Zoom Way Back

I used to think that I was pretty technologically hip.

Of course, I thought this back when I was in grade school. My floppy disk was about the size of a piece of bread and actually flopped when I wiggled it. I didn't have Windows on my computer- hell, there weren't even any windows in the entire tiny little computer room they crammed all of my classmates into once a week for "computer class"- and the room (lest you think they were breaking fire code- which they probably were) was really just a little partition off the back of the library where they added a couple of long folding tables set up with giant monitors and CPUs.
The monitors seemed huge compared to today's desktop monitors, however, it was a black screen whose viewing area maybe topped out at twelve inches, with a green cursor. The actual monitor though, whole different ballgame. That thing could have busted out one of those safety glass windows in case of a fire, were we blessed with any such windows, or had we been strong enough at those ages to lift one of those monstrosities. Yes. We were high tech, and loving it.

"Computer class" at that age consisted of a once a week period set aside for the playing of Oregon Trail. Curse you, Oregon Trail. Never once, in all of my illustrious grade school career, did my wagon and oxen team make the entire dangerous trek across the western part of the country without perishing. I lost wheels, I lost family members, I lost oxen due to flood and famine and fording rivers too high for their swimming capabilities. People died of dysentary, drought, and deadly snake bites. I loved that game.

Windows, schmindows, we had DOS, and a little green cursor awaiting our every command prompt! (A:/ blinky blinky blinky anyone?)
Anyhow.... tonight I realized I am terrifiied by one specific commercial, which made me realize I am not technologically hip, which further made me realize I don't really like technology all that much.

It wasn't even a commercial really that scared me, but a product, whose idea seems really ingenious and innocuous. However, being the skeptic I am, I am unconvinced it will actually be used for its supposed purpose.

The product is called a ZoomBak, and is a personal, portable GPS device. For the ultra low price of around $150, the marketing wizards for the company would like you to believe that this super new and ultra cool doodad will help you keep tabs on little Jenny, who just got her license, and can't be trusted to arrive safely at her destination.

So you put the ZoomBak on her car, and get an email (or presumably a text message, since who has the time to be sitting at their own computers all the time when they could be out driving themselves?) when she arrives at her destination. Pretty neat idea, right? Clever and innovative and new.

Here's another fresh, new idea. Don't let Jenny get a license or drive a car if you can't trust her to go where she says she's going to. Wow. There's an idea. Saying "no" to a teenager in this society. Driving is a privelege, not a right. If you don't trust your child, if she's not responsible, don't let her do whatever it is you don't trust her to do responsibly. She must prove her trustworthiness before earning the privilege. Breathing is a right. We will allow Jenny oxygen, and perhaps smog, as we drive away from her, in the cars we earned the right to drive. There, problem solved. Now we don't even have to hear her whine about how uncool we are as parents and how everyone else has one. Blah blah, kid. Cry me a river. Go get a job, but better make sure you can walk to it. Next!

Another marketed use is that you place the gadget on your own car, and should it become stolen, you'll get an email, and then you'll know where it is. Well, huh. I'm stumped as to how we ever managed to live without this before now. Have we never had, oh gee, I don't know, garages? Locks? Failing all of those, policemen, who very nicely come over and file reports and then (if we're lucky) track down our cars, and file more reports, and then (whether we're lucky or not) insurance companies who earn their keep by paying a fraction of what we've paid them over the years? Golly, thanks, ZoomBak, for fixing this dilemma.

So clearly I'm annoyed by this product, but what really scares me is that I can see plain as day what it will really be used for. No one (well maybe the neurotic hover mothers, but no one else) is really going to be using it for what they're marketing it as.

What this horrible thing is really going to be used for is stalking. Let's just say I'm married to some crazily jealous psycho. I'm working on getting out of an abusive situation without causing myself further harm, and he sees this little ad. So he plants one of these cute little buggers on my car. Suddenly he's tracing my every move, and being emailed in real time about every stop I make. He knows when I stop at the police station to report last night's abuse, when I go to my second job, and the address of it. He knows where the new babysitter's house is, because he got the email. He even knows the secure location of the battered women's shelter because even though I made doubly sure I wasn't being followed when I finally gathered up the courage to leave, I didn't know I had a crazy little device planted on the underside of my car.
Let's assume I'm not in an abusive situation. Maybe I'm just some jealous shrew of a housewife who assumes her husband's cheating. I'm stuck at home with three kids under five and bored and lonely. I think he's got some chippy on the side, but I know he'll notice the fees for a PI coming out of our joint account. Being bored one night, I'm lying awake and see this ad. So I decide to buy one- hell, they're cheap! So I slap one on his car, and suddenly I know just where his car was parked, and instead of asking him why it was parked in a residential neighborhood, and learning he was tutoring the blind as part of a reach-out work project, I jump to conclusions and throw my 15 year marriage down the toilet, all because of a gadget.
What if I was some wacky Hannah Montana fan, and put one on her tour bus? Or just obsessed with any random person? Naturally, Jeff thinks this is cool, but I disagree. This thing is Cuh-reepy, with a capital Cuh.

I'd like to zoom back all right. I'd like to zoom way back, to when the only zooming we did electronically was on an imaginary wagon unless a wheel fell off or someone got dysentary. That would put us back a few days, and the going was slow. I don't remember every command prompt I learned, but DELETE was a good one.

I'd like to DELETE a whole bunch of this high tech garbage, and just go back to some low tech stuff. Let's teach our kids the value of Oregon Trail, played on a horrible little screen with green cursors. While it's true there won't be realistic images or vibrating handheld gaming systems, there also won't be portable spy systems attached to their backpacks.

Ode to a Dog

It was said once that a dog's lives were too short, and that that was really their only fault. What other creature would a human so willingly take in as a part of her family, knowing at the beginning of the relationship that the other party would be the first to die? What kind of masochists would we be to continue to seek love from other humans, if the relationship were guaranteed to end without chance of reconciliation before we were ready for it to? While certainly there are relationships that come to an end before our lives are over, none of them is so perfect as the bond between a dog and his master.

I've heard people say their dogs are almost human. Having known and loved many dogs, I find this to be not only vastly untrue, but also an incredible insult on all the canine race. Dogs never lie. They don't judge people based on their looks or style of dress. I've never seen a dog break a promise or spread vicious rumors about another being. Dogs don't share your secrets or let you down. They are much better judges of character than most people, and love without the conditions humans seem to always place on the love they have for one another. The average dog is absolutely much nicer than the average person.

Dogs have no political aspirations. They have no real ambitions, no desire for vengeance, no self-interest. The dog's only real fear is of displeasing a loving master. In return for belly rubs and pats on the head; perhaps the occassional scrap from the table, a dog will bring you joy, comfort you during times of sorrow, and stand by your side faithfully.

A well loved dog is able to sense his master's feelings, and will soothe an angry heart or cheer a sad one with nothing more than the nuzzle of a head or the wag of a tail. A dog's tail can say in minutes what most people's tongues cannot say in hours. He can sense joy, too, and as joy's infectious, he'll revel in that emotion. No friend in this world is better at dividing our sorrows and multiplying our joys as a dog.

There's a difference between a person who is kind to dogs and one who loves them, and if we can't tell the difference, a dog surely can. I currently have two dogs- one who came with a man and has now made himself a part of our hearts, and one who is ostensibly mine- although now she belongs more to my boy than to me, by her choosing; though I've loved many. It's said that an old man misses many dogs. I'd have to amend that to say a lucky old man misses many dogs.
Yesterday I held another dog, an older, smaller one, in my arms as he died. Eddie was my mother's dog, and I was an adolescent when she brought the tiny ball of fluff home. For the first several years of his life, my mother took him everywhere with her. He was never leash trained, but wouldn't go more than two steps from her feet. 18 years later, he knew her schedule and still waited faithfully for her return from work, impatiently sitting at the top of the steps, although he couldn't see her drive up any longer, he simply knew she would be. He'd still follow two steps behind her as she went about her business, and was always happy to know she was near.

As I soothed his sick old body and the doctor administered the drugs that would make him sleep and then stop his heart, I realized that perhaps we don't really own dogs after all, but instead rent them. We should just be grateful when we're given a long lease. It isn't hard to bear their deaths just because we're losing our dearest friends, but also because they're carrying away with them so many years of our own lives.

The dog is the only animal who loves another breed better than his own. Man. How lucky for us, really, to be so loved, without judgement and unconditionally. I think for me, they're sort of the role model for being alive. A dog is your friend, your partner, your companion, your defender. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, until the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.