Talk about Catch-22s. Our mass media tend to ignore the multibillion-dollar copyright giveaways from the Clinton years and beyond. All too often the excuse is, "No one cares." But how can Americans bristle if they don't know the truth?

A huge transfer of wealth is happening from schools and libraries--and consumers--to the copyright overlords. Could news organizations be wimping out or just clueless? Not that my expectations are so high. I take it for granted that a cable network owned by a megaconglomerate will use a professional copyright zealot like Hilary Rosen as a commentator on the doings and misdoings of her fellow Democrats. Besides CNBC could actually be right to put her on the air. Hollywood does own the Democratic party, so why not go to the source?

The venerable Atlantic, however, one of my favorite magazines, known for its journalistic acumen and integrity, is supposed to give us fair reporting. So why does the September issue have 9,000+ words on Hollywood money and not one bloody mention of copyright or Jack Valenti, the master lobbyist who has so brilliantly marshaled Tinsel Town's millions even if he is an idiot about tech?

In "The Hollywood Campaign," Eric Alterman even goes out of his way to say most of the glamour people are above such grubby concerns as tax breaks and other special favors:

...among the tiny percentage of Americans who do contribute large amounts of money to political campaigns (the number who give a thousand dollars or more to any candidate hovers around one tenth of one percent of the population), Hollywood contributors are almost alone in not trying to buy themselves anything so concrete as a tax break or a watered-down regulation. Although the entertainment industry itself does have corporate PACs, which do the industry's bidding and spread its wealth accordingly, most of the contributions handed out by individual members of the entertainment industry are ideological money that buys them nothing.

Could e-books help close the gender gap between girls and boys in reading abilities? Blackmask's David Moynihan and I have long had this weird notion that schools aren't doing enough to interest boys in books. Well-done public domain editions of, say, Jules Verne's work could help, as could the right modern books--to augment those pushed in the natural scheme of things by female teachers.

Take a look at the Guys Read site and Kim Odoe's column in the Minneapolis Star Tribute, the latter of which says:

There was the boy who walked up to the information desk and asked the librarian what there was to do in the library besides the Internet.

There are the statistics showing that Minnesota boys have an average reading score that's 13 points lower than the girls' marks.

Then there are the well-meaning parents who nonetheless make reading a book sound, to their sons, like a chore, even a punishment.

These are just some of the reasons behind "Guys Read," a program sponsored by the suburban Hennepin County libraries. The idea is to build book groups where guys feel they have more of a say in what they read, and where they also see that reading isn't as boring as they think -- or as wimpy as they fear.

"I find that once kids get into the environment of an all-boys group, they're much more open, much more willing to consider reading," said Ben Trapskin, a librarian at the Southdale Resource Library who leads several guys' groups. He keeps it light. "I think if they see they can have a good time, that we take the subject lightly and can joke around, then kids will start opening up to books."

F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby (1925) often takes honors as the American novel of the 20th century. It's my favorite. But Willa Cather's My Antonia (1918), about rural Nebraskan life in the late 1800s, may be in the same league. In some sections, the Cather novel may even be better in the vividness of its language. On Tuesday, August 24, Antonia will be the topic of a Meting of the Minds chatcast moderated by Tom Peters and sponsored by the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center. (Note: "Meting" is the correct spelling in this case. It's a play on "mete out.")

Later I'll have more on Meting--as well as links to free copies of the book and other goodies. But first here's a continuation of my Gatsby-My Antonia comparison, which I'll offer just as a recreational reader. Far more parallels are evident than merely the shared Midwestern background of Cather and Fitzgerald. Besides, rural Nebraska is not St. Paul, and if you really want to be fussy, Cather didn't move to Nebraska from Virginia until she was four.

Okay: the big issues here. Does anyone else notice the resemblance between Jay Gatsby and Jim Burden, My Antonia's main narrator? "If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away," Fitzgerald writes of Gatsby. "This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the 'creative temperament;—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again."

Now compare this to My Antonia's description of Jim Burden: "As for Jim, no disappointments have been severe enough to chill his naturally romantic and ardent disposition. This disposition, though it often made him seem very funny when he was a boy, has been one of the strongest elements in his success. He loves with a personal passion the great country through which his railway runs and branches. His faith in it and his knowledge of it have played an important part in its development...He never seems to me to grow older. His fresh color and sandy hair and quick-changing blue eyes are those of a young man, and his sympathetic, solicitous interest in women is as youthful as it is Western and American." Ah! Gatsby, too, at least the last part of the description.

On top of that, Cather explicitly compares the romantic Jim Burden to his wife, who's incapable of real enthusiasm about anything. In Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the coolness of Jordan Baker's relationship with Nick Carraway as a contrast with Jay's feelings for Daisy.

Yet another Gatsby-My Antonia parallel is that Jim Burden caught up again with Antonia after years of separation and "renewed a friendship that meant a great deal to him, and out of his busy life...set apart time enough to enjoy that friendship. His mind was full of her that day." No, that isn't the same as a Jay Gatsby relentlessly tracking down Daisy to repeat the past. But it's clear that Antonia is the human embodiment of Jim's passion for something else, the Nebraska of his boyhood.

I won't explore here all the parallels between the two books, but the above is what most strikes me. Got your own opinion about My Antonia in a Gatsby context or any other? Show up at the chatcast and speak up to Tom Peters, who, besides his MLIS, also holds a masters in English. Here's his lowdown on the chatcast, which, though intended for the blind and other print-challenged people, is open to anyone:

(Tuesday, August 24, 2004 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time):

The Meting of the Minds Online Book Discussion Group will be discussing the novel My Antonia by Willa Cather. A lawyer recalls his Nebraska boyhood and the girl who was a strong influence on his life in this novel about pioneering conditions and the assimilation of the immigrant. (RC 13491 and BR 11320) (2 cassettes). For your information, various digital versions of the novel are available at Blackmask.com An online version in HTML format also is available from the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial in Red Cloud, Nebraska. An online scholarly edition is available from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Bill Clinton merrily signed the DMCA and similar joys. The idea was to stop piracy of e-books and the like by among other things banning the circumvention of technical protection. But tell that to the determined in this era of cheap scanners. The latest victim of piracy off p-books? None other than Bubba Himself. An AP story says:

Piracy of books, movies, music and software is rampant in China, despite vows by Beijing to crack down. An explosion in the variety and range of translated books can make it difficult to tell real from fake. But in the case of the many versions of ''My Life'' circulating in China, it's pretty obvious something is amiss.

Right now you can download thousands of public domain classics for free via Blackmask, Project Gutenberg, GutenTalk, manybooks.net, MemoWare, you name it.

But what if Jack Valenti prevails with his dream of near-eternal copyright--perhaps aided by Republican copyright zealots such as Sen. Orrin Hatch, who, for all I know, shares Valenti's 'tude all the way? Would schools have to pay as much as $995 someday for a thin collection of just 250 classics? Could never happen, could it?

Ugh, guess again. Even now, eReader.com wants $995 for its 250-book Classics Collection CD for school use. Will the bargains never stop? Hey, for a mere $1,495, you can buy an awesome 500 titles.

Am I missing something here? I don't exactly see eReader.com adding that much in the way of value. eReader.com says:

Schools receive the Classics Collection CD that can be loaded on the school's server. The eBooks are listed on the school Web site by both title and author, or can be located by using the browser's built-in search function. Users simply click on the selection and download it in less than a minute to any Palm OS handheld device, Windows or Mac computer.

The Classics Collection includes 500 core literature classics that have been optimized for reading with eReader, the free, award- winning eBook application.

In John Kerry's real tech agenda, Declan McCullagh of CNET observes:

A careful review of Kerry's history in the Senate shows that his record on technology is mixed. The Massachusetts Democrat frequently sought to levy intrusive new restrictions on technology businesses that could harm the U.S. economy. He was no friend of privacy and sided with Hollywood over Silicon Valley in the copyright wars.

...this is a non-partisan question. We should be asking both the Bush and Kerry people what their position on INDUCE is, especially as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wants to pass the bill during the current term. Who really cares whether Kerry would veto it if Bush signs it into law? Indeed, if Bush spoke out against it, I highly doubt it would pass anytime soon.

Where would we be without Alev's leads for the TeleRead Web Log--or the accompanying wit?

Last month she returned from a trip to Turkey and mailed me the following note, which I'll type out in case the reproduction below doesn't show up well enough on your screen:

Sorry,

The Turkish carpet I was bringing for you was confiscated at the U.S. Customs!

Oh, well! At least they did not see this bookmark! :-)