The Death of the Professional

        "Many people in the U.S. and around the world lack the education and skills required to participate in the great new companies coming out of the software revolution... Qualified software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople in Silicon Valley can rack up dozens of high-paying, high-upside job offers any time they want, while national unemployment and underemployment is sky high. This problem is even worse than it looks because many workers in existing industries will be stranded on the wrong side of software-based disruption and may never be able to work in their fields again. There's no way through this problem other than education, and we have a long way to go."
        -Marc Andreessen "Why Software is Eating the World"

        What do Farmville, Wells Fargo, the Amazon Kindle, iTunes, Netflix, and Skype all have in common? They are thiefs. Thiefs of industries. One decade ago, people were online. 50 million people used broadband Internet. Now that number is over 2 billion. Ten years from now, 5 billion people may have smart phones. In the words of Marc Andreessen, founder of the world's first web browser Mosaic, "software is eating the world." Or maybe in other words, the world is eating software.
        In 1995, Nintendo Systems delivered millions of N64 systems to American households. Moms and Dads wrote checks to pay for everyday meals, groceries, clothes, or services. People went to the bookstore to purchase a book. Or maybe the library to rent one. Record companies not only recorded music, but sold it. Blockbuster gave people hard copies of movies and expected them to return them three days later, or else suffer the detrimental "late fee." People paid telecom companies for the use of home phone services and, if they wanted to talk face to face with their buddy from San Francisco, could either fly across the country and meet up or record a video cassette, seal it in an envelope and let the postman deliver their video message.
        Now, Farmville and gaming sites are taking over the gaming world. Wells Fargo uses software to help users manage finances. The Amazon Kindle has replaced printed type with software. iTunes controls the music industry, along with other software music programs like Spotify and Pandora. Everyone uses Netflix. If they don't, then they probably don't watch many movies. Skype is the fastest growing telecommunications company in America. How does this new age of software affect the physical industries of which they have successfully usurped the thrones?
        Digital means more efficient. Computers will never replace humans. Computers can't create content. But computers can do one thing: render the "Professional" in existing industries obsolete. Software doesn't make the user a professional. Software is the professional. And when physical industry succumbs to the digital takeover, what will those Americans who lack skill and education in this new field do for a living? Jobs are disappearing with the widespread dominance of software. Where will new ones come from?

The Wooden Bar

The day was long. He had been sitting at the bar for only thirty minutes. Maybe forty-five. It was cold outside. It was fall. The day had been long. When she walked in he didn't notice, he was staring at the gold neon lights strung haplessly across the back of the cheap bar and the television screen mounted in the corner, which was turned off; and the bartender, whose shirt was just low enough to reveal the pink, lace, padded bra she wore to compensate for what the other bartenders didn't lack.
She sat on the other end of the long, wooden bar. The air outside had been crisp. It was refreshing, autumn. The barstool next to her was broken. She didn't mind. The girl working had been rubbing down the wooden bar with her towel, which looked and smelled as if its daily usage entailed washing her dog, cleaning up its piss, being sprayed with the stuff they use on wood that doesn't actually seem to make things cleaner, then finally being rubbed across that wooden bar at which she now sat.  
"Whisky sour."  
"Ma'am?"  
"Whisky sour, please."
"Hard of hearing in my left ear."  
She glared around at the bar stools and the mirrors on the wall and the dart board and the college girl wiping down the bar. Her coat was still on. So was her scarf.  
"There you go. Open up a tab?"  
"I was here last night. Card should still be behind the bar."  
She looked at the three behind the bar. Tall, Short, Busty. Old, Flat, Works too hard. She felt the need to figure them out. Every detail.  
"Can we turn that television on?"  
"I'll get you the clicker. How about that?"  
When she handed to him, he made sure to brush his hand against hers. Then he looked up at her and gave a smile and a nod, looked down and sighed, then drifted back into his bourbon after turning on news.

The Salvation Army Man, part 2

I was born in Selma, Alabama, 1953. At least, I grew up in Selma. Every day except Sunday we sat on the stoop; on Sunday we went to church. Church wasn’t nothing too exciting. Mama seemed to like it. I preferred sitting on the stoop with Granny B and old Max Bob. The walk to church was the worst part. Mama carried me on her back in a burlap sack till I was old ‘nuff to walk. Granny B sat in her rolling chair, my sister, Bee, pushed her. Sometimes my Mama’s sister would come along with us. Max Bob never came to church. He just sat on that stoop, looking over the rooftops at the A.M.E. bell towers that rose high above our little black neighborhood. Church, it was boring. The stoop, now it was as lively as a chicken coop come feedin’ time. As far as I was concerned, everything that ever happened in Selma, Alabama happened on my grandmama’s stoop.

Elvira Knights is her name. 63 West Road. Selma, Alabama. 1987. It wasn’t called “West Road” when I lived there. Come to think of it, I don’t think our street even had a name. But things were different now. I wasn’t in the Alabama I had known as a kid. I drove into town in my four-door, white, 1986 Cadillac Coupe de Ville with red leather seats and a fully adjustable fm radio. I took a right at the A &P, drove through what is now called historic Selma. Hopped on Citizen’s Parkway and headed north till the shiny black pavement turned into the gravel and dirt roads that my feet had come to know so well on those long Sunday morning walks to church so long ago. The magnolia leafs crunched under my feet as I stepped out of my Coupe de Ville. The house was different. The shingles on the roof were green. The wood paneled walls were painted white. Bang Bang. The door opened. I stood on one side of the screen, looking in at the house in which I had been raised. Mrs. Knights came to the door.