GSR Quest Week #3
Brad versus Politicians from Missouri

For this week's update on my Google Search Result Quest, I've chosen a collection of fine politicians from Missouri as my comparatives.

Oh, and Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson.

Sure, the Mayor has lived in Missouri for most of the last 20 years, but he's not from Missouri. He was raised in Minnesota or Wisconsin or North Dakota. You know one of those states with penguins and polar bears and bumbles. Yukon Cornelius is also from there.

I did observe while creating the info-graphic silhouettes of Knudtson and these other politicians that several of them have mighty big ears. One notices these things when you start erasing pixels around a person's face.

This raises an interesting question:

Has anyone in Academentia ever conducted a study of politicians and the size of their ear lobes?

One would surmise that the bigger the ear lobes, the better the listener and the more successful the politician. While Barrack Obama is not featured as one of my comparatives this week, he has pretty big ears.

And as a politician, you can't be more successful than being elected President of the United States unless of course they create a President of the World position. And I bet if they did create a President of the World position, that Obama would be a shoe-in to be elected to it. The man is just golden. He has a glow about him.

But enough about him.

This week it is all about Missouri politicians and their big ears. Of the five politicians listed this week, at least four of them have some pretty good size lobes. It's questionable about Jo Ann Emerson. Her hair is too long to tell.

While some might think the ear size of politicians is too trivial of a topic to be studied by higher education, I beg to differ. While I have no degree greater than the BS I got from SEMO, my wife earned both her masters and Ph.D. while we've been married.

I've been exposed to more of the inner-workings of higher-higher-ed than the normal shmoe.

If you're an Academentian, especially one at a "research" school such as Mizzou or SIU, the mantra for faculty is to publish or perish. To get tenured and promoted, you have to write something that is compelling enough to be included in peer-reviewed journals that focus on your discipline.

And to be published, you often have to be unique which can inadvertently lead to research on esoteric subjects that most people -- outside of Academentia -- don't give a hoot about.

For instance, my wife had a professor who was the foremost expert on print journalism in Sri Lanka or Guyana or Easter Island. I forget exactly where, but it was some place that probably had two newspapers at best. The professor actually published articles on this topic.

It would be similar to being the foremost expert on Democratic Leaning Newspapers in Southeast Missouri.

And speaking of Easter Island the mug shot I found of Jay Nixon reminds me of that place. Talk about a stone face. Come on Jay, try smiling.

While I think of myself an independent who tends to vote more Republican than not, I strongly considered voting for Nixon for Governor during the last elections.

Why?

Because as Attorney General his office initiated the No Call program that basically put a stop to the telemarketers at my house, that's why.

Now, if he would just finish the job and take care of the political robo-calls.

If he can do that, I see a nomination for President of the World in his future.

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