Dear Mitch Albom

Here's one man's response to Mitch Albom's op-ed piece I read today in The Athens Messenger, April 6th, 2011. Can't find the original article online, but did find out while searching, that Mitch Albom is apparently really famous, cool, funny, and probably a rich republican, and white.


Dear Mitch Albom,

You better stop writing in the newspaper, because, well obviously if you have anything worth saying, the only true way to say it is in person. Written text is just SO bland, cursory, and lacks all the proper intricacies and pragmatics of REAL natural conversation. Better stop using your phone too, now that I think of it. Oh, and anything else you use to communicate that isn't you in close physical proximity to the person you want to communicate with.

I'm sick and tired of baby boomer-and-up techno-phobes who have nothing REALLY pertinent or interesting to say about new technology and its applications, and offer no logical arguments against its use. We only get people like Mitch who go on about how they are uncomfortable with how technology is allowing for new ways to do things. Upgrades in technology have literally been happening since the dawn of man. Haven't you seen 2001?

I get that you think its important, honorable, and shows respect to the bereaved when you physically go to a funeral. Don't get me wrong, I think so too. But for a new generation of people who amass 800+ "friends" on their social networking sites and then kick the bucket, do you really want your family footing the bill for people you don't really care to have show up to your funeral anyway? Webcast funerals allow acquaintances, who would normally just send a card, a chance to commiserate. This is just another tool that will find a niche for doing something that helps people do what they do. There's nothing to be uncomfortable about. Just know that it exists and 100 years from now, when you and I are dead, there'll be some op-ed writer complaining about something else he's not used to yet either.

Sointex Jambis