[lit-ideas] Re: Anonymity and revelation...

  • From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:35:31 -0600

AA: 

I admit that most plumbers and electricians don't come close to even the
half baked efforts of professionals, but given that professionals have
seven years or more of higher education under their belts, as opposed to
only trade school, professionals might do better.


WHAT??!!!!

What fucking class bullshit is this? Get on one day without plumbers or electricians or any other tradesman. ONLY trade school? Trade school and YEARS of apprenticeship. I have enormous respect for "professionals" -- but certainly not one whit more than for an expert mechanic, a knowledgeable plumber or electrician or carpenter or any technician who KNOWS what he's doing. These people can kill you if they make mistakes in their jobs. What professional has that responsibility? OK, doctors, yes -- some of them. But they're such rich, arrogant assholes who could cares about them (except Doctors Without Borders, they're saints)? Your dismissal of the trades bespeaks your profound ignorance of the knowledge they require -- not book knowledge, though there's more of that than you would guess, but experiential knowledge, that's what makes a good tradesman. Higher education, indeed. How "higher"? Knowledge is knowledge.

" I admit that most plumbers and electricians don't come close to even the half baked efforts of professionals.."

I'm sorry, but that sentiment just flies all over me. It angers me. You have no fucking idea what work is. What it takes for human beings to survive in extremely complicated societies. Your flippant dismissal of those who keep you alive angers me, but doesn't surprise me, it's pretty typical of our culture.


Mike Geary
Memphis







----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 10:01 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Anonymity and revelation...


[Original Message]
From: Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 1/30/2006 10:49:41 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Anonymity and revelation...

AA:
> I'm really tired, didn't read this too well.  The Man on the Clapham
Bus. 
> Silas Lapham?  What does this mean?

It means "the man in the street", "common sense", "what passes for
intelligence", etc.

According to Wikipedia:
"The man on the Clapham omnibus is a term used in English Law to signify
an 
educated and intelligent but non-specialist person.

The term derives from a quotation of a phrase of Lord Justice Bowen (who
was 
counsel in the Tichborne Case) in the case of McQuire v. Western Morning
News [1903] 2 KB 100. Clapham is an unremarkable English neighbourhood in
south London, said to consist of ordinary people. Omnibus means a public
transport bus."




In fact, I had just started another reply to Professor Paul's TMOTCB. I
got as far as: Okay, I quickly looked up The Man on the Clapham Bus and
it's apparently another way of saying Joe Average in legalese. There's a
PDF file from the University of Michigan, I can't copy from it, but the
abstract might be an example of poor writing. In this case the writing is
poor not because it's not grammatical, but because it's so unnecessarily
abstruse.

http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=umichlwps

I admit that most plumbers and electricians don't come close to even the
half baked efforts of professionals, but given that professionals have
seven years or more of higher education under their belts, as opposed to
only trade school, professionals might do better.

Anyway, thanks to Robert Paul for verbalizing the difference between
comparing to and comparing with.  It actually popped out at me as I looked
at it after I sent the post, but he put it into words.

Really, really tired.  See you tomorrow.




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