Just a miscellany of thoughts today.

Out of a Jobs

Now that a couple days have passed, and perhaps souls are soothed enough now that I won’t get virtually stoned to death by any of you, let me say this: Steve Jobs’ death is no more important or unimportant than the death of a nameless beggar on the most secluded New Delhi street. Seriously, people, I’m tired of the cult of celebrity and the #rip hashtags that clog Twitter whenever someone “important” dies. Why do we get all choked up and bent out of shape by someone with a rich (literally and figuratively) life dies and yet we give just passing notice (or none at all) to people wrongly killed for crimes, or little brown-skinned children kidnapped or murdered, or anyone else? Perspective, people. I think the Macintosh and many other Apple products are great, but if you see them and the guy who spearheaded their creation as ways to fill empty places inside yourself, I worry about you. They are toys and tools. Cool ones, yes, but Steve Jobs was a flawed human being like the rest of us…not a more valuable one, no matter what his accomplishments.

Things that Bear Re-tweeting

Some thoughts I’ve tweeted about in recent days that I think are worth sharing here (in slightly modified form from original in some cases):

• I wonder sometimes why fellow Christians who vehemently deny evolution, climate change and cosmology don’t just believe in a flat Earth, too.
• People who think you can’t question “God’s Word” because God will get mad should pay attention to how long He’s put up with Jews bitching at Him
• Just because SOME climate scientists have fudged numbers doesn’t give you license to discard all climate science. That’s as dishonest as calling ALL Christians judgmental hypocrites just because some very visible evil Christians make the news.
• If you believe Earth is 7,000 or 8,000 years old because of Bible, you lose right to criticize anyone’s scientific method or judge what is pseudo-science
• Argue long enough with a right-winger, being rational and fairly balanced in your views, and you will be called a fascist, socialist AND communist (because apparently, looking at multiple angles on issues and thinking critically is somehow totalitarian and un-American)
• If someone from the left wing or right wing disagrees with you, expect to have your words “most”, “should” and “consider” either implicitly or overtly changed to: “all”, “must” and “require”

Media Now the Shark in the Water

These days, whether because of lazy journalism or because the corporate oligarchs are telling the publishers and editors of media publications and news stations not to run “anti-business” fare much, we see a world in which the Tea Party gets media attention for any little screeching gathering and insane GOP presidential hopefuls are treated as if their views are valid no matter how much their shit is made up or is out-of-sync with reality…and the news hardly even reports on the “Occupy Wall Street” folks (or marginalizes the protesters) until police start roughing people up.  Really, modern media? You won’t cover something until there’s blood in the water for you to fight and thrash over? And before you accuse me of not understanding the news or ratings or anything else, I’m a journalist and have been for more than 20 years.