“I heard this jury say, ‘guilty’ 288 times–24 questions, 12 jurors. That’s the multiplication. I haven’t heard you apologize once,” Berman said before sentencing Dahrun Ravi to 30 days in jail. The sentence also includes three years probation, 300 hours of community service and over $11,000 in fines, 10K of which will be donated to an anti-bias organization.

The defense, led by the bumbling Steven Altman, who said he knew he was “climbing a mountain” seeking a leniency, asked for a stay of the sweetheart sentence. Come on, guy! I know you were hoping for no time behind bars for your client, but with 15 felony convictions, that had to seem unlikely. For their part prosecutors, led by Julia McClure also asked for a stay on behalf of the state. The state, blind-sided by the short jail sentence, is seeking a prison term, the maximum of which could be ten years. The judge denied the stays. Barring action from an appellate court, Ravi will report to jail on May 31.

The sentence tossed a shocking lid on an emotional morning, filled with victim impact statements from Tyler Clementi’s father, mother and brother as well as a letter from “M.B.,” Clementi’s fellow victim of the notorious spy-camming. Both Ravi’s parents also spoke passionately on behalf of leniency for their son. But Ravi, who was expected to address the court,remained mum.

Had Ravi, who was only 18 and, like his roommate Tyler Clementi, in the first few weeks of his freshman year at Rutgers, when the notorious web cam spying incidents (described by his defense team repeatedly as juvenile pranks) occurred, publicly apologized such a sentence might sit better with the Clementi family as well as gay rights advocates, and the community at large.

Quick trigger Twitter fingers display a mixed bag of reactions. Some suggest Ravi got away with murder. Others call the sentencing “compassionate.”

My reaction is somewhere down the middle. It’s strange because before viewing the sentencing I was hoping for compassion, playing it out in my dramatist’s mind as coming from the Clementis. But that’s not how it unfolded. The Clementis, while not vengeful, certainly asked for accountability and justice. Without offering a term, I’m sure they didn’t have a meager 30 day jail stint in mind, when the spoke of “consequences.”

Listening to all the pre-sentencing arguments and letters, as well as the judge’s early harsh words, I believed a prison sentence was, in fact, warranted; hoped it would be on the short end, say 1-3 years. I don’t believe incarceration is the answer to every offense or offender, and I believe, despite the prosecution’s protestations to the contrary, had Tyler Clementi not committed suicide ( Ravi was not implicated or charged with his death) this case would never have come before the court. It would have been handled internally at Rutgers. Still, Ravi refused a plea deal that would have avoided any incarceration. He turned it down and put the Clementi family ( as well as his own) through an excruciating ordeal. In his self-serving newspaper and “20/20″ interviews, Ravi said he couldn’t take the deal because he couldn’t admit to any bias. Such an admission, he maintained, would be lying.

I’m not so sure Ravi understands the insidious ways cultural prejudices can seep in and take up residence in one’s heart and mind.

If Ravi truly learns any hard lessons those insights will most likely be uncovered as he completes the mandated anti-bias counseling program that his probation sentence includes. He is a young man, and surely does not need to be locked away–or deported ( both “M.B.” in his letter and later Judge Berman, indicated influence, on his behalf, with immigration.) And he doesn’t deserve to be the poster boy for anti-gay bullying.

I wish some measure of closure for the Clementis, though as Judge Berman said, that will be hard to ever achieve. I know they’ve started the Tyler Clementi Foundation and hope the work they do there will grant them some solace as it helps countless people fight bias, find refuge and lead healthy and joyous lives. And I hope Dahrun Ravi cultivates the empathy that eluded him as a teenager and grows into a generous and productive adult. Thanks to Judge Berman’s generosity, he’ll have an early jump-start on his second chance.

Please follow Amy Beth Arkawy on Twitter.

RT interview of News Junkie Post Editor In Chief Gilbert Mercier on the recent French Elections and what it means for the Eurozone and Austerity.
Mercier outlines how the dislike of Nicholas Sarkozy was the central reason for the ousting his ousting, but in a wider context, is a rejection of the austerity measures imposed by both Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  He goes on to explain how this election represents a shift of power away from Germany.

RT inquires how much room François Hollande, the new PM from the Socialist Party has to maneuver.  Mercier explains that there is some room, but a lot of the reforms hinge on the sustained enthusiasm.

RT asks if the Eurozone Fiscal Pact will be reviewed despite German opposition, bringing up a potential rift in relations. Mercier goes on to explain that Angela Merkel is going to have to put “some water into the wine” to deal with the anti-austerity measures being rejected everywhere in Europe.

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It is worth repeating what Ryan wants to do with the budget. He would start by cutting the budget by about 5 trillion dollars over ten years. At least he does not want to put his plan into operation immediately. He would take that money from Medicaid. He would cut and discontinue monthly food stamps for probably millions of single mother households. Mostly whatever else the poor and needy require to just get by will disappear. Unemployed workers would be dropped from the rolls until they spend down their cash savings below two thousand dollars, as if the unemployed have that much cash, if any, on hand. He would also cut Pell grants. So much for education. Ryan believes government welfare, in his words, “ dissolves the common good of society and it dishonors the dignity of the human person.”  By killing anti-poverty programs, because that is what he would do, Ryan believes he will restore human dignity and thus reform the social compact.

The trouble with the Ryan budget is that it is a perfect fit for the Republican ethos that says numbers come first, people last. For Republicans, people are statistics, ciphers, and pixels on a virtual ledger. They are merely numbers on a chart, an actuary’s dream. Once on the chart, they number among the walking dead. If a person cannot help him or herself, why should anyone else help? Especially if the person is among those in society who no longer contribute the way Republicans want them to.

The New York Times ran a story several weeks ago about how poor mothers on welfare are faring in the recession. The story especially cited Arizona, the poster child of state  conservatism, where life in the poor lane is more difficult every day. Arizona is one of 16 states that cut welfare rolls since the recession. Single mothers suffer the most. And because they cannot make ends meet, “they have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals for their children, shoplifted, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans … and even returned to relationships with violent partners – all with children in tow.” Due to a variety of circumstances, many of these women fight addiction and depression, sometimes separately, often in combination, and sometimes dangerous to those around them. Cutting them off from government help is not the answer to solving their problems.

Equally relevant, The Employee Benefit Research Institute has some fascinating news about America’s aging population. In a study that took place before and during the first year of the Great Recession “between 2005 and 2009, the rate of poverty among seniors rose as they aged.” It is highest for the oldest of the elderly, meaning that almost 15 percent of those older than 85 were living in poverty in 2009. The poverty rate for women is almost double that of men. One in 5 single women over 65 lives in poverty. The odds of a health crisis striking at any time go up 45-55 percent for those who live below the poverty line.

According to the Center for Rural Affairs, using the Great Plains for the basis of its study, rural areas have higher poverty levels than urban centers and the region as a whole. Studies reveal, “that there is often not enough food for a healthy life.” Add to this that people often have to choose between “ adequate food and other expenses such as medical expenses.” The study finds, “that childhood poverty is higher in rural areas in the region than the general poverty rate.”

We have a situation here that is not going away soon. According to a Census Bureau report issued in 2011, 46 million people were living in poverty, the highest number in the last 52 years. That translates into more that 15 percent of Americans living below the poverty line. As the Great Recession only slowly abates, that number has surely gone up.

Fix entitlements, you say Mr. Ryan. Cut welfare, you say. Reduce government help for the poor. Wear your actuarial green eyeshade and your horse blinders to keep out the truth. Maintain that chasm between your Republican blindness and what is real. With all this, I wonder, have you, Mr. Ryan and your colleagues ever heard the cry of a hungry baby? Did you ever see the face of an undernourished child or watched helplessly as an elderly person drifts away at the end of his or her life because he or she has no food or medicine? 

Editor’s Note: All photographs and graphics by EN2008.

Desiring, dionysiac, obsessive, the hyperconsumption society is kept in delirium of precarious sustainability by a desperate market economy, as its civilizational ex libris imperative: it is necessary to produce in excess, it is necessary to consume in excess, making the excess itself, by alienation of responsibility, the causal referent invested of the valorative power of engine that makes the capitalist system work: the excess is the reproducer of exclusions, of the inequalities that guarantee the active maintenance of the capitalist system’s capability to generate and reproduce the constitutive “surplus-values” vital to its survival.

The excess, murdering the middle class danger, guarantees the geometric growth of unemployment, poverty, hunger, exclusion, making available the slaves that feed the totemic capitalist machine. It is necessary that the poor become miserable for the rich to become opulent, the accumulation of wealth depends upon it. The system needs to accumulate, in order to relaunch itself.

Hyperconsumption is the autopoietic pathos of sustainability of the capitalist system’s (re)production mode, deliberately invested of the role of system’s engine. Unemployment, increasing suicides and hunger are consequences of a capitalist kairos, as collateral damage, thus it is considered by the dominant elites, with the justification that sacrifices must be made for the “greater good”: the survival of the “capitalist mode of production”, supported by the neoliberal dynamics, characterized by a Darwinian competition of egotistic somatization, responsible for the current systemic crisis.

The current systemic crisis is a crisis of the system and a crisis of existence in the system, and because we are the system, if the system collapses, so will we, we all, including the Laplacian elites, because we are all in the same raft, rich or poor.

Capitalism, with its large consuming belly managed by a small brain, has attained its Imperium phase. If the miserables resist, then, the Imperium offers a misery-imposed suicide as solution.

Stuckler, Basu, Suhrcke, Coutts and Mckee, in a study published in “The Lancet, Vol. 378, Issue 9786, pages 124 to 125, 9 July 2011”, confirmed how unemployment growth seems to be associated with increase in suicides among people younger than 65 years.

The authors’ study addresses, in particular, the 2008 recession. The study shows that, as the unemployment rose, the decreasing trend in suicide rates reversed in both new EU Member States and old EU Member States, with a larger percentual increase in the old States: less than 1% increase, in 2008, for the new members, while the increase for the old members was close to 7%. In 2009, the suicides “increased further”, in both old and new EU members, accompanying the increase in unemployment.

The study also concludes that road traffic fatalities fell considerably, in particular in the new EU members, which usually registered high road traffic fatalities. Suicides and road traffic fatalities registered as the two main drivers of short-term mortality.

Suicides, in Europe, rose mainly in countries facing the current Government debt crisis. Greece had a rise of about 17% in suicides, while Ireland had about a 13% rise. In Portugal, according to the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), in 2010, there took place 1101 deaths by suicide which surpassed by 86 the deaths registered in road traffic accidents during the same period.

In an interview to the Diário Económico (Friday, May 4, 2012, page 48), Fernando Santos, the current coach of Greece by the Hellenic Football Federation, stated that a general apathy state is lived today in Greece: “Greece was one of the countries with the greatest growth, and all of a sudden”,…, “people thought: where is the money?”,…, Fernando Santos recalls this as a phase of indignation, which gave way to hope, with a possible solution of the problem by the “Troika”, but nothing of the sort came, instead, the worst of the scenarios took place,…, to a conflict phase, a “general apathy” and resentment followed, especially towards Germany and Angela Merkel.

Unemployment is not the only rising trend, the food crisis accompanies the current economic crisis.

Looking at FAO’s SOCO 2009 report, in the first half of 2008, food prices reached the highest levels, in over 30 years.

This trend, still according to FAO’s report, began in the second half of 2006, with the rising of the world prices of most food commodities, and, during the first half of 2008, the international US dollar prices of cereals also attained the highest levels in over 30 years.

In 2009, FAO predicted that this trend would continue, such that the world was placed before a “global food insecurity crisis”.

FAO’s predictions survived the test of falsifiability: the monthly real food price index, per data from FAO, has shown an increasing exponential growth trend, which seems to begin in 2001.

Source: FAO data trend estimated using Excel

The exponential growth in trend of food prices is accompanied by an also growth in volatility, which only adds to the crisis. From month to month. the variations in the food prices have become increasingly larger, in particular, in the last few years.

Source: Variation calculated for FAO's monthly real food price index data, in the period of 1990 to 2012

Food price volatility affects, by impact, the excluded majority: the ones that most suffer with this crisis, since not only are the food prices exponentially increasing in trend, they are doing so with greater uncertainty: from one month to the next, people may suffer a sudden hike in food prices.

The food crisis makes even more precarious the excluded majority’s survival. The food crisis is a crisis of existence is a crisis of survival is a crisis of life is a crisis of dignity.

It is interesting to look, in this instance, at the capitalist system’s mechanisms of classification. FAO addresses the food crisis as “a food insecurity crisis”…, “food insecurity”?! This is a pious capitalist term for “very hungry” and for “starving”, an exercise of exclusion by euphemism, very aesthetic, indeed.

One may see high levels of structural unemployment, suicides and hunger in countries with governments, in cognitive simulacrum, imposing increasing austerity measures, stimulating further inequalities and more unemployment, suicides and hunger, shortening the time between crises and shortening the lifetime of its populations, the macabre solution for the cost of aging populations.

Perhaps it is worth remembering some inspiring fragments of Roger Romero’s “Land of the Dead” plot: Fiddler’s Green, the place where the rich and powerful live in luxury, while the rest of the population struggles in desperation of survival; Fiddler’s Green, the land of the rich, protected by an electric fence and rivers. The zombies, then, come to Fiddler’s Green for reductive eating, breaking down Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”)…, after Romero’s zombies, in the land of the dead, all are equal…

Maria Odete Madeira is a private sector researcher of science philosophy and systems science. She is particularly interested in ontology, cognition and neurocognition. You may find Maria Odete at her website, Twitter, Google+ and FaceBook.

However, the Paul campaign rejected the possibility of waging a battle at the national convention to unbind the Nevada delegates from having to vote for Romney. Carl Bunce, the Nevada chairman of Paul’s campaign, adopted a conciliatory tone on Sunday, and said that Ron Paul’s goal was to defeat President Obama in November, not to be a divisive factor within the GOP. “I do not want this party to fall apart. We are building a stronger party, we need to stay united. Just because you have the power doesn’t mean you always have to wield it. Just because you have the sword doesn’t mean you have to strike,” said Bunce. Regardless of Bunce’s statement, some Paul supporters are hoping that there might be a brokered convention where the nomination fight goes beyond the first ballot, opening the way for Paul to win.

Paul is very much behind Romney in the delegates count, with a bit less than 100 against 856 for Romney- according to a count by AP.  Romney is still 288 delegates short of the 1,144 that he needs to get the nomination. With Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich out of the race, Ron Paul is the last man standing in the way of  Mitt Romney’s nomination. Romney could get around 100 delegates in Tuesday’s primaries in North Carolina, West Virginia and Indiana. But even if Romney remains the “inevitable” GOP nominee in the eyes of most, Ron Paul has made some gains in recent days. Adding to his sweep in Nevada, Paul took 11 delegates away from Romney in Maine when the Texas congressman supporters won control of the Maine GOP convention on Sunday and elected Paul delegates to the Republican party national convention.

Ron Paul’s decision to stay in the race until the national convention will give him the opportunity to address important issues ignored by most US politicians and mainstream media. For example, Paul is a vehement opponent of CISPA ( Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act), which he views as another instrument to attack free speech protected by the First amendment of the US constitution. Last Friday, in San Diego, Ron Paul got a standing ovation after attacking the ongoing effort by the Federal government to censor the Internet. “Without the first amendment, it is very difficult for us to get our message out, and I want to make sure the first amendment is protected on the Internet as well. The first amendment wasn’t written so that you can talk about the weather, it was written so that you can talk about controversial things and even challenge our own government,” said Paul.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Gage Skidmore.

Latest Update 5/6/ 2012 at 11.00 AM PST: According to exit polls Hollande has defeated Sarkozy with 51.9 percent of the votes against 48.1 percent for the incumbent. Hollande is the first Socialist to be elected president in almost two decades since Mitterand. Celebrations are underway in France, notably at the Place de la Bastille in Paris.

On Sunday May 6, France will elect its next president. Beside the consequences for French people, this presidential election has geopolitical and economic ramifications for the policies, the cohesion, and even the survival of the European Union. President Sarkozy’s campaign slogan is “A strong France”, while his opponent socialist Francois Hollande is running on “The time for change is now”. If Hollande is elected, can he balance the rise of power of Germany and make sure the voices and interests of the people of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are heard?

Sarkozy has been trailing consistently behind Hollande in the polls, and lost the first round of the elections, on April 22 nd, to the socialist candidate. Many French voters have had a falling out with the hyper-active Sarkozy, who can be called arguably the first American style French president. Sarkozy’s constant media exposure has become an invasion of privacy for many French people who like their politicians a bit more subdued than Americans. Mr Hollande is fully aware of this collective psychological element when he says that, if elected, he will be a “normal” president.

Sarkozy: More Petain than De Gaulle

The very first words of  Sarkozy’s  electoral pamphlet sent to French voters living overseas are: ” In a word in crisis, while so many of our European neighbours are going through great difficulties putting in jeopardy their unity and social model, I heard your anxiety, your sufferings and your expectations.” Playing on voters fear and anxiety is, of course, the oldest political trick in the book, and it doesn’t only apply to France. But Sarkozy is using it to portray himself as both, a benevolent father and a therapist: the only man who can “protect” France and French people in this “time of crisis”.

Ever since the French revolution, the motto of France has been “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. However, this changed for the few years of the shameful pro-German government of Petain during World War II to become “Work, Family, Motherland”. In Sarkozy’s electoral pamphlet, the three words- work, family and motherland- are used several times as key elements and sometime in bold letters such as “making the choice of work” and Sarkozy’s pledge to “protect the family”.

But regardless of projecting a sense of strength, and his eagerness of keeping himself, if not France, in the international limelight, Sarkozy has arguably made France considerably weaker by being the docile vassal of both Washington and Berlin. If his mentor former president Chirac had the courage to vehemently oppose the war in Iraq during the Bush era, Sarkozy is a weak opportunist going where the wind blows. Not only he has failed to oppose the sort of economic Fourth Reich imposed by Germany on the rest of the European Union, but he has also betrayed the traditional Gaullist foreign policy of  maintaining France’s independence and own voice-even if it was in opposition of Washington. For decades, France brought this kind of balance  in foreign policies, especially in the Middle-East, by being the only Western European country voicing criticisms  of Israel’s policies and actively defending Palestinian rights. Despite his claim to the contrary, Sarkozy has made France weaker not stronger on the world stage, but, if elected, can Hollande reverse this situation and oppose, if needed, either president Obama or Chancellor Merkel?

Hollande: Can he rise to the occasion and make a stand for social justice?

Curiously, Hollande’s dullness and lack of charisma are part of his appeal for a lot of French voters. If Sarkozy is a brash political “rock star”, Hollande is a technocrat claiming to have a passion for social justice. Even if  one of his electoral promises is to pay off France’s national debt by 2017, Hollande doesn’t think the policies of austerity favored by Merkel are good. To resolve France’s debt crisis, Hollande plans to cancel tax cuts for the wealthy and tax exemptions put in place by Sarkozy. Income tax would be at 75 percent for incomes topping one million euros. Hollande would also bring back the retirement age to 60- with full benefits- for people who have worked 42 years. 60,000 job cuts, made by Sarkozy, in public education would be recreated. But what are perhaps the most progressive of Hollande’s electoral promises are two of his pledges. The first one is to legalize gay marriage and adoption by gay couples. The second one is to grant the right to vote, in local elections, to residents without EU passports providing that they have been legal residents for at least five years.

Will xenophobia win the French election?

Unfortunately, the decisive voting block is likely to be the one of the far right Front National party of Marine Le Pen. She came third during the first round with a strong performance of around 20 percent of the vote. Even so Marine Le Pen has avoided the blunt xenophobic statements of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the message is still the same. She wants immigration to be reduced by 95 percent as well as  “national preferences” for French citizens for access to jobs and social services. On the Front National platform is also a withdrawal  from the euro zone and the European Union as well as reinstating the death penalty. Needless to say, in the past few weeks, Sarkozy has been tailoring his discourse to the Front National’s electorate by pledging to reduce immigration by 50 percent.

Just how peaceful the protest was, of course, was controversial at the time. In the days following the shootings, some people–including President Nixon–sided with the Guardsmen’s actions. “When dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy,” he said, referring to students running around with bricks and (possibly) torching the R.O.T.C. building.

Yet scrutiny by the media, the F.B.I. and Nixon’s Scranton Commission on Campus Unrest –along with multiple civil lawsuits–made it apparent that the students’ actions did not warrant 61 shots ringing into a crowded and chaotic campus quad. “Kent State was a national tragedy, ” the Scranton Commission concluded. “We must learn from the particular horror of Kent State and ensure it is never repeated.”

The military and police have, in fact, learned important lessons on crowd control and riot prevention from the massacre. No doubt countless lives have been saved as a result of more deliberate planning and careful handling of potentially volatile situations.

Still the legacy of that dark day, captured in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s classic anthem “Ohio,” is a loss of innocence and a deeply embedded cynicism that pervades our national psyche and percolates particularly during tumultuous times. Something for protesters of all political persuasions to keep in mind.

Never forget.

Please follow Amy Beth Arkawy on Twitter.

For some time I have been thinking about apps and what they do for us and to us. Apps may be great, but they are also a huge problem. To back me up, comes a story called “Selling You on Facebook” in The Wall Street Journal, yes, the Wall Street Journal, the one newspaper that I am sure is an object of loathing to anyone who regularly peruses this site for a left wing and progressive take on the world.

Non-political, the article’s premise is simple, one that I have been writing about recently. It says, “Many popular Facebook apps are obtaining sensitive information about users — and users’ friends – so don’t be surprised if details about your religious, political and even sexual preferences start popping up in unexpected places.” What the authors write is not a plot against freedom or social networks. They speak the truth. More importantly, the premise of the article extends to other apps as well and that is where the trouble begins.

We have a new player in the world of previously hidden information. The app. Apps are about giving – information of every kind, directions, instructions, name your poison. With all that and more, apps are fast becoming the single most important means of data collecting that people who do not believe in privacy, nor allow themselves to think that privacy is important, engage in at almost light speed. These amiable creatures called apps are taking over our lives.

In the recent not too distant past, advertisers used human focus groups to judge and help define new products and services. There were no algorithms to get in the way of the human equation. Mostly, these real people did a pretty good job. Hollywood movies and TV shows still use focus groups often to the dismay of the producers who believe their instincts work better in the art of storytelling.

If we do not know we should, that cookies on the Web provide anyone who gains access to them information about every move one makes as he or she surfs the Internet, often innocently and sometimes for other reasons.  As I write, apps are taking over for cookies by further devouring our online lives. Apps in a very short time have replaced cookies as the most important sales tool merchants of every type depend on.

At the rate we are going, apps will take over for both cookies and focus groups, dominating every choice we make. Our lives with all the different cyber platforms – meaning every mobile device including smart phones and tablets and every social network imaginable — control who we are and what we do and how we do everything beneath each clever, smooth, come-on interface. This will surely continue into the future. Face it, our online lives, however we perceive them, because of apps are now more than ever open for prying eyes to use the information they collect to sell us what we might not want and control us in ways that we never anticipated.

Yes, I know, apps have become very important in our lives and in how we live. They help when you are lost. They guide you to a good restaurant. They locate the nearest hospital. They find the closest gas station. They keep track of where your neighbors are, if you are so inclined to know where they are at all times. They can improve one’s life. They really do everything and more for a person in a complicated world that is more difficult to navigate every day. But addiction rules. As all addicts know, kicking a habit is nearly impossible.

I am willing to bet someone is working on an app as I write to cover the most unusual aspects of our lives. There are apps for everything and just about everything has an app. Pacman, once thought dead, is flourishing. This means that soon there will be an app for even more than we have apps for now. It does not mean apps are benign. If we succumb to these new apps, what little privacy we have will be lost forever. Privacy used to be, well, private. I care about privacy but many other people seem to revel in public exposure.

There are now probably more than a million apps available for the choosing. The making of an app has become a major tech industry. And if an app catches on, riches follow. One common theme impossible to ignore when exploring the effect of social media on how people live is the belief that social networks are about sharing. Sometimes people on social networks give away too much. That is because much of what is on all social networks is sophomoric. It is dorm room cool, which means that it is silly and self–gratifying. It depends on how needy one is.

You may wonder if anyone cares what you post, and because you may think no one does care, what you place for all to see has little interest beyond the words or photos on your page. This is all the better for the collectors of your data who mostly believe what they receive is too little. The maw they must fill is infinite. The craving for more data increases by the millisecond. It is voracious. Ignoring the need for privacy is now beyond help. It is a dead concept.

Using an app relieves a person from making direct eye-to-eye contact with another person. Technology today replaces the social experience of dealing with your fellow man and woman as if they were live and not microdots on a small screen. Using apps for everything obviates the need for real people in one’s life. Sorry, but Angry Birds are not real.

However, as long as I have free will, I am safe from this new invasion of my prime space. My hermit-like desire may be my last refuge, my final bastion of freedom. I have no apps.

Editor’s Note: Ron Steinman is executive editor and a columnist for online magazines, The Digital Journalist and The Digital Filmmaker. An award-winning producer for NBC News and NBC’s Today Show, he served as bureau chief in Saigon during the Vietnam War, and later as bureau chief in Hong Kong and London. At ABC News Productions, he produced documentaries for A&E, TLC, The History Channel, and Discovery. He is currently an independent documentary producer, director and writer through his company, Douglas/Steinman Productions. He is the author of seven books, including “Inside Television’s First War: A Saigon Journal,” that details how NBC News covered the war in Vietnam.

The latest act of our most recent high profile American tragedy played out in real time courtroom theatrics on Friday. George Zimmerman, the reviled Trayvon Martin shooter, now charged with second-degree murder, was granted $150, 000 bond. But the real drama, igniting audible gasps in the packed courtroom, came when Zimmerman took the stand and briefly testified.

“I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son,” Zimmerman, 28, said in a soft voice as he took the stand with shackles at his feet and waist. “I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am. I did not know if he was armed or not.” His lawyer, Mark O’Mara, later explained in a presser that his client was directly answering the Martin family’s public questions regarding Trayvon’s age and whether he had been carrying a gun.

Trayvon’s parents sat silently through the comments; his father Tracy Martin visibly shaken and weeping. They scurried out of the crowded courtroom after Judge Lester set bail. Their attorney, Benjamin Crump, labeled Zimmerman’s apology “self-serving” and described the family’s reaction to bond as “devastated.” It’s unclear if they were expecting a higher bail ( the prosecution had asked for a minimum of $ 1 million) or for a denial of bond altogether. In either event, it seems the prosecutor’s office hadn’t prepared them for the inevitable, Bail is a part of our system; granted frequently even in first degree murder cases.

Buckle up, folks. We’re in for another high-profile controversial case, and the full tilt media circus that surrounds it. In the bond hearing, alone, we gained insights into Zimmerman, O’Mara’s courtroom prowess and the strengths and weaknesses in the prosecution’s case. Zimmerman’s past criminal record came under some scrutiny, including a violent altercation with police, described by O’Mara as his client “coming to defense of a friend.”

At the press conference, O’Mara, who is the anti-Jose Baez, exuding, in equal measure, both the savvy and humility of a truly seasoned defense attorney, made one possible slip-up. While discussing the incident with cops, he said Zimmerman acted because “in his head” they were doing something to his friend. If this comes before a jury, it may be evidence of Zimmerman’s propensity toward a paranoid mindset.

On the other hand, Zimmerman’s appearance and demeanor–both far more fragile than earlier photos–belie his media portrait as a quick-trigger racist vigilante. He may well be his own best witness.

Photographs just released showing bloody gashes on his head and what appears, at this point, anyway, to be a rather flimsy prosecution case may also serve to set him free.

Of course, we don’t know what will come; how all the evidence will play out in court (or exactly what that evidence is). “The special prosecutors don’t want to show their full hand,” Crump told reporters, indicating there is enough to warrant the second degree murder charge.

Let’s hope that’s true. Otherwise, if this prosecutor has over-charged what seems like a manslaughter case, the country, and most importantly the Martin family, may face another round of reckless Florida injustice deja vu. Such an outcome will surely bring them another brutal brush with devastation.

For now, at least the legal process, however imperfect it may prove to be, has finally started in earnest. That’s all the Martins had asked for. Now that they’ve gotten it, hopefully they’ll find some measure of justice in that.

Please follow Amy Beth Arkawy on Twitter.

Dick Clark, “America’s Oldest Teenager,”host of the pioneering ( and longest running variety show) “American Bandstand” died Wednesday at 82. The music industry maverick went on to become a powerhouse producer,shepherding a slew of shows and specials along with his trademark “Rockin’ Eve,” , which became a fixture of New Year’s celebrations.

Clark’s agent Paul Shefrin said in statement that the veteran host died this morning following a “massive heart attack.”

Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y on Nov. 30, 1929, Richard Wagstaff Clark began his lifelong career in show business before he was even out of high school. He started working in the mail room of WRUN, a radio station in upstate New York run by his father and uncle. It wasn’t long before the teenager was on the air, filling in for the weatherman and the announcer.

Clark pursued his passion at Syracuse University, working as a DJ on the student run station; eventually he took his talents on the road, landing a gig in Philadelphia. Within five years, he was spinning records and showcasing groups and dance crazes ( along with dance-crazy kids) on TV. In 1963 Clark–and “Bandstand” went Hollywood.

In a radio interview some years back, Clark, who was as perennially youthful and ebullient in person as he was on TV, summed up his success in one word, “enthusiasm.”

“If you like what you’re doing it shows,” he told me. And his passion for music and for the generations of fans who flocked to his shows was evident.

“Bandstand” ran for decades, never deviating from it’s simple and successful formula. Clean-cut kids danced to everything from Elvis to Disco; The Beatles to Kiss. Thousands of records were rated, dances and wild fashion fads were highlighted.

He also ran Dick Clark Productions, and began cranking out one hit show after another; his name became synonymous with everything from the ” $25,000 Pyramid” to “TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes” to the “American Music Awards.” In 1972, Dick Clark became synonymous with one of the biggest nights of the year as he launched “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve,” TV’s most famous New Year’s Eve Party. After suffering a stroke in 2004, Ryan Seacrest signed on to help with the hosting duties, but Clark continued to make appearances.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications ran the numbers and figures Dick Clark Productions has turned out more than 7,500 hours of television programming, including more than 30 series and 250 specials, as well as more than 20 movies for theatre and TV.

All this earned Clark a long list of awards and accolades: Emmys, Grammys, induction in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It also made him one of the richest men in Hollywood; he also had stakes in a wide range of businesses, including restaurants, theatres and real estate.

America’s Oldest Teenager has certainly left his indelible mark on generations of fans. There’s no disputing he helped change rock ‘n’ roll and TV forever. His signature sign-off was “For now, Dick Clark … so long,” always said with a salute. No doubt, today, generations of Americans are saluting back.

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