I live with an Apple employee, so I usually get more tech buzz than I typically would otherwise. He gets pretty excited just explaining about how cables work, so when I started hearing about Apple’s new tablet, I took for granted that it would be kind of a big deal.
But now, as Ben is off watching the presentation somewhere with his other Apple friends, I sit here blogging about the iPad. Because it is kind of a big deal. Behold: The Really Big iPhone.
It’s not that I’m excited, and it’s not that I want to buy one. Steve Jobs is referring to it as the “best web-browsing experience you’ve ever had,” and that sounds a little over-confident to me. Mostly, I’m wary.
You know how people get really outraged about Wal-Mart? They talk about how it destroys small businesses by undercutting their prices and basically shutting them out. No one really discusses the fact that this is what the iPod and iTunes did to music in a big way. Obviously CDs and money-making possibilities still exist for musicians and record labels, but it cuts out a lot of options for them when Steve Jobs says “Hey, all of your songs are now $.99.”
iPad is going to make a similar move for e-books, and most probably every other type of media that Apple hasn’t already standardized. This is going to be a big deal for publishing, which is sort of fucked already.
Now, there is a pretty substantial silver lining here: iPad is going to make it normal for people to pay for written content, which is something journalism has been struggling with for quite some time. If iPad makes it normal for people to opt to pay for content instead of just getting it for free on the Internet, then that gives hope to a lot of people who have been wondering about the future of the news industry. A lot of people don’t know what is coming for publishing, and what it could possibly look like. It will probably look a lot like the iPad.
I suppose this makes me happy. But I also have a feeling that in five or ten years, I’m really going to miss book stores.
The Internet’s favorite topic as of late has been the Great Conan/Leno Late Night Wars. For those of you who need to be brought up to speed, this video is easily the best explanation:
A bittersweet result of this dispute has been that Conan’s show has been amazing these past two weeks. The guests are awesome, the bitter-yet-classy NBC riffing has been hilarious, and the interviews have been on fire. Conan is on his way out in a blaze, and you should absolutely check out his last few episodes on Hulu.
One of his recurring jokes has been about what he is going to do when he is unemployed. Most of his suggestions involve drinking, video games, or movie roles that he begs for from his guests (Scorsese, Tarantino, Adam Sandler). One of his jokes stems from the fact that Conan received a real life offer from a porn production company, Pink Visual. He jokingly has a poll going on his web site about what his next job should be. People will probably jokingly vote for porn star.
I just want to take this moment to very seriously endorse this option.
I know that Conan has a wife and a family. I know he’s gangly and pale. I know that his future most probably lies in doing late night hosting with Fox. But seriously – in a world where no one pays for porn because it is free on the Internet, I would absolutely pay to see a Conan the Bangbarian pornographic film.
We are quickly approaching the trial of Scott Roeder, the nut job pro-lifer who gunned down abortion doctor George Tiller in front of his church last May. Yes, you read that sentence correctly.
Roeder asserts that he was justified in doing this because he is a crazy terrorist and doesn’t really understand what the words “pro-life” actually mean.
Judge Warren Wilbert is overseeing the upcoming trial. From the CNN story:
Wilbert warned Friday that he did not want his courtroom to become the setting for a full-blown debate on abortion. He did, however, indicate that he would consider giving jurors the option of convicting Roeder of voluntary manslaughter, which is defined as “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force” under Kansas statute.
Umm…. What? If this is how we’re defining manslaughter now, doesn’t that apply to all deadly acts of terrorism? If a radical Muslim terrorist blew up a bus, would he get off with voluntary manslaughter just because he really, really believed that he just had to do it?
This is bullshit. Roeder shot Tiller in the head. He meant to murder him.
I recently received a phone call from my sister, wherein she tried to convince me that Catholics weren’t dicks. This is perhaps a bit misguided, because I’m not of the general opinion that Catholics are dicks. However, there are a lot of publicly loud dicks who are Catholic, and so I’m able to build a pretty compelling case against her. It’s easier to just cite Bishop Janusz Kaleta saying that gay and lesbian tourists are a provocation and an abuse of the Vatican’s buildings than it is to have a conversation about the greater meaning of public Christian douchiness.
I probably am of the opinion that religion is a bad thing for the masses. It discourages thoughtfulness, creates a certain dependency and, in some cases, breeds hysteria. But at the end of the day, I am a firm believer in people doing whatever they want. And if I’m honest with myself, most of the bullshit comes from people who are just dicks, and who happen to be religious and in the public eye.
Unfortunately, there are enough people being dicks in the name of Christianity, that I could probably post an update per day of examples. I will not. Rather, I will put them all in one blog post.
Over at the National Catholic Register’s blog, Matt Archbold writes an immature, mean-spirited column snidely criticizing Richard Dawkins’ Haiti relief fun, stating that “I always get a kick out of evangelizing atheists and how they’re so desperate to prove that they’re as good (and usually better) than us religious types.”
Archbold’s points play into weird, fucked up notion that religion is the only reason to be good, and that without God, everyone would just be shitty, greedy rapists and murders. This idea suggests that atheists are miserable nihilists.
I’m not going to go into why this is misguided and wrong because the argument itself is really petty. And, hey! It’s particularly petty in the face of something as devastating as the situation in Haiti. Seriously? Pat Robertson suggesting that Haiti brought this tragedy on themselves by making a pact with the devil wasn’t enough? You need to criticize Richard Dawkins for having a charity?
Pat Robertson and Matt Archbold may not represent all Christians, but at a time like this, their ideas are disgusting enough to to stoke my outrage.
I know that religion is supposed to be about faith. The truly devout aren’t going to be worried about a couple douchebag outliers. But damn, Christians. You need some big named moderates out there. And no, the people sending 600 solar-powered audio Bibles to Haiti don’t count.
Days later, the Internet is still fuming about Brit Hume’s remarks about Tiger Woods needing to come on over to the Christian faith in the wake of his adultery scandal. Apparently Hume is now claiming anti-Christian bigotry. Well, whatever. Amidst all the linkage, I just want to clarify what my original point was.
I am not amazed or appalled that a Fox News anchor publicly broadcast that Christianity is the way to go. I’m not really sure why anyone is surprised at that (although it was kind of douche-y to mention that it was a superior faith to Buddhism).
What I can’t believe is that Hume essentially said that Woods should convert to Christianity as a means of obtaining a “Get Out of Adultery Free” card. He didn’t say “You should accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior because he died for your sins.” He said, and I quote,
The extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’
So I don’t know about the rest of the Internet, but my objection is certainly not anti-Christian bigotry (can there be bigotry against such a huge majority?). I think Christians should be pissed at Hume for making them look like they go to church every Sunday to be forgiven for their extra-marital affairs.
I generally think that religion is pretty terrible. This is from years of seeing religion butt into the political sphere and try to fuck it up by talking about how condoms are horrible and gay people shouldn’t get married.
But the more I catch snippets of Fox News and the gang, the more I begin to think that it’s not people like myself who should be hating religion. It’s that religion should be hating the talking heads that make them look bad. Brit Hume just suggested that Tiger Woods should join the ranks of all of the other well-known Christian adulterers, because, you know, their Christianity makes it all cool.
