seeing red

I often get chain letters about things like wearing yellow ribbons and not buying gas on a particular Sunday. I sympathize with many, though I doubt if I ever passed any on. But I sure like the idea that I can.

At one point do I actually participate? At what point do I feel I must take action including either passing the communications or doing what the letter asks? Am I moved to action more by anger or love or fear?

Here’s one to which I’m particular drawn, which I have edited and posted for reference.

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About Stearns

Howard Stearns works at High Fidelity, Inc., creating the metaverse. Mr. Stearns has a quarter century experience in systems engineering, applications consulting, and management of advanced software technologies. He was the technical lead of University of Wisconsin's Croquet project, an ambitious project convened by computing pioneer Alan Kay to transform collaboration through 3D graphics and real-time, persistent shared spaces. The CAD integration products Mr. Stearns created for expert system pioneer ICAD set the market standard through IPO and acquisition by Oracle. The embedded systems he wrote helped transform the industrial diamond market. In the early 2000s, Mr. Stearns was named Technology Strategist for Curl, the only startup founded by WWW pioneer Tim Berners-Lee. An expert on programming languages and operating systems, Mr. Stearns created the Eclipse commercial Common Lisp programming implementation. Mr. Stearns has two degrees from M.I.T., and has directed family businesses in early childhood education and publishing.

One Comment

  1. John
    May 28, 2004 at 9:32 am

    Chain letters: I remember getting one when I was in about the 5th grade. I was to send post cards to 5 people on a list, then send out the chain letter, and in weeks I would get hundreds of postcareds from all over the world. I sent my cards, and the letters. You can guess how many postcards I got: zero.

    My wife still gets lots of email chain letters with overly supersticious/“religious” memes — say these prayers, forward this letter. If you do, health and prosperity. If you don’t, little Joey in the St. Jude’s Children’s hospital will die.

    I am afraid that my wife may be a mass murderer, no that I think about it. . .

    As to the wearing of red. . . somehow that seems too forced to me. These movements spring up organically. Like the peace symbol in the 60’s, yknow? I don’t know if red will catch on — we’re more of a bumper-sticker than a clothing color society when it comes to showing our stripes. However, I’ll wear a red t shirt next friday and I’ll keep my eyes open.

Comments are closed