alt.spleen FAQ - Appendix (v5.8, part 5 of 5)
andrew stellman
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 1998/8/17
Version: 5.8
URL: http://anon.razorwire.com/alt.spleen.FAQ
Maintainer: Andrew Stellman <r...@razorwire.com>
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the official alt.spleen
FAQ
- Frequently Asked Questions -
by Andrew Stellman
(r...@razorwire.com)
version 5.8
last modified 8/17/98
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NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY MAIL TO ME REQUESTING MEDICAL ADVICE! I AM
NOT A DOCTOR, AND WILL NOT GIVE YOU ANY USEFUL INFORMATION.
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Appendix A: Free Speech, Censorship and the alt.spleen FAQ alt.spleen FAQ
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I almost always receive positive responses to the alt.spleen FAQ. However,
I recently received a very negative response from one Herbert Miller, at
that great bastion of human rights, the Jet Propulsion Laboratories at
NASA. I'm including this letter, and my reply, because I feel that they
reflect exactly what's wrong with the Internet today.
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Date: 05 Mar 1997 21:35:53 -0800
From: Herbert D Miller <Herbert....@jpl.nasa.gov>
To: Return requested <r...@anon.razorwire.com>
Subject: Spleen FAQ
I was seriously wondering why anyone would crowd the internet with the
spleen FAQ. It is useless. It is not funny. It is not informative,
yet it shows up when someone searches for spleen. It is almost
impossible to tell what is fact and what is farce. Is this some kind
fraternity prank? I really believe that this kind of psuedo-info
will be part of the downfall of the internet.
Suggestion: If you want to have a spleen FAQ, then have a good,
informative one. If you want to have a farcical spleen FAQ, then have
one of those, also. But please try not to mix the two.
Herb Miller
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To which I replied:
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Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 21:40:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Stellman <r...@anon.razorwire.com>
To: Herbert D Miller <Herbert....@jpl.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Spleen FAQ
So mister Herbert D. Miller doesn't approve of the alt.spleen FAQ. He
thinks that everything that is funny should have the disclaimer "WARNING:
MAY CONTAIN HUMOR" written on it in big, black, thick magic marker. Better
not make anyone have to think. No, we'd better not do that! Heaven forbid
we cause undue mental stimulation. Boy, wouldn't that just be a crime?
You're obviously new to the Internet, because anyone who's been online for
more than a year or two would never write a message like yours. I've been
on the Internet for a hell of a long time. I've been maintaining the
alt.spleen FAQ for years (probably longer than you've even known the word
"Internet"), and I've never received a message like yours before.
I have, however, received many messages of thanks. I usually get one once
every few weeks. They usually go something like this: "Dear andrew, thank
you for putting up the alt.spleen FAQ. I've recently had a splenectomy,
and this really brought up my spirits." Or "Dear andrew, my son just had
acute mono, and your FAQ really cheered him up." And just the other day I
actually received a message from someone who said they thought that the
FAQ was one of the funniest things they've seen on the Internet.
I've also been interviewed in Internet Underground magazine about the
alt.spleen FAQ. They seemed to enjoy it a great deal. It's in issue #7
("The Dark Issue") -- check it out.
I've received messages asking for information about the spleen. As any
doctor at cocktail party will tell you, people are always searching for
free medical advice. (Not you, I'm sure! I'm just *sure* you weren't just
looking for some free advice about the spleen! You're *far* *above* that,
I'm sure! You were probably searching for "spleen" for some higher
educational purpose that has absolutely nothing to do with trying to get
some medical advice without paying for it.) here's a hint: free advice is
worth exactly what you pay for it.
At any rate, if the only problem with your message was just that you
didn't like the FAQ, I'd blow it off entirely. But that's not what pisses
me off about your message. Do you want to know what I'm really sick of?
Do you? What really stinks about your self-righteous attitude?
What ticks me off about your whiny, self-righteous message is that for
some reason you seem to believe that the Internet exists to serve up
information just for Herbert D. Miller. You seem to be under the
impression that it's some sort of huge public library, all set up at great
expense, just for *your* consumption. It's as if you believe that web
search engines are there to provide information for *you*, and damn it,
you *deserve* some sort of guarantee that the information returned to you
will be useful and contain what you were looking for, and HOW DARE someone
maintain something that doesn't jibe with what Herbert D. Miller believes
is worthy of being published? Clearly, Herbert D. Miller is the be-all
end-all judge of content, and anything that doesn't live up to his high
standards of press ought not be published at all.
I'm sure your intentions were nothing but pristine when you wrote your
message. You just felt that the alt.spleen FAQ isn't worthy of publishing,
and that I should take it down and never post it again, as a service to
the rest of the Internet community.
Well, what you sent me is a perfect example of what we, the people,
commonly refer to as censorship. "No, I would never engage in censorship!"
you loudly, self-righteously proclaim to yourself. "I was just trying to
clear up some of the garbage that clutters the information superhighway! I
had only good intentions in mind when I sent that message."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Most censorship is done
with only the highest moral purposes in mind. "We must protect the
children". "We have a responsibility to keep this from cluttering up our
bandwidth". "You'll see, it's in everyone's best interest if we disallow
that sort of material from being published". "That sort of thing has no
business here." These are all phrases uttered with good intentions.
I'm reminded of a recent interview on a prime-time TV news magazine show
with someone who ran a site with his own theories about the TWA Flight 800
disaster. He firmly believed that a missle destroyed the plane, and the
entire site was devoted to disseminating this theory, including lots of
images, and animation of a missle actually hitting the plane, and of course
countless "facts", none of which were backed up with the slightest amount
of research. The interviewer was completely outraged that a site like this
was "allowed" to exist on the Internet. "What if nine-year-old boy were
doing a report on this?" she asked. "How would he know if your site were
true or not?" To which the man who runs the site replied, "He wouldn't."
You say in your letter that documents like the alt.spleen FAQ will be the
"downfall of the Internet". Well, I say that it's exactly documents like
the alt.spleen FAQ which show us the true value of the Internet, and teach
us not to take everything that's published at face value. It's a lesson
that you should have learned with books, magazines, newsletters and other
published material.
But the problem with those more traditional forms of publishing is that
the cost is too high for every individual to publish everything they want
to publish. This meant that some sort of editiorial control has to be
delegated to one person, an editor, who controls what can or can not be
published. So even though free speech is embodied in pubished material,
there is a built-in censorship (in the form of an editor) for every form
of publishing that takes a large initial investment to print.
And we, the people, have become complacent in the last century or so.
We've delegated to the editors the task of sorting the printable from the
unprintable, the pressworthy from the crap. And in many cases, editors
have abused that priveledge.
Now, enter the Internet. We finally have a medium through which everyone
can easily publish anything they want. Sorting out the good from the bad
becomes everybody's business, not just the business of the select few who
can afford to print their glossy magazines and hardcover books.
While you feel that the alt.spleen FAQ will be the "downfall of the
Internet", I feel that it's exactly this sort of document that will show
us how valuable the Internet really is. We are now all editors, and we are
now all publishers, and our work can now be judged on its merit alone. If
you find this concept threatening, then maybe you should rethink your
political views.
So take a good, hard look at the alt.spleen FAQ, and think about what I've
told you. The Internet isn't your encyclopedia. It's a medium where people
can publish anything they want, and at some point you and everyone else
are going to have to realize that there are no guarantees about the kind
of information that people will publish. There is no guarantee that what
you're reading on the Internet is true or even worth the disk space that
it takes up, any more than there is a guarantee that what you're reading
in a magazine or in a book or in a newsletter is true or worth the paper
it's printed on. That's the beauty of free speech, that's why free speech
is dangerous to the status quo, why free speech is the sword in the hand
of the meek against the mighty, and why free speech is an ideal that must
be protected. That's why I live in the United States of America, the land
of the free, where the right to free speech is guaranteed in the very
first amendment to our Constitution.
So you're going to have to learn to live with the alt.spleen FAQ, because
despite your small attempt to censor it, it's not going anywhere.
Sincerely,
Andrew Stellman
Maintainer of the alt.spleen FAQ
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Appendix B: A Message from the Producers of TV's "Flipper" alt.spleen FAQ
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Like most New Yorkers, I thought I'd seen it all, but life has a way of
throwing you a curve every now and then. This became clear when I got the
following message from Samantha Carroll, who is on the production staff
of the American syndicated TV show "Flipper":
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Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 16:55:28 +1000
From: Flipper 3 <fli...@onthenet.com.au>
To: r...@razorwire.com
Subject: spleens
Hi there - I was wondering if you could help me. My name is Samantha and
I'm working on a production for American TV, being filmed in Australia.
It is the third series of 'Flipper'.
In an upcoming episode, we need a character to have an accident, seem
like she's okay for a couple of hours, and then deteriorate rapidly,
lapsing into shock and then unconsciousness, leaving her life in danger.
Could you tell me if a ruptured spleen would have these effects on
somebody? If the bleeding did not rupture the abdominal cavity until she
deteriorated?
Thanks for your time, and I look forward to your response.
Samantha Carroll
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I was tempted to try to negotiate consulting fees, but my conscience got
the better of me and I sent the following reply:
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Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 09:36:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: andrew stellman <r...@razorwire.com>
To: Flipper 3 <fli...@onthenet.com.au>
Subject: Re: spleens
On Mon, 17 Aug 1998, Flipper 3 wrote:
> In an upcoming episode, we need a character to have an accident, seem
> like she's okay for a couple of hours, and then deteriorate rapidly,
> lapsing into shock and then unconsciousness, leaving her life in danger.
> Could you tell me if a ruptured spleen would have these effects on
> somebody? If the bleeding did not rupture the abdominal cavity until she
> deteriorated?
>
> Thanks for your time, and I look forward to your response.
Before I answer, could you tell me why are you asking some guy on the
internet who claims to have no medical knowledge, rather than calling a
doctor?
I'll give you an answer, but you probably know as much as I do about
internal medicine.
Andrew
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Appendix C: Bibliography alt.spleen FAQ
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- Battisto, Jack R., and Streilein, Wayne, "Immuno-Aspects of the Spleen"
- Enriquez, Pablo, and Neiman, Richard S., "The Pathology of the Spleen"
- V. Vale and Andrea Juno, eds., "RE/search Industrial Culture Handbook"
- Macpherson, A. I. S., et al., "The Spleen"
- Groening, M., "The Big Book of Hell"
- Lennert, Karl, ed., "SPLEEN: Structure, Function, Pathology, Clinical
Aspects, Therapy"
- Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral
History of Punk". Little, Brown & Company. London, 1996.
And, of course, your greatest resource is alt.spleen.
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Make sure you check out the alt.spleen FAQ home page!
<http://anon.razorwire.com/alt.spleen.FAQ>
Do you have any questions, comments or additions? I'd like your input! Contact
me (r...@razorwire.com), and I'll be happy to help you in any way that I can.
Please do not send me medical questions, though, since I am not a doctor and
have no medical knowledge.
Have a splendid day!