Sorry if this was posted already.

www.msnbc.com/news/353878.asp

Followers turn on Y2K-doom gurus

Apocalyptic Web sites stuffed with angry subscriber e-mail

By Hanna Rosin, WASHINGTON POST

Jan. 5  Five days after the millennial moment struck, the lights are still on, the faucets are still running, and the ATMs are still giving out cash.

Good news for everyone but the Y2K doomsayers, who, according to their annoyed followers, have a lot of explaining to do.

Some, and perhaps many, Y2K bugs have not become visible yet.  ED YOURDON Y2K guru

SOON AFTER the nations computers hit the 00s without mishap, the angry e-mails started pouring in. By yesterday, the discussion forums for the dozen or so most popular Internet Y2K gurus were stuffed with recriminations.

Why, the thousands of disillusioned preparers seethed, had they wasted their time, their faith and their money getting ready for an apocalypse that never materialized? And was anyone now prepared to apologize?

Some accountability here is required, I believe, began an Open Letter to Ed Yourdon, considered the thinking mans Y2K guru. An MIT graduate and computer consultant, Yourdon over the past two years sold 250,000 copies of his book Time Bomb 2000, thanks partly to its now infamous back cover inscription: Saturday, January 1, 2000. Suddenly, nothing works. Not your phones, not the cash machine, not even your fancy new VCR.

It may be just my opinion, but I feel that you shoulder much of the blame for the fear, Uncertainty and Doubt that has propagated throughout the internet, and into the mainstream regarding Y2K, continued the letter, signed by Hoffmeister, who described himself as a longtime subscriber. Even now, you apparently refuse to admit you were wrong. . . . Tis long past time to end the BS, Mr. Yourdon.

TOUCH OF MELODRAMA

Yourdon told followers that the letters he was receiving were evenly split between those who thanked him for helping them prepare and those who chastised him, yet in his open letter back he did not exactly apologize. Instead, like most of the other gurus, he deferred.

Some, and perhaps many, Y2K bugs have not become visible yet, he wrote on his Web site on the quiet morning of Jan. 1, then ran through a page of technical glitches that suggested doom could still arrive.

Hundreds of e-mails also poured into a site established by Gary North, a well-known Cassandra who had urged people to do what he did: flee to a mountain hideaway to gird against Y2K disaster.

I suppose youre just a bit disappointed that the world will not embrace you as their prophet mentor and saviour, wrote one follower, who accused North of profiteering.

North did not exactly recant, but he came closer than Yourdon. In his defense against profiteering, he reminded readers that he gave up a possibly lucrative business venture to start his much less profitable Y2K Web site.

He conceded that he had encouraged families to spend money and gain safety and reserves for their neighbors and that it had done them no good. I plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court, he wrote, with a touch of melodrama.

WORLD FAILS TO END

Still, many were unmoved. Who wants to get with me in a class action suit? asked one reader.

As always happens when apocalypse fizzles, some stuck with their leaders. They conceded they had been wrong about disaster during the rollover of the calendar but clung to the new, long-term metaphor, death by 1,000 cuts  a phrase repeated dozens of times in the e-mails. Protectively, they shared Strategies for Dealing With Ridicule. I know you were no charlatan, one long-term subscriber wrote, expressing her hope-tinged fear that were not out of the woods yet.

In one of the most moving letters, a man who described himself as deeply religious acknowledged his mixed emotions. He had spent thousands of hours reading the Y2K Web sites, following the advice.

We have been waiting, we have been watching for over thirty years now, he wrote about him and his family. With each new abomination we grow more desolate, I fear we even grow more tired.

He acknowledged being confused about why, once again, the world had failed to end. Somehow, though, even this latest disappointment did not erode his belief.

Dr. Gary North, he closed his letter. I believe that you are as of now, one of the unsung heroes of history.

) 2000 The Washington Post Company

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), January 06, 2000

Answers

That makes no sense - take some accountability for your own actions, people. Lots of people were telling you not to prepare and some people were telling you that you should. Obviously someone was going to be wrong. You made your own bed - now sleep in it.

Me, I'm holding on to my preps. "It ain't over 'til it's over!"

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 06, 2000.

It is pretty sad though if you think about it, people getting together in the spirit of common concern about an unknown future and having it end up with nothing but in-fighting, hostility and pathetic attempts to recapture what they once had?

And the really sad thing is how the whole country seems to have come to watch, TB2000 is getting mentions in all of the regular media as the place that "the survivalists on the internet that that well known programmer runs" hang out hoping that the end still will come. All of the attention they always wanted and now that they are getting it ~shaking my head~..... Just so sad......

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), January 06, 2000.

Au Contraire, Cherri, the publicity has many newcomers arriving and discovering the continuing debate, the archives, the "untold story."

It's not over but it sure looks better than anticipated!

-- happy doomer (like@modern.world), January 06, 2000.

Gee whiz Cherri don't let the tears get all balled-up, let 'em out if you feel that way. I don't think anybody ever imagined that you might possibly even care at all. What-A-Surprise. You mean all of those irritating and acidic, self-promoting posts of yours were actually "Words of Love and Caring"? I NEVER in my wildest dreams, even once considered that you might have a heart. Frankly I still can't believe it. WOW!!!

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000.

BTW Cherri, I still think that with a little creativity, fiction studies, etc. you could probably be a fairly decent propagandist.

You're just not there yet.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000.

All of what Yourdon, Gary North and others have been speaking and writing about these past two years, does amount to a hill of beans, as a matter of fact, mountains and mountains of beans. I think I'll donate some of my beans, dried peas, and oodles of noodles and macaroni to schools for art projects. At least something good will come out of my preps.

-- bean pot (beanpot@beanpottt.xcom), January 06, 2000.

Cherri:

No. Pretty noble when you think about it. Thousands of people sharing time, space, and energy to form a virtual community of support, for the good of each and all. Is community already so powerful and vibrant where you are, Cherri, that you can afford to come to this one and spread discouragement?

I'm not a prepper. I just found this forum [and many of the issues herein] over the New Year when I was looking [hard] for reasonably objective coverage of y2k.

I don't know your reasons for coming to this forum, Cherri, but I and many like me appreciate the integrity and goodwill of the e-community that has arisen here. If you can do better, why don't you participate in community *building* yourself? I, myself, prefer not to see this one torn down or ridiculed into silence.

Can you honestly say that the overall quality of information or discourse is higher in network television? In the realm of national politics?

If you prefer the agendas and perspectives of MSNBC or the NY Times to the ones that are here, then don't spend so much time here.

This community, like all vibrant, healthy communities, has a very living political debate and discussion between its various dynamic perspectives. Viva la differance. The intensity of the dialectic brings this forum alive! And the rigour with which assertions and issues are challenged and examined lends greater confidence to the intelligent reader than does most "mainstream" pabulum. But is it "mainstream" anymore? It is now the new millenium. The internet *is* now the new *mainstream*. And *here* is now where it is happening. If you don't like the message, you can't handle the medium.

If you want pat, easy answers, that avoid the power and intensity of *true* intellectual [and political, in ways] debate, then you have not only come to the wrong forum, you live in the wrong country [assuming you're American].

**Freedom** still reigns, here, Ms. Cherri. I pray we all acquire the ability to pause for a moment, and consider just what we are doing [and why] before we rush to judge and condemn it.

-- tim phronesia (phronesia@webtv.net), January 06, 2000.

Oh, it's not over yet? We're not over the woods yet?

I knew from the beginning that Yourdon was a profiteering BS artist, as were the other Y2K prophets predicting doom and disaster. I knew years ago that the world would get the problems fixed, and nothing would come crashing down.

I am feeling quite smug right now. I drove by the Home Base a few days ago, and there were dozens of people returning generators, flashlights, etc. Yourdon among other contributed to this "hysteria" by making false and foolish claims. Now that they are proven WRONG, they can't even admit defeat -- they go on to say "It still could happen!"

News flash -- NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. WE FIXED THE Y2K PROBLEM.

So my question is, how long do I have to wait? All of you say that it can take days, weeks, months for problems to show up. How long? How long before I can come back to this message board and gloat? Three months? Or will you fools have thought up yet another excuse of why something still may happen?

-- lex (lex_luthor@iname.com), January 06, 2000.

Easy now. Step away from the kryptonite.

-- (dailypl@net.net), January 06, 2000.

Tim,

:::clap:::clap:::clap:::clap!

Very well said!

Being new to this forum, you couldn't possibly know that this is how Cherri operates; it is her mindset, if you will.

Nice to have you here with us. Please try to apply some sort of filter and visit often; this forum has a real treasure of intelligent, articulate, reasoned and polite folks from both 'camps'... I think you'd enjoy some of our conversations.

Sometimes one needs to fine-tune things to alleviate the 'noise-to- signal' ratio, however.....

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), January 06, 2000.

Tim says "freedom" reigns here!!!

I don't think so.

And if you consider a forum full of rumors that go unchallenged a community, then you've got a lot to learn.

I sure am glad this whole thing is over. (I know, I know, most here don't think it is. Well, they're as wrong as they always have been).

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), January 06, 2000.

So if it's over, Buddy, what the hell are YOU doing here?

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), January 06, 2000.

What am I doing here? To gloat. To call YOU a sheep, a fool, someone who can't think for himself. I am laughing at all of you. I am sitting here in smug delight. And to think, some of you still hold on, "maybe something will still happen". Almost as if you WANT disaster, just so you can save face.

I love it. I can't wait until all of you abandon this Y2K thing, and just latch onto another stupid idea -- that will turn out to be a joke as well, so I can just follow you and laugh at you again.

-- lex (lex_luthor@iname.com), January 07, 2000.