Here's the story in this morning's New York Times that makes today's issue worth the subscription price. It's a small piece, on page A20. To me, it is extremely thought-provoking, about the way we live.

Red Alert from the Obama White House on Monday: e-mail was down.

The crowd that texted, You-Tubed and Twittered its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue struggled on Monday with a White House e-mail breakdown that had President Obama's aides distributing information on, of all things, paper. The press secretary, Robet Gibbs, began his daily briefing at 1:45 p.m. by apologizing for the failure.

"Apologies if you've e-mailed any of us in the last two and a half hours," Mr. Gibbs said, adding that he hoped the system would be up and running soon. It was still out of commission at 7 p.m.

The all-day cutoff threw the White House into a kind of communications Dark Ages, forcing workers to talk to one another on the phone or even in person. "A lot of people met for the first time today," said Tommy Vietor an assistant press secretary. "And we had to learn how to work the photocopier."

No official word on the cause of the failure, though many theories were advanced. Perhaps the techno-savvy Obama team overloaded the system. Or maybe Mr. Obama's supersecure BlackBerry threw a kink into the words. Whatever the reason, Mr. Gibbs insisted it was no crisis, and seemed to see an upside in being disconnected -- at least for the time being.

"I've had the calmest morning I've had in about five years," he said.

Hmmm. People actually talking to one another, and meeting each other; a calm morning: those sound like very good things, don't they? In fact, it sounds like a promising environment for actual communication -- and perhaps even for thought and reflection, huh?

Coincidentally, yesterday, for some reason, I was possessed by the desire to clean out the closet in my office. In the process, I threw out years' worth of issues of a theological journal that I once subscribed to -- issues that I read once upon a time. I told Patty that I had done that, saying "I have a pile of stuff to read. I'm sure not going to have the time to go back and re-read old journals."

I thought for a moment and said, "It seems to me that I used to read more, and more systematically than I do now." She said, "That was before you had to spend so much time on e-mail."

Hmmm. E-mail does take up an hour a day. Maybe more. (Some folks have encouraged me to get a Facebook page, because younger folks use that much more than the old folks' technology of e-mail. I wonder: where would I find the time to do that??)

Another question comes to mind: do I need to spend much time on e-mail? Should I use the "delete" button even more than I do now?

E-mail is GREAT for getting out mass information, announcements, etc. E-mail is a TERRIBLE medium for conversation. (It more often fosters miscommunication.) For actual conversations, the old-fashioned telephone is what's effective, not to mention the ancient practice of being in the same room as the other person during a conversation.

Day-to-day life in this brave new world...