Memories...

Do you remember ______? (insert important event that the media talked about endlessly for exactly two days then promptly forgot)

The question is, why even go to the trouble of remembering? All the information you need is available on the internet, for free (usually), RIGHT THERE, at your fingertips. Unless the server is down. Or the page you want is 404-not-found. Or you can't remember what you were supposed to look for. Or you don't really care.

Memory -- at the exact time when millions of seniors desperately want to retain it -- is being devalued by everyone else (except, perhaps, shareholders of Intel and AMD). Brain-based memory has been relegated to the Luddite trash-heap, along with typewriter ribbons and 35m film. Memory can now be BACKED UP (i.e. forgotten about) via digital photos, online calendars, zip drives, TiVo, cell phones with huge phone books (who out there even remembers their own phone number? anyone?) -- so WHY in the name of Christmas do you even try to memorize anything anymore? Important dates? Presidents? The states? The countries in Europe, for cryin out loud? (don't even get me started on US kids and their embarrassing lack of geographical knowledge, that's another post...) Then, the kid says, You don't need to memorize anything, because you can always google it. Right. And, says the kid, why would you even want to know about some moldy old war, or some moldy old president with a moldy old wig and bad teeth?

Don't tell me about the "good ol' days," Grandpa, when kids minded their folks and everyone sat around the Victrola and listened to Benny Goodman. We have bright, shiny stuff now. We have Fake Friends on Facebook and 147 channels on HDTV and Prada's 2008 line.

Shut up, kid. You don't know jack.

This is the Captain speaking: Our hyper-consumerism and the relentless pursuit of More, Better treats the Past as no more important than obsolete products to be discarded, like yesterday's fashion.

We are doomed.