Griscom: Serious issues return

There was little doubt that at some point during Congress' August recess, the real issues on the minds of some Americans would come to the forefront.

So much for the cacophony of voices at town hall meetings in Kimball, Winchester, Cleveland and other communities across Tennessee.

Public option? Who cares?

Death panels? Yesterday's news.

Uninsured or health care for illegal immigrants? No big deal.

It's football time in (fill in the state).

Recession? What's a recession when it's time to don your favorite extreme color scheme and watch men in their late teens and early 20s run up and down a field to the delight of some and the disappointment of others?

One wonders whether a few of the shouters at the health care town hall meetings that have dotted the countryside were wannabe football fans merely warming up for the sound of popping shoulder pads.

Actually, the civil disobedience that has been on display at the health care forums may be a great warm-up to carry over to stadiums in the Southeastern Conference this fall football season.

In the SEC hierarchy, a decision has been made as to who owns the access to facilities and the activities that go on inside those facilities on Saturdays in the fall.

It is not the taxpayers of Tennessee, for example, though they supplied financial resources for the major college athletic program in the state. Sure, the argument will be made that athletics contributes money back to the university. Thank you for the contribution, but much of the taxpayer money goes for education, which is the principal role of institutions of higher education.

As the SEC ponders public access and the sharing of that access with others by any and all who venture into their taxpayer-funded facilities, there have been silent voices that typically shout at the first sign of impeded academic freedom.

Where are the academic voices that champion the right to access and the right to free expression, or question how the megabucks from an SEC contract to leverage the talents of young men in their late teens and early 20s will be used?

Within the ranks of the SEC and at some of our favorite publicly funded state institutions of higher education, the statement is made that this is really a struggle among the media, the athletic conference and its member schools over access to material that is posted on the Internet. All the SEC and the member institutions want is a fair share. When all else fails, blame the media; it is tried but not always true.

If a fair share means trying to void copyright laws for material produced by a media company and to restrict the use in commerce of that material, it seems to be more than trying to level the playing field.

Lost in those conversations seems to be the fact that those men in their late teens and early 20s appear to be a commodity to be owned, shown and managed by a digital media firm that signed a huge contract with the SEC. There is

a saying: Buyer beware.

As the SEC rules of engagement were being shaped, the fan in the stand with a cell phone that includes a camera would have been prohibited from sharing that great fall moment in the midst of thousands with others who were less fortunate and could not get a seat in the stadium. Send a text message description of the game or a photo and you were in deep trouble.

The SEC and its member institutions, many supported by taxpayer funds, need to learn a lesson from the Recording Industry Association of America, which went after students who shared music via the Internet. Those who shared the copyrighted material were wrong, but the approach of the RIAA was not much better. It may have shaken a few bucks out of the trees, but the black eye that came from the move won't go away for a long time.

Those who learned during the health care town hall debates how to shout down the opposition and to exercise the right to assemble and to speak freely should take those lessons inside the SEC football stadiums (those tied into public funds) this fall.

Stand up together, hold out your cell phone, snap that picture and flood America with images of young men in their late teens and early 20s, who are the ones who give the conference any legitimacy in trying to control the access.

It's Tea Party time in Tennessee and elsewhere.