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April 22, 2005
Windows in the Night
Last night I could not sleep. The Texas spring nights are laced with thick and unrelenting humidity, although during the night it cools off enough to permit easy breaths of night odors and scents. I usually sleep with my window open in such weather, last night being no exception.
My guess is that the humidity is what was subverting my best attempts at a peaceful nights rest. The moonlight was bathing the yard with a lovely glow, and every petal and blade was scintillating with the light of a thousand years. Something drew me out of bed to that open window, I know not what. Leaning on that 85 year-old, wooden window sill, I let the murmuring breeze fill my senses with every sensation that makes Texas nights so divine.
It was sublime in every aspect. The oak trees leaves hung like a crisp hot curtain in the night, while moonlight played with the ground and danced among the rose bushes. The frogs and nightlife rose in a whispering chorus in the darkness. The humidity bathed my forehead with perspiration and soaked every object in its dense and invisible heaviness. The croaking of the frogs echoed eerily in the bank of stillness, sending their melody of satisfaction into every corner of the inky landscape.
I bethought myself of that luscious book on my bookshelf, Plantations of the Low Country, by William and Agnes Baldwin. Set in the lowlands of South Carolina, the grand plantations and manor houses snuggle deeply into thousand year groves of cypress and palmetto trees adorned with Spanish moss and lush creeper plants. Their old halls and rooms, laden with echoes of our heritage, bespeak of a time when air conditioning wasn't a factor. The tall broad windows with their ornate and inviting glass panels lured the lingering air into rooms where the master and lady tossed in tall beds, much like I toss now. The soft, soothing sounds echoed in their ears then, as they do now. Those lovely houses now sit empty in the night, hundreds of miles from here, with nothing but the silent echoes of the past whispering in symphony to the croaking frogs. How many times did a lonely maiden or restless youth stand at those windows, with the same fears and thoughts as I? Locked in the depths of the silent, thick swamp, and wrapped in ceaseless humidity, their thoughts that cried out to the stern trees and whispering nightbirds is forever held sacred in its arms.
The night breeze now fills my nostrils with the sweet scent of the pond lilies and moss, beckoning me deeper. I want to slip into the moonwrapped shimmer and glory of this night, away from the prison of this modern world. To wander in solitude in the night, to be at one with the smells and animals, is to be near to God. This solitude in the night is God's gift to man from the beginning of time. The presence of God in nature, deep in the inky night, lost in the world of a liquid expanse; this is peace.
I close my eyes, and pray to the Father. I am lost in time; time does not matter any longer. I am in South Carolina, a young planter's son who cannot sleep. The hanging moss drips humidity, and the frogs chirp in contented peace.
Let time fly on, let men strive and worry. When I am gone, and time is its relentless march, some exploring traveler will part a veritable mountain of vines and bushes to find this old house on this hill.
He will wander through the echoing, empty rooms, until he comes to mine. There, he will pause on the windowsill and look out, and perhaps, possibly, he will feel what I have felt. Perhaps he will feel what we have all felt, when we have looked out of a window at night into the lovely embrace of the moonlit night.
I turn away from my window, like the young maiden and young planter's son before me, and like them, I reluctantly return to bed.
When I fall asleep at last, it is in my spacious room with tall windows, in my bed with thick cotton sheets. The last thing I hear is the soft symphony in the night. The nightbirds softly cooing, and the wind softly whispering.
And the frogs, the frogs are gently croaking......
Posted by Grant at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2005
GNC - Congressional Hearing on Internet Policy II
The Grantonian National Senate - April 18th Session
Convening for the purpose of determining the Imperial policy on internet presence and activity. Second session.
Moi: The second session of the Internet Policy hearing is now in progress.
*all delegates rise and recite pledges of allegiance to the American and Texas flags. All are then seated*
Moi: Mr. Vice-Chairman, you have the floor.
John: Thank you sir. We will now debate message board and instant messenger use, beginning with instant messaging.
The subject of IMing is a very easy one. IMing takes up a lot of time, but is the primary preferred method of communicating with the empire's allies and friends. Scrapping the program completely would result in mass communication breakdowns, which we wish to avoid if at all possible. The question we must answer is which IM client serves the government best, and which of the three must go. I move that AIM be named the primary IM client, and that Yahoo and MSN be scrapped, due to their uselessness.
Gucci: I disagree. I would agree on MSN, since the ads and junk on that particular client are annoying and hamper usability, but Yahoo is extremely versatile, and I would like to point out that it is the ONLY messenger that allows the sending of offline messages. I therefore move that AIM be made the primary client, and Yahoo the secondary, to be used as a message sender.
Robert and Dmitri: Agreed.
Jack: *nods*
John: So the motion has been made to make AIM the primary IM client and Yahoo the secondary, with MSN being cut. All in favor say aye.
All: Aye!
John: All opposed, like sign.
*silence*
John: The motion carries, 6-0.
Now we move on to message boards, which will be a hot topic, because sentiment and memory reign heavily here. Think well on these issues. I move that Apricot Pie be officially declared dead and useless to the Grantonian Empire, and that all ties be immediately severed with the said institution. I further move that Debate and Discussion remain the primary board of activity, and that the government join the Mac 'n' Jesus forums, to obtain something of more substance.
Robert: There are too many issues to be considered with regard to Apricot Pie. The government only reads the Apricot Pie board, and posting is at an all time low. There really isn't any "leaving" to do. It's good to admin the topics and keep up with homeschool friends, so keeping activity at it's current level wouldn't hurt anything. Apricot Pie's mission and function to this government died a long time ago, but it's nice to be able to keep up with some of the members. I move that the Apricot Pie message board be removed from this hearing and disregarded.
All: Here, here!
John: So the motion to remove Apricot Pie from this hearing passes, 6-0, let us continue with the message board deliberations.
Dmitri: I think that Debate and Discussion is the only board still retaining any value whatsoever. Message boards as a rule are places of misunderstanding, accomplishing nothing of value or in the long run of this government. I therefore move that both Debate and Discussion and the BiC message board be kept because of their use, and that Mac 'n' Jesus be considered carefully. This would give the government three message boards, more than it even needs. All the remaining message boards should be scrapped until further notice from this government that another that is worth something is available.
Robert: Agreed. I also move that all message boards excepting Debate and Discussion and BiC be removed from service, and that Mac 'n' Jesus be considered for membership.
John: This motion constitutes a complete overhaul of this government's message board system with an 85% cut. All opposed should voice their opinions now.
*silence*
John: All in favor, say aye.
All: Aye!
John: The motion passes, 6-0
Any final notes or deliberations before this bill is passed?These resolutions will be drafted into a bill, HR-101, which must be approved by a unanimous vote. All in favor of this bill which incorporates the resolutions of this hearing into law, please say aye.
All: Aye!
John: HR-101 has been unanimously approved, which concludes this hearing. Mr. Chairman, you have the floor.
Moi: Thank you sir.
To summarize the proceedings of this session gentlemen, we have determined to have five fully functional email address with the rest of the addresses owned by the government delegated to be junk mail addresses, we have scrapped the Blogger owned by this government while maintaining three blogs for art, personal, and political opinions, we have scrapped the MSN messenger and delegated AIM to become the primary instant messenger client with Yahoo IM as the secondary client, and finally, we have cut all the inactive message boards and retained two with the option of joining the Mac 'n' Jesus forums.
Let us be dismissed in prayer.
*Emperor prays with delegates*
Moi: Gentleman, thank you all, this session of Congress is dismissed.
Posted by Grant at 03:54 PM | Comments (3)
April 13, 2005
GNC - Congressional Hearing on Internet Policy
The Grantonian National Senate - April 13th Session
Convening for the purpose of determining the Imperial policy on internet presence and activity. First session.
Moi: This Senate is now in session! Please rise while we pledge allegiance to the flags.
*delegates rise and say the pledges of allegiance to the American and Texas flags, and then resume their seats around the hearing table*
Moi: The Senate Committee of Internet and Computer Policy now being assembled, let us commence the hearing. Mr. John, you have the floor.
John: Thank you sire. The purpose of this committee's hearing today is to determine the Empire's policy on internet presence and the different policies that will regulate this presence. First, we will review the history of our country's social internet presence.
The first email address possessed by the Empire was the student address assigned to the Emperor in early spring 2002, who was then enrolled in collegiate studies at the University of the State of Pennsylvania. This address was followed by one Yahoo email address soon afterward, as well as two Hotmail addresses. These addresses exist to this very day, in the governmental email array. The Empire now possesses over 10 different emails, which are all active.
The Emperor joined his first message board in mid-2002, the message board of the homeschool site Apricot Pie. After about a year of this site, he joined a long succession of boards in the Debate and Discussion series, hosted by an independent friend. These were followed in 2004 by two political simulations, a Christian teens board, and the message board of his gaming clan, the Brothers in Christ. There are three of four more that are either inactive, or abandoned, such as Peculiar People and another homeschool board. These message boards made up the bulk of the Empire's internet presence until mid to late 2004, when blogs begin to take over around 80% of the duties of the message boards.
The Emperor had a blog as early as November 2003, but this blog on Blogger, General Grant's Headquarters, didn't come up to full speed until early 2004. Soon it picked up momentum, and soon the Emperor established an Xanga blog and a brand new blog for his redesigned website, called the Texas Telegraph. The latest addition to the blogs of the Empire is a Live Journal which was commenced only last week.
Three Instant Messengers, also known as IMs, are currently employed by the Grantonion government. Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and MSN Instant Messenger. AOL is the preferred primary client used, followed by Yahoo and MSN, respectively.
In all, there are over 20 online and internet activities active in the Grantonian government.
The purpose of this hearing is to determine which activities no longer provide useful information or leisure to the government, and to construct a bill that will cut these useless programs and consolidate the popular and useful activities into an organized structure that will better serve the Grantonian government's purpose and time use.
I yield, Mr. Chairman.
All: Here, here, here!
Moi: The committee will take a recess to analyze the facts and information submitted, and will return to deliberate at a later date.
*recess lasts 30 minutes, then delegates file back in*
Moi: This committee will now begin deliberations and debate. Vice Chairman, you have the floor.
John: Thank you sire. Our first issue is email addresses. Although there a lot of email addresses, we have arrived at the consensus of opinion that all the ones no longer used for government functions and those that are idle can be used for "junk mail" emails - that is, they can be sued when emails are needed to download files or sign up for something with an email. It is therefore my opinion that we leave the emails as they are, with the three main personal ones intact; the personal private, the personal accounts, and the personal social ones. The others may be used for random purposes, with no concern for their integrity or spam.
All in favor of accepting the email draft to be drafted int othe bill as read, please say "aye".
All: Aye!
Jack: *nods*
John: All opposed like sign.
*silence*
John: Then we will move on to the blogs. This matter is pretty much open for discussion as are the message boards, so anyone may have the floor at this juncture.
Dmitri: The Texas Telegraph is the only blog that I see the necessity of keeping. All the rest have no function whatsoever. The Blogger blog is dead, and should be removed, while the Xanga one is failing every day. Who reads that one anymore? Bascially, if you can't think of anything to say that they aren't particularly inclined to comment on, you're blog is not only dead, you are a slave to your audience. I say that we keep Live Journal and this Texas Telegraph. I yield.
Gucci: You go too far Dmitri. Just because no one comments on the Xanga one doesn't mean it is useless. The message boards are dying every day, being replaced with blogs, and all the Empire's friends must keep in touch some way. If there is no way to keep in touch with your "cyber" friends, how do expect to keep them? We must persevere, because these links and associations are crucial, and we can't afford to lose them. Even if it's just a chance for them to read, and they NEVER comment, the option should still be there. I yield.
Robert: We must always be there for our friends. They have always been there for us.
Dmitri: Very well, I am willing to give Xanga one more chance. I predict however that most of your friends will move to Live Journal if you do. Half of them already are on Live Journal anyway. I'm not a big proponent of catering to everyone's fancy. I agree with Sarah Peterson, who has an excellent point on the subject. Allow me to read to you an excerpt from her "Treatise on the Futility of Blogs", which states: "I was also struggling in my mind with words to type here. A blog is not my sort of thing. Guess I am not able to keep up the running conversation with numerous people at once. You know... Carm likes to hear more about this, Tara can understand this other, and I'm not positive but Katie may want to hear from me solely for reassurance that someone out there is crazier than herself. Therefore I like to tell Carm more about this, Tara about the other, and give Katie her regular dose of nonsense. My blog simply cannot do that for all in one fell swoop (or "swell foop" as the case may be). By contrast, letters can. I love writing letters. They are so much more natural, have a much larger capacity. Plus, there isn't the chance of everyone in the world being able to see those. I can be comfortable writing whatever seems beautiful, touching, funny, or loony to us both. Without the blog barriers, which (silly perhaps?) badly bother me..........But in journaling online myself, I either write too much and still do not reach my point or I cannot write enough. Both always end up making me feel stilted. So, good-bye dear to the blog. And what ho! for sailing on the adventurous old sea of hand-written, mailmen delivered, envelope-ensconced letters...". I agree with Sarah. If your friends want to know what's going on with you, write them emails, and have them write emails back, or write letters for crying out loud! I yield.
Gucci: It's not just a matter of keeping in touch, it's a matter of keeping in touch in a way that keeps friends close and ever close in your mind. Blogs allow an extra window of fun and love to permeate online relations, without which I am confident the stagnation of friendships would result.
Robert: Here, here!
Dmitri: *slams fist on table* Very well, waste time and resources if you must, but get rid of the Blogger blog, which does nothing. Then you can have Live Journal and Xanga for your friends. I think it's useless, but we might as well give it some more time.
All: Agreed.
John: Then we scrap the Blogger blog, use the Texas Telegraph for creative, meditative, and oratorical fields, use the Xanga for personal news and events, and the LJ for artistic license and for the CSS minded in the blogging community. Agreed?
All: Aye!
Moi: This concludes the first session. This committee will take another recess and reconvene at a later date for the deliberation of the message boards and the instant messengers, as well as the drafting of the final bill. *bangs gavel*
*committee files out of the room*
Posted by Grant at 10:38 AM | Comments (6)