Published: April 06, 2008 04:48 pm            

Weekly wrap - Monday, April 7, 2008

On JuicyCampus.com:

Free speech continues to be tested on new frontiers, including one with the rather titillating name of JuicyCampus.com.

This online college gossip site includes anonymous allegations and commentary that traditional media for decades would have considered libelous to print.

There are plenty of defamatory comments that could injure someone’s reputation on JuicyCampus.com. Whether the information is false is unknown. The folks running the Web site don’t know, either, and so far, the courts have ruled that they need not know, and basically, they need not care. It’s similar to saying people who provide you a telephone aren’t responsible for what you say on it.

The Web site’s terms and conditions state that users agree not to post content that is, among other things, abusive, defamatory, obscene or an invasion of privacy. Clearly, many users aren’t following those terms and conditions.

But that’s where the responsibility must remain — with the people who use the site.

It would be great if a little civility would break out on this new frontier. Absent that, the nastiness will continue unless reasonable and reliable methods emerge to identify and hold accountable originators of libelous statements.

– The Herald-Times, Bloomington

On Carl Erskine:

It was 50 years ago when the jet airplane and indifferent Brooklyn city leadership enabled the Dodgers major league baseball club to make the move to Los Angeles.

One of the players who made the trip from the East Coast to the West is one of Anderson’s favorite sons, Carl Erskine. He got the call from Dodgers manager Walt Alston to pitch the very first game in Los Angeles.

It is appropriate, if not mandated, that Erskine was called upon to be involved in the ceremonies at Dodger Stadium to open what will be a year of celebration for the storied baseball franchise.

Erskine’s contributions, here and in Los Angeles, have always been about much more than on-field accomplishments. Erskine was an ally of Jackie Robinson when Robinson broke major league baseball’s color barrier in 1947. Here in Anderson, Erskine has been a tireless community servant, advocate and philanthropist.

Through two recent ownership transfers of the team, the Dodgers have always requested the Anderson native’s presence on these special occasions, and he has enjoyed maintaining the contact.

The city of Anderson gladly shares one of its most prominent citizens with Los Angeles and the Dodgers, just as long as the ticket that the team sent to him was round-trip.

– The Herald Bulletin, Anderson

On BioTown:

Three years ago, Reynolds, a town of about 550 people, set out to become the first U.S. community to meet all of its energy needs through renewable sources. The goal was to create a model for other communities to follow, but now locals are beginning to wonder how much of the original vision will ever come about.

It’s clear that some of the project’s original goals were unrealistic.

BioTown leaders learned early on, for example, that it would be nearly impossible to take Reynolds off an established electricity grid. Instead, they determined that what alternative energy the town produced would likely need to be sold to a power company to offset the use of traditional sources of energy.

Organizers also hoped to break ground in November 2006 on a $10 million facility that would house the core equipment needed to turn manure and other biomass material into energy, and the plant would be generating electricity by last July. That hasn’t happened.

Clearly, Reynolds will not be self-sufficient as quickly as organizers of the project had hoped, but that is no reason to give up the effort. The key to this effort is patience.

At a time when gasoline prices are at their highest point ever, it’s clear that the United States needs finally to get serious about alternative energy sources. Projects like the one in Reynolds will show the way.

– Pharos-Tribune, Logansport

        

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