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Across the spectrum of human endeavors, the sophomoric prank is an obligatory rite of passage. Who amongst us has not broken into the control tower at the airport dressed in nothing but our skivvies, tied up the public address operator, taken a giant hit off a helium balloon, and, in our most sterling Donald Duck accent, transmitted to the jet-lagged and disoriented voyagers scattered about the terminal preposterous bulletins, like: "Kabbalah Airlines announces the arrival of Flight 456 from the Planet Klezmer?" Or: "Will the person who is thinking about the brisket for dinner, please meet the apparition at the newsstand on the grand concourse where a shoplifting is now in progress?" Ho Hum. Overdone a million times. And after a certain age, as the poet says, we "put away our childish things" and it just isn't cute anymore, especially if you are the boss of everybody.
If you are the boss of everybody, of course, you have a built-in retort whenever a child or a tinhorn dictator at an international development conference wags a finger in your face while screaming, "you're not the boss of me!" For the rest of us, who are not the boss of everybody or who mostly don't go to international development conferences to throw money at totalitarians who have mastered the pronunciation of the word "reform" by practicing daily before a mirror, the highest comeback to which we can aspire is: "No, but at least I'm you're joint-venturer!" Doesn't exactly fall trippingly off the tongue. Besides which, any child or tinhorn dictator can see right through this crap.
During the era when hungry, wild animals were everywhere, and being lunch was as likely a prospect as eating it, stupidity was, to a large extent, outre, because it tended to weed out certain characteristics such as, for example, stupidity. Nowadays, to get ahead, it is practically de rigueur to be stupid. Put another way, in our own era, stupidity, especially when paired with a deficiency of talent and an allergy to couth, spells big bucks. How did we get from outre to de rigueur in so short a span? It is as though the whole world has donned skivvies, inhaled helium, and broken into the control tower.
Many is the day (every) that we have said: "Why not throw self-respect to the wind, resuscitate one of our old standard sophomoric pranks, sell out, and cash in like all the other jackasses? Answers to these questions abound, but we don't have a clue what any of them are.
We do know this, however. People didn't use to say "as far as" or "it was such a thrill for her and I" or "I also understand and agree that if I am 15 minutes late with a payment, Lender has the right to raise my interest rate to 29%, ruin my life, and tank the economy." But this was in the day when everybody knew how to do long division, navigate by the stars, and recite the names of Henry VIII's girlfriends. Those days are long gone, and even though (when compared to the those aforementioned skills) the ability to describe the design of Kate Middleton's dress doesn't seem to have the same gravitas, no matter how much The New York Times fawns over it on the front page, that is now what matters most. Put another way, nobody gets rich doing long division anymore.
If this sounds like so much sour grapes because we don't have our own television show about wearing jeans so baggy that three gymnasts from Cirque du Soleil could practice -- simultaneously -- tumbling routines in them comfortably while we sit around with people inflated with silicone and collagen (whom we pretend are our friends), corrupting the language and insulting behind their backs the losers who would rather give blood than come to our idiotic caveman-themed party, it is. Plus, the Network refused to return, or even to acknowledge, our treatment.
As far as the people who run things, let's just say, we could use a few more hungry wild animals roaming around the halls of government. And the entertainment industry boardrooms.
If you are the boss of everybody, of course, you have a built-in retort whenever a child or a tinhorn dictator at an international development conference wags a finger in your face while screaming, "you're not the boss of me!" For the rest of us, who are not the boss of everybody or who mostly don't go to international development conferences to throw money at totalitarians who have mastered the pronunciation of the word "reform" by practicing daily before a mirror, the highest comeback to which we can aspire is: "No, but at least I'm you're joint-venturer!" Doesn't exactly fall trippingly off the tongue. Besides which, any child or tinhorn dictator can see right through this crap.
During the era when hungry, wild animals were everywhere, and being lunch was as likely a prospect as eating it, stupidity was, to a large extent, outre, because it tended to weed out certain characteristics such as, for example, stupidity. Nowadays, to get ahead, it is practically de rigueur to be stupid. Put another way, in our own era, stupidity, especially when paired with a deficiency of talent and an allergy to couth, spells big bucks. How did we get from outre to de rigueur in so short a span? It is as though the whole world has donned skivvies, inhaled helium, and broken into the control tower.
Many is the day (every) that we have said: "Why not throw self-respect to the wind, resuscitate one of our old standard sophomoric pranks, sell out, and cash in like all the other jackasses? Answers to these questions abound, but we don't have a clue what any of them are.
We do know this, however. People didn't use to say "as far as" or "it was such a thrill for her and I" or "I also understand and agree that if I am 15 minutes late with a payment, Lender has the right to raise my interest rate to 29%, ruin my life, and tank the economy." But this was in the day when everybody knew how to do long division, navigate by the stars, and recite the names of Henry VIII's girlfriends. Those days are long gone, and even though (when compared to the those aforementioned skills) the ability to describe the design of Kate Middleton's dress doesn't seem to have the same gravitas, no matter how much The New York Times fawns over it on the front page, that is now what matters most. Put another way, nobody gets rich doing long division anymore.
If this sounds like so much sour grapes because we don't have our own television show about wearing jeans so baggy that three gymnasts from Cirque du Soleil could practice -- simultaneously -- tumbling routines in them comfortably while we sit around with people inflated with silicone and collagen (whom we pretend are our friends), corrupting the language and insulting behind their backs the losers who would rather give blood than come to our idiotic caveman-themed party, it is. Plus, the Network refused to return, or even to acknowledge, our treatment.
As far as the people who run things, let's just say, we could use a few more hungry wild animals roaming around the halls of government. And the entertainment industry boardrooms.
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