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Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, recently confessed that he had not figured out how to use the Internet, and instead relied on his wife and various aides to handle tasks like e-mail and reading political web sites and blogs, as well as viewing newspapers on-line.
McCain says he prefers reading the traditional way, as do I. After all, it's a newspaper, not a news-screen. Although I've been using computers and associated communication devices for years, starting with an Osborne and a 300-bps modem in 1984, I feel a certain sympathy.
For years I resisted getting a cell phone. Regular telephones are sufficiently annoying, generally ringing when you're busy doing something else. Why carry that aggravation around with you?
But one of our daughters in Oregon cut her landline, and found it cheaper to just add us to her company's family plan. So far, so good. We can talk to her and she can talk to us.
But sometimes I push the wrong buttons -- easy to do since the buttons so tiny that my fingers can hit four of them at once -- and find myself taking pictures. Look, if I want pictures, I'll use a camera.
And I get complaints that my voicemail box
is
full so people can't leave messages. According to the
manual, I need a password to access my voicemail. But
nowhere can I find how to set the password. My daughter
suggested I go to the local outlet for this cell company
for instruction. That's just how I want to spend a couple
of hours that might otherwise be devoted to productive
work. Or unproductive but pleasant dog-walking or reading.
Isn't this supposed to be a tool that improves my
productivity, rather than yet another set of skills to
develop that will be obsolete when a new model comes
along?
We just got back from a week in Oregon, visiting our daughters and new grandson (who is, of course, the most charming and cute baby there ever was). The last time we flew was about two years ago. This time around, there was something new -- self-check-in with touch screens.
I wanted to shout something like Hey, I paid for a
ticket. If I wanted to do all this stuff myself, I'd take
flying lessons.
But given all the security at airports
these days, I kept it to myself and we managed without
unduly delaying the unfortunate folks behind us. However, I
have to confess that I'm getting more and more perturbed by
this do it yourself
society.
Oregon, as you may know, does not allow you to pump your
own gasoline, presumably for safety reasons. I thought it
would be nice not to have to navigate through those pay
inside
and pay outside
buttons.
The rental car kept warning us about low tire inflation.
I asked the gas-station attendant to check the tires.
They don't give us tire gauges,
he said. This guy is
entrusted with our safety as we sit among thousands of
gallons of an explosive liquid, and he can't be trusted
with a tire-pressure gauge? If they're forcing us to pay
for full service, why don't we get full service?
Apparently, even if an entire state prevents people from
pumping their own gas, you still can't escape do it
yourself
America. Nor does there seem to be any way to
avoid constantly re-learning how to perform mundane tasks
like paying bills or using a telephone. And if John McCain
wants to focus on campaigning instead of trying to keep up
with a tech world where what you learned last year is often
useless this year, then I understand perfectly.
But he doesn't phrase it that way, and when McCain says his wife and staff take care of such matters, he sounds ridiculously over-privileged. Most of us are forced to keep up or drop out, since we can't afford to hire people to handle the ever-changing world where we have to do more and more ourselves. And so he ends up sounding dangerously out of touch.
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