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Well, this is it - the start of my precious blog!
Upon awaking this morning I was greeted by a fresh kindly inspiration which promised that today was a grand time to launch my damn blog. Nevertheless, I have a dozen fine reasons NOT to begin this just yet. After all, it was only yesterday that I got WordPress installed on my WEB site. And while I'm not the perfectionist that some like to accuse me of being, I do like to do things (half-way) right. And several matters are (quite honestly) not up to my normal standards. For instance, I'd ordinarily insist on doing a unique customized look for this blog (WordPress and others provide a presumably rich array of ‘Theme Resources’ but I'd still need to develop my own). Not to mention .....
Yet in spite of all my good excuses it occurred to me that the struggles involved in developing my material and organizing a clear vision could itself be worthy blog content. Besides, today's date seemed modestly momentous. It's another day between the birthdays! The first was August 11 - the date between my daughter's birthdays and a favorite day to share some special time with my girls. While March 3 falls between the birthday of my sister Sue and my cuñada. Does that mean I'm into ‘magic’? Definitely YES, but not in the way 666 out of 777 would ever guess.
Anyway, the above should suffice as the first chapter of an ongoing personal introduction.
The above name and {parenthetical} description were hurriedly keyed in while on-line and installing WordPress for my WEB site. Consequently it was done with less thinking time than I'd usually deem appropriate for something this important. Notwithstanding, I'm still not inclined to change either.
This blog is intended to primarily promote a concept that was first introduced to Mr. Richard M. Stallman the herald of ‘free software’ (or per my liking - ‘software libre’). In my initial and too coy explanatory document I note that, “... I have never mentioned the one key word (English verb) that truly encapsulates the full significance of this proposal. If you [RMS] could tell me what this magic word is then I'd be elated beyond anything you might imagine!” The word I was fishing for is “monetize” - so I've now decided to put it right up front - bold as a bare buttocks. Now concerning the “our” in “Regarding our 2nd greatest invention”, it would have been more conventional and hence a bit clearer to use “mankind's” or “the world's”. So I don't mean “our” as in “yours & mine” nor “me & my cronies”, but as “our shared human heritage” (which hopefully better conveys the desired sentiment).
In his last email, RMS said, “Please do keep working on a simple, brief, nontechnical way to explain the idea. If you can produce that, then people could get interested in using the idea.” The following represents my third attempt to better accomplish that very objective.
My toying with search engines to see what they coughed up regarding “monetize” returned some disappointing yet enlightening results. The most common notion (drivel) is in connection with ‘monetizing’ a WEB site which merely amounts to producing (dollar) income from same. Focusing in on Business, Finance, Economics and Social Sciences via a Google scholar search rendered a yet stranger array of leads. While the central banks know the score, we again see things like “monetizing fear” (putting a dollar figure on it), or “Monetize Your Bricks and Mortar Through a Sale-Leaseback” (starts out awesome but ends up typical). So there seems to be this unsupported bizarre fixation on turning the very idea of monetization on it's head. And instead of recognizing the fundamental concept of a people being at liberty to choose the best mechanisms to serve as their money – there is a need to avoid that power and reverse any promise of freedom or alternatives by reinforcing the status quo as the invariant master (i.e. putting everything in terms of dollars or other national currencies).
A few dictionary quotes follow:
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]
Monetize \Mon"e*tize\, v. t. To convert into money; to adopt as current money;
as, to monetize silver. [1913 Webster]
Random House Webster's 1992:
mon-e-tize (mon'i tiez , mun'-) v.t. \<-tized, -tiz -ing\>
1. to legalize as money.
2. to coin into money: to monetize gold.
[1875-80; < L monet (a) MONEY + - IZE]
Derived words
--mon e-ti-za'tion, n.
WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]
monetize v : give legal value to or establish as the legal tender of a country;
"They monetized the lira" [syn: monetise]
One might note in the above a degradation in the concept from what we see in 1913 to the latest perverse oxymoron of "legal value".
Actually there is a pretty good document about (debt) monetization from the St. Louis Federal Reserve here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/84/12/Monetizing_Dec1...
Gee, I've just gotten started and in looking back over this, it's clear that I'm a far cry from doing anything that amounts to “... a simple, brief, nontechnical way to explain the idea.” Well, it's not my first disaster, but I will need to regroup and continue on tomorrow. However, I first want to sincerely thank you for being there, because you – my hopefully future readers – are the only chance I have of moving this hope forward. Your presence have set the stage for a truly grand adventure and the challenge is now in my court to see what we can make of this opportunity.