22 September 2006

Why I Love the Internet

Brains are a wonderful thing. All the little synapsis that connect to one another make it work in strange distracting chains. On Imus this morning, Jack Jacobs was on and happened to mention West Point, Sylvanus Thayer, and Tom Brokaw. Thayer Hall and West Point were familiar with a few isolated facts stored in some grey cell. Certainly Brokaw was familiar from the news as was "The Greatest Generation", but I knew nothing about the military career of Jack Jacobs.

Curiosity is a curse. Once something catches my attention, I can't stand not knowing. For decades this has meant prowling through the Encylopedia, digging in the dustier sections of libraries or finding another human being who just might know what was driving me crazy. The plus side has always been if I can't find something, it probably doesn't exist which turned out to be a good career move.

Something that in the past would have taken me hours or days to discover was resolved rapidly. It was just a matter of knowing the right questions to ask. Whatever its faults and you do need to be careful about exagerations and inaccuracies, the internet made it possible for me to find an answer to all the questions in about five minutes flat. Here is the result:

Tom Brokaw received the Thayer award for writing "The Greatest Generation" that reflected so well on the WWII military. This bit of info was delivered by Medal of Honor winner, Jack Jacobs. Just click on the links for the details.

Sylvanus Thayer










Jack Jacobs











Tom Brokaw

7 comments:

enigma4ever said...

Wow..you are always such a gold mine...truly an oassis in this day and age....esp. during the MSM drought...thank you....keep up your insightful enriching bloggering...

COLORADO BOB said...

Jamie.....Roger that on Technorati.....Nice post . As for Col. Jack he's the best on TV at what he does. He should be dead with the Medal of Honor, not a live . Most people that are awarded it get it because what they were doing gets them killed .

COLORADO BOB said...

Let me know if you what help......The Blog Dictionary

Anon-Paranoid said...

Craig's blog just got hijacked. I finished reading the comments and when I went to reload I was told they were moving it to the Beta Version. I wonder how long it will be down now.

I'm going to check out some other sites I visit and will check back later.

The Future Was Yesterday said...

I used to watch Imus for a long time, but I stopped. It seemed he sank from being an acerbic, knowledgeable source, to...well, an old grouch. The moment for me came when he called Hillary Clinton "That silly Bitch!!" on the air. I can hear that kind of stuff on O'Reilly. What I wanted was information.

Durward Discussion said...

Since I'm on the west coast, he is on from 3 - 6 my time on MSNBC. I find him egotistical, but he gets good guests. Most days when he is on a rant, I have to turn it off, but the good days tend to be really, really good simply because you see and hear people not on the regular news..

Anonymous said...

Col Jack Jacobs is a Congressional Metal of Honor winner. In my mind, like Colorado Bob, I think his grasp of most situations is reasoned and right on. Imus on the other hand is a pompus ass.

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