Out Come the Shitheads

I have little love for Steve Jobs. The man really lived a kind of double life - there was the Zen-philosophied technocrat responsible for whole generations of gadgetry, from selling computers out his garage to the most recent iPad 2 and the announced iPhone 5. Then there's the deadly serious businessman, know for everything from firing Apple employees on the spot during a conversation in an elevator to joining the ranks of Nike, Levi and HP in running one of the biggest sweatshops in third world Asia. 

But as sure as the fucking tide, not a week after his death, everyone near, on, or over the border of Crazytown has come out to use it as an agenda-based talking point. Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps (of "God Hates Fags" fame), has made a promise to picket Jobs's funeral for his practice of "[giving] God no glory." Ironically she tweeted this from her iPhone, which drew some anger from her supports. Her response? Tell everyone that's why God created the iPhone.

Thankfully, the only people paying attention to this psychotic are either doing so to poke fun at her, or live so far out in the middle of nowhere they aren't going to bother anyone anytime soon.

The second example of unbridled assholery comes from Wikileaks, which is disappointing considering the site occasionally does something good. This comes in the form of a "suppressed" HIV test showing Jobs was positive. With a little research (IE Googleing it) it becomes evident that the document is faked - the company attributed to the test was out of business. For a website that pushes the authenticity of it's documents, no matter how weird or insane they may be, throwing this out is either a dumb ass attention-getting stunt or a rush to publish something controversial with no effort to verify it.

It makes me sad that the pundits jump on a man's death and shred it for talking points the way a squirrel would devour the last acorn on Earth. Hindsight on one's life is an opportunity for reflection and education, not lube for the agenda ramrod. It doesn't matter if it get coated in God's Gloopy Glory or Conspiracy AstroGlide, at the end of the day you, the reader, is still getting a stick up your ass.