More LIRR Ad Madness

Whoever is doing this probably has plenty of time on the train during which they're not being observed. Maybe one of the folks who cleans the train?

Might be a bit tough to see, but someone cut the heads off pictures from one ad and pasted them onto this ad for The O.C.. The heads are those of Dr. Phil and Oprah. Couldn't tell who the other folks were. (One looks like Olympia Dukakis.)

You simply can't do this on the train in full view of the passengers. And unless you take a train that runs at 3 AM or something, one would never run into a situation where one could pull this off without having somebody see something, which makes me think it's probably one of the cleaning folks.

The RFID Indoctrination Starts Now

"It's too Big Brother for me," said Kenneth Haines, a 15-year-old ninth grader who is on the football and debate teams. "Something about the school wanting to know the exact place and time makes me feel kind of like an animal."

Young Mr. Haines is describing his participation in a pilot program at his school in Texas to test RFID's ability to track the movements of schoolchildren.

The lazier we are about safeguarding our children's safety, the more parents are going to sacrifice privacy, trust and responsibility. While I'm not usually a fan of "slippery slope" arguments, how long before the government points to this program to justify some other use of RFID?

I wonder how long it will be before it becomes mandatory to accept an RFID-enabled pass to get on a city bus? Or to enter a government building? I wonder how long it will be before the technology becomes ubiquitous and corporations and the government start using the data for more nefarious purposes. Shouldn't be too long now...

Advocates of the technology said they did not plan to go that far. But, they said, they do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags.

Umm... If anybody needs me, I'll be in an undisclosed location outside of the country. Bye.

Your TV Is Not Your Babysitter

Plenty of folks stopped by the Spin Board to roast my last column (login required). Funny how people seem to see only what they want to see. It appears no one read the last half of the column about the risks that an increasingly-censored broadcast media puts on advertisers. What if you're the advertiser who wanted to support the airing of Saving Private Ryan on Veteran's Day and you found out that half the stations refused to air it? Moreover, what if TV is a cornerstone of your marketing plan and network TV ratings continue to decline over time, partly because of increasing government control over content makes TV uninteresting to certain audiences?

But instead of talking about that, folks wanted to complain about my description of the situation. Some of the more interesting quotes follow...

I think the fine for the sexually suggestive material shown on the program "Married By America" is heavy but if that's what it takes to get the content of our TV's cleaned up then so be it!!

I, for one, and sick and tired of the garbage that passes for TV entertainment these days. You cheapen the First Amendment by mentioning it in the same breath as this trash. Get a life!

I love how conservatives, who want the rest of the world to think that they believe in small government that stays out of our lives, would rather look to a regulatory body to control the content they consume in broadcast instead of doing the reasonable thing - voting with one's eyeballs. If no one watched Married By America, would the networks run it? If the network itself received complaint letters, might they reconsider? Evidently, there are plenty of folks who would rather have the government perform the function of content control than let the free market decide.

Have little kids? Try protecting them.

I don't have little kids. But if I did, any protection I might give them would involve something called parenting. Parenting involves knowing what your kids consume through the media so you can determine what's appropriate for them and what's not. The answer is NOT to sanitize the world to make it safe for kids at all places and all times. After all, some of us like a little excitement in our lives, thankyouverymuch. The answer is to watch your kids, give them some guidance and not simply plop them in front of the television every time you don't feel like interacting with them. Oh, and here's another thought for the "won't somebody think of the children?" crowd. If you're so concerned about TV's effect on the values of your children, what are your kids doing up at 9 PM on a school night watching a program about folks who let people they don't know determine who they'll marry?

So thanks to many of the Spin Board commentors who want the government to control their content, want the mass media to babysit their kids, and completely missed the main point of my last column.

First Casualty: Fair Use and Consumer Rights

Screw the consumer. They must not share their files, they must not have a "fair use" provision and, above all, they MUST not be able to skip ads. There are so many things wrong about this bill, my head is spinning and I'm wondering if maybe I should just go home, crawl back into bed and hide under the covers. If this passes, then the recording and movie industries have successfully lobbied Congress to employ the U.S. Government as their law firm and ultimate protector of their hopelessly outdated business model.