I've often wondered what it would have been like to live at the dawn of democracy – the plebeians delighting in the new found wonder of knowledge – the aristocrats shaking in their fancy leather boots. It is natural, I suppose, to build walls around knowledge. Knowledge is power and to protect one is to protect the other. But knowledge, unlike the other trinkets in the treasury, is by its nature free. It can be moved about from person to person without ever diminishing in supply. In fact, almost paradoxically, by moving about the supply of knowledge is increased.

The newspaper is fast becoming a relic of the past. Not a day goes by without the opinion pieces and front-page stories of the pulverized chemical stained wood chips we call papers deriding the advent of the information age. It is, after all, unfair that those not trained in the art should practice. It is ghastly to think that those trained in the production of knowledge rather than the regurgitation of knowledge should be given the power of the pen.

Once again those with the most to lose are dizzied by their change of place. The walls they have worked so hard to build around their thrones crumble to the waves of the emboldened unwashed. The same questions run wild in the minds of the elect – Who will protect these lesser ones from themselves? Can those without the birthright be trusted with the power? They feel themselves slipping; they lash out in a last effort – clinging to their pens and inkwells as the sun sinks towards the commons.