Slightly Off the Mark

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

            A computer genius/loser at life recently spent several months slaving away, night and day, to hack into the iCloud service and swipe nude photos of numerous celebrities.

            This goes to show you, some guys will do anything to see women nude. You know it was a guy. And apparently a guy who wasn’t satisfied seeing most of these people nude—or close enough to nude—o n movies or cable TV.

            I’ve never cared for this “cloud” idea, in which you send all your important computer stuff somewhere else so it doesn’t get lost if your computer crashes. So, where’s somewhere else? What is the cloud, really?

More computers. Someone else’s computers.

 

I put aside the Slightly Off The Mark book and am going to concentrate on Beowulf: In Harms Way, which I'm up to 17,000 words on. Why? Because it's my vacation, doggone it. Slightly Off The Mark, being an adaption of columns already written, involves a great deal of organizing, formatting, editing, and revising, and only a little new writing. Rough drafts of fiction are more fun (to me). But I don't expect it'll take too long to finish the first draft, then it's back to the column book.

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

 

            So there’s this rich guy named Donald Sterling, who told his half-black girlfriend that he doesn’t like black people. And even though he said it behind the doors of his own home, somebody recorded it and now everybody knows, and they won’t let him be anywhere near his own business anymore.

 

            That’s pretty much it. Now the media has mostly moved on, while Sterling is losing that business in return for a whole lot of money, which makes him just as rich but still not a nice guy.

 

            Sterling, who owns a basefootketball team or something like that, has a long history of saying racist things. His newest rant caused the predictable argument between Republicans and Democrats, each side claiming Sterling belongs to the other. It was like when I used to get picked last in gym class.

 

            The truth turned out to be unclear. Sterling, despite a history of contributing to Democratic candidates, is a registered Republican. Maybe he’s a Republican in name only, making him a RINO elephant … but his contributions to Democrats are a pittance for someone of his wealth. It was the equivalent of Donald Trump throwing loose change at a RINO wino.

 

            Despite myself, I dug into his background, trying to look under his white hood and get a sense of the man. My conclusion: He’s not left or right. He’s just a bad guy, probably throwing his support at anyone who helps him make money.

 

            I’ve known some decent rich people who work hard, then give back. Donald Sterling’s not one of them.