Boycotts could be considered an All American protest.  The act of refusing to purchase the goods or services of a targeted product pre-dates the republic, with angry colonists refusing to buy tea following the British Parliament’s enactment of the 1773 Tea Act.  What made this boycott so extraordinary is that tea was not simply an item on the shelf of colonial cupboards; it was a staple, a part of the culture that English settlers brought with them to the New World.

Fast forward 237 years to the most recent boycott making news in the colonies – the boycott of the Glenn Beck Show.  As many as several hundred companies that buy advertising have decided to spend their ad dollars elsewhere, Apple said to be among the most recent high-profile corporations to assume such a position.

It’s not as if a multitude of organizations has risen to demand a boycott of Beck’s product.  Much of the noise is emanating from the organization Color of Change, a relatively new left-of-center non-profit whose name appears to seek linkage with President Obama’s political agenda.

The most recent boycott demand is from a fellow named the Rev. Jim Wallis, who leads a group called the Sojourners.  Rev. Wallis decreed that Christians should not watch Beck’s show any more because the Fox host stated that the progressive catch phrase “social justice” is nothing more than code for communism and Nazism. (more…)

“More than 200 companies have joined a boycott of (Glenn) Beck’s program,” reports the Washington Post. “A handful of advertisers, such as (IPhone owner) Apple, have abandoned Fox altogether.”

We can only assume this Apple “boycott” was prompted by what CBS’s Katie Couric (quoting the Fox commentator’s critics) describes as Beck’s “inflammatory, unfair, despicable, hateful rhetoric.”

This same hyper-sensitive-to-hate-speech Apple, by the way, has just launched an IPhone application featuring Che Guevara’s quotes.  Yes!  “Now you can carry around Che Guevara’s quotes on your IPhone!”

Alas, many of us, though not customers of this unquestionably hip product, suspect that most of Che Guevara’s hippest quotes are missing from this hippest of IPhone apps. Among those we fear were overlooked by the hyper-sensitive-to-hate-speech, Apple are: (more…)

The Politically Correct Boycott Corp is on the march again!  If the show doesn’t fit within your political agenda, then just boycott it and try to “shut up dissent.”  According to the Washington Post, around two hundred companies are now boycotting Glenn Beck.

When a journalist who gets great ratings is being attacked for doing what he does (as in the case of Glenn Beck) by those who scream about Freedom of Speech and high journalism, it’s like they have an “I’m with Stupid” tattoo punched into their foreheads.  Aren’t progressives the same people who think it is okay to decry every alleged “impropriety” by conservatives while hiding behind the guise of “free speech” for themselves? Is it somehow less appropriate for Glenn Beck to espouse his opinions?  Why?  Because he might be onto something, and his ratings are high?

Newsflash!  Beck is but a reflection of an entire mass of people who believe what he has the platform to say!  They aren’t going away. In fact, they are growing in spades!

Fox News executives know that if they let advertisers bully them into booting Beck, he will get another job, and advertisers will next be pressured to abandon O’Reilly or Hannity to try to censor them. Why would they make such a self-defeating, bad business decision? (more…)

Apple has announced its new iPad tablet computer, marking the dawn of a new kind of device that bridges the gap between phone and laptop. Last November I wrote about the possibilities of this device for the print world over at Big Hollywood. In short, the potential is there to revolutionize the way we read print, from newspapers, books, magazines and comics?

The cost of paper, shipping and distribution are a problem for publishers. So is making their products easily available to consumers. Stores only have limited space and money to carry books. The internet has been a great boon in that regard in terms of sales, but reading on a computer screen can be an unappealing prospect to most people. The iPad is designed to change all that: a hand-held, touch-screen device that is high resolution and extremely light (about a pound and 1/2). It’s not only lighter than a book, you can carry hundreds of books and magazines in it and read them anywhere you’d take a book.

The print business is salivating over this device, seeing it as a platform that will do for print that iTunes did for music. Except iTunes has sold a lot of songs, but it has also impacted the music business in ways few could have foreseen. Industry insiders think it destroyed the album as people started buying songs separately.  Moving their content to digital it could have similar effects on publishers and the press, but the fact is, times are changing and print has gotten very expensive. (more…)