"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.
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?”
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? 🙂
No, not my dogs (although my feet to hurt a bit. . . but then I’m getting old, so what do you expect? :-)) People who are fairly literate who nevertheless allow Crap Media (A/K/A the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, badly-edited poplit, etc.) have far, far too much influence over their own vocabularies–spoken and written.
OK, so I engage in quite a bit of “pop-speak” from time to time here. That’s fine. It’s casual writing, and I’m not getting paid to do it. But even “casual” writing should be correct if someone’s getting paid for the words they casually and, all to often–unfortunately–carelessly toss out.
Several times, recently, I’ve seen such abortions as a noun (such as “workout” or “logout”) used as verbs (“work out” or “log out”). Enough lazy, subliterate, immoral idiots do this and you can bet such things will become widely used enough to blur and then eliminate the useful distinctions between noun and verb forms in print.
It’s appalling. . . and as I said, immoral for people to take money to do a job and then do it badly. It’s theft. (It’s also a crime against the English language, but I don’t know of any statute that would apply. *sigh*)
N.B. I do cut a few professionals some slack in certain circumstances. I read a lot of Advance Reader Copies of books, books that are in the penultimate stage of editing before publication. I expect a few errors in such books, because ARCs usually serve as final proofing copies that will see another read-through before actual publication. So I cut those authors/editors some slack if only a few problems crop up. Example: last night I read a (~400-page) ARC that had three glaring errors: “then”for “than” three times. It’s a form of mental typo that sometimes crops up in even the most literate writers’ works, and is almost always caught at one stage or another of the proofreading/editing of a book issued from a good publisher and apparently almost NEVER caught, in my experience, by “Indie” (self-pub) authors whose proofreaders are of an uneven nature. Unfortunately, traditional publishers are more and more drawing authorial, proofreading and editing staff from a pool of college grads who are themselves essentially illiterate, so some ARCs from trad-pubs are littered with all sorts of crap. . . that makes it into the final, published, books. *sigh*
The way so many people have been reared in virtual bubbles in the last few decades has led to all too many people wandering through life apparently feeling invincible.
Not so with me. I was a slow learner, but I have–slowly–learned both prudence (well, in matters of physical safety) and gained confidence in my genuine abilities through a process of exploration of things that weren’t always. . . safe.
No room here to detail all my childhood adventures and play, but they were more risky than most kids seem to experience nowadays (No, I’ll not explain the rules of Dodge-Rock. I’ll just say that we didn’t have nice soft balls to play with and leave it at that. . . :-)) By the time I reached junior high, I had had a major gash in my left foot dealt with by stitches, a bigger HOLE in my left hand, suffered unconsciousness from a fall (only about 20′ but not bad for a seven-year-old kid), broken arm (left again. . . Hmm. . . I see a pattern), broken leg (AGAIN, left, but other assorted head and limb injuries slightly disguised the trend :-)) and had twice been hit by cars while (properly!) riding my bicycle (the worst injuries came when the driver had to actually LEAVE THE ROADWAY to bash me off a shoulder *heh*). Later, in college, as a more wary bike rider, I was still struck twice by daydreaming drivers, although I saw them coming and was almost able to avoid them, resulting in only minor injuries–bruising and whatnot.
That I am not comfortable with heights probably helped me I avoid falls while free climbing during my college years. BY “free climbing” here, I mean I was wearing street clothes every time. Sneakers, jeans, etc. No falls, because b y that time I had learned some of my limits and when to push them, and practiced what safety measures I could.
Now, what did I see today that spurred these thoughts? A father pushing a tandem stroller (with the expected two kids) down a narrow street, moving WITH the traffic. I see this a lot around here, though. Folks walking–and often pushing strollers–down a highway that goes through town, a highway that is as narrow as legally allowed and is traveled by a great deal of 18-wheeler (and other) traffic. . . and, from my limited observations (I can’t set up an observation post and man it 24×7), most of the 18-wheel traffic speeds through town and much of it minds the lanes about as carefully as Bill Clinton observed proper behavior in the White House. Just sayin’. It has NO shoulder and NO sidewalk. And yet people walk down the highway assuming they are immune to stupid drivers approaching them from the rear.
The second “street rule” I learned as a kid (the first was the Stop, Look BOTH WAYS, and Listen before crossing ANY street) was “Whenever there is no sidewalk, walk AGAINST traffic”–so you can see what’s coming. It’s common sense that is very, very UNcommon nowadays, from what I see. Nope. Apparently, people just assume they are invincible and DO NOT THINK. (They don’t have to. After all, it’s everyone ELSE’s responsibility to look after THEIR welfare, isn’t it?)
Of course, timidity is another stupid problem fostered by a “rubber bumper” society, but detailing even one example of that would make a too long post even “too longer”. *heh* Just take it as given that I could list many, many other behaviors I witness daily indicating that folks are either too stupid to use ordinary,common sense safety measures or too stupid to take action when nothing dangerous threatens (Common around here: “COME ON! IT SHOULDN’T TAKE 5 MINUTES TO MAKE A SIMPLE RIGHT HAND TURN! Sure, there’s a bar ditch on the right and ya should avoid “ditching” your car, but COME ON! MAKE THE FRIGGIN’ TURN ALREADY!” *heh*).
Scairdy Cats and The Invincibles (Legends in Their Own Minds)–sometimes even in the same persons! It’s enough to drive one to despair. How can our society survive these weenies?
Oh, Shiite.
Just had a call from someone whose computer I cleaned a month ago. They have re-infected themselves. Key question: “Are you still using Internet Exploder instead of the browser I installed and configured for you?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to say, “Here’s your sign.”
*gagamaggot*
Why do folks ask me for help and then ignore my counsel and expect things to turn out differently next time? This will be the THIRD time for this guy to have infected himself with THE SAME THING via the SAME VECTOR using the SAME BROWSER while ignoring the practices and tools I installed and counseled him on to prevent such a thing.
Why do they do these things? Self-induced stupidity and “helplessness” I suppose. (I use here a definition of stupidity articulating a stubborn refusal to learn or change one’s self-destructive behaviors. . . when learning is clearly within the individual’s capabilities.)
Makes “threatening gesture” and steps on the carcass of the Resolute Desk. Meanwhile, Cwazy Unka Joe–Look! A Squirrel!
