News?

The news. Mainly it's bad. I keep telling myself I need to modify my morning routine somewhat, pay much less attention to newspapers. There is lots of good news out there. I'm an optimist: for every act of violence we read about there are hundreds, thousands, of acts of love and kindness. Where are those headlines? Anyway, last night I learned from Alma and Cristina of another kind of news. Most unfortunate: a couple of employees at Cornell, both married, are having an affair. They exchange, apparently, steamy emails over the campus network. Not good. Incredibly, a slip of the finger... and the emails suddenly are received by the whole campus! Ouchh! And that led me to a story about an unfortunate incident of this kind that ended in tragedy: a man broke up with his girlfriend in a very mean, offensive fashion by email. The message got forwarded, and forwarded... and ended up all over the internet. They guy ended up committing suicide. Urban legend? Maybe he had other issues. Who knows? We never really know do we? Nevertheless, I believe that's no excuse for not trying. And working to unmask the merchants of disinformation, the huksters of propaganda. Yesterday there was an interesting story about the Iranian governments campaign to crush resistance with a soft war: regaining complete control of education and media. Fear and intimidation. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants control. Complete control.