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Editor's note: I'm not putting my customary "Politics Alert" note in front of Marvin Price's letter on Racism in the work place, because I hope everyone will read it. Marvin has captured, based on personal experience, the realities of this issue, and exemplifies the proper and right way to deal with them. CM

From Marvin Price

Racism in the work place

We have been conditioned in this country to believe any claim of racism. We have forgotten what racism really is. Anything can be labeled racism.

As an African-American, I consider the actions of the employee to be highly questionable. I've worked for banks, entertainment companies, technology companies, universities, and individuals. You bump into bigots everywhere. Unfortunately, unfounded bigotry is part of human nature. Only once in my professional career have I confronted actual overt racism, i.e. the apparent belief that I not capable of performing up to the level of white counterparts simply because I was black. That is the definition of racism, by the way.

This does not mean that so called "racism," (which is most often simple personal bigotry), does not exist. I know it does. What it does mean is that in 20 years, I have never encountered a situation that I could not handle using the facilities of the organization I was working for.

The overt case in my career occurred at a large well known technology company. I had to work for a person that made his feelings toward black people very clear. I went and spoke with the Human Resources person. I explained the situation to her. The manager giving me the problem was widely respected for his technical (and surfing) prowess and I was very new to the company. I explained to the HR person that if his behavior did not change, I would seek counsel.

She spoke with the manager. Rather than changing his behavior, it became worse. At this point I did seek counsel. I had to seek counsel twice. The first lawyer I spoke with was ready to sue the company for millions of dollars. The lawyer was an opportunistic schmuck that was full of crap about how we had to show the company and the world that this sort of thing wouldn't be tolerated and that the way to do this was to sue them for $50,000,000.

I won't lie. Dollar signs flashed before my eyes, but I overcame personal greed and said "No thanks."

I implemented the one good idea the lawyer had. I gathered written appraisals from coworkers so that I would have records of what people thought of me, under the pretense of making sure I was doing a good job. Some people found me to be a bit opinionated! Ha!

I found another lawyer that helped me to express the situation to the company in the way I wanted it expressed. I wanted the behavior stopped. If it did not, then I would be forced to leave a company that I loved working for, was proud to work for, and I would be forced to seek damages. EVEN THEN, I SAID THE EXTENT OF THE DAMAGES WOULD BE LOSS OF INCOME FOR THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT TOOK ME TO FIND ANOTHER JOB, AND THAT DAMAGES WOULD NOT EXCEED THE SUM OF 1 YEAR'S SALARY, which was about $40,000 at the time.

The company offered to find me another job within the company, but I felt that wasn't right. I liked the job and location I had. The only problem was this one guy and the way he treated me.

Not only did the company stop the behavior, they put the manager on notice, issued me an apology, and forced the guy to take some sort of stupid sensitivity classes. The matter was kept private between myself, the company, my lawyer, and the weirdo. No insane press reports came out. I did have to change managers, but that was a welcome relief.

(Long story short, he went to work for another company and was sued for sexual harassment, went to another company after that and was sued yet again...)

I guarantee that anyone suing a company for what amounts to (in Apple's case) almost an entire quarter's profit has character flaws equal to and beyond any problem they are experiencing. They know that the company will likely settle out of court to save money.

Such law suits do not make things better. They bolster and strengthen animosities. No problems are solved. The plaintiff and the lawyer pocket big bucks, but everyone, and I mean EVERYONE else suffers.

If I was a white manager at Apple, and a black person walked through the door for an interview, all things considered, I might just think, "Let someone else hire him. This could be a problem I don't need right now." That bigotry was put into me by the law suit. Doesn't mean I hate anyone, just means I'm afraid. So I discriminate. Racism, bigotry, and discrimination are not the same things, but constantly yelling "RACISM" has the ironic effect of generating bigotry and discrimination.

There is no honor is suing Apple for $40,000,000. Everyone who says we don't know the details is correct, but I do know that Apple Computer, Inc. does not condone racism. I do know that the thousands of people who work for Apple are not all racists. I do know that the CEO is one of the biggest liberals around and would never tolerate so called racism.

Anyone who knows anything about Apple and how it works internally knows that it is an extremely "progressive" company.

Everything about this law suit stinks. It's sad because most likely the plaintiff and the lawyer will pocket some big money here and if my intuition on these matters is at all right, the problem is most likely between two people.

Forty million dollars indeed.

Better by your iPod while it's only $399.

Hi Marvin;

Bravo! Thanks for this. You have masterfully articulated what I have been struggling to get across for the past couple of days, and from personal experience, yet. IMHO, you handled your own brush with workplace discrimination exactly as such unhappy incidents should be handled.

You're one of the good guys.

I really detest this whole racism issue -- both the real racism that you personally encountered in the instance you relate, and the reverse-racism and political agendae behind the political correctness address of racism. Both disgust me.

Like Dr. King, I too dream that someday we will get past all that and live in a culture where everyone will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Meanwhile. I refuse to be bullied by the "kindly inquisitors" of political correctness into toeing the party line on issues like affirmative action, or making "some of my best friends are....." defenses, which I consider insulting to my friends, associates, and acquaintances who are non-white.

However. I have worked for an African-Canadian boss, and with black colleagues, and had a black housemate many years ago. I thought and think of and relate(ed) to these people as just people, not as *black* people, and I am color blind when it comes to making character evaluations. It annoys me that I have to spell this out to people.

I am sensitive to the unfortunate fact that bigotry still exists in 2002, but I believe that the ranks of bigots are thinning substantially, and that, as you imply, they would be thinning even faster if political, chip-on-the-shoulder pot-stirrers would quit keeping the race issue in everybody's face and fanning the flames of resentment against what is often rightly perceived as special pleading and race-based privelege, queue-jumping, and so on. How can you expect to achieve a color-blind society when race is constantly held up front and center?

I believe that the politiized race agenda advocated by political-correctness advocates, white and black is the diametric antithesis of Dr. King's dream.

Let freedom ring!

Charles

From Richard K Mossman

re: Apple Discrimination Suit

In reference to Ms. Tovish's comments:

I am an Apple stockholder (albeit very small). Stockholders can not (actually, I should say, will not) take a huge hit, because (at least in my case) I'm not an investor willing to lose money nor am I (such) a Mac addict that I bought the shares for fun. If I start losing money on any company, I'll sell. Fast! So will a lot of other investors (including the ones who have huge stock portfolios that are controlled completely by automated buying and selling programs that don't read the news about discrimination cases, only the electronic ticker tape). If that happens, you'll start seeing the value of their stock dropping and will see the return to the Dooms Day predictions of a few years ago.

These comments have absolutely nothing to do with the pending discriminations suit, that's just the way the stock market works. But, I agree with Charles in that the company shouldn't have to pay, but the bozo who discrimates should. In fact, most large companies have Equal Opportunity guidelines that must be periodically reviewed by every employee and that include an statement about how ignoring the guideline could lead to dismissal. So, actually, the company might not even be held liable in the end and the stock holders might never feel any impact. But, I bet the news never reports on that!

The main reason we are seeing this headline is because it's a slow news day, Apple is a good target, the article is inflammatory, and/or the legal system allows exorbitant claims.

Lest you think I am just someone who sees an opportunity to get up on a soap-box, you should know that my wife and I have been fighting battles like this for many years. She was released from a major corporation because of a reduction in force. At least that was the excuse. In the interview she had with her supervisor when she was given the news, she was actually told it was because her hearing was going bad and too many people were having to repeat themselves when they were talking to her. Unfortunately, when we filed a suit for wrongful termination, the supervisor was able to deny having said it because it hadn't been put in writing (duh!).

A couple of years later, we found out that the reason her hearing was going bad was because of the nerve damage being caused by the silicon breast implants she had had many years ago. We did collect part of the multi-million settlement on that one. A whopping $6,000. The lawyers got half of the settlement and the sick (in fact, dying) clients split the other half. That's the legacy she will leave behind when she's gone before her time.

Charles:

I used to believe as you do that smokers (and women with implants) went into these things with their eyes open and should be willing to accept the consequences. But, in my wife's case (and most of the other women) their doctors assured them the implants were safe. In fact, her doctor wasn't even included in the case because he had documentation from the manufacturer showing the safety of the implants. It was only the manufacturer who did anything wrong.

As to smokers: cigarettes killed my father. He wasn't a stupid man; nor was he casual about any life (especially not his own); nor did he have emotional problems. What he did have was an industry that told him cigarettes were safe and they told him by pouring millions of dollars into lavish advertisements, sponsorships, etc. that made them look like wonderful people providing a wonderful product. Advertising took the message to people and enticed them to smoke. Luckily, now we also have advertising that shows the consequences of smoking.

Believe it or not, I'm not as bitter as I sound. I think (the requested) settlements are ridiculous and reflect more of the failings of the legal system and the media than of the corporations or individuals named in the lawsuit. I bet if Apple hadn't been named as the defendant in this case, the settlement would have been a small fraction of the named amount and it wouldn't have made the news at all.

Richard Mossman

Hi Richard;

As you say, your wife and many other women were assured by their doctors that breast implants were perfectly safe, which I think is something quite different than a product manufacturer arguing in advertising that his product is safe. One expects a priori a lot more from their physician than they do from Madison Avenue.

Cigarettes? I'm 50, and I can't recall a time in my post-toddler life when I wasn't aware of the link between cigarette-smoking and lung cancer as well as other health consequences associated with tobacco use. Of course, that didn't stop me from having a two-pack-a-day habit when I was in my teens. I quit in my early twenties when the gurgling in my lungs started keeping me awake at night.

I expect your father was older than me, and there was a time when some cigarette ads actually included endorsements from MDs (!), so he may have started smoking with less accurate information on the potential health consequences of smoking than I did.

The malign effects associated with breast implants are a form of environmental illness, and being a multiple chemical sensitivities sufferer myself, I can truly empathize with your wife's situation. I hope she is able to find some treatment that can reverse the hearing loss.

Charles

From Jenny Morgan

Discrim suit

Lest we all forget that maybe, perhaps, it could be... that this guy, although very qualified for the job and, regardless of race, was a jerk and a half and that the reasons for firing just don't capture that?

As someone who has employed individuals in a small business environment, it is important to remember that one person's personality, good or bad, can dramatically affect an entire team, good or bad.

When you get a bad one, you have got to get rid of them.

-Jenny Morgan

The knee-jerk $40 million suit kinda makes one suspect.

Charles

From Larry O' Mahoney

Re: Really Scary Stuff

You have written a wonderful column. However, PC speech and thought have become so deeply ingrained that you have fallen prey to it. I take exception to your referral to Alan Keyes as an "African American". He is an American, not a hyphenated American. He was not born in Africa.

Larry O'Mahoney
New Orleans

Hi Larry;

Glad you liked the column.

On me and PC, not at all (perish the thought!). I was pointing out that not all black politicians are onside with the political correctness agenda.

I also, out of courtesy, attempt to refer to people as they refer to themselves. Most of the black persons who have weighed in in this issue have referred to themselves as African Americans, perhaps making the same point as I did.

Please see my reply to Marvin Price above.

Charles

Out the "Window" it goes

Hi, Charles,

I'm pretty sure you'll find this amusing, as I've kept up with your anti-Microsoft writings over the months, and I've found myself in agreement with your Microsoft-free computing goals.

I got home from work this evening to a pretty interesting piece of bulk mail from Microsoft. Printed in full color, on nice glossy card stock, is a picture of about ten people, gathered in an office, staring agape, presumably at me, the recipient. The text under the photo reads "They say there's no such thing as bad PR."

Upon un-gluing and opening their nicely folded brochure, I was simply astonished to read the following headline:

"But the publicity for running unlicensed software could hurt more than a $150,000 penalty."

The brochure goes on. A bold headline, printed in a nice, pleasant green, states:

"Running unlicensed software is illegal. And the BSA is finding offenders."

More text follows:

"In an effort to protect intellectual property rights nationwide, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) investigates companies suspected of using improperly licensed software."

Great. Now, they've insinuated that I'm a software pirate, and that they're coming into my home to inspect my hard drive, and serial numbers. Will they have a nice police escort?

The mail-out goes on to describe how Microsoft has "teamed up" with a company called Zones (whoever they are) who will guide me through a free consultation and help me obtain the proper licenses. The included a handy 1-800 number for me to call, so I made the most of it.

I thought it over for a minute, then went ahead and called. In a pleasant voice, (I hate the idea of harassing or verbally abusing a poor hourly worker, and I'm even polite to phone soliciters) I said "I've just received a piece of mail from Microsoft threatening me with a 150,000 dollar fine if I have any unlicensed software of theirs on my computer."

"Ouch," Said the voice on the other end.

I went on to say "I just want it to be noted that just in case, I will be deleting any and all Microsoft software immediately from my computer so as to avoid the possibility, and will refrain from installing any of their products in the future."

The poor fellow said "okay, it's.... noted."

In a cheery voice, I said "Thanks," and hung up.

I've been lazy about it, but It's all going out the window, now. Every last scrap. I've dragged around an antiquated version of Word 5 from computer to computer, through about five hardware upgrades, but thanks to your reviews of text editors for the Mac, I'm now equipped to do without.

Also, since I've been learning to design web pages in Adobe GoLive (licensed, thank you very much) I have kept a couple versions of Internet Explorer on my hard drive for the purpose of making sure pages displayed properly in their browser. Well, I've decided I don't care any more about how their browser will display my web site when it's finished. I'll continue to test pages in iCab, Opera, Netscape 4.78 and Omniweb. That should about do the trick, I suppose, since I don't want to risk a 150,000 dollar fine by having any Microsoft products installed on my machine.

Am I alone in this? I think not. Who else amongst your readership has received one of these mailings, and just who in the **** do they think they are to use this kind of heavy-handed scare tactic? How did they even get my address? I've moved at lest six times since I bought Word. God knows where the original disks or the documentation got to, and I'd have no way of proving ownership, if I even remotely felt like complying with whomever might attempt to bring me to task for possible piracy. The gall.

BTW, I'm an unrepentant "centrist with left-liberal tendencies," and I loved your rant on free speech today. Eloquently stated.

Oh, and who, exactly, is the BSA?

Keep up the good work,
Chris Vreeland

Hi Chris;

Excellent anecdote, and it did make me chuckle.

Another good reason to purge M$ software from your computer.

My last remaining M$ app. is my old copy of Word 5.1, duly registered back in 1993. And I have the documentation to prove it.

The BSA? Industry-funded piracy narcs. You can find out more about them than you want to know here:
http://www.bsa.org/

And it's more than scare tactics. Here's another anecdote:

Earlier this year, the Canadian Press reported the tale of a disabled 41-year-old mother of four from rural Upperton, New Brunswick, who successfully defended herself against piracy charges pursued by Microsoft, and who now wants compensation from the software colossus for the loss of her company and her reputation.

Brenda Avery said: "I've learned there's no such thing as being innocent until proven guilty and I've learned that Microsoft is just too big and too powerful."

Avery, who suffers from lupus (a serious autoimmune affliction) was fingered by Microsoft's piracy snoops who claimed she was selling pirated software, arrested, charged and tried.

The court found her innocent, and she is seeking compensation from M$, which she holds responsible for putting her out of business.

According to the CP report, Avery's business, BrenLor Marketing, mainly sold computer programs and games for children. Of some 800 programs in her inventory, about five per cent were reportedly Microsoft titles. M$ piracy investigators checked out a sample purchase from Avery and found it was pirated.

The RCMP showed up at her home for search and seizure, and arrested Avery and her also unwell husband Lorne (who she claimed had no involvement in the business -- charges against him were later dropped).

Now let's sit back and analyze this scenario. Microsoft is a quintessentially arrogant corporate entity, one of several reasons why I refuse to use their software on my Mac, save for the eight year old (registered) copy of Word 5.1. Anti-piracy watchdog organizations are insufferably self-righteous in pursuing their noble calling. But what are we to say of the RCMP in this shabby affair?

Of course, the Mounties were obliged to investigate Microsoft's complaint against BrenLor, and the nature of the alleged offense made a search reasonable, but the reported near-SWAT raid tactics and indiscriminate arrests were clearly over the top, and should alarm any Canadian who gives a hoot about civil liberties.

I mean, even if, for the sake of argument, Brenda Avery had been guilty as sin of Microsoft's allegations, what we're talking about here is at worst illicit software copying -- not some mad dog terrorist cell or the mob. What in the world were the RCMP supervising officers thinking? Did they get carried away with the notion of being on a mission from Bill to save the world from the heinous threat of software counterfeiting?

Surely , in this instance, any arrests were inappropriate. I can't imagine that even if they had been guilty, the Averys would have been much of a flight risk. Again, the worst the police had probable cause to suspect them of was software piracy -- not anything that posed a danger to society .

And while we're at it, are the Mounties now operating on a policy of arrest first, investigate later? Where was the evidence? The Mounties had no proof that software in BrenLor's inventory was counterfeit at the time of the raid.

Crown prosecutors (equiv. DAs) then tried to persuade Avery to cop a plea and pay a fine, but convinced of her innocence, she courageously opted to fight the charge. Unable to afford a lawyer, she defended herself on the common sense (apparently something the police and prosecutors were bereft of) grounds that she did not "knowingly" sell pirated software because she did not know the merchandise was pirated.

The counterfeit items in her inventory (a couple of products proven out of stock of 800), purchased from US and Canadian suppliers, appeared to be properly packaged.

When Avery cross-examined a Microsoft expert witness, handing her a CD and asking whether it was counterfeit or not, the expert was stymied. Consequently, Avery's argument was that if the professional could not tell without opening the software, how could she be expected to know?

The judge agreed.

Justice prevailed, but what if Avery had taken the plea bargain? She has my admiration.

At the time of the CP report, Avery was considering a civil suit against Microsoft and had asked for an investigation by the RCMP public complaints commission into her arrest. Her business is shut down. I wish her every success in any actions she takes against the Microsoft bullies and the overzealous Dudleys.

As for the whole anti-piracy apparat -- software firms, industry watchdog organizatons like the BSA, and police, my advice would be to BACK OFF unless you have a lot better case than the flimsy one presented against Avery. These are real people whose lives you may be unjustly wrecking, and that's a lot more serious than even alleged $millions of lost revenues to software piracy, which you're never going to be able to more than make spit-in-the-ocean headway against anyway.

Charles

From Coltrane Davis

The iPod IS a PDA

Well, sort of.

I didn't think this one up on my own, but nicked it from the tips & tricks section of a Minidisc oriented site. To store names/phone numbers (PDA style) on the go, just make MP3 files (say, 5 seconds of silence) and name them with the phone number/name of the person, then sync as usual. Make playlists for groups of contacts, make notes on the person in an MP3 file with their name, etc. Granted, you can't edit anything while it's on your iPod (you can with Minidisc), but at least you can carry your phone #s with you!

Cole

From David Ozab

Opening IE pages . . . without IE

Charles,

There's a utility on the iCab site called "iCabify," which changes the creator of HTML files to iCab. Could this solve Daniel's problem?

Sincerely,
David Ozab
Contributing Editor - Music
About This Particular Macintosh
http://www.atpm.com

Thanks, Charles

From Roger D. Linder

Re: Opening IE pages...without IE!

I think the Web Archive Converter from the iCab folks may do what you'relooking for.

WAC - Web Archive Converter

Author:
Alexander Clauss
http://www.icab.de/

Sinn & Zweck:
The MS Internet Explorer is able to save whole web sites in a single file called web archive. Unfortunately Microsoft introduced a new file format for these archives which can only be loaded by the Internet Explorer itself. So accessing certain files from the archive is very difficult and complicated.

The program "WAC" converts the IE web archiv into a ZIP archive. The ZIP archive can be unpacked with StuffIt or ZipIt on the Mac, but it can also unpacked on DOS/Windows using PKZip or Unix using UnZip and any other computer platform. The ZIP archive can be directly loaded by iCab because iCab (since Preview 1.7) uses the ZIP archive format as its own web archive format.

To start converting a web archive you should drag the archive file on the WAC program icon.
You can drag any number of IE web archives to the WAY program at once.

Roger's Page
http://home.surewest.net/roger/

Thanks also, Roger.

Charles

From: Dixon Chan

Tom Terryn's OS X review

Hi Charles

Enjoyed Tom's review of OS X.1.  I recently installed OS X.1 on my G4/350 and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience when it's working.  The interface has been very easy to learn, the installation went smoothly and the start up times are comparable to OS 9...   Working hasn't really been hindered by being in OS X due to Classic.  

Currently most of my software will work in Classic mode except Virtual PC and my Umax Scanner.  Now that I have a Windows laptop...VPC isn't a big loss, but the scanner is a pain to switch to OS 9.

There is one nagging issue that I think Tom may have nailed down for me.

"Problems? -  full suspend mode (with hard disk spindown) on my Mac appears to freeze the Finder after waking up. My Mac sleeps without hard disk spindown now. It might be because I installed OS X over my existing OS9, we'll see"

I'll be trying it tonight when I get back to my home computer.   Hopefully this will do the trick.

Overall there's not much to add to Tom's excellent review.....

Dixon

Kevin Browne Interview on Macplus.net

French-based Mac site MacPlus has posted an audio interview with Kevin Browne, head of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit. The interview, which is in English, discusses Office v.X and compares it to Office XP. In addition, Browne responds to a question concerning the possibility of bringing Access, Microsoft's database development tool for Windows, to the Mac, saying that it found through surveys that its customers largely preferred FileMaker Pro and that it would take its entire development team three years to bring the product to the Mac platform.

http://www.macplus.net/Actu/Dossiers/11_01_officedix/index.shtml

and the direct link to the interview I realized (mp3 format) :

http://www.macplus.net/Actu/Dossiers/11_01_officedix/mp3.html

Thanks,
RXL

CM

Charles W. Moore

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