Ben Franklin’s Facebook Status
Today’s Times Book Review section has a nicely written, humorous article on Ben Franklin and his Almanac: Ben Franklin is a Big Fat Idiot. The title made it mandatory reading for me given my utter adulation of Al Franken. In fact, the author, Joe Queenan, seems to have as much of a crush on Franklin as I have on Franken.
To his disappointment, Queenan discovered that the Almanac was not nearly as inspirational as he remembered it to be and so he laments the resultant bit of tarnish on Franklin’s halo. His claims that Franklin’s aphorisms failed “the acid test of validity and usefulness.” Take this one, for example: “Keep your mouth wet, feet dry.” Ok, I agree, teh stoopid.
The first thing that came to mind as I read the article was Facebook. Ben Franklin seems to have written down whatever little thing came to his mind — short bursts of words, conventional wisdom, and some shit that probably only made sense to him and his neighbors. “Every little makes a mickle.” WTF?
So, if the article had a comment section, which it doesn’t, I’d post the author an encouraging comment and tell him just to enjoy the status updates for what they are and give ol’ Ben some of his glow back.
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