Blogs, email, and the loss of personal history?

We have entered the "Web 2.0" world. People are using email to replace letter writing (faster, easier, no stamp cost, no mailing hassle) and blogs to replace diaries. But I read a post today and I wondered if we are not losing something in the process. Recently, I listened to the audiobook version of Galileo's Daughter : A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel. A primary source for the book was the letters written by his daughter to Galileo. We only have one side of the conversation, as Sobel laments, because the daughter was in a nunnery and the Mother Superior had Galileo's letters destroyed upon the daughter's death. I was struck both by the great value of the letters we have and a saddness that we could not directly read Galileo's letters and learn from them.

We have letters from soldiers in the Revolutionary and Civil wars, as well as hunderds of other wars and events throughout history. We have journals, diaries and other writings from both great leaders and common citizens. They are a rich source of information into the events of history and how our ancestors responded to and were shaped by those events.

Here is an interesting article to ponder with the US memorial day fresh in our minds:

"HANOI A lost wartime diary by a female doctor that tells of love, loneliness and death on the Ho Chi Minh Trail has become a best seller in Vietnam, bringing the war alive for a new generation of readers.

The journey of the diary itself has given it a special postwar symbolism for people here. It was returned to her family just last year by a former American soldier who recovered it after she died on the battlefield in 1970.

The writer, Dr. Dang Thuy Tram, was killed at the age of 27 in an American assault after serving in a war zone clinic for more than three years. Among her intertwining passions are her longing for a lost lover and her longing to join the Communist Party.

This combination of revolutionary fervor and the vulnerabilities and self-doubts of a too-sensitive young woman might be called ideology with a human face, reminding readers that it was people like them, trapped in a moment of history, who died on their behalf."

And

"In the evenings that followed, Hieu, his translator, read passages to him from the small book with its brown cardboard covers and, Whitehurst said, 'Human to human, I fell in love with her.'"

link

Will this generation come to regret (or be denounced by future generations) for failing to leave lasting rememberances of their lives?

Pope at Auschwitz?

Reuters reports:

"Ending a four-day pilgrimage to Poland on Sunday, the 79-year-old pontiff reflected on how hard it was for a German to visit the former Nazi death camp and how challenging the evil committed there was for anyone who believed in a loving God.

And

"'God, why did you remain silent?' Rome's La Repubblica quoted him as asking in reference to the killing there of about 1,5-million people, mostly Jews."

And

One sore point is that the Vatican has not opened all its wartime files to historians, who want to know what Pius knew, when he knew it and what he discussed with his aides about it. - Reuters"
Link:

Dear God, why did you let your body on earth (the Chruch) remain silent? Why did the man who wore the fisherman's ring not speak out? Why did the Catholic Church abandon its pastoral duty to catholics living in the Third Reich by not providing admonition of their sins of cooperating with an evil government and immoral orders? Many Christians (including Pius XII) committed sins of omission (not speaking out or opposing), as well as comission (aiding and assisting). This pope is not "the pole" and early signs of his replacement do not arrive accompanied "white smoke" of truth and hope.

I don't normally post in this manner and on these topics, but I was offended deeply by the words the Pope used and found them far from the Word he should be proclaiming. If you feel I am wrong, google "Deitrich Bonehoffer" and read for a bit. . .

Telco's and the missing $200 Billion

"The United States is the 19th ranked nation in household broadband connectivity rate, just ahead of Slovenia. Want to know why? Because, contends telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick, the Bell Companies never delivered symmetrical fiber-optic connectivity to millions of Americans though they were paid more than $200 billion to do it. According to Kushnick's book, "$200 Billion Broadband Scandal", during the buildup to the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, the major U.S. telcos promised to deliver fiber to 86 million households by 2006 (we're talking about fiber to the home, here). They asked for, and were given, some $200 billion in tax cuts and other incentives to pay for it. But the Bells didn't spend that money on fiber upgrades -- they spent it on long distance, wireless and inferior DSL services."

And

"A damning list of indictments, and one that puts the telcos' demands for a two-tiered Internet in harsh perspective. We paid an estimated $2000 per household for fiber to the home and instead got DSL over the old copper wiring. As Kushnick notes, that's like ordering a Ferrari and getting a bicycle. The Bells should be ashamed. And held accountable." Link

Perhaps this is an issue that all of us should become more aware of and start asking questions of our elected officials. Certainly, $2000 in tax money for my "cable high-speed" link is a huge waste of money.

More on Privacy

Quoting Seymour Hersh in New Yorker:

"A government consultant told me that tens of thousands of Americans had had their calls monitored in one way or the other."

Blog "27B Stroke6" concludes:

"Like I said before, even if you believe this program is a legitimate tool to find terrorists and you believe that those with the spying earphones on are working in good faith, you should be concerned about the architecture and the utter lack of oversight and checks and balances."

Link to 27B Stroke 6

Link to original Hersh article

I am!!!

Stupid proposed law in NJ

"The state Senate Law and Public Safety Committee is expected to discuss a bill today which would make it a crime -- punishable by up to 18 months in jail -- to photograph, videotape or otherwise record for an extended period of time a power generation, waste treatment, public sewage, water treatment, public water, nuclear or flammable liquid storage facility, as well as any airport in the state.

At the very least, it will allow law enforcement officials across the state to detain the individual or confiscate any recorded materials to further their investigation, according to state Sen. Fred Madden, D-4 of Turnersville, who is the bill's sponsor."

Link

This is a dangerous and paranoid.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." -- Benjamin Franklin