I suppose people are blase about real-time communications and so on,
but I am old enough to be amazed at how connected the world is.
My daughter Naomi lives in New York city and my wife is in Japan at
present. Naomi was interviewed by a Japanese reporter last night at
the Obama headquarters in New York. It was convenient for them --
they did not need an interpreter. They asked "puffball questions" in
Japanese and had her to respond in English to give it verisimilitude.
The Obama people coached her for 30 seconds before the interview as
follows: "Don't say ANYTHING bad about McCain -- don't even mention
him! Smile, smile, smile -- keep everything upbeat -- and don't give
any hard numbers about how many people are working here today . . ."
(It was a mob scene. There were ~800 volunteers at that office, and
hundreds coming in and out of the DeKalb Co. Obama HQ yesterday,
picking up thousands of door-hanger leaflets.)
The broadcast was made in Japan at 5:00 their time (3:00 a.m. EST).
Naturally, we rushed to tell everyone in Japan to watch it. So, here
we have phone calls and e-mail flying back and forth from the U.S. to
Japan, in real time, costing practically nothing.
My daughter's office gave her a blackberry, from which she just sent
me this message:
". . . I'm in line to vote, it's snaking around the block -- a 40 minute wait."
I told her there are long lines in DeKalb County, GA where I went,
and I will try again later
Later:
"Starbucks is giving out free coffee and ben and jerries free
icecream if you vote. My roommates and I got free coffee just now.
Bring a magazine for the line, and water."
The whole world is watching, as they said in Chicago in 1968.
On the other hand, with all this high tech fol-de-rol you would think
that the U.S. could engineer a method of voting that does not cause
people to wait for hours. In Georgia there have been waits up to 12
hours in voting before the election. Gross incompetence. The black
community (and I) suspect it is voter suppression.
- Jed
