View from a Farley

Oops.

Kristof makes an excellent point in this op-ed piece.  The vast majority of Americans don’t hate Muslims.  At worst, most of them are ambivalent.  But the Glenn Becks of the world have a remarkable ability to make decent people afraid that “those people” will come to destroy their values and their ways of life.  It’s suddenly not about freedom of religion, but about protecting values.  Decent people begin turning on a large group with many facets (both good and bad) because they’re manipulated into fear.

This guy is an ego-maniac. But he’s also dangerous.

There’s a reasoned argument to be made against the President’s policies. It exists, but not on FOX News. Beck is a master of using emotion, fear, and fabrication to impact people in a way that reason can’t. He’s not making a reasoned argument; he’s spouting drivel about how America has lost it’s way because we aren’t all Christians. Sadly, it’s effective.

Disgusting.  They don’t even care about justice or whether anything illegal actually occurred.  They probably won’t find anything, but then they don’t need to.  All the GOP needs to do is get themselves on TV in imposing committee rooms saying “subpoena” and “the White House is coming to get your children” as many times as possible for them to score points in this media climate.

Put it another way: The Democrats better not lose either House this November.

Privacy is going to be one of the big Supreme Court issues of the modern time.  We’ve moved past privacy as it relates to abortion issues (well, sort of).  Now it’s going to be about things like this.  Technology gives police offers dozens of ways of tracking people without their knowledge.  What will be permissible?  What won’t fly?

Everyone has a right to keep secrets.  At some level, there’s a question of legality.  On another level, there’s a question of our social fabric.  Who wants to live in a world where it’s so easy to be spied upon?  And that issue won’t get resolved by any court.

Sarah Palin and the other vehemently anti-mosque people contribute to these sorts of incidents whether they know it or not. The result of their anti-mosque rhetoric is the impression that Muslims are not like the rest of America but that they’re separate and apart from “real Americans.” Suddenly people have a target on which to vent frustration, and we have incidents like these.

This has been predictable for some time. DVDs are not where it’s at anymore.

Trustworthy. Very trustworthy.

Apple’s September events have traditionally focused on music and iPods. It’s always been about bringing the holiday product lineup up-to-speed and maybe throwing in something new with iTunes, but this time the media hype points to a new Apple TV. I wouldn’t be surprised, but don’t expect it to be the main event. It’s going to be about music, iPods, and iTunes. Apple TV will be icing on the cake, a companion to some new iTunes feature they’ll cook up.