"10 percent of computer users are Mac users, but remember, we are the top 10 percent."
--- Douglas Adams, author, game creator

This guy's fun just because D.Adams spent over a year beating back the MacJihad on the internet to the point he had to post why Starship Titanic couldn't be released for the Mac. Had to do with something about personal bankrupcy laws last I heard.

"DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use wordwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form."
---New York Times, November 26, 1991

Since about 95% of the planet on the internet is using Windows to read this, you've just been called a roach - a fucking cockroach. Makes you wonder about those with subscriptions to the New York Times - eh?

It's common knowledge that Apple Computer (Mothership to the excellent Macintosh computer) has been described at various times as a "small company," as a "beleagured" company, as an "anti-company," and -- my favorite -- as "the icon that refuses to be deleted." Today, I'd like to add another word to the long list of Apple/Macintosh descriptives: minority.

Look out folks - he's going to blur the line between people and the people who choose to use types of computers. You can't choose your birthright. You can choose your hammer.

The idea came to me over a year or so ago. On cable TV, I was watching an Eddie Murphy movie titled "Boomerang." I'll spare you the plot; it's not important (nor was it that good). What is important is one scene in which Murphy and several other "brothers" are shooting pool. One of the fellows, an extremely Afrocentric, "Nat X" type, is pontificating about race, drawing a hilarious analogy between the importance of colored balls on the billiards table and the status of "the black man." He comes across as the type of person who can always be counted on to find a conspiracy behind every rock -- or in this case, behind every eight-ball

Getting philosophy from Cable TV is bad - getting philosophy from Eddie Murphy B movies is worse.

It was an interesting analogy. For some reason, that analogy led me to think about what I want to pass on to you. It's amazing how analogies work: they start off making sense. But they say all analogies break down at some point, i.e., you can stretch them until there is no reasonable similarity between the two things being compared. And in this case that is true as well, so keep "the breakdown point" in mind as I try to outline my analogy. What is my analogy, you ask? The analogy is this: in many ways, Macintosh computers (and Macintosh users) are like Black people in, say, the 1950s and 1960s.

AAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Now this is scary. The other fuckwit loonball out there that has gone down this very slippery slope was DKE or the writer for Mackido who came charging into the ADC BBBS and laid a Mac-user Jewish Holocaust paralell trip on us. It didn't take long after that for him to be banned for the amount of backlash to that sick idea alone. Humans are not computers. Humans can choose to professionaly use whatever tool is needed. If a job requires one kind of tool - you learn it - or find another job. Making such sick comparrisons of minority attrocities and freaking OS choices, leads to the same horrible mindset that allows for such acts of depravity in the first place.

It doesn't take much thought to see the parallels.

Ain't that the truth.

And just in case you don't, I will lay it out for you in the following points.

Cutting off the nose to spite the face
It's amazing the lengths to which some people will go to keep Macs out of the mainstream. I don't have to rehash for you the countless tales of the MIS manager or the Tech Support guy that hates Macs with a passion. For no reason other than the fact that they are, well, Macs.

Free will - it's a bitch. Wouldn't it be better if you could just control the people into buying what they should have according to your wishes?

I didn't live through it (thankfully), but my grandfather often tells me about the days of Jim Crow, in which a black person was shafted in many ways, ways that prevented him or her from participating in society to their fullest potential. You've seen the news footage: waterhoses driving crowds of black bodies away from areas in which they wanted to merely assemble and announce their intention to vote, go to school, or to achieve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Many of the people who "held back" blacks in those days did it out of ignorance. Today, many of them renounced those ways and now live and work along aside those who were considered Other in the past.

Today, their MIS equivalent still exists, "discriminating" against harmless Mac users who merely want to bring an iMac to work for something simple like accessing the intranet -- never mind that the iMac probably connects to the network as flawlessly as the PeeCee. Let's call this MIS type a computer bigot.

Let's not Rodney - you can call them whatever you want - that's your right. You don't have to use the word "Let's" like we're all 7th graders in part of your re-education camp. In the meantime, while Rodney has showed his OS bigotry with the use of the word "Pee Cee" he hasn't established anything credible in making such a sick and twisted argument. I'll maintain that people can't choose who they are. They can choose to use a tool - or learn the tool that is required. I'll further maintain that mixing the two is dangerous. Very dangerous. Waco dangerous. OK City dangerous. Columbine dangerous (and this guy taught KIDS?).

Aided and abetted by the media
During America's most racially tense moments, many of the most ardent ethnic chauvanists were often in positions of power where they could sway the unsuspecting masses into believing warped facts and outright lies about blacks and other minorities. Evidence abounds in which words and pictures were used to perpetuate damaging stereotypes - - some of which may still exist in less enlightened minds. Their computing parallels are the people like Hiawatha Bray (at least before MacWorld Expo 99 :-) whose sole goal appeared to be the journalistic murder of the Apple Macintosh. Today, there is still an abundance of wags out there that can not sleep at night until they write an article which skewers truth in order to cast our favorite "minority computer" in a bad light.

Actually you don't need to be all that conspiratal to cast a group with any belief systems in a bad light. They usually do that themselves. In this case, it's the MacJihad who have managed to futher their own cause using harassment against anyone who dare says Apple in a less-than-idea light. It's gotten so bad that Cnet and ZDnet are both under constant attack for saying anything Apple related. Having the internet equalivelant of a brick thrown through your window (or in some cases - a REAL brick), doesn't make you loved by anyone.

One analogous tactic is how numbers are used to hide the truth. For example, did you know that the number of African-Americans in America dwarfs the number of people in Canada (homework assignment: go and look up those population figures)? On the other hand, many people don't realize the number of Windows 95 users isn't that far from the number of Mac OS users (homework, redux: look up those numbers).

Looking aside the condesending homework reference, the best way to re-establish a peverse mindset is best done by reworking history. Most people won't look up the numbers because they don't care - so they "might" consider that the figures they've heard are wrong. Well - it's really easy. Most sites like DataQuest have sites on the internet, and many well researched books on Apple Computer also back those figures up. My fave (there's plenty - feel free to shop around) is "Apple Confidential". A book that hit so close to home that many industry members have come out of hiding to justify their roles depicted in it. When a book is way off target it generally doesn't get much of a reaction. it's the accurate stuff that pisses people off. Nothing like reality to blow a personal view of it - and Rodney's pretty far off base from anything remotely resembling reality at the moment.

The leader of the people
I think that discussing the Civil Rights movement would be incomplete without mentioning Martin Luther King, one of the driving forces during that turbulent period of social unrest called the 1960s. His dedication was tireless. He spent many a day fighting for the rights of other people. Very few people would dispute that his contribution to the cause of social justice is important.

However irrelevant to the issue at hand - but it's nice to trump out a big name for credebility. Aka: I've posed a couple of far-out precepts - uh - can't really go anywhere with them - but MAN! Ain't Ghandi something? Wow, was he neat or what?

Apple's MLK could very well be Steve Jobs. He catalyzed a (re)revolution, an amazing process that caused analysts to totally rethink Apple Computer's role in the computer industry. Many overlooked the Mac, writing it off as an unimportant two-bit player, worthy of only being relegated to a minority role in the creation of the world's technology/human symbiotic relationship. I can't imagine the effort it must take to fight the good fight as iCEO of Apple and then do the same thing as CEO of Pixar. Although not in the same league, his stress in many ways can't be too far removed from the strain that Dr. King suffered from leading a major portion of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as functioning as a father to his family and as a minister to his followers. Obviously, my analogy is breaking down.

I could have pointed out earlier that this next paragraph was coming. Steve Jobs for those who don't know/care is the interm CEO of Apple Computer. Most people don't care about CEO's - except for that bizzare incident with Chrysler in the early 80s. Those who do care - are the same people who care too much about products rather than people. Those people who like Apple Computers too much - LOVE Steve Jobs. I love making fun of Steve Jobs - but that's another story. His stress levels are kind of being second guessed though, and yes - basing an argument on assumptions via fanboy hero worship is weak at best.

If you understand nothing else I'm saying today,

You need professional help. I can provide a few numbers in Colorado from my employee handbook at work if you'd like. Just e-mail me and I'll set you up with someone good in the Denver area. Don't be afraid - I'm here for you.

understand this: the minority is often overlooked by the mainstream, often to the detriment of the mainstream. Blacks have contributed to society in ways that many of us are ignorant of (did you know that the following are among the veritable plethora of Black inventions: Elvis Presley, the golf tee, American slang, jazz, the blues, the lawn mower?). And so say I about the Mac's contributions (the mouse, the CD-ROM, Windows, trash can, GUI, ad infinitum).

Hmmm... in addition to a Black History Month, maybe we should also have a Mac History Month?

It's a cute finish - but my gag reflexes are being tested at the moment. While we're at it - how about a Xerox PARC history month - or at least a day's lesson for Rodney who'se adding more to the historical revisionism pile.

Rodney O. Lain

M.Gabrys - Depersonalize the human being, then replace the value attached to them with something trivial. Isn't this how the Nazis got so popular?