I am writing this, sitting INSIDE a bus, while the middle aged levantine (irani?) driver is negotiating through the traffic. We are still in Vancouver, Canada and our destination is the border with USA and destinations beyond.. Seattle, Washington.
I am connected to the Internet through the wifi provided by this bus! this is the first time i am connecting to wi fi in a bus! normally at airports, hotels, even in air planes but inside a bus? very soon, taxi cabs will have internet available, if not already so. also shows that this technology is cheap and the hotels who charge 14.95 per 24 hours of your stay is gouging you for the usage of a cheap technology.
Where is the remotest place that i have connected to the Internet? Could it be Rapa Nui, Easter Island in the middle of the pacific ocean? Takeo in Cambodia?
the pervasion of technology of this sort is welcome and mind boggling. In India, I am told 20 million people sign for cellular phone service a month! that is almost the same number of all the people with cellular phones in Australia!
I visit Native Indians in remote parts of the American Continent and it gives me pleasure to see them using cellular phones even though internet is not that easily available and the cell phone connections are spotty.
The wise use of Internet technology in the recent uprisings in the Arab world also gives us hope, as well as the prudent use of this technology in Iran. I watched a documentary about the rights of women in Saudi Arabia (almost nothing) but they express their frustrations through FaceBook or similar or with emails and blogs. The conservative thinkers who live in another century (or other centuries past) will soon realize that it is they who are the dinosaurs of this earth and not the oppression they cause their women which is sure to melt away..
There must be some connection between this attitude and the number of new books published in the Moslem world, just a small fraction of what is published in one small country, Israel.
The bus is gliding along smoothly. it is still drizzling outside. I am happy to be in vancouver, in canada. I am impressed with their friendliness.
May the wind spirits bring me back soon to Vancouver, Canada..
for the next 18 days, my days and nights will be filled with lots of conversations, with friends and lovers, new and old and I look forward to that.
As the poet would say, those who left taking their kisses leaving no memories, become shadows. But each one of us have the right to decide the kind of happiness we wish to pursue..
what a blog.. started with something and wandered all around the place and here I am heading on a bus towards the canadian USA border.. on a day of drizzle..
PS the levantine bus driver turned out to be Amir, who was Iranian and he had lots of stories to tell me. When I told him I was jewish, he said, we dont hate Jews, when was the last time you heard of an Iranian suicide bomber who killed the Jews?
would like to see him again if I get back to BC and he said he just finished the end of Narwooz yesterday with a picnic. he is not a moslem but a Zoroastrian, and he said there are nearly 5000 iranians in BC.. ah well little gifts of time...
