Two brilliant articles this morning from the wonderful Big O Ezine.....I am rarely moved to paste whole articles but these two caught my eye this morning so I link to them here. One is about folk legend and 'protest Singer' Phil Ochs and the other regarding the ubiquitous information gathering generation that solves all scientific (sic) thinking by tick box research.

Now I was never a GREAT fan of Ochs but appreciate his standing in the folk singer canon and admire his political stance. Not surprising but sadly true that his beliefs saw him on the way to the realisation that the only course of action was for him to commit suicide at 37. Through the Regan era little badges began appearing stating "Where's Phil Ochs Now That We Really Need Him?" and this is sadly more true now than it was then........ so looking forward to this bio-pic

Phil Ochs article

The second article states clearly and loudly all the fears about modern social research that I have held as true for many a year. A Kierkegaardian associate professor at Drexel, M.G. Piety (great name) expounds the theory of the 'Age of Idiocy' that we can't really THINK anymore merely count! Ahh, the number crunchers have it! Kierkegaard is one of my favourite philosophers so maybe that is why this rang so true
Who is it who said 'There are Lies and there are Damn Lies and then there are Statistics? (* Ah, Mark Twain used it repeatedly....great man....attributed to Disraeli there is no record of it....it may be someone else but I give it to Mark Twain........)

Idiot Wind indeed........Ship of Fools even

Age of Idiocy