no, really

I’ve had this discussion recently with someone, I can’t remember whom, about what services are appropriate as Social (government backed) and Private (hands off).  When it comes right down to it, I think there are two basic classifications for things that I feel are suitable for government support, whether it be financial or legislative:  public necessities (water, electricity, transportation, etc), and betterment of humanity (NASA, DHS, etc).  Bear with me, this is just a sketch of an opinion.

Now wikipedia is something that’s kind of controversial because of its very public and democratic nature.  Read that again… blah blah blah CONTROVERSIAL blah blah DEMOCRATIC.  This is a repository for information that uses the public for submission of information, and is continuously being checked by editors and experts for things like accuracy, balance and relevance.  It only accepts donation money, because many still feel that advertising would make it non-objective and commercial, which is not appropriate for a mass-encyclopedia.

Wikipedia also suffers from a very high barrier to entry.  In order to participate, you have to be able to speak the wiki language, which is not very easy.  It favors programmers in that way, so it is likely to have information highly skewed to the interests of those people.   In order to remove this barrier, it is believed that 30-50 full-time developers could comb through submissions and enter the information themselves.  This is unaffordable because of the lack of sufficient funding.

It just struck me that this could be a valuable public service, for the betterment of humanity.  And who better to help collect the 21st century’s information, as provided by the residents therein, then the Library of Congress?  It’s quite possible that funding, protection and staff from the LOC could give wikipedia what it needs to maintain its objectivity, to continue to foster democratic croudsourcing of information, and make it a reliable source of information for school children.

Besides, the $2M+ / yr that it would take to keep it up and running is a drop in the bucket compared to, say… how much it costs per year to clean the Capitol Building’s drapes.  And how often do you use those?

but someone heard my cry for a beta phone.  I can’t share any details (of course), but I guess I can share that it’s Windows Mobile based (which still sucks), and it’s got a very new “feature” that I haven’t been able to test yet.  I’m looking forward to seeing what it can do.  The device itself is pretty nifty, though - it feels right, and it’s a candybar - light and rugged.

Between being forced to use my old Nokia while in Indiana, and starting with this once I got back, I find that I’m kind of missing my Samsung.  It’s sitting here in pieces looking like it needs some triage.  Sigh.  Maybe I’ll learn to like the new beta device in time…

Finally Google has gotten around to pushing the Gmail Fetch tool! So far I’m quite pleased. But take my advice - if you set up your gmail to forward messages to your phone via sms (which I love), remember to turn that off before you set up the Fetch. Otherwise, you’ll get 300+ txts to your phone, which gets tired after a while. Glad I don’t pay for incoming txts. Other than that it checks for mail frequently enough for me, and I can read and reply to messages from the gmail app on my phone. How exciting!

to see some snow:

Main St. Brookville, IN

Being a singer, I’m accustomed to having a slightly different reaction to a given event than most people. Perhaps in my own subconscious way of finding patterns in the universe, I always seem to seek similarities between events and songs I know. Maybe it’s helpful to know that I’m not alone. Perhaps I’m trying to understand the events through someone else’s interpretation of similar events, or vice-versa. In the end, it comforts me - in the same fundamental way that the right song can comfort anyone at the right time.

In my senior year of college, I enrolled in an ensemble studio class where different kinds of musicians were assigned interesting and not-oft-performed pieces. The professor had a grand plan for all of the music, and always had a secret about each song that he’d mention right before the performance that would take it to that place where music has meaning. I was assigned a duet with a violin “With rue my heart is laden,” as arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was part of his cycle “Along the Field” which is text from A E Housman’s “A Shropshire Lad” (1896). The poem is short, and the melodies of the voice and violin are simple. While the poem is clearly about loss, it frames it in life, as if both are part of the same gentle breeze of time.

The performance of this piece (the one involving me) was not long after That September, and not 20 blocks distant. Immediately proceeding the performance, my professor took me aside and said “what do you think this is about?” I hadn’t actually formed a picture in my head (bad singer! bad!), but then he whispered “sing it for all those lads and lasses that just lost their lives in September.” I nearly couldn’t sing. And it was perfect. It was followed by deafening silence for what felt like an eternity, then lots of fervent applause and eye-blotting.

Today it comforts me. And in the coming days, I hope it comforts those around me.

With rue my heart is laden

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfood lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.