Apple: Trust Us? Me: No.

Jobs: “haven’t we earned the credibility and the trust of the press?” <- FUCK NO! Book censorship is why, bitches!Fri Jul 16 18:08:38 via webMike Cane
mikecane

Meanwhile, I’m not ready to get back to this blog yet. I see 262 Comments festering away (this is the count WordPress gives me; I’m not peeking at any of them). You haven’t been squelched. You haven’t been gotten to.

Additional:

A Note To All Corporate Ass-Kissers
What Business Is

Previously, in regard to Apple’s censorship:

At Mike Cane 2008:

Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!
Apple And A Tale Of Two Bannings
Apple Bans ANOTHER Book From App Store!
Apple Approves Of Shooting Nurses In The Face!

At The eBook Test:

Apple: Get The Hell Out Of Your Own Way!
Another Day, Another DoubleDumb Apple Book Rejection!
Apple’s Two-Faced Censorship At Work Again
A REAL Justification For Apple Censorship?

Here:

The Latest Outrageous Apple Book Rejection!
Apple: Think What Now?
Apple Rescinds Book Ban
Steve Jobs: Keep Saying No!
Apple Is Scaring Publishers And Writers
Steve Jobs: Abandoning A Principle?
Dear Steve Jobs …
Cory Doctorow Was Right
When Steve Jobs Wrote A Letter
The Trillion-Dollar Web Question
“What Are My Options?”
Thank You, Apple. No, Seriously.
Apple Censors Like It’s 1932!
How To FAIL At Free Speech
Apple Censors Real World
Noting Oscar Wilde

Drop The Charges Against The iPad/AT&T Hacker

Hypocrites and pharisees

My case is absolutely important to bloggers and journalists. My case involves speech, and speech alone. If I’m threatened today, you are threatened tomorrow. The ability for bloggers and journalists to blow the whistle on corporate and government misdeeds is on the line here.

The post is lengthy and worth reading.

The Iron Fist of the Barren State is hammering this guy because he’s said things that are unpopular (today!) and done things that embarrass those in power (today!).

They’re using him as an example out what They can do to You without any regard for the legality or Constitutionality of their actions.

Post-9/11, our nation has become just about unrecognizable. If anyone had written about the changes we’ve undergone as fiction prior to 9/11, reviewers would have laughed it off as the ravings of a lunatic, disbelieving that those we’ve chosen to lead us could so blithely, cavalierly, and thuggishly sell out our individual rights under the guise of it being “for our own good” and for “our protection.”

Enough is enough.

Drop the charges.

It’s Not The Device Or The File, It’s The Internet, Stupid!

I have a break in my busy-ness today and get to do a post that describes the major change in thinking I’ve had recently. It’s sheer serendipity that on the same day this opportunity occurs, someone releases a big report that verifies my own thinking.

A Rare Book That Costs More Than An iPad: For FREE!

Callaghan Would Be The Rare One for This Year

The source for Miss Callaghan, rare as all heck, did run me over $600 from Amazon UK. Only edition. No cover. Would’ve been a lot cheaper if I’d waited for the pound to crash, but, you know, I must have the precious.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

And now it’s set free, in e: Miss Callaghan Comes To Grief by James Hadley Chase

Grab the ePub version, drop into iTunes, sync your iPad, and read!

Additional:

James Hadley Chase tribute page
James Hadley Chase tribute blog

Noting Oscar Wilde

Otherwise busy, but this can’t go by.

It Gets Worse: Apple Censors a Gay Kiss in Oscar Wilde Comic

Apple Reverses Block Of Oscar Wilde Graphic Novel’s Gay Kissing

Oscar Wilde once said, There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

There is also a new, third tragedy: Apple.

Additional:

A Note To All Corporate Ass-Kissers

Previously at Mike Cane 2008:

Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!
Apple And A Tale Of Two Bannings
Apple Bans ANOTHER Book From App Store!
Apple Approves Of Shooting Nurses In The Face!

Previously at The eBook Test:

Apple: Get The Hell Out Of Your Own Way!
Another Day, Another DoubleDumb Apple Book Rejection!
Apple’s Two-Faced Censorship At Work Again
A REAL Justification For Apple Censorship?

Previously here:

The Latest Outrageous Apple Book Rejection!
Apple: Think What Now?
Apple Rescinds Book Ban
Steve Jobs: Keep Saying No!
Apple Is Scaring Publishers And Writers
Steve Jobs: Abandoning A Principle?
Dear Steve Jobs …
Cory Doctorow Was Right
When Steve Jobs Wrote A Letter
The Trillion-Dollar Web Question
“What Are My Options?”
Thank You, Apple. No, Seriously.
Apple Censors Like It’s 1932!
How To FAIL At Free Speech
Apple Censors Real World

Apple Censors Real World

So, four days after pointing out there’s a naked tit on a statue near an iPad ad, that statue now looks like this:

Coincidence?

You decide.

More after the break …

How To FAIL At Free Speech

Will Beck and Limbaugh be next?

FIRST, THEY CAME for Helen Thomas. Who will be next — Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and all the other purveyors of shocking statements, on the right and left?

He does well, until he FAILs:

There was plenty of reason to believe it was more than time for Thomas to give up that front row seat. Her style of questioning long ago crossed from skeptical to unprofessional.

What, exactly, is a “professional” question?

This ties in nicely with a post by Steve Salerno, The deep cleavage between fact and fancy, who makes this point:

… you are required to say something pretty, or say nothing at all.

Hey, when it’s this:

Emperor’s New Clothes no.3 by ~sabphoto on deviantART

… say it’s that.

Apple Censors Like It’s 1932!

Really, Apple, when will you stop being such a public embarrassment?

Ulysses Seen iPad webcomic gets Apple approval after cuts

Rob Berry and Josh Levitas launched the ambitious webcomic version of the classic novel, one of the most important works of Modernist literature, earlier this year under the title Ulysses Seen. The comic includes only cartoon nudity, which the pair had to remove before Apple would approve the app.

And:

“Joyce’s novel is pretty explicit in its language and themes, so much so that in 1932 it won one of the most important court decisions about censorship in American history,” Berry continued. In 1920 after the magazine The Little Review serialized a passage from Ulysses dealing with the main character masturbating, the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice helped get the book banned in the U.S. for more than 10 years. Eventually, following United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, U.S. District Judge John M. Woolsey ruled in 1933 that the book was not pornographic and therefore could not be obscene, with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the ruling in 1934.

Hey, Apple! NBC once had a famous censor, his name was Herminio Traviesas. He coined this phrase:

Guess what? Traviesas is dead.

Or did you find a way to dig him up and revivify him for your damned Store?

Look, Apple!

That’s a public sculpture at the entrance to what used to be the U.S. Custom House (now American Indian Museum) in New York City.

And two blocks away from it is this iPad ad!!

Aren’t you sponsoring public nudity by advertising in my filthy city?

Grow the fuck up already!

Additional:

A Note To All Corporate Ass-Kissers

Previously at Mike Cane 2008:

Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!
Apple And A Tale Of Two Bannings
Apple Bans ANOTHER Book From App Store!
Apple Approves Of Shooting Nurses In The Face!

Previously at The eBook Test:

Apple: Get The Hell Out Of Your Own Way!
Another Day, Another DoubleDumb Apple Book Rejection!
Apple’s Two-Faced Censorship At Work Again
A REAL Justification For Apple Censorship?

Previously here:

The Latest Outrageous Apple Book Rejection!
Apple: Think What Now?
Apple Rescinds Book Ban
Steve Jobs: Keep Saying No!
Apple Is Scaring Publishers And Writers
Steve Jobs: Abandoning A Principle?
Dear Steve Jobs …
Cory Doctorow Was Right
When Steve Jobs Wrote A Letter
The Trillion-Dollar Web Question
“What Are My Options?”
Thank You, Apple. No, Seriously.

The Leroy Stick

Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR

I’ve read a bunch of articles and blogs about this whole situation by publicists and marketing folk wondering what BP should do to save their brand from @BPGlobalPR. First of all, who cares? Second of all, what kind of business are you in? I’m trashing a company that is literally trashing the ocean, and these idiots are trying to figure out how to protect that company? One pickledick actually suggested that BP approach me and try to incorporate me into their actual PR outreach. That has got to be the dumbest, most head-up-the-ass solution anyone could possibly offer.

And:

So what is the point of all this? The point is, FORGET YOUR BRAND. You don’t own it because it is literally nothing. You can spend all sorts of time and money trying to manufacture public opinion, but ultimately, that’s up to the public, now isn’t it?

You know the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand.

And having a respectable brand begins with having someone at the top who can be respected.

Previously here:

A Note To All Corporate Ass-Kissers

Thank You, Apple. No, Seriously.

Apple Denies Free Political Speech

As you can see not only are none of the statements defamatory, they are all factual.

By denying me this application Apple is now making an in-kind contribution to Henry Waxman by denying his competitor a modern tool for political communication. They are stifling my right to free political speech and they are carrying water for the Obama administration.

It is also relevant to note that Apple pulled all of their advertising from the Fox News channel: http://galiberal.com/?p=8939&cpage=1

Clearly people who work at Apple are likely to be the kind of creative people who may tend to vote Democrat and hold liberal views, but this goes far beyond that. This experience with Apple clearly shows that there is a political agenda going on within the culture of the company, and business decisions are subject to Apple’s political views.

First, I need to state this: Democrat, Republican, a pox on both their houses! I voted for Nader — every time.

That said, this is one time I’d like the Republican to win. Because he’s now pissed off. And pissed off politicians who get into power do something about what pissed them off.

In iAd Is The Coming Fall Of Apple, I wrote:

The thing is this, Apple. Once you start rejecting political ads, you’re going to wake up all those slumbering politicians who haven’t been giving your plans any scrutiny.

I had never considered that a politician would want to advertise via an app. So this speeds up Apple’s day of reckoning.

Thank you, Apple. Keep riding that Gatekeeper Abuse express train.

Additional:

A Note To All Corporate Ass-Kissers

Previously at Mike Cane 2008:

Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!
Apple And A Tale Of Two Bannings
Apple Bans ANOTHER Book From App Store!
Apple Approves Of Shooting Nurses In The Face!

Previously at The eBook Test:

Apple: Get The Hell Out Of Your Own Way!
Another Day, Another DoubleDumb Apple Book Rejection!
Apple’s Two-Faced Censorship At Work Again
A REAL Justification For Apple Censorship?

Previously here:

The Latest Outrageous Apple Book Rejection!
Apple: Think What Now?
Apple Rescinds Book Ban
Steve Jobs: Keep Saying No!
Apple Is Scaring Publishers And Writers
Steve Jobs: Abandoning A Principle?
Dear Steve Jobs …
Cory Doctorow Was Right
When Steve Jobs Wrote A Letter
The Trillion-Dollar Web Question
“What Are My Options?”