The committee’s final report was reviewed by a special committee of the National Academy of Sciences and released in early 1969. The 37 scientists who contributed to the report interviewed UFO witnesses and studied physical and photographic evidence. The report, also known as the Condon Report, concluded that not only was there no evidence of extraterrestrial control of UFOs but also that no further UFO studies were needed. Their advice was accepted by the United States, but for other independent laboratories it was not enough. Whether or not a person believes UFO’s are, in fact, real or not is probably because of influence from the media. For instance, the smash hit movie Independence Day was a movie about aliens attacking Earth so they can keep it for themselves. The company that made the movie, FOX, has been promoting extra terrestrial ideas to bring media attention to UFO’s. The company bought the stretch of highway 375 outside the mysterious secret military base named Area 51, which plays an important part in the movie. In it, several aliens were captured and stored along with their aircraft. In fact, the government has announced that it has captured aliens and their aircraft, but that was later denied. (Woolward, 912) This has been said to be the cause of the vast amount of UFO reports since 1948. The government also denied that Area 51 even existed for several years, even though it had been photographed many times. Today, the military base is thought to be a very heavily guarded test sight for many stealth planes in development for the military, including some possible “flying saucers”. This sight is responsible for several of the military’s top planes used today. Local residents persist that they have never seen any UFO’s that couldn’t be explained by the military’s aerial experiments. Tourists swear they have seen several UFO’s that couldn’t be anything else but extra terrestrial. Many magazines and tabloids visit the area to report about such sightings and print there own far-fetched ideas.

People interpret these articles in many different ways. Because there is no true proof of any extra terrestrial crafts, people are forced to make their own decisions about reality. For instance, in March 1997, thirty-nine people committed suicide to join with “Ti and Do”, two “UFO forces”. Printed on their page on the Internet, it stated, “Our 22 years of classroom here on planet Earth is finally coming to conclusion - ‘graduation’ from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave ‘this world’ and go with Ti’s crew.” (Heaven’s Gate, WWW) Such cases like these are extreme, but recent studies have shown that fifty percent of America does believe that there is life on other planets that may be trying to visit us. However, the majority of these people do not worry about any unwelcome situation. Opinions may vary, but until any conclusive evidence can be shown that life is visiting Earth from somewhere out in space, it is safe to say that humans are alone in their home planet. It is possible that this theorem will be proved wrong in the future, but until then all any person can do is guess, hope, and wait. What the future holds for Earth may not be what is expected, but until then scientists will be examining all the evidence to help provide a better future for the home to life as we now know it.

The story of the sphinx is an excellent example of the zodiac / myth connection. The sphinx a composite creature with the head of a woman or man and the body of a lion was associated with the guarding of sacred sites of antiquity. It represented the whole of the narrative of the zodiac, with the head of a woman, Virgo the beginning of the celestial cycle and the body of a lion, Leo,the end of the cycle. In fact, the actual design for what scripture calls a cherub is in actuality,a sphinx. The angels were beings whose sole purpose was to reflect the will and the glory of the God who created them. They were depicted symbolically as composite creatures whose parts reflected the zodiacal narrative. The Greek myth Oedipus Rex contains symbols of relevance to corrupted truth. When Oedipus encountered the Greek sphinx, he was asked a riddle., “What speaks with one voice, yet in the morning walks on four legs, walks at noon on two legs and in the evening walks on three legs?” Oedipus was the only man to answer correctly. The answer was “man”. Upon hearing her riddle solved the sphinx screamed in rage, threw herself to the rocks below her lofty perch and died.

Such a simple answer to this enigmatic question leaves one to ponder its significance.What more can be gleaned from the content of the story? The sphinx as it has been stated was actually a symbolic depiction of an angel. This angel was not, however, anything like the dutiful messengers of God described in scripture but a horrible monster bent on the destruction of any man it came in contact with. The biblical basis for such a creature is found in Ezekial 28. The “king of Tyre” or “King of the rock” as he is symbolically addressed, was the greatest of all angels. In fact so great was his splendor that he believed himself as great as his creator.

Poseidon, god of the sea and earthquakes, was most at home in the depths of the Aegean where he lived in a sumptuous golden palace. When he became angry (which was often) he would use his trident to create massive waves and floods. Ever intent upon expanding his domain, he challenged Dionysos for Naxos, Hera for Argos and Athena for Athens.

Ares, god of war, was a nasty piece of work - fiery tempered, bloodthirsty, brutal and violent. In contrast Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, symbol of security, happiness and hospitality, was as pure as driven snow. She spurned disputes and wars and swore to be a virgin forever.

Athena, the powerful goddess of wisdom and patron of Athens, is said to have been born (complete with helmet, armor and spear) from Zeus’ head, with Hephaestus acting as midwife. Unlike Ares, she derived no pleasure from fighting, but preferred settling disputes peacefully using her wisdom; however, if need be she went valiantly into battle.

Hephaestus was worshipped for his matchless skills as a craftsman. When Zeus decided to punish men he asked Hephaestus to make a woman. So Hephaestus made Pandora from clay and water, and, as everyone knows, she had a box, from which sprang all the evils afflicting humankind.

Apart fro one misdemeanor, Hephaestus’ character seems to have been exemplary. During the Trojan War Athena asked the god to make her a new suit of armor. Poseidon, on hearing this, teased Hephaestus by saying that when Athena came to his forge she would expect him to make mad passionate love to her. As Athena wrested herself from the eager Hephaestus, he ejaculated against her thigh. She removed his seed with wool and threw it away, and Gaea, who happened to pass by, was inadvertently fertilized. When Gaea’s unwanted offspring was born, Athena brought him up, and he eventually became King Erichthonius of Athens.

Apollo, god of the sun, and Artemis, goddess of the moon, were the twins of Leto and Zeus. Many qualities were attributed to Apollo, for the Ancient Greeks believed that the sun not only gave physical light, but that its light was symbolic of mental illumination. Apollo was also worshipped as the god of music and song, which the ancients believed were only heard where there was light and security. Artemis was worshipped as the goddess of childbirth and protector of children; yet, paradoxically, she asked Zeus if he would grant her eternal virginity. She was also the protector of suckling animals, but loved to hunt stags!

Hermes was born of Maia, daughter of Atlas and one of Zeus’ paramours. He had an upwardly mobile career. His first job was as protector of the animal kingdom. As the chief source of wealth was cattle, he therefore became the god of wealth. However, as civilization advanced, trade replaced cattle as the main source of wealth, so Hermes became god of trade. However, a prerequisite for good trade was good commerce, so he became the god of commerce. To progress in commerce a merchant needed to be shrewd, so this attribute was assigned to Hermes. Later it was realized that to excel in commerce one needed to use the art of persuasion, so Hermes was promoted to god of oratory.

Last but not least of the 12 principal deities was the beautiful Aphrodite, goddess of love, who rose naked out of the sea. Her tour de force was her magic girdle which made everyone fall in love with its wearer. The girdle meant she was constantly pursued by both gods and goddesses because they wanted to borrow the girdle. Zeus became so fed up with her promiscuity that he married her off to Hephaestus, the ugliest of the gods.

Hades never made it to Mt. Olympus, but his job was nevertheless an important one. Hades’ dominion was the vast and mysterious underworld (Tartarus). He was the benevolent god who gave fertility to vegetation and who yielded precious stones and metals. But he was also the feared guardian of a dark realm, from which no-one, having once journeyed, ever returned.

A number of the countless lesser gods were powerful but never made it to Zeus’ inner circle. Pan, the son of Hermes, was born with horns, beard, tail and goat legs. His ugliness so amused the other gods that eventually he escaped to Arcadia where he danced, played his shepherd’s pipe and watched over the pastures, shepherds and herds. Dionysos, son of Hera and Zeus, was even more hideous at birth - horned and crowned with serpents. His parents boiled him in a cauldron, but he was rescued by Rhea, and banished to Mt. Nysa in Libya where he invented wine. He eventually returned to Greece where he organized drunken revelries and married Ariadne, daughter of King Minos.

In addition to the gods the Ancient Greeks revered many beings who had probably once been mortal, such as King Minos, Theseus and Erichthonious. Intermediaries between gods and humans, such as the satyrs, also appear in the myths. The satyrs lived in woods and had goat horns and tails; they worshipped the god Dionysos, so, appropriately, they spent much of their time drinking and dancing. Nymphs lived in secluded valleys and grottoes and occupied themselves with spinning, weaving, bathing, singing and dancing. Pan found them irresistible. The Muses, of which there were nine, were nymphs of the mountain springs; they were believed to inspire poets, artists and musicians.

Finally, mention should be made of the three crones Tisiphone, Aledo and Megara - sometimes called the Furies - whose job it was to deal with grievances from mortals, and punish wrongdoers. They had dogs’ heads, snakes’ hair, bloodshot eyes, coal black bodies and bats’ wings and carried brass-studded scourges. It was considered unlucky to call them by name - they had to be called Eumenides - the kindly ones!

There were exceptions which included spies, traitors, and deserters who would face a firing squad. Then in 1888, New York directed the construction of an “electric chair” (Flanders 11). It was believed that the new harnessed power of electricity would prove to be a more scientific and humane means of execution. The first electrocution took place 2 in New York in 1890. In the past, capital crimes were much different than they are now. Robbery and the selling of alcohol to underage customers was a serious capital crime (McCuen and Baumgart 21). Rape was also a crime where the criminal was sentenced to death. In America, only thirty-seven states authorize the death penalty. In most of those thirty-seven states, murder is the only capital crime. The Supreme Court requires that two conditions must be met in order for a specific murder to warrant the death penalty (Nardo 32). The first condition is that it must be first degree murder, which is the deliberate and premeditated taking of life. The second is that one or more aggravating circumstances must be present. Aggravating Circumstances refer to those aspects of a crime that increase its severity. An example of an aggravating circumstance would be torture in conjunction with a murder. (”Capital Punishment” 32). 3 Every society has faced the problem of what to do with its most troublesome criminals. Many people in the past have argued whether or not Capital Punishment is justified and necessary. Most societies now believe that a criminal should receive punishment proportional to the crime committed. Most societies believe that such a severe punishment was necessary to install fear in others. While more social structures developed, the crimes developed into public and private offenses. Public offenses such as witchcraft and blasphemy, were punished by the state; while private offenses still were answered by acts of personal retribution. The enforcement of Capital Punishment in the early twentieth century declined drastically because of all of the controversy. Today, many more states are taking the death penalty into consideration. 4 Methods of Capital Punishment used today are somewhat different than what was used in the past. The lethal injection method, which is by far the most common, and the “electric chair” are the most recently used. The gas chamber is still used but in very rare cases. In 1924, the gas chamber was introduced in Utah with a hope to still find a more humane way to execute the convicted. The gas chamber method proved itself to be a very inhumane way of execution. There were many errors while using the gas chamber. Using too little or too much of the gas was a huge factor that was constantly argued. The continuing desire for a less painful, error-free means of execution led to the development of the lethal injection method in the 1970’s. Initially it was approved in Oklahoma and Texas in 1977. This method involved injecting a combination of a sedative, which is used to make the execution less painful, and a fatal 5 chemical agent into the condemned prisoners bloodstream. Lethal injection was first used to carry out the death penalty in 1982. In 1980, The American Medical Association [AMA] went on record to oppose the participation of any physician in an execution by lethal injection. A doctors involvment was seen as a contradiction of the professional responsibility under the Hippocratic Oath to save lives. As it now stands, no state that uses lethal injection, requires a physician to be present. The deadly solution is normally administered by medically trained technicians. There is much evidence showing that Capital Punishment is a deterrent of crime. The most persuasive research compared the homicide rates of states that did and did not prescribe the death penalty. For instance, Michigan, which abolished Capital Punishment in 1847, was found to have had a rate higher to adjacent states, Ohio and Indiana, that were executing. Similarly, Minnesota and Rhode Island, states with no death penalty, had 6 many more killings then their respective neighbors Iowa and Massachusetts, which had Capital Punishment. In 1939 South Dakota adopted and used the death penalty, and its homicide rate fell twenty percent over the next decade; North Dakota went without Capital Punishment for the same ten years, and homicide rates went up. Similar before and after studies in Canada, England, and other countries likewise found that the suggestion of Capital Punishment had deterred murderers better than the prospect of long prison terms. In Britain during the 1950’s, a typical “lifer” actually served only seven years, compared with a much tougher average, the United States life term today of twenty years. Between 1930 and 1980 there have been 3,860 executions in the United States. Of this number 3,380 had been executed for murder. Rape, armed robbery, burglary, and aggravated assault no longer are capital crimes. 7 Only thirty-two women have ever been executed. Since 1930 half of all persons executed were non white. Over 1,200 death row inmates were awaiting execution by 1984. In 1980, thirty-nine states had enacted death penalty laws. From 1965 to 1983 favoritism of the death penalty has risen thirty-two percent. Now, seventy percent of Americans favor Capital Punishment. Washington D.C. had the highest murder rate in the country with 35.1 murders per 100,000 population. Nevada is second with twenty, Texas with 16.9, Florida at 14.5. South Dakota has the lowest murder rate with .7 murders per 100,000 population. Since the Supreme Court rulings in the 1970’s up to 1984, only sixteen death row inmates have been executed. In America we have many criminals. Different societies have different views on how these criminals should be punished. The more harsh we are on the criminals and the more death penalties 8 we hand out, there will be a drastic drop in capital crime. Capital Punishment is necessary in any imperfect society.

A word processing program allows a user to efficiently and economically create professional looking documents such as memoranda, letters, reports, and resumes. With a word processor, one can easily revise a document. To improve the accuracy of one’s writing, word processors can check the spelling and the grammar in a document. They also provide a thesaurus to enable a user to add variety and precision to his or her writing. Many word processing programs also provide desktop publishing features to create brochures, advertisements, and newsletters.

An electronic spreadsheet enables a user to organize data in a fashion similar to a paper spreadsheet. The difference is the user does not have to perform calculations manually; electronic spreadsheets can be instructed to perform any computation desired. The contents of an electronic spreadsheet can be easily modified by the user. Once the data is modified, all calculations in the spreadsheet are recomputed automatically. Many electronic spreadsheet packages also enable a user to graph the data in his or her spreadsheet (Wakefield 98-110).

A database management system (DBMS) is a software program that allows a user to efficiently store a large amount of data in a centralized location. Data is one of the most valuable resources to any organization. For this reason, user desire data be organized and readily accessible in a variety of formats. With aDBMS, a user can then easily store data, retrieve data, modify data, analyze data, and create a variety of reports from the data(Aldrin 25-37).

Many organizations today have all three of these types of application software packages installed on their personal computers. Word processors, electronic spreadsheets, and database management systems make users’ tasks more efficient. When users are more efficient, the company as a whole operates more economically and efficiently.

In 1889 Herman Hollerith, an American inventor, patented a calculating machine that counted, collated, and sorted information stored on punched cards. His machine was first used to help sort statistical information for the 1890 United States census. In 1896 Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company to produce similar machines. In 1924, the company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation. IBM made punch-card office machinery that dominated business until the late 1960s, when a new generation of computers made the punch card machines obsolete.

The first fully electronic computer used vacuum tubes, and was so secret that its existence was not revealed until decades after it was built. Invented by the English mathematician Alan Turing and in 1943, the Colossus was the computer that British cryptographers used to break secret German military codes. The first modern general-purpose electronic computer was ENIAC or the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator. Designed by two American engineers, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, Jr., ENIAC was first used at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946.

The invention of the transistor in 1948 brought about a revolution in computer development, vacuum tubes were replaced by small transistors that generated little heat and functioned perfectly as switches. Another big breakthrough in computer miniaturization came in 1958, when Jack Kilby designed the first integrated circuit. It was a wafer that included transistors, resistors, and capacitors the major components of electronic circuitry. Using less expensive silicon chips, engineers succeeded in putting more and more electronic components on each chip. Another revolution in microchip technology occurred in 1971 when the American engineer Marcian Hoff combined the basic elements of a computer on one tiny silicon chip, which he called a microprocessor. This microprocessor the Intel 4004 and the hundreds of variations that followed are the dedicated computers that operate thousands of modern products and form the heart of almost every general-purpose electronic computer.

By the mid-1970s, microchips and microprocessors had reduced the cost of the thousands of electronic components required in a computer. The first affordable desktop computer designed specifically for personal use was called the Altair 8800, first sold in 1974. In 1977 Tandy Corporation became the first major electronics firm to produce a personal computer. Soon afterward, a company named Apple Computer, founded by Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs, began producing computers. IBM introduced its Personal Computer, or PC, in 1981, and as a result of competition from the makers of clones the price of personal computers fell drastically. Just recently Apple Computer allowed its computers to be cloned by competitors.

During this long time of computer evolution, business has grasped at the computer, hoping to use it to increase productivity and minimize costs. The computer has been put on assembly lines, controlling robots. In offices computers have popped up everywhere, sending information and allowing numbers to easily be processed. Two key words that apply today are downsizing and productivity. Companies hope the increase worker productivity, meaning less working which then allows for downsizing. The computer is supposed to be the magic wand that will make productivity shoot through the roof, but in some cases the computer was a waste of time and money.

Reliance Insurance is an example of computer technology falling flat on its face, wasting a great deal of money, while producing little or no results. “Paper Free in 1983″ was the slogan Reliance used because the it had just spent millions of dollars to put computers everywhere and network them. The employees had E-mail and other programs that where to eliminate paper and increase productivity. The company chiefs sat back and waited for a boom in productivity that never arrived.

Other examples of the disappointments of computer are not hard to find. Citicorp bank lost $200 million dollars developing a system in the 1980’s that gave up to the minute updates on oil prices. Knight-Ridder tried to develop a home shopping network on the television, and lost $50 million. Wang laboratories almost went under when they put all of their resources toward developing imaging technology that no one wanted. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream put in an E-mail system and out of 200 employees less than 30% used the system. Everything attempted then is currently very common today; on-line services provide stock and commodities quotes, QVC is a home shopping channel on cable television, almost every picture in a magazine has been retouched with imaging technology, and even JRHS has an E-mail system that seems to be valuable.

Other corporations have seized computer technology and used it to reduce costs, but usually the human factor is lost. The McDonalds fast food chain is an example of a company that has embraced computers to help productivity and lower operating costs. The McDonalds kitchen has become a computer timed machine, “You don’t have to know how to cook, you don’t have to know how to think. There’s a procedure for everything and you just follow the procedure” . The workers have in essence become robots controlled by the computer to achieve maximum productivity. The computer knows the procedure and alerts the worker of events in the procedure and all the worker must do is execute what the beeper of buzzer means. With such little knowledge of the making of the food, workers have become disposable, “It takes a special kind of person to be able to move before he can think. We find people like that and use them until they quit.” .

McDonalds managers work even more closely with the computers that control them. The computer generates a graph of expected business and tells the manager how many people to schedule and when, all the manager does is fill in the blanks with names. McDonalds computers also keep close track of sales and expenditures, “The central office can check . . . how many Egg McMuffins were sold on Friday from 9 to 9:30 two weeks ago or two years ago, either in an entire store or at any particular register.” . The main things computers do in a manual job is to speed things up, “Thinking generally slows this operation down.” , and for this reason computers have made manual jobs ones of extreme monotony and no creativity.

White collar jobs have remained virtually the same, computers have just helped to enhance creativity and attempted to raise productivity. E-mail, word processors, spreadsheets, and personal organization programs are widely used by white collar workers. These programs help to make impressive presentations, communicate, and keep track of everything so the worker can get more done, and therefore less workers are needed, dropping costs. This has not happened, over the last 30 years white collar worker productivity has remained the same, while blue collar productivity has almost quadrupled. This is due mainly to the fact that white collar workers are required to think and adapt to situations quickly, which computers at the moment are unable to due, they only follow code to give a planned response. The blue collar job requires less knowledge and skill, and so is easily replaceable by a computer.

Computers though have not been a failure in business, they allow information to be shared very quickly. The home office is a product of computers, people can work from home instead of going into an office. This has not become very popular due to the lack of touch between people, the loss of contact. It is the human factor that helps to make business run, the random thought that saves the day, something a computer is incapable of doing. Computers may help quicken business, but they will never replace people, only reduce their knowledge or creativity by automating the process.

Another form of computers is attempting to totally eliminate people from the picture. Expert systems are large mainframe computers that have the knowledge of an expert individual loaded into it, and makes decisions that are very complex. An expert in field is chosen and interviewed for sometimes over a year about their job and how they make decisions. All of this knowledge is refined and put into a computer. Another person then enters some statistics into the finished machine and magically a large printout will come out of the machine in minutes with the answers. Expert systems are used mainly in large investing corporations, but some have been developed to help diagnose diseases. The hope is one day a patient will lie down and a couple of sensors and probes will go over the body and then a computer printout will have the name of your illness and the drug to cure it. Expert systems have been used very little mainly due to their high price and because of the lack of trust in them.

Computers have also reached into other places besides business, schools. Children sit in front of computers and are drilled or taught about certain subjects selected by the teacher. This method of teaching has come under fire, some people believe the computer should be a tool not a teacher, while others believe why learn from a normal teacher when a computerized version of the best can teach. The technology of today could allow for a teacher in another country to teach a class through video confrencing. The attempts to spread computer technology into the class room have produced results and taught lessons as to how computers should be applied.

The Belridge school district in McKittrick California was one of the most technological school districts in America. Every student had two computers, one at school and one at home, which contained many brand new teaching programs. The high school had a low powered television station that broadcasted every day. The classes were small and parent involvement was high. Even with all of these wonderful things one-third of the first grade class was below the national average in standardized tests after the first year. Parents were enraged that after all of the money spent nothing had happened, that the technology hadn’t made the children become smarter, and so all of the computers were gone the next year and traditional teaching was put back in place.

Belridge is an extreme example of people expecting the computers to do magic and make the children learn faster and better, much like companies hoped to raise productivity. The children were left to learn from the computer, which they did, but nothing changed things actually got worse. One parent realized, “. . . good teachers are the heart and soul of teaching.” , because computers can only present facts and explain them to a certain extent, where as a good teacher can explain to the student in many ways.

The US has about 2.7 million computers for 100,000 schools, a ratio of about 1 computer for every 16 students. Experts say that, “Computers work best when students are left with a goal to achieve. . .” , and students are allowed to achieve this goal with proper direction from a teacher. After many attempts in the 1980’s to put computers into the classroom a Presidential Plan was drawn up:

1. Give computers to teachers before students.

2. Move them out of the labs and into classrooms.

3. One workstation at least for every two or three students.

4. Still use flashcards for practice.

5. Give teachers time to restructure around computers.

6. Expect to wait 5 to 6 years for change.

This plan was to help guide the use of computers into the classroom, and maximize their ability as learning tool. The computer will enhance the future classroom, but it cannot be expected to produce results quickly. One thing the use of computers in the classroom will help with is the fear of computers and their ability to confuse people. Early exposure to computers will help increase computer use in society years from now.

The biggest network of connected computers is broadly referred to as the internet, information superhighway or electronic highway. The internet was started by the Pentagon as a way for the military to exchange information through computers using modems. Over the years the internet has evolved into a public resource containing limitless amounts of information. The main parts of the internet are FTP (file transfer protocol), gopher, telnet, IRC (internet relay chat), and the world wide web. FTP is used to download large files from one computer to another quickly. Gopher is much like the world wide web, but without the graphical interface. Telnet is a remote computer login, this is where most of the hacking occurs. The IRC is just chat boards where people meet and type in there discussions, but IRC is becoming more involved with pictures of the people and 3-D landscapes. Besides IRC, these internet applications are becoming obsolete due to the world wide web.

The most popular of the internet applications is the world wide web or WWW. It is a very graphical interface which can be easily designed and is easy to navigate. The WWW contains information on everything and anything possibly imaginable. Movies, sound bytes, pictures, and other media is easily found on the WWW. It has also turned into a business venture, most large businesses have a “page” on the WWW. A “page” is a section of the WWW that has its own particular address, usually a large business will have a server with many “pages” on it. A sample internet address would be “http://www.sony.com/index.html”, the http stands for hypertext transfer protocol, or how the information will be transferred. “www.sony.com” is the serve name, it is usually a mainframe computer with a T-1 up to T-3 fiber optic telephone line. The server is expensive not because of the computer but because of the telephone line, a T-1 line which transfers up to 150 megabytes of information per second costs over $1000 a month, while a T-3 line transferring 450 megabytes of information can cost over $10,000 a month. The “index.html” is the name of the page on the server, of which the server could have hundreds.

The ability for all of this information has made for a virtual society. Virtual malls, virtual gambling, virtual identities, and even virtual sex have sprung up all over the internet wanting your credit card number or your First Virtual account number. First Virtual is a banking system which allows so much money to be deposited at a local bank to be spent on the internet. Much of the internet has become a large mail order catalog. With all of these numbers and accounts, questions come up about the security of a persons money and private life, which aren’t easily answered.

Being safe is a new craze today, protection from hackers and other people who will steal personal secrets and then rob someone blind, or protection from pornography or white supremacists or millions of other things on the internet. The recent communications bill that passed is supposed to ban pornography on the internet, but the effects aren’t apparent. There are still many US “pages” with pornography that have consent pages warning the user of the pornography ahead. Even if the US citizens stopped posting pornography, other nations still can and the newsgroups are also international. Programs such as Surf Watch and Internet Nanny have become popular, blocking out pornographic sites. The main problem or beauty of the internet is the lack of a controlling party, “It has no officers, it has no policy making board or other entity, it has no rules or regulations and is not selective in terms of providing services.” . This is a society run by the masses that amounts to pure anarchy, nothing can be controlled or stopped. The internet is so vast many things could be hidden and known to only a few, for a long time if not forever. The real problem with controlling the interenet is self control and responsibility, don’t go and don’t see what you don’t want to, and if that amounts to a boring time, then don’t surf the net.

When speaking of computers and the internet one person cannot go unmentioned, Bill Gates, the president of Microsoft. Microsoft has a basic monopoly on the computer world, they write the operating system and then the applications to run of the system, and when everyone catches up, they change the version. Bill Gates started the company in the early 1980’s with DOS, or Disk Operating System, which just recently was made obsolete by Windows 95. Bill Gates has now just ventured into the internet and is now tangling with Netscape, the company with the Internet monopoly. Netscape gives away its software for free to people who want the basic version, but a version with all of the bells and whistles can be purchased. Microsoft is hard pressed to win the internet battle, but will take a sizable chunk of Netscape business. Bill Gates will likely keep running the software industry, with his recent purchase of Lotus, a popular spreadsheet, he further cornered the market.

Computers are one of the most important items society posses today. The computer will be deeply imbedded in peoples lives even more when the technology progresses more and more. Businesses will become heavily dependent as video confrencing and working from home become increasingly more feasible, so businesses will break down from large buildings into teams that communicate electronically. Schools may be taught by the best teachers possible and software may replace teachers, but that is highly unlikely. The internet will reach into lives, offering an escape from reality and an information source that is extremely vast. Hopefully society will further embrace the computer as a tool, a tool that must be tended to and assisted, not left to do its work alone. Even so computers will always be present, because the dreams of today are made with computers, planned on computers, and then assembled by computers, the only thing the computer can’t do is dream, at least right now.

In the early 1960’s the Cold War was escalating and the United States Government was faced with a problem. How could the country communicate after a nuclear war? The Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA, had a solution. They would create a non-centralized network that linked from city to city, and base to base. The network was designed to function when parts of it were destroyed. The network could not have a center because it would be a primary target for enemies. In 1969, ARPANET was created, named after its original Pentagon sponsor. There were four supercomputer stations, called nodes, on this high speed network.

ARPANET grew during the 1970’s as more and more supercomputer stations were added. The users of ARPANET had changed the high speed network to an electronic post office. Scientists and researchers used ARPANET to collaborate on projects and to trade notes. Eventually, people used ARPANET for leisure activities such as chatting. Soon after, the mailing list was developed. Mailing lists were discussion groups of people who would send their messages via e-mail to a group address, and also receive messages. This could be done twenty-four hours a day. Interestingly, the first group’s topic was called Science Fiction Lovers.

As ARPANET became larger, a more sophisticated and standard protocol was needed. The protocol would have to link users from other small networks to ARPANET, the main network. The standard protocol invented in 1977 was called TCP/IP. Because of TCP/IP, connecting to ARPANET by any other network was made possible. In 1983, the military portion of ARPANET broke off and formed MILNET. The same year, TCP/IP was made a standard and it was being used by everyone. It linked all parts of the branching complex networks, which soon came to be called the Internet.

In 1985, the National Science Foundation (NSF) began a program to establish Internet access centered on its six powerful supercomputer stations across the United States. They created a backbone called NSFNET to connect college campuses via regional networks to its supercomputer centers. ARPANET officially expired in 1989. Most of the networks were gained by NSFNET. The others became parts of smaller networks. The Defense Communications Agency shut down ARPANET because its functions had been taken over by NSFNET. Amazingly, when ARPANET was turned off in June of 1990, no one except the network staff noticed.

In the early 1990’s the Internet experienced explosive growth. It was estimated that the number of computers connected to the Internet was doubling every year. It was also estimated that at this rapid rate of growth, everyone would have an e-mail address by the year 2020. The main cause of this growth was the creation of the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web was created at CERN, a physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The Web’s development was based on the transmission of web pages over the Internet, called Hyper Text Transmission Protocol or HTTP. It is an interactive system for the dissemination and retrieval of information through web pages. The pages may consist of text, pictures, sound, music, voice, animations, and video. Web pages can link to other web pages by hypertext links. When there is hypertext on a page, the user can simply click on the link and be taken to the new page. Previously, the Internet was black and white, text, and files. The web added color. Web pages can provide entertainment, information, or commercial advertisement. The World Wide Web is the fastest growing Internet resource. In conclusion, the Internet has dramatically changed from its original purpose. It was formed by the United States government for exclusive use of government officials and the military to communicate after a nuclear war. Today, the Internet is used globally for a variety of purposes. People can send their friends an electronic “hello.” They can download a recipe for a new type of lasagna. They can argue about politics on-line, and even shop and bank electronically in their homes. The number of people signing on-line is still increasing and the end it not in sight. As we approach the 21st century, we are experiencing a great transformation due to the Internet and the World Wide Web. We are breaking through the restrictions of the printed page and the boundaries of nations and cultures.

I believe that Davis is somewhat correct in assuming that soft-core is a more objectively reliable source for studying human sexuality. When I hear the words soft-core pornography, I tend to think of Playboy, or films and movies that depict a story about a person or group of people, and within that story the characters engage in sexual activity. This sexual activity is shown or described to the reader/viewer but is not done in a graphic nature. That is, the actual sexual penetration is not shown or shown very minimally.

Hard-core, on the other hand, is shown or described more graphically. The dialogue usually includes, as Davis states, four-letter words. The story seems to have less of a plot and less character development. The main purpose of the work is to show or describe sex. So it is in this sense that I agree with Davis.

However, I firmly believe that there is not one single resource that is the best method of studying human sexuality. There are many sources which are helpful when studying sex and human sexuality. They can range from textbooks, entertainment magazines, television programs, to movies and novels. In my opinion the most reliable and important resource for studying human sexuality is personal experience. The actual hands on, if you will, of sex. All the texts, magazines and movies can show what happens and maybe guide your learning process, but the only real way to learn is to experience for oneself. I feel that if a variety of resources are used when studying human sexuality, an individual will understand and learn all aspects of sexuality in greater detail. Having learned all aspects of sexuality a person may develop a sense of confidence in their own sexuality. This may allow for the person to have more respect for sexual orientations or practices that the individual may not take part in. For example, a person educated in human sexuality at a university level may realise that homosexuality is normal and should not be shunned. Whereas, a person not as highly educated in this field may think homosexuals are not right, or confused. If an individual uses a mixture of hard-core pornography, soft-core pornography, educational texts, and any other source of information that is available, the base for their knowledge will be broadened.

With this broadened knowledge base an individual can draw their own lines for limits in their sexual practises. A person may indulge in sex in similar manner to hard-core pornography. That is, they may enjoy watching the penetration and using four-letter words during sex. Or an individual may enjoy sex in more of a soft-core manner. For example they may like the lights off and be more romantic in their sexual escapades. I feel that a combination of the two, or even a mixture of many different resources can be more beneficial to the individuals sexual experience. That way the individual could use the “hit and miss” method to explore human sexuality. Which means they could try different things until they find something that they are comfortable with.

I believe that soft-core pornography when used alone is much too vague when studying human sexuality. All aspects of human sexuality are not dealt with. The individual would not learn the “plumbing” aspect of sexuality , other than what is seen or described in soft-core. (i.e. breasts and penis).

If an individual only used hard-core pornography to study human sexuality they may believe that sex and sexuality are all about the act of sex. They may not learn the idea of love or the responsibilities associated with sex and sexual activity. The use of only one resource in studying anything, including human sexuality, limits the quality of knowledge gained about the particular subject.

One example of a restricted or limited view would be if a person was only using a resource such as the Internet to study human sexuality. The Internet, or the net, as we all know, is a vast source of knowledge for virtually every topic imaginable. I believe that a person would have a very limited view if using the Internet for information on human sexuality. This would especially ring true if the person did not know how to conduct advanced studies on the Internet. That is, the person would simply type “human sexuality” into one of the many search engines on the net. The resulting “hits” or “sites” (places to find information) would be a wide range of topics. They would likely range from journal articles about human sexuality to adult oriented articles, which would likely be hard-core. Another type of hit the “surfer” (a person who browses the Internet) may find is the adult oriented commercial sites. These sites advertise free sex pictures or live phone sex.

The problem with using the Internet and only the Internet as a resource for study is that the information found can be so vast that one may not know where to start. The more attractive and marketed sites may get more attention. The key words in the description of the site may draw one’s attention to that site and the less attractive sites may be by-passed. The problem is that the less attractive sites are usually those from universities with an abundance of credible information. The other sites are basically selling sex not the idea of the total package of human sexuality.

Another problem is deciding which search engine to use. A search engine is a tool that one can use to find specific topics on the Internet. Different engines have different specialities and a different number of sites that are explored. If a person only used one search engine when looking for sites dealing with human sexuality, an important site that is catalogued in another search engine may be missed.

With any topic as broad as human sexuality the Internet can be more overwhelming than it is helpful. As with human sexuality itself , I believe that the best way to learn how to search the net is by trial and error. By learning how to narrow down topics that are being searched the individual may be able to find a few sites that fit the characteristics they are seeking.

Now, the problem is, which characteristics should one look for when learning about human sexuality? This is another decision that if not made properly could lead to someone having a limited view of human sexuality. In order to narrow down a search one must know a little bit about what they are searching for. For example if an alien came here and tried to research human sexuality, it may not know any aspect of our sexuality to add to the search. For example, love plays a role in our sexuality. If someone did not know this they would enter “human sexuality” into the search engine and again may be distracted by flashy, hard-core, sex-sites and may not find anything on love. The over-all understanding of human sexuality would be limited according to which sites were looked at.

Although I agree somewhat with Advisee’s claim that soft-core , rather than hard-core pornography, may be a better resource for studying human sexuality. I feel that using only one resource for information can limit the view and even sometimes distort an individuals ideas of human sexuality. When using a resource such as the Internet, one may be overwhelmed with information and marketing tactics may win the attention of information seekers and take away from the sites that actually offer factual information regarding human sexuality.

Therefore, I believe that an individual should use all resources available to them when studying any topic, especially a topic as complex as human sexuality.

Why is marriage so central in gay and lesbian hopes? Like every human on this earth, they meet a person they truly love, they “want to commit to that person in front of our family and country for the rest of our lives”. Marriage is a beautiful commitment shared by two people who love each other, it should not be limited to heterosexual nor homosexuals. Homosexuality is not a choice, and where there is no choice, there can be no moral issue.

Gay marriages also reflect family life as well. As a medical student at Tufts says, “It seems hypocritical to be against gay marriages and at the same time in favor of family values”. Having a family is an important part of a marriage, “… straight and gay alike have other things on their minds today. Family is one, and the linchpin of family has commonly been a loving commitment between two loving adults”. There are disadvantages to same-sex couples which heterosexual couples do not have to worry about, like; “No joint tax returns. No health insurance coverage… No survivor’s benefits from Social Security”. These are concerns of same-sex couples and should also be looked at by the government.

Marriage between people of the same sex should not be a concern of anyone but the couple and their friends, as children say, “it’s none of your bees-wax.” Andrew Sullivan, a writer, is a gay man and writes from the aspect of a gay man who wants the ability for gays and lesbians to marry. He answers questions and general curiosities openly in his article. One of his main points is that “no one is seeking to take away anybody’s right to marry, and no one is seeking to force any church to change any doctrine in any way… We are only asking that when the government gives out civil marriage licenses, those of us are gay should be treated like anybody else”. The revolution of marriage started back when women were married as men’s property, to marriages of the same race, and now we are at a time when people of the same sex want to be married. Change is needed for this next chain in the revolution. No one has “… any more of a choice to be gay than to be black or white or male or female”.

In the year 1996, we like to think that everything is “politically correct.” By tackling some issues and taking a close look at them, we see that our world is not a politically correct world, at least I do not believe so. Anna Quindlen concludes her essay very optimistic, “only twenty-five years ago and it was a crime for a black woman to marry a white man. Perhaps twenty-five years from now we will find it just as incredible that two people of the same sex were not entitled to legally commit themselves to each other”. Everyone has a right to full happiness no matter what your color, race, or sexual preference may be. Let our country try to provide “liberty and justice for all.”