avoid anyone
thinks every book should have been
six-paragraph post

Taking an easy way out to fill a few days of my blog, I am presenting some of Arwa Mahdawi’s five golden rules for spotting an idiot this week.

Building on the theme, If you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system,” raised by the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, recently in a commencement address to the Northwestern University Class of 2023, Guardian Columnist, Arwa Mahdawi put together her own list of five foolproof red flags to help identify idiots.

Ms. Mahdawi writes: So how do you spot an idiot? Well, says Pritzker, it’s not always easy. “I wish there was a foolproof way to spot idiots, but counterintuitively, some idiots are very smart. They can dazzle you with words and misdirection. They can get promoted above you at work,” Pritzker said. “They can even get elected president.”

“… it’s a shame, I think, that Pritzker didn’t elaborate further. I think we could all do with a bit more of a comprehensive guide, don’t you? So I’ve helpfully put together the beginnings of one.

Behold, five golden rules for spotting an idiot.”

Similarly, avoid anyone who thinks that every book should have been a six-paragraph blog post

Sadly, Ye is far from alone in having a proud disdain for books. Over the past decade, the world has worshipped at the altar of Stem. We’ve fetishized data and technology and devalued the humanities. The result is a generation of policymakers and tech bros who think that books are useless and everything can be understood through a purely technical lens.

Take Sam Bankman-Fried, for example. Last year, back when the disgraced FTX founder was still being feted as a genius, SBF told the journalist Adam Fisher that he thought books were a massive waste of time. “I would never read a book,” SBF proclaimed. “I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think, if you wrote a book, you f***** up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

Bankman-Fried, who is being investigated for allegedly misappropriating billions of dollars in customer funds, certainly knows a lot about f****** up.

This Bankman feller really said ‘I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that?’

I am reminded of the old TV Show, Yes, Minister.

A massive report is prepared for submission and someone asks if an executive summary has been prepared.

“The Dick and Jane version? Of course!” is the reply.

And when the report is presented to the Minister, he takes one look and says, “Tell me there is an executive summary?“

I can understand that, but the rest?

I would never read a book.

I’m very skeptical of books.

Without question.

Without a doubt.

Anyone I that I might hear saying anything like that I would avoid and immediately label and idiot.

Thinking of the Governor of Illinois, and wanting to be successful in this world and understanding that I have to develop my own idiot detection system, I can endorse this 2nd rule even with a certain of incredulity that these people are out there.

But they are.

People who are very skeptical of books.

How can you argue with such folks?

I know they are out there and I know they think that, but I still find it hard to grasp.

I think of that other old TV show, Happy Days.

Howard Cunningham and Fonzie are arguing.

Howard makes a point referencing the movie High Noon.

Fonzie dismisses the point saying if he had been Gary Cooper, he would have punched Grace Kelly.

Howard throws up his hands and walks out saying, “How can you argue with a man who would punch Grace Kelly?”

beware anyone
who describes themselves as proud
non-reader of books

Did this really need to said?

YES IT DID!

Building on theme, If you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system,” raised by the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, recently in a commencement address to the Northwestern University Class of 2023, Guardian Columnist, Arwa Mahdawi put together her own list of five foolproof red flags to help identify idiots.

Ms. Mahdawi writes: So how do you spot an idiot? Well, says Pritzker, it’s not always easy. “I wish there was a foolproof way to spot idiots, but counterintuitively, some idiots are very smart. They can dazzle you with words and misdirection. They can get promoted above you at work,” Pritzker said. “They can even get elected president.”

“… it’s a shame, I think, that Pritzker didn’t elaborate further. I think we could all do with a bit more of a comprehensive guide, don’t you? So I’ve helpfully put together the beginnings of one.

Behold, five golden rules for spotting an idiot.”

Taking an easy way to fill a few days of my blog, I will highlight some of her five rules this week.

Rule Number 1: Beware of anyone who describes themselves as a “proud non-reader of books”
If someone boasts about being too smart for books, it’s a tell-tale sign they’re an idiot.

Exhibit one: Kanye West, who now goes by Ye.

“I am not a fan of books,” the rapper told an interviewer in 2009 as he did the press tour for his own book.

(Well, calling it a book is a stretch: it was a 52-page collection of his thoughts called Thank You and You’re Welcome.

Some of the pages were intentionally left blank and others just had a single “Kanye-ism” on it like: “I hate the word hate!” or “Get used to being used.”)

The problem with books, Ye went on, is that they’re generally too wordy.

“I am a proud non-reader of books,” he added.

Which goes a long way to explaining Ye’s recent descent into an antisemitic and white-nationalist rabbit hole.

I, for one have always loved books.

I, for one have always been sensitive to those who don’t.

Those who don’t and feel bad about it.

I worked for years in bookstores and libraries and there where those people who would come in and say, ‘Look, I don’t read. Can you help me.‘

And my heart went out to them.

When I managed a mall bookstore, I would caution my staff at Christmas that this was the time when we would be getting customers who would be shopping for someone else otherwise they would never be in a bookstore and that these folks might be anywhere from embarrassed to downright uncomfortable in a bookstore.

But there are those people I have met.

Those people with a disdain for reading.

Never read a book, never plan to read a book and never missed anything by not reading any book and, sad to say, proud of it.

I feel sorry for them.

I feel sorry for Mr. Ye.

One thing to be ignorant.

Quite another to be proud of being ignorant.

Non so blind I guess, as those who WILL not see.

As Garrison Keillor said, “… they didn’t learn much until the day they died. But they learned a whole lot the next day.”

I have been lucky.

And smart enough to be appreciate my luck.

I grew up in a family that read and in a house filled with books.

I am reminded of a time at the library where I was working when a Dad came in with his kid to get some information for a school report.

I don’t know what the Dad did for a living, but from his shoes, his hands and his dress, whatever he did for a living was hard work.

His son was being whiney as I helped them and set several books they had requested on their table where they were working.

As I walked away I heard the Dad say, ‘You can do the work with the books now, or you can do the work with your back later.’

The kid looked down for a bit.

Then he pulled at the pile of books and the Dad and his kid went to work together.

must choose, choose wisely
truth will bring you life, the lie …
will take it from you

The reoccurring theme of late in my haiku are thoughts from the book Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella.

I am reconnecting with the book this summer as I am listening to it during my commute to and from work.

Years and years ago I found myself in Toronto at what was billed as the World’s Biggest Bookstore and there was nothing about the bookstore that gave you any reason to dispute the claim.

As I remember it, it filled an entire block of downtown Toronto and was 4 stories high and filled with books.

Overwhelmed as I am whenever I get in a bookstore like that as I want them all, I selected one of those Penguin volumes of the BEST CANADIAN SHORT STORIES for whatever year it was, as an appropriate souvenir and that was when I first read the short story, Shoeless Joe Comes to Iowa.

This was before Mr. Kinsella developed the theme into a book and the story ends with Shoeless Joe asking Ray if he can comeback and bring his friends.

Ray says yes and mentions a catcher he was familiar with he asks Joe if he can come back too.

Joe promises that if he and friends can back, they will look at the catcher.

And that’s where it ends.

You cannot read Shoeless Joe and not think of the movie Field of Dreams.

Most of the time, I think of parts in the book (the twin brother, the James Earl Jones character is JD Salinger, The oldest living Chicago Cub) that don’t make it into the movie.

But today I was thinking of a part of the movie that isn’t in the book.

The scene where Ray and Annie go to school meeting about banning a book.

Had the movie kept JD Salinger, the meeting would have been about a school board banning The Catcher in the Rye.

But JD Salinger isn’t in the movie.

And the scene, as marvelous as it is, is not in the book.

I was thinking about that scene in the movie though.

I was thinking about people watching that scene back when the movie was released in 1989.

I was thinking, were there people in the audience who sided with the lady who called for the book to be banned?

Was there anyone in the audience who, back in those innocent days before 9/11, twitter, cell phones, covid and Fox News who felt anything but that ‘could this ever happen in America again?’

TODAY, I still feel can there be people who watch this scene and not get excited and not say about Annie, that’s who I want to be?

But there are.

I have some of the same feelings about the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird.

How can people watch this movie and not get excited and say about Atticus Finch, that is who I want to be?

But there are.

I hope, if you asked them, do you want to be the nazi book banner or do you want to be Bob E. Lee Ewell, they would say, of course not.

But that’s who they line up with.

There is a choice to be made.

I am reminded of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I enjoyed the movie.

There was so much promise that fell oh so short, but not the worst movie in the world.

I am reminded of the movie and scene where they get to the room with the holy grail.

Filled with holy grails.

And the old Knight says, ‘You must choose. But choose wisely, as the true grail will bring you life, and the false grail will take it from you.‘

Of course the bad man gets the wrong grail and turns to dust before your eyes.

The old Knight watches and then says, slowly, He chose poorly.

Here is the scene from the Field of Dreams.

you are remembered
for the rules you break, you don’t
do that … well, I did

Most deep-sea craft undergo costly rounds of inspection and testing by reputable marine organizations that specialize in certifying the deep-diving craft as safe. But Mr. Rush obtained no certification for Titan, saying it stifled innovation. In a documentary, he said: “You are remembered for the rules you break, and I’ve broken some rules to make this. The carbon fiber and titanium — there’s a rule you don’t do that. Well, I did.”

From the article, The Maverick Design Choices That May Have Doomed Titan By Helmuth Rosales, William J. Broad, Eleanor Lutz and Bedel Saget, in the New York Times, July 14, 2023.

The Mr. Rush quoted above is Stockton Rush, the man behind the Titan and the Titanic.

One might call this famous last words or maybe a case of an unfortunate truth.

sit around swearing
properly excellently
to lessen the pain

From the article, “The ultimate swearword: an algorithm has come up with the ‘best’ expletive ever. It is certainly a surprise“, in the Guardian that states:

Perhaps it’s reassuring that the best mathematics can come up with sounds so rubbish. When AI has taken all our jobs, at least we can sit around doing nothing except swearing – properly and excellently – at each other. To lessen the pain.

I am reminded on Mark Twain on swearing.

He had some good ones.

“Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.“

And …

“When angry count four; when very angry, swear.“

My favorite quote comes from the play, Inherit the Wind, where Henry Drummond, the lawyer modelled after Clarence Darrow says:

“I don’t swear for the hell of it.

Language is a poor enough means of communication.

We’ve got to use all the words we’ve got.

Besides, there are damn few words anybody understands.”