Indelible

We've been looking back at 1976 this week, in particular at the massive oil spill in the Thousand Islands that shaped life along the river in ways that can still be seen and felt. I may just be at a reflective age, but events have conspired to bring the past to mind again and again recently. My wife and I were interviewed by students from an oral history course about student life and politics in the 1970s. Old friends and communards have gotten back in touch. And half of what I hear on the news rhymes with issues and horrors thirty and more years gone. A new musical genre called "freak folk" harks back to the psychedelic, and is featured in a New York Times online video. The other day a friend remarked that someone had said to them "Dale seems to be aging well." As a compliment, it falls short of "His abs would stop a bullet," but I'll take it. The me of 1976 still lives on in the me of 2006, the way the mammal brain lies wrapped within the primate brain, the way the bathtub ring of the Slick of '76 lives on in the high-water marks of the Thousand Islands. Some stuff just doesn't wash off.

Working on the Skill Set

It's been a pretty eclectic couple of weeks--in addition to working the web I have found myself recording and editing audio, reacquainting myself with setting and printing lead type on an antique press, writing reports and poetry, booking studio time, conducting interviews, playing the guitar, discussing scripture and sutras, planting shrubs, designing publications and I forget what else. I was beginning to feel like a clever fellow, maybe even a jack-of-all-trades, until I ran across this list of essential skills from science fiction writer Robert Heinlein:

"A man should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Of the above, I feel confident that I can change a diaper and pitch manure. I can manage a weak sonnet if you put a gun to my head. The remainder will have to be tacked onto my to-do list.

Changing Lanes

Since its inception, the Internet has had one hard-wired democratic principle--all traffic is created equal. Everything that you see and do online has relied upon the "neutrality" of the network to support an intellectual free market where individual choice and participation determine what works and what doesn't, what goes "viral" and what fades into obscurity. One would think that such a system would be the darling of professed free marketeers. Instead, big players in the telecommunications industries are trying to undo the democratic features that are built into the Internet in order to give preference to their own products.

This would take the form of a "fast lane" for those who can either pay for the privilege or who own the pipeline, and a "slow lane" for everyone else. What would this look like?
On demand full-screen video of episode 321 of Gilligan's Island--fast lane
Surgical consultation videoconference--slow lane
Election campaign attack ad--fast lane
Campaign contributor database--slow lane
Top 40 music video--fast lane
Indie music download site--slow lane
Cable news website--fast lane
North Country Public Radio website--slow lane

The debate over network neutrality is going on in Congress as we speak, with tens of millions of dollars going into the telecommunications lobbying effort. You can find a wide-ranging discussion of the issues and implications of net neutrality at Wikipedia. If you have an opinion on the future of the internet--now is the time is to share it with your legislators, your internet service provider, and your phone and cable companies.

Public Broadcasting Funding Cuts Update

Yesterday, The House HHS, Labor and Education Appropriations subcommittee recommended cuts to public broadcasting totalling $115 million for the coming budget year. The recommendation will be taken up by the full Appropriations Committee Tuesday, June 13. The cuts reduce overall funding and eliminate funds for certain activities, including assistance to stations upgrading to digital transmission, and special programming targeted toward at-risk youth.

If you would like to weigh in on this issue, the time to do so is short. Among the representatives in our listening area, Congressman John Sweeney serves on the House Appropriations Committee and will have a direct say in this matter. We encourage you to phone the congressman's office at (202) 225-5614, or fax your message to his office at (202) 225-6234. There is not time enough time before the vote for regular mail to be effective. For more information on how NCPR is funded, what is at stake in current congressional action, and for a sample support letter, visit the Who Funds NCPR page.

Dining at the White Rice Restaurant

The media environment seems to be going in two directions at the same time--increasing in the complexity and variety of choices, with new types of media and a Malthusian proliferation of channels, and at the same time homogenizing, with endless program loops, smaller and smaller programming niches, and a fanatical pursuit of some "sweet spot" where maximum celebrity and top revenue collide. It's as if fifty new restaurants all came to town, but one only served white rice, and another only served jello, and another had nothing but Belgian endive.

A format as eclectic as NCPR's is uncommon even in public radio, but I wouldn't have it any other way, and I suspect you wouldn't either. There has to be room for kitchen-sink stew, for potluck radio, and online smorgasbord. I'll have one, please--one of everything.