So, our friends at Boing Boing explain how the founder of Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales, is planning a new search engine, Search Wikia, to challenge Google and the like. I like the idea that orinary mortals, like us, can have a voice. I just hope that the masses will lead to better results than those done automatically by Google. After all, Wikipedia has been accused of errors as well . . .

Thanks to our friends at LifeHacker, David Seah’s one-page Compact Calendar for 2007 calendar helps us get organized with an entire year at a time. If knowledge is power, then this handy calendar provides a good vantage point for us!

Here in New York City in late December, the air is filled with people wishing one another “Happy Holidays!” In the cultural melting pot of NYC, this seems so very politically correct. The generic “Happy Holidays!” serves Christmas, or Hanukkah or the Winter Solstice, or even New Year’s Eve. What can be a better effort at cultural sensitivity than this?

I have also noticed that there appears to be a direct connection between people wishing one another “Happy Holidays!” and the proximity to Christmas. I wonder if this connection is accidental, or a postmodern way of dealing with the holiday season by trying to be inclusive of such differences? Is wishing “Happy Holidays” an innocent-sounding code for wishing “Merry Christmas?”

Perhaps “Happy Holidays” means “Merry Christmas?”

Whatever holiday, or none, that you celebrate, I hope this season finds you at peace and with happiness.

It is interesting that I find myself wishing people “Happy Holidays” rather than the “Merry Christmas” I used to wish people when I was growing up. At that time, I thought everybody was either Christian (the majority, and therefore the “correct” faith) or Jewish (and all the rich kids at school were Jewish, so I supposed all Jews were rich and smart, too!). Christmas and Hanukkah were always spoken about in school, but now the world seems smaller and more intimate and yet more intolerant all at once. What is one to wish people during this season? How does one, if in an apartment building or public area, celebrate their own holiday without being insensitive to others? How can we be ourselves without confronting others?

I saw the Ashes and Snow when the Traveling Museum was in New York in 2005, and it moved me tremendously. I bought the catalog for it, which is something I often do for museum shows I attend and interact with–especially those that either inspire me, such as the New Orleans After the Flood: Photographs by Robert Polidori or those that disturb (or challenge) me like the Bruce Nauman exhibit at the MOMA some years ago. I have often thought about the Nauman exhibit, having had to see it twice to be able to handle it.

 Gregory Colbert did just the opposite, his work moved me to tears. I am not sure why, since it was not violent, but there was something surreal about it, a je ne sais quoi, that I am able to experience again as I just purchased the music from his movie.

Since I started this blog, I have been thinking about how the Internet offers the possibility for anybody to get their voice heard online. Of course, everything online costs, but there are a number of free possibilities out there, such as Blogger, that allow anybody to have a blog, and thus have their message heard. Of course, with so many blogs being made and abandoned every day, perhaps most will not notice.

I think silence and voice are elusive concepts that are so intertwined they cannot be seen independently. Silence means others can have a voice, and to have one’s voice means another is silenced.

Is it this simple? Who decides?

I think silence and voice are elusive concepts that are so intertwined they cannot be seen independently. Silence means others can have a voice, and to have one’s voice means another is silenced.

Is it this simple? Who decides?