This astonishing story details how the Federal Communications Commission ordered a study about media ownership concentration, and then tried to make it go away when they didn't like the results.

From Associated Press

The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

The report, written in 2004, came to light during the Senate confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. received a copy of the report “indirectly from someone within the FCC who believed the information should be made public,” according to Boxer spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

Adam Candeub, now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior managers at the agency ordered that “every last piece” of the report be destroyed. “The whole project was just stopped _ end of discussion,” he said. Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC’s Media Bureau at the time the report was written and communicated frequently with its authors, he said.

In a letter sent to Martin Wednesday, Boxer said she was “dismayed that this report, which was done at taxpayer expense more than two years ago, and which concluded that localism is beneficial to the public, was shoved in a drawer.”

Martin said he was not aware of the existence of the report, nor was his staff. His office indicated it had not received Boxer’s letter as of midafternoon Thursday.

In the letter, Boxer asked whether any other commissioners “past or present” knew of the report’s existence and why it was never made public. She also asked whether it was “shelved because the outcome was not to the liking of some of the commissioners and/or any outside powerful interests?”

The report, written by two economists in the FCC’s Media Bureau, analyzed a database of 4,078 individual news stories broadcast in 1998. The broadcasts were obtained from Danilo Yanich, a professor and researcher at the University of Delaware, and were originally gathered by the Pew Foundation’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The analysis showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of “on-location” news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. It was part of a broader decision liberalizing ownership rules.

At that time, the agency pointed to evidence that “commonly owned television stations are more likely to carry local news than other stations.”

When considering whether to loosen rules on media ownership, the agency is required to examine the impact on localism, competition and diversity. The FCC generally defines localism as the level of responsiveness of a station to the needs of its community.

The 2003 action sparked a backlash among the public and within Congress. In June 2004, a federal appeals court rejected the agency’s reasoning on most of the rules and ordered it to try again. The debate has since been reopened, and the FCC has scheduled a public hearing on the matter in Los Angeles on Oct. 3.

The report was begun after then-Chairman Michael Powell ordered the creation of a task force to study localism in broadcasting in August of 2003. Powell stepped down from the commission and was replaced by Martin in March 2005. Powell did not return a call seeking comment.

The authors of the report, Keith Brown and Peter Alexander, both declined to comment. Brown has left public service while Alexander is still at the FCC. Yanich confirmed the two men were the authors. Both have written extensively on media and telecommunications policy.

Yanich said the report was “extremely well done. It should have helped to inform policy.”

Boxer’s office said if she does not receive adequate answers to her questions, she will push for an investigation by the FCC inspector general.

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The sector of wireless communications is today among the most dynamic ones of our global economy, and it brings a major contribution to the latter’s performance and productivity. The extraordinary progress of wireless technologies over the past decade, and their penetration deeply into society has generated both a technology push and a user demand, which meet in the solicitation from researchers further progress and more innovation. Not only higher bandwidth, higher mobility, better QoS are required at lower costs, but also novel multimedia services in order to cope with new societal needs. The integration of a variety of radio access technologies and networks, from cellular to local and personal or body area networks, is thus in the near future projected to provide individuals in the private or professional sphere more and more ubiquitous and rich content access to a wealth of interconnected information systems.

Technical papers describing original, previously unpublished research results are solicited. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: Modulation and Coding for Wireless Communications; Signal Processing, Synchronization, Equalization; Communication Theory, Fundamental Limits; Radio Channel Measurements and Modelling; Antenna Issues in Wireless Communications; Smart antennas and MIMO systems; Radio Transmission Technology; Multiple Access Schemes; Multiuser detection algorithms and Theory; Interference Mitigation and Management Techniques; Wireless Broadband Mobile Access; Software Defined Radio & Re-configurability; Network Coding and Cooperative Diversity; Protocols for Air Interfaces and Networks; Transport Layer Issues in Mobile and Wireless Networks; Radio Resource Management; Ultra-Wideband Communications; Cross-layer Design in Mobile and Wireless Networks; Mobility Management and Billing Technologies; QoS and Resource Allocation in Mobile and Wireless; Networks Security and Robustness in Wireless Networks; Spectrum Efficiency Analyses; Cognitive Radio; Power Management for Small Terminals; Mobile/Wireless Networks Modelling and Simulation; 2G - 3G - 4G Migration, Evolution and Interworking; Wireless LAN/PAN/BAN; Wireless Ad-hoc Networks (MANET); Sensor Network Planning and Deployment; Convergence of 3G wireless, Brodcasting and Internet; Heterogeneity in Future Networks; Mobile and Wireless Applications; Location-based Services and Positioning; and High Altitude Platforms and Satellites.

All paper submissions will be handled electronically, following instructions found at: http://www.ew2007.org/submissions.html

All papers will be reviewed by the program committee members. Accepted papers will be published in the conference CD-ROM. The copyright will be held by VDE.

While $37 is still too much to pay for a lifetime without batteries (especially if the move to digital signals makes these fairly useless in the near future), solar-power design is getting better all the time. Supposedly, each hour of sunlight gives you up to three hours of listening time.

Since two cups and a string make up one of the most primitive transmission systems, folks at free103point9 have long wondered about the most efficient cup and string for communication. Years ago, our co-conspirator Jason Wilson submitted this question to The Mad Scientist Network and got this answer from Arnd Pralle Post-doc/Fellow, Mol. Cell Biol., UC Berkeley:

What are the best (most resonant) materials for a string and cup phone?

I am no expert in acoustics or material science, however since it a nice question showing the difficulties to get a practical estimate from basic physical principles, I have tried to find an answer based on physics which can be found in any general textbook.

Let's look at the two parts of the string and cup phone:
The string transmits the vibrations by oscillating laterally. To do this best, it has to fulfill the following:

The elasticy along the string (E) should be minimal while the lateral flexibility (G) maximal. The properties of solids, including metal wires do not show a very large G/E ratio (steel or iridium wires would be best).

However polymers would be much better suited for the task. They should be thin to avoid damping by the surrounding air and it should be lightweight, to minimize the tension necessary to hold it up.

So the best bet seems to be a polymer, e.g. nylon string. I would recommend using a kite-string, the thinnest one available.

The cup of a string and cup phone collects the acoustic wave which causes the bottom of the cup to vibrate. Therefore it is a good idea to have a truncated cone-shaped cup with rigid (thicker) sides that reflect the sound wave onto the bottom. The bottom has to be resonant. The top (opening) of the cup should fit the size of the users head for easiest use. The bottom size should relate to the frequency of human language and the most sensitive range of our ears which peaks around 500-1500 Hz. Depending on the bottom's design, I would estimate a diameter of 8-15cm. Just think about your medium speakers. When one looks at speakers or drums, it is clear that a thin membrane would be the best resonantor. However, the resonance frequency of a membrane depends largely on the lateral tension. Because in the phone the membrane has to support the wire, this tension could not be optimized for the frequency but must support the string. Therefore a thin plate is a much more suitable bottom resonator. Again, similar considerations as for the string apply: either a thin steel foil/sheet would be good, or again a polymer bottom plate seems optimal. Actually, the use of yogurt cups does seem to be a rather smart choice.

Special considerations for outside installation: weather resistance (thermal expansion is so small in normal temperature range that it can be ignored).

Year Zero One is seeking submissions for Terminal01 (T01), an interactive networked art exhibition to be lauched at Toronto Pearson International Airport in the spring of 2007. T01 will consist of a kiosk housing a touch-sensitive screen, an audio-video output, an embedded web camera, sensors and projection screen. Artists will be invited to create site-responsive computer generated work based on their experience and interpretation of air travel environs, airports, mobility, flight data and networked communities. Emphasis will be given to works with a generative component or works dealing directly with themes relevant to travel (space-time).

Toronto’s Pearson International is ranked 22nd among the world's busiest airports by international traffic and receives over 30 million passengers per year. With a current mandate to present a diverse range of exhibitions the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) will host the T01 exhibition for a six month period in 2007. Designed by Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, Toronto Pearson's new Terminal One empahsizes natural light and transparency: " In an attempt to demystify the chaos of travel, many details in the building were designed to reveal the workings of an airport terminal." T01 will be an extention of this notion of transparency where artwork reveals complex processes through visual and aural representations.

Please Submit Proposals through the online submission form (Requires Flash 8 plugin). Deadline for submissions is December 1st, 2006. Artist fees paid. T01 is curated by Michael Alstad and David Jhave Johnston.

From DIYmedia.net

Ever since Congress bowed to pressure from commercial and public broadcasters six years ago and severely gutted the low-power FM radio service, its advocates have been working the Hill looking for a way to nullify the intervention. Several tries at passing bills to directly reverse the damage died quietly, which has directed attention toward using the amendment process as a vehicle for progress.

The "Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act" only became law because it was attached to a spending measure. This maneuver is one of the most sneakily abused ways of routing corrupt legislation through the system. LPFM advocates, led by the Prometheus Radio Project, are at least working with an existing bill that specifically involves important communications regulation.

It is called the WARN Act, and its primary goal is to effectively expand the use of the Emergency Alert System to media outlets other than broadcast radio and television - this will eventually include cell phones and other devices.

LPFM enhances the WARN Act by getting Congress to reaffirm its commitment to signal diversity - more stations means tighter coverage of the "National Alert System" network. LPFM stations proved their worth in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The relative inexpensiveness of LPFM stations, along with their heightened commitments to localism, make hitching an expansion of LPFM to the WARN Act a pretty powerful sell.

The bill's currently sitting in committee with just over a dozen co-sponsors. No word on how or when an LPFM expansion amendment might come into play, but those laying the groundwork are doing so with optimism.

From Media Network weblog

The London-based independent broadcasting station, SW Radio Africa, has reported the Zimbabwe government seems to have gone a notch higher in jamming its frequencies to the southern African country ahead of planned mass action by civic groups next week. Station manager, Gerry Jackson said that “Recently our mediumwave transmissions were jammed and we returned to shortwave - but after a few weeks this has also been jammed. It would appear that our news bulletin is being specifically targeted. This is clearly because a program of organised, peaceful resistance has begun in Zimbabwe and is also ahead of the advertised protests by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, scheduled to begin on 13th September.”

Ms Jackson forwarded to Media Network a copy of a reception report from Harare that describes the jamming:

“4880 is jammed from 8pm [1800 UTC] with a ‘new’ type of jammer. This jammer is extremely severe and takes the form of a siren/car horn sound.Cycles within 5 seconds and its the first time I’ve ever heard it. VOA has been jammed on MW 909 this evening within Harare and that jammer was still on that frequency when this one starts up, so it rules out that jammer. So there are two currently heard.

“At 8:30pm [1830 UTC] this jammer goes off and is replaced by the jammer that was on VOA MW’s 909, less effective but still there on 4880. It still wipes you out, it is a unmodulated signal jammer but effective. You will need confirming reports ASAP from around Zimbabwe on the level of jamming that this ‘new’ jammer is capable of. But I have the unhappy feeling that it is a reactivated SW Gweru one.”

The Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) recently reported the government seemed to be jamming not only SW Radio Africa but also frequencies for the Voice of America’s Studio 7 programme to Zimbabwe. Equipment sourced from China is being used to stop the independent broadcasting stations from beaming back into Zimbabwe from their foreign bases in London, Washington and Madagascar in the case of Radio Voice of the People.

“If government’s threats to stifle what it considers to be illegal broadcasting have anything to do with this development, MMPZ is again obliged to condemn it as a cynical interference with the public’s constitutional right to freedom of expression and their right to access information without hindrance,” said the media monitoring organisation.

Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa emerged precisely because of ZBH’s illegal de facto monopoly of the airwaves and serve as vital alternative sources of credible news for information-starved Zimbabweans who have to endure the blatant propagandist output of the government-controlled national public broadcaster, said the MMPZ.

The MMPZ said the government should speed up the process of licensing local independent broadcasters instead of wasting resources investing in equipment to shut down alternative sources of information.

(Sources: Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, SW Radio Africa)

Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT recently removed the tower for their student run FM station. No notice was given to the students, as they simply returned to school with WQAQ off the air. According to a campus official the tower was removed "because it was an unsightly eyesore right in the center of campus." They are in danger of losing their license should they not replace the tower within the next year.

One could write Quinnipiac president John Lahey and encourage him to replace WQAQ's tower at:
Quinnipiac University
275 Mt. Carmel Ave.
Hamden, CT 06518

From Daily Wireless

Ubiquitous video surveillence is now available to everyone, says Defeating the Hacker. IP cameras plug straight into a corporate Ethernet network or broadband system, transmiting live video. Many have "PTZ", enabling them to be panned, tilted and zoomed remotely.

Using a search engine like Google, it's possible to locate hundreds of unprotected cameras.

For example, searching Google for inurl:CgiStart?page=Single will bring up dozens of links to Panasonic cameras and, in many cases, pan or tilt the camera. A search for axis inurl:view/index.shtml will bring up sites hosting cameras made by Axis.

Allowing an unprotected surveillance cameras to be visible over the internet is just asking for trouble.

There are privacy issues, for example, in allowing the general public to watch live images of your staff at work. Unfettered access to PTZ facilities make it simple for a thief or shoplifter to divert the camera away from where he wishes to strike.

Robert Schifreen's advice to anyone using an IP camera for surveillance:

Use the camera's in-built password protection rather than allowing the pictures to be streamed to the world.

Once you've set up the camera's securely, test it by attempting to connect from outside your company's network.

A small group of New York Civil Liberties Union volunteers walked the streets of Manhattan in search of video surveillance cameras. This group sought out every camera, public or private, which records people in public space. The NYC Surveillance Camera Project produced a comprehensive map of all 2,397 surveillance cameras in Manhattan. Nearly every square inch is covered with a camera of some kind.

From Boing Boing

An incredibly diverse coalition of high-powered public interest groups, industry associations, and corporations have signed an open letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office rejecting the "Broadcast Treaty," a US-led UN initiative that could do untold harm to artists, tech and telecoms companies, scholars, and people with disabilities.

Under the Broadcast Treaty, fair use, Creative Commons and the public domain would be trumped by the "broadcast right," which would be owned by the broadcaster of works. If you got a copy of a work over the air or over the Web that copyright would let you use (because it was in the public domain, because it was factual, or even because the creator had granted you permission), you'd still need to seek permission from the "caster," who would get a 50-year monopoly over the re-use of copies of the works it transmitted.

The proposal to extend this to the Web could put YouTube, Google Video, and innovative podcaster services out of business, by banning or restricting the way that these companies re-use each others' materials. And if you're a podcaster accustomed to lifting other podcasters' material and pasting it into your podcasts, you'll need permission from the company that hosts the podcasts, not just permission from the creator.

The Webcasting provision has been underwritten by Yahoo and Microsoft, whose advocates at the UN work tirelessly to keep the US on-track in pushing the rest of the world to taking it on board. The rest of the world doesn't want Webcasting, but it keeps sneaking back into the treaty, over howls of protests from artists and major governments.

Now some of Yahoo and Microsoft's competitors have woken up to the fact that they're about to get their lunches eaten for them and have signed onto a letter asking the USPTO to quit handing their doom to a couple of companies.

The letter's signatories are wonderful, ranging from AT&T and Verizon to Yale, to Dell and Intel, and library associations from the medical librarians to the law librarians and more. Also on the list are TiVo, EFF, Panasonic, H-P, the US musicians' managers, and many others.

Mike Cannon, a producer of the Mike Cannon Show at WNRB reports that Northcentral Technical College (NTC) shut down the less-than-two-year-old Wisconsin LPFM station down yesterday without any explanantion.

"We will lose the FCC license if NTC does not allow us to transfer it," Cannon's post on the microradio listserv said. "WNRB volunteers had no warning that this might happen, and are shocked when we got the e-mail today telling us not to come in. The studios is locked, and all our CDs and personal items are locked away to."

Cannon and others at the station urge listeners and others to contact the NTC President Lori Weyers, PH. D. at weyers@ntc.edu and ask her not to do anything that would put in jeopardy our license.

Apparently, the new station is not fully licensed yet, and is running on a construction permit due to expire on November 21, 2006. Stay tuned.

Wifi Camera Obscura reveals the electromagnetic space of our devices and the shadows that we create within such spaces, in particular our wifi networks which are increasingly found in coffee shops, offices and homes throughout cities of the developed world. We will take realtime "photos" of wifi space. This experiment is a collaboration between Usman Haque, Bengt Sjölén and Adam Somlai-Fischer.

Exhibition: Version 1 at Waves in Riga Aug 25 - Sept 17, 2006, then Version 2 at Perimeters, Boundaries and Borders in Lancaster, UK from Sept 29 to October 21.

La Superette is an annual event, an art sale held usually around the holiday season in December. We organize a temporary store where artists sell functional art in multiples at affordable prices. In addition to the sale we usually schedule musical performances as well as puppet shows, and video screenings to run throughout the day. The project is conceived and organized as a place for artists to meet and collaborate on a specific project. We publish a catalog zine, which distributes contact information of all participating artists, host a web catalog on this site, and produce a video catalog which is screened at the event. La Superette 2005 included more than 100 artists and attracted thousands of visitors and shoppers.

The 9th Annual La Superette will take place on Saturday December 9th at Eyebeam in conjunction with the Holiday Hackshop. Eyebeam is located at 540 West 21st Street, in Manhattan.

The deadline for online submission is October 30, 2006
* Work must be functional, original and cheap.
* Preference is given to: hacks, idea based crafts, amateurs, artists merchandising, and inventions.
* You price your own work, and receive 80% of the proceeds from any sale.
* La Superette is not responsible for damage to or loss of your work.

Read more rules and guidelines at http://www.lasuperette.org/call.php.

OPEN CALL: Sound works (under 1 min.) for Peter Stuyvesant's Ghost - Telephone Walk

Dates of Event: November 15-19, 2006. Files will be archived www.cityinasoundwalk.org and www.free103point9.org after the 5 day project period.

What To Make: Digital sound files of no more than 1 minute that will be heard by the audience via calls from either pay or cell phones to an ASTERIX server

PETER STUYVESANT'S GHOST is a public art project that mixes sound art with historical and environmental research. PSG was initiated by Lise Brenner and made possible through the skills and collaborative efforts of free103point9, New York Society for Acoustic Ecology, the NY Audubon Society, the Mannahatta Project, and the St. Mark's Historical Landmarks Fund, and features the work of individual artists Michelle Nagai, Edmund Mooney, Ryan Holsopple, Melissa Bliss, Nienke Rooijjakers, and others yet to be determined.

This call is for both 'realistic' and interpretive reactions, in the form of up to one minute long sound files, to history related to the Dutch colonial period (mid-late 17th century). PSG is sited within the footprint of Peter Stuyvesant's original farm (the Great Bowerie). Today this is the East Village, between 4th Avenue and the original East River shore, and from 23rd to 4th Streets.

The question is how, through sound, to create a non-urban space in the listeners mind, if only for a few seconds. The goal is that listening to the phone messages will create an imaginative link to historical reality.

Specific Event Description for THE TELEPHONE WALK: A self-guided walk through the area of Peter Stuyvesant's farm, referring to a guide booklet created by PSG collaborators and utilizing cell or payphones to access a open-source telephony server (Asterix). The printed material will indicate routes around the farm, with specific points indicated where participants are asked to stop and call into the server. A payphone will be available at all chosen points. After making the phone call, the participant will dial the message code indicated for that particular site, thereby accessing a short (no more than 1 minute) sound file made in response to historical/topographical information provided to the artist about the site, which could include information about Dutch cows and pigs, church bells, hymns, language; memories of shops, streets, sounds of Holland; local sounds of nature (wind, birds, water, shoreline, fields, orchards, dirt road); local work sounds (blacksmiths, milking, carpentry, printing); or other information/metaphors/ideas suggested by artists.

PROCESS OF APPLICATION: Send an email describing your idea, in a TEXT ONLY SINGLE PARAGRAPH, to twowhitecats24@hotmail.com. You will be contacted within 1-3 days.

IF ACCEPTED: The deadline for submission of completed files is NOVEMBER 1, 2006.

For more information of PETER STUYVESANT'S GHOST and its participating organizations and artists, see: http://www.cityinasoundwalk.org/psg

From Duncan Kennedy, BBC News

Striking teachers seized 12 private radio stations in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca and set buses on fire, as a long-running protest worsened.

They acted after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a government radio station already under their control. The strikers used the stations to tell parents to ignore Monday's start of the school year and keep children at home.

Teachers have been striking since May to demand higher wages and Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz's resignation.

The shooting began at a government-owned radio station already in the hands of the striking teachers. A number of rounds were fired by unknown gunmen, and the teachers say one of their members was injured. The attack prompted a violent retaliation by the teachers, and a number of buses were overturned and set on fire.

Dozens of the protesters also took over the privately-run radio stations and started broadcasting messages of defiance. Others armed with crude weapons blocked off some of the main roads into Oaxaca.

A spokesman for President Vicente Fox blamed the state government for attempting to take back the radio station by force. He said the attack was carried out without consulting the federal authorities and described it as a unilateral decision by the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz.

Governor Ruiz has become a key target for the teachers. Although their dispute started out in May as a campaign for more pay, it has since transformed into an attempt to get the governor to resign from office. The teachers say he is guilty of rigging the state election two years ago and of using heavy-handed tactics to deal with the strikers. The governor, who belongs to the former ruling party, the PRI, has refused to step down.

Last week a number of people were taken hostage by activists after gunmen opened fired on a teachers' march. They were later released.

The protests have also taken on a much wider context and have become woven into the continuing row over who won Mexico's presidential election.

Four months into this round of tension and parts of Oaxaca are starting to look ungovernable, and that could be a real challenge for the country's new leader.

At the closing conference of the EU Culture 2000 project 'Radio.Territories' in Vienna, Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann will be presenting a spectacle of European radio art, featuring highlights of the work that developed from the radio.territories project.

We would like people to send us miscellaneous one minute radio works which will be broadcast live on radio stations (including free103point9) across 7 countries on the 15th September 2006 from 19:00 - 20:00 Central European Time (+1 GMT). This is 2 p.m. EDT.

There will also be live micro-appearances in the studio from representatives of the contributing radio stations including Ed Baxter, the mastermind of Resonance 104.4-FM in London. Meistersoundtwister Dieb 13 from Vienna will be on hand to distort the proceedings.

Contributions are due by Sunday 10th September. Email them as high quality mp3 (256kbps stereo) to Sarah Washington at: washsarah@gmail.com.

Listen live on free103point9 Online Radio, www.free103point9.org.

Program will also air on:

Orange 94.0 (Vienna), fm station, http://o94.at/
Tlis (Bratislava), web station, http://www.tlis.sk/
Lemurie (Prague), web station, http://www.lemurie.cz/
Radio Grenouille (Marseille), fm station, http://www.grenouille888.org/
Resonance104.4fm (London), fm station, http://resonancefm.com/
Tilos Radio (Budapest), fm station, http://tilos.hu/
Radio Zero (Lisbon), web station, http://radio.ist.utl.pt/

Call for Submissions
Society for a Subliminal State Newsletter
Aka: Subliminal Statements
Due September 4, 2006

The ground speaks and has its way. It is beyond and below us yet
we take claim for what we do atop of it. Does it not have a mind of its
own - its own agency?

The Society for a Subliminal State is looking for true stories:
- Stories of land, sea, and air speaking.
- Time when presence, past and future combine.
- What is an alternative time of now.
- Do you know that islands move,
- Dead little animals create our homes,
- Lighthouses fall in love and transmit informative maps.
- History is a feeling not just a fact.

If you know anything about this please write us.

Send us your articles and poetry for the first issue of the Society for a
Subliminal State Newsletter.

Details

Deadline: Monday, September 4, 2006

Submission Requirements: The Society welcomes your articles and poetry on
any topics provoked by the above preamble. Submissions should be a maximum
of 500 words in length, but shorter submissions are appreciated. You may
submit images along with your written submission, but please do not submit
images alone.

In addition, please submit your full name as you would like it to appear
in print, and contact information that we can use to reach you.

Acceptable Formats:
• Text: rtf, txt, doc
• Images: png, tiff, jpeg, gif (8 MB max)

Email your Submissions to: subhist@subliminalstate.org

If accepted, your submissions will be published in the first issue of the
Society for a Subliminal State Newsletter, a compact format print
publication, and on the Society's web site. The print version will be
distributed for free to bookstores, art events and historical centers in
New York. It may be downloaded and copied for wider distribution.

About the Society

The Society for a Subliminal State is germinal organization started by
Carrie Dashow and Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg. The Society for a Subliminal
State agitates against the exclusive use of empirical evidence in the
search for truth. It is an organization that believes there many different
types of digging that may be productively undertaken. Still in its
infancy, the Society for a Subliminal State mirrors the form of a
traditional historical society, contributing to the public discourse
through a newsletter and a website. Governed by a growing board of
directors including artists, historians, and folklorists, the Society
accepts articles on topics avoided by publications that advocate fact
checking. The Society believes that if you see it three times then it too
may be the path to truth.

Visit the society's web site at http://www.subliminalstate.org/

Hairwaves: Call for works

WANTED: Radio, sound works & audio recordings on the theme of hair & hairdressing of any duration.
Hair themed playlists & musical dedications to hairstyles loved and loathed also welcomed.

DETAIL: this FM radio project will broadcast live from Glasgow for one day only. Transmitting to hair workers and their customers - barbers, hairdressers, salons stylists, wigmakers and other coiffed Glasgow listeners.

WHEN: deadline for receipt of work is Sep 29th 2006. The broadcast will take place in the Autumn.

FORMATS: Audio CD is the preferred format. But Dat, Mini Disc, MP3 (please do not send by email) Tape also accepted.

SEND TO: Hairwaves
Flat 2/2, 1088 Argyle Street,
Glasgow G3 8LY
SCOTLAND

CONTACT: hairwaves@gmail.com

The HAIRWAVES broadcast is part of a collaboration between Freight Design Glasgow and artists Mark Vernon & Zoë Irvine. It’s technical realization has been supported by Arts & Business Glasgow.

Deep Wireless - Radio Without Boundaries
Call for works on the theme: Trans-x

Deadline for submissions - September 30th, 2006

Trans = from, across, beyond, through; X = unknown quantity.

transmission, transport, transversal, transgender, transaction, transitive, translation, transportation, transverse, transnational, translocal…

Make your own theme by adding a word to replace the X and create a piece for radio that reflects it.

New Adventures in Sound Art invites submissions of any duration less than 60 minutes in length that reflects the theme TRANS-X, makes use of original sound sources in interesting and innovative ways and are suitable for radio broadcast. Note there will be a special category called “Radio Art Interventions” on the same theme for pieces one minute in length.

Pieces will be selected for broadcast within Canada and on several international radio stations in May 2006 as part of the Deep Wireless festival of radio and transmission art. Deep Wireless celebrates radio as a creative and artistic medium for cultural expression.

The International submissions will be considered for inclusion in the following:

-The Deep Wireless 4 radio art compilation CD
-The radio art interventions (1 minute pieces played guerilla-style on radio stations during the Deep Wireless festival)
-The Radio Art Salon – a listening gallery of radio art works exhibited for the month of May

A small number of Canadian artists will be chosen from the submissions to be part of the Deep Wireless Commissioning Programme in 2007 co-produced with CBC radio's outfront with residencies at Charles Street Video in Toronto.

On June 28, the Senate Commerce Committee completed its mark-up of comprehensive telecom reform legislation. The Committee included, without amendment, Title VI, the "Wireless Innovation Act of 2006," which directs the FCC to open the vacant, unused TV channel frequencies in each local TV market (also known as TV band “white space”) for unlicensed wireless broadband use (FCC Docket 04-186). Originally sponsored by Senators Stevens (R-AK), Allen (R-VA), Sununu (R-NH), Boxer (D-CA), Kerry (D-MA) and Dorgan (D-ND), the provision is supported by a majority of both parties due to the enormous potential it holds to spread affordable wireless broadband access, particularly to rural areas.

Unfortunately, the broadcast TV and wireless microphone industries oppose the proposal and continue to spread misinformation about it, arguing that allowing unlicensed use of this white space would cause harmful interference to the 13% of American households that continue to rely on over-the-air TV reception (the rest subscribe to cable or satellite TV). New America's Issue Brief—authored by three of the nation's most respected spectrum engineers—demonstrates why the broadcasters' technical claims are unfounded.

“Why Unlicensed Use of Vacant TV Spectrum Will Not Cause Interference to DTV Viewers,” explains why the use of “smart radios,” in combination with the conventional FCC rulemaking process, will be enough to ensure that DTV receivers and other licensed uses of the TV band are not harmed by unlicensed devices. This Issue Brief expands on and updates an earlier one released by New America in October 2005, and incorporates responses to the incumbents’ latest arguments on Capitol Hill. The co-authors are:

Michael Marcus, former FCC Associate Chief for Technology, Office of Engineering and Technology
Paul Kolodzy, former Chair, FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force
Andrew Lippman, founding Associate Director, MIT Media Lab

http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Doc_File_3166_1.pdf

Other useful documents on the TV White Space debate are available free from New America, including:

Consumer/High-Tech White Space Coalition Fact Sheet: Benefits of White Space
New America Foundation/Free Press Analysis on TV White Space Availability in Sample of U.S. Markets
Wireless Public Safety Data Networks Operating on Unlicensed Spectrum
The Economic Case for Unlicensed Use of the TV White Space

Thanks for your interest.

Michael Calabrese
Director, Wireless Future Program
New America Foundation
www.spectrumpolicy.org