While waiting on a kid to finish some Latin so I can maniacally
grade it as it is finished, I read an article on Yahoo about a ball falling
from space into a field in Namibia. Apparently, this has been happening in
Australia and Africa for about twenty years, but we don't know what these
things are. So why am I writing about it?
The comments below were funny and relatively intelligent in their
humor—not the most common thing for the comments section of an internet
article. But then something struck me in the camaraderie of the geeky humor I
so enjoy: the comments section serves as more than a sense of community, more
than a forum for airing opinions—it's hard evidence that we still have a reason
to hope in the human race. I realize that's more than a dubious assessment of
the comments section on most articles, but on THIS one, I realized some
important things:
1. People are still reading. Whew. THAT in itself is reason to
hope.
2. People will even read articles about space. And geography.
Maybe I'm setting the bar pretty low, since Namibia was peripheral to the
article and the topic was technically space balls, inciting junior high
laughter from the best of us, but still—there was some almost technical stuff
in that article. Kudos to those of us outside the professional field who took
the time to read it.
3. So maybe the humor in the comments section was based primarily
on Transformers and The X-Files, and maybe that's not exactly a measure of
intelligence, BUT—applying information and experiences across fields IS a
measure of intelligence, and since there was more of that than the bathroom
humor that came to mind first when we read "space balls," I'm all
tingly with hope and joy and faith that human nature has not become as depraved
as other articles suggested. Maybe those are just isolated incidents. Or maybe
I've had too much eggnog.
4. Mainly, people are still reading.
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