Birmingham Post-Herald
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OUR VIEWSToo much law too soonWhen the National Conference of Commissioners for Uniform State Laws says jump, most state legislatures ordinarily respond by asking how high. That has been pretty much the way of things for over 100 years, but it is devoutly to be wished that the states will stay firmly on the ground when asked by the conference to unify their software laws this fall.The issue is something called UCITA, which stands for Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act. For years, the lawyers and judges in the conference have been listening to high-powered software vendors complain about a jumble of state laws supposedly impeding this country's technological future, and, in a recent meeting in Denver, reached a conclusion. They put the finishing touches on a 350-page model law that mainly gives the vendors what they want.
The proposal is too much too soon, and it surely deserves the opposition coming from libraries, universities, the motion-picture industry and media companies, which are worried about a number of provisions. One concern of media companies, for instance, is that they will have to abide by two sets of laws, one for software issues and another for everything else. Another concern is that intellectual property laws, which have evolved over centuries, are recast in this proposed law as they apply to software, raising serious
Opposition is also coming on consumer issues from consumer groups, 25 state attorneys general and representatives of the Federal Trade Commission. As opinion writers covering the computer world have noted, UCITA lets vendors off the hook in guaranteeing the quality of their products and even gives them permission to disable their products during disputes by turning them off through remote control.
There's a widespread sense that UCITA holds vendors accountable for very little, could well spur the distribution of shoddy merchandise and gives vendors extraordinary power at the expense of just about everyone else.
Despite the heaps of criticism they have endured, members of the conference have no doubt believed their model law would serve the interests of all by addressing the relatively new issue of computer software and facilitating its development. But the issues here are endless, the criticisms are disturbing and it is difficult to avoid the impression that the future of e-commerce, the availability of information on the Internet and a host of other crucial matters would be channeled in wrong directions by this proposed law that appears premature and lopsided in who it serves.
The immediate cause would be the report of a Senate committee on the clownish bungling of an investigation into the probable theft of information on how to build the W-88 warhead, which is nothing less than one of the most devastating weapons ever invented by mankind, a nuclear device more sophisticated than any other in the U.S. arsenal.
The secret information may have been passed to China, and you have to figure that China may have been interested for reasons other than mere intellectual stimulation. But when the federal government started checking into the possibility, it responded with neither urgency nor competence.
One publicized story in the report pretty much sums up the whole awful mess.
The FBI, it seems, wanted to search the Los Alamos computer of a suspect. For two years, it kept requesting a warrant from the Justice Department, which kept saying it didn't feel it had adequate cause to act. Meanwhile, it turns out, the suspect had given the Energy Department permission to go ahead with a search without a warrant, but an agent in that department neglected to inform the FBI.
And the man who was believed to be sending secrets abroad a man who flunked a polygraph test was allowed to remain in his job for two years after he came under suspicion.
This report is a cause for shame and also for concern about a federal government apparently grown lackadaisical about highly important duties.
Last week, the U.S. Under-20 National Team won the women's soccer gold medal at the Pan Am Games. Of the 16 young women on the team, three are from Birmingham. In fact, the winning and only goal in the gold medal game against Mexico was scored by one of them, Catherine Riddick, a rising senior at Briarwood Christian.
Her Birmingham teammates were Jennifer Lewis, another rising senior at Briarwood, and Lauren Whitt, a graduate of Briarwood now attending Vanderbilt University.
The final game was close, but the U.S. team's combination of offensive and defensive strength allowed it to outscore its opponents 22-2 in the six games required to determine the hemisphere's champion. It was an impressive performance.
I now live in an area where I receive TV stations from both Birmingham and Huntsville. Imagine how shocked and disappointed I was to see many stations leading their 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. news that night with the DuBose story rather than the Pelham murders.
I am disappointed and embarrassed that a story that is what I would consider water-cooler gossip could take priority over the loss of three good men.
Kaylan Dunlap
801 Avenue G Southeast
Cullman
And how did Witt come up with this amazing theory? Well, it should be as plain as the nose on your face. Carefully using the scientific method, Witt, during a recent trip to Spain, observed a complete lack of fat folks there. Were the Spaniards slim because of strict exercise regimens? Witt wondered. She hadn't seen anyone jogging or otherwise exercising
Then she noticed that everyone was happily riding public transportation in that modern progressive country. So, it obviously followed that Spaniards were slim and healthy because they walked to the subway daily, burning away all that fat.
Yes, Alabama friends and neighbors, you, too, can become healthy as a Spaniard without going to the gym or engaging in jogging. You can lose weight, stop pollution, scrap your car, abolish county lines, become a member of a one-world-government collectivist society, and read the Post-Herald on your daily subway trip to work, simply by voting for Region 2020 to establish a regional government in central Alabama.
Jimmy C. Jones
549 Polly Reed Road
But, of course, all that is in the papers now are kids who kill parents, kids who are shot for selling drugs, kids on trial for other numerous things. Why don't you put something in there to show the kids they can do something fun and keep out of drugs and trouble?
I was very disappointed with the Birmingham News and the Birmingham Post Herald. This state did nothing to show what this child did for himself and for Alabama.
When he won in New Orleans they put him on the radio, on the television and in the newspaper but as you can see we get to read about all the crimes instead of something these kids need to be reading.
Yes, I am the parent of this child that won. If it were not for Bass Masters we wouldn't have this opportunity for my child to have something fun and exciting to do. And of course I want my child to be active in something that isn't going to harm him. I just think it is a shame that you can't put something in there for kids and parents to read. Something they all can get involved with. It brings families closer together when they are all involved.
Candi Shirey
458 Endfinger Lane
Talladega
As the frog that will leap from a pot of boiling water but will slowly succumb via the incremental addition of heat to the boiling point, we've become acclimated to to the ever-so-subtle taxer sleight-of-hand that poaches more each year.
Our founding fathers never intended that we allow this socialistic system to evolve. A system wherein taxation has become a means of redistributing wealth and guarantees a firmly ensconced monarchy a lifetime of royalty, a system from which we fought to escape.
Like the frog, oblivious to the ever-spreading malignancy of our freedoms, we meekly carry on absent a clue. Would a look at our status quo in round numbers break our submissive stance?
Let's say that over a period of 10 years a family that earns $30,000 per year is able to place in savings, 10 percent ($3,000) per year or $250 per month, compounded monthly (same as taxes are collected)) at 8 percent interest. At the end of 10 years, the family would have accumulated a nest egg of $45,737. As does the average U.S. family, this family will pay taxes amounting to 40 percent ($12,000) per year or $1,000 per month. Had this family been allowed to retain this tax money for the 10 years and receive the 8 percent interest return, the family would have accumulated a nest egg of $182,946.
Does it seem fair that this family managed to accumulate $45,737 in savings over 10 years while contributing a whopping $182,946 to their congressional money redistributors? Don't these figures make one question the extent of the pompous, monarchical demands imposed on so-called free citizens that's akin to a long ago British dictum?
Obviously, the taxation of all citizens to provide for their common defense and societal necessities is recognized as appropriate and necessary but not to the degree of this socialist manifestation.
Sadly, as we speak, "Thy Royalty" is proposing to take from this family's $45,737 annual savings and add it to the $182,946 contribution. Enough already?
Armond "Si" Simmons
104 Wadsworth Lane
Pell City
The scenario is: Motorcycle crashes in a corner. The bicyclists ignore and ride by fallen motorcycle and rider. Wow, I thought we lived in "friendly" Birmingham. Luckily there was no harm to the rider, but it could have been a bad situation made worse from apathy. (I hope that's all it was!)
Let's all stop and help in any situation.
Greg Calhoun
2509 Tyler Road
The emphasis, under the Clinton-Riley approach, would be to spend vast new sums of money and a large amount of school time and effort forcing all students to a pre-set level by not allowing them to ascend the ladder toward graduation until they have met these standardized skills.
This would be done under the Riley plan by reducing class sizes, setting performance standards at key grades; offering summer school and even year-round school; developing transitional and dropout prevention practices, providing high-quality instruction, and a variety of other methods.
There certainly is nothing wrong with the desire to upgrade our public school system, to give youngsters the basics to survive in today's technological society.
No one really can guess how many children have failed to achieve their potential under the old policy of teaching those who are most receptive and sending the others on, ready or not. But while the abandonment of this policy is generally worthwhile, there must be a realization that it could be enormously expensive, particularly if it results in the further neglect of our gifted children.
Because of a lack of special programs for the very bright, countless numbers of above-average children have failed to receive the attention they need to achieve their potential. They often go through the day bored and unproductive while teachers try to instruct to a lower common denominator.
It is a huge and complex dilemma. How do we meet both the needs of those who must now have the highly technical but below college level training required to survive and prosper, without sacrificing a number of those who will be our doctors and physicists and merchant chiefs?
It is a problem born of a society whose economic base has dramatically altered, shaking the foundation of what always has been a three-tiered system of public education.
Throughout the latter half of the 19th century and the first two-thirds of this, young men and women who reached the age of 16 without showing any inclination for much formal education left school for the assembly lines and other manufacturing jobs of an industrial economy. The steel and textile mills and automobile factories and tire plants and mining operations were populated by high school dropouts.
For those who did want to finish high school but not go to college and that was a large majority of the nation's student population there were vocational high schools, commercial courses and apprenticeships that prepared them for something a bit better than the tedium of the shops. They could learn a trade, like plumbing (that often paid more than the average college graduate could make) or secretarial work. Even private schools, heavily geared toward preparing pupils for advanced education, had these courses, realizing that not all would go on to college.
The student with the talent and ability and desire a tiny percentage, in reality went through the college preparatory classes. They often were segregated in smaller classes and received concentrated and individual attention. They were the elite.
But the mill jobs are gone. Pouring steel has been replaced by flipping hamburgers at a far lower hourly wage. At the same time, the "commercial" courses now require a degree of learning far beyond the old shorthand, typing and bookkeeping skills. And even the complexity of machinery, mostly computer driven, requires a far higher degree of learning than machines once did.
So, while the end of social promotion is a decent goal, it must be understood that it will put huge pressure, both economically and physically, on a school system already groaning under the weight of new demands.
It will require a cooperative spirit by local school boards and Riley's department, and especially by families. Since our public system is locally based, as it should be, the politics of bond issues for already overburdened real estate taxpayers will be difficult. It will require huge outlays for new schools and more teachers working longer hours.
Is it worth it? Of course, but it will be a while in coming, and how we get there will be a major issue in the next political campaign.
Herbert Hoover, only living ex-president of United States, delivers major nationwide radio address during 75th birthday celebration at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
Outbreak of meningitis in Brazil leaves 500 dead and forces schools to close for week. |
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Copyright (c) 1999 Birmingham Post Co. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission from the editor is prohibited.
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