The thing that worrys me about all this is what's going to happen to the local economy. I live about 20 miles from Adelphia's original home, Coudersport, PA. The buyout of Adelphia is probably going to result in the closing of all the local offices.
Until recently, Adelphia has been the big dog around here as employers go so the effect on the local job market is probably going to be pretty severe. 'course, we've been expecting it but now we get to see just how bad it's going to get.
This is TRUTH! I work with a guy that is planning on getting his CCNA. He has no work experience in the IT field (he's a voice network guy) but he thinks a CCNA will get him 60K plus. Seems he got that dollar figure off a Cert training company's web site and took it as gospel.
I've tried to educate him on what a realistic salary would be but I don't think he believes me.
After all, he didn't do anything important re: Spiderman. All he did was develop the idea in print, nurse it along for years, pour his sweat and blood into it, bring respectability to a substandard art, etc.
The studio did the hard part. They hired the lawyer to screw Stan! If that isn't worth the 10% I don't know what is.
It was a very poorly written article but I think that the lawyer was refering to the software used to uncap the modems. At least, that's how I read it.
if they're willing to travel a couple of hours, maybe the Rigas family or Adelphia would be willing to part with some of their holdings. There's ton's of land for sale around Coudersport.
I have it on good authority - Spider Robinson in his latest Callahan book, Callahan's Key - that the Tunguska blast was caused by Nikola Tesla testing a new super radio. It turns out that the super radio is actually the oft speculated upon Tesla Death Ray.
Hey, Adalger, I'm sorta curious how, based on the comments I made, you think you know all about me. Just for the record, you're wrong.
I do consider myself a working stiff. Sure, I work with technology, but I don't feel that it makes me better than the guy that keeps the pretty flowers growing or cleans up the bathroom. Or the guy that fixes my minivan (I don't/won't own a Saab). I go to work, earn a living, support my family, mow my lawn just like the other people on my block. How does this make me better than my neighbor that works construction...or the retired steel worker down the street. Or, for that matter, my wife the hairstylist, my brother-in-law the mechanic, his wife the aqautic biologist, my mother the nurse, my sister the travel agent, my father-in-law the meat cutter or my mother-in-law the teacher? Sure, I've got skills and training that make me a valuable employee in today's world, but so do they. Truth to tell, if it came down to cases, my father-in-law has a more vaulable skill than I do. You can live without a computer but just try to live without food.
You seem to think that just because someone works with technology, they're better than everyone else. BTW, if I'm wrong about this, I apologize. It's just the impression I get from what you wrote.
Maybe it's a cultural thing. I live in West Virginia - definately not a hotbed of high tech. Around here, everyone has had the dubious pleasure of being laid off - many of them for over a year. Have you pulled your head out of your computer long enough to hear about the depressed market for domestic coal and steel? I live 10 miles from a steel mill and 5 miles from a coal mine. I've got friends who have been laid off for a lot longer than my own 5 months. It's not something we whine about, it's just a fact of life in the Ohio Valley.
Sometimes we do end up buying 25 cent mac and cheese and Campbells by the case, but that's life. It's the price we pay for wanting to live in a beautiful part of the country where there's virtually no crime, people are friendly and you don't have to worry about your kids playing outside after dark.
As for knowing how to run a company, I don't claim to know how. I just have a problem with bosses who make such bone headed decisions that someone with even my limited business sense can see how stupid they are. Does that make me a suit? I don't think so.
Like I said, I'm just a working stiff. I get to do work I enjoy, playing with great toys all day, but I still work to support my family and pay my bills. No different and no better than my neighbors.
Well said. I didn't work for a Dot.Com but got laid off 5 months ago because of poor business management practices - a new CEO started hiring 6 figure VPs, Senior VPs, Second Assisitant Senior VPs, etc. Suddenly, the office building that we were building wasn't going to be big enough for all the suits and we had to buy a bigger building while continuing the construction of the original building. Along with that, there were plans in the works to centrally administer all systems (voice and data) which cost an obscene amount of money and, in the opinions of the people in the field that did the actual work, wouldn't work worth a damn. That idea has since been canned as unworkable/too expensive.
I'm a Network Engineer/System Administrator/Jack of all Trades with over 15 years of experience. I got cut as a cost cutting move in the first of three (so far) rounds of layoffs. It's taken me all of these past five months to find new work. I start my new job in about a week.
So, don't think it's just the Dot.Com'ers that are getting the axe. Everyday working stiffs are getting cut as well.
Admittedly, things probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the market downturn/Dot.Com fallout, but it's still bad. Companies are panicking (sp?) and the suits are cutting experienced tech personnel to reduce overhead. Funny how they never realize that one overpriced VP costs as much as 3-4 skilled techies. Hell, the day before I got the axe, a new VP hopped on the corporate jet and made a flying tour of several of our field offices. I figure that my yearly salary just about covered his expenses for that day.
Keep your heads down, ladies and gentlemen. It ain't over yet. Until the suits realize that technology companies need experienced technology people to operate - and don't need a Second ASSistant Senior VP of Button Counting - things ain't gonna get appreciably better.
The reason for this slowdown of progress (for lack of a better term) is that, so far, we're only improving on already invented technology, not inventing new. The jet engine of today would be perfectly understandable to one of the engineers of the WWII vintage ones. The Wright Brothers would be able to understand the workings of modern aircraft. Alexander Graham Bell would be able to understand the workings of modern telephones - and with a bit of a leap - also cell phones. Why? Because our daily technology is merely an extrapolation of tech invented decades ago.
The television is a simple (in hindsight) extrapolation of radio which is an extrapolation of telegraph. The computer, the jet plane, the Space Shuttle and just about every other example of our vaunted technology can trace it's lineage the same way - step-wise progress on what has come before.
The only thing that will bring about a new, household technological revolution is NEW TECHNOLOGY. Not improvements of old, existing stuff, but technology based on something entirely new. I'm not saying that we should throw out what we already have, I'm just saying that, until we get a new platform to build upon all we'll get is an improved model of what we already have.
For my money, I'm betting on Nanotechnology - not microtech but true nanotech - to be that platform. When you consider the possible uses of that technology, you start to realize the profound changes it could make in our daily lives. For instance - actual, final cures for cancer, aids, aging - even the common cold. Want a new house? Go buy the basic nanotech bundle to build it. And it won't be necessary to cut down a forest to put up the frame, either. Nanotech has the potential to assemble your new house out of pretty much anything that's lying around - trash, rock, dirt, etc. - by reassembling the molecules from something useless into something useful.
Yes, I read SF. No, I don't expect this level of maturity in that technology any time soon. But...I do expect to see the beginnings of it in my lifetime. And, I expect it to bring about a societal change even more profound than the internal combustion engine, the telegraph and the airplane. The question will be whether I can keep up with it or whether I'll be resigned to the trash heap of time with Ozzie and Harriet.
I'm reminded of a story I read in Analog Magazine a few years back. The basic idea was a high-tech whodunit. I don't remember all of the details but in general, a person was seen, on a Nationwide LIVE broadcast, to fatally shoot another person. The only problem was that the accused was innocent. The video feed was edited in real-time and his image was altered to show him pulling a gun and firing at the victim. Meanwhile, the real shooter was hiding in the bushes or on the grassy knoll or somewhere. And, of course, since he was seen pulling the trigger by 60 gazillion people viewing the whatever it was live, plus the replays on the nightly news, he stood a snowball's chance in hell of actually proving his innocence.
Gosh Toto, isn't it a good thing that stuff like that can't happen and that the technology to do that sort of thing doesn't exist?
Those questions about OO technology and QT and MS-Office alternatives are all well and good, but let's get down to the important stuff...fun and games!
What, if any, new games are going to be included with KDE 2.0?
How about putting in an Xscreensaver interface like Gnome? The.kss stuff is all well and good but there's a world of eyecandy out there that we can't easily use in KDE.
or would a few billion individual suits be more damaging. If they patent a single genome that is contained in your own DNA then you could be part of a class action suit against them based on prior art (or something).
Toward that end, I hereby claim the entire gene sequence of my own DNA, in part or in whole, as my own by prior claim. Further, acting on behalf of my children, I place similar claims for them. I'll have to ask my wife and see if she want's to join in on a class action or try for a seperate settlement.
I figure if nothing else, we can bankrupt the bastiches with lawyer fees. Think about it, simultaneaus legal actions against them in several thousand jurisdictions. I bet they wouldn't last a week.
And of course, some of the more Totalitarian governments might just decide to do a seizure of assets instead.
I think that, if you consider the ease with which the good guys managed to crash the Alien OS with the virus...and the quickness with which such a deadly virus was written, it should be crystal clear which OS the aliens are/were using...Windows/NT. What else fits the criteria - poor security, easily hacked, easy to write viruses for, put in place by a large, monolithic organization more interested in conquest than cooperation.
With a little thought, some good arguments for using MagLevs to assist commercial jet takeoff present themselves. For instance...
Take off is the single biggest fuel usage portion of a flight - hence the reason the military routinely refuels aircraft as soon as they reach a reasonable altitude. Any fuel savings here is a good thing. You'd only be using the MagLev to augment the jet thrust, not replace it, so you could use a smaller, less powerfull MagLev, say 1.5G, and still get a nice fuel savings. Corrollary of this, if you save fuel on takeoff, you increase your cruising range - possibly enough to allow a smaller jet to make a longer hop.
You could shorten the takeoff roll required for a large jet making shorter runways/cramped airports available to bigger planes. Of course, you'd have to come up with a way of shortening the landing space required. I don't think we'd want to subject commercial passengers to an Aircraft Carrier type of arrestor wire setup. Possibly single use JATO units installed as retro-rockets to shorten the landing roll...just an idea.
Anyway, that's what I came up with with just a couple of minutes thought. Someone more familiar with Airport operations, aircraft design, etc could probably come up with more.
Here's a copy of a letter that I sent to CBS Morning News. Hope you don't mind but I included a link to the HellMouth thread on Slashdot. I don't really expect it to do any good, but I couldn't let it go without at least an attempt.
--BEGIN--
The news seems to be focusing on the fact that the two Littleton, Colorado killers were "geeks". That they were outsiders. That they were different.
As a teenager, I attended both a junior high and a high school that were very clique-ish. If you weren't a jock or socially active (or a wannabe), you were subject to ostracism and abuse. Jocks felt free to heap ridicule on the geeks and the geeks were powerless to stop it. School administrators chose not to see the problem. Coaches actually encouraged the behavior.
Please understand that, in no way, am I condoning the murders in Littleton. Nor do I consider violence an acceptable response unless you are acting in defense of yourself or your loved ones. What I am trying to point out is that the stereotypical image of geeks was, in a way, the seminal cause of this tragedy. That image is promoted by Hollywood and is currently being reinforced by the news media. That image and the baggage that accompanies it can be the cause for a great deal of pain when you are young and trying to grow and find out who you are.
No, I'm not placing blame for the murders on the media. That responsibility lies solely on the two murderers and their parents. I faced similar problems growing up and, I'm proud to say, overcame them and feel that I am stronger for it. What I am saying is that being labeled a geek or a nerd gives society free reign to shower you with ridicule and abuse. And now, with the Littleton tragedy so fresh in everyone's minds and with the Media reinforcing the image of geeks as "different" or "outsiders" and therefore not to be trusted, the abuse and ostracism can only increase.
I am a geek. I have grown up with that stereotype and the abuse, both physical and emotional, which accompany it. But I am also a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a boss, an employee, thirty-something, brown haired, average build, ticklish, a romantic and many other labels. No single one of these labels defines who I am. Even looking at me through the combined filter of all of these labels won't show you who I am because you are still filtering me through your labels. You're not seeing me as I actually am.
Calling someone a 'Geek' or a 'Nerd' is prejudice. It differs from racial or sexual prejudice only in kind. Anytime you choose to place a label on a person to the exclusion of everything else that person is, it's prejudice. And that is something that we've had far too much of in this country.
With that in mind, I'm asking you to put aside your prejudices. Look at people and try to see who they really are. Don't filter your perception through the labels that society puts on them. As members of the Media, I challenge you to brush off your reputations as unbiased observers and reporters. Look at all sides of this issue...and all the others...and report facts. Report the truth. Ungarnished, unbiased and unfiltered.
Take a look at and report on the Web Site that I've included a link to and report on the other side of the story. Look at your handiwork and see if it's good. Help educate and inform the public. People don't need any help holding on to our personal prejudices and biases. What we need from the Media and from the entertainment industry, is help opening our minds to the wonders and truths that surround us in everyday life. We need help seeing that every person is special and that we should like or dislike them based on their individual merits, not on the labels that they wear, regardless of whether that label reads black, white, rich, poor, Catholic, Protestant, jock or even geek.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing that worrys me about all this is what's going to happen to the local economy. I live about 20 miles from Adelphia's original home, Coudersport, PA. The buyout of Adelphia is probably going to result in the closing of all the local offices.
Until recently, Adelphia has been the big dog around here as employers go so the effect on the local job market is probably going to be pretty severe. 'course, we've been expecting it but now we get to see just how bad it's going to get.
This is TRUTH! I work with a guy that is planning on getting his CCNA. He has no work experience in the IT field (he's a voice network guy) but he thinks a CCNA will get him 60K plus. Seems he got that dollar figure off a Cert training company's web site and took it as gospel.
I've tried to educate him on what a realistic salary would be but I don't think he believes me.
After all, he didn't do anything important re: Spiderman. All he did was develop the idea in print, nurse it along for years, pour his sweat and blood into it, bring respectability to a substandard art, etc.
The studio did the hard part. They hired the lawyer to screw Stan! If that isn't worth the 10% I don't know what is.
It was a very poorly written article but I think that the lawyer was refering to the software used to uncap the modems. At least, that's how I read it.
No, no, no!!! If you want to find out what's behind Door Number 2, you HAVE TO have Monty Hall as the host!
if they're willing to travel a couple of hours, maybe the Rigas family or Adelphia would be willing to part with some of their holdings. There's ton's of land for sale around Coudersport.
I have it on good authority - Spider Robinson in his latest Callahan book, Callahan's Key - that the Tunguska blast was caused by Nikola Tesla testing a new super radio. It turns out that the super radio is actually the oft speculated upon Tesla Death Ray.
So, there you are. Mystery solved!
Hey, Adalger, I'm sorta curious how, based on the comments I made, you think you know all about me. Just for the record, you're wrong.
I do consider myself a working stiff. Sure, I work with technology, but I don't feel that it makes me better than the guy that keeps the pretty flowers growing or cleans up the bathroom. Or the guy that fixes my minivan (I don't/won't own a Saab). I go to work, earn a living, support my family, mow my lawn just like the other people on my block. How does this make me better than my neighbor that works construction...or the retired steel worker down the street. Or, for that matter, my wife the hairstylist, my brother-in-law the mechanic, his wife the aqautic biologist, my mother the nurse, my sister the travel agent, my father-in-law the meat cutter or my mother-in-law the teacher? Sure, I've got skills and training that make me a valuable employee in today's world, but so do they. Truth to tell, if it came down to cases, my father-in-law has a more vaulable skill than I do. You can live without a computer but just try to live without food.
You seem to think that just because someone works with technology, they're better than everyone else. BTW, if I'm wrong about this, I apologize. It's just the impression I get from what you wrote.
Maybe it's a cultural thing. I live in West Virginia - definately not a hotbed of high tech. Around here, everyone has had the dubious pleasure of being laid off - many of them for over a year. Have you pulled your head out of your computer long enough to hear about the depressed market for domestic coal and steel? I live 10 miles from a steel mill and 5 miles from a coal mine. I've got friends who have been laid off for a lot longer than my own 5 months. It's not something we whine about, it's just a fact of life in the Ohio Valley.
Sometimes we do end up buying 25 cent mac and cheese and Campbells by the case, but that's life. It's the price we pay for wanting to live in a beautiful part of the country where there's virtually no crime, people are friendly and you don't have to worry about your kids playing outside after dark.
As for knowing how to run a company, I don't claim to know how. I just have a problem with bosses who make such bone headed decisions that someone with even my limited business sense can see how stupid they are. Does that make me a suit? I don't think so.
Like I said, I'm just a working stiff. I get to do work I enjoy, playing with great toys all day, but I still work to support my family and pay my bills. No different and no better than my neighbors.
Well said. I didn't work for a Dot.Com but got laid off 5 months ago because of poor business management practices - a new CEO started hiring 6 figure VPs, Senior VPs, Second Assisitant Senior VPs, etc. Suddenly, the office building that we were building wasn't going to be big enough for all the suits and we had to buy a bigger building while continuing the construction of the original building. Along with that, there were plans in the works to centrally administer all systems (voice and data) which cost an obscene amount of money and, in the opinions of the people in the field that did the actual work, wouldn't work worth a damn. That idea has since been canned as unworkable/too expensive.
I'm a Network Engineer/System Administrator/Jack of all Trades with over 15 years of experience. I got cut as a cost cutting move in the first of three (so far) rounds of layoffs. It's taken me all of these past five months to find new work. I start my new job in about a week.
So, don't think it's just the Dot.Com'ers that are getting the axe. Everyday working stiffs are getting cut as well.
Admittedly, things probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the market downturn/Dot.Com fallout, but it's still bad. Companies are panicking (sp?) and the suits are cutting experienced tech personnel to reduce overhead. Funny how they never realize that one overpriced VP costs as much as 3-4 skilled techies. Hell, the day before I got the axe, a new VP hopped on the corporate jet and made a flying tour of several of our field offices. I figure that my yearly salary just about covered his expenses for that day.
Keep your heads down, ladies and gentlemen. It ain't over yet. Until the suits realize that technology companies need experienced technology people to operate - and don't need a Second ASSistant Senior VP of Button Counting - things ain't gonna get appreciably better.
The reason for this slowdown of progress (for lack of a better term) is that, so far, we're only improving on already invented technology, not inventing new. The jet engine of today would be perfectly understandable to one of the engineers of the WWII vintage ones. The Wright Brothers would be able to understand the workings of modern aircraft. Alexander Graham Bell would be able to understand the workings of modern telephones - and with a bit of a leap - also cell phones. Why? Because our daily technology is merely an extrapolation of tech invented decades ago.
The television is a simple (in hindsight) extrapolation of radio which is an extrapolation of telegraph. The computer, the jet plane, the Space Shuttle and just about every other example of our vaunted technology can trace it's lineage the same way - step-wise progress on what has come before.
The only thing that will bring about a new, household technological revolution is NEW TECHNOLOGY. Not improvements of old, existing stuff, but technology based on something entirely new. I'm not saying that we should throw out what we already have, I'm just saying that, until we get a new platform to build upon all we'll get is an improved model of what we already have.
For my money, I'm betting on Nanotechnology - not microtech but true nanotech - to be that platform. When you consider the possible uses of that technology, you start to realize the profound changes it could make in our daily lives. For instance - actual, final cures for cancer, aids, aging - even the common cold. Want a new house? Go buy the basic nanotech bundle to build it. And it won't be necessary to cut down a forest to put up the frame, either. Nanotech has the potential to assemble your new house out of pretty much anything that's lying around - trash, rock, dirt, etc. - by reassembling the molecules from something useless into something useful.
Yes, I read SF. No, I don't expect this level of maturity in that technology any time soon. But...I do expect to see the beginnings of it in my lifetime. And, I expect it to bring about a societal change even more profound than the internal combustion engine, the telegraph and the airplane. The question will be whether I can keep up with it or whether I'll be resigned to the trash heap of time with Ozzie and Harriet.
---
Be alert!!! America needs more lerts!
Now if they'd just pick up development on "Space: Above and Beyond".
I'm reminded of a story I read in Analog Magazine a few years back. The basic idea was a high-tech whodunit. I don't remember all of the details but in general, a person was seen, on a Nationwide LIVE broadcast, to fatally shoot another person. The only problem was that the accused was innocent. The video feed was edited in real-time and his image was altered to show him pulling a gun and firing at the victim. Meanwhile, the real shooter was hiding in the bushes or on the grassy knoll or somewhere. And, of course, since he was seen pulling the trigger by 60 gazillion people viewing the whatever it was live, plus the replays on the nightly news, he stood a snowball's chance in hell of actually proving his innocence.
Gosh Toto, isn't it a good thing that stuff like that can't happen and that the technology to do that sort of thing doesn't exist?
Those questions about OO technology and QT and MS-Office alternatives are all well and good, but let's get down to the important stuff...fun and games!
.kss stuff is all well and good but there's a world of eyecandy out there that we can't easily use in KDE.
What, if any, new games are going to be included with KDE 2.0?
How about putting in an Xscreensaver interface like Gnome? The
or would a few billion individual suits be more damaging. If they patent a single genome that is contained in your own DNA then you could be part of a class action suit against them based on prior art (or something).
Toward that end, I hereby claim the entire gene sequence of my own DNA, in part or in whole, as my own by prior claim. Further, acting on behalf of my children, I place similar claims for them. I'll have to ask my wife and see if she want's to join in on a class action or try for a seperate settlement.
I figure if nothing else, we can bankrupt the bastiches with lawyer fees. Think about it, simultaneaus legal actions against them in several thousand jurisdictions. I bet they wouldn't last a week.
And of course, some of the more Totalitarian governments might just decide to do a seizure of assets instead.
I think that, if you consider the ease with which the good guys managed to crash the Alien OS with the virus...and the quickness with which such a deadly virus was written, it should be crystal clear which OS the aliens are/were using...Windows/NT. What else fits the criteria - poor security, easily hacked, easy to write viruses for, put in place by a large, monolithic organization more interested in conquest than cooperation.
Opinions?
With a little thought, some good arguments for using MagLevs to assist commercial jet takeoff present themselves. For instance...
Take off is the single biggest fuel usage portion of a flight - hence the reason the military routinely refuels aircraft as soon as they reach a reasonable altitude. Any fuel savings here is a good thing. You'd only be using the MagLev to augment the jet thrust, not replace it, so you could use a smaller, less powerfull MagLev, say 1.5G, and still get a nice fuel savings. Corrollary of this, if you save fuel on takeoff, you increase your cruising range - possibly enough to allow a smaller jet to make a longer hop.
You could shorten the takeoff roll required for a large jet making shorter runways/cramped airports available to bigger planes. Of course, you'd have to come up with a way of shortening the landing space required. I don't think we'd want to subject commercial passengers to an Aircraft Carrier type of arrestor wire setup. Possibly single use JATO units installed as retro-rockets to shorten the landing roll...just an idea.
Anyway, that's what I came up with with just a couple of minutes thought. Someone more familiar with Airport operations, aircraft design, etc could probably come up with more.
John
Here's a copy of a letter that I sent to CBS Morning News. Hope you don't mind but I included a link to the HellMouth thread on Slashdot. I don't really expect it to do any good, but I couldn't let it go without at least an attempt.
8 249&mode=nocomment&threshold=0
--BEGIN--
The news seems to be focusing on the fact that the two Littleton, Colorado killers were "geeks". That they were outsiders. That they were different.
As a teenager, I attended both a junior high and a high school that were very clique-ish. If you weren't a jock or socially active (or a wannabe), you were subject to ostracism and abuse. Jocks felt free to heap ridicule on the geeks and the geeks were powerless to stop it. School administrators chose not to see the problem. Coaches actually encouraged the behavior.
Please understand that, in no way, am I condoning the murders in Littleton. Nor do I consider violence an acceptable response unless you are acting in defense of yourself or your loved ones. What I am trying to point out is that the stereotypical image of geeks was, in a way, the seminal cause of this tragedy. That image is promoted by Hollywood and is currently being reinforced by the news media. That image and the baggage that accompanies it can be the cause for a great deal of pain when you are young and trying to grow and find out who you are.
No, I'm not placing blame for the murders on the media. That responsibility lies solely on the two murderers and their parents. I faced similar problems growing up and, I'm proud to say, overcame them and feel that I am stronger for it. What I am saying is that being labeled a geek or a nerd gives society free reign to shower you with ridicule and abuse. And now, with the Littleton tragedy so fresh in everyone's minds and with the Media reinforcing the image of geeks as "different" or "outsiders" and therefore not to be trusted, the abuse and ostracism can only increase.
I am a geek. I have grown up with that stereotype and the abuse, both physical and emotional, which accompany it. But I am also a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a boss, an employee, thirty-something, brown haired, average build, ticklish, a romantic and many other labels. No single one of these labels defines who I am. Even looking at me through the combined filter of all of these labels won't show you who I am because you are still filtering me through your labels. You're not seeing me as I actually am.
Calling someone a 'Geek' or a 'Nerd' is prejudice. It differs from racial or sexual prejudice only in kind. Anytime you choose to place a label on a person to the exclusion of everything else that person is, it's prejudice. And that is something that we've had far too much of in this country.
With that in mind, I'm asking you to put aside your prejudices. Look at people and try to see who they really are. Don't filter your perception through the labels that society puts on them. As members of the Media, I challenge you to brush off your reputations as unbiased observers and reporters. Look at all sides of this issue...and all the others...and report facts. Report the truth. Ungarnished, unbiased and unfiltered.
Take a look at and report on the Web Site that I've included a link to and report on the other side of the story. Look at your handiwork and see if it's good. Help educate and inform the public. People don't need any help holding on to our personal prejudices and biases. What we need from the Media and from the entertainment industry, is help opening our minds to the wonders and truths that surround us in everyday life. We need help seeing that every person is special and that we should like or dislike them based on their individual merits, not on the labels that they wear, regardless of whether that label reads black, white, rich, poor, Catholic, Protestant, jock or even geek.
Sincerely,
John S. Coxen
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/04/25/143
--END--