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August 03, 2005
A Chicken in Every Pot, and Two Wi-Fi Nodes in Every Garage
Tom Friedman tries a bold column to give the Democrats an issue. They can be the party of Wi-Fi!
First, though, the scare-mongering:
The world is moving to an Internet-based platform for commerce, education, innovation and entertainment. Wealth and productivity will go to those countries or companies that get more of their innovators, educators, students, workers and suppliers connected to this platform via computers, phones and P.D.A.'s.
and:
At the City Hall subway stop this morning, Mr. Rasiej plans to show how one makes a 911 call from the subway. He will have one aide with a tin can in the subway send a message to another aide holding a tin can connected by a string. Then the message will be passed by tin can and string up to Mr. Rasiej on the street, who will call 911 with his cellphone.
Cute little stunt, that, and I don't doubt that having cell phones working in subways is something that engineers are working to fix as we speak. But, working for the Times, Friedman is not suggesting that we wait for private investment:
Mr. Rasiej argues that we can't trust the telecom companies to make sure that everyone is connected because new technologies, like free Internet telephony, threaten their business models. "We can't trust the traditional politicians to be the engines of change for how people connect to their government and each other," he said. By the way, he added, "If New York City goes wireless, the whole country goes wireless."
And just to make sure that the Democrats get the hint that this is an issue he's handing them on a platter:
"One elected official by himself can't solve the problems of eight million people," Mr. Rasiej argued, "but eight million people networked together can solve one city's problems. They can spot and offer solutions better and faster than any bureaucrat. ... The party that stakes out this new frontier will be the majority party in the 21st century. And the Democrats better understand something - their base right now is the most disconnected from the network."
There are some interesting ideas in there--like sending pictures of potholes to city officials complete with Google Maps to pinpoint the location. But of course at that point, the city officials will probably print it out and put it in somebody's in-box.
Posted by pat at August 3, 2005 02:21 AM
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» ot top-down, but a hub of connectivity from Politics and Technology
Thomas Friedman nails it. This is easily the shortest and best description of what we're trying to do here at Politics [Read More]
Tracked on August 8, 2005 12:46 PM
Comments
Your cynicism is truly inspiring.
Posted by: at August 3, 2005 07:08 AM
Imagine you're the City Hall employee whose job it is to handle these messages numbering in the millions every day. DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE (damn that Algore!!) DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE ....
Posted by: kitty at August 3, 2005 07:58 AM
I think the government should provide city wide free internet access via wifi.
The idea they should charge for it is ridiculous.
Cell phones, though, I think that is a little more complex.
Posted by: paul at August 3, 2005 09:10 AM