I'd certainly like to take a look at your essay and will send you comments if you'd like.
To answer your question, No, I'm not gay personally. Some people would joke that I'm not sexual at all, since I've chosen the path of celibacy over the past few years. I just think I'm in a "dormant" period, if you will, waiting to find the right person. Or maybe I'll just end up not connecting again, like Paul Newman's character in the film "Nobody's Fool."
Regards,
Rod
From Meredith T., Tampa, FL, USA:
SUBJECT: you wanna talk about the dragon?
The dragon is still waking up, lifting its tail and shifting around as it very slowly comes to awareness. People all over the world share your same dissatisfaction and frustration, and we are gravitating into groups, from drumming circles to bowling leagues. When we all realize that the VAST majority of mankind wants peace, and we all have to cooperate in equality to get there, then the dragon will wake up. The clock is ticking...
Thought-provoking article, Raheem.
Thanks,
Meredith
From Dan McAvinchey, Guitar Nine Records, Raleigh, NC, USA:
Subject: "Hands of Danz" Reviewed in "Powerssound"
Bob:
Just read it this morning, what a great way to start the day! I agree
with yor point about putting together compilations, if you don't have some kind of gimmick or hook, for lack of better words, you may as well plan on
using them for coasters.
One of the best selling compilations on our site is called the Generation Ibanez Project, which was all songs contributed by guitarists using the same 7-String Ibanez electric guitar model to record their tracks, and it attracted people who wanted to see if that 7th string really made a difference!
Thanks very much for the write-up, I will alert all the Dans!
Dan McAvinchey
Guitar Nine Records
From Ed Cantarella, Bloomfield, MI, USA:
Subject: Response to "Charlie the Tuna"
Dear Charlie: Other than mis-statements of facts (like the mischaracterization of who invented the steel process for the cannons that made the difference in the Prussian War, which was being put forward to "pump-up" a nationalistic point), my "taking to task" has primarily involved three writers, on three fairly controversial points: generalizations on women/men;İgeneralizations on race; and blatant fabrications to the readership, just to make a point.
Beyond that, 10-15 writers here have received little but compliments on their articles from me.
IMHO, disagreeing with the writers here, at least some of the time, is the "work" of all readers who have actually pondered what is being put forth - I am unapologetic that I am notİeasily swayed from a held opinion, short of convincing information to the contrary.
Iİsuppose one shouldn't get too riled about "Charlie": most of his claimed behavior wouldn't "fly" in the real world anyway, without him suffering some extremely negative consequences. Those women and their families (I'm thinking temperamental male relatives here) would make his life "painfully unpleasant", if he REALLY was carrying on like that, IMHO
BTW: "Charlie" - it isn't YOUR column; not unless your name is Rod Amis.
EC
P.S.My apologies to Ana Jumari for forgetting that we currently have two active female writers.İ
From Kevin J., London, UK:
Subject: INFO AGE & INDS AGE
Hi Doug,
I'm Kevin. I'm a South Bank University student in London and I am now preparing a research on work. I am trying to compare the "INFORMATION AGE" to the "INDUSTRIAL AGE". I am gathering the most information that I can. I found out about your works on (http://www.g21.net/mem56.html) If possible, I would have really liked to hear from your point of view concerning these topics.
Thanks.
Kevin.
From Scott B, Telluride, CO, USA:
Doug,
It get more interesting all the time. Who would of thought that it was up to Telluride toİsaveİthe world?
Our motto is: Save Telluride, then the world. It's rock 'n roll as usual.
Our dates for next year are: August 10,11,12,13. Our theme is: A Celebration of the Past, Present and Future of Technology. "The place where it all began." In 1891, L.L. Nunn, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse built the world's first alternating current power plant in Telluride....
Best,
Scott
From Terry T., Cloverdale, CA, USA:
SUBJECT: Tuna is Truth!
Dear Editor:
It looks like you have really done it to yourself again this time. Has the hate mail started pouring in again over the Tuna column? I haven't noticed too much outside of th G-21 people. I still have some of those old G-21 and Bounty Times though where the Tuna man and your bad-ass self were threatened with death and dismemberment. Remember the Sisters of Wicca? Ha-ha. Those were the good old days when Men were men and we laughed-No- we courted Danger. Maybe see about gettin' a gun though if this stuff keeps up.
Hey nice ...
Another Loser from California's Wine Country. (So kill me dog.)
[Editor's Note: What is now the G21 appeared in hardcopy as the Bounty Times from 1990 - 1992. The name-change occured when we began publishing in San Francisco.]
From Chris W., New York, NY, USA:
To: Charlie the Tuna
What about gay people?
CHARLIE RESPONDS: Hey, Chris, our publisher already has a columnist who covers the issues from the gay persuasion. His name is Phil Martin. His column is called "Queer Planet." I got my own axe to grind, pal.
From Barbara A., Berkeley, CA, USA:
I like the peel away headlines - not so wild about the mustard green column...and I want to see a full exhibition of the real Raheem and Charlie!!!
;=>Barb
From Ed C., Bloomfield, MI, USA:
SUBJECT: RR
That was weirdly suspenseful....up to the end I thought he was gonna say the brother in the woods got picked of by some "Soldier of Fortune" reading militiaman, with them infra-red goggles.
Funny thing is, all that night vision shit is now available over the counter - cheap! He's rollin'!
EC
From Arthur C., London, UK:
SUBJECT: G21
Yours is certainly one of the most unusual publications I have yet uncovered on the WWW. One could scarcely imagine seeing a writer of the calibre of Kevin Carey and one such as Radio Raheem appearing in the same publication. You have done a fine job of assembling skillful and entertaining writers in the same place, something about which you should be proud.
I'll certainly return to this web 'zine and recommend it to my more --- ahem! --- open-minded acquaintances.
Cheers!
Arthur C.
AND your favorite e-mails from The World's Mailbox
From Darryl C., Hershey, PA, USA:
This was sent to me and I thought I should share it.
Another true perspective on the election fiasco:
----------
Just Our Bill
by Dennis Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Saturday, December 02, 2000
Lito Pena is sure of his memory.
Thirty-six years ago he, then a Democratic Party poll watcher, got into a
shoving match with a Republican who had spent the opening hours of the 1964 election doing his damnedest to keep people from voting in south Phoenix.
"He was holding up minority voters because he knew they were going to vote
Democratic," said Pena.
The guy called himself Bill. He knew the law and applied it with the precision of a swordsman.
He sat at the table at the Bethune School, a polling place brimming with black citizens, and quizzed voters ad nauseam about where they were from,
how long they'd lived there-every question in the book.
A passage of the Constitution was read and people who spoke broken English
were ordered to interpret it to prove they had the language skills to vote.
By the time Pena arrived at Bethune, he said, the line to vote was four abreast and a block long. People were giving up and going home.
Pena told the guy to leave. They got into an argument. Shoving followed. Arizona politics can be raw.
Finally, Pena said, the guy raised a fist as if he was fixing to throw a punch.
"I said 'If that's what you want, I'll get someone to take you out of here' "
Party leaders told him not to get physical, but this was the second straight election in which Republicans had sent out people to intellectually rough up the voters. The project even had a name: Operation Eagle Eye.
Pena had a group of 20 iron workers holed up in a motel nearby. He dispatched one who grabbed Bill and hustled him out of the school.
"He was pushing him across a yard and backed him into the school
building," Pena remembered.
Others in Phoenix remember Operation Eagle Eye, too.
Charlie Stevens, then the head of the local Young Republicans, said he got
a phone call from the same lawyer Pena remembered throwing out of Bethune
School.
The guy wanted to know why Charlie hadn't joined Operation Eagle Eye.
"I think they called them flying squads," Stevens said. "It was perfectly
legal. The law at the time was that you had to be able to read English and
interpret what you read."
But he didn't like the idea and he told Bill this.
"My parents were immigrants," Stevens said. They'd settled in Cleveland, Ohio, a pair of Greeks driven out of Turkey who arrived in the United States with broken English and a desire to be American. After their son went to law school and settled in Phoenix, he even Americanized the name.
Charlie Tsoukalas became Charlie Stevens.
"I didn't think it was proper to challenge my dad or my mother to interpret the Constitution," Stevens said. "Even people who are born here have trouble interpreting the Constitution. Lawyers have trouble interpreting it."
The guy told Stevens that if he felt that way about it, then he could take
a pass.
There was nothing illegal going on there, Stevens said.
"It just violated my principles. I had a poor family. I grew up in the projects in Cleveland, Ohio."
Operation Eagle Eye had a two-year run. Eventually, Arizona changed the laws that had allowed the kind of challenges that had devolved into bullying.
Pena went on to serve 30 years in the Arizona State Legislature.
Stevens became a prosperous and well-regarded lawyer in Phoenix and helped Sandra Day O'Connor get her start in law.
The guy Pena remembers tossing out of Bethune School prospered, too. Bill Rehnquist, now better known as William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, presided yesterday over a case that centers on whether every vote for president was properly recorded in the state of Florida.
In his confirmation hearings for the court in 1971, Rehnquist denied personally intimidating voters and gave the explanation that he might have
been called to polling places on Election Day to arbitrate disputes over voter qualifications.
Fifteen years later, three more witnesses, including a deputy U.S. attorney, told of being called to polling places and having angry voters point to Rehnquist as their tormentor. His defenders suggested it was a case of mistaken identity.
Now, with the presidency in the balance, Rehnquist has been asked to read
passages of the Constitution and interpret them.
Once again, a reading and interpretation will determine whose vote gets to
count.
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