Computer wins every time

If you read this, you'll soon figure out that I did battle with my computer most of Wednesday and all of Thursday morning.

I did not win.

If I were a terrorist -- and, Mr. Ashcroft, I am not! -- I wouldn't be hiding my nukes in orphanages to keep U.N. inspectors at bay. I wouldn't be thinking up ways to spray anthrax and smallpox all over my mortal enemy.

Nosiree.

I'd be looking for a way to turn off the electricity.

Without power, the civilized world would come to a screeching halt. There's hardly anything in our lives these days that isn't controlled by a computer.

Try to think of someone -- anyone -- earning an honest living whose job isn't dependent somehow on a computer.

We can't even navigate our cars without computer-operated traffic signals. For several days now crews have been working on the signals at Independence Street and West End Boulevard in Cape Girardeau, leaving motorists to rely on their own wits to obey temporary stop signs.

Folks, it has been pure bedlam at that intersection.

We just bought a new toaster -- something every family ought to do every 20 or 30 years, don't you think? -- that has computerized sensors that guarantee every bagel will turn out just the way we like it. I like mine darker than my wife's toasted bagels, and so far that newfangled toaster has done everything its makers promised.

But without electricity, that toaster would be ... toast.

We went to see a movie the other day. Just as the feature was about to start, the projector had a tizzy, leaving us in total darkness. After several attempts to restart the film, a member of the theater's management announced that there was "a little computer problem" and the film would be ready to show in a few minutes.

Not only do computers show films, they also make them. Hollywood apparently has run out of real actors and has started relying on computer-generated movie stars.

I'm sorry, but no computer concoction will ever replace Mickey Rooney.

OK. I know there are probably some of you saying, "Mickey who?"

If you don't remember the Andy Hardy movies, you've missed a lot that the 20th century had to offer, including William Saroyan's "The Human Comedy," which starred Rooney and also featured Frank Morgan (the Wizard in "Wizard of Oz") and Van Johnson. Donna Reed and Robert Mitchum, barely past their teens, were in the movie too.

No computer could make that movie.

There are a lot of us who remember TWBE: The World Before Electricity. The Killough Valley farm where I grew up didn't have electricity until the 1950s, no telephone until the 1960s and no indoor toilet (I'm not making this up) until the 1970s.

The pickup truck didn't have a computer. As a matter of fact, its engine was less complicated that most of today's riding lawnmowers.

E-mail? If you wanted to give someone a message, you wrote a letter or went to see them.

And movies were made by real people with real actors.

I'm not advocating a return to the good old days. What I miss, though, is the uncomplicated reality of Life Back Then. Why did we decide to give up human contact just because our world was taken over by machines?

We can still walk instead of taking the car.

We can still have a face-to-face conversation instead of exchanging e-mail.

We can still pick fresh bouquets instead of arranging silk flowers made by computer-controlled machines.

Don't get me wrong. Electricity and computers have made my life and your life better than our parents could ever have imagined when they were our age.

But I'd like to think that we're still in charge -- not some machine that ruined most of Wednesday and half of Thursday for me.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.