Plate o' Shrimp

What's so funny about the WGA strike

In a world full of big problems, like a president who again seems to be beating the drums for a new war while the media seems more intent of the race to replace him the television writers strike perhaps seems like not so much of a big deal. But speaking as someone who is getting close to concluding yet another expatriate experience I feel especially well equipped share the brave new world I have seen. I get almost all my media via the internet. I read the NY times online, download the daily show and tv dramas on itunes and listen to NPR on podcasts, and I do it all on my schedule, not a a schedule predetermined by a radio or tv station. I can’t imagine going back to broadcast. Why that is important is what is really at the heart of this strike as I understand it, that writers get paid for any profit made from web content. And I firmly believe that the folks who write all those tv shows I have been watching on my laptop should be fairly compensated.
TV may not seem that important, but speaking as an unrepentant do-gooder, I will tell you that TV is part of the picture that has helped me stay sane and happy, so I can face the rigors of medical school at the young age of 43, persevere and go on to do good. So 5 years from now, when I am that really cool doctor who you can’t find in the office because I have run off to somewhere in Africa on some infectious disease project or I am in Peru working on nosocomial TB transmission, good TV writing will have been part of what got me there. And you would no doubt find me curled up in the evening with downloaded episodes of the Daily Show and whatever Joss Whedon has decided to put on the air

Here is a link to a website in support of the WGA writers--- there you will find links to petitions, addresses to send postcards to etc..

http://www.fans4writers.com/promote.shtml

For a funny and erudite look at the strike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind and second generation Hollywood scribe Joss Whedon click here:

http://whedonesque.com/comments/14650/

To think some deep thinky type thoughts about the nature of writing, free speech, and how as a nation we seem to be blithely stripping ourselves and others of their civil liberties read this:

NY times - Guantanamo by the numbers

And now in honor of the real work that writers do, I will give the keyboard a rest...

posted by Sa @ 8:11 AM