I have been busy in my offline life and have not posted for a while, but I am back. I have been wanting to talk about the path, or series of events that have lead me to my current situation. It has been an interesting ride and worthy of reflection (as proven by the fact that I have so often reflected on what has brought me here already.)
Month: January 2005
Categories
OpenCD
I moved to the University of Missouri and within two days I met one of my fellow students who introduced me to TheOpenCD. I have always been a proponent of free and open source software but not an activist. I have also always wanted to find a good suite of programs that would make a linux desktop functional for everyday use by everyday users – something that could be used by the people I help rather than by people who are intimately comfortable with their computers. TheOpenCD provides a good base for such a computer. I was impressed by the range of software provided. Some of it I already use, such as OpenOffice, Firefox, and 7-Zip, but I think I could replace almost all the rest of the software that I regularly use with programs included on TheOpenCD. It looks like the momentum is building for Microsoft independence.
In one of his last columns William Safire makes an interesting prophecy about the political future of our nation. He says, “If I were starting out in politics or its commentary today, I’d become a Democrat.” Coming from one of the most staunchly Republican pundits I have ever read, that is an interesting statement.
His reasons offer a ray of hope to the democratic party today and a voice of warning to the Republicans who currently hold power. To the republicans he says, “The G.O.P. personality will split in a couple of years, as all huge majorities do in America. Idealistic neocons will be challenged by plodding, pragmatic paleocons, who, by fuzzing the party’s present character, will someday lead it down the road to defeat.” and to the Democrats he suggests that they can begin to win again if they will “take advantage of its bantamweight agility and ‘stand for something.'”
In some ways I am starting out in politics in that I figure that I still have at least 30 years worth of political participation ahead of me. I could not agree more with Mr. Safire that joining the Republicans represents jumping onto an old champion racehorse – lots of victories behind it, but not many left in front of it. Siding with the Democrats gives the newcomer an opportunity to help shape an up-and-coming champion which will start to produce greater and greater victories so long as discipline and principles are vigilantly maintained.
I have finally moved to Columbia Missouri to start my PhD and I am ready to get back to blogging. During this break I have had decided to change the focus of my blog just a little bit. Previously it was almost exclusively for political commentary, but now I would like to spend a little bit more of the space discussing other things like open source software etc.
I still expect to have plenty of political and social commentary, but not quite as exclusively as before.