COVER -> MY GLASS HOUSE
So indulge me as I clean things out of my "Use" file that I haven't gotten around to before now.
For example, our erstwhile editorialist ED CANTARELLA sent me this a while back, and I've been meaning to share it with you:
"Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array." G(enesis) 2:1. Hmmnn...
My pal, Darhl Stultz who lives down in Florida and writes the IT column for About.com, knowing I'm a Mac addict sent me this:
"To: rod@g21.net
"Subject: Good Apple story
"Just clipped this from Cringely's Pulpit column...
" 'Another person who won't be pushed around is Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who still seems to think that he is the company's interim CEO. Apple employees used to get a sabbatical every five years, but this has been replaced at the New Apple with the choice of either a lapel pin or a certificate. On the certificate is a place for the CEO to sign, but Jobs hasn't been signing. Like Dimaggio, perhaps he thinks his signature will increase in value over time, especially if he refuses to sign. The lame excuse being given to employees is still that he's the interim CEO. Apple must not be reading its own press releases.
" 'Recently, a woman approached Jobs in a hallway at Apple, presented her certificate for 15 years service and asked him to sign it. Jobs read the certificate, handed it back unsigned and said, "Nobody should stay 15 years at one company." Then he walked away.
" 'If anyone tells you Steve Jobs has changed, they are wrong...'"
And then, from my pal Scott Morin, in Rhode Island, came this wonderful chestnut:
"GREAT MOMENTS IN SMALL TALK:
"(Conversation with Frederick North, British Prime Minister, 1770-1782)
"ENGLISH ARISTOCRAT: Who is that ugly woman who just came in?
"LORD NORTH: Oh, that is my wife.
"ARISTOCRAT: Sir, I beg your pardon. I do not mean her. I mean that shocking monster who is along with her?
"LORD NORTH: That is my daughter."
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Finally, to end the housekeeping, I thought I'd share this great JPEG sent to me by perennial card John Howard. Cat-lovers everywhere will chuckle, I'm sure.
Okay, okay! I'm done now. I'll try to be more serious.
Mammoth Issue or What?
This is another week where there are SO MANY good features, I don't know where to begin to point you! ED CANTARELLA'S RDR for today should prove both controversial and enlightening. JON KOHL provides a great report from Honduras. PIYUSH KUMAR presents a wonderful backgrounder on the Sri Lanka crisis and its historical roots. All I can suggest is that you take the week to read the entire magazine and TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT US...And what took me longest to work on this week? Your VOX POPULI page. You readers are an intimate part of the dialogue at The World's Magazine and you had a lot to say over the last two weeks. I'm finding it hard to keep up.
One of my personal concerns this week --- expect it to generate an article --- is the illusion of Freedom of Information we have in most Western, industrialized nations. The more I consider this issue, the more I realize what a Big Lie it is.
Example, in my last few years of journalism I keep hearing: "You can use this if you don't mention my name, or the name of my company." I get approached by people all the time who are as disgusted as I am with corporate shenanigans and overpaid CEOs --- and are more than willing to expose them to left-wing writers like myself --- but ONLY if they can maintain complete anonymity.
Why do you think this is?
If I were from a Mouthpiece Media outlet, willing to flack for their company's products like a street-corner whore, I'd get name, rank, serial number PLUS some time in their time-share down in Cancun! But because I'm reporting the OTHER side of the story --- OOPS! What happened to access to the Bigwigs and Freedom of Information now? I think you know what I'm talking about.
The only information which is actually free, the only access that is actually easy, is the usual corporate dog-and-pony show, my children. That's the truth. Deviate from the corporate party-line and you have to go unattributed. Have you hear the word samizdat?
One More Rant
... And while I'm in Rant mode, I have to ask if The World's Magazine is the only media outlet that seems to notice that we are now in a New World Order in which there are more REFUGEES wondering across the face of this planet than since the end of freaking World War Two?
Doesn't that bother any of the other so-called journalists out there as much as it bothers us?!?
We could spend the next six months doing nothing but covering refugee stories from Sierra Leone to Jaffa and not even begin to scratch the surface of this problem. If this is what the New World Order is about, unbridled ethnic warfare, slow and inadequate relief operations, widespread worldwide human suffering on a scale unrivaled in centuries --- then you know where you can shove your New World Order, Mr. President!
And I don't just mean Dollar Bill Clinton. This all started back in the Republican regimes. Clinton just exascerbated the problem by wanting to pick and choose and wiggle and waffle his way through the results of the latest ABC/CNN/TIME/NY Times polls.
So China gets Favored Nation Status...
It's no wonder that the usually pedantic and mainstream KEVIN CAREY asserts we need a new rule book for international diplomacy in this week's DAY ONE article! Hell, we need more than a new rule book, we need all new players!
Bob Dylan said it best: "Democracy don't rule the world/You better get that through your head/This world is ruled by violence/Or is that better left unsaid/"
A rejoinder to that comes from Mahatma Gandhi: "Poverty is the most pernicious form of violence perpetrated on mankind."
THINGS THAT BOTHER ME THIS WEEK
1. The recognition that the move to Baltimore was a tactical error.2. Doctors, dentists, optometrists.
3. No time for the reading I'd like to do.
4. Lack of energy.
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
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 was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly. 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.
Our Editor does listen!