Steve jobs

I've come out from under my rock—not to inveigh against the chicaneries, cowardice and general stupidity of government (there just isn't enough time in one lifetime for that), but to talk about an extraordinary person.
Today Steve Jobs died. I'd expected that this was coming, a driven person such as he does not willingly relinquish his command of the second richest company in the world—behind Exxon.
And tho it was expected, and tho I never met the man, I found myself sorrowful, sobbing a little even, at his passing. I am sure I would not have been supporting myself since 1995 without Macintosh computers. I certainly would not have had as much fun using a computer, not had as much fun anticipating and watching his keynote addresses waiting to see what new miracle of technology  has sprung from his brain, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.

    When  I first started working as a graphic artist for Star Press back in '95, Apple was on the ropes. Yes they had a good computer—I was using a 6100 powerPC  which was a great machine that I enjoyed using. It had a hundred megabytes of memory! But the company was fading. Then Apple bought Next, and got Jobs back into the fold.
Boy did he change things. That funky, spacey iMac came out, first in that Bondi blue color, then in a bunch of other colors. The colors were nice but the all-in-one space age chassis was revolutionary. "You mean I don't have to have a beige computer that looks like a box?"
    There was no looking back after that. In 1999 I bought my first computer, a blue-and-white tower affectionately referred to among aficionados as a "smurf". It had 6 gigabytes of memory!! In the meantime the towers, the laptops and the desktops changed and became more popular. Hey, Apple's share of the market went from 5% to oh, at least 8%. Or thereabouts.
    Then came the iPod, and iTunes. Jobs managed to convince the music industry dinosaurs that selling music at 99¢ a track could be profitable. Boy was it ever. And it changed the way music is presented and sold forever. People i know who don't like Macintosh computers are listening to music on Apple iPods.
    IMacs, iPods, iPhones, iPads—in the last twelve years Steve Jobs has changed the way you and I listen, watch, and communicate with each other in an irrevocable way. This may be good, it may be ill, but there it is.
    And a lot of this Jobs didn't actually put his hands on physically making. Steve Wozniac actually made the first prototype Apple computer—but Steve jobs recognized the value and was able to sell it. And everything that Apple has produced since Steve Jobs came back in 1996 has had to pass his aesthetic and practical judgement. He knew what people wanted before they did.
    Some might say he knew what he could convince people they wanted before they knew they wanted it. Whatever, it worked. Apple products are imitated all over the world in an effort to acquire some of their magic.
    Inevitably, as the hagiographies and opposing debunkings come out over the next few days, you'll hear that Jobs had an illegitimate child who he refused to acknowledge for years before finally accepting her. You'll hear about his management style, which sometimes veered into terrifying territory. And these things are true, and pertinent to those involved, but they don't diminish the effect he has had on the world. Everyone has faults, and I am not excusing his by saying that. Gandhi was rumored to have strange relations (tho not necessarily sexual) with the women who visited him, Martin Luther King is said to have had extra-marital affairs, and many other famous people who have made a positive contribution to the world and human life have had incidences or proclivities which are to us regrettable, maybe even criminal.
    But that's humanity.  People who do good things are not always good themselves. And their contributions to humanity should not be diminished by their personal peccadilloes. Turn it around—if you knew that Heinrich Himmler rescued abandoned puppies and found homes for them, would you think he was less of a criminal?
    In the case of Steve Jobs, I think we have to look at what he has brought to our lives, and think about that. Admiring what he has done for computers, music, phones and communication in general doesn't mean endorsing his personal faults.
    Me, I'm too busy thinking about how I could have been better, to worry about how Steve Jobs could have been better. I only know that he profoundly changed my life, and has changed the lives of many others, whether they know it or not. I regret his passing at the early age of 56, and wonder what else he could have come up with. I can't imagine it, but then, I'm not Steve Jobs.
Rest in peace, Mr. Jobs, and may God help your loved ones to find solace in what you have brought to their lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dou7EWRltlA

Can you believe it?

Can you believe that a group of House Republicans are ready to throw this country into a deep recession for ideological reasons? It's more than mind boggling. I took drugs in the sixties that had a less deleterious effect on my brain than this realizatin. Where are these wingnuts coming from? Were the people in their districts so traumatized by the advent of a black (read Negro) president, that they were ready to vote for anyone who crawled out from under an ideological rock? Ron Paul was fun when he appeared on Rachel Maddow's show, but when he is actually in congress he is a threat to the nation, he and his fellow political miscreants.
These people have no concept of what it is like to be out of work and struggling (they think it's just laziness that keeps you from getting a job in the worst economic climate in recent American history), to have children you can't feed (you must be sexually sinful and let's not talk about restrictions on birth control and abortion), to be elderly and unable to work and having to choose between rent and food. Hey, just die already. Save the country some money.
These asshats think that stimulating the economy is creating debt. What they don't realize is that those dollars, which give people the ability to buy food, pay medical practitioners, take care of other needs, come back to the government in taxes, both from the actual transaction and from the continued ability of people to feel like they can get things they need (put money back into circulation), and have hope that they can be wage-earners and tax payers again. If, that is, they can get jobs, and for some, that means government having the resources to enforce hiring practices, job discrimination and minimum wage standards.
Some people think getting a new job is easy. They haven't been 63 years old and appearing at interviews where one is facing a group of thirty-somethings who look at you as if you are a creature from an earlier geologic age. It's hard to claim age-discrimination. It's hard to claim any discrimination ("Oh, she was black? We hadn't noticed.)

I used to think that people inveighing against our education system were blowing smoke out of their collective asses, because we weren't producing the productive robots we need for a manufacturing economy. Now that our economy has gone south, or at least east to India and China (which, incidentally holds a lot of our debt) and we don't need to produce the 1950's era kind of workers (both blue and white collar), I see that our education system in the last thirty years has really fallen short.
My sister was an English teacher in a junior high school, and she can tell you story after story of protective parents coming to her complaining of a bad grade their child got because s/he didn't study, try, think, about an assignment.
Does the government do anything to help our teachers in saying "Dude, I know you smoked a lot of dope and saw God in the seventies, and believe in free expression, but your kid is still f-king up in class now, and hasn't a hope of going to college"? Does the government help teachers when they say "I know you want your kid to go to Harvard Law School, but s/he's as smart as a box of rocks and you should prepare her/him for some other kind of work?"
Naw. The wingnuts/asshats (your choice) in congress now only look at how much money they can save, as long as it doesn't affect their corporate sponsors. God forbid that we should require corporations, especially oil and gas corporations, to pay a proportionately equal part of their earning in taxes as we, the hoi polloi, do. And besides, a poorly educated citizenry is more malleable to the propaganda of the ruling classes, that is, the classes which have enough money to influence our Congressmen.
Some of these characters claim to be Christian. If so show them this:
Matthew 25: 31-46

…(then they will answer) “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, and thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are my family, you did it to me.”

Feeding the poor, helping the sick or troubled or struggling—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Health Insurance, Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance—this isn’t socialism, folks, it’s Christianity.

Edward R. Murrow said it best

Theres no way I can improve on what he said. Happy 4th of July everyone.

New York, New York

I'm ba-a-ack.
There's been some trouble with google now owning blogspot, I think—anyway I couldn't even get to my own blog for a while, and that's why I have been bottling up my curmudgeonly gripings lately.

Tonight tho I start off with a joy, tempered by a realization of how far there is yet to go.
Today the New York State Senate approved a bill allowing same-sex marriage. In a senate led by Republicans. Holy  mackerel! It's been a struggle but the goal is finally achieved.

This is a big disappointment to the Catholic Church and many other conservative Christians. They are so hung up on believing that the Bible is the actual teaching of God, rather than the attempts of an early society to protect itself and make sense of the world. There was an older translation of the bible in my church which said that eating the flesh of the pig was an abomination and later said that a man having sex with a man was an abomination—and I liked to bludgeon those who were against homosexuality with the thought that eating a BLT was a bad as a man sleeping with another man.
Had a BLT lately?
The NRSV bible, alas, only says that eating the flesh of a pig is unclean. Doesn't have the same punch. New translations are not always better.
In Leviticus, women aren't considered in same sex relations, being pretty much second-class citizens so who cares. It is only in the letters of Paul (my minister says it is in there somewhere but i forget where and I'm too lazy right now to go looking) that women sleeping with women is given equal condemnation as men sleeping with men. That's progress for the status of women, kinda, I guess.

Anyway, I'm happy that NY State has finally decided to enter the 21st century. And kudos to Governor Cuomo  for pushing this to victory. I'm having a vision of "Cuomo for President in 2016" placards right about now.
Obama better hope it's not "Cuomo in 2012." Obama was in NYC telling gays that he was against any kind of discrimination. But I'm not sure that he came out in favor of actual marriage. Someone, one of my two actual readers, can correct me on this if they have the energy.
He does belong to a UCC church and should know better. The UCC is a church which says that "God is still speaking" and that means that what was understood by the ancients is not the end and is not necessarily apropos today.
The world and humanity is still growing and evolving. It ain't over yet, folks.
I think Obama, and the Democrats in general, should consider speaking their minds and openly and aggressively fighting for their goals, instead of weaseling  around worrying about 2012, and also achieving consensus—and those goals are not necessarily compatible.

Goodnight all.

Wisconsin

The mess in Wisconsin is really dispiriting. Their yahoo governor, while giving tax cuts to the rich, is now trying to cripple the unions who have helped bring prosperity to the middle class. He's doing this to make up the revenues, in the form of tax breaks, he has given to the rich.
Back when Jesus said that the little you have will be taken from you, he must have been thinking of Wisconsin. Has anyone else noticed that Republicans believe that future government savings must be placed on the backs of those least able to sustain them—like those people who depend on the solidarity of unions to defend them?

Anyone who thinks unions are unnecessary should consider the weekend. Two days off in a week is a benefit we would not have without unions.
My father worked in the steel mills in Youngstown. Back in 1912-18 thereabouts. He told me how Saturday night—after work!— was devoted to drinking and dancing and Sunday, the one day off a week, was devoted to church and hangover. Plus whatever needed done around the house. His steel mill career was terminated when a palette of bricks fell on his foot, giving him a limp for the rest of his life.
No job, no insurance, no benefits of any kind. "Too bad Joe, but you're no good to us now. Hit the road."

This is the situation that the governor of Wisconsin and his corporate backers aspire to. More profits for the corporations, more slavery for the workers.
Middle class? Fageddaboutit. Ain't going to be one. The middle class only takes profit away from the rich. Corporations don't need the middle class—they think. I don't know who they think is going to buy the crap they produce when no one is left who can afford it. Even Henry Ford, anti-Semitic, racist, fascist loving and ultimately murderous sumbitch he was, recognized that his employees had to earn enough to afford the cars he was producing. He may have hired thugs to beat and kill his workers when they tried to form unions, but he at least had a grasp on reality to the extent that he knew there weren't enough rich people around to support his factories. There were hellish factory conditions, no safety net, no health insurance—but at least they made enough to buy the damn cars they made.

Present day corporations don't have even that basic level of intelligence.

Somewhere in my previous fulminations I mentioned how much of the wealth of this country was in the hands of so few citizens. I don't have the exact figures at hand, the top one percent (in riches) of this country control more wealth than all the rest of us. Someone with more energy than me can go look up the exact figures. They're out there somewhere, maybe in my previous posts.

The problem here is not that the public service unions, like the teachers' union, or the state workers, are getting too much in relation to the rest of us—it's that the rest of us are getting too LITTLE in relation to what we deserve. We shouldn't be trying to bring the unions  benefits down, we should be trying to bring our benefits up. The quality of life of the billionaires and corporation CEOs is not going to be affected that much if the rest of us have a bigger share of the wealth this country generates. And unions need the collective bargaining power to keep their members alive and healthy. The rich already have enough.

I don't know what the hell they think they are going to do with all that money. What good is it to have more money than you or your immediate descendants can spend? I swear on my mother's grave, I could not spend even one billion dollars in my lifetime, much less several billions. The effort of trying would wear me out, probably kill me. And frankly, I don't want, much less need, all that much.
What do those rich idiots think they need all that money for?

There is one way to screw up this acquisitive action of the greedy rich. Stop buying their stock. Stop dealing with chain stores, support your local farmer and his fight against Monsanto robo-seeds. Give up on money where you can. Okay, your doctor is not going to be happy to be paid in chickens—you will need money here. But if you need a chicken, could you trade some vegetables, a ham hock, a service, a painting, for that chicken? No way we can get rid of money as the medium of exchange, but we can reduce its influence in our lives. We can get along without being slaves to greedy billionaires who don't have a clue as to what it means to be a real, honest human being—a best example of what God created us to be.

Grow what you can, trade what you can, and buy as much as you can and need from local suppliers. 

Jesus wasn't kidding when he said it would be easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle than for a rich person to attain the kingdom of God. Jesus knew how much the love of wealth and possessions corrupts the human soul and leaves it bereft of value. He knew how we can be blinded by our possessions, how possessions can make us too big to get thru that needle's eye.

You may not believe in God or Jesus. but you should believe in the dignity and the glory of the human race— triumphant above the existential needs of animals, better than the lives in hives of insects—where it is possible for individuality to coexist with societal responsibility.

Libya

It's a heart-rending situation in Libya. Gaddafi is not going down without a fight. He is now slaughtering his own people, who don't seem to be ready to give up. They continue to protest.
Gaddafi is bombing his own people, and hiring mercenaries to shoot them. The two air force colonels who defected to Malta did so because they would not follow orders to bomb their own people.
The Libyan ambassador to the United states has called for Gaddafi to step down. So has the head of the Libyan delegation to the United Nations. At least nine Libyan diplomats have resigned in protest of Gaddafi's actions.
Somehow Gaddafi appointed many people of moral fortitude to represent his country around the world. Perhaps he just wanted them out of the country.

This is a way different situation than occurred in Egypt. Here the military is ready, in large part, to fire upon their own people. As I write, the Security Council of the UN is going to go into a closed door meeting tomorrow morning. One hopes that it will order peace-keeping troops to Libya.

One also hopes that the people of Libya don't give up, in spite of the fatalities. The governments of all dictatorships need to see that this kind of violence won't stop their regimes from being overthrown.

I weep for the suffering of the Libyan people. I pray that the rest of the world will have the backbone to step in and stop the slaughter.

Mohammed Bouazizi

"The unrest began when Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old unemployed man, set himself on fire after police confiscated fruit and vegetables he was selling because he had no permit."                —Al Jazeera report

Let's not forget this guy. He was an unemployed Tunisian man, probably couldn't afford to buy or bribe someone for a permit, and the police took away his produce, his only means of support. In frustration and despair, he burnt himself to death.
From this, other unemployed took to the streets, the unions supported them and in the end the army supported them. And Ben Ali was the first to flee his country after a peaceful uprising.

Mohammed Bouazizi inspired the Tunisian revolt. And the Egyptians were inspired by the Tunisians. And now Hosni Mubarak is out and Egypt is, we hope, heading for a better future. Two strongmen toppled, shockwaves sent throughout the middle east, and who knows where else, all because one desperate man made a profound act of protest. One man made the ultimate sacrifice, and as a result the world changes, and there is hope, at least, for people who had no hope before.

I am reminded how the self-immolation of Buddhist monks in Vietnam helped turn the American public against the war. Sometimes it takes a horrific act of self-sacrifice to open peoples eyes to the injustice around them. Would that it were not so.

I honor Mohammed Bouazizi, and I hope he has found peace in the arms of Allah.