Presumed guilty until proven innocent?

The American media is a grand old institution. For most part, they do a great job covering various sensational cases. But one Achilles heel that I have noticed time and again, is the propensity of the media to presume guilt even before some cases go to trial. This has been a particularly virulent form of aggression and it does great harm to the defendant.


In the past few weeks, two cases come to mind: the Rod Blagojevich case of the Illinois governor who is accused of trying to sell Barack Obama's recently vacated senate seat to the highest bidder. The press has gone bonkers about this case and every single news anchor I've watched so far, has spoken as if Blago is guilty. Truth be told, there are accusations against him, but nothing has been proven so far, because the investigation is still going on.


In the more serious case of Casey Anthony, who has been accused of killing her 2 year old child, the press has tried and passed a verdict on her. Nancy Grace on CNN has been especially unrelenting in accusing Casey of murdering her child.

Now, this may, in fact, turn out to be the case, but that is not the issue I am talking about. I am speaking about the fact that Casey will not be provided a fair trial under the law because Nancy has sensationalized the case so much. Not only that, she has spent many hours accusing Casey of being guilty. There are other people out there, some are "psychologists" who, purportedly, profiled Casey Anthony as a "sociopath" based on scant 3rd hand evidence.

Thanks to Nancy's innuendo's, outright accusations and sarcastic remarks, and others like her, who have heard the evidence (3rd or 4th hand), deliberated, tried and indicted Casey, she has lost the basic human right of presumed innocence until guilt is proven in court with no shred of doubt.

While I am all for the media making hay while the sun shines, it must not be at the expense of other human beings. Everyone deserves a fair shake at justice and in these two cases (in the recent past) justice is not being served. Let the police and the court systems do their job. The media, in these cases, seem to have erupted like vultures after a carcass.

Please don't misunderstand me - I don't imply either guilt or innocence in these two cases. I would like to withhold any private opinion - simply because it is not my place to judge until the courts have tried and come to a verdict. I implore everyone else to withhold judgment until then too.

I would urge the media and the people to BE FAIR and BE NON-JUDGEMENTAL - If not for the sake of the defendants, at least for THEMSELVES!

Lame duck ducks!!

I don't consider myself a big fan of George W. In fact, like many others in the US, I do believe he is at fault for a lot of our economic pain.

But I have to be fair and applaud him for his gamely handling of the shoe-throwing incident at Iraq. I have to admire him for his fantastic ducking reflexes and his diffusing the situation immediately afterward with the joke about the shoe size. I must especially commend him for the White House press secretary, Dana Perino's recent press conference when she said that Bush had requested the Iraqis to desist from overreacting to the incident.

Much has been written about the shoe throwing incident. Perhaps, the one of the most vitriolic articles about this is written by one of the New York Times writers, Nicholas Kristof - "Paying down the deficit with whizzing shoes". I know I laughed when I first read the blog post, but as I started reading the comments in response to that blog, I started feeling a bit uneasy. There was a deep undercurrent of anger in many of the responses. Now, who am I to judge what people feel is George Bush's legacy to the US? But I still felt a certain sense of disquiet at Bush's image in this country. Much blame has been laid at Bush's door. I am sure a lot of it is well deserved.

But this actually begs a larger question: wasn't the US constitution written to protect the people from a despot? How is it that Bush became so powerful that he could do all the damage that he is reportedly accused of? Why do we assume Bush and only Bush is culpable in the mess that is left behind at the end of his era?

Where is our share in all this? Is not omission also a part of commission? Are the people themselves not responsible? Who voted Bush into office, not once, but twice? Who looked the other way or convinced themselves that he was "protecting" the country when he set up Gautanamo Bay and when he instituted the Patriot act? Who voted for Bush because they felt he was perfect for being one of the most powerful men in the world, simply by virtue of the fact that he was someone they could drink a beer with? Who allowed the congress to renege on their responsibilities to the people by continuously allowing Bush / Cheney to do whatever they wanted with the legislation? Who ALLOWED the Constitution to fail?

WE, THE PEOPLE!

Home to none

It was a cute little suburban home. The gables in the roof shone in the sun, the grass was green, the walkway was lined with cute little purple and white flowers. The windows sparkled, and the siding was clean and well kept. Two small children rode their bikes in the sidewalk that snaked through their yard. A couple walking their little yappy dog, waved at the children. A jogger smiled and waved hello to the couple. Another couple stopped to pet the dog and exchange small talk with the neighbors.

Everything was perfect in suburbia.

And then came the storm clouds. It grew dark and ominous. Thunder was in the air. The children rushed inside to their mother. The mother gathered them in her arms and soothed their fears. She took them into the warm kitchen filled with the smell of baking bread and gave them their dinner. She then capped it with a cup of hot cocoa and shooed them up to their rooms to complete their home work before going to bed. Once the kids were safely tucked into bed, she finished chilling the wine, as she waited for her husband to come home from a long day's work. They would relax, unwind together and enjoy the quiet evening. Tomorrow is yet another day.

Six months later: same neighborhood, same house. The grass is dry and wretched. The flowers are dead. There is no one strolling on the sidewalk that winds through the yard of the house. People hurry past with eyes averted. The windows are shuttered and there is no sound of happy laughter emanating from within.

Inside the house, a couple is walking through with a black suited realtor, who is trying to convince them that this house is a steal. The house smells musty from being shut up for the past six months. There are some cobwebs around and the dust has settled thickly on the kitchen counters. The kitchen tap is leaking with a drip, drip, drip leaving a dull, rusty mark in the stainless steel sink. The hardwood floor has numerous footprints of the multitude who have come to see the house in the past months.

The realtor doesn't stop talking. She is expounding the value of the "steal". She says that the house is much cheaper than other comparable houses, because the bank only wants its investment in the house. The family who lived there have had to forgo their equity and leave because they missed a few mortgage payments due to a job loss. So the house is on the market, for a much lower price.

But the couple walking through sense the damp, the dust, the dreariness and the lost soul of the house. They are looking for a home to live in, not a dead shell. They move on to the next home on their list.

FORECLOSURE - HOME TO NONE.

Palin Planet!

At breakfast today, I told my son, "You know, it's time for me to write again about Sarah Palin!"

As a fledgling blogger, I am very interested in checking out the stats of my blogs. And the discovery I made was not surprising.

So when my son asked me why I wanted to write about Sarah Palin yet again, I unabashedly told him that my posting about Sarah Palin gets a more consistent viewing than many of my other blogs, barring the one about "Even a cat has Karma". Good enough reason to write about what the "Palin ingredient" does for the media.

Whatever Sarah Palin may represent to the rest of us, we all seem to have a love-hate relationship with her. Every feeling about Sarah is extreme. There are those who worship the ground she treads on, aka William Kristol, Sean Hannity, and some folks in Alaska.

And then there are those like me, who read about her and watch her on TV with incredulity. What on earth?.... is what we think when we hear her speak. Her brand of gibberish is certainly very entertaining and very very unique. She strives really hard to make sense, and I bet in her mind, she does make sense, but the words out of her mouth never seem to pause - they flow like the Ganges, ravishing all sane thought and idea in its wake.

What does Sarah Palin do for the media? Well, I have not yet heard anyone openly acknowledge her star power, so I will. As far as the Internet goes, any mention of Palin, has a Web site auto-ping and grab content to display on their site (0f course, with a link back to my blog!) - so that's exposure right away. The minute I press the Publish Post button on this blog, I am going to get a ping back. Not bad.

As far as TV shows go - the ratings go through the roof, if the channel advertises that Sarah is going to be on the show. Why does this happen?

Again, two very different reasons - First off, lets not disregard the devotees, for they make up the true ratings.

They come out in droves to watch her, comprehend her utterances, interpret it to suit themselves, salivate over her good looks, discuss her hair, make-up, clothes and figure.

These true ratings, in my opinion, are made up to two distinct categories of people - the men, some of whom comprise of the pimpled adolescent boys or the bored husbands who like to imagine her as the hot, bespectacled librarian. These are the kind who love to see eye-candy and get a kick out of seeing the Palin photo daily on the news. Honorable mention in this category are the Brits and the Pakistanis (led by the stalwart Zardari).

The second category is the women. These are the working women, housewives, forty-somethings, and women who dream of fame and recognition. To them, Sarah represents a dream come true - "someone like me" becoming famous. Some of these women are actually smart, good looking and educated. But their filter for viewing Sarah is themselves. They see her as themselves and so cut her slack for her incoherent talk, her rambling rhetoric and "interpret" her sentences for the rest of us, in the multiple blog comments.

Secondly, there are the infidels, like myself, who dare to be skeptics. This category comes out in droves too when a Sarah Palin show is aired, and this is the number that embellishes the ratings. These people come to see the Sarah Palin shows for entertainment. True entertainment. We watch in awe that someone like Sarah gets to be on prime time. We watch in horror and pain as she ties herself up in a flurry of her words, like a python slowly tightening its hold on its prey. We watch in fascination, as the TV host lets her get away with answers that have no bearing on the question asked. And we watched with fear, when we thought she might, she just might, get to become VP and cast the pall of her intellect on America.

So there you go, my in-depth analysis of Sarah Palin's media advantage. :) Love her or hate her, you can never just ignore her.

And that's true STAR POWER!!

Uncle Scrooge, where are you?

Donald Duck's famous tight-fisted Uncle Scrooge is very much in demand in America. Where IS he? He'd quack to death of a heart attack if he saw the Billions and Billions of dollars spent mindlessly, with no thought to exactly what the goal is - some vague goal about keeping the economy going. Even the economists are unable to say if these billions will help jump start the economy.

But I use the word "spent" very loosely. For how can you spend when you don't have the money? The Govt. is busy mortgaging our futures, our children's futures, our grandchildren's futures, our great-grandchildren's futures.... and how!

Here is a site that puts the amount of money being "spent" in context with all other major purchases / expenditures the US has had in the past - adjusted for inflation!

Right now, we have nothing to show for that money - it appears to have gone down a drain. Looks like we need Uncle Scrooge to help us clean up this new mess - one of the Govt.'s making!

If only we would stop to THINK before rushing in to FIX!

"Folks! A lot of people miss those old drive-in theaters. But I say, any theater can be a drive-in, if you ram it with your HUMMER!" So, quipped Stephen Colbert in his Colbert report.

Seems to me that this is how we Americans solve our problems. Just ram in, preferably with a Hummer and you will be fine! This is exactly how I see our latest economic crisis being handled. First, Paulson convinced the Congress and the Senate to dish out $700 B of taxpayer money with no questions asked, so that he could ram it through the financial system, regardless of whether the banks wanted it or not (according to some reports) and hoped that it would solve the problem.

It didn't.

All it did, was create a situation like the one I have seen in India before. When one goes to a temple in India, there is usually a loooooong line of beggars seated at the entrance with their palms stretched out. And you better decide upfront if you want to give alms that particular day. Because, be prepared, when you start doling it out to one person, the other beggars appear out of the woodwork and you cannot escape. So, you keep delving into your purse to find more cash until you run out of the green stuff and then and only then, will the beggars disappear.

So Paulson created a situation like that, only on a MUCH larger scale. We now need to ram more money into the system. Just what exactly the system is, no one knows. All we know is that it is NOT middle class American people.

So we do what we are best at doing: American problem solving - there is a problem, pour in cash, it will go away. We don't blink, we don't think, ala Sarah Palin. We just dive in and pour the cash. That's what we are now trying to do with the Big three Detroit Auto makers. There are already reports of many more companies asking for a handout.

...While Middle class America is left seated at the temple door.

Can we stop for a moment and THINK? Can we try to identify the problem before rushing to fix it? I know, I know, the auto makers say that they wont last this month without money. But it cannot have happened in a jiffy exactly like Paulson said the financial storm happened in a jiffy.

What, exactly, are we trying to solve here? What is our major problem?
1. Is it the American auto manufacturing that we want to save?
2. Is it American jobs we are trying to save?
3. Is it both?
4. Are there not other options for creating jobs and other futuristic options for personal transportation?

For instance, I just read in Fortune magazine that Abu Dhabi is creating a completely self sufficient city in the middle of the desert. Read, "A Green city blooms in the desert" by Julia Joffe in the December 2008 Fortune magazine. The city is called "Masdar" and it will be home to 1,500 businesses, 50,000 residents, and 40,000 commuters, will use 75% less electricity and 60% less water. Personal transportation pods will be powered by lithium batteries and will replace cars.

The cost of building this city: $22B, about 2/3rds of what the Auto makers have requested Congress to pay for their initial bailout. It is estimated that they will come back for more before 2009 is out. Experts suggest it will cost the taxpayer between $75B and $125B. And we are not even sure if cars are the transportation mechanism of the future!

Wouldn't a project like the one planned by Abu Dhabi create jobs immediately? Wouldn't it create renewable energy, help America lead the world in urban planning and pour money where we need to be in the future? Wouldn't it also solve our future transportation needs? Are cars the ONLY way to travel? And are the auto manufacturers predictions of car sales for the future going to hold out? Are we pouring money before stopping to take a breath?

Don't get me wrong: I have tremendous admiration for the good men and women who represent the American public in the Congress and the Senate. I think they are doing a fantastic job, to the best of their ability. They have been tough on the Auto makers and have learned from their experience of handing Paulson money with no strings attached.

Only, if only we would stop to THINK before rushing in FIX!

Even a cat has Karma!

Barack Obama and I have something in common - Our "change is coming" theme! Resist it as we may, life is all about change. Good change, bad change - we categorize it, but change is just change. If there was no change, life wouldnt be as exciting, as fun, and the wild careening ride until death releases us to God knows where!

As I connected this in my head I pondered about Subbu, my cat. He is a gift from my son. As I delight over him every morning and literally every time I catch sight of him - lolling around, begging for treats, sitting by the french window but with his head twisted back to see if I would come by and let him out, digging up my carpets, lying all day with paws up in the air under my son, Karthik's desk, I start thinking about how his life has changed in this past year.

Subbu was born as Sebastian, on a Wisconsin farm in the depths of winter. He was transported by Karthik's friend to their college residence when he was just a few weeks old. As a kitten, he adjusted very well to the drive - sleeping draped around the boy's neck for 3 hours.

Back in Madison, he was confronted with the dregs of an in-campus home - a deep, dank home filled with cigarette stubs, video games, dirty carpets, unmade beds, and dishes all over the place. His house mates consisted of another cat called Alistair and 5 young college males, who proceeded to pet him whenever they noticed him; feed him at a fairly regular schedule; but cleaned out the litter box only when even their friends who came drunk to their parties noticed the stench.

Subbu's sole contact with outside air for those 6 months, was when he was let out into the tiny deck, once in a long while. The rest of the time, he learned to play with Alistair and meow outside the boys' doors when he wanted to be petted.

When my son Karthik moved out of the house to live by himself, in the final semester of his college, Subbu was donated by Karthik's roommates to a girl who also lived in campus. We know not how Subbu's life was that semester; what we do know is that in a short span of a year, Subbu had moved 3 homes and had had 3 different set of living conditions - every change was out of his control.

When he finally came to me, he was again transported 8 hours - but this time, since he was older, we tried to put in a cat carrier. His fear of being locked up made him meow so pitifully and so loudly that we took our chances of being scratched and clawed and let him loose in the car. Cool cat that he is, he slept peacefully at Karthik's feet for 8 hours, his gorgeous gray fur merging seamlessly with the gray car mat.

Now he lives with us and he has been rechristened Subbu - simply because I cannot pronounce Sebastian very easily. In addition, the name Sebastian doesn't lend itself well to baby talk. :)
Subbu's life has changed yet again - I think its his Karma! Here he has access to the great outdoors - we live in a single family home in a sparsely populated neighborhood. There are no homes on one side of ours. Besides, ours is a lovely neighborhood - we have the deer, the racoons, bald soaring eagles, and even the peacocks, visit us regularly. There is a lake in the neighborhood, so Subbu gets to revert to his roots and pretend he's a tiger on a hunt! He crouches in the tall grass around the lake, seeking prey. He chases bugs around, and climbs on trees to pander to his true cat's nature. He gets to stay out as long as he wants to and when he comes back home with his fur laden with wild flowers, leaves and thorns, he gets groomed and petted.

Now Subbu is also due for another change when we move. He'll probably lose his great outdoors especially if we move into a more urban home.

So, what does this simple life story say about Karma?
Even a cat has his Karma. And that Karma drives his life in this birth. I guess the difference between a man's Karma and a cat's Karma is probably an element of free will that man has, that an animal does not. Beyond that, there's something to be said for Karma!

Is Might really Right?

Right after Prop 8 was passed in CA, I was watching a CNN program where Larry King had assembled a group, as usual, to discuss the reaction of the people of CA. One of the guests was a prominent writer who was also gay. He was protesting the passing of Prop 8 when Larry made a remark, "But, you know, the majority of Californians have spoken - the people have spoken, they do not want Gay marriage. What do have to say to that?" To which the journalist said something that struck at the core of my beliefs. He said, "Just because a majority has spoken, it doesn't make it right. Think about it, there was a time when the majority thought that Slavery was OK. That didn't make it right."

Mulling about what he had said, my thoughts went to the Great Bailout Bowl that everyone wants to dip into. The latest of the dippers are the Big Three auto companies. And their reasoning was that they either directly or indirectly employed a few million people, so they needed Govt. assistance to continue doing whatever they were doing to keep their companies afloat. When questioned in Congress about their plans for the monetary assistance they were asking, the Big three CEO's didn't have a clear answer. All they could say was that since they were so big, they HAD to be helped, IF NOT!

So, does Might make it Right? Does sheer numbers justify any regulation, any request, any law? What about the minority? Do their needs not matter? Just because there are fewer Gays and Lesbians, do they not have any rights? Just because the auto workers and their sidekicks are employed in droves by the auto industry, does it mean that people who earn far less and ironically, some of those who don't even have health care, have to support the industry so that they can continue to have fancy health care and great pay packages for everyone who is and has been employed there?

What about AIG? That veritable drain? They came back again and again with their begging bowls, looking for public handout. Same argument - too big to fail.

Just what is too big to fail? Were we to frame this differently - Can we call this "Too big to survive?" Too lumbering, too large, too elephantine, too cumbersome, to be nimble?

Here's what I think is fair: Yes, we cannot let a large industry that is the backbone of American manufacturing fail. BUT, we can and probably should, break it up into multiple smaller companies so that if one of them fail due to uninspired leadership (Let us not kid ourselves, because that is what this is - Uninspired leadership) the rest will survive.

Leadership is not about steering the ship in calm waters, it is about bringing it home in a storm.

Now we have a storm and the so-called leaders are asking for help while blaming the Gods, the devil, their father, their mother, and the economy, for their predicament.

I read a post where someone had written that it was time to combine the Big Three into the Big One. I disagree. They should now become the Small Many. And so should AIG. Time to break things up so that no ONE company can hold a gun to our heads.

Confession!

I have a secret confession to make - one that I know will make me the butt of jokes of the "elite" who love to talk about gaffes and such. But since I have long nourished this feeling (meaning, I've nourished this for the past 3 months!), I am going to come out and say it.

I am a bit in love with Joe Biden, our VP elect.

For many years I've read about people referring to so-and-so as authentic, real, oh so real! And during the election, the media got particularly strident about authenticity.

I could never figure out what they meant about a "real" person until I heard Biden speak on the stump once. I had heard him speak many times before, but this once was particularly powerful. He spoke about America being ONE NATION, UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE. I could sense he meant what he said, there was no facade, no learning and regurgitating of lines - he just spoke from his heart. When I heard him, it finally sank in, what "authenticity" meant.

And I am in love with the idea of an authentic person. It warms the cockles of my heart.

The cat on the hot tin roof

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, I used to live in India. We lived in a land of plenty - plenty of love, plenty of teeming life, plenty of history, plenty of cultural heritage and plenty of religious beliefs. What we had as a country, though, was paucity of resources. Paucity of clean wholesome food, paucity of clean drinking water, paucity of electricity and paucity of educational opportunities.

In this scenario, a dear friend of mine came back home as a "foreign return" - back home with a US educational degree. As he regaled me with stories of US, one of the stories that stuck in my mind was about a cat.

America, he said, was the land of real plenty, where food was available to all, where you could drink water out of a tap without boiling it first, where schools were free for all, where you never had power cuts, and where you never saw poor people struggling for anything.

His favorite story about America was the one about a cat. His neighbor had a cat, a cat that usually slipped out the front door whenever it had an opportunity. It was an adventurous cat, an inquisitive cat and a fun-loving cat. One day, the cat didnt come back home when it got dark. So my friend and his neighbor went around calling and meowing and looking for the cat. After an hour of searching around the neighborhood, they finally heard a pitiful meow coming from the roof of the neighbor's home. They found the cat on the roof.

Now how does one get a scared cat off the roof? The neighbor called 911 and lo, behold, the fire fighters came by in minutes and got the cat down to safety.

Now the moral of this story is the effect it had on me - remember "my land of plenty"? In India, then and I am guessing now too, there are no emergencies that are the business of the state. Even if one is sick, the ambulance takes about an hour to come, so its best to call a taxi to get to the hospital. And if I ever called the police to come get my cat off my roof, I'd be laughed out of my home.

So this story of America, where you could call someone to come help get your cat out of the roof had me listening with rounded eyes and wonder at this land of plenty where resources were so plentiful that even a cat was taken care of.

That was America then. As years passed, the good people of America seem to have lost all the good things they've taken for granted... food no longer seems "clean", fresh and healthy - free from added chemicals and pesticides and free from being mashed, cooked and fried out of recognition; water no longer seems clean and potable; schools are so expensive that Americans can no longer invest in the future of their nation - their children and their youth; indoor air quality is so poor because building materials are laden with chemicals...

The trusting American people are now waking up to a nightmare, a nightmare that has ruined this beautiful country and their enviable lifestyle. The awakening is scary - every aspect of American life is contaminated with big business - basic necessities of food, water, shelter and education have all succumbed to becoming money-making ventures, where business profit is king. Every other consideration must fall on the wayside of making money.

Take the instance of contaminated water: According to the Environmental Working Group, drinking water in 43 states has been contaminated with Perchlorate - a rocket fuel. Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency has reneged on its own mission by siding with big business to fight the regulation of ridding the water of this chemical.

Here is an excerpt from the Environmental working group about the dangers of Perchlorate contamination of water that is the result of testing done by the defense department:

Perchlorate, the explosive main ingredient of rocket and missile fuel, contaminates drinking water supplies, groundwater or soil in hundreds of locations in at least 43 states, according to Environmental Working Group’s updated analysis of government data. EWG’s analysis of the latest scientific studies, which show harmful health effects from minute doses, argues that a national standard for perchlorate in drinking water should be no higher than one-tenth the level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency currently recommends as safe.

Americans are no longer thinking about their cats on the roof, we now have to think about our basics to survive: clean healthy food, clean water, chemical-free homes, affordable schools, invest in our youngsters so the future of this nation is safe...

Sarah Palin and me!

I watched Sarah Palin's TV interviews after the election. She was completely indiscriminate - anyone who popped a microphone in front of her face, got a dose of her now famous "girly next door" discourse. She talked long and she smiled and she winked. And she defended herself against the Katie Couric embarrassing interview. Then she defended herself against the allegations of the $150k purchase. All well. Fun to hear, great to see - she's certainly easy on the eye.

But where she suddenly had an eerie resemblance to one of my "failin's" - one I am tryin' to correct strenuously was when she answered questions even before the interviewer finished askin' the questions! Of course, she mostly answered gibberish, I hope I cannot lay claim to that credit, but she would jump up and answer before she even heard out the question. And there, woefully, I saw myself reflected in Sarah Palin!

Enough is enough. Seeing my failin' starkly displayed in a Sarah Palin interview will, I hope, put an end to this. Friends, soon you will see my failin' failin'. Gone! Forsooth!

Big Corporate in disguise

Ever since the elections, I have to have a Huffingtonpost fix every morning. And one of the articles I read this morning disturbed me. It was an article labeled "FCC chair to push for free, porn-free National Internet".

At first glance, the headline seemed fantastic - free Internet service. Upon reading further, I was appalled at how pure self-serving corporate greed was framed to sound so altruistic . So they were trying to establish smut-free internet but hey, read further, here's an excerpt:

"The proposal to allow a no-smut, free wireless Internet service is part of a proposal to auction off a chunk of airwaves. The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service. The winner could establish a paid service that would have a fast wireless Internet connection. The free service could be slower and would be required to filter out pornography and other material not suitable for children. The FCC's proposal mirrors a plan offered by M2Z Networks Inc., a start-up backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr."

So what does this mean to us - the avearage citizens?
What it means is this: we will soon have corporate America (with their appendage lobbyists) regulating the sites we can visit, the blogs we can read, and the free press by virtue of the fact that they control the speeds at which we can access sites.

And how can this happen with the seemingly great idea from the FCC chair of blocking porn?
What will happen is posts like this one, for instance, will need to pay for you to be able to access them fast enough. Otherwise, in the name of "free Internet" you'll probably sit at your computer waiting for my blog to download at excrutiatingly slow speeds and you will finally give up and go to the paid Internet which will be regulated either because only those who are willing to pay can host their sites on it or by the corporates who will now have us by the b***s.

And so what happens to the freedom of the press and the voice of the people?
Corporate America takes over, folks. We read what they want us to read, we hear what they want us to hear, we will now access only those sites they want us to access.

What about the smut-free Internet? Isnt that a good thing for our kids?
Yes, of course it is, but then which kid didnt do the things you didnt want them to do anyway? Which kid wont access the paid porn sites if he/she wanted to? Who are they trying to kid with this dissemblance?

Are we giving up our rights?
Yes, yes and yes. Right to free speech, right to visit all sites on the Internet, right to read what we want, right to hear anyone say what they want to...

Protest. Dont let this happen. EVERYTHING CANNOT BE BOUGHT AND THE AIRWAVES ARE ONE OF THE THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT BE SOLD.