September 2003 Archives

By Vincent Safuto staff writer

September 27, 2003

Suing customers won't win fans.

The recording industry (Motto: To know, know, know them is to sue, sue, sue them) has decided it has just about had enough of people trading music online, and unleashed its legal eagles on all sorts of people, from grandfathers to children, in an effort to convince them that buying the music is better than taking it.

I never used Napster or the other file-sharing services to get music, but I could understand why people might be tempted to build up a music collection for free, rather than paying for it. Compact discs today are expensive, and while I don't have a problem with the artist or the artist's estate making money, and I don't have a problem with the record company making a profit, what's being charged is too much.

Then again, gripes about the cost of music albums didn't start the other day. When I was a teenager, back when the music came on LPs and the record covers were works of art themselves, I remember complaining about the prices.

At some stores, there were charts with letter codes such as "A: $5.95, B: $6.95, C: $7.95" and so on. There were stickers on the album cover with the letter, and you had to look it up on the chart.

The higher the letter, the higher the cost of the album.

The trouble was that the less desirable an album, the lower the letter and the price you had to pay, and these were the prices advertised in those newspaper ads that read "Great music from $5.95."

Thus, the Bay City Rollers' and Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods' albums cost a lot less than the works of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

The only alternative was either to make a tape of someone else's record, if they'd let you, or record off the radio. Believe it or not, there was a time when whole album sides were played on the radio.

I'll go without rather than pay almost $30 for "The Beatles," otherwise known as the White Album. That's according to the Web site for a large electronics retailer that sells music. The cassette, by the way, is listed at $10.99.

At a store in the Indian River Mall, that seminal work in the history of the Fab Four will set you back $34.99. Granted, The Beatles fan base is more tilted toward people north of age 40 with the money to spend for such an indulgence, but I'm sorry: $34.99 is way too much.

The music industry needs to face reality. People started stealing songs when the technology made it feasible, and when the cost was beyond what they were willing pay. I'd buy more CDs if the price was a lot more reasonable.

On one Web site I visited, (www.freerepublic.com), one poster said that if CDs cost $7, he'd buy a lot of them, and several other people submitting comments on the site agreed that $5 to $7 was probably the best price for a music compact disc.

Whether the record companies will see it that way is another matter.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).


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By Vincent Safuto staff writer

September 20, 2003

Recently, while perusing a paper to the north of us, I came upon a columnist who has a problem with cats.

He likes them, which is OK in my book, but he accuses them of pulling a bait-and-switch on prospective owners by acting all cute and cuddly when they're kittens, then turning nasty and cold when they reach adult size.

Granted, his only experience was with a full-grown cat, but I can vouch for the fact that even those huge 20-pound feline giants are cute, if only in their own way, and especially if they're raised right.

I've shared my home, whether it was a little one-bedroom in Coram, N.Y., or my current home here in Vero Beach, with a feline or felines for company going on 20 years now. I've brought home cats from animal shelters and from private homes, raised them, taken them to the vet, given them love and affection, and even let them choose what to watch on TV. Not one has filed for divorce.

I learned the importance of keeping cats indoors after my cat, Tiger, disappeared from my then-new house in West Boynton Beach. He had been with me since I had lived on Long Island, and endured a long car trip from there to our new home in Florida in 1986. His loss was hard to take.

A few months later, I adopted Garfield and Muffin from a fellow postal worker, and, for almost 14 years, enjoyed having a pair of kitties to entertain me. From when they were tiny kittens, so scared they hid from me, until I had to have Muffin euthanized in late 2000, they were the joys of my life.

Every day, no matter what the local postal bosses said about me, or what the minions at postal headquarters thought of me and my opinions, those two were there with meows of support and a friendly nudge to let me know that they were on my side.

Garfield and I continued our adventures with the great move to Vero Beach in July 2001. When Garfield died in early February, at the ripe old age of about 16, I was at the Humane Society in Vero Beach the next day, picking out two new kitties to shower love and attention on. Mikasa and Tommy have grown out of the kitten stage, but they're still babies.

Recently, I visited the beautiful new Humane Society facility and came home with two new kittens, Shadow and Midnight. It's been quite a time with those two, but they get along well with the big cats and are getting big themselves. But they're still babies.

I look forward to many years of fun and companionship with the four felines at what I call Safuto Manor, and even when they're 16 years old and fat — even if they're sleeping most of the day away — they'll still be kittens to me.

And they'll be just as cute as they were the day I brought them home and released them from their cat carriers to take their first timid steps of their new lives.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at ( Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).


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By Vincent Safuto staff writer

September 13, 2003

It's a cliche to say America is the land of freedom. Anyone with a political ax to grind will tell you that, and demand that you stop complaining.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say America is a land of choices.

As a child in elementary school, I learned that in the Soviet Union, your job was what the state wanted you to do, while in America you could choose any career path you want.

I have traveled several career paths and made choices along the way, most of them good. The beauty of our system is that you can make those choices and reinvent yourself.

One of those choices is the type of vehicle you wish to drive.

It has become increasingly popular to bash a certain type of four-wheeled conveyance and, by association, those who buy them. I'm talking about sport-utility vehicles, of course.

I'm not a big fan of SUVs myself, and prefer to own a car for a number of reasons, including safety. Then there's the fact that while the gas station where I put fuel in my vehicle is a nice place, I don't like the thought of visiting once every few days.

Sure, there's excess in SUVs. I can't understand why anyone would need a Hummer or an off-road vehicle when there are few places to do such driving. I can see a use for SUVs if one needs to carry bulky cargo that won't fit into the trunk of today's cars, but if I ever had such a need I could always rent a truck.

There's also excess in cars. I mean, a CD player is nice to have, but do we really need satellite navigation systems? To me, the best navigation system out there is clearly given and written directions somewhere.

I remember a few years ago reading about a couple in Germany who were following the directions on their car's map display and drove into a river. Seems they were supposed to wait for the ferry to arrive. Technology strikes again.

Having said all that, the last time I checked, this was still America, and we still have most of our freedoms, including the freedom to choose what sort of vehicle to drive.

Some people have nothing better to do than criticize others for their lives, their occupations, their choices and the way they spend their money. The rhetorical attack on SUVs has become almost a parody with the "What Would Jesus Drive" campaign and a counter-"WWJDrive" campaign for SUVs.

Ads connecting SUV ownership with supporting terrorism are even more ludicrous. If buying fuel puts you in the same league as Osama bin Laden, we're all guilty since everyone driving something has bought gasoline at one time or another.

It's a waste of time and energy, in my book, to harp upon what others are driving and treat them like social pariahs. If people want to drive something, if it's street-legal and not about to explode, I say let them.

Freedom is what we should value, even when we disagree with other people's use of it.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at ( Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).


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By Vincent Safuto staff writer

September 6, 2003

I'm considering canceling my subscriptions to two technology magazines I get, even though they're free.

The publications, which follow trends in computer network certification, are getting thinner by the month and the articles seem to have little bearing on reality.

Were I working in a technical job I could ask my employer to pay for me to get higher-level certifications, but why would an American company even bother, when there are plenty of Indian workers who got their certifications paid for by the Indian government?

Back in the golden days of the World Wide Web and technology revolution, if there was one industry that seemed even more lucrative than technology, it was technology training.

Americans were rushing to learn new skills and tap into the growing field of computer networking and technology. Major software companies had created certification programs, producing and selling training materials and software to teach people the mysteries of networking, and making a lot of money.

Many Americans spent themselves deep into debt for the training to obtain the knowledge, and many landed good jobs. They spent more money on more training to advance their careers.

But those same software companies are now shipping — or encouraging the shipping — those technical jobs overseas.

Perhaps it was a good, sound, bottom-line business decision. As Americans exhaust their capital and their credit, new horizons are opening up for the companies that make the training materials. Microsoft, as was reported recently in "Microsoft Certified Professional" magazine, is working on a deal with the Chinese government to train 500,000 people for its certifications.

Certification and training services are being sold to India, though workers in India are getting worried now because there are countries where people are even more desperate for work, and jobs may move again.

Indian call center owner Farhat Gupta said recently in Wired magazine that he's worried that "outsourcing might be outsourced from India."

"It's hard to know where it will all end. Is there a country where people will work for free?" he asked.

Other articles I've read quote unemployed techies who are advising their children to steer clear of tech careers and devote their one shot at education to a career that has little chance of being outsourced overseas.

Not only is the move overseas bad for working people with technical skills, it will destroy the infrastructure of a once-prosperous industry that trained people for those jobs. Far from encouraging Americans to seek more training to compete with overseas workers, the exportation of jobs will not only discourage such efforts, but put them out of reach financially.

Technical training isn't cheap, as I know, and for someone suffering through months of unemployment, the several thousand dollars needed to learn computer and networking skills may be a bad investment if the result at the end is yet another trip to the unemployment line.

Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at ( Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).


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