Microsoft wants you, too
BY ANDREW LEONARD
(07/02/99)

It's not just Yahoo/Geocities and Microsoft doing this; apparently this is becoming a familiar clause in the terms of service contracts. I did not realize this until I informed a friend of the Geocities scandal and she said, "Read your Xoom TOS." Sure enough, there it was! Tripod also assumes this same claim. There may be others too.

I find this trend deeply disturbing. And I, for one, am looking for a new site for my Web page.

-- Jacqueline Allgood
Indianapolis

I wonder why both Yahoo and Microsoft do not simply rewrite their terms of service in plain English, expressing specifically what they claim they are requesting the rights for. For example, "The user grants the provider the right to copy and move content between servers that are part of the provider's system, including mirror sites."

I doubt that any provider has been successfully sued for moving files from one server to another. I know from personal experience with Geocities that moving or copying files to other servers has been standard procedure and invisible to the member for the most part. Members do not care about that.

What I see in the legal double speak is Yahoo or Microsoft wanting to use their members' work for free in advertisements for their service as they see fit. No way. Free web space boils down to this simple equation: server space provided in return for content, which is necessary to attract advertisers. Both Yahoo and Microsoft missed the boat by assuming their members (or potential members) were as greedy as they are. They also gambled that their members would ignore the fine print. Live and learn.

All any provider has to do in order to use someone's work in an advertisement is to ask. Most users would be flattered to be recognized by their provider and would be happy to allow a provider to use their work to promote the provider's service (and the member's site as well). No matter how many disclaimers either organization places on top of the verbiage, anyone with a bit of common sense is going to see that those words could be interpreted in another way to the member's loss.

-- Anthony Dauer

Slashdot sells out
BY JANELLE BROWN
(06/30/99)

The SlashDot site works because it has the intimacy and irreverence of an insular college bulletin-board system (which indeed is how it started). That its now on the Internet hasn't slowed it down, partly because participants are allowed to remain anonymous. It's a bridge from college to real life for a lot of 20-something technogeeks. When I was that age, there weren't many of us, certainly not enough of us for anything like a community; we were all distracted by working on a variety of very different proprietary systems, and the Internet was just being conceived.

That it's not a moderated site works to its advantage, I think. I mean, you're reading stuff on the Net, so you accept that you'll run across some people who use bad words and/or forgot to take their medication. The forum is obviously not censored, and that's good -- it's real lively, and one can only hope that the site will mature.

-- Robert Munro

George W.'s California swing
BY ANTHONY YORK
(06/29/99)
and
All things to all checkbooks
BY ANTHONY YORK
(07/01/99)

It appears that with all the talk of maintaining momentum and keeping the candidate away from hard press interviews, there is a real weakness just under the surface. Let's face it, Bush is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. No matter how scripted and glossy the candidate becomes, eventually he will have to prove to the public that he has the political acumen and intelligence to be their commander in chief. While Gore may lack the charisma and media-savvy necessary to win an election, he can run circles around Bush in any sort of intellectual debate. It seems that everyone from the Silicon Valley to GOP headquarters in Washington sees a puppet candidate they can trot out like a movie star; but in actuality, he is nothing but a paper tiger.

-- Jesse Reiner

Being a staunchly independent Texan, and having voted for Ann Richards and George W., I truly can see why the Republican Party is so enamored with George W. Bush. He is charismatic and reminds me of his father, pre-Reagan administration -- meaning that he is fairly centrist in his views; in a lot of ways he is like Bill Clinton, minus the sexual baggage. His biggest asset (and biggest problem) is that he leaves well enough alone. He is not a great idea politician.

Your analogy of his hype with that of "Star Wars" was an interesting choice. I must disagree with your conclusion, though: If he suffers an analogous fate to "Star Wars," making $350 million in six weeks, he'll be the next president!

-- Jeff Holsinger

I'm not Hillary
BY JAKE TAPPER
(07/02/99)

There is a slight historical inaccuracy in the statement that "Tipper Gore held fast to the PMRC's hope that the music industry would voluntarily tag their records with warning labels."

I recall those days very well, indeed, and the way I remember it is that the PMRC initially pursued a censorious agenda aimed at eliminating offensive (to them) song lyrics altogether. Their "hope" at that time was to obtain legislation outlawing the production of such material. After the inevitable outcry and Senate hearings -- of which Frank Zappa's wonderfully eloquent testimony was the highlight -- the PMRC successively modified their stance to asking for legislation requiring the labeling of musical media products as offensive; when that didn't work either, they settled for voluntary labeling.

Make no mistake about it: The PMRC, led by Tipper Gore, proposed to mandate for the rest of us what our musical tastes should be. Only the intervention of reasonable minds prevented this travesty upon the First Amendment.

-- David E. Sallis
Bay St. Louis, Miss.

Follow the leader
BY LAURA ROZEN
(07/02/99)

The Albanians in Kosovo decided on their own to boycott Yugoslav institutions -- like education, health, etc. -- after 1990. In the field of education, for example, this led to high levels of illiteracy among Albanian children in the 1990s and a dramatic decline in literacy from the period when Albanians participated in Yugoslavia's rather good state education system.

The opportunities to participate in the system were never denied to Albanians by the Yugoslav authorities. The Albanians stayed away for reasons of ethnic nationalism. Rozen's article leaves a completely wrong impression about these matters.

-- John Xiros Cooper
Coquitlam, British Columbia

Why doesn't anyone have dropsy anymore?
BY MARY ROACH
(07/02/9)

Dr. Robert Berkow's sniffing dismissal of herbs as medicine serves is a wonderful example of why alternative treatments (and practitioners) continue to gain in popularity.

In his arrogance, he seems to have forgotten that the majority of medicines are derived from plants, not from test tubes. Of course, the patient who goes to the garden for healing bypasses both the medical establishment and the drug companies, depriving them of profits.

Sad, isn't it?

-- Beverley Muldoon

Alternative juju
BY JENN SHREVE
(07/02/99)

I frequently pick up a hostile attitude toward emerging topics in holistic health. Your tendency to ridicule and to present the most extremely dysfunctional cases (people shopping with gloves on, rearranging shelves etc.) as examples speak to me of your lack of understanding, and fear of what you don't understand.

I have had excellent results managing my health through an informed program of alternatives for the past 30 years. My friends who follow the conventional program of medical testing, drugs and surgeries suffer more with various health disorders, many of which I suspect are caused by medical interventions itself.

The medical establishment is of course a powerful and wealthy interest, and welcomes efforts such as yours, to discredit any alternatives that direct dollars away from it's coffers.

-- Lisa Solaris

Courtroom cage match!
BY ERIC BOEHLERT
(06/29/99)

Vince McMahon Jr. is as slick as his overly gelled hair! His programming is basically an extended Jerry Springer show, complete with chair tossing and an audience of people who probably haven't voted, don't own a library card and see spousal abuse as a friendly game of bitch slapping.

McMahon seems to be at his best when he is screwing over the Hart family. I watched a well-done documentary on Bret Hart, Owen's brother, and his struggles with McMahon, and couldn't believe the frankness. The camera captured Bret's negotiations with McMahon; the viewer could see the lying and double-crossing that led up to McMahon's decision to have the ref count Hart out in his final WWF bout. You could see the pain and anger that drove Hart to punch the promoter after the show. How a wrestler could walk into a negotiation with that snake and think he or she is getting a fair shake is incredible!

I wish the Hart family the best and hope they are able to take McMahon to the cleaners of this deal. I also hope that within five years, we will be asking ourselves "Vince Who?" and that the cable market will progress to a higher form of entertainment.

-- Linda Gilchriest
Houston