Into the Woods – Page 127 – Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere

Keeping an eye on the FCC

President Roosevelt prepares for a fireside chat.

A couple of days ago, I posted an item on the importance of keeping an eye on the FCC. The item was focused on the future of over-the-air television, which may not affect your world very much. Still, we all need to keep an eye on the FCC, because decisions made by the FCC are critical to the future of the media, the future of the Internet, the choices we have, and what we pay.

A friend of mine who teaches communications law commented on that post. So that his information doesn’t get lost in a comment, I’m reposting it here.

The libertarians’ absolutist argument against regulation in the communications sector is silly on three particularly ironic points:

1) We already have a largely unregulated system thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which loosened or erased many longstanding rules, particularly those guarding against monopoly ownership. Among other things, the Act led to an almost overnight consolidation of the radio industry whereby a company like Clear Channel could grow from 60 to 1,200 stations in 18 months. The first order of business in that nationwide takeover was the elimination or decimation of local news staffing at all of those stations.

2) The media and telecom giants, from Time-Warner Cable to Disney, long ago captured the regulatory agencies, along with Congress and state legislatures, and openly and brazenly manipulate the rules they are supposed to live by. Furthermore, the FCC often doesn’t even enforce its own rules, making them meaningless. Just one example here: The FCC has allowed Rupert Murdoch to get around the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban by granting him a waiver year after year; thus, he can control newspapers, television stations and radio stations all in the same market (New York, for one).

3) Media companies WANT there to be rules because the rules help them operate in a necessarily structured and predictable environment, and because, more often than not these days, the rules favor their interests against those of the public. The ban on municipal broadband in North Carolina is a prime example, but industry-friendly — indeed, industry-written — rules stretch to the FCC and the Justice Department, which, for example, is sure to rubber-stamp a merger between Comcast and Time-Warner Cable if the two companies decide to go ahead with it. It would create a monopoly that would control the television and Internet services of about 50 percent of the American population.

There are other reasons that the libertarian dream of a no-rules-at-all utopia is stupid, but those three suffice. I suppose the fundamental point to make is that their position is ahistorical. It is detached from both the technical and legal history of the communications sector. When the federal government first started regulating radio in 1927, it was because the radio owners themselves were screaming FOR regulation — someone to police the wild, wild west of their new industry and sort out the chaos of too many stations chasing too few frequencies. Regulating the technical aspects of radio was at the center of the FCC’s mandate when it was created by the Communications Act of 1934, and it remains a vital part of the agency’s mission today.

An example particular to Acorn Abbey: The only way there will ever be high-speed Internet service in such a rural locale will be through the use of so-called “super wifi,” which harnesses unused “white space” on the “gold-plated spectrum” that television stations enjoy. It can travel for miles and penetrate buildings just like a TV signal. There are even experiments under way to see if television transmitters can be altered so that they also can transmit Internet traffic. It would solve the rural broadband build-out problem overnight because the infrastructure is already in place.

Of course, the same companies that routinely decry regulation of any kind, the likes of Comcast and Time-Warner, will do anything they can to manipulate the rules to prevent the above scenario from happening. And they will try to manipulate the rules at the federal, state and county levels to stop any new efforts to break their monopoly control. And once again, the problem will not be that we have regulations. The problem will be that we have regulations written to benefit the regulated, not us.

For background on the Radio Act of 1927:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Act_of_1927#The_Radio_Act_of_1927

For background on the Communication Act of 1934:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_act_of_1934

For background on the Telecommunications Act of 1996:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

Sousveillance?

Source: Stephanie Mann, age 6, via Wikipedia

Periodically I check out the web site of David Brin, a science fiction writer and futurist, to see what’s on his mind. Brin is the author of the brilliant and classic Startide Rising (1983), which won both the Nebula and Hugo awards the year it was published. But, smart as Brin is, I find that I usually disagree with him. This is because I put him in the unpleasant category of techno-utopians — people who think that technology will solve all our problems, including our energy problems and even our political problems. I think that is bunk, and dangerous bunk.

Brin had linked to a piece he wrote in “The European” in which he argues that the solution to growing surveillance and invasion of privacy is “sousveillance.” The word “sousveillance” is a made-up word and is the opposite of surveillance. It means spying up at elites the same way they spy down on us. The prefix “sur” of course comes from a French word meaning over, or above; and “sous” is another French word meaning under, or beneath.

This notion that sousveillance is an effective antidote to surveillance seems to me to be so obviously silly that I’m inclined to think that the techno-utopians are even more deluded than I had thought. Just give everyone a Google glass and we’ll fix the world’s surveillance problem!

First of all, there is a straw man fallacy: “… [F]or the illusory fantasy of absolute privacy has to come to an end.” Who said anything about absolute privacy? There has never been such a thing as absolute privacy in American society or American law. The law and the Constitution are almost silent on the issue of privacy. But there have been lots of lawsuits having to do with privacy, and as far as the courts are concerned the issue is pretty settled.

But the second and biggest point of silliness is the notion that we small people have the same power to spy on elites that they have to spy on us. Yes, sometimes it happens. The photo of the cop pepper-spraying a group of already restrained protesters held our national attention for weeks. That was a fine example of sousveillance — someone had a camera ready at the right time. Another brilliant lick of sousveillance was when a waiter (or someone) at a Romney fund-raising event for rich people secretly made a tape of Romney trashing 47 percent of the American people as “takers.” It helped expose Romney as a servant of the rich, and it helped him lose the election.

Edward Snowden’s spying on the spies, then releasing the evidence to the media and to Wikileaks, is the all-time best example of sousveillance. Because of the actions of one very clever nerd, the elites caught red-handed are still squawking and trying to lie their way out it. We got some very useful information on how elites’ surveillance systems operate, though that information will soon enough be obsolete.

But as brilliant as these coups of sousveillance were, such things are always going to be rare and accidental. That is because elites have systems for secrecy that we little people will never have. They are rich, they are ruthless, and they are spending hundreds of billions of dollars (most of it our own tax money) to build walls of secrecy around themselves while monitoring everything we do. The idea that the little cameras in our phones, or built into our glasses, can fix this is seriously dumb. Nevertheless, we need to always keep our cameras handy, and we must be creative in coming up with new ways to spy on elites.

Dumb cop: Nailed by the camera!

Dumb politician: Nailed by the camera!

The future of over-the-air television

Hugh Jackman in “Oklahoma,” broadcast yesterday on WUNC-TV

One of my regular themes on this blog is beating down the misconception that digital technologies have made radio obsolete. The opposite is true. Digital technologies have made radio more important than ever. I am, of course, using the broad definition of radio — the wireless transmission of information using the electromagnetic spectrum. Your WIFI router, your cell phone, your car keys — all of them contain radio apparatus, and they all use some part or other of the electromagnetic radio spectrum. By this definition, even television is radio. It’s just that the radio signal used by television is modulated in such a way that it can create an image.

The important thing to know here is that there is only so much radio spectrum, and that there is not enough of it. The only way to manage this limited resource is to regulate the living daylights out of it, and to manage the spectrum wisely and frugally and in the public interest, because radio spectrum is a publicly owned natural resource. That’s what the FCC is for.

Most people get their television these days by connecting to cable or satellite. But about 10 percent of Americans — including me — either can’t or won’t pay the high cost of cable or satellite and get television over the air, through an antenna. This is on my mind right now because I finally was able to find a low-cost antenna ($40), that when placed in my attic and pointed toward Sauratown Mountain can pick up the nearest PBS television station. Up until now, the abbey’s rarely used television (except for watching DVD’s and Blu-ray) has not been able to receive PBS.

I’m not going to get too nerdy on this point, but because I have a strong interest in radio communications and because I have an Extra class amateur radio license, I’m very familiar with radio spectrum and how radio waves propagate differently according to their frequency. Most people, of course, don’t care in the least what frequency their cell phone is using. But we nerds care, and given a particular device we probably can tell you pretty precisely what frequency or “band” it is using. Depending on who your carrier is and whether we’re talking about voice or data, your cell phone is using UHF frequencies between 800 Mhz up to about 2500 Mhz.

The UHF television channels (channel 14 through 69) range from about 470 Mhz to 800 Mhz. This is very valuable radio spectrum, and big players like Verizon want as much of it as they can get. There is no plan at present, as far as I know, to completely toss out broadcast television. But the FCC is working on taking back television spectrum and freeing it up for wireless data.

This is not a bad idea, though I’m always wary when so much money and corporate intrigue are involved. Because radio waves of different frequencies propagate differently, there are some advantages to television vs. cellular frequencies. The lower television frequencies penetrate buildings better and can travel farther. Cellular towers wouldn’t have to be so close together. But because the frequencies are lower, antennas also need to be longer to be efficient. Television frequencies are ideal for devices that are in a fixed location with a larger antenna — for example, in your attic rather than in your pocket. That’s why television ended up on those frequencies in the first place — wisdom and technical savvy exercised years ago by the FCC.

I mentioned that the PBS station nearest to me is on Sauratown Mountain, about 18 miles away. The right technology sitting on that mountain, using television frequencies, would be ideal for finally getting true broadband into a bandwidth-deprived rural home like mine.

Will it happen? First the FCC has to get it right. Then someone has to step in and build the infrastructure. Personally I would like to see a publicly owned, nonprofit system using this spectrum and providing broadband to rural homes and businesses at a reasonable cost. But corporations hate this idea, because the few publicly owned broadband systems in the country are delivering data much faster and cheaper. In North Carolina, corporations even lobbied for, and got, a state law that all but eliminates competition from publicly owned systems. And yes I’m still angry about this, because it shows how easily politicians can be corrupted into serving profit rather than the public interest.

Our job is to keep a close eye on what the FCC is doing and make sure that the public interest is served. Most people don’t realize that the radio spectrum is owned by the public. It is a natural resource, and it is scarce and limited. That’s why it can’t be used without a license, and that’s why it must be closely regulated to prevent misuse and interference. If we don’t keep an eye on the FCC, they’re all the more likely to sell out to profit and betray the public interest. Yes, we “auction” radio spectrum and permit it to be used for profit, but that right always comes with a license and strict terms. There’s always a way of taking the spectrum back if the terms of the license are violated. The radio spectrum ultimately does not belong to Verizon or to any other corporation. It belongs to us.

Now back to PBS for a moment. One of the needs that PBS ought to be serving is keeping the public aware of issues like this. Lord knows the local news won’t. But as far as I can tell, WUNC-TV — North Carolina’s public television system — is letting down on the job. Of course, their budget has been blown apart by the current regime in Raleigh, which I believe prefers that the public be kept in the dark. It appears to me that most of WUNC-TV’s state-produced programming has been heavily featurized and dumbed down. One of this blog’s regular readers is an academic who specializes in this area, so maybe he can comment on the current state of WUNC-TV’s public affairs programming.

An afterword about why regulation is not a violation of individual rights but is absolutely critical: Anyone who holds an amateur radio license is aware of the terms of that license and what kind of violations would cause the FCC to revoke the license. If I tried to use my license to broadcast, as opposed to talking to one other station, I would lose my license. If I repeatedly tried to use the ham bands for political speech or profanity, I would lose my license. If I accepted money for anything I transmitted on the ham bands, I would lose my license. If I got caught even once transmitting on a frequency that I am not authorized to use, I would lose my license. (Try transmitting on a frequency used for law enforcement and see how fast the FCC hunts you down and throws the book at you). If I interfere with another ham radio operator’s lawful rightful to use our frequencies according to the legal terms under which we share those frequencies, I would lose my license. If the use of the radio spectrum was not closely regulated, all your devices that depend on radio, including your GPS device, your cell phone, and the navigation systems of the airplane you’re on, would become unreliable, because there would be no legal means of preventing interference and abuse. I can’t resist getting in the occasional dig at “libertarians.” Mostly, they’re crazy.

The rewards of rural life

A concerned citizen speaks to the Stokes County commissioners.

Though I certainly enjoyed my 17 years in San Francisco, rural life is far from boring. One of the good things about backroads places such as Stokes County is that the American system of government operates at a small scale. People know each other. It’s easy to get involved. A few people can make a big difference.

In my political activities against fracking, I’ve gotten to know a good many people. Often the same people who show up to work for one urgent cause will show up to work for another urgent cause. In Stokes County, the newest urgent cause is preserving an enormously valuable 19th-century resort and keeping it in the hands of the public. The resort, Vade Mecum, belongs to the state of North Carolina at present and has been operated at a loss by N.C. State University. A few weeks ago, N.C. State informed Stokes County that they’re closing Vade Mecum, which had been used mostly as a seasonal camp for young people. Very quickly, the county’s leadership — both elected and unelected — have gone to work to come up with a plan that would get Vade Mecum and its pristine 900 acres into county hands and keep it open. Tourism is increasingly important to this county, and Vade Mecum adjoins Hanging Rock State Park, which is the most visited state park in North Carolina. So Vade Mecum and its land could become an important part of Stokes County’s tourism master plan.

The room was packed at a meeting Monday of the county commissioners. A retired farmer, in a 30-minute presentation to the commissioners that was simply the most entertaining and most effective presentation I have ever seen, outlined to the commissioners a plan for preserving Vade Mecum that was developed by a group of concerned citizens. The commissioners seemed to like the plan and have promised to act soon on preserving Vade Mecum.

Though dramas like this certainly happen at the state and national level, here at the county level everyone is up close to the action. There is a real sense of working together. I like it. And at this stage of my life, I’d rather live here than even in a place like Paris.

The main lodge at Vade Mecum

Winter pestos

I am still grieving for the basil of summer and the amazing pestos it made. Carrying pesto into the winter is greatly to be desired, not least because pesto is the best vehicle I know for delivering intense quantities of medicinal garlic. Kale, and, or, parsley are the usual winter substitutes. I can’t get excited about that, though I need to try it. This pesto is made from sun-dried tomatoes, plus the usual pesto ingredients — walnuts, parmesan, garlic and olive oil.

To be honest, it’s a little cloying. But that may be a good thing, because it reduces the temptation to eat too much.

It occurs to me that a bit of red miso substituted for part of the salt would be a good lick. I’ll try that next time.

Salad of clover sprouts and grated carrot

Sprout season has commenced

Clover sprouts

For a while I had forgotten about sprouts. But I remembered recently while at Whole Foods, puzzling over what sort of winter salad fixin’s were freshest and cheapest. Whole Foods’ salad fixin’s were fresh, but they weren’t cheap. So I ordered fresh sprouting seeds from SproutPeople.org, got out my sprouting jars, and got back into the habit.

If you order from SproutPeople, complain in the comments box at checkout that their shipping prices are too high. They’re trying to get everyone to order more than $60 worth to get free shipping. That’s a lot of seeds to order at once.

Digging ever deeper for human roots

Source: PNAS

There were many stories in the news this week about sequencing the DNA of a boy buried in Siberia 24,000 years ago and how the boy’s DNA links early Europeans to Native Americans. None of these stories mentioned that linguists have been looking for — and may have found — the same connection. This research by linguists is new and remains controversial.

All this is fascinating, and though I’ve read a good many articles on the linguistics involved here, much of it is too technical for me to understand. Here is a less technical article on how linguists have been able to trace languages back as far as 15,000 years.

The important thing to a generalist, though, is that DNA, language, and culture always migrate together. Culture, however, is fragile and can be stamped out almost overnight, while DNA and language (except when genocide is involved) are much tougher and change slowly at statistically predictable rates.

We grieve for lost languages, though languages are tougher than cultures. We also grieve for lost cultures, as I have been grieving for lost Celtic culture. This new genetic and linguistic evidence shows that the Native American cultures and Celtic culture have common roots if you go back far enough.

It seems to be an axiom of human history that, when cultures collide, the shittiest culture tends to win, and more gentle, naive, or nature-oriented cultures tend to lose. Take a look, for example, at a cultural element that Celtic culture and many Native American cultures had in common — the belief in reincarnation. Julius Caesar, who wrote extensively about his war against the Celtic Gauls, was very interested in the military advantages of a belief in reincarnation:

“They [the Druids] wish above all to convince their pupils that souls do not perish but pass after death from one body into another, and this they see as an inducement to valor, for the dread of death is thereby negated.”

This belief in reincarnation is found all over the world, particularly in gentler cultures. In reincarnation, it is assumed that people themselves work through their foibles and destinies, over time. It is chiefly the Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which frankly I regard as inferior religions — that abhor the idea of reincarnation and prefer to let their often angry and vindictive sky god sort people out after death and reward them or punish them appropriately.

It is very hard for me to understand that many people celebrate, rather than grieve for, lost cultures. Here is a chilling quote from Theodore Roosevelt, from Hunting Expeditions of a Ranchman:

Above all, the extermination of the buffalo was the only way of solving the Indian question. As long as this large animal of the chase existed, the Indians simply could not be kept on reservations, and always had an ample supply of meat on hand to support them in the event of a war; and its disappearance was the only method of forcing them to at least partially abandon their savage mode of life. From the standpoint of humanity at large, the extermination of the buffalo has been a blessing.

A blessing for whom, and for which god?

The proofs are in

During my career as an editor and as director of editorial systems for newspapers, I have ushered millions of words into print. I also have helped authors get a good many books into print. But today for the first time I held in my hands a book with my name on the cover. Awesome.

At this point, I have only the five proof copies. They’re being dispatched to the first readers. Then revisions will follow. The book is still on track to be released for sale in December.

Publishing is undergoing a revolution. Those lucky authors who have book contracts and who work within the traditional publishing industry are probably not as enthusiastic about this as the rest of us. The barriers to publishing are now very low. One consequence of this, of course, is that a lot of low-quality work will get into print. Though traditional publishers also put out a stunning amount of mass-market trash. To some degree, online reviewing systems such as Amazon’s help readers sort the wheat from the chaff. I am now anticipating those online reviewing systems with much terror.

One of the biggest categories of beneficiaries from the new order in publishing will be niche markets for writers and readers. Some of the material in those niches is bound to be quite good, but the market was just too small to support it in the old order.

An excellent restoration

A neighbor out on the paved road recently finished renovating one of his tobacco barns. He used high-quality board and batten siding. The siding was sawed on-site by one of those portable sawmills that I have written about. The trees that went into the siding were trees that he had cut to build a house.

It’s really nice to see people valuing, and taking care of, the outbuildings on the old farms in this county. Many have already fallen in and disappeared, and many others are in different stages of decay.

This neighbor also displays a No Fracking in Stokes sign.

Fugue in Ursa Major: now in the proofing stage

My novel, Fugue in Ursa Major, is now in the final stages of production. Proof copies are being printed this week. As soon as the proof copies arrive, I’ll immediately get them to my distinguished first readers. And are my first readers ever distinguished! They are:

— Ken, already known to readers of this blog. Ken is often referred to these days as a new literary sensation. He’s also a tough critic, which I know because we’ve watched many movies together, then reviewed them the next day.

— James-Michael, an old friend who holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and who works for the state of California.

— Dean, an old friend who holds a Ph.D. in media law and is an assistant professor at a university in North Carolina.

— Doug, a retired engineer.

From these four first readers, I’ll get some good advice that will go into the final revisions. Then the book will go on sale, probably in December and probably in time for Christmas. The trade paperback version will be available at Amazon, tentatively priced at $11.99. There also will be a Kindle version, tentatively priced at $1.99, and a version for Apple’s iBooks.

Update: I’ve added another first reader: Pam, former managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner.