The Constitution allows Congress to give authors and inventors the exclusive right to their works for a "limited" time. The Supreme Court will look at how Congress handled that matter, and if the latest extension can apply retroactively.

Posted by GeeTee at October 09, 2002 07:11 AM | TrackBack 0

We've read more than a decade of press coverage about online relationships -- much of it written since my son and I made this trip together. Journalists love to talk about the aberrant qualities of virtual sex. Yet, many of us embraced the Internet because it has fit into the most personal and banal spaces of our lives. Focusing on the revolutionary aspects of online courtship blinds us to the continuities in courtship rituals across generations and across media. Indeed, the power of physical artifacts (the imprint of lips on paper, the faded petals of a rose), of photographs, of the voice on the telephone gain new poignancy in the context of these new relationships. Moreover, focusing on the online aspects of these relationships blinds us to the agility with which teens move back and forth across media. Their daily lives require constant decisions about what to say on the phone, what to write by hand, what to communicate in chat rooms, what to send by e-mail. They juggle multiple identities -- the fictional personas of electronic wrestling, the constructed ideals of romantic love, and the realities of real bodies and real emotions.

Posted by GeeTee at October 09, 2002 07:09 AM | TrackBack 0

"Whereas their parents experienced rising wages over their lifetime, Generation X may not. So college may have been a bad investment," says Wolff, the NYU economist. Adds Bruce Tulgan, a Gen Xer and founder of RainmakerThinking, a consultancy that studies labor trends: "I had a college president say to me, 'I don't know how much longer I can pull this off because people will start to ask, Is it worth this much money to be that much smarter?' "

Posted by GeeTee at October 09, 2002 07:06 AM | TrackBack 0

Bertelsmann's newest biography is a damning potboiler. The subject? The company's own Nazi collaboration in World War II Germany. Having fessed up to its Third Reich past, how quickly will Bertelsmann be able to leave it behind? That depends on the outlet you're reading.

Posted by GeeTee at October 09, 2002 06:51 AM | TrackBack 0

Although Winnipeg claims to be the world's coldest city, with temperatures regularly falling to -40C, apologetic officials admitted the bad weather had taken them by surprise.

Posted by GeeTee at October 09, 2002 06:39 AM | TrackBack 0