Where'd all the Ph.D's go? Antarctica
Posted: Monday, November 05, 2007 7:39 AM by Jen Brown
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Ends of the Earth
(From Bob Lapp, TODAY engineer/audio operator)
We have a saying in the freelance world, “stupid people make us money” and “the dumber they are, the more money we make”. The examples are endless; athletes and dog fighting, racist disc jockeys, the majority of Hollywood under 25 and OJ. You also find that most people you meet want to be famous, by talent or by sheer ignorance, it does not matter, whatever gives them their 15mins of fame. Just take a look at the explosion of “Reality TV”, You Tube, or any of the web based “video garbage cans”, somehow peoples lives will never be complete if they are not part of some massive download, or talked about on cable news.
Michael Jackson paid for my master bathroom remodel and The Enron trial paid my mortgage for 6 months…(tragic yes, but they still make the stupid list for thinking they could get away with it!), and the everyday criminal puts food on my table…..yes it is the moron money train.
Don’t get me wrong, Idiots have been keeping me busy for 20 years and I got two kids to put through college. But I often wonder what happened to all those people who actually paid attention in college? Where are all those selfless folks who wanted to save the world, not own it?
I only had to travel to the bottom of the earth to find them.
The brain drain went to Antarctica. You can’t swing a drunken celebrity and not hit a Ph.D at McMurdo Station. It is not just the folks who are doing the science that have a pedigree, but people with Master degrees are driving the vans, cooking the food and doing the dishes.
These are all the people who ruined the curve for me in science class. When I hoped they would all “drop off the face of the earth”….who knew it would happen? I think the only marginally educated people at McMurdo are on our TV crew. (I speak for myself as only a BA degree holder.) Yes, I think the collective IQ dropped when my feet hit the ice. When these guys name drop, it isn’t “Brangelina”, Speilberg or Streisand, but rather MIT, Harvard and Air Force Academy. I think you have every top 20 university that threw out my application, represented here. These are incredible educated people working on enormously important projects in some really tough conditions. I don’t know what these guys are pulling down a year but I haven’t seen much Prada at the dinner table. I actually think these men and women do this for the betterment of mankind?
I hate to tell them but you’re never getting on “Inside Edition” with that kind of attitude!
All kidding aside, get down to Antarctica and recharge your faith in what mankind can do. This is the place where the frontier spirit is alive and well, and you see the type of drive, determination and grit that once made all of us proud to be an American. (Please insert, Kiwi, Aussie, Brit, Italian and other where applicable)
There are three undeniable truths about my trip to Antarctica:
1. These are some of the finest people I have had the privilege to work around.
2. None of these people will make it on TMZ.COM
3. I couldn’t make a dime in TV at McMurdo.
Find complete Ends of the Earth coverage here.
