MISCmedia for 6/6/00
Footing the Bill

A REMINDER to make plans for our MISCmedia@1 party on Thursday, June 8, starting around 7:30 p.m., at the quaint Ditto Tavern, 5th and Bell. Yeah, it's 21 and over.

TO OUR READERS: Yr. ob't corresp'd't has been summoned to that great spectator sport known as jury duty. Daily site updates may or may not, therefore, be spotty over the next few days. Stay tuned for more.

AS LONG AS the Feds have Microsoft square in their judicial gunsights, ready to cleave the software monopoly in two (pending the results of a few years in appellate courts), let's add our own recommendations for the "remedy phase" of the case.

After all, we in the Seattle metro area have been affected by the machinations of our own native son Bill Gates, for good and/or for ill, just as the global business and computing scenes have been.

So herewith, a few modest proposals for how Gates and company (or companies) can partly atone for what they've done to our formerly quiet little region:

• A maximum wage for executives.

• A maximum work week for all other employees.

• An affordable-housing fund, to be supported by all MS or sons-of-MS profits above a preset point.

• A mass-transit fund, to be supported by a share of all proceeds from MS paid support calls.

• A program to give cell phones to street people, so they'll look little different from everybody else talking aloud by themselves these days.

• Employee-retraining programs for all upper-echelon MS or sons-of-MS personnel. Subjects may include Beginning Humility, Intermediate Niceness, and Advanced Getting-A-Life.

• Charm-school lessons for all single male employees, to shape them into the sorts of guys women could stand being around even if the guys didn't have money.

• A public-service advertising campaign, much like that of the tobacco industry, only propagating values for a post-MS Seattle:

  "Money. It's not everything."

  "Support the arts. Buy some local art today."

  "Other people. Talk to one or more of them today."

  "There's not enough 'country' for everybody who wants to be the only person in it."

  "Tech stocks: Tempting but dangerous."

  "Is that fourth car really necessary?"

  "Get off the computer and talk to your wife. At least once a week."

  "Sex is like tennis. It's a lot more fun when you're not playing alone."

  "You're not the center of the universe. Live with it."

• A pledge to start making software that didn't crash, freeze up computers, or allow pesky email viruses to spread, at least not as much.

  (Okay, this last demand is the one MS will never, ever agree to. But one can dream, can't one?)

IN RELATED NEWS: The Canadians have already taken away Wash. state's film industry. Now they want to take Microsoft. I'd say "Let 'em have it," but that'd be cruel to our beloved neighbors-2-the-north.

TOMORROW: Did I really think white people wouldn't take over hiphop?

ELSEWHERE:

• What Domino's employees really think of their products (found by Boing Boing)....
• Do "Chicks Dig Unix"?...

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Never mind Never Mind Nirvana.
• A few things you might think are true but which are not.
• Life dies again.
• Why Seattle (hearts) film.
• The city Paul Allen's building.
• The typeface that's taking over the world.
• Napster-mania.
• The ultracool Razor scooter.
• Why sweatshoppers love to sell images of rule-breakin' "rebels."
• It's still square to be hip.
• Could open-source software be the next big anti-Gates hope?
• Pre-announcing our newest feature, "My MISCmedia."
• Mount St. Helens, still booming in our hearts.
• How to be a male feminist without hating yourself.
• Could a split Microsoft be a bigger threat than a whole one?

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• The origin and future of MISCmedia