"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
So the NSA is collecting folks’ “friends lists” and email contacts lists. I think they are just creepy “feddle gummint” nerds looking for love in all the wrong places. *heh*
You’re doing it wrong, guys (not that doing it wrong has stopped your attempts to spread “anti-social” diseases before. . . )
. . .between someone like Michaelangelo painting a masterwork like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and someone like Obama accomplishing only destruction and chaos.
Michaelangelo was a creative genius who had developed several areas of mastery.
He spent four long years creating an enduring work of genius.
King Putz the Petulant, Occupier in Chief of the Spite House, is a “feckin’ eedjit” whose only areas of competence are lying, blowing smoke up the skirts of masochistic Repugnican’ts (Who simply bend over for him and pitifully plead, “Please, may I have another?”) and accepting obeisance from his worshipers in the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and the Useful Idiots they pump their toxic Koolaid into.
He has spent five long, painful years tearing down an once durable work of genius constructed by the Founders and paid for by the blood and toil and sweat and tears of generations of citizens.
Getting a piece of fiction written and published once took a bit of work. First, there was that literacy thing–you know, being literate enough to at least have a fair idea when you’d just put something down on paper that proved you didn’t have the first clue what you were taking about, for one thing. *sigh* Developing that kind of literacy takes a LOT of reading and perhaps quite a bit of RW experience as well, in many cases.
Then, if one were literate enough to at least have a clue about the deficiencies in one’s storehouse of knowledge and experience, the ability to correct, or at least seriously address, those deficiencies used to come in handy.
And that’s not the whole skill and knowledge set that was once very, very beneficial.
Just having a pedestrian imagination and a verbal vocabulary defined by the lowest common denominator of popular media is all it seems to take to get a novel published nowadays. And the stupider the plots and dumber the characters, the better. *sigh* Evidence: Dan Brown.
One of the worst things I see writers do mimics typical Hollyweird/BoobTube writing. When people who barely manage to inch into the first standard deviation above the norm try to write characters who are more than just average, they tend to write themselves and their acquaintances. Trying to write dialog for a very literate and “brilliant” scientist with a nominal IQ of something north of 150 using a semi-literate (or often even subliterate) mind capable of handling abstract thought at about IQ 115 results in characters that appear to be literate and brilliant only to persons to whom a Zabriskan Fontema appears to be a genius.1
To anyone with more than two active synapses between their ears, such characters seem to be dumber than a bag of hammers.
*meh* I do find such writing marginally interesting, though, as a window into the dull minds of the authors. Of course, when I ask myself, “What WAS this author THINKING?!?” the answer is usually, “Oh, right. Nothing at all. . . ”
1Visiting with a bright, thoughtful and literate person in the upper reaches of the first standard deviation above the norm (according to this person’s estimation; my experience of their abilities leads me to believe their one known experience with IQ measurement fell victim to test anxiety) has spurred me to expand this a bit.
Yes, “merely” bright people can write characters who are “brilliant” and do it competently, creating believable characters, BUT (and this is one HUGE badonka-donk “but”;-)) such persons MUST do their homework! Their research should include a LOT of reading of truly brilliant thinkers (and “conversation” with those thoughts read), face-to-face conversations with such persons–both casual and on-topic in those persons’ areas of expertise–and review of their characterizations and dialog by a literate person whose intellect is of a comparable level to that of the character written.
Better, of course, would be for an author to simply be of the class of persons he is characterizing, to have among his peer group more than a few persons of similar intellect, etc. But, alas! that is NOT the case with Hollyweird/BoobTube-influenced “bright enough for success in a dumbed-down high school setting” subliterates who seem to write most of the “genius” characters in contemporary fiction. *sigh*
BTW, while I enjoy the show in small doses, “The Big Bang Theory” is a very nearly perfect example of this problem in writing. Yes, it has at least one really bright consultant helping to get most of the science references at least within the ballpark of contemporary “consensus science,” but the characters are more laughable caricatures of nerds than perhaps the writers intend. . . or at least in ways the writers could hardly intend. It seems obvious from the writing (and directing and acting) that, aside from minimal input to keep “science-y” comments mostly on track, the folks involved in producing the show fit pretty well into the “semi-literate, nearly bright, clueless about genius” category of content creators I deplore here.
*shrugs* The show’s still entertaining in other ways, and if I view the “brilliant” characters as simply sophomoric poseurs with delusions of brilliance, it occasionally ends up being pretty enjoyable fluff.
But a steady diet would gag a maggot.
“Obamacare Exchange” Translation?
“You are hereby required to exchange health care coverage you were once satisfied with for more expensive coverage offering fewer benefits and more restrictions. Unless you are one of my cronies or a member of the political/bureaucrappic nobility. Now, kiss my [asterisk].”–King Putz the Petulant
There. All clear, now?
The Zero (A.K.A. “Barack HUSSEIN Obama,” “Barry Soetoro,” “Occupier-in-Chief of the Spite House” et al) daily demonstrates why history will record him as “King Putz the Petulant”.
So, Son&Heir just got some expansion cards for his Munchkin Cthulhu game. First one I saw was a “Bonus” card for Dragon Balls.
No thank you.
*heh*
A fact based, reasoned argument presented to a contemporary faux liberal (progressive, leftist, etc.) is like attempting to teach a pig to sing. All it does is waste your time and annoy the pig.
Ditto with the porker.
Borrowing (OK, stealing) from Sluggy Freelance to translate King Putz the Petulant’s stance on compromise with any view not his own,
“Look, [if] you beat me fair and square, I’ll totally give you bragging rights. Now, just jump on my sword and see things from my perspective. It’s called ‘compromise’.”
Of course, the typical Repugnican’t manner of compromise with Dhimmicraps is to bend over and pitifully plead, “Please, may I have another?”
And there’s not even a T-Bird in sight.
Well, I got my mother online today and she sent her very first ever emails. Her 89th birthday celebration is tomorrow.
Fun.
It seems as though many people nowadays who jump on the Internet do so with the computer equivalent of logging onto a virtual ebola ward and just begging–nay! demanding!–the electronic version of a transfusion of ebola. They’re running onto the “information superhighway” without looking out for trouble, and so they are just asking for it.
No, seriously!
Consider: one’s data, identity, finances–all are just ripe for the picking by nefarious means if one just blithely wanders about the Interwebs, naively, thoughtlessly downloading and installing crap, visiting questionable sites or just blindly clicking links or executing attachments in emails. Heck, the crap one might thoughtlessly install (toolbars, webapps, browser extensions BHOs, whatever) might not itself be malicious, but many purveyors of such DGARA about your security or privacy and leave wide open holes for malware–or they have a crappy, wide open site that’s just begging for malware injections to mug their site visitors.
And many people just blindly, naively, thoughtlessly wander into these highly infectious plague wards and then wonder how they “got infected”.
They infected themselves by means of their own stupidity.
People who would NEVER think of just wandering out into a busy highway, who would stop, look BOTH WAYS and listen before crossing a residential street just wander into traffic on the Internet, cruise around looking for virtual streetwalkers to get computer “STDs” from and go hunting up electronic ebola wards to get a transfusion for their computer(s).
Just don’t be one of those guys, mmmK? 🙂