“They came for the Communists, and I didn’t object – For I wasn’t a Communist… They came for the Jews, and I didn’t object – For I wasn’t a Jew…

Then they came for me – And there
was no one left to object….”
-Martin Niemoller, German Protestant Pastor, 1892-1984- 

A new, dangerous trend has hit Corporate America. Companies like e-Toys, Hasbro and Mattel take WebMasters to court on flimsy “Trademark Infringement” cases in order to hoard and monopolize domain names. It’s called “Reverse Domain Hijacking“.

Those daring enough to refute these charges, exhaust their life savings against these Corporate Monoliths, only to have the cases appealed. The judge then orders these men and women to surrender their domain names; Names that they paid for and interNIC entered a legal agreement when they said they can have it!

E-Toys has recently started a new “Shot Heard ‘Round The World“. In a recent court victory, E-Toys crushed www.etoy.com, a site established before them, has angered viewers all over CyberTown.

Web Developers and concerened Citizens have formed www.etoys-sucks.com calling on a boycott of e-toys, and sending out a message to the money makers and the corporate giants: “We’re mad as hell & not going to take it anymore!!!!”

It’s time we take the web back…before it happens to us!

Once upon a time…
The web was a happy place. People communicated to distant relatives, established a page, put up pictures. They found friends and relatives they thought long lost. They met people and made friends from around the world that they never would have met otherwise.

The web made all of us feel good.

College kids and entrepreneurs made the American Dream come alive again, as people started their businesses from out of their bedrooms and garages; using the new technology, services and products were made available to the public on a global scale.

I, too, made a living helping these good people achieve the American Dream by establishing their presence on the web.

We were all happy little guppies in the sea of tranquility.

Then the sharks moved in.
The corporations looked at the web and said…”Wow. Are people really willing to hand over their credit cards online???” So they set up their sites, bought hundreds of domain names.

Nothing wrong with that, so far. With the web, the pie is big enough for everyone.

Then they started playing dirty….

Case#1 Hasbro vs. Clue Computing

Wanting domain names for each of their products was all fine and good (monopoly.com, etc)…that is, until they found www.clue.com
was already taken. Hasbro sued The Clue Computing Company for
the domain, claiming they own the rights to that name (remember that, next time
you tell someone to “Get a clue^®!“).

After a very expensive four-year battle, the Judge ruled in favor of Clue Computing. While still reeling over the legal fees…Clue Computing was informed that Hasbro is appealing the decision….

November 7th 2000: Hasbro loses bid in Court Of Appeals… Clue Computing wins the domain for good!!!

Source: Clue Computing Website

Case#2 Mattel vs. ANYONE NAMED BARBIE

Mattel, owners of the famed Barbie^® doll and line of accessories has allegedly set out on a quest to remove any domains with the name “Barbie^®” in it, claiming “Trademark and Copyright infringement” to “Trademark Dilution”…

Uh…what if a person’s name is short for Barbara? If they go from “Barbie^®” to “Babs^®“, will they hear from the Tiny Tunes^™ lawyer next?

Sources: Internet News (story 1, story2), CNet News

Case#3 e-Toys vs. etoy

The only known successful case in favor of the plaintiffs.

Legend has it, that it all started with an angry letter from a moron who left out the “s” in the navigation bar. Found the site crude and the language offensive, and threatened e-Toys that he’ll “never shop here again”…well…duh.

etoy.com was a site for artists and performers.

Despite etoy.com being registered with the interNIC almost two years before etoys.com… the fact is, e-Toys registered their name as a trademark a month before etoy. That and a few other things led to an American judge suspending the European etoy domain name.

Sources: The Village Voice, Toywar

AFTERMATH: After months of bad press, e-toys stock plummeting (from $64 per share to $13), denial of service attacks by Râ„¢Mark… e-Toys finally succumbed to the pressure (came to their senses?) and withdrew their lawsuit against etoy…offering full restoration of the site and paying all legal fees.

www.etoy.com was restored on February 28th, 2000. Many still resent e-Toys and will continue to boycott for years.
Me? In the words of Winston Churchill: “I stopped hating the Germans the instant the war was over.”
Fix up that Customer Service, and we’ll be back for Christmas 2000….

Case#4 Some Corporation vs. YOU

What do I care?

That was my initial reaction too. Truth be told, I could really could have cared less about the fates of the above-mentioned sites…

That is until I realized how easily this can happen to my sites, and the sites of my friends…

So now I have joined in on the e-Toys boycott…fully covered by my constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, though for purely selfish reasons…

What if The Erox Corporation one day, decides to stop being cool, and considers Erox Graphix (“Erox” being my nickname for over 15 years…) a form of trademark infringement?

What if an EVEN MORE narcissistic Eric Brooks (it’s a stretch…bear with me) decides to use his fortune to take my website away from me and my legal aid lawyer…???

Same thing can happen to any one of us….

I just convinced a relative to not place his traditional $300 Christmas order with e-Toys (where all my kids get their gifts from him). Come to think of it, since we moved from New York City, most of my five children’s Birthday and Christmas gifts are shipped here via e-Toys. In two days…they’ve lost 3 customers…and counting!

Final Thoughts^™(©1996 Jerry Springer)

We all bought our domain names under the premise of the “first come/first served” basis. Trademark Laws can’t apply to domain names…the concept is ludicrous! Does the world-acclaimed “Associated Press (AP)” have the right to www.ap.com over “Audio Precision (present owners of the address)”??? I think not. Audio Precision got it first, so there!

What E-Commerce is suggesting will cause bedlam and chaos!

Imagine applying for a domain name, and your domain-name provider replying: “Thank you! Your application will be processed pending a six month evaluation and research over varying Trademark and International Copyright laws, Patents Pending, and any other device, not yet known to man…”

100,000 domain names per month. There aren’t enough hours in a day.

Why stop there? If your house is on a block named after someone famous, say, “Jackson Street”…Then Tito has the rights to raid your refrigerator, and Marlon can crash on your couch whenever he feels like it. You keep paying the bills, but they own the trademark rights to “Jackson”, and therefore, your home.

This is the kind of logic that they are suggesting.

It’s time the little guppies become pihranas!

I say we hit them right in their wallet…

….seems to be the only place where they feel any pain!

Eric Brooks, Owner- Erox Graphix
Wednesday, December 8th 1999

Just to be safe…

Barbie^® is a registered trademark of Mattel Electronics, all rights reserved.
Babs Bunny^® is a registered trademark of Warner Bros., all rights reserved.
Clue^® and Monopoly^® are registered trademarks of Hasbro, all rights reserved.
Clue Computing^® is a registered trademark of Clue Computing Company, all rights reserved.
eToys^® is a registered trademark of Etoys,Inc., all rights reserved.
etoy^® is a registered trademark of Etoy,Inc, all rights reserved.

T h e   W A R   r a g e s   o n …
*********************RELATED LINKS*************Toy War Resistance NetworkEtoys-Sucks.ComEvil Toy.ComDMOZ Directory for etoy.comeToy “exile site”Toy WarBlue Oval News__________________________Articles & OpinionsWeb Revolts Against eToys – TechMallWhat’s in an “S”- TheStandard.ComA Clash of Commerce and Art – Washington PostEToys Lawsuit Is No Fun for Artist Group – New York Times-Why Webmasters Should Care – EricBrooks.Com!®E-Toy Story – Village VoiceToy story – SalonFences in CyberspaceThis Means eWar!The Future of Domain Names – ClickZNo EToy for Christmas – SlashdotToyWarDragonizeeToys Sucks.comElectronic Freedom – LemurZoneWe Are The People…Open letter – Violent NationHeise Online (in German)Future Zone (in German)_______________________Supporting the eToy BoycottBlueOvalNewsBeanie MadnessBlasthausCrashpositiondetritus.netDragonizeEric BrooksEvilPeople, INCâ„¢evolutionzoneh2so4HaidiHalfemptyHell.comJmbnw32225opensewer.comOrbikronPlagiarist.orgPraystationShovemediaSick Sad WorldSlrp’´Tech MallSoftwar StoreThe ThingTNCTwist of LimeJeffrey Zeldman

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Written by a former New Yorker

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core entertain steal modems misc. dr web The Jeffrey Zeldman Fan Page Over served! Zeldman On Bill Gates: "I don’t think he’s the Anti-Christ….not enough charisma. " I try too damn hard. That’s my problem. All I wanted to do was throw down a quick page to show my appreciation to one of the greatest web designers of our time… I simply wanted to tell the tale of how some moron on AOL figured out how to work his WYSIWYG editor, and thought after creating his first web page, he was the web’s new Wonderboy…. …how he found www.zeldman.comand it changed his entire approach to web and graphic design. …How this gentle giant on the web unknowingly took him under his wing by answering all his stoopid questions and armed him with the knowledge necessary to to expand his home-based freelancing biz, and rescue his impoverished family from a run-down apartment in Queens to a beautiful home in the Poconos… I should probably thank ol’ "JZ". I should build a web-based monument worthy of him and his accomplishments in Design, Web Standards and and his willingness to help a new generation of designers build the future.   Instead, I end up writing this cheezy rip-off page… It makes me look like an obsessed lunatic, as clueless now as I was 2½ years ago when I first found his site… But with a better understanding of Cascading Style Sheets… :0) Maybe I’ll thank him by aspiring to be just like him when I grow up. Oh lookie! I just got an e-mail from a kid who loves my work on www.ericbrooks.com, and wants some tips on improving his page… I’ll forward it over to Zeldman. Don’t these people know I’m busy?   C O R E       AWARDS    ABOUT    TODAY All work on this site is © 1998 – < ? echo "$year" ?> Eric Brooks . All rights reserved Any unauthorized reproduction or use of graphics or layouts is strictly prohibited…. Whether I’VE stolen them from other sites or not!

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Well, the media has it’s new feeding frenzy. They’re going to run the shooting in that Colorado High School down to the ground…all for the sake of ratings and newspaper circulation.

Disclaimer- For those of you with an attention-span disorder, this rant is NOT about advocating school violence. I’m eventually getting around to trashing the media for glorifying this tragedy and giving birth to copycat killings by disturbed children.

I couldn’t believe what I read in our local newspaper today. They printed a quote from a neighbor who asked one of the killers why he had all of those hardware supplies. Dylan Klebold’s only reply was “it’s for school”.
What got to me, was that they described every item he had in perfect detail. It was for the bombs that they were planting in their school.

“Great”, I think to myself, “maybe tomorrow, they’ll print a schematic diagram for the stupider kids”.

All over the country, schools dismissed early several times this week. Bomb threats are being called into school offices, and they have no choice but to dismiss, and not take a chance with our children.

Your CyberPal holds the media 100% responsible for the recent terrorism!
Just as serial killers are glorified in the media, giving birth to copycat wannabe’s, the same is going on here…feeding seriously disturbed kids and empowering them with the idea that they can do the same thing. Not only that, but they’re practically showing them how it’s done, with step by step instructions.

Now local government is doing what it does best…go to extremes.

In the Shangri-la, that is the Poconos, students caught making threats or mentioning bombs and guns are immediately arrested, expelled, and spend time in a juvenile detention center. Y’know, I’m not a bleeding-heart liberal, but isn’t that going just a little too far?

Lock the little pricks up for a few days, let the prison system scare the hell out of them. But expulsion and long prision time? Crime is going to be the only thing they know…

What the Media hasn’t done yet
Shown kids how to make "Zip Guns". Given organizations like "Stop The Violence" free commercial airtime. Point out really good bomb-making books in their local public libraries. Blame the public library for having "Catcher in the Rye" on their shelves.

This is nothing new.
As a former veteran (in the New York City public schools, you’re not an “alumnus”, you’re either a “veteran” or a “survivor”) school violence is nothing new. You learn to tune out the gunfire outside to take your regents exams.

Kids flip out, postal carriers flip out, serial killers seriously flip out. This isn’t the first time this happened (remember the kid laughing in the back of the police car in 1998, after he blew a few kids away at his prom?).

The only difference is the media is glorifying this event, and telling some lonely loser kids out there that there is a way to stand out in a crowd.

A must in all fine websites is the adornment of awards.

For what is the measure of a website if not for the acknowledgement of your peers, and the accolades of your contemporaries? By receiving an award, you proudly show your superior HTML prowess, your mastery of Javascript/CSS/Shockwave/DHTML, and prove your worth as a web designer.

The more awards on your website, the better your website is. The better your website, the higher form of human being you become…..

Yeah right. If I read that crap long enough…maybe I’ll start to believe it!

Once upon a time, I would have loved an award for all my hard work on this and many other websites, and homepages I created…then I grew up and realized that many of these so-called awards were merely links to someone else’s site. Usually, that’s their only means to drive traffic there.

While reading source codes on any given awards page, you also realize that many homepages and websites shamelessly “right click” an award off someone elses site and put the GIF right into their server. Some poor souls longing for recognition even make their own awards.

If you keep your website in one place long enough, some loon will offer you their award. Ironically, my offers came right after I decided I didn’t want them. So before you offer me the source code to your 7KB GIF eyesore…just know that I will not accept them. Unless your “award” comes with a cash prize, a trip, or something of value, then you’re pushing a link as far as I’m concerned. You can submit your link here.

Good, quality work comes with its own awards built-in. The check from a business when you build their site; the excitement on my daughter’s faces when they go to their site and see their guestbook entries, and the counter stats; a kid coming to me for advice about his homepage, and taking the time out to write a thank you note. (One even sends me cool fonts that he comes across while surfing the web from time to time.) And most important of all…referrals of new clients from previous clients.

These are things my peers and contemporaries can never give me.

Do you really deserve an award for your website???

JSN Winner Your Site

Of course you do! A lot of hard work went into your website. Constant updating, formatting, something-always-going-wrong/not-showing up. Hey man, I’ve been there.

Now your old cyberfriend is asking you to step up to the plate, and join the new generation of the Web-Elite and “just say no” to those silly awards….

Still debating, huh? Well let’s weigh the pros and cons, shall we?

An Awards page on my site…
Pros	Cons
-Ability to find those obscure "members.aol.com" webpages that you wouldn’t ordinarily find. -You spare people’s feelings as they treat their award like it’s a tremendous honor. -You save yourself 10 minutes of getting RSACi approval because some housewife in Dubuque, Iowa declared your site to be "safe surfing for children". (Goes over real well with your browser’s security settings. -Your website is better than mine because you have awards and I don’t. -Your site becomes better than Microsoft, Lycos, Netscape and many corporate websites combined… because they don’t have awards pages either.	-Your viewers wind up somewhere in Geocities, where they are spammed to death by their corporate sponsors… THEY WILL BLAME YOU FOR THIS!!!! -You actually care what people think. -The cretin that gave you this award was also its first-ever recipient. -Dangerous levels of testosterone abound as next you compete with other websites and make your viewers vote for your site. -Awards and popularity quickly replace speed, quality & content. –Real awards come with prizes. -You know you’re good! You need that award/link like you need another Chia Pet for Christmas…

Ready to “Just Say NO”, yet?

Well, congratulations kid! You are the proud recipient of the 1999 JSN Award. I knew you had it in ya!

Press “Download now”. I also enclosed a little trick that prevents those envious little web pirates from taking your award.

Remember to change the words in blue (in “Read Me.doc”) to the page where you want the award to link to and the name of your site.

Download Now

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Alright…maybe I accepted a few awards…..

These are nice awards, by some cool people:

* Award of Excellence – By Home & Hearth

* Design Excellence Award – By The Family Corner

…..But no more, OK?

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Definitely NOT something I want to admit, but yes it’s true…I’m flooded with e-mails all the time from people that say “where do I know you from??? You look familiar…”.

Well for reasons that completely elude me to this day, I remember when my mom took me to see “The Champ”, back in the early 70’s. All because that kid made everyone cry with “Champ, wake up…” (Why the hell didn’t he call him “Dad”, anyway???!!??) my mother broke down and confessed to me that I could have been the next Ricky Schroder…(?). Well, it turned out that I was a child star during the seventies, and was too young to remember…

Here are some clips of shows I appeared in….

Yep, that’s your old CyberPal doing his first gig…the pilot for “The Brady Bunch“. I was the original Bobby, until Sherwood Schwartz decided that all the boys should be the same age as the corresponding sisters…

Out went Eric Brooks and in went Mike Lookinland…

Oh well, I ended up having hair of gold…like my step-mother a year later…

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In a guest appearance on “Sanford & Son” an ex-girlfriend of Lamont’s pops in and surprises Fred with the news that he has a white grandchild…

NBC never aired this episode. They felt that TV wasn’t ready for this subject yet…

More pics coming soon….

*All Photos courtesy of Bob Turner’s book: “Losers And Has-Beens Of Yesteryear: WHO CARES what they’re doing now!”

Hey, what can I say…unless someone out there has the guts to admit the same problem…I must have been the most perverted kid out there. I don’t know if it can be attributed to being a sheltered, only-child, and not having the normal relationships with my peers, but yes…I was crazy about cartoon redheads as a kid…

Ok…. I still do.

They say you never forget your first love…mine was Daphne Blake from Scooby Doo. Come on look at her!!! Always wearing miniskirts, more money than God, and always being tied up by the bad guy…(I’ll refrain from telling you what that did for me…).

Then there’s Ariel…another toon babe!
Sure she’s only 16…
but then again Hans Christian Andersen made her that age, what, a couple of hundred years ago…?

So does that make me some kind of pedophile? I think not.

The way I see it…she’s always going to have that hourglass figure, and barely covering herself with those purple seashells long after my ungrateful kids ship me off to a nursing home…..

Besides she has a thing for guys named Eric…..

Just think about how fast George would have made vice president if he had offered this to Mr. Spacely…

Exceptions to the rule: Betty Rubble did it more for me than Wilma. Melody was my favorite Pussycat over Josie.

Jessica Rabbit…the ultimate celluloid dreamgirl!

I searched all over the web for Jessica Rabbit clip art for this story…both of the pictures used were from porno sites…

In fact, with the four search engines I used, only two sites found weren’t pornographic….so maybe my weakness is a little more common than I thought…

In conclusion: I just have to share with you, my people… (who seem to love and care for me…no matter how bizarre I get!)…
We rented Scooby Doo on Zombie Island this week.

It was great to see Daphne again. After twenty-some-odd years she still looks great!

My wife (a Strawberry Blonde…coincidence?) elbows me to bring to my attention my 18-month old son.

Bottle in one hand…the other hand down his diaper….

– That’s my boy –

Thank God. They finally left…..

I made a mention in my September 28th entry to WHUZZUP that I got bored and e-mailed the President of the United States.

Since then, a black 4×4 with two guys in it have been camped in front of my house…

Can’t mistake ’em…well dressed, mirrored sunglasses, earpieces, and constantly talking into their right sleeve…guess who? The Secret Service.

They just took off. I guess after two months of not receiving Communist Newspapers or sporting an AK-47, they finally realized I’m just a well meaning American showing his leader some support through a rough time in his career…

Monica now.

Previous Job.

Personally, I don’t think I wrote anything that would warrant such scrutiny…I guess it’s just their job. I always heard stories about how they open files on people that call the White House or write to the President…. Or maybe it’s because I’m Republican….Anyway, here is what I wrote…..

To: president@whitehouse.gov From: moi@ericbrooks.com <Eric Brooks> Subject: Hang In There! Dear Mr. President: Just wanted to tell you that you're doing a great job. And coming from a lifelong Republican that voted for your re-election in '96 that should tell you something! Keep up the good work and hang in there! Sincerely, Eric Brooks moi@ericbrooks.com www.ericbrooks.com - Biz www.ericbrooks.com/fonts -Fonts www.ericbrooks.com/personal -Private...keep out! www.ericbrooks.com/free -Free Stuff! http://vault.to/whuzzup -The Newsletter Archive www.ericbrooks.com/8ball/ -Need advice?                      Consult the  Magic 8-ball!

You’ll note my standard email headers on the bottom…that plays an important part in the story later…I immediately receive the following from the White House:

To: moi@ericbrooks.com <Eric Brooks> From: autoresponder@whitehouse.gov Subject: Re: Hang In There!      Thank you for writing to President Clinton via electronic mail.  Since June 1993, the President has received over 2.8 million messages from people across the country and around the world.  Online communication has become a tool to bring government and the people closer together.      Because so many of you write, the President cannot personally review each message, though he does receive samples of his incoming correspondence.  The White House Correspondence staff helps him read and respond to the mail.  All responses are mailed via the U.S. Postal Service. This is the only electronic message you will receive from whitehouse.gov.  No other message purporting to be from the President or his staff with an address at whitehouse.gov is authentic. If you have received such a message, you have received a "spoof."      We appreciate your interest in the work of the Administration.           Sincerely,           Stephen K. Horn           Director, Presidential E-mail           The Office of Correspondence

Jeez, what a gyp! I wrote to The President, not to this guy! I bet he’ll never know I wrote to him…

Or so I thought……

I recently received an entry to the Guestbook from Heaven from a “Bill C” who received peace of mind through the amazing accuracy of The Magic 8-Ball. Yes, I admit I altered the e-mail address to the guestbook entry to read the generic Presidential E-mail addy, but according to my logs, the person who signed my guestbook has the same IP address as www.whitehouse.gov , and I felt it was best to protect their privacy.
Guess who?

Unless a White House Staffer or Secret Service agent had their sense of humor surgically reattached, this site was surfed by The President himself!

One hell of a cool President! The last time I had a moment this great was 13 years ago, when I saluted Reagan in a passing motorcade in downtown Manhattan, and he saluted me right back….!

Say or believe what you want about Clinton…
All I know is we’re in a state of prosperity now and as far as the whole Monica Lewinsky/Impeachment fiasco…I believe that… Aw Crap! The Secret Service is back in front of my house!!

They apparently stepped out for Philly Cheesesteaks at the deli down the road….

*groan*
I’ll never write again… I swear.

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I just don’t get it….
I just finished another nightly surf through the web and stumbled across a few web designer’s sites.

………and they all refer to themselves in third person plural….

Yeah I admit it. I was guilty of that once. Don’t let your client know you’re the only guy in the office. Doesn’t look professional, right?

Wrong.

Technically, that’s the first lie to your client, I figure. There’s a little piece of trust lost right from the get go.

I’m shooting for honesty here. Technically, Erox Graphix can be referred to as “we” or “us”, because my wife Carole does handle the finances, gets me a lot of business through word of mouth, and keeps buying me those wee little vivarin pills that keep me going all night long working on websites. I also pull in a lot of freelancers to help me when I’m swamped. But still, you’re primarily dealing with sweet lil’ ol’ me for the majority of it.

• Anyone out there have a problem with just one guy taking total care of your project?
• Making sure it’s done fast and done right?
• Working his butt off to make sure you have the best quality & service in Cybertown?

Well, with the exception of one smart alec way in the back (probably competition), I think we are all ok about it….

Anyway back to this guy’s site…
He even went as far as talking about his “curteous staff” taking care of his clients…

When was his courteous staff going to let him know that “their” website has at least two or three spelling errors on almost every page I read??!!???

Yes, even his clients had a few spell-o’s.

Now we’re not talking about some fool on Geocities….we’re talking about a “.com” website here…(Of course I’m not going to humiliate this designer by giving out his webaddress…)

Another favorite tactic is a reference page which they say “here are just a few of the websites we have designed…”

That’s all of the sites they’ve done. Trust me.

GRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr……

(Author Unknown)
Here’s something that will screw you up for the rest of your life…

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was “Information Please” and there was nothing she did not know. “Information Please” could supply anybody’s number and the correct time.
My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.

The telephone!

Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. “Information Please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. “Information.”

“I hurt my finger. . .” I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.

“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.

“Nobody’s home but me.” I blubbered.

“Are you bleeding?”

“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”

“Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could.

“Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger,” said the voice.

After that, I called “Information Please” for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts.

Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called “Information Please” and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was un-consoled.

I asked her, “Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?”

She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone. “Information Please.”

“Information,” said the now familiar voice.

“How do you spell fix?” I asked.

All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. “Information Please” belonged in that old wooden box back home,and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall.

As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversation never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please”.

Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well, “Information.” I hadn’t planned this but I heard myself saying, “Could you please tell me how to spell fix?” There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, “I guess your finger must have healed by now.” I laughed. “So it’s really still you,’ I said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time.”

“I wonder”, she said, “if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls.”

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.

“Please do, she said. “Just ask for Sally.”

Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered “Information.” I asked for Sally.

“Are you a friend?” She said.

“Yes, a very old friend,” I answered.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, she said. Sally had been working part- time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.”

Before I could hang up she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you.”

The note said, “Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean.”

I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.

Never underestimate the impression you may make on others

-Author Unknown-

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Amendment 1 "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." -The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights-

Well, there it is.
The First Amendment written word for word. It’s amazing how many people will use the First Amendment; and hide behind it as a “license to say whatever I want”; and yet never really read it. Most people think that the First Amendment merely means ‘freedom of speech”…and that’s it. Yet, when you look at it in its full context, that’s not what it means at all.

Brilliantly drafted and proposed by Congress in 1789, it was written to insure that the government wouldn’t interfere with religion, news, or citizen’s opinions. It had no specific medium in mind when it said “abridging the freedom of speech”. Phones, television, radio, entertainment, and the internet were inconceivable at that time…yet they managed to cover all the bases. It was written to insure the population that the Government will not control their thinking like many monarchs and tyrants did in those days (and still do).

However…

It does not say (as hate mongers, and controversial celebrities would like you to believe) that you have the right to say whatever you want; to piss anyone you want off, and they have to take it. It’s like saying that having a drivers license gives you the right to run over anyone you want with no penalties.

The First Amendment merely means that the Government (Congress, specifically) can’t stop you from doing this.

It would have been nice if it had said “responsibly-used freedom of speech”, but I’m not going to suggest that we should change something that has been in our Bill Of Rights since 1791.

It boils down to this…CHOICE.

You can choose to be mindful of someone’s feelings when you say, write, record, or publish your opinions. You can also choose to ignore and not listen to what to what you don’t agree with. The topic of “free speech” was left as a gray area in our country. Let’s keep it that way. I will always respect a person’s opinion, whether or not I agree, and acknowledge that this is merely their opinion. I, personally, would never try to censor a person (no matter how stupid or ignorant). I have the choice to walk away, and never listen to them again.

The World Wide Web

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Well, there we go again. A new day and age, and a new medium. This page I am writing can be viewed, via the internet, all over the world. As an American I can voice my opinion freely on this website…

But does this apply to the rest of the world?

Well, that is not for me to decide. That is someone else’s headache. As an American, who cherishes his freedom, I sincerely hope the powers that be would adopt a “world wide standard for freedom of speech on the internet”, or if it has already; I sincerely hope they keep it.

Our right to have Congress not abridge our freedom of speech, has given way to new ideas, and new innovations, that advanced our country beyond anything our founding fathers could have conceived. Would a censoring country allow Alexander Graham Bell to create a device that would allow citizens to speak privately from home to home? Or allow Marconi to create a device that would bring broadcasts, entertainment, and information into a person’s living room? Think about it.

The World Wide Web, if left uncensored, can do the same for the world…

Examples of Censorship

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I have seen many attempts at censorship on the web already, and honestly, it saddens me. A recent case involved Rik Havyk, who merely spoofed a concept, and had her web page removed several times from several hosts. From a business stance, I can agree with these companies. They state in their terms of service that freedom of speech does not apply on their site, and reserve the right to remove your page without warning.

Why? Well, again, from a business stance, is the expense of fighting a law suit (with or without merit) worth the free space you give a member? Not really. But then again, it’s a sad day when you have to worry about your page being removed because of offending someone. To this day, members of that group still hunt her down on the internet and threaten webmasters with the FCC and lawsuits for having her on, no matter how docile her website is.

My question is, have you seen what takes the place of the pages they have removed? On the Geocities site, that web address now holds a spanish page with pictures of nude fat women. Far more tastless than Rik Havyk’s spoofs and satire. I wont reveal the address of that page, because I will acknowledge that person’s rights and freedom (though it is against Geocities TOS) and will employ the mature choice of simply not going there.

These are of course cases of sites on commercially hosted domains. Private domains emerge more victorious, as these authors are their own webmasters and aren’t afraid of telling the offended parties “Tough, buddy…you have to deal with it…”

One such case is the irrepressable genius of Halcyon Styn on Prehensile Tales. He wrote a parody of a product that the company that manufactured it didn’t find so amusing (actually, they were the only ones who didn’t find it funny). He was slapped with a cease and desist order, and threatened with legal action if he didn’t remove the parody. Styn held his ground and, in effect, called their bluff..and they backed down. A major victory for the freedom of speech.

My hero and mentor, Jeffrey Zeldman lost all of his corporate sponsors on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents when they discovered he had an “adult” section on his site. They freaked and abanoned ship; when the “adult” section was, in reality, a hard hitting, thought provoking statement about…well…you’ll just have to see it for yourself. [ Go ahead, I’ll wait.]

Zeldman’s many friends and fans came to bat for him. A letter-writing campaign was launched that was so powerful and so damaging that they all came back, and learned a valuable lesson…

“LOOK… BEFORE YOU, BAIL“

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Summary

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In conclusion to my installment of this soapbox, I have three words: RESPONSIBILITY, RESPECT, and RIGHTS.

The new 3R’s. Voice your opinions responsibly, respect other peoples opinions, and acknowledge their rights to freedom of speech.

There are 5 1/2 billion points of view on this planet, and no one is 100% right.
Let freedom of speech become a global standard, and we can change the world.