Accept Mickey In Your Heart

Today I will compare and contrast Mickey Mouse and Christ.

The main difference between these two, as I see it, is that Mickey Mouse is owned by a corporation, while Christ lives in the public domain.

I'd like to take a moment now to voice my opposition to the ridiculous extensions of copyrights that have been granted to Disney and others. Fifty years after creation is long enough. If you haven't milked enough profit out of your baby after fifty years, tough.

I hear some of you saying, "Why should images like these belong to the public at all? We don't make inheritors of land give it back after some length of time. Why should Mickey be different than the house my Great Grandpa built?"

The difference is Great Grandpa didn't introduce his house to the public and let its architecture and interior decoration become part of the public culture, for financial gain, the way Disney has done with Mickey.

Or did he? In fact, our acts preserving historic landmarks show that if a piece of real estate has been opened to the public and subsequently burned into the public collective consciousness, even without financial gain, there is some agreement that the public is entitled to a degree of control and access. There are historic images too.

That brings me to a pet peeve I have about Christians. Christians proselytize more than just about all other religions put together by a factor of ten or so. I have had pamphlets about how much Jesus loves me, and how much I need him, and how I'm going to hell if I don't accept Jesus in my heart, shoved in my face on a daily basis, until finally my heart and soul died on a cross of pamphlets, and I rose again on the third day as a digressive smartass.

As a result of all this Jesus is not only in the public domain as a matter of law, but also as a matter of morality.

Whoever whips me, I'm entitled to take their whip away and break it in front of their faces, and they have no right to claim offense. The offense has all been to me.


[Shown: Recently discovered ossuary. Believed to have been made to hold Mickey Mouse's bones, but in fact empty. Thus, evidence that he still lives, if the lingering marketing and the lawsuits hadn't clued you in already.]