by Louie Tacker Recently I have been contributing to this site and I have been reflecting how wonderful it is that just with the click of a few buttons I can be read half way around the world. What a wonderful invention the web is. Oh sure, there are many downfalls, spams, predators, and other not so wonderful things around it, for which we must surely protect our children as well as us adults. 

Putting that aside, just think what we now enjoy but tend to take for granted - how quickly we can log on and be talking with someone many miles away, people from different countries, without ever meeting them face to face or perhaps one day may even meet them - something that would never be possible without the ‘net’.  In the last six or seven years, I have chatted with many people from all over my country the U.S.A. as well as almost every part of the world. And just like in person, when we meet new people, sometimes we hit it off and other times it is just a quick hello and goodbye. 

As I have met people from other countries, I have seen an opportunity, the chance to dispel so many myths that exist about other countries and cultures. Even in my own country which expands some 3,000 plus miles across coast to coast, there are so many different ways of life in each region, and many times we would hear through the media how people from the south are like this, and from the south - oh they are this way. About my region here in New York City, we have had a terrible reputation of crime, violence and plain nasty people, which of course has some truth to it. What really counts however, is that people from New York are warm, caring and good people, as was proven after the tragic event of 9/11, where never has one city of nearly 10 million people joined together as one. I was amazed that crime nearly stopped for a two to three month period; people opened their homes and hearts to strangers in need. This, once again dispelling so many wrong notions about the people of New York. 

Before the internet, one had to physically visit a region of the country or the world to find out just what is true about the area. But now, with just a few clicks we can meet new people, learn their ways of life, their thoughts, real truths about different governments and cultures. I have found out that so, so many people from around the world have this image of BIG BAD AMERICA in their minds, which at first upset me. But then I realized - if  only I could change even a few minds of what America is all about and what we as a people here are really like, then it would spread and if others would do the same, then the world can get smaller even without leaving the keyboard. True, there are many faults with America and we Americans sometimes take our freedom too lightly, but Americans are very generous good people who want all the same things that people from around the world want. Like others, Americans want to raise their children, see them succeed in life, have peace - as no sane human wants war or violence. 

I find it mentally stimulating to hear through the internet, of the different cultures and their ways and how certain governments are run and how people perceive us and other countries.  We truly are on the dawning of a new world, a more open and free world.  Of course, there is no replacement of actually meeting people, or actually visiting different places. But I look at it this way: in a lifetime, how many places and people can we possibly go to and meet? Some people unfortunately never get a chance to travel at all, so isn’t it a blessing that even though only through a computer screen, we can meet and in some cases grow friendships with people from all over the world? 

Yes, this is only the beginning, and hopefully future generations will nurture this new and ever expanding domain and maybe one day, many years from now, we will see ourselves not as people separated by oceans and mountains and distance. This is because the more we learn about each other, the less we will fear each other, and the less we fear, the chances are - the more peaceful and happier our world will be. We shall then become but a race. One race, the HUMAN RACE…