The town of Concord, Massachusetts still holds annual town meetings to conduct its business. This is genuine participatory democracy at its finest — you literally must attend and stand up to be counted to vote on an issue. The bad news is that typically only a few percent of the town actually attends town meetings. I, for one, have in the past left this duty to my fellow townsfolk, who seem to be doing just fine at it, thank you.

But a group of people decided to oppose a recent town vote to add six units of affordable housing to our rather wealthy backwater. Yes, I said six units. They raised the signatures needed to call a special town meeting to rescind the vote. I was pleased to see 1,400 of my fellow citizens turn out to soundly defeat the move, more than doubling the record for the largest town meeting in the past. It's enough to renew my faith in participatory democracy.

Within hours of that event, I logged onto the internet with a Mosaic browser for the first time. Before I knew it, I had skimmed around the world several times, noting places and things undreamed of in my earlier philosophy. My hotlist is growing nightly as I chase strands of the World Wide Web. I've yet to tire of the adventure. E-mail is nothing like this.

I can hardly wait for a dedicated high-speed link. Already, I've set aside a machine to serve as my "store front" on the Web, and I'm planning my home page with all the alacrity of a pre-schooler at the easel with finger-paints. It's enough to renew my enthusiasm for the overworked term "global village."

In a world with decaying neighborhoods, cynical politics, and weakening industries, it's a pleasure to find the seeds of new communities and enterprises. They won't always look like the ones we left behind, or the ones we may dream of, but they are new and exciting for all that. It reminds me of a bit of hillbilly wisdom from my roots in West Virginia — We ain't what we wanna be, and we ain't what we're gonna be, but we ain't what we wuz.

Happy new year.

P.J. Plauger
pjp@plauger.com