Half a century is plenty of time for an Apple to stay fresh, or to rot.

The New York Times‘s Kalley Huang (“For Employee No. 8, Many Changes in Apple’s 50-Year History,” April 2) traces the evolution of Apple Inc. from a “scrappy start-up that assembled computers by hand” — and whose organic name was a natural fit for an environment in which “Silicon Valley’s fruit orchards hadn’t yet been taken over by office parks” — to one which “has come to define how to be a global technology company.”

In a 2014 Bloomberg interview, Steve Wozniak recalled how he had “given away my designs for the Apple-1 for free,” leaving it to Steve Jobs to take projects the other Steve had “designed for fun” (while being “totally aware that a revolution was close to starting”) and “somehow turn them into some money for both of us.” The sum of their money would become so enormous that Chris Espinosa, who admits that having “had no college degree and … only worked at one company” since 1976 doesn’t sound like much of a résumé, owns what Huang estimates is well over $100 million worth of the corporation that makes a thousandfold of that in profit every year.

Craig Newmark’s op-ed “Craigslist Made Me Rich. Giving the Money Away is Easy” might have included Espinosa as evidence for how “making money isn’t proof to me that I know something any better than someone else” but of being “in the right place, at the right time” to apply common sense to a new field, if it hadn’t gone to print in the same day’s edition of The New York Times.  Newmark doesn’t propose any political program, keeping his distance even from any endorsement of “left-wing nonprofits” and instead promoting such voluntary philanthropic efforts as the Giving Pledge. Still, the public souring on the information industry, as captured by such titles as Douglas Rushkoff’s Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus and Tripp Mickle’s After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul, might seem the inevitable result of it enabling such outsized yet largely fortuitous accumulations in the first place.

The Giving Pledge cofounder Bill Gates owes much of his fortune to emulating Apple. The video game Halo was first showcased at MacWorld by Jobs before it became an exclusive killer app for Microsoft’s Xbox. Gates’s Windows operating system tapped the talent of Macintosh’s iconic icon designer Susan Kare. And yet the broader impact of Apple’s innovations is hardly confined to such sheerly financial windfalls.

This is not just because Apple efforts like the HyperCard which made creating and viewing multimedia straightforward, the Pippin which brought built-in Internet access to a video game console, and the Newton which pioneered the personal digital assistant were influential on later developments without managing to become profitable products for them or anyone else.

Indeed, much of the creativity that spread from Apple’s roots in Cupertino, California to cyberspace is closer in spirit to Wozniak than Jobs. It was entirely typical for Stephen D. Young and Debra Willrett’s Backgammon, programmed for the Apple Macintosh in the same non-Orwellian year 1984 during which the desktop model was introduced, to give out a postal address for users who “enjoy it and would like to see more ‘freeware'” to “please send whatever you think it’s worth” … and permission for them to disseminate the software itself.

Huang notes that Apple’s current survival requires not just satisfying customers but withstanding “tariff whiplash, antitrust scrutiny and geopolitical turmoil.”  Consumer sovereignty and cooperative networking can tame such seemingly relentless forces — and make the fruits of tech’s golden geese as common as dirt.

New Yorker Joel Schlosberg is a senior news analyst at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

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1. “Guest Column: The age of the Gilded Apple” by Joel Schlosberg, The Elizabethton, Tennessee Star, April 7, 2026

$1.5 trillion.

With a “t.”

That’s how much US president Donald Trump wants Congress to appropriate for military (falsely called “defense”) spending in 2027.

And that number — there’s no other way to put this — is insane. The only proper date for such a spending request, followed by a winking grin emoji, is April 1.

Let’s compare.

At the height of the US war in Vietnam, in 1969, the US government spent about $85.5 billion ($761 billion in inflated 2026 dollars) on “defense.”

In 1991, when the US deployed hundreds of thousands of troops for Desert Storm, the US government spent about $313 billion, or $750 billion accounting for inflation.

In 2004, while fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that number was about $450 billion, or $780 billion in 2026 dollars.

Yes, it’s wartime again.

As usual, the war — this time with Iran — is entirely illegal/unconstitutional (only Congress can declare war, and it hasn’t).

And, as usual, the war is entirely optional and serves no defensive purpose whatsoever.

The president keeps telling us THIS war will be over Real Soon Now, and he started talking about a $1.5 trillion military budget months before he launched Operation Epic Fail, so the 40% bump clearly isn’t about Iran.

In what universe does the already bloated US military need nearly half again as much money next year as this year, and twice as much as it needed during previous wars?

I’m not one of those people who waxes sentimenal over what the US government COULD spend money on rather than fake “defense.”

That money SHOULD be left in the wallets of taxpayers rather than being taxed from them or borrowed in their names.

But I guess it’s worth mentioning that Trump wants to partially “pay for” Operation Epic Dumb Idea with a 10% cut (less than $75 billion) to “nondefense spending” programs that he considers “woke.”

If the current US “defense” budget was cut by 90%, a country that’s geographically isolated from credible enemies by two oceans, hasn’t been invaded since the War of 1812, and never really gets in a fight unless its government actively seeks one out, would still have far more actual “defense” than it needs.

Everything beyond that $100 billion (at most) falls into one or more of three categories: Waste, fraud, and abuse.

Perhaps congressional pushback will trim Trump’s demands … but don’t bet on it. Congress usually ends up giving the Department of Defense MORE than the president asks for as Representatives and Senators advocate for military contracts that pad the bottom lines of campaign contributors’ businesses in their districts and states.

If Congress won’t cut off Pete Hegseth and take away his car keys, American taxpayers should cut off Congress and take theirs. Type “National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee” into your favorite search engine for more information.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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On March 31, the US Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, a Colorado case centering on the practice of “conversion therapy” for minors.

The court ruled correctly, by eight votes to one, with only associate justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting,  on the main issue in dispute: The free speech rights of Kaley Chiles.

Chiles is a “licensed professional counselor” who uses “talk therapy” to — in accordance with her belief in a version of Christian dogma —  assist non-heterosexual clients who want to become heterosexual (or maybe, if the client is a minor, whose parents want a heterosexual, rather than non-heterosexual, child).

BECAUSE Chiles engages only in “talk therapy” rather than, say, electroconvulsive therapy, drug therapy, aversion/punishment therapy, etc., she’s clearly engaged in conduct that’s protected by the First Amendment. The state of Colorado doesn’t get to decide what people believe or want and whether they’re allowed to talk about it with each other.

As it happens, I’m extremely skeptical of “conversion therapy.” So far as I can tell, sexual orientation isn’t something that can be consciously/intentionally altered using talk or any other kind of “therapy.”

Nor, for that matter, is it a “medical condition” at all. It doesn’t need to be “treated.” It’s just a characteristic (and perhaps an evolving, rather than static/permanent characteristic) that people discover in themselves.

But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be able to think or say otherwise, or to attempt to “convert” consenting others through speech.

Note the qualifier: “Consenting.”

When a news story mentioned that Jackson’s dissent brings up consent, I was hoping for a thoughtful analysis of what constitutes consent and whose consent should be required for “conversion therapy.”

Unfortunately, the “consent” hooks in Jackson’s opinion are just about “informed” consent — whether “conversion therapy” practitioners adequately warn “patients” of possible risks. And she seems to be fully on board with the idea that the state, rather than patients, should get to decide what constitutes “treatment” (for anything), who may provide that “treatment,” etc.

The question of “patient consent” versus “parental consent” doesn’t seem to show up at all in the justices’ opinions.

As both a legal matter and cultural norm, it’s understood that parents and guardians have broad authority to make medical decisions for children … but there are limits.

I suspect that most people (me included) would oppose a claimed right of parents to “consent” to, say, “sex reassignment” surgery, cosmetic breast implants/reductions, etc., “for” their minor child over that child’s opposition and stated non-consent.

If “conversion therapy” really is “therapy,” it should be held to the same consent standard.  Kaley Chiles should only be talking to “patients” who have consented for themselves, not “patients” whose parents force her on them.

If you disagree, let’s apply your disagreement to a flip-side analogous situation:

One day, Mom and Dad decide their little boy is “really” a girl and needs “gender-affirming” counseling. If the boy says “no, I’m a boy and happy that way,” do the parents have a right to force that “therapy” on him without his consent?

If you say “yes,” well, at least you’re consistent. But wrong.

And if something is only “therapy” when it agrees with your religous or social beliefs, it’s not “therapy,” it’s just attempted brainwashing … and the “patient” should be free to refuse it or walk out on it. Even if the “patient” is your child.

I’m glad SCOTUS got it right on the First Amendment implications of this particular case. I hope they eventually take a case that lets them reach, and correctly handle, the issue of minor vs. parental consent for medically unnecessary “therapies.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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