Frazz by Jef Mallett for February 06, 2020

Can anybody remember how this arc started?

Nothing gold can stay, Pony-boy.

Not everything is permanent on the internet. Try looking up something tht you know was there 5 years ago. It’s probably not there now. About the only thing permanent on the internet is conspiracy theories.

God is eternal and he’s keeping a record. And he will judge.

The “Permanent Record” originally mentioned was a file folder of enrollment forms, written comments, grades, etc. they stayed in a file cabinet long after the student left school. Some may have been moved to digital format; but they were permanent at least to the extent of safety from fire and flood and past the life of the individual … similar to birth and marriage records.

Those records were unique in the sense that they were the only copy available. Social media has given us the ability (and the curse) to have multiple copies of our adventures in the air. Add to that the ability to play with the various versions before sharing, and you can see trouble surfacing decades later. Have fun and be sure to post everything.

Paper in a manilla folder was permanent. There are no 20 year old records on disk drives unless they got lost in a maintained server farm somewhere.

It might appear lost, until someone is looking for ammo to prove you are a horrible person.

As reference librarians say, there are no answers, only cross-references.

In my case it’s 5 seconds.

“Everything is temporary…” – until you go for that big job interview, and they drag up those photos from that party 10 years ago!

I am disappointed. Frazz has become a sophist.

Actually, whatever you do next can be rendered meaningless by an action that took place decades ago – just look at how an old letter or tweet can be used to brand someone with a label by a pressure group.

Not true Frazz, as many young people are finding out when they apply for a job and HR checks your Facebook page. . . . .

<3 Everything is permanent, everything is temporary.

While Frazz’s point in “When everything is permanent, everything is temporary.” is interesting and I get what is meant…… I instead suggest that even though most things do get “lost in the shuffle” all this really means is that with EVERYTHING kept… it will just take a bit more work for the information to be uncovered for those who dig enough. And, that is scary.

“The evil that men do” may be eclipsed by what they do next, but it’s for the most part easily discoverable by someone who wants to use it against them.

Nothing is permanent except change.

Anyone else remember a strip years ago where Cawfield is in a natural history museum that has a time line of the ages marked on he floor of a long hallway. He notes the shortness of the area devoted to the modern era compared to the length of the hallway and says some like “now tell me about this permanent record” or words to that effect. One of my favorites.

;Blog PostsFrazz17 hrs ·

So that last Z in Frazz stands for Zen. Actually, the second to last one does, but only temporarily and then it’s replaced by the last one and the universe goes on.

But with search engines, should Caulfield ever run for office a simple search for “Caulfield permanent record” will bring up all his transgressions from kindergarden through college. He won’t stand a chance! God help him if he wants to be a Supreme Court justice.

Curiously, I just finished re-reading Gordon R. Dickson’s “Chantry Guild”, much of which centers around the phrase “the transient and the eternal are the same”.