One huge advantage of a rapidly searchable web is the ability to sometimes make connections in a way that just can't happen in the physical world, more easily and more rapidly with each passing day.
For example, last night I watched part of the Obama speech on race. I'd seen the transcript earlier in the day and wanted to see snips of the speech. Five years ago, I'd have been mostly out of luck -- see it live, see the snip on the nightly news or count your losses. Today, Youtube, there it was. One piece of coverage referenced a Langston Hughes poem as a likely source for some of the content. Here it is. No trip to library required. Toggle between the speech/the poem. Interesting. As I'm reading the poem, I find myself humming a tune -- Carly Simon from the soundtrack of "Working Girl" a movie I'd rented and watched recently, laughing at the 80s styles and quiet at the shots of the twin towers. Lyrics here, video here. Yes, some of the same feel. Back to the Hughes poem. It also made me think about driving through Portland, OR in 1992 and hearing Maya Angelou read a poem, then going back to my office and logging onto Prodigy to see if it was possible at that time to actually get a transcript of something like that (the answer was yes). In 1992, the world of technology and connection seemed fresh and close at hand, almost here but not yet realized.
Today, sitting at home, it's possible for me to draw a (somewhat) straight line from a poet born in 1901 through a meandering pop culture trail connecting movies, a president, a second poet and at least two presidential candidates (John Kerry also used some of the Hughes language in his campaign).
What's the point? In this age of sometimes information overflow, it's worth considering not just how much the information we receive can make us time-poor (and it can), but also how the same tools that can scatter our brains into a million pieces with tweets and RSS feeds and SMS messages and the toast from an incoming email can give us the ability to just sometimes dive deep and make connections or links that actually....make us think.
Bonus question: I *think* that Mike Dukakis also used the Carly Simon song at the 1988 convention...but can't find that anywhere. Anyone?