Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

I am writing this letter to express some concerns regarding The Communications, Consumers’ Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 (S-2686). As you consider this legislation, and the many amendments associated with it, remember that the airwaves belong to the public, and the establishment of the infrastructure of the internet has been publicly funded. As such, the People have some important Rights concerning the operation of the media which need to be protected.

Local and independent media serve the public interest by offering local content and a richer, more unique view of the world. These things are simply not offered on commercial media outlets.

To protect these interests and Rights, Congress must take steps to protect and strengthen local and independent media, and the freedom of the press; generally, the People’s ability to keep informed. To accomplish this, this bill should do — or be amended to do — the following things:

1. guarantee the protection of local ‘rights of way’ and municipal control of these public spaces.
2. ensure strong net neutrality provisions to protect the internet.
3. guarantee strong ‘build-out’ provisions to prevent red-lining of communities based on geography and income.
4. protect the right of municipalities to provide broadband and video services.
5. protect Public, Educational and Governmental channels (public access TV) and facilities and their current funding levels.
6. promote wider public use of unlicensed spectrum.
7. expand Low Power FM radio licensing.

As a member of congress, your are in position to protect the People’s media interests and Rights against powerful, commercial media entities who seek to control — in an undemocratic way — what we see and hear in the media. As a constituent and patron of local and independent media, I urge you to take the above items into consideration as you debate this legislation.

I appreciate your time and look forward to your response on these particular items.

Sincerely,
Your Constituent Montag

*The numbered items come directly from a Democracy Now! action alert.

Our ‘hilarious’ and ‘informative’ went out the window weeks ago, and now our ‘clever’ is getting pretty threadbare. A valiant attempt to return to form will happen in the coming days. For now, there is only this:

Let me just set a few things straight. I recognize the reality that there are disgruntled people in the world who would attack, maim and kill civilians in order to “send a message.” That said, I have no problem with…

1. …searching an individual’s home without their knowledge if they are suspected of being a terrorist.
2. …infiltrating a club or organization if its members are suspected of terrorist activity.
3. …looking at an individual’s library records if they are suspected of being a terrorist and such records will be useful in investigating terrorist activity.
4. …looking at an individual’s medical records if they are suspected of being a terrorist and such records will be useful in investigating terrorist activity.
5. …tapping and individual’s telephone if they are suspected of being a terrorist.
6. …requesting the phone company’s billing records of an individual who is suspected of being a terrorist.
7. …tracking an individual’s financial transactions if they are suspected of assisting in the funding of terrorist activity.
8. …etcetera.

But really, is it too much to ask that these things be done LEGALLY? I’m thinking— if memory serves —that we’re supposed to have a system of checks and balances in place to handle exactly this kind of thing.

As far as I can tell, there are very few individuals in the world bent on carrying out terrorist attacks. But there are a very great number of innocent people who deserve to have their Amendment IV Rights protected, many of whom— I must believe, in order to preserve my own sanity —don’t even buy into the group-paranoia that makes everybody a suspect of terrorism.

It used to be that folks who shunned privacy— by, say, getting hot-and-heavy in a public place —were told, “C’mon! Get a room!”

Now the folks who shun Privacy are in peoples rooms. They should be told, “C’mon! Get a warrant!”

Chef Bobby Flay annoys me.

“Gang” activity.

After the wild popularity of this feature the first time— and by “wild popularity of” I of course mean “COMPLETE LACK OF RESPONSE TO” —we’ve brought it back!

Activity: reformulate the cartoon in your own way. Click here for mine.

In lieu of a Friday Music Audit, here is an impression of the Portland, Maine 6-21-06 Nine Inch Nails concert, part of their Live: With Teeth 2006 junket…

Your Montag is an avid Nine Inch Nails fan. I’ve been on board since 1991, or HALO_02 as diehards might know it. Still, when I bought tickets back in December for their February concert, I didn’t know what to expect, having never seen the live show before. Sure I’d seen video of live shows, and heard live recordings, but based on those, my expectations were not exactly high. Then, when the February date was cancelled due to illness, there was an extra four months of not knowing what to expect before the show finally happened this past Wednesday night. Well, as it turned out, the show rocked.

When I say “the show rocked” what I mean is “The show fucking rocked in a rip out your guts and spit them back at you in a way that twists you up and leaves you on the floor with leg spasms and the desire to sleep for a week.”

(Which is a good thing.)

What I discovered is that there are certain aspects of a NIN live show that get lost in the recording process, the way a ghost cannot be photographed, or a vampire is not reflected in the mirror: like how the air throbs with drums and bass, or the relentless strobing of stage lights with more seizure inducing capacity than a Pokemon cartoon, the combined effect of which makes one feel like they’re watching a blipvert on Network 23.

After opening act Peaches— she was good! —left the stage, the stage crew went about making the necessary changes to the setup, during which time, several panels of horizontal metal bars were lowered across the front of the stage (we would later learn that these panels supported a grid of LEDs that would light to create various patterns that I would describe as: ‘simulated flames’, ‘dripping blood’, ‘plume of smoke’ and ‘roiling clouds’ which may have been the same as ‘plume of smoke’ but for different background music.) For the first number, these metal bars served as cage separating performers’ habitat from audience’s outside world.

Before the house lights went down, we saw band members entering the ‘cage’ and could hear strains of Somewhat Damaged off The Fragile (Left) (HALO_14) apart from which, as far as I can discern, there can be no more perfect NIN song for opening a show. As the song grew, building intensity on intensity with more intensity, the house lights went down, and the stage lights produced a monochromatic strobing effect as blinding as arcing electricity. The framework of trusses supporting the stage lights slowly pressed down on top of the group, reducing the volume of their space and seemingly forcing the volume of sound out into the arena where the beating base drum sounded like heavy machine gun fire and felt like repeated, breath-stealing blows to the chest. And at the song’s apex, there was a cacophony of drums, during which the stage lights seemed as though wired into the drum kit, triggered by each strike of each drum. The effect of which was overwhelming, but in a way that Nine Inch Nails fans like to be overwhelmed.

It was fucking great.

There would be a couple of respites from this sensory onslaught during the down-tempo songs where the stage was flooded with mist and colored light. The combination of this effect, the purple light and the audience-borne constellation of cigarette lighters, during Something I Can Never Have put me in mind of a Prince performance of Purple Rain which I have never seen.

Trent Reznor doesn’t have flowing black locks anymore. His head is shorn in a very short style, and while I was too distant to see, at the show, recent pictures of Reznor reveal short hair and awesome sideburns. A style recognized by me as Teh Fehlleistungen. (Your ‘do is going big-time, F!)

Reznor doesn’t sing the songs as recorded. He doesn’t hit all the same notes. [Disclaimer: This is not meant as a negative comment in any way.] I can sing NIN songs, as they appear on the albums, note for note, and replicating the same tone of voice — for about an hour — then my voice is trashed for a week. This show was over two hours long, and the tour schedule seems pretty relentless. I can see why one might want to figure out a different way to sing these songs and sustain it night after night. Reznor nonetheless got in the requisite number of screams, and achieved the biting emotional intensity you’d expect. An amazing feat. So it is really of no matter that I was slightly unsettled in my attempts to keep up.

He throws the word “fucking” in a lot of extra places, too. Which is more funny than anything.

Also entertaining were the frenetic spasms of guitarist Aaron North. At one point he was throwing himself violently around stage— actually, for the entire performance he was throwing himself violently around stage —but at one point he was doing something that I can only describe as ‘attempting to kill himself with a guitar strap.’ In any other context, one would give this maniac a wide berth. But here, he is a single component of the glorious spectacle.

The show came to an end with a bracing performance of Head Like a Hole, and without the pretentious masturbatory drill of making the crowd chant and stomp and plead for an encore. (Thank you for that.) At the end, the grid of LEDs lighted up with the N-I-backward N logo, the house light came back up, and everyone left.

Fucking — great — show.

As a post-script: about the fucking logo. Now, Your Montag enjoys the logo as well as I should. It’s crisp, it’s simple, it’s symmetrical and the backwards ‘N’ that makes it so, is the balls. It’s a great logo. That said…

APPLAUDING THE ‘NIN’ LOGO IS FUCKING STUPID.

You have been “branded” by a marketing device.

If industrial music, as a genre, is commentary on a society that dehumanizes people; and if you have a problem with a society that dehumanizes people, why allow yourself to be programmed, like so much circuitry, to respond to a symbol? No matter how cool it seems to be.

Continue reading for my imperfect recollection of the set-list and a perhaps unreasonable wish list. (more…)

I’m not saying Terry Francona is the next Yogi Berra or anything; but while being interviewed during tonight’s game on ESPN we were awed by the brilliance of this insight:

I think we all mature as we get older.

Which was a supposed compliment for Manny Ramirez, though it seemed more like a back handed remark about Ramirez’ past maturity level than anything else.

The ESPN announcers, especially Joe Morgan, had a lot of good things to say about Manny, (which was nice for a change.)

[Additional tag: Boston Red Sox]

Again with the flowers!

What was Our Government’s response to the three suicides of Guantanamo detainees?

Over the weekend it was this:

“It does sound like this is part of a strategy – in that they don’t value their own lives, and they certainly don’t value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a tactic. . . . Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR move.” [Emphasis added.]

…and this:

“They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” [Emphasis again added.]

Those quotes are from two different people on two different days. Their similarity belies a coordinated message, ‘They don’t value life.’

Today it is this allegedly toned-down version:

“I wouldn’t characterize it as a good PR move. What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life. Because as Americans, we value life, even the lives of violent terrorists who are captured waging war against our country.” [Emphasis yet again added.]

‘We value life.’

That last quote, from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson, goes on to characterize the men as “violent terrorists . . . captured waging war against our country,” however, the Guardian reports that one of the men had been declared a “safe person, free to be released,” but had not been informed of his status. (I’ve not read about the status of the other two men or the reason they were detained.)

Indeed. We value life. But what value has life when we no longer value liberty?

Why would Your Montag— or anyone of sound mind —be intrigued into opening a spam mail with a subject line as insulting and patently presumptuous as, “Don’t be inadequate anymore!” ?

Yellow

The sun made a brief appearance— about a week ago.