“I’m not interested in having my books on an electronic device.
I want them in books. I want my words in books.”
— Andy Rooney —
A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney is more time than 60 Minutes viewers should have to put up with and longer than I can stomach anymore. For 33 years Andy has done nothing but use those few minutes to rail against all things new. The installment is always the same; only the object of the criticism changes. It’s always done with the same smug negativism—elbows on the desk in the same rumpled suit, unpressed shirt, and tousled hair that is contrived and supposed to be endearing. The shtick that may have been clever three decades ago is old, tiresome, and just not funny any longer. Everybody gets it, Andy. “If it's new, it's not for you.”
So why not just leave the 92-year-old alone in his persistent quest for the Fountain of Yesterday? It’s because his last segment was so flagrantly duplicitous. From the beginning quote, his target was eBooks and eBook readers. But in the process of denouncing and swearing off these repulsive things, the greed factor slipped in: “One of the first books I wrote a long time ago was called The Fortunes of War. It was pretty expensive then, $7.50. Now you can get it free as an E-book. Not much in that for me.”
What he didn’t tell you is that The Fortunes of War was written in 1962. I’m no lawyer, but it seems that a book might take on Public Domain status after 49 years. Treasure Island is a free eBook too. What he also failed to say is that he is, in fact, profiting from several books he’s written that are in eBook format. Barnes and Nobel—the same company that is comping his half-century-old book—sells at least two for no less than $14.30 while Amazon has at least six for sale at no less than $9.99. It strikes me if you're going to whine about something, you damn well better have no ownership.
"Hypocrisy is the lubricant of society."
— David Hull —
