- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Originally published in Enter Stage Right, 21 February 2000.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Democrats' favorite Republican, Arizona Senator John McCain, picked up considerable steam during January and February, which his campaign sorely needed. Sen. McCain expends so much hot air making his "conservatism" palatable to liberals that he needs to pick up steam continuously and in geometrically increasing volume just to maintain the amazing momentum of his political metamorphosis.
Now it's certainly the Senator's right to hold any opinion he chooses, even several on the same subject, as he has availed himself of in the cases of abortion, gays in the military, and Social Security. However, the Senator goes through amazing semantic and logical contortions to make gagging the electorate with the McCain-Feingold campaign reform plan sound "non-partisan"; essentially, Sen. McCain would put the press on the honor system, trusting in their fairness during elections.
I'll give you a moment to catch your breath and steady yourself. It's hard to read when you're doubled over in laughter.
Okay now? To reiterate, Sen. McCain can believe whatever he wants. But he reminds me of the yuppie members of mainstream Protestant denominations; they want gay marriage, political activism, rock music, relevant sermons, chanting in Sanskrit. They want everything, in fact, except to believe the Bible and follow Jesus. Why do they insist on rejecting everything in the doctrine just as firmly as they insist on referring to their own melange of paganism, crystal gazing, and gender-neutral (redacted) Bible-era stories as "Christianity"? Why don't they just go start their own church, or get with some folks who are already doing the same stuff?
Some do that. However, many others stay -- and I'll tell you why if you haven't already figured it out. They are there to change the nature of the institution, the way the 60's activists changed the nature of the modern university, for just one culture-war example.
So, whether McCain himself even really believes the strange admixture of views that his unique form of Republican conservatism comprises is entirely beside the point; the McCain movement, media-stoked and media-sustained, is upon us. If successful -- which doesn't necessarily mean getting McCain elected president in 2000, by the way -- this movement will forever alter the American political vocabulary and accelerate the bowdlerization of political terminology. If McCain successfully portrays his views as "conservative" it will make mid-century Democrats like Hubert Humphrey and Scoop Jackson part of the new right-wing fringe. Individuals and groups to the right of John McCain will be defined out of the political debate -- tens of millions of Americans marginalized by the cynical political machinations of John McCain, a Republican black-hole that tries to snuff the life and suck the light out of every shining conservative principle.
Oh, my, does all this suggest the "C" word -- conspiracy? Well, duh, but whether McCain's the writer-director-star, or just a supporting actor, is uncertain. Certainly there are people in every generation, in every hemisphere, intent on wreaking havoc, sowing discord, selling out their country. Throughout the century that is now slipping into history -- pick any year, any continent -- there were countless dastardly men and women, beneficiaries of the liberty and prosperity of the free(er) West, who were willing to sell their countrymen down the drain, or try to at every opportunity. But is this plausible in McCain's case? I don't think so.
In thrall to a hideous and bloody ideology of class warfare that masqueraded as the "Friend of the Common Man," traitors were as diverse in their motives as their callings: Hollywood types flirting with danger, intellectuals crafting a secular religion to fill their empty spirits, frustrated bureaucrats longing for a license to kill, sex addicts and big-spenders dealing for women and cash -- and soldiers brainwashed by the Red Armies. Some have tried to write McCain into a remake of "Manchurian candidate" while others have suggested his experience left him "touched" and unbalanced. Possible, but I doubt it.
I have a folder full of facts, quotes, questions concerning McCain, but I ended up skipping the investigative report and distilling what I know into my usual 1,000 tendentious words. I never did see or hear of any evidence that McCain is a "Manchurian candidate" from Hanoi, but there is a discernible tenor to the information that others are discussing at great length and with great specificity. The McCain dam, built by his happy legions of press beaver true believers, is starting to spring leaks.
Richard Viguerie, for one -- a conservative institution unto himself regardless of whether you agree with his strain of conservatism -- has put serious pen to widely distributed paper to voice deep and distressing doubts about McCain's shabby treatment, oddly enough, of POW-MIA activists.
There are correlative revelations being aired by any number of writers, on web sites and in the print media, that suggest McCain's official biography is false, particularly with concern to his service record. Several of the Senator's former training officers have come forward to write quite unflattering accounts of McCain's conduct and abilities. Finally, I leave it to those who were there, the veterans and the POW's themselves, to sort out the disturbing questions surrounding McCain's POW conduct. Suffice it to say that the higher McCain towers over the media horizon, the more vociferous will become his most ardent opponents.
And now we count among their ranks Mr. Viguerie's kindred spirit, Paul Weyrich, another veteran conservative activist, organizer, and underwriter. He states he will not support any Republican ticket that includes McCain. The opposition from conservatives and libertarians to John McCain is near universal, much of it visceral, some of it fanatical, yet not everyone is aware of the greatest threat posed by John McCain: his being anointed by the media as the conservative standard bearer in American politics.
It is highly unlikely that the Republicans will nominate John McCain for president this year. But he may succeed, abetted by a fully cognizant and giddily cooperative press, in redefining key terms of our common political parlance, thus erasing real conservatives, including many of you reading this article, from the pages of American politics.
And then he'll be back. Oh, you can count on that -- he'll be back.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Freedom of Unapologetic Art
The only way I know that the illustrator, designer and street artist Toofly’s real name is Maria Castillo is because that’s the name displayed with her e-mail address. I suppose I should be more cautious and say that I assume that it’s her real name. Frankly, I didn’t think it was important enough to ask her about.
The lady everyone calls Toofly is getting a lot of ink these days. Maybe we need a new term for that; let’s say she’s propagating billions of editorial pixels. That would be in addition to the untold gazillions of pixels that her art generates on computer screens around the world, those well-lit but low-resolution 2D images that, try as they might, just can’t quite do justice to the lady’s work as seen in Real Life.
Let’s back up a bit as long as we’re talking Real Life, and hip you to Toofly growing up in Corona, Queens (New York) “around some Italians and a lot of South American and Dominican families, in a small little one-family house” with her grandparents, mom, uncle, aunts and younger cousin. Toofly liked drawing as far back as she could remember, and confesses that she would “sneak into my uncle’s room and grab his X-Men comics and try to draw some of the female characters, especially Jean Grey.”
Those were the early days, the artist recalls, of “discovering what a strong female looked like.” Soon enough, when Toofly started at New York’s High School of Fashion Industries in 1991, she would discover what a strong female acted like, too. “I was taking fashion design classes but realized that I would much rather draw and paint than sew clothes. When I walked into a classroom with walls full of graffiti tags and character illustrations, that did it for me. I had discovered what I was meant to do.”
From street walls to Wall Street
Toofly has since taken her street-wall sensibility into areas that Wall Street can relate to, like commerce. “I do a lot of everything these days,” she says, “and there's always something new I’m doing. My freelance pretty much supports me, and everything else is extra fun stuff.” Even with her illustrations licensed for all manner of t-shirts, bags, totes and prints, she doesn”t claim to have “made it big,” and admits, “I just recently arrived to the gallery scene, and little by little I’m starting to send my press kit and proposals around to various corporations for those big commission deals. It’s got to be right though,” Toofly asserts, “because I'm not just going to do anything for money.”
Toofly has plenty of tools — spray cans, brushes, pens, crayons, chalk, mop heads, whatever works — and plenty of influences too, “from all over the place,” she says, “like fashion photography, graphic design and various contemporary and historic artists.” Comic (excuse me, graphic novel) illustrators like Jim Lee and Scott Campbell are faves, as she “grew up drawing their female characters.” Boris Vallejo’s fantasy painting was a strong influence, but perhaps the greatest influence was graffiti writer Sabe — “because,” Toofly admits, “if it weren't for his drawings and tags in those classrooms I may have ended up somewhere else.”
The Muses knock on a lot of doors at Toofly’s house. “I'm moved by emotional music,” Toofly says, “whether it's Led Zeppelin, Muse or Mary J. Blige love songs. I also listen to freestyle and 90s hip-hop classics to get me back to my roots.” The lady is a virtual melting pot herself, and the rhythms of her life and times are easily discerned in the characters she draws, taut as coiled springs, energy ready to blow up into something new and unexpected.
"The freedom to dream"
Besides all her work that people can find on the web (just the term “Toofly” will get you over 20,000 hits), she has some group gallery shows coming up, graffiti productions throughout New York’s five boroughs and various events where the artist will paint live or speak. Toofly is also starting to sell her line of products and art prints on her own site as well as different boutiques and lifestyle shops in the U.S., Europe and, soon, Japan.
Toofly has her priorities in order. She is involved in organizing and promoting youth workshops of various kinds, trying to give back to the community that nurtured her. “I was given a chance to experience life, good and bad, to learn and have fun in it,” she reflects. “You have to accept that things do not last forever, so try to enjoy every good moment you can create. It helps to know that at the end of the day, I can fall and get up again, and if it’s not meant for me anymore, then that’s okay too. I have a purpose, and the freedom to dream up my own reality, and no one can take that away from me.”
Toofly’s art, her vision, is uniquely hers, and doesn’t ask to be compared or contrasted, just accepted for what it is — which is all she asks for herself, as well. “All of this and the freedom to do art unapologetically?” she muses. “It’s very inspiring.”
The lady everyone calls Toofly is getting a lot of ink these days. Maybe we need a new term for that; let’s say she’s propagating billions of editorial pixels. That would be in addition to the untold gazillions of pixels that her art generates on computer screens around the world, those well-lit but low-resolution 2D images that, try as they might, just can’t quite do justice to the lady’s work as seen in Real Life.
Let’s back up a bit as long as we’re talking Real Life, and hip you to Toofly growing up in Corona, Queens (New York) “around some Italians and a lot of South American and Dominican families, in a small little one-family house” with her grandparents, mom, uncle, aunts and younger cousin. Toofly liked drawing as far back as she could remember, and confesses that she would “sneak into my uncle’s room and grab his X-Men comics and try to draw some of the female characters, especially Jean Grey.”
Those were the early days, the artist recalls, of “discovering what a strong female looked like.” Soon enough, when Toofly started at New York’s High School of Fashion Industries in 1991, she would discover what a strong female acted like, too. “I was taking fashion design classes but realized that I would much rather draw and paint than sew clothes. When I walked into a classroom with walls full of graffiti tags and character illustrations, that did it for me. I had discovered what I was meant to do.”
From street walls to Wall Street
Toofly has since taken her street-wall sensibility into areas that Wall Street can relate to, like commerce. “I do a lot of everything these days,” she says, “and there's always something new I’m doing. My freelance pretty much supports me, and everything else is extra fun stuff.” Even with her illustrations licensed for all manner of t-shirts, bags, totes and prints, she doesn”t claim to have “made it big,” and admits, “I just recently arrived to the gallery scene, and little by little I’m starting to send my press kit and proposals around to various corporations for those big commission deals. It’s got to be right though,” Toofly asserts, “because I'm not just going to do anything for money.”
Toofly has plenty of tools — spray cans, brushes, pens, crayons, chalk, mop heads, whatever works — and plenty of influences too, “from all over the place,” she says, “like fashion photography, graphic design and various contemporary and historic artists.” Comic (excuse me, graphic novel) illustrators like Jim Lee and Scott Campbell are faves, as she “grew up drawing their female characters.” Boris Vallejo’s fantasy painting was a strong influence, but perhaps the greatest influence was graffiti writer Sabe — “because,” Toofly admits, “if it weren't for his drawings and tags in those classrooms I may have ended up somewhere else.”
The Muses knock on a lot of doors at Toofly’s house. “I'm moved by emotional music,” Toofly says, “whether it's Led Zeppelin, Muse or Mary J. Blige love songs. I also listen to freestyle and 90s hip-hop classics to get me back to my roots.” The lady is a virtual melting pot herself, and the rhythms of her life and times are easily discerned in the characters she draws, taut as coiled springs, energy ready to blow up into something new and unexpected.
"The freedom to dream"
Besides all her work that people can find on the web (just the term “Toofly” will get you over 20,000 hits), she has some group gallery shows coming up, graffiti productions throughout New York’s five boroughs and various events where the artist will paint live or speak. Toofly is also starting to sell her line of products and art prints on her own site as well as different boutiques and lifestyle shops in the U.S., Europe and, soon, Japan.
Toofly has her priorities in order. She is involved in organizing and promoting youth workshops of various kinds, trying to give back to the community that nurtured her. “I was given a chance to experience life, good and bad, to learn and have fun in it,” she reflects. “You have to accept that things do not last forever, so try to enjoy every good moment you can create. It helps to know that at the end of the day, I can fall and get up again, and if it’s not meant for me anymore, then that’s okay too. I have a purpose, and the freedom to dream up my own reality, and no one can take that away from me.”
Toofly’s art, her vision, is uniquely hers, and doesn’t ask to be compared or contrasted, just accepted for what it is — which is all she asks for herself, as well. “All of this and the freedom to do art unapologetically?” she muses. “It’s very inspiring.”
— Toofly's site is located at www.tooflydesign.com
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Online Voting: Good Idea, Except for Elections
To a tremendous number of people, the polling booth, that great populist amplifier of their chorused voice, is the very symbol of American democracy. Notwithstanding the inconvenient technicality that we actually live in a republic, quite a different kind of political-institutional animal altogether, the act of voting has forever been extolled as among the greatest civic virtues, almost on a par with the "public service" of elective office. And, of course, "if you don't vote you don't have any right to complain."
At the same time, however – for the purposes of this argument, this means since the first TV campaign, Truman-Dewey in 1948 – another myth was being added to the corpus of American legends: the myth of the wasted vote. If you don't vote, you're no respecter of democracy; but if you do vote, your one ballot won't make any difference. Is it inevitable that we end up in this fatalistic cul-de-sac? Is there anything to the myth of the wasted vote?
Well, not in my book, and there's just about 900 words of explanation necessary, so this is a perfect column topic – and a topical topic, too! At the finish line of this overheated primary season, perhaps we should reflect on voting. The first thing I would say about voting is that marking a ballot in a booth on a certain Tuesday is only one way that Americans vote; it may not even be the most important.
Despite all the problems we do have – America is populated, after all, by human beings – we do enjoy as much personal liberty as any other people on earth. And despite the Patriot Act, we have autonomy over a great deal of our personal, interpersonal, commercial, and contractual relationships; we exercise our discretion and employ our judgment in matters both mundane and life-changing; we sow, we water, we reap, we win some, we lose some. But we're making important decisions – we're voting, you might as well say – every day of our lives, and in every area of it. And the repercussions of those votes are both manifold and manifest, especially in the digitized light-speed world of today's markets.
Is this weekend's teen-scream flick a hit? If it is, it's because six or eight million people voted with their wallets to make it so. Is the new Thai-Mexican-Italian restaurant down the street a success? Well, if its food campaign is as hot and spicy as a Bill Clinton intern tale, it'll get the votes and a mandate for dessert. And a "hit" of any kind – American Idol, a number one record, a movie – is easy to characterize as "the biggest vote-getter" in a crowded field of candidates if you simply recall that greenbacks are ballots, too. And they're the ones you use every day.
But what about that "wasted vote" argument, the one that posits the inefficacy of any single vote. Well, the argument stands up as long as you're voting in a vacuum. But we don't exercise our franchise in the two minutes it takes to punch or mark a ballot; whether we enjoy the cacophony or not, we are part of a noisy, rollicksome, contentious, persiflaginous process that results – after weeks and months and, in some presidential campaigns, years! – in a marked ballot. If, during that process, you convinced five others, who convinced five others, etc. and down the line, that "one vote" didn't make a difference, why, then you've made a difference of 25, or 100, or more, haven't you? Or, if you're a radio talkmeister with a mixed audience who promulgates the Myth of the Wasted Vote for some old-school self-defeating reason, then you've cost some local reform candidate a race for the planning commission, or helped elect another big-spender to the state assembly or (God forbid) the Congress. It is only after an election that one can safely assert the worthlessness of the single vote.
It is odd, though, that these two contradictory notions – that you're a putz if you think your one vote can make a difference, but a worse one if you don't vote – coexist so cordially in our social mythology. Is voting the summum bonum of the democratic (republican) ethic? Is it the right that undergirds all the others? Is voting what makes one a good citizen?
Frankly, voting is one of the less important "rights" we exercise. There are any number of political/governmental accommodations constructed in such a way as to add a democratic component (voting) to an autocratic formula. Every time there's an election in Iran, the Western press waxes positively ecstatic that the authorities allowed the polling places to stay open a few hours late to accommodate the crush of voters. Less reported is the fact that the Iranian press corps is a virtual government department, or that these people who are "free" to "vote" are not free to buy a copy of the Tel Aviv Times or Newsweek on their way home from the polling place.
Anyone who is productive, particularly those whose entrepreneurial enterprises end up employing dozens or scores or hundreds of people, is accomplishing much more outside the polling booth than inside. For the unproductive, the polling booth is positively the best place to be, preferably as often as possible on as many issues as possible. Frankly, one of the more important reasons to vote – particularly for those who accept the argument that there are better ways to effect social change than voting – is to act as ballast against those who would use the ballot as a social requisition form. Realistically, if we were to pursue our other goals without recourse to voting – a lifestyle still possible and safe until the FDR era – we would be at the mercy of the political spoils system and those who exploit it from both top and bottom. For self-defense if nothing else, we need to go to the polls.
However, that is not where the power really is. It is in the millions of individual votes cast every day, in supermarkets and cinemas, newsrooms and auto dealerships, among college students and senior citizens, at home and on the job. It is in the millions of purchases (the greenback vote), the tens of millions of remote-control channel clicks echoing across the country during prime time, the hundreds of millions of daily mouse clicks for stock trades, sofa purchases, and flights to LA. These are the real votes that count in this frequently overdemocratized country of ours, where some pundits are beginning to lobby for instantaneous, online voting as a way to increase election-day voter turnout.
That, of course, is a terrible idea. But all the other online voting is nothing but good. Just this week I cast a number of greenback ballots over the Internet – for two books, a pound of fabulous coffee beans, and some computer stuff. In my opinion, the only thing that should be banned from online voting is politics.
At the same time, however – for the purposes of this argument, this means since the first TV campaign, Truman-Dewey in 1948 – another myth was being added to the corpus of American legends: the myth of the wasted vote. If you don't vote, you're no respecter of democracy; but if you do vote, your one ballot won't make any difference. Is it inevitable that we end up in this fatalistic cul-de-sac? Is there anything to the myth of the wasted vote?
Well, not in my book, and there's just about 900 words of explanation necessary, so this is a perfect column topic – and a topical topic, too! At the finish line of this overheated primary season, perhaps we should reflect on voting. The first thing I would say about voting is that marking a ballot in a booth on a certain Tuesday is only one way that Americans vote; it may not even be the most important.
Despite all the problems we do have – America is populated, after all, by human beings – we do enjoy as much personal liberty as any other people on earth. And despite the Patriot Act, we have autonomy over a great deal of our personal, interpersonal, commercial, and contractual relationships; we exercise our discretion and employ our judgment in matters both mundane and life-changing; we sow, we water, we reap, we win some, we lose some. But we're making important decisions – we're voting, you might as well say – every day of our lives, and in every area of it. And the repercussions of those votes are both manifold and manifest, especially in the digitized light-speed world of today's markets.
Is this weekend's teen-scream flick a hit? If it is, it's because six or eight million people voted with their wallets to make it so. Is the new Thai-Mexican-Italian restaurant down the street a success? Well, if its food campaign is as hot and spicy as a Bill Clinton intern tale, it'll get the votes and a mandate for dessert. And a "hit" of any kind – American Idol, a number one record, a movie – is easy to characterize as "the biggest vote-getter" in a crowded field of candidates if you simply recall that greenbacks are ballots, too. And they're the ones you use every day.
But what about that "wasted vote" argument, the one that posits the inefficacy of any single vote. Well, the argument stands up as long as you're voting in a vacuum. But we don't exercise our franchise in the two minutes it takes to punch or mark a ballot; whether we enjoy the cacophony or not, we are part of a noisy, rollicksome, contentious, persiflaginous process that results – after weeks and months and, in some presidential campaigns, years! – in a marked ballot. If, during that process, you convinced five others, who convinced five others, etc. and down the line, that "one vote" didn't make a difference, why, then you've made a difference of 25, or 100, or more, haven't you? Or, if you're a radio talkmeister with a mixed audience who promulgates the Myth of the Wasted Vote for some old-school self-defeating reason, then you've cost some local reform candidate a race for the planning commission, or helped elect another big-spender to the state assembly or (God forbid) the Congress. It is only after an election that one can safely assert the worthlessness of the single vote.
It is odd, though, that these two contradictory notions – that you're a putz if you think your one vote can make a difference, but a worse one if you don't vote – coexist so cordially in our social mythology. Is voting the summum bonum of the democratic (republican) ethic? Is it the right that undergirds all the others? Is voting what makes one a good citizen?
Frankly, voting is one of the less important "rights" we exercise. There are any number of political/governmental accommodations constructed in such a way as to add a democratic component (voting) to an autocratic formula. Every time there's an election in Iran, the Western press waxes positively ecstatic that the authorities allowed the polling places to stay open a few hours late to accommodate the crush of voters. Less reported is the fact that the Iranian press corps is a virtual government department, or that these people who are "free" to "vote" are not free to buy a copy of the Tel Aviv Times or Newsweek on their way home from the polling place.
Anyone who is productive, particularly those whose entrepreneurial enterprises end up employing dozens or scores or hundreds of people, is accomplishing much more outside the polling booth than inside. For the unproductive, the polling booth is positively the best place to be, preferably as often as possible on as many issues as possible. Frankly, one of the more important reasons to vote – particularly for those who accept the argument that there are better ways to effect social change than voting – is to act as ballast against those who would use the ballot as a social requisition form. Realistically, if we were to pursue our other goals without recourse to voting – a lifestyle still possible and safe until the FDR era – we would be at the mercy of the political spoils system and those who exploit it from both top and bottom. For self-defense if nothing else, we need to go to the polls.
However, that is not where the power really is. It is in the millions of individual votes cast every day, in supermarkets and cinemas, newsrooms and auto dealerships, among college students and senior citizens, at home and on the job. It is in the millions of purchases (the greenback vote), the tens of millions of remote-control channel clicks echoing across the country during prime time, the hundreds of millions of daily mouse clicks for stock trades, sofa purchases, and flights to LA. These are the real votes that count in this frequently overdemocratized country of ours, where some pundits are beginning to lobby for instantaneous, online voting as a way to increase election-day voter turnout.
That, of course, is a terrible idea. But all the other online voting is nothing but good. Just this week I cast a number of greenback ballots over the Internet – for two books, a pound of fabulous coffee beans, and some computer stuff. In my opinion, the only thing that should be banned from online voting is politics.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
OS Neutrality: Windows on the Mac
It would seem to be a simple principle: More choices good, fewer choices bad. But when it comes to the Internet, and the desire of some people to control everything they can get their hands on, the concept of “net neutrality” starts getting needlessly complicated. That’s what politics brings to the party, unfortunately.
Google – a company some anti-technologists accuse of trying to take over not just the World Wide Web, but the Whole Wide World – has a short, simple page on their site that spells out the basic idea of net neutrality. “Network neutrality,” it reads, “is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet.”
I will leave politics to politicians, and concentrate solely on providing you with solutions to the myriad challenges of a competitive marketplace and a turbulent economy. However, I do believe that computer users should be in control of their computers, and recent advances in Apple’s OS X operating system has brought a measure of “operating system neutrality” to its powerful, supremely well designed product line.
“We do Windows”
The old joke about maids “not doing windows” led to the early generations of Macintosh users making the same declaration, often as a signal of rebellion or resistance to a grim, grey, Microsoft-dominated business world that Apple portrayed in its advertising. But after the release of OS X almost a decade ago, savvy users knew that the Unix-based OS could be run on processors other than the IBM/Motorola PowerPC line. The handwriting was on the wall.
That handwriting turned into a million-watt billboard with the announcement at Macworld 2006 of the first Intel-based Macs. By April of that year, Apple had announced the public beta version of Boot Camp, allowing users to install and run Windows XP. Users could choose at boot time the OS that they wanted to run, which marked the beginning of the “OS neutrality” era, although the freedom required the purchase of the new Apple hardware and did not allow OS X and Windows to run simultaneously.
Vendors to the rescue
Over the last several years, a number of excellent “virtualization” programs from such vendors as Parallels Computing and VMware have brought a new dimension of OS neutrality to the Apple platform. One can now run both OS X and Windows at once, switching between the two smoothly and even sharing peripherals, clipboards and broadband/wireless connections.
With the release of OS X 10.5, known as “Leopard” according to Apple’s feline naming convention, the implementation of both Boot Camp and third-party virtualization programs has achieved a level of dependability that corporations can rely on for mission-critical work. Ongoing research and development by Apple ensures the continuing refinement of “OS neutral computing.”
Microsoft plays catch-up
The maturity of the XP operating system resulted in it running smoothly and predictably in the Mac virtualization environments powered by the latest Core 2 Duo processors. Because it takes advantage of the faster hardware, rather than being simulated entirely in software as VirtualPC is, XP on the Mac is a serious, swift and stable performer. Many Fortune 500 firms continue to rely on it, and top tech consultants recommend that their customers do so, as well.
The release of Vista, as most technophiles know, has been plagued by a seemingly unending series of problems. Many users, perhaps even most, report a positive experience with Vista installation and use. However, because of the ongoing issues with Vista, most pundits are continuing to recommend XP for use on the new Macs if you are running Boot Camp, VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop.
Advantages, obvious and otherwise
The advantages to corporate users are clear, the most obvious being that they no longer need to have two computers if they use both platforms. Most art departments, for example, settled on the Mac a long time ago, despite most productivity applications being cross-platform. These corporate Mac users can now avail themselves not only of the greater number of specialty Windows applications, but their company’s Windows-based network environment, as well.
Of course, networking between and among different operating systems was manageable even before Windows ran on Macs, but it is very much easier now. Other convoluted and confusing solutions to the sharing of printers, network attached storage (NAS) and even Inter- and intra-net connections are now on the scrapheap of computing history.
Frankly, it is all thanks to the concept of OS neutrality.
Google – a company some anti-technologists accuse of trying to take over not just the World Wide Web, but the Whole Wide World – has a short, simple page on their site that spells out the basic idea of net neutrality. “Network neutrality,” it reads, “is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet.”
I will leave politics to politicians, and concentrate solely on providing you with solutions to the myriad challenges of a competitive marketplace and a turbulent economy. However, I do believe that computer users should be in control of their computers, and recent advances in Apple’s OS X operating system has brought a measure of “operating system neutrality” to its powerful, supremely well designed product line.
“We do Windows”
The old joke about maids “not doing windows” led to the early generations of Macintosh users making the same declaration, often as a signal of rebellion or resistance to a grim, grey, Microsoft-dominated business world that Apple portrayed in its advertising. But after the release of OS X almost a decade ago, savvy users knew that the Unix-based OS could be run on processors other than the IBM/Motorola PowerPC line. The handwriting was on the wall.
That handwriting turned into a million-watt billboard with the announcement at Macworld 2006 of the first Intel-based Macs. By April of that year, Apple had announced the public beta version of Boot Camp, allowing users to install and run Windows XP. Users could choose at boot time the OS that they wanted to run, which marked the beginning of the “OS neutrality” era, although the freedom required the purchase of the new Apple hardware and did not allow OS X and Windows to run simultaneously.
Vendors to the rescue
Over the last several years, a number of excellent “virtualization” programs from such vendors as Parallels Computing and VMware have brought a new dimension of OS neutrality to the Apple platform. One can now run both OS X and Windows at once, switching between the two smoothly and even sharing peripherals, clipboards and broadband/wireless connections.
With the release of OS X 10.5, known as “Leopard” according to Apple’s feline naming convention, the implementation of both Boot Camp and third-party virtualization programs has achieved a level of dependability that corporations can rely on for mission-critical work. Ongoing research and development by Apple ensures the continuing refinement of “OS neutral computing.”
Microsoft plays catch-up
The maturity of the XP operating system resulted in it running smoothly and predictably in the Mac virtualization environments powered by the latest Core 2 Duo processors. Because it takes advantage of the faster hardware, rather than being simulated entirely in software as VirtualPC is, XP on the Mac is a serious, swift and stable performer. Many Fortune 500 firms continue to rely on it, and top tech consultants recommend that their customers do so, as well.
The release of Vista, as most technophiles know, has been plagued by a seemingly unending series of problems. Many users, perhaps even most, report a positive experience with Vista installation and use. However, because of the ongoing issues with Vista, most pundits are continuing to recommend XP for use on the new Macs if you are running Boot Camp, VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop.
Advantages, obvious and otherwise
The advantages to corporate users are clear, the most obvious being that they no longer need to have two computers if they use both platforms. Most art departments, for example, settled on the Mac a long time ago, despite most productivity applications being cross-platform. These corporate Mac users can now avail themselves not only of the greater number of specialty Windows applications, but their company’s Windows-based network environment, as well.
Of course, networking between and among different operating systems was manageable even before Windows ran on Macs, but it is very much easier now. Other convoluted and confusing solutions to the sharing of printers, network attached storage (NAS) and even Inter- and intra-net connections are now on the scrapheap of computing history.
Frankly, it is all thanks to the concept of OS neutrality.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Blog Marketing: Common Sense Makes a Comeback
Once upon a time, a big part of marketing was simple publicity, getting your name mentioned in print or over the airwaves, as one means among several for establishing a public profile. Blog marketing, frankly, is not so different – but the how and the where of the work has changed, naturally.
Old-school marketing consultants tended to search the "landscape" to determine how and where they could best advertise a client's business. That, of course, is not a full-scale marketing effort, one classic definition of which is "creating a relationship with the customer," and another, "creating the environment for a sale." Truth be told, the online world is not that different. There are important relationships to make and mine, but the goal has evolved along with the environment.
As far as the "online market" is concerned, it is no longer a marketing professional's primary job to coerce or cajole people into talking about certain products or brands. First and foremost, blog marketing is now about producing content that your target demographic finds useful, and guaranteeing its ongoing high quality.
Usefulness and dependability
A blog marketing professional will introduce the blog to various social, professional, and special-interest sites. The goal over a specified period of time is to drive truly bottom-up, "organic" discussions, and not about the blog or the author(s) so much as the content and its usefulness. If one can position a blog and its author(s) as authorities on a particular, specific subject – a subject of interest to a measurable, identifiable, and hopefully underserved niche – the chances of the blog drawing additional visitors and potential clients to the company's main site are significantly increased.
When other people start talking and writing about your blog; when you are getting phone calls you didn't get before, asking questions about it; when you begin to get site visitors based on both personal and professional recommendations, your blog marketing efforts are paying off – measurably! In a triumph of common sense over technological flash, it is good, solid, dependable information that people want from the Internet, not endlessly precious Flash animations.
Rational exuberance makes sense
In a mass of mis- and disinformation, it takes a voice of calm authority and, pace Alan Greenspan, rational exuberance to bring dependable and useful information to a truly underserved market. The right combination of copy, collateral. and communication is essential, but the fundamental strength of the enterprise is the expertise of the blog producers and writers.
Team a talented wordsmith with some savvy and experienced legal minds, for example, and a very useful blog could be fabricated in no time. WordPress and similar Content Management Systems make the process streamlined and efficient.
Content is king, and that's not even a new saying. It's a correct one, though, and applies to every enterprise in the virtual universe, bar none.
Do Manners Matter?
Here is a PG-13 version of an e-mail I received today:
"TAKE ME OFF YOUR F***ING MAILING LIST NOW, NEXT SPAM S**T I GET FROM YOU IS BEING REPORTED ... STOP IT NOW. F*** YOU AND THE HORSE UP YOUR A**."
I'm trying to think of what I might receive in my e-mail that could make me as mad as one of my articles apparently made the person who sent that message. A Hustler cartoon starring my 86-year-old mother and some Biblical characters? A ransom note?
I really can't think of anything. Consider this, too: I don't spam people, and only send to folks who sign up, or occasionally to a referred address or two. I put a clear "unsubscribe" instruction in each e-mail. That digitized vitriol up there, by the way, was this person's first request for me to cease and desist. Unbelievable!
The proliferation of e-mail, cell phones, handheld internet-capable computers and all the rest of it has certainly changed the way in which people converse. Perhaps "converse" isn't even the right word anymore, but be that as it may, it is not immediately apparent that the grinding and relentless march of technology should trump such time-tested interpersonal mediators as manners!
Okay, so I got some people to give me some e-mail addresses, like yours, perhaps. Then I collected some more online. Then I cataloged all of my own. Then I took the advice of an old friend and started sending out commentaries again, after a 10-year hiatus. (The old friend was editor, and I was managing editor, of a political rag that had enough guts to run my column,
too.) And so, my first pre-blog-era blog, "WHAT NEXT?" was (re)born, having been a print rag under various monikers since 1988.
Now, you can tell me you disagree. You can tell me to stop e-mailing you. But is there anything in what I've said or done that justifies the sort of response that became the subject of this commentary? I mean, don't you think people's fuses have gotten awfully short? Why didn't this person just unsubscribe after the first one? Do some people, perhaps, actually like getting worked up into a lather, a froth, a frenzy?
Do manners matter? Very much so, as it turns out. Manners are another way of oiling the machinery of social relations, a way that makes contention, competition and cooperation all possible within a range of predictable behavior. Manners smooth out, and sometimes simply (and thankfully) obscure, the rough edges and the unintended consequences of engaging in certain relationships, like anonymous ones over the internet. Manners help keep things in balance.
These days, so many people are ready to litigate or call the cops when they're feelings get hurt that I wonder if thin skin is a sign of continuing human evolution. When I was a kid, if someone called me a stupid squarehead or even some non-racial name, I was reminded of two things: (1) consider the source, and (2) sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Why should I care if some anencephalic jerk calls me a name? Who cares what an idiot says anyway?! And, in the case at hand, if I am cast as the bothersome idiot, this angry letter-writer could have taken the cool, calm, collected role of a mannerly person who didn't care what I said but had enough class to brush me off, not blow me up.
A real-life saga. A sad one, too. If I bother you, turn me off. But if you get so mad so fast, I wonder what it must be like to be your son, your daughter, your co-worker, your neighbor. It's sad to see civil discourse flogged to death by angry, bitter people unable to insulate their reactions from their emotions; but it's downright depressing to find so many people willing to turn off the talk show by shooting the radio point-blank with a shotgun.
Hey, mind your manners and use the off switch, eh?
"TAKE ME OFF YOUR F***ING MAILING LIST NOW, NEXT SPAM S**T I GET FROM YOU IS BEING REPORTED ... STOP IT NOW. F*** YOU AND THE HORSE UP YOUR A**."
I'm trying to think of what I might receive in my e-mail that could make me as mad as one of my articles apparently made the person who sent that message. A Hustler cartoon starring my 86-year-old mother and some Biblical characters? A ransom note?
I really can't think of anything. Consider this, too: I don't spam people, and only send to folks who sign up, or occasionally to a referred address or two. I put a clear "unsubscribe" instruction in each e-mail. That digitized vitriol up there, by the way, was this person's first request for me to cease and desist. Unbelievable!
The proliferation of e-mail, cell phones, handheld internet-capable computers and all the rest of it has certainly changed the way in which people converse. Perhaps "converse" isn't even the right word anymore, but be that as it may, it is not immediately apparent that the grinding and relentless march of technology should trump such time-tested interpersonal mediators as manners!
Okay, so I got some people to give me some e-mail addresses, like yours, perhaps. Then I collected some more online. Then I cataloged all of my own. Then I took the advice of an old friend and started sending out commentaries again, after a 10-year hiatus. (The old friend was editor, and I was managing editor, of a political rag that had enough guts to run my column,
too.) And so, my first pre-blog-era blog, "WHAT NEXT?" was (re)born, having been a print rag under various monikers since 1988.
Now, you can tell me you disagree. You can tell me to stop e-mailing you. But is there anything in what I've said or done that justifies the sort of response that became the subject of this commentary? I mean, don't you think people's fuses have gotten awfully short? Why didn't this person just unsubscribe after the first one? Do some people, perhaps, actually like getting worked up into a lather, a froth, a frenzy?
Do manners matter? Very much so, as it turns out. Manners are another way of oiling the machinery of social relations, a way that makes contention, competition and cooperation all possible within a range of predictable behavior. Manners smooth out, and sometimes simply (and thankfully) obscure, the rough edges and the unintended consequences of engaging in certain relationships, like anonymous ones over the internet. Manners help keep things in balance.
These days, so many people are ready to litigate or call the cops when they're feelings get hurt that I wonder if thin skin is a sign of continuing human evolution. When I was a kid, if someone called me a stupid squarehead or even some non-racial name, I was reminded of two things: (1) consider the source, and (2) sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me. Why should I care if some anencephalic jerk calls me a name? Who cares what an idiot says anyway?! And, in the case at hand, if I am cast as the bothersome idiot, this angry letter-writer could have taken the cool, calm, collected role of a mannerly person who didn't care what I said but had enough class to brush me off, not blow me up.
A real-life saga. A sad one, too. If I bother you, turn me off. But if you get so mad so fast, I wonder what it must be like to be your son, your daughter, your co-worker, your neighbor. It's sad to see civil discourse flogged to death by angry, bitter people unable to insulate their reactions from their emotions; but it's downright depressing to find so many people willing to turn off the talk show by shooting the radio point-blank with a shotgun.
Hey, mind your manners and use the off switch, eh?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
