Call at The Clog Almanac did a search engine survey of various religious stereotypes based on the Google-powered Prejudice Map. Very interesting! I already know how harshly I’m judged as a secularist. What I wonder instead is how I’m stereotyped by my interests:
According to Google, birders are known for…
…picking apart records sent to them, counting and listing the birds they identify, their tolerance of difficult situations, if it means seeing the object of their obsession, their wonderful script and sketches taken in the field, their constant what?, their penchant for collecting or listing new birds for their lifelists, for traveling halfway around the world to see a particular species of bird, waiting days or years to catch a glimpse of a rare bird.
We avian observers sound like a rather focused lot, don’t we? Don’t believe a word of it. We simply prefer to keep the more sordid details of our debauched, adrenaline-fueled adventures quiet to dissuade the frivolous types from crashing our bird walks.
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