Page One
No such thing as a free music download
Editor:
Scott Louie’s article on Napster was very interesting – but mostly wrong.
I am fourteen years old, and use Napster frequently. As a musician, I understand the implications of Napster. But most of Mr. Louie’s statistics were exaggerated.
For instance, people who do not have high-speed internet (like myself) can download songs in much less than an hour—a seven minute song usually takes about thirty minutes. Also, many CD burners cost $100, and fast burners cost only $250. That is nowhere near $400 as Mr. Louie stated.
Many MP3 players also cost much less than Mr. Louie’s cited. Some cost as little as $150 and play high-quality music.
Another way of playing MP3 files wasn’t even mentioned in this article – not having a CD burner or MP3 player myself, I listen to my downloaded songs straight off my PC, and that costs nothing extra.
Mr. Louie also stated that teenagers prefer to buy CDs rather than pay for Napster. I agree with that, but Napster still has a purpose. There’s not much worse than plunking down $20 for a CD that you turn out to hate.
Maybe there could be a free version of Napster that only allows you to download half of a song, so you can get a sample of that CD you were going to buy. Computer games make free demos available for download, to test a game; maybe the record industry should follow suit.
I had to laugh when Mr. Louie quoted a student as saying, “I’d pay for Napster if I really had to, but I’d prefer to have it for free.” What is that telling us? I’d like to get my lunch for free, but since it costs money I’ll just have to buy it anyway. These arguments are specious.
Later he quotes, “Every month, there’s my pager and my cell...I don’t got the money for Napster.” This person needs both a pager and a cell phone, but is unwilling to get unlimited music for the monthly fee of $20. So this person can afford CDs for $20 each, and a cell phone and a pager, but not Napster? I find that hard to believe.
Daniel Brady
Berkeley
Local activist takes fight to Rome
Editor:
Saturday, Jan. 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany, a very important holiday here in Rome. It is also the official close of the Year of Jubilee for Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II, celebrated Mass and the official “closing of the doors” early in the morning. But, we know that those doors have never been opened to self-affirming gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Catholics. This morning the police detained two of our members, one being our videophotgrapher.
It was clearly an attempt to try and convince us not to come back today.
But, we are prepared to go to jail, and so it does not dissuade us. We gather for worship at 1 p.m. inviting members of the press to join us in worship. Several do, and then walk with us over to the Square. There for the first time we go inside the barricades, open up our banners which say “Stop Spiritual Violence” and “No More Tithes & Gifts until the Church Stops Its Antigay teachings.”
For three hours we stayed in St. Peters Square, praying, and singing. The police are adamant that we cannot bring our pictures to the Christ child at the creche.
What truly surprised me was the response of the pilgrims there. So many smiled at us and joined us in prayer, accepting our gifts of rainbow crosses and hearts that we have given all we meet. Watching our circle grow larger as people joined us was a very powerful moment. We gave testimonies to the pain our Church has caused by its teaching, explaining that we come as faithful dissenters.
Much to our amazement one of the testimonies, brings tears to a police officers eyes, and he walks away so we will not see.
As the sun begins to set, we make a decision to leave since the police have been very kind and gentle and our intent is not to disrupt this holy day.
We have been told that we are the first demonstration to be allowed in St. Peter's Square. They did not take our banners or hustle us away to be “detained,” as they did the National Council of American Nuns. With this in mind, we leave St. Peter's Square and join our hosts for Mass and dinner.
Early tomorrow morning, we fly home to the United states.
Kara Speltz,
Rome, Italy
Concerned about school success for African Americans
The Daily Planet received a copy of this letter addressed to Everyone Concerned About the Success of Students at Berkeley High School:
Did you know that at least 250 of our 875 freshmen students have failed or will fail a class in this first semester, and that the majority of these D or F grades are occurring in classes that are necessary for promotion to the 10th grade and/or eventual graduation?
The failure and drop out rate among Berkeley High School students, especially among students of color, continues unabated at a very high level which has been documented for the past six years, despite efforts by caring teachers and administrators. Even if your teenager is not failing courses, your student's education is directly affected by the struggles, discouragement, and loss of hope already experienced by as many as one-third of their fellow students. Given this continuing and unacceptable situation, a group of parents with strong membership in the PNC04, called the Parents of Children of African Descent, have developed some new solutions, rather than relying on or repeating what has already been proven to fail.
The letter is to ask for your participation in reviewing and carrying out a Draft Intervention Plan that has been created to help our freshmen get back on track toward 10th grade and graduation. The Plan can be found at the
following website address:
http://home.earthlink.net/~pcad01
This new Intervention Plan recognizes the important role of the wider Berkeley community in supporting and ensuring our students’ success. The programmatic element of the intervention has three types of strategies that
have been tailored to meet the differing needs of these 250 struggling students. Parents are now asking the principal, superintendent, and the board members to collaborate in this effort, not only by pledging immediate resources but also by helping make contacts and connections with the business, university, and religious communities to get the additional one-time resources necessary for demonstrated success.
Please offer your immediate feedback on this plan. As the coordinator of the Parent Network of the Class of 04, I have volunteered to gather responses and transmit them to PCAD, and to work with these 04 members to make this intervention successful.
If you have access to resources that may be useful in meeting the demands of this intervention, please email PCAD from the website, rely email to me, or call me right away at 540-1252.
Time is short: Jan. 30 is the start of the new semester. Act now to make a difference. It can be done.
Iris Starr
Coordinator, Parent Network of the Class of 04
Berkeley
Editor:
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE no sex ads in your paper!!!
I love your newspaper, you guys write good stuff, but PLEASE I don't want to see another magazine (especially a newspaper) with sex ads. And I am not a prude. But who want to see another butt or bust jumping at
you when you perouse a newspaper...
Thank you (and the picture is horrible, anyway!)
Cloe Guesdon
Berkeley
Subject:
Fw: O line service problems
Date:
Sun, 07 Jan 2001 19:09:21 -0800
From:
Judy and Steve Gerstle
To:
news@berkeleydailyplanet.com
CC:
bus_riders
Chris Peeples
Nancy Skowbo
Richard Fernandez
members Alameda-transit
Editor:
In response to your story on AC Transit's non-existent complaint resolution system, I offer the following experience. After AC Transit ruined our dinner plans, I contacted both the Customer Service department and the General Manager's Office. I received no response. I called the General Manager's Office and was told by his secretary that he was at a retreat, but that he would call me back. I never heard from the General Manager or from Customer Service. An investigation of where taxpayers and farepayers dollars are going is long overdue. I urge you to conduct an investigative report on this matter.
Steven Gerstle
Alameda
The following is the letter Gerstle sent to the General Manger:
Dear Manager:
Since the passage of Measure B there has been a marked decline in reliability on the transbay O line. Just about every day over the past few weeks I have had problems getting to work or getting home. I have waited
25 minutes for buses that are supposed to run every ten. There have been numerous missed runs and buses running in packs. It is to the point that the O Line is not reliable enough to take to work.
The final straw was last night, Saturday, December 16th. My wife and I had dinner reservations in SF. The O bus only runs once an hour on weekends.
We arrived on the corner of Santa Clara and Grand before 4:45 p.m. An SF bound O bus was scheduled to leave downtown Alameda at 4:48 p.m. There were other O Line passengers waiting... and waiting and waiting. It was cold, the concrete was hard and our feet began to ache. At 5:30 p.m. we gave up and went home. It was too late to drive into the City and I called to cancel our dinner reservations. I called AC Transit but no one was on duty.
Under no circumstances should service that runs only once an hour be allowed to have a missed run. I don't know what happened, but it is yet another instance of the horrible service I've experienced since Measure B passed.
I feel somewhat like a fool for having supported AC Transit, having worked on Measure B and, now, to be paying tens of thousands of dollars in Measure B sales tax over the next 20 years. It would be difficult for me to
encourage others to take AC Transit considering my recent experiences.
No business or organization can do well without the support of its customers. You are going to have a difficult time regaining rider confidence.
Steven Gerstle
Alameda
