There is a celebrated limerick on the subject of life in the electric age. It was made, I’ve heard, by biologist Buller of the University of Manitoba. It goes:

There was a young lady name Bright Who moved with the quickness of light She went out one day In a relative way And returned the previous night.

Professor Buller did not invent electricity, nor did he create the problems that attend the angelic Miss Bright, who still moves at electric speed, namely the speed of light. McLuhan and Nevitt did not invent the telegraph or radio or telephone or television, all of which enable the population of the world to behave exactly in the instantly relative manner of the irrepressible Miss Bright.