Doonesbury was interesting all week (start here and read through today). The strip was talking about soldiers using laptops, webcams, and the Internet to communicate with people at home. Of course this kind of story has been around for a decade, varying the kind of communication but not the import to the families involved. The strip this week, though, talked about both the benefits and drawbacks of nearly-instant communication with soldiers whose lives are at daily risk — as with any technology, progress and new burdens are tightly linked. The series also made me think about how long the soldiers have been there, and what that means to them and their families.
(This isn’t meant as a political statement, and I’d ask that comments not make partisan responses from any perspective. I mention it only as a look at technological change reaching further outwards.)