I typically don’t use this blog to comment on news items as tragically bizarre and off-topic as an astronaut being arrested for attempted murder, but there’s just something haunting me about this news. I thought I had become numb to any shock presented by the strange parade of pop-culture weirdness we witness because we live in a celebrity-crazed post-modern society. However, I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for an astronaut — an astronaut for god’s sakes — to become just another sleazy low-life. I was in elementary school in the 1960s and watched John Glenn blast off in black and white. I have been led to believe the (now obvious) mythology that potential astronauts are subjected to the most rigorous screening possible to determine whether they possess the mental and physical “right stuff” to travel into space. This news makes me think they’re outsourcing their psychological screening to the postal service. I’m sorry. That was an attempt at humor. Indeed, by midnight, Leno, Letterman, Stewart, Colbert, etc., will have worked this strange news over with dozens of jokes. However, there’s something about the way the astronaut looks over there in her mug shot that captures how this whole creepy matter makes me feel. My astronaut-hero-worship was of one of the last remnants of my nearly-depleted innocence. This is just too weird for me.
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I think this is a great statement, but it would have impressed me if he had issued it in 2003 when the iTunes store launched. Any time is better than never, but Jobs loses some of the moral high-ground when doing this in reaction to governmental regulatory threats. While some on the blogosphere are ready to saint him, let’s pause: this is merely a logical business decision on Apple’s part. That aside, no DRM is a good thing.
