I
use Google on a daily basis for numerous reasons but mostly as a means to find
photos for this blog, tracking mentions of various companies, and finding news
about different subjects. It is a great tool that makes the daily tasks a lot
easier than it used to be. I’m sure I am not the only one who remembers using a
card catalogue and flipping through pages and pages of useless information.
Well, maybe not completely useless as it has done wonders for my random
knowledge over the years. In fact, much of my recent genealogy work has more
closely resembled this method rather than the modern instantaneous
gratification that we have all become accustom to.
Every
once in a while I take advantage of this modern convenience and see what
happens to be floating around out there that is tied to my name. It is quite
the interesting exercise and, to a certain extent, a little disconcerting. Have
you ever done a Google search of your own name?
It’s
a given that all your social media accounts play a prominent role in the search
results but there is also, at least for me, a lot of other information that
surfaces. From mentions in articles, old corporate blog posts, press releases,
reading announcements to, if it so applies, any piece of information that is
part of the public record including your address, phone number, and pictures of
your friends and family. If you are a writer, you can also find some class
assignments based on your work (this was both surprising and entertaining).
Such
is the time in which we live. Whether you like it or not, your name is out
there for everyone to see. While I am a pretty open and outgoing person, some
others don’t have the same perspective. This is why I am constantly conscious of
what gets posted, what pictures are taken, and the people and organizations with
which I associate. Everything is out there for anyone to find and you don’t
want that random picture to surface that was taken immediately prior to you
blacking out.
It
will be interesting how subsequent generations react to such openness and
whether or not the barriers remain between personal actions and professional consequences
when the moments of youth live on in perpetuity on the internet. For me, I
remain cognizant of what is posted and what is said. I do my best to minimize
the censoring of my opinions and perspectives in an effort to remain completely
transparent and honest with those who may come across these words and I enjoy
the fact that I am able to record my own life and maintain an ongoing record
for future generations. Good or bad, this is who I am and this is one of the
main things that will show up in a Google search.
Fifty years ago today the world stopped as President
Kennedy’s motorcade sped through the streets of Dallas in a futile effort to
save his life. It is one of those moments that becomes seared into the minds of
those who lived through it much like 9/11 will forever haunt my generation. It
makes you look at the world a little differently when you see the pattern of
tragedy and the regularity of its occurrence in our history.
Whether it is a single life lost or the lives of many, they
are all equally tragic and the questions will still stumble from the tips of
our tongues about what we could have done differently. There will always be
people unwilling to accept the reality of tragedy and there will be ones who go
too far in the emotional response to such heinous acts. However, one thing we
should keep in mind as we attempt to cope and recover is that we can’t rely on
others for answer.
As President Kennedy said, “Conformity is the jailer of
freedom and the enemy of growth.”
If
you come to the same conclusion as others after searching yourself and finding
what makes sense in your own mind that is one thing but simply accepting the
suppositions of others without the effort of original thought is what President
Kennedy warned us about. Simply going along with the crowd does not make us
free, in fact it makes us unable to grow both as individuals and as a nation.
Agreement isn’t enough without the ability to offer your own means of drawing
that conclusion.
Such
has been the case in recent years with the frequent calls for gun control, the
same lobbying that occurred in the wake of President Kennedy’s assassination.
Why is it that in the past fifty years we have learned about every detail of
one man’s life but we refuse to learn about society and the murderous motivations
of people? Why are we so willing to glorify one man for his accomplishments but
unwilling to condemn one coward for his actions? JFK didn’t make every Irish
Catholic a Saint so why does a person who commits a murder with a firearm make
every firearm owner a criminal?
I
have read the articles leveraging this anniversary of mourning as a call to
action for more gun control which is why I have made the statements above. But this
is also a day of great contradiction which makes me wonder how well informed some
of the antigun people are as today marks the birthday of Eugene Morrison Stoner who was born on this day
in 1922 (we will celebrate his birthday tomorrow). For those of you who don’t
know, Stoner was the genius behind the AR-15 platform which was designed just
eight years before the world went silent.
So, on the same day that we
mourn a great loss we also celebrate a tremendous innovation. Well, some of us
mark the birthday of Stoner while other, those filled with hate, would rather
eliminate this many from the history books. Kennedy and Stoner, one really has
nothing to do with the other beyond a simple date… just like the actions of one
deranged man has nothing to do with the rest of us.
