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...
Ordinary Americans
A Google search on the phrase “Ordinary Americans” returns 1,410,000 results. Around sixty percent of these, give or take, have to do with surveillance programs. You know, the ol’ “George Bush is spying on ordinary Americans” thing.
So we’re talking about a million items taking this intellectually-sparse talking point and running with it, maybe 800,000 or 900,000 web log entries, essays, newsletters, magazine articles, newspaper articles, etc. Obviously, some of the 900,000 are being read by more people and some of the 900,000 are being read by less. But if the average circulation of each item is presumed to be two or three hundred, and this is exceedingly low, then within the United States it could be postulated that we’ve reached complete saturation. Everyone has heard the term; everyone has heard that President Bush is conducting surveillance on “ordinary Americans.” Certainly everybody who speaks English.
Time to ask: What exactly is an “ordinary American”? It seems like a fair question, if that’s what the fuss is about.
If I’m providing aid and comfort to Al Qaeda, but I have not yet been arrested for it much less convicted, is the absence of such a conviction the thing that makes me an “ordinary American”? Since when was a conviction obtained before the investigation was even begun?
Is Rush Limbaugh an “ordinary American”? What if he was under investigation for conspiring with Al Qaeda, would it be a fair assessment to say this is an example of “Bush spying on ordinary Americans”? I note with interest that many of the people who claim to be concerned about this surveillance activity, would probably need to know why Limbaugh is being characterized in such a way, before they could make the decision about supporting or deploring such a characterization.
What about immigration status? What if you’re in America on a student visa? What if the visa is expired? What if it was a counterfeit job to begin with? Does that make you an “ordinary American”?
Do the people who write these news stories about “ordinary Americans,” consider themselves to be within that group? Or are they altruistic ivory-tower elites, doing us little people the favor of letting us know we’re being spied on? As if to say, hey, you poor peasants down in those ditches digging away…you might want to know while you’re down there, you’re being spied on. Too bad you’re not up here like us, free of such concerns. Good thing for you we’ve taken the time to let you know.
If it’s fair to throw around the intellectually-vacant phrase, as in, “the White House is spying on ordinary Americans,” can I do other intellectually-vacant things with it too, like lament “why can’t everybody speak English like ordinary Americans do?” Would that be okay? Or would that be just a little too rustic, a little too Archie-Bunkerish. It would? Why is one exercise of this term unacceptably slope-headed and neanderthal, and the other exercise is not? It doesn’t appear that much more thought has gone into one than the other.
What is the sexual preference of an ordinary American? Do ordinary women like to sleep with men, and do ordinary men like to sleep with women? Do ordinary Americans eat meat? Once you’ve had your eyebrow pierced, are you no longer an ordinary American? If you still are one, then isn’t this a lot of money spent on making you “extraordinary” that is, in fact, going to waste? What about people who are missing fingers and toes? Don’t ordinary Americans have twenty digits? If you’re an albino, are you an ordinary American? What if you’re forty years old and have never been married? What if your parents were never married? What if you don’t believe in God?
Oh I’m being so silly. That’s the point, though. To tell me people are “ordinary” is a useless thing to do if criteria are not being applied, and it’s useless to inform me of qualification for the criteria if you refuse to tell me what the criteria are. Many among the 1,410,000 go much further than refusing to divulge the criteria; it has become commonplace to tiptoe around anything that might invite inquiry about the criteria.
Nobody ever says “the NSA has collected information about three million Americans some seventy-five percent of whom are estimated to be ordinary.” I’ve not heard anyone say anything like that. And yet, if “ordinary” is something more meaningful than a figure-of-speech, shouldn’t someone have said something like that by now?
I understand what I’m supposed to be thinking: An ordinary American is, simply, me. I’m supposed to worry that President Bush is going to spy on me when I read about these “ordinary Americans.” Once again, though, it seems nobody has the balls to come out and say that outright. So I have to wonder if the facts would support it.
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