 GENERATOR 21 - The World's Magazine of News & Commentary COMING MONDAY: He lives in an upscale suburb in Vienna, Virginia. He's worked for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for 25 years. He drives a Ford Taurus... and he's a spy for the Russians. A G21 NEWS Special Report on the Hanssen spy case. "I Spy" For more highlights of future features, be sure to check our Coming Attractions link throughout the magazine. Now go enjoy the magazine. This is Year Five. |
Updated: Saturday, 24 FEBRUARY, 2001
EVENT # 255: SIGN POST HQ
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 RADIOACTIVE:
The HookupRADIO RAHEEM
Mom's eyes got kind of wide at first. Then they softened and she smiled. She understood why I had waited so long to do this: I was always nervous about starting a family of my own because we had been so poor when I was coming up. I never wanted to have my kids crying in the night the way I had, sometimes in shame, sometimes in anger. Then it was okay to talk to Tanya about the hookup. We laughed and went to see her folks to tell them. Her Daddy, who is a big, hard-talking kindah man actually through his head back and let out a rare laugh. "It's about time, niggah!" he grinned. This was one of the few times I'd seen the old man smiling.
It's taken me a while to wrap my mind around this idea of me as becoming a married man. I never done it before, but I've had plenty of time to think about doin' it. Now that I'm making a little more scratch at my job and it seems like the people at the warehouse are used to me, I figure it's a good time to make that next leap, if you understand what I'm sayin'.
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Lessons of HistoryKEVIN CAREYNow Mr. Bush, the US President, and Mr Hague, the leader of the British Conservatives, want to do away with all of this and hand money and power to largely unaccountable slabs of largely religious charities. In effect, they propose to transfer power from elected to unelected bodies and to transform the enjoyment of rights, such as the right to housing or food into a lottery dependent upon the whim of a benefactor. It is, moreover, based on two extremely flawed assumptions: the first is that religious organisations are a priori ethical; the second that we in our various churches will meekly don the Beadle's cocked hat.
It is all very well to bring to mind the heroic St. Bernard dogs rescuing Alpine travellers or the homely fare of the Mediaeval guest house but put against this the collusion of many Christian churches in such episodes as the dilution and almost disappearance of Australian Aborigines. The record is not all dark but it is patchy enough to warrant caution. Atheists and believers alike should be deeply sceptical of all human institutions, particularly those which in some way claim a kind of moral superiority; it is naive to accept such assertions without question. There is enough history to warn us.
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Reissues Put Spotlight on TorméBOB POWERSMel Torme, one of the great jazz singers of the 20th century, died in 1999 after a long battle against a stroke. He will be remembered as much for his composing as for his singing, and that's not without justice.
Concord Records, who over the past couple of decades has taken into its catalog some of America's most talented jazz figures, has a number of albums by Torme in its vaults. Many of the Torme discs are available by ordering at your favorite music dealer or direct from the company...More
One way of doing that is buying our "stuff." Wear it, drink from it, click over it.
MEMOIRS OF THE INFO AGE:
Crying Time in Round RockROD AMISDell Computer, headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, just outside of the high-tech hub of Austin, announced their quarterly results Thursday, after announcing earlier in the day that they would be laying off 8% of their workers --- 1,700 workers.
The layoff announcement, made prior to the quarterly results, seemed another example of "layering" the bad news on the part of Dell management. Only last week Dell had announced the shut-down of its online Marketplace, a venture launched only four months ago. Excluding charges, Dell reported earnings of $508 million, or 18 cents a share. Expectations had been for earnings of 19 cents a share according to a poll of analysts by First Call ... More
A Found(ling) WeekedROD AMISIn my obsessive reminiscences about women I have lost, I keep coming back to Sherrie. I told you that she was the most unconditionally dedicated of them all, even to tolerating the fact that I had other women, but I omitted to tell you that we were engaged. I jumped over that because it inspires my characteristic guilt. I broke it, and us, off and ran off to Texas. Even while I lived in Texas, that first year, she wrote to me. She was trying to encourage me to return to the East Coast and give our relationship another try. She said that her involvements with other men since my leaving had only driven home for her what a good man I had been and that she wanted me even more than before. She thought we could build a life together... More VOX POPULI is not being updated this week. We erroneously stated in Wednesday's edition that it would be. We apologize for the error. COMING MONDAYA G21 NEWS Special Report on the Hanssen spying case.BOB POWERS spins music from Karelia, Gideon Freudmann and Chick Corea in POWERSSOUND.
DAY ONE has KEVIN CAREY's consideration of the paradox of "small government" advocates supporting the "big military."
It makes sense.
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THE MYTHVILLE PROJECT: A full 61 days after our dimpled chads were rendered null and void, the bad ju-ju arrived in Telluride, Colorado, like an inevitable wind from some foul and gassy pharaoh perched, with a long, long rifle, on the Grassy Knoll of our times. That is to say the Savage Pilgrim was fired from his job at the local bakery. This after joking with the owner that he should be sued for selling the locals bad milk. The Pilgrim exercised his free speech, and then paid for what a donut hole really costs.... "Fired by Pharaoh at 10,000 Feet" DOUGLAS MC DANIEL More
THE SEX COLUMN: This woman I know, who always presented herself as thoughtful, polite, and practically "virginal," once confided in me that before she had gotten her job with a high tech company she worked for a Web site called "Future Sex." (Don't try to go there now, Losers! They're down as they migrate to a new server. It's because of horney Joes like you that they got overwhelmed with traffic and needed bigger space!) I had to laugh. You never really know about people, do you? I had to admit, that name though, "future sex" was just a stroke of brilliance all by itself. It immediately makes you curious, don't it?
There's this guy over at Salon magazine that thinks future sex will be all about sex toys. But I don't buy it And I'm sure you read the headlines about this doctor what claims he's got this new back massager or whatever that he accidentally discovered produces instant orgasms for some women. But I just can't believe that my especial province and source of joy will end up bein' all about machine manipulation. I just can't!.... "Future Sex" CHARLIE THE TUNA More
In the case of my first friend, he worked for a company at which I had been employed only scant months ago. I warned him that they were on a slippery slope then and that keeping his eyes open for other opportunities might be advisable. The day before he got the e-mail telling him he'd receive his final paycheck "as soon as is reasonably possible under our system," I had written an article for my new employer about how his troubled company was the target of shareholder class action suits, a trading investigation and had failed to meet Wall Street analysts' expectations of earnings per share. That company announced that it would layoff 25% of its staff on the same day it reported its dismal quarterly results.
The second friend's company is being more sneaky. They haven't made a layoff announcement. They are simply sacking eight or ten people a week at rotating locations, rather than doing the type of across-board cuts that usually get noticed and reported by industry media types like myself. Sorry, fellas, the cat is now out of the bag.... "The Quiet Storm" ROD AMIS More
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Generating energy for the 21st Century. GENERATOR 21.
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© 2001, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments.We still like to hear from you. Send your snide remarks torod@g21.net.
Once I had made up my mind, the first thing I did was drive to Benicia last Saturday to tell my Moms. I was not sure how she would take it, but I knew I wanted her to be the first to know -- even before I "popped the question" to Tanya, my girl.
Torme, in his later years a chubby but jovial entertainer in clubs and theaters across the country, began his career as a heartthrob during the 1940s. His unusual voice led someone to labeling him as "The Velvet Fog" It made a certain amount of sense, as even in his salad days, Torme tended to sound like a young man with a bad chest cold. Torme later told interviewers that he hated the "fog" designation.
