-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.aci.net/kalliste/
<A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A>
-----
Today's Lesson From The Outsider
by Colin Wilson
They are all asleep. This is the point to which Gurdjieff returns again
and again. They must be made to feel the urgency of the need to wake up.
And after the legend of the magician, to call the mass of contented
bourgeois "sheep" has a new and terrible significance. At the end of All
and Everything, the grandson of the "all-wise Beelzebub" (Gurdjieff's
mouthpiece) asks whether it is still possible to save mankind and
"direct them to the becoming path". Beelzebub answers: "The sole means
of saving the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant again into
their presences a new organ . . . of such properties that everyone
should sense . . . the inevitability of his own death, as well as the
death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rest."
=====
Blowing up stuff that's not in Yugoslavia
Pipe-Bomb Making 102
Prerequisite: survived Pipe-Bomb Making 101
PALM HARBOR -- The massacre at Columbine High School stunned classrooms
around the country. Fourteen students and a teacher dead, a campus
littered with homemade bombs, a nation in shock. At Palm Harbor
University High, Timothy Falls' social studies classes were no
exception.
But instead of just discussing the Colorado rampage, Falls showed his
students how to make a pipe bomb and explained where it should be placed
at the school to cause maximum damage, an attorney for the Pinellas
school district said Tuesday.
The discussion occurred in several of Falls' classes April 21, the day
after the Littleton, Colo., shootings, a district investigation showed.
Superintendent Howard Hinesley has recommended that the School Board
suspend Falls for 10 days without pay.
Falls, 38, has requested a hearing to appeal the suspension, said
Jacqueline Spoto, staff attorney for the district. Within four to six
months, Spoto said, an administrative law judge will hear the appeal and
endorse or reject Hinesley's recommendation.
Ultimately, it will be up to the School Board to decide if the
suspension is appropriate.
Falls did not return calls to his Clearwater home Tuesday. A woman who
identified herself as his wife said district officials have told him not
to comment.
Jade Moore, executive director of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers
Association, said Falls has joined the union since the incident.
Moore said he did not know details, but wondered if district officials
may be overreacting.
"If he advocated building a pipe bomb, that would be one thing. Or if
the students were prone to do that, that's one thing. But explaining it,
discussing it -- that's topical," Moore said.
"It sounds to me like he was probably exercising his First Amendment
right to academic freedom."
Falls has discussed the matter with Mark Herdman, an attorney who often
represents teachers at the union's expense. But Herdman said Tuesday he
has not decided whether he will take the case.
According to a narrative provided in a board agenda item, Falls began a
discussion about Columbine in several of his classes. He called the
shootings "a travesty" and "emphasized the importance of (students)
being aware of their surroundings," the item said.
The classes also discussed "hate talk" and Falls encouraged students to
report "any unusual activities or individuals at school."
Then, at students' request, Falls drew a diagram of a pipe bomb on the
chalkboard "and described its components in detail," the item said.
". . . Mr. Falls and his students discussed the accessibility and
vulnerability of all schools. Mr. Falls initiated a discussion
explaining to students exactly where a pipe bomb should be placed at
Palm Harbor University High School in order to maximize impact and why
such a placement would be most effective in causing injury or harm," the
item said.
The Columbine shootings set off several weeks of copycat rumors and bomb
scares at schools across the Tampa Bay area and the nation.
Last month, Palm Harbor University High administrators canceled student
performances of the Woody Allen comedy, Don't Drink the Water, which
includes slapstick gags with a revolver and a bomb. They worried those
elements might provoke violence or appear insensitive after the
shootings.
Spoto said officials learned of Falls' discussion from a parent who
contacted school administrators. Alec Liem, the principal, district
investigators and Hinesley decided a 10-day suspension was adequate,
Spoto said.
Falls will not serve the suspension unless the board approves it.
Regular classes do not resume until August. Liem and Hinesley could not
be reached for comment Tuesday.
Falls served in the Air Force from 1979 until 1994, according to
district personnel records. He was hired as a substitute teacher in
August 1994 and became a full-time teacher that month at Clearwater High
School, where he also coached the boy's soccer team.
He transferred to Palm Harbor University High in August 1998. Recent
evaluations show he has met or exceeded expectations in all areas, Spoto
said. If the board approves the suspension, Falls would lose $143 per
day, or $1,430.
Board member Jane Gallucci said she had received several phone calls
from parents who were upset about Falls' actions.
"'I can tell you that I certainly didn't think it was appropriate,"
Gallucci said. "I realize the kids can get (the information), but let's
not give it to them."
St. Petersburg Times, June 9, 1999
That Dream Vacation
Gun City, Nevada
24-Hour Rifle Service
FRONT SIGHT is the world's first luxury residential resort catering for
gun enthusiasts. Unofficially known as Gun City, the 550-acre gated
community in the Nevada desert is being developed along the lines of a
golf resort, with firing ranges instead of fairways.
The project has met with criticism from anti-gun groups, but its
supporters say it is a welcome addition to America's recreational
resorts and will boost the image of gun enthusiasts. First Sight's
founder and developer, Dr Ignatius Piazza said: "We're not building a
compound for gun nuts. We're building a world-class resort property."
His plans for the £16 million project have the blessing of local
planning authorities The planning commissioner, Tom Riley, says:
"Instead of the 19th hole, they've got the bullet hole." When it is
completed by the end of next year the community of Front Sight - named
after the sight on a gun barrel usually called the foresight - will have
12 firing ranges, an indoor video training simulator building, defensive
driving track, armoury, a gunsmith's workshop, martial arts gymnasium
and a pro shop.
A £125,000 platinum membership includes a home site near the firing
ranges and unlimited gun use. Less expensive memberships include gun
training classes and the use of other club facilities. There will also
be 170 houses, 350 flats, shops, a church and a school where, says Dr
Piazza, "the emphasis will be on the arts - martial arts". Streets will
have gun-related names such as Barrel Boulevard, Trigger Avenue and even
a Second Amendment Drive - named after the section of the American
Constitution giving citizens the right to bear arms.
Until Front Sight is completed Dr Piazza is offering free sub-machinegun
training courses to attract members. So far this year more than 2,000
prospective buyers, mostly recruited through gun clubs across America,
have attended the course and expressed interest in returning. "We are
already planning similar communities in other parts of America," said Dr
Piazza, a former chiropractor who says he became interested in guns in
1988 after a drive-by shooting disrupted his neighbourhood. He opened a
firing range near Bakersfield in California and then, with a group of
investors, bought the land in Nevada, 60 miles from Las Vegas and at the
end of a four-mile sand track.
Dr Piazza's philosophy is that the more skills a citizen has with a gun
the less likely he or she will be to use it unnecessarily. He said: "You
can see from the people taking this class that they are all responsible
gun users. They take it very seriously and they want to improve their
skills. We offer training that exceeds that of law enforcement
officials."
Front Sight will also include a celebrity training section which Dr
Piazza hopes will attract film stars, politicians and executives. But
not everyone is enthused by Dr Piazza's plans. Eric Gorovitz is the
policy director of the Bell Foundation, a non-profit organisation based
in San Francisco which campaigns for stricter gun-control laws, he said:
"My initial reaction is that if Front Sight gets the gun nuts out of my
town and into the Nevada desert, than I am all for it.
"But I am frightened by the idea of these fanatics who want a life
together in a commune that focuses on guns. Also, presumably there will
be children going to school and growing up there in this Wild West town
and that to me is very scary."
The London Telegraph, June 10, 1999
Digital Society
Internet Whacks $2 Billion Off Merrill Lynch
by Clay Shirky
THE INTERNET HAPPENED to Merrill Lynch last week, and it cost them a
couple billion dollars -- when Merrill announced its plans to open an
online brokerage after years of deriding the idea, its stock price
promptly fell by a tenth, wiping out $2 billion in its market
capitalization. The internet's been happening like that to a lot of
companies lately -- Barnes and Noble's internet stock is well below its
recent launch price, Barry Diller's company had to drop its Lycos
acquisition because of damage to the stock prices of both companies, and
both Borders and Compaq dumped their CEOs after it became clear that
they were losing internet market share. In all of these cases, those
involved learned the hard way that the internet is a destroyer of net
value for traditional businesses because the internet economy is
fundamentally at odds with the market for internet stocks.
The internet that the stock market has been so in love with (call it the
"Pretend Internet" for short) is all upside -- it enables companies to
cut costs and compete without respect to geography. The internet that
affects the way existing goods and services are sold, on the other hand
(call it the "Real Internet"), forces companies to cut profit margins,
and exposes them to competitors without respect to geography. On the
Pretend Internet, new products will pave the way for enormous
profitability arising from unspecified revenue streams. Meanwhile, on
the Real Internet, prices have fallen and they can't get up. There is a
rift here, and its fault line appears wherever offline companies like
Merrill tie their stock to their internet offerings. Merrill currently
pockets a hundred bucks every time it executes a trade, and when
investors see that Merrill online is only charging $30 a trade, they see
a serious loss of revenue. When they go on to notice that $30 is
something like three times the going rate for an internet stock trade,
they see more than loss of revenue, they see loss of value. When a
company can cut its prices 70% and still be three times as expensive as
its competitors, something has to give. Usually that is the company's
stock price.
The internet is the locus of the future economy, and its effect is the
wholesale transfer of information and choice (read: power and leverage)
from producer to consumer. Producers (and the stock market) prefer
one-of-a-kind businesses who can force their customers to accept
continual price increases for the same products. Consumers, on the other
hand, prefer commodity businesses where prices start low and keep
falling. On the internet, consumers have the upper hand, and as a
result, anybody who profited from offline inefficiencies -- it used to
be hard work to distribute new information to thousands of people every
day, for example -- are going to see much of their revenue destroyed
with no immediate replacement in sight.
This is not to say that the internet produces no new value -- on the
contrary, it produces enormous value every day. Its just that most of
the value is concentrated in the hands of the consumer. Every time
someone uses the net to shop on price (cars, plane tickets, computers,
stock trades) the money they didn't spend is now available for other
things. The economy grows even as profit margins shrink. In the end,
this is what Merrill's missing market cap tells us -- the internet is
now a necessity, but there's no way to use the internet without
embracing consumer power, and any business which profits from
inefficiency is going to find this embrace more constricting than
comforting. The effects of easy price comparison and global reach are
going to wring inefficiency (read: profits) out of the economy like a
damp dishrag, and as the market comes to terms with this equation
between consumer power and lower profit margins, $2 billion of missing
value is going to seem like a drop in the bucket.
Clay Shirky is Professor of New Media at Hunter College.
Feed Magazine, June 8, 1999
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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