Marisa, could you send me the address and sign-up info for the camp you write about?
I haven’t gotten this much hate mail since I advocated Chinese throwing stars as a prize in Cracker Jack. My favorite was by Ananda Gupta, who wrote, “I suppose Ken’s definition of technology is any invention that makes people better off in a way of which he disapproves.” Ananda, when I run for the Senate, I hope you’re available for speechwriting, because that’s a pitch-perfect read on my views. I also disapprove of foods that taste bad to me, guys who crack their knuckles, actors who talk quietly to seem “intense,” anyone who receives (or places!) a cellular phone call during a movie, network programmers who use words like “edgy” or “in your face,” lazy writers who use “scare quotes,” and so many etceteras I can barely contain myself.
Look, I don’t wanna go back over yesterday’s posts, which are by definition, yesterday’s news. But to all the writers with their panties in a knot over my idea that there are too many people living too long, I think that’s about the least controversial thing I’ve said since my famous “sky is blue” observation of 1986. How could any American sit in traffic, walk a crowded street, wait for a late plane, visit a national park, or try to gas their car and not conclude that there are too many of us for the earth to sustain? And it’s worse practically everywhere else.
The headquarters of my company is in North Palm Beach. There’s a lot of money there. There are no sidewalks there, and those who dare to walk across the multi-lane roads feel like Frogger, with people staring like you’re nuts. The voting populace will not approve money for schools–most of the voters are, to put it charitably, past the age where their own kids are in school–so the playgrounds next to the schools are not playgrounds at all but instead hold horrific trailers of “classrooms.” Technology has wrought this, rendered our legs and feet and good judgment obsolete. What’s so great about that?
