I am the bloke (
http://zippy1300.blogspot.com) in Taiwan -- go figure! -- who passed this crazy rant on to Steve Jordan, who reposted it here. And it's a good discussion. But I should tell everyone here that I first read the ''news'' about this appalling oped piece in NEWSWEEK, in a blog note by Weston Kosova there, staff reporter at Newsweek, who blogged on this Kaufman "scream", also noting the irony, and also noting that Alan probably lacks a sense of irony on all this at the moment. I think Kaufman, a poet and a novelist, 60ish, San Francisoc social activist, just got carried away, and remember, or please note, just to explain this to those here who might not know his bio, Kaufman is the son of Holocaust survivors who grew up in a rather dysfunctional family in NYC and while this does not excuse his crazy rant about ebooks, it does help explain his personality.
Forgive him, he did not know what he was doing. He meant well, but it came across very very pathetic and poorly worded. But again, all credit must go to Weston Kosova at Newsweek for being the first to
unearth and report on this appalling rant. I just picked it up from Newsweek and passed it on to Steve and others around the bloggysphere.