Volume 5
March 1989-February 1990

All Roads Lead To the Info Highway

If the old Macintosh was like Steve [Wozniak]'s head, the new Macintosh is like [John] Sculley's. In a slow, constant pursuit of perfection, it gets slightly better every year, without ever taking a major leap in any direction. The new Macintosh looks every bit as friendly on the outside, but inside, it's all business. And when you turn it around, you find it functioning as a master computer connected to a spider web of subordinate but autonomous machines.

Today the designers don't talk about changing the world at Apple, they talk about linking up to it. The cover of the 1988 Annual Report states, "The individual is at the center of everything we do." But the new buzzword at Apple isn't personal power--it's networking. There is talk about data freeways that can transfer vast amounts of data to various locations in corporate America. The Macintosh will be the personal window into a vast electronic neural network linking everybody in a corporation to a master machine. It is, in a sense, a quantum leap backwards, back to the mainframe monster that Jobs and Wozniak sought to supplant with their friendly little personal computer. It's a vision far more like 1984 than anyone would have ever expected. Perhaps Macintosh has gone from being the computer for the rest of us, to the computer for the rest of them.

--Gigi Bisson, "Apple Today: The Pinstripes Behind the Rainbow," March 23, 1989

Despite its fervent networking, Apple's market share is down, and rumors of a corporate shakeup are rife in the press.


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From Mean Streets To Clean Streets

At a 7-eleven, a cop is thumbing through magazines and talking to a night clerk. The cop warns against taking photos.

"Everybody's packing," he says. The police department stopped taking Stanford students on ride-alongs because of safety concerns when the streets of East Palo Alto became a war zone of mindless, crack-crazed violence. The "good citizens" of East Palo Alto stay indoors at night, the cop says--there's no reason to be on the streets if you're not there for the drugs. Nothing's more dangerous than a crack addict packing a gun, like the one that took down a police rookie last year. ...

These days, East Palo Alto is struggling for its survival and for its reputation. The town is deeply in debt, riddled with crime, drugs and a murder rate that rivals the frightening statistics of cities like Detroit, Washington, D.C., and L.A.

--Jim Wake, "A Tale of Two Cities," March 30, 1989

East Palo Alto isn't out of the woods yet, but it's inching closer. After earning the unfortunate, and some say undeserved, moniker of Murder Capital U.S.A., some neighboring cities decided to lend a hand. Starting in 1992, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, the San Mateo Sheriff's Department and the California Highway Patrol lent the city a total of 30 officers. Combined with the city's 35 officers, East Palo Alto was able to chop into its crime rate.

In 1992, 42 homicides were reported in East Palo Alto, most tied to drugs. In the first nine months of 1995 there were only four homicides, and only one was drug-related.


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Words That Hurt

Stanford University is trying to figure out what constitutes an appropriate ethnic remark. ... A proposal has been made to add freedom of speech guidelines to the Fundamental Standard, the 83-year-old student conduct code ...Under the new amendments students who ... [use] "personal abuse" or "defamation of groups" will be subject to suspension and expulsion. ... "Anybody concerned about the First Amendment should be worried," warned former President Emeritus Richard Lyman.

--Public Eye, April 6, 1989

Stanford's controversial speech code was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.


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Conventional Wisdom

The most important question that remains is the most basic one: Just what has $143 million bought for the people of San Jose? The physical results will be on view for the public to see this weekend, but only in several years will it be clear whether the new San Jose convention Center was a gamble that paid off.

--Jim Wake, "The Big Fix," April 13, 1989

The catchall "Raise the Roof" tag is a curious name for this weekend's celebration, because the Convention Center's humongous, silvery barrel-vault roof is already solidly in place. Critics have had a field day with that roof, calling it "the world's largest Quonset hut," "the blimp hangar," "the tapper," or even "three beer kegs in search of a party." The next couple of years will determine which nickname will stick; certainly we deserve something with a little more pizzazz than the rather conventional San Jose Convention Center.

--Gary Marker, "Roll Out the Barrel," April 13, 1989

It's got a new name now, and at least one ex-mayor probably believes the new moniker has plenty of pizzazz.


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The Weekly Grind

The business of publishing a community newspaper--even a successful one--produces profits that are marginal at best. Hours can be long, costs high. There's legal liability and powerful competition. There are merchants who only want to buy one ad a year. In short, to publish a paper in today's world--week after week or month after month--one must be driven by something more than the bottom line of the paper's financial statement.

--Corinne Asturias, "Between the Lines," May 4, 1989

Indeed, there must be some insanity at work as well. Metro Newspapers now owns some of the newspapers it profiled in this story, such as the Willow Glen Resident, Los Gatos Weekly-Times and Saratoga News. Who says it's not safe to talk to reporters?


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Takin' It From The Streets

First, let us consider a day in the life of a homeless male. It is not all bad. I was talking with a corporate exec and he confided to me a secret desire to get dirty, to smell as an unwashed and unperfumed man, to revert almost back to an animal stage. This the homeless know quite well, but most are ashamed of it. It is one thing to do it as an experiment, quite another to do it out of necessity.

--Jim Knightstad, "Street Talk," May 18, 1989


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Pink Badge of Courage

As an adult man now, there are many labels applied to me: engineer, businessman, single/eligible, Christina, bicyclist, friend, best friend, homeowner, wine connoisseur, Republican, good-looking and pleasant.

Last night, I had a new label given to me: faggot.

This one was hurled at me in hate from a passing car as I left the Club St. John (yes, it's one of "those" bars). I almost regarded this as getting my red badge of courage. You see, at age 31, I am "coming out." After 15 years of praying that God would take away these "unnatural" feelings, six years of therapy to get "cured" and God knows how many dates and failed relationships with women, I have faced facts. I have decided to recognize where my heart is leading me.

--Christopher Keating (a pen name), "Growing Pains," June 22, 1989


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Daily Grind Sharpens Its Ax

Mercury News Metro Editor Jonathan Krim, beset by anonymous staff pranksters, strolled into the newsroom one morning several weeks ago to find his office cordoned off with yellow police tape, the kind used to seal off murder investigation scenes. On the floor leading to his office doorway were the outlines of three cadavers. ...

The three silhouettes obviously referred to the latest Krim subordinates to fall by the wayside.

--John Whalen, The Daily Grind, Aug. 24, 1989

John Whalen takes his first stab at the paper of record. His column eventually cast a jaundiced eye over other Bay Area and national news media, but it retained a special interest in the workings of the Merc. Whalen took a "spring hiatus" in May 1993 that became permanent when he left Metro to co-author a book on conspiracy theories with former staffer Jonathan Vankin. Whalen now works in a new medium, creating original content for Metroactive, Metro's World Wide Web site.


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Few Bucks, Decent Bang

More than two months have passed since Mountain View's downtown renovation began, and merchants along Castro Street are not happy--and not just because of the battlefield-like conditions. Among other things, many local business owners consider the $11 million face lift unnecessary, fearing that it will ruin the shopping district's working-class character.

The downtown street, they say, was doing just fine. "We have a saying in the business," says Gary Plottel, owner of Harris Jewelers, "that if it's not broke, don't fix it. And it wasn't broke."

In addition, shopkeepers are convinced that once the project is completed, rents will skyrocket, making it impossible for them to survive.

--Bob Hansen, "Rubble Without a Cause," Aug. 24, 1989

Although locals predicted an exodus once Castro's renovation was complete, many more have prospered. The two-lane street is now a "shopping destination" complete with trees, benches and free parking. Some of the old businesses have closed, but others have moved into bigger spots, even spilling into the area's once-deserted side streets. And the city was able to accomplish it all without providing major public subsidies, unlike San Jose's large-scale, big-bucks approach to redevelopment.


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Body Count

Somehow, things went screwy. Back in '87, restaurateur Ken Williams ... signed on the dotted line and became the Pavilion's first tenant. Williams and his partners planned to open a two-story dining palace with outdoor seating. ... It would be part of a free-standing, ultra-high-tech, multi-screen theater complex that director George Lucas intended to build. Lucas, however, pulled out and [developer Melvin] Simon couldn't interest another theater operator. ... Simon brass has been shuttling Williams to its L.A. offices and is attempting to cash him out of the deal. Williams still would rather build his fantasy restaurant. ... What's likely to happen is that Simon will recover its investment, the city will get its land back and Williams will walk away with a chunk of cash. And in the process downtown will have lost a promising opportunity to add a unique project to its portfolio. With any great undertaking there are bound to be some casualties. But when there are pioneers' bodies lying along the road, followers will tread a little more carefully.

--Public Eye, Sept. 7, 1989

The story of Ken Williams came to a tragic close this summer after Judge Conrad Rushing tossed out Williams' claim that he had been damaged by the breached lease. "The court is quite sympathetic with Mr. Williams; he is in many ways the embodiment of the American dream and he represents many of the best aspects of American enterprise," Rushing said, noting, however, that "the plaintiff failed to carry his burden of proof with respect to emotional distress." A few days later, Williams was found dead, a hose hooked up to the tailpipe of his car, prescription drugs nearby.


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On to March 1990-February 1991

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