keraneuology's Journal: They can run the country but can they send an email?

Here we are. 2007, about to elect another president, and close to 500 US Representatives and Senators, and countless other elected officials - governors, attorneys general, state representatives and senators, and all kinds of other individuals to guide our nation through these modern times.

But they all stink.

Let's face it - we have left the ages of stone and bronze far behind and are now well into the age of silicon. (No, Hollywood, I said silicon - that stuff that makes your hackable phone work, not silicone - that stuff with which you are probably more familiar.) We are living in the age of technology, but are being led by people who just don't get it and are throwing away opportunity after opportunity not only to score a victory for themselves but to actually do this nation some good for once.

It has now been about 10 years since I cornered then-governor John Engler at Cobo Hall and pitched my idea for bringing Michigan into the modern age. At the time most people were still on dial-up internet, and many if not most people thought that AOL was "the internet". Michigan's economy was starting to look a little tired but hadn't yet descended into freefall, the state attorney general held the opinion that spam was protected by the first amendment and people could get cheap internet through K Mart's blue light network. My idea was simple: turn Michigan into the state with the best broadband penetration in the country bar none. Make bandwidth so cheap and universal that companies would flock to the state to provide any and all of the wonderful promised services a reality. Not only would telecommuting be devilishly simple but companies that wanted to do biological research or high-precision engineering would have nice, fat pipes almost anywhere they wanted to be for even the most demanding data needs. I pitched the idea that broadband be treated as any other utility: passing the simple rule that you weren't allowed to sprawl yet another subdivision into existence without gas, electric, water, sewer - and broadband - would have ensured that every neighborhood in the state would be within 1/4 - 1/2 mile of a fiber backbone. Instead, Governor Engler came out with some pathetic broadband initiative that spent a lot of money and did absolutely nothing.

How many people are in office today that just don't have a clue? They didn't grow up using technology and think that the DMCA is just what is needed to ensure that next week's 45 single is going to come out on vinyl or that the westerns are still available in the talking picture show for a nickel - and I hear they even have air conditioning these days! Let's face it - people like Orrin Hatch and Dianne Feinstein just don't belong in politics these days. Too much has changed and they have refused to change along with, and we are all paying the price. Seriously - the generation filled with people who have their secretaries print out their emails because they can't figure out how to use a mouse is supposed to overhaul the patent system?

I have been an informal campaign advisor for a couple of campaigns. Most recently I sent a little unsolicited advice to Reposition Romney pointing out that if he was the first presidential candidate to try and connect to the slashdot (and other sites) crowd he could enjoy some serious positive buzz - as much as I disliked Clinton I have to admit that his going after the MTV set was a masterful stroke of genius. Like all of the other candidates, Reposition Romney wasn't interested. Technology to these people is still the domain of the geeks - the geeks who exist only to be exploited to turn a buck.

Out of the 435 US Rep seats up for grabs, can't we get even 20 people elected who know what an HTML tag is? Somebody in office who has even a token grasp of what the DMCA is actually being used for? Aren't we living in a day and age where candidates should think of editing text when they see the letters 'vi' and not Roman Numerals?

Please. It's the only hope we have. Whoever your elected officials are, just vote them out in favor of somebody who understands that not every website has to have www. to start the URL. And if none of your candidates fit the bill then run for yourself. We can't continue in the dark ages - we need new leaders who grasp the world as it is today. More importantly, we need new leaders who can see how the world should be but isn't - all due to lack of leadership.