I felt much more emotional about the passing of Steve Jobs this evening than I expected to feel. I am an avid Apple product user, and I seem to be one of the few people genuinely excited by the new iPhone 4S. I have to wait until November 27 to qualify for the lower upgrade price, but I’m already chomping at the bit to start my relationship with Siri. However, I’d never really contemplated Steve Jobs or his legacy. Yes, I like his products, but his scope of influence only really hit me this evening as I watched the tribute to him on the 11 o’clock news. I found myself tearing up a bit as the newscaster spoke about him. I’m not sure that I ever fully realized that Jobs was the brainchild behind the products. I knew that he started Apple in his parents’ garage, but I had never identified him as being the one to come up with all of these newerproducts. Until tonight.
As I think about the depth of this loss, I’m left wondering, like many people, what the technological future will hold for us. I know that another Jobs will come along, but we may have to wait quite awhile for that person to show up.
On the flip side of this post, we’ve got the boiling hot mess down in FiDi with these wacko protestors. That story followed the Jobs story on the news this evening, and as I watched the footage of these protestors storming police barricades, I felt pretty embarrassed by it all. Once again, people make asses of themselves in an attempt to right the wrongs of corporate America.
Well, guess what.
It’s more complicated than that in a democratic society. Corporate America can’t solely be blamed for the economic mess we’re all in. These protestors are very quick to forget that American citizens elected officials who empower these corporate businesses to make these messes. I know that’s an oversimplification of the mechanisms at work, but I’m tired of the liberal picket and protest mentality. The liberals behaved the same way when the Republican National Convention set up shop in NYC a few years back. They made jackasses of themselves then, getting arrested and hauled away, and they’re doing the same thing now. Do something useful for Pete’s sake. Getting yourselves arrested is not useful.
As the protest got dicey, the newscaster on the scene interviewed this guy who spouted out stupidity while puffing away on a cigarette. Preppy, late 20s, white, and possibly privileged, sucking down a cancer stick (Um hello, corporate America? Was that product placement?) as he was about to plunge into the mass of people pushing. It reminded of the South Park movie. All it needed was the Les Miserable score playing underneath of it to complete the picture.
“Do you hear the friggin’ people sing?”
Two and a half weeks of finger pointing downtown. Someone told me today that there are all of these hand signals being used to monitor (and control) the conversation down there. If too many people of a certain type begin to dominate the dialogue, some fancy person with a special name shifts the focus away from that dominant voice. Or people are basically doing limp wrist sparkle fingers when they agree with something. Is this what we’re coming too? Sounds like a gigantic pot of kumbayah hogwash leading nowhere fast.
Why isn’t someone like Steve Jobs leading this country? Why aren’t intelligent and innovative people like Steve Jobs valued as leaders in the 21st century? Maybe if we voted for someone like Steve, America could find its way out of this mess.
Steve, if you have any celestial or spiritual pull now, can you send us a sign?
I miss you more now than when I started this post…
Thanks for leading the way while you could.