No Email Day

According to his staff, once Barack Obama becomes President, he'll probably have to stop sending all those emails he likes to send. Not surprisingly, there are some concerns about email security since it seems like everybody but me knows how to hack into someone else's email. In addition, the Presidential Records Act requires that all correspondence of a President must be made part of the public record. Obviously, we don't need to have hours and hours of him saying things like, "Love you, too," or "Who won the game?" in the Smithsonian. So, it looks like he'll be hanging up the old Blackberry – his emailing, phone calling, Internet checking, etc. device.

It's ironic to cut Obama off from the Internet since the Internet was such an important part of his campaign – and of his victory. It also seems somewhat unfair. I mean, if he's comfortable communicating this way, should he really have to stop? He was elected President of the United States. It's not like telling your teenage kid to stop using the Internet. And let's put it in an historical perspective: suppose they told Lincoln he could no longer use a pen to draft his speeches? We might never have had the Gettysburg Address.

But as we've seen over and over again, President-elect Obama is a very disciplined man. If he has to give up communicating via the Internet, I'm sure he will. But would you be able to? It might not be as easy as it sounds. I think a lot of us are addicted to writing e-mails, checking our e-mails, sending messages via Facebook or I.Ms., etc.

Here's a simple test to see if you are an Internet messaging addict:

1)You come home from a party. Are you capable of going to bed without checking your messages?

2)In the morning, do you feel you have to check your messages before you eat breakfast?

3)You're having sex when you hear a beep that means you have an incoming message. Do you ignore it, answer it, or try to get the sex over with as soon as possible so you can check the message?

4)When you're bored or waiting for a phone call, do you sometimes send completely unnecessary messages to people, such as: "Call you later," "I'm thinking of getting a haircut," or "I'm really bored?"

5)Do you ever go through your electronic address book, looking for people you haven't sent messages to lately, and then send them a message like those in Question 4?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you could be an Internet messaging addict. If you answered "Yes" to Question #3, your relationship is also in trouble.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily a dangerous addiction. What I am saying is that many of us waste a lot of time doing this and could probably cut down on it.

Here's my proposal. Even if you're not an addict, why don't we all show some solidarity with the President-elect by having a No Email Day? Let's all just stop using email for one day. (And by email, I also mean all the other electronic ways people communicate, so don't be a wise guy and think you can keep I.M.-ing). These are difficult times for our country, and by doing this we can demonstrate that we are capable of making sacrifices.

You get to pick your own day for your No Email Day. We don't all have to do it on the same day. That way, you can pick a Sunday when you know you won't need to send messages for work, or a Wednesday when you know you won't have to send messages about last night's football game.

A few years ago, most of us were spending zero minutes a day emailing. Surely, we can go back to that for just one day, especially if Obama is going to be refraining for at least four years. I'm going to set a good example, by starting things off. Right when I finish this column, I'm going to stop sending and checking on electronic messages for 24 hours. Ready, set, go!

Okay, okay. I admit it. I only lasted 20 minutes. In a moment of weakness, I walked back to my computer, and once I was there, the next thing I knew I was checking on my email. (No new messages, by the way). Well, I guess it proves one thing: Now we know I'll never be able to be President.

Real American Familes

For the past several years, we all know that there has been an emotional issue that has divided the nation. The other day, Connecticut became the second state to make the practice legal. After that happened, I interviewed Frank Wilson, the head of the Campaign For The Preservation of Keeping American Families The Way We Like Them. When I talked to him, he was a bit upset because he thought that his proposal should have been on all of the ballots across the country in the recent election. He calls his proposal Proposition 8A and it deals, of course, with the controversial issue of making it illegal for "anything other than the traditional lawn to be legally called a 'lawn.'"

We conducted the interview on his beautiful green lawn:

ME: Mr. Wilson, why shouldn't couples be allowed to have whatever kind of lawn they want?

WILSON: If you look up "lawn" in the dictionary, you'll find that it's defined as "a stretch of open, grass-covered land." It doesn't say a lawn is something that contains a rock garden, a waterfall, or a big tree in the middle of it like some people are trying to get away with these days.

ME: So, you don't like the way some of these non-traditional lawns look.

WILSON: We do not object to the way they look. What we object to is calling them "lawns."

ME: What do you think they should be called?

WILSON: Civil Union Front Yards. But they say that's not good enough.

ME: Maybe in the spirit of equality, they feel the same word should be used for them as the one used by more traditional lawns.

WILSON: Tough. We had the word first. Look, sure they should have the same legal rights as those who have normal front lawns – water, sunshine, etc.— but they are certainly not entitled to the name. These people have an agenda of changing a definition that has been important to the sanctity of American families for generations.

ME: What does a lawn have to do with the sanctity of American families?

WILSON: A lawn is where Americans have tossed baseballs and footballs around. It's where little kids wrestle. It's where young couples have sat and smelled the recently mowed grass.

ME: Yes, but...

WILSON: A lawn is made of American grass. Period. It's not a place where people admire a rock formation or listen to a waterfall. If two consenting adults want those kinds of things, they should put them in the privacy of their backyard. We don't want our children being taught about non-traditional lawns that belong to a small, but loud minority.

ME: Mr. Wilson, maybe it's time to accept that over the years, the meaning of the word "lawn" has evolved.

WILSON: Please don't bring that ridiculous "evolution" theory into this.

ME: But obviously, the vast lawn and garden of something like the Palace of Versailles is quite different from your own front lawn.

WILSON: Let's not bring the immorality of the French into this discussion.

ME: Mr. Wilson, you don't only object to couples having non-traditional lawns, but you claim that their having these lawns somehow denigrates your own lawn. Could you explain that, please?

WILSON: Glad to. If a couple has some weird thing in front of their house and they are legally allowed to call it a lawn, that diminishes the status of my own lawn. Next, anything could be called a lawn. A monkey could be called a lawn. And we don't want to allow monkeys to replace American families frolicking on their lawns.

SUDDENLY, THERE IS A LOUD NOISE COMING FROM NEXT DOOR.

ME: What was that?

WILSON: Next door neighbors. Those Macmillans are fighting again. One of them probably threw something at the other. It happens all the time.

ME: That's terrible.

WILSON: Yeah, it's one crazy family. Each of them has been married three times, their kids are on drugs, empty beer bottles come flying out of their house at all hours,...

ME: And yet, their lawn is perfectly manicured green grass.

WILSON: What's your point?

ME: Isn't it just possible that the couple down the street that has the nontraditional lawn with a rock garden and a waterfall might have a loving, caring family?

WILSON: How would I know? I've never met them. And I don't plan on it, either. Hey, is that crabgrass?

As Mr. Wilson bends over to weed his lawn, I resist kicking him in his traditional, American rear end.