Once again the Blogistan Polytechnic Institute staff listened in as the faculty made their way from the wine cellar library to the hot tub faculty lounge. That's a process we've never fully explained, lest the faculty figure out how we do it. And this week that's ironic, because while en route they were slurring something about the Information Fairy. The staff think we know what they meant however - again the irony - further investigation may be required.
More below the fold....
First as always, we offer our thanks to last week's guest lecturers. Last Tuesday our Professor of Psycholegalese, kktlaw, kicked off the First Anniversary Kula Krew Celebration. Wednesday our Professor of Mediamaternity, theKgirls, explained how Morning Reaction helped her recover her political voice in Rebirth of a Liberal. If you missed the party, by all means please hit the time travel-encoded links and join in.
Note: We have no guest lecturers scheduled this week. If you'd like to host Morning Reaction tomorrow or Wednesday (September 22-23), or any future Tuesday or Wednesday, please volunteer in a comment below.
As for the resident faculty, we've been vague about how we listen in on their conversations. For example, we don't reveal that we conducted extensive empirical research on the Drunkard's Walk Problem and concluded we didn't have enough staff to stake out every possible route. We also don't reveal that we lock certain doors, thereby limiting their routes to those we could stake out. And we certainly don't reveal that the Professor of Astrology Janitor hides the keys to those doors under his buffer. Oh sure, we could simply follow the trail of discarded underwear, however: (a) that wouldn't let us listen in as we go; and, (b) they usually don't start that game where the underwear goes flying until they get to the hot tub faculty lounge anyway.
Gathering such information requires people, coordination, and resources, and that's why we found it ironic that the faculty were slurring about the Information Fairy. We assume they weren't referring to a supernatural phenomenon, but rather to the common, usually unstated belief that information magically emerges into public awareness. The Information Fairy is a basic assumption in economics, where it has the sciencey name of Efficient Market Hypothesis. But the Information Fairy also pops into our political discourse, from criticisms of copyright law to those who argue we no longer need newspapers or other paid journalists in the Internet age.
This continues a theme that began two weeks ago with the series on Charles Pierce's book Idiot America and picked up last week with George Lakoff's The Political Mind, but this week it seems the faculty will come from a different direction: how do we learn what we do know about events in our communities, our nation, and our world? While we don't get entirely accurate information, especially on events as they unfold, neither are we entirely stumbling around in the dark.
Even if the BPI faculty sometimes are.
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Happy Monday!