Amazing how many ‘experts’ you run into

Jeff Kaley

WAURIKA — Being without electricity for a while gave me an opportunity to build up a whole new stack of the sticky notes that serve as my memory, some of which were jotted down by candle light:

I never cease to be amazed by how many people think they “know what the American people think” or that their opinion “is what everybody around here believes.”

Am not talking about radio talk show hosts, news analysts on TV, newspaper columnists or politicians — those know-it-alls get paid to be pompous.

I’m talking about someone like, oh, a next door neighbor you encounter at the back fence. He proceeds to pontificate on every subject from health care to immigration; from how to fix a leaky faucet to what the electric companies did wrong during an ice storm; from which brand of socks you should wear to how to improve public schools to what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they drew up the Constitution.

If these folks can find one other person who agrees — a spouse, a friend, a talk show host, someone on the other side of the fence, etc. — it validates their self-anointed status as the representative of “what the American people think” or the opinion of “everybody around here believes.”

One thing about living in a free country: Anybody can declare themselves an expert on any subject they chose, because there’s no law against pretentious self-delusion.

Of course, I’m not including myself in this group of sanctimonious windbags.

• n Although the decade of “The Naughts” won’t officially end until Dec. 31, lots of end-of-decade “lists” have circulated in the past six weeks. One of them was for the biggest selling album of the past decade. And the winner was ... “1,” the collection of No. 1 hits by The Beatles. Think about that for a second: The biggest-selling album since 2000 was a CD released by a band that hasn’t even been a band since 1969.

So much for what the Baby Boomers’ parents said about The Beatles “not lasting long.”

• Heard a radio advertisement the other day touting a clothing store’s big sale of “rugged casual” apparel. OK, I’m no fashion slave, but what the heck is rugged casual? A pair of Dockers in camouflage design? A spring dress with a hunter’s orange color scheme?

• If you find yourself cruising Interstate 44 near St. Robert, Mo., the wife and I highly recommend stopping at a spot called the Mediterranean Grill. The menu features exceptional Greek and Italian grub.

• Is every exciting kickoff or punt return in college or pro football called back because of a holding penalty? Or does it just seem that way?

• Among the wonderful insights scribbled by the late Chicago journalist Sydney J. Harris is this: “If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?”

• Publicity is like arsenic, it won’t poison you if you don’t swallow it.

• When it comes to fairness in politics, I’m certainly not suggesting earmarks are a good thing. But let’s get real: When the Omnibus Spending Bill of 2009 was signed into law, pork barrel spending projects made up a mere 2 percent of the budget. And if we ended earmarks tomorrow, most of those funds wouldn’t be erased. Instead, they would be folded back into the federal budget as discretionary appropriations by federal agencies.

• Yo, bloggers, how about dropping the phrase “there’s no there there”? It’s a cryptic blog-community criticism used to dismiss an opposing viewpoint or poorly reasoned argument. And it’s not even original — “there’s no there there” is a corruption of Gertrud Stein’s famous commentary on Oakland, and that’s not what she meant.

• No one is listening, until you make a mistake.

• Didja know the first televised football game was a college clash between Fordham University and Waynesburg College in 1939? Fordham’s Rams battered the Yellow Jackets from ol’ Waynesburg, 34-7.

• Haven’t seen any follow-up reports, but do you think there’s been a spike in the number of American school children espousing socialism after they heard President Obama’s controversial stay-in-school address back in August?

• “Boy, I’ve got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.” A line by Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid.

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