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2003-03-20 - 1:46 p.m. I know what you�re thinking. Okay, I don�t but for narrative purposes let�s pretend. You�re saying to yourself, Ethel been quite the busy little beaver on her blog lately�heh heh, I said beaver. Well, yes Beavis you are right. Just my luck I guess that I�ve been inspired to inscribe. The latest bee in my bonnet? I�m glad you asked. I'm wondering why we are all so untrusting these days. Is it the war, is it our post-terrorist attack fears getting the best of us, is it the betrayal of some of our basic assumptions about leaders of the faith, or is it just a symptom of our over technologized world? The only thing I can say for sure is that the causes are probably more numerous than we can point a finger to...but I'm also leaning a little towards that last one. Technology, ain't it a bitch? Its supposed to make our lives easier but in truth it only makes things more complicated. For example, here's a little item I saw advertised recently in Daily Candy NYC. I'll paraphrase the spiel. Have you lost all faith in your fellow man? Trust issues tearing you up inside? Want to win big in Liar�s poker? Well then Handy Truster is the product for you�it's a dandy personal lie detector! Slip this ingenious little gadget in your pocket and the voice reader will let you know if the speaker is telling the truth or feeding you a line longer than for the lavatory on Ladies Night! Or if you are like me, you could use it in conversation with religious and political leaders to see what they REALLY believe. If they tell the truth, an apple appears if they lie, a worm. Of course, I can�t help but wonder what impact something like this (which, BTW, only has an 84% accuracy rating) has on a person�s heart/soul/mind (whichever you believe in) when there is no leap of faith necessary. Can we really live in a world without lies? I, for one, don't want to. Some lies are necessary. Like being able to say "What a cute baby!" when the kid really is just a belly jewel away from being a troll. You tell white lies like that all the time - you know it, I know it, they know it, and we're all much happier for it. Besides do you really want another piece of technology weighing you down? Isn't the cell phone/pda/digital camera/mini TV/DVD player enough? On top of all that, I think that we shouldn't be letting technology take the place of our humanity - our ability to think for ourselves! Isn't that what separates us from the beasts? By trusting a machine more than a man we are setting ourselves up for a future where we cannot fend for ourselves. Sci-fi fans, back me up here, there is a reason that movies like 2001, and the Terminator were made. We have to preserve our ability to think and do for ourselves or our humanity will be lost. Okay, so its just a stupid gadget...but it all starts small. I'm not some technophobe freak living in the back woods plotting crazy schemes, and I'm not an alarmist either. I'm just saying that we need to be aware of what we are giving up when we rely on things outside of ourselves for basic functions. Drink of the Day: Screwdriver (a basic and necessary tool in our modern day society) � 
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