I think that I have told you I have a friend that is pretty high up in the "gubmint". I have deleted names here as to protect him and the dept. This was an email that I received this morning from his home computer. The y2k meetings that he refers to are headed by Ko-sic-em. Taz

Would you believe that the..... Dept complained that my innocuous little brochure is "too alarmist"! I nearly hit the roof! It will be interesting to see, if all the things the govt. is denying will happen actually happen, just what reaction the people will have. More fodder for the Montana crazies who think the govt. is out to get us all! These idiots don't understand even the smallest differences, such as the difference between stockpiling and panic buying. The Red Cross is saying, "Just treat Y2K the way you would treat the prediction of a snowstorm." EXCUSE ME...THAT'S panic buying! I get so frustrated with this kind of stupidity that I have refused to substitute for....... at the Y2K meetings. I know I won't be able to keep my mouth shut, and they don't want to be challenged in their pontificating and smug feelings of "this won't happen." Must confess I'm still somewhere in the middle between you and them, but even that is too much, in their view. They won't listen to anyone who doesn't accept their cautious approach completely. So I stay in my office and wait for January, both to see what happens and to f-ing RETIRE! When I'm out, I may be victim of their stupidity, but at least I won't feel that I'm contributing to it!

Later...

__________

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), June 06, 1999

Answers

Taz,

Notice that the American Bankers Association is one of the groups helping with the "community conversations"...

http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990524S0025

[bold emphasis mine]

Citizens Can Motivate Y2K Laggards

(05/24/99, 5:12 p.m. ET)

By Mary Mosquera, TechWeb

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- Citizen groups may be able to pressure local business and government to finally start preparing for the year 2000 computer bug, the nation's Y2K czar said Monday.

The administration launched a national campaign of "Y2K Community Conversations" to bring together citizens and the providers most responsible in delivering local critical services, said John Koskinen, chair of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. Until now, Y2K readiness has focused on the federal government, large corporations, and the nation's major industries.

"Our greatest domestic risks for year 2000-related failures are at the local level," Koskinen said. Small and mid-sized businesses are most likely to start fixing their equipment late. And many city managers, mayors, and county executives mistakenly take the stance that the Y2K bug will not affect them and will just wait and see what happens, he said. "Community Conversations are meant to bring local providers and citizen groups together to encourage laggards to get started," Koskinen said.

"Americans want to know what Y2K stories will affect them," said Louis Barton, director Y2K compliance at Frost Bank in San Antonio, Texas, and leader of a community Y2K group there. The hope is that as local providers listen to the Y2K remediation work going on in their industry or in their community and consumers are asking for real information, the hold-outs will at least get started on Y2K preparations, Koskinen said.

Joose Hadley, started Citizens for a Stable Community in Clearwater, Fla., to address Y2K issues with local government, business, and religious leaders. "How else are people going to get prepared without scaring them. It effectively motivates people who need to give information. And citizens are calmed when they get information from the horse's mouth," Hadley said.

The first "Community Conversations" are set June 7 in Hartford, Conn., and following in Green Bay, Wis., Frankfort, Kentucky, and Columbus, Ohio later that month.

The federal government cannot mandate that providers prepare for Y2K, but the president's council is working with 20 major national associations, such as the American Bankers and American Hospital Associations, to encourage local participation. The president's Y2K council has assembled a packet to help groups organize community gatherings about the millennium date rollover.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 06, 1999.

These "meetings" will be nothing more than "I'm ok, you're ok" PR- types blowing their own horns. If I was FORCED to attend one, I'd hang my head in shame (at least until I got inside...and then, they'd just wind up throwing me out)

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 06, 1999.

And its only NOW that he noticed that they (the small cities, towns, and local utilities) provide the local services?????

There is absolutely no reason he could not have done this last March - March 1998 that is....there is no more, and no less information, available now than then about the degree of the "local" problem and the extent of the effort needed to fix it.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), June 06, 1999.