Credentials

Beneath her talking head on the History Channel appeared her name and her credential, Sonia Shah, Author. I googled her and now I understand better why she was being consulted for a show called “CRUDE.” (She isn’t crude; it was a show about oil.)

I recalled that I had long ago started a list, now lost, of professions, for lack of a better word, or careers if that’s what they be – credentials that regularly follow people’s names in printed and broadcast news stories. And in documentaries, like the one featuring Author Shah.

As I watched Sonia Shah on TV I revived the list as best I could.

In news, someone is as casually identified as a Socialite or Embezzler as someone else is a Professor or CEO. (Nowadays, documentaries are more likely than the news to provide a steady stream of these varied credentials.) And of the array of choices, how do you explain to your kids that they might want to aspire to the title of Contortionist or Auctioneer but perhaps not to titles like Extortionist or Racketeer.

My favorites among titles I’ve seen after people’s names? Activist and Expert. I am especially fascinated to comprehend how someone can earn the title of Activist. I might like to be an Activist for causes of my own, but I’m too damned involved with my family and with earning a living to spend enough time being an Activist who would attract the attention of the news cameras. I can only conclude that most visible Activists are independently wealthy.

I’ve even seen the term Professional Activist. Is there a degree for that? A salary? Myself, I’m more of an Inertiaist. Where I see Activists plying their profession I’m more inclined to say, No thanks, I liked it better the way it was. Activists seem mostly intent on reducing my freedom, and Inertiaists don’t sell news.

I realize that a degree in anything makes someone an Expert, and a Ph.D. makes someone an actual Authority. So there are a lot of Experts out there, ready to have the word, with a capital E, appear after their names on TV. Sometimes it’s a Renowned Authority. Then I’m impressed!

It so happens that I am an authority on many things myself. The only difference between me and an authority on, say, cosmetics, is that I’m not an expert on anything that sells news or documentaries.

It used to upset me to read a news story and see a sleazy rock star referred to as a Musician, (or more offensively, as an Artist). But that was back when I expected my daily news sources to be more discerning, more responsible, more linguistically accurate. I have long since abandoned such expectations.

As I describe myself at DamnYankee.com, I lay serious claim to the titles of Activist, Advisor, Advisor to the Administration, Economic Advisor, Political Advisor, Constitutional Analyst, Legal Analyst, Foreign Policy Analyst, Media Analyst, Military Analyst, Cryptanalyst, Linguist, Expert, Academic Expert, Unnamed Source, Strategist, and more... not that anyone listens, but I am as qualified as anyone named in the news media to assume any of these monikers. How can that be? I’m active all the time, even sometimes an agitator, I analyze and advise and strategize, I’m an expert and a source, and, yes, I’m a cryptanalyst. The beneficiaries of my activism (or intertia), analysis, and advice are those who read my commentary and advice.

I'm as much an expert on things political and philosophical as Chomsky, Chopra, and many other darlings of the broadcast media. (Just as with me, Chomsky and Chopra each have a formal education in something far removed from the meaning of the U.S. Constitution. It's plain to me that I have read it and they have not, so I claim a greater expertise in that hallowed document than they can.)

I scoff at news media reports that quote “experts” without naming them. I’m equally unimpressed by reports that credit “unnamed sources”, “legal analysts”, “political advisors”, and the like. I’m analyzing politics and laws and the media all the time. I write letters to elected officials giving my advice. I’m an expert on quite a few things, especially in dealing with the messes created by “enabling legislation”. And DamnYankee.com stands as my continuing political activism.