The PictureWritten by Staci Stallings
We had a lot of pictures taken at our wedding—a lot of pictures. We had two photographers and two videographers, so there weren’t many pictures that we missed. However, out of all those pictures, there is one perfectly perfect one. It wasn’t a staged one. It wasn’t one I had on my infamous “list” to have taken. I didn’t know it had been taken. I didn’t even see this one until nearly a month after we’d been married. Yet is it my favorite of all of them. Why? Because in one single image our relationship was captured—frozen forever on Fuji Photo Film. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’ll try not to use quite that many to explain it. In picture I’m doing what I’m always doing—directing traffic. Since it was taken during photo session following our wedding and since we didn’t see each other before wedding and since my husband’s immediate family had 26 people in it at time, there was a lot of traffic to direct. There were certain pictures that I wanted, and we had a small window of opportunity to get them taken. In short, I was occupied. The picture shows me, looking off-camera, pointing to someone and explaining what I want done. My dress that day didn’t make doing things myself an option, so I had to rely on everyone else. It’s easy to see that I’m intent on getting whomever it is to do whatever it is I want done immediately.
| | How Safe is the Internet?Written by Rosalyn Bronstein
The Internet was originally designed in 1969 as a convenient way for scientists to communicate. Decades later, when PCs were beginning to become popular, Internet was viewed as a wonder tool by many. There weren’t vast array of millions and millions of web pages to surf, and e-mail was a simple matter to send and receive. The commercial implications were only slowly beginning to emerge.As its popularity grew, so did opportunities for exploitation. Increasing numbers of Internet marketers saw value in capturing e-mail addresses and sending out their advertising. This led to excessive spam, which has totally spiraled out of control, and need for opt-in e-mail lists. Concurrent with spread of spam, expansion of pornography sites and related unpleasantness exploded online. These sites could be found everywhere, and it wasn’t necessary to search for them – their owners brought them to anyone’s monitor, regardless of age. Along with this came advertisements for sexual products and services, scams of every description, chat room predators, disruptive computer viruses, and list goes on and on. Not exactly sort of environment one would want for impressionable youth or someone’s granny. More and more people feel that there needs to be some options for those who want to use Internet without having to endure a negative experience. Perhaps a closed site, where only those invited to join would be allowed? The site would need to be easy to use, with nothing to download. It would have to be a place free of predatory behavior, free of unwanted advertising and annoyance, where users – and especially children --could interact in safety. .
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