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I n f o r m a t i o n, C o m m u n i c a t i o n, S u p p l y
E L E C T R O Z I N E
Established in 1993 by Deva Winblood
Information Communication Supply 3/29/93 Vol.1:Issue9-1
Email To: ORG_ZINE@WSC.COLORADO.EDU
E D I T O R S: Local Alias: Email: ICS Positions:
============== ============ ====== ==============
Jeremy Bek rApIeR STU521279258 Technical Director,Layout,
Writer, Editing,
Subscriptions, Letters,
Fragment Design
Steven Peterson Rufus Firefly STU388801940 Editing, Writer
Russel Hutchinson Burnout Writer, Subscriptions,
Editing
Jason Manczur GReY KnYgHT STU523356717 Writer,Poet,Editing
Stephan Manzcur RaVaNa Writer, Editing
Deva Winblood MeTaL MaSTeR, ADP_DEVA Ask Deva, Tales of the
Ephemeral Unknown, Editing
Presence
George Sibley MAC_FAC FAC_SIBLEY Editing, Supervisor
_________________________________________
/=========================================\
|"Art helps us accept the human condition; |
| technology changes it." |
\ - D.B. Smith /
\***************************************/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
_____________________________________________________________________________
/ \
| ICS is an Electrozine distributed by students of Western State |
| College in Gunnison, Colorado. We are here to gather information about |
| topics that are important to us all as human beings. If you would like |
| to send in a submission please type it into an ASCII format and mail it |
| to us. We operate on the assumption that if you mail us something you |
| want it to be published. We will do our best to make sure it is |
| distributed and will always inform you when or if it is used. |
| See the end of this issue for submission information. |
\_____________________________________________________________________________/
REDISTRIBUTION: If any part of this issue is copied or used elsewhere
you must give credit to the author and indicate that the information
came from ICS Electrozine ORG_ZINE@WSC.COLORADO.EDU.
DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the
views of the editors of ICS. contributors to ICS assume all
responsibilities for ensuring that articles/submissions are not violating
copyright laws and protections.
|\__________________________________________________/|
| \ / |
| \ T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S / |
| / \ |
| /________________________________________________\ |
|/ \|
| Included in the table of contents you will see some|
| generic symbols to help you in making your |
| decisions on whether an article is something that |
| may use ideas, and/or language that could be |
| offensive to some. S = Sexual Content |
| AL = Adult Language V = Violence O = Opinions |
|____________________________________________________|
-----------------------------------------------------------
| |
| 1) First Word ......................Steven Peterson |
| |
| 2) Closing the "Values-Gap" [O].....Vigdor Schreibman |
| |
| 3) New Prejudices [O]...............Steven Peterson |
| |
| 4) To You, i Leave My Heart ........Jason Manzscur |
| |
| 5) The Concern About Sports |
| in the Nineties [O] ............Stefan Manzscur |
| |
| 6) Computer-Mediated Communication .Steven Peterson |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------
_____________________
#=\ \=#
| First Word |
| by Steven Peterson |
#=\____________________\=#
Well, we're back after our spring break here in the Gunnison high
country. Unfortunately, we only had a week for our official break, so
the staff extended it unofficially by delaying production of ICS -
sorry, folks. Anyway, we are leading off this issue with a reprint of a
thought provoking article which examines V.P. Gore's pseudo-vision of
cyber-space (piercing the rhetoric - a distinctly American habit).
Then I check in with the latest installment in my "New Prejudices" brand
of editorial palaver (this time I take on human rights). Jason, our
resident mystic, checks in with yet another poem (it's a deep well he
draws from). Stephen Manczur, Jason's brother, has hopped onboard -
submitting a piece on the world of sports. Finally, I wind up the issue
with the first part of a series on computer-mediated communication.
Essentially a review-of-research, I am counting on reader response to
provide potential solutions to the myriad difficulties uncovered by
researchers. Feel free to overwhelm me with all the ideas you care
to share.
In other news, ICS is on the cusp of attaining some measure of
legitamacy within the bounds of our institution. We've submitted our
"constitution" and begun the political process of maneuvering for
recognition, and, dare we say it, a budget. So far, ICS has been a pure
"not-for-profit" publication (have no fear, it will remain free of
advertisements and such) produced by students on existing hardware.
Our pleas for money center around the need for Western to give back to
the net community by creating a FTP site. Currently, any research done
on campus is either doomed to obscurity in print journals or relegated
to the academic dust-bin (an utter waste, in my opinion). Creating a
rationale for our request was relatively easy; getting the administration
to understand it has been difficult. If anyone out there on the net has
any practical advice or examples from similar "institutional" campaigns,
please send them to us at org_zine. Thanks all, and enjoy the issue.
{Next Time - Stories!}
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE
VOL II, ISSUE NO. 2 (121 lines) JANUARY 17, 1994
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
Gore's Television Model for Cyberspace
By Vigdor Schreibman
At the Academy of Television in Los Angeles, Jan 11, Al Gore attempted
to once more dramatize his vision for the "information superhighways." He
tried to explain why the necessary telecommunications infrastructure should
be developed under the total ownership and unregulated control of the
monopolist and oligopolist telephone and cable companies. He used the old
"bate-and-shift" scam of television hucksters to warm up public support for
his legislative initiative. On Dec 21, last year, Gore promised a legislative
package that would safeguard the "public needs that outweigh private
interests" in this domain. He said "we shouldn't hesitate to chart a new
course" to avoid the Titanic catastrophe that could result from reliance upon
narrow business self-interest to provide genuine communications, fulfilling
the promise of community that this implies. Then, last Tuesday Gore disclosed
once again that--lost in a web of political propaganda--he is without a valid
perspective on this nation's paramount public needs.
The central message conveyed by Gore and his chorus of well rehearsed
cyberspace supporters (Mitch Kapor, et al), is that "we must put our trust
in the marketplace." This message was delivered in a rigged and lopsided
setting to support his cause blindly in the face of all contrary experience,
and without examination of existing realities or alternative possibilities.
In a bizarre way, the Academy of Television provided a poignant setting
for the torrent of false purposes presented to the viewing and listening
audience. The model of television communications has brought us a "wasteland"
of manipulative infotainment, exploitive sex, and gratuitous violence. Use
of the same model in cyberspace, an infinitely more powerful media that
includes interactive television, as well as voice and data communications,
could be even worse. Gore lost no time in showing us how effectively even
the old electronic media can be used to promote false purposes.
The marketplace morality that Gore now urges us to accept for cyberspace
was relied upon to the maximum by recent administrations that brought us to
the brink of fiscal bankruptcy and pervasive urban despair. Opportunism, out
of which the morality of the marketplace is derived, has turned our politics
into a boiling cauldron of anger and frustration bringing disapproval ratings
of Congress to their highest level in history. This primitive morality has
made our business enterprises into organs of greed and avarice that cannot
compete in world markets, and it has subverted our culture into a wretched
squalor culminating in unlimited self-indulgence. In such a society,
historian Christopher Lasch has ominously warned, "reason can impose no
limits on the pursuit of pleasure--on the immediate gratification of every
desire no matter how perverse, insane, criminal, or merely immoral." These
conditions underscore the belief by six out of ten people that there needs
to be "fundamental changes in the system of government and politics in the
United States" and about a quarter think it needs to be "completely rebuilt."
[CBS News Poll, June 1992].
The morality of the marketplace in cyberspace is a gross contradiction
in terms. The extraordinary success of the Internet during the past decade
was predicated upon the cooperative spirit of networkers all over the world,
guided by the communitarian purposes and values that drive our library,
research, and educational institutions. The NREN model for development of
cyberspace that was approved by Congress in 1991, and the stunning success
story it tells was emphatically value-driven and not market-centered.
Contrary to these realities Al Gore, along with Mitch Kapor and others, are now
trying to sell us the notion that we are compelled to "put our trust in the
marketplace." This assertion, which is being advanced with the double speak
images of television and despicable groupthink techniques--is absolutely
unjustified.
The administration's telecommunications policy reform initiative,
released by the White House Jan 11, states "It is a goal of this
Administration that by the year 2000, all of the classrooms, libraries,
hospitals, and clinics in the United States will be connected to the NII."
Nevertheless, that connection may be of dubious benefit to public service
institutions if the NII is designed to maximize the manipulative commercial
purposes of the communications content. On the contrary, a major portion of
cyberspace must be free from profit pressures, and operated under the
independent direction of people who are committed to serving the public
good. Gore also promised antitrust protection against the likely abusive
conduct of the monopolists and oligopolists who were offered a transitional
scheme for deregulation of the telecommunications infrastructure. However,
no sane and reasonable person can possibly rely upon such regulatory
protection in cyberspace when the political leaders who are now making these
promises are at the same time attempting to shape a role for the monopolists
in the information infrastructure that is manifestly subversive of the
paramount human, social, and ecological interests that must be served by this
system. Moreover, the colossal telecommunications industry has proven
themselves to be largely impossible to regulate even in narrow economic terms
during these early periods of the new electronic media, according to Judge
Harold Greene, a jurist who knows them better than anyone.
Nevertheless, for all their wealth and coercive power telecommunications
companies cannot vote. This is the exclusive right of individual citizens
who can personally inform members of Congress about the basics of cyberspace.
An electronic preview of my article, "The Politics of Cyberspace," will
open Jan 19 at the FINS InfoAge Library: Telnet inforM.umd.edu /Educational_
Resources/Computers_and_Society/Information_Infrastructure/Fins-II-15. This
work examines industry dictated visions of a market-centered cyberspace, and
value-directed alternatives that can best serve the public good. Get a copy
and talk it over with your family and community. Then make sure you all
inform policy makers in Congress (listed in the above FINS InfoAge Library
at: Congress-Dir), what you think should be the preferred choice for the
future of the Information Age.
----------
Federal Information News Syndicate, Vigdor Schreibman, Editor & Publisher,
18 - 9th Street NE #206, Washington, DC 20002-6042. Copyright 1994 FINS.
Internet: fins@access.digex.net. FINS is archived at the inforM (Information
for Maryland) system. CapAccess, "All the Gopher Servers in the World" or
Telnet inforM.umd.edu /Educational_Resources/United_States/Government/FINS.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
_______--------------_______
( )
> New Prejudices <
( )
> by Steven Peterson <
( )
-----__________________-----
Control. That's what everything seems to be about these days.
In personal terms, or at the sociological level, a pathological desire to
maintain physical and psychological control of others lies at the foundation
of our basest acts. Last week, I caught the television interview with
Jeffery Dahmer, who is perhaps America's most notorious and frightening
criminal. The one reason he offered to explain his desire to commit
grotesque and brutal acts was "an obsessive need to control others;
to make them do whatever I wanted them to do." Absolutely terrifying in
its simplicity, Dahmer's rationalization is hardly new or original.
Last week, I kept running into this "logic of control" as I began to
read the Human Rights Country Reports (prepared by our U.S. Department of
State). Released last month, these reports are drawn from a variety of sources
and cover the state of internationally recognized individual, political, civil,
and worker rights as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This grim review of armed conflicts, torture, and arbitrary detention reveals
a lowest common denominator of human behavior: an obsessive drive in
individuals to use political organizations to maintain power over individuals.
This drive typically expresses itself in the overt mechanisms of "laws"
written and designed to grant a select few absolute control over the lives
of a population.
For purposes of illustration, the two Koreas (North and South) provide
an excellent portrait of two nations moving in opposite directions on the
road to a more humane, civilized world. According to the report, the
"Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (North Korea) continues to suffer
under the absolute rule of the Korean Workers' Party (KWP), a political
organization which exercises power on behalf of Kim Il Sung, a self-styled
dictator. In order to maintain his position, Sung has constructed a form of
government predicated on repression, rigid control of the citizenry (there's
that word again), and a general prohibition on individual rights. According
to Amnesty International, entire families are imprisoned together in forced
"reeducation through labor" camps for various crimes. While scant information
on North Korea's criminal justice process is known, portions of their Criminal
Law are pretty revealing: Article 52, for instance, mandates the death penalty
for crimes such as "ideological divergence", "counter-revolutionary crimes",
and "collusion with imperialists".
The North Korean report goes on to detail a spectrum of insults to the
human spirit: detention centers described by defectors as "concentration
camps", routine denial of Fair Public Trials to political offenders, strictly
curtailed rights of freedom of expression and association, travel restrictions
(internal and external), and a total lack of worker's rights - most of the
population seems to exist in a state of servitude resembling slavery. In a
passage which would fit right into "1984", the report states "Citizens in all
age groups and occupations are subject to indoctrination designed to shape and
control individual consciousness. This effort is aimed at ensuring reverence
for Kim Il Sung and his family, as well as conformity to the State's ideology
and authority." About the only missing ingredient in this perverse life-
imitating-art tale of anguish and despair is the "Two-Minutes Hate".
On the other side of the 38th parallel, the Republic of Korea (South)
has taken several long strides toward reforming their nation. Last year,
the South Korean people inaugurated Kim Young Sam of the Democratic
Liberal Party as their President. According to the report, Kim, the first
civilian chief executive to take office in the last thirty years, has
"instituted sweeping political reforms to reduce corruption, further
institutionalize democracy, and improve human rights" during his first
year in office. These reforms are designed to curb, eliminate, or make
reparations for the previous administration's excesses and violations of
basic human rights. Aside from releasing hundreds of political prisoners,
the South Korean government has "mandated disclosure of financial and real
estate assets by government officials, first in March, and then in June
[of 93], the latter of which led to the resignation of many judicial
officials, including the Supreme Court Chief Justice, the Prosecutor General,
and the national police chief in September." The ensuing personnel shuffle
has replaced these draconian law-givers with individuals "generally
considered committed to the independence and integrity of the judiciary."
This shuffle has had immediate consequences: violent student unrest has
declined radically, political dissidents are being allowed to stage peaceful
protests (May Day march), and arrests for political crimes have decreased
dramatically (from 305 in 1992 to around 80 in '93). These developments
underscore the potential for rapid change in a society committed to the
erstwhile values represented by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Although the South Korean report paints a pretty rosy picture of
progress, it also points out an Achille's heel - the long-standing fear of
invasion or domination from the north supports certain sanctions against
travel across the border and free speech deemed "pro-North Korean" or
socialist. Given the North's recent escalation of the nuclear threat and
the continued cold-war style military stand-off, their fears and sanctions
seem reasonable.
In comparing the two Koreas, it's tempting to reduce the situation to
an archtypical face-off between socialism and capitalism. To some extent,
there are characteristics which lend themselves to that sort of analysis,
but the gory details presented in these reports bring the reality of
people's pain right into your face. The dispassionate tone of a government
document, with its statistics and legalistic language, usually allows me the
distance to gain some measure of "objectivity" - not so in this case. So far,
I've only read a handful of the more than two hundred reports released last
February ... and every one of them can pierce right into my soul.
For myself, awareness has been the first step toward attaining a
personal sense of "world citizenship". Becoming part of the larger community
of *humanity* carries with it certain responsibilities: acquiring personal
knowledge of and about the condition of your fellow man and woman, wherever
they may be; a desire to do what you can to improve the lives of individuals;
and finding the courage to *feel* the pain, the anguish, and the terrible
weight of the injustices we would rather not contemplate. It is our outrage,
our conscious refusal to accept the status quo, which fuels the collective
human drive toward moral evolution.
It's up to us, people. On the personal level, we can use our economic
power to boycott the products of repressive regimes, we can use our
power of the vote in democratic societies to support candidates who will
lean on other heads of state to bring their people the rights and
guarantees which are the birthright of all humans, and finally, we can
pledge our support to human rights groups like Amnesty International.
Start in your homes and bring the battle to the larger world.
Send letters, attend meetings, be loud, get nasty, whatever it takes -
don't let our silence support the despots.
I began this column talking about control - the obsessive drive for
it we all feel at some point, in some way, in our lives. For me, it's my
dog - I go a little nuts when my "training" fails (I never use violence,
tho', it simply confuses and scares animals - people too). As Don Quixote
discovered in his mythical forays into the "world-as-it-is" of medieval
Spain, individual control is illusory; it fails as an instrument for changing
the "world-as-it-should-be". It is the collective spirit and drive of a
people which ultimately brings change to a society - the days of the
benevolent dictator have passed. I, for one, do not mourn their passing.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."
- H.L. Mencken
][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][
To You, i Leave My Heart
To be the one that you love,
For this what would i do?
I would prove my love daily,
And show that i am true.
This poem, in itself,
Falls far short of the mark,
Of telling you the feelings
My heart has made me hark.
How then shall i inform you
Of the love i feel inside?
My shyness will not let me,
So i guess love will have to hide.
But though for now, and not forever
My love, for you, may be hiding,
These feelings in my heart,
Fore'er will be residing.
And if you find out who this is,
And say you can not love me,
I will say, only these words,
"If we are ne'er meant to be,
Than how can you hope to explain,
The joy and love i feel?"
Lest of course you do not believe,
Or doubt these things are real.
Until the day that i should die,
I will love you for my part.
But on that day you'll here these words,
"To you, i leave my heart."
/\_
KNYGHT 0#####|JM>=========================>
\/-
:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+
_____ ______
/xxxxx\ / \
|xxxxxxx| __________________________________________ / \_____ \
|xxxxxxx| \The Concern about Sports in the Nineties/ \ \/
\xxxxx/ \ / \~~~~~\/
~\_/~ \ by Stefan Manczur / ~~~~~~
|=| \__________________________________/
|=|
|=|
|=|
\0/
Spectators of most sports enjoy seeing their home team win. That
is hardly an unreasonable desire, but recent events have brought many people
to a fundamental question: Are the sports worth the hype?
The first international incidents involving sports were the world-
famous (or infamous) spectator brawls at World Cup soccer games. Fans would
literally fight supporters of the other team. Nothing was done. The stadium
fights of hockey are better than the fights on the ice. Nothing was done. Last
year, tennis superstar Monica Seles was assaulted by a fan of Steffi Graf to
ensure a victory for Ms. Graf. Legal charges were brought upon the assailant
and the security of tennis was improved, but nothing was done to demonstrate
the inappropriate behavior of the assailant. This year's Olympics were marred
with the now-famous Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan incident. Still, nothing was
done.
The values of sports have been changed to something grotesque. Win at all
costs. This sentiment is rooted down to the primary school level, winners are
better, regardless of the cost. Nobody cares about how you play the game
anymore, just that your team wins.
Who are the victims? The athletes are obviously unaffected, otherwise,
why would Charles Barkley inform the world that his only reason for going to
Barcelona, Spain, in 1990 was to win himself a gold? The fans still love the
competition, so they must have been spared the loss of sports integrity. How
about the children who look to superstars as role models? Yes, they suffer,
and they suffer for everyone.
Posing the problem is far easier than solving it. Do we expect sports
heroes to play honestly, with integrity, for the simple love of the game? How
unreasonable is that? What would be wrong with a sports union, like the labor
professions. Many people will argue that the true superstars deserve the
money, but why? A chimpanzee can be trained to put a ball in a hoop, and it
won't expect a great reward. A standard salary will reduce contract disputes,
and it would set the game to the basics, playing for the love of the game.
Those who love the game will play competatively regardless of the money they
earn. The best case in point is All-Pro NFL lineman Max Montoya. For years
he was paid far less than other members of his team, but he played with a
million-dollar intensity.
The salary idea is not to try to reduce athletes to paupers. They
can be paid a standard amount of the lower-middle class income with respect
to the area they live in. Obviously, an athlete in Iowa needs less annual
income than one in California, and it should be reflected in the salary
guidelines.
The most adamant against this idea are the athletes, as it could
amount to millions of dollars lost compared to the status quo. But the
winners would be the thousands of children and adults who can see a sports
event played by those who truly love the game.
That's far better than victory at all costs.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Computer-Mediated Communication
Part 1
By Steven Peterson
ICS is, by design, a 'zine devoted to providing our readers with a
distillation of the best or most interesting thoughts and ideas we come
across. In a sense, we (the humble staff and contributors) are using
technology to present symbolic information to you, our audience, in a
relatively new and different manner. Although we employ a traditional
sort of lay-out, what makes this enterprise unique is the delivery
mechanism (e-mail); it is an example of one of the forms of computer-
mediated communication (CMC) which now offer individuals, small groups,
and larger organizations new and different methods of channelling
information and routing communications.
Most forms of CMC utilize networked or multi-user programming;
this simple fact fundamentally alters the nature of small-group and
mass communications through shifting the focus of interaction from a
one-to-many to a many-to-many distribution architecture (within the
context of the machinery, at least). In this series of articles, I will
survey CMC related research conducted during the 80s and 90s which
examines human responses to this new technology and defines some of
the communication challenges it presents to all who use it.
The proliferation of computer networks and their growing use for
communicative purposes during the 1980s led Kiesler et. al., a research
group from Carnegie Mellon university, to investigate the social and
psychological issues CMC technology presented. Working with the existing
technologies (1984), the team identified five important social and
psychological aspects of CMC: time and information processing pressures,
absence of regulating feedback, dramaturgical weakness, few status and
position cues, and the potential depersonalizing effects of social
anonymity (Kiesler 1125). As many of you are no doubt aware, these five
aspects surface as either benefits or drawbacks to virtually every form
of CMC, depending on the context, the intended purpose, and the degree
of structure imposed by the specific format.
Kiesler's initial study (the first to use modern, fast terminals
and flexible conferencing and mail software) examined the impact of CMC
on group interaction and decision-making processes as compared to
traditional face-to-face methods. The study charted the efforts of
three-person groups to reach group consensus on choice-dilemma problems
in varied conditions: face-to-face conferencing, simultaneous computer
conferencing, anonymous simultaneous computer conferencing, and e-mail.
The first variable (or aspect), communication efficiency, identified
time-consuming information processing problems in the many-to-many
format of CMC. Kiesler noted "CMC groups took longer to reach consensus
than did face-to-face groups, and they exchanged fewer remarks in the
time allowed them" (1128). Apparently, the swift distribution of many
thoughts and ideas taxes the individual's capacity to sort information -
somewhat analogous to putting a two-barrel carburetor on a twelve-cylinder
engine - it fires, but not very efficiently.
At the individual level, attempting to deal with the combined outputs
of multiple listservs can become overwhelming in a hurry. Many of my
peers describe various methods of "editing" on-the-fly as they browse
through subject lines, describing the process as "crude, but effective".
Quite often, they confess to "unsubscribing" from one list or another
because they simply do not have time to sort through it all (a message
common in ICS unsub requests). This sort of all-or-nothing response to
the electronic "tower of babel" underscores the human need for context,
organization, and relevance.
To varying degrees, the other four social and psychological aspects
identified by Kiesler affect the efficiency and rate of participation in
CMC environments: the absense of regulating feedback is linked to an
increase in uninhibited verbal behavior ("flaming") and to a greater
rate in decision shifting; dramaturgical weakness (the lack of non-verbal
cues and reinforcement) seems to affect the decision-making process by
masking leadership cues (1129); the status and position cues evident in
face-to-face communication create an inequality of participation which
is reduced in CMC formats; and the social anonymity CMC offers can be
liberating or alienating, depending on the perspective of the individual
and the amount of "embedded structure" in the specific format (1130).
Despite the difficulties and drawbacks Kiesler's team identified,
they somewhat prophetically note the popularity of the medium and
predict "a more permanent effect [of CMC] might be the extension of
participation in group or organizational communication. This is
important because it implies more shared information, more equality of
influence, and, perhaps, a breakdown of social and organizational
barriers" (1131). This breakdown of barriers occasionally surfaces at
Western State (home to ICS); personally, I have exchanged some e-mail
with administrators and professors, and Western has an on-line advising
service which offers same-day e-mail responses to a wide variety of
questions. Although the technology may be in place, the barriers still
have not really fallen: the address may be widely available, but if the
receiver chooses to ignore all messages, no progress is possible (we all
may be aware of president@whitehouse.gov, but it's not quite the same as
getting a message into the man's hands).
Kiesler's ground breaking study provides an excellent base for a
comparative analysis of CMC research - the same social and psychological
aspects surface in many of the studies conducted over the last ten years.
As a reminder, I will lead off installments in this series with a "boxed
set" of the five central issues of CMC research:
______________________________________________________
| Five Aspects of computer-mediated communication (CMC)|
| 1) Time/Information processing pressures |
| 2) Absence of regulating feedback |
| 3) Dramaturgical weakness |
| 4) Few status/position cues |
| 5) Depersonalization of social anonymity |
------------------------------------------------------
As I examine research on electronic bulletin boards (EBBs), electronic
brainstorming programs (EBS), and group decision support software (GDSS)
in future installments, I invite you to e-mail your thoughts and
suggestions concerning possible solutions to the "big 5" to me at
Org_Zine@wsc.colorado.edu - please incorporate "CMC" into the subject
line. I will attempt to append a distillation of the most promising
solutions as something of a public service (guerrilla innovation?).
Part 2 will cover EBS research, so please send in your suggestions for
handling large numbers of ideas on a daily basis.
Work Cited
Kiesler, Sara, et.al. "Social Psychological Aspects of Computer-Mediated
Communication." *American Psychologist*. Vol.39,No.10,1984. 1123-1134.
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ICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICICS/~~~\
ICSICSICSICSICSICS/~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ICS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
\ INFORMATION COMMUNICATION SUPPLY /
~~~~~~~~~~~\ORG_ZINE/~~~~~~~~~~~~~ICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSI
~~~~~~~~ICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICSICS
An Electronic Magazine from Western State College Gunnison, Colorado.
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Information Communication Supply 4/21/94 Vol.1:Issue.9 Frag: 2
|\__________________________________________________/|
| \ / |
| \ T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S / |
| / \ |
| /________________________________________________\ |
|/ \|
| Included in the table of contents you will see some|
| generic symbols to help you in making your |
| decisions on whether an article is something that |
| may use ideas, and/or language that could be |
| offensive to some. S = Sexual Content |
| AL = Adult Language V = Violence O = Opinions |
|____________________________________________________|
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| 1) A Cautionary Note [O] ...........Steven Peterson|
| 2) What Is Mine ....................Clint Thompson |
| 3) Email Culture 2 [O]..............George Sibley |
| 4) Peak 9 ..........................Steven Peterson|
| 6) Shine ...........................Jason Manzcur |
| 7) Last Word [O]....................Steven Peterson|
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A Cautionary Note to Congress
By Steven Peterson
[Note: The Clipper chip is an integrated circuit the U.S. government
wishes to place in all computers, cellular phones, and cable t.v.
boxes. Its purpose is to allow our National Security Agency and other
law enforcement agencies to "tap" and decode our messages. Our leaders
are pushing the Clipper as an alternative to "PGP" and other robust
encryption programs. The "backdoor" feature designed into the program
creates a conflict between our right to privacy and the government's
desire to prevent criminals and terrorists from using the 'Net.]
The Clipper Chip is doomed to fail miserably ... for many reasons.
Our government's arrogance and ignorance shine through with a special
luminosity on this piece of legislation. One of the first laws of the
digital culture (if you can build it, we can hack it) will prevent the
chip from serving its intended purpose. No matter how brilliantly you may
design it, there are sixteen-year-old kids out there who *will* tear it
apart, figure it out, and subvert it for their own purposes. Simply for
the challenge it offers. The Clipper proposal makes as much sense as
building a state-of-the-art safe, sticking a million dollars in it, and
then putting it in a safe-cracker's living room. It will be broken, it's
just a matter of time. The underlying arrogance of the NSA and the designers
of this chip will prove to be their downfall; there is no way any team of
individuals can stay ahead of the collective abilities of an entire sub-
culture bent on maintaining its right to privacy.
The second law of the digital culture (if it can be established,
it can be subverted and/or compromised) will give the NSA more grief than
the first law. Anyone bent on using the National Information Infrastucture
(NII) for nefarious purposes is going to love the Clipper. Government
agencies are not the only organizations which understand the value of
dis-information. Anyone bright enough to use advanced tele-communications
is bright enough to send anyone listening in on wild goose chases around
the globe. Remote login and mirror commands will distract investigative
agents, embedded or multiple layers of encryption will confuse the issue,
and with 40 million plus users of e-mail, the sheer volume will prohibit
any systematic efforts to isolate criminal or terrorist messages.
The third law of the digital culture (knowledge cannot be suppressed)
points out the "pandora's box" problem of attempting to control encryption;
PGP and other encryption programs are already out there. The government
can prohibit, proscribe, and prosecute, but it cannot put the djinni
back in the bottle. Drawing battle-lines between the Constitution and
the NSA's misguided, foolish attempt to maintain its ability to snoop at
will only divides our nation and diverts everyone from the real issue -
how can we use this tool to improve the state and quality of human
civilization. Technology is rapidly changing the human condition;
wasting grotesque amounts of money trying to prevent any undesirable
elements from changing with it is as foolish as trying to stop the hands
of time.
I realize that we all must bow to the absurd from time to time;
however, the price tag on the Clipper folly is just too high to quietly
accept. Dissipating our time, money, and energy on a quixotic battle to
contain the uncontainable will only slow progress. The Clinton White
House and Congress must face the fact that the only way to achieve any
real control of digital communication will be to: a) dismantle the Internet;
b) confiscate all computers and modems (and the parts used to build them);
and c) transform our nation into a totalitarian state. No power on Earth
has managed to make that plan succeed (the first example that springs to
mind is the underground 'Net distribution of reports from Chinese students
during the Tianneman Square demonstrations). Indeed, no plan to grant a
government that sort of power deserves to succeed - it's an open insult
to the dignity and character of human beings.
Please feel free to re-distribute this note to all who are involved
in this debate. We must STOP and THINK before we set in motion any measure
such as Clipper which threatens to rend the fabric of our society.
Future generations of Americans will not forgive us for our ignorance
and short-sightedness on this issue. Act Now!
_____________________________________________________________________________
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WHAT IS MINE
By Clint Thompson
"It established the Commerce Department to
therefore and hitherto, etcetera,
etcetera,
etcetera..."
Sometimes I don't understand our world.
(Or the countries and people in it)
But when Our Flag is unfurled there is a small spot
in my heart that understands a courageous act.
Right now I wish that I could be somewhere else.
I mean besides this class,
Not on some other planet or anything.
(Even though the thought has crossed my mind)
I get tired of sitting on this hard wood chair with
it's hard wood back.
I get tired of hearing this nonsense of
"Expressed, Implied, and Inherent Powers"
POWER to me is wielded with a Silver Sword from astride
a White Horse.
Evil against me and thee.
I have never seen such an act outside of dreams.
(Dreams I paid four fifty to be)
"Please turn to page 358 for a list of the
Blah, blah, blah, yak, yak, yak..."
By now I have listed and catalogued my complaints in my mind,
I suppose I keep them for a day that will not come.
(That day I will tell the world how I really feel)
But then,
I think that maybe it isn't quite as bad as all that.
I mean,
Yesterday I held a sunrise,
Free of charge.
And when I finished the book I knew that light
still burned in my own eyes.
Clint Thompson --> ADP_CLINT@WSC.COLORADO.EDU
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EMAIL CULTURE 2: CREATING THE EMAIL ELITE
Email is a unique communication vehicle for a lot of reasons.
However email is not a substitute for direct interaction.
I comb my hair everytime before I send email
hoping to appear attractive. I try and use punctuation
in a friendly way also. I send :) and never :(.
--Bill Gates, email to writer
John Seabrook, THE NEW YORKER
In one of our earlier issues, one of the Western State writers working
on the 'zine expressed his own fascination with the net in particular and the
emerging electronic culture in general:
A computer screen and a connection to the world become the greatest
equalizing force I have ever known. Once you sit down and enter
Cyberspace, there are no longer any judgments; there is no race,
no creed, no gender.
. . . You are defined simply by how much you know and how you choose
to use that knowledge.
I found that very appealing at the time, but have been thinking about it
a lot since--trying to figure out to what extent I really believe, and to what
I extent I just wish I did.
It is true enough that the email culture is color-blind and gender-blind.
Nobody knows anything about you that you don't tell them. The flip side of
that, of course, is the extent to which e-mail culture can become color-and-
gender fantasyland: it is hard to check up on what anyone tells you about
themselves. Most of the stories relevant to this point going around the
computer sweatshops at the college are gender-related: either about an
"e-romance" that turned out be an "all-users" kind of a mass mailing to a
stable of potential significant others, or an electronic cross-dresser
pulling a Tootsie on someone of the same gender. In cyberspace, the
distinctions between "sex" and "gender" either take on a new significance
or lose significance. Observations and experience on this would be appreciated
here.
The racial implications of the flip side are even more interesting.
While I haven't heard the possibility verified in practice, I've been
cogitating a story--one of the ones I'll never get around to writing, and
so hereby release to anybody with the time and interest: the story is about
a racist-fascist-fanatic who "fishes the nets," pretending to be a radical of
whatever race he happens to hate the most, just to see who he can uncover.
In my favorite version, a KuKluxer type gets his virtual rocks off by starting
a black supremacist EBB full of a virulent anti-white invective, and hunting
down any hapless blacks who respond. The denouement comes when he finds himself
stalking another "cyberracist" like himself, who is in fact stalking him. . . .
Do your own ending.
Such thoughts, however, engender meditations on what happens to
communication when it is reduced entirely to a message--when, for the
recipient, the messenger can only be inferred from the message, and vice-
versa. John Seabrook explored this phenomenon at some length in his recent
NEW YORKER essay on Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whom he did not meet in
person, face to face, until several weeks after communicating with him via
e-mail. His reflections on the differences are worth perusing on your own.
E-mail, of course, does not introduce this situation; it is as old as
writing. But it does bring it to a global extreme that probably warrants
consideration. Human culture depends absolutely on human communication, and
all communication occurs through expressions in a variety of "languages."
The word "language" itself derives from the Latin word for "tongue" (lingua),
and originally referred just to "the body of words and systems for their
use, common to a people who are of the same community or nation, geographic
area, or cultural tradition" (Webster).
Through time and usage, however, the meaning of the word broadened
(or deteriorated, if you prefer) to mean "communication of meaning in any
way"--any set of consensual agreements in the cultural group on what certain
movements, looks, touches, and the like mean, as well as sounds or symbolized
sounds. "Language" is thus "body language," "eye language," eyebrow language,"
and any number of other more or less formalized ways we have of communicating
meaning without having to say or write anything.
Even if you don't accept "body language" or "eye language" as true
"languages," you cannot deny that when we make the spoken word the centerpiece,
so to speak, in a direct person-to-person communication, we consciously or
unconsciously augment the tongue with a host of body movements, eye movements,
vocal inflections, and other ways of communicating meaning. What we are wearing
while speaking communicates meaning, as does the platform from which we speak
(above the audience behind a podium, beneath the audience in a chair, beside
the audience in bed, etc.).
And all of this takes place in a atmosphere of (usually) silent but
constant feedback from the recipient-audience that also communicates meaning--
the glazed look we professors see in the eyes of students (which is why some
professors never look up while professing), the intensely interested look
which can sometimes inspire elucidation far beyond our previous development
of any idea, the look of irritation or anger that causes us to modify or
temper our speech, and maybe our body language. Seabrook found disconcerting
Gates' tendency to rock back and forth in his chair during conversation.
Others have observed at great length that all of the technological
"extensions" of human communication have, in one way or another, limited the
richness and diversity of communication found in the person-to-person exchange.
The telephone eliminates all communication but the spoken word; radio and tele-
vision are generally used in ways that eliminate any two-way communication.
But no form is "barer" in this sense than the first "technological
extension" of communication: written language. Even the voice is eliminated;
what you see before you is nothing but abstract markings, symbols animated
only be whatever empathetic vibes I, the writer, can awaken in you, the reader,
out of our common backgrounds of affective and cognitive experience. That it
works at all is no small part of the miracle of the human mind. That it works
so magnificently so much of the time for serious readers is a phenomenon that
may deserve more attention than we give it.
For example--children who live with books before they come to live
with television are initially disappointed with television: the jumpy little
pictures on the tube cannot come close to matching the pictures invoked in
their minds by symbols on paper. But it may be only a paradigmatic bias that
makes us assume this makes television inferior to reading. Aren't those
magnificent imaginings a little . . . addictive? They certainly were for me,
as a pre-TV person. And aren't they a kind of a deliberate manipulation of
the mind--a partial deprivation of the mind's usual sensory inputs to induce
a kind of artificial stimulation? Would it alter our cultural and educational
perspectives any, if "nine doctors out of ten" agreed that reading is a
potentially dangerous adventuring in "guided sensory deprivation for the
purpose of inducing hallucinations"? ("It's midnight and your child is in
bed with a book. . . . Do you know where she is?")
Well. But coming back to the original student comment that inspired this
exploration--I am less and less convinced of the egalitarian quality of the
nets. Anyone who has had the experience of trying to teach writing at any
educational level from elementary school to college knows what an elite is
created by any medium that only transmits written language. As a writing
teacher, I am no longer susceptible to the democratic fiction that, if only
the schools were better, we could all become truly literate. When it comes to
the practice of written language, we are not all created equal. We might as
well say that, if the gym teachers would all only do their job, we could all
be NFL quarterbacks.
To say that we can all learn "competency" in literacy only begs the
question in a sense. We can all learn to throw well enough to play ball with
the dog and get most of our trash in the wastebasket. But taking that kind of
"competency" into a cultural arena designed by and scaled to NFL standards
hardly puts one on a level playing field.
Nevertheless, that is what the really literate people--call us the
"ultraliterate"--have, consciously or unconsciously, attempted to impose on
our cultures through the education system. We expect people who barely read,
and who will never really enjoy it, to be intelligent on paper about
Shakespeare--and not real Shakespeare but "read Shakespeare." These are
not necessarily stupid people; they are just aliterate people--probably
something well over half of any given human population at this point in our
evolution. (And on the other hand, there are some truly stupid, insensitive
people for whom literacy is easy--quite a few of them seem to end up in
English Lit Departments. Who can figure?)
In the essay--that faring-forth into idea, that attempting, the essay--
we can see what happens to communication when the ultraliterate take over a
culture with print media like magazines, newspapers, and email (an attempt to
wrest back the tube?). Prior to around the middle of the 19th century, most
essayists wrote out of an awareness of--and probably substantial experience
in--an oral culture: they wrote as if they were giving a speech to an audience
they couldn't quite see but of which they still had to take account. Which is
to say, more specifically, they were making a presentation as if someone might
suddenly challenge them on a point, maybe with an old vegetable.
But after the turn of that century, after the burgeoning of the new
"mass media," when print became as cheap as trees, we can see that "orational
essay" begin to be replaced by the "journalistic essay": an unloading of
literary broadswords, rapiers, daggers, needles and other cutting instruments
with which the speaker "spoke," not as a target up in front of a possibly
armed multitude, but as a shielded "weapon" himself, firing from behind a
battery of increasingly expensive equipment, invulnerable to rotten vegetables,
and able to both select and have the last word with responses from the
audience. The mass print media made the audience a passive nonforce rather
than an active participant in communication--an entity to be seduced rather
than approached, "dealt with" rather than engaged. If it sounds like I am
saying that the print media have led to an increasingly uncivil discourse in
the one-way transmissions that pass for communication in modern society--
I guess that is in fact what I am saying.
Television cannot, however, be at all considered a way of restoring
civility (or true communication) to communication--it just adapts for an
oral elite the strategies that worked for the literate elite, in turning
communication into a one-way tool for manipulating people. If it is more
successful, it is only because more people are reachable through oral, as
opposed to literate, approaches. But television learned its strategies from
the newspaper, not from the theatre--which like the oration, was, is, a two-
way interactive process of communication. The hard truths behind the
observation that "we allow freedom of the media to anyone who can afford one"
makes a mockery of the concept of communication in a market economy.
In one sense, e-mail culture does begin to be a step back toward a
truer form of communication: everyone on the nets is more or less equally
accessible; as soon as you put your thoughts out there with an electronic
address, you set yourself up for a splat by the virtual vegetable. We will
see whether this will tend to restore a more "oral" civility to written
discourse.
Whether the medium changes the nature of the messages or not, however,
it is important to recognize that it is a medium of communication among a
privileged elite: an elite because it selects for literacy, and privileged
because of the access, which is still pretty much limited by participation in
certain economic and political institutions.
Just based on the part of the population it draws from, the nature of
the discourse one encounters, and the fascination with gaming and role-playing
evident in the college computer sweatshops turning out the next generation of
emailers, I would predict that the "email elite" will probably evolve into a
class somewhat like the samurai of feudal Japan: a potentially dangerous
warrior class that has been neutralized by elaborate behavior codes, privilege,
and a generous access to the leavings and scraps from the real powers.
The nets will keep most of us ultraliterati docile and happy, consciously or
unconsciously directing our work-energy toward maintaining the status quo that
maintains the net that "nets" us all.
--George Sibley
fac_sibley@wsc.colo.edu
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Peak 9
By Steven Peterson
The storm had moved in, transforming the mountain into a shrouded,
quiet place. On the other side of the gate, the seclusion of the forest
extended its familiar, silent invitation. The hike out took me away from
the ski runs and humanity, enveloping me in the cool comfort of a solitary
relationship with nature. In a spiritual sense, I have always found it
easy to attain a measure of serenity on the side of a mountain. As the
isolation and sense of control swept over my soul, I kept my head down
and marched through the blizzard. Once the noise of the lifts and the
crowds had faded into the distance, I stopped to enjoy the odd juxta-
position of my inner peace and the exterior chaos of the storm.
The easy tranquility of my sojourn shattered as the soft, white,
drifting snow accepted my entrance with an ominous fracturing sound.
The wind-packed slab lining the high alpine chute broke and began its
deadly dance with gravity down the side of the mountain, taking me along
as an unwilling partner. From the moment my feet shot out from under me,
time stood still in the same awful way it does in a violent car accident.
I instinctively recoiled my legs and pulled my feet back under me as the
first suitcase-sized block of snow hit me in the back - everything was
in motion, and I realized I couldn't just ride it out.
Without looking back, I rolled my hips and set my edges for all I
was worth. The motion of the snow beneath and behind me grabbed my skis
and propelled me toward the side of the chute like a sailboat tacking into
the wind. It felt like the hand of God was throwing me toward the scraggly
little trees separating the funnel shaped couloirs. Never one to look a gift
miracle in the mouth, I clutched on to the first branch that came within
reach, stepped into the lee of a drift, and watched the chunky river of snow
accelerate and grind its way down and down.
I stood there, holding that branch, for a long while. Pins and needles
were stabbing my face, my heart was hammering away, and I suddenly felt mortal
for the first time in my life. Very mortal ... and insignificant. My illusory
sense of control over the environment had been snatched away in an instant,
forcing me to confront the vast indifference of the physical forces which
shape and define our brief existence on this world. Death was not only
possible, but real. The tidal force of this revelation washed away the petty
conceits and frustrations I had begun the day with; each moment on the side of
that mountain suddenly felt precious - I could no longer view life through
the same old lens.
I also could not remain where I was, clinging to a branch between two
likely avalanche paths. The storm was beginning to lift a little, and the
awful privacy of my predicament would not last. Once the patrollers caught
sight of the football-field sized hole in the snow, all hell would break loose.
I had to tell them what I had done, that there were no victims trapped, before
they called out the search and rescue teams. Letting go of my fear, I descended
and began the long trek across the valley back to the lift.
* * *
Adrenaline, guilt, and anxiety propelled me toward the lift in a confusing
rush of emotions. Although I could command my body to move with precision,
I felt numb. The pins and needles were no longer stabbing my face, but I could
only see the tears falling against the lens of my goggles. The raw animal joy
of survival collided with a sweaty fear of reprisal as the lift carried me
toward the patrol hut. I condemned myself for committing a titanic act of
vandalism: voluntarily defacing the pristine wilderness out of purely
hedonistic motives. The storm had only lifted for a moment, and I convinced
myself that nobody had spotted my handiwork yet.
As I kicked my skis off outside the hut, I tried to frame what I had
done in Meaningful Terms for the authorities. Taking a deep breath, I opened
the door.
Three patrolmen in various states of undress paused in their conversation
and sized me up. One of them asked, "Help ya?"
I stood for a moment in the warm, humid air, listening to the crackle of
the radio and trying to gain some measure of control over my breathing.
Finally, I managed to croak out, "Um, yeah, I have to report a slide across
the valley."
The patrolman who had spoken to me responded with a frown, glancing over
at his buddy. On the ride up the lift, I had imagined many possible reactions,
but disbelief wasn't one of them. The patrolman's buddy looked over at me,
smiled, and said "Oh, really, where?"
I looked down at my boots, gulped some air, and replied "The middle chute,
across the valley, out of bounds on Peak 9." The trembling of my voice and the
specificity of the claim got everyone's immediate attention - all motion in
the room stopped. The radio's chatter punctuated the sudden silence; all eyes
focused on me as I continued, "I was alone, no one was hurt, don't send anyone
up there."
In the moment before they reacted, I stood there, feeling the naked
helplessness of the confessor. The implicit foolishness of my act made it
sound like a botched suicide attempt.
I flinched, and the dam broke. The patrolwoman standing in the corner
reached for her radio. The two seated patrolmen bolted out of their chairs and
raced to the window, vainly attempting to visually verify my claim. Yet another
patrolman emerged from the office in back and walked over to face me as I
slumped into the chair next to the door.
The patrolwoman in the corner stared at me as she spoke into her radio:
"PHQ, this is Timberline ... I have a report of a slide in the Valley Brook
chutes. The witness states there are no victims, repeat, all clear, do not
investigate."
The sharp tone of her voice contained an accusation. The patrolman from
the office, obviously a supervisor, leaned over toward me and asked "Just what
were you doing up there, anyway?"
"Exploring."
"Almost got the ride of a lifetime, huh?"
"I knew better, it was stupid."
"Yeah, we all know better."
With that, he rose and left for the office. The other two patrolmen
pointedly ignored me; the patrolwoman with the radio stared at me with
open contempt. No Absolution Here.
* * *
I left the hut and returned to the storm-world enveloping the mountain.
The meager heat of Timberline station had failed to bring any sensation to my
face; the pelting snow could not penetrate the novocaine numbness produced by
the latent shock value of my experience.
As I beat the snow from my boots and stepped back into my bindings,
all I could think about was warmth; human warmth, the kind that can house
a soul in the sanctuary of kinship and camaraderie. I set off down the most
direct route to the base of the mountain, in search of a sympathetic ear,
hoping to east the burden of my terror.
Walking into the bar, boots unbuckled, I threaded my way through the
crowd of tourists and claimed a stool. Shaking badly, I flagged down Ray,
the bartender, and ordered a double whiskey rocks.
Sensing my distress, Ray asked, "What's wrong, man ... you don't look
so good."
"Think I just beat million-to-one odds. I triggered a slide up on 9."
My lips had that just-from-the-dentist deadness that makes you sound like
Elmer Fudd. I think I lost him with "twiggewed."
"Say what?"
I wiped my face, trying to massage some blood to the surface, and repeated
myself.
Ray looked at me and said "Wow, how big was it?"
"Big, real big."
"Glad you made it out," Ray began, "but what in hell were you thinking?"
He continued, "People die that way. Every year. And I'm one of the stiffs
who has to go dig 'em up."
Ray was on the local Search and Rescue team. He also had a peculiar sense
of humor.
"I'm tellin' you man, it's an ugly way to die ... them frozen faces are
never smilin'."
I thought about my own frozen face, how far I had pushed my luck, and the
fragile balance required to keep body and soul in one piece.
Ray's rebuke sent me to my drink for the mute solace it offered. Every sip
flooded my rib cage with the false heat that alcohol provides. For a while,
I reflected on the randomness of life, the arbitrary happening of events, and
the unlikely circuits which bring us together as we wage our individual
struggles.
After a while, the adrenaline faded, and I regained enough composure to
make the voyage home. Gradually, I felt a state of emotional equilibrium
return as I rode the bus down-valley with a happy crowd of tourists.
Their boisterous voices and raucous laughter brought me out of my reverie;
I thought I could return to my normal life without showing any scars from my
experience.
* * *
As I huddled in my cold, lonely bed that night, I felt a need to reflect
on my past: childhood memories, adolescent battles, recent brushes with love.
The brightest common thread running through the fabric of my existence was an
obsessive need to control my environment. My arrogance in the snow that day
brought me the wisdom to recognize the vain futility of my machinations.
As I drifted off, visions of snow and the silent majesty of a mountain couloir
flashed across my mind.
They lie when they say your life flashes before your eyes. It reels out
slowly, allowing you to recall and relive all the polite fictions and glorious
realities which give form to your substance.
The snow is crushing me, and I cannot breathe.
* * *
Dedicated to the memories of Nick, Paul, Martin, and Alex - four young souls
who didn't make it down from Peak 7 on February 18, 1987.
Rest well, friends.
Copyright (c) 1994 by Steven Peterson
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SHINE
When do the stars shine
Just for me to see?
When I look into your eyes
And you look back at me.
When it comes to a bright glow,
And this is true;
The rays of the sun
Have nothing on you.
My love for you
Makes the stars shine
Your voice and eyes
And lips are divine.
Heav'n could not give
Me a better gift.
If I could,
I'd open a rift,
In space and in time,
That we could be
Forever together,
Just you and me.
But since I can not,
Let me just say;
"I will always
Love you anyway."
And you should know,
I will forever.
And all storms,
Our love can weather.
KNYGHT
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Last Word
By Steven Peterson
It's the half-way mark of the semester for the humble staff of ICS.
As we move through the semester, producing the 'zine offers us a chance to
express ourselves and explore the possibilities of communication without
direct interference or surveillance from any agency. We like that.
So... I have a vested interest in seeing the Clipper legislation voted
down. And I'd like to you to join in the battle ... if you're interested,
take a few minutes and send an e-mail message with "I oppose Clipper" in
the body to "clipper.petition@cpsr.org" (U.S. citizens, only). The cpsr
stands for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. If you
would like more information about their organization (and maybe become a
member) send a request for info to "cpsr.info@cpsr.org".
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is also opposing this legislation,
for more info, e-mail "membership@eff.org". For true over-kill, WIRED
magazine has an entire Clipper Archive you can access by sending the
message "get index" to "infobot@wired.com".
Moving on ... Sibley offers much food for thought in his essay.
Once again, I find myself wondering if the so-called powers that be are
attempting to contain or confine me (Samurai iconoclast?). Can the "power"
of the written word be sheathed, despite efforts to "turn" the steel of my
thoughts in the forge of public dissemination? Hmm ....
In the next issue, I will return with yet another installment of "New
Prejudices" (Stop me before I spam again ... ), the second part of the
CMC series (send in suggestions/response), and the rest of the staff
will check in with poetry, maybe some stories, and we'll see what else.
Until then, live well .....
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