Tuesday, December 17, 2013

List-erine - America Needs Generous Mouthfuls to Fight Brain Decay

Two neat guys who had a way with polling and were tops with chicks.

I wrote about Lists and the American writer who tried his level best to debunk them.  To Jean Shepherd, the makers of lists were over-deadlined, untalented and nepostisticly employed  newspaper workers.  They were the , "Freddy, so long as your Dad owns this paper, you have a job.  Here it is; make lists lotsa lists" guys.

Lists parallelled polls. Polling is the adjunct faux science of the social sciences, spawned by John Dewey and the pipe-smokers at the University of Chicago. Polling is conducted with great . . .self-importance . . . and like weather forecasts, gets it wrong, late, or whatever. Dopes love polls and attach great importance to their weight and then attach them to their articles. or blogs.


Illinois was told that Same Sex marriage was a civil right via a poll conducted by Carbondale's Paul Simon Institute.  Named for Garrison Keiller of American political life in the late 20th Century ( Senator Paul Simon a Party hack who had the good sense to be a Lutheran and wear bow-ties) Paul Simon Institute is the incubator of Illinois Policy.  It (PSI) ain't no gall darn 'think tank,' why it's a sho' 'nuff DO TANK!
The Institute's Purpose
Founded in 1997 by Paul Simon (right), a former two-term U.S. Senator from Illinois and one-time candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute differentiates itself from similar organizations by working directly with elected officials and others to fashion and implement change in public policy. Mike Lawrence (left), was the institute's second director.
Many of these organizations are considered "think tanks," which is not a title that aptly describes the Simon Institute. Paul Simon spoke of his institute as a "do tank" because it seeks--and achieves--positive results and concrete actions based on its work.
Paul Simon established the nonpartisan institute to maintain this fundamental difference from virtually all other organizations of its kind. It does so by asking two important questions:
Can anything be accomplished by our taking on this project? . . .YES!!!!!
• Is our involvement differentiated from other organizations' work on this subject?  Who Cares, Voters are Stupid Cattle!!!!!
By asking these questions, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute determines its potential to make a real difference in society before taking on the responsibility to address any given issue.( Emphases and intrusions my own)
Got that?  It's a done deal before it gets polled! Potential, no apologies necessary  to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas,  determines its own bad self!

That's Polling.  Hard to take it seriously.

Lists are like crossword puzzles and people who live by lists are like doers of cross-word  puzzles - pains in the ass who can not wait to tell you how quickly and deftly they take down the New York Times Crossword Puzzle; thus eliminating cancer, childhood disease, brain tumors and Oscar nominations.


  • Ten Disney Characters Who Are not Gay Sub-Texts
  • Five Little Explained Notions About Lady Gaga
  • Six Reasons Not to Ask Winnie Mandela on a Date . . .besides the necklace and the machete
  • Ten Famous People Who Constantly Say "Yoots" from Cousin Vinny
  • One Movie Wortha  $12 Entry in the Last Twenty Years


Lists help people without the gumption. Those who refuse to put on their reading big boy pants and tackle Hesiod, Balzac, Thackeray, MacCauley, Tennyson, Arnold, Clausewitz, Lao Tze, or Robert W. Service; go out and talk to people outside of their comfort zones, eat a perforated coal shovel placed over a roaring campfire full of roasted pink Kankakee River craw fish pealed and dipped  a coffee can of melted Land O' Lakes butter, or catch, gut batter and fry a net full of Lake Michigan smelt in late March at Jackson Park Boathouse -them's List Aficionados.

Every time I open a paper, a magazine, or a website, I am confronted with lists.  It little concerns me who is the sexiest man alive. . . you're reading him!

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