This is the main website organizing a response to attempts to take down WRVU. There is a blog article about where responses from the community should be directed.

Save WRVU 91.1 FM | Keep WRVU on the air

Historically, independent and local radio have tended to go hand in hand; a station that focuses on community events and local artists is independent by virtue of the fact that their main concern is serving their community, not serving their own interests.

Local corporate radio is an impossibility – corporate radio is interested in reaching as many people as possible, because higher ratings translate directly into more money from advertising. It follows, then, that a corporate radio entity will broadcast content that appeals to a broad audience; whether or not that content is local is moot.

With perhaps a few exceptions, local Internet radio does not exist, because Internet radio simply isn’t tied to geography the same way that broadcast radio is.

If Marshall McLuhan is to be believed, the medium cannot be separated from the message that it carries, and I think that this holds especially true in this case. Internet radio potentially allows anyone to broadcast great content from anywhere in the world, and this is a good thing. Yet, when I tune into a stream online, I don’t get the same feeling as when I turn my radio dial to KWUR 90.3 or KDHX 88.1 in St. Louis.

The loss of KTRU and WRVU is a loss for the entire communities of Houston and Nashville, one that cannot be amended by a switch to online radio.

And so this isn’t, or perhaps shouldn’t be, an issue of money, but rather one of values. I value local, independent radio and the freedom of expression that it provides, and I’m sure that the staff at KTRU and WRVU do too. Rice and Vanderbilt do not, but they should. The sale of KTRU’s and WRVU’s broadcast licenses – or that of any local, independent radio station – is a nasty thing any way you look at it. Radio is, by and large, controlled by a few companies who don’t give a fuck** about diverse opinions or interesting music, and taking away one of the few stations that does is shameful and truly reprehensible.

The death of a community radio station « KWUR.COM

The trouble started when USC's director of student media, an administrator by the name of Chris Carroll, had been surreptitiously monitoring the station and recording examples of what he deemed unacceptable music.

(Acting in a strikingly similar fashion at Tulane University in 1991, he succeeded in pulling the plug on the Crescent City's WTUL, whose rabble-rousing DJs reportedly made WUSC's look like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.)

This guy is now running WRVU. He already cracked down on community DJs at the station and has now moved to shut the station down completely.

According to [VSC chairperson Mark] Wollaeger, VSC staff registered the domains so that feedback could be sent directly to VSC. Wollaeger acknowledged that in retrospect, he believes that registering the domains was a poor decision by VSC. VSC director of student media Chris Carroll can be held accountable for the registrations, according to Wollaeger.

Its a double cross! This could not be more transparent!

Asked whether the sale of the license could be averted if a donor, or group of donors, were able to pay the station's roughly $15,000 yearly operating costs — effectively paying WRVU's way to keep it on the air — Wollaeger said no.

How the fuck does that make sense?!

If this isn't about the financial viability of the station than there is no other possible explanation - this is an assault on our Constitutional Rights! I am fucking furious about this.

Student media at WRVU taken over by serial enemy of college radio

Last Thursday, the station known to generations of Nashville listeners as 91 Rock shocked fans and staff alike with an announcement dropping the bomb: VSC was considering "the migration of radio station WRVU to exclusively online programming and the sale of its broadcast license." Citing declining revenues (via print ads in the Vanderbilt Hustler, which underwrite WRVU's programming) and a concern for the future viability of all Vanderbilt media, the press release presented the idea as exploration only — i.e., not necessarily a done deal. But those opposed to silencing the venerable station's FM signal couldn't help feel the move was all but finalized, save a buyer and a price.

As they began to mount a counterstrike against the proposed sale, organizers found that the domain names savewrvu.org and savewrvu.com were already taken. Not only were they registered by proxy (meaning that the name and contact of the registrar remain hidden) but they were registered on Sept. 7 — nine days before the VSC announcement. And both sites re-directed to the official announcement page on insidevandy.org, indicating that the VSC board not only had anticipated how the news would be received, they had sought to outmaneuver their opposition by taking away its first move.

Thats downright shady!

WRVU was an important part of my teenage years and I certainly do not want to see it go. The Music City needs a real college radio station as an alternative voice to the industry there.

As Vanderbilt Student Communications considers taking WRVU off the airwaves, an outraged community mobilizes | Features | Nashville Scene

For the second year in a row, using exclusive data developed by Dr. Andrew Schiller's team at NeighborhoodScout.com, and based on FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, WalletPop reveals the top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods with the highest predicted rates of violent crime in America.

25 most dangerous neighborhoods 2010

The Senate Judiciary Committee won't be considering the dangerously flawed "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) bill until after the midterm elections, at least.

Make no mistake, though: this bill will be back soon enough...

Victory: Internet Censorship Bill is Delayed, For Now | Electronic Frontier Foundation

I'm kind of dreading this movie. I suppose it could be worse in that I could actually be a part of that circle of people, but its sort of like watching an alternate universe in which my life worked out differently. I know just exactly why they would have picked Reznor to do the soundtrack.

Nevertheless, they picked Reznor to do the soundtrack, and it is pretty awesome, at least the parts that I've heard so far.

The Social Network Soundtrack

Since software patents are no different from hardware patents, people who say "software patents are evil" are saying simply "patents are evil." So why do so many people complain about software patents specifically?

I think the problem is more with the patent office than the concept of software patents. Whenever software meets government, bad things happen, because software changes fast and government changes slow. The patent office has been overwhelmed by both the volume and the novelty of applications for software patents, and as a result they've made a lot of mistakes.

Paul Graham: Are Software Patents Evil?

San Francisco’s EFF, which has been shopping for one of the cases to take, has agreed to defend user-generated Democratic Underground, a site that says it provides “political satire and commentary for Democrats.”

It’s also filed a countersuit claiming Monday that Righthaven is a “front and sham representative” of Stephens Media with a sole mission “to seek windfall recoveries of statutory damages and to exact nuisance settlements.”

EFF Sues Newspaper Chain’s Copyright Troll | Threat Level | Wired.com

For Barack Obama to cite "civil liberties" as a reason why Democratic apathy is "just irresponsible," and to claim with a straight face that this election will determine whether we're "the kind of country that respects" them, is so detached from basic reality that I actually had to read this three or four times to make certain I hadn't misunderstood it.

This post and some of the posts it links provide some interesting perspective on Biden's whine. I found this observation particularly interesting:

So when people scratch their heads and wonder how a campaign based on hectoring the “professional left” expects to turn out voters, the answer is, it doesn’t. And you don’t see anyone who’s actually running for office this November engaging in it...

This isn’t about GOTV. It’s about setting up a fall guy for November. The headline should really read:

Obama Distances Himself From Democratic Voters

The liberal left is being thrown in front of a bus. They have no representatives. The Dems represent an odd coalition of centrist conservatives who don't like the tea party and the authoritarian left. Remember, Palin was hauled out to discredit the Republicans so the Dems could sail into power. I said the day she was announced that the election was over. She was never a serious candidate. They needed the Dems back in power mostly for reasons related to international relations, as well as for the healthcare plan. They now require a Republican congress, probably so they can raise the minimum age for social security. However, the number of actual tea party primary victories was probably a bit of a miscalculation that will limit the intended Republican victories, so the left wing has to be deliberately squelched to restore the balance.

We are very much not in control here.

Faith Collapsing