Gaylord Nelson and World Net Day
Gaylord Nelson, a former senator from Wisconsin, died yesterday. Mr. Nelson founded Earth Day and built the environmental movement in this country.
From today's Times obituary:
On a speaking tour of the West in 1969, Mr. Nelson came up with an idea for what he called “a huge grass roots protest” modeled after that era's campus ”teach-ins” to oppose the Vietnam War. At a conference in Seattle in September, he announced that the protest would take place the following spring. The date chosen was April 22, 1970, a Wednesday.
More than 20 million Americans marked the first Earth Day in ways as varied as the dragging of tires and old appliances out of the Bronx River in White Plains and campus demonstrations in Oregon. Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York closed Fifth Avenue to vehicles. Congress shut its doors so lawmakers could participate in local events. . . .
“The reason Earth Day worked,” Mr. Nelson said, “is that it organized itself. The idea was out there and everybody grabbed it. I wanted a demonstration by so many people that politicians would say, 'Holy cow, people care about this.' “
Thanks, Mr. Nelson. Reminder: World Net Day happens on the same day as Earth Day — April 22 every year. And, like Earth Day, it's celebrated in a million different ways, many of which are collective happenings.
Once upon a time, we had three distinct forms of communications technologies — print, broadcast, and telecommunications. Now they're all becoming one. But instead of moving the regulatory model to the print end of the continuum — no prior restraints, no licensing requirements, no permission needed, freedom of speech, that kind of thing — we're heading towards a mushy “common carrier light” form of regulation. We'll see the migration of obligations that used to be imposed only on common carriers (not necessarily interconnection or tariffing, but things like universal service and E911 and CALEA) to online applications. Even though those applications feel more like print than telecommunications.
But we don't only protest on World Net Day. We also celebrate. And the day organizes itself.