first of all, yes, shame on the spineless beurocrats that pulled ads because of one loose cannon (well, both the complainer and the articles author, IMHO). this is precisely the type of thing that happened during McCarthyism, it was wrong then, it's wrong now. if you own a company, i encourage you to be familiar with the businesses you use for advertising and their views. at the same time, corrporations, as their' ceo's are so eager to say, should only be concerned with making money (and hopefully obeying the law), they ought not abuse their management position to further political goals, they should advertise where it works.
second of all, i haven't read much of the editorial stuff on lowendmac, and given that last article, i'm not likely to. it's the worst kind of twaddle (list etiquette prevents my using the "appropriate" language to describe it...). the worst kind of selective memory and nastalgia for the good old times that weren't. drive by shootings and the rest certainly happened 50 years ago, drive by shootings ocuring during prohibition, which is partially why they happen now (big money and illicit trade always bring violent conflict, since illegal business persons have no legal protection, and for that matter even "legit" big business does such things from time to time). violence in schools is nothing new either and has always been an increasing problem as school size has increased. plenty of "good christians" have been violent in the name of christianity, the KKK leaps to mind. the sniper was a sociopath, training an apprentice to fulfill the "promise" he never did (thinking he was a crack sniper and should have been recognized by the military). there was certainly much, much more violence 50 years ago, there just wasn't tv and talk shows indoctrinating the ignorant. there was certainly a good deal more spouse, elder, and child abuse 50 years ago, but they were accepted behavior at the time and were seldom documented or reported on let alone prosecuted. free speech means the right to be ignorant or even deliberately lying and to still be able to state your case. i worked at a print shop once, we ran "literature" for the KKK in one instance, as was our duty to preserve their right to free speech, however offensive we personally found it (and other than one racist staff member we all condemed it, and he didn't like it either). then again, if happened today the boston tea party would have been considered terrorism, which it certainly was in terms of tactics. growing up, i'd have to say that "the ten comandments" was one of the most violent and sick movies i saw, what with making people drink molten gold and slamming the river back together after the romans had entered (rather than before...), so much for being mercifull to your enemy. thirdly, by definition, corporations are imaginary people, frankly i don't believe in allowing this kind of aliaseing of business people and the personal firewall it affords to decisions they make (the errosion of personal responsibility is part of our problems, and corporations provide a bad example to all). given that corporations are fictitious persons (who can not be imprisoned), they obviously have no business having any kind of view what so ever (and obviously CAN'T have one, it's just the "owners" imbezeling in the name of their "charities" and causes and signing the corporate name). they should have absolutely no role in the political process, as they are not citizens and hence do not have the rights that go with the responsibilities they've avoided by the incorporation process. they shouldn't give to charity or political causes (the owners can do that with their own money, the stuff that comes out of their pockets, employees should be encouraged to support whatever the employee believes in rather than have their pay cut so that the owners can throw the political power and money around). fourthly, as all should know but few do, correlation does not prove cause and effect and is often just random (the length of women's skirts followed sunspot activity amazingly closely for a whole sunspot cycle during the late 60's and early 70's, it would have been easy to theorize a cause and effect relationship though i'm not sure if it was the sunspots effecting the length of skirts, or the skirt length regulating sunspot activity). i could just as easily say that the increase in violence and the sniper shootings were related to going off of the gold standard, and i'm sure i could come up with a logical, though wrong, explanation of how one causes another. columbine and the beltway sniper were both do to people with serious mental problems, religion wasn't really relevant. i knew a budding sociopath in high school (i don't know of any murder's he's commited, but he almost got a high school girl to kill someone for his amusement, and came very, very close), i'm sure his mother was a good christian, the problem arose from his father raping and molesting him and his sister. recently some religious leaders have been revealed who didn't think such abuse was a problem, or at least not a serious one. finally, imho, the greatest problem with modern society is not the lack of "christian" values (even non-christians don't approve of the sniper after all!), but rather the willingness of people of all political persuasions to lie in support of their cause, showing disrespect for both the listener and their own position and creating an enviroment where it's even harder to find someone to trust. yes, it's OT, but since dan opened it i'm replying. i love the list dan runs, it's a great public service. i support dan's right to publish anything he wants, and to even publish it on a site primarily devoted to macs. dan is at least honest as far as i can tell. -- Unsupported OS X is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Unsupported OS X list info <http://lowendmac.com/lists/unsupported.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive <http://www.mail-archive.com/unsupportedosx%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? 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