TVWatch: Gathering steam
The TVWatch launch was last week, and it went extremely well - lots of press coverage.
TV Watch released a national poll which shows that the public clearly prefers parental responsibility to government control. By a staggering eight to one ratio, respondents believe that “more parental involvement” is a better solution to keeping kids from seeing adult content than “increase [d] government control.”
I am very proud to be associated with TVWatch. Jeff Jarvis has shown us that a few people armed with fax machines can get the FCC to fine programs (hugely) for minor infractions of outdated rules. This is a completely irrational state of affairs that deeply threatens free speech. No Amendment is more embattled than the First these days. The disease of indecency attacks is likely to spread unless we do something. Go, TVWatch!
Today
I remember coming back with Mr. Cutler from some mysterious Washington meeting. It was lunchtime on a sunny day in the fall, and he was supposed to address the entering associate class in the boardroom. We were walking along the front of the M street building - he was carrying a soft, supple (and thin) leather case, and I was lugging a big briefcase filled with binders and notepads and other paraphernalia. I said something mild about the new associates, and he gave me his gimlet glance and said, gravel-voiced, “Are there any stars [in the associate class]?” I don't remember what I said in return.
There are thousands of people who knew Lloyd Cutler far better than I did, and their stories are far more legitimate. Mine are all about glancing interactions towards the end of his life.
The most sustained memories I have of him come from a week five years ago this summer. Because someone more famous had suddenly become unavailable, he invited me to give a talk on The Future of the Internet in a castle in Salzburg. This was a session of the Salzburg Seminar. Mr. Cutler (I called him Lloyd to his face, but it took an effort) was in his element. He gravely invited me for a pre-Seminar drink next to the lake, and it was immediately clear that this meeting was actually for fun — there was very little planning to be done, and we just admired the castle (the Schloss Leopoldskron, used for exteriors in the Sound of Music) in the sunshine. He took us and the other faculty members to the opera twice (Tristan, with seats in the second row, and Cosi Fan Tutte) and to dinner at the Goldener Hirsch, and we had formal meetings in the gorgeous castle rooms. Music meant a great deal to him. His favorite opera was Don Giovanni.
He gave the same piece of advice to many people: “Never have lunch with another lawyer.” He did not, let us say, possess the common touch, although he could certainly be charming when he wanted to be. He never, ever, missed the forest for the trees — he saw straight to the pragmatic heart of every issue. He was a great lawyer.
