Being Quirky and Being Smart

This is what happens when you score less than an 1100 on your GRE's. You become Zooey Deschanel.

As a one off to the analysis of Brassier's Enlightenment and Extinction, I felt a compulsion to distinguish between the quirky disposition and an intelligent person (notice I felt no need to refer to the intelligent person as the "intelligent disposition"). As the surrounding socio-cultural spectrum accepts the new year, an observation needs to be made distinguishing the quirky person from the intelligent person. To put it simply, when someone is not as smart as they think they are, they tend to rely on images of themselves where they appear smart. This confusion is irritating. The scientist and the engineer for example (generally speaking) live out their lives and appearance with a lack of recognition for either. The chemist for example mixes chemicals to create a solvent which is used to clean printing plates. They go back home and don't think of themselves. They may be sparked with a passing interest in a field independent of themselves but there's a sense of limitation of what they don't know (this we can call intelligence). A passive interest is just that compared to what they do all day. These intelligent people we can say fall under the category of "interest in some trades, master of one." On the other hand, the self-consciously quirky personality makes large efforts to appear intelligent by looking peculiar into cameras. Because someone looks weird, doesn't make them intelligent. It just makes them look dumb and unaware of their own limitations. While we are using Zooey Deschanel as an example of this phenomena, we can look at Scarlett Johansson as the opposite of Deschanel. From watching the films that Johansson has starred in, it's fairly obvious she's not the sharpest tool in the shed nor a great actress (she does what she does in her limited roles and limited lines given to her). All that being said, there's a feeling that Johansson knows her limitations by the fact that she hasn't allowed herself to be commercialized as the "weird intelligent" type. The images of Johansson are straight up sexy, albeit lacking in the subtle intelligent appearance that belongs to Sharon Stone for example (who's not afraid to give a wide open soft smile). The salient point I'm trying to make is very simply that "appearances can be deceiving," and in this case, the appearance of looking intelligent can be very deceiving. In the future, for anyone who would like to be around people where trusting what they say is a premium (not simply on factual grounds, but on ethical grounds), then staying clear of these quirky looking, odd dressing, attention seeking image seekers is a place to start. Of course this is a generalization, and you can never judge a book by its cover. But maybe you can. Maybe this ideal of "not judging a book by its cover" needs to be examined more closely. Maybe the line between physical appearance and mental aptitude is more thin than once thought. Ultimately though, this isn't a call to making everyone "intelligent," 1. because the idea of "intelligence" is fairly relative (someone who can build a house from scratch is certainly as intelligent as someone who can publish a book) and 2. there maybe some people who are quite fine in their intellectual limitations. It's here in the second point where the idea of intelligence can manifest a somewhat universal concept; know your limitations. And those who don't know their limitations may end up looking like Zooey Deschanel allowing cameras to make her appear smart, not be smart. Of course, it's not just the cameras; it's what she shows to the camera.

The Private Ideology of National Public Radio

The unbiased paragon of soft news.

If people listen to NPR because they like the news, that's fine. If they listen to it because they think it comes from some pure objective place, please read the article below regarding Juan Williams being fired from NPR:

"NPR's firing of commentator Juan Williams this week is one of the worst examples of rush to judgment since 9/11.

Mr. Williams, whether one tends to agree with him or not, is immensely respected by his fellow journalists and viewers alike for his ability to conduct himself with dignity and respect in a field where extremes of opinion and low-ball tactics have become all too common. He's mostly a moderate liberal who is able to hear other points of view with respect, and he can be nuanced in his own views.

In these times, Mr. Williams's instinct for finding both middle and common ground is no small feat.

And for what offense has he been pilloried by the censorship squad of NPR? For saying out loud what many Americans think—that he gets nervous when he's on a plane and sees people dressed in traditional Muslim garb.

As an Arab-American of Muslim descent, I am not offended by this because in all honesty I have had the same reaction in similar circumstances. In Berlin a couple of years ago, my flight was delayed because, we were told, one of the passengers, who was in a wheelchair, needed extra assistance. When she finally was brought into the waiting area, she was covered from head to toe in traditional Muslim dress and only her eyes were visible. What happened? I grew nervous. I got on the plane just the same, but with trepidation.

Was my response rational? Yes and no.

It was not Muslims in traditional garb who hijacked those planes on 9/11, and it certainly was not Muslim women in veils and wheelchairs. If anything, an Islamist terrorist wants to blend in, not stand out.

However, it was not a traditional sort of terrorist attack I feared in this case, but perhaps something unexpected: a traditional Muslim woman in a veil, confined to a wheelchair, who was loaded with explosives.

That may make me guilty of an overactive imagination, but perhaps not. Not that many years later, a young Muslim on an international flight into Detroit tried to light explosives in his underwear.

I mention all this for one main reason. I grew up surrounded by Islamic culture, went to Islamic events, and was used to seeing women in traditional Muslim clothing, and yet when that woman appeared at the Berlin airport, I was scared.

That's all Mr. Williams was saying. He didn't say that they should be removed from the plane, treated differently, or anything close to that. He simply said he got nervous. And for that, he was fired.

The reality is that when Muslims cease to be the main perpetrators of terrorism in the world, such fears about traditional garb are bound to vanish. Until such time, the anxiety will remain. In the long run, it's what we do with such fears that matters, not that we have them.

But regarding what happened to Mr. Williams, no one should tolerate such intolerant behavior on the part of NPR. This broadcast network is paid for by the American taxpayers, and as such we all have a stake in its decisions.

Anyone who cares about freedom of speech should protest what has been done to this decent and fair man. And even if that were not the case, even if Mr. Williams' views made him a detestable ogre to most, he still has the right to voice them. For many Americans, NPR's consistent tilt to the left has caused them to reject it as a viable source of news.

NPR often embodies the very things it claims to stand against: unfairness, narrow-mindedness and reactionary policies.

I ask all Americans of conscience, most particularly those of Arab and/or Muslim descent, to protest the firing of Juan Williams and to demand that public funding to NPR cease until Mr. Williams's good name has been cleared and he has been rehired (if he still wants to work for this network).

We deserve better from a public radio network funded by taxpayer money."

Mr. Dabul is a freelance writer based in New Jersey.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023804575566363119493650.html?mod=ieslice


This post and article is not in regards to whether Juan Williams reaction was irrational, or "right" or "wrong" (Juan Williams admits to himself afterwords in the same interview that it was probably an irrational immediate response to this situation). It's in regards to the impossibility of something called "objective news," and the more grotesque fact that there are self-righteous people who aren't even aware of their presumptuous inclinations in thinking they can provide "objective news" for a "public." Still, more perverse are people who listen to any news broadcast and think they are getting "objective news," not realizing the style that's influencing this thinking.

For further reading, check out this article I wrote for Wedolists.com on NPR:
Ten Problems with NPR

Visceral Neutering

This looks like fun

I found this great post on the NFL's discussions to limit the hits on other players based on the refs perception of the degree of the hit when checking out the Giants.com message forum. The refs will have a new jurisdiction to regulate fouls based on their perception on the "devastation" of a hit.

"After a weekend of knockouts (literally), the NFL and sundry rattles its sabre in a pretense of caring for the health of its players. Analysts, coaches, players, commentators and even the fans are quick to say how out of line James Harrison, Dunta Robinson, and Brandon Meriweather are for their collective "cheap shots" on fellow players.

And they are all full of crap.

The whole debate about helmet to helmet, and defenseless players; this legislating of a full contact sport could be made moot with one stroke of the pen .... turn the NFL into a flag football game.

Why doesn't this happen? Because that product wouldn't sell. Period.

The NFL is the most popular sport in the U.S. for one reason ... it gives a visceral fix not seen anywhere else. The NFL is and always has been our gladiatorial arena. Crowds cheer more loudly at hard hits. We thrill at bone crushing hits. We delight when helmets come flying off. We shiver with pleasure when blood is spilled.

Then we feel guilty afterwords and publicly decry those we can label as obvious villains while scouring the Internet for the clips of those fantastic hits we missed on Red Zone, or the Sunday Ticket.

I say relish in this time of aggression. One day and one day soon, you will not be afforded your visceral fix any longer. The thought machine that directs what we say, and how we react publicly during our everyday lives will extend to (and already has) our private lives and in the not so distant future, sports like football will truly become a virtual sport.

Well defined, well trained athletes will give way to slightly built, physically challenged individuals with over developed hand-eye coordination, wielding joy sticks and your new heroes will be pixelated monstrosities that are blown apart in CGI'd wonder on a daily basis."

Lepomp Shames

When courage and strength puts fear aside,
Commitment elates in a hero to hide.
A knight not seen in daylight's repeat,
A form that's taken, a secret to keep.

When love's not shaken by glitter and prize,
A life stands tall to nothing outside.
A kings last taste to nothing forsaken,
Onwards to show, the heartless awakens.