Because I Can

Larry McMurtry (if you had to say, "Who?" you're not alone. Wikipedia here; basically he wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain) complains of kids these days not reading:

[I will be discussing t]he end of the culture of the book. I’m pessimistic. Mainly it’s the flow of people into my bookshop in Archer City. They’re almost always people over 40.

I don’t see kids, and I don’t see kids reading. I think little kids love to have stories read to them, but when they get to 10 or 11 or 12, they run into this tsunami of technology: iPod, iPhone, Blackberries.

They don’t resist it, and it’s normal that they wouldn’t; it’s their culture. I’m not so sure they ever come back to reading. Some will, but most won’t.

"Those damn kids and their technology. I wrote that screenplay on a typewriter. Why don't kids use typewriters these days? That's what wrong with them - staring at their damn screens." As for kids not reading, tell that to J.K. Rowling. People stood in line at bookstores for the release of those books. But shh, don't ruin his point. Let him do that.

Q: What are you reading these days that excites you?

A: I’m reading this book (of essays) by the late David Foster Wallace called Consider the Lobster, which is a pretty good book. Mostly I reread books.

He rereads books? In part, probably because he has a terrible memory, but still, why not read anything new? Anything at all? Is he convinced they're all bad? Perhaps what he's trying to say, or should have said if he wasn't a retard, was that books these days suck, and the kids are all right, hell they're honest enough to tell us that by listening to crappy music on their iPods.

Labels: FJM Style rip, Old Dudes Complaining

I thought it was just sportswriters, but now apparently anyone that writes for newspapers can be stupid (HT: Tim).

My friend often summarizes for me what he sees, firsthand, every day and every month, year in and year out, in his classroom. He speaks not merely of the sad decline in overall intellectual acumen among students over the years, not merely of the astonishing spread of lazy slackerhood, or the fact that cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure are, absolutely and without reservation, short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming generations. Of this, he says, there is zero doubt.

Cell phones? What have cell phones done to destroy the intellectual makeup of young people? Because they can't sneak away from their parents as easily? Oh, I get it, they use abbreviations instead of write out entire words in text messages. MaB if U tried 2 txt real fast u wood 2. At least they're efficient. Sometimes.

As for TV exposure, that's arguable, because you can find some links, but merely watching TV doesn't make one that much dumber. But the iPod thing, that's clearly the sign of an old man ranting. "Those dang kids listening to their music all the time! Back in my day, you listened to the same songs everyone else did on your transistor radio, and that's if you were lucky."

Nor does he speak merely of the notion that kids these days are overprotected and wussified and don't spend enough time outdoors and don't get any real exercise and therefore can't, say, identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or build, well, anything at all. Again, these things are a given. Widely reported, tragically ignored, nothing new.

No, my friend takes it all a full step — or rather, leap — further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that.

So kids don't do scouts anymore? That seems to be your complaint. But what about this stuff, identify basic plants? How basic do you mean? Poison Ivy (that sounds more like a cry for us to all be boy scouts)? Handle a tool? Yeah, why don't those kids take shop class? And they can't build anything. These are the children of today, look at that crap! But here it gets good, on why the system is broken.

Hell, why should they? After all, the dumber the populace, the easier it is to rule and control and launch unwinnable wars and pass laws telling them that sex is bad and TV is good and God knows all, so just pipe down and eat your Taco Bell Double-Supremo Burrito and be glad we don't arrest you for posting dirty pictures on your cute little blog.

Amazing how people believe their own hyperbole. Fast food loses its appeal as tastes mature and kids appreciate better food, particularly after college life. As for ruling a stupid class of subjects, that actually is harder, because there is the difficulty on their part of actually executing your commands. The War in Iraq could have turned out differently if the occupation was better planned before the start of the war - the invasion itself was brilliant, but while we've gotten better at military conflict, we haven't gotten that much better at occupation and establishing new governments. As for passing laws telling them that sex is bad, that was done centuries ago, actually, and striking down anti-sodomy laws is really a rather recent phenomenon. And I can't remember any laws suggesting that TV is good, or for that matter that God knows all. Again, secularization is a recent phenomenon, as religious education was actually a significant motivation for the first public schools. But enough about facts. Let's look at a Jayson Stark style argument.

Hell, some of the best designers, writers, artists, poets, chefs, and so on that I meet are in their early to mid-20s. And the nation's top universities are still managing, despite a factory-churning mentality, to crank out young minds of astonishing ability and acumen. How did these kids do it? How did they escape the horrible public school system? How did they avoid the great dumbing down of America? Did they never see a TV show until they hit puberty? Were they all born and raised elsewhere, in India and Asia and Russia? Did they all go to Waldorf or Montessori and eat whole-grain breads and play with firecrackers and take long walks in wild nature? Are these kids flukes? Exceptions? Just lucky?

My friend would say, well, yes, that's precisely what most of them are. Lucky, wealthy, foreign-born, private-schooled ... and increasingly rare. Most affluent parents in America — and many more who aren't — now put their kids in private schools from day one, and the smart ones give their kids no TV and minimal junk food and no video games. (Of course, this in no way guarantees a smart, attuned kid, but compared to the odds of success in the public school system, it sure seems to help). This covers about, what, 3 percent of the populace?

As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it, much less change it all for the better.

Let's just take his word for it, despite the fact that you may actually have evidence to suggest that the future isn't completely full of idiots, or at least that it's not more full of idiots than before. I mean, it's not like you could actually do research and determine whether a random sample of young successful people had a public school education, etc. You're a newspaper columnist, your job is to give the people what they want. And what they want is for you to bash the kids, because the kids have better things to do than waste time reading a newspaper. What a load of garbage.

Labels: FJM Style rip, Losers

Decided that it was necessary to make a bizarre ad hominem attack on the name Fred. I don't know what's more bizarre - the fact that she thought to write this, or that the Post's standards are so low they would publish such drivel. This is the kind of thing I expect to see in the Sports pages, but not the serious news. I mean, really, the Washington Post published this:

In the swampy soup of hopefuls for the 2008 presidential election, there is
a man with a funny name. (No, not that one.)

We're thinking of the one named Fred (Thompson).

Say it out loud. Do it. Fred. Fred. In the South, Fray-ud.

Fur-red-duh.

It has the tonal quality of something being dropped on the floor, something
heavy and damp-ish.

Waterlogged paper towel.

Fred.

This lady also seems to borrow from the poetic stylings of Bill Plaschke. But it doesn't stop being awful right there.

There has never before been a major presidential candidate named Fred. There
were two Alfreds, in 1928 and 1936. But Alfred, being all British and Batman-y,
is not the same.

Wow, so you did research. This is where she goes on her rant about how Fred sounds like it should end in Rogers or Flintstone. Just for fun, here are all of the Presidential first names:

George
John
Thomas
James
James (2)
John (2)
Andrew
Martin
William
John (3)
James (3)
Zachary
Millard
Franklin
James (4)
Abraham
Andrew (2)
Ulysses
Rutherford
James (5)
Chester
Grover
Benjamin
William (2)
Theodore
William (3)
Woodrow
Warren
Calvin
Herbert
Franklin (2)
Harry
Dwight
John (4)
Lyndon
Richard
Gerald (Gerry)
Jimmy
Ronald
George (2)
Bill
George (3)

There has also never been a president named Joseph, David, Jacob, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, Noah, or Adam. Rutherford and Jimmy sound more presidential though. Idiot.

Then there's this bit:

But is it, Dr. Smith, a sexy name?

Silence.

"I would not say that. The name Fred does not suggest blatant sexuality at
all."

This from a chick named Monica. Monica. Sorry, it's been a couple of years, but go ahead and click here for a reminder of what comes to mind when you think Monica (picture is clean, SFW, etc). Sorry Ms. Hesse, we can't all have names that conjure up dirty images.

Wag of the finger to Monica Hesse and the Post. But that still doesn't answer, why is Monica talking about what's in a name? Clearly, she had a deadline and some writer's block. Or maybe this is really the Onion. I don't know, but wow.

Labels: FJM Style rip, Politics, Tip/Wag