Happpy Independence Day!

Dear Readers, I know that you are doubtless out doing things today. In my mind's eye, I see you all in natty little outfits, bearing lovely platters of devilled eggs to tree-shaded picnics, enjoying cold Rainier Beers while listening to cunny little transistor radios, and Oooing and Ahhing (in polite, well-modulated tones) to a civic fireworks display. One sponsored by perhaps the Elks, or even the Variety Club.

But the work never ends here at danlangdon.com. While we have a rather important social affair this evening, I did want to fire off some independence day greetings to you, and update you on the internet neutrality issue.

As usual, nothing has really happenned - except that a Senator from Alaska has given such a stirring, imaginitive description of the workings of the internet that I just had to share it with you.

Apparently, Senator Stevens (a Republican, as if you couldn't guess) likens the internet to a a series of tubes that send you delicious tidbits (like advertisements for Hand Cream and military recruitment information) and horrible, web-snarling oddities (like The Good Taste Chronicles or danlangdon.com .)

Apparently, the internet is one big electronic Pneumatic Tube System!

(This is a picture of our dear mother, Catalina Vel-DuRay at one of her earliest jobs, running the Pneumatic Tube System at the Grand Illusion Girdle Company in Toledo Ohio. As with all jobs Catalina has had, she left under a cloud of scandal after it was discovered that she was having an affair with the president of the company)

Pneumatic tube systems were quite in vogue back in the day. Department stores used them so that the salespeople wouldn't have to have cash registers: They'd write up a sales slip, and send the slip, along with the customer's money or "charge plate" to a central room where the sale would be recorded and change sent back. They were really quite fun, and we at danlangdon.com miss them dearly. That's why it was so refreshing to find out that the internet is really just a big, big version of that!

(That was heavy sarcasm, of course - the internet is nothing like a pneumatic tube system, but such people as Senator Stevens really do need to be treated with scorn.)

Anywhoozle, you Alaska readers really should send Senator Stevens (who is also the guy that had that bridge to nowhere built up in some hellhole, and had it called the "Ted Stevens Bridge" or something) an "internets" and let him know what you think.

But not until you've finished all of those Devilled Eggs!!!