"God Went to Beauty School"

I read a book written by Cynthia Rylant, called "God went to beauty school"... It's a book consists of short poems, telling the reader how if God were living on earth.. The titles were so fascinating, like "God saw a movie" and "God went rollerblading". I liked the last one called "God died". This is it:

Sort of.
It's a long story.
But if you have time...
Okay-
God has been God for so long
even He doesn't have a clue where He came from.
FOr a while He wasn't even sure He was God,
until everything He said or thought or wanted to happen
happened.
That was a big tip-off.
So He didn't remember
where He came from
or why.
He just knew what He could do.
Oh, He wanted to be VERY careful with this.
This could be good.
This could be the biggest thing in the universe.
He just to be a really tip-top God.
Somebody who made no mistakes.
Who didn't show up late for work.
Who competed only against Himself.
He could do this.
He was God.
So He thought about everything
for a really really
really really really
long time.
Then He opened His mouth and said,
"Let There Be Light."
And it was so.
Good, said God.
And after that
no one could stop Him.
He said, "Let There Be"
a billion trillion zillion
times and when He was finished,
there were so many new things,
even He didn't know
what some of them were.
(Like grapefruit spoons.)
But it was all Good.
Really good, said God.

Then who knows what went wrong,
but one morning God woke up
and His right-hand angel
at the time (Sheila)
said, "You know those two brothers?
One just killed the other."
God could not believe this.
He could not believe this.
(It should be mentioned that this was way before Lucy
relocated to more southern regions.)
God, in fact,
did not even know exactly
what "killed" meant,
until Sheila explained it
very carefully to Him.
Even then, He had
to see for Himself.
And there He saw that boy-Abel was his name-
covered with blood
and not a hint of life in him.
Not a whiff.
God wanted to start all over again,
from scratch.
Make it so nothing in this world
could be "killed."
But Sheila said,
"You can't start over.
You'd have to kill everything to start over."
God hadn't considered this.
God lived purely in the moment
so He wasn't the greatest long-range planner.
But He stopped and thought about
what Sheila said,
and though there were some things
He could probably kill
and feel pretty okay about it
(He wasn't all that attached to the chicken pox virus for example),
there were other things
He could not ever let go.
Sea turtles, for one.
Spiders, for another.
Too beautiful, too beautiful,
He said.

What to do?
Od was like anybody else.
Everything was the first time for Him, too.
He didn't mean to make
what happened between Abel and his brother
happen.
He thought they'd be good buddies.
Like ducks.
Hadn't they learned
anything from ducks?
Apparently not.
God was stricken.
He did not know what to do.
If He left things as they were,
there was bound to be
more killing.
Could He bear this?
God's blood was love.
His bones were love.
His eyes, His heart,
His kidneys were love.
He didn't know
what He's done wrong
that caused a thing-the other brother-
to be born
without love.
A thing
that came from Him.
He asked Sheila
what she thought
He should do,
now that killing
was a part of things.
And Sheila said, "Die."
Just like that.
Sheila had always been
a very smart girl.

So the story goes
that God took on
the blood, the bones,
the eyes, the heart,
the kidneys of a man.
And He made real friends.
And He loved a real family.
And He prayed real prayers.
He didn't go unnoticed.
Ever after, religions were made
that insisted that God
had been this guy or that guy
or the other.
But one thing happened
for sure.
God died.
No one knows precisely how.
But sure enough,
He did it.
Because it was the
only way He could
find out what it is
to love
a drink of water,
sleep,
a warm coat,
a mother,
a father,
morning,
evening,
a really good joke.
And pain.
God saw so much pain
and He was sorry for it.
He didn't know it would
happen quite that way,
but He finally saw
how pain caused
one of two things;
A reverence for life.
Or killing.
Both grew from the same seed.
The one that He had planted.
So God went back to being God,
finally comfortable
with being called
All-Knowing
because now
He actually was.
And after that,
He made sure
He ate popcorn and
watched a movie
every Friday night.
Petted the cats.
Fed the birds.
And played the jukebox.
God needed to remember
what a cool thing
it was to be a guy.
Or a girl.
An eagle.
To be life.
God went to beauty school.
He went there to learn how
to give a good perm.
But what He was really there for
was the hands.


The book gives a very unique side of viewing God, but it's so beautiful. I hope the poem could give you as much blessings as it did to me.

God bless!! :)

QotW4: Better to Give than to Receive?

In few years back, McLuhan prophesied (Whittenburg, 1999) that electronic media would retribalize the human race, as people could easily get connected to others in the different part of the world, best described in a term called global village.

Now we aware that we are living in two different worlds, the real world, and another one called cyberspace, which is the fulfillment of McLuhan's prophecy.

In cyberspace, people are engaged in economic activities as well in the real world. There are lots of site which allow them to buy things online. However, there are also much economic activities which do not need any money, but as valuable as if they spent their money on it. It's the gift economy, something that people share public good on the Internet to numbers of recipient for free (Rheingold, 1993). Recipients do not feel too-obligated as if they receive a gift in a real world. However, they can “pay back” by sharing other public goods in the future. Quid-pro-quo (latin terms for 'a favor for a favor') does not certainly fit this kind of economy, as people do not have to pay back immediately.

“... What a miracle, then, that you receive not one thing in value in exchange - indeed there is no explicit act of exchange at all - but millions of unique goods made by others!" (Ghosh, 1998)

There are two characteristics which make public goods different from 'ordinary' goods. First, the value keeps the same regardless of how many people have consumed the good, which is called indivisible. The second characteristic is non-excludable, everybody has the same chance to benefit from the good. These two characteristics are the the main reason of why people nowadays like to access public goods more than the 'usual' good. For example, rather than going to a reparation centre, people find solutions of how to repair a computer at home by asking questions in a computer engineer forum. Further details will be given in the later paragraph.

Knowing that recipients do not have to pay anything for the thing that they accessed to, some people use it greedily. They just receive public goods without any contribution of sharing anything. This issue may lead to social dilemma – individually reasonable behavior (gathering but not offering information) leads to collective disaster (Kollock, 1999). If more and more people were tempted to be greedy, there would be less people who want to share public goods on the Internet. Thus, the benefit of having a gift economy would no more be enjoyed by the rest of the users.

Forum is the most commonly-used of a gift economy. In a forum, people with the same interests usually share public goods (information, file, etc.) within their community. One forum that I am involved in is Lowyat.net, which was introduced to me by my elder brother.

Lowyat.net (http://www.lowyat.net/v2/) is a forum created by so-called "Malaysian tech enthusiasts". Named after Malaysia's largest IT shopping centre Lowyat Plaza (KL), lowyat.net has a forum populated by more than a thousand users. Some of them are regular users who has reached thousands of posts while the other are occasional users who come and go as they need it.

Being dubbed as "tech forum" doesn't makes lowyat.net solely hosts topic regarding computer and technology which often being associated with guys. It has some other forums with range of topics from female matters to soccer and from love matter to jokes. No pornographic images or story is allowed though.

One of the most popular forum inside is the technical support where users who has problem with their computer can post their problem and see if there's any other users who could help them. Sometimes the help given could worth a few hundred Ringgit Malaysia if the problem is brought to the service center. Yet, inside the forum the troubled users can get it for free if only they are willing to wait for some time.

In conclusion, a gift economy is a REAL gift for us who live in the global village. Let's be responsible to maintain its existence. We might be familiar with what the elders said, “It's better to give than to receive.” In order to maintain economy, let's say, “It's okay to receive, but don't forget to give.”

References

Ghosh, R. A. (1998). Cooking Pot Markets: an Economic Model for the Trade in Free Goods and Services on the Internet. First Monday, 3 (3), Retrieved February 8, 2007, from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_3/ghosh/index.html

Kollock, P. (1999). The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Retrieved February 6, 2007 from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm

Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.
New York: Addison-Wesley.

Whittenburg, S. (1999). The Electronic Age: The Global Village. Retrieved February 8, 2007, from Technological Determinism of Marshall Mcluhan Web site: http://www.usm.maine.edu/com/techdet/sld013.htm

www.lowyat.net/v2/

QotW3: File-sharing Era

Introduction

Even though copyright has existed in few decades back, the importance of it just came to the surface since the beginning era of file-sharing through the Internet.

What is copyright?

Copyright is meant to give creators exclusive rights to their creations. However, it is only applicable for tangible creations (Ovalle, 2005). It means, no idea can be copyrighted. There are few exemptions of how copyright can be applied. Private use and education purpose are examples of how people can use things without no worry of being sued because of the copyright issue.

The Phenomenon

In the late 90s, there was a big phenomenon of a case which is said as against the law of copyright. Remember Napster, a file-sharing software which was brought to the Internet by Shawn Fanning in June 1, 1999. It allowed people to share their file within all Napster users, using the system of P2P (peer to peer). It means people can download from many sources rather than just one. Downloading became faster, easier, and the most important that it was free. Everybody started using Napster just in few weeks after it was launched.

Despite its popularity among its users, artists and creators did not happy about its existance. In the year 2000, a band called Metallica sent a lawsuit to Napster regarding of copyright issue. Their demo song, 'I Dissapear', had been circulating among Napster users before they actually released it to the public. And the worst thing was that it was also played in several radio stations. After the band Metallica, Napster also being sued by several artists. Finally in July 2001, Napster shut down its network regardless of the disappoinment of its users.

Questions!

How often do we see pirated CDs, DVDs, or any pirated goods being sold for the public? Do we own one of them? Are you one of them who prefer buying pirated goods rather than the original?? How much do you value copyright?

Copyright Issue in Our Society

I found a lot of cases where people burn CDs and sell it for the sake of their own. In my point of view, this is certainly against the law of copyright. It is stated that no commercial use can be used for copying things which are copyrighted. As we can see in its "fair use" exemption, we can use it for private use. So, how about downloading songs from limewire, a look-like-napster software which is available now?

People are still debating about this copyright issue. Some of them think that it is useless since people can still get access to it. And the fact is that original things cost a lot! Creators themselves still think that if their customers value copyright by not buying pirated goods, they also gain benefits by giving creators a chance to express their creativeness in the future creations. I do think that creators need copyright, but i also think that even though there are many people out there buy pirated goods, the fact is that the creators still producing some creations. So, what can we do now?

Solution

The only way I can think about it to let creators discussed this issue to the "download server" like limewire or something like that. They can use this medium as the way they advertise their creations. Maybe not the access to download all songs, just one or two. So it's like the teaser for people to buy the original CD. In this way, both sides can gain benefit.

References:

Copyright. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2.24, February 3, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org

Napster. In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10.37, February 3, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org

Ovalle, Carlos. (2005). “An Introduction to Copyright". Retrieved on February 2, 2007
from http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/%7Ei312co/1.php