Whatever else the Ol' Bloviator's multitude of detractors can truthfully say about him--and there's a'plenty, he admits--he has never been much of one to toot his own horn. In fact, on this site and elsewhere, he has gone in precisely the opposite direction by making himself the butt of all manner of jokes, and any number of his more or less truthful accounts wind up positioning him as the object of laughter or even ridicule. (Witness the last post, from which, by the way, his latest driver's license photo has been expunged, after reports of several women going into labor prematurely after viewing it, not to mention several coeds who (OMG!), like, took their Face Book pages down lest the hideous image should, like, pop up there sometimes. OMG!) Seeing himself as an unlikely candidate for admiration, O.B. was naturally shocked, though immensely pleased, to learn that his employer (and alma mammy) has seen fit to honor him for his modest accomplishments as a researcher.
Research universities typically don't do nearly enough to stress the importance of . . . well, research. Instead, when it's time to play politics with higher education and the legislative machete squad gets all lathered up, it's the research component of the University's mission that is all too frequently left to fend for itself. Active, effective researchers are readily presumed to be indifferent teachers because they do so much research when, as the O.B. has complained here before, the researchers are the only people who come to class with something new and original to say. This makes the O.B. doubly proud to be part of an effort to give researchers their due at this hallowed institution. In his case, as you can surmise by mashing right here, they gave the O.B. way more than his due to the point of rendering him damn near unrecognizable to himself much less those who know him personally.
Then there's the video. Although the O.B. confesses he is a little disappointed that they cut the part where he was telling 'em about all the great advice he's given Bill Gates or revealing for the first time that he regularly rode shot gun with Richard Petty and really taught him how to make that old Plymouth stand up and go. Ditto Nolan Ryan and the fastball and Herschel and the toss sweep. It's also a little bit of a bummer that they couldn't find room for my explanation of why magenta is my favorite color and my deeply self-revelatory discourse on why it's boxers over briefs for this information-gathering beast on those long, hot days in the archives. Still, I give 'em due credit. For nearly two minutes, they managed to make me seem almost credible professionally and not nearly so loathsome personally as most would have you believe. Not bad for just six days worth of interviewing.
Even though he thinks the video spinmeisters did an incredible job (given what they had to work with) in making him look at least functional, the ol' Bloviator knows that, at heart, these things are relative. Therefore, it never hurts to juxtapose your performance with that of someone who comes across as a total fool. Normally,
the OB's first resort would be simply to download the latest video of good old Paul Broun, member of Congress from right here in Georgia's Tenth district. As luck would have it, however, another Georgia congressman, this one from the other side of the aisle, has temporarily taken the heat off ol'still-dumber-than-a-post Paul. Representative Hank Johnson, who unseated that nut-case Cynthia McKinney infor Georgia' Fourth district Congressional seat in 2006 (Too bad McKinney and Broun were never in office at the same time, Georgia could have claimed the biggest whack-jobs at both the far right and far left congressional spectrum.) recently engaged in an insufferably tedious exchange with an admiral over the question of transferring a large detachment of U.S. Marines to Guam. After going way overboard in establishing that Guam ain't exactly a great big ol' place and struggling for words in much the same distracted way that cousin Buster used to when WKLY got to coming in good and loud on that steel plate in his head, Johnson expressed his concern that an overloaded Guam might tip over and spill a bunch of Guamians into the ocean.
Having heard stuff way dumber than this on his way up the ranks, the unflustered admiral eventually broke a stunned general silence by reassuring the congressman that such an outcome is not anticipated. (My friend Jimbo observed that ol' Hank should be more concerned about the prospect of such a catastrophe closer to home every fall when University of Georgia fans overrun St. Simons Island for the Georgia-Florida game.) I suppose we should be thankful that the good admiral didn't suggest that we could get Halliburton to outfit Guam with pontoons if that would make the congressman rest easier.
Dumb as he looked and sounded, Johnson's insistence that he was simply trying to make a joke rings true to me. However, that explanation did bring immediately to mind the old story about the visitor to a prison who was puzzled to hear inmates singing out "2" or "4" and eliciting successive gales of laughter of laughter in response. This continued until finally a slightly squeaky voice gave out with "9" only to be met with deafening silence. Intrigued, the visitor asked what was going on only to have a grizzled old lifer explain that the crew had told each other the same jokes so much that in order to save time they had simply assigned a number to each tale. Why, then, the visitor wanted to know, had nobody laughed at "9"? "Well," said the inmate, "some folks just don't know how to tell a joke." Hankster, they were talking about you, son. If they ever catch you with your hand in the till and ship you off to Graybarville, in addition to the soap, I'd keep a tight grip on that wacky sense of humor as well.
