Paul's Web Space 2.1

Verizon blocks political TXTs

Today's New York Times reports that Verizon is censoring pro-choice speech using its SMS network. Lots of groups have used this capability to keep members or supporters informed – so far, with little interference from cellphone carriers. No longer.

In his post to the People for Internet Responsibility list, Lauren Weinstein points out that this action calls into question the very notion that we would allow such large and powerful public entities to control political speech in this country. Verizon makes as good a case for Net Neutrality as AT&T did when they censored Eddie Vedder during a Pearl Jam set at Lollapolooza (bleeping anti-bush lyrics he inserted into a song).

MobileActive.org, an organization that has been encouraging the use of mobilt technology for activism worldwide, and has also written about this event, noting that NARAL plans to call on it's members to protest this censorship. In the end, this action can only help the cause of Net Neutrality championed by the likes of SaveTheInternet.com, of which I am a supporter.

Labels: freedomofspeeech, internet, netneutrality, telecommunications, verizon

   Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27cnd-verizon.htm

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Oxymorons in Rehoboth Beach, This Saturday, Sept. 29!

Last-minute reminder - the Oxymorons are playing Rehoboth Beach THIS
SATURDAY, September 29. Hit the beach one last time with the Oxymorons!

Come on down to Rehoboth Beach for a final blast of summer and the first-ever Oxymorons show at the beach. It's all happening at Dogfish
Head in Rehoboth this Saturday, September 29. The beach is better now
than in the summer -- less crowds, warmer water, cheaper rooms, and great weather. Hang at the beach by day and party at Dogfish Head by night with tasty food, the best beer in Maryland, and the funkily eclectic blues-rock-funk sounds of the Oxymorons.

Who: The Oxymorons

When: Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007, 10:00 PM to 12:30 am (This Weekend!)

Where: Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats
320 Rehoboth Avenue
Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971

NO COVER

Accommodations
Weather

See you there!

The Oxymorons are:
Erica Antonelli, keyboard and vocals
Kristin Gray, bass
Doug Hartnett, vocals
Paul Hyland, percussion and vocals
Glenn Prickett, drums
Neeta Ragoowansi, vocals
David Reuben, guitar
Sandy Scott, guitar and harmonica

For more info see the Oxymorons web site, MySpace page, or sign up on our mailing list.    Link: http://www.dogfish.com/news/The_Oxymorons_Play_Rehoboth/885/20070929/index.htm

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Case Dismissed? The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about

This article from Newsweek's web site outlines a VERY scary lobbying campaign by the telcos to enlist the most connected lobbyists in Wasghington to push for a law immunizing them from lawsuits related to (illegal) wiretapping and their enthusiastic embrace of it. They seek to not only stop a class action lawsuit that EFF is pursuing against AT&T. However the immunity sought is so broad that it appears likely to protect phone companies from any action brought regarding surveillance, whether it is currently happening or occurred in the past.

Labels: att, eff, privacy, surveillance, telco

   Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20884696/site/newsweek/page/0/

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Guitar Heaven

A couple weeks ago, I had a busy musical weekend — sort-of an early birthday present.

First on Friday night I went to see Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk play a benefit for the Tipitina's Foundatation at the City Tavern Club in Georgetown. The funk was top-notch – the best I've heard in a while, and New Orleans agrees:

The New York Times recently declared "Dumpstaphunk is the best funk band from New Orleans right now." A huge overstatement from a respected but decidedly Yankee interloper? No, probably Two of the Big Easy's most respected music publications -- Gambit Weekly and Offbeat Magazine -- also selected Dumpstaphunk as the city's best funk band." (timesunion.com)

I would go see them if you've got the funk and you have the chance. The club was also really nice, and a lot of my New Orleans music fan friends were there.

Then on Saturday night, I went to see a show at the Deej (my friend's house concert series) that I've already blogged about — featuring Karl Straub, Eugene Chadbourne, and Jimmy Carl Black. The show lived up to the hype, but even better, I had totally forgotten what an amazing guitarist Eugene Chadbourne is. I've seen him over the years with his own punk/rockabily act Shockabilly, the low-fi noise-sters of Half Japanese, and play along with Karl at a previous Deej, but this time, his weird genius shone through brightly. He shredded many twisted numbers during Jack & Jim show, and then sat in on lead during most of Karl Straub's set - giving Jeff Beck a run for his money during an extended solo on "Shapes of Things" by the Yardbirds.

(The same night Julie took Fiona to see Arturo Sandoval close out the Silver Spring Jazz Festival. I couldn't be everywhere....)

On Sunday, the piece de resistance — the Meat Puppets played at the Black Cat. Reunited with his brother Cris on bass, Curt Kirkwood played like the old days, the amazing guitarist he has always been. (He's a multi-year Guitar Player award winner.) One of Nirvana's favorite bands, they played along during the MTV Unplugged show, which even included two Meat Puppets songs, including my favorite, "Lake of Fire":

Where the bad folks go when they die;
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly;
They go down to the lake of fire and fry;
Won't see them again 'til the fourth of July. (Curt Kirkwood)

So that capped off a week of guitar heaven. It would be made even more complete if I could go see John McLaughlin this Friday at Lisner Auditorium, but alas, I'll be at the beach preparing for a gig by my band, the Oxymorons — we're playing Dogfish Head in Rehoboth, DE on Saturday, September 29. I once wrote a term paper comparing John McLaughlin's and Charlie Christian's influence on jazz guitar. (While McLaughlin is great, there are very few with Christian's influence on jazz, period.)

Labels: guitar, music

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One Web Day 2007

Better late than never, I always say. One Web Day, held yesterday and every September 22, seeks to demonstrate the wide and varied social impacts of the web, how special it is to all of us, and to keep this invaluable resource available to all, thriving and growing into the future.



I've been using the web since 1993, working with and on it ever since as a developer, organizer, and consumer. I've been working with organizations like CPSR, EFF, Free Press, Public Knowledge, and Creative Commons, to promote freedom and creativity on the Internet.

Here are a few organizations and efforts promoted by One Web Day, or favorite groups and efforts of mine that work toward similar goals:

• Open Net Initiative - documenting censorship on the net.
• Keep the Core Neutral - protecting free expression in domain names.
• 15,000 protested data retention in Berlin - freedom not fear.
• Save the Internet.com - my favorite campaign, organized by FreePress.
• Rock the Net - musicians for network neutrality.

Labels: onewebday

   Link: http://www.onewebday.org/

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Music Venues in DC

This post highlights some of my favorite place to see music in DC. It will live in my blogroll, under a new local culture and events category.

• 9:30 Club - one of the best rock clubs in the country, been going there over 20 years; seen everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Fugazi, the Stooges to Nickel Creek; Super Furry Animals to George Clinton; Ministry to Wilco; and on and on....
  
• Birchmere - the premier bluegrass and folk club, perhaps in the country.
• IOTA - great americana venue, lots of friends play there.
• Black Cat - not quite the 930, a little more underground; Oxymorons played the old space a few times; Dave Grohl is part-owner.
• Strathmore - Simply beautiful venue, where else can you see Sigur Ros, Dan Zanes, or the BSO.
• State Theater - best venue we've played at, Sam Bush to the Residents.
• Rock and Roll Hotel - great space and booking in the hip new neighborhood in town (Atlas District along H St. NE); needs better sound.
• Fort Reno - free concerts from the DC punk/indie scene, in a park, twice a week all summer; saw Fugazi there many times, Georgie James from this year is my fave new local band.
• Rock N Romp - backyard shows moved to bigger venues, stripped down indie rock for kiddies and their parents, pioneered in DC.
• The Deej - house concerts in DC (in my old house!); lots of friends play and attend, but some of these friends are great bands on the rise nationally (or keeping it going locally).
  

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SFGate: Foundations have role in keeping local journalism vibrant

Dan Gillmor wrote an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that calls upon foundations to help shore up local community journalism, because newspapers are having such a tough time surviving in these days of declining ad revenue and increasing competition (particularly in the classified advertising space). Given that most newspapers are for-profit entities, this would require foundations to open up their criteria to enable them to fund such entities, somewhat along the lines of social entrepreneurship (where organizational structure is less important than social impact in deciding whom to fund). He discusses the Knight News Challenge, a contest run by a foundation that dispenses with traditional non-profit criteria in favor of ideas and results.

This is timely, because the newspaper at which I work (while not hyperlocal, we do represent a specialized community) is puzzling out how to sell the concept of community media to foundations. Another aspect of our existence, however, provides additional insight on the survival of community/local journalism. Editorial Projects in Education is a non-profit organization, which enables us to focus on our mission as well as the bottom line. Observers of the news media are starting to point to non-profit or private ownership as ways to preserve quality journalism – or journalism at all – in the face of extreme commercial pressures. These observations emanate not only from advocacy organizations (Free Press : Who Owns the Media?), but also from professional organizations (Project for Excellence in Journalism: State of the News Media 2007) and foundations themselves (Carnegie Reporter: "Nonprofit Journalism: Removing the Pressure of the Bottom Line").

Dan Gillmor also wrote the book We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People, which provides many examples and tips on creating community journalism.    Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/09/17/ED1OS4OIU.DTL

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Watch My Sting

This video shows a song that was performed only once...until last weekend! The song "Watch My Sting" was part of a musical called "Black Hole Buddha" that was created by Sean Harris and Peter Fox, and performed by a rather large band after many rehearsals. It has now been covered by a somewhat smaller large band, the Oxymorons (the "original cover band") of which I am a member.

Several of the performers I see in the video are current or former members of the Oxymorons, or have performed with us on occasion. We rehearsed it on-and-off for about a year, finally pulling it out live at Cool Aid, Sept. 1 2007. There may be a video in the future, watch my blog....    Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ssnVaYwJc

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The Jack and Jim Show at the Deej

Tonight, Saturday September 8, I'm going to see a very interesting show at the Deej, a house concert venue that exists in my former house, where I lived at the creation. Tonight, as part of Karl Straub's Cronyism Touresidency at the Deej, Karl welcomes good friends Eugene Chadbourne (Shockabilly) and Jimmy Carl Black (Mothers of Invention), AKA the Jack and Jim Show.

This reprises a show that happened on Super Bowl Sunday four years ago, when Karl and Eugene performed only the second Deej in the afternoon before the game. The amount of sound/music/noise that emanated from these two musicians that afternoon was awe-inspiring, so much that I felt compelled to buy a few Eugene Chadbourne CDs encased in baggies, tube socks, and other such inspired/haphazard packaging concepts.

Eugene Chadbourne describes the show and tour:

The Jack and Jim Show:  Think 69

In 2007, Jimmy Carl Black will have his
69th birthday. Dr. Eugene Chadbourne is happy to
present his best friend and musical associate in a
series of performances featuring Black's favorite
musical combination, The Jack and Jim Show.

Chadbourne's knowledge of Black began the
first time he saw the cover of Freak Out! by the
Mothers of Invention, circa the second half of the
'60s. Staring at the picture of Black and bandmates in
a record store, the youthful Doc Chad was approached
by an old woman who ran the music store. "Don't look
at that record!" she warned him. "You're a nice boy."

....

Read more. (Entire quote from the Eugune Chadbourne web site, via the Deej mailing list archives, which are easier to link to.    Link: http://www.thedeej.org/

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Dennis McDonald - Personal Online Networking Strategy

I just stumbled upon a really cool-looking blog, called Dennis McDonald's Blog. Michael Stein (DC), a Facebook friend who's also interested in this stuff, linked to an interesting article Dennis wrote last month called "On Developing a Personal Online Networking Strategy" - his blog publishes notes in his Facebook profile (like mine does), Michael shared it in his profile, and it showed up in my feed. (After I finish this post it will appear in MY profile, and maybe spread a little further...cool.)

So anyway, Dennis McDonald's Blog has daily notes, links, tags, and a list of his recent longer thought pieces, on things like social networking make or buy decisions, adoption models, and use in emergency response, associations, and the intelligence community. I need to talk to this guy!

Labels: community, facebook, socialnetworks

   Link: http://www.ddmcd.com/managing-technology/on-developing-a-personal-online-networking-strategy.html

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