Seek and ye shall find?

Why is it that we always seek answers and explanations for virtually every anomaly that we encounter? When the answer is not immediately obvious, then we start with the rationalization. I firmly believe that this is one of the drivers of chaos in our world.

Everyday at about 4:30 PM EST, some financially inept talking head announces that "The stock market dropped today on news that ADD INANE EXPLANATION HERE".

And then there is the so called "TV News", which has now mutated into the "TV Opinions". I don't remember ever hearing an opinion from Walter Cronkite. It was always, in the words of Joe Friday, "Just the facts ma'am". Now it may be that this was a slow progression down what I will henceforth call the "Hierarchy Of Redundant Social Engineering Pushed Onto Ordinary People" or HORSEPOOP. For the enlightenment of the followers of this blog, I list the hierarchy below, followed by my analysis of this analysis. Your opinions are of course welcome, as well as anything else you would like to just plain make up.

1. Facts pure and simple - the Edwin R Murrow era of true journalism.


2. Analysis of the facts - primarily done by historians, but eventual crept into the jargon of the journalist.


3. Opinions on the analysis of the facts to make me seem more like Mister Smarty Pants.


4. Opinions on the opinions of the analysis of the facts to make me seem even smarter than Mister Smarty Pants.


5. Stuff we just made up so that more people will watch our stupid show and we can make more money - The FOX News and MSNBC Era, augmented of course by such smarty pants guys as Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart.

This last item, I will call the top of the hierarchy, as it was built upon all of the others and could not really exist without there being actual facts to lampoon. I have in fact just recently read a very concise statement on this "celebration of ignorance" that describes our current culture and the dissemination of knowledge, information, and wisdom (yes, they are different things).

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance" - Carl Sagan from "The Demon-Haunted World" - 1995

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

Jane, Jane, Stop This Crazy Thing

Did you ever feel like things are just moving too fast for your tiny mind to keep up? The amount of information flowing into my brain at any one instant in time seems to be on the increase. In mathematical terms, the first derivative of the inane chatter equation is always postive. It just keeps getting worser and worser.

It all started, for me, with television. First we had Captain Kangaroo, Lost in Space, and Bugs Bunny on three channels of black and white with sound in mono. I don't remember exactly when that turned into several hundred channels of nothing to watch in 3D with 7.1 surround sound. There is almost certainly some "History of Television" website out there that would give us all the gruesome details.

And then there is the internet. This monstrous mound of miscellaneous mischief came into existence for the public in the 1980's. I read somewhere that the amount of human knowledge doubles every couple of years. It used to take over a hundred years for it to increase. Dredging up some calculus again, that would mean that both the first and second derivative of the inane chatter equation are always positive.

The fundamental problems with the aforementioned assumptions and conclusions, are that we are calling this an "expansion of knowledge", when in fact it is an exponentially increasing mound of poo poo. Knowledge, by definition, would grow our understanding of our universe and the things that are in our universe. Honey Boo Boo, Duck Dynasty, Ice Road Truckers, MSNBC, and FOX News do not grow our understanding of doodley squat. I do believe that these particular examples actually suck existing knowledge from the mind of the listener.

I am going to throw out a theory, and I dares any of you to come up with an alternate explanation for all of this. I believe that an alien race discovered our planet in 1947. It was only a small scout fleet that was to soften us for the coming invasion. We actually did shoot one of them down in Roswell, and the remainder of the fleet landed and assimilated amongst us. These aliens then commenced to inventing various gadgets and gizmos to suck the ambition and wherewithal from our very souls. They started with cars to make our bodies weak, then progressed to television and the internet so as to dampen our desire for knowledge.

You need look no further than Adriana Huffington, Glenn Beck, Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore, and Ann Coulter to realize that the aliens have landed and want to suck your brain out.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond