Surprisingly, White House found to be lacking formal records management system

I hate to admit, I'm not a real big reader of the news these days. I love the act of drinking tea and reading the paper in the morning, let's face it though, it just doesn't fit into the sleep deprived schedule of your average graduate student. But I do get sucked into various virtual newsrooms periodically in an attempt to keep myself somewhat informed of the world outside my head.

And despite my reclusive tendencies, I know we've landed in strange times when gay.com is reporting on the email archival practices of the white house:

White House missing up to 225 days of e-mail
published Wednesday, August 20, 2008

http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2008/08/20/4

At a hearing on Capitol Hill in February, the White House told Congress it was trying to determine how many e-mails were missing. An earlier analysis from 2005 estimated the number of days of missing e-mails at 473 over a period of 20 months.

"We will continue to work with members of Congress and the National Archives and will communicate the results of our accounting effort at an appropriate time," White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has said the White House's failure to properly archive e-mails violated the Presidential Records Act. The top lawyer for the National Archives has expressed disappointment the White House did not have a formal records management system in place. (Pete Yost, AP)

An Apology to Hytemlia

Over many years of living in cramped cities, I have inadvertently found myself becoming a disciple of Asphaltia, goddess of parking. I am not an ardent believer, but rather I find myself offering up incense and incentives while circling blocks and blocks of cars seperated only by slim margins of driveways and fire hydrants. Being that I gave up my car earlier this summer, I find myself wondering if I will miss her benevolent presence in my life, or if she will instead confer her benevolence on my thin skull whilst I pedal my way betwixt impatient drivers.

But I fear I must also offer up an apology to Bitonia, goddess of code and Hytemlia, goddess of the internet. For I have created indescretions against them. Forgive me, Bitonia. Forgive me, Hytemlia. I am complicit in using software that creates mauled and ugly code through the use of a buggy WYSIWYG HTML editor. I promise that I understand the weakness of my ways. Please understand, I shall to atone by creating a beautifully simple and yet effective hand coded informational page, marked up in validated XHTML, and laid out like a haiku declaring my dedication to your wisdom.