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E-Mail and Flames.

Terry talks with New Yorker writer John Seabrook about the downside of electronic mail. Then she gets a response from Stewart Brand, the inventor of The Well, a computer conference system. . . Last January Seabrook wrote an article in the New Yorker magazine about Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates. Seabrook was flooded with electronic mail as a result, and to his surprise he was "flamed" for the first time. In Internet jargon, to be "flamed" is to receive an obscene or derogatory E-mail message. Seabrook said he'd never received anything like it before. His article about the lawless frontier of computer networks appears in the May 30, 1994 issue of the magazine, "My First Flame."

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Other segments from the episode on June 8, 1994

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, June 8, 1994: Interview with John Seabrook and Stewart Brand; Interview with Gretel Ehrlich; Review of Jon Secada's album "Heart, Soul and A Voice".
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15:27

Life After Being Struck By Lightning.

Writer and former film maker Gretel Ehrlich is the author of "The Solace of Open Spaces," a collection of essays about life on Wyoming's high plains. It was while walking on the Wyoming plains, that Ehlrich was struck by lightning. The force of it threw her forty feet, severely damaged part of her nervous system, and sent her into a "solitary limbo." Ehrlich returned to her parents home for medical treatment and began trying to understand what happened to her.

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A War To Watch: YouTube Takes On Television

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The Joys And Struggles Of International Adoption

Writer John Seabrook was in the process of adopting a baby girl from Haitin when the country was hit by the massive earthquake in January. He writes about his own experience with international adoption -- and the history and perils of the practice -- in The New Yorker.

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