My Father passed away some ten years ago, at the time I was so upset that I was unable to express my feelings at his funeral. I seldom visit his grave side. Hardly a day goes by that I do not think of him.

When I was a teenager I was a little wild, did some things - boy was I a teenager! A few times my father lost it and we would scrap some. But, you know what? If the next day my father lifted his hand towards me, there was no need for me to cringe, for I knew his hand was lifted to reach for a wrench to help me fix my car, or to reach for a glove so we could play catch, or to grab me by the back of the neck and give me as much of a hug as I would allow. He loved me.

Ten years ago I visited my father in the ICU ward of the local VA Hospital. After the visit, I left his room and walked down the glass walled ICU hallway until I could see his bed once more. He motioned for me to return to the room. I entered and stood by his bedside, he said simply, "I love you Steve". I gave him a long hug.
Had the rest of our extended family been there he would have done the same to each one of them. Jake cared for his family, he loved every one of us, and we knew it.

Part of me died that night.

Since that time I have found that true love when given unconditionally, does not die, it becomes part and parcel of who we are and all that we ever hope to become. My fathers love lives in me and grows, and I have given it freely to my son. I am now able to share some of that love with the people who read my articles.

If your life has been without love, let me share some of what my father left in me. If your life is without love, you be the one to start loving others, you be the one to begin the legacy of love in your bloodline, you be the one!

I have heard it said that the internet and the information super highway are a solution to a problem that didn't exist. Many look at the internet as an expensive toy, or even worse, as a medium which will expose our children to smut and the evils of society.

The fact is, the users, abusers, and extremists have always been able to command the focus of our society. All they need do is rape another of our mothers, kill yet another of our children, or bomb a building, and the media instantly exalts them to the status of "hero". They are called despots and the horror of their actions are brought to our attention, but the fact that they garner the front page and the majority of the nightly news day after day, while the real heros of society are relegated to a few articles in the Sunday section and minutes devoted to sick children and puppy dogs in distress, insures that the despots remain the focus of society. This is actually not a direct incrimination of most members of our media, (although I do exempt certain maggots of the media from this disclaimer) it is just the nature of the beast. If it were not for the publics insatiable addiction for the sensational and bizarre the media would not be forced to constantly remind us of the ills of society. Again, I do not hold our people directly at fault, for we are genuinely concerned for our children and are worried about what society is becoming. We are mesmerized by the allure of these events and we become addicted, convinced that our society is going to hell!

The majority of Americans are good, caring people who are rightfully concerned about our society. This illusive silent majorities voice remains muted, in that any call for normalcy can not compete with the ratings points automatically given the users, abusers, and extremists. Although they are not who we are, they are harbingers of who we may become if the good in society do not find a voice and somehow intervene.

We have at our disposal a powerful tool, if we decide to exercise it's potential, in the internet. I am not referring to the obvious potential of business applications or entertainment. The potential power I am suggesting is that of the ability of the average person to publish works and have those endeavors viewed by thousands of people from all parts of the world. I have been trying to publish my works on depression, suicide, and meaningful social change since 1978 without success. My failure to be published has much to do with not having the proper credentials, the inability of publishers readers to recognize an original thought, and the fact that my material has never fit the criteria of the current fad in publishing. The internet has changed much of that by allowing anyone to publish works without regard to their credentials, their race, age, gender, or any other type restriction. (At least up until now.) It is now possible for a grandmother to talk about her life, educate and comfort other bi-polar depressives, and share with us the pride she has in her lovely family. A retired policeman is allowed to convince us that the bad press is not indicative of the many good, caring, at risk officers who help protect us from ourselves. Psychologists have a chance to reach out to the community and magnify their ability to educate us about mental health problems. Teens are allowed to showcase their computer abilities, and aid us when designing web pages. What I see is people caring about others, people helping people.

Of course this new publishing freedom has allowed abuse of the system free reign in the form of misinformation, child porn, racism, and a host of other forums readily employed by the users, abusers, and extremists. As always the traditional press has put this abuse in the limelight, to the point that legislation is being considered to restrict freedom on the internet, and to the extent that many people now view the internet as the tool of the devil. But, as far as the internet alone is concerned, no one faction is able to control the focus of the people who use the internet. (although the bias of who is and who is not listed, and where they are listed by the search engines does have considerable influence) We all have the choice of which sites we visit. Because of this fact, we the people who take responsibility for our lives and our actions, and the people who care about others and our society, are now, for the first time in history on equal footing with those who would do harm to others in pursuit of their own selfish and perverted ends.

This places an awesome responsibility on those of us who maintain sites which help others through timely information and mutual support. We have the responsibility to keep our sites truthfully informative, up to date, pleasant, entertaining, interesting, and wholesome. Further this must be done to such an extent that we actually entice readers to our "corner" of the web and away from sites which may be harmful, especially for our children.

While responsible authoring and maintenance of our individual sites is extremely important, separately we have little chance to steal the thunder from our adversaries and thereby gain the focus of society. But, by the use of networking and pooling our efforts we have the opportunity to exercise our rightful voice in society, that being the voice of reason.

I have a few ideas on variations of networking, and I would like to present one of them, we can kick it around and see what happens. I envision a series of virtual networking "tours" around cyberspace, where owners of responsible sites design special pages which become part of a tour taken by children and young adults. These pages would be age specific, grouped by tours for elementary, middle school, high school, and college. The site owners or maintainers would design the tour pages targeting the age group they felt most comfortable with. The pages would present the content of each particular web site in age specific language, certainly not talking down to the children, but in an understandable, informative, interesting, and fun way.

The owners of tour "terminal" sites would screen for acceptable tour pages, sign up children of different age groups, and organize tours into a host of differing areas of cyberspace. Tours would visit foreign countries, minority communities, mental health and general health sites, industry, web page design sites, children's sites, etc. Badges could be awarded after completion of a number of tours, which the children could display on their web sites, or email certifications sent for those without sites of their own.

For the young adults the pages would be designed to aid them in their research when writing school papers. Further, tour pages could be designed for yourg adults aiding them in making decisions on what major to declare, career choices, and aid them when looking for a job upon graduation. They then would be able to make informed decisions about their life based on information given them from the real world by people actually working in the industries and disciplines of interest to them. How many of us who have graduated from college and/or the school of hard knocks have said "if only I would have" or "if only I had known"? Why shouldn't we convey that knowledge to our young people, giving them an opportunity to begin their careers a little less painfully then we have?

Some of the most responsible and caring people I have ever met have been teenagers. Where would many of us be if it were not for sites which have helped us learn html and web page design? Many of those helpful sites are designed by teens. Would it be possible for high school aged teens to design tour pages which would be helpful to kids in jr. high or middle school? They could discuss what to expect in high school, what they did to overcome inappropriate peer pressure in jr. high, and just help them through the most difficult period of growing up.

There are many of us in society who would be mentor to our young if it were not for the constraints of time, the competition from TV and the internet and peers, and the fact that until now there has been no opportunistic forum in which to relate. The internet affords us an opportunity to mentor our young, if we take the initiative and nurture its potential.

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