Random Notes from a Crank

I need to work into my lexicon the word booboisie. It's a word coined by H.L. Mencken that is meant to describe stupid people. Mencken was an avowed classist, so he probably meant the term to describe the dregs of a democratic system, the kind of folks who are hoodwinked by people like George Santos and Moscow Don. The kind of people who mistakenly vote against their own best interests...

I need to reread Treatise on the Gods again, a book Mencken thought was one of his best. 

Here are some interesting factoids and stats from the February "Harper's Index":

• Percentage of eligible Americans who vote: 63
• Of Hungarians: 71
• Of Uruguayans: 95
• Portion of Americans who believe the media prioritizes profits over the public interest: 3/4
• Portion of Americans who watch shows or movies with the subtitles on "most of the time": 1/2
• Of Gen-Z-ers who do: 7/10
• Percentage by which young adults are more likely to smoke cigarettes than adults aged 65 or older: 50
• By which young adults are more likely to smoke only marijuana than to smoke only cigarettes: 270

I wonder what it is about Uruguay that has such a strong voting turnout?

I use subtitles on certain programs in which the characters have strong British accents like Peaky Blinders, which I haven't watch much lately. 

The number of young people smoking weed these days is quite strong. I don't think that habit is going to make many of them go-getters. It's not like Mary Jane is a drug known for motivating folks. 

Perhaps the counterculture generation of the 60s and 70s along with NORML won? At least in certain states so far...

Random Notes from a Crank

One of my FB friends shared this article by RawStory the other day that I found interesting. It's written by a neuroscientist: "Link between Religious Fundamentalism and Brain Damage Established by Scientists." 

The gist is that in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that does critical thinking, religious fundamentalist don't have a propensity for "cognitive flexibility and open-mindedness." 

As the author states, "Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge." 

They're not open to change: "Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview."

Religious fundamentalism is one of the things wrong in this world. 

And this all reminds me that I need to reread Mencken's Treatise on the Gods. 

Wales made the World Cup for the first time since 1958. So the group the US is in includes England, Iran, and Wales. 

This fine article from The Onion hits a little close to home since I'm usually geeked up when blue jays and woodpeckers show up: "Area Bird Creeped Out by Bird Watcher.

I need this notebook.  

Random Notes from a Crank

As Xmas approaches, I've seen all kinds of jewelry commercials. I don't know why anyone would actually name a jewelry company Jared, an innocuous male name but one that reminds of some bitter late-20s dude who lives in his parent's basement. And Kay jewelers, right... Every kiss begins with them supposedly. How annoying. The portrayal of women is both commercials is the same sexist tripe we see lots of places, but I wonder if "If you liked it, you should have put a ring on it" is not much, if at all, different? 

On one of the InterWeb fora I visit regularly, people were talking about their top five John Cusack movies. Lots of people like Say Anything, but it never blew me away like it has other people. I'm a big fan of one of Cusack's early comedies, Better Off Dead. In the midst of the discussion about Say Anything though, I was reminded of Lloyd Dobler's excellent answer about his career interests. 



I don't have a ton to say about the Phil Robertson interview and suspension, but it's not surprising he holds such dumb, intolerant views. As one of my buddies on FB pointed out, Christians don't pay attention to all kinds of passages anymore, such as the ones that condone slavery, so this seems just to be another case of applying silly passages to the real world. The whole deal reminds me of what either H.L. Mencken said about Christianity (or maybe was it Twain?). I'm paraphrasing here, but the statement was something like this: It's not that Christianity is a bad religion. It's just some of the followers are whack-jobs. 

Nevertheless, here are some quotations about religion by Mencken if you're so inclined: Mencken on religion. 

This statement seems relevant: "The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by person who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame. True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has the right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has the right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge."

Music Friday: "Take the Power Back"

"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair." ~H. L. Mencken



"The present curriculum,/ I put my fist in 'em./ Eurocentric every last one of them."

Grouchy Old Men

I have reasons why I'm usually reading three of four different books at the same time, but right now I'm reading the work of two grouchy old men along with my devotional slog through the whole obtuse but intellectually compelling A Grammar of Motives by Kenneth Burke.

Besides Professor Burke, the curmudgeons on my reading list are H.L. Mencken (The American Language) and Anthony Bourdain (Medium Raw).

I've read lots of Mencken. He did very interesting and insightful work on a range of topics (Treatise on the Gods mixes erudition and humor quite well), and I've heard about how excellent The American Language is supposed to be. The man doesn't disappoint. I've always enjoyed the Sage of Baltimore's style--how he uses simple and complex sentence structures and selects a wonderful variety of word choices, the high and low--and his Juvenalian study of American English at that time is a lot of fun. Besides focusing on our use of the English language, the book is also an examination of American character. In particular, one statement stands out for me when Mencken talks about how Americans love to adopt new or in vogue words, how they are not linguistically conservative like the British: "A new fallacy in politics spreads faster in the United States than anywhere else on earth, and so does a new fashion in hats, or a new revelation of God, or a new means of killing time, or a new shibboleth, or metaphor, or piece of slang" (30-1).

Spot on.

Bourdain of No Reservations fame, on the other hand, writes like he tends to talk, which goes against the usually useful mantra of folks who teach writing. But Bourdain talks/writes in very interesting ways (except for the overuse of profanity), and his book, and I hadn't realized it came out this year, courts my fascination with food, my growing exasperation with the Food Network, and other food/cooking concerns. His "Heroes and Villians" essay, for example, has the directness of a punch in the gut, and I look forward to reading the "Alan Richman Is a Douchebag" chapter.

But rather than this post being some sophomoric book report, what I'm pondering is why I'm drawn to such grouchy old men. Even Burke in his massive tome has occasional snarky comments about Aristotle, Emerson, Kierkegaard, et al.

Sure, I'm getting older myself (creeping up on the big Four-O); however, I think I've always sort of been a seventy-five year old dude in a younger body ("What the hell are all these people texting about? Don't they have better things to do?").

I should be thankful, I know. I have the loving Mrs. Nasty as my wife, and my kids are my main joys even though there are some times when I understand the old saying, "Madness is hereditary. You get it from your kids." I've been called a lot of names in my life, but my favorites are "Dad" and "Daddy."

I'll chalk up my grouchiness and penchant for reading grouchy old men to my defensive pessimism, which is a phrase I was introduced to recently from an article in Ode Magazine, and I can't link the article from Ode's website for whatever reason (See why I'm defensively pessimistic, especially about technology?).

So I'm thankful but wary.