This Makes Nothing At All Better

By now, everyone has blogged about the new Apple iPhone. Most of the blogs expound upon its awesomeness, but some lament the passing of much humbler times. To wit: This early blog, called the “Electrical Review,” first posted about this general subject on June 29, 1901. The post read:

"Although still far away, he [The Moderator] thought they were gradually coming within thinkable distance of the realization of a prophecy he had ventured to make four years before, of a time when if a person wanted to call to a friend he knew not where, he would call in a loud, electromagnetic voice, heard by him who had the electromagnetic ear, silent to him who had it not. "Where are you?" he would say. A small reply would come, "I am at the bottom of a coal mine, or crossing the Andes, or in the middle of the Pacific." Or, perhaps, in spite of all the calling, no reply would come, and the person would then know that his friend was dead."

The device in question was called a “Syntonic Machine,” and by 1905 it was the most fashionable item in the most fashionable circles of Paris, London, New York and Chicago. But during World War I, Kaiser Von Wilhelm II banned the use of the device in Germany, which led to everyone on earth thinking that all of Germany was dead. The Kaiser took advantage of this and consequently brought two-thirds of Europe under his yoke in a surprise attack, as far as I understand it. The world was much simpler then; things like that were an everyday occurrence. But now, with the iPhone giving us the power to call, text, plan our schedules and listen to U2 all at the same time, we’ll live in an era of constant distraction – an ideal stage for an even more dastardly German power grab. Think it was a coincidence that Germany hosted the World Cup not but a year before this came out? Well, when the German New World Order comes knocking on your door in 18 months time, don’t go screaming for me in an electromagnetic voice; all you’ll hear back is a small, electromagnetic “Vindicated.”