The Wacky World of John Hodgman

Thanks to a new series of TV commercials for Apple computers, John Hodgman has become a household face, if not a name. He's the nerd who represents the clunky PC, as compared to the hip guy playing a Mac. It turns out that, once again, art is imitating life, and that Hodgman really is something of a professional nerd and all-around oddball. Here in this interview with Robert Siegel (9/5/06 - 8:15) we learn that Hodgman is also a master humorist.

Classroom thoughts

• Slate magazine's media critic Seth Stevenson takes a look at the new Mac ads (6/21/06 - 4:03). You can view the original ads at the Apple site. Most of us are not used to such focused ad criticism--what do you think of Stevenson's remarks.
  
  
• Apple is clearly trying to sell its computers because they hip, cool, or generally sexy in a special kind of male way. Exactly what is it that the Mac guy has that the PC guy doesn't? Who or what else is society is like the Mac guy, the PC guy?
  
  
• Hodgman's humor is best described as deadpan, described this way by Mark Twain: "The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it." (Read more at Wikipedia.com.) Discuss your experience with deadpan wits.
  

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

In this piece, NPR's legal correspondent, Nina Totenberg, presents a detailed analysis of the Supreme Court's June 2006 ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (9/5/06 - 9:19). Hamdan's main crime is having served as Osama bin Laden's driver in Afghanistan, although, as one commentator noted, after World War II we interviewed Hitler's driver but neither arrested nor otherwise prosecuted him.

In any case, in the Hamdan decision the high court (in a 5-3 decision) ruled against the system set up by President Bush to try accused war criminals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Experts are calling this the "most important ruling on executive power in decades, or perhaps ever." Read more at Wikipedia.com.

Classroom thoughts

• There are lots of legal peculiarities in this or any court ruling, but the key issue here is clear: What are the limits, if any, on the executive power of the President in the one area where everyone acknowledges the President has the greatest power, that is, in the area of protecting the national security? In other words, are there conditions regarding national security that empowers the President to act contrary to, or without regard for, existing U.S. laws?
  
  
• A related issue here is what to make of exceptions. In other words, even if one concedes that under extraordinary circumstances, the President should be able to act without regard to existing laws, the question becomes what a circumstance truly extraordinary? More specifically, is the "war on terror," which has been going on for at least five years and has no clear end in sight, such a circumstance? Is the age in which we are now living really all that exceptional?
  
  
• The NPR piece focuses on the efforts of attorney Neal Katyal as the David in this David-and-Goliath story. Why do "Davids" make such appealing heroes, and do you think Katyal is one?