for 22 May 1998. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Short Shrift

While Citizen Kane is
regarded as one of the best
films ever, that's no reason
to knock How Green Was My
Valley. It's an excellent
film with well-written
dialog, a tear-jerker plot to
kill for, inventive camera
angles, composition, etc. It
definitely deserved a best
picture Oscar. Against Kane?
Probably not, but there are
far more egregious examples
in the Academy (The Greatest
Show on Earth, etc.) than the
film that made Roddy McDowall
a star.

Don't forget, of course, that
the near-slanderous
semi-portrayal of the
intelligent and talented Mrs.
Hearst as the opera-faker
floozy, burnt a lot of
bridges in the Hollywood
power structure....

Don Smith
<dsmith@health.org>

Speaking of Roddy McDowall,
why has the Academy continued
to ignore Class of 1984? That
was a searing, chilling
journey into the grim future
of juvenile delinquency. It
features Roddy McDowall in
his finest role since Escape
from the Planet of the Apes
(That's a minority opinion I
know, but I never trusted him
in the role of Caesar quite
the way I did when he played
Cornelius - he just didn't
seem to fully inhabit the
character; and as for his
role as Galen in the TV
series, don't get me
started). And it provided a
crucial early role for
Michael J. Fox. Truly a
forgotten gem.

Vicki

I have to hand it to you once
again for drawing a parallel
between the Net and real
life. In this case, I didn't
think it could be done.

In the minds of the great
unwashed, I guess there's
less distance between
California Prop. 187 and Time
Warner's periodic popularity
contests than I like to think
about. So, since the topic is
silly Web polls:

We should call for more
security for Web polls,
dammit! That way, we can
distinguish between simple
ballot-stuffing and the more
difficult task of rousing
enough people from apathy
long enough to find the site
and push a button.

Just how solid is Time's
implied social contract with
its public - is Time bound to
use the poll results
verbatim, or can it
legitimately exclude the
genocidal politicians of its
choice from its honor roll?

Since Microsoft's publicity
drive targeted at state AG's
was exposed, do you think
they should try targeting
those ubiquitous Bill Gates
vs. Janet Reno poll sites?

Just a few questions to keep
you guys up at night.

Bruce J. Bell
<bruce@ugcs.caltech.edu>

Actually, there was no ballot
stuffing at the Pathfinder
site. It was protected
against bot voting and any
other forms of
system-cheating. Still, a
couple People people,
apparently unaware of the
concept of a voter
registration drive,
complained that the Stern
gang had gotten its followers
out in force, with the
implication that this was
somehow undemocratic.

The real question is why you
have to register more than a
month before the election.
Does it really take that long
to do the paperwork (I'd
doubt it, since even at
big-city polling places you
have to sign your name in a
big Book of the Blessed that
looks like it's older than
me)? Or are they just trying
to make it harder for you to
vote? Come to think of it,
why can't you just vote by
phone? Or why don't they just
have a big truck that goes by
with a guy writing down votes
that you yell to him out of
your window?

Vicki

Prophetic words E. L.,
actually, I believe they call
it the "info-bahn" already,
in most of Europe and the UK.
As we move forward with
Internet regulation here in
America, we can just remove
the "h" to establish a global
standard term.

Your friend,

Christopher T. Dahle,
Attorney
<ctdahle@amigo.net>

Hi, Christopher. Thanks for your
note, you silver-tongued
devil. I just hope when it
DOES officially become the
info-bahn, that we can go as
fast as we want to, and that
the resulting crashes will
contribute significantly to
personal injury litigation,
which - I'm sure you'll agree
- has been sort of moribund
in recent years.

Best regards,
- E. L. Skinner

Short Shrift

Hi Vicki,

I enjoyed your editorial and
admired your prose (olean
percolate!). Anyway, some
reading material I thought
I'd recommend to you, that
discusses a lot of the issues
you raised from a
sociological/philosophical
standpoint. Try out Michelle
Foucault's The Birth of the
Clinic (1963), The Order of
Things (1966), and The
Archaeology of Knowledge
(1969). For more info on
Foucault:

http://www.philosophy.ohio-state.edu/foucault.html
http://www.heartfield.demon.co.uk/foucault.htm

http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/foucault.home.html

And various others, courtesy
of your favorite search
engine. Briefly, Foucault
examines the relationship
between power and knowledge.
For example, the notion in
the United States that
Eastern medicine does not
provide valid therapies is
not a function of the
efficacy of Eastern
treatments, but a result of
the AMA (an institution
with power) producing
messages shaping the popular
opinion. This is a simple
example of the notion that
power (an institution)
controls knowledge (society's
notion of valid medical
therapies).

I'm sure you're not going to
run out and read a bunch of
Foucault, but if you do
manage to read any, I'd enjoy
discussing your thoughts on
the material.

Best regards,
Rob

It's true I've never read
anything by this Michelle
Foucault character, but I'm
looking forward to her stuff,
'cause, you know, Girl Power
rocks. Anyway, I'd love to
ask her: If you had
tonsillitis, who would you go
to - a Ghanaian witch doctor
or one of these modern
medicine quacks the AMA is
always shilling for?

Vicki

I am told, by those who claim
to know, that arranged
marriages are more stable
than what those in them refer
to (not without some irony)
as "love marriages." The
fairly small number of
arranged marriages I
personally know of have been,
in fact, more stable ...
which of course only proves
that given sufficient social
pressure you can be either
miserable and married or
miserable and divorced.

It does seem true that there
is no reliable way of
arranging either our love
lives or our political lives.
If we try to do it ourselves,
we trip over our shoelaces;
if we defer judgment to the
wise men, we end up reaching
for the custard pies.

Perhaps the best advice comes
from the late, lovable
fascist Robert A. Heinlein,
who opined that politics is
simply what people do, that
we do it badly but have no
real choice in the matter,
and that all we can hope for
is a system that gives us a
little breathing room. Works
for me.

Alan Kornheiser
<askornheiser@prodigy.net>

What we really need
are arranged divorces.
And they should be
like the marriages - decided
solely on the economic
prospects of the individuals,
and for the sake of the
children. Then the miserably
divorced would have a reason
to be miserable.

Vicki

i like your stuff ...
always have.... was wondering
if there are any future
writings that might share the
stupidity of the sounds of
the English language.... i
call them "snack" words ...
these are words that just
sound stupid when you say
them aloud. Try it ... say
"snack"... sounds really
moronic. i'm trying to get a
list together of these words.
"snack," "trowel," "snatch,"
"trousers," "moist,"
"slacks," "applet,"
"towelette" any others? say
them all aloud and see if you
don't find them a little
silly. they just don't seem
to roll off the tongue.

Chris Mouser
<cmouser@trendmasters.com>

Here's one: "dipshit."