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Wednesday, April 4, 2001
| POSTVIEW | EDITORIAL |
Explaining Uncle Sma We live in a world of high technology, where computers check spelling and editors relax in lounge chairs, wondering why they even bother coming to work. If you have any doubts in this regard, talk to Uncle Sma and Mr. Name. Uncle Sma resides in Cypus, whose capital is (why not?) Havna. The ruler there is called Klau. He is generally referred to by natives as the Frankfurer. What, you ask us, is going on? We have lately wondered the same thing. Consider the events of Feb. 26. On that otherwise uneventful Monday, the day we send this newspaper to press, Uncle Sma secretly occupied Alan Levy's Prague Profile. An otherwise graceful piece titled "Dinner with Vaclav Klaus" was suddenly victimized by a fit of software rage. Software, like baby seals and other generally benign species, generally just sits around awaiting orders: file, save, forward, delete -- even fetch. Ah, but make software angry -- rage at its limitations and insult its sensibilities -- and, well, that's where Uncle Sma comes in. We'd like to think of Uncle Sma as the mischievous patron saint of software. The uncle who, when miffed, shouts "fatal error" at innocent text and ships it off to Cypus, where Klau the Frankfurer waits, licking his chops. Thus it was that Uncle Sma, in a fit of envy, hijacked Alan Levy's column, leaving behind all manner of devastation. Sam became Sma, Cyprus became Cypus, Klaus was Klau, and so on. Our readers were alternately amused and enraged. You silly people, said some, you cannot spell. You devious people, said others, you are disrespectful. Who, asked a few, is Uncle Sma? Truth is, we have no idea how Uncle Sma came to be, or just who he is. He just, well, invented himself. He knocked on our door and made himself comfortable -- not bothering to introduce himself until he had ink on his hands, and had put egg on our faces. We were left to apologize to you, our readers, and to wonder aloud at those who propagate the idea that technology is infallible, that such programmed safety nets as "spell check" can really save the world from the alarming deviousness of shrewd Uncle Sma and Klau, the Havna Frankfurer. Best, we thought at the time, simply to laugh, and then to laugh some more -- since tears do little good. But just as we thought we'd beaten Uncle Sma, or at least locked him up in a broom closet, he became the postman, knocking twice. In an otherwise intact March 28 front page featuring interviews with Ivan Langer and Jiri Pehe, Uncle Sma decided to pay a visit to Jiri Balvin, the interim head of Czech state television. Uncle Sma determined that the photograph of Balvin wasn't right or appropriate. On Cypus, said Sma, you call a man only by his Name. And that's just what Sma did -- he called Balvin Name. We, in turn, called Balvin, or did so in our embarrassed dreams, hoping he might formally consider changing his name to Jiri Name. He declined, explaining that, as a man of television, he had his own troubles with Uncle Sma. Yes, of course, we will strive to be more careful. We will board up our windows and hide our firstborn. We will avoid saying anything untoward about Klau the Frankfurer. But the truth is that if Uncle Sma is in our glass house, he's in your glass house, too. A bit of advice: Don't be cruel. Leftover 'Euro'-communism By David B. Brown Britain still open for business By David Broucher 'That King fellow, he done do no harm' E-MALE |
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