Once upon a time...

For the second day in a row, Marty Brennaman has railed against Twitter and Facebook. Why? Is his raving any more pointless than what he claims Twitter to be?

The citizens of Moldova, a little landlocked country squeezed between Romania and Ukraine, would not take too kindly to Brennaman's dismissal of such a "stupid" thing as Twitter. When the Communist Party of Moldova "won" parliamentary elections at the beginning of April, Twitter was responsible for the protests that ensued. Because of Twitter, a 25 year old woman is under house arrest and could face up to 15 years in prison on a charge of "inciting mass disorder." Do you think Natalia Morar thinks Twitter is trivial?

Although the protests changed nothing in the political climate, they put Moldova on the map for a lot of people. Why is this important? Because the situation has the filthy hands of Russia all over it.

Twitter is new technology - people are still trying to figure out what to do with it. Natalia Morar found a way. Businesses are also starting to use it - Charmucks uses it to garner feedback from its customers, for example. Amazon discovered a catalog error through it, an error that had the potential to cause a social uproar and a boycott of its products. We're just beginning to discover how useful this technology can be.

One would think with Marty's refusal to join the rest of us in the 21st century, the Moldova situation would be on his radar, given that it reeks of the same elements that brought us the Cold War. But I doubt he cares about a tiny country whose name sounds like something out of a fairy tale.
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