Today, I downloaded an iPhone app into which I can enter my zip code and my iPhone's GPS will find the nearest Girl Scouts selling cookies at a public place! This is fantastic, as I am not a Girl Scout nor do I know any Girl Scouts personally from whom I can purchase cookies. This is a truly joyous day for me as an iPhone user and lover of Thin Mints.
On a more serious level, though, today I also played a rousing round of overzealous political tweets and Facebook posts. Things in this country (and world) are feeling a little more hectic than usual. The Middle East is in more turmoil than usual (though at the hands of its own people instead of our politicians, for once!). GOP Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin proposed a budget that will essentially eliminate the rights of public workers to unionize effectively; Union workers have been missing work and camping out at the capitol for a week now. In order to keep the bill from passing, the 14 Democratic state senators fled the state in one courageously constitutional fell swoop. In national budget news, the GOP has proposed trimming the deficit by slashing funding for practically all things liberal, awesome, and vital to the people of the United States: Planned Parenthood, Americorps, PBS, NPR, the EPA, needle exchanges, nuclear power, Great Lakes conservation -- the list goes on and on.
But because of this magical place, the internet, with the click of a few buttons and the tap of a few keys, I reached hundreds of my friends and thousands of strangers by posting links on my Facebook and Twitter to form letters, petitions, events -- you name it! -- that hold the GOP accountable for these heinous budget cuts. I suppose the true magic happens when my friends and strangers respond. We can contact our representatives by phone, e-mail, and twitter to express our gratitude or disgust at their voting record.
The Millennial Generation, who tends to be too self-centered to even vote, is out there on the internet front lines, typing up a storm to voice our opinions. And they'll be heard! We know this, because many of us also happen to be the interns who have to deal with this contact and report to those representatives. We are the generation making things happen in a split-second.
This is what we meant when we said, "Yes, We Can."
On a more serious level, though, today I also played a rousing round of overzealous political tweets and Facebook posts. Things in this country (and world) are feeling a little more hectic than usual. The Middle East is in more turmoil than usual (though at the hands of its own people instead of our politicians, for once!). GOP Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin proposed a budget that will essentially eliminate the rights of public workers to unionize effectively; Union workers have been missing work and camping out at the capitol for a week now. In order to keep the bill from passing, the 14 Democratic state senators fled the state in one courageously constitutional fell swoop. In national budget news, the GOP has proposed trimming the deficit by slashing funding for practically all things liberal, awesome, and vital to the people of the United States: Planned Parenthood, Americorps, PBS, NPR, the EPA, needle exchanges, nuclear power, Great Lakes conservation -- the list goes on and on.
But because of this magical place, the internet, with the click of a few buttons and the tap of a few keys, I reached hundreds of my friends and thousands of strangers by posting links on my Facebook and Twitter to form letters, petitions, events -- you name it! -- that hold the GOP accountable for these heinous budget cuts. I suppose the true magic happens when my friends and strangers respond. We can contact our representatives by phone, e-mail, and twitter to express our gratitude or disgust at their voting record.
The Millennial Generation, who tends to be too self-centered to even vote, is out there on the internet front lines, typing up a storm to voice our opinions. And they'll be heard! We know this, because many of us also happen to be the interns who have to deal with this contact and report to those representatives. We are the generation making things happen in a split-second.
This is what we meant when we said, "Yes, We Can."