Dead Blinger

The king of bling, Mr. T, has announced that he has ditched his trademark gold necklaces. But it’s not just in the interest of making over his look for his upcoming daytime advice show “Pity the Fool.” He claims it is a decision of conscience after having spent time with the victims of Katrina as they try to rebuild. To him, bling is like shoving one’s wealth in the face of people living in poverty. I personally wouldn’t rush to that conclusion about the meaning of bling, but when the man who started it all denounces it as insensitive, it’s cause for pause. Perhaps it’s just as immoral today to wear bling as it is to drive a brand-new Hummer.

In the UK, Ofcom, roughly the British FCC, legalized the use of iTrip devices, which are FM radio transmitters for iPods. It’s not particularly great news for British iPodders, as the iTrip is the lowest-quality way to play the music on your iPod on your car stereo and requires near-constant frenquency-switching. Regardless, the news reminds us of an important fact we’re liable to forget: the airwaves belong to the public. The iTrip had been banned from usage because it was considered to violate the government licenses granted to radio stations to use particular frequencies. Thankfully, Ofcom came around and remembered that the airwaves belong to the people in the first place, and when the public right to use a resource that belongs to them clashes with a private license to use the same resource, the public should always come first. Shouldn’t we view the Internet the same way—as ultimately a resource belonging to the public?