Sunday, March 29, 2020
Bob Newhart
To get the full effect, you need to read the review of his performance at Powerline. I had never seen the toupee scene before
Extending Grace
In our current national argument of You're Panicking vs. No, You're Not Taking This Seriously there is extreme attribution of what those others must be thinking, even to the point of mind-reading the worst.
We have on the one hand Didn't you know you were going to die of something? Don't you know that all of life includes risk? This carries the undercurrent of You were giddy children who refused to face responsibility, and now reality has overcome you and you can't stand it. There is an additional argument which says This is much worse for the economy than you are admitting, and people are hurting. The undercurrent to that is You don't really care about them, do you?
On the other side we have This is not like the flu. If we can limit the damage to that of a mild flu season it will still be extra thousands of deaths over and above that. Plus, it could be worse. The undercurrent of that is Can't you people do math? Don't you know what contagion is? The additional economic argument is We are starting from the strongest economy in world history. We are disrupting the economy but not destroying any physical parts of it, knowledge, or skills. We will recover. This carries the subtext of Eh, get over it. You'll be fine in the long run.
I have read occasional extremist commenters, and when those show up, the internet is very good at opponents giving them attention, as if they were somehow representative of the people one disagrees with. There actually are those out there who think it's a good thing that we kill off a percentage of our less-productive people, especially as it's their own fault for not taking care of themselves. There actually are those who think it is good that the economy is hit hard, so that Americans won't pollute the earth and exploit other peoples so much. I don't think either group is numerous.
Extend grace. I am more on that second side, believing people aren't taking this seriously enough. Yet I have always been aware that life is risk and I will die someday. I have been thinking about death since I was a child, so I don't think the extremist accusation applies to me. As to those who accuse us of panic, I don't think many of you are being irresponsible and unsafe in your actions, endangering the rest of us. Most of you are just raising serious questions about balancing uncertain safety versus more certain economic damage.
We have on the one hand Didn't you know you were going to die of something? Don't you know that all of life includes risk? This carries the undercurrent of You were giddy children who refused to face responsibility, and now reality has overcome you and you can't stand it. There is an additional argument which says This is much worse for the economy than you are admitting, and people are hurting. The undercurrent to that is You don't really care about them, do you?
On the other side we have This is not like the flu. If we can limit the damage to that of a mild flu season it will still be extra thousands of deaths over and above that. Plus, it could be worse. The undercurrent of that is Can't you people do math? Don't you know what contagion is? The additional economic argument is We are starting from the strongest economy in world history. We are disrupting the economy but not destroying any physical parts of it, knowledge, or skills. We will recover. This carries the subtext of Eh, get over it. You'll be fine in the long run.
I have read occasional extremist commenters, and when those show up, the internet is very good at opponents giving them attention, as if they were somehow representative of the people one disagrees with. There actually are those out there who think it's a good thing that we kill off a percentage of our less-productive people, especially as it's their own fault for not taking care of themselves. There actually are those who think it is good that the economy is hit hard, so that Americans won't pollute the earth and exploit other peoples so much. I don't think either group is numerous.
Extend grace. I am more on that second side, believing people aren't taking this seriously enough. Yet I have always been aware that life is risk and I will die someday. I have been thinking about death since I was a child, so I don't think the extremist accusation applies to me. As to those who accuse us of panic, I don't think many of you are being irresponsible and unsafe in your actions, endangering the rest of us. Most of you are just raising serious questions about balancing uncertain safety versus more certain economic damage.
Thank Ya Jesus
We've all been feeling a bit sorry for ourselves recently, having expected that this world was going to lead us from glory to glory, financially, emotionally, and in our health.
This world is not our home. People who have seen harder lives have a great deal to teach us in these days.
This world is not our home. People who have seen harder lives have a great deal to teach us in these days.
That Rule You Know
If I were to make up words, like ciscalciac or circocalice you would know how to pronounce them, even though the letter "c" is sometimes pronounced as a k, and sometimes as an s. You might have some trouble knowing whether the final syllable of the second one is -iss, -ese, or -ice, but you'd get the c's right. There is a rule there and you know it internally, even though you may not know it consciously. Children who are good readers can stumble through words they are less-familiar or even unfamiliar with and get this rule right. Cerulean and cerise, concatenation and concentration, culinary and currency, they can usually get them right after about ten years old.
Originally all the c's were k-sounds. Some of them changed to s-sounds. The key is the following letter. If it is a back vowel, a, o, or u, the c keeps the k-sound. If it is a front vowel, an e or an i, it moved to the s-sound. It happened in French before the Norman invasion, and the words came to us after the 11th C. Italian words like cello mess up this rule, but that ch-sound is part of the same process.
The letter C has an interesting history in itself. Etruscans are involved, turning the Greek gamma, our hard-g, into a k sound, which the Romans then picked up. A kid could get a good research paper out of that which would send their teacher into rapture. But that isn't why I brought this up.
There is an idea in linguistics about internal grammars, that native speakers intuitively know rules they have never even thought to articulate. They know the rule, even though they didn't even know there was a rule. Some things sound right, others don't. The order of adjectives is another set of internal rules we just know. "Metal ancient five spears" just doesn't sound right, though we understand it well enough. We just know, at some level of certainty, that Five Ancient Metal Spears is the correct format. In languages with more declensions and conjugations such as Latin, Greek, or outrageously, Finnish or Inuit*, word order doesn't matter as much. Because English dropped those in the great simplifications as Saxons, Vikings, and Normans overran the territory, we went to word-order instead. People like to introduce subtleties and distinctions into their language when they can, to set themselves off from those Auslanders in the next valley, who just don't get it.
Those rules internally understood by all native speakers are the real rules in any language. Rules that you have to teach children as late as high school are not the real rules of a language, not in Mandarin, not in English. Those non-intuitive rules might be extremely useful to teach children, especially minority children who aren't going to get the benefit of the doubt in conversation. But they are not in any sense "more correct." They are the rules of the prestige dialect of formal discourse, nothing more. What is prestigious in a dialect varies enormously by context. If you speak Episcopalian to Fundamentalists and insist your language is correct you are going to offend.
And vase versa
I have made reference to inequality of intelligence here many times, because it is a neglected topic in the national discourse. Yet we are remarkably equal in intelligence in so many ways, and one of them is language. Native English speakers of many home dialects have remarkable convergence in understanding the real rules of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.
You speak English well, whatever your mother-dialect was. There is no logical position that declares otherwise. However, you might have to bend your dialect in the direction of prestige in service to social approval and advancement. If that seems unfair, understand it has been that way in all languages as far as the eye can see.
*That legend of the Eskimos having 200 words for snow? That comes from the many combinations of possible endings in agglutinative languages.
Originally all the c's were k-sounds. Some of them changed to s-sounds. The key is the following letter. If it is a back vowel, a, o, or u, the c keeps the k-sound. If it is a front vowel, an e or an i, it moved to the s-sound. It happened in French before the Norman invasion, and the words came to us after the 11th C. Italian words like cello mess up this rule, but that ch-sound is part of the same process.
The letter C has an interesting history in itself. Etruscans are involved, turning the Greek gamma, our hard-g, into a k sound, which the Romans then picked up. A kid could get a good research paper out of that which would send their teacher into rapture. But that isn't why I brought this up.
There is an idea in linguistics about internal grammars, that native speakers intuitively know rules they have never even thought to articulate. They know the rule, even though they didn't even know there was a rule. Some things sound right, others don't. The order of adjectives is another set of internal rules we just know. "Metal ancient five spears" just doesn't sound right, though we understand it well enough. We just know, at some level of certainty, that Five Ancient Metal Spears is the correct format. In languages with more declensions and conjugations such as Latin, Greek, or outrageously, Finnish or Inuit*, word order doesn't matter as much. Because English dropped those in the great simplifications as Saxons, Vikings, and Normans overran the territory, we went to word-order instead. People like to introduce subtleties and distinctions into their language when they can, to set themselves off from those Auslanders in the next valley, who just don't get it.
Those rules internally understood by all native speakers are the real rules in any language. Rules that you have to teach children as late as high school are not the real rules of a language, not in Mandarin, not in English. Those non-intuitive rules might be extremely useful to teach children, especially minority children who aren't going to get the benefit of the doubt in conversation. But they are not in any sense "more correct." They are the rules of the prestige dialect of formal discourse, nothing more. What is prestigious in a dialect varies enormously by context. If you speak Episcopalian to Fundamentalists and insist your language is correct you are going to offend.
And vase versa
I have made reference to inequality of intelligence here many times, because it is a neglected topic in the national discourse. Yet we are remarkably equal in intelligence in so many ways, and one of them is language. Native English speakers of many home dialects have remarkable convergence in understanding the real rules of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.
You speak English well, whatever your mother-dialect was. There is no logical position that declares otherwise. However, you might have to bend your dialect in the direction of prestige in service to social approval and advancement. If that seems unfair, understand it has been that way in all languages as far as the eye can see.
*That legend of the Eskimos having 200 words for snow? That comes from the many combinations of possible endings in agglutinative languages.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Prediction at the First Turn
I said very early on that if drastic separation and quarantine measures were successful and we had fewer deaths than expected, a lot of people would conclude we were never in much danger. See? We got all worked up over nothing! Why, it wasn't even as bad a a regular flu season!
This is already occurring. I suppose there is no way around it. We believe we deserve our good fortune and it was destined to happen anyway. Failures are interruptions, attributed to a few unlucky breaks.
via GIPHY
This is already occurring. I suppose there is no way around it. We believe we deserve our good fortune and it was destined to happen anyway. Failures are interruptions, attributed to a few unlucky breaks.
via GIPHY
Blood
I have put out the reminder before, and know that some of you have very solid reasons for not donating blood. But those who can should get back into the habit. You can save time by doing Double Red, which is every 112 days instead of 56 so all your travel time and filling out forms averages out to only half as much. The actual time sitting there bleeding in is twice as long, however, because you are donating twice as much and they are replenishing your fluids after each batch.
It's even better now that there are podcasts and headphones and you don't have to listen to the music or watch the TV that they think is least offensive to the group. Pioneer Woman cooking show is pretty frequent here.
It's even better now that there are podcasts and headphones and you don't have to listen to the music or watch the TV that they think is least offensive to the group. Pioneer Woman cooking show is pretty frequent here.
Counties
I wonder if differing states of lockdown could be used for different population densities. Coos County in NH, the nearly empty one that is the top third of the state, has 0 cases of C19. It borders areas of Vermont, Maine, and Quebec that also have no cases. Perhaps churches, restaurants, retail, and bars could open there safely, with appropriate warnings. Cheshire and Sullivan Counties have only two cases each. They border areas of Vermont with somewhat higher concentrations, but still low*. That may be a touch more problematic, as the former also borders Western Massachusetts, and it might encourage a higher-risk population to enter a lower-risk area. Still, it's a pretty good drive from Springfield to Keene.
I have not heard that governments are even considering such arrangements, though I have read a few people on the internet (especially Chicago Boyz) suggesting that different areas of risk should be treated differently. Nothing within two hours of NYC, I wouldn't think. Has anyone seen any discussion of this that goes beyond the simple question-asking and superficial considering I've done here?
*The knuckleheaded first case from NH who was told to self-isolate but went to a party in Vermont attended by lots of people at the Dartmouth business school affected Windsor County. But most of VT's cases are in Burlington, predictably.
I have not heard that governments are even considering such arrangements, though I have read a few people on the internet (especially Chicago Boyz) suggesting that different areas of risk should be treated differently. Nothing within two hours of NYC, I wouldn't think. Has anyone seen any discussion of this that goes beyond the simple question-asking and superficial considering I've done here?
*The knuckleheaded first case from NH who was told to self-isolate but went to a party in Vermont attended by lots of people at the Dartmouth business school affected Windsor County. But most of VT's cases are in Burlington, predictably.
Friday, March 27, 2020
The Trail to Martin Gardner
Perhaps the route is interesting anyway.
I had a question in mind from listening to my long series of podcasts on the History of English, because of an interesting discussion about the compound words in Anglo-Saxon poetry, specifically in Beowulf. As the word "walrus" was mentioned, I though of Tolkien, who had done many entries in the early W's for the Oxford English Dictionary, including walrus specifically. I did a search for articles about that, which led me eventually to the OED site. That there was an entry for Oxford English Dictionary for Kids was the basis of my recent post on that topic, as it struck me as odd that the OED would be that informal.
Reading about the etymology of walrus led me to Lewis Carroll, which led me to Martin Gardner. How long has it been since I thought of Martin Gardner? Good gravy, he was my hero in high school, and I have completely forgotten him. I read his mathematical recreations column in Scientific American faithfully, had a few of his books on mathematical games, and enjoyed his Annotated Alice In Wonderland greatly in college. I kept the book until just a few years ago, when it became clear that none of my children were ever going to be interested.
Reading about Martin Gardner leads everywhere else in the known universe of knowledge, it seems. It may have been Gardner who led me down the primrose path of believing I might be a mathematician, because I so enjoyed the recreational math topics he introduced me to. I was not and am not a mathematician, but there have always been a few things I enjoyed, and I found many of them again reading the Wiki summary.
I should have kept up with him.
I had a question in mind from listening to my long series of podcasts on the History of English, because of an interesting discussion about the compound words in Anglo-Saxon poetry, specifically in Beowulf. As the word "walrus" was mentioned, I though of Tolkien, who had done many entries in the early W's for the Oxford English Dictionary, including walrus specifically. I did a search for articles about that, which led me eventually to the OED site. That there was an entry for Oxford English Dictionary for Kids was the basis of my recent post on that topic, as it struck me as odd that the OED would be that informal.
Reading about the etymology of walrus led me to Lewis Carroll, which led me to Martin Gardner. How long has it been since I thought of Martin Gardner? Good gravy, he was my hero in high school, and I have completely forgotten him. I read his mathematical recreations column in Scientific American faithfully, had a few of his books on mathematical games, and enjoyed his Annotated Alice In Wonderland greatly in college. I kept the book until just a few years ago, when it became clear that none of my children were ever going to be interested.
Reading about Martin Gardner leads everywhere else in the known universe of knowledge, it seems. It may have been Gardner who led me down the primrose path of believing I might be a mathematician, because I so enjoyed the recreational math topics he introduced me to. I was not and am not a mathematician, but there have always been a few things I enjoyed, and I found many of them again reading the Wiki summary.
I should have kept up with him.
Saved Links. Genetics and Related
We have not talked much about genetics recently. These are people who know a great deal, but may not fully share your values.
The brilliant Steve Hsu over at Information Processing talks about an article in The Economist concerning embryo selection. November 2019.
Here is that article from The Economist Modern Genetics will improve health and usher in designer children. November 2019
Legal studies paper by Gail Herriot on school discipline policies. June 2019
Only some genetics in this last one. Scott Alexander over at Slate Star Codex, who Steve Sailer called the greatest public intellectual to emerge in the 2010s, talks about what intellectual progress he made during the decade. He started way ahead of me and I think has lapped me a couple of times since. A stunning variety of topics. January 2020.
The brilliant Steve Hsu over at Information Processing talks about an article in The Economist concerning embryo selection. November 2019.
Here is that article from The Economist Modern Genetics will improve health and usher in designer children. November 2019
Legal studies paper by Gail Herriot on school discipline policies. June 2019
Only some genetics in this last one. Scott Alexander over at Slate Star Codex, who Steve Sailer called the greatest public intellectual to emerge in the 2010s, talks about what intellectual progress he made during the decade. He started way ahead of me and I think has lapped me a couple of times since. A stunning variety of topics. January 2020.
New Deaths
Today's US news is good. Few new deaths. Let's hope the numbers stay down.
Yup. Looks like a blip. About 250 new ones just today.
Yup. Looks like a blip. About 250 new ones just today.
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Sacrifice
Louie complained "My wife says if we want our marriage to thrive we'll have to make sacrifices."
"That sounds like a good idea," I said.
"I agree," Louie nodded. "I've already picked out a goat."
"That sounds like a good idea," I said.
"I agree," Louie nodded. "I've already picked out a goat."
Unanimous
Just on general principles, I get worried when legislative decisions are unanimous, as the Senate bill was today. I am not offering any specific criticisms that I think they have overlooked. It is unanimity, in and of itself, which makes me nervous.
I have heard, though can't verify in a quick search, that large rabbinical courts such as the Sanhedrin had a practice that if a vote was unanimous it was considered defeated, because it was likely to be impulsive and ill thought-out. It would have to be introduced again at the next gathering. Even one irrascible opponent on either side would make me feel better about this.
Speaking about either side, half of the very few conservatives where I work are not entirely happy with what Trump is doing at present, while a surprising number of liberals have said (unbidden, not working around me enough to know that I am emphatically not liberal) that while they don't like Trump much, they have been impressed with what he is doing in this crisis. With all the emphasis on how divided this country is ever since, oh, the 1998 elections, worsening every year, I have to consider that people's ability to move off entrenched positions is in and of itself a good thing.
I have heard, though can't verify in a quick search, that large rabbinical courts such as the Sanhedrin had a practice that if a vote was unanimous it was considered defeated, because it was likely to be impulsive and ill thought-out. It would have to be introduced again at the next gathering. Even one irrascible opponent on either side would make me feel better about this.
Speaking about either side, half of the very few conservatives where I work are not entirely happy with what Trump is doing at present, while a surprising number of liberals have said (unbidden, not working around me enough to know that I am emphatically not liberal) that while they don't like Trump much, they have been impressed with what he is doing in this crisis. With all the emphasis on how divided this country is ever since, oh, the 1998 elections, worsening every year, I have to consider that people's ability to move off entrenched positions is in and of itself a good thing.
Momdad
I won't tell you the route by which I got to this. The route has no general instructive application, and while it is fascinating to me, I can stand back from it and see it is unlikely to be fascinating to anyone else. The post itself may fascinate, however. Notice how many likes it has received. For those of you who think Titania McGrath or the Babylon Bee is often over the top, I submit that they are nowhere near that top.
Two things occur to me. #1 How does it feel to turn out to be about 95% wrong in your prediction about Trump, and #2 What would an unsafe space look like, in your telling?
Two things occur to me. #1 How does it feel to turn out to be about 95% wrong in your prediction about Trump, and #2 What would an unsafe space look like, in your telling?
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Song For a Confirmation
In the first hour of dawn by the huge oaken door
A bright jewel of light lies soft on the stone floor
of gray
Where the stained glass leaves it
Dressed in new armor made bright by his father
And a new linen robe made white by his mother
who took
Such care to weave it.
Night greets the day
From a full year of study and a full night of prayer
The squire quickly walks to the king who waits there
by the throne
And the dim light shares them
He can scarce draw a breath eyes drop as if shamed
He kneels as a boy but he gets a new name
as strong
As the love he bears him
Ch: Now the road is a hard one and the enemy devours
But the cost of the kingdom is your years more than your hours
For the ancient sword that's been carried from the tower
Makes you a knight in the kingdom's sight
As the boy kneels before him he sees the king's arm
From the sleeve to the wrist runs a long jagged scar
still new
And the boy's eyes widen
With a lift of the blade his lord bids him rise
As he covers the wound a face stern and wise
half smiles
And the burden lightens
Knight greets the day
This day to be sent to a world cruel and wild
And the evil of men we don't send a child
unarmed
My wound goes with you
With a wild surge of joy th'squire's hand grasps the sword
From a king strangely calm. He salutes his fair Lord
and hears
My peace I give you.
Ch: Now the sword is a sure one And a strong one come what may
And the joy of the kingdom is in life along the way
For the ancient sword which touches you this day
Makes you a knight in the kingdom's sight
A bright jewel of light lies soft on the stone floor
of gray
Where the stained glass leaves it
Dressed in new armor made bright by his father
And a new linen robe made white by his mother
who took
Such care to weave it.
Night greets the day
From a full year of study and a full night of prayer
The squire quickly walks to the king who waits there
by the throne
And the dim light shares them
He can scarce draw a breath eyes drop as if shamed
He kneels as a boy but he gets a new name
as strong
As the love he bears him
Ch: Now the road is a hard one and the enemy devours
But the cost of the kingdom is your years more than your hours
For the ancient sword that's been carried from the tower
Makes you a knight in the kingdom's sight
As the boy kneels before him he sees the king's arm
From the sleeve to the wrist runs a long jagged scar
still new
And the boy's eyes widen
With a lift of the blade his lord bids him rise
As he covers the wound a face stern and wise
half smiles
And the burden lightens
Knight greets the day
This day to be sent to a world cruel and wild
And the evil of men we don't send a child
unarmed
My wound goes with you
With a wild surge of joy th'squire's hand grasps the sword
From a king strangely calm. He salutes his fair Lord
and hears
My peace I give you.
Ch: Now the sword is a sure one And a strong one come what may
And the joy of the kingdom is in life along the way
For the ancient sword which touches you this day
Makes you a knight in the kingdom's sight
Masks
Remember that a bad mask is much better than no mask. Don't let the good become the enemy of the best.
When All You've Got Is A Hammer...
...everything looks like a nail.
The Environment Editor at the Guardian quotes the Environment chief at the UN.
I think you can predict this before I print it.
James Barr tweeted back: In Medieval times people believed that the plague was divine retribution for their sinful behavior.
There is certainly a connection between human behavior and human diseases. I don't think that qualifies as actual news. I think it is important that we ask people who are telling us how to live our lives and have some influence over making that happen to make a tighter connection than the broad category of "human behavior." I give them credit that they did call out wet markets. I doubt this will be a big focus of the Guardian lecturing the Chinese going forward, but they did at least mention it once. The second time, they will get called racist.
The Environment Editor at the Guardian quotes the Environment chief at the UN.
I think you can predict this before I print it.
Coronavirus: 'Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief
The accompanying photograph has the caption " A tree stands alone in a logged area prepared for plantation near Lapok in Malaysia’s Sarawak State" which is clearly a C19-related item. Darn those loggers!James Barr tweeted back: In Medieval times people believed that the plague was divine retribution for their sinful behavior.
There is certainly a connection between human behavior and human diseases. I don't think that qualifies as actual news. I think it is important that we ask people who are telling us how to live our lives and have some influence over making that happen to make a tighter connection than the broad category of "human behavior." I give them credit that they did call out wet markets. I doubt this will be a big focus of the Guardian lecturing the Chinese going forward, but they did at least mention it once. The second time, they will get called racist.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Kids
When I was a boy, elementary school teachers would shudder with disapproval if you used the word kids. "Kids are baby goats," they would say. You would have to start your sentence again and use the word children instead. This seems ridiculous and artificial to us now. It seemed so to the children even then. Kids did not seem to be slang. It was at worst less formal. Predictably, as the teachers aged out of the system and hordes of new kids kept coming along, the language changed. Only in very formal writing, such as a research paper, would anyone insist on the use of children at this point.
We think to ourselves that the teachers were wrong, but this is not necessarily so. The language changed away from what they thought correct and in our self-centeredness we think "See? It wasn't important. Just like I thought back then." Yet when it came into general use in 16th-18th C's it was indeed considered low slang and no instructor would have tolerated it in class or in writing. Over the course of the 19th C it became more acceptable in speech, but still would not have been used in a newspaper or magazine, let alone a textbook. Teachers of the time believed the point was to teach every child a more formal English that made them sound educated and intelligent. The theory is sound. It is good to be able to speak the most formal dialect of your language with ease. The specific rules they got caught up on were a mixed collection of excellent disciplines that enhanced clarity and pure bunkum that had been artificially imposed on English a century or two earlier by pompous pettifoggers, but the idea was sound.
Somewhere there was a crossover area between the days when kids was low slang requiring correction and century later when it was obviously ridiculous. There is even Oxford English Dictionary Facts For Kids now.
There was a nuanced version which they could have advanced, explaining "That word might be entirely acceptable while speaking with your friends, but when speaking with adults, and especially in the classroom, one should use children." Grammar school teachers didn't think that way then, and likely they should not have tried. Not one child in ten would have understood and fewer still would changed speech because of it. Still, they liked to make us be very precise then according to their fashion, so I will hold them to a similar standard now. The Kids Are Alright.
We think to ourselves that the teachers were wrong, but this is not necessarily so. The language changed away from what they thought correct and in our self-centeredness we think "See? It wasn't important. Just like I thought back then." Yet when it came into general use in 16th-18th C's it was indeed considered low slang and no instructor would have tolerated it in class or in writing. Over the course of the 19th C it became more acceptable in speech, but still would not have been used in a newspaper or magazine, let alone a textbook. Teachers of the time believed the point was to teach every child a more formal English that made them sound educated and intelligent. The theory is sound. It is good to be able to speak the most formal dialect of your language with ease. The specific rules they got caught up on were a mixed collection of excellent disciplines that enhanced clarity and pure bunkum that had been artificially imposed on English a century or two earlier by pompous pettifoggers, but the idea was sound.
Somewhere there was a crossover area between the days when kids was low slang requiring correction and century later when it was obviously ridiculous. There is even Oxford English Dictionary Facts For Kids now.
There was a nuanced version which they could have advanced, explaining "That word might be entirely acceptable while speaking with your friends, but when speaking with adults, and especially in the classroom, one should use children." Grammar school teachers didn't think that way then, and likely they should not have tried. Not one child in ten would have understood and fewer still would changed speech because of it. Still, they liked to make us be very precise then according to their fashion, so I will hold them to a similar standard now. The Kids Are Alright.
Government Spending
A quick reminder. We get irritated at the junkets, expensive dinners, and
bigwigs patting each other on the back, because they offend our sense of
justice. How dare they? Yet that is not the bulk of the money being
thrown away. The growing army of ever less-useful government employees,
who earnestly believe that the world needs more of their tribe to be
hired to do similar things is a bigger problem. Many of these programs
reinforce each other, of government advocacy for more “awareness” about a
topic, which will lead in turn to the government doing more about it.
The ratchet moves in only one direction.
Then, over all, are the promised monies called entitlements, very difficult to remove because the people on them have qualified for them by law. That’s what “entitlement” means – you met the criteria for a program and you are entitled to it. People get irate when the bill comes due because they believe they never wanted that to happen, but that’s not quite true. We did want it to happen. All those things sounded like a good idea when we were ordering off the menu. We just don’t like the bill for it. But now it’s the law. To back that off is going to involve changing the laws, not just finding some money under the seat cushions. Still, we can at least try to stop increases as our first step. The electorate will find that painful enough.
Then, over all, are the promised monies called entitlements, very difficult to remove because the people on them have qualified for them by law. That’s what “entitlement” means – you met the criteria for a program and you are entitled to it. People get irate when the bill comes due because they believe they never wanted that to happen, but that’s not quite true. We did want it to happen. All those things sounded like a good idea when we were ordering off the menu. We just don’t like the bill for it. But now it’s the law. To back that off is going to involve changing the laws, not just finding some money under the seat cushions. Still, we can at least try to stop increases as our first step. The electorate will find that painful enough.
Correspondence
I have had correspondence with a woman whose family left our church recently. I wrote to express that I missed them and hoped they had landed in a good place. They have landed in place I know a little about, and most of what I do know is not good. They were very big on being nearly a King James only church, allowing other translations for devotional purposes, "but not recommended for study." They had a scandal of badly mistreating an underage girl who had had sex with one of the pillars of the church (a deacon? a pastor? I don't recall), so that she ended up being blamed equally with him, and over time, more than him. I have known about a dozen people who went there - more than half of them were quite decent folks, but four were difficult, accusing sorts who could find no good in any congregation but their own, and not much of that. Hectoring sorts.
That data is all a decade old or more, so perhaps things have moderated there. She did make a comment much like one I have heard for years. "They really get into the Bible there during service, not just reading it off the screen in front." (Our current church puts the scriptures for the day up on the screens.)
Ah yes. The preacher says at those churches. I WANT you to bring your Bibles to church. I WANT you to look up the verses that I'm using so that you know we're not trying to deceive you here. You'll see that we are only preaching what it says right there in Scripture. You can see it for yourself. I expect to be held to account.
It is a deceptive practice. I am not doubting the sincerity of the preacher in saying this. He in all likelihood deceiving himself as much as his hearers. Yet no one has ever questioned for a moment that he might be switching the words around or putting in verses that aren't there. I daresay he has never been to such a church nor heard a credible report of one. The issue is that what he believes is "just what the plain meaning of Scripture is" is in fact the product of a hundred assumptions he does not know he is making. While having people follow along might spark their attentiveness and cause them to notice what they otherwise might have missed, I think it more often dulls this sense. The mechanics of getting to the page and verse, of listening and reading at the same time, and the automatic brief reflection on what has just been said conflicting with paying attention to the current sentence all work to prevent objective thought.
At the very moment when the listeners are most at the mercy of the preacher the preacher is telling them they are most independent of him. They have the illusion of checking his work when they are in fact swallowing it whole. He might as well ask them to prove his doctrine by checking his spelling.
That data is all a decade old or more, so perhaps things have moderated there. She did make a comment much like one I have heard for years. "They really get into the Bible there during service, not just reading it off the screen in front." (Our current church puts the scriptures for the day up on the screens.)
Ah yes. The preacher says at those churches. I WANT you to bring your Bibles to church. I WANT you to look up the verses that I'm using so that you know we're not trying to deceive you here. You'll see that we are only preaching what it says right there in Scripture. You can see it for yourself. I expect to be held to account.
It is a deceptive practice. I am not doubting the sincerity of the preacher in saying this. He in all likelihood deceiving himself as much as his hearers. Yet no one has ever questioned for a moment that he might be switching the words around or putting in verses that aren't there. I daresay he has never been to such a church nor heard a credible report of one. The issue is that what he believes is "just what the plain meaning of Scripture is" is in fact the product of a hundred assumptions he does not know he is making. While having people follow along might spark their attentiveness and cause them to notice what they otherwise might have missed, I think it more often dulls this sense. The mechanics of getting to the page and verse, of listening and reading at the same time, and the automatic brief reflection on what has just been said conflicting with paying attention to the current sentence all work to prevent objective thought.
At the very moment when the listeners are most at the mercy of the preacher the preacher is telling them they are most independent of him. They have the illusion of checking his work when they are in fact swallowing it whole. He might as well ask them to prove his doctrine by checking his spelling.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Square Foot Gardening
It's all the rage now, but my wife was on Square Foot Gardening almost forty years ago when it was new and hot. We were very much into trying to be back-to-the-land then, putting in a vegetable garden in what turned out to be the trash bin of the first owners, complete with old bottles of patent medicines. We had had wonderful years of our own sweet corn, cutting our own firewood and Christmas trees from our tiny forest, and a variety of vegetables for canning.
Yeah, that's a lot of work when you are both working full time, taking in foster children, have reading addictions, and are volunteering at the church, y'know? Especially as neither of us were emotionally gratified by physical labor, as some folks are. That granola phase gradually went away, but Tracy hung on with that Square Foot idea for a long time. We gave up on the corn and eventually the strawberries, but the tomatoes and sugar snap peas lasted into the 2000's. Then one day, long before Marie Kondo got rich off the idea, my wife decided that vegetables didn't bring her joy anywhere near as much as flowers did, and it's been decorative plants here ever since. Green beans are cheap, after all. Why pay yourself $.23/hr to grow them, unless you like the various parts of ordering, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, and canning for their own sakes?
We can give it the recommendation that the basic idea works even if you are in a triple decker apartment.
Yeah, that's a lot of work when you are both working full time, taking in foster children, have reading addictions, and are volunteering at the church, y'know? Especially as neither of us were emotionally gratified by physical labor, as some folks are. That granola phase gradually went away, but Tracy hung on with that Square Foot idea for a long time. We gave up on the corn and eventually the strawberries, but the tomatoes and sugar snap peas lasted into the 2000's. Then one day, long before Marie Kondo got rich off the idea, my wife decided that vegetables didn't bring her joy anywhere near as much as flowers did, and it's been decorative plants here ever since. Green beans are cheap, after all. Why pay yourself $.23/hr to grow them, unless you like the various parts of ordering, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, and canning for their own sakes?
We can give it the recommendation that the basic idea works even if you are in a triple decker apartment.
Buddy Hackett
That's a lot of YouTube in a row. I guess the heavier thought and C19 pieces got to me.
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
Nice version. I like the style where the performer sings harmony above the audience. Kiss me, Tracy.
More Iditarod
Aliy Zirkle is not only a favorite of people from NH, but of the whole sled dog community. She is the one who went back for her friend near the finish a few years ago, depriving herself of a chance of winning.
The places still look familiar to me and carry some nostalgia, even though I was only there for a week two years ago. I hope my son and his family move to Anchorage and I never have to see it again, though.
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