Jon Stewart - The Importance of Accountability

The clearest and most sane response to the loopy, hypocritical and dangerous trends in politics and media for this century has come from Jon Stewart and The Daily Show (echoed and amplified by The Colbert Report).

I can barely imagine what our world might have become without it. The awesome weight and power of the satire provided via Stewart's company of comedians and writers was inescapable and palpable. In the stormiest of times, the calm of laughter and the presence of wisdom somehow made such storms endurable.

America has a rich history of sharp and straight shooters who called "bullshit" when it needed to be called - Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Kurt Vonnegut. 

While I hate to see Stewart step away, I know that 16 years of televising the ridiculing of the Abyss must be deeply exhausting and trying. I hope he realizes how incredibly valuable and necessary his show has been. It isn't just a job well done, it's been a vital voice on a global scale. And it's a voice that was a collaboration of writers and producers most of us will never even know.

His first Daily Show broadcast tackled the ongoing lunacy of a President Clinton impeachment hearing, and perhaps, as the Obama presidency winds down, the nation may be entering a new cycle, We all hope for less lunacy, but really, a satirist can only point the way in which we should proceed.

I salute you, sir. I thank you. I hope we remember the importance of accountability.

When The Legend Becomes Fact, Print The Legend

A comedy show is often the thorn which punctures the party balloons which masquerade as "news". Jon Stewart this week popped the delusional -- scratch that - the lies - dumped onto the airwaves via Sean Hannity's show on FoxNews for faking it when describing the rally -- scratch that - the press conference - Republicans held to oppose a vote on reforming and re-writing laws about health care in America.

Hannity aired fake footage of that rally/press conference and Stewart called him on it. Hannity was forced to apologize to viewers - though he stopped short of vowing to ensure such fakes are to be absent from now on. (Maybe he was just distracted, all busy organizing his Conservative Dating Service, Hannidate.)

Writer and blogger pegged the real problem of such fakery:

"Jon Stewart and his outstanding team of "Daily Show" producers and writers not only "get" the importance of media manipulation and propaganda, but they can take it a step farther because they also have something that most bloggers do not --resources. Their access to large film libraries is what helps them to take down Fox, CNBC, and all the other media types (and politicians, too) when they say the polar opposite of what they were saying a year ago or even a month ago.

You know who else has those kinds of resources? Mainstream, big media newsrooms. But big media pathologically refuses to think of itself as a part of the national narrative, even as the millions of people who watch Jon Stewart or read your top political blogs know better. And until we in the old media can comprehend that, the new media will continue to leave us in the dust. So will the "fake" media.

Rather than the oddity Hannity wanted to place this incident among, Fox producers have used crowds before to add outrage their "reporting", part of the same "rally" Fox promoted in praise of the power of Glenn Beck.

Distorting news is simply part of the news philosophy of FoxNews.

"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. " (via)

Goodbye, Local Franchises

AT&T gets what it wants as the state legislature caves in to their desires.

Will you see decreased rates? Will they add jobs in Tennessee?

The answers no longer matter - the legislation they wanted is almost in place.

Devilish Details In TN Cable Franchise Legislation

A definition of the word Legislation: a solution to a problem which may, or may not actually exist, which may or may not actually create any observable results, and typically is a hand-stitched agreement crafted after some great length of time in order that the public be aroused or dulled and during which time money may be applied to preserve, alter or eliminate debate.

That thought kept running through my head as I was reading the proposal to allow AT&T to by-pass local control of franchises for cable television - especially since they could now today be offering 'competitive' plans to consumers across the state. Wading into and through the complex legal language is and always has been a chore. My brother is the lawyer, not me. And sometimes I'm not even sure what he says and/or means.

I wrote previously this week about this draft agreement. The plain fact is the plan does have some odd and downright wrong components. Keep in mind this bill was created to provide AT&T with a statewide cable franchise proposal, though there is much in the bill addressing the access to internet services, too.

For example, when it comes to verifying whether or not a franchise holder has attained the mandated deployment of broadband access to the internet, Section 12 (d) of the plan says that the state agency Connected Tennessee will be providing the information. I wrote recently about Connected Tennessee, since it's board members are former Bell South/AT&T employees. How handy the agency was created prior to this legislation - sure sounds like the fox watching the henhouse to me.

By the way, I wrote a few emails to Connected Tennessee's director, Michael Ramage some weeks back asking for some further details about the agency. But when I wrote asking for info on who is on their board as well as employees and contractors who were NOT previously with Bell South/AT&T I received no response.

A major concern among many is the concept of 'cherry-picking', allowing a provider like AT&T to simply offer services to the wealthiest of neighborhoods and ignore more rural and low-income areas. Under this new proposal, franchise holders would 'self-define' their areas of service. Also, a complex formula even allows for franchise holders to count households for their requirements twice or even four times whether or not that franchise actually offers service to them, just as long as someone does.

And there is no guarantee that Public Access, Education and Government channels would be in the most basic tier of channels. In other areas of the country, all PEG channels are lumped into one, and a viewer must call up a typically slow-running menu program and select a typically weak signal to tune in.

I also received an email from Bunnie Riedel of Riedel Communications, and former Executive Director of the National Alliance for Community Media, who has been reviewing and analyzing these franchise plans being pushed across the country state by state. She wrote that in reviewing the plans: "The worst bill to have passed is Nevada, TN's bill comes in 2nd to that one. AT&T is about to take TN on a nice long ride."

Her own blog is here. (My thanks to her for her input, and see below for her take on the most detrimental elements to the proposed plan.)

The Tennessee chapter of the National Alliance for Community Media is Keep It Local Tennessee. (CORRECTION: This TN group is not part of the NAM -- Please see the UPDATE at the end of this post!!!)

The more I read of this plan, the more it seems to be a program geared to look out for the interests of AT&T and not for consumers. We all want to be able to make a good choice when it comes to seeking services for cable and internet. The local franchise plans, and I know it's a complex process to make agreements one at a time, yet these local plans all demand service providers work hard to expand their service areas so that all residents of a community get that chance to make good choices. But it's rather obvious the state legislature has crafted a plan to serve the needs of business first and residents second. Given the solemn claim by Tennessee House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh to push this plan through, your voice and the voices of other Tennessee residents has little impact, and this proposal will likely become the law in Tennessee.

The following is from Bunnie Riedel of Riedel Communications, as she has been analyzing this state franchise issue for the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisers, and is a selection of troubling elements found in the current draft of legislation in Tennessee:

- Certificate of Authority (CFA) holders self-define their service areas. In other words, AT&T can cherry pick where they will or will not provide service throughout the state or even within zip codes. This practice has taken place in Texas, Kansas, Indiana and other states, with AT&T choosing to obtain statewide franchises for very limited, mostly wealthy, areas.

- For the build out percentages, households that did not have access to the CFA holder’s broadband internet service count as two households and households that did not have any broadband service count as four households. This is deceptive because the definition for broadband in the bill is 1.5 Mbps. Therefore the actual percentage would be either 15% (two households) or 7.5% (four households).

- The bill’s broadband definition of 1.5 Mbps is inadequate. AT&T’s own website shows that at that speed it can be only used for emailing and downloading music.

- The CFA holder can count households that have broadband internet service toward their requirements to build out video or cable service, whether or not they offer those households video or cable!

- The bill sets up an organization influenced by the telecommunications companies, Connected Tennessee, as “verifiers” for AT&T’s broadband deployment. That is the fox watching the hen house. The Tennessee Regulatory Authority is then instructed to rely on Connected Tennessee’s reports and can only examine documents provided to them by Connected Tennessee….documents that were provided to Connected Tennessee by AT&T in the first place.

PEG CHANNELS SLAMMED FROM THE BASIC TIER, LOSS OF CHANNELS AND CHANNEL QUALITY AND LOSS OF PEG SUPPORT

- HB1421 details a convoluted formula for where PEG channels will be placed based on the number of channels activated by municipalities or counties in local franchise agreements. The bottom line is that the bill allows all PEG channels to be slammed out of the Basic Tier of service onto to any tier.

People who only purchase the Basic Tier will no longer receive PEG channels, unless they also purchase additional equipment.

- People who only purchase Basic Tier are typically lower income and the elderly.

- All channels are placed together on Channel 99, where viewers have to scroll through several menus to find their local PEG channels.

- The transmission of PEG channels is degraded to the same transmission quality as a cell phone video transmission.

-The channels take as long as 1 ½ minutes to “pull up.”

- They are not functionally equivalent to any other channel on the system.

- AT&T will not provide closed captioning or second language transmission for the PEG channels.

- Engineers say that AT&T can treat PEG channels exactly the same as any other channel, but choose not to do so for business reasons.
PEG support in the bill is woefully inadequate.

- The bill is written in such a way to make one think that CFA holders must provide up to 1% PEG support, however, that PEG support is limited to “paying capital costs of equipment.”

- PEG capital expenditures go beyond equipment to the “bricks and mortar” of PEG facilities and the cost of maintaining those facilities.

LACK OF REAL CUSTOMER SERVICE PROVISIONS

- While the bill says the CFA holders must comply with Federal Customer Service regulations (47 C.F.R. 76.309 (c)) it states that customer service complaints are to be handled in accordance with the service agreement contract between a customer and the video provider. What does that mean?

- Comcast customers across the country were forced to opt-in to arbitration and lost the right to seek court action (even small claims court) because Comcast changed the terms of the service agreement.

- Verizon customers in California have been told that if they wanted to pursue a claim, they would have to do so in the state of Virginia because that clause was included in their service contract.

- With this bill the CFA holders could put anything they wanted into the service contract, in the smallest print, and the customer would have no recourse.

- Further the TRA has no power to investigate or regulate customer service compliance by a provider, only to look at individual customer complaints.

UPDATE: I received the following email correction:

"Regarding your post, "Devilish Details" (http://cupofjoepowell.blogspot.com/2008/04/devilish-details-in-tn-cable-franchise.html), I see that you say:

"The Tennessee chapter of the National Alliance for Community Media is Keep It Local Tennessee. (http://www.keepitlocaltennessee.com/)"

This is not correct. There is no TN chapter of the ACM.

"Keep It Local TN" is the Tennessee version of a multi-state cable industry effort developed as a response to telco-inspired statewide video franchising legislation. There is also a "Keep It Local MA" (http://www.keepitlocalma.com/). There used to be a "Keep It Local PA" (http://www.keepitlocalpa.com/), but that site has been down for a couple months at least. I assume that's because the cablecos have now signed off on the legislation that has been filed in PA, although I've not been able to confirm that.

Actually, it's somewhat surprising that "Keep It Local TN" is still functioning, since the TN cablecos have also signed off on the new bill. While its most recent front page right column post is an April 7 press release from TCTA's Stacey Briggs supporting the bill, their front page left column is still calling for action opposing the bill!

Although the ACM links to all of these sites from our website because they support local channels and local control, they are not ACM chapters. There are also other state-based groups we link to in our "Saving PEG Access" blogroll, but they too are not ACM chapters. Our chapters are listed in the blogroll's second section, "ACM Affiliates."

Although there is no TN ACM chapter, there are a number of TN PEG access providers who are ACM members. I'm sure they'd be willing to speak with you about how this legislation will affect their communities. I hope you're able to include their perspectives in future posts. I've included them in the CC's, but they are:

Frank Bluestein, Germantown High School

Alan Bozeman, City of Murfreesboro

Gail Fedak, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro

Elliott Mitchell, Nashville

David Vogel, City of Knoxville

Again, thanks for continuing to call attention to this story.

~ Rob

Rob McCausland

Director of Information & Organizing Services

Alliance for Community Media

202-393-2650

web: http://ourchannels.org

wiki: http://peg.ourchannels.org

State Cable Franchise Plan Moves Ahead

Yesterday state officials provided information about a draft agreement for the state to start offering statewide cable TV franchises, just as AT&T wanted, and along the way the state will create a new oversight agency and a new fund to "promote" broadband internet access.

The document is a 67 page maze of legal-speak, which you can read here (thanks to R. Neal for the link). It will certainly take me some time to wade through it all and there is much to review. The proposal to allow for the first time a state franchise license doesn't mean much to consumers yet - though if the legislature OKs it, it is set to become law in July. The state commerce committee is scheduled to look at the proposals today.

I admit I am troubled that once House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh's wife Betty Anderson got a job with AT&T as a consultant, Naifeh then took the long-opposed plan through 3 months of closed-door meetings and magically came up with a plan he's now willing to shepherd through the legislature. Anderson and Naifeh are both on record saying just because she's a paid lobbyist, she does not exert undue influence on her powerful political husband.

That aside, some additions were made to the bill which aim to serve the public interest - such as keeping control of rights of way at the local level as companies try and bring/expand services; that franchise fees (capped at the federal maximum of 5% of a company's gross receipts of revenue; and provisions for providing local public access channels (PEG) are included.

Still, I'm reading though this complex document to learn more. Given the billions of dollars involved in this telecom business, and how economic and cultural impacts of internet access and availability are key components of this legislation, this will touch most every life in the state, it's a plan worth reviewing.

Some excerpts from Chattanoga Times Free Press media reports:

"But the speaker cautioned the legislation “is not a silver bullet to rising media prices, nor will Tennesseans see an immediate impact on the next cable bill.”

Stacey Briggs, the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association’s president, said in a statement that “AT&T and other companies have had the right to compete under local franchising rules for more than a dozen years. This new policy streamlines the franchise process, but it remains to be seen whether new entrants will compete in Tennessee.”

And from the Tennessean here:

"Starting service: AT&T will have to apply for a franchise within one year of the bill's passage and would have to roll out service within two years after that, although the company could apply for an extension.

Build-out requirement: Within three-and-a-half years of its first TV service rollout in the state, AT&T would have to provide access to 30 percent of residents within its phone service territory, about 600,000 households. The company could provide service to fewer customers by getting extra credit for households that don't have access to broadband Internet.

Broadband incentive: AT&T could get credit toward its 30 percent build-out requirement by counting one house without access to its broadband service twice, and a house without access to any broadband Internet four times. This creates the possibility of AT&T providing access to its U-verse service to a minimum of about 150,000 houses in Tennessee. There would be no requirement that AT&T provide broadband service to areas that don't have it.

Low-income households: Twenty-five percent of households with access to AT&T's TV service would have to be low-income, defined as households with income of $35,000 or less, within three-and-a-half years."

More from the Knoxville News Sentinel here.

More Details on Statewide Cable Franchise Plan

A new plan and a new agency to create rules and regulations for a proposed change in the laws regarding cable franchises has something of a compromise to it. The full bill can be read here.

The one large problem I have with this legislation is that it alters the existing laws so that AT&T would not have to participate in the current system of making agreements at the local level for franchise agreements. The fact remains that they could make such agreements now to start providing service, and creating a new agency and new laws still smack of fixing something that is not broken.

There are pluses to the proposed change in law - it does preserve the current Public, Education and Government (PEG) or at least states that new franchise agreements include provisions for PEG channels.

It also irks me that while every resident of the state could be impacted by the proposed changes to the state law, the state's media has devoted more coverage of useless, grandstanding legislation which had no chance of passage. With so much info available to news agencies and anyone else with access to the internet why is it that more info is typically available from bloggers?

No doubt the technology in telecommunications has been and is rapidly changing and perhaps changes to how such agencies are governed is needed. So shouldn't that be the priority for our elected officials?

AT&T Cable Franchise Bill Advances in House

Last year when Rep. Charles Curtiss proposed changes to the law to allow AT&T to by-pass locally controlled franchises for cable service, the giant telecom decided to abandon efforts to change the law. This year, they may not be happy with the bill, which passed a committee vote yesterday, but they may take what they can get.

A key element to Curtiss' bill - HB3959, which you can read here - is the creation of a new state agency made up of local state officials to oversee any new agreements. Though the agency would only exist until 2011 unless the state legislature renews it.

Since the state and AT&T have begun doing more business together, will this guarantee the bill's passage?

Far more background here.

More on AT&T's Plan To Avoid Local Fees

All the noise and furor (and millions spent lobbying state legislators) from AT&T demanding Tennessee law be changed so that AT&T does not have to negotiate with cities for franchise contracts (depriving them of revenue from fees and handing over control of rights-of-way) is apparently not important in Mississippi. In that state, they seem to have no problems working community by community, just as all cable providers currently operate.

R. Neal has the details in this post and notes as well that Georgia gave AT&T what they wanted and as many as 200 families in Atlanta will benefit.

Also, Stacey Briggs, executive director for the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association, has challenged claims from AT&T that it takes too long to devise local franchise contracts:

"Briggs also challenged statements made by Morton that city-by-city franchising takes 13 months. AT&T has been invited by some Tennessee communities to deploy competitive cable services and those municipalities have promised expedited franchise negotiations, Briggs said, but AT&T has not filed for local franchises in the state, investing its capital instead in a statewide solution.

An AT&T media representative did not respond to a request for comments on Briggs's letter by deadline Thursday."

Some background on the issue and the stance taken by State Senator Steve Southerland, chair of the committee reviewing the proposal from AT&T, are here.

UPDATE: North Carolina went the way of state-regulated franchises, with some poor results:

"Beware of legislation promising "competition." A bill passed by the General Assembly last year that was intended to jump-start competition in the cable TV industry has had the unforeseen consequence of costing the state and local governments across North Carolina millions of dollars in lost revenue. And six months after the law went into effect, that promised competition is nowhere in sight.

The Video Service Competition Act was passed with the promise that telecom companies such as AT&T and Verizon would leap to provide video services across the state. (Video is the new term for cable TV, to catch up with the technologies that deliver it. More and more, Internet, video and voice—formerly phone—are delivered through the same pipes.) The companies would offer competitive pricing and give consumers used to relying on one, or no, service provider, choices in service—if only the state would make it easy for them to get in the game. Under the old system, a cable TV provider would negotiate with the city, town or county where it wanted to provide service. But the phone companies didn't want to negotiate town by town, so they pushed for a statewide franchise system with little, if any, oversight. There's no approval process, and as long as the paperwork is filled out correctly, the state is required to accept the company's plan.

The bill's main opponent, the League of Municipalities, backed down after lawmakers reassured the group that the revenue local governments collect from cable TV taxes—money that goes into the general fund to pay for basic services, such as fire and police—would stay the same.

But according to figures from the N.C. Department of Revenue, local governments have received 27.8 percent less across the board under the new system."

Read the entire article here.

Telecoms Lobby Again to Alter Laws

AT&T has a policy now in place to block online services if one says anything negative about them, and this just before they launched their new lobbying efforts to rewrite the state's laws regarding cable franchises.

They are hard at work to promote their proposed legislation again. It's a battle which I have mentioned previously here and here. More coverage here.

Remember the recent concerns too over internet taxation, with fears that cities and counties could lose tax revenues? What would by-passing the local franchise agreements eventually cost?

Cable Bill Removed From Legislature, For Now

Reports say this morning that the bill to alter the laws regarding cable franchises in Tennessee has been withdrawn by it's sponsor. R. Neal has a good round-up of coverage on this action.

I hate to admit it, but I think it's a pipe dream to imagine the massive public opposition, along with the firm opposition from city and county governments statewide were the cause of this removal. I do think such opposition helped. The plan will be back next session, I am sure.

To me, that indicates the lobbying efforts from AT&T will fade from the front pages of media and blogs and will now become an assault on individual members of the General Assembly - in other words, they are going to try this again after they can harass members in private. That will also mean the company will be spending big bucks to inundate the residents of Tennessee with propaganda promoting their plan.

The fact remains, under current law, AT&T could, if they wanted, apply to cities and counties for franchise rights. The current law does not prevent them from seeking to become legal providers. The real question for residents and legislative members is why AT&T does not do so.

See also previous posts.

Creation of New State Agency Behind OK of Cable Bill?

A new law which takes the cable TV business away from local controls and local voices sailed out of the Tennessee Senate Committee yesterday and looks to be headed to a vote by the full legislature - which, I expect means it will be adopted and made law.

As I've written before, I have no opposition to AT&T wanting to jump into the cable business - but to make that decision only after state law is altered, only after local control of cable franchises has been removed, provides no benefit to the consumer and muddles the procedures for how such franchises would be held accountable.

Yesterday I mentioned some of the reasons the Senate Committee chaired by East Tennessee Republican Steve Southerland gave in to the pressures of the high-dollar lobbying by AT&T. Senator Southerland, along with Sens. Beavers, Bunch, Crutchfield, Stanley and Wilder. Voting no were Sens. Burchett, Burks and Tate.

A plan which would have allowed for the Tennessee Regulatory Committee to provide oversight of the requirements of the now all-but-approved changes to law was scrapped and instead and entirely new state organization will be created to "oversee" the law.

The new group (no mention of it's operational costs and impact on the state budget) will be made up of twelve members nominated by the Tennessee Municipal League (which had opposed the legislation) and the Tennessee County Services Association (despite that counties statewide voted to oppose the bill), and by the State Comptroller, the commissioner of the Dept. of Economic and Community Development, and the chairman of the TRA.

Just fascinating how opposition to the bill was transformed once some of those opposing it would now be part of a creating the special government committee.

In Tom Humphrey's report today in the Knoxville News Sentinel, he has this marvelous quote from AT&T president in Tennessee, Marty Dickens:

"the Senate committee's vote demonstrates the legislators are listening to consumers"

I have heard precious few "consumers" advocate this bill. Highly paid lobbyists have been vocal, though, spending millions to push this bill.

And as Humphrey writes, opposition to the bill from Sen. Tim Burchett prompted AT&T to warn him that his opposition would cost him campaign contributions. AT&T attorney Joelle Phillips said nothing inappropriate was done, though, and that her company backs "less government, lower taxes and more freedom."

True, if you think adding a new level of state bureaucracy is "less government". The cost to the budget, unknown. Cost to taxpayers, unknown. Benefits for AT&T - large.

The bill may be voted on in the full legislature Thursday.

NOTE: Sadly, for the first time, my last email to my Senator, Steve Southerland, opposing the bill has gone unanswered.

UPDATE: R. Neal at KnoxViews has more on the topic, noting that despite local government requests for AT&T to go ahead and offer a plan without the new bill in place, AT&T declined.

Battle Intense on Flawed Cable Franchise Change

Once again today, state legislatures take up the issue of some very unwise changes to how cable franchises are provided and regulated. It's been the single most dollar-gulping lobby effort this year in state government, with current spending at just over $4 million. (And that's just the amount as of April of this year.)

Other reports note how intense the battle has become:

"TV4US [an AT&T lobbying firm] has completed two resident mailings. One mailing included an 11-by-5 inch postcard carrying a tear-off postcard to be mailed back to the group. On April 3, the group delivered 14,000 of these return postcards to state legislators. The cards asserted that cable rates have gone down 28% to 42% in communities where competition exists. The cited source is a January 2006 Bank of America Equity Research study. The card asserts that reform laws in other states have brought lower prices and better services.

“The message is completely wrong,” said Stacey Briggs, executive director of the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association. The TCTA and municipal groups such as the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors are critical of such statements, questioning whether those rate estimates include unpublished, short-term acquisition rates. Cable incumbents also note that telephone companies, in discussing their video plans, state they don’t intend to compete on price.

Briggs said 18,000 visitors to the site have opted to send an e-mail or a fax to legislators, arguing against the telco-friendly bills pending in both chambers there.

Two weeks ago, TV4US supporters passed out pink plastic pigs in the legislative plaza in Nashville. The message: When pigs fly, cable rates will go down. Briggs said the effort played upon “consumer misconceptions” that alternative providers will charge lower rates. Few legislators are citing rate cuts as a reason to pass franchising reform, however, he said."

Today, and hopefully not too late, I sent an email expressing my strong opposition to the bill to Commerce, Labor and Agriculture Committee Chairman Senator Steve Southerland. While earlier emails with the Senator contained some doubts the bill would pass, he has over the last few weeks, supplied 10 amendments to the bill which seem aimed at insuring it's passage.

This is the email I sent:
"Dear Sen. Southerland,

I appreciate your previous responses to my emails regarding the proposed change of state law for cable franchises. I remain completely opposed to this new law, for reasons detailed below.

However, I must first express some disappointment and confusion that all the amendments to the Senate bill 1933 were sponsored by you, as you sit as the Chairman of the Commerce, Labor and Agriculture Committee. Rather than standing opposed to this new proposed legislation, you seem to have added 10 amendments which instead attempt to encourage support for the bill.

Countless city governments, county governments (including Hamblen), and organizations like the Tenn. Municipal League have all adopted resolutions in clear opposition to this bill's passage -- did these same groups contact you and ask you to amend the bill for easier passage?

I note that while your amendments did include sections which would not hand over local control of rights-of-way controls, the language does include requirements that any customer must first file complaints about cable service to a city or county government, which would then forward the complaint to the cable provider, and that mediation would then move to the courts if resolutions could not be found. The state, which seeks by this bill to take franchise authority away from local control, is then utterly absent from addressing concerns of customers, putting all burden on local government.

Since locals would then be the ones responsible for any court costs in a losing effort, the locals would have little interest in pursuing such cases. The state, as these amendments make clear, provide no oversight to this plan for state-licensed franchises.

The current laws also require cable franchise holders to develop plans and strategies to expand, or build out, their services to insure the broadest and most comprehensive availability of services. This new bill eliminates such efforts. Since more and more businesses and communities must have internet access in order to compete in our growing global marketplace, to remove such incentives and guarantees will, I fear, only insure that the most rural of areas will be lacking. Rural areas, Senator, are your constituents, those you should be serving.

Also, as written, current cable and internet providers who have local franchise agreements, would now be able to make a state franchise agreement which would also eliminate the requirements to further or continue their efforts to expand services within a service area. How is such a change a benefit to residents and customers?

Could please explain why you found it necessary to add these 10 amendments, which seem aimed at shoring up support for this unwise legislation? Similar bills submitted to states nationwide have failed more often than they have succeeded.

Thanks for your time and your replies to my emails,
Joe Powell

NOTE: The TML Newspaper reports that a condition on build outs was added to the bill by amendment,however, as they report:

""The amendment only required to provide video to 25 percent of the households in which it provides telephone service. This minimal requirement could be fully satisfied by offering service
in just two of the state’s largest markets; providing no assurances
or protections for the remainder of the state. Moreover, the
build out amendment adopted last week does not provide for
any penalty should AT&T fail to meet this meager requirement."

A link to the Senate directory is here.
A link to the House directory is here.

Venture Brothers: The Horrible Truth about Super-Science

The 2nd season of The Venture Brothers arrives on DVD today and if you aren't watching this show, you're missing out. The show which airs on Cartoon Network is a perfect parody of comics and cartoons and the surreal nature of science fiction and superheroes and all the fanboys/girls who have made such entertainment big business. The jokes fly fast so repeated viewings are mandatory and the DVD is a must-have.

The show captures the insanity behind shows like Johnny Quest, where parents think it's okay to take your kids along for a deadly journey deep into the Amazon to battle an army of super soldiers, and examines what the real Scooby Gang might be like. It's a television show for those long addicted to the mirthful mayhem of television itself.

Reason magazine talks with the creator of the show, Jackson Publick, and also sums up some of the basics of this brilliant half hour of television far better than I can:

"It flaunts all of the elements of the series on the adult/hipster animated landscape: irony, satire, uncomfortable pauses, outright parody. But as creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer frequently explain, the show is about failure. It's about the vision that inspired the science fiction wave of the 1950s and 1960s, the optimism of the space race, and the baby boomers' beloved, indulged idea that they could achieve anything they wanted.

" ... Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture, the failed boy genius and father of the series' eponymous brothers Hank and Dean, is such a screw-up. As we learn in flashbacks across the series 27 episodes (so far), Venture pere was a Jonny Quest figure himself who solved mysteries under the wing of his brilliant father, his friend Hector, and their bodyguard Swifty. The 1960s were an era of superhero teams, super-science, space stations, and helpful robots. And as Rusty grows up, all of that peters out. He drops out of college (after palling around with two other super-scientists and a Doctor Doom analogue named Baron Underbheit), loses portions of the family business, and enters middle-age trading off his family's successes and reluctantly fathering his two boys. When Venture's lab is broken into by The Monarch, his butterfly-fetishizing archfoe can't find anything worth defiling or smashing. "What can I do to this guy that life hasn't already?" he sulks. "I almost feel sorry for him."

The interview is here.

As Jackson Publick says:
"The beauty of failure is the beauty of human beings."

Fiction and Facts on Bill for Cable Franchises

The state continues to consider handing AT&T a sweet deal to bypass local control of cable franchises and has picked up the support of the ever-dubious lobbying of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which continues to exude hearty support for corporate interests and little support for the average Tennessean.

The Chattanoogan offered the TCPR and their president Drew Johnson the first of three editorials on the cable franchise bill:

"By pulling the plug on Tennessee’s outdated system of local cable monopolies and allowing statewide franchises, state lawmakers can allow constituents to tune into a new world of television options. Just as dozens of restaurants mean a variety of food options at competitive prices, video franchise reform would result in cheaper television and video services with more channels and better customer service for millions of Tennesseans."

Johnson's claims are just shy of some basic facts, as noted by Stacey Briggs of the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association:

"The “Tennessee Should Tune into a New Era of Cable Competition” article written by Drew Johnson and published on your site, is wildly inaccurate and an extremely misleading piece of information to appear at a time when legislators are debating whether to dismantle the local franchising system as AT&T is proposing.

Mr. Johnson writes that “it’s exactly how the cable industry operates in Tennessee” that there is a law that limits one cable provider in any city. He repeats it, “Only one franchise is given per locale, meaning there is only one choice in cable for residents.” This is simply not true. There are no exclusive cable franchises in Tennessee, and even limited exploration of the industry and local franchise law would have made Mr. Johnson – who works for the Tennessee Center for Policy Research – aware of this. No other published account has stated there is a law prohibiting AT&T’s entry into any city – in fact, the immense amount of testimony in Nashville and the media coverage about it makes it clear AT&T has had the ability the past 11 years to compete.

The fact is, AT&T can compete in any city in Tennessee today. It could go directly this afternoon to see Mayor Claude Ramsey and Mayor Ron Littlefield, file applications and get approvals within 90 days to provide video service to folks in Hamilton County. But that’s not what the company really wants – it has proposed a sweetheart deal that would give the company greater competitive standing than any cable company could ever dream, would diffuse almost every existing consumer protection and allow the company to step over the very laws that protect local public rights of way."

Neil Ritchie of the League of Rural Voters agress the bill is bad business for individuals and for local governments:

"For years, telephone lobbyists have promised new high-speed networks for our communities in return for special state legislation and deregulation. Each time their favors are granted, they quickly forget about their promises.

Enough is enough. It’s time to stop the sweetheart deals for the telephone companies, ensure that they play by the rules to which their competitors abide, and live up to their perennially broken promises to serve our communities."

Read all three editorials here.

Camera Obscura - 'Lookout'; Neo-Noir; and 'X-Files 2'

I've got a stack of good movies to recommend this week - since last week was all whiney-ranting on a movie I hated. It's far more fun to share the good stuff with you, and there's some to pick from in the theatres and on DVD, much of it based on top-notch writing.

Opening today is the directorial debut of Scott Frank, "The Lookout". Some big-name directors were up for this project, like David Fincher, Michael Mann and Sam Mendes, but writer Frank got to take the reins himself and that was a smart move. This crime-thriller is centered on a young man whose mind has been almost washed away following an accidental brain injury. By the time you follow the damaged and lost Chris Pratt (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to a bank robbery, you're already deeply interested in these characters. Frank is an expert at making fascinating characters and at making solid thrillers.

His past work is part of the best in Neo-Noir thrillers - crime stories grounded in strong characters - such as "Get Shorty", the short-lived TV series "Karen Sisco", and "Out of Sight," all movies based on the writings of one of the best crime writers in America, Elmore Leonard.

Critics agree that in addition to the script and deft direction, the lead as played by Gordon-Levitt is worth the price of admission. He's been turning in gutsy performances in movies like "Brick" and "Mysterious Skin".


The character of US Marshal Karen Sisco created by Leonard and featured in the TV series (played by Carla Gugino) and the movie "Out of Sight" (played by Jennifer Lopez) surely gave Frank good ideas in building and developing stories. "Out of Sight" is a minor-classic -- often funny, filled with realistic and oddball criminals, danger lurking close by which is just as real.

If you haven't seen it - do so. In addition to Lopez, the movie stars George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn and others who all create vivid characters.

Another book turned into a movie worth repeated viewings is "Children of Men", now available on DVD. Based rather loosely on P.D. James book, the movie is set in London in the year 2027, in a world which has fallen apart, ravaged by terrorism, disease and corruption and where no human child has been born in nearly 20 years. The reason why - or the lack of a reason - shapes the lives of everyone.

Director and screenwriter Alfonso Cuaron fills every frame with society worn down and wasting away, from hatred, from fear, from religious strife, and everyone seems to move in dull inertia. Without children, the world is without hope. The movie has echoes of earlier apocalyptic cinema, like "Soylent Green", but Cuaron and the cast (Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore) have made something very new and very topical.

There's a scene early in the film between the estranged couple of Owen and Moore, just after Owen's character has barely escaped a deadly suicide bomb attack. He complains of a constant ringing in his ears, and she tells him that sound is the sound of cells dying, a frequency he will never hear again. A bit later in the movie, an explosion brings about yet another ringing in Owen's ears, and he and the audience understand he has lost something even more valuable than part of his hearing range. It's a sharp script and another excellent movie from Cuaron.

By sheer accident this week I watched a film I had seen on video shelves for some time, never giving it a chance. Big mistake. So I'm also urging you to seek it out as well. The movie is based on the novel "Doctor Sleep", by Tennessee native Madison Smartt Bell, and retitled "Close Your Eyes."

Bell's story slyly and expertly draws you into a crime scene via the life of Michael Strother, played by Goran Visnjic, working in London as a hypnotist who helps people quit smoking. But his skill includes a more occult ability to see what others see in their own mind. When he counsels a woman who has an image of a drowning child in her mind, he learns she is a policewoman working a case involving children who are kidnapped and murdered in a ritualistic nightmare. Reluctantly, he agrees to help her work the case.

There are many layers of story here, blending crime drama with eldritch religious groups. Bell, in an interview, remarked that "Doctor Sleep" was a culmination of work for him. Much of his previous work used the noirish world of crime and led the reader somewhere else:

"To my mind, Dr. Sleep was the end of a whole trend in my work. The book is basically structured as a prayer, and Stother's internal monologue drives the story. After I had finished it, I realized in a way I hadn't before that all the novels I had written up to that time were spiritual pilgrimages of one kind or another. Though they are by and large couched in the form of thrillers, they're essentially experiments in religion. My model for that is Dostoyevsky, who was basically a thriller writer with a lot of religious obsessions that he was trying to work out. I wasn't completely aware of this strain in my own work until I'd finished Dr. Sleep, or was well on the way to finishing it."

The movie has real scares and chills, created by your own connections to the characters and the maze of storytelling which easily twists you around. A very surprising find -- too bad the project was shelved for some years, barely marketed and dumped without notice onto DVD.

Finally, I have this bit of news for fans of "The X-Files" show and movie. Star David Duchovny says the project for a sequel is almost set and filming will begin soon .... he hopes,

Shut Down the Plan to End Local Control of Cable Franchises

I'm encouraging all readers of this page and residents statewide to voice a loud opposition to a bill before the legislature which drains funds away from cities and counties, removes local control over cable franchise rights, and essentially hands the telephone companies both an unfair advantage and reduces existing standards of service.

It's worth noting that for the first time, federal taxpayers have a chance to get a small refund from from the telecoms for a tax first added to telephone service in the 1800s, money they've collected for decades and are only refunding now after the government intervened.

It's also worth noting that in the early days of Internet usage, the vast majority of users had to use a dial-up service and pay a per-minute fee for access. Thankfully, technology made such high prices outmoded.

And if the state does approve the end of locally created franchise agreements, the cities and counties will be looking for new ways to replace that lost income - more taxation.

The bills under review are currently headed into committees for debate in early April, but the time to speak out is now, before it's too late.

Taking a cue from this post at KnoxViews, simply send an email to your representative and senator, such as the one below, mentioned at KV. A link to the Senate directory is here. A link to the House directory is here.

Dear Rep. ____________
Dear Sen. ____________

I urge you to vote against and actively oppose SB1933/HB1421, which eliminates local control of cable franchises, regulates local franchise fees, restricts or eliminates customer service and quality standards, provides state regulation of local public right of way for the benefit of cable companies, restricts or eliminates local build-out requirements, and allows cable companies to create statewide franchises.

Contrary to claims of the lobbyists who wrote it, this legislation is not good for consumers or for local governments who know best what is needed in their communities and which areas are undeserved. Local governments have a duty to maintain infrastructure rights of way for the benefit of all citizens and taxpayers in their communities.

I urge you to vote for and actively support the following three bills that would help expand broadband access in Tennessee. Broadband access, and particularly rural broadband access, is vital to our economy in terms of availability for businesses relocating here and maintaining a qualified workforce, and will also help cure the "digital divide" between poor working people and the more affluent.

HB2100/SB1572 would establish a non-profit "Tennessee Broadband Access Corporation to facilitate the deployment of broadband technologies across the state."

HB2103/SB1716 requires "the department of economic and community development to establish a ConnectTN program to bring statewide broadband expansion."

HB2099/SB1580 "Expands the membership of the Tennessee Broadband Task Force to include a representative of the department of education and requires the task force to submit an assessment of the state of broadband deployment on an annual basis.

Thank you.