Still More Editorial Gems

Whenever I'm pressed for time or short of other ideas (and both conditions apply this morning, let me tell you), I can always fall back on my legions of helpers who generate wonderful bloopers in print. Today, we look at a few more selections from the Great Moments in Editing collection ...

I can't think of a good recipe for these ...

Great Caesar's ghost! ... I hope this was covered on the search warrant ...

No doubt the honoree hammed it up at the award ceremony ...

But what sort of future are we talking about? ...

One hopes that when the math lesson is over, the English instructor will arrive ...

Now, there's a ringing endorsement ...

Of all the events to be cancelled for "unforeseen circumstances" ...

It ought to be quite a wedding night, don't you think? ...

Yo-Yo who? ...

There are proficient counterfeiters and there are not-so-proficient counterfeiters ...

And that's it for today's edition of Great Moments in Editing. If you find any of these howlers, scan them and e-mail them to ol' Bilbo to share with the rest of the blogging world.

Oh, and happy First Day of Summer. We're celebrating the summer solstice here in Northern Virginia with temperatures in the 90s, a condition which will be aggravated by the fact that Congress is in session and generating the expected additional levels of hot air. With any luck, things may cool off a bit this evening, after the solstice actually arrives at 6:09 PM.

Have a good day. Stay cool and write well. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

A Rose By Any Other Name Would ... Smell

As a lover of words and meanings, I am continually amazed at the way some of us twist ourselves into semantic pretzels in order to be politically and socially correct - whether by the approved standards of the "conservative" right or the "liberal" left. Euphemism has become a sociopolitical art form.

I thought about this in the context of two recent articles that look at the amazing level of verbal gymnastics to which politics has driven us. The first is this article by Scott Harper from the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot: Lawmakers Avoid Buzzwords on Climate Change Bills. Here are a few key sections from the article ...

"State lawmakers ran into a problem this year when recommending a study on rising sea levels and their potential impacts on coastal Virginia ... They discovered that they could not use the phrases 'sea level rise' or 'climate change' in requesting the study, in part because of objections from Republican colleagues and also for fear of stirring up conservative activists, some of whom believe such terms are liberal code words. On its website, for example, the Virginia tea party described the proposed 'sea level rise' study this way: 'More wasted tax dollars for more ridiculous studies designed to separate us from our money and control all land and water use.'... So lawmakers did away with all mention of sea level rise, substituting a more politically neutral phrase: 'recurrent flooding.'"

The other article, by Garance Franke-Ruta of The Atlantic Monthly, is titled Words Conservatives Hate. Yes, the party that gave us "death tax" as an approved conservative alternative to "estate tax," and "death panels" as a scary bugbear to muddy the waters of health care reform, objects to some other expressions it views as "liberal code words" or "left-wing terms" designed to "conjure up animosities on the right." Three examples given in the article are:

- "Bisexual" and "Transgender" because, after all, such creatures do not really exist and, thus, do not need protection;

- "Sea Level Rise" and "Climate Change" (citing the Virginian-Pilot article we already discussed above); and,

- "Sustainable Development." This one is interesting because it is viewed as part of an assault on individual property rights. According to Alabama GOP Executive Director T.J. Maloney, as quoted in the article speaking of legislation voted down in the Alabama legislature ...

"This bill, that would bar the state from taking over private property without due process, is intended to shelter Alabamians from the United Nations Agenda 21, a sustainable development initiative that some conservatives see as a precursor for the creation of a world government." 

I'm glad someone is protecting me from the all-powerful United Nations and its relentless drive to rule the world. After all, the speed and vigor with which it has brought the Iranian nuclear weapons program to heel and clamped down on the ongoing violence in Syria clearly shows how omnipotent and hell-bent on world domination it really is. 

The two articles I cited above focus on the verbal gymnastics of the far right, but the left is equally prone to torturing the language until it produces the correct answer. The difference, I think, is that people who are political moderates or just slightly left or right of center don't decisively reject ideas they don't like. Consider this relevant article from Salon.com: As America Grows More Polarized, Conservatives Increasingly Reject Science and Rational Thought. As author Amanda Marcotte writes,

"... education isn’t enough to fight ignorance, not when it comes to heavily politicized issues ... political identity generally trumps sober-minded assessment of the facts when it comes to convincing people of an argument or idea."

Oy.

Shakespeare thought that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet*. In the ridiculous circus that passes for political discourse today, a rose by any other name just smells, whether you smell it from the left or the right.

Have a good day. Resist the urge to call a spade a pointy shovel. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.

There Oughta Be a Law ... Oh ... Wait ... There Is!

You may recall that last Friday I ranted about the stupidity of comparisons to Hitler and Stalin in present-day political discourse, my point being that the people who use such comparisons in the absence of vast mass murder and ruthless sadism are clearly ignorant of history and bereft of rational ideas.

Well, from the intersection of the departments of There Oughta Be a Law and You Learn Something New Every Day comes this nugget delivered by Angelique, the eViL pOp TaRt - Godwin's Law. It was developed as a Internet meme in 1990 by one Mike Godwin, who observed that, given enough time, any online discussion - regardless of topic or scope - will eventually include some comparison to Hitler and the Nazis. Godwin's Law says,

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

I also learned, courtesy of Angelique, that there is supposedly a logical fallacy known as reductio ad hitlerum, first noted by University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss, who described it as a form of ad hominem attack (and variation of the reductio ad absurdum argument) in which an opponent's view is compared - often irrelevantly or with extreme hyperbole - to a view that would be held by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party. 

Mr Godwin later noted some extensions of the reductio ad hitlerum argument in an article in Wired Magazine ...

- Gordon's Restatement of Newman's Corollary to Godwin's Law: Libertarianism (pro, con, and internal faction fights) is the primordial net.news discussion topic. Any time the debate shifts somewhere else, it must eventually return to this fuel source.

- Morgan's Corollary to Godwin's Law: As soon as such a comparison occurs, someone will start a Nazi-discussion thread on alt.censorship.

- Sircar's Corollary: If the Usenet discussion touches on homosexuality or Heinlein, Nazis or Hitler are mentioned within three days.

- Van der Leun's Corollary: As global connectivity improves, the probability of actual Nazis being on the Net approaches one.

- Miller's Paradox: As a network evolves, the number of Nazi comparisons not forestalled by citation to Godwin's Law converges to zero.

Who knew?

So much for the originality of my observation and rant.  Thanks to Angelique for pointing out this fascinating topic, which I shall surely keep in mind in the future as I get spun up over ludicrous and irrelevant arguments presented by ignorant ass clowns who have no clue what they're talking about.

Anybody have any other laws to propose which explain the current dumbassity of political discourse? Leave a comment. Reference to Nazis not required.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Fathers' Day, 2012

It occurred to me, in going back through the records of my posts, that I have written a special piece in honor of Mothers' Day, but not a similar post for Fathers' Day. In retrospect, I realize this is not right. We wouldn't have mothers without fathers, after all, and vice versa. Somebody has to work in design and someone in production, after all. So let's take a few minutes and think about fathers, shall we?

It is said that any man can be a father, but that it takes someone special to be a daddy. I think this is true, although I say it at the risk of being accused of personal horn-blowing. Being a parent in general - and a father in particular - is not a trivial task. You are responsible for shaping and guiding a brand new human being, and the lessons you teach and the example you set can shape the future in ways you may never know. One wonders, for instance, about the lessons taught and the examples set by the respective fathers of, say, Adolf Hitler and the Dalai Lama.

Fathers often get a bad rap and, sadly, that bad rap is often justified. Many children grow up in single-parent homes because it's the father - not the mother - who has decided that parenthood is much less fun than hot and sweaty sex and decides to go off in search of more fun and less responsibility. There is a term for men like this, but because I try to keep this blog more or less PG-rated, we'll skip it for the moment.

Despite what the current politically correct opinion would have you believe, I think it's critically important for a child to grow up with both a mother and a father, for there are life lessons and attitudes that can only be imparted by one or the other. After all, nature designed us to be the sum of two parts - one male and one female - and until we start reproducing asexually*, there's going to be a role in our children's lives for both a mother and a father.

The gold standard for fatherhood is my own dad, now 89 years old and slowed down by the accumulated weight of age and the stroke he suffered a few years ago. He ran a business, raised four children and lost one, and set the example that I have tried (with admittedly mixed success) to emulate.

This was Dad as the manly stud who took on Nazi Germany from the air as a B-24 crewman in 1944 ...

And this is Dad with my sister Lisa and I this past Memorial Day weekend up in Pittsburgh ...

I think you can tell what a strain it was raising us and our other two brothers ... mostly the other two brothers.

On this Fathers' Day, take a few minutes to think about your father. If you were lucky enough to have a good father, as I did, you can appreciate the incredible gifts he gave you ... in my case, lessons on the importance of honesty, good manners, hard work, and fair treatment for everyone, and a love of really good jokes.

The next generation of fathers is raising a new generation of children who will need all their wisdom and love to cope with a world that is radically - and frighteningly - different from the one in which I grew up. My son Jason and son-in-law Vin are raising five (with a sixth on the way!) of the world's most wonderful grandchildren, and doing a very fine job of it.

To all you fathers out there - John, Mike, and all the rest, Happy Fathers' Day! Someday, the children you fought with for so many years will thank you, and your reward will be beautiful grandchildren.

Have a good day. Call or visit your Dad. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* And what fun would THAT be?

Cartoon Saturday

Greece. Tea Party. Romney. Illegal aliens. Yep ... time for Cartoon Saturday.

China has sent its first female astronaut (they call them "taikonauts") into space*; 32 people have been killed in Baghdad by car bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims; daredevil Nik Wallenda of the "Flying Wallendas" family has become the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has described attempts to limit the ability of anonymous donors to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns as “an alarming willingness ... to use the powers of government to silence” the political speech of groups with which the administration disagrees; and hard-line conservative Saudi crown prince Nayef has died, opening yet again the can of political and familial worms that is the Saudi succession process.

Yep. It's definitely time for Cartoon Saturday.

I went to see Prometheus last weekend and loved it, but it ... like most new action movies, was a bit too loud for me ...

Which brings us to the general topic of technology and the proliferation of "smart" things that are demonstrably smarter than their users. Here is a set of cartoons about "smart" stuff ...

Of course, if that smart car was as smart as they say, it might help you be smarter ...

And why should smart technology be limited to cars ... ?

Playground argument, 2012 ...

And yes, I, too, long for those good old days ...

In the nation's capital, the news every day seems to bring a new tale of sordid misdeeds in the DC city government ...

And - speaking of government - we do get what we elect, don't we?  Oh ... wait! ... we don't elect our government any more, it's just bought at the electoral Costco by those people whose free political speech Senator McConnell wants to protect!  Sorry, my bad ...

 

Sometimes, a good disguise is a good thing ...

And finally for this week, an interesting take on the purchase of "adult" magazines. I myself don't go in for pornography. Heck, I don't even own a pornograph ...

And that, as Walter Cronkite would have said, is the way it is for this week's edition of Cartoon Saturday. It looks like the weather is going to be beautiful this weekend and into the first part of next week, before turning positively Venusian toward Friday. Looks like I should get the yard work done today ... darn it.

Have a good day. Enjoy the weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Now, why couldn't we do that with Nancy Pelosi, Michelle Bachmann, and Lindsey Lohan?

Hitler and Stalin and (Insert Name Here)

One of the things we've lost in recent years in our political discourse is any sense of proportion in extreme positions (well, yes, any sense in the larger ... uh ... sense). The problem is summed up for me in the use, by hyperpartisans of both the left and right, of comparisons to Hitler and Stalin.

If there is anything more utterly ridiculous than comparing a President Bush or a President Obama to  either Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin, I can't imagine what it is. People who make these comparisons clearly demonstrate their own complete stupidity and profound ignorance of history.

Don't like President Obama's health care reform? Despise ultraconservative Republican policies? Draw comparisons to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, two of the most murderous and amoral monsters in history, who together gave us:

- Six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust;

- A war that utterly devastated Europe and left more than 20 million dead (the exact number will never be known);

- The death by starvation of millions in the forced collectivization of agriculture in Russia; and,

- The depravity and utter moral squalor of Nazi and Communist policies that echoes to this day in the words and deeds of people too stupid to understand what they're talking about.

I'm totally appalled by Catholic bishops who compare the policies of President Obama to those of Adolph Hitler. These individuals have no idea what they are talking about, and have squandered whatever moral authority their deeply-held beliefs might otherwise command. I'm equally offended by the ass clowns of the far left who would compare former President Bush ("W") to Hitler. Bush was guilty of hubris at best, stupidity at worst ... but a murderous tyrant? Come on, now ...

Sorry for the rant, but I finally hit the edge this morning. I think I'm ready for the weekend.

Have a good day. Maintain your sense of proportion and understand the history you invoke in support of your ideas.

Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

Hoffer on Power and Weakness

Yesterday I shared with you one of my favorite comments from one of my favorite authors, Eric Hoffer, the Longshoreman Philosopher. Hoffer has a lot to say on a lot of topics, and I don't agree with him on everything, but I nevertheless think he's one of the greatest thinkers ever.

I'm re-reading his book The Passionate State of Mind at the moment, and was struck by two passages that appear to have real relevance to our current miserable political and economic mess. First is this one ...

"It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the fruits of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence."

And the second was this one ...

"You do not win the weak by sharing your wealth with them: it will but infect them with greed and resentment. You can win the weak only by sharing your pride, hope, or hatred with them."

I think we can see the essential truth of the first observation just by looking at the rise of movements like the Tea Party. We feel weak and powerless when we begin to believe that we have no voice in our government and our future, and see those with more power and influence buying the representation we believe ought to be freely available to all. Those who feel powerless and exploited strike back in whatever ways they can, and rudeness, intolerance and suspicion are rampant in every facet of what passes for political and social discourse today - the rudeness that makes it okay to shout down a speaker rather than engaging him with better and more defensible ideas, the intolerance that makes people lash out at immigrants in general rather than illegal immigrants; and the suspicion that poisons our ability to believe anything we hear because we've grown so used to false "facts" and streams of statistics cherry-picked or twisted to advance a particular agenda.

As for the second observation, it sounds like a rock-ribbed Republican sentiment, doesn't it? But it's true, at least as far as it goes. People don't want handouts, they want jobs. We have an obligation as a society to look out for those who, through no fault of their own, fall on hard times. But we run the risk of creating a culture of entitlement when we resort to welfare rather than economic recovery. People tend to grow resentful at the thought that they must depend on handouts rather than on the fruits of their honest work (pride and hope, in Hoffer's words), and that resentment can grow to hatred in time ... as, sadly, it seems to be doing of late.

Eric Hoffer wrote his major works in the 1950s, but he would have well understood the present time.

Have a good day. Don't let yourself be corrupted, whether by power or by weakness. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Hoffer on Stupidity

I have written from time to time about one of my favorite authors - Eric Hoffer, the self-educated thinker known as The Longshoreman Philosopher. His major work was The True Believer, a critical analysis of the formation and dynamics of mass movements and religious and political fanaticism that is one of the most insightful - and shortest - books I've ever read. Another of his books is The Passionate State of Mind, a collection of aphorisms on a wide range of topics which leads me to today's subject: stupidity. In The Passionate State of Mind, Hoffer writes that,

"The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity. One needs the talents of an animal trainer to deal with the stupid."

Hoffer wrote that in 1955. Heaven knows what he would have thought in 2012.

I've often wondered how Eric Hoffer, who in 1950 wrote so insightfully about the nature and characteristics of political and religious mass movements, would view the present-day rise of the Tea Party and the extreme right wing of the GOP*, the Occupy Movement, and extreme fundamentalist religion.


Chances are he'd have been analytical and philosophical about it. Tomorrow, we'll continue a discussion of Eric Hoffer's ideas with a look at his thoughts on the relationship between power and weakness ... which is a bit different than what you might think.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Eric Hoffer wrote more than half a century ago: "The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than of deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without." I don't think he foresaw today's political situation, but he would have understood it.

Creative Insults

I was trolling my favorite humor websites last evening and ran across this wonderful statement on Mad Magazine's blog ... one reason why Kanye West's "Air Yeezy 2" sneakers cost $245 a pair is that 

"They're an easy, convenient way to show the world that you're a superficial, low-functioning douchebag* with way too much money."

Perhaps it's a guilty pleasure, but somehow I don't think there are many things that give as much satisfaction as the delivery of a well-timed, devastating insult. William Shakespeare was a master of this, which explains the popularity on the web of Shakespearean Insult Generators (see some examples here, here, and here). And there are other web sites dedicated to generating random insults for those of us not quick enough of wit to generate them ourselves ... for instance, Insult-o-Matic (which allows you to customize for various types of insults depending on your mood and intended target), and Elizabethan Oaths, Curses, and Insults (similar to the Shakespearean insult generators, but more ornate and with a better interface). There is also this wonderful compilation from BuzzFeed of 21 Scathingly Witty Insults by Famous People, which includes some of my personal favorites:

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork" (Mae West);

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily" (Charles, Count Talleyrand);

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends" (Oscar Wilde); and,

"He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." (Winston Churchill)

Of course, one must be careful with insults, lest one be kinetically challenged by someone who does not appreciate your blinding wit. Since, thanks to the tireless efforts of the NRA, those someones are able to pack plenty of iron, this is not a trivial concern.

So ...

Do your worst, thou churlish sour-faced moldwarp!

Have a good day. More - possibly less-insulting - thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* And how did "douchebag" come to be considered a derogatory term? You can read a few possible explanations here.

Linguistic Differences

George Bernard Shaw once said that England and America are two countries separated by a common language, and if you've ever visited England or spent much time dealing with our cousins from across the pond, you can understand. These are the people who keep spare tires in their car's boot, rather than in the trunk like Americans, and who eat crisps rather than potato chips. How could they have gone so wrong?

And they're not alone. Here are two interesting charts that compare the way people speaking different languages express the same two ideas. First, did you ever wonder why we speakers of English call it a pineapple rather than something else, like the rest of the world does? ...

And consider the fairy tale character we know as Cinderella ... where did the Germans go wrong? ...

There's a great joke (well, great if you have a background in Linguistics, anyhow) about an Englishman, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and a German who are arguing over which of them speaks the most beautiful and expressive language.

The Englishman maintains that English is clearly the most beautiful language ... just look at the word butterfly - what other language could have a word that so clearly expresses the idea of the colorful insect as it flits from flower to flower?

The Frenchman, of course, disagrees, pointing out that the French word papillon rolls gently off the tongue, like the fluid motion of the papillon as it drifts on the breeze among the flowers.

The Spaniard is equally convinced that only his language can convey the concept, as the gentle and evocative word mariposa clearly cannot be equalled for its simple descriptiveness.

And the German glares at the other three and asks, "So what's wrong with Schmetterling?"

And that is your linguistic observation for today. That Tower of Babel* really did a number on us, didn't it? Someone once said, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse." I wonder what he would have made of Chinese.

Have a good day. Express yourself well. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Genesis 11:1-9.