' TY AV VW = UN wr VY GY The Dallas Post Dallas, PA Wednesday, January 10, 1996 & [ Grace 108 B 1) 0 ps Now that my boss has bought spiffy new computers for our news- room and set up the programs, I've been sweating, swatting and swearing at my new toy in a pro- cess commonly called retraining. As my new option-loaded behe- moth calmly starts to do its stuff, I can hear a tiny voice from some- where in the hard drive crying, “Captain! The engines canna take much more of this! Warp 11! Och! My poor little brains!” _ I've used many different kinds of computers for about 15 years and tend to view them as over- grown Game-Boys because they're usually fun and challenging. (We won't discuss the hardware and software I'm retraining on.) Along the way I've acquired a set of definitions to fit nearly any com- puter and situation. Hardware: Several large boxes containing mostly styrofoam pack- ing peanuts and a strange assort- ment of small things which, when assembled, allegedly makes a computer. Disk operating system or soft- ware: The stuff which supposedly makes your computer go. Yeah, ona good day, when the moon is in the seventh house and Virgo is squaring the hypotenuse of Mars. .~ Unfortunately, my computer's software and I don't speak the same language. It doesn’t under- stand the juicy commands I give it late on Friday or Monday nights, when. I'm trying to get home in time to see “The X-Files.” LIBRARY By NANCY KOZEMCHAK ' The Back Mountain Memorial i. Library is now receiving items for the 50th annual Library Auction tobe held inJuly, 1996. The Book Booth chair Benny Matchett and Jeff Matus have expressed a need for children’s books, cookbooks, crafts, gardening, art and antique books especially as these are good sellers. Another good seller is music books and magazines on crafts and country things. Anne Aston is serving as a co-chair of the booth. The Odds and Ends booth, supervised many years by Sybil Pelton and Mary George and the Women of Kiwanis, will be happy to accept useable items in good-condition for that booth also. The 50th Auction will be held Thursday through Sunday, July A computer glossary for the rest of us Download: how the dog lets me know when he's upset with me for leaving him Home Alone, usually found in a large chocolaty pile at the front door. Upload: how the cat handles her nasty little hairball problem, usually on my bed. Mouse: the stiff, furry, dead creature the cat left on my bed- spread this morning because she thought Mommy wanted break- fast in bed. Information overload: when the six-month-old pile ofaccumulated stuff on my desktop becomes topheavy from neglect and cas- cades onto the floor. Desktop: where to find my in- formation overload. Head crash: what you do with your head on the table after a severe information overload. Floppy disk: what's left of that little 3.5-inch hard plastic thing after I drop it a couple dozen times, stick it into the computer the wrong way or the dog eats it. Network: relations between consenting adult computers. Spell check: a complicated pro- gram I don't know how to use because I prefer to look things up the old-fashioned way, in a dictio- nary, so I can continue to make mistakes. Escape key: Labelled “ESC,” it also stands for Exit Screen Char- acters. If you have the right game program and hit ESC when you hear the boss coming, it auto- matically calls up a spreadsheet to cover your butt. Unfortunately that won't work for me because of a mathematical learning disabil- ity (dyscalcula), which means I have no business being in the same county with a spreadsheet. Sound file/sound board: aneat little doohickey which lets you set up your computer to make a vari- ety of interesting and disgusting noises instead of those boring little clicks or beeps. Our graphics wizard's computer screams like an elephant. 1 like Fred Flintstone’s “Yabba-dabba-doo!” or the Tasmanian Devil's “Why for you say you monkey when you got fuzzy tail like wabbit, Wabbit?” (My boss doesn’t.) Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to down- load my sound files onto the new computer. Modem: a fascinating little de- vice which helps computers talk to one another and runs up your phone bill fast. The ‘Net (Internet), a.k.a. the information superhighway: a mad- dening international computer conspiracy, in which modem- equipped computers can talk with one another. It can access com- munications in Klingon, obscene speculative material about Barney, UFO bulletin boards and other neat stuff. Server: the connection at the telephone company which links your modem and the ‘Net, costs big bucks and never does what the nice salesperson promised you it would. Surfing the ‘Net: using the Internet for extended periods of time to read messages in Klingon and other neat stuff, in order to help run up your phone bill. Hacker: someone who surfs the ‘Net to pull cool stunts like break- ing into low-level security at the Pentagon. I know a guy who did this several years ago at Penn State and actually got away with it for about five minutes. Neither the Pentagon nor the university were amused. Library is now accepting donations for the auction 11, 12, 13 and 14, with Emnest Ashbridge as general chairman. New books at the library: “In- tensity” by Dean Koontz is the story of Chyna Shepherd, a twenty-six year old woman whose deeply troubled childhood taught her the hard rules of survival, and whose adult life has been an un- relenting struggle for self-respect and safety. Rare trust has blos- somed for Chyna into friendship with the woman whose family home she is visiting for the week- end; a farm in the Napa Valley surrounded by vineyards and hills. Suspicions she learned in childhood still make her uneasy. “Poet” by Michael Connelly is a searing work; a new departure that ranks as a thriller. Jack McEvoy specializes in death. Asa crime reporter for the ‘Rocky Mountain News’, he has seen ev- ery kind of murder. His profes- sional bravado doesn't lessen the brutal shock of learning that his only brother is dead, a suicide. His brother was a homicide detec- tive and had been depressed about arecent murder case, a hideously grisly one, that he'd been unable to solve. He decides to write on police suicides. “The Hellfire Club” by Peter Straub not only creates a villain as diabolical, clever, and fasci- nating as Hannibal Lecter, but has also given us a gripping, con- centrated, and starting novel. At stake are the fates of both a loyal and courageous woman and a long-established publishing house. Nora Chancel is unwill- ingly drawn into a treacherous double mystery: One involves a series of vicious murders; the other concerns an otherworldly novel so influential that admirers give over their lives to it. Have a bright idea? Share it with your neighbors by writing to The Dallas Post. We welcome letters to the editor and longer pieces that may run as guest columns. Send yours to: The Dallas Post, P.O. Box 366, Dallas PA 18612, or. drop it off at our office at 45 Main Road, Dallas (across from Offset Paperback). Be sure to include your name, address and daytime phone number. John W. Johnson Building a strong foundation: Wyoming Seminary for pre-kindergarten through } - eighth grade Dedicated teachers encourage individual achievement. FESS BRR OR SR RR DB 0 AT WYOMING SEMINARY'S LOWER ScHOOL, students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade prepare for a lifetime of learning. With an average class size of 12, individual attention is the key to academic success. Students learn at their own pace: extra challenges and extra help are provided for students of varying abilities. Nearly 400 students at our Forty Fort campus are building a strong foundation for the future through a traditional curriculum in a supportive and nurturing environment. Screening for all Lower School grades will take place Saturday, January 13 and Saturday, February 17, beginning at 9 a.m. For more information, or to make an appointment, call us at 283-6180. ) Wyoming Seminary does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin. WYOMING SEMINARY founded 1844 Oliver Stone seems bent on giv- ing us a box office skewered ver- sion of history, regardless of how his product squares with the facts. His most recent cinematic mis- adventure is riveting, emotionally committed, and damnably with- out much historical evidence to support its conclusions....Nixon was the father of institutionalized political murder in this coun- try???? Stone often insists that his con- clusions are the inventions of movie watchers. That's like Nixon himself saying, “I'm not a crook,” all the time knowing that he was answering only the material as- pects of that question or, in the case of Stone, trying to say that increasingly larger numbers of dead mice have nothing to do with invention of the mousetrap. Who was Richard Nixon? Look more at what he and his followers didn’t do to answer that question. Itbegan in California. When he said, after losing the election for Governor there, “you're not going to have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore”, he spoke for millions of Americans...who refuse to speak for themselves...who don't par- ticipate in republican democracy...who, instead, stand on the sidelines, mouthing bad things about those who do...becoming the silent ones who are among those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Still, Nixon, and despite an al- most painful introversion of per- sonality, did thrust himself into the public arena...where he was eventually seen to be one of the silent ones...participating in his daily life by memo, and in private life by conspiracy and crudity. And lest we forget, and nothwithstanding the renowned American credo of forgive and for- get, it would do us well to remem- ber that the man who was so honored upon his death, was also the man whovery nearly destroyed this nation’s constitutional gov- ernment. At every turn, and ignoring hy a BE - C: No matter what the movie says, Nixon was a crook _ many opportunities to stand tall, Nixon instead lied, abused power, broke the law and slunk behind the coats of his subordinates. More to the point, and to the day he died, the only regret he ex- pressed was that he got caught. Perhaps the greatest crime com- mitted by the 37th President of the United States is that he per- manently, and with mean spirited self-interest, diminished greatly our faith in the political process. He forever tarred the office of the president with a brush of indifference to the idea of consti- tutional government; to a separa- tion of powers; to truth, justice, and the American way; to simple, honorable behavior by simple, honorable persons placed in in- credibly complex and trying situ- ations. It's almost as if Nixon himself dropped an atomic bomb on American politics; the radioactive glow of his actions can still be seen today in the cynicism about politics in general. He spent the last 20 years try- ing to rebuild his place in history. With speeches, books, and occa- FIRST ALLIED SECURITIES INC. Gager & Associates sional diplomatic missions et the world, Nixon, and with politi- cal lovemaking, sought to cloud the lens of history with an after- glow of good citizenship. ve % If he truly wanted to prove his innocence, he should have re- jected the pardon offered by Presi- dent Ford and stayed around for a trial. And if he wanted forgive: ness, he should have admitted his guilt and said he was Sorrys He did neither. Instead, and when he died, it was clinging to the notion that he had at least partially redeemed himself. From this chair, he should rest in peace, and he de- serves the respect of someone who has been in the arena...and cer- tainly more respect than afforded him by Stone's movie. : However, he does not deserve the respect of someone who made a positive difference. Whatever positive differences he made are outweighed by what he stole from the American people. He was a crook. And what he stole was faith in our system. For that, may history always remem- ber him. 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Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers