The Worldwide Information Revolution

     The January/February 2000 issue of The WorldPaper devotes a page to its annual Information Society Index, which assesses the information revolution in 55 countries. They are divided into Skaters, Striders, Sprinters and Strollers. As a noncompetitive stroller, I find these labels misleading, since to me a sprinter goes faster than strider. Be that as it may, the Skaters, represented appropriately by a blonde in a bathing costume on roller skates, are headed by Sweden, with the U.S. in second place. Then come Finland, Norway and Denmark, showing how Scandinavia leads the revolution. The United Kingdom (12) and Germany (13) are the last of the Skaters.
     The Striders are led by Hong Kong. Southern Europe does not do too well: France (21), Italy (23), Spain (24), Portugal (26) and Greece (29) The sprinters include most of Latin America, with Brazil (42), Mexico (44) and Colombia (46) surprisingly below Saudi Arabia.
     The sorry strollers include China (51), Peru (53), and at the very end India (54) and Pakistan (55). These last two enemies should have spent their money on computers rather than on nuclear weapons.

Ronald Hilton - 2/9/00