Posting #100

I find it hard to believe that this is the 100th posting that I have done since I started the madness of this blog site just last summer. I have to admit that it has actually been a rather enjoyable experience for me, as I hope that it has been for most of you. Quite frankly, this whole thing started out as a way of improving my writing skills and abilities (not that this was in any way a possibility, or would make much difference to the nonsense I normally expound upon). It soon became a way for me to pontificate on any number of subjects that I really don't know much about and share my opinion (whether asked to or not) on a variety issues that strike me as being of interest. And it was this second reason may have become a real boon to my friends and family. No, not because my facts or opinions are in any way important to them, but because sharing them with you on paper has spared them the ordeal of listening to me expounding upon them (some would say endlessly) in their presence. I am reasonbly sure that there are those of you out there hoping that I will run out of steam soon, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that I seem to have a never-ending supply of opinions and an equally never-ending need to share them.

Now as to this whole 100 thing ...

Since milestones are normally used to celebrate, I'm sure that most of you think that I should use this momentous occasion to take on some weighty subject or true societal ill. Of course you would then realize who you were talking about and recognize that I would most likely content myself with writing the stuff that I always write, in an inane effort to continue to appeal to the twisted audience that I have thus far gathered. (Man, you are getting good at this.)

Actually, while not being willing to make a big deal out of the occasion, it does make me think of the blog that I write, the blogs that I read, and the nature of the freedom that this forum and this technology affords us. Now I am sure that there is a lot of nonsense and misinformation out there in cyberspace (I should know better than most, since I hand a good bit of it out.). I believe however, that the Internet affords us the opportunity to know more, understand more, and communicate more than any other civilization in history. I believe that even with all of the bogus information, all of the mean-spiritedness, and all of the stupidity being handed out as wisdom today; that the ability to exchange information on the Internet is the greatest opportunity to exercise freedom that this country has had since it was founded. We are no longer limited to a newspaper, (3) network news broadcasts, and a couple of weekly magazines to understand the world around us. We now have an almost limitless access to information not only from sources in the US, but around the world. This plethora of information sources (some from people who completely disagree with the US world view) provide us a perspective and a choice that has never been seen before. This expansion in our ability to choose how and what we learn and know of our world makes us to be less likely to be fooled by those in our the media and in government. The wealth of information out there is beginning to create in us that most dangerous of societies - the informed and educated.

Sure some of the information out there is wrong, some even maliciously so; but nobody promised that learning would be easy. We need to remember that we are in the infancy of this explosion of information. We therefore, are also in the infancy of our ability to sort through it, separate the wheat from the chaff, and use what we learn to our best advantage. Like every new tool or technology created, the Internet is spawning a myriad of uses which it's inventors never anticipated or maybe even intended. We are only beginning to understand what those uses might be. There is little doubt that it will take time for society to adapt to this flood of information and its possibilities, and it is probable that people of my generation will never succeed.It will be left to the generations that grow up taking for granted this new technology and never remembering a time when it wasn't available that will begin to understand the freedom that is now afforded to them.
Much like the invention of movable type by Gutenberg and the subsequent expansion of the printed word had a direct connection to the free distribution of information that made the American Revolution possible, this new Information Age, brought into full bloom, may be the spark of a new American Revolution and a revitalizing of the ideas that our Founding Fathers sought.

You know now that I look at this, I guess that this is a pretty momentous subject after all. Woo Hoo! Happy 100.