Dear Vice President Gore:
I just wanted to write and thank you for setting the record straight. I'm referring, of course, to your recent statement to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that during your term in Congress, you "took the initiative in creating the Internet."
Boy, was my face red! For years, I had been laboring under the belief that the Internet began in 1969 with the Defense Department's ARPANET project. I had foolishly thought the idea back then was to design a decentralized communications system that could survive if unpleasantness with the Russians resulted in the system missing a few parts, such as Kansas and Missouri.
Look how wrong you can be, eh? But now I know, Al. (I can call you Al, can't I?) I know that you, a mere 21-year old law student, were busily toiling in your basement laboratory to create the greatest device ever conceived for the frittering away of time.
(By the way, Al, don't you think "Wolf Blitzer" is the coolest name ever? I sure do. I even thought of naming our second child that, but my wife wouldn't hear of it, especially when we had a daughter. But I digress.)
Thank you for creating the Internet, Al. Without the `net, I would never have access to the wealth of information I've come to depend on in my daily life. For instance, were it not for the `net, I wouldn't be able to find out, at a moment's notice, exactly how many times Diana Muldaur appeared in the various "Star Trek" series (24, playing three different characters). Were it not for the wonders of the World Wide Web, I would never have known that Elvis and Marilyn Monroe are secretly living beneath the South Pole in an underground empire ruled by the re-animated corpse of Eleanor Roosevelt and her army of evil leprechauns.
Most chillingly, without the `net, I might actually get some work done.
But Al, all is not well in the land of Nerdvana. Dark and evil forces threaten the `net as we know it, and I'm not talking about Bill Gates. As the creator of the Internet, I would like to ask that you step up to the virtual plate, as it were, and deal with some of these problems for us.
Take this whole year 2000 problem. As I understand it, at midnight on December 31, all of the computers that are used to reading only the last two numbers of dates are going to freak out when their internal clocks start reading that it's the year 00. At this point, some say that power systems will crash, banks will lose everyone's money, and your kitchen appliances will leap off the counter and try to strangle their owners with their power cords.
We need to do something, and do it soon. I suggest that you and President Clinton just declare a massive "do-over" of some year before 2000, in which we and the computers could just pretend that it's, say, 1982. I for one would love to see the UNC Tar Heels have a decent basketball team again. And this time, I'll definitely stay away from that girl with the tattoos.
But the year 2000 problem is not the biggest threat to our brave new world. A greater menace looms, the scourge of Spam. I'm not talking about Hormel's vaguely meat-like product of the same name. I'm talking about the reams of unsolicited e-mail ads that clutter my e-mail box every morning.
The regular ads for things like dubious stock tips and herbal Viagra are bad enough. But what really cheeses me off is the stealth Spam, the messages with subject lines like "I Have the Money I Owe You," but when you open the message, it's an ad for a website featuring LIVE TEEN XXX GIRLS!
Now, let me just say, I have nothing against LIVE TEEN XXX GIRLS per se (especially if the alternative is DEAD TEEN XXX GIRLS, which is another website entirely), but when you're expecting to hear good news about cold, hard cash, well, it's just cruel, Al.
We're counting on you, Al. You're the man who has the potential to become the nations first techno-geek president, and you are in a unique position to deal with these burning issues.
I propose a nationwide death penalty for spammers, with the executions, of course, to be broadcast on the `net. Maybe we could get Wolf Blitzer to do the color commentary.
Love to Tipper and the girls.
©1999 Jerry D. Rhoades, Jr.