Our work here is done.

When I sat down in the atrium of Crown Center nine years ago this very evening to start this blog, I could never see myself coming back here for the purpose of ending it.  But here I am, and it's obvious that time and change-technological, social, perhaps even political to some extent-have made its mission unnecessary.

There were a good half-dozen local bloggers who listed and reviewed Wi-Fi hotspots when I started; they're all gone now.  Even national listings are apparently falling into disuse; the Missouri and Kansas listings on wififreespot.com haven't been updated in years.  Is that evidence, however, of failure on anyone's part?  Why, of course not.  It means that free Wi-Fi has become essentially ubiquitous; you don't have to come here or go to a listing site to find it.

And the way we use Wi-Fi has changed as well.  Here at Crown Center tonight I've seen only one other laptop as opposed to maybe a half-dozen smartphones.  Who needs reviews advising of the availability and number of power outlets and how easy a laptop screen can be read if neither will be an issue?

Certainly, though, there are some things I would like to have seen that are yet to materialize.  The digital divide, while steadily shrinking, is still too wide.  Rural broadband availability is still far too scarce despite all the talk and hand-wringing.

Both of these problems can simply be laid to a failure of our national will.  President Eisenhower came to office fresh from his experience as supreme Allied commander in Europe convinced we needed to build a national network of superhighways not just for public use but as a military asset as well.  His successor rose to the challenge of Sputnik and the orbiting of Yuri Gagarin by the Soviets by declaring we should put a man on the moon before 1970.  Everyone reading these words who has a drivers license uses the Interstate Highway System perhaps every day.  Everyone reading these words who is old enough to remember where he or she was on July 20, 1969-and everyone else reading them who's cracked open a history book since then-knows the result of government and industry working together to meet Kennedy's mandate.  Where, now, is our national will when it is again needed?

I won't end on an unhappy note, however.  When it comes to America and her ability to face and solve problems, I'm still the hopeless optimist.  It may take time, but we'll get over both the digital divide and the rural broadband drought the same way Hannibal got his elephants over the Alps-we'll find a way or make one.

As for the blog, I'll leave it here for as long as it pleases Blogspot to host it.  The e-mail addresses of the contributors are real, though not regularly checked for messages (perhaps once a week if that often), but they'll stay active for the time being should anyone have any concerns.  Since I really don't anticipate there being any more posts, I'm going to disable commenting.

And with that, thank you and goodbye.

Mike Royko was funny beyond words.

For what will be this blog's penultimate post, I'm going to give in to a long-suppressed urge and share with everyone here what has to be my favorite Mike Royko column.  Seems like the right opportunity just never came about.

If you're too young to remember Royko-understandable given that he passed away in 1997-he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago newspaper columnist who worked for both the Sun-Times and the Tribune, as well as enjoying a sizable national audience in syndication.  This column, from 1995, was his take on all the hype and hubbub accompanying the rollout of-what else?-Windows 95.

Some background:  The "Slats" Royko refers to is Slats Grobnik, a character he created to carry on imaginary conversations with in print-a common writing device that has fallen out of favor since Royko's time, sadly.  Everyone reading Royko knew  Slats didn't really exist; do today's editors and publishers really have that low of an opinion of their readers' intelligence?

As for the Windows 95 launch, yes, it really was that big of a deal.  Stores stayed open late and people lined up outside awaiting the stroke of midnight.  Remember that Internet access was just starting to become ubiquitous in mid '95, and even if you could get online at home it was probably only via dialup.  Downloading anything the size of an operating system would quite literally have taken days.  Buying software was a brick-and-mortar proposition then and for quite a while afterward.

Anyway, I've always liked Royko's take on the whole thing.  It comes back to mind every time the feeding frenzy is repeated, albeit on a much smaller scale, whenever a new iPhone comes out.  Too bad Royko didn't live to see any of those.  Wonder what he'd think?

Oh, yes-the link to the column.  Here it is.

Enjoy.