Thanks to technology, it's a small world after all

In the past two weeks, I have tuned in to two concerts broadcast to my television from around the world.
On July 1, while we celebrated my mom's birthday, we watched the Concert for Diana from London. (I've been a major Anglophile all my life, and loved living in England during 1996-1997. Diana died shortly after I returned to the U.S.) Although satellite technology has been around for a long time, and although I remember watching the Live Aid concert in my youth, it still impresses me that we can experience what someone on the other side of the world is watching.
This past weekend, as I waded through my ever-increasing piles of work, I had the Live Earth concert feed from the HD network on my television. I saw artists performing at simultaneous concerts in New Jersey, Washington D.C., Hamburg, Shanghai, London and who knows where else. Millions of people all over the world watched along with the thousands experiencing the music live -- all in the name of environmental awareness (though it did strike me as rather ironic to see concert attendees sipping drinks out of the forbidden plastic cups, and I pondered how much energy all of the amps and lights used, and how many carbon footprints were used up flying the artists hither and yon. But it was a lovely moment, and I shan't indulge in my cynicism).
I haven't really used Skype yet, but I'm glad it exists. It's an especially valuable program for military families who are split up due to deployment.
I'd like to think that being more connected to each other will make us more peaceful creatures -- but the daily news seems to prove me wrong. And if all of those people all over the world could come together in the name of halting global warming, why couldn't they do the same thing for the people of Darfur? Or the "invisible children" in Uganda? During Macy Gray's performance, I saw that her white satin dress had been emblazoned with "Darfur".
Hmmm. . . I seem to be getting cynical after all (it must be all of the technical difficulties of my LIS 2600 assignments getting me down!)