1984

Disclaimer: I do not own an iPhone. In fact, I waste a great deal of money on the digital phone I do have (phone, camera, that’s it) because my current calling plan is the minimum discounted plan (I worked for the company) giving me 450 minutes each month … I use 2. But my daughter says she is tired of not being able to text me or share photos instantly and all the other social activities a smart phone allows so I have agreed to be added to her family plan and get an iPhone (which my neighbor laughingly says is not a phone but a pocket computer). This plan will make my daughter happier and actually make my monthly bill go away: it’s a good deal. Now I can only suggest that I will use the iPhone for periodic communication but otherwise, at least it replaces my old, old iPod Touch (and my loyal Flip Phone).

But the topic is not my own limited use of a future device but rather the suggestion made by W. Andrew Ewell in Salon that:

Continue reading “Stop Praying To Our iPhones” →

There are two very American books that (to me) present a fundamental problem: one is The Jungle (Upton Sinclair) and the other is Jack London’s Iron Heel. Both novels present the evil greed that men are capable of and both offer a solution or at least direction for improvement based on the ideals of socialism. Neither makes the United States, even a fictional America, very appealing. It’s interesting to recall that these novels, especially the dystopian Iron Heel, represent or project bad times for an era that is now behind us: look at George Orwell’s 1984 … not even Apple Computer can erase that future, even though it is now past due.