Help! I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!
Recently, Steven Den Beste let himself get pulled into another argument on Metafilter. I had to shake my head at that, because I avoid those big mass lists like the plague. There’s always some barely-literate type who thinks plants absorb oxygen or something, and you can’t reason with them because they live in their own little world. I have a visceral reaction to seeing someone make that mistake, like Bill Whittle to a friend he thought was about to get embarassed by a beautiful woman:
He threw down his napkin, took a belt of his drink, and worked his way around our table heading straight for fluffy wittle bunny wabbit with the Sharp. Pointy. Teeth. I remember I damn near grabbed at his legs, like a wounded Confederate begging a comrade not to advance on the withering fire coming down from Cemetery Ridge. No Jim, don’t do it! I was thinking. No one can take that hill. It’s death to try!
Or I could go with my favorite philosopher, Robert A. Heinlein (though I don’t know if this one is original):
Never try to teach a pig to sing; it only serves to waste your time and annoy the pig.
Sigh. So much for my being the smart one about those things… Will I ever learn?
At least the ratio of opera singers to pigs is reasonably good over there.