I can't believe that came from your mouth!
John Lennon’s Ghost Shilling Failed Laptops
The last we saw John Lennon’s ghost, it was on a pay per view special where he spoke from beyond the grave. Now we know what John had to say thanks to the One Laptop per Child program, the organization that is deliberately throwing away one billion dollars on a stupid laptop giveaway.
I had originally planned to talk about Rich Steinnon’s excellent post here at ThreatChaos who, at the request of the OLPC president, posted a video depicting kids using the windup laptop instead of being child prostitutes in Malaysia. I commented on his post that I thought the OLPC program was a huge waste of resources and will do nothing to deter child prostitution or poverty or warfare.
His response was that it was worth a try. Kinda like John Lennon’s plea to just give peace a chance. It sounds nice and would work if the world ran on rainbows, butterflies and unicorn poop. But only capitalism can erase poverty. If those poor communities had good infrastructure and meaningful products to produce at a profit, those poor kids might have their own money to buy their very own laptops. And if they had their own money, I don’t think they would buy anything with a freakin’ hand crank.
See my previous OLPC posts here, here, here and here.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Dr. Jones on December 29, 2008 at 12:08 pm, and is filed under Cyber, Politics, Stupid People. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 3 years ago
I propose a new program: “Kilowatts For Kids”
about 3 years ago
Improving the education of millions of children in the poorest countries seems like the opposite of stupid. I don’t disagree that capitalism is the answer but even here in the capitalist US, education is one thing provided, for free, with our collective taxes, so each one of our kids is better able to take part in society and have a future.
about 3 years ago
Tribe,
I’m not against educating the poor. But spending a billion dollars on laptops is the wrong way to do it. First people have to have clean water and a safe place to live before you begin to worry about education.
about 3 years ago
There are cranks who write about the laptop project, but there is no crank on these laptops.
about 3 years ago
Cranker, your Google skills are weak.
http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/power_supply/olpc_power_xocto_plug_freeplay.html
And the first prototypes were hand-crank powered.
about 3 years ago
That phony Lennon voice superimposed on old film footage is so weird, and offensive. I don’t get offended so easily, but seeing people use the images of dead celebrities, like Elvis, in new videos, or putting words in their mouths is really twisted.
Have you seen that video of Elvis singing duets with country has-beens or with Celine Dion?
It’s not about Elvis or Lennon. Just the whole concept seems immoral, and arrogant — the assumption that Elvis would even appear on stage with Celine.
Of course I know they would say, “Lennon would have supported this.”
Anyway, the impersonation is lame. You’d think they could have at least hired a real Scouser to do the voice.
about 3 years ago
Akira,
I didn’t see the Elvis videos, but I know they exist out there. My wife was offended by this too, since it took Yoko Ono’s expressed consent to use Lennon’s image in this. And this isn’t the first time she did stuff like this.
But it really doesn’t offend me all that much, and this is why- Some celebrities like Lennon and Elvis and Albert Einstein leave behind families who can profit from their likeness. In fact, of all of the dead celebrities, Einstein made the most money last year by selling children’s toys. And now that Paul Newman is dead, should his salad dressing empire go away too? Of course not.
Yes, its creepy to reanimate them for commercials and even worse to make them campaign for a political cause. But to me, that’s just poor management on the part of the dead celebrity’s estate. If you own the rights to a likeness and only use it to piss people off, you are hurting yourself in the long run.
about 3 years ago
Pat,
Yes, but you’re talking about the legality and economics of it. I’m talking about immorality.
Using someone’s image in satire or having them say things that they would obviously never have said [e.g an exaggerated Reagan impersonation promoting communism -- that would just be absurd, or humorous] would be better than self-righteously having them shill for things you [i.e. the producer] assume they would support if they were alive.
It’s not just a kind of fraud, it’s immoral in the sense of human integrity as a person “created in the image and likeness of God.” It’s a kind of desecration.
Okay, sure, I’ll laugh when that dirge “Imagine” is used to sell toilet paper …
Anyway, Yoko Ono is a gross, parasitic, twisted, greedy little troll.