Here again E.M. Forster's mild mannered, ambivalent and often tortured thinking deserves to come to the fore. The classic liberal finds his or her views more threatened then ever in our current climate.

Writers gonna write, and readers gonna read -- no matter what distractions you throw at us.

All of us have been vastly empowered by modern communications technology - and this is a good thing. The question remains, however, whether we might somehow strive to find a better balance between too much connectedness and total silence.