Sorry about the lapse in posting. Just finished four days of 12 hour shifts. Feeling a bit wound up and waylaid at the same time. Wanted to give a shout out to my dad, who is probably up to his receeding hairline in snow and reading this in between trips to the firewood pile. Stay warm.You heard it here first. I’ve got an idea for a new reality TV show. Jennifer Wilbanks, the “Runaway Bride”, and the astronaut woman should go on a road trip together. The commitment phobic and the co-dependent. The stalker and the runner. Like Thelma and Louise on Haldol. Just to keep things flowing Jennifer could wear the diaper sometimes and the astronaut could call 911 in different states and try to convince the police she’s been abducted by Mexicans. It would be like
NASA
Package of NASA spec adult diapers $199.99
Getting busted by the police wearing a diaper while stalking you’re ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend……………….priceless.
The global warming drumbeat feels like it’s gotten louder over the past year or so. What’s interesting about this to me isn’t the rise in the voice but the ‘authenticity’ it’s bringing this time around. Disagreement with the global warming hypothesis is one of the last great secular heresies you can engage in. Announce in a meeting at work that you’re an avowed atheist and people won’t even look up. Announce at a party that you think this global warming thing is a bunch of crap and you’ll get fingers poked into your chest. A little bit of science coupled with a little bit of fear and you’ve got a believer. The nice thing for the zealots is that there’s no shortage of apocalyptic predictions. This is a secular religion that’s undergone some repackaging and rebranding to make it palatable for those that can’t digest belief in a supreme deity. God is an abstraction but you can hold a handful of earth. Whereas god kills indiscriminately when the earth does it now it has to be a result of something we’ve done. Scientists politely refer to those that don’t accept the hypothesis as ‘irresponsible’, read “sinner”. For me, the fun part of all this is watching people twist the apocalypse concept into the scariest scenario they can construct. After a while it becomes more about the elaborate play they’re composing in their head than the facts at hand. Being really scared tends to grant importance to life when you fail at constructing it on your own.
Ares
Mrs. Ares and I watched a little thing tonight called Execution in Iran. Hard to get your mind around. Back in 2004 the Iranian government tried and executed a 16 year old girl for crimes against chastity. Not murder or drug smuggling, but chastity. Story goes something like this. Little Atafeh Sahaaleh was orphaned in place. When she was young her mother died in a car accident. Stricken by grief, her father fell into a well of drug addiction. Atafeh was forced to care for her elderly, infirm grandparents and generally fend for herself. This included being out and about in a society where women are supposed to have a male relation in attendance. One result of this was being arrested by the morality police for being alone in a car with a boy. This ended with a sentence of 40 lashes. When she was 13 she was molested and raped by a 51 year old cab driver. It went on for 3 years. The morality police eventually produced a ‘petition’ that said the girl was a danger to the moral standing of the community and arrested her. After a brief trial where the judge acts as prosecutor she was sentenced to death. (By they way, according to Islamic law the age of consent for females is 9. Yea, 9.) On an August morning they marched her into public and hanged her by raising a crane into the air.
I know better than most people the ways and methods of evil in the world. This is a whole new level. So much about this is wrong that it almost defies cataloging. This is evil on a level that would have made Hitler blush. Find me the mullahs and muftis that decry this practice. They may be out there, but I’ve yet to come across them. Instead we have to settle for Refuseniks in the West like Irshad Manji and Wafa Sultan that live under a death sentence for daring to suggest Islam might not always be right. Another thought that popped up was where is Amnesty International’s media engine of righteous indignation? I suppose it’s easier to take cheap shots at Koran mishandling at
"I think we should take Iraq and Iran and combine them into one country and call it Irate. All the pissed off people live in one place and get it over with."
Just a slight digression for a Wednesday afternoon. Caught a piece of CNN over the weekend. (I really only flip through to see what they’re fixating on at a given moment. I’m not a viewer.) They were looping cell phone video of a gun battle between Iraqi forces and terrorists in Najaf. At least that’s what the banner told me. The video was one giant blur with people yelling in Arabic. For all we know it could have been 8 guys having a water balloon fight in the desert. Is CNN really that pathetic that they’ll just throw up any incoherent blur that can be associated with violence? I know, I answered my own question.
When we get to this point it feels an awful lot like war porn. Anything to feed the monster of ratings in order to portray strife, chaos, and disorder. The poor bastards at CNN know they’re competing against websites like YouTube and Consumption Junction for the snuff film audience. It’s a competition they know they’re going to lose. My prediction? At some point in the future CNN will introduce some sort of “prime” or “restricted” website where the can display all of their violence porn, hoping to get a piece of the game.
Had a brief thought on the treadmill. We’ve entered a perpetual election cycle. Sports and politics have merged in one respect: They’re really more about entertainment than competition. That said, politics seems to clog an inordinate amount of time in our media. Professional sports realized a long time ago that it was easier to create your own venue than fight for airtime in the mainstream. ESPN was born. We need an ESPN for politics. Some little television/web/print home where all the political entertainers can run off and play their games, thereby freeing up valuable time and space in other venues to discuss real issues. It could play out like the World Wrestling Federation/World Championship Wrestling ‘wars’ of the ‘90s. Jessie Ventura could get his old gig back as an announcer. Can’t you just see him standing there in a tux, doing a standup with Barack Obama.
Jessie: “What do you have to say to your opponent?
Barack: “We’re coming at those puny little Republicans. When they feel the power of our drug rehabilitation program they’re gonna quake in their boots and run home to momma! We’re gonna bleed their quorum and smash their filibuster! I’m telling you brother!”
Jessie: “That’s gotta hurt, Gene! Back to you in the booth.”
And so on, and so on. I think it should be a law that in all debates the participants will have to wear masks like Mexican wrestlers. Maybe it would even spawn a chain of political themed restaurants. They could serve endangered spotted owl to the red side of the restaurant and Tofurkey on the blue side. Republicans would pay for their meals on maxed out credit cards. Democrats would try to barter services for their dinners. This has enormous downrange potential.
Interesting thing about the madrassa story, nobody is actually carrying the story anymore. (If Google can’t produce it the piece has gone under.) They’re all just talking about it, saying in effect that “other people have said”. This is what the news product profession does best. Take an unsourced hit piece that’s dropped in from obscurity and quickly retracted, and then work itself into a lather about the “story” instead of the original facts presented. News about the news. And a special Shame On You shout out goes to Sean Hannity, for leading off a piece on his website with the sentence “Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?” No Sean, we're ready for a world free of bloviating assholes that pander to people's fear.
Ares
I caught a few minutes of the Situation Room on CNN the other day, something I usually try to avoid. Is it just me or does Wolf Blitzer seem to be aroused by death, chaos, and mayhem? Granted, that stuff is the mother’s milk of the news product profession. But Wolf comes off as fixated to the point of fetish. And what’s with the ADHD wall of television feed? Does anybody, anywhere, ever feel more informed after a few minutes of that high-speed pass of talking heads? I’ve had this feeling since 9/11 that the news product profession has been trying to top itself. You can almost sense their professional depression that nothing on that scale has happened in over 5 years. Katrina was a widespread visual orgy of destruction. Problem is, they boned that one all the way through and keep quiet about it while hoping people forget how badly they handled it. I'm coining a new term to describe Wolf and is ilk: Professional Schadenfreudist. In the interest of granting equal time I thought we could take a quick mosey through the right side of the isle. Again, WTF are these folks doing getting muddy this early in the game? This entire exercise feels completely asinine as Inauguration Day is two years away. I guess there’s advertising space that needs to be sold, so we’ll have this shoved in our faces 24/7 henceforth.
Rudy Guiliani. Gotta give some props to any guy that can unfu**
Newt Gingrich. Yea, much like Algore, that’s already been tried. Newt’s actually a pretty smart guy, but it’s not gonna matter when he gets to talking. His mouth seems to attain a velocity all its own when he gets going. If he’d learned the less-is-more philosophy a dozen years ago he might stand a chance. Probably the next best thing the Republicans have as far as shitstorm lightning rods go, behind the current POTUS and VPOTUS.
John McCain. It’s hard for me not to like John for personal reasons. He’s got honest to god steel in his spine that he paid for with his own blood. Also a bit of a centrist, which could end up being a blessing or a curse depending on how he views his own party. (Side Note: I’m still holding out hope for a concept I saw last fall: A McCain/Lieberman ticket. I think it would be f****** fabulous! Best thing to happen to presidential politics in a century.) Kinda crotchety though. Also, getting a head start on that Reaganesque falling asleep in meetings thing.
Mitt Romney. Any Republican that can get himself elected in
George Pataki. Yawn.
Jim Gilmore. Who?
Sam Brownback. A little too much like our current president for his own good. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a decent guy, but he’s gonna get Bush fatigue in a big hurry. Probably gonna come down to delivery on his part. My gut tells me the body politic is tired of bible thumpers.
Mike Huckabee. Who?
Chuck Hagel Ha ha ha ha….ouch! Sorry, just fell out of my chair laughing.
Tom Tancredo. Threw that last one in just because Tom’s more a Libertarian than a Republican. It would be nice to see a serious challenger from that angle. If they’d just stop insisting the rest of us read Atlas Shrugged folks would be falling all over them.
Just in case you were wondering who is in the arena thus far I’ve decided to offer an Ares-slanted analysis of the candidates that have declared. Kinda dumb to declare this early if you ask me, but it’s not my money.
Hillary Clinton. See previous post.
Barack Obama. By all appearances a pretty smart guy and one of the best orators to hit the scene in the past 20 years. Thus far he’s stayed away from bloody-edged partisanship, hope that lasts. As for actual skills it’s a pure wait and see game. After 7 years of Dubya we’re so elated by a politician that gives a good speech we’d follow him to a whorehouse in
John Edwards. Because what this country needs is another lawyer in the White House. He comes off as kind of smarmy. And let’s face it, he’s too short. We don’t elect short presidents anymore.
Al Gore. I’m no Democratic Party strategist, but I think that’s been tried. Algore could put free basing meth addicts to sleep. Yes, I know he’s a good person because he cares about the environment. Decency doesn’t impress me nearly as much as competence. Little evidence in that department.
Joe Biden. Not a bad guy, aside from being a lifelong
John Kerry. Just announced he’s not going to run after all, much to the chagrin of the Republican Party. It’s rare that you get piñatas that large in political life.
Wesley Clark. Hard pressed to think of a single thing he’s done, ever. Makes me wonder if he’s overextended on his mortgage and needs a paying gig to make ends meet.
Denis Kucinich. Looks like a troll. If we don’t elect short presidents we sure as hell don’t elect trolls. If he were president we’d have tofu instead of meat in every school cafeteria. I think he’s a quiet Democratic version of Pat Buchanan.
Christopher Dodd. Who?
Tom Vilsack. Sounds too much like ball-sack. He could be FDR and JFK reincarnated but he’ll never get past his name.
Bill Richardson. The best qualified candidate that’s never going to get anywhere.
This public service announcement was brought to you by Ares and Athena, LLC; Political consultants worldwide with offices in
This one could get ugly in a hurry so I’ll keep it short. There are two pretty simple reasons why I’m dreading her run. The biggest one is that both sides are going to engage in euphoric recall/vilification about the If this doesn’t get Athena out from under the pile on her desk I don’t know what will.
Ares
Just a random thought for Monday morning. During my parents generation fast food and supermarkets became commonplace. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that we can pretty much eat whatever we want whenever we want as a result. One of the effects of this has been a national wrestling match with the effects of eating what we want instead of what we should. (I’m not calling anybody out here, glass houses and all that.) I see another 500 pound gorilla limbering up in the corner, this time in the form of the internet. The ability to access whatever information we want, whenever we want, is shaping up to be one of those blessing/curses that propels us forward with a new set of rocks around our neck. Somebody smarter than me probably hit on this years ago, but it’s just now making its way into my head on this blustery Monday morning.
I just burned through a decent book: The Man in the Ares
I came across this story the other day. The short version goes like this. Seems Mr. Abraham got convicted of murder when he was 13. Under some idiotic ‘get tough’ law in
Ares
Good times on the bayou. Seems New Orleans has racked up 10 murders in the first two weeks of the year. The folks are pretty pissed off, and they held a little protest march to let the mayor know. My first thought is that you probably shouldn't have re-elected Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin. But that's really neither here nor there, things would have gone to s*** regardless of who works at city hall. Excellent piece buy the Christian Science Monitor breaks it down. Just over 200,000 have returned to the city. (That makes the murder rate even more impressive. Probably approaching Baghdad or Bogota per capita.) The police department is losing about 17 officers a month. Best stat in the piece: in '03 and '04 the conviction rate for murder was about 12%. (Nationwide is 80%) All this prompts me to ask the rhetorical question: What's the threshold for the federal government taking over? Any precedent Athena? 
I pray you’ll excuse a slight geek holiday here. Defensetech is a great website. They try to stay abreast of the latest issues and technology in law enforcement and national security. The really nice thing about Noah and the boys is that they’re completely non-partisan and aren’t on anybody’s payroll, so they have no qualms about calling out some of the more stupid things that get done in that arena. Anyway, a little piece got thrown up over the weekend about the Littoral Combat Ship that’s being built for the Navy. Seems that after they built the first one Lockheed Martin almost doubled the quoted cost per ship, from $220 million to almost $410 million. Two thoughts immediately came to mind. First, I willing to wager if we started buying these things overseas the price would magically stabilize. I’m not so much of a blind patriot that I enjoy bending over for a defense contractor that hides behind the flag. Second thought: I really need to work in a business where I can just pass along my cost increases and budget overruns to my employer. “Sorry sir, but I’m going to have to charge you double my annual salary. Seems I’ve had some unexpected entertainment expenses on the weekends and the increase in gas prices has led to some expanded transportation costs.” The good news is that the Navy has issued a stop work order to Lockheed Martin.
So I was in my favorite Stop & Rob earlier tonight and a particular product caught my eye. I don't know when they switched from calling Velveeta a "Cheese Food" to calling it a "Cheese Product". Pretty sad, they won't even let them call it food anymore. Just some approximation of what cheese is supposed to be. I think there is a mighty parallel here with the mass media. Not so much an information source but more of a "News Product" we get fed. And just to digress a half step further, I found this picture on Amazon.com. People actually write product reviews for Velveeta. What the hell!?
Thank god the mass media is on the case, eager to clear up any lingering questions I may have. From the "Why The F*** Is This News" files we have a report that Jennifer Wilbanks has dropped her lawsuit against her former fiance for running off with the money from their book deal. You may remember Miss Wilbanks as the "Runaway Bride" that went "missing" before her wedding, only to call from New Mexico to say "Just Kidding". I think my problem with this story is that someone offered them a half a million dollars to tell their "story" in a book. Note to the owners of ReganMedia: You have idiots working for you that give away large sums of money for what will be a one page book. I think it was going to read something like this: I'm rich, I'm spoiled, and now I'm really embarrased. 
Short version: Because this is what I'm like after two cups of coffee. Imagine this in a four year old. Actually, my mother can.
All right. I've been accused of being too long winded in my posts. As a result of said corrective criticism, all posts shall henceforth be limited to a paragraph. Of course, that paragraph might be like a Faulkner book, but it will only be one paragraph. Thought I would post a picture of Athena's cat. Okay, it's not really Athena's cat. It actually looks like my boss, except he's not a cat.
Sorry about the lax blogging as of late, been spending too much time with work things. Finally got around to some days off and I can barely muster enough effort to reach the remote. The holidays were a serious endurance trial, worked nine straight days. By the end of it I had to refer to my driver’s license to be sure of my complete name. I’m strongly in need of some serious decompression time. I’ve got some good beer, a good book, and some good television. Which brings me to today’s point. I lay on the couch last night in a half-conscious state watching Battlestar Galactica, wondering what we did for visual entertainment before CGI. If you’re not partaking of the new BSG then you’re missing out. You don’t have to be a Sci Fi fan to enjoy it. In the tradition of Bradbury or Heinlein, it’s more a story about people that happens to be set in the future. And unlike a lot of Sci Fi television up to this point, they put more effort into the script and storyline than visuals or gadgets. The show doesn’t try to substitute violence or gadgets with plot development. (Anybody out there remember V?)
Not that the visuals aren’t stellar. For the first time I really want a high def big screen. Those of you that saw Exodus Part 2 know what I’m talking about. (I would pay admission to a theater to watch the scene where Pegasus and Galactica are slugging it out with the Basestars) Having been a fan of the first one, I often wonder what we’re going to laugh about in this one thirty years from now. Like the picture on the right from the original series. It’s funny in retrospect. Yea, we travel in space, go faster than light, everybody has a personal laser gun, but we only have monochrome monitors and 640K hard drives. And has anyone else noticed in the original that when there’s some sort of space action sequence they had about five different three second clips they would use to try to explain every possible thing that could ever happen? Cylons closing in? Show the standard longshot of a dozen silver disks moving through space. Cylons are attacking? Show the three second clip of the self-defense batteries firing. Cylong ship hit by aforementioned defense batteries? Show the two second explosion in space clip.
We’ve come a long way baby in the visuals department. But even without the visuals, there’s actually character development in the new BSG. All of the women can pretty much beat you to death with their bare hands, proving they’ve solved that whole women-in-combat thing in the future. What’s more, the characters have actual flaws and fears and faults. Tigh and Starbuck drink themselves into a stupor after Exodus, and Starbuck’s marriage takes a dump. It’s easier to believe a future where people get scared, depressed, tired, and have to poop. (Okay, don’t have confirmation on that last one, but you believe that the characters actually do that. Part of that whole “identifying with them on a human level” thing that a lot of sci fi forgets.)
The dialogue is also a huge step forward. It tends to flow like people actually talk, which is more than can be said of a lot of other sci fi. “It’s naïve to think that horrible things we can’t understand have simple explanations. Simple explanations make us feel like we have control when we don’t.” (Love that line.) Jargon is used effectively, making it sound authentic without losing the audience. And the music is pretty damn good as well. Something of a violin concerto meets Dead Can Dance meets Ali Babba of the Desert meets Samurai war drums. Sounds silly but it works well. This show has been one of my very few television vices. At some point in the future I’m probably going to have to invest in buying it on DVD. (Birthday coming up; wink wink, nudge nudge.)
A few weeks ago I ranted about dumb vs. smart people. I found one of the smart people. I’m willing to bet the guy on the left is someone you’ve never heard of. I hadn’t until last night. His name is Sanford Ovshinsky, and he’s one of the smartest smart people.
The Economist calls him the Edison of our age, which is a pretty safe statement. It’s not simply his brain power that makes him remarkable, it’s his sheer chutzpa. He founded a company called Energy Conversion Devices (ECD). One of the main focuses of ECD is bringing hydrogen power sources into the mainstream. Here’s the sticky part: He founded the company in 1960.
Stanford wasn’t singularly obsessed with hydrogen though. Over the years he has invented and holds patents on a few items you may have heard of; rewriteable optical disks, flat panel displays, non-volatile memory, thin-film solar cells, and the nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) battery. Oh yea, did I mention he never went to college? He had to drop out of school during the Depression to help support his family. He credits his learning to public libraries.
ECD has actually lost money for most of its existence. Not that Stanford gave a rip about that, because he was always looking out at the horizon and not at the bank account. At 84 years old he’s just now standing on the edge of what will truly change the world. He’s engineered how to make solar cells without silicon, no small deal, as the price of solar cells has risen 50% in recent years because of a crunch in industrial silicon. He has also transformed solar cells into thin, flexible, self-adhesives that can be rolled onto just about anything. According to The Economist, he has worked out how to manufacture it at over 200 feet per minute. But the truly huge promise of his work is that he believes he’s figured out a way to scale up his hydrogen storage system to the megawatt level. This holds enormous potential, as it could move us away from being at the direct mercy of the power grid.
YouTube is the biggest and best waste of time since the advent of cable TV. For today's blogshot I used the power of YouTube for good and not evil. Having only seen the commercial on TV once, I searched and quickly found what I was looking for. Anyone that has ever had or spent time around small children will appreciate this. For that matter, this one is pretty good too. I have a bad feeling that Mrs. Ares and I will be seeing a lot of this if we reproduce. 
One of the most universally hated institutions in our country is credit reporting bureaus. Under the hate-the-game-not-the-player theory I tend to see them as a necessary evil. The part that’s debatable is the level of evil that’s necessary. This brings me to an idea that Athena and I have been in agreement on for a few years now: Identity likeness rights.
Everyone’s familiar with the idea of likeness rights. If company X wants to use my mug in advertising they have to reimburse me, or at least get me to sign a waiver. To quote from the Library of Congress’s web citation on privacy and publicity rights “The privacy right or interest of the subject is personal in character, that the subject and his/her likeness not be cast before the public eye without his/her consent, the right to be left alone. The publicity right of the subject is that their image may not be commercially exploited without his/her consent and potentially compensation.” (Italics mine.)
I don’t recall ever giving my consent to Trans Union or Equifax to create a profile on me. In other words, they own my financial likeness. Their corporations are the direct financial beneficiaries of my financial existence, yet I have to pay them for a service that I have no choice in participating in. Yes, I know we’re allowed free credit reports. How incredibly noble of them, a gratis look at an algorithm’s opinion of me. Meanwhile, through lovely concepts like universal default, the credit reporting bureaus facilitate a greater payout by consumers across the spectrum of purchasing.
But how is my financial identity any different than my physical likeness? Apparently the difference is that the law has decreed my physical person has a right to privacy but not my financial person. To again quote the above, “their image may not be commercially exploited without his/her consent and potentially compensation.” I hate to sound like I’m playing lawyer word games here, but I don’t think this is too much of a stretch.
Ares
Today I did something I don’t normally do. I drove around the exurbs of this godforsaken city. A lot. An appointment took me over hell’s outer acres. I normally have almost no commute, so I can’t complain about having to endure traffic. (My aggregate monthly commute miles are less than most people’s daily.) But one thought did strike me: What exactly are all these people doing and why are they doing so much of it?
True, I was one of those people, but I was just visiting. Sitting in traffic is one of the biggest wastes of time since penguin baseball without the ensuing bragging rights. Which leads me to think that anyone that believes mass transit is going to solve this problem needs to put the bong down. People are annoyed to the point of shortening their lives and wasting breathtaking amounts of time, and still volunteering to do it each day. We need something bigger than mass transit to get a handle on this one. I think the appropriate buzzword here is paradigm shift.
I’m not climbing on the global warming/anti-hydrocarbon economy/save the earth soap box. Also not talking about anti-capitalism; I’m a market champion to the point of being Libertarian. There is something bigger at work here. Humans weren’t meant to live like this. And by “like this” I mean spending inordinate amounts of our waking hours going back and forth to sit in little boxes to earn money to buy stuff. Somewhere along the line means and ends became inexplicably intertwined. When you break the chain of habit commanded by existence and think about it does this feel right to anybody out there?
I’m not espousing a return to the mythological “Good Old Days”. (Any time you hear someone use the term “Good Old Days” be wary. It’s a loaded term wielded by those that can’t envision a future worth creating.) There are parts of this modern world that are very much worth having. Mrs. Ares advocates something between neo-Amish and neo-luddism. I think that mightiest of modern writers got it just right:
Ares
I don’t like beating dead horses, but I’ve got a few questions. By now the battle lines are firmly drawn in the whole overwrought imams-thrown-off-the-plane incident. Is it me or does it seem like they had the press releases and indignation spring loaded and ready to fire? We’ll let that one go, as I’m sure one of the imams had CAIR on speed dial. CAIR probably has a pre-formatted press release for stock denouncements. I have yet to waste a single second of my life reading anything they write, but I would imagine it reads something like “We, the yadda yadda yadda of the religion of peace, do most strongly protest the treatment of yadda yadda yadda at the hands of yadda yadda yadda.”
My second question is the big one. This is your big chance Mr. Imam, explain exactly what it was you were doing dancing around the cabin, yelling like a Palestinian game show host? I can assure you the media is on your side and is only too willing to make the airline and the Department of Homeland Security look like jackasses. Throw Wolf Blitzer a bone show us how it was all just a big misunderstanding. I’m a reasonably intelligent guy so I’m sure if you got me in the contextual neighborhood I’d be all up in there with you. The lady that got the flight diverted for lighting matches to cover her farts is a good example. Who hasn’t let fly on a plane? Maybe you had some lower G.I. issues and decided to go check with Mohammed to see if he had any wetnaps for your impending trip to the wiz closet. En route to Mohammed’s seat a couple of good air biscuits shot out of you unexpectedly. Embarrassed, you let fly with a few good Allah Ahkbars to provide some auditory cover.
My other question is simpler and more towards the rhetorical. Though I haven’t seen it anywhere I’m sure someone has made this reference. Isn’t a bunch of guys screaming Allah Ahkbar on an airplane the modern equivalent of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater? Memo to all you ass clowns: Your freedom of speech comes to a screeching halt when you scream the name of your god while in the midst of a conveyance that your co-religionists used to murder my countrymen. Flying is a privilege, not a right. If you wanna get your god on at Koresh levels while in a mode of transportation get yourself a Kia and hit Interstate 80. (I don’t usually endorse other people’s work, but for an excellent editorial on the issue I direct you to this piece in the Wall Street Journal.)
I think it’s time we engage the Duck Rule. For those not familiar, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and craps like a duck you’re probably dealing with a duck. This was a PR hit, pure and simple. I’m not the first person to suggest that. The only reason I invoke the Duck Rule is that no other plausible explanation has been put forth. With the world-wide mass media engine pointed directly at them the voices of the Religion of Peace haven’t issued so much as a beer belch in the arena of explanatory logic and justification. Here’s a hint to all of the Islam boosters in the crowd out there: Bashing the faults of your opposition does not endow you with righteousness, or even prove your point. It just makes you look like the mental 11 year old that you are.
Ares
The conservative blogs have a designated term for this when it’s applied to the president: Bush Derangement Syndrome. Its victims are otherwise intelligent people that are never more than two conversational leaps from a sputtering, profanity laced Tourettes syndrome outburst when it comes to anything dealing with our current president. (That reminds me, at some point I’m going to take a blog walk with the outsized emotional investment this country has made in the office of the president.)
But to me the president is just a humorous footnote in a larger question. If possible, put down the political and social pretensions and ask yourself a question. What constitutes ‘smart’ in our society?There are obvious benchmarks that have always been accepted. An advanced degree will get you street cred in some circles. Going to law or med school will get you a seat at the table. But the older you get the more lawyers and doctors you meet. After you’ve met a few and spoke with them socially you realize that the dumb ass distribution hits that population with some measure. I think in some cases people we’ve been giving the smart tag are really folks that were just obsessive-compulsive about academics.
Another pit we commoners fall into when it comes to viewing smart people is being mystified by their skill set. Because a person knows a lot about something doesn’t automatically make them smart. It just means they’ve lived in a neighborhood you haven’t, intellectually speaking. How many of us have met people that can give you the intimate details of a computer server while barely being able to dress themselves?I know, there’s that whole ‘emotional intelligence’ thing at work. But I’m driving at something a bit different. A computer with a big hard drive isn’t necessarily a great computer; it just holds a lot of stuff. Saw a bit on the Science Channel a while back about an English guy that can solve pi out to 20,000 places in his head and can learn a new language in a week. While he is an impressive intellectual specimen he is also of limited use to humanity. My idea of a really smart person is Benjamin Franklin. He failed a fair amount, but he was always pushing the unknown. Granted, in his day the unknown was a hell of a lot bigger.
And while I’m on the subject of the unknown there is another ugly phenomenon that’s poking up its head up here and there. With the rise of the Internet, Wikipedia (which I love), and the Discovery Channel there are a lot more people getting exposed to a lot more stuff that would have normally been outside of their knowledge envelope. While learning is a good thing because it makes us push up against our unknowns it does not automatically impart wisdom. Just because you saw a thing on the Discovery Channel does not mean you’re an astrophysicist or expert on modern warfare.
This is especially insidious in the realm of politics, where partisans pick and choose knowledge that suits their position. You can test this hypothesis by going into any large chain bookstore. Look at the variety of books that are prominently displayed near the entrance. Most are tomes taking a particular view on a divisive issue. Somewhere along the way it was decided by mass media that controversy and conflict should constitute the largest part of our diet. Critical thinking is getting that much tougher, for those that even care to engage in it, because our springs of knowledge are being flavored and tainted.
So I return to the question I’ve been asking myself for quite some time now: What constitutes ‘smart’ in our society? I think the definition is like art and pornography. You know it when you see it. I think we would benefit from a lot more people pushing the limits of their experience and intellect. Merely being an information consumer isn’t enough.
