Why, in 2006, are people STILL holding the WWW up as this mother lode of information? If anything, the web is making us dumber, not smarter.

I log onto Yahoo tonight and skim over their list of news stories. What do I see?

"Survey shows gas prices rising"

I almost fell off my seat. Gas prices are rising nationally? REALLY? I figured it was just a Rockford thing. Jesus, the gas price stories have even managed to take away news time from Natalee Holloway's aunt. This is the information that the web is giving us.

It's like a lot of these blogs and webzines and whatnot. Suddenly just because you can type, you can WRITE. Movie freak websites full of posts like "OMG I HAVE SPOILERZ FOR X-MEN 3!!! READ HERE FIRST!!!" and baseball blogs full of stories about unnamed (oh, but it's TRUE) philandering players drinking shots of Cointreau out of the navels of coked-up co-eds.

I can peddle misinformation and noninformation as well as anyone. We all can. Does that make us "experts" who deserve the ears and eyes of the digital world? The Encyclopaedia Britannica editions of the 1920's featured entries by people like Houdini, Einstein, Freud and Curie. Those are EXPERTS.

Who do we look to as "experts" now? That fat idiot from "Ain't It Cool" and numerous failed sportswriters who "have connections".