John Hodgman’s following act.

Of all of those correspondnet dinner comic acts, this is perphase the best performance i have seen.  Hodgeman’s act can perhaps best describe as an analogous opposit to Stephen Colbert’s 2006 correcspondent dinner act. Colbert’s was impressive for it was fearless, but John Hodgman’s act should be applaud for it is coherent and delicate in its balance of celebration and caution.

Hodgemans act has an overarching theme that saw the world divided by conflicting philosophies of nerds and jocks. Bush administration was portrayed as a jock administration that “preceded at all time from intense confident and certainty with what they are doing was correct, they privilege gut instinct over complexity and bookish rumination”. while nerds are those “preceed with different philosophy, not with certainty but with questioning, [nerds] are the questioners, the reality testers the nickpickers” Obama is of course a nerd as evident by his collection of comic book, being comfortable with technology, writes books even when he doesn’t have to, and speaks of restoring science and the concept of objective reality to the public square.

Amidst of Hodgeman’s soaring celebrate of Obama presidency as the “revenge of the nerds” he asked if Obama “is truly nerd cored or is this really just an act”. It was as if he is warning Obama that there is cynical suspicion and fear lurking not far beneath the feel-good triumphant of his nerd constituency.

Hodgeman move on to a a few nerd purity test, and then reminds Obama that we are at the beginning of major historical shift, where conventional labels for defining and dividing are quickly vanishing. This moment of inception is too delicate and has too great of effect on the long road ahead, its no time for victory parades. Hodgeman ended by saying that he (the arch-nerd), thought not always in agreement with Obama, he have been and alway shall be his friend, with the Vulcan phrase “live long and prosper”.

Hodgeman’s act really stuck a cord with me. As a nerd, i am dazzled by Obama, but my excitement of his presidency is always undermined by my cynical suspicion towards idolizing seemingly benevolent wield of power. For my education will not let me forget why power will always corrupts. This is why i like this act so much, because embracing with caution at this moment of Obama’s presidency seem the most fitting.

Also see the predating Stephen Colbert’s analogous idolization of Bush as the gut following jocks below.

quote of the day

on nominating Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Andrew Sullivan said

she’s not a lesbian. So we lose the gay seat (just kidding).

LoL

Your Obama Neurosis?

Your mean our Obama Neurosis

Employment decline now worse than in 1981-82 recession

(hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

I know.

Let’s say by ’smart’ we mean ‘in the top 5% of the population in terms of intelligence and education’. Generally speaking, smart people seek out other smart people to hang out with, simply because they get bored otherwise. And if they’re going to spend a lot of time with someone, intelligence in a partner is pretty much a requirement.

Well, congratulations — you’ve just eliminated 95% of the world’s population as a potential mate, Mr or Ms Smartypants. Now, luckily, the world’s kinda big, so the remaining 5% of the gender of your choice is still a plentiful 160 million or so people. Even if only 1% of those are single enough, good-looking enough, local enough and just all-around cool enough for you, that’s over a million people you can date out there.

Still, that’s less than one in five thousand people. And if you live in a smaller city, it may be just a handful of folks who are going to meet your stringent criteria.

I guess thats another way of saying this.