#Santa Clara High School

[santaclaralocalnews]

It was a party atmosphere at multiple Santa Clara Unified School District schools last week as they celebrated the milestone class of 2024. “This was the first class that was here the whole time after COVID pandemic, and we are looking forward to the return to normalcy that comes with that. It feels more like school than it has for quite a few years,” said Santa Clara High School (SCHS) Principal Gregory Shelby. Read complete news at svvoice.com.

[leophnyx]

Books From a Non-Human Perspective

I've seen discussions on books going around the alterhuman community, and it caused me to recall some of my own favorite books from a non-human perspective. The most memorable of these were from a non-human perspective, and focused more on nonhuman existence, than supernatural or fantastical elements.

I've noticed that I tend towards books that are more realistic- not to say that I only read realistic books, but many of the stories I like are focused on the animal's point of view, aren't really shapeshifting focused, and are more focused on being "practically nonhuman". Like, you'll see what I mean if you check out the books 😉

(I've added descriptions and images from the books to the post, all credit goes to Google/Amazon.)

Child of the Wolves - Elizabeth Hall

Granite, a Siberian husky puppy, is all alone in the Alaskan forest after escaping from his kennel. Each moment of his life is threatened until Snowdrift, a great white wolf, welcomes him into a wolf pack. But Granite must earn his place among the wolf tribe by facing vicious attacks from the other wolves, the human wolf hunters, and the constant challenges of the frozen forest.

Lexi's Tale - Johanna Hurwitz

Can Lexi, the street-smart squirrel and his friend PeeWee, a well-read guinea pig, make a difference in the life of a man living hungry and friendless in Central Park?

The Werewolf Club and the Magic Pretzel (series) - Daniel and Jill Pinkwater

Everyone knows people turn into werewolves if they are bitten by a werewolf, but did you know you can turn into a werewolf by:

1.Thinking about werewolves

2.Reading a book like this one

3.For no reason at all

Norman Gnormal didn’t know this until someone signed him up for the Werewolf Club at school. Raised as a puppy (he’s pretty sure his parents wanted a dog but got him instead), he never quite fit in with most kids at school, who don’t growl at people or dig holes in the lawn. But in the Werewolf Club he finds home with other kids who like running on all fours and howling at the moon.

When the club learns that their teacher has been cursed, the only way to cure him is with Alexander the Great’s magic pretzel. But will the club be able to find the pretzel? And can Norman, the only non-werewolf in the club, keep up?

Lionboy (series) - Zizou Corder

When his parents are kidnapped, what's ten-year-old Charlie Ashanti to do? Rescue them, that's what! He doesn't know who has taken his parents, or why. But he does know that one special talent will aid him on his journey--his amazing ability to speak Cat. Charlie calls on his clever feline friends--from stray city cats to magnificent caged lions--for help. With them by his side, Charlie uses wit and courage to try to find his parents before it's too late.

The Call of the Wild - Jack London

The Call of the Wild is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush—a period when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The novel's central character is a dog named Buck, a domesticated dog living at a ranch in the Santa Clara valley of California as the story opens.

Stolen from his home and sold into the brutal existence of an Alaskan sled dog, he reverts to atavistic traits. Buck is forced to adjust to, and survive, cruel treatments and fight to dominate other dogs in a harsh climate. Eventually he sheds the veneer of civilization, relying on primordial instincts and lessons he learns, to emerge as a leader in the wild. London lived for most of a year in the Yukon collecting material for the book.

The story was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in the summer of 1903; a month later it was released in book form. The novel’s great popularity and success made a reputation for London. Much of its appeal derives from the simplicity with which London presents the themes in an almost mythical form. As early as 1908 the story was adapted to film and it has since seen several more cinematic adaptations.

White Fang- Jack London

White Fang is a novel by American author Jack London (1876–1916) — and the name of the book's eponymous character, a wild wolfdog. First serialized in Outing magazine, it was published in 1906. The story takes place in Yukon Territory, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush and details White Fang's journey to domestication. It is a companion novel (and a thematic mirror) to London's best-known work, The Call of the Wild, which is about a kidnapped, domesticated dog embracing his wild ancestry to survive and thrive in the wild. Much of White Fang is written from the viewpoint of the titular canine character, enabling London to explore how animals view their world and how they view humans. White Fang examines the violent world of wild animals and the equally violent world of humans. The book also explores complex themes including morality and redemption.

Return of the Wolf - Dorothy Hinshaw Patent

Clarion author Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is well known and highly respected for her natural history books. "Return of the Wolf," her first work of fiction, draws on her extensive knowledge of wolf behavior, based on first-hand observation. In the course of a year, Sedra, a young female wolf, establishes her own territory, finds a mate, and begins a new wolf pack. Quick-paced, dramatic, and told from the wolf's point of view, this story contains fascinating details of wolves' life in the wild: their communication, the birth and training of pups, and the pack's strategies for hunting and survival.

Frightful's Mountain - Jean Craighead George

Sam Gribley has been told that it is illegal to harbor an endangered bird, so when his beloved falcon, Frightful, comes home, he has to let her go. But Frightful doesn’t know how to live alone in the wild. She can’t feed herself, mate, brood chicks, or migrate. Frightful struggles to survive and learns to enjoy her new freedom. But she feels a bond with Sam that can never be broken, and more than anything else, she wants to return to him.

Runt - Marion Dane Bauer

DEEP IN THE Minnesota forest, where only the strong survive, four regular-sized pups—Leader, Sniffer, Runner, and Thinker—are pushed into the world. Then one last, very small pup is born into the wolf pack. He is called Runt.

From the very start, Runt struggles in the harsh wild world of the wolves. He tries learning along with his brothers and sisters, but makes serious mistakes. It’s hard pleasing his father, King, and the other wolves. If only Runt could prove himself to his powerful father and family. . . .

The Puppy Sister - S. E. Hilton

Nick and his parents get more than they bargained for when their newly adopted puppy, Aleasha, decides she'll have more fun with her new "family" if she becomes human, too. So begins a laugh-out-loud adventure told from Aleasha's point of view, about her transformation from puppy to girl.

Alien in a Bottle - Kathy Mackel

If Dinn Tauro hadn't shot Tagg Orion off the Inter-Dimensional Wheel, Tagg and his sidekick, Squeeto, would never have crashed on that nowhere planet called Earth. And Sean Winger would never have found the two extraterrestrials in a bottle on the beach.

Without the aliens Sean wouldn't have a hope of entering a glass sculpture in the Hollis Art Fair -- and winning a scholarship. That's all Sean really wants in this world. Sean just needs two things -- glass and fire. He knows his parents won't help. So when Tagg offers Sean three wishes in exchange for protecting him from Dinn Tauro, how can Sean refuse?

Could two extraterrestrials really hold the answers to Sean's yearnings? Or are they only taking him on an extraterrestrial ride?

We3 (comic) - Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly

Writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely deliver the emotional journey of WE3 - three house pets weaponized for lethal combat by the government - as they search for "home" and ward off the shadowy agency that created them.

With nervous systems amplified to match their terrifying mechanical exoskeletons, the members of Animal Weapon 3 (WE3) have the firepower of a battalion between them. But they are just the program's prototypes, and now that their testing is complete, they're slated to be permanently "decommissioned," causing them to seize their one chance to make a desperate run for freedom. Relentlessly pursued by their makers, the WE3 team must navigate a frightening and confusing world where their instincts and heightened abilities make them as much a threat as those hunting them - but a world, nonetheless, in which somewhere there is something called "home."

[haggishlyhagging]

It would take Diane Joyce nearly ten years of battles to become the first female skilled crafts worker ever in Santa Clara County history. It would take another seven years of court litigation, pursued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, before she could actually start work. And then, the real fight would begin.

For blue-collar women, there was no honeymoon period on the job; the backlash began the first day they reported to work—and only intensified as the Reagan economy put more than a million blue-collar men out of work, reduced wages, and spread mounting fear. While the white-collar world seemed capable of absorbing countless lawyers and bankers in the 80s, the trades and crafts had no room for expansion. "Women are far more economically threatening in blue-collar work, because there are a finite number of jobs from which to choose," Mary Ellen Boyd, executive director of Non-Traditional Employment for Women, observes. "An MBA can do anything. But a plumber is only a plumber." While women never represented more than a few percentage points of the blue-collar work force, in this powder-keg situation it only took a few female faces to trigger a violent explosion.

Diane Joyce arrived in California in 1970, a thirty-three-year-old widow with four children, born and raised in Chicago. Her father was a tool-and-die maker, her mother a returned-goods clerk at a Walgreen's warehouse. At eighteen, she married Donald Joyce, a tool-and-die maker's apprentice at her father's plant. Fifteen years later, after working knee-deep in PCBs for years, he died suddenly of a rare form of liver cancer.

After her husband's death, Joyce taught herself to drive, packed her children in a 1966 Chrysler station wagon and headed west to San Jose, California, where a lone relative lived. Joyce was an experienced bookkeeper and she soon found work as a clerk in the county Office of Education, at $506 a month. A year later, she heard that the county's transportation department had a senior account clerk job vacant that paid $50 more a month. She applied in March 1972.

"You know, we wanted a man," the interviewer told her as soon as she walked through the door. But the account clerk jobs had all taken a pay cut recently, and sixteen women and no men had applied for the job. So he sent her on to the second interview. "This guy was a little politer," Joyce recalls. "First, he said, 'Nice day, isn't it?' before he tells me, 'You know, we wanted a man.' I wanted to say, 'Yeah, and where's my man? I am the man in my house.' But I'm sitting there with four kids to feed and all I can see is dollar signs, so I kept my mouth shut."

She got the job. Three months later, Joyce saw a posting for a "road maintenance man." An eighth-grade education and one year's work experience was all that was required, and the pay was $723 a month. Her current job required a high-school education, bookkeeping skills, and four years' experience— and paid $150 less a month. "I saw that flier and I said, ‘Oh wow, I can do that.’ Everyone in the office laughed. They thought it was a riot. . . . I let it drop."

But later that same year, every county worker got a 2 to 5 percent raise except for the 70 female account clerks. "Oh now, what do you girls need a raise for?" the director of personnel told Joyce and some other women who went before the board of supervisors to object. "All you'd do is spend the money on trips to Europe." Joyce was shocked. "Every account clerk I knew was supporting a family through death or divorce. I'd never seen Mexico, let alone Europe." Joyce decided to apply for the next better-paying "male" job that opened. In the meantime, she became active in the union; a skillful writer and one of the best-educated representatives there, Joyce wound up composing the safety language in the master contract and negotiating what became the most powerful county agreement protecting seniority rights.

In 1974, a road dispatcher retired, and both Joyce and a man named Paul Johnson, a former oil-fields roustabout, applied for the post. The supervisors told Joyce she needed to work on the road crew first and handed back her application. Johnson didn't have any road crew experience either, but his application was accepted. In the end, the job went to another man.

Joyce set out to get road crew experience. As she was filling out her application for the next road crew job that opened, in 1975, her supervisor walked in, asked what she was doing, and turned red. "You're taking a man's job away!" he shouted. Joyce sat silently for a minute, thinking. Then she said, "No, I'm not. Because a man can sit right here where I'm sitting."

In the evenings, she took courses in road maintenance and truck and light equipment operation. She came in third out of 87 applicants on the job test; there were ten openings on the road crew, and she got one of them.

For the next four years, Joyce carried tar pots on her shoulder, pulled trash from the median strip, and maneuvered trucks up the mountains to clear mud slides. "Working outdoors was great," she says. "You know, women pay fifty dollars a month to join a health club, and here I was getting paid to get in shape." The road men didn't exactly welcome her arrival. When they trained her to drive the bobtail trucks, she says, they kept changing instructions; one gave her driving tips that nearly blew up the engine. Her supervisor wouldn't issue her a pair of coveralls; she had to file a formal grievance to get them. In the yard, the men kept the ladies' room locked, and on the road they wouldn't stop to let her use the bathroom. "You wanted a man's job, you learn to pee like a man," her supervisor told her.

Obscene graffiti about Joyce appeared on the sides of trucks. Men threw darts at union notices she posted on the bulletin board. One day, the stockroom storekeeper, Tony Laramie, who says later he liked to call her "the piglet," called a general meeting in the depot's Ready Room. "I hate the day you came here," Laramie started screaming at Joyce as the other men looked on, many nodding. "We don't want you here. You don't belong here. Why don't you go the hell away?"

Joyce's experience was typical of the forthright and often violent backlash within the blue-collar work force, an assault undisguised by decorous homages to women's "difference." At a construction site in New York, for example, where only a few female hard-hats had found work, the men took a woman's work boots and hacked them into bits. Another woman was injured by a male co-worker; he hit her on the head with a two-by-four. In Santa Clara County, where Joyce worked, the county's equal opportunity office files were stuffed with reports of ostracism, hazing, sexual harassment, threats, verbal and physical abuse. "It's pervasive in some of the shops," says John Longabaugh, the county's equal employment officer at the time. "They mess up their tools, leave pornography on their desks. Safety equipment is made difficult to get, or unavailable." A maintenance worker greeted the first woman in his department with these words: "I know someone who would break your arm or leg for a price." Another new woman was ordered to clean a transit bus by her supervisor—only to find when she climbed aboard that the men had left a little gift for her: feces smeared across the seats.

In 1980, another dispatcher job opened up. Joyce and Johnson both applied. They both got similarly high scores on the written exam. Joyce now had four years' experience on the road crew; Paul Johnson only had a year and a half. The three interviewers, one of whom later referred to Joyce in court as "rabble-rousing" and "not a lady," gave the job to Johnson. Joyce decided to complain to the county athrmative action office.

The decision fell to James Graebner, the new director of the transportation department, an engineer who believed that it was about time the county hired its first woman for its 238 skilled-crafts jobs. Graebner confronted the roads director, Ron Shields. "What's wrong with the woman?" Graebner asked. “I hate her," Shields said, according to other people in the room. "I just said I thought Johnson was more qualified," is how Shields remembers it. "She didn't have the proficiency with heavy equipment." Neither, of course, did Johnson. Not that it was relevant anyway: dispatch is an office job that doesn't require lifting anything heavier than a microphone.

Graebner told Shields he was being overruled; Joyce had the job. Later that day, Joyce recalls, her supervisor called her into the conference room. "Well, you got the job," he told her. "But you're not qualified." Johnson, meanwhile, sat by the phone, dialing up the chain of command. "I felt like tearing something up," he recalls later. He demanded a meeting with the affirmative action office. "The affirmative action man walks in," Johnson says, "and he's this big black guy. He can't tell me anything. He brings in this minority who can barely speak English . . . I told them, 'You haven't heard the last of me.'" Within days, he had hired a lawyer and set his reverse discrimination suit in motion, contending that the county had given the job to a "less qualified" woman.

In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled against Johnson. The decision was hailed by women's and civil rights groups. But victory in Washington was not the same as triumph in the transportation yard. For Joyce and the road men, the backlash was just warming up. "Something like this is going to hurt me one day," Gerald Pourroy, a foreman in Joyce's office, says of the court's ruling, his voice low and bitter. He stares at the concrete wall above his desk. "I look down the tracks and I see the train coming toward me."

The day after the Supreme Court decision, a woman in the county office sent Joyce a congratulatory bouquet, two dozen carnations. Joyce arranged the flowers in a vase on her desk. The next day they were gone. She found them finally, crushed in a garbage bin. A road foreman told her, "I drop-kicked them across the yard."

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[bg-sparrow]

★ [The Boy Who Leapt Through Time (and Time Again) on AO3] ★

(Bracelet Masterlist Here) TWIN PINES MASTERLIST

Mountain Dew Hat Man [F]

Video Rental [F]

Peanut Brittle [F]

Backyard Cookout [F]

"Don't Need Money, Don't Take Fame" [F]

Lite Beer [F]

Back in Town [F]

Manure Truck Driver [F]

A New Puppy [F]

Rite of Passage [F]

Baking Joey's Cake [F]

All-nighter [F]

Campfire [F]

Jennifer's Porch Swing [F]

"I think about it all the time." [F]

Synchronicity [F]

Dave's Night Off [F]

"Roll With Me, Henry" [F]

Playing Hooky [F]

Local Legend [F]

Babysitter [F]

"Duded-up, egg-suckin' gutter trash" [F]

Marlene's sleepover [F]

Out in the Desert [F]

The Honeymooners [F]

Clara's Diphtheria [F]

Twin Pines Mall Santa [F]

On the Radio [F]

24-Hour Scientific Services [F]

Blindspot [F]

Pepsi-Free (Free Day!) [F]

LONE PINE MASTERLIST

Mountain Dew Hat Man [F]

"Something very familiar about all this" [F]

Book Signing [F]

Hell Valley Biker Gang Ride [F]

"I Got to Double Back, My Friend" [F]

Biff's Grand Opening [F]

High School Sweetheart [F]

Wrong House [F]

Stolen Idea [F]

Point of No Return [F]

Reading George's First Draft [F]

The Easy Way [F]

Weather Experiment [F]

Jennifer's Bad Dream [F]

"Erased from Existence" [F]

Paradox [F]

Linda's Boutique [F]

Hill County Asylum [F]

A Sight for Sore Eyes [F]

Sleepyhead [F]

Bodyguard [F]

Lifelong Secret [F]

Marlene's Plan [F]

The Bottom of Clayton Ravine [F]

Tennis Match [F]

"YOUTH JAILED" [F]

Lone Pine Mall Santa [F]

Boarding School [F]

Something in the Mail [F]

Automobile Accident [F]

Pepsi Free (Free Day!) [F]

[daryfromthefuture]

🎵 MCFLY JULY 2024⭐️

have you ever wondered what marty's life looked like prior to his time travel escapades - in both timelines? for this year's mcfly july, i am uncovering his diary entries, one prompt at a time!

format: 🌲🌲/🌲

mountain dew hat man

video rental/"something very familiar about all this"

peanut brittle/book signing

backyard cookout/hill valley biker gang ride

"don't need money, don't take fame"/"i got to double back, my friend"

lite beer/biff's grand opening

back in town/high school sweetheart

manure truck driver/wrong house

a new puppy/stolen idea

rite of passage/point of no return

baking joey's cake/reading george's first draft

all-nighter/the easy way

campfire/weather experiment

jennifer's porch swing/jennifer's bad dream

"i think about it all the time/"erased from existence"

synchronicity/paradox

dave's night off/linda's boutique

"roll with me henry"/hill county asylym

playing hooky/a sight for sore eyes

local legend/sleepyhead

babysitter/bodyguard

"duded-up, egg-suckin gutter trash"/lifelong secret

marlene's sleepover/marlene's plan

out in the desert/the bottom of clayton ravine

the honeymooners/tennis match

clara's diphtheria/"YOUTH JAILED"

twin pines mall santa/lone pine mall santa

on the radio/boarding school

24-hour scientific services/something in the mail

blind spot/automobile accident

pepsi free (free day!)

(i took the banner picture myself. i know, hard to believe i know marty mcfly in person 😎)

[bgsbracelets]

★ Bracelet Edition! ★

TWIN PINES MASTERLIST

Mountain Dew Hat Man [B]

Video Rental [B]

Peanut Brittle [B]

Backyard Cookout [B]

"Don't Need Money, Don't Take Fame" [B]

Lite Beer [B]

Back in Town [B]

Manure Truck Driver [B]

A New Puppy [B]

Rite of Passage [B]

Baking Joey's Cake [B]

All-nighter [B]

Campfire [B]

Jennifer's Porch Swing [B]

"I think about it all the time." [B]

Synchronicity [B]

Dave's Night Off [B]

"Roll With Me, Henry" [B]

Playing Hooky [B]

Local Legend [B]

Babysitter [B]

"Duded-up, egg-suckin' gutter trash" [B]

Marlene's sleepover [B]

Out in the Desert[B]

The Honeymooners [B]

Clara's Diphtheria [B]

Twin Pines Mall Santa [B]

On the Radio [B]

24-Hour Scientific Services [B]

Blindspot [B]

Pepsi-Free (Free Day!) [B]

LONE PINE MASTERLIST

Mountain Dew Hat Man [B]

"Something very familiar about all this" [B]

Book Signing [B]

Hell Valley Biker Gang Ride [B]

"I Got to Double Back, My Friend" [B]

Biff's Grand Opening [B]

High School Sweetheart [B]

Wrong House [B]

Stolen Idea [B]

Point of No Return [B]

Reading George's First Draft [B]

The Easy Way [B]

Weather Experiment [B]

Jennifer's Bad Dream [B]

"Erased from Existence" [B]

Paradox [B]

Linda's Boutique [B]

Hill County Asylum [B]

A Sight for Sore Eyes [B]

Sleepyhead [B]

Bodyguard [B]

Lifelong Secret [B]

Marlene's Plan [B]

The Bottom of Clayton Ravine [B]

Tennis Match [B]

"YOUTH JAILED" [B]

Lone Pine Mall Santa [B]

Boarding School [B]

Something in the Mail [B]

Automobile Accident [B]

Pepsi Free (Free Day!) [B]

[beardedmrbean]

One of two men who carried out a Satanist-inspired “thrill kill” murder in San Jose was freed from prison and released back into Santa Clara County. Former inmate Jae Williams, 29, was granted early release on November 20, court records show.

Williams was a 15-year-old high school student when he and his 16-year-old friend, Randy Thompson, decided they wanted to kill someone. The boys befriended 15-year-old Michael Russell with the sole intention of murdering him in 2009.

The victim’s family’s attorney, Scotty J. Storey, told KRON4, “Jae and Randy set out with a goal of killing someone just to find out what it felt like. They cultivated a ‘friendship’ with Mikey, lulling him into a sense of security with them, to achieve their goal.”

When San Jose Police Department homicide detectives were investigating the teen’s grisly death, Williams told police that his religion, Satanism, gave him permission to kill.

The three boys went to Russell’s house on Nov. 10, 2009. When the trio was alone in the backyard, Williams and Thompson attacked the victim with a knife. They reportedly took turns stabbing the Santa Teresa High School student.

Storey said the terror Russell must have felt realizing his “friends” were going to kill him is unimaginable.

With Williams freed from prison, the victim’s surviving family members are also terrified, Storey said.

“They are very disappointed in the legislative system that created the statute, which lead his release. They are also terrified for themselves and for society. There is no indication that Jae Williams ever showed any contrition or remorse for taking Mikey’s life or the brutal way that he and Randy murdered him,” Storey told KRON4.

For their trials, Thompson and Williams were charged and convicted as adults, and sentenced to serve 26 years to life in prison. Senate Bill 1391, passed in 2018, prohibits anyone under the age of 16 from being charged as an adult. After California’s law passed, Williams’ case was transferred into juvenile court.

Thompson — who was just one year older than Williams at the time of the “Thrill Kill” — remains locked up in San Quentin State Prison, a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson confirmed to KRON4. “He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder. He is in CDCR custody,” the spokesperson wrote.

Thompson’s next parole hearing is scheduled for March of 2024. He will be eligible for parole in May of 2028, according to state inmate records.

Williams was set free hours after a discharge hearing was held in Santa Clara County juvenile court on November 20. His mother, Christina Trujillo, and defense attorney, Lewis Octavio Romero, appeared in the courtroom with him, court records state.

The court set the following probation conditions on the convicted murderer’s release:

Williams cannot change his place of residence without prior approval from his probation officer.

Williams is forbidden from associating with Thompson. He is also barred from having any “intentional contact” with the victim’s family members.

He must participate in re-entry services.

He may not leave his family’s home between 11 p.m.-6 a.m.

He must attend school, vocational training, or maintain full-time employment.

Williams may not use, possess, or be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

He is subject to search and seizure at any time by law enforcement.

Williams is not allowed to own firearms until he turns 30 years old on June 8, 2024.

If Williams violates his probation conditions, he could be ordered back to jail for no longer than six months.

[lenbryant]

(LATimes) Michael Hiltzik: The revival of network neutrality - Los Angeles Times

Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel shepherded a restoration of network neutrality at the FCC.

(Jonathan Newton / Pool)

In the midst of its battle to extinguish the Mendocino Complex wildfire in 2018, the Santa Clara County Fire Department discovered that its internet connection provider, Verizon, had throttled their data flow virtually down to zero, cutting off communications for firefighters in the field. One firefighter died in the blaze and four were injured.

Verizon refused to restore service until the fire department signed up for a new account that more than doubled its bill. 

That episode has long been Exhibit A in favor of restoring the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to regulate broadband internet service, which the FCC abdicated in 2017, during the Trump administration.

This is an industry that requires a lot of scrutiny.

— Craig Aaron, Free Press, on the internet service industry

Now that era is over. On Thursday, the FCC — now operating with a Democratic majority — reclaimed its regulatory oversight of broadband via an order that passed on party lines, 3-2.

The commission’s action could scarcely be more timely.

“Four years ago,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel observed Thursday as the commission prepared to vote, “the pandemic changed life as we know it. ... Much of work, school and healthcare migrated to the internet. ... It became clear that no matter who you are or where you live, you need broadband to have a fair shot at digital age success. It went from ‘nice to have’ to ‘need to have.’ ”

Yet the commission in 2017 had thrown away its own ability to supervise this essential service. By categorizing broadband services as “information services,” it relinquished its right to address consumer complaints about crummy service, or even collect data on outages. It couldn’t prevent big internet service providers such as Comcast from favoring their own content or websites over competitors by degrading the rivals’ signals when they reached their subscribers’ homes. 

“We fixed that today,” Rosenworcel said.

The issue the FCC addressed Thursday is most often viewed in the context of “network neutrality.” This core principle of the open internet means simply that internet service providers can’t discriminate among content providers trying to reach your home or business online — they can’t block websites or services, or degrade their signal, slow their traffic or, conversely, provide a better traffic lane for some rather than others.

The principle is important because their control of the information highways and byways gives ISPs tremendous power, especially if they control the last mile of access to end users, as do cable operators such as Comcast and telecommunications firms such as Verizon. If they use that power to favor their own content or content providers that pay them for a fast lane, it’s consumers who suffer. 

Net neutrality has been a partisan football for more than two decades, or ever since high-speed broadband connections began to supplant dial-up modems. 

In legal terms, the battle has been over the classification of broadband under the Communications Act of 1934 — as Title I “information services” or Title II “telecommunications.” The FCC has no jurisdiction over Title I services, but great authority over those classified by Title II as common carriers.

The key inflection point came in 2002, when a GOP-majority FCC under George W. Bush classified cable internet services as Title I. In effect, the commission stripped itself of its authority to regulate the nascent industry. (Then-FCC Chair Michael Powell subsequently became the chief Washington lobbyist for the cable industry, big surprise.)

Not until 2015 was the error rectified, at the urging of President Obama. Broadband was reclassified under Title II; then-FCC Chair Tom Wheeler was explicit about using the restored authority to enforce network neutrality. 

But that regulatory regime lasted only until 2017, when a reconstituted FCC, chaired by a former Verizon executive Ajit Pai, reclassified broadband again as Title I in deference to President Trump’s deregulatory campaign. The big ISPs would have geared up to take advantage of the new regime, had not California and other states stepped into the void by enacting their own net neutrality laws. 

A federal appeals court upheld California’s law, the most far-reaching of the state statutes, in 2022. And although the FCC’s action could theoretically preempt the state law, “what the FCC is doing is perfectly in line with what California did,” says Craig Aaron, co-CEO of the consumer advocacy organization Free Press. 

The key distinction, Aaron told me, is that the FCC’s initiative goes well beyond the issue of net neutrality — it establishes a single federal standard for broadband and reclaims its authority over the technology more generally, in ways that “safeguard national security, advance public safety, protect consumers and facilitate broadband deployment,” in the commission’s own words. 

Although Verizon’s actions in the 2018 wildfire case did not violate the net neutrality principle, for instance, the FCC’s restored regulatory authority might have enabled it to set forth rules governing the provision of services when public safety is at stake that might have prevented Verizon from throttling the Santa Clara Fire Department’s connection in the first place.

Until Thursday, the state laws functioned as bulwarks against net neutrality abuses by ISPs. “California helped discourage companies from trying things,” Aaron says. Indeed, provisions of the California law are explicit enough that state regulators haven’t had to bring a single enforcement case. “It’s been mostly prophylactic,” he says — “telling the industry what it can and can’t do. But it’s important to have set down the rules of the road.” 

None of this means that the partisan battle over broadband regulation is over. Both Republican FCC commissioners voted against the initiative Thursday. A recrudescence of Trumpism after the November election could bring a deregulation-minded GOP majority back into power at the FCC. 

Indeed, in a lengthy dissenting statement, Brendan Carr, one of the commission’s Republican members, repeated all the conventional conservative arguments presented to justify the repeal of network neutrality in 2017. Carr painted the 2015 restoration of net neutrality as a liberal plot — “a matter of civic religion for activists on the left.” 

He asserted that the FCC was then goaded into action by President Obama, who was outspoken on the need for reclassification and browbeat Wheeler into going along. Leftists, he said, “demand that the FCC go full-Title II whenever a Democrat is president.”

Carr also depicted network neutrality as a drag on profits and innovation in the broadband sector. “Broadband investment slowed down after the FCC imposed Title II in 2015,” he said, “and it picked up again after we restored Title 1 in 2017.”

Carr chose his time frame very carefully. Examine the longer period in which net neutrality has been debated at the FCC, and one finds that broadband investment crashed after a Republican-led FCC reclassified broadband as an information service in 2002, falling to $57 billion in 2003 from $111.5 billion in 2001. 

Investment did decline between 2015, when net neutrality rules were reinstated, and 2017, when they were rescinded — by a minuscule 0.8%. It hasn’t been especially robust since then — as of 2002 it was still running at only about 92% of what it had been two decades earlier. 

As the FCC observed in Thursday’s order, “regulation is but one of several factors that drive investment and innovation in the telecommunications and digital media markets.” 

The commission cited consumer demand and the arrival of new technologies, among others. Strong, consistent regulation, moreover, opens the path for new competitors with new ideas and innovations — and can bring prices down for users in the process.

The truth is that network neutrality has been heavily favored by the public, in part because examples of ISPs abusing their power were not hard to find. In 2007, Comcast was caught degrading traffic from the file-sharing service BitTorrent, which held contracts to distribute licensed content from Hollywood studios and other sources in direct competition with Comcast’s pay-TV business. 

In 2010, Santa Monica-based Tennis Channel complained to the FCC that Comcast kept it isolated on a little-watched sports tier while giving much better placement to the Golf Channel and Versus, two channels that compete with it for advertising, and which Comcast happened to own. The FCC sided with the Tennis Channel but was overruled by federal court.

Even barring a change at the White House, the need for vigilant enforcement will never go away; ISPs will always be looking for business models and manipulative practices that could challenge the FCC’s oversight capabilities, especially as cable and telecommunications companies consolidate into bigger and richer enterprises and combine content providers with their internet delivery services.

“This is an industry,” Aaron says, “that requires a lot of scrutiny.”

[gender-trash]

did you do both under graduation and grad school in mit or only grad school?

i did both undergrad and grad school at mit! (i was in the eecs dept's fifth-year masters program.) however i did also take two quarters of multivariable calculus, the four-quarter freshman physics sequence, and one quarter of discrete math at santa clara university, as a "cross-registered high school student" aka 13-year-old homeschooler randomly taking multivariable calculus for no good reason. more posts about mit are in my tag #finest hell on earth, if that's of interest to you

[mightyflamethrower]

California Governor Gavin Newsom Claims He Played College Baseball, But Did He?

The verdict? Koseff writes:

[…] Newsom never played an official game for Santa Clara University; he was a junior varsity recruit who played only during the fall tryouts his freshman and sophomore years, then left the baseball program before the regular season began. He does not appear on the Broncos’ all-time roster or in media guides published by the athletic department to preview the upcoming season. A deeper look at his recruitment also reveals that Newsom’s admission to Santa Clara University — like so many of his formative opportunities — was substantially boosted by friends and acquaintances of his father, William Newsom, a San Francisco judge and financial adviser to the Gettys, the wealthy oil family. One associate connected Newsom to the baseball program when he was in high school, while his father’s best friend, then a member of the university’s board of regents, wrote him a letter of recommendation. Mike Cummins, the assistant coach at Santa Clara while Newsom was there, said the governor has “embellished his baseball career a little bit at times.”

Fish Swim, Birds Fly, Politicians Lie

[blue-ravens]

David Ogden Stiers, Major Winchester on ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 75

David Ogden Stiers, left, with Harry Morgan and William Christopher in a scene from “M*A*S*H.

By Anita Gates (04 March 2018)

David Ogden Stiers, the tall, balding, baritone-voiced actor who brought articulate, somewhat snobbish comic dignity to six seasons of the acclaimed television series “M*A*S*H,” died on Saturday at his home in Newport, Ore., a small coastal city southwest of Salem. He was 75.

His death was announced on Twitter by his agent, Mitchell K. Stubbs, who said the cause was bladder cancer.

Mr. Stiers joined the cast of “M*A*S*H” in 1977, when Larry Linville, who had played the pompous and inept Maj. Frank Burns, left the show. The series, a comedy-drama set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, required a foil for its raucous, irreverent, martini-guzzling leads, Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), and Mr. Stiers’s imperious Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III seemed to fit the bill.

Winchester’s upper-class Boston priggishness, however, turned out to be balanced by impressive medical skills, a heartfelt appreciation of the arts, real wit and a surprising level of compassionate humanity. Winchester was, unlike Frank Burns, a worthy adversary.

From the beginning, Mr. Stiers said, he felt confident about playing Winchester. “It’s just a matter of isolating the traits” from others in his own personality, he told The Salt Lake Tribune in 1977. But he confessed to one definite difference between himself and his aristocratic character. “Where he wears a smoking jacket to bed,” he suggested, “I often wear nothing but socks.”

The role earned Mr. Stiers two Emmy nominations (in 1981 and 1982). He was nominated a third time, in 1984, for his lead role in “The First Olympics: Athens in 1896,” a dramatic mini-series.

In a statement after his death, Loretta Swit, who played Maj. Margaret (Hot Lips) Houlihan on “M*A*S*H,” called Mr. Stiers “my sweet, dear shy friend,” adding, “Working with him was an adventure.”

Mr. Stiers, right, with Mike Farrell and Alan Alda on the set of “M*A*S*H” in 1980.

David Allen Ogden Stiers was born on Oct. 31, 1942, in Peoria, Ill., the son of Kenneth Stiers and the former Margaret Elizabeth Ogden. The family later moved to Eugene, Ore., where David graduated from high school.

After briefly attending the University of Oregon, he headed to California to pursue an acting career and worked with the Santa Clara Shakespeare Festival in California for seven years. In the late 1960s, he moved to New York to study drama at Juilliard.

There he became a member of John Houseman’s City Center Acting Company, making his Broadway debut with the company in 1973. He appeared in “The Three Sisters,” “The Beggar’s Opera” and three other plays, which ran in repertory.

He continued to appear on the New York stage in the 1970s and returned to Broadway later in his career, playing a beloved wartime general in the 2009-10 holiday run of “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas.”

Mr. Stiers as Reverend Brock in the musical “Tenderloin” at City Center in 2000.

Mr. Stiers had made his film debut with a small role in Jack Nicholson’s counterculture classic “Drive, He Said” (1971). That year, his voice was heard as the announcer in George Lucas’s debut feature film, the dystopian sci-fi drama “THX 1138.”

Voice roles went on to become an important part of Mr. Stiers’s career. He was in the cast of about two dozen Disney animated films, including “Lilo & Stitch” (2002), as the villain Jumba Jookiba, and “Beauty and the Beast” (1991), in which he was the voice of Cogsworth, a strong-willed pendulum clock. That character, often described as “tightly wound” and “ticked off,” suggests to the Beast at one point that he woo his love with “flowers, chocolates, promises you don’t intend to keep.”

Other movie work included roles in “Oh, God!” (1977), “The Man With One Red Shoe” (1985), “The Accidental Tourist” (1988) and four Woody Allen films. (He was a peculiar hypnotist in Mr. Allen’s “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.”) His last screen appearance was in “The Joneses Unplugged,” a 2017 television movie about technology overload.

Like his “M*A*S*H” character, Mr. Stiers was a devoted fan of classical music. He conducted frequently and was the resident conductor of the Newport Symphony Orchestra (formerly the Yaquina Chamber Orchestra) in Oregon.

He never married. Some reports have suggested that he is survived by a son from an early relationship.

In early 2009, at 66, Mr. Stiers announced that he was gay and “very proud to be so” in a blog interview that was reported by ABC News. His secrecy, he said, had been strictly about the fear that openness about his sexuality might affect his livelihood. Now he regretted that.

“I wish to spend my life’s twilight being just who I am,” he said.

[santaclaralocalnews]

The Santa Clara Bruins football team has new leadership on the sidelines this season. First-year Head Coach Nelson Gifford takes the reins as the man in charge, but the boys on the field are led by familiar names. Senior quarterback Matthew Conklin already has a year-and-a-half experience as the varsity starter, and two-way player Matthew Nguyen also returns for his senior season. For complete news visit svvoice.com.

[running-swimming-living]

I was tagged by none other than @snapthistiger to answer some questions!

15 Questions.

1. Are you named after anyone? Yes. My mom saw my brother's classmate had my name and really liked it. So there is some 34 year old woman I am named after who has no idea.

2. Last time you cried. I don't remember my last full on cry. Maybe in September

3. Do you have kids? no

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? No

5. What's the first thing you notice about people? their eyes

6. What's your eye color? Brown

7. Scary movie or happy ending? happy ending. I hate scary movies

8. Any special talents? I can separate from reality (severe mental illness)

9. Where were you born? Santa Clara, California

10. What are your hobbies? swimming, running, knitting and reading

11. Do you have any pets? One Mini Gus, from the shelter. Formally, Gus. Informally, Goose.

12. What sports do you play/have you played? I was a cross country for 4 years in high school. I now swim and do some kickboxing.

13. How tall are you? 5'3" and Half an inch

14. Favorite subject in school? Math

15. Dream job? Math tutor

I tag @vegasgirlvlogs, @hifibriguy and @natepthegreat to share their answers if they want and anyone else who wants to participate!

[graciebaberams]

my friends went to santa clara night 1 and night 2. i do not like it. why is EVERYONE a "swiftie" now 😭

Oh I’m so sorry. I feel this :( I was a huge swiftie in high school (so 2009-2013 aka the height of ppl hating taylor) and ppl were v mean to me about loving her, and now half of them are trying to get tickets. It’s so annoying.

[desert-rat]

im always able to perfectly identify when someone is using the scores from les misérables as background music on youtube videos not because I'm a fan of have even actually SEEN les misérables but because of my high school obsession with Santa Clara Vanguard's 2013 show les misérables that had the best tuba section I've ever heard from a drum corps

[fairfieldthinkspace]

Be(com)ing a National Doctoral/Professional University

Walter Rankin, Ph.D.

Vice Provost for Graduate, Professional & Continuing Studies

Fairfield University was recently reclassified by the Carnegie Foundation, moving from the category of a regional, Master’s comprehensive institution into the category of national Doctoral/Professional university. This is an exciting move for Fairfield, and a part of the University’s larger strategy, but what does it really mean? This brief article provides a summary as we embark on this next phase of our evolution as an academic institution.

The Carnegie Foundation first developed its classification system for describing colleges and universities in 1971. As described by the Foundation, Carnegie “uses publicly available empirical data about characteristics of students and faculty as well as the work of the institutions to identify categories of like institutions based on function and mission, including doctoral-granting institutions, comprehensive universities and colleges, liberal arts colleges, two-year colleges and institutions, professional schools, and other specialized institutions.”

The Carnegie Foundation defines three types of doctoral institutions. These are not rankings; rather, they are broad descriptions based on (a) the number and type of doctoral degrees being offered and awarded by the institution and (b) the amount of research expenditures reported by each institution to the National Science Foundation. The three types include Research 1 (R1) institutions with “very high research activity” and Research 2 (R2) institutions with “high research activity.” The third type is the Doctoral/Professional University (DPU), like Fairfield, Gonzaga, Hofstra, Pepperdine, Santa Clara, and over 150 others that focus on professional doctoral programs. In addition to serving as a data resource on research expenditures, the National Science Foundation defines doctoral degrees as either research or professional doctorates with the latter designed to provide students with skills and expertise for a specific profession. Professional doctorates include the MD and JD, for example, preparing students to become medical doctors and attorneys, respectively.

Additional professional doctorates include those offered at Fairfield, the Doctor of Nursing Practice in Anesthesia, Midwifery, Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health; the Doctorate in Clinical Nutrition, and the Doctor of Education. The University is exploring other degree areas presently, including the Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) and the Doctorate in Public Health (Dr.PH) with the goal of creating a portfolio of doctoral programs that continue to prepare students using the best values of Jesuit pedagogy to care for the whole person and become leaders in the area of social justice.