W.F.B. -- R.I.P

Bob Englehart / The Hartford Courant

A month has passed since the death of publisher, author, and television host William F. Buckley. I enjoyed the tributes to him in newspaper obituaries and have just finished reading the commemorative issue of National Review, which has remembrances by friends and colleagues. I wish I had met Mr. Buckley, I never had, but I have read enough of his books and essays, and had watched him long enough on his television show Firing Line, that I think I have a sense of who he was, at least as a public figure.

Firing Line was one of television's longest running shows, and compared to today's McLaughlin Group/Mad Money type shows, was like watching paint dry. Except for the conversation, which was often, though not always, thought-provokoing. There Buckley would sit, head-back, slouching in his chair, legs crossed, looking sort of downward towards his guest, asking questions that probably only he, Buckley, truly understood. The set looked as though he had decided to do the show 5 minutes before starting. Over the years guests included: Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, John Kenneth Galbraith, Noam Chomsky, Billy Graham, Jesse Jackson, Clare Boothe Luce, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Tom Wolf. Not a bad line-up. Buckley rarely lost a debate he wanted to win but always showed a deference to his guest when it came to the last word.

Bill Buckley believed in something, but his beliefs never overcame his civility towards his philosophic opponents. As a matter of fact, he was known for his intelligence, his wit and for his charity towards those who oppose his strongly held beliefs. A lot of commentators today could learn from his disposition that a person doesn't own the truth like he does his watch; and that an opponent is made, in imageo dei, regardless of his misguided notions. (I use a little Latin here because it was something Buckley would do when questioning a guest, I think just to throw them off).

The National Review, a journal of opinion, was his most widely-known accomplishment. I subscribed for a dozen or so years and thought that the Notes and Asides section was the most enjoyable and clever reading in print. It is still published today, but at one time, it had the feel of a compilation of a bunch of Buckley's friends who argued with each other in print.

Few men will accomplish as much as WFB, fewer with the kind of Christian charity that accompanied those accomplishments. William F. Buckley, Requiescat in Pace.

Web 2.0

You can almost watch it change as you sit there.

The web, internet use, and the attendant software applications are becoming to us, less like toasters, and more like automobiles. That is, not something we use on occasion to improve the quality of our life, but a part of the "warp and woof" of life itself. For those quick to criticize the loss of something, I agree, but the same was said of the radio, the automobile, the television, of movable type, and probably the first time men built a bridge across a river. Something is lost. I choose to enjoy it anyway.

I recall the first time I tried to buy an airplane ticket using internet access. It was about 1988, the access host was Compuserve and there was no graphical interface, users had to type Control codes to generate certain results. One code for select, one for cancel, etc. I had entered (legally) the Sabre reservation system to buy a ticket, just for the for the fun of it. After an hour of going in and out and all around the online system, I gave up. It took a programmer's skill to crack that system.

Now, of course, it's different and changing quickly.

The web itself is becoming the application. We're not just buying books and airplane tickets, business is being conducted across the web because of its ability to share information with a common platform, inexpensively. It is the ultimate economy of scale application. And as applications morph over to iPhones and other truly portable mediums, things like maps, directions, and finding coffee shops and gas stations are changing.

(Sidebar -- when we were first messing around with the internet, no one, and I mean no one, knew that "search" would be the first "oilfield" of the internet, but it is. Search. Think about it. But that is slowly changing, too with Facebook, MySpace, You Tube and StumbleUpon. )

This is the first election that the internet has played a significant role. Candidates don't just prepare to be "on TV". They are prepared always because they are always being placed on "You Tube." Senator Clinton's remarks on Bosnia bullets was seen by millions. Any event, always viewable, is a strange reality. It changes things. Marshall McCluhan would be impressed.

Here are my favorite websites with a Web 2.0 flair. They are more than applications, they are a part of the way people do things, and they are free or close to it.

Google Docs and Domain management. If you buy the .com name, Google will host it for free, including 100 email addresses.

Zoho -- like Google Docs but their online applications are getting more specific and useful. Apps like Invoice generators and Human Resource management. Free for single users. Develop your own database applications.

StumbleUpon/Digg and the like. -- find websites liked by people like yourself.

Backpack / Central Desktop -- organizes information easily.

Craigslist -- Buy and sell -- free.

Overnightprints.com -- for an old printing guy like me this service is amazing. A lot of companies will sell you printing online. They do it right.

Gotomeeting -- online meetings that are easy to access and helpful. I like it.

Train from S. Fort Worth to DFW Airport

2013 is the finish date for the proposed new train from south of Hulen and I20 through downtown Fort Worth to North Richland Hills and Grapevine, and finally to DFW Airport. Cost: $430 million. The greater Dallas and Fort Worth area will add 1 million people in the next ten years based on current growth trends. We need commuter trains if we are going to have any hope of reducing auto grid-lock.

There are NO cost-free ways to provide an effective means to get around. Roads cost money and No-roads cost money in lost time, growth and opportunity. Of course, I'd like to see us add a few bicycle trails while we're at it.

Is it a bit of a gamble that the area will continue to grow and that fuel costs will still encourage the use of public transportation? Sure, but it's a risk worth taking.

The Star-Telegram online video on the new train is worth watching.

Train video
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