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METAFORIX MAIL Volume 2, Issue 4 September 24, 2001 Sites and insights for the Information Age Whatever
meanings we previously assigned to the phrase Information Age,
its significance has been forever transformed in the wake of the September
11 attacks. All of us have experienced the inconceivably treacherous potential
of information technologies and have seen, simultaneously, the power of
these technologies to support bravery, heroism, and love. CONTENTS AT A GLANCE: RECOGNITION:
A Bright Spot Ezine-Tips.com Rates Metaforix Mail Among the Web's Top 20 E-Letters Last Monday, Ezine-Tips, the daily "number-one source of free information for email newsletter publishers," announced the results of its first annual Online Publishing Awards. Metaforix Mail was honored to be named among the top twenty.Of over 400 online publications submitted for consideration, only twenty were cited for excellence and only ten made the final cut. We congratulate the ten winners and the other nine finalists and extend our heartfelt appreciation to the judges. It's our honor and good fortune to be counted among such distinguished company. And it's a particular pleasure to achieve the recognition of colleagues at a time when everyone's spirits need lifting. As always, we're grateful to our stalwart readers. One broadcast journalist reflected last week on the strain of continuing to report on our nation's crisis while struggling with his own emotions. He was bolstered by the conviction that, especially in times like these, journalism is a genuine public service and a noble calling. As a writer and editor, I don't mean to adopt a gradiose posture or impute undue significance to this ongoing project in electronic microjournalism. But together, the broadcaster's remarks and the recognition accorded Metaforix Mail by Ezine-Tips have underlined a powerful truth: Some things still matter. And we have to go on doing them.
ON MY MIND [From the Editor] "Another Op'nin', Another Show" Last week, we heard from friends and family located all over the country, in some cases people we hadn't connected with in years. We received e-mail, snail mail, and phone calls, some of which took days to get through to us.We have been spared the most devastating effects of the tragedy. Here, two blocks from St. Vincent's Hospital, we can still hear the sirens and smell the smoke. So far as we know, however, all of our nearest and dearest are safe and well -- to the extent that any of us can be now. Like all New Yorkers and all Americans, we mourn the losses suffered within the extended family of our city, our nation, and the world community. Grief recognizes no geographic borders. But the altered landscape of Manhattan, psychologically perhaps even more than physically, provides the greatest challenge to keeping our balance. New York feels to us now like a neighborhood whose commerce depends on local support for survival. Pedestrian and automobile traffic have been light. Subway trains have many vacant seats. Huge emporiums, crammed with goods and virtually empty of customers, have been an eerie testament both to fear and to a collective lethargy verging on depression. As the city's coffers empty, the schizophrenic exercise of getting and spending as we did before is indeed a civic duty. Despite our mayor's exhortations, restaurants and theaters held little appeal during a week of disruption, tragedy, and grief. Pre-9/11, however, we had purchased tickets to the Broadway hit show "Kiss Me Kate". Two of our grown children were planning a weekend visit from Boston, and "Kate" was at the top of their must-see list. With all forms of tourism and entertainment slumping, the producters announced several days ago that "Kate" would be among the theatrical casualties. Sunday's performance would be its last. As we made our way to the theater, we were puzzled to see throngs of people waiting in line, hoping for tickets to what turned out to be a sold-out performance. At curtain time, producer Roger Berlind stepped onstage to announce that the show's cast and crew had banded together to extend "Kate's" run -- details to be supplied at the end of the performance. As expected, the show was magical, and the audience responded with exceptional warmth and enthusiasm. At the curtain call, the actors were joined onstage by musicians, stagehands, and the entire crew. Berlind explained that two members of the production, a carpenter and a musician, had hatched a scheme to save the show. Cast and crew would purchase the unsold tickets and donate them to rescue teams and others to offer a respite, however brief, from their heartwrenching, backbreaking labors. At this announcement, the audience applauded wildly. People called for "God Bless America." All joined in. There wasn't a dry onstage or anywhere else in the house. The cast then broke into its planned encore, a reprise of "Another Op'nin', Another Show," before we were ushered back out into the real -- or unreal -- world. By then, it was hard to tell.
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INFORMATICON Judith
Shulevitz on Understanding What's Important "There's nothing like being under attack to clarify what's important and to sweep away the nonsense on which we tend to squander our public attention: petty political squabbling, the enervating celebrity gossip. Never again to have to think about Gary Condit or Britney Spears! To focus as a nation on our future and that of our children! These are instinctively attractive and ennobling ideas. Only once those other topics disappear, if they disappear, do we begin to appreciate how lucky we had been to be obsessed by them."
SITE OF
THE WEEK Arab Americans
Our
country is home to some three million Arab Americans. Detroit has a more
concentrated Arab American population than any other city.
Learn how Metaforix can help you and your business take a byte of the Information Age. See what we have to offer at www.metaforix.com. CYBERSPEAK:
Hackers and Crackers Language Changes, Among Many Others Inevitably, post-9/11 realities will engender changes in our language. Not only will new words be coined, but older words will enjoy newfound currency as they suddenly seem apt, comforting, or otherwise emotionally on point.Thus, patriot hacker: a computer programmer who "attempts to infiltrate or disable the computer systems of people or organizations that are perceived to be hostile to the hacker's country." According to Paul McFedries "Word Spy", the term has been around at least since 1996, when it was applied to an American soldier who shared computer passwords with a Chinese citizen in an ostensible effort to demonstrate how easily security could be breached. (Note: The FBI looks with extreme disfavor on self-appointed patriot hackers attempting to investigate the 9/11 attacks). In contrast, a cracker or dark-side hacker uses his or her computer talents in the service of unethical or illegal ends. Source: The Word Spy
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Volume 2, Issue 3 September 14, 2001 |
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