Sorry to go dark for so long. As future posts will explain, it’s been a busy time and likely to get busier.
One thing keeping me busy has been my presence here at Esme’s latest conference on muniwireless broadband. In addition to time with the fabulous Esme herself a number of very cool people are also here.
The conference has morphed quite a bit since I attended the first one below. My brief reflections (and what it means for the muniwireless industry generally) below.
Sorry that I haven’t been writing. To busy coding. News soon. But a cute thing happend today that I have to share…
I was starting a demo of some Internet-accessible collaborative spaces, and someone else was there! Frank Wattenberg, a colleague at the US Military Academy was in the same space. I had to use the in-world communications facilities to ask him if he wouldn’t mind leaving for a little while.
I guess it was only a matter of time. Time and a lot of effort to get to the point where accidents like this can happen.
Hmmm. Frank’s been trying to find the time for some instruction on how do WAN Croquet. I think he’s figured it out!
If Senator Stevens or Representatives Rush and Wynn ever thought about the impact of “tiered access” (or, as I prefer, Whitacre tiering) on rural areas and minority communities, they’d probably switch their votes. Because the flip side of charging for “premium” access is that the third party has to want to pay for it.
If you are a big company, will you pay extra to reach “undesirable” customers like rural customers or minority communities? Of course not! If you have to negotiate with every ISP for premium access, you are only going to want to pay for the “good” customers. And happily, because the ISP is under no requirement to protect customer privacy, the ISP can provide you with precisely the right target demographic.
Welcome to the new world of “Virtual Redlining.” Made possible by Senator Stevens, Bobby Rush and Al Wynn. I hope they have fun explaining to their constituents why, even when they buy the “high speed” pipe, their content downloads slower than the exact same content in the nice neighborhoods of NYC and LA.
Some time back, I blogged about paint using nano technology to block cell phone signals. As I observed at the time, paint designed for the sole purpose of passively blocking cell-phone reception may or may not violate the federal law that prevents active signal jamming.
You can now hear me say pretty much the same thing in this piece by Lisa Napoli on Marketplace. In my rather biased opinion, I think Lisa did an excellent job (especially as the product doesn’t actually exist yet and they only had 3 minutes to cover everything).
Stay tuned . . . .
Well, I don’t get telvision in my home, and I haven’t seen the Today Show in 25 years, so I don’t suppose I could threaten to stop watching. Anyway, here’s the letter I sent to the Today Show on the occasion of the latest outrage by Republican shill Ann Coulter. I haven’t gotten a response yet.
NBC and the Today Show’s producers know well by now that Ann Coulter is an inflamatory hate-monger. That is her schtick; that is what she does: she spews hate and mocks those who are in pain, especially those who are in pain as a result of service to the United States of America.
So now she has slandered the so-called “Jersey Girls”, the group of September 11 widows, who, thrust into a role that none of them sought, and at a great cost that Ms. Coulter is unable to comprehend, being herself neither wife nor mother, have dedicated themselves to the noble task of trying to save us the kind of pain that they have had to endure.
Will NBC apologize for inviting that wretched Coulter onto their show? Will they apologize for condoning and enabling slander?
Most importantly, will the Jersey Girls be given the chance to respond to this hateful, vile, obscene, America-hating, cruel lying harpie, Coulter?
NBC’s producers, and managment, and staff — including you, whoever you are reading this note– bear some measure of responsibility for Coulter’s remarks. Especially the hosts and the producers. Were this the first time that Coulter had done this kind of hateful stunt, you might be excused on the grounds that you didn’t know what a horribly deranged person she is. But you have no excuse now, in June, 2006. Everybody knows that shit-stirring is Coulter’s stock-in-trade. She is a shit-stirrer; that is what she does. If you invite a clown to perform on the the Today Show, you expect a clown’s performance. And if you invite Coulter, you expect coprophilia. Well, congratulations, you’ve made the Today Show into a bucket of shit. You can either accept this situation — who knows, you may love the aroma, may even love painting your face with faeces– or you can attempt to clean and disinfect and air out your studios and your reputation.
For NBC to begin to redeem itself, the Today Show must perforce allow the slandered persons a chance to respond. Under whatever studio conditions they stipulate.
That’s only step one. Other steps towards rehabilitation are evident to any persons possessed of common decency.
Frankly, I have a hard time imagining that the Today Show will ever again be, in my eyes, anything but a moneygrubber’s cesspool. I would be delighted to be proved wrong.
Sincerely,
John Sundman
Vineyard Haven, MA
To further stack the odds, they went ahead and held the debate and vote tonight after Tom DeLay’s farewell address. Fitting tribute, I suppose, sacrifice the finest engine of civic discourse and free speech on the altar of special interest as a going away present.
And yes, we got spanked as expected. The Markey Amendment failed 152-269, with 11 Rs and 1 independent joining 140 Ds. On the nay side were 211 Rs and 58 Ds. COPE itself passed 321-101.
On to the Senate!
The House will likely vote tomorrow (Fri. June 9) on the Communications Opportunity Enhancement Act (COPE). In fact, the vote may come as early as tonight.
According to the report from the Rules Committee, the House has set debate for one hour and approved a number of amendments. The critical amendments for network neutrality are the Markey amendment (D-MA) and an anti-trust savings amendment introduced by Lamar Smith (R-TX) that clarifies that COPE will not preempt anti-trust law (NB: This is not the much stronger Sensenbrenner-Conyer Bill which passed out of Judiciary.
As discussed below, the Rules Committee (which responds to the House Republican leadership) has done its best to stack the odds against NN. Unsurprising, since Speaker Hastert (along with Commerce Chair Barton and Telecommuniations Subcommittee Chair Upton) support COPE and oppose NN. Expect the Smith Amendment to pass, the Markey Amendment to lose, and COPE to pass. Public pressure may still swing some members, but the odds of swinging enough members are vanishingly small.
As I wrote after the loss at the Commerce Committee, we citizens will make the difference. We have gained much ground in the last two months. We now carry the battle to the Senate, where the rules help curb the power of one or two majority leaders to force through legislation.
Parul Desai, my colleague at Media Access Project, has written an article about the impact of network neutrality for Voxunion.com. The article talks about how independent artists will suffer if we lose the fight on network neutrality and therefore lose the Internet as an open, neutral platform for independent artists to distribute their work.
Parul knows whereof she speaks. Not only is she one of the kick-ass attorneys at MAP (“Kicking ass for the public interest for almost 35 years”), but she is one of the founders and co-owners Propa Gandaz Music Group, an independent record label.
UPDATE 6/13/06 — Jenny Toomey and Michael Bracy of the Future of Music Coalition have now written this excellent opinion piece on the same theme.
Stay tuned . . .
From what I have heard and seen on the House Whip Schedule, the vote on COPE will likely take place this Friday (6/9). On Wednesday June 7, the House Rules Committee will determine what, if any, amendments members may offer. For example, they may or may not allow Markey to offer his Network Neutrality Act of 2006, or allow Sensenbrenner to offer the version of the Internet Freedom and Non-Discrimination Act that passed the Judiciary Committee as an amendment. After that, the package goes to the floor for debate and a vote.
The smart money expects passage of COPE because the House Republican leadership backs it and enough Dems will defect to provide a comfortable margin. OTOH, public pressure keeps pushing members to change their position to support NN. Not that smart money or conventional wisdom believes in democracy anymore, but I am hopeful we can hand them another surprise.
Meanwhile, Moby has prepared this video that tells you how you can call your representative and tell him or her to support net neutrality.
Remember, don’t make Moby cry! Support Net Neutrality and help spank the telcos!
Stay tuned . . .
I called Bill Delahunt’s office and sent him emails in support of net neutrality.
I received this response by email a few days ago. I’m entering it here for the record, without comment. I may comment on it later, and would be interested in what you think of it (espescially in the case where “you” == Harold Feld).
Dear Friend:
Thank you for your email message in support of net neutrality legislation.
I appreciate the benefit of your views, and wanted to take a moment to
explain my vote of “present” during last week’s consideration of the
Sensenbrenner-Conyers bill in the House Judiciary Committee.
First, I support keeping cyberspace free and open to all. As a member of
the House International Relations Committee, I’ve seen how the Internet has
made it possible to bridge cultural and political differences that exist.
As a father, email made it possible for me to keep in touch with my daughter
while she was working overseas in Spain – and helped me to make sure that
she was safe after the Madrid terrorist bombings.
But while the uproar has swayed much of the public to Johansson's defense at a time when #genAI is increasingly under scrutiny, this may not quite be an open-and-shut case should she decide to sue . Read the breakdown from @M_F_Rose in her latest article:
The release of @OpenAI's new digital assistant "Sky" stirred controversy after actress Scarlett Johansson alleged that the company had infringed on her rights by using a soundalike voice of hers after she'd declined to voice it herself.
Just saw @MargotSusca fantastic interview with @adamconover about the death of local news at the hands of hedge funds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA A theme I have written about *a lot*. Like this blog post from 2018: https://wetmachine.com/tales-of-the-sausage-factory/we-need-to-fix-the-news-media-not-just-social-media-part-i/ This has been a long time in the making.
I wrote yesterday on the terrifying escalation of antisemitism in Canada, citing events just over past week. Now there is more: last night a firebomb attempt at a Vancouver synagogue. Daily antisemitic incidents is who we are now.
https://www.jewishvancouver.com/important-community-updates-may-20-2024
https://x.com/mgeist/status/1796233336203194446
