The wonders of the Internet!

ralphinlaos · Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 6:51 am Post subject: The wonders of the Internet!

In Laos, we've only had access to the internet for about two years now, and for the first year it was far to expensive (US$45 pere month PLUS $1 for every e-mail we sent - I sent very few).

But, about a year ago, things got better. Now it is US$20 per month for unlimited use - no extra charge for each e-mail. That's more like it.

For me, having access to everything the internet offers, makes me feel more a part of the world - the entire world, not just Laos or America.

I can now read Time and Newsweek at my leisure - and I don't have to pay $4 per copy. I can read The New York Times and The Washington Post and The Guardian. Le Monde and Die Stern. Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. The choices are just about unlimited; every niche or "out of the box" interest seems to have something relevant on the internet.

Recently, I read a very lengthy article about Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman/The Crucible) and his relationship (or lack of) with his mentally challenged son (Vanity Fair). And a large portion of Barbara Walters new autiobiography on another site.

I was researching "how to build a swimming hole" (lots of sites, more than I could ever imagine) and ran across a mention of Grit, which was a newspaper we all read when I was a young child; we got it in the mail every week and it was full of "how to" articles, recipes, comics, short stories and stories which were continued every week. It's still being published today - mostly for a rural audience. And Mother Earth, still going strong.

Last week, my niece in America (Michigan) wrote me that the NBC-TV show, Today, had recently visited Laos for several days. I hadn't even heard about this (I live in a small town far from the capital of Vientiane). So, I went over to MSNBC.com and checked it out; lots of beautiful pictures and articles - all about this tiny Country. Thanks to the internet.

It's all there for the taking. And I still have a lot to learn.

I remember reading once that when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, much of the Country didn't even hear about it for weeks or months. Today, someone in that theater audience would have had a camera or some digital device and it would be all over the world in minutes. That's a good thing, isn't it? I sometimes wonder . . .

Has the internet had an impact on your life - for good or bad?

Ralph

Penelope · Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 10:47 am Post subject: TURTLE AND HAIR - SCENARIO

The Internet can be used for good....or very, very bad.

Keep reading 'The Guardian'.....woolley minded liberal newspaper, which we have taken since we were first married in 1964!!!!!

The trouble is, we have no excuse now.....we know when we are being self absorbed. (I am using the Royal We!!!!)

Biomachine · Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:46 am Post subject:

It was the only connection I had with the outside world when my parents "home-schooled" me. I doubt anyone is interested in the details of my childhood, so let's just say the Internet provided me with the social life and education I never would have had in that environment. It literally saved my life.

Penelope

Biomachine......I would be very interested in the story of your childhood, because that is what forms our attitudes. I am always interested in peoples' day to day lives.......that is what I like to read in preference to 'high adventure'.

So if you want to talk about yourself....do....nobody does it more than I, and I am aware that I might be dubbed 'a self-absorbed' bore....but the only way I can understand other people is by looking at myself.

I don't know of any other way. Embarassed

Penelope

I have just been thinking!!!! Could you all smell burning???

If.....Adolph Hitler, Attilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Robert Mugabe, Adi Amin, Pol Pot etc......had had access to the internet....

and could have contacted Jews......or whatever they consider the other side of humanity.....do you think they would have been instrumental in creating such mayhem and suffering?????

Maybe not.....well, Maybe not....

I think the thing we need to hold in our minds....is that none of us are important......but all of us matter.

The Internet......could be the greatest change for humanity.....because it gives us communication....but only if we speak the truth....stop being so competitive.....and stop being so reluctant to talk about ourselves. Once you know a 'Jew' personally (I am using 'the Jews' symbolically here - god bless and keep them) once we know an animal, or a flower, personally, if it is in 'our garden' then they become real and 'matter' to us.

I am going to stop now....before I get thrown off the wonderful BT website for preaching. I am not preaching.....don't listen to me....I am nobody. Wink

ralphinlaos · Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:47 pm Post subject:

"I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you -- Nobody -- Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! They'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!"

Emily Dickinson, American Poet

But Penelope, Kim Jong-Il and Mugabe and the generals in Myanmar and the leaders in China do have access to the internet (although most of their citizens don't), so I don't think it makes a heck of a lot of difference. But, thanks to the internet and modern technology, we do know more about what is going on in most countries of the world - but it still goes on. Where there's a will, there's a way.

We all matter, even the nobodies. Especially the nobodies!

Biomachine, I am happy to hear someone say something positive about the internet; it can be a force for good or . . . whatever else you are looking for.

Were you home-schooled all through school? My sister home-schooled all four of her children and I often wondered if they were missing out on some things they really should have been experiencing. Especially, interacting with other kids their own age. She lives in a small community, so it wasn't for fear of drugs or violence that she decided to home-school, it was for religious reasons. Will you home-school your children (there's an assumption there, but you know what I mean).

I like your Carl Sagan quote; so true.

Ralph

Biomachine · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 5:05 am Post subject:

Ophelia · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 5:24 am Post subject:

Hello Biomachine,

What you write is very interesting to me, thanks for your post.

I can only contribute in very general terms to this thread, but it seems to me (yes, Ralph, again), that home schooling is a mostly American phenomenon-- probably because of the religious factor-- it's all linked.

In France there is very little homeschooling, but it is allowed, although from the little I heard it is regulated very strictly-- you'd have to prove that you fulfill certain criteria before you were allowed not to send your kid to school.

The funny thing is that, since it is so rare, and because the nineteenth century principles of "free and compulsory education" until aged 18 seem to be etched in granite, nodody can imagine taking the kids out of school and teaching them yourself, it seems to be on the same level as not paying your income tax.
This often amuses me. People think they would lose the generous child benefits the state gives them -- in the case of chronic absenteeism the threat is sometimes used by the authorities, but I seriously doubt they ever do withdraw the child benfits.

ralphinlaos · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 6:49 am Post subject:

Biomachine -

I can't disagree with anything you write.

Some people just have no qualifications when it comes to home-schooling. My sister is a prime example; she had no education herself and I often wonder where she got the idea that she could do it better than the teachers at the local schools.

Ophelia, I think that home-schooling is increasing in the States, and I don't think that is a good thing - generally. If I lived in an area where violence in the schools was common and they had to have security searches at the school door, I would certainly consider home-schooling. But I don't think that is the reason most parents home-school. Unfortunately, it often does involve a religious belief or a belief that sex education should not be taught in schools or the parents not wanting the children exposed to their peers. Usually some nonsensical notion.

Anyway, Biomachine, you seem to have come through the experience with a mind of your own. I wish you only the best.

Ralph

Saffron · Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 8:28 am Post subject:


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