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...
Right Wing News, where we are an occasional contributing editor on the weekends, has gone back over the week just past and lifted some of the best quotes. From the news, from the teevee, from the blogs, from the op-ed pieces. It is by no means a short list, but it is put together from some quality material. And we are flattered to see we have made the cut.
Intellectualism has become the readiness, willingness and ability to call dangerous things safe, and safe things dangerous.
That is intended as a lamentation, let’s be clear about that. And lately it seems to work both ways. If you think carbon is dangerous (more on this later) but there’s no cause for concern over giving Kalid Shiekh Mohammed a civilian trial, you must possess some keen insight, perhaps some X-ray vision, that gives you wisdom beyond the three dimensions and the earthly domain.
If, on the other hand, you just call things as they are — taxes hurt the economy, if you execute the bad guy he won’t kill any more little kids, cities with magnanimous social programs have teeming masses of homeless because if I was homeless I’d head down there too, maybe kids have attention deficit problems because they aren’t getting their asses whipped anymore — then you’re more mundane. You have demonstrated no irony, therefore you haven’t demonstrated this keen extra-dimensional insight. Therefore you must not have it, therefore you must be something of a dimwit. And far more horrifyingly still, you’re a little bit on the boring side.
You may be missing Trivial Pursuit questions that any average fourth grader would be able to ace easily, but express one thought contrary to common sense and you have a free ride to genius-land. Over time the favorite among these has become “perhaps they are sending their children into restaurants with dynamite belts because they have no other way to fight back.” On the flip-side, you may have been publishing important scientific works for decades, curing diseases, re-designing bridges so they can carry more weight…but utter one single thing that fits in too well with reality, like “If I wanted to burglarize people, I’d skip all the houses that I thought had guns in ’em” — and you’re an instant dumbass.
It’s not a drive toward left-wing politics; if it was, it would be far less dangerous because it would capture the fascination only of those who are enamored of left-wing politics. This phenomenon has a deep impact on people who don’t give a rat’s ass about politics. It’s a mistaken realization of what intellectual wherewithal really is. It is an excessive fascination with where above-average intelligence might take a thought, with an inadequate understanding of how exactly that works.
And it pushes us toward choosing the more exotic and more contrarian epiphanies and solutions — in response to problems that, when all’s said & done, at the end of the day are really quite mundane.
And those solutions are wrong, more often than not.
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[…] Read it. And lately it seems to work both ways. If you think carbon is dangerous (more on this later) but there’s no cause for concern over giving Kalid Shiekh Mohammed a civilian trial, you must possess some keen insight, perhaps some X-ray vision, that gives you wisdom beyond the three dimensions and the earthly domain. […]
- DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Not In It For The Attention, Mind You… | 11/21/2009 @ 09:34[…] Columbine” — and he isn’t the only one. I recall just a couple of weeks ago being recognized by John Hawkins at Right Wing News for a bit of my own keen insight… Intellectualism has […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/03/2009 @ 07:30[…] a redefinition of sorts since that whole Iraq thing. That one really smart guy worth quoting, said it all: Intellectualism has become the readiness, willingness and ability to call dangerous things safe, […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/14/2009 @ 07:31