David Foster's Divorce--Encountering Bad Faith for the First Time

Riots in London again...it seems like the imbalances have gone beyond the point where people will put up with them any more. How long can it be before the decades of neglect turn violent on our streets? On this pathetic trajectory, it seems to be only a matter of time before we're back to NYC in '78. As Sunday's editorial says "this isn't about pensions for firefighters." It's about mass disparity in wealth that's increasing and increasing. Many of us probably thought it was "cute" when Mubarak was threatened from the streets, but we all had to at least realize that we were watching our own future as we read the blog posts and watched the news. I'm scared too--and again to quote the New York Times OpEd, rather than confronting the course that Bush II accelerated, Obama has "averted his gaze." Obama: you¹ve been a pathetic leader at a moment when opportunity was, and is, ripe.

I think this Murdoch thing is similar to the situation that allows Abu Ghraib. In both, a morally debased person at the top established an environment where felonies were supported--and it's only a legal defense to claim that Rupert didn't send out a memo saying "hey, let's wiretap the Queen!"   So, no surprise, that maybe moves him a few notches up there with the other slobs, though at least there’s the benefit that the criminal damage was to a relative intangible asset like "privacy."  (Only a few small notches, I should clarify--any one who's read a Murdoch paper or watched his media already knows that privacy wasn't a big concern, so whether breaking the telecommunications laws is any different from busting in to homes and hotel rooms is a nuance on an already bad story.)   So I guess that puts Rupert Murdoch a tad above, say, the leaders at ConAgra who are culpable as major agents in diabetes and health cost increases.   Or Monsanto.  

Hey, how cool is that?   Now you can use your iPad to NOT buy books.   I'm really glad that bottom-feeding Apple has stuck with its policy of not allowing external-facing links in apps, and has stayed firm on the whole idea of taking a 30% cut for access to their platform. Hey you losers at Apple--the main reason I bought your stupid iPad was as an upgraded Kindle.   Now what I have is a downgraded Kindle.  You go!   Keep it up!   Love ya!  (OK, I know I can link via Safari and get to the Kindle store and then sync--but if you're an Apple employee and you're reading this, can't you see how stupid it sounds?)