B8005-6 Arguments: Idiosyncratic Truth

ARGUMENTS: IDIOSYNCRATIC TRUTH:

1. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT OBJECTIVE TRUTH: One should not expect the dialectical format to produce anything resembling objective truth. Instead, the “truths” adopted by the agonists are idiosyncratic expressions of “truth” that each party sees fit to adopt as his very own, rather than some truth objectified by authority, as in (“I’m the parent and I said so!”), or by preponderance of evidence, as in (“The security camera caught you on tape.”). Because the objectified truths are not present, the dialectical argument cannot end immediately, and the parties of the argument can hold onto their idiosyncratic notions of what is “true,” as follows:

a. EXAMPLE: OBJECTIFICATION BY AUTHORITY: A twelve year-old girl asked her mother for ten dollars. When the mother refused to give the money to the child, the girl said, “Why not?” The mother said, “Because I said so.” The child was not satisfied with that response and said the mother had to give her a reason. The mother replied that she didn’t have to give a reason: “I’m the adult here and you’re the child and I say you can’t have the ten dollars. Okay? End of discussion.” The twelve year-old insisted that the mother give her a detailed explanation for her refusal to give her ten dollars. The bickering went on and on until the father, who was sitting nearby, told the child that her mother had told her she couldn’t have the ten dollars and ‘that was it.” The child stood there with her hands on her hips and then stuck her tongue out at her father. The father, seething with anger, jumped off the couch and chased the daughter around the dining room table. The child ran out of the house and didn’t return until some time later, after it became dark outside.
Once the argument was objectified by the father pursuing the child and the child leaving the house, the dialect ended. More significantly, the child was so shocked by the incident that she immediately ceased arguing in later cases when she recognized that “the point of no return” had been reached in the argument, when the father signaled a “time-out” gesture with his hands.

b. EXAMPLE: OBJECTIFICATION BY PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE: Frank used to take barrels of sawdust home with him to be used as bedding for his dogs. Frank’s employer had no objection to his taking the sawdust because it otherwise presented a disposal problem for the employer. And normally Frank would get a co-worker to help him lift the barrel onto his truck. But one night the security guard noticed that the men were using a fork truck to load the barrel on the truck. It seemed strange that something as light as sawdust would require a fork truck. So, the guard came over and asked Frank what he had in the barrel. Frank told him that he had a barrel of sawdust. “Then why do you need a fork truck to load the barrel? You never used a fork truck in the past.” Frank told him that it was “real heavy sawdust.” The guard removed the cover on the barrel and found a shallow layer of sawdust on top of a barrel of carbide cutting tools. The carbide had a scrap metal price of about $5.00 per pound at the time and the barrel contained hundreds of pounds of metal. Inadvertently the guard had caught Frank in an incident of Grand Theft - Felony, because the value of the carbide tooling was about $4,000. Frank was fired on the spot.

2. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT CLOSURE: Moreover, often the dialectical argument cannot end on a decisive note, as in, “Shut up! You’re the kid and I’m the parent and I carry the big stick in this household. Got it? Now, get to bed!” Lacking any clear end point or strategy, the dialectical argument can continue as long as the parties are willing to dispute with each other, or until the argument ends by imposition of the superior will.

3. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT SYSTEMATICITY: The dialectic format does not lend itself to systematic study or investigation. Instead, it directs the focus of the disputation to the particular portions of arguments being made at a given instant, rather than to the sequence or panorama of arguments leading up to that point in time. Such arguments become the classical, “you can’t see the forest for the trees,” type of argument because the parties are concentrating on the petty details of particular propositions instead of attempting to precipitate some universal principles from the context of the arguments.

4. ARGUMENTS FILLED WITH OPINIONS INSTEAD OF FACTS: The dialectical argument often ends in a he-said-she-said deadlock because vapid opinions are being bantered about instead of unassailable facts. The parties retreat to their own houses and harbor the opinions they have just exposed in the dialect, smug in the assurance that they are completely right. From behind the facade of newspapers and magazines, they hurl opinions back and forth as if those words could do genuine damage to the opponent. Only later do they discover that fact-finders out in the world make mince-meat out their “arguments,” which the agonists have pretended to be factual, when, in fact, such arguments can be shown to be only opinionated thoughts arising from unthinking minds. One recalls, for instance, the Presidential Election of 1984, when Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale traded barbs with each other. A disinterested observer might have heard only trivial opinions being proffered by each candidate. But when Mondale told the whole world that he would “raise your taxes,” the dialect - and the election - was really over at that point in time. The mere opinions that many people heard (or held about the candidates) had changed into hard facts that affected their wallets, and Mondale went back to Minnesota crushed in utter defeat. The dialect had ended when mere, silly opinions had mutated into a hard, crystallized, unassailable fact of the threat of rising taxes.

Flowers for Your Rose Garden

C3001-104 Thanksgiving: Lister Bag Tea

    The isoprenes hung heavily in the air around the pine tree boughs like mean gossip in a small, Southern town.  I could see the haze extending to the far horizon, in staggered slices of landscape, each one just a bit lighter than the one in front of it, cascading into pale indistinction.  The cicadas filled the valley with their strident, insistent sirens.  Who, I wondered, could think of reproduction in such oppressive heat and humidity; who could find allure in the sticky embrace of such a sweltering sycophant?
    We marched in route step through the forest along a well-worn path that had seen generations of footsteps in the khaki-colored soil: the pale color of cowardice, stubbled with stubborn chert here and there to twist ankles.  I learned in time to kick those stones off the path without breaking my stride.
    At first, the man in front of me had a slender, dark line of perspiration on the back of his shirt.  But as we marched those endless miles through the heat, his shirt eventually turned into a uniform flowing with sweat.  The man dripped with each step like a metronome.  Those droplets were eagerly swallowed by the dusty-dry soil.
    After what seemed like hours of marching, we came to an expansive, open area that looked much like  a picnic area in a state forest.  Then I noticed them.  There were two of them and they were hanging from a tree like bloated carcases in a slaughter house.  In some respects, they looked just like duffel bags except they were much fatter.  I had never seen anything like them before.
    I asked what they were and I was told that they were Lister Bags (cf. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Lister+bag ) filled with iced tea.  Somehow the thought of cold tea revolted me.  Who could drink such a thing?  But I was told that it was actually “pretty good.”
    Later, after I stood in line with the others, I got a canteen cup of that unsweetened tea.  I sipped tentatively and tasted the strangeness of the polymers from the rubber lining of the Lister Bag.  But the drink was cool and refreshing.  It was a welcomed guest on that hot and humid day.
    And now, years and years later, I found a bottled unsweetened tea for sale in my local grocery store.  I brought one bottle home and sat on the couch sipping the tea.  It was Lister Bag tea all over again.  My wife could not understand the Christmas-morning joy I found in that glass of tea.
    I am thankful for that hot and humid day, filled with isoprenes and cicadas, and khaki-colored soil.  But I am especially grateful for that canvass bag of iced tea with its generous gift of refreshment.

B4022-4 Moron Economics: Galbraithian Nonsense

    A colleague of mine used to patronize the people who assembled machine tools in a large machine tool manufacturing facility.  The colleague was an electronic technician who was responsible for debugging and testing the machine tool electrical controls.  Frequently, the assemblers asked him how the control “knew” where to move, say, the table or the slide of the machine tool.  An adequate explanation would have taken more time than it was worth.  So, the technician simply told them that “it was all magic.”  They never accepted that explanation and they always wanted him to explain things further.  “Well,” he say, “it’s like putting your tooth under the pillow at night and finding a quarter there instead in the morning.  It’s a Tooth Fairy sort of thing.  And it’s all magic.”
    Much of what passes for economics today is that Tooth Fairy sort of thing.  Your car won’t start?  Try pushing it off a fifty-foot cliff unto the jagged rocks below.  It didn’t start?  Okay, try pushing it off the 100-foot cliff nearby.  What?  It still didn’t start?  We need a 200-foot cliff, folks.  The “stimulus package” wasn’t big enough.
    I’m sure that there is a Miss Romer somewhere dug into her stuffy Keynesian burrow who is wondering why the United States’ stimulus plan didn’t work.  Somewhere, a Mister Summers is scratching his head over the same issue.  “If only we had spent more!”
    Now, a fool comes out of Texas with an absurd reprise of France’s 35-hour workweek (1998-2008).  Remember that?  Let’s reduce the workweek hours and spread the jobs around.  Today this Texan fool says let all of those older folks retire who want to retire, and let the younger unemployed take their jobs.  It’s a win-win for everybody.  Well, except if you work the mathematics:  The person now working pays a portion of his salary into Social Security and Medicare “trust funds.”  That person retires and begins to draw down those “trust funds.”  The younger person begins his new job and starts paying the same fees to the “trust funds” as the older person did.  No matter who works the same fund amount is contributed.  But in this case, an additional person is drawing funds out of the “trust funds.”  Can’t bankrupt the Social Security and Medicare “trust funds” fast enough?  Try getting more people to draw out of the system.
    Tooth Fairy economics.  Put your tooth under the pillow and tomorrow there will be a coin there.  It’s all magic.

B8005-5 Arguments: Clarification of Opinions

THE CLARIFICATION OF OPINIONS: We could say that some arguments serve to establish particular opinions in others where no such opinions existed previously. To “win” an argument, thus, is to form or affect a new opinion in another person.

TRIVIALITY: But let us understand, first, that all arguments that seek to change opinions are, by their very nature, trivial. While it is true that the arguments themselves may seem very important to the persons arguing the particular cases, in any reasonable scheme of things it makes very little difference whether I believe, say, that the moon is either made of Green Cheese or if it is made of Compressed Twinkies. In either case my opinion - along with one American dollar - will get me a coffee at McDonalds, and very little else; i.e., my opinions, like the arguments themselves, are ipso facto trivial.

THE NATURE OF OPINIONS: Since opinions are philosophically identical with contradictions, there can be no “correct” opinions. Instead, there is nothing out there but a bewildering array of competing opinions, each of which is valid for his owner, but not necessarily for others. Listening to others bray about their opinions is very similar to flipping through a catalogue of highway signs: each sign wags its scolding finger in your face without any practical effect. At the end of the day, the catalogue - and your interlocutors’ opinions - can be tossed into the trash can.

THE FUTILITY OF ARGUING AGAINST OPINIONS: In any really objective sense of the word, it’s a hopeless task to badger another person with relentless ferocity in order to change his opinion. Far better, one should allow the other to steep in his delusions until he, himself, comes to the conclusion that his opinion is unwarranted by existing conditions or facts. Don’t change the opinions of others; let the conditions change the opinions:

EDUCATION: We often hear an array of arguments about spending additional sums on education. Almost always such arguments take the form of what will happen to "our children" if we fail to spend less than x-dollars per pupil. It is a fruitless task to counter such arguments with economic specificity. Rather, it is always a more effective approach to give the education leeches precisely what they ask for in the hope that eventually they will build such a large edifice that the salaries, operating and maintenance costs will simply overwhelm the system. Currently, many state governments are operating with budgets severely in deficit because of past excesses in granting every silly educational demand that was placed upon the state legislature. For years conservatives have argued for some kind of restraint, and they have made those arguments to no avail - until now. Once the critical mass has been reached with extravagant spending (as it is today), further arguments are no longer necessary because everyone from the smallest child to the oldest man can see that the budgets are not sustainable under any taxing scheme. The educational establishment is ready to become undone by its past "successes."

KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS: At the present time we are participating in an economic experiment. Some, like the Captain Ja-Boom Tisch's (i.e., Obama's) administration, have argued for stimulus spending to give a Keynesian boost to the economy. Huge sums of money had been spent in the attempt to prove that Keynesianism actually does something. To date, however, the results are exceedingly unsatisfactory. The amount of money that's been spent is slowly crushing the private sector, and less charitably, is destroying the United States of America. Yet the persons responsible for continuing to support these silly Keynesian ideas are not dissuaded by the results that we are now seeing. Instead they firmly believe that we need to spend more to make this work. Or as one wag put it so well, "If you failed to fly after you jumped off a 10-foot step ladder, perhaps you could try jumping off of the roof of your house." There will come a point, obviously, when it is no longer feasible to pretend that additional deficit spending will stimulate the economy. The problem, however, is that the United States may no longer exist when these economic morons finally come to their senses.

KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH HIS WORDS: Second, all arguments that seek to change opinions are never attempts to discover objective truth itself, but instead, are always attempts to squeeze some gritty exudate through the grille surrounding the opponent’s head. The end of such argumentation is to smother the opponent in a virtual helmet of irrefutable logic, from which he cannot see or breathe or even speak. All in all, the argument seeks to conclude with one party silent and unable to speak.

B8005-4 Arguments: Assumptions

“Arguments follow from assumptions, and assumptions follow from beliefs, and very rarely - perhaps never - do beliefs reflect an agenda determined entirely by facts” (David Berlinski. The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. New York: Crown Forum, 2008, pp. 103-104).

ARGUMENTS FOLLOW FROM ASSUMPTIONS: Of course, this is an incorrect statement. Arguments follow from disagreements, where one of the parties refuses to accept certain assumptions made by the other party of the disagreement. What the two parties argue about, basically, are the assumptions themselves. Did Wittgenstein not say that arguments cease once adequate definitions are made? It would seem, then, that the first requirement of any disagreement would be to clarify the meaning of the assumptions being used.

ASSUMPTIONS FOLLOW FROM BELIEFS: Again, this is an incorrect statement. Assumptions may follow from beliefs. But more often, assumptions are applications of current opinion to contemporary arguments. That is to say, sometimes assumptions are nothing more than clichés stated by one of the parties without regard to reasoned thought or to an opinion formed from examined beliefs. For example, people often say "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." Such a statement more often reflects the extent to which propaganda has been effective in the lives of the public than it does from a conclusion drawn from proper examination.

BELIEFS ARE NOT FACTUALLY SUPPORTED: While I tend to agree with this statement at some overall level of understanding, I also assert that facts themselves are trivial. A true fact does not support a belief. Rather, it makes a tautological statement about the world. But in a very general way, the things that people assert tend never to be based on examined facts. It might be more correct to say that people express their beliefs on the basis of selected facts, or on particular facts culled from a vast assortment of available facts. In other words, beliefs are often based on peculiar and nuanced selections of facts.

CONTRIVED REASONING: In spite of the difficulties that Berlinski has laid out here, I think he is particularly correct about modern science in its pretense that its positions and conclusions are based on "facts" alone; and, in contradistinction to religious belief, that scientific assertions are always based on evidence rather than on beliefs. Almost always, science has no genuine evidentiary basis. Instead, it possesses something that I will call a contrived reason that supports a particular notion.

B5006-1 Reasoning: Scientific Facts

Scientific Facts: It may be pure speculation on my part to suppose that progress in science, generally, is hampered by the psychology of remembered “facts.” In particular, a rigidly held belief in some particular aspect of science, e.g., Darwinian evolution, may prevent a scientist from looking at his scientific inquiries with the necessary objectivity to determine the actual truth. His elaborately constructed world view may not be capable of the requisite deconstruction needed to accommodate a newer, more descriptive, conceptualization of science. Even when confronted with the overwhelming statistical logic of a William Dembski, for example, or the compelling biochemical evidence compiled by a Michael Behe, the dyed-in-the-wool Darwinian, such as Richard Dawkins, cannot admit that his concept of evolution is fatally - and ineluctably - flawed: “Dawkins...asserts that ‘biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.’ He refers to living beings as ‘designoid’ objects. ‘Designoid objects look designed,’ Dawkins contends, ‘so much so that some people - probably, alas, most people - think they are designed. These people are wrong.’ ” (Dan Peterson. “The Little Engine That Could Undo Darwinism,” The American Spectator, June 2005, p. 37.) It is difficult for me personally to imagine a more arrogant statement than Dawkins’s statement that “these people are wrong.” On what objective basis can he make such a statement? That he believes in materialism with such blind and obstinate conviction that absolutely no non-materialistic explanation has even the possibility of being true? Good Heavens! Where does this person get off?

B4023-5 Education: The Virtual University

The Virtual University:  Today, boys and girls, let’s do a little thought experiment.  Imagine for a moment that a young woman - let’s call her Rachel - gets into her automobile and drives ten miles to a “commuter” university.  The school has few on-campus dormitory residents; most drive from elsewhere to attend a day’s classes.  Rachel parks her car in a large parking lot, slips on her backpack of books and laptop computer, and begins the half-mile  (about 800 meters) trek to her classroom building.  Notice, if you will, the absurdity of locating a parking lot that far away from the building.  Many would ask, “Whatever were those architects thinking?”

 
    Rachel enters a large lecture hall and takes a seat along with several hundred other students.  The lecture hall is shaped like an amphitheater, and the lecturer is seen by Rachel as a very tiny dot way down there at the bottom of the room.  The lecturer is nearly invisible.  And if it weren’t for the projected image of the lecturer on the adjacent wall, Rachel would hardly be able to see the person.  Moreover, the voice of the lecturer must be amplified to be heard by others at the higher end of the lecture hall.
 

    When the lecture begins, Rachel notices that many of the students around her are chatting with one another about things that have nothing to do with the content of the lecture.  Their gossip is a major distraction to her.  The lecturer, too, is a chirrupy little bird who can hardly be understood.  Rachel strains to hear and comprehend the lecture.  All in all, it is a very frustrating experience for Rachel.
 

    After the lecture, Rachel retraces her half-mile walk back to the parking lot.  It is now raining and Rachel is getting soaked.  She utters soft blasphemies with each step, generally aimed at the deranged miscreants who laid out the parking lots, but audible to anyone else who might be listening.  She gets into her car and drives ten miles back to her home.  She is absolutely furious.
 

    Well, what’s wrong with this picture?  In a word: everything.

    It may have been useful to arrange a lecture hall like Rachel’s back in the nineteenth-century.  But surely the internet-connected twenty-first-century has no need for brick-n-mortar lecture halls and all the attendant paraphernalia necessary to sustain that obsolete model of education.  Today, a well-produced lecture could be recorded in a sound studio, edited and packaged in an attractive video.  Such a video could be viewed from the comfort of the student’s home via the internet, at any time she so chose to view the video (and as often as she chose to view the video again), without the attendant driving time and mileage, or distractions of gossiping fellow students.  Since the amphitheater lecture does not provide for any interaction between the lecturer and the students, why is it necessary to travel to a specific location to hear the lecture?  And why is it necessary to burden the student with the fixed costs of support personnel when technology exists to present an exactly similar video lecture without all those lawn-mowing, parking lot-plowing, food-service folks?
 

    Am I suggesting that internet videos replace all university lectures?  Hardly.  Many university-level courses are not conducive to video broadcasting.  Laboratory courses in the sciences, for example, require brick-n-mortar facilities.  But the same is not true of many other areas of study.
 

    Nonetheless, I await your “Yeah-Buts.”

A Rose for Your Rose Garden

Happy Independence Day!

B4023-4 Education: Field's Law (2)

Education: Field’s Law (2):  A university campus expands in a concentric manner.  Additional buildings are added, along with their supporting infrastructure (parking lots, sidewalks, etc.), beyond the “core” or original campus.  Many universities have an identifiable older building that was the first classroom building on the campus.  Usually, that building has an architectural distinction that might be called “Venerable, Ivy-Covered Brickwork.”  The newer buildings almost always fail to replicate the look of the original building.

 
    As the university campus expands, important things happen to that older building.  If the older building is WWII vintage or older, it probably had a stand-alone boiler house, with coal-fired boilers used at one time in its history.  Later, those coal-fired boilers were retrofitted with natural gas-fired burners, and the building was heated for a number of years using that technology.  But as the university expands, a central heating plant is constructed to supply steam to various buildings on the campus.  In time, that stand-alone boiler house, next to the Oldest Classroom Building, is torn down because “it is no longer needed.”  It is at that point that Part Two of Field’s Law kicks in.

    Field’s Law, as you might remember, states that the longer the steam lines, the higher the fixed costs.  As the university campus expands - and becomes less dense - whole armies of support staff are needed to keep the place tidy and in good repair.  And while a campus might expand arithmetically, the fixed costs expand logarithmically.  This is true of every concentric expansion: the bigger the “footprint,” the higher the fixed costs.”
 

    Fast food restaurants, on the other hand, expand by incremental expansion.  New restaurants are built in new locations that have no organic connection to older buildings (other than corporate advertizing and corporate “ware” - cups, packaging, etc. - that give a consistent look to each franchise).  In times of economic distress, corporate-owned restaurants can be closed on the basis of profitability alone.  The least profitable locations can be closed, and the corporate enterprise as a whole is strengthened by doing so.
 

    The same is not true with concentric expansion.  It is not a simple matter to shutter university campus buildings.  Because of the interconnected utilities, it is often impossible.  Even thought it might be desirable to shut down the central heating plant because of the enormous costs of operating such a facility, usually there are no “back-up” heating systems (boilers, etc.) for all those separate buildings.  Field’s Law states that “the longer the steam lines, the higher the fixed costs.”  But it also states that you cannot get back home again if those steam lines are too long.  The university is stuck with running everything - with those high fixed costs - or shutting down the entire campus.
 

    And they thought they were making a wise move when they bulldozed the boiler house next to that ivy-covered classroom building.  Instead, they may have taken their first steps to the “Point of No Return.”

B5005-1 Reasoning: The Phlogiston Theory

THE PHLOGISTON THEORY: If one places a great deal of faith in science’s purported aim of “explaining” nature, then one is left with the task of defending those explanations of the past which explained a great many things and yet were subsequently found to be spurious. The Phlogiston Theory, for example, failed to explain, in a satisfactory manner, a great deal of diverse phenomenon which today is subsumed under the heading of oxidation reactions. Even though the theory had the initial advantage of appearing to explain things by that all-inclusive essence of phlogiston, the prominent short-coming of the theory was, specifically, its failure to really explain anything.

Now, if science has as one of its aims that of explaining things, then this phlogiston theory must be reduced to the realm of non-science. If this can happen to the theory of phlogistons then all theories are vulnerable to a similar fate. In other words, all of science is suspect. And you may safely assert that this is certainly the case. In fact, you may assert that it must always be the case in science: science is an epistemological effort which cannot stand on settled “truth”. Instead, it is an endless search for more accurate, more precise “truth”.

But, where does this leave the scientist? Isn’t he then in a position where everything he believes to be true must be doubted per se? That is, is science reduced to a series of “I think this is so, but I don’t know” propositions? If it is, then how does one make any theory truly credible? What makes a good theory sound if it is always subject to doubt? Isn’t the test one of what can be done with the theory, rather than what cannot be done? Remember: what cannot be done is believing in the theory with complete certainty. Spurious theories fail, not because they fail to explain satisfactorily, but because they have little use in the practical application of science - what can be done with a theory is the crux of the test, not what area can be effectively enveloped with intelligible explanations.

The phlogiston theory, then, fell into disrepute, not because it failed to explain things, but rather because it did not adequately describe things. This adequacy of description is not to be confused with accuracy of description, for, the oxidation/reduction theory which effectively replaced the phlogiston theory is itself subject to correction and amplification: as of the present date the theory is adequate for our purposes, even though it might not fit all cases with some standard measure of accuracy. What made the phlogiston theory so nebulous was an “essence” which was supposed to leave a reaction when, say, a candle was burned or an “essence” which arrived to account for the gain in weight of a burned (oxidized) substance. This dealing with what is now seen as oxygen moving into a gaseous end product (which explains loss of weight in a burning candle) or into a solid end product (which explains the gain in weight in metal oxides - dealing with this “essence” in such an imprecise manner - lead to apparent contradictions: candles lost weight when burned and metals gained weight when burned; the “same” thing certainly could not account for both reactions, so men thought.

As long as men thought in terms of “essences” and phlogistic elements moving into or out of reactions, the area of concentration remained too broad for any practical application. How does one harness an essence? What, for that matter, is the “essence?” It was in answering these questions about essences that the essences were identified as oxygen or oxidation reactants and which, then, limited the context of experimental materials to more amenable procedures. With “essences,” alone, the context, being too broad, would not allow an experimenter to manipulate any of the variables, since the variables always remained indeterminate. Once such things as oxygen or oxidation reactions were recognized, the each reactant could be varied.

B8005-3 Arguments: Clarification of Facts

THE CLARIFICATION OF FACTS: We could say that some arguments serve to clarify definitions, where ambiguity exists, by positing compelling, factual information, that effectively destroys the competing claim. To “win” this sort of an argument, thus, is to furnish decisive facts to another person. Illustration: a First Grade teacher had a particularly disruptive child in her classroom. She told the child to sit down - repeatedly. But the child refused. So the teacher flipped on the video recorder that had been installed in her classroom and she recorded the antics of the disruptive boy. Later, she called the parents of the boy and asked them to come to the school for a Parent/Teacher conference. The parents came, and when they were told about the disruptive behavior of their son, they vigorously denied that “their child would ever do anything like that.” Rather than listen to a series of anecdotal narratives about the relative saintliness of their child, the teacher asked the parents to watch a short video tape, as she turned on the video recording system. She told the parents she wanted to show them something before they made their counterarguments. When she played the tape of the child’s previous classroom behavior, the overwhelming evidence seen on the tape could not be refuted by the parents. The “facts” were just too compelling. The parents told the teacher that they would talk to the child and that they “would straighten everything out.” The next day the youngster showed up in the classroom with two black eyes and other marks on his face that indicated that the parents had, indeed, “talked” to the boy - by “hand.” The child sat in his chair, never said a single word, and never ventured out of his seat the entire day. He was a perfect angel.

B1006-6 Captain Ja-Boom Tisch

     Sometimes a comedian’s act is accompanied by a small band.  We see this quite often on late-night television programs here in the U.S.A.  The drummer in the band accentuates the comedian’s “punch line” with a roll on the snare drum, followed by a single bass drum thump, and a stab at the cymbal.  If you listen carefully, the effect sounds like “Captain Ja-Boom Tisch.”  Say that a few times out loud and you will hear the drummer’s “raspberry.”

     President Obama is the personification of that drummer’s flourish: “Captain Ja-Boom Tisch.”  Yesterday, at his news conference, he tried to explain an economic principle.  He struggled to put the concept into words because, frankly, he doesn’t understand economic concepts.  As my friend said, "Listening to him explaining economics is like listening to my old lady explaining how a nuclear reactor works."

     Captain Ja-Boom Tisch reminds me of a young man I met years ago who was attempting to teach industrial hydraulic maintenance procedures to a group of grizzled, old maintenance men.  He kept saying things to the men that were patently false or absurd.  The men hooted at his foolish suggestions.  Finally, a colleague told him to sit down.  “You’re embarrassing yourself,” he said.

     Yeah.  Captain Ja-Boom Tisch.  Economist extra ordinaire. Have a seat right here, Mr. President.

B4023-3 Aesthetic Speed-Bumps on Campus

     Years ago, when I lived in one of those cold and snowy states in the Upper Midwest, I went to school in the middle of a corn (maize) field.  The school had been built on land that had formerly been an old  airport.  The land was so flat that your dog could run away and you could still see him three days later, as one wag put it.  And that was the problem: the wind swept across that land in the Winter without obstruction until it encountered the silly architectural speed-bumps there.

     In my opinion, many architects are supremely impractical people, and it often strikes me that they design buildings and structures, not for people per se, but rather for some strange notion of what is aesthetically pleasing.  On that corn-field campus the architects placed the parking lots 300 meters (about 1,000 feet!) from the school buildings - and if that alone wasn’t sufficient reason to strangle them for their impracticality - they also excavated the land and created sunken parking lots.  Good idea, right?  In the Winter, the snow settled in the parking lots and buried the automobiles there.  In the Spring or Fall, heavy rain turned those parking lots into lakes.  But it was all for a good cause: none could see the cars in the parking lots from the perimeter road.  For some reason, it was aesthetically pleasing to a quirky cadre of architects not to see automobiles.

     There were many Winter days when I trudged through the drifted snow and biting wind with a classmate or two and listened to their bitter complaints.  Almost always they wanted to choke the fool who designed the campus parking lots.  “No,” I told them, “Just put his office in the school building and make him walk out on this corn field every day for the next year.  He’ll get the idea that aesthetically pleasing has a much lower rank than practicality.”

B4023-2 Education: Field's Law (1)

     Today, boys and girls, let’s talk about Field’s Law.  There are several ways to state that law.  Field’s Law says you’re in deep financial trouble if you cannot see the end of your steam lines.  Or - to state the law in a slightly different way - as the density of a university’s physical plant decreases, the fixed costs to maintain that physical plant increase.

     Now, what do I mean by that?  Let me give you a little example.  I recently visited a small, tenth-rate university (about 10,000 students) that occupies a fairly large “footprint” or amount of land.  The campus itself was spread over perhaps five square miles, with a jumble of buildings that seemed to have been erected without any apparent visionary plan for orderly development.  To me, it seemed as if those buildings were added to the campus without much thought just because state monies or benefactor donations had suddenly become available.  There didn’t seem to be any compelling reasons why the performing arts center, to cite one case, was crammed into a spooky swale at the edge of the campus.  The entire physical plant of the university had an ad hoc feel to it.  It looked like something my brother-in-law had designed.

     One day I stood near a museum at the edge of the university campus, and I looked across a parking lot half-filled with cars.  At the far end of the parking lot there was a steam generation building for the heating and cooling of the buildings on the campus.  The building was near nothing worth speaking about; it was probably another “just put it over there” capital improvement project.  The building was a very large plant and its steam pressure lines and steam condensate lines stretched for miles underground around the campus. During the Winter months escaping steam could be seen everywhere - a veritable Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, much like the fuming fumaroles in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska in the early 1900s.

     I thought about the crews of people it took to maintain all of that equipment, the armies of maintenance workers and steam specialists who would have to be employed for the simple task of keeping the buildings heated or cooled. I'm not sure about the numbers, but I would have to estimate that there would be several hundred people involved in just that aspect of the school's operation. The thought occurred to me that there was a direct correlation between the length of steam lines on that campus and the fixed costs of maintaining the campus. Field's Law: The longer the steam lines, the higher the fixed costs.  If you cannot see the end of your steam lines, you’re in deep trouble.

     And it also occurred to me that a school whose main business should be the education of students was engaged in something that had no relation to that core mission at all. Because of the sheer size of the campus, many people were engaged in grass cutting, groundskeeping, snowplowing (at the appropriate time of year), food service,  custodial and janitorial services, plant and equipment maintenance, and security services - all of which activities have nothing to do with education. Anyone might ask why one of the largest employers in the city has the bulk of its employees engaged in activities that do nothing to advance the university's core mission of educating students.  Why is that?

     At a time when state budgets in the U.S.A. are in deep deficit - like everything else here - and there is talk about cutting educational grants to universities, the local university and its trustees are preparing a capital spending package to present to the state.  They want to erect another building.  I told my friend that doing so would just exacerbate the university's fixed cost problems.  He nodded his head thoughtfully.  "Not only that," he said, "but it will make things worse, too."

There is corollary to Field’s Law: when you’re in a hole, stop digging.

A Rose for Your Rose Garden

Thanks for inviting me to participate on this blog. I hope I don't embarrass you or Arnaldus of Villanova.

B8004-1 Evidence

Quite often, one encounters people who live a “scientific” life. They have learned certain scientific precepts (really, “opinions”) at the feet of other scientists, and they have learned to use a scientific jargon that colors their thinking. It is amazing how often these scientists pretend that somehow their thinking is superior to that of people who live an unscientific life because of their facility with those precepts and with that scientific jargon. Yet, they are surely a deluded people.

Take the case of religious revelation: scientists reject this out of hand because it lacks a grounding in the material world. They will insist that one cannot believe in such things because there is no material basis for it. They then further complicate this difficulty by arguing that logic must rule where materiality is absent. Their argument, in its simplest form, goes something like this: “If I can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist.” That is really another way of saying that they do not find the evidence of revelation to be credible because it lacks a certain type of materiality.

Ah, yes. Sweet materiality. It is such a dangerous thing, this materiality. For, if one insists upon grounding everything in materiality, eventually, one runs into sustained and intractable contradictions. The scientist rejects the biblical story of creation, for example, because it does not accord with his material view of nature. It seems fanciful and absurd to him. But more importantly, the biblical story of creation is rejected, because it lacks the kind of evidence that the scientists seeks in marshaling his arguments. It is based on revelation rather than in material nature. Of course, the scientist rejects that kind of evidence because it is a based on, well, revelation, instead of “science.”

Then, the scientist does a very curious thing. He explains the world on the basis of logic. That the world exists is really beyond question. The scientist’s problem is to explain that existence, and he rejects the revelation from biblical sources. Therefore he has to explain the existence of the world strictly in terms of materiality. But if the world is all there is (to paraphrase Wittgenstein), then one cannot look for explanations beyond the material world. So, at that point, logic takes over. The most reasonable explanation for the existence (or the creation of the world) is sought by the scientist because there is no experiment any scientist could conduct that would demonstrate the formation of the material world. Materiality, per se, is beyond experimental manipulation. The only thing left is logic, and the scientist gives us his best reason for the existence of things.

But isn’t that a very curious thing? Instead of experimentation, the scientist gives us a reasonable narration; instead of facts, he gives us reasons; and, instead of proofs, he gives us opinions. Funny thing for a scientist to do, that, eh? Where is his scientific method? Where is his epistemological integrity? How can he reject revelation with such ease, and then present us with nothing as an explanation for the world, and still consider what he’s doing to be science? You don’t want the messiness of creation by God to explain the existence of the world? Okay. Well, why not try the Big Bang Theory? Yeah, let’s run with that. We’ll take an event that occurred say fifteen, twenty, thirty billion years ago. Pick your own favorite starting point. I won’t quibble over half a dozen billion years. It happened so far in the past that nobody can call you a liar if you miss it by, say, one or two billion years. That’s always the very best strategy: have a scientific theory about something that cannot be checked by other people. Then supply a number of unassailable principles, such as, the color of light receding from the viewer (“red shift”), to supply the logical underpinnings for the explanation of that creation. Play with the theory until it sounds very logical and reasonable, and then presented to the public as science.

Excuse me, but how is that any more “scientific” than foisting any myth upon an unsuspecting public? Why would a scientist’s hollow reverberations of his own mind be more “scientific” than the evidence supplied by the Bible - or any other evidence for that matter? Why does the opinion of a man wearing a white laboratory coat trump that of a theologian with Holy Scripture in his hands?

B4023-1 We Are What You Made Us

     A coworker once told me that he was sitting in his livingroom while his wife’s bridge club was playing cards in the adjoining dining room.  The women began to talk about the failings - big and small - shared by all men.  They were pretty brutal in their assessment of the deficiencies of men.  They kept looking at him, snickering and trying to gauge his reaction to their snide remarks.  But he was imperturbable.  Finally, when they couldn’t take it anymore, they asked him directly what he thought of their remarks.  He just smiled. 

     “When I was growing up,” he said, “my father worked in the mill.  The only time I ever saw him, he was asleep on the couch.  My mother was a stay-at-home-mom (like all mothers were back then), and she was the only person who talked to me or had anything to do with me.  Later, when I went to school, my first teacher was a woman.  In fact, all my teachers were women, until the tenth grade, when I had my first male teacher.  All my influences - from my youngest years until I was about sixteen years old - came from women.  So if you don’t like the way us men turned out, blame the women who made us what we are.”

B9011-1 Rules

     Some years ago I attended a high school girl’s basketball game and sat behind a young boy whose sister was playing in the game.  The boy noticed that whenever the basketball went through the net, the  scoreboard numbers changed. Most of the time the score increased by two points when the ball went through the net.  One time, however, the boy noticed that the score increased by three points. He seemed to be quite alarmed by that, and he turned to his father and said to him, “They gave her three points for that shot.” The father told his son, “That’s because the referee likes her better than he likes the other girls. That’s why he gave her three points.” One could see that the young boy was quite distressed by the apparent injustice of that.  “That’s not fair,” he said.
 

     But why is it unfair?  Why is it unfair to give one person three points for a basketball shot while another person only gets two points for the same shot?  And really, what difference does it make how many points one gives a particular person for a basketball shot?  It’s just a game, isn’t it?  Couldn’t the referee announce to everyone when the team players first step on the basketball court that all the girls wearing blue uniforms will get three points for their shots and the girls wearing red uniforms will only get one point?  What would be wrong with that?
 

     Most of us would have some rather severe problems with that. Most of us would cry out at the severe injustice of such a decision because we have in the back of our minds a knowledge of the rules of basketball. What we find offensive is not the raw, arbitrary nature of such a decision; rather, what we find offensive in the referee’s decision is the noncompliance with the established rules of basketball. We object to his arbitrariness because it fails to obey the basic rules of basketball. At the end of the day, we object to his decision because it will not allow the game of basketball to be played in an orderly manner.

     If rules do not exist in a game, the players will concoct the rules as they play. Little by little, a process of refinement will take place. There is, of course, a great deal of give-and-take in that rulemaking activity. And it’s almost impossible to say at any given time that the rules are now fixed and complete and finished and that no further refinement as possible. And yet, there are basic requirements for rules that have to be met in almost any game and those requirements might look something like this:

Place: Playing the entire game within a defined boundary marked by painted perimeter lines, walls, etc.

Time: Playing for a defined period of time: periods, quarters, innings, etc.
 

Behavior: Playing the entire game with coherent standards of player conduct and scoring.
 

Authority:  A particular person (referee, umpire, line judge, etc.) - alone - decides any contended issues between the contestants, teams, players, etc.

     When rules are established and sports competitors play according to those rules - however those rules are established - the winner(s) of the competition can be ascertained with certainty, and without recourse to arbitrary and biased influences.  Rules allow the true or objective winner of a competition to emerge.  Rule-less competition, by allowing a subjective and arbitrary “winner” to triumph, offends the common-sense notion of justice that each of us holds.

C1015-1 Writing Stories: Dialogue

A. GOOD DIALOGUE IS OFTEN INCOHERENT (This Example is From the Movie, Topsy-Turvy):

(1) Kitty: [sitting in her bed, looking at Gilbert] “Did you dine at the Beeksteak Club?”
(2) Gilbert: [sitting in a chair alongside Kitty’s bed, looking straight ahead] “Yes...somewhat unsatisfactorily.”
( 3) Kitty: “Oh! You missed Mrs. Chad’s rarebit curry.”
( 4) Gilbert: “One gets the impression that everyone is snickering behind one’s back”
( 5) Kitty: “Perhaps you could have some for tomorrow’s lunch.”
( 6) Gilbert: “‘The King of Topsy-Turvydom!’ It’s humiliating!”
( 7) Kitty: “You look a little uncomfortable.”
( 8) Gilbert: “I’m comfortable enough. [pause] I watched a bit from the wings.”
( 9) Kitty: “Oh, did you?”
(10) Gilbert: “First Act. Seemed to be going rather well, surprisingly.”
(11) Kitty: “There, you see. [pause; looks toward the foot of the bed; then she looks at a book she holds in her hands] Would you like me to read to you?”
(12) Gilbert: “No, thank you. I’ll leave you. You must be tired.”
(13) Kitty: “No, I’m not in the slightest.”
(14) Gilbert: “It’s wrong for me to unburden myself on you.”
(15) Kitty: “Don’t be silly. That’s why I’m here. [pats the bedcovers with her hand] Come and talk to your Kitty.”
(16) Gilbert: [rising from his chair; looking off into space] “Sometimes one wonders why one bothers. They say jump; you jump. [turning toward Kitty] Good night, my dear.” [Gilbert exits the room]

B. COMMENT: Real dialogue often does not follow previous statements in a way that would imply that one statement is linked to another with some linguistic or logical necessity. Instead, one might notice an abrupt disconnect between statements, as in the sample of dialogue above. I use the word “statement” here to mean any verbal utterance by either party in the dialogue.

In this scene, William S. Gilbert, the lyricist of those redoubtable Gilbert & Sullivan works, is seen sitting on a chair in his wife’s (“Kitty”) bedroom. He has just returned from the opening performance of one of his newest operettas. He is rather distraught by the uncharitable comments of a newspaper critic about his work. Kitty, however, true to her depiction in this movie as a rather flighty person, begins by asking a highly irrelevant question. She does not ask about the performance of the operetta; instead she asks about something much more prosaic. She asks about his supper.

Kitty’s straightforward question in statement, (1), “Did you dine at the Beeksteak Club?” is answered in a logical and linear manner by Gilbert in statement, (2), “Yes...somewhat unsatisfactorily.” Then Kitty adds a slight irrelevancy, (3), “Oh! You missed Mrs. Chad’s rarebit curry.” Gilbert’s response, however, pertains to comments made in a newspaper about his latest operetta, (4), “One gets the impression that everyone is snickering behind one’s back.” His remark does not respond to Kitty’s comment about Mrs. Chad’s rarebit curry. The screenwriter uses this bit of misdirection in the dialogue to reveal aspects of Gilbert’s and Kitty’s personalities that could not be given by other means: the two have a tendency to talk past one another and to ignore the other’s statements. Kitty continues her statement, (5), “Perhaps you could have some for tomorrow’s lunch.” Gilbert counters with, (6), “‘The King of Topsy-Turvydom!’ It’s humiliating!”

This incoherent dialogue results from incoherency of agonistic concerns. As long as the speakers have exactly similar interests, the dialogue is coherent. But when the speakers do not share the same interest, the dialogue slips into the incoherency of divided interests: she speaks about the things that most attract her interest, and he speaks about things that concern him. As a result, they “talk past each one another.”

Artistically speaking, it would not be wise to allow an incoherent dialogue to continue apace. Appropriately then, the screenwriter nudges the dialogue back into a fleeting coherency with Kitty stating, (7), “You look a little uncomfortable”, with Gilbert replying, (8a), “I’m comfortable enough.” But then things slip back into incoherency with another burst of irrelevancy: Gilbert adds, (8b), “I watched a bit from the wings.” His statement does not follow the previous comments about looking “a little uncomfortable.” He has steered the conversation back to one that should be expected of a man returning home from a premier of his operetta.

Even so, Gilbert’s statement, (8b), “I watched a bit from the wings,” introduces a new coherent dialogue, when Kitty replies, (9), “Oh, did you?”, and he responds with, (10) “First Act. Seemed to be going rather well, surprisingly.” Kitty approves by saying, (11a), “There, you see.”

Then the dialogue collapses into incoherency once again when Kitty says, (11b), “Would you like me to read to you?” Of course he doesn’t want her to read to him: he wants her to engage in a dialogue with him about his operetta. Instead, she asks such an irrelevant question that he decides to terminate the conversation, (12), “No, thank you. I’ll leave you. You must be tired.” She replies (coherently, by the way), (13), “No, I’m not in the slightest.” He slides off into another incoherent response, (14), “It’s wrong for me to unburden myself on you.” She replies (coherently, again), (15), “Don’t be silly. That’s why I’m here. Come and talk to your Kitty.” Gilbert answers her with a non sequitur by saying, (16a), “Sometimes one wonders why one bothers. They say jump; you jump. And then he adds the most incoherent statement of all, (16b), Good night, my dear,” and the scene ends.

In my opinion, this is a brilliant piece of dialogue.

C. PRINCIPLES: Authentic dialogue is often non-linear and incoherent. This is reflected in the fact that segments of dialogue do not always follow each other in the way that we would expect. Instead, dialogue is frequently disjunctive and incoherent. Stylistically, the artist properly utilizes this aspect of dialogue to flesh out his characters in a story and to give them definition.

Authentic dialogue reflects the concerns of the speaker. That is, the character speaking a line of dialogue usually expresses the things that concern him and not the things that concern others. At its most extreme case, such a dialogue may appear as two separate, parallel arguments that intersect only briefly - if at all - and then only temporarily. At the other extreme, the dialogue may be completely coherent. In fact, we have a term of art for a person who is unusually good at engaging in a conversation: we say that he is “a good listener.” What we really mean, however, is that such a person follows the expressed concerns of the other so well that no incoherency can occur. The “good listener” adopts the concerns of the speaker so completely that no disjunction is possible. Since there are agonistic characters in a story - characters who “fight each other” - their dialogue must be agonistic at times.

Authentic dialogue utilizes just enough incoherency to make things interesting. Just as a small amount of spice can enliven food, an over-abundant use of spice - or incoherent dialogue - can ruin the product. A measured amount of incoherent dialogue gives stylistic strength to a story. But, dear friends, all things in good measure.

B1006-5 Atomkraft

     I worked with a bipolar person years ago who was the funniest man alive when he wasn’t shooting the place up.  Most days the man was hilarious.  But there were those days of darkness when he was dangerous beyond belief.

     One time, when he was on a rather profound “downer,” he filled the back seat of his automobile with high-powered rifles and ammunition, and drove to his step-father’s house and began shooting into the side of the building.  He shot some two-hundred rounds of armor-piercing ammunition through the house, until the police converged on the scene.  Then he stood behind his car and exchanged gunfire with the police.  His car and the police cars were riddled with bullet holes.  When he ran out of ammunition he surrendered, and the police took him to a mental institution for “evaluation.”  He spend six months there and was released after his medication was adjusted to make him more-or-less normal.  They gave him a certificate of mental health and he returned to work.

     He came back to work as a changed man.  He was so dulled by his medication that he was no longer the funny person everyone knew so well.  Instead, he was moody and dull.  It was impossible to talk to him about his shooting incident.  But one day he told me that he had a peculiar thought while he was trading gunfire with the police.  He said to himself, “Man, a guy could get killed doing this.”  Indeed!
 

     Recent news reports I’m seeing in the United States about Germany’s decision to shut down its seventeen nuclear power generation plants remind me of that bipolar co-worker.  It’s like seeing and old and dear friend suddenly veer off into episodes of totally non-rational behavior.  Atomkraft (or nuclear power) supplies some 22.6 percent of Germany’s electrical power.  But there is a genuine fear that Japan’s nuclear problems might be replicated in Germany. Chancellor Merkel proposes - as I understand it - to shutter these plants over a period of years (until 2022) and replace them with coal-fired or natural gas-fired plants.  But those fossil fuel plants will drive the Greens nuts and raise serious “greenhouse gas” concerns.  More likely than not, those plants will not get built.  The other alternative - windmills planted in the North Sea - would require such numbers to replace the existing electrical power generated by Atomkraft that the rotation of the Earth would be slowed by the sheer numbers of windmills required.  Somehow, I see Germany beginning to shoot armor-piercing bullets through its foot.

 
     My bipolar co-worker failed to take his medication for several days during a long national holiday weekend.  He returned to his step-father’s house (newly repaired) and shot the place up again.  He went back to the mental institution for a year, got himself another certificate that said he could return to work, and returned dull and moody.  And then I heard, after I had moved away from the area, that he shot up his step-father’s house for a third time,  He is, as I understand it, still institutionalized and will never be released for the rest of his life.

 
     Germany, in my opinion, is loading the back seat of the automobile with guns and ammo even as we speak.

F3200-1 Writing Stories: Emotions

1. THE CASCADING OF EMOTION: Emotions do not occur in isolation with one another. Rather, something external triggers a cascade of emotions in the person. To give a typical example, suppose a person gets a letter from another person. The letter is opened and read and the reader becomes angry. Usually, the event is depicted in just such a way: he read the letter and he got angry. In reality, the emotional cascade the person goes through takes place something like this: 1). the letter sparks curiosity in the reader: “What is it?”; 2). the reading of the letter leads to the comprehension of meaning: “What does it mean?”; 3). The person realizes the implications of the letter: “I can’t believe she really means this.”; 4). the person has an emotional response, i.e., gets angry; 5). The person “cools off” and regains her composure in a process I call the coda. So, the cascade seen here, then, is curiosity, comprehension, implication, emotional response and coda. The emotion of anger does not occur in isolation: it results from the cascade or chain of events that precedes and precipitates it, and it is followed by a cascade of events that follows it. The cascades always terminate in a coda or “letting off steam” period that eventually returns some stasis to the individual. When depicting the cascade in fictional characters, it is always necessary to show each behavioral activity that finally results in the ultimate emotion (but see below).

2. THE CLUSTERING OF EMOTIONS: Again, to take the previous example of getting a letter, the cascade leading to the emotion of anger engenders auxiliary emotions, such as, betrayal, confusion, despair, grief, hatred, hostility, irritation, resignation, resentment, revenge, sadness, shame, sorrow, etc., whose aggregate effect is to produce a cluster of emotional responses. To state merely that “a person got angry,” does not list the full panorama of emotions that the person might have at the time. Remember that the emotions are triggered by a cascade of events and produce clusters of attendant emotions. Emotions seldom occur in isolation with one another other and it is important to remember that when depicting emotional responses in fictional characters. Show the whole shebang.

3. THE SPECTRUM OF EMOTIONS: The range of emotional responses is characterized by a multiplicity of apparent and unapparent emotions. Some emotions are highly visible and almost always are understood by the observer without any misapprehension. Strong, powerful emotions, such as anger, hatred, etc., are in this category. Whenever a person is extremely angry, the observer will almost invariably know that the person is angry. Other emotions are practically undecipherable because one cannot “read” the outward evidence of the emotional response in the facial appearance, gestures, verbal clues, etc. of the other person. Yet, it would be a significant mistake to misread or ignore those relatively unseen emotional responses because they form the basis for enduring and settled opinions in the person whose emotions are being misread.

B1006-4 Latin Class

     I went to one of those anal high schools, with ruler-wielding nuns.  We were seated alphabetically and I was tied to a near-moron classmate for four years.  I decided to take Latin so he wouldn’t follow me and ruin another class for me.  He was surprised when I told him what I intended to do.  But, after some thought, he decided “to take Latin, too.”
 

     Our Latin teacher was cross-eyed and you never knew for certain if she was speaking to you or to some person on the other side of the room.  The near-moron frequently miscalculated her field of vision.  She could throw a blackboard eraser at anyone in the room and hit that person precisely on the forehead with the eraser.  The lady had an arm on her.  The near-moron left the classroom on most days with a patina of chalk dust on his face.
 

     Now you can see why I turned out as badly as I did.  I fell in with evil companions during my formative years.

B1006-3 The Words We Use

THE DIPHTHONG VERDERBERS:   Do you know what bothers me the most about the current Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) scandal?  It is neither the reprehensible things that man did, nor the sheer depth of knavery he showed in his shenanigans behind his wife’s back.  Those things are bad enough in themselves.  It’s not that.  Rather, it’s the habit of journalists to call the man by a word that sounds to me like “weener.”

     Now, I understand the smirky, eight-year-old’s attraction for double-entendre, and there have been endless examples of simpering journalists snickering their way through Mr. Weiner’s indiscretions.  It’s been great fun for journalists to link this sexual scandal with body parts.

     But there is a problem with that.  There already exists a name for an object that is pronounced “weener.”  It is spelled wiener, after the Austrian city (i.e., Wien, or Vienna to you), where those ballpark favorites were originally invented.  Mr. Weiner’s name should be pronounced as “whiner.”  If you do not believe me, consult any German dictionary with a pronouncing guide for diphthongs.  Here’s the rule: I before E is pronounced as E; E before I is pronounced as I.

 
     In the United States we regularly ignore those rules.  Most of us are familiar with something called “Bayer Aspirin.”  We say “bay-er” here instead of the more correct “buy-er.”  We call our “Braun Electric Razors” with a word that sounds like “brawn” instead of “brown.”  We regularly mangle those diphthong-laced words.

     But journalists have given us oddities that must make the rest of the world wonder greatly at our inability to say simple words.  Are you familiar with Chernobyl?  “Cher-noble” is actually pronounced something like “Chairna bwill”  Hezbolla?  It’s actually “Hezb Allah” instead of the “Hez Bollah” that we often hear.

     Most beginning students of the German language encounter the descriptive phrase, Deutsch verderber (meaning “German destroyer or murderer”) when they mispronounce or mangle German words and phrases.  German language instructors love to apply that label to students.  We should have a similar word for journalists who call Anthony Weiner anything except “Anthony Whiner,” even with the enticements of the double-entendre they find in “weener.”

B1042-7 Walking the Plank

       Well, another economic advisor is getting ready to jump Captain Ja-Boom Tisch’s ship.  What does that make now, four people?  Or is it five?  All of them curled up in the corner like last Fall’s leaves, wondering if spending another half-trillion dollars, or a trillion dollars, or two trillion dollars would have put the “economy” back on its feet.
    Once again, children, Keynesian economics does not work.  You have all the evidence that you need to realize that Keynesian economics does not work.  Pay attention now.  Let me say that again, “Keynesian economics does not work.”  You cannot spend yourself into prosperity.  Were that true, every Greek would equal Croesus in wealth.
    All of those so-called “economists” will return to their tenured academic posts to infect future generations of students with their failed notions of how the world works.  It’s too bad that someone doesn’t stop them at the front door and redirect them to the abundant employment opportunities available at Walmart.

C2001-6 Public Speaking Fundamentals

16. SPEECH AS A PERFORMANCE ART: Many speakers spend long hours preparing and rehearsing their speeches. Often they believe the text of their speech must be refined to perfection in order to produce an acceptable speech. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. The text hardly matters at all. Let me repeat that: The text hardly matters at all. And that’s one of the hardest lessons any speaker ever learns. Your audience doesn’t give a hoot about what you say. But your audience will listen with particular attention to how you say it.

Think of a businessman standing behind the lectern, reading a long and tiresome list of financial performance accomplishments. “In the fourth quarter, our business was suddenly confronted by an unexpected array of challenges...blah...blah...blah.” He could recite the Gettysburg Address in Morse Code and be just as effective as a speaker. No member of his audience could possibly pay any attention to what he says because his delivery makes his listeners absolutely deaf to his speech.

Some of the best speeches ever made lack serious structural and logical content. But all of the good speeches - without exception - are delivered with panache.

17. FACIAL HAIR: If you have a moustache or a beard, get rid of it. The1960s are over, and hardly any of you will ever become gunslingers or mule skinners in this lifetime. Those are the only occupations that require facial hair. For the rest of you, a moustache or beard makes you look ill-groomed, slovenly, and unfit for the rigors of civilized life. Your beard will only make you look like a nine-year-old paint brush.

What if you say, “Hey, I like my moustache or beard. What difference does it make if I wear that sort of thing on my face?” Well, personal grooming preferences aside, there is a very sound (pun intended) reason to get rid of them: they muffle sound. They will make you sound like you have three rolls of toilet paper wrapped around your head.

The area around the mouth - the upper lip, cheeks, lower lip and chin - reflect sound. Not all of the sound coming out of the mouth is directed outward. Some of it is compressed and actually travels rearward toward the mouth. It is vital for audience comprehension that those rearward sounds be reflected back toward the audience. Facial hair absorbs those sounds and builds muffled incomprehension. The sounds coming from the nose are absorbed into that gunslinger moustache and disappear completely. Moreover, the sounds from the mouth are lost in that snarly beard.

Do you want to be understood? Then get your razor out of the medicine cabinet and use it.

18. NUN BUOY HEAD ROLL AND OTHER BIG NO-NOS: Some people like to roll their heads from side to side like a nun buoy in ship’s channel. And when you watch them do that while they are speaking all you can say is this: “Black Port on Entry.” You cannot hear or understand a word they say because their body language says, “Look at how stupid I’m acting right now. I’m trying to be a black nun buoy bobbing left to right in the rolling surf. And you shouldn’t be paying any attention to what I’m doing. I am an idiot.”

The head roll, of course, is the moving or kinetic variation of the Chihuahua Head Tilt. Some people like to tilt the head to one side to let the water run off, or to keep the brains from spilling out of the opposite ear, or to show curiosity when offered a small treat. It’s a cute and precious thing to see on a small dog. But a public speaker who utilizes that technique is reduced to a simpering fool.

You are not a black nun buoy or a Chihuahua. Keep your eyes level and your head still. You cannot make proper and credible eye contact if your head is moving or if your eyes are not horizontal.

C2001-5 Public Speaking Fundamentals

14. SPEAKING FROM THE HOLE: Imagine, if you will, this situation: a brunette decides to add highlight coloring to her hair. For a while she is delighted with the results. But highlighting is often a very high maintenance operation. Because she is forced to reapply this highlighting in order to maintain a certain consistent appearance, she often falls into the trap of coloring all of her hair in that highlight color. She then becomes a walking contradiction. Her complexion and her hair color no longer agree with one another, and she takes on that hard, “truck stop hooker” look. Believe me, this is a common problem today. Many women have no idea that they look that way to the world. In their minds they believe that they are attractive. They believe that they have that same look they had when they were towheaded four-year-olds. But the inappropriate hair coloring makes them look cheap and hard and used.

Let us further imagine that such a fake-hair woman is required to give a speech. Her auditors will spend most of their time assessing her looks rather than her words. She will be speaking from a hole - a hole that she herself has dug and thrown herself into.

There is a principle involved here. Never ever place yourself in a hole before you begin your speech by the way you look or dress. Do not dye your hair so that you look like a hooker. That’s pretty basic. Do not wear unfashionable clothing that invites ridicule and contempt. Don’t put your makeup on with a brick trowel. Leave your jangly ear rings at home. Give your audience your best appearance, your best grooming, and your best speech. Don’t give them something to laugh at. Don’t give them a reason to dismiss you before you even open your mouth.

15. PAINTING YOUR OWN PORTRAIT: Sometimes comedians like to start their act by telling the audience what a terrible time they had getting there. No one - absolutely no one - is interested in the problems the comedian had getting there. There’s a very sound reason for this: the members of the audience know immediately that the comedian is stalling for time because he is not prepared to start his act. Instead of preparing a proper introduction to his routine, he gives us this nonsense about his personal life that we are not interested in. And then he expects us to sit there and pretend like we are interested in his goofy problems. But we have come for a comedy act, not an autobiography.

There is a principle involved here as well. Normally, when we go to a comedy club, we expect to see a comedy act. We might call that expectation the expectation of context. If the marquee on the building advertises a comedy club, we would find it very strange to go inside and hear a philosophical discussion about the Mind-Body problem, or strategies for dealing with lawn pests. The context, then, supplies the relevant expectation in our minds. Whenever we are presented with something other than a comedy routine in a comedy club, that expectation of comedy is frustrated and we become annoyed with the person who supplies that frustration.

So, we might summarize this principle by saying this: no speaker should ever begin his speech by painting his own portrait. He should never tell his audience that he is very nervous; that he’s no good at public speaking; that he doesn’t know how to begin; that he doesn’t know what to say; that he’s so...did I mention him being nervous? Yeah, well, we all know he’s nervous. His auditors don’t give a hoot that he’s nervous, or that he’s a bumbling, fumbling idiot who doesn’t know how to begin a speech. They came to hear his speech and the speaker should give the speech without all those preliminary brush strokes that actually paint him in the parti colors of a fool.

Then too, there’s another problem with standing up there and whining about how hard it is to begin: the speaker sets up a context for failure. Each time the speaker tells of another difficulty that he is having with giving the speech, the auditors are less and less likely to want to hear anything else he has to say. Each complaint, each revelation of some frustration, sets up an expectation in the auditors’ minds that the person speaking has absolutely nothing worthwhile to say. The longer the speaker stands there and lists all the personal difficulties he is having starting his speech, the more impatient his auditors become. But there is a limit to the patience on the part of the audience. When they do not find the speaker beginning his speech immediately, their minds shut down and they do not want to hear the balance of his speech No matter how quickly he abandons his simpering “poor me” act, the auditors will fold their arms across their chests and sit there and allow their minds to go numb. There is no recovery from such a bad beginning: whine about yourself and you will lose your audience. Guaranteed.