PSYCHOSCAPES: Reflections on Bad Apples

Thinner than Ever! Reflections on the Merrimack 3/2/12*

I have been a avid user of Apple products since the 1980s, but it wasn't until I was thumbing through one of my favorite magazines, Adbusters, and saw the caption, Thinner an ever, over an image of a starving child being handed an iPad that I had a sudden awakening: An "aha moment" that turned my stomach into a knot.

I was blinded by my love affair with Apple until Adbusters came to the rescue, lifting the corporate veil from my eyes. Now that I am awake, I will never think of Apple – or any of their high tech brethrens – in the same way again.

Addendrum: 4/2/12: There is always a chance, as an article in today's New York Times suggests, that Apple will take up this challenge and "address its ethical and environmental responsibilities with such verve and rigor that it will emerge as [a role model on a higher plane and] "seize the opportunity, as Nike did when faced with a similar situation. After all, if Apple is to thrive in the post-Jobs era, it has to evolve. Noble though raising standards of sustainable design sounds, doing so requires a long, arduous logistical slog, though that happens to be just the type of challenge at which Apple’s new chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, excels."

We can only hope.

* I made this collage in photoshop by combining the Adbuster image with my own photograph of the Merrimack River in Concord.