FROM OUR MAILBAG 5/08 - 5/12/98:
BLUSH TIME, Again...
FROM Larry L., Hancock, MD, USA:
Your web site is excellent. Very much enjoyed my visit.
We have provided a link from ours to yours. Keep up the good work!
Larry Logan,
Editor of SATIRE
SATIRE --- The Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Satire [E-mail: satire@intrepid.net]
Snail Mail: PO Box 340, Hancock, MD 21750-0340 USA
Check an Internet review of SATIRE:
http://www.jps.net/kankennn/reviews/satire43.htm
Thomas Hart has a Fan...
FROM Dave P., Vancouver, B.C., CANADA:
Thomas Hart's article on Going Postal was another great example of why I keep coming back to the G21. Good job. (Some of us do agree with you, Tom!) ;=)
Dave
THOMAS HART RESPONDS: Thanks much, Dave! I hope you're telling all your pards what a great mag' this is, as well. We need the "mindshare."
...And in The News
FROM Darrl C., Hershey, PA, USA:
Miles Davis Tribute to Be Webcast
N2K's (NTKI) JazzCentralStation.com will launch MilesDavis.com featuring a tribute May 26, on what would have been his seventy-second birthday. It will feature a night of live music, personal recollections, and commentary on the man and his music from legendary Davis sidemen and others. In conjunction with the launch of MilesDavis.com that day, an all-star musical and multimedia tribute will be cybercast from Birdland. Musicians will include Wynton Marsalis, Jack De Johnette, and Wallace Roney. The night's performances will be cybercast on JazzCentralStation.com and broadcast live on a New York radio station.
Please, Please Stop!
FROM Nial. C., San Diego, CA, USA:
Fantastic stuff. Reads right down my alley of opinion. I have had the same thoughts for 20 years and they become more germane each year. Bad thing about the black page you can not print it out, you will run out of ink. Beautiful though. Nial (at 77) and survied two Wars and Clinton (maybe).
ROD RESPONDS: Nial, Thanks so much for taking the time to write to me(us) and express your opinion!
You can't imagine how important it is to us to hear from our readers. (Sometimes it feels like we're working in a void.)
As to the background. You'll find that our MOTHERS issue is quite printable, as we move to more of a "standard" for what the G21 will look like. (After much experimentation by our Editor ;=))
Please tell your friends about us.
Regards,
Rod
...We have This Thing, See? It's called a Message Board...
FROM Nial. C., San Diego, CA, USA:
I have just read the report by Hargrove and his kidnaping. You people are surely and Advant Guarde in public service. The Web is amazing.
I have long held that the Associated Press, the electronic sending of our news selected by a small group in New York was an abomination. The demise of the country weekly and the development of TV have made the [public] victim of personal views from the eastern seaboard {read New York} who have a personal agenda often presented in oblique ways not understood by the reading public. The Hargrave story, should have been widespread in its entirety through the medium of the daily paper. Instead it merely appeared as a sidebar to more local events. Those of us [my generation] who lived in a more gentle (less violent) times have our stories, WWII, Korea, the depression, (I came to California with over 1000 of us on a freight train-men women-children-whole families) and those of us who are still around see the present situation in the USA as catastrophic-drugs-murder-house invasions-car jackings-[rampant crime] and the recent onset of children with guns killing others-snipers on the freeway and on and on.
I read the marvelous presentation as a Web Page on the First Amendment. I did not endorse the position taken to support the freedom of the NET per se.
[EDITOR's NOTE: The FirstAmendment.org site is NOT part of the G21. It is an independent website and organization. We are merely signatory of the First Amendment pledge featured there, and make no claim to any of the content or opinions expressed on that site outside of the Pledge.--RA]Of course I am a devout believer in the Constitution. The reason I did not endorse it is two fold. One, and a main one, is because the ACLU endorses it. I am rabid about the ACLU having studied it's origin and purpose from when it was founded. Secondly, I do believe that when a government founded (as the net was-for military purposes) and government supported, (funded) as it is by use of the launched satellites, there is a basic license involved that ultimately falls back on the Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate in the public interest. The allocation of the Radio Waves to public use require(s) that a certain standard of decency be observed. This, of course, has been chipped away, over the years until it has been ignored and uninforced. All this stems from the fact that we are a Christian nation, or were a Christian nation. I suppose I am boring you. Consider that the English language is less than 300 years old. That you use this tool of communication as a sword to present your, (and I too) views. That is what we really want to respect and protect. Freedom of expression in the written word that represents thought in action, the diversity of views.
There are those among us whose salacious views are founded in lust. Moral aberrations that seem to be founded in natures imperfections, do not represent the purity of spirit that rest in [if you will] God fearing morally straight citizens who represent the moral fabric of the bulk of the citizens of our county. That those views should be let loose through the broad band width of the Internet seems to me to be beyond the bounds of the character of this county we call the USA. It undermines the moral fabric of our country.
Last night I went to a play supported by government grants and private citizens for aspiring actors. The them of the play was supposed to be a manifestation of Art (for arts sake) What was portrayed was a simple theme. A white mans wife turned to the black friend for sex while in the background the husband seduced a friend, graphically. This, of course goes on in society. It is a true circumstance that could happen. But is the portrayal of these animal, (barnyard) instincts, uncontrolled, art? I do not think so. I and my (male) friend had to leave. Neither of use are prudes, and we have done our share of chasing women, (no men), whoring and drunkenness too.
I have read the Supreme Court decision that you wisely posted on the net.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Again, this was done by FirstAmendment.org NOT the G21. ---RA]A careful reading reveals the fundamentals of the decision. The decision does not rest on the simple equation of protecting the First Amendment rights we all hold so dear. rather it rests on fundamental legal errors in the premise of the development of the "terms" used in defining what is to be regarded as "not in the public interest". Of course if you are not schooled in the law (as I am) these fine points escape you so you tend to shout hooray" we won one that lets us muddy the net with salacious material because we have the "right". Ask yourself this? Would you personally publish "in color" lurid sex acts with children, for example? I rather think not.
I have a friend, a woman in her 40's, who is making $600 a week (at 15 cents a hit) from her home, linking such pages. Of course she is no longer my friend, because I cannot for the life of me consider stooping to that level of conduct in digression of my fellow citizens.
I did not start out to create a lecture and please do not think of this tirade as a lecture. Merely a point of view based on observations of a lifetime.
Some of this reaction to your beautiful skillfully developed, and artistic site stems from the comments I read about the sic POSTAL attitude that might NOW be the norm in the USA. I have a site http://home.pacbell.net/ncastle where I sell Children's Talking Books. I have owned factories, in addition to the law I have other interests, and I can tell you that the American spirit is well and alive. I am in constant contact with workers in a lot of industries. Your example of perfection in the work you do is the contra of the Postal theme pointed out in the essay. What I find is that when you give people total security, and protection from dismissal, you find sloth, laziness, incompetence and so on. The exception is in the military where the supervision is mandatory strickly, in order to get good performance. You find that there they do refuse to "reup" enlisted personal who fail to meet standards that are acceptable. As to the "officers" it up or out. Except of course for those from the Academies
Youth, (of course) knows everything and how to fix it. Maybe you and your generation will find a way. I hope so, because, what we had in the past was the ability to leave our cars unlocked, our homes unlocked, our possesions in the yard, unattended and our kids in school secure in the knowledge that they were safe from dope and preditors. That is no longer the case. And, I might add, our money undebased.
THOMAS HART RESPONDS: Nial, thanks for checking my article, and for keeping my quota of at least one negative response per article in tact. Dave's letter had me worried for a second. Heaven forbid that Rod start to believe that most people like and agree with me! ;=)
I don't think I "know everything and how to fix it." I do thing I know my neighbor, Wilkey, and lots of people like him. I also think I know that grass won't grow in our streets, as Bill Gates asserted just this past week, if Windows98 doesn't ship on schedule.
I also know, Nial, that if this were the "God fearing" nation you attempt to describe there wouldn't be an homeless on our streets, bombing of abortion clinics, bundles being made selling arms to Third World nations, or the class warfare of the last thirty years which has sent all the wealth of the nation toward the top -- effectively creating a plutocracy. That's the catastrophe I see, Nial.
+++ THE PREVIOUS VOX POPULI +++ THE NEXT VOX POPULI +++
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