MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
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Baltimore - 20 February, 2000 - My pal Darhl Stultz got it about right after only a week. He warned me that the new system of launching pages with generic names so that they would be easy to bookmark contained a trap. (Sorry, Dmitri!) If someone was looking for a specific topic and wasthey would end up being SOL.
- new to the site and its architecture, or
- unfamiliar with how articles are archived and referring to one of our newsletters
My pal, Ethan Casey, who edits Blue Ear, confirmed that this week when he wanted to refer his Forum members to RON DIENER's RDR piece on the cyanide poisoning of the Danube but couldn't locate it's URL.
So after a great deal of work developing referral pages in order to correct that misstep, G21 goes back to our tried-and-true system of numbering the articles. Live and learn.
WHAT DO I MEAN BY "A great deal of work...?"
Let me put it this way, Gentle Reader, Kevin and I spent a total of twelve and half (12.5) man-hours just staging this site for the launch of this edition yesterday. I've been working for six and half (6.5) hours today as I type this. I estimate I have another two - three hours of work remaining (that includes the newsletter, of course) before I can call it a day.
In others words, I doubt I'll *execute* anybody's suggestion again without giving it WEEKS of thought....
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FEED THE HUNGRY. You can help someone else in this world and IT WON'T COST YOU A DIME. If you simply remember to drop by The Hunger Site every day that you surf and click a simple button ONE LESS PERSON WILL GO HUNGRY. The food is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme and paid for through the sponsorship of companies that care. Do your part.
Meanwhile, I'm pleased that The World's Magazine seems to be making a name for itself as a good place for "new" international writers to cut their teeth. This week we introduce two new G-Crew team members.: AL DUNSMUIR from the United Kingdom and PIYUSH KUMAR from India. I hope you'll be as impressed with their debut submissions as I was.
Also of SPECIAL NOTE in this week's edition are the report from JAMES J. BROSNAHAN, ESQ. & DAN VAN DE MORTEL rating the four leading Presidential Candidates on Northern Ireland issues and the return of STEVE VIVIAN to talk about the fallacies propagated by political fundamentalist left and right. Hoorah!
The World's Magazine: g21.net
Event # 204: THE SHAPE OF MY HEART
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****************** HEY! WAIT A MINUTE! Didn't I say I wasn't going to be wasting my own personal valuable real estate on this Web site hyping the other writers here?
Sheesh!
WOLF, FRIENDSHIP, SIN
My pal and fellow writer WOLF DE VOON telephoned me from Costa Rica this week just to say "Hi!" We talked about cabbages and kings. Wolf is one of those people with a deep, smooth, "valium" kind of voice. He would have made a great DJ on an alternative radio station back in the late '60s or early 70s.And --- considering most of his public writing --- his voice sounds immeasurably kind.
I know that the use of the word "kind" in referring to Wolf will shock some of our readers, and quite a few of the writers here. There are G21 writers who can't abide Wolf's material. And there are G21 writers and friends of mine who don't understand how Wolf DeVoon and I could possibly be friends.
Scroll back to last week's reminiscence about my pal Yona; this is not new territory for me.
- My friend and former housemate Mardi detested my friend Steve and thought he had no redeeming qualities. She never understood how I could be so loyal to the guy, even visiting him in hospital as he was dying of AIDS.
- There were people in Egypt, when I lived there, who considered my friends Abdelrahman and Atiat el Abnoudi Communists and agitators and couldn't understand why I would consider them charming and inspiring.
- My pal Ric never liked my ex-wife Debbie.
- Debbie once made me swear that Terry --- who was the Best Man at our subsequent wedding --- would never set foot in our home again. (He also later became one of our housemates. She finally saw what a good-hearted lug he is.)
- None of our friends could understand how Yo could hate men and hang out me, or why I would hang out with a self-confessed lesbian man-hater.
- Lots of people I know considered my pal Robin Miller a jerk and couldn't figure out how or why we ever became friends.
But I have never picked my friends based on what other people thought of them, nor have I allowed my friends to influence the value I found in my friends and relationships.
There is one Truth I have always been aware of: there is a little Nazi inside each of us.
Not so much in the sense that we can be filled with hatred and want to hurt and destroy other people --- but more in the sense that we are all judgmental, cruel, and totally capable of inflicing pain on the people around us.
We have harbored this ability since childhood when we ridiculed the fat kid or the poor kid or the nerd. Some of us have even found it easy to act on this repulsive impulse as adults.
ALL OF US have injured someone during our lives. "I'm sorry" just doesn't wash the stain away, in my book.
So I find my friends as they present themselves to me. I take them for what they are.
And I acknowledge each day to myself, too, that I am one of the most unforgiving bastards I know once I feel I've been crossed. Sometimes I don't act upon the injury, but I NEVER forget it...
Wolf told me during our conversation that he felt he owed me a lot.
"No, you don't," I said. "That's silly! You don't owe me anything."
He said he valued our friendship and being able to talk to me when he was down or conflicted or just needed some person who would consider what he was doing without jealousy or judgment. He said that I had been a good friend to have at the end of last year.
I was mystified.
I'm always mystified when people don't get that I am striving to be worthy.... that I am carrying inside me every day the admonishment of my parents that I don't deserve to be alive and the image of my father preparing to end my life.
Of course, being rational, I understand that no one else can see the shape of your heart. Most people don't even make the effort. Maybe that's why I try...
Hey, Kids! Check out this page. We want you to join us.Things That Bother Me This Week
- That my workload CONTINUES to exceed the hours in my days.
- The silence of friends I'd love to hear from.
- Never having the time to shop.
- Conceding that I need to hire a housekeeper.
REMEMBER: Tell every single one of your friends about this Web site.
Why do we keep doing this? Because we like you.
Thanks for coming back this week."Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod
This is another Web site made on a Macintosh.
EDITORIAL CORRECTIONS: Man! I misspelled "memoirs" on the MOIA page last week! I apologize.
ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services.
Rod is now a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he writes on web design and development issues every Thursday. He is principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviews technology issues five days a week. His opinions on the Info Age began appearing on MethodFive's HYPER technology newsletter in March. 1999. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000.
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