Mel Brooks is a comic genius.
In High Anxiety, disguised as an elderly man, he goes through the airport metal detector. It beeps. He throws his hands in the air, and yells:
"Is this a game show? What did I win, a Pinto?"
That phrase (with all of its sardonic layers) -- "What did I win, a Pinto?" -- comes to mind every time I hear someone being acclaimed for some dubious accomplishment. For example: the American grade school tendency to give an award to everyone without regard to merit.
Well, if I had a Pinto, I would hand it over (tax-free) to a reader in Mérida, who, at 10 on Monday morning was the 80,000th hit for this blog since April of last year.
We bloggers do this. We start talking about hits. We then acknowledge that most people end up on our pages by accident (and often leave with the same expression of a Lutheran minister who mistakenly wanders into a topless bar). And then we don our Jeremiah outfits and lament over all of those other hits: why don't more people leave comments?
Well, I am not going to do that. Other than, I already did.
I am simply going to take the opportunity to say that I get a kick out of writing this thing. I am also pleased that a number of people read it regularly -- and some are willing to be part of the conversation.
The only thing that truly amazes me is that the people who comment here are capable of disagreeing with me -- and one another -- in civil tones without attacking one another. That is rather rare in civil society -- let alone on the internet.
But enough self-congratulation. Let's get down to our winner.
This is the winner's statistic. If you get in touch with me, I know some children in a parking lot who could probably help us find a spare Pinto.
In High Anxiety, disguised as an elderly man, he goes through the airport metal detector. It beeps. He throws his hands in the air, and yells:
"Is this a game show? What did I win, a Pinto?"
That phrase (with all of its sardonic layers) -- "What did I win, a Pinto?" -- comes to mind every time I hear someone being acclaimed for some dubious accomplishment. For example: the American grade school tendency to give an award to everyone without regard to merit.
Well, if I had a Pinto, I would hand it over (tax-free) to a reader in Mérida, who, at 10 on Monday morning was the 80,000th hit for this blog since April of last year.
We bloggers do this. We start talking about hits. We then acknowledge that most people end up on our pages by accident (and often leave with the same expression of a Lutheran minister who mistakenly wanders into a topless bar). And then we don our Jeremiah outfits and lament over all of those other hits: why don't more people leave comments?
Well, I am not going to do that. Other than, I already did.
I am simply going to take the opportunity to say that I get a kick out of writing this thing. I am also pleased that a number of people read it regularly -- and some are willing to be part of the conversation.
The only thing that truly amazes me is that the people who comment here are capable of disagreeing with me -- and one another -- in civil tones without attacking one another. That is rather rare in civil society -- let alone on the internet.
But enough self-congratulation. Let's get down to our winner.
This is the winner's statistic. If you get in touch with me, I know some children in a parking lot who could probably help us find a spare Pinto.
