I so appreciate you who read this blog, and I love to receive comments. It is not a good idea for you to have your personal details on this website, so I edit them out. I receive the comments you have made, read and consider them. However, I do not approve all of them. I’d like to protect your privacy as well as mine.

“Privacy” now there’s a word that has lost all meaning in the modern age. In China, I wonder if there even is a word corresponding to it. I saw no evidence of the concept when I stayed there. But here in the USA I don’t see much evidence of it anymore either. When I was young, the older people were afraid to talk of anything important on the phone, because we had “party lines” : more than one phone on the same line. They didn’t want people listening in on the conversation. Later on we had “private lines” : only one phone for that line. Still, you could have more than one actual phone in your house for that line, so your kids, for example, could be secretly listening. So, the older ones, those who had lived through the world wars, were close lipped in their conversations, both in person and on the phone.

These days, everyone using a cell phone is using radio waves, not phone lines, for the connections. No communication is at all secure. And now, furthermore, we have the drones flying overhead, listening to everything that is said. We have google mapping the world, which seems convenient, until you realize that your own home is online all the time, pinpointing your patio dinner party. The young generation doesn’t seem to care in the least, willingly giving out personal details everywhere. How have we come to this?

So, at least here, I strive to keep privacy, that outdated concept, alive.