WHEN WILL THE DC GOVT STOP DISSING APPLE USERS?

Mme. Magpie is pissed off. She is of the Apple persuasion, and the DC Government continually and ridiculously discriminates against those of us who are Apple users. It has got to stop.

She was trying to look up the DC Code a few days ago. The DC Code is comprised of the regulations that actually govern this city, regulations based upon the laws passed by the City Council. She found the code and noticed that that it was quite out of date - how about no later than January of - tada - 2006. She was not surprised about this; she would have been more surprised if they were up to date. (Being up-to-date is not part of the DC Government's DNA.) The only enabling cookies are for three different versions of Internet Explorer and four different versions of Netscape Navigator. Nothing native for Mac users, and no open platforms, either. There are a lot of great charts - at least she ASSUMES they are great charts - that the city's technocrats put out. Many of them are totally unavailable to Mac users.

This is not an accident, folks. The Office of DC's Chief Technology Officer is fully involved in keeping DC Apfel-frei. It ha a 15 page listing of its "Technology Standards at a Glance" (stet - maybe that's a little mean, but 15 pages is hardly a glance!) It covers everything you could think of - software, hardware, operating systems, etc., etc, etc. Its sole major reference to Apple is under the heading Desktop Operating Systems. Is Madame Magpie incorrect in thinking that this reference is remarkably frosty to the Apple world? How about an arctic Zero Degrees Fahrenheit in approval level? The quote speaks for itself , "The District has standardized on Intel-based personal computers. Apple computers can only be purchased upon approval by OCTO." And perhaps Hell might need a new furnace before that approval is ever achieved.

It's not that Mme. Magpie is unaware of this rank prejudice. It isn't the first time Mme. Magpie's beloved Apple has been dissed by the District Government. Back when she was working for the District Government, she was refused permission to buy an Apple. So she brought in her own in order to avoid having to learn how to use a system she disapproves of in close to religious terms. (Her fingers don't do Windows – never have and never will.) That heresy caused her to be banned from her agency's internal LAN.

At first, Mme. Magpie was aggravated by being left out of the loop of information, but it was not long before she realized she had, in fact, been blessed! Was her agency's LAN not filled with some of the most boring bureaucratic prose known to Western civilization? It was. Did not Mme. Magpie have better things to do with her time than read poorly-written bureaucratic blather about topics of genuinely little interest? She certainly did. She set up own website at no cost, and spent the hours she would have had to devote to reading bureaucratic nonsense masquerading as trivia, and instead went about the much more fascinating business of helping people who had actually come to the District Government seeking help. A revolutionary sentiment, Mme. Magpie assures you. In fact, she managed to finagle an Apple in a grant she obtained - an Apple that she well remembers never once fell comatose due to a virus - and when she retired, she was ordered to take the Apple home with her, as the DC Government wanted to remove the Apple pollutant once and forever.

My, how the DC Government loves PCs! It knows winners when it sees them, doesn't it? I'd call OCTO a slow learner, but then no less than three OCTO employees, including OCTO's own chief were arrested this spring by the FBI. For bribery and embezzlement, no less. Apparently OCTO's Chief spent his time focusing on matters other than deciding that the Apple platform is not poisonous, a belief held today only by the DC Government. ( Mme. Magpie suspects that OCTOgenarians still wear garlic to ward off the Devil and bad humors!) The DC Government may not like or want its employees to use Apples, but it is quite another thing to extend its prejudices to the general public, ALL of whom it is supposed to be serving. Mme. Magpie wonders if DC Government employees are allowed to answer telephone calls made on iPhones . . .