Lately several people have joined in my sentiment that we are writing to the wrong audiences and dumbing things down too much.
Case in point, textbooks, which are written more for the regurgitation of pap and making another buck on recycled information that is strangely devoid of substantial content. I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe –
“It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating,” said the Queen presently. “What would you like best to eat?”
“Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.
But Edmund was eating only snow, devoid of even sweetness, much less nutrients, and thinking it was good.
To quote Curtal Friar‘s comment from a few days ago:
Books used to be packed with information, and you could actually use them to learn and get good at something.
Just look at the old Boy Scout manuals. Hell, look at books they used to publish for boys to learn how to build and fix things. All kinds of useful info. Nowadays it’s all a bunch of crap you have to wade through to find anything useful.
Look at Modern Mechanix and see how it was once done.
They didn’t dumb the science down back then. Now someone would quash such articles for being “beyond the reach of ordinary people”. The idea being that it would scare off readership to present topics that are too complex.
Now let’s quote Jack Handey.
It makes me mad when I go to all the trouble of having Martha cook up about a hundred drumsticks, then the guy at the Marine land says, ‘You can’t throw chicken to the dolphins. They eat fish.’
Sure they eat fish, if that’s all you give them. Man, wise up.
- The Great Philosopher Jack Handey
Well sure kids won’t read complex stuff if all you feed them is crap. Why must publishers always assume kids have the IQ of lovable ol’ Goofy?
****
Sent to me by One Who Wishes to Remain Anonymous…
****
On Drudge, there was a link to an article at NationalJournal.com -
Nerves Show on Team Obama
Recent scrambling by the president’s political advisers indicates they’re very worried about his reelection chances.
He has good reason to be worried. The piece, written by Josh Kraushaar had a very tell-tale bias in it.
But there are telltale signs that the grassroots army that propelled him is in a much less giving mood. It’s not a huge surprise; the bad economy has hit Obama’s small donors too. When you’re having trouble paying the bills, you’re not exactly pining to pitch in hard-earned money to help a powerful president.
By no stretch of the imagination could Obama be viewed as “a powerful president”. It’s asinine. One could only say such a thing if one once believed in Obama’s belief that He Himself could walk on water.
****
And from near my home town, where the newspaper is known by my father as The Red Guard (The Register Guard)… how the (local) intelligentsia make patriotism sound worse than pedophilia.
I’m kind of stymied as to how something that was meant to pull people together could be so vilified by people incapable of tending to facts without twisting them. It’s something like a personal record-breaker for Eugene’s Mayor.
Mayor Kitty Piercy called the Pledge of Allegiance divisive. “If there’s one thing the flag stands for,” Piercy says, “it’s that people don’t have to be compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance or anything else.”
Compelled? What? A person who truly values what this country is and stands for would never see the Pledge of Allegiance as something that they were compelled to recite.
****
Ok, the raw link:
http://www2.turnto10.com/news/2011/jun/29/17/unconscious-woman-found-fall-river-pool-ar-572606/
Uh… she was dead for two days. How can the link say “unconscious-woman-found”?
I was a lifeguard for years and I’m wondering if it was staffed by students from the School for the Blind.
****
Delivering the graduation speech in spanish? Oh, it’s only going to happen more and more as the invasion intensifies. Because we’re letting it happen.
And no, it doesn’t matter one stinkin’ bit that it was done in english, too. This is America. Don’t know how much longer that’ll be the case though.
Publishers do NOT assume kids have Goofy’s IQ. They force it down their throats, and dumb them down on purpose.
Obama has been passing that idiotic “I just wish to be a good one-term prez” crap for a while now. He knows he is done, but his ego won’t let him not run.
Oh, here is my favorite quote from that Oregon article:
Another pledge opponent, Councilwoman Betty Taylor compared saying the Pledge of Allegiance to reading from “The Communist Manifesto.”
The irony is strong in that one.
And the principal is playing politics, under the guise of bringing people together.
And you know what is even cooler than the fact that you correctly identified “irony”? (In my opinion most people haven’t a CLUE how to use the word because they’ve never been taught it properly, which goes back to the top of the fold.)
The fact that irony happened on two levels at once. That’s the equivalent of a trifecta, or perhaps even superfecta.
MEGAFECTA FTW!!!!
Hmmm… tri… super… mega… would that be six horses in correct sequence?
Nope, just one Aggie getting something right
Pretty sharp for a blonde.
**pokes bear with stick**
Must be that basil, olive oil, and mozzarella cheese boosting the old brainpower.
It isn’t blonde!!!
It’s gray!!!
I’m still ticked off at Spartacus for not having the right “thumb” signal.
Sure we do thumbs up now, but back then it meant something different and it had nothing to do with how we use it.
I figure it’s because so many of the people who are the deciders now were kind of stupid and they know they were intimidated by “smart” stuff. Like people with a doctorate in social sciences deal being all proud they can’t do math.
Obama is a powerful president, at least, he does stuff that no other president could have gotten away with, not even Clinton. Stuff that’s on the border (each side) of lawlessness.
Maybe Roosevelt and Lincoln could have gotten away with it.
That’s pretty darn powerful.
Even soft sciences like social science requires statistics. Or it should, unless they’re studying things that require lots of consultation with one’s navel.