Hosted by Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer

Thank you for visiting "The Navigator – Live." Today's chat ended at 3 p.m. EDT.

Image courtesy of Hester Nash's Retro Raunch Web site.

Our guest today was Hester Nash who runs an adult-oriented site featuring black-and-white erotic photographs from times past. Hester, a 40 year old polymath, and her fiance, Chris, a 25 year old computer nerd, launched their site in the summer of '97. We talked about decency, indecency, censorship, feminism and the brutal competition among sex sites.

"The Navigator – Live" appears each Thursday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time. It's a live, moderated discussion offering washingtonpost.com users the chance to talk directly to intriguing and sometimes unusual guests who are shaping the digital world. "The Navigator" appears in The Washington Post print edition every Thursday. You can read past columns by following this link.

Linton Weeks: Greetings. Our guest today, Hester Nash, oversees RetroRaunch, an adults-only site featuring black-and-white erotic photos from times past. She's here to talk about sex on the Internet and matters of decency, indecency, censorship, feminism and the fierce competition among Web sites.

Hester, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. We've got a lot of questions lined up for you. I'm asking everybody to keep the language clean and to stay on the high road. Tell us how you got into this business.

Hester Nash: I've always been a computer geek (MAC RULES!!!!) and I've had a few adult-industry-related jobs over the past 20 years. But mostly I've been in sales, computer consulting, some construction and miscellaneous other endeavors. The thing about the sex industry on the net is that because it doesn't require any serious capital to start up, alot of people whom you would never dream would be interested in doing this are doing it. Teachers, managers, students, housewives. It's not just sleazy Wiseguys anymore. It's the family next door. Like me. Just folks who have open minds and were looking for a lucrative opportunity and grabbed it.

Retroraunch itself was something of an accident. We were looking to get into the industry because we saw it was making money, and someone we were doing business with at the time led us to it. Once we got started, I fell in love with it. It's different, it's fascinating to see the old images, which keeps it fun and interesting for us. Modern adult entertainment is numbing and dull after you've seen even a little bit. I never get tired of the vintage stuff. Not only that, but I think that as long as there are going to be millions and millions of images of naked women available out there, somebody has to show the fact that *real* women don't look like something manufactured in a surgical sex-doll factory. That's my biggest problem with "porn' as it exits today: it sets up young men who don't know any better (and perhaps even older ones) for completely unrealistic expectations of what a woman should look like, and therefore puts even more pressure on an already stressed -out female population to be painfully thin with an enormous chest ( a combination rarely found in nature).

I'll tell you this: I'm prouder of this than of any "job-job" I've ever held. It requires more of me, and it gives me more in return. It's also honest, and having been in all kinds of sales over the years, I really needed an honest way to make a living!

Linton Weeks: Sen. Dan Coats (R-Indiana) has introduced Internet decency legislation, somewhat of a revision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that was struck down. Coats's bill targets commercial sex sites just like yours. The way I understand it, the bill will require sites to obtain a credit-card number or adult verification from folks seeking material that is "harmful to minors." How would such a bill affect your site?

Hester Nash: We already require age verification through credit card.

CDA II has exchanged the unacceptably ambiguous "indecent" for the marginally less ambiguous "harmful to children". Using that standard, I'd say the first sites to be regulated should be those devoted to images taken from forensics & pathology collections. Those would give anyone nightmares, child or not. It never ceases to amaze me how much hysteria is focused on the possible harm to children in viewing sexual material, and no one ever seems to care about violence and other horrors much more likely to scar a young mind than depictions of people having sex.

Do I think that sexual imagry is "harmful" to children? No. I was a child once, and sexual images, ideas and words never harmed me, they either fascinated or bored me, depending on my age. But if a parent wishes to prevent their children from seeing sexual imagry on the net, they should take control of their children's use of the net. DO NOT put the computer in your child's room. Take the modem with you to work. Take responsibility, don't gut the First Amendment and tell me that my access to material of any sort must be restricted to what is appropriate for a 6 year old. I'm 40, I'm a patriotic Constitution-loving American, and I fully expect to have access to anything that interests me. That's one of the cool things about being a grown-up.

In my liberal heart, I hope very much that the CDA is struck down if it passes, because I consider it an infringement on the First Amendment. But on the other hand, requiring some kind of age verification would actually be good for my business, since I won't have to compete with all the freebies!

Linton Weeks:
Your site reminds me of someone's collection of dirty French postcards. Where do you find your material?

Hester Nash: We actually acquire the images form all kinds of sources, primarily collectors. There is a small, tightly knit group of people in this country and the world who love this kind of thing and collect and trade it among themselves. We are now part of that tightly knit group. But we also get a lot of it from visitors and members that have Grandpa's old photo album or shoebox of girlie pictures. One couple who contacted us had found a cache of photos in the wall of their home which they found during a remodel!

One of the greatest finds was a small collection of pictures that came to us via ISWFACE - The International Sex Workers Foundation for Art Culture and Education. They are in the middle of buying the oldest standing brothel in the United States (it's in Montana and it has been declared a historical landmark, they are using it for a museum of the World's Oldest Profession) and they found a bunch of pictures of the ladies who had worked there, some of them with their clients, in the basement. They were kind enough to loan them to us for display on the site.

Arlington, NC: What do you feel is the difference between erotic material and pornographic material?

Hester Nash: I don't think there is really any true difference. I think the difference is in the attitude of the viewer.

Linton Weeks: Do you think some adult-oriented sites actually hope for underage visitors?

Hester Nash: ABSOLUTELY NOT! Look, we aren't the Tobacco industry (and we aren't nearly as damaging as the Tobacco industry, either!). We aren't looking for kids. Why would we want kids? Do kids have credit cards, checking accounts, and a decent sized discretionary income? Nope. Well, we're business people - that's who we and all other adult sites want. We dont' have some weird hidden agenda to warp kids minds. Business-wise, kids are pests. Kids are looky-loos with no money and angry parents just waiting to blame US because their kids went into the cookie jar while their backs were turned. Kids are emphatically NOT who we are looking to attract, they cause nothing but trouble.

Occasionally kids will steal their parents credit cards, and again, we don't want that either because parents will find out and charge the money back, not to mention write us angry letters. And if your kids are stealing your credit cards, you've got bigger parental-control problems than your kids seeking sexual material on the net.

Linton Weeks:
Is it possible that a child could still pull up your site accidentally?

Hester Nash: Of course they could pull up the site. But where are Mom and Dad? They can't get into the members side with the most adult pictures. Anyone who is coming to our site is looking for us, we don't advertise outside of adult areas.

Linton Weeks:
What are you doing to make sure that kids--under 18--won't stumble onto your site?

Hester Nash: We can't prevent children from "stumbling" onto the site, but Retroraunch is a membership site. It is not possible to gain access to our pictures without giving us your credit card. And if you have a credit card, we assume you must be of age. We also put a warning up to let anyone know that stumbles by that this site is for adults only. We do offer a few samples up front, as well as as a free vintage erotic postcard service, but none of the images viewable on the non-members pages are any more lurid or graphic than what can be found in Playboy.

But again, it's not MY job to protect children from anything, it is the job of parents. Just as a concerned parent would not permit their child to walk through the red light district of town by themselves, they should not let their children roam the Internet by themselves. The internet is like the real world: it is a grown-up place with grown-up things (including many non-sexual things that are inappropriate for the average child), and special areas created just for children. Treat it as such.

Linton Weeks: Is there a difference between what you do and what hardcore porn sites do?

Hester Nash: We are a hardcore site in terms of the fact that our site includes a selection of hardcore pictures (many of which date back to before the Civil War - that's another thing our site is good for: demonstrating that sexually oriented pictures are hardly a new phenomenon! Some of the earliest pictures ever taken were of sexual acts. Hey...go back a couple of thousand years and you'll find plenty of drawings of very intimate acts between adults, both hetero-and homosexual. Sexual imagry always has been and always will be popular, it's the nature of the human animal to want to look.) The majority of pur pictures are simply what we call "cheesecake", however: pretty girls in lingerie or semi-nude. The difference between us and most sites is the emphasis, which is on the cheeescake, and the presentation, which is restrained and tasteful. We don't have loud, ugly gynecological closeups in your face the minute you show up. And the black & white is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than the technicolor stuff. (Although we do have some color pictures from the 50's and 60's)

My partner, Chris, has seen studies which show that men are actually more aroused and interested in semi-nude pictures of women than hardcore anyway. The fact that we have so many happy members requesting more of these kinds of pictures leads me to believe this is true. As I said earlier, the seriously lurid stuff becomes numbing and dull very quickly.

Silver Spring, MD: I'm sure you get this sort of question all the time, so forgive the cliche--but how would you feel if your daughter went into the adult entertainment business?

Hester Nash: I wouldn't have any issue with it at all. SO long as she makes the choice as an intelligent, informed adult, she can do as she pleases. Assuming she existed!

Arlington, VA: In her book, "Defending Pornography," author Nadine Strossen points out that those countries where erotic material is widely and legally available--such as Denmark and Japan--also have the lowest rates of sex crimes. Far lower, in far, than in the United States. How does that square with the conservative view that sexually oriented material encourages rape and other sex crimes?

Hester Nash: The conservative view is flat out wrong.

I would estimate that 99% of all males who have been on the net have looked at sexual pictures, and probably 90% of all females. People who would never rent a video, or buy a book will at least take a peek on the net, because it is completely anonymous and safe. Is everyone turning into sexual criminals around you? Of course not.

Back in the 70's, Nixon commissioned a panel of experts to study pornography and its effect on the average human being. There was an agenda to prove that it was harmful, that it created sexual deviancy. Yet, try as they might, the commission had to tell the truth: what they found was that sexual imagry and what was deemed pornography was at worst completely harmless, and at best actually helpful. It was further determined that criminal sexual deviants were most likely to come from extremely repressed upbringings where sex was considered shameful and hidden. Interestingly, Nixon did his best to squelch the commissions report. It isn't what porn-haters want to hear, but it happens to be the truth.

Hester Nash: That argument has been repeatedly proven to be bogus. See the above answer.

Gaithersburg, MD: Hello,

Ms. Nash, what would you say is the biggest difference between erotic material from the past and today's?.

Hester Nash: Erotica from the past showed real people, as opposed to plastic people. In the past, the pictures were taken of people who seemed to be enjoying themselves vs. performing for a camera. And the pictures from yesteryear were black and white vs. color.

Linton Weeks:
Have you seen hardcore sites on the Internet that you would ban?

Hester Nash: I don't know that I would "ban" anything, simply because I believe in free speech. But of course I dont' believe in exploiting or harming children, so I would never tolerate the existance of sites which have photos of children being harmed in any conceivable way. Not because I think free speech should be squelched, but because in order for those pictures to exist a child was harmed, and that is abhorrant and unacceptable to me and to every adult site operator I've ever met or heard of.

I am saddened and offended by the leap that so many people seem to make between sexually oriented adult entertainment and child porn. They are RADICALLY different. Because I like to look at pictures of adults having sex, how does it follow that I support or engage in child porn?? It does NOT.

The biggest danger than the net poses to children is NOT "child porn" (of which there is very little, and it is very underground), it is predators of children. The most unsafe place for a child on the internet is a chatroom where they can be manipulated by sick predators. Don't worry about my dirty pictures, worry about that faceless person having that strange conversation with your kid.

The only other thing that I don't think should be banned, but should definitely be something parents protect their children from are sites which specialize in forensic and pathologic photography. You know: autopsy and crime scene photos, pictures from medical books on nasty tropical diseases, that sort of thing. Theres a good number of those, and they are very, very disturbing. I think adults should be able to look if they want, but not kids. That stuff is grotesque and will certainly upset children.

Aztec, New Mexico: Hester
Do you know how many women run adult sites? Not an exact number but a percentage...is it unfeminist in your opinion to engage in this business?

Hester Nash: I don't know exact numbers, of course, but I can say that MOST of the people I've met in this business were female. And as a hardcore feminist myself I can say that it is empowering to do this.

Linton Weeks: I hear this is a fiercely competitive business. Can you talk about that?

Hester Nash: Given that there are certainly tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of sexually oriented sites on the Internet, it's difficult to rise above the crowd even if you are the cream of the crop. We're fortunate that because of our unusual niche (not to mention the clean design- the graphics in this industry are mostly appallingly bad and noisy) and our approach, we get attention that most sites would never get. But we still have to struggle to let people know we exist, and it's getting tougher all the time. Once they find us, they love us. They just have to find us!

As with many forms of art and communication, sexually-oriented entertainment led the way and blazed the trails, now everyone would like to forget it like the crazy sister in the attic. So search engines, listings and directories that once welcomed our money and our presence are turning their backs on us now that the Net has grown up a little bit and learned from what *we* taught it.

The truth is that the Net was built on sex. The earliest profits were almost exclusively from sexual entertainment, and even now that represents a huge percentage of the money that's being made. And unlike alot of the other money that's being made, ours is real, as opposed to inflated stock values and high hopes of "someday".

Kensington, MD: I've seen all kinds of news stories about the fortunes being made by selling sex on the Web. Is this true? Are you making a ton of money simply by selling pictures of naked people?

Hester Nash: Tons? not tons, perhaps, but more than I've ever made doing anything else, and alot more pleasantly and honestly.

There are certainly people in this business becoming multi-millionaires. I hope to join their ranks as soon as possible!

Washington, D.C.: How much money is being made on the Net in porn? It must be huge!! And, you're probably an honest person but do you think that a lot of people who give their credit cards to porn sites end up the victim of some kind of fraud or something, given the shady connections of the porn business in general?

Hester Nash: This is an important question.

There are, unfortunately, less than ethically operators in this business. There are in all businesses. ANd I dislike that because it taints us all, and people love to see us tainted.

However, the greatest amount of fraud being perpetrated is actually AGAINST US by people who give fake credit cards or use legitimate ones then deny the charge when it shows up, effectively stealing from us.

Arlington, VA: How do you feel the view of women in pornography has changed over the last 50 years?

Hester Nash: I wasn't around 50 years ago, but from what I do know I'd say that we are a little more forgiving these days. In the old days women were of course judged as either saints or whores depending on how they behaved. So if a woman let nude pictures be taken of her, she needed to be secretive about it. That's certainly not true today. hey, we have big stars that are showing their private sex lives! (Pam Anderson) and not being hurt by it!

Nashville, TN: Are there other Internet sites, not porn-oriented, that you frequent? How else do you use the Net?

Hester Nash: But of course! I actually dont' spend much or any time at all on sexual sites... I do it for a living I don't do it for entertainment.

I use the net just like everyone does. I buy books, I read the news, I participate in forums about my interests and hobbies, book travel. I'm a normal person.

Princeton, NJ: Ms. Nash,
An interesting pursuit. What made you choose the "retro" aspect of raunch?

Hester Nash: I think I may have answered this already, but I'll say again: it was a happy accident that I have now developed a great affection for. Plus it gives us a nice niche, and a niche is a good thing to have in this business.

Arlington, VA: I have read articles discussing the existence of what can be called "electro-tactile" devices that can be hooked up to a computer. That is--a sort of "Feel-O-Vision" right out of science fiction. I've read that Penthouse has invested money in this sort of technology. Your reaction to this?

Hester Nash: I think it's GREAT! there are many lonely people out there who deserve to enjoy themselves as much as anyone else. It sounds liek the ultimate in safest sex to me!

Washington: I have heard that the cyberporn industry has pioneered many internet technologies for revenue and increased site hits. Is that true? What do you think the internet would be like today if cyberporn was banned four years ago?

Hester Nash: It is absolutely true! We led the way in almost every kind of technology.

If cyberporn had been banned 4 years ago, it would have been a sad day for our Constitution, but aside from that it would certainly have slowed the Net's growth by many orders of magnitude. I think it would be maybe 25% as advanced and as popular as it is right now.

Roslyn, VA: If sex has led communications technology--as it certainly has in the development of film, video and now the Net--what do you think is the next evolutionary step in the porn biz? Will we be getting naughty pix on our Palm Pilots and similar devices?

Hester Nash: Wherever people are, whatever means they are using to entertain themselves, sex will be there. So it has always been, so it shall ever be.

Alexandria, VA: I love the photos that Irving Klaw used to put together. Was
there ever anyone else out
there doing similar stuff?

Hester Nash: There were, of course (we have the pictures, and they are fabulous!) But Klaw was certainly the very best at it.

Linton Weeks: Wouldn't many people say that your site exploits women?

Hester Nash: Not even a little.

I consider myself a feminist and I've never had a problem with pornography or what other people consider pornography. It is a ludicrous assumption that women who work in the sex industry are exploited! To exploit means "to use for one's own benefit". With rare exceptions, women in any kind of sex work, from prostitution to stripping to adult video, are the exploiters, not the exploited. The women are exploiting the male weakness for naked females, and their willingness to fork over lots of cash to get it. Every sex worker I've ever known felt more powerful, more in control, and less exploited than any secretary, corporate climber or waitress you can find on the street!

Of course, on Retroraunch, the women aren't being exploited by anyone. At this point they are either cookie-baking grandmas with interesting pasts, or dead.

Princeton, NJ: How do you feel about TV and newspaper coverage of the less-than-appealiing pronographic Oval Office? Has it increased or decreased your business?

Hester Nash: it hasn't affected my business one way or another. But I must say I'm amused by the hypocrisy of the Congress. Last year they voted to ban porn on the net. This year they voted to publish it!

And I think that whole mess is an infuriating waste of time and resources.

Linton Weeks: Do you have children? How old do you think a child should be before he or she should be allowed to use the Internet?

Hester Nash: No, I don't have any kids. But I have children in my life that I love and care about.

Any age at all is apprpriate for the internet, provided Mom and Dad are right there, watching every move, perhaps using filtering software, although that stuff is notoriously capricious and unreliable as yet. Kids love the net, but they should be guided in it's use as they should be guided in all things. You should somehow remove or otherwise disable the modem when you are not there to supervise, and your children should never have a computer in their rooms. Even without a modem: I've seen lots of kids fall apart behind endless hours of video games. My call to all parents is this: SUPERVISE SUPERVISE SUPERVISE.

Reading, PA: The fuller size women were definetly "in" during the era's you are representing on your site. Do you feel men today would like to see realistic sized women, compared to the "society acceptable" sized women?

Hester Nash: Well, obviously alot of men like to see these unrealistically proportioned women that are so common. However...we get TONS of mail from people of all ages who express how much they love seeing pictures of real women of all shapes and sizes, and that they never realized how much more erotic they could be.

As I've said before..plastic is boring.

Linton Weeks: Hester, is this really what the Founders meant by freedom of speech?

Hester Nash: I think the founders were specifically concerned with free political speech, but I also think that they believed in free speech as a concept, and that if we could ask them, they would agree that it is never the government's job to tell adults what they can read, look at, or think. The founders disliked government overall, and they disliked government interference in the lives of individuals, that is why they created a democracy - which is NOT, contrary to popular perception, the rule of the majority. It is the protection of rights of the individual against the state, and in opposition to the majority if necessary. Our Constitution is very clear about it's intent: to protect the PEOPLE from tyranny by the government. And if censorhip of any kind is not tyranny, I don't know what is.

Linton Weeks: We're a little more than half-way through the hour. I'm going to sip a little iced tea. Keep those questions coming.

NYNY: How many paying members do you have? Do you allow other porn sites to advertise on your site? if so, what percentage of your income is from other sites advertising on your site? Do you know the names and addresses of the paying members. OH, and how many hits does your site get daily.

Hester Nash: I decline to give the figures for our site's membership, if that's ok. Suffice it to say we do very well and have many happy customers.

We do not allow advertising on our site, for many reasons. The most compelling is that it would completely ruin the aesthetic sensibility we have going. Another is that it sends people away, we want them to stay!

Our hits vary, depending on many factors. We do better than some, not as good as others.

And no, we do not personally know our members private information. Neither does our billing company. We take a minimum of information for verification of credit cards, and that is it, and we never sell or share information with anyone else. Privacy is paramount.

Arlington, VA: Why do you think Americans are equally hypocritical and hyper about sexuality? On one hand people rail against the proliferation of erotic material, on the other they gobble up every detail of the Starr Report. Why are Americans so uptight while Europeans generally have a more relaxed attitude toward matters sexual?

Hester Nash: I would LOVE to know that answer myself! It drives me crazy. I think it's a holdover from our Puritanical beginnings, but I really wish we'd get over it.
The US has a higher rate of sexual crime than any other country I know of. yet we are supposedly very "moral" - you tell me, how does that make sense? It doesn't. Repression leads to deviance, openness leads to sexual health.

The Europeans are simply more mature than we are.

Linton Weeks: I've never known anyone named Hester. Were you named for the main character in "The Scarlet Letter"?

Hester Nash: My sister named me. She just liked it. So do I, finally. I hated it growing up...now I embrace the uniqueness of it.

Cortez,CO: Are your parents,assuming they are alive, know and approve of what you do for a living?

Hester Nash: My parents are both alive. My father adores it, and he actually was the one who came up with the name! My father is a very sexually open and free individual, his wife is a political activist for sex workers.

My mother...well, she's a little less thrilled, but after I showed her the site she told me she was proud of me for doing it in a way that was really tasteful and "classy".

Reading, PA: How do people that don't know you very well, react when they first find out what you do for a living?

Hester Nash: It depends on the person. Almost everyone is interested, even if they find it shocking. The majority of the people I meet are pretty relaxed about it.

Kensington, MD: I keep hearing a lot about "violent pornography" being a real problem, but I've never seen any (nor do I particularly want to)for sale on the Web or in adult stores. Is there a lot of violent porn out there--as opposed to erotic material with consenting adults--and if so, how do you feel about this both as a woman and as someone in the sex industry?

Hester Nash: I'm with you - I have actually never seen any violent pornography. EVER. I dont' know if it's because it's illegal (which it is) or because people just dont' care for it, but it doesn't really exist that I can see.

Silver Spring, MD: How many sex sites are there on the Web? I've heard as many as 10,000. Also, how many of these sites are outside the U.S.--beyond the reach of Congress? Is the websex business growing at a rapid pace, slowing down or holding steady?

Hester Nash: My own observation leads me to speculate that there are at least 10,000, and more likely many tens of thousands.

I have no idea how many are located outside the United States.

The websex business has settled down, actually. It has matured and it is not as easy as it once was to get into it or make money from it. I wouldn't recommend it as a get-rich-quick anymore.

Linton Weeks: How much of a problem is password swapping?

Hester Nash: It hasn't been a problem for us, but I know that many of the bigger sites do battle with it constantly. There will always be hackers and thieves, it goes with the territory. you just have to be vigilant.

NYNY: Do you ever have problems with hackers on your site? What do you do to protect your site from that?

Hester Nash: So far, so good. We have had a problem with some stealing of our images, and some hot-linking, but we nipped it in the bud pretty quickly.

Linton Weeks: Have you thought of spin-off businesses? Books, CD roms, etc.

Hester Nash: We've had alot of requests for a CD-Rom - people would like to get the images in ahigher resolution. We're thinking of doing it.

I'd also like to do some promotional stuff...RetroRaunch T shirts, hats. But I dont' think we will. There's too much else to be done.

Linton Weeks: Do you ever get tired of what you do, weary of looking at flesh?

Hester Nash: Well, if I were doing regular stuff, yeah, I'd burn to a crisp in nothign flat. But the vintage material is endlessly fascinating to me. It's always different, real, unusual...I personally love it.

Linton Weeks: We hear a lot these days about people who are sex addicts? What do you think of this notion? For that matter, what do you think of computer addiction?

Hester Nash: Sex addicts are like any addicts: they are using sex to fill an empty place in their lives. But at least they have plenty of ways to feed it that are harmless, assuming they have a computer.

As for computer addiction, I think it's real and I think it's a problem. I also think it should be the major concern of parents. I've personally observed both adults and chilldren allow their lives to fall apart because they were so unable to control their addiction to the computer in general and computer GAMES in particular.

Reading, PA: Do you see yourself doing this 10 years from now? What would you like to see on the Web that isn't being done yet?

Hester Nash: Sure! I'd love to see RetroRaunch thriving for many years into the future, funding my retirement. It will also give me the time and moeny to pursue my other interests, like writing, radio, and extracting maximum joy from living.

I dont' know what I'd like from the web, unless it were fewer bells and whistles. The B&W's can be fun, but they also slow things down and create problems. MORE SPEED!!!!

Linton Weeks: Have you done any research into the lives of the models of 1920s erotica? Do you believe these women participated willingly?

Hester Nash: I havent' done alot of research. When it comes to the hardcore, I think they were usually prostitutes and had no problem with it.

There really isn't the level of coercion and force that people imagine, now or ever. People do this because they WANT to, trust me.

Linton Weeks: Whew. We're about out of time. Hester, that was great. Thanks so much for being on the show today. We'll save some World's Wackiest Web Site nominations for another day. Next week my guest will be Joel Garreau--friend, colleague, visionary. Joel is the author of "The Nine Nations of North America," (1981) a fresh way of looking at the geography and demography of our continent, and "Edge City", (1991) a book about the biggest revolution in 150 years and how the world builds the cities that are the capstones, cornerstones and sometimes millstones of our civilization. Join me next Thursday, Oct. 22, from 2-3 p.m. EDT. I'll be asking Joel, "Will the Internet Kill Cities?" See you then.