Battling Obscurity

I was listening to the radio on the way into work this morning and I heard that, in San Francisco, Columbus Day is now celebrated as "Italian Heritage Day" with its own "Italian Heritage Day Parade."

So, Christopher Columbus has joined Pluto in the "I was once relevant club." Remember Pluto? When I was growing up it was a full-fledged planet, a far away cold place that would likely be the first stop for any invasionary force from another galaxy. Then, just a few years ago, they decided that Pluto was just sort of a gas cloud out there in the galaxy, a galactic flatulence of sorts.

Now, it's Columbus. Okay, don't try and pursuade me with facts. We all know that Christopher Columbus probably arrived to find a carving on a tree that said, "The Vikings Were Here," and just chose to ignore it. His crew was Spanish, not Italian. So, the edited version of discovering America is that an Italian dude with boats and crew supplied by Spain "discovered" America after the Vikings got here to look around a bit. Okay, granted, that's less compelling as a national holiday and parade than the version I learned when I was in elementary school. But still, it's Columbus. I even know someone named "Nina." Think of how hard this must be on her.

As poor Christopher Columbus falls in status, Steve Jobs rises to Gandhi like status this week. Now of course I wish they had a cure for cancer and Steve Jobs was still alive. I wished him no harm. But, CNN has him personally inventing Pixar, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, etc. Having worked in the Silicon Valley, my guess is some very talented design teams came up with those Apple devices and then pitched them to Jobs and the rest of the executive team as something that would be cool to build. As for Pixar, John Lasseter may just have a little to do with the success of that company. To me, it's ironic that the same week we have protesters demonstrating against the greed of corporate America, we also have impromptu memorials being set up for a departed CEO. What does that say about America? "Greed is bad unless we get cool gadgets?" I don't know.

So, whether it's poor flatulent Pluto, Christopher Columbus or those unnamed designers that came up with the iPod, I guess we are all battling obscurity in our own way.