Behold, Lapham’s Quarterly.

Net neutrality is on its way to being gutted. Time Warner has rammed a bulk mail rate increase that severely undercuts small periodicals. Small presses are dying and quirky imprints like Thunder’s Mouth are being gutted.

And remember the Fairness Doctrine shot down by Reagan? Well, it seems that the Republicans want to bring back the debate through the dubiously named Broadcaster Freedom Act (PDF).

It seems that letting the issue die twenty years ago wasn’t enough. One of Senator Sam Rayburn’s great legislative accomplishments — The Communications Act of 1934 — is being completely destroyed — even with the enthusiastic help of many Democrats. Here is the clause in question:

Notwithstanding section 303 or any other provision of this Act or any other Act authorizing the Commission to prescribe rules, regulations, policies, doctrines, standards, or other requirements, the Commission shall not have the authority to prescribe any rule, regulation, policy, doctrine, standard, or other requirement that has the purpose or effect of reinstating or repromulgating (in whole or in part) the requirement that broadcasters present opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance, commonly referred to as the ‘Fairness Doctrine’, as repealed in General Fairness Doctrine Obligations of Broadcast Licensees, 50 Fed.Reg. 35418 (1985).

Congress wants to ensure that the FCC never considers the concept of the Fairness Doctrine ever again.

The Oreganian has a solid overview of the Fairness Doctrine, which revisits the failed 2005 efforts to re-adopt the Fairness Doctrine through the Media Ownership Reform Act and offers this telling quote from Representative Greg Walden:

Among the five stations Walden owns is KACI, which airs conservative talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Reagan. While the stations offer some local, objective news reporting, they don’t balance the conservative talkers with liberal shows.

Walden acknowledges the rightward slant of talk radio but attributes it to consumer demand.

“Is it more conservative than liberal? Yeah,” Walden said. “Are there a lot more country-western stations than polka stations? Yeah. Listeners make these determinations. The marketplace decides.”

Reuters: “The U.S. Federal Trade Commission warned Wednesday against regulations to ensure providers of high-speed Internet service treat all content the same way, saying such rules could stifle innovation. Network neutrality proposals, backed by Internet content companies like Google Inc. and eBay Inc., would bar Internet providers from charging extra fees to guarantee access to the Internet or give priority to some content. In a report, the FTC sided with high-speed Internet providers such as AT&T and Verizon, saying the government should be cautious about imposing such regulations.”

Folks, this is extremely horrible news. Ending net neutrality means that the Internet is a place where only those who can pay for it are capable of expressing themselves — in effect, turning the democratic foundations of the Internet into something no different from other media. Kill off net neutrality and Internet freedom of speech becomes dedicated to those who can pay for it.

The FCC has launched a public inquiry into the matter. You now have seven days before the consideration period is over. Act now to save net neutrality and maintain the Internet!

New York Times: “On a Sunday night last month at Daddy’s, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, more than a dozen people in their 20s and 30s gathered at a professional soiree, drinking frozen margaritas and nibbling store-bought cookies. With their thrift-store inspired clothes and abundant tattoos, they looked as if they could be filmmakers, Web designers, coffee shop purveyors or artists.”

I don’t know what to be more alarmed by in this article: the Times only just discovering that librarians don’t always live up to the bespectacled stereotype (something that has been common knowledge for quite some time now) or the librarian hipster angle. The last thing you need when asking for a roll of microfilm is some languorous asshole giving you an ironic answer.

“Hi there! How’s it going? Can I get the November 1978 New York Times?”

“1978. Man, that was the year of Lou Reed’s live album. The one where he talks about the origin of ‘Walk on the Wild Side.'”

“Yes. Actually, can I just get the microfilm please?”

“Dude, don’t you dig Reed? Reed is why I moved to New York! Or are you one of those guys who believes a Welshman did most of the work for the VU?”

“I just need the microfilm, thanks.”

“Answer my question: Reed or Cale?”

“Is this Satellite Records or the New York Public Library?”

“I’m not going to give you the microfilm until you lay your cred down, son.”

“Alright, pops. Can you please give me the fucking microfilm before I physically demonstrate the meaning of ‘The Black Angel’s Death Song?'”

(Thanks, Jeff Severs!)

From the years 1942-1966, Orville Prescott served as the main daily book critic for the New York Times. It would seem to me, based on some of Prescott’s remarkable assessments, that Michiko Kakutani’s hostility against nearly almost anything fictional fits in with a long Gray Lady tradition of daily critics who remain mostly hostile to fiction.

On Lolita: “‘Lolita,’ then, is undeniably news in the world of books. Unfortunately, it is bad news. There are two equally serious reasons why it isn’t worth any adult reader’s attention. The first is that it is dull, dull, dull in a pretentious, florid and archly fatuous fashion. The second is that it is repulsive.”

On Catch-22: “‘Catch-22,’ by Joseph Heller, is not an entirely successful novel. It is not even a good novel. It is not even a good novel by conventional standards.”

On The Floating Opera: “Most of this odd novel is dull. Most of its humor is labored and flat. Some of its heavy-handed attempts to shock seem cheap in a juvenile and nasty way rather than sophisticated or realistic, as they probably were intended.” (Never mind that Barth’s first novel is a beautifully twisted satire of Camus.)