Zaun, Raecker keep public informed

Rights Boy’s good friend Mike Burgher opined about his State Senator and Representative recently in the Urbandale Community Register. 100% of the reader comments support his opinion.

You can find his edited letter, along with comments from other readers, here.

The unedited opinion follows.

I would like to thank Senator Brad Zaun and Representative Scott Raecker for keeping their constituency so well-informed on the Iowa Legislature. Quite frequently, the Urbandale Community Register includes articles by Zaun and Raecker that discuss the important issues. They are always concise, intelligent and well thought out. They discuss both sides of the issues, and make very clear what Zaun's or Raecker's position is and why.

It’s so much better than receiving a glossy brochure from a Congressman that you never met, parroting phrases that you have heard a hundred times. If you would believe what is written by Congressman Boswell’s handlers, he’s already ended the war, stopped global warming and made it just a perfect place for everybody.

Thank you, Brad and Scott. I don’t always agree with your positions, but I respect them, and each time I read your articles it reminds me of why I proudly voted for both of you.

Now will one of you please consider running for Governor?

I remember 1969

I remember 1969.

I was a senior at North high school and looking forward to going to Drake University after graduation. We didn’t have any money, but my mother had taken a job at Drake so I could go to college. It was the greatest job benefit in the world; if you had a parent employed at Drake, you got to go there tuition-free.

The San Francisco ‘Summer of Love’ had occurred a couple years earlier, and every kid in Iowa wanted some of that. There were rumors about a big music festival coming to Woodstock, New York and we were all packing our bags getting ready to hitch-hike to the east coast. Rolling Stone was the hot new magazine and we talked about living in communes, growing our own food and saving Mother Earth.

The Viet Nam War was raging on endlessly and anti-war protests were everywhere. Minds were still stinging from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Nixon was in the throes of his paranoia; he hated war-protesters, and invented the ‘War on Drugs’ to deflect public opinion away from his bad habit of erasing White House tapes. John and Mary Beth Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt started to wear black arm bands to school. That infuriated the Des Moines school administration and the kids were suspended. The U.S. Supreme Court soon gave the school administrators a lesson on the First Amendment and the meaning of free speech.

Women were burning their bras and men were burning their draft cards. My generation was rejecting everything and just having a tantrum and a screaming fit against American society.

Then seemingly from out of nowhere came the Drake University basketball team, tromping on everybody in the Missouri Valley Conference and almost every team in the NCAA Tournament. They made it to the Final Four that year, barely losing to UCLA by three points in a semi-final game. While they lost, they completely shut down legendary player Lew Alcindor, now Kareem Abdul-Jabber. Purdue beat North Carolina in the other semi-final and then Drake clobbered Carolina by 20 points in the consolation game to finish third. We couldn’t say we were number one, but we always felt that we were number one and one-half.

That team had some great ones - Al Williams, Dolph Pulliam, Willie McCarter, Don Draper, Gary Zeller, Willie Wise, Garry Odom, Rick Wanamaker and Ron Gwin. They were so fast and so much fun and exciting to watch! Coach Maury John was the very definition of basketball defense; it became known as the ‘belly-button’ defense. Several of the players were drafted by the NBA and McCarter and Wise went on to great careers. Dolph Pulliam is still a local hero after all these years, calling the Drake games and wearing that now famous blue leather jacket. The Drake program remained great for several years.

Many people attribute the demise of Drake basketball to the departure of Coach John, who left for Iowa State to coach his son John John. The Drake team had its last NCAA top-25 ranking 33 years ago, always lost to the Iowa state schools, and was a perpetual cellar-dweller in the MVC.


But this year was payback time. Drake beat down every Iowa team and every team in the MVC. After being picked to finish ninth out of ten teams, they won the MVC Conference and the Tournament. They had a 21-game winning streak, and set more records and firsts than any basketball team in Drake history.

These kids play with such skill and heart. And they are smart too! You don’t get to play sports at Drake and act like a bozo in the classroom. The combined GPA of the Drake team is one of the highest in the nation. Drake has higher ethical and academic standards for sports participation than most schools, and others would do well to emulate the Bulldogs in this area.

Dr. Tom Davis set this program back on a path to its old winning ways. Now Keno has taken it to new heights, named MVC Coach of the year in his first season, with a good shot to be the national NCAA Coach of the Year. I just loved watching Dr. Tom sitting in the stands this year, beaming with pride for his son and this team.

I never thought I’d see anything like this again in my life.

The Bulldogd lost in their first game in the NCAA tournament. A typical Drake game, they were down by 16 points in the second half, came back to force overtime, and lost by a devistating basket at the buzzer.


No matter what, this team has made all of us proud: Des Moines, the state of Iowa, and the whole Drake Nation. Here we go, Bulldogs, here we go!

Life, Liberty & Intellectual Property apparently Forever!

It’s no secret that Rights Boy believes in strong property rights. A recent opinion by his good friend Mike Burgher in the Des Moines Register drew a lot of discussion by online readers. You can read that article here:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080306/OPINION04/803060354

There is clearly a huge misunderstanding by a few people on real property rights in America, the concept of Eminent Domain, and what ownership means. One young reader went so far as to proclaim, “The government owns all the land, it ‘grants’ who can occupy it, and it can take it ‘back’ whenever and for whatever purpose is deemed necessary.”

That idea isn’t capitalism or even socialism; it is a clear, succinct definition of Communism. It makes Rights Boy just shake his head, beat it against the wall, and wonder what kind of drivel is being taught in civics class today. John Locke, who coined the phrase “life, liberty and property,” would have pulled out his sword and poked our young reader pretty hard. Fortunately, many people do understand, and did poke him with their comments, some not very politely.


But today, Rights Boy wants to talk about intellectual property – who owns an idea, a concept, a process or a song. There is a huge difference between real property and intellectual property. But due to an ongoing campaign - by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA,) book publishers, and the major movie studios in Hollywood (MPAA,) particularly Disney - this is also misunderstood by many people.

America’s Founders drew a clear distinction between real property and intellectual property. Real property was owned and could only be taken away through Eminent Domain. Intellectual property included no such protection. If someone came up with a good idea, he or she was granted a short time period to exclusively use, control and copy the idea. This is the definition of copyright. The person with the idea got a head start to make some money and profit from his or her concept and the intention was to spur on capitalism. After that short period, ideas went into the ‘public domain,’ after which anyone could use, copy or modify it however he or she wished.

The original period set by the founders was 14 years; 28 years in some limited cases. Today, copyright is granted for over 100 years, due to a lobbying effort and some large contributions from the RIAA to the back pocket of selected U.S. legislators. The length of a copyright has been increased over 20 times in the last 30 years. It is virtually perpetual now and soon nothing will ever again go into the public domain.

The RIAA has whined and cried for years that it has lost market share because its customers ‘steal’ the product. It has managed to convince its customers and the courts that theft of real property and copyright infringement is the same thing. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA,) originally intended to punish satellite dish customers from decrypting copyrighted broadcast material, has been abused and turned upside down onto its head.

The RIAA and MPAA have become nothing more than a litigation machine, lashing out and harassing and bullying their own customer base. Disney sends out thugs to daycare centers that have a hand-drawn picture of Mickey Mouse on the wall, threatening to sue somebody if it’s not removed or painted over. The Girl Scouts of America are harassed when a child dances the Macarena. Cab drivers can no longer play the radio because, God forbid, someone in the back seat will hear the music and not pay the RIAA a fee.

Today, the RIAA’s position is that one can be sued to the tune of several hundreds of thousands of dollars for taking music YOU OWN and simply copying it to your MP3 player or computer. It always settles for $3,000 to ‘teach us a lesson.’ It doesn’t want things to go to court because it becomes publically obvious how many innocent people get caught up in its John Doe, shot gun style of litigation.

The RIAA likens a CD to a piece of Waterford Chrystal, and has no respect for making a backup copy or any fair use. If your CD breaks, too bad; buy another one. The RIAA has kicked and screamed with every advancement of technology. It would prefer that you purchase the exact same music over and over; first on a vinyl record, then on eight-track, then on cassette, then on a CD. And now you get to pay to download a digital version of a song that you already own and paid for several times; complete with embedded ‘digital rights management’ that restricts what you can do with it.

Isn’t it sort of odd that the companies that make MP-3 players are the same ones that want to sue you for loading your music onto them?

The RIAA doesn’t discriminate who it rips-off. It takes advantage of the artists that turn over their copyrights to the industry as well as the customers that attempt to listen to the music.

The artist once known as “Prince” - then renamed an unpronounceable androgynous symbol, then “the artist formerly known as Prince,” and now “Prince” once again - in the midst of his identity crisis, puts it well. When he was part of the RIAA, his records had to go platinum before he saw a dime. Now that he is independent, his breakeven point is about 1,500 CDs and he starts making some money much earlier. This is as it should be. The RIAA adds very little value anymore.

Back in the day, when everyone listened to analog radio, the RIAA paid off radio stations with cash and drugs to influence the playlists. Now it punishes and sues those radio stations for playing the same music and not paying homage to the industry association.
As vinyl records became popular, there were often two outstanding songs on the record and the rest were crap. There was no way to sample music and simply purchase the cuts that you liked. Eventually, along comes Steve Jobs who negotiated with the RIAA to allow purchase and download of individual songs. But what a price! A $1.49 for a song is outrageous! Rights Boy believes in the free market and all, but there is NO competition in the record industry and they have us all by the gonads. It’s no wonder that kids download music and don’t care if it’s legal or not.

So what can you do about it?

Rights Boys does NOT encourage anyone to download copyrighted material that that you don’t already own on a CD or DVD. That is clearly illegal. There is no anonymity on the Internet anymore and you will eventually get caught and pay the consequences. Is it really worth the risk of paying $3,000 to listen to Madonna sing about being a Material Girl?

Don’t support the Record Industry by buying CDs with the RIAA symbol. Buy CDs from independent labels. Go to local concerts and buy CDs directly from the artists.

Rights Boy will never buy a CD again, nor purchase a song from iTunes. In his opinion, all the good music ended in the late 1970s anyway, when the disco era got us all bumping and grinding and shaking our grove thing.

Rights Boy has amassed a modest collection of music over the years, and a good friend left his CD collection at the Fortress of Rightitude while he’s taking a sabbatical on the west coast.

Guess what Rights Boy is doing with all that music? ;-)

He bought the fattest hard drive he could find and has spent the last three years ripping all of it to the drive. He has more unrestricted MP3 music than he can possibly listen to for the rest of time. Life is good. …And the RIAA sucks. …Someday it will be looked upon like a dinosaur hit by the meteor.

Until that day comes, just remember that a string of 1s and 0s has greater property rights protection than your own backyard. It is a crazy mixed up world…



What do think about the RIAA? Vote on the survey to the right, send me an email, or click on the little underlined comment thingy below.

AT&T. Your World. Delivered. …to the NSA.

The Democratic Congress finally had the gumption to stand up to President Bush on one of his pet projects; reading your emails and listening in on your phone conversations.

Well, a little gumption anyway. The President wanted complete amnesty for telecom companies for illegally delivering your private data to the White House. He’s been ranting about this for weeks; that we’re tying his hands on fighting terrorists if he can’t read your emails. Congress refused to comply with the amnesty, but then gave in somewhat. They are waffling on granting immunity, but will allow innocent people to defend themselves with classified data that the government already illegally collected.

Whoopee! But, I still smell a veto coming.

Does anyone even care about privacy laws anymore? Do you care that, yet once again, the Decider ignores a long-standing law? The privacy laws in the 1930’s were put into place precisely for this reason; to prevent a knee-jerk reaction and excuse by the government to invade your private communications.

And don’t think they just look at call records ‘if one party is outside the United States.’ Without actually listening to the conversation, it’s impossible to determine the origination and termination points based on phone numbers. So you’ve got to scan them all.

It’s a documented fact that the government has installed a server farm with a fiber-optic cable at the large AT&T installation in San Francisco. All calls, emails and text messages going over the Internet can be diverted, and perused later by the NSA.

I’ve no doubt that Dick Cheney is thinking about Rights Boy right now, what to do about his spilling the beans; disclosing national security secrets and all that.

You can read the report on the recent Congressional action at:
http://saveaccess.org/node/1865

As well as the position of Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the few friends you have left on this issue, at:
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/03/11

You can read about the government installation at AT&T at:
http://www.eff.org/cases/hepting

We are all about two steps away from getting water-boarded for keeping a secret.

What a Duffus!

The idiots are running the asylum, and we hardly ever notice.

Elliot Spitzer has proven once and for all that there are an endless number of dolts on both sides of the aisle.

Is there anything more hypocritical than prosecuting prostitution rings, then getting caught up in the same scheme?

Some people are already excusing his actions, victimless crime and all that. But he is Governor of New York and a former Attorney General, and he happened to break several federal laws.

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And then trying to launder money through a bank? Even Rights Boy knows not to move his vast wealth around the banks, because somebody’s going to notice.

Oh well, Spitzer will join a long list of mug shots of corrupt government officials. Maybe he can share a jail cell with Larry Craig, Brad Olson, Mona Cunningham, Brian Gilbert and Archie Brooks. Oh, yea, that’s right. Brian walked and Archie is on his way.

Aren't we supposed to hold government officials to a higher standard?

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Yea, I know; Rights Boy must live in a dream world.

Sex Hormones in the Drinking Water!

An AP report this morning talked about the all the medicines found in our drinking water, including sex hormones. You can read it at http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080310/D8VAJB480.html

I wondered what was happening to me, chasing the Rights Wife around all the time. And I'm not talking about one of your incredible shrinking rights here!

Well, I say, 'Bring it On!' Put sex hormones in the water like flouride! Might keep some of us away from the keyboard occasionally.

Friday Funnies

To heck with the Drake Bulldogs! Let’s talk about the true heroes today.

The pale-face four of the CIETC scandal managed to get their trial moved to Davenport, trying to get far enough away to find a jury that won’t convict then.

I don’t think it will work. I still have faith in Iowans that we’ll eventually throw these crooks in jail and throw away the key. Come on, where are the smiles in that picture?

And where is Archie Brooks? After receiving all those sexual favors from Mona, and writing all those check, he’s going to walk. He’s turning State’s evidence and squealing like a pig. But he’s not a pig. He’s a weasel.

Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales seem to be in a race to be the highest-paid speaker after leaving this administration. Rove gets $40,000 for each engagement. Gonzales gets $30,000.


I’ve got to give it to ol’ Karl. He has a mind like Darth Vader and is smarter than most people in Congress or the White House. Rove is going to speaking in Iowa City soon, and I understand that there is quite a welcome planned. Watch for fireworks.

But Alberto Gonzales? He made John Ashcroft look like a man of the people. And John Ashcroft made Janet Reno look like a man of the people. Literally. But Alberto Gonzales was a complete disaster. He never understood anything about the law, he was a crappy manager, never took responsibility for anything, blamed everyone else for his ignorance and missteps, and made a nice lap dog for the President.


And that brings me to the Man!

I’m really starting to warm up to President Bush in his last year in office. He has lightened up, and seems to be looking forward to retirement. He’s making jokes daily. Like he’s never heard that gas is headed to $4 per gallon. That’s funny! I think he is counting the days just like the rest of us.

And I really love it when he shakes his groove thing!

What do you think? Leave me a comment and let me know YOUR opinion. And click on a …bla, bla, bla.

Have a great weekend everybody! Root for the Bulldogs when they take on Indiana State today at noon in the MVC tournament.

Keep Private Property Private

Rights Boy’s good friend Mike Burgher opined about Eminent Domain in this morning’s Des Moines Register. I don’t think he likes the concept very much!

You can find his edited letter, along with comments from other readers, here.

The unedited opinion follows.

The recent report ‘Eminent domain bills take aim at loopholes' demonstrates that the Iowa Legislature can, in fact, work on important legislation in between trying to solve non-issues in the state.

The Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London should have sent shivers down the spines of all property owners. Private property is not something loaned to you by the government until it decides to take it back and give it to someone else. It is a fundamental right in America; private property is the foundation upon which many other rights are built and justified.

There is simply no excuse for government to condemn a taxpayer’s private property and turn it over to their favorite real estate developer or lobbyist to build a lake or river front shopping center.

And take note, Des Moines City Council, it's also no excuse to lean on a property owner in the East Village because you don't like the color of his building.

Way to go Legislature! Tighten up the loopholes. You got this one right!

A Personal Tribute

Today, Rights Boy wants to talk about men’s college basketball; specifically the Drake University Bulldogs.

Every once in a while something takes Right Boy’s mind away from watchin’ out for you, and makes him just sit back and marvel at an amazing, uplifting story. This year, the Bulldogs are such a story. They have had the greatest basketball season in Rights Boy’s adult life. They have won the Missouri Valley Conference for the first time since 1971; after being picked in the pre-season by so-called experts to finish ninth out of ten teams. They won it all!

With a conference record of 15-3, an overall record of 25-4, a win streak of 21 games, and ranked in the NCAA top 25 for the first time in 33 years, they were simply a pleasure to watch.

At the end of the last conference game against Wichita State, the three seniors were recognized for their outstanding contribution to the team.

Leonard Houston, whose father is in prison, was an inspirational story: overcame all odds against him, became an A student as a high school senior, sat on the bench at Drake for three season, and just exploded this year. You can read a great story on Houston at:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080301/SPORTS020403/803010324/1097

Klayton Korver, from Pella, IA, has been a star on the team for four years and was second in 3-pointers, behind Josh Young. As part of ‘Iowa’s First Family of Basketball,’ Klayton is destined to follow his older brother, Kyle, to the NBA.

Adam Emmenecker, a walk-on (!) led the MVC conference in assists, was the NCAA Academic All-American Player of the Year, and has a good shot to be the MVC Player of the Year. He carries a 3.97 GPA and has four majors! That dude is going to walk into any Fortune 500 company he chooses.

Drake University does NOT mess around with academics; you can’t play sports at Drake and be a bozo in the classroom. The collective GPA of this team is one of the highest in the nation.

Finally, what can you say about Keno Davis? Wins it all in his first coaching season! He is a shoo-in to be the MVC Coach of the Year and has a good shot at the NCAA National Coach of the Year. The genes must run strong in the Davis Family! Dr. Tom turned the team over to son Keno this year, after coaching Drake last year to its first winning season since 1986. It was so great to watch Dr. Tom in the stands this year, just beaming with pride about the team and son Keno.

No matter what happens in the MVC tournament or the NCAA tournament, Drake has had the greatest basketball season since Rights Boy attended, way back in the day. Never thought I’d see it again in my lifetime.

The Rights Wife, not exactly a rabid sports fan, really got into it this year too!

Go Bulldogs! You have made the Drake Nation so proud once again!

Update: Today, Adam Emmenecker was named MVC Player of the Year, joining the likes of Larry Bird and Xavier McDaniel. Emmenecker received 25 out of 40 first-place votes.

On Thursday, Keno Davis was named the MVC Coach of the Year.