NewsScan Daily, 16 June 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 16 June 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       FTC Says No to Do-Not-E-Mail List
       Attack Knocks Major Sites Offline
       Move to Rescind Burdensome Junk Fax Rules
       China Cracks Down on Pornographic Sites
       From Spammer to Anti-Spam Crusader

FEATURES        
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Yasunari Kawabata

FTC SAYS NO TO DO-NOT-E-MAIL LIST
     The Federal Trade Commission has decided that a "do not e-mail list"
modeled after the popular "do not call list" would be completely ineffective
-- and might actually have an effect just the opposite of the one intended
(since it could be used by spammers to find legitimate e-mail addresses and
send more spam). Senator Charles E. Schumer (D., NY) is critical of the
FTC's decision and insists that a do-not-e-mail list "is the best thing we
have and they ought to try it." But the FTC points out that Britain's ban of
unsolicited e-mail resulted in an increase, rather than a decrease, in the
amount of spam sent, and John R. Levine, the chairman of an organization
called the Anti-Spam Research Group, says adamantly:  "A do-not-spam list of
individual addresses is unworkable."(New York Times 16 Jun 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/technology/16spam.html

ATTACK KNOCKS MAJOR SITES OFFLINE
     An attack this week by network vandals struck Akamai Technologies,
which provides data services for Microsoft, Yahoo, Federal Express, Xerox,
the FBI and other major organizations; the attack brought down many of the
world's most-visited Web sites for about 45 minutes. An Akamai executive
says the company has "no reason to believe that the attack was directed
solely at Akamai." The company manages approximately 15% of the traffic on
the Internet. (Washington Post 15 Jun 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44688-2004Jun15.html

MOVE TO RESCIND BURDENSOME JUNK FAX RULES
     The chairman of a House subcommittee on telecommunications is
introducing a bill to rescind FCC regulations requiring senders of
commercial faxes to get prior written approval from recipients. Rep. Fred
Upton (R, MI) says his proposed bill is "common-sense regulatory relief" for
businesses and associations that have been overburdened with paperwork since
the regulations took effect. The bill has been endorsed by the full
committee's senior Democrat, John Dingell of Michigan. Newspaper publisher
Cheryl Kaechele, testifying on behalf of the National Newspaper Association,
told the subcommittee: "Our typical customers are small businesses. They
would far prefer to have us send them information by fax than to spend their
precious minutes on the telephone or in personal sales calls." And Walt
McDonald of the National Association of Realtors testified that the
inconvenience of requiring written permission from potential clients before
sending a fax "would be a giant step backwards in a business where good
customer service depends on quick turnaround."
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8930509.htm

CHINA CRACKS DOWN ON PORNOGRAPHIC SITES
     China has shut down five pornographic Web sites in a new campaign that
asks people to report "illegal or harmful" online content. In what's shaping
up as a tough new plan to control the Internet, Chinese authorities say
they've received more than a thousand complaints about pornographic material
on Web sites in just the last few days. Last week, China launched
net.china.cn, a site called the Illegal and Harmful Content Reporting
Center. It follows the introduction of numerous measures to curb online
activities in the communist country, which now has about 80 million Internet
users. (The Age 15 Jun 2004) Rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin U.
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/15/1087244901155.html

FROM SPAMMER ANTI-SPAM CRUSADER
     Sued in March by Yahoo for sending millions of unsolicited commercial
messages using Yahoo servers, Canadian spam king Eric Head now says he's
renounced spamming and will spend his time drumming in a rock band -- and
warning children of the evil possibilities of the Internet: "I urge everyone
who is involved in the commercial bulk e-mail business to cease all
operations unless and until they are completely compliant with the
requirements of the new United States anti-spam laws." (AP/USA Today 16 Jun
2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-06-16-spam-king-abdicates_x.htm

*****  

FLASH CARD
     "Because you cannot see Him, God is everywhere." (Yasunari Kawabata)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: YASUNARI KAWABATA
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the acclaimed Japanese author Yasunari
Kawabata (1899-1972), who received every major literary award in Japan,
several French awards, and the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature. He won the
Nobel for his novels, with particular attention being drawn to "The Old
Capital," which combined his trademark themes of sexual anxieties, longings
for an ideal virginity, and the harmonies of environment and character.
     In his Nobel acceptance speech, Kawabata said that in his work he tried
to beautify death and to seek harmony among man, nature, and emptiness.
Kawabata was the first Japanese author to win the Nobel Prize for
literature. His fiction shows the influence of both Japanese and Western
poetry, and his novels utilize symbols and images as much as
characterization and plot to tell their stories.
     Kawabata was born in Osaka. His parents died when he was three years
old, and by age sixteen he found himself alone in the world -- his
grandmother, grandfather, and sister all having died by then. This may
explain his lifelong preoccupation with death, aging, guilt and isolation.
     Kawabata graduated from Tokyo Imperial University in 1924 and two years
later published his first successful book, the partly autobiographical novel
"The Izu Dancer." About the same time, together with the writer Yokomitsu
Riichi, he founded the journal "The Artistic Age," which became the organ of
the group of Neosensualist artists to which he belonged. The Neosensualists
drew inspiration from the post-World War I Dadaists and Expressionists,
finding elements in these modern movements that bore similarities with
Japan's 17th century prose and its 15th century verse.
     Kawabata is probably best known for three novels: "Snow Country"
(1948), "Thousand Cranes" (1949), and "The Sound of the Mountain" (1952). In
these novels he tells the stories of a the relationship between a man of
artistic sensibility and a beautiful geisha, and that between a young man
and his father's former mistresses and one of their daughters.
     Critics praise him for his evocative, haunting descriptions, his
emphasis on setting as much as on character, and his open-ended plots. In
their opinion, these are qualities that made him the most "Japanese" of
modern writers because these were the same qualities that are found in many
works of the classical canon.
     In 1970 Kawabata's protégé, the brilliant writer and political activist
Mishima Yukio, committed ritual suicide in a spectacular protest against
modern Japan's abandonment of Samurai ideals. Two years later Kawabata also
took his own life by gas in the privacy of his workroom.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679761047/newsscancom/ref=nosim
for Kawabata's "Snow Country" -- or look for it in your favorite library. We
donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.]

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