susie, an understanding force
Bruce Reilly
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.
tell the computer on the
other end that you want it to transmit a binary file. On most FTP
servers, entering the magic word TENEX will do this. If the machine
doesn't recognize TENEX, try BINARY, or if all else fails, you can
enter
TYPE L 8
Be sure to do this for GIF files or you'll get garbage when you try
to view them!
The difference between TENEX and BINARY is in translation of data type
sizes - if your machine type has different data type sizes than the one
you're downloading from, use TENEX, otherwise use BINARY. If you're not
sure, try TENEX first (if the command isn't recognized, you're probably
OK). On some VAX platforms, the keyword "IMAGE" is also sometimes used
to denote binary files.
Now you're ready to grab the files you want. You have two options:
you can type
get filename
or
mget wildcard
where wildcard is any UNIX-style wildcard. MGET will get all files
that satisfy the specification.
When you're done grabbing files, type QUIT or BYE to log off the remote
machine and return to yours. Now you're ready to view the picture -
no decoding step necessary (neat, eh?)!
Most of the non-erotica pictures that appear in postings to the
alt.binaries.pictures* hierarchy are available from anonymous FTP sites
(again, see bongo's "ftpsites" list), but this is of course not guaranteed.
The other most common method for obtaining files i