RIP Tom Hayden

"You don't navigate challenges and remain unchanged. Not that you don't sometimes yearn to be young again, but you'll never see the world the way you did when you were truly young."

Tom Hayden, 
60s radical, 80s California legislator

Forward Thinking Graveyard

That way it will be so much easier for all them young people to take selfies with their favorite tombstones, consarn it! These kids today!

The Future of Education

You know that Random Article button on the side of Wikipedia pages? I'll bet if you clicked it 6 hours each weekday (with breaks for recess, lunch, and holidays) for 12 years straight and read through whatever came up, you'd end up smarter and more well-rounded than most kids graduating from High School.

And don't start about "all the errors in Wikipedia;" my teachers fed me all kinds of things that turned out to be bologna.

Throwing off the Yoke of My Oppressors (i.e., Apple)

Another thing that happened while I wasn't writing: a dream of my youth became real.

I was an odd kid.  Other kids wanted motorcycles and BB guns; I dreamed of AP and Reuters teletypes in my basement, and weather maps transmitted daily from NOAA. I didn't want to wait for the 6:00 news-- it was too short anyway. I wanted to know everything right now! 

Now, of course, we've long since had access to all that and more via the Internet. One of the blessings I count is that I got to live on a time when that childhood dream came true. But, you know, PC's can't be carried around in your pocket and with laptops you still need to sit down, open up, turn on... And it's difficult to read your laptop while you're walking down the street.

Then Steve Jobs said, "Let there be iPad!" And it was cool. But I looked upon the iPad and behold it was very expensive. Plus, umm... I believe that Apple products are elitist. Elegantly designed, but elitist. On principle I refuse to buy them as a token of my solidarity with the underprivileged of the world. 

So I trudged on, padless, through the icy metaphorical snows of Apple oppression, bitterly watching thebloated plutocrats, their arrogant, Starbucks-sipping children at Dartmouth and Yale, and the NPR reporters -- all chuckling contentedly while perusing Proust on their patrician devices.

Young plutocrat elitist sipping Starbucks.
(Borrowed from BitterBlackCoffee.com. 
Hope they are amused.)

Ah, but then Google came out with the incredibly good but cheap  Nexus 7 last summer and I bought one. Now that my dream of a low priced gadget that funnels all the latest movie reviews  to me is realized, it is I who chuckle smugly as I glance at the upper crust with their high priced toys.

And what's this? A glimmer of insecurity in your eyes monsieur elitist, perhaps a glimmer of fear? For now the "average person" as you call them now has access to your precious tablet technology as well, eh? Yes, now we can enjoy lol cats and play 'Fruit Ninja', just as you once did!  And all for hundreds of dollars less, do you hear? For hundreds less!!

And that's how my childhood dream came true. Thanks for listening!