It’s rare that something catches my attention and holds it for longer than three seconds, but I was no less than stunned at the backlash yesterday when Steve Jobs rolled out Apple’s latest creation, the iPad.

Holy crap, Batman.

The #1 trending topic on Twitter yesterday was NOT the iPad, but #iTampon.  Several women reacted with comments like “This shows that no women were involved in naming the device.”

My thinking?  Lighten up.

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article this morning entitled  “Apple iPad tablet called iTampon on Twitter; women tweet, “and the author, Zennie Abraham, commented, somewhat indignantly:

And the vast majority of tweets referencing the iTampon are issued or retweeted by women. And adding Apple’s self-inflicted insult to that injury is the Apple iPad video itself, presented by three white male Apple senior level employees and including no women, and one very provocative segment where a man is using the iPad, where it’s placed between his legs and at his crouch, and the woman points to a feature on the iPad right near his crouch.”

Oh, where to start.

1. In the last sentence, the word is “crotch,” not “crouch.”  If we are going to go all ballistic (gasp!  Did I mean “balls?”) on the male species, at least spell that part of our anatomy correctly.
2. The vast majority of responses were tweeted or retweeted by women.  Really?  Perhaps I am not up on Twitter, but where is the box where you check your gender?  And what aggregator enables someone to tally this magic number?
3. It was presented by three white males. Guess what?  Perhaps — just perhaps — these were individuals who were closely involved in the creation of the damn thing.
4. And a woman pointing to a man’s “crouch?” Oh, the horrors.  Pretty soon, they’ll go back and move Lucy and Rick’s beds together in the old “I Love Lucy” shows.  And if you think THIS is provocative, walk through the grocery store with your children today and see how many times the word “orgasm” is listed in soft-core porn magazine like Cosmopolitan.

So here’s the Alpha Male perspective (and yes, I am ready for the inevitable flaming):

1. I don’t remember there being an uproar when IBM rolled out the “trackball.”  There were not men with the online equivalent of torches and pitchforks protesting the completely offensive, intentional and unjust allusion to the male anatomy.  And women actually TOUCH THESE?
2. Where is the outrage on mattress pads?  Men and women lie on these things together — and gasp — sometimes take their clothes off!
3. Women wore shoulder pads in the 80’s.  Oh, the outrage!  Are all of these women now headed back to the closet, burning their shoulder pads?

Conclusion:

Ladies, I don’t want to hear any more about menstruation than  you want to hear about us getting kicked in the balls, jock itch, or any other affliction which is unique to the male species. And in the midst of the greatest economic collapse — maybe now a double dip recession, wars on two fronts and Obama bin Laden’s ugly mug showing up on a TV screen near you more than Conan O’Brien, THIS is something to get worked up about?

So maybe — just maybe — everyone can put down their torches and pitchforks and think for a moment this very important thought:

Before the whole “Internet” thing, we had this handy-dandy little device called a PAD — OF PAPER.  And we wrote on it.  And we read it.

Lighten up people.

Mark

P.S. – I have linked to the image from the SF Chronicle article.  Click on it.  At the end of the image name, you’ll see “apple-ipad-phalic.jpg.”  Hello pot? Kettle here.

As I mentioned in my last post, my six year-old daughter saw television coverage of the devastation in Haiti, and of her own volition, decided to do something to raise money.  With a small assist from mom and dad, we came up with the idea of putting together packages of chocolate and asking people if they would like to make a donation in exchange for a bag of assorted chocolates.

Well, we are not even done yet, but after we canvassed the neighborhood, my compassionate and determined little machine raked in $173.00 in donations — last night alone.  We’re expecting another $50 or so in people we missed.

Two hundred and some dollars might not seem like a lot considering what others are doing, but to me, my daughter has raised a million dollars, raised my awareness of what has happened and filled my heart with joy.

Mark

P.S.- If you feel like a heartless crumb bum after reading this and know how to find me, well, find me.  How can you possibly say “no” to that little face in the picture?

As I have often said in this space, with every passing day, I discover that I learn more from my children than they learn from me. Both are inquisitive and kind human beings.

On Sunday, my daughter was watching the morning news (or rather, it was on and she saw it), and she saw coverage of the utter devastation that is Haiti.  I completely admit to censoring things like this on TV and it seems that I have made a mistake.

She saw that devastation and her reaction surprised me.  She wasn’t afraid or indifferent;  she was empathetic. She commented that she felt said sad that there were Haitian children who did not have mommies and daddies anymore.  And that’s when her drive kicked in.

Her six year-old mind said “I have to do something.”  First, she decided (and I think she got this from her Kitt Kittridge  movie) that she wanted to raise money for the children in Haiti with a fruit stand.  We were at our cabin in West Virginia where we see more deer than humans, so we revised the plan and decided to put together bags of chocolate that she would sell back in DC – and donate the money to a charity that she will choose.

I am very happy to say that we are off to a good start.  My neighbors in West Virginia gave her an amazingly generous $25 for a makeshift s’mores kit (some chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers).  I then put a message on our community listserv back in the DC are and there were five orders waiting for us with another five from Facebook.  My wife and daughter spent the evening putting together packages of chocolate that we can give out for donations.

But I don’t want this post to quantitiative -  money collected (although that is critical) or bags prepared.  I suppose that the point that I am trying to make is that, once again, one of my children amazed me.  Once again, I learned something.

And as I tuned out the news over the long weekend, my daughter, with her keen six year-old mind tuned in.

And saw.

And did.

And made her Daddy proud.

Mark

P.S.- Shameless plug – if you are in the area and know how to get in touch with me, we’ll be happy to put together a bag for you too.

Norah Jones and Johnny Cash are probably my two favorite artists, but for different reasons.  So imagine how surprised and happy I was to unearth a video of Norah singing a Cash song at a tribute to the Man in Black.

And if you look carefully at the 2:30 mark, you’ll see none other than Joaquin Phoenix (who played Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line”).

Enjoy.

For those of you who follow sports and even for those of you who don’t, you may have seen the story that Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas has been ” suspended indefinitely” for bringing four handguns to his locker at the Washington, D.C. Verizon Center — as well as allegedly leaving a threatening note for a teammate telling him to “pick one.”

Oh – and to further taint what the NBA would like to be a squeaky-clean image, the dispute with teammate Javaris Crittendon (who allegedly also brandished a LOADED handgun) was over gambling debts.  Nice.  And there’s the oh-too-cute picture of Arenas making a bang-bang gesture is the Wizards team huddle.  Nice.

Until recently, Arenas was literally a poster-boy for the NBA.  He had a blog on NBA.com (gone) as well as his own Twitter account (gonzo as well), which apparently helped him get into hot water.

ABC News, in an article entitled “Did the Twitter ramblings of Washington Wizards’ star point guard Gilbert Arenas cause him to be suspended indefinitely by the NBA?” stated:

It’s certainly starting to look that way and now the hoop star may regret using the social networking tool to speak his mind about the recent off-court incident that has him in hot water.

Clueless

I live and work in Washington, DC, and while quirky and immature, it seems that the NBA and the Washington Wizards have tolerated Arenas’ social media forays — and profited from them as well.  If you tweet and gain hundreds of thousands of followers, you gain more popularity and you — and the NBA — benefit from it. Financially, dude.  More shirts, more hats, more $$$.

Until you say something they don’t like after you do something stupid.  After the story broke, Arenas tweeted:

“i wake up this morning and seen i was the new JOHN WAYNE..lmao media is too funny,”

Peter Vescey of the New York Post broke the gun story.  Arenas then tweeted:

“As for the reporter who broke the story – NY post should eject Peter V FROM WRITNG EVERY AGAIN,”

Hmm.  Seems like Ol’ Gil doesn’t get it.

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project said that Twitter and other Web sites are a blessing and a curse for professional athletes:

“They have a new way to engage the public, their fans, and new ways to show a playful side of themselves…a way for them to bond even more deeply with their fans. But things that might seem private or more intimate, playful or spontaneous, appealing in one context, all of a sudden when they’re tweeted out to a wide audience, could take on a different context.”

You’re off the mark, Lee.  Tweeting something to a wide audience is not “taking on a different context.”  That statement is like saying that you have been misquoted in your own autobiography.  Plus, it’s hard to be taken out of context in 140 characters.

Double Standard

If the NBA wants their marketable athletes to tweet, let them tweet.  But don’t express horror when they say something that you don’t like, or say something that makes them look dumber than a bag of rocks (hello, handlers).  Moreover, you can’t he “half pregnant” – either let the athletes use Twitter when and how they want or not at all.  ABC notes:

Under the new social media policy, athletes cannot tweet during game time, which includes the 45 minutes before a game starts, half-time and the period after a game that is traditionally used for press conferences and media interviews. Violators can be fined by the league and face additional sanctions by their team. The NFL has similar restrictions on the time periods when players may not use social media.

My point is this:  the NBA WANTS their athletes to find ways to market themselves.  It furthers their reach, their audience and their brand.  The NBA WANTS people like Gilbert Arenas to blog on their platform.  And I tweet all the time at work, in restaurants, wherever.  And it rarely distracts me from what I get paid to do.

Here are some screen shots below that show how the NBA is either a little sloppy or a little clueless:

Gilbert is listed under “NBA Player Blogs.”  Ok.  Cool.  Let me click some more:

“Agent Zero Blog File.”  Wow.  You mean the NBA could have suspended him indefinitely and left his blog up?  Wait — it’s moved:

Doh!

I think that Gilbert Arenas is yet another example of a man-child, pampered athlete whose exploits may have never seen the light of day, save for some investigative reporting by the New York Post. I think that the NBA was happy to have a man-child, pampered athlete use social media — as evidence by the fact that they HOSTED A BLOG FOR HIM.  So presumably, they were ok with him tweeting.

But Gilbert did something irrevocably stupid and then made it worse using his Twitter account.  That was shut down.  Gilbert was no longer a squeaky-clean poster boy, so the NBA shut down his blog (note to Webmaster – “page not found” is stupid and sloppy.  Just link to David Stern’s statement, dammit).

Man-child Tweeting?  Good.  Man-child blogging?  It’s all good, baby.

Idiot bringing four handguns to his workplace over gambling debt and then blaming others?  David Stern to Gilbert: you are SO outta here, baby.

My final point is that when Gilbert was finally facing his indefinite suspension and grand jury investigation, if you let him blog while he was the poster boy, why not let him blog when he is apologizing all over the place?  And why not let him do it on NBA.com?  That would demonstrate openness, transparency and prove that social media is not only ok, it can be a pretty good crisis communications tool.

But you can’t have it both ways, Mr. Stern.

Mark