Yes, really. Sure, as an influential figure in the technology world, his death deserves to be reported. As to why it has to be the front page story on every single English language news site, with further pages of analysis and commentaries and pictures, is completely beyond me. The tragedy here, which is not limited to Steve Jobs' passing but is endemic to the modern news media, is that this frenzy perpetuates ignorance and displaces or eliminates the reporting of actual news. Knowledge is the seed of action. If people do not know, if the means of spreading awareness (the news media in this case) are instead used to amuse and insulate, then of course people are going to sit on their asses and watch Project Runway or play Call of Duty while the polar ice-caps melt and famines turn the Horn of Africa into one giant graveyard. To illustrate my point, on September 11th, more people actually died as a result of the Second Congo War, than from the terrorist attacks on the U.S. In all, five and a half million people were killed during the Second Congo War, making it the deadliest conflict since the end of WWII. And yet, because the people dying were poor Africans and not rich white folks, their suffering was ignored entirely by the Western (sorry Isabelle) media. That is not to say that thew news media should relentless hammer images of conflict refugees, mass starvation, and general suffering into our heads on a daily basis as that can also desensitize and demotivate people just the same (see Narcotizing dysfunction). But back to the issue at hand, concerning your claim as to Mr.Jobs' charitable nature, he's actually notorious for his lack of philanthropy, especially considering how much money he had and how much of that money came from Apple using sweatshop labour to produce its products. As for who thinks it as a tragedy, there's an app for that.
xoxo
Doug <3
P.S. Thanks for pointing out the typo, I can´t believe that got past me. I´m usually a real stickler for spelling.
xoxo
Doug <3
P.S. Thanks for pointing out the typo, I can´t believe that got past me. I´m usually a real stickler for spelling.
You keep up with all this crazy "my eyes are open to the world's problems" shit and pretty soon you're going to be talking about quitting facebook. Or at least turning off wall posts.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, all the work I've been doing this last couple weeks is very logical justification for a tremendous amount of welfare injustice - it's pretty sickening. No one really addresses the glaring issues with the way things are right now. I worry that if I go with stuff I'm going to further bury myself in talk of extreme poverty and hunger as necessary parts of an international system, parts of the assumptions of Economics papers in order for some professor to make yet another argument for the deepening cleavages between the wealthy and the poor in this world.
Hope all is well my friend, I'm still keeping up with daily 5-10 min meditation and read a couple pages of the kabat book when I get the time.
I will say to you about Steve Jobs what you said to me about the hideous dog monster that lives at the program house. "He's been sick for a really long time, have some compassion."
ReplyDeleteDid only rich white people die in 9/11? Did you see their bank statements? No black people died? I don't think the reason 9/11 was reported on is that rich white people died. Also, I don't think the reason that the Congo war wasn't given attention at that time is because the people affected were poor, or African. Also, my name is misspelled in that tag.
ReplyDeleteI agree that all the attention of Steve Jobs death was a little ridic. Also ridic that I found out he died from Vinny of the Jersey Shore via twitter. Anywhooo just remember what I told you about how proloquo2go (http://www.proloquo2go.com) and the ipad/pod/touch/phone/whatever is changing the lives of people with disabilities.
ReplyDelete