Norman Borlaug, 1914-2009

R.A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Mon Sep 14 06:30:42 PDT 2009


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On Sep 14, 2009, at 1:30 AM, Robert X. Cringely wrote:

 > Either that or you simply like to insult people you don't know.

Yes. Yes, I do. I'm even good at it sometimes. :-)

I also effusively praise people I *don't* actually know. Like, say,  
Norman
Borlaug. Or you, on occasion.

Most of the erst-"modern" media, as currently constituted, is a moral
sewer, "Bob".  The internet, present company :-), and some cable  
channels
excepted.

And it's not the management, or the technical people, or the advertising
salespeople. It's the very people who create the "news", which *is*,  
as I
said, a veritable cloaca maxima: of thinly-disguised neofeudal Marxism.

What? You thought I meant Dissipation? Debauchery? Anchor-porn?

Or maybe you thought I meant "capitalism", "greed", "oppression" of the
"workers", or some other grotesque salad of Marxist loan-words?

Nope. Though when one actually lies for a living it must prey on the  
soul
sometimes. And, it's probably even worse to actually believe the  
progress-
and initiative- destroying collectivist *superstition* that the so- 
called
mainstream media emets these days.

To paraphrase Scott Adams (speaking of someone else who destroys  
initiative
and progress...), people like Tom Brokaw and almost everyone fronting  
for
the government controlled leftist media "...combine pomposity and a  
command
of trivia and try to pass it off as intelligence" And the media *is*
leftist and government-controlled, in the case of of Mr. Brokaw's  
medium,
from the day in 1934 when Roosevelt (a leftist...) bamboozled the  
American
people into letting him expropriate the airwaves and set up the FCC.

Yes, I'm sure Mr. Brokaw worked very hard his whole career at writing
thirty-second digests of news stories from the front page of the New  
York
Times, or from Time, or the AP, or Granma, or Tass, or wherever, and
reading them into a camera while slathered in pancake makeup with a  
bunch
of klieg lights making his face grimace into that famous, rugged,
far-seeing visage. All while maintaining enough of an air of absolute
informed authority to keep his ratings up and sell elderly-care  
products to
a continually-declining audience.


Particular to *my* observation of him in action that day, however, was  
his
*entire* "greatest generation" history-regurgitation schtick, the  
*height*
of hypocrisy, in light of his unceasing efforts to undermine the  
military
effectiveness of his *own* country, pretty much every weeknight of his
adult life.

It was almost impossible for me to keep my gorge down while watching him
spew that stuff into the faces of the *next* generation, all while a  
bunch
of crypto-commie academics drooled adoringly at him, nodding sagely at  
his
now old -- and, okay, dissipated -- far-seeing visage.

So, no, I'm sure Mr. Brokaw is a *delightful* person to down a few beers
with, or stand in a government-restricted trout-stream to fly-fish  
with. Or
sit on a dais with while he collects another honorary degree.  But, to  
me,
he represents the very business end of a, yes, moral, sewer.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?...

;-)

Cheers,
RAH






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