HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-04-04, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2013. PAGE 5.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and
human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the
universe.”
– Einstein
I’m not sure about the universe either,
but I feel pretty confident in saying
there’s an infinity of stupidity right
here on this celestial orb called Earth. A body
doesn’t have to look hard or far to find
examples.
Donald Trump for example. Can anyone
explain why this buffoon-cum-blowhard with
the improbably cantilevered orange coiffure is
famous?
Not for his financial acumen. He’s been
bankrupt more often than Greece.
Not for his charm. He has all the wit and
grace of an NHL goon.
And not for his thick skin. He recently
announced that he was suing comedian Bill
Maher for suggesting that Trump was the
‘spawn of an orangutan’. “That was not a
joke,” Trump growled, “That was pure
venom.”
This from an ignoramus who insists that the
President is not ‘an American’ (read, ‘white
man’) because Trump hasn’t seen Obama’s
birth certificate.
But enough about the Clown Prince of
Celebrities. We’ve got plenty of stupid to go
around in the rest of the world.
In Russia, for instance, where a recent poll
reveals that a substantial number of citizens
still ‘widely admire’ Joseph Stalin, who you
may recall, wantonly massacred millions of
Russians and exiled millions more to gulags in
the Siberian wastes. Adulation for this monster
runs as high as 45 per cent in Stalin’s
homeland, Georgia.
On the other hand, 22 per cent of the citizens
polled in Azerbaijan didn’t even know who he
was. Which is a more encouraging form of
stupid, I guess.
A similar poll in Austria recently revealed
that many citizens there think that a former
favourite son, a housepainter named
Schicklgruber had ‘done many good things.’ in
his time.
Schicklgruber is better known by his stage
name, Adolf Hitler.
Stupidity lives. In Montana last month,
hackers broke into a TV emergency alert
system to broadcast a warning that “the dead
are rising from their graves and attacking the
living’. Four viewers called police to ask what
they should do to survive the zombie
apocalypse.
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas at the Heart Attack
Grill famed for its ‘Quadruple Bypass Burger’,
a customer, John Alleman, died of a heart
attack with his mouth full of – yes, a
Quadruple Bypass Burger. He was 52 and
according to the owner “our most loyal
customer”.
I’m guessing Alleman wasn’t wearing a pair
of Wrangler’s newest line of jeans when he
croaked. The leisure pants are called Smooth
Leg Jeans and they’re designed to ‘fight
cellulite’ as you wear them. How? Well, they
contain caffeine and algae not to mention aloe
vera and olive extract, you see. All of this, the
Wrangler folks say, also makes them ‘easier to
slide into’.
Uh huh. And if you buy that I’ve got a bridge
across the St. Lawrence you might want to
look at.
Say what you will about Stalin and Hitler,
they never tried to sell us seaweed jeans.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Stupidity: a gift that keeps on giving
There are plenty of skills that people
simply shrug off, saying, “Oh, I’m not
too good at (fill in the blank)” not
thinking too much of the hole in their skill set.
Very often that blank is filled with any number
of subjects from your high school days, like
math, geography, history or English.
English, grammar and spelling specifically,
shouldn’t be shrugged off so easily, because
English is the root of communication and,
more than any other course in high school, is a
true window into the soul of your intelligence.
More often than not if you don’t know much
about BEDMAS, or World War I, or a list of
countries situated on the Equator, those are
chinks in your armour that can be covered
rather easily. Problems with your English,
however, are a much more glaring hole.
I receive probably between 80 and 100 e-
mails a day. Whether it’s news releases from
various levels of government or press releases
from companies hoping to spread the word
about how excellent their product is, people
reach out to me many times in a day.
Not to sound like some dictatorial
gatekeeper, but more often than not these
people are looking for something from me.
They hope The Citizen will cover their event,
or review their book, or employ their services,
so you would think, just as in a job interview,
you would put your best foot forward. So often
this is not the case.
Just in the last week, I received two e-mails,
not from anyone local, that not only made me
chuckle at my desk, but not once consider
using this person’s services.
The first was from a woman who had started
her own promotions company. She may very
well be a great marketer, and excellent at what
she does, but when she asked for a “very urgent
proffessional response” as to whether or not I
wanted to write a story on her, I couldn’t help
but think of her as anything but professional.
The second came from a woman
representing an environmental organization
who was updating the group’s media list. The
woman asked if The Citizen had “any specific
environmental reporters who’s contact info
you can send.”
Most people, no doubt, will know that
“who’s” is a contraction of “who is”, so instead
of asking about a reporter whose contact
information we could send, the sentence
becomes “reporters who is contact info you
can send.” It certainly isn’t the smoothest
sentence ever written. With people like that in
prominent positions in environmental groups,
it’s no wonder the planet is doomed.
There are plenty of other notable examples.
The one that has always stood out from my
childhood is the Alanis Morrissette song
“Ironic” which never listed an actual irony, just
a series of unfortunate events.
In fact, just the other day a friend of mine
sent me a nice little grammar joke that has been
making the e-mail rounds. I’ll clean it up for
publication, but it’s essentially “Grammar: The
difference between knowing your crap and
knowing you’re crap.”
A funny little joke, sure, but one with a lot of
truth behind it.
If you only have time to sharpen one of the
knives in your drawer, make it English,
because if you’re perceived to be a well-
spoken, well-written person, the perception of
intelligence in other areas tends to follow right
along with your communication skills.
And if you don’t believe me, watch a group
of journalists try to do some quick math
together. While they may be slick with their
pens, get ready to laugh and feel a lot smarter.
Grammar mishegas
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Thanks to a history of playing
video games, I’ve been introduced
to a lot of terms that I otherwise
may not have run into. Zealot is one of those
words.
Zealots, according to the dictionary, are
individuals who fanatically cling to their
beliefs and are completely uncompromising in
their pursuit of it.
I first ran into the word in a game called
Starcraft. In the game, Zealots were the foot
soldiers of an alien race who charged into
battle faster than other units with melee
weapons.
Usually, when I find a word like that, I look
it up and I laugh how either similar or different
they are.
On March 26, however, I saw the worlds of
the literary and the video game collide.
I was covering Ontario Premier and Minister
of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
Kathleen Wynne’s speech at the Regional
Equine and Agriculture Centre of Huron
(REACH) in Clinton. She was scheduled
to be the keynote speaker during a lunch
break at the Agriculture Sector Economic
Summit hosted by the Huron Chamber of
Commerce and the Ontario Chamber of
Commerce.
Wynne spoke about her vision for the
future and about the challenges and goals that
she hoped to look at during her time as
premier.
Prior to that, however, Wynne had plans to
talk to the protesters of wind energy gathered
outside of REACH to voice their displeasure
with her.
You may be asking, reasonable readers
of The Citizen, why you don’t see a story
or a picture about the comments she made
outside REACH and that’s because of
zealots.
When I say the word zealot this time, I refer
both to the dictionary term and to the word I
came to understand in the video game I
played.
While Wynne had planned on walking
to the main entrance of REACH and
talking to the wind turbine protest groups
that were loudly making their presence known,
the acts of the zealots in that group changed
that.
Not only were they zealots in that they
firmly held their belief without compromise,
but they also literally swarmed Wynne’s
vehicle and nearly pushed her into a side
entrance of REACH, a decision that was
doubtlessly made by her security team when
they saw people sprinting at Wynne with signs
fastened to wooden poles.
All I could think was if I was in the shoes of
those security guards and someone ran at the
person I was supposed to be protecting, I
might have decided that they could have had
designs that were far less noble than speaking
their mind. It was that intense.
Unfortunately for the media and the
protestors who kept a cooler head, the
actions of those zealots made it impossible
for Wynne to publically discuss turbines that
day.
While she made reference to the issue
during her lunch-time speech, the
unnecessarily aggressive movements by the
zealots forced Wynne to hold a closed-door
meeting with three representatives of the
group, rather than the entire group.
Instead of an open and frank discussion that
could have been covered and printed and
actually give some indication as to Wynne’s
plans with wind, we have a few pictures of a
crowd trying to push their way into REACH
after Wynne.
I’m not going to cast my lot in with the anti-
or pro-wind turbine groups because, to be
honest, I don’t care on a personal level.
There are so many people claiming so many
things that I doubt we’ll ever get to the bottom
of it all.
Even if an election were called tomorrow
and a different party was put in power, the
turbines that are up are likely not going
anywhere.
I’m not saying that those against the
turbines are defeated, I am saying, however,
that until a flat truth comes out, the protests
aren’t really accomplishing much from where
I’m standing.
So, with that in mind, I will cast my lot in
with one group today, even if mine is the only
one there.
The group I’m talking about is a new one,
but I expect big things of them.
We are called MAZRO. It lacks the one-
syllable, one-word punch of Huron East
Against Turbines (HEAT), Central Huron
Against Turbines (CHAT), Huron Against
Lake Turbines (HALT) or Bluewater Against
Turbines (BAT), but it gets the point across.
We are Media Against Zealots Ruining
Opportunities.
There was a chance for a good story about
the premier’s stance on turbines, but that was
taken away from the many by the actions of a
few.
Beyond being the founding member of
MAZRO, I’m also going to say that I’m
disappointed in some of the organizations
present at the event and their actions there that
day.
Huron East Against Turbines, I’m
disappointed in you.
I’m from Seaforth, I grew up there, I was
taught to act better than how I saw people
acting there. You were a part of it if not by
your action, then your inaction.
Central Huron Against Turbines, the
same goes for you. I went to Central
Huron Secondary School. I know a lot
of folks from the area. I expected better of
you.
Heck, during Wynne’s speech, several
protestors entered REACH through a student’s
door and it scared the students so much some
required a police escort because they were
afraid to leave the building.
The next time you get together with your
organizations, sit down and explain, as David
Griffiths of BAT did outside of REACH, that
by being belligerent you’re doing nothing but
preventing people from seeing the reasonable
requests you’re making.
By being zealots and unwilling to have a fair
discussion you’re aligning yourself, in the
minds of the average person with evil
individuals. You are only hurting your
message.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Zealots make for lost opportunities