FCC’s "OpenInternet"
The FCC website, now in Beta, called OpenInternet.Gov is interesting. It’s not great, but it’s better than you might expect and sort of refreshing.
Ostensibly given over to a public discussion of the “important issues facing the Internet,” the site’s primary focus is on one issue facing the Internet: Chairman Genachowski’s plans to extend and codify the FCC’s so-called Internet principles.
Unlike the FCC’s main site, which is as unreliable as it is difficult to navigate, OpenInternet actually works pretty well. Much more importantly, it’s attracting, in addition to fans and the usual sycophants, a fair number of people who are critical of the Commission’s plans.
The public’s views are communicated in two ways, through the posting of opinions on the “Join the Discussion” page, and by posting comments there and on the “OpenInternet Blog” page. Check it out.
Love That AMC
Close observers of this blog will remember an earlier piece written in appreciation of the impressive AMC series “Breaking Bad.” Yesterday’s was the penultimate show this season of the other award-winning AMC series, “Mad Men.” And coming to AMC on Nov. 15 is a miniseries remake of the classic 1960s series, “The Prisoner.”
All of which begs the question: What’s the deal with AMC? Are they trying to make us love them? If so, they’re succeeding.
Hugo Chavez and Friends
Many of the editors at a magazine I used to work for had “laws.” One’s law was “never go west of Fifth Avenue unless you absolutely have to.” Another’s was “the love of evil is the root of all money.” But the one that I recall most often was “when you find a good thing run it into the ground.” (The same person who authored that law once told me that in order to handle New York cabbies you need to have iron lungs, a nasty disposition, and a law degree, and he had all three.)
Anyhow, I’m reminded of the “good thing” law whenever I reflect on the endless joy it gives me to say something truly unkind about people who’ve earned it. It’s in this spirit that I’m pleased to present this week’s Trousered Ape Award to Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Oliver Stone (who also receives a Golden Homunculus), for their support of Hugo Chavez at precisely that moment when he’s cracking down on free speech, and every other human right, in Venezuela. One can only wonder where we’d be, as a nation, without such people.