March 12, 2001

I AIN'T NO DANG "NETIZEN"!
The title of the email from the head honcho at a well-known Web site was "Support our 'Take Back the Net' initiative," suggesting a laudable grassroots effort of some kind. Cool, I figured. But when I saw the "Dear Netizen" salutation, however, I knew I was headed for trouble. Against my better judgement, I plowed on. "Your help is needed," it read.

"Fueled by a lack of confidence, our economy is slipping into recession. If this trend continues, you might soon lose access to your favorite online store, greeting card site, music site or financial chat group. Imagine the Internet without Yahoo! or Amazon.com."

Was this a hoax, I asked myself? Is this guy kidding? The picture he presented would be no tragedy for me. And my "favorite greeting card site"? (Hello??) But no, the man was serious -- and I was getting seriously steamed.The next thing I knew, he was asking me to demonstrate my "dedication" to the Internet!

"On April 3, avoid offline retail stores. Instead, visit your favorite online store(s) and make at least one purchase...The Internet is very young. Some mistakes have been made. But this budding industry still needs your support. Remember your positive Internet experiences then, on April 3, buy 10 shares in a company you admire...

Please forward this e-mail to 10 other people, or as many as you can, and help us in our crusade to take back the Net!"

I could hardly believe my eyes. He really meant it! This was not a hoax. The poor fellow had no qualms about adopting phraseology suggesting a higher moral purpose to urge people to buy shares in dot-coms!

'TAKE BACK THE NET'' FROM WHOM?
I suddenly felt myself face-to-face with a most disturbing and frightening personality that gave the impression of having no moral center at all. "Take back the Net"? Who could read that and think that this was anything but a call to end commercialism and regulation, to return the Internet to those heady, wide-open days of yesteryear when freedom reigned? You remember, don't you? The Internet, originally a medium of information exchange for scientists and professors, was an exciting place not too long ago. Why, people would put up Web sites just to share the exuberance of communicating with each other. For the fun of it. To share things. For the sheer joy of learning HTML and putting up a poster in cyberspace for everyone to read.To express their hopes, dreams, and desires. In the beginning it was like the fall of the Berlin Wall. An opening, a celebration...

But oohh, was I angry! The idea of "taking back the Net" for monster dot-coms was nothing short of obscene. What's more, my egalitarian soul was offended to the core by the use of a rallying cry that implied the righting of a wrong, but actually urged me to "buy 10 shares in a company" I admired. Why, I was so riled, I snapped!-- and fired off three flames in quick succession before coming to my senses. Now I was mad and embarrassed. (I could hardly sit still to eat my buffalo-burger, but eventually did.)

AWWW, DA POOR WIDDLE DOT-COMS...
Who raised this kid, I wondered? And it had to be a kid. If this person was older than, say, 22 at the most, he would have to be watched. A committee would have to be formed, petitions circulated. Had the proper seers been consulted after conception, safeguards could have been put in place, but now one could only be on one's guard and hope for the best. Hang garlic and crosses on the monitor, maybe, or put up a Web page to alert the masses.

OK, I'm ranting now, but this was really offensive.

Sad too, because it demonstrated how out of touch with the overall human condition the sender seemed and how narrow his world must be. I thought of the billions of dollars raked in every day by executives of companies that don't make products or profits and marveled at the mindset that would have such entities be worthy of charity. In the end, I made the mistake of actually visiting the site of the alleged "crusade," adorned with the radical icon of a clenched fist against what was probably supposed to be an edgy black background. This was the lowest blow of all, co-opting a familiar symbol of popular resistance and turning it inside out. I felt like a pet owner whose new Airedale had just pooped on the carpet. If this pup were a dog, I'd know just what to do. :-)

"WHICH CARD WOULD JESUS USE?"
It was all too much for sentient mortals to have to bear. After composing the preceding, I needed comfort from above, so after bringing Netscape to the front, I typed in www.jesus.com and sat back to receive my deliverance. Hmmm. What the hey? Why, here was a dot-com in need of protection, all right, but not from a falling stock market! I looked around. "Win a shower with ---" ... And is that a real VISA application? (Oh dear. Some of you aren't going to like this one bit.)

At least the domain is in good hands (this guy must have gotten in early, to say the least). Suffice it to say that someone should put up a poorwiddledot-coms.com site in the same spirit as this one: something outrageously satirical, with a real kick to it, to raise the righteous indignation of the masses. I'm sure you're up to the task.

DADDY, WHAT'S A DOMAIN?
Our How-To segment this week features some basic Web-stuff for the neophyte. A "domain" is of course the thing followed by a dot and a suffix, like "Applelinks.com." Some amazing feats of linguistic derring-do, punsmanship, and vile deception are possible with clever selection of a domain name, as noted above. For that matter, the right name can make you rich: the owner of jesus.com is surely expecting a wealthy believer to buy him out and shut him down, for example. And did you know that you can have a domain name appraised? It'll only set you back $75, ho-ho.

Why don't you make up your own domain name and see if someone's already thought of it? The search is fast and simple. Dropping different names into the InterNIC's registry will get you thinking, I'll bet. And registering a domain name, if that's what you want to do, is cheap and easy these days. You'll need some server info from the ISP or hosting service, however. Some outfits will "park" your name until you actually have a Web site, so check into that if you think you've got a good one but aren't ready to roll.

That's what I've done with machazard.com, a lively little number I thought would be great for a satirical Mac Web review site. You know, "We Show You Where NOT to Go!" Or something like that. I have other fish to fry, so if you're interested...

(Either that, or eBay, here we come. :-)

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr is obviously too old to understand how people with no sense of language or history are allowed to run loose. Seeking solace at the Zoozone, he posts a different New Mexico image every day at FotoFeed and invites you to check it out -- the Zoozone is also where he stashes current FARR SITE columns (the latest one is all about getting stuck in the mud, and he calls it "The Spirit of a Place").

Audio Credit: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms.

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