Monday, July 18, 2005

Cape Cod Chips

A foggy day on the Cape, we headed for Hyannis and the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory. We’re big fans of the chips, there’s a map on the back of the bag, at home we laughed and said let’s visit. Today we did.

I took along a small video camera and thought I’d shoot something for the blog. And the students back at school; I told them when I left that I’d shoot it.

When I got there and the sign said no videotaping I was stumped. When I had the chance--a wonderful Customer Service rep, a great character happy to talk--I hardly knew what to ask. I have three microphones here; I left all of them at the house.

I know better; I have to plan if I’m going to get something good. We’ll see if I can make something interesting from what I shot.
Or maybe I’ll get lucky and one of my whiz kid students will do it for me. 

Lessig vacation lineup

I do so admire Larry Lessig. Here I am on vacation, blogging, while his vacation starts today. No blogging for him; he’s promised his family a month away from the Internet each year.

Maybe one day. But not this week.

Lessig’s set up a vacation line-up of guest bloggers that has me aching with anticipation.

Kicking it off is Cass Sunstein, whose Republic.com had a similarly powerful impact on my thinking to that of Lessig’s Code and other Laws of Cyberspace.

Today James Joyner asks, How Much Should Precedent Bind Judges? It’s a question that interests me around the First Amendment.

See, I’d like to see our judicial precedent around the First Amendment’s “I get to say what I want to say” privilege balanced more heavily toward the Sunstein reading of the First Amendment’s original intent of a “citizenry informed through a multiplicity of viewpoints.”

I’m eager for Sunstein’s new book, and eager to see what he has to say this week on Lessig’s blog!

Give me a break!

History shows plenty of conservatives on PBS:

PBS (and educational TV before it) has a long history of conservative-hosted or -oriented shows, starting with William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Firing Line” in 1966. Others include “The McLaughlin Group,” “Think Tank With Ben Wattenberg,” “Adam Smith’s Money World,” “Wall Street Week,” “Nightly Business Report” and a news discussion program called “National Desk” that featured such conservatives as Fred Barnes and Laura Ingraham. PBS also has distributed miniseries based on the work of William Bennett ("Adventures From the Book of Values"), and one starring former Reagan and Bush I speechwriter Peggy Noonan ("On Values: Talking With Peggy Noonan").

Even so, Gigot, the “Journal Editorial Report” host, charges that public television stacks the deck against conservatives in other ways. He says that PBS-affiliated stations have been reluctant to add his program to their schedules (PBS distributes the show but stations are free to set their own lineups), or broadcast it in pre-dawn time periods. “There’s been a conscious decision by stations to run ‘Now’ [Moyers’s former show] but not to run us,” he says. “The motivation for that—well, you can make up your own mind.”

That from the Washington Post today.

With Republicans solidly in charge and politicizing programming I genuinely expect them to start supporting public broadcasting. And claiming they always have. Meanwhile, my support is dwindling.

Via Romenesko.