Dogtown Wire

You can’t beat it with a stick, or at least it is better than the stick our ancestors once used to beat on hollow logs to communicate over distance with each other.

The 60 plus seats of the meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church were barely empty after last Tuesday’s Park Hill meeting and a new website was established that now permits neighborhood residents to discuss issues of concern.

By Sunday morning there were 13 topics posted and 22 comments written on those posts. Not a bad start in less than a week.

This discussion site cannot take the place of the hoped for founding of a neighborhood association in Park Hill that would bring residents together monthly to prove the old adage that there is power in numbers. But it can surely add to gathering support for its founding and participation.

That the tools of communication were the key that led to what we call sometimes loosely call civilization is as indelible a fact as the markings made on cuneiform tablets the Sumerians are credited with inventing a few years ago. The earliest date given of these writings is somewhere between 2450 and 1850 B.C.

We’ve come a long way from papyrus, rice paper and animal hide vellum that chanting monks spent lifetimes excruciatingly copying one book at a time. Gutenberg’s realization in 1452 that the wine press could have a dual purpose to feed the brain with intoxicating wares (though historians give Korea as the first historical use of movable metal type in 1234 A.D. or thereabouts), gave us the ability to finally print the newspaper more effectively.

And now we have the Internet to allow us to supplement, but never take the place of the still important face-to-face communication neighbors can share in a communal meeting of the minds.

For as noted author George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

And to belay the point a bit, and that it is each person’s responsibility to take the bull by the horns to ensure they control their destiny when given the opportunity to do so, Shaw again said it better than I.

“Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get”

A link to the new Park Hill discussion site is now listed in the Neighborhoods section of the Wire along with other neighborhood websites of interest. Good luck to Park Hill in filling seats around the metaphorical fire of our ancient ancestors to discuss what the tribe needs to discuss as a whole.

(And as a continuing reminder; The Wire is looking for citizen journalists who want to write stories pertinent to their neighborhoods be they writing on local meetings, stories on happenings, interesting residents, op-ed articles, and even simple stand alone photos of their area.

Please email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it if you have an interest in writing on the news of your neighborhood, to submit photos only, or to give tips on stories.)

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