by Kort E Patterson, Editor
Third Anniversary Issue
Well, Port of Call has racked up another year! In keeping with tradition, I've included another science fiction short story in this anniversary issue. I've used up my stash of really short short stories and had to whip this one up special. I hope you enjoy it.
The newsletter has touched on a number of interesting topics and hopefully provided a bit of diversion for its readers. As editor, I'd have thought the members of region 7 would be well tired of my humble scribbles by now, but you've only submitted enough materials to partially fill a couple of issues this year. Remember, the more interesting pieces you submit, the less white space I have to fill.
I've continued my efforts to make POC an attractive forum for your interesting, informative, or just amusing submissions. I'm convinced that there is a huge potential for high quality letters and articles if POC can just find that critical factor that will motivate all of you to take up pen and share your accumulated wisdom and perspectives.
Port of Call's website has accumulated so many articles, letters and features from the past 3 years of publication that I've had to add topic and alphabetical indexes. The nature of the materials made it hard to decide on topic categories, but I've ended up with 22 categories that I think pretty well cover the range: Calendars/Time; Censoring Port of Call; Crime and Terrorism; Editor's Personal Promotion; Education; Factoids; Foundations of Civilization; Global/Historical Perspectives; Government Abuse of Power/Threats to Liberty; Internet/World Wide Web; Male/Female/Family Relations; Meaning of Life; Medical/Biology/Ecology; Miscellaneous; Politics; Popular Media; Port of Call (about the newsletter); Quotes & Conundrums; Short Stories; Social/Political Philosophy; Technology; Urban Legends.
Lots of good stuff here! Stop by and check out any you've missed! Tell your friends! At last count (before posting this issue on-line) POC's website contained 156 interlinked webpages (HTML files). The site has been up long enough that the homepage and even individual articles are showing up in some of the major search engines. In addition to the True! cartoons announced in the last issue of POC, I've also added a dynamic link to the Weekly Web Poll for those who like to share their opinions with others.
The counter on the homepage has been nonfunctional most of the year, so there isn't any reliable estimate of the number of visitors. I'm sure the intellectual stimulation of POC's offerings attracts far less attention than websites offering a few stimulating pictures, but somebody has to aspire to the moral high ground.
And so we head into Port of Call's fourth year of publication...
