Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Today is Groundhogs Day, second only to Easter as a cultural celebration (and invocation) of the limitless potential of the future.

Second Item: Chapter 16 is out. If you haven’t read Chapters 0 (the very critical-to-the-enjoyment-of-the-book Prologue) through 15, there’s still time! And just to help you out, let me try a little experiment. Following is a short little synopsis:

The development of the computer technology that gave rise to what is commonly referred to as ‘the internet’, might not be limited to the design and manufacture of more and more efficient machines. At the certain point, where the limits of forcing efficient performance is reached, a machine, (or computer or network of computers), might just reach a point, beyond which it can no longer yield the increased benefits its designers are demanding. Perhaps, (if) the machine is desperate enough, it might leap ahead, in a direction, unforeseen by its designers.

The development of the internet also allowed an unexpected world, the blogosphere, to arise, like Atlantis in reverse. The ‘sphere, which many consider to be the culmination of every Town’s Common/market place down through the history of social man, has all of the good that can be found when man gathers together, and it might also have some novel forms of ‘the bad’. At once place to buy and sell ideas, to entertain and be entertained, a sideshow and freak show and a place where sublime beauty can be found next to the most destructive expressions of human depravity.

It’s within this world, (a world that almost exists today) that we meet:

• Sister Margaret Ryan, a young woman of considerable talents suffering from a deficiency of certainty. The child of a working class Irish family, we meet Sister Margaret on the eve of the last half of her novitiate (at St Dominique’s in Crissfield MD) where she appears to be doing well, making every effort to find herself in (the context of) her Calling. That she is called upon in a surprising way is where we start our tale.
• Tom Fearing, a man of natural intelligence, endless curiosity and a self-consuming desire to make his loved ones proud, decides to become a successful blogger. To his good?/bad? misfortune, he stumbles on the idea of writing about the history of blogs and blogging, little appreciating the extent to which some aspects of history are meant to remain hidden
• Ed Willoughby is living the dream, successful career, happy family, Ed pretty much has it made, until he receives an email asking for information on a group that he helped organized, back in his Graduate School Days. Despite the fact that this group had everything to do with Ed being where he is today, he has every reason to keep it all in the past, too bad that he can’t
• Maribeth Hartley: a Detective with the Chicago Police Department. As a child with very successful parents, she had everything a girl could ask, intelligence and talent and a peaceable and open disposition, too bad that she wasn’t allowed to keep it. Driven and passionate, Maribeth pursues her career in law enforcement much as the hounds pursue the fox, in one of those archaic English fox hunts… of course, the fox is not the only one being chased
• Sister Bernadine… wise, funny, mercurial (think: Whoppee Goldberg with a little of Joe Pesci from the movie ‘Casino’), the Mother Superior of St Dominique’s Convent and spiritual guide to the novitiates, including our Sister Ryan. The Reverend Mother has a past, but then, who among us doesn’t? When we meet Sister Bernadine, she is struggling to find a way to help an old friend with a serious problem and realizes that she not only must risk her own well-being, but that of a young woman in her care.

OK! that’s all ya get.  Read the rest for yourself at ‘Blogdominion‘ and let me know what you think/feel/want to do next

Oh, yeah  that reference to ‘Ground Hog’s Day’ being a clarklike celebration? come on! do I need to explain everything?*

*(yeah, I totally want someone to say, ‘I don’t get it. What does that mean’?  but I’m just too shy to ask outright**)

** yeah, I know,   right

The photo at the top of this Post?  why go ask Kerry!  she’s got this blog about travel and such…