Monty Python used to have a running gag called the Gumbys. They would put on moustaches, shorts, place diapers on their heads, and talk sheer lunacy for effect. CORRECTION: There's an update to this piece below the fold which could make this reference even-more apt.
Former FCC commissioner Harold W. Furchtgott-Roth, now a fellow of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute , is a Gumby.
This guy is so Clueless that, in an age when any wingnut can practically become a millionaire by snapping his fingers, he can apparently get his stuff published only in the New York Sun, a right-wing daily with few readers, no business model, and a crappy Web site that won't let you inside its home page without giving them tons of personal information. So no link.
Instead, you'll have to read the whole thing:
When it comes to the Internet, many American businesses lobby the federal government intensively on issues ranging from taxes to security to intellectual property. It turns out that some people believe these and other issues should be resolved by the United Nations.
UPDATE: While I was given a copy of the Ross column via Dave Farber's own list, which in turn was forwarded a copy from a subscriber to Ross's mailing list, Corante President and COO Stowe Boyd received the following today from The New York Sun:
From: Daniel Perez
Date: July 20, 2005 11:37:49 AM EDT
To:
Cc: Maggie Shnayerson
Subject: Unauthorized NY Sun Article
Stowe,
A recent audit of Web sites, to which contain articles published by
The New York Sun, has revealed that http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/
contains an article (
http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/2005/07/19/harold_w_furchtgottroth_gumby.php#more)
written by HAROLD FURCHTGOTT-ROTH published on July 19, 2005 in The
New York Sun. Please be aware such articles require authorization from
The New York Sun, as mandated by our organization's Terms of Use,
http://www.nysun.com/terms.php.
To receive authorization or purchase an article from The New York
Sun, please contact Laura Sinberg at (212) 406-2000. However, we
would ask that you please remove the article posted on
http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/ in the meantime.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Regards,
Daniel Perez
Manager of New Media Sales & Operations
The New York Sun
105 Chambers Street
New York, NY 10007
[p] 212-500-1083
[c] 917-981-6569
[e] dperez@nysun.com
[w] www.nysun.com
Let's get this straight. Your own contributor is in violation of your site's TOS for trying to gain publicity about what he wrote for you. And you're spending money on a service that lets you keep people from reading what you're publishing, while you hide it all behind a registration firewall. Uh-huh. Sounds more like an unpublisher to me, but you're the doctor, Mr. Perez, and your wish is my command!
We now return you to our previously-scheduled harrangue.
This reads like a Declaration of War from a petulant child. Especially the crap at the end about Bolton, who is on record as opposing the UN and all its works.
Roth ignores the fact that this Administration has unilaterally nationalized management the world Internet, rendering inoperative its earlier promises to
fully privitize management of the root under ICANN contracts.
Roth conveniently ignores the fact that Americans are the chief spammers of
the world, the chief producers of spyware, and the cheap thieves of bandwidth from everyone else, with no promise -- indeed no hope -- of bringing our laws on these areas into conformance with worldwide norms. (As the victim of a continuing Joe Job from one of these hosers, Michael Lindsay of iMedia, I take this sort of thing a little personally.)
Instead we get this, well, fearmongering. Notice the list of UN "delegates" -- "China, Cuba, Iran, and other countries." They're being used deliberately, provocatively, the way red meat is waved at wolves.
My great fear is that the ITU may take this idiocy as the final word from
the Bush Administration (rather than a column by a single former official),
and let a contract to construct a separate DNS root structure, to which signatories might point in preference to those roots managed by ICANN.
Does Roth know that? Does he care? Does he think the U.S. can control the Internet through force of arms?
Is he stupid? Is everyone in Washington so filled with hubris? I don't live
inside the Beltway, I'm just a freelance tech reporter in Atlanta.
But the place needs to be fumigated.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Kieren McCarthy on July 20, 2005 04:53 PM writes...
You can read Mr F-Got-Rot's nonsense on his own website here:
http://www.furchtgott-roth.com/news.php?id=59&PHPSESSID=2b2a43de2530f3672727a9ef9992e9d4
Let the NY Sun send him a seize and desist letter, make it a real story.
Kieren
Permalink to Comment2. Jesse Kopelman on July 22, 2005 04:18 PM writes...
HFR was a great FCC commissioner, always dissenting with the majority opinons which was good because they were almost always wrong. That said, I always knew he was a right wing-nut (but the good small government kind the FCC needs more of). Now, I wonder if his past greatness was only in comparison to the utter steaming pile that is the FCC. It could also be that the he had a good staff at the FCC and chose to listen to them (I have no problem with the general FCC employees, just the commission itself).
Permalink to Comment