Category Archives: Asides

Casting for Recovery

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Met this organization at the NJ Fly-Fishing show in Somerset. Great group with a great purpose. Check them out.

CFR Volunteer Appreciation Video, “Continuum” from Casting for Recovery on Vimeo.

From their site:
Casting for Recovery was founded in 1996 in Manchester, Vermont, the unique brainchild of a breast cancer reconstructive surgeon and a professional fly fisher. It began as a local grassroots group with a big heart and an original national vision, and quickly received endorsements from medical and psycho-social experts for its innovative healing program model while at the same time provoking intense interest by national media.

Casting for Recovery was founded on the principles that the natural world is a healing force and that cancer survivors deserve one weekend — free of charge and free of the stresses from medical treatment, home, or workplace — to experience something new and challenging while enjoying beautiful surroundings within an intimate, safe, and nurturing structure.

Learn More

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Round Valley Fishing will be blacked out on January 18th in opposition of SOPA/PIPA

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As you may or may not know, there are two censorship bills working their way through legislation:

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

What is SOPA?
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R. 3261) is on the surface a bill that attempts to curb online piracy. Sadly, the proposed way it goes about doing this would devastate the online economy and the overall freedom of the web. It would particularly affect sites with heavy user generated content. Sites like Youtube, Reddit, Twitter, and others may cease to exist in their current form if this bill is passed.

What is PIPA?
The Protect IP Act (PIPA, S. 968) is SOPA’s twin in the Senate. Under current DMCA law, if a user uploads a copyrighted movie to sites like Youtube, the site isn’t held accountable so long as they provide a way to report user infringement. The user who uploaded the movie is held accountable for their actions, not the site. PIPA would change that – it would place the blame on the site itself, and would also provide a way for copyright holders to seize the site’s domain in extreme circumstances.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation laid out four excellent points as to why the bills are not only dangerous, but are also not effective for what they are trying to accomplish:

  • The blacklist bills are expensive. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that PIPA alone would cost the taxpayers at least $47 million over 5 years, and could cost the private sector many times more. Those costs would be carried mostly by the tech industry, hampering growth and innovation.
  • The blacklist bills silence legitimate speech. Rightsholders, ISPs, or the government could shut down sites with accusations of infringement, and without real due process.
  • The blacklist bills are bad for the architecture of the Internet. But don’t take our word for it: see the open letters that dozens of the Internet’s concerned creators have submitted to Congress about the impact the bills would have on the security of the web.
  • The blacklist bills won’t stop online piracy. The tools these bills would grant rightsholders are like chainsaws in an operating room: they do a lot of damage, and they aren’t very effective in the first place. The filtering methods might dissuade casual users, but they would be trivial for dedicated and technically savvy users to circumvent.

If the bills pass, I’ll have to stop publishing RoundValleyFishing.com, “the bill’s wording is vague enough that a single complaint about a site could be enough to block it, with the burden of proof resting on the site”. read on

Related Info:

  • CNN article on SOPA
  • Brookings Institute whitepaper
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    December Book Giveaway – Henry Winkler

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    Henry Winkler – I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River, Reflections on family, photography and fly-fishing

    Congratulations to Shari. Shari has been contacted and the book has been shipped. Thanks again to the publisher, Insight Editions for providing the book.

    FROM THE PUBLISHER: An accomplished sportsman who meticulously records the measurements of every fish he hooks, Winkler has learned that his yearly trips to the river are not just about catching trout. More importantly, they’re about adopting the proper perspective on life. Or, as Winkler puts it, when he’s fly-fishing, the river acts like a “washing machine for my brain,” recharging him and reminding him that anything is possible.

    I've Never Met an Idiot on the River - Henry Winkler

    On the river, Henry has grown to appreciate the support his wife and children give him, learned to listen, and developed the confidence to publish his outdoor photography in his first non-fiction book. An expression of the inherent optimism that stems from the simplicity of the outdoors, I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River is an invitation to share in the realizations and achievements Winkler has found while fishing. Hopefully it will help you catch a few of your own.

    Henry Winkler is an actor, producer, director, and author. He is probably best known for his role as The Fonz in the 1970s U.S. television sitcom Happy Days. His fishing exploits have been featured on John Barrett’s Fly Fishing the World, and he regularly recounts them during his various speaking engagements around the country. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Stacey, their three children, and two dogs. They fish primarily in Idaho and Montana.

    I've Never Met an Idiot on the Water - Henry Winkler Book

    MY TAKE: I really liked this book. It made me laugh and it didn’t take itself too seriously. If you like fishing or anything Henry Winkler’s done like being the Fonz on Happy Days or producing MacGyver…you’ll like this book too!

    I’d like to get this book out to someone before Christmas so just comment below and I’ll pick a winner and ship it on the 20th. You must be in the United States (NJ, NY, PA, CT). If you’d like to buy the book, it’s published by Insight Editions in California.

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    NJ 2011 Hunting and Trapping Digest

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    Portions of this Digest are available in enlarged format for the visually impaired. To request a black and white, large format Digest, write to: NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, Large Format Hunting Digest, Mail Code 501-03, P.O. Box 420, Trenton, NJ 08625-0420.

    Complete 2011 Hunting and Trapping Digest (pdf, 19.2mb) which is a pretty big download so be patient. This includes everything the print version has, even the color-coded Deer Management Zone/Regulation Sets Map.

    Visit the NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife website for complete info.

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