The second day of Deliberative

Democracy Consortium meetings leaves me with little energy for composing a

blog. So I’ll reference two valuable items connected to the commons idea:

1. There is an effort underway to reverse the recent FCC decision to allow

   companies to own almost unlimited numbers of media outlets in each community.

   The bill to do this is S. 1046. See this web page from Common

   Cause for action steps.

2. Paul Resnick, a professor at the University

   of Michigan’s School of Information, is really one of the intellectual parents

   of our local work on the Prince George’s

   Information Commons. He and Harry Boyte wrote an important paper arguing that

   land-grant universities should revive their extension role for the 21st century

   by creating a network of community groups that would use the Internet for local

   civic purposes. We think of the Prince George’s project as a pilot for this idea.

   Paul has now put the original, inspirational White

   Paper on his website, which is full of other relevant material.