Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!husc6!encore!pinocchio!cook
From: cook@pinocchio.Encore.COM (Dale C. Cook)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Dedication (Actually: Value of the Net)
Summary: Beautiful words, Bill
Message-ID: <10874@encore.Encore.COM>
Date: 16 Jan 90 13:44:34 GMT
Sender: news@Encore.COM
Reply-To: cook@encore.com
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Woodville Rod and Gun Club
Lines: 41

[oliver@uncmed.med.unc.edu (William Oliver) recently posted that: 
|
|And it does matter.  An honest man or woman is an honest man or woman
|more because he or she is honest in the small, everyday things that
|"don't matter" individually, but which make up a well-lived life,
|than because of some single great temptation that was passed.
|A person who is concerned about individual rights or about individual
|dignity makes his or her difference not because of any sweeping
|great statement or action, but because of the accretion
|of small, individually seemingly insignificant acts that spread that
|dignity and confirm those rights through every action they take. 
|It matters because every action you take, and every action I take 
|is an expression of the human spirit.  
|
Bill, quite eloquently, sums up a lot of things I thought when I read
the original critique to which he was responding.

A further point can be made that the things Bill and other thoughtful
people contribute to this pool DO matter, DO have an effect on others,
DO help to shape people's opinions and ideas.  USENET is not just about
information interchange.  It's also a place where people can try out
their philosophies and values and get feedback which you can't get in
watching even the best on television or reading editorials in even
the best newspapers.  The NET is live and real time.  The attitudes
are constantly changing and evolving.  I think we have the priviledge
of living at a break through time.  One that will be remembered in
the same way people remember the invention of the printing press.
We live in the time when world wide people to people communication
is happening.  Strangely, it's not only the rich who can afford
the very latest innovations, but students, educators, engineers,
and lots of people whom Bill so wisely referred to as "not making
a difference."  Don't bet on it, folks!
|
|Bill Oliver

        - Dale (N1US)   Encore Computer Corporation, Marlborough, Mass.

INTERNET:  cook@encore.com	"In the carriages of the past you can't
UUCP: buita \			 go anywhere."  -- Maxim Gorkey
    talcott  } !encore!cook
   bellcore /