Planes, Travel, Wired, Print and Socialism
The joys of flying and traveling for business are a far cry from what they once were, but I must admit that on a recent to my home town, where I combined work and pleasure, I finally made the point to block out time to simply buy a magazine to read and relax. This would prove to be relaxing and just the stimulus, albeit with no money from Uncle Sam unfortunately, for this post. In addition to conducting a quick email triage before getting on the plane, it was nice for there to be an easy to access free wifi with good connectivity at BWI airport. I must admit to also being partial to several airports that have good restaurants with good seafood and this is one of them . The BWI airport in Baltimore has a Philips Crab House – others airports of note IMHO are Boston’s Logan Airport with a few Legal Seafood locations and Houston’s Bush International airport with Pappadeux’s – provide incentive to get to the airport early and enjoy a real meal and treat before heading onto the plane where we all know the culinary experience is more of a punishment.
Not having read Wired for awhile, it beckoned from the rack. I will admit I found it interesting enough that I will reactivate a subscription. Yes even in the digital world where most prognosticators have announced the death of print there is still pockets of success. I found this issue very engaging with the article on Googlenomics and the role math plays for then in the own internal economy. I loved the article on how social media and digital media are leading to a new socialism even though they are rooted in libertarian effort to decentralize and liberate each and everyone one of us. I found it disturbing and amusing how the “socialism” word has been bantered about over the last 18 months and clearly the lack of understanding shown by the media and most of our citizenry as is evidenced in the rants of TV, radio and the blogosphere.
Often I have felt the great political treatise that needs to be written and articulated is how to reconcile the ontological gap between liberty, individual freedoms and the role of the state with respect to the social responsibility of large mass democracy and governments. The way society, technology, media and government has evolved lends that past understandings of social institutions and the traditional political ideologies obsolete and inadequate for understanding today’s world and building new working models to cultivate the best out of each of us and our communities and countries.
