Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Alright, alright, alright. I’ll talk about the goddamn balloon:
Is that perfect, or what? American Spectator, by way of blogger friend Rick.
When I heard about the Dan Rather memos, my first thought was “What?? Proportional space, as in…kerning? Someone thought that came from a 1974 typewriter? Really?”
When the thundering din of global warming reached its modern crescendo, my reaction was “What?? World’s ending, and the solution is to pay higher taxes? Which will then be scattered to nebulous places, and nobody’s even asking where? People are falling for this?”
And when I heard about the balloon, I couldn’t help but think “What?? It was up there in the sky, and people couldn’t just look at it and figure out if a 40-pound boy was in it, or not? They thought it should zip around and bob to and fro exactly the same way, with or without?”
In all three cases my parting thought was “Who in the hell are the ‘ekspurts’ working on this, and what in the world are they smokin’?”
Yesterday morning the radio guys were talking about the balloon. One of them made a keen observation: We have reached a point in our societal evolution, and it is a sad point indeed, one where “famous” and “infamous” mean exactly the same thing for all practical purposes. A celeb’s a celeb.
Simultaneous with that, I think we’ve reached a point where real expertise is dead. An expert is no longer someone who offers an opinion that reflects truth — an opinion on which you could wager something that is tremendously valuable to you, like the health of a loved one or your life’s savings. An expert is simply someone who will offer an opinion that will find a hospitable reception with large numbers of others, whether it has merit or not.
Which lowers the bar tremendously, because it means anyone who shares the same opinion is also an expert.
So really, the word ends up meaning just whoever states the popular sentiment more forcefully and a bit earlier than the average bear. And there’s an exorbitant cost to be paid for this. Popular theories — typewriters in 1974 put out stuff that looks like this, there’s a boy in the balloon, the world’s gonna end and you have to pay more taxes — produce awkward, in some cases insurmountable, conundrums. Inconsistencies that would force a real expert to reject the theory without regard to how popular it is, or at the very least ask a brand new round of hostile questions about it.
And now that we’ve re-defined the word “expert,” nary a peep is uttered.
Not good. Funny for a day or two in the right setting, but over the longer term, not good at all.
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Perhaps some inspirational words from a historical revisionist view? 😉
- Kini | 10/21/2009 @ 00:32