Today, Tampa Bay is not as kind as it was. It is not as gracious. It is not as decent. The best of us has been taken way. Lee Roy Selmon, a legend of a man with the demeanor of a common man, has died. All of the lives he touched, all of the people he enriched, mourn his passing. It is too sad for words, and it is too soon for reason. As a community, Tampa Bay was not yet done with Lee Roy. We needed to hear his soft voice, and to be comforted by his immense presence, for a while longer. He was only 56, and we needed to know he was there, and that he made the rest of us better, for years to come. Lee Roy is gone. A giant has fallen.
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On Sunday, Lee Roy Selmon passed away at the age of 56. Across our country, Mr. Selmon will be remembered as an All-American at the University of Oklahoma and a Hall of Famer from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Here in Tampa Bay, we know better. We know that his unparalleled accomplishments on the football field only partly defined this gentle giant of a man.
He loved Tampa Bay and Tampa Bay loved him back. He touched thousands of us with his generosity and opened so many doors for so many people in his soft-spoken, selfless way. He embodied everything that is positive about the relationship an athlete can have with his community, and he leaves the highest of standards for fellow athletes to follow. Football loses one of its greatest players. We lose a graceful, beautiful man.
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Honor the Lab Whore! Love her! Test her!
Lab Whore Day was recognized by Congress in 1894 as a day for celebrating and promoting lab whores, scientisticalish looking women who can create powerful vacuums with their mouths and other apparatus. Interestingly, American advances in science in the twentieth century can be directly attributed to the recognition and growing use of the lab whore. Not only did lab whores stimulate domestic growth, they also enticed scientists from abroad, such as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and others, to abandon their possessions and families in their rush to get to the United States.
The Official Lab Whore of Lab Whore Day 2008, Miss Kari Byron
The Urkobold has just learned that it is a breach of fashion protocol for lab whores to wear white labcoats with nothing underneath after Lab Whore Day. Colored labcoats with nothing underneath are okay until Mammorial Day, apparently. Being sartorially challenged, the Urkobold was unaware of this fact and has decided to share it with the world, to prevent unfortunate and embarrassing fashion snafus. Be forewarned!
My name is George Lucas. I am a writer, director, and producer of motion pictures and Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., a multi-faceted entertainment corporation.
I am not here today as a writer-director, or as a producer, or as the chairman of a corporation. I've come as a citizen of what I believe to be a great society that is in need of a moral anchor to help define and protect its intellectual and cultural heritage. It is not being protected.
The destruction of our film heritage, which is the focus of concern today, is only the tip of the iceberg. American law does not protect our painters, sculptors, recording artists, authors, or filmmakers from having their lifework distorted, and their reputation ruined. If something is not done now to clearly state the moral rights of artists, current and future technologies will alter, mutilate, and destroy for future generations the subtle human truths and highest human feeling that talented individuals within our society have created.
A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.
People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.
These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.
In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.
There is nothing to stop American films, records, books, and paintings from being sold to a foreign entity or egotistical gangsters and having them change our cultural heritage to suit their personal taste.
I accuse the companies and groups, who say that American law is sufficient, of misleading the Congress and the People for their own economic self-interest.
I accuse the corporations, who oppose the moral rights of the artist, of being dishonest and insensitive to American cultural heritage and of being interested only in their quarterly bottom line, and not in the long-term interest of the Nation.
The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work.
There are those who say American law is sufficient. That's an outrage! It's not sufficient! If it were sufficient, why would I be here? Why would John Houston have been so studiously ignored when he protested the colorization of "The Maltese Falcon?" Why are films cut up and butchered?
Attention should be paid to this question of our soul, and not simply to accounting procedures. Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself.
I hope you have the courage to lead America in acknowledging the importance of American art to the human race, and accord the proper protection for the creators of that art--as it is accorded them in much of the rest of the world communities.
