221 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
221 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
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_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
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| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
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| |________________________________________________________________| |
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|____________________________________________________________________|
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...presents... Nineteen Seventy-Seven
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by OXblood Ruffin
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01/01/1997-#321
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__//////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\__
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Est. 1984 \\\\\\/ xXx BOW to the COW xXx \////// Est. 1984
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__ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ __
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|__heal_the_sick__raise_the_dead__cleanse_the_lepers__cast_out_demons__|
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this is where it starts
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In 1977 Steve Jobs introduced the Apple II computer in California; and
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across the pond in jolly olde, Malcolm McLaren unleashed the Sex Pistols. On
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the surface there is no logical nexus, but down below, uh, hmm. Well there
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isn't much connection there either. But the point is, some things have come
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full circle. Sun Microsystems has introduced its network computer which,if
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not exactly qualifying it as the next big thing, has at least assured its
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place as one of them. And the Sex Pistols - a few pounds heavier and missing
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a member who did a bang-up impersonation of Gary Oldham - hit the road again.
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"Hit" being the operative word.
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the view from mount sinai
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I hate to give myself away but I wasn't exactly wiping jam off my chin
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in the seventies. Unless of course you count the time I was doing tequila
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shooters and Secanol in Key West and passed out face-down in a stack of
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flapjacks. Fortunately I was much revived by 1977 when a little-known film
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director - who appears to have been raised on Buck Rogers and the Talmud -
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came up with a bushburner named _Star Wars_. For some it was just a
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Barnumesque space drama. For others it became a piece of spiritual software.
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A moral compass without which any association with technology was
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unnegotiable. _Star Wars_ also did something else. It married entertainment
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and the machine. It may sound a little booga booga to say but there was
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something happening on a deeper level in that movie than had ever happened
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before. And like anything deep, it really can't be explained. It's all in
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the experience. Now if you would turn to page 317 in your hymn books and,
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oh, pardon me.
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I was never so happy as when the Apple II showed up. My first computer
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was a Wang, and you can imagine just what kind of machine you're dealing with
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when it's named after the male organ. A typewriter with attitude is what
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that rat bastid was. And then came the Apple; boom, everything was changed
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from that moment. By 1984 it had mutated into the Macintosh and the machine
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for the rest of us became the standard upon which Bill Gates built his whole
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freaking temple of lucre gang bang. No more text prompts. Just drag and
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drop, baby. You wanna move a file? No problem. You wanna open a program?
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Double click. It was heaven. Especially for those of us who don't pop a
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woody over the thought of UNIX manuals. But don't get me wrong... EMACS
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still gives me a semi.
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hang time
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Did I mention that Elvis died in 1977? No, I would've remembered that.
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Anyway, Elvis is only a big deal with white people. With the exception of
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Eddie Murphy - who has a whole room full of Elvis memorabilia - I've never
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met or known any blacks who thought Elvis was the shit. And rightly so, at
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least as far as the music thing goes. I have a theory about Elvis which I've
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only told one other guy. Elvis - as the true godfather of punk and as other
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punk musicians - is more interesting from the sociological point of view than
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he ever could be musically.
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Elvis was the John the Baptist of the civil rights movement. He
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deconstructed that whole "doo daw/fat mammy/steppin fetchit/yowsa" stereotype
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for a whole new generation of white small "l" liberals and made blacks sexy.
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As Jean Genet, hardcore homo extraordinaire, observed... we are most
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interested in the political liberation of those people with whom we would
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most like to sleep. This seems to make sense and I did almost marry a woman
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from Angola. Perhaps you could think about your own sexual safaris.
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Fantasies only count for half-points.
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It's a given that the civil rights movement never would have succeeded
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without white middle-class support. That segregation was a moral evil was
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politically irrelevant until it found some purchase with a multiracial
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coalition. And Elvis contributed immeasurably to bringing a whole new
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perception of the black community. And that is why I love Elvis even though
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I can't abide anything he recorded (with the exception of his gospel albums
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which are immortal) when they're placed next to his black contemporaries.
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And in 1977, Elvis died and the Sex Pistols whipped it out and we are to
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believe that these were important musical events? They are more telling of
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the white experience in the industrial age than the state of the arts. Now
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what exactly do the Sex Pistols signify?
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the kids will have their say
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The night was... uh, the night was dark and rainy and... uh, it was
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brumous and humid... ah, shit. You get the picture. The day had passed and
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there was some kinda weather happening, contributing in some unknown way to
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the portentous events, yak yak yak. And down in Lubbock, Texas a coupla
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teenagers charted the future of computing. Although at the time they weren't
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consciously charting anything,which is more or less the way that most
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historic changes bust out. They were just hanging out in an abandoned
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slaughterhouse. And it came to pass on that mighty night - is Charlton Heston
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on the premises? - that the Cult of the Dead Cow was born. Not exactly a
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virgin birth - and the closest thing there was to a wise man was the night
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clerk from the local convenience store humping his girlfriend in the back
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room - but it was a beginning. Swamp Ratte' and Franken Gibe - er, those
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would be hacker names - decided to start throwing up *gag* t-files (t-files =
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text files) on a BBS. That was in 19macintosh84. Ewww, 1984. How Orwellian.
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The Cult of the Dead Cow is the oldest and arguably the most important
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hacker group in the history of alternative telecom. There are other famous
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groups like the Legion of Doom, Masters of Deception and the Chaos Computer
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Club. But unlike these comrades in arms, cDc never gained its fame with the
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Time-Warner public by taking a collar. But the hackers know who they are.
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They've come for the files year after year. And while everyone else's kids
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were busy watching _Saved By the Bell_ and whatever that stupid show that
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Michael J. Fox was on, a whole generation of kids grew up on t-files that
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introduced UNIX to teenagers and talked about making free phone calls and
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told outrageous stories. And that's important.
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Now that the web has become such a creeping decency and the whole
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underground bulletin board scene has more or less remained underground: it's
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hard to imagine that boards like Demon Roach Underground, Castle Catatonic,
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Tacoland, and The Convent were the center of the universe for learning
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anything of value about the net. Now we have the Web - which thanks to Tim
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Berners-Lee has driven a stake through the heart of *barf* post modernism -
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and just about anyone who knows how to get to AltaVista and type "cult of the
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dead cow" and hit Submit can get to their files and the whole cottage
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industry of hack/phreak anarchy that they spawned. But it wasn't always so.
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Not that they're complaining. The t-shirts and paraphernalia do tend to end
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up in cheesy hollywood movies about hackers and even cheesier lifestyle
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magazines *wired* as backdrops for _insiders_. But there is something kinda
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sad about a kids' movement being latched onto by a hungry media machine.
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marilyn manson tampons
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The Sex Pistols didn't pave the way for the mainstreaming of punk,
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unemployment did. So what if Kurt Cobain blew his brains out and punk bands
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play in stadiums and merchandise their spit and grimacing? This isn't about
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music. This is about white kids being out of work. It's about going to
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college and graduating with a baccalaureate in Renaissance Literature and
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having a distinguished position running a deep fryer. It's about an entire
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generation of middle class kids languishing in a purgatory of dull
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uncertainty and social stasis. It's also a lesson in humility for the
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Caucasian community in the sunset years of their influence. And like a bad
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acid trip it will eventually pass.
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I really don't know where this one is going to end. No one does. But it
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is interesting to observe that an education - that thing which was supposed
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to guarantee one such a rosy future - doesn't really count for squat these
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days. At least not the kind of education we thought was so marvelous. Not
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that I'm suggesting that we abandon the universities and succumb to
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television's late night infobumf... take control of your life! Now! Learn
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kernel hacking and lose weight forever. Join the millions of rich and
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beautiful graduates from the Bruno Gerussi Home Study blah blah blah... oh,
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blow me. We have some tough challenges to deal with right now as far as
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training young workers for their place in the virtual workshop, and
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retraining a downsized work force from the traditional economy will be even
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more challenging. But we can't be afraid to make mistakes until we figure
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out how to ramp up our labor pool. The alternatives are just too disquieting
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to contemplate.
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gooey, gooey and phooey
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Computers are only important for what they can do for you and anyone who
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tells you differently has got something to sell. They're like hammers or
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paint brushes or irons. They're damn tools, alright. Tools to execute
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practical tasks like getting money from the bank. This is my favorite... I
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meet people every day who say that they could never be on anything so exalted
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as the Internet. Guh. Any jackass - something plenty of people call me on a
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regular basis - can be on a network, most are. Every time a bank card gets
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swiped and money is processed like any other bit of binaria by a CPU one is
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using a computer and using it on a network.
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We're already hooked up and geeking along at warp speed. The future
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started years ago so ya see we've already caught up without even knowing it.
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But the challenge that we face is not so much one of technology but the more
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problematic issue of coming to a perceptual breakthrough. The virtual world
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is the de facto ordering principle of the new millennium. It will determine
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how we work and how we live. And you can forget about privacy. You thought
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the tabloids were bad? Wait'll the net gets a hold of yer ass.
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To say that information wants to be free is better understood when one
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understands that on the Internet it has no choice. In a binary environment
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information is kinetic and happier in movement than in repose and like water
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- with which it shares a certain fluidity - given the choice it will flow.
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And knowing this will give us our freedom. Banging your head against the
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wall because a direct marketer has got your whole wretched life on his hard
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drive or trying to block out junior' s penchant for net porn makes less sense
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than negotiating these inevitabilities. it's a Dirty Harry world out there
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and man's gotta learn his limitations.
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.-. _ _ .-.
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/ \ .-. ((___)) .-. / \
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/.ooM \ / \ .-. [ x x ] .-. / \ /.ooM \
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-/-------\-------/-----\-----/---\--\ /--/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\-
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/lucky 13\ / \ / `-(' ')-' \ / \ /lucky 13\
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\ / `-' (U) `-' \ /
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`-' the original e-zine `-' _
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Oooo eastside westside / ) __
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/)(\ ( \ WORLDWIDE / ( / \
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\__/ ) / Copyright (c) 1997 cDc communications and the author. \ ) \)(/
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(_/ Award-winning CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a trademark of oooO
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cDc communications, PO Box 53011, Lubbock, TX, 79453, USA. _
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oooO All rights reserved. Edited by Swamp Ratte'. __ ( \
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/ ) /)(\ / \ ) \
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\ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( /
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\_) "THE COW WALKS AMONGST US" Oooo
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