Returning to Integrity
The New York Times:
President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.
…Obama transition officials have consulted with a variety of authorities on legal and human rights and with military experts. Several of those experts said the officials had expressed great interest in alternatives to the military commission system, like trying detainees in federal courts, and appeared to have grown hostile to proposals like an indefinite detention law.
Politico.com:
Feingold said he thinks Obama is likely to issue executive orders rapidly reversing Bush policies, and others have indicated that those will likely cover the interrogation and detention of terror suspects, and keeping the records of past president’s secrets.
The Associated Press reported Monday that transition advisers said Obama could sign an executive order in his first week ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay, although shuttering the prison and transferring the prisoners somewhere else would take time.
As something of a Bible student, I find it confounding that the GOP – that party of Pharisees so concerned with invoking God amid their rhetoric, even if done so irreverently, so vocal about preserving marriage sanctity, so bold in their assertions that we should mold our national laws around God’s laws – has the temerity and shamelessness to actually defend torture.
When did Christ order his apostles to waterboard those who plotted against His life in the name of security? When did Paul torture Roman guards or Jewish zealots to learn of the next attempt on his life? Not a single New Testament writer advocates a get them before they get us mindset.
Oh, wait. I take that back. Paul did … before he was converted.
Hypocritical posturing on topics like this should send signals that the Republican Party is in no way the godlier choice. They say the right things on a couple of emotionally charged issues, but that is the extent of it. They hold others to standards they themselves are unwilling to meet. They show more concern for ideology and fiscal philosophies than they do for the people their policies impact. The party of Lincoln has fallen a long way with no sign of recovery.
I am not blinded to Obama’s flaws, but I do have hope that his presidency will be more concerned about serving his citizenry more than his agenda, that human lives will mean more to him than blanket statistics and veiled threats, that his government will be more concerned about the weightier matters – mercy, justice, and faithfulness to those whose lives depend on him. Closing Guantanamo is a start.
Perhaps I’ll end up disappointed in four years, but I doubt he could disappoint me any more than the last president I helped vote into office.
Yes, You ARE Creative: A Digression
A Lesson In Creative Problem Solving
I recently set down to solve a problem I had with my custom themes in the newest version of Apple’s Keynote presentation software, and that problem is simply that they look bad in the theme chooser. I hammered at this issue much of the night, opening theme files, examining package contents, and scouring plist files for a hint at how Apple’s themes worked in the theme chooser.The solution I discovered was simple and elegant. You can read about it right here. It was so easy, it became difficult.
Sometimes you have to be able to release yourself from analytical left-brain thinking to find a solution to a problem. In the case of these Keynote themes, I found my answer on a lark. It was a simple moment of, “What if I try this?” Unexpectedly, it worked.
Part of being creative is opening ourselves up to those unexpected solutions. It’s listening to that little voice that says, “This might just work.” That voice is nothing more than your creative spark trying to nudge you down a path you might have otherwise left unconsidered, and who knows? That little voice might just be right.
A Quick Digression Regarding Standardized Tests and NCLB
“Okay, these are the kids on the bubble, so we need to focus remediating them the most before spring testing.”
“If we can get 10 more kids in this pull-out group to pass, we’ll meet AYP.”
“We have to prioritize which kids we think we can get to proficiency and those we can’t.”
When NCLB was passed, we were told that we wouldn’t have to teach to the test. We were told it would not take priority over standard instruction. After seven years, not only are we teaching to the test, but we are gaming our instruction to increase our odds of meeting AYP expectations.
I sincerely hope our president-elect takes a long, hard look at the adverse effects this bipartisan piece of legislation has wrought.
Obama, Ayers, and Diversions
A Smear Is Born
Apparently, this connection began to make traction when a politically conservative columnist named Peter Hitchens wrote a column for The Daily Mail called The Black Kennedy: But Does Anyone Know the Real Barack Obama? It is a hit-piece, and it reads like one – full of condescending and hateful descriptions. The article was significant for one passage, though:His list of contributions shows one for $200 from a certain William Ayers. Can this possibly be the same William Ayers, now a Chicago professor, who used to plant bombs in the Seventies and has said: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough"? His partner, Bernardine Dohrn, once "declared war" on the US government.
It wouldn't be surprising. Those (like me) who know the Left-wing codes notice things about Obama that suggest he is far more radical than he would like us to know.
The conservative media smelled fresh meat and pounced. However, this controversy had little staying power and faded slowly into political obscurity.
Context Matters
One problem with the Obama-Ayers controversy is one of timing. Barack Obama would have been roughly eight-years-old when the Weathermen were most active, and he would have been living in Indonesia at the time. I doubt seriously that the activities that made Ayers and his colleagues so notorious would have had much of an impact on Obama's life. I know I'd be hard-pressed to tell you much of world affairs from when I was eight outside of the fact that I was in Mrs. Carters third-grade class, and there was some kind of drama surrounding King Cobra's identity in the G.I. Joe universe. Or did that happen when I was nine?When Obama met Ayers, they lived in the same neighborhood. Ayers was and is a professor of English at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Their memberships to the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty group, overlapped in the late nineties. Both Obama and Ayers were involved in public school reform. Obama was chair of the (republican-sponsored) Chicago Annenberg Challenge for improving education while Ayers was a member. I have to wonder when the topic came up in conversation, "So, were you a domestic terrorist at any point in your life? Will knowing you damage my political career?" At this point in his life, Ayers was a productive and respected member of the Chicago community. He had reinvented himself.
Here he is in the words of others:
Illinois State Rep. Diana Nelson (R)
It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier … It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly.
Michael Kinsley, long-time critic of Ayers:
If Obama's relationship with Ayers, however tangential, exposes Obama as a radical himself, or at least as a man with terrible judgment, he shares that radicalism or terrible judgment with a comically respectable list of Chicagoans and others — including Republicans and conservatives — who have embraced Ayers and Dohrn as good company, good citizens, even experts on children's issues.
Chicago Mayor Richar Daley:
I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally-renowned school reform program. He is a nationally-recognized distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois/Chicago and a valued member of the Chicago community.
Quite simply, if Ayers was once considered a threat to national security, that is no longer the case. The Ayers Obama has been in contact with, however tenuously, no longer engages in the same rules as the Ayers of the 1960s.
But He's Unrepentant!
Critics are quick to point out that Ayers is not apologetic about his past and has expressed regret in not having done more. By "not having done more," these critics will take this as meaning "not having bombed more." Interstingly, Ayers has addressed this exact criticism.It's impossible to get to be my age and not have plenty of regrets. The one thing I don't regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being.
During the Vietnam war, the Weather Underground took credit for bombing several government installations as a dramatic form of armed propaganda. Action was taken against symbolic targets in order to declare a state of emergency. But warnings were always called in, and by design no one was ever hurt.
When I say, 'We didn't do enough,' a lot of people rush to think, 'That must mean, "We didn't bomb enough s---."' But that's not the point at all. It's not a tactical statement, it's an obvious political and ethical statement. In this context, 'we' means 'everyone.'
Also, regarding that statement about not doing enough from his memoirs, Ayers has more to say, claiming the quote is being taken out of context:
My memoir is from start to finish a condemnation of terrorism, of the indiscriminate murder of human beings, whether driven by fanaticism or official policy.
Actions speak louder than words, and apologies mean nothing without actions to back them up. Our political world is full of insincere apologies given solely for the purpose of pleasing a constituency rather than out of any true remorse. Ayers actions demonstrate a new direction in his life that words alone would not convey. He may not be apologetic, but he is a different person.
Do They Really Want to Go There?
I've already noted that this controversy had dwindled once, largely due to a lack of meaningful substance. However, Governor Palin, speaking on behalf of the McCain campaign has felt fit to breathe this smear new life."Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country."
This is an obvious reference to Obama's casual association with Ayers. However, does she or McCain want the same level of attention paid to their own acquaintances? The governor herself has ties with the Alaska Independence Party through her husband, a political organization whose goal is to break Alaska from the Union. It is a secessionist movement whose founder has criticized the United States every bit as sharply as Reverened Wright, saying:
I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions … My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand.
And this is a group to whom Sarah Palin has said, "Keep up the good work. God bless you?"
Likewise, would McCain like his associations with Charles Keating more openly examined? Furthermore, what about McCain's association with G. Gordon Liddy, a man who has financially supported McCain and who has had the candidate on his talk radio show? You might remember that Mr. Liddy was convicted and imprisoned for his role in the Watergate scandal. He also admitted to having plotted to murder journalist Jack Anderson as well as Howard Hunt to prevent him cooperating with investigators. About Adolf Hitler, Liddy had this to say:
[Hitler] made me feel a strength inside I had never known before. Hitler's sheer animal confidence and power of will. He sent an electric current through my body.
Liddy also once advocated violence against the ATF:
Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head.
Palin nor McCain have made any attempts to distance themselves from these closet skeletons, but they have no scruples against using Ayers against Obama. In fact, McCain said this to Liddy on his show in 2007:
I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family... It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.
Diversionary Tactics
What it comes down to is a continual attempt by the McCain campaign to divert voters from the issues and the general media's willingness to play along. Is Obama's association with Ayers a big deal? My answer is that it is only if you are willing to let Palin's ties to the AIP and McCain's ties to Liddy carry equal weight – those associations are every bit a solid as Obama and Ayers.When it comes to the issues of energy policy, economics, foreign policy, and education, John McCain has already lost the majority of informed voters. All he can hope for now is to use the same tactics (and indeed staff) Bush used to discredit him in 2000 on his new opponent in 2008. It's a tactic that is below the reputation McCain has built for himself, and it is a tactic that is inconsistent with the values he and his running mate claim to possess.
More Reading
- Washington Post: Obama's 'Weatherman' Connection
- NPR: Obama's Links To Ex-Radical Examined
- Time: Rejecting Obama’s Radical Friends
- The Huffington Post: Terrorists, Secessionists, Sarah Palin and Guilt by Association
- Salon: The Palins' un-American activities
- Media Matters: Why is the NY Times continuing to ignore McCain's "own Bill Ayers"?
Updated with a quote from McCain on Liddy and some more embedded links. I don’t want anyone to think I’m just making this stuff up.
Yes, You ARE Creative: Part 2
The answer is probably simple. At some point in your life, one or all of the following happened:
- You had a friend or family member tell you you aren't good at something.
- You had a teacher or mentor figure reinforce the notion that you can't do something.
- You had a teacher or other authority figure consistently model learned inability.
- You had a particularly emotional failure in trying to do something creative.
These outside pressures eventually taught you that you can't sing, dance, draw, paint, sculpt. write, etc. You learned helplessness in a given area of human expression, and those teaching you that helplessness were probably unaware of their own influence.
An Aside About Teaching Learned Inability
One of the tenets of a newer movement in education -- usually referred to as Project Approach, Reggio-Emilia Approach, or Child-Directed Learning -- is that every child is an author; every child is a musician; every child is an artist. My wife teaches with this philosophy, and one of her preschoolers might come up and say, "We need a guitar for our campfire," to which she would respond, "Okay, how can we make one?"In the Project classroom, every child is a teacher as well as a learner. Everyone is an expert in something, but in too many classrooms of the past and present, children are constantly reminded of how much they are helpless and incapable. They grow to rely on Teacher for everything. It is in this time that they learn they are unable to draw, that they are unable to sing. Implicitly, Teacher may be teaching them to disable their creative spark.
Additionally, we educators occasionally model this form of learned helplessness. "Here's what a horse looks like," we might say to draw a representation on the board, followed by the quick disclaimer of, "I'm no artist." I don't know many teachers who would admit, in front of their children, "I can't do math," "I'm not a very good writer," but we'll disclaim our creative talents without a second thought.
Stuck In Another Century
This brings me to the next part of education's role in stifling creativity: our entire education structure is based on the needs and values of the Industrial Revolution. Our basic educational fundamentals have remained largely unchanged for over a century. We just keep covering it with new coats of paint, but the fact remains. Through most of the United States, teachers are trying to prepare children for a twenty-first century world through a nineteenth century curriculum hierarchy.Fortunately, some new philosophies like Project Approach encourage children to exercise those creative skills that will help them succeed as unique and innovative individuals in the workplace rather than carbon copies of one another. The point is in learning how to independently find answers to questions and problems, how to uniquely and individually share and/or implement those findings, and how to work as a team to reach a common goal. The point is not in reciting rote information. Now, if only we could get proficiency tests to reflect similar progress…
Back On Point
The truth is that you are a creative person. You can sing. You can draw. You can paint. The problem is that you don't believe you can. Whether outside influences have convinced you or you have simply convinced yourself is immaterial. Your creativity is as integral a part of your being as your academic self. It's in there, but you might have to do some work digging it out. We'll save that task for another post.Yes, You ARE Creative: Part 1
In our culture (and I'm sure in others), there has developed a form of leaned helplessness when it comes to creative expression. A delusion has evolved informing us that most of us are incapable of true creativity, and we have to rely on others' talents and ideas. This self-inflicted myth is simply that: a myth.
Part 1: A Creative Childhood
Time and again, we read of the creative spirit of children. With few exceptions, they have no inhibitions expressing themselves in writing, in drawing, through song, dance, and other forms of artistic representations. I never hear a first grader tell me, "I can't sing." However, I hear it from adults all the time.Sir Ken Robinson, an absolute genius on the topics of creativity and education, tells a story of a nativity play in which his son played Joseph. The three magi (also played by children) approach with their gifts of gold myrrh, and frankincense. Unfortunately, the child bearing the frankincense forgets what his gift is called, and he visibly struggles with what to say. Finally, he settles on, "Frank sent this!" The word he was supposed to say was incomprehensible to his mind, but he creatively rearranged the emphasis of syllables to make sense of the phonemes floating about his mind. In other words, he improvised in a moment when many of us would have merely frozen.
The same Ken Robinson also tells a story of Gillian Lynne, a girl who was seen as simply having something wrong with her in the 1930s when she was growing up. Today, she might have been diagnosed with ADHD, but a doctor suggested to her mother that she enroll the girl in dance school. She grew up to become the choreographer for Cats, Phantom of the Opera, the stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Imaginary Invalid. She even starred opposite Errol Flynn in a film called The Master of Ballantrae. This was all because the doctor told her mother, "Gillian isn't sick. She's a dancer." I shudder to think how many Gillian Lynnes have been stifled over the years due to encountering the wrong adults.
Speaking of Sir Robinson, take a moment and watch his talk. Don't worry. I won't go anywhere.
On a related note, my wife teaches preschool, and her instruction is heavily influenced by Reggio Emilia and Montessori philosophies. The results are amazing. Her children have built a stage to have plays on, have built a post office from PVC pipe and chart paper. They've created sculptures of tornadoes and set up a classroom weather station (correctly using terms like "hook echo" and "Doppler radar" in their discussions), and these are three to four-year-olds. Think about that for minute. All of the preschool academic foundations are incorporated into the class explorations and projects, sometimes even bleeding over into kindergarten and first grade standards. How much less effective might her teaching be if her kids were just sitting at desks completing ditto sheets?
There is no question that childhood is a time of exploration and creativity, but something happens to that spirit and those abilities as we get older. We'll explore that in part two. Stay tuned.
Some Great Democratic Convention Speeches
First up, Hillary Clinton decisively throws her support behind Obama under no uncertain terms.
Next up, this is Bill Clinton at his finest.
Joe Biden nails it in his first address as the Vice Presidential candidate.
Watching Al Gore makes me wish we could hit a do-over button on 2000!
Finally, Obama delivers a stirring and powerful acceptance speech.
May I Ask a Silly Question?
The admittedly slanted Huffington Post• discusses a public letter from Rep. Edward J. Markay in which he pleads for the president to encourage our oil companies to focus their oil production marketing on the home front rather than on exportation. Lest you think Rep. Markay is just vying for attention, note that he is the chairman of the House's Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. This is an area in which he should be making recommendations to our president.
In the letter (which you can read here as a PDF) specifically calls out this administration's eagerness to open more drilling locations for the oil companies and compares the potential production of these new areas to what is being currently exported. He states:
However, your own Department of Energy projects that at the height of production, in 2030, increased offshore drilling would produce only 200,000 barrels per day – one ninth the amount of oil we currently send to foreign countries every day. Moreover, at the current export rate, by the time the first barrel of oil could be produced from offshore drilling, we would have already exported the equivalent of nearly 40 percent of the oil that is projected to lie beneath protected areas offshore.
This strikes me as yet another contradiction in the desires of the oil companies and some politicians to open protected lands for drilling.
Unlike Rep. Markay, I doubt it's realistic to call for a halt of all oil exportation, but the sheer amount of exportation raises a question. Who are the oil companies truly looking out for? These are companies based in the United States. They continually try to convince citizens that they are working in the best interests of our country, but facts like this contradict the message. A small but significant chunk of our energy woes would reverse if our oil companies were run with more of a social conscience.
- I can respect HuffPo's bias because they wear said bias on their sleeves. They are honest about it. What I can't respect are news sources that flaunt a major bias while trying to hide it behind a guise of being "fair and balanced."
How Barack Obama Could Become Al Gore 2.0
The Presidential Campaign of Al Gore 1.0
In 2000, the Democratic Party was all but assured another term in the White House. Al Gore swept the Democratic primaries and caucuses. Though widely criticized for his dishonesty regarding an affair with Monica Lewinsky, departing President Bill Clinton was leaving with an approval rating of 68% – a higher departing percentage than any president since polling was established seventy years earlier (unless you count presidents who died in office i.e. FDR and JFK). Al Gore's running mate would be the then-popular Joseph Lieberman, a man who could reach across party lines and attract conservative and value-based voters who might otherwise have shied form voting for Gore.
Al Gore image by Breuwi. Geroge W. Bush image by Shawn Clark
On the Republican side, numerous potential candidates were jockeying for power. There was Steve Forbes, John McCain, Elizabeth Dole, Dan Quayle, and Pat Buchanan among others. Thrown into the mix was Texas governor George W. Bush, son of a former president. The primaries ensued with Bush trailing McCain by 19% at one point, but Bush pulled out ahead to take the nomination. He was considered by many to be intellectually inferior to Gore, and McCain's campaign accused him of mudslinging his way to victory.
In one of the most controversial elections in this nation's history, Bush narrowly defeated Gore by five electoral votes. He lost the popular vote by more than 500,000 and 0.5%. The outcome ultimately came down to a Supreme Court decision ruling Florida's recounting of votes as unconstitutional. Suspicion also fell upon Florida's governor – George W. Bush's younger brother.
Regardless of the political nuances regarding counting the votes, the election was a huge upset because Gore was such a certain candidate. He wasn't expected to defeat Bush. He was expected to overwhelm Bush, but he didn't.
Al Gore and the Liberal Media
How could Gore have lost this election? One of my family members has suggested that the nation seeks refuge in conservatism after being subjected to liberal politics for too long. I tend to disagree based on the numbers. Again, Bush did win the electoral vote, but he lost the popular vote. The general population did not exactly flock to the Republicans after Clinton, and remember that Clinton – despite scandal – remained a popular president throughout his two terms. Certainly, Al Gore did himself few favors by keeping his emotions so close in check and playing to the middle, a strategy that Ariana Huffington thinks hurt his chances.In October 2007, Evgenia Peretz published an article in Vanity Fair called Going After Gore. It was the first truly in-depth interview with Mr. Gore since his 2000 defeat, and the author takes a very critical look at the role of the media in that election. The article opens with this blurb:
Al Gore couldn't believe his eyes: as the 2000 election heated up, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other top news outlets kept going after him, with misquotes ("I invented the Internet"), distortions (that he lied about being the inspiration for Love Story), and strangely off-the-mark needling, while pundits such as Maureen Dowd appeared to be charmed by his rival, George W. Bush.
Several eye-opening quotes fill the piece, paining a picture of a media that turns against the candidate it's assumed to be biased for. These are just some samples. Ms. Peretz goes much deeper in her article and examines the election coverage (or mis-coverage) in great detail.
Eight years ago, in the bastions of the "liberal media" that were supposed to love Gore—The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, CNN—he was variously described as "repellent," "delusional," a vote-rigger, a man who "lies like a rug," "Pinocchio." Eric Pooley, who covered him for Time magazine, says, "He brought out the creative-writing student in so many reporters.… Everybody kind of let loose on the guy."
"Particularly in presidential elections … we in the press tend to deal in caricatures," says Dan Rather, who was then anchoring for CBS. "Someone draws a caricature, and it's funny and at least whimsical. And at first you sort of say, 'Aw shucks, that's too simple.' In the course of the campaign, that becomes accepted wisdom." He notes, "I do not except myself from this criticism."
In 2000, the media seemed to focus on a personality contest between Bush, the folksy Texas rogue, and, as The New York Times referred to Gore, "Eddie Haskell," the insincere brownnoser from Leave It to Beaver. ABC anchor Claire Shipman, who covered the 2000 campaign for NBC, says, "It was almost a drama that was cast before anyone even took a good look at who the candidates were."
As with all campaigns, the coverage of the 2000 election would be driven by a small number of beat reporters. In this case, two women at the most influential newspapers in the country: Seelye from The New York Times and Ceci Connolly from The Washington Post … "They just wanted to tear Gore apart," says a major network correspondent on the trail.
The article paints a picture of a media that created a far more favorable characterization of Bush than it did of Gore, a media that glossed over Bush's misstatements while overanalyzing Gore. The author describes the media's treatment of Mr. Gore as toxic, and the Democratic candidate had to spend as much time fighting fraudulent information from news outlets as he did attacks from his opponent.
While Gore's presentation of himself was far from the dynamic and engaging speaker and activist he is today, his campaign was severely damaged by a media that was all to willing to deal in caricatures and silliness rather than focus on issues and objective reporting.
How 2008 Could Be 2000 Version 2.0
image by the Center for American Progress Action Fund
Again, we have a clear contrast between the Republican and Democratic candidates. In fact, basically the same intellectual and personality contrasts can be drawn between Obama and McCain as could be between Gore and Bush. Again, the Democratic nominee seems to be a sure win. One advantage Obama has over Gore is a somewhat undefinable presence that demands rapt attention, but, like Gore, Obama has been moving to a more centrist platform as his campaign evolves. Likewise, McCain's positions on several issues have been drifting to the right.
How is the media faring? Recently, McCain and conservative pundits have been complaining that Obama has received more than twice as much airtime after the primaries. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, that coverage has not been kind.
The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.
You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.
During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.
Writing for the New York Times, Frank Rich reinforces the idea that Obama is succeeding despite the media rather than because of it:
The growing Obama clout derives not from national polls, where his lead is modest. Nor is it a gift from the press, which still gives free passes to its old bus mate John McCain. It was laughable to watch journalists stamp their feet last week to try to push Mr. Obama into saying he was “wrong” about the surge. More than five years and 4,100 American fatalities later, they’re still not demanding that Mr. McCain admit he was wrong when he assured us that our adventure in Iraq would be fast, produce little American “bloodletting” and “be paid for by the Iraqis.”
Again, the media has begun to deal in characters rather than people, and they are tailoring their coverage of the candidates and events to fit those roles they have cast – McCain the grandfatherly war hero and Obama the socialist (potentially) Muslim elitist.
Think of the sheer number of media blitzes that have surrounded Obama's campaign: the Jeremiah Wright soundbite, "guns and religion," flag pins, "terrorist fist-jabs," madrasah, etc. Every move this man makes, every word he utters, every association he has comes under the most sensational scrutiny. In contrast, McCain receives free pass after free pass from the media.
Here are some examples from Media Matters. Please note, all of these examples focus on only one network, and it's not Fox.
- Media outlets reported McCain's
criticism of Obama's "political speech" in
Germany, didn't note McCain's own recent speech
in Canada
- CBS News omitted a second McCain
falsehood: his characterization of Iraq war as
"the first major conflict since 9/11"
- Despite warning that any "gaffe" by
Obama on his trip could be disastrous, nets'
evening news broadcasts ignored McCain
misstatements in same period
- Couric did not challenge McCain's
suggestion that "five Nobel laureates and 300
economists" agree he can balance the budget
- CBS' Schieffer left out part of Obama
speech that undermined Schieffer's suggestion of
a "different take" on Iraq policy
- Numerous media outlets reported
McCain's attack on Obama over public financing
without noting McCain's loan
- Today, Early Show covered Wright
interview, but didn't ask McCain about Hagee
- CBS report on candidates' tendency to "exaggerate ... his or her record" ignored several McCain distortions of his record
This is just a sampling and doesn't cover numerous flip-flops by McCain that the media has largely ignored as well as various offensive jokes he has made or claims to not know how he voted on some issues. On Crooks and Liars, Jon Amato, commenting the media glossing over one of McCain's misstatements once rhetorically asked, "What if Obama had said this?"
"What if?" indeed.
Avoiding a Repeat of History
While I think my political leanings are somewhat evident, I'm not writing this to tell you for whom to vote. I am, however, writing this to tell you how to vote – not as a Republican or as a Democrat, but as an informed individual.Vote informed, not educated by the mainstream media which doesn't inform so much as it entertains through information. Do your own research on the candidates. Fact-check everything. Read the candidates positions from their own websites (Obama, McCain). Read independent commentary. Go look at their voting records yourself (Obama, McCain). Go to a rally and ask them your questions in person, but don't trust what you see on TV or hear on the radio at face value.
And never, ever use the term liberal media again. Two main contributors hurt the Al Gore campaign of 2000: a political move to the center and a media that was more interested in drama and caricatures than facts. WIth both candidates in this election, political drifting is potentially damaging to their campaigns, but you can eliminate the other variable. Don't vote for some two-dimension cardboard cutout as portrayed by the mainstream media. Look beyond the hype. Don't become acquainted with characters on TV. Acquaint yourselves with the people, and make a decision based on information rather than infotainment.
Update: Media Matters Action Network is creating on online pledge regarding monitoring media bias – especially in regards to Republican candidates and talking points. Check it out if this interests you.
Savaging Autism and Asthma
…A fraud, a racket. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is.
I have to admit that I didn't write about this the moment I read about it. I had to cool down first. Mr. Savage should be congratulated. He's now one of only four figures in the media who have managed to get under my skin. (In case you are wondering, the other three are Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh.)
Let's start with the assertion that 99% of autism cases are fraudulent. This figure is based on what, exactly? Does Mr. Savage have any scientific studies or educational experience to back this up? Has he personally conducted observation and surveys of autism-diagnosed children to verify the veracity of said diagnosis? No, he does what too many other talking-heads do. He makes up a statistic on the spot – a lie that his loyal listeners will begin repeating as fact.
He supports his hypothesis by citing minority asthma diagnoses.
For a long while, we were hearing that every minority child had asthma. Why did they sudden -- why was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket.
Of course, he fails to notice that concentrated minority populations are often centered most heavily around urban developments where air quality is generally poorer and temperatures are generally higher – compounding factors in the development of lung conditions such as asthma. He fails to note that the still-present racial economic divide gives many minority families less access to locations or products providing cleaner air. No, in his mind, minorities are thieves and doctors are supremely gullible.
He also fails to draw a parallel between asthma and autism that should be obvious. If autism, like asthma, is a minority-driven racket, why are the diagnosis rates among racially diverse populations not significantly higher than among Caucasians. Again, he is presenting his information so that his audience infers conclusions that are simply untrue.
Of the parents I come in contact with on a daily basis, those of my autistic children have some of the highest expectations. They are the most consistent, the most structured. They go above and beyond to ensure their children can function properly in a social world. In fact, if money was the issue, as Mr. Savage suggests, these parents picked the wrong disorder. Getting insurance to help with autism treatment can be a difficult task.
Are there misdiagnoses? Of course, especially since the academic and medical communities' understanding of autism is still evolving. However, it's much harder to misdiagnose autism and much easier to later catch a misdiagnosis than with some other learning disabilities such as ADHD. An autism label is not an excuse, nor is it a cop-out. It is a flag that this child does need help in specific areas, and the goal is that of independence – not reliance.
Mr. Savage wraps up with this jewel.
If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, "Don't behave like a fool." The worst thing he said -- "Don't behave like a fool. Don't be anybody's dummy. Don't sound like an idiot.
You know, that's actually good advice. I just wish Mr. Savage and the uncounted other pundits with a venue to vent would take it. The world would be a quieter, less angry place, and the autistic population would enjoy that immensely.
Update: Gedblog provides some more commentary, and the author wonders what kind of backlash these remarks could gather from parents of autistic children.
via Media Matters
An Audacious Goal
…But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation's problems, we need a new start.
That's why I'm proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.
Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.
Whether or not you believe the climate crisis is real, Mr. Gore's challenge is one worthy of the great minds and innovative scientists in this country.
Consider the number of heart and lung diseases that are caused or aggravated by air pollution and how much more healthy we, as a nation, would be if we could eliminate this form of pollution entirely. Additionally, our current economy is completely reliant on fossil fuels. Rising fuel prices effect everything – from filling your car to airline tickets to grocery prices to school field trips. The oil companies in particular form a sort of hydraulic despotism upon which our entire societal balance hinges.
Pursuing an energy policy that temporarily reduces the price of fossil fuels changes none of this. It is putting an Band-Aid on a tumor. The problem only appears to go away while, underneath, it continues to grow and deepen. It is a policy that only further entrenches our addiction to fossil fuels. Furthermore, the myth that expanding drilling will somehow lower fuel prices is just that: a myth.
Instead, our policies should be aiming toward obsolescing fossil fuels in energy production.
Mr. Gore cites increased efficiency and economy of sustainable energy sources as well as entrepreneurs, investors, and inventors pushing these innovations to their limits. He reminds us that our world is more than capable of meeting our energy needs without us ripping it to pieces.
What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don't cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?
We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.
And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.
As the stone age, the bronze age, and the iron age have all passed, it's time for the carbon age to close. Mass market energy production technology can move beyond the principles of last century, but timid steps will never reach the goal. We need an audacious vision.
President Kennedy did not say that we put put a man in space with a long-term goal of the moon should it be proven feasible. FDR did not say the only thing we have to fear is the possibility of hard work. Abraham Lincoln did not call out for a phased release of a percentage of slaves over a fifty-year period. DIfferences are not made when the leadership is apprehensive. Mr. Gore is providing us with a bold challenge. Now we just need bold leadership to help guide us there.
Update: Ars Technica provides some great commentary on how this plan can ultimately benefit our culture – whether or not the goal is actually met in ten years. Read the article here.
Wall-E: A Quick Review
That said, the wife and I usually try to make it to the latest Pixar offering. With the possible exception of the overly-formulaic Cars, Pixar never lets us down, and no movie demonstrates their mastery of storytelling as does Wall-E. Set in a world devastated by human pollution, Wall-E crafts a touching story of hope, love, and friendship – the most basic of human experiences – through its memorable automated protagonists. With few characters and minimal dialogue, the Pixar team has created a deep and gratifying film experience.
It's a movie that is both charming and audacious. It's cautionary as it is humorous. In many ways, Wall-E defies traditional categorization by introducing us to characters and events the children will love while weaving subtexts that demand reaction from the adults. Wall-E does not draw the adult audience in through the traditional cheap ploys of subtle in-jokes or innuendo. No, under the special effects, anthropomorphized robots, and physical humor lay a scathing commentary about the self-destructive, self-centered, and overly commercial culture in which we thrive.
Few intelligent adults will be able to walk away without hearing echos of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth woven through the narrative, without seeing corporate entities such as Wal-Mart reflected in Buy 'N Large, without hearing Bush-like rhetoric from Shelby Forthright. The movie challenges the adults in the audience, but it does so in a way that is compelling and ultimately non-threatening.
Wall-E is a masterpiece of animation, both from storytelling and technical standpoints. It is a work of art, and it is one of Disney's most daring productions. Wall-E succeeds on multiple levels, and I strongly recommend going to the theaters to see it.
Oh, and the Stanley Kubrick references are merely icing on the cake.
Obama On FISA
Sen. Obama has been fairly quiet on the issue, but yesterday he sent out a response that's also on his site. Here are some quotes:
This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That's why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.
His claim is that he's still opposed to the retroactive immunity for telecoms that may have violated the law. I am forced to wonder how his vote will go should the immunity clause remain intact.
But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited.
Okay, so far so good.
Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention -- once I’m sworn in as President -- to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.
In other words, he seems to see this as a temporary compromise he hopes to rectify in the future – assuming he wins the general election. I'm cautiously optimistic that he'll keep his word on this, but I, along with many of his supporters, would like to see a little more backbone at this moment. On the other hand, perhaps now is not the time for rigid idealism that could gridlock the system. After all, rigid idealism brought us to where we are today.
One comment I saw regarding this explanation put it very well: "If this decision were made in a vacuum, without a series of other 'drift to ther center' moves, your position would be plausible." Indeed, some of Obama's recent positions and statements seem slightly contrary to his nature without being outright contradictions. It's a move we've seen other Democratic presidential candidates take. Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton all swerved toward the center of the field during their campaigns, and they all eventually lost.
While I still firmly believe Obama is a better presidential candidate for many reasons – energy policy, healthcare reform, education, international relations, to name a few – I fear he may begin to lose his base if he takes his campaign in a more centrist route. Arianna Huffington puts it well:
Go to YouTube and watch the concession speeches of Kerry, Gore, and Hillary Clinton, each of whom decided to run to the middle in an attempt to attract undecided swing voters.
…
Tape to your mirror the poll results from July 2004, where Kerry was up by six, and June of 1988, where Dukakis was up by 15... and don't get complacent.
…
When Bobby Kennedy was agonizing over whether or not to run in 1968, he told one of his advisors: "People are selfish. But they can also be compassionate and generous, and they care about the country. But not when they feel threatened. That's why this is such a crucial time. We can go in either direction. But if we don't make a choice soon, it will be too late to turn things around. I think people are willing to make the right choice. But they need leadership. They're hungry for leadership." Forty years later, we are starving for it.
Senator Obama, we the people have been hoping for some kind of shift in government that reflects an interest in us and respect for us. I hope this FISA bill is an exception and that you truly are prepared to be that change you say you represent.
Update: Obama voted for the bill with immunity intact. I wonder if he realizes how much this single act is undermining the message of his campaign to this point.
How Is This Not Slander?
image from Salon.com
From Wikipedia:
A baby mama (also baby-mama and baby-mother) is a mother who is not married to her child's father. The Oxford English Dictionary defines baby mama as "the mother of a man's child, who is not his wife or (in most cases) his current or exclusive partner".
Senator Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson were married in 1992. Their daughters were born in 1998 and 2001. Either Malkin is ignorant or vindictive in her use of this term, and with Fox News' history of hateful, racist, and sometimes even misogynistic coverage of politics, the latter would not surprise me.
Change You Can Copy
- Isn't the basis of conservatism a resistance to change? Is this slogan supposed to be sarcastic?
- Or is it more like, "I'll give you the change you deserve?" Perhaps it's a threat.
- Maybe it's commentary on the Republican stance on taxes. "You deserve change, but we'll save you dollars!"
- Wait a minute, I've seen that slogan in the doctor's office. It's used for an anti-depressant! I wonder if they think I need one. What side-effects do they come with?
Um, speaking of things we can believe in…
image from johnmccain.com
Does that look/sound familiar to you? Like this familiar:
image from barackobama.com
Like most copies, the McCain version is inferior in many ways. Color usage, typography, image quality, general composition – the original beats the imitation. Still, I find it amusing that McCain would be asking us to believe in him as a leader through a splash image that bears such close resemblance to his opponent's image. In fact, his whole site seems to have taken cues from the Obama camp in its recent redesign.
You'd think differentiating one's self from the competition wouldn't involve imitating the look and feel of the competition's campaign, especially a campaign with such a signature look. Hm, perhaps this imitation makes the statement that, "The Change You Deserve Is More of the Same."
Get Up and Vote!
image by woodsy on stock.xchng
Indiana's primary is this Tuesday, May 6. Polls will be open 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Voters must have a valid form of photo ID. These include:
- Indiana Driver's License
- Indiana photo ID card
- United States Passport
- U.S. Military ID
- Student ID from an Indiana school
If this is your first time voting, be sure to bring along a document that shows your current address – like your driver's license or a utility bill.
If you are an Indiana resident, it's time to get out there and make your voice heard.
Advice for the Ages
I miss the Bill Clinton of the past eight years. Why do his forays into politics wear at his character so heavily? I guess some critics would say that what we are seeing now is his true character, but I'm not so sure.
Soundbite Judgment
Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?
In this context, the authors implicitly ask (though it is not the thrust of the article) about what standards we use to judge character and how we assess the quality of a person from the information we have on that individual.
I would wager that most of us know about Rev. Jeremiah Wright because of his ties to presidential candidate Barack Obama. I would also wager that most of what you've heard about him centers around a specific ~30-second video clip where he proclaims condemnation against America (or, specifically, our current administration and its policies). We've seen the video looped dozens of times, but does this audio bite give us a clear picture of who Jeremiah Wright is?
I would venture to say it does not.
How many of us could have our reputations harmed if we were judged by a random thirty-second bite of our lives? How many of us have never said or done something others might find questionable, objectionable, or downright offensive – especially if taken out of context. This hypothetical edit of our lives is all someone else has by which to judge us. Do we really want that?
The Reverend Wright is an example of this soundbite judgment. How many of us knew anything at all about him prior to this brouhaha? Conversely, how many of us tried to find anything meaningful out about him afterwards? Here are some bullet points you might not have known about Rev. Wright:
- He has a wife and five children.
- He gave up a student deferment to serve in the Marines at the age of 20.
- He graduated as valedictorian from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center.
- He later graduated as salutatorian from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
- He served as part of President Lydon B. Johnson's medical team.
- The White House awarded him with three letters of commendation by 1967.
- He has been a professor for and served on the board of Chicago Theological Seminary.
- He has been honored by Ebony magazine as one of their top fifteen preachers.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
He also outlines much of the good Rev. Wright has been responsible for:
The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
This took about fifteen seconds of casual Internet research, and, already, here is a far more complete picture of a man the media wants to portray as a two-dimensional, anti-American radical.
A Brief Tangent on the Media and Its Portrayal of Public Figures
In an October 2007 article of Vanity Fair looking back at the 2000 election, Dan Rather had some interesting things to say regarding the media's role in public perception of political figures:"Particularly in presidential elections … we in the press tend to deal in caricatures," says Dan Rather, who was then anchoring for CBS. "Someone draws a caricature, and it's funny and at least whimsical. And at first you sort of say, 'Aw shucks, that's too simple.' In the course of the campaign, that becomes accepted wisdom." He notes, "I do not except myself from this criticism."
The article goes on to point out exactly how Gore and Bush were characterized in that election:
In 2000, the media seemed to focus on a personality contest between Bush, the folksy Texas rogue, and, as The New York Times referred to Gore, "Eddie Haskell," the insincere brownnoser from Leave It to Beaver. ABC anchor Claire Shipman, who covered the 2000 campaign for NBC, says, "It was almost a drama that was cast before anyone even took a good look at who the candidates were."
The basic problem here is a simple one: news programs do not exist to inform you so much as they exist to entertain you with information. Therefore, a media outlet such as NBC Nightly News, CNN, Fox News, and even many blogs will present facts about individuals in as sensational a way as possible to support a nearly fictional drama of events – especially when it comes to politics.
The reasons behind this are simple. News outlets are ad-driven revenue resources. Television programs sell commercial space. Print sources sell ad space, and websites secure advertisement revenue based on page hits. What will attract more attention to drive up advertisement revenue then – a story that rationally looks at some ill-informed remarks in context and discusses the influences that might have led to such statements or a story that vilifies said individual by focusing in the most negative aspect possible?
The media focuses on two-dimensional portrayals of politically hot figures because it makes money – not because it makes you a more informed voter.
Back to the Point
This brings us back to Rev. Wright. Does all of this make his remarks okay? I don't think so. Again quoting Barack Obama:As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems...
However, if we take a minute to turn away from the hype and look at the person, such remarks are easier to understand. It is more difficult to vilify the man because now he is more real. He is tangible. He is no longer a stereotyped character who exists on a 30-second YouTube video merely as fodder for controversy. He is a human like you and me, and we should therefore judge him as we would want to be judged ourselves.
Matthew 7:1-2 is one of the most misused passages of the Bible, but I think it is particularly relevant at this point.
Judge not, that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured unto you.
I would encourage all of us, as we continue into this election season, to be careful of soundbite judgments, to be careful of jumping to conclusions about an individual based on a snippet of information a media outlet deems sensational enough for its purposes. I imagine no one reading this blog would want their lives, beliefs, and values judged in such a way, so let's show enough reason and kindness to extend that same courtesy to public figures as well.
Blogging and Professionalism
The Issue
A while ago, Ars Technica ran an interesting piece about the dangers of your online identity to potential employment opportunities, and they recently followed up with another article about the issues facing teachers who blog or participate in social networking. Due to the high scrutiny teachers are held under – especially in regards to student/teacher interactions – online activities could lead to a perception of misconduct or the potential therefore. This may sound like stretching, but such feelings have led the Ohio Education Association to discourage any teachers from participating in online communities.From the Ars article:
...The Ohio Education Association (OEA) has sent out a memo to teachers in the state, discouraging them from maintaining public profiles at all.
"While this advice might seem extreme, the dangers of participating in these two sites outweigh the benefits," the memo read, according to the Columbus Dispatch. "Because of the high standards placed on school employees and the risk of job and career loss, the OEA recommends avoiding even the appearance of impropriety."
The article continues, citing that online content can be used against Ohio teachers:
The flier also pointed out that anything found online could be used at evidence in disciplinary hearings. Teachers who post too much information online could risk disciplinary action or even lose their licenses, said the director of the Office of Professional Conduct in the Ohio Department of Education, James Miller.
Finally, the article discusses the risks of a student setting up a fake profile for a teacher online that could lead to a damaged reputation.
My Take
Addressing the problems of fakes initially, I seriously doubt that teachers avoiding online social activities such as blogging will prevent a student from setting up a fake profile for you somewhere. This is a risk regardless of your internet habits. However, if you do regularly blog or participate in social networking sites, you will probably be more likely to discover a malicious profile than if you completely abstain from such activities. In this case, I think the Ohio Education Association is naïvely incorrect. Let's face it, who will be more likely to defend themselves from a fraudulent online profile: a teacher who is savvy in social networking or one who only uses the the internet to look up recipes and cute pictures?As far as blogging goes, here are some general guidelines I follow:
- I seldom post about work. When I do, it's
usually something pretty mundane, and I never, ever
will use this blog to verbally attack any of my
coworkers or direct administrators. I will
occasionally post about larger issues in my field
of work for which I carry a strong opinion, but
those posts will never target things going on at my
specific employment location.
- I try to keep things pretty clean around here.
There may be content you disagree with. I may even
upset you at times. However, there is nothing on
this site that you could define as impropriety. I
will even tag a link post if it contains any
potentially offensive language or content.
- This site and my other online activities focus
on my life outside education. I have diverse
interests that I don't have the freedom to share
and explore in an education setting. This is the
venue in which I express these.
- I don't talk to my students online. Some of my kids have found this site. Really, it's pretty boring for them, but I do have a standing policy that I will never email or IM with my students. Sorry kids, you get me at school. We might run into each other at the mall, but that's it.
I do believe potential employers and administrators have a responsibility in this as well. Quite simply, check the context in which something was written, and this includes the date. I know that I've been active in online communities since I was a teenager, and some of that stuff will surface if you search for me on Google. This is very likely true for other bloggers as well. Before you decide to hold something over someone's head, check to see if it's even relevant anymore. Chances are that you don't like being judged by things you did or said when you were seventeen. Don't do that to others.
My online identity is an integral part of who I am. If you are an administrator or a potential employer looking at this, great. Seriously. Feel free to ask me about this site. I'll talk your ear off about what I do here. In fact, you will find out more about me by spending an afternoon on this site than you will by asking me questions. Yes, I do believe that one must be careful if he or she chooses to engage in online networking, but outright prohibition may be a bit extreme. Just behave responsibly online, and you won't have much to worry about.
Coulter and Market Validation
"...and I'm a little sick of being browbeaten..."
I find this terribly ironic since so much of the criticism laid out against her focuses on her demeaning and browbeating others. Coulter claims to be a Christian, so this should be a simple lesson: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If she doesn't want people to level personal attacks against her, she should first clean up her own act.
"...I have written five New York Times bestsellers. People like the way I write..."
In other words, she is taking the very conservative approach of validation through market success. The market has decided she is a good author, so that must mean everything she says or writes is justified and above criticism. If we follow this logic, here are some other authors and books that have been market approved:
- God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
- The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
- Outrage by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
- It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton
- The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
- The Truth (With Jokes) by Al Franken
- America (The Book) by Jon Stewart
- Dude, Where's My Country by Michael Moore
- My Life by Bill Clinton
I could go on and on here. The point is that she would have no problem criticizing these New York Times bestsellers, so why should she think that status somehow exempts her from the same? Furthermore, games like the Grand Theft Auto series, God of War, Gears of War, and Manhunt have been market successes, but I doubt Coulter would endorse any of them. (I'm not very informed about movies and TV shows, so I'll let you come up with your own examples.)
Some media personalities have defended Coulter saying she brings up real issues that need discussing, and I can see where they are coming from. However, as long as those issues are bing wrapped in senselessly insensitive remarks, insults, and derogatory comments, I don't want to listen. Regardless of your values, political agenda, or religious background, petty attacks demean and hinder the political dialogue in this country – and they encourage more knee-jerk responses than they do honest examination and discussion.
I'm going to stop talking about this now. I promise.
I Am So Going to Get Branded for This
In this light, I find it completely understandable that radio host Don Imus was dismissed after his most recent foray into racist comments. He did have a long history of doing so, and enough was enough. However, I'm also a big fan of consistency. I know, it's an idealistic flaw, but I can't fathom why some other media pundits get away with what they say time and time again. Take Ann Coulter for example. (Disclosure: Please note that these YouTube videos are posted by political bloggers, so some bias is noticeable.)
Why Coulter? Two recent examples:
What was that again?
"If I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
This isn't the first time she's wished death on others in public either. In 2002, she said:
"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."
Uh-huh. Also, let's not forget this gem:
"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
Okay, that's just sick. Does this mean she doesn't really mind that so many people died in Oklahoma City so much as the fact that no one in the NYT building has been brutally and inhumanely murdered? The mind reels. Absolutely reels.
Example number two:
Regardless of how you feel about Obama's speech (and there is a lot in it that could be debated healthily and respectfully), pay attention to one of the first things out of Coulter's mouth:
"I do think someone named B. Hussein Obama should avoid using hijack and religion in the same sentence."
Oh no she didn't! Last I checked, Obama goes by "Barack Obama" 100% of the time. She purposefully manipulates his name to create a terrorist correlation among her viewers! This is interesting coming from someone who claims she believes in "the dignity of all humans."
This respecter of human dignity has also publicly called both Al Gore and John Edwards "faggots." She has called other members of the media "retarded" and worthy of execution.
As a bonus quote that disrespects no one but the world we live on, here is Coulter's take on the environment:
"God says, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"
DId she just use "rape" so flippantly in that sentence? I think she did.
I'm sorry about the rant-like nature of this post, but the hate speech and character smearing needs to stop on all sides – especially from those who claim to be spiritual people. In full disclosure, I would fall closer to what is described as the Religious Right than anywhere else, but I'm sick and tired of how people who might be lumped into that same category behave. Ideally, we have freedom to say and publish what we want to – what may even be necessary – without the fear of political retribution. However, that is a right that must be used responsibly in the example we set for others and the tone we foster among our fellow citizens.
Imus is off the air for his remarks. How is Ann Coulter any better?
Blogging and Journalism
Weblogs – more commonly known as blogs – come in a variety of flavors. Many are casual daily journals that act as online diaries. Some have specific topics such as law, technology, or politics. Others are aimed at professional development and self improvement. A few are just pleasantly quirky (yet intelligent). Additionally, many blogs, like my own, fall into multiple categories simultaneously. With over seventy million blogs representing peoples from all over the world, the blogging community has became a force difficult to ignore.
Fortunatley, according to a recent Ars Technica story, (also linked to in my Links Blog), the House of Representatives is beginning to realize the importance of the blogging community and the journalistic potential of the individuals involved.
From the article:
Instead of requiring journalists to be tied to a news organization, the bill now defines "journalism" to focus more on the function of the job: "the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."
Traditionally, one has had to be associated with an established media outlet (i.e. News Corp., CNN, The Wall Street Journal, etc.) to be considered a "real" journalist with all the rights and responsibilities associated with the label. This bill could completely change that, granting journalistic rights to any individuals documenting events that serve the public interest.
The defining of "public interest" is important, though, in that not every person who runs a blog is necessarily affected by this bill. Again, the Ars article makes this point clear:
The Free Flow of Information Act was reworked after its introduction with the specific intent of including bloggers under the broader definition of journalism. According to a section-by-section analysis of the bill, "The act would apply to web logs ('blogs') that engage in journalism." Although the law is not likely meant to include every person who writes on the Internet, it doesn't create a litmus test for what constitutes "engaging in journalism."
Some media outlets like the Newspaper Association of America and the National Association of Broadcasters are supporting this bill. While specifically aimed at the revealing of confidential sources, I think the important aspect of this bill is the credibility it lends toward bloggers.
In all truth, I have come to prefer blogs over newspapers and televised news programs when it comes to information aggregation. So much traditional media has been relegated to simply "reporting the facts" in an ADHD-inducing matter that seldom allows for deeper analysis of the issues.
In contrast, there are many blogs that are great sources of investigative reporting and political commentary, but very few of these are controlled by a corporate agenda, nor are they motivated by what stories generate the best ratings (though one online publication recently admitted to publishing fluff for the sake of page hits). They are independent world citizens who care about keeping the public well-informed and work hard to do so. That passion gives them a legitimacy that no affiliate label could ever achieve. Let me defer to Jon Stewart in his April 27 interview with Bill Moyers:
[You can] find people that are doing incredibly complex and interesting and urgent journalism ... A lot of those blog reporters and all of those things are bringing a lot of urgency and a lot of momentum to stories that wouldn't normally carry any momentum.
In a world of news dominated by celebrity gossip, miracle cures, and top 10 lists, journalistic blogs are a breath of fresh air. Can bloggers be legitimate journalists? This House bill is a firm step in the direction of "yes."
Again with Blaming Games
It also makes me frustrated how individuals come out of the woodwork at times like these to further their own agendas through uninformed tactics that morbidly entice the public into either higher ratings or political support. Again, a violent act is being used to propagate the hypothetical video game-rampage link. I really wasn't going to write about this at first, but I strongly dislike these kind of blame-games being played that divert the concepts of personal accountibility and responsibility from our minds.
First up is Dr. Phil:
And the problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me - common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society.
I have a grudging respect for Dr. Phil (despite his former association with Oprah), but here he's taking a tried-and-true approach: "video games train our children to be murderers." However, playing Grand Theft Auto, for example, trains me in the art of killing no more than Gran Turismo makes me a better race car driver, Mario Golf makes me a better golfer, or Trauma Center makes me a better surgeon.
I agree that desensitization to violence can only be a Bad Thing™, but desensitization does not equate actions. Again, playing Mario Golf does not make me more likely to step onto a golf course at any point in my life. Likewise, having played a game like Halo does not compel me to perform acts of violence toward anyone.
Of course, Jack Thompson has a thing or two to say:
Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game published by Microsoft, in which players join terrorism or counter-terrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns.
A game depicting counter-terrorism and warfare? You mean like this one published by the United States government? Why aren't you blaming republicans for the violence? Oh yeah, blaming Bill Gates will get more attention.
Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill ... Mr. Gates, pull the plug on Counterstrike today, or do we need more dead to convince you? “Virginia Tech” was the 9-11 of school shootings, and it appears Microsoft is in the middle of it, in more ways than one.
I feel bad for Microsoft. It was bad enough when everyone wanted to vilify them as the Evil Software Empire. Now they are a bunch of murderers too. By the way, poll a bunch of random high school-aged males. I bet more than a few of them play or have played violent video games. Two individuals out of millions does not a trend make.
Now, on a more technical note, shouldn't this rant have been addressed to Steve Ballmer, as in the man who actually runs Microsoft and has for the past seven years. I know – I'm picking nits. Calling out Bill Gates (who people have actually heard of) will get more attention, and that is all Mr. Thompson is really after.
Finally, we have a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show:
I’ll bet my last dollar in my pocket, that this shooter will be found to have been a compulsive video gamer, and when people are living that kind of lifestyle - and college students do this a lot.
I totally expected Mr. Limbaugh to take this and run with it, but he did not.
Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There’s more to this than that… it may desensitize people, but it doesn’t turn everybody into mass murderers.
Here, I think, is a key issue. There are 103 million PS2s in homes, 21 million GameCubes, 24 million XBoxes, almost 3 million PS3s, 6 million Wiis, 10 million XBox 360s, 17 million PSPs, 79 million GameBoy Advances, and 35 million DS units in the hands of consumers worldwide. This is only counting currently supported systems, but that equals almost 300 million current gaming products. Also, this does not count people who game on their PCs. (As a note, at 11:43 p.m. EDT, there are 177,930 PC users logged into GameSpy Live.)
You would think, with those incredible numbers, that juvenile homicide rates would be skyrocketing. However, the opposite is true:
Sternheimer notes an obvious but underemphasized figure: despite the proliferation of violent, first-person shooters in the wake of Doom, juvenile homicide rates have fallen in the decade since its release. Random school shootings remain incredibly rare; for all forms of homicide, students face a seven in 10 million chance of being a victim.
Additionally, two separate reports have recently failed to find a causal link between video games and violent behavior. One report was conducted by the British Board of Film Classification where it was noted:
... Even the "interactivity" of video games can keep gamers from getting immersed in the same way, since players are continuously reminded that they are controlling the action on-screen. The report also notes that gamers are less involved emotionally in games, in part because games often stress action over character and story development.
Also:
... Gamers almost never feel that the onscreen violence is making them more open to using violence. "I no more feel that I have actually scored a goal than I do that I have actually killed someone," said one participant. "I know it’s not real. The emphasis is on achievement."
The other is a study from the journal Psychology, Crime, & Law, noting that stable populations remain largely unaffected by video game violence:
The authors propose that gamers fall into two groups: stable personalities, and those with emotional states that are susceptible to being influenced by game play. Within the latter group, the response to violent games largely depends on the emotional states of the gamers when they begin play. Angry gamers will cool off, calm gamers will get agitated. They also note that only two of the cases of rising anger reached levels that would be considered cause for concern, suggesting that dangerous levels of anger were rarely triggered by gaming.
Unfortunately, video gaming is the most recent media scapegoat to cause such atrocities, joining the illustrious ranks of world religions, TV, movies, rock music, and banned books. This speaks to a deeper problem, though, in which we, as a collective consciousness, have grown overly comfortable with "passing the buck." We have our folk devils that can carry the blame, so we don't have to look in the mirror and face responsibilities we would rather avoid. Until we can wean ourselves away from the folk devils and start facing our own sense of accountability as a group entity and as individuals, tragic events such as this will not go away – no matter who or what we blame.
Blogging Considerately
In his initial post, O'Relly writes:
A culture is a set of shared agreements that allows us to live together. Let's make sure that the culture we create with our blogs is one that we are proud of.
I agree with this whole-heartedly, and I think the best blogs around create a very good culture by setting a positive example when they write. Robert Scoble, Garr Reynolds, Kathy Sierra, and Guy Kawasaki are all great examples of this tack. As a result, by and large, the people who participate in the micro-community developed around these blogs tend to follow the given example.
The New York Times has an overview of the potential code, and the concept has seen support and adaptation from some like David Weinberger and BlogHer (whose guidelines actually served as inspiration) while gaining some thoughtful criticism from others like Jeff Jarvis and Robert Scoble.
David Weinberger writes:
We've always been responsible for comments: There's always been a line we wouldn't allow commenters to cross, or if there's been no line, we've been responsible for that as well. But we need to be OK with setting out explicit guidelines.
On the other hand, Jeff Jarvis counters:
You either trust me and respect me based on what I say here or you do not, and there are plenty in the latter camp. Transparency and publicness are what drive that. Not some silly code and badge.
The way I see it is that Matthew 7:12 states it plainly: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Confucius said, "What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others," and the Mahābhārata states, "This is the sum of duty; do naught unto others what you would not have them do unto you." I could really go on and on here. What we refer to as the Golden Rule has seen incarnations in several religions and cultures in varying points of history. If we try to live by this principle offline, then we should also do so online.
I don't enable comments on this site. (I don't have the time to read and respond to them at my current point in life.) My readership is more than welcome to send me a message at the email address on the About Rob page. However, even if I do enable comments in the future, I still don't think I'll adopt the O'Reilly code verbatim. There is value in anonymity as well as danger. I don't feel I own your words. However, I do expect you to engage me the way I would engage you in conversation – fairly and respectfully.
Quick Links:
PS - I resent the New York Times article title. It does a little too much to equate "nasty" with "blogs" in the public mind. Also, those web badges on the O'Reilly draft are ... not pretty.
Jerks, Passion, and Disgust
CPUs: Death threats against bloggers are NOT "protected speech" (why I cancelled my ETech presentations)
One of the scariest things about online communication is the fact that anyone can hide behind a wall of anonymity and behave in the most depraved ways their minds can imagine. For some reason, they think this is okay. However, what we say and do, anonymously or otherwise, has real effects on real people.
My thoughts are with Kathy at this time. Her blog was a major inspiration to me when I set up this site over a year ago and it continues to be. In all, this site has seen 462 entries made to its various sections during that time, but not one entry comes close to matching the material I would find on Creating Passionate Users. Her voice is an important one, and I seriously hope that a few jerks don't end up silencing that voice.
I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy with the individuals associated with the activities she mentions. Even if you are not directly involved, the actions you condone by your silence and the character of the individuals you choose to associate with speak about your true character. If you don't want people to think bad things about you, choose your preferred activities and associations accordingly.
We're all humans. Let's please treat each other that way. Kathy, I hope to see you posting again soon. Until then, I'll keep you in my prayers.
(3/27) Update 01: An individual who had founded one of the sites involved in this mess (now taken down) has posted an apology and explanation of his original intentions for said site. You can read his post right here.
(3/28) Update 02: Computerworld has an interview with Kathy Sierra regarding this situation. She sounds very discouraged but reasonable. I've linked to the Macworld version of the article because its all on one page. Macworld: Death threats force blogger to sidelines.
(3/28) Update 03: Kathy has updated her original post, closing comments. She says even more grief and abuse has come from this attention, and now personal information of hers has been leaked onto the 'net by anonymous sources. This is truly tragic.
(4/2) Last Update: I promise I'm ready to move on now. Just two more links:
• Kathy Sierra: Update/Joint Statement with Chris Locke
• Chris Locke: Coordinated Statements on the Recent Events
Unions, Teachers, and Good Schools
Steve Jobs and Michael Dell, this weekend, spoke very candidly about the needs of education reform in this country. I agree with much of what they have to say, and, even though neither probably have any clue what it is, they both advocated project-based learning in many of their comments.
From the Statesman.com article:
"Dell also recalled how, as a seventh-grade student, he was fascinated by his school's teletype machine. He and Jobs said it's that sort of passion and fascination that is critical to get students engaged and do their best work."
"Simply through a deep interest in something, students will learn how to work through problems and find ways of solving them, Jobs said."
This is fantastic material, and this is also the type of stuff that no standardized test can measure. However, neither Dell nor Jobs spoke to the travesty that is standardized testing and Adequate Yearly Progress.
Where things come apart is with this statement by Jobs:
"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs said. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."
First off, at least in Indiana, lifetime employment is a thing of the past. Your license has to be renewed every five years if you are going to keep teaching. However, I don't have a problem with that statement. His information is just out-of-date there. My problem is with his calling out teachers unions. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of poorly implemented unions and sub-par teachers taking advantages of the security of unions, but let me tell you something you may not know about teachers: They put others before themselves.
This is the whole point of becoming a teacher. Teachers want to help others reach their potential and excel in life. They sacrifice of themselves to make sure their children are provided with what they need to learn. The type of person who will become a teacher is the type of person who will unquestioningly go above-and-beyond in making sure the learning and developmental needs of the children he or she works with are met.
"Why does this matter?" you ask. I didn't say that to merely blow my own horn. The fact is this type of person is easily exploited. School administration and politicians know what kind of people go into education. Administrators and politicians know they can get away with taking advantage of these employees because the employees, for the most part, will not retaliate in any meaningful way. Why? Because if they do, it is the children who suffer! I could easily provide numerous examples from both my wife's job and my own to support this. Unfortunately, if I get too specific, I could probably lose my job – despite our union.
Just from a financial standpoint, both my wife and I spend literally hundreds of dollars a year on our classrooms. We spend hundreds of unpaid hours doing school-related work, and all the while I've been watching my paycheck get smaller due to the imbalance between pay raises and hikes in fees like insurance. It's ridiculous how much teachers are stepped on by those running education in this country, and, without any unions in place, it could be much worse.
Unfortunately, these comments seem to be gaining some support in the tech circles they are being discussed in most. Favorite blogger of mine John Gruber says he completely agrees with Jobs, and some of the comments in this Infinite Loop post just turn my stomach:
"And, by the way, no teacher has a class with "two or three" times as many students as recommended. Classes are held to 34 students, except for very rare, and special circumstances. Then, a few more might be added."
I can't believe anyone actually thinks 30+ students is an acceptable class size. Perhaps it would be fine if every child came from a perfect family, had an average IQ, and all had similar experiences, but in reality this doesn't work. One colleague of mine has 30 students this year. A full third of them have IEPs, of those she has three or four with serious behavioral and emotional problems, specifically with aggression. She has students who are reading two grade levels above their current grade and student reading two levels below. She has kids who are very advanced in math while others have problems with simple addition and subtractions. Yet somehow, basically by herself, she has to meet all of their educational needs and get them to pass our state's standardized test next year.
"Teachers are rarely held accountable for their performance because schools don't have any particular need to excel. Jobs simply understands that a business needs to adapt and excel in order to survive. Throwing more money at schools is not a solution. We should be getting a far higher return on the investment we are already making."
Well my friend, perhaps you've never heard of an act called No Child Left Behind or, as I prefer to call it, No Teacher Left Standing. However, this person is right about the money. It shouldn't be thrown at schools. It should be thrown at teachers.
•••
In all of this, there were a couple of individuals who seemed to get it:
"That situation makes for the truly dangerous teacher: the apathetic one that only does enough to escape notice by parents and school boards, and does little but pass little Joanie to the next level. A teacher that challenges the students, truly educates them without attempting any politically motivated indoctrination, is a great teacher, but vulnerable and exposed."
Regarding "that situation," this person is speaking of all the negativity geared toward teachers from parents, administration, and politicians. Here's where apathetic teachers come from: they are the good ones who burned out.
"Steve forgot to note is that it isn't sufficient to fire bad employees. You also have to reward the good ones."
Unfortunately, the way the system is set up, the negative is much easier to focus on and react to that the positive. The entire AYP system in punitive, and that atmosphere trickles down from the politicians to the administration. This is the atmosphere that contributes to teacher burnout.
"Nearly all the problems in schools today are due to capitalistic ideals, and education should not be a contest."
Amen.
•••
When it comes down to it, unions are very necessary to the well-being of teachers. The fact is, politicians and businessmen run school systems – not educators – and they would exploit teachers for all they could if unions did not stand between them and the teachers. Right now, teachers have to play the roles of educator, moral compass, counselor, nutritionist, and sometimes therapist with our children. We have to teach the three "R"s while putting out behavioral fires and differentiating our instruction for the various ability levels in our classes. We have to appease administration and parents while trying to do what is best for the children. I can't imagine how things would deteriorate without a union there to help hold back the floodgates.
I'm all for education reform, but, just as I believe in student driven learning in the classroom, I believe education reform should be teacher-driven. No CEO, lawyer, politician, Hollywood producer, or pundit can determine what is best for the children of our country without getting into the trenches and actually teaching in a classroom for several years, and I would challenge any individual to work in a low-income school like many I've had experience with and not walk away a changed person.
Yes, there are a lot of problems with education. However, advocating the removal of the one entity that actually stands up for teachers' rights is not a solution to anything. Maybe Jobs wasn't really speaking to the actual removal of unions, but that is how a lot of people could take it, so that is the issue I decided to address.
Continued RIAA Villainy
RIAA's Earned Reputation
I can think of no other industry that holds its consumers in such general contempt as the recording industry (except, perhaps, the oil industry whose executives hold our very planet in contempt).In fact, let's take a stroll down memory lane:
- Ars Technica: RIAA says CD ripping, backups not fair use
- Arts Techica: RIAA defendent argues damages are excessive
- Ars Technica: RIAA lawyers bully witnesses into perjury
- WinInfo: Microsoft caves to Universal in music deal (I might also mention that this Internet Nexus post claims Micrsosft has had to enter into similar agreements with the other music labels.)
This is but a small sampling of the RIAA and music labels stepping on others' feet, and all but one of these links is from this year! Again, the only explanation is that they hold their customers in absolute contempt.
The Latest Offense
Now, record executives aren't just being disrespectful to their source of income (read: you and me). They are now claiming too much profit is making its way to the hands of recording artists trough new avenues of distribution such as iTunes, the Zune Marketplace, and cell phone ring-tones.The IGN article states it well:
"At best the RIAA is kicking artists when they're down via this action, and at worst has fully revealed that despite repeated claims that artists need to be protected from piracy, the organization is very much the tool of the major labels and publishers who have famously never really cared about the artists in the first place."
Growing Irrelevancy
Middlemen – that is all the record labels are. They are to music what Dunder Mifflin is to paper. They take stuff others created, package it up, overcharge for it, and then take the lion's share of profit for themselves. Again, except for the oil industry, can you think of another industry so willing to alienate all around them for the sake of profits?Unfortunately, the record labels are slowly becoming irrelevant, and they know it. However, instead of evolving with the times and redefining their roles in the marketplace, the big labels are merely throwing their collective weight around, trying to cash in on as much as they can before the axe falls.
What would be great is if major online music retailers like Yahoo! Music, iTunes, Urge, and Zune Marketplace would allow artists to submit tracks and albums directly, bypassing the publishers entirely. The problem with this, of course, is that the artists still rely on the music labels to provide studios and equipment to record with. Also, the studios often own the copyright to an artists work rather than the artist him-/herself, and there may be no quick solution for these issue.
Regardless, the RIAA has become a dinosaur that has become both carnivorous and cannibalistic in its attempts to maintain a stranglehold on its profits. These executive don't care about the artists they represent, nor do they care about the consumers that purchase their product. If the record labels and the RIAA continue their reign of terror, it won't be long until artists and consumers start looking for ways to eliminate them from the equation entirely.
Deconstructing Larry
In the first paragraph, he claims to have purchased a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.7 GHz model. Then he tells the world how terrible it was to use his Mac.
I was suckered in by the hype about freedom from viruses, simplicity of computing and versatility. Instead, I bought a boat anchor that can't view Web sites properly, is not compatible with Microsoft Word and can run only dumbed-down versions of regular software.
Mr. Bodine makes four claims in this paragraph.
- "I was suckered." Twice in the
article, Mr. Bodine talks about the enticement of a
virus-free computer. However, nowhere does he
clarify whether or not this is the case. The way he
words his sentences makes it sound as if Macs are
prone to viruses and spyware, which they are not.
Intentionally or not, the author is being very
misleading.
- "[It] can't view websites
properly." Mr. Bodine gives no examples to
back this claim up. Currently, I have 65 websites
bookmarked. Some examples are IGN, Ars Technica, Homestar Runner, Fifth Third Bank, IUPUI Angel,
IUPUI Oncourse, IUPUI OneStart, Flickr, and many others. Every
one of these sites functions perfectly well in
Safari. Admitedly, eBible.com has crashed Safari a
couple of times, and I use Camino for that site.
- "[It] is not compatible with Microsoft
Word." I have Microsoft Word on my
PowerMac. As a matter of fact, so does he as he
writes about his frustrations with Word later on. I
don't know what he means with this claim.
- "[It] can only run dumbed-down versions of regular software." How do you define "regular" software, Mr. Bodine? Macs can run Adobe Creative Suite CS2, Final Cut Studio, Shake, Microsoft Office, Filemaker, Sibelius, Aperture, Dreamweaver, and many more. How are any of these "dumbed-down" products?
This article is shaky from the get-go, but it only gets worse the further you read:
"I'll be lucky to get half of the $4,552.71 I paid for the Mac on May 21, 2006."
You paid what? When? For which model? The lineup this Mac was a part of was replaced in October 2005. Granted, it remained purchasable on the Apple Store for some time after that due to the PCI-X compatibility issue, but the price is another problem. New, one of these retailed for $2,999 sans screen. I'll grant, a monitor purchase might have been necessary, but how much did this guy splurge? Money management must not be a forte because in May 2006, he could have gotten a more powerful quad-core G5 for less.
Edit: Since his original article, Mr. Bodine has corrected himself and stated he bought the Mac in July of 2005. How you make a mistake like that is beyond me, but I'll take his word for it.
"I was encouraged to make the switch by artists, ad agency employees and junior high school kids, even though I don't really create graphics, listen to iTunes or make movies."
So you bought a computer because it's popular in a line of work you're not involved in and because teenagers told you to. Tell me, do these teens speak to you often? Do you follow this rationale when buying things like cars? If I listened to my students' advice, I would be wearing faux gold chains, collecting Bratz dolls, trading Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and avoiding showers for days at a time.
"The signs of doom were there on day one, but I ignored them. I pretended that I liked the one button mouse. I quickly started using click + command keys (and other keyboard shortcuts). I really missed the little scrolling wheel in the center of the mouse."
Again with the dates. Yes, the one-button mouse was a hold-off for years, but it was dumped in October 2005. Apple now ships a four-button mouse that does have a scroll wheel with all of its desktops and workstations. Even if this Mr. Bodine did get the one-button Apple Mouse, he spent $4,500 on his rig and can't go buy a $20 optical mouse to plug in. (Incidentally, my Kensington mouse has four buttons, a scroll wheel, cost $20, and "just works" when plugged in.)
"I noticed it was slow; I saw that stupid spinning colored wheel a lot. The Mac would hang up; the TV ads said Macs didn't do that."
I see the beach ball occasionally too, but not often. I can still count the number of "hang ups" my PowerMac has had on one hand (even after about three years), and most of them are iDVD-related. I'm sorry his exponentially more powerful machine was so much slower than mine is. I guess mileage may vary.
"What drove me nuts was that I would open Word for Mac and couldn't delete files while I was in Word. There is no File | Delete option. So the documents took up space on my hard drive, until someone told me I had to find the document in Finder and then move it into the trash from there. This seemed stupid to me; I just wanted to highlight a file and tap 'delete.'"
This is true. you cannot delete files from within a Mac OS X save dialog, and MS Word uses a standard Mac save dialog. This problem is just a fundamental difference in design. Unfortunately, I've noticed that a few Windows users get frustrated on Macs because, on Windows, you can add and remove files and programs with absolutely no understanding of how your system is organized. The Mac Finder is organized very well, but too many people don't even know to use it if they have grown used to Windows' hand-holding.
"Word files transferred from the Mac were missing pictures. PowerPoint files transferred from the Mac would lose their formatting. PCs and Macs are not compatible, regardless of what they say."
This also happens PC-to-PC if the machines are running different versions or editions of Office. Personally, this has never bitten me, but I use Office only minimally.
"Things I could do with a PC in two keystrokes took four or five clicks with the Mac. To do a "fast print" required clicking File, Print, find Copies & Pages, click Paper Type/Quality, click Normal and finally clicking Fast Draft."
Like the Windows version of Office, there is an icon of a printer in the main toolbar. Click it, and the printer spits out your document – one click, not five.
"Doing a simple screen capture was an immense chore. On a PC you just press Alt and tap PrtScr. With the Mac I had to download and launch special programs to accomplish this simple task."
Cmd-Shift-3 captures the entire screen. Cmd-Shift-4 allows you to select a certain area to be captured. Press the space bar, and you can highlight specific elements such as an active window, the dock, or the menu bar. No third-party utility is required.
"I didn't even bother with the Mac's iCal or Mail, which required me to buy an @mac.com address. Instead, I went straight to Outlook for Mac."
Neither iCal nor Mail require .Mac accounts to function properly. It's a shame he left these alone. They are nice applications. (Microsoft is even imitating iCal in Windows Vista.) Mail's handling of junk mail is really quite good, and I like the option of bouncing messages I don't want. I get almost no spam anymore.
"For me the killer was the Web browser. Safari simply cannot read Flash. It is, quite simply, a second-rate browser."
Really? In the last 48-hours, I have visited Adobe.com, Ugo Player.com, Homestar Runner.com, and YouTube.com. All of these sites use Flash, and all of these sites look just fine in Safari. I wonder if Mr. Bodine checked to see if the Flash plug-in was installed. After all, even Internet Explorer won't work with Flash sites if the plug-in is not there.
"I even called Apple headquarters and asked when a better version would be available and was told that Apple is in no hurry to improve it."
I don't believe this for a second. First, he may be misrepresenting Apple's usual "we don't comment on future products" reply. Second, there are various enhancements for Safari planned for Leopard. Third, this blog provides very open information about WebKit (Safari's foundation) and it's development.
"On the suggestions of friends, I downloaded Netscape and Firefox, which were no better."
I have no comment on Netscape, but I'll let the Open Source crowd address him in regards to Firefox.
There is more to the article, but this really gives a decent representation of his flawed reasoning. The fact is, Mr. Bodine makes some claims that are sometimes outright wrong and others with no corroborating evidence. Despite his law degree and position as a tech advisor he seems lacking in basic fact-checking and computing skills. I doubt he really is, but this article makes him seem that way. I've even read one blogger that feels Mr. Bodine just made up his whole experience for the sake of traffic. I don't believe he's outright lying, but his way of telling the truth is not terribly honest-sounding.
I'm very glad many Mac users have offered to help make Mr. Bodin'e life easier, but I wish he would correct his article for integrity's sake. I don't care if he likes his Mac, but if he is going to advise people to avoid Macs, he should do so for legitimate reasons.
Digital Weight Loss
x
A new HP camera is actually being marketed with the idea that it can slim the subject of the photograph. Yes, friends, if you think your significant other is just too heavy looking in a shot on your vacation, no problem! Merely adjust a slider, and you can help him or her virtually shed unnecessary pounds! Here are some shots of it in action (straight off HP's site):
Now let's take some notes:
- The models on HP's site are only females – talk about gender stereotyping.
- The models look fine as they are. HP marketing is essentially saying healthy-looking women are in need of slimming, so you must be too.
- Can we talk about social pressures regarding anorexia at this point?
I may be a bit harsh here (which, you have to admit, is very unusual for me), but this whole concept is being promoted in a very irresponsible way. "You are not good enough. You look fat on film. Let us fix you." I can admit that, by and large, many Americans are overweight. Even I'm not as fit as I could be, but is this how we need to solve the problem? Are we so incapable of caring for ourselves that we need to artificially create better selves? I hope not.
Stuff like this just boggles me. All this really does is vertically stretch the entire picture, but it just makes me a little sick-to-the-stomach that somewhere another boardroom has made a decision that only further exploits weight insecurities (specifically in women) at both extremes. I no boycotter, but when we get a digital camera, I doubt it will be a HP right now.
Also, Jason Fried of 37 Signals has made a post about this "feature."
Thoughts On Tiger (Very Long Post)
x
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was released on April 29, 2005 to wide acclaim and wide criticism. As per Apple's recent tradition, the product was $129 ($69 for educators). There was much ado over "200 New Features" from Apple's PR, and there was general complaint and mockery regarding a $129 fee for a "point release" from the critical. The truth of Tiger is somewhere in the middle. You have to pick some pretty fine nits to find "200 New Features." On the other hand, Mac OS 10.4 is more than a general "point release."
x
An OS By Any Other Name...
I've often said that Apple sells itself short in the nomenclature used for it's "X" systems. To illustrate this, some history:x
(At this point, some of my more tech-savy readers should skip ahead.) Mac OS X, pronounced "Mac Oh-Es Ten," is not really the tenth version of the Macintosh Operating System. The original Mac OS died with the passing of Mac OS 9. The current system is based on UNIX, and it is a marriage, sometimes inelegant and sometimes uncomfortable, of the Classic Mac OS and another OS project that was called NeXTSTEP. As such, Mac OS X 10.1 was really version one of a new product. (No, I refuse to count Mac OS X 10.0 as anything else than an expensive beta.)
x
With each successive release, this product has matured considerably, so much so that screenshots of Mac OS X 10.1 look very foreign to someone used to working with Mac OS 10.4. In fact, these two systems look about as similar as Windows 98 and Windows XP. However, public perception can be that progress has been minimal because of how Apple has chosen to name their new operating system. It would be more accurate to view this product as Mac OS X Version 4 than as a simple point release.
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Installation and First Impressions
My system disks were of Mac OS X 10.4.0, and installation was breezy. It took a little over 20 minutes to install on my G5, but it took quite a bit longer on my PowerBook G3. After rebooting, there was some performance lag as Spotlight indexed my hard drive, but that was quickly resolved. I quickly played with as many toys as I could including Automator, Dashboard, Spotlight, and the snazzy new screen-savers! Everything worked as expected.x
My G5 seemed noticeably faster overall. I'm continually impressed how each Mac OS revision seems to make that machine snappier (even though it's a 1.8 GHz SP, which is supposedly adversely affected by 10.4). Startup time is also speedier. On average, my G5 takes roughly 30 seconds to boot. Unfortunately, Mac OS 10.4 has had the opposite affect on my PowerBook G3, and the poor thing seems to struggle under this system's weight. I guess I should have known I was in trouble when my old PowerBook was not on the initial list of supported hardware. (It appeared a few days later.)
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What about stability? So far, there have been no kernal panics. Actually, I have been fortunate enough to never have had one of these, and I have been an OS X user since the Public Beta came out. My PowerBook began my OS X experience, and my old Graphite iMac DV joined the X era when Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" came out. In addition to the lack of kernal panics on either my G5 or my PowerBook G3, I have experienced no system freezes, and the only application to "Unexpectedly Quit" has been Microsoft Word 2004 on my laptop. My desktop has had absolutely zero flakiness ... outside of some that was my own doing.
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My only real complaint is the fact that 10.4.1 and 10.4.2 (as well as some other miscellaneous updates) had already been released prior to my purchase of Tiger in late August, but the boxed version I got did not contain these updates, so both my desktop and my laptop had to download those updates after installation. I had kind of expected those updates to be "in the box" by then. For reference, 10.4.1 had been released May 16, and 10.4.2 had been released July 12. My purchase of Mac OS X 10.4 was on August 20.
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New Features
Dashboard: Dashboard is the flashiest of the new features, and it is the feature that will probably remain most associated with Tiger. Dashboard is a compnant of Exposé, which was introduced by Apple in 10.3 "Panther." Dashboard is a separate layer from the desktop that runs mini applications callsed "widgets." These widgets are one-trick ponies that can do things like track shipments, monitor the weather, control iTunes, convert measurements, and act as a calendar. There are thousands of widgets freely available for download on the Internet, and there are a few more sophisticated ones that cost a few dollars. Fortunately, Apple has included an interface for installing and managing widgets as of the 10.4.2 update.
By in large, I find Dashboard pretty useful. I used to run Konfabulator strictly in Konsposé mode, so Dashboard offered little adjustment for me. The screenshot shows my most frequently used widgets, and they all do the job well. My only gripe is with the general laginess of Dashboard when you open it the first time after login. Personally, I have to recommend a tiny app called Dashboard Starter if you think you'll use Dashboard a lot. All it does is launch Dashboard on login, thereby making the widgets more responsive once you are ready to use them.
Spotlight: Spotlight is the integrated system search feature of Mac OS 10.4. You can envoke Spotlight by clicking on a magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen or by using the keyboard command Command-Space. Spotlight searches while you type, which is fine on fast systems, but I wish there was the option for it to wait for you to hit Return on my slower G3 system. Most of the time, if I lose something, Spotlight can find it for me. However, on my PowerBook G3, I've noticed that about half of my documents never get searched, and I'm not sure how to correct that situation. I'm a pretty organized person and seldom lose track of where I have information stowed, but Spotlight has come in handy during those times I have lost track of stuff.
Here's what a Spotlight window looks like if you ask it to show you all results from the Spotlight menu. Could this be the future of the Finder?
Automator: Automator may be one of the cooler new features that few will discover and even fewer may use. I can't comment too much about Automator because I'm still learning about it. Basically, Automator is designed to bring one-step goodness to repetitive tasks. For example, you could apply a sepia tone filter to multiple photographs at once. You may want to assign Spotlight Keywords to multiple items, or you could name several files sequentially (August 01.pdf, August 02.pdf, etc.). There is a learning curve involved, but Automator is a nice example of how Apple sometimes succeeds in thinking outside the box. I think I'm going to really like Automator once I get used to it.
Here's a screen capture of one of Automator's sample workflows. You can add and rearrange steps using simple drag-and-drop.
Other New Features: QuickTime is now at verison 7 and supports a new high-definition codec. Unfortuantely, QuickTime 7 does not seem to be as responsive as QuickTime 6 was when viewing .mpg videos in a browser window (Safari or Firefox). Some new Finder features include Burnable Folders and Smart Folders. Both are quite useful, especially the Burn Folders, which allow you to set up a burn session without a CD or DVD actually being inserted in the drive. FIanlly, the built in RSS support in Safari is cool, but if you are used to a dedicated RSS aggregator (like NetNewsWire), Safari probably won't offer enough features to make you switch.
There are plenty more little touches that separate Mac OS X 10.4 from previous releases, but this gives an overview of some of the most obvious enhancements.
Under the Hood
More important than the superficial enhancements are the "under the hood" improvements to Mac OS X 10.4. These are the changes that most will never see or know about but that affect how the system and applications work. Apple refers to these as "key technologies," and they include such elements as H.264 support, Core Image, Core Data, and Core Audio. Core Audio was introduced in either Jaguar or Panther, and it created a robust set of integrated audio functionality right into the operating system that any application can potentially have access to. Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro is a good example of an application that takes advantage of Core Audio.New to the Core Foundation Technologies are Core Image and Core Data. Core Data is over my head, but it meant to improve the data-model framework used by applications. Core Data is important to Spotlight's functionality, and it uses database concepts to organize and manage data from any application built to utilize it. This, like other Core Foundation Technologies, is aimed squarely at developers and making Mac OS X as attractive of a development platform as possible. Furthermore, Core Image, like Core Audio, provides developers with a respectable palette of image tools that can be seamlessly integrated into their application. Image Tricks by BeLight Software is a nice utility that is built entirely around the Core Image filters.
What does this mean to the end user? It means future Mac OS X applications can take advantage of all sorts of great technologies that would formerly have had to be integrated manually. Imagine a presentation application that could apply audio effects to sounds and music in the presentation, that could manipulate images right in the application by applying Gaussian blur and sepia tone filters without having to rely on a separate image editor, all while indexing every bit of content in your presentation for easy searching later. An application like this would be very possible utilizing Apple's Core Foundation Technologies (which makes me wonder what new features we'll see in Keynote 3). I don't understand half of the technical documentation regarding Core Foundation, but I do know that I've been impressed more than once by applications that make good use of these technologies.
Dashboard and Safari RSS are nifty and fun. Core Foundation Technologies are the stepping stones that will build the future of the Macintosh platform.
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The Interface.
See that cool screenshot? Yeah, Mac OS X 10.4 doesn't quite look that good. That screenshot is actually the product of two different interface modifications (iTuno and SmoothStripes Sunken Mod if you must know). Don't get me wrong, I really like the Aqua user interface, and I am a big fan of the new "Unified" look that Mail 2 sports. I just don't like how every other application seems to have a different version of Aqua applied to it. The Finder, for example, still looks basically like it did in the days of Jaguar, while iTunes has a drastically different appearance using similar elements, and don't get me started on GarageBand.
Aqua has evolved greatly since the days of Mac OS X 10.0. It is much more subdued than it used to be, and pinstripes are pretty much gone. However, it seems that Apple has been improving the interface in bits and pieces. Unfortunately for users, this results in a very inconsistent visual experience. On the other hand, this may be intentional. Software developers seem to be moving to having different applications having distinct looks and feels (Windows Media Player and Office 12 anyone?). It's just not my cup of tea. Fortunately, applications like Unsanity's ShapeShifter make modifying the systems appearance fairly painless.
The Kitchen Sink & Conclusion
I know there are many aspects of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger I have failed to overview in detail. For example, I haven't talked much about H.264, nor have I said anything about the new metadata features that have worked their way into Tiger. iChat AV has gone untouched on my computer, so there was no use in even mentioning it, and accessibility features as well as the new parental controls are absent from this overview. 10.4 is a huge system filled with features, and there is no way I'm going to be able to cover all of them.Tiger is another step toward making Mac OS X a more robust and feature-rich environment to work in. Some features like Dashboard are very visible while others, like Automator, may seem more daunting to the average user. Some features have been left strangely hidden, like the Finder's Slideshow functionality, while many of the other enhancements are at the system level, invisible to most people. Overall, I'm glad we bought Tiger, and I'm really looking forward to the enhancements and changes that will be brought by Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in late 2006!
So Much To Say
One of the more interesting tidbits lately has been some quotes attributed to Edgar Bronfman, Jr. of Warner Music Group where he attacks Apple's fixed pricing structure in the iTunes Music Store, and he claims right to a chunk of Apple's profit margins on the iPod because people buy the iPod to carry music they distribute. Interesting thoughts – however, I think this guy is only managing to confirm Steve Jobs comments about "greedy" record executives.
First, let's look at the pricing structure controversy. I agree with Mr. Bronfman completely on this. Charging $0.99 for every song is unfair. Prices should cap at $0.99/song for premium songs, and perhaps we can set a basement price of $0.49 for less popular material with prices in between the two limits for various material. That sound fair, right? Oh, you want to charge more for the popular tunes, even in 128 kbps encoding. Yeah, that's just greedy.
(By the way, I know Apple is responsible for the encoding quality of the songs downloaded from the iTunes Music Store, but I do think is should still be a factor in the price. If they start supporting 256 kbps or more, then we'll talk.)
Now let's examine the second point: The record labels deserve a cut of iPod sales. If we follow this reasoning, every publisher or developer that creates titles for the Macintosh deserve a percentage of every computer Apple sells. The same goes for Miscrosoft and Windows software. After all, who would buy a computer that runs no software? Every network and production studio should get a cut of every television sold. Every radio station should get a cut of every stereo sold. Every web site should get kickback from internet subscriptions.
I'm sorry, record labels are not special and do not deserve special treatment. They deserve no cut of the iPod pie any more than I deserve a cut of AOL's profits. Verdict: Greed.
I love music. I love listening to a wide variety of music from Bach to Bob Dylan, the Beatles to Dave Matthews to Philip Glass. However, it's sad to see the powers over such a worthwhile medium are so much more concerned with lining their pockets thatn they are the fair treatment of the consumers that support them. Then again, that really is one of the biggest weaknesses of the United States in general: "My money before your wellfare."
I know Apple has its own agenda, and it may be playing cards that just make the record labels take the bad PR when iTunes Music Store prices rise, but I hope Steve Jobs rakes people like Mr. Bronfram across as many coals as he can before relenting. There, end soap box rant.
Wow, I actually started this post feeling all calm and serene, and now I'm all in a huff. That means I don't even want to start addressing these other comments from our (edit: sorry, Finland's) beloved record industry! ; )
Game Ratings and You
You see, this whole brouhaha launched when some content that some described as "sexually explicit" was discovered in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The fact that this material is only accessible on the PC version of the game (not the console versions) by means of hacking the application seems to be completely irrelevant. As a result of the mess, the ESRB changed Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to Adult Only (AO) from Mature (M). (More Info Here.)
The issue is being brought up again with Capcom's stylish puzzle-shooter, Killer 7. Again, the same attorney, Mr. Jack Thompson, is behind the crusade, and he is appealing to his prior allies, Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, for support. The drive is to have Killer 7 changed from an "M" rating to "AO." This time, Mr. Thomson takes things one step further and claims the ESRB should be dismantled if they do not submit to his requests. (Article Here.)
So, I hear many of my readers asking, why do I seem to be taking the side of the ESRB and the video game publishers on this one? Am I not opposed to such material in entertainment media? Don't I believe that children should be protected from such content? Well, of course I do, and that's why I say buyers should look at the label and see it is already rated "M" for Mature.
It's very simple, "M" in the video game world is the equivalent on an "R" rating in the movie world, and "R"-rated movies with content much more explicit and disturbing are created and available in normal retail stores. We all know what an "R" rating means. Despite this, I know of people who won't let their children watch a movie if it's rated "PG-13," yet these same children have several "M"-rated video games.
It all comes down to being responsible consumers. Game ratings will not change the content in video games any more than movie ratings have helped movies become more wholesome and moral over the last couple decades. We parents have to become more informed about what content is in the games, and the way to do this is easy: Flip over the box, and read why the game is rated what it's rated.
For example, Katamari Damacy is rated "E" (for "Everyone"), and it is qualified with "Mild Fantasy Violence." Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is rated "T" (for "Teen"), and its content includes "Blood," "Suggestive Themes," and "Violence." Now let's take Killer 7, which is rated "M" for "Blood and Gore," "Intense Violence," "Sexual Themes," and "Strong Language." Based off of those descriptions alone, do you think it is possible to make responsible buying decisions for your family? I do.
Of course, this brings up a whole slew of other issues. One issue is consistany. If we are to be this strict on the gaming industry, why has explicit material become so common on TV and in movies. After all, Jennifer Garner is allowed to run around in fetish costumes in Alias during prime time with but a "TV14" rating while nudity is becoming more and more common in "PG-13" movies, and don't tell me that Desperate Housewives has no sexual content.
Another issue is that of built-in content versus mods and add-ons. This same Jack Thompson alleged that EA's The Sims titles should be changed to an "M" rating from "T" because one can download nude skins for the characters off of the Internet. EA neither creates or endorses this material, but those facts seem to be trivial.
Mr. Thompson, the solution is not to dismantle the only industry watchdog. The answer is in responsible, informed consumerism on the part of parents and caregivers – unless I'm solving the wrong problem. If the problem is trying to figure out how to gain more media and political attention, then you have found a topic that will get you that attention.
On Apple and Intel
Weekend Jitters
The weekend before WWDC, rumors were spreading around the Internet that Apple was in talks with Intel, and these talks were going to lead to an announcement that Apple would be abandoning the PowerPC architecture for the x86 architecture. Sure, these rumors had been around for years, but this time it was different. Publications with more clout and reputation at stake were reporting these rumors as solid fact.The Macintosh community was abuzz with discussions. Forum topics would surpass a thousand posts in under an hour, and the debate kept returning to the same basic theme: Could this be for real?
I have to admit to being a nay-sayer. I thought Apple was going to use Intel's ARM processor in future mobile devices. I even agreed with Daring Fireball's article that speculated (far-fetched as it may sound) that Intel had wooed Apple with its own variant of the PowerPC architecture. Perhaps they could provide the speed in the PowerPC that IBM had so far failed to deliver. The thought that Apple would take an undertaking this large seemed unrealistic, especially after the rocky OS 9 to OS X shift.
The Announcement
Incidentally, I had been preparing some thoughts about how Apple had grown content with its current position in the market and how it seemed to be a company that was finished, for the time being, with going out on limbs. I knew just how wrong that line of thinking was when the headline came up on MacCentral reading: "The Rumors Are True."What was most surprising wasn't the shift itself, though. What was surprising was how Steve Jobs made it seem like this was not a big deal, and developers would be able to easily take this shift in stride. More so, he even had demonstrable evidence that this was the case. Rosetta will be able to run PowerPC compiled apps on the x86 processors (with some caveats we'll explore later). Mathmatica was recompiled for x86 in about two hours, and the new version of XCode can dual-compile applications, so a developer can ship software that can run on both architectures on the same disc.
"Impressive. Most impressive."
The comprehensiveness by which this transition is being handled should not, in retrospect, have been so surprising. After all, Apple is a company that thinks and plans before it acts. Additionally, Apple had already weathered a substantial platform transition in recent history from which they could learn. As it turns out, Mac OS X has been running on x86 machines practically from Day 1. In fact, its BSD core makes it inherently portable. Some saw this day coming. Fortunately, Apple had planned well for it.
The Timing
One of the arguments against this dramatic change happening now was the fact that the OS 9 to OS X migration was really only just settling down, even though it has been five years since the introduction of OS X. Why would Apple force its users and developers through another tectonic shift in such a short amount of time? Furthermore, such a shift would require time, and PowerPC Macintosh sales will surely take a hit with the promise of an entirely new architecture.Right now, Apple is a strong company, both in public perception and financially. Possibly, Apple's executives see this as a good time to undertake this task for precisely that reason. PowerPC was putting Apple's lineup (especially the expensive stuff) in a precarious position, and the performance gap between high end Macs and PCs had ceased to narrow. In time, it may have even begun to widen again.
As a side note: Remember the days of the G4 towers? Back when they were introduced, everybody still measured processor speeds by megahertz. As Intel moved past the 1 GHz barrier, Motorola was still providing Apple with G4 chips running at about 600 MHz. Until the introduction of the G5, Apple's high end lineup was looking very weak. It looks like this time, Apple is trying to avoid history repeating itself.
Yes, Macintosh sales will drop off for a couple of quarters. Hopefully, iPod sales will help offset that. We may even see some price-cutting on PowerPC-based Macintoshes in order to get them out of the warehouses. Fortunately, Apple will be taking these lumps from a position of strength. Had they waited another couple of years, the outlook may have been more grim.
Fear and Paranoia
Of course, there are some who proclaim this as the Death of Apple. (In fact, I wonder how The Mac Observer's Apple Death Knell Counter is doing right now.) The biggest fear is, of course, that people will widely adopt Window's emulators for their Macs and the need for Macintosh software and game development will come to a screeching halt. This reasoning is a load of dingo's kidneys. Emulators are a pain. They also rob you of the Macintosh user experience, and some can even leave you vulnerable to viruses and malware.Take X11 for example. Every Macintosh user has X11 available to them to provide a graphical interface for UNIX based apps (which are all free, I might add). Now raise your hand if you know what X11 is. Keep it up if you have installed X11 onto your Mac. Okay, now keep your hand up if you regularly use X11. Alright, I see about three hands, and mine is not one of them. I messed with X11 some and decided it was too much of a pain. Thanks for the option, but I'll stick with my native Mac OS X apps.
Mac OS X is a fully independent platform. Most users will not want to bother with emulators or virtual machines, and those hardcore geeks or gamers who do will be a vanishingly small percentage. Mac developers will still be needed, and the market is not going to vanish simply because of an architecture change.
The Trade Offs
There are definite gains in switching to the x86 architecture. Mac users will probably see more rapid adoption of PC-first technology alongside Apple's innovations. Macintosh ports will probably take less time in the long run. Speed will be a definite gain, and we will hopefully see more and better updates to Apple's laptop line (which used to be the strongest aspect of their product matrix). It's very likely that there are even more advantages I haven't even thought of yet.However, there are some trade-offs. The mystique and elegance of the PowerPC architecture will be a thing of the past to Macintosh users. Sure, Macs will finally have performance parity, but there will no longer be that hope of one day PowerPC Macs will speed past WinTel systems. From a subjective standpoint, the switch to x86 makes Macs a little less special now. (See this article for more.) I just hope those "Intel Inside" stickers don't get plastered all over the hardware!
(Is this a good point to mention the whole frontside bus issue? Sure, we'll be seeing 3.2 GHz Macs soon, but their FSB will drop to 800 MHz. In fact, I could not find a single Intel processor with a FSB that surpassed 1 GHz like the G5s do. I wonder how that will affect things. It's weird to think that my 1.8 GHz G5 has a faster bus than a 3+ GHz Pentium 4.)
Additionally, software will be spotty for a while – even with Rosetta. Apps that require a G4/G5 processor do not seem to work. AltiVec instructions will be lost, and Classic apps will not work. Actually, the whole Classic thing doesn't bother me in the least, but it might affect someone. Hopefully, companies will release patches for existing products (if that is possible). However, I bet that if I want an x86 native version of Sibelius for the Macintosh, I'm going to have to save my pennies for a new version. Just like the migration from OS 9 to OS X, there are going to have to be some major software purchases.
Conclusion
I was dismayed at first to read the news that Apple would be switching to the x86 architecture, but now I am cautiously optimistic. The road will be a bumpy one, but at the end of it, I will still be a Mac user. After all, it's really the operating system and the software that makes a Mac what it is. Furthermore, I'm sure Apple will retain its great industrial design (and PowerMacs will hopefully get to shrink some now). Everything that makes an Apple an Apple will still be in place, and I guess that's all that really matters.Funny or Scary?
Apple may not have the marketshare Microsoft has, but it can always point at Redmond and say, "Our CEO is cooler than your CEO."