Daylight Savings Time: Can We Just Keep It?

So for yet another year we turned back the clock and are now in Standard Time once again.

I fucking hate Standard Time. It gets dark now around 5:30. That is ridiculous. That SUCKS, in fact. Why don't we just keep it on Daylight Savings time? If we were to keep Daylight Savings time throughout winter, it would be dark in the morning, true. But on Standard time, it's light a bit earlier in the morning and we lose the tiny fraction of after-work light we might of otherwise had. It's depressing to think that I'm wasting all my daylight in a cubicle staring at a computer screen!

Then there is the turning all the clocks back. It’s a hassle! There are seven clocks in my house, five devices that have an internal clock that needs set, the clock in my car, and I have three watches. All need changed. Why should we bother?

In addition to personal preference, there are some practical reasons for this consideration. Not only does keeping it lighter longer save a bit of electric by us having our lights off during daylight hours, but lost productivity brought about by the general "local jet-lag" feeling that comes with every time change from us resetting our internal clocks will be eliminated. Plus, I dunno about you, but every car accident I've ever had -last week's deerstrike included- has occurred after dark due to visibility concerns. Driving home in the dark sucks! Keep it lighter and let people with long trips get back!

So what if one year is missing an hour? What’s an hour in the grand scheme of human history? Not a whole damn lot! But sacrificing one hour for that year will give us more daylight for ourselves and eliminate all the pain-in-the-ass effects of our twice-a-year timechange. It’s time to streamline the process and just stick to Daylight Savings!

Rock on, kids.

Wal-Mart: Always Low Benefits, Always!

"Hey, Knight, how are you?"
"I just got a DEER planted through my goddamn WINDSHIELD."
"Oh..."

Deer are rock stupid sometimes. One just decided to use it's body to turn my pretty convex windshield into a not-so-pretty concave one. I hate losing my car to the repair shop for days... ARGH!

Okay, but onto the news: Varying news agencies have reported (Yahoo! News) that a Wal-Mart memo revealed that they're trying to figure out ways to cut employee benefits without harming their image...

CUT Employee benefits? To what? How can you cut something that's nearly noexistant? Maybe return to the Scrip system? Replace employee wages with store credit to reinforce company "loyalty?"

Now, I'm a bit tired (plus a fucking DEER just went through my car's WINDSHIELD), so I'll pick up this rant at another time after this final point:

Corporations like Wal-Mart are about the bottom line. Employees are just a line item. This is not an honest or fair system. By shopping at Wally-World, we're slowly self-poisioning our economy by purchasing cheap trash that also cost us manufacturing jobs due to outsourcing...

Basically... Shop local (When possible).

Rock on.

An Abstract Debate on Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

Read this hypothetical debate between Evolution and ID. It's actually quite amusing.

Television Innovation

I've noted something about television. It stinks. Really badly.

Innovation is not rewarded in American television. Indeed, it is actively discouraged. All they care to do is to take an existing idea and change the details. So if there is a successful show, they take the core idea of the show, take new characters and put them in a different place, change the name, and then market it as a new show.

Look at Survivor, for example. New idea, right? Spawned truckloads of imitators, right? Well, Survivor was just another imitator. The supposed "Granddaddy of Reality TV" was based on a Swedish TV show called Expedition Robinson. It aired because it was shown to work.

What else is often shown? Sitcoms, military dramas, crime dramas, etc. All shows that have been done before.

Now, take the flipside... Let's start with my favorite shows that got pillaged: Firefly! Firefly was an odd duck. A western in space, you see. It's characters were not squeeky clean Star-Trek types. In fact, they weren't even the "good guys." They were crooks, and there was a lot of good character development. It was interesting. It was new.

The reward for being new and interesting, was it got poor marketing, shown out of order (Really... To show a TV show out of it's intended order just isn't a good plan), and was cancelled.

Likewise, the other two series I like whining about ("Harsh Realm" and "The Lone Gunmen") were treated similarly.

Then let's take something completly different: Lost. Yes, the uberpopular TV show. Innovative, isn't it? New and unique? Has everyone talking around the watercoolers and whatnot? I've only seen the pilot so far, but I enjoyed it.

ABC Executive Lloyd Braun was the one who green-lighted the show. His reward for helping create such a popular new drama? He got fired!

An thusly lies the answer why people are watching less TV these days... Why new movie releases are flopping...

THE NEW SHOWS AND MOVIES ARE COOKIE CUTTER VERSIONS OF OLD ONES. And they also SUCK.

Oh well. Rock on, kids.

Jack Thompson v. Gamers

Okay. World's gone crazy. (Well, the gaming world anyway.)

Jack Thompson (Wikipedia entry), in case you've randomly run across this weblog and do not happen to be particularly interested in the gaming industry, is a Florida lawyer who hates video games.

No, I mean HATES video games. Reading Jack's opinion, it sometimes seems he thinks they cause anyone who's ever touched a controller to steal, rape, and murder completely at random. It also causes your IQ to drop like a rock. Oh yeah, and it seems you're going to go to Hell for playing Super Mario Bros. that one time fifteen years ago.

Now, demonizing video games really isn't new. This has been happening since Doom and Mortal Kombat in the early '90's. It's still going on. Hillary Clinton does it all the time. She blames video games for violence, we make fun of her for it, and then we all go about our business as usual.

But the annoying things about Jack are he's a very LOUD individual who is not content with just going after the games. He attacks gamers. Frequently using religious language, he seems to think he is one of God's footsoldiers, and that the Almighty himself has given Jack the task of destroying the video game industry. Apparently, this Footsoldier of God is also a person who likes websurfing and who has a LOT of time on his hands, as he frequently visits video game websites and leaves taunting messages insulting the gaming community (calling us "drooling cretins" among other things). One of the most Jack-visited sites is GamePolitics. He also threatens to sue anyone who looks at him funny, and likes to use the phrase "OR ELSE" a lot.

So when you piss off a fairly large group of people, there is bound to be some backlash. Disregarding idiots who have been sending Thompson death-threats (Note to idiots... KNOCK THAT OFF. That really doesn’t help us AT ALL. In fact, sending Thompson death-threats actively HARMS our case.) there was a flood of complaints to the Florida Bar Association concerning his unprofessional conduct.

So many gamers reacted with glee this morning when it seemed that Thompson was under investigation due to the massive amounts of complaints received (Ars Technica article, Kotaku article).

However, Gamespot later wrote (article here) that Thompson was NOT under any new investigation. The Gamespot article also contains a letter from Jack Thompson that he apparently sent to the Bar. (Jack likes mass mailing his letters.) In it, he seems to conclude that every gamer who has sent a complaint to the Bar really works for Blank Rome, the law firm that works for Take-Two interactive. He also says that all the complaints are completely illegal and if the Florida bar processes them, it's risking breaking Federal law... (how that is possible I'm not sure, but I'll look into that.) Also, George W. Bush is worked in there somehow (Jack concludes that due to Blank Rome's high ties, apparently with Dubya himself, makes them think they can "run over" people who oppose them...).

Here's the fun part about the letters... They're rants. They're worse than my rants, quite frankly. Unabashedly calling people who oppose him idiots and sociopaths, he actually ended the letter in a threat to the Florida Bar.

Does that seem like a good plan to you? Threatening the entity that controls your license to practice law? Because it doesn't seem like a good plan to me.

Anyway, later on, Kotaku (article here) basically concludes, accurately, that everyone is confused. So we'll have to wait until tomorrow (or later) to find out what's going on.

So, final comments for this evening:
It is my personal opinion that Jack is completely insane. I can describe it no other way. He threatens gamers not just with litigation, but with Hellfire and Damnation. He believes God is on his side in this. That's a bad thing. Thinking they're correct on a religious level tends to make crazy people dangerous. He is also what is called, impolitely, an "Attention Whore." He doesn't send gaming websites copies of his letters out of the goodness of his heart. He does it to provoke a reaction. Understandably, the reaction is negative, and when we make it known we disagree with his "righteous" opinion, Jack uses this to reaffirm to himself that we are all incorrect, stupid, and evil.

I believe he can be described no other way than how he likes to describe us. "Sociopath." And because he is a scary attention whore sociopath, until it is confirmed he is or is not under investigation, this will be my last post on him.

Rock on, kids.

(As a side note, all sizes except 'Small' of ThinkGeek.Com's "I Hate Jack Thompson" T-shirt have been sold out.)

Jack Thompson... Jackass

As Penny Arcade is reporting... Major Jerkoff Jack Thompson is trying to have Gabe and Tycho arrested for "Harassment." Calling Penny-Arcade an "Extortion Factory," Thompson insists that the good officers of Seattle shut them down...

So... Jack is mad that Tycho and Gabe donated the $10,000 he claimed he would and then changed his mind when the chips were down... What a humanitarian.

THOMPSON... QUIT... WASTING... PEOPLE'S... TIME.

That is all. Rock on.

Jack Thompson, Lawyer and Hypocrite

Kudos to Tycho and Gabe over at Penny Arcade for extreme acts of generosity.

So the story goes basically like this: Jack Thompson, everyone's favorite Anti-Videogame lawyer, said in an open letter that he would pay $10,000 to a charity of Paul Eibeler's choice (Eibeler is the CEO of Take Two Interactive), if someone "created, manufactured, distributed, and sold" a video game based on his designs.

His designs (detailed here at the Advanced Media Network website) were that of the "Ultra Violent" video games he actively campaigns against, with the difference being that the targets in his video game was that you killed game company CEO's, employees of the game industry, store clerks at Best Buy and Target (for not checking kid's IDs), and finally gamers and programmers at E3.

Can you say Hypocrite? I knew you could!

Okay, yes this aimless post has a point. People, of course, called Jack's bluff and created his game. Nothing fancy, but it fit the definition.

Jack backpedaled. Hard. He claimed his entire "Modest Proposal" was satire, and the offer of the money was never real. (Asshat.)

So, Tycho and Gabe donated the ten grand to charity in his stead. Even donated it in his name. Nice, eh? (Post is here at Penny-arcade.com, third post down).

So, to recap:
Tycho and Gabe are awesome.
Jack Thompson sucks.

(Gabe also made a good point... If someone made Jack's game, would he then have to sue himself? Something to think about...)

Rock on!

Movie Review: A History of Violence

A very abridged movie review today... Went to see "A History of Violence," so here's the minor analysis.

It's pretty good. I wasn't blown away, although I had a few friends who seemed to be. A decent film.

There is graphic violence, but it's sparse and appropriate. Only three major violent scenes and a few minor instances. The violence is graphic and realistic though. Blood, brains, and bone; as opposed to actors just going "I got shot so I'll jerk and fall over." And some sexual content, too, although not as bad as it could have been. Basically, don't take along Little Billy to see this film.

Story is fairly solid. It focuses in on one theme, and not much in the way of entwined subplots, but enough juice to keep it entertainign. It's good though. Acting is well done, too. The film itself is a bit short, running about an hour and a half. It could have used a few more scenes, but did well as it was.

Long story short, A History of Violence is a decent movie to spend a weekend night on; and is short enough you'll still have some free time afterward. Also: I am really tired and don't feel much like doing a good movie review.

A History of Violence, Grade: B.

Rock on.

Now With More Spies!

Today, it was announced that the United States is creating a new Intelligence (ha!) branch called the National Clandestine Service.

Oooh, yay, we get more spies! As if we don't have enough spies? Seriously! We have the CIA, the FBI's NSS, the DIA, the NSA, the CSS, the NRO and God knows what other acronyms!

(The acronyms are, just in case you want to look them up, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Security Service, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Central Security Service, the National Reconnaissance Office, and so on and so forth.)

The US employs thousands of people and pays millions of dollars a year ...hell, probably billions... to find out other people's business. So we need another branch? How about reorganizing our current branches instead of layering on more bureaucracy to an already apparently inefficient and ineffective system?

Not to mention, do we really NEED that many people? Root through all those agencies long enough, they could probably tell you want I have for breakfast. Who the hell cares what I had for breakfast? I don't even care anymore. How about worrying about the real enemies instead of being Big Brother? Hmm? Too many details and you lose the big picture sometimes! (And this should probably go in a separate rant... Yeah, let's save that one for tomorrow. Back to the new branch.)

So just back in June, Dubya created the National Security Service. He also created the Department of Homeland Security, which seems to dabble in spying from time to time (On people that live here...). Apparently, those aren't enough. We need ANOTHER one.

And the best part... The director of this new service? Shhh! It's a secret!
That's right... The director's identity is secret! Woo! Yay, spying!

*Sigh* Now look. I'm not so naive to say the United States should do away with it's intelligence gathering entities... It's an ugly world and we have a great big bullseye painted on us. I'm just saying that we do too much, with too little focus, and do it too inefficiently. It's another example of the system becoming more important than the reason the system was created. It will end up doing less, costing more, and providing more avenues for people who shouldn't be in there to become members of our intelligence community. Furthermore, keeping the whole organization a secret prevents pretty much any oversight and will in turn lead to greater corruption. That's all I'm saying.

Okay, I said my piece. Rock on.

(And by the way, my breakfast was Honey Bunches of Oats. The kind with the dried peaches.)

Eight Hours Rest, Eight Hours Recreation My Arse

So way back when, when people were trying to get labor laws enacted (concerning the eight-hour working day), the chant was "Eight Hours Work, Eight Hours Rest, Eight Hours Recreation!"

It was a good chant. I like that chant. Except it's not terribly accurate anymore.

My day is not eight hours work, eight hours rest, eight hours recreation.

It's nine hours work, one hour going to or from work, one hour getting ready for work, five hours of doing work that's not related to work, four hours of worrying about work, and four hours completly passed out (and usually dreaming about work).

And that's just me. Imagine the workaholics of the nation!

We need to reprioritize, I think. I really need more of the rest and recreation part of that chant.

Emperor Norton I of the United States

Wikipedia featured this article today. It's one of the funnier things I've read.

Basically boils down to this: Mr. Joshua A. Norton declared himself the Emperor of the United States. And because he had the conviction that he was (you know, being borderline nuts and all), and the brass to say it... People treated him darn near like an Emperor. Police saluted him, he issued his own currency, people defered to him, and even though he died near-penniless, his funeral was well appointed and featured front-page of the two largest newspapers of his city. 30,000 people attended his funeral.

It's just... Interesting.

That's all I got though. Rock on.

Even More Fun with Eminent Domain!

It all started with a Pfizer plant in New Hampshire. Then it was a yacht club in Florida. And now it's a stadium in Washington.

Once upon a time, the only way the Government could take your home was for a true public use... Highways, schools, and such. Now, if the town can make money by selling you out and tossing you on the street, they will. And seemingly, there is exactly nothing you can do about it.

Of course, the common tie in all this is greed. Someone else is profiting by dispossessing common folk, and it sure as hell is NOT the common folk. Corporate interests, multi-millionaire businessmen, politicians... They used to at least pretend they had our interests at heart. Now, all the lies are vague and thin. After all, the law is on their side now, so the lies don't even have to be that good. Who cares if tens or hundreds or even thousands lose their homes? Apparently not the people who are supposed to be our representatives.

Corporate interests need a new office? You're out on your ass.
Millionaires need a place to park their boats? Kiss your waterfront property goodbye.
The right palms get greased during the planning of a ballpark? Your house is as good as bulldozed.

Up next? Well, just about everything goes. There will be eminent domain for businesses of all stripes, but especially those that cater to the same people that will toss you out of your family house without a second thought.

So much for the American Dream, eh?

Congratulations... We're no longer citizens. We're a bunch of serfs with delusions of freedom.

Serenity

Well, I know I had something important to write... But that was well before I spent the evening sharing drinks with a lovely young lady fairly hanging off me. That usually doesn't happen. It was a good day.

Anyway, I saw Serenity earlier. It's the movie continuation of the television series Firefly, that I mentioned a few posts earlier.

Serenity viewers can be divided into two categories. Those who have seen Firefly, and those who haven't.

For fans of the original series, Serenity is quite the treat. It explains a lot, from the layout of the system, more on River and Simon's escape from the Alliance, to the origins of the Reavers... It was cool. Also some things that may shock some fans too. Ending is fairly bittersweet, kids, but still a great flick.

For folks who have never seen Firefly, some "inside jokes" or finer details may be missed, or events may lack the emotional impact; however, I had two of my cousins with me who had never seen Firefly and both reported positive views on the movie. Even though you may not automatically know the characters, they do a decent job of getting each character's personality across even if they do pretty much jump into the action.

In short, I was not disappointed with Firefly. Serenity does not fail me either. It's good stuff.

So, Final Grade!
For Firefly fans: A. A definite must-see
For Others: B. A solid, enjoyable film.

Friday! Also... Al Gore!

Friday nights. Usually don't blog anymore on Fridays, because I'm in town and a few drinks into my night around this time.

This weekend I'm watching all the episodes of Firefly instead, so I can go see Serenity and know what the hell's going on. That works too.

Leaves me at a loss about what to write on. So I'll start with I HATE SPAM. In all it's forms. Alas, my blog seems to be a spam-magnent and I don't know why. It's troublesome, though, always having to track down and delete those damn spam messages in my Comments. :( I wish the stupid people would just go away. Ah well.

On a more serious note, my "Politics Radar" (And by that I mean a buddy who said "Hey, read this!") picked up a remarkable speech by none other than Al Gore. I never really liked Mr. Gore a whole lot, and he's lost a lot of political capital with his White House bid... But this speech is phenominal. It's also long, so yeah, have fun with that.

---

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"?

I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice? And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not this abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the American people? If the gap between rich and poor is widening steadily and economic stress is mounting for low-income families, why do we seem increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our role as citizens?

On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."

But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war and peace?

Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the Senate was silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in fundraisers collecting money from special interests in order to buy 30-second TVcommercials for their next re-election campaign.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public discourse that reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that vividness and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another about the problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing summer storm, the moment faded.

In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.

Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed. And they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after Gutenberg's disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval information monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment and enshrined a new sovereign: the "Rule of Reason."

Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of Reason."

Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient Athens. They also understood quite well that in America, our public forum would be an ongoing conversation about democracy in which individual citizens would participate not only by speaking directly in the presence of others -- but more commonly by communicating with their fellow citizens over great distances by means of the printed word. Thus they not only protected Freedom of Assembly as a basic right, they made a special point - in the First Amendment - of protecting the freedom of the printing press.

Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial fish doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution , our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and books.

Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing press - as King George had done - they could not imagine that America's public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than words in print.

And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed since the majority of Americans received their news and information from the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers. Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country but in most of the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by television.

Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 minutes every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average.

When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has. And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television. Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in a way that the internet does not, but I'll get to that in a few minutes.

Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the television networks mimicked the nation's leading newspapers by faithfully following the standards of the journalism profession. Indeed, men like Edward R. Murrow led the profession in raising the bar.

But all the while, television's share of the total audience for news and information continued to grow -- and its lead over newsprint continued to expand. And then one day, a smart young political consultant turned to an older elected official and succinctly described a new reality in America's public discourse: "If it's not on television, it doesn't exist."

But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed to the sidelines. And the most prominent casualty has been the "marketplace of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.

It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted and "restructured" beyond all recognition.

And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere" , or a marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest decades.

In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - "We the People" - made it clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was universally understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government was its accountability to the people. And the public forum was the place where the people held the government accountable. That is why it was so important that the marketplace of ideas operated independent from and beyond the authority of government.

The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas were:

1) It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not only to the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute information directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all;

2) The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market to be good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them;

3) The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is what a "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.

What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling new development in human history: for the first time, knowledge regularly mediated between wealth and power.

The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to all humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, "I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

It ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human spirit. It inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet become. And it emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther frontiers of freedom - for African Americans, for women, and eventually, we still dream, for all.

And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power, self-government was understood to be the instrument with which the people embodied their reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason under-girded and strengthened the rule of law.

But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including especially the ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective judgments presumed in our Founders' design -- depended on the particular characteristics of the marketplace of ideas as it operated during the Age of Print.

Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates, and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of the easy and free access individuals had to participate in the national conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation today.

Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America. They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.

Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas contributed by individual citizens.

Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to more people than any source of information has ever been in all of history. But here is the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one direction; there is no true interactivity, and certainly no conversation.

The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each community and usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite spectrum is likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few. The production of programming has been centralized and has usually required a massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons, an ever-smaller number of large corporations control virtually all of the television programming in America.

Soon after television established its dominance over print, young people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of democracy came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join the national conversation: the "demonstration." This new form of expression, which began in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality theatrical production designed to capture the attention of the television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American people. Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national television.

So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in television's domain. My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change that - at least where Current TV is concerned. Perhaps not coincidentally, we are the only independently owned news and information network in all of American television.

It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the predecessor of television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was immediate apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated in the hands of a few, "no nation can be free."

As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. -- including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.

And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place. Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie "Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed into the news business, which became the media industry and is now completely owned by conglomerates.

The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been trained to do.

The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.

For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the world. And that too seems strange to me.

Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up."

The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television news is "if it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened journalists add, "If it thinks, it stinks.")

In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America agree on is that they don't trust the news media anymore.

Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.

And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American people.

One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had happened earlier that day. But the lead story was about a young man who had been hiccupping for three years. And I must say, it was interesting; he had trouble getting dates. But what I didn't see was news.

This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a distinction between news and entertainment.

And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.

One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or political ideas on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in 30-second chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of communication between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected officials now spend all of their time raising money to purchase these ads.

That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for candidates who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their own personal resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are now filling up with the wealthy.

Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses the main point: so long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue is through purchasing expensive television advertising, money will continue by one means or another to dominate American politic s. And ideas will no longer mediate between wealth and power.

And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But they are not even allowed to do that.

Moveon.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to Bush's Medicare proposal which was then being debated by Congress. They were told "issue advocacy" was not permissible. Then, one of the networks that had refused the Moveon ad began running advertisements by the White House in favor of the President's Medicare proposal. So Moveon complained and the White House ad was temporarily removed. By temporary, I mean it was removed until the White House complained and the network immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused to present the Moveon ad.

The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of television. And it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern pervasive electronic advertising has reshaped our society. In the 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which advertising has altered the classical relationship by which supply and demand are balanced over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace. According to Galbraith, modern advertising campaigns were beginning to create high levels of demand for products that consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed.

The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America's marketplace for ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters.

Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent...was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy...but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique...under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy."

Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift to human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth.

I don't know all the answers, but along with my partner, Joel Hyatt, I am trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a multi-way conversation that includes individuals and operates according to a meritocracy of ideas. If you would like to know more, we are having a press conference on Friday morning at the Regency Hotel.

We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are made in the television industry, and it may well be that the public would be well served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate more diversity of viewpoints and a higher regard for the public interest. But we are succeeding within the marketplace by reaching out to individuals and asking them to co-create our network.

The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and accessible marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV relies on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals send us what we call viewer-created content or VC squared. We also rely on the Internet for the two-way conversation that we have every day with our viewers enabling them to participate in the decisions on programming our network.

I know that many of you attending this conference are also working on creative ways to use the Internet as a means for bringing more voices into America's ongoing conversation. I salute you as kindred spirits and wish you every success.

I want to close with the two things I've learned about the Internet that are most directly relevant to the conference that you are having here today.

First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.

Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a day.

It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.

The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom.

---

- Al Gore, WE Media Conference, October 5, 2005

Hamas to Gaza: NO DANCING!

So Israel pulled out of Gaza... Which is nominally good. Except Hamas has been gaining power in the region. That's not so good.

(Also, a distressingly large number of Palestinians who reportedly live with poor shelter burned down all the abandoned Israeli settlements... Yeah, you need housing so you burn down houses. That's just... Stupid. Congratulations, guys, you're idiots. I'm sure most of your religion is wishing folks like you weren't on the news all the time.)

Anyway, so Hamas, being ever so ... er... Reasonable... has been breaking up parties and stuff because of it's strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Why is it that retards who think they speak for God love to push everyone else around? Not cool. So continuing with a quote from London's Times:

After controversies when a Hamas-led council halted a dance festival and Islamist gunmen stopped a rap band performing in Gaza, Dr Zahar defended the enforcement of a strict interpretation of Islam.

“A man holds a woman by the hand and dances with her in front of everyone. Does that serve the national interest?” Dr Zahar said on the Arabic website Elaph. “If so, why have the phenomena of corruption and prostitution become pervasive in recent years?”

Yep, people. Mr.Mahmoud Zahar, the ranking Hamas nutjob in Gaza, believes that a man dancing with a woman is a matter of national security. So much in fact, that he blames prostitution and corruption on dancing.

Yes, that dancing! Those foul dancers, with their... moving around and whatnot! OBVIOUSLY... That is the cause of corruption in the world today. No, it's most certainly not a combination of, say, money, religion, and power. Nope. It's dancing.

Prostitution too. Yep, a girl who dances automatically thinks, "Hey, I should sleep with people for money!"

Yes. DANCING is the most pressing issue for the Palestinian state today.

Idiots. What worries me more than them saying this is that people actually believe them.

I think they need to be less worried about dancing and rap music (as much as I dislike rap music...), and more worried about the fact they think it's okay to strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up in crowds of civilians.

FOX and TV Shows

I am quite convinced that Fox has something against Science Fiction.

For example, after about five or six seasons of the X-files, they yank around the writers and threaten to cancel it pretty much every year, and it started going bad. The story went nowhere.

They cancelled Harsh Realm after only a few episodes. They screwed over The Lone Gunmen. And they dropped Firefly, but only after showing all the episodes in an incorrect order.

Firefly, in specific, is what I'm talking about. It lasted one season, in a Timeslot of Doom. And yet, the DVD box set is a bestseller, with a five-star rating on Amazon after 1600 votes, and is the basis for the current #2 movie in the US, with an 80+ fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com.

Kids, get that many people to agree on anything on the Internet, and it must be good. Fox, apparently, would be unable to recognize a hit show even if it was used to bludgeon them.

I just finished watching the pilot episode (Which was oddly enough televised last), and it was pretty darn good. It's light Sci-fi, which means it keeps it's technology in the background (No engineers complaining about how the Tachyon build up in the Dilithium crystals are keeping the Warp Core at 60%, or whatever). Plus, it has a lot of anacronistic qualities. People using old guns and riding horses and stuff. It's a Western in space. Pretty groovy.

But yes, back to Fox. They suck. The end!

Rock on kids.

Mackenzies of the World... Sorry

To any lady named Mackenzie who loves their name, I apologize. But I must rant on your name.

Mackenzie (and its variations) has become a really popular name for girls. It hit #41 in 2001 on the list of most popular names, and is still in the 40’s, I believe. Which leaves me with just one question...

Why do people name their daughters Mackenzie?

I really, really want to know. I've a majority of Irish and Scottish blood, so I have nothing against Celtic names. Quite the contrary, I absolutely love them. Uniquely spelled, uniquely spoken, many Celtic names are unique and grotesquely underused.

But for God's sake... MACKENZIE?

The name is a male name. Kenzie is a corruption of a Celtic name roughly amounting to Kenneth. "Mac" means "Son of." So therefore, there are a bunch of people naming their daughters what amounts to "Ken's son." See my problem here? Not only are you using a last name as a first name (which is valid, I suppose), but the name is not feminine. In fact, "Mac"-anything is, by definition, masculine. You might as well name your baby girl "Fred."

If you REALLY want a Celtic name, how about Maeve? I love that name. Or Siobhan! Or Rhiannon! Or Caitlin, if you want something somewhat trendy and easy to pronounce...

But lay off Mackenzie. Please.

More Fun With Eminent Domain

In Florida, the pissing on citizen's property rights continues what happened in New Hampshire. As previously mentioned, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled back in June that local governments could confiscate property from one private citizen and reward it to another private citizen if the land would generate more revenue in the second citizen's hands. (FYI, Corporations are "Legal Citizens" in the United States. Yes, McDonalds is a US Citizen.)

This time around, Riviera Beach is considering confiscating up to two thousand homes and businesses, displacing up to six thousand residents, mostly low income, to build what amounts to a billion-dollar yacht club.

Yes, indeed! There will be hotels, high-end housing, a multilevel boat garage, a 96,000 square foot aquarium, and a manmade lagoon! All that's required is to utterly disposes six thousand people!

This is sick. How can these politicians turn on their voter base? How can they say "Yes, we're elected officials, so let's fuck over our lower-class electorate and build a really big yacht club!"? It defies all honesty and decency. It spits in the face of civil liberty.

I still deny these bastards are of the same species as I. They can't be human.

The EU and the Internet

A short, disjointed post tonight:

The EU has recently declared that they want joint control over the Internet.

And to this I say: ...A'ight...

But wait! Did I not say that the US should retain complete control over the Internet?!

Well, yeah, I did. Mostly. I said that the US should not turn over control of the Internet to the UN, specifically.

The EU, on the other hand... T'is a horse of a different color. Not the least of which that Europe hosts the think tank CERN, the creators of the World Wide Web. (The 'Net was our idea, and they used our idea and built the Web. Ours the hardware, theirs the killer app. Et cetera.)

Now, they still have some issues to sort out with their organization and Constitution and whatnot, but them gaining a modicum of control over the Internet? I'd be careful about it, but I think we should honestly consider it.

My concerns were founded in the fact that the UN has become a bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake, and that nations like China wield strong power in it. China has veto power on the Security Council for Pete's sake. The US is still bound under the First Amendment, no matter how much our idiotic politicians and Corporate zombies try to tear it apart. China? Not so much. The EU, while a bit heavy on the speech restriction of "Unpopular ideas" in certain areas are more or less birds of a feather to the US where freedom of speech is concerned.

Of course, I would much rather trust a multinational nonprofit entity dedicated to the upholding the ideals of free speech on the Internet... But a joint organization of some of the world's democracies will work too.

So the EU having a say on the Internet? If they can eventually get their own house in order, why not?

Rock on, kids.