of the men I refer to (president of Farrel, President of Gateway, President of the Hartford, Managing partner of Duane Morris (law firm) spent one day in service of this country, for example, teaching, nursing, public defender, or military service. Two were immigrants (one was actually a WWII German soldier). All these men benefited by a country that through the hard labors, service and sacrifice of the rest of us gave them a platform to considerable wealth. Each of these individuals benefited by a work force that was educated by a system paid for by us, (including my grandparents, my parents); benefited by a standard of living that has been achieved by a work force that raised our standard of living because we paid workers a decent wage (after union leaders such as my father spent entire lives for the cause of labor (strikes, assaults on personal safety) but for which (with the a few exceptions, crooks and national office holders) they received a pay check for eight hours and nothing extra for the hours spent in the union hall); and a society which is rich in personal freedoms gained through a war against slavery that saw 618,000 deaths and another 41 deaths during the 60’s civil rights movement (movement, voting, jobs, education). And, on a more personal level by those that have given their time and in some cases lives in service to the country, many of our relatives serviced in the highest traditions (my son, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, my five uncles (one of whom died of gassing) and four cousins (one died in battle) (and I) all served in the military). To think for one moment that these corporate officers earn the money they do solely from their extraordinary effort, singularly, absent outside social forces, is simply not true. To at least adjust for the inequity, we have a progressive tax system, so those that earn more pay more (if one wants  to use the charged term “redistribution”, “socialism”, so be it!).

So, yes they make good money, but let’s see what taxes they pay (I went to an Internet calculator to do this, this is adjusted gross income for a married couple): $10,000,000, taxes $3,471,575, $1,000,000, taxes $321,575; 250,000, taxes $61,229;  $100,000, taxes $17,688; $50,000, taxes $6,698, taxes; $25,000, taxes $2,948. To my way of thinking someone making from $250,000 to $10,000,000 still ends up making a fair amount of money each year.

Now, if Obama gets his way taxes will increase 4% for anyone making over $250,000. Therefore, if adjusted gross income is: $10,000,000, taxes $3,591,575; $1,000,000, taxes $334,575; $250,000 taxes $63,629. Anyone making less than $250,000 will see no increase. The adjustments range in the example above from $120,000 down to $2,000. The average salary of a Fortune 500 CEO is over 300 times the average salary of the hourly worker! This is about $3,000 per hour ($6,000,000 per year). Do you think that they can afford it?

Finally, you know it’s real interesting how a bunch of white fat cats just got $700,000,000,000 and no one made a movie of them, no one questions how much the individuals that will benefit by this vast sum of money, some of it my money, earned last year.

Enough said, enjoy the weekend, and remember to vote.