Curiosity may kill the cat, but it makes us Man.
How else measure our success, explain how it is we can
Create the things that make us rich, ease our burden, conquer strife,
Cure disease, travel in space, and let poets ponder life?
And that’s precisely why some say we are very wrong.
We are the scourge of our good Earth. The things that make us strong
Destroys nature, extinctions cause, we war on one another.
So vile are we, evil you see, to so harm our Mother.
See now the cow, it’s perfect how it fits with Mother Earth:
Nothing it takes, but it forsakes, and gives it back, rebirth.
For grass to live the cows all give it back those things it needs
From their shit, the nutrients to grow, so more cows can feed,
To be reborn, and more grass support, for some future herd,
All it takes is eat some grass and then drop a massive turd.
Should we like cows the grasses graze, and so with our own shit
Fertilize the grass, and be stuck in a closed loop pit?
Do cows cogitate while ruminate what causes all of it?
What do they think these cows of ours, just where do their minds sit?
On God, Life, or Mom Earth? No, it’s: Is killer wolf at bay?!
You see it’s man that from cows keeps the big bad wolf away.
And kid me not, nature’s not nice, things die for no reason
But feed some other thing in need. There is a killing season
For most every kind. They need to kill so they can live.
It’s savagery, a killing spree, let’s not excuses give.
We would not hold cows in such fine and lofty sentiment,
If domesticated them we’d not, in a niche cement.
The cows don’t care, by them its fine, if all wolves we did kill.
I have not doubt that of all cows, each wishes all wolves ill.
We eat some cows, others we keep for milk and some to breed
To make more cows, but in exchange the whole herd we will feed.
But have you seen what cows do to forest, brook and briar?
They’ll eat it clean, leave not a twig, make stream a soupy mire.
Cows are not noble, no indeed, nor are other breeds;
The elk will eat their way to death; fish don’t do good deeds
For other fish, or even us; that is a human wish:
To reach out hand, do what we can, for man and even fish.
To wish the world was pristine, denies that which makes us Man.
If all the earth was pure “Green,” with no man, so seems the plan,
Then who would cherish it, this pure Earth that so many wish?
For Man would not exist to love cow, wolf, or even fish.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Scientists
I’ve been saying for years that I thought global warming was a load of BS. I would get a little passionate about it, to the point that whenever the words “global warming” came out of my mouth my family ran from room, arms flailing and screaming “No Mas! No Mas!”
Looks like I was right all along.
Just a few months ago, even the President of the United States was saying the “science is settled” and we should quit debating it and get on with fixing it. However, for years there have been these tiny little voices from out in the wilderness, relegated there for not toeing the global warming line, arguing that even if the data is accurate its interpretation to conclude that global warming is man caused and will result in horrific disaster for the planet is far from settled. Now we know that not only were the interpretations highly suspect, the key data itself is not accurate, or missing, or misrepresented, or never existed in the first place, or is the result of such awful science that the folks who promulgated it ought to have their degrees revoked.
For example, key historical warming data are drawn directly from temperatures recorded over the years at weather stations scattered around the globe. The average among those stations has gone up. Wow. What more proof do you need that the place is getting hotter? Come to find out, a large number of the old weather stations, mostly located in high cooler elevations or remote areas, were dismantled, abandoned or destroyed over the last several decades. In the 70’s there were about 6,000 such stations worldwide, now there are 1,500 or so. Canada used to have 600 or so, now they have about 35. The weather stations remaining are mostly in populated areas or near heat sources like factories and the end of jet washed runways. Any high school math student getting a C grade will be able to tell you that if you remove the cooler measurements from the average, the average temperature will go up. Duh!
There is also the whole problem about what temperatures do you average to get an average. Do you take the high temp of the day or the low one, or the median, or just what exactly? I don’t know where you live, but I’ll bet its quite a bit warmer at 3 pm than it is at 5 am, whether in the Florida Keys or the Fargo, ND. All it takes is a little fudge to the afternoon this decade versus some other method last decade and, “My, is it hot in here?”
It is almost amusing watching all the “warmists” scrambling to explain how even though there are suddenly all these problems with so much of the data, or lack of it, upon which the global warming theories hinged, that doesn’t mean that global warming isn’t true. Those who have read my piece on Dan Rather and the forged Bush National Guard documents will appreciate the irony when I remind them that the New York Times, in acknowledging the Bush documents were forged, nevertheless ran a headline about the documents that said, in essence, “Fake But Accurate.” That’s exactly the message so many of the rabid warmists now find themselves giving out.
I also love the irony surrounding the whole weather thing.
Do you recall back when Hurricane Katrina hit that all the global warming supporters were saying that the hurricane and all the other recent bad storms were the result of global warming? It was further proof, they said, that we needed to do something right now or we would find our civilization devastated by increasingly severe storms. A bunch of folks with more sense suggested that this was too much a stretch to come to that conclusion. They were shouted down or ignored, the usual response by warmists for anyone who disagrees with them. So naturally, now that the country is buried in snow, I had 16 inches at my house last week, people are asking how there could be global warming with so much snow all around. Snow is cold, it is not warm, so what’s up? I literally laughed aloud when I read two different answers to the question.
The first made the reasonable argument that global warming is a worldwide phenomenon and we can’t judge it by the amount of snow in Ohio or Alabama. We must distinguish between “weather” and “climate.” Weather is a current event, while climate is a long-term one. It is possible to have snowy weather even as the global climate warms. The amusing thing is that this is not what the warmists were saying when Katrina hit. Then global warming was driving Hurricane Katrina, remember?
The second is from Kevin Trenberth, head of Climate Analysis for National Center for Atmospheric Research (by the way that would be a US government agency). He said recently that the heavy snowfall is caused by global warming.
Okay, so which is it?
Global Warming is just the latest science fraud foisted on us by advocates with science degrees. Remember Alar? It’s a chemical that they spray on apples to keep them on the tree longer so they ripen but don’t rot before they fall. It sort of prevents premature apple jackulation (sorry, couldn’t resist).
A bunch of environmental group scientists put out that Alar was a carcinogen. All their studies proved it. The EPA piled on with its own studies that concluded the same thing. Then they all tested apple sauce and baby food, and found traces of Alar in both. The hunt was afoot. 60 Minutes did one of the typical hatchet attack jobs. Meryl Streep did TV commercials wailing the question “What are we doing to our children?” Soon, Alar was banned from sea to shining sea. It hit Washington State’s apple growers hardest. The market virtually collapsed and bankrupted apple growers left and right.
Later, it turns out that the level of Alar used to cause cancerous tumors in lab rats would require a child to eat a boxcar of apples a day to get the same dosage. Even Consumers Union, which had been pushing the Alar scare, later admitted that their own studies concluded that Alar would only cause 5 cancers in a million, and that kids were at less health risk eating an apple than a candy bar.
In the Pacific Northwest back in the 90’s, there was much ado about that poor little creature the spotted owl. Turns out the little bugger could only live in old fir forests, being evolutionarily incapable of adapting to young or middle aged forests. A whole bunch of scientists said so, government scientists to boot. Of course, everyone knew that the issue wasn’t really about the owl; it was about a bunch of folks who got all goo-goo eyed every time they thought about a tree older than any human alive being cut down. The owl was the excuse to stop all that evil logging of those old trees. The Ents might go to war, justifiably and finally, you know? However, not to worry, according to the scientists the poor little owl really was in serious danger of going extinct because we were cutting the trees down.
The fir forests of the Northwest have a curious life cycle. I’m talking about the cycle for the forest, not the trees themselves. Too many can’t see one for the other, or tell the difference. If the old trees aren’t periodically destroyed, they will live so long that they will eventually choke off all other life, including that of any young fir trees. It’s the shade from the old trees, you see. It is so dark in those old forests that seedlings don’t get enough sun to survive, nor do any other plants. When the trees eventually fall down and leave a little light, faster growing hardwoods fill the space and choke out everything else; the baby firs don’t have a chance. I have been in truly old forests comprised of really old trees, and I can tell you that they are dead places. Nature took care of this problem by periodically burning the forests down. The cycle repeated for millions of years. Once the old trees are down, fir seedlings can take root because the hardwoods are not adapted to move into the burned landscape as easily. These firs eventually take over and grow to be old trees until they too burn. If they didn’t burn, the fir forests would become hardwood forests, similar to those of the Eastern US.
Along came the white man who started cutting the trees down. Of course, as a trade-off we stopped the all-consuming forest fires. We have traded logging the forests for burning them down. The irony is that if the folks who can’t stand the thought of those old trees dying either by saw or fire have their way, eventually they will cause those very forests to disappear by interrupting the cycle.
One thing always puzzled me about the spotted owl. Not one of those scientists ever explained where the owls went and how they lived each time their forests burned down. The owls have been doing it for quite a long time. Seems to me a rational scientist would have asked that question at some point.
You can almost hear the eco-terrorist response: What’s the temporary economy of a few states or the disruption of a few hundred thousand people on the chance that we could save the owl from extinction. Being extinct is forever! Besides, it’s not like anybody got killed.
Yeah, right. Tell that to the millions of people who have died over the last 30 to 40years from Malaria. They need not have died but for the off chance that we might save some birds from extinction. Oops, sorry, we can’t tell those people that because THEY ARE DEAD!
DDT is the evil scourge of all creatures avian, or so a bunch of scientists said. The stuff doesn’t break down very fast and sort of hangs around a long time. It gets into birds’ blood and organs and stuff, you see, from the insects and seeds they eat that are covered in DDT that evil men spray about indiscriminately. Once enough accumulates, every time poor mama bird lays an egg the shells are all wrong and the baby birdies die.
Bird lovers led by the Audobon Society launched a massive and successful campaign to ban DDT worldwide. Their inspiration was a pseudo-scientist named Rachel Carson, whose research is more than just suspect (it's doo-doo, really).
But, no matter. Yippee, the birds were saved!
The trade off was that Malaria, which had been on the decline worldwide from the use of DDT to reduce the mosquito populations, suddenly exploded back into prevalence. Had DDT continued to be used, millions of people who died from Malaria would not have done so. Still, one supposes that sacrifices must be made. Look at all the birds and who knows what other creatures that were saved from certain extinction by banning the evil DDT.
The only problem with all this is that it has been conclusively proved that DDT is not what was killing the birds. Indeed, it has been shown to not have any damaging effects to humans or other animals. The truth is it is relatively harmless to everything but some bugs, especially killer mosquitoes. Take a look at this site for more on the issue:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article847896.ece
When I was a kid, scientists were heroes. They cured diseases like polio and smallpox that had killed millions for centuries. They created new materials like plastics, sent rockets to space, split the atom, invented computers, and on and on. We all thought of them as smart, honest, and full of integrity. In contrast, the mad scientist was often the villain of the movie or book because of some passion or delusion that kept him from being rational about what he was doing and thereby imperiling the world.
A great number of the today’s scientists qualify by definition as mad scientists. They have crossed over the line from science to advocacy, and in so doing have let their beliefs, their passions, and ultimately their delusions, remove from them any scientific rationality they might have had. Scientists who actively plot ways to prevent those who disagree with them from being published or peer reviewed are scientifically irrational. Scientists who knowingly insert falsehoods into UN sponsored reports because they think it will help the politics of their position are scientifically irrational. Scientists who begin their research with the answer they want already in mind and pay attention only to the results that support this answer violate one of the basic tenets of the scientific method and are, therefore, scientifically irrationale. Irrational is another way of saying insane. It makes me mad.
All this leads me to the conclusion that anymore I don’t trust scientists about anything they say. Do you?
It also makes me very sad.
Looks like I was right all along.
Just a few months ago, even the President of the United States was saying the “science is settled” and we should quit debating it and get on with fixing it. However, for years there have been these tiny little voices from out in the wilderness, relegated there for not toeing the global warming line, arguing that even if the data is accurate its interpretation to conclude that global warming is man caused and will result in horrific disaster for the planet is far from settled. Now we know that not only were the interpretations highly suspect, the key data itself is not accurate, or missing, or misrepresented, or never existed in the first place, or is the result of such awful science that the folks who promulgated it ought to have their degrees revoked.
For example, key historical warming data are drawn directly from temperatures recorded over the years at weather stations scattered around the globe. The average among those stations has gone up. Wow. What more proof do you need that the place is getting hotter? Come to find out, a large number of the old weather stations, mostly located in high cooler elevations or remote areas, were dismantled, abandoned or destroyed over the last several decades. In the 70’s there were about 6,000 such stations worldwide, now there are 1,500 or so. Canada used to have 600 or so, now they have about 35. The weather stations remaining are mostly in populated areas or near heat sources like factories and the end of jet washed runways. Any high school math student getting a C grade will be able to tell you that if you remove the cooler measurements from the average, the average temperature will go up. Duh!
There is also the whole problem about what temperatures do you average to get an average. Do you take the high temp of the day or the low one, or the median, or just what exactly? I don’t know where you live, but I’ll bet its quite a bit warmer at 3 pm than it is at 5 am, whether in the Florida Keys or the Fargo, ND. All it takes is a little fudge to the afternoon this decade versus some other method last decade and, “My, is it hot in here?”
It is almost amusing watching all the “warmists” scrambling to explain how even though there are suddenly all these problems with so much of the data, or lack of it, upon which the global warming theories hinged, that doesn’t mean that global warming isn’t true. Those who have read my piece on Dan Rather and the forged Bush National Guard documents will appreciate the irony when I remind them that the New York Times, in acknowledging the Bush documents were forged, nevertheless ran a headline about the documents that said, in essence, “Fake But Accurate.” That’s exactly the message so many of the rabid warmists now find themselves giving out.
I also love the irony surrounding the whole weather thing.
Do you recall back when Hurricane Katrina hit that all the global warming supporters were saying that the hurricane and all the other recent bad storms were the result of global warming? It was further proof, they said, that we needed to do something right now or we would find our civilization devastated by increasingly severe storms. A bunch of folks with more sense suggested that this was too much a stretch to come to that conclusion. They were shouted down or ignored, the usual response by warmists for anyone who disagrees with them. So naturally, now that the country is buried in snow, I had 16 inches at my house last week, people are asking how there could be global warming with so much snow all around. Snow is cold, it is not warm, so what’s up? I literally laughed aloud when I read two different answers to the question.
The first made the reasonable argument that global warming is a worldwide phenomenon and we can’t judge it by the amount of snow in Ohio or Alabama. We must distinguish between “weather” and “climate.” Weather is a current event, while climate is a long-term one. It is possible to have snowy weather even as the global climate warms. The amusing thing is that this is not what the warmists were saying when Katrina hit. Then global warming was driving Hurricane Katrina, remember?
The second is from Kevin Trenberth, head of Climate Analysis for National Center for Atmospheric Research (by the way that would be a US government agency). He said recently that the heavy snowfall is caused by global warming.
Okay, so which is it?
Global Warming is just the latest science fraud foisted on us by advocates with science degrees. Remember Alar? It’s a chemical that they spray on apples to keep them on the tree longer so they ripen but don’t rot before they fall. It sort of prevents premature apple jackulation (sorry, couldn’t resist).
A bunch of environmental group scientists put out that Alar was a carcinogen. All their studies proved it. The EPA piled on with its own studies that concluded the same thing. Then they all tested apple sauce and baby food, and found traces of Alar in both. The hunt was afoot. 60 Minutes did one of the typical hatchet attack jobs. Meryl Streep did TV commercials wailing the question “What are we doing to our children?” Soon, Alar was banned from sea to shining sea. It hit Washington State’s apple growers hardest. The market virtually collapsed and bankrupted apple growers left and right.
Later, it turns out that the level of Alar used to cause cancerous tumors in lab rats would require a child to eat a boxcar of apples a day to get the same dosage. Even Consumers Union, which had been pushing the Alar scare, later admitted that their own studies concluded that Alar would only cause 5 cancers in a million, and that kids were at less health risk eating an apple than a candy bar.
In the Pacific Northwest back in the 90’s, there was much ado about that poor little creature the spotted owl. Turns out the little bugger could only live in old fir forests, being evolutionarily incapable of adapting to young or middle aged forests. A whole bunch of scientists said so, government scientists to boot. Of course, everyone knew that the issue wasn’t really about the owl; it was about a bunch of folks who got all goo-goo eyed every time they thought about a tree older than any human alive being cut down. The owl was the excuse to stop all that evil logging of those old trees. The Ents might go to war, justifiably and finally, you know? However, not to worry, according to the scientists the poor little owl really was in serious danger of going extinct because we were cutting the trees down.
The fir forests of the Northwest have a curious life cycle. I’m talking about the cycle for the forest, not the trees themselves. Too many can’t see one for the other, or tell the difference. If the old trees aren’t periodically destroyed, they will live so long that they will eventually choke off all other life, including that of any young fir trees. It’s the shade from the old trees, you see. It is so dark in those old forests that seedlings don’t get enough sun to survive, nor do any other plants. When the trees eventually fall down and leave a little light, faster growing hardwoods fill the space and choke out everything else; the baby firs don’t have a chance. I have been in truly old forests comprised of really old trees, and I can tell you that they are dead places. Nature took care of this problem by periodically burning the forests down. The cycle repeated for millions of years. Once the old trees are down, fir seedlings can take root because the hardwoods are not adapted to move into the burned landscape as easily. These firs eventually take over and grow to be old trees until they too burn. If they didn’t burn, the fir forests would become hardwood forests, similar to those of the Eastern US.
Along came the white man who started cutting the trees down. Of course, as a trade-off we stopped the all-consuming forest fires. We have traded logging the forests for burning them down. The irony is that if the folks who can’t stand the thought of those old trees dying either by saw or fire have their way, eventually they will cause those very forests to disappear by interrupting the cycle.
One thing always puzzled me about the spotted owl. Not one of those scientists ever explained where the owls went and how they lived each time their forests burned down. The owls have been doing it for quite a long time. Seems to me a rational scientist would have asked that question at some point.
You can almost hear the eco-terrorist response: What’s the temporary economy of a few states or the disruption of a few hundred thousand people on the chance that we could save the owl from extinction. Being extinct is forever! Besides, it’s not like anybody got killed.
Yeah, right. Tell that to the millions of people who have died over the last 30 to 40years from Malaria. They need not have died but for the off chance that we might save some birds from extinction. Oops, sorry, we can’t tell those people that because THEY ARE DEAD!
DDT is the evil scourge of all creatures avian, or so a bunch of scientists said. The stuff doesn’t break down very fast and sort of hangs around a long time. It gets into birds’ blood and organs and stuff, you see, from the insects and seeds they eat that are covered in DDT that evil men spray about indiscriminately. Once enough accumulates, every time poor mama bird lays an egg the shells are all wrong and the baby birdies die.
Bird lovers led by the Audobon Society launched a massive and successful campaign to ban DDT worldwide. Their inspiration was a pseudo-scientist named Rachel Carson, whose research is more than just suspect (it's doo-doo, really).
But, no matter. Yippee, the birds were saved!
The trade off was that Malaria, which had been on the decline worldwide from the use of DDT to reduce the mosquito populations, suddenly exploded back into prevalence. Had DDT continued to be used, millions of people who died from Malaria would not have done so. Still, one supposes that sacrifices must be made. Look at all the birds and who knows what other creatures that were saved from certain extinction by banning the evil DDT.
The only problem with all this is that it has been conclusively proved that DDT is not what was killing the birds. Indeed, it has been shown to not have any damaging effects to humans or other animals. The truth is it is relatively harmless to everything but some bugs, especially killer mosquitoes. Take a look at this site for more on the issue:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article847896.ece
When I was a kid, scientists were heroes. They cured diseases like polio and smallpox that had killed millions for centuries. They created new materials like plastics, sent rockets to space, split the atom, invented computers, and on and on. We all thought of them as smart, honest, and full of integrity. In contrast, the mad scientist was often the villain of the movie or book because of some passion or delusion that kept him from being rational about what he was doing and thereby imperiling the world.
A great number of the today’s scientists qualify by definition as mad scientists. They have crossed over the line from science to advocacy, and in so doing have let their beliefs, their passions, and ultimately their delusions, remove from them any scientific rationality they might have had. Scientists who actively plot ways to prevent those who disagree with them from being published or peer reviewed are scientifically irrational. Scientists who knowingly insert falsehoods into UN sponsored reports because they think it will help the politics of their position are scientifically irrational. Scientists who begin their research with the answer they want already in mind and pay attention only to the results that support this answer violate one of the basic tenets of the scientific method and are, therefore, scientifically irrationale. Irrational is another way of saying insane. It makes me mad.
All this leads me to the conclusion that anymore I don’t trust scientists about anything they say. Do you?
It also makes me very sad.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
About Hypocrites
Hypocrisy is a form of lie. A lie for our purposes is to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive, to create a false or misleading impression, to make an untrue assertion whether believed or not by the one asserting, to create an impression that something is what it is not or vice versa.
I could stop there and simply say that liars suck, and I doubt a single person would disagree with me. Unless of course, if the liar is your sweet grandma who always tells you that you look nice even when she knows you don’t, then maybe it’s not so bad.
Lie isn’t really what I want to get at. However, it does provide the proper context for this rant about hypocrites.
According to my Webster’s, a hypocrite is one who affects virtues or qualities he does not have, one feigning to believe what one does not.
Everybody at one time or another says they will do one thing and does the opposite. I’ve often said to my wife and friends, as an example, that if I become an invalid and can’t take care of myself, just shoot me and put the body in the garbage can by the curb. I think I mean it. Yet, I have this sneaky suspicion that if I ever really found myself in that circumstance, I might very well say wait, I didn’t mean it, I was just kidding! I would be something of a hypocrite at that point.
I think most of us have these sorts of built in and ultimately innocent hypocrisies in one form or another. I think we can forgive each other the great majority of them. The truth is most aren’t really hypocrisies at all, but are just changes of heart or mind. We are allowed to change our minds or opinions, you know. In fact, we should do it more often than we actually do; we would all get along better if we did.
What are not forgivable are those hypocrisies that arise from the dreaded…gasp…ULTERIOR motive.
As it happens, I have a particular group in mind for which I believe their hypocrisies are unforgivable: journalists. Perhaps I should be more precise and say “The Media”, since we don’t really call them journalists anymore. Do you hear it referred to as big journalism? No, now its Print Media and Broadcast Media, and Whatever Media. Using the word media might actually be a step in the right direction, at least it puts “news” organizations on par with other entertainment vehicles like sitcoms and movies.
Just because I disliked the man so much I’m going to pick on Dan Rather and CBS News to make several points about why journalists are the worst kind of hypocrites.
You may remember the two Rather versus Bush stories. To rekindle your memory you might check out these two sites. Both do a decent job of portraying mostly unbiased facts, even if the ratherbiased.com agenda seems a little obvious.
http://www.ratherbiased.com/bush_attack.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy
Hypocrisy number one: Journalists are dedicated to telling the real story based on facts that they ruthlessly check and double check until verified or disproven.
Most living thinking people will recognize that this is not true as often as it is. It seems the media is more concerned with selling papers or advertising than telling a literally true story. Facts so often get in the way of a good, top selling story. Here is the Dan Rather example.
In early September of the presidential campaign as Bush was running against Kerry, Dan Rather reported that Bush failed in his National Guard obligations and that it was covered up. This was potentially election-losing stuff for Bush. The Democrats and liberals were all aghast. It was also a very nice foil to the Swift Boaters’ allegations of Kerry’s military misdeeds. As proof, Rather produced four documents made available to CBS by an “unimpeachable” source, Bill Burkett. Rather asserted and assured the public in his original broadcast, as did other CBS New broadcasts or statements in the following days, that the documents had all been rigorously authenticated by unbiased experts. That was a load of crap.
As was subsequently later proven, the documents were all forgeries, probably created by the “highly impeachable” Burkett on a modern computer and photocopied a bunch of times to look old. The authentications? They never took place. In fact, two of the “experts” CBS originally asked to look at the documents both told CBS they thought the documents had a number of problems that prevented them from being authenticated. There were so many problems with the documents that a first year journalism student could and would have easily fact checked them into disrepute, as did “bloggers in their pajamas” within hours of the original broadcast.
Not only were there big problems with the documents, most of the other “facts” turned out to be false as well. For example, the general who supposedly gave the order in the documents to cover up Bush’s alleged misconduct had been retired for the National Guard for a year and half prior to the dates in question and couldn’t possibly have given the orders. He was still alive at the time of the story, yet CBS never contacted him, let alone asked him if he did it.
For Rather and CBS, just a little earnest fact checking would have killed the story, but it was just too good a story to not be aired.
Hypocrisy number two: Journalist are rigorous professionals who don’t let personal bias interfere with the truthful recounting of the facts.
I don’t care if you watch CBS or FOX, you are going to get slant with your story. CBS is liberal, pro-Democrat and hates Conservatives and Republicans. Fox is the opposite. I think Fox does a better job of trying to get their facts straight, and not presenting just the ones that make their case. Still, none of “Big Media” seems able to stop themselves from letting their bias influence the story.
Here is how Dan Rather illustrates the worst of media’s actions. It comes in two historical parts. The first is an interview that Rather did with the first President Bush, when he was Vice President and running for President. Prior to this, Rather had done a series of benign profile interviews with the other presidential candidates. Rather saved Bush for last and through CBS contacts told Bush he wanted to do a similar type interview with Bush. Rather and CBS lied.
The Bush interview was an ambush. It started with a lengthy new documentary purportedly outlining Bush’s involvement in the Iran Contra affair of the Reagan years followed by the live interview that Rather devoted to trying to get Bush to say he was involved in Iran Contra. That interview was so aggressive, rude, and over the top that many in the press, including the liberal press, thought it was out of line, biased and unprofessional. By most accounts and opinions, the elder Bush got the better of the debate, and Rather came off looking bad. A number of sources say that Rather hated Bush with a passion after that. It wouldn’t be too much a stretch to assume that Rather transferred those feelings to the younger Bush when he gained prominence.
Now we fast forward to the younger Bush and Rather’s “expose” of the alleged National Guard affair. It seems likely that Rather was so eager to air the piece, accept the forged evidence, and to this day completely deny any possibility that he was wrong, simply because of that animus to the Bush family. I have little doubt of it.
Many others have written and published accounts of the whole affair. It is generally accepted that Rather and his staff were obsessed with seeing the second Bush defeated. Not only was this driven by his hatred of the family, it also arose from his self-professed liberal politics. Dan Rather had two very powerful reasons for wanting Bush defeated and Kerry elected, and those drove him to push the story relentlessly and with energy all out of proportion to that which he devoted to other probably more important stories.
There is nothing rigorously professional or unbiased in any part of how Rather approached both Bush affairs.
Hypocrisy number three: Journalists take very seriously their roles as members of the “Fourth Estate,” that they are an essential component to keeping government honest and accountable.
Wow, that sure sounds important and I’d love to feel good that they are out their protecting me. Unfortunately, it’s all a bunch of hooey and always has been. They only keep government honest when they don’t like the people who are running it at the time. Otherwise, they are willing conspirators with those they do like.
The Dan Rather episodes reveal a perfect example of the failure of the press to act in their role as the people’s check on government. One of the most troubling occurrences was that the “source” of the forged documents wanted access to Democratic candidate Kerry in exchange for providing the documents. Doesn’t that seem strange? Why would a man agree to give documents to a news organization on condition they give him access to a Presidential candidate? Unless he thought they could? How is it that he even thought they could or would? How is it they thought they could?
Worse, they did! Mary Mapes, Rather’s producer, called Joe Lockhart, Kerry’s campaign manager, and asked him to speak with Burkett. Two days before the original broadcast by Rather, Lockhart did just that and the two talked. Can you say quid pro quo? Sure sounds like the Dan Rather-Democrat Party’s mutual back rubbing association moved well beyond that to heavy petting and then to oral sex. (Which isn’t really sex, as we all know, according to Bill Clinton, so I guess it was all okay and nothing to really get concerned about.)
It is hard to argue that you are the Fourth Estate, and be convincing, when you’re in bed with the very people who you hope will make up the next government.
There is no way, for example, you can say that the New York Times is aggressively investigating and reporting on all the wrong doings, problems, dirty deals, and all the rest going on in the current Democrat dominated US government (as they were enthusiastically wont to do with the previous administration). They only report on negative stories when every other news organization already has done so, and then they immediately have their apologist opinion writers provide a couple thousand words about why it’s okay, or a right wing conspiracy, or just misunderstood by the idiotic public that is too ignorant to understand.
There are a whole delusional group of opinion writers that are fundamentally incapable of writing a complimentary thing about anyone who does not agree 110% with Obama, progressives, democrats, or all of the things they all stand for, no matter what the truth is. Obama ought to have Krugman, Friedman, Dionne, Huffington and Dowd dress up in skimpy little pleated skirts and knit sweaters and jump up and down waving pom-poms at all his press conferences. In that way, we can see them for the air headed cheerleaders they really are. At least Huffington and Dowd could come close to pulling off the look, though not so much.
The New York Times even gets a dishonorable mention in the Rather/Bush forged documents debacle. Even after it was conclusively shown that the documents were fake, and without doing any fact checking on their own, which would have revealed that the entire accusation was insupportable by any witnesses or real documents, including the people who were there and involved at the time of Bush’s National Guard Service, guess what the Times did? They ran a story about a typist who could not remember ever typing the memos in question, essentially had no firsthand knowledge of them, but thought they sounded about right. The headline for the story said of the documents that they were “…Fake But Accurate…” Now that’s solid journalism.
Can you imagine if someone had raised a credible possibility in the run up to the election in 2004 that George Bush was not a US citizen and refused to produce a birth certificate to prove he was? The New York Times, and the rest of the media, would have bankrupted themselves trying to prove he was not a citizen. They haven’t really taken that one on with Obama, have they? Of course, Dan Rather would have simply found someone to provide him an “independently authenticated” birth certificate and saved a lot of money not doing real journalism.
I suppose others have done and will do a much better and coherent job of making the argument against journalists as they exist in America today. I’m just a humble average guy, who had to get it off his chest. I feel better for doing so.
The bottom line is: I don’t trust any of them. I don’t believe much of anything they say. I think they are a plague on all of our houses.
I could stop there and simply say that liars suck, and I doubt a single person would disagree with me. Unless of course, if the liar is your sweet grandma who always tells you that you look nice even when she knows you don’t, then maybe it’s not so bad.
Lie isn’t really what I want to get at. However, it does provide the proper context for this rant about hypocrites.
According to my Webster’s, a hypocrite is one who affects virtues or qualities he does not have, one feigning to believe what one does not.
Everybody at one time or another says they will do one thing and does the opposite. I’ve often said to my wife and friends, as an example, that if I become an invalid and can’t take care of myself, just shoot me and put the body in the garbage can by the curb. I think I mean it. Yet, I have this sneaky suspicion that if I ever really found myself in that circumstance, I might very well say wait, I didn’t mean it, I was just kidding! I would be something of a hypocrite at that point.
I think most of us have these sorts of built in and ultimately innocent hypocrisies in one form or another. I think we can forgive each other the great majority of them. The truth is most aren’t really hypocrisies at all, but are just changes of heart or mind. We are allowed to change our minds or opinions, you know. In fact, we should do it more often than we actually do; we would all get along better if we did.
What are not forgivable are those hypocrisies that arise from the dreaded…gasp…ULTERIOR motive.
As it happens, I have a particular group in mind for which I believe their hypocrisies are unforgivable: journalists. Perhaps I should be more precise and say “The Media”, since we don’t really call them journalists anymore. Do you hear it referred to as big journalism? No, now its Print Media and Broadcast Media, and Whatever Media. Using the word media might actually be a step in the right direction, at least it puts “news” organizations on par with other entertainment vehicles like sitcoms and movies.
Just because I disliked the man so much I’m going to pick on Dan Rather and CBS News to make several points about why journalists are the worst kind of hypocrites.
You may remember the two Rather versus Bush stories. To rekindle your memory you might check out these two sites. Both do a decent job of portraying mostly unbiased facts, even if the ratherbiased.com agenda seems a little obvious.
http://www.ratherbiased.com/bush_attack.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy
Hypocrisy number one: Journalists are dedicated to telling the real story based on facts that they ruthlessly check and double check until verified or disproven.
Most living thinking people will recognize that this is not true as often as it is. It seems the media is more concerned with selling papers or advertising than telling a literally true story. Facts so often get in the way of a good, top selling story. Here is the Dan Rather example.
In early September of the presidential campaign as Bush was running against Kerry, Dan Rather reported that Bush failed in his National Guard obligations and that it was covered up. This was potentially election-losing stuff for Bush. The Democrats and liberals were all aghast. It was also a very nice foil to the Swift Boaters’ allegations of Kerry’s military misdeeds. As proof, Rather produced four documents made available to CBS by an “unimpeachable” source, Bill Burkett. Rather asserted and assured the public in his original broadcast, as did other CBS New broadcasts or statements in the following days, that the documents had all been rigorously authenticated by unbiased experts. That was a load of crap.
As was subsequently later proven, the documents were all forgeries, probably created by the “highly impeachable” Burkett on a modern computer and photocopied a bunch of times to look old. The authentications? They never took place. In fact, two of the “experts” CBS originally asked to look at the documents both told CBS they thought the documents had a number of problems that prevented them from being authenticated. There were so many problems with the documents that a first year journalism student could and would have easily fact checked them into disrepute, as did “bloggers in their pajamas” within hours of the original broadcast.
Not only were there big problems with the documents, most of the other “facts” turned out to be false as well. For example, the general who supposedly gave the order in the documents to cover up Bush’s alleged misconduct had been retired for the National Guard for a year and half prior to the dates in question and couldn’t possibly have given the orders. He was still alive at the time of the story, yet CBS never contacted him, let alone asked him if he did it.
For Rather and CBS, just a little earnest fact checking would have killed the story, but it was just too good a story to not be aired.
Hypocrisy number two: Journalist are rigorous professionals who don’t let personal bias interfere with the truthful recounting of the facts.
I don’t care if you watch CBS or FOX, you are going to get slant with your story. CBS is liberal, pro-Democrat and hates Conservatives and Republicans. Fox is the opposite. I think Fox does a better job of trying to get their facts straight, and not presenting just the ones that make their case. Still, none of “Big Media” seems able to stop themselves from letting their bias influence the story.
Here is how Dan Rather illustrates the worst of media’s actions. It comes in two historical parts. The first is an interview that Rather did with the first President Bush, when he was Vice President and running for President. Prior to this, Rather had done a series of benign profile interviews with the other presidential candidates. Rather saved Bush for last and through CBS contacts told Bush he wanted to do a similar type interview with Bush. Rather and CBS lied.
The Bush interview was an ambush. It started with a lengthy new documentary purportedly outlining Bush’s involvement in the Iran Contra affair of the Reagan years followed by the live interview that Rather devoted to trying to get Bush to say he was involved in Iran Contra. That interview was so aggressive, rude, and over the top that many in the press, including the liberal press, thought it was out of line, biased and unprofessional. By most accounts and opinions, the elder Bush got the better of the debate, and Rather came off looking bad. A number of sources say that Rather hated Bush with a passion after that. It wouldn’t be too much a stretch to assume that Rather transferred those feelings to the younger Bush when he gained prominence.
Now we fast forward to the younger Bush and Rather’s “expose” of the alleged National Guard affair. It seems likely that Rather was so eager to air the piece, accept the forged evidence, and to this day completely deny any possibility that he was wrong, simply because of that animus to the Bush family. I have little doubt of it.
Many others have written and published accounts of the whole affair. It is generally accepted that Rather and his staff were obsessed with seeing the second Bush defeated. Not only was this driven by his hatred of the family, it also arose from his self-professed liberal politics. Dan Rather had two very powerful reasons for wanting Bush defeated and Kerry elected, and those drove him to push the story relentlessly and with energy all out of proportion to that which he devoted to other probably more important stories.
There is nothing rigorously professional or unbiased in any part of how Rather approached both Bush affairs.
Hypocrisy number three: Journalists take very seriously their roles as members of the “Fourth Estate,” that they are an essential component to keeping government honest and accountable.
Wow, that sure sounds important and I’d love to feel good that they are out their protecting me. Unfortunately, it’s all a bunch of hooey and always has been. They only keep government honest when they don’t like the people who are running it at the time. Otherwise, they are willing conspirators with those they do like.
The Dan Rather episodes reveal a perfect example of the failure of the press to act in their role as the people’s check on government. One of the most troubling occurrences was that the “source” of the forged documents wanted access to Democratic candidate Kerry in exchange for providing the documents. Doesn’t that seem strange? Why would a man agree to give documents to a news organization on condition they give him access to a Presidential candidate? Unless he thought they could? How is it that he even thought they could or would? How is it they thought they could?
Worse, they did! Mary Mapes, Rather’s producer, called Joe Lockhart, Kerry’s campaign manager, and asked him to speak with Burkett. Two days before the original broadcast by Rather, Lockhart did just that and the two talked. Can you say quid pro quo? Sure sounds like the Dan Rather-Democrat Party’s mutual back rubbing association moved well beyond that to heavy petting and then to oral sex. (Which isn’t really sex, as we all know, according to Bill Clinton, so I guess it was all okay and nothing to really get concerned about.)
It is hard to argue that you are the Fourth Estate, and be convincing, when you’re in bed with the very people who you hope will make up the next government.
There is no way, for example, you can say that the New York Times is aggressively investigating and reporting on all the wrong doings, problems, dirty deals, and all the rest going on in the current Democrat dominated US government (as they were enthusiastically wont to do with the previous administration). They only report on negative stories when every other news organization already has done so, and then they immediately have their apologist opinion writers provide a couple thousand words about why it’s okay, or a right wing conspiracy, or just misunderstood by the idiotic public that is too ignorant to understand.
There are a whole delusional group of opinion writers that are fundamentally incapable of writing a complimentary thing about anyone who does not agree 110% with Obama, progressives, democrats, or all of the things they all stand for, no matter what the truth is. Obama ought to have Krugman, Friedman, Dionne, Huffington and Dowd dress up in skimpy little pleated skirts and knit sweaters and jump up and down waving pom-poms at all his press conferences. In that way, we can see them for the air headed cheerleaders they really are. At least Huffington and Dowd could come close to pulling off the look, though not so much.
The New York Times even gets a dishonorable mention in the Rather/Bush forged documents debacle. Even after it was conclusively shown that the documents were fake, and without doing any fact checking on their own, which would have revealed that the entire accusation was insupportable by any witnesses or real documents, including the people who were there and involved at the time of Bush’s National Guard Service, guess what the Times did? They ran a story about a typist who could not remember ever typing the memos in question, essentially had no firsthand knowledge of them, but thought they sounded about right. The headline for the story said of the documents that they were “…Fake But Accurate…” Now that’s solid journalism.
Can you imagine if someone had raised a credible possibility in the run up to the election in 2004 that George Bush was not a US citizen and refused to produce a birth certificate to prove he was? The New York Times, and the rest of the media, would have bankrupted themselves trying to prove he was not a citizen. They haven’t really taken that one on with Obama, have they? Of course, Dan Rather would have simply found someone to provide him an “independently authenticated” birth certificate and saved a lot of money not doing real journalism.
I suppose others have done and will do a much better and coherent job of making the argument against journalists as they exist in America today. I’m just a humble average guy, who had to get it off his chest. I feel better for doing so.
The bottom line is: I don’t trust any of them. I don’t believe much of anything they say. I think they are a plague on all of our houses.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Whither the Moon?
Why don’t we have a functioning populated Moon base by now? We’ve had over thirty years to get it set up and going. So what happened?
Just what was more important that we had to spend our time and money on? Welfare? Farms subsidies? Bridges to nowhere in Alaska? A billion here or there spent to do something in some backward country that the rulers appropriate for their personal use? How many billions upon billions have we simply wasted that we could have used to move into space in a big way?
Don’t we get it? We’re like all the eggs in one basket here. One little slip and splat, we all die and the species goes down with us. The only way we are going to help ensure our species survival is to do what good insurance companies do: spread the risk. That means getting ourselves living on other planets going around other stars. This Earth Mother Gaia is all very nice, but maybe she has some relatives we could go live with? At least send the kids to live with?
Heck, we don’t even need planets. Hollow out a few large sized asteroids, grab a comet or two for water and gases, and make a nice little cave away from home.
The point is, eventually, something bad is going to happen. A big ass asteroid is going to go plop. Some idiot Muslim fanatic is going to get the bomb and it’ll be “Oh Boy, don’t you just love to hear things go bang!” And bang, bang, bang!
We wasted thirty years of getting off this rock. With a viable moon base operational in even the last 15 years, we would have learned better how to live, work, and play in space and all those nasty conditions that go with it. We would have gotten better, faster, cheaper at this space travel thing. Our technology focus would be outward, instead of like today when we seem to be more fascinated with our individual comforts such as the latest tweeting cell phone.
Our plan should have been and should still be first to get the moon base going. Then we move on to Mars. Then, maybe one of the moons of Jupiter. From there, it is manifest galactic destiny baby! It is not a sci-fi nut’s dream. It is a survival imperative.
There are millions of European and North American people who think that we, mankind, are a plague on this earth. They act and talk as though they see us, the whole species, as some sort of evil, a cancer killing Earth Mom. You begin to wonder if they don’t secretly hope we all die, and leave the planet to be inhabited only by those lovable critters like the spotted owl and snail darter. How soon before they actively begin to plot for that outcome? It is getting that goofy around here that I can’t help but think it’s getting way past time to leave the neighborhood, because I don’t much care for the crazies that are moving in next door.
Where did we lose the adventurous have to look at the next valley, move to a new land, make a new life part of our human spirit? Those folks who jumped on a leaky Mayflower and sailed off into the unknown or who hiked for four months across the great plains and Rocky Mountains for some greener Oregon grass would think we are a bunch of spoiled, soft, sissies. We are, not only in body but also in will and determination.
It’s a disgrace.
And where the hell is my flying car?!
Just what was more important that we had to spend our time and money on? Welfare? Farms subsidies? Bridges to nowhere in Alaska? A billion here or there spent to do something in some backward country that the rulers appropriate for their personal use? How many billions upon billions have we simply wasted that we could have used to move into space in a big way?
Don’t we get it? We’re like all the eggs in one basket here. One little slip and splat, we all die and the species goes down with us. The only way we are going to help ensure our species survival is to do what good insurance companies do: spread the risk. That means getting ourselves living on other planets going around other stars. This Earth Mother Gaia is all very nice, but maybe she has some relatives we could go live with? At least send the kids to live with?
Heck, we don’t even need planets. Hollow out a few large sized asteroids, grab a comet or two for water and gases, and make a nice little cave away from home.
The point is, eventually, something bad is going to happen. A big ass asteroid is going to go plop. Some idiot Muslim fanatic is going to get the bomb and it’ll be “Oh Boy, don’t you just love to hear things go bang!” And bang, bang, bang!
We wasted thirty years of getting off this rock. With a viable moon base operational in even the last 15 years, we would have learned better how to live, work, and play in space and all those nasty conditions that go with it. We would have gotten better, faster, cheaper at this space travel thing. Our technology focus would be outward, instead of like today when we seem to be more fascinated with our individual comforts such as the latest tweeting cell phone.
Our plan should have been and should still be first to get the moon base going. Then we move on to Mars. Then, maybe one of the moons of Jupiter. From there, it is manifest galactic destiny baby! It is not a sci-fi nut’s dream. It is a survival imperative.
There are millions of European and North American people who think that we, mankind, are a plague on this earth. They act and talk as though they see us, the whole species, as some sort of evil, a cancer killing Earth Mom. You begin to wonder if they don’t secretly hope we all die, and leave the planet to be inhabited only by those lovable critters like the spotted owl and snail darter. How soon before they actively begin to plot for that outcome? It is getting that goofy around here that I can’t help but think it’s getting way past time to leave the neighborhood, because I don’t much care for the crazies that are moving in next door.
Where did we lose the adventurous have to look at the next valley, move to a new land, make a new life part of our human spirit? Those folks who jumped on a leaky Mayflower and sailed off into the unknown or who hiked for four months across the great plains and Rocky Mountains for some greener Oregon grass would think we are a bunch of spoiled, soft, sissies. We are, not only in body but also in will and determination.
It’s a disgrace.
And where the hell is my flying car?!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
A Word About English
It Rocks.
Okay, that’s two words. Maybe you think I said one thing and did another, which would be lying.
Possibly, you thought I meant “a word” as in a conversation: “Can I have a word with you?” You would be correct in this second interpretation.
A word, especially in English, is a very tricky thing.
Only in English do we have so many words that mean almost the same thing, and so many words that have so many meanings all in one word. We have lots of words that sound alike but mean different things. We have words we didn’t have a year ago but nearly everyone knows what they mean now. We don’t care a bit about stealing words from other languages; if it fits, we use it.
In many ways, this makes the English language pretty cool.
Just look at that last sentence. It uses two words that have taken on entirely new meanings over the relatively recent decades. “Pretty” can mean “very” and not just “attractive.” “Cool” now also means, variously, “neat”, “hip”, “calm”, “desirable”, as well as a low temperature. It is interesting how “neat” has also taken on a new meaning in the last 100 years; it no longer just means “tidy”, but also means “good”. “Hip” is a word that in the mid-1900s came to mean more than just that seductive convex shape of a woman’s body.
How is a person supposed to keep up? Keep your cool, man. It’s groovy.
Let’s go back to the possibly that I wrote a lie at the beginning of this rant. Look the word up in your dictionary. I have two at my desk, a 1968 edition Funk & Wagnall’s Standard College and a 1981 Webster’s New Collegiate. In both, to tell a falsehood as the definition of lie is a bunch of places down the list of possible meanings. For example, one can lie, as on a bed, have a bad lie as in golf, or lie at anchor in a harbor.
Do you think anchors lie? I do. Research Dan Rather if you don’t believe me.
One of the great American wonders is the Grand Canyon in the American Southwest. But, did you know that its name isn’t even of English origin? It wasn’t in the lexicon in 1776; hell, it didn’t even make in until 1834 or so. Canyon is a Spanish word. Hey, canyon is exactly what the thing is so it’s the perfect word for the place, and we are just fine with calling it that. Besides, it wouldn’t be quite so impressive if we called it the Grand Ditch.
Speaking of rivers—we were sort of, because the Grand Canyon is formed by the Colorado River—one of my favorite names for a river is one in Washington State called the Skookumchuck River. Go ahead and Google it if you don’t believe me it exists. By the way, did you know that google was a real word before that clever search engine company appropriated it? It may also be spelled googol, and means 1 followed by 100 zeros, which is a very big number, but not as big as a googolplex, which is 1 followed by a google of zeros (or10 to the google power). Of course, now google is not only a number and the name of a company but is also a word meaning to search on the internet no matter what engine you use.
How about Internet? It is a word that didn’t exist the year I was born. It is completely made up, like telephone, broadcast and diode. Because, well, Benjamin Franklin and pals didn’t have anything like it, so how could they have a word for it? Ben did invent bifocals, so he did get to create his own technology-based word.
I get grumpy when I hear people say something like, “I am really anxious to see what I got for Christmas.” What, gifts scare you? “Anxious” implies fear, trepidation, and foreboding. Don’t they really mean they are “eager” for their gifts? Eager implies hopeful anticipation. I am eager for my tax refund but anxious about doing my tax return. Saying irregardless doesn’t bother me nearly as much.
I read somewhere that the accent of New England today is very close to that of Shakespeare’s time. I don’t remember where I read that, or if it is even true. I suppose the first thing one must ask is who is around today who remembers what it sounded like when Henry VIII was lopping off heads and Elizabeth was lying with Sir Walter Raleigh. It does provide a bit of a segue to what English sounds like. (Remind me to come back to seque later, because to digress now would be to violate the principles of what segue means.)
In college I learned that English is generally recognized to come in three distinct flavors. Old English is the language on hand before The Norman Invasion. A mixture of Saxon, Nordic, and others was very German sounding. Middle English followed, which developed after William the Conqueror did. Modern English followed, which, surprisingly, is what Shakespeare spoke, though you won’t convince many students of that as they struggle through the plays and sonnets.
I can’t read or pronounce Old English, so we won’t even go there.
I can read and pronounce Middle English, because I had a Chaucer professor who was a sadist and made me learn it. Don’t tell anybody that I rather enjoyed the process. Anyway, the cool part about Chaucer was that most critics for a very long time thought he was a lousy poet. His poems didn’t even rhyme for crying out loud. His principal and famous work was The Canterbury Tales, and he is one of the first old guys whose stuff survived and was readily available. However, it sounded terrible when you read it aloud, and confirmed for the modern critics that they really were barbarians in the 14th century.
Up until someone said, “Hey, what if we change the sound of the vowels just a bit?” Thus was born the English pronunciation transformation know as the Great Vowel Shift. How cool is that? Change just one letter and you have every grumpy Chaucer student's dream for ridiculing that which gives them pain.
Before the Great Vowel Shift, the Middle English “A” sounds like “ah.” “E” sounds like the A as in say, “I” sounds like e, as in he, she, and be. You get the picture. Then some other guy said, what if they pronounced the “gh” in sight, night and fright? In fact, what if they pronounced all the letters in a word, and didn’t leave any of them silent? In this way, “knight” is pronounced with a hard K to begin, followed by the N, then a soft I to E sound, followed by the GH as a sort of “kuh” sound with a finishing “T”. Think of it as five syllables instead of today it would only sound like one syllable. A simple word like "time" would be pronounced as teema (in this case the e has a soft A sound). Suddenly, Chaucer rhymes, has meter, and, voila, is a great poet!
And, he told some racy tales, too. They don’t teach the good ones in high school, that’s for sure.
I’m done ranting on this subject for now. Except, if you don’t like English, you don’t know shit. That word has its own surprising origin that has nothing to do with manure stowed on sailing ships as a spate of emails suggest.
Did we talk about alliteration? Forget segue, I’m tired and need to stop.
Okay, that’s two words. Maybe you think I said one thing and did another, which would be lying.
Possibly, you thought I meant “a word” as in a conversation: “Can I have a word with you?” You would be correct in this second interpretation.
A word, especially in English, is a very tricky thing.
Only in English do we have so many words that mean almost the same thing, and so many words that have so many meanings all in one word. We have lots of words that sound alike but mean different things. We have words we didn’t have a year ago but nearly everyone knows what they mean now. We don’t care a bit about stealing words from other languages; if it fits, we use it.
In many ways, this makes the English language pretty cool.
Just look at that last sentence. It uses two words that have taken on entirely new meanings over the relatively recent decades. “Pretty” can mean “very” and not just “attractive.” “Cool” now also means, variously, “neat”, “hip”, “calm”, “desirable”, as well as a low temperature. It is interesting how “neat” has also taken on a new meaning in the last 100 years; it no longer just means “tidy”, but also means “good”. “Hip” is a word that in the mid-1900s came to mean more than just that seductive convex shape of a woman’s body.
How is a person supposed to keep up? Keep your cool, man. It’s groovy.
Let’s go back to the possibly that I wrote a lie at the beginning of this rant. Look the word up in your dictionary. I have two at my desk, a 1968 edition Funk & Wagnall’s Standard College and a 1981 Webster’s New Collegiate. In both, to tell a falsehood as the definition of lie is a bunch of places down the list of possible meanings. For example, one can lie, as on a bed, have a bad lie as in golf, or lie at anchor in a harbor.
Do you think anchors lie? I do. Research Dan Rather if you don’t believe me.
One of the great American wonders is the Grand Canyon in the American Southwest. But, did you know that its name isn’t even of English origin? It wasn’t in the lexicon in 1776; hell, it didn’t even make in until 1834 or so. Canyon is a Spanish word. Hey, canyon is exactly what the thing is so it’s the perfect word for the place, and we are just fine with calling it that. Besides, it wouldn’t be quite so impressive if we called it the Grand Ditch.
Speaking of rivers—we were sort of, because the Grand Canyon is formed by the Colorado River—one of my favorite names for a river is one in Washington State called the Skookumchuck River. Go ahead and Google it if you don’t believe me it exists. By the way, did you know that google was a real word before that clever search engine company appropriated it? It may also be spelled googol, and means 1 followed by 100 zeros, which is a very big number, but not as big as a googolplex, which is 1 followed by a google of zeros (or10 to the google power). Of course, now google is not only a number and the name of a company but is also a word meaning to search on the internet no matter what engine you use.
How about Internet? It is a word that didn’t exist the year I was born. It is completely made up, like telephone, broadcast and diode. Because, well, Benjamin Franklin and pals didn’t have anything like it, so how could they have a word for it? Ben did invent bifocals, so he did get to create his own technology-based word.
I get grumpy when I hear people say something like, “I am really anxious to see what I got for Christmas.” What, gifts scare you? “Anxious” implies fear, trepidation, and foreboding. Don’t they really mean they are “eager” for their gifts? Eager implies hopeful anticipation. I am eager for my tax refund but anxious about doing my tax return. Saying irregardless doesn’t bother me nearly as much.
I read somewhere that the accent of New England today is very close to that of Shakespeare’s time. I don’t remember where I read that, or if it is even true. I suppose the first thing one must ask is who is around today who remembers what it sounded like when Henry VIII was lopping off heads and Elizabeth was lying with Sir Walter Raleigh. It does provide a bit of a segue to what English sounds like. (Remind me to come back to seque later, because to digress now would be to violate the principles of what segue means.)
In college I learned that English is generally recognized to come in three distinct flavors. Old English is the language on hand before The Norman Invasion. A mixture of Saxon, Nordic, and others was very German sounding. Middle English followed, which developed after William the Conqueror did. Modern English followed, which, surprisingly, is what Shakespeare spoke, though you won’t convince many students of that as they struggle through the plays and sonnets.
I can’t read or pronounce Old English, so we won’t even go there.
I can read and pronounce Middle English, because I had a Chaucer professor who was a sadist and made me learn it. Don’t tell anybody that I rather enjoyed the process. Anyway, the cool part about Chaucer was that most critics for a very long time thought he was a lousy poet. His poems didn’t even rhyme for crying out loud. His principal and famous work was The Canterbury Tales, and he is one of the first old guys whose stuff survived and was readily available. However, it sounded terrible when you read it aloud, and confirmed for the modern critics that they really were barbarians in the 14th century.
Up until someone said, “Hey, what if we change the sound of the vowels just a bit?” Thus was born the English pronunciation transformation know as the Great Vowel Shift. How cool is that? Change just one letter and you have every grumpy Chaucer student's dream for ridiculing that which gives them pain.
Before the Great Vowel Shift, the Middle English “A” sounds like “ah.” “E” sounds like the A as in say, “I” sounds like e, as in he, she, and be. You get the picture. Then some other guy said, what if they pronounced the “gh” in sight, night and fright? In fact, what if they pronounced all the letters in a word, and didn’t leave any of them silent? In this way, “knight” is pronounced with a hard K to begin, followed by the N, then a soft I to E sound, followed by the GH as a sort of “kuh” sound with a finishing “T”. Think of it as five syllables instead of today it would only sound like one syllable. A simple word like "time" would be pronounced as teema (in this case the e has a soft A sound). Suddenly, Chaucer rhymes, has meter, and, voila, is a great poet!
And, he told some racy tales, too. They don’t teach the good ones in high school, that’s for sure.
I’m done ranting on this subject for now. Except, if you don’t like English, you don’t know shit. That word has its own surprising origin that has nothing to do with manure stowed on sailing ships as a spate of emails suggest.
Did we talk about alliteration? Forget segue, I’m tired and need to stop.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Case for No Referees
There you are, sitting on the edge of your seat, chewing your fingernails, mentally willing the batter for your favorite team to get a hit. Men on second and third, two outs, bottom of the ninth, the batter has a full count and your team is down by one run. Here comes the wind up, the pitch, and a swing! The ball flies over the third basemen’s head, a classic sinking line drive headed for the corner. The left fielder isn’t going to get there! The runners take off and the ball falls in bounds and heads for the corner. Game Over! We win!
Oops, not so fast.
The third baseline umpire signals the ball was foul. It doesn’t count. The coach storms out of the dugout, screaming, pointing, and jumping up and down on his hat. 30 million people watch the replay repeatedly, and even the big screen in center field shows it. The ball was fair by a half foot. Not half an inch, not two inches, but the ball hit a full six inches inside the line, more than the diameter of the ball. It's no use. The call stands. The next pitch is called a strike that replay clearly shows is 6 inches outside and low. Game over. You lose.
This happens every day in sports. The referee or umpire, or whatever the official n whatever the sport is, gets it wrong. In fact, he often screws it so badly that the entire outcome of the game is changed. Go ask the Irish about the recent non-call of a French player’s hand check that cost the Irish a spot in the World Cup.
This situation is more than a little ironic.
The whole point of referees is to make sure games are fairly played and according to the rules. Without referees, aficionados assure us, everyone would cheat. The games would be chaos. How can one have a fair contest without a referee?
For many, the question is becoming how we have a fair contest when the referees do such a poor job and have so much influence on the outcome.
Instant replay and computerization have the ability to eliminate most of these errors. A computer, hooked to a couple of radar detectors could call balls and strikes with nearly 100% accuracy. Why can’t the umpire look at a replay and say yes the ball was fair? It would be the fair thing to do. All the players
simply need to remember is that any given play can be reviewed, so play them all like they count.
Not so fast say those wedded to the tradition, who maintain that an essential part of the game is the human element, including referees and umpires.
Really? You like going to a football game and watching the referees play throw the yellow hanky on every other down? If that’s your idea a good time, you are some kind of masochist.
Do you know what game doesn’t have referees? Golf. Every player is on his or her honor to follow the rules and penalize himself when he violates a rule. And they do. Imagine that. Do you think some of them cheat? Sure. However, they aren’t invited back if they do it too much or too flagrantly.
One of my favorite golf stories is on Stewart Cink. He was playing in a tournament in New Orleans and found himself in a fairway bunker. He hit his shot out of the bunker and his ball went well down the fairway but ended up in a second bunker next to the green. In frustration, he slapped at the sand with his club as he was climbing out of the fairway bunker. He played on, finished the hole and later signed his scorecard for the number of strokes he had taken. Later that night, he realized that he had grounded his club in a hazard by hitting the sand in the first bunker, while his ball was in a hazard, the second bunker by the green. This is a violation of the rules. He should have added a penalty to his score for this infraction. The next morning he showed up at the official’s tent and announced that he had signed an incorrect scorecard the day before and explained why. The rules were clear, and Mr. Cink knew that he would be disqualified from the tournament, but he admitted his error anyway. He could have gotten completely away with it, because no one had noticed or didn’t realize what the rule was. The proof is that I watched a PGA player on TV do exactly the same thing last year. He did not call the rule on himself, the TV announcers didn’t catch it, an official watched him do it and said nothing, and no viewers called in. Maybe I should have, but I considered it was a sort of character and knowledge test for that player. He failed it.
Golf has been using replays for years. Craig Stadler was playing in the third round in a tournament in 1987. He was in contention at the time. His ball ended up under a low hanging tree. He could get a swing at the ball, but only if he got on his knees to do it. The grass was wet and he did not want to get his pants soaked, so he placed a towel on the ground and then knelt on the towel to hit his ball. The official following the group said nothing. The TV announcers said nothing. However, a fair number of TV viewers telephoned and pointed out that Mr. Stadler had violated the rule about artificially building his stance. Because it took until after Stadler had signed his incorrect scorecard for the officials to be informed, and because he did not penalize himself and essentially signed an incorrect scorecard (as Cink had done) he was disqualified from the tournament.
Mr. Stadler might very well have thought this unkind, but the moral of this story is that the TV viewing audience made the call, not a rules official, and yet everyone agreed that the violation had occurred and the consequence that entailed was the right one, even if belatedly applied.
So, tell me again, why we can’t rule a baseball is in bounds within seconds of the play ending by looking at incontrovertible replay proof? That would be because of…
But let’s not hold golf up as the shining example. It has its flaws, and it does indeed have officials who can impose penalties and apply rules to the outcome. Although, I don’t think I ever saw them get it wrong. Would you believe there is a fast moving, highly athletic team sport with no referees? Yep, there really is one; it’s called Ultimate Frisbee.
If you haven’t watched a game of Ultimate Frisbee played by reasonably accomplished players, you owe it to yourself to take some time to do so. You will be amazed and entertained. It is something of a cross among football, soccer, and basketball. It is fast moving, with players running, jumping, diving, and generally flying around the field at top speed. The Frisbee throws all by themselves are amazing.
The goal is to catch the Frisbee in your end zone, which is one point. You can’t run with the Frisbee, but must move it only by throwing and catching. You can’t interfere with a person trying to catch the Frisbee, as in football, or the person throwing it. No part of the body can be touching out of bounds while catching the Frisbee, though it only takes one toe touching in bounds for it to be legal catch. If the Frisbee touches the ground, it goes over to the other team at that spot, and they go on offense immediately. Play continues as in soccer, being continuous and only stopping for goals, team time outs and half time. Play stops on out of bounds throws or the Frisbee hitting the ground only long enough for the other team to get them situated before they pick up the Frisbee and start play again. These are the basic rules, though there are some others. Obviously you need referees to monitor and enforce these rules, right? Nope. The players do it themselves.
If a player thinks he has been fouled or the catch was not legal, he makes the call. Sometimes the offending player will call the foul on himself. Usually a player calls a foul or infraction only if the play had a bad outcome for the team that was fouled, such as a failure to catch the Frisbee. Play stops right there and then. If the offending player or team agrees with the call, the team that was fouled gets possession of the Frisbee at the spot of the foul and play resumes. If the two teams do not agree, and after some brief discussion, it becomes clear that they will not, the offensive team takes the Frisbee back where the play that resulted in the foul began and replay from there. That’s it, the entire conflict resolution: play on where it happened or do it over. There are no penalty kicks, added yardage or free throws.
The players of the game, just like those in golf, have a tradition and a pride in being honorable. One of their tenets is that they enjoy the competition first and win second. Winning by any means, especially by cheating or bending the rules is not thought of well. At times, a team will have field lawyer who wants to call a foul on every play. At other times one or more players may engage if too much rule breaking. The other side will usually tolerate either situation for a little while, but eventually the captains will get together and have a frank discussion. In most cases, the teammates of the offenders will pile on and make it clear they need to cool it. The offenders usually do.
Do cheaters and unfair applications of the rules occur in Ultimate Frisbee? Sure. However, it happens much less often than you might think, much, much less often than in other sports where the referees are the cause.
I don't intend to argue that Ultimate Frisbee is the ultimate team sport. Rather, it is an example of how to play a team game without the often All Knowing OZ rulings of referees and umpires dictating the outcome of the game incorrectly.
I like instant replay reviews, what little they are used. Baseball could be umpired almost entirely with cameras, radar, computers and replay. Why shouldn’t it? Really, why not? The call would be right 99.9% of the time. Look what they can do now with Tennis line calls.
Do the various replay systems have their downsides and flaws? Of course. It shouldn’t take 5 minutes to make a decision from looking at the replay. Most sports commentators do it in seconds, whereas the trained officials seem incapable of anything approaching snail fast speed. I also don’t like limiting coaches to just two challenges as they do in professional football. Seems to me, once a coach uses up all his two challenges the officials have no incentive to get it right thereafter.
It is possible to go on about the current flaws in the various replay systems, but there is nothing so far wrong in my view that cannot be improved and fixed. However, if the last seasons in football and baseball are any indication, there doesn’t seem to be much that can be fixed about referees.
Oops, not so fast.
The third baseline umpire signals the ball was foul. It doesn’t count. The coach storms out of the dugout, screaming, pointing, and jumping up and down on his hat. 30 million people watch the replay repeatedly, and even the big screen in center field shows it. The ball was fair by a half foot. Not half an inch, not two inches, but the ball hit a full six inches inside the line, more than the diameter of the ball. It's no use. The call stands. The next pitch is called a strike that replay clearly shows is 6 inches outside and low. Game over. You lose.
This happens every day in sports. The referee or umpire, or whatever the official n whatever the sport is, gets it wrong. In fact, he often screws it so badly that the entire outcome of the game is changed. Go ask the Irish about the recent non-call of a French player’s hand check that cost the Irish a spot in the World Cup.
This situation is more than a little ironic.
The whole point of referees is to make sure games are fairly played and according to the rules. Without referees, aficionados assure us, everyone would cheat. The games would be chaos. How can one have a fair contest without a referee?
For many, the question is becoming how we have a fair contest when the referees do such a poor job and have so much influence on the outcome.
Instant replay and computerization have the ability to eliminate most of these errors. A computer, hooked to a couple of radar detectors could call balls and strikes with nearly 100% accuracy. Why can’t the umpire look at a replay and say yes the ball was fair? It would be the fair thing to do. All the players
simply need to remember is that any given play can be reviewed, so play them all like they count.
Not so fast say those wedded to the tradition, who maintain that an essential part of the game is the human element, including referees and umpires.
Really? You like going to a football game and watching the referees play throw the yellow hanky on every other down? If that’s your idea a good time, you are some kind of masochist.
Do you know what game doesn’t have referees? Golf. Every player is on his or her honor to follow the rules and penalize himself when he violates a rule. And they do. Imagine that. Do you think some of them cheat? Sure. However, they aren’t invited back if they do it too much or too flagrantly.
One of my favorite golf stories is on Stewart Cink. He was playing in a tournament in New Orleans and found himself in a fairway bunker. He hit his shot out of the bunker and his ball went well down the fairway but ended up in a second bunker next to the green. In frustration, he slapped at the sand with his club as he was climbing out of the fairway bunker. He played on, finished the hole and later signed his scorecard for the number of strokes he had taken. Later that night, he realized that he had grounded his club in a hazard by hitting the sand in the first bunker, while his ball was in a hazard, the second bunker by the green. This is a violation of the rules. He should have added a penalty to his score for this infraction. The next morning he showed up at the official’s tent and announced that he had signed an incorrect scorecard the day before and explained why. The rules were clear, and Mr. Cink knew that he would be disqualified from the tournament, but he admitted his error anyway. He could have gotten completely away with it, because no one had noticed or didn’t realize what the rule was. The proof is that I watched a PGA player on TV do exactly the same thing last year. He did not call the rule on himself, the TV announcers didn’t catch it, an official watched him do it and said nothing, and no viewers called in. Maybe I should have, but I considered it was a sort of character and knowledge test for that player. He failed it.
Golf has been using replays for years. Craig Stadler was playing in the third round in a tournament in 1987. He was in contention at the time. His ball ended up under a low hanging tree. He could get a swing at the ball, but only if he got on his knees to do it. The grass was wet and he did not want to get his pants soaked, so he placed a towel on the ground and then knelt on the towel to hit his ball. The official following the group said nothing. The TV announcers said nothing. However, a fair number of TV viewers telephoned and pointed out that Mr. Stadler had violated the rule about artificially building his stance. Because it took until after Stadler had signed his incorrect scorecard for the officials to be informed, and because he did not penalize himself and essentially signed an incorrect scorecard (as Cink had done) he was disqualified from the tournament.
Mr. Stadler might very well have thought this unkind, but the moral of this story is that the TV viewing audience made the call, not a rules official, and yet everyone agreed that the violation had occurred and the consequence that entailed was the right one, even if belatedly applied.
So, tell me again, why we can’t rule a baseball is in bounds within seconds of the play ending by looking at incontrovertible replay proof? That would be because of…
But let’s not hold golf up as the shining example. It has its flaws, and it does indeed have officials who can impose penalties and apply rules to the outcome. Although, I don’t think I ever saw them get it wrong. Would you believe there is a fast moving, highly athletic team sport with no referees? Yep, there really is one; it’s called Ultimate Frisbee.
If you haven’t watched a game of Ultimate Frisbee played by reasonably accomplished players, you owe it to yourself to take some time to do so. You will be amazed and entertained. It is something of a cross among football, soccer, and basketball. It is fast moving, with players running, jumping, diving, and generally flying around the field at top speed. The Frisbee throws all by themselves are amazing.
The goal is to catch the Frisbee in your end zone, which is one point. You can’t run with the Frisbee, but must move it only by throwing and catching. You can’t interfere with a person trying to catch the Frisbee, as in football, or the person throwing it. No part of the body can be touching out of bounds while catching the Frisbee, though it only takes one toe touching in bounds for it to be legal catch. If the Frisbee touches the ground, it goes over to the other team at that spot, and they go on offense immediately. Play continues as in soccer, being continuous and only stopping for goals, team time outs and half time. Play stops on out of bounds throws or the Frisbee hitting the ground only long enough for the other team to get them situated before they pick up the Frisbee and start play again. These are the basic rules, though there are some others. Obviously you need referees to monitor and enforce these rules, right? Nope. The players do it themselves.
If a player thinks he has been fouled or the catch was not legal, he makes the call. Sometimes the offending player will call the foul on himself. Usually a player calls a foul or infraction only if the play had a bad outcome for the team that was fouled, such as a failure to catch the Frisbee. Play stops right there and then. If the offending player or team agrees with the call, the team that was fouled gets possession of the Frisbee at the spot of the foul and play resumes. If the two teams do not agree, and after some brief discussion, it becomes clear that they will not, the offensive team takes the Frisbee back where the play that resulted in the foul began and replay from there. That’s it, the entire conflict resolution: play on where it happened or do it over. There are no penalty kicks, added yardage or free throws.
The players of the game, just like those in golf, have a tradition and a pride in being honorable. One of their tenets is that they enjoy the competition first and win second. Winning by any means, especially by cheating or bending the rules is not thought of well. At times, a team will have field lawyer who wants to call a foul on every play. At other times one or more players may engage if too much rule breaking. The other side will usually tolerate either situation for a little while, but eventually the captains will get together and have a frank discussion. In most cases, the teammates of the offenders will pile on and make it clear they need to cool it. The offenders usually do.
Do cheaters and unfair applications of the rules occur in Ultimate Frisbee? Sure. However, it happens much less often than you might think, much, much less often than in other sports where the referees are the cause.
I don't intend to argue that Ultimate Frisbee is the ultimate team sport. Rather, it is an example of how to play a team game without the often All Knowing OZ rulings of referees and umpires dictating the outcome of the game incorrectly.
I like instant replay reviews, what little they are used. Baseball could be umpired almost entirely with cameras, radar, computers and replay. Why shouldn’t it? Really, why not? The call would be right 99.9% of the time. Look what they can do now with Tennis line calls.
Do the various replay systems have their downsides and flaws? Of course. It shouldn’t take 5 minutes to make a decision from looking at the replay. Most sports commentators do it in seconds, whereas the trained officials seem incapable of anything approaching snail fast speed. I also don’t like limiting coaches to just two challenges as they do in professional football. Seems to me, once a coach uses up all his two challenges the officials have no incentive to get it right thereafter.
It is possible to go on about the current flaws in the various replay systems, but there is nothing so far wrong in my view that cannot be improved and fixed. However, if the last seasons in football and baseball are any indication, there doesn’t seem to be much that can be fixed about referees.
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