Columns

Rebuttal to post in Fidonews Echo
By Frank Vest

Hello Warren,

It's about time "we" (whoever "we" is) made these lost Nodes and Points aware of the Fidonews Echo. Let's get 'm in here. For my view... The Fidonews Echo is for discussing the articles in the Fidonews publication. The Fidonews Publication is for articles submitted by people in Fidonet (Sysops and Users).

To put Echo content into the Fidonews Publication to be hashed in the Fidonews Echo is re-hashing the hash. If a topic is worth discussing in the Fidonews Echo, it should be an article in the Fidonews Publication first and submitted as such to the Editor.

If an article is posted in the Fidonews Echo for publication in the Fidonews Publication, put it in there as an article, not quoted material unless it is a rebuttal of an article or post and designated as such with a request to publish the rebuttal in the Fidonews Publication.

To use your logic in this... Since "most nodes that read Fidonews don't have the echo on their systems", maybe we should have a Fidonews "Early Edition" that is composed of all the posts in the Fidonews Echo. I really don't think this would work and it's a really bad idea in my view, but it would get the whole thread of the subjects being talked about in the Fidonews Echo to the ones that don't get the Fidonews Echo for one reason or another.

Here's a point to consider:
If a Fidonews Editor takes the posts from the Fidonews Echo and puts them into the Fidonews Publication, no matter how the posts are formatted or whatever, then why should a Sysop or User bother to write an article for the Fidonews Publication? It will be easier to just post in the Fidonews Echo and have the post published in the Fidonews Publication.

Are you, in reality, harming the Fidonews Publication by including posts from the Fidonews Echo?

Just my $.02 You can send the change to me later. :-)

http://texoma.net/~flv [faulty URL [jb 4/25/01]]
http://home.texoma.net/~flv/
http://bise.tzo.com/r19

Thanks again Frank, for your article and astute insight to the editor's biggest problem. Hope a few articles will arrive now for publication.
ED.

Ol' WDB's Column
Close your eyes.....and go back in time....

Before the IT, V., Commodore64, Amiga, AppleII, Mac or the Internet.
Before semi-automatics and crack,
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back........

I'm talking about hide-and-seek at dusk.
The Good Humor man,
Red light, green light.
The corner store.
Hopscotch, butterscotch, double-dutch, jacks, kickball, dodgeball.
Mother May I?
Simon says...
Red Rover, Marco Polo and Roly Poly.
Steel wheel skates and Hula Hoops.
Running through the sprinkler;
The smell of the wet lawn at end of water slide...

Wax lips and mustaches!
An ice cream cone on a warm summer night;
Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe butter pecan.
A Cherry Coke from the soda fountain at the corner drug store.
Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry at the movie house.

Later....

Watching Saturday morning cartoons... short commercials...
Fat Albert, Road Runner, He-Man, Superman, Green Hornet,
The Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck,
Or staying up for Gunsmoke and Ponderosa.

Or back further, listening to Jim Braddock & Joe Lewis fight, the search for Wiley Post & Will Rogers plane crash, the derigible from Germany tragedy, Henry Aldrich, and Superman on the radio.

When around the corner seemed far away,
And going downtown seemed like going Somewhere.
A million mosquito bites. Sticky candy fingers.
Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Zorro. Climbing trees.
Building igloos out of snow banks, parachuting with umbrella off barn roof into Snow bank.
Walking to school, no matter what the weather was,
(six miles each way, both ways uphill)!
Running till you were out of breath.
Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt.
Saturday night baths in number three wash tub.
Going to Church was getting to dress up in "Sunday finery".

Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights. Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles.
Being tired from playing.... Remember that?
Petting ol' "Rover" in the sunshine on the porch...
Petting kitty at night to see the sparkles of static,
Chasing fire flies...

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
War was a card game, no one ever heard of Hitler or Hirohito.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle.
I'm not finished yet -- eating Kool-aid powder.

Remember when...

There were only two types of sneakers for girls and boys: Keds & PF
Flyers, and the only time you wore them at school was for "Gym."
It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.
Going skinny dipping in farmer Jones cattle reservoir

When a quarter was a decent allowance, and another quarter was a miracle. When milk went up a penny and everyone talked about it for weeks. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.

When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, for free, every time. And you didn't pay for air in the tires. And you got trading stamps to boot!
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.

When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got there.
When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up, if you had one.
When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces.
When it was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.

When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.

When girls neither dated nor kissed until late high school, if then. When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done.

When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him, or use him to carry groceries, and nobody - not even the kid, thought a thing of it.

When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed ..and did!

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to what awaited a misbehaving student when arriving home.

Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! And some of us are still afraid of them!

Didn't that feel good.. just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that!

Remember when............
Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo."
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!"
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly."
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties.
It was unbelievable that dodgeball wasn't an Olympic event.
Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a slingshot.
Nobody was prettier than Mom.

Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin, or Castor oil.
Ice cream was considered a basic food group.
Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.
New abilities were discovered because of a "double-dog dare you."

Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!!

Ol'WDB

OPINION COLUMN
By: Philip Lozier:

I think that if the EDITor sees a thread being pursued here that seems appropriate for inclusion in the newsletter, that rather than include the entire thread, quoted, and requoted at that, that a proper method to follow would be to create an article which explains the general topic of the discussions, provide a general overview of the basic context of the responses pro and con to the initial discussion, possibly give an idea of, by the number of respondents to either side, which position seems to be the more popular one, maybe provide on or two quotes from either side that seem to be of extreme relevance to either position, leave it up to the reader to draw conclusions, and ask for any comments from readers to be submitted for review... when comments are submitted, again, don't publish every one, but rather only publish the responses most direct to the subject.

Make it a DIGEST of all the input, not just an archive publication of the entire echo.

That is just my opinion.

Phil

Good Idea Phil, a DIGEST type format would get around the critics to a degree on the quoting and requoting again by someone else, and sometimes a third time by a third party. That has bothered me in learning how to be a editor rather than being the author of books. In my manuscripts, I don't have this problem. I will work on that idea next week's issue.

Thanks for the input, you and several others coming forward with pointers are extremely important to me and the Snooze.

Ol'wdb