Barack Obama savagely attacked both Jesus and Steve Jobs by giving some commencement speech on Sunday at Hampton University. Obama told the graduates that iPads were just dumb gadgets that distract people from learning the terrible truth about everything. He’s right, of course, but is a college-graduation speech a time for facts? No! Stick to dumb platitudes, Barack!
“With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations,” Obama said, “information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”
Next time, we hope Professor Obama just goes with that “Wear Sunscreen” speech George Will always gives. [ABC News/CNet]
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Dude picks the shittiest nominee out of the pool and then mocks his base for not being knowledgable enough to give a shit about it. Gravitas.
George W. Bush was an Apple guy and look where that got us.
He also didn’t shit on Wii. Wii!
Oh, it’s more than that with iPods and iPads (and iPhones); since the user only gets access to information that Steve Jobs approves, and makes them into a tool of the Apple Corp. in their plot to rule the world, so it is a means of anti-emancipation.
[re=573431]dum librul[/re]: At some point, I think people are going to realize that he has no real liberal inclinations, or at least any he’s willing to act on or fight for.
I hate the name if the Ipad. Every time I hear it, I think of a super absorbent object that soaks up time and information.
Needs more “You want fries with that?” punch lines.
Too much GUI gums up the works?
You can get information on Xboxes and Playstations? News to me.
WRONG, Barry! My Wonkette is a tool of empowerment, not a distraction from writing the term paper I have due in three hours.
[re=573431]dum librul[/re]: In life, intellectual torpor as a result of Second Life is a vice. In politics, intellectual torpor as a means to winning David Broder’s heart (BIPARTISANSHIP!) is a virtue.
Hampton is an historically black college. I am sure Obie speaking there is interpreted as another phase in his plan to retard white intellect on a path to honky servitude.
[re=573436]norbizness[/re]: Liberal just like Clinton.
And just as aggravating to listen to the blowhards accusing them of left winginess. If you are going to take the political heat for something you aren’t doing, you might as well be doing it. Barry is light years better than any republican alternative, but sad to watch another administration of baby steps to repair the damage.
Middle class? We don’t need no stinkin’ middle class!
Barry was just pointing out that he was waiting until the iPad was offered ‘with wings’.
It’s always about the reparations with him. Oh sure he says “emancipation,” but I know what he really means. Also.
When the economy collapses and our enemies detonate an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) over the United States, those devices are going to be as worthless as tits on a bull.
We are so freakin’ doomed.
There will be blood. There is no revenge like the revenge of the nerds.
[re=573447]Long Form Def Certificate[/re]: I’ve never understood the use of “an historical” by Americans; this isn’t England, we pronounce Hs, therefore it should be “A historical”.
[re=573448]Darkness[/re]: The thing is, today the reanimated corpse of Reagan himself could be a Democratic president and he’d still be called a socialist and a communist.
The iPad sure didn’t help him fill out his NCAA brackets very well this year, did it?
Now, there’s something worth taking time to do, for ya!!
[re=573436]norbizness[/re]: No, see, you got it all wrong. We just have to sit this one out and wait for his second term, when he’ll be free to push his agenda without worry of politics. Except he’ll be trying to get all sorts of bipartisan “legacy” stuff through, and we should probably stop being so selfish and demanding things, and maybe focus on electing his second term VP, who will need to sign “centrist” bills so that we can vote for his/her (her) second term, at which time we’ll have to be patient while she puts her legacy together…
Information isn’t a distraction, it’s grist for the mockery mills.
[re=573435]JMP[/re]: If anything but over-ironic snarkasm were* appropriate here in the sovereign nation of Wonkettialand, I’d point out that what is really ironic is the libtards’ unquestioning adoration of Apple products. Steve Jobs makes Bill Gates look like Abbie Hoffman when it comes to making information freely available to “the people.”
And no Beatles on iTunes — what’s up w/that?
*No extra charge for correct use of the subjunctive, Ken. Just send the usual fee. Didja know that German has two subjunctives? Awesome!
The love the iPads in Europe, they do. You can even buy them in Euros.
BlackBarry.
[re=573463]V572625694[/re]: Oh, it’s very nice and ironic; and I find it funny that these days I get to act morally superior to Mac users, much as they used to act all superior to Windows users.
Well, Barry, I welcome the distraction when I’m sitting in infuriatingly nonproductive meetings. My iPad is keeping the murder rate down in my neck o the woods.
[re=573460]dum librul[/re]:
Don’t whine. Organize.
I think Joe Hill said that.
The reason “progressives” aren’t getting what they want is because they think that you can get change enacted by one single election instead of doing the hard and dirty for 30+ years like the Xtian Taliban has done. If Hopey had 40% of folks out there to the left of him, he would be moving in that direction. But instead the “Left” probably numbers far less than the “Baggers” (Jeeus, that’s a lot of quotation marks) making any major move to the left impossible. How come I, as a Socialist, can see and appreciate Barry’s position while liberal Democrats are incapable of the political self examination needed to see political realities?
Fuck Microsoft and Apple — use Linux instead. “Ubuntu” even sounds Kenyan, although it is Bantu, not Luo.
I thought Steve Jobs was Jesus, in black jeans. Ba-bum-ching!
This, from a guy whose BlackBerry had to be pried from his hand so he could take the oath of office.
[re=573443]Crazy Like Fox[/re]: Oh god. Please tell me that avatar of yours is from a T-shirt, like it looks.
[re=573482]ThatOne[/re]: Oh yes, and people like you aren’t a problem at all. People like you, who defend Obama no matter what he does. He knows he can make a pick like Kagan because the left won’t stand up to him. How are we real progressive supposed to organize when most of our own fellow leftists will have a fit about someone criticizing their dear Barry?
Barry not moving to the left has nothing to do with the make up of the country. Barry isn’t moving to the left because he’s not a progressive.
I disagree. ‘Wear Sunscreen’ would be preferable. [re=573495]Gumboz1953[/re]: Exactly.
[re=573463]V572625694[/re]: Apple stole the name of the Beatles corporation, “Apple Corp.” The Beatles were in litigation with Apple for many years, and consequently they do not like Apple. I believe Apple did have to pay the Beatles, too.
[re=573436]norbizness[/re]: Yea, all that silly healthcare reform and nuclear disarmament are just window dressing right……pffffft!
Honestly, I lurve Barry muchly, but that sentiment kinda annoys the shit out of me. The idea that entertainment is exclusively a diversion and distraction, and mutually exclusive with empowerment, is unmitigated bullshit. Unless you’re some kind of fucking robot, you understand that that’s entirely what “art” comprises. And say what you like, but iPods, and the corresponding trend towards digitial music that their popularity fed on and spurred further, have certainly widened the field of popular music well beyond the crap that saturates the RIAA-controlled radio airwaves. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
Seriously, I never thought I’d be saying this, but fuck you, Barry. You’re the last dude I’d expect to be a luddite, and if you’re just appealing to luddite sentiments for their rhetorical appeal, that’s probably even a li’l bit worse.
The iPad, though, actually is helluva stupid. Also.
[re=573507]Roger Williams hates your ways[/re]: I, as a Communist, think you are both right. “ThatOne” isn’t agreeing with Professor Hopey Changey, just pragmatically stating the facts – if true progressives outnumbered wishy-washy, middle of the road pussies like most in the liberal movement, Barry would certainly lean more left. “RWHYW” is certainly correct that the left will not stand up to a man they put all their hope and dreams (and for politicians, their political futures) into. This country is made up of pussies. We on the far left and those on the far right ARE the fringe, and the fringe is always angry.
the user only gets access to information that Steve Jobs approves
Well, it’s gratifying to see so clearly Steve Jobs’ tacit approval of my entire CD and record collection (ripped from my vinyl disks). I didn’t know Steve Jobs had such eclectic taste in music. And just about every CD I’ve borrowed from my local library in the last few years. Oh, and also the entire internet, which I visit frequently on my iPod.
My son just got home from “school”. He knows as much about HALO as he does orbital mechanics. The device that empowers HALO is a diversion, no question about it. When I was a young whipper snapper, we diverted to the 18th street section of Newport Beach CA and empowered ourselves with some Humboldt green and epic frisbee action. Now that was a diversion that got results.
[re=573437]Dashboard_Buddha[/re]: So how many iPads would it take to stanch the flow from the Deepwater Horizon?
[re=573553]GoinGreen[/re]: Yup. People don’t want change in the large wholesale box. They want little bits of change, here and there. Fix a few obvious, glaring faults (bank regs, war in Iraq, healthcare) and leave the rest be.
Campaign slogans aside, that’s why Barry’s pretty much ignoring ‘the left’ and actually doing what more Americans want. I don’t much care for that attitude myself, but he’s the president; not me.
There’s nothing like telling a group of adults being forced by the people they are paying to sit in a giant auditorium and wear identical funny costumes for hours to get a piece of paper in the most inefficient manner possible that they should be “empowered”.
[re=573567]Jim89048[/re]: One thousand: one iPad to soak up the oil and 999 to run the GUI to control the process.
[re=573507]Roger Williams hates your ways[/re]: How are you supposed to “organize” when noone wants to be organized by you? Hmm, thats a tricky one. Have you tried fantasy role-playing? You wouldn’t really be organizing, but maybe pretending will answer your emotional need?
Xbox controller, cold dead fingers, etc
…what about the iPad Maxi, for heavier information flows?
[re=573590]Prommie[/re]: My role-playing usually involves green balloons
[re=573567]Jim89048[/re]: All of them.
“They came for my X-Box, and I said Fuck off”!
mumblyjoe: He is not being a luddite. The same President who tells parents to turn off the TV and help kids with their homework is going to tell college students to turn off their electronic toys and focus on their work.
As for Kagan, she will be just fine. She is young, and while she has not left much of a paper trail, she seems to be a mainstream Democrat who will fit right in on the progressive wing of the court.
[re=573674]Dashboard_Buddha[/re]: +1
Regardless of how I feel about Obama, given my disdain for the 24 hour news cycle, I would have to agree with him.
Information is not knowledge and worse, information has been melded with entertainment to form the Frankenstein monster of our age – Info-tainment. Reasoned discourse has been reduced to shouting matches and politics has become a bloodsport.
One of my professors had an interesting take on the then growing phenomena of cell phones and the Internet. To paraphrase: As much as we may dislike the ideas of Skinner, et al, it’s hard to argue against them. However, we can find a place to be human in that space between the stimulus and the response. Unfortunately, as the rate at which information grows and is transmitted is shrinking so is that space to be human.
Anyway…that’s my take.
[re=574038]Dashboard_Buddha[/re]: Holy shit…when did I get serious. Sorry folks…won’t happen again.
[re=574038]Dashboard_Buddha[/re]: That encapsulates Barack’s point exactly, I think.
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