The
Other "Welfare Queens" - A long
time ago a few businessmen decided they were tired
of playing fairly in the arena of the United States'
capitalist market, so they figured the best way to
beat their competition was not to produce a better
or cheaper product, but to have the government help
them out. With this in mind, corporate welfare was
born...
Growth
is both a blessing and a curse - Killearn
started the ball rolling, followed by the northeast
explosion, the malls, the Comp Plan . . . and, soon,
giant Southwood. In 1964, people thought J.T.
Williams was crazy. That was when he and a couple of
partners -- attorney Mallory Horne and the late Bill
Cartee -- decided to turn 3,800 acres of the Velda
Dairy Farm into the county's largest subdivisions...
Spam
Me and Die - I'm not kidding. Like I don't have enough
to do. Forget my job responsibilities, the kids,
whatever sort of "free time" I manage to
eke out of my existence. At some point in the past
before email and computers, and probably when busy
people all had secretaries, I picked up the idea
that a polite person must answer all their mail.
This perhaps made sense if you got a few letters a
week. But now I get between 100 and 200 emails a
day. Most of them are from perfect strangers. Click
here for sex. Click here to get rich. None of these
spammers are doing it "by accident"
because they didn't know that spamming is a Bad
Idea...not when they are based in the U.S. and their
email comes via an unsecured SMTP site in Spain...
Will
spammers ever learn this is no time for slime?
- By now, most
people have found a way to deal with the influx of
spam. The really industrious ones install a filter
or regularly inform their Internet service provider
about these messages. The "lazy" ones
spend a few minutes every week deleting this chaff,
in the same way they would weed a garden. In any
case, anytime you see a message like
"recovering 30 messages" you know that up
to two-thirds of that number could be stuff you
don't want to see...
Should
your boss know about those visits to the shrink? -
When the Berlin Wall came down in October 1989, there was,
of course, a lot of gloating in the West. We'd won;
capitalism and free markets had triumphed over the dark
forces of Soviet tyranny and centralized control,
conspicuously vindicating the American way. But what about
the age-old advice: Ignore at your peril the ominous shadows
cast by the creepy glow of hubris; if there's any time the
gods love to strike you down, it's during your victory lap.
I was haunted by a half-formed notion that, despite all the
economic chest-thumping and political high-fiving in the
so-called Free World, we were converging on our own
reckoning, a day when we would realize our own failures
beneath the weight of unacknowledged Western tyrannies...
Going
Ballistic - A hacker tourist explores the deep
recesses of fabled Air Force stronghold Cheyenne Mountain,
where the Cold War never stops. It's a lovely day at
Cheyenne Mountain. The sky is blue, the air is cool, and the
threatcon level is alpha. As threatcons go, alpha is pretty
mild stuff - it's the first level up from no threat at all,
and this alpha is on the wane. It started several months
ago, when rumors of a terrorist threat from abroad caused a
brief hubbub and a slight increase in security. Nothing too
exciting happened, though: The Air Force didn't even shut
down the tourist visits - and today, as I drive up the
twisting blacktop into the Rockies' Front Range, everything
is basically peaceful at America's most legendary Cold War
military installation. Doomsday anxiety ain't what it used
to be...
Selfishness
and Altruism - One of the insights not rarely
associated with new converts to individualistic
political philosophies, such as Libertarians,
Objectivists and some anarchists, is that everybody is
doing what they do, ultimately, for their own benefit.
In some cases this can be a pretty direct sham, such
as supposed philanthropy which is really an attempt to
buy something on a calculated basis of getting at
least a dollar's gain for a dollar spent, whether for
public relations, a tax shelter, or entry into a
social class. Perhaps more often, the personal gain is
in feeling good about oneself, or earning the esteem
of others; this might be said even of Mother Teresa
(to use a modern icon). In any case, such people will
say, behind the giving is the goal of making the giver
feel good, in some manner, rather than true
selflessness...
THE MERRY RECLUSE
- A SINGLE WOMAN CHOOSES A LIFE OF SOLITUDE IN THE LAND OF
WE. Nine forty-five p.m. I am standing in my kitchen
preparing my very favorite meal, a zesty blend of wheat
flakes, Muslix and raisins that comforts me deeply. It is a
Thursday, which means that "ER" is on in 15
minutes, and it is mid-May -- sweeps month -- which means
that I am filled with anticipation: yes, a new episode. I
feel serene. I am wearing torn leggings, a T-shirt, a
bathrobe. The dog is in the living room, curled contentedly
(and wordlessly) on the sofa; the phone machine is blinking
with several messages, which I've dutifully screened and
have no intention of answering until tomorrow. And a thought
comes to me, a simple statement of fact that arrives in a
fully formed sentence. I hear the words: I am the Merry
Recluse...
Standard
Deviations - Copy This Column: The Truth About
DeCSS - Last November,
the big news in the DVD industry was the defeat of
DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS). A simple 60KB
program called DeCSS, offered by a Norwegian group
called MoRE (Masters of Reverse Engineering) allows
the contents of DVD movies (minus menus and
interactive features) encrypted with CSS to be stored
and played back from a hard drive. This development
gave rise to sensationalist articles proclaiming
"the worst fear of movie studios has been
realized" (Wired). The DVD Forum issued a
statement denouncing the program as "illegal and
inappropriate." In describing the situation to
Congress, Motion Picture Association of America
president Jack Valenti announced, "The ramparts
are being breached..."
Drunk
Like Me... - "While Alcoholics Anonymous and its
12-step offspring still dominate the addiction field, there is
a growing clamor for more alternatives. We may well be seeing
an addictive-treatment Reformation, and if you'll join me
inside that metaphor for a moment, ask yourself how long it's
been since you could say, "I'd like to worship Christ,
please. What's the routine?" Sit yourself down, Jack. It
ain't that simple anymore..."
The
beauty of alcohol - A DEDICATED DRINKER SINGS
SWEET PRAISES OF THE BOTTLE. Alcohol is beautiful.
Name your poison. Vodka is ethereal. Wine is biblical.
Mashed malt is liquor at its earthy best. There are
drinking clubs in Manhattan where guys sip tumblers of
Scotch so rare it costs a hundred bucks a swallow. Can
you imagine paying that much to wet your whistle? I
can. Scotch is beautiful. If you kissed an angel, her
mouth would taste of Glenmorangie Single Highland
Malt. I love Scotch so much I don't drink it.
Otherwise I'd be a fall-on-your-face drunk. My wife
would leave me. The dog, too. I'd never write again,
just slump at a bar purring with pleasure...
The
7 vices of highly creative people - If you go through
life free of bad habits, you won't live forever, but it will
feel like it. It all starts one quiet afternoon at the
brew-pub. I'm sitting with my associate Bobby, enjoying a pint
of the house ale, when Stephen Covey (author of "The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People") suddenly appears on
the bar television. I can't quite describe the level of
annoyance that the bald business guru brings to a room of
gentle drinkers, trying to enjoy themselves while the rest of
the populace is at work, but a sudden wail from a man in the
far corner, similar to that of a small dog yanked forcefully
by the tail, alerts everyone that something is terribly wrong.
In a matter of moments all eyes are fixed in distress upon the
television...
