House of Eratosthenes

The rest of us are willing to support all kinds of wrong decisions, in order to escape any sort of ridicule. Yeah, it pretty much all comes down to that.

Know what makes me think of that?

This…it’s long been an item of “Everyone Else Is Blogging It, I Might As Well Blog It Too.” People paid to be cool, supporting bad ideas to make themselves cool. They’ll do whatever it takes. Even though the idea is oh so wrong.

Back in the middle ages the “court jester” was a fickle, silly, mentally unbalanced, pitiful individual. I wonder what people from a few hundred years ago would think if you could travel back there in a time machine and tell them, “When our clowns tell us we should think a certain thing, a lot of our ordinary but comfortably-living property owners do exactly what they say.”

Thing I Know #153. Lately I notice sarcasm is used, more and more, to discuss opinions without considering facts. In those situations the opinion that “wins” is almost always wrong.

…was a fickle, silly, mentally unbalanced, pitiful individual.

An excellent description of quite a number of contemporary people.
- KG | 09/24/2009 @ 22:37
Yep. Fools. They were actually called fools. As in…foolish decision. A person whose sense of judgment is simply not there.

The marketing of an opinion, is slowly displacing all of what we currently regard as “humor.” Just like in the 1950’s through 1970’s everything that was funny was a household-situation, misunderstanding, “Threes Company” kind of setup in which one person hears part of a conversation between two others and misunderstands what’s going on. Nowadays, it’s all about making everyone who has a certain opinion feel self-important and smug; and everyone who has the opposite opinion, feel socially awkward, like a target of widespread ridicule. In our humor industry we’re currently going through an “I See Russia From My House” decade. It’s not healthy and I don’t think future generations will look back on it favorably.

And yeah, I’d have the same concerns if I agreed with what they’re trying to say…which I don’t.
- mkfreeberg | 09/25/2009 @ 06:16
Oh crap, healt insurance companies make“billions in dollars of profits”! I wonder what the movie studios that employ these over paid, brain dead idiots make?

Yea, let’s go Socialist, immediately, right now, today. Well, at least let make Hollywood a Socialist experiment, I’m sure actor’s salaries under such a system would stay the same, right?
- tim | 09/25/2009 @ 06:44
Back in the middle ages the “court jester” was a fickle, silly, mentally unbalanced, pitiful individual.

We’re feeling quite pedantic today. From The Wiki:

In societies where freedom of speech was not recognized as a right, the court jester—precisely because anything he said was by definition “a jest” and “the uttering of a fool”—could speak frankly on controversial issues[1] in a way in which anyone else would have been severely punished for. Monarchs understood the usefulness of having such a person at their side.[1] Still, even the jester was not entirely immune from punishment, and he needed to walk a thin line and exercise careful judgment in how far he might go – which required him to be far from a fool, in the modern sense.

So… I’m OK with you calling the asshats in the video fools (coz they ARE); I’m not OK with your off-the-cuff definition of court jester.
- bpenni | 09/25/2009 @ 10:35
I actually would be willing to step in front of a camera and defend the right of a health insurance company CEO’s “right” to make millions of dollars.

It’s called “capitalism” and “a shareholder base being willing to pay a corporate executive what they believe he is worth, with THEIR friggin’ money.”

Then again, I don’t hate America, I don’t hate capitalism, and I’m not all wrapped up in this class warfare bullshit. I especially am not any of those things while pulling down $25 million per picture for a year’s worth of standing in front of a camera making goofy facial expressions.

I’d already had about enough of Will Ferrell. His movies aren’t funny, period. I’m going to add him to the mental list that already contains George Clooney, Sean Penn-nis, Janine Garbage, and Whoopty-do Goldberg.

Don’t even get me started on Rosie O’Dykell, Robustly Abominable, whatever you call her.
- cylarz | 09/25/2009 @ 23:06
The marketing of an opinion, is slowly displacing all of what we currently regard as “humor.” Just like in the 1950’s through 1970’s everything that was funny was a household-situation, misunderstanding,

I remember that schtick from sitcoms that were aired during my childhood, especially if they were re-runs of anything made during the period you describe.

I remember getting older and wondering when this comedy device was finally going to get worn-out and tossed onto the ol’ ash-heap. It was up there with the tired old plot of many commercials – there’s someone in the advertisement who thinks the product is SO good, that he or she will do something completely absurd to get it…instead of just going to the store and buying some like everyone else.

Now I’m thinking, “Be careful what you wish for.”
- cylarz | 09/25/2009 @ 23:10
[…] Morgan Freeberg […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 10/12/2009 @ 20:05

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D’JEver Notice? XLIIThursday, September 24th, 2009

D’JEver Notice? XLII
Thursday, September 24th, 2009