Action points

A couple of action points for the day:

(Via Salon) The Wall Street Journal reports today on a change that could all but obliterate internet radio, including Pandora and NPR. The MO of the Republican party regarding media is clear- more consolodation, and less choices controlled by fewer people. Which, of course, equals a less informed, less thinking populace, who is more willing to do what they're told. (I also see this in their solely testing-focused approach to education, but that's another column.) Good for moguls, bad for listeners, and really the nation as a whole. American readers, please call and e-mail your congressperson and Senator NOW- this one can easily get passed by by "bigger issues", to our peril.

Addendum: In fairness, I should not that the current wave of consolidations, especially in media and the like, started in the Clinton Administration, who rarely met a merger it didn't like. It has been made substantially worse, though, by Michael Powell and those who followed him into the FCC. But it's not just a republican thing.

Darcy points to the New York Times piece about bassist Tarik Shaw, jailed for alleged terrorist activities, and his brother Antione Dowdell. I can't comment on the case- David Adler's blog has had fuller coverage- but I am very skeptical of most of the Bush administration's prosecutions of "terrorist sympathizers". Outside the Padilla case, I've yet to see one where there was anything but the flimsiest of cases (and the Padilla evidence is not exactly ironclad either), and the way they manhandled Padilla's rights made that case much more dubious as well. I was working from Miami when the Justice Dept. did a "big bust" down there, and once you got past the headline the case was beyond silly- literally teenagers talking big and playing with matches. It's well past time we demand equal protection for these defendents- if they're guilty, try them and send them far away, by all means. But if this is just more fear mongering, don't waste our time and tax dollars.