Legal Commentary

How the tortoise beat the hare

By Ernest Svenson

The other day I saw a black SUV rev its engine and then zoom past a car on narrow street because the driver was impatient. As the SUV passed by I could see the driver, a soccer mom, casually talking on her cellphone. I looked back and saw that she had not made the light, so her NASCAR move was apparently for naught.

In the blog world I see people racing around trying every new gizmo/software and then offering up their immediate impressions as though this has great utility. One well-known tech blogger, whom I shall not name, seems to think that every conversation or encounter he has needs to be recorded and then served up to his many followers. What's most amazing is that hoards of people eagerly await this kind of information. He has wonderful backstage access to new technology, but his observations don't seem to have much value.

The mainstream media has been serving us 'stupid pie' for years. To keep their ratings up, they package their message for the lowest intellect. When bloggers first appeared there was hope that this would change but, alas, it appears that popular bloggers with continuous partial attention disorder are doing the same thing.

I've discovered somewhat recently that I don't enjoy, or benefit from, the hectic stream of observations made by people who would rather push the buzzer than listen to the whole question. Many of them are really nice people. But I can't let myself be part of their mad rush anymore, and so I've decided to let them pass me by.

When I was a kid I could never understand how the rabbit lost the race to the tortoise. The rabbit was much faster than the tortoise, and there was no reason why he shouldn't win. Turns out there is a reason: the rabbit has no idea where it's going.

Sadly, most of us are rabbits.

Full post as published by Ernie the Attorney on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).