I keep thinking about ALV and her professed lack of knowledge about email, texting, etc. I don't believe she is as ignorant as she says she is on the subject, but if she IS, then she is just plain STUPID not to educate herself if she chooses to continue to work in her chosen field.
Just communicating with the defense team, let alone anyone else she comes in contact with, makes it REQUIRED to, at the very least, have email. Have you ever tried to reach a lawyer on the phone and/or have them get back to you? Yeah, good luck with THAT. At least with email you send a message the way YOU want to word it (not misinterpreted by a go-between), at any TIME you want to word it, even if it is 3:30am, and boom! Off it goes. Texting might not work as well businesswise, due to the interruption factor, but it is STILL nearly essential when people need to communicate short and to the point, depending upon the situation. Letters and phone calls have their places, but keeping up with a fast-moving case in the 21st century isn't one of them. I suspect the defense team have many email addresses and some of them are used SOLELY for this case, with others solely for certain people or aspects of the case.
Unless she has a budget throwaway cellphone or a really old one or no data plan, there's no excuse for her not to have texting available. She probably wants to force people to communicate face-to-face or by telephone with her so that they keep up their own social skills and she can read verbal and non-verbal cues from them, but that's VERY outdated thinking, AND she would, once again, trying to force her own way of doing things on others. There is a whole 'nother world of stalking, domestic violence, intimidation, and even tenderness contained within the world of email, texting and social networking. GPS is another aspect of 21st century stalking that she should keep up on. The concept of Skype might make her head explode.
And then there are all the uses for non-email/texting aspects of the on-line world that she may not know how to do. Googling, for one. There is on-line banking, on-line news, domestic violence forums, appointment scheduling, on-line account access for everything from public utility acounts to Readers' Digest accounts and everything in between. Unless you've already put yourself out to pasture or don't have the means, physical ability, and/or overall access to these things, there's no excuse NOT to be using at least the basics to get things done in the modern world. It doesn't mean most basic things can't still be done, but more and more places REQUIRE internet access if you want to deal with them. One ironic example of that is Amazon.com. You KNOW she has to have an Amazon account! In fact, I think she mentioned that during her testimony regarding sending books to JA. You have to have an email account to use THAT, too. Of course, she could have directed someone else to do it for her, but that's kind of pathetic, and it doesn't exactly make me think of her as a strong, capable woman.
I keep thinking of my elderly Mom (she turns 80 this year) who has only gotten to the point over the last year or so where she'll at least make herself a cup of tea with her microwave, rather than using a kettle on the stove. ALV is about 65; not THAT old. Being set in one's ways is understandable to a degree, but if you can't keep up with something that the average person has taken for granted for 15-20 years (longer for those of us who started using email in the 1980s, or even earlier for some techhies), then you shouldn't be playing in the grown-up pool, plain and simple.
lease:
