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Monday Morning: Tectonic Shift

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Last week after the artist Prince Rogers Nelson died, a segment of the population were mystified by the reaction to his passing. They’d missed impact this artist had had on music which happened concurrent with a paradigm shift in the entertainment industry. Prince rose in sync with music videos in the 1980s when musical artists became more than sound alone.

Music television has since collapsed as anyone who watched MTV and VH-1 since 2000 can tell you. Programming once dedicated to music videos became a mess of unscripted reality programs and oddments, punctuated occasionally by music specials, chasing an audience which increasingly found and consumed music on the internet.

This weekend, though, marked another shift. R&B pop artist Beyoncé released a ‘visual album’ on HBO on Saturday evening entitled ‘Lemonade’. The work was available exclusively through Tidal after its HBO premiere until midnight last night when it was released on Apple iTunes. This is the first music collection released in this manner, using a cable network not previously dedicated to music in tandem with internet streaming and download sales.

I won’t offer any analysis here about the album; you’re not looking if you do not see at least a fraction of the deluge of reaction and think pieces responding to Beyoncé’s latest work. I will say, though, that like Prince’s Purple Rain in 1984, this collection of work will have long-term impact across not only music but the entire entertainment industry.

Let’s launch this week’s roundup…

The Dutch pull a Lavabit-plus
Encrypted communications network Ennetcom was shut down on Friday and its owner arrested. Dutch law enforcement claimed Ennetcom was used by organized crime; its owner is accused of money laundering and illegal weapons possession. The network relied on servers located in Canada, where law enforcement has cooperated with the Netherlands by copying the information on the servers. Unlike the former secure email provider Lavabit in the U.S., it’s not clear there was any advance request for information by way of warrant served on Ennetcom in either the Netherlands or in Canada. Given the mention of illegal weapons, one might wonder if this seizure is related to the recent prosecution of gun smugglers in the UK.

Time for ‘Spring Cleaning’ — get rid of digital dust bunnies
Seems like a surprising source for a nudge on this topic, but the Better Business Bureau is right to encourage cleaning and maintenance. If you read Marcy’s post this morning, you know failing to use adequate passwords and firewalls can be costly. It’s time to go through your electronic devices and make sure you’re using two-factor authentication where possible, freshly reset strong passwords, and on your network equipment as well as your desktop and mobile devices.

Planning for your funeral – on Facebook?
A BBC piece this past week noted that Facebook will eventually have more dead users than live ones. Which brings up an interesting question: how do you want your digital presence handled after you die? Do you have instructions in place? Keep in mind, too, that your social media could be mined to recreate an online personality — your personality. Do you want to live forever in teh toobz?

Investigation into Flint’s water crisis continues
A Michigan legislative panel appointed by Governor Rick Snyder will hear from more state and local officials today in its fifth such meeting to investigate the Flint water crisis. Snyder is conveniently out of the country trying to drum up business in Europe — and conveniently not drinking Flint’s water.

Odds and sods

  • Waiting for word on Yahoo’s final bidders list (Bloomberg) — No word yet on who will remain among the 10 first-round bidders offering between $4-$8 billion.
  • German regulators won’t approve recall and fix of VW’s 2.0-liter diesel-powered Passat (Bloomberg) — And yet the U.S. is going forward with VW’s proposed fix for 2.0l vehicles? Odd, given Germany’s less-stringent approach to automotive emissions compared to U.S. and California in particular.
  • A UK-based inquiry found widespread emissions controls failure (Phys.org) — By widespread, I mean “not a single car among the 37 models involved in the study met an EU lab limit for nitrogen oxide emissions under normal driving conditions.” VW’s emissions controls defeat was just the tip of the iceberg.

There’s your Monday. Have at it!

UPDATE — 5:25 P.M. EDT — Oops, the auto-publish feature failed me today. I wasn’t able to come back and check the egg timer on this post and it got stuck in the queue. Oh well, better luck tomorrow morning!

Thursday Morning: Don’t Feel Bad

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While I am sorry a family has lost their father, I can’t mourn the bizarre passing yesterday of Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon.

McClendon had been indicted Tuesday for price fixing on real estate related to natural gas and oil development. Charges against him had been expected since 2012 when the violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act came to light.

But for a Michigander like me, this is not a remote and abstract story. Property over the Collingwood Shale formation in Northern Michigan was included in collusion between McClendon and Encana Oil & Gas executives to “avoid bidding up” prices. Between Chesapeake and Canadian corporation Encana, the two businesses owned nearly a million acres of Michigan — a chunk of land the size of Rhode Island.

Imagine it: two corporations buying a state-sized mass of land at rigged prices within a state. And all of it with underground water connected to a couple of the largest freshwater bodies in the world, much of it earmarked for fracking.

“Energy visionary“? That’s what other resources leeches might call McClendon, who was at the heart of a dispute over Lake Michigan shoreline property. The land had been willed to “the children” of Benton Harbor by former residents J.N. and Carrie Klock, in memory of their daughter Jean, for use as a public park. In dedicating the land, J.N. Klock said, “…See to it that the park is the children’s.”

It was the only such lakefront park for Benton Harbor, a financially-challenged city with 89% African American residents. But the property adjoined the intended development of a Jack Nicklaus golf course, and the McClendon family as well as other notable figures (like Rep. Fred Upton and Whirlpool CEO Jeff Fettig) lived in the neighborhood of both the intended golf course and Jean Klock Park. The dispute caused considerable heartburn for Benton Harbor residents. It still boggles my mind that wealthy parasites like McClendon simply felt they could ignore the intent of the Klocks’ intentions, their proxies arguing the pricey (read: unaffordable to the average Benton Harborite) golf course would meet the standard of public access.

Note also, that Benton Harbor was among the Michigan cities to which an emergency financial manager had been appointed because of its municipal financial crisis — just like Flint, Michigan.

I can only imagine what other parasitic nonsense will emerge in the debris field left by McClendon. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Quick hits

That’s enough damage for now. Be anti-parasitic and do something nice for others today.