Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
When words fail to describe the dismay, there's always the facepalm
A Soldier recently exercised his Consitutional right to communicate with his Congressperson thusly (redacted for obvious reasons):
"[Dear Congressperson Jones:] Good morning, I just want to write to you to say what a great job you are doing for the state of [North Georgingtonahoma]. I am a Soldier...[with] a little over five years...and I'm currently in Kuwait now. Since being deployed and being in the military I follow the news a lot more, my only concern is, is there any other way deployed Soldiers can find out what is going on back home (news, government, etc.) other than the internet. It is sometimes hard getting on the internet due to mission...what idea's do you suggest?"
Let me explain. Soldier has access to free newspapers he walks past at least three times a day, free Internet at work 24 hours a day, free TV (30+ channels, including FoxNews and CNN) at every recreational and dining facility within a 500-meter radius of where he works and lives, free calls home whenever he wants -- and feels he doesn't have enough access to news from home. Not only that, he thinks that his Congressperson has the time to explain it to him -- when said Congressperson would really rather be doing something productive, such as driving cars into rivers, reading the 1100-page stimulus bill or entertaining lobbyists from the National Organization of Origamists (if one exists, I don't know).
I wish I were making this up.
For those that don't know, this means a lot of senior leaders in his organization have to take time out of their schedules to explain it in a letter to the Congressperson's staff, who will in turn explain it to the Congressperson. Who will, I hope, try to at least co-sponsor a bill making June 15th National Origami Day. I for one, will celebrate by neatly folding dollar bills into swans when I pay for anything at Wal-Mart.
"[Dear Congressperson Jones:] Good morning, I just want to write to you to say what a great job you are doing for the state of [North Georgingtonahoma]. I am a Soldier...[with] a little over five years...and I'm currently in Kuwait now. Since being deployed and being in the military I follow the news a lot more, my only concern is, is there any other way deployed Soldiers can find out what is going on back home (news, government, etc.) other than the internet. It is sometimes hard getting on the internet due to mission...what idea's do you suggest?"
Let me explain. Soldier has access to free newspapers he walks past at least three times a day, free Internet at work 24 hours a day, free TV (30+ channels, including FoxNews and CNN) at every recreational and dining facility within a 500-meter radius of where he works and lives, free calls home whenever he wants -- and feels he doesn't have enough access to news from home. Not only that, he thinks that his Congressperson has the time to explain it to him -- when said Congressperson would really rather be doing something productive, such as driving cars into rivers, reading the 1100-page stimulus bill or entertaining lobbyists from the National Organization of Origamists (if one exists, I don't know).
I wish I were making this up.
For those that don't know, this means a lot of senior leaders in his organization have to take time out of their schedules to explain it in a letter to the Congressperson's staff, who will in turn explain it to the Congressperson. Who will, I hope, try to at least co-sponsor a bill making June 15th National Origami Day. I for one, will celebrate by neatly folding dollar bills into swans when I pay for anything at Wal-Mart.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Messages from invisible sources, or what some people think of as progress
This gem comes from my favorite "news aggregate" site:
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4220530&cpp=1#new
The discussion thread stems from a young poster's request to know what life was like before the Internet. This is not unlike certain nameless officers working for me, who have never had the pleasure of shining their Army boots. ({ahem}Jess...{cough})
My response: I memorized [gasp!] phone numbers. I still remember some today that I haven't dialled in 20 years, but I have to look at my business card to find out my own cell number.
More importantly, it reminds me of a visit to my Dad's house about three years ago. My daughter and my nephew, both 7 at the time, were with me. Dad proudly displays a museum-quality, manual typewriter on a bookshelf, through which thousands of pages passed years ago. He asked the kids if they knew what it was -- my daughter did not, but my nephew blithely responded, "I think that's a typewriter. They used those in the Civil War."
I may be getting old, but I too don't know how I ever lived without today's modern technological advances, many of which we never dreamed about when we were kids. I'm addicted to Facebook and its nefarious ways of helping me keep in touch with long-lost friends and their 25 Random Things About Me lists and the endless drives down Memory Superhighway. When searching for a friend to invite to an informal high school reunion, I located his sister on Facebook and within minutes I had all I needed!
I admitted to someone recently that I can't imagine not living with my DVR as it quietly saves my favorite shows, patiently saving them for me to watch commercial-free whenever I please. Or my cell phone tether, despite its occasional midnight cravings, begging me to answer some technological crisis or random power outage with alacrity and dispatch. I haven't caught CrackBerry fever yet, but I'm sure there is no innoculation other than the iPhone.
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4220530&cpp=1#new
The discussion thread stems from a young poster's request to know what life was like before the Internet. This is not unlike certain nameless officers working for me, who have never had the pleasure of shining their Army boots. ({ahem}Jess...{cough})
My response: I memorized [gasp!] phone numbers. I still remember some today that I haven't dialled in 20 years, but I have to look at my business card to find out my own cell number.
More importantly, it reminds me of a visit to my Dad's house about three years ago. My daughter and my nephew, both 7 at the time, were with me. Dad proudly displays a museum-quality, manual typewriter on a bookshelf, through which thousands of pages passed years ago. He asked the kids if they knew what it was -- my daughter did not, but my nephew blithely responded, "I think that's a typewriter. They used those in the Civil War."
About a year ago I related that experience to a superior officer who, despite three redundant network tools at his disposal, insisted on using floppy discs to process and store hundreds of weekly staff tasking requests. His boss, having overheard, said, "So you're calling him a dinosaur?" My reply: "Damn right, sir!"
Our generation was dubbed the X generation because Baby Boomers thought technology was making us lazy. I'd say we did OK. But maybe -- just maybe -- one of the subtler reasons why the GWOT is dragging on so long is because we are spoiling the current generation of our Soldiers with so much technological comfort that our grandfathers never had in previous wars.
I may be getting old, but I too don't know how I ever lived without today's modern technological advances, many of which we never dreamed about when we were kids. I'm addicted to Facebook and its nefarious ways of helping me keep in touch with long-lost friends and their 25 Random Things About Me lists and the endless drives down Memory Superhighway. When searching for a friend to invite to an informal high school reunion, I located his sister on Facebook and within minutes I had all I needed!
I admitted to someone recently that I can't imagine not living with my DVR as it quietly saves my favorite shows, patiently saving them for me to watch commercial-free whenever I please. Or my cell phone tether, despite its occasional midnight cravings, begging me to answer some technological crisis or random power outage with alacrity and dispatch. I haven't caught CrackBerry fever yet, but I'm sure there is no innoculation other than the iPhone.
We think our kids will never appreciate what they have because they haven't had to endure the hardships we did, like: VHS, riding the bus to school as a senior, walking to the corner Majik Market to play Space Invaders, or putting hand-written letters in these mysterious blue boxes and waiting two whole weeks to get a response. And we're probably right. But our grandkids are gonna wonder how we ever got by at the turn of the century with as little as we did.
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