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Webcurrents for September 1997

"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have."

- Harry Emerson Fosdick
Source: "Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time"

Monday, September 29, 1997

Today's news currents take us again to the Oklahoma bombing tragedy as jury selection begins in the trial against suspected co-conspirator Terry Nichols. In other news, CNN and USA Today headlines on a CDC report say most Americans with AIDS know they have it, but an Associated Press reporter's spin on the story at Fox News emphasized the fact that that fully a third of Americans with AIDS -- 275,000 people -- don't know they have the disease.

In technology news:

  • The current space shuttle mission is beaming back digital images to schools in the final of three KidSat missions as part of a three-year pilot education program at NASA.
  • Internet domain registrar Network Solutions makes its first public offerings at 40 percent above its target price.
  • The Clinton administration still has no plans to interfere with a new Internet consortium's plan to take over the domain registration system when federal funding for the current project runs out March 31, 1998.
  • The makers of RealAudio change their company name to RealNetworks and file for a future public offering.

In our town, some Boy Scout parents are worried that a local boy's pending eagle scout project to develop a regional scouting web site will invade their privacy and put their families at risk by potentially exposing their photos-names-addresses and/or scouting event schedules to the sickos of society.

The scout's plan recently was splashed on the front page of the local paper, which declared he would be "putting us on the map," so to speak. Again, we've been on the cyber map for quite a while. Why the newspaper continues to think this is such astounding news leaves me clueless. Obviously they aren't getting much of a look around in cyberspace.

Granted, we don't have a local Boy Scout web site yet. But that doesn't mean we should hurry and put one out there just to have one. It needs to be well planned as to its purpose and its audience. Its author should be clearly identified as to whether the site is an official BSA site, is sanctioned by the BSA or is merely an individual doing his own thing, if you will. A password-protected intra-troop site could serve the needs of a large group without releasing data to the general public; a public site could be used for publicity and public relations and for putting people in touch with scouting officials in their area.

The Internet is forcing all organizations to examine their policies regarding release of information as freedom of speech collides with our rights of privacy and a need for safety. I imagine the Boy Scouts of America has some policies (or is developing them) for its official web sites that may help put to rest some of those parents' fears.

Still, I would hate to see the sickos create a reign of censorship-by-fright. Free speech must be responsible. But this isn't Pakistan, thank God, where freedoms such as those protected in our First Amendment are nonexistent.

It's sad that a creative, well-meaning effort should necessarily be tempered by the need for safety. I hope the scout will not be discouraged by these parents' fears. I hope he can find some middle ground and be able to publish a site he is proud of, but I hope that he will be guided in his effort. I wish him well, and as a parent of a Cub Scout, I look forward to visiting the site in the future.

Out on the web, today's feature is USA Today's guide to "the Web's utilitarian side, a short-list of sites that save you time and effort."

"Few rich men own their own property; the property owns them."

- Robert G. Ingersoll

Friday, September 26, 1997

Today we hear of an earthquake in Italy that collapses the inner roof of St. Francis Basilica, home of priceless frescoes; the space shuttle Atlantis blasts off at night in what must have been a spectacular display and heads toward Mir; and a jetliner crashes in Indonesia, possibly as a result of forest fires.

In technology news, Bill Gates challenges the assessed valuation of his new mansion and an e-mail spam king gets his cyber wings clipped again. I find junk e-mail to be an especially annoying feature of my America Online account, which is always filling up with multi-level marketing and other work-at-home schemes. AOL provides options to block such mail by sender but it's complicated and who has time for that?

In our town, the sheriff saga continues as he successfully plants a fake story to discover news leaks in his department and says he'll fire the people responsible, but then he doesn't.

Out on the web, I love the format of this cool-site-of-the-day page at Cool.Com, "From the Desk of Dr. Vinton Cool."

"Unquestionably there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages."

- Henry L. Mencken

Wednesday, September 24, 1997

Who cares about the alleged sexual exploits of a television sportscaster? Is this something with which we have to fill up our newscasts? We don't want all the lurid details!

What else is going on in the world today? Muslim rebels are murdering people by the hundreds in Algeria. The stories are as gruesome or worse than tales in Balkan Ghosts, a book about the roots of hatred in Eastern Europe where bad guys have been seeking revenge and slicing human throats for centuries. Is there anything new under the sun? Is there any good news on the horizon?

In the U.S., Senate hearings are focusing on the IRS. Is there anybody who doesn't enjoy seeing the likes of them in the hot seat for a change? But you don't expect Congress will change the tax system to something s-i-m-p-l-e, do you? Not in this lifetime. Too much power is to be had in its complexities.

And how about Ted Turner pledging away a billion bucks? Maybe he'll inspire others in his league to do the same.

In technology news, IBM retires Deep Blue and NASA brings us some amazing photos of the earth.

In our town, the local Hastings book-music-video store recently donated almost $2,000 in customer contributions and proceeds from its coffee bar to our area's adult literacy program, where they are always in need of volunteers willing to undergo training and make a commitment.

I spent a year tutoring a young woman in reading, writing and grammar. Her goal was to help her autistic child do better in school and communicate more effectively herself with his teacher. She drove 40 miles into town at least twice a week just for our sessions together. I learned a lot from my student that year, mostly in the courage department. I hope she is doing well and that I will be able to make time for this rewarding project again in the future.

A quick check on the web shows that as many as 33-52 percent of adults in our region don't have a high school diploma. Here's a link to Missouri's Literacy Resource Center , which has compiled some rather dismal literacy statistics for our state.

Out on the web, today we look for something light and find the best of the worst in the reject department at Hallmark Cards' funny little Shoebox division.

Monday, September 22, 1997

"The burning of an author's books, imprisonment for opinion's sake, has always been the tribute that an ignorant society pays to the genius of its time."

- Joseph Lewis

Webcurrents celebrates Banned Books Week in today's column with a salute to some of my favorite banned books:

  • The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, banned by the Toronto School Board.
  • The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (here's a review I prepared during the height of its commotion in early 1989), decreed as blasphemous by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who issued a death sentence against its author.
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, challenged in Texas as pornographic and "full of gross evils."

The past few days I've been reading The Catcher In the Rye, J.D. Salinger's oft-banned coming-of-age story. And I intend to enjoy Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass this week as well.

Celebrate freedom, and read a banned book today!

Out on the web, today's featured site is The Censorship Pages. Some related links:

In our town, the variety of books in the school libraries apparently is thriving in our little midwestern community. I am reminded of a book my daughter happened to pick out over the summer while we were getting a look at the new Fifth and Sixth Grade Center (yes, that's what they named it). It was something about a child who was looking forward to seeing his dad on his birthday because his dad was in jail and he would get to visit him there. Granted, it wasn't Heather Has Two Mommies, but still it shocked me. Nothing like having a few topics you're uneasy about challenge your beliefs to the core

Wednesday, September 17, 1997

"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."

- Phyllis Diller

I've been cleaning house more than usual this week and it's hard to find a stopping point. The more you get things the way you like them, the more the things you don't like stand out. I'm finding that to be true as much in my cyber home as it is in my real one. Just look at this place, will you?

In the real house, we've been tearing out old carpeting, repainting some walls and trying to organize the seemingly unorganizable piles of kid stuff that accumulate in every room in which young children are around. For instance, in a basket on my kitchen counter this morning are (I am not making this up):

  • A flowered headband.
  • A hair brush.
  • Three pencils for homework.
  • "More Animal Balloons, Make 20 All-New Critters and Creatures!" a handbook by Aaron Hsu-Flanders along with an assortment of black, blue, white and yellow long skinny pre-inflated balloons and the squeeze pump that came with them.
  • An orange whistle so my daughter can pretend she's the lunchroom monitor.
  • A yellow whistle.
  • A tiny pink hairbrush for a small plastic Pegasus with a clip for its wings that doubles for your hair.
  • A tiny velcro ball and velcro ball catcher.
  • A red smiley face pin.
  • A purple plastic tiara.
  • A piece of chalk
  • A baby seal refrigerator magnet.

And that's just the loot I gathered from this morning's kitchen counter clutter. I won't go on, but you get the idea.

In news currents of the day: Beloved comedian Red Skelton dies at the age of 84, the body of Dr. Sam Sheppard is exhumed for DNA testing and his son hopes to clear his name, the U.S. refuses to sign an international land mine agreement because of our situation in Korea, and the Cardinals sign home run record breaker Mark McGwire to a three-year contract worth $28 million. I heard McGwire at his press conference on the radio yesterday, and he was overcome with emotion when he said he would donate $1 million a year of his salary to a charitable foundation for abused children.

In technology headlines, online bookstores are said to be doing a better job than their real world counterparts, an online movie database reels in a video store sponsor, Steve Jobs is named temporary CEO at Apple Computer, and Johnny Cash asks Congress for Internet copyright protections.

Out on the web, today's feature is a new federal resource web site launched this week, the Nonprofit Gateway.

In our town, the likes of "Catch-22," "Animal Farm," and "1984" had me noticing an unfortunate pair of newly posted signs at the entrance to our local VA Medical Center: "Federal property. No trespassing." What a shame.

Monday, Sept. 15, 1997

I picked up a copy of "Catch-22 " last weekend after watching an interview with the author as part of The Learning Channel's Great Books Festival. It made me realize how much I was missing by not having read the book, although I was familiar with the meaning of its title. How I got through high school and college without reading it remains a mystery, although I refer back to those trendy mini courses I mentioned earlier that were in vogue when I was in school.

Published in 1961, the book details the insanities surrounding an Army Air Corps bombardier stationed off the coast of Italy in World War II. The novel by Joseph Heller is fictitious but speaks volumes about contradictions in our society then and now. But you probably already knew that, having not had trendy '70s mini courses in your school curriculum.

That my father also flew on bombing missions in Italy for two years during World War II makes the book to me altogether more personally vital because my father rarely speaks of those days. A movie about the Memphis Belle, similar in topic except those flyers were based in England, brought me closer to understanding the man who is an enigma in my life. My father cannot bear to watch it. I asked him to tell me about it. He didn't want to.

I doubt if he is able to read Catch-22 at all.

When I muster up some courage, I'll ask him again. I don't want to bring up something that I know is painful to him, but sooner or later I've got to know. The sooner the better.

When I was learning to develop film and make prints in 1979, he gave me some film he had taken in Italy and smuggled home. It had been stashed for years in the top drawer of his desk in the basement, along with several medals tossed in with pencils and erasers. It was precious. It was undeveloped. I asked him if I could develop it for him. I took it to the darkroom and managed to bring out some prints. One of them simply showed his tent and his dog, a stray he had befriended. He looked at it for a long time.

Following are a few choice passages from "Catch-22":
(Scribner Paperback Fiction, Simnon & Schuster Inc., New York)

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was."

"His specialty was alfalfa and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. ... He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap,' he counseled one and all, and everyone said, 'Amen.' "

"Colonel Cathcart had courage and never hesitated to volunteer his men for any target available."

"Milo had been caught red-handed in the act of plundering his countrymen, and , as a result, his stock had never been higher."

"So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans."

"He had lived for almost twenty years without trauma, tension, hate, or neurosis, which was proof to Yossarian of just how crazy he really was. His childhood had been a pleasant, though disciplined one. He got on well with his brothers and sisters, and he did not hate his mother and father, even though they had both been very good to him."

In our town, the mothers are at it again. A policy of strict radio silence is back in the school lunchrooms, where students may only "breathe and eat," one teacher-monitor says. We moms just want the kids to be able to visit, socialize, and talk in soft voices, like its says in the school district handbook.

A friend of mine was stunned when she walked into the cafeteria to join her daughter on her birthday last week to find a teacher blowing a dog whistle and shouting for silence. She later found herself confronting the principal, one thing lead to another and before she knew it she was saying something about abuse of authority creating rebellious children who may one day bomb an abortion clinic. Had I been there I may have added something about how all they're learning is how to be little Nazi automatons.

Beware the wrath of a room mother scorned. We've also just learned that the students at the new Fifth and Sixth Grade Center (yes, that's what they named it) won't get to have the traditional Halloween, Christmas and Valentine parties they got when they were part of the grade school system.

Out on the web, today's site gathers stories contributed from around the world at "In Memory of World War II." Another good site I found today is "Dad's War: Telling And Finding Your Dad's World War II Story."

As for me, all I've got to do is ask. But that isn't easy.

Friday, Sept. 12, 1997

Did you hear Rush Limbaugh the other day saying he was astounded the media would report as news a study's conclusion that parental involvement helps kids stay out of trouble? This is news? That we have to be told this, or that we have to conduct research to find out whether it is so, is incredible. More incredible is that this study apparently was one of the largest of its kind ever undertaken. Yes, it's sad that we apparently don't know this innately. What's even sadder is the number of parents in my son's classroom who did not attend the school open house last night. Guess they haven't heard the "news."

In other events of the week, Mother Teresa is to be honored with a state funeral and the tributes to her memory begin, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright seeks to foster peace in what is perhaps the world's most unpeaceful place, the Army accepts responsibility for sexual harassment in its ranks, and the country in which free speech reigns supreme launches a mission to jam inflammatory Serb radio broadcasts in Bosnia.

On a lighter note, CNN brings us three amusing animal stories, one of pig-riding Japanese buckaroos, another a dog singing contest and the third a story about the nuances of animal communication.

In our town, the florist down the street gave away hundreds of roses in bunches earlier this week as part of "FTD Good Neighbor Day." The idea is to keep one rose and give 11 away. I enjoyed making the rounds among a few friends and relatives, but I could not help feeling bad that I hadn't just done this sort of thing on my own without a nudge from the florist. It is indicative of the state of the world that we need to set aside a "Good Neighbor Day" at all.

Out on the web, John Updike finishes up a murder mystery he began and web site visitors added to as part of a $100,000 contest at Amazon.com, where you gotta love their web site footnote:

"Keep hands and feet inside Web site at all times. No electrons were harmed in the making of this Web site. Don't forget to read more books."

"... Some things ... arrive on their own mysterious hour,
on their own terms and not yours, to be seized or relinquished forever."

- Gail Godwin

Monday, Sept. 8, 1997

I was pleased to see a Kirkwood High School classmate's photo in the weekend Post-Dispatch in a feature story about St. Louis area women mourning Princess Diana as "the kind of person we wanted to be" while watching her funeral together.

Here people are talking about whether the deluge of publicity for Diana is warranted, especially over and above the news of Mother Teresa's death, or if the interest is more of a generational or gender-based phenomenon. Indeed my husband and probably many other men have said long before the funeral coverage: "Enough already!"

Mother Teresa's memory is sure to get its proper due this week in the aftermath of The Tragedy. But as one St. Louis area woman so abruptly put it in the Post-Dispatch story: "Mother Teresa, life fulfilled. Princess Diana, life cut short." Nevertheless, the world has lost two incredible women in one week.

In other news of the world, Mir sustains another computer failure, and the wave of mourning over Diana shows no sign of abating, although the British press has promised to grant the young princes some privacy and The Times of London reports that the monarchy plans to modernize itself for Prince William's generation.

In the online world, we learn that CompuServe is being sold and America Online has "grabbed its clients." I did not know that the Kansas City-based firm H&R Block owned 80 percent of CompuServe's stock and is thus the focal point of the deal.

In our town, two alumni of the Missouri School of Journalism are finding it tough to help their 10-year-old with his language assignments using "The Shurley Method" to identify parts of speech. My generation obviously did not learn this well, as a trend toward mini courses in candle making or horror classics edged out simple grammar in so-called progressive curriculum, and many of us were still struggling with sentence diagrams in Don Ranly's magazine editing course at Mizzou. In the fifth grade, our son reports many are bringing home Cs and Ds, but a few in his class who tackled this in fourth grade appear to be breezing through.

Out on the web, here are some links to Mother Teresa tributes, among them CNN's "Mother Teresa: Angel of Mercy," Yahoo! headlines, and an extremely detailed and scholarly biography of Mother Teresa from the Technisch Instituut Sint-Vincentius in Belgium.

We are citizens of eternity." - Fyodor Dostoevski

September 4, 1997

It's no surprise to me the overwhelming outpouring of grief over Princess Diana. What is surprising is how much the British monarchy and the powers that be that run things for the royals have underestimated the reaction to her death.

They started out with five books of condolence at St. James's; now there are at least 43. How could anyone have thought five would be enough? The length of Diana's funeral procession has been more than tripled to accommodate the millions expected to gather along the route to pay their final respects. And now the grieving British people are demanding to hear from their queen, incensed at the royal family's understandable but ill advised silence and seclusion.

It's so sad but moving to see especially the British people, and of course others the world over, making clear their feelings for the beloved princess. Perhaps the tragic twist of fate will help the royals open their eyes as well as their hearts.

In other news, I'm encouraged by the decision of many stores to remove some tabloids from their sales racks as the princess's death fuels a backlash against unscrupulous publications and paparazzi. It's good to know that a leading charity for the deaf won't be helping the tabloids read lips at the funeral, but it's incredibly poor taste, don't you think, that someone would have even asked?

In our town, a young woman whose battle with cancer inspired an outpouring of messages of hope and encouragement through a web page guestbook, died Monday at her home. Lisa Godwin was 27.

Out on the web, USA Today reports that an unprecedented number of web sites and chat rooms dedicated to Diana reflect the world's need to express grief and send condolences. The official royal web server is overwhelmed with requests. This link is to one of several mirror sites being set up to accommodate the traffic. And this one is a list of related Yahoo! links to current headlines. MSNBC also has a good comprehensive page listing special reports and tributes, and an especially touching photograph of the princess during her 1993 visit to New Zealand.

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

- John Donne

September 2, 1997

 

As the world mourns a princess and the angry seek to lay blame as a salve, I am drawn to Donne's famous words and these:

What would love do now?

The question is posed in the second book of a series called "Conversations With God," which I mentioned in a column last week. Book Two pretty much points out how primitive we are and what we must do to evolve as human beings and as a society. It reminds us that whatever we do to or for another, we ultimately are doing to or for ourselves.

The growing seas of flowers placed in tribute to Diana reflect sorrow throughout the world. We loved her as much for her personal struggles as for her bold charity work in which she reached out, literally, to touch those suffering from AIDS and leprosy, to sick children and to the injured in her most recent effort, a campaign to ban land mines. She leaves us an important legacy in her work.

What else can we take with us from the tragedy of Diana's death? Naturally we expect new efforts to rein in the paparazzi . And we also will have a heightened awareness of drinking and driving with news that Diana's driver was legally intoxicated.

But must we continue to vilify and lay blame? The chain of cause and effect reaches beyond the paparazzi and the impaired driver to anyone who has ever purchased a tabloid, but also to all of us who admired Diana. We have all participated in the feeding frenzy in one way or another. We simply couldn't get enough of her. Our culture creates, feeds on and chews up celebrities. Why?

To me, what we must take with us is Diana's mission of telling those to whom she reached out: You are loved. And you don't need to go to Bosnia to do that. Start right now. In your mirror (that's perhaps the hardest place). At home. At work. In your neighborhood. Let that be Diana's legacy in our hearts.

In our town, my 10-year-old son and to a lesser extent his 7-year-old sister were glued to the television this weekend as news of Diana's death unfolded. He asked at the time, "Do you think my teacher will be talking about the princess?" I hope so. My husband, a lovable cynic, has tired of the coverage. But like I said earlier, we just can't seem to get enough. Maybe that's because we just aren't looking in the right place.

Out on the web, you can leave your condolences at an official web site for the Royal Family. You may have to keep trying but eventually you'll get through. It took me about 30 minutes this morning.

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