April 23, 2003
New at Blogcritics.org
Blogcritics.org has a new site design, as well as some new features, including a New Review Links section (a clearinghouse for links to reviews and news on the latest CDs, books, and DVDs from Blogcritics and around the web) and a new DIY section for self-publishers.
Eric Olsen said:
Thanks JD, hope you are well. I dig those action photos in the blogroll. Best, EO
Comcast's gotcha monopoly
Last year, the millions of us who were customers of AT&T Broadband Internet braced ourselves when we learned that the cable conglomerate Comcast had swallowed up AT&T Broadband ñ part of the consolidation of the industry brought to us by our free-market-loving Congress in Washington.
Today I received my monthly bill from Comcast for the use of my cable modem. Zowee! A 36 percent increase, from $50.90 to $68.64 per month.
I called Comcast customer service, and after navigating through a telephone tree the size of a sequoia, finally got a human. After I complained about the size of the bill increase, she sputtered, ìIt was a corporate decision. There was a price increase for all customers. At this stage the only way to decrease your payment is to sign up for a cable television package, which would reduce your monthly bill to $45.î
This is anti-competitive monopolistic price gouging at its worst. Iíve had AT&T Digital in the past, and found it delivers fewer channels at a higher price than my DirecTV satellite service.
Given the fact that I rely on high-speed Internet service for my livelihood ñ and the fact that DSL service is still not available in one of the most wired regions of the nation ñ Iím stuck.
Iíll remember this treatment from Comcast for a long, long time, and at the first opportunity to get out from under this monopoly, Iím gone.
Digital Storytelling Festival
Scott Rosenberg gives a nice backgrounder on the wonderful annual digital storytelling festival being held June 12-14 in Sedona, Ariz.
Smoking gun in Iraq, or not?
It was disconcerting to watch NY Times reporter Judith Miller on last night's PBS NewsHour reporting breathlessly about the Iraqi scientist who has supposedly confirmed the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- weapons that were destroyed only on the eve of the war, Miller reported.
What Miller didn't underline on the show, nor in her article in the Times, was that she was not permitted to interview the scientist, was not allowed to visit his home, was not permitted to write about this momentous discovery for three days, and only then after it was submitted to military officials.
Here's some analysis by Gary Leupp, associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University and coordinator, Asian Studies Program:
I recommend this article for everyone's careful reading.Imagine you are Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense [sic] and de facto Secretary of State. You (and that marionette, some of whose strings you pull, and some of whose strings Powell pulls, depending on the day) have insisted for many months that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction threatening me here in Boston. Your troops encountered no such weapons in their invasion, and have found none since the occupation began. This might strike some as embarrassing. You are a billionaire and so need have no need for shame, but Powell whines about international opinion, and some action seems in order to assure the world and even your own people that the pretext for war was valid. You apply yourself to that task with your wonted shrewdness and efficiency.
The last thing you want is for that Blix fellow, who you had Wolfowitz investigate early on in the Bush presidency, to go prowling around actually hunting for the weapons in a professional manner. You don't want the U.N. in, conducting some unserviceable lame-ass investigation which, you've stated from the outset, will never find anything. One option is to simply fed-ex the anthrax to Iraq and stage its discovery, rather like you staged the jubilant welcome by kids waving U.S. flags on one or more streets in Baghdad as it was liberated. There are risks in that, which you've listed and mulled over carefully. A more refined approach would be to plant a story in the New York Times , a reliable vehicle in the past for such operations, somewhat along the following lines.
You announce that an unnamed Iraqi scientist (unnamed for his own security reasons, since he might face "reprisals" from some unnamed somebody in newly-free Iraq), a scientist unavailable for interview by reporters, has told U.S. authorities that on the eve of the U.S. invasion, Saddam's regime "destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment" and that U.S. investigators have visited the site of destruction, and confirmed the scientist's story. (So the Iraqis, facing immanent invasion, saw fit to destroy powerful weapons threatening the whole world, anticipating defeat but hoping to embarrass the victors by eliminating evidence for the pretext of that invasion. Makes good sense, don't it?)
More. You have this scientist wax helpfully loquacious, informing you "that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's." This abets your faction in the ongoing discussion of the timing of the Syria regime change effort you've advocated for years. And have him also note "that more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda," confirming a tie you announced the day after Sept. 11 to widespread and enduring, irksome skepticism.
You allow a New York Times reporter, who was not permitted to interview the scientist, nor visit his home, nor permitted to write about this momentous discovery for three days, whose copy was submitted for a check by military officials, to reveal this information to the world. You announce that this is the best evidence "to date" (as though one or more other shreds of evidence had been unearthed recently), adding that "it may be the discovery," so others might not be necessary.
Quite brilliant. You have to admire such audacity. But I think of the opening passage of the samurai epic, Heike Monogatari , that chronicles the inevitable downfall of a ruling circle less obnoxious that the one now wreaking havoc on Iraq. "The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind."
In the meantime, let us not let them throw dust in our eyes.
Ryan said:
Judith Miller did outline the limitations on her coverage in her Times article. The 8th graf:
Under the terms of her accreditation to report on the activities of MET Alpha, this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials.I have some conflicting thoughts about this story ... you've already mentioned the potential pitfalls, but part of me wants to recognize that Miller is an expert on terrorism/WMD, and that although she had to wait three days to publish, that gave her three extra days to consider whether she had a legit story.
bern de galvez said:
To you this screed is an "analysis"???
JD said:
OK, then. Screed-like analysis. At least someone's raising some questions, which we're not seeing very much of in the mainstream media.
2nd decade of multimedia Internet publishing
Vin Crosbie of Digital Deliverance notes an anniversary that should be marked today (reprinted from the online-news list):
Today weÝenter the second decade of multimedia publishing on the Internet.Ten years ago yesterday, a group of students at the University of Illinois released a freeware program called Mosaic that gave the previously plain-text World Wide Web graphical capabilities, catalyzing it into a phenomenally popular online medium. Within a year of Mosaic's release, periodical publishers and broadcasters began launching websites.
What have they learned about online publishing during this past decade? I invite comments and feedback to that question on the Poynter Institute's 'E-Media Tidbits' weblog, where I posted a brief about this anniversary.
CNET's News.com has also published a series about how the release of Mosaic changed the past 10 years online.
Live reports from O'Reilly
David Weinberger and Cory Doctorow are doing a bang-up job blogging live from the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Brewster Kahle, Clay Shirky, Dan Gillmor, Tim O'Reilly, Mitch Kapor, David W., Meg Hourihan, Wendy Seltzer and Ben Hammersley are just a few of the familiar names on tap.
Here's the TrackBack page of bloggers at the conference. And here is Doc's experimental Linux Journal blog.
Consumer Web Watch Summit
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it strikes me that the Consumer Web Watch Summit 2003, whose aim is to make the Web into a more trustworthy and credibile media platform, includes only a very narrow circle of speakers from the usual range of media outlets, corporations and consumer organizations.
It's being held tomorrow at the Park Central Hotel in New York. I'm also guessing no one there will be blogging.
P2P file-trading wars
InternetNews.com: Penn State Cuts off P2P File-Traders.
Meantime, you've probably been following Madonna's f*** you to music file traders. Britain's Sun tabloid reports that a hacker has taken revenge on Madonna's web site:
All 11 tracks from her new album American Life appeared to be posted on Madonna.com for downloading.But when the files were played back listeners heard Madonna saying: ìWhat the f*** do you think youíre doing?î
DVD court case to begin
Wired News: Hollywood movie studios and a maker of software that allows users to copy DVDs face off when a California federal court hears a case filed by software maker 321 Studios this Friday. Lawyers say it's a cutting-edge case that tests the limits of the DMCA.
Baby DMCAs Punish Copy Crimes
Wired News finally covers the phenomenon of "mini-DMCAs" being passed and considered in various state legislatures.
RIAA goes after students
Amy Harmon in the NY Times: Recording Industry Goes After Students Over Music Sharing. Lead:
COLLEGE PARK, Md. ó Jason, a senior at the University of Maryland, ran one of the most popular Web sites on campus out of his shoebox dorm room here. The site let his 8,500 fellow dorm residents search for music files, among other things, stored on one another's computers and copy them in seconds.Then came the news that the record industry had filed lawsuits against four students running similar sites at other universities, accusing them of enabling large-scale copyright infringement and asking for billions of dollars in damages. Within an hour, Jason, who insisted on anonymity for fear of being sued himself, had dismantled his site.
Chest banging, here and there
Maureen Dowd in today's NY Times: GOP chest-thumping, at home and in Iraq.
