quote o' the day

[geekchick]

"Real people can be dim at times but it takes a real intellectual to be this stupefyingly dumb."

(from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19962-2001Sep24.html)

Comments

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Just a comment on the article itself...

I went to the grocery store on the Friday after the attacks and saw these special magazine editions everywhere. While this author is right - some of the photographs are thought-provoking and communicate far more than any writing ever will - it was just morbid to see the photos everywhere so soon after the events. And I saw people just clamoring to collect each different magazine's special issue, like it was this years report of the Oscars or something.

While press coverage (both right after and now, continuing) is inevitable, right, and proper, and honoring the memory of the victims and the achievements of the rescuers is appropriate, it seems like these special issues devolved from coverage into a sort of saturated, in-your-face, emotional masturbation of sorts. Less about actual news and more about wallowing in - and to an extent glamorizing - this terrible thing.

Maybe the magazine editors didn't mean it that way, but this is the sort of story that makes and breaks journalistic careers and they can't help but to have been a little enthusiastic, in a twisted kind of way. But I think they overdid it.

As to your original quote - yes, I agree. We've seen a lot of smart people say dumb things about this whole event. And dumb people say even dumber things than usual. I think this is going to be normal, at least for awhile.