I haven’t ranted in a while so I’m over due. This fact is aided by the fact that I was upgraded on my flight back from Sacramento and have had a few malt whiskies. Anyone that knows me knows how philosophical I get when I drink scotch. So here I am with my scotch somewhere near the Four Corners catching up with my email and RSS feeds and I read this…
http://krmb.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/rld-book-edia/
Now most of you are (or should be) subscribed to the KRUMB and know how much I enjoy it. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Kyle for what follows.
Sometimes a duck is just a duck. The above entry makes a fantastic symbolic statement on knowledge and the loss of it by a mass media world. I agree with Kyle in his acieration that it is sad to see a book filled with such knowledge destroyed because of that symbolic statement. But that is all it is, symbolic. The true sad fact is that whoever felt the need to dump the books couldn’t be bothered with taking them to the local library and donating them, but I don’t think it is a loss of knowledge.
In fact (and here goes the rant) I think we are smarter and more knowledgeable than we have ever been. I can’t tell you the last time I picked up an Encyclopedia. Today I just double click my CTRL button and Google Desktop is there at my fingertips ready to open the world to my request. I am not sad by that nor should anyone else. I know that there are those out there (including my lovely wife) that think that there is a lost art in reading books and writing letters but I don’t. To my credit, I have been trying. I have even joined a book club, but to be honest, I don’t really see the point. I will admit that it makes me read things that I would not normally read, but I’m beginning to discover there is a reason I only read the things that interest me… the rest of the world I boring. OK, so that is a bit of an overstatement, but still, I have tons of crap I want to read and here I am spending time reading crap someone else selects. I will probably continue if for no other reason than I might find something new I like, which I desperately need. I suppose all things have a purpose and book clubs are no exception.
Geeze… didn’t expect the rant to go that direction. I hope the book club folks don’t subscribe.
Back to the photo and loss of knowledge. Again, I think it is fantastic photo and I’m sure if Kyle had connections he would probably get a NEA grant to expand on the dirty book photo art form, but really I think thy guy was just too lazy or stupid to actually take the books to a library or school. Sad, but somewhat innocent of the charges of destroying knowledge. Let’s face it, the WWW offers a thousand times the knowledge the World Book every did and could. What is truly sad is the countries that sill restrict the internet. If Kyle could capture that in a photo, he would win the Pulitzer.PPPPP
Sometimes a duck is just a duck. The above entry makes a fantastic symbolic statement on knowledge and the loss of it by a mass media world. I agree with Kyle in his acieration that it is sad to see a book filled with such knowledge destroyed because of that symbolic statement. But that is all it is, symbolic. The true sad fact is that whoever felt the need to dump the books couldn’t be bothered with taking them to the local library and donating them, but I don’t think it is a loss of knowledge.
In fact (and here goes the rant) I think we are smarter and more knowledgeable than we have ever been. I can’t tell you the last time I picked up an Encyclopedia. Today I just double click my CTRL button and Google Desktop is there at my fingertips ready to open the world to my request. I am not sad by that nor should anyone else. I know that there are those out there (including my lovely wife) that think that there is a lost art in reading books and writing letters but I don’t. To my credit, I have been trying. I have even joined a book club, but to be honest, I don’t really see the point. I will admit that it makes me read things that I would not normally read, but I’m beginning to discover there is a reason I only read the things that interest me… the rest of the world I boring. OK, so that is a bit of an overstatement, but still, I have tons of crap I want to read and here I am spending time reading crap someone else selects. I will probably continue if for no other reason than I might find something new I like, which I desperately need. I suppose all things have a purpose and book clubs are no exception.
Geeze… didn’t expect the rant to go that direction. I hope the book club folks don’t subscribe.
Back to the photo and loss of knowledge. Again, I think it is fantastic photo and I’m sure if Kyle had connections he would probably get a NEA grant to expand on the dirty book photo art form, but really I think thy guy was just too lazy or stupid to actually take the books to a library or school. Sad, but somewhat innocent of the charges of destroying knowledge. Let’s face it, the WWW offers a thousand times the knowledge the World Book every did and could. What is truly sad is the countries that sill restrict the internet. If Kyle could capture that in a photo, he would win the Pulitzer.PPPPP
