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peace out, gentle people. It is not my intent to ice a few of our friends or denigrate anyone's contributions to the cause/not to the cause/in spite of the cause. What we have here is the phenomena of a fairly new technology encapsulating some rather old issues. Give a small Midwest American town a bandshell and a few microphones and strange things will happen. There will be patriotic speeches, some church socials and some dances. The microphone certainly doesn't care what it projects. But, there will also be some Malcolm X's, some groups like Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols and of course some kids that just like to belch into the microphone too. Are all these uses as valid; are all these uses as welcome? Communicating properly is a learned social behavior, like not talking loudly in libraries and learning to chew our food with our mouths closed. And all things being unequal (as they always are in life) I certainly also am very fond of a good blood curdling scream now and then from somewhere out in the library's study carrels. It is good for the soul. (my apologies to all our resident list librarians) <g> Tedium on the other hand, is what wears us all down. Telecommuncative tedium to me would be similar to one of the Disney type characters who is constantly underfoot saying "did you get the rabbit, Roy? huh? huh? have you seen the pesky wabbit? huh? huh? where's dat wabbit? huh? huh? huh?" But, as we all know, what's one man's poison is another man's nuclear energy. I think Chas T. Meyer strikes a note of reason in the present cacophany and as an aside Bernard Jolly, you are certainly welcomed to your two posts a day! You are both informative and list-directed and a very forgiving and peaceful soul. But, I digress (as do most people on this list). At any rate, the list changes as needs and style change as well. What bothers me is our underlying laziness. IF the default in e-mail was to only send your message back to the person who sent it to you I think about 80% of our out of control banter would be solved. I think this is one point that Chas Meyer addresses quite well. Unfortunately the default is to send your "you're ugly and yo' mama dresses you funny" message to your friend and 1,499 other people who just happen to be standing in the same bus station. Then, an interesting social phenomena takes over that I must say baffles me. Evidentally, since few small towns have a good gospel radio show anymore and since party phones exist only on the fringes of civilization, there is another group of bored and lonely listeners out there who appear to feed on this stuff. Why should I be amazed that people like a steady diet of "fribble"?. Heck, this is the same nation that successfully marketed a snack food called "Screaming Yellow Zonkers". There is probably some interesting research to be done and some points to be made about what is going on here. There is a morphing of technology and social interaction in progress and e-mail and the Internet are redefining our society just as television did before this. The Net's Marshall McLuhan will come too, given enough time. In the meantime, when you pitch your tent in a State Forest and then a guy in a motorhome with a generator, a VCR, a loud stereo and some noisy kids parks next to you what do you do? (pay your taxes and smile). goodnite, Gracey Rat in Great American Desert And the current score: Ken Becker -3; rest of the free world -14 Still a little lopsided, but I will admit the material is improving. <g> Ken Baker index = 17.6% ... hmmm maybe this thing is related to the recent rise in the Dow.... perhaps it is a leading economic indicator .... come on 8000!