Thursday, April 28, 2005

Red-faced-mond

Do check the new issue of the Stranger, Seattle's alternative weekly. It broke the Microsoft-caves-to-bigot-on-gay-rights story last week. The lead for the April 28th-May 4th issue breaks down the he-said/they-said on it.

It's not often that a big-city weekly gets to run ahead with stories. Bless `em. I hope they have fun for a few more weeks with it.

Bilious Bill Gates has been reacting to news from this tiny rag. That has to be tough for a spoiled rich kid, who blossomed into filthy rich. His legendary arrogance and sense of entitlement do not welcome criticism.

Regardless, the gist of the tale is that Dr. Ken Hutcherson called Microsoft Number 2, Steve Ballmer, on his assertions about gay-rights support. The anti-gay, very anti-gay-rights minister detailed the two meetings he had with MS Senior VP and General Counsel Bradford L. Smith.

According to Hutcherson, Microsoft caved after the meetings. The bit pushers swear that they had already decided to back off supporting gay rights before the meeting. "They're lying," Hutcherson told the Stranger's Sandeep Kaushik. He added that it was only when he promised a nationwide boycott of MS products that the company decided to go neutral on the bill.

The dailies and other media are picking up crumbs from the Stranger's coverage. I recommend heading right to the source to get the details. The spins by all involved are breathtaking.

So whom are you to believe – the homophobic, self-promoting evangelical or the honest-as-any-capitalist megacorp?

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