nootrome

technocracy and family

This posting is kind of late, but what the hell. I spent a good chunk of last week visiting my sister and my new nephew Phoenix (pupportedly named for the life that arose from my sister's barren womb) just outside Grotton, CT. Phoenix was born 6 weeks premature and is growing quite happily in a plastic tube right now. My other nephew, Pascal who has now reached the 4th grade was not incredibly happy about sharing a room with a new soul.

My sister and brother-in-law both have a strong engineering background and are both very proud of it. While I love bleeding edge technology, paradoxically, my personal adoption of consumer technology always lags until the product is way out of beta (it was only last year that I got a cell phone). My sister's family, however, rapidly uptakes it:

• My new nephew's birth was made possible through the use of sustained fertility drug treatment
• The 2 dogs which live on their property have an box on their neck which serves as an electronic fence- immobilizing them with a high pitched sound whenever they attempt to leave the property
• extensive use of wireless and cellular for rapid family mobility
• extensive outsourcing of household needs: maids, child camps, etc.

While their politics are rooted in mainstream American leftism- my sister being a strong democrat- their lifestyle reflects the philosophy that they attempt to religously ingrained in my nephew Pascal: A place for everything and everything in it's place. Perhaps it is an extension of the military background that his father has. Their technocratic world was a magazine snapshot - and left both my visiting mother and I both feeling..... primitive.

Come to think of it, I should take a page from them, finish this blog entry and go clean my car.

Posted by Da Mystik Homeboy at July 17, 2004 10:40 AM