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March 22, 2004

Two views
: Two correspondents from Blogging the President went to the Politics Online Conference. Stirling Newberry says it was the place to be. Ellen Dana Nagler says it was a snoozer filled with laptopless peple who just wanted to use the Internet to raise bucks.

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Irony noted
: Prof. Larry Lessig's new book, Free Culture. $24.95.
But it will be free online next week.

: And give the good professor plenty of credit for linking to this review from Stephen Manes at Forbes (whose email address is, quite appropriately, at cranky.com):

Man the barricades for your right to swipe The Simpsons! According to Stanford law professor and media darling Lawrence Lessig, a "movement must begin in the streets" to fight a corrupt Congress, overconcentrated media and an overpriced legal system conspiring to develop "a ‘get permission to cut and paste' world that is a creator's nightmare."
That's the gist of Lessig's inflammatory new screed, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity.... A more honest title? Freeloader Culture: A Manifesto for Stealing Intellectual Property.
"There has never been a time in our history when more of our ‘culture' was as ‘owned' as it is now," Lessig huffs. Huh? In the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s a handful of companies exerted ironclad control over the movie, radio and record businesses; Xeroxes and tape recorders were nonexistent. Though "cut and paste" was limited to scrapbooks, creators of all stripes somehow managed to flourish.
Contrary to Lessig's rants, today's technology has made creators freer than ever to devise and distribute original works. But technology has also given consumers powerful weapons of mass reproduction with strong potential for abuse. The intellectual property issue of our time is how to balance the rights of creators and consumers.

: It looks like I may be lucky enough to go to a law session in a month where Lessig will be teaching. If he has noticed my sniping at him on these "pages" and growls, I will say just one thing: "I'm too smart to debate you, Professor."

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To the tune of: Those Were The Days, My Friend
: Jerry Colonna -- VC, former partner of VC blogger Fred Wilson -- had a wonderful tale the other day about running into a fellow VC from those good old daysand Tripod founder , Bo Peabody (with whom I served on the board of Plastic.com), and the memories it brought back:

I remember when we closed the deal to sell Geocities to Yahoo for more than $3.5 billion. I remember news of the deal began to leak out and the Times’ Saul Hansell called me at home and said, in a bid to get confirmation of the yet-to-be-announced deal, “Why did you sell out? Don’t you believe in the business model?”
All I could say was, “How did you get this number?” and “Good night, Saul.” But I wanted to say: Ford just bought Volvo, you friggin’ idiot, for just less than twice this price. Holy crap, Saul, we’d be stupid not to take this deal! ...
...and I’m tapping on the keyboard, linked wirelessly to my T-Mobile Hotspot account, and damn if I’m not posting to my blog as we speak…
...and then the steroids really kick in; the ideas for new businesses, improved businesses, better versions of existing businesses bubble up and we’re playing a game of intellectual one-upmanship, and “Can you imagine this?” and “No. No. No. This is the way it should be…”
...and we both lean back and smile. We've seen this play before and we see each other in the other.
Leaving, I walk through Madison Square Park:
Snow is falling thickly and I watch a pair of German tourists taking shots of the Flatiron Building. Everybody wants to be Stieglitz:
The Flatiron Building stings; during the boom, Fred and I were posed far too often in front of the building. “Princes” we were called. We never wanted to be hailed; we only wanted to change the world.

Start writing the movie script now.

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Into the nest
: Lt. Smash, a veteran of the Iraq war, goes to the anti-war demonstrations and interviews the demonstrators. Great reading, through his eyes.

No, I decided to go to the protest because I wanted to learn what this anti-war movement is all about. Why were these people so vehemently opposed to the overthrow of a brutal dictator, and the liberation of 25 million people from under the yoke of tyranny? So I messed up my hair, didn’t bother to shave, threw on some dirty jeans and a wrinkled shirt, and headed down to Balboa Park.

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The Daily Oprah
: Scared ya, didn't I?
But seriously, folks....
I just sent the letter below to Michael Powell at the FCC.
We should make a Freedom of Information request in about a week to see how many Oprah complaints they have vs. Stern complaints.

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Witness
: Adam Curry on the changes he saw in Iraq:

I've seen first hand what work is being done in Iraq by the dutch troops, and although a different and much less hostile region than near Bagdad, I spoke to enough iraqi citizens in the province of Al Mutana to know that there is a great appreciation for the coalition ending Saddam's regime and for facilitating the rebuilding of their country. Assuming there is indeed a void that has been created, folks certainly are happier. Not necessarily worse off.

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Getting closer
: Tom sends us to a new RSS reader called Pluck that operates inside Internet Explorer. I've been waiting for a reader that would do that. I don't ever want anything clogging up my Outlook more than it's already clogged; I find a separate ap awkward; I find a web-served reader limited. What I really want is to be able to do everything -- see what's update; subscribe; read; link -- inside my browser.
Pluck is a good start. But it has limitations. They foolishly came out without the ability to read OPML lists of feeds exported from other RSS readers (thus it's near impossible to switch). I did as they said and put my file in the right folder; still didn't work.
Because they trick the browser into looking at a Pluck page that, in turn, pulls up RSS files and web pages, it appears impossible to bookmark anything you've viewed through Pluck; that's a big weakness.
All in all, what Pluck really does, based on a quick evaluation, is show the power of adding RSS to Internet Explorer.
When are you going to get around to it, Microsoft?

: UPDATE: UNINSTALLED: I couldn't even find the place to put OPML files (and went twice to their forums to follow their inaccurate instructions). Without that, this is useless to me. Pluck got one chance to win me over. They lost it. Uninstalled. I plucked Pluck.

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Hide your head
: The Scotsman talks to former bloggers to ask why they gave up their blogs and refers to them all anonymously. The shame. The shame.

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The inside angle
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams is strip-searched -- body-cavity, even. [via IWantMedia]
: And here's the oops-it-was-a-joke correction.

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Reverse publishing, we call it
: Nettavisen -- a very good online-only newspaper in Norway (they started Netzeitung, of which I'm a big fan) -- just pulled a very cool one-time marketing ploy: They printed a free and very wowy print edition of their online content to show off all the wonders awaiting readers online. PDF of the print paper here. [via E-Media Tidbits]

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First, delink the lawyers
: Glenn Reynolds is back with the sage observation (from a lawyer) that it doesn't look too productive to send lawyers gunning for bloggers.

Does this mean that it's always a mistake to send lawyers after bloggers? I suppose not. But I have to say that so far that's how it looks. The ill-fated Luskin / Atrios dispute, the New York Times / National Debate facedown, and now this [the case of John Gray and his degrees] all suggest that sometimes it's better just to let minor things go by than to issue threats that give the subject matter a much higher profile than it otherwise would have had. At the very least, a polite message pointing out the error, and requesting a correction without threats and bluster, is likely to do more good, and generate far less blowback. Bloggers are, in my experience, quite willing to correct errors of fact, but not impressed with threats and bluster.

Still, there will be blusterers who will threaten. I still want to see all the blogging lawyers -- and there are many -- band together to offer education and support (about a legal aid society for bloggers that will at least respond to lawyer letters with lawyer letters on your behalf?).

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New, improved
: The new designer-blue Technorati is up (I'd been using the beta for a few weeks). It's nice: cleaner with some new features Dave Sifry outlines here.

: In my regular ego checks to see how I rank on the Top 100, I have found this puzzling trend: The number of inbound blogs linking to me keeps going up, but my rank stays essentially the same of late (and I'm quite delighted with that rank, I should add) because everybody's numbers are rising: The tide raises all boats. I'll think I can beat Gawker if I hit, say, 1200 blogs and then we both get more and so does everybody above us.
So the question: Is this because Technorati is getting more and more blogs (11k per day) and the have the same links other blogs have? Is this a viral effect: links beget links and they do it proportionately?
Just curious.

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Merci (I think)
: Wish I hadn't quit French after sixth grade. Then I'd be able to read this post and know whether they mean it when they describe me as un blogueur ultra-célèbre et populaire aux Etats-Unis -- or whether, my luck, this is an example of French irony.

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MT, RSS and drafts
: Does Movable Type publish draft posts in RSS feeds?
I thought not (and even tested that once when I caught some really odd things on Nick Denton's RSS feed).
But this morning, Amy Langfield read the post below, which linked to her, on RSS via Bloglines. But I hadn't posted it yet.
I often write drafts of unfinished posts (which I would not want published!) or I use a draft to cut-and-paste quotes for a later post or I will confess that I occasionally write posts the night before and post them the next morning (makes me look so damned efficient).
Anybody know what happens with drafts, MT, and RSS?

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Is that your ego ringing?
: All the time, I'm on the street and hear somebody else's phone ring and I check mine (even though I should know it's not my ring). Ego calling.
This morning I was listening to (surprise! surprise) Howard Stern and Courtney Love called his cell phone, which rang on the air. Howard has a Treo. I have a Treo. I grabbed my phone. I thought it was mine ringing.
I think that's pathetic, but I'm not sure.

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Type A tax
: You think it's easy being a Type A? Well, it's not.
So this morning, I was driving my kid to school with a project too big for the bus (in their minds, kids have standards for carry-on baggage stricter than the airlines') and I needed (well, "needed" is pushing it) to go to Starbucks to get my coffee and who-know-how-old scone.
My kids hate it when I go to Starbucks (and my wife eggs them on) and so it's my fault when they're slow.
I run in this morning with not a minute to spare and, damn, I see a slow guy on the register. The slow guys are all the same: They have the look of "retired" corporate vice-presidents. Post Peter Principle. These are guys who had secretaries to run their lives for years and now they can't chew gum and run a register at the same time.
I'm crazed. And it doesn't help that everybody in front of me is putting in orders harder to make than weapons of mass destruction. It also doesn't help that they ran out of coffee. Hey, fools, it's Starbucks! It's your whole job: making coffee. How can you run out?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Crazed. I'm crazed.
I have my money in my hands. I know how much the coffee and scone and Times costs: $4.66. I get my coffee in hand and shove the money at the VP of slow and dash out, figuring that I'd just tipped him 34 cents for slow service.
I get my kid to school on time. Life is fine.
And then, a mile later, in traffic -- crazed again -- I realize: I didn't hand him $5. I handed him $10. I gave the Slowman a $5.34 tip for being slow.
Now I'm really crazed.
You'll be glad to know that I drink decaf.

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Dumb mobs
: Amy Langfield is also offended by Rev. Billy's nonsensical and stupid use of the sacred ground of the World Trade Center for his event. Amy and I are both in favor of the First Amendment and wouldn't stop him. But because of the First Amendment, we're both free to think he's an utter twit.

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The Daily Stern
: FINALLY, THE BANDWAGON FILLS UP: Frank Rich sums it all up in the Sunday NY Times:

f we lived in Afghanistan under the Taliban, perhaps it might make sense that Janet Jackson's breast (not even the matched set!) would lead to one of the most hysterical outbreaks of Puritanism in recent, even not-so-recent, American history. So what gives?

: IT SPREADS: The FTC -- apparently jealous of all the attention the FCC is getting -- is getting into the business of regulating media and speech, aka censorship. On the official Federal Trade Commission site, they announce:

The Federal Trade Commission has expanded its consumer complaint handling system to categorize and track complaints about media violence, including complaints about the advertising, marketing, and sale of violent movies, electronic games (including video games), and music. The expanded complaint system, implemented in response to Congressional directives, will enable the Commission to track consumer complaints about media violence and identify issues of particular concern to consumers.

Another line. Who draws it. And where do they draw it?
I might just complain that Mel Gibson didn't adequately advertise the extent of the violence of The Passion and masqueraded an offensively violent film as religion, which is downright blasphemous, which would be profane, which would make it a matter now for the FCC, eh?
Absurd? Well who's to say what's absurd and what's obscene (and what's violent)?

: Jack Balkin joins in with Yale Law School colleague Ernie Miller to marvel at the FCC's expansion of its authority in its ruling against the F-word last week. Says Jack:

Of course, any decision to expand broadcast profanity to include hate speech would be highly politically charged, and therefore is likely to lead to accusations of political favoritism and censorship on the part of the FCC. But the decision to punish the F-world but not the N-word is itself hardly politically neutral.... My advice to the FCC would be to stop now before they completely f*** things up.

: PREVIOUS DAILY STERN POSTS: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

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The Daily Stern: A complaint to the FCC
: I sat down and wrote a letter to Michael Powell, head of the FCC, to see how easy it would be to use the FCC's own words to argue that if they fine Howard Stern, they must fine Oprah Winfrey. Piece of cake. Not sure I'll send it, though; I don't really want to stoke the FCC's stove with complaints. But you can send it if you want. Powell's address is Michael.Powell@fcc.gov. The letter:

Mr. Michael Powell:

I write to file a complaint against the Oprah Winfrey Show that aired across the nation on Thursday, March 18, 2004 with explicit sexual and excretory references.

Let me make clear that I strongly oppose the FCC and government attempting to regulate speech; it is, I firmly believe, a violation of the First Amendment. I consequently strongly oppose the FCC's imposition of fines against the Howard Stern Show on Thursday, March 18. On the same matter of principle, I also would oppose the imposition of fines against the Oprah Winfrey Show.

However, what was said on the Winfrey show -- on the very same day that you imposed fines against Stern -- is quite equivalent. If you fine Stern, it seems clear that you must fine Winfrey. If you do not fine Winfrey, then it seems equally clear that you must rescind the fines against Stern. The speech is virtually identical. The only difference is the speaker.

Please note these excerpts from the transcipt of the Winfrey show:

Winfrey promotes the segment in question with the specific references to the sexual and excretory language, clearly demonstrating that it was planned and not accidental:

WINFREY: If your child said they had their salad tossed or was going to a rainbow party, would you know what they meant? The secret language of teens when we come back...

In the segment in question, the guest speaking is Michelle Burford of Winfrey's own magazine, O.

Ms. BURFORD: Salad-tossing. I'm thinking cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes. OK? I am definitely not hip.

WINFREY: OK--so--OK, so what is a salad toss?

Ms. BURFORD: OK, a tossed salad is--get ready; hold on to your underwear for this one--oral anal sex. So oral sex to the anus is what tossed salad is. Hi, Mom. OK. A rainbow party is an oral sex party. It's a gathering where oral sex is performed. And a--rainbow comes from--all of the girls put on lipstick and each one puts her mouth around the penis of the gentleman or gentlemen who are there to receive favors and makes a mark in a different place on the penis, hence, the term rainbow. So...

And later in the show, Winfrey returns to the subjects at issue.

Ms. BURFORD: And if suddenly your kids want to make salad all the time, you should be wondering. OK.

WINFREY: Yeah. OK. And boo--booty call is pretty common, right?

And again:

WINFREY: Are rainbow parties pretty common?

Ms. BURFORD: I think so. At least among the 50 girls that I talked to, this was--this was pervasive.

Now let us take this speech and put it to the tests to which you put the speech on the Stern Show. Quoting from your FCC ruling against Stern:

"The Commission defines indecent speech as language that, in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.

"Indecency findings involve at least two fundamental determinations. First, the material alleged to be indecent must fall within the subject matter scope of our indecency definition—that is, the material must describe or depict sexual or excretory organs or activities. . . . Second, the broadcast must be patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium."

If the speech on the Stern Show passes this test, then certainly the speech on the Winfrey show does: "portaying sexual and excretory activities or organs in terms patently offensive." But if the Winfrey show does not, the Stern show does not.

Your ruling said that the Stern show material at issue "clearly describes named sexual practices and also describes features of an excretory organ." The same can be said of the material at issue from the Winfrey show.

Your ruling says that context matters: "Three principal factors are significant to this contextual analysis: (1) the explicitness or graphic nature of the description; (2) whether the material dwells on or repeats at length descriptions of sexual or excretory organs or activities; and (3) whether the material appears to pander or is used to titillate or shock."

First, the Winfrey speech was quite explicit. Second, the host and guest dwelled on these activities, even promoting the subjects and returning to them. Third, considering that the subjects were promoted and brought up again and considering the tone of the discussion -- almost whooping it up -- and the explicitness of the speech, it seems aimed at pandering, titillating, or most certainly shocking.

Further, this speech occurred in most if not all markets between the hours of 6 a.m and 10 p.m. In fact, in most markets, this occurred in the afternoon, when children are less likely to be supervised than in the early morning.

Once again, I oppose the regulation of speech by the government and the FCC. But I at least expect uniform enforcement of standards.

If you fine Stern, fine Winfrey. If you do not fine Winfrey, do not fine Stern. I say fine neither.

So it seems my complaint is actually against the FCC.

Sincerely,

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