Opening paragraphs....................

 

Silicon Valley has lost its way.

     The initial rise of the American software industry was made possible in the first part of the twentieth century by what would seem today to be a radical and fraught partnership between emerging technological companies and the U. S. government.  Silicon Valley's earliest innovations were driven not by technical minds chasing trivial consumer products but by scientists and engineers who aspired to see the most powerful technology of the age deployed to address challenges of industrial and national significance.  Their pursuit of breakthroughs was intended not to satisfy the passing needs of the moment but rather to drive forward a much grander project, channeling the collective purpose and ambition of a nation.  This early dependence of Silicon Valley on the nation-state and indeed the U. S. military has for the most part been forgotten, written out of the region's history as an inconvenient and dissonant fact—one that clashes with the Valley's conception of itself as indebted only to is capacity to innovate.

-Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska, The Technological Republic:  Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West

a sensitivity........................

 

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, as cut-and-pasted from here

Apparently...........................

 

....................................it wasn't aliens.

Lost and found............................

     A black tenant farmer he was, then, in 1967, when I first met him, and a black tenant farmer he still is today.  But time takes its toll, he reminded me recently, as we reminisced together.  I had returned to Alabama in the summer, a whirl of a trip, all too characteristic of my ilk—the busy, self-importance of the Yankee bourgeoisie.  He had no claim to being in a rush; his time was mine, all of it I wanted, and then some.  As for my various obligations, he sure hoped they didn't "overwhelm" me.  I thanked him for his concern, and hastened (in a hurry with words, also!) to let him know I was "alright."  I was referring to my body—letting him know that I wasn't suffering any ill effects, as a consequence of my various speedy trips.  But he had other thoughts in mind, and he was willing to offer them without hesitation:  "You can get going so fast, you lose your way.  Jesus told us:  He said, He's the way, but we figure we're the way, and that's being lost!"

-Robert Coles,  from his 1988 Harvard Diary:  Reflections on the Sacred and the Secular

At last.............................................!

..................................Some really cool news from the LA Times.

Metal detectorists.............................

............Didn't know there was such a job.  Sounds like fun.

Where was C-SPAN.....................

................................when we needed it?


But these I believe are the only speeches ever committed to writing.  The Orators, while I was in Congress from 1774 to 1778 appeared to me very universally extemporaneous, and I have never heard of any committed to writing before or after delivery.


-thanks Kurt (again)

Scott nails.....................................

..............................the story of this blog