If I could change the world

I think I mentioned that I got a Facebook account recently. There's a lot to recommend Facebook over MySpace, and a lot of my friends are on it, too.

But a lot of people I knew from the TV business are on there too, and I have reconnected with some of them. Of that group, there is a subset for whom absolutely nothing has changed in the ten years since I last saw them. It's as if I am picking up a conversation that was interrupted in 1998. It's kind of unnerving - sort of like those dreams I occasionally had where I discovered that I was still a TV reporter and my whole life the past ten years had been a figment of my imagination.

(An aside: is there any other kind of figment? A figment of reality? A figment of newton? Must investigate further...)

I would like to be able to just wave my hand and make the whole world wake up - by which I mean make them think the way I do. Wars would cease. Leaders of nations would serve the needs of the people instead of just shoving crazy ideas down their throats. Cat adoptions would skyrocket. People wouldn't camp out in front of Wal-Mart and trample people to get big screen TVs. James Dobson's head would explode. Spammers would quit sending me ads for Viagra. And TV journalists would rise from their desks, walk out the newsroom door, and never return.

But alas, I am but a simple man. My powers are limited.