Apple Board Member Al Gore Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Quoting Tim Archer <cordobatimmac.com>:
> I agree. The team that put together "An Inconvenient Truth" was very
> public about how crucial Keynote was to that presentation, saying
> that it would have been very difficult to put it together with
> PowerPoint. The Mac to some degree played a part in helping him win
> the Nobel prize, making that achievement newsworthy in the Macintosh
> community.

That was one thing that annoyed me about the press coverage of the
movie. They kept saying "It's Al Gore with a PowerPoint
presentation." grrr, that really irked me.

BTW, the person that mentioned the Time magazine photo of him with
dual 30" monitors is off by one. The photo actually shows him with 3.
I immediately e-mailed it to our service center requesting my 3rd
monitor. Oh and to prove that someone in the world really does have a
messier desk than me.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1622338_1363003,00.html

 At 6:54 AM -0700 10/22/07, Adam C. Engst wrote:
> We found it interesting, therefore it went in TidBITS. That's the criteria.

To add to the conversation:
Yes, Al Gore is a very public user of Macintosh, therefore reasonable
to identify him in TidBITS
Yes, Al Gore is a very public member of Apple's board, therefore
reasonable to identify him in TidBITS.
Yes, Al Gore has been given the Nobel prize, therefore reasonable to
identify him in TidBITS as a newsworthy item.
BUT
There are those (and I am one) who consider his "An Inconvenient
Truth" to contain too much conjecture and innuendo to qualify as a
"documentary".
There are those (and I am one) who consider his Nobel prize as a
terrible reproach to the Nobel committee for its political grand-
standing.
There are those (and I am not sure whether I am one or not; I hope
not) who consider TidBITS' mentioning of him an endorsement of his
political views.
SO:
I wish TidBITS had included a disclaimer separating Al Gore the Apple
board member and wonderful Mac user from Al Gore the politician and
(my opinion: dishonest) polemist.
Don Power


[It's always interesting to see how people react when a controversial figure is mentioned. To repeat myself, we consider it interesting when someone who serves on Apple's Board of Directors and who is a very high-profile Mac user is awarded an international prize of the stature of the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm not going to apologize for what we wrote, nor do I wish we had written something else. Our coverage was entirely factual and accurate, and it clearly explained why we were covering the event. If anyone wishes to read more than that into the coverage, we can't stop them. -Adam]

If you want to see Al Gore in an even more exalted light check this out...

http://www.atroshenko.com/NSAlBuddha.html

Paul

---

Find it at www.seek.com.au Your Future Starts Here. Dream it? Then be it!

On 10/23/2007 09:34 AM, "Power Donald" <depowerroadrunner.com> wrote:

I wish TidBITS had included a disclaimer separating Al Gore the Apple
board member and wonderful Mac user from Al Gore the politician and
(my opinion: dishonest) polemist.

Would you have been as upset if the article had read “Dirty, lying, good-for-nothing propagandist Al Gore, who happens to use a Mac (and shouldn’t) gets meaningless award from bunch of liberal know-nothings”?

Because it seems that 99% of the objections have nothing to do with the facts that Adam reported, but rather that they were reported in a reasonably neutral tone, and therefore represented almost no one’s personal opinions on Gore. Face it, politicians and other polarizing people use computers and win awards.

If Al was a Windows fanboy, didn’t Macs and won a Nobel Prize, I doubt Adam and the others would have mentioned it at all in TidBITs, as it would not have been appropriate. But he’s a Mac user, he’s on the Apple BOD, and he won a Nobel Prize. Those three conditions, ANDed together, make that news entirely appropriate for TidBITs. Furthermore, the article even said that the TidBITs staff was hoping for other, better, Mac news, but since this was on the Apple front page, and for the other three conditions, it was a TidBITs-worthy event.

Heck, they even said that normally, Nobel announcements are not TidBITS material, but in this case, it was.

The article held no personal political opinions, good OR ill on Gore and his movie, but held to the facts, an example that other news organizations on both sides of the fence would do well to follow.

--
John C. Welch

I find American politics highly annoying. Al Gore's Nobel Price was
clearly newsworthy, and the Mac connections are obvious enough to
warrant a TidBITS news item. Can't we just leave it at that? Why is it
that every time an American politician (and outside of the US, Al Gore
isn't really seen as a poltical figure anymore) is so much as
mentioned, everybody who favours the other party (which, honestly,
isn't even that different from the the first party) has to jump in and
complain, even asking for disclaimers that the news item was not meant
as an andorsement? Geez.

In this particular case, it's especially annoying due to the subject
matter. Don't turn this into a partisan thing. Our alps are crumbling
because the permafrost is thawing, while people bicker because the
person who told them about it is a member of the wrong party? Would it
really be *that* bad to do something about the environment, even if
the connection between global warming and human behaviour isn't an
absolute certainty, but merely very probable?

I found the news item interesting. I find the discussion highly annoying.
Lukas

Don says...

> I wish TidBITS had included a disclaimer separating Al Gore the Apple
> board member and wonderful Mac user from Al Gore the politician and
> (my opinion: dishonest) polemist.

That's an interesting stance, and honestly, I think including a
"disclaimer" (beyond what we already said) WOULD have politicized his
mention in the article.

 From my perspective, there was nothing political about that news
item, precisely because it didn't mention the politics of the film --
not even a little. My intent was to talk about a prestigious award of
worldwide interest being presented to a filmmaker who's both a member
of Apple's board of directors and an active, visible user of Apple
products.

I haven't seen Mr. Gore's film. I can't speculate as to how accurate
it is or isn't in its portrayal of the issues it addresses, and I
can't help it if the mere mention of his name makes some readers see
politics where there is none. I can, however, applaud him for showing
so effectively what you can accomplish when you sit down in front of
a Macintosh.

  Mark H. Anbinder | mhatidbits.com
  Contributing Editor, TidBITS | http://www.tidbits.com/

Although I'm definitely not a fan of the former VP, I think the
coverage in TidBITS was straightforward, and not necessarily slanted.
I'm glad, because I like TidBITS. Don Mayer at SmallDog has a
"soapbox" section in their newsletter, and I have gotten a bit tired
of the rhetoric there. It's kind of turned me off on their company.
Not that I won't buy there, but I don't necessarily think of them as
often when I'm looking for a product. There may be others that think
just the opposite, making them think of them first because their
political leanings match, but unless your product, blog, newsletter
or whatever is normally politically related, or if there is a special
reason (i.e. news that affects your product/blog/newsletter), I would
prefer that politics be kept out of the equation.

Jay

Power Donald depower-at-roadrunner.com |TidBITS/1.0-Allow| wrote:
> At 6:54 AM -0700 10/22/07, Adam C. Engst wrote:
>> We found it interesting, therefore it went in TidBITS. That's the
>> criteria.
>
> To add to the conversation:
> Yes, Al Gore is a very public user of Macintosh, therefore reasonable
> to identify him in TidBITS
> Yes, Al Gore is a very public member of Apple's board, therefore
> reasonable to identify him in TidBITS.
> Yes, Al Gore has been given the Nobel prize, therefore reasonable to
> identify him in TidBITS as a newsworthy item.
> BUT
> There are those (and I am one) who consider his "An Inconvenient
> Truth" to contain too much conjecture and innuendo to qualify as a
> "documentary".
> There are those (and I am one) who consider his Nobel prize as a
> terrible reproach to the Nobel committee for its political grand-
> standing.
> There are those (and I am not sure whether I am one or not; I hope
> not) who consider TidBITS' mentioning of him an endorsement of his
> political views.
> SO:
> I wish TidBITS had included a disclaimer separating Al Gore the Apple
> board member and wonderful Mac user from Al Gore the politician and
> (my opinion: dishonest) polemist.
> Don Power
>
>
> [It's always interesting to see how people react when a controversial
> figure is mentioned. To repeat myself, we consider it interesting when
> someone who serves on Apple's Board of Directors and who is a very
> high-profile Mac user is awarded an international prize of the stature
> of the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm not going to apologize for what we wrote,
> nor do I wish we had written something else. Our coverage was entirely
> factual and accurate, and it clearly explained why we were covering the
> event. If anyone wishes to read more than that into the coverage, we
> can't stop them. -Adam]

If there is anything political here it would have to be this response
(not Adam's).

Ed Holloman

At 6:54 AM -0700 10/22/07, Dan O'Donnell wrote:
> Al Gore is probably the highest profile Macintosh user in
>the world.

There's also Rush Limbaugh, and he doesn't get paid.

;-)

Cheers,
RAH

--
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rahibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

At 7:00 AM -0700 10/22/2007, Jeff Carlson wrote:
>If Bill Campbell (Intuit chairman and Apple board member) had won the
>Nobel Prize for Economics, we'd report it the same way. The Gore
>article was legitimate news, and if you think we included it for any
>political reason then that's an opinion you're bringing to your
>reading, not something we're including as editorial.

Jeff:

TidBITS should give Campbell a prize when he decides Quicken Mac
should be as good and as compatible with every financial institution
that supports Quicken Windows.

--
Jim Carr
jimcarrmac.com

On Oct 23, 2007, at 10:34 AM, Power Donald wrote:

> There are those (and I am not sure whether I am one or not; I hope
> not) who consider TidBITS' mentioning of him an endorsement of his
> political views.

If mere reporting or mentioning of Gore's Nobel without explicit
dissociation constitutes an endorsement of his political views, I am
sure the news editors at the Wall Street Journal and the Washington
Times would be mortified.

I share Lukas' bewilderment at this discussion, and at some level
saddened by it. It is a sad commentary on the state of civil
discourse in this country if we have grown so polarized and so
hostile that we cannot tolerate even the mere mention of a person of
the "other side" without construing it as some sort of dig at on our
own views. Can we please stop being so darn sensitive, and stop
looking for political motives (that often do not exist) in everything
that we see and read? (This in a computer publication of all places).

> I wish TidBITS had included a disclaimer...

Since the TidBITS editors can't possibly know who is going to be
offended by the mere mention of what name, perhaps something like
this for the most recent issue?

"In order to be absolutely sure the overly sensitive and emotionally
fragile are not unduly traumatized, we would like to make absolutely
clear that the mere mention in this publication of Peter Oppenheimer,
Didier Lombard, "industry sources", Steve Jobs, Père Noël, Wil
Shipley, "one of the developers of Metasploit", Rich Mogull,
"numerous other Mac pundits", Brian Croll, Kirk McElhearn in this
issue does not constitute an endorsement of their political,
religious, social, economic, policy positions, or any other aspect of
their public persona that you find distasteful. The mention of
Apple, Orange, Delicious Monster, Nokia, Symbian, Amazon, Startly
Technologies, Adobe does not constitute an endorsement of their
business practices, social responsibility, environmental practices,
lobbying activities, or policy positions. The mention of the
International Herald Tribune and Daring Fireball does not constitute
an endorsement of their editorial positions or the veracity of their
reporting. The mention of the Wolfson font family does not
constitute an endorsement of the aesthetic value of the font family
or its suitability for use in publications.


[We'll get that right in. Thanks for the wording help! ;-) -Adam]


Reasonable people can reasonably disagree about the merits of Gore's
views and his Nobel Prize. But can we at least agree that demanding
disclaimers is, well, silly?

Tn

>At 7:00 AM -0700 10/22/2007, Jeff Carlson wrote:
>>If Bill Campbell (Intuit chairman and Apple board member) had won the
>>Nobel Prize for Economics, we'd report it the same way. The Gore
>>article was legitimate news, and if you think we included it for any
>>political reason then that's an opinion you're bringing to your
>>reading, not something we're including as editorial.
>
>TidBITS should give Campbell a prize when he decides Quicken Mac
>should be as good and as compatible with every financial institution
>that supports Quicken Windows.

Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. I guess the chairman doesn't have
much say in his own company.

Jeff

>"The mention of the Wolfson font family does not
>constitute an endorsement of the aesthetic value of the font family
>or its suitability for use in publications."

Okay, this just made my day. Now we're adding (Font) Family values to
the discussion! :-)

R.A. Hettinga wrote:
> At 6:54 AM -0700 10/22/07, Dan O'Donnell wrote:
>
>> Al Gore is probably the highest profile Macintosh user in
>> the world.
>>
>
> There's also Rush Limbaugh, and he doesn't get paid.
>R.A. Hettinga wrote:
> At 6:54 AM -0700 10/22/07, Dan O'Donnell wrote:
>
>> Al Gore is probably the highest profile Macintosh user in
>> the world.
>>
>
> There's also Rush Limbaugh, and he doesn't get paid.

Don't forget G.W. Bush. He's also a Mac user.

--
Jeff Fay

On 11/01/2007 08:50 AM, "Jeff Fay" <fnjafuaf.edu> wrote:

>>> Al Gore is probably the highest profile Macintosh user in
>>> the world.
>>>
>>
>> There's also Rush Limbaugh, and he doesn't get paid.
>
> Don't forget G.W. Bush. He's also a Mac user.

There's a lot of famous people who are mac users. That's not the same as
being a famous mac user, on the Apple Board, AND winning a Nobel Prize.

--
John C. Welch

>
> Don't forget G.W. Bush. He's also a Mac user.

and I'm sure when he wins the Nobel Peace Prize, TidBITS will write it up.

kazar

kazar says...

>> Don't forget G.W. Bush. He's also a Mac user.
>
> and I'm sure when he wins the Nobel Peace Prize, TidBITS will write it up.

Sure, if his Mac was instrumental in his getting there. :-)


  Mark H. Anbinder

Lukas Mathis wrote:
> I find American politics highly annoying.

So do many of us. Especially the way the "other" side keeps getting it wrong.
(VBG here folks.)

> Al Gore's Nobel Price was
> clearly newsworthy, and the Mac connections are obvious enough to
> warrant a TidBITS news item. Can't we just leave it at that? Why is it
> that every time an American politician (and outside of the US, Al Gore
> isn't really seen as a poltical figure anymore) is so much as
> mentioned, everybody who favours the other party (which, honestly,
> isn't even that different from the the first party) has to jump in and
> complain, even asking for disclaimers that the news item was not meant
> as an endorsement? Geez.
>
> In this particular case, it's especially annoying due to the subject
> matter. Don't turn this into a partisan thing.

I think you're in Liechtenstein based on your email address. I'm also guessing that you have no idea how polarizing a person Al Gore is on this side of the pond.

> Our alps are crumbling
> because the permafrost is thawing, while people bicker because the
> person who told them about it is a member of the wrong party? Would it
> really be *that* bad to do something about the environment, even if
> the connection between global warming and human behaviour isn't an
> absolute certainty, but merely very probable?
>
> I found the news item interesting. I find the discussion highly annoying.
> Lukas

But this is an Apple oriented newsletter. Al Gore is big in the Apple universe. So he will get written about. And folks who really disagree with a lot of his total message (like me) will rise up and yell whenever his name is mentioned. (Not me.)

David

Jeff Fay wrote:
> R.A. Hettinga wrote:
>> At 6:54 AM -0700 10/22/07, Dan O'Donnell wrote:
>>
>>> Al Gore is probably the highest profile Macintosh user in
>>> the world.
>>>
>>
>> There's also Rush Limbaugh, and he doesn't get paid.
>> R.A. Hettinga wrote:
>> At 6:54 AM -0700 10/22/07, Dan O'Donnell wrote:
>>
>>> Al Gore is probably the highest profile Macintosh user in
>>> the world.
>>>
>>
>> There's also Rush Limbaugh, and he doesn't get paid.
>
> Don't forget G.W. Bush. He's also a Mac user.
>
Actually I have to wonder. I know he was back before he became #43. But it was my understanding that as a mater of policy the president doesn't use computers. At least not the way most of us do. At least not one that could be traced back to him personally. Email would be a total no no. Can you imagine if someone tracked back to him his Google search history. :)

David Ross

On 23-Oct-07, at 5:47 AM, kevinvanhaaren.net wrote:

> Quoting Tim Archer <cordobatimmac.com>:
>> I agree. The team that put together "An Inconvenient Truth" was very
>> public about how crucial Keynote was to that presentation, saying
>> that it would have been very difficult to put it together with
>> PowerPoint. The Mac to some degree played a part in helping him win
>> the Nobel prize, making that achievement newsworthy in the Macintosh
>> community.
>
> That was one thing that annoyed me about the press coverage of the
> movie. They kept saying "It's Al Gore with a PowerPoint
> presentation." grrr, that really irked me.
>
> ... Time magazine photo of him with dual 30" monitors is off by one.
> The photo actually shows him with 3....

Valuable experience: The press NEVER get everything right, except
their prejudices.


[To be fair, no one gets EVERYTHING right all the time. :-) -Adam]


George