Death Be Not Proud

Wow. It's been a rough day for the human race.

I haven't seen a lot of press around this yet, so it seems like it's very fresh news, but it appears that Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wiki project (Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Wikibooks, etc...) has been murdered. Apparently, his shooting death was related to the false article posted about John Siegenthaler, Sr., a Kennedy-era reporter. The article has received a lot of publicity over the last week or two, and the author has apparently apologized for what he termed a "joke". Nonetheless, it seems someone who was a friend of Siegenthaler has shot and killed possibly the most prominent pioneer of the new age of the internet, often called Web 2.0. His life was ended senselessly, but its lasting impact on the human race has only begun to form. Evidently, someone was attempting to further prove the faults in Wikipedia. Sorry for the disinformation. It worked on me, and that's not easy to get by with. It definitely makes me look at Wikipedia with a healthier degree of skepticism.



John Spencer, the American actor I'm most fond of for his almost transcendent portrayal of White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry in NBC's The West Wing, has passed away at the lamentable age of 58. In an eerily parallel turn of events, Spencer died of a heart attack less than a year after his character, McGarry, was compelled by myocardial infarction to resign from his White House post. Many of you probably know the West Wing is my favorite television series of all time. John Spencer's death strikes a melancholy chord of tragedy deep within my soul. I hope both of these impeccably talented gentlemen are well-received into God's loving arms. If a man's gifts to humanity speak to the quality of his soul, I'm confident they both are.

I want to look at Senator Lieberman's proposed innovation bill, the National Innovation Act of 2005. I had planned on researching it tonight and serving something up for Elephino, which is sorely malnourished of late. Unfortunately, before my research could get underway, I tripped over the last two unfortunate events and spent the last hour reading about the two mens' lives in tribute. Joe Lieberman will wait until tomorrow. If he doesn't, he won't be receiving a tribute on my blog. Goodnight and God bless!