http://www.allvoices.com/ en-us The Democrats on the Federal Communications Commission are crowing today. Yesterday the United States Senate overwhelmingly voted for a resolution condemning the FCC's recent relaxation of its newspaper/TV cross ownership ban. Only the Georgia twins, Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, expressed opposition to the resolution. It now goes to the House, where a parallel measure will be debated soon. Happy are FCC Dems Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps. Here is Copps' press comment: The Senate spoke for a huge majority of Americans last night by voting to overturn the flawed FCC decision gutting our long-standing ban on newspaper broadcast cross-ownership. With courageous leaders like Senator Byron Dorgan, the Senate has struck a blow for localism and diversity in a media environment crying out for more of both." And Adelstein: The Senate's complete rejection of the FCC's attempt to permit greater media concentration represents a great victory of the people over the powerful. In light of the Senate's action, any proposed transaction seeking to exploit the new rules will likely face intense scrutiny. This vote reflects a strong consensus across the ideological spectrum against further media concentration, from left to right and virtually everybody in between. The FCC veered dangerously off-course from the American mainstream, so our elected representatives are trying to steer us back. This unequivocal, bipartisan rebuke of the FCC is a wake-up call for us to serve the public rather than the media giants we oversee. Chairman [Dan] Inouye, Senator Dorgan, Vice Chairman [Ted] Stevens, Senator [Olympia] Snowe and the many other Senate leaders and public interest organizations who pushed this forward deserve our congratulations and the thanks of the American people. President Bush has promised to veto the measure, of course, citing the "changing media landscape," and asserting that the FCC's denounced rule takes "into account the abundance of news and information outlets that exist today and furthers the public interest by providing greater financial flexibility to newspaper and broadcast outlets struggling to survive in today's intensely competitive media environment. In addition to reducing the prior rule's excessive regulation of well-functioning markets, the new FCC rule includes substantial constraints to guard against excessive concentration. The administration supported this FCC action and strongly opposes any attempt to overturn this rule by legislative means." And so if the House passes the parallel resolution, and Bush indeed vetos it, Congress is poised for a veto override debate that will force Republican presidential contender (and Arizona Senator) John McCain to decide how much he wants to run against the White House in his campaign. It will also catapult an FCC media ownership issue to national prominence, something that very rarely if ever happens. In fact, I can't remember a single instance in United States history when it actually has happened. I seem to recall that when Herbert Hoover was Secretary of Commerce and was just starting to regulate radio, he got some flack from parties who feared that Hoover was constructing the service to suit his presidential ambitions (he ran for and won the White House in 1928). FCC Chair Newton Minow's Vast Wasteland speech, in which he condemned the low quality of television, made headlines. But Newton gave the speech before the National Association of Broadcasters in 1961, a year after his boss John F. Kennedy was elected President. I guess one could go wayyyy back to the presidential election of 1892, when Populist candidate James Weaver called for the creation of a publicly owned national telegraph system. Weaver won a million votes, but I'm not sure how much national play his telegraph proposal got. The election mostly focused on the debate over the tariff, with Democrat Grover Cleveland trouncing Republican Benjamin Harrison. Big telecommunications controversies just seem to miss Presidential campaigns. The 1913 Kingsbury Commitment, in which AT&T conceded the rights of independent telephone companies to connect to its national system, took place a year after the turbulent four way race of 1912. The creation of the FCC was accompanied by a debate over whether to create a non-commercial zone of spectrum. But that fight took place in 1934, two years after FDR won the White House. AT&T agreed to break up during the Presidential election of 1984, but this was a done deal, and went undebated by either Ronald Reagan or Walter Mondale. I guess that I could cook up some lefty explanation for this lack of a national footprint: the media deliberately silences these sort of discussions. That sort of argument. And I suppose there is some truth in that. But I think that it is also true that this stuff is often way too geeky to generate national froth. It just doesn't have the juice that you can squeeze out of national security, health care, the economy, Hillary's husband, Barack's minister, and John McCain's age. But this time around could be different. Golly. We'll see. . . MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1786 Sat, 17 May 2008 00:14:26 -0500 Announcing the Bernal Heights Non-Diet, which has nothing to do with Bernal Heights, San Francisco. It just happens to be the place where I live. And, as the title suggests, I'm not trying to diet. I'm trying to come up with a structural eating plan that will help me lose weight. I can't figure out in what order to put these rules, some of which I have stolen from the food advice I get from my health plan. Anyway, I've got nine of them. Here goes: Rule #1: If you eat out, eat half. It took me a long time to figure this rule out. One of the reasons why we are all getting fatter is because restaurants have doubled the portions of basic retail food items. Supersized hamburgers are the most famous example here, but just about everything seems to have been blown up to 200 percent, including bagels and plates of spaghetti and meat sauce. So I assume that I should eat about half of what the restaurant sells me. What do I do with the rest? I shove it to one side of my plate, get a second plate to put it on, get somebody to help me eat it, ask the waiter to put it in a doggy bag, or just dump it in the garbage if I can. I know, throwing it in the trash is a terrible waste of food. But the food is no better used sitting on my belly or rump as fat. It's not my fault that restaurants sell me too much of the stuff. If you are with me, I'll be happy to split it with you, especially those huge chocolate muffins they sell in cafes. Rule #2: Drink a lot of water. We all need to drink lots of water. So get a water bottle, fill it up and drink! Drinking water keeps me from craving snacks. Unfortunately, it also makes me have to run to the head at inappropriate moments. But the more water you drink, the less soda you'll drink. Soda is really bad. If you drink a sugary soda every day, you'll gain about 25 pounds in a year. Rule #3: Eat carrots and apples. They're very good for you, and they're convenient, crunchy, and sweet. I have an apple and coffee for breakfast, and it keeps me nice and filled up until lunch time. Carrots are just perfect in the afternoon because they're so easy to handle. I can eat them while writing. We're all supposed to eat five servings of fruit and vegetables, you know. Apples and carrots fill the bill, but you obviously can substitute your favorite crunchy veggies and fruits for mine. Rule #4: NEVER eat anything out of a bag. If I buy a big bag of potato chips and start eating out the bag, as sure as E = MC squared I will eat that whole bag of chips. God apparently intended it to be this way. So I never eat out of the bag. I take the bag, pour some chips into something smaller, and put the bag away. Or I offer the rest to someone else. Or I throw the goddman thing out (See Rule #1). This applies to everything you buy in a bag: nuts, candy, chips, trail mix—all of it. Rule #5: Don't forget to share. If you absolutely cannot resist buying some candy—M&Ms, peanut butter cups, yogurt chips, whatever—pour half in your hand (remember Rule #4) and offer the rest to somebody else: a friend, a stranger, whoever happens to be around. If they won't take it, toss the rest in the trash. Most bags of candy are huge like restaurant meals, anyway. Notice that the Bernal Heights diet doesn't forbid you from eating junk food. It just offers you structured ways to eat less. Rule #6: The deck of cards meat principle Most of us eat way too much meat—beef, pork, chicken—and not enough vegetables and grains. The amount of meat on your dinner plate should approximate no more than the size of a deck of cards. And guess what? You don't have to eat meat every day. Eating meat isn't a symbol of prosperity; it's a symbol of waste. Rule #7: Small is beautiful Order a taco, not a burrito. Order a cup of soup, not a big bowl. Order a small latte, not a big one. Don't worry. If you don't feel like you got enough, you can always order more. Rule #8: The three hour "Am I Hungry?" rule Generally speaking, if I want to eat something substantial, I ask myself the following question: When was the last time I ate? If I ate something serious within the last three hours, it usually means I'm looking to fill some anxiety or strong feeling with food. Rule #9: Ignore these rules from time to time. If you are at the house of someone who has prepared an enormous, sumptuous meal for you, don't be an asshole: eat! Next day, exercise a little more. There's no better way to show your apprecation for someone else's cooking than to throw off the guilt and enjoy the meal. The point here is that I'm not trying to diet; I'm trying to structure my eating so that most of the time I eat healthy. Bitter experience has shown me that if I try to reach dietary heaven, eventually I'll rebel and descend into dietary hell. I hope you've found my rules at least somewhat helpful. If you've got similar, I'd like to learn about them. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1782 Fri, 16 May 2008 21:43:43 -0500 This continues from Part II of "How Henry Got Her Name." One warm Sunday afternoon I was sitting here in my basement writing, when I heard a great ruckus above my head. "No! Henry! No! No!" It was Sharon's voice, accompanied by some kind of scuffle. I ran upstairs and into our bed room. There crouched Henry, hunched over a mourning dove. Its neck had been neatly snapped. Blood covered the poor thing, and was seeping into the rug. Sharon and I stood there in a state of shock. I can't imagine why. What did we expect? This cat had been living in the feral jungle for months prior to its adopting us as its "owners." It had regularly deposited half masticated rats on our back yard stairs. Just about every day we'd witnessed it lurking in the grass staring lustily at finches, doves, jay birds, and starlings. This corpse should have come as no surprise. But of course it did. We had gotten used to Henry as a nuzzling, purring, affectionate accompaniment to our lives, not Jack the Ripper. Here, however, was Jack, grimly and obstinately pawing over her prey, wondering what possible objection Sharon or I could have to this dead bird oozing its guts into the floor of our sleeping quarters. I have to give credit to the cat. Some felines will play with and torture a bird or rodent for hours before bumping it off. Not Henry; she broke its neck as soon as she got her claws on the critter. That dove was meant for eating. And so you can imagine the stiff, groaning indignation that accompanied Sharon's firmly picking Henry up and taking her out of the room, while I put the dove in plastic wrap and gingerly deposited its corpse in the garbage. We spent the rest of the afternoon emotionally torturing ourselves in various ways. We looked out the window at the surviving mourning doves, which gravitated around our back yard to eat from the bird feeders we hung from various tree branches. There they nested as before. Which One Was Next, we wondered? It was Our Fault, we concluded. We speculated about which dove had been the partner of Henry's prey, and now wandered about in a traumatized state of widowhood. In short, we did everything we possibly could to construct the Disney version of this incident. Meanwhile, Henry sat in a corner of the house for the rest of the day, no doubt wondering what lapse in judgment had caused her to cohabitate with traitors like ourselves. She gave us various looks that I translated into "Do I Know You?" But by the late evening All Was Forgiven, especially after we put an extra dollop of wet canned food in her dinner dish. That's about all I have to write about Henry, which I think has been plenty. I could tell you about how the first time we took her to the veterinarian, she managed to eat through the cat carrying box we'd purchased (I guess I just did). I could tell you about what I said to the vet when she told me that Henry will need expensive periodontal surgery soon (So will I, I replied, and predicted that I'll get mine first). Obviously there are far more important things to read about besides our cat: the Middle East, Britney Spears' paternity suits, what Vladimir Putin really wants, what kind of cell phone you should buy next year, and who could knock you unconscious faster: Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain. But cats should have their literary moment as well. They deserve some words, and thus I have given our cat Henry some. Although I cannot match the eloquence that former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson composed upon vetoing Senate Bill No. 93, an ill-considered 1949 law that would have allowed the trapping of stray cats: "I cannot agree that it should be the declared public policy of Illinois that a cat visiting a neighbor's yard or crossing the highway is a public nuisance," Stevenson wisely wrote. "It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming. Many live with their owners in apartments or other restricted premises, and I doubt if we want to make their every brief foray an opportunity for a small game hunt by zealous citizens—with traps or otherwise. I am afraid this Bill could only create discord, recrimination and enmity. Also consider the owner's dilemma: To escort a cat abroad on a leash is against the nature of the cat, and to permit it to venture forth for exercise unattended into a night of new dangers is against the nature of the owner. Moreover, cats perform useful service, particularly in rural areas, in combating rodents—work they necessarily perform alone and without regard for property lines. We are all interested in protecting certain varieties of birds. That cats destroy some birds, I well know, but I believe this legislation would further but little the worthy cause to with its proponents give such unselfish effort. The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation why knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency. For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93." MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1711 Sun, 11 May 2008 19:40:21 -0500 Continued from here And so we began feeding the next door neighbor's now abandoned cat. This immediately presented several problems. The first was that it lurked about the back yard more often, stalking the finches and mourning doves that ate bird seed off of our various feeders. We headed off this threat by putting out cat food towards the evening, which successfully resulted in the feline gravitating to our yard around 5 pm when most of the birds had gone away. The second problem was that, being typical anthropomorphizing human beings, we wanted to talk to the cat when it arrived. That meant that we had to give it a name. I came up with Henry because, at least to me, the cat looked like a Henry. It had a sort of gray siamese-ness to it that was (again, to my thinking) just very Henry-like. I experience "Henry" as a sort of quiet and fuzzy personae. I think that Sharon went along with the name because she was a big fan of the west coast modernist composer Henry Cowell. In any event, by various means we got to the name Henry, and it stuck, at least for us. We were aware, of course, of the possibility that Henry was a she, but decided that this didn't mean very much in the cosmic scheme of things; we living in San Francisco and all. Getting to know you In any event, Henry liked our grub but was quite suspicious of her benefactors. She usually skulked in around five o'clock and chowed down the dry food we'd left out. We called the cat by its new name, and Henry usually ran away at the sound of our voices. But, as always, after she'd gotten a safe twenty feet back, she would usually just stand her ground and look at us. One evening, after Henry had finished her dinner. She started meowing again. Sharon went out into the back yard to say hello, and Henry walked up to her and allowed herself to be petted. It wasn't easy petting Henry, at first. She paced back and forth while the stroking took place, and meowed rather frantically through the whole experience. The next night I got to pet Henry. Then she pulled away and just stared at us from a distance again. Several weeks later, however, Sharon called me into the kitchen. There was Henry, who had come in through the back door while we had left it open for a few minutes. Henry stood in the center of the kitchen and looked at us. She walked quickly up and down the floor as she had outside, meowing away and letting us each pet her for a few minutes, then pacing again. Then she ran out the door and into the night. Moving in Then one Wednesday evening when I was out of town, Sharon called me to let me know that Henry had stayed the previous night. Apparently it was an exhausting experience. The cat wandered about the house moaning and pacing, and then jumped into our bed, demanding to be continuously petted. Then in the morning Henry ran out of the house again. This event repeated itself for the next three nights. "I don't know how much longer I can take it," Sharon told me. By the time I got back Henry had more or less calmed down. After a week or so our interactive pattern had stabilized. Henry usually arrived at the back door for dinner at around 5 pm. Then she watched TV with us while we ate. Then she stayed the night and usually slept in our bed. Then in the early morning after breakfast, she ran out the door for her day of stalking birds, hanging around alleys, and groaning menacingly at other cats. Slowly but surely, Henry moved in. She found a comfortable place in our bed upon which sunlight from the window always shines, and she sleeps there through much of the day. She does most of her hunting around the house now, episodically attacking and shredding editions of The Economist, The New York Review of Books, and The New Yorker (we try to remember to keep the real estate pages out so that she'll assault them instead). She is always on the lookout for a comfortable lap to sit on during the evening. On the other hand, Henry does occasionally revert back to the old ways. To be continued . . . MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1708 Sun, 11 May 2008 10:56:07 -0500 Who knows what the Federal Communications Commission will do with John Dingell's petition for an investigation of the Pentagon's fake news spree, as revealed by the New York Times. We're talking about the Times' expose revealing that dozens of military retirees functioned as Pentagon trained TV news flacks on behalf of the Iraq war. Pretty disturbing stuff. Word has it that the FCC has already agreed to look into the matter, although its unclear whether that will result in much more than some agency spokesperson announcing that "we've looked into the matter, and there is nothing we can do." On the other hand, it might go differently this time, because Dingell's House Committee on Energy and Commerce is conducting an extensive investigation of the FCC. The Committee wants written records on dozens of proceedings, including any directives involving "limitations or restrictions imposed on FCC employees' ability to communicate with each other concerning official agency business"; records that illuminate the Commission's policies on "communications between FCC personnel and outside entities"; documents that explain how the agency decided who would go to the recent World Radio communication Conference in Switzerland; a list of all new FCC employee hires and reassignments from March 2005 to the present; and the individual meeting schedules of all Commissioners and all Bureau Chiefs and the FCC's Inspector General since January 2005. This probe gives Dingell a lot more leverage over FCC Chair Kevin Martin than Congress has had in the past, so maybe the FCC will actually do something about the Pentagon problem, or at least act like it is for a while. Then again maybe not. Several years ago Massachusetts Congressmember Edward Markey was furious when Martin ducked out on investigating the National Security Agency for buying millions of phone records of AT&T and Verizon customers. The Massachusetts Congressmember denounced the Federal Communications Commission for "taking a pass" on the issue. "If the oversight body that monitors our nation's communications is stepping aside then Congress must step in," Representative Edward Markey, a Democrat, declared on his Web site in May of 2006. Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat too, also called for an FCC investigation. Martin had just sent Markey a letter explaining that the FCC could not comply with the request. He cited warnings by White House Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and NSA Lieutenant General Keith B. Alexander that disclosing information about the alleged relationship between AT&T and the NSA could hurt national security. These statements, Martin told Markey, "make clear that it would not be possible for us to investigate the activities in your letter without examining highly sensitive classified information. The Commission has no power to order the production of classified information." Both companies denied charges that they had worked with the NSA. So it's anyone's guess what Martin will do now, even with a Congressional investigation of him underway. He's a pretty tough figure to call. BTW: I put together a timeline of the FCC/NSA controversy. Here it is: May 10, 2006: USA Today reports that "NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls." The story cites "people with direct knowledge of the arrangement" as sources, one of whom is quoted as calling it "the largest database ever assembled in the world." The article says that the database uses records provided by AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth. QWest declined to cooperate with the project. May 12, 2006: Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte files a declaration on behalf of AT&T, which is being sued by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Federal District Court for its alleged cooperation with the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. Negroponte invokes the "states secrets privilege," stating that he has "determined that the disclosure of certain information implicated by Plaintiffs' claims . . . could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States and, thus, must be protected from disclosure and excluded from this case." National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander files a similar statement with the court. May 15, 2006: Congressmember Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts writes a letter to FCC Chair Kevin Martin asking the FCC to investigate the controversy. "Please provide me with a response which outlines the Commission's plan, in detail, for investigating and resolving these allegedly violations of consumer privacy," Markey writes. May 15, 2006: FCC Commissioner Michael Copps calls on the FCC to "get to the bottom of this situation" by opening an inquiry into whether the phone companies violated Section 222 of the Communications Act: "Every telecommunications carrier has a duty to protect the confidentiality of proprietary information of, and relating to, other telecommunication carriers, equipment manufacturers, and customers, including telecommunication carriers reselling telecommunications services provided by a telecommunications carrier." May 15, 2006: BellSouth issues statement on the controversy: "Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA." May 16, 2006: Verizon issues statement on the controversy: "Verizon will provide customer information to a government agency only where authorized by law for appropriately-defined and focused purposes. When information is provided, Verizon seeks to ensure it is properly used for that purpose and is subject to appropriate safeguards against improper use. Verizon does not, and will not, provide any government agency unfettered access to our customer records or provide information to the government under circumstances that would allow a fishing expedition." May 22, 2006: FCC Chair Kevin Martin replies to Congressmember Edward Markey, declining to open an FCC investigation on the matter, and citing Negroponte and Alexander's court statements: "The representations of Director Negroponte and General Alexander make clear that it would not be possible for us to investigate the activities addressed in your letter without examining highly classified sensitive information. The Commission has no power to order the production of classified information." May 24, 2006: Markey discloses Martin's letter on his Web site, declares that the FCC is "taking a pass" on the issue, and calls on Congress to initiate an investigation of the matter. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1702 Sun, 11 May 2008 00:57:27 -0500 The smaller voice/data carriers are launching a new offensive against Qwest's efforts to get its access rates deregulated in four major markets: Minneapolis, Seattle, Denver and Phoenix. What that means is that, if the Federal Communications Commission approves the waiver, Qwest will no longer have to offer smaller telcos cheap wholesale access rates in those cities. And what that means is that broadband and phone prices will go up, like they did in Omaha when Qwest got a "forbearance" waiver there. There's no question about the fact that when the FCC deregulates, you better grab your wallet. In fact, the United States Government and Accountability Office (GAO) has produced a study that proves that. "[I]n areas where the FCC granted full pricing flexibility due to the presumed presence of competitive alternatives," the GAO says, "list prices and average revenues tend to be higher than or the same as list prices and average revenues in areas still under some FCC price regulation." The GAO chose an innocuous enough title for their report on voice and data competition: "FCC Needs to Improve Its Ability to Monitor and Determine the Extent of Competition in Dedicated Access Services." But that opening won't stop readers from interpreting the study as a devastating critique of the Federal Communication Commission's implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, or from seeing it as a historical analysis of a series of practices and policies that, in the end, have failed to deliver competitive telecom access to big cities in the United States. Here is a timeline summary of the GAO audit. 1991 through 1999 The review begins with a recap of the FCC's telephone regulation policies in 1991. At that time, the Commission implemented caps on the prices that carriers could charge on long distance service - that is, until the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Telecommunications Act allowed the big regional phone carriers to get into long distance service, but it also required them to share their networks with competitors. In 1999 the FCC issued a Pricing Flexibility Order that authorized the dismantling of those 1991 price caps, under certain conditions: The Commission decided that when enough telecommunications infrastructure had "aggregated" or "colocated" in an urban area with more than 50,000 people, "it was a good predictor that competitors had made significant, irreversible sunk investments in facilities, and indicated the likelihood that a competitor could eventually extend its own network to reach its customers." That meant, to the FCC, that the agency could lift price caps in those areas depending on how much competitive development they had determined had been achieved. The Commission established a set of price flexibility tiers ("Phase I and II," etcetera) that relaxed charges to varying degrees. But the industry wanted more. 2000 to 2005 In 2000 six big carriers created a lobby called the Coalition for Affordable Local and Long Distance Service (CALLS). The group included four of the five biggest incumbent firms of the time, including AT&T and BellSouth. They asked for, and got, yearly reductions in price cap levels based on agreed-upon percentages: three percent in 2000, and 6.5 percent for the next three years. Four incumbents - AT&T, BellSouth, QWest, and Verizon - received full price deregulation in over 100 major metropolitan areas. But by 2005, the GAO notes, many firms began raising concerns that "in places where FCC has granted phase II pricing flexibility, prices have incongruously risen." Critics began wondering out loud whether the FCC's "colocation" formula accurately gauged market competition. Two more FCC actions complicated the picture. First the Commission conditionally approved the SBC/AT&T merger (now called AT&T) and the Verizon/MCI merger, despite Department of Justice concerns about the anti-competitive nature of these unions. Second, the FCC established a set of rules similar to the "colocation" formula under which big carriers must open their infrastructures, or Unbundled Network Elements (UNEs), to smaller providers . Where sufficient colocation had taken place, the FCC required less UNE access. Where are we now? From this point of departure, the GAO selected 16 metropolitan areas where the FCC gave those "price cap incumbents" (again, AT&T, BellSouth, QWest and Verizon) varying degrees of regulatory relief, and four metro areas dominated by one of the four. The study analyzed prices for high capacity dedicated access at 1.544 Megabytes per second ("DS-1") and 45 mbps ("DS-3"). It came to the following conclusions: "In the 16 major metropolitan areas we examined, facilities-based competition for dedicated access services exists in a relatively small subset of buildings." Competing firms serve no more on average than 6 percent of these buildings with DS-1; about 15 percent of facilities that need DS-3 service get it through competitive vendors. "Since phase II pricing flexibility was first granted, list prices for dedicated access that apply under phase II, on average, have increased." This suggests that the more flexibility the FCC gave incumbents, the more they charged their customers. "Based on the data available to us, facilities-based competition for dedicated access services to end users at the building level (i.e., analogous to channel terminations to end users) does not appear to be extensive in the MSAs [Metropolitan Statistical Areas] we examined . . . " On the contrary, the GAO found declines in competition in some wire centers, and suggested that the FCC's "colocation" methodology may not accurately predict competitiveness in a given metropolitan area. The GAO report also found that colocation, regardless of its significance in determining competitiveness, has declined in many metropolitan areas. "In fact," the report says, "in many MSAs we examined, some wire centers that had competitive colocation several years ago, appear to no longer have any competitive colocation." The GAO predicts that the recent mergers between AT&T and SBC and between Verizon and MCI will likely accelerate these trends. The GAO also concludes that competition may not be a realistic goal in all markets, especially in small markets where demand for dedicated access is relatively light. Finally, the GAO study suggests that the FCC is working with insufficient data to validate its "colocation" methodology. "Regardless of where competition may come from in the future," the report suggests, "it is clear that FCC does not regularly monitor and measure the development of competition, which will affect how FCC responds to emerging trends, and the actions it takes to encourage and foster such competition. We have consistently noted the need for better data at FCC to track competition and deployment of telecommunications services to a variety of consumers." Reaction from the FCC The GAO report includes an appendix with FCC Managing Director Anthony Dale's response to the study, which was not positive. "The GAO Draft Report," Dale wrote on November 13th, "appears to imply the need for a return to price control policies that the Commission abandoned in 1999 during the previous Administration." Dale also suggested that a more rigorous analysis of competition than the FCC's colocation system would require an "extremely narrow" focus. " . . . the GAO study seems to suggest that at least each individual building and perhaps each floor of a building needs to be considered a separate market," Dale argued, an approach that he says the FCC could not implement. But the GAO rejects the charge that the agency advocates a return to price controls, and urges the FCC to seek better data on the industries that it regulates: "Thus, the report calls for FCC, serving in its capacity as the federal regulator of interstate communications services, to better define effective competition and then collect meaningful data on the state of competition in the marketplace," the GAO audit concludes. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1592 Sat, 03 May 2008 13:57:54 -0500 What will the Federal Communications Commission decide regarding the proposed XM/Sirius merger? The hell if I know. But it's fun to come up with predictions, especially if you live 3,000 miles away from Washington, D.C. and mostly get your information via the Internet. One thing is for sure, the path is open to a decision. The Department of Justice has ok'd the union. It's up to the FCC now. Possibility #1: The FCC will reject the merger outright This isn't likely, I suspect, but you never know. The FCC's 1997 Order did stipulate that one entity could not own all the spectrum on the Digital Audio Radio Satellite (DARS) band. And XM and Sirius have, after all, flagrantly ignored the agency's requirement that they create an interoperable receiver that could pick up both services. And boatloads of Congresspeople have told the FCC that they hate the idea, including lots of Republicans. So the Commissions could, in the end, simply reject the union outright, wish XM and Sirius lots of luck, and just move on to the next matter, of which there are many. Possibility #2: The FCC will accepts the merger The opposite prospect is that the agency will simply give the union approval without any conditions. They could get around the 1997 anti-monopoly rule by issuing a waiver, as the Commission so often does with its newspaper/TV station cross ownership ban. But my guess is that the chances of this happening are zero to nothing. The Commissioners, both Republican and Democratic, have too many agendas: localism, non-commerciality, diversity, open platform, indecency, just to name a few items, to let a merged XM/Sirius go completely unmolested by some regulatory oversight. Possibility #3: The Commission will approve the merger and impose conditions This is very, very possible. Such conditions might include: An open platform. Expect some kind of rule that says that developers who create receivers for XM/Sirius can make them any way they want, without interference from the newly married entity. Plus they can jimmy up the applications to include other goodies: mp3 player, HD radio, Internet connection, whatever. No messing with the developers, the FCC could say. A spectrum set aside. Lots of public interest groups want the FCC to shave off about five percent of the merged entity's spectrum and give that over to some non-commercial somethingorother that distributes the channels to educational, non-profit groups. Amazingly, even Clear Channel has given the ok to this idea (probably because the radio giant wants to weaken the merged entity in any way it can). Channel leasing. This would involve requiring XM/Sirius to lease channels to independent commercial companies. The FCC would also stipulate that XM/Sirius could have no editorial control over the content that these indies broadcast. A new auction. The agency could shave off some spectrum from the newly merged company and pass it off to some other buys in a competitive sale. You never know. Pricing requirements. XM/Sirus have proposed a series of prices for their new products (once they merge). The Commission may hold them to those figures for some given period of time—say, five years or so. Indecency rules. Clear Channel has also proposed that the FCC apply its indecency standards to a married XM/Sirius. This is probably a way of getting back at Howard Stern, who, after he was fired by various Clear Channel stations some years ago, fled to Sirius radio. It is probably, again, a Clear Channel scheme to make XM/Sirius less appealing, and therefore less competitive to terrestrial radio. Diversity. One minority entrepreneur has proposed a 20 percent spectrum set aside, to go to a minority owned satellite radio provider. A lot of minority advocacy groups, especially black groups, support this plan. I'm not sure it will go through, but not because of lack of lobbying. If you insist on my making a specific sets of predictions, I'll go with Possibility #3 and options number one and three, at minimum. The Commission has already attached the open platform principle to its latest broadband auction. And the channel leasing requirement is already a fact of life in the wonderful world of cable TV, although the cable companies don't make it very easy to lease channels. The rest of the options are pretty advanced for the agency's Republican majority, although they might go for the indecency provision if they're feeling frisky. There is, of course, the possibility that they will never make a decision on this matter—that the Commissioners will not be able to come to a consensus, and that as a consequence, XM and Sirius will give up on the merger. But the two services have recently cancelled their annual meetings, which is a sign that they expect otherwise. Hope springs eternal, even while waiting for the FCC to make up its mind. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1584 Fri, 02 May 2008 23:27:07 -0500 I spent all of Thursday listening to the Federal Communications Commission's second hearing on net neutrality, held at Stanford University. It was an interesting day, because unlike the agency's first hearing on the problem, sponsored by Harvard Law School in February, it was clear that most the Commissioners have now made up their mind about the matter. They spent much of the Stanford event explaining what kind of regulatory measures they will or will not support to create a level playing field on the 'Net. Here's the lineup of positions by various commissioners. Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, both Democrats, are clearly ready to add a "fifth principle" to the agency's 2005 Internet Policy Statement, something with enforcement teeth in it. Republican Robert McDowell all but wants the FCC to walk away from the problem and leave it to the private sector to sort out. Ditto for co-Republican Deborah Taylor Tate, except she wants the agency to take on illegal file sharing and child pornography. That leaves FCC Chair Kevin Martin. He's clearly leaning towards some knd of tougher policy that requires ISPs to: a) be more up front about their network management practices, and b) places them under "stricter scrutiny" so that while they manage their networks, they don't arbitrarily discriminate against certain kinds of protocols and applications. So by my count, we've got three Commissioners who favor some kind of pro-net neutrality Order, and two probable dissenters. One of them, Tate, might be tempted to sign on if the ruling includes some language against illegal content. That racks up in my book to an impending victory for the net neutrality movement. But we'll see. Following the Stanford event I got a little curious about the various definitions of net neutrality that  scholars, activists, and institutions offer. Here are a bunch: From the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue: "Net neutrality is a state in which users have the freedom to access the content, services, applications, and devices of their choice." From About.com: "Net neutrality refers to the way information is transmitted on the internet. With a neutral internet set up, internet service providers and search engines merely send you the information or the website for which are looking. ISPs are hoping to replace this neutral system with a fee based system in which websites would be pay a fee to the ISP for the service, and the sites that pay the highest fees would be prioritized . . . " From Common Cause: "Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they choose and use any applications they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by their Internet service provider." From the Congressional Research Service: "There is no single accepted definition of 'net neutrality.' However, most agree that any such definition should include the general principles that owners of the networks that compose and provide access to the Internet should not control how consumers lawfully use that network; and should not be able to discriminate against content provider access to that network." From Larry Downes: "The general idea of net neutrality is to ensure that broadband access providers (defined in the IFPA as 2-way transmission in which transmission in at least one direction is at least 200 kilobits per second) make their infrastructure available in a content-neutral pricing scheme - no charging (or offering as a premium service) more to deliver on a higher priority content from any particular subset of providers." From the Federal Communications Commission: "The Commission has jurisdiction necessary to ensure that providers of telecommunications for Internet access or Internet Protocol-enabled (IP-enabled) services are operated in a neutral manner. Moreover, to ensure that broadband networks are widely deployed, open, affordable, and accessible to all consumers, the Commission adopts the following principles: To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice. To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement. To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.13 To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers." From Google: "Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online." From Ray Lin, University of California: "Simply put, net neutrality is a network design paradigm that argues for broadband network providers to be completely detached from what information is sent over their networks. In essence, it argues that no bit of information should be prioritized over another. This principle implies that an information network such as the internet is most efficient and useful to the public when it is less focused on a particular audience and instead attentive to multiple users." From PC Magazine Encyclopedia: "Refers to the absence of restrictions placed on the type of content carried over the Internet by the carriers and ISPs that run the major backbones. It states that all traffic be treated equally; that packets are delivered on a first-come, first-served basis regardless from where they originated or to where they are destined." From David Vaina: "Net neutrality is the idea that those who provide internet service treat the content producers equally. It is the framework, as it exists now, that allows users to access Google, blogs, and everything in between at the same speed, thus leveling the playing field between the largest media companies and ordinary citizens who produce an estimated 60% of the content on the Web." From Webopedia: "Network neutrality or net neutrality, as it is abbreviated, is the term used to describe networks that are open to equal access to all . They are non-discriminatory as they do not favor any one destination or application over another." From Whatis.com: "Net neutrality is the principle that data packets on the Internet should be moved impartially, without regard to content, destination or source. Net neutrality is sometimes referred to as the 'First Amendment of the Internet'." From Wikipedia: "Network neutrality (equivalently "net neutrality", "internet neutrality" or "NN") is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet. Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination." From Tim Wu: "Network neutrality is best defined as a network design principle. The idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally. This allows the network to carry every form of information and support every kind of application." From Xiaowei Yang, Gene Tsudik, and Xin Liu, Department of Computer Science, UC Irvine: "ISPs should not be able to discriminate against packets based on contents, application types, or packet sources or destinations that are not their own customers. We call this type of discrimination non-neutral discrimination. But ISPs are eligible to offer differentiated services to their customers. Our hypothesis is that the present market structure may not have sufficient competition to prevent an access ISP from degrading the service of a particular application or a site, but might be sufficient to keep them from intentionally ill-treating their own customers."   MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1428 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:42:23 -0500 I love our cat. Her name is Henry. You may be wondering how a she-cat came to be called such. I'll concede that ignorance played an important role in the decision. But let's start at the beginning. The kitty next door Henry the Cat For many years the house just above our's on Bernal Hill in San Francisco belonged to an elderly couple who, well, did not keep the place up, to put it mildly. The situation got worse after the husband died. The back of the house decayed. The wood rotted. The back door literally fell off its hinges and hung from the rear of the structure. A great jungle of nasty and very tough weeds rose up from the rear yard and often threatened to spread into ours. The widow also hoarded quite a lot of junk, it seems. Her good hearted nephew came by and sold some of it, or gave it away. She made do as best she could, accompanied by a small gray/white cat. The cat obviously loved her aged protector. It greeted her on the street when she returned from grocery shopping. Since our neighbor's back door was dislodged, it just came and went as it so desired. Sometimes the feline pooped in our garden, which annoyed us, so we shooed it off. When that happened, it would leap over our fence, and claw its way up to that broken back door hinge, staring suspiciously at us, safe from 20 feet above the ground. I had a few unexpected interactions with the little critter. One evening it stood in our rain alley, meowing rather loudly. I walked out into the back yard and puzzled as it stood there trembling. "What's wrong?" I asked the cat. It kept mewing. It also kept looking over my shoulder. I glanced in the direction upon which the cat's glare had fixed. There, on the fence, were three big, fat raccoons, about five feet away, staring at me and the cat. I jumped back into the house. The raccoons teetered on the fence for about five minutes, clawed about aimlessly, then marched off towards Bernal Heights Park on the top of the hill. Once the coast was clear, the cat leaped back up to its perch. I watched it. It watched me. We both went to bed. The lean months Eventually the widow's kin showed up, got mom, and trundled her off to an assisted living home. But nobody thought to relocate the cat. In fairness, it was a bit wild, this little beast, and not inclined to be picked up by anyone but her now moved mistress. For a while the house stood empty save the semi-feral pet, occasionally fed by the nephew or his mother via a bowl of cat food placed next to the garage door. Then a local residential developer bought the property. He hired a contractor to flush the hovel out and rebuild it. This was no easy task. It meant stripping the joint of an amazing quantity of garbage, then rebuilding it from scratch. For weeks and weeks my partner Sharon and I marvelled as workers carried out a seemingly endless pile of wood, pipe, plaster, and dirt from the place, only to discover more the next day. All this activity, needless to say, drove the cat from the residence. It lurked in our alleys, on our back yard fence, and atop those of others. It slinked around under our neighbors' back yard tool garage. And the poor thing looked pretty miserable; staring at us from a distance through the evening before slipping off into the night. To make matters worse it was the rainy season. Then we started noticing the dead rats. These large eviscerated rodents were left on our back yard doorstep. One's demise was particularly impressive. The cat had eaten it exactly in half. The head, front paws, and chest remained; the rump end of the vermin snarfed down with gusto. No entrails were left behind. Three of these victims appeared in about the same place over four weeks. Clearly, somebody was trying to develop a relationship with us. After throwing the latest rat in the garbage, I glanced around. There was our homeless cat, looking rather pathetically at me. And getting pretty skinny too. "Maybe we should start feeding it," Sharon said to me one morning. So I went down to the grocer, bought a small box of Purina dry food, and put it out in a bowl where the rats had been left. Within four hours, the container was empty. To be continued . . . . MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1421 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:42:04 -0500 Here they are (see the bottom of this post) the top paid communications CEOs of 2006. That is to say the CEOs who run big broadcasting and telecommunications companies. And what a deserving bunch of fellows they were (not that I'm bitter or anything like that). I got this from the Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC) handy dandy executive pay Web site, which I check in on from time to time to see how the stats change (I know, get a life).2006 is the latest the SEC has. This is total compensation: annual pay, bonuses, stock options, benefits, call girls, wuddever. Viacom is the obvious winner, its former president snarfing down  almost 90 million in 2006. Oddly, Viacom's new guy Phillip Dauman only pulled in 11 mill. What a let down that must be. I feel bad. Next comes Edward E. ("my pipes") Whitacre, CEO of AT&T,  the fellow whose grubby comments helped fuel the net neutrality movement: "Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?" Apparently these were the only fellows in communications who approached a 9 figure income. The rest hovered in the 20 million category, not that I'd turn that down. CBS, then Comcast, Sprint, Verizon. Hmm. A lot of telcos here. There's poor Clear Channel down at the bottom, with Mark Mays bringing a pathetic 9 million home to the wife and kids. What's with that? Actually its unclear how long Mays will stay on this list, given that his bid to take Clear Channel private seems to be losing steam. Apparently with all the private equity firms tanking, his backers can't raise the dough to leverage Clear Channel for him and the rest of the Mays clan. So he's suing the banks that won't stick with the plan, which may or may not be a terribly good idea. I'm not even going to pretend to know what I'm talking about here; and I truly do not care if Clear Channel goes private. But it does seem like the guy doth protest too much, as Hamlet's mom once said during a play. Here's May's statement: "The financial risk to the banks in this suit dwarfs any risk they think they have in funding the debt. The behavior of these banks is irresponsible, unprofessional, and unjustified. The defendants have made clear that they are determined, by any means possible, to destroy the merger and thus avoid their obligation to fund, as they are required legally to do." Yeah, suing banks just doesn't seem like a great business strategy to me. But I'll tell you who earns their money at Comcast: David Cohen, the guy who keeps telling the Federal Communications Commission that Comcast isn't blocking BitTorrent at these Ivy League school hearings the FCC has from time to time (actually only two, the next at Stanford this Thursday). Cohen made almost 10 million in 2006, and given his level of chutzpah, I say the guy's worth the cash. Not a lot of newspaper folk on the list. Not surprising. Newspapers seem to be in trouble these days. But no Fox TV anywhere in sight either. Guess these folks have to settle for 6 or 7 million at maximum. But all in all it pays to be in telecommunications and broadcast entertainment. Case in point: Exxon sucks down WAY more revenue than any of these companies. But its CEO E.G. Galante only got 17 million in annual compensation. We're talking about a company that collects 365 BILLION dollars in revenue, as opposed to Viacom's 11 billion. Anyway, enjoy the list. I'll check in with the SEC from time to time to see who is raking in the dough. Thomas E. FrestonFormer President and Chief Executive OfficerViacom Inc. (New), 89,302,968.00 Edward E. Whitacre, Jr.Chairman and Chief Executive OfficerAT&T Inc., 60,726,924.00 Leslie MoonvesPresident and Chief Executive OfficerCBS Corp., 28,637,111.00 Brian L. RobertsChairman of the Board and Chief Executive OfficerComcast Corporation, 26,001,696.00 Gary D. ForseeChairman, Chief Executive Officer and PresidentSprint Nextel Corp., 21,301,435.00 Ivan G. SeidenbergChairman & CEOVerizon Communications Inc., 21,260,700.00 Scott T. FordPresident and CEOALLTEL Corp., 14,115,770.00 Chase CareyPresident and Chief Executive OfficerDIRECTV Group Inc. , 12,470,904.00 Philippe P. DaumanPresident and Chief Executive OfficerViacom Inc. (New), 11,190,049.00 Mark MaysChief Executive Officer (PEO)Clear Channel Communications, 9,311,996.00 MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1322 Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:28:35 -0500 The fun continues to fly unfettered at everyone's favorite mediator of media regulation mayhem: the Federal Communications Commission. Time for your rundown of some of the week's activities and future frolic. Second net neutrality showdown If you happen to be in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley region this Thursday, you might want to check out the FCC's second hearing on Internet network management, to be held at everyone's favorite educational theme park for the hyper-rich: Stanford University. The speakers for the event's two panels have not been named, but the names of the panels have been named: "Network Management and Consumer Expectations" and "Consumer Access to Emerging Internet Technologies and Applications." To recap: the FCC began investigating whether to enact some serious net neutrality rules after Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation proved that Comcast's ISP system interferes with the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. At the FCC's Harvard Law School hearing on this matter, Comcast insisted that it did not do anything wrong and it will never do it again. The cable giant's VP David Cohen said the company just does some fiddling around with downloads at periods of high volume; no big deal. Since then the FCC's Chair Kevin Martin has showed some backbone on this matter, insisting that the agency will finish its investigation of Comcast by late June, and sounding pretty critical of Comcast too sometimes. Comcast, however, has proven to be a rather formidable opponent: cutting a rather superficial press conference type deal with the BitTorrent company (as opposed to the protocol) and hailing so-called P4P advances as reasons why the agency need not press on with this issue. All this will doubtless get tossed around at Stanford this week, hopefully with toilet paper handy. I have every expectation that all the Big Gods will be there, maybe even His True Holiness Lawrence Lessig. You can expect Comcast to explain that they've fixed everything up even more than the company fixed everything up just prior to the Harvard circus, at which it was revealed that Comcast paid people to come to the event and sleep, thus keeping some activists out of the room. You can probably listen to the festivities on the FCC's Web site here (but they haven't posted the link yet). My favorite moment at the last hearing was when one of the Commissioners (Robert M. McDowell) said he'd keep his questions brief because he'd drunk a lot of coffee and water and needed a break. DTV spanking On the 10th, a whole bunch of retailers got fined by the FCC for doing digital transition (DTV) related bad stuff they should have known better than to do.  They're still selling and shipping analog TV sets that will be completely obsolete after February 17th, 2009, the last day of analog broadcasting. We're talking Best Buy, Fry's, Circuit City, CompUSA, Sears, Polaroid, Precor, Proview, and Walmart. Best Buy got socked $280,000 for selling analog TVs. Circuit City got hit with a $712,000 bill. Walmart took the prize with a $992,000 head noogie. They could have avoided this fate by just putting a teeny weeny label on the clunker saying "Dear Consumer: After February 17th 2009 this television set will be a useless piece of furniture sitting in your bedroom. And why are you putting a TV set in your bedroom anyway? Don't you know that studies indicate that couples who don't put TV sets in their bedrooms have more sex?" Ok. Something more moderate, like what the FCC mandates: "This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation's transition to digital broadcasting. Analog-only TVs should continue to work as before with cable and satellite TV services, gaming consoles, VCRs, DVD players, and similar products. For more information, call the Federal Communications Commission at 1-888-225-5322 (TTY: 1-888-835-5322) or visit the Commission's digital television web site at: www.dtv.gov." All this continues to indicate that nobody gives a rodent's rump about the DTV transition, least of all the broadcasting industry and its suppliers. I can't wait for February 18th of next year, when at least ten million people by my estimation go for their video fix and discover that the dealer got hit with a digital drive-by. Then there are a bunch of scofflaws making TV sets without V-Chips, those little programming add-ons that allow our nation's parents to program their tubes to filter out indecency. Not that most of them do, but they should, if for no other reason than to relieve the FCC of the task of applying its moronic community decency standards to the broadcast industry. Here's the rogue's gallery and their penance: · LG Electronics $1,700,000· Philips Consumer Electronics $450,000· Sanyo Corporation $375,000· Vizio, Inc. $370,000· Panasonic Corporation $320,000· Westinghouse Digital Electronics $210,000· Audiovox Corporation $20,000· Total $3,445,000 Mind you, these are all consent deals. The company is exonerated and voluntarily agrees to pay a bunch of money and get its act together. In exchange: no bad marks on the firm's record. All is forgiven. Everybody wins, especially the United States Treasury, which gets all the money and sends it forthwith to Iraq. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1305 Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:54:05 -0500 The New York Times reports that about a quarter of United States high school students and a third of eighth graders write proficiently. The word "proficient" is not very clearly defined in the article, unfortunately. The news item says that educators came to these percentages following a nationwide test that asked students to write short essays in a "short period of time," as the story put it. So there is quite a bit of vaguitude in the result. But one supposes that these proficient kids can crank out words and sentences relatively quickly. You can celebrate or lament this news, of course, depending on how you read the percentages. A quarter of high school kids isn't bad, from where I sit. Apparently girls ruled and boys drooled on the test: 41 percent of eighth grade girls reached the proficiency threshold, as opposed to 20 percent of boys. But the question remains what these allegedly proficient writers will do as adults. Will they continue to write? Interesting things happen to people after they leave school. Some discover skills unnoticed (or suppressed) during their K-12 and college years. Others sadly drop promising abilities that needed the discipline of the classroom to survive. The fate of writing figures prominently in this transitional period. I know lots of adult people who want to write. The problem is that they can't seem to get past the writing part of the task. They like being recognized as writers, making money as writers, enjoying the identity associated with being a writer. It's just that they don't/won't write, mostly because various negative messages in their head block them. Most of these paralyzing impulses can be refuted rather easily. If you have trouble writing, I offer my refutations here. 1. Wrongness is inevitable First there are the folks who don't write because they're afraid they will say something exposed as wrong. That, of course, doesn't stop Christopher Hitchens from writing. Here's a guy who managed to convince a huge portion of liberal/left America to support (or at least not oppose) what is probably the worst foreign policy/military disaster in United States history: Bush II's horrendous invasion of Iraq. But does that slow him down? Hell no. Hitch just keeps cranking them out: a book about Orwell. a tome about Jefferson - then yet another book about why religion sucks. God only knows (heh heh) what he'll come up with next. What "I might be wrong" writers' block sufferers don't get is that of course you'll be wrong . A lot of being a writer is about being wrong. Everybody is wrong at least half the time. The only difference is that writers put their wrongness on the public record. Speaking personally, I appreciate it when people point out that I'm wrong, because it means They're paying attention. I admit it. I like attention. Don't you? That's at least part of why you want to be a writer, right? I'm entertaining them. People love it when you're wrong, or at least when they're sure you're wrong. Think about it: what's more fun than reading about somebody else being wrong? Well, perhaps somebody you don't like losing all their money in an investment scam, but somebody just being wrong comes close. I might learn something, like, why I was wrong. So take the "I might be wrong" excuse off your list. As a writer, you have an obligation to be wrong. Your wrongness will entertain people, help them clarify their thinking, improve your thinking, and draw attention to your writing. Come to think about it, you're wrong for not writing because you might be wrong. So even if you don't write, you're wrong anyway. You can't win. You may as well write. 2. Indecision does not equal silence Then there are the writers who fear to write because they aren't sure about something. What makes you so sure that you have to be sure about what you think to write? In fact, your lack of surety on some subject is probably one of the most interesting things you can write about. The chances are that your reasons for not being certain about some political or social question are very sound. You can see contradictions in various positions on the problem. You can perceive a need for further investigation of the issue. The plain fact is that an exposition on your lack of clarity will improve the clarity of others, as well as yours. The world is stuffed to the gizzards with people who are absolutely sure about everything. I think it was Voltaire who said that they're the most dangerous people (although I'm not sure it was him). So whatever your motives for writing, in the interest of world peace and harmony, you have a solemn duty to write down and publish your lack of sureness on some matter. 3. I don't write because I don't write well Join the crowd. Most people don't write well. They don't write well because they don't practice their writing. Having left their writing skills unpracticed, they don't write well. So you have to break the loop. First, I recommend that you join the International Association of Bad Writers. It's a very large organization. Its most prominent members include Shirley MacLain, Michel Foucault, the Dalai Lama, most tech writers, half of all journalists, and about ninety percent of all college professors, especially the lit professors. These people have had absolutely no compunction about inflicting their lousy writing on the world. Safely embedded within their ranks, hardly anyone will notice your comparatively modest literary shortcomings. You thus have found excellent cover to practice your writing until it improves. 4. The time management excuse Then there are the folks who say they don't have to the time to write. To this I say baloney. If you've got the time to watch lousy movies and TV shows, write long emails to friends, endlessly argue the same issues with your spouse for years, have screaming matches about politics over the telephone, go to dumb political events where famous people say stuff that you'll forget in ten minutes, read other people's blogs, faithfully read every David Brooks and Thomas Friedman column in The New York Times and then gripe about them, constantly threaten to go to graduate school next year or the year after that, listen daily to All Things Considered cozy up to whoever is in charge at the moment, or constantly threaten to learn Farsi or Arabic, then you've jolly well got the time to write a five to nine paragraph essay about something once a week. At the least the other reasons have some semblance of complexity. This one is pretty unconvincing. 5. Last reason: writing doesn't matter In the end, many people don't write because it feels like it doesn't matter what they say. I think that this is an authentic feeling, but chances are most people feel this way because they are surrounded by people who say and write lots of things, but do not tell the truth. When I say "truth," I mean their truth, that is, what they really think, inside. They write a lot, but they do not say what they really think, creating a vast, vacuous discourse that depresses everyone and fosters an atmosphere of pointlessness. Here is the good news: People who tell their honest truth are in extremely short supply. Their honest truths are rarely earth shattering and profound. They often amount to little more than modest expressions of doubt, curiosity, uncertainty, or changes of heart. But when writers articulate these truths, people pay attention, sometimes with anger, but often with gratitude, because we are all starved for honesty. Your job as a writer is to strive for that clear expression of honesty. You won't hit the mark often. But you'll get there now and then. And yes, your doing that will matter. Try it and you will see. 6. Reasons number six to infinity (fill in the blank): My experience is that most reasons for not writing are rooted in a fear that some cherished part of the individuals' self-image will be shattered; that s/he will be exposed as a fraud. Well, guess what? If you're lucky, you will. And what's so bad about that? We're all frauds to some degree or other. Life's profoundest moments often involve being exposed to one's inner fraudulence. And what better way to invite such revelations on oneself than by public writing? There is, of course, That Other Matter. You only go around once, probably. Writing represents the easiest and most affordable means of documenting not only your brief stay on this plane of existence, but chronicling the evolution of that amazing gift that you accidentally or purposefully received, your consciousness. So fool yourself. Think and feel about writing as not writing. Think of it as just another thing that you just do that you happen to have always wanted to do even though it is something you already do. Think and feel about writing like flossing, crossword puzzling, lawn mowing, nail clipping, pencil sharpening, car washing, dish washing, dog walking, tea drinking, snack sneaking, or bike riding. But please don't think of writing as something that has to be eternally true, absolutely certain, picture eloquent, exquisitely framed, and book length to boot. Writing never has to be any of these things. It can be chaotic, unbalanced, uncertain, plainly false, and amazingly short and still be writing, gifted writing at that. So feel free to be a writer . . . while you still have time. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1200 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:04:00 -0500 I'm enjoying the Federal Trade Commission's new videos about "phishing"—Web sites that try to trick you into disclosing information about your bank account, social security number, security passwords and such so they can steal your identity and rob you silly. The little skits are simple and funny. And the fat phishy guy is sort of cute with his fin getting in the way of his efforts to rob people in person. Mr. Phish's attempt to snooker a business executive in her office is especially funny. "Something here doesn't seem . . . right," she says as he waits for her to give him her bank account password. "What?" he asks innocently. "I can't quite put my finger on it!" she exclaims. "Trust issues, eh?" he deftly replies, hovering over her chair. "You know once we figure this whole thing out maybe we could grab a cup of coffee?" By then she and her security guard notice something—the fin on his back. "This isn't what it looks like!" he exclaims as the guard ushers him out of the office. Obvious warnings you're likely to slip on At the end of the segment, watchers are directed towards an FTC Web site: OnGuardOnLine.gov. They might have come up with a shorter domain name, but the site has lots of good tips on protecting your digital security. Some of these pointers may appear to you to qualify for the "duh" category, but I know plenty of people who have slipped and paid the price. Here are a few advisories: Your lap top. "Treat it like cash." Don't leave it in your car. Don't leave it in your office with the door open. "Don’t leave it 'for just a sec' ... no matter where you are." Investing online. "Don’t believe everything you read in online newsletters, investing blogs, or bulletin boards. Fraud artists often float false information and 'hot tips' as part of their efforts to rip-off investors or manipulate the market for a particular security." VoIP. "VoIP services don't have the same access to some services — including the 911 emergency system and directory assistance — as traditional telephone service." Just good stuff to keep in mind. The biggest problem with phishing, of course, is that it comes in the form of spam. And spam has gone beyond just irritating, the Federal Trade Commission warns. It has become downright dangerous. "This new generation of spam is no longer a mere annoyance to email recipients and a burden to ISPs; often it is a vector for criminal activity," the FTC's Spam Summit report, released on December 28th, concludes. The document summarizes the findings of the Commission's Division of Marketing Practices on spam and phishing. Not your grandfather's spam In the relatively innocent 1990s, spammers used automated search software to "harvest" e-mail addresses off Web sites, then dumped them into scripts to mass market products via email. The messages used phony headers so you couldn't trace them to their source. But those were the good old days, the FTC report explains. Today's New and Improved spam sends you malicious "bots" that implant software in your computer, turning it into part of a network of hosts that send unprecedented quantities of spam into cyberspace. And the spam doesn't just try to get you to buy V1a@ra; it directs you to "phishing" sites—phony Web pages that look like your banking, credit card, or cell phone account site—then tells you the site crashed and needs you to submit your account information again in the hope that you'll fall for this dodge and the spammer can rob you silly. Other types of "malware," the FTC warns, can dramatically slow down your computer, or even worse, install key recording software that will record your every keystroke—that's right, including the strokes that spell out your credit card and banking account number. Fast flux One million Internet Protocol (IP) addresses get shanghaied into coordinated spam attacks every day, the FTC survey says, assaulting 50,000 computers in any single instance. Spam experts call the phenomenon "fast flux," and say that about 12 million computers world wide are compromised by malicious bots, most of them located outside the United States. With so many computers under their control, spammers can quickly switch the infected computer IP addresses that they use in order to evade detection by authorities. And it's getting easier to become a malicious spammer, the FTC reports. Rogue software developers are offering spam/spyware programs for less than $20 a copy; some even come with technical support. U.S. consumers paid seven billion dollars in costs due to malicious spam in 2007, the Spam Summit report says. 850,000 households had to replace their computers after being spammed or phished. The Federal Bureau of Investigation discloses that over 200 government Web sites have been compromised and turned into spam delivery systems. Fighting spam Consumers can protect themselves from malicious spam, the FTC says. Spam filters work and every e-mail user should get one. Studies repeatedly show that using such filters effectively blocks most spam. "The implication of this finding is that ISP spam filtering technologies continue to play an integral role in reducing the amount of spam messages delivered to consumers’ inboxes," the FTC concludes. The Commission also warns that listing your e-mail address on a Web site puts that address at high risk of getting plucked, "but that postings on other website locations, such as chatrooms, message boards, social network sites, and video posting sites were far less likely to be harvested." MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1189 Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:59:17 -0500 The cable giant and peer-to-peer innovator whose conflict triggered a renewed debate over net neutrality have announced that they will work together now, or at least adjust some of their rhetoric. Comcast and BitTorrent issued a press release this morning promising "a collaborative effort with one another and with the broader Internet and ISP community to more effectively address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management." It's unclear what impact this news will have on the Federal Communications Commission's investigation of what Comcast calls its 'network management practices' and critics call crude efforts to block or significantly slow down P2P use. Today Comcast promised that by the end of this year it will move to a capacity management system that is "protocol agnostic." This phrase, may suggest to the literal minded that Comcast would like to believe in Internet protocols, but needs to see some evidence that they exist first. Those hoping for a more precise definition could be disappointed by Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner's definition of the term. "This means that we will have to rapidly reconfigure our network management systems," the press release quotes Werner as saying, "but the outcome will be a traffic management technique that is more appropriate for today's emerging Internet trends." BitTorrent matched this vagueness by assuring the public that it has kinder feelings now for Comcast's past ISP behavior. "While we think there were other management techniques that could have been deployed," declared Eric Klinker, BitTorrent's CTO, "we understand why Comcast and other ISPs adopted the approach that they did initially." Klinker added that he is pleased that "Comcast understands these changing traffic patterns and wants to collaborate with us to migrate to techniques that the Internet community will find to be more transparent." The two groups say that they will work with each other, other ISPs and technology companies, and with the Internet Engineering Task Force "to explore and develop a new distribution architecture" for rich content delivery. BitTorrent President Ashwin Navin promises that they will publish their work in open forums. Obviously this news will have an impact on the debate over to what extent the FCC should establish clear net neutrality based guidelines over ISP management. The most outspoken advocates of what they call a "light regulatory touch" on the Commission have already hailed today's announcement. FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate praised the agreement. "I have consistently favored competition and market forces rather than government regulation across all platforms and especially in this dynamic, highly-technical marketplace," she declared this morning. Ditto for her fellow Republican Robert M. McDowell. "As I have said for a long time," McDowell said yet again, "it is precisely this kind of private sector solution that has been the bedrock of Internet governance since its inception. Government mandates cannot possibly contemplate the myriad complexities and nuances of the Internet market place." Democratic Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein took a more skeptical stance, declaring that the Commission "will need to learn more details about the recent agreement between BitTorrent and Comcast, but it is encouraging that broadband providers are listening to the chorus of consumer calls for open and neutral broadband Internet access." The Comcast/BitTorrent press release also assures the public that both parties are discussing the creation of a friendly environment for "legal" P2P use, Comcast CFO Werner declaring that P2P protocols have "matured as an enabler for legal content distribution." The FCC's Tate added in her press statement that she wants "all interested parties to redouble their efforts to address the growing problem of illegal content distribution, from pirated movies and music, to online child pornography, as well as the issue of child online safety." How will Comcast do this without content filtering? Not very clear. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1093 Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:11:36 -0500 Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded not guilty today to civil charges that he lied under oath about an affair and spent taxpayer funds to conceal the relationship with his staff member, Christine Beatty. The counts against him all add up to an absurd 90 years in prison. I have no way of knowing whether Mr. Kilpatrick is innocent or guilty of the charges that he faces. But I'll say this about the man, a couple of years ago he stood up to AT&T. When AT&T first proposed merging with BellSouth, a union that would create an entity controlling half the land lines in the United States, most minority advocates supported the merger. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Jesse Jackson's Operation Rainbow Push, and other regional civil rights groups all submitted statements on behalf of the $67.1 billion deal. "Our mission is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economical equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination," the NAACP wrote to the FCC in October of 2006. "This merger has the potential to contribute to the achievement of our mission by reducing the economic and technological barriers confronting people living in underserved rural and low income communities." But three prominent inner city mayors didn't see it that way. Two days before the NAACP's filing, Kwame Kilpatrick, Ray Nagin of New Orleans, and Eric Perrodin of Compton, California, submitted comments, for the second time, expressing concerns about AT&T and BellSouth's performance in inner-city areas. The first time they filed, on June 5th, they charged that the proposed merger could "exacerbate the differences in access to telecommunications services based on race, income level, and geography." Calling themselves the Concerned Mayors Alliance (CMA), Kilpatrick, Nagin, and Perrodin cited studies and newspaper reports suggesting that AT&T redlines minority neighborhoods—systematically denying or delaying service to low-income ethnic areas. Their comments described these regions as the "last wired and the last hired," and expressed concern that the merger could reduce opportunities for minority contractors. Their filing also charged that minority neighborhood residents often receive shoddy service from AT&T. "In deciding whether to approve this proposed merger," the mayors wrote, "the Commission should consider the past practices of AT&T's cable and telephone affiliated companies and impose conditions on the merger to ensure that these illegal practices do not continue." The mayors asked for a redlining assessment from the FCC or a designated third party investigator. The NAACP FCC submission, in contrast, took AT&T at its word. Their statement disclosed that they met with AT&T executives and received commitments that 30 percent of AT&T's upcoming high speed broadband rollout would be reserved for low income neighborhoods and that opportunities for minority contractors would receive "priority attention." The NAACP's letter did offer one note of skepticism about the acquisition: the nearly 10,000 estimated jobs that would be eliminated because of the merger. But: "we were heartened to learn that the proposed merger company may reclaim approximately 3,000 formerly out-source jobs," their statement concluded. The civil rights group received support in this stance from the Asian Pacific Legal Center, Jesse Jackson's Operation Rainbow Push, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and the Urban League of Greater Miami. But Kilpatrick, Nagin, Perrodin asked the FCC to take a closer look at AT&T's promises. Their second filing asked the Commission to get more details on that 30% broadband commitment. "The CMA proposes an agreement that specifically identifies low-income areas in Detroit, New Orleans and Compton and other municipalities for incremental deployment by AT&T/BellSouth," they wrote, "and establishes definitive goals and timelines for such deployment." Kilpatrick and his fellow mayors didn't get everything they wanted when the FCC finally approved the AT&T/BellSouth deal, but their critical stance had to count as one of the factors that forced AT&T to commit to a faster rate of broadband rollout to low income areas. AT&T also promised not to raise prices on broadband upgrades of dial up service. Kilpatrick didn't have to take this kind of leadership. He could have just gone along with the NAACP's sanguine endorsement of the deal. Instead, he stood up for his residents, and that showed character. Again, I have no way of knowing how this latest ordeal will dispense with the Mayor of Detroit. But I hope that he comes out all right. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1068 Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:58:04 -0500 The Federal Communications Commission's 700MHz auction is done. It was the biggest auction of publicly owned spectrum ever. The winner is Verizon Wireless. The company spent about 9 billion bucks to purchase six "beachfront" quality spectrum licenses that will give the cell phone giant access to a national broadband market, including Hawaii. Because they purchased spectrum on the so-called "C-Block" of the sale, they will have to open their service to any consumer application. But they're also going to have to put a lot more money into this very expensive new frontier, and they're going to have to do it in what promises to be a nasty recession. That is probably why Goldman Sachs called Verizon's bid potentially risky. The FCC could not sell off its D-Block, the 10MHz swath of spectrum that came with a large public interest requirement—the winner will have to share the license area with a national public safety broadband service. The goal is to create a huge interoperable communications region for the nation's public safety agencies (fire, police, and medical). But nobody offered the FCC's minimal asking price. So the agency says that it will "delink" the D zone and try to figure out why the bidders wouldn't go for the region and how to get them to. The good folks over at the Media Access Project (see below) had some guarded praise for the auction. The auction raised a lot of money, they said, thanks to anonymous bidding. Some smaller companies like Echostar got in on the game. Then there's the promise of the C-Block, however that plays out. But here are some things that the FCC did not do with the the 700MHz region, made available by the end of analog television. The FCC did not give any spectrum away. They could have, you know. They could have given licenses away to non-profits, universities, rural cooperatives, Native American reservations, what have you, to offer a wide variety of non-profit based, educationally based, community based services that market oriented entities won't. Sure, it would have deprived the government of money to do this; but it also would have extended resources to people and groups that never get access to this kind of stuff. Guess how many women owned firms won spectrum in this auction? Zero. Guess how many minority owned firms won it? Less than one percent. The FCC did not establish any public interest parameters for the spectrum Throughout the deliberations over how to run this auction, a company called M2Z proposed setting aside a big piece of the spectrum for a commercially based, free broadband service that filtered out pornography. The FCC rejected the idea, but not until after a long period of deliberation. Hundreds of organizations, community leaders, and even United States Senators endorsed the M2Z concept. So don't tell me that setting any public interest guidelines for spectrum isn't possible, or that nobody wants it. Congress could have empowered the Commission to do all kinds of things with the spectrum. They could have required a block of it to go to non-commercial broadband services, or to services that at least adhere to the agency's minimal enhanced underwriting rules for broadcasters. What else? You fill in the blanks. Congress did not earmark any of the money for public interest purposes They could have set aside a percentage of that money for public broadcasting, for community radio and television, for minority broadcasters. Hell, it was over 19 billion dollars. THREE percent of that would have meant over half a billion bucks for all kinds of worthy projects. They did none of this because none of this is discussable in the present political climate. Even most of the good guys don't discuss it. It is a whole world of possibilities completely off the political and philosophical table—for now. March 20, 2008 For Immediate Release   STATEMENT OF MEDIA ACCESS PROJECT IN RESPONSE TO 700 MHZ AUCTION RESULTS. The following statement may be attributed to Harold Feld, Senior Vice President, Media Access Project: This auction proves two things. First, anonymous bidding works. Second, that auctions alone will not bring competition to the wireless world or break the current cable/DSL broadband duopoly. On the positive side, Echostar -- which had been blocked by the cable consortium Spectrum Co. in the last major FCC auction, won a substantial number of E Block licenses, which will increase its competitive position against cable. The 700 MHz Auction also proved a financial success, bringing in more money than any other FCC auction. Both of these positive results come from the FCC's decision to adopt anonymous bidding -- which prevented blocking by rivals or collusion to reduce prices. On the other hand, this auction also proves that major incumbents will always be able to win if they spend enough. The advantages an incumbent enjoys -- already having a network, customers, and name recognition for example -- give it enough of an edge to win every time. For Americans to see real competition in the wireless world, Congress and the FCC must rethink the reliance on auctions and return to spectrum caps or other means to limit the power of the existing wireless oligopoly. Finally, although the open device condition on C Block will help to move Verizon and the rest of the industry in the direction of open networks, the auction failed to establish a genuine broadband "third pipe." In many ways, however, this failure is good news. With the distraction of a wireless broadband third pipe behind us, policymakers can turn their attention to real solutions for the problem of the cable/DSL duopoly that subjects Americans to high prices, slow speeds, and poor service. In what was undoubtedly the most equal and fairest FCC auction ever held, the incumbents still won the lion's share of licenses. But at least, thanks to anonymous bidding, they paid market value. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/1022 Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:42:05 -0500 There's is so much stuff going on at the Federal Communications Commission this week that I can't throw a stick at it. But I'll try. Supremes to consider fleeting expletives The Supreme Court has agreed to reconsider the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' strikedown of FCC fines for  so-called "fleeting expletives." To recap, the Commish smacked Fox TV in 2006 for potty mouthed celebrity comments made during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards. Here are the crimes in question: The 2002 Billboard Music Awards: "People have been telling me I'm on the way out every year, right? So fuck 'em." -Cher The 2003 Billboard Music Awards: "Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It's not so fucking simple." -”Nicole Richie The FCC insisted that even though these words were said on the fly, they still represented "titillating" and "shocking" language. But New York's Second Circuit Court of Appeals called that stupid. In fact, in June of that year they characterizd the decision as "divorced from reality." "In recent times," the court observed, "even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe referenced 'sexual or excretory organs or activities' [as the FCC has delicately put it]." The judges pointed out that even the nation's highest officials have used such language without anyone sprouting wood. The Second cited two examples: President Bush's inadvertently televised remark to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the United Nations needed to "get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit" and Vice President Dick Cheney's "widely-reported 'Fuck yourself' comment to Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the U.S. Senate." FCC Chair Kevin Martin hurled some expletives himself following the Second Circuit's decision. "I completely disagree with the Court's ruling and am disappointed for American families," Martin explained in a statement published on the FCC's Web site. "I find it hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that 'shit' and 'fuck' are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience." So Martin appealed to the Supreme Court, and here we are. Broadband madness The FCC reported today that high speed Internet lines in the United States jumped by 55 percent in a twelve month period ending in June 2007, but who cares? The Commission's definition of high speed is a joke: over 200 kilobits per second in one direction (uploads or downloads). "Advanced services lines" is also a gag, defined at over 200 kbps in both directions. Even FCC Chair Martin thinks this is laughable. He appeared at Stanford a couple of weeks ago and called these standards "woefully inadequate" and "not reflective of what the technology is expecting in terms of broadband deployment." Martin told the Stanford audience that he has proposed raising the bar to 768kpbs for basic broadband, and 1.5Mbps for an advanced service connections. But the Commission did do something nice for apartment dwellers today. It ruled that telcos can't set up exclusive deals with apartment buildings. Last November it did the same with cable service. Now telecommunications service providers can't make tenements contract with one just one telco. "Exclusive contracts have blocked access by consumers to competitive and popular 'triple-play' offerings of voice, video and broadband," the Commission declared "Opening the door to competitive telecommunications services will help provide consumers with increased access to and choice of such providers." Plus the Order establishes "regulatory parity between telecommunications and video service providers in the increasingly competitive market for bundled services." I just love it when the FCC uses words like 'regulatory parity.' It makes them sound so tough. Left coast net neutrality showdown Oh yeah: the FCC will be holding yet another hearing on what Comcast calls 'network management practices' and what P2P uses call crude blocking of their attempts to share files. The last one took place at Harvard on February 25th and I covered it for Ars Technica. Quite a slug fest. Apparently Comcast paid people from the street to pack the meeting in order to keep folks actually interested in the issue out. That will be a bit more difficult act to pull off at Stanford, I think, where the next gathering will occur. The Palo Alto campus is not exactly the kind of place where you can just walk in off the street. Anyway, April 17th is the day for the big event. Let's see. Wuddelse? Last point: It should bear mentioning that if the Supreme Court rules on the "fleeting" case this year, it will happen on the 30th anniversary of Pacifica versus FCC, the 5 to 4 decision that launched the agency's indecency rampage. The Supremes have a chance to nip this lunacy in the bud. Let's hope they stay consistent with their pro-corporate stance and side with Fox TV (this is the only time you'll ever read me siding with Fox folks, so savor the moment). MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/952 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:58:55 -0500 Now that I'm blogging about the Federal Communications Commission for Allvoices on a regular basis, I think it's time to explain how the FCC makes decisions, and how you can file a comment with the Commission. That way I can always refer to this page when I'm describing an FCC related issue that asks for public input. When the FCC wants to make a new rule or a new set of rules, it often goes through three stages. First it issues a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to the public. The purpose of the NOI is simply to gather information about the general problem that the FCC seeks to solve. The FCC has issued inquiries on everything from satellite orbit distances to how to protect birds from electrified wireless towers. After enough people have commented, the FCC will frequently issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR). The NOPR proposes specific rules or regulations to solve some problem or conflict, and it often goes through two stages. First the FCC allows the public to comment on the proposal for a fixed amount of time - usually from thirty to ninety days. Then the Commission allows the public to reply to comments for a similar period. The agency's five Commissioners also meet with interested parties during this time. Finally, the Commissioners and their staffs will read all the comments and negotiate with each other. If they can come up with a three person majority, they will issue an Order on the matter. The Order explains the logic behind the decision in some detail, and becomes law unless a party successfully takes it to court, or Congress overrides the decision with their own rules. That's why it's hard to just write a letter to the FCC on whatever happens to come to your mind. Think of the FCC as a sort of transit depot, full of trains moving in and out of the station. Each train equals a NOI or a NOPR. Like a commuter train, you've got to know when it will arrive and where it is going. Then you can jump on! The key is identifying the docket number for the right proceeding. As with trains, the FCC gives each proceeding a number when it posts the NOI or NOPR on its Web site (www.fcc.gov). If you know the docket number, just go to the FCC's handy dandy comment form, plug in the docket number in the first text field, and file your comment. You can either type your comment right into the form, or you can upload a Word, pdf, Excel, or text file that you've produced on your computer. Unfortunately, the Commission does not do a good job of making it easy to figure out when and where NOIs and NOPRs are going, especially if you don't pay attention to what's happening at the FCC on a regular basis. So I've started compiling a list of proceeding docket numbers, which you can access at the bottom of this article. Suggestions for writing effective comments 1. Be nice. The first thing to remember about filing a public comment with the FCC is that it is public. That means that what you write will be stored in a database accessible to the many lawyers, businesspeople, activists, government officials, and journalists who follow FCC proceedings. In fact, I draw most of the materials on this Web site from public filings. So in the short run you might find it satisfying to call the FCC a cabal of fascistic/Stalinist/Bush loving/Jesus hating pornographers or whatever, but frankly, nobody at the Commission will take your comment very seriously. And you also could find your comment floating somewhere across the Web. That's why it's better to write something intelligent and assertive rather than nasty and aggressive. 2. Team up. Magnify the power of your comment by getting three or four of your friends to co-sign. Call yourself something, eg. "the Anytown Committee for Media Reform" or "the Smallville Coalition for Local Radio." You get the idea. Clear Channel and Microsoft do this. Why not you? 3. Make specific suggestions. Don't just say that you are against something, emphasize what you are for. Try to come up with concrete proposals and observations in your comment. If you think that the FCC should not relax its media ownership rules, what do you think that the FCC should do? What's going on in your community that you can tell the FCC about? Specific comments are important, because if the FCC, in composing its final Order, ignores a detailed, specific suggestion or observation, any group that appeals the Order to the courts can cite that omission in its petition for relief. 4. Be professional. If you upload a letter, create a letterhead style document. But remember, if you put your cell phone number or personal email on the top of the document, it's there for everybody to see—and download. A great example of an individual filing can be found here.   The FCC's Comment form   Popular proceedings and docket numbers (just plug in the right docket number [below] for text box #1 on the form): Children's television: 00-167 Closed captioning accessibility: 06-181 DTV Transition: 07-148 The "fake TV news" controversy: 05-171 FCC media ownership rules: 02-277 Net neutrality: 07-52 Video franchise rules: 05-311 The XM/Sirius merger: 07-57 Looking for a docket number? Email me and I 'll try to find it for you. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/851 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:28:57 -0500 The news media is having a great day with the revelation that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer paid for sex with prostitutes. Behind the scenes, corporate criminals are breaking out the champagne. As Attorney General of the Empire State, Eliot Spitzer championed the consumer and feasted on white collar crooks. Not only that, Spitzer's zeal often forced those around him in government to do their jobs better, whether they wanted to or not. To cite only one example, in the summer of 2005 Spitzer launched a campaign against radio payola. The smart set had long ago concluded that payola was inevitable. After all, the government had cracked down on it in the early 1960s, and yet here it was still around. But Spitzer thought otherwise. He announced lawsuits against Sony Records and Entercom Communications Corporation, the latter which owns and operates 105 radio stations on the east coast. The suits charged that the firms' stations solicited payments from record companies for air time, or they traded air time for gifts, promotional items, and personal trips. Spitzer obtained corporate emails that revealed pay-for-play deals between corporate radio stations and promoters. "Hello Lisa," one email to a promoter began. "I'm writing to confirm WBEE's receipt of a Dell computer, value $2512.08. Thank you again; we enjoyed doing the promotion with you." That exchange was mild in tone compared to correspondence between a Sony station deejay and a promoter. "I'm a whore this week, what can I say?" the jock declares. "You can say I'll give you Franz Ferdinand this week and put it in a 7PM to 6AM rotation with 18 times a week," came the reply. As Sony, Entercom and two other firms rushed to settle, Spitzer went further. In March of 2006 he held a press conference to denounce the Federal Communications Commission for dragging its heels on the issue. He demanded that the FCC take more aggressive steps against payola. "The agency's inaction is especially disappointing given the pervasive nature of this problem and its corrosive impact on the entertainment industry," Spitzer said. This kick in the rump obviously worked. A month later the FCC announced an accelerated investigation of the alleged payola practices of four media giants: Clear Channel Communications, CBS Radio, Entercom Communications, and Citadel Broadcasting. A year later the four culprits paid the government $12.5 million in fines. They also agreed to a new set of rules reigning in "pay for play" radio. "Through this strong enforcement action that we take today," FCC Chair Kevin Martin officiously stated, "the Commission has provided clear guidance to licensees and sent a strong message that the practice of payola must stop for good." But the agency would not have accomplished this had Elliot Spitzer not put the fear of God into the broadcasting industry with his dramatic lawsuit, and made a public issue of the commission's laziness. Doubtless the occupants of corporate board rooms everywhere watched Spitzers' heartbreaking press conference yesterday and grinned. An arrogant man brought down by the very flaws he decried in others, they are saying to their confidants. Yes, Spitzer was arrogant, self-righteous, and maniacally ambitious. He needed to be those things to accomplish his work. Nice, self-effacing people do not prevail against corporate crooks and their sleazy lawyers, lobbyists, and thugs. Eliot Spitzers do. I, for one, am not laughing about his demise.   The FCC's payola rules The government defines "payola" as the undisclosed playing of music over broadcast stations in exchange for money, gifts, or services. On April 13, 2006, CBS radio, Entercom Communications, Clear Channel Communications, and Citadel Broadcasting promised the FCC to: prohibit airplay for cash and goods "except under specified conditions [below] " put limits on gifts from big broadcasters to company stations appoint officers who will monitor compliance with the agreement train personnel on how to avoid violations of the new rules The Consent Agreement did allow the companies the following leeway: Stations may ask for and receive a wide variety of on air giveaway items of value, such as CDs or airplane tickets, as long as they broadcast the value of the prizes and their donor. Station personnel can solicit and receive up to 20 copies of a CD "to familiarize Company employees with recordings," as well as various kinds of swag, from T-shirts to coffee mugs, as long as the value of each item does not go above $25 and the materials are used at company parties. Companies can ask for a receive up to 20 tickets for a single day concert or industry event "to be used by Company employees to familiarize them with the performing Artists." Station personnel can receive "modest personal gifts for life event, professional achievement and holidays, or gifts commemorating achievement by Company or a Record Label," as long as the value of the gift does not exceed $150, as far as the employee can tell. Station employees can receive meals and entertainment at a single event up to $150 in value "provided that the event is attended by a Record Label employee and has a legitimate business purpose, and any payment is consistent with the value of the meal or entertainment." Company stations can receive up to 20 stipends for "reasonable travel and lodging expenses" to industry events, as long as the compliance officer approves of the gift. Companies must maintain a database of gifts and favors received by its stations. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/799 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:36:39 -0500 Dear Consumer: You may have heard alarming reports that at some point early next year a whole bunch of TV sets are going to go dark because of the "DTV transition." Please don't worry. No one wants to take your television set away from you, least of all the Bush administration. Here are the facts. The FCC's DTV facts site The National Association of Broadcasters' DTV Answers site The NTIA's converter coupon program DTV Facts, an unofficial site The United States government has set February 17th, 2009 as the last day that television stations may broadcast their signal using the analog method. Analog systems use modulating frequencies to transmit sound and pictures. Digital systems transmit TV signals, well, via digits, complex packets of zeros and ones that get reassembled into video and audio when they reach your television set. Everybody gets something from digital or "DTV" broadcasting. You'll get better images and sound, with much less interference. Plus DTV transmission will allow TV license holders to broadcast several streams from one signal, a technique called "multicasting." This means that you will have even more channels to choose from, depending on the extent to which cable and satellite companies pick them all up, still a matter of dispute. In addition, the abandonment of all these analog signals has allowed the Federal government to auction off a huge swath of channel space, or spectrum, earning the United States Treasury billions of dollars which will doubtless be put to excellent use. The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that all newly manufactured boob tubes have to come equipped with digital tuners. Retailers can still sell analog only equipment, but they've got to include the following warning around the said gear: "This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17th, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation's transition to digital broadcasting. . . . " Already about 1,600 TV stations broadcast both analog and digital signals. The problem is that millions of Americans, perhaps as many as 21 million, still rely on analog television only. That is, they don't have a digital tuner, or a cable or satellite set top box, which usually picks up a digital signal and translates it into something that their analog TV can receive. They just watch TV using a plain old rabbit ears antenna analog machine. That means that on midnight, February 17th, 2009, their TV set will become a useless piece of furniture, unless the owner of that receiver acts sooner. That means that somebody has to tell them to act, and how to act. The problem is that a lot of those owners are the least reachable people in our society: the poor, the very elderly, folks in remote rural areas, and people with disabilities. Paradoxically, while many of these individuals depend on television for their primary connection to the outside world, they're going to be the hardest people to get retooled for the digital transition. Among other problems, many of them don't have the money to buy a fancy new digital TV set. To address the money issue, the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has started a Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program. Beginning on January 1st, 2008, all Americans became eligible to receive two $40 coupons good towards purchase of a set top box that, plugged into your grandmother's old TV, will convert that digital signal to analog and keep the telly running. But the challenge will be to a) make grandma aware of the problem, and b) make her, or someone who can help her, aware of the solution. To deal with these public education tasks, the government has budgeted a sum that many critics regard as woefully inadequate, about $5 million for the NTIA, and another $2 million for the FCC. The British, in contrast, have allocated almost $400 million for the job. NTIA officials defend the relatively low sum earmarked for this task by assuring the public that the private sector—broadcasters, TV manufactures, and retail TV distributors—will take on the burden of educational work. Last summer I attended an FCC Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting, at which a National Association of Broadcasters official assured the group that this was a top priority for broadcasters, a matter of self-interest, even calling the DTV transition "television's Y2K." Since then, the FCC has decided to help broadcasters get more enthusiastic about the DTV transition by requiring them to run a schedule of Public Service Announcements and "crawls" (those text lines you see, well, crawling at the bottom of your screen) on a regular basis through this year and next. Speaking personally, I applied for my two NTIA coupons in early January and still have not received them. But hope springs eternal. One thing is for sure, whatever happens after February 17th, 2009, the Last Day of Analog Broadcasting, President George W. ("You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie") Bush, won't have to answer for it. At least there's that. MatthewLasar http://www.allvoices.com/user/blog/727 Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:22:29 -0600