Apparently Kim Jong Il, the leader (dictator, insert your favorite diatribe here…) of North Korea has died this evening… (probably yesterday in Korea, or maybe tomorrow... after all it is across the Dateline…)
This in itself is not the issue… the issue is that we (Tina (aka the wife) Steph (aka the daughter) and myself) found out via Steph’s twitter feed…
We are “connected” at least electronically… There are 4 laptop computers and a couple of Ipads and three smart phones (my phone is smarter than your border collie) in the household for three of us… two of the laptops are on… We have TV too… and a radio… don’t forget or under estimate the reach of old fashion radio. Radio continues to be the media of choice in our cars as we commute to work and school.
I subscribe to the NY Times updates… I pay for it (not much so far, but will continue to pay as the costs rise…) They email me updates and news headlines several times a day… I read their digital edition each am… increasingly the NY Times on line is my primary news source. My “Dead Trees” subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle is losing out. (it doesn’t help that the Sunday Chronicle isn’t delivered until near 8:00 am… long after I have lost interest… 20 years ago it was outside about 5:00 am…)
North Korea was a tightly controlled dictatorship… their citizens didn’t have access to twitter or the New York Times or just the internet… not allowed… I can assure your that few if any North Koreans found out about Kim Jong II's death via the internet or God forbid twitter...
Yet, here in the “West”… in a land that values freedoms, we are finding out about great change a world away, via the very technology banned by Kim Jong II in his country… probably before any of North Korea’s citizens… (this was originally 7:50 pm (Pacific time) the NY Times sent out their update 13 minutes later)
It’s a “Brave New World”
And... a Nash Dr. flamingo update... the flamingo fairies have been busy... more have appeared... nearly every house on our street now has one... There are more than two dozen houses with their very own lawn flamingo... at least a couple of houses have several... all in celebration of Christ's birth and community spirit.
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