Where's the Bull?

Did you see the 60 minutes show last night (Sunday 5-15-05)? There was a segment on a bestselling book by a professor called "On Bullshit" and they interviewed a number of people to explain how the world was getting deeper and deeper in BS.

A few comments....

1) 60 minutes missed a PERFECT opportunity to interview Seth Godin. I just finished reading a preview copy of his new book called "All Marketers are Liars" and it was BY FAR superiour to the people that 60 minutes interviewed. Plus, who are the biggest suppliers of BS? Marketers!
And Seth explains the good, the bad and the ugly of Marketing in his new book ... but unfortunately he did not call it BullShit (because if he did he would have been on 60 minutes).

2) I am skeptical of an academic review of BS. I expect I would learn much more useful information from someone in the "real world", but since I have not read that the BS book, I will have to withhold final judgement until I get a chance for a closer look (with a clothes pin on my knows of course).

3) The optimistic part of me was reminded of a joke by the 60 minutes piece. Copied from the following link: http://www.ahajokes.com/sea13.html

A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up.

Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom and gloom pessimist. Just to see what would happen, on the twins' birthday their father loaded the pessimist's room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist's room he loaded with horse manure.

That night the father passed by the pessimist's room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly. "Why are you crying?" the father asked. "Because my friends will be jealous, I'll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I'll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken." answered the pessimist twin.

Passing the optimist twin's room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. "What are you so happy about?" he asked. To which his optimist twin replied, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

I read somewhere that this joke was a favorite of U.S.President, Ronald Reagan, who many consider the "Great Communicator", but who could also be called a "Consumate BS'r" since he was so good that we ACTUALLY BELIEVED him !

Write On !