Remember the Star Wars Kid? Remember ‘All Your Bases Are Belong To Us’? Remember that cute - slightly creepy - dancing baby that shook its booty accompanied by the ‘Hooked on a Feeling’ tune?
Ooga Chaka , Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka. So cute. So wrong.
Anyways, these infamous examples of internet phenomenon are about to be joined by the words of an 82 year old Republican Senator from Alaska.
“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.”
Oops. Did that make any sense? I guess not. The quote is credited to Senator Ted Stevens, a Chairman of the (US) Senate Commerce Committee — one of net neutrality’s chief opponents. Now before I get the chance to tear this poor 82 year old Senator apart (have I no sense of decency?), I guess I should explain what net neutrality means.
The aims of net neutrality are simple: web applications, services, and content should all be given the same treatment insofar as speed and quality of service. It’s usually taken for granted, but it’s not always the case. An internet provider can perhaps choose to provide speedy, convenient access to a company for which they share a promotional deal, and instead limit or block access to a rival’s website. Does that sound fair to you?
internet = tubes
“And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.”
Senator Ted Stevens
Supporters of net neutrality include the big high tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Yahoo, but also includes individual support by many high profile men and women, such as the very pretty, very charming, and I must say, very vivacious Alyssa Milano.
And the bad boys? The opposition of net neutrality primarily comes from the corporate heavy hitters: broadband companies like AT&T and Verizon Communications. To them, a legislation on net neutrality would impose unnecessary restrictions on the internet. It is, after all, their service they’re offering to the public. They should be allowed to set the rules, right?
You stew on that. But I’ll take whatever Alyssa’s having, thank you very much.
Okay, let’s get back to Senator Stevens. On June 28, the US Senate Commerce Committee narrowly rejected a bill that would have enforced net neutrality (to quite a sizable degree). During the proceedings, Senator Stevens, gave an interesting 11 minute speech on how the internet really works. Well, according to him.
“There’s one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. […] But this service is now going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.
Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?
[…]
The internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes.”
Look. I get it. He’s old. Give him a break. Back off, sister.
But see, it doesn’t work like that. Whether the Senator is an eager young man in his 20s or a graying senior citizen in his 80s, is it too much to ask for him to display some degree of competence towards an issue for which he’s suppose to decide on? Let me be honest here, dispose of any eloquence I may possess, and suffer the wrath of all you geezers:
Senator Stevens is a moron. Morons should not be deciding the future legislation of the internet.
Right, okay. But (un)fortunately for Stevens, his ignorance seems to have taken the internet by storm. You can see mock slide shows of Stevens’ speech, fashionable t-shirts, and even a bass thumpin’ techno remix. In fact, Stevens’ related parodies are cropping up faster than Myspace homepages, created by pubescent and hormonally challenged boys. Okay, bad example.
Give it a week. I’m betting that somewhere, in this vast mess of tubes we call the internet, someone’s going to make a video of a very familiar Senator, buck naked, and dancing to that rhythmic chanting we all know oh-so-well.
Ooga Chaka , Ooga Ooga Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka, Ooga Chaka…
Phil’s Proof » What do you want? says,
[…] After my first post, a literary tour-de-force, I came right back and delivered even more hot ‘n steamy action. I spoke about geezer politicians and about Hollywood blockbusters. I poured my heart out in a beautiful retelling of a personal encounter at a coffeehouse, then delighted the musically curious with a smashing orchestral piece. I wrote about beautiful women and how we should treat them. And then the e-mails came. […]