Attendance at the May 15 meeting of the Indianapolis Cable Franchise Board, scheduled for Monday, May 15, 2006, from 2:30 to 4:30 PM in Room 260 of the City County Building, 200 E. Washington St., Indianapolis, is crucial for those who want to see public-access TV back in Central Indiana, according to Public Access of Indianapolis President Andrea Price. 

In case you haven't seen it, Napoleon Dynamite is the hit movie about a listless and alienated teenager who decides to help his new friend win the class presidency in their small western high school, while dealing with his bizarre family life back home.

Early this year America Online (AOL) and Yahoo! announced plans for pay-to-send systems whereby large email senders can pay for priority delivery service of their bulk emails to AOL and Yahoo! customers. Paid-for emails would be certified through the Goodmail CertifiedEmail program and would then bypass AOL and Yahoo! spam filters and other screening mechanisms. AOL and Yahoo! offer this service as a way to guard against email spam, fraud, and "phishing," a scam in which emails made to appear to be from legitimate institutions solicit the receivers to divulge credit card or other account numbers in order to use those numbers illegitimately.

Download the March/April 2006 issue of the Public Access of Indianapolis newsletter, The Right of Way.  The feature article is the third in a series on telecommunications reform, "Network Neutrality -- Internet at the Crossroads," by Jean Coughlin. Other articles include an overview of Indiana's new telecommunications landscape, a call for participation and proposals for the 2006 Alternative Media Festival, pay to send email, a profile of Cable Franchise Board member, Kent Burrow, and a review of the film, Eight Below.  (Adobe Reader required.) 

Public Access of Indianapolis? 2006 Alternative Media Festival, ?Telling Our Truths,? will be held on the IUPUI campus on July 29, 2006. The purpose of the festival is to strengthen our abilities to tell our own stories, and to learn ways we can work together to strengthen diverse and democratic media. Please mark your calendar and plan to attend.