I had no idea she was such a gifted jazz improvisationalist.
Good Reason
It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.
Category: post (page 67 of 125)
Sorry I’ve been away. I’ve been thesis-ing, and when you get into a writing spate, you look around and say, “Oh, it’s Wednesday now.”
I confess I’ve also been following the US election obsessively. There’s just too much to say about it. I have sent back my absentee ballot (registered in Washington), marked for Obama and any other downticket D’s I could find.
It’s been so interesting to watch the slow movement across the Democratic parts of the map. The blue started at Minnesota and Michigan, and since then it’s spread to states I didn’t expect. North Dakota’s in play? North Carolina? Virginia! Did you expect Virginia to go for Obama? Even ‘real Virginia‘.
My favourite political ad this year is this radio ad, that aired in Virginia, where bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley describes Obama as a ‘good man’. I really enjoy Stanley’s phonology — the [t] in ‘the’, the elided [l] in ‘help’, the dropped participial ‘g’, the slower, more deliberate cadence — but what really stands out here is the memes he hits. You can infer a lot about a community by their memes:
- Nobody’s lookin’ for a handout. They value independence and take pride in standing on their on two feet.
- Barack’ll cut taxes for everyday folks. The Plainfolks strategy runs right through this ad.
- Our kids shouldn’t have to leave our communities to find work. The brain drain must be ripping these communities apart.
- He values personal responsibility and ‘family first’. A dog whistle for Republicans. Not sure I like to see it co-opted by Democrats, but perhaps subverting the meme is the first step to dismantling it.
- Describing Obama as a ‘true friend of the people’. This really sounds old-style populist. Doesn’t it sound like it should be said from off the back of a train, maybe 100 years ago?
This article from the LA Times was interesting too. (I know it’s old.) It sounds like a lot of folks would like to vote for Obama, but it’s making them confront their inner racist. The article concerns the strategies that Obama supporters are using to convince their friends and neighbours.
When Cecil E. Roberts, president of the coal miners union that shapes politics in much of this mountain region, talks to voters, he tells them that their choice is to have “a black friend in the White House or a white enemy.” When Charlie Cox, an Obama supporter, hears friends fretting about Obama’s race, he reminds them that they pull for the nearby University of Tennessee football team, “and they’re black.”
Union organizer Jerry Stallard asks fellow coal workers what’s more important: improving their work conditions or holding onto their skepticism of Obama’s race, culture or religion. “We’re all black in the mines,” he tells them.
If I had to summarise these memes into one, it might be: Reducing the distance between black and white. You’re closer to black folks than you realise, so it’s okay to vote for one.
If the map is any indication, this is working. Pollster.com has Obama up by eight, and I hope it holds. I’m really encouraged to see the nation sort itself out on this issue. I think this means good things.
I’ve been viewing the YouTube videos from the Exmormon Foundation. Worth a look. There are some clips from a film called “Line Upon Line”, featuring (mostly) non-angry, pleasant former saints telling their deconversion stories.
One of the stories in Part 2 tapped into something unexpected for me. A young woman says:
Leaving the Church is hard because you are so afraid of what’s going to happen to you. And you don’t have any examples of that because people leave the Church and they scurry away, you know? Like, you don’t know — When you’re in the Church, you do not know any ex-Mormons. You don’t know ’em! And so I was really afraid of leaving the Church because I was like, no way, this can’t be real. What will I do with my life if I leave the Church? Who am I going to be, right? And so, I think that that fear keeps a lot of people, either consciously or subconsciously, in the Church.
Well, that’s about right. In testimony meetings, Latter-day Saints seem to tell each other constantly how they don’t know where they’d be without the Church. They’d probably all be dead. Or in jail. Like everyone else who isn’t in the Church. And Latter-day Saints are routinely warned that if they don’t keep the promises they make in LDS temples, they’ll be in Satan’s power. Have to keep ’em scared of ghosts, you see.
But this quote touched on another part of the scariness that I think I must have harboured without realising. I have known a few people that stopped coming to church. They deleted themselves from the sample, you could say. And, what do you know, they did disappear, and I never saw them again. So the unspoken impression I think I got was: If you leave the Church, you will disappear. How frightening!
It’s nobody’s fault. Just an artifact of participation (or lack thereof) in social groups. But for me it seems a powerful cognitive illusion that I hadn’t noticed before.
So it’s a good thing that I show up every once in a while at church. I drop the boys off to be with their Mom, wearing nice but non-churchy clothes. No, I haven’t disappeared, I tell my old friends. I’m still here, and I’m very happy without religion.
Some Christians are in a tizzy about a babbling doll.
But before you check out the article, have a listen to the doll, and see if it sounds like anything to you.
Parents are outraged about the messages they’re hearing from a doll. It’s Fisher-Price’s “Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo” doll.
Some people claim they can hear it mumble “Satan is king” in one track; then clearly speak “Islam is the light” in another.
People! Did you learn nothing from the 80s? It’s obviously backmasking!
Here, have a listen backwards.
The first thing we hear is “Down went the mountain.” An obvious reference to Mohammed. Notice also the murmuring that sounds like ‘Mohammed’, if you listen enough times. Then there’s laughter. The evil laughter… of SATAN.
Far more insidious than even the creative minds of Oklahomans could have supposed.
Via Pharyngula.
Well, Bush really knows how to stage a finale, doesn’t he? As if there hadn’t been enough mismanaged disasters during his disastrous two terms, we now face global economic collapse, America being the lead domino. And all on Bush’s watch. No wonder we haven’t seen much of him for awhile. I’d be ashamed to show my face too.
I may be wrong, but I’m not alone in thinking that the main failure of Bush’s philosophy of governance — the failure of conservatism — is that you can’t possess a deep hatred of government… and run the government well.
If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government–indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government–is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.
When your philosophy states that government is the problem, and then you become the government, there’s a problem. And this is why conservatives don’t govern well. They’re okay as an opposition party — they make a lot of noise, and that can be a good balance for keeping things on track — but the current Republican Party is too hypersensitive and pathologically enraged to be trusted even with that function.
I want to address an old point that I’ve recently seen floating around. The argument is that Bush has failed, but conservatism hasn’t, because Bush isn’t conservative. It’s an easy argument to puncture. Bush’s conservatism is more of the social kind; he appoints conservative Supreme Court justices, he’s anti-choice, he sides with the wealthy and powerful, gives tax cuts to the rich, and so on.
But Bush isn’t a true conservative, others say. Conservatives try to shrink the size of government, and Bush has bloated it, what with Homeland Security and military spending. Conservatives rein in spending (except they don’t), and Bush has spent most unconservatively. Nationalising banks. And so on.
But this is not a point in their favour. Someone may start out following their ideology with the firmest of intentions. When problems arise, and they give in on principles, this should be counted as the failure of an unworkable ideology.
An analogy. Condoms have a failure rate, but it doesn’t always involve breakage. It also involves simply failing to use them. That counts in the failure rate. This is why people who say that abstinence has a 100% success rate are wrong. Abstinence has a failure rate. It fails when people choose it as their preferred method, and then don’t use it. Stephen Hanson describes this reasoning as ‘heads I win, tails don’t count’.
People who claim that Bush isn’t a conservative and that conservatism hasn’t failed are using the same trick. But what we’re seeing now should be counted as a failure of conservatism, even if they cut corners and abandon the philosophy when the chips are down.
Another one making the rounds. Har dee har har.
The other day, I needed to go to the emergency room.
Not wanting to sit there for 4 hours, I put on my old Army fatigues and stuck a patch onto the front of my shirt that I had downloaded off the Internet.
When I went into the E.R., I noticed that 3/4 of the people got up and left. I guess they decided that they weren’t that sick after all. It cut at least 3 hours off my waiting time.
Here’s the patch. Feel free to use it the next time you’re in need of quicker emergency service.
It also works at DMV and the Laundromat.
If you really want to clear a room, you can just walk in and tell that joke. All the psychologically healthy people with a sense of empathy will leave, horrified. Sort of like my joke about sex:
Q: What’s the worst thing about sex?
A: Getting the blood out of the clown suit.
This joke also works at the laundromat.
Conservatives like the Border Patrol joke, though, because it speaks to their condition. I’m not sure if the condition has a name, but the symptoms are seething indignation, bitter resentment, and a monstrous sense of entitlement. It also links in their belief that illegal immigrants are clogging emergency rooms with their trivial injuries, taking up space that belongs to the rest of us.
A belief that turns out to be wrong. In fact, illegal immigrants are probably underrepresented in emergency rooms.
Latinos’ use of health services studied
Illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries are 50% less likely than U.S.-born Latinos to use hospital emergency rooms in California, according to a study published Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
…
By federal law, hospitals must treat every emergency, regardless of a person’s insurance – or immigration – status. Illegal immigrants, who often work at jobs that don’t offer health insurance, are commonly seen as driving both the closures and the crowding.But the study found that while illegal immigrants are indeed less likely to be insured, they are also less likely to visit a doctor, clinic or emergency room.
“The current policy discourse that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the public because they overuse public resources is not borne out with data, for either primary care or emergency department care,” said Alexander N. Ortega, an associate professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author. “In fact, they seem to be underutilizing the system, given their health needs.”
I’d like to do a study. I’d like to get a bunch of conservatives and a bunch of liberals, and tell both groups things that they already believe. Of course, everyone likes to have their ideas affirmed, but I’d predict a moderate result for the liberals, while the conservative group would get such a flow of dopamine that it would paralyse them in an epiphany of wonderfulness that would prevent them from challenging any of their beliefs ever.
Everyone’s hanging crap on Sarah Palin for saying ‘nucular’.
Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:
9:57: It’s a minor point, but did she say “nucular”?
The folks at Think Progress
9:50: Palin keep pronouncing “nuclear” as “nuculur” — perhaps because she doesn’t have her phonetic notes in front of her.
georgia10 at DKos:
And now we know that without the word spelled out phonetically for her, Palin loves the word “nukyular”, just like President Bush. The prospect of another eight years of that? Joy.
Much as I hate to defend the indefensible, as a linguist I have to step in.
What people don’t often realise is — once again — language changes in ways we’re not aware of. Sure, you may not like ‘nucular’ now. But in 100 years, if that’s what everyone says, that’ll be right.
Horrors! you scream. But this kind of thing has been going on for a long time. Take the word ‘iron’. I don’t know anyone that says it like it’s spelled, but the spelling suggests that its pronunciation has changed. ‘Iron’ has undergone the process of metathesis. Emphasis on the ‘ta’ (for now at least).
In Old English, ‘bird’ was ‘bryd’ and ‘horse’ was ‘hros’. You might look askance if someone wants to ‘ax’ you a question, but it turns out that ‘aks’ was once perfectly good English. It changed to ‘ask’, and it’s just changing back.
So the lesson for the day is: metathesis is a normal process of sound change in human languages, and not just something people do when they’re trying to say a word properly and not succeeding. So if you want to go after Palin, be my guest, but go after her for doing something idiotic. That isn’t too hard.
The mainstream Anglican church down the road, in an effort to forestall its screeching slide toward irrelevance, has come up with this cute little gimmick:
“Pet Blessing
Sunday 5th October
Bring your finned, furry, or feathered friends.”
They’ll be baptising them next. It may revive flagging membership numbers.
Well, it may not be the most fun you can have with a goat in church, but it may be your only plausible excuse for getting one in.
Here’s an email from a well-meaning relative. Sorry about the caps; they’re in the original. At least it wasn’t in PowerPoint this time.
What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?
Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?
We have all been in situations where someone wants you to GIVE OVER 100%.
How about ACHIEVING 101%?
What equals 100% in life?
Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help
answer these questions:If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.
If:
H-A-R-D-W-O- R- K
8+1+18+4+23+ 15+18+11 = 98%
And:
K-N-O-W-L-E- D-G-E
11+14+15+23+ 12+5+4+7+ 5 = 96%
But:
A-T-T-I-T-U- D-E
1+20+20+9+20+ 21+4+5 = 100%
THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:
L-O-V-E-O-F- G-O-D
12+15+22+5+15+ 6+7+15+4 = 101%
Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:
While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, It’s the Love of God that will put you over the top!
Well, there you have it, proof positive.
So I decided to try it myself.
WATCH TV = 97%
Well, shoot. Watching TV’s almost as good as hard work, and easier besides. It’s a mathematical certainty!
VEGETARIAN = 102%
Wow, who would have thought that being veg would take you 1 percent farther than the love of God? Truly amazing.
TURN GAY = 106%
Better still! Give it all you’ve got.
Which is better, church or museum?
CHURCH = 61%
MUSEUM = 92%
Neither puts you over the line, but ‘museum’ plus ‘gift shop’ would probably do it.
And if you encode
I DON’T ACCEPT THE EXISTENCE OF ANY SUPERNATURAL BEINGS WHATSOEVER
you get 666… percent.
Uh-oh.
© 2026 Good Reason
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Recent Comments