Because it's one thing to have access to a wide world of web at your key and return, but it's quite another thing to get to grips with it all. We sure can't, and it's our day job! But we do our best, and our antennae are always sensitive to obscure little snippets out in the ether.
One such was this: A Meeting Of The Mindless, from a pretty useful blog I came across. Useful for sure in terms of content, and also in terms of opinion, though I have to say I was not really with the author on this one. Not so much the facts (and who can argue with them?), but the 'tude inferred.
As (I hope I'm right in saying) Voltaire once declared: 'I may disagree with what you say, but I'll give my life for your right to say it'. Personally I'm iffy on the life-giving stuff (so no cartoons in Junkk.com about our good chums Mid-East of here), but pretty up on the rest. So I have to say that I am a little less than impressed with the way things are going in this area worldwide, what with Mr. Irving getting banged up and all for being nothing more than a self-delusional raving nutter who should have been ignored rather than martyred with a multi-year prison sentence that is in excess of what some folk get for much more physically violent assaults than writing offensive dross.
What we seem to have here is more 'I may not agree with what you have to say, and I also don't think you should have a mind of your own and listen to anyone else our group don't happen to agree with', which I'm not sure is quite what Mr. V was going for, concept-wise.
Now, I haven't read (the missus has, and said it was a cracking yarn) Mr. Crichton's book yet, but I'm read a lot of his other ones. And whatever else you may wish to lay at his door, mindless is not one of them. Nor is he too shy on scientific training. Or, for that matter, imagination (Jurassic Park, anyone?). So if he has arrived at a view, I'd say he's entitled to it simply by being a a person, and worth respecting (if not agreeing with) as a resource by virtue of the points he has on the board.
I just find it sad that anyone who does not toe a certain line (Jeremy Clarkson, David Bellamy, Michael Crichton, etc) ends up on the receiving end of some rather extreme vilification and name-calling, which only drives a wedge between folk like me and the messages and actions we would wish to support. What I need is objective information, reasoned debate, humour and courtesy. Not name calling and throwing of toys out of prams when things don't go 100% the desired way.
It was telling that in a recent interview Zac Goldsmith (of the Ecologist) was put on the defensive by his joining Mr. Cameron's Tory Eco-committee. But as he robustly countered, the best way to effect change is from within (a view Junkk.com certainly subscribes to in word and deed).
Constantly harping and demanding that people only listen to one side is just plain silly.
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