I started this blog in response to the many terrific conversations I had while at ISWC in Sanibel, many of which centered around the social implications of the Semantic Web. On the last day, I talked with Dieter Wolf. After some time, he half-jokingly said in surprise, "You are an American, and you care about these things?"

Yes, I do, and there's a lot of us, though you wouldn't know it by watching our television. Last week was an exception, though. There was an episode of ER that blew me away. Doctor Carter, one of the main characters, was treating AIDs patients in the Congo. Two scenes really stood out.

First, he was arguing with his girlfriend because he wanted to break some rules to save a little boy who would soon die of AIDs. She refused, pointing out that breaking the rules would jeopardize thousands of children, never mind one. Carter began to get very angry, but she lashed back, "Don't yell at me. Yell at your President, yell at the people in America, tell them we need real money, tell them 6000 people are dying every day."

The next scene was when he gave a Tonka truck to the little boy as a Christmas present, who by now would never wake up. He placed the boy's hand gently on the Tonka truck and watched it slowly fall off, almost lifeless. He then said, "Merry Christmas" to the boy's mother and the two of them sat silently, watching the boy in the hospital bed.

TV gets a bad rap, and mostly it deserves it. Sometimes though, greatness slips through the cracks. I can't think of a more convincing televised appeal to help treat AIDs in Africa than that one episode of ER.

Others of course see melodrama. I'm not sure how you can be told that 6000 people are dying a day and see melodrama in the dramatized death of a single boy. The world watched on 9/11 with shock and sorrow, motivated to help in any way. In Africa, twice as many people are dying every day, and it never even makes the news here.

What does this have to do with the Semantic Web? Quite a bit. While television is today's most powerful tool for increasing awareness, the Semantic Web will do a better job. The reason: ever-present browsable surrounding context. I believe this new technology will help our society in ways we can't yet imagine.