{"conf": "cultures", "generated_at": "2026-04-26T08:00:02.954878Z", "threads": [{"num": 0, "subject": "", "response_count": 0, "posts": []}, {"num": 10, "subject": "Ramble", "response_count": 553, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Dec  4, 1996 (23:59)", "body": "I've been holed up here all day but I don't have cabin fever. I love it at my place. It's night time. Outside it's drizzling. I've been building new boxes to put on the net, reading, studying and writing today. The evening news is on the tube. I feel like making a pot of coffee. I keep getting a box on my screen that says my outbox in Microsoft Mail is damaged. My outbox is empty! I got some interesting email from Elizabeth Gipps, an old friend today. And that's part of my world tonight."}, {"response": 2, "author": "Saman", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (00:02)", "body": "I can't believe I'm actually doing this - I usually steer clear of such threads :). But then this has not been a typical day! I baked muffins for the first time in my life (my mother is slightly obsessive about anyone cooking in her kitchen, but she's w orking at the moment) and they were a success. Hey I'm doing better than the Bennet girls - they couldn't cook. I also just got rudely interrupted from my spring-browsing by a door-to-door salesman wanting to give me a voucher for 20 free meals - only I'd have to pay $30 for it! I blame Neil Finn for it all. Huh? I hear you say. Mr Finn was lead vocalist for Crowded House - my all-time favourite band who announced they were breaking up in June. Their final charity concert on the steps of the Sydney Opera House was televised he re on Sunday, and I'm am currently slowly working my way through a grieving process involving contimuous playing of all my Crowded House CDs - maybe that's why the salesman looked happy to depart. Top that people!"}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (00:08)", "body": "Tough to top. The only rule in this topic is that are no rules and that you can talk about anything and everything . Total free form."}, {"response": 4, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (00:58)", "body": "During my one excursion outside, I acquired a stud finder and 16 yards of unbleached muslin. Prize for the most creative use of these wares."}, {"response": 5, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (01:20)", "body": "Hope you find that stud. I'm kicked back watching the music awards on Fox. And I'm scanning in some ancient family photos of my Norwegian relatives in Minnesota. I'm building sort of a family album web page for my folks and family at Christmas. It's my life story too. Dishwalla's playing on the tube."}, {"response": 6, "author": "elder", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (02:47)", "body": "Moody Blues boxed set CD is playing (the poetry is a bit surreal), and I just finished making up an algebra exam to give to my students tomorrow. I have not had time to browse here since Saturday evening, and I must say that I have missed all of you. I skipped (church) choir rehearsal to relax this evening, so I suppose I feel a bit guilty. Saman, congrats on the muffins. It has been an absolute age since I used my kitchen stoves to do anything other than heat soup or cook frozen dinners! As soon as the semester is over, I will go to San Diego for a week over Christmas -- mom and one brother's family out there. I plan to take the S&S video to share w/ mom."}, {"response": 7, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (03:23)", "body": "Moody Blues. Santana was just on the music awards getting the Century Billboard award. Only George Harrison and three others have ever won this award. Still scanning pictures and working on some website proposals. I've got 4 computers hooked up to a switchbox here and I'm flipping from one to another. Bastrop Internet Services is working on building up the new server, I popped another 20mb of memory in it last night and Scott's putting NT 4.0 on it. I don't know if it's back on line yet. Their website is http://www.bastrop.net Tomorrow, Matt is going to build up a new primary server to replace http://access.spring.com which bit the dust. I got a 2mb hard drive to replace the 1 gigger that went down. The rains have past. It's quiet out in Cedar Creek, like it always is. I wonder what Amy's doing tonight."}, {"response": 8, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (09:41)", "body": "Amy slept for a change -- but awoke at 4 am"}, {"response": 9, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (12:13)", "body": "Good morning Amy, it's 6 am here and you've already been up for two hours, are you ever bright eyed and bushy tailed today! I'm going in to Austin today to take care of lots of business and things that are piling up. I've got to get that contract going with Texaltel (see projects) and get that machine to Matt (to replace the server that crashed) and a bunch of friends are meeting at pub on 6th street tonight. We had some interesting comments in one of the NetMeeting topics yesterday (not the one that's linked to here) and you may want to check them out in the 'apps' conference. Did you know that if you hit the 'enter' key twice that you will get a menu here if you're in a shell? But only about half the menus work so far. I'm writing shell scripts to do a whole bunch of things. Is anyone here good at writing shell scripts?"}, {"response": 10, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (17:33)", "body": "Even though I won't be online for the next 8 hours. I left my microphone aimed at my radio. So you may be able to hear me talking to other folks if you connect to me on NetMeeting."}, {"response": 11, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec  5, 1996 (17:34)", "body": "Here are some of the pictures I scanned: http://www.spring.com/~terry/albumjpg/ And me as a baby: http://www.spring.com/~terry/albumjpg/terry2.JPG"}, {"response": 12, "author": "Donna", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (01:49)", "body": "I have to start making Christmas cookies and wrapping presents. I would like to get most of this done while my \"the little angels\" are in school. I will be very busy during the morning hours. Every year I say I will not go crazy but every YEAR we do. Oh w ell, \"tis the seasons to be joLly, fa,la,la,la,la,la,la\" * *** ***** ******* ********* *********** *** ***"}, {"response": 13, "author": "Donna", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (01:58)", "body": "1 \"Merry Christmas\" 232 \"Happy New Year\" 34443 4555544 566666665 67777777776 7888888888887 101"}, {"response": 14, "author": "Donna", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (01:59)", "body": "I guess half a tree is better then none. HO! HO!"}, {"response": 15, "author": "Anna", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (02:37)", "body": "HO!"}, {"response": 16, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (04:28)", "body": "I have to make it down to see the tree of lights in Zilker Park. See my comments in the food conference about my wonderful dinner tonight."}, {"response": 17, "author": "mich", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (04:51)", "body": "I'm having a hard time finding any holiday spirit this year. I usually enjoy gift giving and all the events but Novemeber has worn me out. Someone remind me what's it like to have a life outside of work. Donna, could you pls send a little of your xmas spirit my way? I'm in grave need. Mich"}, {"response": 18, "author": "Donna", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (05:03)", "body": "Sure Mich, no, problem it will be a \"surprise\""}, {"response": 19, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Fri, Dec  6, 1996 (19:45)", "body": "D'Arcy or Pemberley shape cookies anyone ? Donna, you already got some gifts ? Got to get them before the usual 24-hour-prior-to-Xmas-day. And it is a major plus to have kids, they really put you in the spirit don't they. Almost no choice but to feel it. My trick for the past years, particularly when all I had was a job and friends at the other corner of the earth, was to give time to needy causes (filling baskets of food. Nothing like seeing a two/three year old receiving is only plush teddy. Even if my situation as quite change, I remained faithfull to this commitment and it makes me feel great. Sending you my warmest wishes of joy and happiness, mich."}, {"response": 20, "author": "cat", "date": "Sat, Dec  7, 1996 (00:40)", "body": "Not a good day today. Two girls in my homeroom were making fun of my friend Tara because she is skinny and short. They called her a Balemic Monkey (I dan't know if thats spellled right). They spread nasty rumors about her for absolutly no reason. They threw her books in the garbage, STOLE a few of her belongings, and on top of all that they threw away her BIBLE!! I am sooooooo pissed off right now. We also lost our game by ONE piont. It was a good game. I am not going to get any sleep tonite becaus John has invited 4 friends to sleep over. They are all loud and abnoxious (forgive spelling)."}, {"response": 21, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Sat, Dec  7, 1996 (02:18)", "body": "Cat, hope you were able to give Tara some support and comfort. At a time like that one really needs one's friends. Insecure young people can be so hard on one another. (And some of them never do grow out of it and become Caroline Bingleys!)"}, {"response": 22, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sat, Dec  7, 1996 (05:27)", "body": "They should have a class in grade school/high school to teach people how to to love each other"}, {"response": 23, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Sat, Dec  7, 1996 (05:38)", "body": "But Donna, I believe that this is what parents are for?"}, {"response": 24, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sat, Dec  7, 1996 (15:34)", "body": "Cheryl sometimes that is not enough."}, {"response": 25, "author": "cat", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (00:01)", "body": "People can just be so nasty to each other it disgusting! Tara was hysterical all day yesterday! I feel so bad as if I've done something awful. I feel so helpless! I want to comfort her but I can't. She is too upset. Things like this have been going on since fifth grade with her! I thought people in their last year of high school would at least be mature enough not to do that sort of thing. I hope she can forgive them. I hope I can forgive them. It is times like this to where the only way I can f rgive is when I look back and remember what Jesus did for me. Even though we laughed at Him, spat on Him, beat Him, and even killed the Messiah, the son of God, He asked His Father to forgive us all. He could have just jumped off that cross and destroye d all mankind with the snap of a finger but He didn't. He did not want to die but He loved us all so much. He wanted us to be with Him in paradise when we leave our earthly bodies. We do not deserve His love, but He gives it willingly. For those who a e offended by this message I am sorry for invading your beliefs."}, {"response": 26, "author": "cat", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (00:01)", "body": "People can just be so nasty to each other it disgusting! Tara was hysterical all day yesterday! I feel so bad as if I've done something awful. I feel so helpless! I want to comfort her but I can't. She is too upset. Things like this have been going on since fifth grade with her! I thought people in their last year of high school would at least be mature enough not to do that sort of thing. I hope she can forgive them. I hope I can forgive them. It is times like this to where the only way I can f rgive is when I look back and remember what Jesus did for me. Even though we laughed at Him, spat on Him, beat Him, and even killed the Messiah, the son of God, He asked His Father to forgive us all. He could have just jumped off that cross and destroye d all mankind with the snap of a finger but He didn't. He did not want to die but He loved us all so much. He wanted us to be with Him in paradise when we leave our earthly bodies. We do not deserve His love, but He gives it willingly. For those who a e offended by this message I am sorry for invading your beliefs."}, {"response": 27, "author": "cat", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (00:02)", "body": "I thought I hit that button once. Sorry."}, {"response": 28, "author": "Grace", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (00:56)", "body": "I spent the night waiting in a hospital emergency room....the victim is home and doing well, but meanwhile, I now feel like I am the one who need a doctor's care..... in an unrelated incident, I hit someone's car (black ice...nothing I could do)....my son 's snake is loose in the basement (Indiana Jones and I have similar feelings about vipers;I am contemplating a move to the Hilton)....I have to turn out a shepherd costume for my son by Monday or the PTA gestapo will come after me......On Sunday, I must s epherd a bunch of cub scouts carolling at a nursing home; only threats of bodily harm will get them to behave like angels(Hope the elderly won't notice the 'Batman smells' version of Jingle Bells).....my house looks like a sewer....by way of holiday decor ating,I'm thinking of stringing lights on the pumpkins that have frozen to the front porch......and friends keep wondering why I spit at the TV every time an ad for the Martha Stewart Christmas special comes on. Sorry to ramble, but just wanted to let you know it has been a typical week in the House of Grace. Ho, Ho, Ho! P.S. Amy, if you really want to find that stud, I would advise AGAINST using all 16 yards of the muslin....try working with 2 or 3 yards to make some low-cut little number that will hammer home the right message....be sure to wear that WonderBra (or if y ou don't have one, duct tape works the same kind of Wonders) ;-)"}, {"response": 29, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (01:17)", "body": "] I hit someone's car (black ice...nothing I could do)... ___ Oh Grace. How awful for you. Do treat yourself to the Hilton. Why not? And popcorn and champaign and P&P tomorrow. Can I come over?"}, {"response": 30, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (01:46)", "body": "Oh dear, Grace! Who is the \"victim\" and of what, if the black ice was an unrelated incident? ANd what variety of snake is loose? Fear not - in general, many snakes make very good pets and many others are of an extremely shy and retiring character and u nlikely to do anything to anyone unless provoked. When in junior high I was one of a group of kids who \"volunteered\" at the museum, and among our duties were, every two weeks, if there were no live mice available with which to feed the snakes, to force-f ed them hamburger, which they would not eat on their own, preferring their food alive. So two of us took on each snake, one holding the mouth open and the other poking the hamburger inside - then we had to hold its mouth shut till it swallowed the bite. The experience really stripped the poor snakes of all dignity and ability to inspire fear. Joan, too"}, {"response": 31, "author": "Grace", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (02:40)", "body": "Joan, the victim of last night's hospital escapade was my husband....he had gone to a Detroit Pistons game and was done in by a hot dog.....a piece lodged in his esophagus.......only with an ambulance, drugs, and a surgeon now behind us,and the victim fee ling much better, can I even dream of talking about the whole thing. (My husband was at the game with friends, one of whom is a thoracic surgeon and the other, a pediatrician. I'm left to wonder where they were during this whole thing!) My husband is a man of few words but because of this incident, those few are down to NONE, and he has to lecture on Monday. My son assures me that the snake missing from his collection is a milk snake...but I think this is a conspiracy to paint images of some benign creature hiding down there rather than a horrible lurking monster. (I am the only person on the block with cans of carnivorous snake food and freeze-dried crickets in her refrigerator - Woe to the guest innocently looking for a midnight snack.) Be assured that we are all now doing well.....and the HIlton says they do offer special rates for extended stays. Grace"}, {"response": 32, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (05:40)", "body": "Re: 59:31 - what a nasty and scary experience. One would have thought that in the company he was in, he'd have been in good hands! My husband is a man of few words but because of this incident, those few are down to NONE, and he has to lecture on Monday.\" Hopefully the swelling will have gone down at least somewhat by then. And if not, tell him to borrow a PowerBook, feed it a SimpleText textfile and let MacInTalk read it for him. [grin] I am the only person on the block with cans of carnivorous snake food and freeze-dried crickets in her refrigerator For a year or two I had siamese fighting fish, and was the only one on my block with live brine shrimp tubifex worms in my refrigerator. Equally disgusting- especially the tubifex worms! Joan, too"}, {"response": 33, "author": "Hilary", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (03:54)", "body": "You beat me to it with the muslin, Grace. I'm glad you and your husband are okay."}, {"response": 34, "author": "Grace", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (13:22)", "body": "About beating you to it with the muslin, Hilary.......I couldn't help myself; Amy gave us an opening that was 'sew' inviting. (By the way,I threw in the duct tape just to please you.) If I had been smart, I would have gotten Amy to whip up my shepherd costume with the extra yardage and send it by overnight mail. The family survived a difficult week....I was just beginning to feel optimistic about life again.....and then I went to that party last night at the home of a Martha Stewart clone...... which was enough to plunge this hapless homemaker into endless depres sion! So begins another week."}, {"response": 35, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (13:35)", "body": "I'm off to work this morning. I had a nice weekend. We had very pleasant weather here in Austin. I started topic 82 in hopes that some of you will email folks that are interested in the Spring. If you find someone to your liking in topic 82, please email them and let them know they are most welcome here on the Spring. This would be most appreciated. I finished tape one of P&P and am part way in to tape two. I'm savoring the experience of seeing these tapes!"}, {"response": 36, "author": "Hilary", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (20:47)", "body": "Who is Martha Stewart? Should I know? Thanks for the virtual ducktape! I should really use some round here - three of our 11 ducklings have died, probably at the beak of our drake. What we will do when we go away is a problem. Saw Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt last night. JB was enjoyable, ultra smooth, BR was WONDERFUL, great voice, fantastic blues slide electric guitar, and one raunchy lady."}, {"response": 37, "author": "Grace", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (21:06)", "body": "Martha is the US doyenne of elegant entertaining. 'She' is an empire...does TV specials, has books by the dozen, her own magazine -Martha Stewart Living, and a catalog of upscale merchandise. People either adore her, or, as in my case, live to make fun o f her. Diane White, a columnist at the Boston Globe, has for years kept up an anti-Martha campaign. Martha parody books are a hot item for Christmas around here. Jackson Browne AND Bonnie Raitt? Wow."}, {"response": 38, "author": "Anna", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (21:23)", "body": "quote for the day \"Boring Women Have Immaculate Homes\" (from my fridge magnet)"}, {"response": 39, "author": "Amy", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (22:40)", "body": "Hil, my nearly dead nap page has a Jackson Brown song as its theme song: http://www.bluemarble.net/~amyloo/wno.html"}, {"response": 40, "author": "Amy", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (22:42)", "body": "Donna, tell your story about meeting Hornsby in the music conference, and I will tell about Mellencamp? Did we not tell each other we met them while pregnant?"}, {"response": 41, "author": "Hilary", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (23:44)", "body": "Amy, do you mean the music conference here at spring? I haven't got beyond here yet. 'Running on Empty' is a great song, BTW. Sorry it is applicable to your nap page, though. Or are you happy its run its course? Just musing that its 16 years since John Lennon died. I still get sad about it. 'And so this is Chrismas, and what have you done, Another year over, a new one just begun'.... And Joni's still ricochetting around in my head: Its coming on Christmas They're cutting down trees They're putting up reindeer And singing songs of joy and peace. I wish I had a river I could skate away on...."}, {"response": 42, "author": "Amy", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (00:46)", "body": "] Just musing that its 16 years since John Lennon died. ___ I happened to be in New York just after the murder and went to the Park for the vigil. I will never for get it."}, {"response": 43, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (02:25)", "body": "I love those old Joni Mitchell songs!!"}, {"response": 44, "author": "jane", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (05:09)", "body": "Hilary, I am so glad that Martha Stewart has not poisoned Australia yet. If she stages a coup and completely takes over here (she decorated the White House last year on her Christma she knows her way around), Grace, Anna and the rest of us may have to co me and hide out at your place. Jane"}, {"response": 45, "author": "Anna", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (05:37)", "body": "Jane - I am in Australia :)"}, {"response": 46, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (05:52)", "body": "... at a safe distance from Martha Stewart."}, {"response": 47, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (07:07)", "body": "I am no where near even the fringe of the nieghborhood of Christmas Cheer. I have baked no cookies, I have sent no cards, I have bought no presents, I have not decorated my house (I did decorate my piano studio for my students, but that's all.) I am up to my eyeballs in Christmas in everything I do but none of it has affected me. This is the busiest time for musicians, everyone wants special Christmas programs- I have 9 more events in addition to my regularly packed schedule in the next two weeks. I a so busy \"Making Christmas Bright\" for everyone else that I have none left for myself. An occupational hazard, I know, and in the past I've always been able to rise above it, but not this year. The only day I can even see a few open hours to shop is Dec . 23, and I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about entering a mall two days before Christmas! Santa, help me!"}, {"response": 48, "author": "jane", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (15:23)", "body": "Anna, I realized after I posted my message that I was only guessing that you were within reach of Martha's clutches. That gives the rest of us another potential refulge! Cheryl, I am in a similar boat, not as busy so less of an excuse for failure to make cookies, decorate, shop. My husband is out of town this week so I am with our 2-year old--I tried to go shopping but had to chase her around, and ended up spending a few hours at the mall buying only stuff for her. But here's a shopping tip that I found out about on the Austen-L, and bought for my aunt. Blockbuster has, for $29.99, Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility packaged together. The problem is, it is probably better present for you than for anyone you know! Jane P.S. Music is such a great part of Christmas---at least you can enjoy your work!"}, {"response": 49, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (15:24)", "body": "It is funny how the weather changes here in Oulu, Finland. In the morning it is quite warm (about +2 degrees centigrade, which is warm this time of the year), and there's little water in the streets. In the evening, returning home, you have to walk through several inches (20 in worst cases) of snow, and the temperature is -15 degrees C. I have to get used to it. Usually it has been -20 and 20 inches of snow all the time. The worst point is that it is VERY slippery... Hope I'll live through Xmas, I'll visit my parents and eat well... And have a decent sauna, with my mother's healing spells. We belong to a family of witches, after all."}, {"response": 50, "author": "Amy", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (15:57)", "body": "Real witches, Mixu? Tell. Jane, just think. Unless you are going to have more kids, it gets easier every second with the little ones. Today you can't shop. In another few months you will be able to avert your eyes for a few more seconds at a time to attend to what you need. Amy"}, {"response": 51, "author": "Grace", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (16:27)", "body": "Re 59:32 Joan, just wanted to let you know that my husband was able to croak his way through Monday's lecture and everything went well. (I had dragged him over to read your solution, he got quite a kick out of it.... and said to tell you thanks!) Grace P.S. This madhouse I live in also boasts siamese fighting fish....but we don't spoil ours with the worms you mentioned."}, {"response": 52, "author": "Grace", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (16:36)", "body": "Re 59:38 Anna, what an inspirational fridge magnet...BORING WOMEN HAVE IMMACULATE HOMES......I'd love to put one on my fridge but I find the dirt layer keeps magnets from sticking......time to buy a new fridge, I guess!"}, {"response": 53, "author": "Amy", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (19:04)", "body": "Hil, Re: Running on Empty 59:32 (Joan I am getting to like this notation) Did the MIDI link work for you? Amy"}, {"response": 54, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (20:16)", "body": "Re: 59:51 - Grace - glad he enjoyed it. :-) If you don't have to \"do\" tubifex worms, you must have a reliable supply of live brine shrimp - mine were too picky to eat the feeeze-dried ones. Amy, re: 59:53 - using the numbers is better than nothing, but not nearly as good as an automatically created link! For example, \"Re: Running on Empty 59:32\" - \"32\" is not about MIDI - it's about tubifex worms. (It's too easy to copy the wrong numbers! - especially for those of us who are numerically challenged! I count myself as one of these, having scored in the 4th percentile in a math aptitude test.) I have been playing around in the redisplay box below and have discovered that to go back just to a referred-to response, typing in \"32-32\" will get just that one response (which is how I knew that it was tubifex worms). And that typing a negative number , say \"-4\", will show just the last 4 responses."}, {"response": 55, "author": "Amy", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (21:47)", "body": "] And that typing a negative number, say \"-4\", will show just the last 4 responses. ___ That might be handy."}, {"response": 56, "author": "Kaffeine", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (23:19)", "body": "\"Blockbuster has, for $29.99, Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility packaged together\" Thank you! I just called my local Blockbuster and they have it - and my husband is going x-mas shopping tomorrow night. Guess what just made it to the top of my list?!"}, {"response": 57, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Dec 11, 1996 (12:48)", "body": "I'm busier than you can imagine, and will be till the weekend. Keep the home fires burning Amy!"}, {"response": 58, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Dec 11, 1996 (13:01)", "body": "Mixu, have you discovered 'austen' yet? You're in for a treat!"}, {"response": 59, "author": "Ann", "date": "Thu, Dec 12, 1996 (00:11)", "body": "I lost my wallet! This must be the worst time of year to be without credit cards."}, {"response": 60, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec 12, 1996 (01:13)", "body": "Gosh, sorry to hear this Ann. Is there any chance of retrieving it? Where did you lose it?"}, {"response": 61, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Thu, Dec 12, 1996 (04:41)", "body": "Oh Dear - you have my deepest sympathy. This time last year I had mine stolen. Had to stop and change everything - including house and car locks, since there were spares for both car and house in the wallet, and had no ID. Then about 3 weeks later a ma il carrier found it in the bushes in a neighboring community - everything there but the cash."}, {"response": 62, "author": "mich", "date": "Thu, Dec 12, 1996 (17:44)", "body": "Subject: \"software\" Last year, my friend upgraded his GirlFriend3.1 to GirlFriendPlus1.0 (marketing name: Fiancee1.0). Recently he upgraded Fiancee1.0 to Wife1.0 and it's a memory hogger, has taken all his space; and Wife1.0 must be running before he can do anything. Althoug h he didn't ask for them, Wife1.0 came with plug-ins such as MotherInLaw and BrotherInLaw. Some features I'd like to see in the upcoming GirlFriend4.0... - A \"Don't remind me again\" button - Minimize button - Shutdown feature - An installshield feature so that Girlfriend4.0 can be completely uninstalled if so desired (so you don't lose cache and other objects) I tried running Girlfriend 2.0 with Girlfriend 1.0 still installed, they tried using the same I/O port and conflicted. Then I tried to uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 but it didn't have an uninstall program. I tried to unstall it by hand, but it put files in m y system directory. Another thing that sucks -- in all versions of Girlfriend that I've used is that it is totally \"object orientated\" and only supports hardware with gold plated contacts. ***** BUG WARNING ******** Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources. passing along funnies for the day. Mich"}, {"response": 63, "author": "drymartini", "date": "Thu, Dec 12, 1996 (22:14)", "body": "Amy, #4 response. I got ahold of a stud finder once. It was recommended by Norm Abrams, I think. Well, I figured this device would soon have me in touch with one or more outstanding specimens of manhood. Unfortunately, the device was not a stud finder at all. It was a turkey caller. I guess the items got mixed up in the display; this happens at flea markets. As a turkey caller it was effective. Several real losers showed up and asked me for a date. A week later I donated the turkey caller to the Chamber of Commerce because they were holding their annual Sport-o-rama and there was to be a turkey calling contest. At the height of the contest, my ex flew in from Texas. So I know the turkey caller worked properly, when used by an expert. As for the bolt of unbleached muslin, you could make several sets of sheets. 108\" X 90\" for standard flat sheets, I think. That's after the hems. It's good to have plenty on hand if your stud finder works well. Keep us all posted, hear?"}, {"response": 64, "author": "Hilary", "date": "Thu, Dec 12, 1996 (22:57)", "body": "Amy, I could get through to click on \"Running on empty\" but then it just gave me coded screen messages, it didn't play anything."}, {"response": 65, "author": "trainmaster", "date": "Sat, Dec 14, 1996 (14:06)", "body": "I'm new on this, but after reading this I don't feel so bad. Christmas is kind of a bummer this year. Both daughers left home this summer, and the house is empty. I have a new granddaughter in Germany that I haven't got to hold yet.So am not really in t he Christmas spirit yet. My best to all of you. As for Martha Stewart, I wish she was real. No one can be that creative all the the time. I think she is a defense department robot that went haywire. Have a happy holiday to all, and to all a good nig t!"}, {"response": 66, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Dec 14, 1996 (17:19)", "body": "That explains Martha Stewart! No wonder."}, {"response": 67, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sat, Dec 14, 1996 (23:11)", "body": "I found a nice #7 sable brush half covered with mud under a pine tree during my walk. I think it is a present."}, {"response": 68, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (02:20)", "body": "I called Scott Holman over at BIS and he got the dedicated ip to resolve. But that's another topic. I've been rambling around the house today, cleaning and organizing. I started today driving through the fog to a breakfast at IHOP. As they say around town, 'onward through the fog'. I feel like going out for a night time walk."}, {"response": 69, "author": "Kennebec", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (05:35)", "body": "Hmm. Been pretty noisy today. Attended #1 son's play off basketball game (we won), took same son Christmas shopping (he was miserable), went to my 91 year old grammies for a real baked bean supper (we go every Saturday night), came home around 10:00 to complete chaos. #1 Daughter crying because Dad had carted her away from 3 boys & 2 girls spell TROUBLE. (She is 14 and was horribly embarassed. One of the boys had been RUDE. Dad didn't like it. Parents call. Apologies. More howling. Daughter VERY MAD not at Rude Boy, no, Mad at Dad for intefering) This is the only quiet spot in the whole house (and it's already Sunday). By the way, I agreed with Dad and not Daughter and am trying to convince her that her 'friend' owes her a BIG apology. That the whole incident is really about respect and dignity. Being a parent is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life."}, {"response": 70, "author": "Mlydle", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (05:46)", "body": "Well, me and significant other were going out to eat when we decided to go by 15 year old stepson's fathers house (who is out of town) to check it out. Stepson was supposed to be spending the night at a friends house. Seems we had a idea that stepson mi ght be up to something. When we drove up to the house there were and wife unit walked in, about 50-75 adolescents scurried out of the house. The house was full of beer, liquer etc.. When it was time to go stepson had set it up where one of his friends icked him up and he left. We chased after him but to no avail. Needless to say, stepson is grounded till next year, which I do not know if that is more of a punishment for me/us or him."}, {"response": 71, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (07:20)", "body": "I am so glad I do not have kids!"}, {"response": 72, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (07:38)", "body": "And that's what I'll have the privileged to, in about 10 years. Preparing myself, I think...."}, {"response": 73, "author": "Cynthia7", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (13:07)", "body": "Hi, I'm new to Ramble. It's about dawn in S.F.Sunday morning the 15th. I hoping to get some leads on how to find out information about who actually makes those holiday ornaments in China, etc. or the toys. Having just watched the TV special last Sunday Mrs. Santa Claus, and the part about the kids making thetoys, I couldn't help wonder, as I went shopping yesterday. Me, I'm getting my elementary teaching credential with an emphasis in technology. If posssible, now that finals are just about over, I'd like to throw up a web page about this topic. The page would be dedicated to Iqbal Masih http://www.digitalrag.com/mirror/iqbal.html a 12 year old who was killed on Easter Sunday organizing against child labor My e-mail address is crapak@sfsu.edu. not the one that I had to register with Any leads would be appreciated. I'll try to check back on this conference but e-mailing me directly would also be appreciated since time is short and I want to have it up before next week shopping. I'll be doing research on who makes toys for leading toy makers, GUND, etc. and other importers who may or may not be using children to make the ornaments, toys. Happy Holidays Please feel free to forward this request to any appropriate list etc. Thanks for the help!"}, {"response": 74, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (15:15)", "body": "Sure, we'll be happy to let you set up your web page. Send your request to: mailto://terry@spring.com Be sure to let me know what username you would like."}, {"response": 75, "author": "kendall", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (16:02)", "body": "Terry and Amy - there are now so many threads - that it takes a long time to review just today's messages. Lots of IO time just to see that person \"A\" is LOL at person B's comment yesterday. I love those comments, but there is a lot of download time inv olved here. If we get a day or two behind, we drown. Is it possible to combined threads - maybe the older ones - on similar topics so we of limited time can cover the ground a little quicker. Maybe after a topic is a week old, it could be folded in with other similar topics. We have two addiction threads, two duckfaces, several minor character threads, lots of others that could be combined so that IO time could be reduced."}, {"response": 76, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (16:10)", "body": "The way to \"combine threads\" or topics as they're called, would be copy and paste a complete topic into a single response in another topic then \"scribble\" it. Or make it hidden unless you clicked on it. We'd have to ask Dave how to implement a scribble command or hide command or whatever you wanted to call it. It's not currently implemented. But this could be a solution. Is this what you mean?"}, {"response": 77, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (16:26)", "body": "Re; It seems that you have to be one step ahead of them. At least no one was injuried. I would definitly ground him{a year is pretty hard to enforce} and make him do chores around the house.My son said {who is 13} he should not be allowed to drive until{n o permit} he is 18 years old. I am very surprised at this punishment. He knows that most kids can't wait to drive just, like him."}, {"response": 78, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Mon, Dec 16, 1996 (02:14)", "body": "I just got caught up on reading my e-mail! 37 messages deleted from the trash bin! Whoohoo!! Free at last, free at last, thank God amighty, I'm free at last! (at least until tomorrow...)"}, {"response": 79, "author": "Saman", "date": "Mon, Dec 16, 1996 (08:50)", "body": "I hate what Christmas does to my hard-earned savings (perhaps dislike is a better word). I went shopping today for the major presents which I have been planning to but for weeks and ended up spending twice as much as I intended - mainly on stuff for me! I just checked my email and I got a lovely reply from the moderator of the Crowded House list I subscribe to. In my eagerness to inform the listies of an upcoming interview I mailed them, and then when it bounced back I mailed it again (and perhaps even a third time). Stupid me - it only bounced from one list member so now people around the world think I'm a hopeless newbie (I really dislike that). But Marck (the list operator) was really sweet and has made me feel a whole lot better. I think I'll stic to lurking on that list, and compensate by posting excessively here, because it's such a supporting environment :)"}, {"response": 80, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Mon, Dec 16, 1996 (14:34)", "body": "Amy (and all the others who are interested) Yes, a sort of. You know, the meaning here in Finland is a little bit different. It actually means \"A family with strange powers\", or something like that. Anyway, in my family there HAS been a real witch (I think it was my great-great-grandfather), who could, for example, make the neighbour's cows to disappear. Then there are some healers (like my mother's uncle, and, to a limited extent, my mother) and my elder little brother sometimes sees the future in his dreams. My gift is the same that my grandmother (from my mother's side, because that's the family) had: I have an inborn empathy towards people and animals. Sometimes I can predict very accurately the actions of some people, even though I don't know them well. It usually works for friends only, though. A disturbing gift, I'd say. I even saw the destruction of my 1,5 year relationship, because my girlfriend fell in love with a good friend of mine. I was the one that knew it first (even before they did), but since I've sworn I won't try to interfere with my empathy, I did nothing. Maybe it wouldn't have helped. They are married now, and happy. I think. I should visit them at Christmas... Okay, that's enough for now about the Finnish witches. I think it was no wonder that in medieval times the Finns were feared wizards. There's still some of the powers left. I know of a couple of other witch families, too."}, {"response": 81, "author": "Ann", "date": "Mon, Dec 16, 1996 (23:34)", "body": "I have a similar ability to your brother's. Sometimes, when I am about to fall asleep, I get a sort of dream, but with a difference--I know that they are predictive of the future. Before I ever went to college, or ever visited the campus, I saw a glimpse of one of the classrooms and the teacher giving a lecture; about two years later what I saw came true. It used to happen much more often when I was younger, but actually occurred t wice on the same day last week. As a physicist and a scientist this is a bit disturbing. I must conclude from personal experience that time is not linear, but folds upon itself in a way which allows information from one time to be viewed in another. I also keep in mind a line from Billy-Boy: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (By the way I'm 1/4 Finnish (my paternal grandmother))"}, {"response": 82, "author": "Mlydle", "date": "Thu, Dec 19, 1996 (01:47)", "body": "In regard to the punishment for stepson, we agreed for him to be grounded till Christmas. You all are right, you must stay one step ahead of them. He being only 18 years younger than me helps as well. It only seems like yesterday that I was up to simil ar shaningans. In regards to the above, Well I have to think about whether time is not linear, but folds upon itself. Being of the logical sorts who did too much experimentation when younger, I tend to pulled between logic and experience."}, {"response": 83, "author": "maddog", "date": "Thu, Dec 19, 1996 (21:52)", "body": "Terry, just checked out the apps conference looking for help on a problem I have been having with realaudio - yikes, that conference is huge! - anyhow I kept getting a server error message when I tried to get into the realaudio section - thought I should let you know and also to ask who/where else could I turn for help with realaudio questions - specifically I am looking for a way to obtain a new copy of the old raplayer 2.x plugin for netscape/win 3.x - it seems that now that realaudio has come out with .0, they don't offer it anymore (snobs)- and 3.0 merely taunts me with bandwidth error messages on my poor old 486/14,400 set up.... I tried clicking my red shoes together and saying \"there's no place like version 2.x\", but it didn't work......"}, {"response": 84, "author": "cat", "date": "Fri, Dec 20, 1996 (01:15)", "body": "Hello Peoples! My computer has been used by my mother and younger brother for the past WEEK. It has been hard to be away for so long but I have comforted myself and have started to read Northangar Abbey. Who is ready for the Flu\\Cold season? The Octe t (my singing group) gave a concert this morning. Yours Truely got a solo in \"Emmanuel\" ....in our darkness, in our bondage, child of hope we long for thee, walk among us, dwell within us, be our light and set us free, Emmanuel, Emmanuel, our God is with us now Emmanuel, the daystar of our night is sleeping on the straw, be with us now Emmanuel.....Isn't that song BEAUTIFUL! I am also singing it on Christmas Eve. Is that cool or what?"}, {"response": 85, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Dec 20, 1996 (02:51)", "body": "Maddog, check out http://www.realaudio.com and try our conference again. That server error happens every now and then but you'll probably be able to get in next time."}, {"response": 86, "author": "maddog", "date": "Fri, Dec 20, 1996 (20:03)", "body": "thanks - I all ready been to realaudio, of course they no longer offer 2.0 (must have partners in the modem business) - It's really a drag when a company will not support a product that is less than a year old, just because they have a newer release. It k ind of leaves people like me in the lurch if we can't go buy a new pentium to run their new product. (sounds like some other company I won't mention but whose initials are microsoft!) I will check your realaudio conference again to see if there is anyone that made a backup copy of version 2.0 they might share..."}, {"response": 87, "author": "MaryC", "date": "Sat, Dec 21, 1996 (17:05)", "body": "Ladies, just have to share the words of wisdom on my perpetual calendar yesterday; reading it made my day. \"There's nothing wrong in the world that a sensible woman couldn't settle in an afternoon\". Happy Holidays!"}, {"response": 88, "author": "drymartini", "date": "Sun, Dec 22, 1996 (01:53)", "body": "Amy-- have you used all your muslin? I heard there is a KKK for persons of color: they call it the Black Muslins. Cat-- I hope your friend Tara is doing okay and you are feeling better about that ugly situation. Maybe the kids who stole Tara's Bible will peek inside and find something helpful. I find it very hard to pray for people who are mean to me, or to others. B ut when I am able to, it is liberating. Cheryl-- we have something in common. I teach computer stuff a lot these days, but I have not been able to give up teaching piano. But hey, keyboards is keyboards, hmmm? I like to think about how the piano was developed by Bart. Cristofori, whose huge tro uble was perfecting the escapement. But they said it couldn't be done-- you couldn't have a keyboard instrument that you could control, as to amplitude or loudness, by the way you struck the keys! Then many years later the whole thing was repeated from Mo g on, with electronic keyboards finally becoming polyphonic and TOUCH RESPONSIVE. Wow! I think Bach would have been nuts about electronic music stuff. Joyous holidays, all!"}, {"response": 89, "author": "maddog", "date": "Sun, Dec 22, 1996 (03:55)", "body": "Terry - within 24 hours of posting my plea about my realaudio problems in your apps conference, I have been in contact with a very fine dude named David Bowles who searched/found and mailed me a new copy of version 2.0! I bow long and low to him, you, and The Spring for making this possible - I never fail to be in awe of the power of the net and the kindness of the people I have met here. peace and joy"}, {"response": 90, "author": "cat", "date": "Sun, Dec 22, 1996 (13:54)", "body": "I can't believe Christmas is only 3 days away!"}, {"response": 91, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sun, Dec 22, 1996 (23:10)", "body": "I am so bored I changed the curtains in my kitchen. Just a few things to wrap and a couple of cookies to bake. Hope everyone has most of their shopping done because I know I hate fighting the crowds. that must be the reason why it is so quite around here . Merry Christmas."}, {"response": 92, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Mon, Dec 23, 1996 (06:32)", "body": "I know that some of my friends here have been concerned about me and my complete and utter lack of Christmas spirit. I have had a few glimpses of it this past week; last Thursday when I attended the Jr. High School Band Concert and watched 11 of my piano or handbell kids play their band instruments in public for the first time, and again at my students Christmas Piano Recital, all of them dressed up in their Sunday best and playing all the old favorites! This morning my church choir offered our Annual Christmas Cantata and I felt the closest to Christmas that I have been, singing the wonderful words about our Lord choosing to become one of us to save us. I even came home and did some decorating! Tomorro w I am spending the day baking, for who can be a Grinch when eating Grandma's famous Christmas cookies! I am very thankful this Christmas for all the new friends I have found here. God bless you all!"}, {"response": 93, "author": "geekman", "date": "Mon, Dec 23, 1996 (08:58)", "body": "God Bless You Merry Gentlepeople at this festive time. I'm so pleased to have met all of the wonderful people who make up the growing band of Austenites. I am especially thankful to Amy and Terry for their time, patience and perseverance, and of course their server space."}, {"response": 94, "author": "lars", "date": "Mon, Dec 23, 1996 (22:56)", "body": "Hi Terry. Hmm. Suspected we had similar ancestry. Pretty nice place! Soon on way to bar to see friends before all take off for xmas. Fill myself with liquid \"charm and intelligence.\" Then probably enter cyberspace - again. Merry holidays to all from Frisco! Lars"}, {"response": 95, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 24, 1996 (04:08)", "body": "You're Norwegian Lars?"}, {"response": 96, "author": "Ann", "date": "Tue, Dec 24, 1996 (04:41)", "body": "Today, my sister and I trekked out into the blizzard we are experiencing here in Minneapolis and went to what locals refer to as the Mega-Mall, also known, more formally, as the Mall of America--the largest shopping mall in the United States (there is a larger one in Edminton Canada). I was pleasently suprised to find that the mall wasn't very crowded--on this Christmas-Eve Eve. Perhaps even hearty Minnesotans were afraid to wade through the snow and ice to go shopping (thank God for 4-WD!). But I believe it is more likely that they were all hanging their heads in shame after the trouncing the Vikings took yesterday at the hands of the Green Bay Packers 38-10 (GO PACK!!!). Your Eternal Cheesehead--Ann"}, {"response": 97, "author": "Mlydle", "date": "Tue, Dec 24, 1996 (06:41)", "body": "Well, here in Austin its a balmy 60-70 degrees. Being of the male persuasion, I find myself compelled to wait till the last 2-3 days to shop, so I was one of the many hurried masses going madly from place to place (thank god for Valium and relaxation tap es) trying to find that perfect gift within my price range. Need a John Madden Super Nintendo ASAP, stepson can't have all clothes. And all the while trying what this years Christmas symbolizes to me. But more on that later, Wallmart is open 24 hours.. ."}, {"response": 98, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 24, 1996 (10:14)", "body": "So, Ann, you're one of those folks we see on tv with face painted green and a big block of cheese mounted atop their heads?"}, {"response": 99, "author": "Ann", "date": "Wed, Dec 25, 1996 (07:17)", "body": "I got a cheesehead for Christmas!"}, {"response": 100, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Dec 25, 1996 (12:32)", "body": "Can we see a picture of you wearing a cheesehead on your web page?"}, {"response": 101, "author": "Ann", "date": "Wed, Dec 25, 1996 (17:18)", "body": "I'll work on it! Thanks Terry for giving me a home page. It's up and running--and extremely boring at the moment (www.spring.com/~anneh/). It's basically all of my bookmarks. I'll work on making it more interesting. My sister has a scanner and said she will scan whatever I want, but she lives in California, about to embark on a three week trip to Italy, so it will be a while before any cheesehead pictures could possibly appear."}, {"response": 102, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Dec 25, 1996 (17:58)", "body": "I have a scanner too, if anyone needs to mail pictures to me for their webpage."}, {"response": 103, "author": "churchh", "date": "Wed, Dec 25, 1996 (19:11)", "body": "Hey Ann, I'm majorly bummed out that you didn't include your very own graphic that I made just for you, on your webpage. I spent five minutes looking for the quote and a whole fifteen minutes slaving over a hot Photoshop to make the graphic, so I think i t's the least you could do..."}, {"response": 104, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Dec 25, 1996 (20:31)", "body": "The cheesehead shot?"}, {"response": 105, "author": "Ann", "date": "Thu, Dec 26, 1996 (03:46)", "body": "Check out my HTML Tags Tutorial: www.spring.com/~anneh/tagsaaaa.html Any advice on changes or additions are very welcome. I do like my graphic Henry. I will put it up."}, {"response": 106, "author": "MaryC", "date": "Thu, Dec 26, 1996 (23:09)", "body": "Thanks Ann for so pleasantly reminding me of why I don't live in Minnesota anymore, and why visiting Minnesota is much more pleasant in the summertime. The Mall of America is awesome, and so close to the airport when I come for those summer visits. Happ y New (and hopefully warmer) Year!"}, {"response": 107, "author": "drymartini", "date": "Fri, Dec 27, 1996 (17:20)", "body": "Careful with those tranks, now. Say, have you seen this new product that contains tranks and aspertame? It's called EqualLibrium. Hope you made it back safely from the bar where you stocked up on charm, etc. I have been doing extensive research into the construction of bottles, there being a major container maker in my town. I have discovered that most bottlenecks are at the t op. Tried to explain this to my managing editor; he is not convinced. Does your research bear out my conclusions, Lars? Or do we need to continue gathering data, replicating our results? When we have enough data, will we be able to perform analyses and re ort our findings?"}, {"response": 108, "author": "Donna", "date": "Mon, Dec 30, 1996 (19:25)", "body": "My girlfriend and I took my 3 kids and her eldest daughter out for Pizza.Of course they always bring the pitcher of soda to soon.By the time the pizza came it was all gone.I had some left in my cup and eldest daughter had some left in hers. When my kids a re thristy watch out for your drink. My six year old says \"Hey Gee\" your not drinking your soda\"\"How come\"? \"May I please have some\" she said \"Sure\". His reply was \"thanks\" \"and If you don't mind I'll take the straw too\".It was done in the politest manner for a six year old don't ya think.We all jumped on the poor kid Scotty! It was funny.Then they had to play the jukebox\"Grandma Got Ran Over by a Raindeer\" it was hilarous.They all started singing. This is why I don't go out very much. What a scene???"}, {"response": 109, "author": "TJ", "date": "Mon, Dec 30, 1996 (20:03)", "body": "WOW, first time i came to this area, but then again i haven't been around in a while....had to read all 108 entries as new.....what an interesting bunch of comments, statements, conversations, questions & answers. Absolutely loved it, sure wish this wa s an open chat..... I would definitely like to talk to many of you regularly........ Terry have you thought about putting in a chat area.......??????????"}, {"response": 110, "author": "Ann", "date": "Tue, Dec 31, 1996 (00:58)", "body": "We have a chat room. You can get to this from the link on the main Austen Conference page. It is the Pemberley Drawing Room: http://www.worldrch.com/cgibin/Chat/nph-chat.cgi"}, {"response": 111, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 31, 1996 (03:21)", "body": "Good to see you coming around again TJ. One of these times I'm gonna make it for darts at the tavern down in Bastrop. Let me know when the next one is going to be ok? We can get our own chat room if folks want it. The kind Pemberly folks have offered us their software if we want it. It's not ichat, but it's not bad stuff."}, {"response": 112, "author": "TJ", "date": "Tue, Dec 31, 1996 (16:31)", "body": "from the looks of the stuff on the ramble page, it might be a good idea to have our own chat area.......at least see if anyone else has an interest.......but right now I think I'll check out the Pemberly Drawing Room.........Paul, yea it is nice to be bac k......do you have anything to do the Bastrop Internet Services??????.......do you know Daryl Kouba??????......hope to see you on Thursday (darts)..........."}, {"response": 113, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 31, 1996 (16:35)", "body": "I have two servers on the bastrop.net. I can't get a hold of the kid who does their web page. I'm looking for someone in the Bastrop area, a high school kid would be ok, who can work part time at the Spring installing networks, configuring servers, and doing data entry work. I have a plan to make the Spring a world class web site and I am starting to sense an organization forming. The folks in the Austen conference are really pitching in and helping out and starting to take part in some website projects. But I need some help locally now."}, {"response": 114, "author": "Linda409", "date": "Tue, Dec 31, 1996 (19:56)", "body": "There are a group of us (about 10) who have formed a music group here at work to exercise our mutual love of music. Twice a month, we reserve a conference room, bring in our instruments and meet together during lunch hour. I play piano and keyboard (at work) and sing, all just a little and very ill, indeed. But, it is something else that affords me an extraordinary source of pleasure (like Jane Austen). We play and sing lots of different kinds of music because we have different tastes which include popular, country, standards, classical. We haven't had the nerve to attempt jazz, yet. One of the pieces that we do frequently is Handel's Largo from \"Xerxe s which is the piece that Mary sings in P&P2 (at the Netherfield Ball, I think). For the past couple of years, we have hosted a Christmas sing-along where we play and sing holiday music in the cafeteria and invite the entire building to join us. It has been well received. Today, I ran into Karen, who is a fellow music group member. As we were chatting, we discovered a mutual love of P&P and P&P2. I'm so excited!! I think that I can create yet another addict. Now, besides you wonderful internet friends, I will be able to talk about Jane Austen face to face with Karen at work and with my friend Barbra after working hours. 1997 is going to be great!!! Happy New Year to you all !!!"}, {"response": 115, "author": "jane", "date": "Tue, Dec 31, 1996 (20:13)", "body": "Linda, That music group sounds really delightful. I recently found out that a woman who works where I do is a longtime committed lurker to this board. She didn't recognize me from my postings, but we found out by accident that we both like this place. And the significant other of a man I work with is a frequent visitor to Firthdom, and has a copy of The Making of P&P that she will lend me. Small world, indeed. Jane"}, {"response": 116, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (02:29)", "body": "Well, here it is New Year's Eve, and the state of the northern part of the state (CA) could be better. The Russian River is now 2 feet above flood stage and the people up there have been told to evacuate or prepare to be stranded. So much for the ir New Year's Eve plans... While the rain has not been excessive in my immediate neighborhood, 3 of our local reservoirs are full-up and spilling over their dams, and our entire TV cable system has \"broken\" somewhere and they don't yet know where or why. Before it broke we saw a few seconds of the New Year's fireworks in Sidney Harbour - and I think I spotted Ian waving at the camera. Happy New Year, all!"}, {"response": 117, "author": "Donna", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (02:38)", "body": "Rain has been excessive here {in PA.} to Joan. We had a flood in the Summer of 1972. Are you worried about flooding? The weather man said we only had more rain \"100\" years ago. Now that is very strange."}, {"response": 118, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (02:58)", "body": "I am not concerned for my own estate being flooded, but it is sad to see it happening to our neighbors to the north again - they got it badly in 1986 and again in 1995, and here they go again... Many vineyards are already under 3 to 4 feet of wate r..."}, {"response": 119, "author": "McBruce", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (03:32)", "body": "Heading into 1997 in the Last Frontier, our weather isn't threatening just darn inconvenient. Forecast for tonight is 40-45 below, extended forecast thru sunday is 30-60 below. On the plus side, tomorrow we break the 4 hour mark of available daylight! Had the truck plugged in all afternoon so it would start tonight, now the question is how long I can stay out before it freezes up. A happy and peaceful 1997 to all!"}, {"response": 120, "author": "mrobens", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (06:00)", "body": "This all makes Boston's 20 degrees F. and 1 inch of snow seem so anemic. I wish you all a more pleasant '97."}, {"response": 121, "author": "Anna", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (10:29)", "body": "On the subject of one in a hundred year rainfalls; about 5 years ago sydney had the third of 3 one in a hundred year rains in 4 years - ain't statistics wonderful. In the ritzy part of town a Jaguar was swept down the street and deposited on top of someo ne's Mercedes; truly impressive rain. Still, at least it was summer, so warm, if wet. I hope those in need dry out soon."}, {"response": 122, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (10:54)", "body": "It is warm (relatively speaking) though wet here - it is pouring as I type yet at almost 3 AM it is only 64 F outside. Pineapple express for sure!"}, {"response": 123, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jan  1, 1997 (16:58)", "body": "Austin's sixth street partied down last night and I got a video of myself at the stroke of midnight on the Springs' main page . I started out at the KOOP party at Armageddon and ended up with the masses on Sixth, watching the big silver start get hoisted by a huge crane. Now, I'm sitting in Cedar Creek with my coffee and toast. Happy New Year everyone!"}, {"response": 124, "author": "MaryC", "date": "Thu, Jan  2, 1997 (05:53)", "body": "For all of you suffering through some absolutely awful winter weather, we in southern California are busy taking good care of all the truly nice weather for you and would be vastly happy to send it your way at any time convenient!"}, {"response": 125, "author": "Inko", "date": "Thu, Jan  2, 1997 (22:20)", "body": "Mary, my visiting daughter would greatly appreciate it if you would send your truly nice weather to Seattle. She's heading back there tomorrow and would like to return to decent weather!;-)"}, {"response": 126, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Thu, Jan  2, 1997 (23:58)", "body": "and would be vastly happy to send it your way at any time convenient! Please do not stand on ceremony or await an invitation! Any time at all would be convenient! Stepping on my lawn sounds and feels like treading on saturated sponges. :-("}, {"response": 127, "author": "tedchong", "date": "Fri, Jan  3, 1997 (00:23)", "body": "Hi Terry, we still cannot access news.prismnet.com for quite some time after you switch from iamerica.net. It seems like prismnet did not open usenet access for our IP addresses. Hope you can check this matter and happy new year."}, {"response": 128, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan  3, 1997 (05:45)", "body": "I'll look into it Ted. Thanks."}, {"response": 129, "author": "tedchong", "date": "Fri, Jan  3, 1997 (06:03)", "body": "Terry, if prismnet granted us usenet access, we can use tin to access the usenet news, but you have to do (at shell prompt): rm /etc/nntpserver ; echo news.prismnet.com > /etc/nntpserver so all of us can access the news. Hope it helps."}, {"response": 130, "author": "lilah", "date": "Sat, Jan  4, 1997 (02:11)", "body": "It's just after 9 pm here in South Florida, and I'm recovering from a day at work that can best be described as, \"OK, folks, the holidays are over.\" Yikes. I'm an editor, learning a new city and looking for a new circle of friends. I just found the Spring yesterday -- not to mention the Austen group. I suspect I've found some kindred spirits."}, {"response": 131, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sat, Jan  4, 1997 (02:45)", "body": "Where did you come from Lilah? What kind of editor?"}, {"response": 132, "author": "lilah", "date": "Sat, Jan  4, 1997 (04:14)", "body": "Amy, I moved here from Hoboken, N J, where I lived for a number of years, working in Manhattan and New Jersey as a newspaper editor. I do the same thing here, for a group of small specialty papers."}, {"response": 133, "author": "geekman", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (02:00)", "body": "Terry, you didn't say that this topic was in multiple Conferences! I just thought I'd visit the Cultures Conference and 'lo what did I see but this topis! Tch tch!"}, {"response": 134, "author": "Anna", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (02:32)", "body": "]topic was in multiple Conferences! That's been apparent from the postings from \"strangers\" for some time. It's also in porch"}, {"response": 135, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (23:41)", "body": "When you do a listing of topics, it states that it's a \"linked topic\"."}, {"response": 136, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Jan  7, 1997 (02:29)", "body": "It also states \"linked item\" every time you read new stuff in it right at the top of the topic. On future \"linked topics\" I'll post a note that they are linked in the intro or in one of the responses to make this clear."}, {"response": 137, "author": "geekman", "date": "Tue, Jan  7, 1997 (10:09)", "body": "Thanks Terry! Will be much appreciated. From within the Austen Conference this time."}, {"response": 138, "author": "Amy", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (04:22)", "body": "_______________________________________________________ \"Why did the chicken cross the road?\" ----------------------------------------------------- Plato: For the greater good. Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability. Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out. Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take. Douglas Adams: Forty-two. Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you. Oliver North: National Security was at stake. Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being. Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of \"crossing\" was encoded into the objects \"chicken\" and \"road,\" and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence. Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference. Aristotle: To actualize its potential. Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature. Salvador Dali: The Fish. Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees. Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death. Epicurus: For fun. Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it. Johann Friedrich von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it. Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain. Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast. David Hume: Out of custom and habit. Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it. Jack Nicholson: 'cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason. Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road? Ronald Reagan: I forget. John Sununu: The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity. The Sphinx: You tell me. Sappho: Due to the loveliness of the hen on the other side, more fair than all of Hellas' fine armies. Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life. Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated. Stephen Jay Gould: It is possible that there is a sociobiological explanation for it, but we have been deluged in recent years with sociobiological stories despite the fact that we have little direct evidence about the genetics of behavior, and we do not know how to obtain it for the specific behaviors that figure most prominently in sociobiological speculation. Joseph Stalin: I don't care. Catch it. Crack its eggs to make my omlette. Captain James T. Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before. Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained. Hippocrates: Because of an excess of pleghm in its pancreas. Andersen Consultant: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM) Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Andersen consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park like setting enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful. Johnny Cochr"}, {"response": 139, "author": "Anna", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (05:18)", "body": "ROFLOL!!!"}, {"response": 140, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (05:52)", "body": "Anna: \"ROFLOL!!!\" Me Too!!! :-)"}, {"response": 141, "author": "churchh", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (11:21)", "body": "There's a slightly different collection linked to from near the end of the Jane Austen jokes file at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~churchh/austt10j.html ; this version includes a Pride and Prejudice version of the chicken joke..."}, {"response": 142, "author": "Mari", "date": "Thu, Jan  9, 1997 (19:11)", "body": "Oh dear... Oh dear... I have to wipe my eyes now to resume my viewing."}, {"response": 143, "author": "Inko", "date": "Thu, Jan  9, 1997 (19:21)", "body": "Another ROFLOL. With your permission, may I e-mail this to my children - they love these things and I usually get jokes from them."}, {"response": 144, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Jan  9, 1997 (19:27)", "body": "Oh, Inko. No permission required. I am on a list of one of those infamous net jokers. These things just get passed around. Usually the things she sends are stupid, but if I get an LOL from any of them as I did with this, I shall put them up."}, {"response": 145, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sun, Jan 12, 1997 (22:50)", "body": "SAY CHEESE!!! WE ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!"}, {"response": 146, "author": "kendall", "date": "Sun, Jan 12, 1997 (23:07)", "body": "Ann - I am happy for you. and for all those barechested men in the stands the announcers kept talking about. what a way to call the rest of us sissies."}, {"response": 147, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jan 12, 1997 (23:30)", "body": "There's joy in cheeshead land."}, {"response": 148, "author": "mrobens", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (00:30)", "body": "]There's joy in cheeshead land. Not to mention Beantown!"}, {"response": 149, "author": "Inko", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (01:18)", "body": "Congratulations Ann (Cheesehead) and Myretta (Beantowner) - it's nice to see some different teams in the Superbowl. Now - are you two going to have a bet on the outcome????;-)"}, {"response": 150, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (01:49)", "body": "Alright, the beaner and the cheeshead toe to toe."}, {"response": 151, "author": "candace", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (02:09)", "body": "Yummmm, does this mean that at all the Super Bowl parties -- Bean dip and Cheese Doritos will be served?"}, {"response": 152, "author": "Kali", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (02:40)", "body": "Woo-hoo, Ann...maybe it will help you forget last year ? ;)"}, {"response": 153, "author": "Kali", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (02:43)", "body": "BTW, people...only a month until catchers and pitchers report to Spring Training. Can't wait. Go Braves."}, {"response": 154, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (02:54)", "body": "PLEASE, Mrs. Bennet, no sports, I BEG you! :-("}, {"response": 155, "author": "Ann", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (04:09)", "body": "That's why I put it in the ramble topic, Joan. It is supposed to be for anything one might want to say. As for me, though I will be cheering for Green Bay, I have absolutely no faith in the team and fully expect them to choke."}, {"response": 156, "author": "Kali", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (06:26)", "body": "Ann, have a little faith! ;) --- Joan, sports can be a very welcome diversion from computers, I must say...I hope to be able to make at least one Giants-Braves series at the 'Stick (okay, 3-Com!) this year...anybody else out there like baseball? ANYBODY???!!!"}, {"response": 157, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (07:11)", "body": "Kali: anybody else out there like baseball? ANYBODY???!!! Kali, I'm a big Detroit Tigers fan, growing up in Michigan it was a part of my childhood training just like ice skating and mosquito slapping! I spent many happy days at Tiger Stadium as a child...can't believe they're going to tear down that beautiful o ld stadium! :-("}, {"response": 158, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (07:49)", "body": "I grew up a Cardinals fan. St. Louis. Busch Stadium. Joe Garagiola, Harry Carey, Jack Buck and Tim McCarver used to broadcast the games on KMOX."}, {"response": 159, "author": "Kali", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (09:13)", "body": "Harry Caray...sigh...I've grown up on Skip Caray... Yay for you guys...baseball lives! And yes, Cheryl...stadiumwrecking is a crying shame...I had the displeasure of seeing Comiskey in varying degrees of demolition whilst the new Comiskey was constructed...almost like the life was being sucked out of the old stadium and being pumped into the new..."}, {"response": 160, "author": "geekman", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (09:41)", "body": "Congratulations Ann or should I say Slart ? So your team is in the final. Well, the beleaguered Australian One Day Cricket Team has missed out on the World Series Cricket Finals for the first time in 17 years! And on top of that is the New South Wales Shield Team losing very badly to Western Australia , in their Sheffield Shield match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Now let me tell yo all that when NSW Cricket is strong, Australia is strong! So come on NSW and Come On Aussie ! Oh, Cheryl , now if you would really like to see some venerable old grounds, come and see our grand stands at our Cricket Grounds!"}, {"response": 161, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (09:44)", "body": "I drove by some folks playing cricket in Austin the other day. Will you please start a cricket topic in the sports conference Ian?"}, {"response": 162, "author": "geekman", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (09:51)", "body": "If you'd like me too, Terry! BTW, what are you doing up at this hour?!? Now if you were in Australia... :-)"}, {"response": 163, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (10:42)", "body": "I had to come in to work early today because we're facing an ice storm and the company I work for is on a crash project and need everyone they can to be here. I'm not normally up at this hour. Have you seen that austen is the feature on the Spring's main page today? If I were in Australia I'd probably be warmer now."}, {"response": 164, "author": "Amy", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (13:47)", "body": "Another connection, Cheryl. I grew up as a Tiger fan too. Stormin' Norman Cash, Al Kaline (saw him hit a grand slam once), my mother's heartthrob, Rocky Colavito (sp?) And Terry, you lived in St. Louis? Me from 76-80. End of the Lou Brock days, hot muggy afternoons in left field. Attended the 7th game of the 80 world series."}, {"response": 165, "author": "Mari", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (18:40)", "body": "Kali, gang; live in Milwaukee, and my hubby was one of the many enjoying themselves at 1 degree above zero yesterday (although I hope, I very much hope, NOT one of the barechested ones! :) ) Anyway, baseball is my game; started as a Braves fan (yes, here in Milwaukee when I was just a sprig), have become a Brewers fan. I can enjoy any baseball game; when we vacation outside of Duluth in the summer we go to Duluth Dukes games; fabulous fun, e specially if the San Diego chicken is visiting."}, {"response": 166, "author": "yairl", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (20:19)", "body": "i've got to know how to make a good pizza any ideas????????"}, {"response": 167, "author": "Amy", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (20:51)", "body": "Must have a stone, Yair. That is the first thing -- unless you are doing deep disih. Amy Who Used to Live in Chicago"}, {"response": 168, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (21:27)", "body": "Amy: Another connection, Cheryl. I grew up as a Tiger fan too. Stormin' Norman Cash, Al Kaline (saw him hit a grand slam once), my mother's heartthrob, Rocky Colavito (sp?) Cool, Amy...I still look back on my 9th birthday as very special...I spent it with my Mom at Tiger Stadium watching a Twi-Night Double header against the hated Yankees...Tigers won both games, Al Kaline hit a homer in one, Mickey Lolich got a one-hitter i n the other and the Tigers went on to win the Series that year ('68,of course, not '84!) Can still sing the Tiger fight song I learned in 4th grade...\"Sock it to 'em Tigers, show 'em how to play...)"}, {"response": 169, "author": "Hilary", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (23:29)", "body": "Not 'Teach me tiger', Cheryl????"}, {"response": 170, "author": "Amy", "date": "Mon, Jan 13, 1997 (23:36)", "body": "We're all behind our baseball team. Go get em tigers. Right? Go get em, Detroit Tigers. Go get em Tigers!"}, {"response": 171, "author": "Ann", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (01:14)", "body": "I like the Saint Paul Saints--Northern League team that put the fun back into going to see baseball games. They are a total hoot. (Daryl Strawberry slept here)"}, {"response": 172, "author": "lilah", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (01:44)", "body": "Terry, Amy -- St. Louis is my home town. I remember seeing Stan Musial play at old Sportsman's Park (I was a tiny child, OK?) There ARE no announcers to compare with Jack Buck and Harry Caray describing the game on a hot August night on KMOX -- \"this is t he Cardinal baseball network.\""}, {"response": 173, "author": "Kali", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (01:48)", "body": "Yay! More baseball fans! Wow, Mari...you're an even older Bravie than I am...I got hooked back in the eighties, when they still sucked...a great time to love baseball, b/c every game was personal. Fay Vincent was even threatening to review our status as an Atlanta team! I still have my Dale Murphy baseball card collection...over 300 cards, including his two rookie cards and one I got autographed. --- Good pizza? Zachary's stuffed is the best...they make their dough with beer and put the sauce on top and the toppings inside (go figure)...unfortunately, you can only get Zack's in Oakland and Berkeley...:("}, {"response": 174, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (05:14)", "body": "Talking, pizza : fav : thin crust with pesto, goat cheese, green and black olives, onions, prosciutto and walnuts. Other one is curried chicken pizza If you're in the vicinity of Montreal, go or order at Pizzedelic."}, {"response": 175, "author": "Meggin", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (14:27)", "body": "Another Braves fan here! The Murph was great, also BRUUUUCE Benedict and Jeff Treadway and Lonnie Smith (so what if he fell for the deke--they should have been able to get him home). Go Braves!!!"}, {"response": 176, "author": "Mari", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (22:16)", "body": "LLohr (lilah)''There ARE no announcers to compare with Jack Buck and Harry Caray describing the game on a hot August night on KMOX -- \"this is the Cardinal baseball network.\"'' Lilah, I beg to differ; there is nothing like driving home from your summer vacation and enjoying Bob Uecker announcing the Sunday afternoon Brewer's game...''Get up..Get up.. Get outta here....''"}, {"response": 177, "author": "lilah", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (00:10)", "body": "Mari, I'd just about settle for any announcer describing any game...are football and basketball seasons over yet???"}, {"response": 178, "author": "MaryC", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (04:06)", "body": "I grew up in Minnesota BEFORE the Twins and the Vikes, so am thrilled the 'Pack is Back'. Saw my first major league game in Tiger (then Briggs) Stadium because that's one of the things we always did when we visited our Detroit relatives. Great memories. .are they really going to tear that wonderful stadium down, can't believe it."}, {"response": 179, "author": "Amy", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (04:56)", "body": "Moved to collapse topics: Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (10:14) | Laura McCarthy ( LauraM ) Sorry, but I must do this. GO PATS!!!!!!! JAMBALYA YA JAMBALAYA YA.... Think of me doing a really stupid dance right now. 4 responses total."}, {"response": 1, "author": "Amy", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (10:22)", "body": "Good. Laura, I am happy for you. Thanks for sharing, dear. Sincerely. (But can we have a little talk about willynilly topic creation/)"}, {"response": 2, "author": "Mari", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (17:12)", "body": "Laura; go to the Ramble topic; we are having quite the sports dicussion over there; of course you'll have to excuse us Wisconsinites if we don't join in your cheer;))"}, {"response": 3, "author": "Ann", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (17:27)", "body": "Go Pack!!!"}, {"response": 4, "author": "Becks", "date": "Tue, Jan 14, 1997 (22:17)", "body": "Football in a JA bulletin board!!! Insupportable!!!!"}, {"response": 180, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (06:43)", "body": "Yep, Meggin...Lonnie Smith remains my all-time favorite left-fielder. And Bruce one of my favorite catchers...and Jeff Treadway my favorite second-baseman. BTW, I have one of Jeffy's broken bats...something only the biggest fan would want, considering h is relative obscurity! ;) Oh, and Jeff Blauser is also a god...because he's a Californian...;)"}, {"response": 181, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (06:45)", "body": "Oh, and Laura...I support your Patriot Victory Topic... :::) Solidarity among the sportsfans!"}, {"response": 182, "author": "McBruce", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (07:59)", "body": "Cheryl and Amy- how could you forget Denny Maclean? And not a bad piano player for a jock. What I remember best about Tiger stadium was the smell of the Wonder bread factory on the way in, cruising the Lodge with the windows down. And CKLW on the AM radio."}, {"response": 183, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (08:30)", "body": "Bruce: Cheryl and Amy- how could you forget Denny Maclean? Bruce! Another Michigander has come out of the closet! ;-) I have not forgot Dennt McClain, they could not have won the '68 Series without him! But it was Lolich who won the game I was describing. ;-) I hadn't thought of the Wonder Bread factory in ye ars! Thanks for the reminder! Fresh bread--what a wonderful smell!"}, {"response": 184, "author": "Anna", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (11:13)", "body": "Nice collapse Amy :-)"}, {"response": 185, "author": "Amy", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (12:12)", "body": "] forget Denny Maclean? __ Hey Bruce. Another link. Tigers and Bob Seger. Nice combo. Denny MaClean, the million dollar arm with the 10 cent attitude. re the Lodge: kid story about that another time. Where did you guys grow up? Me, in Mt. Pleasant, but I worked in Detroit for a couple of years right out of college (Central Michigan)"}, {"response": 186, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (12:41)", "body": "We have a Tiger Wood topic in sports by the way, the sports conference here."}, {"response": 187, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (12:46)", "body": "Did I say we had a sports topic here? I believe a Pats topic would be supportablee there, my dear."}, {"response": 188, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (12:49)", "body": "I meant of course, sports *conference*. Imagine, an entire conference devoted to sports and austenites are more than welcome to elucidate on any topic there."}, {"response": 189, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (17:39)", "body": "Amy: Where did you guys grow up? A Michigan Revival Meeting, eh? ;-) I grew up in Pontiac, a blue collar factory town, about 1/2 mile from the Fischer Body plant...walked many a picket line in my youth...;-)"}, {"response": 190, "author": "TJ", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (18:28)", "body": "Grew up in Albany, New York.............but left in 73'."}, {"response": 191, "author": "TJ", "date": "Wed, Jan 15, 1997 (18:41)", "body": "And for the favorite pizza person........ i found that it you use the pilsbury pizza dough it is pretty good, brush it with olive oil and heat it up first with nothing on it for about 3 to 5 minutesR 350 DEGREES then add just all fresh ingrediants......fresh tomatoes, parley, basil, oregano, thyme and ground pepper (both red and black).....Crushed red pepper is ok if you cannot find whole to grind..... then chopped onions, green and red peppers, sliced mushrooms..... then add a fresh ground italian sausage or a good hard sliced peperoni cover with a mixture of cheeses 50% shredded mozzerella and the other 50% a mixture of romano, parmasian, provalone and white chedder return to oven until cheese is melted........"}, {"response": 192, "author": "yairl", "date": "Thu, Jan 16, 1997 (00:55)", "body": "thanks tj but after having second thoughts about it i think i'll keep on letting dominos do the hard work. does anyone know anything about bangkok thailand i'm going to go there and i can realy use some guiding ."}, {"response": 193, "author": "Meggin", "date": "Thu, Jan 16, 1997 (03:20)", "body": "Kali, send me a splinter sometime! :)"}, {"response": 194, "author": "Kali", "date": "Thu, Jan 16, 1997 (03:58)", "body": "You got it, Meggin! :)"}, {"response": 195, "author": "Ann2", "date": "Thu, Jan 16, 1997 (21:06)", "body": "Boy am I an outsider here! Never seen a game of baseball or whatever you're talking of with such eagerness.( Small chance in Sweden .) Have copied and saved those two delicious sounding pizza variations, though. And thanks Hilary for Tiger memento..."}, {"response": 196, "author": "Kali", "date": "Thu, Jan 16, 1997 (21:42)", "body": "Come visit, Ann2, and we'll go to a game..."}, {"response": 197, "author": "candace", "date": "Fri, Jan 17, 1997 (06:16)", "body": "It was thirty years ago that we all met. Five very silly fourteen year old girls. Together we practiced for womanhood. Clothes, make-up, and boys. Little did we know that what really prepared us for the future was the simple act of being together. We would talk deep into the night. Eating junk food and chocolate, sipping sodas. We spoke of our hopes, dreams, and fears always starting so seriously and always ending in laughter with tears running down our cheeks. We grew up together, the five of us. Transforming from girls to young women. We ran gaily then. Each of us, one by one meeting, falling in love, and marrying our soul-mates. Those years were filled with bridal showers, weddings, baby showers, and chil d-birth. After each milestone we would gather, talking deep into the night. Eating junk food and chocolate, sipping wine. We spoke of our hopes, dreams, and fears. Always starting so seriously and always ending in laughter with tears running down our heeks. We went head-strong into our thirties. Each developing a new found independence and calmness which comes when you have finally begun to feel comfortable with yourself. Our careers were established, our children growing, and all five marriages still stro ng. We had all done our jobs well. It was no problem to leave our families for short periods of time. It was then that we began our \"Enchanted April\" weekends. Off to the mountains or the ocean. Talking deep into the night. Eating junk food and choc late, sipping wine. We spoke of our hopes, dreams, and fears. Always starting so seriously and always ending in laughter with tears running down our cheeks. Our thirties began to come to a close. Each time that we would meet, we would sound like a Jane Austen novel -- \"How is your mother?\" \"How is your father?\" -- this would follow with tales of illnesses and hospitals. When or how our chain calls started, I don't really remember. It was a instinctive reaction designed so that the sufferer would not have to repeat their story more than once. One would call the other, each in turn. \"One of us is hurting\" we would tell the next until we made a complete cir le. Again, we would gather. Talking deep into the night. Eating junk food and chocolate, sipping wine. We spoke of our hopes, dreams, and fears. Always starting so seriously and always ending in laughter with tears running down our cheeks. One by one our parents began to leave us. We held hands and our breath and tip-toed into our forties. We now gathered most often at our parent's funerals. Although our husbands tried to comfort us, it was the five of us that we would seek. Talking deep into the night. Eating junk food and cho colate, sipping wine. We spoke of our hopes, dreams, and fears. Always starting so seriously and always ending in laughter with tears running down our cheeks. Just this week another mile-stone has occurred. One of us became a widow. How can this be? Up until this moment, we all still remained with our one and only husbands. How lucky we were -- how well we choose -- how smug we were -- how fearful we are. Did we never think that this type of tragedy would happen? All along the chain call, each one said the same thing, \"I am so scared. We now must face the facts. There will be a time when one by one we will start loosing each other.\" Tomarrow we will bury her husband. After the sevices, when everyone else leaves, we will remain. Talking deep into the night. Eating junk food and chocolate, sipping wine. Speaking of our hopes, dreams, and fears. We will start out quite serious and somehow end laughing. Funny how there will still be tears enough to run down our cheeks. Thank you for letting me ramble."}, {"response": 198, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Fri, Jan 17, 1997 (08:03)", "body": "Oh, Candace - that is absolutely beautiful. Now where is that box of tissue! Please do share this with your five-some, too."}, {"response": 199, "author": "TJ", "date": "Fri, Jan 17, 1997 (15:52)", "body": "Candace..........THANKS"}, {"response": 200, "author": "Ann2", "date": "Fri, Jan 17, 1997 (17:34)", "body": "Candace, it should really be the other way around....I thank you for letting me follow your rambling. I feel an ache in my throat and my eyes are a bit dim. This past autume my mother died and I miss her so. This life is ours to handle with care, and the way you and your friends do it together is just.... Oddly, I find it comforting that it is the same for us whoever or whereever... We must part from the one's we love. Better think of it now and then..."}, {"response": 201, "author": "elder", "date": "Fri, Jan 17, 1997 (18:22)", "body": "Candace -- what a beautiful \"ramble\" on the blessings of friends. Our thoughts are with you and your friends as you pass another milestone. (And my prayers are with your one friend who is going through this painful time.) Thank you for wanting to share this w/ us."}, {"response": 202, "author": "Inko", "date": "Fri, Jan 17, 1997 (22:09)", "body": "Thank you Candace for rambling and sharing so beautifully. When you think of the sadness, though, also consider the blessings of having five such good friends. It's so rare that friends can stay together through all the stages of their lives."}, {"response": 203, "author": "lilah", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (00:34)", "body": "Candace, that was moving, eloquent and beautiful. How lucky you are to have such friends to see each other through the inevitabilities of life. I lost my beloved father in August; watched my mom struggle with the transition into widowhood. That's when I saw the rituals and the resulting strength that a group of women friends give to each other, and that's when I realized I truly believe in a sisterhood. Thanks for sharing with us."}, {"response": 204, "author": "Meggin", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (04:28)", "body": "Candace, my father died last week. The first person I really talked to about it was my best friend--her father died 18 months ago. We've been best buddy's since jr. high--a long time ago. Yet she still knows me better than anyone else, despite the fact that we now live miles apart. How lucky you are to have a group of friends to help support each other in time of need. No one else could make me laugh last week, but my friend Kathy could. That is what best friends are for."}, {"response": 205, "author": "Kali", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (05:33)", "body": "Everyone, I hate to break the sisterly mood created by Candace's lovely ramble, but it was recently revealed that our own Saman just got into medical school! Congratulations..."}, {"response": 206, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (05:50)", "body": "Meggin, I am so sorry. Yours and Candace's story make me even more thankful my own mother is better all the time -- just learned two days ago that a heart oblation procedure done a few weeks ago had been successful even though at the time the doctors pron ounced it a failure. S'man, I am very very happy for you. I know how much you wanted this. You deserve it."}, {"response": 207, "author": "kendall", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (17:52)", "body": "\"...our own Saman just got into medical school! Congratulations... \" WOW This is so exciting - where will you do to school!!"}, {"response": 208, "author": "Becks", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (18:42)", "body": "Way to go Saman!! I'm so sorry. Margaret."}, {"response": 209, "author": "Inko", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (20:07)", "body": "My sympathies, Margaret, and all others who have recently lost family members or friends. It's a difficult time, I know, when good friends are invaluable. Congratulations, Saman! Does this mean we'll now have an \"ER\" topic here??"}, {"response": 210, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (22:51)", "body": "Candace, that is one of the most eloquent, touching ramblings I have experienced. I have a photo in my family album of a group of women I know who match this description very closely. I miss having a similar relationship in my own life and it is touching to hear about it in anothers life. That's the photo on the left of the women I spoke, that's Ann Evans the bride, ex-mayor of Davis California who married a delightful Englishman named David. They are still living in Davis, CA as far as a I know. These women all grew up together. I'm very glad our week long task to put out the new Webstalker has been completed and the product is now being shipped out to reviewers and beta testers. This is the first free moment I've had in well over a week. I'm hoping to get together with the Unix team and the folks who inhabit this community today and tomorrow before I go back to the intense development effort I'm involved in right now. I'm sitting in my office/master bedroom in Cedar Creek looking out over the woods and pastures, feeling good. I've got the Wide World of Sports Ice Skating on the tube, this is one of the most esthetic and relaxing sports to watch. (more about this in a future ice skating topic in the sports conference). Ekaterina Gordeeva is skating now, what a fine skater."}, {"response": 211, "author": "Anna", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (23:24)", "body": "Margaret, please accept my sympathy. ] it was recently revealed that our own Saman just got into medical school! That's great Saman, will you be starting this year? You must be really busy as well as please. I hope you'll still be able to join us occaisionally if y ou have to relocate. Amy, I'm really glad to hear your mother is improving."}, {"response": 212, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (23:53)", "body": "Happy birthday Kathleen Elder!"}, {"response": 213, "author": "lilah", "date": "Sun, Jan 19, 1997 (01:24)", "body": "Margaret, my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family."}, {"response": 214, "author": "kendall", "date": "Sun, Jan 19, 1997 (01:45)", "body": "Margaret - I am very sorry you lost your father. Hope you and the rest of your family ware getting through this."}, {"response": 215, "author": "candace", "date": "Sun, Jan 19, 1997 (03:17)", "body": "Thank you to everyone for the responses to my essay. In truth, what I really thank you for is this wonderful forum and all my wonderful cyber friends. This was truly the best therapy. To Margaret -- I am so sorry for your loss. I lost my own father five years ago. I know exactly what you feel. Peace be with you all."}, {"response": 216, "author": "Meggin", "date": "Sun, Jan 19, 1997 (03:26)", "body": "Thanks to all for the expressions of sympathy. You have touched my heart."}, {"response": 217, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Mon, Jan 20, 1997 (14:22)", "body": "Margaret, otan osaa, as they say here in Finland. It could roughly be translated as \"I take a piece of your sorrow and carry it with me\", and means that I am very, very sorry about your father. Keep on smiling, though. Despite many things the world still is a beautiful place."}, {"response": 218, "author": "Amy", "date": "Mon, Jan 20, 1997 (15:21)", "body": "otan osaa __ That is lovely Mixu"}, {"response": 219, "author": "MaryC", "date": "Tue, Jan 21, 1997 (01:31)", "body": "Terry, figure skating ranks right along with P&P on my list of things I really enjoy. Saturday the 'Stars on Ice' were in town and a group of 8 of us went to dinner and the show. The evening flew by and it is difficult to pick out the best, but Ecaterina's numbers were very special. Torvil and Dean were an awesome presence in the show. Hope some of the other contributors to this board have the opportunity to see this wonderful production. And thanks to you Terry for providing this great home for all f us."}, {"response": 220, "author": "MaryC", "date": "Tue, Jan 21, 1997 (01:32)", "body": "Terry, figure skating ranks right along with P&P on my list of things I really enjoy. Saturday the 'Stars on Ice' were in town and a group of 8 of us went to dinner and the show. The evening flew by and it is difficult to pick out the best, but Ecaterina's numbers were very special. Torvil and Dean were an awesome presence in the show. Hope some of the other contributors to this board have the opportunity to see this wonderful production. And thanks to you Terry for providing this great home for all f us."}, {"response": 221, "author": "MaryC", "date": "Tue, Jan 21, 1997 (01:32)", "body": "Oops, sorry for the extra post."}, {"response": 222, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Tue, Jan 21, 1997 (03:52)", "body": "I would kill (well almost) to see Torvil and Dean in person!"}, {"response": 223, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Thu, Jan 23, 1997 (05:47)", "body": "Candace, let me tell you how very deeply touched I was by your \"ramble\", frienship, family and the act of sharing is at the core of the soul. Margaret, accept these thoughts of peace. Loosing someone close, whether one who's life as been a long fulfilled road or, has we experienced last week, loosing a little one who had so much to experience, is never easy. Let us rejoyce in the happiness of their newfound home/salvation. Amy, all my wishes of health for your mother."}, {"response": 224, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Thu, Jan 23, 1997 (14:03)", "body": "Amy, I am glad you liked the expression. I think the reason why we have \"otan osaa\" is because if we said \"Olen pahoillani\" (meaning \"I am sorry\") it would mean that I did the thing I am sorry for. Anyway, I like \"otan osaa\" myself. It even sounds nice. I just happen to love Finnish, and feel myself very fortunate that I have it as a 1st language."}, {"response": 225, "author": "Meggin", "date": "Thu, Jan 23, 1997 (18:25)", "body": "Mixu, I greatlly appreciate the kind sentiment expressed by \"otan osaa\". All of the words of sympathy expressed for me and my family have meant more to me than I could ever have believed possible. You all don't know me and you didn't know my father, yet so many of you have made such an effort to let me know that you care. I am overwhelmed by all of this. Johanne, you write of losing a little one. How terrible. My father was old and sick and in pain and I take a great deal of comfort in the thought that he is in a better place, having lived a full life with many joys. Johanne, my heart aches for you."}, {"response": 226, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Thu, Jan 23, 1997 (22:16)", "body": "Just to make things clear, I personnaly did not loose my child this past week, heaven forbid, I would'nt be able to be here at all, wondering if I would have any sanity left in such a short time. But my dear friend did loose her very soon expected baby and having lost one myself a couple of years ago, it stirred up memories. So close to the miracle of life but taken away a nano-second before. No choice but to confort ourselves with beliefs of a better place for them and the faith in a destiny much bigger than our mere comprehension may aloud. Thanks."}, {"response": 227, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Jan 23, 1997 (22:24)", "body": "Most people have no idea how much of a loss a miscarriage can be -- at any stage."}, {"response": 228, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sat, Jan 25, 1997 (16:06)", "body": "Most people also do not realise that 25-33% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. With such I high number, it should be more widely known."}, {"response": 229, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Sat, Jan 25, 1997 (21:51)", "body": "AN ANNOUNCEMENT I have, this day, taken down all my Christmas decorations!!! *Applause* (Thank you, thank you very much! Now I just have to get it carried out to the garage!)"}, {"response": 230, "author": "Ann2", "date": "Sat, Jan 25, 1997 (22:23)", "body": "That is very good ,Cheryl . I have still the tree as it is so fresh and smells so good; I have not had the heart to throw it away. But I took away the last x-mas cloth the other day and have only kept one electric candlestick in the kitchen-window to brighten our dark and early mornings in January."}, {"response": 231, "author": "elder", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (05:56)", "body": "Cheryl & Ann2 -- with both of your messages blinking at the same speed, I began to feel that Christmas was still here! To any interested viewers of CF movies: I recently loaned my copy of \"Dutch Girls\" to Mari. If you are interested in viewing it, let me know via email (kelder@miworld.net for home or k_elder@fre.fsu.umd.edu for work). I can ask Mari to send it to you when she has finished watching it. As long as I get it back sometime, I would be happy to share."}, {"response": 232, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (08:36)", "body": "ANTI-SUPER BOWL PARTY Grace and I were talking at Pemberley today, bemoaning a full day of the Football Fan's High Holy Day, when we decided that we should hold our own party at Pemberley! The madness, I mean game begins at 6pm EST, but the Pregame crap, I mean festivities start hours and hours before that. So the official party shall begin at 4pm EST, earlier if you cannot stand anymore of John Madden! ;-) Y'all come!"}, {"response": 233, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (15:13)", "body": "Who in your opinion was worse Dandy Don,Howard or John Madden?"}, {"response": 234, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (15:19)", "body": "Wow, Super Sunday is here. And we have cheeseheads and anti-Superbowl partyin'. Are you going to have your own anti-Superbowl half time show with entertainment?"}, {"response": 235, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (15:19)", "body": "If you are not watching but only hearing the noise, Madden's yelling is really grating. But! I don't have a football husband anymore. Yay!!!!!!!!"}, {"response": 236, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (15:20)", "body": "Hey, Terry, we posted at the same time. Are you a football fan? If you have time, would you look in deeper?"}, {"response": 237, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (15:21)", "body": "Madden's comments on the web are naive and comical. \"How do you dot com something?\""}, {"response": 238, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (15:22)", "body": "Amy throws a pass and Terry goes deep..."}, {"response": 239, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (15:32)", "body": "What?"}, {"response": 240, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (22:15)", "body": "Missed signal. Let's try that play again."}, {"response": 241, "author": "Grace", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (22:29)", "body": "Cheryl, I am here. Where are you?? Your thoughts (in chat yesterday)about Darcy as a quarterback have sparked my interest in the game, football...that is. But remember...if you get to be the team masseuse, I get to do the locker room interviews, up close and oh so personal. One more thing.....about those whirlpool tubs for the athletes...are you sure they accommodate two comfortably???"}, {"response": 242, "author": "Grace", "date": "Sun, Jan 26, 1997 (22:32)", "body": "Cheryl, I am here. Where are you?? Your thoughts (in chat yesterday)about Darcy as a quarterback have sparked my interest in the game, football...that is. But remember...if you get to be the team masseuse, I get to do the locker room interviews, up close and oh so personal. One more thing.....about those whirlpool tubs for the athletes...are you sure they accommodate two comfortably???"}, {"response": 243, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Mon, Jan 27, 1997 (00:00)", "body": "Grace: One more thing.....about those whirlpool tubs for the athletes...are you sure they accommodate two comfortably??? Some things are worth a little discomfort! ;-) (and I'm at Pemberley now...where are you, dearie?)"}, {"response": 244, "author": "Ann2", "date": "Mon, Jan 27, 1997 (07:20)", "body": "Sorry, I missed that party,Cheryl and Grace. But from what I hear it was not totally without sports, eyh eyh, nudge,wink?"}, {"response": 245, "author": "Grace", "date": "Mon, Jan 27, 1997 (15:03)", "body": "Ann, Mostly we made sport of the Neanderthals sitting in front of the tube whooping and hollering over such a stupid game. You'll be pleased to know that after much discussion, we also did reach some consensus about those Lycra pants the gentlemen wear on the gridiron. Should have been there!"}, {"response": 246, "author": "Amy", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (06:37)", "body": "Congratulations, Kali! On receiving her first law school acceptance letter But we never had any doubt."}, {"response": 247, "author": "Kali", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (07:04)", "body": "Thank you, Amy dearest, for your encouragement and optimism. You're great! :)"}, {"response": 248, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (07:23)", "body": "Brava Kali"}, {"response": 249, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (08:05)", "body": "tHip Hip Hooray! (Which school was it?)"}, {"response": 250, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (08:06)", "body": "Hip Hip Hooray! (Which school was it?)"}, {"response": 251, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (08:06)", "body": "Hey! I did not post that twice - though it does bear repeating. ;-)"}, {"response": 252, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (08:20)", "body": "I have only one thing to say to you, my dearest niece... YAHOOOOOO!!!!"}, {"response": 253, "author": "Kali", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (08:48)", "body": "THanks guys! It was Georgetown, Joan...:)"}, {"response": 254, "author": "mrobens", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (13:19)", "body": "But, of course, I'm not at all surprised. Congratulations daughter."}, {"response": 255, "author": "Ann2", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (18:59)", "body": "Was it not Mr Bingley who found it amazing that young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished?! And in our midst are several very accomplished, who also posess a certain something in their air, their adress and expressions. They study law, go to medical school and I know not what! Good luck, Kali! (Just saw you in Best of chat!)And Saman too!"}, {"response": 256, "author": "elder", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (19:14)", "body": "Congrats, Kali -- and may you receive many more happy responses! I hope you have a large field of choices (although Georgetown is certainly not too shabby)."}, {"response": 257, "author": "Mari", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (19:15)", "body": "Kali, Saman; go to it, girls!"}, {"response": 258, "author": "Amy", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (19:41)", "body": "Isn't this great? We are all so proud, like a bunch of mother hens. It is sweet."}, {"response": 259, "author": "Inko", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (21:37)", "body": "CONGRATULATIONS Kali -- Georgetown is really great. Starting with the cream of the crop!! Congratulations also to Saman. What a bright bunch we have here - nice to know the next generation is in good hands!!;-)"}, {"response": 260, "author": "kendall", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (22:13)", "body": "Georgetown!! Great. congratulations, Kali"}, {"response": 261, "author": "alix", "date": "Tue, Jan 28, 1997 (23:57)", "body": "Congrats, Kali! I'm a UGA person, myself, but Georgetown is an awsome school. Just one question, what is a Hoya, exactly? I've heard so many things from people who go to Harrison High School as to what it is, but those Harrison people usually have problems with that whole collective reasoning/agreement thing! Sorry to those that I've offended, but at least McEachern can agree on their mascot. One more question, has anyone noticed that allmost all Latin teachers are either nutty absent minded professor types, or grandmothers-from-hell? Just a thought."}, {"response": 262, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (00:59)", "body": "Latin teachers? Our Latin teacher in high school was a messy genius type. Here at Cal, Professor Knapp is very normal. He's married, with kids, and very nice. so, you're a Dawg (woof woof woof!), Laura? Oh...and a hoya is actually a retaining wall (selected by students long, long, ago...). It has nothing to do with the bulldog that the athletic department took on as a mascot. --- Thank you for your interest and encouragement, guys...you're great!!!"}, {"response": 263, "author": "Ann", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (01:24)", "body": "A hoya is a certain way of throwing a frisbee: Hold the frisbee with your first and second fingers on the inside with the second finger along the inside of the rim, place your thumb on the top of the frisbee, then hold the frisbee in a vertical position (perpendicular to the ground) over your shoulder, then in a motion similar to a baseball throw throw the frisbee with strength and with a flick of the wrist high into the air. The frisbee will then invert and float upside-down back to the earth--that is a oya!"}, {"response": 264, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (02:19)", "body": "A hoya is an ornamental plant that grows well in hanging baskets and has tiny star-shaped flowers."}, {"response": 265, "author": "Susan", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (03:55)", "body": "Kali, I haven't been on here long, but want to say Congrats! Georgetown is pretty cool . . . and you must be pretty smart! But then we already knew that. Enjoyed seeing your picture."}, {"response": 266, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (04:15)", "body": "Thank you, Susan! Glad you liked the pic. Ann, Joan, I had no idea that a \"hoya\" was so many things! The Hoya Laura was refering to is the official Georgetown \"mascot\"...which is not a dog, but a retaining wall. I know not why that was chosen by early Georgetown students."}, {"response": 267, "author": "Amy", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (06:08)", "body": "WOW OF THE DAY! Henry's Jane Austen Info site was featured Monday on CNN Interactive: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9701/27/on.the.net/austen/ You know what I think is neat? That sometimes, once in a while, good content is discovered and recognized on its own merit. Nice job, Henry. You deserve the recognition."}, {"response": 268, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (09:29)", "body": "Woo-hoo, H..."}, {"response": 269, "author": "elder", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (13:09)", "body": "That CNN write up is \"mah-ve-lous\" !!! Good work HC -- who's your publicist? ; )"}, {"response": 270, "author": "TJ", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (17:55)", "body": "Congratulations Kali.......i did not notice but were you one of the non fans for football.......(I guess i could read back a bit and find out).........but to many of us out here Georgetown is to Basketball what Notre Dame is to Football.....hope you like b-ball........not just the fact they are two great catholic colleges......... Also has anyone tried to make either of the pizza's yet...........been curious to find out if you liked it"}, {"response": 271, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (19:14)", "body": "Cool, HC! ;-)"}, {"response": 272, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (20:30)", "body": "THank you, TJ...I like football alright, i guess...basketball even less...but then again, I don't go to school for the athletic departments! ;)"}, {"response": 273, "author": "Inko", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (22:51)", "body": "Congratulations! HC. That's great publicity and a really nice write-up. IMHO You deserve all the accolades you can accumulate for your pages!"}, {"response": 274, "author": "Inko", "date": "Wed, Jan 29, 1997 (22:52)", "body": "Congratulations! HC. That's great publicity and a really nice write-up. IMHO You deserve all the accolades you can accumulate for your pages!"}, {"response": 275, "author": "Kali", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (03:40)", "body": "Inko is obviously very excited! :)"}, {"response": 276, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (09:57)", "body": "Congratulations , Kali! (This is the 1st time I use blink... Take a deep breath and embrace yourself, because you deserve it (hug yourself for me, too!). Save the strength to be used later. I'll try to convince a tonttu (Finnish elf, a guardian spirit of places etc.) to follow you... If you think something invisible is living at your flat, just \"forget\" some food on the table - the tonttu loves it!"}, {"response": 277, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (14:53)", "body": "Hip Hip Hourra Henri If not for your webpages I probably would'nt be here, million thanks and **smoosh**"}, {"response": 278, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (16:07)", "body": "Johanne: million thanks and **smoosh** Johanne dear, is this the French equivelent of a *samooch*? ;-)"}, {"response": 279, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (16:11)", "body": "] Johanne: million thanks and **smoosh** Johanne dear, is this the French equivelent of a *samooch*? ;-) __ Wouldn't that be \"Mmmwwwa!\""}, {"response": 280, "author": "churchh", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (16:15)", "body": "If so, I think it should be spelled \"smouche\""}, {"response": 281, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (17:02)", "body": "Okay, then I guess my \"Mmmwwwa\" would have to be MMMMMMMMoi!"}, {"response": 282, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (17:48)", "body": "Mmouah, Mmouah, Mmouah Amy, I like it very much. Mmouah Henri, and when kissed dearest, something else than the spelling should occupy your thoughts ;) Kissing Fest"}, {"response": 283, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (17:51)", "body": "Well, I think kissing is a fine topic for this place. I'd not be ashamed to have either Ayelet's mom or mine read about it. We start moving the schwinging today."}, {"response": 284, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Thu, Jan 30, 1997 (19:06)", "body": "We're moving the Schwinging?"}, {"response": 285, "author": "Kali", "date": "Fri, Jan 31, 1997 (08:08)", "body": "I'm laughing my a** off as I type!"}, {"response": 286, "author": "candace", "date": "Sat, Feb  1, 1997 (03:31)", "body": "Kali -- A big Congrats!! Oh the places you'll go!!!"}, {"response": 287, "author": "Kali", "date": "Sat, Feb  1, 1997 (09:43)", "body": "Thank you, dear Candace and Mixu..."}, {"response": 288, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Sat, Feb  1, 1997 (16:22)", "body": "What a find :"}, {"response": 289, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sat, Feb  1, 1997 (17:02)", "body": "Congratulations, Kali"}, {"response": 290, "author": "Ann2", "date": "Sat, Feb  1, 1997 (17:39)", "body": "Congratulations to HC on Great CNN presentation ! By the way you must have been doing lots of work on that site this autumn if I remember correctly. I visited and used bibliographies before I found old P&P2 board, in September. Were the colours there then?. Looks nice and inviting."}, {"response": 291, "author": "del", "date": "Mon, Feb  3, 1997 (23:15)", "body": "Relationship No ship, please. Not now. I haven't a captain nor a first mate \ufffd never mind a crew\ufffd It would take all my courage to try a relation inner tube. How about a relation floatie? Frozen margaritas in the pool some sultry summer night? Relation = Relative = Relativity = Energy = ME scared. Time flies when I'm fleeing fun. Marybeth Gradziel June 19, 1995 Reproduction We women need not be alone for long. We can grow friends. Find the right seed. Care for the sprout. and Enjoy the fruit of our labor. Marybeth Gradziel August 22, 1995 Dream Thought I understood it all one night. How men looking for women get mixed up, and flit from one to another \ufffd always looking for more. If only they knew\ufffd Inside every woman is an infinite number of other women just waiting for true love, trust and acceptance, to come out and love the man in an infinite number of womanly ways. Marybeth Gradziel August 24, 1995"}, {"response": 292, "author": "mich", "date": "Tue, Feb  4, 1997 (22:26)", "body": "Very nice Doug,thanks for sharing"}, {"response": 293, "author": "Amy", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (01:51)", "body": "OJ verdict is in, not read. I have this terrible feeling something awful is going to happen."}, {"response": 294, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (02:12)", "body": "I wish the media would stop making such a big deal of this. They are now saying that they will delay the President's state of the union address to wait for the reading of the verdict. Where are our priorities, for heaven sake???"}, {"response": 295, "author": "elder", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (02:24)", "body": "I agree, Joan too. I was going to shut off the tv when I heard that there was this conflict about what to cover! (However, the snow/ice storm here cut off the cable before I could get to the remote. :-)) It is delightful to come to this civilized oasis, but I had intended to pay some attention to the President's address. Oh well, maybe I'll be a more informed citizen tomorrow."}, {"response": 296, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (02:25)", "body": "At least ABC is going ahead with the President's address as planned. I plan to compliment them excessively!"}, {"response": 297, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (03:26)", "body": "This is really scarry"}, {"response": 298, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (03:27)", "body": "This is really scarry but on the other hand there's a lot of parodies outthere"}, {"response": 299, "author": "churchh", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (03:39)", "body": "My TV is broken, so I'm listening over NPR -- they haven't broken into the speech to announce the OJ verdict yet ;-)"}, {"response": 300, "author": "churchh", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (03:41)", "body": "Last message outdated -- State of Union solid but unmemorable... OJ verdict: GUILTY!!"}, {"response": 301, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (03:45)", "body": "The ultimate victory! ABC showed the President's entire speech - and then was still able to tune in to the trial just in time to get the verdict live . HA HA HA! Take that CBS and NBC!"}, {"response": 302, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (03:49)", "body": "I'm speechless....."}, {"response": 303, "author": "Inko", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (04:15)", "body": "I stayed on ABC all evening, and never realized that CBS and NBC were not on the President's speech. My feelings about the evening - what else is new???"}, {"response": 304, "author": "Inko", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (04:15)", "body": "I stayed on ABC all evening, and never realized that CBS and NBC were not on the President's speech. My feelings about the evening - what else is new??? Sorry, I'm feeling cynical!!;-)"}, {"response": 305, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (05:45)", "body": "I'm speechless....."}, {"response": 306, "author": "Ann", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (06:21)", "body": "Clinton has an excellent sense of timing. He finished exactly as the verdict came in. Now that's a great politician!"}, {"response": 307, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (09:56)", "body": "He's a slick one, he is...;)"}, {"response": 308, "author": "Adi", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (20:22)", "body": "I'm in such a terrible mood, I had to share it with you: yesterday 73 Israeli soldiers were killed when 2 helicopters collided. Seventy-three young men! the majority of them were just twenty years old. they were just born and now they are dead... I know at least 2 of them (there are still 20 more names not published), and the feeling is awful. If they were killed because of the war in Lebanon - I could at least understand it, but they died because of a stupid mistake, and it was a horrible death (there was ammunition on the helicopters, and it caused fire and explosions when it crashed on the ground). everyone here are so sad. almost everyone knew someone that died. I wish things like that will never happen again to anyone in any place."}, {"response": 309, "author": "Kali", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (20:28)", "body": "That's awful, Adi. Even if they had died in actual battle, would it have been worth it? I doubt it. Most wars today are such ego-vehicles that I have trouble justifying them. And I've always considered myself a hawk."}, {"response": 310, "author": "Inko", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (22:15)", "body": "Deepest sympathy, Adi. It is always bad whenever young people have to die, but in such a horrible crash it seems even worse. Also agree with Kali, death in battle or in a war would not have made it worth it--but then I'm a dove!! I hate all wars and can see no logical reasons for them."}, {"response": 311, "author": "Anne3", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (22:18)", "body": "Adi, I'm terribly sorry. If the helicopters were as explosive as you say, it's likely that they at least died instantly. I hope that's some comfort."}, {"response": 312, "author": "Adi", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (22:42)", "body": "Kali, of course it's not worth it, those lives are so precious. those boys should not die, period. but sometimes you just can't help it - our men soldiers don't \"play\" in war, they are defending our northern border from terrorist attacks and from missiles. so it's understandable to die while you are defending your love ones and practically giving them life. I can assure you that in this case no ego is involved. what's killing me is that those soldiers were the top of the top of the youth in Israel: they were fighters in their way to their missions in Lebanon. they weren't just \"Jobnicks\" [=this is the name to describe the men soldiers who do office jobs like clerks]. they were already risking their life in their jobs protecting the rest of us, so they should have a better destiny than they had..."}, {"response": 313, "author": "Amy", "date": "Thu, Feb  6, 1997 (00:22)", "body": "Adi, I can't even begin to imagine how you must feel. But I am so sorry."}, {"response": 314, "author": "kendall", "date": "Thu, Feb  6, 1997 (03:29)", "body": "Adi - I am so sorry. You are bringing the 'other side of the world' closer to all of us."}, {"response": 315, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Thu, Feb  6, 1997 (16:49)", "body": "Let me had my voice to Inko, Amy and all us in share this pain. We're thinking of you and all who is hurting."}, {"response": 316, "author": "lasalle", "date": "Thu, Feb  6, 1997 (17:26)", "body": "Let me add my sorrow, Adi. Life can be so unfair--the Israeli people have suffered so long; the endless war and persecution. So many Israeli youth gone in past mideast wars. Now, even technology revolts against them. And Israel the only real democratic state in the mideast. The older I get, the more I think the universe was somehow wrongly put together."}, {"response": 317, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Thu, Feb  6, 1997 (17:34)", "body": "Too many have Carl, Israely and not, whether the're made knowns to us or kept in the back of the medias priorities. Too many innocent victims, especially children."}, {"response": 318, "author": "Adi", "date": "Thu, Feb  6, 1997 (23:50)", "body": "Thank you all for your kind words. Carl, I never thought about it like that but I guess you're right: the universe was wrongly put together. God probably made a mistake when he placed Israel in the middle east. this was another horrible day. most of the funerals took place today. On the radio and T.V there were just quiet and sad songs, and between them - stories about the lives of all the dead soldiers, talks with their families and friends, talks with politicians and basically anything that could make you cry endlessly. I can't take it anymore. I wish this week will be over already."}, {"response": 319, "author": "Kaffeine", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (04:48)", "body": "I just had to stop by before I head to bed to recommend a show I just saw. If \"Riverdance - The Show\" comes to your town, RUN to get tickets! I don't think I've ever had two hours in the theatre pass so fast! I'm not even sure how to explain it to you...its main focus is traditional Irish dance, but there's Russian, Spanish, and American dances as well. The energy level is just phenomenal. Also, in the program there was an ad for \"Tap Dogs\" which will be in town in a couple of weeks. Am I right in remembering that this show was highly recommended here?"}, {"response": 320, "author": "Anna", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (10:03)", "body": "] \"Tap Dogs\" ... was highly recommended here? mmmmnnnnhhhhh! all male, more 'modern' than Riverdance (at least the shows I saw) but definitely worth a look..."}, {"response": 321, "author": "Donna", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (15:00)", "body": "Kathleen, I have seen these ads for \"Riverdance\" but I think it is to purchase the video. What area are you in? I don't think they are coming here."}, {"response": 322, "author": "Ann", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (21:56)", "body": "MY CAR JUST GOT STOLEN!!!!!"}, {"response": 323, "author": "JohanneD", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (22:01)", "body": "So sorry Ann, hope nothing too valuable in it !"}, {"response": 324, "author": "Anne3", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (22:09)", "body": "Oh, Ann, I'm sorry."}, {"response": 325, "author": "Inko", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (22:12)", "body": "That terrible. I'm so sorry Ann."}, {"response": 326, "author": "Amy", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (22:19)", "body": "That's awful, Ann. What a horrible annoyance x 50 plus disgust and inconvenience and I can't even think what else. Yuck."}, {"response": 327, "author": "elder", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (22:28)", "body": "Oh, Ann, how awful. And it makes you feel so angry, helpless, violated -- a truly rotten experience. Were you at work or home when it happened? I hope you are OK."}, {"response": 328, "author": "Mari", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (23:25)", "body": "Ann, so very aggravating! Ok in body, if not spirit, I hope."}, {"response": 329, "author": "Kaffeine", "date": "Fri, Feb  7, 1997 (23:28)", "body": "Ann - That's terrible! Its one of those things that's hard to grasp - you know where you parked it and it takes a minute to register that it's really not there. Donna - I'm in the Detroit area. I don't know where its headed next, but hopefully it will end up near you soon. Anna - I think I'm going to check it out (Tap Dogs). :)"}, {"response": 330, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (01:03)", "body": "My car was parked in the lot in front of my apartment building and was probably stolen sometime last night. The cops were hopeful that they would be able to find it, but I doubt it. This is actually the second car that I've had stolen. The first one was stolen from my brother at gunpoint. The cops eventually recovered that one and the thief got 4 years in jail. Now I've lost another one. It is a pain in the neck to be carless. At least the weather won't be too bad for the next few days, so walking won't b too bad. Thanks for your messages."}, {"response": 331, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (01:39)", "body": "That's really bad news Ann. I hope you were covered and you get some new wheels soon. What kind of car was it?"}, {"response": 332, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (01:50)", "body": "1989 Jeep Cherokee Limited Edition with tinted windows and leather seats! I inherited it from my parents when they bought a Land Rover. It is a very popular car among thieves, but is getting on in years. I don't think there is any chance that I will be able to replace it with a comperable vehicle."}, {"response": 333, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (02:14)", "body": "Very sad indeed Ann. I do hope you get it back."}, {"response": 334, "author": "jwinsor", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (02:19)", "body": "Ann, what a bummer!"}, {"response": 335, "author": "Susan", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (04:20)", "body": "Ann, I'm somewhat new here -- where do you live? I'm so sorry to hear about your rig; Jeep Cherokees are cool. You have a good attitude about it, though. Hang in there and keep your chin up."}, {"response": 336, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (04:37)", "body": "I live in Minneapolis, not the best place to be carless in the middle of winter. I figure that there is nothing I can do about it. It's just going to be a pain in the butt to get it replaced!"}, {"response": 337, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (05:14)", "body": "I lived and worked in Mpls without a car for about a year. I worked as a city planner till I left there in a schoolbus that I recycled into an \"rv\". Bought it from the Owatonna School district. But that was then. In today's world, getting around in a good car is more of a necessity. I really liked the town, I met some very good people there."}, {"response": 338, "author": "Susan", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (06:07)", "body": "Will be sending good thoughts your way, Ann. Keep thinking positive. Hope this next week brings better things."}, {"response": 339, "author": "Kali", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (09:44)", "body": "Suck."}, {"response": 340, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (20:05)", "body": "Good news : THEY FOUND MY CAR!!! I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know how much damage was done. I know they broke a window and had to damage the ignition to start it. Thanks to everybody for your support, I'm sure it showed up so quickly because I had so many people thinking about it across the world. Thanks to all!"}, {"response": 341, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (20:06)", "body": "I didn't realise that yapp takes the word news and makes it into a link!!!"}, {"response": 342, "author": "elder", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (20:28)", "body": "Ann, that's terrific. I hope you can get your car fixed and functional really soon. Glad you didn't have to wait too long to find out about it, either."}, {"response": 343, "author": "Susan", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (21:41)", "body": "Ann, it's wonderful!!! You did get lots of instant support, and I'm sure it helped."}, {"response": 344, "author": "Becks", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (22:38)", "body": "Hope everything works out, Ann!"}, {"response": 345, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sat, Feb  8, 1997 (22:45)", "body": "Gee, maybe we should start charging -- strangers, that is -- for this psychic service. Woman power. Be afraid. (Hil, did you start that \"be very afraid\" stuff?\") Very glad to hear it, Ann."}, {"response": 346, "author": "Inko", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (01:27)", "body": "Ann, So glad they found your car. Hope it'll be driveable soon!! There is a terrific review of P&P2 in today's NY Times by Christoper Lehmann-Haupt, a book reviewer. He compares P&P2 to the book and likes it very well indeed, better than any other Austen adaptation. Link is: http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/arts/tv-austen-review.html"}, {"response": 347, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (01:37)", "body": "That is an increadible review!! (By the way, you probably have to register at the NYTimes site before you can view the stories there. I would heartily recommend that you do. The NYTimes site is one of the best newspapers on the web and includes most, if not all, of the printed paper (including the crossword puzzle!!))"}, {"response": 348, "author": "Ann", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (02:06)", "body": "I have sent the NYTimes a E-letter in response to this article. I thought I would share it with all of you: Dear Sir or Madam, Your reporter, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, is not the first to fall in love with the BBC/A&E production of Pride and Prejudice. This production in particular, and Jane Austen in general, has a large and loyal following on the internet. There are several sites which have been founded specifically for the purpose of discussing this production, and which have subsequently been broadened to include all of the works of Jane Austen. Other sites have been established solely to provide information and access to Au ten's works on the internet. Some of the URL's are as follows: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~churchh/janeinfo.html http://www.spring.com/yapp-bin/restricted/browse/austen/all/new (requires registration) http://www.bluemarble.net/~amyloo/wwwboard/ppbb.html It is suprising to me that she, of all authors, has such a strong following in cyberspace. I am continually amazed by the wide variety of Jane Austen information available on the internet, as well as the variety of people interested in her work. The virtual community which has been created around an interest in Jane Austen includes men and women, it includes people from the age of nine to well over sixty, and spans several continents and languages. It represents the best of what the internet can be by bringing together so many people in so many different walks of life, races, and cultures. We have come together and have indeed formed a community. We cry together when one of us suffers from a loss of a loved one, and we celebrate when one of us pa ses a milestone in life. We support eachother, even though few of us have ever met or even know what the others look like. We are grateful to Miss Austen for giving us the reason come together, and are grateful to the BBC/A&E production for introducing so many of us to her work. I am glad that your paper has recognised this wonderful production, which has brought so many people to enjoy Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen, and which has brought so many of us together in cyberspace. Thank you, Ann Elizabeth Haker haker001@tc.umn.edu"}, {"response": 349, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (03:47)", "body": "As Lizzie would say \"Beautiful\"."}, {"response": 350, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (04:03)", "body": "Great news Ann. Whewwww! * slaps Ann a high five *"}, {"response": 351, "author": "Susan", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (04:27)", "body": "Ann, what are we going to talk about next? Do keep us posted regarding your now recovered vehicle."}, {"response": 352, "author": "churchh", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (04:53)", "body": "Did someone save the review -- it's expired from the NY Times site..."}, {"response": 353, "author": "Donna", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (05:00)", "body": "Yes, it did expire. I did a search and found an old review about JA which listed your site HC."}, {"response": 354, "author": "Amy", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (05:00)", "body": "February 8, 1997 CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK / By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT 'Pride and Prejudice': A Great Movie of a Great Book Plenty of bad movies have been made of good books, and a fair number of good movies have come from bad books. But a great movie of a great book? Speaking from a book reviewer's vantage point, I nominate Jane Austen's \"Pride and Prejudice,\" a co-production of the BBC and A&E, which is being rebroadcast by A&E in two parts, on Saturday and Sunday. I had missed the production the first time around, but when a friend lent me the tapes, I was instantly and completely caught up by the Bennet family and the thwarted romances of the two eldest daughters, Jane and Elizabeth. I did not get free until I had watched the entire five-hour production three or four times. The Bennets' world seemed more real than mine. I found myself repeating the memorable lines. I caught myself humming the music. As with a really good book, I discovered more and more to enjoy as I grew familiar with the main action and could concentrate on the smallest of details: for example, the way you can still overhear Miss Caroline Bingley (played with grand imperiousness by Anna Chancellor) after the camera has shifted away from the reception line at the Netherfield ball. But best of all was the way the film spurred me to read the book again after 40 years and to re-experience as literature the wayward romances of Jane and Elizabeth Bennet with Charles Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Surprisingly, the book proved somewhat disappointing at first. As the friend who lent me the tapes rightly put it when I asked him how the book compared with the film, \"It makes you fear for literature.\" \"Oh! Shocking!\" as Miss Bingley would say. To admit that the literalness of film might surpass the stimulus to the imagination of Austen's language. \"Abominable!\" But this was my experience at first. And it is not simply to be explained by the inherent vividness of film as a medium or by the masterly performances of Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth, Colin Firth as Darcy, David Bamber as Collins, Crispin Bohham-Carter as Charles Bingley, Adrian Lukis as Lt. George Wickham and Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Lady Catherine. Other films of Austen's novels I happen to have seen don't come near to offering the pleasures of this production. One need hardly consider the 1940 Hollywood movie directed by Robert Leonard, with its mangled script (by Aldous Huxley yet!) draining the story of all dramatic tension, its miscasting of a too-old Greer Garson as Elizabeth and its simpering performance by Laurence Olivier as Darcy. Both the \"Emma\" starring Gwyneth Paltrow and a forthcoming BBC/A&E co-production of the novel with Kate Beckinsale (to be shown on A&E on Feb. 16) are entertaining enough but seem thin compared with Austen on paper. While Emma Thompson's \"Sense and Sensibility\" has much to recommend it, it suffers considerably from the lack of the novel's ironic narrative voice, which mercifully distances the reader from the excesses of its two leading characters. And \"Persuasion,\" while the best of the feature-length adaptations of Austen, is so brilliantly cinematic that one almost misses Austen's narrative voice. Moreover, it is not nearly as faithful to the original as the film of \"Pride and Prejudice\" is, and one has to have read the novel to understand certain subplots that are barely touched upon in the movie. (I have not seen the 1985 BBC production of \"Pride and Prejudice,\" directed by Cyril Coke, or the movie \"Clueless.\") In \"Pride and Prejudice,\" an early work of Austen's (at least in its original form, completed in 1797 and titled \"First Impressions\"), little distance exists between the narrator and the viewpoint of the leading characters. In fact, the narrator's outlook is close to that of Elizabeth, who, except for the prejudice that prevents her from seeing the truth about the deceptively charming Wickham and the too-proud Darcy, is one of the most liberated women in all of literature, especially impressive considering the narrowness of the society she lives in. So \"Pride and Prejudice\" translates easily onto the screen. True, the initial hostility between Elizabeth and Darcy is more deeply and subtly developed in the book. And we understand more clearly the extent to which Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are alienated as husband and wife. But consider how the film improves on the book. Take, for instance, the introduction of Collins, the cousin of the Bennets who is to inherit their estate. In the book, Bennet reads aloud the letter to him from Collins detailing how he wishes to \"heal the breach\" that subsists \"between yourself and my late honored father\" and how he plans to visit the Bennets. The family then reacts to the letter, noting the pompousness of its style. A few paragraphs later, the text announces: \"Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family.\" In the film, Bennet starts reading the letter, but Collins' voice"}, {"response": 355, "author": "Susan", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (05:41)", "body": "Amy, thanks for sharing ... but we already knew P&P2 was addicting and very difficult to improve upon. This just proves the point. (Although I don't necessarily agree with his opinions regarding other adaptations)."}, {"response": 356, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (05:45)", "body": "Sounds like Christopher needs to be sent our URL so he may continue to wallow with the rest of us! ;-)"}, {"response": 357, "author": "Inko", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (05:47)", "body": "Ann, thanks so much for e-mailing the N.Y. Times. I think it's great that they know their article is appreciated and that there is a bunch of us out in cyberspace who feel the same way their reviewer does! And thanks, Amy, for getting the article here. I wasn't sure how to do that. After all, that was my first link ever!! I'm learning, but ever so slowly!! BTW, I watched A&E tonight but I was disappointed--I really missed all the extra scenes I have on my tapes, and I hate being interrupted by commercials all the time! But it allowed me to get some work done and listen to it in the background!"}, {"response": 358, "author": "Cheryl", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (06:28)", "body": "Inko: BTW, I watched A&E tonight but I was disappointed--I really missed all the extra scenes I have on my tapes, and I hate being interrupted by commercials all the time! But it allowed me to get some work done and listen to it in the background! YES Inko! Me too! In fact I only watched the last 15 minutes...the proposal scene...ooh baby, lots of heat in that room! ;-)"}, {"response": 359, "author": "Anne3", "date": "Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (23:54)", "body": "Susan: but we already knew P&P2 was addicting and very difficult to improve upon. This just proves the point. Yes, Susan, but what delighted me about the article was that a big cheese like Lehmann-Haupt, who as regular book critic for the New York Times holds a high position in literary circles, would admit in public to being as obsessed with a t.v. adaptation as an ordinary mortal! P&P2 conquers ALL!"}, {"response": 360, "author": "kendall", "date": "Mon, Feb 10, 1997 (00:05)", "body": "Ann - I am making my way into this conversation late - like Mr. Woodhouse. I am glad they found your car - please let us know more as you get it back and back into working order. Thanks for the letter and the article."}, {"response": 361, "author": "Hilary", "date": "Mon, Feb 10, 1997 (02:13)", "body": "I have just been reading back, having not visited for a while. Adi, I wish I knew some way of comforting you. I hope as time moves on you will feel better. Amy (#345),not me, I think?????....I don't think I'm that scary!"}, {"response": 362, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Feb 11, 1997 (03:25)", "body": "I guess this topic got kicked out of Austen!"}, {"response": 363, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Wed, Feb 12, 1997 (12:36)", "body": "Ramblings, everyone! I have a terrible flu, am low on cash, and on a tight schedule. And yes, I almost forgot: I'm also turning 27 on Thursday! I'm beginning to feel old... On the other hand, it's Valentine on Friday, so: Happy Valentine! Thank you for letting this off my mind. I feel better already. I'll see you next week!"}, {"response": 364, "author": "TJ", "date": "Wed, Feb 12, 1997 (20:08)", "body": "beginning to feel old??????????? old is just a state of mind....take it from someone who is about to celebrate the 21st anniversary of his 21st birthday........."}, {"response": 365, "author": "fuzz", "date": "Sun, Feb 16, 1997 (17:34)", "body": "I have just browsed down through the responses, all 364 of them and find them to be interesting. I thought this would be more of a political discussion than I have found, but am certainly glad for the camaradery."}, {"response": 366, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Feb 17, 1997 (03:50)", "body": "Welcome Don! Hope you keep checking back in with us."}, {"response": 367, "author": "fuzz", "date": "Mon, Feb 17, 1997 (23:42)", "body": "Thanks for the welcome. Where does peoples interest lie? I would be interested in people that have ideas that would lead to organizing the State Univ. of New York (SUNY) students into a voting block, or at least a political voice with a little muscle. I think it is a damn shame what the SUNY Board of Trustees are trying to do to the state system."}, {"response": 368, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Feb 19, 1997 (09:22)", "body": "Open a topic in politics, the conference."}, {"response": 369, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Tue, Apr  8, 1997 (17:53)", "body": "You guys are very interesting but I'm not sure how I fit in since I'm going to go out on a limb here and actually say I'm not a huge Austen fan--I like what I've seen but I guess it didn't hit me the way it hit you all (so what am I doing here? long story). But you welcome even lukewarm fans, eh? You seem like a nice bunch folks, you won't wallop me, right?"}, {"response": 370, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Apr  9, 1997 (00:37)", "body": "You're cool. Come on out and play!"}, {"response": 371, "author": "mtlady", "date": "Thu, Apr 10, 1997 (20:16)", "body": "I wrote my intro. in another section. I heard today that there is a virus out there and it comes in your e mail and says from aol and states free aol on line and when you open it your entire system is wiped out including your antivirus programs. I figure it is for real because the alert was from washington and sent out to gov. fac. recieved in Atlanta at a gov. research fac. anyone heard about this?"}, {"response": 372, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Apr 11, 1997 (01:36)", "body": "No, can you provide more details. Is it documented anywhere on the web or is there any anti-virus company that recognizes it. Have you contacted the folks at F-Prot or Norton to see if it's real. An email to them might clear things up."}, {"response": 373, "author": "stacey", "date": "Sat, Apr 12, 1997 (19:23)", "body": "My,my, my... Terry, this has really grown since last I checked in. At the Denver Public Library today. Brandon is on a plane bound for Philly and I'm cold and lonely. The weather is bringing me down. The middle of April. 10 degrees. Six inches of melting snow. My flowers, the ones I planted three weeks ago, will never bloom. Sad. I'm checking out a Kabir poetry book, an Aaron Copland CD and several other random fiction stories -- sci-fi, romance, modern weird, you know... a little bit of everything to help me get through the week. Miss Austin, miss warm weather. Need a cup of caffeine and a chocolate macad mia cookie. Mountain biking and skating are on hold until the snow melts and the trails dry up. Thinking fondly of my former life..."}, {"response": 374, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Apr 12, 1997 (22:27)", "body": "Wow, Miss Stace' checkin' in... glad you found some access. Are those Interent terminals very busy? Isn't it cool that libraries have net access now. Nearly all the Austin libraries have net access. I get Denver stations on my satellite dish so I got a little glimpse at your weather. I won't mention what kind of day we're having in Austin or that all the plants all over are in multi-colored profusion. Do you go snow skiing? That would seem a natural for you with your athleticism. Have you been in any more ironman competitions (run, swim, bike)? Well, enough of this indoor activity for now, time to get outdoors. Keep on checkin' in, Stacey!"}, {"response": 375, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, Apr 14, 1997 (14:23)", "body": "Stacey stacey check back in! I'm a desperately unhappy Dallasite longing to relocate to Denver/Boulder. Please give me some words of encouragement while I wait out this interminable job-hunt. I miss Austin, too--partly why I'm heading for D/B! It's the closest I've found to that great Austin ambience. Guess I'll trade hellishly hot summers for frosty winters!"}, {"response": 376, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Apr 16, 1997 (17:57)", "body": "well, I'm bummed...one of the 2 main potential employers I'm looking at in Denver now lists \"no jobs available\" on their home page (they used to have half a dozen) and the other one still has the 2 unsuitable-for-me jobs they've been listing since Feb. Time to do more searching and sending."}, {"response": 377, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Apr 17, 1997 (02:18)", "body": "Did you get in touch with Stacey yet?"}, {"response": 378, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Apr 17, 1997 (02:42)", "body": "Have you thought about moving to Austin? Just a thought."}, {"response": 379, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Thu, Apr 17, 1997 (18:18)", "body": "Like I said in one of my many intros, it would be a dream come true to return to Austin, the town of my heart. Unfortunately, the reality is that I am just too old to live in the squalor afforded by the measly salaries paid for my line of work in Austin...so I visit and dream..."}, {"response": 380, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Thu, Apr 17, 1997 (18:33)", "body": "Plus I'm just too dainty these days for the blistering hellfire of those Austin summers (they made a man of me in my 20s, but now...I can't breathe!)...like Colo winters will be any less hellish!"}, {"response": 381, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Apr 18, 1997 (04:37)", "body": "What work do you do again?"}, {"response": 382, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, Apr 18, 1997 (13:07)", "body": "Molecular biology (got my MD, quit my residency, took up lab work). Sadly, the labs in Austin are easily staffed by peons fresh out of college willing to work for peanuts. There is Ambion, the lone industry. Perhaps I should give them a whirl, see if they'd be willing to pay me vast sums of money to enjoy the Austin ambience...."}, {"response": 383, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Apr 19, 1997 (05:25)", "body": "Talk to my friend Bob Nagy who works at UT Botany when he gets over his throat surgery (about a week). He's mailto://bob@spring.com He may be able to help steer you in the right direction. I'll mention him to you. His home page is at http://www.spring.com/~kreblon There's hope!"}, {"response": 384, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, Apr 21, 1997 (18:07)", "body": "You are very kind, terry. I will definitely look there! Sadly, UT is the lowest-paying, but what the heck, I'll see what's up. My ramble for today: I changed the tire on my car ALL BY MYSELF!!! last Saturday. I'm so proud of myself. Plenty of lacrimal lubrication to get the lugs off (fortunately this all took place in the privacy of my own driveway)!"}, {"response": 385, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Apr 23, 1997 (04:26)", "body": "The folks I know there love it. Despite the low pay. They like the relaxed atmosphere and benefits."}, {"response": 386, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Apr 23, 1997 (13:55)", "body": "As indeed I did during the 3 1/2 years I toiled in the Micro dept--great people and a fine ambience (ESB is a cool bldg)--much better than the tense unsmiling environs of UTSWMC Dallas! I'll see what the pay scale is for my now-advanced status (cf my previous inexperienced level), eh. I just need enough to pay the vet bills and the car repairman!"}, {"response": 387, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Apr 23, 1997 (14:24)", "body": "And apropos of nothing, let me just rant about my pet peeve, trafficwise: so you're tooling along virtually alone on the road (plenty of oncoming traffic)(but no one near you in your direction). Mr Doofus is exiting a parking lot, wants to join you on the road. He sees you 10 blocks away and waits. And waits. And waits. When you are right upon him, mere inches from his front bumper, he EASES his tuna boat out directly in front of you. Having used up every last ounce of driving courage on this bold m neuver, he proceeds to drive 5 mph for a block or two, then slams on his brakes without warning, apparently (why use a turn signal? HE knows where he's going) wishing to turn left past all the oncoming traffic. So the pair of you spend eternity waiting for a brek in traffic sufficiently large to accomodate a tuna boat driven by a moron whose used up all his courage. Not a soul behind you; he could have done all of this after you passed, but NOOOOO, he HAD to pull in front of you. Thank you and good ni ht. seriously, any other traffic annoyances out there? Or do I just need to get the idiot magnet removed from my front bumper?"}, {"response": 388, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Apr 23, 1997 (14:26)", "body": "sorry about the typos--combination of spleen-venting and weird response frame (I can't see half of what I type!)"}, {"response": 389, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Apr 23, 1997 (14:28)", "body": "I'm over in Austin rambling, go back to main menu, see there's a new response in porch, come over here, and it's ME! This is too fun, chatting with myself (are the voices in my head bothering you?)."}, {"response": 390, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Apr 23, 1997 (18:03)", "body": "And I return hours later,see another new response, and whaddaya know--ME AGAIN!"}, {"response": 391, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Thu, Apr 24, 1997 (18:04)", "body": "AUBREY RULES THE WORLD!! I am the only responder! I am queen of everything! Ruler of mesopotamia! Goddess of The Spring!"}, {"response": 392, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Apr 24, 1997 (21:09)", "body": "Well, you see, aubrey, the 'ramble' topic is actually replicated throughout several conferences and forms sort of a common thread through all these conferences. It started out in the austen conference and spread out from there (though it's no longer linked to austen after the major metamorphosis it went through. Anyone see the story on the WELL in the latest issue of Wired? Two folks I know pretty well, Cliff Figallo (fig@well.com) and John Coate (tex@well.com) are on the cover looking like guys out of the Xfiles. Also pictured is Stewart Brand. I was one of the original members of the WELL and much of the inspiration for the Spring comes from what Cliff and John did at the WELL, even the name was originally a play on the WELL. Anyway, check it out."}, {"response": 393, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, Apr 25, 1997 (13:13)", "body": "I thought someone was typing in porch while I was typing in austin. Ddidn't realize the computer wouldn't be able to figure out it was me all the time. Will look for Wired and your pals. You're a funny man of the spring/well/geyser."}, {"response": 394, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Apr 30, 1997 (14:10)", "body": "Once again, aubrey is the queen of all she surveys! I rock the Spring! I am so large and in charge! I think I will chat with myself a while...."}, {"response": 395, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Apr 30, 1997 (22:10)", "body": "I've been offline here about 3 days, I'll be getting back on soon."}, {"response": 396, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, May  2, 1997 (14:26)", "body": "But I'm having sooo much fun! I NEVER get to be the one in charge! However, you are better at it than me...Fun in the lab: I was doing an experiment yesterday that required the use of some truly noxious organic chemicals; when I was pouring them out under the fume hood (like one of those kitchen range exhaust fans, only it's enclosed on 3 1/2 sides)(designed to suck away noxious vapors so they don't enter the lab) I couldn't quite reach the sink at the back of the hood, so without thinking I NATURALLY tuck my head under the hood to get better leverage...just a half a whiff of that stuff and I blacked out and hit the floor. Yikes-a-hootey! I'm still reeling from the shock a day later! Maybe I should consider a different profession? One that doesn't require frequent use of noxious and dangerous chemicals and gene-altering isotopes?"}, {"response": 397, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, May  2, 1997 (18:21)", "body": "I wondered why you hadn't been posting for a couple of days! Wow! Take it easy there. Glad you back with the conscious folks. You're set up as a telnetter now! Let me know if you have any questions about how to use the telnet / yapp interface."}, {"response": 398, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (14:08)", "body": "Well, terry, I've tried every way I can but I still seem to have some sort of block vis a vis telnet. I can get to stroud (but only via typing it into netscape or clicking on the url you left me in tv conf--the url on the welcome page still doesn't work), but get lost therafter. There is a ws-ftp to click on at one point in the depths of Stroud, but my choice seems to be to download it, which (since this is NOT my own computer) I am a bit leery of. There is no Windows95 choice. On this computer (NOT i NetScape) there is a ws-ftp icon which I played with a little, but it couldn't find telnet://www.spring.com so I stopped (but now my password and name are on the ws-ftp page). Maybe I should try this from a personal personal computer (my brother is a computer jockey; I will enlist his help)."}, {"response": 399, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (14:10)", "body": "Where the hell did THAT come from???? All I did was type in the letters for that telnet thing and it went purple!!! Does that work for other sites? http://www.vabeach.com for example?"}, {"response": 400, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (14:31)", "body": "Help terry I'm scaring myself--every time I type in a url it lights up. Did I sniff too much pet ether last week or is this the glorious result of being a telnet gal? Yikes! Stop me before I hurt someone! So that vabeach url is from my e-pal who wants so desperately to join the Spring but cannot get on. I don't know what the site is, it was just the first thing I tried! AND IT WORKS! This is toooo spooooooky for me. How does the computer know where to go if I didn't tell it?"}, {"response": 401, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (14:58)", "body": "Terry I am serious, this is WAY too spooky: I sent an e-mail (via NetScape)to my bros requesting their assistance in this telnet thing, and when I typed in the spring telnet url thingie, IT LIT UP! WHY IS THIS SUDDENLY HAPPENING?? As you will note from my previous comments, I never used to be able to do lit-up urls--when I suggested websites to my e-pals, they never lit up before. How does the computer know I have a telnet account when I'm not logged on that way? IS BIG BROTHER WATCHING ME? I'm getti g paranoid!"}, {"response": 402, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (17:38)", "body": "I just left a lot of responses in ramble via telnet (with the kind assistance of my e-pal and my brother) and they didn't show up here. What's up?"}, {"response": 403, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (18:35)", "body": "And now my responses are gone from telnet, although that last response (left via the website) showed up on telnet. I am deeply confused. Plus, where are the messages left for me in telnet by my e-pal pungo? Terry, take my hand and leadeth me beside the spring waters, for I knoweth not what is happen."}, {"response": 404, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (18:38)", "body": "what happens to the stuff I write here? It vanished! Hmmmm, I went to the web spring and typed that above message in, and when I came back, this last telnet response was still here... I think I need someone else to chat with for this to work? \".\""}, {"response": 405, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (18:41)", "body": "Terry you'd better get here quick. My computer is now sassing back at me. I was roaming around telnet in ramble and it informed me \"a message entered before yours at 403\"--I don't know what it's talking about, but that's pretty spooky. Truly bizarre, tho--I asked it to take me to tv conf, but before it would it asked \"do you feel more enlightened now?\" WHO IS TALKING TO ME???? Are the voices in my head bothering anyone else?"}, {"response": 406, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May  5, 1997 (18:43)", "body": "response 404 is me in telnet. \".\" is me trying to leave! What happened to my first set of responses a few hours ago? Why did that STUPID response show up? Where did my name come into all of this?"}, {"response": 407, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, May  6, 1997 (03:17)", "body": "Keep after it aubrey, you'll catch on. This telnet stuff really does work!"}, {"response": 408, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Tue, May  6, 1997 (12:49)", "body": "It may work for you. It just scares me."}, {"response": 409, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, May  6, 1997 (14:15)", "body": "It's not all that scary. What editor are you using? vi or pico?"}, {"response": 410, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, May  7, 1997 (13:13)", "body": "ummmm...I am my own editor? Let me ask the computer god who runs the show around here. He's nice and knows everything about our set-up (he should, since he set it up!)."}, {"response": 411, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, May  7, 1997 (13:23)", "body": "I couldn't find anywhere in tv conf to put this, so I'll just yammer away here: last night I got to watch a tv pilot. It was not so good but it was fun getting to watch something that may or may not be a show. The only person I recognized was Cynthia Geary from NExp (so maybe this should go there). It was a lame sitcom about a totally uninteresting couple of 20somethings getting married and all the trouble with involving their families in the wedding (his: NY Jew, hers: Southern crackers; hi-jinks ens e!). You think I could parlay this into a career? I can critique potential shows from the comfort of my own living room! Or not."}, {"response": 412, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, May  7, 1997 (14:13)", "body": "You might want to hold on to your day job till you explore this a little more."}, {"response": 413, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, May  7, 1997 (18:02)", "body": "It's so exciting to have you here during the day, terry! I like! So what, you think they won't pay me vast sums of money to sit around bitching about others' lack of creativity? Am I doomed to knocking myself out with organic solvents for the rest of my natural life? Breathe in, breathe out...."}, {"response": 414, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, May  7, 1997 (23:33)", "body": "Are you and telnet getting along now?"}, {"response": 415, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Thu, May  8, 1997 (17:11)", "body": "Well, not exactly. I've asked my brother the computer chimp to help me out (so don't be surprised if you read some really dull test messages here--I gave him my logon to work it out for me) so we'll see what he comes up with. My friend pungo has given up completely on The Spring (he e-mailed you for help and didn't hear back and since I can't find him on telnet he's going to find somewhere else for us to play--but I'll still be here!). I prefer the web-nased bbs rather than telnet. Maybe I'm a sucker or cool graphics (also this computer is pretty fast) or whatnot. What again are the advantages to telnet?"}, {"response": 416, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Thu, May  8, 1997 (17:11)", "body": "That's \"web Based\" bbs!"}, {"response": 417, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Thu, May  8, 1997 (17:12)", "body": "Oh yeah the tv pilot people never called me for my opinion--what have you been telling them about me, terry?"}, {"response": 418, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, May  9, 1997 (15:06)", "body": "The tv pilot people called last night; apparently the wrong show got beamed out so they didn't even interview me. My shiny new career vanishes like a candle in the wind...."}, {"response": 419, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, May  9, 1997 (19:00)", "body": "like the old Elton John song."}, {"response": 420, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, May 14, 1997 (19:10)", "body": "how time does fly! I can't believe it's been so long since I've logged in. Boss-man really has me totin barges and liftin bales. Plus I've walked out on him a couple of times in the middle of the workin day when he starts smokin in the lab. Anyway, I got a phone interview, out of the blue, from Amgen, a company I applied to back in Feb--thought they'd forgotten all about me but apparently not. I am hopelessly unqualified for the job in question, plus it's in 1K Oaks CA where I'll never live, but who ares! I'll take the interview process as far as she'll go. I need the practice. Hey, also my bro in Denver has mentioned an editing job (for medical journals) so maybe I'll get something after all!"}, {"response": 421, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, May 14, 1997 (21:17)", "body": "I just got offered a webmaster job in Calif and a system network job for Compaq, but I got an even better job offer inAustin. So I'll stick around."}, {"response": 422, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Thu, May 15, 1997 (13:06)", "body": "But even if it weren't a better offer--you'd stay in Austin, right? Calif can't compare! Do you have to move to do a computer job? Can't they just link you up or something and let you stay in that fair city?"}, {"response": 423, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, May 15, 1997 (13:15)", "body": "I would probably stay. If it were Northern Calif I'd be more tempted. I had a good dinner last night with Doug Larue and he has some ideas for pumping up the Spring and Capcity. Doug is a very talented designer and editor of Capitol City Arts and Entertainment magazine. We're working on ways to build traffic and to attract more dedicated websites."}, {"response": 424, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, May 16, 1997 (18:36)", "body": "I can't wait! I'm all aglow! More people would be grrrreat. I've been spending time on another website (wbs.net) and while it's fun having \"live\" conversations, the people and topics are lame. More people here would be ideal. Let me know if I (useless as I am) can help--I'm still doing word-of-mouth promotions to everyone I meet who uses computers."}, {"response": 425, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, May 16, 1997 (22:59)", "body": "Anything you can do would help. I'm working 12 hours a day now so it's harder to promote this thing."}, {"response": 426, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, May 19, 1997 (13:26)", "body": "Terry you must relax! Austin is for slackers! Please tell me you will not keep up this pace. Breathe in, breathe out..."}, {"response": 427, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, May 19, 1997 (17:54)", "body": "I think I pumped it up a bit here on Sunday night. Take a look around and you'lll see some action, Aubrey."}, {"response": 428, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Sun, May 25, 1997 (14:20)", "body": "Where have I been??? I'm back now!"}, {"response": 429, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Sun, May 25, 1997 (14:28)", "body": "hahahaha and I'm STILL fooling myself with this ramble-in-many-conferences gag! every time I put in a response I go and check the other conference!! I have a memory span the size of a GNAT!!!"}, {"response": 430, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, May 25, 1997 (14:43)", "body": "I'm heading off to TJ Cellery's big party today, he's one of our posters in the sports conference and he's got bands, darts, and all kinds of activities going on out in Lake Bastrop today and tomorrow. It's already been going on for two days."}, {"response": 431, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Tue, May 27, 1997 (13:26)", "body": "Hope you had fun terry. I linked the spring from my \"home page\" (such as it is) on wbs.net--hope that's ok!"}, {"response": 432, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, May 27, 1997 (14:31)", "body": "It's more than ok."}, {"response": 433, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, May 28, 1997 (02:38)", "body": "Hiya! Once again found myself within 3 yards of a computer and had to say hello! Miss you. Miss Austin. Should be back in late June early July. We'll do the Dog&Duck/veggie burger thing! Spring has finally reached Denver! Yea! Camping, biking and beer guzzling for Memorial Day. JuneFest this weekend -- more beer, camping and biking! Hope all is well with EVERYONE -- too many new people, I feel lost Paul! Smiles and hugs!"}, {"response": 434, "author": "ginger", "date": "Wed, May 28, 1997 (05:50)", "body": "We had a great party out in Bastrop at TJ Cellery's digs, he had live bands, horseshoes, good friends, great food and four frolicking days. He's been doing this for 25 years now (all around the country). Too bad about the Avs' Stacey Leigh!"}, {"response": 435, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, May 28, 1997 (12:56)", "body": "Stacey, did you hear about Don moving out to Denver?"}, {"response": 436, "author": "msegal", "date": "Thu, May 29, 1997 (15:56)", "body": "Hi. Is there anyone interested in the Canadian federal election?"}, {"response": 437, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, May 29, 1997 (18:50)", "body": "I hadn't been giving it much thought. Fill us in ok?"}, {"response": 438, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, Jun  2, 1997 (13:33)", "body": "There's a Canadienne in my wbs chat group who want the current guy booted out in favor of the contender who she says \"won't let the Frenchies walk all over us\"--I'll ask for more details, eh?"}, {"response": 439, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jun  2, 1997 (16:19)", "body": "How about those Bulls las night?"}, {"response": 440, "author": "ginger", "date": "Sun, Jun  8, 1997 (15:00)", "body": "They're having a quiet war about that, Aubrey?"}, {"response": 441, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Wed, Jun 18, 1997 (12:58)", "body": "sadly ginger that's all I know--and terry see my query in porch intros; I am confused (so what's new!) by these new choices we have! \"preserve as unread\"??? why???"}, {"response": 442, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jun 18, 1997 (16:42)", "body": "Why? Because Dave Thaler just upgraded our interface. We'll be putting out some upgrade notes soon. Aubrey, so good you're back!"}, {"response": 443, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, Jun 20, 1997 (13:06)", "body": "Thank you terry! glad to be here! so sad that boss-man keeps me away with WORK! So what is with thie COOKIE business????? why do yuo keep asking me to send them? I make a really great oatmeal chocolate chip (to die for!)--wouild a dozen satisfy you? Seriously terry this is getting ridiculous! I can hardly get on the spring for having to machete through a thicket of computer messages about COOKIES--help meeeeee!"}, {"response": 444, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jun 20, 1997 (22:33)", "body": "Your broswer lets you turn off cookie notification. What browser are you using aub' ?"}, {"response": 445, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, Jun 23, 1997 (13:10)", "body": "I am using netscape...everyone is telling me cookies are the worst thing in the world but you seem relatively calm about this...so I will take heart and attempt to figure out how to turn them off. if I can't can you help!"}, {"response": 446, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jun 23, 1997 (13:30)", "body": "Sure, be glad to help. What version of Netscape do you have?"}, {"response": 447, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, Jun 27, 1997 (17:49)", "body": "yu got me there pal, I just click it on hee hee hee...let me have a look-see..."}, {"response": 448, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, Jun 27, 1997 (17:54)", "body": "the icon says 3.01 but what actually comes up is 3.0...I deselected cookie under the preferences \"show me a warning before accepting a...\" and I sure hope that's ok--I don't know why someone would select that--terry? do I need to know when the computer has accepted a cookie?"}, {"response": 449, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jun 27, 1997 (17:55)", "body": "Not really. It's mildly interesting. Not something to work up a frenzy over."}, {"response": 450, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, Jun 27, 1997 (18:00)", "body": "hey!! now you actually being here IS soething to work up into a frenzy over!"}, {"response": 451, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Fri, Jun 27, 1997 (18:01)", "body": "And I am frothing! I have never had anyone here when I am here! so I want to hear more about the electronic minds *peering about* are they here right now?"}, {"response": 452, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jun 27, 1997 (18:45)", "body": "They are, join minds."}, {"response": 454, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jan 15, 1998 (17:12)", "body": "Sure pop it in the wave."}, {"response": 455, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Jan 16, 1998 (00:06)", "body": "and what, praytell, are we rambling about?!?"}, {"response": 456, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Jan 16, 1998 (00:14)", "body": "jesus! I had to go through 2 friggin years worth o crap to get here! And what do I find but the same damn words I posted somewhere else. This is un nerving!"}, {"response": 457, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Fri, Jan 16, 1998 (00:18)", "body": "lol!"}, {"response": 459, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan 16, 1998 (16:04)", "body": "Ramble is a mega linked topic. So if you ramble here, you ramble everywhere. Just so you know."}, {"response": 460, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Jan 16, 1998 (18:16)", "body": "That's an intimidating thought. I'm afraid to ramble now."}, {"response": 462, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Jan 16, 1998 (19:44)", "body": "Sorry, I seldom think I have anything worthwhile to say, much less to have it echoed throughout the spring."}, {"response": 464, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 17, 1998 (21:52)", "body": "Ahh, but I'm not a deep thinker like you. An eloquent stream of consciousness always rates higher than inane chit-chat."}, {"response": 466, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Jan 19, 1998 (03:39)", "body": "Well, consider yourself eloquent."}, {"response": 467, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Jan 19, 1998 (23:11)", "body": "\"I was born a ramblin' Maaaaannnnnnnnnn. Trying to make a livin' an doin' the best I caaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnn.\""}, {"response": 468, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Mon, Jan 19, 1998 (23:59)", "body": "roflmao! (that's a pretty excellent dickie betts, especially from someone subject to recurring cat dreams...)"}, {"response": 469, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (00:21)", "body": "*grin* gotta be too much herb tea!"}, {"response": 470, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (00:41)", "body": "Hey, ramblin' girl, speaking of tea, just got a shipment of chai in today. A free sample from the Pacific Chai company. Who says I never got anything free off the net?"}, {"response": 471, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (00:45)", "body": "where? Good stuff? I'm a big Celestial Seasonings fan..."}, {"response": 472, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (00:46)", "body": "JUST POSTED THIS IN MOVIES.... NOW I HAVE TO READ IT AGAIN IN FITNESS!!!!!! AAAccccccccccccccccccck! Paul, what are you doing to me?!?!"}, {"response": 473, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (00:49)", "body": "It's a conspiracy Stace, remember when I told you a few days ago that when you post here you post everywhere (thought I was kidding, eh?). Anyway, I got the free Chai tea from Pacific Chai which I found by searching for the word \"chai tea\" on yahoo's site. http://www.PacificChai.com Good stuff! Spicy, weet, rich, and *instant* chai tea."}, {"response": 474, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (01:56)", "body": "Stacey, what are your favorite CS teas? I love the mandarin orange spice, and I use their green blend for iced tea."}, {"response": 475, "author": "nike", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (17:58)", "body": "Well as the thread in this group goes more into tea, all I can add to that is the fact that I have never drunken so much tea in my life like I do now living in Londo for half a year, you really drink it at nearly anytime in the day it's incredible... Just to continue rambling (I hope nobody minds) I am just not willing to spend hours over what I should be doing, preparing for my finals here in the South Bank University in London. It has been quite a semester here, and I must say to anybody who has the chanceto join such an exchangeprogramme, do it (like the Nike ad tell's you to) It's an expirience I don't want to have missed, and I already have spend a moth in an american Junior high school, a couple of years back (yeah yeah, those were the days) this thred was called Ramble? wasn't it ? ;-) I just could go on for hours, telling you about the freezing weather we had here after we had the warmest day in January two weeks ago, since the recordings began some hundred years ago, the weather is really unpredictable... Somehow I could do with some real proper sunshine, staying here I have acquired one of the most ugly teints I have ever had, the last time I had such a pale skin was after learning for my last exams in Germany for nearly a whole month and not seeing the outside much... Well I guess all you can do about that is either eat a wagonload of carrots (betacarotin) or lie under a artificial sun for some time, which I actually don't have, or I should better say shouldn't have ;-) Rambling on I could now go into the fact that I spent nearly 2 hours downloading the newest Mac OS -8 upgrade to 8.1 Apart from that I found a cool webpage explaining about Java and even offering a whole online store for free (all the scripts and everything that is needed to make such an to run an online store) so if everything else fails (my studies here as a building engeneer) I will open an online store selling ... well I don't know... ah! I got it I'll sell semelly socks ;-) Well what I would really like to do at the moment is continue writing my webpage, but I can't continue, because I couldn't setup my harddisk here, because my friend wanted back his casing for his harddisk ... well just in case you would like to have a little look around, or find out a bit about the thesis that I want to write about, check out my page at http://www.hardlink.com/~nike I would like some feedback... Well I guess I have rambled enough ;-) I should get back to my studies (yuck) See ya around enjoy the tea (I usually just have the normal PG Tips Black tea here) Bye Nike"}, {"response": 476, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (00:59)", "body": "Just in, the inside scoop on Clinton's woes from the Drudge report in politics."}, {"response": 477, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (02:23)", "body": "Read it in the politics conference. Either it's over for Clinton or Starr. One of them will bite the dust soon."}, {"response": 478, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (02:28)", "body": "Nike, now thar's a ramblin' man! Gosh, it's great you're back with us. Buddy, ya know, got a gig with Microsoft up in big D. Funny, Buddy always despised Microsoft now he's getting those BillyBucks. I wish him well. It's a great break for him and he can help a lot of other visually handicapped folks break some barriers."}, {"response": 479, "author": "nike", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (16:21)", "body": "Yeah! don't get me rambin, when I actually have some work to do ;-) (at least not, when the work I do have to do is somethin I hate doin, like revising all the stuff I learned the last half of the yaer... Is Buddy still around here in the Spring? Well I guess it's often like that, when money is involved... I also would work for Microsoft, but in my heart I still would prefer to work with a Mac,. Anyway, a really great break for him, I must say. Why is it in big D? I thought they were up in big R? Well I hope to read lot's astuff in the various topics, only at the moment I don't have that much time, but I will broowse a bit. See ya around See ya around Nike"}, {"response": 480, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (16:43)", "body": "Hey, anyone want a free frisbee? http://cgi.pathfinder.com/cgi-bin/gdml2x/game/pathfinder/apc_survey2 will get you one if you answer their plastics survey."}, {"response": 481, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (16:44)", "body": "Big, or Dallas, is a tech support location. That's what he's doing, supporting handicapped users. And getting all the free food he can eat!"}, {"response": 482, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (18:15)", "body": "Don't forget to clue him in on the frisbee!"}, {"response": 483, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (22:45)", "body": "Autumn... teas (the faves) Tension Tamer Echinecea Ginseng Bengal \u001b[A\u001b[C\u001b[C\u001b[C\u001b[C\u001b[C\u001b[C\u001b[B\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D\u001b[D SpiceSleepyTime Emporer's Choice"}, {"response": 484, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (22:54)", "body": "I haven't heard of a couple of those...maybe they're marketed differently in other regions? Like out here we have Edy's ice cream, but on the West Coast it is Dreyer's. And in Europe, Arizona iced tea is called Colorado iced tea (sounds more exotic \"Old West\" or something, I guess!)"}, {"response": 485, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (23:05)", "body": "My super favorite in the Bengal Spice... clovey cinnamony yummy! Shame you don't have them. What are your favorites?"}, {"response": 486, "author": "russell", "date": "Fri, Jan 23, 1998 (22:53)", "body": "New this month in Culture Wars magazine online: http://www.culturewars.com The Kingpins of Drug Legalization: Investigating Their Role in the Culture War by Michael J. Ard Who are the voices crying out for the de-criminalization of narcotics, and what are their real objectives? The answers may surprise you."}, {"response": 487, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:03)", "body": "My favorite is the mandarin orange spice, but if the Bengal is as good as it sounds, I'll have to look for it. Only I hope it is not too cinnamon-y, because I can't stand their apple cinnamon spice flavor. Or anything with mint."}, {"response": 488, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:18)", "body": "Thanks Russell, that culturewares site was mentioned in our web conference as a cool website not too long ago. On a less frenetic front, and back to teatalk, I picked up some more chai tea tonight and and hibiscus blend. My two current favorites."}, {"response": 489, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:23)", "body": "Ooh, hibiscus is yummy!"}, {"response": 490, "author": "doug", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:33)", "body": "Hey I just saw that culturewars site, gonna read it now. Oh, Terry, I didnt know you were a Tea Coinsure' You continue to surprise me!"}, {"response": 491, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:36)", "body": "Oh, he's a regular renaissance man....."}, {"response": 492, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:40)", "body": "Gosh, hey honest, I haven't been making under the table payments to Autumn. That hibiscus is great brewed with fresh grated ginger and sweetened with white grape juice."}, {"response": 493, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:42)", "body": "Wow--it would never occur to me to doctor tea with anything but honey or fructose. Old family recipe?"}, {"response": 494, "author": "doug", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:48)", "body": "I only came into this conference because I saw that was where the current action was. But dagnabbit if I wasn't exposed and affected by the culture oozing from the electrons of Terry's universe. We are headed to Mexico City tomarrow to go an a ancient indian adventure, talk about culture! I will be exposed to a great deal of over the next week or so. We are going to one of the valcanoes and as many pyramids as we can find, hopfully this will become celestinial. Speaking of culture, I hear there is a very cool (Spring Like) site called http://www.boat.org check it out!"}, {"response": 495, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 24, 1998 (02:54)", "body": "Sounds like an incredible outing, Doug!"}, {"response": 496, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jan 29, 1998 (00:31)", "body": "Hot pepper cheese craving... anyone want to join me?"}, {"response": 498, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jan 29, 1998 (15:07)", "body": "you can try... but i won't fit. maybe you sould put the cheese and the Ritz on me!"}, {"response": 501, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (09:06)", "body": "is that a sigh of relief or of dispair? (or were you just breathing heavy and got confused?)"}, {"response": 502, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (09:06)", "body": "drinking my tea, having finished my bagel. Fairly happy today Well, certainly not sad And I read a post from many moons ago that mentioned boyce I associate the name, obviously with the spring, but also with the summer months in Austin. And, all of a sudden, I became really homesick for Austin. My old apartment off of Riverside, runs around Town Lake, late night skates around town stopping in assorted coffee houses to play cards... The smell of the air with humidity. The hot sticky feel after exercising in humidity and sunshine. Riding through the Greenbelt, reading off Mt. Bonnell... To no one in particular... Do you ever feel happy and sad at the same time? Odd how this came up so suddenly."}, {"response": 503, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (09:06)", "body": "I guess that's me. Yeah, I feel happy and sad simultaneously. Well I got a contract on a house in Austin today. I now have 10 days to change my mind."}, {"response": 504, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (09:06)", "body": "(all the time)"}, {"response": 505, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (21:22)", "body": "Wow, a house--that's a big commitment, Terry. Sometimes I think ours is a full-time job. Stacey, that happy/sad feeling; sometimes. More commonly I feel a persistent undercurrent of restlessness laying in wait beneath the surface."}, {"response": 507, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (23:28)", "body": "congrats on the house Paul! and as far as the brief trip into emotional uncertainty... there's nothing like a class full of rowdy boys to bring you back to the here and now! *smile* and nothing like a beer (or four) to make the day a mere memory!"}, {"response": 508, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (23:39)", "body": "whew! (spamified) found ramble in another conference... that I'd never checked before two plus years of... rambling. (worn out)"}, {"response": 509, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jan 31, 1998 (01:53)", "body": "ramble rambles all over about 7 or 8 conferences. Ramble really rambles."}, {"response": 511, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Feb  4, 1998 (21:19)", "body": "afternoon..."}, {"response": 513, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Feb  5, 1998 (23:16)", "body": "fine. busy. frustrated with certain things but nothing catastrophic... you know how it is when you begin to vent... a trickle, a stream, a flood..."}, {"response": 515, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Feb  6, 1998 (18:55)", "body": "sure you wanna talk??? *wink*"}, {"response": 517, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Feb  6, 1998 (23:26)", "body": "what should I sit on?!?! *grin*"}, {"response": 519, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Feb  9, 1998 (03:29)", "body": "okay. In an effort to expand our cultural horizons, let's each choose a different language to speak to each other in. (Kind of the way men and women relate anyway) You may speak whatever you like I choose body language!"}, {"response": 522, "author": "LaughingSky", "date": "Mon, Mar  2, 1998 (07:35)", "body": "Jeez, Wer - the last post was Feb.8th! How long does it take you and Stacey to finish those cheese and crackers? Seems as if everyone's waitin' on you guys to end the snack and get back!~~*"}, {"response": 524, "author": "LaughingSky", "date": "Tue, Mar  3, 1998 (23:15)", "body": "Hee-hee!~~* Getting attention is one aspect of my personality that has unwittingly gotten me into trouble, on various occasions! I do appreciate your comments. I AM having a great time with you folks!"}, {"response": 526, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Mar  4, 1998 (11:45)", "body": "Same here. It's great you're here. I hope we can interest some more Farmfolk. I did get an email from Peter Schweitzer and he was talking about linking the Farm's site to here ( http://www.thefarm.org) ."}, {"response": 527, "author": "LaughingSky", "date": "Sun, Mar  8, 1998 (01:23)", "body": "Great! I finally got moved in at The Farm (whew!), so, I'll get the word to all the Farmfolk online, ok?"}, {"response": 528, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Mar  8, 1998 (01:24)", "body": "Let us know from \"inside\" now that you're there. I'd be curious about who you meet and what your life is like now that you've \"landed\" so to speak."}, {"response": 529, "author": "LaughingSky", "date": "Mon, Mar  9, 1998 (01:59)", "body": "Sure! Right now, I'm busy getting things together, so, I should be getting more into the activities, this week. Looking forward to it! :)"}, {"response": 530, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Mar  9, 1998 (16:11)", "body": "Great, what part of the Farm are you staying? I may still remember the names of some of the old roads. How will you get your Internet access? Do they have an ethernet running to everyone's home?"}, {"response": 531, "author": "LaughingSky", "date": "Thu, Mar 12, 1998 (16:04)", "body": "I'm out on Oak Ridge, down at the end of Second Road, almost at the very end! Getting on the net - easy! Plug into the phone line, and GO! ;) Everyone has phones, now. Guess it ended up being an easier way of getting info out quickly. Technology has prevailed, here, too. Lots of folks with computers; having the world at your fingertips is JUST too irresistable!"}, {"response": 532, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (15:36)", "body": "Anyone out there? I'm rambling through the Spring this afternoon looking in places I haven't looked in before, it's been good fun."}, {"response": 533, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (19:32)", "body": "Yessum, I am! Lots of interesting stuff in Sports, Internet, web, tv, movies, food...and some topics I should not mention here...*grin*"}, {"response": 534, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (20:31)", "body": "*sheepish* I had a look last night don't tell anyone!!"}, {"response": 535, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (20:58)", "body": "(Shhhhhh.....and you noticed that I posted there, as well? Your secret is safe with me...*lol*)"}, {"response": 536, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Feb 16, 2000 (22:24)", "body": "Hey, what's you girls sheshhing about?"}, {"response": 537, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Feb 16, 2000 (22:43)", "body": "Oops we're discovered *grin*"}, {"response": 538, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Feb 16, 2000 (23:03)", "body": "Alexander, Honey, You are far too young to know about these things...*smile*"}, {"response": 539, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Thu, Feb 17, 2000 (18:36)", "body": "We jest - you're very welcome to join in! Help me feel better after struggling with scholarship forms and a head cold all day."}, {"response": 540, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Feb 17, 2000 (18:57)", "body": "(He knows he is welcome anywhere I am...) Poor Maggie...a cold, too?! Not fair. Healing *hugs*"}, {"response": 541, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (21:45)", "body": "A cold, you can fight valiantly. Heavy vitamin doses, hot grog and drop dead in bed, sleep - new day, new victory! But forms... ... and scholardom... ... one thing I despise, the other I abandoned, or did it abandon me?"}, {"response": 542, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (21:55)", "body": "Abandoned scholardom? Don't look now, Alexander, but I believe it has merged with you in the night and you are born anew; bright, clever, intelligent, and self-effacing...and totally charming!"}, {"response": 543, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (21:58)", "body": "Think well of me as I try and find funding for next year's studies and the Africa trip. I got shortlisted last time for the University scholarship (we have very few in education) and had a horrible experience with the research committee. Why the abandonment? For me it's the isolation that hits most."}, {"response": 544, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (22:10)", "body": "For me, it was the lack of funds."}, {"response": 545, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (22:13)", "body": "And good luck with your application! I think you have a good research project that brings good things and progress with it."}, {"response": 546, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (22:15)", "body": "So sad, in both cases...and I guess the will to overcome these obstacles have been sufficient so as to render them as a wall for Alexander (who has already forgotten more than I shall ever know) and a temporary inconvenience for Maggie, I hope!"}, {"response": 547, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (22:19)", "body": "Alexander, I still see you in tweedy clothing (comfortable, but neat) smoking a pipe, surrounded by shelves of the finest books on absolutely everything, and a large leather chair into which you sink to ponder the universe..."}, {"response": 548, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (22:19)", "body": "Funding is such a problem for a lot of postgraduate students. I'm at the point of writing letters to charities. I'm so sorry you had to give up your studies Alexander, does it bother you or are you OK about it now?"}, {"response": 549, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (22:45)", "body": "I positively hate the thought of it, to be honest, and it taught me much. I'm alright with what I do now and how I got there (and I'll be happier if some of my more ambitious plots play out...), but I hate the thought of having lost so many of my dreams and those years, too, and of the circumstances surrounding this. I never got a degree, I had to bail out. It would have been humble what I could have achieved at its best, but it would have been beautiful for me. It's over. It'll never come to be for me. I do different stuff. Stuff that even means something, and to more people than any of my un-undertaken academic undertakings ever would have. Stuff that is fun, that gives R.E.S.P.E.C.T. to wonderful artists that other press ignores. Supporting a scene. Doing stuff that maybe doesn't always make sense or isn't too smart and intelligent, but stuff that FEELS good to me. That's what I prefer, and all I can achieve now."}, {"response": 550, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (23:01)", "body": "You broke my heart with the first part of that response, but redeemed all with your life now and how much satisfaction you are finding in it. Perhaps that was meant for you all along. It often takes pretty harsh awakenings for us to admit to what should have been inevitable. And, sometimes, we only come to recognize it when we have no other choice. I am proud to know you, Alexander!"}, {"response": 551, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Feb 18, 2000 (23:32)", "body": "Hey alexander - I thought that too. But look what happened I ended up doing an MA at 40 with no first degree!!! All my work was counted. (Ok, so I've struggled to fund it, and probably will continue to, I don't get a salary for my work anyway and we've not starved for the last fifteen years) So, who knows what will happen in the future??? Yeah, I'm proud to know you too, and I'm really glad you're making a difference to people's lives."}, {"response": 552, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, Feb 19, 2000 (22:39)", "body": "Let's be honest - leaving all my dreams behind, the humble life I was willing to lead for my ideas, that honestly broke my heart. Now, I don't work for myself. I work for the idea superstar is. My job is to help make other people shine, under-publicized artists, the writers and collaborateurs, get this organizised, as Travis said in Taxi Driver. This is a unique thing, I know of no publication that is like it. When we wanted to put it to sleep in 1998, after three years and eleven issues, I got some plans figured out: marketing, akquisistion, distribution. We restarted it within three months, because the beauty of this thing, concept, network superstar was too wonderful, we couldn't let it go without mapping out a new course through certain straits. Know what? This is the chance of my life."}, {"response": 553, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb 19, 2000 (22:56)", "body": "I know very few people whose lives have gone according to their dreams, and we all have suffered the heartbreak of not having what we hoped for... We seem to emerge stronger for it, and perhaps nicer people than the arrogant few who do get what they want and more. You are justifiably proud of SUPERSTAR and I am just as proud of you for having overcome such an obstacle when others would have given up. Huzzah! Aleander, Dear! *applause*"}, {"response": 554, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Feb 20, 2000 (11:48)", "body": "I agree. Your tenacity is amazing, and I'm sure in the end you're having more impact than the academic dream would have done."}, {"response": 555, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (23:41)", "body": "But I'm exposed. I never wanted this. I hoped to hold a part time job somewhere, like receptionist or street sweeper (stuff I have on-job experience), and be a private scholar. Just for myself. No profit in any way. No image, no standing."}, {"response": 556, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (23:55)", "body": "That is what I am doing here...in my own little conference. I dig through my books and search out information requested by thoughtful posters. There are many ways to accomplish your dream, Alexander. Please don't abandon it. We are ear-deep in Boston muck at the moment in Archaeology. And, those tweeds and leather patches suit you admirably. So does the pipe...*smile*"}, {"response": 557, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (07:55)", "body": "As soon as we put 'pen to paper' here we are exposed! *smile* At least I feel I am. Yet isn't part of being here sharing dreams, hopes, thoughts etc. Anyway, what is being an academic? I suppose I am one now, but it always sort of takes me by surprise. I think what I was trying to say earlier was that twenty years ago I had abandoned any kind of dream of academia. Pragmatically I became a very practical nurse, then a wife and mum. Yet now here I am, eighteen months off getting my doctorate (if I get some work done). Private scholarship is all very well, but we have to come out of the closet sometime! Trouble is as soon as we open our mouths with an idea someone else is there ready to shoot it down. I'm rambling. It's the shock to the system of being up early."}, {"response": 558, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (16:56)", "body": "Well said, Maggie. I am one of those closet academics, as well. Not for all of us is the life of academe...and you are married to the profession, as I was. You should understand that better than most. See, Alexander, you are in good company!"}, {"response": 559, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (21:47)", "body": "We're trying to be encouraging Alexander!!!!!"}, {"response": 560, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (23:43)", "body": "Yes!!! We will come to Hessen and spoon-feed you if you feel the need. Never underestimate...*smiling deceptively benignly*"}, {"response": 561, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb 26, 2000 (11:52)", "body": "It's Saturday morning and I'm supposed to be working, but I'm not and it's nice! I'll get back to work in a minute. I'm working on a local community survey for my district council which is part of a study on 'deprivation amongst affluence', considering pockets of deprivation in affluent areas. The village I live in is a case study for this. It's divided into 'the village' established since the middle ages complete with village well (bricked and entry down steps), spring, and duck pond, and 'the estate' built in two parts in the 1930s and 1970s which has had 'problem' families shipped out from a neighbouring large town. There is a great socio-economic divide between the two. I live in 'the estate'. As an English village we consider ourselves lucky because we still have local shops, a post office, and a doctor's surgery in addition to the village hall. We used to have a small branch office of a bank but that closed a few years ago. All over England just now village post offices and village shops are clos ng. We have probably retained ours because of 'the estate'."}, {"response": 562, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb 26, 2000 (18:25)", "body": "I hope you're successful in maintaining your independence of the little village. It is so lovely and so close-knit....worth fighting for, it would seem!"}, {"response": 563, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (20:29)", "body": "I'm dreaming of a virtual site where I could go and take a walk in woods with bluebells and rabbits. It's dark outside and raining and cold, but I'd like to go out and get some fresh air. Pity."}, {"response": 564, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (21:32)", "body": "There ARE virtual trips to almost everywhere including Stonehenge. It would be nice to have the entire ambience of the place instead of just the visual. Our weather is nice and comfy for a walk...*smile*"}, {"response": 565, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Sep  4, 2000 (12:04)", "body": "Well, at the moment I would like a virtual office, with space to work, tidy, and not the corner of the bedroom I have to use....I'd like a fairy to do all my sorting out and packing for me, oh and another one to finish off the garden. Most of all I'd like to take time off and walk on a quiet beach listening to the waves and birds and just being ......."}, {"response": 566, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Mon, Sep  4, 2000 (13:23)", "body": "Are you near a beach, Maggie?"}, {"response": 567, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Sep  4, 2000 (23:30)", "body": "nope, bang in the middle of the countryside.... cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 11, "subject": "CareMail: Reaching out from Cyberspace to help the unconnected", "response_count": 10, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Aug  1, 1997 (09:48)", "body": "This is the kind of stuff that makes me light up! What a great idea. How many folks (approximately) are taking part in this now? Do you have (or need) a central website that you use to co-ordinate this?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "pkenyon", "date": "Mon, Aug  4, 1997 (08:21)", "body": "Thanks Terry for your encouragement on the Caremail project. I should begin by saying that the Caremail concept is the idea of Klaus Treuherz who lives in Brazil and came up with the idea in response to a challenge from his local priest who asked \"What can the Internet do for poor people living in the favela?\" TheCareMail website is located on my computer at http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/Caremail/rescue.html I am a university lecturer and until now my main interest in the Internet has been to support my undergraduate courses in psychology and research students using the Internet to collect data (e.g. I have one student using the net to collect data on ptsd from Vietnam veterans via online questionnaires) It's quite a contrast to come into work and read e-mail from war veterans together with offers to help with CareMail. Caremail has been running for about 3 weeks and we have 30+ members at present. At the moment the main task is to get more people involved and interested so that the word is spread about CareMail. I think there will shortly come a time when I will need help with a website to host CareMail. In addition I am very conscious of the need to create links to a database to store membership details in such a way that the user can contact members in particular countries, perhaps via a clickable map interface. Other people have raised issues like the privacy of members addresses and filtering out trivial requests for forwarding e-mail from real emergency use. Maybe there needs to be password protection on the membership list to restrict access to only those who have joined CareMail. I suspect that you have experience of setting up commercial websites and I would be very interested in your views on the way forward for CareMail"}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Aug  4, 1997 (10:52)", "body": "We probably need to put something on the Spring's main page about this. Any suggestiosn as to a short 3 line intro?"}, {"response": 4, "author": "pkenyon", "date": "Mon, Aug 11, 1997 (08:08)", "body": "Terry, Thanks for your offer to publicise CareMail. How about something like this? CareMail ( http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/Caremail/rescue.html ) is a network of people around the world who have Internet access and who would be prepared to: * transmit an emergency e-mail message on behalf of a needy person in their area * accept an emergency e-mail for a needy person in their area and take the message to them. This would be a very worthwhile service we could offer to people less well off than ourselves. Let me know if you want this shortened or expressed in some other form of words. Thanks again"}, {"response": 5, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Aug 11, 1997 (09:01)", "body": "Do you have a graphic I could use as well?"}, {"response": 6, "author": "pkenyon", "date": "Tue, Aug 19, 1997 (07:02)", "body": "There are a couple of graphics at the top of the CareMail page that could be used. But I don't really think they capture the essence of the site on their own. Would anybody be prepared to help us out on this one? Graphics is one of my real weak spots!"}, {"response": 7, "author": "Jomik", "date": "Mon, Sep  1, 1997 (07:05)", "body": "Hi, Great idea, I was just searching what I could do for Third World people with the technical studies I do. That's maybe the beginning of a response. But for the moment, seems to me that I won't be very useful to your project, here in Switzerland...anyway I'll register, even if I don't see what the informations about religion are doing here. Otherwise, seems that it would be great to move your records in a database so that the page with people available would be dynamically generated. It's becoming quite necessary to classify records, don't you think? I'm not a specialist at all (I'm student) but I've worked a bit on database-driven sites. Hope to be useful if you want to do something this way. Bye, Mika"}, {"response": 8, "author": "Jomik", "date": "Mon, Sep  1, 1997 (07:14)", "body": "Oh, sorry, I've just registered and I've seen that's already done. I didn't mean to me offending."}, {"response": 9, "author": "pkenyon", "date": "Tue, Sep  2, 1997 (09:00)", "body": "Mika Thanks for your encouragement for the CareMail concept. You are quite right the site could really do with the addition of a database so that people can request information about participants in a particular country. Like you I am not a specialist on this type of thing, but I guess I am going to have to find out how to implement this facility. I may call on you. You know the saying \"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king\". Actually I'm a lecturer but I'll let you into a secret that you will figure out sooner or later. All we guys know is where to look for information, we don't actually carry it around in our heads - it only looks that way when we teach! You mention that you were suprised by the sites religious content. Do you think this restricts it's appeal to only a certain group of people. I would be interested to hear your, and others, reactions to this. Thanks for your interest"}, {"response": 10, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (09:32)", "body": "Any update on this? cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 12, "subject": "Williams Meyers", "response_count": 5, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep  9, 1997 (08:46)", "body": "UPDATE III 9 September 1997 Dear Friends, Here's the latest: Still working as desktop publisher in the production department at Columbia University Press, I work with book designers in laying out books -- using the software program QuarkXPress on a Macintosh \"Power PC\" computer to do the on-screen \"electronic paste-up\" now required to prepare all the pages of a book (both typography and graphics) and perfect them in every detail before sending the book off (on disk) to be printed and bound. After taking two graphic-design courses in the spring, I came up with a small typographical portfolio that may be of some use in the future. I'll be putting together a basic book-design portfolio during the rest of the summer and the fall. By the end of the year I should be ready to take on some book-design jobs of my own. The design director at CUPress has been helping me out with this effort. I'm still sub-letting a beautiful apartment in Washington Heights, north of the George Washington Bridge, with a view of the bridge and the Hudson River. It's in a co-op apartment building which has limitations on the amount of time an apartment can be sub-leased -- but, providing I get the approval of the co-op board at the end of each year, I could still be at the same address for as long as another two and a half years. Whenever I have to move, I would want to stay in the same neighborhood. It's only seven subway stops away from the Columbia campus, where I work, and a relatively short commute each day. Also, of course, the rent level there is right for me -- and, by now, the neighborhood feels like home. All our family's kids seem to be doing well. Henry is happily married to Kitty in Washington, DC, and continues to take on increasing responsibility in the Environmental Protection Agency. Christine continues to work as a physician's assistant in a family-practice clinic in Seattle, but has been giving serious thought to doing volunteer medical work abroad. Genevieve will be returning in the fall to the California School of Arts & Crafts in Oakland for her second year of study toward a degree in art. Rose graduated from the Chicago Institute of Art two years ago and remains in Chicago, working in computer graphics. Mary's ashes, in the meantime, have dissolved into the Atlantic. Since her death, I have been a practicing Buddhist, and for the most part I study the teachings of the Dalai Lama as an educational aid to my own meditation. This year I took my two weeks of vacation in June in order to attend the Dalai Lama's three days of teachings in upstate New York; four days of teachings in Los Angeles; and the Peacemaking Conference in San Francisco, where Nobel Peace Prize laureates Josi Ramos Hortas of East Timor, Rigoberta Mencchu of Guatemala (her sister, actually, standing in for her), and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, among other major human-rights advocates (such as Harry Wu), addressed the issues of nonviolent conflict resolution among inner-city youth and the active use of civil disobedience to protest human-rights violations around the world. I also relate especially well to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism as passed down through the Western mind of Prof. Robert Thurman, the preeminent academic authority on the subject, who conveniently teaches at Columbia University and lives nearby. I helped to get Prof. Thurman signed up with CUPress to edit a reference volume on Eastern religions, and am hoping to be able to work in some editorial capacity on that. I already edit his audiocassette albums for Tibet House, here in New York, and recently published an edited version of one of his Basic Buddhism lectures in the local (and L.A.) journal Free Spirit. That could lead to a book of such lectures, which we've been talking about with a friendly publisher. I'm also still connected -- hanging by a thread, as yet unbroken -- to the New York art-book publisher Stuart, Tabori & Chang, through my literary agent Sara Jane Freyman, with the proposal for an illustrated biography, The Dalai Lama of Tibet. The editor there asked in January for ten more pages, in addition to the three interior pages and cover painting originally submitted, to reassure her colleagues of our ability to sustain a dramatic and sequential narrative in an illustrated format. By September I hope to be able to turn in five new pages, inked and colored, for their review, in the hope that five pages, and not ten, will allay any anxieties or uncertainties about our capabilities. I believe the combined illustrative forces of my friends Dennis Janke, Marjorie Strauss, and Marc Greene should be enough to convince anyone on that point -- but production is a long-term, time-consuming task when there is no seed/support money and everyone must fit in the project, wherever possible, around the demands of their paying jobs. A contract with an advance would make a tremendous difference, but publishers are very cautious and conservative these days -- they're losing money as ne"}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep  9, 1997 (08:53)", "body": "20 January 1997 To bring all my friends up to date at once, here's what's been happening with me: * I've been working long hours at Columbia University Press, working with designers in the production of books with QuarkXPress; I've also begun taking some classes in basic design & typography at the Fashion Institute of Technology in order to acquire and expand my own skills in book design. And I've been learning how to put this all presentably on a Web site with the assistance of my friend Marc Greene. It's been a long time coming, but the site is due for a major expansion soon, with a new art gallery, among other things. * The Dalai Lama of Tibet -- the Illustrated Life Story has been my major personal project for the last three years. My feeling for a long time has been that the book would be a hot and highly marketable item if it came out before the release of the upcoming movies about the Dalai Lama -- Kundun by Scorsese; Seven Years in Tibet by Annaud; and two or three others in the works, one by Oliver Stone. But the first two movies mentioned are due to be released by the end of 1997, and any book we return to work on now, should a publisher finally offer us a contract, would need at least two years to be produced and distributed. I would anticipate spin-off comic (or graphic-novel) versions of these movies, once the money has been generated to finance them. It's been frustrating for the last year and a half, having conceived of the idea originally and wanting to come out first with the best. Money has been a problem all along in getting the project moving. The first artist I asked to collaborate with me on the book -- Eva Van Dam, the Dutch artist responsible for the graphic novel called The Magic Life of Milarepa, which inspired this one -- demanded $500 a page to produce anything, even as samples to be included in a proposal. Not having great cash reserves, I had no choice but to look for someone else, then met Alex Grey, and in the forging of a new friendship, got his agreement to produce some sample art for interior pages (with the assistance, also volunteer, of Dennis Janke & Marjorie Strauss, of DC Comics); I also paid Alex a token $1,000 for a cover portrait of the Dalai Lama which could probably sell for ten times that much, and it's such a masterwork in itself that it has lent great weight to the proposal package that's been^Emaking the rounds of publishers, and has helped to keep the project alive. Now, after many attempts by my agent Sara Jane Freyman to find a publisher for the book, we finally have one -- Stuart, Tabori & Chang, \"the illustrated-book publisher\" in New York -- which has expressed enough interest in the project to invite all of us involved with it to their offices for a meeting about it. The editor, Erica Marcus, who called the meeting, liked the idea of a graphic novel based on the life of the Dalai Lama, but had some criticisms of the sample interior pages, particularly the typography, and asked that those pages be done over with some minor changes; and she also asked for eleven additional pages, not in color but finished in black & white -- dealing with the story of the discovery of the young Dalai Lama that brings Part One to an end. She asked for this additional material in order to have a sure sense of our ability to sustain a coherent narrative with a dramatic continuity that's engaging and powerful enough to sell a lot of books. Unfortunately, Alex is no more enamored of rendering sequential art than he ever was -- he just couldn't make the leap, though he gave it a good try -- and has no problem making the money he needs to support his family, being what he undeniably and most fundamentally is: a highly successful painter of visionary art. It was regrettable, I thought, that the art-book editor we met with did not have more appreciation of the potential offered by his being there in her office at all. I was already prepared myself to accommodate Alex to whatever level he felt comfortable with, valuing his collaboration to the greatest extent. But to produce eleven more pages of the Dalai Lama story -- which for Alex can be no other than time-consuming and highly meticulous work, yet with no sure promise of any financial compensation, just the promise to accept the book and push it at the acquisitions meeting -- is, under the circumstances of his life, understandably too much to ask. Even if I were to raise enough money to pay him the $500 apiece for those pages that Eva Van Dam was asking, I think he would probably still prefer not to do it. Having just finished a major work -- an altariece/triptych with seven panels, called The Nature of Mind -- he's hard at work now on his next book. Sara Jane told me after the meeting with the Stuart, Tabori & Chang editor that she thought Erica was right -- that more substantial material for the Dalai Lama story was definitely needed; that this was undoubtedly why the many other publishers who had expressed interest originally"}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Feb  5, 1998 (22:25)", "body": "Latest from William: 3 February 1998 This is to let you know that Christine is in the middle of her eight-month trip through southeast Asia, and, after a month in India, is currently trekking in Nepal, with a home base in Kathmandu. She can be contacted there during the first two weeks of February and, wherever she may be on this trip (Thailand and Vietnam are next), by phone and e-mail: Telephone: 1-800-864-8000 206-548-0061# press 1 leave message E-mail: cmeyers38@hotmail.com Mail: c/o Heather Harder 502 South Fremont Avenue, Apt. 622 Tampa, FL 33606 Christine's friend Heather will be leaving on the 24th of this month to rendezvous with her in Bangkok. She will be bringing her any mail we send her. Christine sends her love to everybody and says she looks forward to getting back in August and visiting with us all soon after that. Love to all William"}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Oct  4, 1999 (11:21)", "body": "Something recent by William, who I haven't heard from for a while: http://www.newstrolls.com/news/dev/wmeyers/index.html \"This has been a century of war. Ever since the Great War delivered a traumatic blow to civilization\ufffds sense of permanence and security, the world has endured an unending scourge of increasingly genocidal wars. With the exponential growth of world population and the inevitable conflicts among self-serving and expansive nations, the triumph of militarism as the primary means of conflict resolution has been all but assured. Add a blind dedication to perpetual economic growth, and the result for all of us has been the devastation of life, habitat, and cultural heritage on a formerly unimaginable scale. Many of us have grown used to the enormities and pay little heed to the less than awesomely devastating while whole peoples and cultures\ufffdnot to mention species and ecosystems\ufffdare systematically destroyed. Yet some cultures and systems of belief have evolved to a degree of such beauty and complexity\ufffdand what sometimes seems to be a level of enlightened wisdom\ufffdthat we can\ufffdt help but take notice of their fragility, and feel moved to take some action to save them, because their destruction is simply too painful to watch.\""}, {"response": 5, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Wed, Jul 19, 2000 (12:30)", "body": "We do then to overlook these momentous shifts in species and plant life in the morass of sensationalism on the news. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 13, "subject": "parlons francais", "response_count": 79, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Nov  6, 1997 (16:47)", "body": "Ah, mais c'etait vite! Je suis meme le premier client. Bien, choississons quelquechose de simple dont parler. Par exemple: les vacances. Avez-vous pris ou allez-vous prendre des vacances interessants recemment? Au printemps, nous sommes alles en Californie (San Diego). C'etait la premiere fois que j'y suis allee--l'ocean Pacifique etait si different que l'atlantique! Vous y etes alle?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Nov  7, 1997 (07:04)", "body": "Que's que c'est? Je parle un peu de francais. C'est vrai."}, {"response": 3, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Nov  7, 1997 (14:23)", "body": "Ou habitez-vous? Dites-moi de votre ville."}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Nov  7, 1997 (16:10)", "body": "J'habite Austin."}, {"response": 5, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Fri, Nov  7, 1997 (21:47)", "body": "Quelqu'un lis poesie francaise? Comme Rimbaud, Samain, Baudelaire, Mallarme, Verlaine, etc... C'est fleuri, ampoule, et tres decadent, vraiment, mais enfin- d'un maniere ou d'un autre- il est touchant, frequemment, et aussi tres belle, je pense. Et, ils sont symbolists etonnant..."}, {"response": 6, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Sat, Nov  8, 1997 (13:42)", "body": "Ma poeme favori, en le francais: Dilection J'adore l'indecis, les sons, les couleurs freles, Tout ce qui tremble, ondule, et frissonne, et chatoie, Les cheveux et les yeux, l'eau, les feuilles, la soie, Et la spiritualite des formes greles; Les rimes se frolant comme des tourterelles, La fumee ou le songe en spirales tournoie, La chambre au crepuscule, ou Son profil se noie, Et la caresse de Ses mains surnaturelles; L'heure de ciel au long des livres calinee, L'ame comme d'un poids de delice inclinee, L'ame qui meurt ainsi qu'une rose fanee, Et tel coeur d'ombre chaste, embaume de mystere, Ou veille, comme le rubis d'un lampadaire, Nuit et jour, un amour mystique et solitaire. (Albert Samain) C'est tres beau, oui?- et ethere, aussi, comme un reve, etrange et hantee..."}, {"response": 7, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Nov  8, 1997 (23:15)", "body": "Oui, c'etait un tres beau poeme--on peut presque le toucher, il est plein d'images tactiles. Je n'ai jamais entendu parler d'Albert Samain. Est-il contemporain? Moi aussi, je prends plaisir au poesie du dix-neuvieme siecle, y compris Baudelaire, Mallarme et Verlaine, mais aussi \"les deux Alfreds\" (de Vigny et de Musset). Mais je crois que mon poeme favori (ce que je me souviens le mieux apres tous ces ans), c'est celui de Guillaume Apollinaire qui commencent: \"Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine et nos amours faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne? La joie venait toujours apres la peine...\" Cette strophe reste avec moi depuis 7 ans."}, {"response": 8, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Mon, Nov 10, 1997 (03:51)", "body": "Samain etait un symbolist, du dix-neuvieme siecle (1858-1900)- contemperain au Baudelaire, Mallarme, et Verlaine en genre, et en temperament decadent. Il etait, je pense, un peu obscur (de jour un fonctionnairre modeste), et ses poesie es tres ampoule, habituellement- et vulgaire, peut-etre- mais \"Dilection\" es different, tout a fait- c'est doux, et intime... La poeme de Apollinaire est tres touchant (et vrai, perpetuelment, pour moi- aussi tu?). Je adore poesie qui est douce-amere- comme vie, lui-meme (merci beaucoup)..."}, {"response": 9, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Nov 10, 1997 (15:13)", "body": "Oui, Oui!"}, {"response": 10, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Nov 10, 1997 (16:40)", "body": "Moi aussi, je me delecte de la litterature qui represent la nature douce-amere de la vie. Sa sensibilite frappe le coeur tendre du lecteur."}, {"response": 11, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov 10, 1997 (21:11)", "body": "Oui mademoiselle Stacey. Ques que c'est?"}, {"response": 12, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Nov 13, 1997 (13:25)", "body": "Terry, habitez-vous a' Austin depuis toujours?"}, {"response": 13, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 13, 1997 (14:53)", "body": "C'est vrai, j'habite Austin."}, {"response": 14, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Nov 14, 1997 (13:36)", "body": "C'est la capitale du Texas, n'est-ce pas? Est-elle grande ou petite? La capitale du Maryland est Annapolis, qui est assez petite."}, {"response": 15, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Fri, Nov 21, 1997 (14:08)", "body": "Sonnet, pour un apres-midi sombre: (Aquarium Mental V) Ah! mon ame sous verre, et si bien a l'abri! Toute elle s'appartient dans l'atmosphere enclose; Ce qu'elle avait de lie ou de vase depose; Le cristal contigu n'en est plus assombri. Transparence de l'ame et du verre complice, Que nul desir n'atteint, qu'aucun emoi ne plisse! Mon ame s'est fermee et limitee a soi; Et, n'ayant pas voulu se meler a la vie, S'en epure at de plus en plus se clarifie. Ame deja fluide ou cesse tout emoi; Mon ame est devenue aquatique et lunaire; Elle est toute fraicheur, elle est tout clarte Et je vis comme si mon ame avait ete De la lune et de l'eau qu'on aurait mis sous verre. (Georges Rodenbach, 1896)"}, {"response": 16, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sun, Nov 23, 1997 (21:49)", "body": "Quel poeme! Il evoque une image si visuelle avec son nature fluide. Tant pis vous trouviez l'apres-midi sombre...il vaut bien se remplir l'esprit avec des mots emouvants au temps gris. Nous sommes passe's le week-end a' Gettysburg. Il y avait du brouillard qui a prete' un air assez sombre et meme spectral au champ de bataille."}, {"response": 17, "author": "yves", "date": "Sat, Dec 13, 1997 (17:12)", "body": "J'habite le Qu\ufffdbec et suis francophone. Comment se fait-il que vous parliez fran\ufffdais? Est-ce pour votre travail, votre culture personnelle ou \ufffdtes-vous de souche francophone? Je suis intrigu\ufffd."}, {"response": 18, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sun, Dec 14, 1997 (16:10)", "body": "Ca va, Yves...J'ai pris mon diplome en faisant des etudes du francais a' l'universite il ya plusiers ans. En plus, ma belle-mere (qui habite les EU maintenant) vient de Lyon. Elle s'est mariee avec mon beau-pere pendant la guerre; il etait soldat americain. Moi, j'adore le Quebec...j'y ai pris ma lune de miel il ya 10 ans."}, {"response": 19, "author": "yves", "date": "Tue, Dec 16, 1997 (01:55)", "body": "Je trouve que conna\ufffdtre une autre langue \ufffdlargis nos horizons, et nous permet de communiquer avec des gens d'une autre culture, donc de s'enrichir. Internet est un moyen merveilleux d'y parvenir."}, {"response": 20, "author": "autumn", "date": "Tue, Dec 16, 1997 (12:54)", "body": "Absolument! Sans elle, nous ne parlerions pas maintenant. Ca ne fait rien de connaitre une autre langue si on n'a jamais occasion a' la parler. Mais je suis sure que vous parlez anglais parfaitement et sans accent, n'est-ce pas?"}, {"response": 21, "author": "yves", "date": "Tue, Dec 16, 1997 (13:21)", "body": "Non, pas du tout. Je n'ai jamais a parler anglais. La derni\ufffdre fois, c'\ufffdtait en vacances en Virginie. Par contre je comprends et lis tr\ufffds bien. Nous avons acc\ufffds a la tv anglophone, et je dois constamment lire de la documentation technique anglophone. J'ai m\ufffdme \ufffdt\ufffd (il y a longtemps) abonn\ufffd \ufffd National Geographic. Cependant, lire, \ufffdcrire et parler sont trois choses tr\ufffds diff\ufffdrentes. Je participe ici, \ufffd diff\ufffdrentes conf\ufffdrences et j'ai beaucoup de difficult\ufffds \ufffd m'exprimer, faute de vocabulaire. Mais je fais l effort et c'est tr\ufffds int\ufffdressant, enrichissant. J'imagine que tu dois rencontrer les m\ufffdmes probl\ufffdmes?"}, {"response": 22, "author": "autumn", "date": "Tue, Dec 16, 1997 (13:28)", "body": "Mais oui, c'est pourquoi je suis ici! Lire francais, c'est facile a' cause d'etre passif...mais l'ecrire en m'exprimant, il faut que je travaille un peu plus. Ou au Quebec habitez-vous? Et qu'est-ce que vous faisiez en Virginie? Moi, j'habite dans le Maryland."}, {"response": 23, "author": "yves", "date": "Tue, Dec 16, 1997 (15:39)", "body": "J'habite \ufffd Ville de Laval, qui est une banlieue de Montr\ufffdal, et je travaille dans le centre-ville de Montr\ufffdal. Il y a quatre ans, nous allions, ma famille et moi, prendre nos vacances \ufffd Virginia Beach. Mais depuis, je me suis achet\ufffd un terrain dans les Laurentides, sur le bord d'un lac, et j'y passe mes vacances. Lorsque nous allions en Virginie, nous revenions par le Maryland et nous avons fait du camping au parc national d'Assateague. Tr\ufffds sp\ufffdcial. Lorsque vous \ufffdtes venu au Qu\ufffdbec, quelles r\ufffdgions avez-vous visit\ufffdes?"}, {"response": 24, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Dec 18, 1997 (11:44)", "body": "Nous avons vole en avion a' Montreal pour passer la nuit. Ensuite, nous sommes alles au Vieux Quebec et restes au chateau Frontenac (oolala!) Puis, on a conduit a' Beauport et Ile d'Orleans pour voir la chute Montmorency (qui etait magnifique). Que faisiez-vous dans les Laurentides--faire la voile, du ski? C'est une region encore assez sauvage? Ce que je me souviens le mieux d'Assateague, ce sont les moustiques implacables!"}, {"response": 25, "author": "yves", "date": "Mon, Dec 22, 1997 (04:10)", "body": "Qu\ufffdbec est une tr\ufffds belle ville. Dans la partie de la ville o\ufffd vous \ufffdtiez, il y r\ufffdgne une ambiance tr\ufffds sp\ufffdciale qui rappelle peut-\ufffdtre l'Europe. Le ch\ufffdteau Frontenac est un joyau de la ville de Qu\ufffdbec et m\ufffdme du Qu\ufffdbec. Dans les Laurentides, je poss\ufffdde un seulement terrain sur lequel j'ai une tente-roulotte. J'ai l'intention de m'y installer \ufffd ma retraite (d'ici 5 ans). L'\ufffdt\ufffd, je fais du canot, de la p\ufffdche, du camping. L'hiver, j'y vais faire du ski de fond, alpin, de la raquette et je reviens chez moi le soir. Je me souviens des moustiques d'Assateague, mais aussi des chevaux sauvages. Dans quelle r\ufffdgion du Maryland demeurez-vous? Avez-vous de la neige? (Je ne crois pas!) Quelle temp\ufffdrature fait-il de ce temps-ci? O\ufffd allez-vous en vacances? P.S. Je vous souhaite un joyeux No\ufffdl."}, {"response": 26, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Dec 22, 1997 (13:28)", "body": "La tente-roulotte, elle est difficile a' chauffer, n'est-ce pas? Ma belle-soeur y habite. Pendant l'annee elle la conduit a' vers des EU, mais pendant l'hiver elle se gare a' Texas parce qu'il n'y fait pas trop froid. Ensuite, elle trouve du travail provisoire avant de recommencer ses voyages au printemps. Je n'ai jamais fait de choses dont vous avez parlees: de la peche, du ski (n'importe quel type), ou du canot (ce qui est assez scandaleux parce que j'habite sur le Chesapeake Bay a' Havre de Grace). J'ai mal de mer terrible!! Je ne regrette pas la plupart des divertissements, mais je trouve l'idee de la raquette fascinante--comme des alpinistes ou des esquimaux! En realite, on recoit un peu de neige chaque an, quelquefois un blizzard. Cependant, la neige est mauvaise comme elle ne convient pas aux sports d'hiver (trop mouillee). Mais d'habitude, il fait assez froid (en moyen 25 degres fahrenheit) sans precipitation. Quel temps fait-il la? Aurez-vous un noel blanc? Je vous souhaite un joyeux Noel et bonne annee!"}, {"response": 27, "author": "yves", "date": "Wed, Dec 24, 1997 (18:26)", "body": "Je n'ai pas beaucoup de temps pour vous r\ufffdpondre, donc je vous re-souhaite un merveilleux No\ufffdl. Nous avons re\ufffdu hier environ quatre pouces de belle neige blanche. A bient\ufffdt."}, {"response": 28, "author": "autumn", "date": "Tue, Dec 30, 1997 (00:18)", "body": "La neige n'etait que de la poussiere ici. Quatre pouces de neige? Comme la pouce sur la main? Donc je ne connais pas les expressions pour des mesures differentes. Sans doute vous vous ennuyez en lisant mes messages parce qu'il y a tant que je ne comprends pas exactement. Devez-vous lutter a' communiquer precisement vos idees en anglais? Bien, on passait de bons vacances de Noel ici et en Pennsylvanie, avec des relations et aussi a' Hershey (ou on fait le chocolat). Au printemps, peut-etre en juin, nous voudrions visiter la Nouvelle Angleterre--surtout le Maine, parmi des autres. Autrefois vous avez dit que vous participiez aux autres conferences ici dans la \"spring\"--lesquelles? J'aime celle des romans surtout."}, {"response": 29, "author": "yves", "date": "Wed, Dec 31, 1997 (03:53)", "body": "Un pouce se traduit par one inch, et un pouce mesure \ufffd peu pr\ufffds \ufffd la longueur du pouce de la main. Je ne m'ennuie pas du tout en lisant vos messages, car je comprend tr\ufffds exactement votre difficult\ufffd \ufffd vous exprimer dans une langue qui n'est pas la votre. J'ai le m\ufffdme probl\ufffdme lorsque j'\ufffdcris en anglais. Donc nous nous comprenons. S'il y a des choses que j'\ufffdcris qui ne sont pas claires, dites-le moi, je vous expliquerai avec plaisir. Le probl\ufffdme que j'ai de ce temps-ci, c'est que je manque de temps et que je dois partager l'ordinateur avec mon fils de 16 ans. Je vais m'absenter quelques jours pour aller f\ufffdter le jour de l'an \ufffd l'ext\ufffdrieur de la ville. Nous avons re\ufffdu 6 pouces (inches) de neige aujourd'hui. C'est tr\ufffds bon pour le ski, moins bon pour la circulation automobile. Rien n'est parfait! Je participe aux conf\ufffdrences: motorcycle, car et fitness (cross country). Je vous souhaite une bonne et heureuse nouvelle ann\ufffde. P.S. En revenant de vacances, j'aurais plus de temps."}, {"response": 30, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Dec 31, 1997 (19:52)", "body": "J'espere que vous vous amusez bien pendant les vacances du nouvel an. Si la voiture ne marchera pas dans tous ces pouces de neige, vous pouvez toujours faire la raquette! Votre fils, va-t-il au lycee? Parle-t-il anglais? J'ai deux filles, agees 3 et 5 ans. J'enseigne un petit programme du francais a' l'ecole Montessori de la cadette, Lydia. L'ainee, Juliette, est en \"kindergarten\" a' l'ecole publique. En Canada, il y a aussi un systeme d'education public, n'est-ce pas? Est-il bon ou prefere-t-on les ecoles privees? Meilleurs voeux de 1998."}, {"response": 31, "author": "yves", "date": "Sun, Jan  4, 1998 (00:41)", "body": "Je suis de retour avec cette nouvelle ann\ufffde. Nous avons eu de la neige avant le jour de l'an, mais les routes \ufffdtaient tr\ufffds bien d\ufffdgag\ufffdes, donc nous n'avons pas utilis\ufffd les raquettes :o). Cependant au retour, les routes \ufffdtaient tr\ufffds glissantes, car il tombait un peu de neige et gla\ufffdait la route. Au Qu\ufffdbec nous avons deux syst\ufffdmes d'\ufffdducation. L'un public et l'autre priv\ufffd. Les deux syst\ufffdmes ob\ufffdissent aux m\ufffdmes crit\ufffdres r\ufffdgis par le gouvernement. La diff\ufffdrence se situe surtout au niveau de la discipline qui est plus s\ufffdv\ufffdre au priv\ufffd. Nous avons inscrit mon fils \ufffd l'\ufffdcole publique, car ce n'est pas un enfant turbulent, et nous le suivons de tr\ufffds pr\ufffds. Nous n'avons pas de lyc\ufffde comme en France. Nous avons la maternelle (4 \ufffd 6 ans), le primaire (7 \ufffd 11 ans), le secondaire (12 \ufffd 16 ans), le coll\ufffdgial (17 \ufffd 19 ans) et l'universit\ufffd. Mon fils termine son secondaire et se dirige au coll\ufffdgial. Il conna\ufffdt l'anglais \ufffdcrit et parl\ufffd, mais comme moi il n'a pas l'opportunit\ufffd de pratiquer. Au secondaire 1, nous l'avons inscrit dans une classe que l'on appelle 'bain linguistique', enti\ufffdrement en anglais durant le premier semestre. Vous enseignez le fran\ufffdais, expliquez-moi! Quelle temp\ufffdrature avez-vous de ce temps-ci?"}, {"response": 32, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Jan  5, 1998 (17:53)", "body": "J'ai trouve vos descriptions des systems d'education fascinantes, surtout l'idee du niveau secondaire et collegial. Je suppose qu'on n'est pas oblige d'assister au collegial? Ici on peut se retirer a' 16 ans, mais on les qualifie des \"perdants.\" En realite il faut recevoir le diplome pour realiser du succes financier. De plus en plus il y a la pression pour les adolescents a' choisir une carriere/un universite avant de 16 ans. Je ne sais pas encore ce que je veux etre! J'aime apprendre le francais a x petits--ils adorent repeter les mots du sujet et les chansons. Ici on prend plaisir aux temperatures douces de 60 degres F, grace a' El Nino!"}, {"response": 33, "author": "yves", "date": "Tue, Jan  6, 1998 (02:29)", "body": "60 degr\ufffds pour moi c'est un r\ufffdve. Je pourrais me ballader en moto. Mais ma r\ufffdalit\ufffde est tr\ufffds diff\ufffdrente. Aujourd'hui, nous avons eu du verglas toute la journ\ufffde. Apr\ufffds ma journ\ufffde de travail, j'ai d\ufffdglacer les vitres de l'auto avant de prendre la route. J'y ai mis 30 minutes. Ici, les jeunes peuvent quitter l'\ufffdcole \ufffd 14-15 ans s'ils ont l'accord des parents. Mais ils ne peuvent se trouver d'emploi avant 16 ans. Pour moi, le minimum d'\ufffdtude doit \ufffdtre un dipl\ufffdme coll\ufffdgial. C'est une base sur laquelle on peut se b\ufffdtir une vie d\ufffdcente. J'ai un dipl\ufffdme coll\ufffdgial en \ufffdlectrotechnique, . Je ne suis pas tr\ufffds riche, mais je ne me plaint pas. L'important c'est de pouvoir partir travailler avec le sourire. Vous dites ne pas savoir ce que vous voulez \ufffdtre. Est-ce que vous \ufffdtes encore aux \ufffdtudes? Je ne comprends pas!"}, {"response": 34, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Jan  7, 1998 (12:15)", "body": "Ce que je voulais dire, c'est que j'ai 32 ans et l'avenir parait imminent...En trois ans, mes filles seront a' l'ecole toute la journee, sans besoin de moi. Peut-etre resterai-je femme au foyer, mais mon mari pense que je m'ennuyerai sans les enfants. Votre femme, travaille-t-elle? Je suis indecise depuis toute ma vie! Saviez-vous au jeune age que vous vouliez une carriere en electrotechnique? Ca doit vous interesse encore, si vous partez travailler en souriant chaque jour! Avez-vous remarque que votre clavier est different que le mien? Le votre peut faire les accents et meme la cedille. C'est un bon example du marketing...je suppose que le Quebec est la seule region au Canada avec ce type du clavier? Aussi, je voulais vous demander si les films anglophones sont sous-titres au Quebec? Ici il faut louer des films francophones, ils ne viennent jamais aux theatres."}, {"response": 35, "author": "yves", "date": "Thu, Jan  8, 1998 (03:53)", "body": "Je viens de r\ufffdaliser une chose. Je n'ai jamais pens\ufffd que vous auriez pu \ufffdtre une femme. Peut-\ufffdtre que jusqu'\ufffd pr\ufffdsent il y a beaucoup plus d'homme que de femme sur internet. Mais maintenant je comprends mieux. Une des beaut\ufffds de l'internet c'est justement qu'il n'y a pas de barri\ufffdres \ufffd propos de genre, race, couleur, \ufffdge. D'ailleurs ces barri\ufffdres ne sont que dans la t\ufffdte. Je vous f\ufffdlicite d'avoir pris la d\ufffdcision de rester \ufffd la maison pour \ufffdlever vos filles. Mon \ufffdpouse a cess\ufffd son travail lorsqu'elle a accouch\ufffde de notre fils, et nous ne pouvons que nous f\ufffdliciter de ce choix. Il a 16 ans et nous n'avons que tr\ufffds peu de probl\ufffdmes avec lui. Je crois que votre mari a raison de penser que vous vous ennuierez lorsque vos filles seront \ufffd l'\ufffdcole. Mais ce seras \ufffd vous de d\ufffdcider soit de rester \ufffd la maison ou retourner travailler. Mon \ufffdpouse a trouv\ufffd une solution tr\ufffds bien. Elle ravaille dans une \ufffdcole. Le midi, elle surveille les enfants \ufffd l'heure du repas, et apr\ufffds les classes elle surveille les enfants dont les parents ne sont pas arriv\ufffds du travail. Elle a toujours les m\ufffdmes cong\ufffds que notre fils. Lorsque j'\ufffdtais jeune, je n'ai jamais pens\ufffd \ufffdtudier en \ufffdlectrotechnique, mais j'ai toujours aim\ufffd bricoler. J'ai \ufffdtudi\ufffd en \ufffdlectronique, mais mon travail ne me demande que tr\ufffds peu de ces connaissances. Ce qui prouve que m\ufffdme si on \ufffdtudie dans un domaine, ces \ufffdtudes ne sont qu'une base. Je travaille comme technicien de son (bruiteur, mixeur) \ufffd la t\ufffdl\ufffdvision de Radio-Canada \ufffd Montr\ufffdal. Je travaille fort, mais j'ai aussi beaucoup de plaisir. Ce n'est pas le clavier qui est bilingue, mais Windows 95. Je peu choisir soit le clavier anglophone, soit le clavier francophone par les touches alt. shift.. Mais avant, j'ai ajout\ufffd le langage canadien fran\ufffdais dans le control panel, keyboard. Cependant, sur mon clavier les touches o\ufffd sont situ\ufffdes les accents etc. son indiqu\ufffdes. Dans la r\ufffdgion de Montr\ufffdal, nous pouvons voir les films dans les deux langues, car il y a beaucoup d'anglophones dans la r\ufffdgion. Mais en dehors des grands centres, il n'y en n'a pas. Je comprend qu'il n'y ai pas de films francophones chez vous. Le th\ufffd\ufffdtre serais souvent vide, \ufffd moins que je ne me trompe?"}, {"response": 36, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jan  8, 1998 (21:03)", "body": "D'abord, je suis \"LOL\"!! (Connaissez-vous ces acronymes d'internet? Sinon, cela veut dire \"Laughing Out Loud\" ou \"Rire a' Haute Voix\".) Peut-etre disent les francophones \"RHV\"? Je ne sais pas. J'aime votre citation \"D'ailleurs les barrieres ne sont que dans la tete\"--c'est vrai! On juge plus qu'on pense. J'adore rester a' la maison avec mes petites. C'etait la meilleure decision u metier que j'ai prise! J'envie l'arrangement a' votre femme, telles situations sont assez rares. Elle ne travaille pas pendant l'ete, non plus? Parfait. Dites-moi de votre travail--je suis intriguee! Vous etes situe au studio TV/radio, dans les coulisses avec des musiciens et acteurs? Peut-etre Celine Dion? (ha ha) C'est passionant, ca! Qui sont les grandes vedettes au Canada? En ce qui concerne le clavier francophone, j'ai du savoir que c'etait plus raffine que j'ai pense. Je vais bricoler avec mon Windows 95 pour voir si je peux le modifier. Malheureusement, les ordinateurs ne m'aiment pas. :( Il y a deux theatres a' Baltimore qui montrent des films etrangers exclusivement, avec des sous-titres bien sur! Mais ils ont le genre artiste, et il faut se mettre en grande toilette. Je n'y suis jamais allee. Quels films preferez-vous (anglais ou francais)? Je suis curieuse d'apprendre si j'en ai jamais entendu parler."}, {"response": 37, "author": "yves", "date": "Sat, Jan 10, 1998 (04:36)", "body": "Je ne peut vous r\ufffdpondre pour l'instant, Nous avons d'\ufffdnormes probl\ufffdmes d'\ufffdlectriques. Je ne peut me brancher sur l'internet que par le serveur de mon beau fr\ufffdre. A Bient\ufffdt."}, {"response": 38, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 10, 1998 (16:02)", "body": "C'est dommage. Peut-etre les ordinateurs ne vous aiment non plus! Bonne chance avec l'electrique."}, {"response": 39, "author": "yves", "date": "Mon, Jan 12, 1998 (00:47)", "body": "Je ne sais pas si les ordinateurs m'aiment, mais moi je les aime bien, depuis pr\ufffds de 20 ans. Nous avons connu ces derniers jours une temp\ufffdrature catastrophique. Il est tomb\ufffd du verglas pendant 5 jours. 1,300,000 maisons ont perdu l'\ufffdlectricit\ufffd (pendant plusieurs journ\ufffdes) alors qu'il faisait 19 \ufffd 23 degr\ufffds F. Chez moi,nous n'avons perdu l'\ufffdlectricit\ufffd que pendant quelques heures ici et l\ufffd. Rien de s\ufffdrieux. Cependant je n'avais plus la communication avec mon fournisseur de service internet. J'ai d\ufffd utiliser la connexion de mon beau fr\ufffdre. Cependant je ne devais pas me brancher en m\ufffdme temps. Oui je connais les acronymes anglophones d'internet et tout ceux qui naviguent beaucoup doivent les conna\ufffdtre puisque la tr\ufffds grande majorit\ufffd des sites sont anglophones. Ma femme a trouv\ufffd ce travail par hasard. Elle commen\ufffdait \ufffd s'ennuyer, mon fils \ufffdtant \ufffd l'\ufffdcole toute la journ\ufffde. Mais elle ne voulait pas un travail \ufffd plein temps. Je travaille pour la t\ufffdl\ufffdvision seulement, et surtout pour les \ufffdmissions jeunesse. J'ai \ufffdt\ufffd bruiteur (sound effects man) en studio, pendant 22 ans Depuis 2 ans je trouve les effets sonores et je mix les \ufffdmissions, en post-production. J'ai rencontr\ufffd beaucoup d'artistes, assez pour savoir que ce sont des gens bien ordinaires qui jouent un r\ufffdle (et c'est leur travail) devant la cam\ufffdra. J'ai aussi constat\ufffd (comme dans n'importe quel autre domaine) que plus ils ont du talent, plus ils sont simples et agr\ufffdables Je n'ai pas rencontr\ufffd C\ufffdline Dion. Les artistes d'ici font rarement des carri\ufffdres internationales, sauf quelques uns. Pour ce qui est du clavier francophone, je peu vous donner la marche \ufffd suivre, si cela vous int\ufffdresse. Je ne vais jamais ni au th\ufffd\ufffdtre ni au cin\ufffdma. Je travaille toute la semaine devant un \ufffdcran de t\ufffdl\ufffd, dans le showbiz. Alors les fin de semaine, je pr\ufffdf\ufffdre jouer dehors :o)) Dans quel domaine travaille votre mari? Vous demeurez pr\ufffds de Baltimore. Est-ce en banlieu ou \ufffd la campagne?"}, {"response": 40, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Jan 12, 1998 (17:36)", "body": "Votre travail me semble assez interessant et varie. Mon mari est fonctionnaire a' une installation d'armee; il negocie des contrats pour des services militaires. Alors, vous faisiez partie de ce temps affreux dont on entend ces jours-ci? Les nouvelles montrent ces images choquantes des glacons partout dans le nord-est, surtout dans le Maine. President Clinton l'a declare \"une zone du desastre federal\", ce qui le qualifie pour de l'argent special. C'est une appellation qu'on reserve d'habitude pour des tremblements de terre et des ouragans. Certains-uns sont morts empoisonne du protoxyde carbone (trad?) a' cause des gazogenes. Quant au clavier francophone, mon mari a essaye de le changer pour moi...apres avoir choisi \"francophone\" il a commence a taper et toutes les lettres etait differentes que les lettres sur le clavier! Est-ce que les lettres sont emplacees differamment qu'en anglais? Cela nous a laisses perplexes! Pourriez-vous elucider ce grand mystere?"}, {"response": 41, "author": "yves", "date": "Tue, Jan 13, 1998 (03:34)", "body": "Votre mari a un travail stable. C'est rare de nos jours. De plus en plus les gens sont employ\ufffds de fa\ufffdon temporaire, ce que je trouve tr\ufffds d\ufffdplorable. Nous vivons une v\ufffdritable catastrophe. Une bonne partie de notre syst\ufffdme de distribution \ufffdlectrique est d\ufffdtruit. Et aujourd'hui, tout fonctionne \ufffd l'\ufffdlectricit\ufffd et il fait froid. Il y a 12,000 soldats de l'arm\ufffde Canadienne qui ont \ufffdt\ufffd envoy\ufffds pour aider. Le clavier. Il faut choisir \"French (Canadian)\" et non French (standard). Les lettres du clavier Canadien fran\ufffdais est presque le m\ufffdme que le clavier US. Seules quelques touches sont diff\ufffdrentes. Je vous donne les correspondances. Dans la rang\ufffde des chiffres: @=\" #=/ ^=? Danns la rang\ufffde de Q {=^ * }=\ufffd * [=^ * ]=\ufffd * * Il faut taper la lettre apr\ufffds la touche pour avoir la lettre et l'accent. Dans la rang\ufffde de A: \"=` * '=` * * Il faut taper la lettre apr\ufffds la touche pour avoir la lettre et l'accent. Dans la rang\ufffde de Z: ?=\ufffd /=\ufffd Et voil\ufffd!!! S'il y a un probl\ufffdme, demandez."}, {"response": 42, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Jan 14, 1998 (14:47)", "body": "Ah, il y a une grande difference entre \"french (standard)\" et \"french (canadien)\"? Interessant...merci des directives. Je mettrai mon specialiste a' la tache bientot! Mon mari a beaucoup de la chance au travail. On ne s'inqiete pas de notre securite, comme beaucoup du monde. Et tous les jours il rentre a' cinq heures et ne manque jamais diner avec nous. Tous les maris de mes amies travaillent presque 10-12 heures chaque jour, quelquefois le week-end, en rentrant apres les enfants se sont couches. Selon moi, c'est la plus grande tragedie. Et vous avez raison, il n'y a pas de garantie contre le \"downsizing.\" Cette tendance est un crime contre la famille. Les soldats qui vous aidaient, etaient-ils montees? Cette idee m'intrigue...mais je suppose qu'ils sont plus au Canada de l'ouest. J'habite dans la campagne, au-dela des banlieues de Baltimore. Il y a plusieurs pres pleins de vaches et chevaux ici (on eleve des \"thoroughbreds\" des courses au Maryland). Mais de plus en plus, on construit des maisons, et je fais la connaissance des personnes qui travaillent a' Baltimore, a' Philadelphia, meme a' Washington! Ils prennent le train 2 heures a' D.C. tous les jours! Cela m'est incroyable. Vous faites un grand trajet a' Montreal?"}, {"response": 43, "author": "yves", "date": "Thu, Jan 15, 1998 (03:20)", "body": "Un d\ufffdsavantage et avantage de mon travail, est que je n'ai pas d'horaire fixe. Mais j'ai toujours essay\ufffd d'\ufffdtre le plus souvent possible avec ma famille. Il y a quelques ann\ufffdes je travaillait de jour, du mardi au samedi. L'avantage est que j'ai pu faire du ski avec mon fils \ufffd tous les lundi. Cette ann\ufffde, je travaille le soir, de 5 hrs (17 hrs.) \ufffd 1 hrs. J'aime beaucoup cet horaire, car je suis un \"oiseau de nuit\" (night bird), et le jour je vois ma femme lorsqu'elle vient luncher. Je peu aussi faire des e plettes. Les soldats qui ont \ufffdt\ufffd envoy\ufffds ici sont des soldats de l'arm\ufffde Canadienne. Ceux dont vous voulez parler font partis de la police mont\ufffde (mounted police). aussi appel\ufffd gendarmerie royale. Ils s'occupent de tout ce qui touche les lois f\ufffdd\ufffdrales et internationales. Ils sont les policiers officiels du Canada. Leurs principale base se trouve dans l'ouest du Canada, mais ont des postes partout au Canada. Vous avez la chance de vivre dans le calme. Est-ce que vos enfants doivent voyager pour se rendre \ufffd l'\ufffdcole? Vous trouvez incroyable de prendre 2 heures pour se rendre au travail. Mais on s'habitue et on y trouve des avantages. En train, par exemple, on peut lire, dormir etc. Mais je sais qu'il est difficile de comprendre. Mai je crois que perdre 2 heures \ufffd voyager pour se retrouver dans un paradis, vaut la peine. Pour me rendre \ufffd mon travail, je dois utiliser ma voiture cela me prends environ 30 minutes lorsque je travaille le soir. Le jour, aux heures de pointe, je dois compter 45 minutes, 1 heure."}, {"response": 44, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jan 15, 1998 (10:26)", "body": "Un manque de circulation est un des avantages de travailler le soir. Autrefois, je travaillais de 4 h. a' minuit dans un hopital. C'etait l'horaire parfait parce que j'etais celibataire et je suis aussi un \"hibou de nuit\" (en anglais , on dit \"night owl\" au lieu de \"night bird\")! Je viens de frapper ce que je trouve le plus interessant des langues: des expressions idiomatiques. Il y'en a tant en toutes les deux langues, et je me rappelle quelques-unes de mes etude. Par exemple, en francais on dit, \"i m'est tout chinois\" mais en anglais on dit, \"il m'est tout grecque\". Vous en connaissez d'autres exemples? Bien sur, il y a des differences de langue entre les francais et les canadiens francais aussi. Par exemple, je me souviens qu'au Quebec on disait \"la clausepine\" au lieu du \"pince a' linge\" et \"le windshield\" au lieu du \"parebrise.\" Pourrez-vous me dire des autres? Cela me fascine, comme les differences entre les americains et les anglais--quelquefois je ne crois pas que nous parlons la meme langue! Etes-vous deja alle en France? J'espere que cette question ne vous offense pas...je sais que parler francais n'est pas etre francais. Je ne suggere pas que la France est la patrie des francophones, j'etais simplement curieuse d'entendre vos impressions."}, {"response": 45, "author": "yves", "date": "Sat, Jan 17, 1998 (02:35)", "body": "Je ne suis jamais all\ufffd ni en France ni en Europe. C'est un r\ufffdve que j'aimerais bien r\ufffdaliser un jour. J'aimerais aussi visiter les Etats Unis d'un bout \ufffd l'autre et c'est d'ailleurs un projet que j'envisage r\ufffdaliser lorsque j'aurais pris ma retraite, d'ici quelques ann\ufffdes. Le plus gros probl\ufffdme que j'ai, est que ma femme n'aime pas beaucoup voyager, et elle ne comprend pas un mot d'anglais. Mais nous verrons en temps et lieux. Je viens de comprendre quelque chose qui m'intriguait. Souvent dans des articles il \ufffdtait question de \"greek\" et je ne pouvais en traduire le sens. Maintenant c'est clair et il s'agit s\ufffdrement du grec ancien (la langue). Pour nous, le chinois est plus \ufffdloign\ufffd de notre langue que ne l'est le grec. Car le grec est une racine du fran\ufffdais. Il y a \ufffdnorm\ufffdment d'idiomes qui sont communs dans une r\ufffdgion, et inconnus dans d'autres, comme chez vous d'ailleurs. Je me souviens, lorsque nous allions en Virginie, je comprenais tr\ufffds bien la plupart des gens, mais \ufffd New York, je me suis arr\ufffdt\ufffd \ufffd un poste de p\ufffdage, j'ai demand\ufffd un renseignement, et je suis reparti sans avoir compris un seul mot. Au Texas, c'est aussi tr\ufffds diff\ufffdrent. Chez nous, en plus, il y a beaucoup de mots qui sont emprunt\ufffds en partie a l'anglais. Exemple: pour 'couvre chaussure', au Lac St.Jean on dit shoeclaque, a Montr\ufffdal on dit claque et dans le Bas du Fle ve, on dit robber (rubber). Nous avons beaucoup d'anglicismes dans notre langue parl\ufffde, et c'est un peu normal, car nous sommes entour\ufffds d'anglophones. Je suis technicien et tout ce que je dois lire comme manuels techniques, ne sont qu'en anglais. Je dirais m\ufffdme que si je dois assembler un BBQ, j'utilise de pr\ufffdf\ufffdrence le manuel anglais au manuel fran\ufffdais. (Il faut dire que parfois les traductions sont tr\ufffds dr\ufffdles ou incompr\ufffdhensibles. Il n'y a aucune offense \ufffd me parler de la France au contraire. Pour nous, la France est notre m\ufffdre patrie, c'est tout. Nos coutumes, notre mode de vie, n'ont aucun rapport avec la France. Nos racines sont Fran\ufffdaises mais nous vivons en Am\ufffdrique et la seule chose que nous ayons en commun c'est la langue, tout comme avec la Louisiane :o) . Je crois que nous avons les m\ufffdmes liens avec la France que vous avez avec l'Angleterre, c'est a dire tr\ufffds minces..."}, {"response": 46, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jan 17, 1998 (15:40)", "body": "Je suis contente que mes questions ne vous genaient pas. Certains pays ont une \"crise d'identite\" et sont indignes des comparaisons. On entend dire que cette situation existe entre le Canada et les EU, surtout dans la politique. Alors, etes-vous secessioniste? Cette question entiere m'intrigue. Il y a sept ans nous sommes alles en Europe (Angleterre, France, Suisse, meme Liechtenstein!) et ne pouvons pas attendre a' rentrer. Pour une raison quelconque, je suis absolument amoureuse de l'Ecosse et du Norvege et un jour j'y irai. Cet ete j'obtiendrai un gout de cet heritage quand on visitera Nova Scotia. Je vous plains--mon pere a pris sa retraite en pensant qu'ils iront partout, mais ma mere ne veut pas voyager. Et si elle voyage, elle ne quittera la maison que pendant une semaine. Cet hiver ls iront en Floride pour voir des amis. Ca me plait d'avoir eclairci le mystere grec! Mais je pense que si j'ai du choisir, je apprendrais le grec avant que le chinois--au moins quelques-unes des lettres sont les memes! C'est amusant que vous preferez lire des renseignements en anglais qu'en francais, mais vous avez raison--le francais est souvent deplorable! Ma belle-mere et moi, nous eclatons de rire en les lisant."}, {"response": 47, "author": "yves", "date": "Sun, Jan 18, 1998 (23:56)", "body": "Je ne m'int\ufffdresse \ufffd la politique que parce que c'est le devoir de tout citoyen. Mais je m'en passerais facilement. Les politiciens ne sont que des marionnettes. La preuve, m\ufffdme lorsque l'on change de gouvernement, rien ne change. Les politiciens sont en g\ufffdn\ufffdral tr\ufffds habiles pour ne rien dire en parlant. Vous aimez l'Ecosse et la Norv\ufffdge, pourquoi? Tout ceux que je connais et qui ont visit\ufffd la Nouvelle \ufffdcosse (Nova Scotia) ont ador\ufffd ce coin de pays. Mais je crains qu'il n'y ait pas beaucoup de ressemblance avec l'Ecosse. Est-ce que vous \ufffdtes de descendance Ecossaise? Vous me disiez que votre belle m\ufffdre \ufffdtait originaire de Lyon, est-ce que votre mari parle fran\ufffdais? J'ai bien ri lorsque je lisais que votre m\ufffdre ne quittait la maison que pour une semaine. Ma femme lui ressemble. Mais j'esp\ufffdre trouver le moyen de lui faire aimer les voyages, j'ai encore espoir. J'ai pens\ufffd vous donner un lien qui vous am\ufffdne \ufffd un site qu\ufffdb\ufffdcois d'o\ufffd vous pouvez partir vers des sites qui peuvent vous int\ufffdresser: http://www.toile.qc.ca/ Bonne visite."}, {"response": 48, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Jan 19, 1998 (21:48)", "body": "Autrefois j'ai lu \"Kristin Lavransdatter,\" une epopee de la vie du moyen age en Norvege que j'adorais. Depuis ce temps je meurs d'envie d'y aller, surtout Lillehammer et des fjords. Et bien sur il y a des liens forts entre la Norvege et l'Ecosse a' cause des vikings. Mon mari s'interesse a' la Norvege parce qu'il a beacoup envie d'enjamber le cercle polaire arctique, parmi d'autres choses. En fait, il etait eleve a' Paris jusqu'a l'age de 8 ans, lorsque il a demenage aux EU. Il peut parler encore un p u du francais, mais sa grammaire est terrible et il tutoie tout le monde. Si vous pourrez convaincre votre femme a' voyager, dites-moi le secret. Mon pere en avait marre de rester chez lui tout le temps. Mais ma mere dit toujours la meme, les petits-enfants et le chat lui manqueront trop. Je lui nourrirais, et croyez-moi, il s'en fout! Avez-vous des animaux chez vous? J'ai une chatte, Minou, des poissons, et deux bernard-l'ermite (j'ai du chercher ce mot-la; quelle est son origine, pensez-vous?) qui viennent de mourir--pas de grande perte, selon moi. Merci du lien, je le regarderai maintenant!"}, {"response": 49, "author": "yves", "date": "Wed, Jan 21, 1998 (02:11)", "body": "Je vous comprends de vouloir visiter la Norv\ufffdge. J'aimerais visiter l'Angleterre pour des raisons semblables. Lorsque j'\ufffdtais jeune, dans notre cours d'anglais, nous devions lire \" the prince and the pauper\". J'aimerais sentir cette ambiance de myst\ufffdre, les rues \ufffdtroites et sombres, bord\ufffdes d'immeubles qui ont tant \ufffd dire. Si je voyage, ce ne sera s\ufffdrement pas par les circuits touristiques conventionnels. Le seul voyage \ufffd l'\ufffdtranger que j'ai fait, c'est au Mexique, il y a plus de 20 ans, avec un ami d'enf nce. Avant de partir, nous avons suivi des cours d'espagnol. Nous y avons pass\ufffd pr\ufffds d'un mois. Nous n'avons \ufffdt\ufffd dans un h\ufffdtel touristique qu'une seule fois, parce qu'il n'y en avait pas d'autres dans les environs. Le seul fait de parler (un peu) la langue nous a ouverts bien des portes et fait conna\ufffdtre des gens tr\ufffds int\ufffdressants. Ma femme ressemble vraiment \ufffd votre m\ufffdre. L'\ufffdt\ufffd dernier nous sommes partis elle et moi faire un petit voyage. Le premier soir aucun probl\ufffdme, mais le lendemain, nous avons d\ufffd revenir \ufffd la maison, elle s'ennuyait de son fils et du chien. J'ai m\ufffdme appris plus tard qu'elle avait averti notre fils qu'elle revenait le lendemain... Il faut dire cependant qu'elle ne m'emp\ufffdche pas de partir, c'est plut\ufffdt moi qui h\ufffdsite. Cependant, l'\ufffdt\ufffd prochain, si l'occasion se pr\ufffdsente, j'aimerais bien partir une semaine ou eux, \ufffd moto. Nous avons une petite chienne adorable. Elle s'appelle Fanny, et de race Carlin \"Pug dog\". Je ne suis pas amateur de petits chiens, mais elle nous a charm\ufffds. Elle est comme un b\ufffdb\ufffd pour nous. Sa photo est sur le site web des pug dogs. Nous (mon fils) avons eu des poissons, des tortues et deux perruches. Minou pour une chatte Am\ufffdricaine, c'est plut\ufffdt inusit\ufffd. Est-ce qu'elle dit quelques \"miaw\" en fran\ufffdais? C'est la premi\ufffdre fois que j'entends dire que quelqu'un poss\ufffdde des \"bernard l'ermite\" comme animaux de compagnie. C'est sp\ufffdcial! Je ne connais pas l'origine du nom de ces genres de crabes. Peut-\ufffdtre parce qu'ils ne sont pas tr\ufffds sociables?? J'ai bien ri lorsque vous disiez que votre mari tutoie tout le monde. La plupart des anglophones le font, puisqu'en anglais il n'y a qu'un seul pronom personnel pour \"tu\" et \"vous\" en anglais. Je suis d'une g\ufffdn\ufffdration o\ufffd le \"vous\" \ufffdtait couramment utilis\ufffd. Mais aujourd'hui, on ne l'utilise que rarement. Le respect doit \"foutre le camp\" :o)). Mais le \"tu\" rapproche les gens, ce qui n'est pas mauvais en soi."}, {"response": 50, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jan 22, 1998 (16:50)", "body": "Tutoyer ou vouvoyer, cela ne me fait rien, parce que comme vous avez dit, je m'habitue a' employer un mot pour tous les deux sens. Mais mes profs m'ont toujours appris a' employer le \"vous\" pour montrer du respect. Lorsque nous etions en Normandie, mon mari a tutoye quelqu'un dans un magasin. Elle m'a vue lui donner un coup de coude, et a simplement hausse les epaules et dit, \"ce n'est pas grave, Madame.\" Si tutoyer est la nouvelle facon a s'addresser, puis mon mari est au courant! A ce moment-ci, ma fille lit \"Prince and the Pauper\" qui a pour vedette Mickey Mouse. Malheureusement, il n'y a pas d'ambience de mystere dans cette version! Je doute qu'elle devrait voyager en Angleterre un jour a' cause de la version Disney! Passer un mois a'l'etranger, c'est magnifique! Au printemps nous sommes alles en Californie, et ont passe un apres-midi a' Tijuana. C'est ma seule exposition au Mexique. Mais j'adore la cuisine! Quel est le lien pour des pug dogs? J'aime les chiens, mais je n'en avais jamais. Autrefois mon mari avait un \"springer spaniel\" qu'il adorait. On achete ces crabes aux magasins du souvenir a' la plage. Ils sont partout; on les importe des Caraibes. Vous y etes deja alle? Pas moi."}, {"response": 51, "author": "yves", "date": "Sun, Jan 25, 1998 (01:41)", "body": "En effet, le \"vous\" d\ufffdmontre une marque de respect. Mais dans la vie de tous les jours, le tutoiement devient de plus en plus courant, et rapproche les gens. Personnellement, je n'ai pas de pr\ufffdf\ufffdrence, j'\ufffdvalue chaque situation et respecte les gens qui pr\ufffdf\ufffdrent le \"vous\". Mais je d\ufffdplore le vouvoiement \ufffd l'int\ufffdrieure d'une famille. Aujourd'hui c'est tr\ufffds rare, mais lorsque j'\ufffdtais jeune, c'\ufffdtait courant (mais pas dans ma famille heureusement). Votre fille ne sera peut-\ufffdtre pas attir\ufffde par l'Angleterre, mais s\ufffdrement par \"Walt Disney\" :o) Le Mexique est un pays magnifique avec des gens d'une g\ufffdn\ufffdrosit\ufffd surprenante. La cuisine mexicaine varie \ufffdnorm\ufffdment d'une r\ufffdgion \ufffd l'autre. Il faut cependant faire attention aux \ufffdpices. J'adore les chiens, surtout les gros. Nous avons d\ufffdj\ufffd eu un Malamuth d'Alaska. Un excellent chien, mais avec lequel il ne faut pas \ufffdtre mou. C'est un chien de meute, avec beaucoup de caract\ufffdre et d'une loyaut\ufffd \ufffd toute \ufffdpreuve, lorsque dress\ufffd convenablement. Un chien c'est un compagnon extraordinaire si l'on sait s'en faire respecter. Pour les enfants c'est un compagnon de jeux, un confident, un ami. Notre pug, c'est notre fils qui d\ufffdsirait en avoir un. Il nous a harcel\ufffds pendant 3 ans avant de l'avoir. Nous n'\ufffdtions pas contre mais pr\ufffdf\ufffdrions attendre qu'il soit assez vieux pour s'en occuper. Nous avons eu raison pendant 2 mois. Depuis, c'est ma femme qui est le vrai ma\ufffdtre... J'ai vu la mer des Cara\ufffdbes lorsque j'\ufffdtais au Mexique, et j'esp\ufffdre que ce n'\ufffdtait pas la derni\ufffdre fois. D'ailleurs, un de mes trucs que je veux tenter pour amener ma femme \ufffd voyager, c'est de l'emmener pour un s\ufffdjour tout confort, et toute s\ufffdcurit\ufffd, dans un endroit comme les \ufffdles des Cara\ufffdbes. Mais je ne pourrais (faute d'argent, de temps et le fils \ufffd la maison :o)) le faire que lorsque nous serons \ufffd notre retraite. Es-ce que vous envisagez d'autres voyages outre-mer ? P.S. voici l'adresse du Pug Dog Home Page. (Ce site est en Belgique.) http://www.camme.ac.be/~cammess/www-pug/home.html"}, {"response": 52, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Jan 26, 1998 (16:40)", "body": "Pendant notre voyage en Californie nous sommes passes un jour a' Disneyland. C'etait assez pour moi! Peut-etre EuroDisney...Puis on peut melanger l'amusement de Disney avec le charme desuet d'Europe. C'est interessant qu'autrefois on employait le \"vous\" en famille. Lorsque j'etais jeune fille il y avait certaines familles dont les enfants devaient adresser leurs parents \"sir\"/\"ma'am\" (monsieur/madame). J'ai toujours deteste l'entendre, il me semblait trop compasse. Quand je sortais avec mon mari (mon petit ami a ce temps-la) j'ai vouvoye sa mere. Dupis notre mariage je la tutoie, mais quelquefois elle me vouvoie encore. Avez-vous deja lu ce livre classique \"Call of the Wild/Appel de la Nature\" de Jack London? Je suis sure qu'il existe une traduction parce que tout aime cette histoire. Il s'agit d'un chien familier qui se retrouve en Alaska ou au Canada comme chien du traineau (?). Puis il devient chien du meute et rejoigne aux loups pour vivre sauvage. C'est un des meilleurs romans que je connais. Je suis un peu ce nouveau probleme du temps au nord, plus de neige et glace et moins d'electricite. Cela vous touche personnellement? J'espere que non. Suivez-vous notre grand ennui chez President Clinton? Sa conduite scandaleuse continue a s'en gener les americains. Mais je me doute qu'il se tirera d'embarras--il y a une bonne raison qu'on lui appelle \"Slick Willie\"! Aujourd'hui c'est un bon jour a parler des Caraibes...il fait froid et du vent. On parlait de faire une croisiere, mais cela coute chere et j'ai mal de mer. Peut-etre y aller en avion. Mon mari veut voir Nevis ou Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson y habitait--c'est son heros. Qui est le votre?"}, {"response": 53, "author": "yves", "date": "Thu, Jan 29, 1998 (01:59)", "body": "Vous me parlez de Disneyland, et je termine demain quatre jours de travail sur une \ufffdmission tourn\ufffde justement \ufffd Disney. J'aimerais bien m'y rendre un jour, si jamais la valeur de notre dollar monte. J'ai vu le film \"Call of the Wild/Appel de la Nature\" \ufffd la t\ufffdl\ufffdvision. Un film grandiose qui m'a beaucoup \ufffdmu. Je suis tr\ufffds sensible envers les animaux, Ils sont tellement plus vrais, honn\ufffdtes que les humains en g\ufffdn\ufffdral. Dans la for\ufffdt, je crains beaucoup plus les humains que les animaux. Dans le film (qui est tr\ufffds r\ufffdaliste), les chiens sont de race Malamuth d'Alaska et Huskie (un peu plus petits).Ce sont vraiment des chiens de meute et c'est ce qui fait que si on n'y fait pas attention, il devient tr\ufffds di ficile de les \ufffdlever en famille. Lorsqu'ils sont tr\ufffds jeunes, ils doivent trouver leur rang dans la meute. Dans une famille, ils agiront de la m\ufffdme fa\ufffdon, et le ma\ufffdtre DOIT leur enseigner quelle sera leur place dans la famille, et de fa\ufffdon tr\ufffds \ufffdnergique. Mais une fois cela fait, ce sont des chiens d'une fid\ufffdlit\ufffd \ufffd toute \ufffdpreuve. Nous avons du le faire tuer lorsque mon fils est n\ufffd. Le chien avait trois ans, et nous ne pouvions courir le risque d'un accident. Et personnellement, je ne suis pas capable de l isser un chien \ufffd l'ext\ufffdrieur de la maison. Le chien fait partie de la famille. J'ai trou\ufffd extr\ufffdmement p\ufffdnible de me d\ufffdfaire du chien, mais je n'avais pas le choix. Nous n'avons pas \ufffdt\ufffd touch\ufffds par le manque d'\ufffdlectricit\ufffd. Mais c'est une catastrophe qui aurait pu tr\ufffds mal tourner. La ville enti\ufffdre de Montr\ufffdal n'avait d'\ufffdlectricit\ufffd que pas un fil. Si ce fil s'\ufffdtait rompu sous le poids de la glace, plus d'un million de Montr\ufffdalais n'avaient plus d'\ufffdlectricit\ufffd, ni d'eau. Le plus gros probl\ufffdme ici, c'est la temp\ufffdrature. Le thermom\ufffdtre est descendu jusqu'\ufffd -4 deg. F. Les gens au pouvoir et ceux qui ont beaucoup d'argent, sont sujets \ufffd ce genre de poursuite. Je ne les envie pas du tout. Je n'ai pas de h\ufffdros en particulier, mais j'admire \ufffdnorm\ufffdment les peuples Pr\ufffd Colombiens (Azt\ufffdques, Mayas, Incas...). C'est d'ailleurs la raison de mon voyage au Mexique. J'aimerais bien me rendre au P\ufffdrou. J'ai tellement de r\ufffdves..."}, {"response": 54, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jan 29, 1998 (16:20)", "body": "C'est un autre grand project chez mon mari: aller au Perou pour voir des ruines des Incas. En fait, il veut conduire des EU a' l'Amerique du Sud et terminer a' Tierra del Fuego. Puis il veut voyager en bateau a' l'Antarctique. Ce ne sont pas mes reves--je suis contente de recevoir une carte postale! Ce week-end je suis allee a' Washington DC avec une amie pour voir des musees de Smithsonian. Ce sont nos musees nationals pour l'art (magnifique), l'histoire naturelle (les dinos), l'histoire americaine (le Tupperware!), et l'air et espace (Spirit of St. Louis pend du plafond). Nous nous sommes beaucoup amusees. J'adore y aller. Quels sont vos divertissements? Je ne peux croire qu'il fait -4 degres la! Aujourd'hui on ne portait pas de manteaux, il est 55 deg. F."}, {"response": 55, "author": "yves", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (02:54)", "body": "Je comprends votre mari, \ufffd partir des \ufffdtats-Unis jusqu'\ufffd La Terre De Feu. Mais je d\ufffdbarque avant l'Antarctique. Le froid, non merci. Aujourd'hui, nous avons eu une chaude journ\ufffde \ufffd 23 deg. F., et les journ\ufffdes rallongent. A 55 deg. je pourrais faire de la moto. Mais il reste encore deux mois \ufffd traverser. Nos divertissements ont beaucoup chang\ufffds avec le temps. Nous avons toujours partag\ufffd nos loisirs avec notre fils. Nous avons faits beaucoup de ski (downhill), de ski de fond (cross country), de bicyclette, du camping etc. Mais maintenant qu'il devient de plus en plus ind\ufffdpendant, nous devrons nous r\ufffdajuster. Il me reste encore une activit\ufffd que je partage avec lui, c'est la moto de sentier (dirt biking). En plus, nous avons une maison \ufffd entretenir et je r\ufffdpare tout moi-m\ufffdme. Nous avons maintenant le projet e commencer \ufffd b\ufffdtir notre prochaine maison sur notre terrain dans les Laurentides. La seule chose qui nous manque vraiment, c'est le temps. Vous habitez la campagne. Est-ce que la maison vous appartient, est-elle \ufffdg\ufffde? S'il fait 55 deg. maintenant, quelle temp\ufffdrature fait-il au mois de juillet?"}, {"response": 56, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (15:57)", "body": "S'il etait 23 degres F, ca serait un des jours le plus froid pour le Maryland. Notre temperature moyenne pour hiver, peut-etre 32 degres, mais en juillet, mon dieu! probablement 90-95 degres. Je peux fondre juste en y pensant. Et le coup de grace, tres humide. Bien sur, les gens de la Louisiane et la Floride nous rient, parce qu'il fait chaud et humide tout le temps. Si vous n'aimerez pas l'Antarctique, je n'aimerai pas le climat tres chaud. Notre maison etait construite en 1960, et on a ajoute une salle de famille et garage a' deux voitures en 1970. C'est un \"ranch\", ou maison a' un etage. Le point de faible le plus pire de ma maison, c'est la cuisine. Elle est la tailleur d'une cambuse, pas d'exageration. Quel style de maison esperez-vous a' construire? Lesquels sont populaires chez vous? Ici on prefere des \"colonials\" et les vestibules fendues (ici on dit \"split foyer\"--je ne sais pas la terminaison francaise). N'importe quel style, e les sont toutes trop de travail. Nettoyer, maintenir, tondre, etc., c'est implacable! Et comme vous avez dit, il n'y a jamais assez de temps. Vous etes une famille tres active! Je vous admire. Nous n'aurons jamais l'occasion a' jouer aux sports dont vous avez parles, parce qu'il n'y a pas assez de neige. Je suppose qu'on peut faire la moto de sentier, mais ca c'est pour les hommes! Autrefois, on disait \"motocross\" pour la decrire. Le plus pres nous l'approchons, c'est a conduire notre Jeep! Qu'est-ce que vous ferez ce week-end? J'adore les week-ends d'hiver, parce qu'ils sont si paresseux."}, {"response": 57, "author": "yves", "date": "Mon, Feb  2, 1998 (17:49)", "body": "Je crois que nous devons composer avec la temp\ufffdrature de l'endroit o\ufffd nous vivons. C'est certain que chez le voisin tout semble toujours plus beau. Chaque climat a ses bons et mauvais c\ufffdt\ufffds, il ne tient qu'\ufffd nous d'en appr\ufffdcier les bons. C'est certain que chez nous il fait tr\ufffds froid. Mais si nous nous donnons la peine de sortir dehors, il y a beaucoup de plaisirs \ufffd en retirer. Par exemple, dimanche apr\ufffds-midi, je suis all\ufffd avec ma femme \ufffd notre terrain. Nous y avons rencontr\ufffd sa soeur et son mari, et n us avons \ufffdt\ufffd marcher dans la for\ufffdt ( en raquettes) jusqu'au coucher du soleil. C'\ufffdtait merveilleux. Tout ce que nous entendions, c'\ufffdtait le chant des geais bleue (blue jays) et des m\ufffdsanges (tchecadee (?)). Bien habill\ufffds et en faisant de l'exercice, nous \ufffdtions tr\ufffds confortables dans un d\ufffdcor majestueux. Que faites-vous lorsqu'il fait tr\ufffds chaud? Votre cuisine est de la taille d'une cambuse? LOL. La n\ufffdtre aussi....On ne peu travailler \ufffd deux sans se piller sur les pieds. C'est un point que je veux corriger dan notre prochaine maison. Chez-nous, nous ne pouvons b\ufffdtir de tr\ufffds grandes maisons, \ufffd cause du climat. Premi\ufffdrement \ufffd cause du chauffage, et deuxi\ufffdmement, du fait que nous devons avoir une fondation creus\ufffde \ufffd plus de 4' dans le sol, pour \ufffdviter que le gel et le d\ufffdgel ne brisent la maison en la soulevant. Nous avons sensiblement les m\ufffdmes genre de maisons que chez-vous. Les seules diff\ufffdrences sont celles utilis\ufffds pour combattre le froid (grandeur, sous-sol, isolation...). Notre maison pr\ufffdc\ufffddente \ufffdtait de type \"bangalow\", et la pr\ufffdsente de type \"cottage, split level (multi niveaux)\". La prochaine sera un \"cottage\", \ufffd aire ouverte (salon, salle \ufffd manger et cuisine sans division) avec un toit cath\ufffddrale et mezzanine au deuxi\ufffdme \ufffdtage. Nous aurons de grandes fen\ufffdtres du c\ufffdt\ufffd du lac. Actuellement je n'ai pas de garage, et cela me manque beaucoup, c r je fais l'entretient des autos et des motos, et ce n'est pas toujours agr\ufffdable \ufffd l'ext\ufffdrieur. Mais je suis pr\ufffdsentement \ufffd travailler sur des plans pr\ufffdliminaires, et j'ai un garage double de pr\ufffdvu, avec un po\ufffdle \ufffd bois comme syst\ufffdme de chauffage. Est-ce que votre mari bricole? Faire de la moto de sentier pour les hommes? WOW c'est du sexisme. Il y a de plus en plus de jeunes filles qui pratiquent ce sport. Moto de sentier et motocross sont deux choses tr\ufffds diff\ufffdrentes. Le motocross se fait surtout sur la terre ou le sable, et consiste \ufffd faire des sauts. La moto de sentier se fait dans des sentiers parsem\ufffds d'emb\ufffdches tel des arbres couch\ufffds, de la boue etc. Si je pratique ce sport, c'est principalement parce que mon fils adore ce sport, et que le fait de le pratiquer ensemble, c \ufffde un lien tr\ufffds solide et difficile \ufffd obtenir autrement (c'est un \"teenager\"). J'essaie de ne jamais rien pr\ufffdvoir pour les fins de semaines. 1- Je suis c\ufffddule toute la semaine, 2- Tout ce que je pr\ufffdvoie tombe \ufffd l'eau. 3- J'aime bien la \"farniente\" quand c'est possible."}, {"response": 58, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Feb  5, 1998 (19:51)", "body": "C'est vrai ce que vous dites de marcher dans la foret...le decor majestuex fait vous couper le souffle. Derriere mon terrain se trouve du bois plein des cerfs, renards, opossums, et bien sur, plusiers ecureils et oiseaux. J'adore y marcher en ecoutant le bruit de la nature, mais toujours je me sens qu'il y a autre personne la, parce que j'entends casser les brindilles. Il m'est impossible a' accepter que je peux etre quelque part ou je suis la seule...il y a presque trop de paix-la. Lorsque qu'il neig et j'y marche, ca me donne un frisson ce qui transcend description. A l'autre cote, mes filles aiment faire la luge, construire un bonhomme de neige et rentrer pour du chocolate chaud avec trop de guimaves! Votre cottage ideal se ressemble a' le mien! J'aimais surtout le mezzanine et la cuisine a' l'aire ouverte. Pas de mensonge, nous avons un regle ici--il n'y a que deux personnes permises dans la cuisine a' une fois, and quand je cuisine le diner, personne ne peut entrer! Mon style d'architecture prefere c'est le Tudor, mais ils sont tres grands (et chers!) avec trop d'espace pour 4 personnes. Trop de nettoyer aussi! Mais ils sont beaux a' regarder, tres anglais/normands. Mon mari ne fait que bricoler quand il ne travaille pas! Il deteste faire la farniente. Ce week-end il a construit un etagere pour le grenier du garage pour organiser des choses dont on n'emploie jamais. Perte du temps selon moi. Probablement est tout organise par ordre alphabetique maintenant. J'y habite depuis 8 ans et je n'y suis jamais allee en haut. Autant que mon mari n'aime pas l'inactivite, cette semaine il regardera les Olympiques d'hiver, ce qu'il adore. D'habitude il ne croit pas a' rega der la tele, mais il fera une exception pour les Olympiques. Les aimez-vous? Je suis desolee, mais je considererai toujours la moto de sentier un sport des types, surtout les teenagers. Mais c'est la chose parfaite pour parent/enfant ' partager pour lier. Votre fils, il recevre son permis a' conduire cette annee, n'est-ce pas? J'etais confondue du motocross, je crois que je savais il faut sauter. Parler de sauter, qu'est-ce que vous pensez de la bosse? Suivez-vous un regime special? Moi, je suis vegetarienne, et j'emploie la phytotherapie aussi. Et vous? Ma famille recoit toujours des herbes pour des cadeaux. Mes parents ont un mouvement de recul en ouvrant leurs cadeaux et decouvrir du zinc, ou autre chose. Employez-vous du medicament alternatif?"}, {"response": 59, "author": "yves", "date": "Sat, Feb  7, 1998 (10:37)", "body": "Que vous trouviez qu'il y a trop de paix dans la for\ufffdt ne me surprend pas. Ma femme pense comme vous. Mais pour moi, c'est le meilleur m\ufffddicament contre le stress que je connaisse. Aussi, la for\ufffdt s'apprivoise. Je me souviens des premiers temps que je passais au terrain, tous les petits bruits me faisaient sursauter, Mais depuis que j'ai appris \ufffd les conna\ufffdtre, seuls les horribles humains peuvent me faire sursauter. Je passe la plupart de mes vacances au terrain, et le choc le plus dur c'est celui que j'a lorsque je d\ufffdbarque dans le centre-ville de Montr\ufffdal. Pouashh... Je crois que la neige existe principalement pour les enfants. Ils savent tirer profit de ce qui nous fait damner. A les voir jouer dans la neige si longtemps, sans geler, on se demande s'ils ont du sang dans les veines ou de l'antigel. J'aime bien le style Victorien, mais pr\ufffdf\ufffdre (pour l'instant) le moderne. Pour ma prochaine maison, je dois tenir compte du facteur d'ensoleillement, de l'entretient (ext\ufffdrieur), et surtout l'espace int\ufffdrieur (nous ne serons que deux). De plus, la maison doit faire partie du d\ufffdcor, ce qui exclue le style Victorien, car je veux laisser la for\ufffdt comme elle est (pas de pelouse). J'adore bricoler. C'est une autre fa\ufffdon de se d\ufffdtendre. De plus c'est presque indispensable de pouvoir travailler de ses mains lorsqu'on poss\ufffdde une maison. Je ne sais pas si je l'ai d\ufffdj\ufffd sp\ufffdcifi\ufffd, mais lorsque je vais b\ufffdtir ma prochaine maison, je donnerais \ufffd contrat l'\ufffdrection de la structure de la b\ufffdtisse seulement. J'ai l'intention de tout faire l'int\ufffdrieur moi-m\ufffdme, \ufffd temps perdus. Je vais s\ufffdrement regarder les Olympiques lorsque j'aurais du temps. Je ne suis pas un amateur de sports t\ufffdl\ufffdvis\ufffds. Je pr\ufffdf\ufffdre participer, mais pour les Olympiques, ils n'ont pas retenu ma candidature :o) . Lors des Olympiques de Montr\ufffdal de 1976, j'y ai travaill\ufffd comme technicien de son. C'\ufffdtait fantastique, c'est un des grands souvenirs que je conserve. Mon fils a obtenu son permis de conduire l'\ufffdt\ufffd dernier. Croyez-moi, lorsque votre enfant quitte la maison avec votre v\ufffdhicule pour la premi\ufffdre fois, \ufffda donne un puissant \"coup de vieux\". En moto, mon fils adore sauter les bosses. Moi, je passe \ufffd c\ufffdt\ufffd... C'est un sport tr\ufffds dur physiquement, mai tellement passionnant. et de plus c'est un excellent sujet de discussions au coin du feu, l'hiver. Nous ne suivons pas de r\ufffdgime particulier. Nous essayons de manger de fa\ufffdon saine, mais quelques fois, une bonne pizza... En blague, je dis souvent que je ne suis pas un lapin pour manger de l'herbe. Est-ce que toute votre famille est v\ufffdg\ufffdtarienne? Je connais beaucoup de gens qui sont v\ufffdg\ufffdtariens, et je trouve cela excellent pour eux. Nous avons une cha\ufffdne de restaurant v\ufffdg\ufffdtarien et c'est d\ufffdlicieux. Ce que je d\ufffdplore le plus, c'est que pour bien se nourrir, \ufffda co\ufffdte une fortune. Comme exemple, le prix de fruits l'hiver. Nous sommes des adeptes de l'acupuncture et de l'hom\ufffdopathie (m\ufffdme le chien bouffe des granules). J'ai horreur de la m\ufffddecine traditionnelle, mais malheureusement, nous ne pouvons passer \ufffd c\ufffdt\ufffd. Vous habitez relativement pr\ufffds de New York. C'est une ville que j'aimerais bien visiter. La connaissez-vous?"}, {"response": 60, "author": "autumn", "date": "Tue, Feb 10, 1998 (13:29)", "body": "Lorsque nous etions sur notre lune de miel nous avons vu le stade Olympique a' Montreal--c'est de l'architecture fascinante! Et vous y travailliez? Quel souvenir! Mon frere etait son propre entrepreneur de construction--ca lui a donne la satisfaction et mal a' la tete. Dans l'ensemble vous pourrez dormir en sachant que chaque clou est solide. Cela m'interesse que vous n'aurez pas de pelouse. Puis votre terrain sera une prolongation de la foret--quelle bonne idee! Quelles especes d'arbres avez-vous? Mon petit bois est plein des hetres, surtout, mais il y a aussi des erables, chenes et peupliers. Couperez-vous vos propres arbres pour chauffer la maison? Nous a hetons du bois pour bruler dans la cheminee, mais le temps fait si doux qu'on n'avait que deux feux cet hiver. :( On m'appelle une vegetarienne \"lacto-ovo-pesca\", ce qui veut dire que je mange du lait, des oeufs et des fruits du mer. Mon mari et mes filles sont obliges a' suivre le meme regime (ou avoir faim!) Mais lorsque ma fille ainee est chez ses grands-parents le mercredi, elle mange toujours un hot dog. Quel est le nom de la chaine vegetarienne-la? Je n'en connais pas ni la ni ici. Vous avez raison de se plaindre de la coute de l'alimentation saine: le bon pain, les fruits/legumes organiques, tous les pri sont astronomiques. En Californie, tous les produits sont organiques par loi--et tres, tres chers. Je suis curieuse de l'acupuncture--marche-t-il? Blesse-t-il? Il faut que je vous dise que je deteste de grandes villes, elles m'accablent, surtout NYC! Pas brin d'herbe, pas d'arbre, des tas du monde, du bruit, des ordures, des voitures...J'y suis allee deux fois pour des visites culturelles, et apres la deuxieme fois j'ai jure a' ne jamais rentrer. Puisque vous vous habituez a' Montreal, peut-etre NYC ne vous generait pas autant. Mais je trouvais Montreal une plutot belle ville, et NYC est la ville la plus laide que j'ai deja vue! Je crois que Zurich etait la lus belle."}, {"response": 61, "author": "yves", "date": "Sat, Feb 14, 1998 (02:31)", "body": "Vivre des jeux Olympiques est une chose que l'on n'oublie jamais. C'est tellement grandiose, impressionnant, et aussi tr\ufffds fort \ufffdmotivement. C'\ufffdtait aussi tr\ufffds agr\ufffdable de voir tant de gens de tout les pays se promener partout dans la ville. Le stade est peut-\ufffdtre solide, mais il nous a co\ufffdt\ufffd tr\ufffds cher. Un autre \ufffdv\ufffdnement spectaculaire dont je me souviens agr\ufffdablement, c'est l'exposition universelle de 1967. C'\ufffdtait la foire tout les jours, durant tout l'\ufffdt\ufffd. La pelouse est un \ufffdl\ufffdment tr\ufffds d\ufffdcoratif dans un am\ufffdnagement paysager et je ne suis pas contre. Mais je vais b\ufffdtir ma maison sur un terrain enti\ufffdrement bois\ufffd dans milieu forestier. Je tiens \ufffd pr\ufffdserver ce d\ufffdcor magnifique. De plus, les couleurs naturelles de la for\ufffdt apportent un effet relaxant in\ufffdgalable. La for\ufffdt est compos\ufffde, par ordre de grandeur, de sapins, merisiers, \ufffdrables, pr\ufffdches, h\ufffdtre et quelques bouleaux blancs. Je coupe moi-m\ufffdme mon bois de foyer, mais je ne coupe que les arbres morts, sur m n terrain et dans les environs. Les branches mortes me servent \ufffd faire des feux de camp les soirs d'\ufffdt\ufffd. Vous ne mangez que des oeufs, des fruits de mer et du lait? Euhh j'aime bien les fruits de mer, mais comme votre fille a\ufffdn\ufffde, j'irais faire des tours chez mes grands parents... Quelle est le but de ce r\ufffdgime? La cha\ufffdne de restaurant v\ufffdg\ufffdtarien s'appelle \"Le Commensal\". Il y en a plusieurs au Qu\ufffdbec, c'est d\ufffdlicieux, vari\ufffd et je ne suis pas v\ufffdg\ufffdtarien. L'acupuncture est une m\ufffddecine naturelle tr\ufffds efficace tout comme l'hom\ufffdopathie d'ailleurs. Les aiguilles sont tr\ufffds fines et ne blessent nullement. Ma femme suit elle aussi des traitements chez l'acupuncteur. Chez-moi, nous ne prenons des m\ufffddicaments que lorsque nous ne pouvons faire autrement, et c'est tr\ufffds tr\ufffds rare. Vous d\ufffdtestez les grandes villes, vous avez peur en for\ufffdt, donc les grands espaces doivent vous convenir? Est-ce que vous aimez les foules, les centres d'achats? Ce que j'aime regarder dans les grandes villes ou ailler, ce sont les gens. Ce sont eux qui cr\ufffdent l'ambiance d'un lieu. J'aimerais bien voir, sentir la vie de NYC. Je ne dis pas que j'y passerais ma vie, pas plus qu'\ufffd Montr\ufffdal, mais simplement satisfaire ma curiosit\ufffd."}, {"response": 62, "author": "autumn", "date": "Tue, Feb 17, 1998 (13:15)", "body": "Je n'ai jamais assiste a' une exposition universelle--est-ce qu'elles ont lieu encore? On n'en entend plus. Vous avez mentionne qu'il ya des bouleaux blancs sur votre terrain--c'est un de mes arbres preferes! Mes parents en ont un chez eux, mais la plupart sont morts aux EU a' cause d'une peste. Peut-etre le froideur au Canada tue cette peste? Mon autre arbre prefere, c'est le saule pleureur. Ils ont si beaux et possedent une telle fluidite. Beaucoup du monde les deteste comme un embetement; leurs racines poussent trop longues et enveloppent des conduits, etc. (j'ai presque ecrit \"pipes\" mais je vois dans l dictionnaire qu'ils ne sont qu' a' fumer. En anglais \"pipe\" veut dire tous les deux sens. Grand faux pas!) Les merisiers sont tres populaires ici (la sorte qui ne porte pas des fruits). Question stupide: Pourquoi est-ce qu'on les appellent merisiers au lieu de cerisiers? Quand vous faites des feux de camp, preparez-vous des \"s'mores?\" C'est-a-dire une guimave grillee et du chocolat sur un biscuit de farine complete--je ne pouvais trouver la traduction dans la dictionnaire. (Vous m'avez vraiment obligee a' faire des recherches aujourd'hui!) Vous recommandez l'acupuncture, eh? Faites-vous la bougie en oreille? Je mets des bougies dans l'oreille pour les nettoyer, vous comprenez? La traduction me rate ici, je crois... J'ai du rire quand vous avez decrit mon regime! Quand je dis \"lacto-ovo-pesca\" vegetarienne, je veux dire que ce sont les seuls produits des animaux que je mange. En plus, je mange beacoup d'autres choses, surtout les flocons d'avoine, la soupe et les bananes. Peut-etre voulez-vous encore aller chez vos grands parents! Je suis une telle enigme, n'est-ce pas? Haine des villes, nerveuse en foret, grande haine des foules et centres d'achats!, mal de mer, le vertige...la liste continue...Il vaut mieux que je m'installe quelque part assez petit et facile a' connaitre entouree' d'un melange de la nature et de gens. Ou est cet endroit, savez-vous? he he he"}, {"response": 63, "author": "yves", "date": "Fri, Feb 20, 1998 (02:34)", "body": "Les expositions universelles existent toujours. Il y a eu celle d'Osaka, et la derni\ufffdre je crois, se trouvait \ufffd Barcelone. Ce sont des expositions grandioses o\ufffd l'on retrouve des pavillons de tous les pays avec leurs coutumes, nourritures, musiques etc. Il y a aussi des pavillons th\ufffdmatiques sur diff\ufffdrents sujets comme l'environnement, les technologies etc. Le seul c\ufffdt\ufffd n\ufffdgatif, c'est qu'elles attirent beaucoup de monde et qu'il faut faire la ligne \ufffd chaque pavillon.... Nous n'avons pas de bouleau blanc en tr\ufffds grande quantit\ufffd, et ce sont des arbres fragiles. Nous en avons deux magnifiques de plus de 16\" de diam\ufffdtre, et une dizaine de moins de 6\" de diam\ufffdtre. Je ne connais pas l'origine du mot \"merisier\". Mais l'arbre est tr\ufffds diff\ufffdrent du cerisier, et comme vous le mentionniez, il ne porte pas de fruits. Ici, nous l'appelons aussi bouleau jaune, \ufffd cause de son \ufffdcorce qui ressemble un peu \ufffd celui du bouleau blanc. Nous en avons en bonne quantit\ufffd, et deux d'entre eux ont lus de 3' de diam\ufffdtre, ils sont splendides. Les saules pleureurs sont des arbres magnifiques. Ils ont un feuillage fin qui rappelle la dentelle, et qui flotte dans le vent. Mais justement \ufffd cause de leur grande soif d'humidit\ufffd, ils sont interdits dans les banlieues car les terrains ne sont pas tr\ufffds grands, et comme vous dites, les racines ont tendance \ufffd percer les tuyaux d'eau. M\ufffdme si vous auriez \ufffdcrit \"pipes\", j'aurais tr\ufffds bien compris, puisque que c'est un mot que l'on utilise souvent pour les motos e les autos, en parlant des tuyaux d'\ufffdchappement (exhaust pipe). Votre langue est plus facile que la notre: you = tu ou vous, pipe = pipe ou tuyau. Il y a une expression qui me tracasse. \"I put my $0.02 on that\". Je comprend bien le sens mais ce qui m'intrigue c'est le 2 cents. A ce que je sache, il existe des 1 cent, 5 cents, mais pas de 2 cents, alors pourquoi? L'expression s'more m'a fait rire. L'image qui m'est tout de suite venue est celle d'une bande d'enfants autour d'un feu et qui crient \"s'more s'more s'more \". Pour r\ufffdpondre \ufffd votre question, parfois quand il y a des enfants, nous avons des guimauves. Mais pour les biscuits, je ne connais pas cette coutume, j'aimerais avoir plus de d\ufffdtails. G\ufffdn\ufffdralement, lorsque nous faisons des feux de camp, nous ne sommes que quelques adultes et souvent, je suis seul. C'est pour moi un grand moment de d\ufffdtente. Je suis heureux que vous aillez due chercher dans le dictionnaire. C'est ma revanche, car lorsque j'\ufffdcris en anglais, je passe beaucoup plus de temps le nez dans le dictionnaire qu'\ufffd \ufffdcrire :o) Bon. Des bougies dans les oreilles. Non, je ne comprend pas. Est-ce que c'est pour nettoyer les oreilles ou les bougies? Je me vois mal aller travailler avec des bougies dans les oreilles, elles seraient toujours \ufffdteintes, surtout lorsque je vais travailler \ufffd moto :o))) Je ne connais pas ce proc\ufffdd\ufffd, est-ce que c'est efficace? Quel est le principe? Cela m'int\ufffdresse puisque notre chienne a d'\ufffdnormes probl\ufffdmes d'oreille. Pourquoi avez-vous choisi ce r\ufffdgime alimentaire? Si vous n'aimez pas la ville, les foules etc., comment faites-vous pour voyager? Je crois que pour vous, l'endroit id\ufffdal est la campagne. Des grands espaces, quelques petits bois\ufffds, peu de gens qui se connaissent tous, et beaucoup de l\ufffdgumes frais..."}, {"response": 64, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Feb 25, 1998 (21:00)", "body": "Je ne peux penser ni en francais ni en anglais...tout le monde ici a la grippe, sauf moi, et j'ai mal a' la tete terrible! C'est la premiere fois qu'on a du manquer un service pour \"mercredi de cendre\" (pauvre traduction, sans doute). Vous etes religieux? Je promets a' ecrire bientot quand le brouillard se leve. J'espere que votre famille va bien--la cote de l'est entiere etait frappe par ce virus, je crois. Restez en bonne sante!"}, {"response": 65, "author": "yves", "date": "Thu, Feb 26, 1998 (02:16)", "body": "OHH. J'ai pass\ufffd le virus scan sur votre message :o) Votre traduction est excellente sauf qu'on \ufffdcrit \"des cendres\", et je dois ajouter que votre Fran\ufffdais est tr\ufffds bon, surtout pour quelqu'un qui n'est pas dans un milieu francophone. Le plus difficile, autant pour moi que pour vous, est de placer les mots dans le bon ordre, et pour cela, il ne faut pas traduire litt\ufffdralement. Je suis Catholique croyant, mais non pratiquant. Pour le moment, nous n'avons pas la grippe, mais beaucoup de gens l'ont. Nous prenons de la vitamine C, et de l'ail en capsule. Je vous souhaite ainsi qu'\ufffd votre famille un prompt r\ufffdtablissement. Ici on dit qu'une grippe mal soign\ufffde dure 7 jours et que bien soign\ufffde, elle dure une semaine. Prenez soin des vous."}, {"response": 66, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Feb 27, 1998 (21:25)", "body": "LOL! Puis je compte que la grippe restera une semaine au lieu de 7 jours, parce qu'ils se soignent bien! Nous ici prenons Vit C, l'ail, l'echinacea (?), feverfew (?), Vit A, B, E, selenium (?) et le fer. Vous etes deja alle' a' la conference de sante ici? Elle est interessante. Mon mari est catholique, mais les petites et moi, nous sommes methodistes. Je sais qu'il y a beaucoup de presbyteriens au Canada, mais probablement la plupart des Quebecois sont catholiques, n'est-ce pas? Je m'excite parce qu'on commence a' faire des projets pour rentrer au Vieux Quebec pour notre dixieme anniversaire en juilliet. La derniere fois nous sommes restes au Chateau Frontenac (oolala!), mais cette fois on va rester au \"lit et petit-dejeuner\" (une autre de mes traductions litterales!) sur la errace Dufferin. L'emplacement va bien pour des enfants, je crois. Ici, c'est le printemps...les fleurs s'epanouissent, l'herbe est verte, et les oies reviennent de Floride. C'est la premiere fois que je me souviens un hiver sans neige, pas de flacon. Ca me rappelle une question: les Quebecois que \"se souviennent-ils\" sur les plaques d'immatriculation? Quelqu'un m'a demande, et j'ai dit que j'avais une source infaillible! Mes parents viennent de rentrer de Floride, ou ils sont restes 10 milles de ces tornades mortelles. Bonne chance a' mon pere a' convaincre ma mere a' aller en vacances de nouveau! Prenez-vous des vacances cette annee, ou vous occupez-vous de construire votre maison tout le temps libre? Merci de vos compliments sur mon francais! D'habitude je suis perfectionniste, mais c'est difficile en un autre langage! Votre anglais est tres bon, avez-vous remarque que les autres ne se rendent pas compte que vous n'etes pas anglophone? C'est un secret!"}, {"response": 67, "author": "yves", "date": "Tue, Mar  3, 1998 (01:24)", "body": "Nous subissons le supplice de l`echinacee. D\ufffds que mon fils ou moi avons un petit toussotement, nous avons droit aux 10 gouttes de ce feu liquide avec un peu d'eau. Il n'y a pas un virus qui peut survivre \ufffd un tel traitement. De plus nous avons un large \ufffdvantail de vitamines (toutes les lettres de l'alphabet, je crois, ou je me m\ufffdlange avec la soupe??). Au Qu\ufffdbec, la majorit\ufffd des francophones sont catholiques, et les anglophones protestants. Nous avons aussi les T\ufffdmoins de J\ufffdhovah qui nous rendent visite le samedi matin, et quelques Mormons. Comme l'immigration est assez importante, nous avons des petits groupes de presque toutes les religions. Vous avez d'excellents projets. De plus, le taux d'\ufffdchange du U.S.$ est tr\ufffds avantageux pour vous, et m'emp\ufffdche de penser traverser la fronti\ufffdre. Bed & breakfast se traduit g\ufffdn\ufffdralement par \"couette et caf\ufffd\" qui est plus une image qu'une traduction. Si vous avez la chance d'aller plus loin, la r\ufffdgion de Charlevoix vaut une visite. Je ne sais pas si vous avez regard\ufffd le site web de la toile du Qu\ufffdbec, mais il y a \ufffdnorm\ufffdment d'informations tr\ufffds int\ufffdressantes, et vous pouvez aussi y trouver une version angla se. Chez nous, la temp\ufffdrature se r\ufffdchauffe, la neige fond rapidement, mais c\ufffdt\ufffd sport, \ufffda devient difficile. Si jamais il tombe des flacons chez vous, n'oubliez pas de porter des chapeaux de construction . Je pr\ufffdf\ufffdre nos flocons \ufffd vos flacons. C'est plus froid, mais moins dur :o) (Je crois qu'une erreur de typographie s'est gliss\ufffde hi hi ). \"Je me souviens\" est la devise du Qu\ufffdbec, c'est en quelque sorte un regard sur le pass\ufffd pour b\ufffdtir l'avenir. Nous sommes tr\ufffds fiers de ce que nos p\ufffdres et m\ufffdres nous ont laiss\ufffd. Vos parents ont eu de la chance, 10 miles c'est tr\ufffds pr\ufffds. Ils ont d\ufffd ressentir la tornade, m\ufffdme s'ils n'\ufffdtaient pas au centre? Oui, je crois que votre p\ufffdre aura beaucoup de travail de persuasion \ufffd faire. Mais ce sont des catastrophes qui peuvent arriver n'importe o\ufffd, n'importe quand. Lors d'un voyage en Virginie, nous avons v\ufffdcu des orages si violents qu'ils fallait arr\ufffdter la voiture sur le c\ufffdt\ufffd de la route tellement les vents et la pluie \ufffdtaient violents. plusieurs arbres et poteaux d'\ufffdlectricit\ufffd jonc aient le sol, et c'\ufffdtait au Maryland.(Refilez l'information \ufffd votre p\ufffdre). La perfection, oui, je connais bien. Cependant j'ai appris avec le temps, que la perfection est parfois inutile, qu'il n'est pas n\ufffdcessaire de \"livrer plus de marchandise que le client en demande\". Mais j'avoue qu'il est tr\ufffds difficile de trouver le juste milieu. Ce qui me manque en anglais, c'est un vocabulaire plus \ufffdlabor\ufffd, et souvent je dois deviner le sens de certaines phrases. Je ne m'aventure pas dans des discussions tr\ufffds avanc\ufffdes. Mais, depuis que je participe \ufffd divers groupes de discussion, je voi une tr\ufffds nette am\ufffdlioration. Pour apprendre une langue \ufffdtrang\ufffdre, rien ne vaut l'immersion. Donc lors de votre voyage au Qu\ufffdbec, n'ayez aucune g\ufffdne, car nous sommes toujours ravis de voir quelqu'un s'efforcer de parler fran\ufffdais. Pour nos vacances, nous ne pouvons rien projeter pour l'instant, car effectivement, si nous b\ufffdtissons, l'\ufffdt\ufffd sera consacr\ufffd \ufffd la construction mais r\ufffdaliser ce r\ufffdve ne seras pas une corv\ufffde :o)"}, {"response": 68, "author": "autumn", "date": "Tue, Mar 10, 1998 (10:35)", "body": "La semaine passee etait eprouvante pour les nerfs. Plus j'essayais, plus j'ai rate! En anglais il y a quelques expressions dont vous en avez des pareilles, probablement: \"Je ne peux gagner pour perdre\" et \"Un pas en avant, deux pas en arriere.\" Cela explique l'inutilite de ma semaine! J'espere que la votre etait meilleure. Vous vous plaignez de l'echinacee, mais je ne savais pas qu'elle avait un mauvais gout; ici on la prend en capsule. Mes filles regimbent contre des pillules de l'ail, donc je le leur donne avec leurs vitamines parfumees. Peur-etre vous et votre fils en avez-vous besoin! Elles sont disponibles en formes des animaux aussi! J'avais deja visite le \"toile du Quebec\" mais jamais leur lien du tourisme. Merci de votre idee, cela serai une bonne ressource. Mais je ne le regarderai jamais en anglais--j'aime un defi! Mes parents ont ressenti le vent en Floride, mais n'avaient aucune idee du tornade qui passait. Je crois qu'il aurait ete pire s'ils etaient alles en californie, ou la boue glisse les maisons dans l'ocean (et il n'y a pas d'assurance disponible!) J'espere desesperament que notre voyage en Nouvelle Angleterre et Que ec ne sera pas charge avec des desastres, naturels ou autrement! Je veux deux semaines sans pluie avec des temperatures assez chaudes. Toutes nos activites sont de plein air, et rester a' l'hotel ou faire du shopping--ennuyeux. Je rejoigne avec d'autres amies en achetant des produits naturels par vente de gros. Ce n'est pas aussi cher que les magasins, et on les livre a' la maison. J'ai depense $86 (US) sur ma premiere commande. Je ne peux pas m'offrir a' economiser tellement! Vous batissiez ce week-end? Il a tant plu ici que j'aurais presque peur de tomber en le Chesapeake si j'etais sur une falaise! Je voulais aller au zoo aujourd'hui (pas d'ecole), mais maintenant il sera trop marecageux. :-( Je vous souhaite une bonne semaine."}, {"response": 69, "author": "yves", "date": "Wed, Mar 18, 1998 (12:35)", "body": "Le printemps et l'automne sont pour moi deux saisons difficiles \ufffd traverser. Le changement de temp\ufffdrature nous affecte physiquement (l'\ufffdpaisseur du sang change et cela demande beaucoup d'\ufffdnergie), les activit\ufffds d'hiver sont finies et celles de l'\ufffdt\ufffd encore loin. J'ai beaucoup de projets, mais rien de certain. C'est la d\ufffdprime du printemps. L'\ufffdchinac\ufffde n'a pas \"mauvais\" go\ufffdt, mais plut\ufffdt \"hot\" surtout les premi\ufffdres fois, ensuite on s'habitue, et c'est tr\ufffds efficace. Pour ce qui est des vitamines en forme d'animaux :o))), ma femme ne veut pas, elle dit qu'il y aurait des batailles pour avoir les petits cochons roses :o)). A quel p\ufffdriode de l'\ufffdt\ufffd avez-vous l'intention de visiter la Nouvelle Angleterre et le Qu\ufffdbec? Il n'y a rien de plus impr\ufffdvisible que la temp\ufffdrature, surtout lorsqu'El Nino r\ufffdde dans les parages. Je ne sais pas s'il affectera encore les temp\ufffdratures l'\ufffdt\ufffd prochain. Quelques journ\ufffdes de pluie ne sont pas catastrophiques, \ufffd condition d'avoir un bon imperm\ufffdable. Une promenade en for\ufffdt sous la pluie \ufffd quelque chose de tr\ufffds po\ufffdtique. Et si vous devez faire du shopping, ce sera une excellente fa\ufffdon d'am\ufffdliorer v tre fran\ufffdais, et \ufffd 30% de rabais :o) Je n'ai pas d\ufffdbut\ufffd la construction de la maison, c'est encore \ufffd l'\ufffdtat de projet, et comme c'est un projet assez dispendieux, je dois v\ufffdrifier plusieurs co\ufffdts avant d'aller de l'avant. De plus, ma femme h\ufffdsite et je dois la convaincre de la faisabilit\ufffd du projet. Je dois me rendre chez l'accupuncteur, j'esp\ufffdre qu'il r\ufffdussira \ufffd recharger mes batteries. A la prochaine, prenez soin de vous et des votres."}, {"response": 70, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sun, Apr  5, 1998 (17:49)", "body": "Bonjour, Yves! Souvenez-vous de moi?? Le temps faisait trop beau d'etre dedans ces semaines, les temperatures allait de 70 a' 92! Nous nous amusons beacoup en redecouvrant les bois, l'herbe, les fleurs...En plus, ma fille cadette vient de celebrer son quatrieme anniversaire, qui se traduit en beaucoup du travail pour moi. Je me crois aux anniversaires demodes, avec beaucoup de jeux, activites, et je me prepare plusieurs semaines afin que son surprise-partie serait parfait. La fete des Paques, c'est la prochaine grande celebration dont preparer. Qu'est-ce que vous en ferez? Nous aimons colorer des oeufs et faire la chasse avec des oeufs en plastiques caches. Ensuite mon autre fille aura six ans, et BAM--un autre surprise-partie dont preparer! Avril, c'est plus occupe chez nous que decembre, je pense. Et vous--vous avez un bon gout du printemps? Ou El Nino, vous garde-t-il en suspense? Je vois beaucoup de motos, ces jours-ci...."}, {"response": 71, "author": "yves", "date": "Fri, Apr 10, 1998 (10:06)", "body": "Autumn je suis toujours l\ufffd, de ce temps ci je suis tr\ufffds occup\ufffd. Je vous souhait de joyeuses P\ufffdques \ufffd vous et \ufffd votre famille, et je reviens bient\ufffdt."}, {"response": 72, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Apr 10, 1998 (12:47)", "body": "Je vous souhaite aussi une joyeuse fete de Paques. Ne mangez pas trop de chocolat..."}, {"response": 73, "author": "jgross", "date": "Wed, Sep 23, 1998 (23:37)", "body": "J'ai vu Tommy et Bill \ufffd Nice. Ils ne m'ont pas vu. Je me cachais derri\ufffdre Natasha Lyonne. Je m'asseyais, et elle se levait. Il \ufffdtait facile de faire. Ils \ufffdtaient \ufffd la prochaine table. Et Natasha \ufffdtait tr\ufffds agile et alerte. Plus tard cette apr\ufffds-midi j'\ufffdtais \ufffdgalement \ufffd Austin. Le premier anniversaire de Lulu \ufffdtait la semaine derni\ufffdre. Aujourd'hui Baracuda (le chien de son parent) l'a mordue sur le nez et l\ufffdvre (une morsure). Ni l'un ni l'autre parent n'\ufffdtait \ufffd la maison. Juste moi et la garde d'enfants. Mais je n'\ufffdtais pas l\ufffd quand il s'est produit. Il s'est produit sur le porche plan. Je vis dans la arri\ufffdre-cour, o\ufffd le garage est. Diana et Bahi (parents de Lulu) n'ont pas laiss\ufffd un num\ufffdro de t\ufffdl\ufffdphone pour Susan, la garde d'enfants, \ufffd l'appel pour des urgences m\ufffddicales. Mais Lulu a cess\ufffd de pleurer, ainsi nous avons juste d\ufffdcid\ufffd d'attendre Diana pour venir \ufffd la maison. Ce ne serait pas trop long. Je les ai laiss\ufffds quand Diana est revenue. Elle allait porter Lulu au docteur pour des points. Mais quand Susan est revenu pour m'obtenir, elle \ufffdtait *flustered* et a d\ufffdrang\ufffd au sujet de Lulu. Susan est dans ses mi-ann\ufffdes '20. Mais je pourrais voir que Lulu se fixait fondamentalement et faire vrai bien dans les circonstances. Ainsi j'ai juste essay\ufffd de calmer Susan vers le bas en jouant avec Lulu et en montrant Susan que Lulu \ufffdtait dans la forme tr\ufffds bonne, juste secou\ufffd vers le haut. Lulu est vraiment amusement \ufffd tenir et jouer avec. Un gosse tr\ufffds bon. Diana doit informer des gardes d'enfants, dor\ufffd avant, au sujet de Barracuda ne s'entendant pas avec Lulu, que Diana conna\ufffdt , et elle doit obtenir les num\ufffdros de t\ufffdl\ufffdphone essentiels \ufffd la garde d'enfants, aussi. M\ufffdme va pour Bahi."}, {"response": 74, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Sep 25, 1998 (12:36)", "body": "Selon moi, il vaut mieux qu'ils se debarassent de Barracuda tout a' fait! Quel sale chien! Il n'y a pas de place pour tels chiens (surtout avec un nom comme \"Barracuda\") dans une maison avec des enfants. Pauvre Susan, c'est toujours pire pour la responsable que l'enfant! On n'a pas de perspective, comme un voisin. Y habitez-vous depuis longtemps? D'ou vient Bahi? Je vais deviner: du Hawaii? du Moyen-Orient? Peut-etre Egypte? Je ne peux decider l'origine de ce prenom. Ou avez-vous appris le francais? C'est une fete pour mes yeux a' le voir, parce que je ne le lis pas souvent. Merci mille fois! J'aime bien \"tendre mes muscles\" francais. Apprendre aux enfants, c'est satisfaisant, mais cela ne m'offre pas de defi, vous savez. Mais je ne sais pas encore changer mon clavier au francais pour faire des accents, cedilles, etc. Pourriez-vous me l'expliquer? En ce qui concerne Tommy et Bill: Enfin, ils ont quitte BWI? La derniere fois que j'y etais, ils dormaient sous le comptoir d'Air France. Je suppose qu'ils sont arrives a' Lyon d'abord, et puis ont pris le train a' Nice."}, {"response": 75, "author": "jgross", "date": "Sat, Sep 26, 1998 (14:31)", "body": "Autumn, je ne sais pas un mot du fran\ufffdais. Ainsi o\ufffd I \" l'a-t-il appris \"? D'ici: http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate ? D\ufffdcevoir, n'est-ce pas? L'amp\ufffdreheure, ainsi lui dispara\ufffdt... N\ufffdanmoins, c'est amusement et il familiarise le langage pour moi. J'obtiens davantage utilis\ufffd \ufffd voir les mots. Mais j'ai pari\ufffd que ces traductions suis joli bowdlerized- d'anglais-fran\ufffdais, ai je raison? Voyez, je ne saurait pas. Je souhaite que c'ait \ufffdt\ufffd une ann\ufffde avant vous m'ait interrog\ufffd au sujet de mon fran\ufffdais, parce que c'c\ufffdtait amusement \ufffd faire avec vous. Mais il a d\ufffd \ufffdtre expos\ufffd autrefois, oui? _______________________________________________ Ce qui pr\ufffdc\ufffdde a \ufffdt\ufffd traduit de cet anglais [The above was translated from this English]: Autumn, I don't know a word of French. So where did I \"learn\" it? From here: http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate ? Disappointing, isn't it? Ah, so it goes.... Even so, it's fun and it familiarizes the language a little for me. I get more used to seeing the words. But I bet these translations are pretty bowdlerized---from English to French, am I right? See, I wouldn't know. I wish it had been a year before you asked me about my French, because this WAS fun to do with you. But it had to be exposed sometime, yes? ________________________________________________ Votre derni\ufffdre r\ufffdponse a \ufffdt\ufffd traduite en cet anglais [Your last response was translated into this English]: In my opinion, it is better that they debarassent of Barracuda all a' made! What a salts dog! There is no place for such dogs (especially with a name like \"Barracuda \") in a house with children. Poor Susan, it is always worse for the person in charge than the child! There is not a prospect, like a neighbor. There do you live for a long time? From or comes Bahi? I will guess: from Hawaii? from the Middle East? Perhaps Egypt? I cannot decider the origin of this first name. Or did you learn French? It is a fete for my eyes a' to see it, because I often do not read it. Thank you thousand times! I like \" to tighten my French muscles \". To learn to the children, it is satisfactory, but that does not offer a challenge to me, you know. But I cannot change my keyboard with French yet to make accents, cedilles, etc. Could you to me explain it? With regard to Tommy and Bill: Lastly, they have leaves BWI? The derniere time that I was there, they slept under the counter of Air France. I suppose that they are arrive a' Lyon initially, and then travelled by the train a' Nice. ___________________________________________________ Ce que vous avez lu et avez r\ufffdpondu \ufffd dans votre derni\ufffdre r\ufffdponse, a \ufffdt\ufffd traduit de cet anglais [What you read and responded to in your last response, was translated from this English]: I saw Tommy and George in Nice. They didn't see me. I was hiding behind Natasha Lyonne. I was sitting down, and she was standing up. It was easy to do. They were at the next table. And Natasha was very agile and alert. Later that afternoon I was also in Austin. Lulu's first birthday was last week. Today Baracuda (her parent's dog) bit her on the nose and lip (one bite). Neither parent was home. Just me and the babysitter. But I wasn't there when it happened. It happened on the front porch. I live in the backyard, where the garage is. Diana and Bahi (Lulu's parents) didn't leave a phone number for Susan, the babysitter, to call for medical emergencies. But Lulu stopped crying, so we just decided to wait for Diana to come home. That wouldn't be too long. I left them when Diana got back. She was going to take Lulu to the doctor for stitches. But when Susan came back to get me, she was flustered and upset about Lulu. Susan is in her mid-twenties. But I could see that Lulu was basically settling down and doing real well under the circumstances. So I just tried to calm Susan down by playing with Lulu and showing Susan that Lulu was in pretty good shape, just a little shaken up. Lulu is really fun to hold and play with. A pretty good kid. Diana needs to inform babysitters, from now on, about Barracuda not getting along with Lulu, which Dian knows about, and she needs to get the vital phone numbers to the babysitter, too. Same goes for Bahi. __________________________________________________ J'ai essay\ufffd d'\ufffdcrire en anglais tr\ufffds simple, ainsi il ne devrait pas en tant que dur traduire [I tried to write in very simple English, so it wouldn't be as hard to translate]."}, {"response": 76, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Sep 26, 1998 (22:50)", "body": "LOL!!! That's a pretty good joke on me, Jim!! You could've easily carried it off a few years--that makes me wonder now if Yves was screwing with me! It is easy to see that the translator \"thinks\" in French--that is, when in doubt it uses the French sentence structure, even in English. My response is hilarious because I don't have the keyboard set to French, so it wouldn't recognize my apostrophe accents! Your French was stilted, but very comprehensible (and correctly spelled!). On the whole, it does LOT better in French than in English, which makes me wonder how its Italian and German are. (*thinking evil thoughts*) God, I could have a lot of fun with this with some folks I know..."}, {"response": 77, "author": "jgross", "date": "Sun, Sep 27, 1998 (01:51)", "body": "And you're alotta fun when I'm not playing a joke on you. I'm glad you know what's up now. It's really funny that I regretted so much, at the time, breaking the news to you, because it was getting way up there on the fun meter---but now I can't even remember the feeling it had for me, and it just feels great that things are the way they are now, with you in the know. I guess I'm saying that now it's gotten way up there on the relief meter. Musta been some guilt and pressure I was feeling all the while......or I mean: Et vous \ufffdtes amusement d'alotta quand je ne joue pas une plaisanterie sur vous. Je suis heureux vous sais ce qui est vers le haut maintenant. Il est vraiment dr\ufffdle que j'aie regrett\ufffd tellement, lorsque, cassant les nouvelles \ufffd vous, parce qu'il obtenait la voie vers le haut l\ufffd sur l'amusement m\ufffdtre-mais maintenant je ne puis pas m\ufffdme me rappeler le sentiment qu'il a eu pour moi, et il se sent juste grand que les choses sont la voie ils sont maintenant, avec vous dans le savoir. Je devine que je dis qu'i est maintenant obtenu la voie vers le haut l\ufffd sur le m\ufffdtre de soulagement. Musta \ufffdt\ufffd une certaines culpabilit\ufffd et pression que je me sentais que tout le moment.......ou moi signifiez:"}, {"response": 78, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Sep 30, 1998 (21:51)", "body": "Ah, vous etes un tel coquin! :-)"}, {"response": 79, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, Feb 15, 1999 (21:59)", "body": "=-) cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 14, "subject": "Esperantic Studies Foundation", "response_count": 3, "posts": [{"response": 3, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Apr  4, 1998 (23:15)", "body": "Very interesting, wer! I have often thought that esperanto was an idea whose time had come (but then again I thought the same thing about the metric system, and that has yet to arrive). For instance, I always wondered why the word \"phonetic\" isn't spelled the way it sounds. Do you speak esperanto, wer?"}, {"response": 5, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sun, Apr  5, 1998 (18:33)", "body": "I'll have to check the non-credit listings for my community college!! :-)"}, {"response": 7, "author": "WERoland", "date": "Sun, Aug 28, 2005 (19:35)", "body": "actually, we could talk about any constructed language, not just Esperanto, I suppose cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 15, "subject": "American Indian Movement", "response_count": 2, "posts": [{"response": 2, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Jul  2, 2001 (02:16)", "body": "So much of what people \"know\" about Native Americans comes from unreliable sources, like novels and movies. Much of the information floating around out there and even in text books has filtered down to us from the dime paperback novel of the mid and late 19th century. Most of these sources were created by people that had never seen an Amerindian, let alone understood their culture. Let's explore Amerindian culture in this topic."}, {"response": 3, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Jul 16, 2001 (13:08)", "body": "This site is a great repository of Amerindian links. You could spend ages there .. just looking around. http://www.klingon.org/native/pages/index.html cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 16, "subject": "Becoming a Peacemaker", "response_count": 10, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Jun 15, 1998 (13:36)", "body": "At my daughter's Montessori school, they have a silk rose called the peace rose. Whenever two children get in a disagreement, another child can go get the peace rose and give it to them. They each take a turn holding the rose and telling their side of the story; they can't be interrupted or challenged. Then they arrive at a compromise and the rose goes back into its vase. It's pretty cool to ask your child what she did at school that day and hear her answer, \"I was a peacemaker between Jenny and Tedd .\""}, {"response": 2, "author": "batwood", "date": "Sat, Jun 20, 1998 (21:15)", "body": "hi everybody. not sure what to do in this place. pressed the \"Help\" button but got a popup saying \"Netscape is unable to locate the server: www.spring.com guess i'll have to help myself ;-) so what's for dinner? hope i'm not too late. actually i'm moving and should be packing boxes rather than engaging in this avoidance behavior so i guess i'll be going for now. lest someone suggests this post is not on-topic...i surely agree. just can't help myself. can't get help. hopeless situation. hopeless. love and freedom , bill"}, {"response": 3, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sun, Jun 21, 1998 (00:33)", "body": "Evening, Bill! What kind of help were you looking for?"}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jun 21, 1998 (10:16)", "body": "Just moved myself. Welcome!"}, {"response": 5, "author": "batwood", "date": "Sun, Jun 21, 1998 (23:48)", "body": "\"Evening, Bill! What kind of help were you looking for?\" don't remember. actually i'm the kind of guy that wanders on the lot, kicks the tires, takes it for a spin around the block, and then complains about the tinny radio. among the many other things i be and do...one of which is _not_, thus far, breathing life into this <conference?> how about it folks? any questions?"}, {"response": 6, "author": "riette", "date": "Tue, Jun 23, 1998 (17:40)", "body": "I've got a question - what does 'batwood' refer to ? . . .The wandering or the spin?"}, {"response": 7, "author": "batwood", "date": "Fri, Jun 26, 1998 (01:02)", "body": "> I've got a question - what does 'batwood' refer to ? . . .The wandering or the spin? i could give you an answer...but it would be wrong"}, {"response": 8, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Jun 26, 1998 (01:28)", "body": "aw, go ahead..."}, {"response": 9, "author": "riette", "date": "Fri, Jun 26, 1998 (02:56)", "body": "It's not the wrong or right that counts, Batman, but how you put it. So, go on, we're all eyes . . ."}, {"response": 10, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Jul  2, 2001 (02:25)", "body": "The following is written by Sri Eknath Easwaran. You can read the rest of the article on peacemaking at http://www.innerself.com/Relationships/Peacemaking.htm Trusting Is Peaceful Simply to understand this is a great step in the right direction, where we do not sit back and bemoan our irrational \"animal\" behavior, but accept that our nuclear-threatened world is an expression of our way of thinking and feeling. The terrible dilemma which we face is the ultimate result of our mode of life, our motivation, the kind of relationships we have cultivated with other countries, our whole philosophy of life. Here again is Martin Luther King, Jr.: \"I refuse to accept the idea that the \"illness\" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the \"oughtness\" that forever confronts him...I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.\" In this presumably sophisticated world, it is considered naive to be trusting. In that case I am proud to say that I must be one of the most naive people on earth. If someone has let me down a dozen times, I will still trust that person for the thirteenth time. Trust is a measure of your depth of faith in the nobility of human nature, of your depth of love for all. If you expect the worst from someone, the worst is what you will usually get. Expect the best and people will respond: sometimes swiftly, sometimes not so swiftly, but there is no other way. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 17, "subject": "Joining the Zen Peacemaker Order", "response_count": 8, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "batwood", "date": "Sat, Jun 20, 1998 (20:33)", "body": "has anybody seen my pants?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "JonasLore", "date": "Sat, Jun 20, 1998 (21:00)", "body": "Yes"}, {"response": 3, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Jun 20, 1998 (23:34)", "body": "They're under the couch in the philosophy conference..."}, {"response": 4, "author": "riette", "date": "Tue, Jun 23, 1998 (16:43)", "body": "you mean where the strawberry exorcism took place? Oh dear . . . Sorry, Bill, I wiped my stained mouth with them. But I'll wash them in the basin in some champagne before you get there . . ."}, {"response": 5, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Jun 24, 1998 (00:11)", "body": "(she has such great manners...)"}, {"response": 6, "author": "riette", "date": "Wed, Jun 24, 1998 (01:22)", "body": "Oh, Wer, stop flattering me, I might start blushing! (Do you know, Mr. C. says the only way to give me an honest compliment, is to say, 'Ri\ufffdtte, you're beautiful, you're sexy, and you have truly shit manners.' ha-ha! But, alas, the honest part lays in the last three words!)"}, {"response": 7, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Jul  3, 1998 (22:24)", "body": "Are you sure it's not just flattery, Riette? (*smile*)"}, {"response": 8, "author": "riette", "date": "Sat, Jul  4, 1998 (01:01)", "body": "OOh, let me think . . . eh, nope. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 18, "subject": "Viridian List", "response_count": 136, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Oct 29, 1998 (08:48)", "body": "Earlier this month, science fiction author Bruce Sterling announced the creation of Viridian, a new technocultural art movement. Sterling's goal? Nothing less than saving the world from environmental Armageddon. Sterling says he won't actually launch Viridian until Jan. 3, 2000. The new millennium, he believes, will be eagerly receptive to new ideas. (Why Jan. 3? Well, on Jan. 1, everyone will be hung over, and on Jan. 2, nobody's computer will work.) In the meantime, Sterling is working out the basic principles of the movement, and has set up a moderated mailing list for the \"Viridian Greens\" to hash out the details. What's it all about? Greenhouse warming, says Sterling, is undeniable to all save fools and fat cats, but previous \"green\" environmental attempts to change the world have failed. Sterling's answer is to concoct a new esthetic -- one that values healthy design, eschews 20th century-style waste and flourishes through distributed, collective, networked development. Sterling has dubbed himself the movement's \"mad Pope-Emperor.\" The whole scheme sounds suspiciously similar to the plot of a Sterling novel -- but like Sterling's works, it's audacious, funny and eloquent. Interested mailing list subscribers can e-mail the man himself, at bruces@well.com. -- Andrew Leonard SALON | Oct. 27, 1998"}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Oct 29, 1998 (09:05)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Mon Oct 26 12:42:15 1998 Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 12:42:15 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00005 X-UIDL: 1e200ae03c3852d34df65709e47a5514 Key concepts: Viridian aesthetic; distributed networks; mobiles; Alexander Calder (1898-1976) Attention Conservation Notice: This is art criticism. There are over 900 words of it. Sources: an original composition Links: www.sfmoma.org/EXHIB/calder.index.html www.nga.gov/exhibitions/caldwel.htm There are two approaches to the problem of establishing a Viridian aesthetic: the top-down approach, and the bottom-up. The top-down method consists of issuing historical analogies, broad statements of principle, sweeping aphorisms, and so forth, and trawling these verbal devices over the landscape in the hope that they will net something useful. The bottom-up approach relies on assembling specific examples, whose aggregate might suggest an emergent future sensibility. Since we Viridians have an expiration date looming, we will try both approaches at once. Our first candidate for specific analysis, the first tree in our Viridian forest as it were, is the \"mobile,\" invented by twentieth- century artist Alexander Calder. Following our \"underside-first\" principle, we will start by listing the aspects of Calder's mobiles which are NOT of a Viridian sensibility. Only then will we relate the aspects which seem to have promise for the early 21st century. NON-VIRIDIAN ASPECTS OF CALDER'S MOBILES Alexander Calder is by no means a contemporary artist. He was born a full one hundred years ago and died in the 1970s. Mobiles have two basic elements: colored cut-out shapes, and the jointed network of stiff wires that attach them. Calder's shapes are flat and metallic, and generally painted in Mondrian-like, industrial, primary colors. Calder sometimes employed gimmicky, dated shapes reminiscent of bad Space Age coffee-tables. Calder sometimes attached mobile elements to representational objects, such as wire-framed fish and performing seals. Compared to the eerie majesty of the best abstract mobiles, this overly cute, toylike practice gives one a cloying sensation. Desktop and floor-mounted \"stabiles\" are much less visually effective than air-swarming, ceiling-hung mobiles. Unless that is, the stabiles are built on a monumental scale, so that they can loom astoundingly over the viewer. The movements of mobiles are determined by laws of gravity and local air currents, rather than some more sophisticated interchange among the moving elements. As art objects, mobiles are somewhat difficult to assess, because they are both sculpture and performance. They present different visual experiences under different environmental circumstances. VIRIDIAN ASPECTS OF CALDER MOBILES They were invented and built by a world-class avant-garde artist with a degree in mechanical engineering. Calder mobiles are strongly biomorphic in both shape and motion. They are thriftily built of cheap, recycled materials. Mobiles move silently and tirelessly through the use of ambient, renewable energy. Mobiles are sensitive indicators of local environmental conditions. Mobiles scale up well, although the truly colossal mobiles require some modest aid from electric motors. The term \"mobile\" was coined by Marcel Duchamp, a rather sphinxlike, timeless figure. Thanks to Calder's iterative balancing technique, a mobile's simple network contains a great deal of subtle embedded judgement. Thanks to this, the movement of a mobile is not mechanically repetitive, but pleasantly lifelike and unpredictable. Calder mobiles are distributed, collaborative networks in action. Although mobiles can be quite large in volume, even monumental, they are very sparing in their use of materials. They are dependent on open space, voids, and transparency; less mass, more data. Mobiles have a life-affirming sense of humor. It's hard to imagine a grim, fanatical mobile. CONCLUSION. There has been little formal innovation in Calder mobiles in recent decades. They remain well-known as one of the few art forms invented by an American artist (though he had to go to Paris to do it). Mobiles have always enjoyed a cult following, but in terms of technique they have become a Modernist backwater. However, there exists the possibility of profound advancement in the design and construction of mobiles. Calder himself built his mobiles with string and tinsnips, snipping a bit here and there and shortening the wire until he felt he had the balance right. It would not seem difficult to automate this hands-on process through computer-based balancing algorithms. This offers the attractive prospect of monumental CAD-CAM mobiles containing hundreds or thousands of perfectly balanced, interacting elements. Mobiles could become vastly more sensitive and responsive if they abandoned the wire and sheet-iron of the 1930s. Thermosensitive wire and polymer might change color and movement with temperature"}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov  2, 1998 (10:10)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Fri Oct 30 13:29:22 1998 Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 13:29:22 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00007 X-UIDL: 8bce68de3a736cc31614e2890cb127ed Key concepts: Floods; unnatural disasters; safety checklists; recovery procedures; literary criticism Attention Conservation Notice: A continuation of Note 00006; grimly accurate; bureaucratically thorough; contains tedious, gritty minutiae about one of life's worst experiences Sources: University of Minnesota Extension Service Home Page Links: http://www.extension.umn.edu/Documents/K/A/afterflood.html (((My comments are in triple parentheses == bruces))) Safety Rules and Recovery Procedures After a Natural Disaster 1. See that your family is safe from flood crests, fire, or falling buildings. 2. Cooperate fully with local authorities, rescue squads, and local Red Cross chapters. 3. Help locate shelter, food, clothing, transportation, medical supplies, and medical help for victims. 4. Obey health regulations for personal and community protection against disease epidemics. Report any violations. (((The problem of looters rarely receives mention, even though looters are omnipresent in post-disaster situations. (The most eager and immediate looters are children.) It is simply *assumed* that all citizens are cooperative, fully socialized, responsible Samaritans. Until #4 that is, when they are suddenly urged to become vigilant informants against health violators. Such is life when authority breaks down == full of upbeat pretense.))) 5. If premises have been flooded, flush plumbing fixtures with buckets of water to be sure they are open. Have health authorities inspect sanitary disposal systems. Water may have backed up into the septic tank, which in turn backs up into the plumbing system. This could be a health hazard. (((The gush of one's own sewage is one of many small humiliations; but fail to deal with this, and you risk dysentery or worse.))) 6. Do not use water from private supply until health authorities have tested it. Boil drinking water 10 minutes or chlorinate by adding 1 teaspoon chlorine bleach per gallon of water. 7. Do not use food that has come in to contact with flood waters. Some foods can be salvaged if properly packaged. Consult local health officials if in doubt. (((Good advice. Now imagine yourself in a situation where these \"health authorities\" and \"local health officials\" are corrupt, absent, drowned, or simply nonexistent. Though CO2 is mostly an industrial G7 emanation, the effects are worst in areas where the world remains most nearly natural.))) 8. Sanitize dishes, cooking utensils, and food preparation areas before using them. (((A Belle Epoque sees no difficulty in *finding* food after a disaster.))) 9. When entering damaged buildings, use flashlights only, not matches, torches, or any open flame. Watch for nails, splinters, holes in walls or floors, wet or falling plaster, undermined foundations, and gas leaks. 10. Do not use electrical system until it has been checked by an electrician. (((Presumably electricians are thick on the ground in your area.))) 11. Wait until any flood waters are below basement level before trying to drain or pump the basement. (((Health hazards, bad water and personal ruination don't make people any brighter.))) 12. Start clean-up as soon as possible. Thoroughly dry and clean house before trying to live in it. Delay permanent repairs until buildings are thoroughly dry. (((\"Demand the Impossible\" == Situationist International))) 13. Control rodents and insects. (((Before they control you.))) 14. Remove sediment from heaters, flues, and motors before using them. To speed drying, start stoves and furnaces as soon as they have been checked for safety. (((Removing sediment from a motor must be an interesting process, especially in a design world where more and more big- ticket items are impossible to open or service.))) 15. Take all furniture and rugs outdoors to dry. ((( A handy practice for those nonexistent looters.))) 16. Dry and air bedding, clothing, and rugs as soon as possible to prevent mildew. 17. Set priorities. Accomplish most important tasks first, and avoid physical over-exertion. (((It's very human to \"set priorities\" as task number 17, when you're already worn out from labor.))) 18. Be sure children are safe and are being cared for at all times. Never leave young children alone or allow than to play in damaged buildings or areas that might be unsafe. (((The rain falls on young and old alike, but surely the author of this superior injunction has never taken charge of young children. A wrecked house is the very definition of attractive nuisance, and there's no better time to escape your parents than when they're losing everything they own.))) 19. Give special attention to cleaning children's toys, cribs, playpens, and play equipment. Boil any items, for 10 minutes, that a toddler or baby might put in his mouth. Discard stuffed t"}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov  5, 1998 (15:21)", "body": "Topic 189 [mirrorshades]: Viridian List Archive #17 of 17: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Wed Nov 4 '98 (09:18) 329 lines From bruces@well.com Wed Nov 4 10:48:45 1998 Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:48:45 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Note 00010 X-UIDL: 586e4db759e130de0dc8554824217fc4 Key concepts: Viridian Commentary: Viridian cuisine; Viridian domain name; propaganda tactics; Viridian Principles of Design; flood recovery; PEM fuel cells; Viridian ranking Attention Conservation Notice: Comments to the Viridian moderator are ruthlessly edited. I question whether you should read these comments from your fellow Viridians. Can these sources be trusted? Who knows their real agenda? These people could be anybody, even you. From: jon@lasser.org (J. Lasser) I was just picking up another computer book (*The Perl Cookbook* from O'Reilly and Associates, written by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington). Imagine my surprise when I read Larry Wall's introduction: \"Cooking is also one of the oldest of the arts. Some modern artists would have you believe that so-called ephemeral art is a recent invention, but cooking has always been an ephemeral art. We can try to preserve our art, make it last a little longer, but even the food we bury with our pharoahs gets dug up eventually.\" (p. xxi) This fulfills (literally!) the \"Eat What You Kill\" dictum, the \"embrace of decay\" (what else would blue cheese be?), \"Planned Evanescence\", and \"Viridian Inactivism.\" Depending on tastes, cooking can also be compatible with the following Viridian principles: \"The Future Is History,\" \"History Accumulates,\" \"Look at the Underside First\" (look at the growth of organic foods for a cautionary tale), \"Design for the Old,\" \"Superstition Isn't Inspiration,\" \"Do Less With Less,\" \"There's No One So Green as the Dead,\" \"Make the Invisible Visible,\" \"Less Mass, More Data\" (try nouvelle cuisine), \"Seek the Biomorphic and the Transorganic,\" and \"Datamine Nature.\" Cooking is not clearly incompatible with any thus-far stated Viridian principle. Of course, it's not hard to imagine an anti-Viridian meal == for example, a steak raised in a burned-over rainforest. From: weasel@gothic.net (Darren Mckeeman) If you're going to have a movement, it's not going to do to have your URL on someone else's server. We need our own domain name to go with the Viridian image. Based on my own experiences, I'll go so far as to suggest a 'presence' package: 1) A domain name (www.viridian.org) 2) An image package (I can't help you there -- I'm all thumbs) 3) a propaganda campaign to get 'Viridian' into the public eye 4) a document storage method (otherwise known as designing a useful website). The first two items are easy. First, find a graphic designer. You can trip over them in doorways here in San Francisco. Then you get someone to donate web space. This, too, is easy here in San Francisco. The second half of my list will take some work and a small investment -- maybe $20 per flunkey. Yes, it takes volunteers to properly lead a propaganda campaign. The Viridian Movement needs some memetic form of propaganda, such as peel-off stickers. I suggest brilliant neon-green stickers with our web address. We can send a roll to each person on this list for them to start plastering bus stops, cars, bathroom stalls, garbage cans, personal computers, street signs, etc. Human beings love to deface property -- let's give in to our own inner nature! Of course, this might appeal more to kids than to old people. From: richardd@reeseco.com (Richard Dorsett) Viridian Publishing: I believe one of the most important things we should strive to change is the nature of publishing. Whole forests die so the lumpenproletariat can read about Rosie O'Donnell's new diet. The notion of chopping down trees to produce romance novels, wrestling magazines and tabloid newspapers is especially repugnant. This idea is, of course, openly elitist. I propose a ban on the use of physical paper to produce any document that does not meet the strict aesthetic standards of the Viridian Council. Of course, I realize that our sublime edicts will have no authority whatsoever in the \"real\" world, but by issuing press releases (on-line, of course), and calling into play \"reputation economics,\" we can focus painful attention on publications that are absolute wastes of paper. As the Viridian Greens gain respect for our many fresh ideas and futurist design scenarios, people will heed our edicts. \"Books\" will once again become precious art objects, designed to appeal to the eye, the hand, and the mind. Magazines, perhaps printed on pure hemp rag paper, will once again become things of beauty, following the lead of the artists and designers of the Belle Epoque. We can start by creating an award to give to publishers outstanding in their greed and bad taste. I suggest a fine parchment with a photograph of the Tunguska blast site or Mount St. Helens, showing disaster areas with trees laid flat"}, {"response": 5, "author": "tami", "date": "Fri, Nov  6, 1998 (05:43)", "body": "most interesting. I came back to Texas expecting my house to be flooded away. It wasn't so I am now following a different path than the one I anticipated. I have decided to set priorities now. Belongings stay in storage, trade in floodable house for a travel-type trailer that has a better chance of aver. I like the fuel cell idea. Alot. I need to live more simply. If I accumulate less, I have less to lose. Always carry Lysol, bleach and detergent. It's a start?"}, {"response": 6, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Nov  6, 1998 (09:18)", "body": "What's your favorite bleach?"}, {"response": 7, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Nov  8, 1998 (11:47)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Fri Nov 6 17:56:19 1998 Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 17:56:19 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00011 X-UIDL: 2d652495059a63eb444b7afaa26758b8 Key concepts: Viridian mascot; design contest Attention Conservation Notice: A Viridian design contest is proposed. If you choose to take part, it may soak up considerable attention and even physical labor. Viridian Notes 1-10 have established our basic Viridian interests. We will remain preoccupied with general design principles, near-term trend-spotting, and specific critical assessment of artifacts in the arts/technology/sciences. We want to collate our findings in some coherent statement for January 3, 2000. But mere words in a row can't be the be-all and end- all of a design movement. We also need to design. Mailing lists are well-designed for zapping sermons. But the net's wiring lacks tensile strength. It's hard to tug the net so deftly that people will stand up in response, leave their monitors, and do something creative. Especially when they're not being paid. This is an interesting challenge in net-culture. It is no doubt fraught with all manner of unseen potholes and troubling downsides. But we must start somewhere. So, we will start small. Very small. Microscopic, even. The first Viridian design project is a graphic logo, the first official portrait of our own lovable Viridian mascot: \"Big Mike, the Viridian Bug.\" Big Mike is a micro-organism, probably a decay and recycling agent of some kind, who has the word \"viridian\" written across his back. \"Big Mike\" is meant to feature on Viridian coffee- cups, mouse-pads, websites, aristo-digital jewelled cuff- links, teenage cyber-vandal adhesive stickers, and so on. While we don't plan to go directly into multinational manufacturing, we Viridians can manage some modest, nonprofit, hobbyist efforts along this line. It's not for nothing that the Viridian list emanates from fringeware.com, a retail outlet for cyber-slacker gizmos and tchatchkes. REASONS WHY \"BIG MIKE\" IS NOT VIRIDIAN A designed logo is a piece of intellectual property, meant for purposes of corporate identity. There is something inherently troublesome and contradictory in using a logo in a not-for-profit, non-incorporated, private context. Especially when you have no intention of making a profit through use of the logo, and *no intention whatsoever of ever paying its creator any royalties for the use of the image,* no matter how many times it gets used or what weird places it ends up in. Ever since the human race first discovered micro-organisms through improved scientific sensors, we have been carefully trained to regard them as dangerous, unglamorous and icky. Though they are very responsive and do a lot of highly sophisticated \"processing,\" microbes aren't real big on thought processes of any kind. Given the chance, certain species of microbes have repeatedly wreaked unparalleled genocidal havoc. Microbes sadly lack a dashing Pope-Emperor figure. REASONS WHY \"BIG MIKE\" IS VIRIDIAN Cloned sheep may grab all the headlines, but the real workhorses of the coming biorevolution will probably be genetically warped microbes. A microbe is an invisible entity made visible through sensor technology. Microbes do most of the heavy lifting in the ecosystem. Microbes are the world's most senior form of life, but they don't get old. They just keep refreshing themselves by splitting in half. Microbes seem to enjoy swapping packets of genetic information among themselves, rarely bothering to undergo any of the tiresome organizational formalities of actual sex. When times are right, microbes seethe forth suddenly in untold numbers and transform everything they touch. When that's over, they dry up and go to sleep, practicing \"Viridian inactivism\" for centuries on end. Microbes don't require budgets. Microbes travel freely on dust specks and patches of damp, and are notoriously indifferent to national borders, religion, ethnic background, language barriers and other annoyances. As for gender, microbes don't have any. Human beings are seething with large, variegated microbe populations inside and out, and they strongly effect our metabolism and our daily lives whether we realize it or not. Microbes \"Eat What They Kill\" and are largely responsible for the fact that \"There Is No One So Green As the Dead.\" Microbes spin out a lot of variants, make repeated iterative mistakes, and evolve rapidly in response to environmental challenges. Genetically engineered microbes are transorganic, biomorphic and their industrial use requires one to datamine nature. Germs are the glamorous coming thing in the way-new, gooey, squishy, seething, wriggling, wetware revolution. ******************************* \"Big Mike's\" Design Parameters ******************************* Big Mike has a flat black and white 2-D version, suitable for ink and paper, and a color 3-D version suitable for websites and video. You can desi"}, {"response": 8, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov  9, 1998 (13:12)", "body": "Mitchell Porter has created an html Viridian index at http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch/V-Notes/ViridianIndex.html"}, {"response": 9, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Nov 10, 1998 (08:48)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Mon Nov 9 21:20:25 1998 Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1998 21:20:25 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00012 X-UIDL: 68fa937c1b6526302ac433955cf07628 Key concepts: Web links, Viridian ranking Attention Conservation Notice: There is very little content in this Note. It consists of a long list of links that may or may not be of interest, plus the second Viridian Ranking. Links: it's mostly links Someday it may be useful and constructive to have a list of official Viridian-approved links. Or will it? People on the Internet link with such carefree abandon that it makes one wonder. Links are perceived somehow as an unalloyed good. This is a sign of danger in any technological development. A link unaccompanied by critical assessment is a little attention-bomb. For our successors, the novelty of links may fade; the kudzu-like mess of links may seem stale or even poisonous. Giving someone a list of hotlinks might be seen as vaguely passive-aggressive, as if you had crammed his doors and windows with endless stacks of free encyclopedias and giveaway floppy disks. Thanks to the kindness of alert correspondents, we have accumulated many Viridian-associated links. But what do they all mean? And how do they feel? And what is their real context? Are they really worth our while? What do they promise for the future? Who will tell us about all this? Investigate these links, if you will. Think about these questions. Write us a careful and heartfelt assessment. Be frank! If your criticism makes the list, you will earn a star >* the top of the Viridian ranks. http://www.02.org http://www.oecd.org/subject/sustdev/oecdwork.htm www.carfree.com www.biothinking.com www.agewave.com www.bridgedesign.com http://www.hoechst-forum.uni-muenchen.de http://www.va.com.au/photobots/PhotoBots.htm http://environment.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa110198.htm www.millennium.ru www.gadget.co.za www.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/RA www.well.com/~mgoldh http://slashdot.org www.rprogress.org http://www.users.interport.net/~jam/sld001.htm http://www.sirius.com/~schizo/demo/start.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/10/981030082447 . htm http://www.nyu.edu/publicaffairs/newsreleases/b_NYU_S4.sht ml http://www.sunday - times.co.uk:80/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?1029057 http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/110198america - energy-review.html http://www.pnl.gov/news/1998/98mthf.htm http://www.scientificsales.com/balloons.htm http://www.zamg.ac.at/~map-pbl/home.htm http://www.fooledya.com/balloon/ http://www.af.mil/news/airman/0298/bombsb.htm http://www.loe.org/html/headlines/coffins.html www.realgoods.com http://arch.virginia.edu/Dean/ http://www.virginia.edu/~sustain/ http://www.arsdigita.com/services.html www.europeangreens.org http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/wr/story.html?s=v/nm/ 19981104/wr/paper__1.html www.seedsource.com http://www.energy.rochester.edu/cogen_europe/ http://www.ad.ic.ac.uk/estates/projects/chp/descrip.htm http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/msad26oct98_1.ht m http://www.newscientist.com/nsplus/insight/global/global.html The Viridian Ranking System has been hand-created with a vintage fountain pen and fine art paper. Scars, flaws, and imperfections add character and are an inherent part of the product. jim@smallworks.com^^^^^^^^* jon@lasser.org^^^* rsewell@cix.compulink.co.uk^^^* rinesi@espacio.com.ar^^* LangiG@parl.gc.ca^* weasel@gothic.net^* richardd@reeseco.com* jonl@well.com^^^^^ dhlight@mcs.net^^^^ cthomas@10fold.com^^^ Ian.Griffin@Corp.Sun.COM^^^ Cooper409@aol.com^^ geert@xs4all.nl^^ pacoid@fringeware.com^^ rdm@test.legislate.com^^ robot@ultimax.com^^ SeJ@aol.com^^ tbyfield@panix.com^^ thack@design-inst.nl^^ TuckerV@frogdesign.com^^ ASKornheiser@prodigy.net^ Basilisk@mcione.com^ bobmorris@mediaone.net^ ccraig@ucsd.edu^ c.ted.ballou@intel.com^ dave@va.com.au^ dc@technomedia.com^ dlandry@rohan.sdsu.edu^ gagin@inter.net.ru^ gail@well.com^ ggg@well.com^ gordy@nytimes.com^ infinite@beaming.com^ jrc@well.com^ kallen@physics.ucsd.edu^ kaiser@acm.org^ klilly@neog.com^ mann@cse.unsw.edu.au^ melcher@unix.nets.com^ merlan@visa.com^ nehrlich@sfis.com^ philg@martigny.ai.mit.edu^ quest@inetarena.com^ roger@bayarea.net^ sblack@library.berkeley.edu^ steffen@eskimo.com^ steven@iisl.co.uk^ sdhurley@ican.net^ udhay@pobox.com^ WarrenE@aol.com^ wex@media.mit.edu^ whh@uclink4.berkeley.edu^ whiz@ricochet.net^ Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com) Type links and press at the OK prompt and you'll get those links in hypertext. It's at http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/links.html"}, {"response": 10, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Nov 10, 1998 (10:46)", "body": "I emailed bruces about adding this url to the list."}, {"response": 11, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 11, 1998 (07:37)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Tue Nov 10 18:45:34 1998 Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 18:45:34 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List mailto://viridian@fringeware.com From: Bruce Sterling mailto://bruces@well.com Key concepts: Web links, link criticism, automoderating groupware Attention Conservation Notice: Although it is rather long, this Note may save some of your attention if you were bravely preparing to examine the long list of links in yesterday's Note 00012. Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/ http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch/V-Notes/ViridianIndex.html http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/links.html http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/public/read/cultures/18 Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif From: steffen@eskimo.com^* (Alex Steffen) Re: Viridian Note 00012 Bruce-- I took a quick stroll through the links you sent, and while many of them are of potential interest, I would personally find it much more useful if links were used to provide material to fuel conversations directly. For instance: \"Check out this OECD site. They're doing amazing things with taxes and resource pricing. Is there a way in which Viridian design could influence the way people think about taxes (on the principle of 'Make the Invisible Visible')?\" Then I could know better how (or if) I wanted to absorb this link into my info flow, which is already eating away at the thin levees of organization I've built to contain it. \"No Info-Dumping\" should be a Viridian principle. Let's have less information, elegant information, useful information, passionate information... not just more of it. I'd rather get a haiku than a dissertation any day. (((bruces remarks: I couldn't agree with you more, Alex, but who exactly is supposed to be \"mining the haikus\" out of all those info-dumps? Meaning and passion are not invisible goods. Your info-levees merely export your flood of data downstream to the rest of us.))) From: SeJ@aol.com^^* (Stefan Jones) It might be of benefit to give links various Viridian ratings: Import (5 - Astounding, of immense interest; 0 - Not worthless, but certainly not a priority). For instance, a RealTime archive of Rush Limbaugh, shaken by news of Honduran disaster, losing it and turning into a Green on-air, would rate a 5. Technical reports on a fuel cell, when other more accessible articles have already been listed, might rate a 1 or 0. Timeliness (5 - Ephemeral, read IMMEDIATELY, 0 - Will be there forever) For instance, http://www.newscientist.com/nsplus/insight/global/global.h tml is a series of daily entries about the Buenos Aires global warming conference. It's rated a 4 because it will be around only a week or so. Aproposity (5 - Dead-on related to Viridian interests, 2 - Tangentially related, 0 - No direct relation to Viridianism) For instance http://slashdot.org rates a 0; it's a great site, but not apropos. On the other hand, if slashdot.org ran an article on mailing list \"automoderating groupware,\" you might mention it in a Viridian post. Commercial intent (5 - It's an unabashed plug, and perhaps suspect; 4 - It's got a good description of the product, plus a way to buy it; 0 - It's a fair and unbiased review.) Realgood.org might rate 4; old-time Whole Earth Reviews a 2. (((bruces remarks: this puts a cheering facade of mathematical rigor onto our problem, but we still require invisible munchkins to do our critical assessment work and supply us with passion and meaning. Viridians can expect to hear a great deal more in future about the concept of \"automoderating groupware.\" If \"automoderating groupware\" worked, the Pope-Emperor could put his feet up and save the world by remote control.))) From: jon@lasser.org^^^** (J Lasser) Re Note 00012: \"Someday it may be useful and constructive to have a list of official Viridian-approved links. Or will it?\" Of course it won't. Rather than Viridian-approved links, we need an annotated Viridian bibliography. Consider my friend Ed's site. http://homepage.usr.com/c/critconst/ \"The Critical Constant\" is a weekly net-based science publication different from most others. While most of its articles are summaries from _Science_News_ and _Science_, they're written for an intelligent audience which understands scientific concepts and methods, but has no time for the inner workings of the scientific community. Short, well-written, and with humorous headlines, \"The Critical Constant\" tells readers what they should know about the world of science. A sample, from issue 12 (archived at http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Thinktank/4942/i ssue12.html): \"Scars on the sky may burn us alive! \"Jet airplanes leave contrails, those fluffy mini-clouds of unspeakable smoke and oxidized filth. These hang in the sky, either until they unite with water droplets and fall, or until they spark the formation of cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds, for their part, warm the Earth. A preliminary estimate suggests that 0.1C to 0.3C of the last 30-odd years' warming might be du"}, {"response": 12, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 12, 1998 (09:45)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Wed Nov 11 17:45:37 1998 Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 17:45:37 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00014 X-UIDL: 9f257fe7e8ce0551ad5cc12117ed79ff Key concepts: MIT Media Lab, Remembrance Agents, just-in- time information; context-aware applications; history-rich digital objects; link criticism Attention Conservation Notice: it's a way-cool, thought- provoking rap about some digital vaporware that doesn't actually exist in the marketplace Links: http://www.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/RA http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/ http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch/V-Notes/ViridianIndex.html http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/links.html Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html From: wex@media.mit.edu^* (Alan Wexelblat) X-NSA: radar terrorist supercomputer Qaddafi SEAL Team 6 Regarding Note 00012 and the link to: http://www.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/RA I figure I should comment on this one, since Brad Rhodes works in the office next to me. RA is the Remembrance Agent, an implementation of a class of software agents with interesting ideas/properties. The Remembrance Agent works as a form of computerized associative memory, a non-conventional information retrieval agent. The Remembrance Agent is long-lived, background-operating, and watches your current context. One of our Media Lab sponsors, British Telecom, has adapted it to work on PCs with Microsoft Word. In the version on the Web, it's an Emacs editor buffer in which you might be reading email, writing a paper, or whatever. The principle is the same. As you work, the Remembrace Agent watches your context and uses keywords extracted from that context (the current paragraph, the last page you read, etc.) to make queries against a database of information you've given it. This database could be your personal email files, the Science Citation Index, the CIA World Fact Book, etc. If there are any interesting hits from these queries, a small summary of them (usually 1 line) is shown in a separate window. You can ignore this window and keep working, or if something catches your eye, you can click on it to get the full text of the Remembrance hit. Another Remembrance Agent (not yet publicly released) is called Margin Notes. It operates as a Web proxy server. It annotates Web pages for you on the fly with potentially appropriate hits from your databases. These annotations are contained in small boxes placed on the right of the Web page, simulating the effect of \"notes in the margin\" of a paper-based book. Key phrases to remember for this work and other work in our group (including my own Footprints tools) are: just-in-time information; context-aware applications; history-rich digital objects. My own work on digital interaction history relates to the \"Avoid the Timeless, Embrace Decay\" idea. In a digital context, I believe it's erroneous to state that \"History Accumulates.\" Draw your own connections. (((bruces remarks: thank you, I will. In the next century it will be a self-evident truism that cyberspace rots. Software decays in an unconventional, nonphysical way, but it definitely decays and the social, commercial and technical consequences will become more and more painful and obvious with each passing year. Tools that emphasize software decay and digital historicality are of intense Viridian interest. A software agent that partially automates human historical awareness would be a particular Viridian darling == if it were ever out of beta.))) Alan Wexelblat MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/"}, {"response": 13, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (17:09)", "body": "man, that is an impossible amount to scroll through while telnetting. (I mean physically imposible)"}, {"response": 14, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (22:06)", "body": "have you read read | more ?"}, {"response": 15, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (22:07)", "body": "Or r | more That will pause every screen."}, {"response": 16, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 18, 1998 (11:59)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Thu Nov 12 08:12:29 1998 Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 08:12:29 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00015 X-UIDL: 4e34d4cc61a1d77f6bc2483a49033e88 Key concepts: Weather Violence, permanent corporate brands, air conditioned clothes, genetic bamboo, reflective algae, orbiting solar mirrors, floating aircraft hubs Attention Conservation Notice: This is highly imaginative, wacky sci-fi speculation. It serenely ignores real-world problems in technical development, such as start-up costs, return on investment, technological lock-in, lawsuits, labor unions, and corporate dominance of the political process. It offers no hard evidence to back its wild claims; there's not so much as a single cocktail-napkin calculation here. Maybe it's irresponsible, but I dote on this kind of thinking, I find it spiritually refreshing. Links: http://www.well.com/user/mgoldh/ Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html From: mgoldh@well.com* (Michael Goldhaber) Dear Viridian CEO Bruce, The whole thing is a terrific idea, I certainly hope it keeps going. A few points. The term \"Global Warming\" needs improvement. \"Global warming\" sounds much too comfortable. The core demographic of Viridian old people might imagine themselves spared the need to move to Florida. It's not mere \"warming.\" It would be better described as \"Global Storming\" or perhaps \"Violent Weather Crime.\" In this vein, explicit examples of \"Criminal Weather Violence\" might help. One small item from the 11/03/98 New York Times: the dense atmospheric smoke from burning rain forests causes more powerful, positively charged lightning, instead of the usual negatively charged variety. This violent lightning can result in more forest fires, hence more smoke. This might create a chain reaction of accelerating Weather Violence. Why get all excited about phantoms like the failure of Social Security in 2030, when all us 30-60 year olds have the exciting prospect of genuine calamity? Why favor evanescent design instead of Permanent Good Things? Corporations believe their brands to be eternal, and like nothing better than the idea of having their brand-name in the landscape forever. Permanent Good Things would definitely have cachet. A diamond is forever, as is a Coach bag, and a Brand X something-or- other. You could count on leaving this brand-named gizmo to your grandchildren because it will keep working so well and use such a tiny amount of energy! Evanescent things require energy to make, and then are gone. Not so cool! Banning the production of dumb books, as an earlier comment suggested, has zero appeal. Converting forest biomass to books is a damn sight better than burning the forest, because it sequesters CO2. Burning books, even ones you don't like, would be very bad. Likewise, plastics are a better use of fossil hydrocarbons than fuel. Here are some suitably far-out Viridian tech suggestions. Genetically engineer bamboo and grow it on-site as walls and supports. Fast-growing vines for roofs. Bioluminescent leaves for light at night. Direct photosynthetic conversion of sunlight into usable energy Sunlight is converted into infrared that is then trapped on our overheating planet. Increasing the earth's reflectance can diminish that problem. Engineer a fast-growing floating alga that would produce white foam over large sections of ocean, for instance. This alga would likely block life-giving light from the ocean depths and starve many surface seabirds, but those might be the least of our problems. You might filter the sun's rays somewhere between earth and sun. A number of sun-shields, each a mere hundred miles in circumference, placed in solar orbit might do the trick. The eventual goal is human ability to control global climate deliberately. Climate control may seen absurd, but climate control is also of course the implicit goal of the Kyoto Accord and Rio treaties. It's probably easier to award government contracts for giant orbital mirrorshades than it is to get everyone to burn less. The most fecund Viridian approaches find ways to gratify our desires with less fuel use. As we are now delighted to carry phones with us, walkman gadgets, portable computers and all the rest, let us go one simple step further and air-condition our clothes. This obviates the need for fuel to heat and cool large volumes of space. Furthermore, everyone can enjoy their favorite temperature without conflict. That leaves lighting and especially transportation as our fuel hogs. The former principle of \"Just-in-time production\" must be augmented by the proposed Viridian principle of \"Where-You-Are production.\" Make what you want, on the fly, from cheap materials at hand, using general-purpose tools powered by imported recipes and software. We want efficient, elegant means of travel. A"}, {"response": 17, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 18, 1998 (12:01)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Tue Nov 17 21:49:29 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 21:49:29 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00016: Bio-Refineries X-UIDL: 4d65d811e93d7dd67d981dca5310f761 Key concepts: bio-refineries, ethanol fuel, genetic technology, microorganisms, cellulose, garbage, CO2 Attention Conservation Notice: it's somewhat technical; there are speculative elements added; it's hard to prettify a report about big rusty factories eating garbage Links: none Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike From: dhlight@mcs.net^^^* (David Light) David Light remarks: I thought a reminder of cheerful biotech trends was in order. The interesting thing about this recent New York Times ethanol article (as opposed to the 100 others I've skimmed over the last 20 years) is that serious things are being financed with (mostly) private capital at a time when oil prices are in the basement. \"Plant Will Make Fuel Oil From Agricultural Garbage\" By MATTHEW L. WALD (((bruces remarks: I have cut the living daylights out of Mr Wald's fine article and added a number of comments of my own.))) \"ENNINGS, Louisiana. The plant was opened in 1977 to refine crude oil into gasoline, but when that proved unprofitable, it was converted in 1981 to run on molasses, and then in 1987, on grain. Bankruptcy followed.\" (((The bankruptcy of *all* oil refineries is on the 21st century's agenda. We might replace them through clever design, or we might simply run out of oil, but oil refineries are goners either way. It's wise to consider alternative uses for all this refinery hardware.))) \"Now, with rust on its tanks and pipes and grass growing through the gravel on its paths, construction workers are converting it yet again, to make fuel alcohol from agricultural garbage. (...) The new owners of the plant here, BC International Corp., with a subsidy from the U.S. Energy Department and help from a genetically engineered, patented bacterium, hope they are on the cusp of a new era.\" (((Staggering back from the brink of the grave, a rust-eaten, Gothic, Cajun oil refinery becomes home of gene-spliced voodoo gumbo. It's a new era all right -- the Dawn of the Dead.))) \"'It is a bio-refinery,' said Stephen Gatto, president and chief executive of the company. (...) \"'The input costs are close to zero,' said Dan Reicher, assistant secretary of energy. 'In some cases they are less than zero, because people are paying to get rid of these materials.'\" (((The economics of \"less than zero\" costs have a nice Internet IPO feel to them == \"We're selling dollars for ninety cents each, and making it up on market share!\"))) \"And if it works, he said, the technology could also reduce the accumulation of gases in the atmosphere that are thought to cause climate change, and could lower smog. (((It'll be a sign of intellectual life in American journalism when this \"thought to cause\" phraseology finally vanishes. Yes, the climate is changing, and yes, gases are doing it. Cigarettes cause cancer. Politicians have sex. Let's move on.))) \"The plant here in this south-central Louisiana town will run on bagasse, a part of the sugar cane plant usually considered useless, as well as on rice hulls, a currently useless part of the rice plant. Later, it may digest sawdust as well.\" (((The American sugar industry is notorious for its price supports. Rice hulls and sawdust, however... as feedstock for a value-adding process, those are hard to beat. There are few nations on earth untroubled by rice hulls or sawdust. Or both.))) \"Around the country, energy experts have their eyes on clippings from suburban lawns, prairie grasses and other woody materials, as fuel for the new process. (...) In the current generation of ethanol plants, the fuel is the corn kernel; plants using the new technology could digest the cob and the stalk as well. (...)\" (((We should definitely keep a wary eye out for any entity that digests corn, plus its cobs, plus its stalks.))) \"These materials are made of cellulose, which contains large amounts of sugar, the basic ingredient required for alcohol production. But the sugar in cellulose is in a chemical form that traditional fermentation processes, which use yeast, cannot digest. (...) BC's plant uses a bacterium, KO11, also used in the pharmaceutical industry, to break down the sugars. \"The natural bacterium on which KO11 is based likes to eat sugars and produces a chemical called acetic acid. But then came gene splicing. Dr. Lonnie Ingram, a microbiologist at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, borrowed four genes from another organism, Zymomonas mobilis, to make the bacterium produce alcohol instead. \"Around the country, researchers are working with Z. mobilis to find other approaches, but BC I"}, {"response": 18, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Nov 18, 1998 (18:58)", "body": "arrggh! stop posting the huge ones Paul! just gimme the URL! (Thanks for the info though!)"}, {"response": 19, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (09:56)", "body": "Since when can't you handle a huge one?"}, {"response": 20, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (13:58)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Wed Nov 18 15:32:29 1998 Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 15:32:29 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00017: Viridian Aphorisms X-UIDL: e267adef767aa80bbc2df207633fec85 Key concepts: aphorisms, slogans; Viridian Ranking Attention Conservation Notice: Though aphorisms are laudably small in bandwidth, they can occupy shocking amounts of attention, perhaps haunting you for life. Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/ (See Note 00011 for details on the\"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest. See Note 00002 for details on the Viridian Ranking System.) Source: Most of these aphorisms come from THE VIKING BOOK OF APHORISMS by W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, first assembled in 1962. Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/ http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/ ****************** VIRIDIAN APHORISMS ****************** (((bruces remarks: we Viridians won't have time to accumulate our own wisdom of the ages, but we can certainly take the wisdom already to hand and put our own vivifying spin on it. \"An epoch doesn't so much reinvent itself as reimagine its heritage\" -- STERLING))) It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes. FONTENELLE A historian is a prophet in reverse. SCHEGEL Persistent prophesy is a familiar way of assuring the event. GISSING Our ignorance of history makes us vilify our own age. FLAUBERT Historical textbooks always seem to make three claims about the era they are dealing with: it was a period of change; it was essentially a transitional epoch; and the middle classes went on rising. EAGLETON Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parents. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open. WHITEHEAD The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. FORSTER Progress is the mother of problems. CHESTERTON The obscurest epoch is today. STEVENSON >From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned. KANT Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in the world. PAVESE Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh. VALERY To know oneself is to foresee oneself; to foresee oneself amounts to playing a part. VALERY How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares, were there any danger of their coming true. LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH Among all human constructions the only ones that avoid the dissolving hands of time are castles in the air. DE ROBERTO (((More to come. People who send us a good Viridian aphorism will earn a chevron. bruces))) **************** VIRIDIAN RANKING **************** The Viridian Ranking System has been hand-created with a vintage fountain pen and fine art paper. Scars, flaws, and imperfections add character and are an inherent part of the product. jon@lasser.org^^^** rsewell@cix.compulink.co.uk^^^** jim@smallworks.com^^^^^^^^* dhlight@mcs.net^^^^^* rinesi@espacio.com.ar^^* SeJ@aol.com^^* steffen@eskimo.com^^* wex@media.mit.edu^^* whiz@ricochet.net^^* LangiG@parl.gc.ca^* weasel@gothic.net^* hinne@spaceways.de* jzero@onramp.net* mgoldh@well.com* pinknoiz@pinknoiz.com* r1ddl3r@bp13.u.washington.edu* richardd@reeseco.com* tux@powerbase-alpha.com* jonl@well.com^^^^^ Ian.Griffin@Corp.Sun.COM^^^^ Cooper409@aol.com^^^ cthomas@10fold.com^^^ tor@araneum.dk^^^ bobmorris@mediaone.net^^ bperry@shore.net^^ geert@xs4all.nl^^ pacoid@fringeware.com^^ pjd@cne.gmu.edu^^ rdm@test.legislate.com^^ robot@ultimax.com^^ tbyfield@panix.com^^ thack@design-inst.nl^^ TuckerV@frogdesign.com^^ ASKornheiser@prodigy.net^ Basilisk@mcione.com^ ccraig@ucsd.edu^ c.ted.ballou@intel.com^ dave@va.com.au^ dc@technomedia.com^ dlandry@rohan.sdsu.edu^ gagin@inter.net.ru^ gail@well.com^ ggg@well.com^ gordy@nytimes.com^ infinite@beaming.com^ jrc@well.com^ kallen@physics.ucsd.edu^ kaiser@acm.org^ katie@wtp.net^ kirk@mcelhearn.com^ klilly@neog.com^ Matt@MediaServ.com^ mann@cse.unsw.edu.au^ melcher@unix.nets.com^ merlan@visa.com^ mwiik@brysonweb.com^ nehrlich@sfis.com^ philg@martigny.ai.mit.edu^ quest@inetarena.com^ roger@bayarea.net^ rthieme@thiemeworks.com^ sblack@library.berkeley.edu^ shassinger@dev.tivoli.com^ steven@iisl.co.uk^ sdhurley@ican.net^ StJude@aol.com^ tdav@wam.umd.edu^ tenev@digbody.dux.ru^ udhay@pobox.com^ viridian@access.spring.net^ WarrenE@aol.com^ whh@uclink4.berkeley.edu^"}, {"response": 21, "author": "TIM", "date": "Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (14:01)", "body": "I think that you ought to open a new conference for this viridian list stuff. It's taking this one over."}, {"response": 22, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (14:02)", "body": "Well we could unlink it from cultures, where it now lives."}, {"response": 23, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Nov 22, 1998 (09:06)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Sat Nov 21 17:27:19 1998 Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 17:27:19 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00018: the Viridian Model Family X-UIDL: 3ffe4a80ccfc9ea6f689e63e3b526b0f Key concepts: propaganda, self-referentiality, model family Attention Conservation Notice: Propaganda theory, and pretty good theory, too. Lacks specifics. Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian/ Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/ http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/ http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm From: steffen@eskimo.com^^^** (Alex Steffen) Bruce: Big Mike is cool. I'm personally eager to have a microbe mascot gracing the many consumer products of which I have need. However, to be serious about propaganda, we need an Everyman-Hero figure, and, especially, a Model Family. I once did a college paper analyzing common propaganda motifs regarding lifestyle and culture. The \"model family\" is a major propaganda motif because it works. People are absolutely dying to be told what their lives ought to be like. This comment is not meant to asset my own moral or intellectual superiority. It's human nature. We learn by modeling the behavior of others, not just in childhood, but throughout our lives. In the absence of strong models in our direct experience, media supplies them. There's an interesting intensification of this process going on in contemporary culture, for three reasons. First, we have many more fundamental choices than our recent ancestors, in the cultural, career and consumer worlds. It's harder to make up our minds. Second, our systems of aesthetic judgement and moral instruction have broken down. Who sets the standards for artistic beauty? In 1900 you probably could have named ten people in charge of the job. Third, there is intense propaganda competition between companies providing lifestyle accoutrements. They compete so intensely to advertise their way into our worldview that the concept of a noncommercialized human life has disappeared completely. In short, people are starved for a vision of the good life. Viridianism could give this to them, flat out. However, we live in an age of irony. A frontal, 20th- century-style propaganda assault (like those used by the Nazis, Stalin and Henry Ford) won't work. We can't simply proclaim products to be cool. People have to be let in on the joke, allowed to realize that they are participating in a social mores change movement. What's cool about Viridian luxury is not just that it's more beautiful, fun and classy than the way that mere proles live. Not is it about the heady rush of self-love you get by being a good eco-citizen Earthling. Viridianism about understanding sustainable design, fashion trends, and propaganda as a participant as well as a consumer. You become both subject and observer, in a healthily ironic and self-referential way. So the Viridian Model Family, unlike the model family of the New Deal agricultural agitprop films, is not merely the symbolic vanguard of a better way of life. They understand how odd and amusing this concept must be. They crack jokes to the camera as we learn how to live our self-aware, hedonistic eco-lifestyle. We respond in real time and craft the script as we go. Alex Steffen (steffen@eskimo.com) (((bruces remarks: Point taken. So who are these people, and what do they look like? How do they feel, and what do they mean?)))"}, {"response": 24, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 25, 1998 (07:54)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Tue Nov 24 11:55:28 1998 Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 11:55:28 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00019: Viridian Domains of X-UIDL: fb4db095c088336c75e3174e33235b90 Interest Key concepts: Viridian categories, Viridian internal politics, automoderating groupware, anarchy, symbols, Burning Man, Los Alamos National Laboratory Urban Security Project, disaster response, art projects Attention Conservation Notice: Mark Beam, who was the host for the first Viridian speech at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, is getting a few various matters off his chest here. Some knowledge of the San Francisco art scene might aid reader comprehension. >From infinite@beaming.com^* (Mark Beam) Links: http:www.burningman.com http://geont1.langov/urbansecurity.htm http://www.wired.com/news/technology/story/16077.html http://www.beaming.com Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/ http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/ http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm Mark Beam writes: ((and bruces comments in triple parentheses))): As the proud host for the formal physical launch of the Viridian Movement and the eloquent proclamation documented in Note 00001, I offer these first observations. Viridian postings should be categorized for future reference. Viridians with certain disciplinary expertise should gather items of wisdom within a particular domain. A disciple of economics, of energy, of networks, a minister of propaganda, etc., could supplement the ideas arising from the list by adding a more comprehensive approach.. Here design becomes crucial, political and dangerous. (((Absolutely, brother.))) Key junctures that link Viridians together could grow future self-organizing limbs. To do so without some form of human delegation may be possible, but would seem to require initial filtering, sophisticated object oriented databases and search engines. (((Even more absolutely! Bring on the all-wise automoderating robot! While you're at it, let's run it for public office.))) Disciples or ministers, recorders etc. would not entitled to any political capital within the movement, other than true Viridian currency == Viridian reputation capital. This top down approach would be balanced by having Viridians assigning emphasis/aesthetic guidance in the particular areas both in the formation of categories and in discovery by example (bottom-up). (((It sounds so plausible, poetic, and beautiful, doesn't it? ))) Regarding visually effective design principles criticized in Note 00005, I am reminded of Larry Harvey's two basic principles of spontaneous human organizationm established over years of experiments in the Nevada desert. 1) Distribute people randomly, and they will spontaneously generate some order, first by forming circles...not squares or triangles... but circles around a point of interest. 2) Points of interest (attention) are created by a) Movement of axis in space- i.e. hold something up high, (a mobile?), or b) Movement of space around axis- (i.e. a mobile?). What Viridian icon do we hold up high or put in motion? (((How about Larry Harvey himself? But wait a minute == I've actually met this \"self-organizing anarchist\" Larry Harvey, and as the Pope-Emperor of the Burning Man festival, Larry works harder at organization than anybody I've ever met.))) What does it mean to hold something up high, or to put something in motion in Viridian terms? What does this mean in other less networked, but high CO2 emitting countries? Our visual icon should have global appeal. Existing infrastructure to leverage: The Los Alamos National Laboratory has created the Urban Security Project, using centralized computer systems to help cities respond to earthquakes, chemical or biological attacks, and other unforeseen disasters. (((Now you're talking! We need to rent one of those Urban Security babies and put it in charge of the mailing list.))) The researchers are currently looking at what happens in these emergency situations to transportation, energy distribution, weather, infrastructure, water distribution, ecosystems, economy, geology and demographics. (((See, it's got the problem all broken-down into convenient Viridian categories already!))) The program is designed to help cities anticipate problems in their emergency response systems and make changes to improve their overall readiness. (((Security systems like this are of intense Viridian interest. What are \"cities,\" if not the people in the cities? Systems of this sort should be promulgated worldwide and made publicly available as a matter of course. Every environmental hazard in one's own environment should be made visible to you at the click of a web button. Not "}, {"response": 25, "author": "udhay", "date": "Thu, Nov 26, 1998 (04:07)", "body": "Are all the people on the list at fringeware here as well ?"}, {"response": 26, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Nov 28, 1998 (18:19)", "body": "No, Uday, I think they are spread around the country. Thanks for checking in, hope you check back!"}, {"response": 27, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec  1, 1998 (01:49)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Mon Nov 30 21:35:30 1998 Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 21:35:30 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00021: The World Is Becoming X-UIDL: 644167522b02ca5741290a1ca28b0c2f Uninsurable, Part 1 Key concepts: Weather violence, insurance costs Attention Conservation Notice: Grimly accurate, can cause feelings of despair; comes in multiple parts; is mostly about insurance, one of the world's dullest topics Links: http://www.munichre.com/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warnings/waterworld Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/graphics/bigmike.gif http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/ http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/ http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm http://www.pcnet.com/~thallad/mike.htm The \"Big Mike\" contest will end in one week. Source: Associated Press wire service, Austin American Statesman page A7. Saturday, November 28, 1998 \"World's Weather Losses Will Set Record This Year\" \"Much damage is human-inflicted, report says, citing deforestation as key factor\" by Donna Abu-Nasr, Associated Press \"WASHINGTON == Violent weather has cost the world a record $89 billion this year, more money than was lost from weather-related disasters in all of the 1980s, and researchers in a study released Friday blame human meddling for much of it. \"Preliminary estimates put losses from storms, floods, droughts and fires for the first 11 months of the year 48 percent higher than the previous one-year record of more than $60 billion in 1996. \"This year's damage was also far ahead of the $55 billion in losses for the entire decade of the 1980s. Even when adjusted for inflation, that decade's losses, at $82.7 billion, still fall short of the first 11 months of this year. \"In addition to the material losses, the report said, the disasters have killed an estimated 32,000 people and displaced 300 million == more than the population of the United States. \"The study is based on estimates from the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group, and Munich Re, a reinsurer based in Frankfurt, Germany, that writes policies to protect insurance companies from the risk of massive claims that might put them out of business. \"The report says a combination of deforestation and climate change has caused this year's most severe disasters, among them Hurricane Mitch, the flooding of China's Yangtze River and Bangladesh's most extensive flood of the century. (...) The most severe 1998 disasters listed in the report include Hurricane Mitch, the deadliest Atlantic storm in 200 years, which has caused more than 10,000 deaths in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, and caused damage estimated at $4 billion in Honduras and $1 billion in Nicaragua. (...) Central American nations have experienced some of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, losing from 2 percent to 4 percent of their remaining forest cover each year, said the study. \"The costliest disaster of 1998, according to the report, was the flooding of the Yangtze River in the summer. It killed more than 3,000 people, dislocated about 230 million people, and incurred $30 billion in losses. (...) \"Figures include infrastructure losses and crops but not long-term effects such as increased health costs and environmental damage. Prices in 1998 dollars.\" Bruce Sterling remarks: This is, needless to say, a remarkably grim report. The year is not yet over, but the evil weather of 1998 has already caused more global havoc than was created in the entire 1980s. Worse yet, it's a fifty percent jump from a mere two years ago. The trend for two years hence, and ten years hence, is anything but reassuring. Still, it's pleasant to have some stark facts and figures on the subject of just how badly off we are. \"A decade's worth of weather damage in a single year\" -- that is a useful and provocative soundbite. This is not armageddon. We will not be suddenly rendered extinct because of our misdeeds with C02. Thirty- two thousand dead people are a remarkably modest number of dead, considering that the planet boasts about 6 billion people now. Even a country with the limited organizational resources of China lost a mere 3,000 lives when floods displaced a full 230,000,000. Even $89 billion dollars is a modest sum compared to the wealth destruction entailed in the Asian financial crisis. But flooding is expensive. Hence the concentrated interest of Munich Re, the German insurance group. Munich Re were first brought to my attention by David Light (dhlight@mcs.net^^^^^*). Munich Re, also known as Munchener Ruck, would seem to be a remarkably interesting enterprise, for an insurance firm. In the next Viridian Note, we will examine some of Munich Re's analytical tools, and the company's expert conclusions on the subject of gl"}, {"response": 28, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec  3, 1998 (08:06)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Wed Dec 2 21:39:25 1998 Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 21:39:25 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00022: The World Is Becoming X-UIDL: 74334706074459f5132b0d56c78f5e99 Uninsurable, Part 2 Key concepts: Weather violence, insurance costs Attention Conservation Notice: Highly speculative; is over 1,600 words long; is still about insurance, which is still one of the dullest topics in the world Links: http://www.munichre.com/ Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/viridian/logos.html http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/ http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/ http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm http://www.pcnet.com/~thallad/mike.htm As we were stating earlier in Viridian Note 00021, the German insurance company \"Munich Re\" is in the business of assessing weather violence. I'll let The Times of London address some of MunichRe's financial conclusions: Source: The Times of London, November 9, 1998 \"Climate disaster map pinpoints 'no-go' areas for insurers By Nick Nuttall, Environment Correspondent in Buenos Aires \"Vast areas of the world are becoming uninsurable as global warming triggers devastating and costly rises in sea levels, as well as droughts, floods and increasingly violent storms. \"Experts fear that some nations, especially those in the Caribbean, parts of Asia and the Pacific, face greater economic hardship. They believe insurance cover, vital for attracting inward investment to develop tourist resorts and protect homes and businesses, will become prohibitively high. In some areas it may disappear entirely as insurers protect themselves from multibillion- pound claims. \"The increasing concern (...) has been heightened by the first map to pinpoint regions where natural and man- made climate change will hit hardest. \"The climate disaster map, which is circulating among the world's major insurance firms, has been compiled by scientists and researchers at Munich Re, one of the world's largest re-insurance companies. \"Dr Anselm Smolka, of Munich Re, said the map, which couples the impacts of climatic events caused by El Nino with those predicted to result from more atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, was plotted using information from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and centres such as the Max Planck Institute. \"Dr Julian Salt, a disaster assessment expert with the Loss Prevention Council, which advises the Association of British Insurers, said yesterday that the new research was 'concentrating the minds' of insurers worldwide. \"'It shows where there is increased risk on top of all the natural hazards. We are fast approaching the situation where some parts of the world are becoming uninsurable,' he said. The map shows where rising sea levels and more frequent storms may swamp islands in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific and where reductions in rainfall, such as over the grain-growing areas of the US, can be expected. (...) \"Dr Salt said that publicly insurers will reject suggestions that insurance may be removed or premiums will rise. Privately, however, these 'politically charged' options are being considered, he said. \"He said that in countries such as the Maldives, vulnerable to increased storms and rising sea levels, global warming could affect tourism, the primary industry. \"Andrew Dlugolecki, a key member of a UN Environment Programmes insurers' initiative, said there was an urgent need for new, imaginative ways of covering vulnerable regions and nations. \"'I am quite certain that there are some areas which will be unprotectable and may disappear. A major problem is brewing,' he said.\" ********** Bruce Sterling remarks: I hope the august Times will forgive me for quoting their remarkable article at some length. We Viridians need not be overly concerned as to exactly how many billions of dollars are \"lost.\" Financial projections are very soft and elastic, basically irrelevant to our interests. Furthermore, we don't know how quickly the seas will rise. Nobody does. Viridian central interests are different: what does this mean, and how will it feel? How will this experience change the twentieth century's outdated vision of human life on Earth? It would presumably help to have a good long look at the disaster maps. Since they are designed for insurance agents, they are almost certain to be ugly graphic disasters, but I've ordered one anyway. I'm eager for a personal view. For those who would like to join me, here is a Teutonically thorough price list, direct from Munich Re. \"If you are interested in our publication 'World Map of Natural Hazards' we can provide you several products: \"Special publication with catastrophe catalogue and folding map, Price DM 20 \"Wall map (122 cm x 86 cm) with specia"}, {"response": 29, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec  8, 1998 (13:03)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Mon Dec 7 19:48:57 1998 Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 19:48:57 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00025 X-UIDL: 7e2174b69e51c1e8e6c74577abcb39fc Key concepts: energy policy, German Greens, Munich futurism, Soviet nuclear plants Attention Conservation Notice: It's about German politics. It might use terms such as \"Forschungsgruppe Zukunftsfragen.\" Links: http://www.gruene.de/ Entries in the \"Big Mike\" Viridian Design Contest: http://www.pinknoiz.com/viridian/logos.html http://www.spaceways.de/BigMike/Mike.html http://weber.u.washington.edu/~r1ddl3r/bigmike.html http://powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/ http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades http://www.57thstreet.com/viridian/ http://www.ioc.net/~bini/bigmike.htm http://www.pcnet.com/~thallad/mike.htm http://www.golden.net/~eli/viridian/ http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~smcginni/big-mike/big-mike.html and http://www.karmanaut.com/viridian/big.mike/ Attention warning: 3D \"Big Mike\" animation may confuse some browsers. From: hoechst.forum@lrz.uni-muenchen.de* (Doug Merrill) Doug Merrill remarks: How Viridian are the German Greens? The short answer is, unfortunately, not very. The German Greens, while certainly enjoying a taste of power, and providing Europe with its only interesting foreign minister, are coming face to face with real power, as your remarks on the non-phaseout of Swedish nuclear plants point out (Note 00020). So far, real power is winning. Real power is winning in some cases because it represents responsibility, common sense and the will of the people. Example: keeping Germany in NATO. Real power also wins where it merely represents common sense and the will of the people. Example: not making gasoline in Germany cost three times as much as any other country in Europe. And in some cases, real power is winning from the will of the people alone. Example: no speed limits on the autobahn. One of the reasons that the Greens are not very Viridian is that large chunks of them are still quite technophobic. At the grass roots level, many German Greens believe that technology is inherently dehumanizing, and they pretend that they can just say 'nein danke' to the whole thing. Greens are good at picket signs, and they're getting better at parliaments, but they're not going to invent anything that changes the world. Furthermore, after so many years in opposition, they're much better at stopping things than advancing them. A Viridian era needs more. There are, however, some good signs. The Greens are showing more discipline than their industrial-era coalition partners. The Greens are willing to take on sacred cows. And the Greens are showing more signs of learning than the other parties. All of these traits give them Viridian potential. At the level of specific policies, however, expect progress to be slow. Changing a third of Germany's energy sources in eight years is ambitious, headline-grabbing, and almost certainly impossible. This is a country that took the better part of ten years to extend permissible shopping hours by ninety minutes. Germany has just significantly modified its citizenship laws for the first time since a Kaiser ruled in Berlin. Besides, the only thing Germany would replace nuclear power with right now is more carbon-based fuel. (It's one thing for the Swedes to buy wind power from the Danes; it's quite another trying to run the world's third largest economy on windmills.) Another test of Green strength would be phasing out subsidies to coal miners. German taxpayers support a tidy living for German miners, paying lots of marks to keep up an industry that's both loss-making and polluting. But miners are heroes to social democrats, so the Greens probably lose this one as well. Germany will probably introduce some form of 'eco- tax' this coming year, probably a consumption tax on fuels somewhat like the BTU tax that died such a painful death in the US. An eco-tax has become fashionable in the very German duty- and guilt-ridden sense. It's not attractive, it's simply understood in the orthodoxy that this is something you have to do. This may be politically effective, but I find it unappealing. (I'm also already paying 45% taxes on a researcher's salary, so the notion of any further taxation offends me terribly.) Guilt doesn't strike me as very Viridian. Those are the key points. I'll see if I can get a digital picture of Munich Re for you, to go along with those sexy articles on insurance. best, Doug Merrill Research Group on the Global Future Center for Applied Policy Research University of Munich hoechst.forum@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Bruce Sterling remarks: How very useful and interesting. Thank you very much. Now, for further insight on the European energy policy scene, we quote a recent installment of the column \"Europe This Week\" by veteran British journalist Martin Walker. Source: Manchester Guardian Weekly. November 29, 1998, page 6. \"To begin wi"}, {"response": 30, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec 13, 1998 (22:02)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Sat Dec 12 12:17:16 1998 Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 12:17:16 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00028: Viridian Gardening X-UIDL: ca936c2890a92a1b6459f50ec175df9f Key concepts: Gardens; aging populations; Viridian Inactivism; horticulture; allotment movement; urban decay; xeriscaping Attention Conservation Notice: The term \"Gardening\" may be too dull to engage anyone's interests. Presumptuous and patronising assumptions regarding the tastes of the elderly. Elements of fiddling while Rome burns. Links: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/close/xpz05/ http://www.the-hastings.demon.co.uk/herenow/here20/5.html http://www.slug-sf.org/ http://www.gn.apc.org/rts/sp'96/newsp.htm#G15.7.96 Danny O'Brien remarks: Gardening is an obvious Viridian pursuit. It's ephemeral; it is a labour-intensive act that somehow manages to convince its practicers that they are relaxing; and anyone who has lovingly tended a compost heap has truly grasped the principle of \"Embrace Decay.\" For sundry reasons, gardening is also a massive attention sink for retirees. Could gardening be tuned even further to comply with Viridian principles? The ALLOTMENT MOVEMENT in the UK is a political tradition dating back to the enclosure acts of the 19th century. After protests by the suffering working class, concerned politicians allocated small patches of land that could be rented cheaply by dispossessed commoners. These smallholdings still exist today == they're generally hidden away in urban areas, are around 30- 300 square yards per plot, and are supplied with water and supplies for growing foodstuffs. They've recently enjoyed a boom that tracks the ageing of the British population. http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/close/xpz05/ http://www.the-hastings.demon.co.uk/herenow/here20/5.html (good Viridian URL, that) Encouraging gardening to spill out from the private gardens of the gated aged, and into small micro-plots scattered across urban environments, would provide a number of advantages: * Conspicuous conservation * Personal stewardship of public space, which looks to be a Viridian meme * Prevents the isolation of the affluent, powerful older age groups * Useful as a reinforcer of climate indicators: a sparse network of small plots, provided with enough amateur sensors (human eyes and ears, even), would provide a useful set of local pollution sensors as well as re-enforcing climate change indicators to its patrons. As it is, both the allotment movement and the nearest equivalent I can discover in the US, the Urban Gardening movement ( http://www.slug-sf.org/) , suffer from one major limitation. They're both, currently, chokingly dull. The whole topic stinks of granola. May I suggest an investigation into the possibilities of a mutated Allotment movement: namely, Guerrilla Gardening (alternate titles: Biosquatting, Random Acts of Forestation). This would involve small groups of Viridian non-activists selecting a disused location, and targetting it as their \"allotment.\" The organisation of the gardeners would be as a paramilitary cell: individual members of the cell would not necessarily know the identities of other members, nor how many plots were in existence. Tasks would be minimal: work would be shared between enough inactivists for it to demand little, and degrade gracefully if apathy killed off a chunk of the participants. All they would see is that, for minimal involvement, an area of the public landscape would go from a barren lot to blooming greenery. And, of course, with some suitable appearance of \"Big Mike,\" the area would also become an advertisement for the Viridian movement. The unofficial tending of a public space may well lend itself to decentralised management, with limited involvement by the forces of law-enforcement, while nonetheless carrying the cachet of an illicit prank. ********************************* Why \"Guerrilla Gardening\" is Not Viridian ********************************* The gardening instinct among senior citizens is already super-served by their own fine gardens. \"Guerrilla\" element unashamedly stolen from youth movements ( http://www.gn.apc.org/rts/sp'96/newsp.htm#G15.7.96) . The tacit encouragement of unrestricted bioengineering may be contrary to Viridian precepts. Recreational fiddling with fringes of urban ecology may be poor use of time and attention. The revitalisation of the urban center is a \"problem\" that may have already bottomed-out in developed countries. Developing countries may lack the necessary affluent, aged, middle class. It might be better to explore other potential horticultural extensions. (((Bruce Sterling remarks: I concur that gardening sounds mighty dull, but trying to jazz it up by making gardening illegal merely attracts the kind of sad yahoo who is reflexively fascinated by anything illegal. If anyone is going to form militarized cells and throw weed seeds around, it ought to be *cops and soldiers.* Cops in partic"}, {"response": 31, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 15, 1998 (22:03)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Mon Dec 14 22:59:27 1998 Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:59:27 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00029: The Interfund X-UIDL: f29b7f334149a7b5bbd38b60a646d8fe Key concepts: art movements, Internet, reputation economics, arts grants, Europe, Interfund Attention Conservation Notice: It's not about Viridians. It's about a group of European digital artists with a strange entrepreneurial scheme. Writers' original language not English. Written in postmodernese. Of interest mostly to net.organizational specialists. There's a manifesto tacked on at the end. Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest: http://members.aol.com/stjude/ (((Parenthetical comments by bruces@well.com))) Source: Syndicate list; Xchange list; nettime list; Rasa Smite Diana McCarty Eric Kluitenberg [Interfund] - Create Your Own Solutions Interfund meeting @ Xchange Unlimited, Riga November 29, 1998. During the Xchange Unlimited Baltic New Media Culture Festival in Riga, a meeting was held to discuss the creation of the Interfund. The participants were Diana McCarty, Rasa Smite, Manu Luksch, Pit Schultz, Eric Kluitenberg, and others. * What is the Interfund? The Interfund does not actually exist yet. (((Beta pre-release! I love it already!))) The Interfund should be many things at the same time, a self funding project, a tool to create open spaces for sovereign experimentation in the digital networks. Neither a network nor a community, it should be a means for collaboration and exchange. (((Fabulous! It sounds divine!))) The Interfund was envisioned in Riga as a co-operative, decentralised, non-located, virtual but real, self-support structure for small and independent initiatives in the field of culture and digital media. (((Sheer poetry! I couldn't have said this better myself!))) What follows is a summary of the ideas that were discussed and the problems raised in connection with the possible shape of the Interfund. (((Uh-oh...))) First of all, the Interfund is an idea to create better ways to access funding and create funding possibilities of itself. The Interfund can also act as a redistributor of financial resources from the affluent enclaves to the impecunious. Funding and financing, however, is only one of the tools the Interfund will employ to achieve its aims. (((Wait a minute -- you're giving away *free money* in your movement, and you expect this to be just *one* of your problems?))) The Interfund should rather act as a \"Resource Pool\", shared by each of its members. These resources encompass a wide range of tools: * knowledge & know-how * skills (a.o. translations in local languages) * software * open source development * access to servers, especially for streaming media in the net * reserving bandwidth and protocols (for example the registration for web multicasting, domain names, etc.) * support in dealing with official structures; = finding appropriate funding for projects = visa requirements = official letters of support, both in English and the local language = official invitations = official endorsements; * access to surveys and information sources about activities in the field of culture and digital media. One practical way in which actual funding might work is that the Interfund creates its own capital to give micro-funding to individual projects. The organiser can then claim that the project in question is supported financially by the Interfund (complete with a letter of acceptance by the \"board\" of the fund). Funding may be as little as US$ 10 for a project, but can help to create interest from official institutions and structures. (((A really clever idea here. They want to game the international art world by using a tiny amount of actual capital to create impressive, net-based, Interfund-conveyed, reputation capital. \"Hi, I'm from Riga and I was sent here by Interfund! Look at this gold-plated, 256-color *Letter of Acceptance!*\" \"Really?! Wow! Let me see what the conference can do for you in the way of picking up that hotel tab!\"))) Moreover the actual amount of funding by the Interfund need not be specified in all cases. (((The tactic's even more effective when you boldly lie about it!))) The possibilities for acquiring donations (not sponsorship) to extend the financial basis of the Interfund will be an area of attention. (((Boy, I bet it will! Attention galore! We call that stuff \"accounting\" here in the USA.... So, are you bold pirates taking Yankee funds? The Pope-Emperor is totally down with your daring scheme! I got one of our goofy new 20- dollar bills for you, right here!))) (...) (((considerable pious Euro arts/culture jabber deleted))) * Form: Though the Interfund will not have a fixed physical location, it should become a real virtual organisation (it is not a simulation). For this purpose a letterhead and design for the Interfund will be developed, as well as a web-site, e-mail address, a logo.... and... (a local Latvian spe"}, {"response": 32, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Dec 16, 1998 (20:52)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Wed Dec 16 15:19:37 1998 Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 15:19:37 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00030: The View From Ecotopia X-UIDL: e5c06c0962b15a07fe19ed8e2abbca0a Key concepts: Weather violence, clean energy, industrial policy, Washington State, media coverage Attention Conservation Notice: It's about regional American politics and state-centered industrial policy. Grim assessment, can cause feelings of despair. Direct from Wonkville. Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest: http://members.aol.com/stjude/ http://www.saunalahti.fi/~jtlin/viridian/ Sources: Seattle Times, Thursday, December 3, 1998; patmazza@teleport.com^^^* (Patrick Mazza) Patrick Mazza is senior writer-researcher for Atmosphere Alliance, an environmental/industrial policy group based in Olympia, Washington. The book NINE NATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA, by journalist and urban theorist Joel Garreau, once described Mr. Mazza's area of the continent as \"Ecotopia.\" Green political sentiment is powerful in the Pacific Northwest, and better yet, they have big, sophisticated, cybernetic industries that aren't tied at the wrists and ankles to smokestacks. Mr. Mazza has some interesting insights and approaches to offer us. (((Parenthetical comments by bruces@well.com.))) Patrick Mazza remarks: The European insurance companies have been out in front on climate change, while we have not heard much from U.S. companies. Reason? Federal flood insurance. Here, we socialize the losses, insure the uninsurable, so they can build again on their floodplains. (((\"America: More Socialist Than Europe.\" Call the newspapers.))) Here, in the heart of the problem, the USA, the source of 1/4 of the world's greenhouse gases, our wealth masks the consequences. The feedback loop does not connect. It does in places such as Bangladesh and Central America, where the perception that this is a stable, safe world is long gone, if it ever was there in the first place. But it is not the perceptions of those people that count. It is the perceptions of the people here, in the insulated rich world. (((Well put, though it's not our \"perceptions\" that are emitting the carbon dioxide. Mostly, it's our wall-plugs and gas pedals.))) So what will break the spell? Perhaps an Andrew, Hugo, Mitch and Camille hitting the US mainland in one year. Perhaps a several year drought in the Midwest that, as it did in the late '80s, reduces US grain production below consumption. Grain reserves around 1995 were at a record low, and accelerating global population keeps pressuring them. (((Last time the carbon-dioxide spell was broken was during the Great Depression, when there was a sustained dip in CO2 emissions because everybody was broke and in the streets. If we are enduring biblical catastrophes and famines of the kind you are suggesting here, we're not going to be sustaining today's booming consumer economy. That will be over. We'll be living in a post-catastrophe emergency regime. Paradise for eco-regulators maybe, but no picnic for the rest of us.))) The new stats for the 97-98 El Nino are $33 billion in losses (something like 1.3 percent of Gross World Product), 20,000 deaths, 120,000 injuries and 5 million displaced. It caused apocalyptic fires in Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and Florida, droughts and killer heat waves in Texas and Africa, monstrous flooding in Peru. Sometimes in the media reports the El Nino connection was made. Sometimes it wasn't. But only rarely was the possible connection between El Nino and global warming drawn. There is a crucial disconnect, a place the feedback loop is being broken. The media holds a critical responsibility for alerting the public to the connection between the weather disruptions it reports and the probable connection of the overall pattern to greenhouse gas emissions. It is failing. A movement of artists and communicators must fill that gap. (((This connection isn't hard to find in the media. It's all over the place (though I can't help but notice that the various media-cited 1998 catastrophe statistics vary by whole orders of magnitude). I suspect that the tactics of the GCC will shift soon, from their current bland denial of global warming, to the vigorous assertion that global warming is real and is *good for us.* Farfetched? Wait and see. (((Speaking as an \"artist and communicator,\" I would like to take this moment to formally declare myself \"the media.\" We've all got modems, there's a new century at hand, so let's put our cards on the table and all be \"media\" from now on. Every attack I've ever seen against \"the media\" involves people who are already \"media\" by any sane definition, and who are anxious to seize more attention and bandwidth at the expense of rival users of \"media.\" Louche, irresponsible, scandal-hungry, trivial, stumbling blindly toward catastrophe, firmly in the pockets of corporate interests == that's not \"the media\", that's an honest portrait of"}, {"response": 33, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec 17, 1998 (18:34)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Thu Dec 17 16:41:16 1998 Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 16:41:16 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00031: Self-destructive Jungles X-UIDL: 40cc4519cfe3966095137656592114f2 Key concepts: drought, dying forests, burning forests, El Nino, CO2 load in biosphere, Chiapas Smoke Plume Attention Conservation Notice: Confuses the issue. Oxymoronic. Paradoxical. Terrifying. Hopefully, rather farfetched. Links: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/mexicofires.html http://pooh.esrin.esa.it:8080/ew/mexico.htm Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest: http://members.aol.com/stjude/ http://www.saunalahti.fi/~jtlin/viridian/ http://www.wenet.net/~scoville/Viridian/viridiantext.html Sources: Hanqin Tian, NATURE magazine ( http://www.nature.com) ; Article by Joseph B. Verrengia, Associated Press Austin American Statesman, Dec. 17, 1998 \"Forests add greenhouse gases during El Nino, scientists say\" By Joseph B. Verrengia \"Instead of inhaling extra carbon dioxide, Brazil's rain forest does the opposite in an El Nino year, exhaling millions of tons of the heat-trapping gas and potentially adding to global warming, scientists say. \"The rain forest, under normal conditions, acts as the 'lungs' of the planet. Its thousands of square miles of trees release oxygen and absorb as much as 700 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. \"But when global climate conditions are scrambled by El Nino and the rain forest becomes parched, scientists from the Woods Hole Research Laboratory in Massachusetts determined, the Amazon Basin produces as much as 200 million tons of excess carbon dioxide a year. The calculation by Hanqin Tian and others are published in today's issue of the journal NATURE.\" (...) \"In the Amazon, it (((El Nino))) causes severe droughts. Under such drought stress, the rain forest can't adequately photosynthesize and store carbon dioxide, Tian said.\" (((This grim discovery makes perfect sense, once you think about it. No water, no photosynthesis. No rain, no green. Simple as that. And what does the Amazon jungle do then? It coughs up a couple of hundred million tons. (((So much for the divine wisdom of Mother Nature. Could it be that Gaia is even more wacky and shortsighted than we are? Is she blindly willing to choke on her own spew just like the G-7 Advanced Industrial Nations? Well, why not? All the inhabitants of the biosphere have a perfect moral right to pitch right in and screw things up with us hominids. (((Upon digesting this appalling news, I suppose we could swiftly muster the Kevin Kelly Memorial Bulldozer Brigade (see Viridian Note 00024) and dash out there to saw the jungle down before it does us even more harm than Exxon-Mobil. But (a) we'll lose the benefit we get if we ever get another year that isn't an El Nino, (b) we probably need the oxygen even more urgently than we don't need the carbon dioxide, and (c) we needn't bother, because a parched rain forest will spontaneously *burn.* Combustion is when forests really spew the soot, and they do themselves a level of harm that lumberjacks can only envy. This blazing activity does not require any surprise discoveries by Woods Hole, and in fact it couldn't be more obvious, as the links in this Note suggest. (((These links, http://www.goes.noaa.gov/mexicofires.html http://pooh.esrin.esa.it:8080/ew/mexico.htm show writhing Mexican jungle smoke covering my home town, as revealed by both American and European satellite sensors. I am looking for the *prettiest* and *most graphically compelling* online picture of the 1998 Chiapas smoke plume. This is defininitely one of those core Viridian graphic documents that we Viridians need to be meditating upon, in our ivied, lingering, contemplative fashion. Please send me the address of the \"most Viridian-looking\" plume map or photo you can find on the web, and you will receive a chevron. (((What does this news mean? Well, perhaps nothing much; it may be news to us humans, but El Nino is not an entirely new phenomenon, and presumably Brazil has been belching up natural carbon for millennia. But not, perhaps, with today's unprecedented levels of psychotic enthusiasm, where vast swathes of dying jungle might conceivably auto-alter the planet climate, in a shrieking biofeedback, in a dysfunctional Gaian auto-da-fe'. Let's just bookmark this one as a small but distinct possibility: we could cease all human C02 emission tomorrow, and still find ourselves forced to spend the next thousand years trying to keep Mother Nature from ripping her hair out and immolating herself.)))"}, {"response": 34, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Dec 21, 1998 (11:10)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Sat Dec 19 10:37:36 1998 Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 10:37:36 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00032: The Viridian Refueling X-UIDL: 559e2642910641265bde1e194cecc5cd Project Key concepts: fuel cells, Proton Exchange Membranes, decentralized energy networks Attention Conservation Notice: Of interest mostly to technical specialists. Written in engineering jargon. Contains even more black humor than Note 00031. Links: http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch/V - Notes/ViridianNote00010.html http://www.plugpower.com/ http://www.gate.net/~h2_ep/10kw_pem.htm http://www.anl.gov:80/OPA/news95/news950808.html http://mhv.net/~hfcletter/letter/december98/feature.html Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest: http://members.aol.com/stjude/ http://www.saunalahti.fi/~jtlin/viridian/ http://www.wenet.net/~scoville/Viridian/viridiantext.html From: eric@sac.net* (Eric Hughes) In Viridian Note 00010, Jim Thompson wrote about fuel cells. Here's his two-sentence description: \"Basically, a fuel cell is like a battery where you put in some low-grade hydrocarbon (ethanol, methanol, kerosene, LP Gas, Natural Gas, diesel, methane). You get DC power out, with pure water and heat as the by-products.\" So far, so good. But then I wondered. Carbon goes in, but no carbon seems to come out of the cell. Something's missing. Here are some results of my looking around for it. 1) The Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell uses hydrogen (or hydrogen rich gas) as a primary fuel. There's no carbon in, so no carbon out. That's good, but there's no hydrogen fuel infrastructure today. 2) More practical fuel cell packages (Plug Power's for instance) generate hydrogen by converting it from a hydrocarbon fuel. These conversion devices are generally called \"fuel reformers.\" Unfortunately, fuel reformers do pollute. They appear to pollute in a less noxious way than combustion pollutes, but they still make carbon dioxide. These points are not at all obvious on websites attempting to sell fuel cells. A cell with a fuel reformer is a combustion process after all. Combustion in the presence of a catalyst is cleaner than combustion inside an engine cylinder, but in terms of carbon loading of the atmosphere, it's identical. The eventual output is oxides of carbon. And what about possible nitrogen oxide emissions? And what about impurities in the fuel? You can bet that the CO -> CO2 converter is not 100% efficient; and carbon monoxide happens to be a potent greenhouse gas. Answers are by no means easy to find in a first-pass investigation of various fuel-cell websites. Here are some tentative conclusions. (1) Until we somehow build a hydrogen infrastructure, fuel cells will be a marginal improvement on internal combustion. However, fuel cells might finesse the system- bootstrap problem toward a true hydrogen economy, by creating an installed base of hydrogen demand, which also works on fossil hydrocarbons. Once the fossil fuels go, someone can figure out better sources of hydrogen supply. (2) Spreading out energy generation through use of fuel cells is a big systemic win. It greatly reduces energy distribution cost and lost efficiency. Fuel cells may have certain long-term problems, but they spread the network's power away from the center, and toward distributed endpoints. This is good. We can make the analogy: new power is to old power, as internet is to telephone. In my self-appointed capacity as pro tem. Viridian Minister of Science (duration: 1 message), I now suggest the possible development of a Viridian Fuel Reformer. This device would have the following characteristics. Like oxidizing fuel reformers, the Viridian Fuel Reformer will accept low grade hydrocarbon inputs, typically biomass. However, the VFR does not produce carbon dioxide gas. Catalytic oxidation reformers strip hydrogen ions (i.e. protons) off carbon by binding the carbon to oxygen. The Viridian Fuel Reformer will strip off hydrogen by binding carbon atoms *to each other.* Now this requires energy, so the fuel conversion ratio for Viridian converters will be lower. We admit this problem; but we have a higher aim. When you bind two hydrocarbon chains to each other, a hydrogen atom and a single longer hydrocarbon results. This is the reverse of the standard \"cracking\" reactions used in oil refineries. The Viridian Fuel Reformer is a relentless fuel *fossilizer.* The Stage One VFR outputs heavy hydrocarbons and leftover fuel impurities. In other words, it exudes a heavy, viscous black gunk that looks and acts very much like crude oil. The Stage Two VFR strips even more hydrogen from this goo, and leaves big dirty lumps of congealed carbon, in a solid form much like coal. In the fine tradition of satirical mimicry, the future Viridian Hydrogen Economy will dispose of its waste products by *dumping them back into the earth.* Waste \"oil\" will be carefully pumped into many convenient underground reservoirs, already forme"}, {"response": 35, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 22, 1998 (10:08)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Mon Dec 21 21:04:38 1998 Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 21:04:38 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00033: Viridian Aesthetics: Andy X-UIDL: d5a3d83f35245e7ee7a966e8cf4ea931 Goldworthy Key concepts: Viridian aesthetics, Andy Goldsworthy Attention Conservation Notice: It's art criticism. Links: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues97/feb97/g olds.html http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/ArtsEdNet/Images/I/knotweed ..html http://cgee.hamline.edu/see/Goldsworthy/see_an_andy.html Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest http://members.aol.com/stjude/ http://www.saunalahti.fi/~jtlin/viridian/ http://www.wenet.net/~scoville/Viridian/viridiantext.html (((See Note 00027 for instructions on this contest.))) Our newly-coined Viridian Motto: \"Gimme Chevron\" Bruce Sterling remarks: The difficult question of \"what looks Viridian\" is central to our interests. We now examine the work of British artist Andy Goldsworthy. Andy Goldworthy (1956 -- ) is a British artist resident in Scotland. His artwork occupies a rather ill- defined and unique area, uniting sculpture, performance art, gardening, nature studies, and photography. He has done installations in a museum context, large-scale landscape engineering, and sculptures. He also does posters and books. Most of his work, however, is site-specific. Goldsworthy wanders barehanded into some chosen site out- of-doors (including France, Australia, Japan, the USA and even the North Pole) and artfully rearranges whatever he finds at hand. Goldsworthy's \"media\" have included mud, sand, sticks, thorns, rocks, boulders, leaves, flowers, feathers, bones, reeds, bark, branches, snow, rain, ice, and his own spit. After assembling the temporary sculpture and waiting for proper lighting conditions, he carefully photographs the ensemble, and then leaves it to decay. ************************************* Why Andy Goldsworthy Is Not Viridian ************************************* He doesn't loudly and publicly complain about carbon dioxide. His work is not \"transorganic;\" it looks very pastoral and edenic, until you realize he's done something extremely remarkable to the landscape through rearranging stray flowers and twigs by using his hands and teeth. His art is biological rather than biomorphic (except for that memorable episode when he artfully stacked up those rusting steel plates in the deserted, weed-grown foundry). ******************************* Why Andy Goldsworth is Viridian ******************************* He has enormous artistic talent that commands awestruck attention. His feeling for coloration and graphic composition are especially impressive. Though his approach might sound odd or gimmicky in mere description, his work is always striking, often dramatic and sometimes majestic. His art doesn't appear \"technological,\" but would be impossible without the mediation of cameras. Most of his work is temporary; the usual aim is photographic documentation of some crucial instant, not a permanent transformation of the landscape. His art embraces decay. He is particularly insistent about this. He datamines nature. He makes the invisible visible. He is very aware of historical process and refers to it repeatedly in his writings. He \"walks through walls of knowledge guilds\" by combining approaches of several art genres in a unique, historically rooted, but strangely timeless art practice. His work is biological, not logical. Through iterative actions, and an intuitive, interactive, hands-on approach, he creates a tableau that could not be pre-designed from a standing start. A Goldsworthy photograph displays human will, great persistence, great beauty, and intentionality, but not rational planning. The result does not resemble engineering, the imposition of human plans on raw materials. Instead, it resembles teleology: twigs and branches suddenly become dramatic actors, boulders find themselves clad in finery, pebbles somehow look the way that pebbles have \"always wanted to look.\" Rational analysis can't follow him, but he is going to some very interesting and effective places: this is genuine and powerful art practice. His work is not confrontational, deconstructive or subversive. It is innovative and serene. In his books and writings, Goldworthy has many interesting things to say about his sensibility and approach. Andy Goldsworthy: \"I am not playing the primitive. I use my hands because this is the best way to do most of my work. If I need tools then I will use them. Technology, travel and tools are part of my life and if needed should be part of my work also. A camera is used to document, an excavator to move earth, snowballs are carried cross country by articulated truck.\" Goldsworthy is not a decorative artist or nature sentimentalist: \"It is easy to make a mess. I want my work to be taut and am not interested in making weak arrangements of nature in the pretence of being sensitive.\" He is inter"}, {"response": 36, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan 25, 1999 (11:04)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Sat Jan 23 19:20:22 1999 Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 19:20:22 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00043: the Viridian Electrical X-UIDL: c0cb991f59d314c94c2397ed9d50ea5a Meter Key concepts: imaginary products, electrical meters Attention Conservation Notice: It's another whimsical \"product\" that doesn't yet exist, but might end up in a Viridian catalog someday. Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest: http://members.aol.com/stjude/ http://www.saunalahti.fi/~jtlin/viridian/ http://www.wenet.net/~scoville/Viridian/viridiantext.html http://www.erols.com/ljaurbach/ http://www.empathy.com/viridian/ http://www.spaceways.de/Viridian/Viridiantype.html http://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/viridian.html http://way.nu/greens/typography.html http://abe.burmeister.com/viridian2dot1.html http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/viridian/ http://www.msys.net/reid/main.html This contest embraces decay on January 31, 01999. For contest instructions see Note 00027. \"The Viridian Electrical Meter\" Concept: SeJ@aol.com^^^^** (Stefan Jones) Ad copy: bruces@well.com (Bruce Sterling) \"One of the most offensive artifacts of the twentieth century is the standard household energy meter. This ugly gizmo clings like a barnacle to the outside of your home, readable only by functionaries. Clumsily painted in battleship gray, this network spy device features creepy, illegible little clock-dials, under an ungainly glass dome. Look a bit closer, and this user- hostile interface deliberately insults you, with a hateful anti-theft warning, and a foul little lockbox. \"This crass device is designed to leave you in stellar ignorance of your own energy usage. It publicly brands you as a helpless peon, a technically-illiterate source of cash for remote, uncaring utility lords. \"But today, thanks to the Viridian Electrical Meter, the tables are turned. The Viridian Meter is not some utility spy device, but a user-owned art object! Based on the popular 'plasma globe,' this interactive meter/installation will grace any 21st-century living room. The attractively sizzling 'Magic Sphere' perches on a beautiful, visionary plant-stand, inspired by noted designers Hector Guimard and Albert Paley! \"The Viridian Meter is pre-set with the standard demographic energy consumption of your biome and climatic area. Network brownouts and spikes produce visible, spitting anomolies, quickly warning you to protect your valuable household gizmos from the incompetent vagaries of the local utility. When your home's energy use grows excessive, the plasma-globe arcs up with a warning red crackle. Best of all, feeding energy from your home into the grid causes the Viridian Meter to reverse its polarity, displaying its internal aurora in a cool, lovely green! Guests in your home will soon see that your solar panels (and/or fuel cells and windmills) free our planet from the nasty burdens of fossil-fuel. When your child comes home from school, all long-faced about environmental decline and horrific weather anomalies, your conscience will be certifiably clear! 'See our Meter, honey? Look! It runs green!'\" Stefan Jones (SeJ@aol.com) Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com)"}, {"response": 37, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Jan 26, 1999 (19:41)", "body": "I want one!"}, {"response": 38, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan 29, 1999 (11:06)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Thu Jan 28 18:32:01 1999 Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 18:32:01 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00044: The Viridian Service X-UIDL: 06b7871e52d457994b7db7c37d004a9a Station Key concepts: imaginary products, electric cars, gas stations, electric vehicles, upscale consumption patterns Attention Conservation Notice: It's yet another whimsical \"product\" that doesn't exist. We may fill a catalog yet. Even though they're not real products, this is *still* going to end up being a lot of work for somebody. Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest: http://members.aol.com/stjude/ http://www.saunalahti.fi/~jtlin/viridian/ http://www.wenet.net/~scoville/Viridian/viridiantext.html http://www.erols.com/ljaurbach/ http://www.empathy.com/viridian/ http://www.spaceways.de/Viridian/Viridiantype.html http://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/viridian.html http://way.nu/greens/typography.html http://abe.burmeister.com/viridian2dot1.html http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/viridian/ http://www.msys.net/reid/main.html This contest embraces decay on January 31, 01999. For contest instructions see Note 00027. Concept: SeJ@aol.com^^^^*** (Stefan Jones) Ad copy: SeJ@aol.com^^^^*** (Stefan Jones) Viridian Service Station: \"Get Charged!\" Starting at a single location in a former Blockbuster Video store, the \"Get Charged!\" chain of upscale electrical car charging stations have spread across the nation in the span of a few years. Besides providing fast, convenient charging and routine maintenance of electrical vehicles, \"Get Charged!\" locations feature lounge areas whose decor, cuisine and beverage offerings are aggressively targeted at an upscale consumer who is environmentally conscious, yet unwilling to accept a diminished quality of life. The first \"Get Charged!\" location in East Palo Alto, California was chosen to service both the local market of upscale consumers and environmentally hip Bay Area residents commuting between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Using clean electricity from a windmill farm in the Altamont Pass, and providing shuttle service to nearby major employers in its own fleet of electric minivans, the station quickly won good grades from the area's vocal environmentalist contingent. However, the location did not \"come alive\" until the opening of its signature Greenhouse Lounge(TM). Part indoor nursery, part art gallery, part cyber- espresso bar, the Greenhouse Lounge quickly attracted a regular clientele. Indeed, the bistro was soon overrun by people arriving at \"Get Charged!\" Franchise #1 in cheap, ugly, gasoline powered vehicles. Thereafter, patronage was strictly limited to the owners and passengers of electric cars. When a major venture capital firm made the location its preferred lunch spot, sales of electric vehicles in San Mateo county doubled in the space of a month.... (((Our story continues with a stirring sidebar concerning a legendary tech discovery taking place in the Greenhouse Lounge; Stamford geeks show off solar energy / biomass hack; VCs at next table immediately buy into it)))) (((Readings, signings by authors take place at Lounges))) ((((Lounge as multimedia showplace for video display, imaging hacks)))) ((((Showrooms become upscale version of Greek diners that sell \"starving artist\" paintings right off the wall.... At other \"Get Charged!\" franchises: Solar, biomass, hydrocarbon fuel cells.... I'd like to write more about this, but I'm getting into a creepy, enthusiastic, MBA student sort of mood... I'll just have to stop now... You'll have to spin it for yourselves.))) Stefan Jones (SeJ@aol.com)"}, {"response": 39, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Feb  6, 1999 (11:05)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Fri Feb 5 19:12:04 1999 Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 19:12:04 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00047: Viridian Imaginary X-UIDL: 0492c31693795a40d8d304a6d9cbf4c3 Products Exhibition Key concepts: Viridian Imaginary Products Exhibition, Viridian Teakettle Contest Attention Conservation Notice: This proposed scheme is particularly ambitious and time-consuming. Entries in the Viridian \"Fungal Typography\" Contest: http://members.aol.com/stjude/ http://www.saunalahti.fi/~jtlin/viridian/ http://www.wenet.net/~scoville/Viridian/viridiantext.html http://www.erols.com/ljaurbach/ http://www.empathy.com/viridian/ http://www.spaceways.de/Viridian/Viridiantype.html http://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/viridian.html http://way.nu/greens/typography.html http://abe.burmeister.com/viridian2dot1.html http://rampages.onramp.net/~jzero/viridian/ http://www.msys.net/reid/main.html http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/nancy.html http://www.netaxs.com/~morgana/fungus.html http://www.golden.net/~eli/viridian/ http://ucsub.Colorado.EDU/~smcginni/viridian/vfont.html The winner of the Viridian Fungal Typography Contest is: Hinne Burmeister (hinne@spaceways.de^^^^*) AKA: DJB, Django Blades, Denon Kleo, THE Sound! Inhabitant of Projekt Kochstrasse Member of Comite de Musique Deluxe (CMD) Co-founder of SPACEWAYS Management & Production On mature consideration, Hinne Burmeister's entry at: http://www.spaceways.de/Viridian/Viridiantype.html was judged \"Most Fungal.\" Hinne Burmeister has been sent a well-deserved copy of the contest prize book, *Hot Designers Make Cool Fonts.* And now, for the details of our third Viridian design contest, which is our most ambitious yet. As we all know, the Viridian Design Movement does not in fact exist. The long torrent of rhetoric consuming your attention to date is a mere *beta pre-release* of a *possible* 21st century design movement. Real design movements ship. They create actual designed products. A real-world Viridian product design company would be a very fine thing. I even understand how one goes about founding and running such an enterprise. It has a lot to do with tedious minutiae such as \"prototyping,\" \"licensing,\" \"sourcing,\" \"pricing,\" \"distribution,\" and \"advertising,\" not to mention employee relations, taxes, incorporation, trademarks, patents, and return-on-investment. Running a commercial manufacturing firm is an attention-vampire of the first order. Becoming the CEO of a design firm is just not within the Pope-Emperor's realm of possible activity. However. Real designers also throw public exhibits where they gallantly show off their wares. Here we perceive some interesting Viridian potential. While we can't manufacture and sell commercial products, creating fake *mockups* of *imaginary Viridian products* might well be within our grasp. Sometime in the year 02000 (assuming we make our ideological deliverables on January 3), we might conceivably create and throw a public Viridian exhibit, a futurist conceptual-art parody of a real design show. This \"Viridian Imaginary Products Exhibit\" would be open to the public. It might be rather similar in spirit to the \"Art of Star Wars\" show, where everyone knows that the rayguns and blast-shields aren't real or functional, but they all go anyway, just because everything looks so cool. Finding a friendly gallerist and a suitable display space is not beyond our ability. This effort would be time-consuming; it would require funding, budgeting, coordination and a lot of organizational overhead; but not crushing amounts. Best of all, the project would be swiftly over with. The central challenge here is finding Viridian product designers, and, especially, some hands-on Viridian model- makers. People, in other words, who can dream this stuff up, and successfully fake it for us, so that physical Viridian objets d'conceptual art can be shipped to some central locale for public display. To manage this proposed event, we would have to assemble a core \"Star Chamber\" of inner-circle Viridian volunteers. This means investing large amounts of creative effort and attention. We would endeavour to supply some glory and prestige to volunteers. Your name would prominently pasted on the vitrine, you'd receive some groovy citation in the accompanying glossy catalog.... And, who knows, there might be weird and the designer/builder team could sell the model afterwards for a hefty sum to some crazed sci-fi collector. There might be some modest sums of expense money involved in throwing this event, but I can almost guarantee you that the money would not make it worth your while. Is such an event in fact possible for us? Well, we'll never find out without experimenting. The third Viridian Contest is meant to winkle out public-spirited people who might have what it takes to put such an effort together. Hence, the Viridian Teakettle Contest. Teakettles are, of course, highly cliched designer objects"}, {"response": 40, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sun, Feb  7, 1999 (23:51)", "body": "hey, Terry, how do I get on this list?"}, {"response": 41, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Feb  8, 1999 (07:02)", "body": "Email bruces@well.com and ask him to put you on the list."}, {"response": 42, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Feb  8, 1999 (07:53)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Sat Feb 6 21:27:37 1999 Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:27:37 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00048: Viridian Aphorisms X-UIDL: 11ac57c85ba2fb5a007870f552af9006 Key concepts: Viridian Aphorisms, Viridian Ranking System Attention Conservation Notice: it's mostly the moderator's housekeeping, except for the customary attention-grabbing wit and wisdom that we swiped from famous people. Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian The proudly Danish website adding new functionality and rumbling toward a digital-art launch http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch/V-Notes/ViridianIndex.html Mitchell Porter's Australian archive kept impressively up- to-date http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades Antediluvian Sterling homepage undergoing dusting and cleaning. Now in the automated business of selling various books. Increasingly infested with Viridian graphics, takes forever to load. Massive Improvements Real Soon Now. MODERATOR'S NOTE. My travel schedule is very heavy this month and through early March. Expect Viridian traffic to slow drastically. This is not a malfunction; do not adjust your set. I am in possession of some excellent Viridian material, and will likely set a blistering pace of editing and distribution, when and if I return. Viridian Aphorisms Contribute a useful Viridian aphorism, and you will receive an attractive chevron > \"Even the voice of conscience undergoes mutation.\" Stanislaus Lec \"That which we call sin in others is experiment for us.\" Ralph Waldo Emerson \"Think. It ain't illegal yet.\" George Clinton \"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.\" E. F. Schumacher \"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.\" Bertrand Russell \"Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room.\" Blaise Pascal \"The natural environment is doctored up continuously and warped by the acts of the human brain.\" Richard Neutra \"Those who will not labor mightily on their own behalf shall be given other masters.\" Xenophon \"If you can talk brilliantly enough about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.\" Stanley Kubrick \"It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.\" Winston Churchill \"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side.\" Lord Halifax \"If we were not all so excessively interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.\" Schopenhauer \"Man does not live long enough to profit from his faults.\" Jean de La Bruyere (((Since I have often been asked, allow me to reiterate the difference between a \"star\" and a \"chevron.\" You receive a star when some personal work of your own is published before the entire Viridian list. You are on public display and courting a public reaction; therefore, you \"star.\" A chevron acknowledges some helpful Viridian act which does not appear publicly.))) VIRIDIAN RANKING SYSTEM The Viridian Ranking System has been hand-created with a vintage fountain pen and fine art paper. Scars, flaws, and imperfections add character and are an inherent part of the product. SeJ@aol.com steffen@ems.org jon@lasser.org whiz@ricochet.net ljaurbach@erols.com rsewell@cix.compulink.co.uk eli@golden.net jzero@onramp.net morgana@netaxs.com sethmc@turcotte.colorado.edu tor@araneum.dk dhlight@mcs.net jim@smallworks.com patmazza@teleport.com wex@media.mit.edu tbyfield@panix.com WarrenE@aol.com hinne@spaceways.de lstinson@empathy.com rinesi@espacio.com.ar cisler@pobox.com mgoldh@well.com pinknoiz@pinknoiz.com dlandry@rohan.sdsu.edu danny@spesh.com hoechst.forum@lrz.uni-muenchen.de infinite@beaming.com jonny@way.nu me@karmanaut.com tux@powerbase-alpha.com abeb@erols.com eric@sac.net LangiG@parl.gc.ca r1ddl3r@bp13.u.washington.edu StJude@aol.com weasel@gothic.net acotter@nonsensical.com jeffk@well.com jtlin@saunalahti.fi MICHAEL.HARTLEY@one2one.co.uk redbird@jump.net reid@well.com richardd@reeseco.com scoville@hooked.net stewarts@stewarts.org thallad@pcnet.com jonl@well.com Ian.Griffin@Corp.Sun.COM pjd@cne.gmu.edu rdm@test.legislate.com shassinger@dev.tivoli.com TuckerV@frogdesign.com xiane@entech.com bobmorris@mediaone.net Cooper409@aol.com mitch@thehub.com.au shalizi@santafe.edu bperry@shore.net bsiano@cceb.med.upenn.edu cthomas@10fold.com jrc@well.com kallen@physics.ucsd.edu kirk@mcelhearn.com mheat@mha-net.org rnedal@olimpo.com.br richyoung@hotbot.com robot@ultimax.com sbweintraub@lbl.gov yzl@ucdavis.edu ab006@chebucto.ns.ca alexander_schuth@yahoo.com ASKornheiser@prodigy.net AtKisson@aol.com bonkydog@sirius.com dave@va.com.au dsenft@bcj.com geert@xs4all.nl gordy@nytimes.com kamenr@river.org katie@wtp.net Matt@MediaServ.com nehrlich@sfis.com pacoid@fringeware.com roger@bayarea.net rthieme@thiemeworks.com SpitzleyD@state.mi.us thack@design-inst.nl tick@sidehack.sat.gweep.net Adam@e-ga"}, {"response": 43, "author": "MikeLynn", "date": "Tue, Feb  9, 1999 (03:21)", "body": "Anyone seen the listing of the Viridian Greens in the 'Wired' column of Wired Magazine's latest issue's Tired/Wired list ?"}, {"response": 44, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Feb  9, 1999 (08:05)", "body": "Nope, I assume it's \"wired\" and what is it's \"tired\" counterpart?"}, {"response": 45, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Tue, Feb  9, 1999 (21:54)", "body": "Tired? That would be the Luddite Greens. Technology is the only thing that can extract us from our current predicament and still allow something resembling our current leisure-rich lifestyle."}, {"response": 46, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Feb  9, 1999 (23:06)", "body": "Long Live Technocracy!"}, {"response": 47, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Feb 26, 1999 (13:18)", "body": "Huh, thanks fer the invitation to this here place, Terry - where's the fridge? Or, in other words: Haven't heard anything from the fearless viridian leader. Is he still in front? Or wherever, as front is 20thCent-think, right? Or rather, not (as right is a political concept, which is very much 20thCent in flave)? Uh, all this makes me dizzy. May I have some more of it?"}, {"response": 48, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Feb 26, 1999 (13:27)", "body": "spin the other way now Alexander... it'll get you dizzy in the other direction too!"}, {"response": 49, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Feb 26, 1999 (14:21)", "body": "Bruce? He's traveling for a while. Expect a flurry of updates soon though."}, {"response": 50, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Feb 27, 1999 (11:57)", "body": "yee-haw! and welcome, Alexander!"}, {"response": 51, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Mar  2, 1999 (16:23)", "body": "Thanks for the friendly welcome, here, too. Hey, Stacey, hey, Kitchen - how come you're whereever I go in this here Spring? Uh, Stacey, the award goes straight to you - first person here to figure I'm dizzy in more than one direction. Terry, Does The Fearless Leader hafta tour for his book (again), or is he having fun? ;=}"}, {"response": 52, "author": "stacey", "date": "Tue, Mar  2, 1999 (16:52)", "body": "*grin* WER and I (and I speak for him allthe time so don't fret!) are unshakable forces within the Spring... ummm... or maybe we're the shakiest forces within the Spring... how 'bout we're forceful within the Spring and like to shake... ...like shakes taken by force? Alas... perhaps there is no answer to the question \"why are WER and Stacey everywhere\" perhaps there is only the fact of our large base of existance."}, {"response": 53, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Mar  2, 1999 (21:11)", "body": "They're ubiquitous. Book Tour? Would hafta write a book first. But keep the rumor circulating anyway. Glad you're checking out the Viridian list, what do you think of the content and concepts so far? Can you explain it to us all?"}, {"response": 54, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Mar  2, 1999 (22:25)", "body": "think Alexander and you have currently got you and Bruce Sterling confused... (whereas Stacey and I are always confused everywhere...)"}, {"response": 55, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Mar  4, 1999 (07:38)", "body": "Stacey is Bruce Sterling."}, {"response": 56, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Mar  4, 1999 (10:01)", "body": "ah ha!!!"}, {"response": 57, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Mar  5, 1999 (09:27)", "body": "Well, seems not only this here reader got the dizzies... Sorry to confuse you, Terry, but with Fearless Leader I meant Stacey Sterling. and with book I was referring to Distraction. Or Bruce Vura. Or else. Also read below: * Glad you're checking out the Viridian list, Well, how could I refuse your invitation? I'm on the mailing list, too, so I wouldn't want to miss the fun on this one. *what do you think of the content and concepts so far? Hmh, you really care about what I think? It takes long to load. Newest stuff should load topmost first, maybe. Somehow, there should be a distinction between the papal transmissions and our completely irrelevant mumblings. *Can you explain it to us all? Listen, buster - any time I feel like making a complete idiot of myself, I'm gonna do it. But I don't let anyone push me on that one. ;=} Honest, what or who do you think I am? It's very kind of you to ask me, as this somehow indicates that from whatever facts you collected from my rumblings on the Spring, you dedicated I would have something to say. Maybe even something meaningful. Well, I don't. Sorry."}, {"response": 58, "author": "visitor", "date": "Fri, Mar  5, 1999 (10:04)", "body": "and, I have nothing to post and I'm going to post it just once."}, {"response": 59, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Mar  5, 1999 (16:26)", "body": "Aaaaaaaa- men!"}, {"response": 60, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Mar 11, 1999 (10:58)", "body": "Catch the party invite at the end! Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon Mar 8 '99 (15:29) 210 lines From bruces@well.com Mon Mar 8 17:08:46 1999 Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 17:08:46 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00051: Viridian Commentary X-UIDL: 9f17f04fd746fcf64311a06b7a3c1672 Key concepts: pedal-powered buses, hurricane names, wind- up browsers, table-of-contents Viridian Notes 00025-00050, party invitation to Bruce Sterling's house Attention Conservation Notice: It rambles a lot, but you get invited to a nice party with free beer. Entries in the Viridian Teakettle Design Contest: http://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/teakettl.html http://www.dnai.com/~catnhat/teapots.htm http://www.interlog.com/~shamann/ This contest ends March 20, 01999. From: tor@araneum.dk^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^* Subject: Pedal-powered bus Subj: All ABOARD THE PEDALBUS -WORLDWIDE COLLABORATION Date: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 10:26:49 AM Bagelhole1 ( http://bagelhole.hypermart.net/) , under construction, calls for collaborators, globally, to share ideas as to the best ways (design, mediums, etc) we can think of to build a bus for about 50 people, that is a hybrid, run both by pedal power and electrical (generated by the pedal power and the turbine on top), equipped with sail. There would be a driver who steers, changes gears, and brakes. Music, perhaps, to inspire the pedal/passengers, maybe made from bamboo partially. All passengers ride/pedal for free, of course. Electric kicks in, when there are not enough pedal/riders. Every city could have such a bus to bring attention to people to aid in soliciting low-tech, homemade style ideas for self-sustainability, thinking in terms of small neighborhoods, in mutual co-operation with each other, as a way to really kick off community contingency preparation, globally. This needs to be done very quickly. So please heed, if you hear the call. bagelhole1@aol.com (((bruces remarks: I rather like this nutty, innocent scheme, as long as we can make sure that these giant urban rickshaws are restricted to highly-developed countries, and powered exclusively by rich, well-educated, overweight people.))) From: cascio@well.com^^ (Jamais Cascio) Subject: Weather Violence Terminology >From the Rachel (rachel.org) newsletter #634: \"We favor the idea, floated early last year, to stop naming hurricanes after individual humans and start naming them after oil companies. In place of Hurricane Alice or Hurricane Hugo, we would have Hurricane Mobil and Hurricane Exxon. A headline like 'Exxon Kills 10,000, Leaves 50,000 Homeless' would have a certain salutary ring of truth to it.\" (((bruces remarks: Yes, of course, but.... \"Shell\" would get off lightly due to the alphabetical listings, while the new \"Amoco/British Petroleum\" hybrid would catch more than its fair share of abuse.))) >From wex@media.mit.edu^^^^^^^^^** (Dr. Alan Wexelblat) Subject: Wind-Up Browsers for Ten Dollars These people don't know it, but they are Viridian... To: mas-students@media.mit.edu From: Joe Jacobson Subject: Windup Browsers Seminar Seminar - MAS 968 (H level) Fridays 10-12, E15-468H Design of Information Appliances for the Third World: Windup Browsers The WIND-UP Browser seminar will be geared towards designing and building an information appliance for developing nations. The sole constraints are that 1] It must change the world 2] It must have a manufacturing cost of $10. Week 1: Introduction to the Problem Assignment: Map of literacy and access to information around the globe Week 2: Introduction to low cost information technologies Full survey of everything in existence from displays to radio receivers to hand-crank generators that could be cobbled together to make a $10 device. Week 3: In class design session of self contained reader Week 4: presentation of self contained reader. Week 5: Economic models - how can third world peoples supplement their income: Contract programming, inventing etc. over the web. Week 6: In class design and presentation of an economic model for supplemental income. Brainstorm on how to build 1 Billion wind-up browsers. Week 7: In class design of linked information device Week 8: Presentation of linked information device Week 9: Final project. (((bruces remarks: Here's another stirring step-forward for the philosophy that wants every Saharan Tuareg to carry his own solar-powered satdish and boombox. A ten- dollar browser will change the world, all right == it'll change the world to a place that will gladly pay ten *million* dollars for any device that will *eliminate* web browsers, in say, a five-mile radius.))) From: pdo@metamajik.com^* (Paul D. Ouderkirk) Subject: Re: Correction to Viridian Note 00045 Bruce Sterling wrote: \" The US Armed Forces can no longer fully command their own dedicated industrial base == they're forced to use common off-the-shelf stuff now, the poor wretches even have to run battleships on Windows 95....\" If you're referring to that Navy "}, {"response": 61, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Mar 12, 1999 (03:18)", "body": "Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 20:22:40 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Add to Address Book Reply-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00052: Human-Assisted Wildlife Migration Key Concepts: Emergency global heat strategy; multinational ecostructures; Post-Pleistocene landscape designs; totemic ambassadors; distributive intellect; decentralized aesthetic appreciation Attention Conservation Notice: Peter Warshall, editor of Whole Earth Review, wrote us this Note. You're not likely to find a Viridian screed more \"whole-earthy\" than this one. Entries in the Viridian Teakettle Design Contest: http://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/teakettl.html http://www.dnai.com/~catnhat/teapots.htm http://www.interlog.com/~shamann/ This contest ends March 20, 01999. From: pwturtle@well.com* (Peter Warshall) Sources: Among others, Whole Earth magazine's issue on modern landscape ecology (Number 93). Many net sites for groups (see issue) that monitor greenhouse changes and impacts on our extended selves == the animal kingdom. Email becomes ecological. Ecostructures equal infrastructures. Prophesy includes Monarch butterflies, jaguars, unlimited ducks, and a sub-movement == the Cerulean Movement. Beauty and paying attention lead to conservation. Citizen science is already happening. Kids and oldsters are tracking the great heating of the planet by tracking NAFTA zoology. Monarch butterflies that move from Canada to Michoacan are tracked by kids and volunteers who tell who's arrived or departed on the web. They spot the hottest spots where the milkweeds (Monarch fueling stations) have gone extinct and fragmented the tri- national corridor. They monitor the results of the World Trade Organization (without saying it). So when the US stops genetically engineered soybeans from being labelled as such, and GE soybeans spread through the soy/corn belt, and milkweed in the fields or along the roadways is herbicided with RoundUp, they know, and the news surges over the net. The same for ducks that travel from Canada to Mejico. And wood warblers. But, global warming is sending the subtropical critters north. Armadillos in Texas, jaguars in New Mexico/Arizona, elegant trogans, coatimundis...all heading north with the heat. Ecostructure is to nature, what infrastructure is to humans. It's the corridors and composition of the corridors that help trees or animals move with the heat. Jaguars used to be as far north as the Grand Canyon. That mom and cubs are stuffed in New York, in the American Museum of Natural History (1905). Jaguars used to be in Louisiana. Now, with the heat and forest fires and clearcutting, they're heading north and need corridors. So old fart ranchers and hunters and multiple-aged maniacal naturalists have tracked the ecostructure needed and are preparing for 2012 and beyond. Supplying a space to move that is Viridian, since jaguars and coatis have a hard time in sand dunes. Add to this, the Cerulean Movement which knows that the greenhouse effect will raise the seas and mudflats and lagoons will drown. So, the NAFTA effect on shorebirds who will find few places to land and fuel up by pick, jab, and stab at spineless inverts. No ecostructure. Either they will become albatrosses or perish. The NAFTA critters include greywhales and sea turtles. They used to include steelhead and sea otters. In short, the webbing of the Earth (ecostructure) parallels the webbing of the human invention (roads, wires). No college scientist nor the NSF can track these changes in grounded and oceanic ecostructure and movements. It's beyond the scope of satellites. Yet the non-humans carry the news. They are allies of the prophets. By believing in their intelligence, the future can be known. To do all this requires a distributive intellect and integrated decentralized observation network. Its only citizens in love with looking and feeding their love (an aesthetic if there is one) into the net that is cheap and joyful. A new viridian science that will allow focused finances to see the landscape breaks and gaps and heal them. This movement too has an automatic end. Stop global warming, connect the dots, and end the movement. Peter Warshall, Whole Earth Quarterly 1408 Mission Avenue San Rafael, CA 94901 USA Phone 415-256-2800, ext. 224 Fax 415-256-2808"}, {"response": 62, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, Mar 15, 1999 (01:36)", "body": "interesting little piece there...hmmm..."}, {"response": 63, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Mar 15, 1999 (11:50)", "body": "Someones thinking about ecostructure. Registrant: Matrix Group, inc. (ECOSTRUCTURE-DOM) 4701 Keswick Road Baltimore, MD 21210 Domain Name: ECOSTRUCTURE.COM"}, {"response": 64, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Mar 16, 1999 (20:10)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Sat Mar 13 23:32:14 1999 Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 23:32:14 -0600 (CST) To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note OOO53: The Ecosystem Game X-UIDL: af47508cf91b9df9d6fd34d440d9b49b Key concepts: imaginary products, computer games, ecosystem design Attention Conservation Notice: This imaginary product does not exist, but this long, fake product-pitch is worked out in such scary, meticulous detail that the whole screed seems quite convincing. Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian Tor Kristensen remarks: I've added searching functionality to the Viridian archive! An easier way to find that kernel of wisdom from 12 messages back. Entries in the Viridian Teakettle Design Contest: http://www.xensei.com/users/stewarts/teakettle.html http://www.dnai.com/~catnhat/teapots.htm http://www.interlog.com/~shamann/ http://www.powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike/teakettle.html We have a Russian entry on the way... This contest ends March 20, 01999. The EcoSystem Game by Alex Steffen (steffen@ems.org^^^^^^^^^^^***) Okanogan County, WA The hottest computer game of the year isn't about blowing apart zombies with a shotgun, or trying to land a virtual lunar shuttle on the deck of an aircraft carrier in pitching seas. No, the latest sensation in the gaming world comes down to a 26 year-old biology PhD candidate standing up to her hips in a mountain stream, skimming bugs of the surface with a mesh net. \"I'm doing an aquatic insect count,\" the biologist, Sarah Greene, explains. \"This will give us a rough estimation of how healthy this habitat is, whether or not it's providing sufficient food for wild salmon.\" By itself, counting bugs is not very exciting. It's what happens to the count that has made this odd game a hit. You see, in this game, \"EcoSystem\" the \"board\" is a real place == a three-hundred-fifty-thousand acre system of valleys here in rural Washington, in a county larger than the state of Connecticut. The actions of the \"players\" == tens of thousands of paying customers from around the planet == control all the management decisions for this vast tract of land. It's a real-world, real-time, high-tech videogame, where things are actually born and eaten, flourish or dwindle, based on the players' mouse-clicks == and often in front of their very eyes. After identifying and counting the insect population, Greene feeds the information into a computer, which tabulates the data and puts it up on the game's website. There, it is added to and cross-referenced with literally millions of other pieces of information to present a picture of how the EcoSystem is doing. Some of the information is arcane, like Youst's bug count. Some is more personal, like another grad student's daily observations and video about the habits and behavior of the valley's only spotted owl brood. Members post thousands of queries about this data, make notes on GIS maps, make and debate motions about how to manage the land, even plot coups and counter-coups in the management regime. Debates often become quite heated, such as a recent quarrel over whether to introduce a pack of wolves into the valley (the wolf-fans won). In exchange, the EcoSystem team is able to meet three of its goals: the preservation of a vast tract of land (ranging from logged-over scabland to a few isolated patches of ancient forest) at a time when public money for wilderness preservation has all but dried up; the restoration of portions of the ecosystem using experimental techniques; and the chance to study the workings of an entire ecosystem in a level of detail never before attempted. This last is due largely to the availability of large numbers of grants through the company for graduate work in the area, but EcoSystem president Jack Muir says none of the project would be possible without recent advances in computer and telecommunications technology. \"Not only do we have hundreds of employees and thousands of customers, all connected via networks,\" Muir says, \"but we also have thousands of remote sensing devices of all different kinds, all going 24-7, measuring a wealth of data which has never been practical to consider before.\" But technology has made the game possible in a more direct sense as well. Part of the $30,000 entry fee to play includes the interface screen and equipment, a large flat-display screen which receives a direct feed from the valley, allowing players to show off pictures from any number of robot cameras (the camera on the owls is particularly popular), as well as track any number of information streams. The EcoSystem, many players say, is a part of their daily lives. To some this might sound boring, but most of the players this writer spoke with claimed it was quite the opposite: some say they experience a deep connection to the EcoSystem which they feel for no other land. Others recount powerful on-line experiences, such as the time cameras captured the wolf pack bringing down an elk and thousands across the w"}, {"response": 65, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Mar 17, 1999 (10:44)", "body": "And now for something a bit different but relevant in an oblique way, from Justin Hall's diary: we wandered over somehow to bruce sterling's house - he'd invited the near-whole of south by southwest to his 1912/frank lloyd writey custom designed/build admirable family pad. respected but unread pat cadigan science fiction author i should know better, bruce sterling holding court in his office, showing off computer crime books, ru serius and his wonderful welcome-matt-flinging ladyfriend eve, demi-stars and the 13 year old dj, who may have put on eminem more than once, though it may have been carl. adam powell told me about fugazi with the most incredible fervent look in his eyes, as he is want to do describing a trip to eat a burrito. paul with recent videos of me gathered persistenly at http://www.spring.net/ threw out occasional questions, still in his rather large but not laden vest-of-many pockets. jon lebkowsky i've felt somehow has been most host-behind-the-scenes all along and he was there looking quite impish in eyebrows and friendly in his belly, smiled much and suggested i think seriously about repurposing my web ramblings into a sellable book. his tome on netpolitics should be rescued from academic press in time for a presidential-era publishing this november if possible i suggested. joey anuff of suck did the usual rib-tickling rundown of myself or whoever availed. the woman from the ACTlab here described the collaboratively written opera she'd organized and had just seen performed. never having done opera before she was prompted by sandy stone to do something new first and therein find the necessary knomwledge. bruce sterling's youngest daughter of maybe 3 was eating candy necklace beads that had been already separated from the string. i sat near her on the wooden stairs and tried mimicry to initiate play - she had none of it and steadily rolled away from my ovations of friendship, beginning a slow moan that threatened to become a cry. a guy who's name slips me and i'm too tired to find his card had long red hair and a longer attention span than i for the subject at hand between us - managing web site collections of links. another fellow, jeff? can't recall; he mentioned wanting to auction me off on ebay. joey said a famous VC had auctioned off an hour of his time there and i should try that too. of my party carl david and ariana were leaving after 10 minutes. they invited my departure as well but i could not stand to leave a nice group gathered here under a writerly umbrella for casual chatting in pleasant audible surroundings so i abandoned any party hopping for 90 minutes wandering happy at the sterlings. his office was lined with books, many his, many cyber, much eclectica. sterling has a quite old mac (fewer wiz bang - maybe more work), while his daughter of 3 has a powerful PC that he is sure to be kicked off of if she catches him on it when she has work to do. over his desk, much like howard, strikingly like howard, sterling had a large ganesha. at first he dodged acknowledging the significance, but he came to share a dream of a visitation by a three foot high rat in some clothes the day he cleaned and installed the large painted statue (rat being the messenger of ganesh and the title of a story by a fellow i did not note and do not recall). later i paused in the kitchen a moment to say thanks yous ands goods byes to him my host. i introduced myself and sterling mentioned my hair change. somehow origin came up and he mentioned that garriot was an astronaut's sun who had famous halloween parties every few years. there was a large hammock outside between the house and my ride. i jumped in, it was a broad sweep, many feet between the anchors. amidst my late-evening breeze riding sterling ran by and snatched up an attached rope to pull me to exciting heights cackling something resembling \"appropriate use\""}, {"response": 66, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Mar 17, 1999 (12:59)", "body": "Huh, see, Wer, that's what I call something to say. Wished I'd been there, though, and could have watched people. Well, I got treated to a Granfaloon Bus concert on Monday, so I did have some life, too."}, {"response": 67, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Wed, Mar 17, 1999 (19:21)", "body": "Definitely a good party. I dropped in for a couple of hours, talked Telcomm with a couple of guys formerly of Motorola, chatted with Paul, then got in an involved coversation with a chap from Australia comparing/contrasting Amerind/Aborigine treatment by the US and Australia, and media portrayals of the same relations over the years. I've decided to sell my soul if that's what it takes to be as good at throwing parties as the inimitable Mr. Sterling."}, {"response": 68, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Wed, Mar 17, 1999 (19:25)", "body": "Ooops - also forgot a brief discussion with our host re: debating Viridian Manifestos. I'm getting in on the ground floor of a virtual community based in the UK, and I'm mining every interesting topic I can for ideas for a debate forum. Any Viridian concepts that you guys consider especially arguable? I'm looking for ones that are controversial and mind-grabbing."}, {"response": 69, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Mar 18, 1999 (00:50)", "body": "you ought to talk to Mike since he's our \"resident\" Englishman..."}, {"response": 70, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Thu, Mar 18, 1999 (01:00)", "body": "OK. Mike? Any ideas as to provocative concepts for discussion on the other side of the pond? I like the idea of a \"Truth and Reconciliation Commission\" for polluters, a la South Africa."}, {"response": 71, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr  8, 1999 (02:34)", "body": "explain, please..."}, {"response": 72, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Thu, Apr  8, 1999 (21:45)", "body": "Sterling suggested something along these lines in one of his first Viridian mailings. Basically, like Mandela's government, a commission would be set up to hold hearings, getting all the information possible on major polluters. Cooperation with the commission would reflect favorably on those who did so, according to the amount of information they were willing to give. In some cases, immunity from prosecution would be granted, but not automatically. This would serve to bring into the open all the dirty little secrets of all of the corporate polluters, in a framework that encourages openness and some sort of reconciliation without simply delving into the realm of bloodthirsty vengeance. It *seems* to be working so far in South Africa, but time will tell...."}, {"response": 73, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr  9, 1999 (00:35)", "body": "kinda partial to bloodthirsty vengeance myself...thanks for the details!"}, {"response": 74, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Sun, Apr 11, 1999 (19:47)", "body": "Don't get me wrong - vengeance is good, and I'm sure enough polluters will refuse to cooperate to satisfy our bloodlust... But this way, we can at least get more information. Information that will help prosecute other polluters...."}, {"response": 75, "author": "wer", "date": "Sun, Apr 11, 1999 (22:52)", "body": "hey, I understand! more of the transparent society kinda stuff..."}, {"response": 76, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 15, 1999 (13:46)", "body": "Subject: Viridian Note 00060: Viridian Strategy Key concepts: catalogs, design shows, imaginary products, fundraising, money and organizational problems Attention Conservation Notice: If you read these notes because they're funny and they have weird news clippings, then you'd better skip this one. Links: http://www.arts-cape.com/softearth/ A woman who makes pottery out of deep-sea abyssal mud. Teakettles anyone? After the Viridian Teakettle Contest, I have had some time to ponder Viridian imaginary products and possible Viridian events. I believe we Viridians have hit a nerve with this imaginary products theme. The response is strong. Viridian Notes with \"imaginary products\" provoke a lot of list feedback. They also stir up media interest. Grim reportage of melting Antarctic ice packs is all well and good, but we're preaching to the converted as we track the climate news. These made-up gizmos of ours, by contrast, really seem to suit the contemporary temperament. It's an age which is profoundly weary of ideology and hates to face the facts, but it's still touchingly eager for a technical fix, especially if it's personal, intimate, and can be FedExed in with a single website click. So I'd like to see the Viridian Movement invest some serious effort in this promising direction. Expressing one's desire for righteous knicknacks is an effective political tactic, much less shopworn than protest signs, peptalks, or dire prognostications. I believe our tactics here should echo those of the Canadian publication ADBUSTERS. ADBUSTERS violently loathes the advertising industry and all its works. A typical ADBUSTERS fake ad is \"Joe Chemo,\" a chainsmoking camel undergoing chemotherapy. The uniform subtext of all ADBUSTERS fake ads is that you, the viewer, are a victim of mental pollution and corporate false-consciousness. ADBUSTERS tries to hammer you into a more socially- advanced awareness by revealing the machineries of consumer manipulation. This is doubtless a virtuous and useful message, but there's already a group energetically doing this, ie. ADBUSTERS. Given our limited resources and innate Viridian Inactivism, we lazy Viridians could never out-do ADBUSTERS. However, I think we could detourne advertising in another way. Our Viridian version of fake ads should strongly suggest to the viewer that he lives in an *entire culture* which is so crass, so crude, so filthy, and so lacking in refinement, that he or she is being *cruelly denied* these very valuable and attractive consumer items. Viridian Imaginary Products should look as luscious, guilt-free and enticing as possible. They're utterly wonderful -- cheap, too! So, we Viridians do NOT want to urge the pampered consumer to behave in a more adult, reponsible fashion, consuming less, consuming correctly, and spending more time in (for instance) sprout-eating and transcendental meditation. No, our basic intent here is to provoke a trance-rupturing *consumer tantrum.* Our intent with these fake ads is to *push the contradictions* -- to exacerbate an atmosphere of *consumer hysteria.* We Viridians want consumers to be instantly afflicted with a terrible, tantalized greed for these marvelous items that they *simply cannot possess.* This is because Viridian imaginary products are, by their very nature, products inherent to a *superior and more advanced 21st century civilization.* Stupid 20th-century cultures vilely smothering in their own CO2 trash cannot manufacture items this cool. Desire that item, therefore, and you find yourself, will-nilly, desiring some better culture. As an important corollary, we want actual, contemporary product manufacturers to suffer severe pangs of future-shock and competitive anxiety when they see our imaginary ads. That's because our imaginary ads make all their actual, real-life, coal-powered products *look really bad and ugly.* Now, if we had a sufficient number of these imaginary ads in production, we could assemble an entire Viridian Imaginary Products Catalog. I surmise that this publication would look and act rather like a SHARPER IMAGE catalog, only, well, very Viridian. This catalog would be a visionary work of science fiction (without of course, identifying itself as \"science fiction\" in any way). In order to get it into as many hands as possible, we would sell it commercially. It would probably be retailed in alternative bookstores, fanzine outlets, by mail-order, and so forth. If this publication created useful interest and did not bankrupt our so-called organization, then a Viridian Exhibit would be in order. We would create mock-ups and models of our Imaginary Products, and take the show on the road. Like the magazine, this would be a commercial effort. Entry fees would be charged in host galleries, and, to cover our costs, it is quite likely that the fake products would be auctioned off to eager sci-fi collectors at the end of the event. Should we reach this exalted, ambitious stage, many further opportunities beckon. Pers"}, {"response": 77, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr 16, 1999 (13:46)", "body": "Now this sounds like fun. You gonna run any of the ads in SUPERSTAR, Alexander?"}, {"response": 78, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Apr 16, 1999 (14:08)", "body": "Haha, somebody just mailed me and wrote ------------------------------------- To: alexander_schuth@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Viridian Note 00060: Viridian Strategy / superstar I definitely like the idea of these \"ads\" being translated into German and printed in Superstar. It's a great notion. -------------------------------------"}, {"response": 79, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr 16, 1999 (14:36)", "body": "see!!!"}, {"response": 80, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Apr 16, 1999 (14:56)", "body": "Well, I volunteered that... Somebody liked it... Pretty much the idea behind the whole thing..."}, {"response": 81, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (03:41)", "body": "--- Bruce Sterling bruces@well.com wrote: Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 15:16:54 -0500 From: Bruce Sterling bruces@well.com Subject: Viridian Note 00062: What I Did for Earth Day Key concepts: Earth Day, solar power, politics, Austin, Texas, carbon dioxide ascii symbolism, Earth Day 2000 Attention Conservation Notice: It's political. There's a lot of it. Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian The Viridian Products listing at bespoke.org has recently doubled in size. Entries in the Viridian Power Banner Contest: http://www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~rmharman/img/viridian/warn.fossil.gif http://www.subterrane.com and http://www.netaxs.com/~morgana (note dino animation at bottom of page) This contest expires May 31, 01999 Today was Earth Day 1999. My home town, Austin Texas, opened a new solar facility, its third and largest. This is the biggest solar generating unit I've ever personally seen. Black tilted wings of glassy silicon cover maybe a quarter-acre at our new airport, and they can generate a hearty 111 kilowatts in the blistering Texas sun. I attended the formal opening. It was a windy, clouded day. There was a crowd of about forty there to help snip the ribbon, most of them city functionaries. The mayor gave a brief speech extolling Austin's high-tech, quality of life, competitive advantages. He's an okay mayor. I've seen quite of few of them in my 27 years here. We Austinites have done a lot worse than this guy. Austin has a city-owned electrical utility. If you volunteer to pay extra each month on your city electrical bills, you can buy 50-watt \"blocks\" of solar power. Therefore I do -- I splurged and bought 200 watts, or somewhat less than 4 light-bulb's worth. About one thousand other earnest volunteers also pay extra for solar. Thanks to these and other laudable fringe initiatives, the City of Austin now has 450 peak kilowatts of green, renewable power. That's about one percent of our local capacity. It may not sound like much, but the national American average is two-tenths of one percent, so (if you are another Yankee) that probably makes us at least five times more virtuous than you. And gaining. The chief of our local utility, also there, shouted into an ironically power-dead microphone that his outfit is moving forward \"aggressively.\" This city is spending a full million dollars a year on renewable, sustainable power. By 2005, therefore, we'll possess a full *five percent* renewable! What does this mean? Well, imagine that this piece of electrical email (Viridian Note 00062, direct from green, high-tech Austin Texas) had truth-in-labelling about its sources of power. As whiz@ricochet.net^^^^^^*** artfully suggests: \"All emails sent using a server not specifically known to use a renewable energy source ought to have a border of CO2 molecules following the message, thus: 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 \"And perhaps a short written statement above, like: 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 THIS SERVER USES POLLUTING POWER, CONTRIBUTING TO GLOBAL WARMING. 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 or a simpler: 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 BEWARE! SMOGGY SERVER! 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0\" Whiz has a fine idea, so let's extend his suggestion further. If one of his vile CO2 molecule ascii symbols represented one percent of the electricity I used to compose this heartening piece of Earth Day news, the result would look like this: Subject: Viridian Note 00062 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 * 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 While five years and five million dollars from now, it will radically improve to *this!* Subject: Viridian Note 28765 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 * * * * * 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 0=o=0 Still, it's surely better to light even one solar candle than to merely curse that black, oily darkness. Meanwhile, in national Earth Day news, the CO2 issue stumbles front and center in the gerontocratic green contingent: 04/18/99 1st leader to he"}, {"response": 82, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (03:42)", "body": "Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 19:37:43 -0500 To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00063: Real-World Projects Key concepts: imaginary products, ad campaigns, Viridian Curia, solar power banners, Viridian commentary, organizational problems Attention Conservation Notice: It's mostly about products that don't exist. Lots of rambling. Links: http://www.bespoke.org/viridian http://www.solarsolar.com Entries in the Viridian Power Banner Contest: http://www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~rmharman/img/viridian/warn.fo ssil.gif http://www.subterrane.com http://www.netaxs.com/~morgana (note dino animation at bottom of page) http://www.phuq.com/viridian http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/vandewater/banner.gif http://humlog.homestead.com/viridianart/index.html http://www.powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike/banner.html This contest expires May 31, 01999 On the subject of solar banners, Cor Van de Water (deleau@freemail.nl*) remarks: \"I have my own web pages, although not my own server. I also do generate my own power. The Solar system that I am powering my home with is on display on my web pages. Last 40 days I (my solar system) generated 250 kWh while I (my appliances at home) used only 200. The rest is surplus, back into the grid. Theoretically this could be used by the server that my web pages are on, resulting in a green- powered site. Although in practice I think it is just my PC, where I make my web pages, which is powered 100% green AND the neighbour's dish-washer (or something like that). Anyway, I did make a banner (actually for Linkexchange) where I feature some solar cells and the address of my page, supported by the slogan: \"No time to waste PV\". If you want to look at the banner: http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/vandewater/banner.gif My solar pages are located at: http://start.at/solar Kind regards, Cor van de Water the Netherlands\" (((bruces remarks: This is yet another fine example of the Viridian practice known as \"predicting the present.\"))) Roger Weeks (roger@bayarea.net^^^?) offers a new idea for a Viridian Imaginary Product: \"I'm working on another idea for the Imaginary Products catalog == the Viridian Home. Not all of the ideas are conceptualized yet, but it features the following: \"Rain-collection system that serves as the primary irrigation and water source. \"Septic tank is fitted with microbes that eat waste and output pure H2O. \"The house is a single-story set into a hill, with indigenous flora planted on the roof. This keeps the house cool in summer and blends into the landscape. \"Wind-up washer and dryer. \"Power is supplied either from solar, wind, or fuel cells. \"Construction is from entirely recycled cellulose or other fibers. \"Walls are extremely thick, at least 18-24 inches, again for insulation. \"Skylights provide all daytime light. \"Nighttime lights are provided by bacteria or fungi that give off natural light. Ideally, these would be the same microbes that eat waste. Perhaps their other byproduct would be light. \"No cathode ray tubes. All displays in the model Viridian house are smart ink displays. \"Wireless or satellite data connections to the world net. No copper cable or telco lines in the future. \"We should get someone with 3D design skills to mock up a demo. This would make a great Viridian gallery piece. Visitors could walk marvelling through a 3D full-size house that *they can't purchase.*\" Bruce Sterling remarks: I am eager for more suggestions along this line. We have now assembled a group of Viridian Volunteers, known as \"the Viridian Curia,\" who want to work on Viridian imaginary ad campaigns. Members of the Curia are the highest-ranking Viridians, and have their elite status denominated by a Viridian \"bishop's crook\" by their log-in name. If you would like to join the Curia and engage in the rough-and-tumble of undertaking ad projects, send me your snailmail address, and a 100-word biography indicating your areas of creative interest. Note that there are about thirty Curia members already. Manpower is not our problem. Here is a summary list of Viridian Imaginary Products suggested to date. I've not yet decided which project will be first, how to divvy up authority within the Curia, how to coordinate volunteers, what to do with the \"ad\" when we have it, or how to pay for any of this. This is why Viridian life is rich and full. Perhaps we will divide the Curia into rival design teams, depending on popular response to potential products. Attention please, Curia members: if you find any of these notions particularly attractive, let me know and I will make careful note of it. The Viridian EcoSystem Game (Note 00053) The Viridian Alcohol Cellphone (Note 00042) The Viridian Electrical Meter (Note 00043) The Viridian Service Station (Note 00044) The Viridian Teakettle (we have our design; this is a model-building project) The Viridian Model Home (Note 00063) The Viridian Model Family (Note 00018) The Viridian Genetically Reconstituted Mammoth-Fur Sweater Viridian \"Fungal B"}, {"response": 83, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, May 27, 1999 (03:20)", "body": "Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 22:33:59 -0500 From: Bruce Sterling Subject: Viridian Note 00068: Household Localizers Key concepts: housekeeping, ubiquitous computing, tangible cyberspace, digital localizers, anti-theft tags, ACM SIGCHI 99 Attention Conservation Notice: It's not a custom-written Viridian note, but a brief speech recently delivered to 2,500 computer-human interface designers. Links: http://www.acm.org/sigchi/ The Viridian Library: http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/viridian/ Entries in the Viridian Power Banner Contest: http://www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~rmharman/img/viridian/warn.fossil.gif http://www.subterrane.com http://www.netaxs.com/~morgana (note dino animation at bottom of page) http://www.phuq.com/viridian http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/vandewater/banner.gif http://humlog.homestead.com/viridianart/index.html http://www.powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike/banner.html http://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/sunservr.html http://www.dux.ru/digbody/viridian/vir.htm http://members.aol.com/stjude/viridian http://www.id.iit.edu/~chad/viridian/viridian_banner.htm http://www.dnai.com/~catnhat/viridianbanners.htm and http://www.erols.com/ljaurbach/Banners.htm This contest expires May 31, 01999 Presentation at SIGCHI 99 Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA May 18, 01999 by Bruce Sterling For my mercifully brief presentation today, I'd like to talk in a rather unromantic, practical way about the interface between humanity and its stuff. My humble topic is that ancient curse, humanity's most basic task: housekeeping. First, let's try to get the technological big picture, and then we'll get into some practical, everyday implications. I'll use myself and my own life as a cogent example here. I think I'm rather typical of most SIGCHI attendees in that I now have two classes of possessions: actual possessions, and virtual possessions. Over the last twenty years, I've gotten my hot little hands on much more of both classes, but mostly, an explosive increase in the second class, virtual stuff. I own a hell of a lot of virtual stuff now. A Guatemalan family of four could live an upwardly mobile life on the revenue I spend on data flows. Especially if you count my cable TV, phone bills, Internet hookup, software, modems, PCs and the household security system. So, if there's a difference between my two classes of possessions, it isn't the money involved. No, the truly remarkable thing about my virtual stuff is its anomalous relationship to property law. Is it my property, or isn't it my property? Who knows? I sure don't know. I've got virtual stuff that is freeware, it's shareware, it's cut- and-pasted from heaven knows where. It's personal, it's public, I made some of it myself, and every flavor of so on. Even the stuff I bought direct from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates doesn't actually belong to me. It came almost mummified in complicated shrinkwrap declarations, so even though I paid real money, carried the box home, and installed the contents myself, I don't actually own this stuff. I kind of license it, or rent it, apparently. The Software Publishers Association says that I'm to regard this purchased virtual property as something like a chair. I'm supposed to believe that software is a physical, sacred property that will stay in one place and under one legal identity, forever. Or until release 2.0, whichever comes first. Even though, for instance, I used Netscape for years, when it was college freeware, and then a booming corporation, and then open-source code, and then a division of AOL, and then, probably, nothing at all but a memory, except that I'll still be using Netscape, because I'm really lazy. Here's my pitch in a nutshell: I can't imagine virtual property becoming anything much like a chair. Butt I can easily imagine chairs becoming much, much more like virtual property. This idea is probably best filed under the grand conceptual heading of \"tangible cyberspace,\" i.e., the process in which the products, programs, and innate nature of virtuality spill out of the computer screen and infect the physical world. People used to talk about \"wiring the home.\" This is old-fashioned rhetoric now. Turn the term inside out, and it becomes \"sheltering your network.\" It all becomes clear if you postulate that the net always comes first. My physical possessions are an aspect of the net. Today, right now, if you objectively compare my virtual possessions to my actual possessions, it rapidly becomes obvious that my actual possessions are violently out of control. I have all kinds of searching and cataloging devices and services for my desktop machine, and for the Internet. But I've been known to hunt for my socks or my car keys for almost an hour. My house is an awful mess, because my actual possessions are very stupid. They don't know what they are, they don't know where they are, and they don't know where they belong. All this could change with"}, {"response": 84, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Jun 29, 1999 (14:06)", "body": "Subject: Viridian Note 00073: Viridian Commentary Key concepts: household localizers, the coal-burning net, energy consumption practices Attention Conservation Notice: Who are these people? Viridian commentary is ruthlessly edited for reader convenience. Entries in the Viridian Couture Contest: none This contest expires July 21, 01999. Links: http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/ From: Pete Kaiser (kaiser@acm.org) Subject: Re: Viridian Note 00068: Household Localizers \"Bruce: \"Your household localizers actually have existed for years, even though they're rather large and they cost more than ten cents. I have experience with one variety, the ones called 'active badges,' developed by Olivetti at its Cambridge (UK) research lab and elaborated by Olivetti and Digital Equipment. \"The classic active badge has about the area of a credit card and is about 8mm thick, in a housing of black plastic. It has a single button on the front, plus an almost unnoticeable little infrared emitter and a similar little receiver. Inside is a battery and a tiny circuit consisting mostly of a unique identity number in ROM. The badge responds with that number when it gets a signal, or when the button is pressed. \"Every second or so a ceiling-mounted box emits a low- powered infrared pulse, and every active badge in range responds with its identity. The box then emits a message that says \"I'm box A, and I have these badge identities in range: x, y, z, ...\". A computer collects that information and, on request, can tell you \"Bruce Sterling [wearer of badge x] is in his living room [near detector box A].\" \"People can be tracked all over a campus or factory; and since the computer knows where you are, it can see to it that your incoming phone calls ring where you *are.* Suppose you don't *want* people to know where you are? Simple: you hide your badge in your pocket, and you become invisible to the system. \"You can also glue active badges to valuable pieces of equipment, or better yet, build badges into their housings. \"This technology is quite old. When last I was in contact with it, they were trying to make the devices smarter and smaller. \"So much for the Oh-Wow! factor. Active badges haven't been a market success because, it turns out, people don't *want* to be locatable all the time. People want to be able to be unlocatable without explicitly signalling that they're unlocatable, for reasons that may range from the mundane (using the toilet) to the clandestine (eating at restaurants instead of the company cafeteria). \"We have to think seriously about whether we really want to know where all our stuff is. Suppose one's spouse discovers the existence of certain small, prized objects you've kept hidden since you bought them out of the petty cash. \"What would be the real repercussions of knowing where everything is? There must be any number of second and third-order social problems that we would never discover without performing the experiment. \"Finally: real Viridian localizers would be intrinsically part of the objects localized, and would have more than one function. In many cases, like the Viridian teapot, the tags would grow along with the object, or form within it like the crystalline interior of a geode. They might cover the exterior like tiny buds. The same for locator detectors. After all, biology is much better at producing emitters and detectors than we are at designing them from scratch.\" (((bruces remarks: No wonder these clunky \"active badges\" were a market failure: why the heck should I pay one thin dime to let *Olivetti* know where *I* am? Furthermore, if some political regime dares to put an Orwellian locator dog-tag on me, then it's obviously time to raise the black flag and start shooting. This \"market problem\" is a straightforward power question of who owns the means of information. Power may be subtler nowadays, but beware any digital consumer-marketing company that blithely offers to cheaply catalog everything you possess.))) (((Viridian Note 00070: The Coal-Burning Net, on the subject of how much CO2 is produced by the Net, aroused much response.))) From: Peter Denning (pjd@cne.gmu.edu) \"In Viridian Note 00070, you quoted a Forbes piece quantifying the electrical consumption of computers. I've seen one or two other papers recently of the same ilk. Many years ago, when people proposed founding paper journals about the coming age of paperless offices, I said 'The only difference between a computer and a book is the age of the trees.' Others heard that as a quip, but now they are measuring it. From: Charles Raymond (craymond@northweb.com) \"I've never read Forbes magazine, but after this Viridian Note, I don't think I ever will. *My* power is generated solely by moving water. Sixteen concrete- enclosed turbines, half of the project. The other half serves Ontario. \"I have to wonder how many cubic tons of poison gas, liquid and solid pollutants are produced each month for the production of Forbes magazine. Not to mentio"}, {"response": 85, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jul  2, 1999 (02:53)", "body": "From bruces@well.com Thu Jul 1 15:24:56 1999 Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 16:30:34 -0500 To: Viridian List From: Bruce Sterling Reply-To: Errors-To: Subject: Viridian Note 00075: Kyoto Politics X-UIDL: ab75fafc2d1e207a2094d0ae29b9b219 Key concepts: inadequate government, Kyoto Protocol, US Senate Attention Conservation Notice: it's entirely and utterly political. There are 1,300 words of it. Links: Alliance to Save Energy http://www.ase.org/ Senator Thad Cochran, Republican from Mississippi http://www.senate.gov/~cochran/ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (includes full text of Kyoto Protocol): http://www.unfccc.de Republican Senators Resent Clinton's Temerity on Kyoto: http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/Gwupdate-mw.htm Kirk Fordice, Governor of Mississippi, on Kyoto Protocol: http://www.govoff.state.ms.us/pr051998.htm Horrific EPA graph of growing climate temperature anomalies: http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/news/j-dlo_pg.gif Entries in the Viridian Couture Contest: None. Greenhouse heat wave in effect, Viridians reduced to shabby sombreros and gym shorts. This contest expires July 21, 01999. In Viridian Note 00074: \"Browning the US Govt,\" we described how Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi tried to stop the President of the United States from mandating less CO2 use in the federal government. On the face of it, the Senator's act seems incredibly stupid, vindictive and pointless, and was promptly denounced as \"unbelievable.\" While politics are of tangential interest to the Viridian movement, it's important to understand why the US government has become so dysfunctional in climate issues. Why have even simple, \"no-brainer\" reform efforts that actually *save taxpayers money* become areas of partisan confrontation? Why did Thad Cochran do this apparently ludicrous thing? Let's speculate, shall we? It would be too simple to denounce Senator Cochran as a corrupt puppet of the carbon-mining industries. This kind of polarizing demogoguery is boring and counterproductive. It's been done to death. Obviously the carbon industries are major players in the energy process. It could scarcely be otherwise. For instance, the recent Interior Appropriations Bill (which Senator Cochran deliberately amended in order to frustrate the President), contains about 300 million dollars in Energy Department federal subsidies for oil and coal. But the carbon industries don't own Thad Cochran. Mississippi isn't Kuwait. He's never been an out-and-out oil man, unlike, for instance, George Bush. There's some oil and a whole lot of foul, soft-lignite coal in Mississippi, with mining representing maybe 2 percent of the state's economy, but Senator Cochran's main legislative interest is catfish farming. Maybe the guy is just incomprehensibly mean-spirited. Perhaps he hates Bill Clinton so much that, like many Republican zealots, he's willing to slash his own wrists to bleed on Clinton's shoes. But no. Thad Cochran is a former Eagle Scout, a white-haired Baptist lawyer from Mississippi whose demeanour is commonly described as \"courtly.\" Cochran is the senior Senator from Mississippi, a career pol who wins his re-elections by large, cozy margins. Cochran pre-dates the savage trench- warfare epoch of his junior Senator, Trent Lott, and the politically extinguished Newt Gingrich. The Senator has been in power a long time. He is not childish, and he doesn't make trouble merely for trouble's sake. The Alliance to Save Energy artfully suggests that Senator Cochran is attempting to fleece the American taxpayer while stuffing fat back into the government. If mere pork was the goal, Senator Cochran would be doing what he specializes in doing, i.e., rural Mississippi water projects. No, Thad Cochran has two basic reasons to do what he did. Defending the Senate's privileges, and ideological pressure. First, the jealous Senate. In introducing his amendment, the Senator irately declared that the President's action was a \"thinly disguised effort to implement the Kyoto Agreement.\" Why does he consider this a bad thing? Because it makes the Senate into a potted plant, that's why. The Senate believes it has already successfully dealt with Kyoto. The Senate, in the bipartisan persons of Senators Byrd and Hagel, carried out a maneuver, back in 1997, called \"putting the treaty in the parking lot.\" The Senate didn't want a straight-up, confrontational vote on the Kyoto treaty, because this might cause political stress. So, they simply stuck the treaty into permanent limbo, by passing the \"Byrd-Hagel Resolution.\" This resolution states, more or less, that the US Senate is not going to consider the Kyoto Protocol unless it's firmly established from the get-go that the United States comes out on top in the UN negotiations no matter what. Byrd-Hagel is a silly resolution, but the text of the resolution isn't really important. The resolution's formal text is just vapid rhetorical dogfood for various economic and military American interest groups. "}, {"response": 86, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jul  3, 1999 (02:53)", "body": "Comments?"}, {"response": 87, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jul  9, 1999 (12:08)", "body": "Key concepts: lobbying groups, political power structure in USA, Viridian Notes Table of Contents 00001-00075 Attention Conservation Notice: It's political. It goes on quite a while. Entries in the Viridian Couture Contest: http://www.powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike/computercasual.html http://humlog.homestead.com/viridianart/Fashion0110.html Prada's Fall 99 \"EcoWarrior\" get-up, pirate-scanned out of July 01999 issue of VOGUE: http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/viridian/contest5.ht ml (((Thanks for showing us how the pros do it, Miuccia! Everybody go click the banner ads in gratitude at http://www.vogue.com!)) ) Links: http://www.wholeearthmag.com Summer 1999 issue of Whole Earth magazine has lead article on \"Viridian Manifesto\" http://www.bespoke.org/viridian Tor Kristensen remarks: \"The links in the bespoke.org Viridian Notes are now active (clickable). Please notify the Viridian public that I need an Archive Administrator to update the Viridian archive while I'm in Alaska. It's dead simple. Copy, Paste, Click 'submit.'\" Tor Kristensen tor@araneum.dk^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^***? Sources: FORTUNE magazine December 01997 When you're baking in inhuman heat beneath an angry sky, just as, for instance, millions of inhabitants of the East Coast of the United States are doing as I write this, the carbon dioxide problem can seem monstrous and unstoppable. After all, the planet's entire atmosphere has been soiled. There's no place left for anyone to hide. It's easy to feel helpless and to become very paranoid. No entity anywhere seems to be helping climate matters much. Especially in politics. The National Wildlife Federation's *Conservation Directory* (44th edition) lists no fewer than 3,000 government and private environmental groups, in the USA and Canada alone. Many of them have been beavering along in the halls of power for decades now. Yet we're still roasting in our own exhaust spew, just like the turkeys we are. But in fact, to date, CO2 has never become a central political issue. The Kyoto treaty is buried under the US Senate's carpet. Even the political anti-Kyoto forces, (and there are plenty of them with plenty of funds) are very much fringe amateur small-fry, power-politically speaking. Before I tear into the anti-Kyoto groups as if they were causing the end of the world (as in point of fact they may be), it's useful to put CO2 politics into a broader political perspective. We'll stick to an American political perspective for the time being, because I haven't found good data yet for other juridictions, and the Americans clearly play a major, starring role in the planet's CO2 crisis. Who actually runs the American political system? Could it be CIA/NSA/FBI? The Military-Industrial Complex? Freemasons? The ultra-rich? The Skull and Bones Society? The 4,312 guys on the grassy knoll who shot Jack Kennedy? Alas no! In December 01997, FORTUNE magazine took the trouble to conduct a formal poll of members of Congress, Congressional staffers, and White House officials. The magazine, aided by two professional pollsters, asked 2,200 politicians to rank American interest groups in terms of their political clout. These were America's top politicians, talking about the people who tell them what to do. Who can get their way from the US government? Who do American politicians fear to cross? Who really compels their political attention? Interest groups have their ups and downs, just like all other aspects of industrial democracy. It's only a year and a half since the FORTUNE poll though, and we're still in the same Administration. So this is a viable snapshot of the American political landscape, seen from the top of the system. FORTUNE did the ranking, but I'm doing my own helpful commentary. I hope that non-Americans may find this list of particular use. 1. American Association of Retired Persons Old people who vote faithfully and have plenty to gain and lose by government subsidy. 2. American Israel Public Affairs Committee Wealthy, discreet alien sympathizers with a focussed agenda. 3. AFL-CIO Largest labor union. Historically dominates Democratic Party. 4. National Federation of Independent Business The small-business lobby. 5. Association of Trial Lawyers of America The privileged legal caste. They know how legislators think and act because many of them are future, current or former legislators. 6. National Rifle Association of America Notoriously zealous American armed-populace freaks and the industries that supply their ammo. The classic single- issue pressure group. 7. Christian Coalition TV-satellite evangelical empire. Good at grass-roots attacks on Republican party structure. 8. American Medical Association The privileged medical caste. 9. National Education Association Huge numbers of government-employed teachers. 10. National Right to Life Committee Abortion zealots. 11. National Association of Realtors Huge real-estate industry is highly vulnerable to changes in federal tax structure. 12. American Bankers Associati"}, {"response": 88, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Aug 26, 1999 (18:32)", "body": "Below is of interest for gamers, game designers, and anybody residing in virtual communities or virtual community builders (= YOU!). ************************************************************ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 18:36:01 -0500 Subject: Viridian Note 00090: Design Principles for Virtual Worlds Key concepts: virtual communities, computer gaming, virtual politics, virtual economics, violence, automation, virtual personae, entertainment industry Attention Conservation Notice: Almost 3,000 words. Of interest mostly to net.organizational specialists. Written in subcultural jargon of computer gaming industry. Unlike most tracts on virtual community, reflects actual, sustained, hard-won experience with its subject matter. Has little to do with CO2 emissions, except that 125,000 computer gamers whacking imaginary dragons with imaginary swords are emitting a lot of actual carbon dioxide. Entries in the Viridian Summer Health Warning Contest: http://www.earthlight.co.nz/~bretts/vs.html http://www.tux.org/~lasser/viridian/ http://www.subterrane.com/heat.htm http://www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~rmharman/img/viridian/sun.bmp http://humlog.homestead.com/viridianart/HEAT.html http://members.tripod.com/~MSpong/viridian/heatdeath.html http://www.premierestedivolt.com/HEAT.HTML http://www.radix.net/~kreinsch/viridian/heatkills.html http://www.provide.net/~herrell/heat.html http://www.gothic.net/~weasel/viridian/ http://home.earthlink.net/~keim9/heatwarning.htm http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/viridian/viridianhea t.html http://www.octa.net/heatposter.html http://www.boston.quik.com/kitsune/gfx/heatwarn.jpg http://jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu/~djb14/viridian/heatkills.htm http://www.artlung.com/viridian6/ http://www.well.com/~smendler/heat.html http://www.greenbuilder.com/viridian_heat_load@148K.html http://www.powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike/heatkills.html http://www.cs.brown.edu/~pal/viridian.html http://www.potatoe.com/viridian/poster.html http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/3203/viridian_heat.h tml This contest expires on September 1, 01999. Links: http://www.ultimaonline.com http://mud.sig.net/raph/gaming/ (((Raphael Koster (rkoster@origin.ea.com*) was lead designer for Ultima Online, an interactive virtual world with over 125,000 subscribers. He and his colleagues have come up with a set of principles and rules of thumb for managing these complex interactive environments. == bruces))) The Laws of Online World Design by Raphael Koster These are taken from both experience and from the writings of others. Many who have done this sort of game design take some of these rules for granted, but other rules may be less intuitive. Many of the laws here were actually stated as such by others, and not by me. A Caveat Ola's Law About Laws: \"Any general law about virtual worlds should be read as a challenge rather than as a guideline.\" You'll learn more from attacking it than from accepting it. Design Rules The secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, online game of wide appeal: * Have multiple paths of advancement (individual features are nice, but making them ladders is better); * Make it easy to switch between paths of advancement (ideally, without having to start over) * Make sure the milestones in the path of advancement are clear, visible, and significant (having 600 meaningless milestones doesn't help); * Ideally, give your game a sense of limitless significant milestones (try to make your ladder feel infinite). Modes of expression You're trying to provide as many modes of expression as possible in your online world. \"Character classes\" are just modes of expression, after all. Persistence means it never goes away Once you open your online world, expect to keep your team on it indefinitely. Some of these games have never closed. And closing one prematurely may result in losing the faith of your customers, damaging the prospects for other games in the same genre. Macroing, botting, and automation No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing your world. Corollary: Looking at what parts of your game players tend to automate is a good way to determine which parts of the game are tedious and/or not fun. Game systems: No matter what you do, players will decode every formula, statistic, and algorithm in your world via experimentation. It is always more rewarding to kill other players than to kill whatever the game sets up as a target. A given player of level x can slay multiple creatures of level y. Therefore, killing a player of level x yields (n)y reward in purely in-game reward terms. Killing players will therefore always be more rewarding in game terms than killing monsters of comparable difficulty. However, there's also the fact that players will be more challenging and exciting to fight than monsters, no matter what you do. Never trust the client. Never put anything on the client machine. The client is in the hands of the enemy. Never, ever, ever forget this. J. C. Lawrence's \"do it everywhere\" law: \"If "}, {"response": 89, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Aug 26, 1999 (21:47)", "body": "1998 must have been an year to forget...or from which to learn. How miserable."}, {"response": 90, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Aug 27, 1999 (16:47)", "body": "Yeah, but what about the ideas on how to motivate people in MUDs? That's the industry's experts, and they tell us what makes places like that - and the Spring, which is basically a bit like online roleplaying, too - work over a while (and in their cases, SPEND MONEY!)... Springfolks, comment!"}, {"response": 91, "author": "moulton", "date": "Sat, Aug 28, 1999 (10:51)", "body": "ideas on how to motivate people in MUDs? Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler"}, {"response": 92, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Aug 31, 1999 (04:12)", "body": "Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 18:07:40 -0500 Subject: Viridian Note 00093: The Deep Hot Biosphere Key concepts: non-biological petroleum, chemosynthetic bacteria, deep hot biosphere, Thomas Gold Attention Conservation Notice: Geologists have somehow managed to ignore this heretic for thirty years, so why should we be listening to him now? Provokes cognitive dissonance of the first order. Paradigm-rupturing. Entries in the Viridian Summer Health Warning Contest: http://www.earthlight.co.nz/~bretts/vs.html http://www.tux.org/~lasser/viridian/ http://www.subterrane.com/heat.htm http://www.ugrad.cs.jhu.edu/~rmharman/img/viridian/sun.bmp http://humlog.homestead.com/viridianart/HEAT.html http://members.tripod.com/~MSpong/viridian/heatdeath.html http://www.premierestedivolt.com/HEAT.HTML http://www.radix.net/~kreinsch/viridian/heatkills.html http://www.provide.net/~herrell/heat.html http://www.gothic.net/~weasel/viridian/ http://home.earthlink.net/~keim9/heatwarning.htm http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/viridian/viridianheat.html http://www.octa.net/heatposter.html http://www.boston.quik.com/kitsune/gfx/heatwarn.jpg http://jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu/~djb14/viridian/heatkills.htm http://www.artlung.com/viridian6/ http://www.well.com/~smendler/heat.html http://www.greenbuilder.com/viridian_heat_load@148K.html http://www.powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike/heatkills.html http://www.cs.brown.edu/~pal/viridian.html http://www.potatoe.com/viridian/poster.html http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/3203/viridian_heat.html http://way.nu/greens/heat.html http://users.erols.com/ljaurbach/Kirkwood.htm This contest expires very soon: September 1, 01999. Viridian Individual Projects: http://www.radix.net/~kreinsch/viridian/themeproject.html http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/everydayobject.gif http://www.powerbase-alpha.com/bigmike/vrml http://www.spiritone.com/~terenced http://www.bomoco.com/Viridian/viridian.htm A new Viridian Individual Project by Will Munslow (anubis@deming.com^^**): http://www.nicotinetea.com (((Will Munslow remarks: \"I was fiddling around with Perl and ripped off some nice scripts that I reworked. A small Viridian Version of slashdot.org. Dunno if anyone is interested, but if the amount of information headed to you is as big as I expect, people might enjoy having a different place to display it.\"))) *Viridian T-shirts for sale, $15 each http://www.bomoco.com/Viridian/curia/curia.htm http://www.bomoco.com/Viridian/curia/zebrabothsides.gif We're Shipping the First Ones Out the Door Right Now. ***************************************************** *The Deep Hot Biosphere:* \"a renowned scientist's revolutionary theory of a vast subterranean habitat and its significance for life's origins on our planet and the possibility of live elsewhere in the universe\" by Thomas Gold Copernicus, Springer-Verlag, 1999. ISBN 0-387-98546-8 http://www.copernicus-ny.com Well, this new book of Thomas Gold's is getting a lot of play. I just read it. All 208 pages of it. And I'll say this for it: if it's true, it's certainly is revolutionary. Here's the pitch. \"Fossil fuels\" aren't fossils. They don't come from squished dinosaurs or ancient buried vegetation. Hydrocarbons like methane and crude oil are inherent planetary substances. They're basically the same material as the \"carbonaceous chondrites\" seen in asteroids, or the methane and ethane seen in Jupiter and its moons. The earth is heavily loaded with various primeval oils and tarry goos, which have been slowly cooked out of its crust over the eons by radioactive heat from the core. Here's where it gets weirder. The substances we know as oil and natural gas have been streaming up toward the planet's surface since the planet first formed. When this hydrocarbon muck is still about ten kilometers down, it gets caught within pores of the stone by primeval archaic bacteria. These bugs live inside rock, they eat this primeval asteroid goo, and they turn it into the stuff we call \"coal\" and \"crude oil.\" They are chemosynthetic organisms, and they thrive in extremely high, oxygen-free temperatures, in vast, impossible numbers. They're probably the original form of life on Earth. Primitive earthly life probably started inside the Earth, in these flowing high-energy streams of goo and muck, long before the surface was colonizable. Oil and gas looks like organic products to a biochemist, but that's not because they are fossilized. It's because they've been basically fermented by a previously unsuspected ecosystem of archaic bacteria. These ancient bugs basically saturate the entire rocky crust of the planet. By weight, they're probably eighty percent of all living things on Earth. And that's just the start of Gold's theory. These primeval bugs give off enough fizzy foul-smelling gas to break rocks and start earthquakes. Most metal deposits: gold, zinc, silver etc == are not caused by flowing water or lava, but by flowing hydrocarbons filtered and transformed by bugs. Even though coal sometimes has foss"}, {"response": 93, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Aug 31, 1999 (10:50)", "body": "How very curious. Think I just might run some of this past a real Geeologist to see what he thinks of this theory. I hope this guy did a lot of footnoting, because it is easy to make statements. Backing them up is quite another thing."}, {"response": 94, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep  2, 1999 (11:14)", "body": "Let us know what the geologist thinks. I guess the implications are that oil is forever?"}, {"response": 95, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, Sep  4, 1999 (11:17)", "body": "If using this stuff is bad, and the supply of them is (nearly) infinite, doesn't that make even worse news? Marcia, have that rock-science-son of yours investigate the matter!"}, {"response": 96, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Sep  6, 1999 (21:42)", "body": "It is a good thing I telnet on occasion. It makes me go through all new posts includeing this one which I had forgotten. I willpaste him the article athis office tomorrow. (please excuse the poor typing...)"}, {"response": 97, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep  7, 1999 (18:38)", "body": "I asked son David (the Geologist) to comment on the review of Gold's book. Terse and to the point, he said: \" I have heard of (the book) before and I think it is horse pucky.\""}, {"response": 98, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Sep  8, 1999 (14:31)", "body": "Thanks for this funny quote, hehe... \"Pucky\" - is that Hawaiian or Geologistian ? The reviewer makes a point of showing that this author has been thought wrong often... Circumstances proved that not be be correct at times... I wish we could some opinion from a knowledgeable person who had actually read this - HEY TEXANS! Y'all have dem oil-science boys, right? How about it?"}, {"response": 99, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep  8, 1999 (14:46)", "body": "For what it's worth, David's main job is purging old gas station sites of residual oil and petroleum in the soil after the leaky tanks and other stuff was removed. He does know about oil and things related to it, but not these critters. \"pucky\" is a euphemism clean enought ot send to his Mother...self-invented, I think."}, {"response": 100, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep  9, 1999 (01:27)", "body": "Mmm, viridian horse pucky revealed. Any details?"}, {"response": 101, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep  9, 1999 (01:45)", "body": "None yet...just a quick note from his cubicle at work. Will try to pry more out of him over the weekend."}, {"response": 102, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep  9, 1999 (09:06)", "body": "I love would love to hear a detailed critique of that piece. It's so radical in it's implications and to the unknowing it may have a certain plausibility. I mean, what is the evidence that dinos decayed in to oil?"}, {"response": 103, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Sep  9, 1999 (12:47)", "body": "Right, Terry, it makes us ole conspiracy theoretists-cum-fanatical-viridina-pose really nervous, like \"I want to believe!\", and \"The Truth is down there!\". The up-side is: Don't worry, there'll be enough as long as you and your kids live. The down-side: Keep using this, and you're not gonna live as long as you thought... Neither might the kids... But there is fun stuff out there IN ABUNDANCE (like the French-developed car running on compressed air...). From Pointcast: The Little Engine that Might by Leander Kahney 3:00\ufffda.m.\ufffd\ufffd9.Sep.99.PDT -- Taking on the world's giant energy business, a tiny startup is set to launch an engine that requires no fuel, produces no pollution, and is free to run. Naturally, the experts think it's too good to be true -- although they can't exactly say why. [I LOVE that line... A.] --------------------------------------- See also: Plasma-Powered Trip to the Stars --------------------------------------- Entropy Systems, a seven-person startup based in Youngstown, Ohio, is scheduled to launch the Entropy engine early next year, said the technology's inventor, Sanjay Amin, a mechanical engineer and co-founder of the company. The Entropy engine acts like a heat sponge, absorbing heat in the atmosphere and converting it to power, Amin said. Since it consumes no fossil fuels, nuclear fuels, or electrical power, it produces no emissions, directly or indirectly. Its only byproduct is cold air. Initially, the technology will be used to create an outboard motor for small pleasure boats, simply because it's the easiest market to break into, Amin said. But as it is developed, the technology could be used to run refrigerators, air conditioners, generators -- even automobiles. \"There's no reason it can't power a car,\" Amin said. So far, Amin has built a prototype, which he said generates one-tenth of one horsepower. The outboard motor -- yet to be built -- will produce between two and three horsepower. It will be roughly the same size as a conventional outboard motor and only marginally more expensive. But, apart from routine maintenance and lubrication, the engine will be free to run. Named after the unit in physics that describes the amount of available energy in a system, the Entropy engine consists of a central chamber, filled with air, that has a piston in the center, Amin said. The engine operates on a cycle. First, a starter motor spins the engine to a high speed, which pushes the gas to the edge of the central chamber, as in a centrifuge. As the gas moves to the edge, it creates a partial vacuum in the center that draws the piston out, compressing the gas. In the second part of the cycle, the engine is slowed, and the gas redistributes itself throughout the chamber, which increases the pressure on the piston. Heat trapped in the gas is converted into the energy that moves the piston, which cools the air in the engine chamber. The engine will run year-round in any climate, even sub-zero temperatures. Although it operates better in warmer climates, it will work in any environment above absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Kelvin). \"In physical terms, even ice has a lot of heat,\" Amin said. Amin claims to have patented the technology in the United States, Australia, and Europe. He said he has published a book on thermodynamics and in 1996 received an Engineer of the Year award from the American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin. Always obsessed with engines, Amin built steam engines as a teenager. He has devoted more than a decade to the Entropy engine. He began by looking at gravity as a power source, which eventually led to the idea of using atmospheric heat. The technology was developed in part when Amin was studying at Youngstown State University, which helped launch the fledgling company. Bill Dunn, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that while he hasn't seen the engine in action, he has examined the materials on Entropy's Web site. He said the logic appears sound, but the outcome -- free power -- doesn't make sense. \"It's the end result -- that you can create power from heat at ambient temperature -- that flies in the face of the basic laws of physics,\" said Dunn, who acknowledges that he hasn't devoted time to figure out why the engine shouldn't work. \"To track down where his thinking may be flawed is a difficult thing to do,\" Dunn said. In Amin's favor, Dunn noted that he has attracted backing from \"some very intelligent people.\" Hedging his bets, Dunn said breakthrough technologies have frequently been greeted with skepticism. \"Every time someone suggests something like this, you should at least give them the benefit of an open mind.\" Iain MacGill, an energy campaigner at Greenpeace, said that because vehicle pollution makes up about a third of US greenhouse gas emissions, a pollution-free engine would be an incredible breakthrough. Nevertheless, it sounds to him like fiction. \"It's got a flavor of 'too-good-to-b"}, {"response": 104, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Sep  9, 1999 (12:49)", "body": "BTW, THAT Sterling was only a pastor, Austin's is Pope-Emperor of a world-wide movement. Just FYI."}, {"response": 105, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep  9, 1999 (16:12)", "body": "Geez, you don't get much higher in the order on this Earth that the Pope-Emperor. I AM impressed!"}, {"response": 106, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Sep 10, 1999 (19:44)", "body": "To absorb heat from the atmosphere, the engine has to be cooled below ambient temperature. To cool it requires the refrigeration cycle performed by the \"starter motor.\" But the starter motor will need to be powered from some conventional source of power, and will draw more power than the rest of the system produces. There just ain't no way to get free energy."}, {"response": 107, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sun, Sep 12, 1999 (05:55)", "body": "Do you know the principle of the Sterling engine? Creates power from temperature differences... No other fuel, just air-filled cylinders. This technology is 19th-cent., current use is - to my best knowledge - as heatsink or cooler in satellites (possibly by exploiting the heat to have it slush around coolant)."}, {"response": 108, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Sep 13, 1999 (10:52)", "body": "You need a natural source of temperature difference. This can be based on the temperature difference between the air and the ground, which relies on the way the sun's heating work. That makes it a kind of solar energy. Most thermodynamic engines burn fuel to create the hot zone. The problem with relying on natural temperature differences is that the differential temperatures aren't very far apart, so the differential pressures (needed to move pistons) isn't very great. Still one can build a small Sterling engine, perhaps enough to power a fan."}, {"response": 109, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Sep 15, 1999 (12:55)", "body": "Yes, you can order working miniature Sterling machines to show off on your desk, powered by a small flame. You can also power Sterling machines by using sun's power, collected with a convex collector mirror. But Amin's idea is like that somehow turned inside-out. Once it's started, the compressed gas creates heat, that causes the gas to expand again. And the starter could be a crank or rope, like lawn-mowers or small boat-engines. Hmh, Terry, drag out Ray to take a look at this, please."}, {"response": 110, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Sep 16, 1999 (00:19)", "body": "Trust me. I have a Ph.D. in engineering. I actually sweated my way through Thermodynamics back in college. Once you stop pumping in energy with the starter motor, the thing comes to equilibrium and stops moving. You push on the piston and compress the gas. The gas pushes back. You let go of the piston, and the gas pushes the piston out, expands, and cools. End of cycle. Nothing happens after that unless you push on the piston again. Which is where the energy is coming from."}, {"response": 111, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 16, 1999 (00:24)", "body": "There is, in fact, no perpetual motion machine, then?!"}, {"response": 112, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Sep 16, 1999 (00:33)", "body": "Not one based on thermodynamic cycles, no. They need a supply of thermal energy. But the motion of an electron in orbit about a nucleus is a perpetual motion system. Of course like all such perpetual motion systems, you can't extract energy from it."}, {"response": 113, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 16, 1999 (00:41)", "body": "Oh yes, there's the rub. That your degree says you have searched for the highest knowledge does not mean you have managed to find every bit of it...that is still out there awaiting discovery!"}, {"response": 114, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Sep 16, 1999 (13:02)", "body": "Barry, thank you for your patience. Hmh, I know your arguments are valid, but this idea has one thing that makes me unsure about writing it off 100% - these folks seem to be into engineering, too, and still they think they might have something there... Not that I want to compare this to Einstein or Freud - who were nutcracks, too, for their contemporaries -, but - what if it works? Could gravitational pull or centripetal forces be the missing link?"}, {"response": 115, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Sep 16, 1999 (21:13)", "body": "If you set up an engine in the ambient, you can draw energy out of it based on fluctuations in the ambient over time. For example, there is a perpetual clock that works by drawing energy from the day-to-day fluctuations in the barometric pressure. It has a sealed chamber with a diaphragm that moves in and out with changes atmospheric pressure. This motion is enough to power the clock. An engine with a thermal mass that stayed at the average temperature could operate by sinking one side of the piston into the thermal mass and letting the other ride in the open air. If the air temperature fluctuates faster than the rate of cooling of the thermal mass, you could power a small Sterling cycle engine. But this is not true perpetual motion. It's based on the diurnal heating of the earth between day and night, so it's a form of solar energy. Ocean buoys can draw energy from the bobbing waves. That's how they sound their wails, for example. Air is drawn in and out of a chamber as the bob. There is lots of ambient energy that one can draw on, but only for small amounts of power, perhaps enough to power a clock or some electronics."}, {"response": 116, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Sep 17, 1999 (07:55)", "body": "By the way, if the notion of measuring energy seems inaccessible, take a look at the movie \"Apollo 13.\" It has a great scene where the engineers are trying to figure out how to power up the capsule for re-entry without exceeding the energy budget of the available power -- something like 8 amps as I recall. Budgeting for energy is like any kind of economy. You can't spend more than you got. It's just one of God's laws."}, {"response": 117, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, Sep 18, 1999 (16:04)", "body": "Huh, and you went into engineering because you can't stand laws, right? ;=}"}, {"response": 118, "author": "moulton", "date": "Sun, Sep 19, 1999 (11:16)", "body": "I love discovering God's Natural Laws. I have no love for those laws of man which are instituted by algolagnic control freaks who delight in damaging people who break them."}, {"response": 119, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, Sep 20, 1999 (13:43)", "body": "algolagnic?"}, {"response": 120, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, Sep 20, 1999 (13:46)", "body": "For me, the \"laws\" of nature and the \"laws\" of societies both are simply agreements on how to handle things. Compromises. And history has shown that both categories can be changed upon short notice, and that some offers are only good while supplies last. The problem is that most people think them unchangeable. They aren't, though."}, {"response": 121, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Sep 21, 1999 (09:01)", "body": "To the best of my knowledge, no human agreed to the Inverse Square Law of Gravity, or Maxwell's Equations. Those were recently discovered, not legislated. Algolagnic means to derive emotional gratification by inflicting pain and suffering. It's commonly found in competitive cultures such as ours."}, {"response": 122, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Sep 21, 1999 (09:04)", "body": "I seek not merely to edit the laws of man. I seek to abolish the belief that society is well-regulated by means of rules and laws enforced by sanctions and punishments. There is good scientific reason to believe that such a regulatory mechanism is ineffective at best and counterprodutive at worst. Moreover, there are superior regulatory models which are proven to work without inflicting deliberate self-damage on the system."}, {"response": 123, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Sep 21, 1999 (12:41)", "body": "By now, I know about your position re: changing the system (a bit at least), but I don't see what you believe why these things were accepted first place, and what became of these reasons. I understand from your post above, that you don't take offense with the concept of laws themselves - perhaps they are even a valuable invention in your mind? -, but that it's the enforcement that upsets you (besides obviously ridiculous and unjust laws, of course). I feel that both the content of laws as well as consequences of not abiding these rules are subject to change by cultures. E.g. is it perfectly okay to kill people in the US or Japan that where senteced to death penalty. These cultures think de th penalty is okay and has its place in their culture. What we know is, it's a very old tradition that's being kept up there, but has been abandoned in other countries, which have abolished the death penalty. Change is possible if a society changes their set of values. Right now there is e.g. a discussion in Germany to revise sentences for crimes against things and against people. If you steal somebody's car, here you're punished harder than if you'd beaten him up. This still reflects feudal times, where he possessing classes were protecting their stuff, but people now feel attacks upon health and honour are worse than against possessions. More changes to come... When I said that the laws of nature are not unchangeable and eternal, I mean e.g. that there have been many \"discovered\", or rather, \"invented\". Think of cosmology, how that changed. And at any time, scientist were sure to know the \"obvious\" truth, which everybody accepted until some bloke came up with Truth 1.5 or even 2.0, and Bang!, the world was not the center anymore, mankind not the crown of creation, the universe infinite or not... Nothing faster than light, or at least nearly nothing, etc. Science interprets not \"nature\" or the \"truth\", but the subjective image of how things appear to us - filtered through our sensoric means and neurological processing, and describes them in a vocabulary agreed upon by usage within the scientific community. These things are approximations, working models, until some fault is found, and other explanations are accepted. Science is to nature what laws are to a society's morals: Approximations that mimick observations, and either are with a time-lag revised when obvious and urgent need be, or ignored and kept unchanged, even after having survived the cause they served. Hmh, what do you say?"}, {"response": 124, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Oct  1, 1999 (15:38)", "body": "I say our system of laws is immoral, unethical, unjust, corrupt, evil and tacky."}, {"response": 125, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Oct  1, 1999 (16:22)", "body": "Ok, lemme see \"our system\" is the problem, not the \"laws\", or at least the concept of laws as such?"}, {"response": 126, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Oct  1, 1999 (23:57)", "body": "The concept of goals or guidelines is fine. The concept of rules, laws, or foul lines which entitle the state to visit authorized and sanctioned damage is not fine. It's an idiotic idea which doesn't work and causes a world of hurt. Whoever is praying to the god that invented that system is praying to a false god."}, {"response": 127, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct  2, 1999 (00:09)", "body": "Perhaps that god is the one created in his own image - the image of the worshipper, that is, rather than the reverse!"}, {"response": 128, "author": "moulton", "date": "Sat, Oct  2, 1999 (07:48)", "body": "The irony is that of all the various gods in our culture, the one who gave us rules and laws enforced by state-sponsored sanctions and punishments is one whose name we do not know. We do know the name of that god's chief prophet: Nicholas Machiavelli. But more people pray to that unnamed god and practice that god's religion than follow the alternative (and logically superior) models of Moses, Buddha, or Jesus."}, {"response": 129, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Oct  3, 1999 (23:22)", "body": "too true to argue with you on that point! ( also pertinent point about Machiavelli and his results...we are still contending with them, are we not!"}, {"response": 130, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Oct  4, 1999 (10:21)", "body": "I just wish we could get Machiavelli's religion designated as one, so that we could then invoke separation of church and state, and outlaw that pernicious brand of state-sponsored religion. Perhap's the name of Machiavelli's god is Molokh. That god once held sway in Gey-Hinnom, the rubbish dump south of the old city of Jerusalem, where worshippers of Molokh sometimes sacrificed their disobedient children by burning them in the hellfires of the rubbish dump."}, {"response": 131, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct  5, 1999 (19:38)", "body": "What a brilliant idea (not the Molokh one)...I am delighted with the idea."}, {"response": 132, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Oct  7, 1999 (08:51)", "body": "The neat thing about Machiavelli's religion is that, unlike other theologies, this one can actually be disproven by scientific research. There is overwhelming empirical evidence and theoretical analysis to show that his method of social regulation is ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst, leading to a world of suffering. But we kinda knew that, now, didn't we?"}, {"response": 133, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct  7, 1999 (13:34)", "body": "It would seem that we should have been aware of this long ago. It is counter-productive, indeed, but his followers blindly procede in the direction in which he pointed them all those years ago. As we spiral downward we seem unable to do anything about it...or, worse, accept it as the way things must be! (And, yes! We did kinda knew that all along...)"}, {"response": 134, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Oct  8, 1999 (14:41)", "body": "The interesting part of this analysis is that it ties together deep thinking from systems science, theology, psychology, and literary analysis. I tumbled onto this confluence of thought by way of a book by Gil Bailie, _Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads_. I had just finished reading it when the Columbine school shootings occurred, so I took the opportunity to apply the theory to that tragedy. But it actually applies more broadly to competition, conflict, drama, and violence throughout the cu ture. Anyway, my first essay is called Thinking About Violence In Our Schools ."}, {"response": 135, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Jul  3, 2001 (13:39)", "body": "This subject is still on going ....I found the following of which I will put the synopsis here and leave you to follow the link to get the whole article. http://www.gorp.com/gorp/interact/guests/viridi.htm The Manifesto of January 3, 2000 Part 4 By Bruce Sterling A brief sketch may help establish some parameters. Here I conclude with a set of general cultural changes that a Viridian movement would likely promulgate in specific sectors of society. For the sake of brevity, these suggestions come in three parts. (Today) is the situation as it exists now. (What We Want) is the situation as we would like to see it. (The Trend) the way the situation will probably develop if it follows contemporary trends without any intelligent intervention. The Media Today. Publishing and broadcasting cartels surrounded by a haze of poorly financed subcultural microchannels. What We Want. More bandwidth for civil society, multicultural variety, and better-designed systems of popular many-to-many communication, in multiple languages through multiple channels. The Trend. A spy-heavy, commercial Internet. A Yankee entertainment complex that entirely obliterates many non-Anglophone cultures. The Military Today. G-7 Hegemony backed by the American military. What We Want. A wider and deeper majority hegemony with a military that can deter adventurism, but specializes in meeting the immediate crises through civil engineering, public health and disaster relief. The Trend. Nuclear and biological proliferation among minor powers. Business Today. Currency traders rule banking system by fiat; extreme instability in markets; capital flight but no labor mobility; unsustainable energy base What We Want. Nonmaterial industries; vastly increased leisure; vastly increased labor mobility; sustainable energy and resources The Trend. commodity totalitarianism, crony capitalism, criminalized banking systems, sweatshops Industrial Design Today. very rapid model obsolescence, intense effort in packaging; CAD/CAM What We Want: intensely glamourous environmentally sound products; entirely new objects of entirely new materials; replacing material substance with information; a new relationship between the cybernetic and the material The Trend: two design worlds for rich and poor comsumers; a varnish on barbarism Gender Issues Today: more commercial work required of women; social problems exported into family life as invisible costs What We Want: declining birth rates, declining birth defects, less work for anyone, lavish support for anyone willing to drop out of industry and consume less The Trend: more women in prison; fundamentalist and ethnic-separatist ideologies that target women specifically. Entertainment Today: large-scale American special-effects spectacle supported by huge casts and multi-million-dollar tie-in enterprises What We Want: glamour and drama; avant-garde adventurism; a borderless culture industry bent on Green social engineering The Trend: annihilation of serious culture except in a few non-Anglophone societies International Justice Today: dysfunctional but gamely persistent War Crimes tribunals What We Want: Environmental Crime tribunals The Trend: justice for sale; intensified drug war Employment Today: MacJobs, burn-out track, massive structural unemployment in Europe What We Want: Less work with no stigma; radically expanded leisure; compulsory leisure for workaholics; guaranteed support for people consuming less resources; new forms of survival entirely outside the conventional economy The Trend: increased class division; massive income disparity; surplus flesh and virtual class Education Today: failing public-supported schools What We Want: intellectual freedom, instant cheap access to information, better taste, a more advanced aesthetic, autonomous research collectives, lifelong education, and dignity and pleasure for the very large segment of the human population who are and will forever be basically illiterate and innumerate The trend: children are raw blobs of potential revenue-generating machinery; universities exist to supply middle-management Public Health Today: general success; worrying chronic trends in AIDS, tuberculosis, antibiotic resistance; massive mortality in nonindustrial world What We Want: unprecedently healthy old people; plagues exterminated worldwide; sophisticated treatment of microbes; artificial food The Trend: Massive dieback in Third World, septic poor quarantined from nervous rich in G-7 countries, return of 19th century sepsis, world's fattest and most substance-dependent populations Science Today: basic science sacrificed for immediate commercial gain; malaise in academe; bureaucratic overhead in government support What We Want: procedural rigor, intellectual honesty, reproducible results; peer review, block grants, massively increased research funding, massively reduced procedural overhead; genius grants; single-author papers; abandonment of passive construction and the third person plural; \"Scien"}, {"response": 136, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Aug 30, 2001 (17:21)", "body": "For release: 29 August 2001 SOLUTIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN CENTERS TO BE EXPLORED AT PARADOX CONFERENCE 21-23 SEPTEMBER New Ideas About Energy Consumption, Cultural Values and Reinventing the \"American Dream\" to Challenge Policies of the Bush Administration Phoenix...24 August...Sustainable alternatives to the \"short-sighted\" steps of the Bush administration will be explored at the 21-23 September Paradox Conference by Paolo Soleri, Ph.D., philosopher and pioneer of more livable, environmentally-intelligent cities; Joe Firmage, scientist and technology entrepreneur; and Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., co-author of the influential book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World. The third in the biannual Paradox series, the September program continues the ongoing inquiry into the paradoxes in the increasing interplay between physical and cyber reality. This year's conference focuses on \"Third-Millennium Habitats\" that integrate sustainable habitats, cyberspace and new forms of community. New- and old-economy business executives, architects and urban planners, cybernauts and students are expected to attend. Dr. Soleri to Address the Need to Redefine the \"American Dream\" Paolo Soleri, Italian-born architect and associate of Frank Lloyd Wright, is hosting Paradox III at his Arcosanti habitat 65 miles north of Phoenix. A self-contained community in the Arizona desert, Arcosanti embodies Dr. Soleri's theory of \"arcology,\" or the marriage of architecture and ecology to create urban habitats that conserve resources and blend harmoniously with the environment. \"Unless we moderate, unless we reinvent the 'American dream,'\" Soleri explained in a 26 July interview with The New York Times, \"then it's not going to be a dream. It's going to be doomsday.\" Soleri estimates that if the standards of the American dream were applied to every nation, the resources of 19 earths would be required to maintain the resulting levels of consumption and pollution. \"The American Dream physically embodied in the single family house has to be reinvented in terms which are coherent with the human biospheric reality.\" Mr. Firmage to Explore Alternative Energy Resources \"Technologies are possible that could make daily use of energy nearly free within perhaps 20 years, but they receive almost no R&D funding\" states Mr. Joe Firmage, a panelist who has made significant investments in the development of alternative energy resources. \"The Bush administration's energy plan does little to address efficiency and renewable programs; yet, it includes a two-billion-dollar subsidy for the coal industry.\" \"In short, capitalism does not see the value in innovations that would drop prices to nearly zero, since such prices would decimate revenue lines of P&Ls,\" says Firmage, who will discuss potential breakthroughs in green-energy technologies. \"Energy-generation industries have been controlling supply to prop up profits for decades; meanwhile, the price of subsistence-level energy consumption exceeds the earning power of much of the world's population.\" Firmage is founder of Motion Sciences Organization and co-founder and chairman of International Space Sciences Organization (ISSO), established in 1998 to sponsor research and development of new technologies derived from the emerging principles of modern physics. In 1995, Firmage founded USWeb, the world's largest Internet professional-services company. Until 1998, he served as CEO and chief strategist of the three-billion-dollar company and received recognition as Ernst & Young's 1997 \"Young Entrepreneur of the Year.\" Dr. Ray to Examine the Values of a New Civilization \"Our civilization is in the midst of an epochal change, caught between globalization, accelerating technologies and a deteriorating planetary ecology,\" concludes Dr. Paul H. Ray in his book, The Cultural Creatives, which examines the growing number of people who want to see deep changes in the cultures that have evolved in industrialized nations. \"A creative minority can have enormous leverage to carry us into a new renaissance instead of a disastrous fall.\" Ray will lead a panel discussion on the need to develop shifting cultural values. He explains: \"Seventy percent of all Americans and 70 percent of all homebuyers in America are unhappy with suburbs as they are. They ask, 'Why can't we have good, sustainable urban places that we want to live in?'\" Ray, who is CEO of Integral Partnerships LLC consulting firm, started his career in urbanism: sociology, planning and policy analysis. As former chief of policy research on energy conservation for the Canadian Government, he headed the largest evaluation-research project conducted in Canada on home energy conservation. He has led over 100 values-oriented research projects in such areas as housing, ecological sustainability, energy, cars, food, recreation vacation travel, finances, health, good causes, media, altruism, and innovation. Project sponsors have been mostly foundations, s"}]}, {"num": 19, "subject": "global poverty", "response_count": 12, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 11, 1998 (11:19)", "body": "GLOBAL POVERTY IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of The Globalization of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, TWN, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. (The book can be ordered from twn@igc.org) Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, 1998. All rights reserved. The author can be contacted at fax: 1-514-4256224, Email: chossudovsky@sprint.ca THE GLOBALIZATION OF POVERTY The late 20th Century will go down in World history as a period of global impoverishment marked by the collapse of productive systems in the developing World, the demise of national institutions and the disintegration of health and educational programs. This \"globalization of poverty\" --which has largely reversed the achievements of post-war decolonization--, was initiated in the Third World coinciding with the onslaught of the debt crisis. Since the 1990s, it has extended its grip to all major regions of the World including North America, Western Europe, the countries of the former Soviet block and the Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) of South East Asia and the Far East. In the 1990s, local level famines have erupted in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America; health clinics and schools have been closed down, hundreds of millions of children have been denied the right to primary education. In the Third World, Eastern Europe and the Balkans there has been a resurgence of infectious diseases including tuberculosis, malaria and cholera. Impoverishment - An Overview Famine Formation in the Third World >From the dry savannah of the Sahelian belt, famine has extended its grip into the wet tropical heartland. A large part of the population of the African continent is affected: 18 million people in Southern Africa (including 2 million refugees) are in \"famine zones\" and another 130 million in 10 countries are seriously at risk. In the Horn of Africa, 23 million people (many of whom have already died) are \"in danger of famine\" according to a UN estimate. In South Asia in the post-Independence period extending through the 1980s, starvation deaths had largely been limited to peripheral tribal areas. In India, there are indications of widespread impoverishment of both the rural and urban populations following the adoption of the 1991 New Economic Policy under the stewardship of the Bretton Woods institutions. In India, more than 70 percent of rural households are small marginal farmers or landless farm workers representing a population of over 400 million people. In irrigated areas, agricultural workers are employed for 200 days a year, and in rain-fed farming for approximately 100 days. The phasing out of fertiliser subsidies (an explicit condition of the IMF agreement) and the increase in the prices of farm inputs and fuel is pushing a large number of small and medium sized farmers into bankruptcy. A micro-level study conducted in 1991 on starvation deaths among handloom weavers in a relatively prosperous rural community in Andhra Pradesh sheds light on how local communities have been impoverished as a result of macro-economic reform. The starvation deaths occurred in the months following the implementation of the 1991 New Economic Policy: with the devaluation and the lifting of controls on cotton yarn exports, the jump in the domestic price of cotton yarn led to a collapse in the pacham (24 meters) rate paid to the weaver by the middle-man (through the putting-out system). \"Radhakrishnamurthy and his wife were able to weave between three and four pachams a month bringing home the meagre income of 300-400 rupees for a family of six ($12-16), then came the Union Budget of July 24, 1991, the price of cotton yarn jumped and the burden was passed on to the weaver, Radhakrishnamurthy's family income declined to Rs. 240-320 a month ($9.60-13.00)\". Radhakrishnamurthy of Gollapalli village in Guntur district died of starvation on September 4, 1991. Between August 30 and November 10, 1991 at least 73 starvation deaths were reported in only two districts of Andhra Pradesh. There are 3.5 million handlooms throughout India supporting a population of some 17 million people. \"Economic Shock Treatment\" in the former Soviet Union When assessing the impact on earnings, employment and social services, the post-cold War economic collapse in parts of Eastern Europe appears to be far deeper and more destructive than that of the Great Depression. In the former Soviet Union (starting in early 1992), hyperinflation triggered by the downfall of the ruble contributed to rapidly eroding real earnings. \"Economic shock treatment\" combined with the privatisation program precipitated entire industries into immediate liquidation leading to lay-offs of millions of workers. In the Russian Federation, prices increased one hundred times following the initial round of macro-economic reforms adopted by the Yeltsin government in January 1992; wages on the other hand increased ten-fold; the evidence s"}, {"response": 2, "author": "riette", "date": "Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (04:30)", "body": "Makes me wonder what the hell I'm doing here. What is the use to live to pay one's damned bills??? We should be there, helping."}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov 16, 1998 (07:51)", "body": "It's an overwhelming situation and one that most well off industrialized people of only peripherally aware of."}, {"response": 4, "author": "riette", "date": "Tue, Nov 17, 1998 (01:33)", "body": "They should create a programme were all children of the western well-off world have to do 2 years of obligatory service in developing countries, helping people, before embarking upon their comfortable, protected grown-up lives."}, {"response": 5, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Dec 16, 1998 (09:07)", "body": "Except that in doing so, we would infect the rest of the world even more heavily with our egocentric, industrialized, and money-lusting thoughts while we were there... doesn't mean that something shouldn't be done, either..."}, {"response": 6, "author": "jgross", "date": "Wed, Dec 30, 1998 (23:49)", "body": "http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/living_on_sun.htm Living on Sun, Water, Wind, Grass, and Community (Donella Meadows --- March 12, 1998) Nearly everyone who has been to the solar village Gaviotas, east of the Andes in Colombia, calls it a utopia. But it isn't, says Paolo Lugari, its founder. That word means in Greek \"no place.\" Gaviotas has existed, however improbably, for more than 30 years now. Lugari says it's a \"topia\" -- simply a place. When he first saw it, looking down from a small plane in 1965, it surely looked like no place. There were two crumbling warehouses abandoned by a road crew at the end of a failed attempt to cut a highway across the huge, wild, wet savanna called the llanos. No one lived on the llanos except a few scattered ranchers and the Guahibo Indians, who fished and hunted in mosquitoey forest strips along the rivers. The soil was so toxic that nothing but tough grass could grow. If people can live here, they can live anywhere, Lugari thought. He set out to show that they could. His secret weapons were the professors and students of the universities of Bogota. Lugari dropped into the office of a mechanical engineer named Jorge Zapp and asked, \"Can you build a turbine efficient enough to generate electricity from a stream with just a one-meter drop?\" He went to Sven Zethelius, a soil chemist and asked, \"What can we grow in that soil?\" He posted notices inviting doctoral theses on how to press oil from palm nuts, how to raise hundred-pound wild capybaras for meat, how to make fiberboard out of llano grass. Most of these experiments didn't work, but once the engineers got out to Gaviotas, a 16-hour tire-destroying jeep drive from Bogota, they began having other ideas. Necessity surrounded them, and they produced a stream of invention. They found that 14 parts of that terrible soil combined with one part cement hardened into a stony substance they could use for dams and buildings. They made water pipes by lining ditches with soil-cement, laying down long polyethylene tubes filled with water, pouring more soil-cement on top, letting the whole business harden, then draining the water and pulling out the plastic. Trucks could drive over those pipes without crushing them. They attached water pumps to see-saws; kids provided the pumping power. They designed ultra-light windmills to catch the mild but steady llanos wind without being blown over by the occasional llanos gale. They invented solar water-heaters so cheap and effective that Gaviotas started a business back in Bogota, installing them everywhere from the president's house to a 30,000-resident slum housing project. Often engulfed in mountain clouds, Bogota is no ideal place for solar power, but the Gaviotans developed a collector so efficient it could catch scattered sun energy even on cloudy days. The technical and architectural triumph of Gaviotas is its hospital, cooled by the wind, heated by the sun. The sun also provides hot water, boiled sterilized water, and the heat for six pressure cookers in the kitchen, plus enough electricity for the lights. By the time the hospital was built, Gaviotas had several hundred inhabitants, including the only doctors, nurses, and teachers for hundreds of miles around. People came there for medical care and sent their children there to school. There were fish in the river, and cattle could eat the grass. Zethelius had discovered enough decent soil on the riverbanks to plant mangoes and cassava and cashews, but not enough to provide fresh vegetables for a growing population. So the Gaviotans learned to grow lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers in containers of nutritionless rice hulls, washed with manure tea. They kept searching for some plant that could survive the llanos soil and finally found it. A Caribbean pine from Venezuela thrived, they discovered, as long as they dipped the roots of its seedlings in a fungus, a mycorrhyza, which was missing from their soil but importable from the pines' native territory. Without knowing quite why, they planted hundreds of acres of pines. As the pines grew into forests, the Gaviotans found a use for them. They tapped their oozing gum, which could be distilled (with solar energy) into turpentine and a valuable resin used in paints, glues, cosmetics, perfume, and medicines. There was a huge market. Gaviotas had a new industry. The pines dropped needles and built up soil. They cooled the ground, slowed the wind, raised the humidity. Suddenly new kinds of plants sprang up beneath them -- hundreds of kinds of plants. The rainforest, not far to the south, had once grown here, and now, through seeds carried by birds or roots creeping up from the river-edges, it was returning. The Gaviotans imagine themselves planting pines in expanding circles out into the llanos, harvesting gum for 100 years, leaving rainforest behind. Meanwhile their technologies for pumps and collectors and windmills, all simple, affordable, and purposely unpatented, are spreading throughout "}, {"response": 7, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Aug 26, 2000 (05:47)", "body": "Nothing in here for a LONG time ..... Here's a few thoughts to stimulate more... Poverty is a relative concept. We define it by the standards of the culture we ourselves are part of. Is there a commonality which we can define as poverty?? Whose concept is this? In Britain there is a 'poverty line' an income level below which someone is considered 'poor', but that level of poverty is relative. I'm not denying that poverty exists in my society. I know it does. I was brought up in relative povetty by an aunt who did not have a state pension (she was too old for the welfare state!), had gas lights, no indoor sanitation, never bought any new clothes, everything was patched until it fell apart. Is that really 'better' than my adopted family in an African village who would be considered 'poor' and by by our standards, yet actually they were better fed and dressed than my aunt, and considered me 'poor' because I did not have a field to feed my family from. Yet, my aunt would consider today's 'poor' in Britain as incredibly rich with their household appliances, TVs and income spent on leisure and presents. I ma not here talking about the homeless poor, but about people who live around me in soc al housing who I know well. Maybe I'll get flamed down, but at least we'll get some dialoigue going ....."}, {"response": 8, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Aug 26, 2000 (05:50)", "body": "Income is relative to what it will buy in the local economy. There is a huge difference in many developing countries over the price of locally produced goods and imported goods. To buy food from the local market rather than the expatriat supermarket is very feasible on local incomes. That's how I survive on a small housekeeping budget in Africa. We all make decisions on what we will spend our available income on. Natural disasters such as droughts and floods are devastating to local economies. Whereas it is possible to live on a meagre income with extended family support and subsistence levels of farming etc. Natural disasters and conflicts take away that undergirding support structure."}, {"response": 9, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Aug 30, 2000 (01:21)", "body": "Other than needing the basic necessities to live, I think poverty is realtive...AND a state of mind. It is far harder on parents than kids. Kids never notice it, it seems, at least did not years ago when shoes were not endorsed by expensive athletes."}, {"response": 10, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Sep  4, 2000 (06:09)", "body": "For U.S. poverty threshholds and guidelines, look here. http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/poverty/00poverty.htm"}, {"response": 11, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Sep  4, 2000 (06:17)", "body": "Poverty : challenging the myths ( http://www.oneworld.org/ni/issue310/keynote.htm ) Being poor is about not having enough money. Or is it? Nikki van der Gaag investigates. The people of Devonport are surrounded by a wall. Three metres high and six kilometres long, it serves to separate them from the military complex on their doorstep. But it has another, less obvious function. It marks out the boundaries of an estate known for its deprivation. Devonport, a suburb of Plymouth in south-west England, is labelled as an area with a high poverty rate, where crime, vandalism and drug-dealing abound. My own reception in Devonport is warm and welcoming. I am picked up from the train station and driven to an apartment block overlooking the wall. Karen and her son Chris give me a slap-up meal before taking me downstairs to meet 79-year-old Alice, who regales me with tales of being a submarine fitter during the War and puts me to bed with a cup of tea and an electric blanket. From the spare-room window I can see a yard, grim and dripping in the rain, but inside I am full, snug and warm. This feeling stays with me for the whole of the next day as I attend a workshop that Devonport Action Against Poverty (DAP) is holding in the local community centre which has been refitted and decorated by local people. Poverty, say the DAP members firmly: \ufffdis not about money, though it is about what you can do with money\ufffd. People should be respected not for what they have but for who they are. \ufffdWe call ourselves \ufffdpeople experiencing poverty\ufffd, or \ufffdgrassroots people\ufffd rather than poor people. We are people first. People who just happen to be poor,\ufffd says Karen. \ufffdBut we are rich in lots of other ways.\ufffd Generosity, for one. I am not used to being housed and fed by complete strangers, let alone those who can little afford it. Of course money is an issue, but so too are good housing, jobs, healthcare, education, leisure facilities, improved levels of benefit which don\ufffdt penalize people for working, better transport, and an improved environment. Then there are the things money can\ufffdt always buy: more time, good relationships, privacy (\ufffdPoor people don\ufffdt have the luxury of privacy; their affairs are everyone\ufffds business,\ufffd says Karen), community spirit and, importantly, respect. The need for respect comes high on the list of all those experiencing poverty. Moraene Roberts, another \ufffdgrassroots person\ufffd and a member of the UK Coalition Against Poverty, puts it plainly: \ufffdThe very poor tell us over and over again that a human being\ufffds greatest misfortune is not hunger or being unable to read, nor even being without work. The greatest misfortune of all is to know that you count for nothing, to the point where even your suffering is ignored. The worst blow of all is the contempt of your fellow-citizens.\ufffd1 Such intangible things are hard to measure or even define. Poverty itself is discussed, defined and measured in an infinite number of ways. The United Nations Development Programme talks about \ufffdhuman poverty\ufffd: \ufffda denial of choices and opportunities for living a tolerable life\ufffd; the World Bank of \ufffdincome poverty\ufffd \ufffd \ufffdliving on less than a dollar a day\ufffd. Then there is \ufffdabsolute\ufffd poverty \ufffd those below a defined poverty line or threshold \ufffd and \ufffdrelative\ufffd poverty \ufffd poor in relation to those around you. Recently, governments have begun to use the term \ufffdsocial exclusion\ufffd as a useful tool for describing what poor people experience. This is fine, as long as it is not an excuse for failing to spend money. And it begs a number of questions: If some people, areas, or communities are \ufffdsocially excluded\ufffd what are they excluded from? Who then are the \ufffdincluded\ufffd? Is this simply a way of avoiding the word \ufffdpoor\ufffd? (A word which people overseas have no problem claiming but which people in the West often reject because it comes with such stigma attached). What Devonport and other places of \ufffdsocial exclusion\ufffd least need is yet another label. The interesting thing about all these definitions is that they only define the poor. No-one thinks of finding labels for the rich \ufffd there are far more words for poverty than there are for wealth, as the dictionary on clearly shows. It is the poor who are the \ufffdproblem\ufffd \ufffd a belief hotly contested by \ufffdthe poor\ufffd themselves. The other problem is gender; social exclusion doesn\ufffdt value economic roles and relationships at the household and community level, which are mainly performed by women. Yet women all over the world bear the brunt of poverty, partly because of the extra burden of responsibilities they have for the household and partly because they lack access to land, credit and employment.2 Labels and measurements are useful tools for dealing with poverty; but sometimes they can detract from what being poor really means, like having to spend all your time worrying about where the next meal is coming from. It means hunger, isolation and disempowerment. And waste, not just for those experiencing it, but for everyone. In the words of Joseph Wre"}, {"response": 12, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Thu, Sep  7, 2000 (15:14)", "body": "Try this URL. It should give food for thought.... http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/mission/up1.htm cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 2, "subject": "Introductions", "response_count": 130, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Aug 27, 1996 (17:40)", "body": "ptw here. I am chief bottle washer and head cook for the Spring, host of this conference and VP of NetRabbit, a builder of electronic commerce websites. I've known William through the years and he has a fascinating story and besides, he's pretty eloquent at times. Hopefully some aspects of his experiences will unfold via this conference and you'll get to know him (and each other) better. That is, if this conference somehow attains critical mass. William has set the table by creating this conference a d putting together a gorgeous (and expanding) website. Now, to find the guests . . ."}, {"response": 2, "author": "william", "date": "Wed, Aug 28, 1996 (04:07)", "body": "I would only add that our mutual friend Marc Greene, Manhattan webmeister & multimedia magician, should be joining us soon to add some depth to a potentially enlightening\ufffdconversation about virtuous as well as virtual reality. Wm"}, {"response": 3, "author": "marcury", "date": "Fri, Aug 30, 1996 (03:56)", "body": "Boy Howdy, Thought I'd leave a post and see if this thing is working. Let's see what we can get started here. Marcury"}, {"response": 4, "author": "william", "date": "Sun, Sep  1, 1996 (06:18)", "body": "Perhaps we could start by having a three-way conversation among those of us who have shown up so far as to how to make this conference corner work better, or at least generate a livelier conversation. I'd like to know how many people, potentially, are participating in Spring conferences; what their interests might be expected to be; and what we could all possibly do, among us, to stir up some juice. This has been too much like dead air so far."}, {"response": 5, "author": "william", "date": "Sun, Sep  1, 1996 (06:22)", "body": "I'd also like to know why, in spite of the three separate topics we having going here, and a number of responses within all three, none of them is registering in the main directory, where we're recorded as having 0 topics and 0 responses. Something's not being done completely right, but what? Where are you, Paul?\ufffdGiven up already, and on to the next thing? Wm"}, {"response": 6, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep  1, 1996 (14:59)", "body": "That's because, William, you haven't figured out how your conference list works. These stats refer to 'new' stuff, stuff you haven't seen yet. This will become more meaningful as this conference goes and you're dealing with a lot more new responses. I have hardly given up. I'm planning new conferences on politics, movies, tv, genx, health, community and more. The most active conferences now are yapp, sports, and apps (which has a huge traffic draw from http://www.stroud.com) . One way to 'pump up' this conference would be to seek out other high volume, high traffic web sites that are related to the subject matter of this conference and invite them to add a link to here for their participants. You can find these sites by doing an internet search. Want to know about the coolest search engine going? Check out http://www.webtaxi.com Sure, let's get a three way going till we get more traffic."}, {"response": 7, "author": "william", "date": "Tue, Sep  3, 1996 (03:44)", "body": "Suggest we confine this topic to personal intros and the nuts & bolts of conferencing, html'ing and web-surfing. My friend Melody, who teaches Introductory HTML and Advanced HTML, should be joining us shortly. What's the story with the latest QuarkXTension for HTML? Is that the HTML editor of choice? Or is any of them preferable to the bare-bones version?"}, {"response": 8, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep  3, 1996 (04:12)", "body": "Take a look at the html editors topics in our apps conference. HotDog is my html editor of choice. Really, any word processor or text editor will suffice."}, {"response": 9, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Sep  7, 1996 (19:21)", "body": "Hey, new guy here. My html editor of choice is notepad. Easy, quick, and, oh, so much fun! This appeared to be the most interesting topic off the main menu, so I really just stopped by to see what's going on.Ciao, me."}, {"response": 10, "author": "william", "date": "Mon, Sep  9, 1996 (04:43)", "body": "There are several people crowded around the gate, waiting to be given entrance and introduced. How can we make it easier for them to get in? William E. Roland, I don't know why your handle is KitchenManager or much you're up to, so maybe you could introduce yourself at greater length. So far, it's nerds by default."}, {"response": 11, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Sep 13, 1996 (01:31)", "body": "Hello, again, sorry for the delay but I don't actually own a computer. I depend upon the availability of my inlaws. Nerd is a good place to start, but my handle refers to my job in the real world (no debating,please) where I work in a great Italian restaurant in Austin. Other than that, I'm thirty and have varied and eclectic interests including world domination. Ran out of space, see ya soon. Ciao, me."}, {"response": 12, "author": "william", "date": "Fri, Sep 13, 1996 (04:13)", "body": "So do you have any opinions about world cultures, the state of the planet, saving the world, or the role of physical-fitness centers in generating a high level of consciousness? Does anybody? Ciao, Wm"}, {"response": 13, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Sep 14, 1996 (19:39)", "body": "Hello, again, everyone. Wm, most of my opinions about world culture are limited to modern tribalism/neo-paganism but overall I would consider myself a preservationist. The state of the planet is deteriorating, including the loss of cultures, but as far as the outdoors go I tend to be a conservationist. Physical-fitness centers? Couldn't one consider restaraunts to be physical fitness centers? Anyplace that can generate extreme levels of pleasure, pain, or sensory deprivation can be used to heighten consciousness. Well, I.m off to read the other topics in the category, so that I can be a more informed member of this particular society. WER"}, {"response": 14, "author": "william", "date": "Mon, Sep 16, 1996 (04:23)", "body": "See my response in saving the world for thoughts on cultures. I would consider restaurants physical-challenge centers -- a physical-fitness center, in my mind, is where you would have to put out some effort (not just money) to gain something back. A university or any kind of genuine school would be a mental-fitness center. Any monastery worthy of the name should qualify as a spiritual-fitness center. Pushing against something, not just feeling something, seems important to staying fit."}, {"response": 15, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Mon, Sep 16, 1996 (08:42)", "body": "Howdy, everybody. It is the Finnish eccentric, born in the family of witches (no kidding) here again. William talked about being fit. I agree - we should make sure that the world keeps fit. That way we'll keep fit, too. Oops, gotta go - lecture's starting!"}, {"response": 16, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 17, 1996 (14:37)", "body": "Welcome back Mixu!"}, {"response": 17, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Sep 18, 1996 (19:21)", "body": "Checking in again. Actually, Wm, any place considered to be a fitness center of any kind would also be a mental-fitness center, because of the determination and self-control needed to generate any type of true rewards. As to my other thoughts, I was focusing on the higher consciousness aspect of your message and not on the physical-fitness aspect. Mi culpa. That's it for now. WER"}, {"response": 18, "author": "william", "date": "Fri, Sep 20, 1996 (05:09)", "body": "Dear Kitchenmanager Write to Morningside Press, 200 West 86th Street, 6L, New York, NY 10024 for a catalog of earth-saving hemp fashions and products. As for higher consciousness, hemp was an introduction to that for me. The higher grades, of course. Wm"}, {"response": 19, "author": "mmc", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (17:28)", "body": "My name is Matthew McClure. I used to be an activist when I was at the hippie monastery William and PTW lived on, the Farm in Tennessee. When I left the Farm, I found the exigencies of earning a living made it harder to allot enough time to make much of a difference. Maybe that's changing now. Two things have happened in the past couple of weeks - my younger daughter took part in a save-the-redwoods demonstration at Headwaters forest, and I heard Helen Caldicott on the radio pushing her autobiography. Helen reminded me that our fragile ecosystem is in imminent danger. It would be a matter of regret if I didn't do what I could to help keep life on the planet."}, {"response": 20, "author": "fig", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (20:43)", "body": "Count me as another ex-resident of the Farm and acquaintance of William. I left there in 1983 and have worked in the computer networking field since 1985. I'm now researching an idea that will make use of the Internet to help turn the tide against the increasing degradation of our habitat here on earth. Focusing on spirituality and the relationships we individuals share with each other and with all living things was what the Farm and Stephen Gaskin's early teachings were all about. Pollution and defor station are now teaching the rest of humanity the same lessons. Now we have to get practical and really make a difference, so I'm glad to rediscover William and his work. Hi, William!"}, {"response": 21, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Sep 27, 1996 (18:26)", "body": "Hey, William, are you a preservationist or a conservationist? And why do so many people get them confused? I put a link to this conference up on GeoCities, so maybe some more people will come our way. Well, my time's up again. WER"}, {"response": 22, "author": "william", "date": "Fri, Oct  4, 1996 (05:13)", "body": "I'm back, thank God...it's a jungle out there. I'm inundated in so much stuff I have to be careful in setting my priorities every day. Anyway, Matthew, Cliff, William, et al., thank you for showing up. I will be more of an attendant host to this conference... I'm both a preservationist and a conservationist. I believe in preserving as much of our original natural habitat as possible and conserving as much energy as possible. I'm immediately suspect of conservation in the name of \"using resources wisely,\" \"harvesting oldgrowth,\" etc.\ufffdI think the Headwaters deal\ufffdas proposed by Feinstein is a typical Clinton compromise, just this side of a sell-out. Basically I think it's a moral travesty to allow \"venture capitalists\" to purchase something as priceless and irrep aceable as a virgin redwood grove in the first place. Buying as much as possible back from them at a high price stinks to high heaven. So does an electoral system that bars candidates with serious constituencies from entering a debate. I thank God (the heavens / Buddha) for providing us with enough people with enough bodhisattvic courage and determination and grit to get out and put their bodies on the line between the natural world and the despoilers. I'm sick of seeing the world wasted by the ignorant u derbelly of humanity. When are the people of wisdom of compassion -- of which there are so many -- finally going to take a united stand? The planet can't wait much longer."}, {"response": 23, "author": "mmc", "date": "Thu, Nov 14, 1996 (23:23)", "body": "Interesting point you raise about the Headwaters. I mean, granting that we live in a society that permits private ownership of land, where do we go from here in order to protect what's left? I don't really think it stinks for the government to decide it's worth a bunch of money to save the environment, and to pay these companies for their land. It seems like a reasonable use of capital to me. I also think it would be good to make some laws about how people can use what kinds of land, so that we don't perpetuate the problem."}, {"response": 24, "author": "bob99", "date": "Sun, Dec  1, 1996 (08:23)", "body": "Thanks to Paul Terryu Walhus for inviting me to the Spring. Why did clicking my left mouse button delete my previous message, which was more detailed?"}, {"response": 25, "author": "bob99", "date": "Sun, Dec  1, 1996 (08:23)", "body": "Thanks to Paul Terryu Walhus for inviting me to the Spring. Why did clicking my left mouse button delete my previous message, which was more detailed?"}, {"response": 26, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec  1, 1996 (13:34)", "body": "It depends on where your mouse was pointed when you left clicked. What you want to avoid is clicking your mouse twice or double clicking because that results in two identical responses."}, {"response": 27, "author": "AlonzoC", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (22:06)", "body": "Thanks for the invite. I am 43 and currently work in a hospital as a respiratory therapist. I am more into holistic health though. I am a Baha'i by faith, and also a Star Trek fan. I don't know if they go hand in hand, but it would be nice to see a bright future for mankind. I am new to this site, so maybe discussions about The brave new world our children are about to enter in the year 2000 might be of interest to me. Looking forward to having some thoughtful conversations."}, {"response": 28, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec  8, 1996 (23:28)", "body": "Great suggestion, I'll start the topic now."}, {"response": 29, "author": "Dani", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (18:06)", "body": "Hi. Dani in Alaska here...you know, the state with ANWR...the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (or something like that). For years, Alaska's federal representation has been pushing to get oil drilling allowed in that refuge and one administration after another has been reluctant to do so. In the years of Reagan and Bush the administration agreed that there should be oil drilling/exploration there but the democratic Congress said no. Presently, the Congress agrees but the Clinton administration doesn't. laska is such a strange state...it has a culture all its own. :) Of course, I have my own opinions on ANWR but I am not totally passionate about it like I am about so many other things that have to do with culture, society and the like. It's good to be here, btw...thanks for inviting me, Terry!"}, {"response": 30, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (02:12)", "body": "Glad you made it Dani. Feel feel to explore and feel welcome to invite others. We're pretty new and just starting to build traffic."}, {"response": 31, "author": "prp1", "date": "Tue, Dec 24, 1996 (02:27)", "body": "Hi, every body can you here me. And how are you ?"}, {"response": 32, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 24, 1996 (04:10)", "body": "We hear you and we're just fine."}, {"response": 33, "author": "geekman", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (02:05)", "body": "Just popped in from the Austen Conference. G'day and now I'm your token Aussie!"}, {"response": 34, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (23:42)", "body": "Welcoem Ian!"}, {"response": 35, "author": "AnnaSummers", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (03:26)", "body": "This is amazing! Everyone can actually spell! Hi ya'll Everytime I see an internet discussion about saving our earth, my heart leaps with hope. Finally, with the internet, there now exist an avenue for true grass roots sharing among people without government or media filtering. I believe that, if the earth is to be saved, it will have to come from the people of the world changing their hearts and most of all, changing their VALUES - the governments are never going to save the world, much less the international corporations. Until we replace the idea in men s minds that a person's worth comes from how much they can consume, with the idea that a person's worth comes from their spirit and their character, we will continue to degrage our environment. I wonder if the idea that it is shameful to consume too much will ever catch on? Or the idea that a true test of a man's personal freedom is how much he doesn't need in order to be happy and can be happy without? There are two sites that you may enjoy visiting: Planetkeepers http://galaxy.tradewave.com/editors/wayne-pendley/plankeep.htm Ishmael http://galaxy.tradewave.com/editors/wayne-pendley/pkishsum.htm#TOP (they are also reachable from each other. ============= At the beginning of this conversation, there were references to learning HTML. I have a site reserved in the Rainforest at GeoCities, but I don't yet know how to put anything on it. Is there a place to go to learn how to manage a site, or even just to start one with something on it? ============== I will mention, I almost gave up before I got here, because I couldn't figure out how to leave a response. Maybe some instructions up front would be helpful. Anna"}, {"response": 36, "author": "AnnaSummers", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (03:28)", "body": "Oh my lord! Did I mention spelling. I left out typo? exist = exists degrage = degrade sorry about that! Anna"}, {"response": 37, "author": "geekman", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (12:35)", "body": "Anna, you can practise your HTML in the Austentest Conference at http://www.spring.com/yapp-bin/restricted/browse/austentest/all/ Just subscribe to Austentest as another topic in the portfolio of those topics you are interested in here at Spring."}, {"response": 38, "author": "granpana", "date": "Sat, Jan 11, 1997 (16:31)", "body": "Hello there,,"}, {"response": 39, "author": "granpana", "date": "Sat, Jan 11, 1997 (16:32)", "body": "what is up ,,,any topic you'd like to argue about"}, {"response": 40, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jan 11, 1997 (17:27)", "body": "What's your favorite subject?"}, {"response": 41, "author": "katt", "date": "Wed, Feb  5, 1997 (00:53)", "body": "Hi, I'm Kristi. I'm 24 and I'm just starting out using a computer. I guess your never too old to start, huh? Well I just wanted to say \"Hi\" and I'm glad you're out there. kkw"}, {"response": 42, "author": "Amariah", "date": "Wed, Mar 12, 1997 (04:20)", "body": "Hi I'm Jean, but everyone calls me Amariah. Anne, you mentioned everyone was spelling right, well I am here now, that will change! I just thought I would check out this spot and say Hi! Amariah"}, {"response": 43, "author": "Amariah", "date": "Wed, Mar 12, 1997 (04:26)", "body": "Hi I'm Jean, but everyone calls me Amariah. Anne, you mentioned everyone was spelling right, well I am here now, that will change! I just thought I would check out this spot and say Hi! Amariah"}, {"response": 44, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Mar 12, 1997 (12:46)", "body": "Welcome Amariah. What's going on in your part of the world?"}, {"response": 45, "author": "frogpajamas", "date": "Thu, Apr 10, 1997 (03:38)", "body": "I am a new member of spring.com. I am working as the VP-Finance of an Internet Applications Development Company (Mercury Productions, Inc. www.mpinc.com) in Gainesville,FL. Here is a quote I read yesterday and I have been thinking about quite a bit these days. Here it goes: \" (the universe is change. life is understanding.)\" Marcus Aurelius"}, {"response": 46, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Apr 10, 1997 (12:19)", "body": "Welcome frogpajammas!"}, {"response": 47, "author": "aubrey", "date": "Mon, Apr 14, 1997 (14:38)", "body": "Howdy from Dallas! I've been cruising about the Spring, clogging up various topics with my endless rambling, avoided \"culture\" because I don't have any, but now I see you're just folks like me. Do any of you belong to Utne-style salons? Just for intros (I think I posted this somewhere else as well, deja vu): I'm a delighfully effervescent, mildly eccentric molecular biologist; I escaped the rat race by quitting my residency 4 months out of med school and am having a fabulous time, 8 years into my Prime Ministership of the Shiftless Workshy Slackers Club (join us, please). Totally new to the net (started in Feb) and don't own a computer so I do all this on the government's time (state employee of sorts), heh heh heh. Good thing my boss is a charter member of the SWSC!"}, {"response": 48, "author": "nancyw", "date": "Thu, Jun 12, 1997 (00:28)", "body": "Mildly eccentric molecular biologist? I thought all molecular biologists (in the stereotypers Lexicon) were VERY Eccentric! Howdy, I'm Nancy -- clogging up as many topics as I can at Terry's invite. My fingers are wearing down..."}, {"response": 49, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jun 12, 1997 (00:30)", "body": "I'll be offline in half and hour. I hope some reinforcements show up to keep you company. I'll be on my way to the sports club to work out other parts of my body besides these also worn out fingers."}, {"response": 50, "author": "nancyw", "date": "Thu, Jun 12, 1997 (18:33)", "body": "Speaking of working out, I've been part of a little experiment with editor Jack Olmsted who is evangelizing working out in front of the computer. You can check out our online exercise diaries (gasp) at http://www.futuremedia.org/Media/imedia/new/year%2097/may97/diary5.html The above URL is week 5, we are in week 7 so you can go either way with buttons Jack has put on the site."}, {"response": 51, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jun 12, 1997 (21:23)", "body": "What a great idea!"}, {"response": 52, "author": "jo", "date": "Sat, Jul  5, 1997 (21:47)", "body": "well, I'm a student at swiss federal institute of technology and yesterday evenig, for exemple, I just talk late in the night with friends about the reject of difference that seems to be a part of the occidental culture. That's why I come first in this conference"}, {"response": 53, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jul  7, 1997 (02:48)", "body": "Tell us about your conversation, I'm curious."}, {"response": 54, "author": "pkenyon", "date": "Fri, Aug  1, 1997 (14:19)", "body": "Hi, I'm Paul Kenyon & I just realised that I started a fresh topic (CareMail: Reaching out from Cyberspace to reach the unconnected) without introducing myself - Apologies. I teach Psychology at a university in the UK and I was approached by Klaus Treuherz from Brazil who explained the CareMail concept to me and asked if I would help him set it up. I'm also interested in the opportunities offered by the Internet to support students, see http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/year1/bbb.htm An increasing number of students are working part-time to support themselves and their families and are simply not able to attend lectures at a set place and time. I was attracted to the idea of exploring the Net to break what I call 'the tyranny of the lecture theatre' which is a phrase I use to describe a number of failings with conventional lectures including the 'blink and you have missed a vital bit of information', phenomenon. I seem to spend a lot of time now doing what I call 'Internet gardening': planning new features for my websites, selecting plants, sewing seeds, keeping down weeds on the site etc. I look forward to hearing your comments on the CareMail concept."}, {"response": 55, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Aug  1, 1997 (14:46)", "body": "What conference did you set up the Caremail topic in?"}, {"response": 56, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Oct 23, 1997 (15:49)", "body": "Hey all you culture enthusiasts out there... Who's into world domination! Screw mutliculturalism!"}, {"response": 57, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Oct 23, 1997 (16:08)", "body": "*Now* you tell us you're into total world domination and absolute control over mankind."}, {"response": 58, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Oct 23, 1997 (18:14)", "body": "Just role-playing..."}, {"response": 59, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 24, 1997 (01:35)", "body": "Whew, had us sweating there for a bit."}, {"response": 60, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Oct 24, 1997 (02:34)", "body": "One hand up for world domination in this corner! WER"}, {"response": 61, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Oct 24, 1997 (17:33)", "body": "I think I could've guessed that! :)"}, {"response": 62, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, Oct 27, 1997 (05:22)", "body": "....... Keep sweet talking me like that, and I might let you stay on my continent! WER"}, {"response": 63, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Oct 27, 1997 (18:06)", "body": "*eskimo kisses* on the soft parts. (!)"}, {"response": 64, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Oct 29, 1997 (06:32)", "body": ".......... Yeah, like I've got any of those when you're on a roll! Speaking of you on a roll... WER"}, {"response": 65, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Oct 29, 1997 (16:03)", "body": "*giggle*"}, {"response": 66, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Oct 29, 1997 (16:04)", "body": "*purr*"}, {"response": 67, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Oct 31, 1997 (21:35)", "body": "There you go, in the middle of a sandwich again. WER"}, {"response": 68, "author": "forest", "date": "Wed, Nov  5, 1997 (03:55)", "body": "My name is Sally. I don't what to say at this point. I'm overwhelmed at all the information and wonder if I will be able to do this. I want to have a concrete thing to start with."}, {"response": 69, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Nov  5, 1997 (04:51)", "body": "Welcome, Sally. Don't be discouraged by the amount of information. There are lots of nice folks here, so don't be afraid to ask questions. WER"}, {"response": 70, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov  5, 1997 (15:20)", "body": "She's overwhelmed by technology. Practice empathy."}, {"response": 71, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Nov  5, 1997 (16:44)", "body": "Where's the empathy key? Is that a function? Is there an empathy macro? Just teasing Sally. Oh, we do like to tease here, but were really a fun bunch of folks! Where are you physically located?"}, {"response": 72, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Nov  5, 1997 (19:38)", "body": "I am the master of...like it's important. WER"}, {"response": 73, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Nov  5, 1997 (19:40)", "body": "Ooops, thought you said apathy... WER"}, {"response": 74, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Nov  6, 1997 (03:01)", "body": "I'm with Sally--it is kind of overwhelming! My name is Autumn, a definite \"newbie\" at all this computer stuff, and I live in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland (midway between Baltimore & Philadelphia). Terry, I'm still awaiting a French topic in this conference...ca va marcher?"}, {"response": 75, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov  6, 1997 (13:43)", "body": "Is that what you want to call it ca va marcher?"}, {"response": 76, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Nov  6, 1997 (22:01)", "body": "Maybe something a little more descriptive of its purpose, such as \"parlez-vous francais?\" or \"Parlons francais!\" or something like that. What do you think? I'm eager to get your input."}, {"response": 77, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov  6, 1997 (22:05)", "body": "OK! parlons francais"}, {"response": 78, "author": "didi", "date": "Wed, Dec  3, 1997 (23:02)", "body": "Je suis tad bit bewildered by the lot of you but my flat mate has convinced me this is a good idea so: hello!! I am didi and well .... hello, really. P.S. Je parle francais un petit peu."}, {"response": 79, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Thu, Dec  4, 1997 (00:14)", "body": "imagine the lot of us are a tad bit bewildering... agree with you re: \"Lady of Shallott\", by the way...it is quite beautiful, worthy of inclusion (book or no)..."}, {"response": 80, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Dec  4, 1997 (17:06)", "body": "Bonjour, Didi! Hope to see you in the French topic soon--we need some fresh karma there. Nick & I are running out of poems to recite."}, {"response": 81, "author": "bett", "date": "Sun, Dec  7, 1997 (09:19)", "body": ""}, {"response": 82, "author": "LaughingSky", "date": "Mon, Feb 23, 1998 (01:31)", "body": "Hello to all! I jumped right into the culture, eh? No French - sorry! How about...Namaste! Just wanted to say, \"hello\"!"}, {"response": 84, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Feb 23, 1998 (23:15)", "body": "hi annette. no French here either but that doesn't mean we aren't cultured now, does it?"}, {"response": 85, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Feb 24, 1998 (05:04)", "body": "I was sitting at a table with mostly French people at the CFP98 banquet, listening to the keynote speech. Our table was up near the front, directly to the side of the podium. I was about to doze off, when I heard a bunch of gasps in the room and shrieks, the lady from Vancouver shouted at me to \"watch out!\" I looked up and their was about a 12' potted tree falling and heading directly for the guy sitting next to me. I jumped up and lunged for the tree and caught it just inches from his head. It got me back in the here and now!"}, {"response": 87, "author": "LaughingSky", "date": "Wed, Feb 25, 1998 (23:56)", "body": "Think of it this way, Terry; you saved a human and a tree, all at one time! Way to go!~~~*"}, {"response": 88, "author": "riette", "date": "Wed, Jun 24, 1998 (06:06)", "body": "Hopefully one will be worth the pain-in-the-butt rescue effort . . ."}, {"response": 89, "author": "SpitzleyD", "date": "Thu, Feb  7, 2036 (08:38)", "body": "Hi, folks. I'm here mainly to participate in the Viridian discussion (topic 18)."}, {"response": 90, "author": "ratthing", "date": "Thu, Feb  7, 2036 (08:43)", "body": "hi dave. hope to see you around in other conferences, too!"}, {"response": 91, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Feb 11, 1999 (23:50)", "body": "Welcome, David! Discuss away!"}, {"response": 92, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Fri, Feb 12, 1999 (05:28)", "body": "Adam Lipscomb here. I'm employed at a local telecommunication company - IXC Communications. I'm mainly here for the Viridian conference, but I'm prone to wander around and post on things that catch my eye, also. I've brought up this on the Books conference, but I'll mention it here, also - have any of you read _The Transparent Society_ by David Brin? It's a pretty fascinating study on current attitudes toward privacy and openness. I'm normally a strong privacy advocate, but Brin raises some very strong points regarding the ways in which the concept of Transparency could enable all of us to hold our government accountable."}, {"response": 93, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Feb 12, 1999 (16:50)", "body": "the more I think about that, the more I want to go get that book..."}, {"response": 94, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Feb 12, 1999 (20:23)", "body": "I just blew my weeks book budget on a $60 technical analysis book, but I'll put this on my amazon list. A lot of good it will do me though, as net stocks defy any analysis! I'll check this out sometime, Adam. Tell us more about it!"}, {"response": 95, "author": "AdamLipscomb", "date": "Sat, Feb 13, 1999 (01:43)", "body": "Brin's basic proposition is that, as technology has progressed, it has become easier and easier to monitor the activities of others. Brin proposes that we set up clearly defined zones of privacy/secrecy, but in other areas, allow for what he calls \"reciprocal transparency,\" which is basically that everyone not only has access to that information, but their accessing it is also monitored. For instance, if there are cameras mounted to monitor a section of a city, any citizen should have access not only to the output from the cameras, but also to the central office where the police monitor the cameras. This information would not only allow police surveillance (which has been proven to reduce street crime) but would also allow ordinary citizens to both monitor the police and the streets near where they live. I'm not as articulate as I like right now, but that is the gist of his argument. I'll try to dig some better figures and information this weekend."}, {"response": 96, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, Apr 19, 1999 (19:18)", "body": "I would like regulars of this conference invite to visit the International Conflicts conference here on the Spring: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/browse/InternationalConflicts/all This conference is dedicated to the disputes between groups all over the world, be that social, cultural, political or ethnical differences."}, {"response": 97, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (05:38)", "body": "Hello. I just registered on the Spring, at Terry's invitation. I'm a cognitive scientist doing research in educational technology and learning theory."}, {"response": 98, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (05:55)", "body": "Where are you doing this research, geographically? And is it independent or part of a larger organization?"}, {"response": 99, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (07:10)", "body": "Welcome, Barry!"}, {"response": 100, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (14:38)", "body": "Thank you. I live in suburban Boston. For the past 10 years I've been affiliated with the Educational Technology Research Group at BBN. However, GTE recently bought up BBN to acquire their Internet Services (BBN Planet), and dissolved most of the rest of BBN. So the Educational Technology Research Group is no more. I am also affiliated with projects at the MIT Media Lab (Affective Computing) and until recently with the Community Outreach Lab at UMass Lowell. I continue to volunteer at the Boston Museum of Science, in the Children's Discovery Center. Most of my research has been independent, although my latest project is a collaboration with Rob Reilly of UMass and Roz Picard of the MIT Media Lab. The MuseNet K12 Project is my oldest and longest running project. It's entirely unfunded and has never sought funding. The Joy Project and the Orenda Project are newer, and require no funding. See http://www.musenet.org/orenda"}, {"response": 101, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (16:12)", "body": "Maybe you could start a topic on musenet and the orenda project int eh vc conference? And I'd be interested in hearing your comments on this and on other vc's that you have experienced."}, {"response": 102, "author": "moulton", "date": "Wed, Jul 14, 1999 (14:19)", "body": "Sure. My personal experience with MuseNet is summarized in my Web-published article, \"Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler,\" at http://www.musenet.org/WCE"}, {"response": 103, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (07:12)", "body": "Hello, my name is Debra Tenney. When I sang in Texas in the 70s I was known as Debby-Dawn, I am still screaming about the injustice. only now I do not sing it I cry out to the universe to be heard. La Paz Sea Contigo"}, {"response": 104, "author": "ov", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (04:45)", "body": "I've just put culture on my hotlist. Saw that Debra was posting here and I wanted to hear more. So now I'm in vc, communities and culture. I think I will keep it at that for awhile."}, {"response": 105, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (13:39)", "body": "Debra is a good communicator. She's worked in broadcast journalism and politics, and has a keen sense of how to package a message as a story, poem, play or essay. I'm hopeful that Debra will convert the more iconoclastic ideas and insights developed here into presentation formats that the public will find more digestible."}, {"response": 106, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (20:52)", "body": ""}, {"response": 107, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (20:53)", "body": "oops... that was intended to be a 'welcome debra' post..."}, {"response": 108, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Aug 26, 2000 (10:28)", "body": "Can I have an African culture topic in this conference please, and that'll give me a 'home' to post cultural thoughts while I am away (or well, for Marcia to post them anyway...)"}, {"response": 109, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Aug 30, 2000 (06:24)", "body": "Certainly my dear. Did you try to create one and it did not take??? If that is so, we might have to ask Terry for assistance"}, {"response": 110, "author": "Carys", "date": "Sat, Sep  9, 2000 (18:05)", "body": "Hello one and all. I'm new here and my name is Anna (boring) but you can call me Carys. Unfortunately my entire experience with other cultures consists of courses I took at school and television documentaries. I am here to learn. It seems as though it might be fun."}, {"response": 111, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Sep 10, 2000 (00:42)", "body": "Hey, welcome Carys!!!! I thought I was in here all on my own!!!! How nice to have some company ..... I'm posting mostly on Africa because that's what I know about .... but give me some ideas and I'll research them for you .....Oh BTW no question is too dumb here so please take your shoes off, get a cup of whatever you fancy, and feel at home ...."}, {"response": 112, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Sun, Sep 10, 2000 (16:26)", "body": "Welcome Carys! Check out the porch conf if you get the chance."}, {"response": 113, "author": "Carys", "date": "Mon, Sep 11, 2000 (21:57)", "body": "Thank you! It is lovely to be here with such nice people as yourselves. I've some Australian cousins but my own American family, well quite frankly they hate them. They're referred to as the sub-humans. When I was a kid we went to visit them in Melbourne and that was a horror. Anywho I like some of them. The thing which always fascinated me about Australia is Aboringinal Culture. They seem to me to be remarkable people. I went back to Australia with my husband right after we married. We went to see Uluru (Ayre's Rock) and I just wouldn't climb it. My husband did. But I refused. It is a sacred place and it seemed such a sacrilege. I drew and painted it(in watercolor) though. I left with over 30 studies of Uluru from all angles and times of day. I also think that Madagascar is an interesting place. I've never been there. Have you been, Maggie? Thanks for the invitation to check out the porch. I must do that."}, {"response": 114, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Sep 12, 2000 (08:03)", "body": "I've only really travelled in Africa ...apart from a walking holiday in Switzerland in my teens (long ago now!). I've always wanted to go to Australia. I understand what you mean about Ayers Rock. I think I'd probably feel much the same, and my husband would be much like yours!!! I also paint, and I'm taking paints with me to AFrica this time to try and rise to the challenge of capturing some atmosphere ...the colours are so different to England!!! I've only travelled in West Africa - Cameroon, Senegal, Gambia, Mali. Madagascar is fascinating, particularly for wildlife ... maybe one day ...."}, {"response": 115, "author": "Carys", "date": "Sat, Sep 23, 2000 (17:07)", "body": "You've mainly been in West Africa then? That would still be a very large area. Africa is the second largest continent. I get to learn all of these fun facts over again with my little boy. I used to work with a really charming woman from Ghana named Josephine. She was one the nicest and most articulate people that I've ever met. I was so embarassed the day when another co-worker asked her, \"Do you have radio there in Africa?\" I was not a momemt which made me proud to be an American. Josephine was very gracious about it calmly explaining that yes, they did and that while in Ghana she had worked as the executive assistant to the president of bank, which was a very modern building with all the amenities. I admired her restraint and good manners. From Josephine I learned that education is highly valued in some African societies. That attaining advanced degrees is very encouraged. She had been sent to boarding schools when she was a child. Her husband was also very interesting. He had been largely educated in England, so he had an English accent. I did learn from them that Ghana had once been part of the British Empire, like neighboring Nigeria. Josephine's husband was working on his Ph.D. at the time I knew them. She had put her graduate school off until their two young children were older. A question on the Gambia. I have heard that the official name of the country is \"The Gambia\". The reason for that was that they didn't want to be confused with another African country, Zambia. Is that true. I would love to hear more about the societies of West Africa. I majored in Art History so I did get a bit of information on the art of the region. But as my focus was European Art, it was mostly concerning the influence of different forms of African Art on the Western Artistic tradition of the 20th Century. Whew! The course was more interesting than the title. The Benin bronzes from Nigeria in the 17th Century are considered very extraordinary. They are pieces of great naturalism and beauty. Very much examples of a highly developed artistic tradition. I do look forward to finding out more about your work and experiences in Africa."}, {"response": 116, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Sep 23, 2000 (19:50)", "body": "Yes, I heard that too ...that The Gambia is always stated with the article to distinguish it from Zambia. I can identify with your 'josephine' story ... I'm trying to post in a varied diet of sotries and info about African societies. Hope you enjoy them. Have you looked at what I'm psoting in Travel conference too??? Look under Gambia and Mali topics there..."}, {"response": 117, "author": "Carys", "date": "Sat, Oct 14, 2000 (15:09)", "body": "Maggie, thanks so much. I'll check the Travel conference."}, {"response": 118, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Nov 29, 2000 (01:57)", "body": "The Melungians * is anyone intereted enough for me to start a new topic?* Most families in the Southern part of North America in some way have family roots to the Melungeons. So lets start from the Beginning . Where did the Melungeons come from? That is a good question . Some call the Melungeons the \" Lost People \" or the \"Mysterious \" people of Appalachia. There are a lot of stories of where the Melungeons came from . I will try to explain a few. They say that they are descended from the \"Lost Colony of Roanoke\" who married into the local Native American tribes. Others say that they were descendants of Welsh explorer Modoc who came to North America around 1100 AD, with ten ships of colonists . Still others say that Melungeons are the lost tribe of Isreal,lost Spanish explores and just simply a \"tri -racial isolate, made up of Native American/ African American/Caucasian mixture. \" But then there are those that say they were Portuguese . The Melungeons according to Brent Kennedy writer of \" The Melungeons , the Resurrection of a Proud People.\" suggested that the Melungeons were stating fact when they said they were \" Portyghee\" . Saying that Portuguese/Morrish people who were being increasingly attacked during the Spanish Inquisition were a large part of the settlers Spain brought to this country in the 1500's . The largest bans of Native Americans to intermarry with the settlers were the Cherokee, Powhatans and the Pamunkeys. These people migrated westward in front of the migrants and on the way married with other groups, possibly escaped slaves, English, English/Native Americans and Scotch /Irish. The language that they spoke was broken or Elizabethan English . Their features were said to be from Dark skin to Light skin ,eyes could be Brown or Steel Blue in color while the hair could be Brown ,Black or Blonde. This comes from intermarrying . When the white people caught up with them in Tennessee Kentucky and other Southern States they did not like them around and the sad part is that for these people they were deemed \"Free Persons Of Color \" and laws were made and set up to deprive the Melungeons of their basic rights. Such as the right to Vote, the right to own land , and the right for their children to have an education . Being Melungeon was not the best way to get ahead in those times. Many of them hid their ancestry with other \"covers\" that could account for their dark features, saying that they were \" Black Dutch , Black Irish\" or having \" Native American ancestory\""}, {"response": 119, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Wed, Nov 29, 2000 (13:51)", "body": "Sure, sounds like a good topic!"}, {"response": 120, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Nov 29, 2000 (22:12)", "body": "Terry, please kill topic 33. I seem to be unable to do so. It is reduntant and misspelled too. Thanks!"}, {"response": 121, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Thu, Nov 30, 2000 (19:57)", "body": "Will do!"}, {"response": 122, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Dec  1, 2000 (04:17)", "body": "You may as well kill 34 too I spelled Melungeons wrong... I promise to get it right the next time!!!"}, {"response": 123, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Fri, Dec  1, 2000 (13:00)", "body": "ok!"}, {"response": 124, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Feb 27, 2001 (18:41)", "body": "Got online in Mali at long last. Greetings. Seems I've been away a long time - Plenty of culture here - Can't stay long today, but will post more stuff when I get back to the UK late March."}, {"response": 125, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Wed, Feb 28, 2001 (16:08)", "body": "That's great Maggie, where did yo find access in Mali? Where's Mali and what' s it like there?"}, {"response": 126, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Feb 28, 2001 (18:52)", "body": "I'm actually in my office!!! But connection is not good - cant seem to post in ~Spring sometimes .. three tries so far with this! Mali is HOt Hot Hot - hit 103F yesterday. I love the people and enjoy wearing local clothes. Have asked Marcia to post pic in travel/Mali. Hope she does. Will prepare something offline and post later. Its $3 and hour for access, so I have to be careful."}, {"response": 127, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Thu, Mar  1, 2001 (02:01)", "body": "Really, it's 'spensif for you to talk to us. Gotta run, eat dinner and watch Temptation Island. I'll look forward to seeing the Mali topic, we're going to have to crown Marci the \"Content Queen\"."}, {"response": 128, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Mar  2, 2001 (00:22)", "body": "Wheeeee! I am Queen of sumthin!!! From Maggie: I'm actually in my office!!! But connection is not good - cant seem to post in Spring sometimes .. three tries so far with this! Mali is HOt Hot Hot - hit 103F yesterday. I love the people and enjoy wearing local clothes. Have asked Marcia to post pic in travel/Mali. Hope she does. Will prepare something offline and post later. Its $3 and hour for access, so I have to be careful"}, {"response": 129, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Mar  2, 2001 (00:27)", "body": "Maggie!! Post yours or Tony's or both??? You are both so resplendent in your native costumes as to make the rest of us drab by comparison!"}, {"response": 130, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Fri, Mar  2, 2001 (13:45)", "body": "Wow, post both of them or all of them if you have pix of Maggies trip?"}, {"response": 131, "author": "marci", "date": "Fri, Apr 27, 2001 (09:09)", "body": "I have bboth of their pictures ready to post (I did find them). Now, where to put them? Under the Travel / Mali topic or here in Cultures?"}, {"response": 132, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Apr 30, 2001 (05:17)", "body": "Where are Maggies pictures? cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 20, "subject": "dead media project of Bruce Sterling", "response_count": 22, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Nov  8, 1998 (10:53)", "body": "Bruce Sterling bruces@well.sf.ca.us The DEAD MEDIA Project: A Modest Proposal and a Public Appeal by Bruce Sterling Ever notice how many books there are about the Internet these days? About 13,493 so far, right? And how about \"multimedia?\" There are 8,784 books on this topic, even though no one has ever successfully defined the term. CD-ROM -- is there a single marketable topic left that hasn't been shovelwared into the vast digital mire that is CD-ROM? And how about the \"Information Superhighway\" and \"Virtual Reality\"? Every magazine on the planet has done awestruck vaporware cover stories on these two consensus- hallucinations. Our culture is experiencing a profound radiation of new species of media. The centralized, dinosaurian one-to-many media that roared and trampled through the 20th century are poorly adapted to the postmodern technological environment. The new media environment is aswarm with lumbering toothy digital mammals. It's all lynxes here, and gophers there, plus big fat venomous webcrawlers, appearing in Pleistocene profusion. This is all well and good, and it's lovely that so many people are paying attention to this. Nothing gives me greater pleasure as a professional garage futurist than to ponder some weird new mutant medium and wonder how this squawking little monster is going to wriggle its way into the interstices between human beings. Still, there's a difference between this pleasurable contemplation of the technological sublime and an actual coherent understanding of the life and death of media. We have no idea in hell what we are doing to ourselves with these new media technologies, and no consistent way even to discuss the subject. Something constructive ought to be done about this situation. I can't do much about it, personally, because I'm booked up to the eyeballs until the end of the millennium. So is my good friend Richard Kadrey, author of the COVERT CULTURE SOURCEBOOK. Both Kadrey and myself, however, recently came to a joint understanding that what we'd really like to see at this cultural conjunction is an entirely new kind of book on media. A media book of the dead. Plenty of wild wired promises are already being made for all the infant media. What we need is a somber, thoughtful, thorough, hype-free, even lugubrious book that honors the dead and resuscitates the spiritual ancestors of today's mediated frenzy. A book to give its readership a deeper, paleontological perspective right in the dizzy midst of the digital revolution. We need a book about the failures of media, the collapses of media, the supercessions of media, the strangulations of media, a book detailing all the freakish and hideous media mistakes that we should know enough now not to repeat, a book about media that have died on the barbed wire of technological advance, media that didn't make it, martyred media, dead media. THE HANDBOOK OF DEAD MEDIA. A naturalist's field guide for the communications paleontologist. Neither Richard Kadrey nor myself are currently in any position to write this proposed handbook. However, we both feel that our culture truly requires this book: this rich, witty, insightful, profusely illustrated, perfectbound, acid-free-paper coffee-table book, which is to be brought out, theoretically, eventually, by some really with-it, cutting-edge early-21st century publisher. The kind of book that will appear in seventeen different sections of your local chainstore: Political Affairs, Postmodern Theory, Computer Science, Popular Mechanics, Design Studies, the coffeetable artbook section, the remainder table -- you know, whatever. It's a rather rare phenomenon for an established medium to die. If media make it past their Golden Vaporware stage, they usually expand wildly in their early days and then shrink back to some protective niche as they are challenged by later and more highly evolved competitors. Radio didn't kill newspapers, TV didn't kill radio or movies, video and cable didn't kill broadcast network TV; they just all jostled around seeking a more perfect app. But some media do, in fact, perish. Such as: the phenakistoscope. The teleharmonium. The Edison wax cylinder. The stereopticon. The Panorama. Early 20th century electric searchlight spectacles. Morton Heilig's early virtual reality. Telefon Hirmondo. The various species of magic lantern. The pneumatic transfer tubes that once riddled the underground of Chicago. Was the Antikythera Device a medium? How about the Big Character Poster Democracy Wall in Peking in the early 80s? Never heard of any of these? Well, that's the problem. Both Kadrey and I happen to be vague aficionados of this field of study, and yet we both suspect that there must be hundreds of dead media, known to few if any. It would take the combined and formidable scholarly talents of, say, Carolyn \"When Old Technologies Were New\" Marvin and Ricky \"Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women\" Jay to do this ambitious project genuine justice. Though we haven't asked, we kinda"}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Nov  8, 1998 (10:53)", "body": "Dead Media Working Notes 00.5 Subject: Dead Personal Computers Source: Historical Computer Society's \"Historically Brewed\" magazine Historically Brewed: Our First Year, $14.95 editor David Greelish Available from: HCS Press, 1994 2962 Park Street #1 Jacksonville Florida 32205 The staggering speed of technological obsolescence in personal computing makes this perhaps the single most challenging area in dead media studies. The following list, garnered from several issues of \"Historically Brewed,\" a computer collectors' fanzine, does not even begin to count the casualties. There is no pretense of accuracy or exhaustiveness here, although this is the best list I've seen to date. These machines were created for the American, British, and Japanese markets, with no mention at all of, for instance, Soviet Bloc computers. Nor are there any listings of workstations, mainframes, dedicated game computers or arcade console machines. The lacunae here are very obvious and I hope that knowledgeable Dead Media Illuminati will help to close those gaps. I was deeply disquieted to learn that the Historical Computer Society has a sister group known as IACC which specializes in collecting defunct calculators. A further wrinkle suggests itself when one surmises that the true \"dead medium\" in dead computation is not dead platforms (such as those listed here) but dead operating systems (for which I have no list at all). An editorial note: The Dead Media Mailing List is now emanating from fringeware.com, who were kind enough to offer us their services gratis. The Dead Media Mailing List is not an interactive list or discussion group. That may come at some later time -- I welcome advice on the subject of a possible \"alt.dead.media.\" Currently this mailing list is solely a means of distribution of edited articles and research minutiae. Only the most sober, lugubrious, and scholarly commentary will pass the eagle eye of the DMML editor, ie. bruces@well.com. Hopefully this will keep traffic down to the point where we can all actually get some work done. Dead Personal Computers (the first draft): Altair 8800 Amiga 500 Amiga 1000 Amstrad Apple I, II, IIc, IIe, II+, IIgs, III Apple Lisa Apple Lisa MacXL Apricot Atari 400 Atari 800 Atari 520ST Atari 1200XL Basis 190 BBC Micro Bondwell 2 Cambridge Z-88 Canon Cat Columbia Portable Commodore 128 Commodore C64 Commodore Vic-20 Commodore Plus 4 Commodore Pet CompuPro \"Big 16\" Cromemco Z-2D Cromemco System 3 DOT Portable Eagle II Epson QX-10 Epson HX-20 Epson PX-8 Geneva Exidy Sorcerer Franklin Ace 500 Franklin Ace 1200 Gavilan Grid Compass Heath/Zenith Hyperion IBM PC 640K IBM XT IBM Portable IBM PCjr IMSAI 8080 Intertek Superbrain II Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1 Kaypro 2x Linus WriteTop Mac 128, 512, 512KE Mattel Aquarius Micro-Professor MPF-II Morrow MicroDecision 3 Morrow Portable NEC PC-8081 NEC Starlet 8401-LS NorthStar Advantage NorthStar Horizon Ohio Scientific Oric Osborne 1 Osborne Executive Panasonic Sanyo 1255 Sanyo PC 1250 Sinclair ZX-80 Sinclair ZX-81 Sol Model 20 Sony SMC-70 Spectravideo SV-328 SuperBrain II QD Tandy 1000 Tandy 1000SL Tandy Coco 1 Tandy Coco 2 Tandy Coco 3 Tano Dragon TRS-80 TI 99/4 Timex/Sinclair 1000 Timex/Sinclair color computer Vector 4 Victor 9000 Workslate Xerox 820 II Xerox Alto Xerox Dorado Xerox 1108 Yamaha CX5M Possible sources of further insight: A Collector's Guide to Personal Computers and Pocket Calculators by Dr Thomas F Haddock $14.95 from: Books Americana, Inc P O Box 2326 Florence, Alabama 35360 History of the Personal Computer by Stan Veit $16.95 from: Historical Computer Society 2962 Park Street #1 Jacksonville, Florida 32205 Encyclopedia of Computer History by Mark Greenia Lexikon Publishing (??)"}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Nov  8, 1998 (11:03)", "body": "Subject: Public Address on Dead Media Project by Bruce Sterling bruces@well.com Literary Freeware: Not for Commercial Use \"The Life and Death of Media\" Speech at Sixth International Symposium on Electronic Art ISEA '95 Montreal Sept 19 1995 Hello, my name's Bruce Sterling, I'm a science fiction writer from Austin, Texas. It's very pleasant to be here in Montreal at an event like ISEA. It's professionally pleasant. As a science fiction writer, I have a deep and abiding interest in electronic arts. In multimedia. In computer networks. In CD-ROM. In virtual reality. In the Internet. In the Information Superhighway. In cyberspace. Basically, the less likely it sounds, the better I like it. These are topics that I dare not ignore. It would mean ignoring the nervous system of the information society. The laboratory of information science. The battlefield of information warfare. The marketplace of the information economy. As well as one of the strangest areas of the art world. When Jules Verne invented science fiction, Jules Verne was a stockbroker. Almost by accident, Jules Verne discovered that nineteenth century France had a large market for techno-thrillers. Jules Verne discovered and fed the tremendous 19th-century cultural appetite for romantic, futuristic technologies like the hot-air- balloon, the electric submarine, the airborne battleship, the moon cannon. Today, at the close of the twentieth century, I feel a great sense of solidarity with my spiritual ancestor Jules Verne when it comes to topics such as virtual reality, and telepresence, and direct links between brain and computer. Even as I stand here before you, I can scarcely restrain my natural urge to inflate some of these big shiny high- tech balloons with the hot air of the imagination. But ladies and gentlemen, I have seen this done for so long now, and for *so many times,* and to so many different technologies, that I can no longer do it myself with any sense of existential authenticity. I must confess to you quite openly and frankly that I am having a crisis of conscience. In the year 1995, do information technologies really *need* any more hot-breathing promotion from science fiction writers? I would suggest otherwise. Take AT&T's famous \"You Will\" campaign. AT&T's public relations campaign has reached millions of people -- even though AT&T have just announced plans to fire ten thousand of their own computer people. Have you ever wondered if AT&T has any real idea what they're doing? Do you think that AT&T has any real idea what they'll do to us, once they arrive in that future that they are selling to us? Did you ever wonder what AT&T really wants? You Will! But at least AT&T makes nice looking science fiction commercials with great set design. Let's consider Canada Bell. Canada Bell is making an incredibly arrogant attempt to trademark the term \"The Net\" -- a term which has been common parlance worldwide since at least 1988. Canada Bell should be sued for that kind of hubris, and in fact they *are* being sued, or at least opposed in court. Symptoms like this make it clear that the good old techno-booster role of science fiction writers has been taken over by a new professional class of public relations hucksters and intellectual property attorneys. Science fiction writers are no longer needed to serve as handmaidens for these blundering colossi. Nowadays, science fiction writers should fulfill another role. Science fiction writers should be examining aspects of media that cannot be promoted and sold. Aspects of media that corporate public relations people are *afraid to look at* and deeply afraid to tell us about. We should be attempting to achieve a coherent understanding of media. I'm not saying, mind you, that we're actually going to do this fine and noble thing. I'm merely saying that's what's needed. Given that tremendous challenge, science fiction writing is a rather meager response at best. At our best, maybe we science fiction writers can act as harbingers or catalysts, but what is really needed at this historical juncture is a serious general global assessment of our technosocial condition. Before we install the latest hot-off-the-disk-drive version of Windows For Civilization 2.0, we ought to look around ourselves very seriously. Probably, before leaping in postmodern ecstasy into the black hole of virtuality, we ought to make and store some back-ups of the system first. Our society would do this if we had a momentary attack of common sense. But never mind, that's just a passing suggestion. Rather than dwelling on that, let me tell you how I reached this artistic crisis of mine. Two months ago, I finished a new science fiction novel. It's a novel about virtual reality artists in Europe in the late twenty-first century. I think people in today's digital art community will recognize this novel as my little valentine for them. This is a novel set a hundred years from today, in which I pretend that digital arts people like the people"}, {"response": 4, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Jan 23, 1999 (00:01)", "body": "any new info on this yet, Terry?"}, {"response": 5, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Mar 12, 1999 (10:37)", "body": "Terry, I think this topic would maybe fare better in a more technological or scientific conference. It's more retro-geekism that would be attracted to this, rather than publishing folks or journos, I think. Could you post it up there, too?"}, {"response": 6, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Mar 12, 1999 (15:58)", "body": "We could link it to techbusiness, or web, or internet. Hmmm, what conference am I in now?"}, {"response": 7, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Mar 12, 1999 (16:35)", "body": "making ya dizzy ain't it!"}, {"response": 8, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, Mar 13, 1999 (09:08)", "body": "Uh, yeah, that's what made me think of a more tech-, culture- or science-oriented conference. It's more any of these three than media as in publishing and the like."}, {"response": 9, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Mar 13, 1999 (10:29)", "body": "or maybe collecting?"}, {"response": 10, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Mar 16, 1999 (08:00)", "body": "Wer, you are of course right (as usual, I must admit), e.g. is my interest in old audio technology (among others) nicely complemented by Bruce Sterling's Dead Media project. But if you collect things like Super 8-movies or 78s or reel-to-reel magnet tapes, and play them, how dead are they? This discussion has been already tackled by better men than me, so let's give it some deserved rest. The most important aspects of this projects are in my mind the credit past ingeniosity gets (amazing results with limited means, etc.), a basic understanding of how most technologies don't just suddenly pop up as in \"Here I am! I'm cool! I'm new! Use me!\", rather they often start their live cycles on the wreckage of former concepts, to either develop or subsitute existing concepts. Today, we computer-interested people are frustrated by severe limitations in compatibilities, in part caused by extensive use of proprietary standards. But this is no news at all - just examine the competition between the wax cylinders Edison marketed and the grammophone discs by Berliner. In 1890 (and up into the 1920ies), if you had an Edison (or perhaps license) Phonograph, you could not play any black, flat, round disc with grooves. You're choice of music was limited to the stuff Edison marketed (an supposedly he didn't have that hot a taste in music... especially after he was deaf...). And if you had a grammophone, you couldn't play every flat, round black thing, either. While most spun outside-in, some spun inside-out (e.g. products from Path\ufffd, France), and while all these had grooves with horizontal markings, there were also some with vertikal marks in the grooves. AND ALL THESE DIFFERENT STANDARDS REQUIRED DIFFERENT HARDWARE! The same thing happened in late 40ies, when 45 and 33 rpm speeds were introduced by competing companies, whoses respective record players would only play their medium (plus maybe - after switching the needle - the old \"standard\" 78 rpm). If you had a 45 player - sorry, no LPs for you. If you had an LP player, you couldn't buy the much cheaper 7'' Singles on 45 rpm. Terry and I have this problem right now, again. We agreed on a medium, a VHS tape. Nice. Just I deliver PAL format, and he needs NTSC, so we need a workaround (who lives in Tennessee). This all virtually reeks of TECH or SCIENCE, SOCIETY, CULTURE, because of the historical/ cultural/ sociological aspects involved (e.g. 78s were in the US longer made by musicians with strong following in the southern states, the same it was 40 before that with wax cylinders, which could still be sold in the south after the northern market had vanished). Therefore I hereby once more request: put this thing up in respective conferences, too. Please."}, {"response": 11, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Mar 17, 1999 (23:39)", "body": "would fit in a history conference, too..."}, {"response": 12, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Mar 18, 1999 (10:27)", "body": "Just what i say, just what I say (and I know I repeat myself on this one)! ;=} But then, we do not have a dedicated historical Conference yet, do we? There are some topics, like medieval, but no history conference (which would, in turn, intersect with society and culture at least)."}, {"response": 13, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Mar 18, 1999 (11:14)", "body": "A history conf would be cool, any history buffs here?"}, {"response": 14, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Mar 18, 1999 (11:34)", "body": "Depends on what's history for ya, mate! If learning from past mistakes counts, don't count on me. If knowing about mistakes qualifies, you might know somebody."}, {"response": 15, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr  9, 1999 (00:12)", "body": "'tis linked up in cultures now, Alexander... and earlier you asked, \"But if you collect things like Super 8-movies or 78s or reel-to-reel magnet tapes, and play them, how dead are they?\" they are as dead as their usage and their production, IMHO (I know, you said let it rest but...)"}, {"response": 16, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Apr  9, 1999 (06:14)", "body": "Well, Werby, ask Terry to switch yer batteries, and dig this: SUPER8 AIN'T DEAD! It's just expensive... ;=} Honestly, I just filmed my trip to Hamburg and Flensburg in Super8, as the films are still available (by Kodak, 15 meters/approx. 3 minutes). And! We enjoy inviting folks over to watch our or their old family home movies or the occasional real movie, like Invanhoe cut together to fit on an 18 minute-reel. Also, we enjoy Kung Fu-Movies a lot, I own several reels of vintage Bruce Lee-stuff. Thanks for linking this to the Cultures conference!"}, {"response": 17, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Apr  9, 1999 (06:22)", "body": "Dear Dead Media-appreciator, you might also enjoy visiting this topic here: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/respond/collecting/24 . It's the *Films and Movies (Super8, 16mm, 32mm, video)* topic in the Collecting conference."}, {"response": 18, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Apr 10, 1999 (00:13)", "body": "yes, yes it is"}, {"response": 19, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (23:31)", "body": "Wonder whatever happened the the Stereo Realist Terry has? Probably has not had time to fool with it lately. I am curious, though..."}, {"response": 20, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (23:33)", "body": "as for the history conference, of which I believe Alexander is the only current active host, he does not go in there. I seem to rattle around in there posting like a dried pea in a referee's whistle. Oh well, I do that a lot of places..."}, {"response": 21, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (09:51)", "body": "Haven't done much with it, I'm doing more with digital photography and still digital and video these days. I'll be posting some stuff soon."}, {"response": 22, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (10:52)", "body": "Oooh! I can't wait *grin* cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 21, "subject": "The US Car Culture", "response_count": 50, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Apr 26, 1999 (21:16)", "body": "Are we supposed to be obsessed with cars?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "stacey", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (10:52)", "body": "i only obsess over mine when it's not working"}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (16:26)", "body": "Yep, same here. I refuse to buy a new car and have it depecriate by $10,000 the first 5 seconds I drive it off the lot. I'll stick with my $700 Dodge Caravan that's been running for years and mom's great old Buick Regal, 90 edition in mint shape. I'd dig an SUV but I just don't dig the price."}, {"response": 4, "author": "stacey", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (17:06)", "body": "they're bike killers anyway."}, {"response": 5, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (08:57)", "body": "Yeah, I saw a downed bicyclist the other day surrounded by cops and EMS. It was tragic to see him unconscious, maybe even dead, in the road. This was on Lamar Blvd near downtown."}, {"response": 6, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:05)", "body": "Any idea why this happened? How's that area traffic-wise?"}, {"response": 7, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:13)", "body": "Bad. The motorist who hit him was pulled over also being interviewd by the cops."}, {"response": 8, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:28)", "body": "yup. bad news. DYK: 85% of serious injuries involving bike accidents could be 'prevented' (from being serious) if cyclists were ANSI or SNELL approved helmets? I know Austin has gone round and round with helmet laws, I just wish people would use their damn noggin and protect it! BTW May is National BIke SAfety Month"}, {"response": 9, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (15:34)", "body": "Well, how 'bout cars going slower? Or bike lanes? Would that be expensive Big Government-stuff or would that constitute some serious noggin-usin' ? I wonder..."}, {"response": 10, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (22:40)", "body": "I think bike lanes would be an infrastructure nightmare around here."}, {"response": 11, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (10:42)", "body": "yep the East Coast is pretty jammed packed as it is... bike lanes work great here but they cannot be everywhere cars refuse to go slower... get real. They just bumped up the speed limit all across the US a few years ago besides, in a bike lane, with no cars... accidents can still happen."}, {"response": 12, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (10:57)", "body": "\"So why bother?\" - Come on, Stacey! It adds a lot to a city's life quality to have nice sidewalks and bike lanes. They even start to dig that concept over here (and don't tell me our cities over here weren't packed to the brim, jammed, stuffed, full...)."}, {"response": 13, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (16:37)", "body": "Sometimes Alexander it's not just about a good idea... you've got to find people who'll put it on their agenda, pay for it, build it etcetera... I never even implied that sidewalks and bike lanes didn't add quite a bit to a city... never even thought it one can only be so idealistic though before co-existing with reality starts to take its toll."}, {"response": 14, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (15:14)", "body": "Just tell me I'm naive, I've heard worse. ;=} Yes, what you say is why this topic is here. There is a car fetish. It's not about moving or traffic or commuting. It's metal, and gasoline, and nice paint jobs, etc. How far off am I?"}, {"response": 15, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (20:08)", "body": "In my circle of family/friends, a car = basic transportation. Which is essential because there's no real public transportation over here."}, {"response": 16, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (23:26)", "body": "If you're talking about most American males, Alexander, you're spot on..."}, {"response": 17, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (08:40)", "body": "As to the females of the species, a car changes meaning several times. For a young woman, a nice car doesn't really mean a thing. It's just there. It's her boyfriend's car. Why should she care? For a mother, a car is pure means to do shopping, get the kids around, etc. Typical is the station wagon. When her kids turn driving age, a car takes the role of the tv for the kiddies - mom and dad turn it on to pacify them. So, they buy a cheap crate for the kids to get them out of the house for a while. Play that horrible music somewhere else. Whatever. (Disclaimer: Above unfounded prejudiced statements). For guys, it's nearly always proof for economical prowess or cool. Even moving some rusty affair nearly falling apart can be considered a statement, perhaps of being so cool, you're way to cool to drive a cool car, because THAT would be obvious. (Dis-Disclaimer: Above scientifically proven facts)."}, {"response": 18, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (12:04)", "body": "I agree with your sentiments, but in most of the households I know, the woman calls the shots about what kind of cars they will purchase. Sure, my husband would love a Porsche 911, but it ain't gonna happen."}, {"response": 19, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (16:24)", "body": "Yes, I heard about those shots and American women. Is that what they call domestic violence? Armed to the teeth: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/cultures/22.12 So, would you arm yourself to to keep your man away from that vehicle? Who would you shoot first?"}, {"response": 20, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (13:26)", "body": "I don't need anything so blatant as a weapon to prevent him from purchasing such a vehicle! I can put the kybosh on that plan with one icy stare."}, {"response": 21, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (14:10)", "body": "which of course is your weapon of choice..."}, {"response": 22, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, May  7, 1999 (18:28)", "body": "(A cal.44 or .38 icy stare? Pretty nasty! Gotta be more careful in the future...)"}, {"response": 23, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (17:13)", "body": "I have a different perspective on cars. Have never driven one, I am not fond of cars or the maniacs who aim at me when on foot, bicycle or anything else not enclosed entirely in steel. I adore cities with trees and bike lanes and grassy places where people can be people. I have spent 4 months in Southern California where perfectly agreeable people turn into profane zealots when the ignition key is turned. It is a terrifying experience being the front passenger on a freeway going at least 75 mph (120.7 Km) and changing lanes without checking. If I were king, everyone would have a car which had a governor on it, would hook up to a system which would drive it, and remove the personality from the entire process."}, {"response": 24, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (22:16)", "body": "I nominate Marcia for King!"}, {"response": 25, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (22:45)", "body": "Thank you, Autumn. It is nice to know someone else is out here crying in the wilderness."}, {"response": 26, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (22:58)", "body": "Waaaaaaahhhhh!!!"}, {"response": 27, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (06:06)", "body": "Marcia, deducting from what I know about you and from the devote behavior of my good buddy Mr Roland, I understand why you don't drive. Admit: You never had to. Enough young gentlemen swooning at your feet, begging to be allowed to drive your groceries home. Or other places. (\"Have never driven one\" - does that mean \"Never owned one\", \"Never regular used one\" or \"never moved one, don't even have driver's license\"? Does your household have a car or not?)"}, {"response": 28, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (10:54)", "body": "I think Marcia surfs to the grocery store. :-)"}, {"response": 29, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (12:00)", "body": "Fair 'nuff! Talking about swooning and the like, my Autumn! I didn't know..."}, {"response": 30, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (14:03)", "body": "Alexander, those are fair questions and I shall answer them truthfully. I have driven a car once. Had a learners' permit in New York. I was still in college and it fell to my Father to take me out for a drive. I came so close to hitting things on that narrow winding street that he headed for the Bourbon as soon as we got home. He decided my husband would teach me(I was far from married at that point.) Next came my brilliant academic husband whose attitude was...if you scratch yourself, you will heal ..a car won't. 25 Years of this and we were divorced. I have never liked driving - I am frankly afraid of the crazies with whom I share the road. The current SO (not married to him)has so many vehicles and junk around here I cannot stand it...but that is another story. He tried very hard to teach me and decided my reflexes were bad. I have learned the fine art of \"waiting til it is convenient\" for my shopping, which usually translates into something like when my SO-driver has nothing better to do."}, {"response": 31, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, Jul 24, 1999 (08:53)", "body": "Huh. Sorry. Here, you get the license after serious training by specialized driving teachers, which will cost a couple thousands (approx. USD 2.000 to 2.500, depending on how much driving you need to do). Only when the trainer thinks you have a chance, they let you go through the test (a state-appointed examiner does that). These cars are equipped with pedals for the trainers, so they can break, too."}, {"response": 32, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, Jul 24, 1999 (08:55)", "body": "Ah-so. Correct. And of course they can brake, too."}, {"response": 33, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Jul 24, 1999 (11:09)", "body": "I just might have learned to drive in Germany. I am delighted to know that such a worth-while system exists - you must have very good drivers there. Congratulations,"}, {"response": 34, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (03:06)", "body": "And very VERY expensive to learn! Another hurdle/benefit: You must be 18 years of age."}, {"response": 35, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (03:08)", "body": "Research came up w/ the finding that Germany's worst drivers have Frankfurt-numberplates, are male and drive BMW's. (Hope Riette never reads this! Guess I already score high on her scala, and another two downsides of three... Sheesh!)"}, {"response": 36, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (13:52)", "body": "Over here the worst drivers are Young males, and our insurance rates reflect that. (Riette is a most tolerant lady. You are safe)"}, {"response": 37, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (15:59)", "body": "Cars are heavy machinery people can get killed with (Truism Alert!), and - without wanting to transgress and commenting on stuff perhaps none of my business, perhaps yes - I think it strange that US-driving age starts with 16 (I see the historical reasons for it and the need in the areas without public transport - which is not as widely spread, I guess, as in Europe, because it's all private sector business, right?). It is strange for a European to see kids can have a car, but not even a beer or vote or have their own credit card. Driving has perhaps more to do with responsibility and maturity than one might think. I cannot imagine a boss in e.g. a construction company letting 16 year old move heavy machinery, like bulldozers, trucks, wrecking balls or cranes. Wouldn't they prefer older employees to do that?"}, {"response": 38, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (22:22)", "body": "they couldn't have those jobs...or operate electric knives, etcetera, until they are 18..."}, {"response": 39, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (15:56)", "body": "but we (this country) lost a 10-year-old to a one car accident. He was driving it on his parents land... too fast... rolled it... killed. In the more rural areas of this country, some kids drive even earlier. I believe you are eligible for a 'hardship' license at the age of 14 in Texas"}, {"response": 40, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (20:14)", "body": "they're in the process of changing that, I think..."}, {"response": 41, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Jul 28, 1999 (10:53)", "body": "I believe in the Dakotas there is no minimum driving age. These kids grow up on tractors and cars are a breeze by the time they're teens. Let's face it, traffic probably isn't an issue either. When i learned to drive it was still a high school course. The driver's ed. teacher did have a brake on her side of the car, as I recall."}, {"response": 42, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (19:02)", "body": "Nothing changes. Has the Texas law been amended to keep the 14-yr-olds off the roads? Ours are so congested that something must be done. They (the gov't, of course) are in the process of making all curbs and roads bike and wheelchair friendly. Ramps are built where once was curb. Can you imagine the horror of sharing the blacktop with a wheelchair-borne driver when bikes are such a problem? And, we seem to have an inordinate number of jacked-up trucks and souped-up SUV's (ours is one, but we are careful - way too careful...) It does not bode well."}, {"response": 43, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (09:52)", "body": "We're growing in to a more bicycle friendly and commuter rail town."}, {"response": 44, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (10:50)", "body": "Excellent news. You can afford to do that. Honolulu is battling a truly hugs traffic problem on a finite piece of land. They have already filled in a reef and lagoon to build another runway. It has to end somewhere."}, {"response": 45, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (11:07)", "body": "It's not all roses, we have some the country's worst traffic on our major highways, esp. IH35 which runs North and South. Capital Metro has been run by clowns. At the same time, the hike and bike trails are excellent and there are new bike routes all the time. Stacey's done a lot of bicycing in Austin."}, {"response": 46, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (11:23)", "body": "I have read that she has... I 35 is that straight shot south from Dallas-Fort Worth, if I remember my map correctly. I imagine it is a major corridor. Geez, is there a place on earth in which the transport and highway system is not run by clowns? They ARE politicians, after all. Scary! Ours are no better - perhaps, a lot worse! Try CalTans for the truly strange. They build the freeways in California and it is a continuous job. I'd love to own the concrete contract..."}, {"response": 47, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Wed, Feb 23, 2000 (00:11)", "body": "pretty lucrative, that contract. They're building a doomed to failure bypass road around East Austin that's going right by Bob and karen's house. It's caused quite an uproar. 130 I think they're calling it. No exits, just a straight shot bypassing the town, of no use to the locals."}, {"response": 48, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Feb 23, 2000 (09:45)", "body": "The cretins did that to whole bunches of Oahu neighborhoods, and to live in one of them is incredible. My son rented a room near a bypass when he was in college. I visited him, and my memory of the place was of dark shadows and an eternally whooshing sound caused by tires on hot pavement, broken by the heart-stopping sound of an emergency vehicle with sirens blaring right overhead. Bob and Karen are right to be upset. Think of what this is doing to their property value!"}, {"response": 49, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Feb 23, 2000 (09:46)", "body": "In Hawaii, at least, concrete contracts are owned by powerful and shady people with connections to people you and I never want to know."}, {"response": 50, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Mar  4, 2000 (17:53)", "body": "Not sure whether this beongs under Violence or Cars in culture: Bichon Frise Dog Falls Victim to 'Road Rage' SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) - In what police call a bizarre incident of road rage, an infuriated driver grabbed a lap dog from another car and hurled it into oncoming traffic, killing the beloved family pet. Sara McBurnett, owner of the 10-year-old Bichon Frise dog named ``Leo'', said the attack occurred after a minor fender bender in heavy traffic near the San Jose, Calif., airport. ``I just tapped his bumper,'' McBurnett told Thursday's San Jose Mercury News. The driver of the other car, a black sport utility vehicle with Virginia license plates, stormed back and began berating McBurnett. When she opened her window to respond, he reached in, grabbed the small white dog by the collar, and threw it into three lanes of oncoming traffic. ``I'm not doing well,'' a sobbing McBurnett told the newspaper, relating the Feb. 11 incident. ``I keep seeing his little body going under the car. He made a sound I've never heard before. My heart is broken. He was my baby.'' Police said they were pursuing the incident as a case of animal cruelty, and a $5,000 reward has been offered for tips leading to arrest of the suspect, described as a white man in his 20s with a slight build and a goatee. But without license plate numbers or any other identifying information, police said they needed a lucky break. ``I have to be honest. We don't have a lot to go on here,'' San Jose Police Sgt Derek Edwards said. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 22, "subject": "The US Gun Culture", "response_count": 28, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 22, 1999 (11:05)", "body": "lotsa people actually care. I'm not sure even one person actually knows where to start..."}, {"response": 2, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 22, 1999 (11:21)", "body": "probably not...for some reason it is difficult to instill responsibility and respect in people..."}, {"response": 3, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 22, 1999 (11:53)", "body": "there has to be some intrinsic desire to want those qualities... it cannot be about imposing your beliefs on someone else but about assisting others in realizing that their is value in possessing those traits (of responsibility and respect)"}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (20:40)", "body": "Denver asked the NRA to not hold their convention there this week but they're going ahead with it anyway. They did concede to cut it a day meeting instead of a 3 day gun lovers orgasm."}, {"response": 5, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Apr 26, 1999 (10:00)", "body": "and they took down all the Charlton Heston billboards"}, {"response": 6, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (16:26)", "body": "The guy made some pretty assholeish statements in light of the events this week."}, {"response": 7, "author": "stacey", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (17:07)", "body": "at least he believes in them... Howard Stern just says shit to get a reaction."}, {"response": 8, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (08:59)", "body": "Did you see all the anti-gun stuff Billary rolled out yestaday? They're ready to melt 'em all down. Background checks at gun shows and raising the gun totin' age from 18 to 21 were the biggies."}, {"response": 9, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:10)", "body": "Who in the Spring has a gun? Or knows of a neighbour with a gun? Or any relative with a gun? Why do they have them? What do they do with them? What kind of guns are these?"}, {"response": 10, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:29)", "body": "not me. not me. an uncle that I know of. protection I believe target practice and hide them handgun I believe"}, {"response": 11, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (22:42)", "body": "Not me on any of the above. (we're pacifists, I guess!)"}, {"response": 12, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (00:03)", "body": "not me not me my dad has two shotguns and a small caliber rifle, and my mom has a small revolver hunting, he won one in a raffle, and because protection target practices and hides them"}, {"response": 13, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (02:56)", "body": "Protection: does the small revolver protect your mum from your dad? And has he more fire power to get even? (OK, that was below the belt, as he *DOES* go hunting, you say, and then mum needs protection against all the grizzlies around the lodge they live in, right? Sorry, but this topic is up here because I seem to have a serious problem understanding the intricacies in this affair.)"}, {"response": 14, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (10:49)", "body": "(such as?)"}, {"response": 15, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (11:10)", "body": "(like why somebody needs a gun for protection, and everybody else is unsafe because of that)"}, {"response": 16, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (13:00)", "body": "everyone else is only unsafe because of particular people's incompetence, irresponsibility, and disrepect and it's not limited to the US...school shooting in Canada yesterday, and a college gun incicent in England today..."}, {"response": 17, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (13:01)", "body": "was just informed that my wife owns a pistol, as well... (seems I forgot about that...)"}, {"response": 18, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (15:18)", "body": "Does she need protection in her domestic area that bad? Shooting incidents: Yes, somewhere else, bad stuff happens, too. But more in the US, as everywhere else, you don't get even halfautomatic firarms that easy."}, {"response": 19, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (15:25)", "body": "But since it's a liberty to let just anybody get any gun, nothing will change. I think Americans perhaps prefer something people tag as freedom over lowering the count of casualties. What DO you people think?"}, {"response": 20, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (20:10)", "body": "You are probably right. Many areas (including Maryland) have passed laws restricting gun sales, lengthening permit issue times, etc., but the fundamental right to bear arms is never truly called into question. Thank you, founding fathers!"}, {"response": 21, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (23:29)", "body": "because, as they did, we have the right and responsibility to overthrow our government when it becomes oppressive..."}, {"response": 22, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (12:05)", "body": "Yeah!! A bloody coup!!"}, {"response": 23, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, May 25, 1999 (12:03)", "body": "4 shot at Georgia high school Emergency personnel load an injured student into an ambulance Shooter in custody May 20, 1999 Web posted at: 9:09 a.m. EDT (1309 GMT) CONYERS, Georgia (CNN) -- At least four people were shot and wounded at a high school in suburban Atlanta Thursday, but authorities said the injuries were not life-threatening. One person, believed to be a student, is in custody. The shots were fired about 8 a.m. at Heritage High School, near Conyers, which is about 30 miles east of Atlanta. Authorities said shots were fired inside the building as the school day was beginning. Bonnie Knight, a spokeswoman for Rockdale County schools, said the person who fired the shots was taken into custody almost immediately. There was no immediate word on a motive. Police secured the high school and students were evacuated to a nearby football field. No additional details were immediately available CNN affiliate WSB-TV contributed to this report ---------------------------------------"}, {"response": 24, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, May 25, 1999 (18:57)", "body": "There was a school shooting in South Africa this past week, as well..."}, {"response": 25, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (19:11)", "body": "Many terrible things have happened since the last posting here. I am just reading this for the first time and something in here is making me physically ill...sorry...."}, {"response": 26, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (09:52)", "body": "Terrible things?"}, {"response": 27, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (10:44)", "body": "I did not know there were personal guns available to people in situations which I personally know about...I am more than a little concerned about that. (Probably only terrible to me and a few others)"}, {"response": 28, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 22, 2000 (10:47)", "body": "..and the Columbine continuing tragedy...! cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 23, "subject": "The US Liberty Culture", "response_count": 30, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 22, 1999 (11:06)", "body": "ahhh... a double-edged sword sometimes..."}, {"response": 2, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 22, 1999 (11:22)", "body": "yep...plus the fact that the two words usually have completely different meanings in coversations than they do in reality..."}, {"response": 3, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 22, 1999 (11:54)", "body": "very true"}, {"response": 4, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Apr 26, 1999 (21:22)", "body": "Are people still concerned with the notion of liberty and freedom? I think people are more preoccupied with the postal rate going up one penny or which long-distance company to choose. I don't think people give a damn about their rights unless they're exploit the 1st amendment."}, {"response": 5, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (05:36)", "body": "Hmh, I wonder if the NRA and the gun culture doesn't vaguely tie in with this... The god-given right to drag a heap of firearms together, e.g., just for fun. And because these times are so dangerous. Or the military, the god-given right to do what the US wants, whereever it wants. The American Liberty culture always fascinated me. How can you declare it to be a sign of freedom, if you have people preaching supremacist ideas, for example? How be free, if the country as a whole discriminates against other countries? How talk of human rights issues, if you crassly ignore them in your own country? All of this seems to be always nicely resolved with declaring \"Because it's my %&#\ufffd!-RIGHT!\""}, {"response": 6, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (21:33)", "body": "see, you understand!"}, {"response": 7, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (08:51)", "body": "No, I don't. Not the least. What makes your right better than Autumn's or Stacey? Or mine, for that matter? Where does that \"right\" come from? How do you know it is a right?"}, {"response": 8, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:35)", "body": "Alexander... do you believe in human rights? America was founded on a belief in them (certain inalienable rights) NATO supports them beyond that some people believe that they have 'right' to take others rights away... do you agree? do you disagree? Do you have a right to make a living? Do you have a right to make a friend? Do you have a right to make an enemy? Do you have a right to your very own opinion on a matter? Do you have a right to disagree with someone else's very own opinion? In this country, as I'm sure in many others, the lines get blurry when people try to extend their rights to a point where they violate someone else's. Has that ever happened in your country? Have you seen that happen all over the world? How do I know it's a right? well... it's a belief and I'm not going to even attempt to explain that one"}, {"response": 9, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (15:39)", "body": "Hoh, Fury, hoh! Got you getting lively on that one, no? Got to find proper wording (using a non-native language does, believe it or not, impair my capability to express certain matters)."}, {"response": 10, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (00:10)", "body": "(mine, too) and the point is our rights (to the point of harming someone else) should all be equal...mine aren't better than anyone else's but they are mine and I should have the right to defend them, express them, enjoy them, hell even sell them if I want as long as I do these things within the context of respecting everyone else's"}, {"response": 11, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (11:22)", "body": "The question is - does everyone else understand your respecting their rights the way you do, Wer? And what if your rights infringe other people's rights, but you insist on them? And what if constitutions and laws declare a lot about rights, but little about respect? (Stacey, stand by, will take a while to get to that.)"}, {"response": 12, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (13:05)", "body": "no they don't, thus the need for government... they shouldn't but if they do both of us have the right to exercise them in other locations and manners as well... we are where we are now..."}, {"response": 13, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (13:07)", "body": "So, I'll try it this way. This is really difficult for me, because it's hard to explain some concepts without going through whole other contextes. \"do you believe in human rights?\" Hard to say. Yes, I believe in respecting something called human rights in my daily life, and I believe them to be a Western concept typical for the historical phase in which this idea was developed. Idea, developed - right, it's a *made* thing. Not something I have in my body, nor something known to me as self-evident (if this were the case, nobody would have had to develop them, they would have just been there, all the time, all over the world), but something I had to learn about. Since it's an euro-christian idea from the Age of Reason, the concept may or may not be fitting in all times and all places. \"America was founded on a belief in them (certain inalienable rights)\" Those were rights for those who were accepted as proper citizens at the time (which shows that at least the concept of citizenship had undergone major changes since then). Meanwhile, there are things happening in the US that do not much look like humans rights to me. So, either my understanding of human rights is crooked - as may well be -, or the concept developed into something different, or the environment developed away from the concept. \"NATO supports them\" No, they don't. Governments and individuals support them (or not); NATO as an institution acts on orders, not - thankfully - on its own (though NATO has its own agenda, no doubt). If the governments of the NATO-member countries were all that *hot* on human rights, they would e.g. have talked quite a bit with Turkey on the matter of the Kurdish people, instead of selling surplus tanks and firearms to Turkey that are used against the Kurdes (who are proper turkish citizens that have been forbidden to even speak their language; they even have been declared away - there are supposedly no \"Kurdes\", that's all just \"mountain-turks\"). Turkey is a NATO-member and has the greatest standing army per number in NATO besides the US. They have the death penalty. Turkey would like to join the EU, too. \" beyond that some people believe that they have 'right' to take others rights away...\" Who gives somebody the right to exert any force against any other person? Who gives states the right to incarcerate people who did things thought to be wrong by the majority? Even mercilessy take their lives? It's a problematic field. What I consider my right to do something, is a transgression of rights for the next person. \"do you agree? do you disagree?\" Yes. No. Some bits. Others not. \"Do you have a right to make a living?\" Do I have a right to live at all? How do I know that? And what am I allowed to make that living? Poisoning the environment, to feed the folks? Killing other so I can survive? Work for the NRA's PR-office? Cheat on taxes? Steal food in the supermarket? Burglar a house? If I have no other options, are my individual interests more valuable than than of another individual? Or a group of people? Do I deserve to survive, if it costs other people their ressources and then their lifes? Who decides? What if I act against these decisions? Who'll have the right to get sanctions in place against violators? \"Do you have a right to make a friend?\" I hope I still have one in Colorado, after writing all this. I really hope that. \"Do you have a right to make an enemy?\" What constitutes \"making\" and what is an \"enemy\"? How does it relate to my rights, anyway, what I think of people or what people think of me, I wonder? Would I have rights if I hadn't a single friend in the world? Would it be allowed to transgress someone else's rights, if I had very many friends (that sure would make it easier, too)? \"Do you have a right to your very own opinion on a matter?\" I'm not always sure on that. The way you word it, the suggested and only correct answer of course is \"Yes!\", and of course I would like to always be allowed my own opinion. But what if you have people marching in your streets preaching racial discrimination and hate? Minorities, true. But do they have a right to scare other groups? Would it not be in the communities best interest to provide peace and stability within itself? So, I would conclude that everybody is allowed to a personal opinion (who would ask you, anyway? You have one or you don't! Who knows what's in that head, anyway!), but perhaps not always to voice it freely, as this disturbs interests of other groups. Very hard thing. I mean, I wouldn't want to silence e.g. the opposition in Yugoslavia (have you noticed the B92-topic in InternationalConflicts?), but I wouldn't want fascists marching in the streets, promoting supremacist ideas. You would perhaps admit to McCarthyism being opinion-control overkill, but does that mean ANYTHING ought to be allowed? THE GREATER GOOD - what is this? \"Do you have a right to disagree with someone else's very own opinion?\" Who cares what I agree on or not? Right, nobody. What "}, {"response": 14, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (13:21)", "body": "hmmm..."}, {"response": 15, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (17:11)", "body": "ahhh... of COURSE you still have a friend in Colorado. He called me up this morning and asked me to stop ranting in your direction! *smile* Seriously Alexander, I enjoy expressing my opinion sometimes and I find it easy to get in deep perhaps to a level where not everyone is comfortable. I didn't intend to make you feel uncomfortable. I respect you views on the points you mentioned above, I don't agree with all of them. And one beef... NATO does indeed believe in the existence of human rights... that's why they 'try' individuals and countries for human right violations. And asking why America takes things to the extremes is kind of a null and void question. America is not really a living breathing entity... people in America take things to the extremes. And why? I dunno. Kinda like a spoiled brat who has everything already... they always want their way... (please don't misunderstand my comments on this country... i like living here and am grateful for the opportunities that US citizenship affords me... i also realize that 'everything' is not perfect here or anywhere else that I know of)"}, {"response": 16, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (17:17)", "body": "a quick add-on to my comments above: what a lot of people don't realize is that having rights means having responsibilities...they just want the right to be irresponsible..."}, {"response": 17, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (17:32)", "body": "or could one argue that you do indeed have the right to be irresponsible with your rights (as long as they don't violate others rights?) truly a semantics game now, no? And I'll be definitive... Being reckless w/ Human Rights--- suicide (why is it illegal anyway?) smoking --- it'l kill you driving --- most dangerous daily activity (excluding some professions I'm sure)"}, {"response": 18, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Apr 30, 1999 (13:41)", "body": "You two are just great! And thanks, Stacey... Wer, it is - literally - a truism that rights come with responsibilities and duties. But it's a truism those people who yell \"Because it's my %?\ufffd!-RIGHT!\" do not only cheat on their taxes, don't vote and don't anything, and they would never think any bit about responsibilities and duties. Who can something so *OBVIOUS* be so unknown about? Telling them is like, heck, no way I have words to describe this. So, no truism after all? Anyway, one mistake perhaps, Stacey - NATO doesn't put war criminals on trial. They try to contain these people to hand them over to the International Court in Den Haag, which is not - to my best knowledge - a NATO-institution. It's a civillian court of law. NATO does, howwever, try to detain people who are accused at this court to be war criminals, and to bring them to trial. As observation in the Bosnia-conflict shows, many sought war criminals lead nice comfy lives in areas where IFOR-troops keep the peace (IFOR troops are mainly from NATO member states and have a proper UN mandate to watch the ceasefire/peace progress and recostruction). Often it is well known to these units that war criminals sit daily in certain caf\ufffds and sip their coffees. They don't do a thing, unless one of these people would stumble unwittingly into a detention cell in a IFOR troop barrack, thus forci g them to acknowledge this person's presence."}, {"response": 19, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Apr 30, 1999 (16:16)", "body": "I stand corrected concerning NATOs involvement with war criminals! (thanks for the clarification... now would someone please explain why they called the city THE Haag and not just Haag!!!! Does this stand for something I don't know???) Anyway, I do believe NATO 'believes' in the EXISTANCE of human rights... but it seems a moot point now considering everything else we've delved into!"}, {"response": 20, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (04:06)", "body": "(The Dutch call it Den Haag and the english version is The Hague, I think. Has a nice marine and navy museum. Den Haag is the capital of the Netherlands (NOT Amsterdam...), and you pronounce \"Haag\" not with a \"g\", but with a frictinous \"ch\" as in German.)"}, {"response": 21, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sun, May  2, 1999 (12:54)", "body": "FREEDOM... To choose the best- tasting cola. That's what Royal Crown has stood for ever since it was first created in Columbus, Georgia back in 1905. The freedom to decide who you are and what you drink. There's nothing more American that that. So, be free. Drink RC."}, {"response": 22, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (12:07)", "body": "Sounds more like capitalism than liberty! Of course, the international symbol of capitalism is actually Mickey Mouse."}, {"response": 23, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (16:36)", "body": "Wrong (sorry, Autumn). It's Coca-Cola and Marlboro. (Does Europe qualify as international enough?)"}, {"response": 24, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (13:27)", "body": "Sure, Europe qualifies, but when you see all those pictures of kids in Central Africa, they're always wearing Disney T-shirts. #2 is either Coke or Barbie, I'm not sure which."}, {"response": 25, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (14:28)", "body": "and who decides this illustrious position??"}, {"response": 26, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (15:23)", "body": "I thought it was Barbie sipping a Diet Coke, wearing her Disney t-shirt and standing near Ken while he smokes his Marlboro...(we all know Barbie is smarter and classier than Ken)"}, {"response": 27, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (19:20)", "body": "Phone calls? (I'm gonna start ranting in that case...!)"}, {"response": 28, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (19:21)", "body": "Really, this topic is too profound to be tossed aside so lightly. This hits me at a level so profound I am afraid to dig into it. Too much of me has been posted on the Spring as it is...sorry"}, {"response": 29, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (14:39)", "body": "What's with the sorry?"}, {"response": 30, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (15:36)", "body": "I can't really put the feeling into words. If I had not read the entire topic before posting, I would have felt much differently, but now it is too painful for me to think about much...at least, not yet... cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 24, "subject": "The US Military Culture", "response_count": 19, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 22, 1999 (19:02)", "body": "fetish...no, more of a way of life, I think... (if you're speaking of the country as a whole if, on the other hand, you're speaking of certain individuals, then fetish it is...) Ever read \"Johnny Got His Gun,\" Alexander?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Apr 26, 1999 (21:24)", "body": "I never thought of the military as a \"fetish\", please explain."}, {"response": 3, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (05:18)", "body": "No, Wer, but wasn't it a movie, too? Aside of individual's military- and war-obsession (which - in much lesser degrees - other countries have, too), I think the US as a society pretty much are influenced by the military, maybe in love with their military, perhaps even obsessed with the military. And I'm not talking about individuals now, mind you! There are few areas in live where military-style rites and elements do not show up (salutations, pledges, flags, uniforms). The military goes into schools to present their ideas and recruit fresh personnel. The entertainment strongly dotes on the military for story-lines (Cavallery vs. Native Americans, Civil War, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, movies like Top Gun, tv series, Sci-Fi,...). There more things that tie into this, but that's what I see, all in a nutshell. I do not see such extreme fascination with military issues in other countries."}, {"response": 4, "author": "stacey", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (15:34)", "body": "sadly enough Alexander, the public really seems to be less taken with the military as a whole. no more cold war... youngsters don't see a need to defend their own country because it has never really been threatened in their lifetime. I for one, would actually enjoy seeing people thinking as they recited the pledge or sang the national anthem... they don't really I was a military brat, taught that the flag flew for one reason and one reason only... because men and women long before me had given their lives for freedom, for choice, for a country that would ideally be free of oppression... Many people now see the military as an overspending section of the government, and military personnel as leeches off of that system. There are groups of people in this country with extrememly militant attitudes which adopt \"American Military Values\" in bits and pieces... some of those groups are fanatical and dangerous to the very freedoms that this country is supposed to protect... (uh oh.. I'm blabbering and babbling...) anyway... US Military Culture could be taken in a few contexts nowadays..."}, {"response": 5, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (21:38)", "body": "and the media promotes war, etcetera because it sells... war, in fact, as long as it is going on, promotes the economy... it's more about the money and the \"freedom\" than it necessarily is about the military, Alexander... (and yes it was a movie, and the basis for a Metallica song...)"}, {"response": 6, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:22)", "body": "(and I used to show it like once every season at a youth club where we ran something like our on cinema on 16mm projectors) Please notice: I do not mix the US military's culture with the US's military culture, though they overlap at some parts. While the military itself has become less important, the fascination of the USA as a society with force and Forces seems still existant."}, {"response": 7, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (09:24)", "body": "I think there's some overlap of the military culture by the military culture. They have some similarities."}, {"response": 8, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (16:18)", "body": "Sure. But there is a difference of how the military sees itself, and how it is seen by its country. And that's where I think the USA is special (mark that: different). I mean, not the military makes the tv shows, and not the military creates the computer games, etc. It's the society that reenforces this imagery - which possibly paints a picture much different from what the service men and women might draw. What do you say?"}, {"response": 9, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (22:50)", "body": "Wow, what an interesting perception. Most people I know wouldn't hesitate to denigrate the military (sorry, Wolf). My husband is reviled and scorned by some of our closest friends as a civil servant supporting the Dept. of Defense. When I think of the military as portrayed by the media, Operation Tailhook and high level cover-ups are what come to mind, not \"Top Gun\" and the ilk."}, {"response": 10, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (00:21)", "body": "exactly part of all of this, I think, is that we are \"brainwashed\" from an early age on patriotism and how great our government, etcetera is and how all of our freedoms were won, secured, defended by the military...if you respect the military, you respect the government which means you are happy little sheep who do not question authority... our military is voluntary, voting is voluntary, \"anyone\" can be a member of the government this encourages \"participation\" and support because it implies partial ownership thus making questioning authority moot because you are, in effect, questioning yourself the military has secured our freedom our freedom holds us hostage we can't get rid of it because we have been taught we are it an almost perfect self-perpetuating system"}, {"response": 11, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (10:46)", "body": "Wer! You hold the key! Notice how ALL these \"Culture\" things I created are separate issues, but also entwined - sometimes very subtly so? Surprised me to find that out, reading what you people had to say about it. \"the military has secured our freedom our freedom holds us hostage we can't get rid of it because we have been taught we are it\" So, would being free be at last achieved by being not free? What un-freedom would that be, what would you give up to be properly free? Or, do you prefer being free, but in restraints to restraining yourself, limiting yourself to become free? The cornerstone is perhaps the perception of the US-american concept of liberty. (Actually, folks, you'd be surprised how people in the military see the military and the society around it. They are much more critical of their employer and the whole concept than you'd guess. After all, it's their butts on the line... And society demands them to act up to expectations. That's why it's necessary to differentiate between the society's military culture and the military's own military culture.)"}, {"response": 12, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (17:22)", "body": "Alexander... please define 'properly free' for me..."}, {"response": 13, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (15:30)", "body": "Ow, hard thing. What we agree on is that our seeming freedom depends on compromises, right? Work to eat, etc., right? \"Properly free\" would be not having to deal with any compromises. Need not necessarily be positive. (Not much time to think stuff up right now.)"}, {"response": 14, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (23:31)", "body": "properly free=anarchy then, correct?"}, {"response": 15, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (16:30)", "body": "No. Gotta find words. Stand by for further transmissions."}, {"response": 16, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (14:28)", "body": "still thinking??"}, {"response": 17, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (15:24)", "body": "(have never figured out how to stop...)"}, {"response": 18, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (16:01)", "body": "*grin* granted. I was actually referring to Alexander who was at a loss for words..."}, {"response": 19, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, May  7, 1999 (18:31)", "body": "...and time. Work hard on the mag. Stay posted. Creative thinking might return any day! cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 25, "subject": "The US $$$ Culture", "response_count": 29, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, Apr 26, 1999 (21:27)", "body": "There is a movement called voluntary simplicity which has as its adherents mostly women (primarily mothers). We believe in a lifestyle which supports and nurtures our families while doing the least harm to the environment and others. Money is not a priority for this group."}, {"response": 2, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Apr 27, 1999 (21:43)", "body": "your last sentence reminds me of a comedy skit, Autumn... \"the only people who say money isn't important, don't have any\" I applaud that lifestyle, and it has made the news recently via a woman in Japan...and monks and other religious practioners have been doing it for centuries, too... (still, it would be nice to be rich for a little while, no?)"}, {"response": 3, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, Apr 28, 1999 (22:54)", "body": "You know, I've thought about this, and always wind up at odds and evens. On the one hand the opportunities to travel and be freed from the daily grind of work would be nice! However, I think we would truly learn how to live if we lost it all and had to start from square one."}, {"response": 4, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (00:24)", "body": "do you think society would hold at all peacefully if we lost it all and had to start over? do you think humans have learned anything from our world's history?"}, {"response": 5, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (02:47)", "body": "One would not think so, looking as one has not learned too much from one's own personal history. But then, we have learned many things in the last 5.000 years. We have learned to cooperate. To give up freedoms for some higher cause. Get recompensated with substitutes."}, {"response": 6, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Apr 29, 1999 (17:24)", "body": "what freedoms for what 'higher cause'? I feel like I'm listening to a series of contradictions (beyond the inherent cath-22 isms) and possibly it's all a sematics game inside my own head..."}, {"response": 7, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Apr 30, 1999 (13:45)", "body": "Higher Causes: Hanging out at the beach vs. earning money to eat next week, too? My life for that of many. My time for a caritative cause. My ressource for a friend. Semantics game - it all comes down what you personally define as freedom and as non-freedom."}, {"response": 8, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Apr 30, 1999 (16:21)", "body": "funny. I'm assuming the hanging out on the beach is the freedom and the higher cause is the earning money to eat... Lucky we have the FREEDOM to work in whatever profession we choose in order to feed ourselves. And the freedom to change that profession if the conditions and/or profession itself no longer suits us. I agree with a lot of what you're saying but this 'freedom' that I feel like you're dissing is actually much broader than the freedom to loaf... the 'greater good' we've referred to seems available because of the freedom we have (making sense or no??)"}, {"response": 9, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (04:04)", "body": "Eat next week is a higher cause. Work today need not be Freedom. \"Lucky we have the FREEDOM to work in whatever profession we choose\" - as lok as somebody finds it worth to pay us. Say, if I'd like to work in IT as a punched-card puncher, how good would my job chances be? I don't diss no freedoms. There's more to it, bit too little words."}, {"response": 10, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, May  1, 1999 (04:32)", "body": "and punch card jobs..."}, {"response": 11, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (12:12)", "body": "Waaaaaaah! My computer crashed. I'm here among the library riff-raff..."}, {"response": 12, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, May  3, 1999 (16:31)", "body": "My sympathies. What happened?"}, {"response": 13, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (13:29)", "body": "According to my brother, a total computer geek, my hard drive is shot. I have to call Micron today and get a replacement (thankfully it's under warranty). I also need some zip discs to transfer all my files onto first."}, {"response": 14, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, May  6, 1999 (15:26)", "body": "hmmm...I'm sorry... I'd let you borrow one of my extra drives, but I can't throw it that far..."}, {"response": 15, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, May 24, 1999 (10:35)", "body": "Hooray! It's back up and running--and as a bonus, I'm even using Netscape 4.1 now, how cool and edgy is that?? And only 273 new email messages!"}, {"response": 16, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, May 24, 1999 (11:20)", "body": "get 'em read so's you got more time to get back on here and talk to us!!!"}, {"response": 17, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, May 24, 1999 (15:28)", "body": "welcome back Autumn!"}, {"response": 18, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, May 24, 1999 (16:19)", "body": "yeah, that too!!!"}, {"response": 19, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, May 25, 1999 (09:49)", "body": "Hooray for whoeverfixed the whateveritwas! Hi Autumn!"}, {"response": 20, "author": "autumn", "date": "Wed, May 26, 1999 (14:08)", "body": "It's soooo much faster now, my fingers fairly dance across the keys!! It's nice to feel connected again."}, {"response": 21, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, May 26, 1999 (16:19)", "body": "\"you got to get yourself connected...\""}, {"response": 22, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, May 27, 1999 (02:54)", "body": "Wait, what's that, lemme guess - Jamiroquai?"}, {"response": 23, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, May 28, 1999 (22:13)", "body": "\"The writing's on the wall...\""}, {"response": 24, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, May 28, 1999 (23:59)", "body": "wheee"}, {"response": 25, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Sat, May 29, 1999 (04:58)", "body": "...eeeez!\" Bless you, Wer! Sneezy nose?"}, {"response": 26, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sun, May 30, 1999 (13:07)", "body": "nah, just enjoying the ride"}, {"response": 27, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, May 31, 1999 (03:10)", "body": "The USD-going-up,-EUR-going-down one?"}, {"response": 28, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, May 31, 1999 (20:16)", "body": "(ah, Alexander deftly brings us back on topic--good show!)"}, {"response": 29, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Jun 25, 1999 (05:38)", "body": "And may I point your attention at the topic devoted to collecting CASH: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/public/read/collecting/40 ? cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 26, "subject": "The US Sex Culture", "response_count": 11, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (10:39)", "body": "Just for clarification's sake... the label placed above... does that imply that US Sex culture is very different from German sex culture?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (11:36)", "body": "which of course implies that we need a topic for The German Sex Culture...(and, this isn't about the cultures you grow in a lab, is it?)"}, {"response": 3, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (11:44)", "body": "yucko ,"}, {"response": 4, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (11:50)", "body": "my point as well..."}, {"response": 5, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (11:51)", "body": "amazing how we're the first respondents in a topic like this, no?"}, {"response": 6, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (15:41)", "body": "Gotcha!"}, {"response": 7, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (16:35)", "body": "you think so , eh?"}, {"response": 8, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Apr 23, 1999 (23:48)", "body": "I think someone else currently holds that distinction..."}, {"response": 9, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (18:17)", "body": "I seem to be the last to enter this topic. If anyone has been to Southern California lately or has seen how the kids in high school dress now...or what they show on television, there is no doubt that we have a thriving sex culture here. However, that said, movies imported for sale in America from Europe have nudity and explicit sex edited out before sale. It is very bizarre. I have a PAL conversion and the For Sale in America version of the same movie, and it is ludicrous what was considered to lewd for us to see. How you define sex is the crux of the matter. Nudity it isn't, but what IS it in your opinion?"}, {"response": 10, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (14:36)", "body": "I'm not sure i should be here, but I saw this funny programme on TV last night. It was called 'carry on snogging' (=kissing in Brit English). It was a tongue in cheek exploration of sexuality in Britain using film footage from a series of 'carry on ....' films which are rather smutty and rude but funny (well, the earlier ones were funny then they just got smutty)interspersed with real footage from news programmes. In their heyday the carry on films were forward looking and very risque, but as society caught up the films just parodied what was happening. Eventually they didn't draw the crowds at the box office and lost their appeal. The question was, what else could they have done apart from moving into being porn films. Society has changed so much in the respect of what is and is not acceptable, all the things which made the early carry on films funny, just became commonplace."}, {"response": 11, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (15:43)", "body": "Those \"Carry on...\" films were The Best!! Long ago in a more innocent time they appeared very naughty and I just adored them. This is exactly the place you needed to post those comments. My thoughts, exactly. When sex has been returned to responsible adults (are there any of them left?!) and it is held as a union of two souls rather than alley cats joining and parting in the sqalid night, we just might win this battle with crime and vice. I do not think they are are all that different. Responsibility is the crux of the matter - and maturity. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 27, "subject": "The US Violence Culture", "response_count": 96, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jul  8, 1999 (11:29)", "body": "careful Alexander... that all encompassing, over generalized statement is bound to offend... or at least get the obvious rebuttle which would include it is not'so well accepted' by everyone... All Germans don't eat bratwurst and wear Liederhosen... All Americans don't eat apple pie and pack automatic weapons..."}, {"response": 2, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Jul  9, 1999 (02:35)", "body": "or currently engage in ethnic cleansings... or have all of the world's sadomasochists as citizens..."}, {"response": 3, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Jul  9, 1999 (02:37)", "body": "we just have a different view on displaying those things on the news...other countries just censor their media differently, is all..."}, {"response": 4, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (00:41)", "body": "Here is my analysis of the culture of violence... \"Thinking About Violence In Our Schools\" http://www.musenet.org/orenda/violence.html"}, {"response": 5, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (00:50)", "body": "Interesting 5 stage model leading to the conclusion that \"we can discontinue the mindless practice of killing ourselves off\". Welcome to Spring, Barry!"}, {"response": 6, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (02:18)", "body": "it's nice to have new voices in the fray..."}, {"response": 7, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (09:41)", "body": "Thank you. I've spent 30 years of my professional life doing Model-Based Reasoning, building system models, using them, and teaching them. Girard's Model knocks my sox off. I rank it up there with Copernicus."}, {"response": 8, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jul 12, 1999 (11:13)", "body": "How does Girard's model relate to USA gun violence and why do you give it such high praise?"}, {"response": 9, "author": "moulton", "date": "Wed, Jul 14, 1999 (09:30)", "body": "Girard's model relates to all violence, regardless of the weaponry. I give Girard's model high praise because he has done something comparable to Copernicus. Before Copernicus, the motion of the heavenly bodies was a puzzling mystery. Copernicus worked out a model in which the planets moved in elliptical orbits about the sun. His model dramatically cleaned up the mess left by Ptolemy who had put the earth at the center, leading to complicated retrograde motions that defied comprehension. Then Newton came along with his inverse-square law of gravity and showed that the elliptical orbits of the planets were entirely explained by mathematics so simple, even a high schooler can understand it. Girard's model is sufficiently general and abstract that it not only explains violence, it even explains drama. I have never encountered a system model quite so stunning as this one. I can actually run this model and obtain insightful answers. I can even see how to run the model backwards to derive the peacemaking strategies of the founders of the great religions."}, {"response": 10, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 19, 1999 (18:58)", "body": "The US Violence Culture begins with the foundation assumption of our culture -- that it is possible and practical to regulate society via rules and sanctions. Nearly every child learns that parents make the rules, and the penalty for breaking them is some form of authorized, sanctioned, and sacred infliction of pain in the tochus. Society uses this basic model at all levels, right up to NATO. By mutual consent, we all agree that the optimal way to regulate society is to administer authorized, sanctioned, and sacred violence to enforce the rules, which the ruling power gets to make up as he goes along. Well, most of us agree. I happen to think it's the most idiotic idea I ever heard of. I mean, can you imagine NASA asking me to design a guidance control system for a Mars shot. \"Yah sure,\" I say. \"Here's my plan. We'll let the rocket do whatever it likes until it gets too far off course. Then we'll damage the rocket. That will teach it.\" Um. I didn't get the job. NASA decided to hire somebody who knew a little more about systems theory. Next I joined the Coast Guard. They were concerned that some of the waves out there on the ocean were just a little too big for comfort. \"No problem,\" I say. \"Here's my plan. We'll pass a law saying that no wave shall be any higher than 5 feet. We'll send out patrols. Any wave over 5 feet, we'll take a big paddle and *WHOMP* it to flatten it out. That should do the trick.\" The Admiral asked me if I'd ever taken a course in Physics. \"Physics?\" I asked. \"What's Physics?\" He raised his eyebrows. I didn't get the job. I don't get it. What's wrong with my brilliant thinking?"}, {"response": 11, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (10:29)", "body": "That \"the US Violence Culture begins with the foundation assumption of our culture\" is probably correct - always assuming there were any such thing as a distinct US culture of violence -, but what you seem to consider the foundation is perhaps already a manifestation, a cultural agreement? Not that I know what I'm talking about. Alexander Resident ***That Ain't A Chip On My Shoulder, That's Not Knowing Proper Spelling***, The Spring"}, {"response": 12, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (16:06)", "body": "It predates the US culture, of course. I'm not sure how far you have to go back in human history to find the origin of the idea that society should be regulated by rules enforced by sanctions. I forget the details of the Code of Hammurabi, but I note that when Moses jotted down the Ten Commandments, he didn't specify any sentencing guidelines calling for society to deliberately damage anyone who slipped."}, {"response": 13, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (16:28)", "body": "banishment is probably the earliest..."}, {"response": 14, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (16:35)", "body": "and I don't just mean excommunication, either"}, {"response": 15, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (18:43)", "body": "Isolation is still used (a form of banishment which seems less humane, somehow)"}, {"response": 16, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (19:37)", "body": "Scapegoating goes back to the Babylonian times. It seems the origin may be lost in the sands of time. But we still employ it routinely today."}, {"response": 17, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (20:00)", "body": "Scapegoating originally was meant as a sacrifice and the atonement for a wrong done. It was then expunged from \"the record\" and mandated forgotten. We still use scapegoats but we refuse to allow anyone to forget, no matter the atonement."}, {"response": 18, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (20:46)", "body": "When the scapegoat was a goat (as in Exodus), it might have worked according to plan. But today we use humans as scapegoats, who then return to the community with an \"Azazel Attitude\" (except for the tiny few among us who manage to achieve a Buddha Nature). Professor James Gilligan at Harvard, and the husband and wife team of Scheff and Retzinger at the University of California have studied the effects of shaming and blaming and linked them to downstream violence. The evidence is that our culture is poisoning itself with this horrific practice."}, {"response": 19, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (21:07)", "body": "Why do we find this destructive behavior so prevalent and acceptable if it will surely poison the very culture who continues to practice it?"}, {"response": 20, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (22:10)", "body": "my guess would be nihilism and/or egocentrism..."}, {"response": 21, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (22:14)", "body": "I vote for the latter."}, {"response": 22, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Jul 20, 1999 (22:18)", "body": "It's prevalent because it's mimetic and firmly embedded in the culture. It's accepted for reasons that elude me. My theory is that people are born into a cultural model, accept it without question, and mindlessly adopt the culture's practices. The evidence for this is the absence from our language of terms and concepts that would represent a more enlightened point of view. In the Native American culture, the missing meme goes by the name, Orenda. In biblical times, the missing meme went by the name Urim and Thummim. I find it curious that in English bibles, those words are not translated. I translate Orenda as Tribal Soul on the Right Path, or Community Soul on a Mindful Path. I translate Urim and Thummim as Mindfulness and Empathy, or Insight and Caring, or Conscientious Attention and Awareness. These are rare traits in our culture, and almost no one in power has them. Actually, it would be strange to find anyone with those in a position of power, as they tend to be mutually exclusive."}, {"response": 23, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (00:13)", "body": "That's got to be it!"}, {"response": 24, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (00:21)", "body": "I'm with you there Moulton. Having help build the Green Party to major party status in this state (New Mexico) It was interesting to watch the power mongers bang their way to the top of the party and destroy reputations, with slander, and run away the caring people with abusive behavior and language. In essence they bullied their way to the top of the party."}, {"response": 25, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (00:56)", "body": "Debra, are you a conservationist or a preservationist?"}, {"response": 26, "author": "moulton", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (07:47)", "body": "If the people with Orenda, Urim, and Thummim are driven out of politics, where do they end up? I speculate they end up as researchers, scientists, academics, engineers, journalists, writers, pundits, psychotherapists, healers, comedians, artists, performers, composers, theologians, farmers, homemakers, and inmates."}, {"response": 27, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (16:05)", "body": "\"Actually, it would be strange to find anyone with those in a position of power, as they tend to be mutually exclusive.\" - moulton I guess I should preface my response with... gee I don't believe we can fit everybody and everything into a mold. And I guess I believe those who are trying to do just that are affected by moulton's \"theory is that people are born into a cultural model, accept it without question, and mindlessly adopt the culture's practices.\" With the emphasis on 'mindlessly' We (as in the general public) rarely see 'those in a position of power' in any state other than a 'professional' one... isn't it a little over zealous to say that these people (?) 'in a position of power' may indeed have all the traits of compassion and empathy and mindfulness and perchance even know the reality of love... but it just doesn't transfer into their job?? I know that I am not always wearing those traits on my sleeve at work... (especially now that I am not teaching!)... but I also believe that I do possess them are you just perpetuating the cycle of blame by now blaming those 'in a position of power' ?"}, {"response": 28, "author": "moulton", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (19:51)", "body": "It first came to my attention at AT&T Bell Labs when, for a brief time, I transfered out of the Network Planning Division to take a supervisory position in another division. It was a different culture, more political and less research oriented than the one I had been in. The department manager was young, controlling, and not very bright. My first performance appraisal under him was rude, to say the least. I went to see the Director for an explanation. \"We hurt you,\" he explained. I was dumbfounded. They deliberately hurt me? Why would they do that? I found no answer, and returned to the Network Planning Division. For reasons unbeknownst to me, people who are perfectly decent human beings in all other ways deliberately hurt their coworkers, somehow thinking that is a sensible thing to do. I don't understand that. Don't they realize that it's counterproductive to deliberately damage their own staff? What are they thinking?"}, {"response": 29, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (20:50)", "body": "Good Grief, Barry! That is not only counterproductive - it is destructive in so many ways. What goes on at the top levels which makes this necessary? Why are they doing it? We are doomed if this is as widespread as I am beginning to think it is."}, {"response": 30, "author": "moulton", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (21:22)", "body": "It appears to be rooted deep in our culture, at least in many sectors of it. I think it's a byproduct of our competitive culture, in which the goal is not merely to do well, but to hurt the competition. If all competitors adopt the goal of hurting each other, the net result is one hurtin' industry. Gandhi put it this way: \"An eye for an eye, and pretty soon the whole world is blind.\" I have no idea how we are gonna get out of that idiotic mindset."}, {"response": 31, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (21:25)", "body": "We are reversing the positive aspects of civilization at an alarming rate. We are little better than ego-driven (is it that or something altogether different?) cavemen with no social conscience, it would seem."}, {"response": 32, "author": "moulton", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (21:46)", "body": "It appears we are held hostage by our limbic brains, by our Amygdalas. Dan Goleman calls it \"emotional hijackings\" and they seem to be on the increase. The problems of violence, injustice, venality, corruption, and stupidity are wreaking havoc on the poor Amygdala. I have a book here, published in 1989, but timely as ever. Dinosaur Brains: Dealing With All Those Impossible People At Work, by Albert J. Bernstein and Sydney Craft Rozen. And Suzette Hayden Elgin is still pumping out her books, two decades after she wrote The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense. We have more books than ever, but we seem to be losing ground. Wisdom is getting scarce these days."}, {"response": 33, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Jul 21, 1999 (23:42)", "body": "What it amounts to is that we are all brain-damaged to one extent or the other. Is there an obvious beginning to this corruption of the brain, and how has it progressed in developed and undeveloped civilizations? My son is trying to go into consultation work because he hates working in a cubicle and being belittled by senior staff who are a lot stupider than he is and are very counterproductive to his work. One actually took his reports about to be mailed to clients and ran them through a paper shredder. He publishes 2\" thick monographs with graphs, photos and the works (environmental Geologist). It took another two days to reassemble that work. What a waste!"}, {"response": 34, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (00:59)", "body": "We train our kids early that the way to survive is hurt someone weaker. When my son was in 4th grade he was abused by his public school principal -- lifted off the ground by the neck (which left three purple finger marks on his neck) and locked into a walk-in safe in the office. His offense was splashing in mud puddles after a rain and sassing the playground officer who asked him to stop. We reported the incident to the police, talked to the principal, pulled our son out of school, had several closed meetings with the school board, and finally talked to the newspaper. The County Attorney decided not to press criminal charges against the principal because he was \"only 95 % sure\" he could get a conviction for child abuse. He urged us to file a civil suit, but because our town is small and we hoped to spare our son the notoriety, we chose not to. I now know that was a mistake. The outcome: the school board paid our son's tuition for the rest of the year at a private school. The convened a \"stress management\" workshop for all principals in the district. Our family, especially our son, was demonized and the principal (\"such a nice guy -- this ia another exaggeration by people who won't control their kids\") was retired with honors after serving another 5 years in that school. My son is 23 now; he had a very rocky adolescence. He's recovered from most of it now, except for this, the root of his problems. I don't know what to do for him. I don't know what to do for me, the parent who could not protect him."}, {"response": 35, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (03:28)", "body": "It began about 10,000 years when our culture reinvented itself around the agrarian revolution. That's when we invented ownership, money, armies, laws, punishments and other peculiar customs and practices. Putting the food supply under lock and key may not have been such a good idea after all."}, {"response": 36, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (06:12)", "body": "At last something comes up! See, from what is known to me about some US institutions, I am not impressed with many features, while some are quite nice. Re: The US Military It is modelled after Prussian concepts and ideas leading right back to the officers hauled to North America as consultants in the 18th century. Other nations have since then changed their military cultures vastly, especially in Europe, but the USA sticks to these traditions, because that is where US-traditions pretty much begin (omitting the pilgrim fathers, yes, but...). In the region where these structures originate, they have been abandoned not only in the military, but also in society in general, at l ast for the greatest part. Now, the military serves the society, not vice versa. And it doesn't simply serve the politicians, either (though I must admit that certain tendencies within the last six months seem to indicate a reversing trend...). Re: The School System A difficult one, where I have to watch my step, I guess. Could get my arm shot off here... There are many fine features, and youngsters who are gifted and well-suported can reach levels of education within 12 years that in some areas are already college-, if not university-level (at least for the first couple semesters). But that is not something the mass achieves, going through all the honor courses and the science classes. Still, it is the foundation upon which the States' research edge is based. What does not amaze me is the report of undue behavior of a school principal. Or other things I witnessed, or have been reported. It is very curious to me to see how much seems to depend on individual popularity and \"standing\" in US-American schools. How much pressure is on the kids. Like picking on the new freshmen, and breaking them in. And how much it is extremely important to succeed in sports. And how the schools' teams \"battle\" each other over glory, instead of just comparing their sportsmanship n a more olympic spirit. How important it is to \"belong\", and how many different uniforms and proper \"spirit\" are related with all that. How dissent leads to ridicule. What sanctions are in use (Detention Hall! Good grief!). And teachers who are so badly paid, even after decades of service they still have to drive a school bus to make ends meet (how can they still be motivated?). Each child passes an individual course in studies, which is a very good concept, at least in the book. They do not progress in classes of peers, but as individuals, each as fits interests and abilities best (at least that's the idea). But this makes them face the education system on their own. Singled out. Now, the emphasis on sports or other activities like the cheerleaders or the band provide groups to fit in. But what if you aren't the jock, can't get a tune straight, look stupid, smell strange, or hatever else makes you a failure in these groups representing the School as a micro-society, creating an \"us\"-sentiment? There is a micro-patriotism, and it is either with it or not. And what if you fit in, excell in something, contribute to the school's greater glory, be really popular, get along well with all the good people? You submit yourself to certain conventions and become part of the micro-society, which is considered very much something worth to achieve. But is it? In all instances? What is the impact of that, especially on others (non-members, other schools' students,etc.)? Oh, this is all so difficult for me to express! Don't now how to continue here, so I'll pause for the moment. ***************************************************** Basically, Barry, do me a favor. (a) Look at these things and more contemporary stuff. Do not look too much in the uncharted past and blame e.g. the first folks who stopped their migrating nomad lives. Or the folks who invented bureaucracy in the early hydraulic cultures, so they could organize joint efforts to tame the rivers, make survival easier and improve the crop-yield (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China). Or whoever discovered religions way before the first domestic animal was bred. That doesn't lead us any here right now, and might raise an impression of some \"law of nature\" or other insurmountable crap behind it. Which it isn't. It's all something we agree upon every day on which we do not explicitly challenge it. Social contracts, lowest common denominators, blablabla. You get the idea. (b) Do not focus so much on an unproven pre-historic past and the present US-situation. What can history tell us - which goes back about 5.ooo years? Why did certain people choose certain concepts for their societies? What problems did that solve? Which new challenges arose? Under what conditions did these societies rise, exist, fall? What concepts seem to be incompatible? Where did these societies succeed, where did they fail? Which of these lessons could be of use to the situation in discussion? And: What other ideas do other countries have right now? How do they handle things? Why do "}, {"response": 37, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (08:00)", "body": "The US Education System was devised some 200 years ago in an unprecedented effort to provide universal education for all children. The US \"factory model\" of age-cohorted classrooms was invented from scratch at a time when there was little scientific knowledge of how children learn. Starting with Piaget, we have learned much about the learning process. Were we to invent schools today, we would adopt a model more like that of Maria Montessori, which is closely matched to how learning really works. To my mind, the schools need to be dramatically redesigned if we are to deliver optimum service to our children. In one project where Moonbeam and I have cooperated, we have a voluntary participation learning community with learners of all ages. The school-age participants tell us they love to learn but they hate school. They report that school leaves them feeling bored, frustrated, or anxious at best, and angry and disgusted at worst. My primary research the past 15 years has been on the interplay of emoti ns and learning. It's not very hard to design learning environments in which the learning process is fun, pleasurable, and emotionally satsifying. It's not hard for a very simple reason: that's how God designed the human brain! It's astounding how the public schools have screwed that up and managed to make schools feel like concentration camps."}, {"response": 38, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (10:37)", "body": "To my mind, the schools need to be dramatically redesigned if we are to deliver optimum service to our children. --- yes they do It's not very hard to design learning environments in which the learning process is fun, pleasurable, and emotionally satsifying. --- no it's not. I have very few arguements with what people are saying here but I am damned sick and tired of people telling me what's wrong with my society, my world, my universe and not putting themselves out on a limb to offer suggestions. I agree the Montessori method is ideal (for many children) HOWEVER which to we modify first... the school? the society? the home? the family? Do you think a generation of children brought up in Montessori classrooms full of experiential learning are going to be able to perform well on all those standardized tests that our school systems have deemed essential? Do you suggest we get rid of those tests? Is laziness innate or learned? Is drive for success/happiness/knowledge innate or learned? I realize that I am doing allthe asking and not much of the suggesting. However, based on your credentials/experience aren't I questioning an expert?"}, {"response": 39, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (10:41)", "body": "By the way... I went to great pains that were worth every effort to ensure my classroom did NOT feel like a concentration camp. And apologies for straying off topic.. in retrospect I suppose I should've posted in the education conference. In my mind though... the education system and societal violence are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes they may inhibit one another and sometimes one provides the catalyst for the other."}, {"response": 40, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (11:24)", "body": "stacey, thank you for posting here. i don't think it should've been in the education conference -- this is where the subject arose. it's not off topic at all. despite the loving and excellent efforts of teachers like you, the public education system is still built on the 19th century idea of shaping children to grow up and fit into the machinery of capitalism. teaching compliance and obedience to authority are its foundation. how do we change that foundation to reflect a commitment to personal growth and finding joy in lifelong learning? what did YOU do to bring that gift to students in your classroom? i'm sure you did that, based on the love for teaching that comes through your words here."}, {"response": 41, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (11:54)", "body": "I don't have any political power, so I can't cause society to change. But what Moonbeam and I have been able to do is to craft a model learning community built upon the principles we espouse. And we've been collecting evidence and experience in that community for many years now. Whether others will take note of our model (and others like it) I cannot say. But the model is there for those who care to examine it. Arnold Greenberg has done similar work with similar results. We did it in cyberspace, he did it in an alternative school in Blue Hill, Maine. Now we are moving on to the Orenda Project , to bring these same ideas to the adult community."}, {"response": 42, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (12:39)", "body": "And is this model in the Orenda Project topic??? Ah ha! I just needed direction!"}, {"response": 43, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (12:47)", "body": "And moonbeam... I could go on for hours about my classroom, about my kids, about the challenges... however, for me the experience involved personalization... my kids had so many different emotional issues that the system and it's authoritarian ways were not penetrating in a positive manner... at the same time... activities to encourage intrinsic motivation that worked for one child, didn't work for another... it was all about taking enough one on one time with each child, assessing historical influences in their life (positive and negative), considering learning styles and previous successes... I couldn't have a blanket policy on teaching... I don't see how one could ever be effective... People are so different, we want to encourage that... If you or moulton or any other being has any advice on how to 'change the system' I would LOVE to hear it... I might even be persuaded to go back into the field with a plan. i don't kow where to start. I know that there are teachers who shouldn't be, parents that shouldn't be and community leaders that 'don't' but I don't know how to fix that... Ergo, all the questions, probing and what may come across as challenging... I know what's wrong... I think we've identified a lot of the reasons why 'it's' wrong... I want suggestions on how to rectify what we've wrought!"}, {"response": 44, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (16:41)", "body": "\"it was all about taking enough one on one time with each child\" absolutely totally YES. that is what it's always about, for each of us -- quality one-on-one attention. whether we're teaching online or in a classroom, it always comes down to individual attention. how do we get that message across to the legislatures that vote the fund (or not) our public school classrooms? i teach/research in higher ed and i bitch about it, but i've got *nothing* to whine about compared to public school teachers and i know that. personally, i love your questions and your probing and your challenges. barry's a natural teacher but he's never had to teach a class -- guest lectures excepted here -- day after day after day, like you and i have. do YOU have any suggestions for fixing this mess?"}, {"response": 45, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (17:09)", "body": "The reason I won't teach a class is that I don't believe it is possible to teach people who do not come to the learning process of their own free will. I will lead a seminar if everyone there has come voluntarily because they desire to learn, and not because something bad will happen to them if they fail to attend. Consider the way guidance works on rockets. There is a course to be followed to reach the destination. As the rocket drifts off course, the guidance system continually computes tiny corrections to the thrust vector to minimize the error between the rocket's trajectory and the desired course. Only if the rocket drifts dangerously off course will NASA blow up the rocket. What we do with people is we let them drift without guidance and then we find the ones who have drifted too far from the norm and we damage them with some kind of sanction or punishment. For the life of me I cannot understand why an intelligent culture would operate that way. Rules enforced with sanctions and punishments is known to produce a population of damaged souls. When are we going to wake up and start using our God-given ability to think?"}, {"response": 46, "author": "stacey", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (17:47)", "body": "my suggestions... certianly not all encompassing but... it's not JUST about not enough teachers, it's also about quality. Mediocrity is acceptable in public school systems because they are too large to encourage/discourage otherwise Holding teachers accountable is one way to increase accountability in our youth. Merit raises for teachers... not based on standardized test scores but based on real live evaluations from real live principals who give a flip about what and how and why their teachers are teaching... We were 'reviewed' every year but those reviews seemed cursory. Always EXCELLENT, EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS... well... perhaps we need to raise those expectations so that the teachers who've been 'acceptable' will be encouraged to expand their capabilities. (I'll write more later... gotta go!)"}, {"response": 47, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (18:40)", "body": "Conversations in the Garden A child is walking in the garden. As she walks, she sometimes talks to God... Child: God? God: Yes my child? Child: I have a question. God: I love hearing your questions. Child: God, when you created me, why didn't you just give me all the knowledge I would ever need, like the adults already have? God: My child, I gave you something far more precious than the knowledge the adults already have. Child: You did? What's that? God: My child, I gave you the ability to learn anything at all, including new things that even the adults haven't figured out. Child: Wow, neat! God smiles. Child: But now I have another question, if you don't mind... God listens. Child: When you made me, why did you give me emotions? God: Ah! That is the best question anyone has asked me in a long time. Child: You're holding me in suspense. Tell me, God, why *did* you give me emotions? God: Think about it, my child. Without emotions, how would you become aware of what you needed to learn, or sense when you'd finally learned it? Child: Hrrmm. Mebbe this learning business could be fun. God smiles. Child: God? God: Did you have another question? Child: Yah... Can we meet again tomorrow? God beams."}, {"response": 48, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (19:11)", "body": "I've discovered four deeply rooted assumptions in the culture that, to my mind, are not supportable or tenable, according the best available scientific research and analysis. Assumption #1: Society can be regulated through the mechanism of rules enforced by sanctions. Assumption #2: Blame is sufficient to establish cause and effect. Assumption #3: Inducing feelings of guilt and shame leads to desirable learning. Assumption #4: Having power makes the first 3 assumptions true."}, {"response": 49, "author": "autumn", "date": "Thu, Jul 22, 1999 (22:33)", "body": "Amen, Barry. One thing about homeschooling that I am especially enjoying is not having to \"teach\" my daughter anything. Just guiding and directing her interests to appropriate resources takes away my need to have power or control over her learning. I wish I knew the long-term fix, but for now I'll just have to do what I can to make learning as unschool-like as possible."}, {"response": 50, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (05:50)", "body": "Gosh, thank you all for posting here! Finally, this thing I tried to get going starts to be lively! I mean, I sensed that these \"US Culture\" topics might be a tool to get answers to some things I was curious about, but yeah! It's probably gonna be REALLY interesting now. On Barry's Response #48, I have taken the liberty to reply at http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/justice/5.22 . I welcome constructive comments in either this or the justice topic."}, {"response": 51, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (06:59)", "body": "Autumn please take a look at Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler . It's an article that Nan Williams is now adapting and enlarging into book. Our thesis is similar to yours in your homeschooling practice: Every day everybody is ready to learn something . What are you ready to learn right now? Let's learn that ."}, {"response": 52, "author": "autumn", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (10:58)", "body": "Can I use that as our school motto? You've basically paraphrased all John Holt's books in three sentences! I will check out that link and probably wind up forwarding it to others."}, {"response": 53, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Jul 23, 1999 (16:47)", "body": "Be my guest. I picked up a bunch of John Holt's books recently at a second-hand bookstore, but I hadn't gotten around to opening them yet. :)"}, {"response": 54, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (02:07)", "body": "This is the reality if the Us Violence Culture. This was e-mailed to me today. This is the reality of the minorities in this country...the reality that will be yours unless you hear these words and realize you are only a thin line away... July 20th, 1999 at 10:10a.m., ranking officers from the Minnesota State Troopers and Minneapolis Police Department came the the Minnehaha Spiritual Encampment. Camp Member, Thunder, approached the ranking State Trooper and asked him why they had come here today. He was told that they were at camp to \"take a look around.\" Thunder asked if they were here to take any action today against the camp. The officer informed him that they were not here to take any action today, against the camp, but to take a look around to see when they do take action what type of action they need to take. The officer asked him if the camp has a sweat lodge, and Thunder pointed to the lodge. The officer asked him if this was the same lodge that we had at the last camp. Thunder said that yes it was, and that he should know that because he was the officer who dismantled the sweat lodge during the last raid on December 20th of 1998. He said that if they need to dismantle the lodge again, they would make sure that it was returned. The Police and State Troopers also had with them a MnDoT official and a representative of Thommes and Thomas, a land clearing firm based out of Stillwater, Minnesota. The land destroyer from Thommes and Thomas had a clip-board and was taking notes on the trees in the area, including the FOUR SACRED TREES, that have been at the center of the struggle to protect this land for the last year. This is the calm before the storm, and now is the time that we must act before they bring their machines to desecrate this sacred gound. We need you, and we need you now. If you have ever felt moved by this struggle, and would be willing to come down and camp with us, now is the time. THE RIGHT OF WAY CLEARING FOR THE REROUTE OF HIGHWAY 55 IS SCHEDULED TO BEGIN BY AUGUST 2ND OF THIS YEAR. BECAUSE OF THIS ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE AND STATE TROOPERS, WE BELIEVE THAT THEY WILL RAID THE CAMP BEFORE THAT DATE. We need wave upon wave of people to form a human ring around the four sacred trees and stand with us in prayer and resistance around the sacred fire that has burned since August 10th of 1998. This is a place of prayer and its sacredness has been testified to by spiritual elders from six different First Nations. We need people willing to risk arrest to stand up for the sacredness of this land, to protect the trees, Camp Coldwater Spring, and for the human rights of Native Americans to freedom of religion. This place is a church to all Native Americans, what would you do if this was your church facing the bulldozers? Our spirit is not crushed. MnDoT will never pave over our prayers, and if we stand united and strong we still can save this land for the future generations. We ask all people of conscience to call the Mayor's office, the Governor's Office and even the President of the United States and demand that this re-route of Highway 55 be Stopped immediately, and that this land between Minnehaha Falls and Camp Coldwater Spring be protected for all time. We also ask that you call and fax these two companies that have been awarded the contract for the destruction of the trees and land: C.S McCrossan Inc. 7865 Jefferson Highway Maple Grove, MN phone (612) 425-4167 fax (612) 425-0520 fax (612) 425-1255 WE DO NOT LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY....WE AS ANGLOS ONLY HAVE A SENSE OF SHARING IN THE POWER AS LOMG AS WE GO ALONG WITH THE VOICE OF SILENT IGNORANCE. YOU WILL NOT FIND THIS IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA...MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS CONTROLLED BY CORPORATE AMERICA...THEY DO NOT WANT US TO KNOW THE TRUTH. THE TRUTH IS; ONCE YOU SPEAK OUT IN OUTRAGE YOU FIND OUT THAT YOU ARE AS UNIMPORTANT AS THE SO CALLED MINORITIES WHO LIVE THIS REALITY EVERY DAY OF THIER LIVES. BUT MY FRIENDS...IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE THE WOLF WILL BE KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR...THEY DO NOT CARE...YOU ARE JUST A PAWN IN THIER GAME OF POWER."}, {"response": 55, "author": "moulton", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (06:52)", "body": "Compare the Native Americans in their Sweat Lodge Camp with the Falun Gong, sitting quietly on mats, breathing and meditating. Nothing terrifies the authorities more than large numbers of people sitting quietly with their brains engaged. They're liable to figure out what's really going on. Which is that the authorities are scared to death that they don't really have any control, except through induced fear. The authorities are the professional terrorists. And groups like Falun Gong and the Native Americans are demonstrating they are not intimidated by terrorists."}, {"response": 56, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (11:00)", "body": "This is an e-mail I sent to Channel 7 TV here in Albuquerque In response to a TV report on \"the New Welfare fraud.\" I recieved no reponse back. My information is well researched since this was information for my Honors Thesis. The issue I found most appaling was that the right to legal representation was taken away from the poorest of this countries citizens. Attention Pahl Shipley I saw you intend to do a program on welfare fraud in this state.and felt compelled to reveal to you the information I uncovered in doing research for a thesis for my degree at UNM, on welfare reform in this state. Gov. Johnson's agenda to put all recipients off the welfare roles in this state has huge holes in it that are either being ignored or overlooked. I would like for you to look up the lowest rent in this city. A couple of semesters ago I looked at the rents for the cheapest 2 bedroom apartments in Albuquerque in one day. I found listed in the paper, 6 apartments under $400.00. The cheapest was $350.00 and that did not include utilities. (I also have national stats on the number of subsidized housing units in comparison to the number of qualified people. The numbers are appalling and in now way adress the needs of the poor). I then found out what a 40 hour a week minimum wage job paid, after taxes and social security for an employee who was single and had one child.. Which was about $692.00 a month. Next I found out what the dollar amount (for food) Human Services gave to a single mother with one child. Which was $264.00 a month, I subtracted from the months wages the $350.00 rent and the amount allotted by Human Services for food. I and was left with a balance of $96.00. That $96.00 had to cover utilities, possibly day care, medical, transportation, clothing, possibly school supplies, household goods like; TP, shampoo, toothpaste, and cleaning supplies like; dish soap and clothes soap. However, if you research low skill jobs which are more often than not, corporate franchise jobs, you find out that most of these jobs do not have many full time positions. Why? Because by not hiring people full time, they are able to avoid the expense of Social Security and medical insurance. Next, if you research the mass transit system in this city you will note that as welfare reform came down...bus schedules, which were not adequate to begin with, were reduced...not once but at least twice and if you compare this with work schedules, had never been adequate to serve the needs of the poor work force. Many of these low paying jobs have evening and night schedules. The media reports the huge numbers of uninsured motorist, without ever considering the reasons behind those numbers. (The lack of jobs paying a living wage, the lack of adequate mass transit.) It is so easy to blame the poor for turning to welfare, if you do not take a realist look at why these people are forced into this life style. In my research I also came across another interesting bit of information. In about, 1935 the federal government adopted an attitude based on what came to be known as the Keynesian Principal., (The originator of this principal was John Maynard Keynes) which basically established that if capitalism was to remain healthy, there needed to be around a 6-7% unemployment rate. This keeps a hungry group of people in the public sector who are willing to work for whatever wages are offered them and also reduces the risk of threat to the private economic control of the country. It is easy to target the poor in this country with reports like the one you will do tomorrow. They do no have a voice, nor can they afford legal council to defend their rights. In fact you are probably unaware that prior to passing Welfare Reform legislation was passed (45 CFR 1639 62FR 30763 June 5 1997) which basically states that no federally funded legal agency can contest the legality of Welfare Reform. That includes Legal Aid and The American Civil Liberties Union, who always been the legal voice of the underdog. This guarantees that despite their constitutional right to legal defense, unless they can afford to hire a lawyer, the poor in this nation are doubly screwed. I have done most of your homework for you. I anxiously await your response. \" Evil prevails when good men do nothing.\" La Paz Sea Contigo. Debra Tenney"}, {"response": 57, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (16:56)", "body": "In respose to your post about you son...(34 I believe) I know the story well. Both of my children were abused not only by their peers but by Teachers and administrators as well. The end result of my portest is that they were abused more. (sigh)"}, {"response": 58, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (18:05)", "body": "aschuth: back in post 35 I think what Mouton was trying to say is...once we began to produce in surplus our daily needs, we began to hord those things we could store. The beings who controlled the surplus then became for the first time...powers to be reckoned with. Unfortunately the power was not used wisely. They ceased to think of the group first...and began to think of what this power could bring them. The others, seeing this power, coveted what it brought to the people in control of the surplus. There is a vast amount of archeological data that points to a time when certain societies were egalitarian. They know this because when the bones of the group were examined there were no differences in the nutritional development in the bones. All the inhabitants suffered when there was a food shortage...Their homes and all their decorations and furnishings reflected no social stratus. One of the defenses we hear too often in our society is that the hierarchical structuring we are living with is the only way it has ever been and therefore the only way it can be. This misnomer creates a feeling of stasis that seems impossible to break since, seemingly, to do so would go against human nature. Barry, Moonbeam and I can tell you what it feels like to contest these things which seem to be norms. Moonbeam described what happened when she contested the violence against her son. I can tell you what it is like to build a minor party into a major party here in my state. The reaction is always the same when you stop being a sheep. You are further victimized or labled a nut case. Look at movies where people have stood up to \"the powers that be\" You walk out of there knowing that you have seen hero sm at it's best...but you also walk out questioning if you would ever have the nerve to stand up against the forces that will do anything to silence the voice of truth. These movies both inspire us and discourage us from stepping out of our comfort zone. Most people would rather swallow a little abuse than bring down the wrath of the system on themselves. We have been trained since childhood to take it and keep our mouths shut. Every parent who does not step forward and defend their child...every human who looks at an injustice and states \"you can't fight city hall\" as they walk away.... embeds that message into everyone's psychi that sees or hears their words. The end result is a society filled with rage and nowhere to put it. So people do the next easiest thing...they try to assuage the rage with things...power, and possesions. They want to be the keeper of the surplus so that when they bully someone or take advantage of them, everyone is afraid to speak out against them. New Mexico is an interesting place because it has begun to overpopulate later than most places. I have lived in small communities here where the same corrupt politicians keep getting elected only because they are the keepers of the surplus....they own or at least control the industry and business in the communities. If word got out that you didn't vote for them...they made sure your family didn't find a decent job. It takes not only courage but balls of steel to stand up to that type of control. When you make general statements like: .... \"That doesn't lead us any here right now, and might raise an impression of some \"law of nature\" or other insurmountable crap behind it. Which it isn't. It's all something we agree upon every day on which we do not explicitly challenge it. Social contracts, lowest common denominators, blablabla. You get the idea.\".....perhaps you are talking about yourself. Ihave written numerous articles and spoken before legislative hearings on issues...my family has paid dearly for my outspoken nature and every time I swear to myself I will never go out on that limb again. Why? Because the vast majority of people sit quietly at home and cheer you on n the privacy and saftey of their little piece of the pie. OR you have the Philosopher Kings who have \"diarrhea of the mouth\" and seize every opportunity to take center stage...as long as they are not called to act on their words. So people like myself get to take the full brunt of the wrath of \"the powers that be.\" Moulton also puts his money where his mouth is...he follows up with action. But being a good leader, he asks you what it is you want and need....unlike politicians who have forgotten they are PUBLIC SERVANTS. He understands that his vision is limited by what he feels is good and just...just as yours and mine. If we are to find solutions we have to look to ourselves...not to some Mass Media Produced, tell em what they want to hear so you can get elected, leader. When Moulton questions rather than feeding you his answers...he does it to empower you...not himself."}, {"response": 59, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (18:49)", "body": "Good post, Debra. Maybe most of us here have walked the walk, eh?"}, {"response": 60, "author": "moulton", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (20:04)", "body": "What is our path to peace?"}, {"response": 61, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (20:45)", "body": "(KitchenManager I have a real problem with labels. I personally believe that part of the probelm is we try to lock everyone into neat little niches that are so ridgeid that we lose any understanding of the complex diversity that makes up this planet. I think that we should apprach the use of all resources with a conservationist attitude; however, we need to preserve resouces with a keen eye to the future. I took a class on Bio-diversity, in which I learned that there are key species in every ecosystem that at first glance may seem to have no value...but when they are removed, the removal collapses the whole ecosystem around them. stacey: There is a huge difference in blaming and diagnosing a problem. Do we call it blaming when a Doctor states that someone has concer?"}, {"response": 62, "author": "moulton", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (20:59)", "body": "Blaming assume responsiblity, and in our culture, that's a license to punish. I don't believe in punishment. When my computer acts up, I diagnose it and cure it. I don't punish it. I don't believe in percussion maintenance."}, {"response": 63, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (21:06)", "body": "Moonbeam...most of us have walked the walk. Unfortunately because our society has become so isolated and insulated...we do not see the commonality. When I became an activist and started trying to support all the causes...I quickly became overwhelmed. The injustaces being perpetrated by corporations and our government were so many and happening with such frequency that at times I felt like I was drowning. One instace sticks out...a law suit against a mojor corporation in Northern New Mexico. A Pueblo was being posioned by a corporation that had moved up stream from them. People were going blind...children were suddenly being born deformed or with serious diseases in numbers that were impossible to ignore. The people of the pueblo came to the National Green Party Convention and begged for our support. I have their personal testimonys on video tape. Their descriptions of how the court was treating them were criminal. If I forwarded every issue that is sent to me alone you would feel engulfed and would beg me to stop."}, {"response": 64, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (21:08)", "body": "(KitchenManager I have a real problem with labels. I personally believe that part of the probelm is we try to lock everyone into neat little niches that are so ridgeid that we lose any understanding of the complex diversity that makes up this planet. I think that we should apprach the use of all resources with a conservationist attitude; however, we need to preserve resouces with a keen eye to the future. I took a class on Bio-diversity, in which I learned that there are key species in every ecosystem that at first glance may seem to have no value...but when they are removed, the removal collapses the whole ecosystem around them. stacey: There is a huge difference in blaming and diagnosing a problem. Do we call it blaming when a Doctor states that someone has concer?"}, {"response": 65, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (22:29)", "body": "I dislike labels myself, but at times it is easier to ask someone what their beliefs are by using them...my apologies if I offended."}, {"response": 66, "author": "ov", "date": "Sun, Jul 25, 1999 (23:26)", "body": "Very interesting thread. Good posts Debra. In fact at the risk of sounding like I'm sucking up, I haven't seen a post of yours in here yet that I haven't fully agreed with. Not that I think I'm a anti-ditto head, and I have some perspectives on this that you possibly don't, and I'm sure that you have so much more in your head then what you have told us. Still, damn good posts. Alexander mentioned back in #36 that we shouldn't look too hard at the roots and I have to disagree with this. The roots are patriarchy and unless we look at what is essential for a patriarchal system to survive we will not be able to implement any permanent change, and any change that are affected will be temporary luxuries that will be dispensed with as soon as necessity demands. I have to admit that I squirmed a little when Debra criticized the Philosoper Kings that didn't go out into the street. I don't do volunteer work myself. If its important enough to do then why shouldn't there be pay for doing it. We have enough money to spend on war and corporate welfare and yet the thinks that are important enough for people to do them without pay go without funding. Why not have a volunteer military and if people think it is important enough they will save up and buy a tank and join with others to go to war. Of course if we operated like that the chances of us ever having a war would be minimal and how can you make any money like that. It seems like you are either supposed to get with the program and be obedient to whatever authority says. If you can't do that because of a humanitarian conscience then you should play the codependent role and be a medic and patch up the wounded so the program doesn't look too objectionable. But heaven help you if you choose to do neither of these and try to educate and inform on the basic injustice of it all. So what kind of solutions can a dissentor come up with which are not codependant that allow the injustice to continue in spite of itself?"}, {"response": 67, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (02:13)", "body": "KitchenManager; No offense taken! I don't know about others but I find myself not fitting any of the labels thrown at me. Am I liberal? Yes, in some ways. Am I a conservative? Yes, on certain issues. I think we should take all ideologies and stomp on them like grapes in a vat and come up with something that is different and yet brings out the best in each. Maybe then we could come up with solutions that work. This delineation into rigid definitions denies the incredible possilities that are all around us. Ov: I am flattered! (Blush) Moulton says my talent is communication. since I just got my degree in Communications/English/Sociology, (University Studies) maybe I actutually learned something...who would have thought. Thank you! I have enjoyed your posts as well. I just started in March posting at this type of conference. I graduated in May. But I was house bound for months with a physical problem and started posting at Utne out of boredom. Now I am an addict. (grin) It's as much fun as my Honors Classes were, because you actually get to express your thoughts and people listen and comment. It's great fun!"}, {"response": 68, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (07:28)", "body": "The quality of the dialogue varies from venue to venue on the Internet. The dialogue model I most enjoy was the model I learned as a teenager in the early 60s. Under the leadership of Rabbi Kripke in Omaha, a small number of us joyfully attended a weekly seminar in which we explored all manner of intriguing questions. I now look back on that model and call it Rabbinnic-Talmudic Philosophy 101. That's my reference for an ideal conversation. There was something Rabbi Kripke was doing there, asking carefully crafted questions, that kept us on track, pushing ever deeper into lear thinking, without the kind of recriminations that I keep seeing on Utne."}, {"response": 69, "author": "ov", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (11:43)", "body": "The problem with ideologies is that they are static and are therefore unable to adapt to change. Over time they become more and more juryrigged to keep them functioning and to keep supporting the illusion that they are absolute truth. To do otherwise would destroy their credability which is what legitimizeses their use of power. All ideologies are rule based systems that legitimize the use of power by an elite to control everyone else. Good enough reason to move beyond them IMNSHO."}, {"response": 70, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (13:39)", "body": "Ov, you took the words right out of my mouth! (dawnis is seen jumping up and down for joy) Hey Moulton...another Orendasite? We aren't the only ones on the planet. Yipeee!"}, {"response": 71, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (14:19)", "body": "About 15 years ago, the experts took a look at rule-based systems and found them inadequate to construct anything but the most primitive and uninteresting form of intelligent system. In particular, rule-based systems could not reach goals where the strategy depended on selecting which rule to fire when more than one rule is eligible. A trivial example is Chess. The rules of chess are not hard to learn. But the rules of chess do not include any wisdom as to how to play well. To reach a goal, a more po erful method of analysis is required -- one that cannot be reduced to a dissociated rule-set. Only the most banal of problems could be reduced to a set of rules. In other words, a rule-base system is demonstrably weak, demonstrably stupid relative to the kinds of problems we rely on intelligence to solve. More powerful problem-solving methods do exist. They rely on methods that go beyond what is achievable with dissociated rules. They rely on algorithms and heuristics, on search strategies, on methods of successive approximation, on models, and other methods of reasoning which are more powerful than that which can be achieved with rulesets. It is unfortunate that so much of human culture is locked into a mindset of rule-based systems of social regulation. They may have been an improvement when they wer first introduced some 5000 years ago, but by today's standards, rule-based systems are primitive, archaic, ineffective, counterproductive, and provably inadequate to do the job. Rules, enforced by santions and punishments, are a primary cause of systemic injustice, and a demonstrated cause of depression and violence in the culture. The solution is to evolve to a more enlightened method of social regulation based on learning the long lost art of civility."}, {"response": 72, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (14:29)", "body": "Now, the real problem, Debra, is to translate that into song, poetry, story, or play, such that the other 5.9 billion people can understand it."}, {"response": 73, "author": "ov", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (15:26)", "body": "I think that the myth of Horace and the myth goddess might be the one that is able to do it. Something that will give them something to believe in, and something that they want. Because if you're going to go the distance it had better be for somthing you love rather than something you're afraid of."}, {"response": 74, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (16:32)", "body": "From dawnis's post #64 \"stacey: There is a huge difference in blaming and diagnosing a problem. Do we call it blaming when a Doctor states that someone has concer? \" Of course there is. If someone is going to place himself (through education, passion and profession) at the level of 'doctor' however, we do expect him to offer some sort of treatment suggestions... and from post#58 \"Why? Because the vast majority of people sit quietly at home and cheer you on n the privacy and saftey of their little piece of the pie\" Just because people aren't 'walking the walk' down city streets doesn't mean they aren't having an impact in their own community circles. You should know, and I believe you do, about the levels of physical, spiritual and emotional energy a body and soul need to immerse themselves pasisonately into a cause or into the battle for change. Some people have those levels, some people don't. Some people can sustain those levels for awhile longer than others... I don't teach anymore. I was drowning in the bullshit. I choked on my own guilt though before I had the nerve to LEAVE. I thought you needed nerve and heart and drive to stay but, once you're caught up, sometimes it takes more effort to break away. I have sadness sometimes, but no regrets. I could not maintain the passion, love and equality in my personal life while continuing to throw everything I had into trying to change the school system. I don't think I've given up, but I am resting. I don't think anyone has reason to mock me as 'quietly at home... [cheering] you on in the privacy and saftey of [my] little piece of the pie' I don't think that's mockable and I believe there are many others like me who have contributed actively, will contribute actively again and who are trying to gather enough strength and inner support. Contribution comes in many forms. (and then there ARE those who truly don't give a poop beyond how it directly affects their 'little piece of the pie')"}, {"response": 75, "author": "moulton", "date": "Mon, Jul 26, 1999 (17:03)", "body": "I am heartened even by a thoughtful person who does nothing more than flash a thumbs up. If my thinking is correct, others will confirm that. It's like coming up with the proof of a theorem in mathematics. If the proof is correct, others will examine it and report that they found it correct. At this point, I'm just looking for provable theorems and the outline of a correct proof."}, {"response": 76, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Tue, Jul 27, 1999 (02:31)", "body": "Stacey...Before there were doctors there were people who asked a lot of questions. A wise person knows that they cannot answer all the questions themselves...it takes a collective mind. In reference to quietly sitting...The people who get me are those who whine and complain about things but make no effort to change things when asked to help. I had to drop out of my activist work because too few of us were trying to do too much. I burned out! I figure if every person on this planet spent one hour a month fighting for their favorite cause we could change the world. Write letters, stuff letters, make a phone call...help with a fund raiser....Most people see injustice an won't take the time to write or call their politicians to express their distaste. One letter represents one hundred voices to politicians. That's a lot of clout being wasted. E-mail makes it a snap. I have a freind who meets with about six friends once a month and they all decide which issue they are going to write a letter to protest about. They make it an event...pot luck and good company."}, {"response": 77, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Jul 27, 1999 (06:43)", "body": "The only way I know how to solve unsolved problems is with research. Mentioning a problem is insufficient to solve it. Someone has to do the research."}, {"response": 78, "author": "ov", "date": "Tue, Jul 27, 1999 (15:25)", "body": "Research either requires funding or people with expertise that are willing to volunteer their time and energy. It also requires being in a nonhostile environment that is free from outside disruption. I think that any research on these subjects has to be done in private conferences. Trial balloons can be sent up in public conferences like this to get feedback, disseminate information and find new recruits. They can also be used to test for significance; there is a positive correlation between the significance of an idea and the amount of antagonism directed towards it."}, {"response": 79, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, Jul 27, 1999 (17:16)", "body": "then I am absolutely opposed to everything..."}, {"response": 80, "author": "dawnis", "date": "Tue, Jul 27, 1999 (17:29)", "body": "You said it. The opposition hates to hear the truth so they use fallacies to augment their arguments....personal attacks, silogistic reasoning, slippery slope...and so forth. I just got attacked in Utne again. For posting the Mendota plea for help. I am now officially a tree hugger. My response in here will be another of my silly poems Media Blitz \ufffdSo it is spoken, so it is done.\ufffd a totality of lies spoken in sound bytes, plucked from elements which make up the whole. Truth wrapped in azure blue dreams, slips away in simultaneous descent with fiction, drowned under tannidark water, ghost shifting past Hell\ufffds Gate. We band of fledglings have come empty handed, fresh water fast, attempt to negotiate the relentless traction, disturbing all things as we pass. Aerodynamic, we shift on the fly, exposing society\ufffds firm belief in Faustian bonds, of marriage bound in preseason secrets. Crimes of the art, a clean and functional collection sits there in dementia amidst gangrene hearts and rotting brains. Medusa head of cotton mouths, the wheel out of true, to each a passion, precision crafted in how to suppress the record, big heat, priced to help. Honesty sleeps alone, frugal and anonymous, within the prime notion, dismantled in media hocus pocus, of thee we sing. Hey News flash...I got an appology from the Utne host who was one of my attackers. I just checked my e-mail as I posted this...maybe they are making progress over there. Will wonders never cease?"}, {"response": 81, "author": "ov", "date": "Tue, Jul 27, 1999 (18:09)", "body": "Sometimes steadfast stoicism paves the path of progress."}, {"response": 82, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Jul 27, 1999 (18:14)", "body": "For nearly two decades I was fortunate to have a secure place to do funded research. That was at AT&T Bell Labs before the DoJ broke up the Bell System in 1984. Since then, I've done unfunded research on my own, with the same vision and integrity that I brought to the table at Bell Labs, but with the freedom to choose my own research topics. My hallmark is \"innovative solutions to complex problems.\" My method is to apply my training in systems theory. I construct the most comprehensive and accurate m del of the system as I am able, and then I analyze the model for insights into how to solve the problem. My solutions are invariably innovative and creative. And of course, controversial. They also work. But it takes people a long time to get their brains around the paradigm shift that they entail. And that is the problem. I have to wait for people to get over the shock of seeing my model, analysis and proposed solution. One thing I've learned. You can't shove the solution down people's throats. ou just have to wait for them to lose their fear of change."}, {"response": 83, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Wed, Jul 28, 1999 (01:49)", "body": "Tried to post this on Yahoo for you, Debra, but the software bug blitzed it -- Here's what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune wrote today about the situation with the trees on Hiawatha Road. Coverage on TV of this has been pretty shallow, IMO, with the protestors being portrayed as wackos and everyone else being in favor, albeit reluctantly, or \"progress.\" http://www.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisSlug=HWY28&date=28-Jul-99&word=minnehaha (If that link won't paste here without breaking, go to www.startribune.com and search for \"minnehaha\" -- you'll get a whole page of hits.)"}, {"response": 84, "author": "ov", "date": "Wed, Jul 28, 1999 (02:43)", "body": "The thing that ticked me off even more when I read that was that they were cutting down the trees for a \"temporary\" bypass. It would have been bad enough for a permanent change but for a temporary one. If it's only going to be temporary anyway why not just go around the trees. But I suppose that would cost more money and money is sacred. Funny how they don't have a problem understanding sacred when it comes to money."}, {"response": 85, "author": "moulton", "date": "Wed, Jul 28, 1999 (09:05)", "body": "Mammon and Kronos are the twin gods of the material economy. Their golden ratio is the bottom line."}, {"response": 86, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Wed, Jul 28, 1999 (12:49)", "body": "Here's more awful stuff -- pedophiles are joining relief groups so they can be sent overseas where there is terrible need, and they can find more children to prey on... http://worldnews.about.com/library/weekly/aa072699.htm"}, {"response": 87, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Aug  5, 1999 (12:22)", "body": "Kathy Noll has brought to my attention her research on dealing with schoolyard bullies. Here's is one of her interviews ."}, {"response": 88, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Thu, Aug  5, 1999 (12:55)", "body": "Thanks for the link, Barry. I'm delighted Noll has written this book for youngsters. But from my own experiences with bullies, and the experiences of my children, this line gives me pause: \"ask an adult to confront the bully without mentioning your name.\" Any child being bullied knows this is -- no pun intended -- bull. If you tell on somebody, they'll know you told when they're confronted by someone more powerful than themselves. This is how bullies survive to become abusers, how molesters keep their victims from talking, how violence is perpetuated in secret. This is the power. Kids who are being bullied by someone are told by the bully that if they tell, things will get much, much worse. And usually that's exactly what happens."}, {"response": 89, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Aug  5, 1999 (13:11)", "body": "Thank you for that link to About.com and the horrifying news about pedophilia being visited upon the already stricken refugees. I really do not want this to turn into a gender-bashing exercise, but having poked through alt.newsgroups, it is men preying upon and ultimately destroying the next generation who would replace them in due time. That very act is self-serving to the utmost and sickens me to the core of my being. It is happening in the former Eastern Block Countries of the old Soviet regime, too. Their economies are so devastated that there is little parents can do, I imagine. These exploited children are so unhappy - their eyes reflect their loss of innocence and the ultimate betrayal of the elders who they thought would be thier protectors. We are truly sick!"}, {"response": 90, "author": "moulton", "date": "Thu, Aug  5, 1999 (13:54)", "body": "I published Kai's bullying. Did things get worse?"}, {"response": 91, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Aug  5, 1999 (14:42)", "body": "Worse? Only if you think grown men pedophiles preying on the starving and homeless war victim-children is worse than bullying. I'd definitely have to say yes, but I am just a mother and a woman."}, {"response": 92, "author": "moonbeam", "date": "Thu, Aug  5, 1999 (16:11)", "body": "Marcia, I just posted a response to you to thank you for commenting on the pedophilia link. I was concerned when nobody said anything about something that awful, in a topic dedicated to violence and culture. Unfortunately, my whole post was erased when I breathed on some invisible key somewhere. This has happened a number of times to me in this software -- if the page reloads or for some reason goes back, I lose whatever I've written! This is becoming quite a frustration for me. Barry, to answer your question about your publication of Kai's bullying, at least in the beginning it definitely made things worse. In the end, perhaps not. I don't know."}, {"response": 93, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Aug  5, 1999 (16:25)", "body": "Poor Nan! I know how that is. It has become necessary for my peace of mind to compose my long responses on Wordpad then paste them here and hit the submit button. That way, even if you mistakenly hit the clear button (why are they so close?! - William!!!), you can just control+V again and there it is! I am aghast nothing else has been posted her, also. Perhaps with the evening posts we might get more reaction?! (Wondering how I can fit it into Bioregions or something on Geo...!)"}, {"response": 94, "author": "moulton", "date": "Fri, Aug 13, 1999 (10:25)", "body": "Revenge violence is on the front page. Underlying the drive for revenge are strong feelings. Feelings of rejections and alienation, feelings of injustice. And from where I sit, it does appear that more and more Americans are experiencing episodes of rejection and alienation, episodes of unfair treatment and injustice. It is also clear that the root of the problem of recurring episodes of unfair treatment and injustice is to be found in our most cherished institution - the law. The law, once venerated and highly respected, has touched more and more people, and has visited more and more unfair treatment and injustice on Americans than ever before. It's a trickle-down economy. The culture of shaming and blaming, of alienation and scapegoating, of sanctions and punishments, is producing a nation of anger. Not everyone can receive injustice, sublimate their anger into depression, and survive on Prozac. Some will turn their anger into revenge. That younger and younger people are doing it should be a red flag that our horrific culture of violence is out of control. And the root of violence is to be found in our adoption of a rule-based system of social regulation, with the rules enforced by authorized and sanctioned violence. That model is no longer tenable or ethical. It's time we evolved to a more humane and civil culture."}, {"response": 95, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Jul 20, 2000 (12:05)", "body": "This is as insightful as it is scary. A Columbine student who experienced one of the many High School Massacres wrote it: \"The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice. We have higher incomes, but lower morals; we've become long on quantity, but short on quality. These are the times of tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom; a time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to make a difference...or just hit delete.\""}, {"response": 96, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Jul 20, 2000 (12:07)", "body": "Thanks, John, for forwarding it to me... cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 28, "subject": "The Equality Issue.", "response_count": 40, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Aug 11, 1999 (14:28)", "body": "Thank you, Alexander! I shall spread the word and let them have at it here, where it more properly belongs. If you have not posted this link in Geo 12, I shall do so immediately."}, {"response": 2, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Feb  2, 2000 (19:21)", "body": ""}, {"response": 3, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Feb  2, 2000 (19:23)", "body": "from the old server Response 2 of 2: Marcia (MarciaH) * Wed, Jan 26, 2000 (19:34) * 161 lines This article was forwarded to me by Maggie. I thought it important enough to create a Topic for it if necessary. Then I found this one which speaks indirectly to the root of the problem. Please read this and comment. The National Capital Chapter of the US National Committee for UNIFEM is supporting UNIFEM's promotion of Women's Human Rights through the Mali project '98 to Eradicate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Approximately 94 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in Mali have undergone FGM. Fear that their daughters will remain unmarried is paramount among justifications for the continuation of this practice, despite the fact that excision sometimes leads to serious injury and infection of the vagina, rectum, bladder, and urethra leading to lifelong disabilities, and in some cases death from bleeding during childbirth. Background Despite the increasing recognition of the critical role played by women in the economic development of developing countries, the practice of Female Genital Mutilation--the removal of some of a girl's genitalia -- continues to be practiced widely in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The consequences of the practice are grave for the girls affected. Female genital mutilation often causes injury and infection which lead to lifelong disabilities. It can cause painful urination, tetanus, death from bleeding, and difficulties in childbirth which ultimately endanger the lives of both the child and the mother. FGM is most often done by women, who carry on the practice for a variety of social, religious, traditional, economic and esthetic reasons. FGM is part of a rite of passage into womanhood at which the initiate is taught the roles expected of a wife, lover and mother. In some societies a woman who has not undergone the rite is considered unprepared for marriage. Religion is used to justify the practice of FGM in certain Islamic countries which portray FGM as an obligation for Muslim purification. There are global movements to eradicate the practice of FGM in Africa. However, FGM is a complex issue rooted in long-standing cultural values. Organizations that are working to eliminate the practice must also search for and develop appropriate alternative strategies that will eliminate the harmful and dangerous aspects while respecting cultural norms and values. An alternative practice should take into account the ability of the female population involved to make informed decisions. This will result in systemic change and empower women by showing them viable alternatives to gender-specific roles and values. FGM violates two important UN conventions on human rights: the practice is an infraction of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); it also violates the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. What is being done in Mali There are locally led movements committed to totally eradicating FGM through education of its harmful effects. In June 1997 two events occurred towards this goal: 1. In a moving public ceremony, women practitioners of excision from the Mopti region banded together and voluntarily handed over their excision knives. 2. The Mali government committed to the total eradication of FGM. These two events are of the utmost importance. When abandoning the practice of excision the women of the Mopti region gave up their main livelihood in anticipation of a promised alternative. This powerfully demonstrates their dedication to the total eradication of FGM. These women are now traveling in Mali to educate their sisters about the dangers of continuing this practice. Also, the government's resolve to end the practice gives legitimacy to all current efforts and requests for assistance. The Women of Mali need your support! Mali Project '98, with your support, will have an immense positive impact on the lives of girls and women in Mali. The support of the world's women is needed to build the momentum necessary to end female genital mutilation. Mali is our first step. Your support of this project will directly assist the Association for the Progress and the Defense of the Rights of Malian Women (APDF), a local, non-partisan, non-governmental organization (NGO), to implement an intensive educational campaign in cooperation with the former excision practitioners. Your contributions are earmarked for this project and are tax-deductible. What your contribution can provide: $100 1. Training of one former excisioner: to become a strong advocate for the eradication of FGM; in alternative income generating skills. 2. Training of one opinion leader: to become a strong advocate for the eradication of FGM. 3. The dissemination of 200 brochures or 240 cassettes in local languages: to educate the general public about the dangers of FGM. 4. Grand Prize for creative \"anti-FGM\" slogan and artwork in competition "}, {"response": 4, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Feb  2, 2000 (19:24)", "body": "Thanks for the suggestion, Terry. I have done so - as soon as I could, actually!"}, {"response": 5, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Thu, Feb  3, 2000 (08:24)", "body": "Sure thing Marcia."}, {"response": 6, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Feb  3, 2000 (12:20)", "body": "[Well, ok, here we are. Looks a bit slow. Let's try to change that, and somebody's gotta take the fall, anyway... Ready to roll?] Let's take a look at that case above, I've got pretty clear feelings about that, but also some mixed ideas about some questions around that: Do we have the right to tell folks about what customs are cool and what are not? (E.g. male circumcision is also done in many countries, and not only to babies, and not with anaesthetics, either... or doctors...) How can we tell them their religious ideas are wrong, when religion is about believing, and there IS a belief about a relation between these customs and their religion? What would change if these things were done in what we believe to be proper medical fashion? And: what could we do to help the girls NOW impacted by these traditions, how can we influence these practices, without sounding \"kolo\": totally colonial and culturally imperialistic? What ideas and help can we offer without acting along \"me civilized, you bush\"-lines?"}, {"response": 7, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Feb  3, 2000 (12:59)", "body": "Alexander, we have Needed you here! It makes me more than a little sick that some of this mutilation to women is done to make them more marriageable. There is nothing we can do about it, either. It will continue to be done, just as abortions are here, if it is desired by any one of the parties involved. Change must come from within. Educating native ladies in the west has made great strides, but it will continue... And, if you think it really equates with male circumcision, I'd be surprised. Do you really?"}, {"response": 8, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Feb  3, 2000 (13:23)", "body": "Did I say so? Fact is, there are initiation rites done on boys of around ten years of age, with just knifes and no medication. Big family celebration! Happy happy joy joy! And these practices are much wider spread than female genital mutilation. Back on topic: While the above-mentioned retraining sounds very sensible, it also feels a bit strange to me: #1. Training of one former excisioner: #to become a strong advocate for the eradication of FGM; #in alternative income generating skills. #2. Training of one opinion leader: #to become a strong advocate for the eradication of FGM. If I understand it correctly, many excisioners depend economically, socially and culturally on doing this - if they agree to be trained for doing different things, and revoke their long-cherished system of ideas and values, what is replacing them? And, if they agree to get this replaced with something else, doesn't it mean the whole tradition didn't mean a lot to them in the first place?"}, {"response": 9, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Feb  3, 2000 (13:50)", "body": "Civilization seems to need rites of passage, and if one does not participate in one or another of them, however barbaric they seem to the outside world, one feels outside of society. It bonds one with the culture and it engenders feelings of belonging. We all need that despite some denial going on here and there. I also wondered about having a livlihood of just doing such \"surgery\"... I hope that was an over-simplification."}, {"response": 10, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Feb  4, 2000 (13:56)", "body": "My two cents: The impetus for reform is coming from ladies themselves in many african countries - it's not (always) a 'kolo' thing imposed idea from outside. In anearlier email on the subject to Marcia I told of (Gambian)ladies at the supermarket checkouts in Banjul who had collecting boxes by their tills for these programs. There was quite a lot of feeling about it - and that was 10 years ago. One problem is that the mutilation - whilst I agree it is part of a valid rite of passage - cuases not only immediate pain etc. but if you had seen the childbirth problems you would have cried. The male operation is mild in comparison and has few long term complications. I don't know about women who have this 'role' (of surgeon) as their only means of income, it is most likely to be one of a number of jobs they do (from my experience anyway), it is seasonal as well. Usually there is a particular time of year that these things are done, and usually to a group of girls/boys not just individuals. It goes along with other 'socia isation' and 'educational' inductions."}, {"response": 11, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Feb  4, 2000 (21:00)", "body": "Welcome to the discussion Maggie. I needed you to be here!"}, {"response": 12, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb  5, 2000 (07:23)", "body": "I guess I feel quite strongly on the matter, whilst respecting people's rights to act as they please. It's an interesting dichotomy! Philosphically and ethically I believe people have a right to behave as they wish if it doesn't harm others (e.g. I'm against child abuse which I do not believe is right). In many ways this issue can be seen (by some) to be 'child abuse' despite the cultural rights issue. On the question of rights: Have you seen a news article recently about Iceland. The Icelandic government have sold (for about 8 million pounds) the medical records of its citizens for genetic research (on the data). It raises all sorts of questions. At the moment people have to actively opt out of the scheme. Many are upset about it."}, {"response": 13, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb  5, 2000 (13:42)", "body": "Iceland did that? I am most surprised. They have an enlightened populace. No wonder they are upset about it. I would be, too! I am in your corner thinking the former is child abuse, and has long term terrible prices to be paid by the \"victim\". I wish a man could be split from tip to base and then told it will only hurt when certain acts happen. Then, perhaps they would be a little more careful of the brutalities which they perpetuate against the females in their families. I am quite angry about this issue, actually, and may have to be scarce in here because of it. Obviously Alexander is looking at the large sociological question whereas I am right in there with the latest surgically-threatened female. One will never understand the other."}, {"response": 14, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Feb  6, 2000 (10:28)", "body": "It is an emotive issue, not just for us 'outsiders'. The sociological issues about respecting others cultures/beliefs etc are important, but, just as with child employment reform (which was ingrained into British culture not that long ago), there are some issues that need to be faced. It's not that long ago (again in British society) that it was culturally fashionable for women to wear very constricting corsets (a symbol again of slavery/represion?) which were not just a matter of fashion but physically damaging - organs were displaced, distorted and damaged, blood flow was constricted, childbirth was even more dangerous than it needed to be. Culturally a woman without a corset was 'loose' and immoral, in much the same way that women who have not been FGM'd in some societies are shunned and considered immoral. Some courageous women, in the name of female emancipation, fought the constriction - both social and moral, of the corset, and my generation reaps that reward. OK, there wasn't an obvious religious onnection, but I believe the issue of FGM is greater than just an Islamic thng. I think, like male circumcision, it's a much wider spread practice, again because of the symbolic significance. Rites of passage are essential to human psychological well-being. However, it is often not the actual physical rite itself that holds the psychological power, but the symbolic meaning of it. It is a good rule of thumb that if a 'rite' is taken away (for whatever reason) then a symbolic substitute needs to be found. African societies, and African women in particular, are questioning the rite but not necessarily the symbolism. I don't know about other continents. Don't run away from this Marcia, just widen the issue."}, {"response": 15, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Feb  6, 2000 (18:55)", "body": "I am here with you, Maggie. Alexander, we need your counterpoint, as well. Ask the hard questions. It is the only way we will ever understand each other - even if we do not agree!"}, {"response": 16, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Thu, Feb 10, 2000 (15:17)", "body": "Why do I always get to do the nasty stuff? I feel so, uh, untypically un-rude today... Plus I'm not too insightful right now. I invest all brain-grease and feel-about into my devious scheming, dealing and wheeling (aka the mag)."}, {"response": 17, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Feb 10, 2000 (17:02)", "body": "You ARE mellow, my dear Alexander! So nice to see, even if it is because you have suffered severe brain strain on behalf of SUPERSTAR. We'll wait till you are back to your usual self...um...if that what it is...*smile*"}, {"response": 18, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (09:30)", "body": "On the equality issue I saw this recently (from United Nations Development programme) Nearly 900 million women world wide have incomes of less than 62p (30cents?) a day. Women spend two thirds of their work time in unpaid activities, men only a quarter. More than 130 million children do not attend primary school: two thirds of them are girls. As many as half a million women die in childbirth every year. Nearly 340 million women are not expected to survive to the age of 40. Adult femal literacy in the world's least developed countries stands at 38 per cent (compared with 58 per cent for men)."}, {"response": 19, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (14:00)", "body": "My father must have been an enlightened man of the highest order. He wanted the smartest grandchildren on Earth so he sent his daughters to college. We did him proud - not just on our own accomplishments academically, but he also got those smart grandchildren he wanted. Wise man, my father!"}, {"response": 20, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (14:34)", "body": "I had the opposite. My parents couldn't see why I wanted to stay on a school until 18 - I'm a girl and I don't need to. Even when I went to university for the first time at 40 to do an MA they wouldn't talk about it - or come to my graduation when I got a distinction! Sad. Needless to say they ignore what I'm doing now - although they talk about everything else."}, {"response": 21, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb 12, 2000 (15:02)", "body": "Oh Maggie! I am SO sorry! I don't supposed I could be your mother for a day, but I am already so very proud of you! How could they be so provincial with their very own daughter?! *Big Hugs of Support* I think you are fantastic!"}, {"response": 22, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Feb 13, 2000 (12:15)", "body": "Thanks. It still hurts sometimes, but I don't think it cripples me now. Still, when you think of the lack of the opportunities some kids have, I hope I can bring some encouragement somehow to some. I guess in a way, I should be glad of what has happened because it's shaped me and pushed me to do the things I'm doing! (That archeology programme has just started on TV so I'm going to watch it. Let you know hwat it's about in archology topic in your conference.)"}, {"response": 23, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Feb 13, 2000 (16:35)", "body": "That's why I have been a long-time supporter of students at the UHHilo. It is difficult enough to get through college even with a cheering section. It is a lonely slog, otherwise. You will be wonderful in your encouragement r\ufffdle. Love the Archaeology item you posted. I went there first *grin*"}, {"response": 24, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Feb 26, 2000 (05:36)", "body": "I think this probably belongs here: Democracy and human rights are not cousins. Human rights constitute the very foundation of democracy. People fight for the right to self-determination, for the right to be recognised and accorded the rights and privileges of citizenship simply to affirm the fact that they, like all other peoples are born equal; that they have equal right to life, liberty and freedom. People fight to affirm their inalienable right to a government that will not only guarantee these attributes but also ensure their well being, and for the right to change their government if this social contract is breached. This is what drives social struggles throughout history; and this is what democracy is intended to guarantee. A democratic regime is one that recognises and upholds the identity of human beings. Wherever people are denied the basic means of livelihood and self-respect, as narrated by Ezra Mbogori in the case of the household, and Dede Amanor-Wilks in the case of Zimbabwe's farm workers, there is no democracy. Such people are denied very basic human entitlements. Of course, fundamental human entitlements encompass many more than these - education, for example. In Africa the vast majority of the people lack even the barest minimum of these to fulfil their nature as human beings. Yet our struggles since colonialism have revolved around on the need to realise our basic humanity. In Zimbabwe, the right to land is central to the people's struggle for who and what they are. Other groups may define or anchor the struggle for their rights differently. Thus today the struggle for human rights has assumed many forms - from mass alienation to street protests and civil wars. To characterise all such form of social action as undemocratic is to miss the fundamental nature of such struggles. The heart of the matter is that the growing sophistication and cruelty of the forms and instruments of exploitation and oppression prevailing on the continent has compelled people to resort to equally different forms and strategies of protest and challenge. Genocide and other tragic aberrations are an exception; for they also constitute an abomination. Kwame A. Ninsin African Association of Political Science Harare, Zimbabwe"}, {"response": 25, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Feb 26, 2000 (12:29)", "body": "Yes! Good place for it! Well thought-out and well-written comments. Very true."}, {"response": 26, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (14:44)", "body": "A disappointint thought - despite having equal pay legislation in Britain since 1975, women are still recieving substantially less pay than men for similar work. Some jobs are still gendered, and the divide at times seems to be becoming wider not narrower. Gone are the days where women could (at a push) go to university but not receive a degree, but yet wages are still paid on thebasis of gender and not merit. I am apalled."}, {"response": 27, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Feb 27, 2000 (16:32)", "body": "You are not alone being apalled! Except for the enlightened and the very visible sector (where salaries are public knowledge - as in politics and civil service), salaries in the US are no more enlightened than they are where you are."}, {"response": 28, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Feb 29, 2000 (15:38)", "body": "I hope you don't mind me posting this here - I find it very upsetting. This is my part of the world. WEST AFRICA: IRIN Focus on child trafficking [2000229] [This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] CHILDREN: IRIN Focus on child trafficking in west and central Africa LIBREVILLE, 28 February 2000 (IRIN) - From 14-year-old girls forced into prostitution to domestics just out of their infancy and pre-teen boys leased to cattlemen, west and central African children are being condemned to deprivation and servitude, researchers and officials told IRIN. No-one knows exactly how many young lives are broken in this way. In fact, finding out and keeping data bases on the twin evils of child trafficking and the exploitation of children's labour are part of a common platform for action agreed at a regional consultation held on 22-24 February. In most of the region, girls, some of them as young as eight years old, are taken from from rural areas to towns to work as domestics. Many work for 12 hours each day and more, and are subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse. Those taken from their countries also face isolation, some studies noted. Children from Mali are taken to Cote d'Ivoire via Burkina Faso, which is both a supplier of and transit point for child workers. So are Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo, some of which are also recipient countries. Children are taken to Equatorial Guinea and to and from Cameroon. Gambian researchers suspect that there might be children going to work as domestics in Banjul from the southern Senegalese region of Casamance where a guerrilla war has been going on for 17 years. Kounboua Boulo Edoux of the Ministry of Labour in Chad told IRIN that nomadic cattlemen from northern Cameroon and central Chad travel to Moyen Chari region in southern Chad in the dry season, contract boys from farming communities to tend their herds, and take them as far as Central African Republic (CAR). The 'Subregional Consultation on Developing Strategies on the Trafficking of Children for Exploitative Labour Purposes in West and Central Africa' was held in Libreville, capital of Gabon, one of the countries to which people illegally ship children, some of whom die along the way. In one such case some two years ago, Nigerian researcher Professor Peter Obigbo told IRIN, about 30 children drowned when a boat capsized while taking them from southern Nigeria to Gabon. Child trafficking occurs both within and between countries as studies presented at the consultation - organised by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) showed. While doing sensitisation work in southern Chad on the worst forms of labour - the subject of a mid-1999 ILO convention that the Libreville meeting urged African governments to ratify - he met a small group of herdboys who had run away from their masters in the CAR. They were haggard, hungry and covered with wounds sustained while trekking through the bush back to the Chad border, according to Edoux. Their ages? \"Twelve, thirteen,\" he said. The herdsmen approach parents either directly or through middle men, or area residents who earn 3,000 CFA francs (less than US $5) per boy, according to Edoux. The child is supposed to work for six months after which he receives a calf as payment and is taken back to his parents, an arrangement which some masters honour. Others, however, find pretexts to end it prematurely, which means that the child is not paid, while some take the children with them when they go back to their home areas at the end of the dry season. According to Edoux, soldiers from Moyen Chari stationed in central Chad sometimes rescue children left stranded after being abandoned by or running away from their bosses. Boys are also contracted out to cattle rearers in Ghana, receiving a cow at the end of four years' service, according to Emelia Oguaah, executive director of the African Centre for Human Development and one of a team of consultants who presented at the consultation preliminary findings from research they did for a subregional project of the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (ILO-IPEC). Other boys work as assistant fishermen and, according to information she obtained while doing her survey in areas along the Volta Lake in eastern Ghana, these children fall into two categories. \"Most are brought by their parents as apprentices in fishing or to work and assist the fishermen,\" Oguaah told IRIN. \"Their parents collect money and visit their children regularly. But there is another group of children who, people in the area suspect, were stolen and sold to the fishermen.\" Area residents told her nobody visited these children \"who become more or less slaves and are maltreated in various ways.\" Other Ghanaian children, girls, are taken to Cote d'Ivoire to work as maids, helpers in small restaurants or prostitutes, mainly by middle-aged Ghanaian women living in Cote d'Ivoire, acco"}, {"response": 29, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb 29, 2000 (15:52)", "body": "What a nightmare! You posted it exactly where it should have been posted. I can remember being 14 and I would have been devastated if my parents had done that to me. Imagine?!"}, {"response": 30, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, May 28, 2000 (21:52)", "body": "This was sent to me today and I think it important enough to post: http://jsa-44.hum.uts.edu.au/signposts/articles/Philippines/Women/index.html Articles : Philippines : Women ACIJ features Sex Tourism in the Philippines by Sarah Ford - August 1995 The following feature is by Sarah Ford who visited the Philippines on behalf of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism in mid 1995. A shorter version of this article was published in the Australian newpaper. Australian Bar and Hotel Owners, Angeles City by Sarah Ford - August 1995 These names were gathered by a journalist who visited the Philippines on behalf of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism. They provide a useful starting point for journalists or researchers who plan to investigate Australian sex tourism in the Philippines. Note from interview with welfare worker, Angeles City by Sarah Ford - August 1995 These are notes from an interview (23/6/95) between Sarah Ford, a journalist who visited the Philippines on behalf of the Australian Centre for Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney and a community organiser in Angeles City. These notes provide useful background information for anyone researching sex tourism in Angeles City."}, {"response": 31, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, May 28, 2000 (22:26)", "body": "Please to to the URL for the entire article in each case - something must be done!"}, {"response": 32, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, May 28, 2000 (23:41)", "body": ""}, {"response": 33, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, May 29, 2000 (10:58)", "body": "Sobering thoughts."}, {"response": 34, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, May 29, 2000 (11:05)", "body": "Yes! Especially when the note with the URL said it was just the tip of the ice berg. Imagine how your life is changed and destroyed by such circumstances. It is so horrific that my mind recoils."}, {"response": 35, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, May 29, 2000 (16:21)", "body": "It is unimaginable. Mostly we can't allow outselves to think about it, but from time to time there are things we can do to support those who fight such dreadful things. I was very upset about the sexual abuse of little girls in my part of Africa."}, {"response": 36, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, May 29, 2000 (16:52)", "body": "...by the very people who are supposed to protect them - their parents!"}, {"response": 37, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, May 29, 2000 (18:34)", "body": "or their uncles ...."}, {"response": 38, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, May 30, 2000 (19:57)", "body": "*shudder*"}, {"response": 39, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Jun  2, 2000 (15:26)", "body": "got this today and it sorta fits here. Subject: H-WA - Senegalese Network on AIDS Research To: H-WEST-AFRICA@H-NET.MSU.EDU Add Addresses From: Charles Becker, becker@ird.sn Date: May 25, 2000 Subject: Senegalese Network on AIDS Research - Reseau senegalais de Recherche sur le Sida Short English version: The Senegalese network of AIDS researchers prepared a summary of its activities and objectives, including their aim of strengthening the link between researchers and those affected by Aids, to be presented at the Durban Conference. The Senegalese network has work diligently on numerous projects, including a 2000 campaign for the prevention of mother-child disease transmission. It has also recently published an exhaustive bibliographical report on Aids Research in West Africa. In response to their proposed presentation at the Durban Conference, the Senegalese network on Aids Research was asked first to summarize their work in poster form. Then it was suggested instead that they produce leaflets to be distributed at the conferences at their own expense. This cost added to the conference registration, traveling and housing expenses during the conference, is prohibitive and will determine who gets to participate in a conference of such global importance. It is regrettable that the voices of the people of Africa are muffled by those countries that are financially endowed. It is through these discriminatory means that research from the South is excluded from international dialogue. Researchers and uthors from southern countries must seek their own venues to present and exchange scientific research. We must also protest against this system of international conference organizing controlled and dominated by northern countries."}, {"response": 40, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Thu, Sep  7, 2000 (15:32)", "body": "Women in Africa's development Overcoming obstacles, pushing for progress By Takyiwaa Manuh (Africa Recovery, United Nations) African women's fundamental contributions in their households, food production systems and national economies are increasingly acknowledged, within Africa and by the international community. This is due, in no small part, to African women's own energetic efforts to organize, articulate their concerns and make their voices heard. At both grassroots and national levels, more women's associations have been formed during the 1990s, taking advantage of the new political openings to assert their leadership roles. They are also pressing for an expansion of women's economic and social opportunities, and the advancement of women's rights. By improving their own positions, they are simultaneously strengthening African society as a whole, as well as enhancing the continent's broader development prospects. But women in Africa continue to face enormous obstacles. The growing recognition of their contributions has not translated into significantly improved access to resources or increased decision-making powers. Neither has the dynamism that women display in the economic, cultural and social lives of their communities through their associations and informal networks been channeled into creating new models of participation and leadership. Read the rest of the article at: http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/bpaper/maineng.htm cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 29, "subject": "African culture", "response_count": 18, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Aug 30, 2000 (14:46)", "body": "Maggie, all and anything you forward to me from your African sojourn I will be more than happy to post for you. This is suc a great idea! I know just about nothing of Africa."}, {"response": 2, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Thu, Aug 31, 2000 (01:50)", "body": "Thank you. I will do my best to expand your horizons ....."}, {"response": 3, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Thu, Aug 31, 2000 (12:27)", "body": "Languages Many inadequate attempts have been made to classify the great complexity of languages in Africa. There are at least 1,000 distinct African languages known. Linguist Joseph Greenberg prepared the most recent and accurate attempt at classifying African languages based on the principals of Indo-European languages. The four main language families according to this classification are: Niger-Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan, Afro-Asiatic, and Khoisan. Niger-Kordofanian languages are found from Senegal to the Cape of Good Hope. The most original in this classification is the Benue-Congo which includes all the Bantu languages found dispersed over most of eastern, central, and southern Africa. Swahili, grammatically Bantu, is widely used as a lingua franca in eastern Africa. The Nilo-Saharan family comprises languages spoken along the savanna zone south of the Sahara from the middle Niger to the Nile, with outlying groups among the Para-Nilotic pastoralists of eastern Africa. The Afro-Asiatic family includes languages from both Africa and the Middle East: Semitic (e.g., Arabic), Ancient Egyptian (extinct), Berber, Cushitic, and Chadic (e.g., Hausa). It is found over much of northern Africa and eastward to the Horn of Africa. The Khoisan, or Click, family comprises the languages of the San and Khoikhoi, who are now limited to the arid parts of southwestern Africa, and perhaps of the outlying Hadza and Sandawe peoples of northern Tanzania. The Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) family is represented by the various dialects of Malagasy in Madagascar. There are also many widespread trade languages and lingua francas in addition to those mentioned above. Some were imported and used by administrators, missionaries, and traders during the colonial period. They include English, French, and other languages of the former colonial powers. http://africancultures.about.com/culture/africancultures/library/weekly/aa100699a.htm"}, {"response": 4, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Sep  1, 2000 (03:06)", "body": "The Region of Western Africa http://africancultures.about.com/culture/africancultures/library/weekly/aa073099.htm (07/30/99) Western Africa lies south of the Sahara and east and north of the Atlantic Ocean. It is divided into two geographical regions, the western portion of the Sudan and the coastal region known as the Guinea Coast. The nations of the western Sudan include Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), Cape Verde, Chad, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. The nations of the Guinea Coast are Benin, Cameroon, C\ufffdte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo. The major ethnic groups are the Wolof of Senegal, the Serer to the south, and the Mande-speaking peoples to the east. The Songhai are located largely in the region south of Timbuktu along the Niger, the Mossi are in the Volta basin, and a variety of smaller groups survive within the great bend of the Niger and to the southwest. The Hausa are concentrated largely in northern Nigeria and the Fulani are concentrated in Senegal, Guinea, and northern Nigeria. The languages spoken are branches of one great Niger-Congo family, including the Mande, Voltaic, Kwa, Adamawa-Eastern, and West-Atlantic groups. The Kordofanian languages are spoken in the area of the Nuba Hills. Other major families that have been distinguished are the Nilo-Saharan group and the Afro-Asiatic. French is the language of communication among the elite of most nations of the western Sudan, and English is used in The Gambia, Ghana, and Nigeria. Belief in the supernatural either in traditional rituals or in the Islamic faith serve as reassurance and hope in time of trouble, and offer the possibility of a greater reward in the next world. People adjust their life according to the seasons and adjust their pace to natural conditions to be in harmony with the unseen powers behind them. Farm work is intense during the rainy season, but the work is considered an honorable occupation and is supported by strong ties to a complicated system of obligations--to kinsfolk, neighbors, and members of the same age group--maintained by constant visits, economic exchange, and mutual help at ceremonies. Villages consisting of fenced-off clusters of houses, known as compounds, are occupied by members of a lineage and their spouses. Many of these villages were built on sites that afforded some protection by rivers or fortified by earthen walls as a means of defense from hundreds of years of ravage by invaders and slave traders. These old fortifications, with the exception of the great walled cities of northern Nigeria, have given way to smaller more widely dispersed villages separated by cleared land for agriculture. But, as a result of periods of drought, many people have resettled in the larger urban centers."}, {"response": 5, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Fri, Sep  1, 2000 (09:33)", "body": "Will they resettle the rural areas or do you think this is the end of a culture?"}, {"response": 6, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Sep  1, 2000 (12:00)", "body": "From my observation, there seems to be a general trend of migration of young men to the larger towns and cities. Links to the villages remain strong. Many cities have what could be called 'shanty towns' attached. Some of these are very large, for example the one in Dakar, Senegal. Families live there, not just single young men. Subsustence farming, and cash cropping can be severly affected by periods of drought. Another problem in countries like The Gambia is the increasing salination of the land as the water table drops and sea water is carried further upstream. Salt resistant strains of rice have been developed so that this cash srop can continue to provided a much needed income. As to the resettlement of the rural areas. I am unsure. I think what is happening could be akin to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. However, family and land ties remain strong and often it is only part of an extended family that moves to the town, thus keeping the rural links. I don't believe 'culture' will necessarily be diminished, mostly because of the continued contact with the 'homeland'. Most African countries are multilingual and multicultural. In fact many villages are also. For example, the village I lived in had five language groups, each of whom kept their own cultural customs. Because cultural diversity is therefore perceived as normal, it is less common to see acculturation when people move outside of their own area. Of course, these are just my thoughts and observations, and are highly coloured by the areas I have visited and lived in. Other areas of Africa may be very different."}, {"response": 7, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Fri, Sep  1, 2000 (14:01)", "body": "If you had to live anywhere in Africa, where would it be? Anywhere in the world?"}, {"response": 8, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Sep  1, 2000 (19:45)", "body": "Please don't say Hawaii - it is only Paradise for vacationers!"}, {"response": 9, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Sep  2, 2000 (02:52)", "body": "In Africa I would like to live in The Gambia again. I love the people, the beaches and the lifestyle, and I don't need to struggle to talk in French!!! Although I am happy to be going to live in Mali.... Worldwide, I guess I'm happy to live in England. There are lots of places I would like to visit..... Hawaii among them!!!"}, {"response": 10, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sun, Sep  3, 2000 (17:03)", "body": "http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~ogunyemi/pidgin.html Some pidgin sayings and their translations by Gaga Ekeh See am as e siddon. No face! Everywhere tinted! Translation: Observe as the subject sits. One cannot but notice the frown occupying the face. Neither can one ignore those dark glasses. As im enta for man eye, I jus tux. Because why? Na so so baffs im throway comot. Translation: As the subject proceeded to occupy my peripheral vision, I had to bow in respect. Why, you ask? The subject was dressed impeccably. Abeg giam! (Usually during a fight). Translation: Allow his face to slap your fist so as to dissuade him from pursuing this frivolous conflict. Eba without! (Usually at a \"bukateria\") Respectable madam and owner of this eating establishment, I encourage you not to endow my plate with meat lest I am unable to service such debts as I may acquire should such a measure be put in practice. As such, I ask you to put more Eba, the amount of which should suffice to provide the illusion that I am affluent enough to afford the corresponding cost of meat. Yours faithfully. Ol boy! Of which now? Translation: It has been brought to our notice that you are now in a position to end the drought of stout lager that has so devastated this area. We would like to inquire what you intend to pursue as a course of action. Allow us to add that all deliberations should have our general interest at heart. Ehen? So make I comot nyash begin cry? Translation: The statements you just made do not constitute concrete evidence and as such do not justify or warrant any specific action by me for or against any of the parties involved in this circumstance. As man land, man eye brush vest. Man begin knack tori. Translation: As I \"cascaded\" down the stairs, my eyes happened upon a young member of the opposite sex dressed in a manner as would be illegal in 17 American states (including Alaska). I calmly walked up to the subject and proceeded to relay a series of lies guaranteed to stand me in good stead. by Elliot Ibie Why your body dey shake like leaf now, abeg thermocool! (Said to a visibly upset person) Translation: It is apparent to anyone within a fifty mile radius that you are about to experience an emotional implosion which will entail loss of control of all bodily functions. I implore you to seek out the nearest body of cold water and immerse yourself in it. Other translation: Please calm down. omolola@ogunyemi.net"}, {"response": 11, "author": "Carys", "date": "Sat, Sep  9, 2000 (13:06)", "body": "Wow! Maggie that is great reading. Mucho thanks!"}, {"response": 12, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Sep  9, 2000 (19:43)", "body": "Hello again Carys. Feel free to comment or ask any questions.....I may not know the answers but I'm good at finding out things...."}, {"response": 13, "author": "Carys", "date": "Mon, Sep 11, 2000 (17:01)", "body": "I trust you in that Maggie. I hope that you and Cheryl, I think it was she, can work out something concerning food and culture. Sounds like a promising topic."}, {"response": 14, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Sep 12, 2000 (04:09)", "body": "Scientists Find Ancient DNA in Living Africans Fossils in the Blood by Mark Schoofs http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0014/schoofs.shtml OBE, BOTSWANA\ufffdIn the shade of a tree, 140 kilometers from the nearest paved road in an endless plain of scrub brush and sand, Nxuka Nxu is discussing the origin of human beings. An elder of the !Kung San hunter-gatherer tribe, with a face as wrinkled as a raisin, she says emphatically, \"We are the first people.\" Many traditional cultures mythologize themselves as the progenitors of all humanity, but the !Kung San people, sometimes called the Bushmen of the Kalahari, have a better claim than most. Geneticists have found fragments of DNA in the Khoisan ethnic group, of which the !Kung are one tribe, that appear to date back to the very first human beings. Most other African ethnic groups lack these genetic traces, as do people from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Indeed, a few of these ancient genetic fragments have been found only in the Khoisan. These findings, which are still emerging, \"help us understand our past,\" says Himla Soodyall, a South African geneticist who has conducted much of this work. In addition to bolstering the theory that modern humans arose in Africa and then migrated around the globe, these findings also weigh in on the newer debate of exactly where humans originated. They support the idea that the cradle of humanity is southern Africa, where the San live, and not eastern Africa, as was widely thought. On this continent, where people are trying to kindle an African renaissance, this new genetic research \"can reinstill pride in the richness of African history,\" says Soodyall. Yet the research could also be twisted to bolster deep-seated prejudices against the San, probably the most abused and downtrodden ethnic group in southern Africa. One method used to determine the age of genetic fragments is to compare them to the genes of chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates. The ancient DNA segments in the Khoisan are more closely related to chimp DNA than are those of any other people. Given how the Khoisan have been dehumanized\ufffdscientists once postulated that they had fewer chromosomes\ufffdit is all too easy to imagine how this research could be misused. Here in the village, an elderly San man named Xuma Kgao ponders the idea that his people bear traces of the first humans. \"God made us lucky in that way,\" he says. But, noting how his culture has been denigrated and destroyed, he adds, \"It's not luck anymore. It's a drawback.\" So, given the tragic history of the San, not to mention all the other ethnic and racial bigotry this continent has endured, perhaps the most astonishing fact is that the research appears not to have inflamed prejudice. In fact, when Soodyall and her colleague Trefor Jenkins presented their preliminary findings to a 1997 conference devoted to Khoisan identity, they were met with praise, not protest. That's partly because the researchers vigorously resist bigoted interpretations of their findings. They note that the genetic traces that date back to the first humans are just that: traces, fragments picked out of the 3 billion letters that make up the human genetic code. In other parts of their DNA, the Khoisan have very recent mutations. \"It's not as if they stopped evolving and were put away on a shelf,\" says Michael Hammer, a University of Arizona geneticist who has collaborated with Jenkins and Soodyall. \"They preserve ancient lineages, but they are not an ancient group. They are as evolved as any other people.\" The new South Africa might be the best place for such research, because freedom from the crushing oppression of apartheid has fostered a candid and mostly positive discussion about ethnic differences and identity. In his inauguration speech last year, South African president Thabo Mbeki vowed to \"rediscover and claim the African heritage,\" noting that, \"From South Africa to Ethiopia lie strewn ancient fossils, which, in their stillness, speak still of the African origins of humanity.\" What geneticists have essentially discovered is that DNA is also strewn with \"fossils,\" mutations that have been preserved through generations. In addition to shedding light on humanity's origins, \"population genetics,\" as this branch of science is known, can also illuminate more recent episodes in history. For instance, Jenkins and Soodyall have studied the Lemba, a group of so-called Black Jews who claim to be a lost tribe of Israel, and found that many of them have genetic markers similar to those of Semitic people. Another team of geneticists has discovered that a few of the Lemba even have a marker common among the Jewish \"Cohens,\" a hereditary lineage of priests. \"There are so many stories written in the genes,\" says Soodyall. \"My goal is to understand the history of each mutation.\" For Jenkins, the goal is to \"counter racism scientifically\" and candidly. \"You can't claim there are no differences\" among ethnic groups, he notes, \"because people"}, {"response": 15, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Thu, Sep 14, 2000 (10:11)", "body": "Wednesday September 13, 5:26 PM Inside look at African music scene and daily life By Gary Hill NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new book and CD, both titled \"In Griot Time,\" by American writer and musician Banning Eyre offer a unique inside look at daily life on the music scene in the West African country of Mali. It was Mali's melodic, hypnotic music, increasingly popular overseas and believed at home to have secret powers when sung by \"griots,\" that drew Eyre to study with master guitarist Djelimady Tounkara, but even readers with no special interest in the music may find the book fascinating. \"In Griot Time\" is not exactly travel writing but its deft, novelistic descriptions of smells and tastes, sunny outdoor guitar lessons and murky late-night dive-bar visits, the central market teeming by day and eerily deserted at night, all evoke the rich colours and textures of African life. \"There's a story here that's got some more universality to it for anyone who's curious about another culture, anyone who's curious enough to breach the lines and go in,\" Eyre, 43, who lived for seven months in Tounkara's family compound in the capital city of Bamako, said in an interview. The book is filled with sharply observed small professional intrigues, individual struggles and family squabbles -- some recognisable as simply another culture's version of everyday life anywhere, some frighteningly incomprehensible to Eyre, who communicated easily in French but learned only basic Bambara. On his first day, while riding in from the airport, Eyre realised he had already been forced to choose sides in a local rivalry. \"Though I was riding with the (French expatriate) producer, I had cast my lot with the musicians,\" he wrote. CD OF HITS AND INTIMATE MOMENTS The CD, a generous 75 minutes and 19 cuts, has choice hit songs from Mali's greatest stars -- including Salif Keita, Ali Farka Toure, Tounkara's Super Rail Band, Oumou Sangare, Habib Koite, Toumani Diabate -- and some more intimate musical moments recorded by Eyre during his lessons with Tounkara. \"The thing that I consistently felt every time I heard him just sitting out on the porch -- and some of the things on the CD have this feeling, just that string music totally pared down -- was so exciting to me and so beautiful,\" Eyre said. In earlier travels to many of the musical capitals of Africa, he had found his journalistic inquiries would segue into musical exchanges when he got out his guitar. \"I was able for whatever reason to pick things up pretty fast and that would always create this energy and excitement and a certain electricity and I was totally intoxicated with that,\" he said. \"And every time that I would finish an interview with a guitarist I would think, why am I leaving? We're just getting started.\" Eyre, who believes Mali has \"the richest music of any country in Africa,\" comes through as always patient, flexible and tactful under sometimes difficult conditions, but no matter how well he learned to play the guitar styles, he always knew he had only scratched the surface of the tradition. \"It's one thing to appreciate the music, but to be able to really, fully enter into that context is considerably more demanding, on a whole lot of levels,\" he said. Or, as they say in Mali: \"No matter how long a piece of wood floats in the river, it will never become a crocodile.\" CAN'T LIVE WITH THEM, CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM Most difficult for outsiders to understand -- and Eyre does not claim to, fully -- is the role of the griot (pronounced gree-yo), whose praise songs are an essential part of West African life. Listeners being \"sung\" are expected to shower the griots with money. Westerners, while loving the music, may feel uneasy with the money hustle that goes with it. \"Me too,\" agreed Eyre. \"You can never transcend your culture.\" One snippet on the CD includes an exchange in French in which the teachers are explaining that a certain technique will make the music flow. An American friend of Eyre jokes that then the money will also flow and the Africans laugh and say, \"Ah, he has understood well.\" Non-griot Malians may resent having to pay the griots but they could not conceive of holding major events without them. \"People don't exactly hire them, they invite them, and then the griots work the audience,\" said Eyre, adding that even other griots may \"feel manipulated when they're being sung.\" Not all musicians are griots, a role passed down by birth. International superstar Salif Keita, an albino outcast from a noble family, helped change that. Ali Farka Toure, whose home is near Timbuktu and whose music reminds Westerners of the blues, is quoted as saying he is Songhoi, not Manding, and that \"griotism is an art of exploitation and flattery.\" But for many West Africans, the griots are a necessary part of society. \"There's a sense that the griots are not telling everything, they have secret knowledge and they're using their knowledge in particular ways,\" said Eyre. And there is something "}, {"response": 16, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Sep 19, 2000 (12:10)", "body": "More on African music - specifically Gambian music Here is a site you should visit ...lots of audio examples http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara/cu.html Also Dr Roderic Knight has researched the music of the Mandinka of the Gambia and gives examples on his website. http://www.oberlin.edu/~rknight/ (I lived and worked in The Gambia for five years ...and lived in a Mandinka village)"}, {"response": 17, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Thu, Sep 21, 2000 (05:21)", "body": "More from Mali for you ... Traditional Handicrafts http://www.discovertimbuktu.com/am/culture.html Many Tuareg designs are geometric and clean-cut, reflecting the austerity of desert life. Because of the Tuareg's relative isolation, these designs have not altered much over time. The motifs are repeated in jewelry, leather work and embroidery. Tuareg jewelry is worked exclusively in silver, the metal of the Prophet Mohammed, as gold is considered impure. It is said that there is a Tuareg tribe with extrasensory powers. The only way they can lose these powers is by simply looking upon gold. Tuareg crosses, nowadays worn only by women, were once only worn by men, passed down from father to son with the words: \"I give you the four corners of the world because one cannot know where one will die.\" Most famous are the crosses of the Agadez (Niger), which incorporate elements of celestial constellations. In fact, these amulets sometimes serve triple duty as protection, ornamentation and as a compass for orientation in the desert. According to Muslim belief, the four points of the cross disperse evil to the four corners of the earth. Some might see similarities between the Tuareg cross and the ancient Egyptian ankh, but there is no known connection. In times of drought, these crosses are used as currency to buy cattle, cloth or food. Crosses incorporating the phallus and circle are said to be powerful fertility talismans. Tuareg women also wear necklaces made of shell and leather or silver in the form of a geometric hand, which protects the wearer and ensures fertility; they are passed down from mother to daughter. Silver finger rings are usually gifts of affection between men and women. More contemporary designs mix semiprecious stones (usually malachite) and/or ebony with silver."}, {"response": 18, "author": "Carys", "date": "Sat, Sep 23, 2000 (12:17)", "body": "Does the modern day nation of Mali take its name from the medieval Mali? I think medieval Ghana was known as the Gold Empire. Unless that was Mali? Help! When I was teen/early twenties a got into African pop music. People like King Sunny Ade and Youssou N'Dour. Youssou was from Senegal, I believe. I'm not sure what country King Sunny was from. I don't know how traditional musical forms influenced the work of African pop musicians. Still they might have. Thanks for the information an the Tuareg design tradition, Maggie. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 30, "subject": "Culture and thought", "response_count": 1, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Sep 12, 2000 (07:42)", "body": "August 8, 2000 http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/080800hth-behavior-culture.html How Culture Molds Habits of Thought By ERICA GOODE University of Michigan Dr. Richard Nisbett and his colleagues have found that people in different cultures think not just about different things, but think differently. For more than a century, Western philosophers and psychologists have based their discussions of mental life on a cardinal assumption: that the same basic processes underlie all human thought, whether in the mountains of Tibet or the grasslands of the Serengeti. Cultural differences might dictate what people thought about. Teenage boys in Botswana, for example, might discuss cows with the same passion that New York teenagers reserved for sports cars. But the habits of thought -- the strategies people adopted in processing information and making sense of the world around them -- were, Western scholars assumed, the same for everyone, exemplified by, among other things, a devotion to logical reasoning, a penchant for categorization and an urge to understand situations and events in linear terms of cause and effect. Recent work by a social psychologist at the University of Michigan, however, is turning this long-held view of mental functioning upside down.. In a series of studies comparing European Americans to East Asians, Dr. Richard Nisbett and his colleagues have found that people who grow up in different cultures do not just think about different things: they think differently. \"We used to think that everybody uses categories in the same way, that logic plays the same kind of role for everyone in the understanding of everyday life, that memory, perception, rule application and so on are the same,\" Dr. Nisbett said. \"But we're now arguing that cognitive processes themselves are just far more malleable than mainstream psychology assumed.\" In many respects, the cultural disparities the researchers describe mirror those described by anthropologists, and may seem less than surprising to Americans who have lived in Asia. And Dr. Nisbett and his colleagues are not the first psychological researchers to propose that thought may be embedded in cultural assumptions: Soviet psychologists of the 1930's posed logic problems to Uzbek peasants, arguing that intellectual tools were influenced by pragmatic circumstances. But the new work is stirring interest in academic circles because it tries to define and elaborate on cultural differences through a series of tightly controlled laboratory experiments. And the theory underlying the research challenges much of what has been considered gospel in cognitive psychology for the last 40 years. \"If it's true, it turns on its head a great deal of the science that many of us have been doing, and so it's sort of scary and thrilling at the same time,\" said Dr. Susan Andersen, a professor of psychology at New York University and an associate editor at Psychological Review. In the broadest sense, the studies -- carried out in the United States, Japan, China and Korea -- document a familiar division. Easterners, the researchers find, appear to think more \"holistically,\" paying greater attention to context and relationship, relying more on experience-based knowledge than abstract logic and showing more tolerance for contradiction. Westerners are more \"analytic\" in their thinking, tending to detach objects from their context, to avoid contradictions and to rely more heavily on formal logic. In one study, for example, by Dr. Nisbett and Takahiko Masuda, a graduate student at Michigan, students from Japan and the United States were shown an animated underwater scene, in which one larger \"focal\" fish swam among smaller fishes and other aquatic life. Asked to describe what they saw, the Japanese subjects were much more likely to begin by setting the scene, saying for example, \"There was a lake or pond\" or \"The bottom was rocky,\" or \"The water was green.\" Americans, in contrast, tended to begin their descriptions with the largest fish, making statements like \"There was what looked like a trout swimming to the right.\" Over all, Japanese subjects in the study made 70 percent more statements about aspects of the background environment than Americans, and twice as many statements about the relationships between animate and inanimate objects. A Japanese subject might note, for example, that \"The big fish swam past the gray seaweed.\" \"Americans were much more likely to zero in on the biggest fish, the brightest object, the fish moving the fastest,\" Dr. Nisbett said. \"That's where the money is as far as they're concerned.\" But the greater attention paid by East Asians to context and relationship was more than just superficial, the researchers found. Shown the same larger fish swimming against a different, novel background, Japanese participants had more difficulty recognizing it than Americans, indicating that their perception was intimately bound with their perception of the backgroun"}]}, {"num": 31, "subject": "Food and Culture", "response_count": 8, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Sep 13, 2000 (03:47)", "body": "From Cheryl in Food conference: It is interesting what people will and will not eat do to their cultural stylization. In some cases it even defines their class within a society. A case in point would be the Eta of Japan. The class was historically that of tanners, butchers, and executioners; hence, those who handled death literally. Since the Japanese are not really a nation of meat-eaters; they have something of a predisposition to look down upon those that deal with carcasses. The Eta are still very discriminated against today."}, {"response": 2, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Sep 13, 2000 (03:50)", "body": "Also from Cheryl.. As for the popularity of Spam among the Pacific Islanders, I have my own theory on that. Pigs are the most widely dispersed livestock animal in the world. The Pacific Islanders, even the non-cannibal ones, have a lond tradition of eating and enjoying pork. From what little I know about the culture of Oceania, it would seem that at great feasts the featured dish was pork. The popularity of Spam with the Pacific Islanders may be because it is pork, a meat that they have long eaten and enjoyed. After all, they might get tired eating fish all the time."}, {"response": 3, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Sep 13, 2000 (11:27)", "body": "To say that the consumption of food is a vital part of the chemical process of life is to state the obvious, but sometimes we fail to realize that food is more than just vital. The only other activity that we engage in that is of comparable importance to our lives and to the life of our species is sex. As Kao Tzu, a Warring States-period philosopher and keen observer of human nature, said, \"Appetite for food and sex is nature.\"1 But these two activities are quite different. We are, I believe, much closer to our animal base in our sexual endeavors than we are in our eating habits. Too, the range of variations is infinitely wider in food than in sex. In fact, the importance of food in understanding human culture lies precisely in its infinite variability -variability that is not essential for species survival. For survival needs, all men everywhere could eat the same food, to be measured only in calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins. But no, people of different backgrounds eat very differently The basic stuffs from which food is prepared; the ways in which it is preserved, cut up, cooked (if at all); the amount and variety at each meal; the tastes that are liked and disliked; the customs of serving food; the utensils; the beliefs about the food's properties -these all vary. The number of such \"food variables\" is great. An anthropological approach to the study of food would be to isolate and identify the food variables, arrange these variables systematically, and explain why some of these variables go together or do not go together. For convenience, we may use culture as a divider in relating food variables' hierarchically. I am using the word culture here in a classificatory sense implying the pattern or style of behavior of a group of people who share it. Food habits may be used as an important, or even determining, criterion in this connection. People who have the same culture share the same food habits, that is, they share the same assemblage of food variables. Peoples of different cultures share different assemblages of food variables. We might say that different cultures have different food choices. (The word choices is used here not necessarily in an active sense, granting the possibility that some choices could be imposed rather than selected.) Why these choices? What determines them? These are among the first questions in any study of food habits. Within the same culture, the food habits are not at all necessarily homogeneous. In fact, as a rule they are not. Within the same general food style, there are different manifestations of food variables of a smaller range, for different social situations. People of different social classes or occupations eat differently. People on festive occasions, in mourning, or on a daily routine eat again differently. Different religious sects have different eating codes. Men and women, in various stages of their lives, eat differently. Different individuals have different tastes. Some of these differences are ones of preference, but others may be downright prescribed. Identifying these differences, explaining them, and relating them to other facets of social life are again among the tasks of a serious scholar of food. Finally, systematically articulated food variables can be laid out in a time perspective, as in historical periods of varying lengths. We see how food habits change and seek to explore the reasons and consequences. . . Adapted from K.C. Chang, Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977. Reprinted with permission from Yale University Press. To read the rest of the article go to http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/readings/r000044.htm"}, {"response": 4, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Sep 15, 2000 (06:14)", "body": "Greek culture and food \"Whatever It Takes\" Batches of baklava for the church, 175 chickens for charity. Marion Kopsidas has always known how to feed a crowd. By Stefanie Berry Special to The Washington Post Wednesday, September 13, 2000; Page F01 In one evening Marion Kopsidas peeled 50 pounds of onions by herself. Another time, she cooked 175 chickens in her own kitchen. Enormous family? No, and she's not a caterer. As usual, she was cooking for charity. She started almost 30 years ago, selling her special Greek food to raise money for the Salvation Army. She would cook spanakopita, moussaka, cheese pies, spinach pies, stuffed grape leaves, chickens and baklava. Then she would call friends and neighbors and take orders, making notes about the delivery. Either she would deliver the delicacies or they would pick them up at the Salvation Army. Or \"Mrs. K,\" as many called her, would have their requests packed and ready to go. \"I furnished all the food, cooked everything and gave the Salvation Army every penny of it,\" she recalls. Sitting on the screened porch of her home in Northwest Washington, she pulls out old records from 1973, tattered pages of names, notes, phone numbers, instructions about delivery. And a shopping list: 30 pounds of sugar, 20 pounds of flour, 26 pounds of butter, 16 pounds of onions. \"One year, I cooked 175 chickens! My husband bought me a second stove and we put it in the laundry room, so I had two ovens in the kitchen and one downstairs, three total going around the clock. I was so young. I had great energy.\" And then there's her church, the Greek Orthodox church of Sts. Constantine and Helen on 16th Street NW. In 1961, when she was president of the women's charity group of the church, she and the priest decided to a hold a bazaar. \"I thought people would come to help cook, but no one came. People had small children, and I was able to do it,\" she explains modestly. \"I peeled and chopped 50 pounds of onions by myself one night, and that was before the Cuisinart!\" Her hard work paid off. The church bazaar, which begins Friday, is now a regular fundraising tradition. Kopsidas today has lots of help at festival time. \"Now all the women come to the church. It's mass production, but it's very good,\" she explains. \"It's a lot of work, but teamwork. There's such fellowship, it's wonderful. And everyone says our food is the best--and it is. It's really good Greek food, the genuine article.\" When she is not cooking for charity, she relaxes by . . . cooking for neighbors. Sometimes just as a pleasant surprise, sometimes after a loved one has passed away. \"Cooking is part of being Greek, I guess, or being a woman. I love it, it's part of me. And, I love eating.\" Kopsidas moved to a a small cul de sac in Northwest in 1945, 10 years after she married, and she's kept tabs on neighbors who have moved in, grown up and moved out since. (I know this because I'm one of them. My parents' house is just down the block.) She refers to neighborhood children as \"her girls\" or \"her boys.\" My brother fondly recalls the times that Kopsidas called out to him as he passed by on his walk home from school. \"She would give me a little china plate with three baklavas on it, and they'd be gone before I got home,\" he remembers. Once I opened our front door and found, for no apparent reason, a foil-wrapped dinner plate with a dozen or so kourabiedes, buttery shortbreadlike treats with almonds, cloves and powdered sugar. There was no note but no need for one. We'd always return the china the next day; whoever did so had another chance of getting another delicious snack. Drop by her modest \"one-man operation\" kitchen a few weeks before the festival begins and a sheet of baklava is sitting on the table, a beautiful, fluffy phyllo quilt. She is serving a lunch of Greek chili over rice, spanakopita, and then the baklava and kourabiedes I've been looking forward to. She didn't learn to cook from her mother, who was from Sparta, Greece. Instead, like many young brides, she taught herself after she got married. \"When I was a little girl, my mother said, 'When you get up in the morning, the first thing you're going to ask yourself is, 'What is my husband going to have for dinner?' \"My husband loved to eat and I wanted to make him happy. He had a Greek cookbook by Nicholas Tselementes, a wonderful book which wasn't easy to get at the time in the U.S.\" She disappears for a moment and returns with the book, covered in worn brown leather; the text and recipes are in Greek. \"I really had to struggle with the syllables,\" Kopsidas recalls. \"Of course, I'd gone to Greek school, but I didn't pay attention!\" As festival time approaches, Kopsidas often spends her mornings at the church, where she will catch up with a group of 15 or 20 women making dolmades--the stuffed grape leaves that are popular at the bazaar. They talk about children and grandchildren while their hands busily fill the grape leaves with a mixture of rice, ground beef, lem"}, {"response": 5, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Sep 20, 2000 (16:15)", "body": "English food! One of my favourite dinner party recipes ..we also call them Tipsy Chops and I put some cider in the stock instead of water .... Devon Chops http://englishculture.about.com/aboutuk/englishculture/library/bldevchop.htm A great autumn recipe from beautiful Devon A warming autumn recipe from the third largest of England's old counties. Cooking Time: 1 hour 20 minutes Oven: 180\ufffdC Serves 4 INGREDIENTS 4 large pork chops 2 medium-sized onions 8 medium-sized potatoes 4 cooking apples 100g Cheddar cheese 20g butter Seasoning COOKING INSTRUCTIONS Chop the onions into thin slices, blanch for 1-2 minutes and drain. Slice the potatoes and arrange a layer in a dish with the onions. Season, add sufficient stock to just cover and place in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Then, using a frying pan, brown the chops quickly in butter and add the potatoes. Quarter the apples and arrange around the chops. Deglaze the frying pan with the remaining stock and pour over chops. Sprinkle cheese over the dish and put a few extra dobs of butter around the dish - especially on the apples. Return to the oven for 30-35 minutes, brown and serve."}, {"response": 6, "author": "Carys", "date": "Sat, Sep 23, 2000 (12:20)", "body": "I'm going to try the pork chops out. They are something that both my house males will and do eat. Maybe I can get my husband to make them. He's the better one at cooking and sometimes he can really get into being creative in the kitchen."}, {"response": 7, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Sat, Sep 23, 2000 (15:28)", "body": "Have you looked at the African food topic in Food conference???"}, {"response": 8, "author": "Carys", "date": "Sat, Oct 14, 2000 (10:11)", "body": "Yes, I might even be brave and try some of them out. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 32, "subject": "languages", "response_count": 3, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Tue, Oct 17, 2000 (14:10)", "body": "http://www.languagebox.com is the *best* language site I've ever seen."}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Apr 30, 2001 (05:21)", "body": "Time to revisit languagebox.com, it really rocks."}, {"response": 3, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Jun  4, 2001 (22:29)", "body": "Oh Terry, Volcanoes Rock!!! But, I will check out the languages place. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 35, "subject": "The Melungeons", "response_count": 45, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec  5, 2000 (14:09)", "body": "Here is a good place to start: http://www.forteantimes.com/artic/106/melung.html Huddled against the Appalachians in the most north-easterly corner of Tennessee lies Hancock County. The term 'off the beaten track' could have been coined for it and the neighbouring Lee and Wise counties across the state line in Virginia. In his travelogue of America, The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson commented that they received so few visitors to the area, that when he drove out of the county seat of Sneedville, he was looked at \"the way you might stare at a man riding an ostrich\". This and other similar pockets high on the Cumberland Plateau, are home to a modern ethnographic mystery, the communities of people called Melungeons, perhaps the first non-indigenous people ever to settle in America."}, {"response": 2, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec  5, 2000 (14:25)", "body": "The fact that the Melungeons are a distinct people might not even have been known today were it not for the physical traits that mark them apart from other ethnic groups in Appalachia. For the Melungeons, this phenotype has been the bane of their existence. Many exhibit the typical features of Europeans, slim-faced, with lanky builds and often fair hair and blue eyes, but with dark, sometimes almost Negroid skin. Marriages outside of the Melungeon community have diluted these characteristics to an extent, but older photographs reveal some who can only be described as black-skinned white people. The theories about the origins of the Melungeons are many and varied. Until recently, the most widely-accepted theory held them to be a \"tri-racial isolate\" of Black, White and Native stocks. Some of the wilder ones suggest that they are one of the lost tribes of Israel; descendants of the Welsh explorer Madoc, who visited the southern Appalachians in the 1100s according to Richard Hakluyt's Voyages (1582) or possibly the remnants of Sir Walter Raleigh's ill-fated Roanoke Colony of 1587."}, {"response": 3, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Sat, Dec  9, 2000 (11:41)", "body": "There was a rather controversial theory in the 1960's, I believe, which suggested that the Melungeons were actually descended from the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were perhaps the finest seafarers of their age, and may possibly have circumnavigated Africa. One version of the theory was that a Phoenician ship crossed the Atlantic and the survivors made it ashore and survived to interbreed with the indigineous people. Another version is that it was a colony ship which made it across the Atlantic."}, {"response": 4, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Dec  9, 2000 (16:44)", "body": "Thanks for reading and posting. This really fascinates me and keeps asking more questions than I can answer. The book by Kessler and Ball on the subject is my christmas present to me. http://www.mupress.org/webpages/books/kessler.html"}, {"response": 5, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Dec 23, 2000 (18:06)", "body": "http://www.backrescue.com/Melungeon.html n amazing new history is emerging of a Mediterranean people, sometimes referred to as Melungeons, who settled American in the 1500's long before the Northern Europeans first arrived. (The Arabic origin of the name Melungeon--\"Melun-Jinn\"--means one who has been abandoned by God--a cursed soul.) No, this tale does not begin with the early New Mexican settlers, but begins with a Southeastern lineage that has spread throughout the United States, and the rare and potentially decimating genetic disease traced to these colorful people. Even more intriguing, this disease parallels some of the symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), fibromyalgia, Alzheimer's, Multiple Sclerosis, and Diabetes. It also includes a group of other symptoms regularly ignored or misdiagnosed by physicians: acute chest pain, pleuritis, appendicitis-like attacks, arthritis--particularly of the feet, ankles, knees and hips, and the symptom for which it is named, a recurring high fever that lasts three to four days and dissipates. The name of this insidious genetic \"misspelling\" is Familial Meditteranean Fever (FMF). If your family story featured an ancestor called \"Black Dutch,\" \"Black Scot,\" or Cherokee, listen up. Ironically, the story of the Melungeon people has been broken not by the US press, but by the BBC correspondent Richard Lister. He was astonished to find the streets of the Appalachian village he visited filled with Melungeon descendants who \"would not look our of place on the Turkish coast with their dark olive skin ad straight black hair.\" Sir Francis Drake brought many of these Portuguese, Armenian, and Ottoman Turks to America after he freed them from the Spanish in 1587. Genetic studies now also indicate Jewish lineage in the Melungeon people as the Portuguese Jews were fleeing persecution. I suspect Drake was relived to deliver this human cargo and avoid whatever strange malady these people suffered. In an era of mysterious plagues, a shipload of people running high fevers would have terrified any captain. Dr. Brent Kennedy, a foremost Melungeon researcher, theorized that the people left by Drake worked their way inland and married into local Indian tribes, a surmise well supported by the recurrence of Turkish and Arabic in the local Indian dialects--the Cherokee word for mother, Ana Ta, is identical in Turkish. Dr. Kennedy also writes about the ancient Hebrew and Roman coins kept for generations as Melungeon family heirlooms. A client of mine from a Melungeon center in Tennessee, explained that many Melungeon were 'accidentally' rounded up with the Cherokee and sent on The Trail of Tears. My Blevins ancestor was a Chief of the Whitetop Cherokee band."}, {"response": 6, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Dec 23, 2000 (18:13)", "body": "http://www.kentuckyconnect.com/heraldleader/news/101997/forgins.html Melungeons claim among their number such American icons as Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and Ava Gardner. Melungeons characteristically have black hair, blue eyes, dark skin and an \"Anatolian bump\" on the back of the head, a characteristic of Turkish people. Among the ethnic groups thought to be Melungeons' forebears are American Indians, Jews, Portuguese, Spanish or Africans."}, {"response": 7, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Dec 23, 2000 (18:14)", "body": "I am merely posting current theories and hoping to bring about awareness of this most interesting group of Americans. Please add what you know or have heard about this. All help or any at all is most welcome."}, {"response": 8, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Dec 23, 2000 (18:21)", "body": "The last above URL contains much information I need to have imput on before I post it. There are apparent racial ovetones which I want to avoid as assiduously as possible."}, {"response": 9, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Tue, Jan  9, 2001 (19:48)", "body": "Wow! I wish I knew more about them than what I posted previously. This is off-topic but a bit related. It concerns the theory that the Olmec of Mexico were of Sub-Saharan African origin. The genesis of this theory is the the rather Black-looking features on depictions of people in Olmec art. Sorry to post that here, but I didn't know where else to post it."}, {"response": 10, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jan  9, 2001 (23:21)", "body": "Good as any. I am gonna post more Melungeon information as relevant information make it to the net. Some is still so new that I am tracking it down and awaiting my book. I know both authors so it makes it even more exciting! Thanks Cheryl. I will be on the hunt agan tomorrow! Today was the British Lunar Eclipse"}, {"response": 11, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Jan 10, 2001 (17:17)", "body": "Cheryl, I posed your question on Yahoo anthropology club and received this response: Well the Negroid features of the gaint Olmec skulls of La Venta and other sites aren't new, but there are many other comparisions. The Wings of Maat, the Headdress of Olmec priest with the stern of Ra's Solar Ship for instance. The best book to read on this issue is They Came Before Columbus."}, {"response": 12, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Thu, Jan 11, 2001 (18:31)", "body": "Thanks for asking around on the subject, Marcia. Other possibilities I've come across are that: a) The Olmec royal line was very inbred and exhibited quite specific physical features; or b) The Olmecs revered the jaquar in their relegious practices; hence, their depictions of their gods show a melding of human and feline features. I do know that there is a depiction in Olmec art of a were-jaquar, if you will. I series of small scupltures showing a man changing into a jaquar. Another bit of trivia before I leave ancient Mexico. I think I mentioned to you that my father was quite interested in the great Precolumbian civilizations of Mesoamerica. This bit of trivia concerns the Aztec, the people who gave their name to the country of Mexico. Before they were Aztec, they were Mexica, and believed themselves to be a chosen people who had wandered in the wilderness for ten generations. Now I return to the United States, and await further information appearing here on the Melungeons."}, {"response": 13, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Jan 12, 2001 (00:29)", "body": "A brief aside - you know the name avocado is Aztec for...! About right I'd say even in cross-section! Oh dear, and I consume them with great relish... You mean the Olmec heads were not early plastic surgeon advertisements for silicone injections of the lips ala Ivana Trump?!"}, {"response": 14, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Tue, Jan 16, 2001 (19:13)", "body": "Keep enjoying those avacadoes, Marcia. Those Atzec, what can you say. The Olmec were early plastic surgeons. Hmmm. There might be a theory there. Are there Melungeon words which have been assimilated into everyday English usage?"}, {"response": 15, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jan 16, 2001 (21:21)", "body": "That is another good question, are there words or even a creole used amonst the Melungeons - and I need to get back to hunting that down. There is much to learn - even for those whose blood is Melungeon!"}, {"response": 16, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Jan 22, 2001 (04:29)", "body": "This article deals with the area in which Melungeon culture mixed with the other American cultures. With the kind permission of the senior author, I post it here with thanks to JSK: A SUBSTITUTE HAY WAGON IN SOUTHERN OHIO: NOTES ON RURAL MATERIAL CULTURE John S. Kessler and Donald B. Ball ___________________________________________________________________________________________ A simple implement resembling a mono-runner sled used for the transportation of hay from the field in the days before baling became a locally common practice is described as observed in a restricted section of rural Ohio in 1945. This device appears to be previously unreported in the European and regional material culture literature; no antecedent implement is presently known. The simplicity and temporary nature of such items of material culture demonstrate the problems in inherent in interpreting disarticulated yet previously recycled historic artifacts. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Editor\ufffds Note: The description of the subject farm implement for the first time in print affords the opportunity to simultaneously document this humble and little known item of material culture and contemplate its interface with regional historic archaeological investigations. As may be noted from the following discussion, the few items of likely recycled stable hardware needed to construct this implement serve to clearly demonstrate the problems - if not impossibility - of confidently interpreting certain categories of disarticulated historic artifacts. A major portion of the senior author's childhood was spent in Brushcreek Township in rural Highland County, (south-central) Ohio. This location at the edge of the Appalachian escarpment was in many respects atavistic, retaining the southern-weighted flavor, customs, and methods of the 19th and perhaps 18th centuries. One possible holdover from earlier times was a method for transporting hay from the field in which it was cut to the haystack. In general, the prevailing method for hay harvest (prior to the local rise in popularity of baling in the 1950s) was cutting with a horse drawn or tractor mounted sickle bar mower, raking into windrows, and loading into a wagon to which hay racks had been attached for transport to the stack site This process was labor and equipment intensive. A typical crew consisted of two wagons with drivers (each wagon pulled by either a team of horses or a tractor), at least three loaders, and one stack builder. This broke down into six people, two wagons, and four horses or two tractors. If the hay was being stored in a hay mow (barn loft), about the same size crew would have been required for reasonable efficiency. During the season of 1945 while World War II was still in progress, there was a shortage of either manpower, equipment, or both in the hay crew with which the senior author (then 12 years of age) was associated. Consequently, a different method of transporting the hay to the stack site was adopted. After being cut and allowed to partially cure, the hay was raked and piled into \"doodles\". A hay doodle was in fact a small stack about four ft (1.2 m) in height and about the same in diameter. Thus, a hayfield would be filled with these small stacks or, colloquially, doodles which needed to be transported to the hay stack. TRANSPORTING HAY The actual transportation was assigned to the senior author and another boy somewhat older in age. This was accomplished by providing each of us with a horse to which a rather unusual contrivance was attached via a single tree. As recalled over half a century later, this device (Figure 1) consisted of a pole made from a freshly cut hickory sapling about three to four in. (7.6-10 cm) in diameter at the base and about eight ft (2.4 m) in length. A ring was attached by #9 wire to the basal end while the other end had been sharpened to a point with an ax. One end of a rope about twice the length of the sapling was tied to the single tree while the other was passed through the ring attached to the basal end of the pole. Another ring equal to or greater in size than the basal ring was then attached to the free (\"bitter\") end of the rope. Thus, when the pole was pulled behind the horse, the ring attached to the rope would prevent that rope from being pulled completely through the basal ring. After these contrivances were attached, the horses were ridden into the hayfield and halted at a hay doodle. Here a hay hand would shove the sharpened end of the pole under the doodle, put the rope over the doodle, and place the ring tied to the bitter end over the sharpened end of the sapling. The doodle was then in a loop formed by the rope over its top and the sapling beneath it. When the horse walked forward, the loop tightened as the bitter end ring was pulled up the length of the pole and the rope was pulled through the basal ring. In this fashion, the doodle was secured and pulled to th"}, {"response": 17, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Mon, Jan 22, 2001 (19:24)", "body": "Wonderful article, Marcia. Many thanks to John S. Kessler and Donald B. Ball for letting you post it."}, {"response": 18, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Apr 10, 2001 (19:34)", "body": "Ah Don Ball has sent me more Melungeon information and finally one contains the meaning of the word Current popular theory suggests that the Melungeons were descendants of abandoned Portuguese and Spanish settlers. The English word Melungeon has both Arabic and Turkish roots, meaning \"cursed soul.\" Also in Portuguese, \"Melungo\" means shipmate. In the Turkish language Melungeons are called Melun-can, \"Melun\" being a borrowed word from Arabic meaning one that carries bad luck and ill omen. And \"can,\" which is Turkish, means soul. Meluncan then means a person whose soul is a born loser (Melungeons' Home Page). This term was in common usage among sixteenth-century Ottoman Turks, Arabs, and Muslim converts to Christianity in Spain and Portugal, and is still understood by modern Turks as a self-deprecating term by a Muslim who feels abandoned by God. Traditionally, Melungeons have been darker skinned people and, as a result, have frequently been discriminated against by their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. Many Melungeons have hidden their heritage, and until recently, history has not revealed where they came from or even how long they have lived on the American Continent. During the struggles for land, when the white settlers arrived to the territory of the copper-skinned Melungeons, the whites declared that they were \"free persons of color.\" In many cases this legal designation stripped the Melungeons of their many rights, including the right to vote, to own their own land, educate or send their children to schools, to defend themselves in courts of law, and also to intermarry with anyone who was not also Melungeon. Kennedy, a Melungeon researcher, says that \"Melungeons had always been precluded to get all those rights until 1942.\" This designation led to the taking of Melungeon land by the new white settlers. More... http://www.multiracial.com/readers/cakir.html"}, {"response": 19, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Apr 10, 2001 (19:37)", "body": "Cheryl, I will pass on your thanks. They are both very special men to me and I treasure their friendship and sharing what they know with me. I am still awaiting the delivery of their book. I can scarcely wait! Thanks for being interested - it makes digging for information so much better!"}, {"response": 20, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Fri, Apr 13, 2001 (15:18)", "body": "I'm very interested, you might even say that I'm agog. I've never really used the work \"agog\" in a sentence before."}, {"response": 21, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Apr 26, 2001 (10:16)", "body": "I am, too. Fascinated and amazed. I cannot wait for my book to arrive. Rather, John S. Kessler and Donald B. Ball's book. I will share with you what was not included in the above information. They want me to have the book too. It is like waiting for the birth of a child for months after it has gone to the printers. I bug the UPS and USPS and FedEx guys about reading MY book first."}, {"response": 22, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Apr 26, 2001 (10:33)", "body": "I would truly love to have someone with Melungeon heritage join us. So much to learn and appreciate and admire about the entire subject. At this time I have questions which lead to more questions and very few answers."}, {"response": 23, "author": "marci", "date": "Fri, Apr 27, 2001 (05:12)", "body": "Cheryl, as usual, you keep me thinking, and for that I am eternally grateful. Your interest in this makes it so much more worth the efforts of hunting up information. Otherwise, it is much like orationg in an empty room hopeing some lurker overhears me and comes in to post. I am grateful and a whole lot more than that."}, {"response": 24, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Sun, May 13, 2001 (16:09)", "body": "I'm a fan. So please keep hunting. Has your book arrived yet?"}, {"response": 25, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, May 19, 2001 (15:18)", "body": "In bleary-eyed state yesterday afternon I opened a thick mailer from Mercer University Press containing my cope of North from the Mountains by John S. Kessler and Donald B. Ball. On Euphoria alone, I managed to email both of the authors that the long-awaited book was now in my hot little joyous hands. At least one of them was amazed since neither author had yet received notice that the book was out. Perhaps my persistence got to them. I asked regularly when I could expect to see my copy. They kept moving the date until a few days ago I heard June 1. Now, I must write the patient lady who handled my letters to thank her. More about the contents as soon as I inhale it. http://www.mupress.org/webpages/books/kessler.html"}, {"response": 26, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, May 19, 2001 (15:20)", "body": "The book is subtitled: A Folk History of the Carmel Melungeon Settlement, Highland County, Ohio"}, {"response": 27, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, May 22, 2001 (20:05)", "body": ""}, {"response": 28, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, May 22, 2001 (20:09)", "body": "Now that the book is out and mine is being consumed mentally, take a look at what I am reading about http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Inn/1024/carmel1/Carmel1.htm Be sure to go on the second page (part 2) http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Inn/1024/carmel2/Carmel2.htm since it has map and charts and names. The authors have finally gotten their copies - much to their delight!"}, {"response": 29, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, May 22, 2001 (20:14)", "body": "Actually that is the technical stuff for scholars and such. The personal life and time in the first person (John Kessler) is in the book of which I will tell you in a bit. I am busy making it part of me at the moment. This is great stuff. I wish I could have been there..."}, {"response": 30, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Wed, May 23, 2001 (19:41)", "body": "I'm waiting with baited breath to learn more about John Kessler."}, {"response": 31, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, May 31, 2001 (17:00)", "body": "i have found this topic most fascinating that i skipped down so i could talk! *laugh* reading it made me wonder....my dad said to me that if i do a lineage chart or such on are family, not to be shocked to find african americans with our name and in our bloodline. so now that makes me wonder, never hearing about this group, if that is what he meant (he is from PA)."}, {"response": 32, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, May 31, 2001 (17:01)", "body": "oh, and though this may not belong here but...creole was mentioned above and i always understood it to be a mixture of french and haitian. is it a bi-ethnical race or tri?"}, {"response": 33, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Jun  4, 2001 (17:48)", "body": "Wolfie, I personally find hybrid vigor a good thing and anyone adding to my gene pool no matter who they are or where they came from is a plus for me. I asked Don Ball (the archaeologist on the above book) about how far back we would have to go to find we all have the same racial mixtures no matter how \"pure\" one hopes theirs is. He opined that it was probably not all that far. Another archaeologist/ethnologist who communes with me privately suggested to get the DNA testing done and eliminate the guesswork and conjecture (and endless chatter.) Kessler has suggested that it will not be done any time soon because being part Indian is wonderful. Being part black in the South (if you think of your family as \"WHITE\") is not all that welcome information. Wolfie, to answer your question, Mix blood is what the duality of the creole, mestizo, mulatto cultures are. There are some \"tri-racial\" mixed-blooded folks who are trying for tribal status on the basis of their having AmerIndian mixed in with the other two. One such group, the Lumbees, have succeeded in their quest for a slice of the American Tax Dollar. If we all take from the pot and no one puts it back in, we are indeed doomed to third world status and NO one will remember how to earn a living wage as their forefathers did. Cheryl I will email you - John Kessler is a most amazing man who has lived an interesting life. The same could be said about Don Ball. Both are most special as is this book. It is the first truly scholarly attempt to consolidate what is known from what is Politically Correct or hoped for, and it is throughtly researched and documented throughout."}, {"response": 34, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Jul  8, 2001 (19:50)", "body": "From an archaeologist and ethnologist of whom I have the greatest esteem I have this comment: **They have done 100 DNA studies on Melungeons--mix Of East Indian, Mediterranean, Blacks,and Amerinds**"}, {"response": 35, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Jul  8, 2001 (22:36)", "body": "I wish he had a citable source. Now if only he would answer my email..."}, {"response": 36, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Jul  9, 2001 (06:53)", "body": "Found this for you Marcia ... Melungeon DNA Study to be Completed in Summer, 2001 http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/inn/1024/DNAannouce.html An Announcement from Dr. N. Brent Kennedy Author, The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People March 27, 2001 For decades, critics have pointed to the lack of DNA evidence to support the centuries old Melungeon claim to possess at least partial Mediterranean/Middle Eastern/East Indian heritage. While respected gene frequency studies (e.g., Dr.James Guthrie\ufffds 1990 study published in Tennessee Anthropologist) have supported the Mediterranean hypothesis, skeptics have generally dismissed such studies as \ufffdinconclusive.\ufffd All this is about to change. In the summer of 2001, a comprehensive genetics study on the origins of the Melungeons should be concluded. Dr. Kevin Jones, a molecular biologist and professor at the University of Virginia at Wise, is coordinating the study with several other genetics labs and local area physicians. For the past year, we have been systematically collecting Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA samples (maternal and paternal lines, respectively) in an effort to determine the general origins of the Melungeons. For the maternal lines we are utilizing hair samples and for the paternal lines, buccal cheek cells. In each case, the resultant DNA sequences will represent the DNA passed from mother to daughter to daughter or father to son to son. In other words, the DNA sequences obtained in this study should provide strong evidence of the original geographic (and thus, ethnic) origins of each of the lines being tested. Approximately 150 samples have been collected, and represent nearly all of the earliest known Melungeon lines, including, among others, Vardy Collins, Buck Gibson, and Mahala Mullins. Other well established Melungeon lines represented in the study include Goins, Mullins, Moore, Hall, Bennett, Bell, Osborne, Sexton, and Bowling/Bolling. One focus of the study will be an attempt to differentiate between the Melungeons of Southwest Virginia and those of east Tennessee (for example, are the Melungeon Collinses of Stone Mountain in Wise County, Virginia closely related to the Melungeon Collinses of Hancock County, Tennessee, and so forth). The report will present data and draw conclusions based on the broader population sampling, but just as importantly on the subgroups within this sampling (e.g., the approximately 25 Hancock County samples, the approximately 30 Wise County samples, and the approximately 15 Lee County samples). A second focus will be to conduct this study in such a way that it can be verified and reproduced by subsequent researchers. While those individuals who have participated in the study may certainly identify themselves, their names will not be released in the study report itself. It is worth reiterating that this is a serious scientific investigation, where stringent regulations concerning anonymity and access to DNA data have, and will continue to be, adhered to. Still, nearly all those involved have volunteered to participate in future projects for validation purposes or more specialized studies. I do plan on releasing my own DNA data, at least in terms of likely origins, for the various maternal and paternal lines. I will leave it to others in the study to make their own decisions. While exceedingly important, this study will not be the end-all for Melungeon genetic research. There are several dozen Melungeon related populations in the Southeastern United States and Ohio River Valley that could provide equally important data. But this study should provide benchmark information in our understanding of the likeliest origins of Appalachia\ufffds Melungeon people. Spin-off benefits to medical research and healthcare should also materialize over time and should prove to be of immense value, especially in improved diagnosis of genetically related diseases. I hope all those who are sincerely interested in better understanding our heritage will join with me in both welcoming this study and supporting its eventual findings, regardless of the nature of those findings. There is no room for racism in what many refer to as the \ufffdMelungeon Movement.\ufffd Remove any single ancestor from any of our lines, and you and I are not here. I embrace each and every one of my forebears and anticipate with great joy the opportunity of better knowing them through the miracle of DNA analysis. White, Black, Red, or Yellow, they are part of me and I am eager for this chance to reach backward in time to make their acquaintance. Finally, whatever the results of the study, the real work of historians has only begun. Once we know with some certainty the likely genetic origins of the Melungeons, the truly exciting research into just how - and from where - some of these early settlers came can begin in earnest. As an example, if we discover that Romany Gypsy, East Indian, Semitic, or East African genes are represented in the early Melungeon population, "}, {"response": 37, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Mon, Jul  9, 2001 (20:07)", "body": "This is getting exciting, sort of like a mystery story. I'm sorry that's a bad analogy, but it seems like the solving of a puzzle."}, {"response": 38, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jul 10, 2001 (21:34)", "body": "Thank you, Maggie! Fascinating stuff. By the way, this website also contains the work of Kessler and Ball who gave their introduction to their book, North From The Mountains , as a paper at Wise, the home of Dr Kennedy and the research cited above. I have not heard from the esteemed archaeologist, but that does not surprise me. I suspect he has better things to do..."}, {"response": 39, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jul 10, 2001 (21:36)", "body": "Cheryl, it IS a mystery story and that is what fascinated me about it in the first place. I have an invitation to visit the authors and tour the places in the book, North From The Mountains . It would be fascinating to see it and I could take photos and post them... and... and... actually MEET some of these people!"}, {"response": 40, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Jul 12, 2001 (22:33)", "body": "this is sooooo coool!"}, {"response": 41, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (20:36)", "body": "More mix-blood isolates in the US? They're searching for a Black Seminole village in Florida: http://www.naplesnews.com/01/09/florida/d648785a.htm http://braden.infi.net/content/bradenton/2001/09/09/local/0909seminole_1cw.htm"}, {"response": 42, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jun 25, 2002 (15:06)", "body": "Time to revitalize this topic. I have just returned from the \"Fourth Union of the Melungeon Heritage Association\", heard lots of fascinating papers delivered by all sorts of knowledgable sorts including my host, and am wearing the t-shirt to prove it. Papers from the unions (conferences) should be made available on the net but for this volunteer organization, time is limited and wishes are great. I have had dinner with John Kessler and Donald Ball, the co-authors of a book on the Melugeons of Ohio which is both readable and scholarly. I do not often get this honor given to me, but they were fantastic, interesting and full of stuff to load on this naive lady from Hawaii. I took it all in just like I was expected to do - wide eyes and all. I'll post information on This union just past as soon as I can figure out how to get more than one window on AOL's sad browser. *;)"}, {"response": 43, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jun 25, 2002 (15:13)", "body": "http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/inn/1024/welcome.htm The above is the home of the Melungeon Heritage Association. http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Inn/1024/carmel1/Carmel1.htm This one is the url to find the paper much like the one presented by my host and a bit about their book as I have sited in earlier posts. I can hardly believe I have been to somewhere I have lived in my mind but never expected to see. Better still, I have met the men who brought them to life for me!"}, {"response": 44, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jun 25, 2002 (15:19)", "body": "DNA Study Update September 26, 2001 UVaWise professor Dr. Kevin Jones has announced that the anticipated Melungeon DNA study will take about six weeks longer than originally planned. Dr. Jones continues to sequence both Mitochondrial and Y-Chromosome samples, but the most recent samples were not available for sequencing until mid-September. Likewise, additional British genetics data banks will also soon be made available, thus permitting an even more accurate study report. Jones indicated that the gathering of more relevant samples and having a more extensive world data bank for comparisons makes the wait worthwhile. \"It is imperative that we present the most accurate and reliable study report possible,\" said Jones. \"Our professionalism and accuracy continue to be more important than speed of delivery. I believe this is what the Melungeon descendants both want and deserve and it's what I, as a professional, demand of myself. Nevertheless, I do anticipate results by the end of October.\" Dr. Brent Kennedy added, \"Like everyone else, I'm also eager to know more, and to know it sooner than later. But I respect Dr. Jones' approach to the subject and I know that in the end we'll all be better served by this more deliberate and impartial procedure. The worst thing Dr. Jones could do would be to release the results in a piecemeal fashion. We've waited several centuries, so I think a few additional months won't be a problem.\" much more... http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/inn/1024/DNAannouce.html"}, {"response": 45, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Jun 25, 2002 (15:20)", "body": "Unfortunately, we had to miss the first day of papers which dealt with the DNA studies up to this date. I am hoping abstracts of these papers will be available in the future. I do want to know more. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 36, "subject": "oral culture", "response_count": 1, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Jul  2, 2001 (02:38)", "body": "In my own (British English) oral tradition, nursery rhymes have played a large part. The rhymes which most English people recognise as part of their culture have been around a long time. Many of them date back to the 1600s and some are even older. Most of these rhymes were not actually meant for children at all, apart from the counting and alphabet ones. They are thought to be pieces of ballads, proverbs, street chants or tavern songs. Some relate to cusoms or rituals. A few, like Old King Cole, actually realte to real people or historical events. The name 'nursery rhymes' originated in 1824 in a Scottish magazine called 'Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine'. There is said to be 8 categories of rhymes: lullabies;(Rock-a-bye baby ) singing games (London Bridge is falling down) nonsense (Hey Diddle Diddle) riddles (Humpty Dumpty) counting (One, Two, Buckle My Shoe) tongue twisters (Peter Piper), verse stories (Queen of Hearts) and cumulative (House That Jack Built). Source for this information comes from \"World Book Encyclopedia\" (vol. 13. pages 620-621). cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 37, "subject": "Internet culture", "response_count": 4, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "WERoland", "date": "Sat, Oct  8, 2005 (08:41)", "body": "So, what all have you thought about? I agree that the culture thing is true, at least because each online community I've \"lived\" in has had its own sets of both rules and rituals."}, {"response": 2, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sat, Oct  8, 2005 (22:28)", "body": "you know, i have to agree.....for example, here, in the spring culture, i feel free and welcomed....another site i go to is really a fan site but i don't feel so free to be myself. (the only reason i don't post my \"real\" name out in public here is for obvious reasons--so y'all can't find me *grin*)....i came to this site about the same time after it was created as i went to the other site. i don't post there that often because i don't feel welcome, y'know? like another fan, another threat or something. won't name the site because that's just not fair. not bashing it either, it is very helpful, there are a lot of friendly people there and it's nothing like other 'fan sites' i've ever been too. at least this one compelled me to join just because it's so informative. the folks seem to genuinely care about each other but it just doesn't seem as warm as the spring. that won't stop me from going there to add my 2-cents and stare at pics of this artist though, that's fer sure! i love it here at the spring."}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct  9, 2005 (13:33)", "body": "What are some examples of these online communities, wer 'o land?"}, {"response": 4, "author": "WERoland", "date": "Sun, Oct  9, 2005 (13:42)", "body": "Let's see, I've been involved in one that produced a gaming environment, four diffrent online role-playing games, the public and private communities for the ODP, and here. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 38, "subject": "Ways of behaving!", "response_count": 1, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, Aug 31, 2001 (15:46)", "body": "Ever been to Finland??? Here's a site that give a guide on how to behave whilst there. http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/guide.html cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 39, "subject": "Chautauqua", "response_count": 12, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep  3, 2001 (08:54)", "body": "From the Encyclopedia Brittanica: Chautauquas started after the Civil War as an assembly for the training of Sunday school teachers (at Chautauqua Lake, New York). The program was soon broadened to include general education and popular entertainment; in later years a home reading and corresponsdence study program was added; by 1900 there was a school of theology, a correspondence school, and a publishing house. Many \"chautauquas\" patterned after the original were founded; by 1900 there were up to 400 of them. The system peaked in 1924 . . . Well, that's a start."}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep  3, 2001 (09:40)", "body": "This is the best piece I've ever read on the net about Chautauqua, I just found it on a google search: http://www.todaysseniors.com/memories/chautauqua2.shtml I found this clipping today on the web. The one nearest St. Louis, however-Piasa Chautauqua- has neither disappeared nor moved from its birthplace on what is now know as the Great River Road on the Mississippi between Alton and Grafton, IL, although it is no longer a center of public events. Still a picturesque, isolate retreat, crisscrossed by winding roads, it is a gated, private colony of more than 100 cottages or more substantial homes, many occupied by descendants of earlier owners. Founded in 1885 by Methodist leaders, as was the first Chautauqua in New York, Piasa Chautauqua for decades, even into the 1850s attracted thousands of St. Louisans and residents of Illinois. Arriving first by packet boat, later by automobile or the trains that ran by as often as six times a day, they were entertained, educated and inspired by such luminaries as William Jennings Bryan, evangelists Sam Jones, Billy Sunday and Gypsy Smith, the Swiss Bell Ringers, Sousas band and \"Sunny Jim,\" reputed to be one of the Theodore Roosevelts Rough Riders. This is how an exuberant copywriter in the 1912 brochure described it: Piasa Chautauqua is located less than 40 miles from St. Louis in a beautiful valley between high, massive bluffs with the great Mississippi serving as a guard in front and almost unexplored forest at back, one of natures most picturesque spots, unknown to thousands but dear to those who have enjoyed its beauties and regained health from its wonderful springs and its clear, pure air, delightful cool nights, beautiful scenery and outdoor amusements, boating, swimming, fishing, bathing, lawn tennis, croquet, baseball etc. Many older St. Louisans and Illinois residents still remember those beauties and pure air and the outdoor amusements. Their children and grandchildren remember the fun they had there at mid-century. A 1954 clipping, save by Sylvia Twigger who was a director of childrens activities, reported a \"clever and successful Childrens Day pageant entitled \"Around the World.\" Frank Weyforth of Clayton portrayed Uncle Sam; Mary Ruth Kurt, Mrs. Twiggers sister, (now Mrs. Wesley Kempfer) was an assistant as were Barbara Jacoby, Barbara Rogers and Pat Schermann. Mary Meisel portrayed Miss United Nations. Another clipping stated, \"if there were still a pied piper roaming our modern day world, most likely he would lead throngs of children down the Piasa bluffs into the little resort which rests in the valley off Alton Lake. The resort, Chautauqua, has often been proclaimed as \"a childrens paradise.\" ...To make it safe, automobile drivers must observe a 10-mile speed limit and dogs can roam the grounds only when leashed or muzzled.\" Referring to a play school for children up to age 12, the clipping reported that the schools director, Mrs. Twigger, \"became very popular with the resorts children when she served as lifeguard at the pool in the 1952 season...Mrs. Twigger, of St.Louis, resides with her family at the Glad-U- Could-Make-It cottage.\" Her mother, the late Mrs. Arthur Kurt, for some time managed the hotel on the property. When Piasa Chautauqua celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1960, Post- Dispatch writer Clarissa Start Wrote: \"It is impossible to mention all names of all the families who have had a part in Chautauqua. A dozen or more have owned cottages there more than 50 years.\" Opera singer Anna Mary Dickey used to summer at Chautauqua, Start wrote, as did musician Gus Haenschen and Clark Clifford, Washington D.C. lawyer. The Chautauqua old-timers, she continued, \"recall the days when street lights were tallow lamps, when the refrigeration system consisted of each family having a wooden box in the spring, fastened to the bank by ropes, so that when it rained, men ran frantically to save their boxes from being swept away. The Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis railroad and the improvised \"dinky\" on the Bluff line from Lockhaven, now in the Museum of Transport. The river boats, the City of Providence, Eagle, J.S. and Corwin Spencer which made regular excursions there.\" I participated in many of these Children's Day pageants and parades. I remember the Jacoby's, Barbara Rogers and Pat Schermann. And who could forget Mary Meisel? She was quite the beauty. The \"exuberant copyrighter\" wasn't exagerating, it truly was as magnificent as that description. Truly a child's dream come true. I have been asked what inspired the Spring, and I would have to say it was Chautauqua, Illinois."}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 22, 2001 (05:44)", "body": "Heartland Chautauqua 2000-East Tour left to right: James Longstreet, Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Van Lew, Harriet Tubman, and Mathew Brady The ghost of Chautauqua, that lively 19th century icon of religion, culture, education and entertainment, is returning this summer to its old haunts in Missouri and Illinois. Appropriately, the characters to appear on its stage are also distinguished ghosts from another era. Costumed scholar-actors representing 10 men and women who influenced popular thought and changed the course of America in Civil War times are appearing throughout Missouri and Illinois in the fifth Heartland Chautauqua sponsored by the Missouri and Illinois Humanities Councils. It\ufffds a giant step back in time, a modernized version of a century-old idea, brought up-to-date for a technological age. In 1874, the first Chautauqua was established in upstate New York by Methodist ministers and laymen as a religious training school, later evolving into a center of culture and entertainment. Soon other Chautauquas were springing up throughout the country. Residents and visitors welcomed the most distinguished orators, debaters and preachers and the most popular entertainers into even rural communities, including St. Louis\ufffd nearby mecca, a woodland site on the Illinois bluffs near Alton by the Mississippi and what is now known as the Great River Road. In their heyday, these festivals played to an estimated 40 million Americans in some 10,000 cities. But after World War I, Chautauqua began to lose its original focus and by the 1930s, the traveling tent shows ended. Now, thanks to Humanities Councils across the country, the concept has been revived, with programs reminiscent of those of a century ago, although centered around a single theme rather than offering a wide variety of attractions. The Great Plains Chautauquas began the revival in the 1980s and others have followed. In 1993, the Missouri Humanities Council launched Missouri Chautauqua with historic characters representing various religious traditions significant to the history of the state and of the nation, and established it as a permanent program. In 1995, the Illinois Humanities Council joined Missouri in creating Heartland Chautauqua as \"a serious intellectual enterprise.\" This season\ufffds theme is \"Inside the Civil War.\" To tell the stories of that historic conflict, the performers\ufffdlike the traveling troupes of a century ago\ufffdwill visit eight communities in the two-state area. One troupe of five will appear June 26-July 1 in Haskell Park in Alton, just a few miles from 115-year-old Piasa Chautauqua Assembly, now a gated residential community in the Illinois woodland on the Great River Road. The revived Chautauqua is hosted by the Alton Marketplace Association. Evening performances begin with local musical entertainment at 7 and continue with the Heartland Chautauqua performance from 7:45 to 9 p.m. All is free and open to the public. Dinner will also be available from 6 to 6:45 p.m. for a fee of $6. Civil War personalities to be represented in the Alton programs and their portrayers are Confederate Gen. James Longstreet (Danney Goble); Mathew Brady, Civil War photographer (Dave Dickerson); Harriet Tubman, acclaimed for her daring and heroic rescue of more than 300 slaves and preeminent conductor of the Under-ground Railroad (Shene King); Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women and an army nurse during the war (Gayle Stahlhuth); Elizabeth Van Lew, one of the most effective undercover operators for the Union (Annette Baldwin Kolasinski). Since the Missouri Humanities Council began the project eight years ago, many Missouri communities and sites\ufffdincluding Tower Grove Park in St. Louis\ufffdhave welcomed the new Chautauquas, and a number of Illinois sites have been selected since their state joined Missouri five years ago, A few have been repeaters. Sites are chosen by the Humanities Councils on the basis of applications to host the event, the enthusiasm of community boards and agencies, the number of volunteers and the facilities communities can offer to handle large crowds of visitors. Unfortunately, while the original Chautauquas would seem to be appropriate locales and would help keep alive the legend and lore of the 19th century project, hundreds have disappeared, swallowed up by suburbia or deserted by new generations. Even those which have survived in the new technological age are not likely to have the personnel or the space such an enterprise requires. Still, the planners have kept one tradition alive. Residents of Alton and of the seven other program locales will raise a circus tent, just as did volunteers nearly a century ago. Under the tent, with a different star appearing each evening, the troupe will lead audiences in an exploration of what life was like inside the Civil War, and will provide a new look at that period in American history through the stories of 10 men and women who experienced the war from vastly different standpoints. The acto"}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 22, 2001 (05:44)", "body": "http://www.spring.net/chautauqua"}, {"response": 5, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Mar  8, 2005 (10:27)", "body": ""}, {"response": 6, "author": "yellowrose", "date": "Sun, Oct 14, 2007 (00:35)", "body": "I also spent summers at Chatauqua...my mother was Carole Rogers, Barbara Rogers's sister and best friends with Mary Meisel...these pictures are great, but wish I could find some from the 60's and 70's...."}, {"response": 7, "author": "cfadm", "date": "Sat, Dec  1, 2007 (20:25)", "body": "Wow, that's great. I remember Carole Rogers, she was really active and vibrant. And how could I forget Mary Meisel? These were two standout members of the Chautauqua community. If you did those pictures up, I'd love to post them to the site. How did you find the Spring, yellowrose?"}, {"response": 8, "author": "Mack", "date": "Sun, Nov 30, 2008 (01:19)", "body": "How could anyone forget Mary Meisel? Cousins Amanda & Jack Rodgers had the cottage The Lodge which was just below the Meisel's cottage. My mother, sister and I helped run Kentucy Home with Uncle Aaron and Aunt Katherine Burnett a couple of seasons and then ran the Springs Hotel for a season in the early 1960s. My mother, Beatrice (Didkman) Swarm, now 90, lives with us, grew up there in the 1920s & 1930s. She gave swimming lessons, ran the children's playground, gave riding lessons at the stables by the gate and gave dancing lessons at the pavillion. So many happy memories there. Mother and I were there for a week in 2004 at the time of the rededication of the sundial at the flag pole in front of the Auditorium, which is a memorial to her first cousin Billy Clarkson who was a U.S. Marine killed in WW II."}, {"response": 9, "author": "Mack", "date": "Sun, Nov 30, 2008 (01:22)", "body": "I'll go ahead and post the following which I composed as an email that bounced: I'm so happy to have found your posts on Chautauqua. My great-grandmother first had a lot there at the turn of the last century. My grandmother (Sarah Badley Dickman) and her sister (Louise MacArthur Clarkson) both had cottages there. Lousar Lodge was at the back corner of the Auditorium toward the river and Erstwhile which was by the creek near the gate. My grandparents were married there by the river in 1916. (Sarah Badley MacArthur and the Reverend Wm. Hy. Dickman) My mother (Beatrice (Dickman) Swarm grew up there between 1918 and 1940 - she gave swimming lessons, ran the children's playground and gave riding lessons at the stables by the gate in the 1930s. She with her two children helped run Kentucky Home a season or two with Uncle Aaron and Aunt Katherine Burnett and ran the Springs Hotel one season in the early 1960s. The sundial at the flag pole in front of the Auditorium is a memorial to Mother's first cousin Billy (Wm. H.,Jr.)Clarkson who was a U.S. Marine killed in WW II."}, {"response": 10, "author": "cfadm", "date": "Thu, Mar  5, 2009 (20:37)", "body": "I know the sundial and Kentucky Home well. And who could forget Mary Meisel, absolutely first rate human being. Thanks for all those wonderful facts."}, {"response": 11, "author": "McBrien", "date": "Fri, Oct 14, 2011 (10:21)", "body": "My dad (Dr. Fred McBrien) always told about spending the summers at Chautauqua along with his brothers Bill, John and Jim. Their dad was Dr. William McBrien M.D. They lived in Staunton, IL just about 20 miles away. I understand their cottage was named \"Done Workin\". I wonder if it still exists and whether anyone recalls my dad and his family. My name is Cynthia McBrien Rothrock. I live in Arcola, IL. I would to learn more about my family. My e-mail address is aceliberty@hotmail.com"}, {"response": 12, "author": "cfadm", "date": "Thu, Nov 10, 2011 (13:47)", "body": "I reemmber Done Workin' ! cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 4, "subject": "saving the world", "response_count": 44, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "marcury", "date": "Thu, Aug 29, 1996 (22:58)", "body": "Beats me. Snorg"}, {"response": 2, "author": "william", "date": "Thu, Sep  5, 1996 (00:52)", "body": "No one's interested in saving the world? Does that mean no one's aware of what's going on? Surely there must be someone out there who has a clue?"}, {"response": 3, "author": "william", "date": "Sun, Sep  8, 1996 (23:55)", "body": "How do we save the Headwater redwood grove for starters? (Does anybody know of any recent developments with that?) And, for the larger picture, how can we stop the ongoing devastation of the earth by clearcutting? A recent visit to the Northwest coastal forests revealed a situation beyond the worst imaginings. Defenders of the natural ecology have been chaining themselves to big trees, even spiking them to kick back chainsaws in loggers' faces. What's the answer?"}, {"response": 4, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Sep 14, 1996 (14:48)", "body": "The biggest solution to deforestation is the production of industrial grade hemp. What one also needs to remember about the US forest service is that it is part of the department of agriculture, so that needs to be fixed also. Demographical balance? You mean like One World Race, One World Government, One World Religion? I have to disagree. That would do the same to people and ideas that commercial farming has done to plant differentiation. Gotta run for now, peace, love, and sunshine."}, {"response": 5, "author": "william", "date": "Sun, Sep 15, 1996 (23:04)", "body": "Demographical balance means stabilizing the population of the world so that it doesn't consume and destroy the natural environment which gave birth to it -- and which still sustains it. Balancing the birth/death ratio (otherwise known as ZPG) would at least give the planet a fighting chance. Rather than encouraging world homogeneity, it would encourage cultural diversity and the preservation of native cultures, by lessening the rate of their absorption into a multinational economy of endlessly explosive growth. Industrial-grade hemp to take the load off the forests is a good idea, but one not likely to be realized for years to come, as the silly debate about legalizing cannabis goes on and on. The last of the virgin forests, meanwhile, are falling."}, {"response": 6, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Sep 18, 1996 (14:29)", "body": "Dismissing an idea because it would take years to achieve is defeatist. ZPG, or better yet, negative population growth will also not be realized in the immediate future because of religion. However, much like decriminalizing industrial-grade hemp, it is worthy of educating yourself and others about. On the topic, are you familiar with the Church of Euthanasia? Sounds like even if you disagree, you might get a kick out of their materials. They are on the web, but their address is lost in my head at the moment. WER"}, {"response": 7, "author": "william", "date": "Fri, Sep 20, 1996 (00:18)", "body": "You're mostly right about ZPG\ufffdbeing stymied by religion, but it's worthy of note that the Dalai Lama of Tibet -- our preeminent Buddhist -- has come out in strong support of planetary birth control. In light of Tibet's shrinking population and the forced abortions and sterilizations imposed on Tibetans by the Chinese, one would imagine it would be even harder for the Dalai Lama to throw his weight behind that. But he has -- short of abortion encouragement. Church of Euthanasia is a relevant topic. Buddhists, who believe in infinite future reincarnations, are down on any form of suicide, including by consent (a la Kevorkian), out of concern for messing up one's karma."}, {"response": 8, "author": "boyce2", "date": "Fri, Sep 20, 1996 (17:45)", "body": "What's so great about old-growth forests? How many of them is enough? Does anyone really know that ZPG is necessary? How can you know what technology will be developed in the future? How can you know what population that technology will enable the earth to support?"}, {"response": 9, "author": "mmc", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (12:39)", "body": "Good questions. The interesting thing about ecosystems like old-growth forests and rainforests is that they are so rich in diversity. A friend of mine is a biologist at the California Academy of Sciences, and he says that biologists estimate that there are literally millions of unclassified species of plants and animals. Since they're not classified, we have no idea what their role in the biosphere might be, or what beneficial uses they might eventually offer. Since we don't know, there's considerable risk in eliminating them before we find out. It's sort of like the Hippocratic oath, which suggests that, first, we do no harm. Paul Ehrlich, who wrote *Population Bomb* in the late '60s or so, was a persuasive apologist for ZPG back then. Since then we've added a couple of billion people and watched the planetary ecosystem deteriorate, losing a couple of species a day to extinction, experiencing global warming, hitting the wall on the green revolution, having trouble finding enough drinking water, etc. In order to enjoy the technological benefits that may be developed in the future, it's necessary that we *have* a future; and at the rate we're going, that's actually in question."}, {"response": 10, "author": "fig", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (16:05)", "body": "Certainly, one approach is to \"think globally and act locally.\" Doing so is necessary and makes a big difference. But in many cases, the greatest damage is being done on global scales through the use of industrial pollutants and industrial-level practic es. This includes our American love affair with (and addiction to) the internal combustion engine, China's ramping up to a coal-powered industrial economy, Brazil's wholesaling of the rainforest and the general political climate that forces most underdev loped countries to rely on subsistence farming practices that result in huge losses of arable land. We cannot reach most of the people who would \"act locally\" outside of the U.S. and the wealthy developed world. And if we could, they would think us typical arrogant Americans to try and deny them access to what little wealth they could gain in the short term at the expense of their immediate environment. So, we should look at making a huge difference here at home, first, because our lifestyle uses far more resources per capita than do those of Chinese or Brazilian or Ethiopian peasant farmers. I know first-hand the huge gap between what I consumed on the Farm and what I consume now. There is a happy medium level at which I could survive very well here. But how many Americans are willing to reduce their standards of living voluntarily? Not very many, I'll bet. Maybe if we use the media we have access to as a microphone to educate and illustrate, we can begin to get the point across that if we don't change what we have the power to change in our own backyards, those changes will be made for our children in the f uture in a much more brutal manner. Maybe we can use this medium to show how, in just over a century of industrialization, we have changed the course of Nature to a dangerous one for our children and grandchildren."}, {"response": 11, "author": "mmc", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (19:20)", "body": "When I was listening to Helen Caldicott on the radio last week, she said Australia had done a lot of work on photovoltaics, and that the economic factors had changed in the last few years, to the point where photovoltaics were feasible. She said she'd talked to some people at Los Alamos National Labs about using photovoltaics in the desert. She didn't say whether they'd thought it was a good idea. But that's the kind of technological assistance that we could offer to the developing world--of course, you're right that we'd need to adopt it ourselves first. But if we could have China skip the coal-fired and nuclear power plants and go directly to photovoltaics to power their rising standard of living, we could mitigate the negative impact of that many people increasing their demands for goodies. I used to think Al Gore would work in that direction. I'm not so sure any more. I know he understands the science behind energy and population and viability; but I think he figures the politics are against it."}, {"response": 12, "author": "fig", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (19:55)", "body": "Let's hope ol' Al was just waiting for a second term. (Of course, then, he won't want to ruin his chances to be president. Damn.) Whoever can get China to go along with a sane development plan will be one hell of a diplomat. Orville Schell, a China expert, seems completely pessimistic about the future there as new industry is creating pollution already on a monumental scale. And p ower generation is just a small part of it. The Yellow River and the Yangtse are on fast tracks to being ruined. Capitalist fever has struck bigtime and nobody wants to follow the Gradual School. This is a case of the U.S. getting what it always wanted diplomatically and now realizing how you have to be careful what you wish for. Where have you gone, Confucius and Bodhidharma?"}, {"response": 13, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 24, 1996 (06:07)", "body": "China and India represent, what, 2 billion out of 6 billion people. And each of these people has a yearly income of a couple hundred dollars. I don't know the exact figures. It's about a third of the worlds population and a tiny fraction of the worlds gnp and goods. If you take these massive numbers and add in expectations of a better life, like the one Clif has in Mill Valley or I have in Austin, then these coal plants have to rev up to provide electricity for all the tvs, computers, telephones, answering machines, refridgerators, microwaves, hair dryers, and other goods that have now become basic necessities. The answer is clearly in low voltage appliances (12 V), solar power, and wireless. China and India don't need massive power and telephone grids, they need cellphones and notebooks with wireless packet. And they need household appliances that use direct current powered by rooftop solar panels. This would make much more sense than coal plants everywhere (though boyce, being a nuclear expert, might recommend another alternative). I hope Gore win will in 2000 and come out of the closet. I hope that the \"closet\", in this case, is a man who cares about the environment as the book he wrote (assisted by Albert Bates) tends to indicate. But I also know that getting elected is the name of the game now and for the next four years he's going to be issuing sound bytes that turn into percentage points in the polls."}, {"response": 14, "author": "william", "date": "Wed, Sep 25, 1996 (00:20)", "body": "What's so great about old-growth forests? What's so great about old people? What's so great about highly evolved species? Or pure water? Or clean air? What's so great about high consciousness or clear light? Some things allow for more life and love, and some things allow for less. \"First do no harm.\" I read occasional pieces in the NYTimes about such things as the prison camps in North Korea and the genocide in Rwanda and the massacre of elephant families in Zaire (? one of those elephant countries in Africa) and wonder if we don't do collective harm as a species by simply existing. China will do nothing to ameliorate the effects of its conversion to fossil-fuel self-indulgence. There's no more recalcitrant a great power on the planet. Our only hope for future environmental preservation is to set so shining an example of how to co-exist wisely and compassionately with the rest of the world that it will be charmed -- yes, charmed and allured and\ufffdinexplicably compelled -- into joining us. I think Gore has the capacity to do that, but our capacity to endure the prevailing cynicism of another four years of Clinton is hard to imagine. Gore has had to backtrack so hard from his visionary environmental politics of the late 80s and early 90s in order to co-exist to Clinton that one wonders if he could ever reach up high enough to get it back. I was moved by his story of his sister's death from cancer, but I was also repelled by his political exhibitionism, and his willingness to do or say anythi g to sway the crowd. I'm voting for Ralph Nader and adding another iota of legitimacy to the Green Party."}, {"response": 15, "author": "boyce2", "date": "Thu, Sep 26, 1996 (13:03)", "body": "> The interesting thing about ecosystems like old-growth forests and rainforests > is that they are so rich in diversity. A friend of mine is a biologist at the > California Academy of Sciences, and he says that biologists estimate that > there are literally millions of unclassified species of plants and animals. > Since they're not classified, we have no idea what their role in the biosphere > might be, or what beneficial uses they might eventually offer. I doubt you'll find any biologist who believes that any unclassified species plays a crucial role in the functionality of the biosphere as a whole. As to what uses we may find in the future for these species, you're absolutely right, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot by eliminating them. But like everything else, you have to weight the potential costs against the potential benefits, otherwise we'd all have to stay in our houses for fear of stepping on the last belgian sand flea. > Since we don't know, there's considerable risk in eliminating them before we > find out. It's sort of like the Hippocratic oath, which suggests that, first, > we do no harm. Impossible. You can't live your life without doing harm to some other creature and impacting in some way some part of the biosphere. You eat, you breathe, you drink, all of these actions change the planet irreversibly, and make life harder for some species and more difficult for others; there's no way around it. That's why the question of RISK is so important, of each action we take we must ascertain the potential benefits, costs and the probabilities of the potential outcomes, and make an informed dec sion based on this information. > In order to enjoy the technological benefits that may be developed in the > future, it's necessary that we *have* a future; and at the rate we're going, > that's actually in question. Technological benefits will not only be enjoyed in the future, they will ENABLE the future of humans on earth. There's no way the earth, even in its most pristine past could have supported 6 billion hunter/gatherers for a year. Technology (primarily agriculture) has enabled this population growth. Future technology may make the earth capable of sustaining even larger populations. > When I was listening to Helen Caldicott on the radio last week, > she said Australia had done a lot of work on photovoltaics, > and that the economic factors had changed in the last few > years, to the point where photovoltaics were feasible. She said > she'd talked to some people at Los Alamos National Labs about > using photovoltaics in the desert. She didn't say whether > they'd thought it was a good idea. I'm consistently surprised that people who advocate environmentally safe power continue to suggest photovoltaics as an alternative. The fact is, no existing technology even comes close to nuclear power in terms of low environmental impact. They're small and clean. Even with 100% conversion rate, the photovoltaic plant necessary to replace a nuclear power plant would be enormous (tens of square miles). The environmental impact of keeping that large a surface area of the earth from ever again seeing the light of day is unknown, but it would certainly involve wholesale changes in the local biosphere. The plant necessary to build the photovoltaics would be considerably smaller, but the chemical processes therein aren't what you'd call clean, involving large volumes of caustic chemicals and toxic solvents. > What's so great about old-growth forests? What's so great about old people? > What's so great about highly evolved species? Or pure water? Or clean air? > What's so great about high consciousness or clear light? Old forests? I don't know, they're fun to hike through, if they're public land. But as far as substantive benefit to the biosphere goes, new growth might be better... Old people? They're fun to have around, they have all that wisdom and stuff. Plus there's their ability to enter into a social contract, and for that they get protected status, as all sentient beings do, at least in this country. Highly evolved species? In a word: sentience. Pure water? Doesn't exist in appreciable quantities, never has. Clean air? Sentient beings seem to like to breathe it, as do their pets. High consciousness? How high is high? Clear light? What the hell is clear light? > \"First do no harm.\" I read occasional pieces in the NYTimes about such things > as the prison camps in North Korea and the genocide in Rwanda and the massacre > of elephant families in Zaire (? one of those elephant countries in Africa > and wonder if we don't do collective harm as a species by simply existing. Bingo, but I'm disenchanted with the alternative... > I'm voting for Ralph Nader and adding another iota of legitimacy to the Green > Party. I think you'll find a world run by Luddites to be dirtier and more violent than you expected."}, {"response": 16, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Sep 27, 1996 (13:18)", "body": "Extropian, are you boyce2? Or just a very vocal technocrat? It was hard to tell from your responses and dis-(or just mis-)information. What is your ideal carrying capacity for the earth? How about the maximum sustainable population of humanity? At what point do negative returns start because humanity is too large a percentage of the biomass. There is a finite mass to the earth, therefore a finite amount of building materials for more biomass. Anyway, I gotta run for now, WER"}, {"response": 17, "author": "mmc", "date": "Fri, Sep 27, 1996 (13:58)", "body": "Terry said something about you being a nuclear engineer, boyce2? Do you count the fossil fuels used in mining, transporting, refining, transporting, disposing (oops, we don't really have a place to dispose of the stuff yet) of the nuclear fuel in your calculation that it's the cleanest power source in sight? Tens of square miles isn't such a big deal when you look at the Mojave."}, {"response": 18, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 27, 1996 (15:10)", "body": "I may have misrepresented boyces calling, he's an ME grad student with a strong focus in nuclear energy. Photovoltaics appeal is the fact that it eliminates the onerous grid of wires that run all over our landscape and localizes energy at the household level. I would be curious about boyces response to the disposal issue."}, {"response": 19, "author": "boyce2", "date": "Sun, Sep 29, 1996 (20:16)", "body": "> Do you count the fossil fuels used in mining, transporting, refining, > transporting, disposing (oops, we don't really have a place to dispose > of the stuff yet) of the nuclear fuel in your calculation that it's the > cleanest power source in sight? In a word: Yes. Pick any other source, and you'll find it has similar associated costs. In general these costs are going to run higher because of the comparatively higher volume of machinery (in the case of wind and solar power) or fuel (in the case of coal, oil and natural gas). The only things that're even close in terms of cleanliness are geothermal and hydroelectric power, both of which are intrinsically limited by location and the amount of power that can be generated over time. The key feature of nuclear power as a low contributor to extraneous pollution (that coming from points in the fuel cycle other than the use stage) is the energy density of nuclear fuel. There is as much retrievable energy in a thimbleful of nuclear fuel as in a couple railroad cars full of coal. Hence mining costs, transportation costs, and refining costs are all proportionately smaller, as is fossil fuel use in each of these processes. > Tens of square miles isn't such a big deal when you look at the Mojave. That's true, unless you're an engineer looking to build what would be the largest engineered system ever designed, or an environmentalist looking to stop the devastation of tens of thousands of acres of pristine desert ecosystem, then it starts looking very big indeed. Oh, and another thing, those tens of square miles could replace ONE nuclear power plant, so you'd need 500 times that to service the electrical needs of the entire US. > Photovoltaics appeal is the fact that it eliminates the onerous grid of > wires that run all over our landscape and localizes energy at the household > level. I agree, the most promising use of photovoltaics, and solar power in general, is in the small capacity end use situation, the home. Industrial power almost certainly has to come from a more concentrated source than solar power, which at the distance of earth's orbit, is woefully diffuse. However, I doubt that we'll ever be free of the grid, it enables dependable electricity from disparate sources: energy security. You don't want to lose your hot water because it's overcast in the dead of winter. > I would be curious about boyces response to the disposal issue. Waste disposal? Sure, I can tell you anything you want to know about it. I submit that Yucca mountain, on the Nevada test site, is the ideal place for civilian high level radioactive waste. The surrounding desert is already so crapped up from decades of subterranean nuclear weapons testing that a couple million extra curies in a highly engineered repository is the pollution equivalent of peeing in Boston harbor. The issue at this point is purely political. Get this, the same Nevada legislators that don't want a waste repository, in the past have gotten bent out of shape at lans to curtail bomb testing on the same soil. Clinton will probably veto the current legislation aiming to establish the repository in Nevada in exchange for political favors from these legislators, as most Americans believe that putting high level waste in one national repository is far safer than keeping it onsite at 100 different facilities across the country. The technical problems are essentially solved, the political ones have proven to be more complex."}, {"response": 20, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Mon, Dec  2, 1996 (02:35)", "body": "Hmm... this is going to be a collected answer to the previous topics, since I've been away for some time... I think the world population isn't the problem at the moment, it is the consuming of goods. By producing the food ecologically, not economically, would enable the world to support at least 10 billion people. There aren't too many people, but too many cars, meat factories and modern fishing vessels. The problem of fresh water is another thing. Theoretically you could clean the water, but in practice it would be impossible. Water is as essential to life as oxygen, but we are wasting both of them carelessly. There's limited amount of both, and actually the amount of oxygen is decreasing, since some molecules gain escape velocity all the time. And, of course, there's the issue of energy. Our culture requires ridiculous amounts of energy in the form of electricity and heat. A Finnish researcher pointed out that using electricity for heating is a great fallacy, since the electricity is at first produced by heat. IT's like re-inventing the wheel. He also said that using fission energy to produce electricity is uneconomical because of the low gain ratio. According to him, the only plausible use of fission is heat production. In our discussion we found it quite strange that many scientist dislike nuclear power, and the situation with engineers is just the opposite... Saving of the world begins from your own head. After all, there are about 5.8 billion of those heads... The main point in the western countries is of course to cut down consumption. I find it strange, that the Chinese or the Africans live in poverty, while some of us have two cars, two houses and surplus of preprocessed food... Reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi. When a reporter asked him what was his opinion about the western civilization, he replied: \"I think it would be a good idea.\" Yes, it would."}, {"response": 21, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Dec  2, 1996 (18:06)", "body": "What a great Ghandi quote."}, {"response": 22, "author": "mmc", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (16:37)", "body": "Indeed. Mika-Petri, do you have any ideas on how to move the \"advanced\" countries more towards restraint in their consumption? The U.S. made some token efforts under Jimmy Carter - tax credits for solar energy, for example - but I haven't seen anything since then."}, {"response": 23, "author": "bob99", "date": "Thu, Jan  9, 1997 (21:51)", "body": "What about the news reports of mutated frogs all over the country? For those who missed it, frogs have been showing up with one leg, three legs, or no legs. Other anomolies have been even more groteque. Is this an ecological problem? Is anyone paying attention or are the naysayers still in the ascendance?"}, {"response": 24, "author": "bob99", "date": "Thu, Jan  9, 1997 (21:51)", "body": "What about the news reports of mutated frogs all over the country? For those who missed it, frogs have been showing up with one leg, three legs, or no legs. Other anomolies have been even more groteque. Is this an ecological problem? Is anyone paying attention or are the naysayers still in the ascendance?"}, {"response": 25, "author": "bob99", "date": "Thu, Jan  9, 1997 (21:51)", "body": "What about the news reports of mutated frogs all over the country? For those who missed it, frogs have been showing up with one leg, three legs, or no legs. Other anomolies have been even more groteque. Is this an ecological problem? Is anyone paying attention or are the naysayers still in the ascendance?"}, {"response": 26, "author": "bob99", "date": "Thu, Jan  9, 1997 (21:51)", "body": "What about the news reports of mutated frogs all over the country? For those who missed it, frogs have been showing up with one leg, three legs, or no legs. Other anomolies have been even more groteque. Is this an ecological problem? Is anyone paying attention or are the naysayers still in the ascendance?"}, {"response": 27, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Fri, Jan 10, 1997 (09:56)", "body": "(TO mmc) Well, I am growing more and more cynical day by day. I fear that the only thing that really makes the \"advanced\" countries to cut down their consumption is the to-be invasion of the chinese and indian people. It is a sad vision, but I'm afraid it CAN happen (of course, that wouldn't be a problem in the USA - you are protected by the oceans...) When 3 billion people run out of food, they can get it by simply walking to somewhere where food exists. And they will walk over the previous inhabitants. Scary thought, isn't it?"}, {"response": 28, "author": "mmc", "date": "Thu, Mar  6, 1997 (12:21)", "body": "Not the kind of thing one wants to think about in this day and age. But not necessarily how things are going to happen, either. For one thing, the \"advanced\" countries have all these lovely weapons to keep the starving multitudes at bay. And who knows, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse may still have their mounts. Or, on a more cheerful note, perhaps China's birth-control policy will bear fruit and their pepole will bear fewer children. And there's always the dream that China will skip some of the unfortunate portions of the Industrial Revolution and move directly into the Information Age. Of course, they'll still have to figure out how to feed all their people, and the more they participate in the Information Age, the more they're going to want chickens instead of rice, which is going to be a problem. Maybe we should all get together and form a venture capital fund and start a company in Guangzhou making solar cookers..."}, {"response": 29, "author": "Everest", "date": "Sat, Jul  5, 1997 (14:19)", "body": "response to Boyce: old growth, new growth, I don't care, take your pick. Plants produce photosynthesis that supply all of us something to breath. Unfortunately, Boyce, has it occured to you that almost all of the logging and forest clearing are to create new land for human expansion, not to plant new trees? Forests also moderates temperature. In hot weather it keeps the surroundig cool, and in cold weather it keeps the surrounding warm. Just spend enough time between forests and a barren land or city and you will know. Forests also keeps our landscape from eroding, provides habitats for other life and creatures. And I believe that most biologist (if not all) think there is an incredible amount of \"hidden tresures\" in the rain forest, and therefore, do everything to preserve them. To say that we can continue to do whatever as we please because some solution will be developed in the future to sustain more human population is dangerous and fallacious. As one reader puts it, we must do something now to guarantee that we have a future. Who is to promise that a solution will be developed? What we do to remedy the deteriorating environmental situation today, we can see and benefit immediately, and that is what counts in the long run. The advent of industrial revolution had accelerated the rate at which we populate this planet and our consumption of natural resources. This planet has supported human for hundreds of millions of years, so don't sweat, it will \"somehow\" deal with the problems human created and continue to sustain human (and other life on earth)? Maybe, but I don't think it's a pretty scenario. In fermentation, as in jar of crushed grapes and some yeast, the yeast consumes the sugar and produce (or you can say \"excrete\") aldehyde, alcohol (and perhaps other things), but when the amount of alcohol becomes to much, it kills the yeast and your fermentation process stops. In a petri dish with agar as food and some bacterial culture, if you have various species of bacteria, some might kill off other, but in the end, those dominant strain still die out (or at least stopped expanding, maybe fall into dormant mode)when the agar is all gone. I am not a biologist (but reasonably good in biology back in school), but that's how I understand the nature world. I am for nuclear enengy, but at the same time, we need to \"roll back\" our lifestyle, reduce consumption, recycle what we can (including re-using things that are still functional). Save the planet begins in our own home and backyard. There are 6 billion people, if each one re-use or recycle just one item in their household a year, we have 6 billion fewer pieces of junk in our landfill (not counting other resources comsumed to produce the replacement for those 6 billion items). Well, in my book, 6 billio items is quite a lot, no matter how small the items are. On a different note: I think manufactures show be required to recycle what they produce, not just the end product, the the raw material they use to produce the goods, including those chemicals. And I think government should only give company license to produce something when all ingredients can be properly recycled or reclaimed. I cringe everytime I have to throw away those plastic contains with recycle number 3, 4, 5, or 6 because no company reclaim them for recycling. They are labled such supposedly for future use, when the technology (or more economical technology) becomes available. Why in hell are we making it if we don't know how to re-use it or reclaim it? And given the availability of #1 and #2 recyclable plastic, why don't governments just require company to use those two for the time being? Now I try my best to avoi buying things in plastic containers other than #1 and #2. I think it will also do good for most people in developed countries to visit poor countries to see how wasteful we are in our lifestyle. Charles"}, {"response": 30, "author": "Jason", "date": "Fri, Jan 30, 1998 (00:22)", "body": "I lean towards more of the Greenpeace/Edward Abbey school of thought when it comes to this issue. Opinions vary... Even if no direct action is taken at all, the potential for it exists. This, of course, won't change the lifestyles of billions of people. I do believe that we are as a species inherently destructive. I'd like to see widespread negative population growth. This, of course, will likely happen due to our own stupidity. More people=more environmental destruction. So far it's been a valid theory."}, {"response": 31, "author": "riette", "date": "Tue, Jun 23, 1998 (16:21)", "body": "I can't help but think that if there were a solution, it would be communism - but that didn't work, unfortunately. On the other hand, the USA is so good at capitalism - perhaps they could make it work?"}, {"response": 32, "author": "Roan", "date": "Fri, Feb  5, 1999 (03:40)", "body": "Actually, there is a force involved beyond the human mind, and it is what is powering the changes towards sanity. Ego based thought is a dead end for solutions. We didn't evolve to fail. We evolved for a purpose, and it is evident if social axioms are reviewed and rejected. First, We are Universe being aware of itself. Locally, we are this planetary ecosystem being aware of itself. We are not designed to destroy it or ourselves. All the stuff going on is much like a birthing. It is very intense and for the child, powerful. The struggle is between artifical and unnatural human GIGO systems and the force that evolved us. We are far more than we can THINK we are and can change in the blink of an eye. I have seen, personally, that force in operation, and to my amazement, saw thousands of human beings with all kinds of personal opinions and convictions change their mind in the face of something invisible but mind and heart changing. The world was at stake, although none of the people at the time knew it, and to save the world, all those people had to change their minds and do the right thing in the face of a life behind bars, and they did it! Observing this changed my life, and years later, as the rest f the story came to me from various sources, I realized what it was that I perceived. The idea that there are greater forces affecting Humanity than individual egos and cultural habits is rejected by almost everyone, but I know it to be true and see it now in a lot of what goes on in the world behind the scenes. It does not show in the media, but it does on the Internet. The Farm was right in there in the effects of that force. Yes, I think the birthing could fail, but it is unlikely. That doesn't mean we can sit back and wait for things to happen, because it still works through human behavior, through us. I am being a bit vague, I know, but I don't want to write a book on here. (g) Peace and Good Health, -Roan"}, {"response": 33, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Feb  5, 1999 (22:51)", "body": "go ahead and write the book... we don't mind"}, {"response": 34, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Mon, May 10, 1999 (07:15)", "body": "You cannot \"save\" the world. It *is* and will be. Just different, either way. But you can't \"save\" it, unless you'd stop time. What would that gain? You would have saved the world from changing. Great. No changes. Just frozen like tha"}, {"response": 35, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Mon, May 10, 1999 (13:45)", "body": "so our actions are unimportant in the grand scheme of things then?"}, {"response": 36, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, May 11, 1999 (06:06)", "body": "Who said that? Not me! I was just nitpicking on the phrase \"Save The World\". You can't do that, unless you'd freeze it in time to stop changes. Somebody else might be able to do that, but I'm surely not. The questions coming out of your question are: (a) Is there a Grand Scheme Of Things ?, and (b) Are our actions important or not? As to (a), I love conspiracy theories for their entertainment value, but I have no answer \"YES!\" to that question. Only another question: \"So what?\", or rather \"What difference would it make?\" Would I lead a different life if there were (or weren't)? Would I stop trying? From this results for (b) that our actions might not have impact on any scheme, but surely impact on our lifes and the lifes of those around us (even in virtuspace). In our social and ecological and economical environments, our actions of course are important (maybe a mikroimportance, but still). But I don't need a scheme to see that, whether or not it exists."}, {"response": 37, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Tue, May 11, 1999 (10:53)", "body": "oh, I've always thought to scheme's the theme..."}, {"response": 38, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Wed, May 12, 1999 (10:03)", "body": "Some people are into that. \"Scheming bastards\", they're called on tv. I wouldn't want to be called that. How about you? The theme might be: Make it to the end of the day with as little suffering as possible, while creating as little hurt as possible. You'll meet everybody again next morning. And you don't need any karma-story or superior being or the like to understand that concept (though it doesn't collide with that either, if you hold those ideas dear)."}, {"response": 39, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Feb  8, 2000 (21:41)", "body": "This is amazing stuff and a lot of idealism and even a little realism here and there. Right about the industrial hemp, negative population and all that. I think unless we abliterate the place, the ants and roaches will inherit the earth long after human kind has done their worst, if Hawaii is any indication..."}, {"response": 40, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Feb 16, 2000 (08:20)", "body": "See my comments in the Farm Net News topic about Karen Flaherty and what she's dowing these days."}, {"response": 41, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Wed, Jul 19, 2000 (12:30)", "body": "Missed ragweed again, doggone."}, {"response": 42, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Jul 19, 2000 (15:51)", "body": "Please explain - or is this in code??? *grin*"}, {"response": 43, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Apr 30, 2001 (00:18)", "body": "It's old Farmie code, Ragweed is a big annual harvest festival. There's a whole Farm jargon, Maggie, you do need a translator at times."}, {"response": 44, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (14:12)", "body": "From the Farm's Phillip Schweitzer We got together Sunday morning in the meditation meadow, meditated, aumed, sang, read and talked. We learned that many of the Farm kids in new York have been volunteering at the site. Carol's daughter Kim is on the scene with her crew from Florida trained to search for victims using dogs. Michael Gavin's cousin is missing. We talked about our role, our commitment to peace and our desire to take the air out of terrorism rather than make war against civilian populations. We talked about our sorrows and fears, and what to do with anger. We talked about our draft-age kids. William and Deborah Devoursney's son David is in the Navy and just shipped out to the Middle east. We talked about US complicity in terrorism that leads to provoking such acts against America. We talked about oneness and we talked about death. Finally, we talked about the need for us to speak out, now, and that cooler heads, even in a small minority, can encourage other cooler heads to speak out and that by speaking out, writing letters and emails to politicians and the media especially, we can deflate some of the more irrational posturing for revenge. Bush is beginning to use the word \"crusade\" over and over and the Christian \"Right\" is saying things like \"kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity\" while blaming liberals, gays, lesbians and the ACLU (Jerry Falwell) or Clinton (Pat Robertson) and the Washington Times, the Moonie paper in DC is calling for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Gratefully, other nations, particularly our allies in Europe are beginning to try to put the breaks on Bush's war machine (see attachment-A Pause to Ponder...). I think there is beginning to seep into this national nightmare a growing realization that, hey, maybe violence is incendiary, maybe violence breeds violence. After all, we've been spectators to the intractable wars in Northern Ireland and the Middle East for many years and now that we know what it's like for an Israeli or Palestinian or an Irish Catholic or Protestant day in and day out, maybe we're beginning to wake-up. When I was in Philadelphia the most popular rock station, WMMR, spent Tuesday and Wednesday playing songs of peace while the DJs talked about the futility of violence. Driving home, listening to NPR late at night, young folks called in and talked about their opposition to revenge and vengeance and so impressed the moderators that the entire tone of the program changed from saber rattling to introspective and intelligent discourse. You don't hear the families of victims crying for blood. As usual it's politicians and the talking heads and columnists. Not all. I think the vote in the House was 422 to one for giving Bush permission to politicians and the talking heads and columnists. Not all. I think the vote in the House was 422 to one for giving Bush permission to use any force necessary. The one was a California congresswoman (Barbara Lee-Oakland) who deserve a medal of honor. -P cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 40, "subject": "Folklore", "response_count": 1, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (16:59)", "body": "'Dictionary of English Folklore' Do you know why people roll giant cheeses downhill in Gloucester? Or how to explain 'frog showers? And what contribution dragons have made to English traditions? These are not the sort of thing you can look up in a dictionary - until now. This completely new source of definitions and explanations deals with people, myths, customs, and supernatural beliefs in England. The authors play fair. If there's little evidence for some strange belief, they say so - but they list it anyway. Further details and weirdness at - http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/oxf-folk.htm cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 41, "subject": "Jumbo Jets crash in to World Trade Center", "response_count": 783, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (10:01)", "body": "NEW YORK \ufffd Two planes crashed into the upper floors of both World Trade Center towers minutes apart today in what President Bush said was an apparent terrorist attack, blasting fiery, gaping holes in the 110-story buildings. There was no immediate word on deaths or injuries. The president ordered a full-scale investigation to \"hunt down the folks who committed this act.\" The twin disasters happened shortly before 9 a.m. EDT and then right around 9 a.m. EDT. In Washington, officials said the FBI was investigating reports of a plane hijacking before the crashes. Heavy black smoke billowed into the sky above the gaping holes in the side of the 110-story twin towers, one of New York City's most famous landmarks, and debris rained down upon the street, one of the city's busiest work areas. When the second plane hit, a fireball of flame and smoke erupted, leaving a huge hole in the glass and steel tower. \"Today we've had a national tragedy,\" Bush said. He called it \"an apparent terrorist attack.\" Ira Furber, former NTSB spokesman, discounted the likelihood that it was an accident. \"I don't think this is an accident,\" he said on CNN. \"You've got incredibly good visibility. No pilot is going to be relying on navigational equipment.\" \"It's just not possible in the daytime,\" he added. \"A second occurrence is just beyond belief.\" The towers were struck by terrorist bombers in February 1993, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. All New York City-area airports were shut down, and several subway lines were immediately shut down. Trading on Wall Street was suspended. \"The plane was coming in low and ... it looked like it hit at a slight angle,\" said Sean Murtagh, a CNN vice president, the network reported. \"I was watching TV and heard a sonic boom,\" Jeanne Yurman told CNN. \"The side of the World Trade Center exploded. Debris is falling like leaflets. I hear ambulances. The northern tower seems to be on fire.\" Thousands of pieces of what appeared to be office paper came drifting over Brooklyn, about three miles from the tower. A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agency is pursuing reports that one or both of the planes were hijacked and that the crashes may have been the result of a suicide mission. The source stressed that the reports are preliminary and officials do not know the cause of the crashes. \"It certainly doesn't look like an accident,\" said a second government official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. In 1945, an Army Air Corps B-25, a twin-engine bomber, crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in dense fog. In Sarasota, Fla., Bush was reading to children in a classroom at 9:05 a.m. when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispered into his ear. The president briefly turned somber before he resumed reading. He addressed the tragedy about a half-hour later. from AP report"}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (10:05)", "body": "It is being reported that one of the towers has collapsed. The White House and other national offices are being evacuated."}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (10:34)", "body": ""}, {"response": 4, "author": "maryw", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (10:42)", "body": "TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AT DROOL IN THE US FROM YOUR FRIENDS IN AUSTRALIA WE ARE THINKING AND PRAYING FOR YOU ALL DURING THIS HORRIBLE MOMENT IN HISTORY. TAKE CARE ALL OF YOU!!! GOD BLESS ALL OF US!!"}, {"response": 5, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (10:42)", "body": "Now, there's a report of another hijacked plane headed toward Washington DC. Both World Trade Centers have totally collapsed !"}, {"response": 6, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (10:43)", "body": "This is like the Pearl Harbor of the world's terrorists."}, {"response": 7, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:00)", "body": "Topic 1180 [current]: Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center #84 of 98: Kim Bassett (kimage) Tue Sep 11 '01 (07:52) 26 lines I've been watching ABC coverage through both collapses. Judging from the commentary plus live pictures: - There does not appear to have been a third plane impacting the WTC towers. If there is a third plane, ABC hasn't mentioned it in the last 30 minutes. - For the first collapse, the top floors above the point of impact began collapsing, the stress and failure cascading downwards all the way to the bottom. The second collapse appeared to start from the lower floors, upper floors dropping downwards. - Neither tower toppled significantly to the side; there was worry of a triage center being taken out in the second collapse, but both towers *predominantly* slid downwards. No info about damage or harm to adjacent buildings. - One small plane confirmed hit the pentagon. Scattered talk of a car bomb outside the State Department, including a smoke plume visible in the background of shots of White House evacuations. - No casualty figures as yet. The numbers are likely to be horrifying, from the plane hijacks alone."}, {"response": 8, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:01)", "body": "From the NYT, reporting on Bush's statements: Mr. Bush who was said to be on his way back from a visit from Sarasota, Fla., to Washington has ordered that \"the full resources of the federal government\" be used to carry out a full investigation to find out who was responsible for the World Trade Center attacks. \"Terrorism against our country will not stand,\" he said, before ending by leading a prayer for victims of the attacks."}, {"response": 9, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:01)", "body": "By Charles Babington washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Tuesday, September 11, 2001; 10:10 a.m. Minutes after two airplanes crashed into New York City\ufffds World Trade Center towers this morning in a what appears to be the gravest terrorist attack ever in America, a large airplane-caused explosion and fire took place at the Pentagon and explosions were reported at the Capitol and the State Department. At about 10 a.m., one of the 110-story World Trade Center towers collapsed, and the second tower collapsed about 30 minutes later. The tragedies stunned the nation and prompted officials, fearing still more attacks, to evacuate the Capitol, the White House, State Department and other federal buildings. Flights were canceled at all major airports in the nation. At about 10:20 a.m., the Associated Press reported the a car bomb explosion outside the State Department, senior law enforceement officials said. Shortly before the Pentagon fire ignited, President Bush called the New York disasters \"an apparent terrorist attack on our country.\" He hastily departed from Florida, where he had scheduled an education speech, and returned to Washington. Early details were sketchy, but the New York attacks seemed certain to cause heavy losses of life and many injuries. There were reports that an American Airlines 767 had been hijacked earlier today on a scheduled flight from Boston to Los Angeles, and apparently was one of the planes flown into the giant towers that dominate lower Manhattan\ufffds skyline. The second crash, which touched off a giant fireball in one of the tower\ufffds upper floors shortly after 9 a.m. EDT, took place as many Americans watched live on television. New York\ufffds airports were quickly closed, the New York Stock Exchange was evacuated, and millions of Americans watched in horror and disbelief as news of the Pentagon fire soon followed. In Florida, Bush pledged to use \ufffdthe full resources of the federal government government to help the victims and their families\" and \ufffdto hunt down and find those folks who committed these acts.\""}, {"response": 10, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:03)", "body": "Topic 1180 [current]: Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center #101 of 101: Gallatin (rickmoffat) Tue Sep 11 '01 (08:00) 3 lines Big explosion at the London Stock Exchange? I'm getting all this via super-slow web feeds, but we've got video footage of huge smoke plumes there? Can anyone confirm? We got the footage off http://news.bbc.co.uk"}, {"response": 11, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:04)", "body": "This is like the Pearl Harbor of the world's terrorists."}, {"response": 12, "author": "maryw", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:07)", "body": "Terry Where are you located? Are you safe? I am in Sydney and watching CNN International and Fox News Cable. It is now 11 am NY time (1 am 12 Sept/Wed Syd time) - they are reporting and showing on screen - 2 Towers now collapsed (I watched the 2nd one collapse!) Am flabbergasted - what can one do?"}, {"response": 13, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:07)", "body": "Topic 1180 [current]: Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center #105 of 106: Colin Brayton (blindone) Tue Sep 11 '01 (08:02) 11 lines I saw the second attack from an elevated subway station in Brooklyn. The plane just veered into the building and the explosion shot through the building. We all gasped, people were weeping, dude I gave spare change to mutters, \"Tragedy day ...\" My friend Velma was working in the South Tower of the WTC. I just pray that she has not returned from Chicago today. Cannot reach her. Cell phone communications are out here. The plume of smoke is blowing east and south across the river, with fragments of debris shimmering in it: I thought at first it was a fantastic flock of seagulls ... BBC (www.bbc.co.uk) is about the only online news I can get ... I am going downtown Brooklyn to donate blood ... God help us."}, {"response": 14, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:08)", "body": "I'm in Austin, Texas, Mary, our airport is shut down. All planes in the air have been ordered to land at the nearest airport, nationwide, not just in Austin. I'm here with a bunch of folks at work watching Fox News. No work is getting done today, or very little. The horror is mounting and we're staying calm, but this is the worst tragedy in my lifetime in this country."}, {"response": 15, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:09)", "body": "\"What can one do?\" Stay calm and pray."}, {"response": 16, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:10)", "body": "FAA confirms that there are several planes that are currently unaccounted for (evidently hijacked). No telling where this thing is going."}, {"response": 17, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:13)", "body": "I got through to MSNBC. Definitely not new, but here's what they are saying: NEW YORK, Sept. 11 \ufffd Americans reeled in horror Tuesday as the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history sent planes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York, toppling the twin 110-story towers. An explosion later rocked the Pentagon in Washington. The White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol building were evacuated. Military jets patrolled the skies above both cities. The FAA grounded all civilian aircraft nationwide, but not before reports of another large aircraft crashing in Western Pennsylvania. President Bush vowed to \ufffdhunt down the folks who committed this act.\ufffd THE FATE OF those in the twin skyscrapers was not immediately known. Authorities had been trying to evacuate the thousands of people who work in the twin towers, but many were thought to be trapped. \ufffdI swear I\ufffdve never seen anything like this,\ufffd said MSNBC\ufffds Ashleigh Banfield. \ufffdThis whole place is like a complete war zone.\ufffd At the Pentagon, eyewitnesses saw an aircraft crash into part of the sprawling complex. Walls were later seen to have collapsed. An earlier report of a car bomb exploding outside the State Department was later denied. In New York, the aircraft struck minutes apart, starting fires and sending smoke billowing out of the skyscrapers. The top of the south tower later collapsed onto the street below. The first crash happened shortly before 9 a.m. ET. MSNBC.com reporter Martin Wolk, who was inside one of the towers, said the lights flickered and then a loud bang was heard. People panicked and started to flee the building. When they reached the lobby, smoke started to fill the building and people could see debris falling and many cars outside were damaged. \ufffdIt was sheer pandemonium, people were screaming and crying, afraid to go outside because of the falling debris,\ufffd Wolk said. \ufffdWe looked up and it looked like the top 20 floors were in flames.\ufffd Another bystander described a barrage of debris raining down on the sidewalk below. Advertisement Shortly after 9 a.m., a second aircraft was seen crashing into the other tower. Broadcast cameras already watching the scene filmed the second plane as it slammed into the tower and exploded in a huge fireball. A half hour later, President Bush made a brief statement to reporters, calling the disaster a \ufffdnational tragedy\ufffd and attributing it to terrorists. He did not cite any specific terrorist groups but vowed to \ufffdhunt down the folks who committed this act.\ufffd U.S. military jets reportedly took to the skies to shoot down any unidentified aircraft, and congressional leaders were taken to secure locations. A plane was reported to have been circling the Capitol building before the evacuation. American Airlines later acknowledged that one of its flights had been hijacked Tuesday morning shortly after leaving Boston en route to Los Angeles. In the wake of the crashes, New York airports and the Lincoln Tunnel were closed as precautionary measures. The stock exchanges in New York also did not open. Large holes were visible in sides of the 110-story buildings. The tops of the twin towers were obscured by the smoke. Thousands of pieces of what appeared to be office paper came drifting over Brooklyn, about three miles from the tower, one witness said. Click on the image for reports of the terrorism attacks. In an earlier terrorist attack, the center was bombed on Feb. 26, 1993, killing six people and injured more than 1,000 others. Terrorist Ramzi Yousef and three others were convicted of orchestrating the attack. Three other indicted co-conspirators remain at large. Traffic entering New York City from New Jersey was at a standstill approaching the Holland Tunnel as motorists stood outside their cars watching the fire. Across the country, highrises like Chicago\ufffds Sears Trade tower were being evacuated as a precaution. Buildings were also being evacuated in London. The Associated Press contributed to this report."}, {"response": 18, "author": "maryw", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:14)", "body": "Terry Our own Australian Prime Minister is in Washington DC. Am staying calm but busy collecting news. Cannot get on to BBC.UK - for those Spring readers who want a confirmation on the bombing in London."}, {"response": 19, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:16)", "body": "I'll post it as soon as I get it. Some of this stuff may be unconfirmed, read all this with caution. I lot of wild stuff is floating around. I'll post it all and you decide."}, {"response": 20, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:18)", "body": "rc3.org: September 11, 2001 Part of the Pentagon has collapsed. There are reports that Osama bin Laden warned the U.S. three weeks ago that we would suffer an unprecedented attack. Still awaiting more details on this. ABC is reporting that there was not a car bomb at the State Department after all. The BBC is now reporting that F-16s have been sent to intercept a hijacked plane that is headed for Washington, DC. This must be the plane mentioned earlier. The plane from Pittsburgh that crashed in Somerset County is not the plane that is being intercepted. The BBC is reporting that the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was a 767, not a 747. According to a correspondent in Greece, I hear the following (none of this have I confirmed myself): The first plane was a 747 from American Airlines (capacity 158). (This doesn't sound quite right, 747s hold more than that. Perhaps this plane was a 737 or 767.) The second plane was a 767 from United Airlines. (The BBC is reporting that the UA plane is a 737B.) The plane that hit the Pentagon was a small passenger plane. Another 747 out of Pittsburgh was hijacked, tailed by U.S. fighters, and crashed at Somerset County Airport in Pennsylvania. This may be the plane that I mentioned earlier as being hijacked. (Some are reporting that this plane was shot down.) Both towers of the WTC have now collapsed. No idea whether this was due to further explosions or loss of structural integrity caused by the original explosions. The 911 control center for New York City is (was?) in the World Trade Center. Needless to say, it's down. Yet another plane has been hijacked and is reportedly headed toward Washington DC. All international flights approaching the U.S. have been diverted to Canada. Congressmen have been evacuated to an underground bunker. I've heard many comparisons to Pearl Harbor at this point. Explain to me again why we pump all that money into the NSA and CIA? How did we have no idea that this was coming? A car bomb has exploded outside the State Department. I've now heard from a number of sources that the second tower collapsed completely after it was hit by a third plane (the second to hit that tower in particular). This was just a rumor, there was no third plane to hit the WTC. I'm finding it hard to get to online news sites. You can get a live audio stream from the BBC World Service at Yahoo Broadcast, that's what I'm listening to. Latest news : all flights in the U.S. are grounded, and all planes were ordered to land at the nearest airport. One of the two towers of the WTC has collapsed (at least partially). According to the news, there can be up to 100,000 people in the WTC at any given time. Terrorists have attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon by deliberately crashing planes into them. One of the planes that crashed into the WTC was a hijacked American Airlines 767 out of Boston, I don't know about the others."}, {"response": 21, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:19)", "body": "From Indiatimes.com: 'Bin Laden warned of US attack' LONDON: Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he and his followers would carry out an unprecedented attack on US interests for its support of Israel, an Arab journalist with access to him said on Tuesday. Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper said Islamic fundamentalists led by Bin Laden was \"almost certainly\" behind the attack of the World Trade Center in New York. \"It is most likely the work of Islamic fundamentalists. Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he would attack American interests in an unprecedented attack, a very big one,\" Atwan told Reuters. \"Personally we received information that he planned very, very big attacks against American interests. We received several warnings like this. We did not take it so seriously, preferring to see what would happen before reporting it.\" Atwan has interviewed Bin Laden and maintains close contacts with his followers. ( REUTERS )"}, {"response": 22, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:27)", "body": "NHK sez that CBS reports that 11 planes total have been hijacked, and four are still whereabouts unknown."}, {"response": 23, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:28)", "body": "This topic has been linked to drool, geo and other conferences here temporarily while this story is unfolding. It will be eventually unlinked."}, {"response": 24, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:30)", "body": "FORT WORTH, Texas American Airlines confirmed today that it lost two aircraft in tragic incidents this morning. American said the flights were Flight 11, a Boeing 767 en route from Boston to Los Angeles with 81 passengers, nine flight attendants and two pilots; and Flight 77, a Boeing 757 operating from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles with 58 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots."}, {"response": 25, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:32)", "body": "This is something that we will all remember in future years, like when JFK was shot, we'll remember where we were and what we were doing when this happened. I was in my car heading to Austin on 183 listening to a sports show when Bucky Goldbolt broke the news and I switched to the local news station to hear more. I was coming up on North Lamar."}, {"response": 26, "author": "maryw", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:33)", "body": "11.28 AM NY Time/1.28 am (Wed 12 Sep)Sydney Listening to AustBroadcastingCorp (AustBC) - a CNN reporter getting live feed (can hear in the background). Reporting follows : United Airlines NY to San Francisco has crashed. in addition to those that were reported on the media earlier... Washington to LAX and Boston to LAX."}, {"response": 27, "author": "aishling", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:34)", "body": "I have been listening to our news in UK since this terrible news broke and the London Stock Exchange and Canary Wharf have been evacuated as a precautionary."}, {"response": 28, "author": "maryw", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:39)", "body": "11.36 AM NY Time/1.36 am (Wed 12 Sep)Sydney AustBC is reporting that the Talliban is reported to have announced that they will be holding press conference soon."}, {"response": 29, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:51)", "body": "Colin Powell time."}, {"response": 30, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (11:55)", "body": "An aside: US attacks slam eurostocks; insurers hit, oil climbs By Sophie Walker and Louise Ireland LONDON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - A series of deadly attacks on U.S. landmark buildings sent European stock markets into a nosedive on Tuesday, with insurance shares taking the brunt of the pressure while investors scrambled to scoop up oil stocks."}, {"response": 31, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:03)", "body": "Some street celebrations in Palestine."}, {"response": 32, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:08)", "body": "I got through to MSNBC. Definitely not new, but here's what they are saying: NEW YORK, Sept. 11 \ufffd Americans reeled in horror Tuesday as the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history sent planes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York, toppling the twin 110-story towers. An explosion later rocked the Pentagon in Washington. The White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol building were evacuated. Military jets patrolled the skies above both cities. The FAA grounded all civilian aircraft nationwide, but not before reports of another large aircraft crashing in Western Pennsylvania. President Bush vowed to \ufffdhunt down the folks who committed this act.\ufffd THE FATE OF those in the twin skyscrapers was not immediately known. Authorities had been trying to evacuate the thousands of people who work in the twin towers, but many were thought to be trapped. \ufffdI swear I\ufffdve never seen anything like this,\ufffd said MSNBC\ufffds Ashleigh Banfield. \ufffdThis whole place is like a complete war zone.\ufffd At the Pentagon, eyewitnesses saw an aircraft crash into part of the sprawling complex. Walls were later seen to have collapsed. An earlier report of a car bomb exploding outside the State Department was later denied. In New York, the aircraft struck minutes apart, starting fires and sending smoke billowing out of the skyscrapers. The top of the south tower later collapsed onto the street below. The first crash happened shortly before 9 a.m. ET. MSNBC.com reporter Martin Wolk, who was inside one of the towers, said the lights flickered and then a loud bang was heard. People panicked and started to flee the building. When they reached the lobby, smoke started to fill the building and people could see debris falling and many cars outside were damaged. \ufffdIt was sheer pandemonium, people were screaming and crying, afraid to go outside because of the falling debris,\ufffd Wolk said. \ufffdWe looked up and it looked like the top 20 floors were in flames.\ufffd Another bystander described a barrage of debris raining down on the sidewalk below. Advertisement Shortly after 9 a.m., a second aircraft was seen crashing into the other tower. Broadcast cameras already watching the scene filmed the second plane as it slammed into the tower and exploded in a huge fireball. A half hour later, President Bush made a brief statement to reporters, calling the disaster a \ufffdnational tragedy\ufffd and attributing it to terrorists. He did not cite any specific terrorist groups but vowed to \ufffdhunt down the folks who committed this act.\ufffd U.S. military jets reportedly took to the skies to shoot down any unidentified aircraft, and congressional leaders were taken to secure locations. A plane was reported to have been circling the Capitol building before the evacuation. American Airlines later acknowledged that one of its flights had been hijacked Tuesday morning shortly after leaving Boston en route to Los Angeles. In the wake of the crashes, New York airports and the Lincoln Tunnel were closed as precautionary measures. The stock exchanges in New York also did not open. Large holes were visible in sides of the 110-story buildings. The tops of the twin towers were obscured by the smoke. Thousands of pieces of what appeared to be office paper came drifting over Brooklyn, about three miles from the tower, one witness said. Click on the image for reports of the terrorism attacks. In an earlier terrorist attack, the center was bombed on Feb. 26, 1993, killing six people and injured more than 1,000 others. Terrorist Ramzi Yousef and three others were convicted of orchestrating the attack. Three other indicted co-conspirators remain at large. Traffic entering New York City from New Jersey was at a standstill approaching the Holland Tunnel as motorists stood outside their cars watching the fire. Across the country, highrises like Chicago\ufffds Sears Trade tower were being evacuated as a precaution. Buildings were also being evacuated in London. The Associated Press contributed to this report."}, {"response": 33, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:11)", "body": "Terror attacks paralyze Washington, New York By Shelley Emling and Marilyn Geewax Cox News Service Tuesday, September 11, 2001 WASHINGTON \ufffd An apparently coordinated series of terror attacks struck the nation's capital and its largest city this morning, destroying both towers of the World Trade Center in New York and shutting down most government operations. An airliner struck the north tower of the 110-story World Trade Center about 8:45 a.m. EDT, followed about 18 minutes later by a second apparently deliberate crash into the south tower. A little more than hour later, the south tower collapsed, and the north tower folowed it. In the capital, a fire forced the evacuation of the Pentagon, reportedly after another aircraft struck the building. A car bomb explosion and fire was also reported at the State Department, which was evacuated along with the Capitol and the White House. The Federal Aviation Administration suspended all aircraft takeoffs across the country. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks. According to unconfirmed reports, a Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for at least one of the attacks. \"There will be hell to pay in the weeks and months ahead,\" said Neil Livingstone, a terrorism expert in Washington. \"This basically amounts to a declaration of war.\" President Bush, visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla., said, \"I've ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act. Terrorism against our nation will not stand.\" The sound of sirens on Capitol Hill added to the tension as vehicles headed to emergencies in the city. Downtown streets were gridlocked as an air of panic began to spread among workers who poured from buildings. Smoke billowed from the Pentagon, just across the Potomac River from the District of Columbia. \"I saw the tail of a large airliner. . . . It plowed right into the Pentagon,\" said an Associated Press Radio reporter. \"There is billowing black smoke.\" Shortly after the Capitol building was evacuated, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said there was an \"unauthorized plane\" in airspace in the Washington area. \"People are trying to figure out where it is. That's all I can tell you right now,\" Kerry said. In New York, black smoke poured from the international landmark, and paper and debris rained onto the streets. By 9 a.m., thousands of people already were at work on the upper floors of the World Trade Center. Casualties were impossible to determine immediately, but were likely to number at least in the hundreds. Ira Furman, a former spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said it was unlikely the acts were caused by pilot or navigational error. \"It is beyond belief,\" he said. \"Planes can come within a few miles of the World Trade Center, but a pilot would never come this close.\" One witness, Mary Cozza, said she heard a loud \"boom\" before seeing the crash. \"I looked up and saw a plane that looked like it was flying too low,\" she said. \"It looked like it was aimed right at the World Trade Center. We saw the crash. Shattered glass was pouring down. It didn't look like a giant airliner. It didn't look like it was swerving out of control or anything.\" The World Trade Center has been the target of terrorism before. In February 1993 a terrorist bomb rocked the Manhattan skyscrapers. The World Trade Center is one of the nation's most well-known structures located in the heart of the U.S. financial district, one of the city's most heavily populated areas. Many major financial and technology companies are housed here and it's only a 10-minute walk from the U.S. Stock Exchange. The stock exchange suspended trading just after the crash."}, {"response": 34, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:17)", "body": "cnn.com (hard to get to now): AMERICA UNDER ATTACK World Trade Centers collapse after planes hit, 10,000 emergency workers head to scene Plane hits Pentagon, part of the Pentagon collapses American, United both confirm losing two planes each Bush calls trade center crashes terrorist act Federal buildings, United Nations evacuated FAA grounds all U.S. flights, sends trans-Atlantic flights to Canada Israel evacuates embassies U.S.-Mexico border closed Non-essential NATO employees asked to leave Brussels HQ"}, {"response": 35, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:18)", "body": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- Terrorists struck the United States Tuesday morning in harrowing, widespread attacks that included at least three commercial jet crashes into significant buildings. \ufffd In the first attack, a plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan shortly before 9 a.m., followed by another plane into the second tower about 20 minutes later. Both towers later collapsed. \ufffd About an hour later, a plane crashed into the Pentagon, part of which later collapsed. \ufffd American Airlines told CNN that it lost two planes in \"tragic accidents:\" Flight 11 from Boston with 81 passengers and 11 crew aboard and Flight 77 from Washington Dulles airport with 58 passengers and six crew aboard. Both planes were en route to Los Angeles \ufffd United Airlines Flight 93 airliner headed from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, crashed near Somerset, Pennsylvania -- police said initial reports indicated no survivors. United also confirmed the crash of Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles. \ufffd The Pentagon, the White House, the State Department, the Justice Department, the Capitol, the CIA and all other government buildings in Washington evacuated. \ufffd President Bush cancelled an appearance in Florida to return to Washington, calling the crashes \"apparent terrorist attacks\" and \"a national tragedy.\" \ufffd In the first ever national ground stop of aircraft, all flights nationwide have been stopped at their departure airports. \ufffd All international flights were diverted to Canada. \ufffd Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, said in reaction to the news of the terror attacks that \"we want to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain and we hope that the courts find justice.\" \ufffd In New York, more than 10,000 rescue personnel rushed to the scene. The entire downtown area of Manhattan was evacuated as far north as Rockefeller Center, according to an official at an emergency command post. \ufffd Israel has evacuated all its missions around the world. \ufffd The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was evacuated. CDC was preparing bioterrorism teams in case they become necessary. \ufffd Philadelphia landmarks were also evacuated. \ufffd In Chicago, the Sears Tower was evacuated; United Nations in New York evacuated. \ufffd The New York Port Authority said it had closed all bridges and tunnels into the city. \ufffd U.S. stock markets were closed after the New York attacks. \ufffd NATO sent home all non-essential personnel from its Brussels, Belgium, headquarters. \ufffd Border between the United States and Mexico closed."}, {"response": 36, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:25)", "body": "Nation: United plane crashes near Pittsburgh; 3 other flights missing The Associated Press PITTSBURGH (September 11, 2001 11:59 a.m. EDT) - A United Airlines plane crashed Tuesday morning just north of the Somerset County Airport. United said it was also \"deeply concerned\" about another plane, Flight 175, a Boeing 767, which was bound from Boston to Los Angeles. American Airlines said Tuesday it had lost two planes with a total 156 people aboard, Agence-France Presse reported. The United Boeing 757 was enroute from Newark, N.J. to San Francisco. The United plane crashed about 10 a.m. about 8 miles east of Jennerstown, according to county 911 dispatchers, WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh reported. \"It shook the whole station,\" said Bruce Grine, owner of Grine's Service Center in Shanksville, about two and one-half miles from the crash. \"Everybody ran outside, and by that time the fire whistle was blowing.\" United identified the plane as Flight 93. The airline did say how many people were aboard the flight. On behalf of the airline CEO James Goodwin said: \"The thoughts of everyone at United are with the passengers and crew of these flights. Our prayers are also with everyone on the ground who may have been involved. \"United is working with all the relevant authorities, including the FBI, to obtain further information on these flights,\" he said. The Somerset County airport, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, in a small, rural facility that does not handle such aircraft. Because of the attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration had ordered all departing flights canceled nationwide, and any planes already in the air were to land a the nearest airport. The plane crashed shortly after the order was issued. The crash came the same morning that terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the twin 110-story towers collapsed. A plane also hit the Pentagon in Washington"}, {"response": 37, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:26)", "body": "By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press LONDON (September 11, 2001 12:02 p.m. EDT) - Terrorist strikes in the United States quickly reached a global audience Tuesday, with leaders around the world watching live coverage of an aircraft hitting the World Trade Center. Audiences were transfixed by the awful images from New York, where both World Trade Center towers collapsed. Key indexes sank on world stock markets and some European airlines canceled flights to the United States and recalled planes already in the air. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the American people over the terrorist attacks, calling the \"terrible tragedies,\" the Kremlin press service said. \"This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today,\" said Prime Minister Tony Blair, who canceled a speech at a trade union conference. \"It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life, and we the democracies of this world are going to have to come together and fight it together.\" President Jacques Chirac of France, in a nationally televised statement, called the attacks in the United States \"monstrous\" and expressed his solidarity with the American people. \"France has just learned of these monstrous attacks, there is no other word for it, that have hit America,\" Chirac said from Rennes, in the western region of Brittany. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his top aides followed the events at his seaside office in Gaza City, gathered around a TV set. \"I send my condolences to the president, the government and the people for this terrible incident,\" Arafat said. \"We are completely shocked. It's unbelievable.\" In Berlin, Foreign Ministry officials huddled in a crisis meeting, and Parliament's vice speaker Anke Fuchs told lawmakers a \"terrible catastrophe\" had happened. Virtually all German TV channels switched to live coverage. \"This is pure mass murder,\" one commentator said. Scandinavian Airlines System, SAS, rerouted three airplanes bound for New York and one for Washington from Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Flights to the United States were suspended from Portugal, and the Belgian airline recalled two flights on the way to the United States, diverted others to Canada and canceled all planned flights to the United States. In Thailand, Suranand Vejjajiva, a spokesman for the office of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said they were watching the news in disbelief. A spokesman for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said: \"The president has been monitoring the events since an hour ago and she condemns what is obviously the worst terrorist attack on a leader of civilized society.\" Broadcasters around the world broke into programming to show images of the disaster. \"It's incredible. I thought I was watching a Hollywood movie,\" said Hong Kong school teacher Doris Tang."}, {"response": 38, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:27)", "body": "Agence France-Presse MOSCOW (September 11, 2001 12:15 p.m. EDT) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Bush on Tuesday that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington \"must not go unpunished\", the Interfax news agency reported. \"The series of barbaric acts directed against innocent people fills us with indignation and revolt,\" said Putin in a telegram to Bush. \"Such inhuman acts must not go unpunished,\" he said."}, {"response": 39, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:30)", "body": "(September 11, 2001 11:18 a.m. EDT) - Timeline of U.S. Attacks - Plane crashes into tower of World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, shortly before 9 a.m. Eastern. - Second plane crashes into the second tower of the World Trade Center, shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern. - President Bush, in Sarasota, Florida, calls the crashes \"an apparent terrorist attack\" and a \"national tragedy.\" - An aircraft crashes near Pentagon, just outside of Washington D-C, in Northern Virginia, about an hour after the attacks in New York. - Government buildings in Washington, including the Capitol and the White House, are evacuated with officials citing a credible threat of a terrorist attack. - The Federal Aviation Administration shuts down all aircraft takeoffs nationwide. - Shortly after 10 a.m. Eastern, one World Trade Center tower in New York collapses, about an hour after being hit by plane. - American Airlines says one of the planes that crashed into the Trade Center was American Airlines Flight 11, hijacked after takeoff from Boston en route to Los Angeles. - Senior law enforcement officials say car bomb explodes outside of State Department in Washington, D-C. Federal protective services later denies car bomb attack occurred. - Financial markets suspend trading in the wake of the attacks. - Officials at Somerset County Airport say a large plane crashes in western Pennsylvania, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, at about 10:00 a.m. - The second tower of the World Trade Center collapses at 10:28 a.m. Eastern. - Fourth explosion rocks the collapsed remains of the World Trade Center, at about 10:38 a.m. - Authorities across the country go on alert, tightening security at strategic facilities and evacuating high-profile buildings. U.S. monuments and museums in Washington DC are closed. - Securities and Exchange Commission says all financial markets are closed for the day."}, {"response": 40, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:50)", "body": "Dan Rather reports Bush is going to make a statement from an Air Force Base in Louisiana in a few minutes."}, {"response": 41, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:51)", "body": "All 4 flights that crashed were apparently bound for California. When did the airlines first realize that something was wrong? The plane from Boston that crashed into the WTC was bound for Los Angeles. Topic 1180 [current]: Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center #199 of 199: Jerry (jmcarlin) Tue Sep 11 '01 (09:47) 6 lines CNN says 4 plans lost/missing: 2 American and 2 united. They said that they *think* that one of them might be one that hit the Pentagon. CNN is also reporting that bin Laden is increasingly being blamed."}, {"response": 42, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (12:51)", "body": "Salon confirms military is at Delta. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/11/bombings/index.html There is no higher military alert than Delta."}, {"response": 43, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:04)", "body": "I'm on Long Island, 40 miles east of the city...was at work when this happened. several of my friends work in NYC, one of them in 7 World Trade, a building next to tower 2. i'm so scared right now... how could anyone do something like this?! 10K people work(ed) in each of those towers, not counting the tourists, people on the streets, etc. i feel sick."}, {"response": 44, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:09)", "body": "I hope your friends are ok Liz."}, {"response": 45, "author": "Charlotte", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:10)", "body": "People have been comparing this to Pearl Harbor. Most of us were not born at the time of that event. The feeling today's events conjures in me is the fear I lived through in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. At that time, only one man stood between us and WWIII. If we could trace these attacks to one country, we would now be at war. And I doubt that even JFK could prevent it."}, {"response": 46, "author": "Charlotte", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:11)", "body": "Incidentally, 45-50 thousand people work in the two WTC buildings...not 10K."}, {"response": 47, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:18)", "body": "unidentified source: Friend of mine in Scotland, who is monitoring a lot of news feeds and has a bunch of friends in US military bases, is giving me info that I can't find _anywhere_ else- he claims that 12 (!) planes are still en route to the US, not all over the Atlantic, and that are not responding to hails. Anyone know anything about this?"}, {"response": 48, "author": "Charlotte", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:19)", "body": "Incidentally, 45-50 thousand people work in the two WTC buildings...not 10K."}, {"response": 49, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:21)", "body": "I think I heard somewhere that 55,000 or so were killed in the Vietnam war, the toll here is going to be horrorific."}, {"response": 50, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:26)", "body": "yes, charlotte..what I meant was 10K per tower in just the offices, minimum capacity. full capacity is closer to 20-25K per tower. it doesn't matter the toll; one life is too much. thanks, terry. I'm praying for all who have friends or relatives in downtown."}, {"response": 51, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:40)", "body": "Colin Powell said: \"A great tragedy has struck our country and it will not affect the nature of our society,'' he said. ``We'll find out who's responsible for this and bring them to justice.''"}, {"response": 52, "author": "Charlotte", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (13:48)", "body": "Agreed, Liz. Sorry I misunderstood. Also sorry my post appeared twice. Must have been cause I \"refresh\"-ed. Terry, thank you for making this site available when it is impossible to get news elsewhere."}, {"response": 53, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:00)", "body": "Yes, Terry, thanks for the email about the topic ..I'm in the UK, we turned on the TV just after the first plane hit and have been following the news since. Our prayers and thoughts are with all those concerned and I hope that my friends on Spring get good news about people they know. In the City of London the Stock Exchange closed, and several major buildings were evacuated and the City closed. All US banks and institutions here are on high alert. There were reports an hour or so ago about another plane crash in Pittsburg which appeared to be related. Also a report of another hijack plane heading for Washington ..... sorry I don't have any details ...anyone else have any news??"}, {"response": 54, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:03)", "body": "In Hawaii, on the Bis Island, all schools are closed as is the airport (throughout the state, actually). On Oahu, all military personnel are to report to their stations, Pearl Harbor all ships staffed. Arizona Memorial closed. This is ghastly. Beyond anything Hollywood could dream up. Be calm, stay home, donate blood if you can, (even call for it here) and PRAY. Thanks Terry!"}, {"response": 55, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:03)", "body": "There's news of this above in this topic. The other hijacked plane went down, it was the same plane that went down in Pittsburgh. \ufffdI JUST SAW the building I work in come down,\ufffd said businessman Gabriel Ioan, shaking in shock outside City Hall a cloud of smoke and ash from the World Trade Center behind him. \ufffdI just saw the top of Trade Two come down.\ufffd MSNBC.com producer Steve Johnson, standing about six blocks from the towers in lower Manhattan, was also an eyewitness to the collapse. \ufffdAbout five minutes before the tower fell you could see people jumping from the upper floors. I watched six either fall or jump ... The police rolled up [in] vans. Suddenly the top of [the tower] just shattered into tens of thousands of pieces. You could see the walls peel away. The whole thing just disappeared. Then the smoke came up. The cops started yelling, \ufffdGet back! Run! Get away!\ufffd I ran inside a hotel, and it went black outside because of the dust.\ufffd Nearby a crowd mobbed a man on a pay phone, screaming at him to get off the phone so that they could call relatives. Dust and dirt flew everywhere. Ash was 2 to 3 inches deep in places. People wandered dazed and terrified. \ufffdI was in the World Financial Center looking out the window,\ufffd said one woman. \ufffdI saw the first plane and then 15 minutes later saw the other plane just slam into the World Trade Center.\ufffd Firefighter Jimmy Grillo, with Ladder 24, had blood running down his face from an injury to his nose. Grillo was in the lobby of the World Trade Center after the first blast and when the second blast came, he was trapped in the debris. \ufffdWe crawled in the debris toward the light\ufffd. There\ufffds a bunch of guys still trapped in there,\ufffd Grillo told MSNBC.com\ufffds Johnson. \ufffdPEOPLE SCREAMING ... DIVING FOR COVER\ufffd Another eyewitness, AP newsman Dunstan Prial, described a strange sucking sound from the Trade Center buildings after the first building collapsed. \ufffdWindows shattered. People were screaming and diving for cover. People walked around like ghosts, covered in dirt, weeping and wandering dazed.\ufffd \ufffdIt sounded like a jet or rocket,\ufffd said Eddie Gonzalez, a postal worker at a post office on West Broadway. \ufffdI looked up and saw a huge explosion. I didn\ufffdt see the impact. I just saw the explosion.\ufffd Morning commuters heading into Manhattan were stranded as the Lincoln Tunnel was shut down to incoming traffic. Many left their cars and stood on the ramp leading to the tunnel, staring in disbelief at the thick cloud of smoke pouring from the top of the two buildings. On the streets of Manhattan, people stood in groups talking quietly or watching on television at ground-level network studios. Terror attack on the U.S. \ufffd Main story \ufffd MSNBC's Wolk: On the scene in Manhattan \ufffd Witnesses describe terror in the towers \ufffd World reacts with horror \ufffd Markets, airports, U.S. border shut after terror \ufffd Newsweek: An icon destroyed \ufffd Exodus in Washington \ufffd Live video coverage \ufffd Discuss the attacks on MSNBC's bulletin board Joan Goldstein, communications project leader for The Associated Press, was on a bus from New Jersey at about 8:50 a.m. when she saw \ufffdsmoke pouring out of the World Trade Center building. We said, \ufffdOh, my God! The World Trade Center\ufffds on fire!\ufffd Perhaps 10 minutes later, \ufffdAll of a sudden, there was an orange plume, a huge explosion. It shot out the back of the building. Everybody on the bus was just moaning and gasping,\ufffd said Goldstein, who wept and trembled as she spoke. The plume was from the second plane, but she didn\ufffdt see the plane because of the thick smoke. She tried to call friends who work there, but couldn\ufffdt get through. \ufffdIt was the most horrible thing I\ufffdve ever seen in my life,\ufffd said Goldstein. GIVING BLOOD At St. Vincent\ufffds hospital in Greenwich Village, people waited in long lines to give blood. They were taken according to blood type. Hundreds of donors \ufffd perhaps as many as a thousand \ufffd looked like a tapestry of New York citizenry. \ufffdThere are all kinds of people \ufffd young and old, black and white, students and professionals waiting to give blood,\ufffd said Harry Barandes, a graduate student at New York University. Ambulances continued to arrive intermittently. The shock on people\ufffds faces was shaken free only by the sirens that blared in the background. Meanwhile, volunteers wandered among those waiting in line, asking if anyone was hungry or thirsty. \ufffdThere are really kind citizens passing out food and water,\ufffd said Barandes. \ufffdThe outpouring of goodwill is amazing.\ufffd Further from the disaster scene in upper Manhattan signs went up that blood drives had begun. SURREAL SCENE, EERY CALM \ufffdThere\ufffds a huge smell of char in the air. People are walking with masks, with their shirts off. People trying to get out [of the area] any way. People are crying, watching in disbelief. [It\ufffds] total shock.\ufffd \ufffd MICHELLE PRELI MSNBC.com producer In Brooklyn, across the East River from Manhattan, \ufffdthe situation is chaos,\ufffd MSNBC.com producer Michelle Preli reported. \ufffdThe Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge are "}, {"response": 56, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:03)", "body": "German stock exchange threatened by bomb attack. They are closing."}, {"response": 57, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:04)", "body": "\ufffdTHERE HAVE BEEN the most terrible, shocking events taking place in the United States of America within the last couple of hours,\ufffd British Prime Minister Tony Blair told union leaders in Brighton, southern England. \ufffdWe can only imagine the terror and carnage there and the many, many innocent people who have lost their lives.\ufffd Blair, who had been due to deliver a key policy speech, cut short his visit and said he wanted to return immediately to London to monitor the unfolding events. He sent his deepest condolences to Bush and the people of America."}, {"response": 58, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:05)", "body": "\ufffdThis mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of life,\ufffd he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the attack as a terrible tragedy, according to Kremlin spokesman Alexei Gromov, and convened a special meeting of his defense and security officials. Putin also offered his condolence to the United States. France\ufffds president, Jacques Chirac, in a live televised address, condemned the attacks and expressed his solidarity with the American people. Advertisement \ufffdFrance has just learned of these monstrous attacks \ufffd there is no other word for it \ufffd that have hit America,\ufffd Chirac said from Rennes, in the western region of Brittany. In Berlin, Foreign Ministry officials huddled in a crisis meeting, and Parliament\ufffds vice speaker, Anke Fuchs, told lawmakers a \ufffdterrible catastrophe\ufffd had happened. Virtually all German TV channels switched to live coverage. \ufffdThis is pure mass murder,\ufffd one commentator said. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder convened an unprecedented meeting of his security council, and air traffic authorities said all European flights to the United States had been suspended. The council meets rarely and is the government\ufffds main body in times of crisis. Besides Schroeder, it includes the foreign, defense and interior ministers and several others. MIDEAST REACTS Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his top aides followed the events at his seaside office in Gaza City, gathered around a TV set. \ufffdWe completely condemn this serious operation. ... We were completely shocked. It\ufffds unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.\ufffd An anonymous caller told Abu Dhabi television earlier on Tuesday that a radical Palestinian group was responsible for the attacks, but the group later denied any involvement. Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel\ufffds Army Radio it was \ufffdsimply a tragedy.\ufffd"}, {"response": 59, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:06)", "body": "The Pittsburgh plane crash is the one they believe was also headed for Washington DC, with some speculating that it might have either the Capitol (building) or White House as its target. How they could come to that, I'll never know. Two planes were targeted at the WTC (one at each tower). The Pentagon is an enormous building (sq ft-wise). All the planes (4) had California as their destination which would give them the maximum amount of fuel any aircraft would have onboard."}, {"response": 60, "author": "loveliz", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:11)", "body": "Hi, just heard that a passenger from the PA crash had a cell phone in the bathroom and reported that they were being hijacked...\"this is not a hoax\". guess not. Also heard that there were 6-8 planes in the air that would be allowed to land at the Nashville airport. My daughter's fiance's sister is an intern at St. Vincents. She is alive. Just heard that there were over 100 victims there, 2 dead, but I had heard earlier that the vestibule was stacked with fatal burn victims. Hope that was a rumor. love,Eliz"}, {"response": 61, "author": "ToSch", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:11)", "body": "All the German and European people want to express their condolence to the people of the United States! Our prayers are with the victims and their families! God bless you! Your Tobias"}, {"response": 62, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:23)", "body": "From the eyewitness reports on the BBC it appears that the second plane flew slowly and directly into the south tower of the WTC. Its likely that the terrorists flew the planes. CNN is talking about the lead time that air traffic controllers had that the planes were off course. One made a sharp turn at Albany and headed south. They are also talking about the tapes of the controllers trying to talk to the planes. Just speculation right now - the tapes are not yet available."}, {"response": 63, "author": "BlackB", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:24)", "body": "My thoughts and prayers are with those whose families are affected by these tragedies. All German TV channels do reports now. Something however disturbs me in some way: in the first chapter of Tom Clancy's novel \"Executive Orders\" a plane crashes into the capitol and kills everyone inside. Seems like the wrong people read that book.... BlackB"}, {"response": 64, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:27)", "body": "BlackB, I've had the same thoughts about giving the truly warped mentally bad ideas for their terrorism in books and movies. FCC, federal agencies shut down after terrorist attacks Along with most other federal agencies, the FCC has closed its offices and sent its employees home in the wake of apparent terrorist attacks this morning in New York City, Washington, DC, and elsewhere. The FCC has issued no emergency declaration nor other special instructions to the Amateur Radio community. The ARRL has advised amateurs to stay alert to instructions from local authorities. President George W. Bush has announced that the US military is on high alert in the US and abroad. US air traffic was shut down after two airliners struck the twin towers of the 110-story World Trade Center in New York City this morning within a short time of each other. The building's towers partially collapsed in the wake of the collisions. An aircraft subsequently crashed into the Pentagon, and another aircraft crashed near Pittsburgh, reportedly after being hijacked. American Airlines and United Airlines both have acknowledged that they have lost planes this morning. More than 260 died in the crashes. Thousands were believed injured in New York City; there's no estimate on the number killed. New York City-Long Island Section Emergency Coordinator Tom Carrubba, KA2D, said there has been no request for any Amateur Radio Emergency Service response at this time, although hams have been requested to assist the American Red Cross. New York City's emergency management offices are located in the World Trade Center. He said he was alerting all amateurs, especially ARES and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service personnel, to get prepared and to stand by. Carrubba said he's in the process of setting up a command channel on a linked repeater system that will cover the area from New York City into Long Island's Suffolk County. Kenneth Goetz, N2SQW, reports New York State RACES is operational on 3.993.5 and 7.248 MHz handling emergency and governmental-type traffic. He asked amateurs to avoid these frequencies. In the Washington, DC, area, Virginia SEC Tom Gregory, N4NW, says Virginia ARES has been put on alert but has not yet been activated. ''I've asked everyone to monitor the emergency frequencies and to keep a full tank of gas.'' He said the attack on Washington has resulted in a massive traffic jam as workers in DC attempt to leave the capital; cellular telephone communication was next-to-impossible. While no emergency nets are in operation yet, Gregory said all repeaters would be available as well as 7.243 MHz and 3.947 MHz on HF. Virginia RACES reportedly has been activated at the state emergency operations center at Virginia State Police headquarters in Richmond as a precautionary measure. The FCC's Riley Hollingsworth today suggested that the amateur community remain calm but ready. He invited amateurs monitoring any suspicious radio activity to contact him, and he will relay relevant information to the FCC duty team. He advised monitors to tape such radio traffic, if possible. Should a state of war be declared, Amateur Radio would not automatically be shut down. This requirement was eliminated prior to the Gulf War."}, {"response": 65, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:38)", "body": "first chapter of Tom Clancy's novel \"Executive Orders\" The kamikaze plane attack on the Capitol Building was the plot of the book before that one: Debt of Honor. The pilot was part of the plan, which took out the entire government. You don't need eyewitness reports on BBC. The second plane attacking the WTC is on video on every news channel. You could probably have watched it live, just as you could watch both towers crumble. It is very likely the terrorists took over flying the planes as no US pilot - even with a gun pointed at his/her head - would steer into any occupied building."}, {"response": 66, "author": "Becka", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (14:53)", "body": "Karen: my Mom mentioned the book this morning. Ominous. I cannot explain my grief and sadness. My thoughts are with all those people, so, so many lives that are forever changed. I can't get out of my head that some people actually saw the horrified faces of those passengers in those hijacked planes - waiting to die in vain. And all those people who went to work and never came back. God bless us all."}, {"response": 67, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:04)", "body": "I'm in Atlanta. The area around CNN Center which is in downtown Atlanta, has been sealed off and all public access to CNN Center itself has been stopped. I guess as lots of the the world gets it global/US news coverage news via CNN, it is a facility the authorities don't want messed with. All malls, schools and universities here etc are closed. At 3pm Eastern, 10-12 international flights are still in-bound to the US and have been given clearance to land. They are all from the Pacific Rim countries in bound to West Coast Cities."}, {"response": 68, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:09)", "body": "President Bush just landed at Straegic Airforce Command in Nebraska. So it appears the President and his advisors, are not going to orchestrate a response to this catastrophe from the White House."}, {"response": 69, "author": "ToSch", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:12)", "body": "German TV Broadcasting stopped for 15 Minutes!!! \" A moment of silence for our Brothers and Sisters in the USA!!!\""}, {"response": 70, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:19)", "body": ""}, {"response": 71, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:41)", "body": "Inbound planes from the Orient are being allowd to land in Honolulu if they have gone beyond the point of no return, but with a fighter escort from Hickam AF Base. Nothing is outbound. Even the tour planes are grounded. Nothing is in the air!"}, {"response": 72, "author": "LauraT", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:42)", "body": "More stuff about the cellphone call, from an AP News story: \"An emergency dispatcher in Westmoreland County, Pa., received a cell phone call at 9:58 a.m. from a man who said he was a passenger locked in the bathroom of United Flight 93, said dispatch supervisor Glenn Cramer. \"We are being hijacked, we are being hijacked!\" Cramer quoted the man as saying. The man told dispatchers the plane \"was going down. He heard some sort of explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane and we lost contact with him,\" Cramer said.\""}, {"response": 73, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:42)", "body": "So it appears the President and his advisors, are not going to orchestrate a response to this catastrophe from the White House. No. The book on these types of situations calls for moving the president, et al, around to *secure* locations. Unfortunately, our wonderfully free press is publicizing all the known locations for government backup ops. Why don't they just give the addresses?"}, {"response": 74, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:43)", "body": "The airports are closed until noon tomorrow BTW."}, {"response": 75, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:47)", "body": "Thanks Tobias and all who have expressed condolences. Actually we are all one little world. We need to relearn the art of getting along on a tiny planet. This American appreciates your concern very much!"}, {"response": 76, "author": "LauraMM", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:48)", "body": "Why don't they just give the addresses? I know! Geez, here they are saying he's in a secret location, in NEBRASKA??? hello???? They evacuated all of Boston today. The one question I ask, that no one an answer is HOW THE HELL DID HIJACKERS GET PAST SECURITY AT LOGAN????????????? (Makes one wonder about the security personnel at the airport now?)"}, {"response": 77, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (15:49)", "body": "Karen, exactly so. The set the plane down and suddenly we all knew exactly where he was! I hate that!!! The media needs to learn some responsibility!"}, {"response": 78, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:06)", "body": "stratfor.com: The Intelligence Failure 1745 GMT, 010911 By George Friedman As of this moment, what is clear is that a substantial number of civilian aircraft were hijacked this morning by pilots with sufficient ability to maneuver those multi-engine aircraft into collisions with major buildings. The flights originated at a number of airports. Each incident required the presence of at least one and probably more hijackers, each prepared to die in the attack. Mounting an attack of this sort is not simple. In the case of the World Trade Center, the collapse of the towers indicates massive delayed explosions. This means either the planes were loaded with explosives or that massive explosive charges were planted in the buildings to go off later. This is supposition, but a secondary explosion is a necessary factor for explaining the collapse. This means many individuals had to be involved in the operation. There had to be a coordinated effort spanning several continents, timed to occur at roughly the same time. At best guess, dozens of people had to be involved. Messages had to flow, coded or otherwise. Yet no human intelligence sources appear to have been among or near the conspirators. No significant messages were intercepted or decoded. For U.S. intelligence to have missed an operation of this magnitude indicates one of two things. First, the competence of U.S. intelligence is overrated or the willingness of policymakers to heed warnings has declined. In either case, the system is badly broken. Alternatively, the sophistication of terrorist counter-intelligence has improved to such an extent that the prior level of expertise bought to bear is simply no longer sufficient. Whether we are facing a decline in U.S. intelligence capability or an increase in counter-intelligence blocking the United States, Sept. 11, 2001, will go down as one of the major intelligence failures in U.S. history. George Friedman is the founder and chariman of STRATFOR."}, {"response": 79, "author": "LauraT", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:15)", "body": "From salon.com Sam Skinner, former transportation secretary under George Bush Sr., directed a \"security enhancement task force\" after Pan-Am flight 103 was shot down in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. I'm looking back on my experience after Pan Am flight 103. We created offices for security in several departments and we enhanced the methods at every airport, so I'm very, very surprised that they were able to accomplish this. The fact that they could get through three airports on four flights without anyone picking it up, shows that this was a very well-organized attack -- probably with some inside help. We've concentrated most of our time and energy on international aircraft. We focused on that threat because they may have been coming in from international airports where security was lax, or going to international locations, in which it would be easier to hide people who would profile as terrorists. So the fact that four domestic flights were hijacked is entirely shocking. I don't know of any scenario that allowed for this. This is not an amateur performance. It must have had support from strong organizations or governments. You would have had to have at least four inside people, at airports with access to planes with full fuel loads. You'd have to have them plant weapons at the same moment without being detected. And I find it hard to believe that any American pilot would deliberately fly into the building, so I also have to assume that they managed to get an experienced pilot on board. The timing of it is also amazing. All the planes were close to their targets but the crashes occurred at around the same time. This was very well-executed, and as a result, security measures as we know them today will be enhanced substantially. What that will be is too early to tell. But there will a lot of money spent on devices; I also think there will a higher scrutiny of employees and of cargo. You can get pretty draconian, and I think we'll see that whole new level of scrutiny. This is different than what we've ever seen in the past. This isn't just blowing up airplanes, this is using airplanes as a tool of death."}, {"response": 80, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:17)", "body": "Covering the Attack An Eyewitness Speaks By Ed Hashey Special to Poynter.org [Editor's note: Ed Hashey is a member of Poynter's visiting visual journalism faculty and an affiliate of Mario Garcia New Media Group.] I keep playing this back in my head. It just did not seem real, nor would I ever have imagined such a series of events happening this morning. It is true: Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I arrived here Sunday night with my wife. She was going to spend the whole week with me for my birthday. I reported to work yesterday as a consultant at The Wall Street Journal. Monday we just came up with the work load for the next few weeks. I came back to the hotel at midtown Manhattan, had dinner with my wife, Jeanne, where we discussed our day's events and plans for tomorrow. Jeanne said she want to come in with me to the downtown area on Tuesday morning and visit the top of the World Trade Center. She found a two-dollar discount coupon. The next morning we both ate breakfast and my wife decided she was not feeling well enough to join me this morning. So I left for work this morning at 8 a.m. I got on the number 9 train from Times Square, and read a chapter in my book. Before you knew it, it was 8:40 a.m. and I was at the World Trade Center station at Cortland Street. I got off the train, walked up to the street exit, and right as I saw daylight, I heard a huge explosion and then many pieces of metal debris, some the size of car hoods, were falling all around me and a very large crowd of people. We all responded by trying to go back in the train station exit, but there were too many people trying to exit, and so we all squeezed against the side of the World Trade Center. After a while, the debris stopped falling. We crossed Liberty street, and looked up and saw the first tower engulfed in flames. Eyewitnesses said a plane had crashed into the building high up. Then to my horror, I started seeing people jump to their deaths. As each person fell, I started praying. Many people fell, and we were not sure where to go or what to do. Then a loud noise of an aircraft became apparent, and I remember seeing a large airline jet smash into the next tower, followed by many flaming pieces falling all around us and many people being struck by debris and burning wreckage. I ran into an entryway of the building across the street and saw debris take out windows. A large crowd of pedestrians outside was hit as they were on their way to work. At that point the police ordered a mass evacuation, and I remember thinking this was a terrorist act. It was just too coincidental too be anything else. I decided to just start running north up Broadway. By the time I reached Chambers Street, I kept trying phones to call my wife and say I was OK, but nothing was working, all circuits busy, my cell phone did not work. So I just got on a train and ran to my hotel room. My wife was in tears, and I was shaking like a leaf. I as still shaking and very sad, then I witnessed the towers falling on the news channel, and I just stood there in disbelief. I am sad, angry, nervous, happy to be alive, but humbled by others' deaths today. I can't stop seeing the visions of bodies falling. I still pray for their families, but the world will never be the same again. I'm very sorry to be writing this."}, {"response": 81, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:18)", "body": "UK news is saying that the US President has gone to Nebraska because that's HQ when the USA is on a war footing. To all my old friends in the US, and the new ones I've made here on Spring recently, my thoughts and prayers are with you on this dreadful day. Take care, all of you."}, {"response": 82, "author": "winter", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:27)", "body": "HOW THE HELL DID HIJACKERS GET PAST SECURITY AT LOGAN????????????? Well, considering these were domestic flights, I suspect that security is a little more lax. I remember listening to an NPR story not too long ago about how airport security employees have such a high turn-around, and most aren't unionized.... I'm in LA where things are eerily quiet. Schools are still in session, but they've cancelled a lot of events tonight (the Madonna concert, Latin Grammys, MLB games, etc..). Some production studios (the major ones anyway) have also shut down for the day. I'm trying to get work done, but it's just too difficult."}, {"response": 83, "author": "autumn", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:27)", "body": "Alas, Babylon... Maryland has been declared a state of emergency. The military post S. works on is at its highest security level, there are massive amounts of agent stored there. Schools, colleges, programs, everything is closed. Hospitals have canceled all elective surgeries to stay ready for victims. I was in D.C. on Monday, sight-seeing with my aunt from Dallas. She tried to call us all afternoon, but there were no available circuits until 3:30. It is so quiet--there's not a car on the road (everyone's watching TV I guess) or a plane in the sky. Weird. I can't even process it all yet."}, {"response": 84, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:28)", "body": "pastebomb alert -- bruces *8-( that peculiar parade-going-in-the-wrong-direction has passed ... maybe we'll find out what that was, at some point ... people are now out of their offices for lunchtime, still almost no traffic, but the shops are open and people are hanging out watching the clouds of smoke ... the view towards the south is unimaginable ... much more jet activity ... -Ken ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.openoffice.de/mailman/listinfo/spectre NYC, Fifth Avenue & 19th St. ... people are walking in large crowds in the middle of Fifth Ave., heading south, as if in a parade. Many more have been standing, looking south, for hours now, as if waiting for something else to happen. It's just clouds of smoke now where the WTC used to be... Some people have radios, portable tvs. Few people's cell phones are working. Apart from the downed antennae, the circuits are just jammed, regular phones are jammed, too. The only traffic seems to be ambulances. Apart from the sirens, it is eerily quiet for midday ... fighter jets are flying overhead now ... -Ken ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.openoffice.de/mailman/listinfo/spectre another meaning for spectre.... Pandemonium envelops reporters incapable of expressing much more than shock. The highways in lower Manhattan are loaded with an exodus of refugees escaping downtown. Electricity has been shut don in lower Manhattan. Airports are in chaos. Everything has a surreal siege status. No official word other than a short statement from Bush early this morning. His plane from Florida will not go to Washington where Chaney is \"in charge\" at the White House. more soon, Tim ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.openoffice.de/mailman/listinfo/spectre i can just report, that here at ZKM in karlsruhe we are also totally shocked, following the news on German tv and CNN for hours and don't know really what to say as angst is emerging of the events. what will happen now? will this event to exponentiate the use of terror between south and north, between east and west? most embarassing seems the clean, totally emotion-less face of G.W. Bush. cannot believe that this is an eqiuvalent reaction of his. (is he in drugs?) best to all, anke ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.openoffice.de/mailman/listinfo/spectre ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.openoffice.de/mailman/listinfo/spectre The national guard has been called up in NYC -- Its like a war zone, they are predicting the death toll as being in the thousands -- 40,000 people work in the two towers and were in the process of arriving for work when the first plane struck -- I witnessed the collapse of the second tower, from a roof about a half mile away-- the city is shut down -- there are still three or 4 more planes unaccounted for -- the pentagon was also attacked and severely damaged -- with large lost of life-- a plane was brought down near camp David -- I placed part of the blame for this turn of events on the Bush administration's failure to intervene in Palestine, his failure to send observers and his failure to condemn Israel's policy of assination against Palestine leaders. This is truly a horror. Saul ______________________________________________ SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe Info, archive and help: http://post.openoffice.de/mailman/listinfo/spectre . y"}, {"response": 85, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:31)", "body": "Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ bruce -- i'm putting together a piece for tomorrow's paper on how the internet reacted/helped/hurt in the face of this disaster. i need help. if you see or hear anything that would feed into this story, please let me know. if you've got anything to say, please give me a quote. i am working out of my home. 540 347 1960. garreau@well.com or garreauj@washpost.com. i'll need to start writing 4-ish eastern time, although i can push later than that for good stuff. please pass the word to anybody else who can help. thanx. joel Joel Garreau The Washington Post 202 334 6269 voice 202 334 5587 fax garreauj@washpost.com \"But I keep hitting these typewriter keys. What a magician is the subconscious. If only it would work regular hours.\" -- Raymond Chandler, \"The Long Goodbye\" 21ST CENTURY DETERRENCE AND TODAY'S ATTACKS Washington, D.C., September 11/PRNEWSWIRE/ -- Responding to today's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Robert David Steele, author of ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (AFCEA, 2000), said: \"The tragedy of today's coordinated attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon--with other targets expected shortly--must be regarded as the Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century. Our national leaders have wasted ten years since the end of the Cold War, failing to understand that it is instability, poverty, oppression, disease, and cultural conflict that require the USA to expend billions of dollars on stabilizing and nurturing the Whole Earth.\" Mr. Steele goes on to note, \"\"As Robert McNamara and others have pointed out, 'at least two thirds of the world's people--Chinese, Russian, Indians, Muslims, and Africans'--see the United States as the single greatest threat to their societies, because of our 'intrusive, interventionist, exploitative, unilateralist, hegemonic, hypocritical practices' of 'economic imperialism' and 'intellectual colonialism'.\" The capitalist party is over. It is time to give Colin Powell what he needs to save the world--only by saving the world can we save America.\" On this occasion Steele and Professor Stephen Cimbala have re-released their earlier warning on the need for a new concept of deterrence in the 21st Century. Their joint communiqu can be downloaded quickly (539 words) from http://www.oss.net/Papers/white/TodaysAttacks.doc . Mr. Steele concludes: \"America is the greatest country in the world, but we have lost sight of our moral foundations, failed to listen to our great strategists Zbigniew Brzezinski and Stephen Metz, and completely closed down the U.S. Department of State and our foreign assistance endeavors. It is time for a Global Marshal Plan that respects the fact that the Whole Earth is a closed system; that does not trivialize today's attacks as terrorist events; and that wakes up to the fact that money cannot buy security in a world where asymmetric power is now in the hands of the people that we have been ignoring and sidelining for over a century.\" Mr. Steele is available for telephone interviews at (703) 242-1700. His high-resolution photograph can be downloaded from http://www.oss.net/Papers/white/AuthorPhoto.gif . Various white papers on the 21st Century threat and what to do about it are at http://www.oss.net/White.html . SOURCE: Open Source Solutions, Inc. -0- 09/11/2001 /CONTACT: Robert Steele, OSS CEO, 703-242-1700, or bear@oss.net/ /Web site: www.oss.net"}, {"response": 86, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:35)", "body": "Ted Olsen's wife Barbara, ironically, was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. ABC News reported that a KAL airliner had been \"forced down\" and boarded by the military in Canada - not sure when. Barbara Olsen was able to contact her husband by cell phone, and reported that all the passengers had been herded to the rear of the aircraft."}, {"response": 87, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:41)", "body": "Apparently its being suggested now that the 4th plane, that crashed near Pittsburgh, was intercepted and brought down by US forces after it failed to respond to air traffic control and refused to identify itself, and it was on a heading for Camp David - am in UK but have just had this from a friend in Chicago - does anyone know if this is true?"}, {"response": 88, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:42)", "body": "Bush is at Offutt AFB in Omaha, home of the Strategic Air Command. Boston has not been evacuated. Logan Airport has been closed and people have been asked to leave. The only aircraft flying over Boston today are delta-wing military aircraft, perhaps an F-15 or F-16. I'm gonna guess that the hijackers somehow disabled the crew, perhaps with gas, which would be easy enough to get through security, and then took over the controls of the plane. This is just my own personal speculation. I expect our nation will now enter a phase of crisis fatigue."}, {"response": 89, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:44)", "body": "Apparently its being suggested now that the 4th plane, that crashed near Pittsburgh, was intercepted and brought down by US forces after it failed to respond to air traffic control and refused to identify itself, and it was on a heading for Camp David - am in UK but have just had this from a friend in Chicago - does anyone know if this is true?"}, {"response": 90, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:45)", "body": "I have heard no reliable reports of how the fourth plane went down near Pittsburgh, but it's possible that it was forced down by an interceptor, as this plane was on a considerably later timetable than the first three. The military would have had time to respond."}, {"response": 91, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:45)", "body": "A govt spokesperson has just refuted that rumor about shooting down the plane."}, {"response": 92, "author": "LauraT", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:46)", "body": "Rachael, all the info I've heard about the Pittsburgh plane has been unconfirmed, but I've also heard the same thing. Hopefully there will be more details later."}, {"response": 93, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:46)", "body": "Terry, is your server on GMT?"}, {"response": 94, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:46)", "body": "Outside Omaha, Nebraska is the Strategic Air Command. Then there is Norad just outside of Colorado Springs. Been there. They don't welcome stangers!"}, {"response": 95, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:48)", "body": "from unidentified source: An attorney named Tom Humphries is being interviewed by Jennings now. He was on the 57th floor in one of the buildings--they cut into the interview in progress so I'm not sure which one--oh, it would have been the first building hit. 57th floor. Took him 45 minutes to get down the staircase. He said people were calm, and helping each other. Asked about whether there were lights, he said, \"Last time there weren't, this time there were.\" (God. \"Last time.\") Only one stairwell was open, the others were blocked by smoke. The first building took some time before it imploded, and he thinks a large number of people got out. (The second building got hit later and collapsed sooner. I hope they were already evacuating after the first building was hit.) Jennings: \"I must say I'm amazed how calm you are, after having been in the first bombing in 1993 and now this.\" Humphries chuckles briefly. \"I'm happy to be here.\" Humphries says the evacuation down one narrow stairway was \"a recipe for disaster\" but everyone's calmness kept it from becoming one. He talked to someone from Tower 2, who was on the 88th floor. They started evacuating after Tower 1 was hit, and that person got out. He says, \"I think the tragedy is, the police and fire people who were trying to help people were right under the building when that happened\"--the collapse--\"They were at ground zero.\" I think this simple interview has started to break through my wall of shock. Listening to a very calm man who was in the building and walked down 57 floors with thousands of heroically self-composed people describe that. I am, goddamnit, starting to believe this."}, {"response": 96, "author": "moulton", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:49)", "body": "Terry, is your server on GMT?"}, {"response": 97, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:49)", "body": "Yeah, I need to fix that again. I keep setting it for CST and it reverts to GMT."}, {"response": 98, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:53)", "body": "More unidentified reports: source a: Some terrorism experts are saying that the only ones who could pull this off are the CIA-trained fundamentalist terrorists in afganistan... we taught them to take down the local great satan -- the USSR -- and now they are turning their attention to the rilly rilly great satan. They do not have headquarters. they do not have known leaders. they are good with technology. They can organize. they are willing to die. they don't care if someone else takes the blame. This second hand from someone who is interviewing experts and pundits. source b: My guess is that the hijackers flew first class, maybe spent some time in the Red Carpet Club before boarding the flights, and didn't appear to be palestinian freedom fighters. Maybe Japanese businessmen if the announcement by the Japanese Red Army is accurate. And another report: BBC News reporting that a building close to the site of the WTC is at risk of collapse as a result of the towers collapsing."}, {"response": 99, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:55)", "body": "Outside Omaha, Nebraska is the Strategic Air Command. Then there is Norad just outside of Colorado Springs. Been there. They don't welcome stangers!"}, {"response": 100, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (16:57)", "body": "They are identifying it as Building 7"}, {"response": 101, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:00)", "body": "BBC suggested that the hijackers were probably domestic passengers not international, ie boarded in the US, because passports aren't needed for internal flights (obviously)"}, {"response": 102, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:00)", "body": "This just in, in a day full of \"this just in's\" BBC News reporting that a building close to the site of the WTC is at risk of collapse as a result of the towers collapsing. So is NPR. BBC now reporting that the building is the 40 storey Sallmon Bros building. And that it has collpased now."}, {"response": 103, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:07)", "body": "No other building has collapsed yet."}, {"response": 104, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:08)", "body": "blood donor centres running low - all who can are urged to donate as a matter of urgency"}, {"response": 105, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:25)", "body": "The third building (#7) has collapsed. CNN just confirmed. Also says there are fears about another (#5). CNN is interviewing Tom Clancy now."}, {"response": 106, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:26)", "body": "I don't know if you have seen this: Knives on Board (techstudies2000) Sep 11, 16:49 Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001; 4:35 p.m. EDT Flight Attendants Stabbed Aboard Twin Tower Kamikaze Plane A violent struggle with knife-wielding terrorists took place outside the cockpit of one of two hijacked planes before it slammed into the World Trade Center Tuesday morning, a flight attendant on board reported to American Airlines before her death. \"A flight attendant on that plane was apparently able to call the American Airlines operations center to tell them that two flight attendants had been stabbed and that the perpetrators had broken into the flight deck,\" ABC Radio News reported. The plane was enroute from Boston to Los Angeles when it was commandeered by terrorists for its kamikaze mission."}, {"response": 107, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:28)", "body": "That last building was 47 stories tall."}, {"response": 108, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:31)", "body": "CNN is now showing some new closeup footage (from PAX TV) of the second plane hitting. What it shows is the plane going right into the building and possibly coming through the other side."}, {"response": 109, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:32)", "body": "As to the Pittsburgh plane being brought down \"intentionally\"....I heard that its suspected target was Camp David and, that fighter jets took it down before it could reach its target. I have no problem understanding how these terrorists and their weapons, could get past airport security at Logan and Dulles, if their security is anything like it is here in Atlanta. Totally disinterested kids, poorly trained and motivated man the security check points here. It would take very little effort to \"sneak\" something past them. The security level at US airports here in the US is very, very, very minimal compared to that at European airports. In Europe, only passengers can enter the Departure Concourse and Lounges. You can not meet someone directly off a plane in Europe, the way you can over here. Also, in Europe you go thru many, many checkpoints and security before you get on your flight. I just wish to God, US airports were as fussy. Twoyearsago I flew from the US to Ireland via London, but I flew back via Glasgow. As I was sitting in the airport in Glasgow, waiting for my flight to Chicago,I was paged on the airport intercom to report back to the American Airlines desk. I was then grilled by the security forces for 2 hours in a tiny little room, which terrifed me witless. Apparantly, an Irish person entering the UK thru one airport and exiting thru another, raised a red flag on some security services computer and I was deemed a \"terrorist threat\". As the IRA was very active in the UK at the time, I did my best to understand that these were just people who were doing their job. After my nerves and heart rate returned to normal, I was actually kind of happy that the security forces were taking such \"extreme\" steps to ensure the safety of airline passengers. I would love to see US airports be equally vigilant. Sorry if I am waffleing....I'm just at a loss, like the rest of you, in trying to comprehend the horror of this carnage."}, {"response": 110, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:49)", "body": "ABC's Claire Shipman reporting the President is on his way to Washington and will make a statement tonight; \"We're told he's angry about what happened and very much wants to make a statement\". Congressional leaders also returning from their safe haven, also will make statements. \"There's apparently a real premium here in Washington among the leaders of presenting a face of business as usual,\" she says. The leadership has been warned of the risk but feels it's important to be in Washington. The President will be landing in D.C. where they feel the airspace is as safe as anywhere in the nation. Vice President Cheney will then be removed from the White House as a precaution, though the First Lady is expected to join her husband."}, {"response": 111, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:53)", "body": "To: \"Red Rock Eater News Service\" Subject: [RRE]attack From: Phil Agre Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:58:22 -0700 Here are some more URL's relating to the attacks this morning. a backup site that generally works when cnn.com does not http://robots.cnn.com/ video of the second plane in New York high bandwidth: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/091101plane1-large.html low bandwidth: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/091101plane1-small.html people's stories http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAVZWE2IRC.html Hotline from the National Journal can be accessed today for free http://hotlinescoop.com/web/content/hotline.htm http://nationaljournal.com/pubs/hotline/extra/lastcall/ this site will register people who are safe http://do.millennium.berkeley.edu/ you can query this site to search for people http://do.millennium.berkeley.edu/find.php military analysis http://www.janes.com/ photos from Brooklyn of the buildings collapsing http://www.indigo23.com/ an architect discussing how the buildings collapsed http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/pipermail/discuss/2001-September/000226.html Engineers Shocked By Towers Collapse http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-010911kamin-towers.story"}, {"response": 112, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:54)", "body": "a great archive of World Trade Center stuff at"}, {"response": 113, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:58)", "body": "7 WT is the one that just collapsed. I was in that building just a few months ago, visiting my friend. He works (or worked...I don't know if he's ok yet...I hate this) for the city Office of Emergency Management. He took me into the \"Bunker\" where the command center was. it was built to withstand the blast of a nuclear bomb, a category 5 hurricane, and some other disasters. I don't think they ever thought that tower 1 would collapse onto it. they have cut us off on Long Island. The only way we can get off (if we needed to) are the 2 Connecticut ferries from Pt. Jefferson and Orient Point. They have closed all of the highways, and most of the schools. People are panicing, unfortunately...long lines at the supermarket, gas stations (which I did myself), etc. If this is what war feels like... *sob* thank you all for being here and reading this, and for all of your thoughts. it helps more than you know."}, {"response": 114, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:58)", "body": "Regarding the stability of the towers: From Before foundation excavation began, the 500 x 1,000-ft site was enclosed by a 3-ft-thick, 70-ft-high concrete cutoff wall built by the slurry trench wall method and keyed 3 ft into rock. Excavation was complicated by two nearby subway tubes that had to be supported without service interruption. A six-level basement was built in the foundation hole. Excavation of 1.2 million cu yd of earth and rock created $90 million of real estate for project owner, the Port of New York Authority. Instead of being trucked off for disposal, spoil was used to create 23 acres of fill in the Hudson River adjacent to the WTC site. It has since been developed as Battery Park City. The twin towers had the world's highest load-bearing walls. Seattle-based structural engineer Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson designed them as vertical cantilevered steel tubes. Exterior columns are 14-in. square hollow box sections spaced 39 in. center-to-center. Spandrels welded to the columns at each floor make them into huge Vierendeel trusses. Each tower is 208 x 208 ft with a column-free interior between the outer walls and the 79-ft x 139-ft core."}, {"response": 115, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (17:58)", "body": "further to Beth's post above about security, here's an article from the BBC comparing security at US and UK airports - having been pulled over twice in the UK as a frequent UK/Ireland flyer, one body search, one bag search, I'd agree its annoying at the time, but then you think you'd rather be safe and you're glad it happens ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1538000/1538682.stm"}, {"response": 116, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (18:01)", "body": "There are explosions in Kabul now. Missiles, tracer fire. Antiaircraft fire."}, {"response": 117, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (18:08)", "body": "4 F-16s just flew over my house... and now Kabul... Lord help us all."}, {"response": 118, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (21:48)", "body": "Some incredible photos. http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist1.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist2.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist3.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist4.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist5.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist6.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist7.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist8.jpg http://www.alternet.org/graphics/story_hirez/terrorist9.jpg"}, {"response": 119, "author": "WinniePeg", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (21:50)", "body": "I am still in shock over today's events and wondering how this could have happened. I am in Canada and think this is the first time I have EVER heard of the Cdn/USA border being closed. I am amazed at how much security has gone into place so quickly. All airports shut down (only taking diverted overseas flights that were to land in U.S.) In our small city, streets to airport are all blocked--no one allowed into or out of airport. Extra police/customs are in place at border already. Cdn.fighter jets had to escort two Korean Air/Lines into Whitehorse airport today when they did not respond to hail. In a total state of disbelieve! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN??"}, {"response": 120, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (21:54)", "body": "San Francisco Bay and its bridges and industries and Alameda are all being partolled by AWACS planes this night. There are frightened citizens there, and I worry for them, as well. We are ALL in a state of total disbelief. They have stopped selling stuff on QVC and HSC out of respect... That has to be a first."}, {"response": 121, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (22:06)", "body": "It happened because we didn't answer many wake up calls. It happened because minimum wage people do security at airports. It happened because we were thinking about a missle defense system instead of tightening up our obvious security holes. Ebay is full of people selling ghoulish mementos and wtc related domain names. I'm still in shock, I've been channel surfing the major networks, ABC is the only one that hasn't given this whole thing a big garish name. Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer are doing some pretty good, calm, balanced coverage. Bush's speech made it clear we won't just go after the terrorists but those harboring the terrorists. This is the beginning of a campaign on worldwide terror."}, {"response": 122, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (22:08)", "body": "http://news.mpr.org/features/200109/11_newsroom_terrorist/ has photos and also live radio clips. The image of the plane slicing through (from the other side of the building) is shocking. It's in the national images slideshow, the caption reads: \"An amateur photographer was snapping a photograph of the damage to one World Trade Center tower at the instant when a second airliner crashed into the other tower. (credit pending) \" From: info@kauf.com Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 02:47:49 +0200 To: david@trufun.com Subject: Press release: Help for terror victims by Internet Ladies and Gentlemen Victims and their relatives of the terrorist attacks can get help by Internet. At http://www.wtchelp.com or http://66.33.42.252 they can add a special notice for searching a person and get further information. The Internet page was developed by the company Kaufcom for the WTC Help Organization. Within shortest time, further information and auxiliary functions will be provided to offer a fast and easy help. The WTC Help Organization was found at the 11th of September 2001. Our goal is it to support the victims and their relatives with the best possible help by using the new medias. The WTC Help Organization stays in contact with many other organisations. Patrick Hofer WTC-Help Organization Neue Winterthurerstr. 30 CH-8305 Dietlikon Switzerland Fax: +41 1 888 43 16 Email:hofer@kaufcom.ch"}, {"response": 123, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (22:15)", "body": "Orrin Hatch said a month a go they knew there was going to be a big attack. Barbara Walters is reporting this and Peter Jennings is appealing on him to explain this more clearly. Hatch is saying he has the real data that Ohsama Bin Ladin did this. He's saying we have about 24 hours to act and round up the terrorists before they go underground."}, {"response": 124, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (22:40)", "body": "There is not a message board anywhere that has not talked about this. Every single Yahoo club to which I belong is talking about it. Mostly how numb everyone feels. Non-US people reacting with sadness and condolences and the same determination to win this match. Don't mess with those I love. I am ready to do what must be done!!!"}, {"response": 125, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (22:53)", "body": "From Reuters"}, {"response": 126, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (22:54)", "body": "http://reuters.com/ go look at the large photo... it is astounging!"}, {"response": 127, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (23:09)", "body": "Subject: report from NYC... Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 5:36 PM From: Michael McDonough To: Bruce Sterling It started at 8:45 AM with the missile-like scream of something flying too low and fast across the city's heart, followed by a thump that shook the ground. Something is wrong. Minutes later, a second thump. The city empties into the streets. TVs come alive with live video feeds of the planes striking the south sides of the towers. I photograph the fires from my SoHo roof, capturing the north sides on film. The fire has penetrated the towers and is licking up the facades, bright orange tongues through inky black smoke. But the towers are not the towers, they are one tower and one smoky billow the size of an atomic cloud. People are jumping from the upper stories of the remaining tower. A short time later, now on the streets, my wife and I are talking to strangers, exchanging information got from blaring car radios. Mid-sentence, the second tower implodes before our eyes, only a few blocks away, glass shards blowing out from the smoky, collapsing core. Like nightmarish snow, they glisten and sparkle, then disappear. On a normal day, over 100,000 persons pass through the WTC. We have just seen a large number of them vaporized. Debris, chunks of the buildings the size of city buses and automobiles rain down onto the streets of Lower Manhattan. The collapses at first take the tops of the towers. In a matter of seconds, the remaining, lower reaches are infernos. The facades of the towers have fallen onto the surrounding streets. A woman in the hotel next to the towers reports seeing legions of firefighters, police, and medical personnel disappeared beneath the rubble in an instant. Now the explosions have killed not only those in the towers, but those trying to save them on the ground. Elsewhere in the city, as the day grinds on, businesses and shops are closed, locked tight with security gates in place. All civilian vehicular transportation in and out of the city stops. The tunnels are sealed off and empty. The bridges are available for those who want to hike out of the city. At early evening I walk the police cordons around lower Manhattan. On the local streets, urgent laser printed pleas for blood donations are taped to mailboxes and street lamps. Black SUVs with darkened windows scream through intersections in long lines, with sirens and flashing lights. Ambulances from New Jersey and Long Island, and Upstate New York--townships 60 miles and more outside of New York City--course the streets; 20, 30 at a time, they move, heading north to hospitals and triage centers. Military planes dart overhead, then disappear. The city is an uneasy silence broken on occasion by piecing, crackling sounds, warnings and urgent communications. Thousands of people stare blank-eyed and quiet as they watch the buildings all over downtown burn. Dozens of construction workers loaded on trucks--welding kits, steel barriers, men and material--head south, to ground zero. Fire engines line the west side arterial roads, empty, their occupants fighting the out-of-control fires on foot. Military vehicles start to appear. The trucks and cars near the center are shattered, crushed, lost in a hail of ash and metal and concrete. New fires start. Smoke billows easterly, against white smoke against the blue sky of our mid-September day. More buildings are burning. Another flaming, 40 story pile falls. We are helpless; we watch. Cars are burning. Mercury from a million fluorescent lights, PCBs from miles of electrical components, dioxin from football fields of synthetic carpets and miles of PVC piping placed throughout the complex, a toxic, now gray soup belching from the flaming, collapsing hulks. It is as if the city has lost its arms, and is staring blankly at where they used to be, finding flaming, smoking voids in their stead. Michael McDonough New York City 9/11"}, {"response": 128, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (23:15)", "body": "from another board: scutmonkey Posted On 09/11/01 07:55PM I have a friend that works for Delta Airlines HQ here in Atlanta that person had a couple things to say. One is that the plane over Pennsylvania was intentionally run into the ground by the pilot. All four of those aircraft had radio communications and were describing what was happening at least in the beginning. They issued special emergency codes as well. The pilots locked the cabin doors, but there is a key with the flight attendants that is hidden in a different place on each flight. The terrorist began stabbing crew members and passengers until someone told them where it was. The crew believed that this was a typical hostage and ransom situation and gave up the keys. When the pilots of the Pennsylvania plane realized it wasn't from the other incidents they crashed the jet."}, {"response": 129, "author": "laughingsky", "date": "Tue, Sep 11, 2001 (23:36)", "body": "I went into a hospital meeting at 7:30am and came out at 9:00am (CST) this a.m., only to discover that the world was suddenly going to hell! Here in middle Tennessee, the lines are growing longer outside the gas stations...the small town streets are crowded with cars trying to fill up and beat the iminent gas hikes that are rumored to occur by morning. A neighbor works close to the Tennessee/Alabama line and was told that gas in Alabama had shot up to $10.00 a gallon.....jeez....BTW, Thanks to all of you who have expressed condolences on this board. Your support is greatly needed and appreciated!"}, {"response": 130, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (01:56)", "body": "The Boston Herald is breaking some amazing details: WAR: Hub terror suspects ID'd: Bush vows retaliation after devestating attack by Ed Hayward, Tom Farmer and Cosmo Macero Jr. Wednesday, September 12, 2001 Authorities in Massachusetts identified at least five Arab men as suspects in yesterday's terror attacks launched from Logan International Airport, seizing in the central parking garage a car laden with Arabic-language flight training manuals, sources said last night. Two of the men, whose passports were traced to the United Arab Emirates, were brothers, one of whom was a trained pilot, a source told the Herald, speaking on condition of anonymity. At least two other suspects flew to Logan yesterday from Portland, Maine, where authorities believe they had traveled after crossing over from Canada recently. Once in the air, the hijackers in one plane began killing flight attendants in order to lure a pilot from the cockpit and seize the plane, said one source. ``They started killing stewardesses in the back of the plane as a diversion. The pilot came back to help and that is how they got into the cockpit,'' said the source. The source could not specify whether those events took place on the American Airlines flight that left Logan, or the United Airlines flight. Both planes were plunged into the World Trade Center roughly an hour after they departed Boston. The suspects had no guns, but used shaving kits and other carry-on luggage to smuggle knife-like weapons made up of plastic handles embedded with razor blades, sources familiar with last night's developments said. That finding is consistent with reports of a flight attendant's cell-phone call from one of the doomed airliners. ``People were calling from the plane saying they were getting killed, calling 911,'' said one source. ``One stewardess called her husband to say goodbye.'' Authorities were led to the rental car by a civilian who got into an altercation with several Arab men as they were parking their car, identified by sources as a Mitsubishi sedan. The man, whose name was not available last night, called state police from an out-of-state airport after his own flight landed yesterday and he learned planes hijacked from Logan had been involved in attacks that toppled the World Trade Center's twin towers, crippled the Pentagon and downed another airliner in Pennsylvania. The car, rented from National Rental Car, was secured yesterday by the FBI and authorities have prepared a search warrant. It was unclear when the warrant would be served. State police interviewed more than 130 people at the airport yesterday, as America launched what is expected to be the largest criminal investigation in its history. Investigators suspect the two brothers identified by Bay State investigators were aboard United Airlines Flight 175. The terror plot included the hijacking and crashing of four airliners, including one into the Pentagon, where the Arlington, Va., fire chief estimated the death toll at up to 800. In New York last night, Mayor Rudolph Guiliani told reporters some people are alive in the rubble of the trade center complex, and there was an unconfirmed report of a cop being pulled out alive last night. There was also a report that survivors trapped in the collapsed buildings were making cell-phone calls. A horrified nation witnessed the shocking carnage as the World Trade Center's ``North Tower'' burned and exploded after it was struck just before 9 a.m. by Los Angeles-bound American Airlines Flight 11, which departed Boston's Logan Airport at 7:59 a.m. with 81 passengers, two pilots and nine flight attendants. A second jet - United Airlines Flight 175, that left Logan for L.A. at 8:14 a.m. carrying 56 passengers, seven attendants and two pilots - was captured on video as it sliced through the ``South Tower'' and unleashed a massive fireball just after 9 a.m. Just moments before the first crash, air traffic controllers heard the lone voice of the terror plot speaking from the cockpit of one doomed aircraft. ``We have more planes, we have other planes,'' a voice alleged to be that of a hijacker could be heard saying through a microphone activated by a pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, the Christian Science Monitor reported on its Web site. Establishing the death toll could take weeks. The four airliners alone carried 266 people, none known to survive. At the Pentagon, as many as 800 people could be dead, including plane victims. Roughly 50,000 people worked at the World Trade Center and there was an hour available for evacuations. But the toll already appeared staggering for the men and women who worked to save lives. A firefighters union official said an estimated 200 firefighters had died. An estimated 87 police officers were missing. Within two hours of the initial Trade Center crash, the fiery nightmare gave way to mind-numbing grief, as both towers imploded, raining thick dust, glass shards, metal chunks and human remains on the streets below. As t"}, {"response": 131, "author": "Renata", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (03:43)", "body": "This is beyond words, and beyond understanding. I'm still trying to find words to tell you what I feel about the unspeakable, unimaginable. My thoughts are with all who suffer, the innocent victims, and their families and friends, and with the American people. I send my heartfelt condolences from Germany - we are all with you. Whatever the intention was of this senseless killing, it goes empty: it will unite - has already united - all freedom-loving people all over the world. Take care all of you. Renate"}, {"response": 132, "author": "Anek", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (04:44)", "body": "I was at work yesterday when my colleague called me to tell that WTC in NY collapsed and that Pentagon was on fire. I couldn't believe in it. I thought he told me a stupid joke. Everything reminded of some films or books, but not real life. But then I went to news website and the truth struck me with shock. Today I've read your news reports and can't stop thinking about the people trapped in the burning building and those who were caugh in the hijacked planes. The senseless cruelty and detailed preparation of the operation is sth beyond my understanding. I'm joining in grief with everyone and I do hope than anything like this will not happen again."}, {"response": 133, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (04:47)", "body": "More on United Flight 93 from today's Miami Herald: Passenger called wife from cell phone shortly before Pittsburgh crash By Paul Rogers and Lisa Fernandez Knight Ridder SAN JOSE, Calif. (12:30 a.m. EDT) -- It might have been the final resistance of a doomed pilot. Or a heroic struggle by a Bay Area passenger. Or a miscalculation by terrorists. But if there was one glimmer of good news amid the numbing enormity of Tuesday's terrorist attacks, it shined in the wreckage of a United Airlines 757, a flight once bound for San Francisco and instead now strewn across a remote field in the coal country of southwestern Pennsylvania. Unlike three other commercial jets that were purposely slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, United Flight 93, for some reason yet unknown, did not hit a terrorist's target Tuesday morning and did not kill thousands of people. The flight crashed instead at 10:06 a.m. EDT in a wooded area 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, two hours after it left Newark, N.J. All 45 people on board were killed, said Bill Crowley, a special agent with the FBI in Pittsburgh. Among them were 38 passengers, five flight attendents and two pilots. Minutes before the fiery impact, at least two passengers telephoned from the plane. One man phoned 911, yelling to dispatchers \"We are being hijacked! We are being hijacked!'' before the signal was lost. The other, Tom Burnett, 38, the vice president of a Pleasanton, Calif., medical devices company and father of three children, called his wife, Deena, and may have indicated he and other passengers were about to attempt to overpower the hijackers. Burnett told his wife that somebody on the plane had been stabbed, said Father Frank Colacicco, of St. Isidore's Church in Danville. \"We're all gonna die, but three of us are going to do something,'' Burnett told his wife, according to Colacicco. He added: \"I love you honey'' before the call ended. FBI agents were interviewing members of the family Tuesday night. The FBI said that 40 agents and more than 150 other investigators were combing the crash site as darkness fell, including agents from the Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the FAA and the Pennsylvania State Police. Like the three other doomed jets that took off, and then suddenly veered off course, United Flight 93 sharply turned south after nearing Cleveland. One Congressman told Knight Ridder that some investigators believe the plane's hijackers were attempting to crash into either Camp David, the presidential retreat located 80 miles south of the crash site, at Thurmond, Maryland, or the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. \"There was concern that it was heading in the direction of Washington, D.C.,'' said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia. Moran said that Capitol police named the two potential targets in a briefing he received from them. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, described Tuesday as a national tragedy and the scope is only just beginning to sink in. \"At Pearl Harbor, there were 2,000 people killed,'' Feinstein said. \"This could be tens of thousands.'' United Airlines did not release the passenger list from Flight 93 on Tuesday. At least one other Bay Area resident was confirmed dead, a female student at Santa Clara University. The name of the woman, a junior, was not being released, pending notification of her family, said Barry Holtzclaw, a spokesman for the university. \"I'm shattered by this,'' said Holtzclaw. \"''The scale of it, the enormity of it, the buildings and the loss off life. The mood of the campus tomorrow will be very very somber.'' It may be weeks before it is known what happened in the doomed flight, experts said. \"It fits the same pattern of the other ones,'' said a high-ranking FAA official. \"The moves of the plane are similar to what you would see if a struggle or some violent problem occurred in the cockpit.'' Gary Joseph, who co-pilots United 747-400 flights from San Francisco to Shanghai, said he believes the pilots aboard Flight 93 tried to prevent the terrorists from taking control of the aircraft. \"They train you to do whatever they say, but that only goes so far,'' Joseph said. \"If he had any idea what they were planning, I'm sure he tried to fight them off.'' Joseph said a pilot may try to make sharp turns and dive . . . much the way initial radar records show the plane did in its final minutes in the air . . . to throw a would-be hijacker off balance. \"There's been cases where they do that and get control back of the plane. But a jet can only take so much of a dive before it starts to fall apart, I don't know.'' Joseph said it wasn't clear whether the crew was a San Francisco-based one or a New York-based group, because the airline has crews stationed in each city. No family members showed up at San Francisco International Airport to greet the passengers at its normal 11:15 a.m. arrival time, said Ron Wilson, spokesman for San Francisco International Airport. That is possibl"}, {"response": 134, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (06:10)", "body": "Hi all First off, I extend my deepest sympathy to all who lost loved ones in today cowardly attacks. Second I call for a cool headed response (NOT one of a deranged lunatic hopping around like a crazed devil barking orders). I know that many of you are outraged and that some want war, but BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THIS: HASTE NEVER HAS AND NEVER WILL PAY OR BEGIN TO PAY FOR WHAT HAPPENED. Be patient and let the United States Government establish it's priorities and wait until they find AND confirm the culprits. Then AND ONLY THEN, will it be safe to let the Pentagon of the leash. I am still coming to grips tonight some 14 hours after Mum tipped me off that the WTC twin towers had been destroyed by a 767 and a 757 and that the Pentagon had been hit by another 767. Although I now understand what happened the SHEER scale of planning that must have gone into the attacks, tell me one thing only: The person/s who masterminded this evil have a monumental hatred for all things American. They are the sort of people who should be put on show trial in front of the whole nation, and assuming they are found guilty, should be executed in public. Rob"}, {"response": 135, "author": "olzuza", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (09:42)", "body": "Hello everyone, I am from Poland, when I heard the news yesterday I was stunned - I thought it was a kind of a joke and all those pictures which looked like taken from some movie. I am still in shock as well as my family and friends. I extend my sympathy too all Americans and people who lost someone important and loved. It's a tragedy for whole world and I hope that nothing else like this would never take place. take care all of you who are in the middle of this tragedy and please,remember that whole civilizated world is with you. Love, Alexandra"}, {"response": 136, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (10:18)", "body": "\"Taliban rulers deny bin Laden's involvement\" http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/taliban-reax.htm Olzuza, we are all feeling the sadness today, yesterday we were numb with the shock of this horrible attack on America. This is unprecedented, the biggest thing that has happened in my lifetime. unidentified source: \"there's a specific code (7700) a pilot dials in when being hijacked, which causes all sorts of bells and whistles to go off on a controller's screen. *That* would be the reason those guys made them turn them off. Not stupid, at all. Vile, despicable cretins, yes. A plane goes off course, there's a time lag to 1) notice it, 2) inquire, 3) request correction or further explanation, 4) decide there's a threat, 5) measure its gravity, and 6) take action. The first five steps are covered by dialing-in 7700, a motion in the cockpit that's not inconsistent with any other miscellaneous fiddling with knobs and switches necessary to fly the plane."}, {"response": 137, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (10:28)", "body": "http://www.wi2600.org/mediawhore/mirrors/sept-11-problems/asu/www.asu.net/wtc/otherpics/wtc35.jpg http://www.wi2600.org/mediawhore/mirrors/sept-11-problems/asu/www.asu.net/wtc/otherpics/ This one is horrible: http://www.wi2600.org/mediawhore/mirrors/sept-11-problems/asu/www.asu.net/wtc/otherpics/wtc55.jpg A tower about to fall:"}, {"response": 138, "author": "curious", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (10:45)", "body": "To find out more about donating online, check: Red Cross and Helping.org"}, {"response": 139, "author": "curious", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (10:46)", "body": "oops, typo, the Red Cross is located at http://www.redcross.org/"}, {"response": 140, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (11:11)", "body": "I just can't watch TV anymore. I have to take a break from the unending surreal shots of the planes hitting the towers. Those of you at Drool know I'm from the NY area. As a child, I watched the towers go up. Yesterday I watched them come down. Like Liz, I know people who worked there and in the nearby Wall St. area. If you've ever visited downtown NYC, you saw the size of these buildings. If you went up to Windows on the World, the public restaurant, you experienced how high they were. Yesterday, one of our local newscasters felt himself important enough to provide encouragement by declaring 'we made it through Oklahoma City and Columbine and we'll make it through this.' Not to minimize those other tragedies, but the enormous numbers of victims who lost their lives yesterday cannot be compared to those other incidents. I now live outside DC (quite a distance from the Pentagon). Our normally quiet skies were filled with military aircraft yesterday. All's quiet again today. My sister works in upper Manhattan. I'm still trying to find out if she made it out of the city last night. I'll be back to the TV soon because I am fascinated by reports about the many calls made from the planes, how the FBI is progressing in their investigation (too much too little too late, IMO), information as to how these sociopaths pulled this off and stories from the survivors. Lastly, I am trying to wrap my mind's eye around a picture of the NYC skyline without the towers. I drove past them on the Jersey side every day for years. I could see them from almost every town in which I've lived. I saw them this past Sunday and thought 'it's good to be home'. Their absence will forever be a reminder of yesterday's events and the lives lost."}, {"response": 141, "author": "curious", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (13:04)", "body": "Dear Heavenly Father, We are moved by the alarming news and crisis that our country is facing. This, the greatest nation, founded in the belief that \"In God We Trust\" and the \"Land of the Free\". Please have mercy on those suffering, hurting and in fear, and give wisdom & strength to those who are assisting. May the forces of evil be broken by your power and may we humble before thee, our strength and refuge. Give wisdom to our President and all our leaders and bring your comforting peace through the power of your Holy Spirit. Help us here to reach those that have been affected by this tragedy. In the name of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. Amen. (Please send this to all your friends and create a prayer chain throughoutthis nation.)"}, {"response": 142, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (14:13)", "body": "Another batch of URLs from Phil Agre: -- Wall Street Journal coverage (appears to be available without a subscription) http://interactive.wsj.com/pages/terattack.htm Yahoo links to news stories etc http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Terrorism/ eyewitness accounts http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/newsid_1537000/1537530.stm online mechanisms for donating to the Red Cross http://www.amazon.com/paypage/PKAXFNQH7EKCX http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/relief-outside legal coverage http://www.law.com/ mailing list to connect people who can volunteer or provide resources http://207.22.68.76/911volunteers.html aircraft flight tracks http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/spSec/wtcst.jsp front pages of 50 newspapers' coverage of the attack http://www.poynter.org/terrorism/pdf1.htm Current Awareness via Streaming Audio/Video http://gwu.edu/~gprice/audio.htm Speech/Transcripts/Statements from US and Foreign Leaders http://gwu.edu/~gprice/speech.htm Anonymous Remailer Operators Start to Take Remailers Offline http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/current/msg00272.html Middle East Newswire http://www.middleeastwire.com/newswire/ Two Planes Hit Twin Towers at Exactly the Worst Spot http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000073606sep12.story Security Experts Knew a Major Attack Was Possible http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14031-2001Sep11.html Insurance Cost for Terrorist Attack to Near $1 Billion http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/insure091201.htm Reports: Boston Investigators Find Evidence in Attacks http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010912/ts/attack_suspects_dc_2.html civil engineering aspects of the building collapse http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm online discussion site for pilots http://www.pprune.org/ Rescuers Struggle at Pentagon http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1539000/1539839.stm Why the Killers Threaten World Prosperity http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1538000/1538958.stm In Shock, Teachers Downplay Tragedy http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000073649sep12.story EBay Cancels Auctions of Attack-Related Items (some idiots were actually gathering rubble in order to sell it on eBay) http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000073609sep12.story"}, {"response": 143, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (14:19)", "body": "From abcnews.com ABCNEWS has learned that officials have identified all the hijackers, and estimated there were three to five for each of the four passenger planes involved. At least two of the hijackers were on the Immigration and Naturalization Service \"watch list,\" and it's still unclear whether the individuals entered the United States illegally or whether they entered before their names were placed on the list. Most if not all of the hijackers were Egyptian or Saudi nationals, sources said. In Washington, State Department officials said they have intelligence information that connects the attacks on the twin towers in New York and on the Pentagon to fugitive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden."}, {"response": 144, "author": "LauraMM", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (14:31)", "body": "Well it's here in Boston. This is ridiculous..."}, {"response": 145, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (14:43)", "body": "http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/bio.html A bio on Bin Laden from pbs.org. Read the disclaimer that the source is unnamed and the info differs from other bios. Seems his father is from Yemen but moved to Saudi years before Osama (one of 50 children? boggles the mind...) was born in '57. Father made his money in Saudi as a construction mogul, from humble beginnings. http://msnbc.com/news/190144.asp?cp1=1"}, {"response": 146, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (14:52)", "body": "Subject: Yesterday's bombings [4x] Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:12 PM From: nettime's compiler Reply-To: \"nettime's compiler\" To: Table of Contents: The Media: As an Attack Unfolds, a Struggle to Provide Vivid Imag es to Homes John Armitage WTC/Pentagon attac folks@arthide.de (folks) Re: New York City Andrew Ross It was supposed to be such a beautiful day \"Ivo Skoric\" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:42:35 +0100 From: John Armitage Subject: The Media: As an Attack Unfolds, a Struggle to Provide Vivid Imag es to Homes THE NEW YORK TIMES SEP 12, 2001 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/national/12MEDI.html?pagewanted=print The Media: As an Attack Unfolds, a Struggle to Provide Vivid Images to Homes By FELICITY BARRINGER and GERALDINE FABRIKANT Television's broadcast networks and many of its cable channels - both news and entertainment - scrapped their regular schedules yesterday. Radio stations took live television news feeds. Two dozen newspapers published special editions and Web sites threw out their advertising and in some cases stripped down to basic text and still images to help their overtaxed computers handle a demand for news unlike any they had experienced. Between the moment when perplexed morning news broadcasters began fielding calls from Greenwich Village residents who saw a low- flying plane crash into One World Trade Center and the moment more than an hour later when New York's twin towers crumbled into Roman candles of smoky debris, the country's media outlets geared up to become the public stage of a national emergency. By noon, all four major television networks had agreed to share video images. By midafternoon, almost all of AOL Time Warner's cable channels, like TBS and TNT, were carrying CNN; Viacom's CBS News feed was being carried by Viacom's music channels, VH1 and MTV; and Peter Jennings of ABC News was appearing not just on his network, but on Disney's ESPN channel and all ABC radio stations. Most of the networks used variations of the title adopted by CNN: America Under Attack. Images of billowing smoke from lower Manhattan and the low, smoldering profile of the Pentagon, hit, like the Trade Center towers, by a hijacked commercial jetliner, were dominant on all networks. Referring to the unusual agreement to share images among the bitterly competitive news divisions of the networks and CNN, the Fox News president, Roger Ailes, said: \"All the networks decided that this is a national emergency. We're not keeping score today.\" Nor were they making much money, as they largely scrapped commercial advertising. In Washington, where the downtown had become a ghost town after the federal government was shut down, delivery trucks for The Washington Post headed for suburban 7- Eleven stores carrying a special edition dominated by a two-inch headline, \"Terror Hits Pentagon, World Trade Center,\" with a lead editorial headlined \"War.\" Special editions were also published by The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina, The Austin American-Statesman in Texas, not to mention small dailies like The LaCrosse Tribune in Wisconsin. Traffic at news Web sites soared, with 10 times or more the usual number of users trying to log on, clogging the Internet and slowing response time. Because New York was not just ground zero of the opening attack but also the heartland of the media industry, some of the most dramatic early accounts were from correspondents working at or near their homes. Don Dahler, an ABC News correspondent who covered recent civil wars in Africa, was getting dressed for work in his third-floor apartment in Tribeca, perhaps half a mile from the World Trade Center, when he heard the first plane hit. \"I heard what is a very familiar sound anywhere else in the world, in war zones,\" Mr. Dahler said. \"It sounded to me like a missile, a high- pitched scream and a roar followed by an explosion, my mind was telling me it's a missile. Then I saw this gaping wound in the World Trade Center. I called into `Good Morning' immediately and started reporting,\" standing on his sixth-floor rooftop with a cellular telephone. Mr. Dahler, just one of the network's sources, was not on the air when he felt the first of the two towers collapse. \"When it collapsed I could feel a rumble, and I tried to interrupt to say that something was happening right before my eyes,\" he said. \"The building collapsed. I was telling them it looks like its coming down, it looks like it's coming down. They switched to me right after it had fallen.\" If there were a few stutter-steps like that, it was not surprising. It was one of the rare instances when television brought disaster into American homes in real time. The radical changes in the technology of news delivery, however, along with the quality of video imagery gave most of the day's news broadcasts the feeling of an epic disaster movie. The only genuinely grainy imagery came from the"}, {"response": 147, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (14:55)", "body": "The White House and ABC News have confirmed that the intended target of the plane that crashed in DC, was NOT The Pentagon. It was The White House. OMG !! The White House have also confirmed that Air Force One and The President, were also intended targets. They have not revealed what brought them to this conclusion. Thank God these other attacks didn't take place and, that the Secret Service took the evasive measures with Air Force One, that they did."}, {"response": 148, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (14:55)", "body": "From today's Vancouver Sun: \"Wednesday, September 12, 2001 OTTAWA (CP) - Thousands of Canadians from coast to coast responded to calls for blood donations to help American victims of Tuesday's catastrophic attacks in New York and Washington. The hotline set up by Canadian Blood Services for those wishing to donate has been tied up almost permanently, said spokeswoman Lorna Tessier. She urged people to persevere, even though no request for blood has been received from U.S. authorities. ``We've had such an overwhelming response that the 1-888-2-DONATE line has been very difficult to get through on. ``Right now, clearly, the clinics are overwhelmed and we are putting on additional hours and additional clinics, but we don't want people to get discouraged. ``We are going to need their blood. We're anticipating that the need will come up.'' She said the agency doesn't have statistics yet on the number of people who have come forward, but it is in the thousands.\" I'd point out that nobody's actually asked us for blood yet, but people just felt the need to do something to help. From the National Post: Canadians offer homes to stranded 400 international jets diverted across country Wednesday, September 12, 2001 TORONTO and VANCOUVER - International passenger jets crammed Canadian tarmacs yesterday after all United States airports were closed in the wake of the terrorist attack that levelled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. About 400 planes were expected to be diverted throughout the day, pouring 10,000 people into Halifax alone. By late afternoon, Vancouver International Airport had received 34 planes diverted from North American destinations, carrying as many as 6,000 people. Another 25 planes were expected at Lester B. Pearson International Airport in Toronto. St. John's International Airport closed its runways after taking in 27 aircraft with 5,000 passengers. Fifty-seven flights were expected to land into the night at the airport in Gander, Nfld. At least 100 controllers and other staff were pulled out of courses and called in on their time off to help handle the deluge of international flights, said Paul Hornbeck, a spokesman for Nav Canada, the agency that handles air traffic control at Canadian airports. International arrival terminals across the country were choked with people while departure areas were virtually deserted -- all outbound flights across Canada were cancelled, except for humanitarian or search-and-rescue missions, police and military flights. Passengers stood in line with their luggage, waiting for hours to be searched before they could be permitted to leave. Bev Aurich, a traveller from Sydney, Australia, who had been headed to Anchorage, Alaska, before being grounded in Vancouver, said she did not mind the inconvenience. \"We shouldn't be upset about missing a little trip, when there is such devastation in the United States. We're better to be delayed and be comfortable than to keep to our schedule and risk something,\" she said. In Toronto, some airport hotels reacted to the situation by increasing their rates to the maximum legal tariff. Meanwhile, concerned residents around the country showed up at airports to offer their homes to travellers. \"I had to take the energy I felt and direct it,\" said Ena Bendon, a Vancouver woman who showed up at the airport to offer accommodation. \"I thought of someone with kids here, terrified. I had to do something.\" Lufthansa pilot Axel Algner was flying a passenger jet from Frankfurt to Chicago when he was told there had been an incident in Manhatten and all planes were being grounded. It wasn't until he landed his plane in Toronto that he was informed of the details. \"What I thought is that it was a joke. I couldn't believe it, it's still hard to believe. It just gives me goosebumps even talking about it,\" he said. Another pilot said he was instructed to lock his cockpit after being told the news. On the ground at Pearson, the airport began a news blackout at 10:30 a.m., according to one passenger. Travellers grouped around fellow passengers with cellphones to learn the details of what had happened. Others lined up to use payphones. Rabbis and Roman Catholic priests were brought in to counsel passengers. In Calgary, which took at least ten diverted flights, every hotel room was filled by early afternoon, but tourism officials said residents were opening up their homes to travellers. In Winnipeg, hotels were also booked solid by early afternoon, prompting the city to invoke its emergency measures plan, transforming public buildings into makeshift dormitories equipped with camp cots, said Penny McMillan, of Tourism Winnipeg. The airport took in 14 diverted domestic flights and three international ones -- generating 1,500 overnight guests. At Vancouver International Airport, Layne Daggett, the airport chaplain, said he placed 500 people, but others still needed accommodation. \"I have a strong faith that God is in control even in these ki"}, {"response": 149, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (15:54)", "body": "Thanks for the links, Terry. I found the one about the buildings' structural aspects fascinating. Engineers suggested that the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed first...because the plane hit the corner of the building, rather than the center, where there is more structural support. When you watched the head-on film, you wondered why the plane was aimed at the side when it could've been placed more centrally. But you have to wonder about the following statement: The planes might have done more damage if they had hit the buildings lower, but they had to fly at a height of about 60 stories to clear nearby buildings. More damage than what????"}, {"response": 150, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (19:42)", "body": "Even what was left standing is now crumbled into the pit from whence it arose. And thanks for telling future terrorists where exactly to hit a building to do the most damage, media people. I still cannot believe it crumpled like a toy like that. They all did. And so did their inhabitants. I turned on NPR this morning for a break from the news, and they were playing dirges. It was too much! Thanks, all, for your support in what seemed like a cold world before this happened. I wonder what I will feel when the numbness and disbelief wears off..."}, {"response": 151, "author": "alyeska", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (21:40)", "body": "Will the numbness ever really wear off. Someone posted on Ramble that her neighbors and their 2 children were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon."}, {"response": 152, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (21:46)", "body": "from email: \"In the days and weeks ahead, it's important for Microsoft and for each of us individually to think about how we can help. As a company, Microsoft is today making a $10 million contribution to assist those who have been impacted by the tragedy. We are contributing $5 million in cash to the September 11 Fund, created by the United Way of New York City and The New York Community Trust. In addition to cash, we are also contributing people and expertise. We have committed up to $5 million in technical assistance, including Microsoft Consulting Services and software to assist in the recovery effort. We also are in contact with business customers who have been severely impacted by yesterday's tragedy to see what we can do to assist them.\""}, {"response": 153, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (22:32)", "body": "Penn Station and the Empire State Building being evacuated."}, {"response": 154, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (22:45)", "body": "Bomb threat - no bomb found. People allowed back in. They now take all threats seriously!!!"}, {"response": 155, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (22:50)", "body": "Thursday 13 September 9:14 AM Bin Laden under house arrest: report Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia had placed alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden under house arrest in the wake of the suicide attacks on the United States, an Arabic online newspaper reported. Quoting \"fundamentalist Arab sources\", Ilaf said the \"Taliban have arrested Osama bin Laden before placing him under surveillance with several of his assistants,\" including the head of the Egyptian branch of Al-Jihad Ayman Al-Zawahri and bin Laden's military commander, Muhammad Atef Al-Makni. \"A number of Afghan fighters are under house arrest along with bin Laden,\" said the report late Wednesday. But a diplomat at the Taliban's embassy in Abu Dhabi said he could not confirm the report. \"All we know is that he (bin Laden) is somewhere in Afghanistan, but we are not aware if he is under house arrest,\" the diplomat said. Bin Laden and commander Atef have been indicted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bin Laden has emerged as the prime suspects in yesterday's kamikaze hijacked passenger jet strikes on New York and Washington."}, {"response": 156, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (22:53)", "body": "I don't know how true this is or not. It was posted on yahoo.com in Australia. http://au.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/20010913/aapworld/1000336445-1141825578.html I don't know why there's not mention of this on CBS, which I'm watching as I write this."}, {"response": 157, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:06)", "body": "More information all over the net. status of the investigation http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16714-2001Sep12.html Flight 93 Passenger Said He Planned Action http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/pit/news/stories/news-95780920010912-110907.html Controllers' Tale of Flight 11 http://www.csmonitor.com/earlyed/earlyUSA4.html FBI Agents Search Hotels; Arrests Made http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/957448/detail.html animation of the routes of flights 11, 193, and 175 http://pull.xmr3.com/p/29594-9681/22024263/aal11.html http://pull.xmr3.com/p/29594-9681/22024277/ual193final.html http://pull.xmr3.com/p/29594-9681/22024274/ual175_aal11.html Somerset Crash Scene Searched; \"Hero\" May Have Aborted Terror Mission http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20010912somersetp3.asp Cell Calls From Planes Reveal Horror http://msnbc.com/news/627214.asp How the World Trade Center Fell http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1540000/1540044.stm role of the Internet Net Offers Lifeline Amid Tragedy http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7132246.html World Trade Center Staff Sent E-Mails After Planes Struck http://www.itn.co.uk/news/20010912/business/12cantor.shtml Help Sites Spring Up in Aftermath of WTC Assaults http://www.bizreport.com/article.php?art_id=2113 response Terrorism and Children http://www.ces.purdue.edu/terrorism/children/ http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Sept01/Garbarino.kids.bombing.lgk.html comment Chronic Underfunding of US HUMINT Plays Role in Intelligence Failures http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jdw/jdw010911_1_n.shtml Michael Moore's commentary http://www.michaelmoore.com/2001_0912.html On the Bombings, by Noam Chomsky http://www.lbbs.org/chomnote.htm The Best and Worst From Our Leaders During Crises http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=11909 Terrorists Are Made, Not Born http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/12/blowback/ The Rhetoric of War (with examples from editorial pages) http://www.marginalia.org/war.html an example of that rhetoric http://www.nationalreview.com/kudlow/kudlow091101.shtml background background on the Mt. Weather bunker where the politicians were probably taken http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/mt_weather.htm outline of relevant anti-terrorism etc laws http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/terrorism/laws.html Airport Access Control (one of the security reports that was never properly acted on) http://cas.faa.gov/ig5.pdf news Arab newspapers http://www.the-saudi.net/arab-world/media/newspapers-links.htm http://www.amin.org/jourmag/ French language news sources on the attack http://www.tv5.org/nyc/ Nous Sommes Tous Americains http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3222--221600-,00.html worldwide news in English http://www.kidon.com/media-link/english.shtml Thousands of Newspapers on the Net http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ end"}, {"response": 158, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:17)", "body": "Be happy you don't live in Hawaii. We Get NO MAIL until the flights resume."}, {"response": 159, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:24)", "body": "I'm not going to be happy I don't live in Hawaii, that's too much to ask!"}, {"response": 160, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:31)", "body": "a report from Afghanistan: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/international/asia/13AFGH.html ABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. If there are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they ought to know that this nation does not have so far to go. This is a post-apocalyptic place of felled cities, parched land and downtrodden people. The fragility of this country was part of the message the Taliban government conveyed in a plea for restraint issued late tonight. It said in part, \"We appeal to the United States not to put Afghanistan into more misery because our people have suffered so much.\" Whatever Afghanistan's current cataclysm, its next one seems to require little time to overtake it. Wars fought by sundry protagonists have gone on now for 22 consecutive years, a remorseless drought for 4. Since 1996, most of the nation has been ruled by Taliban mullahs whose vision of the world's purest Islamic state has at least as much to do with controlling social behavior as vouchsafing social welfare. The accused terrorist Osama bin Laden has found a home here, angering much of the world. In 1998, America fired a volley of more than 70 cruise missiles at guerrilla training camps reportedly operated by the Saudi multimillionaire. Now, there seems to be the prospect of another barrage, with Afghan hospitality to the same man as the cause. As fear of an American attack mounted, the Taliban's senior spokesman in Kandahar, Abdul Hai Mutmain, called the few foreign reporters here to issue the statement, which in part defended Mr. bin Laden: \"These days, Osama bin Laden's name has become very popular and to an extent it has become a symbol. These days, even to the common people, Osama bin Laden's name is associated with all controversial acts. Osama bin Laden does not have such capabilities. We still hope sanity prevails in the United States. We are confident that if a fair investigation is carried out by American authorities, the Taliban will not be found guilty of involvement in such cowardly acts.\" The statement also said, \"Killing our leaders will not help our people any. There is no factory in Afghanistan that is worth the price of a single missile fired at us. It will simply increase the mistrust between the people in the region and the United States.\" Whatever else there is to say about this entreaty, one part that is indisputably true is that this land-locked, ruggedly beautiful nation is in absolute misery. Here in Kabul, the capital, roaming clusters of widows beg in the streets, their palms seemingly frozen in a supplicant pose. Withered men pull overloaded carts, their labor less costly than the price of a donkey. Children play in vast ruins, their limbs sometimes wrenched away by remnant land mines. The national life expectancy, according to the central statistics office, has fallen to 42 for males and 40 for females. The prolonged drought has sent nearly a million about 5 percent of the on a desperate flight from hunger. Some have gone to other Afghan cities, others across the border. More than one million are \"at risk of starvation,\" according to the United Nations. Famine is the catastrophe Afghans are used to hearing about. Few yet know of the threat of an American reprisal. The Taliban long ago banned television, and the lack of electricity keeps most people from listening to radio. The nation's 100 or so foreign aid workers suffer no such telecommunications handicaps, however, and today many of them began to flee their adopted home, fearing either the havoc of American bombs or the wrath of subsequent Afghan outrage. Around noon, a special United Nations flight evacuated the first of the expatriates. The remaining foreigners are expected to leave on Thursday, as will three, and perhaps all four, of the American parents here to observe the trial of their children, among eight foreign aid workers accused by the Taliban of preaching Christianity. As foreigners left, the Taliban took unusual precautions: they began searching every vehicle entering government compounds. Visitors were carefully frisked. But however much the Taliban hierarchy was beginning to fret, streets and bazaars were a picture of normality. Word has spread slowly about the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. And even when everyday Afghans heard the news, there were no accompanying video images to sear the horror into their memories. Personal conversations only carried the dull stimuli of abstract words: hijacked planes and collapsed buildings. Khair Khana, a man selling fertilizer in a market, knew just a bit about the attack. He thought a plane had crashed into the White House. And he considered the perpetrators, whoever they are, to be \"enemies of God,\" though he also felt \"Americans should look into their hearts and minds about why someone would kill themselves and others\" in such a way. He had not thought much about an American retaliation against Afghanistan. When he did consider it, standing in a ramshackle col"}, {"response": 161, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:32)", "body": "You're not any different, Marcia. Mail is not going between cities on the mainland either."}, {"response": 162, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:33)", "body": "I heard mail wasn't going over 300 miles from it's point of origin. The airlines carry most of the mail but they may not be allowed to carry it any more."}, {"response": 163, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:35)", "body": "Yup, back to barge and 2-week mail. From the west coast. It is nice to know there is company in the misery of Paradise."}, {"response": 164, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:42)", "body": "This very thought provoking piece was written by the impassoned Gerard Van der Leun, who has been on the scene all along in lower Manhattan. All day the images have repeated themselves on television while the smell of the smoke persisted in my rooms. Off and on, all day, I walked to the promenade to look at the reality of it and watch the smoke that didn't stop. It will now play itself out, over and over again in my mind, until the day of my own death. Television and reality. It is very difficult to separate the two, and when one has no reality, television is the thing that replaces it. And because it is through television that those responsible for this monstrous act receive their impression of this country I believe they have made a fundamental miscalculation about the deeper nature of the United States. A miscalculation that will cause to be visited upon them what I pray will be a terrible lesson; a lesson that will make the survivors envy the dead. If you look at television and the endless products of pap and nonsense that are piped out of the media centers of the United States, it is easy to see us as a weak, self-obsessed and foolish people. And many of us are that, even if we pretend to be other than weak, self-obsessed and foolish. We have sitcoms and MTV. We have endless opinions about things which are not really central to serious life questions and serious policy decisions. Our young people look foolish in their vanity and their fashions. Our military institutions are often ridiculed. Our entertainments are light and vapid. Many in positions of influence give short shrift to millions more with deeply held religious and traditional political convictions. Our \"major\" issues on a day by day basis rarely rise above the level of fretful worry about the \"safety of restaurants that allow smoking,\" or whether or not a flower will be threatened by an oil well. These are serious issues to many Americans, and it is easy to see why such wet and weak concerns would lead others elsewhere in the world to hold us in contempt as a weak and decadent society that cannot defend itself against attack. They see our men as feminine and our women as masculine and, to the fundamentalist mind, this signals a weakness in the blood and bone of the nation.They believe that they can attack such a society with a kind of impunity, or with the expectation of a careful and delicate response. They even note that our President is a man who communicates in a clumsy way, who is an illegitimate ruler, and who does not have the support of many of the ruling elites of the country. They hold him to be easily frightened and stupid. And perhaps he is many, if not all, of these things: clumsy, weak, illegitimate, frightened and stupid. But it will not, in the long run, matter. And I pray it does not avail them. That is all the television America. But there is and always has been another America, and it is this America that I hope will emerge from this day and remind all those who seek to harm us that we can be a nation that is as terrible as it seems foolish. That we are a country of deep resolve and capable of striking back in cold anger without compassion or regret. That we are, as the Japanese knew and were to discover, a sleeping giant and you wake us at your own risk. And once woken we will destroy you, and then rebuild you. The Japanese had their lesson and have learned. Germany had it's lesson and has learned. Now it is the turn of a number of nations in the middle east. We will first tend to our dead. Many funerals will take Place over the next month or so. At the same time we will also prepare for our vengence and I pray it will be terrible and without hesitation or compassion until all terrorists and all the villages, cities, and nations that support them are reduced to rubble. This will be an America whose anger is not hidden beneath grief and the committment to save those not yet dead in the rubble of New York and Washington. This is the America you see when you watch the head of the Fire Department of New York try to express his feelings at losing 300 men in one terrible moment. This is the America of the thousands of rescue workers on the job tonight trying to dig through the rubble. This is the America of terrible resolve that you can read on the face of the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he states the military is ready to do whatever is required of it. \"Whatever is required of it\",and I pray we require them to visit horror on our enemies that is a thousand fold worse than what we saw today. You see, it doesn't really matter \"who\" is the President. It matters only that there is a President. The President is only one man and in times like this he does not really have to lead. He has only to follow and get out of the way. After that what takes place will be done by many, many others in the hundreds and thousands. These people will not be a group of lame celebrities with their puling little concerns whose lives are just "}, {"response": 165, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:55)", "body": "More from Gerard. attack.20.430: Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Tue 11 Sep 01 08:20 I watched this happen. The enormity of it cannot be communicated. Vile and bestial. We need to destroy any and all capacity anywhere to do anything like this happening ever again. There were thousands in those buildings. Thousands. There is no justice swift enough or sure enough. But all that we have must be brought forward and used without restraint. This is an act of war beyond Pearl Harbor. Military jets overhead again. More ash on the street. attack.20.465: Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Tue 11 Sep 01 08:34 I am cooled down. Way down., This is pure evil. attack.20.725: Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Tue 11 Sep 01 12:33 There is no more World Trade Center visible from the Promenade. But you can smell it from there a sort of burnt stench as if someone lit newspaper in a trash can and then poured water on it. That kind of wet burnt stench. It is bright in the sunshine now except for where the Trade Centers stood and there is still a plume of thick brown smoke mouldering up from there and making the sun behind it look dim. Just now I saw three large military helicopters land across the river from the Heights on the big pad at the foot of Wall Street. People on the streets are talking quietly man of them on cells now that some of those nets are back up. Everything is as quiet as it was this morning When I got up and began to take a shower. Showering I felt a vibration shake my building in Brooklyn Heights like a subway train passing deep underneath the structure. I didn't think much of it. I've felt similar vibrations before. Getting out I was dressing and I heard the second explosion from the second plane striking the buildings. I turned on the radio and found out what was happening. I dressed and left the house and walked a block to the Promenade at the edge of Brooklyn Heights and saw both towers in flames sending huge gouts of smoke into the air. You don't know what to think. You don't know what to feel. You are just reacting. The promenade was jammed with people with more arriving. Then as I watched the first tower just imploded and plunged, it seemed to me, straight down and a huge brown and black rolling cloud of smoke came boiling through all the streets between the building and surged upward and took over the sky. You could see bright shiny bits of metal squares tumbling up and down and drifting out of the smoke that moved up and blew out to the south east... it was like confetti or stuff tossed out of windows in a ticker tape parade. I felt the sound before I heard it and it shook everything around me. I heard gasps and screams around me. People were turning away. Everyone with children was leaving the promenade. Some were moving closer. The smoke took over everything. I knew that anyone in that building was dead and I started to shake and to weep and to look around at the others who were in all states of reaction. And I had to go back to my house to regroup. After I was in the house for a few minutes I heard another larger explosion. I went back out and down to the promenade again but this time I couldn't see the sky as I had before. This time the whole sky had been darkened and, the wind having shifted, this fine white ash was swirling down the street. Not heavy, but everywhere around me and it was settling down lightly on all the surfaces. When I got to the promenade again the entire southern tip of Manhattan was enveloped in a dirty brown cloud, No buildings visible at all. Nothing. It filled the sky and made it dark. Turning the corner if you looked uptown past the Brooklyn Bridge which was filled with hordes of people walking towards the Brooklyn shore you could see the buildings start to emerge from the smoke. People were sparse on the promenade now although down towards the end there were more and if you walked down there you could see a little bit into the downtown section of Wall street. And there were ferries moving out of the smoke at high speed. And then I started to hear the military jets but I didn't see them. But no other planes are to be seen. Now it is still smoking there. The trade centers are just gone. Erased. 50,000 people they say work there and 150,000 pass through. What do I feel? I don't know what I feel except that I want vengeance and complete vengeance. I want everything this country possesses put onto the people who did this, and the people who supported this act, and the people who believe this is the way in which political ends are achieved. I want there to be a war and a big war until these people are eradicated who ever they are and where ever they are. I want it made clear that anything even approaching this evil act will be met with utter destruction - people, families, villages, cities, nations. This is an act of war and war must be the response. We will be having a long series of mass funerals for many weeks. I only hope that this country finds the stomach and the resolve to carry "}, {"response": 166, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:55)", "body": "that's exactly how I feel. i found my friend who works for oem, btw. he's ok. he was evacuated when the mayor was from 7 WT. he told me about some of the things he saw... i started to cry. he's still in shock. God bless America."}, {"response": 167, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Wed, Sep 12, 2001 (23:59)", "body": "terry, what address are you finding this on??"}, {"response": 168, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (00:00)", "body": "Wow Liz, I'm so glad he's safe. Aren't these words from Gerard pregnant with feeling from someone who's been there, smelled and tasted the horror first hand? Powerful, heartfelt words."}, {"response": 169, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (00:03)", "body": "Gerard posted this at well.com and gave me permission to repost. It's not on a public web address. More . . . Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Wed 12 Sep 01 08:05 To answer leroy, I am back at my absurd day-job. So far I'm just about the only one here. Maybe eight people out of 200+. I don't know quite why I am here, but then, in truth, I'm never sure why I am ever here other than that my personal life obligations require me to be here. That may have to change. At any rate, I woke up and could only take about five minutes of the endlessly repeated images of disaster, and having, literally nothing better to do, decided to try and come in. I first walked to the Promenade to see where the Towers were. The vile smoke blooming across the river was still there as it has always been, probably as it always will be in my mind where I will see it first as that moment when the first tower went down carrying thousands to a death I cannot imagine. Still there. And the faint smell lingers too. And there were small clumps of people standing around, one couple even posing for a picture against the new skyline. Then I walked through streets in the Heights that barely had any people on them. Usually full and bustling even on holiday weekends. Now just some elderly people moving slowly and a few clots of Jehovahs Witnesses in their cleaned and pressed clothing going down to put out what I am sure will be an especially \"We told you so\" issue of the Watchtower. Clark Street station shut down with a few police directly people to the Jay street station. Buy a New York Post because I've read the Times. Walk to Jay Street in the heart of the Brooklyn government center across streets with few pedestrians and no traffic except for police, fire and security vehicles cruising aimlessly about or parked at the curb. Security in front of the courts and the city offices lounging in the bright sunshine of this second day of Indian Summer weather. Down into the Jay Station and a very sparsely occupied A train. We set off on a slow, very slow trip into Manhattan. Several people are reading bibles but most of the 15 or so people are just staring into space and looking vaguely alarmed whenever the train halts between stations -- which is often. I spend this time reading the New York Post which has, inside, a picture of the exterior of one of the towers just before it collapsed. In this picuture I can count around 24 people poking their heads out of the windows or actually on the outside of what has to be the nintieth floor of the towers. All of them, ALL OF THEM, about to ride this building down into oblivion and you know that THEY ALL KNOW THIS. Next to this is a picture of the side of the Tower and a large empty space on the left which is thin air. In this space, close to the tower you can see five to seven people falling with nothing but space above and below them, falling straight down into doom rather than be burned alive. Finally, the train pulls into 23rd Street and halts. After a minute or so you can hear the announcer telling us that we will be held in the station for some time because of a \"police investigation\" in Penn Station, my destination. I get out and go up to the street to walk the rest of the way. An I walk into a Manhattan I have never seen in the almost 30 years that I've been here. Streets almost utterly clear of traffic for as far uptown or downtown as you can see on 8th Ave. Nearly the same thing on 7th. A smattering of pedestrians that grows somewhat thicker as you approach Penn Station. A nail salon open but with nobody getting their nails done that I can see. Extortionate parking lots that are usually jammed with cars almost empty and with nobody there to collect the money. On the street parking? Oh, we've got it now. Everywhere the hush. Everywhere. Like a ghost town with real ghosts now walking among us. People just standing around, people talking softly on cell phones, and people talking to themselves. On every corner small groups walking slowly into the street or ambling along the sidewalks as if nothing they normally do on Wednesdays in New York City is really all that important after all."}, {"response": 170, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (00:05)", "body": "Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Wed 12 Sep 01 19:05 On blood and the giving of it in New York. It is important to do this, but no longer because of the need. It is pretty clear at this point in the evening of day 2 in New York that the city has more than enough of what it needs to cover for this present emergency. Still, people should give because it is something than they can give. That is the need it fills. As for blood for the wounded and the suffering, there is now a sufficient quantity. And sadly this is because, with the exception of a few miracles that I hope will happen over the next few days, there will not be large numbers of injured beyond those who are already receiving treatment. We are now starting to see the bodies emerge and they will continue in a ghastly parade of orange body bags for weeks now. Soon, tomorrow and over the weekend, the funerals and the memorials will begin. And they will go on and on and on. We will have, if we are *fortunate* 10,000 funerals in this city in the coming weeks. Let me say that again: Ten *thousand* funerals. Try, right now, to close your eyes and visualize this number of funeral ceremonies of every type and description and religion. You cannot do it because the enormity of it is too much for the human mind and soul. But we will have them, one by one and in groups. And here is another fact that comes along behind this number. We do not have enough graves. We do not have enough crematoriums. Many will go unburied for weeks. Many will be burned because that will be the only choice. Many will have to be moved by train, plane, or van to some other place in the state, country, or the world. And we will bury a thousand, and then another thousand, and another. And still the orange body bags will come up out of the pile and the pit one by one by one and lie in rows. And this will go on for weeks if not months. Think about what this will be like. Just stop and try to really see it. And then think this: No matter what many may feel now about the wisdom or the goodness or the morality of retribution, there will come a time during this parade of our dead when this country, already uniting in a way I cannot remember in my 55 years, will have even a greater sea-change of spirit and rage. Many of those who do not really feel this now, for whatever enlightened or unenlightened reason, will feel this change and become part of it. There will be those who do not, a smaller and smaller part of us as the days go by, and they will in the end be left behind. But by far the most of us will be changed by this, even if now we are not. Ten thousand funerals. We cannot imagine it, and yet we will live it. And I hope that each one of us can bear witness to as many as we can bear. It is the least of our duties."}, {"response": 171, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (00:19)", "body": "Thanks for that Terry. G's first post is amazing. It says beautifully the resolve and structure of America. Thanks for sharing it."}, {"response": 172, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (00:29)", "body": "And his second one is even more powerful. Beware the wrath of righteous indignation."}, {"response": 173, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (00:50)", "body": "Thank you, Gerard, for speaking so eloquently what we were all feeling. Ten THOUSAND is the size of a good-sized town. Imagine your entire city dead..."}, {"response": 174, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (00:59)", "body": "The NY Port Authority is now putting the potential death toll at 20 thousand. I shudder to think what made them increase this up from the earlier figure of 10 thousand. Hopefully, it is just pure conjecture, as the figure of 20 thousand, is just beyond comprehension."}, {"response": 175, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (01:36)", "body": "Never forget!!! Hawaii was shocked into action by terrorist acts thousands of miles away yesterday, putting isle military bases on highest alert, grounding air traffic and sending many residents to blood banks and churches. U.S. Navy warships were patrolling the West Coast and Hawaii, ready to respond to any terrorist threat. Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Gordon, a Pacific Fleet spokesman at Pearl Harbor, said the 15 ships patrolling Hawaii waters were deployed or redirected as a precautionary measure, not because of a specific threat. Military bases in Hawaii remained closed today to those without military identification for the second straight day after yesterday's plane hijackings and crashes. More http://starbulletin.com/2001/09/12/news/"}, {"response": 176, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (01:43)", "body": "Actually, 20,000 was about what I had imagined from the beginning, given the capacity of the two buildings, number of people per floor, etc. Over 200 floors. There could be easily 100 people per floor, despite the steady stream of people getting out after the first attack. I remember one newsperson saying that highest number of American casualties on a single day was in the Civil War battle of Antietam, where about 23,000 were killed."}, {"response": 177, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (01:53)", "body": "I wonder if we will ever get an accurate accounting. The fires continue to burn deep inside the hole made by one of the towers. It will simply have to burn itself out since it is too hot and too dangerous to get to now. Frightening! I was asked to post this and so I shall: Flags Across America To show those terrorists that we Americans stick together, FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 14 is \"Flags Across America.\" All Americans are asked to display the American flag either in their homes or cars. Let's keep the meaning of UNITED in \"United States\". Pass this onto as many people as you know. THANK YOU."}, {"response": 178, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (01:58)", "body": "I know Karen, I know... When that figure of 10,000 was initially announced, I thought it was too low, considering the massive amounts of people in the 2 towers. But after a trajedy like this, it is easy and comforting to stick your head in the sand and try to pretend the worst is not going to happen. All too soon, the cold hard reality will get to you, no matter how long you try to put it off."}, {"response": 179, "author": "curious", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (02:12)", "body": "This is YOUR LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM, a free newsletter sharing life, love and laughter, published by Steve Goodier. http://www.lifesupportsystem.com I asked for it! I invited a response and now am flooded with mail! It may take days to go through it all. Today I printed some of YOUR words in lieu of my usual message. I hope you feel encouraged by the spirit in which they were written. ~ Steve _________________From the Mailbox__________________ Write to Publisher@LifeSupportSystem.com I want to express my great condolence to people of America. I want to say aloud my personal absolute negative expression about the terrorist attack innocent people in New York and Washington. Dostoevsky said there are no great goals to justify the crime if it costs a little tear of child, and how many tears (were shed by) this outrage act? ~ Your subscriber (Kiev, Ukraine) Know that the pain and suffering of Americans is also felt across the mass of water here in Australia. ~ Joanna (Perth, Australia) Let those of us who can, hold a vision of peace, even between ourselves and those who would destroy us. Let those of us who can see the Light, be the Light. ~ A friend Everything came to a standstill here (South Africa) yesterday afternoon at about 3.00 p.m. our time when we first heard the news of the horror! What I do want to say, from our small space, far away from you all in America, is that we grieve for the whole nation and all of you are in our prayers and thoughts -- constantly. ~ Caroline (South Africa) The Canadian People Send Their Deepest Condolences to Our American Friends. We are shocked and horrified, as most Americans are, as soon as we heard the news many rallied, giving blood to the Canadian Red Cross in anticipation of the need by those that might need it. America is our fiend and neighbour, and those that hurt America hurt us. We hope that we never see another tragedy as this again. ~ Doug (Canada) Thank you! Even with all that you and your family have been going through, you have still managed to send inspiration to those of us in need! With all of the negativity out there yesterday, and the \"Nuke 'EM\" attitude among a lot of Americans that called into CNN and the radio stations here in Chicago, I began to find myself getting more upset about them than the tragedy that caused their feelings. Thank you for reminding the many people who forget in times like this that we are all one -- most humans do NOT believe that the killing of innocents is right, no matter what race! Here in Chicago, an Arab education meeting was hit with a molotov cocktail -- this is exactly what we DON'T need! Thanks again for your call to Americans to see the truth and work through our grief with LOVE! ~ Kelli (Chicago, Illinois) I, like so many of us in the US, live complacently from day to day without fear of danger. Then a tragedy like this occurs and reminds us of the fragility of life and how important it is for us to set aside our differences and all join hands in common bond. ~ Mal (Pasadena, Texas, USA) I live in Barbados, a small island in the West Indies (Caribbean). The tragedy of yesterday shook us here as well. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in the States. May God continue to strengthen your nation and be with every one of your leaders as they make decisions and try to rebuild the country. ~ Marie (Barbados) A great gloom has descended on Australia today and will remain for a while to come. The streets were empty in peak hour this morning as people stayed home to watch in horror as the event was broadcast across the nation. And this gloom has remained the whole day, with the attack being just about the only thing on peoples minds. America is far from alone in its hurt and sorrow and we will do whatever we can to help our fellow humans. ~ Nikki (Gold Coast, Australia) I hope that from yesterday events we may learn at least one lesson: that hate only brings violence and destruction. \"Love thy enemy\" was not written in vain. I pray that the hurt we all feel today does not develop into hate and desire for revenge. ~ Olga (Puerto Rico, USA) My thoughts from South Africa are with you in this dark hour. But I know that you are a country of strong people. People that will support each other and together stand up to become even stronger. ~ Ronelle (Gauteng, South Africa) I am thankful to you always for the positive, uplifting words. I look forward to my daily emails. I never needed them more than I needed them today. I was one of hundreds in Jersey City, at Exchange Place, who watched this event unfold to our shock, horror and disbelief. Thanks for giving me something to hold on to. ~ TL Everything has changed today. Our nation, our world, our civilization. If we are not extremely careful, we could surrender our future to these terrorists in exchange for the perception of peace and security. The terrorists demonstrated that the United States is a free and open country. We have paid a price for having an accessible society. Ac"}, {"response": 180, "author": "Allison2", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (03:43)", "body": "In addition to thousands of Americans killed they are now saying there were hundreds of UK citizens. My son (he works for a US bank in London) has just got back from spending a week working in NY. He was in the WTC every day. The world really is a global village. What happens to the US happens to us all."}, {"response": 181, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (08:37)", "body": "http://tibet.com/NewsRoom/hhdl-letter.htm The Dalai Lama speaks."}, {"response": 182, "author": "Moon", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (09:05)", "body": "The world really is a global village. What happens to the US happens to us all. Let's hope this unity works in the hard task ahead. There are some flights flying into Miami. They seem to be flying lower than usual. Where once we could barely hear them now they are very loud. Very scary. :-("}, {"response": 183, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (09:47)", "body": "Thank goodness that your family was spared, Allison. I was thinking about Ben's brother. Isn't he in NYC and probably in that part of it?"}, {"response": 184, "author": "MarkG", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (09:55)", "body": "Ben's brother works (I believe) for Morgan Stanley, who have (had) 21 floors of the South WTC tower, although it's not their head office in NYC. MS reported yesterday that over 85% (and growing) of their WTC staff had survived. So his odds are good."}, {"response": 185, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (10:08)", "body": "Thanks, Mark, for the update. The other night I was watching BBC news' coverage on one of my PBS channels and they were talking about all the foreign nationals who worked in the financial sector."}, {"response": 186, "author": "MarkG", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (10:23)", "body": "That's right, Karen. Just like here in London, the NYC financial services industry is one of the most multi-national workforces around. Obviously, the BBC is concerned to take some time focusing on the number of Britons involved, but there will be many nationalities amongst the dead, along with the thousands of Americans. A colleague of mine reports that his NY counterpart works in a suburb in which nearly everybody commutes to Manhattan. Every few doors down the street there was a worker who never came home on Tuesday. Personally, three of my four previous firms had offices in the WTC. It brings the tragedy close to home, but not as close as for the family members and friends of the 20,000."}, {"response": 187, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (10:58)", "body": "(Mark) MS reported yesterday that over 85% (and growing) of their WTC staff had survived. So his odds are good. Yes, I heard that about MS also. They credit a 'split second decision to evacuate' after the first plane hit the other tower. It seems to me alot more people got out than you might expect (credit the '93 bombing for that). Yet the stories of those searching for their loved ones, who called before 9 a.m. to say they were OK but who worked above the 90th floor, are absolutely heartbreaking. This will continue for weeks. (Beth) The White House and ABC News have confirmed that the intended target of the plane that crashed in DC, was NOT The Pentagon. It was The White House. OMG !! The White House have also confirmed that Air Force One and The President, were also intended targets. They have not revealed what brought them to this conclusion. I'll tell you--this is spin. Georgie's being criticized for not returning to DC until late afternoon. The plane which hit the Pentagon, the press sec'y says, circled over the White House first. They may have more 'clear and convincing' evidence that the White House and Air Force One (a plane? They're going to hit a plane with a plane with so many other gov't targets around? George was on the ground in Fla. at the time of the attacks) were targeted, but I'm not biting. Though they could've indeed gone for the White House and done far more damage to the country--Dick Cheney was at his desk. ;-P"}, {"response": 188, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:01)", "body": "On Doomed Flight, Passengers Vowed to Perish Fighting By JODI WILGORENand EDWARD WONG They told the people they loved that they would die fighting. In a series of cellular telephone calls to their wives, two passengers aboard the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field instead of possibly toppling a national landmark learned about the horror of the World Trade Center. From 35,000 feet, they relayed harrowing details about the hijacking in progress to the police. And they vowed to try to thwart the enemy, to prevent others from dying even if they could not save themselves. More: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/national/13NEWA.html"}, {"response": 189, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:04)", "body": "Austin's Stratfor.com intelligence reports are some of the best: Situation Reports European markets stabilized in trading Sept. 12, helping to calm the major Asian markets entering the trading day Sept. 13. AFP reports that Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney and South Korea all posted minor gains after steep losses the previous day, though all markets remain fairly below pre-attack levels. Singapore dropped marginally, and Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan -- which were closed Sept. 13 -- posted losses of between 4 and 7 percent. 1519 GMT, 091301 The Afghanistan opposition Northern Alliance, which opposes the ruling Taliban, has appointed a new military chief to replace leader Ahmad Shah Masood, Reuters reported. Masood was replaced with a general named Mukhammad Fakhim on Sep. 11, a few days after Masood was wounded in an attack. Conflicting reports have stated that Masood was actually killed in the attack. 1501 GMT, 091301 The Washington Post reports that the Bush administration is continuing to gather support for a possible strike against Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden and his supporters in Afghanistan, pressuring neighboring Pakistan for intelligence and logistical backing after winning full NATO support Sept. 12. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has pledged his country's full cooperation in the probe into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, VOA news reported, while Saudi Arabia has also reportedly offered its support. The Chinese government is appealing to the United States to consult with countries beyond Europe before launching an attack, BBC reported. 1430 GMT, 091301 Fox News reports that almost all of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have been identified on flight manifests, including many Saudi and Egyptian nationals and one known supporter of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, considered a prime suspect in the attacks. The news agency, citing law enforcement officials, said that a flight manifest from one of the four flights included the name of a suspected bin Laden supporter, while one person has also been arrested in connection with the attacks in Hamburg, Germany. 1427 GMT, 091301 U.S. authorities said at least one hijacker on each of the four planes used in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was trained at a U.S. flight school, AP reported. Overall, 50 people may have been involved in the operation. Attorney General John Ashcroft said 12 to 24 hijackers commandeered the four planes, and a government official said another two dozen or so are believed to have assisted them, AP reported. The Los Angeles Times reports that about 40 of the men have been accounted for, including those killed in the suicide attacks, but 10 remain at large. The Times also reported at least one of the suspects receiving advanced flight training in Florida was a commercial pilot from Saudi Arabia. 1417 GMT, 091301 The Associated Press reports that a former employee at Huffman Aviation school in Venice Venice, Fla., said FBI agents told him that Mohamed Atta, who stayed in his home while training at the local flight school, was involved in the attack on the World Trade Center Sept. 11. The Miami Herald, citing federal authorities, reports that Atta was one of four suspects who died on American Airlines Flight 11, the first jetliner to crash into the center. A second student at Huffman Aviation, identified as Marwan Alshehhi, is also a suspect. 1410 GMT, 091301 Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Sept. 13 dismissed reports linking Osama bin Laden to terrorist attacks on the United States earlier on the week, and reiterated that they would not hand over the Saudi dissident, AFP reported. Reports had surfaced the previous day claiming that the Taliban had arrested bin Laden. The Taliban is reportedly preparing for a possible U.S. attack, sending its top leader into hiding and repositioning its military hardware throughout the country, The Washington Post reported, citing reports from Pakistani intelligence sources.1405 GMT, 091301 Federal aviation officials said they would allow air travel in the United States to resume Sept. 13 morning. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said authorities were deploying hundreds of U.S. marshals and other agents to airports and airplanes to increase security with the gradual resumption of commercial flights, AP reported. 1400 GMT, 091301 The Times of India has published a report originally carried by an Arabic online newspaper, saying that the Taliban has placed Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden and several of his assistants under house arrest in Afghanistan. A diplomat at the Taliban embassy in Abu Dhabi could not confirm the report. 2318 GMT, 091201 Armed sky marshalls and/or company security officials will accompany flights in the United States for at least a short period of time, possibly indefinitely, according to airline industry officials and the Department of Transportation. 2240 GMT, 091201 Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Pakistani Ambassador Ma"}, {"response": 190, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:05)", "body": "Koppel said a Pakistani news agency quoted the taliban saying they do not have Bin Laden under house arrest or any other kind. Frontline is going to show an updated version of their documentary on Bin Laden on thursday. They also have an extensive website http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/"}, {"response": 191, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:05)", "body": "The LA Times has a detailed story FBI Identifies Team of 50 Attackers http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-091301terror.story"}, {"response": 192, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:16)", "body": "(Eileen) I'll tell you--this is spin. Georgie's being criticized for not returning to DC until late afternoon. I thought the same thing and said so to Ev last night. Bush was in Florida. Symbolically they might have wanted to hit the White House, but this is a crock to deflect newspapers' criticism. Unfortunately, most Americans do not realize that getting key government functions, including the President, to safety means taking them out of Washington and into bunkers and I'm sure the disaster scenarios for the presidency would involve moving him around. The hijackers wouldn't even have known he eventually went up in Air Force One or where it was headed. Totally idiotic. I bet we never see this 'credible' evidence."}, {"response": 193, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:20)", "body": "http://www.rand.org/hot/newslinks.html#terror This is the URL for a Rand report on the state of U.S. anti-terrorism policy as of 2000. Executive summary: we don't have one. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/ This is a joint PBS/NYT site on bin Laden, dating from a little after the first WTC bombings."}, {"response": 194, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:30)", "body": "The die has been cast. The lead story in the Thursday edition of the Washington Post is a detailed description of US negotiations with Pakistan and Tajikstan to provide a staging area or at least safe passage for a mission to track down Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20862-2001Sep12.html The second story starts by saying that Pentagon officials are keeping a tight lid on deployments and planning options, then proceeds to spill the beans extravagantly about the range of plans and preparations in progress for the effort to find and deal with Osama Bin Laden. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20806-2001Sep12.html"}, {"response": 195, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:31)", "body": "Plans underway for massive invasion of Afghanistan: http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,551079,00.html"}, {"response": 196, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:37)", "body": "A wired story reports that FBI agents are busy installing carnivore on ISPs http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46747,00.html"}, {"response": 197, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:38)", "body": "Anti-Attack Feds Push Carnivore By Declan McCullagh 2:00 a.m. Sep. 12, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- Federal police are reportedly increasing Internet surveillance after Tuesday's deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Just hours after three airplanes smashed into the buildings in what some U.S. legislators have dubbed a second Pearl Harbor, FBI agents began to visit Web-based, e-mail firms and network providers, according to engineers at those companies who spoke on condition of anonymity. An administrator at one major network service provider said that FBI agents showed up at his workplace on Tuesday \"with a couple of Carnivores, requesting permission to place them in our core, along with offers to actually pay for circuits and costs.\""}, {"response": 198, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:44)", "body": ""}, {"response": 199, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (11:48)", "body": "From the Guardian article: Nato is now drawing up an emergency plan for a massive attack on Afghanistan if proof emerges that Osama bin Laden, the wanted Saudi-born terrorist sheltered by Afghanistan, was responsible for the attacks. What do they mean by if? A signatory to a treaty is a signatory to a treaty. Also, they are making it sound like it's an obscure passage of the treaty. That it hasn't been invoked isn't relevant IMO. It is the backbone of the NATO alliance. Only the enemy has changed."}, {"response": 200, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (12:14)", "body": "http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/misc/janes010911_2_n.shtml The hunt for Bin Laden begins."}, {"response": 201, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (12:15)", "body": "According to NYPD radio scan police are reporting that Grand Central Station is right now being evacuated and strett traffic has been closed off in the last 10 minutes in that area. there were reports that a transit officer was approached by two passengers that a male dressed in tan was seen with a backpack with wires coming out of it and something attached around his waist. Police have not as of this minute located any peson matching this description. Now the report is that the package or backpack was left on a train from Greenwich, and that the terminal is completely evacuated."}, {"response": 202, "author": "mari", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (12:31)", "body": "(Eileen)Though they could've indeed gone for the White House and done far more damage to the country--Dick Cheney was at his desk. ;-P Oh Eileen, I am laughing in spite of myself, one of the few good laughs in days. Agree that it's spin, but who cares? The fragility of this country was part of the message the Taliban government conveyed in a plea for restraint issued late tonight. It said in part, \"We appeal to the United States not to put Afghanistan into more misery because our people have suffered so much.\" They should have thought of this before they harbored and supported terrorists. And at whose hands have they suffered? They are asking us to show more caring for their people than they themselves have. And this culpability doesn't stop at the Afghan border. I really wonder if the world has the resolve and stomach to do what needs to be done in order to protect and preserve the greater good."}, {"response": 203, "author": "Moon", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (12:56)", "body": "I really wonder if the world has the resolve and stomach to do what needs to be done in order to protect and preserve the greater good. We have lost some of our freedom. It will never be the same. In Miami one of the thoughts is that Castro might have supported these terrorists. Could you imagine also going after Castro? That would put Miami at a very high risk for attacks."}, {"response": 204, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (13:22)", "body": "(Mari) Agree that it's spin, but who cares? It annoys me. Surely the White House has more pressing problems than Bush's political standing. We appeal to the United States not to put Afghanistan into more misery because our people have suffered so much ...as they pull out their AK-47s. Who are they kidding? Phooey."}, {"response": 205, "author": "winter", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (13:27)", "body": "(Mark) Ben's brother works (I believe) for Morgan Stanley...although it's not their head office in NYC... So his odds are good. I checked with Ben yesterday. You're right, Mark. His brother was midtown, and not in the WTC at the time, thank god. I tuned into a segement of the \"Howard Stern\" show yesterday morning... for some unknown reason. It's really very frightening at how \"trigger happy\" many people are after all this. It's understandable to want to express anger, but there were people calling in ready to invade the Arab/Muslim/South Asian neighborhoods, ready to take revenge. There have alrady been reports of violence. It's complete, total ignorance on their parts, and those callers represent a demographic of this country I'm very ashamed of."}, {"response": 206, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (13:43)", "body": "(Mari) Agree that it's spin, but who cares? (Eileen) It annoys me. Me too, but not because of the political standing concern. Rather than make up lies, just tell the American public the truth of what they were doing and why and that is is SOP in such situations. Surely people would understand that. (Winter) those callers represent a demographic of this country I'm very ashamed of. Until/unless they violate someone's civil liberties or commit criminal acts, we have to tolerate such things as that is what our country's democracy is all about, i.e., standing up for people's rights to say the most vile things."}, {"response": 207, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (14:55)", "body": "More from stratfor: U.S. Must Identify State Sponsors 0120 GMT, 010912 Summary The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., have sent shockwaves across the nation. While international Islamic terrorists organizations linked to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qa'ida group remain the top suspects, some have suggested nations opposed to U.S. global hegemony may also have been involved. Historically, international terrorism has needed state sponsorship in order to be successful. But such involvement would be tantamount to declaring war on the United States, and although the suspect list is long, there is little evidence at the moment that singles any one country out. Analysis The attacks on New York and Washington achieve a number of objectives for the perpetrators. On a strategic level, they demonstrate the vulnerability of the United States. In one fell swoop, the sophisticated and well-coordinated operation paralyzed New York City and the U.S. financial sector, sent the nation's government spiraling into chaos and struck terror in the hearts of the American public. Such a feat, accomplished with only four airline hijackings, is almost impossible to comprehend and will impact U.S. defense and foreign policy for decades to come. By immobilizing the U.S. financial sector, the strike threatens to push a nation, already suffering from a downturn, into recession. This will have ramifications for U.S. influence throughout the globe. It could also damage U.S. markets abroad as well as numerous other nations with economic ties to the United States. Understanding the impact of the attack is important for identifying likely suspects. There is good reason to suspect international terrorist organizations linked to Osama bin Laden's umbrella group, Al-Qa'ida. More important, however, is the question of which, if any, states might also have been involved. The article goes on in much more depth and there are several other articles worth reading at http://www.stratfor.com"}, {"response": 208, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (15:59)", "body": "From my son - his intraoffice email: The official word from the FAA about the new airport security procedures is as follows: Increased passenger and baggage security screenings at all airports. Passengers should plan to arrive at the airport a MINIMUM OF TWO HOURS prior to departure. Passengers must check their luggage at the ticket counter, no curbside check-in allowed. Only passengers holding an electronic ticket receipt, travel agency itinerary, airline ticket card, boarding document, internet printout or paper ticket will be allowed past the security check point. Passengers without receipts of any sort will need to stand in line at the airport ticket counters to obtain a receipt. (You may also contact TI and they will mail, fax or email a receipt to you prior to departing to the airport) Aircraft and airport security sweeps similar to those conducted during the Persian Gulf war. Vehicles will be inspected at terminal parking entrances. Unattended vehicles are banned near the terminals and will be towed. No knives of any size, or made from any material, are permitted on flights. The sale of knifelike items has been banned at all airports. Heightened vigilance for unattended bags. Searches of aircraft cargo and passenger compartments. An increase in number of uniformed law enforcement and military personnel. Random searches of service personal, flight crews and equipment. Reduces access points to secure areas at airports."}, {"response": 209, "author": "winter", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (16:26)", "body": "Thanks for the info. MArcia. I'm curious to know what the procedures are for our friends in other countries. How do these security measures compare to Europe/Australia/Asia/etc.?"}, {"response": 210, "author": "Moon", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (16:28)", "body": "Is this the end of Duty-Free shopping? I must say I am very happy about about the carry-on luggage ban. The size of those things were getting too large."}, {"response": 211, "author": "toyce", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (16:37)", "body": "I think you will still be allowed carry on items, but just the curb side check service is gone."}, {"response": 212, "author": "Moon", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (16:53)", "body": "I thought they said wallets and purses only."}, {"response": 213, "author": "toyce", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (16:59)", "body": "O.k. I just didn't see that in the above post. It's quite possible that they will limit it to that."}, {"response": 214, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (17:10)", "body": "Where does it say anything about limiting carry-ons to wallets or purses? Just no curbside check-in per above. Can you imagine turning over your camera to the airlines to check in cargo? I don't think so."}, {"response": 215, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (17:13)", "body": "Wonder about laptops carry-ons. I suspect that they will be banned, as well. I guess we carry a well examined purse and a book to read. Who about nail files? knitting needles? Dental floss? The list is endless if one gets tryly inventive. Even a leather belt! El Al, The Israeli airlines makes inspections like you would not believe. They have the tightest security in the world and NO ONE complains."}, {"response": 216, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (17:15)", "body": "This also from my son about colleagues travelling and caught in this mess: froma memo: We have heard from the rest of our traveling staff. DK is making his way to Chicago from Midland, Michigan via automobile. He is with SS and R. They hope to get on a morning flight to San Francisco out of Chicago. DM, who was on personal travel, is also in Chicago trying to get on a flight or take a Greyhound bus."}, {"response": 217, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (17:20)", "body": "At Last the Aggressors Themselves Are Able to Wedge In a Word Or Two *8-/ Subject: Islamic Jihad, what is next ? Date: Thursday, September 13, 2001 1:53 AM From: felipe rodriquez Reply-To: \"felipe rodriquez\" To: ISLAMIC JIHAD, what is next ? (c) Felipe Rodriquez INTRODUCTION The attack on the World Trade Center in New York is a new phase in an ongoing global religious and ideological conflict. This conflict started in 1990, with the gulf war. The mother of all wars, as Saddam Hussein called it, and is unlikely to end for some time. To understand this conflict, we must look at the Western world's exploitation and colonization of Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations . Economic and geopolitical moves that benefit only the western democratic capitalist structures are the primary cause of this terrible conflict. USAMA BIN MUHAMMAD BIN IN LADEN The Taliban consider Osama Bin Ladin to be a holy man, because of his incredible service in the Afghani war against the Russians, and the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Osama Bin Ladin has fought hundreds of battles in Afghanistan, and has been wounded numerous times. He went to Afghanistan around 1982, and took with him a large amount of construction equipment, and a team of engineers, to rebuild the war torn country. Consequently he became involved in many battles, and was wounded many times. He is a devout Muslim, and answers to Allah and certain important Islamic teachers, such as Sheik Safar Ibn `Abd Al-Rahman Al-Hawali. He founded the \"Al Qaeda\" movement, with Muhammad Atef. The movement was initially setup to record the movements of Mujahedin in Afghanistan. Later the goal changed to driving the United States forces out of Saudi Arabia, where the US setup a military base since the beginning of the Gulf War. Many devout Muslims see this as a hostile invasion of the Islamic holy land, comparable to the invasions of the crusaders in the past. Some years later the goal changed once again, into what it is now; to attack Israel, the US and its allies wherever it can. The justification of these acts, in the mind of the Muslim activist, comes from the foreign occupation of the holy cities; Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. It is simplistic and short sighted to assume that Osama Bin Laden is the great leader behind the attacks on the WTC, the Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam US embassies, the hit on USS Cole in Yemen and various other terrorist attacks. Islamic religious activism is the glue that binds this global terror movement together. Removing Osama Bin Ladin from the scene will not remove this global movement, and will not end terror. Killing him will only motivate thousands of Muslims to volunteer for the ultimate sacrifice. The Islamic radical movement resembles a hydra, A serpent represented as having many heads, one of which, when cut off, is immediately succeeded by two others. The movement cannot be eradicated by violence and retaliation, such deeds will only make it stronger and increase popular support in the Islamic world. To understand how this works, lets look at Hizbollah and Hamas. These Islamic organizations have been setup in such a way that they are almost impossible to eradicate. There is always double redundancy in the leadership, because any leader can expect to be assassinated by their enemies at any time. The effectiveness of this redundancy is demonstrated by the fact that Hizbollah and Hamas still exist today, despite the fact that many of its leaders have been assassinated by Israel and others. We must assume that the leadership of the organization that hit the WTC, and other targets in the past, is organized in a similar way, building on the experience of Islamic organizations in Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere. Hamas and Hizbollah have integrated Islamic thought in their society by providing numerous services to their communities. Schools and hospitals are provided for free or at cost. And they materially support families, widows and orphans that have been victims of aggression by their enemies. Hizbollah operates numerous businesses, that together with donations fund the activities of the organization. These social activities provide the organizations with enormous popular support, it is an effective way of disseminating the virtues of Islam, and strengthening its base. It has also created a strong platform to recruit martyrs for the violent Jihad (Holy War) against Israel and its allies. >From documentation that was seized in Africa, after the Nairobi bombing, there is a strong indication that a cell structure was used to limit the risks to the terrorist organization that hit the African embassies, allegedly the same organization that hit the WTC in 2001. A cell structure is often used by violent groups. It is implemented in such a way that cell members only know a limited amount of members of the organization, and only have limited access to information about the planned activities of the group. Typically cell members only know the coordinator of the"}, {"response": 218, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (17:21)", "body": "http://interactive.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Tenant-List.htm is a list of building tenants with status reports on tenants and business."}, {"response": 219, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (17:25)", "body": "I really hope these security precaustions are permanant. I hope to God, they aren't eased up on when people start complaining about the inconvenience. According to the FAA, they claim they have been calling for all airport security personel to become federal employees and trained and paid accordingly, for quite some time. Thet were trying to enforce this, but backed off when all the airlines began protesting."}, {"response": 220, "author": "rachael", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (17:35)", "body": "(Marcia) Only passengers holding an electronic ticket receipt, travel agency itinerary, airline ticket card, boarding document, internet printout or paper ticket will be allowed past the security check point winter, you asked about procedures in Europe - the above has always been the case in the UK to my knowledge - certainly any time I've flown, whether within the UK, within Europe, or to North America (USA and Canada) you cannot get into the departure lounge without a boarding pass which is issued at check-in (and passport for international flights); non-passengers are not allowed past that point. Then at the boarding gate you must show your pass again. If a checked-in passenger does not board, but has put luggage on the plane, the plane will not fly until the luggage has come off. Check in times for USA/Canada have been two hours minimum every time I've done the trip; within Europe its usually an hour; I know someone who checked in 30 minutes before a flight to Dublin (thus was technically late) and was not allowed to board because she'd breeched security regulations. what is curb side check in?"}, {"response": 221, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (18:07)", "body": "There are skycaps at the entrances (curb) who will take your bags and they are put on the plane. You have to produce a valid ticket and photo identification. This is only for domestic flights. Plus you have to tip these guys per bag."}, {"response": 222, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (19:42)", "body": "Science@NASA is based in the United States, but among our many subscribers are a substantial number of readers from other countries. In recent days many of them have written to us expressing their sympathies and horror at the events of Sept. 11th. Their messages, attached below, reveal how the heart-breaking loss of life in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania touches everyone. The staff of Science@NASA extend our heartfelt condolences to the many victims of Tuesday's tragedy, and we thank our friends overseas for their kind messages of support as we resume, later today, our regular schedule of scientific story-telling. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TO: Ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov FROM: inna_mar@XXXXXXXX.ru Dear Mr. Koczor, All of us are shocked by the awful events that have occurred yesterday in New York and in Washington and we wish to extend our sympathy to you and your colleagues. If there is any way that we can help, please let us know. Sincerely, Inna Mardanyan Moscow, Russia **************************** TO: Ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov FROM: gushat@XXXXXXX.ru Dear friends, Your colleagues from Paleontological Institute of Moscow are with you. Our sympathy, thoughts and support are yours. And will always be. Best regards, Alexei Rzanov, Galina Ushatinskaya, and all colleagues from Moscow **************************** TO: Ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov FROM: snassopoulou@XXXXXXX.gr Dear Ron, We are very sorry and really left astonished and speechless with terrorism struck US yesterday. We sincerely wish and hope that everything is OK for you and all the American colleagues and families. Yours, Sophia Athens, Greece **************************** TO: phillips@spacescience.com FROM: tony.taggett@XXXXXXX.uk Dear Dr Phillips As my only point of contact with the United States is through your science@NASA website, I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the American people, our thoughts and prayers especially go out to the relatives and friends of those who perished in the awful events that occurred yesterday Yours Sincerely Tony Aggett United Kingdom ***************************** TO: ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov FROM: mmazzolini@XXXXXX.au We would like to offer our deepfelt sympathy, concern and prayers to our friends and colleagues in the US at this dreadful time, Margaret and Alex Mazzolini Melbourne, Australia ***************************** TO: ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov FROM: omaro@XXXXXX.kz We are absolutely shocked by horrible events in the U.S. It is unbelievable...Accept my condolences...Today our world has changed. What will happen to our world? Take care, Prof Omarov Alma Aty, Khazakstan ***************************** TO: ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov FROM: cofXXXXX@home.com As the President of CANADIAN Environmental Science and Research Group and on behalf of the Team of CESAR Group I would like to send our heart felt sorrow to those family members who lost relatives in these vicious and despicable attacks on democracy. God Bless America! Jack Pender Canada ***************************** From: Rafael C\ufffdrdenas Santacruz To: Ronald.J.Koczor@msfc.nasa.gov Sincere greetings Dr. Koczor, Ron Together with my family, we feel very sorry for the regrettable incidents in New York. We are with you with all our hearts. Rafael Cardenas Santacruz Scientific Technician Bogota, Columbia ***************************** TO: Ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov FROM: jarl.ahlbeck@XXXXX.fi In the 1930's Stalin deported and murdered 25,000 Finns that were peacefully living on the Soviet side of the border. It was a blind terror action against civilians, a complete ethnical cleaning of the Karelia county. Without successful defensive fight in the following winter war 1939 when Stalin tried to invade Finland (5 of my uncles were killed, my father injured), we would, according to recently discovered documents from Moscow, all have been deported to Siberia, and I would not sit here and study your website. These terrorists try to create a world of that kind. We do not want this world anymore! All the best for you in the USA Jarl Helsinki, Finland **************************** Necochea, 11/9/01 TO: ron.koczor@msfc.nasa.gov NASA: Hi\ufffd, My name is Maria. I am aware of the attack that has been perpetrated against your country, and I am very sad. I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am 14 years old and there is not much that I can do to help, but I profoundly admire you and you have my moral support. I would like to ask you a favor. Please reach an agreement without wars, but I hope those responsible are found, so that peace will be extended throughout the world. Sincerely, Maguie. ***************************** From: Jonathon Dugdale To: patrick.meyer@msfc.nasa.gov Sent: 9/11/01 12:37 PM Subject: Condolences On behalf of all the employees and stakeholders of ApexMail I would like to say that we share in your shock, grief and pain resulting from today's unspeakable and cowardly assault. Our thoughts and prayers "}, {"response": 223, "author": "mari", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:06)", "body": "(Marcia) El Al, The Israeli airlines makes inspections like you would not believe. They have the tightest security in the world and NO ONE complains. Right on, Marcia. Below is a fascinating article from today's Philly Inquirer on airport security in Israel. Take a moment to read this, everyone. IMO, *this* is the type of dialogue we should be having, and people need to think now about the balance of personal freedoms and civil liberties vs. much more aggressive security measures. How much of the former are you willing to give up in order to achieve the latter? A little? A lot? I don't have the answers but this is the type of thing I meant before when I wrote that I wondered if people would have the stomach for doing what may be required in the new world order. Military retaliation is only part of it. How Israel remains a model of airport security By Michael Matza INQUIRER STAFF WRITER JERUSALEM - As the United States moves to tighten security at its airports, it may look to the world's model of truly tough airport defense: Israel. Here, any trip on Israel's national airline, El Al, involves not only metal detectors but luggage searches, armed in-flight guards, and a personal grilling by a specially trained antiterrorism officer. Security agents routinely \"profile\" passengers to single out for extra attention Arabs or foreigners who fit ethnic or other parameters. Any foreign visitor who has taken off from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv knows the drill: arrive two hours before departure, pass all luggage through a monster of a metal detector; open carry-on bags, which sometimes have to be unpacked on a stainless-steel table; and submit to interrogation by a no-nonsense screener. Where have you been in Israel? Whom did you meet? Did you go to the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza? Whom did you talk to there? Did you pack your own bags? Are you carrying any gifts? Did anyone give you anything to carry? Do you speak Hebrew? Can you read Hebrew? Have you ever studied Hebrew? Do you understand that I am asking these questions because what may seem like a gift to you may actually be an explosive device? Passengers of Arabic extraction say the questioning can last a very long time and often feels like harassment. Israelis tend to think of it as a necessary evil. In the United States, \"profiling\" would not pass constitutional muster. \"I think that 99 percent of the passengers understand very well the need for security arrangements, and there are not many complaints,\" said Pini Schiff, spokesman for the Israeli Airport Authority and former head of airport security. \"I can tell you, in general terms, that in two or three minutes of questioning, the screeners are doing their best to learn the passenger's aim for coming to Israel,\" Schiff said. \"All the flight checkers are hired by us and trained by us. They go through extensive background checks. All of them have served in the Israeli army and have to pass several tests to make sure that they have the capabilities to do the job.\" When a passenger's answers don't add up, he is denied a boarding pass. Schiff declined to say how often that happens. By questioning passengers, guards quickly can spot those who appear nervous, said Leo Gleser, a former El Al security officer and head of ISDS, a security-consulting firm. In the case of Tuesday's hijackers in the United States, \"not all of them would have made it onto the plane\" if the Israeli approach to security had been used, Gleser told the Associated Press. \"If you detect one, you can start to ask questions\" that might lead to the other members of the group. As another security measure, Ben Gurion passengers are taken by waiting buses to the planes, which are parked far from the terminal on guarded runways. And, although official sources in Israel would not confirm it, it is widely believed that armed, undercover security guards ride aboard every El Al flight. \"We've provided information in the past to other airlines and other airport authorities, and we will continue to share our expertise,\" said Nachman Kleiman, spokesman for El Al. Kleiman declined yesterday to say whether El Al had consulted with the Federal Aviation Administration on the new U.S. measures. \"I can tell you that El Al maintains a high level of security for its passengers by not discussing its procedures in the media,\" he said. Israeli Transportation Minister Efraim Sneh predicted that Tuesday's attacks would lead to security changes. But instead of bringing more high-tech responses, he said, they likely would reinforce the low-tech methods. \"Our screening method is based on identifying the suspect traveler and concentrating on the characteristics of the person,\" Sneh said. \"Screening for explosives only works when the terrorists are using explosives.\" As the world now knows, for Tuesday's terrorists, the plane was the bomb."}, {"response": 224, "author": "nky", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:21)", "body": "Hi everyone! I just like to say that I used work on Wall Street and now am working in midtown. Unfortunately I still have many clients from the downtown location especially in the twin towers. The downtown area is my playground. I know every building and every street. I can name most of the businesses with their building address. I've been watching the news and they're flashing the names of all the businesses in the twin towers and it is devastating to see all the names that I know and was conducting business with. I'm in the buildings couple of times a week for meetings and I was very lucky for not being in the area the day it all happened. My heart and sympathy goes out to all my clients and their families. I can't even begin to say how I feel and have been feeling the past couple of days. I like to also thank all of you for all your wonderful support."}, {"response": 225, "author": "winter", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:23)", "body": "Sorry to spend so much time on the airport security issue... I've heard conflicting reports about what can now be accepted as \"carry on\" baggage. Some have said that purses and wallets only (what to do with backpacks?), others have said that there are no changes except that curbside check in is now banned. Am leaving for Indonesia next month (will live there for a year), packing a laptop, videocam and 35mm camera, books, files, clothes, etc.. Oh dear."}, {"response": 226, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:25)", "body": "Thanks for that, Mari! When I board a plane I want to get to my destination in one piece with my nervous system intact. I have nothing to hide. Search us all and put the fear of a real God in them!"}, {"response": 227, "author": "alyeska", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:29)", "body": "The web grows larger and larger. Germany and Italy to name two."}, {"response": 228, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:45)", "body": "re: Carry-ons, they suggest we had better be prepared to turn on our laptops if we carry them on. Take photos with our digitals and so on. If you are using a standard camera, I'd suggest an empty one so they can open it and see it is just a camera. I am flying to my son's wedding next month. I am just as concerned as you are. I am heading over a very deep ocean and heading for San Francisco. I want to get there intact. I only have one child! I want to attend his wedding!"}, {"response": 229, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:57)", "body": "G O D B L E S S A M E R I C A ! ! !"}, {"response": 230, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:57)", "body": "(of course the flag didn't show up--hang on)"}, {"response": 231, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (20:58)", "body": ""}, {"response": 232, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (21:02)", "body": "let's try again---"}, {"response": 233, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (21:08)", "body": "as an american, it is heart-warming and pride-inducing to hear and feel the goodwill coming across this computer, the tv, and looking out the window. please keep it up. we have friends in the pentagon and know how close to home this has come for us. GOD BLESS YOU ALL! and please, please remember, that anger will not fix this tragedy, will not bring anyone back. feel it but don't act on it. the majority of foreigners who have come here have come for the same reason our pilgrims did so long ago. i am angry, appalled, and very saddened by these events. pray for the leaders of all the countries of the world. please display your flag, put your lights on when you're driving around running errands and take the time to thank your servicemen and women of all walks...this is what they train for."}, {"response": 234, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (21:15)", "body": "did you see London playing our National Anthem? i had goosebumps! thank you, that was very moving!! ABC needs to play it again!!"}, {"response": 235, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (21:18)", "body": "Re: Israeli airline security I know many people who have gone through it for years. You live with it. In the United States, \"profiling\" would not pass constitutional muster. It's done right now at the airports at customs on your return.... Has a smuggler sued on that basis???"}, {"response": 236, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (21:29)", "body": "i think that security at airports will make honest people feel safe but bad guys do think, how would airports prevent the bad guys from hiring in? and who's to say that that hasn't happened already. after all this destruction, the news just reported that several people are in custody from JFK and the G airport (i can't spell it at all). i don't know. we all know how bits of info turn into other things and then we have to go back and amend what was reported."}, {"response": 237, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (22:19)", "body": "its LaGuardia. They arrested 5 people at JFK and 4 at LGA. all were of middle east extraction, sporting phony pilots licenses, demanding to get on those flights. They were arrested. Apparently, a group of 3 men tried to get on a flight on Tuesday at JFK, the pilot was suspicious, called port authority police and then the 3 men vanished..."}, {"response": 238, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (22:24)", "body": "Suspicious stuff was detected at check-in and the guys vanished. No pilots were involved. However, I just heard that a pilot and some flight attendants just tested our new airport security with a pocket knife, a corkscrew and false identification and walked right through and then turned around and told the security personnel. :-("}, {"response": 239, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (22:27)", "body": "Oh Karen!!! I am happy I have a month before my flight."}, {"response": 240, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (22:38)", "body": "Two groups got arrested/detained today trying to board airplanes with fake id's and knives. Peter Jennings was just talking to Senator Joseph Biden, pressing hard to get him to comment on whether or not we're still under attack. He said these guys were the second string and the crisis was over, but he looked visiably shaken and wasn't very convincing. An astrounding comment he made was that he was afraid where Jennings was going to go next and both of them looked shaken. Cheney was moved to Camp David today. Washington was evacuated. > >Whoever's running around with the suitcase nuke or the biological weapon has to be found and stopped before a far worse scenario unfolds."}, {"response": 241, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (23:23)", "body": "The collapse of the WTC towers was detected as a M2.5 on the Richter."}, {"response": 242, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (23:28)", "body": "Not a surprise since each of those floor slabs weighed 300 tons."}, {"response": 243, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (23:37)", "body": "Perhaps it is time to relearn the 4th verse of the National Anthem of the United States. I much prefer it to what we sing now! Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto: \"In God is our trust.\" And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"}, {"response": 244, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (23:48)", "body": "http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/13/jfk.airport.detained/index.html about today's two hijack attempts."}, {"response": 245, "author": "mari", "date": "Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (23:53)", "body": "I know many people who have gone through it for years. You live with it. My point exactly. It's done right now at the airports at customs on your return.... Has a smuggler sued on that basis??? Karen, you know they're talking about profiling on the basis of ethnicity--not picking on middle-class ladies who come off the flight from Milan carrying too many Ferragamo bags.;-). Re: the Jennings/Biden interview. I saw that too, Terry. Was that the most bizarre interview you've ever seen, or what? Now, it's emerging that these guys were all trying to board flights to the west coast (i.e., planes loaded with fuel); armed with knives; and carrying pilot training certs from the same school in Fla. that the Tuesday bombers had attended. Same M-0! Yet, earlier today, the FAA says it's safe to fly and opens the airports. Now, oops--not NY! The FAA is totally incompetent, IMO, and should be removed immediately from having jurisdiction over whether the planes can be permitted to fly. However, I just heard that a pilot and some flight attendants just tested our new airport security with a pocket knife, a corkscrew and false identification and walked right through and then turned around and told the security personnel. :-( See my FAA comment above. It's like Groundhog Day. We keep doing the same thing over and over again, sending out the same poorly-trained minimum wage personnel to do a job that other countries employ highly trained people to do. When I saw the new FAA \"security procedures,\" I'd have laughed if it weren't so pathetic. No plastic knives, huh? Well, that's ok, since they never cut through the crummy food they give you anyway.;-) Seriously, this is *so* primitive! Unbelievable--as I'm typing this, Ted Koppel is interviewing a passenger from the JFK flight. He said they were ready to take off, then about 20 SWAT team members rushed aboard shouting at everyone to hit the floor, and they pulled 3 people off the flight, one of whom was violently resisting arrest. But hey, let's open those airports. :-( I'm at a loss."}, {"response": 246, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (00:20)", "body": "NASA released aerial shots today, of lower Manhatttan taken from outer space. The pre-collapse smoke eminating from the twin towers, is clearly visible. So is the big gaping gap where the twin towers used to be, once they collpased. It was surreal seeing the pictures."}, {"response": 247, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (00:22)", "body": "you know they're talking about profiling on the basis of ethnicity--not picking on middle-class ladies who come off the flight from Milan carrying too many Ferragamo bags.;-). LOL! Am reminded of my astonishment that my own parents were not strip-searched many many years ago on their return from Hong Kong. They must be the only people on the face of the earth who bought nothing. Who would've believed that? ;-) But seriously, ethnic and other profiling is routine at security/customs checkpoints now. Take drugs for example...or the chubby white guy with Rolexes up and down his arm. Have just heard back from my cousin, an air traffic controller in Miami. He too says there's no likelihood that any plane would've been a threat to Air Force One. What shocked him is the return to DC. Even after the 4th plane crashed in PA, there were still thousands of planes still in the air. That's why he couldn't go back to DC."}, {"response": 248, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (05:28)", "body": "Hi all I may have upset one or two people when I said \"Why do many Americans want war?\" for which I apologise but these people did not care who got hit and some people thought the Libyans should be bombed even though Muhammad Gadaffi (right person??)condemned the attacks. If Libya did have a role then they deserve to get hit but I am only seeing stuff about the Osama bin Laden monster who resides in Afghanistan and whom should be extradited and tried anyway, OR if he is the mastermind, bombed into the ground. Bombs away if they are implicated, and GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD BLESS FREEDOM AND GOD BLESS HUMANITY!!!!!!!!! Rob"}, {"response": 249, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (09:29)", "body": "Could you unlock your Cap Lock key? Thanks."}, {"response": 250, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (09:49)", "body": "My sister sent this to me, I think it's in wide circulation on the net. Subject: From: \"Nadia Zierke\" TRIBUTE TO THE UNITED STATES This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing. America: The Good Neighbor. Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his Trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record: \"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times - and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those.\" Stand proud, America! Wear it proudly!! This is one of the best editorials that I have ever read regarding the United States. It is nice that one man realizes it. I only wish that the This is one of the best editorials that I have ever read regarding the United States. It is nice that one man realizes it. I only wish that the rest of the world would realize it. We are always blamed for everything, and never even get a thank you for the things we do. I would hope that each of you would send this to as many people as you can and emphasize that they should send it to as many of their friends until this letter is sent to every person on the web. I am just a single American that has read this, I SURE HOPE THAT A LOT MORE READ IT SOON."}, {"response": 251, "author": "kolin", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (09:53)", "body": "\"Tribute to the United States\" This was written by Gordon Sinclair in 1973 regarding the Vietnam war. Gordon Sinclair died in 1984, but his sentiments resonate powerfully today. Canadians mourn with the Americans and are prepared to help any way they can. Anywhere between 50-500 Canadians are expected to be among the casualties of this horrific act. We are going to have a nationwide memorial service and moment of silence today. This attack was against all of us no matter where we live or come from."}, {"response": 252, "author": "lafn", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (10:11)", "body": "\"you know they're talking about profiling on the basis of ethnicity..\" I can just see the suits now on the basis of racial discrimination . We are a litigious society. This would never be tolerated. For years I was searched at Heathrow; someone on the Most Wanted List must have looked like me. I never minded. But this would never be done in the US."}, {"response": 253, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (10:12)", "body": "Yes, that email is making its rounds."}, {"response": 254, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:24)", "body": "Two of the world's most impressive structures have been taken down and over 10% of New Yorks office space has been eliminated. You get a sinking feeling when you read Bin Laden's biography and read that he has a degree in 1979 from King Abdul Aziz University in ... Civil Engineering. He has been running a construction company for over a quarter of a century. Meanwhile . . . WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 20 police officers, many in SWAT gear, stormed an American Airlines jetliner at New York's Kennedy Airport on Thursday, subduing one man and handcuffing two others, possibly thwarting a hijacking attempt, a passenger aboard the plane told ABC News. http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010914/ts/attack_tradecenter_report_dc_1.html More (from CNN): 10 people arrested, getting on two planes -- one in JFK, one in LaGuardia. Some were trained in piloting at the same school as the hijackers on Tuesday. Some got caught at checkpoints, some made it onto planes. \"WASHINGTON, NEW YORK (Reuters)\" ... \"The Defense Department asked Bush to authorize the activation of tens of thousands of military reserve troops for ''homeland defense'', defense officials said.\" \"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld planned to activate between 30,000 and 50,000 reservists to provide ``strike-alert'' jet fighter protection and perform other duties at domestic military bases.\" ... \"Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement, which shelters bin Laden, warned of revenge ``by other means' if the United States attacked their country in retaliation for Tuesday's attacks.\" ... \"An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Friday showed that nearly nine in 10 Americans approved of Bush's job performance -- a huge leap in the aftermath of Tuesday's terror attacks.\" \"Nearly seven out of 10 Americans supported military action against the groups or countries responsible for the attacks, even if that meant a long war with heavy U.S. casualties, the poll found.\" http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010914/ts/attack_dc_40.html"}, {"response": 255, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:27)", "body": "http://islamicsupremecouncil.org/Condemnation/support/bin_ladens_nukes.htm BIN LADEN'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS \ufffd ex-Soviet Warheads Become Fuel for Portable Terrorist Nuclear Bombs \ufffdArab-funded terrorists smuggle nuclear warheads, purchased from the Russian mafia with opium and cash out of Russian territory, reaching Khost overland via secret routes through Uzbekistan. There, former Soviet scientists remove the active uranium to be processed and placed in backpack-sized nuclear bombs\ufffdready for transportation to the West undetected\ufffdto explode in a blast of nuclear terror. Al-Watan al-Arabi, an Arabic language newsmagazine, reports that worldwide terrorist mastermind Usama bin Laden has used two tons of opium and $30 million to purchase over twenty nuclear warheads. Bin Laden has hired an international team of rogue nuclear scientists working in a secret underground base to convert warheads stolen from former Soviet republics into miniature portable nuclear devices capable of striking targets around the globe. The newsmagazine further states that bin Laden developed ties with the mafias of former Soviet republics during the Afghan War which provided him the key to obtaining nuclear missile warheads from the disintegrating USSR. The Arab Afghans, as bin Laden\ufffds fighters are often called, have established extensive bases and networks in many of the Central Asian and Caucasian republics where, due to the weakness of the central government and the minimal security, they are able to thrive unhindered. These terrorist groups operate under the cloak of extremist Islam claiming to oppose the local governments on religious grounds. However, in addition to their calls for the overthrow of \ufffdcorrupt Islamic governments\ufffd these groups serve as a channel for bin Laden to trade Afghani opium to the Russian mafia in exchange for stolen nuclear warheads. Al-Watan\ufffds sources reveal that bin Laden recently sent a delegation representing himself and the Afghani mafia to meet with the mafias of the former Soviet republics. These mafia groups share a common extremist ideology and have disguised their criminal activities under the name of Islam. These mafias have terrorized the governments of the newly-formed Central Asian republics intending to destroy them and replace them with those following their fierce, extremist ideology. This meeting of mafias was a prelude to bringing bin Laden out of Afghanistan and into power in one of these Central Asian"}, {"response": 256, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:28)", "body": "http://www.smh.com.au/news/0104/30/world/world8.html http://www.msnbc.com/news/295108.asp"}, {"response": 257, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:39)", "body": "I may have posted this before, but it's significant, this is what makes these attacks possible. Osama Bin Laden is using web encryption - from an article published months ago in USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001-02-05-binladen.htm I hate to use the term, but Bin Laden and the terrorists are a global, virtual community, they don't have to be in one physical place to survive, they can disperse to the far corners of the earth and still maintain contact using 128 bit encryption. That's the scariest part of all this this, they are invisible to all our current monitoring technology. They are extremely difficult to pinpoint and attack. This is what scares me the most about all this."}, {"response": 258, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:39)", "body": "WASHINGTON \ufffd Hidden in the X-rated pictures on several pornographic Web sites and the posted comments on sports chat rooms may lie the encrypted blueprints of the next terrorist attack against the United States or its allies. It sounds farfetched, but U.S. officials and experts say it's the latest method of communication being used by Osama bin Laden and his associates to outfox law enforcement. Bin Laden, indicted in the bombing in 1998 of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and others are hiding maps and photographs of terrorist targets and posting instructions for terrorist activities on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other Web sites, U.S. and foreign officials say. from the above url"}, {"response": 259, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:40)", "body": "\"Uncrackable encryption is allowing terrorists \ufffd Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida and others \ufffd to communicate about their criminal intentions without fear of outside intrusion,\" FBI Director Louis Freeh said last March during closed-door testimony on terrorism before a Senate panel. \"They're thwarting the efforts of law enforcement to detect, prevent and investigate illegal activities.\" A terrorist's tool Once the exclusive domain of the National Security Agency, the super-secret U.S. agency responsible for developing and cracking electronic codes, encryption has become the everyday tool of Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Albania, Britain, Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Syria, the USA, the West Bank and Gaza and Yemen, U.S. officials say. It's become so fundamental to the operations of these groups that bin Laden and other Muslim extremists are teaching it at their camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, they add. \"There is a tendency out there to envision a stereotypical Muslim fighter standing with an AK-47 in barren Afghanistan,\" says Ben Venzke, director of special intelligence projects for iDEFENSE, a cyberintelligence and risk management company based in Fairfax, Va. \"But Hamas, Hezbollah and bin Laden's groups have very sophisticated, well-educated people. Their technical equipment is good, and they have the bright, young minds to operate them,\" he said. U.S. officials say bin Laden's organization, al-Qaida, uses money from Muslim sympathizers to purchase computers from stores or by mail. Bin Laden's followers download easy-to-use encryption programs from the Web, officials say, and have used the programs to help plan or carry out three of their most recent plots: Wadih El Hage, one of the suspects in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, sent encrypted e-mails under various names, including \"Norman\" and \"Abdus Sabbur,\" to \"associates in al Qaida,\" according to the Oct. 25, 1998, U.S. indictment against him. Hage went on trial Monday in federal court in New York. Khalil Deek, an alleged terrorist arrested in Pakistan in 1999, used encrypted computer files to plot bombings in Jordan at the turn of the millennium, U.S. officials say. Authorities found Deek's computer at his Peshawar, Pakistan, home and flew it to the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Md. Mathematicians, using supercomputers, decoded the files, enabling the FBI to foil the plot. Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, used encrypted files to hide details of a plot to destroy 11 U.S. airliners. Philippines officials found the computer in Yousef's Manila apartment in 1995. U.S. officials broke the encryption and foiled the plot. Two of the files, FBI officials say, took more than a year to decrypt. \"All the Islamists and terrorist groups are now using the Internet to spread their messages,\" says Reuven Paz, academic director of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, an independent Israeli think tank. Messages in dots U.S. officials and militant Muslim groups say terrorists began using encryption \ufffd which scrambles data and then hides the data in existing images \ufffd about five years ago. But the groups recently increased its use after U.S. law enforcement authorities revealed they were tapping bin Laden's satellite telephone calls from his base in Afghanistan and tracking his activities. \"It's brilliant,\" says Ahmed Jabril, spokesman for the militant group Hezbollah in London. \"Now it's possible to send a verse from the Koran, an appeal for charity and even a call for jihad and know it will not be seen by anyone hostile to our faith, like the Americans.\" Extremist groups are not only using encryption to disguise their e-mails but their voices, too, Attorney General Janet Reno told a presidential panel on terrorism last year, headed by former CIA director John Deutsch. Encryption programs also can scramble telephone conversations when the phones are plugged into a computer. \"In the future, we may tap a conversation in which the terrorist discusses the location of a bomb soon to go off, but we will be unable to prevent the terrorist act when we cannot understand the conversation,\" Reno said. Here's how it works: Each image, whether a picture or a map, is created by a series of dots. Inside the dots are a string of letters and numbers that computers read to create the image. A coded message or another image can be hidden in those letters and numbers. They're hidden using free encryption Internet programs set up by privacy advocacy groups. The programs scramble the messages or pictures into existing images. The images can only be unlocked using a \"private key,\" or code, selected by the recipient, experts add. Otherwise, they're impossible to see or read. \"You very well could have a photograph and image with the time and information of an attack sitting on your computer, and you would never know it,\" Venzke says. \"It will look no different than a photograph exchanged between two friends or fami"}, {"response": 260, "author": "Charlotte", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:42)", "body": "\"I can tell you that El Al maintains a high level of security for its passengers by not discussing its procedures in the media,\" he said. HEAR, HEAR! Am I alone in believing that far too much information is given to terrorists, criminals, enemies in the name of \"freedom of speech\"?"}, {"response": 261, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:48)", "body": "And as a follow up to the above, from zdnet news The hunt for suspects in Tuesday's terrorist attacks has moved online. America Online has handed the FBI e-mail records for accounts belonging to the suspected hijackers, according to a report on CNN's Web site Thursday. AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein declined to comment on any matters involving the investigation. AOL Time Warner's online division stores logs of when instant messaging users are on the network; it also can access e-mail correspondence under certain situations. \"We are cooperating with (the FBI) in this ongoing investigation,\" Nicholas Graham, spokesman for Dulles, Va.-based AOL, said Wednesday. Although Graham wouldn't provide details, he denied reports that the company had agreed to install a Carnivore surveillance system. The FBI developed Carnivore, now renamed DCS1000, to allow it to wiretap communications that go through Internet service providers. \"We are able to provide them with information on an immediate basis,\" he said, stressing that such an ability made Carnivore unnecessary. On Wednesday, EarthLink also acknowledged that it is working with the FBI to turn over specific information that may be relevant to the case. EarthLink's vice president of communications, Dan Greenfield, confirmed that the Atlanta-based ISP was served with a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to turn over information. FISA limits the ability of intelligence and law enforcement agencies--essentially the FBI, the CIA and the military information-gathering National Security Agency--from spying on the American public. The warrant covers investigations relating to the leakage of information to a foreign government and requires less burden of proof than a warrant in a criminal case. The directors of the FBI and the CIA as well as the secretaries of state and defense are the only government officials allowed to request a FISA warrant. Calling the warrant \"equivalent to a wiretap,\" Greenfield also denied that the company had let the FBI install a Carnivore system. \"We are not installing any equipment,\" he said. \"We are cooperating with a very specific request. There are concerns from our customers that we are giving arbitrary access to our network, and we are not.\" Most of the clues that have turned up so far in the hunt for suspects have been dug up through typical investigative footwork, not high-tech sleuthing. Authorities are searching for the accomplices of a well-organized group of suicide hijackers who commandeered four commercial jets Tuesday, effectively turning them into flying bombs. Two flattened the World Trade Center, while a third seriously damaged the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in a field. Some of the victims on hijacked aircraft used cell phones to describe the attacks to people on the ground. In addition, a review of the passenger lists has offered some leads. So far, five Arab men have been identified by Massachusetts authorities as suspects, according to two Boston newspapers. Authorities have also seized a rental car containing Arabic-language flight-training manuals at the city's Logan International Airport, where two of the hijacked planes originated, the papers reported. U.S. agents served warrants on homes and searched businesses in south Florida; they also issued alerts for two cars in connection with the attacks, local media reported. Jack Mattera, director of computer forensics for The Intelligence Group, which specializes in corporate investigations and crisis management, stressed that information technology will likely play a crucial role in finding out who planned the suicide attacks. \"Using high-tech to investigate is critical,\" he said. \"There are some things that gumshoe work is just not going to find.\" Security experts described Tuesday's attack as low-tech, with reports of knives being used as the primary weapons in the hijackings. Nevertheless, many suspect computers and the Internet may have played a critical role in planning the complex and highly coordinated operation. In February, George Tenet, the director of the CIA, warned members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that terrorists were using the Internet and high-tech tools to communicate. \"International terrorist networks have used the explosion in information technology to advance their capabilities,\" he told the committee. Mark Mansfield, spokesman for the CIA, declined to explain what tools the agency was bringing to bear, saying \"it would be ill-advised for us to talk about (our methods). It would not be a prudent thing to do.\" Both the NSA and the FBI declined comment as well. However, The Intelligence Group's Mattera said he believed that the requests for online information may be to check out the people who posted suspicious information in public chat rooms or online. \"I think there is some indication that there may have been some information posted to different groups that didn't specifically alert people at the time,"}, {"response": 262, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:51)", "body": "Gerard is still talking to us from on the ground in NYC. Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Fri Sep 14 '01 (08:37) 45 lines Early this morning, looking out the window at the street, I suddenly started to see in my mind a whole chain of images from the last week. This was the first day when I had nothing in front of me that I had to do, and I just started to run the images... the rumble in my building, the confused chatter on the radio, the television images of the second plane coming in... the street outside my house with dozens all running toward the promenade to see the horro across the river.. the twin towers tall in the crisp and bright morning with the flames and smoke streaming up like obscene claws coming out of the building. and the sound and the sight of the first tower just going down and going down and the blast of dust up and spewing out of the canyons of wall street and the screams and wails around me as what we saw was so far beyond our ability to comprehend the enormity of it that we could have been just ants gazing at the sole of a descending boot... and the sick wet rumble that came across the water like a screaming beast having its innards torn out and the smoke, the immense plume of smoke that darkened the sun and went on and still goes on... and the rest of the day a dim numb blur i had i think something to eat and i went to get coffee in the bright sunlight with a friend and i called my daughter and found she was safe and far uptown, except of course she was not safe, as none of our children will ever be safe again until that thing that caused this is crushed and killed and ground to dust and sent down into the pit of oblivion forever."}, {"response": 263, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:59)", "body": "Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Fri Sep 14 '01 (08:43) 28 lines and going back to my place and watching the endless repeats and the endless parade of the doomed and the wounded and the hordes of people in the distance jamming the bridge, the brooklyn bridge on which two large american flags fly, these people all going one direction, one direction only... out and away from the stench and the terror and the death... and somewhere in there the second tower came down down on thousands trying to escape and down on hundreds of what have to be the bravest and most noble souls in the world, the fireman, the fireman who were going up the stairs... up the stairs... UP THE STAIRS... we cannot know what sort of human spirit that takes we can never know... i have no humanity and no manhood and no courage when compared to these men, none of us do none of us... do you all understand that they went into this building and up the stairs?"}, {"response": 264, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (11:59)", "body": "I am ready and willing to give up my civil liberties if it means that we can remain safe here in the US and the rest of the world. People need to realize that right now, and not complain about it, as they inevitably will."}, {"response": 265, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (12:04)", "body": "Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Fri Sep 14 '01 (08:56) 50 lines and the day went on and went on... inside to television.. outside into the reality... and the smell of it got stronger and the white ash of concrete ash of steel ash of paper ash of human beings drifted over me and everythingand everyone around me and settled white and obscene on everything and the smoke went on and the streets were filled with people whose faces were filled with fear and with grief and with anger and nobody spoke except to whisper to those next to them that they knew or perhaps did not know but knew now in this terrible day at some point i began to take pictures of the skyline which was not there any more, of the lives that weren't there any more... of little things... but it wasn't any use... it was pointless... feeling grief was pointless... only rage seemed to have a point, rage and hate, and it seemed important, very very important to retain that rage and hate as a wall against the pain and the despair... i walked out again and again to look across the river and to smell the smoke and to see the dust because i knew that nothing would ever be the same again, i knew that something had killed my world and the world of those i loved... of the world of all of us...and that no matter what we did that world would never be returned to us... that we could and we must honor and remember it.. that we must take terrible and complete vengence on those whose evil took it from us no matter what the cost... but that world, that indian summer world, would not be returned anymore than the lives of those who went up the stairs in the burning and collapsing tower would be returned. this morning for the first time i have been weeping, weeping not in tears but in a kind of dry low screaming agony that sweeps up in my chest. it comes and shakes me and then it goes away. i'm going to go out into this world now to tend to the little needs of my little day in my little world. i can't bear to remember anymore of this week for now even though I remember it all."}, {"response": 266, "author": "kolin", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (12:41)", "body": "Over 100,000 people participated at the memorial service in Ottawa, with speeches by Jean Chretien, US ambassador Paul Celluci and Governor General Adrienne Clarkson. Chretien expressed the resolve of Canada to fully supprt U.S at this difficult time."}, {"response": 267, "author": "lafn", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (14:06)", "body": "Tony Blair's speech to the special session of Parliament was carried on FOX. He also expressed the support and allegiance to the US in tracking down the terrorists by every means available. Eloquent and sincere. Much appreciated."}, {"response": 268, "author": "Moon", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (14:13)", "body": "Am I alone in believing that far too much information is given to terrorists, criminals, enemies in the name of \"freedom of speech\"? You are walking a very thin line here. But I agree with you. The thought of them having the possibility to make \"backpack nuclear bombs\" is a scary one. God bless us all!"}, {"response": 269, "author": "alyeska", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (14:33)", "body": "President Bush gave a very inspiring speech at the National Cathedral as did Billy Graham. I was reduced to tears. My friend Jean is still awaiting word of her sister who was at the WTC for a conference."}, {"response": 270, "author": "alyeska", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (14:33)", "body": ""}, {"response": 271, "author": "rachael", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (14:49)", "body": "we had a three minute silence and a candle-lit vigil at work today, at 11am, led by our chaplain. It was very moving and I'm glad I was there, although it feels such a small thing to do in the face of such enormity. Tony Blair said we (in the UK) stand shoulder to shoulder with the USA; NATO said an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us; we know now that this is true, that along with thousands of Americans were hundreds of British citizens, Irish, Canadians, Australians, and more, and this event will touch many of us, world wide. My father, my uncle, and my grandfather were all firefighters. The loss of some of New York's finest is keenly felt in this home, many miles away. I'm lucky, my friend escaped, my cousin's colleagues and friends are safe. My heart goes out to those not so lucky, and I just hope the prayers we said and the thoughts we had, at 11am this morning in the UK, go some way to comfort those shouldering terrible burdens. I think I read somewhere that at 7pm tonight, US time, candles will be lit. 7pm in NYC is midnight here; I'll be lighting a candle then. Shoulder to shoulder; an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. God bless you"}, {"response": 272, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (15:10)", "body": "(Mari) When I saw the new FAA \"security procedures,\" I'd have laughed if it weren't so pathetic. No plastic knives, huh? Well, that's ok, since they never cut through the crummy food they give you anyway.;-) Seriously, this is *so* primitive! B'ness as usual: 1. Panic. 2. Create specific reactive measures instead of broad proactive measures (golly gee, all 18+ hijackers answered the 'did you pack you own suitcase' question truthfully and they probably skipped curbside check-in). 3. Panic some more. Aargh! I was also LOL about the knives. Whatever will they do in first class, where the cutable food is served? Wait until someone chokes and sues. Or maybe they'll just ban airline food all together, or restrict it to the likes of those Otis Spunkmeyer cookies served by SouthWest. ;-) Winter, by the time you leave for Indo the carry-on requirements might be better defined. You could also look into shipping some of those items ahead."}, {"response": 273, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (15:24)", "body": "posted to a listserve Dear Friends, The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. -Gary T. Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread: I've been hearing a lot of talk about \"bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.\" Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but \"we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?\" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we \"have the belly to do what must be done.\" And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think \"the people of Afghanistan\" think \"the Jews in the concentration camps.\" It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of \"having the belly to do what needs to be done\" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the bel"}, {"response": 274, "author": "Becka", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (15:33)", "body": "Rachael - My father, too, was one of the head Fire Chiefs in Toronto. Two of my uncles are currently Captains (it seems to run in families, doesn't it?) I am totally devastated by the deaths of those brave men. My Dad is crushed, and he just had a cornea transplant which makes his pain even worse. My Dad had meet those chiefs who died in NYC on a couple of occassions at international events. If it had been here, in Toronto, I probably would have lost a few members of my family. I am trying to help my Dad's department organize something here cause like many, I really want to help. At the moment I have had to turn the TV off as they are putting faces on the dead, and it is breaking my heart. Here in Canada 100,000 people showed up at Parliament Hill in Ottawa for a memorial ceremony - that is a huge number. I am so proud of Canadians, so proud for the world for sharing in this grief."}, {"response": 275, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (15:43)", "body": "Had the TV on all morning, sobbing. Each story is more heartbreaking than the next."}, {"response": 276, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (16:15)", "body": "Washington Post New York Airport Suspects Cleared By Donna De La Cruz Associated Press Writer Friday, Sept. 14, 2001; 11:12 a.m. EDT NEW YORK \ufffd\ufffd About a dozen travelers of Middle Eastern descent who were detained at two New York airports have been cleared of any connection with this week's terrorist attacks, federal authorities said Friday. One person, however, remained in custody, said Barry Mawn, head of the FBI's New York office. That person had not immediately been charged and may be released, Mawn said. The incidents Thursday caused the region's three major airports \ufffd Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, N.J. \ufffd to close again just hours after service had been restored because of the attacks. Authorities had been investigating whether the two groups \ufffd detained at Kennedy and LaGuardia \ufffd were more would-be hijackers or people related to the attack trying to flee the New York area. Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN the arrests were based on suspicions that the men were linked to Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. One man was arrested because he was belligerent, while the others were merely detained and questioned, according to the senator's chief of staff, Alan Hoffman. Biden said there were explanations for the suspicions. One man was originally thought to be traveling with a fake pilot's license. Biden said the man was a pilot who also had his brother's identification. \"His brother happened to live in an apartment complex that was one in Boston where some of these people had actually been,\" said Biden, D-Del. Others were traveling to a Boeing Co. conference, either because they work for the airline manufacturer or were invited, Biden added. \"The folks at the airport thought, 'Hey, wait a minute, are they impersonating crew?' And they weren't.\" Mawn said he could not verify reports that the individuals had been taken forcibly off a plane. ---------------------------- I saw an interview on Good Morning American. A passenger said the pilot - after talking with those on board - told them to buckle up because they would soon be taking off. About 20 minutes later, men with guns drawn, in full riot gear, came in the rear and took the suspects away."}, {"response": 277, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (16:21)", "body": "This is incredible stuff - world wide empathy and support feels very good, indeed. Lest anyone mistake Rob's comments in Caps, I want to assure you that he is a very special friend; conservative, itelligent and thoughtful. He is not given to overstatement nor emotionalism. Emphasis is what those Caps were for, and, Rob, many warm thanks for your doing so."}, {"response": 278, "author": "lafn", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (16:49)", "body": "Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. Wonder what this guy is doing to help his country except write emails?"}, {"response": 279, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (16:55)", "body": "Washington Post New York Airport Suspects Cleared By Donna De La Cruz Associated Press Writer Friday, Sept. 14, 2001; 11:12 a.m. EDT NEW YORK \ufffd\ufffd About a dozen travelers of Middle Eastern descent who were detained at two New York airports have been cleared of any connection with this week's terrorist attacks, federal authorities said Friday. One person, however, remained in custody, said Barry Mawn, head of the FBI's New York office. That person had not immediately been charged and may be released, Mawn said. The incidents Thursday caused the region's three major airports \ufffd Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, N.J. \ufffd to close again just hours after service had been restored because of the attacks. Authorities had been investigating whether the two groups \ufffd detained at Kennedy and LaGuardia \ufffd were more would-be hijackers or people related to the attack trying to flee the New York area. Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN the arrests were based on suspicions that the men were linked to Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. One man was arrested because he was belligerent, while the others were merely detained and questioned, according to the senator's chief of staff, Alan Hoffman. Biden said there were explanations for the suspicions. One man was originally thought to be traveling with a fake pilot's license. Biden said the man was a pilot who also had his brother's identification. \"His brother happened to live in an apartment complex that was one in Boston where some of these people had actually been,\" said Biden, D-Del. Others were traveling to a Boeing Co. conference, either because they work for the airline manufacturer or were invited, Biden added. \"The folks at the airport thought, 'Hey, wait a minute, are they impersonating crew?' And they weren't.\" Mawn said he could not verify reports that the individuals had been taken forcibly off a plane. ---------------------------- I saw an interview on Good Morning American. A passenger said the pilot - after talking with those on board - told them to buckle up because they would soon be taking off. About 20 minutes later, men with guns drawn, in full riot gear, came in the rear and took the suspects away."}, {"response": 280, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (17:00)", "body": "Womack Diary, Day 3 *8-/ Subject: Day 3, and this morning Date: Friday, September 14, 2001 9:10 AM From: Womack, Jack Our secretary Heather (who just moved here from Alaska, two weeks ago) and myself are the only people on our floor so far this morning. Yesterday we were essentially told the building would be open, but after that it was up to us. And, as my ISP is down in the Closed Zone (I called them \"control zones,\"), I can't do email from home (and so won't be writing again till Monday), here I am, at least for a couple of hours. This morning it's raining, very hard, a frog-strangler. I don't think it's rained this hard this consistently all year. My pants are still wet and the tie's soaked through. This has made rescue attempts pretty much impossible, today, not that at this point anyone is really expecting survivors -- they were saying on the news that the dust down there, wet, has the consistency of oatmeal; and that with every half-inch of rain that falls, several additional tons of weight begin pressing down on everything. The subways down there have also all flooded, even before this, what with water main breaks in evidently several locations (This water of course is also soaking into foundations throughout the area). It's also turning much cooler -- somewhere in the 60s today, and yesterday afternoon it got up to the mid-80s, I think, and was humid enough to notice. It came to me this morning that the reason 30,000 body bags are on hand for what appears will be 5,000 casualties is that the 5,000 are all in pieces, and each piece of course will need to be bagged separately. There was a drawing in the Daily News today showing the outlines of all the buildings surrounding where the Trade Towers stood, and noting that at least 9 of them have suffered major structural damage. The Milennium (sic) Hotel and 1 Liberty Plaza I mentioned yesterday. Among the others in bad shape is one of my favorites, the 1927 Bell Telephone building at the corner of Barclay & West. It stands next to both the North Tower and 7 WTC, both of which collapsed. It's a Ferris-silhouette art deco beauty, and the building is built over the sidewalk on the Barclay St. side, a stone arcade running the length of the block. Cool in the summer. It looks like the only residential area fully evacuated was Battery Park City, where Ellie lives (she is still staying with patrick & Teresa, I am hoping she's been able to get some sleep soon). No word on when that'll open back up but I can't imagine it'll be anytime soon. THis morning, coming out of the subway, I was maybe one of three or four people. After yesterday, which at moments almost felt like a normal day (or, rather, a day in the gone world), today seems much more like Wednesday did, except far more grim due to the rain. As all of you know in the rain New York's color goes, essentially, gray. Very gray. And that's how it looks today. With luck, it will at least finally clear the dust out of the atmosphere (it struck me yesterday that one of the many interesting things we've all been breathing in the past few days are bits of infinitesimally powdered glass). But if the other buildings start falling, the cloud will come back. In this sort of weather in the past, of course, the cloud cover overlying NY would generally be so low as to hide the Trade Towers for view, and it was pleasant to be able to fantasize, at such moments, what downtown NY used to look like when they weren't there. I was reading, somewhere, that some European is already saying that he & others will get all European nations to help rebuild at least one of the towers if not both, bigger and taller and clearly even more of a hideous target. Thank you Europe, but no, please. Here are the ongoing bigger or more interesting changes in the event, both onsite and in media, that I'm noticing. I talked about some of these last night with Clute. 1. The first media memorial teddy bear site appeared. In Union Square, which is right at 14th Street where the No-Traffic Zone begins. Some workmen brought up a piece of steel from the Trade Towers and wrapped it around a stele, or flagpole, or something -- they never pan up of course to show you what the thing is, focusing instead on the flowers being left. The one good thing is at this point, no teddy bears have appeared. It's mostly single flowers and pictures of missing people, so I'm actually not sure that a media-driven Mourning Zone will take hold. I suspect because everything in New York is a Mourning Zone, and everyone here is too much in shock, still, to even be thinking of those goddamned teddy bears. 2. The dawning awareness of New Yorkers, such as myself & Ellen Datlow (who I met for a couple of drinks last night, down in Chelsea, as she was finally able to get above 14th.), that this is actually being paid attention to out in the country. A very funny thing, this -- the sense I think held to varying lengths of time by people who live here that what has happened is in some "}, {"response": 281, "author": "Moon", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (17:08)", "body": "Evelyn, Tamsin is an Afghani-American who has been living here for 35. His country is America. Thank you for posting Tamsin's letter. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. My husband is Italian and he has been saying this for years, that it would happen. This is their holy war, this is just what they want. Americans and the international community believe they will be going to war to fight against terrorist, but they will be fighting the holy war."}, {"response": 282, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (17:26)", "body": "Marcia, I wasn't at all offended by Rob's use of capital letters. He only used them to emphasize one particular thought in his post. It is a time of high emotion and different people express themselves differently. As it is also a time of high stress, some may react to certain things more strongly than would be the norm. It would seem that no harm was meant either by Rob or those who had been put off by his use of upper case letters. I've been able to contact my friends living in New York. Everyone is physically fine, but they say that they feel emotionally sick and bruised. So do I for that matter. Lastly, the Pennsylvania crash site isn't all that near Pittsburgh. It lies about 80 miles to the southeast, near the Maryland border, about 35 miles SSW of Johnstown. Pittsburgh is the largest city near it, and more people have an idea of where Pittsburgh is than were Johnstown, PA is. The plane crashed in Somerset county which is a very rural area. It came down in a cornfield. Fortunately no one on the ground was hurt."}, {"response": 283, "author": "Charlotte", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (17:37)", "body": "Last night one network (I forget which) reported that they had \"found\" 10 policemen on the 2nd underground level...one of them had reached his wife via cel phone. Has anyone heard more about this? Is it confirmed? I could find nothing about it on any of the other networks."}, {"response": 284, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (18:03)", "body": "It was a hoax. Friday September 14 11:36 AM ET NY Mayor Asks Media for Accuracy By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (news - web sites) asked the news media to be more careful reporting about the World Trade Center rescue operation Friday, saying wrong information is raising false hopes and endangering workers. ``Some of it can be very dangerous and emotionally damaging,'' he said. He cited false reports that a potential survivor had been in contact with people by cell phone, and that 10 or 15 people were trapped alive in a store. Media outlets reported Thursday that five firefighters trapped since Tuesday had been rescued from the trade center rubble. It later turned out that only two who were trapped in an air pocket for several hours Thursday were found alive. Not only does false information play with the emotions of people with missing friends and relatives, it can send rescue workers on dangerous, fruitless chases, he said. He urged news organizations not to report such details until confirmed by police and FBI (news - web sites). ``If we could all be a little more patient and verify information before we put it out, we won't raise people's hopes unnecessarily,'' Giuliani said. CNN anchorwoman Paula Zahn, responding on the air to Giuliani's request, noted that it has been difficult to get accurate information out of the rescue site. ``We're all trying to heed this advice,'' she said. ``Unfortunately, everybody is being given conflicting information.'' ABC, CBS, NBC and the cable networks were into their fourth day of exclusive devotion to the story on Friday. News executives say they're keeping in mind television's role as a national gathering place in times of emergency. Network news chiefs uniformly expressed pride in how their profession has performed this week. ``There's really been a careful approach to the story that combines aggressiveness in getting information out with the awareness that we should not be speculating and we should not be alarming people,'' said CBS News President Andrew Heyward. NBC is being careful in its wording to not equate Islam with extremism even if some of the religion's believers masterminded the attack, network news President Neal Shapiro said. Until Giuliani announced Thursday that 4,763 people were missing at the World Trade Center, networks had generally been careful not to guess on the number of casualties. An exception: network reports that as many as 800 people died at the Pentagon; the estimate is now 190. There were also widely varying reports on the number of body bags brought to the World Trade Center site. News organizations also made different decisions when confronted with video depicting victims jumping from the World Trade Center to certain deaths; CBS showed it, ABC refused. ``It was not some sort of gratuitous, individual tragedy where we were exploiting someone's personal pain for some kind of sensational purpose,'' Heyward said. ``Quite the opposite. This was absolutely germane to the context of the story and vividly conveyed the sheer horror in a way that was journalistically appropriate.'' Offered the same video, ``without any hesitation we turned it down,'' said ABC News President David Westin. ``I don't believe that showing actual human beings leaping to their deaths was helpful.'' CNN showed images of things falling from the World Trade Center, but they weren't necessarily identifiable as humans, CNN Chairman Walter Isaacson said. NBC showed footage of a body falling once and decided not to anymore. The same was true at Fox News Channel. ``I don't think it's an easy call,'' NBC's Shapiro said. ``I don't condemn anybody who chose to run it.'' At least two networks were planning specials to help children cope. Peter Jennings will anchor a one-hour ABC special for youngsters Saturday morning, and Nickelodeon will present ``Nick News : Kids, Terrorism and the American Spirit'' with Linda Ellerbee on Sunday night. ---------------------------------------- If someone who knows how would delete my double post, I would be grateful. -- I think I hit reload and it sent all again - at least it shows on my computer."}, {"response": 285, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (18:07)", "body": ""}, {"response": 286, "author": "Charlotte", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (18:18)", "body": "Thanks, Suzee. (I only saw one copy of your post, by the way.)"}, {"response": 287, "author": "wolf", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (19:27)", "body": "we are skating on thin ice in this topic by venting our anger here. this will not help anyone. the afghani-american writer above makes sense, IMMHO. the Holy War is what these people want. and they sure as heck are trying hard to get it too. it's all around us, look at Israel, look at the Serbs, look at Ireland, for goodness sakes. this is ridiculous. ok, the service today was wonderful though i was a bit worried about all those people in the same place. tonight at 7, please light a candle!! and if you've flown a flag today, thank you so much. my sub-division either didn't have the flags or were too afraid to show them but to those who did, thank you very much!!"}, {"response": 288, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (21:00)", "body": "My candle is lit and sitting vigil at the base of my flagpole.. 7 PM was 1 PM here and it is broad day light. The candle will remain as long as it burns. The flag at half staff is coming down at sunset to rise then lower to half staff again tomorrow. Fighting amongst ourselves just plays into their hands. Come on world, we're better than that!!! Terry, MSNBC ran the Bin Ladin interview this afternoon again. You sure you want to see this man?"}, {"response": 289, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (21:04)", "body": "a new CNN article which explains how the Taliban are trying to defend Bin Laden and turn this into a religious war: http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/14/afghan.denial/ _Prepare for Holy War_ \"Now, the third empire of the world wants to impose an attack on us,\" [supreme Afghan leader Mullah Mohammed Omar] said. \"As you know better, it is not because of Osama [bin Laden]. This is the demonization of Islam.\" Well, this idiotic move does nothing more than confirm their role as a Bin Laden conspirator."}, {"response": 290, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (21:21)", "body": "... To insistent chants of \"U.S.A.! U.S.A.!\" from the crowds of workers, Mr. Bush took hold of a small bullhorn and climbed atop a small pile of rubble. He then shouted over a chorus of cheers that he wanted the rescuers to know that all America was deeply grateful for their efforts. \"This nation stands with the good people of New York City, and New Jersey and Connecticut, and we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens\" he said. To cries of \"George, we cant hear you!\" the President replied: \"I can hear you! I can hear you!\" \"The rest of the world hears you,\" he added. \"And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!\" ... more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/national/15CND-BUSH.html"}, {"response": 291, "author": "wolf", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (21:36)", "body": "that was wonderful--the chanting and that he went straight in there...but because of the whole security issue where he is concerned, the operation slowed down. did anyone else get that impression? yes, terry, The Holy War between the west and islam."}, {"response": 292, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (21:44)", "body": "Please, just do not make a martyr of Osama Bin Ladin. I am pleased with how America is responding. Makes me all gritty determination mixed with misty patriotism. I will do without, I will do what is necessary. Just do it right! Go to website and see the pics in all 4 sections. Humbling, maddening, speechless... This should never have happened. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/attack/newyork/6.htm"}, {"response": 293, "author": "wolf", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (21:45)", "body": "that was wonderful--the chanting and that he went straight in there...but because of the whole security issue where he is concerned, the operation slowed down. did anyone else get that impression? yes, terry, The Holy War between the west and islam."}, {"response": 294, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (22:19)", "body": "No one's making a martyr of Bin Laden. He's dispicable. They keep saying he's worth $300 million. The Banks aren't very top notch in Afghanistan. Where's he keeping this money. We should find out and confiscate all his money. NBC is now reporting that a couple of guys with box cutters were arrested off an Amtrak train in San Antonio, the cops thought they were drug dealers because they had a lot of cash. Now they're thought to be major players in this terrorist network. It's been getting a lot of local attention, now it's starting to break nationally. US officials are in the Caymans investigating a letter warning about a major terrorist act against the US involving airlines. It was treated as \"merely speculation\" by the government (whose?, the Caymans?). Three men are being held in the Cayman Islands."}, {"response": 295, "author": "Moon", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (23:35)", "body": "This Cayman's connection sounds like that's where they might have a bank account. That should be investigated. the Holy War is what these people want. We are going back to the Crusades. There has been a major influx of Muslims all over Europe and in some cases such as Rome, they insist on having a mosque built. I would like to see in which Muslim country one can go live at and insist they build a Catholic church. It would never happen."}, {"response": 296, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 14, 2001 (23:37)", "body": "Sebastian Mendler (smendler) Fri Sep 14 '01 (20:26) 83 lines Subject: groping towards a solution (fwd) Hi, friends -- Okay, let's see here... tell me if I am incorrect in any of the following points, or in the reasoning that I am trying to distill from them. 1. Unless I remember wrongly, the Japanese were seen during WWII much the same way as the Islamic Extremists are being seen now -- driven by religious fervor, unable to be reasoned with for that reason, not afraid to die for their cause. 2. This religious fervor was defused after the war by Hirohito shedding his divine status, and a constitutional monarchy being established in Japan. 3. The majority of Japanese had little or no problem making the transition. This probably had something to do with the fact that the most fervent believers in the old system were, well, dead. 4. The huge occupation force in Japan both respected many traditional Japanese institutions, and defanged the more troublesome ones. 5. At the same time, the Americans in that force brought back to the US awareness of many aspects of Japanese and Asian culture that had hitherto been little-known in the US. 6. They also brought along some wives. 7. The Afghani people are in dire straits indeed -- so dire, some say, that bombing them would be pointless, there's nothing worth bombing. The resulting weakness is one reason why the Taliban have not been tossed out on their turbans. 8. As the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. 9. The point of the globalist movement -- which one assumes includes Bush, Powell, et al. -- is that Our Way of Life is the best one, so we need to get everybody involved in it. At least, that's sorta what they'll tell you if you ask. 10. The Japanese, rebuilt, became an economic powerhouse, and a key player in the world economy. It liked the results. The former militarist viewpoint, while still maintained by a few bitter conservatives, lost its former stranglehold on the soul of the nation. 11. So perhaps it makes more sense, not to try a purely military operation, but rather to try more of a *cultural* invasion. Think of the liberation of Pepperland from the Blue Meanies by the Beatles in _Yellow Submarine_. Restore color, light, and music to a dark, silent, depressed land. Wall-to-wall carpeting, not carpet bombings. PT Cruisers, not cruise missiles. Water, not napalm. Perfume, not tear gas. 12. Such an operation would still have its military aspects, and they would be huge. All the invading force of aid workers, fashion designers, educators, doctors, chefs, musicians, jugglers, car dealers, etc. would need to be protected while they did their jobs. Any attacking forces would be squelched, stomped, eradicated; but in the absence of attacks, life would get better and better for the folks that cooperated. This force would be much more like a police force than an army. (Sometimes, the best defense is to not be offensive.) 13. At the same time, we would not repeat the Soviets' mistake of trying to eradicate the fundamentalists. Chase them into the hills, and let them live their lives the way they want to. In fact, make sure they do; protect them from *all* outside influences, and protect the outside from theirs. Do not try to follow them into the mountains. 14. In this scenario, there would be plenty of opportunities for the more bloodthirsty among us to kick some righteous butt -- the beachheads (so to speak) will be tough to establish -- but these opportunities would ultimately be in the service of the healers. 14. At the same time, there are transformations to be effected within the Western world -- but maybe we should save that for another time... Am I on a promising track here? / /skip"}, {"response": 297, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (00:05)", "body": "Terry, Dear, you were not the one I thought might martyr this sick man and his followers. Unhappily we need give them no more reasons to hate Americans and want to kill them. His followers need little urging to create mayhem, it seems. *HUGS* (despicable is the nicest thing I have heard him called all week!)"}, {"response": 298, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (00:07)", "body": "Bin Laudin is an ex-Saudi. He just about holds the ruling house ther hostage for letting us land jets in Saudi Arabia during the gulf war. I am certain Swiss accounts are numerous, too."}, {"response": 299, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (00:14)", "body": "Oh Skip, if only it were that simple. We are discussing a belief system here not a political one. Too many serf in both instances. How long do you think the dress designers would last in a land and religion which hides their women and treats them as chattel (not to mention mutillation, so I won't mention it.) Our do-gooders would be deader then doornails as soon as they landed. This is an other world. They are not insular, this cell system of radical Islamists! They infiltrate every layer of society and in OUR country of dress desingers, and still loathe us enough to kill us in cold blood - civilians!!! Think some more... I'm listening!"}, {"response": 300, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (00:26)", "body": "Well seeing as Bin Laden is as good as he is, at keeping his movements and his intentions hidden, I doubt if hiding $300 million in a series of international bank accounts, would be all that hard for him. If it is stashed away in Swiss bank accounts, I'm not holding my breath that it can be found and confiscated any time soon. How long did it take for the Swiss banking authorities to finally cooperate, in tracking down loot stolen by the Nazi's....45, 50 years ?"}, {"response": 301, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (00:37)", "body": "The Japanese, rebuilt, became an economic powerhouse, and a key player in the world economy. This was the way that the Brigate Rosse terrorists in Italy where defeated as well. And did you know that Baywatch is the number 1 TV show in Iran? Unfortunately, the world has not acted on this before and now things have gone too far. Their Muslim radical power works on the poor because religion thrives in poor countries. The Jihad has started. I only pray that no atomic bombs will be used from either side."}, {"response": 302, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (00:38)", "body": "If it is stashed away in Swiss bank accounts, I'm not holding my breath that it can be found and confiscated any time soon. It is different now. There no longer is secrecy in Swiss banking."}, {"response": 303, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (01:26)", "body": "ROTFLMAO Moon.....Baywatch is the Number 1 rated program in Iran ? Are you serious ? Yikes, I bet the late Ayatollah Khomeni is just thrilled to bits, not to mention David Hasslehoff....LOL Thanks for that Moon, I needed a good laugh after this weeks trauma. By the way, what are #2 and #3 Three's Company and Charlie's Angels ?"}, {"response": 304, "author": "laughingsky", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (09:28)", "body": "I have never experienced such a massive show of patriotism as I have in the last few days. Last week, I admit that I would have passed many American flags with my thoughts absorbed in something else, never really and truly acknowledging the stars and stripes and for what that flag stands for. Somehow, in times past, the word \"patriotism\" has always rattled a little nerve in the \"government-is-out-to-get-us\" leftist side of me. Today, though, I am beginning to look at that flag and the word \"patriotism\" in a different light. Don't get me wrong - I'll still be looking over my shoulder, but, I am feeling a great sense of togetherness with this \"patriotism\" attitude. It is only saddening to realize what it has taken to get me to this place."}, {"response": 305, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (09:42)", "body": "http://pain.outloud.org/gary/thankyou/ These are photos from around the world of people stopping and praying, lighting candles, etc. big page but worth the wait time. There's a photo of Arafat giving blood. And this link is to a Yahoo! \"slide show\" of 20+ photos of newspaper front pages from around the world after the attack. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?p=news&g=events/ts/091201newspapers&e=1&tmpl=sl&nosum=0&large=0?tamp=1000366704\",610,580) ; This was an attack on the world trade center and it was an attack on the world, that building housed so many nationalities and religious types, I'd like to see a breakdown. BBC morning news reports that Pakistan is not going to allow an assault from bases in their country, we'll have to stage from India? Or Dushanbe? The Russians may be advising us on how to invade Afghanistan, do you see the irony in this? We're going to need a multi-faceting approach with not only air strikes but covert activity and ground troops. And at the same tiem we're going to have to bolster our homeland defense, unlike the Gulf War where there were only air strikes and no danger at home."}, {"response": 306, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (10:18)", "body": "Pakistan won't allow flights originating from their land but they'll most likely allow flyovers. The European community may offer some support but not likely overwhelming, though I'm comforted by Tony Blair's statements and actions, they've been courageous. Russia and India will be our staunchest allies. Need a million or so soldiers? India has 'em and would probably put them out on to the battlefield. An alliance with Russia will minimize China overnight. I just hope I'm wrong about lukewarm Euro participation. This is the first war of this century in a millenium that started out looking like it would belong to China and Asia. Now that balance may be changing and it will become the century of global, English speaking democracies lead by America, India, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. This may have the effect of changing the balance of power for a century to come. We're lost the symbol of our Western global economy, but in the processed it's galvanized the global English speaking democracies in a way we would never have done spontaneously. Think about this in your little cave, Osama. Think about a wealthy, technologically advanced, English speaking India ruling the region. Think about about a total global power change that will transform tragedy in to a brighter future for all mankind. India and Russia may need this kind of power boost from the US, they're struggling and they need to be galvanized and energized in the direction of becoming sane, technologically advanced democracies."}, {"response": 307, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (11:04)", "body": "\"English\" is not the tie that binds when it comes to India's involvement."}, {"response": 308, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (11:16)", "body": "Tha Russians did rather poorly in Afghanistan and I doubt that India would would be heavily involved. I would like to see what those tradionally \"leftist\" European countries do."}, {"response": 309, "author": "toyce", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (11:17)", "body": "As for the lukewarm European leaders' response, didn't they learn from the 1930's that appeasement did not change any outcome?"}, {"response": 310, "author": "toyce", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (11:18)", "body": "Karen is right. If India joins this, it will probably be for Hindu revenge against the Muslims."}, {"response": 311, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (11:51)", "body": "FBI Press Response September 14, 2001 Washington D.C. FBI National Press Office The following is a list of the nineteen (19) individuals who have been identified as hijackers aboard the four airliners that crashed on September 11, 2001, into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania. Information listed for each hijacker differs, but may include date of birth, address provided, or visa status. This is the extent of the information available at this time. The FBI requests that anyone who may have information about these individuals-even though they are presumed to be dead- to immediately contact an FBI filed office or call the toll-free hotline at 1-866-483-5137. American Airlines #77 Boeing 757 8:10 am departed Washington Dulles for Los Angeles 9:39 am crashed into the Pentagon 1) Khalid Al-Midhar - Possible residence (s) : San Diego, California and New York, New York; Visa Status: B-1 Visa, but B-2 Visa had expired. 2) Majed Moqed - No information available. 3) Nawaq Alhamzi - Possible residence (s) : Fort Lee, New Jersey and Wayne, New Jersey and San Diego, California. 4) Salem Alhamzi - Possible residence (s) : Fort Lee, New Jersey, and Wayne, New Jersey. 5) Hani Hanjour - Possible residence (s) : Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California. Believed to be a pilot. American Airlines #11 Boeing 767 7:45 am departed Boston for Los Angeles 8:45 am crashed into North Tower of the World Trade Center 1) Satam Al Suqami - Date of birth used: June 28, 1976; Last known address: United Arab Emirates. 2) Waleed M. Alshehri - Dates of birth used: September 13, 1974/January 1, 1976/ March 3, 1976/ July 8, 1977/ December 20, 1978/ May 11, 1979/ November 5, 1979; Possible residence (s) : Hollywood, Florida/ Orlando, Florida/ Daytona Beach, Florida; Believed to be a pilot. 3) Wail Alshehri - Date of birth used: July 31, 1973; Possible residence (s) 4) Mohamed Atta - Date of birth used: September 1, 1968; Possible residence (s) : Hollywood, Florida/ Coral Springs, Florida/ Hamburg, Germany; Believed to be a pilot. 5) Abdulaziz Alomari - Date of birth used: December 24, 1972 and May 28, 1979; Possible residence: Hollywood, Florida; Believed to be a pilot. United Airlines #175 Boeing 767 7:58 am departed Boston for Los Angeles 9:05 am crashed into South Tower of the World Trade Center 1) Marwan Al-Shehhi - Date of birth used: May 9, 1978; Possible residence: Hollywood, Florida; Visa Status: B-2 Visa; Believed to be a pilot. 2) Fayez Ahmed - Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida. 3) Ahmed Alghamdi - Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida. 4) Hamza Alghamdi - Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida. 5) Mohald Alshehri - Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida. United Airlines #93 Boeing 757 8:01 am departed Newark, New Jersey, for San Francisco 10:10 am crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania 1) Saeed Alghamdi - Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida. 2) Ahmed Alhaznawi - Date of birth used: October 11, 1980; Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida. 3) Ahmed Alnami - Possible residence: Delray Beach, Florida. 4) Ziad Jarrahi - Believed to be a pilot. Topic 14 [attack]: Events of Sept 11, 2001 #54 of 65: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri Sep 14 '01 (21:26) 85 lines *Every Time I Hear \"A New Era for Humanity\" Announced, I Really Have to Wonder If It Can Last Even Six Months *8-/ Subject: Yann Moix: A New Era for Humanity Date: Friday, September 14, 2001 11:52 AM From: Patrice Riemens Reply-To: Patrice Riemens To: A New Era for Humanity by Yann Moix Liberation (Paris), September 14, 2001 original in French at http://www.liberation.com/ny2001/actu/20010914venze.html Bingo, folks! The World will never go at war again, and yet it will be at war always, period. War and non-war, there shall be no difference any more. From the 11th of September 2001, all will be war, even peace. Peace shall no longer be the opposite of war, but its context, its natural environment, its ecosystem, its scene, its background, its screen-saver. War and peace shall no longer be each others contraries (that was in the good old manichean East vs West times), but they shall be imbricated the one in the other, like the two connected faces of the same reality. Peace shall be a kind of specific sub-case of war. War shall henceforth be everywhere and nowhere. War shall be waged in the dustbins of the Paris railtermini, war shall be waged above our heads in the air of the metropolises. War shall be permanent. War shall be open for business 24/24, 7/7 , just like CNN. There shall be intermissions, but no reprieve. It shall be a war blind, yet precise, fuzzy, yet targeted. Because never before has the distortion been so stark between fuziness of the causes and the acuurateness of the strikes. The First HyperWorldWar has started. It is a war where all pretenses will fly, and where acts will be used as statements of purpose afterwards. Let's call this a hyperwar: a world where "}, {"response": 312, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (11:52)", "body": "The Tamil Tigers in India have caused thousands of deaths because of terrorist attacks. As you see this is truly a Holy War. Those \"leftist\" European Countries have lost their religion and have become homocentric. There is -0 population growth because young couples even if they bother to get married are not interested in having children. They prefer the material to the spiritual. It will be interesting to see what kind of allegiance those countries give the US."}, {"response": 313, "author": "toyce", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (11:57)", "body": "Just heard Netenyahu (sp?) on Fox. He made a good point. The reporter tried to make a comparison between the communists and the terriorists with regard to nuclear weapons. He said that was incorrect. He said the communists put their lives above their ideology. These people put their ideology above their lives."}, {"response": 314, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (12:13)", "body": "A chronology of strikes by Laden on US interests NEERAJ SAXENA TIMES OF INDIA NEWS NETWORK NEW DELHI: A glance at the chronology of terrorist attacks made on the US in the past one decade would indicate that the destiny of the US and its one- time bete noire Osama bin Laden have almost become inextricable. If the US is to be believed, almost all the attacks have been carried out or aided by bin Laden. However, the US has been harsh with its usual suspect just once. The missile attacks on his safe haven in Afghanistan and Sudanese factory was the only time when the US displayed its military might in retaliation. In 1996, former President Bill Clinton had even signed a secret order that authorised the CIA to use any and all means to destroy Laden's network, but the world's most powerful state has not been able to ensure this. In August, 1996, a secret grand jury investigation began against bin Laden in New York. He was quick to sign and issue a declaration of jihad on August 23 against the US and UAE, outlining his organisation's goals. CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS December 29, 1992: A bomb exploded in a hotel in Aden, Yemen, where the US troops had been staying while en route to a humanitarian mission in Somalia against guerilla leader Muhammed Aidid. The blast killed two Austrian tourists as the US soldiers had already left. RESPONSE: Two Yemeni Muslim militants, trained in Afghanistan and injured in the blast, arrested later. US intelligence agencies said this was the first terrorist attack involving bin Laden. February 26, 1993: A car bomb went off in the basement parking of the now fallen World Trade Centre, killing six people and injuring over 1,000. RESPONSE: Six accused, including the mastermind and confidante of Laden -- Ramzi Yousef -- sentenced to 240 years in prison for the bombing, for plotting to destroy WTC, the UN headquarters and to plant bombs on airliners flying out of the east coast. Ramzi was extradited from Pakistan and had close links with Laden according to the US. October 3, 1993: Eighteen US troops killed in a guerilla attack in Mogadishu, Somalia. American law enforcement, intelligence and national security officials are divided as to whether, as a Federal indictment charges, bin Laden and his associates trained and armed Somalia warlord Aidid's men. RESPONSE: Over 300 rebels claimed to have been killed by the US Rangers. April 19, 1995: A US government establishment in Oklahoma city bombed by an explosives laden truck parked in the car park of Alfred P Murrah building, killing 168 people, and wounding over 500. RESPONSE: Initially, the US suspected Osama bin Laden to be behind the bombing, but a 27-year-old misguided youth Timothy McVeigh was captured later, convicted and later executed. A key witness Terry Nichols sentenced for life. November 13, 1995: Five Americans and two Indians killed in the truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh. RESPONSE: The US accuses bin Laden. He denies involvement, but praises the attack. June 25, 1996: A large truck bomb devastates the US military residence in Dhahran called Khobar Towers, killing 19 servicemen. RESPONSE: The US military initially Laden had a hand in the attack, but now believes that a Saudi Shiite group was responsible. But US investigators still believe Bin Laden was somehow involved. August 7, 1998: US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed by a suicide bomber, killing over 230 people and leaving over 4,500 injured. RESPONSE: US retaliates swiftly on August 20 by firing 70-80 `Tomahawk' Cruise missiles at alleged terrorist training camps in Khost, Afghanistan and the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan saying it was a chemical weapons factory. Several of Osama Bin Laden's alleged co- conspirators put behind bars in the US. October 12, 2000: A small dinghy laden with explosives rammed into US warship USS Cole in Aden Harbour, Yemen, killing 17 US sailors and injuring 39 others. RESPONSE: Besides blaming Laden, the US has not done much by the way of a retaliation so far."}, {"response": 315, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (12:19)", "body": "335 newspaper front pages -- 189 from the day after the attack and 146 extra editions published on the day of the hijackings. http://www.poynter.org/index.cfm"}, {"response": 316, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (13:06)", "body": "On the topic of bin Laden's money, Forbes has some info: http://www.forbes.com/2001/09/14/0914ladenmoney.html Highlights: Although bin Laden's been kicked out of Saudi Arabia and his citizenship revoked, much of his money is 'tied up in businesses' in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He also has access to 'charitable foundations,' not named, that are 'unregulated and untaxed.' Following a description of the abject poverty of Afghanistan, it talks about how bin Laden and other expatriate Saudis live there and pay 'a lot of rent.' You can afford a private army for $35,000 a month as you don't have to pay people much. Money is transferred from country to country via an informal network called \"Hundi,\" basically just individuals transferring money among themselves. Very difficult to track."}, {"response": 317, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (15:07)", "body": "We could probably solve the airline hijack issue with the installation of an \"auto lander\" which could over ride the pilots and land the plane if it deviated off course and the pilots did not respond with a password or other test. The airline doors need to be strengthened and pilots shouldn't be able to open them during flight, and anyone on the passenger side of the door or doors (two or three makes more sense) would absolutely be unable to penetrate them. The problem is solvable. But there are so many other unsolved procedures we need to put in place for so many as yet undreamed of scenarios."}, {"response": 318, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (15:21)", "body": "From http://www.janes.com , a global security website, has issued a list of the places that are known to have involvement with Al-Qaeda, bin Laden's organization Algeria Egypt, Morocco Turkey Jordan Tajikistan Uzbekistan Syria Xinjiang in China Pakistan Bangladesh Malaysia Myanmar Indonesia Mindanao in the Philippines Lebanon Iraq Saudi Arabia Kuwait Bahrain Yemen, Libya Tunisia Bosnia Kosovo Chechnya Dagestan Kashmir Sudan, Somalia Kenya Tanzania Azerbaijan Eritrea Uganda Ethiopia The West Bank and Gaza."}, {"response": 319, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (16:32)", "body": "Correct me if I am under a misconception, but do we not worship the same GOD ultimately? How can they call it a Holy War and worship God? I have a copy of the Q'ran and it says nothing of the kind they are espousing. It is an excuse for greed and warped minds in which to find reason for their vengeance."}, {"response": 320, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (17:16)", "body": "it is just like anything else, cultish behavior brainwashing persons wishing to belong to anything. islam is a peaceful religion. i was told that the women wear the abayaah to protect themselves from being leered at by men. when they are home, the abayaah is removed. much like the latino community, arabians are family oriented and often house extended families. at no time did i feel like i was a piece of garbage while in Kuwait. the stares that i received were because i am different from what they are used to seeing. men and women of all walks live and work there. these people are just like us, have the same concerns as we do. i witnessed one father rewarding his child for a job well done at school. so please, do not assume that the arabian community is strange and should be feared. there are radicals in all communities, look at the guy in montana, he was american! look at the KKK, hello, people! sadly, there are scams out there to get your money all in the name of this tragedy. do not give to these telemarketers because there is no campaign to gain donations this way. something interesting: the taliban first mumbled that this was terrible, then pleaded that we do not bomb this poor country, then threatening surrounding neighbors that if they support the U.S., they will be attacked by holy warriors."}, {"response": 321, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (19:48)", "body": "but do we not worship the same GOD ultimately? You must go back to the Crusades, Marcia to get your answer. i was told that the women wear the abayaah to protect themselves from being leered at by men. Women are barely seen in the streets. They are second class citizens if at all. A western woman respectfully travelling in those countries (as I have found myslf on occassion), better not get the urge to go to the bathroom outside their hotel."}, {"response": 322, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (19:53)", "body": "The assassination of Massoud was no coincidence. It was most likely a signature attack by Bin Laden to eliminate Afghanistan's greatest anti-Taliban fighter. He was killed by explosives hidden in a belt or camera the day before the WTC attack. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/international/asia/15MASS.html http://frontierpost.com.pk/main.asp?id=8&date1=9/15/2001 I'm unclear if Pakistan will or will not allow us to use their country as a staging area. If someone hears about this will they post it here? GERMAN OFFICIALS have asked the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission to look into whether bin Laden\ufffds associates may have \ufffdsold short\ufffd stock in a Munich, Germany, company that holds secondary insurance on the World Trade Center. http://www.msnbc.com/news/629380.asp The stock market will open at 9:30 pm EST on Monday. Biggest losers: airline stocks Biggest winners: military, cellular, security, tech stocks Other big losers: insurance stocks, hotels Other winners: teleconferencing systems, construction companies, fractional aircraft. Ramzi Yusef, architect of first World Trade Center bombing, carried plans for airliner suicide crashes: http://www.worldtribune.com/wta/Archive-2001/me_terrorism_09_13.html"}, {"response": 323, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (19:54)", "body": "I slipped with Moon."}, {"response": 324, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (21:17)", "body": "in case there is any confusion, i was told by a kuwaiti man why the women wear an abaayah. yes, there are countries in which arabian women are treated as third-class citizens. but, it was witnessed by me, women were treated with respect, no walking 6-ft behind the man or anything. they drove, ran businesses, walked with their similarily clad men, wearing gold jewelry, etc. i can only relay what i saw in kuwait. these men wait until they are well into their 30's before marrying in order to prove that they are worthy of a wife, to care for her financially and whatever children they have. one arabian man said it clearly, the Koran (sp?) condemns behavior such as this. the muslim community needs to stand up to bin laden and use the word to show him as being wrong. several islamic people were interviewed and again reiterated that the Koran doesn't suggest anything of this nature. in fact, the Koran refers to all religions, christianity and judaism, not as being infidels, but as those included in the book, and infidels being those who do not believe at all (athiests). bin laden may see this as a holy war, but, it is not, because the religion he proclaims to be an interpretor of, would not allow this. again, it's based on perception. another thing i find interesting is that all the time, we are referred to as the devil, evil, etc. isn't that what we're doing? the deed was evil but we cannot condemn a whole peoples because of that. yes, i believe the guilty should and will pay. and so, i pray that the countries vowing support and our country do not do anything irrationally. that we think through whatever our actions may be. yes, we are angry, that is a step in grief, but let us take our time and move through this. anyway, who am i to say anything..... i think this discussion is healthy. *HUGS* to all!!!"}, {"response": 325, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (21:22)", "body": "oh yeah, this may be the least of their worries right now, but....has anyone started piling up the mass of paper that flew out of the WTC? i wonder if any of the accounts and such could be put back together with what was left of that? and, how come the paper didn't incinerate?"}, {"response": 326, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (22:34)", "body": "Totally changing the subject for a sec.....I saw on CNN yesterday that the major US airlines lost $300 million per day, when they were grounded for 3 days. I am puzzled by this. I can understand why they may lose money in future, from a drop off in bookings. But surely every person who booked a flight from Sep 11-13, would have paid for it in advance. Who here of us, goes some where with out having booked and paid for it weeks, if not months in advance ? So wouldn't the airlines have the money from all those grounded flights, already in the bank ? I can see where they would lose money from the refunds they gave some people. But news reports showed most people waiting the delay out and not getting refunds. So where did this $300 million loss come from ? Sorry if I sound mercenary and trivial. I am the daughter of an airline man, so I suppose curiosity about them, is in my blood."}, {"response": 327, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (23:11)", "body": "Hugs to both Wolfie and Moon. You are both right. I just talked to a close friend who is Lebanese Muslim. She says depending on your sect, the rules vary as does status in the community make for variations. You also don't show the soles of your feet and you do not eat with your right hand....they do not shake hands - you wipe off human waste with that hand... and on and on. We need no acrimony....we are dealing with people who do not even understand each other!"}, {"response": 328, "author": "LouiseJ", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (23:13)", "body": "The losses were not from this week's flights. The airlines have already received most of the money for this week's tickets. But they also sell tickets on a daily basis for next week, next month, next year, etc. Apparently they would have sold $300M worth of these tickets per day. Because of the crisis, they could not, because they did not know when, or if, they would be able to fly again. Even now that flights have resumed, they apparently anticipate a substantial reduction in the number of tickets sold, due to fear of flying, longer delays at airports due to security, etc. From now on, it's going to be an uphill battle to sell tickets to people who don't \"need\" to fly. This is why they expect to lose a lot of money. They still have the same number of planes to pay for, airport lease facilities to pay for, etc. So--the same fixed expenditures going out with much less in ticket sales coming in. The only \"flexible\" spending they have in the short run is employees, so they have to lay people off. And they were already hurting big time from the increase in fuel prices. Not many glimmers of hope for them."}, {"response": 329, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (23:26)", "body": "Kuwait is not Afghanistan. Kuwait does not have a fundamentalist theocracy. Afghani Muslims are not Arabs. Perhaps you're not aware of what the Taliban has done to women since taking over there. I believe I've heard that 60% of the airlines costs are fixed (paid out regardless of whether they fly or not). As you must be aware, the airlines don't make any money on those tickets to poor idiots like us, who get discounted fares. The full-fare tickets for business flyers subsidize the rest of us. *HUGS* to all!!!"}, {"response": 330, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Sep 15, 2001 (23:32)", "body": "Thanks Karen and yes, we are not dealing with an easy problem. I had one guy IM me today he was so angry he just tore up a remote highway at 100 mph (yeah, in the Cobra) We need to bond not feud and if we do not hug one another, we are doomed. \"Group Hug\" sounds so foolish but I think it is warranted. *HUGS TO ALL*, as Karen put it so well!"}, {"response": 331, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (00:19)", "body": "For those of you who hear of phophesies, please look at this page before leaping onto the pyre: http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/hoaxes/predict.htm"}, {"response": 332, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (00:40)", "body": "The full plan: 1. Destroy the World's Financial hub (succeeded beyond wildest dreams of terrorists) 2. Take out the military center of the US (very partial success) 3. Take out the President or Congress (failed) Good thing they only partially succeeded, if they had gone 3 for 3 we'd be in very, very serious trouble right now. This is not World War III, not yet anyway. This is about a band of criminals who are holding a decimated country in fear and trembling. The link for the Canada piece that Alice, my sister, sent me is http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/ccf/personal/hof/sincla_g.html Gordon Sinclair wrote it, he died in 1984, the piece was written in '73 and was inspired by the criticism of America during the Vietnam era. I'll send this to my sister so she understands the context. It's in very wide circulation. From what I've read, I think the best approach would be to work cooperatively with the Afghan resistance and with India/Pakistan against the Taliban, one which allow a democratic state to emerge comprised of native Afghans."}, {"response": 333, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (00:40)", "body": "slippage again."}, {"response": 334, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (00:54)", "body": "Gee thanks CNN, the whereabouts of Britany Spears is foremost in my thoughts these days. CNN has a news ticker across the bottom of their screen and it is all really serious stuff...Bush speech extracts, Talaban declarations, death toll estimates, etc etc Then all of a sudden this appears....\" Pop Princess Britany Spears is stranded in Australia, due to the FAA ban on all international flights. She has cancelled all her European engagements at this time. \" I mean hello CNN.....who gives a rats a$$ ? By the way, what is this about a ban on incoming international flights ? It's the first I have heard of it ? Is it true, or did I read the ticker thingy wrong ? I guess I was just distracted by the plight of poor lil' Britany....LOL"}, {"response": 335, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (01:05)", "body": "1. Destroy world's financial hub ( suceeded beyond wildest dreams ) Did they really ? A lot of companies have ( in a purely logistical sense ) been put to a lot of expense and inconvenience. But has the world's financial hub really been destroyed ? Several buildings have gone down, but the infrastructure remains intact, bruised and bloody to be sure, but still intact. New York is one huge financial colossus, it is a many headed beast, with many, many tentacles. As devestating as the loss of the WTC is ( in human and monetary terms ). It is just one of these heads, the main body of the beast remains alive. ( Sorry, didn't mean to make that sound like something from a horror flick. ) As an example, the HQ of American Express were in Tower #1. They occupied 1 million sq ft of office space on many floors. However, they ( bless 'em ) took their butts across the river to temporary quarters in Jersey City. They now expect to be up and running ( at granted, very limited capacity, for now ) by Monday."}, {"response": 336, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (01:11)", "body": "It would have been more appropriate to say the world's financial *symbol* has been erased, we will remain strong as an economy. The 1-2-3 knockout would have been devastating had it succeeded, knocking out the White House would have pretty demoralizing on top of the World Trade. I'm glad those heroic passengers took action."}, {"response": 337, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (01:27)", "body": "Yup Terry, spot on....devestating doesn't even begin to describe what could have happened if they went 3 for 3 By the way, thanks so much for starting up this topic. It has been a much appreciated source of information, fellowship and goodwill since the horrors of Tuesday morning."}, {"response": 338, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (05:29)", "body": "Hi all Marcia, a question regarding a couple well known pieces of classical music? First of, does the military drum beat of Mars: Bringer of War mean anything significant at the moment?? Second \"I vow to thee my country\" is the chorus associated with Jupiter: Bringer of jollity. Patriotism is presumably alive and kicking at the moment in the United States and soldiers, sailors and airmen are thinking, \" I vow to thee my country\"?? Yes?? Finally, I listened to Sprach Zarathustra on Friday night, and wondered if the ominous opening bars mean anything with regards to the few terrifying seconds before the wayward jets that were aimed at the WTC, struck. Do you wonder?? Rob"}, {"response": 339, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (07:05)", "body": "Gerard Van der Leun (boswell) Sat Sep 15 '01 (23:18) 107 lines Patrick writess: > Boswell, from the bottom of my heart, please, log off and go and do something positive. Go and hug your daughter. Go and enroll in an anti- terrorism class. Go and make a speech on the corner. Go and pray. And I thank you for that advice. Actually, today, I did log off in the morning. Then I did something positive by attending the funeral of Father Michael Judge, the Chaplin of the New York Fire Department (I have made a pact with myself to attend as many of the 300 funerals of the NYFD members as I physically can). Father Judge, who had decades of service in the NYFD, was as you may know, killed in the collapse of the towers as he was giving the last rites to citizens killed in the attack as other firemen were going UP THE STAIRS. If anyone here thinks that I have terrible convictions about this and is shocked or dismayed at my hate and rage, they might spend some time in front of one of the many churches of New York in the coming weeks and look into the eyes of the police and firemen and everyday workers from Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn or the other bouroughs and tell me then how much mercy they can see there. These are the men who are dealing with this now, and by and large these will be the type of men who will be fighting this war abroad and here on our land -- and there *will* be more of this here in our land -- in this city and in your cities -- and you or someone you know will be maimed or die from it. So start to understand what is happening now and what is going to happen when the truck with the explosives in it drives onto the Golden Gate Bridge and the driver of that truck tells the other truck at the foot of Mission that he's all set to light it up. Then you will be standing in front of a church (if you are lucky, as I was), and you will find yourself weeping as I did (and you will not be alone in this), and then you will understand what you do not understand now. And for this I weep for you. So the pipes played and this great and good man was carried away. And then, yes, I did go into the church and although I am not a religious man, I did pray. Then I walked to 14th street where my daughter works and I saw her and I did hug her. I shopped for some vegetables at the Green Market and walked into the crazy quilt memorials and peace and chanting maze that Union Square has become .. a kind of bizarre Princess Di Death Monument, overwhelmed in it's peace and love adornments with page after page and image after image of what we are now politely calling \"the missing\" -- as in 'most of these real people from many nations are now atomized. Then I came home to care for my dear and sick friend. Then, as she slept, I logged on here and saw what one always sees -- the sleepers and the dreamers and the few trying to make sense of things, and those who say \"if only we had done this,if only we had done that\"... Those who still cannot grasp that everything is, in the words of the poet, \"changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born.\" But none of this or anything else I may place here is really for anyone other than myself. This is my journal put out in the raw as I think it. I really don't have any other purpose than that. People can make of it it what they will. So, Patrick, that's what my day was like. Strangely it filled most of your requirements without even knowing what they would be. I even made a speech of sorts on the street. When the hearse bearing the body of Father Judge was passing down the street behind the flag and through two lines of pipers playing, I noticed that a goodly number of people lining the streets were just watching or, even more odious, taking photographs. I've never spoken out on the streets since Berkeley in the 60s, but quite to my surprise I found myself saying, I think, \"Citizens. A great man is passing. We do not take pictures. We salute him.\" And placing my right hand over my heart in a gesture I haven't used in well over 40 years, I did so. Some others did as well. Strange that we have forgotten how do do this, isn't it? Perhaps we should start to remember this and some other things as well."}, {"response": 340, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (09:14)", "body": "The American Red Cross in New York is calling for help from the IT community. \"The New York American Red Cross is in dire need of technology equipment and services,\" Joe Leo, assistant director of the American Red Cross in New York, told NewsBytes. \"The field workers and rescue sites have little, if any, means of communication, and the central office is processing way too much on completely paper systems. Any help in acquiring these resources would be greatly appreciated,\" he said. Leo highlighted an immediate need for Citrix server engineers and Microsoft- certified consultants to help with setting up systems that will aid the rescue process. Laptops, wireless networking cards, printers, CD burners and other equipment are also required. \"Essentially, anything you can give us, we can use,\" Leo said. Other IT requirements include the need to develop a single system for tracking missing people. A database is in the process of being complied containing pictures, dental records and descriptions of the missing. ... Joe Leo at the American Red Cross can be phoned at (212) 875-2409 or e- mailed at jleo@arcgny.org. Donations of equipment can be sent to his office: 150 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10023. Mr Leo asked that only those who want to volunteer contact him directly."}, {"response": 341, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (10:28)", "body": "you're correct, Karen, Kuwait is not Afghanistan, of that I am well aware. I am also aware that not all Muslim sects observe the same ideals or practices. My intention was not to make a broad statement about the treatment of Islamic women and I'm sorry if some of you read it that way. Generalizations are being made, stereotypes being set or reaffirmed. My point was that I personally witnessed a part of Islam that I was not aware of before my visit to Kuwait. Fine, Saudi, Afghanistan, Turkey, etc., have harsher views, that point is well known and well taken. My point was that an idea I had about this religion was changed."}, {"response": 342, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (10:28)", "body": "marcia, thank you for that website about predicition hoaxes!"}, {"response": 343, "author": "laughingsky", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (12:19)", "body": "I second that thanks to Marcia!"}, {"response": 344, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (13:08)", "body": "From an account of Congressional testimony given in 1998: Since taking power, the Taliban militia group, which now controls much of Afghanistan, has placed Afghan women under virtual house arrest. The Taliban has decreed that women and girls can no longer attend school; women are banned from employment; women are not allowed to leave their homes unless accompanied by a husband, father, brother, or son; women who do leave their homes have to be covered from head to toe in a \"burqa,\" with only a mesh opening to see and breath through; the windows of homes with women occupants are required to be painted opaque so the women inside cannot be seen; women are prohibited from being treated by male doctors; and women are banned from wearing white socks and shoes that make noise as they walk. \"Women are being beaten, shot at, and even killed for violating these draconian decrees -- for merely trying to go to work, leaving their homes alone, or violating the Taliban's extreme dress orders,\" stated Leno. Leno also shared a report from journalist Jan Goodwin that girls at the state orphanage in Kabul have not been allowed to leave the building to go outside since September of 1996 -- although the boys go outside every day to attend school and to play. \"The abuses of women and girls in Afghanistan have been justified in the name of religion and culture. However, the Taliban's decrees are foreign to the religion, the culture, and the people of Afghanistan,\" said Leno, who related that before the Taliban took control schools were co-educational, 70% of teachers were women, 40% of doctors were women, and Afghan women did not cover themselves with the burqa. For additional information the gender apartheid going on in Afghanistan: http://www.feminist.org/news/pr/pr030298.html http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/central/07/13/afghan.women/ http://www.rawa.org/"}, {"response": 345, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (13:37)", "body": "It's incredible that you would have to post this information, Karen. I have known this for years and I thought it was common knowledge. :-( Please read this letter that was posted by someone who was on the first flight out of Logan Airport. You will understand the new security procedures. http://www.pemberley.com/bin/ramble/ramble.cgi?read=37767"}, {"response": 346, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (13:45)", "body": "I posted it for those who were unaware of the situation and did not realize what the Taliban has been doing."}, {"response": 347, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (16:24)", "body": "Thank you for posting that Karen. I knew that the women were forced to completely cover themselves, but I had no idea it was so horrible. I hope we can help them in some way through all of what is to come."}, {"response": 348, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (16:34)", "body": "I heard from one of the talking heads on Sunday monring tv that Afghanistan is 70% women, can someone confirm that?"}, {"response": 349, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (17:11)", "body": "MSNBC and CNN report that Pakistan has delivered an ultimatum to the Taliban: turn over Bin Laden within 72 hours or face military attack from Pakistan. From Pakistan . We've scared the hell out of them. Another article: http://www.charleston.net/pub/news/commentary/dillar0913.htm However, the '90s cutbacks in intelligence - in a time of growing complexity in the world - was a critical misstep that laid the groundwork for the failure to foresee the events of Sept. 11, 2001. These cuts have prevented our intelligence agencies from acting on complete information. Terrorist organizations, as well as those groups that would proliferate weapons of mass destruction, can only be effectively countered with a robust and well-funded human intelligence capability . . . I heard on MSNBC that El Al has been sealing off the cockpits of their planes for the last 25 years."}, {"response": 350, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (17:26)", "body": "A whole lot of intelligence information on Afghanistan comes from the CIA Factbook, I've compiled in this web location: http://www.spring.net/afghan We may be developing a special section of the Spring to deal with the coming world conflict and we may even add a conference on this or expand more topics in the news conference. Here is a proposed topic list: 1 coping with the crisis 2 the attack 3 what can we do? 4 where were you when you heard? 5 racism 6 information on the net 7 hindsight 8 what will change? 9 world response 10 local impact where you are 11 economic impact 12 President Bush 13 travel in the post attack world 14 Osama Bin Laden 15 What will become of Civil Liberty? 16 media coverage 17 thinking like the enemy, what next? We can either add these to news, all or some of them, or we can create a new conference called? attack? terror? I think we already have a conference called InternationalConflict or something like that, it never got used much."}, {"response": 351, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (17:28)", "body": "SJ Mercury news has some numbers on the international casualty toll at WTC... 100 Britons confirmed dead, final toll expected to be higher 250 Indians feared killed, injured and missing a dozen Mexican nationals, of over 100 citizens working at WTC 100 Russians missing 50 Bangladeshi confirmed dead, more missing 8 Australians confirmed dead, 80 others missing 100 Japanese unaccounted for other nationals believed lost include Canadians, S. Koreans, Zimbabweans, Taiwanese, Italians, colombians and Filipinos, but no numbers reported. The number that worries me are the 250 Indian nationals, given Pakistan's ties to the Taliban, not to mention the Indian/Pakistani conflicts over, say, Kashmir, or their nuclear arms race."}, {"response": 352, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (17:29)", "body": "Here are the \"official\" figures: International casualties in the \"attack on america\" (preliminary official figures): Argentina: 2 missing Australia: 9 confirmed dead, 85 missing Bangladesh: 50 confirmed, more missing Belgium: 60 missing Brazil: 5 missing Canada: 2 confirmed, 100 missing (est) Chile: 1 missing China: 4 confirmed, 30 missing Colombia: 6 confirmed, 116 missing Denmark: 15 missing Dominican Republic: 3 missing Egypt: 1 confirmed, 3 missing El Salvador: 1 confirmed, 18 missing Finland: 41 missing France: 81 missing Germany: 4 confirmed, 700 missing Great Britain: 100 confirmed, 400 missing (est) India: 250 missing Indonesia: 1 confirmed, 1 missing Ireland: 4 confirmed Israel: 1 confirmed, 150 missing Italy: 8 missing Japan: 2 confirmed, 100 missing Lebanon: 1 confirmed, 2 missing Malaysia: 7 missing Mexico: 150-500 missing (est) Norway: 15 missing Pakistan: 3 confirmed, more missing Paraguay: 2 missing Peru: 5 missing Philippines: 7 missing Portugal: 3 confirmed, 20 missing Puerto Rico: 1 missing South Africa: 1 confirmed, 2 missing South Korea: 1 confirmed, 27 missing Spain: 9 missing Sweden: 1 missing Switzerland: 4 confirmed, 10 missing Taiwan: 9 missing Zimbabwe: 6 missing (data collected from newspapers and government websites. ) http://hem.passagen.se/eff/2001_09_01_bot-archive.htm That's nearly 3,000 people from 40 nations confirmed dead or unaccounted for."}, {"response": 353, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (17:35)", "body": "An invaluable resource: http://www.sabawoon.com/afghanpedia/Afghanistan.shtm"}, {"response": 354, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (18:08)", "body": "And here's a list of many web sites about Afghanistan: http://www.abyznewslinks.com/afgha.htm"}, {"response": 355, "author": "laughingsky", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (18:22)", "body": "Open letter from Saddam Hussein to the American peoples and the western peoples and their governments. http://www.uruklink.net/iraqnews/enews8.htm"}, {"response": 356, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (19:46)", "body": "As this excerpt from a New Yorker article from a while back shows, we have to be careful in how we conduct air strikes against terrorist camps in Afghanistan and other places. These camps are undoubtedly dispersing physically and forming virtually in cyberspace as we speak. \" http://www.newyorker.com/PRINTABLE/?FROM_THE_ARCHIVE/010917fr_archive07 The American war against bin Laden has affected United States policy throughout much of the Islamic world, particularly in South Asia and the Middle East. Memorably, on August 20, 1998, the Pakistani Army's chief of staff, General Jehangir Karamat, was playing host in Islamabad to his American counterpart, General Joseph Ralston, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Around ten o'clock in the evening, as the two men were having dinner, Ralston looked up from his chicken tikka, checked his watch, and informed his host that in ten minutes some sixty Tomahawk cruise missiles would be entering Pakistan's airspace. Their destination, he said, was Afghanistan, where bin Laden was believed to be operating four training camps. General Karamat was stunned, and appalled. \"It was a 'This is happening as we speak' kind of conversation,\" an American intelligence official told me. \"Ralston was there, on the ground, to make absolutely certain that when the missiles flew across Pakistan's radar screen they would not be misconstrued as coming from India and, as a consequence, be shot down.\" The intelligence official paused for a moment, and then said, \"This is one hell of a way to treat our friends.\" By the following day, General Karamat's anger\ufffdand that of the government he served\ufffdhad turned to rage. A number of the Tomahawks either had been poorly targeted or had not fallen where they were aimed. Two of the four training camps that were hit and destroyed, in the Zhawar Kili area of Afghanistan's Paktia province, were facilities of Pakistan's own intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I. According to a highly placed official, five I.S.I. officers and some twenty trainees were killed. The government of Pakistan was not only furious but embarrassed, because it had not been taken into Washington's confidence. Why had there been only ten minutes' notice? And why had General Karamat been notified, instead of the Prime Minister? Pakistan wasn't our only affronted ally. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority\ufffdindeed, much of the Islamic world\ufffdexpressed dismay. The United States had reason to be embarrassed as well. For, despite President Clinton's claim, in a televised address a few hours after the missile strikes, that a \"gathering of key terrorist leaders\" had been expected to take place at one of the target sites, bin Laden and his top lieutenants were more than a hundred miles away when the missiles struck. The meeting that Clinton referred to had occurred a month earlier, in Jalalabad."}, {"response": 357, "author": "Echo", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (20:25)", "body": "I have just returned home (to the UK) from a short trip abroad during which I had no access to the Internet, therefore wish to take this opportunity to register my deepest sympathy and untold horror and revulsion at the recent events in America."}, {"response": 358, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (20:36)", "body": "I thought this map might be valuable to those of you who are having trouble figuring out the geography of all of this \"flyover\" \"staging area\" stuff. I find the tiny shared border with China to be rather interesting. I wasn't aware of that. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/sw_asia_pol00.jpg The story JoAnn refers to says that Cheney and others in the Pentagon weren't notified of the hijacking until 35 minutes after the air traffic controllers had contacted the military, and well after U.S. jet fighters were in the air. Unforuntately, the fighters were dispatched from a base 130 miles away, rather than Andrews, 15 miles away Subject: [archivists] Attack Archive: Please suggest sites Date: Sunday, September 16, 2001 9:48 AM From: Brewster Kahle To: Cc: Please help build a Web Archive of the Sept 11 Attack ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet Archive in collaboration with Alexa Internet, and SUNY, Library of Congress and UWashington is archiving pages and sites relating to the terrorist attacks in the NY and DC. Where we are archiving sites and pages all the time, we are concentrating the crawlers to make sure there is a solid historical record of this time. If you would like to help, we can build a better archive. Here is how you can help: Suggest sites and pages to archive: * This can be done by sending URL's to attackarchive@alexa.com (this is a list of the crawl engineers at Alexa and the researchers at SUNY and UW) * Surf with the free Alexa Toolbar on. Every night new sites and pages are discovered by processing the day's usage logs from the Alexa Toolbar. These are sanitized to eliminate cgi and other URL's that might contain personal information and then those sites are crawled for the archive. Help build a page in mid-October that will help guide people through relevant materials. This could be similar to the Election 2000 webpage (http://archive.alexa.com), or something else completely. We would like to make this public at the end of October or early November. Datamine the web archive to find past pages and sites that might be relevant. This takes programming skill and will be more difficult for Alexa to support, but if you are interested, please write a proposal in the web section of the www.archive.org site. Thank you. Please repost, but don't spam. -brewster Director, Internet A \"In 2000, catastrophes claimed more than 17,400 lives and caused overall financial losses - not counting indirect economic damage - of almost USD 50 billion. According to Swiss Re's definitive statistics, the burden on the insurance industry was comparatively low at USD 10.6 billion.\" Note that this is world-wide. For more details, go to http://www.swissre.com/, then go to research&Publications, and click on the pull-down item \"sigma insurance research\". On that page, the item Catastrophe losses in 2000 (under \"latest sigma\") will bring you to the data. How does it compare to the damage from the last big earthquake in Japan. For Kobe: \"Current estimates of the repair costs in this earthquake have been reported in the range of U.S.$95 billion to U.S.$147 billion\" Source: http://www.eqe.com/publications/kobe/economic.htm Dateline's report on the phone call from Jeremy Glick to his wife from Flight 93 was extraordinarily well-done. The call lasted for 20 minutes, and followed Mr. Glick's revelation of what was actually happening, and what he had to do. He used his butter knife from breakfast as a weapon. Here's the story: http://www.msnbc.com/news/629077.asp"}, {"response": 359, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:11)", "body": "May we please keep to topic here and not to views of Islam. That is covered in Cultures in a topic all its own. I think it belongs there and not here where we discuss our national tragedy and honor those who have risked their lives in order to save others. Please! Let us not disintegrate into other divergences."}, {"response": 360, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:21)", "body": "this was forwarded to me: Following is an article from the Miami Herald. R/Scott Published Wednesday, September 12, 2001 The Miami Herald Leonard Pitts We'll go forward from this moment. It's my job to have something to say. They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering. You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed. Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause. Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve. Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together. Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God. Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals. IN PAIN. Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before. But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice. I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future. In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined. THE STEEL IN US. You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish. So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started. But you're about to learn."}, {"response": 361, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:23)", "body": "(sorry for the length) does anyone know the amount of rubble pulled out so far? (last i heard was 20,000 tons, just 2% of the estimated total)"}, {"response": 362, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:23)", "body": "Terry, I think it might be appropriate to open another topic about all of this... perhaps \"post 9-11-01\" or something like that...I'm not sure what to call it; \"new world\" or something like that sounds too trivial. But I think that there are so many issues that will stem from last tuesday's events, that they should all be housed under one topic. I am using the right phrase here, right? topic would be the larger theme, and then boards are under topics, correct?"}, {"response": 363, "author": "wolf", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:24)", "body": "thank you marcia!"}, {"response": 364, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:30)", "body": "thanks for posting that, Wolf. That is a great article!"}, {"response": 365, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:35)", "body": "Great article, indeed. I am looking for the Wall Street Journal's Friday editorial. It came highly recommended to me. I heard 22,000 tons of out of something like 460,000 tons!!!"}, {"response": 366, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (21:40)", "body": "Here is the lastes results of an AOL survey. Should the World Trade Center towers be rebuilt? Yes 609742 59% No 224927 22% It's too soon to decide 187317 18% Total votes: 1021986 And here is an article that expresses my thoughts: \"Make it green \" September 14, 2001 BY ROGER EBERT If there is to be a memorial, let it not be of stone and steel. Fly no flag above it, for it is not the possession of a nation but a sorrow shared with the world. Let it be a green field, with trees and flowers. Let there be paths that wind through the shade. Put out park benches where old people can sun in the summertime, and a pond where children can skate in the winter. Beneath this field will lie entombed forever some of the victims of September 11. It is not where they thought to end their lives. Like the sailors of the battleship Arizona, they rest where they fell. Let this field stretch from one end of the destruction to the other. Let this open space among the towers mark the emptiness in our hearts. But do not make it a sad place. Give it no name. Let people think of it as the green field. Every living thing that is planted there will show faith in the future. Let students take a corner of the field and plant a crop there. Perhaps corn, our native grain. Let the harvest be shared all over the world, with friends and enemies, because that is the teaching of our religions, and we must show that we practice them. Let the harvest show that life prevails over death, and let the gifts show that we love our neighbors. Do not build again on this place. No building can stand there. No building, no statue, no column, no arch, no symbol, no name, no date, no statement. Just the comfort of the earth we share, to remind us that we share it. Copyright \ufffd Chicago Sun-Times Inc."}, {"response": 367, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (22:36)", "body": ""}, {"response": 368, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (23:28)", "body": "I've heard that the Wakhan Corridor is pretty much deep in the Hindu Kush mountains, and isn't of much tactical value unless you're a terrorist looking for a hideout."}, {"response": 369, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (23:40)", "body": "Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 20:38:28 -0700 From: Lena M. Diethelm lendie@rawbw.com Subject: Fwd: Real Justice Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor TIKKUN Magazine | 09.12.2001 There is never any justification for acts of terror against innocent civilians-it is the quintessential act of dehumanization and not recognizing the sanctity of others, and a visible symbol of a world increasingly irrational and out of control. It's understandable why many of us, after grieving and consoling the mourners, will feel anger-and while some demagogues in Congress have already sought to manipulate that feeling into a growing militarism (more spies, legalize assassinations of foreign leaders, increase the defense budget at the expense of domestic programs), the more \"responsible\" leaders are seeking to narrow America's response to targeted attacks on countries that allegedly harbor the terrorists. But though the perpetrators deserve to be punished, in some ways this narrow focus allows us to avoid dealing with the underlying issues. When violence becomes so prevalent throughout the planet, it's too easy to simply talk of \"deranged minds.\" We need to ask ourselves, \"What is it in the way that we are living, organizing our societies, and treating each other that makes violence seem plausible to so many people?\" We in the spiritual world will see this as a growing global incapacity to recognize the spirit of God in each other-what we call the sanctity of each human being. But even if you reject religious language, you can see that the willingness of people to hurt each other to advance their own interests has become a global problem, and it's only the dramatic level of this particular attack which distinguishes it from the violence and insensitivity to each other that is part of our daily lives. We may tell ourselves that the current violence has \"nothing to do\" with the way that we've learned to close our ears when told that one out of every three people on this planet does not have enough food, and that one billion are literally starving. We may reassure ourselves that the hoarding of the world's resources by the richest society in world history, and our frantic attempts to accelerate globalization with its attendant inequalities of wealth, has nothing to do with the resentment that others feel toward us. We may tell ourselves that the suffering of refugees and the oppressed have nothing to do with us-that that's a different story that is going on somewhere else. But we live in one world, increasingly interconnected with everyone, and the forces that lead people to feel outrage, anger, and desperation eventually impact on our own daily lives. The same inability to feel the pain of others is the pathology that shapes the minds of these terrorists. Raise children in circumstances where no one is there to take care of them, or where they must live by begging or selling their bodies in prostitution, put them in refugee camps and tell them that that they have \"no right of return\" to their homes, treat them as though they are less valuable and deserving of respect because they are part of some despised national or ethnic group, surround them with a media that extols the rich and makes everyone who is not economically successful and physically trim and conventionally \"beautiful\" feel bad about themselves, offer them jobs whose sole goal is to enrich the \"bottom line\" of someone else, and teach them that \"looking out for number one\" is the only thing anyone \"really\" cares about and that anyone who believes in love and social justice are merely naive idealists who are destined to always remain powerless, and you will produce a world-wide population of people feeling depressed, angry, unable to care about others, and in various ways dysfunctional. Luckily most people don't act out in violent ways-they tend to act out more against themselves, drowning themselves in alcohol or drugs or personal despair. Others turn toward fundamentalist religions or ultra-nationalist extremism. Still others find themselves acting out against people that they love, acting angry or hurtful toward children or relationship partners. Most Americans will feel puzzled by any reference to this \"larger picture.\" It seems baffling to imagine that somehow we are part of a world system which is slowly destroying the life support system of the planet, and quickly transferring the wealth of the world into our own pockets. We don't feel personally responsible when an American corporation runs a sweat shop in the Phillipines or crushes efforts of workers to organize in Singapore. We don't see ourselves implicated when the U.S. refuses to consider the plight of Palestinian refugees or uses the excuse of fighting drugs to support repression in Colombia or other parts of Central America. We don't even see the symbolism when terrorists attack America's military center and our trade center-we talk of them as buildings, though others see them as centers of the forces that are causing the"}, {"response": 370, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 16, 2001 (23:43)", "body": "More on the shared border. The only reason it's Afghanistan is that there was obviously a concerted effort to prevent a common border between India and Russia back in the 1800s. This is the very most farthest extension of ecotourism: http://www.concordiaexpeditions.com/tartary_trip.html This trek takes us to Northern Chitral and runs on the edge of the famous Wakhan Corridor. The corridor was deliberately made as a buffer zone to curtail the advancing Russian influence into British India during the 18th century. Here many spies were sent on both sides who mingled with the local populace as if they were natives. This is the place of the Great Game which was played between the Russian 'Bear,' the English 'Lion,' and the Chinese 'Dragon.' The three empires jockeyed for land, position and influence for the strategic heart of Central Asia."}, {"response": 371, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (00:41)", "body": "Hey ya'll. I was just talking to my sister in Seattle, a litle while ago. I was telling her about me and my buddy going shopping for supplies for the rescue workers in NY ( saline solution, bottled water, work boots, mens underwear etc etc ) She has heard about none of this, except for the Red Cross blood drive. Do any of you know of any websites that I can tell her about, that give out info on what supplies are still needed ? I tried the Red Cross website, but didn't get much info. Here in Atlanta, massive semi rigs are parked in many of our supermarkets. People are coming and filling them up with supplies, that will be then driven to NY when they are full. I guess not much of this is being done on the West Coast, coz it is a weeks drive from NY."}, {"response": 372, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (02:42)", "body": "Hi all Msg 352 - Terry: Here are the \"official figures Rob: Some bad news. New Zealand can be added to the list as 1 New Zealander is confirmed dead and at least a dozen are missing. *weeps* Initially more than 200 New Zealanders were in the area, but I do not know how many have been accounted for - except that there is definitely at least one body. Rob"}, {"response": 373, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (08:22)", "body": "I have been looking for an article that expresses the European point of view and this is it. It is secular as can be expected. For the arrogance of power, America now pays a terrible price By JONATHAN POWER September 12, 2001 LONDON - The American nation appears not only immensely distressed and angry about the bombings but surprised too. It cannot understand why anyone should be moved by such hatred against it and, inured from the rest of us by the isolationism of most of its political representatives and its media, it has little idea of the currents swirling against it. An event of this magnitude was not only unimagined, it was unimaginable. Yet long before George Bush became president with his forceful in-your-face, take-it-or-leave-it attitude to the world outside on issues as diverse as global warming and anti-missile defences, America has been turning in on itself, to the point of self-destructiveness. William Pfaff, the astute American commentator, wrote recently that \"America is a dangerous nation while remaining a righteous one\" and America's pre-eminent foreign policy observer, George Kennan, ambassador to the Soviet Union during Stalin's time, wrote quite a few years ago, \"I do not think that the United States civilization of these last 40-50 years is a successful civilization. I think this country is destined to succumb to failures which cannot be other than tragic and enormous in their scope.\" And later added that for Americans \"to see ourselves as the centre of political enlightenment and teachers to a great part of the rest of the world [is] unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.\" It would be misunderstanding human nature to believe that most Americans want to hear such thoughts played back to them on their day of grief, victims of an evil deed that compares with the worst of the blood-stained twentieth century. Yet they have to know that action produces reaction and not for nothing is anti-American resentment on the increase all over the world, not least in Europe where there is some astonishment at the way the new American administration has ploughed ahead with its self-interested agenda as if no one else has a legitimate opinion or could perhaps view the same situation in a different light. Foreign observers do not miss the reports that come out of Pentagon think tanks of America's need to use this special moment after the defeat of European communism and the break up of the Soviet Union to make sure that America is militarily superior the world over, and that no one, not even its closest allies, should be in a position to tell it what to do. The U.S. began the new millennium as the most heavily militarised nation on earth. It is the U.S., which poses the military threat to others. At the outbreak of the Second World War the U.S. army was only 174,000 men. Today it has 1.4 million in its \"standing army\" and a ready reserve and National Guard numbering 2.5 million. Despite the end of the Cold War, under President Bill Clinton the U.S. made only a paltry effort to wind down the nuclear arsenals of the superpowers, and instead provocatively insisted on expanding Nato close to Russia's borders. The Bush administration with its declared ambition to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, solemnly signed by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, seems unconcerned that this will set in motion events that will unwind hard won international norms on ending nuclear testing and on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, even hinting that it will understand if China has to increase its nuclear forces or test new nuclear weapons. I have talked to a range of ordinary Europeans in the last 24 hours and they all say, in the face of the earnest shoulder-to-shoulder rhetoric of their leaders, that America has got itself into this hole by its own disregard for what others think. The first law of holes, of course, is to stop digging - which, of course, is what Washington should firmly have told Israel six presidents ago when it started its foolish and counterproductive policy of building settlements on what everyone knew was Palestinian land. Amazingly, the policy continues with apparent understanding from the Bush administration. While Arab governments ring their hands, and young Palestinians fight one of the best trained armies in the world with stones, there are the inevitable few attached to the Palestinian cause who are moved towards serious violence - the suicide bombers and, we don't know yet, although it is the most likely explanation, the destroyers of the World Trade Centre. In every political movement - whether it be the Palestinians or the globalisation protestors in Genoa there are fringe elements that advocate violence. This does not mean the mainstream of that movement is wrong. It might or might not be. But, right or wrong, there will always be powerful elements of truth contained within it, or the passions and purpose would never be ignited. To meet it eye for eye and tooth for too"}, {"response": 374, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (09:32)", "body": "The UK Guardian is reporting that bin Laden has abandoned his main base near Kandahar and has moved to an undisclosed place in the mountains. His four wives and numerous children are with him. What if the Pakistanis persuade the Taliban regime to hand him over? Will be martyrized? The UK Guardian coverage on this is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,553156,00.html"}, {"response": 375, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (09:38)", "body": "From: Patrice Riemens Reply-To: Patrice Riemens To: A New Era for Humanity by Yann Moix Liberation (Paris), September 14, 2001 original in French at http://www.liberation.com/ny2001/actu/20010914venze.html Bingo, folks! The World will never go at war again, and yet it will be at war always, period. War and non-war, there shall be no difference any more. From the 11th of September 2001, all will be war, even peace. Peace shall no longer be the opposite of war, but its context, its natural environment, its ecosystem, its scene, its background, its screen-saver. War and peace shall no longer be each others contraries (that was in the good old manichean East vs West times), but they shall be imbricated the one in the other, like the two connected faces of the same reality. Peace shall be a kind of specific sub-case of war. War shall henceforth be everywhere and nowhere. War shall be waged in the dustbins of the Paris railtermini, war shall be waged above our heads in the air of the metropolises. War shall be permanent. War shall be open for business 24/24, 7/7 , just like CNN. There shall be intermissions, but no reprieve. It shall be a war blind, yet precise, fuzzy, yet targeted. Because never before has the distortion been so stark between fuziness of the causes and the acuurateness of the strikes . The First HyperWorldWar has started. It is a war where all pretenses will fly, and where acts will be used as statements of purpose afterwards. Let's call this a hyperwar: a world where the ordinary, natural context of societies is no longer peace, but war. A hyperwar is not a classic world war with opposite fighting sides. It is a 'non-Euclydian', non-catalogised war, without rules and principles others than its own logic. Hyperwar cannot be localised in space. Nor in time. It is a kind of magnum opus of terrorism,its _best of_ or rather its _worst of_: plane hijacks, crashes, bombs, kamikaze operations. In fact it was the 20th century as a whole that was fast-forwarded in just a couple of minutes on the 11th of September, 2001. And that will be the birth certificate of the 21st Century, like (the 31st of July) 1914 was it for the 20th. But it are no longer states which are waging war, but wars that are making states. But then, unheard of sort of states: non-nation-states, states without teritorry, without citizens or borders, without (elected) governements, nay, these are virtual states, scattered war-states, fuzzy, networked octopus-states, community-states whose only borders are ideological. These states, just like virusses, evolve, adjust, mutate, invent and reinvent themselves everyday. Sometimes, their size is reduced to that of a lone individual who is an ideology, an army, a clear and present danger all unto himself. And a walking bomb. After the era of the statesmen comes the era of the state-men. The political state has become undistinguishable from the biological state. Over these past days, we have been bombarded with the metaphor of Pearl Harbour: nothing could be further from the truth. Pearl Harbour was an episode within a war. The 11th of september was the definition of an other type of war, the starting point for a new era in human history. The human element is now being affected all over the planet, since hyperwars feeds itself on the psychoses it creates by the permanent menace it exerts on all. Psychosis has become the continuation of war by other means. It gnaws at the individual, it eats up her/his mind, it shatters her/his rational structure. It is a war on the 'may be/ may be not' mode, whereby the horror is mainly a potential one. And thus, it is a war that may have a beginning, but no end. Hyperwar is built for the long run. It thrives in totality, that of the universe and of eternity. (Halelujah! - tr -) (Q&D translation by yours truly) Reposted without permission whatsoever # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and \"info nettime-l\" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net"}, {"response": 376, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (09:40)", "body": "A good Robert Scheer op-ed on the \"unleash the CIA\" blather can be found in today's LA Times at: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-091701scheer.column an editorial today in the LA Times raises another question about unsavory allies: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-000074763sep17.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcomment%2Deditorials"}, {"response": 377, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (09:44)", "body": "From: William Meyers To: , , , , Date: 9/15/01 3:12PM Subject: after the hit Dear Everyone, Here's an important document issued yesterday that we should all keep in mind: Human Rights Watch Response to Attacks on the U.S. Civilian Life Must Be Respected (New York, September 12, 2001) -- We profoundly condemn yesterday's cruel attacks in the United States and express our condolences to the victims and their loved ones. This was an assault not merely on one nation or one people, but on principles of respect for civilian life cherished by all people. We urge all governments to unite to investigate this crime, to prevent its recurrence, and to bring to justice those who are responsible. Last night, President Bush said that the United States \"will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbored them.\" Yet distinctions must be made: between the guilty and the innocent; between the perpetrators and the civilians who may surround them; between those who commit atrocities and those who may simply share their religious beliefs, ethnicity or national origin. People committed to justice and law and human rights must never descend to the level of the perpetrators of such acts. That is the most important distinction of all. There are people and governments in the world who believe that in the struggle against terrorism, ends always justify means. But that is also the logic of terrorism. Whatever the response to this outrage, it must not validate that logic. Rather, it must uphold the principles that came under attack yesterday, respecting innocent life and international law. That is the way to deny the perpetrators of this crime their ultimate victory. And here's the letter from HHDL to GWB that got released to the public yesterday: 1. The Dalai Lama's letter to the President of the United States of America --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Excellency, I am deeply shocked by the terrorist attacks that took place involving four apparently hijacked aircrafts and the immense devastation these caused. It is a terrible tragedy that so many innocent lives have been lost and it seems unbelievable that anyone would choose to target the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. We are deeply saddened. On behalf of the Tibetan people I would like to convey our deepest condolence and solidarity with the American people during this painful time. Our prayers go out to the many who have lost their lives, those who have been injured and the many more who have been traumatized by this senseless act of violence. I am attending a special prayer for the United States and it's people at our main temple today. I am confident that the United States as a great and powerful nation will be able to overcome this present tragedy. The American people have shown their resilience, courage and determination when faced with such difficult and sad situation. It may seem presumptuous on my part, but I personally believe we need to think seriously whether a violent action is the right thing to do and in the greater interest of the nation and people in the long run. I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence. But how do we deal with hatred and anger, which are often the root causes of such senseless violence? This is a very difficult question, especially when it concerns a nation and we have certain fixed conceptions of how to deal with such attacks. I am sure that you will make the right decision. With my prayers and good wishes The Dalai Lama September 12, 2001 Dharamsala, India And, for contrast, here's a little excerpt from today's Times about what life is like here today: The three major metropolitan airports in the New York region reopened in the late morning, but confusion reigned as schedules were strewn with cancellations, bags were searched and passengers were questioned aggressively. And in the evening, the three airports were closed because of the arrests at Kennedy and La Guardia. As for the rest of New York, it was to be a day of return to relatively normal life, with schools, theaters and many businesses reopening, and commuters traveling on bridges and through tunnels that had been closed. But instead of a nearly normal day, countless New Yorkers endured yet another psychological roller coaster. First came disheartening news. After days of vague but ominous estimates, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced in the late morning that 4,763 people were believed missing in the trade center rubble, bringing the possible death toll in the coordinated attacks to nearly 5,000 \ufffd more than double the 2,390 Americans lost at Pearl Harbor. The mayor said that only 184 bodies or body parts had been found, and that only 35 of them had been identified. Among the missing were 300 firefighters and 60 police officers. Three hours later, even as hope seemed to fade for those buried under the collapsed trade center, there were re"}, {"response": 378, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (10:03)", "body": "Also in the Independent an interesting analysis by Robert Fisk, their Beirut correspondent. He has lived the last 23 years in the Middle East, and he received the Brirish International Journalist of the Year award seven times. \"Bush is walking into a trap\" ... \"President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him.\" ... \"But this crime was perpetrated - it becomes ever clearer - to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the US military is preparing.\" \"Mr bin Laden - every day his culpability becomes more apparent - has described to me how he wishes to overthrow the pro-American regime of the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia and moving on to Egypt, Jordan and the other Gulf states. In an Arab world sunk in corruption and dictatorships - most of them supported by the West - the only act that might bring Muslims to strike at their own leaders would be a brutal, indiscriminate assault by the United States.\" ... \"\"America was targeted for attack,'' Mr Bush informed us on Friday, \"because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.'' But this is not why America was attacked. If this was an Arab-Muslim apocalypse, then it is intimately associated with events in the Middle East and with America's stewardship of the area.\" ... \"I will take a tiny risk and say that no other British newspaper - certainly no American newspaper - will today recall the fact that on 16 September 1982, Israel's Phalangist militia allies started their three-day orgy of rape and knifing and murder in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila that cost 1,800 lives. It followed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon designed to drive the PLO out of the country and given the green light by the then US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig which cost the lives of 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all of them civilians. That's probably three times the death toll in the World Trade Centre. Yet I do not remember any vigils or memorial services or candle-lighting in America or the West for the innocent dead of Lebanon; I don't recall any stirring speeches about democracy or liberty. In fact, my memory is that the United States spent most of the bloody months of July and August 1982 calling for \"restraint\".\" ... \"But America's failure to act with honour in the Middle East, its promiscuous sale of missiles to those who use them against civilians, its blithe disregard for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi children under sanctions of which Washington is the principal supporter - all these are intimately related to the society that produced the Arabs who plunged America into an apocalypse of fire last week.\" ... \"Every effort will be made in the coming days to switch off the \"why'' question and concentrate on the who, what and how. CNN and most of the world's media have already obeyed this essential new war rule.\" ... \"I repeat: what happened in New York was a crime against humanity. And that means policemen, arrests, justice, a whole new international court at The Hague if necessary. Not cruise missiles and \"precision'' bombs and Muslim lives lost in revenge for Western lives. But the trap has been sprung. Mr Bush - perhaps we, too - are now walking into it.\""}, {"response": 379, "author": "lafn", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (10:20)", "body": "Thanks Moon. I too wondered when that kind of sentiment was going to hit the press.They never have anything good to say about the US except when they need help."}, {"response": 380, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (10:22)", "body": "Dow down over 600, probably under 9000."}, {"response": 381, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (10:48)", "body": "Slate answers the question \"What does bin Laden want?\" Bin Laden and his followers are alarming because they don't want anything from us. They don't want our sympathy. They want no material thing we can offer them. They don't want to participate in the community of nations. (They don't really believe in the nation-state.) They are motivated by religion, not politics. They answer to no one but their god, so they certainly won't answer to us. http://slate.msn.com/Assessment/01-09-13/Assessment.asp"}, {"response": 382, "author": "mari", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (10:49)", "body": "I have been looking for an article that expresses the European point of view and this is it. It is secular as can be expected. Moon, before we label this \"the European point of view\" let's step back and ask any Europeans on this board if they agree. I did read that the BBC ran a panel discussion the other evening and the \"audience members\" reflected many of this article's views. However, the Beeb was flooded with more than 2,000 calls of protest from viewers who felt that there was a disproportionate amount of anti-Americanism espoused and that it did not reflect the feelings of the average person. BTW, our ambassador was on the program and was to said to have been reduced to tears. Greg Dyke, head of the BBC, later apologized to him. It is true that the foreign press tends to be very critical of America, and even in the calmest of times, resorts to cheap shots--but I am interested in finding out what the average person thinks. For which publication does Jonathan Powers write?"}, {"response": 383, "author": "lafn", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (11:39)", "body": "Mari, we are talking here of the media...print,audio and visual.The Fourth Estate.Not the ordinary guy on the street. The tone of that article is \"We told you so..\".Almost with glee. They have short memories of who pulls them out of binds. And , sadly,so do we ."}, {"response": 384, "author": "Echo", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (11:45)", "body": "Articles in the British press today suggest that the terrorist attack on America may have been meant not merely as a \"punishment\" but primarily to provoke American wrath and powerful military response which would then serve as a means of turning moderate Muslims against America and the Western world. If there is no response, they may attack again. Catch 22."}, {"response": 385, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (11:57)", "body": "Sad when people think the US response would be carpet bombing of Afghanistan. Even that I would protest as a waste of my taxpayer money. Judicious use of our resources may already be having effect. Yesterday I heard that assets were being frozen worldwide (even Swiss accounts) of known enemies, including government ministers of the Taliban. A bit of motivation for turning bin Laden in? There must be a response as history has shown us that appeasement is not acceptable when you are dealing with fanatics. People seem to have forgotten that."}, {"response": 386, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (12:21)", "body": "For which publication does Jonathan Powers write? He is a syndicated columnist based in London. I read it in The Miami Herald. the Beeb was flooded with more than 2,000 calls of protest from viewers who felt that there was a disproportionate amount of anti-Americanism espoused and that it did not reflect the feelings of the average person. I read this too, but the reason was that the people thought it was way to soon and therefore in very bad taste. The US Ambassador was brought to tears, FGS. They felt that the BBC should have taped and edited instead of airing it live. The unfortunate reality is that in general, there is a very strong anti-American sentiment in Europe. If there is no response, they may attack again. Catch 22. I would say, they will attack again. This is not a good situation to be in, but we're in it. I have said this before, it's the Crusades all over again. There must be a response as history has shown us that appeasement is not acceptable when you are dealing with fanatics. People seem to have forgotten that. England, Ireland, Spain and Italy have suffered greatly from terrorist attacks."}, {"response": 387, "author": "mari", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (12:23)", "body": "The tone of that article is \"We told you so..\".Almost with glee. I know, and that's very hurtful, but it's nothing new. But, if I could have one or the other, I'd rather have the support of the guy in the street. Not to mention the guy at 10 Downing. What I was trying to explore: is there one monolithic European viewpoint, and the answer of course is no. They have short memories of who pulls them out of binds. And , sadly,so do we. You can't keep throwing it up to people, or get into a pissing contest over who has paid the highest price. It's counterproductive, especially now."}, {"response": 388, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (12:30)", "body": "And the world was a *perfect* place when America was isolationist?"}, {"response": 389, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (12:33)", "body": ""}, {"response": 390, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (12:44)", "body": "I think that we (America) need to re-examine all of our foreign policies, keeping in mind what our intentions are towards that nation (as the policies have always been), but also how we may be perceived by those governments. I know that is not exactly how most people would like for us to be- reactionary instead of proactive- but I think looking at the stark contrast of opinions in just the messages the presses of the two countries are putting out, is astonishing (perhaps less so to the rest of the world than to us). I don't think that America can afford to continue in the pseudo-isolationist way that we've been for the last however many years. I personally do not agree with the current administration's take it or leave it attitude towards the world. It is quite obvious to me, at least, that we have ignored serious concerns that the rest of the world seems to see and understand. I know that not a lot of people agree with me, or would voice this opinion if they have it, but I do not think that we should be backing (or as we appear to be backing) Israel in the way we are right now. I understand the historical ties there, and all that they entail, but when we sit back and just remove ourselves entirely from the situation, what does that say? It says \"it's ok for you all to kill each other; we'll just sit back and wait.\" That's not right. There is no justification for the loss of any life there, Israeli or Palestinian, just as there is no justification for the loss of life here in NY, or in other parts of the Middle ast, Ireland, Asia, etc. Here is a very good article from The Economist magazine from last week's web addition. I can't find the URL...I emailed it to myself... AMERICA'S PLACE IN THE WORLD The devastation wrought on September 11th will shape the debate about American foreign policy for years to come A TABOO has been broken. The attacks on New York and Washington, DC so dwarf earlier examples of terrorism in the United States that they are, in effect, the bombing of mainland America that even the Japanese and the Nazis did not achieve during the second world war. For some time to come, most attention in the United States will be focused on the most pressing questions. Who perpetrated the attack? How to strike back at the culprits? How to protect America from another such terrorist atrocity? But once these questions are addressed, an even larger question will have to be faced: what is America's proper role in the world? Indeed, in a confused fashion, the debate on that question has already begun. While the administration has been determined to present a united front, and has largely succeeded, the very complexity of the task facing it has elicited statements which seem to point in different directions. Both George Bush and his secretary of state, Colin Powell, have emphasised that America is looking to its allies for support in an effort to launch a global fight against terrorism. They have spoken of the attacks on New York and Washington as attacks on freedom-loving people everywhere, not just on the United States. And yet, at the same time, they have made it clear that America will defend itself, implying it will retaliate alone if necessary. Although the administration would clearly like to build a Gulf war-style coalition to support its next steps, America's allies are rightly nervous that they will have little influence over an aroused and angered United States. American television and newspapers have been full of commentators calling for declarations of war or military intervention on the one hand, and calm restraint on the other. Some have said that it is essential to look to America's allies for support, others that America must take decisive action soon, no matter what the concerns of its friends abroad. Some have claimed that America's terrorist opponents can be crushed, and that any governments thought to have harboured terrorists should be attacked, whether or not it can be shown that they had anything to do with the assault this week. One NEW YORK TIMES columnist absurdly insisted that Congress should make a general declaration of war, even if it cannot say which country America is actually at war with. Others have argued that dropping bombs elsewhere in the world can never make America safe from another such attack, and that preserving civil liberties at home and expanding diplomatic, as well as military, efforts abroad is the only long-term approach. A NEW WORLD OF DISORDER What is clear is that the self-confidence which prompted George Bush senior, the father of the current president, to speak boldly about a \"new world order\" more than a decade ago, and which spawned such optimistic paeans to American values and the triumph of liberal democracies as Francis Fukuyama's \"The End of History\", will now look like the relics of a distant age. America may have won the cold war, and just completed a decade of unparallelled prosperity. But it evidently now lives in a much more dangerous and com"}, {"response": 391, "author": "mari", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (13:46)", "body": "Moon, this is the article I referred to. Again, I was commenting on viewer reaction--not the BBC's excuses. BBC sorry over anti-US TV audience LONDON (Reuters) - The head of the BBC, Greg Dyke, has apologised for broadcasting a live discussion programme in which audience members blamed U.S. foreign policy for Tuesday's terror attacks. More than 2,000 viewers complained after seeing the former U.S. Ambassador to Britain, Philip Lader, brought close to tears after attempts to express his sadness over the attacks were shouted down by people expressing anti-American views. \"On balance, I think it was an inappropriate programme to broadcast live just two days after the attacks in the United States and I would like to apologise to viewers who were offended by it,\" Dyke said in a statement. The scenes on the Question Time programme on Thursday night prompted Dyke, the BBC's Director General, to add: \"With hindsight this programme should have been recorded and edited before it was broadcast.\" \"I have today spoken to Philip Lader, and apologised for any distress the programme may have caused him,\" Dyke said. One audience member had asked whether the attacks were the result of a failure of US foreign policy \"with millions of people around the world despising the American nation,\" according to the Independent newspaper. Mr Lader, who was slow hand clapped by some members of the audience, was tearful. \"I find it hurtful that you are suggesting that a majority of the world despises the United States,\" he said according to news sources. The Sun newspaper said that one Arab woman replied: \"It is the American government which is talking about war.\" The programme's presenter, David Dimbleby, struggled to control the discussion and tempers became raised, according to the BBC. The Corporation said that many of those who complained about the programme said the audience seemed to contain a disproportionate number of people with anti-American views. The BBC said that the programme tried to pick audiences with a broad range of views and had hoped to stage a frank discussion about the attacks."}, {"response": 392, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (14:24)", "body": "Mari in the balance of things, there is a stronger anti-American view in general, therefore the balance was probably tilted correctly. A NEW WORLD OF DISORDER Globalization is a far off ideal. This is the real world, I hope world leaders get hip to the beat. I am just waiting to see when the call comes to the European \"allies\" who will respond. An interesting article, Liz. And I don't usually agree with the views of The Economist."}, {"response": 393, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (15:10)", "body": "So many articles I have read this morning, talk about how Bush and his \"take it or leave it\" arrrogant approach to world affairs, is partially responsible for the horrors of last Tuesday. Aren't these authors forgetting, that the ball for the horrific events of Sep 11, started rolling long before Bush came to power ? These hijackers were tucked away at their Florida flight schools when Bill Clinton was still in power and Bush Jr was just another politican. Clinton by the way, did a damm sight more to end terrorism than any other US President in history, in my homeland of Ireland. Pro US feelings probably run higher in Ireland, than in any other European country."}, {"response": 394, "author": "amw", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (15:18)", "body": "Everyone, I can assure you that from what I have heard, discussions on the radio, television, with people, ordinary people in the street, Politicians of all parties, no one is anti- American, you have our full and unqualified support, of that I am certain, I have heard no dissenters. Everyone in the UK is appalled and shocked by last week's tragedy, who would not be."}, {"response": 395, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (15:55)", "body": "Ann, One can have anti-American views and be appalled and shocked by last week's tragedy. The point is that in general that's the feeling in Europe. Pro US feelings probably run higher in Ireland, than in any other European country. Agreed! Aren't these authors forgetting, that the ball for the horrific events of Sep 11, started rolling long before Bush came to power? I agree again,Beth, but don't forget that the majority of the media in Europe is secular and socialist. That says it all!"}, {"response": 396, "author": "rachael", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (16:15)", "body": "Moon, in general, what's the feeling in Europe? anti American? as a European, I beg to disagree. Maybe there aren't as many Europeans on this board as on some of the other groups I'm in, but the out-pouring of feelings from all over Europe, indeed the world, has been amazing to see. And does questioning what a government does make you anti that govt? I don't think so, in fact I think its the essence of democracy. However it must be noted that it is no more correct to say \"Europeans think ...\" than it would be to say \"Americans think ...\" and to say that there is a sole European view would be incorrect. I suggest, very hesitantly, that there might be differences between English speaking and non English speaking nations - Beth would you say that's fair? BTW the mainstream media in the UK is far from socialist, despite what the Daily Bellylaugh would have us believe."}, {"response": 397, "author": "lafn", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (16:19)", "body": "\"The Corporation said that many of those who complained about the programme said the audience seemed to contain a disproportionate number of people with anti-American views. \" \"Anti- people\" are the ones that are mostly motivated to appear on those shows and most of them have hidden agendas. Ann, I know that the majority of the UK friends don't have those feelings. I have been listening to TV this aft and now is the time that all the special interest groups are gonna come out fighting.Get ready to hear from: the environmentalists, the animal rights people,pro -life, NOW, the various political parties, the extreme religious right. This is after all a democracy. Everyone has an opinion. This came yesterday from a British Theatre Newsletter: \"To all of our US subscribers, I know I speak for everyone else when I send you our deepest sympathies. Whether one agrees with US foreign policy or not, no one can condone mass murder or be unmoved by the scale of the tragedy which has struck your nation. I love New York and have many friends there. I am unable to express the depth of my horror at what has happened. Today, as I drove near my home, I saw some young children had set what in the UK we call a \"jumble sale\" on a grassed area. They were selling their toys and books to raise money for the American Red Cross and a US flag flew over the tables. I think that says far more than I can.\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We don't all agree with every foreign policy decision that is made, but to say we deserved the tragedy as that article intimated is barbaric."}, {"response": 398, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (16:25)", "body": "Moon, in general, what's the feeling in Europe? anti American? as a European, I beg to disagree. One can have anti-American views and be appalled and shocked by last week's tragedy. The point is that in general that's the feeling in Europe. I will stop repeating myself here as this point does not seem to get through. And does questioning what a government does make you anti that govt? I don't think so, in fact I think its the essence of democracy. To be truly \"democratic\" you should present both points of view. Unfortunately, and again I repeat, the majority of the media in Europe is secular and socialist. And it comes off very one-sided. I will add that I am very familiar with the Italian and French Media."}, {"response": 399, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (16:31)", "body": "Rob, my sympathies. Warmest Hugs on New Zealand's loss. Sorry you multinationals, but rolling over and playing dead will just play into their hands. If we don't stop it, they will take over the world. Good luck! Perhaps you don't want our help next time YOUR war starts?! I think I will go back to geology and astronomy where some rationality reigns."}, {"response": 400, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (16:49)", "body": "I think I will go back to geology and astronomy where some rationality reigns. LOL, Marcia! I don't wish to be misunderstood. I think everyone should join forces with the US to fight this war. I would like it to be a united effort and I was only questioning whether it will be. Whether the European allies will join the US? I hope to God that they will. There is no socialist/secular blood in my veins!"}, {"response": 401, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (17:01)", "body": "I really think at this stage, most Americans look on the candle light vigils and the expressions of sympathy and support as really nice and up lifting. However, ( those who are in favour of military action ) believe that while expressions of support are wonderful, it is time for European governments to put their money where their mouth is and show their support in more concrete terms. Italy said yesterday for example, that while they condemm the terrorist attacks, they will not coperate with the US in any military actions the US takes. They think that this is America's fight and not their own. I wonder will they still think that, if the next plane to be hikacked is an Italian one ? So having a nation wide moment of silence in your country is a lovely thing, it ISnot going to get the job done against the terorists. I don't think pro or anti American feelings are causing European nations to react as they do to possible military actions. I think it is simply whether or not they are willing to get their hands dirty to wipe out a threat that affects us all. Some will be, some won't be....simple as that. Plus I really feel a lot of this so called anti-American sentiment is based largely on resentment, based on America wealth and power. They resent America for having such an abundance of riches when they are living, if not a hand to mouth exhistance, at least a less luxurious one. America is percieved as the big, ugly kid in the corner who can boss people around simply because they can. Then are then disliked and picked on, when in fact they may be simple and peace loving as the rest of us. Every time I go home to Ireland, I get little digs from friends and family about my jet set life style and my fabulous standard of living, simply beacuse I live in America. I mean it is ridiculous. They have no clue what my life is really like and, that it is on many levels, just as hard as theirs. But that little bit if resentment is always there. It drives me nuts. I really think a lot of this sentiment has its roots in WW2 too. The USA bailed Europe out of a big ole nasty mess 50 years ago, and then gave Europe a ton of money to rebuild itself. This messed with Eropeans sense of their own self worth as they needed a vulgar, upstart of a nation to save their butts 50 years ago. No one likes the feeling of being permanantly beholden to someone. If they can take a little dig at America and how messed up its foreign policy is, then maybe in some sad little way, it ressures them that they are not just one tiny, little European country.....but that they are still the great colonial power from 100 years ago. They hate the fact that the US has a larger role to play in world affairs than they do and resent them as a result. I'm sorry if my thoughts sound vague or disjointed. I'm getting ready to go to an Aerosmith concert, as I type. I had been looking forward to it for weeks, but now I'd give anything not to go. Concerts seem so trivial now...... somehow....sigh....."}, {"response": 402, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (17:38)", "body": "Excellent summation, Beth. I've thought that for a long time. Makes them appear even more petty in my mind. I doubt the US wants all the countries/peoples of the world that we've help to feel beholden to us, but at least they can act like friends rather than enemies, sniping at everything we do. Try factoring in a longer-term perspective. There have been many world powers, countries whose influence has extended beyond their borders. Some have conquered other peoples. Some only exert economic influence. These date back to the beginning of time. The US's standing as a global power has only been for a mere 50 years or so. Think about how long there was a British Empire or a French empire. If our culture has overwhelmed others, at least it is not due to military occupation. This afternoon, while driving around, I was trying to come up with equivalents, i.e., if the commercial jetliners had crashed into symbols of other countries. I thought about Italy or France but could only come up with symbols of their past. If our so-called allies do not support us, this is one time I would definitely advocate picking up our ball and bat and going home. Rots a ruck."}, {"response": 403, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (18:07)", "body": "This afternoon, while driving around, I was trying to come up with equivalents, i.e., if the commercial jetliners had crashed into symbols of other countries. I thought about Italy or France but could only come up with symbols of their past. I thought of this too. The only place would be a football match, perhaps a qualifying World Cup Match. That thought is scary. Milan's stadium holds 84,000 people. Italy said yesterday for example, that while they condemm the terrorist attacks, they will not coperate with the US in any military actions the US takes. That was a rumour. I believe that the Italian Gov. has stated that they will support the US with their military, planes, ships etc. Berlusconi supports Bush and the US. Luckily, his coalition have a majority in the Senate and the House. This would not have been the case had the Socialist won the last election."}, {"response": 404, "author": "amw", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (18:16)", "body": "Moon One can have anti-american views and be appalled... Moon, it's not just that at least not in the UK, Tony Blair has repeated time and again in interviews that the UK Government is behind the US in whatever it takes and I do believe that this time the UK Public is right behind the government, urging caution, not just because of the US but for democracy and the fact that what happened in NY could happen in London. In fact it wasn't many years ago that the John Major cabinet in Downing Street was attacked by Rockets fired by the IRA."}, {"response": 405, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (18:41)", "body": "Ann, I never doubted the UK's backing or Italy's for that matter. I am more worried about France, Belgium, etc."}, {"response": 406, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (20:26)", "body": "(Moon)The only place would be a football match, perhaps a qualifying World Cup Match. That thought is scary. Milan's stadium holds 84,000 people. But a football match, while upping the casualty toll, is not symbolic. Two days before the WTC and Pentagon were hit, there were three major sports events taking place within a few miles of eachother--nearly 80K at a Jets game in East Rutherford, thousands at the US Open Tennis Tournament in Queens, and I believe the Yankees played at home in the Bronx. Yankee Stadium holds about 60K. You've got around 175,000 people concentrated in three easy-to-hit targets within less than 20 miles. bin Laden wasn't going for large numbers of people."}, {"response": 407, "author": "lafn", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (20:49)", "body": "Italy said yesterday for example, that while they condemm the terrorist attacks, they will not coperate with the US in any military actions the US takes. At today's press conference with Secretary Powell, a journalist told him that rumor and he denied it. Said his Italian counterpart would be in Washington in a few days."}, {"response": 408, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (21:04)", "body": "Hi all I got BAD news for anyone worried about the Taliban response. According to our local daily the Taliban is moving Scud missiles (the sort that hit Israel in the Gulf War)around and has called up 20000 fighters to fight any ground war. Are you sure you got the right targets, because God help the Western world and anyone who fell into cahoots with the United States if you have not. There are two kinds of war - the undeclared war like this one where military strikes are carried out but no official declaration of war, and a general war involving the mobilisation of the armed forces and the cancellation of diplomatic relations by declaring war. On to other things. Let me be absolutely clear, I am not trying to undermine the greiving process or the determination to retaliate when I write the following. I support the impending war insofar as the right targets are hit and that it give the appearance of the international coalition being united. What I do not support is an all out war (a world war would not be impossible in this case), because I am pretty certain no one wants mushroom clouds and radioactive darts doing a sinister ballet across the skies. You may ask what has Colombia got to do with anything at the moment, but have you honestly ever considered the fact that unwanted involvement on the part of the CIA and Pentagon in places like Colombia has fuelled the conflict there to the point that it has the capacity to possibly engulf neighbouring countries? Or how about the International Monetary Fund in African countries where the nebulous Multinational Corporations that have corporate HQ in New York ply their trade at dirt cheap rates? The IMF will not allow financial aid to these countries while corruption and other problems are rife in them. Fair enough. But to sort out those problems in part requires IMF help. So what does all this have to do with anything? Well, that coupled with things like the $30 billion National Missile Defence system and things like withdrawing from international environmental protocols (I know that the Climate Protocol is dogged by not knowing whether warming is cyclical or not), has a few countries fuming (pro-US and anti-US)because they see the United States as using them for it's own gain and every western country including New Zealand is guilty to some extent. Still not a reason to attack the WTC, but the faceless cowards that did probably used something like this to justify their attack. Maybe Bush can soften his stance on trade and thing like the environmental protocols since they are designed to protect our offspring, and open dialogue with North Korea before Kim Il Jong decides to restart the missile programme that crippled his nation. I may lose some friends for this, but it is my honest opinion (one that existed well before Bush came to power, but has come to the fore because he has it in his power if he wants to, to change a few things). I do not advocate a general change in foreign policy or a reduction on arms spending and certainly don't want to open the United States to something even worse, but I would look at a couple things long and hard. Rob All arguments to my e-mail. I am certain Marcia did not intend Geo to become a warzone."}, {"response": 409, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (21:45)", "body": "Do any of you know of any websites that I can tell her about, that give out info on what supplies are still needed ? I tried the Red Cross website, but didn't get much info.(Beth) Here are a couple of info sites about how to help. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010924/help.html http://www.helping.org/"}, {"response": 410, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (21:45)", "body": "20,000 fighters? Is that a typo? The $30 billion National Missile Defense system has been rendered less relevant. This might better be spent on counter bioterror measures."}, {"response": 411, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (22:10)", "body": "Rob, you may post anything any time in anything I have anything to do with. Your statistics are staggering. Columbia, of course!!! We have a long litany of nefarious deeds in the name of \"Patriotism\". Anthrax, anyone? What a horrible way to die! It will be conventional because any other kind of war will kill mankind and every other living thing... That is why I posted a ribbon on Geo's front page..."}, {"response": 412, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (22:34)", "body": "Subject: Monday morning Date: Monday, September 17, 2001 12:57 PM From: Womack, Jack Yes, Monday morning. Took longer than usual to go as far as 72nd as the local is now running on the express tracks and the express is running on the local tracks. Have assumed, as with everything that has so far occured, that this condition is now permanent. Here at work my colleague Dee Dee is back at work today; she came in with her husband, Gavin. It's a typical story, now: he was on the 104th floor of the South Tower. When the first plane hit the other tower three guys in his office got up and immediately went downstairs, catching the elevator to 75 and then taking the express down. By the time the three guys got to the lobby the second building had been hit. Her brother-in-law called her sister twice, the second time to say smoke was filling the floor and he was on his way down. \"He fucked up,\" Dee Dee's brother kept saying. He was working in the World Financial Center, across the West Side Highway from the Trade Towers, was outside when the second plane hit. Says that dozens were jumping, you weren't sure what they were at first. When the first tower collapsed everybody, he said, started to run. Uncontrolled mass panic on the part of everyone, swarming up along the river walk to the highway. (There've been plenty of reports of injuries suffered by people trampled in the two stampedes away from the collapsing buildings). By the time he got to the Village, the second tower collapsed. As you might imagine he's got a combat-level thousand yard stare; I'd forgotten but now remember older brothers etc. looking like that, back in the late 60s and early 70s, after they came back from Vietnam. My neighbor, across the hall, a young Latina woman (and her seven-year-old son) is fine, although she worked in a building across the street from the Towers. Again, she was outside when the first one started to come down; her particular crowd streamed eastward as far as they could go, then up. \"I guess you'll be seeing me around the apartment the next few weeks.\" Friday night Valeria read what I'd written so far. \"You are describing events,\" she told me. \"Not emotion.\" And she's absolutely right. So let me say how I'm feeling this morning, and how I've been feeling. The first thing I want to make clear is how gratified I was to know that V was all right, last Tuesday; how overwhelmed with happiness, how comforted. We weren't sure we were going to see each other that day, but once the trains to Brooklyn began, she was able to get back. We have spent as much time as we have together, since. I feel deeply blessed, and feel as guilty. When I think of what Ellen and Ellie & all those of our friends who live south of 14th went through (and in the case of Ellie, still going through; her place might not be accessible again for weeks, at the least; she's headed up to New Hampshire.) I know we came out very, very lucky. We came out easy, in fact. I'm feeling terrible nostalgia for buildings that I never found attractive, except sometimes at a distance. I think of all the times I went through the mall underneath the towers, on my way to the PATH station to go visit Valeria when she still lived in Jersey City. During the past three years I became very familiar with everything down there. I remember V & I meeting her mother down there, at the head of the escalators that went up from the station. She'd stand and wait in front of Godiva, which was next to an HSBC branch. I remember being down at the Border's WTC back in June (last time I was there, in fact) when Gaiman had his tour kickoff appearance. I remember walking with Katya & Carrie & Robert Legault across the bridge that led between the towers & World Financial Center, en route to Ellie's apartment, for the wake after the memorial service for Jenna, April 6. The orchid show was going on, and the bridge and Palm Court downstairs (also destroyed, pretty much, though the palms are still standing) were full of orchids. On our refrigerator is a little card of a Boston bull terrier Carrie sent us a month or so ago, thanking us for brunch; she'd bought the card in the mall underneath with Ellie. Any of us might have been there, and but for the grace of God, or synchronicity, or something, we weren't. Not this time, at least. This isn't a comforting feeling, still. Familiar landmarks vanish constantly in NY -- they're getting ready, or have been getting ready, to build a new Columbia building around the corner from me at 110th where D'agostino was -- but never before have so many vanished so quickly, so awfully. I cannot begin to imagine what the place will look like, once it has finally been cleared. I haven't looked at a newspaper since Saturday morning except just to glimpse headlines & pages(I did save them, though); I haven't turned on any of the news programming except at the request of others when they've come to visit. The more I saw the worse I was feeling -- jittery, irritable, unable to focu"}, {"response": 413, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (22:36)", "body": "Subject: The Weekly PoliTicker Date: Monday, September 17, 2001 9:49 AM From: PoliticsOnline To: Special Edition: Analysis of the Role of the Internet and the Attack on America Note From: Phil Noble (phil@politicsonline.com) President, PoliticsOnline 843 853 8190 office phone 843 296 1490 mobile PoliticsOnline has received many calls from journalists and others about what role the Internet is playing in the current crisis. To respond we have 1) developed this Special Report that outlines the six key points in understanding the developments and, 2) created a special section on our web site (www.PoliticsOnline.com) to track these developments and provide a research and reference source. The attack on the Pentagon is indeed ironic when we remember that it was the Army that started it all way back in 1969 with a project called ARPNET. They wanted to design a system that would allow computers to communicate in times of national disaster. They were planning on missile attacks from the Russians, not civilian airplane attacks from terrorists. As one analyst noted, during this crisis people turned to the Internet for what they needed and wanted, just as they began doing with the telephone many years ago. Recently the focus has been on the crash of the tech stocks and the success and failures of e-commerce. This week the Internet stories were about the technology was incorporated into the daily life of average citizens in these extraordinary times. This week the Internet truly became The People's Channel. 1. What the Net does best is Communications and Connections In this crisis, the Internet did what it does best - communicating and connecting. For those personally caught up in the crisis, it was a means of communications when other means failed. People stranded in the World Trade Center Towers sent e-mails and instant messages to their loved ones; Blackberrys and pagers came through when mobile phones and land lines failed. Hundreds of online groups formed to do all the things people wanted to do - reach out to each other, share their grief, search for friends and loved ones. * NY.com (www.ny.com) created an interactive database listing survivors from the Trade Center collapse. Within 24 hours they had 2,600 listings. * Hundreds of people posted prayers, related prayer circles and discussions groups on Beliefnet (www.beliefnet.com), a popular non-denominational site. * United (www.ual.com) and American Airlines (www.americanairlines.com) posted information and listed phone numbers for people to call looking for more information on their crashes. * People used Yahoo Groups to create numerous discussion groups to share information, express grief and vent their anger. Survivor Databases Offered by NY.Com and Prodigy (InternetNews) Ny.com, a Web site that calls itself the \"paperless guide to New York City\" and Prodigy, the national ISP, are offering interactive databases listing survivors of Tuesday's World Trade Center collapse. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_882651,00.html Web Offers Both News and Comfort (New York Times) The major news Web sites were quickly overloaded. Many links to the not-so- major news Web sites stopped working. But more than news, what people all over the world craved in the wake of yesterday's terrorist attacks was connection to each other, and many of them found that most easily achieved by going online. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_882651,00.html After Attack, the Net Reassures and Informs (USA Today) As phone systems faltered in the aftermath of Tuesday's terrorist attack, the nation clung to the Net, reaching out to friends and loved ones, praying, spreading accusations and gossip, and overwhelming news and information sites. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001/09/12/more Net Offers Lifeline Amid Tragedy (CNET) People in New York City and around the globe turned to the Internet on Tuesday to communicate with their families and to grasp the horrific sequence of terrorist attacks that transformed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon into disaster zones. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7132246.html Internet Performs Global Role, Supplementing TV (Online Journalism Review) History expands. Terribly. In 1914, two bullets fired at an automobile driving through the streets of Sarajevo killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Sophia, his wife. Their deaths led to World War One. http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=637 Web Acts as Hub For Info On Attacks (CNET) Moments after airplanes separately crashed into both towers of the World Trade Center, and then later the Pentagon, Web sites for the major news outlets were swamped by an overflow of traffic. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7129241.html E-Mail Indispensable as Phone Systems Jam (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) As the World Trade Center collapsed and planes plunged from the sky, sending and receiving e-mail -- the most popular Internet activity -- became the indispensable com"}, {"response": 414, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 17, 2001 (22:55)", "body": "Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:18:52 -0700 From: William Meyers To: terry@spring.net, paul@spring.net Subject: more Paul, Here's another fragment: As soon as we got to work that morning word went around that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center -- and soon after that, another one. Then the rumor took flight that there were five more hijacked airliners in the air. There was the distinct thought in the collective mind that at any moment we could be vaporized too -- that so far we were simply among the lucky ones, and no different from those whose luck had just run out. I took a walk around midtown Manhattan at mid-day, through the herds of people streaming up the avenues and through the park toward their uptown apartments -- strangely silent and subdued, preoccupied and fearful, many stopping off and lining up at their ATMs to tank up for future uncertainties. Down at the end of Sixth and Fifth Avenues, where the twin towers used to be, a thick volcanic cloud of smoke and ash was roiling up in a dome -- falling like a gray snow on downwind Brooklyn later in the afternoon. All the cops you could see were already wearing flak jackets -- not a one without one -- and carrying shotguns. Hundreds of firefighters and medical rescuers were killed after the first blast when rushing to help -- that was the most disturbing part. Not that the thought of those poor people trapped in those planes was any less disturbing. I was in my office most of the day, listening to people's radios and checking the Internet bulletins/images on my computer. We knew our building could just as easily have been on fire and crumbling to the ground. It was a day of palpable grief, most of those who showed up leaving early, and work moving along at close to a standstill -- very heavy emotions welling up in everyone. \"It could just as easily have been me\" was the prevailing compassionate thought for all the victims. heavy emotions welling up in everyone. \"It could just as easily have been me\" was the prevailing compassionate thought for all the victims. At any rate, enough fear and grief was inflicted to keep the anguished and vengeful spirits who perpetrated the deed happy in their disembodied misery. What did they prove, though, but that even at the Pentagon they're just another bunch of vulnerable protoplasmic beings wishing they were happy. Luckily we had made our reservations for another round-trip flight to San Francisco just the day before -- we couldn't have managed it any later. They were for a Thanksgiving trip. Maybe by then we'll start to feel better again about flying. There's a new, more explicit message from the Dalai Lama today, calling for a nonviolent response to the tragic events. But I can't send that on to you until tomorrow. Wm"}, {"response": 415, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (00:13)", "body": "Italy said yesterday for example, that while they condemm the terrorist attacks, they will not coperate with the US in any military actions the US takes. It wasn't exactly a rumour - maybe a partial misquote: Italian defence minister rules out Italian troop role ROME, Sept 16 (AFP) - Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino on Sunday said Italian troops would not take part in any US retaliation after the terror attacks and that use of the term \"war\" was inappropriate. \"The term 'war' is inappropriate. It is not a conflict between states and Italian troops will not go anywhere,\" Martino told the RAI television station. \"I feel I am in a position to categorically exclude calling on the army,\" he said. The defence minister warned that \"nobody had better strike randomly,\" adding that 100,000 Italian soldiers were involved in various peacekeeping missions abroad. He said the US would certainly take military action once the perpetrators of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon had been identified, and only then \"will we see what we are called upon to do.\" Asked about Saudi-born extremist Osama bin Laden's role in the attacks, Martino said \"the idea that one man is behind this tragedy is misguided.\" In an interview with the daily Il Messaggero published Sunday, Martino urged the US not to act alone in the event of a military operation. _________________ Monday, 17 September, 2001, 09:01 GMT 10:01 UK Italy ready to retaliate against terrorists The Italian defence minister has made it clear that his armed forces are ready to take part in any action that may be agreed in retaliation against the attacks on the United States. The minister, Antonio Martino, told the BBC that he was misquoted when he appeared to have suggested yesterday Sunday that no Italian troops would take part in such operations. Mr Martino said that intelligence would first have to show clearly who the real culprits were, but once that was done, Italy's commitment would be total and absolute. From the newsroom of the BBC World Service"}, {"response": 416, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (00:34)", "body": "I am beginning to burn out on this. I put a ribbon on my front page (Geo's) Please feel free to borrow it for wherever you wish to place it."}, {"response": 417, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (02:41)", "body": "Hi all IT IS WAR. OFFICIAL. THE TALIBAN HAS DECLARED A HOLY WAR IN AFGHANISTAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. 20000 FIGHTERS STAND READY TO DIE FOR WHAT THEY PERCEIVE TO BE A GREATER CAUSE AND WHAT WE PERCEIVE TO BE MADNESS. Source: Television One New Zealand. See http://www.stuff.co.nz for more on the New Zealand coverage. I absolutely had to post this for everyone to read. See more at Stuff.co.nz - Canterbury (not sure where under Canterbury it will get posted). It was written by a nine year old school boy and featured on the front page of the Press edition for September 18, 2001. by Charles MacDonald, a pupil at Mount Pleasant Primary School In America on a Tuesday morning An EVIL force struck without warning Planes hit the buildings, people screamed A terrible accident so it seemed The towers and Pentagon both took hits The 1st tower fell and smashed to bits. The terrified bystanders choked by the smoke While the Palestinians thought it a joke Reality of it all came clear As another plane smashed in the middle of nowhere The fear and drama continued hour after hour As down came the 2nd tower The attack had cost many lives Heart-broken men cry for their wives. We DON'T want war but PEACE instead only to feel safe in our bed. Rob"}, {"response": 418, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (03:01)", "body": "Sorry my friends, but this appears to be war. The Taliban has said ANYONE HARBOURING UNITED STATES BASES ARE ALSO ON THE HIT LIST. Marcia, dear, the drumbeat of Mars is getting louder, the brass is getting more and more menacing. I for once think the possibility of a big Middle East war involving EVERYONE is not so far of after all. Rob"}, {"response": 419, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (09:42)", "body": "More from William Meyers CALCUTTA, India, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama urged the United States on Monday not to respond militarily to last week's devastating attacks, saying only nonviolence could combat international terrorism. \"While I express my sympathy, I have appealed to the U.S. president not to respond with more violence as violence is not an appropriate answer,\" the Tibetan Buddhist leader told a news conference in Calcutta. The Dalai Lama fled from his homeland to India with thousands of followers in 1959, nine years after the Chinese army entered Tibet and overthrew the Buddhist theocracy there. The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate's comments came after Pope John Paul appealed on Sunday to the world not to allow the attacks on New York and Washington to lead to more violence, and not to allow \"a spiral of hate and violence\" to prevail. The United States has pledged to avenge the attacks by hijacked airliners that slammed into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon near Washington last Tuesday. NONVIOLENCE ONLY ANSWER \"Most cases of violence only cause destruction...these things will have to be prevented the nonviolent way. Only nonviolent means can counter terrorism in the long-term,\" the Dalai Lama said. The United States has said Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, harbored by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, was the prime suspect behind the attacks in which some 5,000 people were killed or are missing. Bin Laden, a 44-year-old multimillionaire, has denied he was responsible, saying Afghanistan would not permit it. The Dalai Lama said he believed there were numerous causes for the attacks. \"Every event has many causes...you can't just pick up one individual -- Osama bin Laden -- and say he was responsible. That is not realistic,\" said the Dalai Lama, whose exiled government accuses China of repression in Tibet. \"The economic gap between the rich and poor nations is one factor (that could have been responsible),\" he said. But the Dalai Lama said the attacks could not have been sanctified by any religion. \"The essence of all major religions is compassion, forgiveness, contentment, self-discipline and brotherhood,\" he said. \"Some people may only be using the name of religion to justify their actions.\""}, {"response": 420, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (10:19)", "body": "\"Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.\" http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm That's not the only rumour coming out of Pakistan : \"Reuters news agency quoted a Pakistani army captain as saying the Taliban had moved a large number of weapons, including missiles, to positions near the Pakistani border.\" http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1549000/1549700.stm"}, {"response": 421, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (10:53)", "body": "Who would've ever thought watching Dave Letterman would be a gut-wrenching experience as it was last night. And to see Dan Rather break down twice. Really makes you wonder how those newscasters have managed over the past week. It's apparent to me that, in working 18+ hrs a day, they've been unable to deal with it on a personal level."}, {"response": 422, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (11:18)", "body": "Dan Rather is human. He's 70 years old. Taliban declares a jihad against the US: \"I would like to tell my people that our jihad will be formally resuming against the Americans,\" the deputy chairman of the Taliban Council of Ministers, Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhond, said in a speech broadcast late on Monday. Akhond said it was unimaginable that the \"terror attacks\" against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been committed by the Taliban or by Osama bin Laden. Also from MSNBC:"}, {"response": 423, "author": "toyce", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (12:03)", "body": "This is just a subjective thought on my part, but I feel strongly about this. I think that bin Laden has a politcal agenda that is much larger than just getting the US out of the Middle East region. He's using religion to \"cloak\" that agenda. Has anyone thought what he might do if his first objective was ever realized? I think he would then turn his \"holy wrath\" to Middle Eastern governments who did not agree with him. The first one would probably be Saudi Arabia, since he is supposedly persona non grata there. I feel that his utlimate aim is to create a Middle Eastern theorcracy with himself, his son, or lieutenants at the helm."}, {"response": 424, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (12:17)", "body": "I disagree, Toyce. This is Jihad. And it is against the West. The Italian defence minister has made it clear that his armed forces are ready to take part in any action that may be agreed in retaliation against the attacks on the United States. Is Italy the first allied country to offer this? Where are the other allies? Bin Laden has many cells in Europe. The French intelligence discovered a plan to blow up the Eiffel Tower recently and where able to stop it. As Karen has said, in Europe there are many buildings that they could blow up but not as many people would die because they are not skyscapers. The Vatican on Sunday when the Pope holds his outdoor mass. That would be disastrous. Italy is on high alert."}, {"response": 425, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (12:29)", "body": "Terry, you miss my point. (Moon) As Karen has said, in Europe there are many buildings that they could blow up but not as many people would die because they are not skyscapers. You also miss my point."}, {"response": 426, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (12:37)", "body": "You also miss my point. It's two against one, Karen. ;-) So will you leave us hanging?"}, {"response": 427, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (13:29)", "body": "re toyce's comment, I read one explanation about Bin Laden's actions that said something like (and I paraphrase) its not as simple as a Holy War because he's not just anti the west, he's anti other Muslim nations who don't agree with his particular brand of totalitarianism. Dunno if that's right, but it does make a bit of sense in the light of his exile from Saudi Arabia. the thing that puzzles me is, he's said to be so phenomenally rich, where did all that dosh come from? And maybe I'm being dim here, but isn't a contradiction in terms to be a multi-millionaire and be anti capitalism?"}, {"response": 428, "author": "toyce", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (13:32)", "body": "Rachael. I doubt he can explain it either."}, {"response": 429, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (13:44)", "body": "(Moon) As Karen has said, in Europe there are many buildings that they could blow up but not as many people would die because they are not skyscapers. (Karen) You also miss my point. I get your point. Moon, did you see my last post? These terrorists were not merely after mass casualties."}, {"response": 430, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (14:08)", "body": "Moon, did you see my last post? I did. And I agree with you, Eileen. The Twin Towers were a symbol as the Eiffel Tower and the Vatican are. Had the Twin Towers been struck later in the day the casulaties would have been higher. I do think that countries would have a stroger reaction to deaths of their citizens rather than the destruction of a symbolic building empty. The worse case is for both at once as in the Twin Towers or God forbid, the outdoor mass at the Vatican. Hugh stadiums in Europe have also become symbols and that is why I used that example yesterday."}, {"response": 431, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (15:16)", "body": "Europe may not have as many huge skyscrapers as we do over here, but they do have some. A hit on Canary Wharf in London for example, would probably result in thousands of deaths. However, to Londoners, that is just a very tall building. It lacks the national symolism that a hit on something like Buckingham Palace would have. Jeez, I can't believe I am sitting here calming talking about blowing up buildings as if I'm playing battleships or something....this is all very weird. Rachael....bin Laden is the son of a Saudi construction billionaire. His father was the Donald Trump of the Arab world in the 40's and 50's and is/was filthy rich. His family in Saudi Arabia have apparantly long since disowned him, but we presume he was still able to get his hands on some of the family loot, to use for his evil purposes."}, {"response": 432, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (15:35)", "body": "Quite right, Eileen and Beth, the targets had to be symbolic (financial evils or government evils), with loss of life secondary. That's why the Eiffel Tower hardly qualifies or a mere football stadium. (Moon) Had the Twin Towers been struck later in the day the casulaties would have been higher. Ensuring the timing of the attack was first and foremost, as opposed to hitting the towers at peak occupancy. They did that by using the first transcontinental flights of the day where the likelihood of delays was minimized. All the planes had to be in the air at approximately the same time and not sitting on runways waiting for approval to take off."}, {"response": 433, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (15:49)", "body": "Rob, thanks for your eloquence as usual. Nothing is as deadly as a \"holy War\" whhx makes it so terrifying. From the crusdades onward ([probably before that, too) we have fought over which of Abraham's sons was his rightful heir. We have missed God in all this infighting. Tha same Father but human sons who continue to perpetuate animosity and death in His name. The West will certainly suffer. What can be done other than arguing with former friends and wringing hands. It is not time to be divisive. Surely our survival supercedes all the little dlaws one sees in the other's interpretations of all that is too horrible to contemplate. God help us even if you don't believe..."}, {"response": 434, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (16:18)", "body": "(Karen) All the planes had to be in the air at approximately the same time and not sitting on runways waiting for approval to take off. Yet for all their in-depth research, the terrorists couldn't get the flight from Newark in the air with the others. It pulled away from the gate at 8-ish (same as the other flights) but waited in line for takeoff for more than 30 mins. This type of delay is so common at EWR one has to wonder if this was built into their plan or if it had an effect on the outcome. I get a strange sense of comfort from the latter. I also read or heard early flights were likely selected because they were relatively empty--less passengers to control."}, {"response": 435, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (17:24)", "body": "(Karen), That's why the Eiffel Tower hardly qualifies That is a symbol of the industrial revolution, which in a sense started us on this Godless path. I would say it is a symbol."}, {"response": 436, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (18:11)", "body": "(Moon)Is Italy the first allied country to offer this? Where are the other allies? This is long, but an excellent round-up of countries and reactions. Key Nations' Reactions to Attacks Tuesday September 18 9:32 AM ET Countries Take Action on US Attacks By The Associated Press, International actions and events connected with the U.S. campaign to find and punish those responsible for attacks on New York and Washington. EUROPE: - ALBANIA: Declared it stood on the side of the United States and its Western allies in the fight against terrorism, offered use of Albanian airspace, ports and airports to the United States and its allies. - AUSTRIA: Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said his country would allow the use of Austrian airspace and provide whatever support it can, but Austrian soldiers would not become involved in military action because that is banned by Austria's constitution. - BELARUS: President Alexander Lukashenko, who had often lashed out at the United States, sent his condolences to the American people. Belarus did not join Russia and other European nations in observing a moment of silence last week, and some officials said the terror attacks had been prompted by arrogant U.S. policies. - BELGIUM: Organized an anti-terrorist sweep following the attacks, holding two suspects on charges of possible involvement in planning an attack on U.S. interests in Europe. As current president of the European Union (news - web sites), it has also played host to emergency meetings of EU foreign ministers to show support for the United States. - BOSNIA: Stepped up security for U.S. citizens and property. ``This country will offer any kind of assistance the United States government may ask for,'' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Amer Kapetanovic. - BRITAIN: Urged its citizens to leave parts of Pakistan amid fears that U.S. retaliation might target neighboring Afghanistan (news - web sites). Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), who has pledged British support for U.S. action against the terrorists, called President Bush (news - web sites)'s handling of the attack and its aftermath ``absolutely right'' and praised the U.S. administration's consultations with allies. BRITAIN: The Bank of England cut its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.75 percent as part of a coordinated global effort to boost consumer borrowing and spending in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks. Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) spoke by telephone with Chinese President Jiang Zemin (news - web sites) in an effort to build support for international action. BULGARIA: Prime Minister Simeon Saxcoburggotski pledged support for an international campaign against terror. Foreign Minister Solomon Pasi said his country, which is applying for NATO (news - web sites) membership, was ``ready to act as a (virtual) NATO ally'' in the campaign. -CROATIA: Supports United States against terrorism. However, Prime Minister Ivica Racan expressed concerns Monday that the European Union countries may now seek to impose tougher measures on their borders to prevent entry of potential terrorists, isolating non-members, including Croatia. CZECH REPUBLIC: Security was increased at the country's airports and other sensitive points such as nuclear power plants and dams. All unscheduled flights were forbidden. The government expressed its full support to the United States for military action against the terrorists. - DENMARK: As a NATO member, Denmark supports a joint action against terrorism, and the government asked intelligence agencies to track down possible supporters in Denmark. The Faeroe Islands and Greenland, both semiautonomous Danish territories, sent letters of condolence late Tuesday and held two minutes of silence on Friday. - ESTONIA: Was quick to condemn the airborne attacks, and the Foreign Ministry said the nation was ``prepared to provide to the United States any assistance within the scope of its capabilities.'' Estonia and its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania also expressed concerns that the crisis might put NATO enlargement on the back burner. FINLAND: Has beefed up security at borders, airports and outside embassies and increased air surveillance. Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen said ``the likelihood of terrorist attacks against Finland or Finnish targets abroad is very small.'' - FRANCE: Defense Minister Alain Richard said France was confident the United States would react responsibly to last week's terror attacks, but he cautioned against using force alone to retaliate. ``We must use it in a way that doesn't provoke other elements of instability,'' he said. - GEORGIA: Officials have said they were ready to offer any help to the United States in its efforts to find and punish the perpetrators of the attacks. - GERMANY: Interior Minister Otto Schily called for a review of ``our entire intelligence strategy'' after three men who lived quietly in Hamburg for years were implicated in the terror attacks in the United States"}, {"response": 437, "author": "rachael", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (18:28)", "body": "excellent and useful summary, thanks suzee UK news today has been reporting Blair doing major diplomatic stuff to get countries to agree to united action (in particular 6 African states, and China); also that he will be in the US to meet Bush on Thursday, clear implication being discussing military action. Top brass military have apparently been in Downing St. what hasn't been on the news, but I'm not the only one noticing it, a couple of friends have said the same in other parts of the country, there's been lots more movement of military aircraft around here the last couple of days than would be normal."}, {"response": 438, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (18:46)", "body": "ITS HARD TO BELIEVE WE HAVE CRETINS LIKE THIS IN BUSINESS IN AMERICA People like what? People like one Bill Schrempf. He's the CEO of NCCI Holdings, Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida. NCCI is a company that compiles workers compensation insurance data. How exciting. They have about 850 employes in its Boca Raton offices. It seems that some of the NCCI employees are proud of their heritage and proud of their country. In the wake of the terrorist attack some of these NCCI employees decided that they wanted to display an American flag on their desks. At that point the dynamic Bill Schrempf swung into action. The orders went out to his managers and they immediately fanned out throughout the workplace confiscating the American flags. Schrempf, it seems, is afraid that some of the workers in the NCCI offices might find the display offensive. So, NCCI boss Bill Schrempf finds himself in the same rouges gallery as John Smeaton, the vice provost of student affairs at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Smeaton ordered flags removed from campus busses for fear that foreign students might be (gasp!!!!) offended!!! The one difference between Lehigh and NCCI is that at Lehigh there was someone above Smeaton who actually possessed an ounce of sense and some feelings of patriotism. Smeaton's order was countered in minutes. At NCCI Schrempf is the boss! There IS nobody above him (unless the Board of Directors calls a quick meeting.) How's this for a workplace rule. Nobody works here who is offended by the American Flag. Period. If the American Flag offends you then you are a virtual cancer in this workplace. Pack your stuff and don't let the door knob hit you in the ass on your way out. Let me put it another way. If I have a flag on my desk and you try to confiscate it because you are offended -- then you have a damned good chance to be the subject of one of those statistical records that NCCI collects. DAMN -- this just pisses me off. Sorry, can't hide it. I wish I had the money to buy that company just so I could send Schrempf packing. Now -- it just happens that I don't have any need for a company that compiles workers compensation data. In the interest of all fairness -- since I have slammed Bill Schrempf and his company -- don't you think its only fair that I list the company name and phone number? I mean -- just in case you happen to agree with Bill Schrempf and would like to call and congratulate him! So, for that purpose only .... NCCI HOLDINGS INC 901 PENINSULA CORP CIR BOCA RATON, FL (561)893-1000 And here's a link to the story from the Palm Beach Post. http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/saturday/business_3.html ANY CONNECTION TO THIS NCCI? Last evening (Sunday) I spent a good amount of time trying to find an Internet site for NCCI. No luck. This caused me to expand my search and, with the help of a Nuze reader came with some interesting items. We found two websites this morning. One, ( http://www.ncci.com ) appears to be for the Palm Beach company. The other, ( http://www.ncci.sa.com/ ) is for the NCCI (National Corporation for Cooperative Insurance) that was established by Royal Decree No. M/5 of 17/4/1405H as a Saudi Joint Stock Company. That's right --- a corporation wholly owned by the government of Saudi Arabia. It seems this Saudi Arabian company is in the same business -- insurance. In searching both websites I could find no interlocking references. This doesn't mean no connection exists --- but the coincidence is somewhat amazing. Both with the \"NCCI\" in their name, both in the insurance business. I wonder who the stockholders of the Palm Beach company are?"}, {"response": 439, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (20:36)", "body": "Every possible resource has been posted on a special page by Google.com plus important contacts and news sources world wide. http://www.google.com/news/"}, {"response": 440, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (20:38)", "body": "This page is an excellent resource. I'm going to make it my home page."}, {"response": 441, "author": "wolf", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (21:10)", "body": "marcia, you may post the ribbon in all of our conferences--and terry, can we get it on our main page?"}, {"response": 442, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (22:38)", "body": "Sure thing!"}, {"response": 443, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:24)", "body": "Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:56:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Lauren Weinstein Subject: The Big Picture? Cc: lauren@pfir.org \"You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride.\" -- Colossus \"Colossus: The Forbin Project\" (1970) \"There seems to be a definite pattern emerging.\" -- The Psychiatrist (G. Wood) \"Harold and Maude\" (1971) An interesting pattern does seem to be emerging. I do not suggest that it's the result of a conspiracy, but rather the result of long-term trends that have been self-reinforcing. Still, like the images in a kaleidoscope, complex-appearing structures can seem to easily appear from independent actions. We start with media consolidation on a grand scale. The range of content providers and distribution operations -- TV, cable, newspapers, magazine, Internet, and so on, are primarily in the hands of a tiny cadre of gigantic firms. This consolidation seems likely to continue to even more intense levels. Such concentration of media power provides the ability to present a highly unified message both to the population at large and to Congress through lobbyists. A slogan like CNN's \"America's New War\" can be applied across a range of related properties and environments, instead of merely being sandwiched between \"EnerX\" commercials. Next step: Institute a mindset and legal structure that marginalizes all rights to information except those of copyright holders (most of the widely-used content will be under the control of those few media conglomerates we discussed above, of course). The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) helps enormously at this stage to accomplish this goal. Send violators to prison along with the rapists, murderers, and terrorists. Finally, a way to fill those jail cells being emptied out in California from the new \"treat drug offenders rather than jail them\" program. Gotta keep the momentum going. Outlaw the sale or providing of *everything* --hardware, software, communications, impure thoughts, or what have you-- relating to digital technologies that cannot be directly controlled by those concentrated media forces. The SSSCA (Security Systems Standards and Certification Act) should do nicely. To sweeten the deal, point out that since only SSSCA-approved security systems would be legal, it could provide a dandy mechanism to make the use of strong encryption in the private sector illicit. All that's needed is to ensure that such strong crypto systems are not compatible with the SSSCA-approved mechanisms (or refuse to certify anything that contains those undesirable systems). The approved security system will of course contain the appropriate backdoors for data access by the powers-that-be (and sufficiently resourceful hackers). The level of civil disobedience likely to result will probably be the highest since prohibition, but hey, prohibition didn't have any nasty side-effects that weren't trivial to control, right? And to tie this all up in a nice neat bow, be ready to take advantage of any catastrophe, tragedy, or horror to assert your agenda while emotions run high and knee-jerk reactions are the order of the day. Voila! Mission accomplished. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren@pfir.org or lauren@vortex.com or lauren@privacyforum.org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy \"Reality Reset\" Columns - http://www.vortex.com/reality"}, {"response": 444, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:25)", "body": "Subject: [risks] Risks Digest 21.66 Date: Monday, September 17, 2001 10:13 PM From: RISKS List Owner Reply-To: risko@csl.sri.com To: RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Monday 17 September 2001 Volume 21 : Issue 66 FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator ***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at and by anonymous ftp at ftp.sri.com, cd risks . Contents: 11 September 2001 in retrospect (PGN) Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:27:43 PDT From: \"Peter G. Neumann\" Subject: 11 September 2001 in retrospect *********************************** *********************************** ** 11 September 2001 ** *********************************** *********************************** \"THE RISKS ARE OBVIOUS.\" BUT PERHAPS NOT OBVIOUS ENOUGH. 11 September 2001 will be painfully remembered by most of the planet's population for the coordinated hijacking of four jetliners and the ensuing surprise attacks on New York City's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with thousands of lives lost and enormous consequential after-effects. Our hearts go out to everyone close to those who were so irrevocably affected -- including the crash victims, the firemen and other emergency workers in New York City, and especially the UA93 passengers whose efforts evidently saved the lives of others. We are once again reminded how fragile our lives and civic infrastructures are, and how interdependent we all are. Although violent and sudden large-scale termination of people's lives has previously been all too familiar in many countries of the world, many of us have hitherto largely taken too much for granted. Hopefully, the aftermath of this fateful day will dramatically increase public awareness of some of the vulnerabilities in our lives and risks to our freedom. However, the events should come as no surprise, because many warnings have been widely ignored. For example, the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection of the previous U.S. Administration identified serious vulnerabilities in telecommunications, electric power and other energy sources, transportation, financial services, emergency services, and government continuity. It noted how interdependent these critical infrastructures are, and how they are all related to information technologies. It also observed difficulties in coordination among and within different infrastructures, and perhaps most relevant, a general lack of public awareness. In many respects, complacency has been seen across the board in response to that report. In addition, the White House Commission on Safety and Security (the Gore Commission) identified many serious risks in aviation. (Also, see my paper , presented at the January 1997 International Conference on Aviation Safety and Security, co-sponsored by that commission and George Washington University.) Various analyses of commercial aviation and air-traffic control over the past 18 years within the Department of Transportation have identified potentially serious vulnerabilities that merit closer attention. More recently, a U.S. General Accounting Office report identified many serious problems in airport security. But, perhaps because the risks and threat levels seemed low, or possibly because institutional bureaucracy is so deeply entrenched, very little action was deemed necessary. Unfortunately, some of the issues recognized therein have now come home to roost. As a society, we in the U.S. seem to be unwilling to take certain prudent precautions -- perhaps because they would cost too much, or be too inconvenient, or would seriously degrade service. Apparently, we suffer from a serious lack of foresight. The Risks Forum has persistently considered risks associated with our technologies and their uses, but we often note that many of the crises and other risk-related problems have resulted from low-tech events, misguided human behavior, or malicious misbehavior. In short, the typical search for high-tech solutions to problems stemming from social, economic, and geopolitical causes has frequently ignored more basic issues. Over-endowing high-tech solutions is riskful in the absence of adequate understanding of the limitations of the technology and the frailties and perversities of human nature. Whereas there are high-tech solutions that might be effective if properly used, we should also be examining some low-tech and no-tech approaches. One pervasive theme in the Risks Forum over the past 16 years has been the ubiquity of systemic vulnerabilities relating to security, reliability, availability, and overall survivability, with respect to human enterprises, society at large, and to systems, applications, and enterprises based on information technologies. Evidently, we still have much to learn. Le"}, {"response": 445, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:26)", "body": "Subject: To the day Date: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 11:07 AM From: Womack, Jack As I start to write this, I look at my watch and realize that one week ago, just now, I'd just seen the first tower go down. Here in the new world it seems like a year, two years, a hundred years. Time has taken on a rubbery quality. Toward the end of Burn's The Civil War documentary, years ago, there was a single phrase read aloud; written by either a Yankee or Confederate some time after the war, thinking back on his experience, and I keep hearing it in my head: \"Were these things real?\" Even as I go through each day, so much of it still refuses to settle into anything remotely resembling reality. Last night we watched Letterman, who was on for the first time after the late news, and it was extremely strange, and vaguely unsettling. He didn't make any jokes, of course, but this most hard-shelled of all contemporary performers revealed depths of sadness, and fear, and uncertainty, and anger; and then Dan Rather came out as his guest and broke down in tears twice. Extremely unreal. Yet, on the other hand, V & I went over to Jersey City late yesterday afternoon to have dinner with her mother and celebrate the new year (praying, as every year, to have one more year). While I expected huge backups at the bus terminal, we somehow managed to hit it right, and got from Port Authority to Summit Ave. in Jersey City in half an hour. On the way, as we went up Palisades Avenue, which runs along the top of the Palisades (which, in this area, are utterly urbanized) and so I saw all of lower Manhattan from the Jersey side, and the absence of the Towers, and the smoke that continues to rise therefrom. That, conversely, now seemed normal. Valeria's mother, who is 68, was extremely happy to see us. Jersey City has a large Arab population (and Indian, and Phillipine, and...) and she was more than usually suspicious -- relating stories of how two had been arrested (I have heard this on the news as well), etc. She's holding up very well, though; of course, this is a woman who grew up in Soviet Russia during the Second World War, and under Stalin, and didn't leave the USSR until 1981, so she's had considerable experience, living life under conditions that are only now beginning to become imaginable. Besides the absence of the Towers from a distance there are many things that are beginning to seem normal to me now. Leaving the house fifteen minutes earlier because my subway now becomes express at 96th, and therefore no longer stops at 50th (unless I transfer). Seeing at least one policeman at every subway station, and many more at the larger stations. Hearing, along with the occasional airplane (I gather airports are becoming rather ghostly, at present), the occasional F-16. Phone service, especially long-distance & cellular, that comes and goes. Police barricades along Fifth, metal barriers at the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center, the sight of US flags everywhere, attached to car aerials, hanging from windows, photocopied and taped onto doors. The occasional Army humvee parked on Broadway. New York crowds, thinned out to a level I haven't seen since the late 70s and early 80s, when no one wanted to come to NY on a bet, save for the likes of me and my people. I'd recommend the new New Yorker. The cover is by Spiegelman, and brilliant. In the News, this morning, an article about NY's Afghan restaurants, and how no one is eating at them, and how they're quickly going to go broke; the people who run them are, of course, in nearly all cases immigrants who came here to escape the war during the 80s, or the Taliban since. And the new total of people still missing is a little over 5,400 -- evidently the additional 700 weren't reported until yesterday; I imagine many relatives, companies, etc., were still holding out hope. A friend in Australia has told me 100 Aussies have been killed; a friend in Germany says anywhere up to 200-some Germans were killed; and of course 500 Brits. 100 Russians. And U.S. citizens who, being New Yorkers, were of every possible background, every color and creed. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus.. An attack on Civilization, period. I need to talk to my father again tonight, to see how he is doing. Two weeks ago, tomorrow, my stepmother suddenly died, as you and some others know (she was 52). Her funeral was September 8, and then 3 days later...thoughts of her vanished from my mind, mostly, since last Tuesday, and that makes me feel sad, but even so I can only move forward. I know I didn't come close to processing her death, but at some point I suppose I will -- or maybe I already have, in this new world. I honestly don't know. I'm not as scared today as I was yesterday. I can't imagine this will last; today is Ros Ha'shanah, NY is quiet yet again -- this time, for better reason then has recently been the case -- and, clearly, something is in the air. But I don't know what, and until that something occurs, I can only do wha"}, {"response": 446, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:27)", "body": "*Arthur Kroker Vents His Feelings With Such Untoward Eloquence That They Threaten To Make Common Sense *8-/ Subject: Event-scene 97 - Terrorism of Viral Power Date: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 2:18 PM From: CTHEORY EDITORS Reply-To: CTHEORY EDITORS To: _____________________________________________________________________ CTHEORY THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 24, NO 3 Event-scene 97 09/18/01 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker _____________________________________________________________________ Terrorism of Viral Power ======================== ~Arthur and Marilouise Kroker~ The 20th century took place under the sign of nuclear superpower: a cold war with bloc to bloc political confrontations; a military rhetoric of graduated escalating respnses; a strangely comforting illusion of \"mutually assured destruction.\" Deterrence was everywhere. Dissuasion was the code. A bored culture living in the shadowland of apocalypse now. That ended September 11th. The field of power flipped. The triumphant era of the last superpower suddenly gave way to the contagious logic of viral power. In place of the certainty principle of nuclear stalemate, there emerges now the radical uncertainty of the terrorism of micro-power. The always suspended fantaticism of technological holocaust is challenged by the fanaticism of religious zealotry. The logic of deterrence no longer functions. Deterrrence only works in a deadly game in which adversaries have a primary interest in preserving their own lives. Sacrificing one's own life is the first gambit, and real psychological fuel of suicide commandos. Dissuasion is inoperative. Again, the code of dissuasion is intimately linked to a politics founded on preserving territory. However, viral power is terroristic precisely because it occupies only the imaginary territory of symbolic exchange. The religious ecstasy of a sudden, unexpected, devastating strike against the symbolic capital of the American empire: the trinity of the World Trade Center, Pentagon and the airlines of America. The terrorism of the new age of viral power has these symbolic qualities: It is a micro-power, not a superpower. It is low tech, not high tech--and thus invisible to the optical scanners of the ruling technological regime. Paradoxically, the (technological) weakness of viral power is its strength. It is subterranean, secretive--driven by a crusading spirit equal to the religious zeal of the Middle Ages. Breaking the rules of publicity culture, it claims no responsibility and thus speaks clearly to the cultural imagination of the suppressed and powerless everywhere. It is a matter of biological violence, not physics. Flowing invisibly through the rhetorical screen of the 'anti-ballistic missile system,' viral power adopts the strategy of the attacking parasite: invading the body of the host (the American homeland), bleeding its tactical intelligence (those flight schools in Florida), circulating in its commercial bloodstream (American airlines), and imploding in a violent fatal metastasis that has as its aim the infiltration of the mediascape through its apocalyptic effects. Viral power avoids conflict with the real military assests of the host nation because its actual intention is a strategic media strike. Viral power is understandable only in the language of the media: the twin spectacles of sadness and terror; the doubled language of fascination and dread. In the days ahead, the media spectacle will shift to the viral language of rage and revenge. Tragically, the real missiles were those American people taken hostage in the air. The real targets were not hardened missile silos, but the dominant symbols of American power. The real terrorism was the destabilization of the American government. The real war is the coming war on civil liberties as the price for combating terrorism. The real 'ground zero' was provoking America to acts of vengeance that will only fast-feed the future rage of viral power. The scenario of terrorism, then, as a mutating virus that copies itself to American rage on its way to revenge against the host-scapegoat. Viral power goes into the sea, the sky, the earth. It cannot be defeated by the normal methods of nuclear warfare. It can only be copied. The virus of terrorism is about to enter the American bloodstream, taking democracy hostage. Listen to House of Representatives Minority Leader Richard Gephardt: \"We are in a new world. We have to rebalance freedom and security. We can't take away people's civil liberties. But we're not going to have all the openness and freedom we have had.\" The implosion of American democracy, then, as the ultimate objective of the suicide commandos. The 'war on terrorism' may have finally begun, but the first casualty may well be American freedom as it was envisioned before September 11, 2001. _____________________________________________________________________ Arthur and Marilouise Kroker are the editors of CTHEORY."}, {"response": 447, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:27)", "body": "From: Stewart Brand Subject: not-terrorism Dave, the following set of thoughts is from Kevin Kelly, who spent four months in Afghanistan in the late 70s, more months in northern Pakistan, and a long time in Iran (during its revolution). I think its balanced inquiry might be of interest to IPers. --Stewart Brand The Taliban are kind of like Nazis to the Afghanis, but we should remember that while the Nazis had resistance and passive obedience among the Germans, they also had supporters. And so do the Taliban. But it's true most of the Afghanis, like the Germans, are just getting screwed. The other important point is the the Taliban are not bin Laden, and bin Laden not the Taliban. Bin Laden is a foreigner who is barely tolerated by most rural Afghanis, since the Afghanis are very xenophobic. I think bin Laden is far more sophisticated, complex, and cosmopolitan than the Taliban. Few Taliban have ever left their home province. Bin Laden is a world savvy. For another thing, he is brilliantly creative, and known among his supporters as 'imaginative.\" You can't say that about the Taliban. HIs idea of using American know-how to bomb itself, using no resources of his own, is sheer genius. He is one of the few Islamics to bridge the great cultural gulf between and among the Arabs. Remember that the Afghanis are NOT Arabs. They are Caucasians, their language is \"Indo-European\" and they are culturally Persians. The Afghanis don't even like Arabs. Yet bin Laden is able to speak to and appeal to them as well as North Africans, Lebonese, Egyptians, Iraquis, Palestinians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Kashmiris -- which is simply remarkable. More so, he has bridge the religious differences among the Muslims, although he still has a way to go. Just getting Shiite and Suni Muslims in the same room is itself a remarkable achievement. That fact that bin Laden appeals to married, 43-year old residents of America with pilot licenses willing to give their lives, says to me there is something large and non-marginal about this. Bin Laden may be Hitler, but it does no good to think of Hitler, or bin Laden, as \"fringe\" or even as a terrorist. This is a main stream, middle of the road skirmish. Radical Islam will become the new communism, if it isn't that already. It has a deep appeal, even to those subjugated to it. There are aspects about that even supporters don't like and can't stand, but they will submit to it because they believe it is better overall than the alternative of \"western capitalism.\" And like communism it will be very hard to eradicate it, should we attempt to. The Arab countries we are now asking to take sides, will probably take sides with us, but this will kill and maim them because they are essentially taking sides against many of their own citizens, who may be better organized and committed than the government itself. The key question for me is: will this revolutionary style -- a sort of mafia, suicidal, networked, globally guerilla insurgency -- be imported by other non-muslim radicals? Will bin Laden become the Che Guevera of this century? Will the resident antipathy towards America in other spheres be cast in the same style. Will all anti-global-capitalism become clones of bin Laden? Like communism this can spread. And like communism I think its a very bad idea in practice, though it sounds good in theory. So I am in favor of halting it, and I believe that it needs to be combatted early and often. But the danger of radical Islam becoming the new communism is that anyone who is not against them becomes branded a communist, or \"terrorist,\" themselves. That worries me because I am not so eager to label bin Laden a \"tinpot terrorist.\" He is not second rate, and he may not even be a terrorist. This is a new kind of war. There has been no demands made, like in most terrorism. There is nothing we have that they want. Their intent is not to terrorize. This is only a side product. Their intent is to destroy the prevailing mono-system. But they are not a state government, but a pan-national network that is growing. We've done little to eradicate them in 20 years. They are stronger now then ever before. At first I thought that the World Trade airbombing would need to be followed through by another attack to have lasting meaning, but as the depth and sophistication of the network of the radicals is revealed I think we have already reached a critical moment. I think we need a new framework for understanding them. I would ban the use of the words \"terrorists\" and \"terrorism.\" A better old word is \"revolutionary.\" Our chief concern should be that there is nothing we have they want. They don't want recognition. They don't want our trade. They don't want our culture. They don't want our aspirations -- democracy, free choice, high technology. They don't want our values. They don't want our wealth. Actually, they would like our literacy (for males) and health care, but that is not enough. I think we need to enlarge western civilizati"}, {"response": 448, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:28)", "body": "Suicide terrorism: a global threat Traditionally viewed as a problem affecting the Middle East and South Asia, the threat posed by suicide terrorism is spreading around the globe. Rohan Gunaratna assesses the nature of the threat, preventive and reactive security measures, and examines future trends. (...) The threat Suicide terrorism is the readiness to sacrifice one's life in the process of destroying or attempting to destroy a target to advance a political goal. The aim of the psychologically and physically war-trained terrorist is to die while destroying the enemy target. In the 1980s suicide terrorism was witnessed in Lebanon, Kuwait and Sri Lanka. In the 1990s it had spread to Israel, India, Panama, Algeria, Pakistan, Argentina, Croatia, Turkey, Tanzania and Kenya. With enhanced migration of terrorist groups from conflict-ridden countries, the formation of extensive international terrorist infrastructures and the increased reach of terrorist groups in the post Cold War period, suicide terrorism is likely to affect Western Europe and North America in the foreseeable future. There are now 10 religious and secular terrorist groups that are capable of using suicide terrorism as a tactic against their governments and/or foreign governments. They are: the Islam Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad of the Israeli occupied territories; Hizbullah of Lebanon; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and Gamaya Islamiya (Islamic Group - IG) of Egypt; the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria; Barbar Khalsa International (BKI) of India; the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka; the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) of Turkey; and the Osama bin Laden network (Al Quaida) of Afghanistan. There were also four pro-Syrian, Lebanese and Syrian political parties engaged in suicide terrorism in the 1980s, but they are currently inactive in the terrorist front. These groups staged around 25 suicide attacks in Lebanon. As more than one group claimed some of the attacks, perhaps to diffuse the threat to the group, it is difficult to identify the group responsible. The groups engaged in suicide operations in Lebanon alongside Hizbullah were the Natzersit Socialist Party of Syria; the Syrian Nationalist Party; the Lebanese Communist Party; and the Baath Party of Lebanon. There are two types of suicide operations: battlefield and off the battlefield. In battlefield operations, suicide bombers are integrated into the attacking groups. Most off-the-battlefield operations have involved single suicide bombers. In the case of the LTTE and Hamas, there have been multiple suicide bombers. The targets have been static and mobile, against infrastructure and humans. Suicide bombers have destroyed military, political, economic and cultural infrastructure. They have committed terrorist attacks by killing civilians in buses, crowded places and in buildings. Suicide bombers have also assassinated political and military VIPs. Key characteristics Examination of suicide terrorism across a range of groups has revealed that terrorist groups use suicide bombers when they are both strong and weak. In terms of military and economic power, Hizbullah and the LTTE lead the list of suicide operations. In terms of numbers, the LTTE has conducted the largest volume of suicide operations, followed by Hizbullah, Hamas and the PKK. In terms of range, only some of the groups have operated beyond their territories. As well as abortive attempts to conduct suicide operations in Israel, Hizbullah has successfully conducted suicide operations in Argentina. The LTTE has conducted one suicide operation in India. It is the only group to have killed two world leaders - the former prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, and the president of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa - using male and female suicide bombers. The Egyptian groups have conducted suicide operations in Croatia against a police station and in Pakistan against the Egyptian embassy. Al-Qaeda used at least one Egyptian suicide bomber in the 1998 East African embassy bombings. All the other active groups have conducted suicide operations within their own territory. The PKK has threatened to conduct suicide operations in Germany where there is a large Kurdish diaspora. All the suicide terrorist groups have support infrastructures in Europe and in North America. Leaders and members of these groups are known to travel to the West, and key activists live either in Europe or in North America distributing propaganda, raising funds, and in some instances procuring weapons and shipping them to the various theatres of conflict. Suicide-capable groups differ in form, size, orientation, goal and support. A review of the key characteristics of the 10 suicide-capable groups reveals that any group can acquire suicide bomb technology and engage in suicide terrorism: a Al-Qaeda is a mix of several associate groups that are internationally dispersed. From Afghanistan, Bin Laden provides the overal"}, {"response": 449, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:29)", "body": "Below is a list of STICTLY FORBIDDEN items to be carried on board the cabin of any BA flight. DRS pages are being updated individually, but you can use this as a guideline when informing clients. Most are for obvious reasons, but something most of us never thought of previously. * Toy or replica guns (plastic or metal) * Household cutlery * Knives with blades of any length (including steel nail files) * Paper knives * Razor blades (shaving or other) * Tradesmen's tools * Darts * Scissors of any size * Hypodermic syringes* * Knitting needles * Sporting bats (including rackets, cricket bats and golf clubs) * Billiard, snooker, or pool cues * Catapults (slingshots) * Corkscrews with blades attached *Customers who require the use of hypodermic needles for medical reasons (for example, diabetics and customers with allergies), will be asked for proof of medical need. Please be advised that customers carrying any of the above items (with the exception of hypodermic needles) will be asked to place it in their hold baggage. Customers carrying hand baggage only will be asked to surrender the item for disposal."}, {"response": 450, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:36)", "body": "Breakdown of people who are missing and presumed dead by nationality (per Reuters): Australia 78 Bangladesh 50 Brazil 30 Britain 300 Canada 78 China 53 Columbia 199 Ecuador 34 Egypt 4 El Salvador 73 Finland 50 Germany 104 Honduras 1 Indonesia 16 Ireland 103 Italy 5 Japan 24 Lebanon 3 Mexico 166 Philippines 435 Russia 100 South Africa 25 South Korea 18 Switzerland 288 Thailand 3 The remainder are Americans."}, {"response": 451, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:36)", "body": "Link for the Reuters casualties by nationality figures above: http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20010918/wtc_casualties_graphic.gif The original source of the numbers is FEMA as of 9/17."}, {"response": 452, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 18, 2001 (23:44)", "body": "I hope not, but here's the rumor: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAGB8LISRC.html Relevant section: \"Authorities have grown increasingly certain - from intelligence intercepts, witness interviews and evidence gathered in hijackers' cars and homes - that a second wave of violence was planned by collaborators. They said Sept. 22 has emerged as an important date in the evidence, but declined to be more specific. Tuesday's attacks were \"part of a larger plan with other terrorism acts, not necessarily hijacking of airplanes,\" said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. \"Those acts were going to occur in the United States and elsewhere in the world.\" The FBI said it has issued an advisory to fire departments across the country to increase security and guard against the theft of any ambulances or fire trucks, which could be used in bombing attacks. The bureau said the warning was precautionary. \" For more on your air travel safety, go to this site and read ALPA Security Alert Bulletin 2001-2, detailing such important items as the use of the emergency axe in the cockpit against suicidal hi-jackers and planning for emergency depressurizations and violent aircraft maneuvers to disable and disorient hi-jackers: http://www.awalpa.org/"}, {"response": 453, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (04:12)", "body": "World Leaders List Conditions on Cooperation New York Times September 19, 2001 by PATRICK E. TYLER and JANE PERLEZ (Excerpt) WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 \ufffd After a week of unconditional support from abroad, the Bush administration confronted its first significant difficulties today in building a broad international coalition to support using military power and other means against a still-faceless terror network rooted in Afghanistan and elsewhere. A procession of world leaders was either on the way or on the phone to Washington seeking to convince the White House that only a multilateral approach based on consultation, hard evidence and United Nations support would justify the use of military power in response to the devastating attacks last week. Today, President Jiang Zemin of China telephoned Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and President Jacques Chirac of France as each prepared for meetings with President Bush. He admonished his Western counterparts to tell Mr. Bush that \"any military action against terrorism\" should be based on \"irrefutable evidence and should aim at clear targets so as to avoid casualties to innocent people,\" according to official news reports from China. Mr. Jiang also telephoned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and although the two leaders denounced \"terrorism in all its forms,\" they spoke just of cooperating with each other and the United Nations to \"develop a mechanism for fighting terrorism,\" the reports said. As the Bush administration sought through White House consultations and overseas missions to strengthen the sinews of an antiterror effort whose scale and objective remain unknown, a number of countries began to calculate the potential cost of their taking part, and to try to exact a price for it from the United States. For a number of Middle Eastern countries, the price was straightforward. The United States has to become more deeply involved in ending the violence and in reinvigorating the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort. But it was clear that a convulsion in Israel, the West Bank or Gaza could threaten Washington's efforts to maintain support in moderate Arab countries, a problem that Mr. Bush's father faced in the 1991 coalition that defeated Iraq in Kuwait. \"The people that we expect to work with closely in combating terrorism,\" a spokesman for the State Department, Richard A. Boucher, said, are \"interested in the Israel- Palestinian situation,\" and their attitudes toward America's war on terrorism are \"linked in people's minds\" to America's commitment to Arab-Israeli peace. Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, is due to arrive on Wednesday with a large contingent of Saudi intelligence officers and their files on Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. But other potential American allies raised urgent economic and political agendas that officials said Washington was beginning to address. Pakistan, in exchange for whatever bases or rights to fly in its air space that it provides, would like an agreement to end 11 years of sanctions, to restore the flow of American arms and to reduce a punishing debt load. Russia, if it is called on, has a clear set of grievances over NATO expansion toward its borders and criticism of its military campaign in Chechnya. Foreign Minister Igor D. Ivanov arrives on Wednesday. Administration officials said they were eager to establish Moscow's price to open the northern corridor to Afghanistan through Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic. A number of Russian generals have questioned whether Russia could join an American-led antiterror campaign whose operational objectives remain unclear. One high- ranking military officer told a newspaper, Vremya Novestei, that \"fighting terrorists is like trying to rid oneself of roaches in a block of flats.\" \"You do it in one flat,\" the officer said, \"and they go to another.\" Nowhere was the sense of alarm over American plans more apparent than in the warning of one of America's staunchest Middle East allies, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. In remarks broadcast on Monday night, he implored the United States not to undertake military action that might kill innocent civilians, divide Christians against Muslims and further inflame attitudes against American policy in the region. Mr. Mubarak, like Mr. Jiang, urged that \"hard evidence\" be the basis for any military action and that \"countries not be punished\" for the actions of \"individuals.\" He called on the United Nations to organize an international convention against terrorism that would develop a common program of action for all countries. His remarks were echoed by other leaders in the region where Washington has yet to establish a firm diplomatic beachhead in dealing with intractable and volatile conflicts. While Egypt and Jordan were both crucial allies in the 1991 coalition against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, diplomats from both countries said they did not expect to be called on to provide bases or other direct military support."}, {"response": 454, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (04:17)", "body": "Hi all MSG 436 sums up just about every country capable of providing aid bar New Zealand. Do we not exist? Last I looked 3.81 million New Zealanders, 46 million sheep as well as Kiwis, Takahe's Pukeko's Kaka, Kereru, among other birds, reptiles, fish, spiders and insects can be found on two large islands and a host of smaller islands grouped together under the popular name \"Godzone\". On to more relevant matters though. New Zealand has offered intelligence assistance but nothing else as we seem to be preoccupied with Air New Zealands struggle to stay afloat and the fact that our armed forces have been degraded so badly that the East Timor peace keeping operation is about as far as we would get anyway. We could have offered more if so much money was not being lost in ideological changes to governing structures for everything everytime Labour and National swapped places in the Beehive. I mean ideally we could have bought the 28 F-16s the United States was prepared to give us but Helen Clark's excuse was they have never been used so why keep them? So what if they were not used, having them meant our servicemen were technically competent, that we could participate in defence exercises and have a small but modern air combat force. We could have gotten one or two frigates that Labour was talking about but I suspect they sold out to the Greens. Typical. So here we are with a poorly equipped airforce that just lost the \"force\", and a downsized Navy. Great. Rob"}, {"response": 455, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (09:20)", "body": "(Rachael) what hasn't been on the news, but I'm not the only one noticing it, a couple of friends have said the same in other parts of the country, there's been lots more movement of military aircraft around here the last couple of days than would be normal. It's the same over here. The skies over the greater DC area are humming."}, {"response": 456, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (09:55)", "body": "Thanks for the lengthy list of positions by country, Suzee. Everybody, time to put those tax refunds back in the mail to Washington. It's going to cost us jillions to *morally* convince some of these countries. :-("}, {"response": 457, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (10:28)", "body": "Tamim Ansar (cited above) is supposed to be on Charlie Rose sometime and was on NPR being interviewed by Bill Moyers the other night. Pat Holt has a piece on him http://www.holtuncensored.com/members/index.html Robert McNeil who left the Newshour in 95 has come out of retirement to help with their coverage. His first interview was today http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/foreign_correspondence/july - dec01/terrorism_9-18.html dec01/terrorism_9-18.html> One exchange: ROBERT MACNEIL: Steve Erlanger, how is Mr. Bush's leadership and his rhetoric perceived where you are, in Germany? STEVE ERLANGER: A little worrying, quite honestly. People are being very polite, but they see, often, the kind of terror in Mr. Bush's eyes when he goes off of his script. They worry he will feel too much political pressure to react too soon and in the wrong way. They are hopeful that he will listen to his senior advisers, and they think that he will, and they have a little bit of odd relief, almost, that for an administration that, so far, has regarded relations with Europe as very much secondary, if not tertiary, it is now discovering that, as usual, in a crisis America's best friends are on this continent."}, {"response": 458, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (10:56)", "body": "Robin McNeil interviewed four overseas New York Times bureau chiefs. McNeil: Can I ask each of you how Washington's leadership and behavior is perceived where you are? Warren Hoge, after the first wave of solidarity and sympathy [the British bureau chief had said the British felt particularly targeted by the attack, with some 300 UK citizens probably dead], which was so apparent in western Europe, and particularly in Britain, where the queen led a service in St. Paul's-- You've all reported some degree of second thoughts, backpedaling, a little--voices of caution raised. How has that been affected by Mr. Bush's leadership, his rhetoric, the actions he's taken so far. Does that inspire confidence and reassurance? Hoge, NYT London Bureau Chief: I think Colin Powell inspires more confidence. Many Britons have said to me they feel much more comfortable with George W. Bush now that Colin Powell seems to be permanently at his side. Colin Powell speaks the language of diplomacy; he is somebody who understands both the capabilities and the limitations of military power-- this is what the British think. So they have a much higher degree of comfort with his kind of talking than the more bellicose language of President Bush. So, they're hoping for Bush, they're behind Bush--this is a very pro-American place in Europe--but there's a little bit of worry that he's untested, and also that he's surrounded by some other people who might have a little more hotheaded reaction to what must be done now than Colin Powell seems to be having. McNeil: And Steve Erlanger, how is Mr. Bush's leadership and his rhetoric perceived where you are, in Germany? Erlanger, NYT Hamburg Bureau Chief: A little worrying, quite honestly. People are being very polite. But they see, often, the kind of terror in Mr. Bush's eyes when he goes off of his script. They worry that he will feel too much political pressure to react too soon, and in the wrong way. They are hopeful that he will listen to his senior advisors, and they think that he will. And they have a little bit of odd relief, almost, that for an administration that so far has regarded relations with Europe as very much secondary, if not tertiary--it is now discovering that as usual, in a crisis, America's best friends are on this continent. McNeil: And in Moscow, Michael Wines, how is the Washington leadership under Mr. Bush perceived? Wines, NYT Moscow Bureau Chief: Well, I think that there has been a great deal of uneasiness with the unilateralism that the Russians think that the United States has displayed, mostly in the last year, but again going back to Yugoslavia. And I think in this case there is great hope, among, certainly among Russian people, and among the leadership, that this will turn out to be something of a turning point in American-Russian relations: a chance for the Americans to consult with the Russians in reality, for a change. The Russians here feel like they're somewhat ignored in national relations. And so they're hoping for a much more cooperative attitude. But, I have to say, so far, there's great suspicion, and I think they're waiting for the Americans to come up with a plan. And when they see that plan, I think they'll have a better idea. McNeil: And in Cairo, Neil McFarquhar, how is Mr. Bush's leadership perceived there? McFarquhar, NYT Cairo Bureau Chief: Across the Middle East the one exception in this thing has been Iraq, which has been attacking the United States, what it calls its \"cowboy policies\". But the one thing that's upset the Arabs is, apparently, in one speech Mr. Bush used the words \"crusades\", and that word is fraught with a lot of terrible memories in the Middle East, because of course the Crusades were used to attack the region. So there has been a lot of discussion, that if this is a new Crusade, they don't want to be part of it"}, {"response": 459, "author": "Moon", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (11:08)", "body": "I couldn't believe Bush used the words crusade! Reminiscent of Dan Quayle there. Thanks for the lengthy list of positions by country, Suzee. Everybody, time to put those tax refunds back in the mail to Washington. It's going to cost us jillions to *morally* convince some of these countries. :-( Yes, Thank you Suzee. The U$ barganing table is open and the odd thing is that the price of gold is not reacting. Is there a conspiracy to keep the price of gold stable? What is going on there? My very good friend lost a friend on the Fl#11 and my brother has many friends that are missing at WTC. And now we are told that Sept. 22nd is a date to watch out for. :-( I do not sleep well at night."}, {"response": 460, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (17:57)", "body": "A Washington Post article on the threat of bio-terrorism: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41225-2001Sep16.html"}, {"response": 461, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (17:58)", "body": "Wolfie, I tried, and since I am not listed on your other conferences as having access, I could not add them. I did put it on SpringArk. I like the ribbon on that Google.com site, too. I wish it lead back to that site and I would install it in a second. Terry, the programming in my cfconfig file is easy enough to copy and paste. Have at it!!"}, {"response": 462, "author": "Echo", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (18:00)", "body": "Breakdown of people who are missing and presumed dead by nationality (per Reuters) Does that include confirmed dead? A young Polish woman journalist died there, too, on her honeymoon. Her husband is fighting for his life in a NY hospital."}, {"response": 463, "author": "Echo", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (18:03)", "body": "on the threat of bio-terrorism The unexplained, mysteriously spreading and still not defeated outbreak of foot and mouth in the UK may be a testing ground."}, {"response": 464, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (18:06)", "body": "http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,552749,00.html Comprehensive and unreported in US news sources."}, {"response": 465, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (19:09)", "body": "As for Afghanistan, check out: http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2001/June/Afghan/index.html for a brilliant description of that country by an Iranian film make"}, {"response": 466, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (19:50)", "body": "Why? from The Independent (London), by Robert Fisk, 8/29/01: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=91066 and again, eighteen days later, 9/16/01: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=94254"}, {"response": 467, "author": "rachael", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (19:57)", "body": "interesting to read what Warren Hoge said - I think its fair comment; have to say, one of the things that impressed me in the first few days was the way that very senior people seemed to make themselves available for lengthy and open press conferences - I'm not sure you'd see that here (in the UK). And yes I'm impressed with Colin Powell - the fact that he has such experience makes him seem very reassuring - don't know if Americans feel the same. for info (mainly to UK people) today's paper hads a full page ad for the World Trade Centre Disaster Fund www.wtcfund.org.uk and says \"This is an hour of need for our friends in America. Let's show them that our actions are as loud as our words\" If you're not already a Red Cross contributor, the website might be worth a visit. One of the saddest things I read today was about the families of some of the British victims flying into NYC, and my heart goes out to all those of whatever nationality who are dealing with this unimaginable heartbreak. My 12 y o was in NYC with her father a couple of months ago, and has been very distressed this week - tonight she said \"I can't believe that something I've seen that was so big and amazing just isn't there now\"."}, {"response": 468, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (20:10)", "body": "There is a quote in this weeks edition of Newsweek by a Wall St employee \" I never thought I'd see the day when the World Trade Center would pass me by in a dump truck \" It's funny in a sad, sad, kind of a way. AOL is reporting that the actor James Woods was on Flight 11 Boston to LA on Sep 4th, the same one that crashed, a week later. He was in first class with only 4 other passengers. They were all Arabs. They spoke to no one, ate nothing, drank nothing, read nothing and watched no movies. He said they all just sat in their seats starring off into space. It creeped him out, so he mentioned it to a stewardess. She shrugged if off, but when they got to LA, he reported it to the FBI. The FBI in LA are confirming this. So it looks like they did a \"test run\" the week before."}, {"response": 469, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (20:28)", "body": "Peggy Noonan writes about how \"we live in such unprecedented comfort! But can it last!\" http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=95001157 During the summer, when you were a kid, your dad worked a few towns away and left at 8:30; Mom stayed home smoking and talking and ironing. You biked to the local school yard for summer activities--twirling, lanyard making, dodgeball--until afternoon. Then you'd go home and play in the street. At 5:30 Dad was home and at 6 there was dinner--meat loaf, mashed potatoes and canned corn. Then TV and lights out. Now it's more like this: Dad goes to work at 6:15, to the city, where he is an executive; Mom goes to work at the bank where she's a vice president, but not before giving the sitter the keys and bundling the kids into the car to go to, respectively, soccer camp, arts camp, Chinese lessons, therapy, the swim meet, computer camp, a birthday party, a play date. Then home for an impromptu barbecue of turkey burgers and a salad with fresh Parmesan cheese followed by summer homework, Nintendo, and TV --the kids lying splayed on the couch, dead eyed, like denizens of a Chinese opium den--followed by \"Hi Mom,\" \"Hi, Dad,\" and bed. Life is so much more interesting now! It's not boring, like 1957. There are things to do: The culture is broader, more sophisticated; there's more wit and creativity to be witnessed and enjoyed. Moms, kids and dads have more options, more possibilities. This is good. The bad news is that our options leave us exhausted when we pursue them and embarrassed when we don't. . . . If someone does the big, terrible thing to New York or Washington, there will be a lot of chaos and a lot of lines going down, a lot of damage, and a lot of things won't be working so well anymore. And thus a lot more . . . time. Something tells me we won't be teleconferencing and faxing about the Ford account for a while. The psychic blow--and that is what it will be as people absorb it, a blow, an insult that reorders and changes--will shift our perspective and priorities, dramatically, and for longer than a while. Something tells me more of us will be praying, and hard, one side benefit of which is that there is sometimes a quality of stopped time when you pray. You get outside time."}, {"response": 470, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (20:39)", "body": "Answers hidden in lost former black Seminole village By SCOTT MCCABE, The Palm Beach Post An AP Member Exchange BUSHNELL \ufffd Forty-five minutes west of Walt Disney's make-believe history, archaeologists dig for real artifacts. Hunched over a shallow, square excavation, they search for Peliklakaha, the largest Black Seminole village known to historians, a place where different cultures joined in a fight for freedom more than 200 years ago. Until now, say University of Florida archaeologists, Peliklakaha existed only in the writings of military leaders and a painting commissioned by the U.S. general who had burned it down. Archaeologists hope to unearth clues that documents can't provide, secrets about the life of a hidden people. They hope Peliklakaha will reveal whether the inhabitants developed a unique lifestyle with their new status as free people in Florida. \"The story of the Black Seminoles is a tremendous story about a successful effort by slaves gaining their freedom before the Civil War,\" said Delray Beach archaeologist Bill Steele, who discovered the site in 1993. \"That's why Peliklakaha is so significant.\" The dig could establish a new focus in archaeology on cultures that combine African and Native American influences, said Terry Weik, the UF graduate student heading the excavation. more... http://www.naplesnews.com/01/09/florida/d648785a.htm"}, {"response": 471, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (21:28)", "body": "The James Woods thing, if real, has all kinds of ramifications? When did he callthe FBI? What date? Was this a dry run or an aborted attempt? Did the hijackers make any calls on their Airphones? And were any of these men on the actual suicide hijacking missions? Now James Woods will be a witness if any of these men are apprehended, after sitting on a flight with them he could surely identify them. Pretty creepy, alright."}, {"response": 472, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (21:30)", "body": "Subject: Waiting Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 11:29 AM From: Womack, Jack Waiting, today, for whatever is going to happen next. It does seem as if considerable thought is going into whatever the response will be. Reports from Indian & Pakistani newspapers are saying that the special force units (Rangers, SEALS, Green Berets, several other groups including one we have never heard of before, \"Night Stalkers.\" -- this goes into my phrasebook of new terms, along with \"Frozen Zone\") are already moving into place. I suspect something along the lines of the following will happen, whenever it happens: 1. Ground forces at this stage will consist solely of those guys, or some of those guys. More are preparing to go over, it's said, but I can't help but think that the US is keeping in mind what happened to the USSR during their ten-year war. (It would be absolute madness to send a large number of soldiers into Afghanistan, but that doesn't mean it won't happen, sooner or later.) 2. Bombing from the air will occur prior to the guys going in; I have a suspicion that for appearance's sake if nothing else, this will be Dresden/Tokyo-size bombing although there isn't much left to bomb. From today's Times: \"When we looked at Afghanistan before, the sense was we were going to bomb them up to the stone age,\" said one former Clinton administration official familiar with the planning of past military strikes against Mr. bin Laden's terrorist network. The FBI is now saying that not long prior to the event, the pilot of the plane that first struck the Towers met with an Iraqi intelligence agent. Iraq is vigorously denying this and evidently claiming this story came from the UK. If they're in the process of ascertaining that Hussein was in any way connected (it's hard not to suspect that he is, if only because the opportunity to get back at Bush Sr. by way of Bush Jr. would I think be pretty hard to pass up) they're keeping it *way* under wraps. Because -- 3. If Hussein was even minimally involved, it's a pretty safe bet Baghdad will also get the Dresden/Tokyo treatment, and totally without warning. After that, it's anyone's guess -- anything from ongoing small operations for the next five, ten, twenty years, to World War III. One view in the Russian papers is that if this were to be handled in the traditional Central Asian way, the Taliban themselves would kill bin Laden, and then turn over his body claiming that Western intelligence forces did it. Ah, the Russian mind....being capable of Russian-level cynicism, and possessed of the ability to endlessly extrapolate negative transactions, it's easy for me to imagine one scenario being the US setting off a nuclear bomb in northern Afghanistan in the midst of ground assaults, air bombing, etc.; thereafter claiming that the bomb belonged to the terrorists, that we found out about this just in time, clearly they were going to use it, and that therefore we have ample cause to do whatever the hell we want, beginning with taking out the capitals of Iraq, Iran... It is, of course, fortunate that I am not President. Enough punditizing, and back to the home front: the windows of the stores on Fifth & 57th filled with flags, or memorial bunting, or black curtains. Police cadets (having not yet been graduated) keeping an eye on traffic in midtown, and regular police as ever, everywhere. Military humvees heading down Fifth Avenue along with delivery trucks and stretch limos. I saw my therapist yesterday for the first time in two weeks (I see her on Tuesdays, but had no Sept. 11 session), and talked to her about depression, anxiety, the new numbness of being which I am beginning to think may have a certain permanence about it, now; about my stepmother's death the week prior to last, forgotten in the rush of events; about anger, and rage. (A minor interruption just now as a workman came into my office. \"Just checking your electric outlet,\" he said. \"The plates.\" Then, as he leaves. stated from over his shoulder, \"Don't want you to get blown up.\") I've always been an *extremely* angry person. For most of my life I automatically turned this inward, with the result being (as noted yesterday, I think) fairly deep and ongoing depression (which is also, at least partially, hereditary/chemical) With four years of therapy, beginning after I came out of the hospital back in 1997, I have managed to be able to get a lot of what was in, out; and feel much better for it. For the past year I've been doing much better at getting anger out before it becomes internalized rage. Unfortunately, if anger has no ready focus; or if anger rises toward a number of situations, or people, or whatever, very suddenly, it can't help but be turned inward, at least initially. And it grows, and it grows, and it grows; and it either stays inside, and becomes depression (which is what has been happening, I'm sure not only to me) or comes out in -- well, random acts of senseless violence. And on a national scale... But I am"}, {"response": 473, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (21:42)", "body": "Terry, I am gonna e mail you the James Woods article. My copy and paste fuctions never work here at Drool. Its very odd. So I'll just e mail it to you and, you can decide if you want to post it here."}, {"response": 474, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (21:44)", "body": "I found something on http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover.shtml Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2001 9:38 a.m. EDT Twin Tower Terrorists May Have Made Dry Run Did terrorist hijackers who slammed two Boeing 767s into New York's Twin Towers on Tuesday stage a dress rehearsal a week before the attack? That's the intriguing question raised by the account of actor James Woods, who is reportedly telling friends that he saw a suspicious group of Middle Eastern men behaving in a \"clandestine\" manner during the earlier flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Exactly a week before the devastating attacks, Woods boarded a plane at Boston's Logan Airport, the same departure point the terrorists used. Woods sat in first class, according to friends, two of whom repeated his account to the New York Post's Cindy Adams. He was alone except for four other passengers - all Middle Eastern males. The actor immediately noticed the men behaving \"bizarrely.\" They neither drank, nor ate a morsel nor spoke out loud for the entire flight. There was no reading, no slouching, no nodding off. \"They were clandestine. Spoke only to each other in audible tones. And stared straight ahead,\" Adams was told. \"They were clearly very uptight,\" Woods' friends quoted him as saying. The actor was sufficiently troubled by their behavior to report it to a flight attendant - but she shrugged the incident off. When Woods landed he informed authorities on the ground, who reportedly \"seemed unwilling to become involved.\" The day after the attacks on New York and Washington, Woods called the FBI. At 7 a.m. Thursday investigators summoned the actor for an immediate interview."}, {"response": 475, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (16:56)", "body": "I don't quite understand how they could not speak out loud and speak to other other in audible tones at the same time. I'm still wondering how authentic this story is, waiting for Bethanne's email to find out more. It should be in the Ne York Post in Cindy Adams column it sounds like."}, {"response": 476, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (17:28)", "body": "From the horses mouth, NY Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams: September 18, 2001 -- Actor's travel tale is plane-ly chilling MOVIE STAR James Woods met with the FBI this week on the events that happened last week. It was a real-life scenario. It was chilling. Jimmy is devoted to his mom, whom fans will recall was his date at the Oscars. She lives in Boston. He lives in Los Angeles. He sees her often. He thus makes the Logan-LAX run regularly. Exactly one week before Terrorist Tuesday, Jimmy made the identical flight from Boston's Logan Airport to L.A. He related this episode to two friends of mine Sunday. Both repeated it to me almost verbatim. As we go to press I have been unable to reach James Woods, whom I know. I therefore repeat this story using his words as they were told to me. James Woods sat in first class. The section was empty except for four other passengers. All male. All Middle Eastern. He was acutely aware of them because of what he termed their \"bizarre\" behavior. On this entire flight which crosses the whole country not once did one of them partake of a single morsel. Not one even had a sip of water. They did not read. Did not nod off for an instant. Did not slouch down. Did not make themselves comfortable. Did not say a word to the attendants. Did not speak aloud. They were clandestine. Spoke only to each other in inaudible tones. And stared straight ahead. Jimmy is quoted as saying, \"They were clearly very uptight.\" An actor reads body language. An actor is trained to see into someone. To silently probe their psyche. An actor's laserlike slice into the heart of a foreign situation or human being is what enables him to don the mantle and play that other person. An actor's insight into behavior and manner can be as telling as a photograph. Award-winning James Woods felt uneasy. Sufficiently concerned to mention what he'd noticed to a flight attendant who shrugged it off. He also mentioned it to ground authorities who seemed unwilling to become involved. Wednesday, the day after the World Trade Center hit, Jimmy rang the FBI to report his experience. They said thousands of tips were coming in and they're checking all out as fast as they can. Thursday, 7 a.m., they called and said they're coming to see him. Like now. A team arrived at his door. They said something to the effect of, \"We cannot tell you anything. We cannot answer any of your questions. You can think whatever you choose to think. Now tell us every detail you remember.\" As is now known, not the airlines, not Logan security - which Woods supposedly said, \"was so lax that I particularly noted it\" - not our own intelligence operation picked up vibes in advance of Terrorist Tuesday because, ostensibly, the strike was so swift. However, this would appear that, in fact, somebody should have picked it up because it was not so swift. Because these men had made a dry run exactly the week before. Multiple men. Non-American nationals. Traveling in one group. Arabic names. Foreign passports. Reportedly paying cash. This does not trip some computer somehow, somewhere, someplace? And barring an omniscent all-seeing, all-noticing James Woods being a fellow passenger, might similar advance teams not have replicated this same type trial run on at least four other planes?"}, {"response": 477, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Wed, Sep 19, 2001 (17:30)", "body": "I watched all ofthe PBS programs last night. It wasn't exactly the most cheerful evening - I am going to try to be less attentive to the tv tonight. The White House has been trying to backtrack on the \"crusade\" comment. The root-em-toot-em cowboy image seems to have been reinforced by the \"dead or alive\" comment also. Even Blair seems less than thrilled with that one. Tuesday September 18 3:46 PM ET White House Apologizes for Word WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush (news - web sites) regrets using the word ``crusade,'' with all its historical connotations of religious war, to describe his campaign against terrorists, his spokesman said Tuesday. Bush only meant to say that his is a ``broad cause'' to stamp out terrorism worldwide, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010918/us/attacks_crusade_3.html ---------------- No 10 fails to echo 'dead or alive' call By George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 19/09/2001)(The Telegraph) BRITAIN refused yesterday to endorse President Bush's declaration that he wanted Osama bin Laden \"dead or alive\". Tony Blair's official spokesman said the Prime Minister wanted those responsible for the atrocities \"brought to account\". http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/19/nbrit19.xml"}, {"response": 478, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (00:26)", "body": "Feedback for Freedom We find ourselves surrounded by cries for retribution ringing out in response to the attacks on the East coast. Fanned by the media, this primitive urge to make others suffer equally or more will have its political and military effect. We are probably on the horrific spiral envisioned by the perpetrators of the attack. My engineering experience warns me that this is not a \"converging\" situation - it will not settle out in stability, but will thrash madly about until so much is destroyed that nothing can continue. If we want the situation to achieve stability we should consider some principles of feedback design. An engineer designing a feedback system takes an \"active element\" capable of exerting the maximum force needed and tames it by placing it within an environment that guarantees operation within the intended parameters. For an oscillator, the environment will say: \"do anything you want, but only at this frequency\". For an amplifier, the message is \"do anything you want, but only if the output is in this proportion of the input\". Taking this metaphor further, if we want a world of stability we must surround those elements capable of exerting force with environments in which the force is limited and directed. Not by meeting force with greater force, but by depriving force of support when wrongly directed. This applies not only to obvious kinds of military force but also to all the sorts of power which leave people at a disadvantage in their lives. Applying this approach, it is clear that the US should be applying massive pressure upon Israel and the Palestinian Authority to settle up, even if it's not the ideal unattainable by either side. This would remove a serious motivating and disrupting factor from the situation. We should be applying all possible means to change the environment in Afghanistan so that the people are empowered to overthrow the Taliban. Foreign invaders do not fare well in that country - the only people who can effect change are the Afghanis themselves. We should turn many of the billions appropriated by Congress to the alleviation of poverty in the poor nations of the world, especially the Mideast, through education and micro-lending, for example. Work from the bottom up, changing the political and economic environment for the better. And the \"we\" here also means we as individuals and groups, not simply the government. Citizen initiative can be powerful. We can use it to make cracks in the image of a monolithic passive, compliant populace perpetuated by the media. Cracks like this have a way of propagating. All of this would be profoundly subversive to systems of power. That is the point. Building feedback loops around those power structures will protect not only ourselves but our world. (Lee Felsenstein, , is an electronic design engineer and EFF Pioneer Award winner who played a part both in the early development of personal computers and in the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley. Permission is granted to reproduce this work only in its entirety, including this notice.)"}, {"response": 479, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (02:36)", "body": "I wonder how many \"test runs\" these guys made. James Woods Reports Suspicious Passengers to FBI September 19, 2001 Reuters Woods declined to publicly discuss his experience, first reported by New York Post columnist Cindy Adams and confirmed by his spokeswoman, Susan Madore. In a brief statement, the actor said, \"I think it prudent not to comment on this and let the FBI continue do their job ...\" Article: http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=entertainmentnews&StoryID=231786"}, {"response": 480, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (02:43)", "body": "Secret Plans for 10-year War THE TIMES (LONDON) THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 20 2001 BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR Generals rule out 'D-Day invasion' AMERICA and Britain are producing secret plans to launch a ten-year \ufffdwar on terrorism\ufffd \ufffd Operation Noble Eagle \ufffd involving a completely new military and diplomatic strategy to eliminate terrorist networks and cells around the world. Despite the mass build-up of American forces in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, there will be no \ufffdD-Day invasion\ufffd of Afghanistan and no repeat of the US-led Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in 1991, defence sources say. The notion that a US-led multinational coalition would attack Afghanistan from all sides for harbouring Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi dissident leader and prime suspect for the terrorist outrages in New York and Washington, has been rejected in Washington and London. The sources also say that the planned campaign is not being focused on just \ufffdbringing bin Laden to justice\ufffd. The build-up of firepower by the Americans in the region, notably the two aircraft carrier battle groups that are to be joined by a third carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt, is seen as a major display of available military capability. While it is important for these assets to be in the right place in case of a political decision to launch a strike, there are no plans for a \ufffdshort-term fix\ufffd. The dramatically different anti-terrorism campaign is being planned to meet what is now regarded as the most dangerous threat to global security, known as asymmetric warfare. \ufffdWe\ufffdre expecting it to last from five to ten years,\ufffd one source said. New ideas are needed to counter small groups armed with the minimum of weaponry, whether conventional or non-conventional. Such groups have the capability to attack a nation as powerful as the United States, which is equipped with the full range of modern weapons and professional Armed Forces. Old doctrines for fighting wars, based on lining up tanks and artillery and layers of troops, are being thrown out and replaced by a more subtle and wide-ranging doctrine which seeks to defeat the enemy at its own game. \ufffdThe aim is not to go for the enemy\ufffds strengths, but its weaknesses,\ufffd one source said. American and British planners are working on the basis that military strikes will take place only as part of a broader global counter-terrorist operation, embracing every other type of international action \ufffd diplomatic, economic and political. Most of the focus of the ten-year campaign plan, the sources say, is on using military action as a potent back-up to all the other strands of Operation Noble Eagle. However, President Bush, conscious of the demand for \ufffdrevenge\ufffd from the American public, might sanction shorter-term military operation by special forces, or airstrikes, but only if there is sufficient intelligence to guarantee a sucessful outcome. \ufffdThere\ufffds no point in firing a lot of missiles at bin Laden if they miss their target, or launching Tomahawks at bin Laden training camps if they are empty,\ufffd one source said. Complete Article: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001320010-2001325231,00.html"}, {"response": 481, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (09:46)", "body": "From Screendaily: US theatres plan Sept 11 charity day next Tuesday (Mike Goodridge in Los Angeles) Theatre circuits across the US are banding together to create a \"Victims Benefit Day at the Movies\" next Tuesday (Sept 25) on which 100% of ticket and concession sales will be donated to the September 11th Fund of the United Way and the American Red Cross. 50% of the proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross and 50% to the United Way. Among participating circuits are AMC, Carmike Cinemas, Cinemark USA, Hoyts Cinemas Corp, National Amusements, Regal Cinemas and United Artists Theatre Co. \ufffd Joe Roth\ufffds Revolution Studios has announced that it will donate all proceeds from the planned re-release of America\ufffds Sweethearts this weekend to the September 11th Fund; the company is also adding its summer comedy hit The Animal to the re-release at selected sites."}, {"response": 482, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (10:04)", "body": "An article in the Nation reports that Russian television has been saying that Russian security services believe the next attack will be on a nuclear power plant: http://www.thenation.com/docPrint.mhtml?i=special&s=bivens_wtc_20010916 We better step up security at our nuclear facilities. Now."}, {"response": 483, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (10:05)", "body": "In other news, BBC is reporting that the Afghanistan shura (meeting of clerics) has decided to ask Osama bin Laden to voluntarily leave the country. But who would take him?"}, {"response": 484, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (10:08)", "body": "It is now being reported that Mossad warned the Bush Administration in August that about 200 people on their watch list of suspected terrorists were slipping into the United States, and that a \"big target\" was going to be hit."}, {"response": 485, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (10:31)", "body": "The James Woods story gets a notch more credibility. Unfriendly Skies for James Woods By Scott Huver, Hollywood.com Staff Hollywood.com Exclusive! Actor may have shared \"trial run\" flight with terrorists The always-intense actor James Woods may have found himself near the center of the real-life drama that led to the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center. The 54-year-old actor was questioned by the FBI following his report that while on a commercial flight from Boston's Logan Airport to Los Angeles one month prior to the devastating attack, he may have shared the first class section with the same box cutter-wielding terrorists responsible for hijacking American Airlines Flight 11. The four men are now believed to have been enacting a \"trial run\" of their suicide assault on NYC. According to Woods in a story confirmed by his publicist, he was on a flight back to L.A. after visiting his mother's home in Boston. He was alone in the first class section, except for a quartet of Middle Eastern men who, in Woods' estimation, were behaving bizarrely. The actor noticed that they never ate or drank, never spoke to the flight crew and only addressed each other in hushed tones. For the majority of the cross-country flight the men sat and stared stone-faced straight ahead. Perhaps playing all those movie bad guys and killers gave the Oscar-nominated actor some kind of subtle insight: After picking up on the group's odd demeanor and tense body language, Woods actually mentioned it to a flight attendant, who dismissed it, and reported it again to airline authorities on the ground, who didn't seem to want to pursue it. It wasn't until about a month later, on the Wednesday following the attack, that Woods again called authorities--this time the FBI--to report his experience once more. This time, in less than 24 hours, Federal agents arrived on his doorstep looking to examine every detail of his story. Although the agents didn't share any information on their investigation with the actor, out of the thousands of tips the FBI received, they certainly seemed to take Woods' tale extremely seriously. The actor kept his experience quiet until it was leaked to a New York Post columnist, who mistakenly reported that it occurred only one week prior to the deadly attack. \"I think it is prudent not to comment on this and let the FBI continue to do their job, which they seem to be doing superbly right now,\" Woods said in a statement to Hollywood.com. Laura Bosley, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Los Angeles, could neither confirm nor deny this report, but she did tell Hollywood.com that many individuals nationwide are coming forward with information and that the FBI is taking all these reports into account. Woods recently starred in Scary Movie 2 and appears in the upcoming Drew Barrymore film Riding in Cars With Boys. He recently signed to play former studio head Alan Hirschfield in the film version of David McClintock's book Indecent Exposure, which chronicles David Begelman's check-forging scandal while heading Columbia Pictures in the late 1970s."}, {"response": 486, "author": "Moon", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (11:13)", "body": "the Afghanistan shura (meeting of clerics) has decided to ask Osama bin Laden to voluntarily leave the country. But who would take him? If OBL gave himselp up, it would aid all those cells he has all over by centruting the attention on him. This is so complicated because it is not just him. In Israel everyone has gas masks, I think it would be prudent on our side to to the same."}, {"response": 487, "author": "Moon", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (11:15)", "body": "centruting should be concentrating."}, {"response": 488, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (12:07)", "body": "The Taliban have issued an edict that asks OBL to leave Afghanistan: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010920/80/c4q2r.html"}, {"response": 489, "author": "AnnieZ", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (12:20)", "body": "I work for an airline company. It's the saddest day in my company today. 25% of people in my department are leaving (most of them have already left by now). I've survived at this time but don't feel happy at all! People, whom I worked with for years and some of them became very good friends, are let go. Tears in many people's eyes no matter they stay or go. I'm feeling so depressed. It feels like an airplane just hit the building when I work (which is the headquarter of the company). Just think that we had several new positions opening for hire a week before the attack. I may survive for this cut but who knows the next time I'd survive?"}, {"response": 490, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (12:24)", "body": "janes.com: 19 September 2001 Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view Israel\ufffds military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world\ufffds foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden. The two men have not been seen for some time. Mughniyeh is probably the world\ufffds most wanted outlaw. Unconfirmed reports in Beirut say he has undergone plastic surgery and is unrecognisable. Zawahiri is thought to be based in Egypt. He could be Bin Laden\ufffds chief representative outside Afghanistan."}, {"response": 491, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (12:46)", "body": "Re: the James Woods story Just because something is repeated does not, in itself, make a story credible. Let's look at who the 'reporters' are. Cindy Adams: a gossip columnist, relating heresay. I do not doubt James Woods saw what he saw and reported it as described, but how can it be concluded these *were* the same terrorists? Or even terrorists at all? Did he positively ID them? 'Reportedly paying cash'--how does James or Cindy know this? She also blames Logan Security when security at the Portland, Maine airport is also culpable. Scott Huver, Hollywood.com (c'mon, H'wood.com? We're not exactly talking 60 Minutes here): Scott essentially re-writes Cindy's story except he states Woods took the flight one month before 9-11 whereas Cindy said it was one week. He then embellishes with some common knowledge quotes. IMO one should not jump to conclusions based on this level of reporting and should use the term 'credible' with care."}, {"response": 492, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (13:24)", "body": "Just because something is repeated does not, in itself, make a story credible... IMO one should not jump to conclusions based on this level of reporting.(Eileen) Good point, but I think it applies to every \"level of reporting\" right now. (Especially right now.) There have been quite a few stories circulated that turned out to be incorrect even in the \"main stream\" press. I do think it makes sense that the terrorists would have made \"trial runs\" to check out the exact conditions on the flights."}, {"response": 493, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (13:38)", "body": "(Suzee) I think it applies to every \"level of reporting\" right now. Good point right back at 'cha, but I'd like to think things are settling down in the true mainstream press. Last week it was mass hysteria."}, {"response": 494, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (13:46)", "body": "Just because something is repeated does not, in itself, make a story credible... IMO one should not jump to conclusions based on this level of reporting.(Eileen) Good point, but I think it applies to every \"level of reporting\" right now. (Especially right now.) There have been quite a few stories circulated that turned out to be incorrect even in the \"main stream\" press. I do think it makes sense that the terrorists would have made \"trial runs\" to check out the exact conditions on the flights."}, {"response": 495, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (14:23)", "body": "I'm taking the Woods story with the grain of salt it deserves, but if true has much broader consequences. This is an article on the international system used to move money to the terrorists and the moves to stop it. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/business/20MONE.html"}, {"response": 496, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (15:58)", "body": "Finally, a major, reputable news source has picked this James Woods thing up. Reuters. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010919/en/people-woods_1.html Pretty much the same information in this Reuters piece with the exception of this elaboration: Woods declined to publicly discuss his experience, first reported by New York Post columnist Cindy Adams and confirmed by his spokeswoman, Susan Madore. In a brief statement, the actor said, ``I think it prudent not to comment on this and let the FBI continue do their job, which they seem to be doing superbly right now.'' Woods, 54, who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before pursuing an acting career, is best known for playing heavies and misfits."}, {"response": 497, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (16:10)", "body": "It's now being reported the Woods flight was a month before not a week as reported in the gossip column."}, {"response": 498, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (20:29)", "body": "At least two of the \"hijackers\" supposedly found alive and well. Doubts emerge over identities of hijackers in US attacks WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (AFP) - US officials are investigating whether some or all of the 19 hijackers on the four hijacked aircraft used in last week's terror attacks used stolen identities, possibly complicating efforts to link them to Osama bin Laden. The doubts started to emerge when at least four men with names matching those on an FBI list of the hijackers turned up alive in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, according to newspaper reports. An unnamed senior US official told Thursday's Washington Post that there was now uncertainty over the list of names. \"There may be some question with regard to the identity of at least some of them,\" he said. ......... FBI director Robert Mueller said last week as he released what he said were the names of the hijackers that his bureau had \"a fairly high level of confidence\" that they were their true identities. But at least one Arabic newspaper, the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat, said this week it had found two of the Saudis named on the list, Abdelaziz al-Omari and Said Hussein Gharamallah al-Ghamdi, alive and well. Article: http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/technology/afp/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010920/technology/afp/Doubts_emerge_over_identities_of_hijackers_in_US_attacks.html"}, {"response": 499, "author": "wolf", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (21:39)", "body": "i heard about the stolen identities too. prayers and love to all...."}, {"response": 500, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (22:29)", "body": "Plus the families of two of the hihackers have said, their relative was not one of the hijackers, including this Mohammad Atta dude. They are claiming identity fraud too. A bit hard to belive when you consider Atta has been on the FBI's list of suspected criminals, for a long time."}, {"response": 501, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (22:37)", "body": "(Rob)MSG 436 sums up just about every country capable of providing aid bar New Zealand. Do we not exist? - I copied that information from a couple of different sites. It is entirely possible that I missed New Zealand :-( -- or it was not on the lists I used -- but I looked around and found this: NEW ZEALAND: Has offered the use of Special Air Services commandos and New Zealand intelligence resources in any action against those responsible for the terrorist attacks. ----------------- Here's to New Zealand: \ufffdGod of nations at Thy feet In the bonds of love we meet. Hear our voices, we entreat, God defend our Free Land. Guard Pacific's triple star\ufffd And why if it \"can be found on two large islands and a host of smaller islands\" is it called \"triple star\"? (Gee, I hope the lyrics are correct!)"}, {"response": 502, "author": "maryw", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (22:49)", "body": "This is really spooky I just received by email : a.. A flight number from one of the planes that hit one of the twin towers was Q33NY. b.. In MS Word or Wordperfect, type in that flight number (in capitals) - Q33NY c.. Enlarge the font size to 26 and then change the font to Wingdings or Wingdings1"}, {"response": 503, "author": "maryw", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (22:49)", "body": ""}, {"response": 504, "author": "maryw", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (22:50)", "body": "This is really spooky I just received by email : a.. A flight number from one of the planes that hit one of the twin towers was Q33NY. b.. In MS Word or Wordperfect, type in that flight number (in capitals) - Q33NY c.. Enlarge the font size to 26 and then change the font to Wingdings or Wingdings1"}, {"response": 505, "author": "maryw", "date": "Thu, Sep 20, 2001 (22:51)", "body": "Sorry..for phantom postings"}, {"response": 506, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (01:48)", "body": "Hi all I thought I would post this as my own perspective on the Taliban, the case with the Muslim population world wide, the case of the Middle East and the possible effect on the world economy. My perspective comes from having talked to Mum and Dad who have been to Pakistan and Afghanistan, from learning and research I did on my own accord on the Middle East powder keg, from Political Science and from Geography where we examined the United States foreign policy (not as applied to a Middle Eastern nation). In 1979 the country of Nicaragua was ripe for revolt, with a regime in power despised by the people and in command of a military that was beginning to lean toward the people. The regime was recognised by the United States among other countries and it allowed environmentally unfriendly practices to be maintained by foreign companies of mainly Western origin. A politician named Sandinista however began a revolution the following year that swept him into power with the support of the people of Nicaragua. It was a socialist government (NOT COMMUNIST)that formed and immediately began instituting sweeping reform basic social welfare, health, education, and economic programmes the latter of which were based on principles of environmental sustainability. The program involved the passing of the first ever environmental laws for the country which restricted the amount of forest that could be logged and set standards for mines. Someone in the Ronald Reagan found out and pressed the President into allowing the CIA to wage government sponsored crime in the country by burning down the forests, and funding anti Sandinista factions to topple the government. The secretly funded war that CIA agents waged in the country crippled Nicaragua at the one time when it was making it's first substantial economic progress ever. The same President decreased spending on just about everything to fund a huge programme of capital expenditure on the United States military which had operatives in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets, who were immediately withdrawn without any gratitude to Afghanistan (or Pakistan from where they were based) as soon as the Soviets withdrew. Pakistan inherited many problems created by the sudden United States departure which to some extent the Pakistani government could not have satisfactorily sorted out itself. That upset many Muslims and since the United States is a powerful ally of Israel whose Jews are age old foes of the Muslims, the United States became a target of anger. None of this ever justified terrorism on ANY scale let alone the scale of last weeks attacks, but it may have been part of a trigger for the strikes on New York and Washington D.C. Osama bin Laden has begun a holy war and I suspect that the Middle East with it's sharp divisions between Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews has the capacity to become a giant conflagration of war if certain issues are not sorted out. The entire Western World is at fault to some extent (United States, Britain, Australia, France, Germany, Canada, New Zealand and like countries)on this issue. We take the oil of those countries to drive our economies while putting minimal investment back in by mploying people at dirt cheap rates in some cases and this is not an exaggeration NZ$1 (US$.44c) a day. We treat their environments with contempt and make no effort to clean up the mess, and we contribute to the cycle of poverty that ensures these countries STAY poor. New Zealand is at fault because we get shirts and clothes really cheaply from Indonesia (a Muslim nation with 200 million people), and probably places like Pakistan and India. We expect them to be democratic and freedom when we can at TIMES hardly call the governments of our nations freedom loving either. I think there is a low but very REAL chance that a showdown sometime in the next few decades between the West and Islam is looming, and I think it may engulf at least the entire Middle East when it does come. So how did this mess come about?? In part Western consumerism is to blame for the economic ills and lack of investment in the countries where we have set up Multi-national corporations, and in part to misguided policies passed by the governments of those nations who have large Muslim populations. What can we do?? All countries have a role to play in this though the largest role will be that of the United States, because it takes the most out of the Islamic nations. United States Foreign policy on things like trade is going to have to change or it risks permanently damaging relations with the entire Islamic world. Changes need not be sweeping but they need to be on things like free trade (without tariffs), and a concept of \"fair trade\" that involves trade deals that disadvantage neither side are being promoted by some. How the Department of State sees environmental protocols will have to change as it is hurting traditional European friends/allies as much as it hurts poorer nations. People, I know that th"}, {"response": 507, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (05:25)", "body": "Secret memo reveals US plan to overthrow Taliban regime Friday September 21, 2001 The Guardian The US government is pressing its European allies to agree to a military campaign to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and replace it with an interim administration under United Nations auspices. Diplomatic cables from the Washington embassy of a key Nato ally, seen by the Guardian, report that the US is keen to hear allied views on \"post-Taliban Afghanistan after the liberation of the country\". The embassy cable reveals that the US administration is bent on force to evict the Taliban from power because of the shelter it has offered Osama bin Laden, named by the White House as prime suspect for the New York and Washington atrocities on September 11. The Guardian has also learned that two large US Hercules transport aircraft landed in Tashkent, capital of the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, on Tuesday loaded with surveillance equipment to be installed along the northern Afghan border. The secret landing represented a radical departure since it appeared to herald the deployment of squadrons of US fighters at Uzbekistan's sprawling airfield at Termez, directly on the border. Such a build-up would incur the wrath of Russia which views the central Asian republics as its backyard. .......................... The US strategy to depose the Taliban regime is based on more than military thinking. A further plank appears to entail supporting the campaign of the exiled 86-year-old monarch of Afghanistan, King Zahir Shah, to return to power by encouraging the guerrilla army of the Northern Alliance opposition to fall in behind him. Complete article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,555530,00.html"}, {"response": 508, "author": "Moon", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (08:35)", "body": "At the end of the day we Westerners are going to have to make some sacrifices to our material wealth, because plainly to stop the social conditions that support this sort of evil, nothing less will do. Good point, Rob. the US is keen to hear allied views on \"post-Taliban Afghanistan after the liberation of the country\". Some people may find this statement very arrogant. From syndicated columnist JONATHAN POWER Is it possible for America to say 'Sorry'? September 20, 2001 LONDON - How should the United States fight Osama bin Laden? It could start by saying sorry. Despite two centuries of rapid immigration pulling in people from all over the world, America remains a predominantly Christian nation. It is not a Jewish one and certainly not an Islamic one. It draws its inspiration from another book, mightier, it believes, than the Old Testament or the Koran, although it shares common roots with both these religions and worships the same God. If Christianity is not about saying sorry and turning the other cheek what, at the end of the day, is so special about it? We have a lot to be sorry for. After all it was Christian societies that practised slavery. It was a Christian society that tolerated the long persecution and then the obliteration of the Jews. (Islamic societies, even in their worst times, have never set about the extermination of the Jewish people.) And in a more recent era it is Christian societies which stirred up war in Africa in their quest for Cold War allies, destroyed Afghanistan, the scorched refuge of bin Laden, in a misplaced and unnecessary attempt to aid the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and allowed the legitimate desire of the Jewish people to own their own state to degenerate into the contemporary world's worst example of military occupation and imperialistic land acquisition. Perhaps it seems extraordinary that a political writer should have nothing better to say than \"say sorry\". In a week when innocent bodies in New York and Washington are being buried, when children cry all night for their lost parents, when lonely widows and widowers ask themselves how they will ever take another step forward through life, is this the time for contrition? It is hard to make the argument, that I know. But where does hatred take us, where does revenge, where does it end if, as President George Bush says, \"there are no rules\"? Do we want to make the situation worse or do we want to take a momentous leap of imagination and reach out to make it better? The military solution, however sympathetically one looks at it, appears at the very least counterproductive. As a recent publication by the hard headed International Institute for Strategic Studies argued it, going after the Taleban regime in Afghanistan will likely destabilise its friendly neighbour Pakistan and throw a nuclear-armed country into the hands of the militants. Beyond that, what would be the point of inflaming Islamic societies everywhere if it led to the fall of the fundamentalist (but friendly) government of Saudi Arabia? If Saudi Arabia were ruled in a fashion true to its Wahhabi ultra- fundamentalist creed not only would there be no U.S. troops on Saudi soil, it would be an end to the (uneasy) coalition against Saddam Hussein, there would be a cataclysmic shortfall in western oil supplies, and the turning of Saudi missiles from pointing towards Iraq in the direction of Israel instead. It would also probably push Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear weapons to put on the nose of its nuclear-capable rockets it bought from China, and this to threaten Israel with. Is America going to occupy Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to forestall that scenario? Then the house would really fall in. The reason America has reached this fork in the road is because, as with so many other issues, America has put off biting the bullet on hard problems. Politicians and the media have connived to keep the populace ignorant of what is going on in the world. Only in extreme times of emergency - such as the current one and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait- is there an intense effort made to educate public opinion, and then that is done at a fever pitch with truth and objectivity being given short shrift. Yet all over the world there are silent emergencies that have continued to be combated half heartedly, whilst they have developed a head of power that in the end steamrollers all modest solutions. This is as true of global warming as it is of the Israeli settlement policy on Palestinian land. This is as true of the spread of AIDS and other highly infectious diseases as it is of the West's over-consumption of energy. This is as true of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, for want of a disarmament lead from the ex-Cold War nuclear powers, as it is of the Western tolerance of child labour in factories making their consumer goods. This is as true of children dying in Africa and other Third World countries for want of pure drinking water and the lack of education o"}, {"response": 509, "author": "Moon", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (09:03)", "body": "Did anyone see a teleprompter last night for Pres. Bush? He couldn't have memorized and delivered the speech so well. It was the best he's ever done live."}, {"response": 510, "author": "MarkG", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (09:35)", "body": "MaryW: A flight number from one of the planes that hit one of the twin towers was Q33NY. Don't let Wingdings experts mess with your head, Mary. The flights that hit the towers were numbered 11 and 77, the other two hijacked flights 175 and 93. Also, the Nostradamus lines being broadcast around the Web (\"twin brothers shall be rent in fire, yadda, yadda\") are made up."}, {"response": 511, "author": "LauraMM", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (09:42)", "body": "Sorry? I haven't read the above article and don't feel the inclination to. We have Jesse Jackson trying to get monies to the offspring of slaves? I'm sorry, but that is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. If that's the case then, perhaps we should start doling money out to every Japanese American who were sent into camps during WW2 or the Koreans during the Korean War? Hell, we should pay Britain for \"allowing\" us to win the war in 1776. Why should WE say sorry? We are a nation built on different ethnicities and backgrounds. Slavery made this country, it built our civil rights, and our Bill of Rights, out of bad, some good may come. What we have is a nation (Afghanistan) who is run by fundamentalist nutjobs. The Taliban is EVIL. They are trying to infiltrate as many countries as they can with their idealogy mumbo jumbo. They are not Muslims? They are whacked out religious freaks who say they speak the word or Allah. And Allah comandeered them to take our airplanes, use them as missiles, against CIVILIANS, who were just working, like the rest of the world. Not plotting to overtake a government, or throw their religious beliefs on everyone else. I know I'm just ranting, but we don't owe anyone an apology. Our governmental policies are in use because they work. Iraq says it's our fault. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (GO AWAY BOTH OF YOU) blame our moral values. They said it was our fault. No one, absolutely NO ONE, deserves to die the way helpless civilians dies on September 11, 2001. end of rant."}, {"response": 512, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (09:56)", "body": "A summary of OBL's finances in The Times http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001320010-2001325324,00.html"}, {"response": 513, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (10:03)", "body": "David Kline: If we end up bombing the Afghan capital (or other populated targets), it'll be because Washington lacked the patience and willingness to ally with freedom-loving Afghans in the country and gather the human intelligence needed to locate Bin Laden and his Taliban benefactors. In other words, it'll be a de facto admission of defeat. If you really want Bin Laden, you have to: * Use local people to locate him. * Move swiftly without alerting him or his Taliban supporters (which probably means employing a joint US-Afghan (anti-Taliban) team. If we just start flying around in Bin Laden's general area, using electronic intelligence gathered from his communications to hone in on him, he'll be gone before his tea gets cold. And I mean *gone.* In that part of the country -- a lot like Utah only hotter and more difficult to traverse -- there are thousands of little cave hideouts and hundreds of Taliban-dominated villages where he could hide out and slink away. The borders near Quetta, Pakistan are completely porous -- even if the Pak's tried with all their might to seal them, it couldn't be done. There are also nomadic tribespeople moving in caravans constantly across both Iran's and Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan where a guy in a turban with a half-dozen bodyguards could easily blend in. So \"chasing\" Bin Laden on the run won't work. You've got to find him and move in quickly, **before** he runs, and for that you need anti-Taliban Afghan intelligence. There's simply no other way to attack him effectively. Of course, if Washington just wants to blow off steam and waste a few hundred or thousand innocent Afghans, then none of the above applies. It'll look good on TV, maybe, but it won't get Bin Laden or the Taliban. A finger of David Kline reveals: I'm a journalist and author, former war correspondent (until, genius that I am, I finally figured out I should find something safer to do) and sometime business strategy consultant. I used to be a HotWired columnist and Upside columnist till they gave me the boot for ideological impurity. But I'm still a commentator on NPR's \"Marketplace\" business program and I'm still writing books. So I guess I'm not a complete screw-up. My first book was published by Dutton in 1995 -- \"Road Warriors: Dreams and Nightmares Along the Information Highway.\" My latest will be published by Harvard Business School Press in the Fall of 1999 -- \"Rembrandts in the Closet: Wielding Intellectual Property for Competitive Advantage.\" I would add that he's been on the scene in Afghanistan as a war correspondent."}, {"response": 514, "author": "EileenG", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (10:07)", "body": "(Moon) It was the best he's ever done live. Practice makes perfect and so does good coaching. I was grateful he didn't appear to be sounding out the words as he has in earlier speeches. (Laura) perhaps we should start doling money out to every Japanese American who were sent into camps during WW2 Psst, Laura, it was done. You've never heard of reparation? =8-O"}, {"response": 515, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (10:32)", "body": "David Kline (dkline) Thu 13 Sep 01 08:30 I'd like to try to clear up some mis-information about how the US supposedly \"supplied\", \"trained\" or \"created\" Bin Laden. I reported from Afghanistan from 1979-1987, and I can tell you absolutely that such was not the case. The US supplied arms & money to a variety of factions of the mujahadeen, but did so only through the Pakistani intelligence serevices (SIS), which funneled most arms to Gulbadin Hekmatyar, an ideological precursor to the Taliban and types like Bin Laden. Pakistan had its own reasons for doing so -- these fanatics did very little fighting against the Russians (unlike genuine leaders like Ahmed Shah Massoud), preferring to fight other resistance factions -- and I and others warned US officials of the consequences of allowing arms to be directed towards the fundamentalists. But US officials insisted their \"hands were tied\" in this matter, and whether true or not, there it is. How did the Taliban win? Consider that Afghan society, almost entirely tribal rather than \"national\" toi begin with, was utterly destroyed by the Soviets durinbg the war. 1-tenth the population killed; 1/3 of the survivords forced to flee as refuygees. The systematic destruction of Afghan intelligentsia by Soviet-directed police forces resulted in a statistical decline in the literacy rate. Into this vacumn the Taliban, financed and armerd by Saudi extremists, entered."}, {"response": 516, "author": "admin", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (10:37)", "body": "A lot more of David Klines thoughts on this: http://www.spring.net/dkline.html"}, {"response": 517, "author": "lafn", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (10:44)", "body": "Hey, that Jonathan Power is some dude. Am I reading: Get a Marshall Plan organized for Afghanistan? Wonder how many votes that would get. *shaking head*"}, {"response": 518, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (14:23)", "body": "[from the Hollywood Reporter] Studios tighten security following FBI terror alert Sep. 21, 2001 Terrorists leveled threats Thursday against Hollywood's major film studios, prompting each to seriously reconsider existing security measures that suddenly seemed far too mild for the current political climate. Some studios partially evacuated their facilities late in the afternoon. Internal memos, usually in the form of an e-mail issued by high-ranking studio executives, buzzed throughout Hollywood on Thursday, warning of threats of mass destruction, presumably from Islamic terrorists. Insiders said studio heads first learned of the threat from MPAA president Jack Valenti, who was briefed by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who specifically mentioned a threat of a suicide bomber. An FBI statement released late Thursday, though, was more vague about the exact nature of the threat. The threat's purpose, though, was specifically laid out by the FBI: If the U.S. attacks Afghanistan, a studio will be bombed. \"Today the FBI provided a threat advisory to the major movie studios in Los Angeles,\" FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin said. \"The uncorroborated threat states that a film studio in California could be the target of a terrorist bombing attack in retaliation for any possible bombing attacks by the United States against Afghanistan. In an abundance of caution, the FBI has provided this threat advisory. The FBI is working closely with the studios regarding this matter.\" Insiders said that those making the threat will target a major film studio because American values and culture -- anathema to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists -- are distributed throughout the world via Hollywood movies."}, {"response": 519, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (14:25)", "body": "Here is a report that Osama has been rushed toward the Chinese border by the Taliban: http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/main.asp?id=2&date1=9/21/2001 This one indicates that he left even before the shura met. http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2001-daily/21-09-2001/main/main2.htm"}, {"response": 520, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (15:58)", "body": "http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ Last summer, while the American media kept the people distracted with \"All Condit All The Time\", the US Government was informing other governments that we would be at war in Afghanistan, no later than October! How lucky for our government that just when they are planning to invade another country, for the express purpose of removing that government, a convenient \"terrorist\" attack occurs to anger Americans into support for an invasion. Sound impossible? Not when you consider that accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden is actually an employee of the CIA, who trained and financed him. And guess who paid for the training of the Hijackers? YOU DID, according to NEWSWEEK and MSNBC. From Alleged Hijackers May Have Trained at U.S. Bases The Pentagon has turned over military records on five men to the FBI By George Wehrfritz, Catharine Skipp and John Barry NEWSWEEK Sept. 15 U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in Tuesdays terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s. Leonard Pitts column: http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/columnists/pitts/stories/xxpitts_20010921.htm \"LET'S GET something straight. The events of Sept. 11 did not happen because we did something wrong. Or because we somehow \"deserved\" them. In recent days, I've heard that argument or variations thereof from several friends and dozens of e-mail correspondents. This must be what \"they\" feel like when we bomb \"them,\" says one. Perhaps they acted out of deep hurt, says another. Maybe this is necessary payback for American arrogance, says yet another. And then, of course, there's the ever-reliable Jerry Falwell, who said on \"The 700 Club\" last week that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon represent God's verdict on gay rights, feminism, abortion and the ACLU. In a word, no. To all of the above, to all the tortured reflection and moral distress: no. Hell no.\".... \"Last week happened, pure and simple, because certain religious extremists hate us. They hate us because our foreign policy has been supportive of Israel. They hate us because we helped repel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. But in the larger sense, they hate us because their children want blue jeans, Britney Spears videos and the chance to be like Mike. They hate us because we consume bacon and beer. They hate us because American women wear bikinis and speak their minds. They hate us because we are the biggest, the wealthiest, the most influential, the most powerful. They hate us because we are not them and, moreover, because they are not us. They hate us because they think the deity requires it. They hate us because.\""}, {"response": 521, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (16:46)", "body": "It may be true that James Woods saw the hijackers: 09/21/2001 - Updated 03:07 PM ET Investigators: Hijackers repeatedly scouted flights By Kevin Johnson, Toni Locy and Richard Willing, USA TODAY The terrorists who staged last week's murderous attacks apparently practiced for months by repeatedly riding the flights they later hijacked, learning jet crews' patterns, counting passenger loads and testing airline security, the FBI now believes. The 19 hijackers, probably aided by accomplices who are still alive, began scouting for flights to hijack and making dry runs as early as April, law enforcement sources say. Some of the hijackers are believed to have entered the USA then. Authorities confirmed the finding by checking flight manifests and airport security camera tapes. They also interviewed airline employees. Investigators had suspected that the four hijacked flights \ufffd two from Boston and one each from Newark, N.J., and Dulles International Airport in suburban Washington \ufffd had been carefully chosen, in part because each was full of fuel for a cross-country trip and had a relatively light passenger load. The lack of passengers would have made it easier for the four or five Muslim extremists on each jet to keep those aboard under control and overwhelm the cockpit crews. Authorities say they also now believe that the killers scouted other flights as hijacking candidates but eliminated them from consideration. The findings add texture to the portrait that is emerging of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The hijackings, sources say, were meticulously planned and required large sums of money, dozens of helpers and coordination among teams. Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that a central figure who set the attacks in motion still could be at large. \ufffd Copyright 2001 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/21/hijackers-usat.htm"}, {"response": 522, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (17:06)", "body": "From the NY Times, more on the hijackers' identities: September 21, 2001 Confusion Over Names Clouds Identities of Attackers on Jets By NEIL MacFARQUHAR CAIRO, Sept. 20 \ufffd Many of the 19 hijacking suspects in the terror attacks last week remain shrouded in confusion, with almost nothing known about some and up to five apparent cases of mistaken identity. The F.B.I. list of hijacking suspects does include the names of at least six missing Saudi Arabian men who left their country, ostensibly to join the Islamic fighters battling the Russians in Chechnya, plus four others whose parents have lost contact with them. But the lack of the details about the suspects, plus the assertions of mistaken identity, have left their parents refusing to mourn and Saudi Arabian officials dismissive of the entire list. \"The haste in publishing the names of suspects in the attacks has made the media fall into the error of involving innocent people, especially Saudis,\" Prince Mit'eb bin Abdullah, the deputy commander of the Saudi National Guard, complained to reporters in Riyadh. The use of wrong names and pictures may indicate that the hijackers filched the identities of fellow Saudis. In the United States, Robert Mueller, the director of the F.B.I., acknowledged Thursday that there were questions about the identities of several of the hijackers on the list. \"We have several hijackers whose identities were those of the names on the manifest, we have several others who are still in question,\" Mr. Mueller said while touring the crash site in Pennsylvania of one hijacked plane. An official at the Saudi Embassy in Washington said there were five mistaken identities on the list, adding that all the men were alive and living abroad. Saudi officials say part of the problem stems from the proliferation of similar names in Saudi Arabia, as well as the numerous varieties of spelling them in English. One of the most common surnames on the F.B.I. list is Alshehri. But in English various members of the clan might spell it Alshahri or Alshehiri or Al-Shehri, entangling search efforts. Far more difficult is the fact that the country's huge tribes repeat the same names over and over again. Saudis use at least three names: their given name, their father's name, and their tribal name. Between the father's name and the tribal name, many also insert the name of a fourth, favored ancestor. But even brothers do not always choose the same name. To narrow the search to specific individuals, Saudi officials said they needed at least one and preferably two middle names. What they are given to work with now is a lot of Joe Smiths. For example, there might be thousands and thousands of people with the name Waleed Alshehri, one of the men whose name appears on the list of suspects who rammed the first plane into the World Trade Center. For a while, suspicion focused on the son of a Saudi diplomat with that name who had studied at Embry- Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, but his father said he was alive and working as a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines. The confusion apparently stems from the fact that the F.B.I. is matching the names on the passenger manifests to students who have trained in flying. In the southern Saudi town of Khamis Mushait, however, there is an established businessman named Mohammed Al-Shehri who is missing 2 of his 11 sons. One of them is Waleed Mohammed Al-Shehri. Mr. Waleed, 21, was studying to be a teacher, while his brother Wail, 26, already had a degree in physical education and was teaching, their father told the Saudi newspaper Al- Watan. The older brother was suffering from psychological problems and kept seeking the help of clerics to perform a kind of religious exorcism to cure him, the father said. Both men disappeared in December while on a trip to seek yet more help and have not been heard from since. They had grown increasingly religious before their disappearance and spoke often about joining the fight in Chechnya, the paper quoted family friends as saying. Their pictures match those released by the F.B.I. To try to eliminate confusion, Saudi officials said they had repeatedly asked for more information on the suspects, especially longer names, but they had yet to receive it. Plus, in a few cases it appears the hijackers resorted to outright deception. A passenger using the name Abdel Aziz Al-Omari and the birth date of December 24, 1972, is listed on the manifest of the flight that hit the towers first. But a man with the same name and birth date turned up alive in Riyadh, where he told the Al Sharq Al Awsat daily that he had studied electrical engineering at University of Denver. His passport was stolen there in 1995. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/international/middleeast/21IDEN.html?pagewanted=print"}, {"response": 523, "author": "fitzwd", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (18:02)", "body": "(Suzee) It may be true that James Woods saw the hijackers: James Woods appears to be a straight shooter. If the story were materially false, I believe he would have disowned it by now. For those who are unaware of his background, he is quite intelligent and attended MIT. He left a few credits shy of graduation. He has articulately debated against Bill Bennett, the former drug czar, on Face the Nation."}, {"response": 524, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (18:40)", "body": "Here are some interesting stats. Get out your little pad and pencil or rev' up your Excel or MS Works spreadsheet and play with these numbers. What do you se? In 1940, the US population was 132 MM, the GNP was 100 BB in constant dollars. In 1940 the US military was 500K men, maybe 300 ships, a few thousand planes. In 1945, the US military was 13.5 million men & women, we had 6000 vessels and 200K aircraft. We had spent nearly $400 BB, nearly twice the 1945 GDP. In 2001, the US military has somewhat less than 200K men & women, 300 ships, a few thousand planes. We have a population of 280 MM and a GDP of $10 trillion. Congress just appropriated $40BB for this war, half of which is earkmarked for NYC. Vietnam cost $140 BB year pop gnp military ships planes year millionsbillionsmillion thousands 1940 132 100 0.5 300 3 1945 ? 400 13.5 6000 200 2001 280 10000 0.2 300 Sorry for the gaps. It looks we need more ships, men and planes. Our gnp is now 10 trillion."}, {"response": 525, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (18:43)", "body": "I was there when the first Taliban units were seen in Afghanistan circa 1986. They were all composed of Saudi and other foreign volunteers, and few took them very seriously since they did little actual fighting against the Russians. But they quickly allied with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezbi Islami group -- i.e., the fundamentalist wing of the Afghan resistance -- which was receiving the bulk of US arms and aid via Pakistani intelligence (SIS). Then, amidst the confusion and infighting within the resistance following the Soviet withdrawal, the Pak's chose to channel almost all their material support to the Taliban, who used it to gain power over a divided resistance movement and a peoiple utterly exhausted by war. I'd wager that if a free & fair referendum were conducted in Afghanistan today, the Taliban would receive fewer than 5% of the votes. Their army is largely conscript, their most fervent supporters are unsophisticated teenagers insulated in Taliban religious schools. Nothing they say or do has any relationship to historic Afghan customs & attitudes."}, {"response": 526, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (18:45)", "body": "Kathy Rockel was amazed when her United Airlines flight last weekend began with an extraordinary message from the pilot: He informed passengers how to rise up and fend off hijackers. ``If anybody stands up and is trying to take over the plane, stand up together, take whatever you have and throw it at their heads,'' she quoted the pilot as saying. ``You have to aim for their faces so they have to defend themselves.'' The pilot also said passengers could fight hijackers by throwing blankets over their heads, wrestling them to the ground and holding them until he landed, Rockel said. And referring to the ``we the people'' preamble to the Constitution, she recalled, he said, ``We will not be defeated.'' ``Everybody on the plane was applauding,'' said Rockel, a medical transcriptionist traveling from Denver to Washington, D.C., Sept. 15 on United's Flight 564. ``People had tears coming down their faces. It was as if we had a choice here, that if something were to happen we're not completely powerless.'' Continued @: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010921/us/attacks_taking_charge_1.html"}, {"response": 527, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (19:22)", "body": "A few new topics have been created in the news conference to deal with some more specific aspects of the World Trade Center attack and the ensuing global conflict: 43 526 Jumbo Jets crash in to World Trade Center 44 0 Media coverage of WTC attack and the aftermath 45 0 What can we do? What should we do? 46 0 suspension of civil liberties as a response to terrorism 47 0 coping with terrorism and a world gone to war 48 0 economic consequences of global war and terrorism 49 0 Finding Osama Bin Laden 50 0 What is the impact of the wtc crisis where you live?"}, {"response": 528, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (22:41)", "body": "\"A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and counter- intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense.\" - Susan Sontag \"As for America's friends, they have rallied around us with alacrity. On Wednesday, the NATO allies, for the first time ever, invoked the mutual- defense clause of the alliance's founding treaty, formally declaring that \"an armed attack\" against oneQand what happened on September 11th, whether you call it terrorism or war, was certainly an armed attackQconstitutes an attack against all. This gesture of solidarity puts to shame the contempt the Bush Administration has consistently shown for international treaties and instruments, including those in areas relevant to the fight against terrorism, such as small-arms control, criminal justice, and nuclear proliferation. By now, it ought to be clear to even the most committed ideologues of the Bush Administration that the unilateralist approach it was pursuing as of last Tuesday is in urgent need of revaluation. The world will be policed collectively or it will not be policed at all.\" - Hendrik Hertzberg Both of these from the recent New Yorker."}, {"response": 529, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (23:25)", "body": "A couple of notable quotes from other pieces: In the decade since the end of the Cold War, the human race has become, with increasing rapidity, a single organism. Every kind of barrier to the free and rapid movement of goods, information and people has been lowered. The organism relies increasingly on a kind of trust -- the unsentimental expectation that people, individually and collectively, will behave more or less in their rational self-interest. -- Hendrik Hertzberg How do you take \"massive military action\" against the infrastructure of a stateless, compartmentalized \"army\" of fifty, or ten times fifty, whose weapons are rental cars, credit cards, and airline tickets? The scale of the damage notwithstanding, a more useful metaphor than war is crime. The terrorists of September 11th are outlaws within a global polity. They may enjoy the corrupt protection of a state (and corruption, like crime, can be ideological or spiritual as well as pecuniary in motive). But they do not constitute or control a state and do not even appear to aspir to control one. Their status and numbers are such that the task of dealing with them should be viewed as a police matter, of the most urgent kind. As with all criminal fugitives, the essential job is to find out who and where they are. -- Hendrik Hertzberg But fly again we must; risk is a price of freedom, and walking around Brooklyn Heights that afternoon, as ash drifted in the air and cars were few and open-air lunches continued as usual on Montague Street, renewed the impression that, with all its failings, this is a country worth fighting for. Freedom, reflected in the street's diversity and daily ease, felt palpable. It is mankind's elixir, even if a few turn it to poison. -- John Updike"}, {"response": 530, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 21, 2001 (23:34)", "body": "James Woods was shown tonight answering telephones on the \"America: A Tribute to Heroes Telethon\". A lot of these rock stars and musicians looked heartbroken as they played and spoke. Paul Simon just sang bridge over Troubled Water and the parade of stars rolls on. Star studded is an understatement."}, {"response": 531, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (01:29)", "body": "David Kline again: The Taliban cannot be negotiated with. The council of clerics is more afraid of the Taliban than they are of the U.S. -- the Taliban, after all, are within actual rifle range and constitute a real and present threat, whereas the U.S. is (in their eyes) only a distant and vague *potential* threat. Hence the Council of Clerics decision. These councils, btw, historically have tended to defer to whomever had the biggest and nearest sword. Council of Clerics' decisions tend to drift with the winds of power, and have generally been considered by Afghans to be as binding and as relevant as, say, a Berkeley resolution declaring the city a \"nuclear free zone.\" Anyone seriously wishing to capture Bin Laden or otherwise deal with the Afghan aspect of this problem effectively should not pay much attention to either Taliban or Council of Clerics edicts."}, {"response": 532, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (02:16)", "body": "Without reading through a lot of posts to see if anyone answeed Laura, rhetorical question, we did pay reparations to the Japanese Americans we interred in WW2...$25,000 each."}, {"response": 533, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (06:31)", "body": "Hi all Jonathan Power, MSG 508: To lay all these problems at America's feet is to ignore Europe's culpability. The older Continent, if only on occasion wiser and better informed about the rest of the world, has only intermittently done much better. Now it must wake up too. Rob: I always wondered if Britain had anything to gain from it's loyalty to the United States, aside from being assured of assistance when it got into it's own troubles. I mean, what is there to gain from always supporting the United States sanctions on Iraq, the unconditional following of the United States when it attacks the Myanmar military regime politics and so on? Does Britain have a rule of basing it's foreign policy on the United States foreign policy? The few exceptions I have noted were the Kyoto Climate Protocol, for the sake of the Protocol, Britain did not have a choice since Bush was determined not to participate and it's relationship with European nations was at stake. This is however one time when I think European were dead on target, and that Japan was wise to support the protocol. Perhaps the best thing the European nations can do is deliver warnings to their embassies in the United States, on things where a potential split is likely, and back it up with a rebuke or rebuttal (call it what you may)of the United States stand if it clashes. The foreign policy of European nations need not be blindly tied as is possibly the case in Britain, with the United States on everything. Surely in one of the most civilised areas of the world, there are people who can give their nations original foreign policy. However, the best thing that can happen is Bush dropping his very arrogant \"take it or leave it\" attitude which is causing splits among countries that are usually closely tied. Russia and the United States share more in common than they probably think, but Russia has a valid point on the 1972 ABM Treaty, as does Beijing on the missile shield as a whole. I would normally not agree with them on this sort of thing, so this is quite significant coming from me. The worst thing that can happen on this issue is if North Korea decides to restart it's missile program. If this happens the United States has only itself to blame, because Clinton managed to break the ice. Finally, however, Europe can bring itself and the United States to their senses by taking a hard line on things like the Missile shield (which I think is going to restart the arms race and probably bring on a limited form of Cold War). I have absolutely no time for the $30 billion white elephant it may become. So, Europe is as much at fault as it's American neighbour. Rob"}, {"response": 534, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (09:06)", "body": "The today's climate of terrorism, missile shields seem like overkill, don't they Rob? It wouldn't have helped us 9/11. This is likely to thaw out the US now that we need an international coalition, that's the only way we can combat worldwide terrorism. For a map of how countries are taking sides in this coming global conflict, see 52 1 How do the world's countries line up in the terrorism war? in the news conference."}, {"response": 535, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (09:35)", "body": "Much of the Afghan intelligentia was systematically slaughtered between 1978-1982 by KGB-trained Afghan puppet police force. So many, in fact, that it was said to produce a statistical decline in the literacy rate of that country. Many of those that survived and did not flee the country -- e.g., stayed and fought with the resistance -- were then systematically butchered by the Taliban when they began to consolidate power. It's really a shame. There once were several million educated and modern-thinking Afghans like Tamim Ansary, the author of that wonderful article last week on why the Taliban do not respresent Afghanistan."}, {"response": 536, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (10:19)", "body": "The above should have been attributed to David Kline."}, {"response": 537, "author": "lafn", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (10:45)", "body": "Both of these from the recent New Yorker. Hendrik Hertzberg, Susan Sontag, John Updike,..... I only read The New Yorker for their cartoons & fiction features. I don't think that fiction authors know any more about international stategies than you or I."}, {"response": 538, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (12:34)", "body": "LOL! Add to that list Harold Pinter..."}, {"response": 539, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (13:07)", "body": "I don't think that fiction authors know any more about international stategies than you or I. Well said, Evelyn! Now that the number of missing/dead has gone up, could someone please post a current list with the total numbers by nationalities."}, {"response": 540, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (13:45)", "body": "Absolutely moon, I'll take Christianne Amanpour over Susan Sontag any day as a political commentator."}, {"response": 541, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (14:37)", "body": "Fox News has an excellent page with around the world dead and missing, but it has not been updated with the latest figures. http://www.foxnews.com/projects/americaunited/wtc_maps/worldinfo.htm The most recent information: Saturday, September 22 10:33 AM SGT US toll put at 6,818 as countries report more missing NEW YORK, Sept 21 (AFP) - The death toll from the attacks on the United States stood at 6,818 Saturday after 11 more bodies were pulled from the ruins of the World Trade Center. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Friday the number of missing could still fluctuate as officials cross check reports of missing people. More than 60 countries have now reported citizens dead or missing, mostly in New York, one of the world's most cosmopolitan cities. But despite continuing round-the-clock rescue efforts, there was now next to no chance of pulling survivors from the rubble of the World Trade Center. UNITED STATES officials have given tallies that add up to 6,818 dead or missing in all the attacks of September 11, but they have still not established the total number of their nationals among the victims 11 days after the attack. In New York, 6,585 people were killed or listed as missing from the World Trade Center disaster (comprising 252 confirmed dead and 6,333 missing, presumed dead). Workers have identified 183 bodies, including those of 34 firemen. At the Pentagon, 189 people are confirmed dead or missing. So far, 117 bodies have been recovered, of which 52 have been identified as of Friday. The Department of Defense said search and recovery operations would continue. The missing figure at both sites include the 157 passengers and crew of the two hijacked aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center and the 64 on the one that flew into the Pentagon. Adding the 44 on the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, the number of people on the four planes is given as 265. (American Airlines flight 11, the first to hit the twin towers of the WTC, was carrying 92 passengers and crew; United Airlines flight 175, which hit the second tower, had 65 people on board; American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, was carrying 64 people; and United Airlines 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania without reaching its target, had 44 on board.) ARGENTINA said four of its nationals were missing. AUSTRALIA said three of its nationals were confirmed dead. Another 20 who were in the top floors of the World Trade Center were missing, presumed dead, and consular staff in Canberra and New York were looking for another 32 Australians reported as missing. AUSTRIA said around 40 of its nationals were missing, one of them a 25-year-old woman named only as Alexandra H. who worked in a bank in the World Trade Center. BANGLADESH said at least 50 Bangladeshis were presumed killed in the carnage at the World Trade Center, where many worked in restaurants and offices. BELGIUM said one of its nationals was missing. BRAZIL said at least 55 of its nationals were missing. BRITAIN lost around 250 of its citizens, according to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. BULGARIA said that one of its citizens was missing. CAMBODIA said it feared that some 20 of its nationals were missing following the attacks. CANADA said three of its nationals were confirmed dead and between 35 and 40 were still missing. CHILE's New York consulate said two of its nationals were missing and feared dead, although more than 250 have been reported missing by relatives. CHINA said two Chinese nationals were killed and another was missing. A man and woman, both in their 60s, died aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Chinese authorities originally said three people had died, but the foreign ministry revised the figure, saying that a man, Chen Xiaobing, had been rescued from the lower floors of the building. A 41-year-old Chinese was reported missing. COLOMBIA's consulate in New York said two of its nationals were killed -- one aboard an American Airlines plane that slammed into the side of the twin towers -- while 10 others were missing. Earlier, Colombia's Red Cross had said that 295 people were reported missing. While 17 people worked in the twin towers, others may have been present in the area at the time. The CZECH REPUBLIC said 56 of its citizens who had been in the United States were unaccounted for. Of those, up to 15 nationals were thought to have been in New York or Washington at the time of the attacks, according to the foreign ministry. DENMARK's foreign ministry said that all of its citizens previously reported missing had turned up safe and sound and that there had therefore been no Danish casualties in the attacks. The DOMINICAN REPUBLIC said one citizen, a paramedic, was found dead and 30 are missing, according to the country's consulate in New York. ECUADOR listed seven citizens as dead, including one who was a passenger on a hijacked airliner, and 29 missing. EGYPT's ambassador to the United States said four Egyptians were feared dea"}, {"response": 542, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (23:52)", "body": "Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 12:25:26 -0400 From: \"cpmcnel@usit.net\" To: \"terry@www.spring.net\" Subject: RE: WTC - How do you feel? [ The following text is in the \"iso-8859-1\" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the \"US-ASCII\" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Hi Paul, Carol Nelson here. I am in south Florida baby sitting my grandchildren. We drove down The Farm last week through hurricane Gabriella. My Daughter Kim McCusker and her husband Paul are in NYC, ground zero. They are part of the search and rescue team deployed from the Miami-Dade Area. They are both highly trained K-9 search and rescue fire fighters.They have been there about a week already and will probably not retutn until the end of next week. So we are getting first hand info on a daily basis. Not Good! I have a friend that works around the block on Broad street. She called me after the first hit and we were on the phone when the second plane hit. You could hear and feel it thru the phone lines. I heard Michael Gavin's cousin was in one of the bulidings and is missing. All the talk of WAR is so bad. So hard to hear and think about. All I can do is continue to pray for peace. Peace Carol"}, {"response": 543, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Sep 22, 2001 (23:58)", "body": "Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:23:33 -0700 From: Gerald Wheeler To: Paul Terry Walhus Subject: Re: WTC - How do you feel? it is now about midnight sept. 21, 2001...autumn equinox, i am in oakland california, i just finished watching the a's beat seattle in the first game of a three game series, between innings i flipped over a channel to watch what most everyone else that was watching television tonight was probably watching, the fund-raiser and tribute to those who died ten days ago in the attacks on the wtc and the pentagon and the final plane that was brought down most likely by a group of courageous passengers who took on the hijackers and crashed that plane in a field in pennsylvania, so many heroes keep emerging from the center of the tragedy, and what a powerful assembly there on the tv, i am moved by the sense that we as a nation, for the first time in my memory, have been brought together like never before, and it's real and it's full of power and authenticity and i catch a glimmer of something inside of me that suddenly says that america really is worth saving, and i let that glimmer grow into more of a flame and i see that for all of its' faults, there just isn't anything or any other place like this place and the freedom that it provides everyone of us who share its' soil...i think about what to do about achieving justice and how it is a good idea to take the time to let things settle in the mind and calm that which cries out for revenge, because revenge is knee-jerk and full of anger and confusion and does not offer real satisfaction because its' results are uneven and because an uneven response creates more suffering...i think about who or what the enemy really is and i come to the conclusion that the enemy is not the taliban or hezbollah or the islamic jihad or osama bin laden or fundamentalist christians or fundamentalist jews or fundamentalist moslems or jerry falwell or yassar arrafat or north korea or chevron oil or suicide bombers or the bible or the koran...it is evil...the real enemy is simply evil, evil in whatever form and shape it may incarnate into at any time or place, and i think about how it is imperative that we learn to recognize evil in all its' forms and whenever and wherever it appears, and that we take sufficient care to respond in ways in which its' effects are cancelled and diffused, and this applies to the everyday, right under our nose kinds of evil, out to the broader, affecting all of humanity kinds as well, and that how we respond will determine the outcome of events in the future, and i think about what that means to me individually and i am reminded of how grateful i am that i have a way to get calm, that i learned how to meditate thirty years ago and try to practice on a regular basis, oh it doesn't always prevent one from getting caught in the cross-fire but sometimes it seems like it helps slow down the bullets so that you can see where to not step, non-action thru action, and makes you aware that everything begins in the mind, everything, so the key is to tame the fury of the mind, and transform pain and hardship into compassion and real strength by doing so, we individually hold the answer to our situation but to see that clearly we must first conquer the fury...om mani padme om! --all the best, gerald wheeler"}, {"response": 544, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 23, 2001 (00:59)", "body": "David Kline (dkline) Sat Sep 22 '01 (12:11) 49 lines There's also a difference between saying the US \"created\" Bin Laden and the Taliban and saying -- much more correctly -- that our policies *contributed* (mostly indirectly) to their emergence and rise to power. The US funded the already-fighting Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation beginning in the early 1980s -- as well it should have. But the problem was, beginning in about 1983-84 and despite warnings from many people (l'il ol' me included), the US allowed the Pakistani intelligence services (SIS) to channel the great bulk of that aid to the fanatical fundamentalist wing of the resistance, called Hezbi Islami. (And just to be clear, the fundamentalists did almost NO fighting against the Russians during the war. They concentrated their fire on rival resistance groups such as Ahmed Shah massoud's \"Northern Alliance.\") The Paks had their own reasons for doing this, of course, including influence within SIS from Pakistan's own emerging fundamentalists (Jamiatt Islami), as well as a desire to see a liberated but weak Afghanistan. But still, it was our guns and money, and we should have funneled it equally to all forces actually fighting for liberation from the USSR, or if we were really smart, mostly to forces (such as Massoud or Mr. Rabbani or even the Gailani clan) with whom we could expect to have a civil conversation and normal state relations in a post-Soviet Afghanistan. But Washington claimed its hands were tied and it couldn't intervene in Pakistan's \"internal affairs.\" Remember, during the 80s the US was very concerned to keep Pakistan within the anti-Soviet orbit, even if it meant looking the other way re: nuclear development or how much arms & money went to which rebel forces. I'm not saying that was right -- in fact, I urged responsible officials to stop allowing our aid to be channeled to the fundamentalists before they became too strong. But this sort of \"Realpolitik\" was very much SOP for Washington during the 1970s and 80s. As the Soviets neared defeat in Afghanistan in 1985-86, Saudi fanatics such as Bin Laden and other foreign Arab volunteers began pouring in to Afghanistan. By 1987-88, the Soviets were gone and the US (in another stupid move) swung its aid pendulum to the other extreme and basically abandoned the Afghan people to starve. In the years that followed, then, the emergent Taliban were aided and abetted both by Afghanistan's small fundamentalist wing (Hezbi Islami) as well as by the Pak SIS, now dominated by Jamiat Islami (Pakistani fundamentalist) forces. And in the end, the Taliban filled the vacumn left by 20 years of a near genocidal war against the Soviets. The rest is history. Sorry to be a broken record on this, but it just riles me to hear people spout half-truths about who the Taliban are and how they emerged -- as if Washington's myopia circa 1984-85 justfies what happened at the WTC."}, {"response": 545, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Sep 23, 2001 (01:02)", "body": "September 22, 2001 THE INVESTIGATION Tape Reveals Wild Struggle on Flight 93 By JAMES RISEN and DAVID JOHNSTON ASHINGTON, Sept. 21 \ufffd A desperate and wild struggle took place aboard the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 before it crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the plane's cockpit voice recorder, law enforcement officials said today. The recording has been played for Attorney General John Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, the officials said. And while it did not provide a clear or complete picture, it seemed certain that there was a chaotic confrontation that apparently led to the crash of the jet. In another development, American intelligence officials said today they believed that the assassination of the leader of the anti- Taliban alliance in Afghanistan on Sept. 9 was probably carried out by associates of Osama bin Laden. The assassination appears to have been the first step in the terror plot that culminated in the attacks on the United States two days later, the officials said. The voice recorder picked up scuffling sounds as well as shouts in Arabic and English, the officials said, but listeners have not been able to discern what was happening or who among the passengers, crew members or hijackers was involved in the struggle. In the past week, officials have said that the passengers appeared to have stormed the cockpit after the four hijackers commandeered the flight. That account has been based primarily on cellphone conversations between passengers and people on the ground. Technical experts are continuing their efforts to enhance the sounds from the cockpit listening device, which uses microphones in the headsets of the pilots and mounted on the cockpit ceiling. Mr. Mueller visited the crash site on Thursday after he received a preliminary briefing on the recorder's contents. He said that the passengers heroically prevented the hijackers from striking their target, an undetermined site in Washington. \"I think both of us here and \ufffd both the attorney general and I and the attorney general of Pennsylvania have indicated we believe those passengers on this jet were absolute heroes and their actions during this flight were heroic,\" he said. \" continued at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/national/22INQU.html?todaysheadlines"}, {"response": 546, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Sun, Sep 23, 2001 (02:45)", "body": "A Former Pakistani Prime Minister Weighs In By Benazir Bhutto Friday, Sept. 21, 2001 Little in life springs from whole cloth. That is especially true of Sept. 11, 2001, a date stained into the calendar of civilization. This was a calamity two decades in the making. At the end of 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, hoping to strengthen their position in Central Asia and develop proximity to the resources and warm ports of the Gulf. Almost immediately an indigenous insurrection developed to challenge the Soviet occupation. The freedom fighters were called the \"Mujahadeen\" and were composed of seven different factions. In its early days, the Reagan administration made a decision that would shape the course of history. It backed the one faction most likely to successfully challenge the Soviets on the battlefield. Working with their counterparts in the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the CIA armed, trained, and empowered the most extreme, anti-modernity, anti-Western zealots within the Mujahadeen. This propelled the extremists to a leadership position in the war of resistance and in the politics that followed. The war in Afghanistan caused one of the great refugee migrations in modern history. Nearly three million Afghans crossed into Pakistan to escape the fighting. Almost immediately scores of special Islamic schools, called Madrassas, sprang up. The boys that were sent there by their parents to be nourished and educated were taught extremism, intolerance, subjugation of women, and violence. All of these elements are antithetical to the Holy Book and to the teachings of the Prophet. When the children were not being brainwashed, they were trained in hand-to-hand combat, the use of weapons, and terrorist strategy. These schools became the recruitment centers for the fanatic administration that ultimately took control of Afghanistan after the Soviet exit. The new political movement was named after the schools themselves. The word \"Talib\" means student! I became prime minister of Pakistan in 1988 during the waning days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The last Soviet troops were airlifted out of Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989. The international community quickly turned its attention to events in Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was left concerned at the lack of a post-Soviet plan for the reconstruction and governing of Afghanistan. I was also concerned at the go-at-it-alone attitude of the extremist factions that wanted the government, and ultimately they prevailed. I suspected that having defeated one superpower, the zealots felt invincible and divinely empowered to take aim at another. As a moderate, progressive, democratically elected woman prime minister of Pakistan, I was a threat to the fundamentalist zealots on multiple levels and targeted by them in both my governments. They had the support of sympathetic elements within Pakistan's security apparatus and the financial support of people like Osama Bin Laden. I had closed their training university in Peshawar and was targeted for that. I had tracked down and extradited the Ramzi Yousef, the perpetrator of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and was targeted for that. My government was destabilized. Money was pilfered and laundered from state banks to fund the campaigns of opposition parties. We learned from Ramzi Yousef before he was extradited to the United States that I was the object of two separate assassination attempts in 1993. Osama Bin Laden personally spent over $10 million in late 1989 in support of a motion of no confidence to topple my government. And ultimately, with the active support of elements of the Pakistani ilitary, my two democratically elected governments were sacked and elections rigged to ensure that my party would not return to power. Beware the power of zealots who are well-funded, well-armed, and supported by elements of your own government! That brings us to the present. A complex and well-funded terrorist network executed the most inhuman terrorist attack in history. The target was America, but it was also the values of freedom everywhere. It seemed Osama and his cohorts read Professor Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and wished to provoke its thesis into reality. Their goal is for the Muslim world to see U.S. retaliation as an act of aggression against Islam. Sept. 11 was the bait. Sadly, this is not over. The United States responded quickly in declaring a fight against international terrorism and cautioned it will be a long process. Asked to assist the U.S. effort against terrorism, Islamabad responded positively. It did this despite elements within the military intelligence complex that have sympathy for the Taliban. Pakistan is saddled with $38 billion in international debt, with $4 billion owed to America. With Egypt and Jordan, the United States has repaid political support with debt retirement in the past. Islamabad expects the same treatment. It also expects the repeal o"}, {"response": 547, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Sep 24, 2001 (17:35)", "body": "For some idea of what the rest of the world is up against, I recommend this little essay of a book report with thanks to JSK for suggesting I read it: PROPHETS, CULTS AND MADNESS http://www.cix.co.uk/~acampbell/bookreviews/r/stevens-price-2.html"}, {"response": 548, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 25, 2001 (00:11)", "body": "From: William Meyers To: tincanman99@aol.com, paul@spring.net, melvyn@freewwweb.com, mmc@well.com, moon93@aol.com, pgribbin@megs.inet.net, malysaght@aol.com, dfrohman@aol.com Subject: a subway ride Postapocalyptic Meditations 23 September 2001 Thursday morning of last week I was taking the subway to work as usual, about nine in the morning, down from Morningside Heights to our office on 62nd Street, across from Lincoln Center. The train was packed full of people, as it always is in the morning rush hour, and I found a nook in which to tuck myself, next to the motorman's small compartment, at thefront of the train. There was enough space around me there to hold up my copy of the day's newspaper and read the first paragraphs of the stories on the front page, but only by keeping the paper folded in half. BUSH ORDERS HEAVY BOMBERS NEAR AFGHANS; DEMANDS BIN LADEN NOW, NOT NEGOTIATIONS That was the headline on the Late Edition of Thursday's Times. At the 96th Street station, where the local train shares the platform with the express and much movement of people from one train to the other goes on, a moment of panic suddenly struck. Shouts of alarm, screams of terror grabbed everyone's attention in the car where I was still standing. Outside the window people were running past the front of the train and toward the 94th Street exit. Inside the car people were yelling, \"What's happening? What's going on?\" Outside on the platform, they were too busy trying to get away to hear anything but their own terrified voices. It occurred to me that at that moment, or any succeeding one, a blinding white flash and explosion could instantly obliterate me and everyone around me. I waited for that to happen, as one moment succeeded the next. The crush of beings outside the train kept struggling for the exit. Then the door of the motorman's compartment opened, and the motorman -- tall and commanding, studded with communications gear -- emerged to assess the scene. I was thinking, \"Just keep moving, man!\" But I couldn't utter a word. He spoke something into his intercom about how there was \"an altercation\" on the platform that needed to be investigated. Then he got back into his compartment and shut the door. I prayed that that would be the end of it and the doors of the train would close. The doors closed, and the train moved out. The south end of the platform slipped by, and the lights of the station fell behind us, overtaken by the darkness of the tunnel. People looked at each other in fear and relief. At some point before we reached the next station, 86th Street -- a local stop -- I realized how much adrenalin had been pumping through my body. Slumping against the door of the motorman's compartment, I closed my eyes and waited for the enormous rush of energy to pass. By the time we reached 66th Street, where I exited the subway, I was thinking that the story of whatever had happened back there would be emerging in the media soon and that I should be on the lookout and looking closely for it. The person in the token booth at 66th Street had no idea what had happened back up the line. It was still too early, I thought. What could have happened? What did \"altercation\" mean? Had a fistfight broken out? Had it been \"to the death\"? Did one or both of the fighters look Arabic? Had one of them pulled a gun, or a bomb, or a flask of anthrax? Nothing was reported later in the media. At least nothing came within range of my own sensors. Apparently it had been just another routine incident -- one of all too many that have been occurring in our lives here for the last couple of weeks. I think it would be safe to say that the stressload in Manhattan has been reaching a maximum tolerance level. But it's the new reality. -- Wm"}, {"response": 549, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Sep 25, 2001 (15:18)", "body": "Today, in a short while, on All Things Considered. 09.25.01 The Bin Laden Group is a diversified corporation with an estimated $5 billion in annual revenue. It's owned and run by the Saudi family of accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. The allegations against the \"black sheep\" of the Bin Laden family have created serious trouble for the family business as partners and associates are backing away. Hear about the Bin Laden Group, Tuesday on All Things Considered."}, {"response": 550, "author": "winter", "date": "Tue, Sep 25, 2001 (19:15)", "body": "I received the following from my advisor, who used to work for Amnesty International in the UK. He's got friends working at the BBC, and this memo came out recently: -----Original Message----- From: Internal Communications Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 2:19 PM Subject: CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE This email is being sent to all staff ------------------------------------------- There's an important point in the power of press, specifically the Power of CNN. All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company. In Particular, one set of images caught my attention: the Palestinians celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating celebration sweets and making funny faces for the camera. Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It's simply unacceptable that a super-power of communications as CNN uses images which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious of an issue. At the BBC here, we have these footages on videotapes recorded in 1991, with the very same images. But now, think for a moment about the impact of such images. Your people are hurt, emotionally fragile, and this kind of broadcast has very high possiblity of causing waves of anger and rage against the Palestinians. It's simply irresponsible to show images such as those. Russell Grossman | Head of Internal Communication | BBC Third Floor | London Broadcasting House | LONDON W1A 1AA"}, {"response": 551, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 25, 2001 (19:53)", "body": "Patriotism, athletics go hand in hand 09/24/2001 Dave Kindred The Sporting News A brilliant day, a Friday in the fall, the sun warm on our backs, we walked to the south portico of the United States Capitol. From that high place we saw in the middle distance the Washington Monument, and we saw, at the far end, the Lincoln Memorial. When we saw all that before us on a beautiful day in a fall of sadness, my friend Verenda said, \ufffdWow.\ufffd Because we live in Washington, we have seen these places a thousand times. But Verenda had it right. Wow. To see these places now, to see them after September 11, is to see them anew. So we walked from the Capitol, and we walked for hours. We saw the bronze of a Civil War general on horseback, soldiers hanging onto an artillery caisson clattering to his side. We saw our faces in mirrored black granite that moans of Vietnam dead. We stood in a marble temple and read on a wall a president's words: \ufffdThe brave men, living and dead, who struggled here . . .\ufffd We stopped in a museum to see the Star-Spangled Banner. By the dawn's early light of September 14, 1814, the massive flag yet waved over Baltimore's Fort McHenry. Americans had outlasted a British siege that (a survivor said) \ufffdthrew at least 1,800 shells among us. We were like pigeons tied by the legs to be shot at.\ufffd The lawyer Francis Scott Key saw that flag and in a poem called his nation \ufffdthe land of the free and the home of the brave.\ufffd We saw three helicopters descend to the White House, always three to confuse an enemy, the three flying under the thunderous cover of fighter jets. We saw flowers left on the Mall by some people from Mongolia who have embraced America. We saw a president's words cut into purple stone: \ufffdThe only thing we have to fear is fear itself.\ufffd The night before our walk, Lisa Beamer came to the Capitol. Her husband had risen against fear. When hijackers thought to fly to Washington -- to destroy the White House? the Capitol? -- Todd Beamer did the kind of brave, selfless thing that is the beating heart of a nation made and sustained by brave, selfless people. Passengers knew planes had crashed into buildings. Beamer and three other men decided to act. Ten years ago, he had been a basketball guard and baseball shortstop/centerfielder at Wheaton College in Illinois. \ufffdGood athlete with good speed, batted second for us, led off sometimes . . . a very solid leader . . . deeply religious . . . very unselfish,\ufffd said his old baseball coach, Ron Frank. \ufffdWhat he did is in total keeping with the man he was.\ufffd Beamer couldn't reach his wife by phone. He asked a GTE Airfone supervisor to recite with him the Lord's Prayer and to call his wife. The last words the supervisor heard from Todd Beamer were these: \ufffdAre you guys ready? Let's roll.\ufffd United Flight 93 soon crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside, apparently taken down in a struggle between passengers and hijackers. Nine days later, Lisa Beamer came to the Capitol to hear President Bush address the nation. \ufffdSeeing the Capitol lit up, it's just glorious,\ufffd she said. \ufffdLawmakers all thanked me for what Todd did. Not only the lives saved, but imagine the emotional devastation to this nation if the Capitol no longer existed.\ufffd Let's roll. Saturday morning, going to a football game in Annapolis, we turned toward Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, turning on Farragut Road, named for the sailor who 137 years ago said, \ufffdDamn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!\ufffd Such men, such a nation. If ever you need reminded of what America is and what it can be, turn down Farragut Road and spend a Saturday afternoon at a Navy football game. There you might talk to a retired captain, Dick Riley of Des Moines, Iowa, class of \ufffd42 with 26 years of active duty. He's 81 years old and on a Saturday in Annapolis he says, \ufffdWe graduated 12 days after Pearl Harbor, 563 of us, and we lost 28 in the war. I pray that today's Midshipmen, special kids each and every one, have as thoroughly fulfilling experiences as I did serving our country.\ufffd Thirty thousand people came to a stadium where even the walls speak of courage: IWO JIMA, MIDWAY, NORMANDY, INCHON, QUANG TRI. The thousands saw a fighter jet fly-over. They heard Francis Scott Key's poem sung a cappella. Just before noon, linebackers Mike Chiesl and Dan Ryno led Navy onto the field in an all-out sprint. They carried high an American flag. No one had ever done that for a Navy game. But never before had there been a September 11, 2001. At dinner Friday night, Chiesl and Ryno had seen the flag in a corner of a hotel lobby. Permission, sir, to liberate the flag. Granted. \ufffdWe wanted to do that for the Naval Academy,\ufffd Chiesl said. \ufffdAnd we were doing it for all of America.\ufffd He's a Texan, a big one, and he stood tall. His eyes were those of a happy young man with journeys to make. When he smiled, he was as handsome as a flag seen by the dawn's early light. Dave Kindred is a contributing writer for The Sporting News. Email him at kindred@sportingnews.com."}, {"response": 552, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Sep 25, 2001 (21:04)", "body": "It's simply unacceptable that a super-power of communications as CNN uses images which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious of an issue. Welcome to real world. :-( Mr.Orwell we need you)"}, {"response": 553, "author": "lafn", "date": "Tue, Sep 25, 2001 (21:30)", "body": "Memo to BBC. That footage was shown by all the TV stations, not just CNN. They sure sound high and mighty."}, {"response": 554, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Sep 25, 2001 (23:27)", "body": "Don't make the mistake of watching CBC new on C_SPAN. I came as close to hurling something through my television as I ever have. If we are so loathesome give us back our aid and cease trading with us. As for the media....don't you wonder whose side they're on?! Whose best interest in mind? Other than their own?! Let me hasten to add that I know more nice Canadians than I do Canadian Broadcasting writers... It just infuriated me. The BBC has gone down the tubes I hear from local UK'ers. even they hunt for a more reliable source of news."}, {"response": 555, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (00:16)", "body": "MSNBC did a real good story tonight on the Taliban and the Afghan Northern Alliance. They showed some good footage of Massoud (referenced earlier in this topic) who has been pleading with the West for years to give him just a little bit of aid. He said words to the effect that \"give me a little help and I'll take care of Bin Laden for you, otherwise their will be grave consequences for the West. What better indication of Bin Laden's guilt than the assasination of Massoud just one day for the World Trade Center attack?"}, {"response": 556, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (00:18)", "body": ""}, {"response": 557, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (02:48)", "body": "Message 550:\" In Particular, one set of images caught my attention: the Palestinians celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating celebration sweets and making funny faces for the camera.\" \"Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait!\" --------------------------------- CNN statement about false claim it used old video Brazilian university statement says no fact to original claim September 20, 2001 Posted: 4:02 PM EDT (2002 GMT) CNN asks that you copy and e-mail this statement to whomever asks about it.) There is absolutely no truth to the information that is now distributed on the Internet that CNN used 10-year-old video when showing the celebrating of some Palestinians in East Jerusalem after the terror attacks in the U.S. The video was shot that day by a Reuters camera crew. CNN is a client of Reuters and like other clients, received the video and broadcast it. Reuters officials have publicly made the facts clear as well. The allegation is false. The source of the allegation has withdrawn it and apologized. It was started by a Brazilian student who now says he immediately posted a correction once he knew the information was not true. This is the statement by his university -- UNICAMP -- Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil. Again, please read this -- and copy it -- and send it to anyone you know who may have the false information. Thank you. OFFICIAL STATEMENT by Universidad de Campinas-Brasil 17/09/01 UNICAMP (Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil) would like to announce that it has no knowledge of a videotape from 1991, whose images supposedly aired on CNN showing Palestinians celebrating the terrorist attacks in the U.S. The tape was supposedly from 1991, and there were rumors that the images were passed off as current. This information was later denied, as soon as it proved false, by M\ufffdrcio A. V. Carvalho, a student at UNICAMP. He approached the administration today, 17.09.2001, to clarify the following: -- the information he got, verbally, was that a professor from another institution (not from UNICAMP) had the tape; -- he sent the information to a discussion group e-mail list; -- many people from this list were interested in the subject and requested more details; -- he again contacted the person who first gave him the information and the person denied having the tape; -- the student immediately sent out a note clarifying what happened to the people from his e-mail list. The original message, however, was distributed all over the world, often with many distortions, including a falsified by-line article from the student. He affirms that a hacker attacked his domain. Several E-mails have been sent on his behalf and those dating from 15.09.2001 should be ignored. Among the distortions is the fact that UNICAMP would be analyzing the tape, which is absolutely false. The administration considers this alert definitive and will be careful to avoid new rumors. http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/cnn.statement/ ------------------------------------- Nevertheless, there have been many(talking heads,\"experts\", writers)who have questioned exactly how that videotape came to be - not that it did not happen, rather, was it staged? who exactly were the people? where exactly was it?, etc."}, {"response": 558, "author": "Bethanne", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (04:18)", "body": "People, I live in Atlanta ( the home of CNN )and I have many friends ( including the Senior Copy Editor for CNN Headline News ) who work at CNN Center downtown, so I gotta speak up on their behalf. CNN would NOT stoop to such a shabby, lazy and downright dishonest tactic, of showing 10 year old footage, while claiming it was current. CNN got taken to the cleaners a couple of years ago, about a story they ran (about biological warfare ) that later turned out to be false. Many, many heads rolled as a result and the public perception of CNN being the first place we all turn to for \"accurate\" breaking news, took a major, major hit. As a result, they double check, triple check and quadrupile check the veracity of ALL stories/film footage BEFORE it is broadcast. Also, it is worth noting.....ALL the major US networks ( ABC, Fox, CBS, NBC )broadcast this footage of the Palestinains dancing in the streets, it wasn't just CNN."}, {"response": 559, "author": "fitzwd", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (07:09)", "body": "(Marcia) Without reading through a lot of posts to see if anyone answeed Laura, rhetorical question, we did pay reparations to the Japanese Americans we interred in WW2...$25,000 each. Aside from the fear factor that was going around after the Pearl Harbor attack, there were politicians and business people who took advantage of the situation and actually fanned the fire, which ultimately led to the internment. The J-Americans happened to reside on land that is now considered prime real estate in Southern California (think of areas like Santa Monica and Orange County). While the general public viewed the internment as safeguarding America, little did the public know that there were those behind the scenes who had a hidden agenda and who helped manipulate the hysteria and sought to profit from the situation by taking over the real estate (shades of the movie Chinatown and water rights). While some survivors received reparations, it was a mere pittance compared to the value of the land that they lost, where EACH parcel is worth several millions today. These J-Americans had to endure humiliation and financial ruin, and were the victims of ugly racisim and greed, yet they picked up the pie es of their shattered lives and continued to live as proud Americans."}, {"response": 560, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (10:32)", "body": "Had no idea their property was confiscated. How on earth was that done legally...in this country?"}, {"response": 561, "author": "mari", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (13:19)", "body": "How on earth was that done legally...in this country? I have the same question. Thanks to Suzee for posting the article debunking the story about the CNN photo. It smelled like urban legend to me, right from the start. Am quickly learning that while the Internet is a great place to share opinions, the facts often suffer."}, {"response": 562, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (13:30)", "body": "There's emminent domain for when a government entity wants property for the public good (debatable) in which owners receive some compensation though not anywhere near market value. It has been used for the railroads, schools and other public-private development efforts. Saw a piece on a news magazine show recently on how some town is trying to use it to acquire a whole neighborhood for a Target store. People are up in arms."}, {"response": 563, "author": "fitzwd", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (13:31)", "body": "How on earth was that done legally...in this country? How on earth was internment of citizens -- not foreign nationals -- U.S. CITIZENS, done legally in this country? Where was the evidence of a threat to national security?"}, {"response": 564, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (13:40)", "body": "Not to excuse anyone's behavior and the complete lack of reason and illegality, people tend to go a little hysterical when a country's military installation is attacked. There are numerous examples in our history...unfortunately. When there is a threat from a foreign country, people turn xenophobic just as is occurring now. It is interesting to me that we've learned from our past when I see the PR campaigns to educate the ignorant members of our society."}, {"response": 565, "author": "Moon", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (13:53)", "body": "It is interesting to me that we've learned from our past when I see the PR campaigns to educate the ignorant members of our society. Better late than never. Will they go back to being their ignorant selves once the Fall TV season starts?"}, {"response": 566, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (15:48)", "body": "Depends on their diet of *reality* TV and idiotic night-time quiz shows."}, {"response": 567, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (18:50)", "body": "From: Gerald Wheeler Subject: well worth considering i'd recommend this to all: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/09/26/ED69828.DTL"}, {"response": 568, "author": "lafn", "date": "Wed, Sep 26, 2001 (19:28)", "body": "Jerome Karabel is a professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and a senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute You want *me* to take some academic from *Berkeley* serious??? Those dudes consistently make government - bashing their #1 indoor sport."}, {"response": 569, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 27, 2001 (01:40)", "body": "Ah yes, Angela Davis taught there, no? Does she still? Kiddies go do your homework!"}, {"response": 570, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Sep 27, 2001 (02:11)", "body": "......How on earth was that done legally...in this country? .... The US government started to lay the groundwork for controlling subversive activities prior to Pearl Harbor (but in anticipation of joining the war) by passing a slew of new laws. These included the Smith Act, basically intended to suppress \"disloyalty.\" Roosevelt signed an Executive Order in 1942, giving the army broad power to \"exclude\" questionable persons from certain areas. A month or so later, he signed a bill passed by congress making it criminal to disobey the order. I think the legal basis for the internment was the \ufffdAlien Enemies Act\ufffd passed 150 or so years before. It allowed alien internment during wartime. At first, some people tried to move to other locations, but there was really no place to go. Wherever they tried to go, the fear and outcry was so great that the government then disallowed it and started to round them up. Those being removed were given 5 days notice and told to dispose of property. The government made some kind of vague offer to store property for them, but at the same time refused to be liable for it. They sold what they could, but obviously many had to \ufffdabandon\ufffd their homes, boats, businesses, etc. Japanese-Americans lost millions in property and income and it was not just the Japanese. Germans and Italians were interned, as were some conscientious objectors. I hope Karen is right that we have learned from our past history. I am not yet sure. You can read Executive Order 9066 here: http://www.foitimes.com/internment/EO9066.html"}, {"response": 571, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep 27, 2001 (08:29)", "body": "The more I research the foundations of the al-Qaeda movement, the more depressing it gets. Take a look at the article from which this quote is taken. It's from the work fo a Harvard prof who was researching schools in Pakistan that teach jihad. Here's a quotation from her article: This is some research regarding the4 al-Qaeda movement by a Harvard Professor who researched schools in Parkistan that teach jihad as a discipline. \"I want to talk to you as I would talk to my own daughter,\" he suddenly said. \"You believe too much in science. Science turns a cheap thing like a piece of metal into something valuable, like an airplane. \"Have you ever thought that you could become precious yourself? The way for a human being to become precious is to obey the principles of the one who created us. The way to become precious is through jihad. Nobody knows when he will die, so you must start the journey toward Islam,\" he told me kindly. http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/2001/jf01/jf01stern.html Here's another excerpt from that article: What happens to families whose children become martyrs? Most of the mothers I interviewed said they were happy to have donated their sons to jihad because their sons could help them in the next life--the \"real life.\" Syed Qurban Hussain, the father of a martyr, said, \"Whoever gives his life in the way of Allah lives forever and earns a place in heaven for 70 members of his family, to be selected by the martyr.\" Families of martyrs become celebrities after their children die. \"Everyone treats me with more respect now that I have a martyred son,\" Hussain added. \"And when there is a martyr in the village, it encourages more children to join the jihad. It raises the spirit of the entire village.\" http://pakistannation.net/ActionAlerts/Alert_pakwar.htm"}, {"response": 572, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Sep 27, 2001 (18:41)", "body": "From what I have read lately about the Bin Lauden siblings, they want nothing whatever to do with him - no matter his status!"}, {"response": 573, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Sep 28, 2001 (09:32)", "body": "The Al Queda organization has been ripped open and exposed by ABC News. Inside Al Qaeda Bin Laden Defector Ties Hijack Suspect to Training Camp Sept. 26 \ufffd A defector from Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization, al Qaeda, has told ABCNEWS that one of the men accused of hijacking the planes used in the Sept. 11 attacks trained with him at one of the terrorist mastermind's camps in Afghanistan. MORE ON THIS STORY FULL COVERAGE \ufffd America Attacked VIDEO \ufffd Former bin Laden Soldier Speaks Out \ufffd A Nation United: Full Video Coverage COMMUNITY \ufffd ABCNEWS' John Miller on Meeting Bin Laden RELATED STORIES \ufffd John Miller Interviews Bin Laden (May 1998) \ufffd FBI Releases Photos, Seeks Public Tips \ufffd Inside the Taliban \ufffd Pilot Arrested in London Instructed Suspected Hijackers \ufffd The Other Victims of Sept. 11: Pets \ufffd Can New Buildings be Built Any Stronger? The defector said he trained for six months at a camp in Afghanistan to become an intelligence agent for bin Laden. When shown photographs of the 19 hijackers, the defector said he recognized one of them, a man federal investigators have identified as Majed Moqed, a possible Saudi national. \"Yeah \ufffd He was with my class ... I could recognize him from his face,\" the defector said. \"He is from Saudi Arabia, and he is about 25 to 30 years old.\" The Department of Justice has identified Moqed as one of five men suspected of taking control of American Airlines Flight 77 and crashing the plane into the Pentagon. If the defector is right, he may have provided an important link between bin Laden and the hijackers. Federal investigators have said they have concrete information linking one or more of the hijackers to al Qaeda but they have not publicly linked any of the suspects directly to bin Laden or his camps. The defector, who is now living outside Afghanistan, said he was shocked by the attacks, but not surprised that the attackers were willing to give their lives for bin Laden and his cause. \"Yes, I was shocked, but I know them better than that. They are not only 19 people. There are a thousand people who want to sacrifice themselves for bin Laden, not only 19. There are more than a thousand. All of them \ufffd in Europe, in Canada or in Saudi Arabia \ufffd all of them want to do this kind of actions. Terrorist actions.\" He said there were 18 other students in his class at the training camp. He said he received training in how to conduct surveillance and how to gather detailed information on potential targets. He said he heard people talk of hijacking airliners, but that he never heard anything about a plot to crash jets into buildings in New York and Washington. He said bin Laden spoke to his class several times, warning that the United States and Israel wanted to destroy Islam, and that they must be destroyed first. He said his 18 fellow students were sent home to cities in Europe, the Middle East and Canada where they were to wait \ufffd as sleeper agents \ufffd for instructions. He said he had no doubt his fellow students would obey any instructions that came from bin Laden. \"If bin Laden asked [you] to put a bomb on your body and explode it, they won't say no. They will do that,\" he said. After two years in bin Laden's organization, the defector said he became disillusioned with so many plots that targeted innocent civilians. He has defected from al Qaeda and is now cooperating with the U.S. government. He doubted that the U.S. military, or even special forces, would be able to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan. \"It is impossible to find bin Laden. Bin Laden has many, many places in Afghanistan. You cannot find him,\" he said, adding that bin Laden is still guarded by a cadre of heavily armed bodyguards, including three of his sons."}, {"response": 574, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Fri, Sep 28, 2001 (10:10)", "body": "Thanks for all the background, Suzee. Actually, the part that I found hard to believe was the loss of property. Internment I could see how they would achieve. In the US, there are probably greater safeguards on property than human life from a legal standpoint. :-("}, {"response": 575, "author": "fitzwd", "date": "Fri, Sep 28, 2001 (11:37)", "body": "loss of property The internees were sometimes given as few as 2 days to handle their affairs before they were shipped off to the camps. They had to leave everything behind. Those that sold, received not pennies on the dollar, but fractions of pennies on the dollar, as vultures were standing in line ready to take advantage of the situation. While interned, no income was generated, so if people held onto their property, they ultimately could not make mortgage payments or pay property taxes. There were no grace periods, only quick foreclosures. The economic loss was estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. All of this was documented in a recent government publication. Some of the literature that has been written about this episode preface the actual internment with a history and description of the location of the real estate occupied. A few expressions come to mind, like follow the money, do the math, or as John McCain recently said about the war we've just entered, \"get a map.\" Most people don't realize the art that automakers had in the demise of the US railway system. Likewise, most people don't understand the machinations that went on behind the scene during the internment process. And I believe reparations were only $20,000, not $25,000 as earlier reported."}, {"response": 576, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Fri, Sep 28, 2001 (22:58)", "body": "...(Donna) And I believe reparations were only $20,000, not $25,000 as earlier reported...... I think it *was* $20,000 -- $20,000 and an apology! There were some reparations paid in about 1948 \ufffd a pittance that amounted to about 5 cents on the dollar. And non-Japanese real estate speculators did grow rich on land bought from Japanese-Americans for next to nothing and sold later at sky-high prices. Japanese-Americans lost property in many ways. Besides having it confiscated and losing equity (hard to make payments from \ufffdcamp\ufffd), homes and businesses were vandalized and destroyed and also condemned whether they deserved it or not. What is that quotation about evil prevailing when good men do nothing? ...(karen) In the US, there are probably greater safeguards on property than human life from a legal standpoint. :-( The truth is that it could happen again right now. The Federal government has enormous power, and the President can do almost anything with the Executive Order(new or existing). The process totally by-passes Congress. He/she can declare martial law, take property, take over power companies, education facilities, airports, manpower, supplies and services as \"needed.\" It can be used for good or bad. Andrew Jackson used it to remove Cherokee Indians from their land; Lincoln suspended certain legal rights, closed newspapers opposed to his policies; Roosevelt issued the previously mentioned 9066; FEMA was created by E.O.; Truman integrated the US armed forces; Eisenhower sent troops to aid integration in Little Rock. In the 1930's an E.O. required all gold to be turned in to the Federal treasury. I'm losing count of the wars we've fought without war being declared. Bush used an E.O. this week to freeze terrorists' assets. He signed one in June covering the Balkans, prohibiting US companies from doing business with certain individuals and \"blocking the property and interest in property\" of persons threatening stabilization efforts there. In the right atmosphere of fear and panic, etc., all these things can combine to allow rotten things to happen. Throw in a \"real\", declared war and the sky's the limit. It's sure a heck of an argument for paying *very* close attention to what your government is doing -- not to mention what we ourselves are doing as citizens. National Archives and Records Administration Federal Register - Executive Orders http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/eo.html"}, {"response": 577, "author": "lafn", "date": "Sat, Sep 29, 2001 (10:46)", "body": "In the right atmosphere of fear and panic, etc., all these things can combine to allow rotten things to happen Well Suzee,that's why I'm glad that I live in a democracy with elections. We can always throw the bums out and the next guy can rescind those EO orders if the public deems it so. Sadly, minority groups seldom have that leaverage (Japanese). Hopefully, we're wiser now . I was happy to see that our representatives are respecting the law-abiding Muslim citizens in our country by going to mosques, including Muslim reps at services.Now it has to filter down to Joe Sixpack. But it is inconceivable that any president would repeat the error of the Japanese internments."}, {"response": 578, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Oct  1, 2001 (10:21)", "body": "A poll released Friday by Ekos Research Associates for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and two newspapers found 63 percent of the 1,228 respondents said they felt ``a closer sense of shared values and interests with the Americans'' since the attacks. Fifty-nine percent supported giving up some ``national sovereignty'' to increase North America's security. In sharing the world's longest undefended border and world's largest trade partnership with the United States, Canadians realize the relationship that has bolstered their economy and guaranteed military defense now carries new demands and responsibilities. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011001/ts/attacks_follow_the_leader_1.html"}, {"response": 579, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Oct  1, 2001 (10:31)", "body": "David Kline's comments posted in news 54: People have been saying here that the Taliban brought peace out of chaos in Afghanistan and how do we know that the Northern Alliance or anyone else would be better? For the answers, see the rest in the news conference topic 54."}, {"response": 580, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Oct  1, 2001 (11:29)", "body": "Militants storm J&K Assembly, 25 killed SRINAGAR: In a daring suicide attack, an explosive-laden car was blown up by militants on Monday near the entrance of the Jammu and Kashmir state legislature. At least 26 people were feared killed and 50 injured in the attack. Pakistan-based militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for the attack. http://www.timesofindia.com/"}, {"response": 581, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Oct  1, 2001 (15:05)", "body": "ABC News reports. Taliban Taunt Says U.S. Doesn't Have Courage for Afghan War Oct. 1 \ufffd Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia said Osama bin Laden is under their control \ufffd but the United States \"doesn't have the courage\" to come get him \ufffd Taliban Says U.S. Doesn't Have Courage for Afghan War \ufffd FBI Foils Possible Sears Tower Attack \ufffd Will Sept. 11 Change our Apolitical Youth? \"Americans don't have the courage to come here,\" Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar said in an interview with Taliban-run Kabul radio. He recalled the failures of Soviet and British forces to subdue Afghans, and repeatedly warned the United States to \"think and think again before attacking Afghanistan.\" The fiery words came a day after a Taliban official, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said the regime was willing to negotiate over bin Laden's surrender, if U.S. officials present evidence of his involvement in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."}, {"response": 582, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Oct  1, 2001 (21:42)", "body": "I spoke with a Canadian man today about their media. He was not surprised at their comments. Apparently their press is even more \"liberal\" than ours was before this ghastly event unfolded."}, {"response": 583, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (09:46)", "body": "Cruising in to Austin this morning I tuned in to NPR and heard that NATO just passed a resolution that put's us all in this together and another one time great Afghan fighter has joined our side. Haven't had a chance to check in on http://www.google.com/news yet and look around on CNN, Fox, NYTimes, ABC, etc. but I'll do that later. Sounds like airports are starting to get beefed up security, National Guard, etc. Canada needs to round up the terrorists lurking in the shadows up there, I hope they're mobilizing for this."}, {"response": 584, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (10:05)", "body": "Blair: Attack Coming British Prime Minister Warns Taliban; Bush Looks At Economy, Security Issues Oct. 2 \ufffd As the U.S. military dispatched another aircraft carrier in the war against terrorism, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is reportedly set to announce that a military attack on Afghanistan's Taliban regime is \"now imminent and will be devastating.\" Blair will say he has seen strong evidence linking terrorist Osama bin Laden to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, and will tell a Labor Party conference in Brighton, England today that the Taliban, which has been harboring bin Laden, will be made to pay for its actions, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation. The leaders of NATO have also been convinced, after a meeting with U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Francis X. Taylor. \"The facts are clear and compelling. The information presented points conclusively to an al Qaeda role in the 11th of September attacks,\" NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said today. \"We know that the individuals who carried out those attacks were part of the worldwide terrorist network al Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden and his key lieutenant and protected by the Taliban.\" He said that the information Taylor presented to NATO proved that the attack was directed from abroad, meaning it is covered by NATO's Article 5, which states that an armed attack on one or more NATO nation is to be considered an attack against all of them. \"I want to reiterate yet again today that the United States of America can rely on the full support of its 18 NATO allies in the campaign against international terrorism,\" he said. source ABCnews.com"}, {"response": 585, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (18:54)", "body": "You and me too, Terry in regards to getting Canada up to speed on this. The only positive note from e politician north of the border that I have heard was from a former Prime Minister. Heaven help us! --------------- A positive Look at 9-11-01... By now everyone has been hearing the death toll rise and reports of the destruction from the terrorist attacks on the US. These were deplorable acts that we will never forget. But now is a time to look at the other side of the numbers coming out of New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The sad but somewhat uplifting side that the mainstream media has not reported yet -- the SURVIVAL RATES and some positive news about the attacks. The Buildings The World Trade Center The twin towers of the World Trade Center were places of employment for some 50,000 people. With the missing list of just over 5,000 people, that means 90% of the people targeted survived the attack. A 90% on a test is an 'A.' The Pentagon Some 23,000 people were the target of a third plane aimed at the Pentagon. The latest count shows that 123 lost their lives. That is an amazing 99.5% survival rate. In addition, the plane seems to have come in too low, too early to affect a large portion of the building. On top of that, the section that was hit was the first of five sections to undergo renovations that would help protect the Pentagon from terrorist attacks. It had recently completed straightening and blastproofing, saving untold lives. This attack was sad, but a statistical failure. The Planes American Airlines Flight 77 The Boeing 757 that was flown into the outside of the Pentagon could have carried up to 289 people, yet only 64 were aboard. Luckily 78% of the seats were empty. American Airlines Flight 11 The Boeing 767 could have had up to 351 people aboard, but only carried 92. Thankfully 74 % of the seats were unfilled. United Airlines Flight 175 Another Boeing 767 that could have sat 351 people only had 65 people on board. Fortunately it was 81% empty. United Airlines Flight 93 The Boeing 757 was one of the most uplifting stories yet. The smallest flight to be hijacked with only 45 people aboard out of a possible 289 had 84% of its capacity unused. Yet these people stood up to the attackers and thwarted a fourth attempted destruction of a national landmark, saving untold numbers of lives in the process. In Summary Out of potentially 74,280 Americans directly targeted by these inept cowards, 93% survived or avoided the attacks. That's a higher survival rate than heart attacks, breast cancer, kidney transplants and liver transplants--all common, survivable illnesses. The Hijacked planes were mostly empty, the Pentagon was hit at it's strongest point, the overwhelming majority of people in the World Trade Center buildings escaped, and a handful of passengers gave the ultimate sacrifice to save even more lives."}, {"response": 586, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (19:02)", "body": "Subject: \"Monday Vs Tuesday\" On Monday there were people fighting against praying in schools On Tuesday you would have been hard pressed to find a school where someone was not praying On Monday there were people who were trying to separate each other by race, sex, color and creed On Tuesday they were all holding hands On Monday we thought that we were secure On Tuesday we learned better On Monday we were talking about heroes as being athletes On Tuesday we relearned what hero meant On Monday people went to work at the world trade centers as usual On Tuesday they died On Monday people were fighting the 10 commandments on government property On Tuesday the same people all said 'God help us all' while thinking 'Thou shall not kill' On Monday people argued with their kids about picking up their room On Tuesday the same people could not get home fast enough to hug their kids. On Monday people picked up McDonalds for dinner On Tuesday they stayed home On Monday people were upset that their dry cleaning was not ready on time On Tuesday they were lining up to give blood for the dying On Monday politicians argued about budget surpluses On Tuesday grief stricken they sang 'God Bless America' On Monday we worried about the traffic and getting to work late On Tuesday we worried about a plane crashing into your house or place of business On Monday we were irritated that our rebate checks had not arrived On Tuesday we wanted to give it all back. On Monday some children had solid families On Tuesday they were orphans On Monday the president was going to Florida to read to children On Tuesday he returned to Washington to protect our children On Monday we emailed jokes On Tuesday we did not It is sadly ironic how it takes horrific events to place things into perspective, but it has. May God help us with the lessons learned this week, the things we have taken for granted, the things that have been forgotten or overlooked, the ruts that we have allowed ourselves to follow. It may well be better for us not to get back to normal. On Monday - pray and be thankful! On Tuesday - pray and be thankful! On Wednesday - pray and be thankful! On Thursday - pray and be thankful! On Friday - pray and be thankful! On Saturday - pray and be thankful! On Sunday - pray and be thankful!"}, {"response": 587, "author": "SBRobinson", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (19:08)", "body": "Marcia, thanks for posting that 'positive view' of Sept 11 - gave me chills to read those numbers. *big hug* btw- *grin*"}, {"response": 588, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (19:19)", "body": "*Big Hugs!!! EsBee, I have missed you! I'll be in your area at the end of this month! My son is finally gonna tie the old proverial knot. Imagine riding a 100+ story building as it collapsed and emerging alive? Or worse still, going down all those stairs fro 2 1/2 hous to reach ground level just as the rest of the building collapses and you have just made it out! Talk about There, but for the Grace of God, go I..."}, {"response": 589, "author": "SBRobinson", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (19:34)", "body": "Your going to be in Cal???? will email you - we HAVE to get together this time!!! Congrats to David btw!!"}, {"response": 590, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct  2, 2001 (21:36)", "body": "Thanks for the congrats. Your two emails are already on their way!"}, {"response": 591, "author": "Anek", "date": "Wed, Oct  3, 2001 (07:36)", "body": "I'm not sure if it was published here. Even more doubts if I shoul put the below message here. Film about Osama bin Laden in production Guardian Unlimited Monday October 1, 2001 It was only a matter of time before it happened, but many will be surprised to hear that a fictional film about Osama bin Laden is already in production. The film rights to British writer and former SAS officer Andy McNab's book Crisis Four have been bought by Miramax and according to the books publishers Corgi, \"The process is already several stages down the line.\" The book tells the story of a \"steel-willed\" British woman who is recruited by bin Laden to work her way into American security, blow up the White House and kill the president. The book's hero Nick Stone, a former SAS man who McNab says is \"partly autobiographical\" has the task of hunting down the woman. McNab is aware that the film will attract criticism when so many studios are avoiding any mention of terrorism or the World Trade Centre but insists he is not jumping on the bandwagon as the book was first published in 1999. \"Many people have bought the book since September 11 because of the coincidences,\" he told the Daily Telegraph. \"It shows that you don't have to have a beard and a turban to be working for bin Laden.\" Mystery surrounds the identity of the real Andy McNab as he writes under a pseudonym and there are no photographs of him although his books which lift the lid on the secret world of the SAS have been hugely successful worldwide. His 1994 novel Bravo Two Zero about his unit's experiences in Iraq during the Gulf war sold over a million copies in the UK alone I was afraid that someday there will be somebody who will try to produce a film about bin Laden to make money out of the tragedy. But I didn't imagine that it's already happening."}, {"response": 592, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Oct  3, 2001 (10:29)", "body": "*More Short Skirts and Dancing, Advises Prominent Fatwa Victim *8-/ Fighting the Forces of Invisibility By Salman Rushdie Tuesday, October 2, 2001; Page A25 NEW YORK -- In January 2000 I wrote in a newspaper column that \"the defining struggle of the new age would be between Terrorism and Security,\" and fretted that to live by the security experts' worst-case scenarios might be to surrender too many of our liberties to the invisible shadow-warriors of the secret world. Democracy requires visibility, I argued, and in the struggle between security and freedom we must always err on the side of freedom. On Tuesday, Sept. 11, however, the worst-case scenario came true. They broke our city. I'm among the newest of New Yorkers, but even people who have never set foot in Manhattan have felt its wounds deeply, because New York is the beating heart of the visible world, tough-talking, spirit- dazzling, Walt Whitman's \"city of orgies, walks and joys,\" his \"proud and passionate city -- mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!\" To this bright capital of the visible, the forces of invisibility have dealt a dreadful blow. No need to say how dreadful; we all saw it, are all changed by it. Now we must ensure that the wound is not mortal, that the world of what is seen triumphs over what is cloaked, what is perceptible only through the effects of its awful deeds. In making free societies safe -- safer -- from terrorism, our civil liberties will inevitably be compromised. But in return for freedom's partial erosion, we have a right to expect that our cities, water, planes and children really will be better protected than they have been. The West's response to the Sept. 11 attacks will be judged in large measure by whether people begin to feel safe once again in their homes, their workplaces, their daily lives. This is the confidence we have lost, and must regain. Next: the question of the counterattack. Yes, we must send our shadow- warriors against theirs, and hope that ours prevail. But this secret war alone cannot bring victory. We will also need a public, political and diplomatic offensive whose aim must be the early resolution of some of the world's thorniest problems: above all the battle between Israel and the Palestinian people for space, dignity, recognition and survival. Better judgment will be required on all sides in future. No more Sudanese aspirin factories to be bombed, please. And now that wise American heads appear to have understood that it would be wrong to bomb the impoverished, oppressed Afghan people in retaliation for their tyrannous masters' misdeeds, they might apply that wisdom, retrospectively, to what was done to the impoverished, oppressed people of Iraq. It's time to stop making enemies and start making friends. To say this is in no way to join in the savaging of America by sections of the left that has been among the most unpleasant consequences of the terrorists' attacks on the United States. \"The problem with Americans is . . . \" -- \"What America needs to understand . . . \" There has been a lot of sanctimonious moral relativism around lately, usually prefaced by such phrases as these. A country which has just suffered the most devastating terrorist attack in history, a country in a state of deep mourning and horrible grief, is being told, heartlessly, that it is to blame for its own citizens' deaths. (\"Did we deserve this, sir?\" a bewildered worker at \"ground zero\" asked a visiting British journalist recently. I find the grave courtesy of that \"sir\" quite astonishing.) Let's be clear about why this bien-pensant anti-American onslaught is such appalling rubbish. Terrorism is the murder of the innocent; this time, it was mass murder. To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individuals are responsible for their actions. Furthermore, terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate complaints by illegitimate means. The terrorist wraps himself in the world's grievances to cloak his true motives. Whatever the killers were trying to achieve, it seems improbable that building a better world was part of it. The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. These are tyrants, not Muslims. (Islam is tough on suicides, who are doomed to repeat their deaths through all eternity. However, there needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains. If the West needs to understand its Unabombers and McVeighs, Islam needs to face up to its bin Ladens.) United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we "}, {"response": 593, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Oct  3, 2001 (10:33)", "body": "I heard an account on the radio this morning about a Greyhound Bus terrorist action where the bus driver got his throat slit. CNN reporting at least ten people dead. Minimal info on the nutcase from one of the passengers: ----- Carly Rinearson, a passenger on the bus, said in a phone call to CNN affiliate WTVF that a man kept asking if he could have her seat near the front of the bus. She said he appeared agitated and kept asking what time it was. Rinearson said when she refused to give up her seat, \"He just went up to the bus driver and like slit his throat. And the bus driver turned the wheel and the bus tipped over.\" She did not describe the man further or say what kind of weapon he had."}, {"response": 594, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Oct  3, 2001 (16:20)", "body": "Another hijacking. MUMBAI TO DELHI PLANE HIJACKED EW DELHI: A Boeing 737 belonging to India's state-run Alliance Air, with 52 people on board, was hijacked just after take off from Mumbai early Thursday, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shahnawaz Hussain said. The Minister said a hijack distress call had been received by the Air Traffic Control (ATC) in New Delhi where the plane had landed at around 1 a.m. The aircraft, on its way to Delhi, was hijacked after passing Ahmedabad, initial reports said. The plane, with 46 passengers and 6 crew on board, departed from Mumbai at 11:15 pm. The Alliance Air is a subsidiary of the Indian Airlines. The plane is now parked at an isolated bay runway 27 of the airport. Police and fire vehicles have rushed towards the site. (AFP/PTI) Times of India is the source."}, {"response": 595, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Oct  3, 2001 (21:16)", "body": "from Times of India: NEW DELHI: After more than four hours of anxious moments, Union Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Hussain said the supposed hijacking of the Alliance Air was a creation of confusion caused by false alarm received at the ATC Ahmedabad. http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1331366505 The bus throat slitter was probably a lone nut copycat."}, {"response": 596, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct  4, 2001 (18:08)", "body": "More weird people will think of copy cat crimes against humanity. It always seem so to be this way, unhappily. I understand an Arnold Swartzeneger movie was pulled before premier because of similarity to real events. I hope we are all spared such movies!"}, {"response": 597, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct  4, 2001 (18:33)", "body": "From a greatly-esteemed gentleman of my acquaintance: Re Bin Lauden: Give him a sex change operation and send her back to Afghanistan"}, {"response": 598, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct  4, 2001 (22:59)", "body": "A popular thing amongst fire departments to collect money was to have \u201cFill the Boot\u201d campaigns. Firemen in uniform and wearing their helmuts, with the engine nearby would stand at busy interesections. They would hold one of their large turnout boots to collect donations. It caught on with contagious enthusiasm around here. Our 7 station dept designated one day to do this. Our crew felt a little on the awkward side to solicit money from the public. It wasn\u2019t a natural thing for us to do. There were three of us. I made three signs from a cardboard box that I cut up. Before sunup, we got to a busy intersection at Fuerte and Avocado in El Cajon/ La Mesa, Calif. I took the center island for the turn lane. I wasn\u2019t there for 30 seconds before I got my first dollar bill donation. From then on we got busier and busier as the rush hour approached it\u2019s peak. To beat the stop lights, I literally had to run almost constantly. People had their arms outstretched waiting for me. The only way I can reach them wa to be on a constant juking and jiving trot, as I dodged thru the lanes of cars. Eventually the cars between each light stacked up to about 30 car lengths. I was getting very tired, but I couldn\u2019t stop. People were eager to give their donations. It got so hectic that people were wadding up paper money and throwing it in our direction as they drove by. I was literally dodging traffic. There\u2019s a popular video game called \u201cFrogger\u201d. The object is to get a frog across a multi-lane road to the other side without getting ran over. The frog moved back and forth to avoid the cars. This was exactly what I was doing. There were several moments when I couldn\u2019t help relating myself to that frog. A smile would come to my face when I did. Some folks who weren\u2019t able to give money at the stop light, would pull over and get out of their cars and meet us along the side of the road. Some people who stopped and couldn\u2019t get our attention, simply left money on the seats of the engine. That morning we found over 50 on the seats. A lot of people wanted to thank me and give condolences for the NY fire fighters. Some folks had tears. They were so sympathetic for the NY fire fighters, that it was obvious that they wanted to express this somehow. Being firefighters ourselves, in their hearts we were the conduit to express this emotion to them. It was genuinely heart rendering. We have a large arab community within our district, and it was soothing to see these people making sincere donations along with the rest of the community. After that one day, our dept collected over $65,000 and the tally is still being counted. It will all go to the families of the fallen NY firefighers. For us who dodged the traffic to collect money for them, it was a very satisfying and emotional experience to go thru. I am greatful to have not retired before I could experience such an event. I only regret the loss that made it possible. George Zay La Mesa, Calif. San Miguel Fire Dept."}, {"response": 599, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (10:34)", "body": "http://abcnews.com Oct. 5 \ufffd At least 1,000 U.S. Army soldiers are headed to the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan today, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited leaders there to shore up support for an attack on neighboring Afghanistan. Troops from the U.S. 10th Mountain Division are expected to arrive today in Uzbekistan, where American military officials would like to stage personnel, bombers and jets for any attack on suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia. Uzbek President Islam Karimov this morning gave permission for U.S. troops to use one airbase for search-and-rescue and humanitarian aid missions. He said he was not ready at this time to let offensive troops use the facility, however. there's more at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTC_MAIN.html"}, {"response": 600, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (10:35)", "body": "http://cnn.com Allies press for support British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are meeting with leaders overseas today, working to shore up support for the campaign against terrorism. Meanwhile, Pentagon officials tell CNN about 1,000 troops from the 10th Mountain Division are headed to Uzbekistan to provide security at an airfield, which will be used for humanitarian purposes. more at http://www.cnn.com/"}, {"response": 601, "author": "SBRobinson", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (14:44)", "body": "(Marcia)From a greatly-esteemed gentleman of my acquaintance: Re Bin Lauden: Give him a sex change operation and send her back to Afghanistan ROTFLOL - that made me laugh so hard co-workers came around to see what was so funny. :-) All agree is an excellent idea!"}, {"response": 602, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (16:21)", "body": "(I liked it, too! Payback is a B**** and then you die!) Terry, I'd be much happier and feel a whole lot more secure if our media kept their noses out of the military maneuvers and let it remain as secret as possible..... or did you wish to inform out enemies of where we are at all times so more atrocities could be committed on our best and brightest? I also wish they would stop telling us how to commit bio-medical and chemical mayhem. I KNOW the evil people can find out for themselves or invent new ways to kill us. It is the giving the ideas to the lone and warped like the one who slit throats on the Greyhound bus that bothers me. I refuse to participate in this dissemination of comfort and information to those who would do us harm. *end of rant*"}, {"response": 603, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (19:22)", "body": "I completely agree, Marcia! Whenever it was that they were in Boston about to try to get some suspects, the media caught on, and practically gave them a head start to get out of there before the FBI could get to them... We don't need to know everything!!! Tell us when it is over!"}, {"response": 604, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (21:43)", "body": "I read \"The first casualty of war is truth, somebody said, and we know that disinformation is a key part of this stragedy. Therefore the quest for reliable info is extra-essential . . . \""}, {"response": 605, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (22:22)", "body": "Judiciously, Dear Terry. Moderation and wisdom, not tell-all and know-all. Sometimes it is best to know after it is all over! The following was sent to me from a really surprising source. I like it! Subject: LETTER FROM GOD From: GOD To: My Children on Earth RE: Idiotic Religious Rivalries My Dear Children (and believe me, that's all of you), I consider myself a pretty patient guy. I mean, look at the Grand Canyon. It took millions of years to get it right. And about evolution? Boy, nothing is slower than designing that whole Darwinian thing to take place, cell by cell, and gene by gene. I've been patient through your fashions, civilizations, wars and schemes, and the countless ways you take Me for granted until you get yourselves into big trouble again and again. I want to let you know about some of the things that are starting to tick me off. First of all, your religious rivalries are driving Me up a wall. Enough already! Let's get one thing straight. These are YOUR religions, not Mine. I'm the whole enchilada; I'm beyond them all. Every one of your religions claims there is only one of Me (which by the way, is absolutely true). But in the very next breath, each religion claims it's My favorite one. And each claims its bible was written personally by Me, and that all the other bible's are man-made. Oh, Me. How do I even begin to put a stop to such complicated nonsense? Okay, listen up now. I'm your Father AND Mother, and I don't play favorites among My children. Also, I hate to break it to you, but I don't write. My longhand is awful, and I've always been more of a \"doer\" anyway. So ALL of your books, including those bible's, were written by men and women. They were inspired, remarkable people, but they also made mistakes here and there. I made sure of that, so that you would never trust a written word more than your own living heart. You see, one human being to me, even a bum on the street, is worth more than all the Holy Books in the world. That's just the kind of guy I am. My Spirit is not a historical thing, it's alive right here, right now, as fresh as your next breath. Holy books and religious rites are sacred and powerful, but not more so than the least of you. They were only meant to steer you in the right direction, not to keep you arguing with each other, and certainly not to keep you from trusting your own personal connection with Me. Which brings Me to My next point about your nonsense. You act like I need you and your religions to stick up for Me or \"win souls\" for My sake. Please, don't do Me any favors. I can stand quite well on my own, thank you. I don't need you to defend Me, and I don't need constant credit. I just want you to be good to each other. And another thing: I don't get all worked up over money or politics, so stop dragging My name into your dramas. For example, I swear to Me that I never threatened Oral Roberts. I never rode in any of Rajneesh's Rolls Royces. I never told Pat Robertson to run for president, and I've never EVER had a conversation with Jim Baker, Jerry Falwell, or Jimmy Swaggart! Of course, come Judgment Day, I certainly intend to... The thing is, I want you to stop thinking of religion as some sort of loyalty pledge to Me. The true purpose of your religions is so that YOU can become more aware of ME, not the other way around. Believe Me, I know you already. I know what's in each of your hearts, and I love you with no strings attached. Lighten up and enjoy Me. That's what religion is best for. What you seem to forget is how mysterious I am. You look at the petty differences in your Scriptures and say, \"Well, if THIS is the truth, then THAT can't be!\" But instead of trying to figure out My Paradoxes and Unfathomable Nature, which by the way, you NEVER will, why not open your hearts to the simple common threads in all religions. You know what I'm talking about: Love and respect everyone. Be kind, even when life is scary or confusing, take courage and be of good cheer, for I am always with you. Learn how to be quiet, so you can hear My still, small voice (I don't like to shout). Leave the world a better place by living your life with dignity and gracefulness, for you are My Own Child. Hold back nothing from life, for the parts of you that can die surely will, and the parts that can't, won't. So don't worry, be happy (I stole that last line from Bobby McFerrin, but who do you think gave it to him in the first place?) Simple stuff. Why do you keep making it so complicated? It's like you're always looking for an excuse to be upset. And I'm very tired of being your main excuse. Do you think I care whether you call me Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Wakantonka, Brahma, Father, Mother or even the Void of Nirvana? Do you think I care which of My special children you feel closest to - Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed or any of the others? You can call Me and My Special Ones any name you choose, if only you would go about My business of loving one another as I love you. How c"}, {"response": 606, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (22:27)", "body": "I thought we paid our politicians to do a good job for us. Truth is not sacrificed - safety of the polulace is. We have a good governmental system. Mob rule nearly destroyed France. I don't need to know where the mountain troops are in Usbekistan! I trust our elected officials. Heaven help them if they do not live up to our newly-rigorous demands!"}, {"response": 607, "author": "alyeska", "date": "Fri, Oct  5, 2001 (23:58)", "body": "They say now that there is a 100% chance that they will strike again but can't say where."}, {"response": 608, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (01:23)", "body": "Indeed, they successfully revel in our tragedy. We are all \"infidels\" in their cultish belief structure, which is so against true Islam. They are not sane people. They kill for their rewards. I wonder how long before they kill off all of their devotees. Not soon enough, I fear. Be safe, Lucie! ...and everyone!"}, {"response": 609, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (12:35)", "body": "The first death of Anthrax in Forida is now believe to have been intentional. :-("}, {"response": 610, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (18:20)", "body": "Saturday October 6 4:41 PM ET Anthrax Case Puzzles Investigators By AMANDA RIDDLE, Associated Press Writer LANTANA, Fla. (AP) - Relatives of a Florida man who contracted a fatal case of anthrax are being given antibiotics as a precaution and his co-workers have been tested and cleared, health authorities said Saturday. The search to find out how 63-year-old Bob Stevens contracated the rare and extremely lethal inhaled form of the disease expanded one day after his death. More than 50 health and law enforcement officials have fanned out across Palm Beach County to track his movements over the past two months and look for other possible cases. Officials are also going over medical records in four North Carolina counties that he might have visited recently. ``We have a long chronology of common activities we need to pursue,'' Florida epidemiologist Dr. Steven Wiersma said. ``We don't have any really hot leads at this time.'' Investigators are awaiting test results from soil and other specimens. The results could take days. No other cases of anthrax have been reported in the area. Wiersma said several of Stevens' co-workers at the supermarket tabloid The Sun have been tested, but results were negative. Antibiotics are being given to close family members. Officials have said there is no evidence that Stevens was the victim of terrorism. Wiersma said tests of Stevens' blood helped confirm that belief because the anthrax in the sample responded to penicillin. Anthrax developed by some countries as a biological weapon could be resistant to the antibiotic, he said. More... http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011006/us/anthrax_case_27.html Moon, do you have a source for your scary news? I'd love to get a few sources!"}, {"response": 611, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (18:21)", "body": "This man also visited North Carolina where he might have contracted it. Many leads to follow before the media needs to fighten us any more than we are already!"}, {"response": 612, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (18:51)", "body": "From The Miami Herald Florida man dies from anthrax Search is on for source and other possible cases BY LARRY LEBOWITZ, LISA ARTHUR AND WILLIAM YARDLEY A Palm Beach County man died Friday from inhaled anthrax, but health officials continued to assure an anxious state that he was stricken with an isolated case of the deadly disease -- increasingly feared as a bioterrorism weapon -- though how he contracted it remains a mystery. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doctors want direction in preventing infection So far, the search in S. Florida for other anthrax cases is negative Terrorism alert led to diagnosis of rare, fatal disease Previous coverage Friends, relatives wonder how S. Florida man contracted anthrax What is anthrax? Anthrax Q&A Graphic: Unseen perils -- Chemical and biological weapons Is nation prepared? Is U.S. prepared to battle germ weapons? Experts fear U.S. plan against bioterrorism is inadequate Chemical, biological war front particularly difficult to defend Florida response State scrambles to respond to possible biowarfare attack Hijacker looked into crop-duster in Florida Gas masks fly off store shelves Water systems well prepared for disasters, managers say More coverage Latest developments regarding terrorist attacks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- South Florida man diagnosed with anthrax -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``I don't want to give anyone the slightest inkling that we know what caused this,'' said Steven Wiersma, the state's chief epidemiologist. ``We're looking at any possible physical way this could have happened.'' A day after Robert Stevens' condition became public, doctors in South Florida and at several hospitals across the country received orders or decided on their own to reexamine certain cases, this time looking for traces of inhalational anthrax, a strain of the disease that is nearly always fatal. The last case of inhaled anthrax reported in the United States was in 1976. Even as health officials urged calm in Florida, they aggressively pursued doctors' reports of possible new cases -- including a 75-year-old Miami-Dade resident -- all of which had proved false on Friday, said Wiersma. ``Three cases have gotten our attention and we feel very comfortable that they are not anthrax. . . . We had several leads that were highly suspicious that we've ruled out,'' he said, adding that ``each passing hour that we don't turn up a new case . . . is very good news.'' Wiersma said an alliance of investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the state Health Department and the Palm Beach County Health Department had ``cast a very wide net.'' By lunchtime Friday, investigators were inspecting Stevens' Lantana home behind crime-scene tape. In the back of the investigators' Ford Explorer: plastic coolers filled with supplies, boxes of latex gloves and a small manual, Emergency Response to Terrorism Job Aid. The six investigators working at the Stevens house were one of three teams officials said had been deployed to investigate the case. One team planned to trace Stevens' travels, habits and lifestyle over the last 60 days -- considered the maximum incubation time for anthrax. The other investigative teams began poring through South Florida hospital records and medical examiner records across the state, looking for suspicious symptoms or unexplained deaths since the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. Several of the suspected terrorists trained as pilots in South Florida and lived within 10 miles of the Stevens home. Officials acknowledged Friday they were in uncharted territory, responding to the anthrax case with unprecedented investigative scope as concern over bioterrorism has surged following the attacks. BAFFLING CASE Palm Beach County Health Department spokesman Tim O'Connor, stationed for most of the day at the county's emergency operations center, said even experienced investigators are feeling challenged by the Stevens case. ``They've never had one like this,'' he said. Inhalational anthrax in people -- caused by breathing anthrax spores in the air -- is extremely rare nationwide. Only 18 inhalational cases were documented in the United States in the 20th Century. A less serious form of anthrax, caused by skin contact with anthrax spores and usually resulting in skin lesions that can be treated with penicillin, was last reported in the state in 1974. The same form was reported in Texas earlier this year. The skin disease is usually contracted by people who work with infected farm animals. Anthrax has not appeared in Florida livestock for half a century. In addition to state and local investigators, the CDC has dispatched 12 staffers to work on the investigation in Florida. BIOHAZARD BAGS After 2 1/2 hours at the Stevens house, investigators hauled away seve"}, {"response": 613, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (21:22)", "body": "(Marcia) Letter from God: \"I hate to break it to you, but I don't write. My longhand is awful, and I've always been more of a 'doer' anyway...\" I never doubted it for a minute! LOL \"I swear to Me that I never threatened Oral Roberts. I never rode in any of Rajneesh's Rolls Royces. I never told Pat Robertson to run for president, and I've never EVER had a conversation with Jim Baker, Jerry Falwell, or Jimmy Swaggart!\" I would love to send this to Falwell and the others. Thanks for this Marcia!"}, {"response": 614, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (22:03)", "body": "Thanks Moon for the article. I could not find one and your is great. Suzee, I loved that Letter from God. I can think of a lot of people who need to read it! Happy news for me since I use this airport in about 2 weeks to attend my son's wedding: Honolulu Airport is one of the best-protected airports in the country during this time of heightened national security, said the airport's federal security manager. Allen Agor, who reports to the Federal Aviation Administration's assistant administrator for security, said new high-tech explosive detection machines, six canine detection teams, increased security measures and a \"battalion strength\" of military, federal, state and civilian law enforcement officers provide a highly visible armed deterrent to criminal acts against civilian aviation. \"It's safer to fly now,\" Agor told legislators reviewing Hawaii's terrorism readiness yesterday. \"(Security) is a notch above what it was on Sept. 11.\" Agor added that plans for federal control of security at state airports will likely take place in the next six months. State and federal officials say Hawaii continues to prepare for possible acts of terrorism, although it can never know what, if anything, may be a target. Edward Correa Jr., adjutant general of the state Department of Defense, said assessment teams reviewed critical state and county buildings yesterday, as well as other infrastructure, to see how they could be protected. Key to all this readiness, Correa said, has been the close communication and coordination developed among all agencies over the past 18 months. Along with state airports, security at Hawaii's waterways has improved, state harbors manager Barry Kim said. Honolulu Harbor has been closed to recreational vessels while the Coast Guard patrols waters near the airport reef runway. Also closed is the Aloha Tower observation deck. And all state harbors have been closed indefinitely to pole fishing, Kim said. State Public Safety Director Ted Sakai said he is reassessing manpower needs at the state courts, prisons, state buildings including the state Capitol, and state airports. The department's budgets are being reviewed with an emphasis on health, safety and security. http://starbulletin.com/2001/10/06/news/"}, {"response": 615, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct  6, 2001 (23:03)", "body": "Lucie sent this and I consider it important enough for all to read! Even if I may have posted this before, read it again. I need to do so! A message from the pilot! Worth reading if you are going to be flying anytime soon. The following is from a letter by a professional friend and her return flight to D.C. this week. \"I just wanted to drop you all a note and let you know that I arrived safe and sound into Dulles Airport tonight [9/15] at about 6:00. It was an interesting flight. The airport in Denver was almost spooky, it was so empty and quiet. No one was in line for the security check point when I got there so that went fairly quickly, just x-ray of my bags and then a chemical test to be sure nothing explosive was on them. Then I waited 2 1/2 hours to board the plane. What happened after we boarded was interesting and thought I would share it with you. The pilot/captain came on the loudspeaker after the doors were closed. His speech went like this: \"First I want to thank you for being brave enough to fly today. The doors are now closed and we have no help from the outside for any problems that might occur inside this plane. As you could tell when you checked in, the government has made some changes to increase security in the airports. \"They have not, however, made any rules about what happens after those doors close. Until they do that, we have made our own rules and I want to share them with you. Once those doors close, we only have each other. \"The security has taken care of a threat like guns with all of the increased scanning, etc. Then we have the supposed bomb. If you have a bomb, there is no need to tell me about it, or anyone else on this plane; you are already in control. So, for this flight, there are no bombs that exist on this plane. \"Now, the threats that are left are things like plastics, wood, knives, and other weapons that can be made or things like that which can be used as weapons. \"Here is our plan and our rules. If someone or several people stand up and say they are hijacking this plane, I want you all to stand up together. Then take whatever you have available to you and throw it at them. Throw it at their faces and heads so they will have to raise their hands to protect themselves. \"The very best protection you have against knives are the pillows and blankets. Whoever is close to these people should then try to get a blanket over their head--then they won't be able to see. Once that is done, get them down and keep them there. Do not let them up. I will then land the plane at the closest place and we WILL take care of them. \"After all, there are usually only a few of them and we are 200+ strong! We will not allow them to take over this plane. \"I find it interesting that the US Constitution begins with the words 'We, the people'--that's who we are, THE people and we will not be defeated.\" With that, the passengers on the plane all began to applaud, people had tears in their eyes, and we began the trip toward the runway. The flight attendant then began the safety speech. One of the things she said is that we are all so busy and live our lives at such a fast pace. She asked that everyone turn to their neighbors on either side and introduce themselves, tell each other something about your families and children, show pictures, whatever. She said \"For today, we consider you family. We will treat you as such and ask that you do the same with us.\" Throughout the flight we learned that for the crew, this was their first flight since Tuesday's tragedies. It was a day that everyone leaned on each other and together everyone was stronger than any one person alone. It was quite an experience. You can imagine the feeling when that plane touched down at Dulles and we heard \"welcome to Washington Dulles Airport, where the local time is 5:40.\" Again, the cabin was filled with applause. Last night I saw a program with college students where one of them said that at their campus there are no more hyphenated titles, i.e., African-American, etc., everyone is just an American. No one will ever be able to take that pride away from us."}, {"response": 616, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Sun, Oct  7, 2001 (03:35)", "body": "Liz K) Whenever it was that they were in Boston about to try to get some suspects, the media caught on, and practically gave them a head start to get out of there before the FBI could get to them... The postscript to this incident: The day after the bombing, three Saudis in their early twenties traveled to Boston to visit their father, who was being treated at a hospital there. Their bill at the Westin Hotel was being paid by the fiancee of one of them -- a man whose name is similar to that of Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers. After a hotel clerk tipped the FBI, agents swarmed the hotel. An agent saw one of the women outside her room and pointed a gun at her, according to the family's attorney, Jonathan Shapiro. She tried to run away but he grabbed her and hit her across the mouth, he said. The three were released after five hours, and the Saudi Embassy called it a \"humiliation.\" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37533-2001Sep27.html and: .......on Wednesday, a young Saudi woman in traditional garb, her face veiled, stepped out of her room at the Westin Copley Place Hotel, which had become a second home for her family during numerous trips to Boston to accompany their ailing father for medical treatment here. The plan was to meet her sister-in-law and brother-in-law at the elevator bank. She would barely get past her hotel room door. As she stooped to pick up a newspaper, a man in plain-clothes pointed a handgun at her as he grabbed her, dragged her down the hallway, and handcuffed her, barking demands that she silence her screams, according to her lawyer, Jonathan Shapiro. Thus began a five-hour ordeal for the woman and her family, in which, Shapiro alleges, she suffered a 6-inch scratch across her face, her sister-in-law was kicked in the head, and the whole family was detained for hours by authorities -including the FBI, Boston police, and Immigration and Naturalization Service officials - without the right to an attorney. Boston police referred all questions about the incident to the FBI, which declined comment. The family members, who asked that their names be withheld for fear of their safety, are well-connected Saudis with business interests in the region. Shapiro, a local criminal defense attorney, said he suspects they were targeted by law enforcement officials last week because the woman's fiance shares a name nearly identical to Mohamed Atta, one of the suspected hijackers in Tuesday's attack. The fiance had visited the family at the hotel but had left before the Wednesday incident. The interrogation, which followed a stake-out of the hotel and a raid by a Boston police SWAT team, FBI, and State Police detectives, took place in a climate of fear and anger the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Law enforcement sources later confirmed that there was no connection between the family and the hijackings, saying that it was a case of mistaken identity. The family yesterday permitted their attorney to speak on their behalf in the hope, Shapiro said, of highlighting the danger of indiscriminate targeting of Arabs. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/259/nation/Saudi_family_accuses_agents_of_abuse_in_case_of_mistaken_identity+.shtml"}, {"response": 617, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct  7, 2001 (07:35)", "body": "\"Fatima\", in the Afghani resistance group called RAWA, a women's-rights organization in which any member pretty much faces an automatic death sentence, was asked about the Northern Alliance by Salon: \"Do you support the Northern Alliance?\" \"We condemn the cooperation of the United States with the Northern Alliance. This is another nightmare for our people -- the Northern Alliance are the second Taliban. \"The Northern Alliance are hypocrites: They say they are for democracy and human rights, but we can't forget the black experience we had with them. Seventy-year-old grandmothers were raped during their rule, thousands of girls were raped, thousands were killed and tortured. They are the first government that started this tragedy in Afghanistan.\" http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/10/02/fatima/print.html I'm adding Salon to my list of news sources at http://www.spring.net/news They've been fearless in their coverage."}, {"response": 618, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct  7, 2001 (18:48)", "body": "I see where attackes on Afghanistan have begun. It's been a non - news day for me so far. But I'll do a scan of the usual sources soon and turn on the tv, see what's been doing on."}, {"response": 619, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Oct  7, 2001 (23:19)", "body": "Non-news??? I've been glued since 7AM Hawaiian time when we were looking for pre-game football. Afghanistan women tear my heart. NO one should be so treated. Thanks for the link! Sometimes you have to make deals with the Devil to catch a greater EVIL...!"}, {"response": 620, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (12:48)", "body": "I will remain calm. From The Miami Herald: Published Monday, October 8, 2001 Second case of anthrax found at South Florida tabloid BY MANNY GARCIA and LARRY LEBOWITZ The Boca Raton offices of American Media Inc. were shuttered Monday after a second employee showed signs of the rare anthrax bacteria that killed a 63-year-old photo editor for the Sun supermarket tabloid last week. The second employee, a 73-year-old man initially hospitalized for pneumonia, has not been determined to have anthrax, although a nasal swab showed signs he had been exposed to it, a state health official said. FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said the man, whose name has not been released, is in stable condition at an undisclosed South Florida hospital and is expected to survive. More than 300 employees of the National Enquirer, the Star, the Globe, the Sun and the Weekly World News who work for AMI are being asked to go to the health department offices in Delray Beach for antibiotics and further testing. On Monday, Florida Health Secretary John Agwunobi urged any employees or visitors ``who have spent more than an hour'' in the AMI building, 5401 NW Broken Sound Blvd., since Aug. 1, to go to the Delray Beach Health center. The health department has also set up a hotline, 1-800-342-3557, for anyone employed in the building or who has visited the building since Aug. 1. Agwunobi said a sample in the building tested positive for anthrax ``within the work area frequented by the first case.'' He said he believed the sample was from the computer keyboard of Bob Stevens, a Sun photo editor who died Friday of inhaled anthrax. FBI and health department officials said the second case was confirmed late Sunday night after nose swabs on a co-worker of Stevens showed signs of the bacteria that causes pulmonary anthrax. Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Health Department, said the man did not have a ``full blown'' case of anthrax, but the nasal swabs showed signs of the same bacterial spore that led to the fatal case of inhalation anthrax that killed Stevens and led to widespread fears -- so far unconfirmed -- of a bioterrorist attack. An environmental test inside the American Media building in Boca Raton also confirmed the presence of the bacteria, O'Connor said. Agwunobi said the person was found to have anthrax ``within his nasal cavities.'' He has not shown any symptoms of clinical anthrax, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan said. State health officials received a ``preliminary positive indication'' of anthrax Sunday afternoon and confirmation ``was obtained late in the evening,'' Agwunobi said. ``The building has been secured for the purpose of further environmental public health testing and we have begun to contact employees,'' he said. ``Our intent is to have the employees come to a centralized site in the Palm Beach County area so we can test them, so we can provide them with education, and so that we can provide them with prophylactic antibiotics.'' Brogan said the FBI is ``in control'' of the investigation, and that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is working with the bureau. American Media is attempting to re-create visitor logs dating back to Aug. 1 as well as a complete list of former employees who may have been inside the building, in an office park near Glades Road, west of Interstate 95, as recently as Aug. 1. The company started notifying employees Sunday evening that they were not supposed to show up for work in Boca Raton. Many were initialy instructed to work at the offices of a sister publication, the Spanish language supermarket tabloid Mira! in downtown Miami. A growing team of investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, working with the FBI and the state and local health departments, are continuing to re-create Stevens' personal and work habits and travels in hopes of identifying the source of the infection. At least five units from the Boca Raton police department started to block off parking lots, and shutter buildings of America Media Inc. Delivery people and FedEx trucks that usually do business in the building were turned back throughout the morning. Police and security personnel from American Media refused to say whether the health department had returned since finding out swabs taken from offices of the tabloid were positive for anthrax. Directly across the street, in a Broken Sound Boulevard office park, Peter Amodeo paced back and forth smoking a cigarette. He works for Paz Building Management, which runs an office across from American Media. ``Some people in our building are really freaking out. This is very scary. It's not like they raise chickens or anything in that building across the street,'' said Amodeo. ``And that building makes a lot of enemies because of the things they put in the paper. They have bomb scares all the time. They're always standing in our parking lot because the building is being searched. I think we're all just a little bit anxious today.'' Amodeo said "}, {"response": 621, "author": "lafn", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (14:36)", "body": "There goes Florida's tourism :-(("}, {"response": 622, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (14:59)", "body": "Moon, please wash your hands a lot! No rubbing your nose or eyes when out in public (yes, I know you know better!). Appatently this got transmitted to the second man with a contiminated computer keyboard. At least that is what we are hearing way out here 6 hours behind Florida! Hugs, Moon! We need you to be well and safe! And everyone else, too!"}, {"response": 623, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (15:02)", "body": "Speaking of tourism, Hawaii's has become nil since it requires long distance flying to get here and not commercial craft are being allowed in port other than the usual ones - and they get a complete inspection before being allowed in. There are advantages and disadvantages living out here so remotely. My island has NO strategic importance and little population. However, we have become self-sufficient by necessity!"}, {"response": 624, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (16:18)", "body": "Hugs, Moon! We need you to be well and safe! And everyone else, too! Thanks, Marcia! It appears some people in the Miami area have been sent envelopes containing a white powder. One man threw it out and it caused sparks and he suffered a burning sensation in his hand. Had to call paramedics and his family were all checked into the hospital."}, {"response": 625, "author": "winter", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (17:52)", "body": "Speaking (further) of tourism... My departure date to go to Indonesia (Bali) has been set back indefinitely. I was set to leave this month, to begin my dissertation research. A number of other scholars have been flown back to the US, as there have been numerous threats of \"sweeping\" tourist hotels for American and UK citizens. Ah well..."}, {"response": 626, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (18:01)", "body": "Indonesia is the largest Islamic country in the world. Be safe, Winter, Dear. Hilo is nice this time of year...! =)"}, {"response": 627, "author": "winter", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (18:12)", "body": "Marcia Indonesia is the largest Islamic country in the world Yes, although my research is in Bali, which is over 95% Hindu. BUT it also happens to be host to the densest population of Western tourists in the whole nation, so there's the possibility of the island still being targets of anti-US \"sweeps.\" Thanks, MArcia. I will be safe, by waiting this out a few more weeks."}, {"response": 628, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Mon, Oct  8, 2001 (20:40)", "body": "Suzee, I didn't know the rest of the story. Thanks for sharing that...how awful for them! I think the point I was trying to make is still there, however- a lot of people will be questioned and interogated, both innocent and guilty. I'm not saying that violent treatment by authorities is ok by any means. But I don't think that the media should be following every single little detail of the hunt. \"yellow journalism\" of sorts is not what we need right now, and I'm frankly scared that the media/the entertainment industry is going to give some would-be terrorist ideas as to what to do next, or let them know and give them warning that we're coming to get them in the next few minutes. Sorry, Terry...I know that belongs in another topic."}, {"response": 629, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Oct 10, 2001 (14:29)", "body": "Statement by USGS Director Chip Groat on World Disaster Reduction Day Today, October 10, is World Disaster Reduction Day--a term that in the past has applied largely to natural disasters. But this year, in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, it has taken on a new meaning. Unnatural disasters, those caused by hatred and intolerance, may seem an even more daunting challenge to our society than the earthquakes and floods we have faced before. However, the lessons we have learned from a century of battling natural hazards can help us in this new fight. Over the past 100 years, we've gotten much better at saving lives. In 1900, a hurricane hit Galveston, Texas, without warning, taking at least 6,000 lives and perhaps twice that many. In 1902, an incandescent cloud of volcanic gas and ash swept down the flanks of Mont Pelee, in Martinique, wiping out a city of 30,000 people. In 1906, a great earthquake struck San Francisco, taking hundreds to perhaps thousands of lives. From those disasters, we learned, and those lessons have saved lives throughout the 20th century. Terrorism has become another of the hazards we face, and we can use many of our approaches to dealing with natural hazards as we begin to deal with this unnatural hazard--approaches such as monitoring the warning signals, understanding the problem, sharing information, educating the public to take steps that protect themselves and their loved ones. It will take a long-term commitment from all sectors of our society, but we have made progress against the threat of natural disasters with these tools and we can use them to reduce the threat of terrorism as well. Many of the steps we have taken to mitigate one natural disaster have provided unexpected benefits for others--building codes that protect from ground shaking also strengthen buildings against strong winds and landslides. In the same way, actions to reduce risks and losses from natural disasters-- such as improved communication structures, better notification systems, strengthened infrastructures--can help protect us against attack, and actions to reduce vulnerability to terrorism can help in the fight against natural disasters. USGS capabilities have already been critically important as we respond to the disaster and prepare our Nation for the future. The USGS geospatial data set is the Nation's only national coverage of our infrastructure--our dams, bridges, highways, airports, and urban areas. These maps and images have contributed significantly to the efforts to understand the scope and focus resources as needed for recovery. Looking to the future, ongoing work on real-time water quality may prove invaluable in monitoring public water supplies to ensure our water is safe to drink. The geophysical techniques used to monitor earthquakes may be useful in response and recovery. These are only a few of the possibilities that can be envisioned. We need to bring the full impact of science and technology to bear on the hazards we face, whether terror in the skies or tremors in the Earth. The USGS stands ready to play our part in the struggle to ensure a safe and secure future for our children and our world. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kathleen K. Gohn U.S. Geological Survey Public Affairs Specialist Office of Communications 703-648-4242 phone 119 National Center 703-648-4466 fax Reston, VA 20192 kgohn@usgs.gov"}, {"response": 630, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Oct 10, 2001 (15:25)", "body": "I happen to agree with Rush on this totally! Liberals among us, I read your posts. Afford me the same respect! From Rush's Page: On Monday, I received a note from the editrix of The Limbaugh Letter, Diana Schneider. I had not been watching PMSNBC this morning. I'd been flipping around to some other channels. Diana wrote the following: \"Rush, it seems that the peaceniks may have their atrocity that you advised them to wait for. All morning on PMSNBC there was nothing but moaning and wailing about four United Nations workers who reportedly were killed yesterday. These four were the only hope that poor, starving Afghan people had, we're being told. It's been wall-to-wall television grief. A U.N. spokesbabe came out and gave a snide lecture to the allied forces that combatants should be more careful to distinguish between soldiers and innocent civilians.\" Now, three or four people removing land mines during a war? Is that not what they were doing? This is the residue of the Princess Di legacy, here. These people didn't know enough to get out of the way. They're out in the middle of a war removing land mines, for crying out loud! This is not what I call intelligence! They're removing land mines in the middle of a war, and unfortunately, they go up and give 'em some orange vests! They pretend they're quarterbacks at a National Football League in practice or whatever, where they'd get red vests, so we won't target them. You know, there are some people - I'm not one of them, I want to stress this - who will say that the United Nations would not be above placing these people in this situation for this express purpose, just to cause this. I'm not one of them, but I think that you probably know that there are people who are, or who could hold that opinion. I've received another note from a friend who has an interesting perspective on these peaceniks, the U.N.-types who really think you can win wars with good vibes - the types who think a few U.N. workers dying is a tragedy, but that six thousand Americans dying isn't. Folks, the timing of the peaceniks couldn't be better for demonstrating exactly who and what they are. What they first and foremost are is anti- American. We hadn't even done anything yet, and they were demonstrating. They switched that one anti-WTO protest in Washington D.C. on a dime to being an anti-war protest, because what they are primarily is anti-American and anti-America's policies. If these people were to be patient, and wait for things they can call atrocities - like if we happen to bomb a building Mullah Omar calls a baby milk plant, or whatever - they might get some sympathy. You know what, I wonder if in Afghanistan they have abortion caves instead of hospitals. \"Rush, you're flirting dangerously here. You're risking offending people.\" Well, I'm just wondering. If we happen to hit a Mullah Omar cave or something or whatever, there'd be sympathy. I mean, they're trying to gin up an excuse to say we killed civilians - which they'll say no matter what. It's just not working. There was a conflicting story Monday that Mullah Omar, through a spokesman, told the world that 20 civilians had been killed in the first wave. Suddenly, they care about civilian casualties, now that we're bombing their strongholds around the clock. Day, night, clouds, sun, snow, pollution, clear as a bell - it doesn't matter. We're just hitting round the clock. There is no break from it. So they put out this news that 20 civilians were dead. Well, they got their signals crossed because they went to the hospital and the hospital said, \"Nope, nobody here.\" They had no reports of casualties in the hospitals or anywhere else! They're putting out false information, which is no surprise to us, but just bewilders the media and liberals. The point is that the protesters in this country, the peaceniks, ought to be waiting for us to do something bad before protesting. Instead, the minute we move to defend ourselves, the minute we take a defensive procedure, they go into action. They were in action as soon as we lost those five or six thousand people, as a matter of fact - and there's only one conclusion: they hate America, and they're so blinded by that hate, they aren't even aware of it."}, {"response": 631, "author": "Moon", "date": "Wed, Oct 10, 2001 (16:01)", "body": "Yeah, Marcia! I watch Italian TV via satellite and am disgusted by the thousands of protesters out with the red communist flag. They are nothing but trouble makers with no original thoughts of their own."}, {"response": 632, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Wed, Oct 10, 2001 (17:43)", "body": "~~~~(Liz K)I'm frankly scared that the media/the entertainment industry is going to give some would-be terrorist ideas as to what to do next, or let them know and give them warning that we're coming to get them in the next few minutes.~~~~ I didn't intend to disagree with your point - I don't want any leaks to create problems for the police, armed forces, etc., either as they capture (hopefully) these crazies. I do want them to exercise some caution. The incident in Boston happened the day after the attack on the WTC in a charged atmosphere. But I'm not as trusting of the government as some (maybe I've been on the receiving end of \"non-truths\" from too many different administrations). I like the idea of all the checks and balances and I want to know *everything* as soon as it is safe. I would prefer that neither the government nor the press nor the police (FBI, etc.) have free reign to do amything without being accountable. I like Walter Cronkite's idea about press coverage below (and I'm sorry, too, if this should be posted in the other topic-it's kind of a mixed bag). Cronkite, 84, believes the current generation of network anchors has been \"first-rate\" in their coverage ....With the potential of the United States waging war in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Cronkite cautions journalists not to become overly manipulated by the military. \"We can't let what happened in the Gulf War happen again, when the Pentagon wouldn't allow cameras to cover the war on the ground,\" he says. \"That doesn't mean you simply broadcast live from the battlefield so the enemy a mile away knows what American troops are doing. You work with the military about what information gets released when. We did that during World War II, and it worked just fine. The public has a right to know what really goes on.\" http://www.tvguide.com/magazine/robins/011008.asp An odd, but interesting story about the involvement of the entertainment industry (giving the government ideas!!): U.S. Army turns to Hollywood for theories By Guylaine Cadorette, Hollywood.com Staff HOLLYWOOD, October 9, 2001 -- Government intelligence specialists have been secretly appealing to Hollywood filmmakers and writers for terrorist scenarios, Variety reports. The U.S. Army ordered a special committee to gather at the University of Southern California last week to brainstorm possible terrorist targets and schemes in the U.S. and to offer possible solutions to those threats. The ad hoc committee was formed in August 1999 after the Army awarded a five-year contract to USC to create the Institute for Creative Technologies. The ISC was to enlist the entertainment industry, video game makers and computer scientists to improve virtual reality and simulation training for soldiers. Screenwriters Steven E. de Souza (Die Hard), Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson (The Rocketeer) are involved in the committee, as are directors David Fincher (Fight Club), Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich), Randal Kleiser (Grease) and Mary Lambert (The In Crowd). One USC insider told Variety the group was focused on short-term threats against the country and had already met twice via telephone conference with the Pentagon. James Korris, ITC creative director, confirmed that meetings with the Army were taking place but did not elaborate on any specific committee recommendations. http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/article/1093259"}, {"response": 633, "author": "lafn", "date": "Wed, Oct 10, 2001 (20:46)", "body": "Walter Cronkite:The public has a right to know what really goes on.\" While I agree with him, IMO the journalists today are not in the same category as the ones in WW II. They seem to be more agressive & self-serving. And in some ways disdainful of the administration and the armed forces.They never got over Viet- Nam. Not many Ernie Pyles around."}, {"response": 634, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Oct 10, 2001 (21:31)", "body": "Yup, Evelyn. You are sadly correct. It is all show business now, and ratings! Be safe, My Dear! *HUGS* Tornadoes!!! NO playing Helen Hunt, please! We love you!"}, {"response": 635, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Oct 11, 2001 (10:31)", "body": "It's been one month now. The changes wrought to our society and way of life have been enormous. But life will go on. India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links MANOJ JOSHI TIMES NEWS NETWORK NEW DELHI: While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the \"evidence\" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahumd. Senior government sources have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief. While they did not provide details, they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh\ufffds mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link. A direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions. The US cannot but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani Army commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in Pakistan\ufffds ability to participate in the anti-terrorism coalition. \" continued at http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1454238160 and why and how osama escaped our 75 missiles: \" \ufffd98 attack: Tip off to Osama cooked ISI chief\ufffds goose"}, {"response": 636, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Oct 11, 2001 (11:12)", "body": "More recent comments on the terrorism issue from Woods today, courtesy Amy Reiter's Salon.com gossip column: ---------------- \"I won't get on an airplane unless it's an absolute necessity,\" Woods tells the Calgary Sun. And that's just one of the ways the creepy actor has seen fit to adjust his life in light of the recent terrorist attacks. \"I won't go into a stadium, and I won't attend a big public event,\" he says. He's also refusing to travel to New York for the premiere of his new movie, \"Riding in Cars With Boys,\" despite a specific request from Mayor Giuliani. \"I think too few people have grasped the reality we're totally and irrevocably at war,\" Woods opines. And though he refuses to comment even now about the four Middle Eastern-looking men he told the FBI he encountered a few months back, he will say this. \"I've spent a great deal of time lately talking to the FBI and have learned some startling things. I'm convinced, as they are, that there will be more horrific acts of terrorism.\""}, {"response": 637, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct 11, 2001 (13:46)", "body": "I was absolutely delightedly stunned to see the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India cooperating and greeting one another on the news last night. War breeds strange alliances. Perhaps there might be some good out of the ashes of this very frightening time. On Art Bell's show last night they were longing for the good old days of the checks and balances of the Cold War era. Who could have imagined!"}, {"response": 638, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct 11, 2001 (14:03)", "body": ""}, {"response": 639, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Oct 11, 2001 (20:03)", "body": "The White House and the media have agreed not to turn Bin Laden's video releases in to tv wallpaper, playing them round the clock in their entirety. The idea, as I get it, is that these tapes may contain coded instructions to sleepers waiting to wreak destruction. Makes sense. An example is the statement that doesn't make sense about the \"80 years\" as the period of oppression. I mean, nothing really happened in 1921 that relates to this, or does it? The lead story now is that there may be additional terrorist attacks over the next several days, according to the FBI. The President is going to speak in about 15 seconds."}, {"response": 640, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct 11, 2001 (20:25)", "body": "Finally sanity. It got so nauseating to see him speak on tv that I shut it off. as for 1921: Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1921 Also called \" Treaty of Kabul\" because it was negotiated and signed at Kabul by Henry R. C. Dobbs, the British envoy, and Mahmud Tarzi, chief of the Afghan delegation, after arduous, eleven month negotiations. The treaty restored \"friendly and commercial relations\" between the two governments after the third Anglo-Afghan War and negotiations at the Mussoorie Conference and Rawalpindi. The negotiations proceeded in four phases: During the first session, January 20 to April 9, 1921, the Afghan Amir unsuccessfully demanded territorial concessions, while Britain wanted the exclusion of Russian consular offices from southeastern Afghanistan. In the second phase, from April 9 to mid-July, 1921, Britain asked Afghanistan to break the newly established diplomatic with Russia in exchange for a subsidy of 4 million rupee and weapons, as well as guarantees from unprovoked Russian aggression. When in the third stage, from mid-July to September 18, the British foreign office informed the Italian government that it was about to conclude an agreement which would, \"admit the superior and predominant political influence of Britain\" in Afghanistan, the Afghans refused to accept an \"alliances.\" An exclusive treaty was impossible after Afghanistan announced ratification of the Russian-Afghan treaty of 1921. In the fourth and final stage of negotiations, from September 18 to December 8, 1921, the British mission twice made preparations to return to India, when finally an agreement was signed at Kabul on November 22, 1921. Ratifications were exchanged on February 6 of 1922. In the treaty both government \"mutually certify and respect each with regard to the other all rights of internal and external independence.\" Afghanistan reaffirmed its acceptance of the boundary west of the Khaibar, subject to minor \"re-alignment.\" Legations were to be opened in London and Kabul, consulates established in various Indian and Afghan towns, and Afghanistan was permitted to import arms and munitions through India. No customs duties were to be charged for goods in transit to Afghanistan and each party agreed to inform the other of major military operations in the frontier belt. Representatives of both states were to meet in the near future to discuss conclusion of a trade convention, which was signed in June 1923. more... http://www.afghan-network.net/Culture/treaties.html"}, {"response": 641, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Oct 11, 2001 (23:42)", "body": "Bush gave one of his best tv appearances tonight. He was eloquent, this whole crisis has moved him to a level many didn't feel he was capable of acheiving. He asked every child in America to send a dollar to a child in Afghanistan."}, {"response": 642, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Fri, Oct 12, 2001 (07:15)", "body": "Hi all Marcia, a cartoon wizard by the name Garrick Tremain lives in New Zealand. I will send you a copy of the October 12, 2001 cartoon in the Press. ITS BRILLIANT!!!!! If you can wait a few days more, you will also get some photos from me of my house and it's residents. I have some ready to go, but have not yet dispatched them. Rob"}, {"response": 643, "author": "Moon", "date": "Fri, Oct 12, 2001 (14:55)", "body": "Perhaps there might be some good out of the ashes of this very frightening time. True unification for peace. It is a dream, let's hope it becomes a reality. As for 1921 could be 1+9=10 the month October and 21 the date. It could be a date to watch for."}, {"response": 644, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Oct 12, 2001 (19:45)", "body": "Moon!! That is My Son's Wedding day!!! Salvation Army Team Emergency Response Network update One month into its disaster relief support operation in New York City, Salvation Army Team Emergency Response Network (SATERN) volunteers are holding up well. SATERN Amateur Radio Liaison Officer Jeff Schneller, N2HPO, says his current team is doing a fantastic job, and the operation could run for several more weeks. SATERN is now ''making do'' with at least six Amateur Radio volunteers per day, from about 9 AM until 11 PM, primarily to support the Salvation Army World Trade Center canteen operation. Operators have come from all over, including New Hampshire, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and Missouri, and Schneller said he even had offers of help from England and Canada. Two local groups--the Broadcast Employees Amateur Radio Society (BEARS) and the Electchester VHF Club have been providing exclusive use of their repeaters since Day One. Schneller, who's in the fire alarm and sprinkler business, also has been involved from the start, and--with the understanding and support of his customers--has been logging some long hours. He said most of the volunteers' employers have been supportive as well. Carlos Varon, K2LCV, has been Schneller's backup and is in charge of scheduling volunteers. SATERN radio volunteers have been handling base station duties at Salvation Army Headquarters on 14th Street in Manhattan as well as providing communication at key field sites, aboard supply trucks and at the distribution warehouse. Schneller thanked the dozens of Amateur Radio operators who have turned out to assist. He also said he appreciated the many other offers to help. SATERN now is limiting its fresh volunteers to those available from the Greater New York City area. Schneller strongly advised all Amateur Radio operators to prepare for the future by first getting acquainted with and joining their local ARES or SATERN teams, then by taking the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Course. More information about SATERN is available on the SATERN Web site, http://www.satern.org . Information on the ARRL's emergency communications course is available on the ARRL Web site, http://www.arrl.org/cce/ ."}, {"response": 645, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 12, 2001 (21:27)", "body": "In SLATE someone did a back calculation from Osama bin Laden's citation of \"80 years\" of Islamic suffering. Using the Islamic religious calendar, not the solar or secular 365-day calendar, 9-11-01 turned out to be the exact 80 year anniversary of the ending of the Caliphate by Ataturk. Which makes the most sense of anything."}, {"response": 646, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Oct 12, 2001 (21:38)", "body": "yup!!! Just please not the 21st of October...! I wonder if the antibiotics I am taking now will protect me from anthrax future? Probably not..."}, {"response": 647, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 12, 2001 (21:49)", "body": "11 Sept. 2001 = 23 Jumada Al-Thani 1422 23 Jumada Al-Thani 1342 = 29 January 1924 The Caliphate was abolished on 3 March 1924. http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupk/history.htm"}, {"response": 648, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Sat, Oct 13, 2001 (06:35)", "body": "Hi all Marcia: yup!!! Just please not the 21st of October...! Rob: And I suppose it is not an option to shift the wedding to a certain spot in Hilo or even better, to a certain city on the east coast of the South Island?? Get a hint?? Rob"}, {"response": 649, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Sat, Oct 13, 2001 (06:40)", "body": "Why?? There are some advantages to being in a little country like New Zealand. Save perhaps for Fiji, and maybe Australia we are too small to annoy the hell out anyone enough that they would decide to attack the country. Last country we annoyed was France, and they sent two government agents to blow up the Rainbow Warrior (flagship of Greenpeace), in Waitemata Harbour, Auckland. Some Kiwis have never forgiven the French for that and some probably never will. Rob"}, {"response": 650, "author": "lafn", "date": "Sat, Oct 13, 2001 (11:55)", "body": "Well, it looks like no one is gonna pull any atrocities in China: This from AP: CHINA BLOCKS MIDDLE EAST TICKET HOLDERS \"Beijing authorities have instructed Chinese airlines in HK to halt tickets sales to nationals of 19 countries , mainly in the Middle East. China National Aviation Corp , the sole agent of 10 mainland airlines in HK, told travel agents to stop selling tickets to China to holders of certain passports and to refund purchased tickets...for \"safety reasons\". The memo added tht there would not be a \"total ban\" ..wording that may have been meant to allow room for diplomats or dignitaries to travel.\""}, {"response": 651, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct 13, 2001 (16:03)", "body": "Evelyn.....thanks for posting that. I had no idea...!!! Rob, it has been suggested that we claim independence from the US as overthrown Hawaiian nationhood and all that. Rather nasty suggestion, actually. There is not much difference in the poor classes and women status of old Hawaii and old Afghanistan when you get down to the ugly truth. In any case, Mme Pele would love to bless their wedding and I am certain would the loveliness of Christchurch. What a wonderful excuse to go way-down-under!"}, {"response": 652, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct 13, 2001 (16:11)", "body": "Another thought on China and forbidding sales of tickets to the Mideast. Our terrorists came in from Canada, from other outside the US places. They took flying lessons and got credentials. For all I know, the pilot of the plane taking me to my son's wedding is a licensed professional pilot bent on sending me to eternal damnation and he to the 20 virgins waiting for him. China is so vast it would be easy to get there illegally!!!"}, {"response": 653, "author": "CherylB", "date": "Sat, Oct 13, 2001 (16:40)", "body": "Oh no Marcia, please have faith that you will arrive safely to your son's wedding. The US/Canadian border is so long, is there anyway that it can possibly be effectively controlled? I think that I'd read something some time ago about the Chinese government being very wary of the possiblity of Islamic fundamentalist groups within China. There are provinces in western China were the population is largely not ethnically Chinese and Muslim. This, of course, doesn't mean that all of the Islamic citizens of China want to create their own Islamic republics. I haven't come across the topic since."}, {"response": 654, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct 13, 2001 (17:14)", "body": "Cheryl!!! *HUGS* welcome back! I cannot imagine patrolling China's borders if we cannot control the distances involved on our Canadian border. Unhappily, I think we are just restricting law-abiding citizens. The truly evil will find way to accomplish their nefarous ends. Just like gun laws. Thanks for the good thoughts on my son's wedding. My phamacist, yesterday, said she has very good vibes that all would be well. I'm hanging onto that thought!"}, {"response": 655, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct 14, 2001 (09:44)", "body": "Going after the big fish (financial): http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/13/international/13ASSE.html"}, {"response": 656, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct 14, 2001 (20:50)", "body": "Now, in the \"if this turns out to be true\" department: XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SAT OCT 13, 2001 15:29:42 ET XXXXX MAG: U.S. FAILED TO KILL TALIBAN LEADER WHEN HE WAS IN SIGHT DURING FIRST NIGHT OF WAR; RUMSFELD FURIOUS The U.S. military failed to kill Taliban leader Mullah Omar when he was in its sights during the first night of the war, the NEW YORKER is planning to report on Monday. According to publishing sources, Seymour Hersh has filed a story quoting top intelligence-community members claiming to be 'crestfallen' about the incident. MORE Reaction in Washington to the failure to strike immediately was fierce, Hersh reports. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was \"kicking a lot of glass and breaking doors,\" one military official said. An unmanned Predator reconnaissance aircraft operating in the Kabul area identified a convoy carrying Mullah Omar as he fled the capital. The Predator is armed with two anti-tank missiles, but under the rules of engagement in effect Sunday night the C.I.A. could not order such a strike. Although the precise sequence of events could not be fully learned, Hersh reports, General Tommy R. Franks, the commander in charge at the United States Central Command in Florida reported that 'Judge Advocate General, a legal officer', doesn't like this, so we're not going to fire.' It was decided to target a few cars in front of the building to perhaps scare Mullah Omar out of the building to take a look. Omar did leave the building, but not immediately. Soon after he left, Hersh reports, the building was targeted and destroyed by F-18s, too late to kill Omar. \""}, {"response": 657, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct 14, 2001 (20:57)", "body": "\"According to the intelligence report, the U.S. tipped off Israel last week that bin Laden's al Qaeda cells and networks in Lebanon were complete and ready to launch strikes in Israel. They operate under the command of Imad Mughniyeh, terrorism and intelligence consultant to Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the report. As former head of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah's security apparatus in the 1980s, Mughniyeh was responsible for the 1993 bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and the blasting of Israeli locations in Argentina.\" http://www.freeman.org/m_online/may01/debka.htm \"Following the kidnapping last October of the four men P three soldiers on the Lebanese border and Tannenbaum outside the country -J DEBKAfile revealed for the first time that the notorious Lebanese hostage-taker Imad Mughniyeh was behind the snatch P not the Hizballah. This now ties in with another surprising development, recently pieced together by US intelligence in the course of its investigation of the terrorist-bombing of the US Cole in Aden harbor in the same month as the kidnappings: Iranian spiritual ruler Ayatollah KhameneiUs personal security service, which is headed by Mughniyeh, has struck a deal with Bin LadenUs al Qaeda for an operational partnership against US Gulf and Middle East targets as well as Israeli and Jewish interests worldwide.\" http://www.debka.com/TERRORISM/body_terrorism.html"}, {"response": 658, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sun, Oct 14, 2001 (21:07)", "body": "CHINA BLOCKS MIDDLE EAST TICKET HOLDERS Incredible! But there might be something to it. In Italy there was an anti-war march from Perugia to Assisi there were more than one hundred thousand people. In other cities in Europe there were also anti-war protests. It turns out that Milan is the main European hub for muslim terrorists. Five were arrested today that had planned to bomb the US Embassy in Rome. Which is on Via Veneto. The US better get the ground troups in there and do what they're supposed to do. What is holding them up?"}, {"response": 659, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct 14, 2001 (21:13)", "body": "Take a look at David Kline's comments on ground troops in news 54. It strikes at the heart of our survival."}, {"response": 660, "author": "mari", "date": "Mon, Oct 15, 2001 (09:31)", "body": "(Moon)In Italy there was an anti-war march from Perugia to Assisi there were more than one hundred thousand people. In other cities in Europe there were also anti-war protests. Yes, I saw some of them interviewed, talking about the need to resolve this through \"peaceful negotiations.\" I'd like to know--what planet do these people come from? Negotiations with whom--with people who do not even value their own lives? Their naivete is appalling."}, {"response": 661, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Oct 15, 2001 (10:24)", "body": "They are Communists, Mari. Unfortunately, Umbria is a predominantly communist region in Italy. They have no clue. They should just stick to their great wines and mineral waters. I thank God that in Italy we now have a center-right governement after years of abuse from the secular left."}, {"response": 662, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Oct 15, 2001 (17:14)", "body": "Amen, Moon. Oh, I'm taking the \"Story of Yew' on my plane trip upcoming in three days. I understand it is very good and a good diversion for what will be a tense flight. I hope we all wish to get to our destination with lives intact."}, {"response": 663, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Oct 15, 2001 (18:00)", "body": "I will be thinking of you on Oct. 21st. My very best wishes to you, your son and his bride. :-D"}, {"response": 664, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Oct 15, 2001 (18:44)", "body": "Thanks for your good wishes. I have forwarded them to the Bride and Groom. More at Geo 40 so I don't add too much bliss to a serious topic. Please be careful, Moon, dear! You are not replaceable!!! What a great reason for not opening junk mail!"}, {"response": 665, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Oct 16, 2001 (11:47)", "body": "\"Rumseld, fielding reporters' questions at the Pentagon, ridiculed Taliban claims of hundreds of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The ruling militia escorted American journalists around a crater-pocked area near the village of Karam over the weekend to buttress their claim. But the defense secretary said the targets in that case were underground caves suspected of being used to store weapons. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that a secondary fire touched off by the bomb ``went on for three and a half to four hours.'' Said Rumsfeld: ``They were not cooking cookies inside those tunnels... You do not spend that kind of money and dig that far in and store that many weapons ... unless you have very serious purposes for doing it.'' He said the individuals in the vicinity ``clearly were connected to those activities.'' http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Washington.html It was a tv reporters insertion that said Rumsfeld said the amunition may have caused destruction in the small commuity."}, {"response": 666, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Oct 16, 2001 (13:04)", "body": "The media is running the risk of becoming a great propaganda machine. Someone should pull the plug."}, {"response": 667, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct 16, 2001 (15:25)", "body": "YES, Moon! I will not watch some stations for that very reason. I am back to listening to NPR... Thank you for posting in the 666 position. Hardly demonic, I think!"}, {"response": 668, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Oct 16, 2001 (17:23)", "body": "Thank you for posting in the 666 position. Hardly demonic, I think! LOL! That's alright Marcia, in college my PO Box # was 0069. T'is true!"}, {"response": 669, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct 16, 2001 (19:01)", "body": "In college my phone number was extension 1234. When a guy asked for it, and I gave it to him, he often looked at me sideways and asked me to tell him if I was not interested in him. Numbers are curious things. In Hebrew characters, the characters can either be letters or numbers!"}, {"response": 670, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Oct 17, 2001 (16:45)", "body": "From Fox: Terrorists Failed in Their Ultimate Mission Wednesday, October 17, 2001 Glenn Harlan Reynolds Five weeks have passed since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and from what we have learned in that time I think it's fair to pronounce the attacks a near-total failure. True, they caused unprecedented death and devastation. But the attacks were not, really, about death and devastation. They were about terror, which is why those who perpetrated them are called terrorists. The goal, as now seems clear, was to provoke a frightened and inflamed United States to lash out indiscriminately, create a split between the Islamic world and the West and to deliver some existing regimes ? chiefly in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Algeria ? into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. At the same time, the U.S. would collapse under domestic fear and quickly sue for peace, abandoning Israel and offering a complete withdrawal of its influence from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia as the price it would pay to prevent similar attacks from happening again. It seems pretty clear that this was the terrorists' plan, and when measured against these objectives, it is also clear that this plan failed. Understanding why the terrorists ultimately failed means understanding the true nature of the United States' core strength. The plot failed in part because of the immediate response by the government to quickly ground flights ? most likely preventing additional hijackings ? and by the passengers of United Airlines flight 93 who bravely overtook the hijackers and probably saved the Capitol and/or the White House from destruction. It failed more fundamentally because the U.S. did not react the way that Usama bin Laden's followers expected. Having apparently watched the Denzel Washington movie The Siege ? a film that depicted mass hysteria incited by Islamic terrorist attacks in New York ? one too many times, bin Laden's men overestimated the likelihood that the U.S. would panic and overreact. They also learned the wrong lesson from previous cases when a few casualties caused the U.S. to withdraw from foreign commitments; hitting Americans on American soil isn't the same thing. But most significantly, the terrorists misjudged the reaction of American women. In the past, American women have been far more reluctant to see the nation go to war than men. But this time, American women seem to be, if anything, more bellicose than the men. Part of this hawkish reaction by American women stems from the attack being on American soil, killing civilians, parents, children, and spouses. But part of it also stems from the fact that these attackers represent a culture that brutally oppresses women. When I remarked to a friend that my Web site was generating more bellicose e-mail on the war from women than from men, he compared their reaction to what could be the expected response of African Americans if the U.S. had gone to war against apartheid South Africa. I think he's onto something. Media targeted at women seem to be bearing this theory out: The most recent issue of the Star tabloid features a special 12-page section on the war emphasizing the role of women in combat from the Gulf War, to women serving today on aircraft carriers. There is a feature on the \"defiantly lipstick-wearing\" female anti-Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan and a sidebar on 17-year-old British female sailor Jodie Jones of HMS Illustrious who declares, \"I'm ready for action!\" A profile of a female three-star general concludes, \"as the nation launches an all-out counterattack on Usama bin Laden and his evil henchmen, we couldn't be in better hands.\" In America and Europe, the emotional and political tone is largely set by middle-class married women. These women ? who never much thought about the Taliban and Islamic regimes ? are thinking about them now, and they don't like them. American and European women are likely to be far more supportive of military action against the misogynist regimes of radical Islamic states than of other kinds of military action. They're also likely, even after the war, to keep pushing for female emancipation throughout the Islamic world. The liberation of Islamic women is the thing, I think, that bin Laden and his ilk fear the most. But as a majority of voters in the world's richest and most powerful countries, American and European women are likely to eventually get what they want. It may take a couple of decades, but a direct consequence of the Sept. 11 atrocities may be the liberation of women throughout the Islamic world. For bin Laden, the Taliban and their supporters and followers, that would be a failure. A colossal failure."}, {"response": 671, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Wed, Oct 17, 2001 (23:14)", "body": "American and European women are likely to be far more supportive of military action against the misogynist regimes of radical Islamic states than of other kinds of military action. Hell hath no fury like women seeking to liberate other women forced to wear ugly fashions. ;-)"}, {"response": 672, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct 18, 2001 (00:34)", "body": "YES!!! Karen! Right on. Gazooks what they have conceived for us to wear... we must be roundly hated by the male fasion pundits. arrgh!"}, {"response": 673, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct 18, 2001 (00:36)", "body": "Not to mention those spooky garment which hide women of certain faiths. Their men must be very insecure!"}, {"response": 674, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Oct 18, 2001 (23:19)", "body": "A Boston trauma expert arrived in NYC shortly after September 11th. At the conclusion of his visit, he observed \"starting around the Thanksgiving holiday and through the New Year, a major mental health crisis will emerge in the city and surrounding area.\" Indeed, doctors and mental health experts are already observing the psychological fallout from the disaster rippling out from ground zero. Those at highest risk were personally exposed to the events, especially those threatened with injury or death. The second ripple includes those who lost friends, loved ones, or coworkers and those involved in recovery work. For the rest of us who spent days glued to our TV sets as the horror unfolded, even this exposure can trigger disabling symptoms, particularly in those with preexisting problems with anxiety, depression, or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With these encouraging words: \"Most people will recover as long as we maximize the normal recovery process,\" another expert encouraged everyone experiencing i trusive mental or physical anguish from the attack to seek help. For more information, check out http://www.psych.org and click on \"Coping With a National Tragedy.\" from www.femailhealthnews.com"}, {"response": 675, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 19, 2001 (08:02)", "body": "One of my coworkers suggested we train women in combat and send them in dressed in traditional women's garb with veils and all, they could move in to areas our troops couldn't reach easily and they could pack quite a bit of concealed ammo and weapons under all that clothing."}, {"response": 676, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Oct 19, 2001 (16:34)", "body": "Hmmmm!!! That sound better than the email making the rounds suggesting every plane take off with a baby pig aboard. If a Muslim is buried with swine (\"unclean\") they believe they are doomed to Hell. Then, do the suggested air drops of 100,000 swine into Afghanistan... Perhaps there is merit to this after all."}, {"response": 677, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct 21, 2001 (01:38)", "body": "What's up with this? October 20, 2001 THE AMBASSADOR Don't Doubt Steadfastness of Taliban, Envoy Insists By JOHN F. BURNS http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/20/international/asia/20STAN.html?todaysheadlines \"He was asked how it was that Mullah Omar had declared a \"holy war\" against the United States \ufffd and had said it was the duty of all Muslims to rally to the Taliban's side \ufffd but that not a single government among the 56 Muslim nations had rallied to the Taliban's cause. \"Inshallah,\" or God willing, he said, \"there will be a lot of Muslims joining us.\" And if not, he added, it is hardly the Taliban's part to persuade them. \"All of our actions are according to the Shariah law,\" he said, invoking the Islamic legal code. \"We do not argue with people, and we do not reason with them.\" But the most evocative response came with a resounding laugh from the mullah and a kind of thigh-slapping comicality from his interpreter, a huge man with an eyepatch. Toward the end of the 40-minute audience, he was asked if the anthrax attacks in the United States had been masterminded by Mr. bin Laden. \"Anthrax?\" he said, and then paused as if for theatrical effect. \"We don't know about this. We don't know what it is.\" Across the garden, many of the 150 reporters from across the world joined in the burst of laughter, drowning out the birds chirping at the approach of dusk.\""}, {"response": 678, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Oct 21, 2001 (15:54)", "body": "Do you detect more than a little sadism in this press conference? We are permitting our thoughts to be diverted by press giving space and credibility to such rantings? Pathetic!"}, {"response": 679, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Oct 21, 2001 (16:56)", "body": "Greek Americans join relief effort Greek Orthodox Church also helps open funds in support of victims of September 11 terrorist attacks on USA With thousands of innocent civilians having perished in the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and many remaining homeless and jobless since the collapse of the World Trade Center, the Greek-American community and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese are joining nationwide relief efforts. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has asked that all parishes conduct a memorial service tomorrow to commemorate the 40 days that have passed since thousands of people were killed that Tuesday morning. \"On this solemn occasion let each and every one of us light a special candle for the September 11 victims, the proceeds of which should be sent to the Sept. 11 Relief Fund of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America,\" an encyclical instructed. The relief fund and the Sept. 11 Relief Center at the St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, located close to the disaster site in New York City, were founded by the Archdiocese. Contributions to the fund presently total $1.2 million and have been generated by organizations, individuals and parishes from across the country and around the world. Moreover, the newly established Department of Philanthropy of the Archdiocese, headed by Archimandrite Antonios Paropoulos, is also expected to play an important role in relief efforts. Both the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek-American community suffered losses that Tuesday morning last month, as several Americans of Greek descent died while at work in the Twin Towers and St. Nicholas Church was crushed under the falling debris. The Archdiocese announced that the church will be rebuilt once rescue workers have completed their work and construction crews have cleared the debris from the area. In a gesture of support and concern over the destruction of St. Nicholas Church, Martin Kaplan, chairman of the American-Jewish Committee (AJC), this week donated $10,000 of AJC funds to the Archdiocese for the church's reconstruction. \"This gesture is a treasure, a movement of the heart,\" Archbishop Demetrios of America said after the meeting. In addition to the relief efforts of the Archdiocese, there is a similar campaign by the Greek-American community organized by the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA). AHEPA Supreme President Andrew T. Banis announced recently that the association was launching an international fund-raising drive to raise $100,000 for disaster relief needed as a result of last month's terrorist attacks. This announcement builds upon a previous call directed to its chapters and members to provide disaster relief by organizing blood drives and donating blood. \"As our nation prepares for a sustained campaign against terrorism the Greek-American community must stand side-by-side with this effort, offering our resources for the protection of democracy, freedom, and humanity,\" Banis said. \"Therefore, I am calling on the AHEPA family to focus all its energy in this effort to raise a minimal amount of $100,000 by November 1.\" According to Banis, once the fund-raising goal is achieved, the funds will be allocated to one or more of the charitable organizations assisting with disaster relief, including the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, and the Firefighter's Fund. The $100,000 raised will be in addition to the financial contribution provided by AHEPA to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. Established in 1922, AHEPA is the largest Greek-American association in the world with its own chapters in the USA, Canada and Greece, as well as sister chapters in Australia. MIRON VAROUHAKIS More... http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?aid=104435"}, {"response": 680, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Mon, Oct 22, 2001 (02:06)", "body": "(Karen)Hell hath no fury like women seeking to liberate other women forced to wear ugly fashions. ;-) ****** ROTFL"}, {"response": 681, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Oct 23, 2001 (22:03)", "body": "David Kline (who has his own topic in the news conference): We'll get to a real war footing, eventually, but pyschologically right now I think folks are still hopinmg against hope that it'll somehow turn out to be a movie-of-the-week sort of war. A temporary disruption, that's all. But soon enough, I'm afraid, casualties won't make the news unless they're double or triple digit. And the American people will be expected -- indeed, *required* to make and accept daily sacrifices as normal. War lite. Perfect."}, {"response": 682, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 26, 2001 (08:55)", "body": "It's those darn liberals again ;-)B http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/10/21/stiusausa02030.html October 21 2001 TERRORISM ULTRA ZEALOTS: If you think Bin Laden is extreme - some Muslims want to kill him because he's soft IF YOU thought Osama Bin Laden's brand of Islamic fundamentalism was as extreme as it gets, think again. A rival group of Muslim terrorists exists which regards him as an infidel who has sold out. Bin Laden's declaration of war against the West has failed to impress Takfir wal-Hijra, an ultra-hardcore group that has won a reputation for unbridled savagery in Egypt and Sudan. Hamza: even he's shocked Its fundamentalism is so extreme that members have embarked on killing sprees in mosques against fellow Muslims in the belief that a pure Islamic state can be built only if the corrupt elements of the last one are wiped out. In this they see Bin Laden and his followers as pragmatists who are \"excessively liberal\". To drive the point home, four of its members pulled up in a pick-up truck outside his house in Sudan in 1995, spraying it with bullets in an effort to kill him . . . \"They are nothing but a bunch of extremists,\" said Abu Hamza, the claw-handed radical preacher at Finsbury Park mosque in north London, who outraged public opinion in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center by describing them as an act of \"self-defence\"."}, {"response": 683, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 26, 2001 (09:30)", "body": "\"The world's most wanted terrorist suffered a setback as first word of a fatality among the top ranks of his Al-Qaeda network was reported on Thursday by a London-based Islamic group. ...The Islamic Observation Center said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press that an Egyptian militant, identified by his nom de guerre Abu Baseer al-Masri, was killed by a bomb on Sunday near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.\" Source: http://www.ecola.com/go/?f=&r=as&u=www.hindustantimes.com"}, {"response": 684, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 26, 2001 (15:14)", "body": "Reacting to the news of Abdul Haq's execution today by the Taliban: Oh man, this is a real tragedy -- on the scale of Massoud's death. He was Pashtun, one of the few with enough credibility and respect to be able to potentially rally fellow tribesmen away from the Taliban. And he was quite simply a great guy. Educated, funny, always playing practical jokes, a lover of poetry and music, and incredibly brave. He lost a foot to a land mine and thereafter hopped (literally) into battle. He was also kind. Western reporters who travelled with him and his fighters always had the feeling that Abdul Haq was looking after them, personally. Very solicitous of other's needs; very respectful of women. Abdul Haq was no toady of the U.S., either. He could be very critical of imperial behavior by the U.S., and indeed criticized the current bombing effort as potentially galvanizing of Taliban resistance. I could tell you stories about him. One time he flirted with my girlfriend just to see my reaction (wink wink, nod nod, then he burst out laughing at my obvious discomfort). And he loved to trade good natured insults -- \"You feeble Americans, even our women walk faster than you ... \"Yeah, no shit Abdul, with guys like you after them, no wonder!\" I don't know what else to say. Maybe it's not true. But it probably is. - David Kline"}, {"response": 685, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 26, 2001 (15:14)", "body": "More on the bin Laden death story: http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory102501b.shtml"}, {"response": 686, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 26, 2001 (21:19)", "body": "More from a shocked and dismayed David Kline: I really am finding this hard to believe: the two greatest living Afghans, Massoud and Abdul Haq, both murdered in less than two months by the Taliban. And it's difficult to explain how much these men symbolized hope for Afghanistan, even in their personal manner. Massoud spoke French, loved literature and led his men quietly, almost shyly. Abdul Haq was a poet with the charisma of a warrior, a big (teddy) bear of a man who laughed easily. They were cosmopolitan, sophisticated about the ways of both the West & the East -- not at all the sort of \"warlord\" the media is so fond of presenting these days. It has become easy, of course, to shake our heads and tsk tsk the Afghans for all the ways that they are screwed up. But you could never think such things in the presence of Massoud or Abdul Haq. They were truly *impressive.* And their vision was wider and deeper than you might expect of people who had lived in caves and mountain redoubts for so long. Each imagined a liberated Afghanistan with schools for all, electricity for all, a new class of women doctors trained to give medical care to all, and economic development schemes that were rather well thought out. But mostly, they imagined peace. Just peace. For a people who hadn't had it in 25 years. I just spoke to the woman who was my girlfriend then (she did refugee work along the Afghan border at the time) and she reminded me that our first date was very traditional -- \"dinner and a movie\" -- except for the fact that it was at Abdul Haq's house. The dinner he cooked himself (no lie), and the movie was (of course) video of anti-Soviet fighting. We played cards (Poker and Fish), told jokes, arm wrestled, and recited poetry to each other. It was from Abdul, in fact, that I first learned to recite the traditional Pasthun landay (rhyming couplet) that goes like this: Your face is a rose, your eyes candles Faith, I am lost! Should I become a butterfly or a moth? Now he's gone. They're all gone, really -- the only ones who could deliver the Afghans from their present misery. Who else has anywhere near the stature these men had? Ismael Khan maybe, but he's probably too regional. Anyway, I keep holding the thought that societies usually end up producing exactly the leaders they need. So maybe there are others, unknown as yet, who will one day take the place of Massoud and Abdul Haq. Wow, I thought I was soooo cool about Afghanistan. I'd seen a lot of shit there, stuff that I didn't at the time think I was strong enough to see. I thought nothing about that country could shake me up anymore. But here I am, simply stunned. I have a hard time believing it's real."}, {"response": 687, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Oct 26, 2001 (21:25)", "body": "We all have a hard time believing it is real. Until the stuff starts hitting your neighbors or in your yard, it is somehow remote. In Hawaii, it seems like another planet. But, then, so does all of the rest of the world. War lite. Too bad they aren't all like that..."}, {"response": 688, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 26, 2001 (21:53)", "body": "That was very, very tough news for David, who knew these guys intimately from his years as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. He has been very obviously shaken by the death of these two leaders who were so critical to Afghanistans future. I can feel his despair and pain. An excerpt from an ABCnews.com report today gives the Afghanis a glimmer of hope for a peaceful future: D U S H A N B E, Tajikistan, Oct. 25 \ufffd Like so many children in Afghanistan, 13-year-old Ahmed Massoud lost his father in the fighting that has engulfed the country for more than 20 years. But Ahmed's loss was also a loss for the country. His father, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was a brilliant military leader who helped the Afghans throw out the Soviet invaders in the 1980s. For the last few years, he had led the Northern Alliance's military efforts against the repressive Taliban who control most of Afghanistan. Then \ufffd two days before the attacks on New York and Washington \ufffd Massoud was assassinated by suicide bombers posing as a television news crew. Northern Alliance officials believe the assassins were sent by Osama bin Laden to eliminate the Taliban's most formidable enemy. Although Massoud led a life of war, he was grooming his son to lead the Afghan people on a path he hoped would lead to peace. \"My father never talked to me about war,\" Ahmed told me shortly before his father's memorial service. \"He did not want me to follow a military education. He said that the world would be peaceful when I grow up, so I have to be ready for this peaceful world.\" Ahmed lives with his mother and four sisters in Tajikistan, safely away from the fighting in northern Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley. He is barely a teenager, but members of his father's anti-Taliban forces already treat him with incredible deference and respect. He is very quiet, but carries himself with the self-assurance of a grown man. When he met with us, he strode across the room to shake our hands, then calmly took his seat for the interview. His movements and his bearing are exactly like his father's. Meeting a Warrior I met Ahmed Shah Massoud a year ago when I traveled to northern Afghanistan, where he was nearly surrounded by the Taliban and fighting desperately to keep his supply lines open for the winter. To reach him in his mountainous headquarters, we first flew in an ancient Russian helicopter over the 18,000-foot peaks of the Hindu Kush range. We continued by pick-up truck over rough dirt roads, then crossed a river Afghan-style: on a raft of cow hides sewn together and inflated. The technique worked for the army of Alexander the Great, and it worked for us. It was hard to believe that these were the same people who had defeated the mighty Soviet military, but they were. Many believe it was because Massoud was a brilliant strategist whose guerilla tactics bled the Soviets for 10 years until they finally gave up and left. Massoud's battlefield success is legendary \ufffd and not lost on the Taliban commanders. Although no evidence has emerged of Taliban involvement in his assassination, many suspect they knew that to control all of Afghanistan they needed to take him out. more at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/junger_feature.html"}, {"response": 689, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Oct 27, 2001 (22:12)", "body": "*I've thought of worse suggestions...* This was forwarded to me by several people. A little ancient female wisdom in an otherwise-bleak situation... Take all American women who are within five years of menopause -- train us for a few weeks, outfit us with automatic weapons, grenades, gas masks, moisturizer with SPF15, Prozac, hormones, chocolate, and canned tuna -- drop us (parachuted, preferably) across the landscape of Afghanistan, and let us do what comes naturally. Think about it. Our anger quotient alone, even when doing standard stuff like grocery shopping and paying bills, is formidable enough to make even armed men in turbans tremble. We've had our children, we would gladly suffer or die to protect them and their future. We'd like to get away from our husbands, if they haven't left already. And for those of us who are single, the prospect of finding a good man with whom to share life is about as likely as being struck by lightning. We have nothing to lose. We've survived the water diet, the protein diet, the carbohydrate diet, and the grapefruit diet in gyms and saunas across America and never lost a pound. We can easily survive months in the hostile terrain of Afghanistan with no food at all! We've spent years tracking down our husbands or lovers in bars, hardware stores, or sporting events...finding bin Laden in some cave will be no problem. Uniting all the warring tribes of Afghanistan in a new government? Oh, please ... we've planned the seating arrangements for in-laws and extended families at Thanksgiving dinners for years ... we understand tribal warfare. Between us, we've divorced enough husbands to know every trick there is for how they hide, launder, or cover up bank accounts and money sources. We know how to find that money and we know how to seize it ... with or without the government's help! Let us go and fight. The Taliban hates women. Imagine their terror as we crawl like ants with hot-flashes over their godforsaken terrain. I'm going to write my Congresswoman. You should, too!"}, {"response": 690, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Oct 28, 2001 (22:00)", "body": "An amazing story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56956-2001Oct26.html You watching TV?\" Rick Rescorla was calling from the 44th floor of the World Trade Center, icy calm in the crisis. When Rescorla was a platoon leader in Vietnam, his men called him Hard Core, because they had never seen anyone so absurdly unflappable in the face of death. Now he was vice president for corporate security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., and a jumbo jet had just plowed into the north tower. The voices of officialdom were crackling over the loudspeakers in the south tower, urging everyone to stay put: Please do not leave the building. This area is secure. Rescorla was ignoring them. \"The dumb sons of bitches told me not to evacuate,\" he said during a quick call to his best friend, Dan Hill, who had indeed been watching the disaster unfolding on TV. \"They said it's just Building One. I told them I'm getting my people the [expletive] out of here.\" Keep moving, Rescorla commanded over his megaphone while Hill listened. Keep moving. \"Typical Rescorla,\" Hill recalls. \"Incredible under fire.\" Morgan Stanley lost only six of its 2,700 employees in the south tower on Sept. 11, an isolated miracle amid the carnage. And company officials say Rescorla deserves most of the credit. He drew up the evacuation plan. He hustled his colleagues to safety. And then he apparently went back into the inferno to search for stragglers. He was the last man out of the south tower after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and no one seems to doubt that he would've been again last month if the skyscraper hadn't collapsed on him first. One of the company's secretaries actually snapped a photo of Rescorla with his megaphone that day, a 62-year-old mountain of a man coolly sacrificing his life for others. It was an epic death, one of those inspirational hero-tales that have sprouted like wildflowers from the Twin Towers rubble. But it turns out that retired Army Col. Cyril Richard Rescorla led an epic life as well. In this time when heroes are being proclaimed all around, when brave actions are understandably hailed as proofs of character, here was a man whose heroism was a matter of public record long before Sept. 11."}, {"response": 691, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Sun, Oct 28, 2001 (23:22)", "body": "The New Yorker Magazine has put together a collection of links to all of the magazine's coverage of the attacks and the aftermath plus older relevant articles: http://www.newyorker.com/FROM_THE_ARCHIVE/PREVIOUS/"}, {"response": 692, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sun, Oct 28, 2001 (23:24)", "body": "Thanks Terry... I have chills just reading this account of Col. Rescorla. He personifies Hero in my book! There were many heroes that day..."}, {"response": 693, "author": "Moon", "date": "Mon, Oct 29, 2001 (08:34)", "body": "This is a something my son found and made me LOL! Enjoy this treat. http://www.madblast.com/binladen.htm"}, {"response": 694, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Oct 29, 2001 (09:56)", "body": "October 29, 2001 U.S. 'guard down' due to anthrax attacks By Daniel F. Drummond THE WASHINGTON TIMES Terrorist groups are using anthrax attacks as a diversion and taking advantage of an overburdened law-enforcement system to plan more attacks on America, federal law-enforcement and intelligence sources say. The sources, all of whom are either working on or have close knowledge of the investigations of both the anthrax and Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said that regardless of whether Osama bin Laden or the al Qaeda terrorist network are behind the anthrax attacks, they are taking advantage of the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies' dedication to solving and dealing with the anthrax attacks as well as hoaxes and scares. \"Our guard is down now because we are looking at mail,\" one intelligence source said. Indeed, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told a group of the country's mayors that more than 7,000 of its 11,000 agents and support personnel are working on investigations relating to the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks. \"There is just too much going on,\" an FBI source said, adding that agents are working on the investigations almost simultaneously by asking about both the anthrax and Sept. 11 attacks with those they question. \"We still have to deal with the hoaxes.\" More at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20011029-26230978.htm"}, {"response": 695, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Oct 29, 2001 (13:35)", "body": "I love the way the media is working with the enemy in their effort to \"keep us informed.\" I think, in the interests of America, they should to be a lot less headline grabbing. This is so tiresome, I have ceased to watch the news!!!"}, {"response": 696, "author": "winter", "date": "Mon, Oct 29, 2001 (22:23)", "body": "Ashcroft has given out a \"terrorist warning advisory\" to state, national and local agencies (see NYTimes) today. What's also tiresome is how little informed we are of the details of stories like this. Why? Why now? I've been thinking about the possibility of some sort of threat during Halloween. This is an awful thought...the worst of the worst-- but what about the possibility of our children being harmed? But why hasn't the media discussed any precautions parents might take (candy, trick-or-treating, etc)? I hate to give into paranoia... but I'm handing out stickers this year."}, {"response": 697, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Tue, Oct 30, 2001 (01:20)", "body": "here in the NY metro area, that is all that seemingly has been on the news- what to check for in candy, areas that should be avoided, etc. I think that it should be put on the national news... If I had kids, I'd be wary of having them go out at all, unless I were with them, and even then, I wouldn't be very comfortable. also heard that all proceeds from this year's UNICEF (those little boxes that kids have in their trick-or-treat bags to collect $), will go to the Afghan children... apparently this is unprecedented in that never has the entire collection gone to one single cause."}, {"response": 698, "author": "Moon", "date": "Tue, Oct 30, 2001 (08:20)", "body": "What's also tiresome is how little informed we are of the details of stories like this. I agree. It is not enought to warn us. They must give us whatever details they have."}, {"response": 699, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Oct 30, 2001 (09:24)", "body": "They're probably not giving out too many details because it would tip off the terrorists that we know how to tap in to their communication channels. They're going to be offering \"candy\" in the form of false threats to see if we can intercept their messages over wire, the net, etc."}, {"response": 700, "author": "mari", "date": "Tue, Oct 30, 2001 (12:59)", "body": "They're not giving us details because they don't have them. What sparked this latest alert is an increase in the amount of \"noise\" among the terrorists communications networks, similar to what was observed immediately prior to September 11. The government is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. IMO, they issue these warnings to us because, with law enforcement departments throughout the country being placed on high alert, word is bound to get out that something is afoot. If they don't issue a warning--albeit a general one--people would complain that they're covering up the info. So they issue the alert to the public, and the public complains it's not enough info. Believe me, I'm as frustrated as anyone, but the government has an incredibly difficult situation they're trying to deal with, and so I think we need to have a bit more patience and understanding and not be so quick to second guess."}, {"response": 701, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Oct 30, 2001 (15:06)", "body": "Mari, I absolutely agree with you! I'd rather evacuate from 1,000 tsunami warnings than be drowned by one which was not issued to spare us the trauma. This goes for what we face now. Be safe and keep on doing what you were meant to do. Live your lives as best you can. Attend games and parties. If we don't we will die inside and they will have provided the means for this death. I am not willing to give up so easily! My son was just married. I am looking forward to the possibility of another little generation of people to inhabit a most wonderous world."}, {"response": 702, "author": "mari", "date": "Wed, Oct 31, 2001 (10:17)", "body": "Interesting piece from the New York Times: October 26, 2001 We Are All Alone By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Let me see if I've got this all straight now: Pakistan will allow us to use its bases Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; provided we bomb only Taliban whose names begin with Omar and who don't have cousins in the Pakistani secret service. India is with us on Tuesdays and Fridays, provided it can shell Pakistani forces around Kashmir all other days. Egypt is with us on Sundays, provided we don't tell anyone and provided we never mention that we give the Egyptians $2 billion a year in aid. Yasir Arafat is with us only after 10 p.m. on weekdays, when Palestinians who have been dancing in the streets over the World Trade Center attack have gone to bed. The Northern Alliance is with us, provided we buy all its troops new sandals and give U.S. passports to the first 1,000 to reach Kabul. Israel is with us provided we never question the lunacy of 7,000 Israeli colonial settlers living in the middle of a million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Kuwait would like to be with us, it really would, since we saved Kuwait from Iraq, but two Islamists in the Kuwaiti Parliament spoke out against the war, so the emir just doesn't want to take any chances. You understand. The Saudis, of course, want to be with us, but Saudis are not into war-fighting. That's for the household help. Don't worry. Prince Alwaleed has promised to rent us some Bangladeshi soldiers through a Saudi temp agency \u2014 at only a small markup. The Saudi ruling family would love to cooperate by handing over its police files on the 15 Saudis involved in the hijackings, but that would be a violation of its sovereignty, and, well, you know how much the Saudis respect sovereignty; like when the Saudi Embassy in Washington rushed all of Osama bin Laden's relatives out of America after Sept. 11 on a private Saudi jet, before they could be properly questioned by the F.B.I. And then there's my personal favorite: All our Arab-Muslim allies would love us to get bin Laden quickly, but the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is coming soon and the Muslim \"street\" will not tolerate fighting during Ramadan. Say, do you remember the 1973 Middle East war, launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel? Remember what that war was called in the Arab world? \"The Ramadan war\"; because that's when it was started. Oh, well. I guess the Arab world can launch wars on Ramadan, but not receive them. My fellow Americans, I hate to say this, but except for the good old Brits, we're all alone. And at the end of the day, it's U.S. and British troops who will have to go in, on the ground, and eliminate bin Laden. Ah, you ask, but why did we have so many allies in the gulf war against Iraq? Because the Saudis and Kuwaitis bought that alliance. They bought the Syrian Army with billions of dollars for Damascus. They bought us and the Europeans with promises of huge reconstruction contracts and by covering all our costs. Indeed, with the money Japan paid, we actually made a profit on the gulf war; Coalitions \"R\" Us. This time we'll have to pay our own way, and for others. Unfortunately, killing 5,000 innocent Americans in New York just doesn't get the rest of the world that exercised. In part we're to blame. The unilateralist message the Bush team sent from its first day in office: get rid of the Kyoto climate treaty, forget the biological treaty, forget arms control, and if the world doesn't like it that's tough; has now come back to haunt us. And who can blame other countries for wanting to shake down U.S. taxpayers when Dick Armey and his greedy band of House Republicans are doing the same thing; pushing a stimulus bill with more tax breaks for the rich, lobbyists and corporations, and virtually nothing for the working Americans who will fight this war? My advice: Try not to focus on any of this. Focus instead on the firemen who rushed into the trade center towers without asking, \"How much?\" Focus on the thousands of U.S. reservists who have left their jobs and families to go fight in Afghanistan without asking, \"What's in it for me?\" Unlike the free-riders in our coalition, these young Americans know that Sept. 11 is our holy day; the first day in a just war to preserve our free, multi-religious, democratic society. And I don't really care if that war coincides with Ramadan, Christmas, Hanukkah or the Buddha's birthday; the most respectful and spiritual thing we can do now is fight it until justice is done."}, {"response": 703, "author": "Moon", "date": "Thu, Nov  1, 2001 (13:02)", "body": "The Italians have also committed to send troups. It was reported on Italian Rai TV news that 10 American soldiers have been captured in A. Has it been reported here? Also in Italy, a Muslim has been found living in a metal container with computer and maps of all Italian airports and Canadian airports. He is in custody and the FBI is on its way."}, {"response": 704, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov  1, 2001 (15:18)", "body": "Nothing on the capture on ABC or CNN's websites. And nothing about the Muslim living in the dumpster."}, {"response": 705, "author": "mari", "date": "Thu, Nov  1, 2001 (15:58)", "body": "White House says capture story is completely false."}, {"response": 706, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov  1, 2001 (21:34)", "body": "And more comments from David Kline: Wow, today's NY Times also has an excellent piece on \"Afghan Art Dispersed by the Winds of War.\" http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/01/arts/design/01PILL.html I may have mentioned before how wonderful and unique Afghan art is, and how proud Afghans have always been of it (a further indication that the Taliban are completely alien to traditional Afghan culture and tradition). Anyway, my movie script -- a love story set against the Afghan war -- also centers around a plot to steal precious Afghan art. I sold the script 10 years ago (to Tom Selleck of all people), but when the Gulf War broke out he decided not to make the movie. So the rights reverted back to me. I'm thinking about resurrecting this script and trying again -- one thing's for sure, I'd be the first up to the plate with an Afghan script. Anyone know any agents or producers to steer me to?"}, {"response": 707, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Nov  1, 2001 (23:06)", "body": "The atrocities inflicted on the antiquites of Afghanistan were reported in Geo - archeologist world-wide are outraged. Little did they know that these people are willing to kill of the whole specied to their eternal glory."}, {"response": 708, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Tue, Nov  6, 2001 (17:13)", "body": "Twenty-six-year-old Palestinian-American poet and political activist Suheir Hammad has published a book of poems, BORN PALESTINIAN, BORN BLACK, and a memoir, DROPS OF THIS STORY, and is prominently featured in LISTEN UP! AN ANTHOLOGY OF SPOKEN WORK POETRY. Recipient of the Audre Lourde Writing Award from Hunter College, the Morris Center for Healing Poetry Award, and a New York Mills Artist Residency in Minnesota, Hammad is a frequent reader at New York reading venues, including numerous radio appearances, and has performed with The All That Band and Rhythms of Aqua. She has produced a documentary film, HALF A LIFETIME, and is writing a film entitled FROM BEIRUT TO BROOKLYN, based on her memoir. Naomi Shihab Nye has called Hammad's work \"a brave flag over the dispossessed.\" First Writing Since 1. there have been no words. i have not written one word. no poetry in the ashes south of canal street. no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna. not one word. today is a week, and seven is of heavens, gods, science. evident out my kitchen window is an abstract reality. sky where once was steel. smoke where once was flesh. fire in the city air and i feared for my sister's life in a way never before. and then, and now, i fear for the rest of us. first, please god, let it be a mistake, the pilot's heart failed, the plane's engine died. then please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now. please god, after the second plane, please, don't let it be anyone who looks like my brothers. i do not know how bad a life has to break in order to kill. i have never been so hungry that i willed hunger i have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen. not really. even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human being. never this broken. more than ever, i believe there is no difference. the most privileged nation, most americans do not know the difference between indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims, sikhs, hindus. more than ever, there is no difference. 2. thank you korea for kimchi and bibim bob, and corn tea and the genteel smiles of the wait staff at wonjo the smiles never revealing the heat of the food or how tired they must be working long midtown shifts. thank you korea, for the belly craving that brought me into the city late the night before and diverted my daily train ride into the world trade center. there are plenty of thank yous in ny right now. thank you for my lazy procrastinating late ass. thank you to the germs that had me call in sick. thank you, my attitude, you had me fired the week before. thank you for the train that never came, the rude nyer who stole my cab going downtown. thank you for the sense my mama gave me to run. thank you for my legs, my eyes, my life. 3. the dead are called lost and their families hold up shaky printouts in front of us through screens smoked up. we are looking for iris, mother of three. please call with any information. we are searching for priti, last seen on the 103rd floor. she was talking to her husband on the phone and the line went. please help us find george, also known as adel. his family is waiting for him with his favorite meal. i am looking for my son, who was delivering coffee. i am looking for my sister girl, she started her job on monday. i am looking for peace. i am looking for mercy. i am looking for evidence of compassion. any evidence of life. i am looking for life. 4. ricardo on the radio said in his accent thick as yuca, \"i will feel so much better when the first bombs drop over there. and my friends feel the same way.\" on my block, a woman was crying in a car parked and stranded in hurt. i offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she said, \"we're gonna burn them so bad, i swear, so bad.\" my hand went to my head and my head went to the numbers within it of the dead iraqi children, the dead in nicaragua. the dead in rwanda who had to vie with fake sport wrestling for america's attention. yet when people sent emails saying, this was bound to happen, lets not forget u.s. transgressions, for half a second i felt resentful. hold up with that, cause i live here, these are my friends and fam, and it could have been me in those buildings, and we're not bad people, do not support america's bullying. can i just have a half second to feel bad? if i can find through this exhaust people who were left behind to mourn and to resist mass murder, i might be alright. thank you to the woman who saw me brinking my cool and blinking back tears. she opened her arms before she asked \"do you want a hug?\" a big white woman, and her embrace was the kind only people with the warmth of flesh can offer. i wasn't about to say no to any comfort. \"my brother's in the navy,\" i said. \"and we\"re arabs.\"\"wow, you got double trouble.\" word. 5. one more person ask me if i knew the hijackers. one more motherfucker ask me what navy my brother is in. one more person assume no arabs or muslims were killed. one more person assume they know me, or that i rep"}, {"response": 709, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Nov  6, 2001 (20:43)", "body": "I have known a young geology student in Islamabad for several years. My heart aches for him now. He worries about me. I am far from harm's way, and he is just starting out on life and the study of how precious and special this planet really is. This is incredibly sad, especially when it beomes highly personal."}, {"response": 710, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Nov  6, 2001 (22:42)", "body": "A friend, Koti, sent me this today. From MAILER-DAEMON Tue Nov 6 21:26:30 2001 Date: 06 Nov 2001 21:26:30 -0600 From: Mail System Internal Data Subject: DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA X-IMAP: 1005103590 0000000000 Status: RO This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not a real message. It is created automatically by the mail system software. If deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created with the data reset to initial values. From terry@www.spring.net Tue Nov 6 17:12:54 2001 -0600 Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: Return-Path: Received: from localhost (koti@localhost) by www.spring.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id fA6NCpA52010; Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:12:51 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from koti@spring.net) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:12:50 -0600 (CST) From: Koti Nandipati To: gdegamo@lucent.com cc: wayne.branagh@motorola.com, terry@spring.net Subject: Hijackers' Meticulous Strategy of Brains, Muscle and Practice (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NY Times article detailing the sept 11th event execution...--koti Hijackers' Meticulous Strategy of Brains, Muscle and Practice November 4, 2001 By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and KATE ZERNIKE American Airlines Flight 11 was in line for takeoff from Logan International Airport, the passengers already reminded to turn off personal electronic devices, when Mohamed Atta, in seat 8D in business class, dialed his cellphone for the last time. The call rang aboard another sparsely occupied jetliner a bit farther back on the same tarmac, on a cellphone belonging to Marwan al- Shehhi, in seat 6C on United Airlines Flight 175. The conversation between the two men, so close that they called each other cousin, lasted less than one minute - just long enough, investigators say, to signal that the plot was on. That simple communication was the culmination of months of meticulous planning and coordination that by 10 o'clock on the morning of Sept. 11 would become the worst terrorist attack in history. With all the suspects dead and no conclusive evidence, as yet, of any accomplices, investigators have been left to recreate the architecture and orchestration of the plot largely from the recorded minutiae of the hijackers' brief American lives: their cellphone calls, credit card charges, Internet communications and automated teller machine withdrawals. What has emerged, nearly two months into the investigation, is a picture in which the roles of the 19 hijackers are so well defined as to be almost corporate in their organization and coordination. Investigators now divide the 19 into three distinct groups: Mr. Atta, considered the mastermind, and three other leaders who chose the dates for the attack and flew the planes; a support staff of three who helped with the logistics of renting apartments, securing driver's licenses and distributing cash to the teams that would take the four planes; and beneath them, 12 soldiers, or \"muscle,\" whose main responsibility seems to have been restraining the flight attendants and passengers while the leaders took over the jets' controls. The leaders had researched their plans so well that they knew just when each of the four cross-country flights would reach its cruising altitude - the moment, investigators say, when the hijackers stormed the cockpits to confront the pilots with box cutters. The coordination was so thorough that each of the four hijacking teams had its own bank account, and each team's A.T.M. cards used a single PIN. The slightest misstep could trigger intense frustration: more than once last summer in Florida, when money transfers from abroad had not arrived on the expected dates, security cameras captured several hijackers glaring impatiently into A.T.M. screens. The hijackers made a true technophile's use of the Internet, online chat rooms and e-mail. But when it came to their most crucial communications, they did what Al Qaeda's manual on terrorist operations instructs: they met in person. They chose as their meeting place the same locale where generations of American conventioneers have met to exchange information about their crafts: Las Vegas, where investigators say the most crucial planning in the United States occurred. But unlike traditional conventioneers who cluster in casino hotels that replicate the Pyramids or the New York City skyline, the leaders and their logistics men stayed at the seediest end of the famous Las Vegas Strip, next to the \"Home of the $5 Lap Dance,\" at a cheap motel guaranteed not to have surveillance cameras. They stayed briefly, only as long as it took to exchange important information, and apparently did not visit the casinos or any of the other purveyors of easy vice in America's City of Sin. Most of the 19 hijackers, perhaps all of them, spent time in Osama bin Laden's Afghan training camps, investigators now say. Some of the Sept. 11 soldiers appear to have met there. And like Mr. Atta and the other pi"}, {"response": 711, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Nov  9, 2001 (10:38)", "body": "Al Qaeda Takes Cues From Asimov? The Ansible ( http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a172.html ) and Locus Online ( http://www.locusmag.com/2001/News/News11Log.html ) Web sites both reported on the rumor of a possible connection between Al Qaeda, the Islamic terrorist network purportedly masterminded by Osama bin Laden, and, of all things, Isaac Asimov's classic SF novel Foundation, the first in his well-known series of the same name. Ansible quoted SF writer China Mi\ufffdville--author of King Rat, Perdido Street Station and Macmillan's upcoming The Scar--as saying, \"My supervisor, an expert in the Middle East, told me about a rumor circulating about the name of bin Laden's network. The term al qaeda seems to have no political precedent in Arabic, and has therefore been something of a conundrum to the experts, until someone pointed out that a very popular book in the Arab world--Arabs apparently being big readers of translated SF--is Asimov's Foundation, the title of which is translated as Al Qaeda. Unlikely as it sounds, this is the only theory anyone can come up with.\" At least one post on a Russian message board ( http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5491-4.cfm ) speculated that bin Laden might be taking cues from Asimov's book, about an uprising against a Galactic Empire led by a single-minded revolutionary and his band of fighters against overwhelming military odds, Locus reported. For the record, the PBS Frontline Web site reported that al qaeda is \"an Arabic word meaning 'the base.'"}, {"response": 712, "author": "pmnh", "date": "Fri, Nov  9, 2001 (11:07)", "body": "...and asimov was jewish bin laden's form of fundamentalism is remarkably malleable, when he wants it to be"}, {"response": 713, "author": "Moon", "date": "Sat, Nov 10, 2001 (14:48)", "body": "FBI: Sender of anthrax letters a guy, a loner Saturday Nov. 10 By Chris Mondics and James Kuhnhenn Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON -- FBI officials said Friday that they believe the person who mailed several anthrax-filled letters is probably a U.S.-based male loner with a scientific bent, possibly like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, whose letter bombs mystified law enforcement for nearly two decades. Federal officials have been speculating for weeks that the anthrax attacks were not connected to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but the FBI's announcement Friday was the strongest endorsement yet of that theory. Even so, FBI officials said they had not ruled out the possibility that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network is behind the anthrax attacks. But they said the wording of the three known anthrax-laced letters suggests a domestic source. \"We are not ruling anything out, but we are certainly looking in that direction,\" said one FBI official, who spoke to reporters on condition that he not be identified. The officials hope the public will help identify the culprit. In related developments, traces of anthrax spores were found in four more central New Jersey post offices, President Bush boosted the National Guard presence at the nation's airports, and top administration officials offered assurances that security measures taken since Sept. 11 have made the nation safer. Whoever sent the letters \"did not select his victims randomly,\" the FBI source said. Based on analysis of the handwriting on the letters, they said the anthrax attacker likely was nursing a grudge and probably had a high degree of technical training. The officials believe, too, that he decided to increase the potency of the anthrax he put into the letters as one attack led to another. So far, four people have died after inhaling anthrax spores, and 13 more got sick from anthrax exposure. The officials said that they could detect no political agenda from the letters and their sender's known actions. Each of the three known letters were photocopies, not originals, likely used to help him evade pursuers. The FBI profile of the likely anthrax attacker suggests that he probably avoids public situations. If he has a job, they said, it likely does not involve contact with many people. They suspect he underwent a significant behavioral change as the letters went out, becoming focused on his mission to spread terror, and might have struck acquaintances as increasingly remote. FBI officials said they doubt the letters were sent by Middle Eastern terrorists because they do not resemble other such letters sent in the past. One official said that such letters typically include some Arabic text, but these do not. The FBI's new profile of the likely anthrax-attacker doesn't bring them any closer to solving the case. Law enforcement authorities spent nearly two decades trying to capture the Unabomber and did not succeed until Ted Kaczynski's brother turned him in. The FBI appealed openly to the public to help them identify possible suspects, knowing they probably will have to rely on an informant to finger the person responsible. In a potential break in the hunt for the suspect, anthrax tests detected traces of the bacteria in four more post offices in central New Jersey, authorities said Friday. The small satellite offices all feed a regional processing center that handled three tainted letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office in Washington and to the New York offices of NBC and the New York Post. The new evidence could help narrow down possible sites from where the letters were sent. Meanwhile, the Bush administration sought to reassure an anxious public that it was safeguarding the nation's airports, mail system and water supplies against new terrorist attacks. President Bush announced a 25 percent increase in the number of National Guard troops assigned to protect airports during the busy holiday season. The increase, effective immediately, will boost by 2,000 the 6,000 guard troops that already have been stationed at airports since the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings. \"These are temporary measures and we believe they will help a lot,\" Bush said. With no new reports of anthrax infections, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge expressed hope that the threat of anthrax was subsiding. His optimism came as two postal workers who had been treated for the often fatal inhalation form of the disease were released from their hospital beds and sent home. \"We're prayerful, we're hopeful, we hope that this is the last we ever see and have to deal with it,\" Ridge said. Meanwhile, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said her agency was working closely with water companies and other federal agencies to protect drinking water from contamination. \"The good news here, if there is good news, is that it takes more than a teaspoon or a cupful of a biological or chemical agent to disrupt a water supply and to jeopardize or threaten the"}, {"response": 714, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov 12, 2001 (15:52)", "body": "Another plane crash today. Anyone heard any news on this?"}, {"response": 715, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Nov 13, 2001 (11:01)", "body": "Kabul. Northern Alliance troops have taken control of Kabul amid scenes of chaos and jubilation. In a dramatic overnight advance, Northern Alliance units entered the Afghan capital after Taleban fighters fled towards their southern stronghold, Kandahar. Troops were backed by rockets and US bombing There was a vacuum of authority in the city after the Taleban withdrew, with reports of looting, but the BBC's William Reeve says the atmosphere is now less tense. Taleban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is reported to have urged his troops to regroup and fight. He is quoted by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press as telling his men to obey their commanders and not to desert. Some Arab volunteers serving with the Taleban were summarily shot and a BBC camera crew was attacked as opposition troops entered Kabul. from the BBC.co.uk website."}, {"response": 716, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Nov 13, 2001 (17:03)", "body": "Yup, watched the sorry structural failure that caused the small community of Rockaway even more pain. I they buried 12 members of their community with the WTC disaster. This is truly tragic. Yup, an American is sick enough to have created an atmosphere scary enough to cause 32,000 of his fellow citizens to take antibioitcs and kill a few others. There is really not a punishment which fits this crime. I'd make it as slow and as painful as possible. I am throroughly disgusted with apologists and terorists making excuses for why WE deserve to die. Time for payback !"}, {"response": 717, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (06:48)", "body": "On NPR this morning they were discussing the formation of a \"tribunal for terrrorists, something usually reserved for overseas cases, but now being positioned for domestic used. The Bush administration is faced with the scary thought of a Court system that might result in, say, a hung jury for a Bin Laden. I'll look for details on the web today, it's early and I haven't been to the news web sites yet. Meanwhile, there is music in the streets of Afghanistan. I had a fantasy about a bunch of rock musicians going there and throwing a big, free Woodstock sytle concert for the Afghan people. I fantasized this while I was cleaning the garage."}, {"response": 718, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (06:55)", "body": "David Kline's thoughts on the Taliban and freeing of Kabul. And no laughter in public. Until yesterday, if the religious police (who all carry plastic foot-long whips) caught you on a street in Kabul laughing at a friend's joke, you would be whipped. They also patrolled the soccer stadium during games -- yes the same stadium where public executions were held -- and if they saw fans applauding or rooting too hard for their team, they would be whipped. No public display of humanity was allowed. These people are so much worse than backward, I can't find the proper words to describe them. Their leaders and top cadre must all be killed. Period. . . . let's not get too excited about a few executions and a certain amount of disorder. This isn't the new Mayor of New York being sworn in here -- these are tribal people who've lived with nothing but savage war for 25 years. A few reprisals is to be expected. But I'll bet anything that it will be limited, and that order and a broad-based transition regime will be put in place soon. There's too much at stake. And this time the world is watching, acting as a stabilizing influence. Since my first post here on 9/12 or so, I have argued that the only way to oust the Taliban is to help and assist the Northern Alliance and other forces take the initiative. This is now what's happening. Seven days ago when some here wondered whether NA forces were too timid to fight -- \"We don't like to train in the rain,\" said one commander -- I urged people not to underestimate them. They may not be the smartest fighters around, but they're surely the toughest. And it's true, they've taken a good number of casualties and plunged ahead with American help. I now worry a little about the Taliban's sudden withdrawal from Kabul. It is such an Afghan move -- Massoud invented and used it 7 times to butcher Soviet armored columns trying to move into his Pansjir Valley redoubt. Could they be laying a suck 'em in and then envelope 'em scheme? We'll soon see. But now with the Herat-Kabul line established and the Taliban apparently retreating to their last-stand defense perimeter, my guess (today) is that two things are going to happen: 1) Pashtun (not Arab) Taliban commanders in the south will begin putting out defection feelers. Leaders to replace Abdul Haq will emerge. 2) The fighting is going to get a lot more bloody because these fucking Arabs really can't wait to die and we can't wait to help them die. Unless, miracle of miracles, the Taliban simply collapses and they head for the border. We better have a brigade and every Pashtun speaking agent we have standing at that Quetta border. They should look for a \"woman\" in burqa sitting atop a horse-drawn wagon (to conceal \"her\" true height) trying to mosey on through the border."}, {"response": 719, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (07:01)", "body": "Kline: . . . it's a very smart move to leave some open leeway for fleeing Taliban forces. Because the point is to encourage defections -- which are now going to begin en masse, you can be sure -- and thereby separate the Arab from the Pashtun Taliban. That could bring a swift collapse of the regime. Or, if the Arab legions head for the hills to try and wage guerrilla warfare against a post Taliban authority, then the most effective way to root them out will be to send people after them who are a) even tougher than the Arabs; and b) know the mountains even better than the Arabs. IOTW, the Pashtun Afghans who grew up in those damn mountains. Watch for defections increasing by the day. Because the tide has turned. (Unless the retreat from Kabul really is some sort of suck-em-in trap.)"}, {"response": 720, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (07:03)", "body": "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24744-2001Nov13.html \"Bush said the tribunals are needed because \"mass deaths, mass injuries and massive destruction of property\" from future terrorism could \"place at risk the continuity of the operations of the United States government.\" It is \"not practicable,\" he said, to require the tribunals to abide by the \"principles of law and the rules of evidence\" that govern U.S. criminal prosecutions. .... Bush's order promises \"a full and fair trial\" and access to lawyers, but there is no provision for an appeal to U.S. civil courts or international tribunals. Only Bush or the secretary of defense, if the president so chooses, will have the authority to overturn a decision. .... The order says defendants could include past or present members of al Qaeda or anyone involved in acts of international terrorism intended to have \"adverse effects on the United States, its citizens, national security or economy.\" It also targets anyone who has \"knowingly harbored\" such terrorists.\""}, {"response": 721, "author": "ekelley", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (10:49)", "body": "my guess (today) is that two things are going to happen: 2) The fighting is going to get a lot more bloody because these fucking Arabs really can't wait to die and we can't wait to help them die. All I can say is bring it on... #2 is a great line."}, {"response": 722, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (15:23)", "body": "I find that statement frightening. How does one deal with people who WANT to die?? I was most delighted last night to watch the enforced beards being shaved off men. I had hoped to see a liberated woman or two, but that did not happe. We are far from done with this war. Rob mentioned to me that geologists had studied OBL's most recent movies and determined that he was not in Afghanistan. The rock forming his cave were not the kind found in Afghanistan. That had not occurred to me!"}, {"response": 723, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (19:53)", "body": "New York Times November 14, 2001 Bush to Subject Terrorism Suspects to Military Trials By ELISABETH BUMILLER and DAVID JOHNSTON ASHINGTON, Nov. 13 \ufffd President Bush signed an order today allowing special military tribunals to try foreigners charged with terrorism. A senior administration official said that any such trials would \"not necessarily\" be public and that the American tribunals might operate in Pakistan and Afghanistan. At the same time, the Justice Department has asked law enforcement authorities across the country to pick up and question 5,000 men, most from Middle Eastern countries, who entered the country legally in the last two years. Both actions are part of a sweeping government effort to expand the investigation into Al Qaeda's network and clear the way for the more aggressive prosecution of anyone charged with terrorism. Mr. Bush signed the order allowing for the military tribunals shortly before leaving this afternoon for his ranch in Crawford, Tex. White House officials said the order did not create a military tribunal or a list of terrorists to be tried. Instead, they said, it was an \"option\" that the president would have should Osama bin Laden or his associates in Al Qaeda be captured. If the tribunals were created, it would be the first time since World War II that such an approach was used, officials said. Under the order, the president himself is to determine who is an accused terrorist and therefore subject to trial by the tribunal. The order states that the president may \"determine from time to time in writing that there is reason to believe\" that an individual is a member of Al Qaeda, has engaged in acts of international terrorism or has \"knowingly harbored\" a terrorist. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/national/14DETA.html ================================================================================ Wednesday November 14 01:13 PM EST Some Warn of Too Much Police Power By Oliver Libaw ABCNEWS.com After Sept. 11, are police getting too much power? Secret property searches, detaining individuals without charges, jailing people on secret evidence, even military tribunals - such powers may seem far-fetched, but law enforcement agencies have them, and are using them to press their campaign against terror. The Patriot Act, as the sweeping anti-terrorism legislation recently signed into law is officially known, is part of an unprecedented effort to catch those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks \ufffd the worst acts of terrorism ever \ufffd and prevent future assaults. President Bush added to those powers Tuesday, signing an executive order that allows suspected high-level terrorists to be tried in greater secrecy by the military. The enforcement measures have provoked a wide-ranging debate about how to safeguard civil liberties without overly constraining investigators, but many civil liberties advocates say the government has gone too far. Secret Evidence Some point to what they say are problems with earlier anti-terror laws as proof the system may be abused, especially by holding people on secret evidence. This week, the federal government appealed a lower court ruling concerning the power to hold immigrants for long periods based only on such evidence. The case involves Mazen Al-Najjar, a Palestinian professor at the University of South Florida, who was held by the Immigration and Naturalization Service for more than three years based on evidence that was never shown to him or his attorney. A federal judge in Miami had found that Al-Najjar's rights were violated. Al-Najjar had lived in the United States for 20 years and headed a charity that officials suspected was a front for a Palestinian terrorist group, but the exact allegations and evidence against him have not been revealed. Al-Najjar, who was never charged with a crime, was released in December 2000. His case is one of some two dozen in which immigrants have been held for months or years based entirely on secret evidence, but were never prosecuted. \"If these folks were such serious threats, why weren't they prosecuted criminally?\" asks Susan Akram, a Boston University law professor who represents another secret evidence detainee, Anwar Haddam. The Dangers of Expanded Power Expanding government agencies' surveillance powers is also dangerous, says David Kairys, a constitutional rights lawyer and professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. \"It's easily open to abuse,\" he says, pointing to problems in the past, such as the so-called Palmer Raids carried out by President Woodrow Wilson's attorney general in the early 1900s. Between 1918 and 1921, A. Mitchell Palmer pursued and smashed union offices and Communist and Socialist Party headquarters, spurred on by growing fears of radical foreign agents. In 1919, he seized more than 200 resident aliens believed to have radical political views and put them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union. The FBI also famously pursued Martin Luther King Jr. as a national security threat in the '50s"}, {"response": 724, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (20:06)", "body": "Tracking bin Laden: Still a lot of caves to hide in Nov. 14, 2001, 4:58PM By SALLY BUZBEE Associated Press WASHINGTON -- The United States is pursuing Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, believed to be on the move in the shrinking but still difficult parts of Afghanistan that their forces control. Sharpening the focus on the war's primary targets, American special operations troops are questioning Taliban defectors and prisoners, dangling millions in reward money and hoping for a communications slip-up. Warplanes focus more bombing on mountain hide-outs and caves where Omar or bin Laden might try to disappear. The two men, both expert in guerrilla warfare, have plenty of those remote caves and mountain tunnels -- and enough friends and supplies along the Pakistani border -- to make the chase difficult. \"We still have a ways to go\" in tracking them, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cautioned today. U.S. intelligence officials believe bin Laden and Omar are still in the region of Afghanistan not under northern alliance control, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Each is moving around, but they aren't believed to be together. It isn't thought likely that bin Laden will try to leave the country, because such movements could expose him to capture. A Taliban official said today that Omar and his \"guest\" bin Laden were \"safe and well.\" Omar claimed in a radio address Tuesday that he was in the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar, the site Wednesday of sporadic fighting between Taliban and rebel Pashtun leaders. The United States is bombing areas in the south and in the east, especially around Jalalabad, where bin Laden is known to have hide-outs. \"Bunker-buster\" bombs can dig under the surface and explode in a tunnel. Fuel-air explosives can produce tremendous heat and suck out a cave or tunnel's oxygen. Defectors and prisoners are probably the best hope for information on where bin Laden is now, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with experience in South Asia. Even rumors or hints -- about something such as a recent supply run to a cave, for example -- could prove a breakthrough. In addition, \"It may very well be that money will talk at some point,\" Rumsfeld said, referring to the millions in reward money the United States has offered. Or, Taliban troops and commanders on the run might take fewer precautions with radios and phones, allowing U.S. eavesdropping aircraft to pick up communications and thus get hints to bin Laden's location. U.S. special forces also have been watching roads in southern Afghanistan to see who passes by, Rumsfeld said, and \"to stop people that they think ought to be stopped.\" Bin Laden is believed to move from cave to cave -- some a three days' walk into the mountains -- with only a group of highly trusted aides. The amount of support he can still muster among thousands of past supporters is key. The Taliban may fracture, with some commanders deciding to become guerrilla fighters in mountainous southern Afghanistan, and others making peace with the Pashtun leaders now taking power, said another U.S. official. Afghan fighters have a history of retreating from cities but then waging effective guerrilla warfare in mountains for years afterward, essentially thwarting an enemy's larger goals, said Charles Fairbanks, a central Asia expert at Johns Hopkins University. \"Particularly if they fled to the east, that's a very difficult situation,\" Fairbanks said. \"They have so many sympathizers in Pakistan, and Pakistan really has no control of the situation there.\" Such supporters could keep bin Laden and Omar supplied with food, guns and hiding places, said Andrew Hess, an expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan at Tufts University. In addition, the former guerrilla leader who took control of Jalalabad from the Taliban, Mullah Yunus Khalis, has long-standing ties with bin Laden's Arab followers. Bin Laden is believed to have camps in the mountains near there. Most U.S. officials and outside experts do not think Omar would ever give bin Laden up, despite what Rumsfeld called signs of strain between the two. In his most recent interview, bin Laden said he was \"ready to die.\" Chillingly, he predicted the war against America would continue even if he were gone. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/terror/front/1133127"}, {"response": 725, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (21:21)", "body": "NPR talked about music in the streets of Kabul today, and the women are liberated, yet they still completely shroud themselves in clothing."}, {"response": 726, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (21:36)", "body": "David Kline (dkline) Wed Nov 14 '01 (09:54) 43 lines The number of reprisals is unbelievably limited by historic Afghan standards. I am convinced the Northern Alliance intends to do things right this time, and to unite democratically with the southern Pashtun tribes. Pashtun tribes, by the way, who at this moment are rising up spontaneously to fight the Taliban with no leadership other than village elders to guide them. These unorganized Pashtun farmers have already seized the Kandahar airport to prepare the way for U.S. and Northern Alliance activity. And now a more personal note: We have all of us discussed and learned a lot in the past two months, especially in the last month since the war in Afghanistan began. Just two weeks ago many were thinking these Northern Alliance warlords are too timid to fight, that no one supported them, and that surely the Taliban had to have mass public support else they wouldn't be in power, right? I am so grateful to have been able to have these discussions with you because it brought up a deep and long-buried sympatico I feel for the only people I met in my round-the-world travels whom I ever completely loved and admired (despite all their screwy fractiousness). Most anyone who has ever been to Afghanistan feels the same way. Remember how I said from Day 1 that the Taliban are NOT the Afghans? In Kabul today, the NY Times reports a man standing atop a building waving in the air one of those foot-long plastic whips used to beat women -- and crowds cheering him in joy. Burqas are being tossed. Kites are flying. And music -- remember I described how the mujahadeen once outfitted a captured Soviet tank with tape deck and speakers? -- music is playing again! Anyway, I want to say thank you all so much for bearing with my sometimes arrogant certainty of victory for the Afghans. And for sympathizing with me in such a gentle and compassionate way the loss of my friend Abdul Haq. And especially for being not only deeply interested in a little-known people half a world away but also for being absolutely the smartest and most insightful group of people that I have ever \"spoken\" with. The battle is finally being won. Afghanistan will be liberated at last! I can't even describe how happy I am, and how much it meant to me to be able to share all this with you. Thank you all."}, {"response": 727, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (21:37)", "body": "An awesome statement by one of the most insightful commentators on Afghan Life, thanks David Klein."}, {"response": 728, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Nov 14, 2001 (21:39)", "body": "David Klein: To me, the next big challenge is how to slowly win the trust of the broad masses of Muslims worldwide and isolate the extremists who serve as recruiting ground for the Bin Ladens of this world. We've got to: 1) Apologize for Mossadegh and the Shah of Iran 2) Pledge henceforth our support of democratic reform in Muslim nations ruled by elites 3) Break legs if we have to in order to cool down or even hopefully solve the Palestinian question 4) Offer massive economic aid to Pakistan and other key Muslim states facing fundamentalist threats 5) And finally, in a televised address to the whole world, announce that we want to work with Muslims of good faith everywhere to solve our mutual problems That's how you end the scourge of Islamic terrorism, and not simply snuff Al-Queda. I don't imagine the US will take all the above steps immediately, but we humans are pretty adaptive -- we'll learn eventually that if we want to end terrorism that's what we'll need to do."}, {"response": 729, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Nov 15, 2001 (03:11)", "body": "Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) November 13, 2001 Appeal to the UN and World community The people of Afghanistan do not accept domination of the Northern Alliance! Now it is confirmed that the Taliban have left Kabul and the Northern Alliance has entered the city. The world should understand that the Northern Alliance is composed of some bands who did show their real criminal and inhuman nature when they were ruling Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996. The retreat of the terrorist Taliban from Kabul is a positive development, but entering of the rapist and looter NA in the city is nothing but a dreadful and shocking news for about 2 million residents of Kabul whose wounds of the years 1992-96 have not healed yet. Thousands of people who fled Kabul during the past two months were saying that they feared coming to power of the NA in Kabul much more than being scared by the US bombing. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda will be eliminated, but the existence of the NA as a military force would shatter the joyful dream of the majority for an Afghanistan free from the odious chains of barbaric Taliban. The NA will horribly intensify the ethnic and religious conflicts and will never refrain to fan the fire of another brutal and endless civil war in order to retain in power. The terrible news of looting and inhuman massacre of the captured Taliban or their foreign accomplices in Mazar-e-Sharif in past few days speaks for itself. Though the NA has learned how to pose sometimes before the West as \"democratic\" and even supporter of women's rights, but in fact they have not at all changed, as a leopard cannot change its spots. RAWA has already documented heinous crimes of the NA. Time is running out. RAWA on its own part appeals to the UN and world community as a whole to pay urgent and considerable heed to the recent developments in our ill-fated Afghanistan before it is too late. We would like to emphatically ask the UN to send its effective peace-keeping force into the country before the NA can repeat the unforgettable crimes they committed in the said years. The UN should withdraw its recognition to the so-called Islamic government headed by Rabbani and help the establishment of a broad-based government based on the democratic values. RAWA's call stems from the aspirations of the vast majority of the people of Afghanistan. http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/na-appeal.htm RAWA Main Page: http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/index.html RAWA documents and statements: http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/documents.htm"}, {"response": 730, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 15, 2001 (07:12)", "body": "I was just musing, in my early waking hours this morning, about how great it would be if there were on outpouring of love for Afghanis from America and the world, the country can grow and prosper now that the evil regime is on the run. The job is far from finished, but the pieces have started to fall in place."}, {"response": 731, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 15, 2001 (08:12)", "body": "The story of how the eight religious aid workers were released by the Taliban, plucked from a field near Ghazni by a local Pashtun commander and the Red Cross, and flown by US helicopter to a Pakistani air base is going to be quite the blockbuster. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/international/asia/15WORK.html"}, {"response": 732, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Thu, Nov 15, 2001 (16:09)", "body": "By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, November 15, 2001; 1:08 PM Excerpt: The German workers today provided dramatic details of their escape, while the two American women, Heather Mercer, who grew up in Vienna, Va., and Dayna Curry, of Thompson's Station, Tenn., and two Australians spent the day in seclusion.................... Georg Taubmann, who headed the Kabul office of the German-based Shelter International Now, provided dramatic details of an escape he called \"horrifying.\" While many details of the past two days remain murky, this is the story as he told it. On Monday night, as the Taliban began fleeing Kabul, soldiers forced the eight detainees from their Kabul jail cells, loaded them in cars and joined the convoy of tanks, pickups and other vehicles streaming southward toward Kandahar. When the convoy reached the neighboring province of Wardak, soldiers led the eight out of the car and locked them in a large steel container. \"It was terribly cold,\" Taubmann said. \"They wanted to lock the container and leave us in there until the morning. We had no blankets. We were freezing the whole night through.\" The next morning they pushed on and were deposited in a prison in the southeastern city of Ghazni. Taubmann described it as the worst of the five prisons in which the group had been housed during the past 3\ufffd months. Shortly after arriving the walls rattled as U.S. aircraft dropped bombs nearby. The detainees then heard heaving gunfire and loud shouting outside the prison. Some time later they heard the doors of the prison cells clanging open. When their cell door burst open, a soldier stood in the doorway gripping a gun. The detainees believed he was a Taliban soldier who might kill them. Instead the soldier stared at them wide-eyed, apparently stunned to find foreigners in the prison. He then shouted, \"Azad! Azad!\" Free! Free! \"We walked into the city and the people came out of the houses and they hugged us and they greeted us,\" said Taubmann. \"They were all clapping. They didn't know there were foreigners in the prison.\" \"It was like a big celebration for all those people,\" he said. A local commander who was among town citizens who rose up against the Taliban then found shelter for the eight at the local offices of an aid organization. With the International Committee of the Red Cross acting as an intermediary, messages were dispatched to the U.S., German and Australian embassies in Islamabad. Because of the difficulty in relaying messages and answers, it took nearly 24 hours to organize the rescue efforts by U.S. special forces based in Pakistan, according to the aid workers and diplomats. Meanwhile, in Ghazni, some local villagers expressed opposition to freeing the aid workers, believing they could be ransomed to their governments for large sums of money, rescuers apparently told the aid workers. On Wednesday night, with the city under a curfew and with some villagers agitating to hold on to the detainees, the eight were led to a field where U.S. special forces helicopters were supposed to pick them up. The aid workers said, however, that the helicopters could not locate them. With the helicopters thumping in the distance, angry villagers who allegedly wanted to hold the workers for ransom running toward them, and fearful that hostile Taliban troops were still in the area, the increasingly desperate aid workers began building a signal fire, first burning the women's headscarves, then sweaters and jackets. \"We burned everything we had \ufffd clothes, everything \ufffd to make a big fire,\" said Taubmann. Special forces teams led the eight into helicopters and flew them to Pakistan, according to diplomats here. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34986-2001Nov15.html"}, {"response": 733, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Nov 15, 2001 (19:50)", "body": "Terry, you're right about love and accepting warmth for those still struggling to regain some sense of security in Afghanistan. They will make mistakes. All new forms of government do. We just need to let them explore what is best for them and keep the crazies from killing them all while they do so. It is a long tedious process. We're still in the process! *Hugs* I wish it were this easy!"}, {"response": 734, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 22, 2001 (16:53)", "body": "Lethal Mouth Fresh from his ground war against New York taxi drivers, Lethal Weapon lead Danny Glover once again establishes why it's bad for actors to run their mouth without a script: As guest speaker at an anti-death penalty forum at Princeton University, Glover said America was the one to blame for bombing and terror around the world. \"Yes -- Yes!\" Glover said when asked if American forces should spare the Saudi terrorist's life. \"When I say the death penalty is inhumane. I mean [it's inhumane] whether that person is in a bird cage [jail] or it's bin Laden.\" Lethal Pap at http://www.zwire.com/site/Danny_Glover.html Life in the Cave: Intercepted email As the hunt for bin Laden narrowed as of Wednesday, November 21, the following email appeared in our inbox: ----- Original Message ----- From: Bin Laden, Osama Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 8:17 AM To: Cavemates Subject: The Cave Hi guys. We've all been putting in long hours but we've really come together as a group and I love that. Big thanks to Omar for putting up the poster that says \"There is no I in team\" as well as the one that says \"Hang In There, Baby.\" That cat is hilarious. However, while we are fighting a jihad, we can't forget to take care of the cave. And frankly I have a few concerns. First of all, while it's good to be concerned about cruise missiles, we should be even more concerned about the scorpions in our cave. Hey, you don't want to be stung and neither do I, so we need to sweep the cave daily. I've posted a sign-up sheet near the main cave opening. Second, it's not often I make a video address but when I do, I'm trying to scare the most powerful country on earth, okay? That means that while we're taping, please do not ride your razor scooter in the background. Just while we're taping. Thanks. Third point, and this is a touchy one. As you know, by edict, we're not supposed to shave our beards. But I need everyone to just think hygiene, especially after mealtime. We're all in this together. Fourth: food. I bought a box of Cheez-Its recently, clearly wrote \"Osama\" on the front, and put it on the top shelf. Today, my Cheez-Its were gone. Consideration. That's all I'm saying. Finally, we've heard that there may be American soldiers in disguise trying to infiltrate our ranks. I want to set up patrols to look for them. First patrol will be Omar, Muhammed, Abdul, Akbar, and Richard. Love you lots. Osama"}, {"response": 735, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 22, 2001 (16:53)", "body": "Name that President \"He walked into history an obscure, flat footed, bantamy little fellow in a light gray suit, the inhabitant of an eloquence-free zone who gave boring speeches in a flat voice. He was not compelling. This was more obvious because he followed a charismatic leader who did big things and filled the screen. He was quickly defined and dismissed by the opinion elite as \"a first-rate second-rate man.\" And maybe at the beginning he feared the appraisal was correct, for when he became president he said very frankly that he felt the moon and the stars had fallen upon him.\" Okay, who is this guy? Answers at http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/ One More Reason to Give Thanks Out: Yellow Ribbons. In: Flags Surveying the reaction to September 11, Father Richard John Neuhaus asks, where have the yellow ribbons gone? Where did the flags suddenly come from? \"Nobody decreed that it should be so,\" he writes in the December issue of First Things; \"it just happened, and its happening is likely to be of great significance.\" First appearing in the Iranian hostage crisis two decades ago, the ribbons were \"too often a symbol of self-pity and maudlin sentimentality.\" But they've been replaced by \"a buoyant patriotism unprecedented in living memory.\" http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/rbartley/?id=95001487 \"I Have A Dream\" The hallucinations brought on by living with shrapnel inside your skull continue among the Taliban \"leadership:\" \"Recent reports suggested that Mullah Omar, facing almost certain defeat, had agreed to surrender Kandahar. But yesterday Ahmad Karzai, whose brother Hamid has been negotiating with the Taliban for the surrender of the city, said Mullah Omar had changed his mind because he had had a prophetic dream in which he remained in power. \"I have had a dream in which I am in charge for as long as I live,\" Mr. Karzai quoted Mullah Omar as saying.\" For as long as you live, Omar? Okay. Start the countdown clock at mission control! http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=105801 Duh as in 'Diplomat' The editors of The New Republic on why Colin Powell and his elves should back off and give victory a chance. \"Just how brilliant do the diplomats of the United States think they are? They seem to believe that they can calibrate a place that is infamous for its lack of calibration. Their thinking about the political conditions for a military victory in Afghanistan has become rigid and dogmatic: they foolishly attempted to delay the fall of Kabul until their own plans for it could be met, once again giving Osama bin Laden the impression that we are reluctant warriors and hesitant victors. What happened in the North this week was not the United States unleashing the Northern Alliance; it was the Northern Alliance surprising the United States. And the United States could not bring itself to concede that this was a pleasant surprise.\" http://www.tnr.com/112601/editorial112601.html This Week's Conventional Media Wizdum THIS war is in trouble. We're bogged down, getting nowhere and staring at a Vietnam-style quagmire. The Taliban's grip on the country remains total. These famously tough warriors of iron resolve are unlikely to be. . . Whoops, sorry, that was last week. Just let me punch up this week's Conventional Media Wisdom. Ah, here we go. Things are moving too fast. There's a dangerous power vacuum. The Taliban, being famously tough, etc, have pulled off a brilliant double-bluff by abandoning every major city and lever of government. Their grip on selected southern and western caves remains total. The Northern Alliance are too vicious, unfairly targeting enemy soldiers instead of just killing unarmed women and homosexuals. The collapse of the burqa market will devastate the Afghan fashion industry. .,"}, {"response": 736, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 22, 2001 (16:53)", "body": "http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/dt?ac=006605705660173&rtmo=V1PPjumx&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/01/11/17/do02.html Can't We All Just Get Along? The New York Times reports that the \"spiritual ' leader of the Taliban is appealing to the world to just forgive and forget: Syed Tayyab Agha, spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, also told a news conference that it is time to ``forget'' about the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, as they have been superseded by the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan. ``You should forget the Sept. 11 attacks because now there is a new fighting against Muslims and Islam, and the international and global terrorists like America and Britain, they are killing daily our innocent people,'' he told journalists in the Afghan border town of Spinboldak. All in favor of inviting this guy to Thanksgiving dinner, send email to caveguys@screweinstan .com And Next on the USA's Christmas List Is.... An end to Saddam's regime would be a major defeat for terrorism and would give us great leverage in getting others-Iran and Syria, Saudis and Palestinians-to shut down terrorist movements. Winter, some say, is a bad time for war in Afghanistan. Everyone agrees that winter is a good time for war in Iraq. The time may come soon for George W. Bush to say again, \"Let's roll.\" Michael Barone at U.S. News http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/011126/politics/26pol.htm"}, {"response": 737, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Nov 22, 2001 (19:41)", "body": "This is really great stuff on a day full of stuffing. Thanks! Harry Trumanm is my guess for Prez in the first part, but I am still hungry and preparing sacrifices for Mme Pele for later in the day."}, {"response": 738, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 22, 2001 (22:08)", "body": "\"For the time being, the reasons behind the advance on Kunduz remain unclear.\" ... \"Even as the advance began some northern commanders continued to insist that a surrender was still possible.\" \"The BBC's Jon Sopel outside Kunduz said the military advance may indicate a battle for control of the town between different factions of the Northern Alliance.\" http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1669000/1669567.stm"}, {"response": 739, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Nov 26, 2001 (21:27)", "body": "I heard a blockbuster rumor today. Basically, there is a French book being published which recounts the FBI's investigation of Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts. which says that they were hot on the trail of all of the terorists and were then pulled off the case by the State Department just before 9/11. Reportedly, the chief of the FBI investigation quit over the interference from the State Department. I'll try and substantiate this with some facts and sources."}, {"response": 740, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Nov 29, 2001 (19:12)", "body": "Interesting! I'll check too..."}, {"response": 741, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Nov 30, 2001 (09:11)", "body": "They may fave found Bin Laden's hideout. See topic 49 in the news conference. There's a picture of this mountain fortress."}, {"response": 742, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Dec  3, 2001 (00:56)", "body": "I didn't know where else to put this. My Daughter-in-law sent it to me. I think it sums up my feelings as well as hers and my son's. Giving Thanks for What We're Not http://www.ncpa.org/edo/pd/2001/pd111901.html"}, {"response": 743, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Dec 10, 2001 (14:57)", "body": "dkline Mon Dec 10 '01 (09:49) Meanwhile, today's NY Times has a very encouraging front page article on the demoralizing effect the Afghan Jihad has had on the Swat Valley region of Pakistan (home to Shangri-La, believe it or not). 15,000 men were \"volunteered\" by their local mullahs to go fight -- \"the militant leaders mostly stayed home, or crossed the frontier only long enough to declare themselves holy warriors before hastening back,\" notes the article -- and as many as 3,000 have never returned. The reason I say it's encouraging is that the great losses suffered by these poor uneducated people are surely weakening the hold over them that the fundamentalists have until now enjoyed. As one disillusioned local put it: \"So a lot of innocent people have died, and Sufi Muhammad (the local religious boss) and other religious leaders are responsible for this. They sent people who had no training whatsoever to war, and then they stayed back in Pakistan. They are still alive, while so many others have died.\" One day we're going to be shocked to discover just how much control -- top to bottom -- the fundamentalists really had in Pakistan, a country with several ready-to-use nuclear weapons. The war, thank God, will hopefully allow us (and Mushareff) to break the grip these fanatics have on such a strategic country. There's a book here, for anyone brave enough to do it. Read the full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/10/international/asia/10JIHA.html?searchpv=nytToday"}, {"response": 744, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 11, 2001 (09:25)", "body": "I was driving down the highway to work this morning and most of the radio stations did a memorial national anthem at the same time the Sept 11 attacks took place just 3 months ago. It's hard to believe that 3 months have gone by. As Bush spoke on the radio at a service, I was passing by the exact spot where I first heard the news as he was saying \"we will all remember where we were on that day.\" Where were you? How did you hear the news? How has your life changed since then? How has it affected your world?"}, {"response": 745, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec 11, 2001 (15:51)", "body": "Has anyone else heard this? I got it in an email from a friend, yesterday: *The extended bin Laden family is building a trade center in Lebanon that's an image of one of the twin towers.* If this is the case, what a horrific way to memorialize it."}, {"response": 746, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec 11, 2001 (15:57)", "body": "The WTC was attacked at 2AM Hawaiian time. I was awakened the next morning (about 5 hours later) with the news and turned on the television. I still can't (or don't want to) believe the devastation it unleashed. I still look at the images on TV. My mind recoils from watching, but I know I must not forget, so I watch. I can see the buildings falling down even with my eyes open."}, {"response": 747, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec 11, 2001 (16:06)", "body": "It has affected my world by making a routine inter-island commute into a 4 hours ordeal. Two hours on each end to have all things gone through carefully, walking around in a seemingly armed camp surrounded by rifles at the ready National Guard Troops. We also are forbidden fishing from the breakwaters, and the piers are sealed off by customs inspectors. Hawaii is considered a war zone, so we are also partolled by gunships - both US Navy and Coast Guard. When we went to the summit of Kilauea for Thanksgiving dinner, we noted that the Kilauea Military Rest Camp there hand armed guards where none had existed before, and a heavy metal gate had been installed across each entrance. I think we will never be the same again. Our childhood has been taken away from us, and we must be adults like all the rest of the world has had to be for so long. My delight is the determined comradship I find in my friends who were not all that friendly before. The \"we take care of our own\" attitude has been replaced by \"you AR our own.\" I hope that part lasts."}, {"response": 748, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec 11, 2001 (18:00)", "body": "This is very strange. I wish I knew what factory was at the bottom of the picture. No, I don't believe it.... http://www2.justnet.ne.jp/~kiti/Ufo/wtc/wtc.htm"}, {"response": 749, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec 11, 2001 (21:51)", "body": "Tom Clancy on why the CIA didn't catch the 9-11 terrorists O'REILLY: Was there a reason that Turner and Carter -- was their a reason why Turner and Carter wanted a weaker [CIA]? CLANCY: It's politically correct. O'REILLY: Simple as that? CLANCY: I think so. The political left is, you know, they deal in symbols rather than reality. The general difference between conservatives and liberals is liberals like pretty pictures and conservatives like to build bridges that people can drive across. And conservatives are indeed conservative because if the bridge falls down, people die. Where as the liberals figure, oh, we can always build a nice memorial to them and make people forget it happened and it was our fault. They're very good at making people forget it was their fault, all right. The CIA was gutted by people on the political left who don't like intelligence operations, and as a result of that, as an indirect result of that, we've lost 5,000 citizens last week."}, {"response": 750, "author": "KarenR", "date": "Tue, Dec 11, 2001 (23:37)", "body": ""}, {"response": 751, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Dec 13, 2001 (22:15)", "body": "The Tape http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.videotape/ CNN has posted a transcript in pdf format http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2001/US/12/13/transcript/binladentape.pdf David Kline (dkline) Thu Dec 13 '01 (09:20) 32 lines Yep, I just saw the Bin Laden tape and it is unbelievable. The man is toast. No doubt he did it (although there will always be 250 people in the world who think the tape is doctored or whatever). And no doubt his callous admissions and disregard for others will hurt his image greatly. Especially his laughter. People hate smug assholes, and OBL is one. Not a lot of things are truly \"chilling\" to me. This tape was. I was also interested to notice the same sort of ass-kissing by OBL subordinates that I remember from my old political days. Only in this case, it was OBL's henchment vying with each other for the most vivid or predictive or praiseworthy (of OBL) dreams that they were pretending to have had. These schmucks were all claiming had these vivid dreams which were all just a bit too pat and synchronous to real-world events for my taste. And they were competing with each other to tell comrade Bin Laden about the praiseworthy meaning of their dreams. What pathetic fucks. I'll tell you what, though. It confirms my sense that OBL was laughing at us during the bombing-only phase of our campaign. Bombing was what they expected us to do. They did not expect us to get on the ground and help the Northern Alliance. And they certainly did not expect that cooperation would lead to the total military collapse of the Taliban in 4 weeks. So who's laughing now, Bin Laudenam? I'll tell you, though, I feel sorry for anyone watching this tape who lost family or loved ones in 9/11. It must be so hurtful to see a low-life like OBL laughing at the murder of innocents. God. The transcript in html http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/tape.transcript/ and it is in real video at http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/fdrive/ter121301_osama.rm?mode=compact Sulayman ((Abu Guaith)): ... So I went back to the Shaykh (meaning UBL) who was sitting in a room with 50 to 60 people. I tried to tell him about what I saw, but he made gesture with his hands, meaning: \"I know, I know\ufffd\" UBL: He did not know about the operation. What an amazing tape excerpt -- seen at the CNN site. Questions: CNN said it was not taped in chronological order, rather than saying the tape had been edited/dubbed. Strange. Is that just spin? It would have had to have been edited by someone to be out of order, right? Odd. I think the stakes are too high to fake a tape like this. I think it is real, and chilling. I wonder what made them delay releasing it. The propaganda value for those in the Western world who were uneasy about proof is unmistakable. I am very curious how this will play in the Pakistani press and on al-Jezeera tv. I wish we had an arabic speaker who could translate/paraphrase what the commentary and lead-ins are like there. Or a good arabic media critique site (in english) for the same purpose. David Kline (dkline) Thu Dec 13 '01 (11:27) 66 lines > One thing that struck me was the way the visiting \"Saudi cleric\" kept > > saying \"thanks be to Allah...by the grace of Allah\" in practically every > other sentence, while UBL smiled in a way that made me think he finds > other people's devotion to Allah amusing and useful, but that it's not > something he particularly shares. Thank you, Jake. That's a very good point -- and very typical behavior for the top leader of a movement that also functions like a personality cult. The henchmen kiss ass. The leader starts believing the worshipful. And he starts looking down at his henchmen who then worship him even more. Anyway, a few points: 1) WHEN THE TAPE WAS MADE? The Tape was made probably the same day that US chopper lost a wheel and was abandoned (or shot down). Anyone remember what day that was? It was right around the mid-October time of the special forces PR raid. Anyway, this was also the time when US fortunes in Afghanistan looked their bleakest. It seemed all we were doing was bombing Red Cross hospitals and everyone talked about how we'd under-estimated the strength of the Taliban. Even I was a bit demoralized by our lack of progress, and kept wishing we'd just put some SF guys on the ground with the NA and stop all this futile if not counter-productive bombing. The point being, the tape was shot when it appeared to Bin Laden that the US was doing exactly as he expected -- i.e., come in and bomb from a safe height, but not get our boots dirty with on-the-grouned fighting. So he was feeling supremely confident in his ultimate and total success, probably more confident than at any time before or since. 2) WHY THE TAPE WAS MADE? We look for savvy thinking, for conspiratorial 3-steps-ahead planning, in the behavior of Osama bin Laden. But the fact is he was simply suffering from great hubris at the time (see my point #1 above), and allowed the local hosts of that dinner party (which was probab"}, {"response": 752, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Dec 14, 2001 (06:39)", "body": "This is Aljazeera 's account today from the above url cited by David Kline."}, {"response": 753, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Dec 14, 2001 (06:40)", "body": "Bin Laden: Attackers Knew About The Operation Just Before They Boarded The Planes The Pentagon released Thursday a video that it says implicates Osama Bin Laden in the 11 September attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The 40-minute recording is of very poor audio and visual quality. The tape was recorded on November 9 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. US officials disclosed they found the videotape in a private residence in Jalalabad. According to the CNN, Bin Laden and the other three men seated with him make numerous references to various al Qaeda members having dreams of planes hitting tall buildings at least a year before the attacks. Speaking of the hijackers, bin Laden states, \"They were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they are there and just before they boarded the planes.\" Additionally, he had turned on his radio in advance to listen to coverage of the attacks and that he had underestimated the damage that would be inflicted on the World Trade Center. Bin Laden is quoted as saying: \"We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower.\" This comment referred to hijacked airliners, which hit and destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. \"We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all,\" he added. http://www.wbur.org/special/specialcoverage/feature_aljaz.asp"}, {"response": 754, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Dec 14, 2001 (20:32)", "body": "I LIKE DAVID KLINE. He says things I would not dare but think, anyway! I refuse to offend my eyes by looking at that man. I watched to be informed but that is all. Is there doubt? Not even for the criminally insane person that he is!"}, {"response": 755, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Dec 14, 2001 (23:24)", "body": "Mutual. David Kline hits home with his poignant observations, based on years in Afghanistan."}, {"response": 756, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Dec 14, 2001 (23:52)", "body": "Indeed. I can feel the intensity of David Kline's anguish and love for Afghanistan in his eloquence. Thanks, Terry, for your continuing posts of his comments. I still worry about that idiot who called Art Bell last night suggesting OBL be set free because we do not punish the criminally insane. Art cut him off, and the following phone calls with creative ways to deal with a captured live OBL gave me much comfort. We have developed a wry sense of the ridiculous when dealing with the actuality of the current war, but are we angry? committed? determined? You'd better believe it!"}, {"response": 757, "author": "AotearoaKiwi", "date": "Sun, Dec 16, 2001 (18:25)", "body": "Hi all I am wondering if it might be better to set a trap for bin Laden with bait of some sort to lure him out. I am not sure how you would do this but it is obvious to me that bin Laden will not be caught in a specific place if he does not to be. Because everyone is climbing a tree called Afghanistan, he may have quietly climbed a tree called Pakistan or Kazakhstan or something like that. I also wonder if assuming Bush decides to move into Somalia and North Korea, if the world coalition will fragment. Even your staunchest ally Britain is rumbling in world media about setting limits as to how far they are prepared to go. I think you need the UN's permission before you set foot on the soil of any other country. Many think America can gain those countries co-operation by offering aid. I urge extreme caution in any decision to expand the war for several reasons: 1)Prove their connections to terrorism 2)Accept that there are more peaceful alternatives to sanctions or military movements in countries like North Korea and Somalia. Humanitarian aid to the former may encourage the former to be more open and possibly allow a thawing of international relations with the North. 3)Another round of diplomacy to reassure key players like the Russians, your European allies and Britain. 4)Don't send the CIA to play the role of the agitator in countries that are preoccupied with internal problems unless the Federal government is prepared to accept some responsibility for wrong doings. 5)Arabs and Muslims have the jitters at the moment over the Palestinian question. Which suggests to me that some \"unthinkable\" things will have to be done to calm them down and stop an escalation of the war. Rob"}, {"response": 758, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 18, 2001 (20:40)", "body": "We've captured Tora Bora but no Osama. David Kline (dkline) Tue Dec 18 '01 (13:55) 23 lines Wait a minute ... you mean there are people here who really believe that the Pakistani border could be sealed tight if only we really wanted to -- and that maybe we don't really want to? Un . . . believable! Not all the world is as secure as a Safeway parking lot, you know. I have spent a good deal of time in those Tora Bora mountains, and crossed that border several times whilst on the run from Russian special forces units and the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Plus I covered the heroin traffic in that region, and I recall how once when the Pakistani government wanted to meet with tribal leaders, they only way they could get them to sit down and talk was to bring in artillery. What's rally happening here, I suspect, is that naive conspiracy-mongering at work here again. You know, the notion of the United States as all-knowing and all-powerful and able to control all events in the world as it chooses. Makes for real good Chomsky, to be sure. But it hardly conforms to the way the real world works. Just ask the Vietnamese. Or Osama bin Laden."}, {"response": 759, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec 23, 2001 (12:15)", "body": "From today's New York Times report on the swearing in of Hamid Karzai: \"Adding to the optimism and calm that pervaded the capital today was the show of unity by two Afghan military commanders who had been expected to snub the ceremony: General Rashid Dostrum ... and Gen. Ismail Khan.\" The most moving part of the ceremony, said the Times, was when the Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel made areference to slain Alliance leader Massoud Ahmed Shah that \"captured the combination of grief, exhaustion and aching hope\" that Afghans are feeling today. \"I am sure,\" Michel said, \"that Mr. Massoud is proud of his nation today.\" According to the Times, \"That single sentence sent tears rolling down scores of weathered, wrinkled and scarred cheeks in the audience.\" Really wonderful. And for me as an interested outside observer, especially so. I've literally waited 22 years for this day - David Kline"}, {"response": 760, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Dec 23, 2001 (12:16)", "body": "And Kline adds this: There's certainly cause for hope and optimism re: Afghanistan, but it's also important to be aware of the dangers ahead as well. I can think of many mistakes that the new government could make that would jeopardize Afghan peace and unity: 1) Karzai must not get involved in another muddle with the US (such as the one over amnesty for Mullah Omar) thaty makes him look like a US puppet. 2) Karzai must firmly suppress by armed force if necessary any warlordism or lawlessness or resistance to the government -- at least from middle- or lower-level military, political, religious or tribal figures. 3) But Karzai must never use suppressive methods (an Afghan tendency) against high-level military, political, religious or tribal dissenters. Always compromise should be sought; negotiations conducted. The above are just three things to worry about. I can think of many more potential roadblocks ahead that Karzai will need to skillfully negotiate. Hopefully he can do it. But it's not at all certain he can."}, {"response": 761, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Dec 25, 2001 (11:50)", "body": "David Kline: I have waited (I kid you not) 22 years for this day! -- but even apart from my personal attachment to that country I do believe that something of great import for the world is now taking place in Afghanistan. You cannot push a people through much more suffering and disaster than that which the the Afghans have experienced in recent years, yet now we are witness to a rebirth of hope that many though impossible. Will it succeed? We'll soon know. But the subtext for this inauguration ceremony, as Barb suggests, is really the question of whether hope and rebirth is possible for the larger world as a whole. If the Afghans can save themselves, after all, then maybe we can, too."}, {"response": 762, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Tue, Dec 25, 2001 (23:15)", "body": "Poor Afghanistan. I truly hope those people can live in peace and not become a global battlefield. There is so much to hope for, now...!"}, {"response": 763, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Dec 28, 2001 (11:03)", "body": "Mr. John Reid the shoe bomber really is part Jamaican apparently a small time criminal who converted to Islam while in prison. Details here: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001570016-2001595137,00.html That article links him to Zacarias Moussaoui, the \"20th hijacker\". What next? Body cavity bombs?"}, {"response": 764, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Dec 28, 2001 (16:26)", "body": "It does not take much plastique as far as I know. Scary, indeed! When will the dental record become necessary, too?!"}, {"response": 765, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Dec 28, 2001 (17:18)", "body": "Swiss-led campaign to rebuild the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas: http://www.msnbc.com/news/661589.asp http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011121/sc/attack_afghan_statues_dc_1.html http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/18/wbud18.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/18/ixhomer.html More on what's been lost/missing in Afghanistan: http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F11%2F23%2Fwkab223.xml http://www.dallasnews.com/science/STORY.ea3e5c965f.b0.af.0.a4.6e84a.html http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20011112/taliban.html"}, {"response": 766, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Fri, Dec 28, 2001 (17:19)", "body": "A number of artifacts are being recovered from the WTC site: http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-11-15/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-132149.asp"}, {"response": 767, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan  4, 2002 (15:06)", "body": "http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=380255744 Indo-Pak war raging in cyberspace SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAVA TIMES NEWS NETWORK NEW DELHI: Pakistani hackers have made several attempts to hack into Indian sites--especially those containing data on sensitive information relating to nuclear test management--to access sensitive information related to the country's security, said sources in the Intelligence Bureau. The sites targetted include those of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), the Nuclear Science Centre (NSC) and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). Although these three sites have been repeatedly hacked in the past, according to IB officials, the recent attempts were aimed at accessing crucial data secured under severely firewalled servers. \"It is quite apparent that the new breed of hackers are much more equipped and trained,\" say sources in the IB. Officials also say that there could have been at least a couple of successful attempts to break the codes of the sites. \"There have been as many as seven attempts to hack into the BARC data since the attack on Indian Parliament on December 13. We are also on the lookout for spy programs that might have been installed,\" says an official. The IB has already written to the defence and the home ministry about the issue. The two ministries have, in turn, sought the help of cyber security firms to shore up the sites. The hackers, according to officials, may be on the payroll of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence. There has been a history of infiltration into Indian sites with sensitive information by Pakistani hackers. The first infiltration into BARC was in 1998, when it was hacked by three members of Milworm, a Pakistan-based hacker group. Ever since, BARC servers have been favourite targets of Pakistani hackers. \"This year alone, at least one spy program has been detected in a BARC mail server,\" says an official. The first intrusion into IGCAR was reported in January last year when G-Force, a Pakistani hacker group, defaced its main server. Subsequently, other servers in IGCAR have been repeatedly hacked by G-Force. Indian intelligence officials have identified one hacker as Rsnake, who is said to have copied the master database from IGCAR and provided some data to Pakistani intelligence as proof of his access. The ISI, in turn, has realised the importance of hackers after BARC was hacked in 1998. The first Pakistani hacker group-Pakistani Hackers Club-was formed by two 'hacktivists' who used the pseudonyms DoctorNuker and Mr Sweet. DoctorNuker took to hacking when he was a computer science student at Karachi University. Along with fellow hacker Dizasta (real name: Fahad Shamshek Khan), he started hacking into critical Indian and US servers. DoctorNuker, say IB officials, was the first hacker whose skills were recognised by the ISI and under the latter's directives, focused on critical Indian government servers (especially those relating to nuclear and atomic establishments). But sources say the most active Pakistani hacker in the recent past has been a person impersonating as Rsnake, who started hacking from the Netherlands where he was working with a group of portals. Inspired by DoctorNuker, he started the hacker group G-Force from Holland. The ISI has now got him to Pakistan to coordinate other hackers targeting Indian websites, claim IB officials."}, {"response": 768, "author": "Matt", "date": "Fri, Jan  4, 2002 (16:30)", "body": "Its all The Same,War, not good for any one"}, {"response": 769, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Sat, Jan  5, 2002 (00:58)", "body": "There never HAS been a \"good\" war. However, if our ancestors had not fought for your right to say what you said, perhaps you would not have the right to do so. Soem causes have to be bought more preciously than others. Or would you rather be speaking German or Japanese, now? Alas, war is not a simple case of right or wrong when there are two sides."}, {"response": 770, "author": "suzee202000", "date": "Sat, Jan 12, 2002 (02:18)", "body": "(739 - Paul Terry Walhus (terry)I heard a blockbuster rumor today. Basically, there is a French book being published which recounts the FBI's investigation of Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts. which says that they were hot on the trail of all of the terorists and were then pulled off the case by the State Department just before 9/11. Reportedly, the chief of the FBI investigation quit over the interference from the State Department. *************************** CNN AMERICAN MORNING WITH PAULA ZAHN Explosive New Book Published in France Alleges that U.S. Was in Negotiations to Do a Deal with Taliban Aired January 8, 2002 - 07:34 ET - CNN January 8, 2002 - 07:34 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to check in with ambassador-in- residence, Richard Butler, this morning. An explosive new book published in France al leges that the United States was in negotiations to do a deal with the Taliban for an oil pipeline in Afghanistan. Joining us right now is Richard Butler to shed some light on this new book. He is the former chief U.N. weapons inspector. He is now on the Council on Foreign Relations and our own ambassador-in- residence -- good morning. RICHARD BUTLER, FMR. U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good morning, Paula. ZAHN: Boy, if any of these charges are true... BUTLER: If... ZAHN: ... this... BUTLER: Yes. ZAHN: ... is really big news. BUTLER: I agree. ZAHN: Start off with what your understanding is of what is in this book -- the most explosive charge. BUTLER: The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan. ZAHN: And this book points out that the FBI's deputy director, John O'Neill, actually resigned because he felt the U.S. administration was obstructing... BUTLER: A proper... ZAHN: ... the prosecution of terrorism. BUTLER: Yes, yes, a proper intelligence investigation of terrorism. Now, you said if, and I affirmed that in responding to you. We have to be careful here. These are allegations. They're worth airing and talking about, because of their gravity. We don't know if they are correct. But I believe they should be investigated, because Central Asian oil, as we were discussing yesterday, is potentially so important. And all prior attempts to have a pipeline had to be done through Russia. It had to be negotiated with Russia. Now, if there is to be a pipeline through Afghanistan, obviating the need to deal with Russia, it would also cost less than half of what a pipeline through Russia would cost. So financially and politically, there's a big prize to be had. A pipeline through Afghanistan down to the Pakistan coast would bring out that Central Asian oil easier and more cheaply. ZAHN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as you spoke about this yesterday, we almost immediately got a call from \"The New York Times.\" BUTLER: Right. ZAHN: They want you to write an op-ed piece on this over the weekend. BUTLER: Right, and which I will do. ZAHN: But let's come back to this whole issue of what John O'Neill, this FBI agent... BUTLER: Right. ZAHN: ... apparently told the authors of this book. He is alleging that -- what -- the U.S. government was trying to protect U.S. oil interests? And at the same time, shut off the investigation of terrorism to allow for that to happen? BUTLER: That's the allegation that instead of prosecuting properly an investigation of terrorism, which has its home in Afghanistan as we now know, or one of its main homes, that was shut down or slowed down in order to pursue oil interests with the Taliban. The people who we have now bombed out of existence, and this not many months ago. The book says that the negotiators said to the Taliban, you have a choice. You have a carpet of gold, meaning an oil deal, or a carpet of bombs. That's what the book alleges. ZAHN: Well, I know you're going to be doing your own independent homework on this... BUTLER: Yes. ZAHN: ... to see if you can confirm any of this. Let's move on to the whole issue of Iraq. The deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, at one time was considered one of those voices within the administration... For the complete transcript, go to the following URL: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0201/08/ltm.05.html ************************ U.S. Taliban Policy influenced by Oil by Julio Godoy Inter Press Service English News Wire, 16 November 2001 Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca 17 November 2001 A new book by two French intelligence analysts claims that at the behest of U.S. oil companies, the Bush administration initially blocked FBI investigations into terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban for the delivery of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. In the book \"Bin Laden, la verite interdite\" (\"B"}, {"response": 771, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jan 13, 2002 (05:55)", "body": "Wow, that was like a big spoiler alert after the text bomb. I'm glad Mahfouz is under arrest We need to know the truth of the events leading up to September 11 so is this a piece of the puzzle, the whole puzzle, or is it a distortion. Obviously Paula Zahn thinks it's worthy of probing, let's see where this story goes."}, {"response": 772, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Jan 14, 2002 (17:51)", "body": "The war will end in 2008, now we know. Pentagon warns of war lasting six years By David Wastell in Washington (Filed: 13/01/2002) AMERICAN military chiefs believe that the global war against terrorism will last at least six years. Pentagon officials are being advised to draw up budgets and plans to buy new equipment on the assumption that the struggle against al-Qa'eda and other international terrorist groups will endure until 2008, and perhaps even longer. \" continued at http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$MO5SHXQAAECK5QFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2002/01/13/wtal213.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/13/ixnewstop.html"}, {"response": 773, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Mon, Jan 14, 2002 (21:22)", "body": "Happy Us. We KNOW when the war will end. How very peculiar!"}, {"response": 774, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Jan 17, 2002 (04:51)", "body": "More from the same article: Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, has won President Bush's backing for a sharp increase in military spending. Extra money will be allocated for more of the weapons that have proved useful in Afghanistan, such as unmanned surveillance and attack aircraft. The increased spending will continue whether or not Osama bin Laden is found soon. It follows signs that the Pentagon is wearying of the intense public interest in the hunt for the al-Qa'eda leader, and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. John McCain, a senator and former chairman of the armed services committee, said on his return from a trip to the Afghan region that he felt frustrated that bin Laden was still at large. He added, however: \"He's on the run now. I think he's a threat so long as he's alive, but it's a far different scenario than the one where he had sanctuary and was able to operate with a financial network and a network of terrorists throughout the world.\" After four weeks in which the Pentagon and the media were constantly on tenterhooks for the imminent capture of bin Laden, a change of tack ordered by Mr Rumsfeld has become evident. Officials say that they will no longer even hint at where they think he might be. There have also been reports of clashes between the Pentagon and the CIA over the quality of intelligence emanating from Afghanistan. Some military officials feared there was a \"missed opportunity\" when the Pentagon ordered US Central Command to rely on local Afghan forces rather than US troops to try to intercept and capture bin Laden after the assault on al-Qa'eda's Tora Bora mountain hideouts. Not only did bin Laden apparently escape, but so have a series of Taliban leaders over the past two weeks, almost certainly including Mullah Omar, raising questions about the competence or possible corruption of the Afghan forces. Although no politician is yet prepared to risk publicly differing with Mr Bush over the administration's handling of the war, some advisers fear that public patience over the failure to catch bin Laden will evaporate if the hunt drags on too long - or if there is a fresh terrorist attack on the US."}, {"response": 775, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan 18, 2002 (12:30)", "body": "Osama bin Laden may be on the verge of winning a round, the Saudis are said to be on the verge of asking the Americans to leave Saudi Arabia: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64536-2002Jan17.html This was Bin Laden and Al Quaeda's aim, and it will vindicate Bin Laden to the Islamic world. I hate to see it take this turn. More later as I learn more."}, {"response": 776, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan 18, 2002 (12:33)", "body": "US Envoy Plays Down Reports of Strains with Saudi January 18, 2002 09:34 AM ET Email this article Printer friendly version RIYADH (Reuters) - A senior U.S. envoy played down U.S. media reports of tensions with Saudi Arabia over the presence of American troops in the kingdom, an Arabic newspaper reported on Friday. \"I did not come to the kingdom with any demand, instead I came as an ally and a friend,\" U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Lincoln Bloomfield told the London-based daily Al-Hayat. \"Our cooperation is very important and is not only about (fighting) the terrorist al Qaeda organization but also for the sake of long-term regional security,\" he said. The New York Times reported this week that senior officials in Congress and at the Pentagon had called for the pullout of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia because of what they see as its tepid support for the U.S. war on terrorism and restrictions on U.S. military operations. Bloomfield said he had not discussed with Saudi officials the presence of U.S. troops at a Saudi air base, which an influential U.S. senator has said may have to end because of restrictions imposed on them by Saudi Arabia."}, {"response": 777, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Jan 25, 2002 (10:13)", "body": "David Kline (dkline) Thu Jan 24 '02 (10:44) 63 lines I had lunch yesterday with the nephew of the legendary Afghan hero Abdul Haq, and it was rather interesting to hear his views on issues that have something to do with this discussion. First, a bit of background. Khushal Arsala is the son of Abdul Haq's brother. During the anti-Soviet war, the two brothers fought side by side and promised each other that if either died, the other would raise the deceassed's children as if they were his own. And that's what happenned -- Abdul Haq raised Arsala and his siblings as if they were his own kids. So as you might imagine, Arsala has enormous love and hero worship of Abdul Haq, who as you might recall was captured and executed by the Taliban only a few weeks before a sufficient critical mass of popular revolt started the Taliban crumbling. A sad irony, indeed. Anyway, Arsala spoke to two issues that have been very controversial here in the USA: the treatment of Guantanamo prisoners, and the bombing campaign in Afghanistan. On the first issue -- treatment of prisoners -- he said he could understand America's dilemma vis. a vis. the Geneva conventions and other legal issues. He had no real suggestions to offer. But he did want to stress, \"in case you Americans forget,\" that by and large the people detained in Guantanamo are \"beyond the pale\" of anything \"Americans are used to facing.\" They are relentless, he said, and \"they will kill you at the first chance. You Americans are not used to people like this, people with no standard of decency and humanity such as you try to have.\" I guess his point was to be sympathetic to our dilemma, but to also remind us that we are afflicted with akind of naivete and \"sense of fair play\" that while important for us to maintain, may blind us to the utter and implacable hatred of our enemies. Point No. 2 concerned the bombing. Like his uncle Abdul Haq, Arsala opposed the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan. He totally supported our special forces teams working with the Northern Alliance and other opposition forces to oust the Taliban, but he felt much of the bombing, at least, did not serve to aid that effort but merely alienated some of the population owing to the civilian casualties that resulted. What about the continued bombing of suspected Al Queda positions in Paktia province? He said that we definitely had to go in there and kill those people, but by employing bombing, we ended up killing too many innocent civilians when ground action would accomplish the job without such civilian losses. Overall, though, he said that Afghans today overwhelmingly welcome the US presence in the country, but that this could change overnight if a) too many more civilians are killed; or b) we do not deliver immediate aid to help the country get back on its feet. \"How much does it cost for one or two bombing missions?\" he asked. \"That money could provide salaries to thousands of civilservice employees.\" He also said: \"I do not feel that by asking for American economic aid we are asking for charity. Thousands and thousands of our people died to battle first your enemy the Russians and now your enemy Al Queda. And we warned you year after year after year -- Abdul Haq warned you -- that the Taliban and Al Queda would attack America from their bases in Afghanistan. We asked you to help us defeat them, but you refused.\" The above is close to an exact quote. His views are pretty interesting, I think. . Great observations from Abdul Haq's son and David Kline."}, {"response": 778, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, Jan 26, 2002 (03:16)", "body": "This is some not good news. In fact, horrible news *if true*. Al Qaida moving into Gaza, may join fight against Israel ANKARA \ufffd Western diplomatic sources said Al Qaida insurgents have infiltrated the West Bank and Gaza Strip in an effort to determine whether the movement should make the Palestinian areas into their new home. The sources said Al Qaida appears to prefer the Gaza Strip over more distant locations such as Somalia. http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_7.html"}, {"response": 779, "author": "wtc", "date": "Mon, Jan 15, 2007 (06:05)", "body": "The 'War on Terrorism', 'War on Terror' or 'Long War' can refer to several distinct conflicts, but it is most recently the name given by the United States of America and its allies[1] to an ongoing campaign with the stated goal of \"ending international terrorism,\" launched in direct response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., for which al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.[2][3][4] The campaign's stated goals include preventing those groups identified as \"terrorist\" by the United States[5] (largely focused on militant Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and its affiliates) from carrying out attacks and posing a threat to America and its allies; \"spreading freedom\"[6] and liberal democracy; and putting an end to state sponsorship of terrorism in so-called rogue[7] and failed states,[8] beginning with Operation Active Endeavor, NATO's anti-terrorism response to the trafficking of weapons. It was followed with the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which had sheltered elements of al Qaeda including its leader, Osama Bin Laden. The War on Terrorism was launched by U.S. President George W. Bush,[9] with support from NATO and other allies. The \"War on Terror\" has taken many forms, such as diplomacy, going after \"terrorist financing\",[10] domestic provisions aiming to prevent future attacks, and joint training and peacekeeping operations with a wide variety of nations. The phrase Global War on Terrorism (or GWOT)[11] [12] is the official name used by the U.S. military for operations designated as part of the campaign. Thus, the \"War on Terror\" as defined by this article is largely a military effort, and has been compared in both its unspecified, continuing duration and its multiple theaters of operation, to the Cold War.[13] The war is also characterized as an ideological struggle, \"involving both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas,\"[14] and some have characterized it as a \"clash of civilizations\".[15] Although the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled President Saddam Hussein was made up of allies in the \"War on Terror\",[16] the current Iraq war and its alleged links to the larger campaign against terrorism have been highly controversial. The Bush Administration has been accused of acting in violation of international law, human rights,[17] and the U.S. Constitution[18] in its execution of the campaign, particularly with regard to the internment of prisoners of war (or \"illegal combatants\") in its military prison at Guant\ufffdnamo Bay, Cuba.[19] The U.S. government's articulation of military doctrines such as pre-emptive war and \"regime change\" as part of the War on Terror, as well as Bush and Blair's justifications for the war, have also been controversial. Both the larger concept of a \"War on Terrorism\", and the specific tactics used, have been subject to widespread criticism outside of the United States, and world opinion polls[20] have shown limited support even in some nations whose governments and militaries are supportive.[21] In addition, according to the U.S. government's own measures, international terrorist incidents have been on the rise[22] since the campaign began. However, the U.S. and allies have claimed victories, such as democratic elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the capture of alleged 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[23] The War on Terrorism has resulted in high military casualties on both sides, as well as high civilian casualties, although very few United States civilians have been killed other than those who died on 9/11[24][25], and is a \"long war\" whose planners expect it to continue for the foreseeable future.[26] In December 2006, the British Foreign Office advised the government to stop using the phrase \"War on Terror\". A spokesperson for the department said the government wanted to \"avoid reinforcing and giving succour to the terrorists' narrative by using language that, taken out of context, could be counter-productive\".[27] Also, in December 2006, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, as he prepared to end his tenure, expressed regret over the Bush Administration's use of the phrase \"War on Terror\", saying the phrase had created unattainable expectations and that \"it's not a war on terror. Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and impose their -- in the hands of a small group of clerics -- their dark vision on all the people that they can control.\"[28]"}, {"response": 780, "author": "wtc", "date": "Mon, Jan 15, 2007 (06:07)", "body": "To explain the unanticipated free-fall collapses of the twin towers at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, mainstream experts (also see The American Professional Constructor, October 2004, pp. 12\ufffd18) offer a three-stage argument: 1) an airplane impact weakened each structure, 2) an intense fire thermally weakened structural components that may have suffered damage to fireproofing materials, causing buckling failures, which, in turn, 3) allowed the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below. Many will nod their head, OK, that does it and go back to watching the NBA finals or whatever, but I find this theory just about as satisfying as the fantastic conspiracy theory that \"19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan\" caused 9/11. The government\ufffds collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms, but its blinkered narrowness and lack of breadth is the paramount defect unshared by its principal scientific rival \ufffd controlled demolition. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapses of WTC 1 (North Tower), WTC 2 (South Tower), and the much-overlooked collapse of the 47-story WTC building 7 at 5:21 pm on that fateful day. The scientific controversy over the initial structural weakening has two parts: what caused the original tower damage and did that damage \"severely\" weaken the structures? Photos show a stable, motionless North Tower (WTC 1) after the damage suffered at 8:46 am and the South Tower after its 9:03 am impact. If we focus on the North Tower, close examination of photos reveals arguably \"minor\" rather than \"severe\" damage in the North Tower and its perimeter columns. As many as 45 exterior columns between floors 94 and 98 on the northeast (impact) side of the North Tower were fractured \ufffd separated from each other \ufffd yet there is no direct evidence of \"severe\" structural weakening. None of the upper sections of the broken perimeter columns visibly sags or buckles toward its counterpart column below. We can infer this because of the aluminum covers on the columns: each seam uniformly aligns properly across the Tower, forming a horizontal \"dashed line\" in the fa\ufffdade from beveled end to end. Despite an impact hole, gaps in perimeter columns, and missing parts of floors 95\ufffd98 at the opening, the aluminum fa\ufffdade shows no evidence of vertical displacement in the columns, suggestive of little or no wider floor buckling at the perimeter. The aluminum covers attached to the columns also aligned vertically after impact, that is, separated columns continued to visually remain \"plumb\" (true vertical), lining up top to bottom around the aperture, implying no perceptible horizontal displacement of the columns. Photographic evidence for the northeast side of the North Tower showed no wider secondary structural impact beyond the opening itself. Of course, there was smoke pouring out of the upper floors. The fact that perimeter columns were not displaced suggests that the floors did not buckle or sag. Despite missing parts of floors 95\ufffd98, photos show no buckling or sag on other floors. If so, that boosts the likelihood that there was little damage to the core. Photos do not document what happened within the interior/core and no one was allowed to inspect and preserve relevant rubble before government authorities \ufffd primarily FEMA \ufffd had it quickly removed. Eyewitness testimony by those who escaped from inside the North Tower concerning core damage probably is unavailable. Photos do not allow us to peer far into the interior of the building; in fact the hole is black, with no flames visible. We know that the structural core and its steel was incredibly strong (claimed 600% redundancy) making it unlikely that the core was \"severely\" damaged at impact. There were 47 core columns connected to each other by steel beams within an overall rectangular core floor area of approximately 87 feet x 137 feet (26.5 m x 41.8 m). Each column had a rectangular cross section of approximately 36\" x 14\" at the base (90 cm x 36 cm) with steel 4\" thick all around (100 mm), tapering to \ufffd\" (6 mm) thickness at the top. Each floor was also extremely strong (p. 26), a grid of steel, contrary to claims of a lightweight \"truss\" system. Those who support the official account like Thomas Eagar (p. 14), professor of materials engineering and engineering systems at MIT, usually argue that the collapse must be explained by the heat from the fires because the loss of loading-bearing capacity from the holes in the Towers was too small. The transfer of load would have been within the capacity of the towers. Since steel used in buildings must be able to bear five times its normal load, Eagar points out, the steel in the towers could have collapsed only if heated to the point where it \"lost 80 percent of its strength, \" around 1,300oF. Eagar believes that this is what happened, though the fires did not appear to be extensive and int"}, {"response": 781, "author": "wtc", "date": "Mon, Jan 15, 2007 (06:10)", "body": "from http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Sep/16-241966.html The US State Department The Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers Allegation: 9/11 Revealed suggests that the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers occurred because not the terrorists flew airliners filled with jet fuel into them, but because the towers were \ufffdpre-rigged with explosives.\ufffd Facts: The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted an extremely thorough, three-year investigation into what caused the WTC twin towers to collapse, as explained on NIST\ufffds WTC Web site. Some 200 staff reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than one thousand people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, performed laboratory tests and sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they collapsed. Its conclusion is that the twin towers collapsed because the impact of the planes severed and damaged support columns and dislodged fireproofing insulation coating the steel floor trusses and steel columns, which meant that the subsequent fire, which reached 1000 degrees Celsius, weakened the floors and columns to the point where they bowed and buckled, causing the towers to collapse. NIST\ufffds Draft Summary Report stated (pp. 171-172):"}, {"response": 782, "author": "cfadm", "date": "Mon, Jul 21, 2008 (21:25)", "body": "A documentary is being released about Phillipe Petit, who walked between the World Trade Centers on a high wire on August 7, 1974. \"Man on Wire\" it's called."}, {"response": 783, "author": "gomezdo", "date": "Mon, Jul 21, 2008 (21:36)", "body": "Saw it at the Tribeca Film Festival and hope to see it again this week, with Phillipe and the director, James Marsh, being interviewed by Dick Cavett after the film. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 42, "subject": "archaeology", "response_count": 2, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, Mar 16, 2004 (07:25)", "body": "Welcome Nemat, any comments by way of introduction? What is your interest in Archeology?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "MarciaH", "date": "Thu, Mar 18, 2004 (19:26)", "body": "There is alreay an archaeology topic you are welcome to contribute to: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/Geo/17/new cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 5, "subject": "Buddhism", "response_count": 22, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "william", "date": "Thu, Sep  5, 1996 (05:54)", "body": "If nonviolence, compassion and love are not the answer to the complex question submitted by our fucked up world, what is?"}, {"response": 2, "author": "mmc", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (18:29)", "body": "Well, some kind of action is probably required. Nonviolence, compassion, and love are certainly excellent values to stimulate action, but as critical as the situation appears, doing something that makes a difference is imperative. Some Buddhists think that it's enough to sit and meditate practice nonviolence, compassion, and love. While all that may be necessary, I don't think it's sufficient. I'd really like to see a multitude of Buddhists united in action to raise the consciousness of the people on the planet so we can continue to have people on the planet. But I don't know what to do to make that happen."}, {"response": 3, "author": "fig", "date": "Tue, Sep 24, 1996 (01:04)", "body": "The SF Zen Center has a pretty activist posture. I mean, considering that there is a core philosophy of non-attachment to achieving set goals. The precept that says Do Not Kill is interpreted in a much broader way as to do no harm, and compassion is seen as doing acts that help to avoid harm and suffering, not just in front of you, but in the future. We know a lot more about the future now than they did back in the Buddha's day. The Headwaters situation was brought up in the dharma talk on a couple of occasions. The former abbot and current head teacher, Reb Andersen, says in his bio that he is particularly concerned with how Buddhism relates with issues like the environment and activism. I don't think I'd be a regular attendee if they acted like meditation alone would cure the world's ills. I wonder what other peoples' experiences are with their brands of Buddhism and their teachers. Is this a particularly San Francisco thing?"}, {"response": 4, "author": "william", "date": "Wed, Sep 25, 1996 (05:45)", "body": "I don't think nonviolence, compassion and love are sufficient to saving the planet either. Not in its current critical state. Remember that in Mahayana Buddhism bodhisattvas are supposed to be heroes (or heroines, let us not forget) who come to the rescue. They're supposed to be so intent on the ultimate salvation of the world that there will be times when it will be appropriate for them to break any rule in the Buddhist ethical canon -- including killing for the sake of the greater preservation of life. e/she just has to be absolutely he/she is really and truly cool. And, of course, one doesn't know how to know that until enlightenment has arrived. I just spent a 3-day weekend at the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt Tremper, New York (the Mountains & Rivers Order, led by Abbot John Daido Loori). A grand and beautiful retreat in a deep valley in the Catskills. I wondered at times about how their diligent and devoted routines, crackling with collective attentivenss, could have any effect on the ongoing downward spiral of consciousness in the cities and the suburbs of the world. Someone told me later that they did volunteer work in the New York State prison system -- working at possibly pulling souls out of hell. That's in addition to keeping the old monastery together, clean and attractive to the 20 or 30 people who show up each weekend to see if a higher consciousness is something real and attinable. And then providing them with indisputable evidence that absolute love and devotion will put meaning and value into being human. That's doing a lot. But a lot more, of course, is required."}, {"response": 5, "author": "mmc", "date": "Fri, Oct 25, 1996 (16:44)", "body": "I was just listening to Robert Thurman's tape on Basic Buddhism, and was struck by his idea of delusion - thinking that we're not full of bliss all the time is deluded. What a nice way to feel!"}, {"response": 6, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Oct 30, 1996 (13:28)", "body": "What books do folks recommend on Buddhism?"}, {"response": 7, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Thu, Nov 21, 1996 (11:55)", "body": "Well, I'd say that the best books on the subject are Eugene Herrigel's Zen And the Art of Archery, and Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, a collection of koans and Zen stories. Other good books (IMHO) are: Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, and Myamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings. at least of those I've read..."}, {"response": 8, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Nov 21, 1996 (15:11)", "body": "I've read Zen Mind, Beginners Mind and this is an excellent book."}, {"response": 9, "author": "billboy", "date": "Tue, Dec  3, 1996 (20:27)", "body": "The Tibetan version of buddhism is somewhat different in it's trappings from the zen one but very rich also. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote some of the most accessible material about buddhism that I've encountered. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism was the first of his books to move me. The Vipassana tradition from Burma is also a wonderful approach. Jack Kornfield's A Path With Heart is a tremendous introduction to Buddhism and spirituality in general.Steven Levine's books are also great (some direct y about buddhism and some more concerned with death and dying kinds of material)."}, {"response": 10, "author": "Dani", "date": "Mon, Dec  9, 1996 (18:18)", "body": "Many, many years ago, when I was but a mere child of 18, I read several books written by a Tibetan monk by the name of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. Tuesday was his first name because that was the day of the week he was born on, I remember that. Anyway, his first book was called The Third Eye. He wrote of Chinese occupation in Tibet, of the Dali Lama, how to astral project, etc. I was totally influenced by these books. I remember him writing how by the year 1990 or 2000 (can't remember which) the Golden Age w uld be reached...that would be when there would be no more racial disparities because there would be no more different races. Everyone would be of the same race. I really liked that idea but of course, now I realize it won't come to fruition, at least not in the timeline he had submitted. If anyone runs across any books by him at a second hand book store, they ought to check him out. They're very interesting books."}, {"response": 11, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (15:13)", "body": "Hmm. Sounds interesting, although there aren't different races anyway. Just put people of different colour in line, beginning from an albino and ending with someone living in Zaire. Then try to divide them in races. It is impossible. Or are there any methods of doing it? I'd sure like to know..."}, {"response": 12, "author": "mmc", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (22:38)", "body": ""}, {"response": 13, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Sep 15, 1997 (05:00)", "body": "jaxers: What differentiates a Buddhist tenet system from a non-Buddhist tenet system, as our Buddhist ancestor philosophs would have it - are three basic tenets: - That everything - both concrete and abstract - is impermanent (anityam) - That everything - both person, persona, and \"thing\" - is without a stable, essential, enduring self-existence (anatman), and - That everything in Samsara - the wheel of birth, becoming and death that makes up the theatre for our deluded existences - is unsatisfactory (\"dukkha\" - which is usually rendered \"suffering\" - not the best translation, i'm afraid). The corrollary to this would be - That Nirvana is peace. This is the basic platform from which the manifold Buddhsims spring."}, {"response": 14, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 17, 1997 (15:11)", "body": "Should we talk about the million Tibetans killed so far by the Chinese execution? Would that be an appropriate new topic for this conference. It might be appropos, specially at this moment, when the film \"Seven Years in Tibet\" has just opened, there's a Richard Gere film opening soon (does anyone know the title) and Kundun, about the early life of the Dalai Lama, opens in late December. The International Campaign for Tibet is distributing action kits at movie theaters; there were vigils nationwide on October 8th. There's going to be a candlelight vigil in the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday, Oct 28 at 6:30 pm and a demonstration at the White Hous Oct 29 from noon to 2. Busloads are coming in for this. I'm trying to find out if there's anything going on in Austin and I just heard about an event of major important next weekend in NYC which I'll be posting about."}, {"response": 15, "author": "stacey", "date": "Mon, Oct 20, 1997 (14:35)", "body": "The Buddhaist temple in Denver is holding an open informational series on this as well."}, {"response": 16, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Oct 20, 1997 (22:48)", "body": "Since Tianman Square, the dissidents have all either fled the country to safety, and the remaining ones have been jailed or executed, thus quieting things down. The US govt. is rewarding this \"quieting down\" with all kinds of trade favors and preferential treatment. But the problem hasn't gone away."}, {"response": 17, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Oct 24, 1997 (01:32)", "body": "A quote from: \"When Things Fall Apart - Heart Advice For Difficult times,\" by Pema Chodron, the American Tibetan Buddhist. As human beings, not only do we seek resolution but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. To the degree that weUve been avoiding uncertainty, weUre naturally going to have withdrawal symptoms -- withdrawal from always thinking that thereUs a problem and that someone, somewhere, needs to fix it. The middle way is wide open, but it's tough going, because it goes against the grain of an ancient neurotic pattern that we all share. When we feel lonely, when we feel hopeless, what we want to do is move to the right or the left. We don't want to sit and feel what we feel. We don't want to go though the detox. Yet the middle way encourages us to do just that. It encourages us to awaken the bravery that exists in everyone without exception, including you and me. Meditation provides a way for us to train in the middle way -- in staying right on the spot. We are encouraged not to judge whatever arises in our mind; in fact, we are encouraged not to even grasp whatever arises in our mind. What we usually call good or bad we simply acknowledge as thinking, without all the usual drama that goes along with right and wrong. We are instructed to let the thoughts come and go as if touching a bubble with a feather. This straightforward discipline prepares us to stop struggling and discover a fresh, unbiased state of being."}, {"response": 18, "author": "stacey", "date": "Fri, Oct 24, 1997 (16:26)", "body": "yes, it does."}, {"response": 19, "author": "meganb", "date": "Sun, Feb  8, 1998 (23:44)", "body": "I've started practicing Nichiren Daishonin's buddhism with SGI, this past year. This group stresses: faith, practice, study and ACTION. You can't just meditate and hope for everything to work out as you'd like it to. You need to meditate or chant as this group does and then based on the inner-wisdom you connect with while chanting/meditating, you take action to improve your life and to make the world/your community a better and more peaceful place. There's a great book about this practice by a leader in the British SGI group. His name's Richard Causton....I can't remember the title of the book off the top of my head though. MMC, check out SGI in your area (should be listed under Soka Gakkai International in your phone directory) if you want to find (per your response above) \"a multitude of buddhists united in action working to raise the consciousness of the people\" throughout the world."}, {"response": 20, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Feb  9, 1998 (13:38)", "body": "Do they have a group in the Austin area?"}, {"response": 21, "author": "meganb", "date": "Tue, Feb 10, 1998 (01:29)", "body": "terry, (i think this msg from you is in ref to my comment...so, I'm answering your question!), SGI is all over the world. I have an address listing for the larger cultural centers in the US. Austin isn't listed but Dallas is, as follows: SGI-USA, 2733 Oak Lawn Ave, Dallas, TX, 75219. Phone is: 214-559-4115, Fax is: 214-559-2288. I'd suggest calling and asking for a contact person in your area who could give you some introductory info on the group. Let me know if you have any more questions (and, if you hook up w/the group in Austin)!"}, {"response": 22, "author": "sprin5", "date": "Wed, Jul 19, 2000 (17:29)", "body": "Thanks Megan. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 6, "subject": "Going South <A HREF=\"http://www.spring.com/~ssabrina\">http://www.spring.com/~ssabrina</A>", "response_count": 4, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Sep  4, 1996 (05:03)", "body": "This makes sense if you click over to Janis' website and read it, it's one of those narratives thats hard to stop reading. And then come back over here to discuss. I ran into Janis in the fitness conference on the WELL and got a series of emails from here on her fascinating journey across the South. Her Volvo started getting unruly around San Antonio, so she never made by Austin and her planned workout at the Q Club. Maybe next trip! Anyway, this topic seemed like a good fit for the newly born cultur s conference."}, {"response": 2, "author": "william", "date": "Thu, Sep  5, 1996 (06:01)", "body": "I take it this is the physical fitness culture? Well, I can dig it. It's close enough to the yoga culture I participate in.\ufffdThe sweating workout and the hot-tub spaceout are very familiar. Though this narrative had signs of being hastily edited and assembled (at least I hope that accounts for the loose, repetitive structure), it was still quite engaging, even riveting. Couldn't get behind\ufffdsome of the more elaborate metaphorical images, but the general flow kept the attention from flagging anyway. Now that the reader's attention has been seized, where is it all going, what does it matter, and is it worth it?"}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Sep  5, 1996 (13:20)", "body": "From what I understand, Janis has landed in Gainesville, Florida to go to college and will taking some html courses. So this website is just a glimmer of what's to come. You're right, we've got fitness culture here. I sweat it out every night at the Q club in Austin and usually wind up sweating it out in the sauna/hot tub. I think it was put together quickly because Janis wrote in on the road. I also found it compelling to read and I hope that she continues the story with her latest happenings from her new home."}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Dec 13, 1996 (13:13)", "body": "I'm going to email Janis and see what's happened to her: mailto://ssabrina@well.com She's been pretty quiet lately. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 7, "subject": "Psychedelic Era", "response_count": 5, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "kristin", "date": "Sat, Sep 14, 1996 (18:01)", "body": "Well, being old enough to actually have been through all that stuff and time :( I think that the 60s were simply a period in which we nationally (and in some other countries) shifted gear from the industrial age to an interim or transitional age. Somehow, we had to break the links with the established expectations of the past, or we at least had to let people know that alternatives were out there in all realms -- i.e., work doesn't have to be 9-5, religion doesn't have to be just what one does on Sunday, sexuality, ah well, yes ... Sure, we have been thrashing around ever since trying to find something to replace the comfortable nature of the industrial age, but I think that is the trap for many -- there is no reason to expect a replacement -- a universally acknowledged replacement. Even the communes recreated a conventional mentality -- if you didn't \"hang\" in a certain way, you weren't one of them. I think the secret of this search is to realize that each of us can -- and has every right to -- create our own version of reality, of work, of sexuality, etc. Now, just don't get me started on superstrings :) http://www.umeais.maine.edu/~hayward"}, {"response": 2, "author": "william", "date": "Mon, Sep 16, 1996 (04:38)", "body": "\"Breaking links with the established expectations of the past\" is an important common experience\ufffdof the '60s, as I experienced it too. It was the use of psychedelics, for many and certainly for me, that led to a \"higher\" perspective, where social mores and mental games and cultural habit patterns became so much more apparent. It was like opening the hood of your car for the first time -- you could actually get in there and make adjustments. The question was how to find out what to adjust and how to adjust it. Some snapped back into traditional upbringings really fast -- some reinvented themselves anew -- and some went right on out and over the cliff. We must be the survivors. But are we living up to what we learned? Or are we defaulting to early programming? All the communes I knew ran into walls and blind alleys. It seems to require an ongoing struggle. And wisdom -- through meditation or some kind of compassionate discipline. So what about superstrings anyway?"}, {"response": 3, "author": "fig", "date": "Mon, Sep 23, 1996 (21:20)", "body": "It seems that I've not found anything to compare with the euphoria of those first years of sharing ideals that I found on the Farm. Though they may have been founded on the \"anything's possible\" visions of peak acid exerience, they still ring more true than any of the more practical, grounded, \"real\" foundations that I find here in normal American society. Two years living on the edge of a Mayan village in Guatemala exposed me to culturally inbred community consciousness that it is impossible for our fragmented and materialistic culture to mimic. Yet, in those people I saw some qualities that made me believe that we weren't off on some wild and crazy quest for a phantom dream. We were looking for something that, once upon a time, our ancestors shared as tribal people for many more generations than these few \"free enterprise\" generations we know. So, how do we get to the real stuff? I think the basics of Buddhism recognizes the real stuff. I think identifying with more than just the human species is real stuff. Psychedelics were important in breaking my mind free of all that I'd learned to that point in my life. But so was Viet Nam and the assassinations of MLK, JFK, RFK, and the presidency of Nixon and the lunar landing and the Beatles and Hendrix and TV. It's hard to separate them from each other now."}, {"response": 4, "author": "william", "date": "Fri, Oct  4, 1996 (05:27)", "body": "Community consciousness is integral to a spiritual life, I feel -- certainly if you're inclined toward the Buddhist world view. The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha -- salvation\ufffdlies in embracing those Three Jewels. The Sangha is the Community (of the monastery, of Buddhists, of higher-consciousness beings). Buddhists by nature (Mahayana Buddhists) believe in conservation of energy, since the more that is saved, the more there is to be utilized in saving the other sentient beings. That's the world view he planet is in desperate need of. That's why Buddhism is growing so fast in this country -- which is one of the most hopeful signs we have in the foreshadow of an apocalyptic millenium. \"Free enterprise\" in the sense of getting rich at the expense of others through relentless competition is a complete cop-out and leads to a ravaged world like we have on our hands now. How tragic that Marxism/Communism should have been appropriated by the violent and rapacious. The only answer lies in some form of collectivism, which has been given such a bad name by its ignorant abusers that you can't even call it that anymore. But a free-for-all of competing and explosively populating individualists on this globe of finite dimensions is sheer insanity."}, {"response": 5, "author": "aschuth", "date": "Tue, Apr 20, 1999 (18:55)", "body": "I'm looking for information on the \"STP family\" in Oregon, late 60ies. cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 8, "subject": "changes", "response_count": 5, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Dec 18, 1996 (22:02)", "body": "This is a nice site, at least the first two pages. Great layout and design. Will explore more there soon. Thanks for the link, WER"}, {"response": 2, "author": "mmc", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (22:40)", "body": "It was the Cadillac Camper."}, {"response": 4, "author": "jgross", "date": "Sat, Aug 22, 1998 (11:14)", "body": "Originally it was occasionally (now it's actually) the children are crying on their way to bed they live on planet ours (everyone's) but they get their dreams from the Sphinx in their sleep they're staring at the ceiling their eyes holding onto their hearts bank holiday tomorrow for adults only is anybody out there when the world isn't listening? my parents are talking in a Japanese girl good for them hands and shadows lay against any reason wave goodbye with 7 minutes of midnight something else oh yeah, how fun fades first under adopted procedures then dawn kids crawl outa bed the shape of cartoons to come love is not a reflex and it will receive its lumps so why all the doublethink? don't be automatic so close up and regular just tell me......tell me why there are pieces of you over here"}, {"response": 5, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Aug 22, 1998 (17:43)", "body": "it helps if I stay somewhat diluted..."}, {"response": 6, "author": "riette", "date": "Sat, Aug 22, 1998 (17:56)", "body": "\ufffdrotflmao\ufffd cultures conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 9, "subject": "brave world of the year 2000", "response_count": 31, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "Mixu", "date": "Tue, Dec 10, 1996 (15:17)", "body": "It would still be a world of commercials and talk shows. Four years (more like three) is a short time, after all. I'd actually like to see the world our grand-grandchildren enter (remember, I am just 26 years young...), because that would be interesting. We have too many cars and refridgerators, after all. The number of people isn't such a big problem. Or wouldn't be, if we learned humility. Humility to be pleased with what we have, not with what we can gain. But let's keep on discussing!"}, {"response": 2, "author": "geekman", "date": "Mon, Jan  6, 1997 (02:14)", "body": "The Year 2000. The Sydney Olympics! But that year is really the end of this century! 2001 is the beginning of the next millenium. I would like to see a more cooperative and cohesive world. However with all the outright greed of transnational companies, and petty squabbles between ancient neighbours, the world still has a fair way to go before we all start to work better together. Resources, especially non-renewable ones are being diminished, so really as consumers we need to start pressuring our companies and governments into adopting renewable resources and constant energies for the future. Afterall what state are we going to leave the world in?"}, {"response": 3, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, May 16, 1998 (05:16)", "body": "a female vice-president for the US?"}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Sat, May 16, 1998 (09:25)", "body": "Elizabeth Dole/George Bush vs. Al Gore/Hillary Clinton It's possible! Even somewhat likely. Think about it."}, {"response": 5, "author": "autumn", "date": "Mon, May 18, 1998 (02:44)", "body": "More cable channels."}, {"response": 6, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, May 20, 1998 (05:58)", "body": "nah. Cable's gonna go to phone/internet service... more satellite channels!!!"}, {"response": 7, "author": "riette", "date": "Tue, Jun 23, 1998 (21:26)", "body": "ugh, I hope not!! Have you noticed how some nights one sits there, flicking away across 93 channels - and not a thing that one can watch!! Now, that's what I call a pointless exercise! But I'm not the best judge. I hope the year 2000 plus will bring with it nappies that self-destruct."}, {"response": 8, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Jun 24, 1998 (05:09)", "body": "define nappies please..."}, {"response": 9, "author": "riette", "date": "Wed, Jun 24, 1998 (06:18)", "body": "Baby nappies, and perhaps sanitary nappies as well (was that the one you were wondering about?), but not tampons - if they were to self-destruct at the wrong instant, then 'flower in bloom' would be a pretty approprate way to describe the female under-insides. Wer, what the hell's happening to all the other conferences - seems we're the only two left, at rather irregular intervals. Are all the others on holiday, do you think? Damn, wish I were too. Instead I'm bed with a throat- and kidney infection, not to mention the broken arm - what a way to spend summer. Are you working through summer as well? Think I'll take a break towards the end of September once I have this exhibition out of the way. Ugh, it's a long way off . . ."}, {"response": 10, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Jun 24, 1998 (23:06)", "body": "don't know, hon, we go through periods of inactivity like this... and, yes, I work all the time...it'll pick up again, and it's nice seeing you branch out to more conferences, I might add..."}, {"response": 11, "author": "riette", "date": "Wed, Jun 24, 1998 (23:32)", "body": "Thanks, muffin. No holiday in sight for you yet either?"}, {"response": 12, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Jun 25, 1998 (02:34)", "body": "first two that come to mind are unemployment and/or death... *sigh*"}, {"response": 13, "author": "riette", "date": "Thu, Jun 25, 1998 (21:08)", "body": "Oh no. You serious? It shouldn't be like that, you know."}, {"response": 14, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Thu, Jun 25, 1998 (22:20)", "body": "yep, I know..."}, {"response": 15, "author": "riette", "date": "Fri, Jun 26, 1998 (06:54)", "body": "So go on holiday!!!!! Do as the Jews do on a Sabbath."}, {"response": 16, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Fri, Jun 26, 1998 (15:39)", "body": "be hypocrites?"}, {"response": 17, "author": "riette", "date": "Sat, Jun 27, 1998 (12:03)", "body": "No, go home and fu\ufffdk your wife . . . that's what they do."}, {"response": 18, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Jul  1, 1998 (07:07)", "body": "my wife?"}, {"response": 19, "author": "riette", "date": "Wed, Jul  1, 1998 (10:00)", "body": "$hit, have I made a blunder? I assumed having kids meant you were married. I am truly sorry, I shouldn't just assume things like that. Forgive me."}, {"response": 20, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Wed, Jul  1, 1998 (18:47)", "body": "no, I was aking if the Jews were with my wife on the Sabbaths... that is one of the things you said... (see, I'm still learning 'bout dem porcupines...)"}, {"response": 21, "author": "stacey", "date": "Wed, Jul  1, 1998 (18:47)", "body": "*laugh*"}, {"response": 22, "author": "riette", "date": "Thu, Jul  2, 1998 (10:32)", "body": "Oh $hit!!! I didn't realize - no wonder some people think I suffer from split personality! Heck, maybe I do! Because when we're friends, Chris calls me Skat, when we fight, it's Ri\ufffdtte, and in bed he calls me by my second name. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That exhibition had better happen now, so I can have money to go to a shrink! Luckily I still have that good excuse in the back of my head: 'Oh, I'm following the Kitchen Man!'"}, {"response": 23, "author": "autumn", "date": "Sat, Jul  4, 1998 (03:21)", "body": "(nappies are diapers) I wouldn't mind seeing a diaper that changes itself in the next millenium (though I haven;t changed one in 2 years)"}, {"response": 24, "author": "riette", "date": "Sat, Jul  4, 1998 (05:58)", "body": "Right now I'm so fed up with nappies (especially with all the cherries we've been eating) that I hope it takes a bit longer - I'd LUV to see these two change their little tikes' cherry nappies!"}, {"response": 25, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Jul  4, 1998 (06:09)", "body": "ah, parental revenge... grandchildren!"}, {"response": 26, "author": "riette", "date": "Sat, Jul  4, 1998 (13:59)", "body": "Absolutely!!! Do you also contemplate it?"}, {"response": 27, "author": "KitchenManager", "date": "Sat, Jul  4, 1998 (17:45)", "body": "nope...way too worried about my daughter following in mommy's footsteps..."}, {"response": 28, "author": "riette", "date": "Sat, Jul  4, 1998 (18:02)", "body": "I'm also rather worried about my daughters following in mummy's footsteps. I'll kill them if they do! ($hit, that's just what Mum used to say!)"}, {"response": 29, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Mon, Sep  4, 2000 (11:23)", "body": "Well, here we are in year 2000.... What happened to our thoughts???"}, {"response": 30, "author": "terry", "date": "Mon, Apr 30, 2001 (05:18)", "body": "And now it's 2001."}, {"response": 31, "author": "sociolingo", "date": "Fri, May 18, 2001 (11:29)", "body": "Time flies ... see philosophy Clocks cultures conference Main Menu"}]}]}