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Very little of false arrest made at both the DNC and the RNC was reported on main stream media. I heard very little about how candidates and their running mates will treat matters and issues concerning the general public. You rarely hear about certain legislation that is snuck past us that results in diminishing your voices, or special interest politics that threaten public access both locally and nationally. WCCA TV at least provides something through your community productions, and programs presented such as Free Speech TV and Democracy Now to look at what the commercial media industry has chosen to leave out. Things that really matter to all of us. Localism. Thanks to those Worcester citizens for co-presenting the Democracy Now program on WCCA TV 13, "The People's Channel". That is what public access is all about. The people utilizing a channel. Using it to distribute their own self produced shows or to present meaningful programs that matter. There is NO television as relevant anywhere else because YOU, the people, make this happen.
Please remember to stand with us to protect and continue this community resource.
Give us more ideas about what you want to watch or produce on this channel. We welcome your participation.
Thanks for your continued support.

Mauro DePasquale, WCCA TV 13

Esme Vos MuniWireless writes:

"The conventional wisdom among my friends who are Net Neutrality fanatics is that a change of regime will finally bring about tough net neutrality legislation, ushering in a Golden Age of cutthroat competition in the US market for broadband services, leading to faster speeds, lower monthly costs for Internet access, no throttling, no deep packet inspection, no blocking of applications and so on...."

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No matter party is "in" , it seems there is little really done to end the buying and selling of legislation.

New Louisiana State Franchising Law On Hold
Groups Say Consumer Choice for Television Act Violates State Constitution
Louisiana:
Allegations claim the new law, dubbed Consumer Choice for Television Act, violates the state's constitution.
link

Bad News For Afghanistan
by Doug Grindle
August 24, 2008

Kabul, Afghanistan - The war in Afghanistan forges ahead. But a new reality is setting in. Unfortunately, it looks like things are likely to get worse before the situation can get better.
How much worse? Attacks by insurgents are up by 40-percent over a year earlier in many areas.
NATO commanders are calling for more NATO troops. Forces are stretched thin in the farthest reaches of the Pakistan border areas.
Better equipment is needed. More mine-resistant vehicles are being deployed (though that’s not a miracle cure, as the high center of gravity on the vehicles on mountain roads can lead to roll-over problems).
More Afghan troops are needed. The Afghan National Army, with its 70,000 man force, is fighting the Taliban and a half-dozen or so other insurgent groups, including al Qaeda. This year the US has finally agreed to pony up billions more dollars to expand the army by another 50,000 men. By contrast, the police force for New York City is 48,000 officers.
But the biggest and most important change of all is one you won't see mentioned too often: suddenly Pakistan matters.
Up until now, the official line went roughly that the border was unsealable, and the war needed to be won inside Afghanistan instead. The strategy was to win the war by enticing Afghan villagers to reject insurgents after they crossed the porous border and arrived in the villages.
The army's plan is to offer better security, better local Aghan government and a heap of local aid projects (schools, roads and power plants) to persuade the villagers to side with the Kabul government. The war would be won despite the border areas over in Pakistan continuing to host terrorist sanctuaries.
Now Army officers say that strategy is probably not going to be enough.
"I don't think there will be a successful conclusion to the war in Afghanistan until there is a successful conclusion to the issues along the Pakistan frontier," said Brigadier General Mark Milley, the deputy commander of the 101st Airborne Division at Bagram, the unit in charge of many of the border areas.
That assessment bodes especially ill because Pakistan is, frankly, a mess.
Now that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has resigned, a weak government rules Pakistan.
The Pakistan military consistently loses its battles with terrorist in the tribal areas.
Al Qaeda and other militants are becoming more entrenched in the border regions.
The ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, helped blow up the Indian embassy in Kabul last month, according to US intelligence. Hardline ISI officers continue to help the terrorists, as long as they focus on destabilizing Afghanistan.
In short, the situation on the Pakistan side of the frontier is bad and likely to get worse.
Change in Afghanistan is slow, but its remorseless.
The US Army's strategy is an awfully slow one, because it takes literally years to build the roads, schools and hydro-electric plants that are the key to the plan.
Opposing the US, Al Qaeda is slowly putting more effort into Afghanistan, even as it scales back in Iraq. Terrorists are slowly but steadily getting better at killing western soldiers, by using roadside bombs and improving their ambush techniques. Casualties among western soldiers are set to be the highest ever this year.
Something needs to be done. Something is being done. But that something is likely to be dependent more than ever on what happens in Pakistan - where the American military is banned from operating.
So the latest news from Afghanistan is not good.

DG

Thanks to Chuck Sherwood for this:

You've
helped highlight just how little progress the U.S. is making in
high-speed Internet, and you can help push lawmakers to start turning
the situation around.

More than 230,000 of you took the speedmatters.org Speed Test over the
past twelve months. Today we released the second annual state-by-state
report on Internet speeds.

http://www.speedmatters.org/pages/state.html

The Speed Test, which measures the last-mile speed of your Internet
connection, shows that the 2008 median real-time download speed in the
U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). This represents a gain of
only 0.4 mbps over last year's median download speed. It compares to an
average download speed in Japan of 63 mbps. At this rate of progress, it
will take the U.S. more than 100 years to catch up with current Inernet
speeds in Japan. This is unacceptable for the country that invented the
Internet.

http://www.speedmatters.org/pages/state.html

The test results demonstrate the critical need for the U.S. to adopt a
comprehensive national broadband policy. As a first step, the Senate
should pass the Broadband Data Improvement Act (S.1492), a crucial piece
of legislation that will help our nation determine which parts of the
country have high-speed access and which do not. The bill would also
provide funding to states to increase broadband deployment and adoption.

Write your Senators and tell them you strongly support this bill:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/s1492/iw3e3ux2a75n78t6?

The House of Representatives passed similar legislation last fall. It's
long past time for the Senate to act. The Broadband Data Improvement Act
will provide the research and the funding to help make sure every
American has affordable, high-speed Internet access. With an already
struggling economy, we can't afford to continue falling behind in high
speed broadband.

We need your help in the critical effort. Write a note to your Senators now:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/s1492/iw3e3ux2a75n78t6?

Thank you for all your help in the fight for affordable high speed
Internet for all.

Sincerely,

Beth Allen
speedmatters.org Online Mobilization Coordinator

( NOTE: Elected public officials, and municipal and state administrators have a responsibility to know about this. MD)
Barbara Popovic , Chicago Public Access ( WCCA's counterpart in the windy city) writes :
Preliminary findings from the survey on the Harm to Public, Educational and Government (PEG) Access from State Video Franchising Laws were presented at a meeting with FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein at the National Conference for Media Reform (NCRM) in Minneapolis on Friday, June 6. The survey was circulated and results compiled by Michael Eisenmenger on behalf of the ACM's Public Policy Work Group. That report will be expanded and presented soon to the ACM membership and will be available for visits to legislators.

PEG folks who attended the meeting at NCRM shared experiences with the Commissioners regarding what has happened since the advent of statewide franchises. California, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois were among the states that reported. PEG reps from Vermont, New York, Minnesota and the DC area also reported on issues of concern. The testimonials were powerful and gave the Commissioners a snapshot of issues occuring around the country.

There are reports of loss of funding, loss of channels, facility closures, channel slamming, franchise fees, reduced quality and functionality of PEG channels compared to commercial channels, PEG fees being redirected to local gov, and in the case of Illinois where PEG language is the strongest, lack of compliance by AT&T on PEG carriage.

We discussed with the Commissioners ways that the FCC can address the problems that are multiplying. Commissioner Copps reinforced the importance of continuing to collect the data and said that the preliminary report was very helpful. Commissioner Adelstein said that PEG Access is fundamental to our democracy, especially when commercial media is moving away from local coverage and should not be sacrificed in the name of competition. He wants to see regulations get back to what Congrss intended with PEG available in basic service tier at the lowest reasonable rate.

On Saturday at Future of Media Policy panel the day after the PEG meeting, both Commissioners referenced concerns about the attacks on PEG. Commissioner Adelstein said in regards to PEG, "the one media that is trying to be local is being decimated and its just not right." Commissioner Copps mentioned PEG access as one of the remedies for getting more noncommercial media on the air - content the markets won't produce but society requires. (Thanks Lauren-Glenn for those notes.)

I want to extend my thanks to those able to attend this meeting and my apologies if you were at the conference and didn't get word about this. I'm sure there will be future opportunities as we need to continue to shine the light on these critical issues for PEG and our local communities that depend on it.

Barbara Popovic
Executive Director
Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV)
322 S. Green St.
Chicago, Illinois 60607