In short, one might conclude that all knowledge, wisdom, and wit are confined to those who inhabit New York City, Washington DC, or Hollywood.
I am now in my 6th decade of life experience - which was gained in many cities in the U.S. and in about 30 foreign countries.That experience has included the U.S. Marines, law school, the ATF, the CIA, Fortune 500 executive, writer, public speaker, educator, editor, and publisher - for openers. For over 20 years, I have written articles off and on for various magazines and newspapers. I've had an enormous number of letters published in major national publications. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 11 years. Each Saturday (or so) I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback.
Why do people say they are going to "take a decision"? Where are they going to take it? Disneyland?
This past week, I got an e-mail with the W32/GIBE@MM virus. That is the one that purports to be from Microsoft and offers to update some security features if you click on the attached file (Q216309.EXE). Zone Alarm Pro 3.0 intercepted it and put it in the dog house. The reason? ZA quarantines any attachment with one of many extensions. In this case, it was .EXE. Think about it. How could Microsoft send an update or fix to all of its customers? There is not an e- mail server big enough for that. And the Internet would come to a halt. I also have Norton AntiVirus 2002, but Zone Alarm saved the day this time. Get it.
You would think for about $30 million a year that Jay Leno could think of more than one way to refer to his guests. He calls every guest "buddy." Would somebody please tell him, "I ain't your buddy."
You know the classic line about the guy who comes up to a beautiful woman and says "You ought to be a model. I can help you" Or, "You ought to be in movies. Here is my card." Years ago, I used to sit around the pool, and play tennis with, a beautiful stewardess (that's what they were then called). One day, I said to her, "I am going to name my heroine in the novel I am writing after you." She smiled. "That's nice." In fact, I did. Not only her first name, but her last name. When the book came out, she had married and moved away. I never saw her again. It was a great come-on line, but as it turned out, her name was perfect for my heroine. I saw a friend of hers at the country-club pool one day and asked her to make sure that Tanya knew that I had in a small way immortalized her. So much fun.
When you are finished drinking your pot of coffee, do you take out the filter with the grounds and put in a new filter right then? After you use the dryer, do you clean the lint filter right then? If so, it says something important about your personality. I have no idea what it means, but at these prices you are expecting psychological counseling?
The U.S. Shadow Government is sequestered in unknown locations. How many of you remember the elaborate bunker at the Greenbrier Resort in W. Virginia during the Cold War? It was to be the location of the major government players in the event of impending or actual nuclear attack. Too bad they did not hang on to it. As I recall, it was refurbished into something else. This was another multi-million dollar piece of pork that Sen. Byrd obtained for his home state. You have no idea how many of your tax dollars Sen. Byrd has funneled into W. Virginia. It is staggering.
Yet another TV prediction. Andy Richter starts his new comedy (?) show on FOX next week. When Andy was the sidekick to Conan O'Brien, I found him so insipid and bland that he caused me never to watch the O'Brien show. In truth, I am not a fan of O'Brien. Richter reminded me of a pampered , puffy, rich kid, who had attended private school, avoided the draft, never missed a meal, never did a sit up in his life - and only got a date because he was the kid with the Corvette. Where his reputation for "brilliance" came from I do not know. Of course, I virtually never watched O'Brien, so how could I know. Based almost solely on my nearly-infallible instincts, I predict that Richter's new show on FOX will be a huge failure, and he will go back to writing jokes or whatever it is that he is supposed to be good at. As always, I will write an apology if Richter has a hit. A hit with real people, not just with those hacks who claim they are critics but are in reality whores to the studio heads and publicity machines of the networks. The hollowest words have become "critically acclaimed." By whom? Spare us the insult.
Regular readers will notice that there is no discussion of politics or world affairs in this Outback. The death of my best friend and long-time companion was all the bad news I could handle recently - and I'm not doing very well with that. All I will say is that during Bill Clinton's presidency I wore the letters off the MUTE button on the remote when he came on TV. Now, I will not listen to that lying, conniving, weasel, Sen. Tom Daschle. Just two sentences from him ruins my day. Pray for the Republicans to retake the Senate majority. Thanks a lot Sen. Jeffords.
You Can't "Hone In" on Anything
One of my pet peeves about on-air media is their frequent use of "hone in," as in "they attempted to hone in on the source of the fire." Or, "The police attempted to hone in on the suspects in the murder." It is home in. I prepared a two-page piece on the subject. The front is from a respected book on grammatical usage. On the back are some excerpts from The Wall Street Journal where both "hone" and "home in" are used correctly. I have sent it to several folks on TV - with surprising results.
You can hone a knife. You can hone a skill. You can't "hone in" on anything. A pilot "homes in" on a beacon. The FCC "homes in" on an illegal transmitter. A Pigeon "homes in" on his roost. That is why they are called "Homing Pigeons." They are not "HoNing Pigeons."
Ed Bradley, of CBS's "60 Minutes" wrote me an e-mail and thanked me for pointing out his misuse of "hone in." A senior official in the Catholic church, who had appeared on TV, wrote me a lovely letter in which he thanked me for pointing out his misuse of "hone in." The snotty lady on "60 Minutes" - who did it more than once, I think - has yet to reply. That figures.
Recently, I sent my "hone-in versus home-in" piece to the news director of a major TV station in Dallas, noting the misuse by one of the anchors. I got an e-mail from that anchor thanking me for my letter and agreeing that too many on-air people incorrectly used "hone in." Then, he said that he had gone to the "Outback" on my Web page and thoroughly enjoyed my articles. He wrote again, after the next installment, with some compliments about my Outback offerings. One day, I plan on driving to Dallas and taking him to lunch. You never know how people will respond. The really good ones try to do their best and appreciate constructive suggestions. Give it a try. You might make a new best friend.
Southwestern Bell - Oh, for the Good Old Days of the AT&T Monopoly
A while back I discovered that I was spending about as much money on my two telephone lines and my cell phone as I was on groceries. I called Southwestern Bell to cancel my unpublished number that I used exclusively for the Internet. I explained over and over and over that I wanted to maintain the listed number that I had for a number of years. The next day, my unpublished number was disconnected as requested. A few days later, my remaining wire line went dead.
While in town, I called Southwestern Bell and asked them if there was a problem on the line. I talked with a lovely and helpful lady who was aghast at what had happened. She said that somebody had taken it upon themselves to assume that when I canceled the one phone line I was canceling my entire service.
Okay, then what do I do now? She explained that she would have to put in a new order and go through the entire process as if I were a new customer. The next day I still did not have any telephone service. I called Southwestern Bell from in town on another phone, and they said there was some problem on the line and they would look into it. In the middle of the afternoon a young repairman/installer came to the highway junction box. He called me from there to ask if my phone was now working. I jumped in the truck and drove down to the highway. I asked the young repairman if he had any explanation for why it had taken nearly two days to get my telephone reinstalled. He said that it been installed again, but when the other installer closed the junction box he cut the wires leading to my house. Terrific!
Since I had worked during summer vacation in college for the telephone company on an outside line crew, I asked him a few technical questions about my line. He said that it appeared that I had some device in my house that had cross polarity. When I asked him if he could test the line for noise, as I used the line for the Internet, he became defensive. He said that he was reluctant to discuss any more technical details with me about my phone service. Excuse me! I was tapping phones for the CIA before this young man was born.
Under the new rules of engagement between the phone company and customers, whatever a customer does with the phone system in his house beyond the pair of wires that terminate on the outside wall is his problem. A customer certainly has the right to know as much as he can about how his line interfaces with the telephone company and the quality of the line. There are actually noise standards they are obligated to meet.
When I got back to the house, I used a line tester from RadioShack in all of the phone outlets in my house. Every outlet showed reverse polarity. So, maybe I did not have a device in my house that had reverse polarity, as the young man had suggested. I went to the outside box on the side of my house and swapped the red and green wires from the incoming line. Guess what? All my outlets now showed correct polarity. The bad news was that my modem now logged on considerably slower than it had on the other line. Obviously, this was a noisier line than the one I had canceled. You know what they say. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Then the mail began to arrive from Southwestern Bell. On the same day I got a letter from one division thanking me for becoming a new customer. Another letter came from a different division expressing regret that I canceled my telephone service and imploring me to come back to Southwestern Bell. And I got a notice thanking me for selecting Southwestern Bell as my long distance carrier. All I had done was "try" to cancel one of my two wire lines!
You guessed it. I am going to send a letter to the president of SBC, the parent of Southwestern Bell, and to the president of SW Bell, with a copy of this piece. It might help some customers in the future, if SBC and/or SW Bell care to discover who the morons were who handled my simple request to cancel a phone line and then transfer them to less-demanding chores. At least reduce their Christmas bonuses.
If you have had an egregious problem with service, billing, or whatever, with Southwestern Bell or any SBC company, I am sure that the Chairman at SBC would like to hear from you. It is lonely at the top. Bad news seldom travels up the chain of command, just as water never goes up a waterfall. Aim high. It can always trickle down.
Mr. Edward E. Whitaker, Jr.
Chairman & CEO
SBC Communications, Inc.
175 E. Hoston
PO Box 2933
San Antonio, TX 78299-2933
Late-night Musical Guests - What Did They Say?
A long time ago, I noted that I finally found a use for Closed Captioning for those who can hear normally. I began to use it during the musical numbers on the late-night shows to find out what the singers were actually saying - out of curiosity. In a couple of years, I had understood only a couple of dozen words amidst the groaning, screeching, and mumbling that was passed off as music. Eventually, I learned to turn off the TV as the late-shows went to commercial around 11:25 p.m. CST, as what was to follow was surely going to be another musical mutant with incomprehensible lyrics.
Recently, I heard that Alanis Morissette was going to be the musical guest, and that name sounded familiar. Alanis has sold 40 million CDs. I listened very carefully to her song and understood only about 10 words and no more than two in a row. Do fans read the lyrics and memorize them, so they can sing along? Or is there yet another variation of English that I simply do no comprehend?
A while back, I stayed with Letterman long enough to hear Jane Monheit sing. I was mesmerized. She reminded me of my dear friend Shirley Chauvin, who was years ago the preeminent cabaret singer in Dallas. I immediately went to Amazon.com and previewed some cuts from her albums, and ordered the only two I saw listed. Those were the first vocal CDs I had purchased in about 10 years, other than Sinatra. She also keeps me company in the Silverado with the dupes I made on my computer.
On the ham radio, I was talking to a friend in his car on Long Island, New York. I mentioned how much I liked Jane Monheit. He said to check out Diana Krall, which I did. I now have two of her CDs, and she is terrific. We get the word late here in the Outback.
Could it be that sanity is slowly returning to music? Another late show had a young man on recently who sang beautifully and pronounced his words clearly. Is it possible that the pendulum is swinging back to featuring some musical guests who are not drowned out by drums and guitars and who actually sing ballads and lyrics you can understand?
My piano teacher back in the 1960's studied at Julliard. He said that if you wanted to study vocal musical phrasing, clarity of enunciation, etc., listen to Frank Sinatra and Eydie Gorme. Eydie was one of my favorite guests on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson. Sinatra was, and is, my all- time favorite. Eydie Gorme is now about 70 years old! Where did the time go, both for her and for me? Sinatra is with the big-band in the sky. We desperately need replacements. Jane Monheit and Diana Krall will be in the running for one of the top spots, of that I am certain.
Windows XP - Files, NTFS vs FAT32, DOS Commands, Batch Files, et al.
For several months I researched Windows XP. There were many things I did not understand from the material available. Now, I have installed it on a new computer, and have some thoughts to share with you.
Microsoft was too cheap to even include a jewel box for the Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade. How tacky. In a major computer store in Dallas, I asked for the best book on XP. They said go to a book store! I insisted that I needed something, anything, just to get started. I bought a book from Microsoft called "Microsoft Windows XP - Step by Step." This is the kind of "manual" you still get with decent software like WordPerfect, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and so on. After an investment of $29.95 in the book, I learned about 10 things I did not already know from using Windows 98SE and ME. What a pathetic book.
You can install Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade to a newly-formatted disk. You can actually partition the hard drive and format it during the install process. Set your BIOS to boot first from CD-ROM, insert the XP CD, and during the install process you will be asked to insert a CD for an older version of Win9x. Windows 95 disks will not work during this step, as I recall. But, if you are jumping from Windows 95 to XP, you must have been living in an Afghan cave for the past few years.
After an hour or two of trying, I still could not use Quick Launch and my Handy Folder from the desktop on the Taskbar on a one-line Taskbar, like I did in Windows ME. It kept making a two- line Taskbar. I had it for a minute, but lost it. Today, I got it back. But that will no doubt be a passing victory. The Help is nearly useless on this point. The book I bought is even worse on the subject of the Taskbar.
Nearly every peripheral I had, and most of the software, needed an update for XP. Some programs required the purchase of a complete new XP-compatible update. I still don't have an XP driver for my Samsung 570V TFT LCD monitor. They simply have not written one! I don't remember it taking so long to get drivers for Windows98, for example. It strikes me that Microsoft did not start early enough in sharing their "code handles" with software makers. How else can we be this far along and so many pieces of the puzzle are still missing? I bought a USB Zip drive last week in a big Dallas store with a rapid stock turnover, but I had to go to Iomega's site and download an entire new software file to install the thing in XP? Ridiculous.
There are still a log of bugs, but all things considered, I am glad I finally made the plunge. If you build your own computers, as I tend to do, it can be a long nightmare getting all the ducks lined up to make the monitors, video board, audio board, scanner, and printers work. But once you get it smoothed out, XP is pretty impressive. That is not easy for me to say, as I hate Microsoft with a passion. And, of course, I was unable to make a backup copy of the install CD to put in the safe. One day I will go to some hacker site and find the program that allows you to copy your own CD for backup, as you can do with most any other install CD.
Do You Format XP With NTFS or FAT32 File Allocation Tables?
One thing I never understood was the business about whether to select NTFS or FAT32 type file allocation when formatting XP. NTFS is more "robust," which is geek-speak for "less likely to destroy your files." Every source I read said something like, "Windows 9x can't read or write to partitions formatted as NTFS."
Did that mean that I could not copy files to a floppy or CD-ROM from my old Windows ME computer, using FAT32 file allocation tables, and transfer them to my new computer with XP with an NTFS file allocation system? Finally, I decided that a file was a file and formatted XP for NTFS. I am happily copying files from a FAT32 Windows ME disk to my XP disk with the NTFS file allocation system. It might seem obvious, but it was not to me, and I have been messing with computers for 20 years. I printed 15 pages of research about NTFS vs FAT32 and never got that questioned answered.
The main problem, which is not clearly defined in most discussions I have read, is that if you dual- boot on your computer into XP (with NTFS) and perhaps Windows 98SE (with FAT32), there may be (or will be) conflicts when you try to run certain programs under both OS systems. Thus, the advice is to format XP with FAT32 if you are going to dual-boot with XP and Win 9x. Or Format XP with NTFS and reinstall all your programs when you first boot into XP. You would thus have all your programs installed on the Win9x partition with FAT32 and duplicates of the programs installed under XP with NTFS. My guess is that you could then move data files back and forth between the Win9x partition and the XP partition, but again, I would not swear to it. Even though I move files freely from a computer with Windows ME (FAT32) to my XP computer with NTFS. Gotta work the same way if NTFS and FAT32 data files are on the same hard drive? One would think so. I'll get back to you. Or, if you are a computer genius, you send me the whole story and I will publish it.
Next, I had always read that there would be no DOS in Windows XP. I had been using batch files (.BAT) to copy files to backup disks for many years. I did not want to abandon that technique. It is so simple. Nowhere could I find out if a DOS batch file would run under Windows XP. The answer is yes! In fact, there are a lot of DOS commands that still work. There is a "Command Prompt" under All Programs/Accessories. It looks just like the old DOS window in Windows 9x. And if you look in the Help, you can find a list called "Command-line reference A-Z." Xcopy still works, Del (delete) works, CD (change directory), DIR (to list the files in the current folder), Attrib (attribute), and many other DOS commands still work.
The Help says you can run a batch file in the "Command Prompt" window or mode. There was also some stuff there about the syntax for scripts. That sounded too complicated. I simply copied some old batch files to the XP hard drive, changed XCOPY32 *.* to XCOPY *.* (XCOPY32 is gone), edited my destination disk to the new USB ZIP drive (E:), right-clicked on DOCSBAK.BAT and created a shortcut on the desktop. Then, I double-clicked the shortcut and files were flying to the Zip drive. The computer still knew a .BAT file when it saw one.
If you go into "Command Prompt," type a DOS command followed by /? and press Enter, you get the command syntax, just like always. What was this all this stuff about DOS would be gone completely? For example, type: XCOPY /? and you get the long list of switches you can use.
Let me give you one example. Suppose you have a folder on your C: drive called MYFILES and under that is a folder called DOCS. Here is a "batch" file that will back the files up to your E: Zip drive.
Open Notepad, or other text editor and type:
C:
CD \MYFILES\DOCS
ATTRIB -A *.BK!
XCOPY *.* E:\MYFILES\DOCS /D /Y
Save the file as DOCBAK.BAT. Right-click on the file and send it to the desktop as a shortcut. I then have a folder called Backups where I hide all my backup batch files.
The "C:" logs you to the C: drive. Or it could be D:, or F: - or whatever.
The CD is the old DOS command for "Change Directory." Now called a Folder. Yuk.
The ATTRIB -A *.BK! command prevents the XXXXXXXX.BK! files (my WordPerfect Backup dupe files) from being copied to the backup disk.
The *.* (XCOPY *.*) tells the batch file to copy ALL of the files in the current folder you are logged onto. That is, copy any file - regardless of what is before or after the "dot" (.). The /D backs up only files of a later date than those already on the destination backup disk. You can set a specific cutoff date, such as /D:03/15/2002 and so forth. The /Y tells the batch file to overwrite the files on the destination disk without asking you. After all, it is a backup. Why would you not want to copy only the latest files? There are more variations. Type: XCOPY /? in the "Command Prompt" box to see the list. For example, /E will copy the folder and all its subfolders. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes not.
Now, with any luck, you can use Explorer or Power Desk4 (my choice) to log onto the E: Zip drive and see what files were copied. It should have been all the files in the folder C:\MYFILES\DOCS. You can name the destination folder anything, of course. You might prefer to use XCOPY *.* E:\DOCS, for example.
Wildcards are the * and the ? in a copy command. If you want to copy only the .DOC files in a folder, your command would be XCOPY *.DOC E:\DOCS and so on. If you wanted to copy only those files that start with two characters and end in .XLS, you would use: XCOPY ??.XLS E:\2002XLS - or whatever.
If you decide you don't want to use the ATTRIB -A *.BK! line for now, you can "remark it out." Type REM in front of any command line and it will not execute, as in:
REM ATTRIB -A *.BK!
Or, you can remind yourself what the file is all about - if you look at it in a viewer or in Notepad:
REM This is my Backup batch file for DOCS to back up to my E: Zip drive
Also check out the PAUSE command. Again, type: PAUSE /? and press Enter.
This is pretty simple stuff and fun to play with. I know not one line of programming, but have been building backup batch files for as long as DOS has had a .BAT extension. Some of them have 30 or more entries, and back up every folder with data on my hard drive. Sure, you can buy a program, or maybe find a cheap shareware backup program. Some back up files in proprietary formats. If you use the native XCOPY command, you make an exact copy of your file. To bring back a file to your hard drive from your backup disk, drag and drop it using Explorer. A file is a file.
Long live DOS! Long live Batch Files! XP will probably be the last straw for DOS command-line work. I hope not.
Suggested Reading From Past Columns
(Right-click on an underlined link and select: "Open in New Window" to leave this window in place)
Terrorism:
"The Murder of WSJ Reporter Danny Pearl" Saturday, Feb.23, 2002
"Profiles, Stereotypes, and Common Sense" Saturday, Jan. 12, 2002
"John Magaw is Transportation Security Director (TSA)" Saturday, Dec. 29, 2001
"Are We Shredding the Constitution?" (Must Read!) Sunday, Dec. 16, 2001
"Enviro-Terrorists Operate With Near Impunity - But Not for Long?" Saturday, Nov. 10, 2001
"Hackers Are Terrorists, Too" Saturday, Nov. 10, 2001
"U.S. Government in a Frantic Scramble to Catch Up" Sunday, Nov. 4, 2001
"Americans Succumbing to a Climate of Fear" Sunday, October 28, 2001
"Secure ID Cards and Visas" Sunday, October 28, 2001
"Anti-Terrorism Bill Sniping Begins" Sunday, October 28, 2001
"Various reflections on the events of Sept. 11, 2001 Thursday, Sept 20. Must read Outback re Sept 11 Events
"The World Trade Center & Pentagon Attacks!" Update on Sept. 11 to Outback for September 8, 2001
The American Red Cross:
"Red Cross Gets More Scrutiny" Saturday, Feb.23, 2002
"The American Red Cross Needs a Complete Overhaul" (Must Read!) Saturday, Feb. 9, 2002
Global warming and environmental debate:
"Rush to Glacier National Park Before All the Glaciers are Gone" September 8, 2001
"Chipping Away at the Global Warming and Environmental Alarmists," September 1, 2001
"John Stossel And ABC's 'Tampering With Nature,'" June 29, 2001
"The Kyoto Protocol & Global Warming - A Monumental Scam?" June 16, 2001
"Public Interest Groups With Sometimes Very Little Public Interest," May 12, 2001
"Environmentalism For Dummies - Part II," April 21, 2001
"Environmentalism For Dummies," April 7, 2001
"Environmental and Animal-Rights Terrorists," March 24, 2001
Politics:
"Sen. Daschle Keeps Digging a Bigger Hole for Himself" Saturday, Feb. 9, 2002
"Sen. Tom Daschle for President - How Absurd" Saturday, Jan. 12, 2002
"Buckley & Moynihan - Obfuscating the Obvious" Saturday, Dec. 29, 2001
"My Friend Senator Jesse Helms," September 8, 2001
"Forget Liar & Adulterer - Cong. Gary Condit is Simply Stupid," September 1, 2001
"Government Waste and Fraud," August 18, 2001
"President Bush's Excellent Adventure," June 29, 2001
"The Bush Budget - Fighting Over 4% Growth Versus 8% Growth Is Nonsense," April 21, 2001
"The Chinese Demand for an Apology Regarding the Aircraft Accident is Preposterous," April 7, 2001
"Campaign Finance Reform - A Senatorial Catharsis - And National Snow Job," March 31, 2001
"Florida Secretary Of State Literally Begged Networks Not To Call Election Early," March 24, 2001
"Charlton Heston Speech at Harvard," March 10, 2001 (about free speech, PC, et al.)
"The Ever-Expanding First Amendment," January 26, 2001
"Bush Administration Needs To Review The Mission Of Federal Law Enforcement," January 26, 2001
"New York, What Were You Thinking?" November 13, 2000 (Re: Hillary Clinton)
"Lessons Learned In Election 2000?" November 13, 2000
"How the Federal Government Corrupts the Constitution to Intrude Into Your Life," October 30, 2000
"Let's All Make Fun of the Dumb Guy From Texas," (Must Read!)December 15, 2000 (Pres. Bush)
The Media:
" 'BIAS' by Bernard Goldberg" Sunday Dec. 16, 2001
"How the Media Should Cover a Covert War" Sunday, November 4, 2001
Prescription drugs - advertised on TV - abuses in the pharmaceutical industry - supplements:
"Prescription Drug Plans," September 8, 2001
"Baycol Cholesterol Drug Withdrawn From the Market," August 18, 2001
"Prozac Gets New Life!" July 28,2001
"The New Cholesterol Guidelines - Everybody Gets A Pill," (Must Read!) July 7, 2001
"Bitter Pills To Swallow," June 2, 2001
"The Drug Companies Continue Their Assault On Your Pocketbook," May 19, 2001
"FDA Questions Practice of TV Ads for Prescription Drugs," March 31, 2001
"Prescription for Disaster," September 11, 2000
Health - General:
"Does High Cholesterol Really Cause Heart Disease?" Saturday, Feb.23, 2002
"America's Obesity Crisis" Saturday, Jan. 12, 2002
"Trans Fatty Acids - The Hidden Fat," August 4, 2001
"Your Body Clock," August 4, 2001
"My Medical Writing Credentials - Such As They Are," July 7, 2001
"The 'Eggs Are Bad For You' Alarmists Strike Again," May 12, 2001
"Herbal Remedies, Supplements, And Alternative Therapies," September 18, 2000
Computers and Technology:
"Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6.0 - Voice-Recognition Software" Saturday, Feb. 9, 2002
"Build Your Own Computer? Are You Crazy?" Saturday, Dec. 29, 2001
"The Microsoft Settlement" Sunday Dec. 16, 2001
"Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)" Saturday, Nov. 10, 2001
"LCD Flat Panel Displays & Dual Monitor Video Boards," August 18, 2001
"DishNetwork's Personal Video Recorder Dish Pro 501," July 28, 2001
"Internet Via Satellite," June 16, 2001
"The Internet in China," April 21, 2001
"Mark Cuban is the Posterboy for Dotcom Mania," April 21, 2001
Interesting Books to Read:
" 'BIAS' by Bernard Goldberg" Sunday Dec. 16, 2001
"Your Body Clock," August 4, 2001
"Body of Secrets," by James Bamford, July 28, 2001 (About NSA)
A case history of horrendous abuse by Federal law enforcement:
"FBI Sniper At Ruby Ridge My Be Tried For Manslaughter," June 9, 2001.
Crime, guns, gun-control:
"Real Anxiety - Texas Jail Inmates Break Out Weekly" Saturday, Nov. 10, 2001
"Eyewitness Testimony is Suspect," August 18, 2001
"The AMA Is Losing Its Way," June 29 2001
"Doctors Have Written the Wrong Prescription for Guns," April 14, 2001
"The FBI and the Hanssen Case," March 10, 2001
"FBI Director Freeh Stays On," January 26, 2001 (Some clues to recent FBI failures)
"Aircraft Cockpit Security," December 29, 2000
Late Night TV Cruel Humor, et al.:
(I quit watching late night in disgust during the Bush/Gore campaign. Since Sept. 11, most of the late-night comedians have been a little more responsible.)
"David Letterman Grovels For The Colombians," May 19, 2001
"Are Leno And Letterman Using The Same CD-ROM For Constructing Jokes?" May 12, 2001
"Late Night Comedians Struggle To Lampoon Bush," May 5, 2001
"Late-Night TV Sick Humor," August 28, 2000
"Late-Night TV Political Comedy," August 14, 2000
Hollywood, TV, Entertainers, Celebrities:
" 'Boston Public' on FOX Under Fire" Saturday, Feb. 9, 2002
"Celebrities Rush to Move Overseas in Protest of Bush Victory," January 5, 2001
"The Mother of all Hollywood Activists," December 22, 2000 (Jane Fonda)
"Elton John, Political Pundit - Druggie - Drunk - Compulsive Spender," Dec. 15, 2000
Telemarketing:
"Telemarketers, Caller-ID, et al.," August 4, 2001
"Rid Yourself of Telemarketers," October 23, 2000
Miscellaneous:
"Speaking English is Often a Fuzzy Concept" Saturday, Feb. 9, 2002
"TV 'Crawls' - Annoying and Distracting"Sunday, October 28, 2001
"The Decline in the American Work Ethic," May 12, 2001
"Made in USA," January 5, 20001
"How Many Gigabytes in Your Brain?," December 15, 2000
COPYRIGHT 2000 Richard C. Rhodes
You are welcome to quote sections from this page - or the whole page, as long as the source URL is included. Of course, I would be flattered if anyone linked to this page. It is very hard to be the writer, editor, fact checker, copy editor, and publisher of anything. So, I welcome corrections of fact, notes of misspelled words, and so on.
Archive of Back Issues
Richard C. Rhodes
End