European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 21, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday december 21, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Howard Kleinberg computerization can bring a person Down it seemed simple enough when i handed the prescription to the woman at the pharmacy counter. But it was t. I m sorry she said a your computer is Down. We done to know when we will be Able to fill this  a excuse me a i responded in a slightly offended tone a but Don t you simply have to take 30 pills out of a big bottle and put them in a Little plastic Container what does a computer have to do with this a a we cannot file the prescription information without the  a Why done to you just write Down the information by hand fill my prescription and put it in the file when it comes Back up a a we cannot do  As 1 took Back the prescription to have it filled at a less sophisticated pharmacy i thought to myself How we have allowed ourselves to become so dependent on computers that we have lost sight of what we Are capable of doing without them. There Are fast food restaurants that cannot take your order for a hamburger when the computer is Down because the ordering form no longer is a waitresses voice. It is a Cash Register that is both a Cash depository and ordering device that serves As the Only allowable link Between the waitress and the Short order Cook even though they Are in speaking distance of one another. Recently i called an airline to find out if a friends flight was coming in on time t was told 1 could not get that information because the computers were Down. A what about the plane a i asked is that still up i Hope a the clerk did not appreciate my sarcasm. Now that i have teamed that my computer can calculate numbers on the command line 1 done to even add one and one by hand any More. What i write begins the path to publication Only through a computer. Done to hand in any typewritten columns there a no Way to get them into the  the Battery in my car recently went dead. After having a new Battery put in i drove off but immediately _ returned to the service station to complain that my car was driving Herky Jerky. A a that a because your Type of car has a computer in it a he tried to explain to me. A when you take out a Battery the computer goes Down and it has to re educate itself. Done to worry everything will be Normal in a Short  it was but really. In every facet of life we have built in such dependency on computers that we have rendered our selves helpless on matters that used to be reserved for our brain and our fingers. There was a time we could go into a neighbourhood grocery store and watch As the grocer added up your totals with a Pencil on the face of the big Brown bag into which he was going to put your groceries. If his Pencil Point broke he sharpened it with a pen knife and resumed the tally. Now your purchases Are scanned by a computer Reading bar codes and heaven forbid there is a Power failure there a no other Way you re going to get through the checkout line. That the computer is Down is an Alibi that has been accepted when anything goes wrong in a transaction. 1 Here is no human to blame or even to question the computer is Down of Well that s that everything stops. 3 b do not misunderstand me. 1 am for Progress. 1 think computers have been most helpful to our lives. But we have burned the Bridge behind us. We have created an environment where we have left ourselves no recourse but to be too reliant on computers no backup in Case they fail. When one on one relationships Are permanently separated by a machine containing bytes and motherboards things have gotten out of hand a so to speak. C con news sort Oceanna Quinn Lent enabling people to judge for themselves y\0�0 Tje v the aft user the abused the bogeyman of privacy zealots was1 powerfully evoked in a single sentence in George Orwell a 1984 a big brother is watching  it was the idea that soon we would All be under the constant watchful Eye of government our every move catalogued. We still sometimes feel this keenly when we discover that there is an Fri file on someone we know or when we receive a report from a credit Agency and see a late payment on a car loan from 1986 duly noted. What we never expected was turnabout and yet that is what we have seen in the last year. We Are the ones who Are watching. The Palm Beach rape Case the judiciary committee hearings a the unforgiving Eye has been our own thanks to the television cameras. Many of us started watching in january with the persian Gulf War and got up from our front Row seats after the a not guilty verdict last week. We covered All these things in newspapers too and often better if depth analysis and attention to detail Are synonymous with Quality. But in the a you Are there department there Are times when television can to be beat. The hearings on the fitness of judge Clarence Thomas and the accusations by professor Anita Hill that he had harassed her made such an indelible impression on us not Only because the events were startling and distressing but also because we sat across the table from them both. We heard the anger in his voice and the determination in hers. Afterwards we argued about who was telling the truth. But we did no to argue about whether we were competent to make the judgment. We came. We saw. We decided. The raw material from which we reporters build stories a most of it was there onscreen. It was the first time i can remember thinking that i could cover a Story just As Well from my living room As i could at the  probably saw More than we did a said a Friend who was in the hearing room. The Palm Beach rape Case was television on trial and it acquitted itself Well. Of the dire predictions for cameras in the courtroom that they would make participants nervous a As though anything could be More nerve racking than testifying in court. That they would cheapen the proceedings a which in Palm Beach seemed scarcely possible. That the Public might see trials As a horrors a entertainment Isnit that just How the Public saw them 100 years ago when they went to the courthouse because there were do multiplexes but the William Kennedy Smith trial was More than that. Even if it did not educate about the process or enlighten about the Taw it spoke to a widespread Public concern. I hear people continuing to argue Over the admissibility of prior acts the Wisdom of the anonymity Dot and what really happened to the pantyhose. But nowhere do i hear people saying that the trial was rigged. They saw the prosecutor heard the accusations listened to Smith. Overwhelmingly polls show they would have made the same decision As the jury did. And in a sense they feel that they participated in a process that we should remember was always meant to be Public. The limitations of television Are obvious. If we needed to know that to docs a questionable Job when it cannot get close to a Story but wants to pretend that it did we have Only to remember the graphics department whirligigs and computer generated Whiz Bangs of the Gulf lots of heat no Light. It took us the rest of this year to finally find out Many of the facts about the iraqi soldiers buried alive the american troops killed by Friendly fire the blood and the Sand. From january through december it was the year of the Glass Eye. We should never believe that it tells the entire Story. But it is Clear that there Are times when people want the scrim pulled aside the mediator banished the pick and choose that reporters do when faced with a full notebook surrendered to the Reader. They decided for themselves whether Anita Hill was telling the truth. They decided for themselves whether William Kennedy Smith was not guilty. All the arguments against televising such events Nave at their Core one unspoken dictum that people Are too credulous simplistic and unlettered a in other words dumb a to properly evaluate what they have seen. That big brother knows Best. That san elitist and a supercilious View it also happens to be wrong. C the now Yorito times