Values? A Nation of Yahoos

Steve Stajich
Mirror contributing writer

   As the Republicans became solely focused on pulling down Bill Clinton, because they had no other workable agenda for the country, they started to banter about the word “values.” Few of those weasels (no, I’m not bitter) ever came out point blank and said, “Bill Clinton has the wrong values, we have the right ones,” but the implication was always there. It became a new form of McCarthyism lite for the end of the century. 
   Then they hit on something they liked better, which was the idea that if you went around saying “We won the election” enough times, and sent fake protesters out to echo that message in a place as politically sophisticated as, say, Florida, there would be enough confusion and exhaustion to steal four years in the White House. OK, that concludes my term paper on them.
   Now, what about us? Whither our “values” in these changing times?
   Of course, the word “values” has become a handle or code for just about anything. “Family values” was code for “reverse Roe v. Wade” and let government have more control over the content of... everything. “American values” are “family values” painted with some wistful memories of a simpler time, and everybody gets ice cream. And a “super value” is when you get a free lighter with a carton of cigarettes. 
   Now, let me introduce another possible version of values; one that possibly hits closer to home for what we might term “the rest of us.” Let’s call them “Yahoo values.” 
   This week, the “online giant” Yahoo, Inc. did an unusual dance under the hot bright lights of the business world. For months, Yahoo had been making plans to have an adult entertainment store as a permanent part of its site structure. There’s some discrepancy in what various parties say about the financial potential of the venture, but let’s just assume that Yahoo would have made money from it. Then last week, everything went haywire.
   A story came out about the expansion of Yahoo into porn on Wednesday. But by the following Saturday, the heat about it grew so intense that Yahoo announced it was shutting down the store and thinning out its deals with adult material vendors: A dark day for those of us who have come to rely the fingertip convenience of porn on the Net.
Yahoo had garnered some attention and respect for its policy of not restricting adult listings in its Web search, in the same way that AOL made hay by doing just the opposite. In both cases, somebody was standing up for some “values.” don’t you think? Yahoo would represent that freedom and  connectivity that was the spirit of the Net, and AOL would represent, uh, that you can protect, um, children, by, um, because, well, sure, in Russia, uh, I mean it’s not censorship, really, you know, when global corporations control information and, um...wait: It’s family values. Yeah, that’s it. 
   Did Yahoo blink or back down or cave or wimp out? I think they simply provided us with a lesson in values. Yahoo clearly intended to expand the site’s involvement in adult fare or erotic entertainment and merchandise or porno; whichever you prefer. (I like the term “pornography” because it’s so beautifully pejorative and scintillating at the same time. It bends any way you pull it, as do so many words nowadays, like “wholesome” or...”values.”) But when Yahoo, currently under economic duress like the rest of the Internet, sensed that the negative fallout would not be worth the profits, it flipped. 
   Now, in this particular case, a large media entity has backed down from vending banality for money, and that’s going to be for the general good of the culture. What itches is the notion that Yahoo might get some kind of nod for all this. Because they “did the right thing.” What they did was the money thing. They would have proceeded and stood behind an “adult store.” if there hadn’t been so much stirred dust. Large or small, they would have pocketed those profits and then expanded that niche if it looked like it might grow. 
   So attention, school children of America: The money has to be there. The XFL was a car wreck of bad taste and excess and cheapness. Like wrestling, which continues because it makes money. Sex on film for the prurient buzz of watching sex on film is “porno” when the stars are people in the Valley. When it’s called “Showgirls,” it’s “a major motion picture.” Drugs not manufactured and dispensed by the tobacco industry are illegal, while Marlboro is “where the flavor is.” Burning witches is not a value we teach, but witch-hunts are of great value as fodder for news channels and building material for low rent politics. And while I know a lot of you were upset about getting this wrong on the quiz, that US plane was not “spying.” That was a routine mission...
   I don’t think we’re ever all that lost, in or out of our “values.” But we have learned to accept a rubbery stretching of parameters so often that we now need a second and third look at everything. Some of that is, in fact, the manifestation of learning. For example, there’s more than a semantic difference between reevaluating the “war on drugs” and “being soft on drugs.”
   But years from now, some of the children that will be “protected,” if you must, by Yahoo’s decision to back away from its adult store plans will study the economic landscape of this time and discover that all Yahoo did was change gears in the name of staying afloat. One minute, it seemed like porn might be a good log to tie onto their raft, the next they cut it loose because it might have dragged them down. Any statements about “values” at Yahoo came from outside the boardroom. 
   We’ll have to shout some values at another boardroom soon; the one in the White House. Because in that room, they think it’s all about the money, too. And just as a little adult entertainment shop is okay for the bottom line, so is drilling in Alaska or upping the amount of arsenic in the water or flipping the bird at world consensus on air pollution. Man, talk about your yahoo values... 

This Week’s “Know Your News” Quiz

(1) Adelphia cable’s move to a digital signal package means
   (a) some West side subscribers lost 
   HBO.
   (b) Showtime’s “Wet T-Shirt Rodeo” 
   looks better than ever.
   (c) Nothing. It really is just TV. 

(2) Income tax payers this year had an extra
   (a) deduction if they voted in Florida.
   (b) day to file.
   (c) incentive to pay: Bush needs 
   personnel to walk and chew his gum.

(3) Meat dangers in Europe are causing 
   (a) more Italians to become 
   vegetarians.
   (b) more Germans to eat 
   “Possumwurst”.
   (c) more terrified possums in 
   Germany. 

Answer Key

(1) (a) Life without “The Sopranos” is just life!
(2) (b) Life without taxes is offshore banking.
(3) (a) Can we at least pinch the meat?