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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
Email To: ORG_ZINE@WSC.COLORADO.EDU
_________________________________________
/=========================================\
| "Art helps us accept the human condition; |
| technology changes it." |
\ - D.B. Smith /
\*************************************/
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
Information*Communication*Supply ElectroZine Staff, 93-94:
Daniel Frederick; Russell Hutchison; Benjamin Price; Luke Miller;
Donald Sanders; Matthew Thyer; Deva Winblood; Ted Sanders; Jeremy Bek;
Jeremy Greene; Clint Thompson; Steven Peterson; Jason Manczur;
Stephan Manzcur; and, [ICS Test Pilot] David Trosty.
Faculty Advisor: George Sibley
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 / |
| /________________________________________________\ |
|------------------------------------------------------------------|
| BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4|
| |
| Three Years Later -=- By George Sibley: Introductory essay |
| from the ICS Faculty Advisor and Drum Major. |
| |
| E S S A Y S : |
| |
| The Friend I Never Met -=- By Bob Wilson: |
| Notes On Electronic Faith |
| |
| Email Culture -=- By George Sibley: |
| Part 1 - The Subversive Sweatshop |
| Part 2 - Creating the Email Elite |
| |
| New Prejudices -=- By Steven Peterson: |
| On Human Rights and Intercultural Citizenship |
| |
| Cyberspace: Gibsonian Mythology -=- By Deva Winblood: |
| On Virtual (and other) Computer Realities |
| |
| N O N - F I C T I O N : |
| |
| Russian Scientists Seek Net Connections -=- By George Sibley |
| |
| Building A School Without Buildings -=- By Ken Blystone: |
| On The Academy Virtual School of El Paso, Texas |
| |
| Computer-Mediated Communication -=- By Steven Peterson: |
| Part 1 of a series; a social-psychological approach |
| |
| WorldNet Tour Guide -=- By Staff: Digital Freedom Network |
| |
| P O E M S : |
| |
| Two Poems -=- Heather Eliot |
| The Map -=- Gayle Allenback |
| Several Poems -=- Heather Eliot |
| 2 (of 6) Poems -=- Stewart Carrington |
| i wish i could write -=- Clint Thompson |
| Women -=- JamiJo Tobey |
| Eyes Of Love -=- Jason Manczur |
| Walking Alone ... -=- Bob Wilson |
| What Is Mine -=- Clint Thompson |
| Introverted Psyche -=- Damian Riddle |
| Enclave (3 Poems) -=- David Trosty |
| Unneeded Technology -=- Andrew DeSplinter |
| The Fate of Ethnic Diversity -=- David Trosty |
| |
| A P A I R O F P A R A B L E S : |
| |
| Impure Mathematics -=- Rodrigo de Almeida Siqueria: |
| Adventures of young Polly Nomial |
| |
| An Eagle Speaks On Evolution -=- George Sibley |
| |
| S H O R T S T O R I E S : |
| |
| Martin Safari -=- H.G. Emert |
| Rush -=- Daniel Frederick: Voted "Most Twisted" |
| Eye Opener -=- Russell Hutchison |
| The Man In The Ice -=- Mark T. McMeans |
| Profit Margin -=- Steven Peterson |
| |
|------------------------------------------------------------------|
THREE YEARS LATER
Three years ago, when four students here at Western asked me to be
faculty sponsor for an "electronic magazine," I had no idea what they were
talking about.
I was not, in fact, at that point really even aware of what the
"Internet" was. But such ignorance was excusable three years ago, and that
is a measure of just how fast things move these days. Within a year of that
first encounter, all of the popular magazines working the shadow-zone between
trendsetting and trendfollowing had carried cover stories about the 'net, and
terms like "information superhighway" had become part of the erosion of
meaningful language.
After some discussion with the students, I agreed to be the front man
(locally known as "faculty advisor") for their idea, to the extent that I
understood it, but only with a kind of a *quid pro quo* arrangement: I would
provide instruction, advice and criticism as needed on the journalistic and
literary aspects of the publication, so long as they would practice on me
the job of cultural education that would need to be done to make the idea of
an electronic magazine engaging to a largely unsuspecting society.
My "advisory" capacity, in other words, would be fulfilled in large part
through my critique and evaluation of their efforts to educate me, as a
typical enough know-nothing in the technoelectronic society. So, rather
than saddling myself with a co-curricular responsibility--the impossible task
of trying to get not just caught up with them, but far enough ahead to be
their teacher--I was allowing them to saddle themselves with the 21st
century's equivalent to the 15th century skeptical peasant. I'm not sure
about the pedagogical ethicality there, but at least we all went into it
with our eyes open.
At the three-year mark, I will say that I have undoubtedly benefitted
more than they have from the relationship. I will confess that I am still
pretty much of an "inneterate"--that's a word I just invented for "net
illiterate." This is not their fault at all; due to a host of prior
commitments, I simply haven't had the time necessary to sit down at the
screen and learn to negotiate cyberspace. I'm still stuck in whatever is
the opposite, or predecessor, of "virtual reality." I'll never have time
enough to read through my ever-expanding list of user-friendly books--and
I need a few BBSs on top of that? I can send email, but I can't organize
my email any better than I can organize my desk, which I only try to do
when I have to move my office.
But how have I benefitted? First, some good reading, not just from
here but from all over the place, and a few email exchanges that would
probably grow if I had time to water them with a little attention.
But mostly, my benefit has been through the association with the guys
doing the magazine. Yes, only guys so far: we've had a couple of
submissions from women, but--except for one femme fatale who was the
boyfriend of one of our writers (who ended up losing his account when
he took the rap for an electroscam she pulled in the lab)--otherwise
it has been an all-male show.
Two of the 'zines leaders stand out--each in his own way a kind
of incipient mental force in the organizing stage:
-- Deva Winblood, the man who--more than any other, put the college on
the 'net: not because he had any power or authority, but because he just
KNEW about it, and talked about it until things happened, then wrote the
first program that made it easily accessible to novices. He also wrote
the program that mails the 'zine, and if it ever crashes, we will have to
track him down. Deva was a lousy student in the standard sense of the term--
I'm still carrying an incomplete for a classroom course he took with me.
But in addition to writing esoteric programs, he wrote--presumably still
writes--esoteric stories, "Tales of the Unknown." He also began the
"Worldnet Tourguide" series that continues to be one of the most
valuable features of the 'zine.
-- Steve Peterson, the second and current managing editor. Steve is an
English major with one of the sharpest and most challenging minds I've ever
encountered. With a little help from Deva initially, he had managed to
teach himself to negotiate the 'net; he recently assembled Deva's old
"Tourguides" with what he has learned himself into a manual which (except
for his unfortunate refusal to leave spaces between paragraphs) is an
excellent guide for getting into cyberspace. Like Deva, he also writes
"creatively"--short stories, essays and the start of a play.
There are others. Matt Thyer, who was spokesperson for the initial
crew that approached me, who hardly ever wrote anything for the 'zine,
but who kind of ran around in the computer sweatshop being a zany muse
for everyone else. Dave Trosty, a Dionysian poet learning to negotiate
the Apollonian grids of the 'net. Ben Price and Dan Frederick, who briefly
but brilliantly passed through both the 'zine and the college: both what
the dominant culture would be better justified in calling dropouts if the
culture had ever figured out how to get them to drop in in the first place.
All of these guys seem to me to working through their own responses
to the "two cultures problem" described by C.P. Snow 35 years ago--the
growing division between the traditional "literary humanistic" perspective
with its mytho-tragic undertones, and the upstart "scientific humanistic"
perspective with its "can-do" optimism. They all like to write, but they're
as likely to reading SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN as HARPER'S (when they descend to
paper at all)--or most likely of all: reading WIRED. But they are even
more likely to be pulling in this or that from some FTP site, or practicing
their scales with someone on a BBS. They are already the interdisciplinary,
or metadisciplinary, scholars we're trying to figure out how to "produce"
here--and they do it all without much help from us. In fact, they avoid
the traditional classroom as much as they can.
Those associations are what I have gained, working with this publication
--arguably, at this point, under Peterson's disciplined eye, the most literate
and literary thing now coming off this campus in a regular way.
Over the past three years, I have from time to time used the 'zine to
express some concerns about the future of the 'net, which currently seems
to be in a "golden age" of ripe, jungly redundancy and splendid inefficiency,
with a lot of little users more or less subsidized by the big users who built
the thing in the first place (mostly with public money, of course).
A publication like Western's 'zine is pretty dependent on this kind
of "subsidization"--which is essentially the same kind of democratic
subsidization we generate for our highway system, as opposed to the
oligarchic subsidization to the powerful that we provided for the builders
of the railroads a century and a half ago. Given the current political
climate, I fear that choices will be made over the next few years that
will gradually "organize" the 'net in ways that will make it yet another
tool for the privileged and powerful for maintaining and increasing
privilege and power. Instead of an "information superhighway," in
other words, just another "information railroading."
But that's another editorial, which I've already written. I'll close
now with the hope that the medium continues to prove compatible with the
hopes and efforts of people like Deva Winblood, Steve Peterson, Dave Trosty,
and the others who see in it a different kind of "greening" for American
culture than just another infestation of the "long green" about which the
culture has become so obsessive. And a further hope: that these guys
can find a faculty advisor who will always be a little out of front of
them, rather than struggling as I always am just to keep up.
Read on: our bark, so to speak, gets better by the byte.
-- George Sibley
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
The Friend I Never Met - Notes On Electronic Faith
By Bob Wilson
I'm one of those people who has always had a hard time making friends.
Oh yeah, I'm out and about, social and friendly enough, and I know (am
acquainted with) quite a few people. But there are very few that I trust
enough to touch my soul, allowing them to see the person behind the mask.
Yet, what has most surprised me of late is the number of friends, real
friends, I have made on the Internet. I'm absolutely amazed by how quickly
I came to trust someone I had never physically seen, touched, or spoken to.
Given the ever-increasing traffic on the global networks, I don't think
I'm alone in this discovery.
When I subscribed to my first electronic discussion group, I had no idea
what would be involved - what my or anyone elses level of participation would
be. I remember thinking, "Well, I'll just sit quietly over here on the fringe
and read what these folks are writing about." My hesitancy to become involved
was due to a lack of trust; I didn't trust the global blackbox called Internet,
and I didn't initially trust the content of the messages flashing across my
screen. The idea that I would have a personal exchange never occurred to me.
I expected clinical opinion -- lists of lists -- dry discourse -- data.
That is not what I got.
What I found instead was absolutely wonderful! Here was the whole
human experiment being played out on my desk. I sank into pools of language,
expression, wit, and thought. The logical arguments offered were stark and
beautiful, like Euclid's Postulates, while the illogical drew circles in the
clouds and called them cowboys. Every morning my terminal spewed out blips of
new ideas and numbing doubts, snobbish aloofness and secured acceptance,
unremitting rage and unplumbed patience. I was allowed to read the thoughts,
written just the night before, of someone who lives in Austria or Brazil or
Finland. I had no idea what these folks looked like, what they sounded like,
what economic level they enjoyed, what skin color they were. But none of that
mattered; what mattered was that they wanted to share their ideas with me.
Once involved in some of the discussions, I was drawn to those sub-
scribers who had a better gift for the English language than I. Language
skills are a lot like music skills or math skills, some people are better
endowed with the gift than others. I wanted to be like them. I coveted
their command of language, their ability to deftly paint pictures in the
mind's eye using nothing but an ASCII text file. I also coveted their ability
to approach a problem or idea from more than just one direction at a time.
They consistently attacked or supported ideas from completely unanticipated
directions. Although most of the time they came up with junk, there were
also times that they hit on something really new and exciting. I learned
that nothing was more delicious than a fresh, juicy idea marinated, broiled,
and served in a sauce of humor - and that the quality of the dish reflected
the skill of the chef.
Although it served for introductions, electronic friendships weren't
built through a listserver discussion group. It required a one-to-one
contact. I had to shove aside that universal fear of rejection, knock on
private electronic doors, introduce myself, and be invited in for tea.
The usual reaction to my gentle tapping was typically, "Yes, what do you
want?".
I remember feeling awkward and intrusive. I wanted to go to great
lengths to explain that I really didn't want any money from them and that
I wasn't trying to sell life insurance on the Internet. I finally just said
"Hello - I liked what you wrote the other day. Where did that idea come
from?". For some people, that's all the encouragement they needed. They
poured themselves out like water from an artesian well.
Making and keeping electronic friends requires all of the same elements
as personal friendships, but in somewhat amplified form. A primary element
is honesty. Your words, opinions, and ideas HAVE to be honest to a fault -
you can't lie and expect to keep your friend. With nothing else to support it,
an electronic friendship is built on words and a fragile thread of trust that
binds them. The smallest lie, discovered, snaps it.
The second element is permission. If I send my friend a note about my
faith or family or whatever, I also convey my permission for him/her to
comment upon it, whatever they think about it. An electronic friendship
cannot withstand the strain of a detonated emotional word-trap laid at the
door. If you don't want comment on a topic, don't throw it out there.
As in cards, if it hits the table face up, it's played.
Keep it private. An electronic friendship is a pact, a covenant of
privacy between two human souls. It is strange to get email discussing
marriages, relationships, money, job security, etc., from persons you have
never physically met. To get such mail at all is an extreme statment of
faith. If you betray the privacy of your friends, the voice in the back of
your mind begins to wonder aloud if your friends may likewise betray you.
And then there is that nagging remembrance that Email files are, at least
occasionally, archived.
I prefer the term "grace" to define the final element necessary for
electronic friendships. It means to demonstrate patience, acceptance,
compassion, understanding, and empathy. Your friend is just as human as
you are, with all the fears and failings you have. You won't have answers
to all their questions and you won't necessarily be in a position to help
them. You can disagree with them without dishonoring them. You may be
able to help them in ways that no one else can, but it will require a
certain quality of grace to do so.
Here's to a long and fruitful life - and a few good friends.
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
EMAIL CULTURE, PART 1: THE SUBVERSIVE SWEATSHOP
By George Sibley, 'Zine Advisor and Cheerleader
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 in John Seabrook's
"E-mail from Bill," NEW YORKER 1/10/94
A recent explosion in email use here at Western State College for
in-house communications has me pondering again--as is appropriate for
journalism faculty--the relationship between culture and communication.
Until just this past fall, most intracollege communication here was
via the paper trail and/or the phone; now, suddenly, everybody seems to be
on the net, locally at least; and rather than taking the usual wad of brown
envelopes from my mailbox back to the office to read, where I am usually
interrupted often by the phone, I have to try to reorganize my time to sit
down at least once a day in front of a screen to read and answer email.
This is immediately a new and slightly disorienting cultural experience
for me in a totally unexpected way. Being a pretty low-ranking person here,
I have an old Ford Pinto of a PC in my office but do not yet warrant a VAX
port, so I have to go find an open terminal somewhere else on campus in order
to stay even close to the loop, let alone be in it.
There is a "Faculty Computing Room" on campus for even lower ranking
faculty members than I who don't even warrant the Ford Pinto model of PC.
But there is one faculty person who is apparently writing a book on that
terminal, as he is almost always there. So it is usually easier just to
slip into one of the student computer "labs" to read and answer my mail--
if there is a terminal open there. That's where I am now, as I input
these observations.
This process alone--finding an open terminal and then working at it in
a computer lab--has awakened me to an awareness of how sheltered my life has
been to this point. I now recognize what it has meant to grow up in a middle
class that is unconsciously obsessive about privacy. I didn't have a car when
I went to college in 1959, which marks me I guess as "lower middle class," but
I did have a typewriter, which gave me access to that which I have always taken
totally for granted: a "private place" for "thinking on paper."
Accordingly, it is something of a culture shock to go into the sweatshop
environment of a student computer lab, where everyone works elbow-to-elbow in
long ranks of machines. Every college writing teacher probably ought to spend
at least an afternoon a week in such a place to truly understand the thinking-
on-paper he or she receives.
These labs are usually orderly enough, but they are not quiet places.
The machines "breathe"; printers clatter to life, then go quiet; and a few
hundred fingers on keyboards may not make the noise they would on typewriters,
but you still hear them all. But there are people noises too, as you'd expect
in a work environment. Turfs get staked out: nodes of MUDheads cluster
around two or three machines here and there, whispering over their timeshared
fantasies; two or three students bunched around a terminal with prescreen
infofiles (books) propped beside it appear to be group-groping a class project;
a coterie of serious prehackers is chronically present communicating through
adjacent screens and reeking of contempt for everything not them. When someone
has a system problem, or maybe discovers something really clever or sexy in a
fingerprint, larger clusters form, chatter, and disperse to reform elsewhere.
When the MacIntoshs started to "talk," the noise level in the labs went
up another notch. Instead of acknowledging your stupidity with a quiet, user-
friendly beep, one day all the Macs might be mooing, the next they might all
be flushing or barfing. Once here they were all loaded up with a woman's voice
uttering a long orgasmic groan, which everyone seemed to like: for weeks the
lab sounded like a French seaside bordello with the fleet in.
Even when the audible noise level is low, however, it is not like
working alone in one's office. A kind of an elevated energy level always
wafts, occasionally swirls and gusts, through the lab. All those minds working.
And a young strong but still awkward mind just learning the disciplines of
linear thought is a little like a primitive engine starting up on a cold
morning. For one accustomed to the luxury of privacy for thinking, the kind of
uneven, not-quite-humming silence that settles over a college computer lab when
everybody in the room is intensely into whatever it is he or she is working
on--that kind of "noise" in a full room can be either more invigorating or
more disconcerting than any burble and buzz of whispers. Sometimes I seem
to be "channelling" that ambient lab energy into my work on my own terminal;
other times I find myself barely able to control the urge to shout "Fire!"
or to just break out in hysterical laughter. No one would of course even
look up; they'd just assume it was a MacIntosh.
In short, the student labs are pretty lively places, with burgeoning
communal sensibilities--maybe the most vital places you'll find on a campus
today, despite all the millions being poured into "student centers"--where
students mostly go, I think, to fulfill adult expectations that they are
indeed still just irresponsible, immature, pleasure-oriented, self-seeking
kids, growing up to be good consumers.
Growing numbers of students hang out in the labs more than they do
anywhere else, for the company, I'd guess, and access to that ambient lab
energy, but also perhaps because there they feel closer to the edge of a
future than anywhere else on campus--and not necessarily the future planned
for them.
Sitting and working in such places, I begin to wonder about their
educational--not to mention the ultimate socio-political-- implications.
Communications theorists talk about the "noise" or static that all
communications systems generate--the unintended and ultimately uncontrollable
random energy fluctuations inherent in the systems themselves. Black educator
and author Jules Henry, in CULTURE AGAINST MAN, contended that education
systems also generate that kind of "noise"--and the noise becomes part of the
educational process, part of the lessons learned: subliminally, unconsciously,
and therefore usually very well.
The "noise" in my own pre-electronic education was mostly about
competition, "personal development," the right to (and lust for) privacy
and the wealth necessary to support it, and all those other fundamentally
antisocial things that Americans have always confused with "individualism."
Most of that is still the formal and culturally sanctioned "noise" in the
system. Students still compete for scholarships and "good schools," compete
for grades in "curved" classes, compete for honors, get indoctrinated
against those forms of sharing defined as "cheating," and are otherwise
prepared to accept as "natural" the aggressive and acommunal culture driven
by self-interest: a world of winners and losers, with the ultimate winners
those possessed of or by a "terminal" existence in utter privacy (e.g.,
that modern American legend, Howard Hughes), and the ultimate losers -
those condemned by "laziness" or misfortune to that terminally public
life of homelessness.
But . . . can it be that the computer, one of the greatest achievements
of that privacy-driven culture, is generating pockets of a subtly un-American
"noise" markable by the kind of "sweatshop camaraderie" that once led to
unionization, a communalism of shared information that is dangerously
contemptuous of "intellectual property"? Could the uncontrollable ambient
energy of such places give a new and more ominous sense to the phrase,
"electronic revolution"?
Reading the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, I am learn that the counter-
revolution to this is already "coming on-line." Growing numbers of schools--
as one might expect, mostly the "private" schools, where America's winners
send their kids to learn how to bear forward the torch of civilization as they
know it--are installing terminal ports in all their student dorm rooms. Once
that is accomplished, the subversive labs can be dismantled; the primacy
of privacy will be re-affirmed.
The CHRONICLE touts the advantages: students will be able to research
their papers, write their papers, send drafts to their instructors in their
cubicles and get feedback, all without the inconvenience of having to leave
their desks. One projects: it will probably eventually be possible to
receive one's entire education, get one's diploma, get a job, have a long
career, and retire, without ever having to leave one's terminal.
(On retirement, one won't even need a gold watch, since the terminals
can tell you the time.)
Either that--or the unquiet, untidy, germ-infested (can you get AIDS
from a keyboard?) sweatshop revolution of the lab, like the one where I sit
now, where someone has just screamed, "Shit! Jesus saves; why didn't I!"
Memo to the administration: better get my office ported in before
I'm lost forever.
NEXT ISSUE: Email and the narrowing and deepening of language.
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
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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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 Achilles 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 archetypical 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
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C y b e r S p a c e
=====================
Gibsonian Mythology
By
Deva Bryson Winblood
In today's technology based cultures and cliques there is a common
interest in ideas that revolve around "CyberSpace." This term was first
popularized by William Gibson in his award winning book _Neuromancer_.
Gibson presented computer networks as a global medium of power. Similar
situations were described in books such as _Shockwave Rider_ by John Brunner.
Brunner's literature predates Gibson's and is perhaps more accurate in terms
of today's emerging computer networks. The difference between CyberSpace
in Brunner's and Gibson's books is that of perception. In Brunner's book,
cyberspace was viewed much as the internet is perceived today, but on a
grander scale that could very well be a forecast of the future of the internet.
Gibson's _Neuromancer_, on the other hand, projected the idea of a new
interface.
Gibson initiated the world to a new idea for a user interface.
To understand the major leap in the Gibsonian vision one must understand
what a user interface is. A user interface is the method by which YOU,
the user interfaces (accesses) the computer. Computers initially had almost
no interface at all when one recalls the TOGGLE switches of the first
computers. This was followed by punch cards which were equally unfriendly.
The step-up from these now prehistoric interfaces was the development of
the Command Line Interface (CLI). This enabled one to type on a keyboard
and have the typed-in material appear on a screen. The user would then
press RETURN (ENTER on some machines) and that COMMAND would be processed
by the computer. This was a purely TEXT interface. This changed with the
work of XEROX PARC research teams. They were working on a Graphic Interface.
This interface was the predecessor of the Macintosh, Amiga, GEOS, Windows,
and several other interfaces. These interfaces are the CURRENT top of the
line method for user interaction with a computer. This interface is a
Graphical User Interface (GUI). Now one has a better foundation to understand
the vision of William Gibson.
Gibson introduced what might be called a Sensory User Interface.
This is a term just invented in this article. The interface as relayed by
Gibson involved all the senses and in fact was a step beyond the idea of
Virtual Reality (VR) as practiced today. In Gibsonian CyberSpace a person
perceives other users in computer systems around them as well as always
being in a setting that corresponds to the contents of a computer and other
computers in a geographical region.
ENTER MYTHOLOGY
Gibsonian ideas were created on a typewriter by a man who admits to
knowing little about computers at the time. This is one of those fateful
situations where a person of little background in a field gains insight
into something that those in the KNOW were not aware of. His idea brought
hope for more intimacy, realism, and excitement in the future of computing.
Quickly the Gibsonian ideas were embraced as THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING.
While the Gibsonian ideas should be used as a source of inspiration,
the current abilities of computers and the way they handle data causes
several blocks which inhibit the Gibsonian vision. These problems are
in areas of geopositional realism and speed.
The Gibsonian vision pitches the computer user into a computer world
that parallels that of the real world. If you JACK IN to your CyberDeck
and look around you will notice that your next door neighbor is also
jacked in. You will then look into the distance and see a sensory image
for every computer in your neighborhood. In the distance, you will see the
towering computer nets of local businesses. This is the geopositional aspect
of Gibsonian cyberspace. Enter the problem.
Computer networks do not work in a fashion that will enable this
geopositional aspect to function. Your computer does not know the difference
between crossing a satellite uplink to reach the next computer and crossing a
desk. Without this knowledge available to the computer, it would be difficult
to establish a perspective of SURROUNDING LOCAL COMPUTERS. Likewise, computer
networks function from computer to computer. Your computer can identify
whichever computers it is directly linked to and none beyond. Using modern
network protocols, you can still communicate with computers beyond your own.
There is no guarantee that those computers exist until your request for that
computer traverses the net and either succeeds or fails and bounces back.
The second problem that makes Gibsonian CyberSpace an unlikely future is
the issue of speed. Take a moment... Consider the processing speed required
to maintain the position and state of every USER and COMPUTER in your network
vicinity. IMMENSE processing time. It has been said by some computer
researchers that the real time RAY TRACING (Image processing) that would
enable VR of a minimum level to produce effects such as those seen in the
movie _Lawnmower Man_ would require a computer with a processing speed of
at least 400 million instructions per second (400 MIPS). Current desktop
computers average around 10 to 20 MIPS. This is the speed necessary to
maintain JUST the visual aspect of realistic VR. Gibsonian CyberSpace has
full sensory aspects (visual, touch, smell, taste, and sound) as well as
maintaining accurate geopositional setting and still leaving room to run
other programs. The speed of ANY computer interacting with a Gibsonian net
would have to be IMMENSE to the point of being most likely unattainable.
While these problems may place Gibsonian CyberSpace in the halls of
mythology, Gibson's vision can still be an inspiration to the programmers
of today. New interfaces that are attainable can be created and implemented
on even today's limited computer power.
GEOPOSITIONAL: The geopositional aspect can be maintained by a series
of localized computers that I refer to as MAP NODES. The sole purpose of
these computers would be to respond to queries and send geopositional
information to local computers. The map node would also handle incoming
messages of computers coming on and off-line and update its "MAP"
correspondingly.
SPEED: While keeping it real-time is currently unattainable, the
"MAP" updates could be often enough to make it workable. This would
not be a problem as long as each MAP NODE was only responsible for a
limited area.
VR: The VR aspect could be accomplished by creating a simple
communication protocol for the MAP NODES that would enable them to pass
on quick graphic information with query responses. All that would be
required would be a program that can interpret and react to these
graphic messages for each platform (computer).
Visionary thinking is useful no matter its plausibility.
Let all mistakes be a gateway to further knowledge.
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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 Infrastructure
(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!
[Note: This file is also available on the EFF ftp site. --Ed.]
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RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS SEEK NETWORK CONNECTIONS
By George Sibley
I.C.S. received a copy of a communication from A.E. Varshavsky at the
Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, announcing the creation of a non-
profit "Strategy Priorities Foundation" (SPF), whereby Russian scientists
in the post-Cold-War era hope to offer services and establish connections
with private and public entities around the world.
Observing that "now Russian science has a hard time," Varshavsky
essentially announces the availability of Russian scientists in all fields
for collaborative projects in and out of Russia. The purpose of the Strategy
Priorities Foundation, he says, is to "avail leading universities, research
institutions, and companies in all countries of the world of unique economic
and technical information on the state and perspectives of science and
technology in Russia. An analysis of the economic problems of stability,
conversion and disarmament is in the framework of SPF's interests as well."
Among other possibilities, Varshavsky envisions Russian scientists acting as
consultants for private or public entities interested in the opportunities
afforded by the Soviet political meltdown.
E-mail addresses for Varshavsky are (BITNET) C20501@SUCEMI
or (INTERNET) vars@cemi.msk.su.
Snailmail: SPF, Central Economics and Mathematics Institute,
Russian Academy of Sciences, 32 Krasikova St. (Room 406),
Moscow, 117418
RUSSIA.
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Building a School Without Buildings
By Ken Blystone
Thousands of students in El Paso, Texas are going to school without
leaving home. They "travel" to school via computer modem, meeting in new
electronic hallways and classrooms not because they have to attend, but
because they want to. This summer, students from all parts of the city will
attend the Academy Virtual School. This new electronic school provides kids
of all ages a fun and exciting place to gather. It is a safe environment that
can be explored from home under parental supervision, and local public schools
are starting to catch on to the concept.
Over the past decade, telecomputing activities have become highly popular
with children. This has caused rapid growth in local, regional, and national
educational computer networks. Computers attached to modems allow computer
users to transmit and receive text files, software programs, digitized images,
and digital music over standard telephone lines. Such activities are becoming
commonplace for computer users, especially for young people who have computers
in their homes.
Public schools have recognized the need to teach students how to use
computers and have installed many machines for this purpose. But the
educational use of computers has focused primarily on using the computer
in a "stand-alone" fashion. Now, more and more schools are beginning to
connect their computers to instructional networks by purchasing modems and
linking their computers together through the telephone system. Schools have
found that it is easy and relatively inexpensive to start a campus-based
computer network.
Last school year, five public schools in El Paso started educational
campus-based systems run by teachers. Del Valle High School, Wiggs Middle
School, Desert View Middle School, Indian Ridge Middle School, and Eastwood
Heights Elementary each run a campus computer their students can call.
Each school system is connected to FidoNet, a 22,000 member computer network
established in 1984.
FidoNet is a "grassroots" network that provides connectivity for
millions of people all over the world at little or no cost. The UTEP
College of Education sponsors a system on this network to allow future
teachers the opportunity to be mentored by experienced teachers. Since
many of the electronic conferences on FidoNet are "gated" to Internet,
many non-university people (parents and public school children) now have
access to Internet through FidoNet.
In 1990, a group of teachers in the United States and Canada started
the International K12 Network. Operating as a sub-set of FidoNet, the K12
Network has spread to nearly 500 systems in 12 countries in only three years.
By "piggy backing" the smaller K12Net on the larger structure of FidoNet,
students and teachers are the winners.
Using school computers connected to FidoNet/K12Net, students and
teachers have the ability to form friendships with people all over the world.
The familiar term "pen-pals" is changing into "key-pals" since children now
use keyboards instead of pens to write to each other. Teachers from around
the world volunteer their time and expertise to make the system work.
The French teacher at Desert View Middle School, Toy Wong, uses the K12
Network in her classroom to help students learn the language and culture of
France. Her students are encouraged to write e-mail messages in French to
students in France or Canada. After students in France receive messages from
students in El Paso, they respond in English (the language they are trying
to learn) through the computer network. Since messages are transmitted
electronically, it is usually only a matter of hours before the mail is
"delivered." This makes the process of key-pals much more interactive than
pen-pals since hand delivered letters to distant countries can take days or
even weeks to deliver.
In addition to using computer networks for key-pal activities, schools
have found many other instructional benefits of telecomputing. Students can
use modems to tap into electronic libraries to look up information stored in
computer databases. Some systems allow students to take tests on-line that
are automatically scored and recorded. Students also use telecomputing to
work collaboratively on the creation of digital artwork and music. Most K12
Network systems make free educational software available to teachers and
students through a process known as downloading.
On-line peer tutoring is also possible on multi-line systems. Callers
type back and forth to each other while connected to the system. This has
become one of the most popular activities for students ages 10 through 18
on the Academy Virtual School. Students spend many hours on-line each day
writing to their electronic friends.
The Academy serves eight school districts in west Texas. Its success can
be measured, in part, by the extent to which local teachers and students have
voluntarily embraced this computer-mediated environment. Over 5,000 students,
teachers, parents, and community participants meet in this electronic
environment without the need for a physical school building.
The Academy is operated by Academy Network Systems, a non-profit
organization dedicated to enhancing educational opportunities for students
to learn and teachers to teach via modern telecommunications technology.
The system gets approximately 30,000 calls per month. Through the work of
many dedicated teachers and community volunteers, the Academy Network has
grown from a simple single line system started in 1985 into a dynamic 15
line electronic school built out of modems and microchips instead of bricks
and mortar.
The impact of computer telecommunications on how we conduct education
is likely to be greater than we can presently imagine. As a virtual school,
the Academy is radically different from traditional schools. It remains open
24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Students read lessons, take tests, ask
questions and get answers "virtually" as they would in a traditional physical
school building - but without leaving their keyboard. Instead of students
going to school, the virtual school comes to them through their computer
screen.
This school, although it has no physical campus, serves thousands
of students and it only cost $5,000 to create. This is an important fact
to taxpayers and school board members who are looking for economical ways
to provide instruction to children. While a traditional school that serves
thousands of students would cost millions of dollars to build, a virtual
school can be started for a fraction of that cost.
Inasmuch as limited funding is available for desired school improvements,
it is important to understand the potential for new technologies to help bring
about fundamental educational change. By expanding our mind-set from one that
can only conceive of education taking place in a traditional physical school
building to one that includes reaching students using virtual schools, we may
actually be able to provide instruction in new ways.
I encourage parents, teachers, and school board members to work toward
the development of community sponsored virtual schools that serve all children
within their locale. A virtual school can serve the collective educational
needs of students in new and exciting ways. Yet, to be able to take advantage
of electronic schools teachers need access to educational networks. Schools
need the money necessary to buy modems and telephone lines that will allow
them to begin to explore the electronic global village.
Modems and the instant networks they create can join schools,
businesses and homes together. Every minute a child spends in an electronic
virtual school is a minute spent reading and writing--interacting with an
educational community that is global in scope. Electronic schools are
interactive, inclusionary, equalizing, provocative, and educational.
Electronic virtual schools are dynamic and, most importantly, affordable.
Electronic learning environments are changing the way in which children learn.
Every day a virtual school can present the student with new and interesting
challenges that come from a worldwide community of learners.
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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 absence 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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W o r l d N e t Tour Guide
Digital Freedom Network
WorldNet Tour Guide returns! We will strive to make it a part of
each issue. The Guide will contain articles to help in using the WorldNet
to the fullest potential. The articles here will range from tutorials on
aspects of WorldNet to reviews of sites and resources on the WorldNet.
If you would like to write a file or document to appear in this
section, please do so. Send your final copy (in ASCII format) to:
ORG_ZINE@WSC.COLORADO.EDU
-------
*
The Digital Freedom Network (DFN) is one of the more interesting
sites I've run across on the 'Net - imagine a place where writers from
around the world can share their cultural, religious, and political
experiences with people around the world, and you will likely dream up
something very much like the DFN.
Billed as an "Anti-Censorship BBS", the DFN currently offers
material produced by dissidents (and just plain citizens) from Russia,
Iran, Indonesia, China, and Egypt. There is also a file titled "Index"
which details the aims and goals of the "Index on Censorship" - a
supporting member of the DFN and constant defender of free speech and
Human Rights. Gopher iia.org 70, cd "Digital Freedom Network" to access
the files (You can skip the following review if you like to preserve
the sense of net-adventure).
A brief description of available files:
China: Extracts from _Wei Jingsheng Searching for the Truth_ selected
and edited by Peter Harris - A description of one man's odyssey
through the "cultural revolution" and his political and thinking
resistance to the events he witnessed.
Iran: Text from _The Hejleh_ - A mother's reflections on her martyred
son's fate. Very touching, and a bridge of understanding that's
worth crossing.
Egypt: _Death on the Nile_ - A chilling expose of Moslem fundamentalism
and its holocaustal effects on the minds and souls of a nation.
Russia: _My Diary Under the Iron Heel_ by Mikhail Bulgakov - an unusual
glimpse of the life of a Russian writer during the twenties as
he searches for signs of life in a world of madness. Culled
from the KGB literary archive (somewhat spotty translation).
Indonesia: Two excerpts from _This Earth of Mankind_ by Pramoedya
Amanta Toer, translated by Max Lane - A personal story
describing the life and times of a soldier in the Dutch
Indies Army. Told from a mother's point-of-view.
For more information, contact:
Digital Freedom Network Headquarters / IDT
dfnidt@iia.org
294 State Street
Hackensack, NJ 07601 USA
INDEX on Censorship
indexoncenso@gn.apc.org
Lancaster House
33 Islington High Street
London N1 9LH UNITED KINGDOM
Human Rights Watch
hrwatchnyc@igc.apc.org
485 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10017 USA
International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)
Committee to Protect Journalists
ccpj@web.apc.org
490 Adelaide Street West -Suite
205 Toronto M5V 1T2 CANADA
-----
Note: ICS founder and former WorldNet Tour Guide author Deva Winblood
has moved on to other challenges. Various members of the ICS staff will
be offering Tour Guide installments for your enjoyment, and, as always,
we accept contributions from any and all corners of cyberspace [Ed.].
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T W O P O E M S
By Heather Elliot
----------------------------------------+------------------------------------
|SPACE BAR
761-TIME |*
* |sittin at the bar
Hello you have reached... |with the reals
* |scoping missles
To commemorate the |in walked an hourglass
idiosyncrasies of |time warped
TIME |men were moving at light speed
It is currently 11:01pm.. |converging on a black hole
* |us reals inched along like sloths
Thank you for calling First National |realized we weren't chicks
|just flew the coop
----------------------------------------+------------------------------------
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The Map By Gayle L. Allenback ++
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Planning my route to paradise,
I'm aware of the stack of books on the table.
Reading them would make me blind,
So I travel on with my sight,
Getting worn down by gravel roads.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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S e v e r a l P o e m s
B Y Heather Elliott
-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------
AURA |RUB
* |*
i felt the cold breeze |turnout
wrap around me |step
yet i retained |transfer
a shell |transfer
of warmth |focus
* |HALT
i can only feel |*
your cool breeze |you were bug-eyed
but i know | hands dropped to the side
that such warmth |*
encases you |saw your cute belly
* | became Buddha
i want to wrap up |*
in the aura |could I feel that warmth
of your warmth | again?
on a cold clear |
night |
-------------------------------------+--------+-------------------------------
FreeFall |AN EVENING WITH _
* |*
You said you'd catch me |mellow
if I fell |comforting
but I couldn't let myself fall |relaxing
* |soft drums beat in the
|background
Afraid of that sinking feeling |pillows fly
so much resembling |smiles sparkle
utter disappointment |eyes glitter
* |yet, we each have our own drum
Filled with worry |stunts
became a wallflower |games
* |jokes
Saw that I could do the steps |and my drum beats out of sync
said I'd be fine |
if I followed your lead |
* |
I followed with such grace|
I'm falling |
catch me |
----------------------------------------------+-------------------------------
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POETRY: 2 (of 6) Poems By Stewart Carington
SUBJECT:emotion
---------------
Mental tears shall all abound; Yet in the physical realm none shall be found
Mortal thoughts may all remain; But no love is there left to yet reclaim
When you trace the sullen flight, Of a Crow into the speckled night
All that remains a distant dream-Until the sun breaks the endless seam...
Sunlight turns in it's puest form, Releases the traced emotions worn
Grips the fist on one's fate, Gives the choice that you shall in time berate
Inters the worth of your wealth, to find in the end it should have been health
Cross the cavern of your dreams- To caress the tears of mighty seas.
Think of yesterday as freedom's chain, And never know that bond again.
Drink from the pool of broken sorrow, Then breathe the air of newborn morrow
Awaken to that light, tender touch, and remember to feel....
I miss you much.
SUBJECT:a walk through my wall
------------------------------
no, It's not the same, and I would love to walk through the rain with you.
A lonely sill, lonely true. A silent dove, through the window grew.
Sit next to me for mine life, scream the silence of eternal strife,
To be with me you must leave me alone, let me face myself, the ugly clone.
desert rain beat through my brow, a speared patter, hits me now
tis the tear of your lip, from above reflected in the isles of love.
silent pondering one-hundred proof, sink emotion,
but bury me away....
from truth.....
for tis not like me to do this here,
not like me to put you through this spin...
only alone can I but win.....sorry,
it's true, let me be for a while.... insanity's not new....
an old friend,
back again
doesn't like visitors.......
.............will leave in a while....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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)============== i wish i could write =============(
By Clint Thompson
i wish i could write.
i wish i could reach the
deepest
deep
of my soul with a pen,
and wrench it free.
i wish i could write
the wings of a bird,
or explain the sound of
love
in spring.
i wish i could capture
the taste, in a word, of
a breath of
mountain air
at twilight.
the sun in twisting robes of red and orange
descends
into
her bed.
no, i must watch the moment
then watch the moment leave...
unable to hold it here
with paper and ink.
the greatest moments of my life
are volumes
only read by me.
unable to live by paper and pen
for all the world to see.
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"Women"
By Jami Jo Tobey
I am alive
searching
seeking
yearning for the unknown
the untouched.
Waiting for the sun
listening for the moon
dancing with the earth
watching the clouds laugh
kissing the melting rainbows
running down the mountains
swimming upstream
and being still.
You never see me
but you touch me
when you breathe
and cry.
You hold my hand unaware.
We are of the same seed
yet completely different.
I am the rain
and you soak me up with your warmth.
I am the snow that makes you smile
and the fire that keeps you warm.
I will live forever within you
and of you.
You will never know me
but you will forever love me.
I am you best friend
perhaps your worst enemy?
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Eyes of Love
by Jason Manczur
How can one set of eyes be
So very deep, and so very bright?
They shine like the stars,
With a heavenly light.
They're deep like an ocean,
Pretty as they can be.
I love your eyes,
But do they love me?
A better question
Asks the same of you.
If the answer is yes,
I'll ne'er be blue.
I want to tell you
Just how much I care,
That I really love you,
And will always be there.
If you need someone
for any reason,
If my heart is not there,
It will hang for treason.
That is how much
I love you my dear.
When we are together,
You have nothing to fear,
For my love will protect you.
I love you with all
of my heart and my soul.
If you do not love me,
It will take its toll
On my heart and my spirit,
And the depths of my mind.
When I am with you
I always find
A warmth and a caring
That fills up my life.
Oh, please my love,
Will you be my wife?
KNYGHT
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Walking Alone In A Wet Autumn Night
Closed, cluttered quarters, relinquished control
Captive by chance and exacting it's toll
Remove conversation
Regain affirmation
Walking alone in a wet autumn night
Dark, like a comfort, a safe place to hide
The mist held my face in her arms as I cried
Remove all the sound
Shoes pummel the ground
Walking alone in a wet autumn night
The dew in the grass is soaking my feet
I've come here for answers to questions complete
Remove just the fear
A healing draws near
Walking alone in a wet autumn night
This love in my life lies gently with me
Possessing a strength not easy to see
I'll seek out her light
Relinquish this fight
By walking alone in a wet autumn night
___________________________________________________________________________
Bob Wilson bobw@ncatfyv.uark.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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
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Introverted Psyche
I frivolously disdain my outward appearence,
Frequently subsiding to the injections of eternal thought.
Crumbling slowly, logically at first, then wild,
Stumbling, bumbling out of reality.
My first reaction was no - no way!
Then I accepted the tedious chore and
Threw - it - away.
You know what I don't care
peace of mind is satisfaction enough.
Life is cruel and I deserve it.
I will strive to be levelheaded and
full of meaning. Meaning is substance
constant, relative thoughts, those
which make us whole. Those that live and bleed.
The beast is inside us, exorcise the beast and you're in.
Only excessive force binds my style.
I realize I extrude, and
I retort inwardly, instantly.
*Damian*
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Enclave: 3 Poems By David Trosty
-------------------------------------------------
Theme to an Imaginary Drama
Sometimes traveling through the city
I see faces all alone.
Sad faces standing in the shadows,
abandoned, on their own.
Vicious city, without compassion.
Cold concrete, hard as stone.
Unforgiving and uncaring,
will make you calloused to the bone.
Tired faces, lined with ashes,
cracked and worn, they show their age.
Acting helpless to solicit,
the sidewalk is their stage.
Huddled quietly, under the streetlight,
holding in their deepest rage.
To them, life's an empty book.
It doesn't help to turn the page.
Homelessness is a disease,
and the cure can't come to soon.
People waiting, slowly suffering,
looking for a bottle before noon.
Sometimes I give them the change they ask for,
because I'd want to get drunk too,
If I was like them and had to live here,
In this awful concrete zoo.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Hunter
They call me the hunter,
it's a very fitting name.
'Cause I'm always on the prowl
for the essence of the earth.
It seems my search never ends,
eternally I hunt.
There's not enough lush bounty,
to fill every wanting hand.
All people that I know,
they play this very game.
Desiring unmentionables,
a vain attempt to ease their pain.
What is it about desire,
that plagues most every man.
To taste the sweet pure nectar,
makes him only want much more.
All pleasures seem to have the power,
to hypnotize from within.
One can see it in all eyes,
a cold and empty gaze.
The cessation of reality,
comes strong, and then it fades.
Like the tides upon the sea,
and the crashing of the waves.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
28,000 feet above civilization
Checkerboard grids
patchwork quilt.
Someone lives there.
Connected by barely perceptible threads
each island has a way off,
and on to every other.
Country isolation,
secluded peace,
sometimes broken by colonies
of stone and flesh.
The social animal
demonstrates its paradoxical tendencies.
Some of them,
insecure with isolation,
huddle together.
Afraid to be alone
in this vast and desperate world--
yet afraid of each other.
In their clustered colonies they walk about,
their eyes darting nervously
away from the others,
apprehensive when they connect
out on the street.
(c) David Trosty, 1994
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Unneeded Technology
-----------------
-----------------
Brought to a place too soon
temptation
It creates a home for itself
desire
Soon, the people will want it
compulsion
Those with the money take it
envy
Those who are poor steal it
crime
Luxury has a price to be paid
sin
--Andrew DeSplinter
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The Fate of Ethnic Diversity
Bit by bit,
one person at a time,
my heritage is being diluted
by my own generation.
The stories that we were taught
are being neglected
and forgotten.
What will the next generation know of its past?
What lessons will they learn,
and where will they come from?
We have all fought too hard
against blood-thirsty foes
too let ourselves dissolve
into humanity at large
until the sweetness
of our ancestors' philosophies
is too watered-down to taste.
Will the children of the future
benefit or suffer
from the breakdown of barriers
that have long stood
like great pinnacles in the desert,
slowly eroding
until they can no longer
support their own weight
and they crumble
into a pile of rubble.
I have heard them crashing
to the ground.
It is not too late
for us to pick up the pieces
and re-examine them
and tell our children
what we have learned.
--David Trosty, 1994.
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IMPURE MATHEMATICS
By Rodrigo de Almeida Siqueira
Wherein it is related how that polygon of womanly virtue, young Polly
Nomial (our heroine) is accosted by that notorious villain Curly Pi, and
factored (oh, horror!!).
Once upon a time (1/t) pretty Polly Nomial was strolling across a field
of vectors when she came to the boundary of a singularly large matrix. Now,
Polly was convergent and her mother had made it an absolute condition that
she never enter such an array without her brackets on. Polly, however, who
had changed her variables that morning and was feeling particularly badly
behaved, ignored this condition on the basis that it was insufficient, and
made her way amongst the complex elements. Rows and columns closed in from
all sides. Tangents approached her surface. She became tensor and tensor.
Quite suddenly, two branches of a hyperbola touched her at a singular point.
She oscillated violently, lost all sense of directrix, and went completely
divergent. As she reached a turning point, she tripped over a square root
that was protruding from the ERF and plunged headlong down a steep gradient.
When she rounded off once more, she found herself inverted, apparently alone,
in a non-euclidean space.
She was being watched, however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was
lurking innerproduct. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates, a
singular expression crossed his face. He wondered, was she still convergent?
He decided to integrate improperly at once.
Hearing a common fraction behind her, Polly rotated and saw Curly Pi
approaching with his power series extrapolated. She could see at once by his
degenerate conic and dissipative terms that he was bent on no good.
"Arcsinh," she gasped.
"Ho, ho," he said. "What a symmetric little asymptote you have. I can
see your angles have a lot of secs."
"Oh sir," she protested, "keep away from me. I haven't got my brackets on."
"Calm yourself, my dear," said our suave operator. "Your fears are purely
imaginary."
"i,i," she thought,"perhaps he's not normal but homologous."
"What order are you?" the brute demanded.
"Seventeen," replied Polly.
Curly leered. "I suppose you've never been operated on."
"Of course not," Polly replied quite properly; "I'm absolutely convergent."
"Come, come," said Curly. "Let's off to a decimal place I know and I'll
take you to the limit."
"Never," gasped Polly.
"Abscissa," he swore, using the vilest oath he knew. His patience was gone.
Coshing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless,
Curly removed her discontinuities. He stared at her significant places and
began smoothing out her points of inflection. Poor Polly. The Algorithmic
Method was now her only hope. She felt his hand tending to her asymptotic
limit. Her convergence would soon be gone forever.
There was no mercy, for Curly was a heavyside operator. Curly's radius
squared itself; Polly's loci quivered. He integrated by parts. He integrated
by partial fractions. After he cofactored, he performed Runge-Cutta on her.
The complex beast even went all the way around and did a contour integration.
Curly went on operating until he had satisfied her hypothesis, then he
exponentiated and became completely orthogonal.
When Polly got home that night, her mother noticed that she was no
longer piecewise continuous, but had been truncated in several places.
But it was to late to differentiate now. As the months went by, Polly's
denominator increased monotonically. Finally she went to l'Hopital and
generated a small but pathological function which left surds all over the
place and drove Polly to deviation.
The moral of our sad story is this:
"If you want to keep your expressions convergent,
never allow them a single degree of freedom ..."
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________________________________________________
AN EAGLE SPEAKS ON EVOLUTION )
___________________________________________)----
_____________________________________)
_____________________________)
______________________)
It's a story eagles have always told,
But humans are just again learning to hear it.
It's a story from back when the dragons ruled
And bigger was known to be better:
Bigger and tougher and more armored against all
Even life, those were the standards:
Might made right; the strong got stronger
And the big just got bigger and bigger.
That's like the story the humans tell;
But as humans tell it, it goes nowhere:
Things changed, and the dragons simply perished.
But the story the eagles tell is different,
The story humans are just learning to hear.
The way the eagles tell it, some of the little dragons,
Little in some ways, but strong in their own way,
Began to change too.
They gave up on the claws and armor;
And their claws grew long and delicate and fragile,
And their scales became long, soft and fluffy.
How the big dragons laughed!
Har! Har! thundered the thunder-dragons,
As the soft little lizards hopped and flapped along
Little soaring leaps to avoid being clawed and bashed
Trampled and smashed by the heavy armored feet.
But the webbing claws and the feathering scales
Continued to lengthen even as the thunder-dragons
Continued to laugh their thunderous laugh, repeating the wisdom:
Bigger is better; might makes right; nothing succeeds
Like success: bigger claws and thicker scales--
Think of that now, says the eagle,
As you watch me ride the shatter of light
Up the face of the mountain.
Think of that as you strain to see the cranes
A mile up with their great transcontinental wingbeat,
Or follow the dart and swoop of the swallow.
Think of that as you look for your way
In a world going mad with bigness, toughness, armor.
--George Sibley
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Martian Safari
By H.G. Emert
From the conservation of water to the way he must dress, everything is
very different here. Musing over the difference between his present location
and his personal stretch of North Carolina beach front on Earth, Major Graham
Wilson kicks at the crusty, red soil of this foreign world, stirring up dust
that quickly falls back to the surface. Graham's mandatory environmental suit
has a way of distorting his body into an almost unrecognizable, squat form with
tubular appendages for arms and legs. Graham is uncertain he would recognize
his own picture; of course the title "Boss-man" painted on his helmet by his
crew does make him stand out among the generic vanilla suits. Major Wilson is
the commanding officer for the geological survey team assigned to map and
sample this portion of Mars for the largest mining conglomerate on Earth.
After offering to finish packing up the remaining equipment for his men,
Graham stands alone on the surface enjoying a few precious moments of solitude.
His crew is probably spending the extra time on the communications link before
the transmission window to Earth closes. The video messages sent to their
families will take several minutes to arrive at their destination; Graham
imagines the messages as bottled slices of time thrown into space and destined
for a distant shore.
"Major Wilson?" The voice of the dispatcher over the speaker in his
helmet interrupts Graham's daydreams of ancient sailing vessels.
Graham replies once the microphone in his helmet is open to transmit.
"Yes, Trevor, I'm here; what's the problem?"
"Sir, we are looking at fifty-nine minutes until night phase, and you have
a long drive back. It's going to get cold out there. Last night it got down
to minus one hundred and fifty-three celsius; the temperature could dip even
lower tonight. Some of the equipment you are hauling can't take the cold as
well as your environmental suit. Control encouraged me to..."
"Control," Graham states breaking into Trevor's dialogue, "wants you to
talk me into hurrying back to the Base before their equipment freezes solid.
It figures that they are worried more about the condition of the equipment;
nobody down there gives a darn about the people that drag this stuff around
thousands of square miles of charred sulfur and silt traps."
"Yes sir, but you know they don't like it when you, I mean, anyone stays
out on the surface alone."
"Fine, I'll finish up here and be on my way soon. Trevor, please don't
forget to tell Control not to worry about me; I'll be fine, Wilson out."
"Trevor, I mean, Base M-32 out."
In slow, jerky motions which he never feels accustomed to, Graham packs
up the remaining measuring devices, meters and equipment. Graham's body mass
requires the same amount of effort to move about as it does on Earth, even
though he currently weighs only forty percent of his earth-weight, which can
lead to some very awkward moments. Graham brushes off the dust after climbing
into the large, open four-wheel drive transport that is very similar to his
own dune-buggy. Reminded of the beaches at home, Graham wonders how the
martian sand would feel between his toes.
That, however, is impossible. This hauntingly elegant landscape does not
allow for the type of indulgences Graham enjoys. In the daylight, the surface
is an impressionistic finger painting in vibrant shades of red, black, orange
and brown; mammoth shield volcanos envelope the horizon; the view is breath-
taking. Lacking much of an atmosphere the temperature plummets after sunset
from a balmy minus ten to overnight lows in the negative one hundred and sixty
degree range. With deep shadows to hide large boulders or ravines, Mars is
left a cold, dark, dangerous, nightmare of a world.
Starting up his vehicle, Major Wilson heads for Base as the sun begins to
set. Like a large luminescent coin disappearing into a child's piggy bank, the
sun falls slowly behind the mountains, lacking the multi-colored spectacle of
an Earth sunset. Even with the starkness of the scenery, it irritates Graham
that this planet is considered no more than a rock that will be raped of every
mineral of value. Graham releases a deep sigh; "This has to stop," He said
talking to himself; "I'm really getting depressed. What I need is a vacation
or, at the very least, a diversion from all of this." The switch quickly opens
Graham's microphone once again.
"M-32, are you on line?" Graham called, "Trevor, are you still there?"
"Yes sir," Trevor responds.
"I need some traveling music, and this blasted buggy doesn't have a decent stereo."
"But sir," Trevor protested, "it's against regulations, and we got into
deep trouble the last time I did that for you."
"Control deprived me of my few precious moments of solitude. the least
they can do is allow me some tunes to tool on home by. So come on, Trevor,"
Graham said sternly; "You know what I want, and I live much closer to you than
those number crunchers down at Control, so please, just do it."
As the shadows cast by the cart lengthen into distorted, dark shapes that
sweep over the ground, Graham's head begins to bob up and down inside his
fish-bowl helmet with the first sweet notes of his favorite tune. With the
"pedal to the metal," Graham drives into the sunset with the music soothing the
realities of today by reviving memories of yesterday. "Let's go surfin' now,
everybody's learning how, come on and safari with me..."
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R U S H
By Daniel Frederick
It was getting closer. With every second that slowly passed it was
getting closer. This was nothing like I had wanted. All I could do was
scream. My legs wouldn't even move anymore. They were solid lead and my
body was still attached to each leg, my own fleshy ones gone.
A demonic dark shape only some forty feet away was approaching me in slow
motion. What ever had happened to my legs was nothing compared to lying on top
of all these spiders. Thousands of them crawling on me, even into my mouth.
I could feel each of their millions of legs as they danced over my bare body.
Now that shape was in my vision, and I could see that it too was a large
hideous spider. It was almost upon me. I tried to crawl with my arms, but
they wouldn't move either because of the amount of poison the spiders had
stung me with. It seemed all I could do now was lay frozen by poison and
fear in this spider hell.
My eyes were unable to close from the sight of tiny legs on my eyelids.
My vision was slowly darkening and I thanked the supposed gods that my family
had always praised. Take me away from here. Life was closing in on me, and
I no longer cared that I was dying or that thousands of legs crawled over me
looking for anywhere to bite or walk.
It was a feeding frenzy from hell. It was almost over and I sat back
content to die. My will was gone and my mind wandering.
I had forgotten the looming shape.
I was almost gone when I suddenly became all too aware of it again.
Why couldn't I have died now that I was so close to peace. I was in
its grip, my body slowly swaying and dead. Seeing it clearly now, I saw
its thousands of eyes staring hungrily at me. Its hairy long legs held me
up to its mouth pincers. Death awaited me.
WAIT, MY GUN. If I could reach it. My arms--I needed to move them.
I had to. Scared out of my mind in this insane hell, I became horribly mad.
It couldn't do this to me. It was going to kill me. I pulled for the .48,
jabbed its muzzle under those staring eyes, and pulled the trigger.
It hurt. My fingers could hardly move, but even with impaired vision
I knew I had not missed. I could see and hear its horrible cry through my
eyelids and the tiny legs as it threw me back violently. As I fell, the .48
fell from my limp fingers. The blast of the gun and howl of the spider rang
in my ears like a grenade going off in an empty room. The queasy sensation of
spiders in my stomach and mouth gagged me. I could no longer breathe and my
eyes were bugging painfully out of my head. Agony! Somehow I was screaming.
How? Screaming and gagging and crying.
Then . . . God I'm sorry I had nothing left.
--- --- ---
Immediately after their partner was shot, Officers Jonson and Rean made
it to him. They had been only fifteen feet away from him. Only fifteen feet
away from helping him. Now Driscoll was dead. Another good cop dead from
another drug using scum.
The damn high was more important to them then even life. Their life or
anyone else's life killed by drug scum. "Ahhh, the ultimate rush to death."
I hope he enjoyed it, the damn scum.
Well there is nothing left to do now but dispose of them both.
"God, I hate the smell of dead spider, but I suppose we all smell this way
when dead," Jonson remarked as he kicked the scum with five of his six legs.
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Eye Opener
By Russell Hutchison
The dark cloak of sleep was pulled slowly away from Eric's eyes and mind.
He knew something was happening, something important, but he felt as if he was
trying to think through a black gauze bandage. The young boy opened one of
his eyes, his half-gaze fell upon a small, dark, hunched shape, with multiple,
blazing red eyes, squatting well within his arms reach. Panic started to build
in Eric's chest with a warm pressure and a heady, almost fuzzy feeling gripped
his still groggy mind as adrenaline kick started his thoughts. At the same
time the creature's unseen jaws snapped shut. Eric hardly noticed that he
screamed as he slammed his back into the wall behind his bed, trying, by force
of will, to merge with the wall or grind a path to safety through it with his
shoulder blades. The creature, which seemed to be smaller than a toaster,
didn't even flinch. Eric's vision finally cleared and in the weak moonlight
he found himself staring at the glowing face of his new digital clock.
He stared at it a while longer while his breathing returned to normal and
his hands began to shake slightly.
The sound of foot steps approaching his closed door and his mother's
voice calling his name helped to calm him down. The door was pushed open
and the vague shape of his mother's head poked through the dark rupture.
"Eric, honey, are you alright?"
Eric could hear the worry in his mother's voice and the sound of
her hand sliding across the wall, vainly searching for the light switch.
He closed his eyes, waiting for his vision to become red.
"I'm fine, mom." Eric heard the heavy, ponderous footsteps of his
barrel-chested father coming closer. "I had a bad dream, and the clock
scared me."
"We heard you scream," his mom said. There was a sharp click and the
insides of Eric's eyes glowed red.
"Yeah, I thought the clock was a monster, it scared me."
"Awful short monster," said his father from the hall. His balding head
visible in the light spilling over the mother's shoulder into the hall.
"I don't think you have anything to worry about, son." A yawn
contorted his face into the visage of a man in pain. "Good night, pup."
The father disappeared from view.
"Good night, dad."
"Good night, Eric. Get some sleep, you have school tomorrow."
"Yes, mom. I love you."
Eric looked back at the clock, making sure that it was really a clock.
A small tag was taped to the clock. It read: "Happy eleventh birthday!
Love ya bro', Mike." There was a click and the room was draped in darkness
once again. Only the glowing numbers on the clock were visible as his eyes
adjusted back to the moonlight. Eric watched the time change from 1:10 A.M.
to 1:11, and his night vision had almost completely returned.
But the horror, when, in the crystalline silence left in the wake of
his parent's departure, the sound of the monster's jaws snapping shut sounded
from the far side of the room. Eric tore his gaze from the glowing machine
and tried, fruitlessly, to spot the creature. But the moonlight pooling on
the floor made the section of the room between the window and the light as
black as pitch. Young Eric was about to call to his parents again when the
sound happened again. But this time he knew the source.
Someone was bouncing pebbles off his window.
Eric hopped out of bed and walked quietly to the window. Pressing his
face against the cool, clear glass he saw his best friend, Paul, waving to
him from the ground, one floor down. Wasting no time, Eric put on warm
clothes that were warm and dark in color. He then slipped out his bedroom
door and took his usual path, the one where he knew all the squeaky floor-
boards to the front door. He checked to make sure he had the key in his
pocket before he closed the door. While he did this Paul had come around
the corner of the house, moving in the shadows around the base of the house.
The two boys held their greetings until after the door was closed and they
had safely crossed the street into a greenbelt between the neighbor's yards.
Eric slapped Paul on his shoulder, "You dork, you scared the hell out
of me! I thought Mike's clock was a monster ... for a second."
"It's good to see you, too. I sneak out of my house, risk getting
grounded for life by seeing you, all just to say happy birthday, and you
slap me because your rapist brother's clock scares you. Gawd, what a jerk!"
Paul, with arms akimbo, fixes Eric with a gaze of mock hurt.
"I'm sorry about hitting you, but I was scared ... and don't talk like
my brother is bad. He's my family ... even if he was guilty. And how can
you say bad stuff about him when he used to play with us both all the time?"
"I guess my mom is rubbing off on me. She still forbids me to see you.
I guess she thinks that you'll turn out bad too, and you'll pull me down with
you. She says that you only care about him because you've never known a
female who was raped."
"Bull, I know what I feel! Your mom is full of it!"
"Who cares anyway? I just want to go stealthin'. We haven't done that
since Mike's trial."
"Yeah, lets go. I ... I need to be moving or something."
The two boys started to play their game of stealthin', and after twenty
minutes of dodging and hiding from cars and people Eric's humor returned.
But then, while they were hiding in a bush, the faint sound of Paul's mom
calling his name drifted to their silent hiding place.
"Oh no! I gotta go! I'll see you later, Eric," Paul jumped up from
behind the bush, startling a group of college kids who were heading home
from last call.
"Take care!" whispered Eric, but Paul was long gone.
When the students had passed he stood up and decided that it would be
best to go home. He began to sneak his way from bush to bush, and car to
car. He only had a few blocks to go and was cutting through a greenbelt
when he noticed the dark shape of someone walking into the other end. The
person was stumbling around, drunk, and since he was already hidden, Eric
thought that he would stay behind a bush and wait until the person was gone.
As the dark figure got closer he could tell it was a woman. Then, a large
figure burst from the bushes, followed by two more. The first shadow tackled
the woman with a shoulder in the small of her back. Eric heard the breath
burst from her lungs as she hit the ground. Then the other two shadows
swarmed over her. He watched as they cursed at her, wrapping their hands
around her throat, hit her, tore her clothes. All the time he could hear
the woman's sobs, labored breathing, and choked off pleas to be released.
Eric was shaking, he knew he had to do something. Everything was so
terrible that he felt like he was watching T.V. Then it occurred to him
that, if it was T.V. then he couldn't get hurt. All he would have to do
is yell or something, then the shadows would leave. Slowly he stepped
around the side of the bush. The dark pile of people was making strange
noises and saying words that only older kids used before they fought.
Eric tried to yell but he couldn't while looking at the writhing pile.
He looked up and tried to keep away the sounds by covering his ears.
"Go away," he said, in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
"GO AWAY!" his shriek tore the muffled comments of the shadows into
silence.
"GO AWAY!" He yelled again. Eric was starting to feel panic, like he
was watching the dark monster again, but this time it was moving. This time
it was saying words, words that he couldn't understand. They were quiet,
deep in tone and spoken quickly. It's voice was like a hypnotic spell that
was placing the black gauze back around his mind. Then a small whimper, from
a female voice, escaped from under the monster. The spell was broken and
Eric inhaled to scream again. But the monster struck and the world flashed
bright as the sun, then faded to darkness.
When he woke it was still dark. There was no sign of the monster or
the woman, except for a piece of clothing or two. Eric couldn't see out of
one eye and his face ached with heat and pain. He ran the rest of the way
home, racing through the neighborhood like something was chasing him. He
threw open his door and rushed through his house. As he ran, a long yell
began to leave his throat. He shoved open his door, slamming it into the
wall. In three steps he was on top of the monster squatting by his bed.
He grasped it by the tail and whipped it against the nightstand over and
over, screaming.
"I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU..." finally the monster shattered in his grasp.
Eric dropped to the ground and began to cry. The world flared white and a
pair of arms grabbed his shoulders. It was his mother.
"What's wrong, what are you doing?!"
Eric looked down at his hand, where an electrical cord was clenched
instead of a tail. A tag reading: "Happy eleventh birthday! Love ya bro',
Mike" lay in the wreckage of the clock.
"I never want to see Mike again," Eric whispered. "He's a monster."
"What happened to your face?"
"The Monster bit me."
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The Man in the Ice
by Mark T. McMeans
The man in the ice occupied a small vacant corner of the bus station.
It was night and the station empty, unusual for the summer season. No one
had heard him that day, and in typical fashion he had drifted off to dream-
less sleep.
He awoke to the sound of someone nearby. Looking up, he saw a stunning
young lady kneeling at a newspaper rack just a few yards away. "Hello, who
are you?" he said.
She perked up as if she had caught a strange smell, and looked around
giving him a better view.
"You are beautiful!" he said with awe.
She turned. "Who's there?"
The man wasn't sure what he was seeing was true. "You hear me?" he asked
wonderingly.
"Yes. So unless you're gonna' mug me, come on out."
"I wish it were that easy," he answered. "But see for yourself. I'm over
here in the corner."
Squinting, she peered in his direction. "Oh no! Not another man on ice!"
she exclaimed. "This must be my lucky day," she mumbled walking away.
No, wait!" he yelled. "You're the only one that can free me!"
"Why's that?" she asked, turning.
"Because you heard me. For two god-forsaken years, I've stood here, calling
and no one has ever heard me. But, today, you came along, and, and we can
communicate. You must be my answer!"
She was curious, but her face revealed skepticism.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, after a pensive pause.
"I came here to get a ticket out of town," he said, "but before I could
board the bus, I found myself trapped in this ice."
She regarded him with raised brows, one hand stroking her chin.
"What were you leaving town for?" she asked.
He paused. He knew the answer, but he wasn't sure he wanted to share it
with this lady. For some reason she made him nervous. And yet, he had to be
free.
"To get away," he said. "The time had come for me to be a man, to grow
up, but I couldn't do it. I ran."
"From what?"
"My past," he laughed, a sad sound. "And my future." As he spoke, his
face grew somber. "I never felt important as a child, a gift from parents too
busy keeping up with the Jones, I suppose. When I came of age, the only thing
I had a hold on was my insecurity. I was afraid, didn't think I could control
my life. There I was, ready to step out on my own, all of that indiscernible
frontier of life before me, and all I had to do was leave my past behind and
become a man."
He took a deep breath, gritting his teeth.
"Only when that time came, I couldn't do it. I ran. And here you see me,
frozen."
"That's very sad." The way she said it, he found it hard to believe that
she meant it.
"But not now!" he exclaimed. "You've come, and you're the one who can
free me!"
"Boy, you're just full of lines, aren't you."
"No, I mean it," he said trying to keep the desperation from his voice.
"Everyday, hundreds of people come walking by here. They buy their tickets,
board their buses, and live their lives. Sometimes they glance at me, but
it's like they can't see me, or see me through a veil, like I'm not completely
real to them, just a shadow. So they move on. I try to call them, and sometimes
scream 'till I think I'll explode, but no one ever hears.
"Then the seasons change," he continued. "Summer drifts into fall, and
winter on its heels. The people lessen each day; the cold is too much for
them. Those are the loneliest months. The only people I would see, then,
are the occasional young lovers come to steal a moments privacy late in the
night.
"But now you've come, and you heard me and see me. I'm sure if you just
try, you can save me. You're the one."
"Hmmm..." she said, thoughtfully. "In spite of that, I can't help you."
His heart dropped. "Why not?"
"Because even though I may be the one, that doesn't mean you are. The
last thing I need is a frozen man."
Her words slapped his face. "What?"
"You don't think you will thaw out overnight, do you?"
Her question caught him off guard.
"Believe me, you won't. I've seen this before, and it takes time to get
back on your feet."
"But you can't just leave me here!"
"I won't. I'm gonna' board my bus. If you stay, that's you're choice."
She turned to walk away. Before he could call out to her, she turned back.
"You see, I had a rough childhood, as well. My father was very demanding.
I'd even say jealous. He wanted me always to be his little girl, and didn't
want to share me with anyone else. I lived a life of closed doors and high
fences. When my time came, I chose to live differently. I promised myself
I would never be contained by anyone again."
She looked straight at him, her deep blue eyes piercing his. "That's why
I don't have time for you."
There was a long pause.
"I don't know what to say," he muttered, ashamed. It was true, he had no
right to make her his hero. He knew whose fault his being there was.
"I'm sorry for bothering you," he managed finally. "It was nice speaking
with you."
"I'm sure," she said. She cocked her head sideways and looked at him
again. "It must be tough going through life looking for someone to rescue
you."
"You don't know the half of it," he answered shaking his head.
"You never told me your name."
"My name?" He hated this. "I don't have one; I haven't earned it yet."
"You are Unnamed? That explains it all."
It was a great impropriety to ask of another while without, but he had to
know who she really was.
"Wh- what do they call you?"
"Amanda," she answered, nonplussed by his impertinence. "It means 'lead
into gold'." She looked at him then with more compassion than he thought her
capable of. Then, wishing him good day, she turned and walked away.
As he watched her leave, he felt the chill of the ice next to his skin.
But inside, he felt a warmth, growing, like a rain of hot tears. He smiled.
The water dripping from him had already formed a small puddle at his feet.
Copyright (c) 1993 by Mark T McMeans
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4*BESTOF93/4
PROFIT MARGIN
By Steven Peterson
Coffee and cigarettes: as Ron reached for his Camels, he scorched his
tongue on the icky-sweet flavored coffee his secretary had just brewed.
Hot cherry and white chocolate flooded his throat as he tried to choke down
the viscous fluid; his eyes began to water and his hands started to shake.
Ron coughed and sent a perfect stream of java splashing down: a direct hit,
right into the middle of his keyboard. Cursing silently, he stabbed the
intercom button:
--Marcy ... could you come here, my keyboard is down again.
--I'll bring the spare ...
Ron set down his mug and picked up the sodden keyboard. He began to
shake the little brown droplets out onto the carpet, hoping to cover his
slop before Marcy arrived. She'd been after him for months to get used to
his new "secretary," and this was the third unit he'd trashed this month.
It was starting to look deliberate, and the man upstairs had his "quota"
of time "on-line" to measure, quantify, digitize, whatever they did with
the little blips when Ron was done with them. He was glaring at the screen
when Marcy entered:
--What happened, Ron ... ashes or fluids?
She had the spare keyboard tucked under one arm; Ron thought it looked
like some sort of new appendage, perhaps the wing she was using to fly away.
--Coffee again, Marcy. That thing's a damn magnet.
--Well, scoot out of the way, and I'll have you back up again in just a
minute. Really, Ron ... you'd better get used to it being there.
--Yeah, I know. Say, could you bring up those new sales forms for me?
I keep getting lost in the windows.
Marcy began to trace the cord to the back of the machine. Her movements
had a confidence that Ron had never really noticed before. Ron started to
thumb through his ancient rolodex, looking for his first calls of the day.
Marcy stood up, tapped a few keys, and fixed Ron with a cold look:
--There you go. Now which form did you want?
--Carlson's little gem. It's called sp or spr94 or something.
--O.K., watch ...
Marcy grabbed the mouse and began pointing and clicking.
--First, get out of this directory ...
As Marcy droned on, throwing acronyms and clipped references at Ron,
he thought back to his first regional spring sales campaign. Marcy had just
started working for him, so fresh out of high school he could smell the
bubblegum on her breath. He ran her like a dog, another order damn near
every hour. And she had kept coming back for more. He missed that loyalty,
those trusting quiet eyes.
--O.K., now you're in the dbase ...
God, he had power back then. Ron had owned his own region, sales were
booming, and a man's personal secretary worked for him, not some damn machine.
Marcy was staring at him, waiting:
--Yeah, that's the one. How do I send them again?
--Just like anything else, Ron, hit Control-Z and Enter.
Marcy glanced out the door, then back at Ron.
--Anything else?
--Um, yeah, if you could get me the southeast Indiana figures from
last year, I could get on the horn and maybe accomplish something.
--I'll forward them right away.
--No, no ... on paper, Marcy. I need the whole screen.
--O.K., Ron, let me fire up the printer.
Ron watched Marcy make her way out the door, quietly lusting after
the Old Marcy, the girl he could manipulate. It had been years, but Ron
still remembered the soft tenderness of his old conquest. Her quiet ease
with numbers, with so-called logic, had changed everything. At first, that
skill had made her valuable (Ron hated math); ultimately, it gave her the
upper hand. Carlson was looking to promote her right out of the building;
West Coast was looking for bright minds ...
Ron fired up a Camel and reached for his dog-eared rolodex. Flipping
through, he stopped on a new one: fresh meat. Ron picked up the phone and
started dialing, his fingers stabbing the buttons as he rifled through a pile
of paper. In the background, a printer began its furious ticking and whirling.
* * *
After a fruitless morning of cold calls, Ron had to face Carlson.
The young turk of management, Carlson was obsessed with the machines. From
his desk, he could monitor all the sales reports from the building as they
were entered; everything was defined on his screen.
The meeting was, of course, in his office: lots of chairs arranged in a
web pattern around the terminal, a blinking cursor ready to reveal the frozen
figures of a month's work.
--Ron. I'm glad you're here early. I've been meaning to talk to you,
I haven't seen you logged on much lately. Come on, old man, everybody's got
to be part of the team. Let's face it ... nobody, not even you, can make sense
out of that pile of dead trees on your desk. HQ wants it all digital, and if
you can't get it online, Ron, you're going to be history.
--Right, Carlson. All the ram in the world can't give you my contacts,
my reputation. Twenty-five year's worth. Look, kid, HQ doesn't want me
swingin' over to the other side, so save your empty threats.
The other agents began to filter in. The monthly meetings had changed.
All the ladies who used to remain safely behind their Selectrics had arrived,
invading Ron's old domain and threatening his margin with their aggressive
forays into his territory.
Carlson's monitor beeped and he began:
--Good to see everybody. I've been watching, and I'm pleased to say
that most of you have posted good numbers. Most of you even found the new
form. Keep using it for now, I'll post an updated version after the spring
season. As you all know, the secretarial pool will only be available on a
limited basis from now on. So get used to those keyboards, men. These ladies
are too valuable on the lines; they're not going to correct your grammar
forever. Speaking of ladies ... congratulations Marcy, you win the bonus
for this month: Marcy posted the best numbers, part or full time.
--Thanks, Mr. Carlson. Our product sells itself, really.
Carlson beamed, his latest convert shining brightly.
--Mr. Carlson, I want you to know, I didn't make it happen on my own.
Ron laid the groundwork in that area ... and your form kept me on track.
Ron glanced at Marcy, then down at the floor. Carlson tapped a few keys,
grabbed his mouse, and started clicking away. In a moment, he found what he
wanted and swiveled the monitor around. On the screen, a chart listed the
active areas and the numbers for last month, last year, and the averages for
the last ten years. Ron noticed his territory was now called C-12:
--Carlson, them old numbers are a lie. The law of averages don't
obey you or anyone else. You can't expect us to maintain a quota based
on a different time, a different world.
--Ron, I hear you. Those numbers are for me. Do your best to hit the
target. We need you on the team; don't worry about it.
--Then stop breathing down my neck for those damn forms. I'll do
my job ... the way I've been doing it for the last twenty-five years.
--Relax, Ron. The machine is just another tool. And since we're all
using it, the least you could do is try and join the rest of the world.
Marcy tried to shrink into the background. Open conflict still made her
nervous, and she thought Ron was making a fool of himself; a dinosaur stomping
in the tar. She couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the old man, he had
shown her so much.
--Look, Ron, I don't care how much coffee you dump on your keyboard,
that unit stays in your office. Get used to it. And just so you know,
I drafted Marcy's transfer orders to San Jose this morning ... she won't
be replaced. Starting next month, you fly on your own, buddy.
Ron looked stricken as the news sank in. Marcy nervously shook the glad-
hands and avoided looking at Ron. Her old hero was on his way down, and she
felt a twinge of guilt. After all, she had done more than her share to bring
the master dbase online. But, then again, Ron had used her, in many ways.
Marcy steeled herself and leveled a gaze at Ron:
--Thanks, Ron. For everything. I know you'll be O.K., you don't need me.
--Well, I guess that's that, Marcy. Good luck.
* * *
The spring campaign was winding down, and Ron was alone in his office.
His numbers were terrible, and he was stuck in some directory. No coffee,
no Marcy, and no more mousing around.
Ron flicked the switch on his power-strip, and grabbed a pen and his
trusty legal pad. He slapped the keyboard on top of his monitor, cleared a
space on his desk, and began dialing in a last-ditch effort:
--Ralph, old boy, it's Ron. Can we talk? I know you've been buying from
SunStar lately, but I need a favor. I need to move some product, and I'm ready
to call a few in.
--Ron, you sound desperate ... and I wish I could help, but things just
ain't the same. Schumann would have a cow if I made someone reprogram the
invoice code.
--Invoice Code! Christ, Ralph, did you just say Invoice Code? Don't
tell me they've gotten to you, too. What the hell is the point, anyway?
--Beats me, Ron. Twenty years ago, they told us to send our kids to MIT.
Now, them kids are runnin' us through the better mousetrap. Go figure ...
--Yeah, don't I know it. See you at the club tonight?
--Not tonight, Ron. Gotta go.
Ron hung up and tried another number:
--Hello, John Farris, please.
--I'm sorry, Mr. Farris no longer works here. Would you care to speak
to another member of our staff?
--No. What happened to Farris?
--He retired last month, I think. If you're interested, I could connect
you to his replacement, Mr., ah, what did you say your name was ...
--Forget it.
Ron placed the headset on his shoulder and lit another Camel. After
brooding for a moment, he got up to make some real coffee, none of that
sweet stuff. There was a new girl at Marcy's old desk; she pointedly ignored
Ron as he measured the grounds and water. Her monitor beeped, and she clicked
to attention. E-mail from Carlson Central, no doubt.
While he waited for his java to brew, Ron tried to make small talk:
--How goes the battle?
--Excuse me, did you say something?
--Yeah, how goes it? If you'd like some good numbers, let me know ...
I can dig some out.
--No, that's O.K., Mr. Carlson has me working from the updated list.
Thanks, anyway.
She turned back to her screen, oblivious to Ron's lurking presence.
She was young, as Marcy had once been. But this one was untouchable, as
alien to Ron as the Inventory Code.
* * *
May 15th, the end of the spring season. It was a bright, cool day and
Ron was spiking his coffee with some very old brandy. He fixed his gaze on
the blinking cursor and raised his mug:
--A toast ... to progress, march on.
Carlson was on his way down; the machine had crunched all of his
numbers, and Ron's time was up. On his pad, in longhand, Ron had prepared
his resignation. Why not. It was over: the boys were deep down in Florida,
the kids owned it all now. Ron picked up his old rolodex, leaned back in his
chair, and began plucking cards from the spindle. One by one, he flipped them
into the trashcan, a vacant smile on his face.
Copyright (c) 1994 by Steven Peterson
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