Everyone's a Pro. No one's a Pro.

Like all of you, I watched the Olympic ice dancing finals in breathless anticipation, waiting, hoping for an upset to the usual Russian victory. Sadly, those hopes went unfulfilled. But at least the Americans broke their thirty year medal drought by silvering with a spirited Flamenco number.Just two nights earlier I had the pleasure of watching an English TV program called Dancing on Ice, hosted by my ice dancing heroes, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. Surely you remember their breathtaking performance of "Bolero" at the 1984 games in Sarajevo.On the show professional ice dancers teach celebritities to ice dance. I had my suspicions. I've been on skates. I can do a waltz jump. But to my great surprise, after several weeks of training, a track athlete, a showgirl, a football player, and a TV presenter performed with grace and chutzpa in ways I never would have thought possible. This kind of regular-schmoe-becomes-instant-pro TV program is all the rage these days and I can't help wondering if a larger trend is at work.Just today I found this article in Wired which explores an intriguing computer game/music composition program that allows anyone to compose music by manipulating cartoon plankton. GarageBand software from Apple, on which I've composed every song for my Exciting New Science Fiction Musical, Upload/Download, is a piece of cake. In fact, though I don't exploit this funcion, it's possible to compose whole songs just by joining loops together. Forget all that messy piano and guitar playing. If you can cut and paste, you can write pop songs.When I feel sick, do I call the doctor? Of course not. I use Doctor Google. My flesh and blood doctor is little more than a drug dealer to me. Want to learn about the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Start with Wikipedia. Dying to know how Gordon Ramsey's latest culinary establishment stacks up? Gastrochick's your girl.Undoubtedly there is plenty of room for genuine expertise. At the end of the day, I'd rather watch Torvill and Dean on ice than Jane and Joe Schmoe. And there is a dark side to whittling away at the status of experts. Witness GWB's reckless staffing of FEMA and Homeland Security with non-expert Bozos who should be scooping ice cream for a living. I guess that's the cloud behind the silver lining. Once a world of knowledge is at your finger tips, the challenge becomes knowing when you should do it yourself and when you should call in the pros.