May 28, 2004
Our History Begins. Here.
"It is therefore necessary that memorable things should be committed to writing, (the witness of times, the light and the life of truth,) and not wholly committed to slippery memory which seldom yields a certain reckoning."
- Sir Edward Coke
I'm technologically-oriented. I'm also a lover of history. Controversial, maybe, but it works for me. Our history is important. Our fraternity strives to become better every day, to become men of character committed to making a differece. If we can be better that we were the previous day, no matter how small a measure it might be, we are moving in the right direction. So, I created this web log to document exactly what happens in our lives as we progress into the annals of the future, and history, of Alpha Kappa Lambda.
"Who control the past now, controls the future.
Who control the present now, controls the past."
- Rage Agains the Machine, "Testify".
It is my hope that those that follow me will continue the tradition of keeping a documented history (or "blog", but I abhor that word) of our stay here. Alpha Kappa Lambda is one of those things that, no matter what happens, or what events transpire globally, or which wars are being fought where, or if the world ends - no matter what, Alpha Kappa Lambda will live forever. Immortality, in a sense. You are part of something bigger, and you need to believe that. Your brothers are your brothers forever, and you have chosen to be part of something better, and bigger than yourself.
Sorry, it's sounding religious. Anyway, my point is, if this thing that we have, this Alpha Kappa Lambda Fraternity, if this thing really will live on forever, then shouldn't we have a history? Shouldn't we have some sort of record of our doings? Shouldn't we do our successors a favor in blessing them with the knowledge that comes from those more experienced than them? I think so.
Like a father passing his wisdom to his know-it-all son, so it will happen with us. By using a technology to publish and archive what we do, it will help us out a lot. Right now I have a free one-author license to Movable Type 3.0.
Maybe in the future, somebody more technologically oriented will convert to Drupal, or something free that will allow about three authors or so to all contribute a little something to our ever-growing archive of knowledge. Maybe when we have a solid foundation of 50 guys, a "history committee" will be doing just this: publishing the goings-on of our fraternity on this archive. Everybody will have access to the archive, and can read all the entries, right back to this very first one.
In my eyes, the history will be just that: a published retelling of events. Maybe other fraternities and sororities will follow. Maybe we can have some sort of community or ring, and an active online community. Boy, what standards and breakthroughs we would overcome if we were an e-Fraternity! Microsoft Sharepoint networks, wireless Bluetooth PDAs, the list goes on. If we don't keep up with all this, we'll only get left behind. If we really are Men of Character committed to making a difference, then let's make a difference. This is my contribution. Hopefully yours will follow.
Posted by Danny on May 28, 2004 01:35 PM