We are here.  Like it or not, for good or bad, we are here.  Who are we?  We are the
downtrodden and dispossesed, the self-torturing, the disenfranchised convicts,
drug and alcohol addicts, the unemployed and unemployable.  We are the children of
poverty, financial and spiritual.  We have and will have children of our own,
grandchildren too.  We are ex-cons, uninsured, homeless, of many colors and speaking
many tongues.  We are the enemy in what has become a domestic war against ourselves.

And who are you?  You who like the tough talk of Tough on Crime?  You who watch as
budgets are cut in education and health care while you militarize a police force?
Bullet-proof vests, automatic weapons, helicopters, tanks, robots ... the
testosterone is oozing through the streets, more prisons, longer sentences, tighten
the belt, spartan conditions, task forces, gang units, gun courts.  And what is there
to show for it?  Unemployent stays low because half the population oversees those
"out of the workforce", the dregs, the rabble, the enemy?  Please tell me there is a
deeper reason.  Do you feel safer?  More humane?  More like a cohesive society with a
shared sense of purpose, who can identify Us and Them?  Do you live in a gated
community or gentrified neighborhood?  By the way, have you read the Declaration of
Independence and US Constitution - or do you only know the first phrases?

It's about time we got together.  Please know that I have yet to meet a convict who
wants their child to be a thief, an addict, a dealer, a prostitute, or a violent
individual.  Most of us still have hope for ourselves even when stuck in the darkest
dilemmas, ruts and catch-22s.  Most of us believe in crafting laws and instilling
order.  Many of us have burrowed beneath the surface to find a spiritual sense of
being, an understanding force at least as powerful as those we succumbed to, and many
of use wouldn't escape if you opened the front door.  Did you know that approximately
10 million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, on parole or once were in
those categories?  Each of those 10 million have families, friends, neighbors ... and
so closer and closer does the We interface with the You.  Don't you think it's time we
talked?

Are you ready?  Can you accept that the road we are travelling points toward a grim
and painful future?  Do you have the heart to face monumental failures while bravely
struggling beyond where we are now?  I know that some of you are, and that some of us
are, and this is what gives me hope.  You need our insights just as we need your
structure.  It is never over, especially when a real solution, a real treatment for
our sickness, is yet to begin.

                                                   In Solidarity,

                                                   Bruce Reilly (a.k.a Bruha)
                                                   P.O.Box 8274
                                                   Cranston, RI 02920 USA

P.S. - I am trying to conceptualize an effective guerilla media campaign to promote
       this cause.  Ideas are welcome.  Collaboration is prayed.

it and
running it through UUDECODE.  What is it, and what do you do with it?

The most common type of picture is the GIF format (which usually has
a .GIF or .gif file suffix).  GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format,
and is a standard format for images that was developed by CompuServe to
be a device-independent method of storing pictures.  It includes
Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression, which makes the files fairly small.

JPEG is another standardized image compression mechanism, which stands
for Joint Photographic Experts Group (the original name of the committee
that wrote the standard).  It seems more and more common that JPEG-type
pictures (.JPG or .jpg file suffix, usually) are getting posted to the
net.  Some claim that JPEG is destined to overtake GIF format in popularity,
because it is the most compact method to store 24-bit data, but mostly due
to the fact that it uses much less space to store the same picture (this is,
in fact, true - I have seen many examples of this phenomenon).  This may be
an accurate assessment, but this will probably take a while to happen, as
most people HAVE GIF software/viewers, but lack JPEG equivalents.  
Undoubtedly, however, this too shall change, but at this point, JPEG is
recognized as still being in its infancy.  But, if you prefer to be on the
leading (bleeding?) edge, it is possible to get software both to view JPEG
pictures, and to convert JPEG to and from other formats, as detailed in
part 3.

The latest and greatest info about JPEG is included in the Tom Lane's
"JPEG image compression: Frequently Asked Questions" (archive name is
"jpeg-faq"), posted on a regular basis to the alt.binaries.pictures.d,
alt.graphics.pixutils, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d, alt.sex.pictures.d,
and news.answers newsgroups.