Depending on where you sit, public access television (those grainy, amateurish channels on American cable systems that run a seemingly endless stream of school board meetings, religious services, and homemade shows with hosts who often appear to be drunk, disturbed or both) is either a vital method of keeping the airwaves in the hands of the public, or a pointless nuisance which has far outlived its usefulness. “Now, though, the future of the channels deemed ‘electronic soapboxes’ in 1972 by the Federal Communications Commission is uncertain, as proposed legislation about how the telecommunications industry is regulated winds its way through Congress.”