LadyGaura has a complaint...

...so she asked for some space. I obliged, mainly because she ain't complaining about me! (LOL! J/K!)

So without further ado, LadyGaura sez:

I just heard a TV commercial for something HDTV related. I found it to be pretty demeaning, really. It definitely was not nice towards families with a demanding work schedule or the like. It also seemed to be jeering at people who actually have to use high-octane brain power, making us all sound like we’re not very street smart. I’ll grant, I’ve known intellectuals who do brain-dead things like walk into walls or washing their coffee cups with the SDS_PAGE equipment. But that certainly isn’t true of all of us.

What does seem to be more true, or at least the impression is of this, is that intellectuals and people who just like to use their brain sometimes, are rapidly becoming verboten in this society. Oh, we don’t mind them when we have a heart attack and we need help, we don’t mind that the computer guy who comes to fix the computer from its embedded virus. But we do seem to mind, these days, when people ask about how the candidates stack up on issues, especially difficult issues like the M3 or sound money economics. Instead, you’re supposed to hold an opinion only on how hawt Obama Girl is. You’re just not supposed to keep original thoughts up in the cerebral memory stick anymore, only what the Church or the State or the Press or Hollywood wants you to think. It’s getting positively Orwellian out there.

Sorry, but that’s not how I was raised. I was taught from an early age to value education and learning. I was taught that reading books is fun—and you can have fun learning. I eventually went on to get a Master’s Degree in Agronomy. A lot of people don’t even seem to know what that is—it’s crop science, with dashes of soil science and other related disciplines. I can look at a barley field and tell you—that patch is deficient in nitrogen—that stand could use some iron, or copper, or whatever. I tend to think original thoughts on a regular basis. Movies bore me, because the thinking is all done for you. Books—books, those on the other hand are exciting. I’m usually on a first-name basis with my local bookseller. I come by that honestly—my parents are the same way.

What on earth is so wrong with thinking, especially deep thinking? Humans are supposed to think—our brains are wired that way because that has meant survival. And just because it looks like we’ve won and our existence would seem fairly assured (for now), it doesn’t mean we can stop thinking. Some people are prone to deep thoughts. Sometimes that has meant the betterment of mankind, like lightbulbs and radios and the Internet. It’s who we are. It’s also changeable. You can’t really change your ancestry, your gender, your sexual orientation. I can dye my hair, but the brunette truth will show in another month. You can, however, choose to think, or not to think. It’s all a matter… of a thought.

Just think, okay? And let us brainy types think too.