Saturday, January 13, 2007

Subvert Idiocracies (Use big words where they fit)

A recent Mike Judge movie "Idiocracy" is a very worthy diversion, when one has time for diversions. Or, when one needs to laugh in lieu of head-butting the wall.

I went to an associated blog of one of my more regular reads in order to recommend this delightfully heavy handed satire on the dumbing down of societies, only to be reminded of those in the trenches of real ideological conflicts.

Charles Henry, of Covenant Zone provides links to a developing story of victims of Egypt's Eid Al Fatr rapes finding voice through blogs. I went to the linked site, but I am no polyglot.

In the comments of Charles Henry's post Dag reminded me of a conveniently forgotten story to which I had been previously directed. A homeless blogger named Bill Simpson has been banned from blogging in a public library in Canada. He was then harassed and libeled by hackers.


I visited Bill Simpson's site and have read only cursorily, so I can not attest to what kind of genius and/or crackpot that he may be, but let it be for the record. Hackers that delete and otherwise vandalize that which they do not agree are cowards. Public servants that think that they can carefully choose the public which they are bound to serve are mistaken.

3 Comments:

Blogger Always On Watch said...

Maccus Germanis,
Glad to see that you've posted again! I've been lurking here from time to time.

The dumbing down of societies serves to soften up our culture. See this about libraries. The article deals with classics being tossed out. But what else is being tossed out and no longer on the shelves?

1/14/2007 09:47:00 AM  
Blogger Charles Henry said...

what else is being tossed out and no longer on the shelves?

If I can judge based on what I find in our local libraries excess stock sales: older history books, written before the 1970s.
Books about US history, European history, and colonial history, written before the current era of "enlightenment".
While it's great for me, because I've been able to scoop up dozens of these terrific resources at a buck or two apiece... it's not so good for anybody planning on doing research and finding themselves limited to the likes of Hozard Zinn and Karen Armstrong.

Thanks for the link, MG! I'm going to look for the film you recommend.

1/14/2007 03:21:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cambridge Tooniversity orders witchhunt against student.

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2007/02/fuck-it-we-aint-giving-up-ghost.html

2/12/2007 12:17:00 PM  

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