Dragaera

Humans and the Cycle

Fri Jan 16 14:57:35 PST 2004

On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 02:06:07PM -0800, Philip Hart <philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote:
> > > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again?  The September
> > > that Never Ended?  I think that's about right.  Up until then the
> > > Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn...
> > > since then the cacophony has never ceased!
> > I dunno, lets go over and ask Al Gore, he invented it didn't
> > he................. nah, lets not.  He's got SOOO many things to do right
> > now, he won't have time for us....
> Please refrain, this is a) an ignorant fabricated smear, and b) liable to
> result in an ugly political discussion on a polite list.

Reason a isn't terribly accurate; you've just done the same thing 
you are complaining about.  The "internet thing" was overhyped by 
conservatives trying to discredit Gore, and is overhyped by 
liberals trying to defend Gore.  Saying Gore "invented the 
internet" is a misquote, but what Gore actually said, in context, 
was a fairly clear (and typical of just about any politician) 
attempt to take credit for the creation of the internet.

Whether he deserved that credit is an argument for another day.

Reason b is perfectly valid, on the other hand, so let's let it 
stop here, without further partisanship from either side.

I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the 
September That Never Ended part of my original message.  Surely 
someone else here remembers that?

-- 
Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org)
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