Tools that really work!

For many years, technophile author Kevin Kelly has traded gadget and gizmo recommendations with friends.

But unlike many in the tech world, Kelly isn’t obsessed with the latest, slickest gadgets. A best-selling technology writer and a former editor at Wired magazine, he is more concerned with objects he or his friends have used, sometimes for many years, and found to be the best of their kind.

Earlier this year, Kelly gathered his recommendations, and those he received, into a weekly mailing list, Recomendo. Kelly then added them to his Cool Tools website, which is steadily building an enthusiastic audience.

Cool Tools is a refreshing antidote to the hype that surrounds the latest hot gadgets. Unimpressed by newness for newness’ sake, Kelly is attracted to objects that have withstood the test of time — and is passing those ideas on to others. It’s a habit he learned while editing and publishing the Whole Earth Catalog, the bible of counterculture do-it-yourselfers who wanted in “tools and ideas for the 21st century.”

Kelly’s eclectic interests — he’s a former photojournalist and a cycling nut — ensure the site’s material is always delightfully unpredictable. There’s quite a lot of tech, of course, but Kelly is as likely to highlight a book about raising chickens as an FM transmitter for the iPod.

So, alongside recommendations for a great inkjet printer, is a rave for an overlooked book about Japanese hot springs, or a paean for cheap gel pens. And because many of the recommendations come from Kelly’s friends and list subscribers, they are passionate, personal and touching. Kelly has just self-published some of the contributions in a book, Cool Tools.

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farm house in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, ”Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I replied: ”But I did have a drug problem when I wuz a kid growing up on the farm.” I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.

I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher. Or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me. I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profane four letter word. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden and flower beds and cockleburs
out of dad’s fields.

I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline or chop some fire wood. And if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the wood shed.

Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin, and if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America might be a better place today.
-Courtesy Country Whispers