From curculio@glasscity.net Sun Mar  5 15:30:14 2000
Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8])
	by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id PAA52356
	for <classics@lists.u.washington.edu>; Sun, 5 Mar 2000 15:30:13 -0800
Received: from mail1.glasscity.net (mail1.glasscity.net [208.13.0.80])
	by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id PAA12512
	for <classics@u.washington.edu>; Sun, 5 Mar 2000 15:30:12 -0800
Received: from t9q0o0 (unverified [208.13.20.82]) by mail1.glasscity.net
 (Rockliffe SMTPRA 3.4.6) with SMTP id <B0031144868@mail1.glasscity.net> for <classics@u.washington.edu>;
 Sun, 5 Mar 2000 18:30:11 -0500
Message-ID: <001f01bf86fb$b1534180$52140dd0@t9q0o0>
From: "Michael Hendry" <curculio@glasscity.net>
To: <classics@u.washington.edu>
References: <38C2E8CD.D4768492@exeter.edu>
Subject: Patron saint of the Internet
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 18:36:55 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300

>From the February *First Things*
(http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0002/public.html):

"The *Sunday Times* of London has joined a large number of hackers in
proposing that the seventh-century St. Isidore of Seville should be named
the patron saint of the Internet. Isidore, who wrote numerous books on
everything from agriculture to medicine to theology, is credited with being
the first author who developed a database. It's not official yet, but I
thought you might want to know in anticipation of the next time the lines
are down. According to the *Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church*: 'His
works became a storehouse of knowledge freely utilized by innumerable
medieval authors.' His major work, *Origines*, is an encyclopedia 'organized
on the principle that etymologies usually give information on the things to
which the words refer. Derivative and often fanciful, it is impressive
overall, and a valuable source for the learning and thought of the time.' It
sounds like the Internet to me. So it wasn't Al Gore after all. It was St.
Isidore."

(The author is the editor of the journal, Richard John Neuhaus, and this is
one of the miscellaneous notes in his own column "The Public Square".)

Michael Hendry
Bowling Green State University
Home address:  129 W. Reed / Bowling Green, OH 43402
Telephone:  (419) 352-6852
E-mail:  curculio@glasscity.net
Web-page:  http://www.glasscity.net/users/curculio  (still being transfered
and upgraded)

.