LETTERS from CRICKET SONG

 

 

Missive the Seventh:

 

 

When Mussolini Arrives

At the Congo of the Bozarth.

 

 

Convicted of the Sin of the Naughty Tongue.

 

 

Dateline:  Friday, August 11, 2000, at 2300 hours CDT.

Conway, Arkansas, USA

 

By D. Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles

CornDancer & Company

 

It's so ridiculously hot here in the Congo of the Bozarth that I'm having a hard time thinking of something interesting to write about.  My molecules are straining to stay bound.

 

Besides, I've had a rotten case of the down-'n-out blues since Tuesday night.  All this unemployment and failed practice exams are catching up with me.

 

My rapid, unexpected descent into the blues began when corndancer.com's loyal intern Chad sent me an email about Missive the Sixth.  "Eb, I just read your missive.  I really didn't catch the meaning of it except for the fact that you think that August sucks.  Get back to me."

 

I can't fathom why, but the message sent me spiraling into despondency.  Meaning is one of the core values.  To fail in getting it across -- well, damn!  I don't think August sucks anymore than July or February sucks.  I'm an equal opportunity monthanthrope.

 

Just a String of Words Thrown into the Void.

Double dadburnit, I thought, trying to be less profane.  I'm losing my relevance to the younger generation.  I composed an apology (it's just a string of words thrown into the void keeps the fires stoked 'n smoking gives substance to the illusion of a going concern satisfies a deadline everyone is a critic) and went straight to bed. 

 

The next morning I was cheered, somewhat, when I checked the overnight E-mail to discover a pleasant note from my sister-in-law.  (She lives in the same neighborhood as six-foot-nine-inch Arkansas Oak Sid Vicious, currently a leading light of World Championship Wrestling.)  She wrote sweet compliments about Missive the Sixth, but then she's the kind of loving and supportive relation whose cup is seldom half empty.  She was right, though.  Thanks, sis!

 

Guilt was what felled me.  I was convicted of the sin of the naughty tongue.  What was I thinking when I painted such unflattering (if flattened) portraits of the bookkeeper, network engineer, and certified depression poet?  The only treasures I'll be getting are a fleeting vapour and the snare of death.  (I can't quite convince myself that vapour and snares are treasures, but that's what the Bible says.) 

 

Then I discovered that America Online is blocking access to the corndancer.com website.  At least I think that's the case.  AOL account holders in our limited circle report they cannot access the site.  I'll take their word for it.  I'm not willing to accept the 500 free hours AOL has offered me to research the issue. 

 

Those nasty Blue Nudes are doing their mischief again.  First Barnes and Noble, now America Online.  When will the corporate indignities ever end?

 

Renewed Vigor for the Effort to Enforce Conformity.

I mean, for instance, to change the subject a mere bit:  Have you ever tried to close-out an account with AOL?  When I left America's Online Losers (there's that creeping cynicism, rearing its ugly mane again) in May of 1997 to cast my lot with aristotle.net, it required the best brains at Worthen Bank to figure out how we might gracefully convince AOL to let go of its monthly draft on my checking account.  Anyway, only one of Cricket Song's subscribers maintains an AOL account -- and she came our way via the mad painter-sculptor Treadway.  I suspect we might lose her subscription when she reads this -- if she can.  The last time I tried to send her a Letter from Cricket Song, AOL's server wouldn't accept it.

 

At about the same instant that its protectionist filters were alerted to the dangers of Wilton's Blue Nudes, AOL joined other Big Brothers and Big Sisters of corporate America -- CNN, ABC News, MSNBC were also mentioned in wire reports about high-minded cyber strikes against hate speech -- to renew their determination to sanitize the World Wide Web and Internet from other threats to decency, this time to protect Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate Senator Joseph Lieberman from anti-Semitic comments.

 

Since Monday when Senator Lieberman's ascendancy was announced, the effort to enforce conformity has taken on a renewed sense of vigor.  Chat room blasphemy is erased as soon as it appears, chat writers are immediately barred from cyber rooms when caught with their thoughts down, software filters to block certain strings of profane words are placed over portals and gateways, and the politically incorrect are threatened with loss of their account.  CNN announced it would place its army of flesh-and-blood online eavesdroppers on full alert to monitor their customers and enforce acceptable free speech.  E-mail burnings by concerned members of AOL support groups were scheduled in several major cities for this weekend.

 

"Though the remarks about Sen. Lieberman were mostly limited to Web sites and discussion groups frequented by hate groups, some did spill into chat rooms and message boards from mainstream Internet providers," the Associated Press reported on August 10, 2000.  The mainstream's protectors pledged additional resources to prevent impurities from infecting the stream.

 

AOL is so precise that it recorded exact numbers:  28,000 postings mentioning Senator Lieberman moved across its wires.  "They're all being investigated," Nicholas Graham, AOL's Minister of Censorship, told the press.

 

Fringe Ideas Are Dangerous Things.

I'm ready to step forward and laud these diligent protectors of the common weal.  Who can't admire their efficiency, their lock-step determination, the exactness of their science.  Like the property developers and contractors who raise sturdy brick walls around suburban bedroom communities throughout the land, these staunch internet defenders perform a vital service for good people of the republic.  For one, they ease the fears of social contamination so rampant in their stolid isolationist constituency.  When the shopkeepers, landlords, factory owners, and service-sector managers feel safe and protected, domestic harmony and societal cohesion are ensured.  An additional benefit is the opportunity for censors to hone their skills in preparation for more serious threats that may arise when hard times come again.

 

Fringe ideas are indeed dangerous things.  It is natural and just for the leaders of America's new media to protect the good citizens from riffraff, ruffians, and renegades -- and especially, from vermin and degenerate art.  By doing so, they protect the profit stream they've so finely embedded in the sanctity of an ascendant mainstream culture.

 

One corporate executive, her courage amplified by the absence of outrage, suggested that skinheads and survivalists be identified and forced to wear armbands with yellow swastikas whenever they appear in public.  "That's hyperbole, of course," she said.  "But at the very least these hate speech practitioners should be banished from publishing on the bandwidth of America's World Wide Web."

 

I'll bet, like Mussolini's brown-boot legions at the train stations of a bygone era, America's corporate elite can even figure out a way to make the airplanes fly on time.  That in itself would be worth the little inconveniences of censorship and restricted speech.

 

 

 

WATCH FOR MISSIVE THE EIGHTH in your mailbox just before sundown on Tuesday, August 15, 2000.  If you don't want any of my missives, let me know.  I'll remove you from the subscription list immediately upon demand.  On the other hand, if you want to add a friend or associate to the list, please forward their name and email address to ebenezer@corndancer.com .

 

Visit the web site at www.corndancer.com

 

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