USA! USA! USA!
Fun article on how stupid the next generation of Americans will be. The columnist knows a teacher who is so frightened of how bad the United States will be next generation, he’s considering retiring to another country.
So I decided to take a look at a few different age groups and their blogs to see if we really are becoming that stupid.
The Fogies (55+): Well, they don’t blog too much. Technophobia and all that.
MLC Candidates (36-54): You can read someone like DK who compels his readers to think in unorthodox manners, and might be considered rather sophisticated (as long as you ignore the pics of half-naked women). Or Derek, who handles words as well as a fencer wielding a rapier and main gauche (and is one of two people in the world who force me to use a dictionary.) Or the self-abasing chessloser who’s the best I know at writing long blog posts that manage to keep my interest.
My peers-ish (20-35): Then you get to the generation of me and my peers, who are less and less able to express our thoughts with any sort of extended prose or accurate verbiage. We are more or less adults in age only, and our writing reflects it (I prefer not to use words more than two syllib…sylabel…parts.) Apparently, my sworn enemy is now incapable of producing much more than 12 word Twitters.
Kids (19 and under): I don’t know any bloggers this age, more evidence that they’re illiterate.
Frightening stuff.
I can’t BELIEVE you called me an MLC. But otherwise thanks. I’m going to go look up main gauche now.
Comment by Derek Slater | 26 October 2007
btw, great picture.
Comment by Derek Slater | 26 October 2007
ok that just made my day. better than “you’re so rock”. it may be the extremely strong coffee I just had but I can’t stop giggling.
Comment by annie | 26 October 2007
Who are the Morans and Why is this protester picking on them?
I was once in a band called MLC. Now we’ve incarnated to a blues band called Fuzzy D and the intruders.
Comment by Blunderprone | 26 October 2007
Yep. My inane twitters are my way of saying:
1) I’m too lazy to update my blog with a real update
2) I’m too busy to update my blog with a real update
3) I don’t want to update my blog
4) The thought I want to share with the world is too inane even for my blog.
My brain cells are definitely dwindling. I know for a fact I am getting stupider and stupider each day. I try to stave off Alzheimer’s by reading not-enemy Annie’s blog.
Comment by Caroline :) | 26 October 2007
M…L…C….. ooooh. mid life crisis. I sat there for about 4 hours with a vacant stare until ah…dur…
dr chen, i regret to inform you my blog may encourage and even nourish the progession of Alzheimer’s. Yet, on I post.
Comment by annie | 26 October 2007
Poetry of Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy - Inferno
Inferno: Canto I
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
At that point where the valley terminated,
Which had with consternation pierced my heart,
Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
Vested already with that planet’s rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.
Then was the fear a little quieted
That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout
The night, which I had passed so piteously.
And even as he, who, with distressful breath,
Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,
Turns to the water perilous and gazes;
So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,
Turn itself back to re-behold the pass
Which never yet a living person left.
After my weary body I had rested,
The way resumed I on the desert slope,
So that the firm foot ever was the lower.
And lo! almost where the ascent began…
Comment by David K, Seattle | 27 October 2007
MLC evidently can mean many things!
Comment by David K, Seattle | 27 October 2007
when you say MLC, you mean martin luther cing? does that guy in the picture dislike erin moran (tv’s lovable joanie from happy days)? thanks for the props, yo…
Comment by chessloser | 27 October 2007
@Derek: Ironically, it was one of your comments (see comment #902) that reminded me of the term at all.
Re: main gauche. Times I’ve gone to the dictionary because of you: a couple dozen. Vice versa? One.
@Annie: The thing that puts this picture over the top is that English is this guy’s first language.
@Blunderprone: Apparently, Morans doesn’t know how to grill filet mignon.
Is your music better or worse than your chess?
@Caroline: Sadly, mentioning Annie’s blog would have ruined the findings. Not only is she insightful sometimes, she’s the other person who makes me crack the dictionary.
@Annie: You are insidious.
@David: Oh, yeah, um…the one I really meant was Movement for the Liberation of Congo. Because that’s where all the 36-54 year olds hang out.
@Chessloser: Props? Oh, yeah. Just give them back to me when you’re finished, ’cause I need to start on my theatre production mid-2008.
Comment by Donnie | 27 October 2007
Oh sure, blame the old guy. Lawsuit to follow shortly.
Are you in Houston now? I are confused.
Comment by Derek Slater | 29 October 2007
[...] Sasser is a counterexample to my original hypothesis of 55+’ers not blogging. I have no clue how I found his site or why I keep going back. It was the first site I saw with the [...]
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[...] Microtwittering addendum Published November 13th, 2007 Language , Science! It seems like a logical next development, consistent with both the Cosmic Variance description of the inexorable path of science (smaller and smaller) and also Liquid Egg Product’s insistence that most young Americans can’t string a whole sentence together. [...]
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