MacworldIn a clearing in a forest, near the magical river where the gnomes harvest mushrooms and the fairies argue over an editorial in the latest issue of Teen Vogue, sits a Macalope on a stump, hunched over a keyboard. Is it ergonomic? No. Its a forest. How is it going to be ergonomic? Magic? Magic is surprisingly un-ergonomic. There isnt even a power outlet. Thank god for the M-series processors low power consumption.There is Wi-Fi, though, because the centaurs set up an open network for their late-night MMORPG sessions. They are loud and anger the nymphs, who have to be up early to dance in the glade. Its a whole thing.But lets return to the lone Macalope. Hes trying to think of what to write for this weeks column. Theres going to be an Apple event this week. He could write about that. But its probably just the new iPhone SE, maybe with a new name. Nice, but its not exactly huge news.He could write about Apple Intelligence and the companys rumored struggles getting Siri to be smarter. But theres only so many times you can write about AI without your head exploding.The thing is, he knows what he should write about, he just doesnt want to.The Macalope doesnt want to write about politics. These days, he doesnt even want to think about politics. Have you seen politics? Ugh. Blech. It was never good on a good day. But nowAnd writing about politics on a technology website is the very definition of a Kobayashi Maru. Except without the Klingons. And spaceships. So, not the very definition, but you know what the Macalope means.People will yell Stay in your lane, mythical beast! Just shut up and be funny about Apple! First of all, thats an oxymoron. Unless the Macalope is supposed to do a funny interpretive dance about Apple and he wouldnt even know where to start with something like that. Julliard? Could he even get in at his age? Second, though, believe the Macalope when he says he would love to just be funny about Apple. But its getting harder and harder to do.IDGAnd the Macalope isnt the one who started it. Apple was conspicuously non-political for years, not having its own political action committee while almost all of its U.S.-based competitors did. Okay, sure, it hired a few famous former members of Democratic administrations. But it also took on the Department of Justice during a Democratic administration over privacy concerns.The first thing that drew attention to Apples new game was in January when Tim Cook made an unprecedented $1 million donation to the incoming administrations inaugural fund. The Macalope says unprecedented because hed never done it before. All of a sudden hes really into the transition of power. Sure, Tim.Now, Apple has decided to resume advertising on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Lets remember the reason Apple stopped advertising on that site in the first place:The move follows Musks endorsement of antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as Apple ads reportedly being placed alongside far-right content.Axios, November 17, 2023And its not like hes apologized. Still, at least since then, hes stayed out of the spotlight and only gone on to [pretends to put on glasses and read a piece of paper] be the unelected, unconfirmed, unqualified auditor-in-chief of the entire U.S. government.Huh. Dont remember that in that Schoolhouse Rock song. Guess he got the gig by doing such a bang-up job with Twitter.Its little wonder that people are upset with Apple. The company has clearly decided to buy itself access, no matter what the cost to its reputation and, yeah, gonna say it, the rest of us.You picked a really bad time to start being political, Apple. And we see you.Plus, youre apparently never going to make a phone in a size the Macalope likes again, either. So theres also that.If youd like to receive regular news and updates to your inbox sign up forour newsletters, including The Macalope and Apple Breakfast, David Prices weekly, bite-sized roundup of all the latest Apple news and rumors.