Monday, December 25, 2006

Lewinski in teh news

The news that Monica Lewinski earned a M.A. from the London School of Economics is...news, apparently.

I don't really want to talk about that.

What I did want to mention was something I just noticed - the Washington Post allows comments on articles now. The results are about what you'd expect.

It doesn't seem to matter what the topic is - everyone with an opinion on SOMETHING will find a way to use the article at hand as a launching point for their particular soapbox.

The column on Lewinski is a snarky bit of riffing on "smart but dumb" and "dumb but smart" that name-drops celebs in every sentence. It's not a great article, but it's got plenty to respond to, and people do.

Boy, do they.

Yes, an article that features Jessica Simpson's mom talking about "jessica's, like, 160 freakin' IQ" - thankfully, we're not treated to her dad's drooling comments about her rockin' body - is enough for a number of commenters to ask "why not talk about how we entered Iraq under false pretenses."

Okay. I guess it's relevant - readers who are dumb and dumber.

I spend yesterday listening to Orson Scott Card's latest book, Empire. He suggests a possible scenario for a red/blue, rural/urban, wackjob left/wackjob right civil war complete with assassination of the president and the potential end of the Republic (hence "Empire"). I could quibble with some of his characterizations, but he points out the poisonous rhetoric of the current state of our *cough* "union", which hasn't been this toxic since the 1850s.

I'd like to say "yeah, right" to such a book. But reading the carnival of idiocy that passes for 95% of the commentary on the WP's stories, drowning out what could have been interesting debate from the other 5%, I confess he has a point.

So...congratulations, Monica Lewinski, on your academic achievement. Unlike your smart-but-dumb former boyfriend, you appear to have truly moved on, and I wish you every success. Ignore the jibber-jabbering classes and enjoy your life.

3 comments:

NedraZ said...

Comment on Monica? Eh, no thanks.

Reading comments on other blogs makes me so grateful for what we have on eh wheel.

Merry Christmas, Sulla. I'm glad I got to meet you!

X_LA_Native said...

Dangit! Rabbit keeps beating me!
Merry Christmas to you and your lovely wife, Sulla.

SillyBlindHarper said...

Clearly, you should be spending all of your free time on Teh Wheel and not mucking about on the Washington Post site!

We're smart at all times, dumb when it's more fun, and goodhearted at all times...

Merry Christmas to you and "Honey" and a lifetime more!