Continued from Page 7

 

For-Pay MP3s are Still the Best Bet

By Dennis Leong

understand: the casual music fan doesn’t
want the whole CD. The casual music
fan wants the one hit single from that
80’s band so they can put it on at their
house party and everyone can laugh at
the dated music or remember that kiss
in the backseat with Bobby the football
captain back in senior high. This is why
those late night commercials flogging
K-Tel compilations do so well: casual
music fans don’t religiously follow
bands and artists from the start to the end
of their careers. Music is a soundtrack to
their lives and thus a nostalgia factor for
them now. Face it, the record companies
created the casual music fan. They
wanted to spoon-feed us formulaic
radio hits to guarantee a return on their
investment, and it now it has backfired
on them.

The last few generations have
grown up with a steady barrage of
media so it’s not surprising that we’ve
come to create personal relationships
and identify with people who share our
favourite music and television shows.
We were told what to listen to via radio
and physical releases of vinyl singles
and records. Over the years, record
companies have seen their power over
us erode and they have floundered while

we, the consumers, have embraced our
new freedoms. We finally have the clout
where we can have our voices heard
over the rights we have to use the music
we purchase. We are holding up our
mp3 players in solidarity and saying in
unison, “See this? You’re not making it
easy for us to get the music we want so
we're going to get it from someone with
easier access.”

In the end, it’s a matter of the
rights of the copyright owners and the
copyright users. When I purchase a CD,
should I not be purchasing the right to
listen to the song as I see fit? I should
be able to listen to it on my CD player,
play it for my friend, or cut out a snippet
to use as a ring tone on my phone. It’s
what we all want from the music we
love. Why can’t the industry see that
and give us what we want instead of
alienating us and trying to control how
we use the products we buy? They are
only fighting a losing war and in the end
musicians and music fans alike will only
suffer so much before taking things into
their own hands and create a completely
new business model. And that’s the day
when the record giants of old will fall.

Continued from Page 13

January 14, 2008

‘Travel By Bus- A Survival Guide

By Nikalas Kryzanowski

she didn’t last long and things were set
straight again. It goes to show the power
of a single voice where the people are
fewer.

Of course, no road trip is
complete without trauma. While we were
dozing and drifting in serene silence in
the final six hours of our trip, we were
suddenly shaken awake by the bus’s horn,
then felt the brakes slam, and within a
moment absorbed the sickening thud of
something substantial on the business end
of a screaming metal tube. Somewhere
between North Bay and Petawawa is
a family of deer in mourning. Seven of
them had bounded onto the road and the
driver had killed one. On the bright side,
Santa was okay and some men came
along with a pick up truck and took the
poor deer away. In nearby Maniwaki
they feasted that holiday season. There is
always a silver lining. Upon disembarking
in Ottawa, we noticed the front of the bus
was smeared in blood, which we thought
of as a fitting end of this trial by fire—the
first half anyway.

The way back featured just as
much excitement. There was a Wizard of
Oz moment, when one of the bus’s side
windows blew off three hours. outside
of Medicine Hat, exposing everyone to

 

prairie snow squalls and whipping winds.
We also had a bus driver between Calgary
and Kelowna with no sense of direction. It
may have been his first day, and to be fair
his GPS system had stopped functioning,
but he had to call up a passenger to guide
him to the Vernon bus station and then
the Kelowna station.

My keener side came out while
on the open road as my first semester
Canadian Geography textbook came
to life: The Dominion Land Survey, the
CPR, Prairie homesteads! They were
all there! You really can see your dog
run away for three days out there. The
issues that manifest only as the text of a
newspaper seemed to take on a real form.
I couldn’t help but notice the young man
get off the bus at tiny Pic Mobert First
Nations Reserve in Northern Ontario as
he walked past giant signage welcoming
him home, with the subheading informing
that Pic Mobert is a dry community that
takes care of its young.

Would I do it again? Doubtful.
Do I regret it? Heck no! It may be tedious
and it may hurt a lot, but it there are many
ways that travelling by bus enriches and
expands the scope of your experiences;
and isn’t that the reason we’ re here?

 

Continued from Page 8

Plenty of Good Picks in the Republican Crop

By JJ McCullough

which gives him that most sought-after
quality of all—electability.

In the more conventional GOP
mould we have former Tennessee Senator
Fred Thompson and former Arkansas
Governor Mike Huckabee. In contrast to
the Romney-Rudy axis, both Thompson
and Huckabee have tried to market
themselves as the untainted alternative,
consistently conservative even when it
was difficult or untashionable to be so.

Thompson could have been a
great candidate. He is by far the most
adult and mature of any of the other
men in the race, the easiest to imagine
sitting at the presidential desk, and the
most calm and rational in his policy
statements. He holds almost no chance
of actually becoming president, however,
largely because he refuses to play the
Washington game. Having taken a
five-year absence from the Congress to
pursue his successful Hollywood career,
Thompson now carries himself as a man
who is consistently bored and frustrated
by modern politics. Surly in debates and
a lazy campaigner, he has a decidedly
Clintonian air of entitlement about him,
which seems to cancel out his many
other attractive qualities.

Huckabee, for his part, is an
interesting fellow because of the vastly
different way in which he is perceived by
various factions of the political spectrum.
As the most outwardly religious man
in the GOP race, the left has become
predictably hysterical with disgust and
outrage over Huckabee’s piety, raising
the usual rhetoric about the “pending

 

theocracy” that will come with voting
Republican. Yet various sectors of the
Republican far-right, both social and
economic, similarly view Huckabee with
distain and distrust. As a former Baptist
minister, Huckabee seems to actually
take the teachings of Jesus Christ a bit
more seriously than some would prefer.
His pledges to feed and clothe America’s
poor and illegal populations have earned
great contempt from the Ann Coulters of
the world, while his vows to protect the
middle class at the expense of the greedy
rich—whom he does little to hide his
contempt for—have generated ire from
the party’s libertarian-minded corporate
backers.
Amidst the

and controversies of

clashing flaws
these relative

newcomers, it’s possible that Arizona
Senator John McCain may be able emerge
as the surprise consensus candidate of
the Republican Party. Becoming an
establishment choice would be an odd
turn for a man who has spent much of his
political career rejecting the dogma of the
party elites, and proudly celebrates his
controversially bi-partisan approaches
to dealing with issues like campaign
finance reform and immigration.
Though a commitment to
compromise and concession may anger
the hardliner set, McCain’s proven
willingness to “reach across the isle”
has made him exceeding popular with
Democrats (remember that John Kerry
himself once courted him as a possible
running mate) and may thus be able to

 

siphon off some liberal voters who are
unnerved by Barack Obama’s lack of
experience, or Hillary Clinton’s general
Hillary Clintonness.

At the end of the day, the
Republican Party has five remarkably
attractive candidates to pick from, all
of whom are charismatic, thoughtful,
and engaging, as well as_ politically
pragmatic and intellectually savvy. More
than anything else, with the possible
exception of Thompson, the gang are
also extremely strong and disciplined
campaigners, with strong teams, good
staff, and most importantly—a_ strong
desire to win.

It’s fine if Democrats want to
dismiss them, but they do so at their own
peril.

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