For Net Neutrality SNIPS InterTubes

Net Neutrality = Neuter the Gatekeepers

The FCC's Net Neutrality Proposal Is Out: It's Time to Make Our Voices Heard: 'via Blog this'

Net Neutrality on Wikipedia

This is a more complex topic than I thought going in and after reading arguments on both sides I feel incompetent to make my own with cogent logic.  So I admit flat out that I'm taking my stand on gut feeling.

Just based on the lists of proponents and opponents to Net Neutrality legislation and regulation I would have to choose the proponents to stand with as I respect the range of philosophies and political affiliations of most of the names I recognize whereas I cringe at most of the names I see on the opponents list.  Some of whom I know think library users are freeloaders and would consider me a parasite for needing tax payer support and like to talk about boot strapping yet are now advocating for having those bootstraps cut just as I'm about to lift myself up by them.

A partial list of proponents and opponents is in the Wikipedia article.

I find the idea of an ISPs ability to discriminate data transmission based on ability to pay a downright deathknell to the inde startup entrepreneurs like I'm hoping to be.  That they have and thus could be allowed to use the technology to decide how fast data between my business sites and my customers and clients can move based on whether I can afford to compete with billionaire corporations able to pay for premium service that provides their data cutting edge speed makes me alarmed that my prospects for success have been neutralized.

Even more alarming is the ISP capability of censoring data according to content or the application it was created by and for.  Audio Visual, including VOIP, being slow-streamed for non-premium customers for example.  I imagine with horror what that could mean for my vid chats on Google and Skype with Ed or the book trailers for my self-pub ebooks.

What if they can discover the political or religious views contained in the data and censor it according to their own preferences?

And there have already been attempts by ISP to redirect traffic to a premium client from their competitors.

What would all this mean for the non-profit organizations?

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Three Phoenix Feathers Floating Free

Every once in awhile I encounter a current event story that makes me regret that I let lapse my Phoenix Feather Project from my early blogging years in which I aimed to occasionally feature an individual or organization whose action or mission was dedicated to 'rising from the ashes'.

In the case of individuals they could be honored for either rising from the ashes of their personal  setback or trauma or aiding and abetting another's rise.  That was my intent anyway tho I don't think I ever did honor an individual.  My previous honorees can be found somewhere deep in the left sidebar. The only one I can remember without peeking is Mercy Corp but I can't remember which disaster was in the news at the time.

The story that has inspired this post and has me feeling called to revive my Phoenix Feathers, if only for this one event, is one in which there would need to be three honorees:

• the individual rising from the ashes--literally--of a mine blast that took half his leg in Afganistan
• the non-profit organization with a mission to help vets
• the business that joined with the organization to fulfill the dream of one wounded vet

The organization is Run for the Wall, known for their annual ten day cross country motorcycle caravan to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC every Memorial Day.

Their new Wounded Warrior project aspires to present custom built motorcycles to wounded vets that will give them back mobility and independence and thus hope and confidence..

The business is Rogue Valley OR Thunder Struck Custom Bikes.

Yes the same Rogue Valley from which I'm reluctantly torn and yearn to return.  But that's another story and has monopolized enough of this blog for nearly a year now.

The individual is Retired Staff Sergeant Charlie Linville of Idaho who has long dreamed of owning a motorcycle and is now the first recipient of the Wounded Warrior custom bike gift.

Last Thursday, January 2nd,  Run for the Wall flew Linville and his wife to Medford OR where the Rogue Valley Chapter presented the bike to him at the Thunderstruck shop and measurements were taken for the custom fittings.

It will be several more months before the custom build is complete but Sargent Linville is already riding high on the hope and the 'giddy' joy of having received this lift up out of the ashes.

Anyone wishing to contribute to the Bike Build can send their donations (marked Bike Build) to:

Ken Hargrove
1715 N. 3rd Avenue
Upland, CA 91784

All funds so marked will be used exclusively for the Bike Build.

Watch the local coverage on ABC's KDRV 12 in Medford:



For more coverage see the story at:

• KOBI NBC
• KTLV NEWS 10

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When Analogy Goes Awry

Created by OnlineMBA.com

Analogy is a valuable tool in a writer's arsenal.  But care must be taken when using them as they can often carry implications that are not intended by their creators, giving a wrong understanding of the concept.  Or, in some cases the implications are entirely intended and meant to lead astray.

I'm not sure which of those categories the likening of running a government to running a business fits.  But whether it was well-intentioned or not, it creates a confusion in the minds of those who have to think about policy issues whether it is the policy makers or the voters who chose them.  That confusion leads to some wildly wrong-headed policy proposals and obfuscates the discussion and debate about them.

It's simple really: governments and businesses are two different entities.  The first, in a democracy like ours, is run for the people, by the people and of the people where people and the common good are considered valuable in and of themselves. While the other is autocratic, if not totalitarian, and run for the profit, by the profit and of the profit and people are no more valuable than any other tools and just as dispensable.

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There's sexist and then there's sexist.

"Book Reading Party" Bud Light Super Bowl Ad 2010 Commercia
Uploaded by rosebudmag. - Sitcom, sketch, and standup comedy videos.

I didn't watch the Super Bowl so I didn't see the commercials but I began stumbling on a lot of sites where an intense conversation rant is taking place over the sexism in the Bud Lite commercial. Many of these are accompanied by the video of the ad so I got to see it. I confess that my first reaction to it was to crack up. Sure there is blatant sexist stereotyping going on here. But it is so over the top it is almost a spoof of itself. More the flavor of a sitcom written in the Jr High boy's locker room. The kind of thing that calls attention to crass behavior to mark it as crass. It leaves me wondering why Budweiser wishes to be typecast as a tasteless, low class beverage.

Compare that to the advocacy ad sponsored by Focus on the Family. The tone at first is touching, heart-string pulling with a woman talking as she gazes at a baby picture about how she still worries about her son who had a touch-and-go start in life and then Tim Tebow 'tackles' his Mom, knocking her off her feet which abruptly changes the mood to light-hearted and funny that quickly segues into touching again as mother and son face the camera cheek to cheek and the message: celebrate life appears on the screen along with the URL to Focus on the Family where the Tim Tebow story can be seen in full.




Which one of these is the most sexist in intent? Which the most dangerous for women?

I see a stark difference between them. The Bud Lite ad exploits our culture stereotypes while poking fun at them which actually works against implying that such behavior ought to be the norm. Which means we've come a long way from the 1950s era in terms of how women's and men's roles are depicted on TV and film.

The Focus on the Family ad though, is a subtle weapon in the hands of a declared patriarchal agenda that won't be content until women's roles are returned to the 1850s era. The ad presents a touching story of one family's triumph over adversity, one family's ultimate joy and sets it up as a tool in the service of enforcing a new dark age on women's autonomy.

I find it very telling that they chose the image of the son tackling his mother and knocking her to the ground. I believe it is a not so subtle (and yet probably un-conscious on their part) message from Focus on the Family as to their true intent.

Seen in that light it is not so funny; not so cute; and far from heart-warming.

I first became aware of the existence of this ad well before the day it aired. I received a number of requests in my in-box to protest it and call on CBS to pull it. But that goes against my sense of right as much as the religious right agenda does. It is more than just the free speech aspect too, though that is huge in itself. I would rather have it out there where everyone can see it in the full light so it can be examined and critiqued and become the subject of dialog and debate that engages everybody in a discussion of the implications. I do not hold with any stifling of another's voice. Not even when I disagree. Especially when I disagree.

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At approximately 4:30 a.m. PDT tomorrow morning NASA's LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite)
mission will conclude with the dramatic impact into Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole of first, the LCROSS Centaur upper stage rocket followed in four minutes with that of the LCROSS Shepherding Spacecraft.

The purpose of this exercise is to check for the possible existence of water which, if it exists and in enough quantity, would ease the logistics of establishing a human occupied base on the moon. Which really turns the crank of this veteran Trekker and avid consumer of Science Fiction stories.

NASA TV will be broadcasting the show live and it can be viewed online as well.

I'm fairly sure I'll be staying up to watch since, as I wrap this up, it's just under five hours away. I've been listening to NASA TV online as I worked which made putting this post together slower since I kept ducking over to the other tab to check out the video.

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American Journalists Freed From N. Korea

American Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee board private plane with former President Bill Clinton in Pyonyang, North Korea (AP Photo/Xinhua, Zhang Binyang)

I was overjoyed when this news broke Tuesday afternoon. I"ve been following the story of the two journalists captured by N. Korea since the story first broke last spring. Laura Ling (younger sister to journalist Lisa Ling of CNN, Oprah & National Geographic) and Euna Lee were working for Al Gore's Current TV on the N. Korean border with China when they were arrested by North Korea last March.

I confess, I am something of a news and politics junkie and a lot of my recent posts accusing myself of laziness (because I didn't have anything of substance prepared like a book review or fresh fiction snippets) could have been avoided if I were willing to blog about the news and political commentary I'd been perusing those days like I did in the first year or so after starting Joystory.

But I'd veered away from those kinds of posts not least because I felt inadequate to add anything to the dialog besides my own angst or anger triggered by whichever article I was linking to in order to rant off the cuff for several hundred words. I did not like the mood I was creating in myself nor the mood I was setting on Joystory nor did I want to encourage the kind of vituperative comment threads I saw develop on other politically oriented blogs because I had no wish to moderate them.

But every once in a while there is a news story I just can't resist commenting on and this one is right up there with last November's election night coverage in eliciting joy and relief where I was expecting only despair. My heart had been breaking for the Lee and Ling families as well as the two women themselves ever since their sentence of 12 years hard labor came down last spring.

My interest in the story is enlarged by my interest in journalism itself and my admiration of these two courageous women doing something I might have wished my life path had led me to if I hadn't gravitated toward fiction.

I've really got nothing to add to the discussion except the weight of my own joy for the two women and for their families.

Welcome home Laura and Euna!!

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