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Mean mouse mojo
I'm beginning to wonder if the culture won't be brought down by a fatal contradiction of spirit. I'm sitting here looking at a Reuters article about a new scheme the Disney company has to sell self-destructing DVDs, and all I can think is how stupid and wasteful this is. They're even going to call it "renting," but when you take the DVD out of the package, exposure to oxygen in the atmosphere turns the thing unplayable in 48 hours.

Just because some people make illegal copies of their favorite movies, the rest of you will have to hurry up to slap it in your DVD player as soon as it hits the air. What if you get interrupted and decide to finish watching the movie the next day? (Better set a timer.) And what if the packaging leaked just enough to start the oxidation process early? What if you don't like being told to "hurry up and watch the bloody thing"? And you know what children are like: how many kids will quietly open their favorite Disney DVD that daddy just brought home and catch hell later when the thing turns black before they get to play it? This is the Walt Disney Company I'm talking about here, good ol' Disney. What a wonderful, feel-good marketing concept. I'll tell you how it would make me feel:

Everybody pays a price
I wouldn't knowingly buy a copy-protected anything, much less a DVD movie I had to watch in 48 hours. Bah, humbug. When will we start to be concerned about the hurt that's put on ordinary folks instead of working up a rage over someone stealing pennies from the rich? I'm all for musicians, artists, actors, directors, and all the rest getting everything that they deserve, but the slant of legislation like the DMCA that makes this Disney nonsense thinkable is aimed at bolstering the "rights" of corporations. The rest of us are evidently crooks or just a money crop.

The same thing happens at the movies when I pay two bucks for coffee, and the kid shoves an empty paper cup across the counter. It never fails to make me mad, at least a little bit. Sure, I can fill it, but something's missing here, like courtesy and decency and some wee spark of acknowledgement that our interaction is essentially an unquantifiable exchange between two sentient beings. This is about much more than empty coffee cups or DVDs that turn black overnight. You may think I'm too sensitive and asking quite a lot, but every time we put up with this kind of treatment , whether from the government, a software company, the snack bar manager, a neighbor, or a spouse, we take another little razor cut.

Jefferson and Macintosh forever
Sometimes it's like the Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments have both been swapped for Windows, this by those professing to admire the former two. Someone's messing with our heads here, but why not just refinance and buy another Jeep? Sorry, but no thanks. I think I'll sit down in the shade with a nice cool drink and read the Constitution while that's still legal, because the thing that got this country thinking different wasn't greed or force of arms but the POWER of IDEAS. Something tells me Steve Jobs understands this, even if he mostly spins it into business schemes. (Fascism is hell on innovation, after all.)

But the worse things get, the more my favorite computer maker seems positively out of sync. Call me easily impressed, but I think Apple is mostly nice, dammit, has a thing about empowerment, and usually tells the truth. (Yesyesyes, some of us have ugly stories, so what?) Microsoft, on the other hand, where lying is a pillar of dysfunction, is perfectly configured for the apparent mores of the time. Where this leaves the average Mac user is, to put it mildly, troubling. But don't despair, even if the New Rome runs on Redmond ware. The truth is that most Americans are NOT mean, mendacious, cruel, and stupid. Given half a chance, most of us will do the right thing, and I wish we'd get a move on. Buck up, boot up, and give 'em hell, I say.

It's your right, you know, and one helluva privilege.

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr invites your emails.

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