What do you get when you Google OFTA? You might get a lovely photo of last week's OFTA presenter, Julia Andrews, doing her musical thing on the life and musical career of Duke Ellington.
But there is another series of items just waiting to be discovered.
When you put the acronym “OFTA” to the Google test the first thing that strikes you is that there appears to be over 18 million possibilities for that four letter combination. That’s a bit ominous, but it does narrow down quite nicely. There are a lot of references to the “Office of the Telecommunications Authority of Hong Kong” (OFTA) or the “Offshore Financial Trade Association” of Great Britain. You can actually join another OFTA if the “Online Film and Television Association” floats your boat.
Should you be brave enough to leave the comfort of the English language, take a gander at the site for (OFTA) the “Observatoire Francais Des Techniques Advancees.” You might be able to figure out what they do, but OFTA.cz will have to remain a mystery unless you can decipher Czech.
There are also a number of references to the “OMAN Free Trade Agreement (OFTA)” You will discover quickly that it has not been popular in all quarters. One blogger has written an article titled “No OFTA”, there is a citation to an “Anti-OFTA” letter, and there actually was a “Rally against OFTA” in Tacoma, WA on July 20, 2006.
Before you get too discouraged about the treatment of our fair acronym, you can take comfort in Google reference #28, which reads “OFTA Takes a Ride on the Dodgeville Line.” A click on that URL will bring you to the happy smiling face of Mr. George Waltershausen, railroad buff and eminent real OFTA speaker.
It is both comforting and astonishing to discover the one and only true OFTA standing for "Old Farts Talk Arts" is alive and well on the internet and meeting the 2nd Wednesday of each month in the Buchanan Center for the Arts on the square in downtown Monmouth, IL.
Long may it survive—even in the face of august competition.
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