Forum Flashbacks: Feb. 20-26
MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, FEB. 22, 2000
25 YEARS AGO: Playground fun – Horace Mann Learning Center kindergarten students (from left to right) Kelsey Coats, Erin Mullins and Taylor Ross, “monkey around” during a warm weather spell recently.
25 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, Feb. 20, 2000
Editorial: Are our homes still private?
The sanctity of our own homes is one thing that seemingly no one can take away. But do we still have privacy at home? Unfortunately, the answer is beginning to be no.
For the most part, people do not enjoy receiving calls from telemarketers. When they contact us at home, especially at dinner time, it feels as though they are invading our personal space. After a long day at work, it is nice to enjoy some uninterrupted time with our friends and/or family. …
If it seems like telemarketers couldn’t get any nosier, then think again. Thanks to the Internet, things might get much more personal. It is likely that they will soon be able to contact you with a rudimentary knowledge of your life as a consumer.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit last month against an online advertising agency called Double Click. This company is able to track consumers’ buying habits and then sell them to advertising companies.
The goal is to create more specifically targeted advertising.
Double Click plans on tracking customers by cross referencing information obtained by “cookies,” which are small files that a Web site deposits on your hard drive, often with a unique number that identifies the user’s computer.
Having a history of what products someone views online is like hitting the jackpot for a market research company. If it shows up that a web surfer frequently visits the websites of clothing retailers, then they could receive many phone calls and mailings concerning clothes.
Double Click has defended itself by saying that it is helping consumers and that they “strongly believe that consumers want to receive information about goods and services that interest them.”
People, generally, enjoy a certain level of privacy and, as earlier stated, do not like to be bothered at home. People seek information on their interests, instead of waiting for phone calls and mailings.
If talking on the phone to a stranger who knows your name seems annoying, then imagine how annoyed you’ll be by a stranger who knows where you shop. This all seems like nothing more than an invasion of privacy.
100 years ago
The Maryville Daily Democrat-Forum, Feb. 24, 1925
Local Officers Are Probing Red Tie Mania Here
If you observe Harve England, Barney Dougan or any other police officers tottering about in a careworn sort of way, their gum shoes run over at the heels, give the poor fellows your sympathy.
They are at their wits’ end trying to solve the source of this mania for red ties which is raging like a pestilence here in Maryville.
In the opinion of those high in the intelligence service of the local police department, the red tie is the deepest laid plot yet attempted by the bolsheviki to sow discord and havoc in the hearts of young America. It is the efforts of the intelligence department to link this outbreak with the agents of the Soviet that has worn Harve, Barney and the rest of the bunch to a frazzle.
The malignant outbreak of red ties first occurred about two weeks ago. The first fourteen young men to appear in crimson cravats were seized and rushed to the hospital isolation wards as scarlet fever victims, it is reported the mistake was not discovered until four of the young men had been injected with antitoxin.
Investigation is also being made of a report that two of the red tie victims last week were rushed to the hospital and given blood transfusions under the erroneous impressions their throats had been slashed.
Local clothing stores report a tremendous demand for the red cravat. Ninety-five per cent of those afflicted want bow ties, but an occasional four-in-hand is sold. The bow ties usually are equipped with elastic so they may be pulled forward and snaped at the Adam’s apple.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 100-year flashback is courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.
