Feminism At Its Most Thoughtless

Saw this article in The Atlantic regarding recent allegations of sexual harassment by Herman Cain. It contained this gem:

Feminism, at its most thoughtless, engendered an overbroad and unduly subjective definition of sexual harassment that includes speech and behaviors ranging from offensive remarks to actual assaults. Feminism, at its most thoughtless, equated every trivial discussion of sexual relations with political discourse and framed every allegation of sexual misconduct as presumptively true.

I'm glad that was written because I've been making this argument for years. Every time I try to have a specific, fact based discussion on the topic all kinds of "automated responses" are given by the so-called feminist whom apparently are convinced of their own infalibility on the subject. They should take the comment by this individual to shape up their game.

The Future Apple

With the passing of Steve Jobs many are going to have their concerns regarding Apple's future move to the forefront of their minds. Anyone who was paying attention knew this was coming once the first treatment for pancreatic cancer, which has a high mortality rate, did not leave us with a Jobs that was "fuller". But this isn't about that, this is about Apple.

I saw a headline for David Pogue's NY Times piece entitled "Often Imitated Never Duplicated". I haven't read the piece but anyone with Apple Inc. on the brain has to think that this means as much within Apple as it does without. I'm not one of those people who proclaim stuff like "We would still be using DOS" or "we wouldn't have chat" or other such nonsense. I've been around long enough to see ideas I came up with as a child (and older) be implemented by someone else. No, the ideas will still flow but what is unique with Jobs and other visionary men and women is the ability and willingness to execute. Apple Inc. has been able to execute and lead but those of us who were around during the "dark days" knows that Apple Inc. has been very much an extension of Jobs. We saw what happened when other people took over the company.

I'm not saying that Apple has to go in that direction. I understand that Jobs and co has done a great deal of work of educating it's leadership and other employees on the Apple Way (tm). I'm also sure that the reason for Apple U, as I hear it's called, was created with the "dark days" foremost in the mind.

I watched the iPhone 4s video yesterday and I was saying to myself that Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs. Not that his presentation was bad. It simply wasn't "Jobsian". I've gotten used to seeing Phil Schiller et-al go and make announcements about products and personally I think Phil is more the stage manager than Cook. This underscores my concern. Whereas Jobs could command an Apple show by himself if he liked, there is already a split in the leadership. Again, I'm not saying that this is necessarily bad but it does reflect a fundamental shift at Apple. Jobs, while still in the flesh should be assumed to be the glue that held the top talent together with him gone, that mediating presence is gone and as with any organization that loses it's founding head those left often have a fraction (how ever large) of the...What shall I call it? Talent.

Some may say that I'm putting too much emphasis on Jobs. They will point out that Cook and others have been running the show for quite some time now. They will say that Apple has plenty of product in the pipeline. I agree. In the short term Apple Inc. will be the Apple we've known since the return of Steve, which is not the Apple I knew in 1989. Which is not a bad thing. The long term question is the one posed by David Pogue. Will Apple become an imitation of itself once the "Jobs products" and "Jobs ideas" have been flushed out the system?

I suppose we'll all know the answer to this question when the first non-Jobs product is announced.