Carnival of the Elitist Bastards!

If you're looking for a serious pile of awesome, check out the first issue/entry/thing for the Carnival.

Click me!

Here she stands in dry-dock, awaiting launch: a ship of the line, cannon gleaming, masts straight and strong: the H.M.S. Elitist Bastard, built to withstand the endless assaults of ignorance. Her mission is to seek and destroy stupidity and make the world safe for knowledge once more. Where she sails, no IDiot is safe, no ignoramus secure: she's armed to the teeth and filled with a feisty crew begging for battle.

Witness that crew now gathered together about her bow. Their cohorts gleam. Their eyes shine with the light of reason. The rattle of their cutlasses nearly drown out the screams of seabirds and the hiss of waves. All gazes fall upon John Pieret of Thoughts in a Haystack, who now lifts the champagne bottle from its case and steps forward to christen the ship. "Be All the Bastard You Can Be," he exhorts us, and breaks the bottle. Champagne sprays. Cutlasses leap into the air, cutting sunbeams into a billion rays.

Our great ship of the line slides from her dry dock into the bay, throwing up a great spray of water as Efrique of Ecstathy gives us our mission: Celebrating the Intellect. "We need smart people," he announces. "We need experts. We need people who are prepared to devote years of their lives to studying a subject." We shall go forth and make sure the world knows it.

As the gangplank is run out and we prepare to board, Paul Sunstone of Cafe Philos solemnly reminds us of what is at stake as he is Introducing the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. "An “elite” is one of the worse names you can call an American these days. It’s a word that, like communist or fascist, conjures up a visceral reaction.... Scientists and intellectuals are increasingly becoming marginalized in American society. It is that elite that is besieged. That elite that is loathed, distrusted, ridiculed and scorned." We are going forth to rescue that beleaguered elite and ensure the world does not fall prey to ignorance. It is a daunting task.

Check out the rest!

Carnival of the Elitist Bastards!

If you're looking for a serious pile of awesome, check out the first issue/entry/thing for the Carnival.

Click me!

Here she stands in dry-dock, awaiting launch: a ship of the line, cannon gleaming, masts straight and strong: the H.M.S. Elitist Bastard, built to withstand the endless assaults of ignorance. Her mission is to seek and destroy stupidity and make the world safe for knowledge once more. Where she sails, no IDiot is safe, no ignoramus secure: she's armed to the teeth and filled with a feisty crew begging for battle.

Witness that crew now gathered together about her bow. Their cohorts gleam. Their eyes shine with the light of reason. The rattle of their cutlasses nearly drown out the screams of seabirds and the hiss of waves. All gazes fall upon John Pieret of Thoughts in a Haystack, who now lifts the champagne bottle from its case and steps forward to christen the ship. "Be All the Bastard You Can Be," he exhorts us, and breaks the bottle. Champagne sprays. Cutlasses leap into the air, cutting sunbeams into a billion rays.

Our great ship of the line slides from her dry dock into the bay, throwing up a great spray of water as Efrique of Ecstathy gives us our mission: Celebrating the Intellect. "We need smart people," he announces. "We need experts. We need people who are prepared to devote years of their lives to studying a subject." We shall go forth and make sure the world knows it.

As the gangplank is run out and we prepare to board, Paul Sunstone of Cafe Philos solemnly reminds us of what is at stake as he is Introducing the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. "An “elite” is one of the worse names you can call an American these days. It’s a word that, like communist or fascist, conjures up a visceral reaction.... Scientists and intellectuals are increasingly becoming marginalized in American society. It is that elite that is besieged. That elite that is loathed, distrusted, ridiculed and scorned." We are going forth to rescue that beleaguered elite and ensure the world does not fall prey to ignorance. It is a daunting task.

Check out the rest!

Carnival of the Elitist Bastards!

If you're looking for a serious pile of awesome, check out the first issue/entry/thing for the Carnival.

Click me!

Here she stands in dry-dock, awaiting launch: a ship of the line, cannon gleaming, masts straight and strong: the H.M.S. Elitist Bastard, built to withstand the endless assaults of ignorance. Her mission is to seek and destroy stupidity and make the world safe for knowledge once more. Where she sails, no IDiot is safe, no ignoramus secure: she's armed to the teeth and filled with a feisty crew begging for battle.

Witness that crew now gathered together about her bow. Their cohorts gleam. Their eyes shine with the light of reason. The rattle of their cutlasses nearly drown out the screams of seabirds and the hiss of waves. All gazes fall upon John Pieret of Thoughts in a Haystack, who now lifts the champagne bottle from its case and steps forward to christen the ship. "Be All the Bastard You Can Be," he exhorts us, and breaks the bottle. Champagne sprays. Cutlasses leap into the air, cutting sunbeams into a billion rays.

Our great ship of the line slides from her dry dock into the bay, throwing up a great spray of water as Efrique of Ecstathy gives us our mission: Celebrating the Intellect. "We need smart people," he announces. "We need experts. We need people who are prepared to devote years of their lives to studying a subject." We shall go forth and make sure the world knows it.

As the gangplank is run out and we prepare to board, Paul Sunstone of Cafe Philos solemnly reminds us of what is at stake as he is Introducing the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. "An “elite” is one of the worse names you can call an American these days. It’s a word that, like communist or fascist, conjures up a visceral reaction.... Scientists and intellectuals are increasingly becoming marginalized in American society. It is that elite that is besieged. That elite that is loathed, distrusted, ridiculed and scorned." We are going forth to rescue that beleaguered elite and ensure the world does not fall prey to ignorance. It is a daunting task.

Check out the rest!

I'm doing it again.

Fear of not eating. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Etc.

So I will do my best to serenely subsist on rice until we can pay for both bills and food. We're supposedly going shopping tonight, but I don't know which of us can absorb the initial cost of groceries for four people after paying rent and with the bills just taken care of this morning. I'm not using my credit card again, because I have enough debt as it is, thank you very much universe.

I'm just really pissed at my financial situation right now. Why in the hell do I feel guilty that I didn't pick up extra hours at a job I hate so that I can help support a household of grown adult people? It's not my obligation, and it's not Brian's either. But guess whose names are on the bills?

I just need to chill the fuck out. This is almost over.

Problem is I've been telling myself that for weeks now, and "over" hasn't come.

I'm doing it again.

Fear of not eating. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Etc.

So I will do my best to serenely subsist on rice until we can pay for both bills and food. We're supposedly going shopping tonight, but I don't know which of us can absorb the initial cost of groceries for four people after paying rent and with the bills just taken care of this morning. I'm not using my credit card again, because I have enough debt as it is, thank you very much universe.

I'm just really pissed at my financial situation right now. Why in the hell do I feel guilty that I didn't pick up extra hours at a job I hate so that I can help support a household of grown adult people? It's not my obligation, and it's not Brian's either. But guess whose names are on the bills?

I just need to chill the fuck out. This is almost over.

Problem is I've been telling myself that for weeks now, and "over" hasn't come.

I'm doing it again.

Fear of not eating. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Etc.

So I will do my best to serenely subsist on rice until we can pay for both bills and food. We're supposedly going shopping tonight, but I don't know which of us can absorb the initial cost of groceries for four people after paying rent and with the bills just taken care of this morning. I'm not using my credit card again, because I have enough debt as it is, thank you very much universe.

I'm just really pissed at my financial situation right now. Why in the hell do I feel guilty that I didn't pick up extra hours at a job I hate so that I can help support a household of grown adult people? It's not my obligation, and it's not Brian's either. But guess whose names are on the bills?

I just need to chill the fuck out. This is almost over.

Problem is I've been telling myself that for weeks now, and "over" hasn't come.

Blessed be the Carnival.

First off, I encourage everyone to go check out the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. In honor of my fellow eggheads, I figured I'd quit linkfarming for a second and actually post something I'd written myself.

As long as I can remember I read several grade levels ahead of the other kids. What's more, I remembered what I read. When I ran out of books at home I hit the encyclopedia or my little illustrated-for-kids dictionary. I was a latch-key kid without cable TV, what else was I supposed to do?

One day in class, we were in the library and the teacher asked who knew what an encyclopedia was. I raised my hand, thinking that it'd be better if someone who knew the answer did so rather than the teacher calling on someone who didn't know. I told her that it's a book or set of books containing information in alphabetical order. Some subjects, such as art or history, have their own encyclopedia.

I wouldn't remember that definition to this day if not for the reaction I got. There was no relief that the other kids didn't have to answer. They recoiled like Puritans from a suspected witch. The teacher called on me again, and again, wanting answers from me. It only made it worse. I had transgressed. It turns out that the correct response to a teacher's question is to be one of his or her hapless victims so that other students can feel a solidarity in the face of all this horrid "schooling."

It was not until I was about twelve that I learned the trick. Until then I'd doggedly read and written and answered and done my best. Until then I got it wrong. The trick is to make people laugh. It's not that making people laugh will create happiness. Primates don't always (or even often) smile because they're happy. It's to relieve tension. It's a survival skill.

If you don't make them laugh, they will hate you.

So I became something of a class clown to bridge the social gap. People had an idea that I was smart, but because I danced and jigged and used my intelligence to make their day more amusing... I was okay despite the crime of intelligence. They knew I wasn't one of them, but at least I was in their service.

That's how I got through high school, and it got me through college. It was okay for me to know a few more things than other students as long as I used that knowledge to make them laugh. Gradually I came to rely on it. It became a mode of control. I had to make people smile, had to make people laugh, had to make them feel the way I wanted them to feel. It was the only power I had.

Unfortunately this doesn't work everywhere. My mother often proclaims her great pride in me, the first woman in the family to get a college degree. I'm the good kid, the smart kid, the world traveler and scholar who's making it without help from mom and dad. And yet I know she resents me as well. As glad as she is that I've accomplished what she wanted before she got knocked up, I think she resents me for being the one who did it, for being the one who went further.

I didn't really realize it until during an argument she brought up what was evidently supposed to be an example of my withering superiority. I used the word "obelisk" to describe something while in the car with my parents, and I guess it's not the kind of word that a wise daughter uses. When they didn't know what an obelisk was, it took me a second to find some less precise way to define it. To me an obelisk is an obelisk. Eventually I think I came out with "thin pointy tower" or something.

I guess my pause was too long, expressing some deep-seated disdain for these imbeciles I was trapped in a car with. During our recent argument, my mother commented defensively, "We can't all be as brilliant as Ashley Holmes."

What's the alternative? Treat her like she's stupid? Coming from a worldview that values intellect, it's hard to imagine wanting people around you to assume you're uneducated. It's hard to imagine wanting people to err on the side of dumbing themselves down for your poor benighted overloaded mind. I knew what an obelisk was, and I assumed she knew.

Both of these social failures, one in grade school and one only months ago, stem from the same sin. I slipped up and I didn't adequately hide my intelligence. I think it was Francois de La Rochefoucauld who said, "It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability." Great and valued. And necessary.

So I tip my hat to Dana and the others over at the Carnival. People need a space where it's safe to be intelligent and where you can assume other people value their knowledge... and yours. It is badly needed, and until the rest of the country catches up... Blessed be the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. Bastards unite!

Blessed be the Carnival.

First off, I encourage everyone to go check out the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. In honor of my fellow eggheads, I figured I'd quit linkfarming for a second and actually post something I'd written myself.

As long as I can remember I read several grade levels ahead of the other kids. What's more, I remembered what I read. When I ran out of books at home I hit the encyclopedia or my little illustrated-for-kids dictionary. I was a latch-key kid without cable TV, what else was I supposed to do?

One day in class, we were in the library and the teacher asked who knew what an encyclopedia was. I raised my hand, thinking that it'd be better if someone who knew the answer did so rather than the teacher calling on someone who didn't know. I told her that it's a book or set of books containing information in alphabetical order. Some subjects, such as art or history, have their own encyclopedia.

I wouldn't remember that definition to this day if not for the reaction I got. There was no relief that the other kids didn't have to answer. They recoiled like Puritans from a suspected witch. The teacher called on me again, and again, wanting answers from me. It only made it worse. I had transgressed. It turns out that the correct response to a teacher's question is to be one of his or her hapless victims so that other students can feel a solidarity in the face of all this horrid "schooling."

It was not until I was about twelve that I learned the trick. Until then I'd doggedly read and written and answered and done my best. Until then I got it wrong. The trick is to make people laugh. It's not that making people laugh will create happiness. Primates don't always (or even often) smile because they're happy. It's to relieve tension. It's a survival skill.

If you don't make them laugh, they will hate you.

So I became something of a class clown to bridge the social gap. People had an idea that I was smart, but because I danced and jigged and used my intelligence to make their day more amusing... I was okay despite the crime of intelligence. They knew I wasn't one of them, but at least I was in their service.

That's how I got through high school, and it got me through college. It was okay for me to know a few more things than other students as long as I used that knowledge to make them laugh. Gradually I came to rely on it. It became a mode of control. I had to make people smile, had to make people laugh, had to make them feel the way I wanted them to feel. It was the only power I had.

Unfortunately this doesn't work everywhere. My mother often proclaims her great pride in me, the first woman in the family to get a college degree. I'm the good kid, the smart kid, the world traveler and scholar who's making it without help from mom and dad. And yet I know she resents me as well. As glad as she is that I've accomplished what she wanted before she got knocked up, I think she resents me for being the one who did it, for being the one who went further.

I didn't really realize it until during an argument she brought up what was evidently supposed to be an example of my withering superiority. I used the word "obelisk" to describe something while in the car with my parents, and I guess it's not the kind of word that a wise daughter uses. When they didn't know what an obelisk was, it took me a second to find some less precise way to define it. To me an obelisk is an obelisk. Eventually I think I came out with "thin pointy tower" or something.

I guess my pause was too long, expressing some deep-seated disdain for these imbeciles I was trapped in a car with. During our recent argument, my mother commented defensively, "We can't all be as brilliant as Ashley Holmes."

What's the alternative? Treat her like she's stupid? Coming from a worldview that values intellect, it's hard to imagine wanting people around you to assume you're uneducated. It's hard to imagine wanting people to err on the side of dumbing themselves down for your poor benighted overloaded mind. I knew what an obelisk was, and I assumed she knew.

Both of these social failures, one in grade school and one only months ago, stem from the same sin. I slipped up and I didn't adequately hide my intelligence. I think it was Francois de La Rochefoucauld who said, "It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability." Great and valued. And necessary.

So I tip my hat to Dana and the others over at the Carnival. People need a space where it's safe to be intelligent and where you can assume other people value their knowledge... and yours. It is badly needed, and until the rest of the country catches up... Blessed be the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. Bastards unite!

Blessed be the Carnival.

First off, I encourage everyone to go check out the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. In honor of my fellow eggheads, I figured I'd quit linkfarming for a second and actually post something I'd written myself.

As long as I can remember I read several grade levels ahead of the other kids. What's more, I remembered what I read. When I ran out of books at home I hit the encyclopedia or my little illustrated-for-kids dictionary. I was a latch-key kid without cable TV, what else was I supposed to do?

One day in class, we were in the library and the teacher asked who knew what an encyclopedia was. I raised my hand, thinking that it'd be better if someone who knew the answer did so rather than the teacher calling on someone who didn't know. I told her that it's a book or set of books containing information in alphabetical order. Some subjects, such as art or history, have their own encyclopedia.

I wouldn't remember that definition to this day if not for the reaction I got. There was no relief that the other kids didn't have to answer. They recoiled like Puritans from a suspected witch. The teacher called on me again, and again, wanting answers from me. It only made it worse. I had transgressed. It turns out that the correct response to a teacher's question is to be one of his or her hapless victims so that other students can feel a solidarity in the face of all this horrid "schooling."

It was not until I was about twelve that I learned the trick. Until then I'd doggedly read and written and answered and done my best. Until then I got it wrong. The trick is to make people laugh. It's not that making people laugh will create happiness. Primates don't always (or even often) smile because they're happy. It's to relieve tension. It's a survival skill.

If you don't make them laugh, they will hate you.

So I became something of a class clown to bridge the social gap. People had an idea that I was smart, but because I danced and jigged and used my intelligence to make their day more amusing... I was okay despite the crime of intelligence. They knew I wasn't one of them, but at least I was in their service.

That's how I got through high school, and it got me through college. It was okay for me to know a few more things than other students as long as I used that knowledge to make them laugh. Gradually I came to rely on it. It became a mode of control. I had to make people smile, had to make people laugh, had to make them feel the way I wanted them to feel. It was the only power I had.

Unfortunately this doesn't work everywhere. My mother often proclaims her great pride in me, the first woman in the family to get a college degree. I'm the good kid, the smart kid, the world traveler and scholar who's making it without help from mom and dad. And yet I know she resents me as well. As glad as she is that I've accomplished what she wanted before she got knocked up, I think she resents me for being the one who did it, for being the one who went further.

I didn't really realize it until during an argument she brought up what was evidently supposed to be an example of my withering superiority. I used the word "obelisk" to describe something while in the car with my parents, and I guess it's not the kind of word that a wise daughter uses. When they didn't know what an obelisk was, it took me a second to find some less precise way to define it. To me an obelisk is an obelisk. Eventually I think I came out with "thin pointy tower" or something.

I guess my pause was too long, expressing some deep-seated disdain for these imbeciles I was trapped in a car with. During our recent argument, my mother commented defensively, "We can't all be as brilliant as Ashley Holmes."

What's the alternative? Treat her like she's stupid? Coming from a worldview that values intellect, it's hard to imagine wanting people around you to assume you're uneducated. It's hard to imagine wanting people to err on the side of dumbing themselves down for your poor benighted overloaded mind. I knew what an obelisk was, and I assumed she knew.

Both of these social failures, one in grade school and one only months ago, stem from the same sin. I slipped up and I didn't adequately hide my intelligence. I think it was Francois de La Rochefoucauld who said, "It is a great ability to be able to conceal one's ability." Great and valued. And necessary.

So I tip my hat to Dana and the others over at the Carnival. People need a space where it's safe to be intelligent and where you can assume other people value their knowledge... and yours. It is badly needed, and until the rest of the country catches up... Blessed be the Carnival of Elitist Bastards. Bastards unite!