If it wasn't for human ingenuity the most awesome display of electrical energy would be lightning and its thunder. In fact, until the century before last about all humans managed to do in the way of coping with high voltage was to get in out of electric storms. But since Ben Franklin and his kite, we've more or less mastered electricity. First with the telegraph, telephone, and electric chair; then with television and nuclear generators. Despite these advances, we still have to get in out of the rain when it starts to thunder and lightning. Which should tell us something about how we deal with what we know. Unfortunately it hasn't.

In two hundred odd years since electricity was first stored in Leyden jars and its power applied to human functions, we've made what might seem like amazing strides forward. We've wired ourselves together in an endless coil of modern conveniences, although we still don't know exactly how electricity works. We've even instilled logic to the flow of electrons to the point where nearly invisible magnetic bubbles are able to think faster than we can.

The unfortunate part of our romance with electricity is us. For every good use we put it to, there are three or four terrifying applications. Never has this been more evident than in recent years as the electric advances that got us to the moon and close to the other planets have become available for more mundane uses.

The most simplistic perversion of electronics can be credited to government around the world who've taken the wonders of the NASA developed Japanese replications and applied them to the bureaucratic task of tagging each citizen with a computer designation. Parabolic reflectors, microwave transmissions, silicon chip miniaturization, and othpr marvels of the electronic age give government the opportunity to feel as if they can peer into our minds to make sure we aren't thinking bad thoughts. But this is only to be expected, a source of amusement or paranoia depending on your philosophic outlook.

Recently I've discovered a number of amazing devices that are the result of our mastery of electricity. These devices are patently dangerous, not just electronics that can be misused by those with bad intentions, but electronics that are apt to make one wonder at the basic intelligence of those involyed in their development.

Perhaps the most sickening is the Invisible Pain Field Generator which sells for $49.95 (less if you want to buy it in kit form and solder it together yourself). Described by its manufacturer as 'a simple hand-held device about the size of a pack of cigarettes,' the Invisible Pain Field Generator does just that—anywhere you point it, it produces debilitating, head pains in anyone standing in the way. Sold ostensibly for 'animal control' and proudly hawked as 'simple and economical' it gives pause to marvel at the kind of loonies who can pervert electronics to such disgusting ends. The same manufacturer,) who shall remain nameless (althoygh their ads are currently appearing in many national magazines) offers a Phaser Pain Field Gun, plans for $15, with the sales pitdh that you better get yours now before it becomes illegal. They boast that it looks just like a 'Buck Rogers Ray Gun.'

Another new toy that has as many dangerous potentials is the negative ion generator now sold by a dozen manufacturers for $79.95 or so. The uncomfortable pressures that build up before a thunder storm are positive ions. Negative ion generators produce negative ions. They're small modules that plug into any AC outlet, and run silently for years. They claim to produce an atmosphere that duplicates the feeling you get after a thunder storm when the positive ion build-up has been released and replaced by soothing negative ions. The claim is that they make it easier to breath, to sleep, to think. They are used in hospitals to aid bum victims as negative ions in the air seem to make it easier for burns to heal. Some fanatic bike riders have even put them on their handle bars to make it easier to compete in cross-country races.

Some negative ion generators produce ozone as a side effect of generating negative ions. Ozone is not a healthy substance, and spraying it at yourself would be like sticking an aerosol can in your mouth and pushing the release button. But while the Federal government fiddles, the negative ion generator market expands, each manufacturer making different claims for their particular machine, and none seeming to know exactly what the ultimate hazards are to the consumer. Not that it matters so long as they make a profit.

The third, and perhaps most diabolical use of electricity, is the recently developed 'rail gun' principle now being perfected by scientists on the West Coast. The rail gun uses a stored blast of electricity to fire a bullet in much the same way that a flash camera stores up electricity to fire a burst of light as you take a picture. And just as the flash from a flash camera is brighter and more intense than the older method of setting off a burst of gun powder in a metal trough, so the rail gun fires a bullet much faster than a bullet fired by a gun powder cap. On the plus side it is thought that the rail gun will be able to launch rockets into space without the use of volatile chemical fuels. But more realistically, the rail gun's potential seems to be seen as an electric gun that cap pierce thick steel and armour plating currently immune to present gun fire. One can only hope that quality control being what it is that the rail guns won't work that well.

Of course for every pain field generator, ozone producer, and rail gun there are dozens of positive applications of electric current. And there are also antidotes, just as for every bugging device there is a jamming device. But for all that, I've often mused that it is unfortunate that when Ben Franklin ambled out into the field with his kite, ball of string, and iron key he wasn't electrocuted on the spot. That would have taught us something about the power of electricity that we don't appear to have learned as yet. ^