Very interesting response. It made me consider my morning thus far (a nice
relaxing Saturday, not a daily routine!) - woke up to my Globe & Mail (and
coffee thoughtfully supplied by husband) where I read the aforementioned
Hussein story as well as a comparison of taxes in the US vs Canada and an
interesting account of "six degrees of separation" (the theory that everyone
is connected through circles of acquaintance)....went to the kitchen to make
scrambled eggs and flicked on CBC and heard Arthur Black's interviews with
several (as usual) zany characters engaged in creative enterprises, made a
quick call to my aunt in Nova Scotia and discovered it's snowing there, then
proceeded with a second cuppa to my computer to gather my email. Now I'm
talking to a couple thousand people worldwide and telling them about my
morning (whether they're interested or not...which may be one drawback of
our information age). Marshall McLuhan would have loved it!

At 10:47 PM 05/02/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, it may be overly simplistic, and already reflected in other
>responses, but I would suggest that the most significant development of
>our century was the development of effective, truly global communications.
>I mean by this the capacity to have information disseminated to even very
>remote parts of the world within 1 day or less, and accessible by at least
>some members of the majority of communities in the world.  Today, for
>example, people throughout the world heard, if they were interested, that
>the King of Jordan lays dying in hospital, and that he may already be
>clinically dead.  The idea that such information should have reached
>people as far separated as those in Antarctica and Northern Siberia on the
>same day as it happened would have seemed beyond fantastic in 1899.  The
>capability for such rapid distribution of information was not possible at
>all prior to the invention of long range radio (possibly not until the
>perfection of short-wave), and even then, truly broad distribution was not
>possible until industial technology advanced to the point of developing
>mass-produced reception devices inexpensive enough to be available in
>relatively poor communities.  This means that this kind of global news and
>information availability was not possible until at least 1950, perhaps
>later in many parts of the world.  The invention of television, especially
>the cheap televisions which we now have, accelerated this process by
>adding visual images, in fact opening the way to a new kind of English
>language based global discourse (ever notice that in such places as
>Albania and China that some protest signs are written in English, perhaps
>for the benefit of CNN viewers?)
>
>Also, it may be worth noting that, as this increasing web or net of
>communication networks expands, that it has begun to blur some of the
>traditional separations and prerogatives which once defined the powers and
>rights of nation-states, which have so far proved ineffective in
>restricting the expansion of new communication technology (consider recent
>cases in China attempting to prevent uncontrolled discussion of political
>ideas on the internet).
>
>Thus, new information technology, really only becoming effective in the
>'50's, may play a role in shaping a new political reality in the next
>century, possibly one in which nation-states (a dominant force for 500
>years) may come to play a diminished role.
>
>
>
>Sorry to have gone on so long,
>
>J.L.Perry
>
>
Jane Sproull Thomson