i am Ta'fxkz

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Intellectual Property / Pirate This / Creative Commons


Note: Arul sent this (untitled) piece to some friends some time ago. Arul and I have had extended discussions on the nature of ownership and if we, in fact, own anything at all. I hadn’t seen this piece, and am very grateful to Hannah Priya for sharing it. No changes made, except to add a title and make some minor clean-ups. ~ baruk

"Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away." Mathew 21 vs 2 and 3 NIV

I personally love the KJV that says, “The LORD hath need of them”

I have marveled at the audacity of Christ to defy the culture of ownership, but who am I to teach the creator of the universe civics and etiquette. It seems immoral to me to even send somebody out with the instructions to go and untie another person’s ass, and not just to me it seems to break the God given Judeo Christian code of ethics (as some of us would like to insist).  

Why, this instruction to intrude ownership even defies the teachings of Christ if we were to protract the admonition to not commit adultery by thinking it up. Why, it even feels quite immoral to me to impregnate a virgin but I guess the God of creation is an exception, and even in the virgin’s dealings with the God of creation there is the golden consent “Be it done unto me”.

When we (by faith and by grace, I guess) get past the paradox of God acting in foreknowledge and yet being mindful of the person’s choice to NOT render him or her a puppet. We will be less assumptive in our callous infringement of other people’s ownerships. I stand amazed (and slightly bemused) by how we (Christians) take other people’s intellectual property, for granted. 

We wouldn’t drive off another person’s car in the course of our morning walk, just because it was possible to do so and then insist that the car was really in the public domain. Why we could even argue that the raw materials that the car is made up of are in one way or the other extracted from the earth and  say “Who my dear brother’s is the owner of the earth”. But if the (so-called) owner of an idea, deemed his or her idea worth a price, we dare not infringe that person’s right to choose his or her price. 

"And what will you do with the big, big, money? Have you not everything you need? If you need a motor-car, you pluck it from the trees. If you need pretty polly, you take it." said Alexander de Large, the jovial hoodlum rapist, thug and humble protagonist of Stanley Kubrick’s movie A Clockwork Orange. Now Alex was on the side of totally disregarding other people’s ownership - but the film also shows how when he returns from prison, he is hurt and saddened when his own room and personal  belongings and snake were given away, confiscated by the police as compensation for Alex’s victims and not the way he had left them.

Who owns a woman’s body? Does a government have a right to tell her when she can or not have an abortion? Who owns the fetus? Who owns people? Who owns the languages we learn to speak? Who owns land? Who owns emotions especially in this era of emotionally loaded coercive devices of mass persuasion feeding us with the “glass nipple” of TV or the internet or any way to get into human synapse and choices. I take it that all ownership is either borrowed or stolen, like we do not own land but we are actually borrowed from the land for a few heartbeats and breaths of a very very short lifetime.

I am not a theologian - I am an artist, and a poet. I write rock n roll lyrics. This is not my field of expertise - I love the scriptures and obsess with how the word might become flesh in my life, but beyond that there is nothing else that brings me here to share at the table of academicians. There is always an academic and theological tension in my songs, and while I have my healthy respect for theological academia, I also disregard it quite vehemently.

“Poor God eating lonely pie in the sky, Poor God if it walks the plank in my eye” go the lyrics of my song Sympathy for God. I was interestingly accused (I am guessing that the accusation was in jest) by my rock n rolling peers, of plagiarizing The Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil. Which I insist was not the case. 

The song I wrote was releasing a life-long burden of a tense co-existing of theism and atheism. I got the idea to the words “Sympathy for God” when I read a book called Killing Bono by Neil McCormick, a schoolmate of Rock star Bono of U2. Neil was an atheist and Bono was Christian, and the dialog and tensions that transpired between them turned into a song called “I found God”, that when Neil was recording the studio staff referred to as “Sympathy for God”. Yes the studio staff were probably referring to The Rolling Stone’s Sympathy for the Devil, and yes in that way there is the influence of the Rolling Stones, but have I stolen from them- I think not. Recently when I was working on getting it recorded, the back of my mind was working towards a voodoo drumbeat that was probably influenced by The Rolling Stones too. Is there a debt owed to the Rolling Stones, yes and most obviously so, am I plagiarizing the Rolling Stones- no. 

God forbid that there should be a patent on the pentatonic blues scale. It would render even Hendrix a plagiarist. And every one who played the electric Guitar post Hendrix anyway had one debt that he or she owed the most influential guitar God of all time.

“Plagiarize, let no one’s work evade your eyes
Remember why the good LORD made your eyes
So don’t shade your eyes but plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize
Only remember to call it research” sang singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician Tom Lehrer 

“No man is original since Adam”- wait a minute I did not say that, I think it was Emerson. I did not read Emerson, it just popped out of my mind from memory that I had read A W Tozer mention this in the preface of his book The Divine Conquest, and that was something I read 16 years ago. 

Who really owns ideas? Who owns the idea that an idea can be owned? Who owns the idea of ownership? Isn’t ownership just an idea, in the first place? Aren’t ownership deeds simply a proxy validation of the idea that something can be owned? Is the line that separates what is yours from what is mine even a real line or is it an imaginary idea of a line? Is ownership not an idea? I would like to ask- “If ownership is not an idea, who’s idea is it not?”, and I cannot say that is not my idea because I typed it and I do not consciously remember anybody else asking this particular question in this particular way.

My friend Baruk who hails from the north-east tribes of India, tells a story of how locals had no concept of owning land, the land was free to hunt pluck fruits and do whatever they wanted- until people from outside offered them liquor in exchange for land. They thought that the liquor was practically free, until one day they were all evicted. 

In India, when you buy land you only own the surface, anything this is below the land or above the land is for all legal purposes belonging to the government. I do not know how it is elsewhere, but I personally find all ideas of ownership, reasonably silly at one level or another. I am a songwriter. The only thing I call my own, are my songs and even they are not really my own. My gift and craft has behind it scores of others who have walked these roads with nothing to give back but a few words and tunes, rearranged in their minds and within the boundaries of their genre, ability and the culture of their times.

An old uncle who encouraged me down this road has written over 300 songs in Tamil. He has released over 20 albums to date. Many of his songs are popular Christian classics, his name is Ezekiel George for the benefit of those who might be curious. He has always written his songs and sung them freely. He has lived as an artist in penury with 2 mentally unwell children to care for. While the people who market his album built three houses, one each for their three daughters. 

People hear his songs on CDs all over Indian Christendom and yet he has never received a royalties cheque, and he has never asked for one. Is his ownership of his songs limited by the fact that he did not ask, insist or bargain the price of the inner torment that birthed the songs. There is a church, less than a kilometer away from his house outside which you will see recordings of his songs, some sung by him and others sung by others all being sold in compilation albums. He has never even asked them for his fair share. In India, a person’s wife’s jewelry is loaded with cultural symbols. Most of his recordings were made possible because his wife voluntarily sold her jewelry to support her husband’s calling. 

As a young Turk in this turf - I wrote the following song titled Pirate This.

Chorus
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Make copies and give it out generously
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Go ahead treat her like she was yours
You’re welcome to pirate this song
You’re welcome to pirate this song

Rainbows are free and the skies are sunny
I’m sure you think I don’t need no money
Thank you coz you think I am a star
Galaxies apart from where you are

You’ve got to pay for your rental bills
Scrimp and save for occasional frills
You have needs that probably elude me
If you need my music so you can keep it for free


Chorus
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Make copies and give it out generously
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Go on take her home like she was yours
You’re welcome to pirate this song
You’re welcome to pirate this song

Lend me your ears this ain’t no sermonette
What you hear is what you get
Paying for music is a harlot’s cause
My breakfast a bowl of applause

You get to eat out once in a while
Get some friends to party in style
My family and pets live on love and fresh air
Everyone’s wife should have nothing to wear


Chorus
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Make copies and give it out generously
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Go ahead rip her like she was yours
You’re welcome to pirate this song
You’re welcome to pirate this song

Got no conscience - don’t you no fret
You are sure to pirate even that I bet
You’ve no money but you have morality
You wouldn’t rob a bank, you'd only steal IP

Go on pinch the artist’s screw
God who gave the songs will pay the due
You deserve a Grammy for tasteful piracy
A fan like you is an honor to me

Chorus
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Make copies and give it out generously
You’re welcome to pirate this song
Go ahead treat her like she was yours
You’re welcome to pirate this song
You’re welcome to pirate this song


Back when I wrote this I was a young executive working for Microsoft in the prime of my career, and I wrote the lyrics to the above song. I wrote it in the a time when my career was built on an industry that was all about Intellectual Property. I knew nothing, back then about creative commons. The time I wrote it I actually had a dream in which my band and I were taking people to court for doing as the song said and pirating it, needless to say it was a deep seated  conviction about my song expressed in Rock N Roll bravado.

Today as an artist in penury that song opens up a world of different and newer meanings to me, specially the words. 

“Go on pinch the artist’s screw
God who gave the songs will pay the due”

I am still uncomfortable about calling this my song- every line of it comes from someplace else.  Bob Dylan once said “What, good is an applause- you can’t eat it for breakfast” and I stole that line to make it “My breakfast a bowl of applause”. Even this admission is rooted in Tom Lehrer’s satire Lobachevski “I am never forget the day my first book is published. Every chapter I stole from somewhere else. Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.”

Where would we be if the sermon on the mount was held as intellectual property? Let us be reasonable with our fellow men on both sides of this deal. Let us give credit (no pun intended) where it is due, and let us be fair, it is not like we need to be evangelical Christians to have a fairness-ethic. Let us who claim to follow Christ, speak up for the “owner” of the least in our midst, ruthlessly where justice is perverted. 

Who are we to judge if Christ’s disciples really had the legal right to use a coin found in the belly of a fish to pay their taxes? Oh yes the coin and the fish and the sea belong to God (read synonymous with Christ), but let us not forget that the coin did not technically or legally belong to the disciples, just as treasure found under the soil on a plot of land a person may own in India belongs to the government. It cannot be used to pay taxes. We see Christ in scripture, leading his penniless disciples in what was possibly flouting the legal ownership of the coin, because as the Creator Christ obviously knew whose coin it was and should have in all fairness credited it back to the rightful owner. 

Is this a license for us to go and do likewise, in all things that we do not ’technically’ own? I doubt if it is, I commend us to our intelligence and our consciences, to therefore not condemn every borderline violation of ownership when the owner’s expressed permission or choice to give permission is unknown. Saying one thing and doing another to conceal facts of ownership are a grievous offense scripturally, it is theft and hypocrisy. Can we question the Holy Spirit for striking Ananias and Sapphira dead? After all it was their land, and what right did God have to expect it all? Even the Old Testament law required only a tenth of the gains. 

I do not know what it meant back then in the New Testament when it says of the early church that they had all things common." -- Acts Chapter 4, v. 32, and I am trying to find out by questioning everything that I deem “my own”. I am after all NOT my own, I was bought for a price, and I try to live my life (yes I know it sounds ironical, that I call it mine even in this context) in the shadow and the blessing of that “price”. 

I hate to not mention social injustice, and now I think it is time to talk about a soft drink that we are all familiar with. This international soft drink super power has a powerful brand image and an enviable band presence, that sells even in the remotest of villages as long as there is electricity to plug a company sponsored refrigerator. It is not even a healthy drink, it serves empty calories but people prefer it over the contents of a tender coconut, even in places where the tender coconut is grown. This company runs its bottling plant in Plachimada, Kerala. The company uses reportedly extracts 132000 liters of water each day, leaving the villagers with little or no water in their wells and polluting the remaining water with sludge that they said was a fertilizer that would benefit the farmers. Now many years have gone by since it has been proven that the sludge is dangerous pollution rich in lead. 

But now in a letter dated September 29, 2009, the soft drink mogul had questioned the authority of the State government to constitute the high-power committee, which is to suggest compensation to the affected people. The Kerala State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) has said that the solid waste generated from the bottling plant in Palakkad district in Kerala would not come under the purview of hazardous waste. You are free to believe whichever side of the story you want. 

The Government’s side 

The Company’s side 

Or the thirsty people’s side 

What has all this got to do with ownership or the Post-Colonial? Well, post-colonial baggage wrapped in capitalism, is still ruling India with an iron hand, the downtrodden have no voice to ask why their water levels are going down and why their fields are being polluted, because it is after all not “theirs”. Alexander de Large, from Stanley Kubrick’s movie A Clockwork Orange, fought his brothers for proposing a new way of owning a lot of “big big money and a mansize crast” but it seems to me that what he really wanted was a horrorshow control over the brothers. Colonialism went after the colonized with tolchocks much like Alexander de Large did, to his victims, just as it is happening to the people of Plachimada, all because a locally accepted messiah figure decreed that the ass (in this case, water) be untied (in this case polluted and drained).

There are many Christian bands that record and mix their music for the glory of God with pirated software. Why, I can bet that many Christians from India are reading this post on computers installed with pirated software. They are quick to say “I don’t know if it is pirated, I paid for the machine and this is what I got”. It gets funnier when they say “I installed it from the original CD owned by my uncle”. If ignorance was a harmless enough excuse, then I wonder why Jesus prayed on the cross for forgiveness “for they know not what they do”. 

Once I pointed out that in order to install a software legally or illegally there is an “I Agree” button that user has to click on, and I read out the EULA - the end user licensing agreement, which portended quite clearly that the installation in question was not licensed and therefore illegal. The virgin mom of Christ consented to be the mother of God. The owner of the ass consented to let the creator have the ass. If the said owner of a piece of intellectual property has not authorized the specific use of his or her work. it is a violation of the biblical teachings, to intrude the person‘s property no matter how right it feels or how guided or lead you think you are.  The bible says that we will be held accountable for “our” words and choices - as debatable as the ownership (of these words and choices) are, in these days of just going mindlessly with the flow.

I say this knowing that Ownership itself is quite a flimsy claim, and if we claim to believe that God is the owner and that we are God’s servants; it would be helpful that we start reflecting God’s character in our stewardship of this garden of life in the 21st century that we have been called to tend. I conclude with no conclusion, leaving you to make “your” choices and “your” ideas in the context of Ownership in a manner that you will see fit, to one day if necessary stand before the creator who loaned you the opportunity to “own” your thoughts and choices - to see what you made of it. 

Is your god (yes, “your” God is the god you reflect) the land-grabbing God of the old testament that supposedly (per scripture) gave the Israeli army both the command to ethnic cleansing and also the victory in the process, or is your God a more holistic reflection of biblical exegesis set in the context of challenging and yet making sense in a 21st century context?

Friday, October 14, 2011

Gone Porn

Note: Arul "Ta'fxkz" Baliah died on 8th October, 2011. This post (with no associated tags) was found in its unfinished, and unpublished form within his website. From what can be gathered from the draft, this post was typed up on 4th June, 2011 at 1.05 pm. Ta'fxkz had many inimitable, characteristic traits - many of which were abrasive to the candid listener. This post is an example of his often misunderstood attempt to marry the abrasive with the sensible. --- Cousin to Ta'fxkz, Dan.

Yes, I have to hereby declare that I have set my most beautiful songs to sync with pornographic visuals. I have taken this step as an aesthetic and artistic decision and I am proud of it.

Here is my official statement.

  1. Yes sex is beautiful and people look silly fucking - need I really explain what that has to do with my songs?
  2. I feel my songs are the purest form of anything I can ever give back to the universe, much like sex no matter how much something is commercialized there are somethings so beautiful they are almost divine if not reflections of something divine
  3. I think of Porn vs MTV or a Bollywood Movie, and I think porn takes the hypocritical element out, and fucks it good
  4. Ah now the religious nuts- go read your own scripture - every one of you, and if you must ponder on the mysterious parable between sighs and utterances in the visceral grammar of xenoglossy spoken in body language 
  5. Sex is intimate communication releasing passion, love, emotions that are otherwise incommunicable, I think my songs are too

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Friend Sourcing

Note: Arul "Ta'fxkz" Baliah died on 8th October, 2011. This post (including the associated tags) was found in its unfinished, and unpublished form within his website. From what can be gathered from the draft, this post was typed up on 2nd June, 2011 at 3.25 am. Ta'fxkz had many ideas to "get the word out" for his songs; many of them path-breaking and stark raving mad. Friend and family are currently looking at ways to make his music more accessible and available. Meanwhile, this post provides a good idea of his attitude toward his music and how he planned to take its distribution. --- Cousin to Ta'fxkz, Dan.

All songs: All Rights reserved; Used By Permission; International Copyright Secured. (but anybody who sings these songs is a friend of mine) 
Michelle Shocked

 from Derek Sivers 2000 archive of Music Thoughts

Since recording From Another Morning friends have been asking me where they can buy the album. Some have promised to buy it if I put the album up on CD Baby

Now wait a minute, if I put an album on CD Baby and set it to cost 10 USD, I will get paid 6 USD. Now this is a great way to reach people who I would never otherwise be able to reach with my music, but this is no way to treat friends. I would rather tell you that the album is already yours and take way more than that the 10 measly USD as I anyway do, regardless of if you like the album. I appreciate your generosity, and I want it all.

All this is really convoluted speak for what I am really trying to say. I madly love anybody who says s/he wants to buy my album. I love them too much to sell anything to them. I have to just take their money off them and not give them anything in return, ah yes- the songs already belong to them. 

The only person's left to do business with are those who are not my friends already.

I am opening up investment options for friends to make money off my music. I hope you find it easy reading when compared to the reams of arbitrary crap some people click on "i agree" just for a social networking or an email service.
  • Get Physical - sponsor CD/DVD burning and cover printing, in numbers starting from one to a few thousands and give it away or sell it or put it up at local music stores with a couple of promotional posters. The catch is, the songs are already free any money you make is for the effort of getting it physically available. You pick the price and decide how much of your profits you want to share with me.
This option is NOT open to corporations and businesses.

I am open to better ideas than my own, however I am anal about my art and I insist that you need my approval for any changes you make to the cover art/content. 

Alternatively you could just sponsor the physical production expenses and leave me to my army of friends to distribute (sell or give away) it for a negotiable commission/revenue sharing. 

You can invest anything from a hundred to an infinite rupees in this venture, but but let's go easy on the infinite because I am not a fan of increasing the planet's rich resources of e-waste. The use of physical CDs is purely to reach people who are not yet musical digitalphiles where touch and feel is still a vital component of interacting with music; let's keep the physical CD so minimal that they are collector's items, serving antiquarian market needs in the new media era..
  • 1/3rd a CD Baby - 3 friends will be expected to divide the cost 65 USD equally between them, rounding up the impossibility of splitting 65 in 3 equal values of 21.666666666666666666666666666667 USD, to 22 USD each. This expense will put my 5 songs out on several digital and physical distribution channels. There are a lot of chances that these may not sell, but if they do each of the 3 investors get 20% each from any monies I get from CD Baby post taxes and I keep 40%. The 0.999999999999999999999999999999 USD (from the above round off) will be go into a black hole and will remain unaccounted. Now this deal can be boosted with publicity drives like Jango Airtime and plain old word of mouth. I am not considering offering any rewards for spreading the word, I think I do not want to dilute the chances of an engagement being an act of love and nothing else. Those who know me will know that if their activities paid off, I'd be the first off to pay back.
  • Old Recordings Baby - There are some old recordings that kinda want to be out the way they are SingVocation
  • Taxi . Com - 

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Arul "Ta'fxkz" Baliah, 1977 - 2011


Hi visitor,

Arul "Ta'fxkz" Baliah expired in Tiruchy in the evening of 8th October, 2011. He lived a life filled to the brim with his creative talents, his genius song-writing, and the people that he surrounded himself with. This website will continue to be a testament to the awesomeness that was Ta'fxkz. To share in the memories of this great person with his friends and family, please visit www.facebook.com/tafxkz.

Thanks,
Dan (cousin to Ta'fxkz)

Friday, September 23, 2011

Face the Orwellian Boot

When the Orwellian future is already here, and you can either be the boot or the face that gets stomped on; I will face the boot with such pride and conviction that more than the boot print on my face there will be my face print on the boot. Ta'fxkz

Creative Commons License
Face the Orwellian Boot by Ta'fxkz (Arul Baliah) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at tafxkz@gmail.com.

Face Orwellian Boot

Face Orwellian Boot (2)

Zappa TYT Tipper and Al Gore

Hey Cenk and the rest of TYT,

Maybe i do get it from where i am, but here in India, the first time i heard of Al Gore was that he was then married to Tipper Gore who was all out bring in the censorship of music when Al Gore was Vice President (I heard her name in a Frank Zappa song and needed to know who on earth she was)

Here is Dee Snider talking about Al Gore's reaction to his hearing when he suggested that Tipper probably was looking for Sadomasochism  in the lyrics to the song Under The Blade



I am very uncomfortable with TYT in cahoots with this man who supported the censorship of music lyrics. I would love it if you could show him denounce and reject the entire PMRC outfit and it's agenda.

The questions in my mind is, can Current TV laugh at PMRC, the way we think Fox should be able to take Alec Baldwin's jokes about the phone hacking?

Over the years I have my doubts about the numbers on the side of Al Gore's efforts to save the planet and i would love to see him debate Bjørn Lomborg. Make this happen Cenk and i will become a paid member.

Ta'fxkz
http://tafxkz.info

Sent via youtube




Young Turks' Cenk Uygur headed to Current TV

NEW YORK (AP) — Current TV is bringing Cenk Uygur and "The Young Turks" to its prime-time lineup.
Current will work with the Turkish-born Uygur and his team to launch a television version of their online program by year-end, the network announced Tuesday.
The Young Turks, led by Uygur, are a group of progressive journalists and commentators which draw millions of Web viewers and claim to be the Internet's most-watched news show. Like the online original, the new Current version will cover politics, pop culture and lifestyle, and will be produced from Los Angeles.
Current disclosed no details of the deal.
"Cenk has really demonstrated a unique talent for translating complex daily events into a narrative context that reveals deeper meanings and engages his audience," Current chairman Al Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press, "and he has connected, in particular, with a young demographic interested in what's going on in the world."
Uygur's show will precede "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" at 7 p.m. Eastern (2300 GMT) each weeknight. Like Olbermann, Uygur was formerly a presence on cable-news network MSNBC. Olbermann left MSNBC last January and soon afterward joined Current, where "Countdown" resumed in June as the centerpiece of a planned full night of talk programing.
Uygur had held MSNBC's 6 p.m. hour for some months before abruptly exiting the network in July, saying his bosses had told him he was too combative toward the Washington power elite. (The network countered that no effort was made to leash Uygur, and insisted other time slots had been offered him.) Soon afterward, civil rights leader Al Sharpton was named the permanent host of the 6 p.m. slot.
"I have no interest in doing a pro-Establishment show," Uygur said, "and that's not what I'll be doing at Current."
After leaving MSNBC, Uygur had professed to be satisfied with his online home and in no hurry to find a TV outlet.
"I don't have to do something I'm not comfortable with just to be on television," he said after Tuesday's announcement. "But if there is an outlet such as Current TV that lets me do the real show, then of course I was interested."
Gore drew a contrast — and not for the first time — between Current and its rival networks owned by large conglomerates. (MSNBC is controlled by Comcast Corp.)
"We're independent," Gore said, "not just in spirit and in tone, but, more importantly, in reality."
Gore called himself "a big fan" of Uygur's MSNBC show, saying, "He demonstrated that his phenomenal success on the Web translates easily and well into the television format."
Joel Hyatt, Current CEO and (with Gore) the 6-year-old network's co-founder, said adapting an online program for TV "is very much in our DNA. Al and I set out to build a multi-platform media company and to find synergies between the platforms that were additive and not duplicative."
Current President David Bohrman spoke of using "The Young Turks" as a way to develop new connections between online and TV.
"We can do that with Cenk and his passionate followers who are online now," said Bohrman.
He made a distinction between the show Uygur hosted on MSNBC and his upcoming Current program.
"We'll be bringing the Turks as well as Cenk," Bohrman said. "The group, with its free-wheeling dynamic, isn't really the Cenk you saw on MSNBC."
Meanwhile, the network, now available in 60 million households, expects to announce a third nightly program in the near future.
"Ain't no grass growing under our feet," Gore said.
___
Online:
http://www.current.com
http: