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WHEN DUMMIES TRY TO BE "SHREWD"


There was a time when a nickel was a good bit of money. Back then you could buy a hot dog, a coke, or a hamburger with a nickel. You cold buy a beer for a nickel and get a free lunch with it.

Back in the days when the nickel was king, there was a small town where Bob Shrewd and Roger Dumb lived. Roger admitted he didn't know a whole lot and Bob said he knew everything.

Bob would often demonstrate how dumb Roger was and how smart he was. He used a nickel to do it.

OLE Bob Shrewd would show Roger Dumb two coins and he would say, "Look here, Roger, you can either have this tiny little dime or this great big shiny nickel."

Poor Dumb Roger always took the big old nickel.

Finally somebody felt sorry for Roger and decided to tell him the truth. "Roger," he said pityingly, "that big old nickel is just worth half as much as that little dime."

Dumb Roger replied, "But if I ever take the dime, Bob Shrewd will stop giving me free nickels."

And that, brothers and sisters, is what a wise old Southerner has in mind when he capitalizes the word Shrewd.

 

HARDY'S LAW


We all still know about the great 1920s comedy team Laurel and Hardy. Oliver Hardy was the fat one, the boss of the moronic duo.

The real Oliver Hardy was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia. He got his background on how people act while being reared in his mother's boarding house with all the guests and characters there. Hardy was a wise old Southerner at an early age.

It took real art to make the Oliver Hardy character one you could laugh at and actually like. After all, it would have been very easy to play him as just a big, mindless bully pushing little Stan Laurel around.

But Hardy made his character funny instead of boorish. He told a reporter the big secret of why Oliver Hardy was so laughable. You see, Laurel always freely admitted he was dumb and always asked Hardy to be his leader. Hardy actually thought he was smart enough to know what they should do.

So the real Oliver Hardy stated the wisdom that made his character so hilarious. He said,

"NOBODY IS AS FUNNY AS A DUMB MAN WHO THINKS HE'S SMART."

And that is exactly what I mean when I capitalize the word "Shrewd."

 

LAUREL AND HARDY, PROFESSORS AND THE MEDIA

Professors don't say they're Shrewd. They say they're "sophisticated."

Neither professors nor the media have ever gotten over the fact that after Harvard Think Tanks got us into Vietnam, it was under Ronald Reagan that Communism collapsed.

Now neither the media nor the professors can get used to the idea that Bush can handle foreign policy. That's because he's not "sophisticated," a.k.a., Shrewd.

Anything that confuses the professors totally blitzes the media. The only education media spokesmen have, after all, is the one that made them half-baked products of the professors. That's the only thing they ever had that could be called an "education."

Hardy thought he was smart, so he convinced poor little Laurel that he was smart. Like the media and the professors, Hardy was the only example of "smart" poor dumb Laurel had, and the professors were the only example of "educated" the media ever had.

So exactly like Laurel believed in Hardy, the media BELIEVE in professors.

 

THE IVY LEAGUE THINKS EUROPEANS ARE WISDOM PERSONIFIED


When the twentieth century began, Americans felt totally inferior to Europeans. Especially European nobility.

A few years back a friend of mine married a real Austrian Countess and it was kind of a joke between them.

But if we felt inferior to Europe in 1900, the rest of the world BELONGED to Europe. Back then the whole world was part of one empire or another. By 1900 Europeans were dividing up China, though it was officially independent.

By 1945, Europe was a blasted-out ruin. Its empires were on the way out and the homelands were destroyed. They had been saved from fascism by the United States and, if they had been left to themselves, they would have become colonies under Stalin.

But American east coasters STILL felt inferior to Europe. Even looking at the total catastrophe European thinking had made of itself, they still worshipped European thinking.

In 1945, East Coast "intellectuals" could not understand why a bunch of "cotton-chopping Southerners" and "corn-fed Midwesterners" were not desperate to copy everything from Europe.

Nothing liberals do ever WORKS. The East Coast and Ivy League worship of Europe was a formula for the same disaster Europe had just created for itself. So naturally post-War liberals thought it was the only way to go.

Professors and the media will never grow up. But some people HAVE to. One of the former Eastern European Communist satellites that has done well economically was trying to find an economic plan to make the transition from Communism to capitalism. Their leader said, "And we don't want something cooked up by East Coast academics."

This leader had observed how East Coast "intellectuals" had dealt with the Communists he knew so well, and he wanted no part of their idiocy.

By 1945, after total destruction and tens of millions of deaths in Europe, Europeans were not so charmed by their "intellectuals," most of whom were Communist by then.

You see, to an East Coast "intellectual" (or a William Buckley), "European" means "foreign," it means "exotic," it is means "classy."

But the few European "intellectuals" who didn't fall for socialism did not see themselves as "exotic." To them, Middle Americans were exotic. Today, American tee shirts in Moscow are considered very avant-garde. East Coast intellectuals sort of know this, but they don't have the imagination to UNDERSTAND it.

If there is wisdom in this world, it won't come from the thinking of blasted-out Europe. It will be somewhere in the thoughts of the Reagans and even the Bushes. It is only when they listen to the Voices of Shrewd that they screw up.

 

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Issue: Jan. 26, 2002
Editor: Virgil H. Huston, Jr.
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