New Design, New Content

I recently came across this very pointed cartoon on the news website CSMonitor.com. (click on it to read it in larger format). Aside from the current events references to former congressman Weiner and the struggles for independence in the Mid East, I was left to wonder how much we are living underneath our capabilities, merely because we use powerful technology to simply entertain or, worse, waste time. The ability to connect with ideas, people, and cultures around the entire globe is phenomenal. Are we taking advantage of that? And if we are, what are we doing with it?

"Because of modern technology, the contents of huge libraries and other data resources are at the fingertips of many of us. Some choose to spend countless hours in unfocused surfing the Internet, watching trivial television, or scanning other avalanches of information. But to what purpose? ...
  We have thousands of times more available information than Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. Yet which of us would think ourselves a thousand times more educated or more serviceable to our fellowmen than they? The sublime quality of what these two men gave to us—including the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address—was not attributable to their great resources of information, for their libraries were comparatively small by our standards. Theirs was the wise and inspired use of a limited amount of information.
  Available information wisely used is far more valuable than multiplied information allowed to lie fallow."  -Dallin Oaks, 2001

Please do not misunderstand me: I am not here to criticizeanyone who may be reading this. I am simply bringing up my thoughts, and hopefully spark some of your own. And as a result of these thoughts, I have decided that I will do my part to use technology to enrich lives instead of fill it with drivel.

In the next week or so, we will be welcoming into our family a new baby girl. A lot of this blog will be used to give updates about our little family to our families and friends.

But I also will be posting articles from time to time about "other stuff." Stuff that has made me stop and think, and maybe will for you too. Feel free to appropriately comment on these articles, and hopefully we can all go a little step further in using the tools we have to enrich our lives  rather than entertain ourselves.

courtesy of despair.com

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