The end of an era

Well, folks, I knew this day was coming.

After hundreds of issues of The Last Word, I think it's time to move on.

No, I'm not shutting down The Last Word. (I really had you scared for a moment, didn't I?) But due to circumstances beyond my control, The Last Word's e-mail list on Yahoo is reaching its closure after 9 years. I for one won't miss dealing with it, as it is on Yahoo.

My first Last Word e-mail list, of 1995-96, ended in shambles for several reasons. For starts, AOL kept splitting issues in half. For another thing, assholes kept signing up for my list just so they could complain it was "spam."

I started the current list on eGroups in 1999. But in 2000, Yahoo took over eGroups. In postdemocratic America, greed-driven corporate mergers are considered a constitutional right, you know.

There The Last Word stayed. When I discovered Yahoo enjoyed ratting out journalists to the Chinese government, I wrote a piece in The Last Word begging and pleading for Yahoo to kick me off their miserable system so I could go out with a bang! But they didn't budge! They didn't want to make me a martyr for freedom of conscience.

By then, Yahoo was known for shutting down groups and e-mail lists for no apparent reason. When moderators of the deleted lists asked why, Yahoo replied that they couldn't divulge why. ("You just don't argue anymore...")

But The Last Word's mailing list lived on!

Until now.

Yesterday, when I put out my latest issue, I tried e-mailing it to my Yahoo list as always. It never got through. I tried it again today. Again, it never got through.

Apparently, Yahoo is blocking my newsletter from going through at all - thus rendering the e-mail list useless. Only the very naive would think this isn't because of the contents.

Therefore I shall be shutting down my Yahoo list this evening. Fuck you hard, Yahoo, for taking over eGroups. And for reporting journalists to the Chinese government to be imprisoned just for doing their job. Yahoo is an American-based company, and American companies do not rat out journalists to oppressive foreign regimes just for the way they report the news.

I really wanted to get my Yahoo account yanked a couple years ago, and I regret not being able to do it then.

The U.S. government needs to step in and review the takeover of eGroups and let eGroups be split off again. And it needs to crack down on American companies who collude with oppressive regimes abroad. Congress needs to pass a law barring American companies from turning in journalists.

I plan to post this notice on my Last Word e-mail list, but it probably won't do any good, as Yahoo is blocking my posts. In case anyone does read it there though, I plan to continue The Last Word, which you can find at:

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword

Because The Last Word is largely overtaken by The Online Lunchpail, my popular blog, you can find that at:

http://onlinelunchpail.blogspot.com/

In the immortal words of Judge Paul Trevor: That'll be all.