Month: January 2007

NCMR Day 2: I collapse into an exhausted stupor

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First, I must report that Jen Howard, one of the amazing folks at Free Press (formerly one of my colleagues at MAP) was a touch disappointed in my review of the party Thursday night, which she planned. She also informs me that the company that handled the drinks had said that non-alcoholic drinks were free and they were definitely NOT, supposed to charge me $2 for a bottle of water. So I will conclude that Free Press (and Jen) are amazing at everything, including planning parties, and just got ripped off.

And so they proved on Friday Night. Or so I am told. It being Shabbos, I retreated to my room. Alas, I therefore missed the further inspirational remarks of Commissioners Copps and Adelstein. However, I urge all those benighted souls who, like me, missed it, to check them out in the video archive.

I do urge everyone to pay particular attention to Copps’ proposed New America Media Contract. I will have more analysis of this when the brain cells start workng again.

O.K., here is how Harold spent his day. It is a rather disjointed, personal approach that skipped most of the main events with the real news makers. Which is why I don’t call myself a “citizen journalist” (but more on that below).

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The KAT

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Our KidsFirst project includes a great deal of what we’ve learned about Croquet. We’re making all the code available through the CroquetSource code repository, as part of the Contributions collection of code that will be distributed in the forthcoming Croquet release. (This repository is available to developers ahead of release, as part of what David Reed calls “Invention in public.” For info on updating, see this movie and this discussion thread. There will also be a new image distribution shortly.)

We call this code the KAT – KidsFirst Application Toolkit. It fits over all the other Croquet SDK code without changing it. All the KAT-specific classes begin with K – partly for the KidsFirst project that informs its development, and partly as homage to Alan. As the code matures, you may or may not see some of the KAT code migrate down to the base classes from which it inherits. (For historical reasons, the name of the Monticello package is “Wisconsin.” This may change.)

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NCMR Day One: Free Press Amazing At Everything But Planing Parties

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The official National Conference for Media Reform has now gotten under way. Alas, as it is now less than an hour before Shabbos, when I will stop using all things electronic (which makes staying in a hotel with electronic card keys soooooo much fun). So I can only hit a few highlights.

1) They say 3000 people are here, and I believe it. While media consolidation as an issue is non-partisan (or bi-partisan, if you prefer), the conference attendees are most decidedly progressive. I hope the conservatives have their own anti-media consolidation conference.
In fact, I make it a challenge. Yo, conservatives! We hate main stream media more than you do! Can you get 3000 conservatives together to talk about how sucky media is? Well, when you do, lets get all 6,000 together and march on the Capitol. That will show us white-wine swilling effete liberals a thing or two!

2) Go to the Free Press video links and watch the speeches from the main ballroom. For most moving short piece on why media reform is a critical human rghts struggle and essential to the dignity of us all and our democracy, I nominate Danny Glover’s opening piece. Short and beautiful.

Bill Moyer’s speech was, as one would expect for Bill Moyers, brilliant. He began with some much needed words of caution. We can feel good about the fact that this is now a bona fide movement, and one that is winning. OTOH, this is the traditional moment when left-wing/progressive movements start fracturing and battling each other (usually with a little assist from the powers that be). How about we not do that this time? We got a lot of people working toward a common goal essentially to preserving our free society. If we keep working together, we will win.

Jesse Jackson gave the afternoon speech placing the media justice movement in the context of the civil rights movement and why we cannot achieve the success of the “broken promise” of liberty for all dating back to the Emancipation Proclamation without media reform. Why, he asked, do people have to learn about race relations from things like the “Call me, Harold” commercial? How can the same person who shows amazing affection and loyalty for a black athlete get all suspicious when the same black man is in a store buying groceries? Because the consolidation in the media deprives people of a diversity of voices and views.

Very good afternoon sessions as well as a good dealers space below. Also kudos for ubiquitous free wireless network which I am using to post this. Working pretty well so far.

Lest one thing that my affection and admiration for Free Press has blinded me to the need for journalistic objectivity, I should mention that last night’s “Save the Internet” party was totally lame. When I go to a party, I do not expect to pay $2/bottle of water. When Dorgan-Snowe (no longer Snowe-Dorgan!) passes, I am definitely letting the party animals at the Chirstian Coalition and United States Conference of Catholic Bishops plan the party.

O.K., journalistic integrity and “fairness” reestablished, I bid you all Good Shabbos. I’ll be here and around. You’ll know me as the guy who is standing by the electric doors waiting for someone else to work in first. Stupid electric doors.

Stay tuned . . . .

FCC Makes Cable Companies Obey Law! Activist Lawyer Faints In shock!

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Oh my stars! After endless years of delay, the FCC has has denied the various waiver requests from Comcast and the National Cable Telecommunications Association to delay the implementation of the set-top box interoperability. My stars! The cable industry will actually be required to comply with a law passed in 1996! I am positively weak from shock. Now if only we could get the FCC to resolve the horizontal cable ownership that’s been pending since 1992.

More below . . . .

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FCC Commissioner Adelstein Kicks Off Academic Pre-Conference in Memphis

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Hello all from the Memphis Tennessee Convention Center. While the Free Press National Conference on Media Reform does not officially open until tomorrow, Free Press and the Social Sciences Research Center (SSRC) have co-sponsored an academic pre-conference for today, with a goal of promoting greater coordination between academics and activists and encouraging more academics to get involved in the substantive policy debates.

Craig Calhoun of SSRC and Robert McChesney of Free Press did a good job introducing the conference. But the real star of the morning was FCC Commissioner Joathan Adelstein.

I couldn’t have wished for a better speech. If Adelstein doesn’t read my blog (and I rather doubt he does), I take it as prof that “great minds think alike.” He savaged the neo-cons and others who rely on “faith based” research and regulation, and an FCC that has allowed the corporations it regulates to control both the framing of the debate and the information used for policy. Because the FCC has consciously decided not to “burden” the industry with reporting requirements that would provide an accurate picture of the industry (altough they provide exactly this information to investors and the SEC), the “expert agency” is now “starved for information” and reduced to writing “advocacy pieces” for industry or reports devoid of meaningful data and analysis.

On the plus side, according to Adelstein, we have truth on our side and a massive reserve of talent and ability. We have already accomplished amazing things. With greater coordination and effort, we can do more.

Details below . . . .

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Kerry drops another good bill

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Senator John Kerry (D-MA) has introduced the Wireless Innovation Act of 2007. This bill is essentially the same excellent bill to force the FCC to open up the White Spaces that Kerry, Allen (now no longer in the Senate), Boxer and Sunnunu introduced in 2006 and was later incorporated into the Stevens Bill.

The bill requires the FCC to complete its pending rulemaking on the broadcast white spaces and allocate the use for unlicensed spectrum. Given that the FCC has shifted into reverse on this and has decided to reexplore the licensed v. unlicensed question, it’s nice to see folks on the Hill pushing for this.

Stay tuned . . . .

Book Review: Eric Klinenberg's Fighting For Air

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Today marks the release of Eric Klinenberg’s Fighting for Air: The Battle To Control America’s Media. Timed for release with the National Conference on Media Reform, I expect attendees can pick up a copy there. Those of you who must, for whatever unfortunate reason, miss the big media ‘do in Memphis can order it from Amazon. (I have no idea if mainstream bookstores will carry it.)

Anyone who wants to understand the media reform movement should buy this book. More importantly, this is the book to give your friends and relatives so that they can understand why the media reform movement matters, and why it will succeed in transforming the media landscape despite the multi-billion dollar forces arrayed against it.

Review below . . . .

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Snowe & Dorgan ReIntroduce Net Neutrality Bill — and A Chance for Some Presidential Politics

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Senator Snowe (R-ME) and Senator Dorgan (D-ND) have introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. Interestingly, although neither is on the relevant Committee, both Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton are co-sponsors. While not exactly pandering (both co-sponsored the Snowe-Dorgan network neutrality bill last year when it was a lot riskier to do so), does anyone doubt that their decision to come out strongly in favor of NN this early was influenced by the popularity of this issue with the netroots?

Meanwhile, where the heck did Inouye go? And has anyone talked to the new members yet?

Some reflections on the new bill, and on the new politics network neutrality, below . . . .

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Child's Play

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Croquet leader Alan Kay has noticed that making technology work well for children is often a good way to make technology work for everyone. This concept has informed his recent work with VPRI, SqueakLand and the One Laptop Per Child project.

We’re starting a project in Croquet called KidsFirst, in which we push the limits of ease-of-use and collaboration to the extreme by focusing on the three legs of an early-education community of practice: very young children, busy teachers, and non-specialist parents.

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IMPEACH

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Impeach Cheney; Impeach Bush. Impeach Rice and Hadley. Impeach the whole festering, law-breaking, constitution-hating lot of them. Start at the top and work down or start at the bottom and work up, I don’t care.

Reclaim our country. Bring back the rule of law. Not only does our whole country deserve it, but the whole world depends upon it.

NOTE: As with every other posting here at Wetmachine, this one reflects the opinion of me alone, not (necessarily) those of my fellow bloggers.