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4 • The Red and Black • Wednesday, May 1, 1996 i
OPINIONS
The Red & Black
Established in 189.1 - Incorporated 1980
An independent student newspaper not affiliated with the University of Georgia
Brandon Haddock/Editor in Chief
Wendy Wolfenbarger/Managing Editor
Chad George/Opinions Editor
■ EDITORIALS
New Internet law
infringes on Georgia
surfers’ rights
Zell Miller
Gov. Zell Miller recently signed a bill into law
which could make criminals of online users whose on
line services currently allow them to use code names
or account numbers for electronic mail addresses. The
new law makes Georgia one of the most restrictive
states for Internet users.
The bill makes it illegal to use someone else’s
phrase, name, logo or symbol. Basically, if a person
uses anything other than their
name for an e-mail address, they
are breaking the law.
The bill was intended to stop
people from deceiving others on the
Internet by pretending to be some
thing or someone they are not. But
the law is so vague, any user who
doesn’t use their full name for their
e-mail address could be charged
with a misdemeanor
Don Madev, an Internet user
from Atlanta, is currently being
sued by BellSouth for an alleged infringement of copy
right laws. BellSouth contends Madey’s Internet name,
realpages.com, is too close to its trademark, The Real
Yellow Pages. Madev fears the new law will make
BellSouth's action against him even stronger.
"The way it impacts me is that on July lithe date
the bill takes effect), I fully expect BellSouth to charge
me,” Madey said.
Rep. George Grindley said those who passed the
law “didn’t know a gigabyte from a chigger bite.”
Miller would not respond to questions concerning
the bill, saying “I worry much more about what this
Capitol press corps thinks than I do the Internet
surfers.” Miller signed the bill despite a warning from
the state attorney general that the law was too vague.
Law suffers from lack of precision
Miller flippancy concerning this legislation is ap
palling. At issue are serious freedom of speech con
cerns involving the world’s newest medium. Yet Miller
apparently didn't feel like defending his decision, but
instead signed the bill with what amounted to a “no
comment.” Is it possible that Miller is not able to
speak intelligently on Internet issues, so is unable to
comment on the bill he signed?
Government needs to ensure that Internet users
are not defrauded. But a vague, blanket law in the
state of Georgia only makes the state one of the least
user-friendly states in the Union. This legislation is
simply an intrusion into a person’s private life. What
next? Jail time for role-playing?
Rep. Don Parson, R-Marietta, sponsored the bill af
ter receiving complaints from judges who said there
were too few laws concerning electronic information.
In response, this ill-conceived bill was created and
passed. Apparently, Parson did not feel it necessary to
pass a specific law aimed at just those who are at
tempting to defraud people, but rather a law which
could affect a vast number of innocent people who sim
ply use something other than their name for Internet
addresses.
Instead of passing such a vague law, Parsons
should have worked to pass a law which could be used
to prosecute Internet criminals only — not casual, law-
abiding surfers as well.
■ QUOTABLE
Tm having a great time doing the tour thing, and I'm ready for
Athens. It’s just me and the band, me shouting my ass off."
— Fred Schneider, formerly of the B-52s, on his solo show
at the 40 Watt Club.
Atlanta is not a suitable site for a state capital
Let all eyes now look westward toward
Atlanta. Maynard Jackson called it “the city too
busy to hate." Now it is America’s Olympic city.
It is the land of Freaknik and the home of the
Braves It has been Georgia’s capital since being
chosen by a popular referendum in 1877. After
119 years, it is time to re-think that decision.
It is easy to envy North Carolina, a state with
many medium-sized cities (most of which are
college towns) and no single metropolis which
dominates either its geographic or cultural land
scape. Atlanta, alas, is so disproportionately
large that we often speak of “two Georgias," with
our every-expanding capital being the other one.
Thomas Jefferson, who didn't miss much,
foresaw the inherent danger of large cities two
centuries ago when he wrote, “I view great cities
as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the
liberties of man.” There is probably nothing we
can do to reduce Atlanta's size at this late date,
but we should at least have the wisdom not to
locate our capital there.
New York, Louisiana, and Florida all had the
good sense not to place their seats of govern
ment in New York City, New Orleans, and
Miami. Why are we so slow to grasp what other
states so clearly comprehend? Large cities make
poor capitals for two reasons: They are overly
unrepresentative and insufficiently unpleasant.
Atlanta stands out in bold economic and po
litical relief when viewed in contrast to the state
as a whole. Georgia is an agrarian, parochial
state with an urban, international capital. The
density and demographics of Atlanta’s popula
tion are dramatically distinct from those of the
rest of the state. Fulton County was content to
be represented in Congress by Wyche Fowler for
a decade, while the remainder of the Peach
State had quite enough of him after a single,
narrowly-won term in the Senate. On top of all
that, is it really too much to ask of a capital city
that it at least fly the state flag?
In addition to being too unlike the state it
supposedly 9erves, Atlanta is simply too nice a
place for us to leave our politicians without su
pervision. The High Museum, Fox Theatre, and
Georgia Dome are all located in our capital city.
Atlanta is the home of all of our professional
sports teams and the hub of much of our night
life. It is a mistake to place public servants in a
setting which offers so many enticements.
Consider our national capital in this regard.
Historians have written of how horrible
Washington, D C. used to be. Biographer
Stephen Oates characterized the District of
Columbia in 1861 as “a dirtier, ranker city than
Lincoln remembered." Pigs roamed free in mud
dy streets, and Congressmen had to take up res
idence in uncomfortable boarding houses. For
many years, however, this was conducive to good
government.
If those who accept positions in government
are require® to live in an unpleasant environ
ment, we can rest more secure in the knowledge
that our public servants will possess a genuine
desire to seive the public and not some less rep
utable motive.
VFusthfermore, elected officials and bureau
cratic appointees whose jobs must be performed
in a place they would rather not be will do what
needs doing with efficiency and economy so they
can return home as quickly as possible. Now
that Washington — like Atlanta — offers so
much in the way of extracurricular activities,
government workers are content to stay near the
seat of government. Accordingly, they have to
come up with new things to do — things which
are rarely useful, often counterproductive, and
always expensive.
Atlanta has its hands full right now. It is not
only a city too busy to hate, it is a city too busy
welcoming the world to care much about us
plain ol* ordinary Georgians. If that is what
Atlanta wants, fine. I wish it well. But the
Empire State of the South deserves a capital city
which does reflect its values and does not dis
tract its governance.
Any number of small South Georgia towns
would more than suffice for a new capital. All we
need is someplace rural and quiet, an unknown
hamlet in a dry county where there are no con
vention centers, no professional athletes, and
maybe not even any traffic lights. All we need is
someplace where folks know that Cairo,
Georgia, isn’t pronounced the same way as
Cairo, Egypt. Oh, yeah, it would also be nice if it
was someplace where they flew the state flag.
— T. Kyle King is a second-year law student.
Riding the Red
I miss my old bicycle.
It was a red Schwinn I bought at a garage
sale when I was about 9 or 10 years old for 10
dollars. This was a quality machine. It had sev
eral wonderful little personality quirks, like the
handlebars not being secured quite as tightly
as they should have been. This often resulted
in either (a) steering the bike in a very strange
direction, like through our next door neighbor’s
garden, or (b) not steering at all, resulting in
running over the neighbor’s cat or into any of
the houses along the street, including ours
For some reason, whenever the handlebars
ceased to work, the fact that the brakes proba
bly did still work seemed to elude me complete
ly. So, when the handlebars swung around in
strange and odd directions, I would usually hit
something, like a parked car, at Top Speed.
However, oblivious to the laws of science, my
bike would (usually) remain in one piece. I wish
I could say the same for my body or, for that
matter, the parked cars. I have a lot of little
scars on my knees and elbows from this time of
my life. Incidentally, Top Speed is something
akin to a thousand hundred (precise math
term) miles per hour.
The serious flaw in the Top Speed theory is
that there is no Top Speed. Once you have rid
den at what you think is Top Speed, you can go
home and do something to your bicycle (say, re
move the brakes) to make it lighter and faster,
and then set a new life goal of achieving an en
tirely new Top Speed.
Another serious flaw with the Top Speed
Beast often led
theory is that if, for any reason, you and the bi
cycle should become airborne at Top Speed, you
are probably going to end up in Serious Pain.
Serious Pain hurts a lot. I know from experi
ence.
This little story does, in fact, have a point.
One sunny spring afternoon, not unlike recent
days, my friends and I built a huge plywood
jump directly in front of my driveway This
would later turn out to be important, because
after my friends had railroaded me into being
the first to jump it — “Jump it," they said. “We
dare you!" — they only had to drag my mangled
body a few feet to find my mother.
Full of confidence and Pixie Stix, I rode my
bike up the street about eleventy-ten (math
professors just love me) miles so that I’d have a
sufficient head start, and pedaled as hard as I
could until I reached Top Speed. As soon as the
jump was in view, I started to get worried
about how good an idea this was.
Unfortunately, as soon as I tried the brakes on
to Serious Pain
the Red Beast, as I called my bike, the effects of
Top Speed started to become all too apparent.
The brakes removed for optimal speed, and
the handlebars failing yet again, it was way too
late to turn back. Or to turn at all. Yelling the
10-year-old boy’s equivalent of “Oh, dear, this
is going to smart," I hit the ramp at Mach Five.
Everything after that is a blur of twisted metal,
asphalt, broken plywood and my friends stand
ing above me, wondering if I was dead.
To me, there’s just nothing quite like doing
something dumb on purpose. (They’ll probably
put that on my gravestone.) My friends carried
me back to the house as I mumbled something
about never being able to play the piano again,
and handed the pieces of my body to my moth
er. In what I now believe may have been the
single greatest medical feat of all time, my
mother used only Band-Aids and seven bul
lion (Who loves math? I do! I do!) bottles of
Bactine to piece me back together. After a week
or so, I was as good as new.
The same could not be said for the Red
Beast. Its days of Top Speed were over. We put
the bent and mangled bicycle in the garage for
a few years, but we did manage to sell it at a
garage sale before we moved. I think we sold it
to some kid for about 10 bucks. He said he
could fix it.
I miss that bike. I hope it’s at Top Speed
right now.
— Drew Perry is a senior in advertising.
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UGA should have a ‘color
blind’ admissions standard
Concerning the article entitled
“Bates Discusses Diversity"(the
Red and Black, April 29):
What good will it do to in
crease the number of minority
students by lowering the stan
dards they need to meet to attend
this University? Do we really
want to continue to teach future
generations that it is alright to
judge people by the color of their
skin?
I think an increasingly “color
blind" admissions standard would
be more appropriate for the
1990’b. It is the only way to
achieve racial equality and cul
tural diversity on this campus.
Letting students who do not
meet the normal academic stan
dards into school on the basis of
race only hurts that student. The
student is taught that he or she
does not need to work as hard as
everyone else because they belong
to a minority group. Lower stan
dards for minorities also create
resentment from qualified appli
cants who were denied admission
to make room for minorities.
Mr. Bates, how would you feel
if your son or daughter was de
nied admission to UGA because of
their race? Would you be upset or
would you feel that the decision
made was in the best interest of
the University? How would you
explain to your son or daughter,
who was just accepted to UGA,
that the only reason they were ac-
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cepted is because they are a mi
nority?
I am what Mr. Bates would
call a white person “who wants it
all.” When I was in the military, I
worked 40-60 hours a week while
going to school part-time just so I
could get into and pay for an edu
cation at a good school. I worked
very hard on my own — like the
majority of the student body — to
get where I am today. Why should
UGA have to make special consid
erations for students who did not
work as hard?
Brian T. BJurmark
Sophomora, Economics . _