Techic* (for Technic*)

I suppose it's a bit disingenuous, if not downright ungrateful, for a blogger like myself to claim to be a "Luddite" of sorts, but there's just something about things that come under the rubric of Tech that makes me wanna say ick. I'm no spring chick, after all, born with a Twitter in my heart. But then machines and I have never exactly been soulmates; we're more like uneasy roommates who happen to meet each other's needs in some peculiar way. Popular concepts such as "How Stuff Works" and "How Things Are Made" are for me, far too often, as frustratingly unknowable and inexplicable as the existence of God, or life after death. In any case, I take my tech with a grain of salt. One salty old coot who knew how to simultaneously use and abuse the technical was Ted Kaczynzki. Or should that be "... is Ted Kaczynski?" He's still alive—in no small part due to the untiring and inspiring efforts of his younger brother, who is currently the executive director of New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. I've heard David Kaczynski speak on several occasions. Listening to him recount the dawning realization that his brother Ted was the "Unabomber" (it was actually his wife who first recognized her brother-in-law's brilliant anti-technology ravings in the pages of the New York Times) is a moving experience. There were 43 cases of Techic* found in OhioLINK, and 901 in WorldCat.

(Booking photo of Theodore Kaczynski, April 1996, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid