More Fun in the New World

The latest Economist (April 22-28, 2006) has a lot of good stuff behind its droll cover, prompting me to make another brief foray into the political world. The Republicans are now in disarray, but that only levels the playing field since the Democrats are always in disarray. As "Happy days are here again -- or are they?" puts it, "The Republicans are so unpopular that any semi-competent opposition party should be sauntering to victory in the mid-term elections in November." Exactly.

In reality, the USA is closely divided, akin to Italy, where the recent national election results finally displaced Bush's ally, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (who is quite a character) via a marginal victory by Romano Prodi's coalition. Today the headlines read "Italy's Parliament Reopens Amid Chaos." It's difficult to effectively govern amid chaos, to say the least. Yet that's where the USA is and that's where it will continue to stay, at least until the end of G.W. Bush's natural term. We can only dream of something better coming along to clean up the mess the American Republicans have bestowed to the world since the 2000 elections.

One problem for the American Democrats is that they have no FDR-like leader to rally behind. Just look at the faces on the cover of The Economist! Jesus! Will no one more electable step forward for the leadership post? No more senators, please. We need someone who seems like an outsider, like a tough governor. As "Dumb and Dumber," another Economist article, suggests, a few moronic but well-timed attack messages like the anti-Kerry "flip-flopper" adverts could be enough to defeat someone like Kerry again -- and again and again and again. It's that dumb in the political world. No wonder the world's in such a mess!

The latest Economist also has a nifty pullout section that explores the burgeoning internet and its revolutionary/evolutionary implications. This is a boon for the movement and exchange of ideas and social interaction. Though (as I'm finding out communicating with Luma, a fun blogger emanating from Brazil and writing in Portugese) free machine translation is not much better than guessing as to context and content. Here's a link: http://luzdeluma.blogspot.com/
It's got terrific visual style and it's fun communicating with her, even if I barely understand a single sentence yet.

"What sort of revolution?" is a good question to ponder. I am fascinated by the implications of electronic publishing where individuals can take it to the people for a very low cost, bypassing the antiquated paper publishing system. The human and monetary costs of traditional publishing and old mail delivery systems makes it all seem quaint already, when not also an annoying obstacle to getting things published. And let's not forget that even traditional printing is barely 600 hundred years or so old. Furthermore, most people were illiterate until the last century. The internet will boost literacy of all kinds, and that's a good thing for writers. Hierarchies can be bypassed, and that's not such a bad thing, either. Besides, like Protestants and Catholics, it's not as if one way will entirely destroy the other. People are free to use papyrus, fountain pens and manual typewriters to their heart's content. Good luck to them on the internet!

Easy link to The Economist: www.economist.com

Ciao!