If AT&T decides to sell what are, in effect, private network services and call itself an Internet Service Provider, who will defend the Internet's meaning?

Those without demand a share in what others have, at minimum the chance to earn one. When their political and economic systems fail to deliver answers, where negotiation is rejected, arms are taken up.

Is the "net neutrality" debate irrelevant? It is, if you deny the idea — which is central to their initial statements on this controversy — that Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth only want rights to "their" property. The new argument is that their "last mile" — the network between your local switch and your home or […]

The Internet is not owned by anyone. It is simply an agreement to exchange bits. If you have a home network, which operates under TCP/IP, you own your own Internet, once you connect it to someone else who runs their network the same way. But this strength is also the Internet’s weakness. Who enforces that […]

Pets bring important lessons. Unconditional love. Living in the moment. The power of change. This was important in the case of Missy (right), whom our daughter Robin rescued from the PAWS shelter last summer. Missy had been partly-declawed, then abandoned. She was terribly frightened. I think it was her neediness that got to Robin. Robin […]

Realism alert. The funniest aspect of this whole immigration debate is the right-wing idea that a wall next to Mexico would "secure our borders." It won’t. Only about 23% of our undocumented or illegal (take your pick) workers are Mexican. We have a Free Trade Agreement (remember the giant sucking sound) that prevents us from […]

It may just be rhetoric, but New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says he wants to be a champion for the Internet. While New York has a vast transportation infrastructure to move people and goods, we don’t have the broadband infrastructure to move ideas and information. If you’re a kid growing up in South Korea, […]

There is an old trend which began on the right and has now spread to the left. It’s been coming up the middle of the market for some time. Open source publishing. Open source publishing happens when a non-publishing company producesa book (or similar product) which is aimed at the market.  Starbucks has done it. […]

The divide between editorial and advertising has always existed. It takes courage to stand up against the interests of an advertiser, and always has. Over the last several years, in broadcast and print, advertisers have become increasingly aggressive in defending their interests. Some have demanded a form of editorial control — don’t write against me […]

There are always lunatics among us. But at a time of political excess, when a political Thesis has exceeded its reach in time, those who are batshit crazy can gain enormous imfluence. I’m talking here of  people whose lunacy leans in the direction of the Thesis. Their craziness is only seen in retrospect because they […]