* "Back in the Day"—of the Internet

Back in my day {get off the grass, punk!}, when the Internet was young—the early 90's—there was email, there were USENET groups (of specialized interests), and there were web pages written with the textual content paramount—since graphics, etc., were pretty bandwidth prohibitive. It was then that a person {get off the grass!} measured his/her words, to make them worthy verbal entries in a Brave New Digital World; it was then that "written" discourse (if you will) still mattered. {Get off the grass!} Sure, acronyms soon became rampant (e.g., ROTFLMAO) and type-emoticons were popular (   :-{  ). But, given the bandwidth investment, an email was often more an essay than some toss-off casual affair, and a web page was an original contribution to the world of knowledge, not a mere digital appendage to a capitalist enterprise, or a report to the world on one's children and pets.

Now I can barely READ my email, without a plethora of misspellings, comma splices, et al. (and oh, yeh—sex for sale). Now I can't access a web site for information purposes, without gaudy & mindless graphics, commercial banners (and misspellings & comma splices), etc., etc. {Get off the grass!} Supposedly, the democratization of the 'Net has been a good thing—that is, if Fortune 500 companies and pornography are your forte. They're not mine. {Get off the grass!}

So—humankind IS the "rational animal"?! Some sociologist should do a content analysis of email spam and/or web pages to document once again—what Nietzsche & Freud already well knew—that we are ultimately arational and, above all, animals.

And then there's the irrational stupidity of the boxing match I just saw on ESPN2 tonight: a "bloody, brutal TKO win!"—as the announcer said . . . and I loved it, ANIMAL that I am. (But isn't this also the human sacrifice that many of the world's religions require?)