Re: mailing list

On Thu, 11 May 2006, joea wrote:

> I find it somewhat curious that someone involved in accounting
> and likely tax reporting, should find it disconcerting that he
> does not have the ability to "go back in time" and fix, umm,
> "errors" in his comments.

Ah, but as we've seen from recent reposting discussions here, accounting 
is no bar to the desire to correct history without a trace.:)  As for 
taxes: ever hear of an amended return?  At least in the US, even tax 
returns are somewhat mutable, although there is, of course, a trace--I 
will grant the IRS their obsession with accurate records.:)

> But, that's just me.

No, it isn't.

> Another thought occurs to me, that with the progression of this form
> of communication, and the "digital arts", we are comin full circle,
> from a "fact based" society, with a "hard copy" history, to one more
> akin to one based on "oral history", where "facts" morph over time or
> change substantially from one generation to the next.

You know, I never considered it from that prospective, but you are quite 
right.  Now that is the true horror!

> With the advent of "correctable" forums, wiki's and "digitized" (hence 
> modifiable) video, and a generation brought up absorbed in them, we 
> are facing a society where history and the "facts" are at the mercy of 
> whomever is in power. 

This relates a little to the death of absolute truth, and the birth of 
relativism.  I doubt anyone directly intended to apply those concepts to 
history, but it is happening every day, more and more, and only those who 
grew up before it became popular, and those, such as myself, who revere 
the past, are able to see it. If you have ever watched the Tonight Show's 
"J-Walking" segments, or been around many current high school students, 
you can see it happening.  Of course WWII took place during the 60s, and 
the civil war, under president Nixon, was between the U.S. and the French.
It is my generation--the one born after 1970--which is mainly responsible 
for the global loss of memory.

Luke
P.S. as a nod to the thread, I will quote an old Roman: what I have 
written, I have written.;)