On My High Horse Again (I'm Still Testy)

This morning there was an article at Yahoo! News concerning telephone companies petitioning regulators to stop mass-printing white pages phone books. The article was written by Michael Felberbaum, AP Business Writer. Included in the article was this quote:


“Anybody who doesn’t have access to some kind of online way to look things up now is probably too old to be able to read the print in the white pages anyway.”

The quote was attributed to Robert Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University. It was indicated that the line was supposed to be a "joke."

I know that exposing ugly stereotyping of those of us who are elders, senior citizens, or old people (take your pick of descriptive terms) is usually the province of Crabby at TGB, but this one really hit a nerve with me.

First of all, it’s a stupid thing to say because most of us know that there are more and more doddering old darlings, such as I, using computers. Is this pop-culture professor so out of step that he doesn’t know this? Maybe it’s time for the professor to pull his head out to take a look at the real world and see what is really going on in so-called “pop culture.”

Secondly, why was he even quoted anyway? Was Mr. Felberbaum looking for the snarkiest quote available to add a little controversy to his article. If so, shame on you, Mr. Felberbaum! It was completely unnecessary to your article.