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May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
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David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
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Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
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Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
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Jewish World Review
The mail and email of the species
By
Jim Mullen
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Every week, it seems, social scientists find another way in which we divide ourselves into groups. There's the Generation Gap, the Gender Gap, the Education Gap, people who shop at the Gap and those who don't, omnivores and vegans, liberals and conservatives, book readers and Kindle readers, rock climbers and normal people, texters and grown-ups, gay and straight, rich and poor, black and white, boxer/briefs and a million other splits. The one that has been bothering me most recently is the gap between the people who read and respond to their email instantly and those who don't.
"Did you get that thing I sent you about that TV show?" I asked my friend Barbara as we were waiting in line at the Stop and Go Away gas station.
"Oh, I didn't read my email yet this week," Barbara said.
"How can you not read your email for a week?" I said a little louder than I had intended. Other people in the line with smartphones in their hands were staring at her as if she'd said that clubbing baby seals was a good idea. They were probably tweeting our conversation. Or recording it on video, hoping we'd say or do something so incredibly stupid that it would get 12 million hits in the next five minutes and get them a three-picture deal with some Hollywood movie company.
But really, what kind of person doesn't check their email at least every 10 seconds? What is wrong with her? Is she just anti-social, or a menace to society? What on earth could possibly be more important than reading her email? Her children? Her husband? Her parents in the nursing home? Where are her priorities?
I, who took the time to send her an email, am the injured party here. I sent her a note yesterday asking if she would record a show for me on a premium channel that she gets but I don't because, well, why should we both pay? And then today I learn she hasn't even read it. What is wrong with her? What does she do all day long if not answer her email? Cook? Clean? I've been to her house, it's just as filthy as mine. Plus, she has a premium channel that she has time to watch while I'm stuck with basic cable.
I hope that someday my friend Barbara will start reading her email every day and not turn into the Technical Amish. Unlike the religious Amish, the Technical Amish can drive cars and use electricity and phones, but they draw the line at email, Facebook, texting and tweeting. It's all very quaint and soon, no doubt, tourists will start searching them out so they can show their children how people used to live.
"Oh look, Daddy, that one's putting a letter in a mailbox!"
"Don't point, honey, it's not polite. But that's how it was when I was a little boy. If you wanted to send someone a message ..."
"A message like 'R U L8?'"
"Actually, no, I mean a long, written message about what you've been doing and what the people they know have been up to and ..." Just then Dad's cellphone will ring and he'll read, "I'm bored. Can we go home now?"
Barbara asked me what I had emailed her about. I told her about recording the TV show.
"I couldn't have done it anyway," she said. "I'm down to basic cable. Why should I pay for 600 channels I never watch? It's like going to the grocery store and paying for a bunch of food I don't like and will never eat. That's crazy. I don't have time for it anyway. I spend most of my time on Skype with my grandkids."
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jim Mullen is the author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo."
Previously:
Jotting down the un-bucket list
Bees deliver stinging fashion critique
Have a tissue issue? Help is a phone call away
My guy's guys are better than your guy's guys
Divorce, Facebook style
Millionaires are a dime a dozen
What not to name the baby
Technology is a wonderful thing -- when it works
A bad case of the wedding bill blues
Of cupcakes, teenage moms and crazy nuptials
FOOD FIGHT!
Rolling Stoned
Caterwauling over death of books is premature
Ask your doctor if this column is right for you
Could shopping be any more inconvenient?
Thanks for the lack of memories
Help wanted: Teenage life coach with all the answers
Sorry, wrinkles are not legal proof of age
Dead mice tell no tales
GOING PAPERLESS -- PRICELESS!
Should bad behavior be rewarded?
The perplexing problems of the rich and famous
Do these glasses make my gut look big?
More expensive by the dozen
In one year and out the other
Thank heaven it's Black Friday
Planning for the long term ---- tomorrow
READING THIS WILL MAKE YOU THIN AND HAPPY!
The Seven Secrets of Success
It's tough living off the gridIt's tough living off the grid
How not to clean the houseIt's tough living off the grid
The yellow badge of cowardice
Any way you slice it
Home sweet homeschooling
Don't Head for the Borders
Money ball
Golf and death go hand in hand
Tune in, turn off, unplug
The radar curtain
Is Steve Jobs clouding my privacy?
The gift of garbage
Johnny Intern, Ph.D.
Twenty-foot fences make good neighbors
You must remember this…
TV experts and real news
Hey caller, where's the fire?
My sad cushy life
Pacemaker, don't you mess around with me
Big Brother is skinny
Flight of the snowbirds
This HDTV needs child support
Dear Future: Where's the dome?
Not so elementary, my dear Watson
A vacation revolution
Your call is very unimportant to us
Life: There's no app for that
Bam! Practical kitchen magic
Poisoning myself
Ban Huck Finn in schools --- even the sanitized version!
$38,000 for traffic and weather updates
2011 Predictions: Nostradamus was a hack
2010: A year of annoying junk
Why do bad things happen to stupid people? Moving on from movie theaters
Money never sleeps, but it does pass out
President Trump kept it classy
Stalking your college kid won't change a thing
Putting my life in Jeopardy
Mo' government, mo' problems
iLostIt
Dressed for excess
Expert tease
The mysteries of Jersey
You are a toilet, where am I?
Don't we all cheat at the game of life?
What happens when I forget where Google is?
Don't let the doorman hit you on the way out
Picasso fiasco
Purple (hair) Daze
Let me hear your body talk
Working from work
Babies deserve clean restrooms, too
3-year-old bear-killers are a thing of the past
Money-making ideas on the fly
Collecting and hoarding
Chain of fools
Please come pick up your acting awards, ESPN commentators, you've earned them
You've been superpoked by the U.S. gov't
e-Readin', e-Writin' and e-Rithmatic
A pose by any other name
Warning: Column contains 2010 spoilers
He loves only gold, only gold
Think about direction, wonder why …
Flushing your money down a diamond-studded toilet
More like wack Friday
The good, the ad and the ugly
The desert of the real
Let books be large and in charge
I was insulting people way before the Internet
GPS drill sergeant: Left, right, left!
Butterfly in the sky, you make winds go twice as high
Music to my ears it's not
You don't light up my life
Fair or not: Country living is far from Little House
A parable for the ages
Top 100 Cable news stories of the century
Green dumb
A developing story
Thinking outside the lunch box
What's good for the goose is good for the scanner
Newspapers will survive, but network TV?
A really big show of generation gaps
When pigs flu
The reports of our decline have been greatly exaggerated
Mergers and admonitions
Invest in gold: little, yellow, different
Stuck in Folsom Penthouse
Collecting karma
Setting loose the creative juice
It's all in the numbers
You're damaging your brain with practical skills
The real rat pack
The unspeakable luxury of the Park-O-Matic
Gross-ery shopping
© 2009, NEA
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