It is not necessary to condemn Iranian President Ahmedinejad's speech at the UN. He is a whack job. You don't give crazy people even more attention, you don't dignify their stupidity with a response. You do exactly what many did while he spoke. They left and denied him an audience. Same thing with that douche bag moron in Florida who planned to burn the Koran a few weeks back. People over halfway around the world died protesting the intentions of that mofo. Really?
I consider myself among that class of citizens whose knowledge of current events is primarily dictated by what is on the front page of links on any given website I happen to be perusing. I am a fan of the short free paper they give out on mass transit, I rarely read The Economist, The Times, or Wall Street Journal unless they happen to be close to where I am eating and I want something to read. Every time I do, I enjoy it, feel smarter for no good reason, and wonder why I don't read it more. I rarely watch the news. I don't particularly care for it. I don't follow any of the pivotal debates that consume popular discourse for weeks at a time and I don't trust that I will be able to gain a fair or balanced coverage of that debate in any media but especially not popular media. My homepage is BBC because at least on the very front page I can expect coverage of the world and not just the UK like US papers usually do (cover just US news). Essentially, I'm about as well read as Sarah Palin.
It's a big world and I have never been enamored with any culture enough to really follow it's history, people, norms, customs to the extent it takes to be truly well informed. My knowledge on most things isn't even powerpoint deep, it's cocktail conversation with someone who knows even less than me deep. It's I avoid poly-sci majors deep. I'm the person for whom a little information is a dangerous thing but I am at least intelligent enough to realize how smart I am not. I'm going to go on the record and say many, many, many, many people are not. And for them and because of them I feel media has a responsibility to not incite or appeal to our fears and our lowest selves. That ignorance should not get 24 hour news coverage. The White House should not be issuing a statement or engaging in dialogue with a backward congregation of 20 people. If the media didn't give them a platform, they would just be an eyesore in their community instead of an eyesore for the world. If ignorance and fear didn't take over the debate over the 9/11 mosque, we might be able to safely have a place of worship and community without worrying about the safety of the congregation. The phenom of finding the dumbest eyewitness for comments on the news has insidiously crept into replacing actual news and information.
In other completely unrelated news, I was out walking the dog last night and some guy who said he had seen me around the neighborhood gave me his card and suggested we go out for drinks sometime. Not my first street solicitation and not my first, 'let me give you my card.' His card said he was President and CEO (another post for another time on why people have 2 titles that kind of mean the same thing to me) of something which didn't move me because all I could gather from the dark was arms that seemed a bit short for his body, a little girth (I'm one to talk), and glasses. But whatever. I finally googled him to see if he was president of his own hip-hop studio or something like that and turns out he's the real deal. Council of Foreign Relations, consulting with the Brookings Institute, doing development and aid projects in Africa...that real deal. President and CEO of something real. Holy crap.
So I felt bad because I had zero interest in having a drink with him until I saw him all over the interwebs being a "highly regarded social entrepreneur" (I think that means you know how to make money doing good works). Instead of being the usual disappointed that some random guy tried to give me his number or get mine, it was suddenly flattering that he had noticed me around, not mistaken me for homeless, and took his chance to get that second meeting. If he had been hot AND not sweeping cigarette butts and Starbucks cups into his dustpan as most of my solicitors are, I would have been intrigued and delighted right away. Now I'm intrigued but still not even a little attracted to him. Thanks to my girlfriend, I did not write him the spastic e-mail I might have trying to convey in my least rude way that I considered him a networking contact vice a romantic one. I just wrote a quick one line e-mail and gave him my number. So over to you, Mr. Social Entrepreneur.
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