The Internet!

When you think about it, every one of us have more than a library of information at our fingertips. It is wonderful to be able to search for most any topic and find something . . . sometimes more than we can read. It's a wonderful frontier for the curious and for educational purposes.

The Net is just that, however, a new frontier with all the delights and problems that comes with something new to a world of people. Sort of like when new territories in America were discovered - new laws had to be put into place to govern. With the Net we have an entirely new and vast new arena.

The Net brings the world together, it brings countries together, it lets businesses operate more effeciently and it brings people together. It lets rural America link up with the metro areas and, for others, helps alleviate lonliness.

The chat rooms are some of the most attended areas of the Net. Thousands of people log on and talk for hours at a time. They make friends there and make dates there. You can even have an online marriage, honeymoon and divorce. But beware - that prince charming or that playboy bunny might not be so nice. There have been murders that have occurred from real live dates made in chat rooms. So don't be stupid about it; protect yourself and make up a total separate identity if you want to play this game - everyone else does. Safety is a real issue here and children playing these grown up games have been abducted or lured to their deaths this way. Be very careful.

With all these good things to offer, the Net also has its downside. It can bring into your home and to not only your eyes but the eyes of your children, some of the most graphic sleaze and violence there is out there.

While the Net is a venture of profit, it is also a vehicle that can and will change our values and our culture.

Congress will decide the path to take; perhaps lay come basic ground rules for us to follow, but do we want censorship? Who is going to tell us what we can and cannot see?

Perhaps instead there should just be a warning label that pops up before you enter online that says, proceed at your own risk. Or perhaps there should be a block box of some kind to restrict children from certain areas of the Net, instead of just the question of "are you 18?" which is just a blinking neon sign to anyone to proceed out of curiosity if nothing else.

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