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[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 20, 2013 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, January 20th, 2013Doublespeak isn’t really lying, it’s just a temporary failure to implement honesty.
I was at a meeting the other day in which someone questioned the need to “be honest” about something that had occurred at the office the day before. This led to a rambling, circuitous dialogue about what truth and honesty mean, and when and whether they’re important. The ensuing debate utilized all the usual justifications for deception, like “protecting feelings” or the likelihood that a trivial negative truth would distort an overall message. At first I was quietly lamenting the demise of basic honesty in our lives, but as the debate rolled on and became more convoluted, I was reminded of a book that came out in the 90′s called Doublespeak Defined
Why Rational Debate About Gun Legislation is Probably Impossible
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 13, 2013 by admin in Editorial & Opinion, Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, January 13th, 2013If gun enthusiasts’ assertions about guns don’t sound rational, it’s probably because they aren’t. They’re emotional. Gun owners have feelings TOO you know.
 Careful Kid, You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out |
In the end, do you know who is going to win a debate about guns? The person with a gun. Which is too bad, because there’s no intelligence test required for owning a gun. Nor is there typically any kind of personality test, and one thing the last decade or so has demonstrated is that a lot of people who are allowed to own guns are either ignorant, insane, or both. Before I go on, I’d like to point out that my choice to not own a gun doesn’t mean I want to take away yours. Unless of course YOU are stupid or crazy. Personally, I grew up in a time and place where there were a LOT of guns. My family owned a huge piece of property, and hunting and sport shooting were a small but integral part of family life. We had a half dozen rifles, several shotguns, and two handguns, and there were rituals attached to learning to responsibly handle this little arsenal which were imbued with both seriousness and humor. One classic piece of this training involved making a decision about when an overly-eager youngster was ready to shoot a shotgun for the first time, with a 50/50 chance of getting knocked on their ass. This may seem like a flip way to introduce a kid to shooting a shotgun, but with the supervision of a caring parent who was a proficient shooter, this was in fact an excellent way to instill a kid with an awareness of the incredible power they were wielding when they put a shell in the thing, pressed it into their shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
And that last little concept is something that is – in my opinion – key to understanding the gun debate. If you’ve never fired a gun, there’s a pretty good chance that most of what gun advocates say sounds insane. And although some of it is, that’s not the problem. The problem is that much of what they say is irrational. And by “irrational” I don’t mean insane, or even illogical. I mean not rational. If you’ve ever fired a gun, there was almost certainly a moment when you acquired a visceral awareness of Read the rest of this entry »
What Does a Yellow Traffic Light Really Mean?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 5, 2013 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, January 5th, 2013When you approach a yellow light, do you slow down, or put the pedal to the metal?
When I was in kindergarten, Miss Luftkopf said a few things to me with great regularity, presumably because I was an ignorant five year old with a poor attention span. One was of course “you’re a GOOD helper Ian”. But one that stuck with me long after I learned that helping the teacher made the bully beat up and call you “teacher’s pet” was “Red means stop! Yellow means slow! Green means GO!” I don’t recall exactly when that middle part changed, but as far as I can tell, yellow now means “Gun it you idjit! I gotz places to BE”. I was reminded of this recently when I read that China is changing traffic laws so that a yellow light is now – for all practical purposes – the same thing as a red light. They appear to be reacting to the same problem that has evolved over time here in the states, but predictably, their “solution” is resulting in all sorts of fender benders and additional ticketing. The absurdity of this approach of course reminded me of the Simpson’s episode from season ten
Oddly, Professor Fink’s solution wasn’t too far from reality; although there has been a tremendous amount of sophisticated research dedicated to the timing of the yellow light, it has mostly been implemented to increase ticket revenues, not improve safety. I personally find that last bit to be quite telling. I mean, I really believe that this is not just a traffic phenomena, but a profound metaphor for our cultural ills. And I actually DO recall when that change I mentioned at the top occurred; it was during the era when the “me decade” 70′s slowly mutated into the “greed is good” 80′s, when the slithery Gordon Gekko character in Wall Street somehow suddenly became the American male’s idea of a hero figure. It probably doesn’t matter at this point how a yellow traffic light is timed, our culture pervasively sees it as meaning “accelerate”. Or does it?
What do YOU do when you approach a yellow light?
7 Things To Leave Behind With 2012
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 1, 2013 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, January 1st, 20132012 is just so, you know…..2012! Time to look ahead. What would YOU like to leave behind with 2012?
In spite of the fact that none of the things I suggested at the beginning of 2012 took place, I still had a pretty good year. Those things were all pretty tall orders anyway, and as painful as it can be to watch all the misery in the world, I have a method for dealing with it. To paraphrase David, the android in Prometheus
Post-Election Facebook Boredom? Here are Seven Great Topics for Irrational Debate
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 16, 2012 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Friday, November 16th, 2012Face it. Since election day, Facebook has been pretty dull. Here are seven topics guaranteed to put some ignorance and hyperbole back in your feed.
Climate Change? What Climate Change?
Hear that sound? Me neither. It’s the sound of tumbleweeds slowly rolling through your Facebook feed since election day. If you’re a Facebook user, you have no doubt noticed how damn boring it is lately. All the early adopters were tired of it two years ago, but it had become kind of like one’s “daily elimination”. Not something you especially look forward to, but you do it every day anyway. After the late adopters tired of Farmville, all that was really left was a constant stream of kitten, baby, and “look what I’m eating!” photos, and those weird motivational quotes as graphics. That’s why we all welcomed a presidential election. Suddenly, things were exciting again! Ten thousand word irrational rants about how Obama was an Islamic Socialist Illuminati out to destroy capitalism and create a global currency while making sure all our soldiers were in harms way, and Romney was a magic-underpants-wearing robber baron who was going to sell Chrysler to India and rape grandma’s social security fund to finance a holy war against Iran to save the economy. Or something like that, I forget the details. But then Obama won, and all the sane, intelligent Republicans and Democrats just kind of got quiet, and all the idiots on either side just got angrier and louder. The Republican ones exploding in rage disorders and planning their state’s secession from the Union, and the Democrats gloating obnoxiously, not realizing that in essence, they had just re-elected Ronald Reagan. The threads would fizzle quickly, presumably because aside from the fact that “who won” was a moot point, the flames of the “torches and pitchforks” crowd exhausted all the oxygen needed to generate so much hot air on these threads. But fear not! We’re here to help put the “FU” (Facebook Unfriending) back in Facebook. Here are seven topics guaranteed to put some fight back in your feed, and unmitigated gall back on your wall. Read the rest of this entry »