Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainVia The Education Wonks we find this Washington Post story about Kansas teenager Zach Rubio who was suspended from school for speaking Spanish -- not in class, but in the school hallway. [...]read more »
In his latest blog entry, science fiction author David Brin wonders if George W. Bush doesn't prove that we're all just part of some bad simulated reality — W.'s holodeck program. If that's true, maybe we should be worried because George looks like he's getting bored.
If we need a QED for this hypothesis, just look at our situation today. The Presidency is the ultimate fantasy job. Especially if there's no duty, no hard work, no responsibility for outcomes, and none of the worry or care that has prematurely aged so many other occupants of the office.
Instead (since you wrote the holodeck program) you get to take more vacation days than your four most recent predecessors PUT TOGETHER... and have fewer news conferences in 5 years than even McKinley had in one. Take all the money and give it to your friends? Got a problem with that? You win through the weirdest series of accidents and blatant tricks that anyone has seen since cemeteries voted in Chicago? Nu? Accountability? That's for real life, not a holodeck fantasy! Anyway, what's the point in being Commander in Chief if you can't have a cool war? No, not one of those prissy responsible wars, like Clinton's Balkans Campaign. (No US deaths and all objectives achieved in two months? Where's the fun in that?)
But what to do? While Brin doesn't provide an easy answer he does suggest that we take all the fun out of W.'s little fantasy. This is the second half of a two parter; you can find the first here.
...here’s the first state to face a major civil emergency while much of its National Guard has been yanked away to some foreign land. This is yet another way to view the foolishness of our leaders. Their inability to really consider that the world is dangerous. Here’s a way to put it: the metaphor for this Iraq War should be ELECTIVE SURGERY. At first, we were urgently told it was an EMERGENCY ROOM PROCEDURE, back during the lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction. No time to talk, or plan or persuade allies, or ponder the most efficient means of achieving desired ends. If we did not act fast, Saddam would fry our babies! Now we are told that reason never mattered, after all. The real purpose was always to liberate oppressed people and spread freedom.
