Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review May 17, 2000/ 12 Iyar, 5760

Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder

Jackie & Raul
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Arianna Huffington
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports
Newswatch
Weekly Standard

Trakdata


Computers, OY VEY!


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- THIS GUY WE KNOW in the neighborhood wanted to go to Puerto Rico to visit his hub caps. He was proud to announce to anybody in the delicatessen who would listen that he bought his tickets on the Internet. Since this sounded like a pretty good idea, we asked him to explain to us just how he went about doing it.


It sounded like two hours of huffing and puffing: press this key, then that; compare where he wanted to go to where the airline wanted to send him; line up the airport he wanted to land in to where the airplane might have been going; the time the airplane wanted to arrive to the time he would have liked to have gotten there. Finally he got his ticket to Puerto Rico. We decided we were not going to use the Internet for our trip since we wanted to travel inside the airplane.


After we listen to his saga, we asked him, "Didn't you ever hear of the telephone? For ten cents you could have gotten a human being on the telephone and had a reasonable chance of going where you wanted to go."


By this time other customers had joined the conversation. "Do you realize that you can speak to anybody in the world? Just yesterday I had a conversation with a mountain climber in Tibet." We thought, "Shmuck. Who wants to have a conversation with a mountain climber in Tibet? You go up in the elevator with somebody who lives on the same floor and to avoid talking to him or even looking at him you pretend you are so wrapped up in a story in the newspaper that if Mrs. Roosevelt got on the elevator in her garter belt you wouldn't look up. But you are desperate to turn on the Internet to continue the conversation with the mountain climber in Tibet.


People tout the fact that the computer has replaced the newspaper. Well, maybe it has. But you have to be a pretty poor businessman to pay three thousand dollars to replace something that costs ten cents. Besides, I never saw a computer that you can put under a dog when he does his business.


JWR contributors Jackie Mason and Raoul Felder need no introduction. Comment on this column by clicking here.

Up

05/02/00: Cuba si, Castro nu
04/17/00: Gen. Kennedy for Commander-in-Chief
04/06/00: Guns, hypocrisy and common sense
03/31/00: What's sleazier than a lawyer?
03/23/00: Clinton the 3-D Man
03/10/00: Politics or Pro Wrestling?
02/28/00: Free advice to the pundits: Get a life --- and new jobs
02/14/00: She Flunked!

© 2000, Jackie Mason & Raul Felder. This article first appeared in the American Spectator online