Happy Columbus Day! The world is flat again.

Now usually I use this holiday to express to friends of mine how it's kind of messed up that we use this day to celebrate the life of a man who basically stole a country that already belonged to someone else and then introduced greed, disease, racism, etc. to the indigenous people of this country. Don't get me wrong tho, because had he not started this snowball effect of pilferage and European greed upon American land, I perhaps would not be here today as a remnant piece of that White Anglo Saxon avalanche if you will. I mean had he not "claimed" the U.S. as a new land there would have never been further exploration by Europeans so soon, never would've been slavery, and never would've been a Louisiana slave owner by the name of LaFlore (this is just my theory of how my family got its name.) And there would've never been a Civil War, Civil Rights Movements, Barack Obama, "etc. etc. etc." (c) Yul Brenner in "The King & I."

But anyway I surely digress because the purpose of this post was actually to discuss the irony of how 500 years after Columbus proved the world was not flat, we're BACK to saying that it is! At least in theory. Written by Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat, is a book which analyzes globalization of the world economy and how technology has helped to "flatten" the global playing field for companies; breaking down barriers in a sense. He created a 10-point list of things contributing to this "flattening" of the world and the one that stood out to me was "#10: The Steroids" as he called them. These steroids refer to personal digital devices like mobile phones, iPods, personal digital assistants and instant messaging. As a 24 year-old you could see why these would stand out to me because I love all of these things! The fact that I'm even writing this blog exhibits that fact! But I like to look at how it flattens the world socially, not just economically. In 1492, Columbus would've never imagined that his speech upon landing in America could've been as such: "The future is now! Soon every American home will integrate their television, phone and computer. You'll be able to visit the Louvre on one channel, or watch female wrestling on another. You can do your shopping at home, or play Mortal Kombat with a friend from Vietnam. There's no end to the possibilities!" (c) Jim Carrey in "Cable Guy." So I've said all of this for 2 reasons. 1: just to rant about Columbus Day because I felt like it. and 2: Because I think the irony of us going so far to prove the world was not flat has led to us inadvertently creating a new flat world.