The best thing about the Internet is (check one):
( ) It is the greatest reference library in the world
( ) It has thousands of entertamment 'channels'
( ) You can buy almost anything from almost anywhere
( ) The craziest people in the world use it
( ) News is worldwide and virtually instantaneous
( ) It's free and available
(x) The Internet revives Old-Fashioned Family Values
Obviously, I'm crazy!
The INet is the place where thousands of people contribute tens of thousands of hours (and of dollars) for others' pleasure, information and satisfaction. Sure, there are commercial sites that are selling product. Sure, there are predators out there ready to exploit children or others who can't defend themselves. But, overwhelmingly, there are people who build WWW sites so you can get the information you want or need. People who help you solve an arcane computer problem or research your third cousin's ex-boyfriend's claim that he once acted in Richard III in Melbourne. People who give you chapter and verse of an arcane legal reference you need.
These are people who want to give. They have no hope of reward - barring a little publicity and an occasional "thank you". People who are truly christian, who believe that doing good is reward in itself. Some companies are comparably generous, providing powerful resources in exchange for just enough advertising to justify themselves to their stockholders. These companies and these people spend time and money to give to the world.
Do you need a driver for Windows 95? Run Gopher: somebody provides that resource without charge to search a few hundred FTP sites. Pick one; somebody provides that for free, too. Still not right? Ask in a newsgroup. Somebody will point you to the right file; someone else will e-mail it to you. Schools, companies, people have learned how much more rewarding it is to give than to receive.
In my small and narrow way, I try to join these contributors. On average, 50-70 people a day access my site. Ninety percent come back regularly, many every week. They "visit" from Hong Kong, Sydney, Moscow, Warsaw, and the back country of Sweden. Some have contributed in turn, sharing with me visual and audio images. A great opera house burned to the ground a few months ago. Within hours, I had a firsthand report from an e-mail friend (Pentium-pal??) in Venice. I was sent and posted dozens of pictures, including images scanned from the Extra published that day in Venice. I posted them for a few weeks each, then passed them on to someone with even more interest who posted them herself.
When Prime Minister Rabin was shot in Israel, someone set up a condolence site. Within hours, it was swamped with people wishing to express their grief to the family. The volunteer collected those messages and passed them on; he was expressing his own grief by opening his heart and his resources to ease others' pain.
The misconceived restrictions on the INet in the Indecency Act (my word for it) would be far more effective in destroying this return to Traditional Values than in curtailing the predators. The INet is self-defining and self-policing; anyone who has seen the way a mailing list reacts to flames and spams knows what I mean. Many different reactions to that Act give me assurance that its indecent proposals will never be put into effect in our society. Other countries try futilely to suppress communication of thought, ideas and opinions; even they have been ineffective in silencing the INet. Or in silencing its Old Fashioned Values and Virtues.
Mike Richter
Mail me at operas@mrichter.com
Return to Mike's home page