Steve Jobs: American iCon

The still-glowing reaction to the retirement of Steve Jobs highlights what’s wrong with American entrepreneurship these days. Everyone said he’s a genius, our most creative thinker, a brilliant tactical leader.

What went unmentioned is Jobs should go down as one of America’s most colossal disappointments.

And that’s by even his own standard.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: “He was always thinking about those great people that drove humanity to a higher level. People like Shakespeare, you know, like Isaac Newton.”

Sorry. His contributions are more in line with the recently deceased Elliot Handler who died July 21 in Los Angeles. He was 95.

Never heard of him? He was the founder of Mattel who invented Barbie, Ken and Hot Wheels.

He was a toymaker.

That’s all Jobs is.

He devoted much of the last 15 years figuring out nifty ways we could increase the number of songs we carry around in our pockets.

Just about every word I’ve written since 1998 has been on a Mac computer. I love Apple. I love my iPod. I’ve had an iPhone for less than a year and whenever I have any problem my first thought is, “How can what’s in my pocket solve this?”

Much of the world shares my mania for this. That’s why Apple now has more money in the bank ($75 billion) than the U.S. federal government, ($73 billion).

That’s why for the last 10 years I kept thinking, “Okay, now’s the time to take some of that money and some of that genius, put away the toys, and go to work on solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.”

A man like Jobs and his team -- and they all call themselves “geniuses” and have the t-shirts to back the boast -- shouldn’t be devoting their lives to improving the interface for games like Angry Birds.

If he truly aspired to greatness, he could have walked into a board meeting and said, “Okay, the technology behind the internal combustion engine is 160 years old, it consumes dirty fossil fuels that cost nearly $4 a gallon. We’re taking the next six months to invent a green iEngine that converts leaves and weeds into ozone that’ll float up into the atmosphere where it belongs. I want 10 ideas on my desk by noon tomorrow.”

He’d make a tidy profit on that, for sure. Or he could act like a truly great man and give it away for free.

Sound farfetched? Too socialistic?

Jonas Salk (1914-1995) devoted years of his life to creating a vaccine to wipe out polio, the most terrifying disease known to man. It could have made him a spectacular fortune. Instead, he gave it away.

For free.

“There is no patent,” he said in response to a question at a nationally televised press conference. “Could you patent the sun?”

Now, that’s a truly great man. A Pittsburgher, too. Like me.

Jobs’s health is a mysterious but clearly difficult situation for him. Certainly, he’s already faced thoughts of his own mortality.

Great men at the end think they haven’t done nearly enough.

It happens to famous artists, philosophers, scientists, musicians, architects, inventors and to the magnificent Renaissance man who was all those things rolled into one.

“I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”

Those were the last words of Leonard da Vinci.

To me the most compelling example of this poignancy was detailed in Stephen Spielberg’s 1993 film, “Schindler’s List.” It’s almost too heartbreaking for me to watch again.

Oskar Schindler risked his life to deceive the Nazis that Jews at his factory were essential to the war effort. He saved over 1,100 innocents from certain doom.

Yet, at the end the film shows him wallowing in despair over what he did not do. His wristwatch, he said, could have spared two more; his car perhaps a dozen.

These were great men with humanity’s best interests in their hearts.

Do not dare include Jobs among that list.

He was smart guy who made a lot of money giving us the moronic diversions we crave.

The world’s going to hell.

Thanks to Steve Jobs, at least we’ll all be groovin’ when we get there.

Tech problems inflict Biblical torments

I always tell prospective authors that being a freelance writer is like being adrift in a rubber raft far out at sea. And that being a freelance writer with technical problems is like being in that rubber raft and hearing an urgent hiss.

My rickety little raft began to hiss on Wednesday and I’ve been sinking ever since.

It occurred to me while on one of the numerous multi-hour tech talks to Apple that I ask more concerned and pointed questions about how these self-proclaimed “geniuses” were going fix my computer than I did to the docs who were going to deliver our children.

It makes sense, really. One earns money. The other spends it.

Of course, it hasn’t been earning me much lately. But I still look at my $1,700 MacBook Pro like it is a magic genie. If I rub it just the right way it’ll make my fondest dreams come true.

Inside its cool chrome exterior are four non-fiction book proposals, a completed novel and the stark rejections from -- who knows? – maybe 1,000 agents and publishers who think I suck.

It’s no stretch to say that my relationship to my computer is like my marriage. I love it wholeheartedly and try and nurture it. If it’s sick, I fret about its well-being and have trouble sleeping.

I wonder what will happen to me if we part ways and I have to start all over.

This is being written on my wife’s shiny and pretty Toshiba and it feels like I’m committing an infidelity. I’m doing the same things with it that I do with my own computer, but it feels different to my fingers. It gives me strange warnings and nags me in ways I’m not used to being nagged. I touch some things expecting one reaction and I get another unsettling one.

My own computer has already suffered the technological equivalent of castration. I with a stroke of my own hand wiped out its hard drive. This, I was told, would fix the problems and allow me to re-install with a backup hard drive that I faithfully apply.

I’d only lose about two days of work and, I swear, I’ve convinced myself that during those two days I’d composed some of the greatest thoughts ever conjured. Those words are now gone.

So is my faith in backups. One genius darkly hinted that the problem could actually stem from the backup.

Now I’m contemplating getting an entire harem of illicit backups. My trust’s been shattered.

I’m ashamed to admit this, but as all the fixes were failing me I thought of turning to the omnipotent deity to whom we all look to for hope and fulfillment.

And I’m not talking about Steve Jobs.

Nope, I’m talking about the guy who Biblically bystands when another of his faithful sons, Job v.1.0 (no relation) endures a torment that had nothing to do with corrupt hard drives and invalid node structures.

In the book of Job, the Lord’s most faithful servant is bedeviled by Satan -- and bedevilment doesn’t get any more pure than that.

And the Lord lets it all happen as Job wonders wounded why.

During a dark time yesterday, I felt a kinship with Job. I wondered if prayer might help.

Then I thought that there was, for sure, some dying father trapped in the rubble down in Haiti saying prayers that needed hearing more than mine. I’d feel small if my prayer took priority.

So I’ll soldier on through my moral mess on my own. Today I’ll endure another marathon of ear-squashing tech advice, dashed hopes and, perhaps, a resolution that’ll allow me to come home to my computer.

And when it’s over, I’ll return to my little rubber raft and the currents will sweep me far, far out to sea.

Maybe someday my tech torments will end and I'll board a ship with a smart crew that'll free me from concerns that have nothing to do with the act of writing.

But that won’t happen until I can look myself in the mirror and make a career sea change.

I'll have to quit freelancing. I'll have to take this Job and shove it.

Tech problems interrupt lauded blog . . . This one!

I've always said that being a freelancer is like being in a rubber raft adrift in the ocean with no shore in sight.

And that being a freelancer with computer problems is like being in that rubber raft when you begin to hear an urgent hiss.

Well, the hiss started buzzing in my ears early this morning when I was trying to conclude a perhaps ill-advised blog post about my thoughts about what would happen if I went streaking in order to liven up the sweet tedium of my 8-year-old daughter's first tennis lesson.

In hindsight, it could have been a career-ending post. And what would I do without all the mighty perks that go with writing a freebie blog.

I tell you what I'd do: I'd be hugely bummed.

Starting a pointless blog from scratch and seeing it grow a feisty little audience is huge fun. Just this week, my friends over at RedRoom.com flattered me by saying my June 2 post about expense accounting the national spelling bee was a home page "Best Of ..." Redroom. They called the post "hilarious."

That's heady stuff. Redroom is crowded with great, witty and accomplished writers. Having them among my readers improves my posture. So the pressure was on to come up with something dazzling and provocative.

Thus, the idea of streaking at my daughter's tennis lesson. I really thought the thing was coming together when that urgent hiss began.

So I'm writing this on my white-haired mother's computer while Mac techs diagnose whether they can save my beloved 5-year-old iBook. I'm pessimistic.

I might have to, egads, pull out the credit card and purchase a shiny new Mac. The impulse is strong, but the finances are weak. I'll need to resolve the discrepancy in the next day or two.

In the meantime, I'm left with the choice of dashing off something haphazard -- here you go -- or digging back in the archives for something I believe can improve our environment, free us from the tyranny of foreign oil and unshackle us from sitting like morons at red lights when the only traffic is tumbleweeds.

This ran last July 4, previous to when I'd been invited to start sharing my blogs at RedRoom.

So check out this encore presentation of "Go Green! Run All The Reds!"

And if you're on board with me and the blog, well, grab a bucket and start bailing. I can use all the help I can get.




GO GREEN! RUN ALL THE REDS!

I saw red the first time my local gas station posted unleaded at $4 per gallon. I vowed it would be the last time I ever saw red again -- at least when it came to traffic lights.

Now, I’m colorblind. I no longer see reds or yellows.

Yep, I’ve gone totally green. And when I say gone, I mean really gone. Look for me at the stop signs and all you'll see are my fading tail lights.

On July 4, I intend to launch a movement that’s truly about movement. For the good of the environment and to reduce our demeaning dependence on foreign oil, I’m calling on all Americans to stop stopping at red lights.

There’s a fascinating study making the rounds about how U.P.S. saves millions by routing its vehicles to make more right turns.

This is from a recent Elaine Jarvik story from the Deseret Morning News: “The world wastes a lot of time and fuel waiting to turn left -- which is why UPS is going the extra mile to make sure its drivers mostly turn right.

“The package-delivery company has long encouraged its drivers to avoid left-hand turns whenever possible, because turning left in busy intersections is more dangerous, takes more time and uses more gas. Now the company has developed a ‘package flow’ software program that maps out routes to avoid backtracking and left-hand turns.

"UPS, which last year drove 2 billion miles to move 14.8 million packages and documents from one place to another, says all those right turns will save millions of dollars a year. In Washington, D.C., the new route planning technology trimmed 464,000 miles, saved more than 51,000 gallons in fuel, and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 506 metric tons over an 18-month period, according to spokesman Dan McMackin at UPS headquarters in Atlanta.”

Of course, if they save that much gas by keeping the vehicular Big Browns going right, it makes sense that simply keeping them going would save them even more.

I’ve always been keen on running red lights for intellectual reasons. This makes me sort of soulmates with Cajun man.

I’ve read that nothing infuriates a Cajun more than having to sit at a red light. Why, Cajun man asks, does a stupid machine have the right to tell him when he can and cannot go?

Cajun man doesn’t want to wreck his vehicle. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. But Cajun man (and I realize this is devolving into an old Adam Sandler skit here) knows better than a traffic light if it’s okay for him to go or not.

Cajun man isn’t blind and Cajun man isn’t stupid.

Neither am I.

It makes no sense for me to sit at a red light when, if I give a sober look left and a sober look right, I can see no one’s coming.

I’m not advocating anarchy here. Until Detroit electrifies the world by announcing the manufacture of invisible cars, it’s simple common sense.

If we’re allowed to go right on red when sparse traffic warrants, why on earth can’t we go straight in the same situation? Or left?

Of course, I know better than the traffic light. So do you. I’m not talking about being reckless. Not at all. I don’t want to wreck my car, hurt anyone or risk jail by fleeing an accident I’ve caused by trying to keep my tank full.

I just am confident I know better than the robotic light.

So I’m declaring the Fourth of July my own sort of Independence Day.

I do hereby declare that I will henceforth shed the tyranny of the traffic light. I will go when I can do so safely, without risking bending the fenders of my fellow man. I will do so confident that I am reducing America’s fuel consumption, saving precious natural resources and that what the state police consider an act of lawlessness, is in fact an act of patriotic rebellion worthy of our tea-dumping founding fathers.

As of July 4th, traffic lights are no longer the law of the land.

They’re merely suggestions.