Passings

The news that Steve Jobs died yesterday has sucked all of the air out of the political room at this point, even overshadowing the announcement that (surprise) Sarah Palin will not run for President.  What a contrast.  The greatest technoligical innovator of the 21st century leaves us and we are stuck with someone who is stealing from our future with every breath she takes.  I am ambivalent sometimes about Jobs and Apple.  The company has gotten rich by amping up America's consumerist culture in which your status is measured by the number of techno toys you own.  The idea of thousands waiting for hours for the newest i-phone to go on sale is itself a commentary on where we are in 2011.  Sarah Palin is the extension of this frenzy.  To paraphrase Seinfeld, she is a candidate about nothing.  A pretty face and a vacuous vision of the future.  The ultimate consumer.  The difference between Steve Jobs vision and Sarah Palin's is Jobs wanted to make Americans a smarter, more savvy people.  Palin wants them to remain the rubes her carny act has been living on for the past 3 years.