Constituency of One for FCC Chair

Seth Anderson1 Comment

 

His Royal Highness, Bushy, of course. There aren’t many government officials who can keep their jobs when they are unpopular with the Congress, with the citizenry, and with the industry being regulated.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission is set to ram through two measures likely to roil the media and telecommunications industries and deepen political dissatisfaction with the agency’s chairman.

Kevin Martin, a 41-year-old Republican, has already drawn heavy criticism with his determination to pass a rule making it easier for media companies to own both newspapers and television stations in the top 20 markets. The five-member commission is expected to pass that rule and another saying that no single cable company can serve more than 30% of the nation’s cable subscribers.
[snip]
In a highly partisan capital, Mr. Martin is unusual in that he is coming under attack by members of both parties and several industries. The cable restriction, for instance, has stoked the anger of an industry that expected an orthodox laissez-faire Republican as chairman, only to find an aggressive regulator.
[From Industry Seethes as FCC Sets Curbs]

Mr. Martin’s only government experience seems to be his work on the Shrub’s 2000 Presidential Campaign, and on Kenneth Star’s impeachment theater.

Mr. Martin worked as a telecommunications lawyer in private practice and briefly assisted independent counsel Kenneth Starr in 1997 during the Whitewater probe. Later, he left Washington for Austin, Texas, joining then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. Mr. Martin’s wife, Cathie, whom he met at Harvard Law School, also worked on the campaign.

In 2001, the newly elected Mr. Bush appointed Mr. Martin as an FCC commissioner. His wife worked for Vice President Dick Cheney for several years before moving to the White House’s communications office.

Despite what Amy Schatz asserts in the article, there aren’t many consumer groups who think Mr. Martin’s tenure is worth celebration. There might be some consumer groups who are members of the Christian-Taliban who celebrate Martin’s quest to “clean the smut out of the airways”, and protect our precious ears from dangerous words like fuck and shit, but these consumer groups don’t have the support of most of the nation. The only group who would praise Mr. Martin on the record is Consumer Union’s Gene Kimmelman, for some reason:

Consumer groups are among those who offer kind words for Mr. Martin. “He’s been as accessible as any chairman in the past 25 years to consumer interests. He’s reached out for input,” says Gene Kimmelman, vice president for federal and international affairs at Consumers Union.

Is indecency on cable really what is important?

Soon Mr. Martin’s concerns about indecency on television began to steer him into conflict with the cable and broadcast-TV industries. His staff proposed record fines against broadcast networks for showing racy programming. Mr. Martin suggested that the FCC should fine broadcasters for each instance of a profanity used during a show, instead of just one fine per broadcast.

Mr. Martin pushed for a fine in cases of inadvertent broadcast of profanities, such as an incident involving U2 singer Bono during a live broadcast of the Golden Globes awards. This summer, a federal appeals court sided with the broadcasters and tossed out the agency’s decision.

Mr. Martin has suggested that indecency laws should apply to cable programming, prompting an outcry about free speech. Profit-spinning cable shows such as “The Sopranos” and “Real Sex” on HBO are rich in profanity and sexual images.

Note that Mr. Martin doesn’t have much support:

Intense lobbying in Congress, the FCC and the White House paid off, as a stream of lawmakers began calling the FCC and sending letters decrying Mr. Martin’s plan. Internally, several FCC commissioners complained about the data Mr. Martin’s staff relied on in the report. Ultimately, Mr. Martin was forced to drop his proposal.

“Because we didn’t agree to [a-la-carte pricing] early in his tenure, I believe, and I believe the evidence is overwhelming, that he embarked on a punitive regulatory regime on the industry,” says Mr. McSlarrow, the cable association president. He says private enterprise is “more likely to get it right than someone who’s never been in the business world.”

The media-ownership rules up for a vote today have also sparked a backlash, this time in Congress as legislators complain Mr. Martin is rushing the issue onto the agenda. Yesterday, a bipartisan group of 25 senators warned in a letter to Mr. Martin that they will pursue legislation to block his plan if the FCC adopts it today.

On Friday, former and current Democratic presidential hopefuls Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Barack Obama threatened to block FCC funding to implement the new media-ownership rules. Veteran Michigan congressman John Dingell, head of the House committee that oversees the FCC, said he is “rapidly losing confidence” and recently opened a broad investigation into Mr. Martin’s management of the agency.

Seems only the White House is Mr. Martin’s supporter. Remind you of anyone?
(Digg-enabled full access to the complete article here)

John Nichols of the Nation writes:

The Federal Communications Commission has, as expected, voted along party lines to approve the demand of Rupert Murdoch and other communications-industry moguls for a loosening of limits on media monopolies in American cities.

Now, the real fight begins.

There was never any doubt that FCC chair Kevin Martin, a Bush-Cheney administration appointee and acolyte, would lead the two other Republican members of the commission to a 3-2 endorsement of a move to begin dismantling the historic “newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership” ban which has long served as the only barrier to the buying by one powerful individual or corporation of newspapers, television and radio stations and other media outlets in a community.
[Click to read more FCC Votes for Monopoly, Congress Must Vote for Democracy]

WaMu and Bankruptcy Reform

Seth Anderson0 comment

Reserved Light

Atrios linked to this news tidbit about how Blowback’s a bitch

Washington Mutual Inc. got what it wanted in 2005: A revised bankruptcy code that no longer lets people walk away from credit card bills.

The largest U.S. savings and loan didn’t count on a housing recession. The new bankruptcy laws are helping drive foreclosures to a record as homeowners default on mortgages and struggle to pay credit card debts that might have been wiped out under the old code, said Jay Westbrook, a professor of business law at the University of Texas Law School in Austin and a former adviser to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Westbrook said. “They wanted to make sure that people kept paying their credit cards, and what they’re getting is more foreclosures.”

Washington Mutual, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. spent $25 million in 2004 and 2005 lobbying for a legislative agenda that included changes in bankruptcy laws to protect credit card profits, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan Washington group that tracks political donations.

The banks are still paying for that decision. The surge in foreclosures has cut the value of securities backed by mortgages and led to more than $40 billion of writedowns for U.S. financial institutions. It also reached to the top echelons of the financial services industry.
[From Bloomberg.com: Exclusive]

Prior to the 2005 reforms, if one had to choose between defaulting on a credit card and defaulting on a mortgage, the choice was pretty obvious. Not so much anymore. I wonder which of the 75 Senators who voted Yea would change their vote now? (Hillary Clinton abstained for some reason)

Louis Armstrong American Hero

Seth Anderson3 Comments


“The Essential Louis Armstrong” (Louis Armstrong)

Louis Armstrong is an American hero.

As David Margolick recounts, a 21 year old journalist student by the name of Larry Lubenow ignored the instructions of his editor, and asked Louis Armstrong about what was happening in the Civil Rights Movement of Eisenhower era America….

With the connivance of the bell captain, [Lubenow] snuck into Mr. Armstrong’s suite with a room service lobster dinner. And Mr. Armstrong, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, agreed to talk. Mr. Lubenow stuck initially to his editor’s script, asking Mr. Armstrong to name his favorite musician. (Bing Crosby, it turned out.) But soon he brought up Little Rock, and he could not believe what he heard. “It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country,” a furious Mr. Armstrong told him. President Eisenhower, he charged, was “two faced,” and had “no guts.” For Governor Faubus, he used a double-barreled hyphenated expletive, utterly unfit for print [like, mother-fucker, perhaps? Stupid New York Times pearl-clutching.]. The two settled on something safer: “uneducated plow boy.” The euphemism, Mr. Lubenow says, was far more his than Mr. Armstrong’s.

Mr. Armstrong bitterly recounted some of his experiences touring in the Jim Crow South. He then sang the opening bar of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” inserting obscenities into the lyrics and prompting Velma Middleton, the vocalist who toured with Mr. Armstrong and who had joined them in the room, to hush him up.

Mr. Armstrong had been contemplating a good-will tour to the Soviet Union for the State Department. “They ain’t so cold but what we couldn’t bruise them with happy music,” he had said. Now, though, he confessed to having second thoughts. “The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell,” he said, offering further choice words about the secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. “The people over there ask me what’s wrong with my country. What am I supposed to say?”

Mr. Lubenow, who came from a small North Dakota farming community, was shocked by what he heard, but he also knew he had a story; he skipped the concert and went back to the paper to write it up. It was too late to get it in his own paper; nor would the Associated Press editor in Minneapolis, dubious that Mr. Armstrong could have said such things, put it on the national wire, at least until Mr. Lubenow could prove he hadn’t made it all up. So the next morning Mr. Lubenow returned to the Dakota Hotel and, as Mr. Armstrong shaved, had the Herald photographer take their picture together. Then Mr. Lubenow showed Mr. Armstrong what he’d written. “Don’t take nothing out of that story,” Mr. Armstrong declared. “That’s just what I said, and still say.” He then wrote “solid” on the bottom of the yellow copy paper, and signed his name.

Jury Decides Against Knicks

Seth Anderson1 Comment

During the trial, testimony by witnesses made the inner workings of the Garden, which like the Knicks is owned by Cablevision, appear dysfunctional, hostile and lewd. The Knick’s star guard, Stephon Marbury, testified that he had sex with a team intern in the trunk of his car after a group outing to a strip club in 2005.

[From Jury Decides Against Thomas and Knicks Owner – New York Times]

What kind of tricked-out trunk does Mr. Marbury have anyway? Is there a bed in it? a futon? I’m curious.

update: ooops. As we presumed, just a funny typo.

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of a 2005 sexual encounter between Stephon Marbury of the Knicks and a team intern. Mr. Marbury testified that it took place in his truck, not in the trunk of his car.

Marbury Trunk

Love Me I am A Liberal

Seth Anderson1 Comment

No wonder I’ve never considered running for president (well, besides the little rule about having to be born in the US). Per Corpus Callosum, we see that the candidates for president, especially the ones who are well funded and likely to win a primary or two are all really Republicans, and the Republicans are really fascists/authoritarians by another name.

USprimaries 2007

So I wonder who is against the Drug War? Probably Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich only. I’ll admit I actually haven’t been paying attention to the platforms of specific candidates, other than in a vague way. Data like this is probably why – none of them are talking to me anyway. (Especially Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, based on this chart. John Edwards is the most left of the likely candidates, but something irks me about him too. )

Data from here.

My score? Took the test, and in no surprise to anyone who regularly glances at this page, I scored way, way to the left. Live and Let Live. Or as the Gnostic Christ said: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

love me I am a liberal

The Political Compass – Test:
Economic Left/Right: -7.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.31

About The Political Compass™

In the introduction, we explained the inadequacies of the traditional left-right line.

If we recognize that this is essentially an economic line it’s fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.

That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That’s the one that the mere left-right scale doesn’t adequately address. So we’ve added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

Floods and Mites

Seth Anderson0 comment

repost
99 in the Shade

3:30 am – massive water leak in our house, specifically, in our coat closet (suit jackets, winter coats, some of which may be ruined, some just need drying). Turned out to be several leaks from a main air conditioning duct (looks poorly sealed). No solution yet (could be a blocked drain, or other causes), but since sleep was intermittent, our day’s labors will be too.

Itch Mite

As a bonus, D was bitten twice by the soon-to-infamous oak leaf gall mite, Pyemotes herfsi (or similar), over the weekend, leaving two large welts on her lower back, red, and itchy.

Mite Bite

Tribune:

“We don’t have positive identification on the type of mite that it is. We do know that it is a mite,” said Kitty Loewy, spokeswoman for the Cook County Department of Public Health.

Scientists haven’t been able to catch one yet—they are incredibly small—but the belief that mites have invaded Illinois is based on the telltale rash that develops after the bites.

Experts say the suspected mite probably is new to the area, joining a rogues’ gallery of gnawing, invasive bugs that include the Asian tiger mosquito and the Asian ladybird beetle, all recent and probably permanent residents thanks to an increasingly interconnected world of shipping and transportation.
…
Still, investigators seemed to be narrowing in on an invasive variety of itch mite from Europe—the oak leaf gall mite, Pyemotes herfsi—a close relative of the straw itch mite. It feeds on midge larvae in oak trees, but happily falls onto unsuspecting people passing by when it runs out of food. It can blow in the wind and land far away. On people, it probes and chews and causes powerfully itchy reactions to a potent toxin in its saliva.

and if this is what it is like to be an entomologist, no thanks!

For the last three years, scientists in Kansas and Nebraska have studied its life cycle and behavior, said James A. Kalisch, an entomologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

It seems to emerge and thrive from late summer until early winter. The mite uses a powerful neurotoxin in its saliva to paralyze and kill soft-skinned critters as large as caterpillars. To humans, the bites aren’t toxic, but they are devilishly itchy—something Kalisch discovered after dabbing some mites into the damp crook of his arm to see what would happen.

Within 24 hours, he said, it grew itchy, then slightly painful, as if bruised. He got a mild fever and a tinge of headache. The worst of it took four days to develop and more than a week to blow over.

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The Spy Chief Lies

Seth Anderson0 comment

Isn’t misleading Congress an impeachable offense? Just wondering.

Helios 3294

From the Sunday NYT we read, and laughed:

The Spy Chief Speaks – New York Times:
After Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to intercept communications between people in the United States and people abroad without a warrant. That is a violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

Now we know the law was broken thousands of times. In 100 or so cases, the unlawfully intercepted calls led agents to believe that the person in the United States was a bad actor (Mr. McConnell implied, sort of, that they were terrorists), and the government’s lawyers obtained a warrant. We are still looking for that loophole in the Fourth Amendment.

Mr. McConnell told The El Paso Times that it was necessary to rush through major changes to FISA before Congress went on vacation because warrants require pesky paperwork — 200 hours’ worth each.

Really? The government applied for 2,181 FISA warrants in 2006, which the blog Threat Level translated to 436,200 hours. Figuring a 40-hour workweek with two weeks off, that’s more than 218 top-secret-cleared officials doing nothing all year but writing out FISA applications.

Mr. McConnell said telephone companies turned over call data to the National Security Agency without a court order, which may be illegal. He revealed this while praising Congress for giving the telecoms immunity from lawsuits or criminal sanctions if they continue doing that. Now, he said, Congress should absolve the companies retroactively. That would be a nice twofer: protect a deep-pockets industry that may have broken the law, and cut off judicial scrutiny of Mr. Bush’s decision to ignore FISA in the first place.

Other parts of Mr. McConnell’s interview were bewildering, like his claim that debating wiretapping in Congress will cause American deaths. It was odd that he spoke at all about matters the intelligence community still considers classified. But there was a secret Mr. McConnell was determined to keep. He was asked why the White House bitterly fought reasonable Congressional proposals to give spies a bit more needed flexibility to use modern technology. Mr. McConnell said there was “untenable” language in the bills and lawmakers refused to fix it. The White House then stampeded Congress into passing a bill it wanted, one that shredded FISA.

What was the language? Sorry, that’s classified.

So glad the Dem-controlled Congress rolled over for the President so readily. McConnell sounds like a real tool.

41 House Dems Tremble Before the Bush-meister

Seth Anderson0 comment

The Democrats cave in to the Republicans so frequently it no longer surprises me, only increases my disgust with the party. What good does the opposition party do itself by allowing the White House to brow-beat it into accepting legislation that the citizenry is appalled by? Why not just have a merger or leveraged buyout and be done with it?

The key provision of S.1927 is new section 105A of FISA (see page 2), which categorically excludes from FISA’s requirements any and all “surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.”

For surveillance to come within this exemption, there is no requirement that it be conducted outside the U.S.; no requirement that the person at whom it is “directed” be an agent of a foreign power or in any way connected to terrorism or other wrongdoing; and no requirement that the surveillance does not also encompass communications of U.S. persons. Indeed, if read literally, it would exclude from FISA any surveillance that is in some sense “directed” both at persons overseas and at persons in the U.S.

The key term, obviously, is “directed at.” The bill includes no definition of it.

– Balkination

Daily Kos: 41 House Dems Tremble Before the Mighty Bush:
These are the Dems who…failed our country.

These Democrats In Name Only should be forced to wear a crimson R on their lapel.

Jason Altmire (4th Pennsylvania)
John Barrow (12th Georgia) Blue Dog
Melissa Bean (8th Illinois) Blue Dog
Dan Boren (2nd Oklahoma) Blue Dog
Leonard Boswell (3rd Iowa)
Allen Boyd (2nd Florida) Blue Dog
Christopher Carney (10th Pennsylvania) Blue Dog
Ben Chandler (6th Kentucky) Blue Dog
Rep. Jim Cooper (5th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Jim Costa (20th California) Blue Dog
Bud Cramer (5th Alabama) Blue Dog
Henry Cuellar (28th Texas)
Artur Davis (7th Alabama)
Lincoln Davis (4th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Joe Donnelly (2nd Indiana) Blue Dog
Chet Edwards (17th Texas)
Brad Ellsworth (8th Indiana) Blue Dog
Bob Etheridge (North Carolina)
Bart Gordon (6th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (South Dakota) Blue Dog
Brian Higgins (27th New York)
Baron Hill (9th Indiana) Blue Dog
Nick Lampson (23rd Texas) Blue Dog
Daniel Lipinski (3rd Illinois)
Jim Marshall (8th Georgia) Blue Dog
Jim Matheson (2nd Utah) Blue Dog
Mike McIntyre (7th North Carolina) Blue Dog
Charlie Melancon (3rd Louisiana) Blue Dog
Harry Mitchell (5th Arizona)
Colin Peterson (7th Minnesota) Blue Dog
Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota) Blue Dog
Ciro Rodriguez (23rd Texas) Blue Dog
Mike Ross (4th Arkansas) Blue Dog
John Salazar (3rd Colorado) Blue Dog
Heath Shuler (11th North Carolina) Blue Dog
Vic Snyder (2nd Arkansas)
Zachary Space (18th Ohio) Blue Dog
John Tanner (8th Tennessee) Blue Dog
Gene Taylor (4th Mississippi) Blue Dog
Timothy Walz (1st Minnesota)
Charles A. Wilson (6th Ohio) Blue Dog

FAA Official to Lead Industry Group

Seth Anderson3 Comments

No possibility of conflict of interest here. Ahem.

I think government officials should be barred from employment in the sector they regulate for ten years, or even forever. The so-called revolving door has been standard for years, and it stinks like crony capitalism by a different name to me.

Navy Plane

F.A.A. Chief to Lead Industry Group:
Marion C. Blakey, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, will become the new head of the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group representing civilian and military aerospace companies, in November, the association said. Ms. Blakey, who led the National Transportation Safety Board before joining the F.A.A., was appointed by President Bush to a five-year term. Her term expires Sept. 13. The term of a successor would fall mostly in the next presidential administration. The White House has not announced an intention to nominate a successor.

Pentangle Box Set

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Not my most favorite British folk band (prefer Fairport Convention for instance), but Bert Jansch is an excellent, evocative acoustic guitarist.

Time Has Come 1967 - 1973
“Time Has Come 1967 – 1973” (Pentangle)

PlugInMusic.com : News : Pentangle 40th Anniversary Box Set To Be Released On Castle

Pentangle were a ‘60s British folk/jazz ‘supergroup’ that were simultaneously stars of the underground and darlings of the mainstream, gracing the Fillmore East one month and Carnegie Hall the next. The band was formed in 1966 by hip young guitar slingers Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, already leading lights of the folk scene at the time. With folk chanteuse Jacqui McShee on vocals and a rhythm section consisting of Danny Tompson on bass and Terry Cox on drums, the group mastered a breathtaking repertoire that encompassed the traditional ballads, blues, jazz, pop, and re-workings of rock oldies….

Spanning 1967-1973 they recorded six albums, toured and broadcasted extensively.

This lavish and definitive 40th anniversary box set covers the six year career of Pentangle. The Time Has Come features the best of the band’s album tracks, singles and B-sides – newly re-mastered, achieving the best sound to date – alongside no less than 20 previously unreleased tracks. Among the many rarities is a track from their very first recording session (1967); live concert and television performances; studio outtakes from The Pentangle (1968) and Reflection (1971); BBC radio session tracks newly in stereo and previously unheard film soundtrack work. This set features a 56 page booklet filled with extensive liner notes along with unseen photos and rare memorabilia.

Northern Marijuana Islands

Seth Anderson0 comment

Is there a joke here? Probably not: I lived on Guam (which is part of the Mariana Islands in fact if not in political jurisdiction) for 6 months – the amount of cannabis plants growing everywhere was amazing. Hard to eradicate a weed from a jungle. Maybe why Jack Abramoff and Frank Black paid so much attention to the island chain….

Pacific island in spin over planned pro-marijuana conference – Yahoo! News :
A proposed pro-marijuana conference to be held in the US-administered Northern Mariana Islands has led to a bizarre row among local legislators.

Opponents of the conference of Californian-based activists advocating that marijuana should be legalised have suggested the territory should be renamed the Northern Marijuana Islands.

But the cash-strapped government says the conference would be a boon for the sagging tourism industry.

“We welcome anybody who wants to hold a conference here, whether it be to discuss marijuana or not,” government spokesman Charles Reyes said Thursday.

“We want to attract conferences in the Northern Marianas because conferences are good for tourism.”

…
Marijuana is a popular if illegal drug in the Northern Marianas where there are regular seizures of plants.

Fela Kuti in London

Seth Anderson0 comment

Mike noticed that today was the 10 anniversary of the magnificent Fela Kuti’s death. There are only a few deceased musicians I would have really liked to have met in person, Fela was one. Most musicians are really just ordinary people who happen to make interesting (or not) music, Fela was more.


The Best Best of Fela Kuti
“The Best Best of Fela Kuti” (Fela Kuti)

You cannot have too much Fela in your house.

Ben Ratliff wrote (in 2000):

Album of the Week – New York Times:
FELA KUTI: ”Shakara/Fela’s London Scene” (MCA). For a foreign musician who didn’t have a serious audience stronghold in the United States during his life, MCA’s reissue program of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s 1970’s and 80’s records — there will be 10 CD’s by the end of the year — borders on extraordinary.

This, the first of the CD reissues, combines two early 1970’s records by Nigeria 70, which is what the Nigerian band leader called his ensemble after returning from a nine-month American stay in 1969.

Fela absorbed James Brown wholesale — the scrubbed rhythm guitar over drum patterns, the intermittent horn-section bursts, the leader’s hectoring vocal cries as he directed the band to change rhythm, ushered in choirs, played keyboards. But there is more to it than that. This music stays with single ideas even longer than Mr. Brown’s most truculent stretches, and Fela’s intensity is broader: the music was a political platform as well as an emotional one.

The percussion, the seat of both men’s music, is entirely different: some of the funkiest sections of Fela’s long tunes like ”Who’re You” and ”Fight to Finish” rely on combinations of Tony Allen’s waxing-and-waning drum kit patterns and an array of shakers, congas and tapped wood and metal. (Making the cultural exchange come back around, Mr. Brown, who visited Lagos in 1970, borrowed from Fela in return, as examined in Michael Veal’s forthcoming book


Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon
Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon

A word for Mr. Allen, the band director during this period of Fela’s career: he can’t be beat. Everything he does here is spread out, spacious, an inversion of tight, popping American funk patterns. On these records he uses toms as American funk drummers used cymbals and vice versa, and the incredible drama in the space between the music’s slithering quiet moments and its climaxes is due in large part to his great skill.

Really, can’t go wrong with these albums. Play one at your next party, about an hour from when the party starts grooving. You’ll see what I mean.

News America vs the World

Seth Anderson2 Comments

News America has a dark reputation in the in-store media arena as well.

Tatsuda IGA

News Corp.’s trouble in aisle three – Jul. 20, 2007:
For months now, Rupert Murdoch’s quest for Dow Jones has riveted the business world. But another juicy melodrama is unfolding at News Corp., one that may shed some light on how the $25 billion company sometimes does business.

It involves a little-known subsidiary called News America marketing, which comprises the bulk of News Corp.’s magazines and inserts division. It produces newspaper coupon inserts, in-store supermarket ads, and the like. That may seem boring next to, say, movies or MySpace, yet, its profitability is anything but: Its 28% operating margins are the highest at News Corp., while operating profit is triple that of Dow Jones (Charts). Even more scintillating is a series of lawsuits alleging that News America used anticompetitive behavior to try to drive its rivals out of the market, and the recent emergence of a former employee who claims the company tried to pay him off to keep quiet. His lawyer: Philip Hilder, best known for representing Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins. The saga has become the talk of the industry.

News America’s $1.1 billion in sales make it a small player by Murdoch standards, but it has a market dominance that’s unrivaled in most industries: It controls 50% to 60% of the insert market and as much as 90% of the in-store business, estimates analyst Robert Evans of Craig-Hallum Capital Group. “They are the hands-down 800-pound gorilla,” says Peter Hoyt, executive director of the In-Store Marketing Institute, a trade association.

It’s a gorilla that likes to throw its weight around, according to four separate lawsuits filed by competitors that accuse it of using illegal tactics against them.

A business acquaintance used to work at News America, and is full of stories of anti-competitive behavior and shitty treatment of employees, but of course, without hard evidence, and subsequently no involvement with this case:

But now there may be a smoking gun in the form of an ex-employee who is alleging unsavory conduct on the part of his erstwhile employer. Robert Emmel, a former account manager who worked in in-store marketing, was fired late last year; a few months later, after Floorgraphics subpoenaed him as part of its lawsuit, Emmel revealed he had kept a copy of his computer hard drive because, he said in a deposition, he “had some concerns about some of the business practices that News America had engaged in.” Just what is on those disks is still unknown, but News America isn’t taking any chances: In April the company sued Emmel personally, alleging, among other things, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. Emmel countersued under Georgia’s RICO statute.

The charges in Emmel’s countersuit read like headlines ripped from Murdoch’s New York Post. Among them: “the extortionate use of economic fear,” “theft and scheme to commit wire fraud,” and the allegation that News America broke into Floorgraphics’ computer system 11 times during one three-month span.

Emmel also alleges that News America’s president, Christopher Mixson, offered him $30,000 in “severance” after Emmel told a colleague he was weighing speaking with the state of Minnesota’s attorney general’s office, which is a co-plaintiff in one of the lawsuits. Reached for comment, Emmel would say only, “I’m a pro-justice individual.” Mixson declined to comment.

As for Carlucci, a quick look at his background suggests a man with a soft spot for tough guys and how they operate. A board member of the Guardian Angels, he has invited founder Curtis Sliwa to speak at a company meeting for several years running. And according to the Valassis lawsuit, Carlucci once tried to motivate his sales force by playing a scene from the film The Untouchables in which Al Capone crushes a rival’s skull with a baseball bat. In Murdoch’s eyes, though, Carlucci is a star: In 2005 he gave him the added job of publisher of the Post, replacing Murdoch’s son Lachlan.

(previous coverage of Carlucci and News America)

Land of Liberty

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Ha. Thought crimes. We mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but some new details emerge in Adam Liptak’s column. How ridiculous. Nearly as bad as banning 77 year old musician Ibrahim Ferrer from picking up his Grammy, because Ferrer was unfortunate enough to be born in Cuba.

For the record, I have never used any illegal substance, nor have I ever gone over the posted speed limit, nor even parked in an illegal spot for even one minute. I had my first drink at 21, and also had my first sexual experience as soon as I was legally able to do so (whatever the statutory age happened to be in Texas at time). I have never illegally downloaded MP3s, software, pornography, fonts, or posted articles in full (meaning I have never circumvented copyright in any manner). I never have removed the tags from mattresses, nor jumped the turnstile on a CTA train station. I could go on and on, but perhaps this is enough to turn up on a government computer the next time the border gaurd checks me out. I’m clean, officer! Oh, and I’ve never even thought of doing any of these things either.

The Nation’s Borders, Now Guarded by the Net – New York Times :
Andrew Feldmar, a Vancouver psychotherapist, was on his way to pick up a friend at the Seattle airport last summer when he ran into a little trouble at the border.

A guard typed Mr. Feldmar’s name into an Internet search engine, which revealed that he had written about using LSD in the 1960s in an interdisciplinary journal. Mr. Feldmar was turned back and is no longer welcome in the United States, where he has been active professionally and where both of his children live.

Mr. Feldmar, 66, has a distinguished résumé, no criminal record and a candid manner. Though he has not used illegal drugs since 1974, he says he has no regrets.

“It was an absolutely fascinating and life-altering experience for me,” he said last week of his experimentation with LSD and other psychedelic drugs. “The insights it provided have lasted for a lifetime. It allowed me to feel what it would be like to live without habits.”

Mr. Feldmar said he had been in the United States more than 100 times and always without incident since he last took an illegal drug. But that changed in August, thanks to the happenstance of an Internet search, conducted for unexplained reasons, at the Peace Arch border station in Blaine, Wash.

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