The Singer's Song

Intel ranks Pomona College the 82nd “most unwired college campus” in the nation, with a network reaching Marston quad, Walker and Wig beaches, and Haldeman pool, among other areas. Yet despite the fact that Pomona spans less than a quarter of a square mile, the wireless internet is not available throughout most areas of the campus.

Pomona’s wireless network, like most used in coffee bars, offices, and homes across the world, runs on the IEEE 802.11 standard. “Wi-Fi,” as it is more commonly known, is the most widely-implemented wireless protocol in the world – Apple and Intel use it, for instance – so most students are easily able to connect to the network. Wi-Fi has drawbacks, though, including the fact that its 2.4 GHz signal is often crowded out by microwaves and cordless phones. More importantly, most wireless routers have a maximum range of three hundred feet outdoors, and about half of that inside. As a result, dozens of towers would be required around the campus for complete, yet at times unreliable, coverage.

Government regulation is the only factor limiting wireless internet broadcasts to 2.4 GHz. Other spectra – like VHF or FM – are more suitable for transmission of the signal, but they are currently designated by Congress for other uses – namely television and radio. This is not the first time that technological innovation has been stifled by spectrum wars. During the 1940s, broadcasters – not wanting to give up their frequencies – successfully blocked an effort by AT&T to develop a precursor to the cell phone.

The current fight is playing out similarly. Following passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the television broadcast stations – the local affiliates of ABC, CBS, etc. – were given a portion of unused spectrum for HDTV at an estimated value of between $12 billion and $70 billion. In return, the stations pledged to give back their VHF signals. After ten years, these broadcasters have failed to live up to their promise, depriving the public of a spectrum that could be reallocated for efficient, long range wireless internet.

In three weeks, Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) will introduce legislation mandating the return of the VHF spectrum by December 31, 2006. The bill’s chances at passage are unclear. In the past, Congress has largely refrained from challenging the broadcasters on this issue. Media conglomerates are among the most prolific donors to campaigns. Besides, without the network news reporting on the issue (talk about corporate bias), the public is ill-informed about their bamboozling at the hands of the local broadcasters.

Intel has invested heavily in a lobbying effort to convince Congress to support legislation similar to Barton’s, and the cable industry – hoping to undercut the power of local broadcasters – is also supportive of the measure. Still, at the soonest, it will be another two years until the wireless internet is transmitted on frequencies currently used by VHF. So if Pomona wants to move up in Intel’s “unwired” rankings more rapidly, it will simply have to buck up and buy a few dozen routers.

Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, caused alarm from Manhattan to Manhattan Beach earlier this month. Speaking before the National Association of Broadcasters, the Chairman of the Commerce Committee – which has jurisdiction over the telecommunications industry – announced his intention to draft legislation that would regulate cable broadcasts. Civil libertarians, television executives and Sopranos aficionados alike were shocked and disappointed at the prospect of neutered programming.

There is no doubt as to who is behind this move. Organizations like James Dobson’s Focus on the Family have tried to impose their morality on television for years. Emboldened by George W. Bush’s victory in the fall, Dobson and others have decried SpongeBob SquarePants’s participation in a “pro-homosexual video” and have had the audacity to protest against the Veterans Day showing of Saving Private Ryan on ABC. They truly put Dan Quayle – who bashed Murphy Brown (as if she were a real person) for having an illegitimate child – to shame.

Any attempt at imposing decency standards on cable broadcasts would be a colossal waste of time. The constitutionality of such regulations is at best questionable. While the Supreme Court found in 1997 that Congress can enact “content-neutral” statutes over the cable industry, it concluded more recently that “[it] is rare that a regulation restricting speech because of its content will ever be permissible.”

Congress restricts radio and television airwaves, the content of which is both free and freely accessible. The FCC can dole out indecency fines to networks and stations whose programming falls outside the accepted social mores. CBS was docked $500,000 for Janet Jackson’s bedazzled nipple but NBC wasn’t for its showing of Schindler’s List in an unedited form in 1997. (Even this raised the ire of one Christian conservative, who proclaimed that network television had sunk "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity.”*)

Cable is entirely different, though. People must pay for the subscription every month to receive the hundreds of channels of potentially indecent programs. Starz!, Sundance, The Movie Channel, et. al. require even larger sums of money for their risky and risqué programming, which is often rife with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity.

Many of these shows are in fact indecent. Showtime’s honest treatment of Lesbianism in The L Word would not fly if Michael Powell had a say in the matter. The intense psychiatric sessions in HBO’s The Sopranos – let alone the extreme violence – would not sit well with the censors. Anything on Cinemax after midnight would most certainly be nixed. Deadwood, HBO’s newest gem, is the best example of the type of programming that would be effectively impossible under the proposed guidelines. Not long ago it would have received an X-rating for its language, violence or sexual content. Nevertheless, it portrays the Wild West more accurately than any tame John Wayne feature (not to take away from the Duke at all).

With such lewd programming, it’s no wonder that Senator Stevens and Doctor Dobson are angry. Given their strong religious beliefs, it would be unfair to begrudge their efforts to curtail the freedom of speech. Instead of trying to enact unconstitutional legislation, though, maybe they could just change the channel instead.

* Tom Coburn, the brilliant man who said this quote, left the United States House of Representatives three years later – only to be elected to the Senate this fall… by a 12-point margin.

In an interview with CNET News on Thursday March 3, Federal Elections Commissioner Bradley Smith – a Republican – warned that blogs might become effectively illegal as a result of a recent court ruling. “It's going to be a battle, and if nobody in Congress is willing to stand up and say, ‘Keep your hands off of this, and we'll change the statute to make it clear,’ then I think grassroots Internet activity is in danger.”

Bloggers on both the right and left seethed with outrage over the comments. Duncan Black, whose blog Eschaton is named for a section in Pomona Professor David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, worried that it could be “The End of the Internets.” Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote, “If this is the law, then the law is an ass.” Michelle Malkin made a call to action: “This is something bloggers of all political stripes should unite against.”

It is unclear whether Smith’s statement was a true omen or merely a means by which he could stir up contempt against Campaign Finance Reform. But one question remains: would it matter if blogs disappeared tomorrow?

People seem to be getting their news from the blogosphere. There are roughly 8,000,000 weblogs. 32 million Americans read them and more than 14 million have contributed to them. They’ve become so pervasive in the culture that “blog” was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2004.

Daily Kos stands at the pinnacle of blogistan. Its 400,000 unique visitors per day rival the readership of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and triple that of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. But blogs are not yet a fully independent medium. Most sites, Kos included, rely on wire reports and articles in major newspapers, magazines and journals.

The image of bloggers as a mass of college students pontificating in their PJs is not far from reality. Perhaps this is what makes blogs so powerful. Unlike the “mainstream media,” they are democratic. Literally anyone can go to Blogger.com, Typepad.com, LiveJournal.com or any number of other sites and become an instant pundit within five minutes.

Bloggers have even been able to stump the established media in a number of cases. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott lost his job because a blogger picked up on his claim that the nation would have been better off had segregationist Strom Thurmond been elected in 1948. Dan Rather was ousted from CBS when right wing bloggers questioned the validity of documents used on 60 Minutes II.

Even more recently, alleged online escort and right wing hack J.D. Guckert (also known as Jeff Gannon) lost his spot in the White House press room because bloggers exposed that he was no more than a partisan hatchet man working for a Republican operative. CNN Vice President Eason Jordan was forced to resign as a result of comments unearthed by a blogger.

Clearly, blogs provide a great public service in delivering real news from real people. And if they’re gone tomorrow, we’re going to be stuck with Fox News.

On Wednesday, February 9, embattled Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN) surprised beltway insiders by opting not to run for reelection. Perhaps his anemic approval ratings, caused in part by the closure of his D.C. office right before the election because of a “terrorist threat,” led him to believe he would have some difficulty in securing a second term. Maybe he decided against a bid because he couldn’t afford spending another $12 million of his own money (albeit inherited money) on another race. Either way, he left his Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in a tough position.

The first thought of the DFLers – as they’re apparently known – was to recruit a celebrity. Wrestler-cum-action star Jesse Ventura being unavailable, the next big name in Minnesota politics was Al Franken. A former member of Saturday Night Live, Franken currently hosts a radio program on Air America called The O’Franken Factor (a nod to his favorite blotch-covered Faux News host, Bill O’Reilly). Franken let word leak out that he would announce his intentions about running for the Senate during his radio show that Thursday. Drawing out his decision until the waning minutes of the program, Franken told his listeners that he would not run – for now (leaving open the possibility of running in 2008).

What is it, exactly, about our infatuation with celebrities that we believe they would make efficient lawmakers and executives? Did Ben Jones’ illustrious service as “Cooter” on The Dukes of Hazard fully prepare him to be a United States Congressman? How about former coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers Tom Osborne? Did leading his team to multiple national football championships offer him the background necessary for writing legislation? Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Bunning cheated in a debate in the fall by using a teleprompter but was nevertheless reelected as a Republican Senator from Kentucky. Did pitching a no-hitter forty years ago make Bunning any less senile?

In 2006, California might have the distinct opportunity of choosing between not one, but two celebrities for Governor. Rob Reiner, director of such films as This Is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally and an occasional actor, is seriously considering a run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. If he should knock off State Treasurer Phil Angelides in the primary, Californians will have to choose between Meathead (is that reference to dated for us college-aged folk?) and the Kindergarten Cop. Quite a prospect, indeed.

Maybe it’s time for the celebrities and athletes to stay out of politics. Lynn Swann might have been a great wide receiver – one of the best of all time – but he has no business running for Governor of Pennsylvania next year. Dennis Miller should stick to stand up rather than make a run for the Senate here in California. Every one of these celebs should take a cue from Fred Dalton Thompson. He gave up a seat in the Senate so he could do some really important work. Thompson now serves as District Attorney on NBC’s Law and Order.

This article originally appeared in the February 16, 2005 edition of The Collage, a student newspaper covering the Claremont Colleges

Two weeks ago, shockwaves hit America as the nation was informed that one of its most beloved characters is a tool of the homosexual lobby. On December 20, The New York Times quoted Dr. James C. Dobson, who leads the conservative group Focus on the Family, as saying that SpongeBob Squarepants had been enlisted in a “pro-homosexual video” along with such other moral subversives like Jimmy Neutron and Barney. Dobson’s assistant, Paul Batura, echoed this sentiment, calling the video “an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids.” In retribution, Vanity Fair Contributing Editor James Wolcott bestowed a new epithet upon Dr. Dobson: “SpongeDob Stickypants.”

This is not the first time that a leader of the religious right has caused a furor over allegations of homosexuality among children’s characters. Bert and Ernie were accused of carrying on an illicit relationship in a bid to ban the two from North Carolina’s airwaves in 1994 and The Lion King’s Timon and Pumbaa were attacked a year later (both by the same man, one Reverend Joseph Chambers of Charlotte, N.C.). More recently, in 1999 the Reverend Jerry Falwell outed Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubby.

It’s bad enough when such attacks come from the Religious Right; it’s almost expected of them to cry wolf every once and a while as a cathartic moment to ease their pent up aggression. When such actions are taken by a member of the Administration, however, it’s an entirely different story.

In one of her first actions as Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings went on the cultural offensive against the homosexual movement by threatening PBS against running certain cartoon. What, exactly, was Ms. Spellings’ qualm about the program? Postcards From Buster, a spin-off of the popular Arnold series, features an animated rabbit named Buster who visits real children around the country. In the offending episode, entitled “Sugartime!,” Buster and his father visit the state of Vermont where they meet two actual children who have gay parents. Talk about a controversy! After receiving a letter from Ms. Spellings, PBS CEO Pat Mitchell announced that the episode had coincidentally been nixed just hours earlier.

There are serious problems in the nation today and few could prove as detrimental to America’s prosperity as the declining and crumbling public education system. President Bush’s horribly underfunded No Child Left Behind law is bleeding school districts across the country dry through testing requirements without sufficient money for implementation, and schools are finding it increasingly difficult to have less than 40 students in each classroom. Why is it, then, that the most important priority of the new Education Secretary is to advance a moral crusade? Perhaps Ms. Spellings should spend a little more time trying to improve the nation’s schools before seeking out a culture war, though it would be preferable if she would leave the latter to the likes of Dobson and Falwell.

This article originally appeared in the February 2, 2005 edition of The Collage, a student newspaper covering the Claremont Colleges