I wasn’t invited to her birthday party this year after this interaction:

Friend: I’ll let you know about Disneyland.

Ms. Theologian: What about Disneyland?

Friend: When we’re going for my birthday. *

Ms. Theologian: Oh.

Friend: What?

Ms. Theologian: Well, friend, I really like you, I love you, in fact, having been friends for thirty years, but boy do I hate Disneyland.

Friend: Oh. I don’t like Disney, but I do like the rides.

Ms. Theologian: Oh.

*(I won’t get into the equally bizarre development within the upper middle class of bithday parties that involve destination spending. That is, someone wants to have a birthday party, but it happens to be in….Lake Tahoe, and you’re expected to go for the weekend and share the expense of a ski home rental. It’s like the weddings in Hawaii between Christmas and New York. I’m happy for you. But I can’t spend several thousand dollars to express that happiness.)

Steve Lopez has joined the anti-Disney bandwagon so at least while I stay home (not at Disneyland) I can read his column. Before I get to his critique, let me say this. My issues with Disney are mostly around the idea of intellectual property. Disney notoriously takes stories that are in the public domain, meaning a story that has been told for hundreds of years, (think of Snow white, Pocahontas, Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame), makes a movie about said myth, and then it owns the myth and protects the myth to its death with extremely high priced lawyers so that the myth is no longer in the public domain. For example, does Disney own Snow White? Of course not. But if you ask Disney, they think they invented the story.

Perhaps you’re thinking that’s no big deal, but it’s why you won’t see Snow White on a birthday cake, T-shirt, or mug unless it’s been licensed by Disney. Every year, there’s copyright violation crackdown in downtown LA on the vendors who sell Disney character pinatas. The point of the public domain, the ethical point here, is that stories and myths are in our cultural consciousness, and I would argue that corporate ownership of this material is a very dangerous thing.

Steve Lopez writes this week in Disney fairy tale isn’t for everyone on how many of the employees at Disney can’t afford housing nearby Disney’s location in Anaheim. Well, that’s not too much of a surprise. I can’t afford to live in many parts of LA either, particularly the parts in which I’d be employed. But Disney apparently is doing everything in its power to squash a development that would let 15% of the units go to the low-income folks working at Disney. Apparently letting anyone who works at Disney actually live near Disney would set a dangerous precedent. It might not look like the happiest fucking place on earth.